How a visit from the FBI inspired the next generation of global wireless tech

Imagine never having to ask for a Wi-Fi password ever again. In this episode, recorded at the Connected America Conference in Dallas, we meet Mario Soave of CleverFi. 

He shares how a personal brush with the FBI inspired him to reinvent how we connect on the go. We explore his vision for 'teleporting' your home network to any location and why this startup is one you’ll likely be using in just a few years. 

Recommended links:

Mario Soave LinkedIn

Mario email - mario.soave@cleverfi.com

CleverFi pitch video

CleverFi website

Transcript

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (00:07):
This is Connect to Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband. From closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds, we talk technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods. On this episode of Connected Nation, I talk with the founder and CEO of a new company called Cleverfi. Learn how I visit from the FBI led to the development of a new kind of service that will allow us all to take our Wi-Fi with us anywhere in the world. It's a company you're gonna wanna remember because it might be something we're all using in just a few years time. I'm Jessica Denson, and this is Connected Nation. We are at day two of Connected America, taking place in Dallas, Texas, and I am with Mario Suave, who told me to say it likes Suave, but with an O <laugh> Suave, right?  Yes, absolutely. Uh, he is the founder and CEO of Cleverfi, right? 

Mario Soave, CleverFi (01:05):
Correct. 

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:06):
Yeah. Uh, talk a little bit about Cleverfi. It's a, it's a startup, right? 

Mario Soave, CleverFi (01:10):
Yes, it's a startup, and, um, I'm gonna go straight to the point. 

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:13):
Okay, let's go. 

Mario Soave, CleverFi (01:14):
I allow people to connect to WiFi anywhere in the world using their home WiFi. It's a completely new revolutionary technology. Uh-huh. But, you know, before I explain how I work, maybe I wanna, uh, give an analogy. People take it for granted that they can go anywhere in the world- Uh-huh. ... and they have access to the money from their home banking thanks to Visa and MasterCard. Right. Whenever they go buy coffee, let's say in Italy or, you know, get check into a hotel in Dubai. Oh yeah. They pay with their credit card, and they don't even care about what currency- Or think about it. Think about it. Yeah. They don't know that there is a difference currency, that there is a different, uh, POS system. Mm. They just pay, get in a secure and seamless way, access to their money. Mm-hmm. And they're happy. And so I'm thinking, why can't we do this for WiFi?

(01:59)
Why can't I have my WiFi follow me into the hotel room, into the Airbnb- Ah. ... into a robo taxi now that we have all of this amazing robo taxi with great connectivity that coming up in the future. Uh-huh. And so I created Claverfy, but there is a story behind it that I'm happy to share. 

Jessica Denson (02:15):
Yeah, we gotta hear the story. So just our audience knows, uh, Mario and I, we talked a little bit yesterday about having him on the podcast and he sat down and, and I said, "I would like to discover all about Cleverfi with the audience." So tell us the big story. <laugh> 

Mario Soave (02:29):
Yes. So I'm still currently an Airbnb host in New York. Mm-hmm. Uh, have this small Airbnb. It's kind of like a shoebox. But it's right above a very busy street and where there's a coffee shop right below. Uh-huh. And, uh, nothing. One day, two gentlemen shows up at my door. It was the FBI. <laugh> And, uh, you know, somebody- Were you 

Jessica Denson (02:47):
Surprised? <laugh> 

Mario Soave (02:48):
Absolutely. I'm like, absolutely. And, uh, you know, what happened is that somebody used my wifi and they committed a cyber crime. And so when somebody uses your wifi and I'm the one paying the bill, I am the first suspect. 

Jessica Denson (03:03):
Oh, yeah. 

Mario Soave (03:03):
Right? Because it's like, I'm the one paying the bill. But, you know, then I'm like, okay, wait a minute. It's an Airbnb. There's people in there, so there must be the guy or the girl, whoever did the, the crime. 

Jessica Denson (03:15):
Uh-huh. 

