#11: Just Walk it Off with Lori Cheek
Guest Intro
Lori Cheek is an architect who decided to pivot from physical buildings to romantic relationships.
She’s now the CEO and founder of Cheek’d, a mobile dating app that makes missed connections obsolete.
Lori pitched on Shark Tank in the US in season 5 and was recently listed as “The Digital Dating Disruptor” and “One of the Top 10 CEOs to Watch.”
Lori’s rollercoaster journey over the last 10 years is one that I promise you won’t believe, but it’s all true, and despite it all, she refuses to give up.
What You Learn
- 0:00 – Intro
- 1:40 – Entering Tech
- 7:41 – Starting Cheek’d
- 17:33 – Lori Goes on Shark Tank
- 24:59 – Shark Tank Aftermath
- 29:00 – Lori’s Self-Care & Advice
Episode Links
App (iTunes): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cheekd/id807619613?mt=8
Transcript
Intro
Sean Weisbrot:
Hello. And welcome back to another episode of the We Live to Build podcast. Today’s guest is Lori Cheek, an architect who decided to pivot from physical buildings to romantic relationships. She is now the CEO and founder of Cheek’d, a mobile dating app that makes misconnections obsolete. Lori pitched on shark tank in the US and season five and was recently listed as the digital dating disruptor and one of the top 10 CEOs to watch. Lori’s rollercoaster journey over the last 10 years is one that I promise you won’t believe, but it’s all true, and despite it all, she refuses to give up. When people talk about inspiring entrepreneurs, I think they used her to create the mold. You can hear the fight in her voice and the lessons you’ll learn from her and may just save your company from failure. Let’s give a warm welcome to Lori.
Entering Tech (1:40)
Sean Weisbrot:
Thank you for joining us on this beautiful Kentucky morning.
Lori Cheek:
Thank you for having me.
Sean Weisbrot:
I’m sad that we had to turn off the birds. They sounded great, but unfortunately, I don’t think the audience would want to listen to them while we were talking, because they’ll probably want to listen to the birds and forget about us.
Lori Cheek:
They’re very interesting.
Sean Weisbrot:
You had a successful career in architecture. What made you want to give it up and pursue tech?
Lori Cheek:
You know, I did have a really interesting 16 year run in, in the design world. But one day I was out to dinner with a guy, and he slipped a business card to a woman as we were leaving the restaurant for a date. And I could not stop thinking about this concept, that creating a deck of dating cards that would remove the business out of the business card and you could use it to meet people for love. So, for two years, I brainstormed about bringing this idea to life. And in May of 2010, there came Cheek’d in my life has been changed ever since.
Sean Weisbrot:
Sounds like Tinder stole your idea.
Lori Cheek:
You can say that, but you know, a lot of people have even called my idea, the Tinder with serendipity. So, you know, Tinder is all virtual. And my idea was about meeting in the real world and then taking it online in a safe and intriguing way.
Sean Weisbrot:
Well, you started it in was it, 2012?
Lori Cheek:
Launched in 2010.
Sean Weisbrot:
So, you started it really early on in the lifecycle of smartphones. So, Tinder came much later than that. I guess you were trying to bring people who are starting to use smartphones back to dating the way it was before smartphones and Tinder said that world doesn’t exist anymore. Let’s just meet everybody online. And I don’t know if you’ve ever used Tinder, I’ve I used it years ago. I find it to be extremely frustrating. So hopefully what you’re doing is valuable for people because Tinder is not for me at least.
Lori Cheek:
Well, you know, on Tinder, you can be anybody you want to be, but when you see somebody in person, there’s no masking that on a picture because you’ve already seen them in real life. So that was the whole concept of bringing online, dating back to the streets. And in fact, it was just a website back then, because yeah, there weren’t really apps. And this is, we really started brainstorming about this in 2008. And I remember Facebook was even barely a thing then too.
Sean Weisbrot:
For being in college and Facebook was starting to pick up. I was in college in 2000, uh, 2004 to 2008. And Facebook was very early, and people were just starting to use it, but mostly we just used, uh, our phones to call each other and go, hey, how’s it going? Like, let’s go to the gym or let’s go salsa dancing. You know, we didn’t even text. Uh, I’m, I can imagine how trying to bridge that gap between pre and post smartphone world could have been interesting for you to see and try to take advantage of.
Lori Cheek:
Yeah, it was, it was difficult to even sort of try to market this thing on a bootstrapped, lean budget as a startup coming out of the gate, trying to do something with technology. But, um, we managed, still here, 10 years later.
