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- [00:11]
Ray Spadoni
Welcome to Leading Organizations that Matter, a podcast about leadership and how we find meaning, purpose and impact in our work. I'm your host, Ray Spadoni and today's topic is is faith in fashion? An interview with Pre.com's co founder, Matthew Potter. This is perhaps something a bit different for this podcast, a discussion about faith. Though what is not so different is that I have covered topics associated with the importance of being integrated, whole and true. Leadership, meaning, purpose and impact are what we do talk about here and oftentimes that gets into issues of deeply held personal values. I haven't at this point directly considered the topic of faith, but frankly that feels like a bit of a hollow distinction and unnecessary compartmentalization. So today we pierce the wall and get into it with one of the founders of Pray.com which is a major player in the growing faith based realm of apps, media and it seems, cultural acceptability. Matthew's story is fascinating, so I'll let him tell it, but just know that after having been a successful and wildly prolific app developer, he had a chance encounter with a friend and that changed the course of his life. Let's get into it. Welcome to the podcast, Matthew. Thank you for being here.
- [01:49]
Matthew Potter
Thanks for having me, Ray. It's an honor and a blessing to be here.
- [01:52]
Ray Spadoni
Awesome. Well, in the pre recorded intro for this episode, as I tend to do on all these episodes, I talk a little bit about the person I'm about to interview. But in this one I described to listeners that faith related topics are not typically the ones I cover here on this podcast. And so today marks a bit of a departure point. So I'm delighted that you're here to help ease us through the transition. And I think that your personal story and what you've done@pray.com make you just the right person to do so. So thank you.
- [02:29]
Matthew Potter
Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to broach the topic. And also, you know, we can talk about prayer and science, which are two things that, you know, people would think are juxtaposed against each other, but they actually go together and we can explain that as well.
- [02:47]
Ray Spadoni
Fantastic. Fantastic. So I did mention in the, in the prerecorded part that you are one of the co founders of the app and I didn't say much more about that because I think you should do that. But first I think it would be very helpful just to set the context if you could tell people about prey.com you know, what it is a little bit about the history, what you're aiming to do with the Platform, maybe a little bit about its reach and its impact.
- [03:16]
Matthew Potter
Yeah. So not a problem at all. Pray.com is the number one app for daily prayer and faith based content. We started back in 2016, October of 2016, and now we're here in 2025. Pray.com is the largest growing Christian audience in the nation, so in the United States. And we have over 19 million downloads of the pre.com app, 168 million shares of content outside the app on other platforms like imessage or email, and then We've just crossed 3 billion listening minutes of content, which I'm told is over 1700 years of content consumption. Pretty crazy. And then we launched some podcasts last year. So in the last 18 months we've had about 200 million downloads of precom podcasts.
- [04:22]
Ray Spadoni
Congratulations, that's quite impressive.
- [04:26]
Matthew Potter
Thank you very much. Yeah, it's exciting to see what God's done, assembling, you know, an Avengers team of people from companies, some of the greatest companies in Silicon Valley to be able to build this platform for Christian people or people who are curious about the Bible, curious about their faith or where they're going when they die and all the big meaty topics. Right.
- [04:54]
Ray Spadoni
So that's great. You know, I'm sure we'll come back to, to pray.com to, to, to the app. But let's talk a little bit about you. I'm, I'm curious if you don't mind sharing your journey, especially as it comes to bringing you to this point. You know, the founding of the app and you know, what, what was it that brought you to, to that?