Mario Soave (03:16):
But then the reality was it was not them because, you know, unfor- unfortunately- It wasn't 

Jessica Denson (03:20):
Even your renter. It was someone else? 

Mario Soave (03:22):
Yeah, because we give the password to the renter. Uh-huh. The renter give it to their friends and then you give it, you know, it's been given to hundreds of people in two, three, five years because people have this password. Welcome 2018. Yeah. And welcome guest to 2019. That means you haven't changed the password for five, six years. <laugh> Yeah. So who ha- who, who did that, right? Uh-huh. And tho- also, because they're using such a easy password, a hacker from the coffee shop below could've simply hacked in. 

Jessica Denson (03:49):
Oh, wow. 

Mario Soave (03:50):
So I'm a, I'm a wifi enthusiast, I'm an engineer. Uh-huh. And so I'm like, there's gotta be a better way, you know? Mm-hmm. And so I wanna put another perspective- Yeah, yeah. ... for the audience that is listening. I mean, come on, guys and girls, common sense. Right. We changing the bedsheet at every reservation, right? Uh-huh. Nobody wants to sleep in the dirty sheets of another guest, right? 

Jessica Denson (04:12):
Right. 

Mario Soave (04:12):
And then if we have installed a digital lock, it becomes really smart only if you change the code at every reservation. Right. Right? If you can think about it, if the code is 555, you know, everybody's been using 555, that's not secure. Right. That's like a ... And so that's common sense. Let's make the smart lock to change the code at every reservation for physical security. Well, then I was thinking, why don't I just change the wifi password at every reservation? <laugh> Yeah. Why don't I just make it secure so it cut access, it revoke access to the previous guest- mm-hmm. ... at 11:00 AM when they check out, and the people that come in at 3:00, they got a new fresh wifi name and password that is secure. So I'm protecting them, but I'm also protecting myself. Right. Because now, if something happened again, one of those crime, I'm like, well, you know, the perimeter is much smaller.

(05:02)
Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, that's what I've started doing. I built this software that will generate a new wifi name and a new password for every guest and, uh, and that was helpful for me from a security side. 

Jessica Denson (05:14):
Did you approach Airbnb about using that for their people? <laugh> 

Mario Soave (05:16):
Well, I actually have an NDA, so I can't talk 

Jessica Denson (05:19):
About 

Mario Soave (05:19):
It. 

Jessica Denson (05:19):
Oh, oh, okay. 'Cause I, uh, I, I live in Louisville, Kentucky, and during the derby, I sometimes run out my house. <laugh> Yeah. And I'm like, "Oh, do I change that password? I haven't. I don't know if I have. Okay. That is correct. Thanks for the tip." Yeah, but anyway, so you got an NDA, so you can't talk about what's next with that. 

Mario Soave (05:34):
We'll talk about that maybe towards the end, but you maybe need to ask the audience a little bit of help, you know? Okay. And, um, we saved the best for the last. <laugh> Okay. So, uh, then I wanna tell another story because, you know, one time, one of my guests, uh, I got a phone call and there was a lady and she was crying, calling me because she couldn't get the baby monitor connected to the wifi. Mm-hmm. And because she couldn't get the, the Alexa connected to the wifi, uh, because, you know, she had a baby that couldn't sleep very well and she had to like put the white noise on the Alexa and then monitor on the baby monitor and so on. And I'm like, "Okay, wait a minute. I give you, you receive my wife a name and my password, you know, it's just like a regular wifi.

