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Today, we talk withMichael Marra, who is the founder of entre a global social network forentrepreneurs. Entre allows entrepreneurs to easily connect, learn and buildbusinesses all in one place. And this community consists of over 35,000entrepreneurs from over 60 different countries. I've personally joined thisplatform, and it's amazing. It's removes all of the fluff and noise that existson so many other platforms, social media platforms out there, and allows you tofocus on strictly building your business, making incredible connections withpeople who are as ambitious as you as a visionary entrepreneur. So I'm excitedto share this with you. Let's jump into the interview with Michael. Michael,thanks so much for being on the visionary show. Yeah, thanks so much for havingme. I'm really excited looking forward to this. Yeah, of course. Well, soyou're the founder of OD TRA. Tell us a little bit more about this platform.And then what you're up to?
For sure, yes. So Entre is a modern professionalnetwork, we started as an entrepreneur community. And we really started as atight knit group of founders and people interested in growing and startingbusinesses. And we scaled up, actually through events. So we did a ton of inperson events across 12 cities and bunch of different states. And then wereally started building out our app, and our technology, which is our mainfocus now. And where you have people from 150 different countries, and youknow, we're just continuing to grow every single day and welcoming in newpeople that are building businesses and just, you know, being part of what wecall like the future of work, and the next generation and the new economy. Andthere's so many things that are happening that are really exciting for us.Yeah. Well, tell me more about those. I mean, a lot of these are ringing trueto me, but like, where do you see, from a visionary standpoint, thisopportunity for your platform, evolving to and what you guys are looking atticket to the future? Totally, yeah, I mean, the way people work, and the waypeople live, are changing dramatically. And, you know, there's a number ofdifferent things that are happening all at once, and COVID, accelerated a lotof those. And, but at the end of the day, people want more freedom, they wantmore flexibility. A lot, a lot of people want to be able to work remotely. Anda lot of people want to be their own boss and do their own thing, and makemoney how they want. And at the core, that's what entre is designed for. We'rea community and network first.
But we're also a tool set for people to makemoney online with our app. So people can make money, creating content, they cancreate money, by building and running a community within entre, they can, youknow, list their their services and jobs and gigs and get hired, and make moneythrough entre. And for us, it's, you know, combining a lot of the some of theplatforms and software that's out there, and bring it all together in one placefor people to really just make money, learn, grow, and connect with with peoplethat they want, in a way that's, you know, actually designed and built forthem. Because To date, there really hasn't been a platform that's actually beenbuilt for entrepreneurs and kind of just this new way of working and living.And, you know, we're all left to kind of use several platforms on a daily basisto try to meet new people or create content and network which is not productiveat all. Yeah, not not at all.
I mean, you I had the SOC come to mind and yousaid it at the end referenced it around the city that we basically tried tocurate all these social platforms or virtual networks to fit what we need asentrepreneur. When it's like, and we're doing that you go and see people onFacebook, which is, I would say started definitely as a like a personal socialnetwork, but now people use their profile And in groups to drive business andmany people have built pretty successful, successful businesses throughsomething like Facebook or Instagram. And they've gotten and turned around andsupported their creators and their users. But I feel like from an entrepreneurfirst platform, there's really nothing out there from an app side. And fromthis tech side, which I think makes on tour a lot more interesting.
And fittingin a market of, I feel like the entrepreneur community is just growing more andmore of like you said, people seeking more of that, that freedom, and thatautonomy, and making what they want, and when they want. And, and so with that,in with with like, with there being an app like a mobile app available to whichis, which is huge, like not everyone can speak to the fact that they'redoubling down on that style of technology to a lot of people go build awebsite, but it doesn't necessarily translate the same way as far as having anapp for it. of connections. Where do you see this evolving into? Like, is ityou guys want to be the first choice for entrepreneurs when it comes to thatsocial connection? As well as professional connection? In what? Yeah, like,kind of talk, walk me through where you see this going? And the value from it?For sure, yeah, it's, it's, we want this to be a daily, not just app thatpeople use or social platform that people check in on, but we want this to bereally a tool for people. Right, it's just as much software as it is a socialapp, you know, it's just as much of a business tool as a social networkingplatform. Because, you know, a lot of people don't necessarily want to networkprofessionally, they just want to, you know, meet people, maybe watch somevideos, learn from some people do some courses, classes, events, or workshops.
