IT’S TIME TO GET QUOLLIFIED

It’s no exaggeration to say that social sharing app TikTok has changed pop culture in the last few years with its bite-sized video format and advanced recommendations algorithm.

Now, a British-made app that is already drawing positive comparisons with TikTok, but which is aimed squarely at businesses, looks set to usher in another digital revolution, this time in the field of human capital.

And with “entrepreneurs’ entrepreneur” and “uber-mentor” Ron G Holland in the driving seat, the app—Quollify—has the real potential to become an international, multi-billion pound sensation, totally transforming the way that business owners, executives and professionals at all levels and in all sectors connect in the future.

By Timothy Arden

Are you “quollified”? At the moment, this might not make much sense to you but this time next year it certainly will.

It’s funny how certain digital services have become so popular, so commercially rampant on a global scale, that they have entered the common lexicon. Not so long back the word ‘tweeple’, for those who use Twitter, was all the rage while, at present—and if you are of a certain (young) age—you’ll know exactly what it means when someone asks if you enjoy “Toking”.

For TikTok is, right now, the undisputed king of social media. The 30-second video sharing site, which launched in 2016, has more than one billion monthly active users and a market value a staggering 250 times greater.

While it’s aimed at the youth market, aged 13-24, the app quickly caught the attention of seasoned British entrepreneur and global business mentor Ron G Holland. Being in his early 70s, he wasn’t particularly interested in the throw-away content but the concept immediately got him thinking.

“I thought to myself, how amazing would it be if company owners and entrepreneurs had something similar to TikTok, where they could upload 30-second videos and get instantaneous business matches,” he says.

That was two years ago and since then Holland, now 72, has been working quietly in the background to launch the new business-orientated app.

Called ‘Quollify’, it promises to connect business owners with talent, and vice versa, in the space of just a few clicks, and to do so for free.

According to Holland—who is no stranger to digital entrepreneurship, being noted as the first person to raise over £1million in the City for an internet company, right back at the dawn of the World Wide Web in 1994—it’s launch will “disrupt the disruptors” by providing a powerful new solution to an age-old problem: sourcing human capital.

Human capital is defined as the value that having the rightperson for the job will bring to a business in terms of their skills, knowledge, and experience.

Holland, who has variously been dubbed the “entrepreneurs’ entrepreneur”, “king millionaire maker”, and “uber-mentor” across his five-decade business career, says that human capital matching has long been a major thorn in the sides of companies, from the one-man start-up to the established corporates.

“Human capital is now, arguably, more valuable to entrepreneurs and businesses than financial capital,” he says.

“In this era of the global village, and as the commercial playing field is becoming ever more crowded and competitive, having the right talent on board is now more important than ever.

“Despite this, the actual process and mechanics of human capital matching hasn’t really progressed in the last few decades, still being entirely reliant on outdated 20th century technology.

“As a business mentor to entrepreneurs across the world, I have heard time and again how frustrating it can be to find the people they need to take flight and hit the stratosphere.”

While the internet has undoubtedly had an impact on business matching, Holland still sees this as a deeply flawed and unreliable model.

It can also be incredible costly, with companies routinely paying upwards of £40,000 upfront to recruitment agencies to secure them a top executive.

Holland—who is also a bestselling business self-help authorand whose works such as DEBT FREE With Financial Kung Fu, Talk & Grow Rich, Turbo Success, and The Millionaire Within are now viewed as classics of the genre—continued: “You’re essentially paying a human resources agency to put out a profile on LinkedIn or similar platform and then filter through hundreds of responses to present you will the top three or so candidates for final selection.

“It’s time-consuming, it’s grossly inefficient, and it’s outrageously expensive, especially when you remember that many entrepreneurs are building up a company by the bootstraps and simply don’t have the finances to afford such services.

“Of course, you can try your luck directly on recruitment platforms but they are heavily monetised and designed to place barriers between you and those you are seeking, not to remove them.

“Either way, you’ll find more static than signal, more wheat than chaff, during your search. I knew that there had to be a better way, so I set out to find it.”

As part of his initial research Holland joined up with multiple dating sites to get a better feel of the user experience (UX) and to learn what made for a good app, and its opposite.

He then began recruiting a global crew to make his vision a reality, bringing in a crack team of developers to build and then iterate upon the Quollify design.

The result is a platform that is streamlined, intuitive to use and which, thanks to powerhouse, state-of-the-art algorithms, delivers tailored matches fast.

Getting started on Quollify couldn’t be easier. You create a 30-second elevator pitch video in which you briefly state who you are, what you do, and what you are seeking, and then let the app’s sophisticated mechanics do the rest.

“You’ll find a wealth of talent ready and waiting to support your business journey, such as co-founders, executives, website coders and designers, salespeople, accountants, legal experts, marketers, non-executives, angel investors, advisors, mentors, and coaches, to name but a few,” says Holland, proudly.

“As soon as the video is uploaded, the app immediately begins the quollification process.

“You’ll quickly receive a shortlist of suitable matches, with their own 30-second videos to browse through.

“You can begin to ‘quollify’ each other, asking targeted questions to identify the right person to meet your needs, such as have they got a business plan, a pitch deck, C.V., testimonials and references.

“Like any app, the more information you can provide in your profile area, the better the matching algorithms can work and the better the result.”

Remarkably, work has been able continue apace despite the global Covid lockdown and, as Holland, reveals, despite his own serious health issues.

In 2019, the revered business guru was shocked to discover that he had advanced mouth and throat cancer.

“It was so serious that my doctors were, at one point, considering palliative care only,” he confides.

“For 18 months I had a gruelling battle against the cancer, receiving intensive chemotherapy and radiation. As a result of the treatment I lost my voice for two months and I would often be found developing the Quollify idea from a hospital bed.