(06:15)
So it's, it's not about if it was guest one, two, three, welcome and so on. " Yeah. She was really not so technical savvy. So she's crying, she's like, "Can you have somebody come and help me out? " And I'm like, "No, wait, I'm in Texas. I can, I'm not in New York. I can't help you out. I don't have anybody. Let me think what I can do for you. " Uh-huh. And there I stop for five seconds and I say, "Remind me where you're from." And she's like, "Oh, I'm from Canada. Okay. Do you have a photo of your home router?" She's like, "Of course I do, because every time people ask me to show the photo of the past, they say, can you send it to me? I'm gonna try to do something. I'll set up your home wifi from Canada- Uh-huh. ... into my Airbnb in New York." She's

(06:53)
Like, "Really?" Wow. "How do you do that? " Yeah. I'm like, uh, let me handle it. I'm the wifi guy. <laugh> Let me handle it. You know, at the time I had a Kickstarter- Uh-huh <affirmative> I said, I was called the WiFi boss. I had a, you know, like all of these things. Fun. And so anyways, she send it to me, I'm on the phone, I'm doing a remote setup, I set up her home wifi into my Airbnb and as soon as I press enter, I hear two things. I hear the music from the Alexa that started, and then I hear the lady screaming like, "Oh my God, it's working. I love it. " And so I'm like, "Uh-huh, wait a minute. We can change the wifi name and password to be secure and we can have people matching their home wifi so that whenever they travel, you know, they don't have to trust those shared password wifi, they can use their home network anywhere they go.

Jessica Denson (07:39):
Oh, wow. And 

Mario Soave (07:40):
I'm like, "Wait a minute, this is too easy to do. I, I gotta protect this. " And so I actually filed for a patent in the US and then now all over the world and we got it in 14 months. 

Jessica Denson (07:50):
Oh, wow. 

Mario Soave (07:51):
It was one of those only 5% of patent that were, um, that were to, uh, be selected as a, be very novel that have a, uh, a non-obvious approach- mm-hmm. ... and that actually solves a real problem. 

Jessica Denson (08:04):
Yeah, that's a real problem. Yeah. 

Mario Soave (08:05):
And so, yeah. And fast forward, you know, we've been pitching our ideas to the co-founder of Netflix. We were on a TV show called Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch. Oh, really? 

Jessica Denson (08:14):
Cool. 

Mario Soave (08:14):
Yes. And he actually supported our project. He gave us $10,000 as a grant on the TV show. It's kind of like a Shark Tank- 

Jessica Denson (08:21):
Uh-huh. 

Mario Soave (08:21):
... but like an online version and the co-founder of Netflix is one of the- Oh. ... uh, investor judge. 

Jessica Denson (08:26):
Oh, that's cool. Very cool. 

Mario Soave (08:28):
Yeah. Uh, yeah. And then, uh, from there, uh, we realized that people have such a struggle even whenever they move their home. <laugh> 

Jessica Denson (08:36):
Yeah. 

Mario Soave (08:36):
Think about it. Uh-huh. You have set up all of the Alexa, all of the baby, they get the cameras, you have all of this IoT in your home, the light bulb, the smart, uh, fridge- Just the computer, yeah. The computer- The 

Jessica Denson (08:47):
Computer, the TV, everything. 

Mario Soave (08:48):
Everything, right? Uh-huh. And then you, you, you move, you just maybe moving because you're, you're a renter and you just move, uh, or because you bought a new home and, and then you gotta reset everything up. Mm-hmm. I mean, all of this broad, broadband company, all of this internet provider, they just give you a new hardware, they ship it to you or you can take it from one place to another one sometimes, but not all the time. Yeah. Because sometimes you gotta switch provider, right? Because maybe you don't have fiber in that area because you're coming from an area that now has fiber optic, so you wanna switch to the fiber optic provider. Uh-huh. But that's a hard thing. So what do we do? We make it easy. We take your previous network, we virtualize it, and we put it in the new location. So then whenever you place the order with the new fiber provider, you have the old SSAD and password that follows you, it's in, even in a new hardware, different thing, but I have all the device connects automatically.

(09:37)
So- No hustle. 

Jessica Denson (09:38):
So you take your, all your password and everything with you- 

Mario Soave (09:42):
Mm-hmm. 

Jessica Denson (09:42):
... even if you connect onto a new network? 

