IAM091 – Entrepreneur Develops App That Helps People Fight Social Isolationism & Experience The Best of Life

Michael Simonetta has a wealth of experience with product ideation and launching apps for the world’s most recognized brands. With his experience in business consulting and app development, Michael Founded Kibii, a social planning app that helps users live a meaningful life by discovering the best things to do in their own city and around the world. Michael is an advocate for living a well-balanced life and is focused on leveraging technology to fight social isolation and help people experience what life has to offer.

• CEO Hack: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and Gary Vaynerchuk Podcast
• CEO Nugget: Trust the Process / Build a team of like-minded people that are always improving
• CEO Defined: Consistency and be a leader and leading by example

Website: https://kibiiapp.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/kibiiapp
Facebook: https://facebook.com/kibiiapp

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TRANSCRIPTION

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INTRO 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. Michael Simonetta of Kibii. Michael is awesome to have you on the show.

Michael Simonetta 0:36

Hey, thanks for having me. Gresham. Looking forward to this

Gresham Harkless 0:39

Me too. I'm looking forward to talking with you here in a little bit more about all the awesome things that you're doing. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Michael. So you can hear about all those things that he's working on and he's doing. Michael has a wealth of experience with product ideation and launching apps for the world's most recognized brands. With his experience in business consulting and app development, Michael founded Kibii as a social planning app that helps users live a meaningful life by discovering the best things to do in their own city and around the world. Michael is an advocate for living a well-balanced life and is focused on leveraging technology to fight social isolationism and help people experience what life has to offer. Michael, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Michael Simonetta 1:21

So I'm really excited. Yeah, let's do it.

Gresham Harkless 1:22

Let's do it. So the first question I had was, if we can hear a little bit more about your CEO story, and what led you to start Kibii.

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Michael Simonetta 1:29

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, for the entirety of my professional career, I've actually been a software developer and I traveled to Australia last year and had probably the greatest month of my life really exploring it, and discovering new things. And when I got back, I really discovered the importance of finding the balance in life, you know, it's too easy, where we can get caught up five inches in front of us on our devices, whether that be your tablet, your mobile phone, or your computer.

But there's so much out there and so much to see so many people, interesting people to meet, that I decided to start Kibii build a team, and create this piece of technology application that really pushes people towards exploring and discovering new things in their city, and also around the world. So, that's a bit of a background of myself. And the reason why I began Kibii.

Gresham Harkless 2:20

Nice, and it's always interesting to you know, to hear like when you kind of take time away, it kind of brings you back with a renewed kind of energy and a renewed perspective on things. And it sounds like you might have had that experience when you went to Australia.

Michael Simonetta 2:32

Yeah, that's exactly it. I have some family there, actually. And just got to see they live a bit more relaxed life over there than we do over here. So when I got back, I said, you know what works great, making money is great. But there's something much more powerful in going out and meeting new people try new things and truly becoming the architect of your own life and living your best life. And that's really what pushed me towards starting and kicking off Kibii.

Gresham Harkless 2:58

Nice, nice, nice. And I love when you you know, you get the opportunity to go on vacations, you get to experience all the things like you mentioned that you did in Australia. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear a little bit more about Kibii winter and what it provides for people there that are downloading that.

Michael Simonetta 3:12

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, the app is called Kibii. And we're really working towards, building a community. We're here in Toronto, Canada, and we're starting to build a community here, and also around the world. And like I said, drives people towards truly being the architect of their life. Now, how does the mobile application do that? We do that by providing them with over 350 categories, whether those categories fall in the active section, arts and entertainment, nightlife, tours, classes, food, restaurants, etc.

And there's just so much out there in your city and around the world that we just simply don't know about. And we wanted to provide all this information at our users and our community's fingertips for them to truly, truly find things that they never thought they would love to do. But they would love to do it. Just give him a shot and found out where they are, where they're located.

Gresham Harkless 4:00

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love how you know, on the after, just like you mentioned, there are so many different categories and things that people can do that I don't even think about things that I could do. I have a reason for being bored, so to speak.

Michael Simonetta 4:12

That's exactly and you know what our slogan right now is no, life's too short to be boring. Let's try something new. And you know, let's be honest, we all got our go-to places, I like to go to the same kind of bar with, you know, my friends every once in a while. But you know, there's power in changing your routine and taking yourself outside of your comfort zone. So that's what we're trying to do here. I just want to point out that the app right now is still in its MVP stage. MVP stands for a minimum viable product. So just our core features, but in the coming months, we have version 2.0 With all these crazy, awesome features that are really going to help users find stuff that we believe they're looking for. So yeah, we're really excited about that.

