Agenda:
Takeaways:
Agenda:
Takeaways:
welcome to this startup is being recorded. This recording is improvised fiction. Similarities between it and the real world are entirely intentional. Now enjoy the recording.
Kate:hey everybody. Okay. So the recording's on, um, let's try to make this one not too long. I know. I'm sorry. I had to like pull you guys away from things during like this holiday week, but, um, we just
Matt:no, it's okay. I was able to reschedule my flight. So beyond the.
Kate:Good.
Matt:Like this never happened. Assuming we get the sink done. So
Kate:Yeah. I mean, it's just, it should be easy. Right. We just need to find the EIN number of better market. That's it? I just, I would
Matt:like our federal tax ID,
Kate:Yeah.
Matt:must already have that.
Kate:exactly. We definitely have it somewhere. Definitely.
Matt:Well, hang on. I mean, that's, that's on, uh, like that's on my tax, uh, stuff. I got my first couple of checks as a contractor before it went through. So I've got the, the federal EIN right here. Is this, is this the one you're looking for?
Kate:oh, no, we're looking for Iowa. Iowa has a very specific tax code and they have a different EIN,
Matt:Oh yeah.
Kate:federal one, which. Anyway, sorry. But before we dig in, um, just to recap for anyone who ends up listening to this recording, uh, where Mehta market, um, for now very shortly that'll change, uh, we're a couch marketplace. We're looking to, you know, revolutionized trade in so many ways. Um, and today we are just holding a quick, probably very quick meeting to look very Iowa tests. Uh, I'm Kate I'm the chief of staff here. Um, I worked directly under John. Uh, John has told me that he explicitly does not want to know about anything having to do with finances, unless it just requires a signature. So naturally I didn't invite him.
Matt:Right. Uh, hi, I'm Matt, matt.yachts. I am the CTO here at metal market. And, um, I guess if it's on a Dropbox, I can probably help you find it. Otherwise I don't know what I'm doing at this meeting.
Kate:Yeah, we did use that once.
Matt:Oh, good.
Kate:Anybody. Sorry.
Matt:I'll actually, I'll start looking.
Thea:another Roba. Yeah, I'm also not sure, even though I, I mean, I do know that when Richard was here, I was well-known for being able to speak Richard. So I guess that is why you have brought me in today.
Kate:Yeah. Yeah. Richard probably had it at some point and. Oh, I should mention too, that Eric, it said he was going to join. Um, he said he was getting kind of patchy reception. Oh,
Eric:can you
Kate:are you there?
Eric:make.
Matt:oh, it's the conference thing. Hang on. Let
Eric:Yeah. Um, no bars, no bar.
Matt:Oh, there he is here. Oh, there is.
Kate:He's just, he's gone.
Matt:Uh, yeah, it looks like he dropped from the call. Okay. Well, I've got him set for auto answer. If he calls back
Kate:Okay. Great. Well, yeah, so we just need to find this number. Um, you know, we've used Google drive. We've used Dropbox. We've used paper. We wrote things on walls when Richard was here. Um, but the deadline is.
Thea:I reached out to Chelsea since she's in the Iowa office. Really, really helpful for this. Um, but she is testing out her bunker in a, uh, post atomic age kind of situation. So she is going to be unreachable this week. So we don't unfortunately have an eye ally down in the Iowa office.
Kate:God. Okay. I have a S I do feel like unfortunately, a backup option is going to be going straight to like the government themselves in Iowa and asking, um, what this is.
Matt:oh, yeah. That's um, that shouldn't be too well, uh, during a holiday, it's going to be a problem.
Thea:also, um, Richard really pissed off. Like most of the IRS representatives in the state of Iowa. Um,
Kate:no.
Thea:yeah, if I, I don't know if you remember, but, um, he had that really viral video of when he left. In fact, that's the reason why we decided to part ways with Richard after his, um, Viral stunt video that unfortunately resulted in the NSA being called to an IRS office.
Matt:Did not know that,
Eric:Hey, can y'all hear me?
Thea:Yeah.
Matt:Hey, there's air.
Kate:Hey,
Eric:was able to tether to an internet cafe here. Uh, sorry. Uh, sorry for the July.
Kate:are you on a dog?