Mario Soave (09:44):
Yeah, because we are, we don't, uh, the new network would be basically the same network that you had. Gotcha. And it doesn't matter if it's coming up of a router that is by a different brand, you know, I don't want to do name dropping, you know, but like there are, these are the brand that, that are used by the internet provider. It doesn't matter if the wifi name and password comes out of a one brand versus another brand. Very good. It doesn't matter if it comes, if you're using the, this fiber service of that coaxial service. 

Jessica Denson (10:11):
Uh-huh. 

Mario Soave (10:12):
It's agnostic because WiFi is an open source technology. Yeah. Luckily it was open source over 25 years ago here in Texas. Uh-huh. You know, because the WiFi Alliance is here in Austin, Texas. Mm-hmm. You know, nearby, we're in Dallas today and, uh, and so we can do this. It's possible. 

Jessica Denson (10:28):
That's interesting. So do people have, and, and you're with your, with Cleverfy, do they have a device that's a Cleverfy device 

Mario Soave (10:35):
Or? No. We're just an identity provider. Same as Visa and MasterCard. Uh-huh. You know, Visa just to do two things. Authorize, approve, or deny- Uh-huh. Either because you don't have money in the bank or because there is a fraud. Uh-huh. But they don't make POS system, they don't make hardware, they don't make devices. Yeah. And they're not even a bank, but they work with all of the bank, they work with all of the POS system so that you can just travel and use your money anywhere, right? So we are that Visa and MasterCard kind of a system- Oh wow. ... but for WiFi. 

Jessica Denson (11:05):
That's really fascinating. And what a, a, a simple approach but also not a simple approach, you know 

Mario Soave (11:12):
What I 

Jessica Denson (11:12):
Mean? 

Mario Soave (11:13):
It is non-obvious approach. Yeah. But then once people learn about it, they get hooked. 

Jessica Denson (11:17):
Yeah. 

Mario Soave (11:18):
Because I'm like, I don't want to go back to meet the Ocrev Wi-Fi in my life anymore. Right. You don't have Clarify? Hello, you know, like people don't want to go back to cash. Yeah. You know what I mean? They just want to have their car and travel safely and in a seamless way and not having to worry about anything. People do not care if under the hood of a wifi, you have 4G, 5G, fiber, uh, satellite, Starling, whatever, sorry they didn't drop. <laugh> Connect. And we just want to connect. 

Jessica Denson (11:46):
Yeah. 

And Mario Soave (11:46):
So we are that layer that makes the connectivity, the connection part, the onboarding part easy. 

Jessica Denson (11:52):
Uh-huh. So when will this be, when can I have this? When are you going to give this to me? <laugh> 

Mario Soave (11:56):
That is a good question. So we're working with, uh, we signed some NDAs, you know, we have a lot of NDAs now because, uh, everybody wants this, by the way. Yeah. It's, it's the new thing. And, uh, we have Airbnbs. We have over 100 Airbnbs in certain area. We have some taxi, they already have our technology. We are, uh, we actually want to ask the audience here to help us out. Uh-huh. My, my, you can email me, okay? Okay. It's Mario.soave, which is S-O-A-V as in Victor, E. 

Jessica Denson (12:26):
Also put it in the description of the podcast- Amazing. ... so 

Mario Soave (12:28):
They can 

Jessica Denson (12:28):
Grab it there. Yeah.

Mario Soave (12:29):
@claverfy.com. Uh-huh.

(12:31)
And a couple of things. We wanna hear from the audience for their personal use, like say, "Hey, I will love this in my state whenever I go, I don't know, to Destin Florida that I would love if the Airbnb there will have it. " I wanna hear from anybody that gives me feedback, okay? Yeah. 'Cause we need that to, uh, provide it to, you know, everybody that we sign NDA with to show them how much people want this. And then of course, if we have like the, the fiber company listening, the actual operator listening, just, you know, reach out because, uh, we can, we can ha- sign up an agreement. 