Gresham Harkless 4:54

Nice, nice, nice and it's great to hear you know, you mentioned the lean startup and the MVP and aspect of chronic growth and better in and out. So, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about like what I call your secret sauce. And this might be for your app and your business as it is now, or maybe something that you see down the line when it becomes a little bit more developed, as you see it for see it being.

Michael Simonetta 5:13

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, a lot of people talk about, you know, what's your USP, your unique selling proposition. I don't actually, like using that term, I like using the term UVP, your unique value proposition. So I like to talk about, what's the value that we're bringing to the community. What's the solution that we're providing, and simply what that is, exploring discovery? Right now in our core feature MVP states, it does align with some of the other apps out there, like your Yelp or your Foursquare, but in later iterations, we're going to be building out features. And we're actually getting our developers building them out right now, which is truly going to we believe carve our own space in the market. And we really want to connect not just help you as a sole find things to do. But you and like-minded people, maybe a group of friends, like what's that? What's that dot right in the middle of that Venn diagram amongst three or four friends that you guys will all love to do? Yeah.

So, that's one way, you can search on Google, you can search on Yelp, let's say you're looking for, you're a great sushi restaurant or a great Italian restaurant, or you want to find a cool arcade to go to, that's all fine. But there are truly so many other categories, so many other things to do that fall outside of those. And until you see them right in front of your face, you would never actually think I'd like to do that. So you can open up Kibii you can go into the active section, as an example, you can scroll down and you can find bubble soccer, archery challenge courses, and VR keys, and you say, wow, I had no idea that these things were available within, kilometers miles of me. So that's, what I think, is the secret sauce for Kibii.

Gresham Harkless 6:47

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love the idea of you know, providing that value because that's what you're trying to do. You know, anytime you build something, anytime you try to make an impact upon the world, you want to make sure that you're providing value. And I want to ask you a little bit more about Kibii. And then like, how did you come up with the name Kibii?

Michael Simonetta 7:01

Yeah, that's actually an interesting story. He wrote the early stages in the development, which went through a bunch of different names, initially was going to be called the first date. And then it was going to be called date night. And then as you know, how it is you bring team members on and you start getting other eyes on the idea. And you start realizing this is much more than some sort of application that's going to help people find a cool place to go take a date out, whether that be, a significant other long-term or first date. We said, no, anybody can use this in any social aspect, whether that's a date, whether that's going out with friends or family.

So we were looking around and trying to find something that made sense. And what we ended up landing on was Kibii, and Kibii in itself has no meaning. But the fact of the matter is, you look at some of the most popular brands out there, you look at like Google, or Facebook, or Instagram, these are terms, these are names, words that had no meaning any existence until they came up with them. And there's power and making a name or a word or a term synonymous with your brand. That's marketing power.

Gresham Harkless 8:05

Absolutely. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And being able to build that and create it into your own kind of word or verb or noun or whatever it is that you want.

Michael Simonetta 8:13

Exactly yep, you got it.

Gresham Harkless 8:16

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a resource that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as an entrepreneur and business owner.

Michael Simonetta 8:29

Sure, yeah. I gotta kind to give a shout-out to my dad on this because it was a few years ago, my dad put me on to this book, it's a book reading by Dale Carnegie called How to Win Friends and Influence People. And this book is just phenomenal. He's obviously not around anymore. But it's made multiple revisions and made it much more modern. But essentially, what the book pushes you towards and teaches you is how it's not so much you or I, it's we it's us, right, you work amongst a team of people. And it's not about pointing fingers about criticizing.

It really teaches you how to properly manage people and how to properly have conversations with people of different types, whether you're, it's me speaking to our Director of Marketing, whether it be speaking to one of our iOS or Android developers, or what have you, it really teaches me and teaches you in general, not just a business sense, from a personal sense to how to properly get your message across and understand that gentleman or female on the other end, what they're looking for, what their needs are, and how to properly manage that.

Gresham Harkless 9:33

That makes perfect sense. And I love that book, obviously. And I love how that kind of even overlaps with what you were talking about before where you're looking at things like you mentioned, like the Venn diagram where you're finding that commonality on how you can kind of merge

Michael Simonetta 9:45

Exactly, yeah, there. Yeah, no, absolutely. So you've read the book yourself.

Gresham Harkless 9:49

Yes. That's a classic hit for sure.

Michael Simonetta 9:52

It's a classic. It's not so much a secret but it's something that resonated so well with me and it really helped me kind of change gears in certain aspects and how to properly approach certain things.