Eric:Yeah. Yeah. There's um, there's an internet cafe on, on the, by George, behind me. I've been just, uh, staying, stay in your there's. There's a storm coming in. So we, we haven't been able to ship out yet,
Kate:okay. Cool. I
Eric:worry about it. Uh, I got, I got some time.
Kate:okay. Well, you know what we're looking for. You got my email about the Iowa.
Eric:Yeah. Did you check Google drive Dropbox and the walls yet?
Kate:Yeah, I mean, pretty much.
Matt:yeah, I've I went, I went through and did a second pass, uh, just now on, uh, both the, the managed Dropbox and the old, uh, Metamarkets, Gmail, Dropbox, uh, the private Google drive, the managed Google drive, the secret Google. And the accidental Google drive. Um, I
Eric:Oh, even the accidental one. Oh,
Matt:Yeah, no. Um, here's my worry. So a lot of stuff that Richard did was just on the walls, uh, walls that of course we send painted over. Um, and we have not had any luck with the forensics team. We hired to pull that paint off. Um, But we do have a lot of photos, uh, from Richard's office mate, um, mostly candid, uh, ones that were posted to their Instagram. Obviously the ones that had very clear financial details on them, we've had them taken down since, um, but we've been going through the ones that we can find and OCR and them. Um, unfortunately that project is not very far along. Um, so there's kind of a pile of photos I could share with y'all.
Eric:Well, how many are there? I can't, I can't be too much for us to go through, right?
Matt:The ones from the Instagram, there's a collection of 37.
Eric:Yeah. Oh, that's that's reasonable. We could, we could, we could just look to them. Right.
Matt:the, uh, I mean, I've kind of already been through those, um, as part of setting up the OCR project. So.
Eric:it.
Kate:are all the numbers labeled though. I feel like Richard often would just write numbers on the wall and we wouldn't know what they were.
Matt:that's a fair point. Um, I was mostly using the results of the OCR software to decide whether there was something relevant in there. So if it was just a series of, well, what does an EIN.
Kate:in numbers. There were just a bunch of numbers. Okay.
Matt:Yeah. Oh, actually, um, numbers are one of the easiest things to OCR. It's the first thing that they ever trained, optical character recognition to do cool stuff. If you ever want to look up the history of machine learning, um, okay.
Kate:okay. Well look, so
Matt:How many digits
Kate:yeah, let's Google. How many digits are an
Matt:in an Iowa AI yet? Um, let's see. State employer identification number is six, a six digit number with a three digit location code. Okay. But is that code also a number?
Eric:well, that, that location code has to be from where we set our office up. So we should be able to find, figure that part.
Kate:Um, okay. But remember, we didn't always start into Moines. There was that unincorporated county in Iowa that we thought would be better for, um,
Eric:Yup.
Kate:you know, storage purposes and
Thea:Are you talking about, are you talking about Elkhorn?
Kate:Elkhorn. Yeah. I think that's what we call.
Thea:Yeah,
Kate:So maybe we just never got issued a tax ID number because we were incorporated in an unincorporated area.
Matt:oh, that's not great. Um, although,
Thea:I think
Matt:it sounds like you all remember where it was incorporated, so we could probably call their office.
Eric:they don't have an office
Thea:Yeah. I mean,
Matt:do you, can you incorporate a corporation in an unincorporated city? I don't think so.
Eric:Well, it happened. So.
Thea:yeah, it definitely happened. Um, we were very secretive about moving into Iowa because. Tensions, as I mentioned between Richard and people in Iowa. Um, so we never let Richard know where the office was located. Um,
Matt:but,
Eric:good idea.
Matt:but
Thea:yeah, I
Matt:was also the one who filed. He filed the registration for the business without knowing that well, then if Richard didn't know, then that must mean someone else did the business.
Kate:I remember now we had the, the coding system where everything related to Iowa, we had like a, you know, a kind of puzzle code to scramble all the numbers in a certain way. He wouldn't actually be able to, you know, divulge any information about our Iowa operations. We just have to find the, uh, the key,
Thea:The cipher. Yeah, we had a simple cipher.
