The year that everything changed

By the age of 26, Connor had presented on stage to a quarter of a million people across 47 US States and 10 countries. In some cities he would meet people from the wealthiest neighborhoods in the morning, and then the toughest neighborhoods in the evening.

Over those five years on the road, he discovered a universal truth – people everywhere just want to work hard and get rewarded fairly for their time and talent. Everyone he met seemed to have at least one special expertise, but they didn’t have an easy way to get paid fairly for it.

Then in 2020, the global pandemic changed everything. Hundreds of millions of people started using video meeting tools like Zoom for all types of meetings – with their doctors, their instructors, their lawyers and thousands of other types of experts. Also, people got very comfortable paying strangers using a variety of cash apps. In other words, if you were an expert in anything, you could now potentially get rewarded for your time by people all over the world.

Connor pulled together a team of co-founders from high-growth apps, startups, and software companies including Facebook, Otter.ai, Progrexion, XOLogic, and Lit Living. 

What started as a simple idea quickly turned into the building of Opt.