Why People Declined Cash Rewards (The Psychology of Incentives)

Sean Weisbrot: Why is hiring so difficult that you felt the need to start a company like this?

Dakota Younger: Um, well there's a lot of reasons why hiring's difficult, but I think one of the reasons is that a lot of solutions tend to cater to just the employer because a lot of times it's the employer who's paying for things.

Dakota Younger: And so, um, but by doing that, they're actually.

Dakota Younger: Omitting or, or not taking care of all the parties that are involved in the hiring process.

Dakota Younger: You know, you have your employers, obviously the candidate, and in our case you also have the referral provider.

Dakota Younger: And so if you're not taking care of everybody's interest and managing everyone's interest, you end up actually still providing a, a lower quality experience for the, the person that you're trying to, or the party you're trying to cater to.

Dakota Younger: So if you're just focused on the employer. It's, you know, it's great that they're, they're, they might be, you know, for lack of a better term, footing the bill, but you still need to make sure that you're properly taking into account the other, the other party, so that the employer gets what they're ultimately looking for.

Dakota Younger: I think that a lot of tools, um, don't do that particularly well.

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Sean Weisbrot: Why is referrals so good of a, of a stream for hiring?

Dakota Younger: Um, because. You're leveraging the insights of another individual that is willing to vouch for 'em.

Dakota Younger: So there's a, I there's a few different components there.

Dakota Younger: Like there's, there's the, um, accountability or the the, um, yeah, the visibility there when somebody's willing to put their name or their stamp of approval on somebody else.

Dakota Younger: They're leveraging a certain amount of like social credibility or social capital, right?

Dakota Younger: That, that they're putting on that, that individual and people are pretty mindful of what that is worth.

Dakota Younger: And so, um, if somebody's willing to, to say, Hey, I think this candidate's a good fit, um, that's valuable plus.

Dakota Younger: When they're doing that, they're also evaluating other, a lot of intangibles that are, can be hard to quantify or, or, or, you know, see on a resume, um, whether that's integrity or, you know, accountability or, um.

Dakota Younger: The reliability, all those things that, that you, I mean, you can't really put that, like being reliable on a resume just 'cause somebody has that on their resume doesn't make it so, um, but a referral, someone's referring, somebody tends to surf, factora those in because it's also, it's a dual-sided.

Dakota Younger: Um. Uh, social capital or, or, uh, whatever you want to call that, because it's not just the person that they're referring that they want to look good, it's obviously the employer as well.

Dakota Younger: So there's both sides there that they wanna make sure that they're considering.

Dakota Younger: And, and, um, yeah, so that ends up, you know, you, when you, when you start with that, that quality of talent.

Dakota Younger: You're really kind of starting, not even at the starting line.

Dakota Younger: You're, you're, you're already, you know, depending on how far long you wanna make that race, but you're already, you know, a hundred meters in or, or whatever it might be, you're already a significant portion of the way into that, that initial vetting.

Dakota Younger: And so you have usually a lower volume of talent, um, which is actually what you're looking for.

Dakota Younger: You know, most, most employers don't want 3000 resumes. They want.

Dakota Younger: 30 resumes or, or, or 20 resumes that they can sift through.

Dakota Younger: Um, so, so there's, when you have that higher quality candidate and you're starting at a, at a, you know, further into the hiring process, kind of at the, at the drop, it's usually a much faster hiring process.

Dakota Younger: So really on almost any metric you look at, referrals will outperform other talent sourcing methods, whether it's time to hire cost per higher retention, overall performance.

Dakota Younger: Um, yeah, and I think probably the most compelling one is that.

Dakota Younger: It engages passive talent, and that's, that's probably the, the most sign, at least for me.

Dakota Younger: And I think a lot of the, our customers, it's, that's one of the, the ones that means the most to people is that they recognize that the best talent isn't going to be actively looking.

Dakota Younger: They're going to be, um, doing their regular job. And so if you, and that's not to say people on job boards aren't good by any means, but people, um, if you want to engage the best talent, you're gonna want to engage people that are typically not active in their search.

Dakota Younger: And so to do that, posting jobs isn't going to necessarily do that, right?