- [05:19]
Matthew Potter
So for me it all started with a 15 year old girl who is walking down the street. She was actually going to an abortion clinic. She was 15 and she was pregnant, she's about eight months pregnant, going to this abortion clinic. And on her way there she was feeling a little guilty and she saw a church and she stopped in at the church to ask the pastor for some advice on the biggest decision she was making in her life up to that point. And the pastor was a new pastor. So he's a little nervous thinking this is a life or death, you know, situation that he's in. So he called a buddy of his in Los Angeles who planted a 20 person church in LA and said, hey, what should I tell this 15 year old girl who's pregnant who just walked in my door? I've never met her before, I don't know her parents. You're way better at this than me. What do I tell her? And the pastor with the 20 person church in Los Angeles said, you know what, it is providential that you called me today. There's a, a couple that just joined my church who's been trying to have children for 10 years and they've been struggling and haven't been able to have children. Why don't you ask that girl if she'd be willing to give that baby up for adoption to this wonderful family that just joined my congregation. And the girl said yes. And I was the baby the girl brought into the church. And I got adopted because of these two pastors that were friends. So yeah, pretty remarkable what God did in my life. And then my dad became the head elder of this 20 person church, helping the pastor grow it to one of the largest churches in Los Angeles. Today it's a non denominational, just Bible preaching church. No frills, no thrills, just the word. And yeah, so I grew up in church with my pastor being like a second dad to me and went to high school at a local high school here in Southern California. And strangely, I got the very unique opportunity to go up to Pixar, a new startup that was making animated movies. And while I was there, I got to, in a chance meeting, I got to meet Steve Jobs. And I didn't know this when I was there, but Steve Jobs is also adopted. And he super inspired me to get into technology. You know, know, being adopted, my, my adopted family, everyone was great at sports. I was like a baby giraffe on the football field or the baseball field. And I was better with computers. So when Steve Jobs is telling you you should get into computers, I really looked into it and it was super fun. And so my senior year of college, which I don't recommend, Steve Jobs launched the App Store. And I dropped that at school. And I knew that's what I wanted to do. I just dove in with both feet. So I started a company called Homestack. We build technology for real estate companies, specifically apps. And so I built Homestack over a decade with my co founder Will, who's an incredible guy. Will is now the CEO of Homestack. And so while at Homestack, we built over 8,000 apps in the App Store for some of the major real estate companies in the United States, including Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby's, many, many more, Pinnacle Estate Properties and a few others. And so it was super fun. We were doing great things. People were happy, we were helping people find their dream home. But for some reason, you know, I had reached my goals And I was coming to work every day, just feeling empty inside, like I had lost my purpose. I reached this weird point in my life where I hit the goals that I wanted to to hit. We had done very well, and I just wanted to help and give back. So I called my pastor. I asked him how I could help him get back. And he said, well, why don't you be a campus pastor? And I knew that wasn't right for me. I'm an introverted tech entrepreneur who didn't go to seminary. And so I just said, I'll pray about it. And the next day, I ran into my good buddy Steve gatina at a coffee shop. And Steve went to usc, played football, won a rose bowl under Pete Carroll, Started a media company where he built out the YouTube channels for red bull, Marriott hotels, herbalife, several others. He sold that company and became the 29 year old CEO of the world's largest aerial production company, with 40 aircraft, helicopters, planes and jets. He was filming all the major motion pictures. So Italian job, maverick, Jurassic world, all the apple TV backgrounds. And in the building of that company, Steve's business partner died in a plane crash. And, you know, it was tragic. They were filming the movie american made with tom cruise. And when they were filming the movie, Steve's business partner died in that plane crash. But that's how Steve got the idea to start prey.com was because a former navy seal gave him an audio sermon from a pastor to help him during that time of tragedy in his life. And Steve said, why does the digital destination for christians not exist? We have the digital destination for sports, espn. And the very next day, Steve and I are at this coffee shop, and I had built apps and he had built media. And he told me about pray.com and I said, steve, I'll help you. I'll do it for free. And so Steve and I linked up. We have our other two co founders, Ryan and Mike, and we went out and started pray.com in October of 2016. So that's how I got to pray.
- [11:23]
Ray Spadoni
Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that. It wasn't a straight line from the start to where you are today, but it rarely ever is. And there are a lot of things that happened in your life that obviously contributed to founding this. Based on the idea of a friend who was facing a tragedy, a personal tragedy, and a very sad event. But as is the case, some real good has come from it.
- [11:55]
Matthew Potter
That's right.
- [11:57]
Ray Spadoni
You mentioned up front the growth and popularity of the platform. And it seems that there are some other faith based platforms out there. There's the movie the Chosen, which is being heavily marketed, and there's a King of Kings and animated movies coming out to be released I think in a week or so. What's happening in the culture is faith becoming cool. And then let me stack the question a little bit by asking, do you feel that apps like Pray.com are helping to drive the culture or has the culture been shifting for other reasons and you've really been in the right place at the right time?