“Then the pandemic hit, though I used this time wisely to continue building the Quollify concept, preparing for the fundraising phase, and planning for its launch further down the line.”

Thankfully, Holland is now in full remission and has even used his experiences as inspiration for his forthcoming self-help book, Dead Man Talking—A Simple Road Map to: Wealth, Health & Happiness in the 21st Century.

Quollify—which guarantees users “Qualified matches FAST”—is currently in its pre-launch phase, with its MPV(minimum viable product) now accessible to an early-access user base.

It is now going through back-to-back funding rounds for circa £3million, £10million and £100million, alongside seeking strategic alliance partners—including technologists, coders, and managers—as well as potential acquisitions and contributors to the planned customer magazine, Human Capital.

And Holland firmly believes that with Quollify he has “the bull by the horns”, projecting a customer base of 500,000 users worldwide within the first 12 months of operation alone.

In the longer term, his goal is to build that up to 500million users and to turn the app into a billion-dollar company.

“For the early bird investors, this is a golden investment opportunity,” says Holland.

“The app is free to use but we will, over time, bring in a monetisation model. Unlike other services, this won’t put up barriers to use. Instead, it will allow users to benefit from additional services such as mastermind mind groups, training, and educational resources on how to maximise the potential of human capital.”

With a worldwide market of entrepreneurs, corporates, and company owners crying out for a better way to connect, Quollify looks set to be a match made in heaven.

For more information, visit www.quollify.com and register your interest in the app while, at the same time, grabbing a free copy of one of Holland’s many classic business guides, Turbo Success - How to Re-Program the Human Biocomputer.

Q&A INTERVIEW WITH QUOLLIFY FOUNDER, RON G HOLLAND

We speak with “entrepreneur’s entrepreneur” Ron G Holland about his revolutionary new business matching app, Quollify, to find out more about its genesis, development, and what users can expect from it when it makes its hard launch.

Q. Your new human capital matching app, Quollify, promises to ‘disrupt the disruptors’. Can you explain why such disruption is urgently required?

A. Things happen in the internet and app space very quickly. The problem with current business matching apps is they are clunky dinosaurs driven by last-century technologies and ideas as well as by outdated monetisation methodologies, which may be fine until you get competition. Instead of making the search for human capital intuitive, rewarding, and instantaneous, it has now become a laborious and costly task.

Since we announced that our magic was a novel 30-second video, there are now adverts popping up all over the dinosaurs, inviting you to put up a 30-second video and, I have to say, the team had a darn good belly laugh. They have missed the point entirely and have mounted a 30-second video on the back of a dinosaur. I am minded of the story of the guy who owned a dirty, ugly pig. He dressed it in a pink tutu, put a dazzling jewelled tiara on its head, and painted its toenails bright red. Everyone laughed and jeered, and one guy shouted out, “No matter what you do, it’s still a pig! A fat-bellied one at that!”.

The human capital arena is screaming to be opened up, to become more efficient, and to be organised, instead of putting up more and more barriers. The whole human capital arena is highly fragmented and disorganised. Quollify is an acquisitive vehicle and will consolidate the industry.

Q. Where is the app now in the development cycle, and what can we expect to happen next?

A. We are in beta test mode with selected folk who are giving us ultra-critical feedback to allow to develop the user journey, matching engines, AI and overall aesthetics, all of which are crucial to get right prior to full launch. When we launch and are moving forward, we will

rely on early adopters to keep giving us feedback to enable us to increase our performance. Obviously, the more users on the app, the more matches are made. We are currently creating great matches, with relatively low numbers and aim to keep on improving that.

What we expected to happen next is already happening, only bigger and better that we possibly dreamed. We have been overwhelmed by folk going to the Quollify site and logging their interest in the app.

This bodes well for launch day. Obviously, our PR campaign, known as ‘Perfect Storm’, is reaching the places other media can’t reach and we are attracting serious enquires from funders, IT folk, journalists, business leaders, HR departments, AI scientists and others who just want to be part of what we at Quollify are doing.

Q. The Quollify app will be designed with many powerful features, including the ability for users to form mastermind groups with peers. Why is this important, and can you tell us more about how this will work?

A. Our raison d’etre is to organise human capital and, in doing so, the app will ultimately include many powerful features including the ability to form mastermind groups. Through powerful algorithms and AI, you will be linked with folk who can really help you and you, them. Many times these folk will surprise you and may not be those that you may normally seek out. Harnessing the unconscious minds of others is an extremely powerful principle and many folk have tried to set up masterminds groups of their own. Invariably, they come together for a few weeks or perhaps even a few months beforeeventually drifting apart because everyone thought they were putting too much in and getting too little out. The Quollify app is all about organising human capital and within the app there will be tutorials on best practice when it comes to setting up a mastermind group that actually works and benefits each of its members.

Q. Your app has been described as “TikTok but for business”. Do you think this is a fair comparison, and why?

A. I think it’s a great comparison and I personally love TikTok so I take that as a great compliment. It is highly addictive and, although used primarily for entertainment only, it serves as a great model for us to use, but we are business only. Our bag is business, through and through, and our combined team totals hundreds of years’ experience and billions of dollars in sales and growth. We learn not just from TikTok and many other video-based channels but also from all apps that have learned and used the secrets of stickiness, gamification, and delivering real value. We can already see from the 30-second videos that we have flooding in for our beta test that they are all strikingly different and eminently viewable, in their own right.

We envisage that viewing 10 or 20 30-second videos, to track down your perfect C-level board member, angel investors, co-founder, mentor and so forth, will be equally addictive for business folk as those seeking entertainment on TikTok.

Q. Quollify is your brainchild. How did you first come up with the idea for the app?

A. For a number of years I was intrigued with dating apps, and came across Tinder with a