Dakota Younger: They're not gonna be on those job boards anyway. So if you want to engage those people, you need something that will go out and get them.

Dakota Younger: And that's what a referral is really effective at. Um.

Dakota Younger: So I think that's probably, um, a big factor in it as well is, is that you get a much higher quality of talent, or, you know, statistically speaking, you're, you're dipping into a much higher quality talent pool when you're leveraging referrals.

Sean Weisbrot: I think that's what executive search people do.

Sean Weisbrot: They look for people that are currently employed and then try to entice them away with a better offer.

Dakota Younger: Well, you're absolutely right, and, but that's the interesting thing is.

Dakota Younger: Part of recruitment as like what a recruiter does is being a professional referral provider.

Dakota Younger: I say part of, because talent sourcing is far from what, you know, the only thing recruiters do and the only value that they bring.

Dakota Younger: Um, but, uh, that, that initial referral component, I mean, that's what it is, right? It's, it's a referral.

Dakota Younger: The fundamental mechanics of a referral is someone, uh, saying, recommending somebody else.

Dakota Younger: For a, a, a role. Right. And that's, whether that's, that person is a professional in what that, what they're doing or not, it is still essentially is a referral.

Dakota Younger: Um, and so yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. Is, is you're saying like they're gonna, and and any recruiter will tell you that though, is that like they, they're not gonna, they're probably, especially when it's an executive search or some other, they're not gonna actually look for active candidates.

Dakota Younger: They wanna find the passive talent because they know that that's where.

Dakota Younger: They're gonna stand out and where they're gonna find standout talent.

Sean Weisbrot: So I learned this in 20 18, 19 20, when I was doing my tech company because I was trying to hire people and I needed more of the same kind of a developer.

Sean Weisbrot: And so I went to my developers and I said, Hey, I need to hire like two or three more people like you.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you have anyone you've worked with previously? Because we didn't have the money to go and hire recruiters and we didn't have the network to find more people.

Sean Weisbrot: I. And so we went to our people and obviously Boone didn't exist at that time, but we didn't have a way to do it.

Sean Weisbrot: So we just went to our people and we're like, Hey, do you have anybody that you worked with before that you know you liked, that you would like to work with again, that you trust to represent yourself and and our company?

Sean Weisbrot: And so we were able to hire a few people off that and, and it worked out pretty well for us.

Sean Weisbrot: And they all had jobs and. So we were, we were only hiring developers from the Philippines because we were also based in, um, my COOs in Malaysia and I was in Vietnam.

Sean Weisbrot: So we wanted to work with people in our time zone.

Sean Weisbrot: And Philippines is known for having great developers that work really hard and don't have very high demands compared to like Americans, for example.

Sean Weisbrot: Uh, they were all previously employed. We hired them away from their other companies, so we had to wait like a month for them to, you know, have their notice.

Sean Weisbrot: But one of the reasons why they wanted to work with us over the company they were working with before, not only because we were hire giving them, I don't know how much higher of a salary it was, but just higher enough, was that some of them were doing two hour drives or bus rides or train rides each way.

Sean Weisbrot: They were married with kids and they wanted to have more time with their family, and so we were able to give them an opportunity to save hours a day of unnecessary headache that the other companies insisted on them going to the office to go and work.

Dakota Younger: Yeah. That's in Incre. I mean, that's like almost a full work day if you think about like, I mean, that's half a work day at least, right?

Dakota Younger: Yeah. Um, for, you know, if it's two hours, I mean yeah.

Dakota Younger: You're, that's a, that's an extraordinary amount of time just to be traveling for work.

Sean Weisbrot: Yep. And so we were able to, you know, at a, at a baseline, give them more time for themselves and hopefully with their families.

Sean Weisbrot: And, you know, if we didn't have enough work for them, they had extra work on the side, they had time to make more money to give their family an even better life.

Dakota Younger: Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's, I think that's the other part of it, is it, it's a, when you're, when you're making that referral, that goes back to what I was saying before is it's, it's, it's.

Dakota Younger: You're, you're the person referring is, is looking out for both parties.