Matt:We have to find both the cipher and the ciphertext. I mean, if we don't know which of these seemingly random piles of numbers on the wall represents our Iowa EIN, then even with the key, we won't be able to, we can't just like decrypt a wall of a photograph. Oh boy. Um, are we sure we don't have any contact in that office from before Richard Stein maybe, or. The state
Eric:a second. Wait, wait. Remember Jen, when she was traveling to Iowa, she got violently ill. Remember that?
Thea:yeah, I do. I do.
Eric:we, do we have the health insurance documentation for when we sent her to the ER
Thea:Oh, that is a great, great question.
Kate:we're really not supposed to be looking at employee health records. It's like
Matt:we don't necessarily need to
Eric:we had to pay, right? Yeah, We just had to pay our part of the coverage. Right.
Matt:yeah. So whoever our healthcare provider in the state of Iowa is like, we've got a policy with them. They would register our employee ID number, or that's a great, uh, that's great.
Eric:corn health.org?
Kate:I don't, I don't know. Where did you find that information?
Thea:Wait, I'm sorry. That's our healthcare provider is Korn health.org.
Eric:well, we got a local provider because we were still setting up in, in different, uh, different places. And, you know, we didn't have, we didn't have enough employees to get a good rate with the national provider. So yeah.
Kate:Right?
Eric:the time that Jen was sent to the ER, it was, she was covered by Korn health.
Matt:I just want to, before anybody else goes, do not go to corn health.com.
Eric:It's dot org. Yes.
Matt:you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Uh, do not. Um, great. Okay. this whole thing is just a landing page to a phone number.
Eric:ticket they get bought maybe.
Kate:No.
Eric:phone number.
Kate:no, that's, I mean, there are a healthcare provider. That's kind of the level of technology they're at
Matt:well,
Kate:here. Let me see if it's, it's something we can text. Maybe it's like a, some type of mobile number. Um, I'll just shoot them a message and say,
Eric:I I'd call, but I, I can't.
Kate:Yeah, you shouldn't call anyone from the dock, Eric.
Matt:Eric. How long are you going to be out on the ocean? Is this like a day trip or are you
Eric:uh, yeah, I'll be out there for six, seven days depending on, uh, whether yeah.
Matt:pretty good. Are you fishing or just, I'm just seeing the sites.
Eric:Uh, we'll do a little fishing and we'll do a little, a little scuba, a little diving, um,
Matt:that's great. Cathy. I've I forgot. Weren't you on a. Schedule we'll be on a retreat right now.
Thea:yes, I was scheduled to be on a retreat. Um, but unfortunately I gave Kate my emergency contact line, uh, to the retreat center. Um, as a place of trust, um, you know, um, but I am learning how to be more compassionate. And so here I am,
Kate:Yes. Um,
Thea:to get the ninth Kali chakra for the Dalai Lama himself, but I am here in the stead.
Kate:and helping us, you are, we are very thankful. Um, corn health is, has texted me back.
Matt:Oh, great.
Kate:Yeah. Um, they sent me like all of Jen's files. They just texted me. Pictures of pretty much all of her medical records?
Matt:Wow. that cannot be HIPAA compliant.
Eric:And also, sorry, I, from what I heard from Jen or some,
Matt:Oh no, there's not photos. And x-rays in there. Are there. Oh.
Kate:there are definitely photos. Um, yeah, I D I don't think I realized the extent to which her injuries were. Um, but I might buy her also a couch for.
Eric:yeah.
Thea:do you mind uploading those to the pain and sorrow Google drive? Uh, the creative team keeps.
Kate:I really think that's even more of a HIPAA violation that hadn't has already happened.
Thea:I'm sorry, I just, uh, I just feel like, you know, I'm trying to build empathy with my team and that would really help to let people see how the sausage is made and, you know, the people who really could put themselves on the line for our organization.
Eric:I mean, Kate you're already seeing the images. Maybe you could just do like a reaction video to the
Thea:Yes. That would be really great.
Eric:upload.
Thea:Or just describe them in vivid detail. It could be a good storytelling exercise for you.
Kate:Okay. Okay.
Eric:Anyway, is, are there, are there any, any indications of the,
Matt:yeah.
Eric:state EIN.
Matt:I just got a, a, a text that, that I could get on an earlier flight. So maybe we could look for the EIN first.