Gresham Harkless 10:04

Exactly, makes perfect sense.

Michael Simonetta 10:07

One more piece of something a bit more modern and I'm personally in love with this guy. He's just no-nonsense I love when you're on that long drive, I love listening to music like everybody else, but there's power in putting on an informative podcast. And I'm a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk and his podcasts he's just no-nonsense.

He speaks right to the point and he's just all about, if you really want something, actions speak louder than words. It's not about saying yay, I want millions and millions of dollars I want to be a successful entrepreneur who wants to be a successful CEO that takes the proper steps to make that happen.

Gresham Harkless 10:43

Yeah, absolutely. Gary Vee is definitely you know, straight, no chasers, and when some people are so like kind of theory, and not to say that's not important. And putting those things in place. Sometimes you just have to put the pedal to the metal and take action. Somebody that motivates you to do that.

Michael Simonetta 10:58

Exactly. Yeah. And I'm a big believer that I understand. You know, in some cases, a little bit of fluff is necessary. But, you know, for me what works best is that right to the point no nonsense, no BS. It really resonates.

Gresham Harkless 11:10

Yeah, me too. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And the CEO nugget could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or something that you might tell your younger business self.

Michael Simonetta 11:21

Yeah, you know, I've had a couple of different ventures that I've tried out and some of them are successful on smaller scales. But you know, when I think back, my nugget would probably be not one particular Golden Nugget or anything like that, but a couple of things. And that's mainly one to trust the process. Like, Gary Vee says all the time, these things don't happen overnight. It's you know, its blood, sweat, and tears that you got to truly put into this, whatever you're truly passionate about, and it's just not gonna happen at the flick of a switch. You can't say it, and then it's gonna happen, you got to put the work in and trust the process.

And with that being said, speaking directly about Kibii, I think the power of building a team of like-minded passionate people around you is of the utmost importance. You are only as strong as your weakest link, you know, the common saying, and you want to have people around you always pushing each other, always checking each other, making sure that everything's in line, making sure that we're always progressing forward and making improvements wherever we can.

Gresham Harkless 12:21

Absolutely, yeah, I love all those CEO nuggets. And now I wanted to ask you my favorite question, which is kind of like the definition of what it means to be a CEO. So we're all gonna have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on this show. But I want to ask you specifically, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Michael Simonetta 12:36

Okay, what does a CEO mean, to me? I, let's see, I think a big thing is, what does CEO stand for that's Chief Executive Officer, but I really like to look at it as  CEO stands for consistency, you need to be the one leading the pack, you need to lead by example, you have to be given 200% You have to be there when anyone needs you, you need to be up before everyone who needs to be leaving the office after everybody. And you need to have your hands and understanding of every little aspect of your business whether that's, you know, the business dev side, whether that's the marketing side, whether that's the tech side, whatever business that you are running, whether that's a product side, the manufacturing side, what have you.

Yeah, I just, would say it's all about consistency, not missing a beat, not missing a day. And just staying on top of things. A leader if you're in a startup, especially when new people join the company, it's not a corporation, there's transparency, they see the CEO, that new person is brought on as the digital marketing specialist in this example, still interact with the CEO on a daily basis, whereas in a large corporation, there's that disconnect. So you need to be a leader, and you need to lead by example, all the time. And that's what being a CEO means to me.

Gresham Harkless 13:52

I love that definition, Michael, and I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule to speak with us and tell us a lot, a little bit about all the awesome things that you're doing. And what I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and also how best people can get a hold of you and download your app.

Michael Simonetta 14:09

Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, the app is called Kibii. I'd love for everyone to download the app and join us on this journey. Follow us on social that @kibiiapp on Facebook, on Instagram, and all the other popular social platforms. I think we got a really good thing going on right now. We're still in the early stages, but we're really looking forward to the future. We got some really, really super cool things coming.

And yeah, love to download the app. It's available on the App Store and Google Play and follows us on social you'll always be updated. We have great blog content that comes out from multiple blogs a week. We follow current events like the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off today, actually. So we're all over that. And yeah, just give us a full address majority of course you guys won't be disappointed. It's a fun ride. We're very personable. There's complete transparency and you get to know a little bit more about us to different team members who we are as people and why we're doing this we're excited and we hope that you guys are as well.

Gresham Harkless 15:12

Awesome. Thank you so much, Michael, again and I truly appreciate you for all you're doing what you're doing to kind of help fights I saw isolationism in holidays and awesome things that you're putting in place. So I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Michael Simonetta 15:23

Awesome. Thank you so much. You too.

Outro 15:25

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co

I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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