Dakota Younger: They're considering both parties and the benefit to them.

Dakota Younger: Right. And so, uh, that's the other thing is when, when you're referred as a candidate, um, you're, you're getting something from someone that you trust and you're more likely to engage that even if you already have an existing role.

Dakota Younger: And maybe you wouldn't even consider something if. If it was a cold recruiter reaching out, right.

Dakota Younger: Um, but you're willing to, you're, you're more open, you're more receptive to it out of the gate, and you're more open-minded to consider a new opportunity because the, you know, someone has referred you and it's even, it, you know, it could be even more compelling if they're active, if they're still at that company and they're still working there because.

Dakota Younger: People aren't likely to wanna bring someone into a situation that they're not already themselves happy with.

Dakota Younger: And so, yeah, it, it can be an, it's, it's, it's usually an, an improvement for, you know, a benefit to the employer and it's an improvement for the person that's being referred.

Dakota Younger: And, and that's where the referral provider usually appreciates that.

Dakota Younger: It's not just the reward they're getting. Um, and I think that's something that people will have a tendency sometimes to overlook or undervalue.

Dakota Younger: And that is that. It's not just the reward, whatever that might be, whether it's monetary or some sort of gift or something that the person that's sending the referral, that's not the only motivation for them doing that.

Dakota Younger: It's other motivating factors is altruism or whatever, whatever you want to call that, of, of the, the, the appreciation, the enjoyment that people get out of, of knowing that they're, you know, doing something helpful for somebody else they know.

Dakota Younger: Um. That, that really does move the needle for a lot of people.

Dakota Younger: And so in this situation you're talking about, right, your employees are happy where they're at, they're feeling like, Hey, this is a good thing.

Dakota Younger: I want to bring other people as a part of that, which an is an endorsement of, you know, your company.

Dakota Younger: Um, and they're all probably recognizing some of these other things that, hey, you don't have to commute all these other things.

Dakota Younger: So, so everybody really, you know, in an ideal situation, everyone's really ending up outta the benefit there. So.

Sean Weisbrot: How are the people incentivized when someone they've referred gets hired?

Dakota Younger: So there's again, yeah, so this is interesting.

Dakota Younger: Um, point, like there was really interesting to me as we even continue to explore this, but a lot of people think it's just the reward and that even can be broken down and in different ways, whether it's like a, a monetary reward, whether it's a gift.

Dakota Younger: Um, Boone offers points as well, which. I, I like, um, I like combining those, but I think the cool thing about points is you can have, uh, a threshold that people have to earn before they can redeem the points.

Dakota Younger: So you can say, you know, you earn a hundred points, um, you have to earn up a hundred points before you can redeem.

Dakota Younger: Any of these. The nice thing about that though is then you can offer, let's say 10 points for signing up for the referral program.

Dakota Younger: And as the owner of the referral community, you don't pay out that it's not $10 that you're paying out to anyone that signs up, um, because them signing up them, that in itself isn't really providing any value.

Dakota Younger: You wanna make sure that they continue to participate and contribute before you. Pay anything out.

Dakota Younger: So you can set, you know, so when you set that threshold, then there's other behaviors that you offer points for that help to kind of guide that person to providing a positive ROI to you before you pay that out.

Dakota Younger: Um, but that's just the, the, the rewards piece. Um, like, like there are, if we all, there are other things like altruism, competition, uh, senior performance improve, um.

Dakota Younger: Pain avoidance, which can be broken down into several. So I think what people overlook is that they, yeah, that the, the obvious, uh, is way to motivate people is rewards.

Dakota Younger: But if we took, if you and I took a test right now, um, as to like what motivated us, we would score differently, right?

Dakota Younger: There would be like, if we had like a bar chart for those different things, we would, we would have, and so.

Dakota Younger: The most effective way to have a motivational structure is one that is, uh, dynamic.

Dakota Younger: That HA is broad because then it motivates over a broader audience, right?

Dakota Younger: You're not just focused on the one motivation type is only maybe gonna resonate with a smaller audience if you have a few different motivational structures.

Dakota Younger: It's effective over a broader audience and it, from our experience, it's more consistent because.