Kate:sure. Sure. Okay. So, um, I do see a number on here, which I think is close. Uh, It, the problem is it's sort of handwritten. Um, I guess they don't use any sort of computer records and it's, you know, a doctor's handwriting. So let me just go through them, let me list them out and then we'll figure it out together.
Matt:Sure.
Kate:The first one is either a C E B or three.
Matt:Wow. That's a lot of possibilities. Okay.
Kate:The second one is either an L I or, or dash, you know, like how you have
Matt:Wow. I really thought you were going to say a one. Um, okay. A
Kate:No, it's definitely not a one.
Matt:Okay.
Kate:There's a little arrow that someone pointed to it in a rope, not
Eric:Not a one. Oh,
Matt:Oh, wow.
Kate:Um, Okay, the next one is either a oh, or a zero or an E or a B.
Thea:Okay. Um, Kate, you said that, I mean, I know that, um, there are multiple medical records there. Is there any way that we could compare them together to, to maybe get some clues
Kate:Ooh. Yeah. Okay. Uh, I'm just going to delete the ones that have the pictures in them. Um, I'm going to, there was actually four pages that each have the medical record written on them. So the EIN number, I mean,
Thea:Has anybody fed the office cat? Cause this cat is going nuts.
Matt:no, no. I thought we had building staff to do that.
Kate:yeah.
Thea:I don't know. I mean, Kate.
Kate:for the holidays?
Matt:Oh, yikes.
Thea:Okay.
Kate:Got the cat's been neglected.
Thea:Okay. I'm I'm it's all right. I'll make sure I feed her before I leave. Yeah.
Eric:you're going to use the cat food in the refrigerator, right?
Thea:Yeah, of course. Um,
Kate:cat food at the refrigerator.
Thea:yeah.
Kate:Is it the things that look kind of like little jerky balls?
Eric:Yeah,
Thea:They're in the, they're in the little, like a glass Mason jars.
Matt:they're specially made
Eric:really nice.
Thea:Yeah.
Kate:been giving those to guests. I won't do that anymore. Um, okay.
Matt:it's technically food grade.
Kate:Okay.
Eric:Th the numbers, the numbers.
Kate:The numbers, I'm texting you all each a different image. Okay. We're just going to go through together. And then like at the same time, we'll say the number or letter we think each one is. And then, you know, if we come to a majority without influencing each other, you know, then that's probably what it is. Right.
Matt:Okay. I
Kate:already gone through the first three. Did everyone get their dog?
Thea:oh God.
Matt:Um,
Eric:a little low Rez on two G.
Thea:you included the photo in this one and
Eric:Oh, yep.
Thea:why we can't share that with the larger team. Oh, wow.
Kate:can put right to that.
Thea:I didn't even know a bone could break like that.
Eric:Oh my
Kate:Oh, Jen has a special types of bones. Okay. Just. Let's start with the fourth
Eric:numbers. Yes.
Kate:the numbers or letters. We don't know what they are. Okay. So I've done the first three, everyone identify your fourth and then we'll just say what we think it is at the same time. Mm
Matt:to drop this into a captcha solver
Eric:Oh, no.
Matt:because those are great at reading all kinds of squiggly letters and numbers.
Kate:Okay. This is like our own personal capture sulfur. Um, Is everyone ready?
Thea:Yes.
Matt:Okay. Yes.
Kate:3, 2, 1 Z.
Thea:Okay.
Matt:Okay. I just, do you just want to back up, um, the Iowa state documentation says that the number we're looking for is six.
Eric:yeah. Oh, it says
Matt:dash followed by three digits. Yeah. So now we're looking for numbers.
Eric:Okay. All right.
Matt:Hopefully that changes some things.
Kate:I
Thea:I,
Kate:so you look like twos. I'm going to say.
Thea:I'm gonna say a nine.
Matt:okay. So we've got two fours, a nine and a two at nines and fours look real close. Would you be willing to be swayed towards.
Thea:Yeah. I could be swayed for.
Kate:I can't believe this is how we're doing this guys. We get this number wrong. We have so many penalties. Uh,
Eric:Can we like check it. So like a verification site,
Matt:I mean,
Eric:there's gotta be only like
Matt:Yeah. Every, every state maintains a business registry and you can usually look up an employer by their, uh, EIN. So we can, we can go through this process. We'll come up with a list of probably no more than a dozen or two potentials, and we can just punch them in and see which one is actually us.