Jessica Denson (13:02):
Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty amazing. Yes. I really could've used that yesterday when I was trying to upload the first episodes of the podcast. Yep, exactly. I needed, I needed a better connection. Even my connection, it was not working, it would not recognize anything. Yeah. My computer one, it was so frustrating. Yeah. So I, I c- I feel what you're, what you're saying. So for you, Mario, uh, you said you were an engineer. 

Mario Soave (13:24):
Yeah. 

Jessica Denson (13:24):
Uh, do you have another job as you're trying to bring this up or 

Mario Soave (13:27):
Are 

Jessica Denson (13:27):
You all- 

Mario Soave (13:28):
No, no. I'm full time all in. Cl- 

Jessica Denson (13:30):
Clarify? 

Mario Soave (13:30):
Yes. And, uh, good that you discovering this. In 2024- Uh-huh <affirmative> Um, I was part of a founding team of a company that we sold for 200 million dollar. Oh. And, uh, basically as a founding team, you know, thanks to options, stock option and shares, I was able to do my exit- Uh-huh <affirmative> And, uh, work full time on this. And I had this on the back burner, uh, it started as a passion. I, I'm originally from Italy, from Verona, near Venice. Oh, 

Jessica Denson (13:56):
I went to Verona for the first time last year. 

Mario Soave (13:58):
Awesome. It's 

Jessica Denson (13:58):
A neat city. Very cool city. 

Mario Soave (13:59):
Yeah, and this year they hosted the Olympics- The Olympics. Yeah, they hosted the Olympics, uh, ceremony- mm-hmm. ... in the arena, which is 2000 years old. Uh-huh. People don't know that. Everybody knows about the Coliseum in Rome. 

Jessica Denson (14:10):
But it looks just like the Coliseum, but 

Mario Soave (14:11):
It- But it's functioning. 

Jessica Denson (14:12):
Yeah. 

Mario Soave (14:12):
So you can ho- host- Don't they 

Jessica Denson (14:13):
Have operas there? Yeah. 

Mario Soave (14:14):
They have operas in the summer. Uh-huh. I mean, Verona is one of the city that people- It's beautiful. ... missing whenever they go to Italy because they just do the tourist, uh, par and verse- And the Romeo 

Jessica Denson (14:25):
And Juliet 

Mario Soave (14:25):
Thing, 

Jessica Denson (14:26):
Yeah. They have the, the supposed, it's not really because Shakespeare never went to Verona, right? 

Mario Soave (14:31):
Right. But he wrote the story that the family existed, the Capuleti and- 

Jessica Denson (14:35):
Yeah. 

Mario Soave (14:35):
And so, yeah, but then there was, you know, they were all story, you know, behind, but yes. 

Jessica Denson (14:40):
But they have a Juliet statue. 

Mario Soave (14:42):
They do. 

Jessica Denson (14:42):
And they have people write letters to Juliet and they have her, 

Mario Soave (14:45):
Her balcony. The balcony, correct. Yes. 

Jessica Denson (14:46):
It's very, it's very great city. Anyway, so you, you ended up, how did you end up in Texas from Verona? 

Mario Soave (14:51):
So yeah, I ended up in Texas, I actually, in 2019, but before then I was in New York. Uh-huh. This is where, you know, my Airbnb and all of my footprint is in New York. I came in 1998 when WiFi didn't existed. Yeah. And so I would go to people's house and I'm, and be like, "Hey, can I use your phone and plug in like a, the cord and start dialing in with American online?" <laugh> You remember those times? Oh gosh, yes. And we were like, "Are you sure I'm not gonna get a big bill?" And, and so at a, at a certain point, wifi started- Uh-huh <affirmative> We buying the first router, I installed it and I completely fell in love with the technology. Like I was super in love that basically I, the only gift that I will give to all of my friend, and sometimes girlfriends, you know, we can say this is okay, uh, instead of bringing a toothbrush- Uh-huh <affirmative> I'll bring a wifi router, right?