Dakota Younger: You're not wearing out or you're not solely reliant on that one motivation factor, because the truth is also where we, what motivates us varies, you know, slightly from, from day to day.

Dakota Younger: So, um, yeah, you, you end up with a much more effective referral program.

Dakota Younger: So yeah, you can, you know, the specifics of what those are, what that altruism, what that, that recognition, you know, those can be broken down and.

Dakota Younger: And even present it in different ways that can make it even more dynamic, right?

Dakota Younger: So that you're not just using one mechanism for recognition.

Dakota Younger: Um, and again, when you do that, then you, you get from our experience, better results, usually more consistent results.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. It's interesting because what motivate, what would motivate me in that situation is money.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, how much can I earn from, you know, referring someone because.

Sean Weisbrot: I think of it from a traditional recruiting kind of structure where if I help you hire someone with a $200,000 salary, I could potentially get, you know, 20, 30, $60,000 as a commission.

Sean Weisbrot: That's, that's gonna motivate me, not you going, congratulations, you've helped us find someone like, I don't care.

Sean Weisbrot: I want the cash.

Dakota Younger: Yeah. I mean, and that's, that's right. So, so everybody is slightly different, right?

Dakota Younger: Like, and that, and I don't think there's any one. Right way or not. Right.

Dakota Younger: So, but that's a great point that let's say, let's say, let's say leaderboards for whatever reason, we're, we're, I think, and that's something I think a lot of companies make the mistake of is that let's say leaderboards really matter, you know, move the needle for me.

Dakota Younger: And they tend to be, um, you talk about the Philippines and stuff, that tends to be the competition piece.

Dakota Younger: So leaderboards technically kind of tap into both recognition and competition. Right.

Dakota Younger: Um, which is also why they tend to be, um.

Dakota Younger: A bit more effective is because again, they're, they're using more than one motivation mechanism.

Dakota Younger: But let's say they're my, they motivate me. I think we've seen a lot of employers make the mistake of, oh, because it matters to me, it matters to everyone, right?

Dakota Younger: And so then if I'm saying, oh, well leaderboards those, you know, they obviously everybody loves those.

Dakota Younger: Those are the best. Well, that's not obvious.

Dakota Younger: That's not even true necessarily.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, but I'm

Dakota Younger: gonna use that because that's, that's my go-to.

Dakota Younger: That's personally, and I'm not considering the fact that, that other people that you know, for you, for example, right, you'd be, you'd say maybe yawn, I'm not interested in that.

Dakota Younger: Like, so what, you know. Um, and then I'd be scratching my head saying like, well, how, why is John, you know, not being motivated?

Dakota Younger: Doesn't he like being recognized? And you're like, I don't dislike it. But that's not.

Dakota Younger: That's not what, what gets me excited.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Dakota Younger: Um, what was interesting to me about this when we, like what kind of got me going down that rabbit hole early on.

Dakota Younger: When we were doing this as an agency, we offered, uh, a flat reward because we found actually that also that the simplicity was added to the, the excitement.

Dakota Younger: Um, again, some people like being able to have variations of different rewards, but there's a point of diminishing returns.

Dakota Younger: And, and, and that again also varies, but the, we found that.

Dakota Younger: A, a simple, Hey, we're gonna offer you 5,000 was actually more effective than even having like something that may pay higher because people didn't wanna have to do the math, even if it was pretty simple math.

Dakota Younger: Anyways, we, we'd offer 5,000 and they would, we would say, okay, and sometimes these engineers that would get the referral would make the referral.

Dakota Younger: They're making 200,000, 300,000 a year. And so 5,000 for them is, is not bad, but it's, it, it isn't gonna be life changing as much as maybe make someone making 30,000, right?

Dakota Younger: Where that's a much more, uh, significant portion of their, their annual income.

Dakota Younger: So they would oftentimes decline to receive the reward, which, which cra was, had my me, scratching my head initially, right out of the gate.

Dakota Younger: So then when we started to do, and I would love to play the like, oh, I, I knew this, uh, card, like it was all part of my master plan type of plan, but it was not, if I'm being honest, um, initially I was just donating that just to kind of, I guess, um, out of, like I said, I would not basically take it on my end.