Kate:okay. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Let's just do the others quickly. So we've got the fourth one. Let's do the fifth one, uh, 3, 2, 1 0, Calvin.
Thea:I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure this is in the infinity sign.
Kate:Number.
Thea:I know. I'm just saying what I've seen. Okay. I'm pretty sure it's either an omega or an Infiniti.
Kate:Oh my God.
Thea:It's not a number,
Eric:Okay, so three or three or five then,
Thea:both of those. I mean, it's like two circles like this together.
Kate:We know what that looks like.
Thea:I just don't know what other number this looks like.
Matt:I'm going to yet, I'm going to write that
Thea:Oh, to eight, like this, like.
Eric:Alright, one more, one more.
Kate:Okay, one more time with the first ones. Okay. 3, 2, 1.
Thea:I said, I said, too, it's a real number then I'm still not convinced. I'm not convinced. The last number was not an infinity side.
Matt:Okay.
Kate:let's just
Thea:maybe they're progressive in the Iowa.
Eric:and you're just countable and uncountable infinities, and they're in there, their databases.
Thea:I don't know, Richard was always trying to move them farther to the left, you know, maybe succeeded at a small.
Eric:Okay.
Matt:Okay. Let's see I'm on iowa.gov. Um, what's do business entities and we're going to do a search by business number. Um, great. So I'll just start typing these in. I'm going to guess that's a three, a one, a zero four. We'll start with three there. Uh, one. Okay. Um, Nope. That's, that's not it. Uh, it's an inactive business. As of 2005,
Kate:What's his name.
Matt:um, uh, uh, via to auto LLC.
Kate:Okay.
Matt:That's, uh, that's what that messed on us. Okay. So, um, all right. If we like the three, um, I'm still just collapsing the LDI and the dash. Those have to be a one, a zero. So then next, next change would be a seven.
Kate:not a one
Matt:Yeah. I don't know.
Kate:a number.
Matt:should we just take it out if we take that out? We still, oh yeah, we have. How did we get to seven digits? We have seven digits out
Eric:Whoa.
Matt:out of an initial six
Thea:Maybe the infinity was choose
Eric:two zeroes.
Matt:two zeros. Okay. So then that gives us zero, zero. Now that's still, now, now we're just way off.
Kate:just add
Matt:But if I put the one back.
Eric:the, the one, uh, the one is a, is an errant stroke. It's a, not a one. It ignore it.
Matt:I put it back then that gets us to nine digits.
Eric:Oh,
Kate:Try it. I don't know. Just try
Matt:let's see what we got. All right. Um,
Eric:We should do an escape room
Matt:oh wow. They're giving me a capture. Uh, and then an unusually large number of page visits has been detected.
Eric:Sure. Well, that's fair.
Kate:don't tell me if the captured is wet nine numbers or something.
Matt:oh, wow. They're making me do it a second time. Okay. Um,
Eric:have to find the, the boats in the, in the picture?
Matt:wow. Um, uh, no, I just keep clicking the I'm not a robot button and continue and they keep sending me back. I,
Kate:what if we use these pictures as our capture in our product?
Matt:Jen's medical.
Kate:No, no pictures of the pictures of the numbers,
Matt:Oh, gosh, I mean, we could do that, but that would be so many people that would have to sign up in order to solve them.
Kate:We're having kind of a big new year's rush. Yeah.
Matt:All right. Let me open this in
Thea:Particularly they would be identifying. So like where's the bone in the photo.
Eric:the numbers not the,
Kate:We're not sending medical pictures as the cap shot. It's the picture of the handwritten numbers
Eric:we do need a country.
Thea:Oh yeah.
Kate:Oh, yeah. Cause I guess encapture, you need to know if they did it right. Uh, well, Matt, how long do you think it'll take you to punch in the options we've come up with so far.
Matt:I mean, it really depends on when and for how long the website lets me back on. Let me see if I can do an incognito window.
Eric:oh, nice. It's a government site. It's probably not.