(15:37)
And we'll give it to her and be like, "Hey, you know, you can have internet on the walls." That's a good gift, yeah. Right? And then that way I will go there and I could use the internet without having to ask. Uh-huh. You know what I mean? So to make it accessible for myself because I was like- Hysterical. ... having the pain point, right? Uh, 

Jessica Denson (15:52):
You're very sneaky. <laugh> 

Mario Soave (15:53):
Sneaky, sneaky. No, but seriously, like wifi changed the, changed everything. Yes, I agree. You know, for the people that remember the time where you had to have that long court- Oh. ... going throughout the house. Mm-hmm. And so now I wanna make it even more accessible. That's my mission. And, um, about Italy, I wanna say something. 

Jessica Denson (16:10):
Okay. 

Mario Soave (16:11):
I grew up with an uncle that he knew that he was gonna become blind- 

Jessica Denson (16:15):
Oh. ... 

Mario Soave (16:15):
Because of a genetic thing. 

Jessica Denson (16:17):
Uh-huh. 

Mario Soave (16:17):
And, uh, ever since I was 13, he will give me and give me his older computer to me and explain to me how to use it. Uh-huh. So I started with MSDOS 3.22. Oh my gosh. And I 

Jessica Denson (16:28):
Used 

Mario Soave (16:28):
To have- You're dating 

Jessica Denson (16:29):
Yourself. 

Mario Soave (16:30):
<laugh> Lotus. Yeah, I'm 49 guys. Look me up. I'm a pretty good looking guy, I would say. But anyways, um, I was, uh, starting with Lotus 123- Uh-huh. ... for the people that remember that. And, uh, you know, my technology, it's incredibly helping for people that have assistive technology need. Yeah. The people that have, you know, diverse ability, let's put it that way. Yes. Because whenever they travel, they struggle with the technology. And if you think about going in a hotel- mm-hmm. ... I know people that are vision impaired- Yeah. ... and they have to ask for help- mm-hmm. ... to get their devices connected to the wifi because it's like a mission impossible captive portal that you gotta put all of those information that we, I, I sometimes cannot go through. Right. Right? And so imagine for people that have diverse ability, it's like a difficult thing- Having

Jessica Denson (17:19):
To do that. Even more 

Mario Soave (17:21):
Difficult, yes. And anytime they have to ask for help- mm-hmm. ... you're removing their autonomy. 

Jessica Denson (17:26):
Yeah. 

Mario Soave (17:27):
You are basically saying you can do it yourself, you need to ask for help, and you're removing that autonomy that they wanna have. Yeah. And so I, two things that I also wanna do today, if anybody is in assistive technology, if they provide internet for people that are, uh, with ability needs, uh, technology needs- mm-hmm. ... contact me because we have a program. We wanna give our Cleverfy for free- Oh, fantastic. ... at least for like, uh, as many places that we can. Uh-huh. So if you're a hotel and you wanna put this for digital accessibility in your ADA unit, you know, every hotel has to have ADA unit, which are the, uh, uh, Disability Act unit- Uh-huh. ... that have to have physical access. They have to be set up for physical accessibility. We wanna help you on the digital accessibility. 

Jessica Denson (18:12):
That's fantastic. Yeah. That's, 

Mario Soave (18:14):
Yeah. 

Jessica Denson (18:14):
Yeah. Um, well, I recently talked to an organization, which their, their name of it is escaping me at the moment, but I'll look it up and send it to you, where they ha- they talked about the fact that there is mapping for people who need help with accessibility all over the world, but not inside places, like airports and stuff. Correct. So now they're mapping airports in that way in the same way that you're talking about being digitally accessible. Accessible. Accessible. Yeah. Correct. Very important. So cl- uh, where would you like Cleverfy to be in the next year, five years down the road? Where do you see it? 