Dakota Younger: So I was just trying to like, to hold some standard Right.

Dakota Younger: And, and make it seem like it wasn't like a, a hollow offer. Right.

Dakota Younger: So I would, we would donate the, the funds. But what we started finding was those people would then send more referrals, um, both more quickly from when I notified them about what their donation did, right, where it went.

Dakota Younger: Um, and they would be more likely to come back and send referrals. So they would do it more quickly.

Dakota Younger: They'd become like a return referral provider more quickly. And they were more likely to continue sending referrals, which I was like, wait, like you didn't make anything off this.

Dakota Younger: But what I've realized is that.

Dakota Younger: I was unknowingly or accidentally, um, double clicking on the altruism component. Right. So they, they initially did that reward.

Dakota Younger: And I think that nobody wants to say no to money, but I think for them, I'm guessing, is that they felt like taking that money would be wrong because they, they were trying to do it for altruistic reason.

Dakota Younger: And so by taking that money admits that it's, it's not purely for altruistic reasons, which isn't necessarily bad, but everyone has their own, you know, so I think they were declining it.

Dakota Younger: To, to really kind of prove that that was just for the benefit of their, per their friend and their company.

Dakota Younger: Right. And then when I donated the money, it, you know, it was like made them so they felt good about the referral to begin with, and then I, then their, their money turned out to be doing a donation.

Dakota Younger: So now they're doing, you know, with one referral, they're actually kind of getting two different benefits out of that.

Dakota Younger: Um, and so that's why they were returning back to the referral.

Dakota Younger: So I thought that was, that was when I started to, to realize that like this motivation component, you know, there was a lot.

Dakota Younger: More to it. That made it really interesting to, to consider. Like what, what engages people, what motivates them?

Dakota Younger: And to keep an open mind that like what motivates me and what seems like super obvious common sense does not make it a fact or true or even the majority.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. It's funny because. If I referred someone and I saw that 5,000, you better believe I'm gonna be bringing you a ton of people as fast as I can because I wanna make as many five thousands as I can.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. Now I may decide to take some of that and donate it. Which I, I've done in the past.

Sean Weisbrot: I, I've donate to two different things. One of them I don't, in case you aren't aware of, this, might be interesting for you to try to partner with them pen, uh, pencils for promise or something.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you, you know of them?

Sean Weisbrot: I have no. There was this guy from New York, he was working on Wall Street making tons of money, absolutely miserable.

Sean Weisbrot: He went on like a backpacking trip in Southeast Asia, fell in love with the people there.

Sean Weisbrot: There were these kids that were following him around and finally he like tried to talk with them.

Sean Weisbrot: And they were asking, they were like begging basically. And he's like, what do you, you know, what do you want?

Sean Weisbrot: They're like, we want pencils. He's like, why do you want pencils?

Sean Weisbrot: He is like, because we want to go to school and we can't go to school right now because we don't have a way to write anything down.

Sean Weisbrot: Like we just, we wanna learn. And he decided to quit his job and start a nonprofit to build schools for, for kids.

Sean Weisbrot: And it's a really beautiful thing. So I donate to them once in a while.

Sean Weisbrot: Because it's a lot of money to build a school, even in a foreign country.

Sean Weisbrot: Um, but the way that they do it is they, they get like 90% of the money from like donors, and then the other 10% comes from the government, which includes.

Sean Weisbrot: Teachers to staff and you know, to teach the kids, but the parents of the community that's gonna serve, have to put together the materials and build the school with their own hands.

Dakota Younger: Interesting.

Sean Weisbrot: And so everybody is aligned in the education, the, the future commitment of educating these kids.

Sean Weisbrot: I felt like it was a really beautiful thing.

Sean Weisbrot: Another thing I've donated for is, uh, so like when my dad was really young, he was one of the first people to have open heart surgery.

Sean Weisbrot: He was six years old and he was able to have the surgery because my aunt, which I didn't realize until very recently that it was well, my, my great aunt.

Sean Weisbrot: Um, was the one who put together all of the money.