Sean Weisbrot:
So, when you first started the company, you were using money you made from doing architecture, right? Or did you have someone else funding it?
Lori Cheek:
No, I used my little piggy bank.
Sean Weisbrot:
How did it feel to invest in your future like that?
Lori Cheek:
I mean, I had actually saved up a buttload of money and I was really proud of myself and this money that I’d saved was for retirement. It was for my future. But when I came up with this idea, I thought, you know, I’m going to invest all this money into me. And this is going to turn into billions. I mean, that’s not quite how it worked in the end, but still it, I invested in this journey. I feel like I may have invested in my education after what I’ve done. I feel like I’ve given myself an MBA and it was an interesting course.
Sean Weisbrot:
I think it’s important for everyone to, to do things like that. If you look at people like the guy who founded John Paul Mitchell, he had nothing and somehow found his way into building a multi-billion dollar, a hair product company. I think if you don’t take that risk, then you’ll always be in this safe, comfortable zone that a lot of people are really happy with. But I think for people like us, we’re just not satisfied with that. I like, for example, my brother is, uh, he has a background in finance. He worked for Intercontinental, um, the hotel group based in Atlanta for many years. And he made a lot of money working with them. But from when I was young, he was always like, I’m going to be an entrepreneur. I’m going to launch my own business. I’m going to make a million dollars by the time I’m 30.
But because of his personality, he was very risk averse. And so, while he did try to build several companies, they all failed, and he didn’t actually spend much of his money on it. So, he wasn’t willing to risk everything for his pursuit. And I think that’s why he failed in every attempt. And I think it’s important that you fail because you learn more from your failure than your success. And sometimes it requires going bankrupt to have that opportunity to become successful. I’ve done several personal studies on wealthy people, and it seems like wealth is cyclical. A lot of people that become wealthy, go broke and then become wealthy again and go broke throughout the rest of their life, they’ll go through these cycles and it’s often because they’ll invest in something that doesn’t work. And so, they’ve invested everything, but then the next time it hits, and they do well. It’s less about how much you make rather than the journey that you go through. Would you agree with that?
Lori Cheek:
I could be the walking poster child of that statement right there. And I just can’t wait until that, that cycle comes full circle for me. It’s just been a long ride, but I’ve never done anything halfway. So, there’s, there’s no stopping me.
Starting Cheek’d (7:41)
Sean Weisbrot:
So, I guess the answer to the next question I was going to ask, have you ever regretted leaving architecture would probably be no.
Lori Cheek:
You know, I think I’ll always be an architect. I love design, but yeah, I had some really cool jobs. I worked for Christian Dior doing store planning and design for four years. I would hate for them to hear me say this now, but I used to show up to work at 9:15 AM. I’d have my bags ready to walk out the door at 5:59 PM every single day. And I remember everybody there was like, why do you come in late and leave? Like they were upset. I’m like, you can come in late and leave early too. I just, I don’t know what it was. It was a really amazing job. But, uh, there was something that I just needed to go build my own dreams and not get paid to build someone else’s.
Sean Weisbrot:
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I found that I would put a lot of energy into helping other businesses, but I never got anything out of it other than learning how to do different things, which was obviously beneficial to myself later on in life. But I feel like a lot of people look at a job for someone else as just a way to pay the bills. And they’re not looking at it as a steppingstone in the next part of their life or their journey. What was the hardest thing about starting Cheek’d for you again, with this transition from physical to digital?
Lori Cheek:
I’d say having no earthly idea, what it took to build a business was a major learning curve for me. I mean, uh, I was successful in my design career and then just out of the gate, I’m like, oh, I’m going to bring this website to life. So not knowing how to manage anyone with technology, didn’t have a tech founder on board. So, outsource this to places all over the world. I’m not having really any investment. It was another problem. Um, so just trying to do everything on a lean level left for a lot of mistakes. Um, yeah, but I had to get some business partners on board that actually did know what they were doing. You know, getting a patent, trademark, all that stuff that I had no idea about. So, I don’t know. I just made a lot of mistakes out of the gate that cost me a lot of money.
Sean Weisbrot:
What would you say was the biggest mistake in those early years?
Lori Cheek:
Really, I ended up getting these two business partners on board, right in the beginning. I ran into them at a party, told them my idea and they’re like, oh, hey, we help businesses start up. And I’m like, perfect. Let’s meet next week and see what we can do. So, we met next week, they seemed really interested. Okay. So, I gave these two guys 30% equity in my business. Those two guys had the same skill set. Why did I need a clone that I’m just giving 15% equity to both of these people? I needed a tech partner from day one. It would have changed everything.