Matt:Yeah, probably not too sophisticated. Um, I can't I drag this window. Um,
Kate:Wait, does it say copyright 2004 on the bottom of this website? Oh God.
Matt:Oh, yeah, it sure does. Wait, hang on. Um, y'all were going to feel really stupid. Uh, the business entity search page also has a search by name.
Kate:I know our name,
Eric:Oh, wow.
Matt:So let's just met at Marquette.
Kate:Metta Metta, mark. It. You might want to add in,
Matt:Oh, no results.
Kate:Yeah. Yeah. So that probably
Thea:it might've been, it might've been the cipher.
Kate:Yeah.
Matt:The what? Oh, the cipher to keep Richard from.
Kate:Yeah. Ciphered our name?
Thea:I'm sorry, I'm just laughing. Cause I've just been here so long. Oh, all. Um, no Richard, Dave, see, I'm a Richard speaker. Um, yeah, Richard did have a cipher that he use edits possible. Sometimes Richard got some things Crossy wise that he used the cipher name instead of the real name. I don't remember the cipher, but I do know the last thing Richard said to Chelsea is this isn't a wild goose chase. If you go to the place where you can find it, finally, you see your own face.
Matt:okay. So like a mirror
Thea:Maybe that's it. The ciphers mirror.
Kate:Mirror, maybe it's you're supposed to mirror.
Matt:R a M E T a M tech rum atom. I'm going to be very upset if this is the bid. There. There it is.
Eric:my God.
Thea:Oh, we did it.
Matt:There it is. Okay. Wait, let's just, uh, here, let me put it on the tablet and pass this around. Can, can y'all verify, is that the address where we registered the company? Is this us.
Thea:Yeah, that's us.
Matt:Okay, well that we're going to, we're going to have to file another DBA. Uh, so they know we're doing business as Metro market, but it's great that we found ourselves.
Kate:well, I was gonna say, I mean, I know we're going to talk about like our name change next time, but have we thought about tech from Adam?
Eric:No.
Matt:Yeah, I don't, I don't think it works tech room atom. I mean, how. I don't know, you know, sounds like a thing for Kathy and her team. Um,
Eric:And let me, let me, let me think on it.
Matt:I'm just going to say yes to this rebooking and, um, yes, to this lift and I'm going to get back on our way, so good job
Kate:get outta here. I'll hold down the Fort in the office.
Eric:Okay.
Matt:Kate. You're not going on vacation.
Eric:Yeah. What
Kate:Now it's like being alone here. It's like a mini vacation. It's like a state case.
Matt:hang on. I distinctly remember you putting vacation on your to-do list.
Thea:Yeah. And, and,
Kate:Yeah. I have no meetings today. It's just me and the office and my vacation to do list.
Thea:and why hasn't the captain?
Kate:I forgot to move that from the office to do a list of the vacation, to do
Matt:kind of mean.
Kate:Okay. I'm sorry about that.
Matt:the key take care of yourself. Okay. Please take some time off.
Thea:W we talked about self care. You should take some time for self.
Eric:Good to take a break.
Matt:oh, okay.
Kate:Eric's gone.
Matt:Yeah. We'll just
Kate:all right, well, we're, we're good. Just, uh, now I have that number. I'll do the rest of the Texas. Um, and. See you all next week.
Matt:Okay, everybody take care.
Kate:I
Ben:This meeting has ended. To subscribe to this startup is being recorded. Go to the podcast player of your choice and tap a button that likely says subscribe. More content is on Twitter at startup recorded, or shoot us an email with ideas, feedback, or your personal startup horror story. At hello@startuprecorded.com. Kate is played by Valerie Garrison. Valerie is a health tech product manager and regularly plays with the improv troupe letters to chicken online. You can find her on Twitter at thevalgarris eric has played by Barry wright Barry is a product manager at Spotify and a co-founder of high-wire improv. Find him by his name on LinkedIn, where he holds regular office hours or@highwireimprov.com. Matt is played by Martin Mcguire Marty is a senior web engineer and improviser in New York city. You can find Marty's comedy code and cats on his website at M M G dot R E. Califia is played by Robyn Stegman Robyn is a digital campaign manager for ocean Conservancy and is a comedian mostly found at Highwire improv You can find her on all the social medias And she does mean all at rsteggy thank you for listening.