Sean Weisbrot: Like she had this thing going where she was putting together money for people.

Sean Weisbrot: And then when my dad needed the surgery, she ended up putting together money for my dad.

Sean Weisbrot: It was like 20,000 to 30,000. She was

Dakota Younger: the original GoFundMe.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. And so I, so I, I attribute her actions to saving my father's life.

Sean Weisbrot: 'cause he was six and he had a hole in his heart.

Sean Weisbrot: He was leaking blood. He was a blue baby. Like all sorts of bad shit.

Sean Weisbrot: And so I once, uh, I used to used to live in China, so I once donated, uh, to have a 3-year-old boy get open heart surgery in China.

Sean Weisbrot: That's awesome. And I, I didn't get to meet him in person, but I got to do a video call with him 'cause I could speak Chinese.

Sean Weisbrot: So I was able to talk with him and his mom and, and all of that.

Sean Weisbrot: And it was a, a really great experience. And unfortunately the kid died from complications. Um, but.

Sean Weisbrot: I, so like I'm motivated by these things, but I don't, I'm not motivated by you telling me you're gonna donate for me.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm motivated by making the money and then deciding what to do with that money in, in the case I wanna donate to these things.

Dakota Younger: So what's interesting about that is, so, so there's a few things there.

Dakota Younger: One, um, I think the donating to education is, is, is in my mind, I'm not a donation expert by any means, but I do, there is a proven, um.

Dakota Younger: The, the higher standard of living, higher quality of living is, is, is directly connected to the, uh, education level, uh, of, of a, of a, uh, uh, society, right?

Dakota Younger: So if you can improve their education, you will improve their quality of living. Um, so I think that's.

Dakota Younger: Um, there's donating, you know, donating money to things. Certainly like, you know, it's hard to compete against, you know, healthcare.

Dakota Younger: Yes. If they're not alive, they can't, so there's the, you know, to just, to just say, just donate to education is isn't correct, but I think.

Dakota Younger: If you're just donating, like essentially kinda like feed a man, teach a man type of, of mentality.

Dakota Younger: If you can help, uh, teach, you know, and educate a society, it's, it's gonna be a longer term solution to than, than maybe just giving them initial funds right then.

Dakota Younger: Right. Um, because, um, because that's gonna ultimately probably trick that money's gonna trickle into, to somebody else's pocket pretty quickly.

Dakota Younger: So, um, I think that that's. Something that, that is important to keep in mind.

Dakota Younger: And that's something that we've thought about with, with Boone and one of the things that we've looked at is, so you talk about like also you don't want to necessarily, there's a factor in there, whether it's you being able to make the decision and maybe having more ownership of that, um, that giving process.

Dakota Younger: Um, that would probably be interesting to explore further, but at some point.

Dakota Younger: But what we've thought, what we've started to explore is, is partnering with different nonprofits so that.

Dakota Younger: The individual, when they're receiving those, those funds have the option to donate some of that to, to a nonprofit of their choice, um, when they're getting it, because people tend to be more, um.

Dakota Younger: Willing to pay out when they're or, or be more giving when they're receiving at that time. Right?

Dakota Younger: So if you're getting 5,000, you might, you may not want to do the full 5,000 of donating that, right?

Dakota Younger: But you might be open to, at that point, uh, 50, right? Or a hundred or something like that.

Dakota Younger: That's a, that's a relatively, uh, nominal portion of, of that overall reward.

Dakota Younger: So it doesn't have to be one or the other either.

Dakota Younger: And, but then also giving you that choice, um, might also make it more.

Dakota Younger: Rewarding for you rather than, than choosing for you. And then there's also the ability to, you know, considering, like letting people have that displayed on their profile or something like that, in a way that, that lets them get the recognition and credit.

Dakota Younger: 'cause let's be honest, some people do stuff like that just pure, you know, more, not maybe purely, but more for the recognition piece.

Dakota Younger: And you know, from a, there's a common, you could, you know, have your own opinions as to whether that's the right way to do it or not.

Dakota Younger: But from where I'm sitting. Regardless of someone's motivational factors, if the end result is the same, fine.