Sean Weisbrot:
Sure, absolutely. I’m a non-technical founder of a tech company. I have always been around tech personally. Um, but I have no professional experience before this company. The first hire I made was an, uh, lead developer who is kind of like an interim CTO for the last two and a half years. He knew that I didn’t really know much. And so, he’s been really great in teaching me a lot of the things I need to know. And the other team members that I hired after him, he helped me to find, and he taught me how to develop coding tests so that we could quantify the level that this person is at. Whether, you know, if they say I’m a senior level developer, he can tell you, no, he’s actually a junior or he’s, he’s a mid-level, he could be a senior, but so he he’s really great at a lot of those kinds of things.
So, what did the first two years look like?
Lori Cheek:
I mean, it was really exciting, and I’ve would say that being a creative person and having my architecture background sort of came in handy when I decided to go to market because I did so many crazy creative things just to get the word out about this. And I remember I sent a lone Cheek’d card. One of those cards, I invented in a black padded envelope to one of the editors of the New York Times.
Three months later, we’re on the cover of the style section of the New York times. And it said, “Move over Match.com, this is next generation of online dating.” I mean, three months in, our website went down, and I didn’t even really know what that meant. I didn’t know that there could be so many people hitting this website of mine, that it would take it down. So, we called whoever our provider was and got more bandwidth. And that article went viral all over the world. I had people flying from Germany, from Canada, from Sweden to film me talking about this new concept in the world of online dating. At this point, I’m still thinking I’m going to be a billionaire. This is amazing.
Sean Weisbrot:
Speaking of, uh, doing unique things to get the word out about your business. So, for us, we haven’t launched yet. We’re planning to launch; we’re doing a soft launch in January and a hard launch in June of next year. And we have a two tier or a two-prong strategy. One is a paid strategy, and one is a grassroots strategy. I’m spearheading the grassroots strategy. So, I’m literally going on helpareporter.com. I’m going on all these different entrepreneurs’ groups. I’m just telling everybody that I can about, you know, how we’re better than our competitors that they’re familiar with and then convincing them to give me their email, to put on our newsletter so that every month we can send them updates about the progress.
You know, there’ll be a personal letter from me talking about what’s going on in the company and the progress with the tech and, uh, my own life and ask them some questions back about what’s going on with them and kind of cultivate this community, um, over the next six to eight months, while we’re getting ready to really make it usable for them. And then part of the podcast is meant to drive traffic back to, to this whole thing. So, when I go to people and I say, hey, I’m doing a podcast I’m interested in talking to about, you know, you being a guest. Oh, and you know, tell me about your company. And then when they’re done, oh, by the way, this is my tech company. By the end of the call, I’ve got someone who wants to be a guest on the show, and I’ve got their email for the newsletter.
Lori Cheek:
I’m probably going to get sued for saying this, but I used to pick up business cards off the street in New York city and add them to my database.
Sean Weisbrot:
It’s not a good practice, I would say.
Lori Cheek:
Okay. I just didn’t realize, I’d tell you, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was really creative, and I was a hustler.
Sean Weisbrot:
You have to be, like I said, that’s exactly why I, I’m on four calls a day. Um, just talking to people, you know, we’re, we’re working on our rebrand and our redesign now because we pivoted in, in April and we’re getting ready to start pitching in about a month or so. So, because we haven’t launched, we don’t have users on board. We don’t have revenue or anything like that. The only traction that I can show a potential investor is that I’ve got a list of CEOs ready to try the platform. That’s the only traction I can get. That’s why I’m busting my balls right now to build up this list to show them.
So, what was the hardest skill you had to learn to run Cheek’d?
Lori Cheek:
Obviously navigating through managing technology. Um, you, one of the other biggest flops of my 10-year journey was, um, we had a developer in London and our revenue stream was based on a recurring subscription model. So, uh, after the New York times, we got all these purchases from all over America. We weren’t even set up for other countries. And then we had to set up a shopping cart to ship all over the world. Anyway. So, after one month of people having these cards, we were supposed to hit their credit card with a $9.95 fee that developer in London had that button ticked off that didn’t save everyone’s credit card. So, we lost every single person’s credit card from that push from the New York times, which based on our average monthly user, that turned out to be about a $30,000 opportunity that we lost.
Sean Weisbrot:
I hope you fired him.