But really, people want to figure out how they can make money, right? At theend of the day, that's like people, yeah, they want to meet others and getintroduced to really cool people. But at the end of the day, most people aretrying to figure out new ways that they can create revenue streams, they'retrying to figure out new businesses to start, they're trying to figure out newthings to invest in. And they're trying to figure out how they can spend theirtheir time on things that they enjoy doing and things that they want to do. Sothat's really how we look at it. Yeah, yeah, cuz I mean, that's one way from asocial network side. You know, I think there's so many platforms that come outin the scene, trying to demand your attention. And to me, that's what like, Ilike a mobile app does is like, how do you like insert yourself in the sea ofapp? Like, it's funny, I think it was, you talked about the future work in mymind got triggered do we work? I watched this documentary talked about like,the broke down the cold, basically, we worked. But there's this funny, youknow, like, obviously, we work has created a pretty cool culture, aroundentrepreneurs going into their space for co working. But I remember they did amontage of, of interviews with these founders, a lot of tech startups.
Andthey're listing off all of their, their company names. And they're the mostabstract, clever, odd names, right? That you would expect out of an app ontoher is more straightforward to me. And it fit into the place that you're nottrying to like, I feel like a lot of these types of tech startups are trying toreinvent the wheel so much, they get so niche versus like, hey, let's serve amarket. That's just, I got a massive user base of entrepreneurs, that peoplewho want me to be their own boss, and make it more available. And to me, thatsounds more interesting, because then you can go get lost on like Instagram, oreven LinkedIn, I see parts of this a little bit, where people's interests allare all over the place. And they're not so focused. And so I think more nicheapps and in communities like this, I feel like have a lot of value to offer.Yeah, and in how we're building this out, too, is you're going to be able tohave so very, I don't know when this is going to be coming out. But very soonwe're rolling out communities. So we want people to be able to build their owncommunities within entre as well. And as far as professional communities havegone, there hasn't really been great platforms for this. You know, a lot ofpeople have used Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups are trash. And now a lot ofpeople are using slack and discord. Yeah. And the tricky part about those isthey're not built into social platforms. So to grow your community you have todo all the work you have to do all the marketing you have to drive all thetraffic into these channels. Discord starting to have some discovery but it'sstill not there and discord it's kind of a mess as well. So this is somethingthat you know, we know is gonna be helping a lot of people as well.
Want tobuild professional community, like a meetup, kind of like the next generationof like meetup groups and stuff like that, because right now, users can alreadyhost in real life or virtual events directly through entre, meaning they can doticketing for an in real life event and took me for a virtual event, but theycan also host that virtual event on our platform. So this interview, even wecould have done on entre, we have video recording screen sharing everythingbuilt right in. And part of that is where your the future of work is going,right, the future of work is everyone's using Zoom. Now everyone's using theseother platforms. So by having zoom, essentially built into professionalnetworking platform, and building in our stripe integration, monetizationfeatures, we now allow people to not just connect and make connections andmessage people and whatever and create content, but we have a way for them todo their meetings on the platform to events on the same platform, do chargepeople money on the same platform, and make money to the same platform withouthaving to pay for this other software that they're already using anyway. So forus, it's streamlining a lot of really what people are already using into acohesive app that is available and free.
And even our premium plan is afraction of the cost of you know, this other software that everyone is paidfor. So yeah, we we want this to be something that people check in us. And wewant this to be where people do work, honestly, it's like they, they you Thisis their job, right is they just they're on entre and they're making money indifferent ways. And whatever serves them best as an individual and as anentrepreneur. Yeah, definitely. Well, and you talked about being able to havethat freedom to build your community through there is, is there an opportunityfor like private consultations, you can all do through the app as well, becauseI'm sure with a lot of these entrepreneurs, professionals, you know, payconsulting, or free consulting is probably a big opportunity there. Yeah. 100%?Yeah, exactly. So very soon, like, you can already do private meeting. Sonormally, all of my meetings, now I just do through entre and I'll just sendsomebody a link, right. And our team, like we do all of our daily, you know,team calls and everything, we don't use Zoom or Google meet anymore. And soonwe're going to be getting rid of slack as well, because of our new communitiesfeature. We're using it more as like a team feature, which people will be ableto do as well.