Dakota Younger: You know what I mean? If, if, if so, if, yeah. I might not appreciate that.

Dakota Younger: Some people might wanna do it more for recognition, you know?

Dakota Younger: You know, and, and there might be some sort of argument of like, well, they should really do it from the kindness of their heart.

Dakota Younger: Okay. But if we can still get them to donate, you know what I mean?

Dakota Younger: It's. That, that's, that's, that might be that, you know, that's an opinion, but that's not a fact.

Dakota Younger: And ultimately it's the end result that I, I'm particularly interested in. So stuff like that is stuff we've explored.

Dakota Younger: But I think it's an interesting point that you bring up that just having someone else make the decision for you, just kind of this motivation thing is like a, is like an onion, you know what I mean?

Dakota Younger: There's different layers to it and it's, it's actually really fascinating to explore and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do directly with referrals.

Dakota Younger: I think I was a psychology major before getting into the, uh, you know, business.

Dakota Younger: And so I think that it kind of, for, I, I guess for my own personal reasons, I, I like exploring that motivation piece because I, I think it is really interesting, uh, to see what, what kind of triggers things for people.

Sean Weisbrot: I also have a degree in psychology. That's why I also like to think about these things as well.

Sean Weisbrot: So I think it would be curious to see if you had the ability to test giving someone the opportunity to decide who to donate to if you, if you give them more agency over the donation, if that motivates them, like if that increases the frequency with which they refer.

Sean Weisbrot: Over the subset of people that just, uh, say, just donate the money. I don't really care.

Sean Weisbrot: You know where you put it.

Dakota Younger: Yeah. Yeah. It would be interesting to see like you're saying like what the, my guess if I was gonna, if, if I was gonna hypothesize, I would say that it probably has a benefit and a, and a higher return over all.

Dakota Younger: But for a limited amount if you give people, 'cause there's, and, and my pointing to this is like the studies of.

Dakota Younger: Um, kinda like the, the ice cream study where they did, where they gave people multiple choices and then they gave people three choices, you know, vanilla, chocolate or strawberry versus a bunch.

Dakota Younger: And when they pulled the people at the end, the people that had fewer choices were happier with their decision.

Dakota Younger: So I think that there's, um, if you gave people a limited amount and maybe let them explore further, but, but that's me going into like more of a UI or probably how you would present all that.

Dakota Younger: But yeah, it would be really interesting to see. But I also think it would probably be varying across different.

Dakota Younger: Um, geographies and, and region and, and like, uh, communities, right.

Dakota Younger: I think 'cause that's something that I've, I, I didn't quite value or appreciate, I think as much.

Dakota Younger: Is that certain, uh, like, again, the Philippines, um, that whole region seems very, they're, they're, they're exceptionally responsive to competition and recognition.

Dakota Younger: They, that, those are big factors for them. It's not that, that the money doesn't, um, which, which I guess I wouldn't have.

Dakota Younger: I, and I probably, 'cause I just don't understand, you know, I'm not, I haven't been to those places and, and I, so, but I, I just didn't appreciate that that was such a significant factor for, for different places.

Dakota Younger: But if you do the same thing, let's say in, in Europe or something like that, the impact is less or less.

Dakota Younger: It's, it's less significant for them.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. Well you could have just asked me.

Dakota Younger: I didn't, yeah, I guess I should have just done that. I've spent half my life in Asia.

Dakota Younger: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that the, the, the, the different places like that can, uh, have different ways of approaching things like that.

Dakota Younger: So it's just something to keep in mind. If we were running a test, that would be my thing and say, all right, let's run it in different geographies and see how that goes.

Sean Weisbrot: I, I agree. You would have a better overall happiness response when you give them three options for where to donate.

Sean Weisbrot: So for example, you might say, uh, in, when they're setting up their profile, you might say, um, like things that you're interested in, like you, you, there's, there could be a, a way during onboarding to figure out what kind of a charity they would want, but then.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't know exactly at what point they decide how they want to be rewarded, whether it's with the donation or what.