Lori Cheek:
Well, we had to get him to fix it. And then I don’t know, even after that, we’re looking for new developers and they’re taking a look at our website and they’re like, this is so it’s like snakes and an engine pretty much like you need to just start from scratch instead of fixing what you have here. So, I had no idea what they were doing when they’re building my website, but apparently it was like scotch taped together. So, I just kept throwing money away every time I’d hire somebody new to try to fix this website. And I think I’d invested $20,000 to build it. So, it was just like throwing that in a garbage can and starting completely over. I don’t know, every time you hired a web developer, it was like another $20,000. And within a few years, I’m out of money.
Sean Weisbrot:
As far as your website goes, I think one of the hardest things for people like us is, like, when I first started hiring people, I was hiring the wrong people. They were giving me the wrong advice about what language or what database to use. And it caused us to have problems where we lost months. Like we had paid them for months and we didn’t realize, or I didn’t realize that the work wasn’t being done the right way, or, uh, we had this guy we hired for our backend, who was under the impression that he was the one making decisions about the architectures’ design, but he wasn’t. And so, he was ignoring the person who was actually responsible for that. And we required him to follow the documentation, but he ignored the documentation, and he did whatever he wanted. So eventually we realized, and we fired him after six months. And then we hired a guy to come in and replace him. And basically, he needed two months to make the backend work the way the documentation said it should work. Now it’s great. This was over a year and a half ago.
So, let’s move a little bit further into Cheek’d to the time when you went to Shark Tank.
Lori Goes on Shark Tank (17:33)
Lori Cheek:
Okay. So, I just left off saying, I’ve spent all my money building these websites over and over again. So, I was desperately seeking investment. And one day a friend of mine in Texas sent me the link. And she said, your idea would be so great for Shark Tank and they’re accepting applications for next season. So, I was like, sure. I said yes to everything over this journey, um, filled out the application online, closed my computer, forgot I had done it thinking, there’s no chance I’m going to get on this show. Three months later, I got this call from Beverly Hills, and it was somebody calling about the shark tanks. And you’ve got a cute idea. We’d like to take it to the next level after I guess. Almost a year of back and forth with these producers and filling out what felt like a hundred-page handwritten application. I got to walk down that scary shark infested hallway. And that was in September of 2013 and my life was turned inside out from that day forward.
Sean Weisbrot:
So, tell us a little bit about the experience on the day of the taping.
Lori Cheek:
I was literally terrified. I’ve, uh, I’d gotten really good at public speaking. I was getting around America doing all these talks about entrepreneurship and trying to change the world of online dating. But there was something about this show and I don’t even think it was the sharks that were freaking me out. It was more about all the cameras and the studio and the lights and thinking the number of millions of people that were going to be watching this show. I just got completely freaked out. I remember my heart was beating so rapidly in my throat. I didn’t think that the words were going to come out of my mouth when I had to go out there. So, I walked through the hallway. I mean, I had done this pitch 7 trillion times. I could do it in the middle of my sleep, but you’re, you’re in front of the sharks.
So, there’s these five people staring at you, and they make you stay in there for like two straight minutes. So, it’s like an old country Western stare off. And I’m just getting even more psyched out with them, staring at me and all of a sudden, they’re like, okay, go. I forgot exactly what happened. And then I went on autopilot doing this pitch. So, I don’t think I breathed. I don’t think I blinked. I was like a robot. And the next day after my episode aired, so many people on the Twitter stream were like, the Cheek’d robot needs to blink or breathe. And I’m like, okay, you can make fun of me, but at least I got the words out because if you mess that up, you’ve got one shot. You can’t start over. So, I was just happy to get my pitch out there. It didn’t go so well on the show.
Sean Weisbrot:
Who was the nicest shark and who was the toughest sharks?
Lori Cheek:
Well, I think Mark Cuban who’s actually who I had my eye on. He was the one that got my idea more than anybody. And then I said something stupid. Like I said, I think I could change the population with my idea, meaning so many people are going to get on my site, and they were all going to get married and have kids. And he just called me delusional, and he was immediately out. So that was like a knife in my stomach. And then Kevin O’Leary went into telling me one of those stories about the rabid dog behind the barn and telling me I need to shoot it and go back and get my job, quit my hobby.
But then in the end it was Barbara Corcoran was the one left. And I was like, okay, Barbara, you invest in people. And she said, well, you’re the right entrepreneur with the wrong idea and I wish you luck. She was the nicest. But yeah, I got shot down by all five of them. And I remember standing there thinking I can’t just walk off with this rejection. So, I pointed at each of them, and I said, trust, you will all see me again. And then I turned around and walked off, but they cut that on the show. So, you don’t get to see me walking off so boldly.