But yeah, I mean, a lot of it is you know, for for this, it'syou can do like live rooms in events and stuff, you can do scheduled privatemeetings. And you can also do live or, you know, in real life events as well. Ido ticketing and everything. But yeah, we want to give people the optionalityto do private or public. All of that. So soon, we're gonna also have somethingsimilar to kind of like Calendly, as well built out, but that's going to be alittle bit yet. So yeah, there's a lot of things. Just prioritizing things.Yeah. I mean, I can give you a long list, as an entrepreneur, myself write along list of apps that I'm currently using, and you listed most of them thatare have their own subscriptions and have their own, like, they're great tools.And they're very specific to one purpose. But having things like like, you'resaying, just your team will be able to, like, hey, let's just eliminate theseapps, stop paid for their services and go to that. Yeah, good. Andhra. That'sso cool.
That's great. Well, you know, this is something like I, now that I'mlearning more about it from you directly. I'm like, Hey, I'm ready to go signup for right now, and start testing out because it's something like I've, likeprobably those watching or listening to, you can relate is like there are timessocial media that you just, like need a break, or you're tired of like thecesspool of crazy noise that's going on there. And so I think something freshand that you can meet connect with other people who are, I think, on yourambition level, as far as entrepreneurship goes, sounds really interesting. SoI'm, I'm excited to explore that more. And we'll drop some links andinformation below for those to explore. For sure. Yeah, I think a lot of thistoo, is we want to give a safe space for people to just talk about business andentrepreneurship and personal development and health and wellness. And like inour community guidelines and everything. If you're posting content or messagingpeople or whatever, and it doesn't fit within those, you know, topics andindustries and everything or you're spamming or abusing the platform in anyway. Like where you are straight up, just removing people from the platform. Soit's something where you know, we're apolitical like if you want to talkpolitics or societal issues, there's plenty of other platforms to do that on.But this is meant not for any of that discussion. So, you know, a few thingslike that, you know, some people are gonna, like some people aren't going tolike about it.
But it's, you know, I think it's important now, to create aspace for people just to discuss these things, and leave everything else to nothave to worry about seeing it or, you know, feeling the type of way towardssomeone based on their views. And, you know, just keep it mostly about, youknow, making money and, you know, living better lives and improving. Yeah,yeah, I love it. Well, I love that guy. Because there's definitely a lot oflike, hate for both ends of like political or social spectrum, right of peoplewho are like, like, I get censored, or this or that. And I think having thatfocus though, knowing what you're getting into, as far as, like, ourconversations are on these topics. And if you invite other topics in, then you'regoing to create even more divide, but I love that there's that focus, and thatthat niche focus, and I think that's something that should be had and, andversus like, hey, everything's free game. And then yeah, I mean, that that's awhole nother conversation. But I think having that opportunity to know to showup, you're not tra, and to know that the topics, you're going to be focused onsomething that is, I feel like more often more exciting. Like, you know,business entrepreneurship is a lot more exciting than all these other topicsthat people through social network side, get involved with.
So I think yet, Iknow there's a lot of value there. So, hey, it's been so good to connect,Michael, definitely excited to share more of this app and community that youguys are building over an entre? Are there any other opportunities, or thingsthat you'd love to share before we wrap up? Yeah, I mean, I would justencourage everyone that's looking to network or, you know, figure out differentways and opportunities to make money online. You know, or looking for, youknow, gigs and jobs, and startups and tech and stuff, to definitely check itout. And I'm also happy to like, chat with anyone, like, I'm very active withinthe community, I respond to every single message that people reach out, we'redoing a ton of rooms and events.
So you'll see myself and our team popping intoa lot of them. And we're being very active within the community. We also do amonthly pitch competition, so we give out over $1,000 It's going to be actuallylike 2500 over $2,500 Every month, and two founders and different startups, andpeople can apply for that as well through the app and everything and we'retrying to be as supportive as we possibly can to helping entrepreneurs of alltypes and figuring out ways that we can collaborate or partner up with withother people as well and, you know, make the most out of this new economy and,you know, help the most amount of people that we can thrive and, you know,really, you know, take control over everything that's happening withtechnology, and you know, where the world is going. Yeah. Awesome. Incredible.Yeah. And Thanks, Michael. I appreciate your time. And, and we'll talk soon.See you on the app too.
For sure. Thanks so much. It was great being here. Take care.
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