Mario Soave (18:44):
Okay. Fantastic question. <laugh> So first of all, we wanna have a global footprint- mm-hmm. ... same as Visa, MasterCard. And thanks to this globalization and, and the ability to communicate in every language is now with AI- mm-hmm. ... we can go to market in multiple language, multiple region and so on. We wanna see it in everybody's life when they travel or they're on the go. So like every Airbnb, every hotel, every robot taxi or Uber, you know, anywhere you need connectivity and you wanna make sure that you have connectivity, you know, because when I send my dad on a Uber and, you know, he's not tech savvy and then the phone doesn't work because- Yeah. ... the carrier goes offline in that particular area of the street or, or the city, we don't want that to happen. Then we wanna take this to the residential- mm-hmm.

(19:29)
... so that whenever you moving from one place to another one, you don't have to reset your home devices. Yeah. But then we wanna take it a step further, like the conference. Mm-hmm. We wanna have it in Starbucks or the coffee shops. And that is super easy. We just have to, we integrate our system with the, uh, event system, everybody gets their own password, they connect, it's easy, no captive or- There's no, 

Jessica Denson (19:49):
"Hey, do you know what the password is? Hey, do you know what the password is? " Exactly. That's right. 

Mario Soave (19:53):
And then in five years, we seen that there are two player in the world- mm-hmm. ... that for this I have to do name drop. Okay, 

Jessica Denson (20:00):
Name drop. 

Mario Soave (20:01):
And so, you know, Starlink and Leo, Amazon Leo. Uh-huh <affirmative>. So we have Jeff Bezos and, um, Elon Musk that are providing internet globally, right? Uh-huh <affirmative>. And they have a, a, let's call it, it's not the footprint, it's the Skyprint. Yeah. <laugh> You know, it's the Skyprint of the connectivity. And those are only gonna be the two brand that people will know worldwide, right? Because right now if you, if I go to Italy and I talk about AT&T, people in Italy look at me who, what is AT&T? Mm-hmm. And if I come here in the US and I say Telecom Italian, they're like, who's Telecom Italia? Yeah, we have no idea. Yeah, exactly. But those two brand are gonna be recognized at a global level. And so five years, uh, maybe joining one of those, two company, having an acquisition of CleverFi- Oh. ... one of those two brands.

(20:46)
Uh-huh. And, uh, yeah. Or just keep it separate- Uh-huh. ... as kind of like Visa MasterCard. They're like a separate brand from any bank and just run independently. Uh-huh. But so they could be an exit strategy or just continue to run it as an independent company and IPO and have it separate. 

Jessica Denson (21:02):
Awesome. Well, make me a promise. 

Mario Soave (21:04):
Yes. 

Jessica Denson (21:04):
Just an easy promise, I promise. 

Mario Soave (21:06):
Yeah. <laugh> I 

Jessica Denson (21:06):
Promise. 

Mario Soave (21:07):
That's easy because it's also recorded here. Yeah. 

Jessica Denson (21:09):
<laugh> Um, when you, when you're able to talk about where you guys are ended up, reach out to me and let's do a follow-up so we can talk about where you're at and how people can get you and how can they, they be excited about CleverFi as well, 

Mario Soave (21:21):
So- Absolutely. Okay. Thanks to this conference, I was able to make a lot of good connection. 

Jessica Denson (21:25):
Uh-huh. 

Mario Soave (21:25):
And so the, you know, any, any business that will come from this conference, then we'll take it back into the podcast. 

Jessica Denson (21:30):
Oh, 

Mario Soave (21:31):
Awesome. And, and tell you more story. 

Jessica Denson (21:32):
Okay. Thank you. All right. Mario Soab. Thank you. You gotta say it like Suave. Suave, yes. With Clever Fi, he's the founder and CEO. Thank you so much. 

Mario Soave (21:41):
Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you. 

Jessica Denson (21:49):
On future episodes of Connected National, we'll bring you more details from Connected America taking place in Dallas, Texas. Until then, I'm Jessica Denson, and this is Connected Nation.