Sean Weisbrot:
Yeah, I can’t imagine they would allow something like that. Just like I was interviewing someone the other day. And we got into a deep conversation about, uh, government and blockchain and regulation for big tech. And uh, in the end I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to air that segment. Now what happens after you leave Shark Tank? You go back home. What do you do?
Lori Cheek:
Yeah. So, it took four months until I knew how they were going to chop up my episode. You know, you can fail on that show and still not look like a complete idiot, but they chopped it up and made me look like a complete idiot. And I was like, everything smart I said was chopped on the cutting room floor, because that said some pretty amazing things in that 45 minutes I was out there. So, they cut it down into eight minutes. Yeah so, I didn’t know what it was going to end up being. And I ended up having a party and invited 600 people in New York city. So, he had a viewing party and everybody’s like, well, I know you got a deal. If you are having this party. And I was like, no, I’m celebrating national exposure. And I didn’t know what was going to happen after my show aired.
But I remember waking up the next morning thinking what happened in LA. Cause it was, you know, three hours later. I was in bed when they aired it on the West coast. And then the next day I had an inbox filled with over 3000 emails and I’d say 2,800 of those were people telling me whatever you do, don’t give up. The sharks were out of their mind for not investing, you’re ahead of your time. I mean, just all this sort of praise and cheers and you know, I wasn’t going to give up, but it did help me stand back up and decide how to keep moving. And within a month, my partner and I had sat down thinking of how we were going to reinvent Cheek’d and we got started. And within six months we had a new concept. So, I took Barbara Corcoran’s advice, pivoted the idea. and now we have a Bluetooth dating app minus the cards. So, you connect in person and unlike Tinder, you can see the person within a 30-foot radius and then swipe on them.
Sean Weisbrot:
So later on in the podcast, I normally ask people how the pandemic affected their business. But I guess I could probably guess how it’s gone since it requires people to be face to face.
Lori Cheek:
Yeah. So, our, the magic of our app of creating real life relationships is become obsolete. Everything I’ve fought for trying to bring this in-person dating concept has just been thrown out the window right now, but you know, this pandemic can’t last forever, or can it?
Sean Weisbrot:
My personal belief is that you have to look at history. And the most recent pandemic that we can speak of is the Spanish flu from 1918 to 1920. What does that tell you? 1918, 1919, 1920. If you look at how America handled it then and how America’s handling it now, it’s basically the same response.
Lori Cheek:
Right, I am thinking of ways to pivot once again, to deal with these, uh, remote interactions and try to make these virtual connections more organic and more real life. So, it’s giving me an opportunity to brainstorm about how to respond.
Sean Weisbrot:
If you’re thinking about virtual reality, I suggest you don’t because it’s a whole mess. It’s a totally different experience that I don’t understand, I’m sure you don’t understand. And while I’m sure people would like it; it’s just VR is too early for it to be useful.
Lori Cheek:
Yeah. I agree with you, I get scared by clowns and those headsets. So, I don’t know. It does seem real to me, but yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be the answer for my, my new dating concept.
Shark Tank Aftermath (24:59)
Sean Weisbrot:
There’s an elephant in the room about how you can teach people to prevent their failure. So obviously you’re still running this company. However, something happened to you after Shark Tank that we haven’t mentioned yet. And I would really love to talk about it.
Lori Cheek:
I have to be careful with my words, but it’s unbelievable. So, a few years ago, I’m sitting on my parents’ couch in Kentucky visiting my parents. And I got an email from a lawyer with a million-dollar lawsuit attached for me stealing this man’s idea that I pitched on the Shark Tank. Okay. So meanwhile, I’ve never heard of this man. Never seen this man, Google search looking for what he looks like, no idea. And he’s not even claiming that he’s ever met me, but he is claiming that his therapist, he is claiming, he told her this idea of these dating cards and that she and I are friends and that she told me, so reading this lawsuit, I’m looking at her name thinking, okay, I don’t know who she is. I Googled her, found pictures of her, never seen her before. I thought there’s no way this can move forward because I don’t know either of these people and I didn’t steal this man’s idea.