Sean Weisbrot: And so as you build up relationships with nonprofits, you would then be able to go, okay, this person would probably wanna enter, uh, would probably wanna donate to this kind of a charity.

Sean Weisbrot: And so you can then recommend three charities that you think they're most likely to wanna do that to.

Sean Weisbrot: That way they don't have to worry about a list of a hundred charities.

Dakota Younger: Yeah. My What if I was gonna do it?

Dakota Younger: Like right now, if what if we had to, well, my thing would be is to find three to four that were most broad.

Dakota Younger: Right? They covered a few different bases. So maybe like, you know, donated both education and, you know, um.

Dakota Younger: You know, uh, you know, needs, right? Um, something along those lines.

Dakota Younger: Um, and then have a few that they covered a few different bases, but then also have that be like above the fold, and then they could have an option to explore more or look at more.

Dakota Younger: And that way if you have additional ones, you still aren't like, kind of boxing them out.

Dakota Younger: And then you can, you still also open up the door for people that do like to be able to kind of dig into that.

Dakota Younger: But yeah, I mean that would be something my product team would probably, um, heavily weigh on on 'cause just 'cause again, just 'cause I think it's, uh, the best approach doesn't mean it's the, it is the best approach necessarily.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the most important thing you've learned in doing this business?

Dakota Younger: Well, I think the most important thing is I know absolutely nothing compared to what I need to know.

Dakota Younger: Um, and it's a terrifying thought, but I think it's, um, it's really important to keep in mind because, uh, it keeps you really open-minded to the idea that you're going to mess up.

Dakota Younger: It's not fun at any point to do that.

Dakota Younger: Um, and you don't want, you're certainly not looking to, or you know, you're always aiming to curb the, how many times you make a mistake, but.

Dakota Younger: Recognizing that, that like, there's just so much information, there's so many different ways to do things and, and all of that, that you have to be really open-minded and accepting to a degree that you're, that you just don't know enough and, and that if you're not comfortable with that fact, or if you're blind to that fact and you think you do know everything, then you're even in a worse position because you're operating under a, you know, a context that is not reality.

Dakota Younger: So, I mean, that's definitely someone that, one of the.

Dakota Younger: The things I've, um, had to, I guess, learn more is, is yeah, my, just how little I, I know.

Dakota Younger: But I think the other part is, is also being flexible.

Dakota Younger: Um, you know, I think as, especially as founders, entrepreneurs, you know, there's a certain amount of heads strongness that I think that comes with doing that.

Dakota Younger: You tend to, you know, that, um. We tend to have, you know, because that's how you have to have that to a degree just to start out, but like also being enough, you know, using that strength, but also recognizing that, that there's times and situations where maybe the destination doesn't change, but how you get there does.

Dakota Younger: Right? And so you have to be able to be willing to accept that, although this was initially the path that you had planned to, to, to get to, you know, from A to B. That's not actually what needs to be done here now.

Dakota Younger: Now, now because of these new insights or whatever, we have to change course a bit and that doesn't mean we're giving up on destination B, although that may eventually be the case as well.

Dakota Younger: But, but we have can't be married a hundred percent to that path that we had initially put in our heads because if we do that and we, and we stick too hard to that, it can be, you know, it can cost us just being able to get anywhere.

Dakota Younger: So those are some of the things that, you know, I know they're, they're a little bit broad, but those are, for me, the things that I have to, I, I genuinely remind myself on a regular basis, especially heading into, uh, a new week or something like that.

Dakota Younger: I, I do genuine, I know it's probably nerdy or whatever you wanna call that, but have kind like a mental checklist of like.

Dakota Younger: Key learnings that I've picked up that, that aren't specific, right?

Dakota Younger: They aren't like, you know, I don't think any of them are, you know, don't do this when in this specific scenario it's more of these broad, like, you know, very little, right?

Dakota Younger: And the plan you have in your head does not mean it's the plan, the best plan, right?

Dakota Younger: Those kinds of reminders kind of keep me when I'm heading into a conversation into the week or whatever, um, allow me to approach things a little bit more effectively.

Sean Weisbrot: Thanks for watching. If you liked this insight, I've handpicked another video for you right here on the screen.

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