And like, why would you even want to sue me? I’ve flopped on the show. I’ve already lost all the money I have. Like, I don’t know what he wanted. My hat collection, my shoes, my, I don’t know. It’s all I had left. It’s I guess almost four years later, these lawsuits are still going on and it’s not been just one, one got thrown out. Then a second one comes back this time, they sued me for $5 million. I went to the press just to try to bring light to what was happening to me. I had a patent on my idea, which actually did not protect me. And I was trying to raise money, I started to go fund me campaign. I thought maybe some lawyer out there would see my story and help me pro bono. But yeah, none of that worked. And in fact, it all backfired on me because they sued me a third time for $10 million for defaming this man with my story of going to the press. So, uh, that’s where I am now. And it’s been truly debilitating.
Sean Weisbrot:
I’m really sorry to hear that you’ve had to deal with these lawsuits. Is there a lesson that you’ve found from this experience with the lawsuit that people can learn from?
Lori Cheek:
I mean, you would think the fact that I own a patent on this idea that somehow that would have protected me, and I’ve asked my lawyer a million times over, what could I have done differently? And I did everything, right? I did the trademark, the patent, the copywriting, everything to protect my idea. But in fact, all of that, that I did, it went the opposite way. I think it ended up hurting me because this man is trying to get on my patent, which I don’t even think is worth anything at this point. I don’t even know if it’s still legit. I regret having it. My lawyer has said the only thing you did was going on that show. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the fact that this person is watching a rerun of my Shark Tank episode, if he didn’t see that show, I would never be in this lawsuit. I know the truth. Lesson learned? I’ve haven’t figured that out yet. I’m looking for the silver lining in this every single day.
Sean Weisbrot:
So, it sounds like to me, there’s three lessons that could be learned. One is don’t have a company in America Two, don’t go on shark tank, and three, don’t file for a patent.
Lori Cheek:
I would maybe put those in the line-up of lessons learned, but it’s just doesn’t seem right. If anyone had asked me if I would do this again, going back on that show, even with this one lesson learned, I think the answer is yes, because the result of what happened after that show has been truly amazing. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to fly around the world, talking about not giving up after what happened to me on national television. And I think my story is actually inspired a lot of other entrepreneurs to follow their dreams and not give up no matter what. And I’m telling you this has been a debilitating journey, but it’s been the ride of a lifetime.
Lori’s Self-Care & Advice (29:00)
Sean Weisbrot:
Every one of us running businesses are stressed. So, we need to develop daily routines in order to take care of ourselves, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And I talk about this a lot. So, what do you do to stay sane?
Lori Cheek:
I mean, I would say that fitness has really been my savior during all of this. Um, I, I work out at least two times a day. I recently bought a bike here in Kentucky and I’m biking everywhere I go, except for COVID tests, they won’t let you in on a bike. Exercise, trying to stay positive, keeping in touch with my support group. And, uh, just trying to find joy generally. And every single day.
Sean Weisbrot:
Those are all very important, for me personally, I talk a lot about meditation. I’ve been doing it every day for 16 years, all, not every day, but just about every day. I also exercise every morning and I mobilize my joints because you know, a lot of people have problems when they work out too much, they get stiff. You’re supposed to move yourself and warm yourself up before you do the workout and then static stretching after in order to make sure that, you know, again, you don’t get too tight. And then I walk, now I walk about five miles every day and all of those things are, are also very helpful. It’s good for you. I love walking. So, what have you learned recently and how do you plan to implement it?
Lori Cheek:
Well, you know, I’ve relocated from New York to Kentucky over the past six months. It’s interesting because I’m in a place where I grew up, but I actually don’t know a lot of people here. So, I’m finding inspiration and the fact that it’s very difficult to meet people, even during the pandemic, I’m learning that there’s an idea and everything that you do in life. So, I have another idea based around exactly my own situation. I’m inspired to build a new app that can connect people for things other than dating.
Sean Weisbrot:
Don’t tell us here because we don’t want someone coming back and suing you. Yes, I’ve learned that. Uh, so there’s two more questions I want to ask you. The second to last one is what is the most important piece of advice that you can share with everyone?
Lori Cheek:
If you have an idea that you believe in more than anything that you give up, doubt you give up, self-belief surround yourself by a trusted and talented team and bulldoze forward and don’t give up because it could be the ride of your lifetime. And that roller coaster could be a scary and it can be very rejoicing. Okay. It’s pretty good advice.
Sean Weisbrot:
I’ll agree with that. So lastly, how can the audience find you online?
Lori Cheek:
I’d say that my Instagram is a pretty good spot and it’s Cheekd.
Sean Weisbrot:
All right. It was great having you on the show. I appreciate it. And enjoy the beautiful day there.
Lori Cheek:
I will do that. Going back to the birds here.