- [12:47]
Matthew Potter
Yeah, I think I, I think it's both. There are, you know, you can't build platforms like prey.com or TV shows like the Chosen if there isn't a hunger for people to want to consume that content and want to use an app like prey.com so I think what's interesting is, you know, we were. If you look at church attendance, right, it's been going down over time and big media would have, would have us thinking that church attendance is directly correlative to how pious, how devoted people are to their faith in America. But it's interesting to see that faith content consumption and app downloads is actually up 52% over the last 24 months. And I would say that as a culture, we swung the pendulum outside of faith and kind of going against our original parents and grandparents beliefs a little bit. And now the subculture has become orthodoxy has become going back to church has become listening to the Bible and reading the Bible and listening to the principles of the Bible and family and all that good stuff. So it's funny to see that the pendulum swung and now it's swinging back. And the subculture, it has become cool again to be orthodox, right? Like I was in a conference actually up in San Francisco and with several large investor firms and different people, and all of them were going to church or becoming orthodox. Like it's becoming cool again. It's really interesting to see now church attendance is declining. That is something that's happening. But so are attendance to movie theaters and physical locations, people. Because now we have everything coming right here. There's more smartphones on planet Earth than toothbrushes. So everything comes to us now. A sandwich, a car you can order. I bought a Tesla and I did it right on my phone. I didn't even talk to anybody. Who would have thought, right? When I was building Homestack, we did mortgages so that you could do your whole mortgage on a phone. Who would have thought 20 years ago you wouldn't have to sign a wet signature on the largest purchase of your life? And you could do it with your finger on your phone. So, you know, I think, I think we're having that pendulum swing where everything is becoming more digital. And I'm not saying that it is a replacement for community and for going to church. I'm a big believer in that, huge believer in that. But I think what's interesting is the average church attendance was once a month with, you know, engaging with your faith for about one hour a month on average. And now on pray.com, at least with our data, we can say we've increased that to people checking out the app 60 times per month for an average of six to eight hours of content consumption for faith related topics or the Bible or exploring their Christianity. So it's super interesting to see what's happening.
- [16:09]
Ray Spadoni
Well, you know, this shift, there's probably two ways to look at it depending on your values and how you experience spirituality or whether you even do experience spirituality. If you are a Christian, you, you might look at this and say, well, it's the hand of God directing this and we are moving in this direction and that's great. There's another way to look at it though, and I wonder if you have any thoughts about this, which is that we went through a major pandemic. There's lots of evidence that mental health issues are coming to the fore, that there's a great deal of depression and anxiety and so forth. And so the question is, are there some things happening in our culture that are pushing people back to faith, spirituality and to God?
- [17:06]
Matthew Potter
Absolutely. And we don't even know the, the major ramifications of what Covid has done to our society, to people's mental health in the long term. Right. And it's going to be really interesting to, you know, hindsight's always 2020 looking back. Right. So we'll see what 2020 really did to us as a culture. So absolutely. I think culture is driving and headed towards these things. But I think it's also interesting that when dealing with mental health and mental health related issues, people are turning to faith. I think that's kind of overlooked that faith has a massive component to play in that and we're seeing that in our research. So we have a PhD scientist research team@pre.com with our lead researcher being Dr. Brie Laird. And we are doing clinical trials and cross sectional studies to show how prayer and interacting with digital related Christian content is lowering mental health symptoms that people are experiencing. It's lowering anxiety, it's lowering depression, it's lowering hopelessness. Some of these things by Engaging with your faith. And actually the frequency matters the most. So it's developing that daily healthy habit of prayer, reading your Bible, engaging with your faith, that has the largest decrease in those mental health symptoms. And so, yeah, I absolutely believe that culture and a global pandemic has something to do with it. But I think there is also, you know, it was happening before the pandemic we had since 2005. If you look at some of the CDC data, you know, suicide rates in the United States have been increasing ever since 2005. Now, the pandemic may have poured gasoline on an already burning fire, but we have needed to get back to this. In my belief, we need to get back to our faith. When we look at these different scientific studies, clinical trials, things that are happening, and you see it also in Harvard's Human Flourishing Project. So Harvard's Human Flourishing Project on how human beings can flourish the most, they actually left out a religious or faith component from the Human Flourishing Project. And they're finding that when you add in the faith and religious component to human flourishing, the outcomes are even more outsized than their original human Flourishing project. So you're seeing this not just, you know, from the preacher who's on the street or inside the church, but you're seeing this from the CDC. You're seeing it from research studies that Pray.com is conducting and other people are conducting on prayer and faith. And then you're also, you know, seeing it in people's actions that they're taking from consuming faith based content and that increase of faith based content consumption over the last 24 months.
- [20:16]
Ray Spadoni
That's great. You know, I guess I'd say I'm not surprised to hear about the impact, you know, based on the fact that I've seen a number of studies on the relationship of a hospital or healthcare systems investment in chaplaincy services on health outcomes, wellness. And the data is pretty compelling there. I'm glad that you're investing in research and data. And it sounds as though that's a, that's a commitment you've made and a priority.
- [20:50]
Matthew Potter
Yeah, absolutely. We're working with several different universities and their research teams to conduct these clinical trials, cross sectional studies. And I'm not the scientist, but, you know, I know a little bit. I know enough to be dangerous. Of all the things that we're doing, and we are committed@pre.com to, to showing that prayer and science are one in the same. Because as a Christian, I believe that we were created in the image of God. We're created by God, we're created in the image of God. So wouldn't it make sense as a Christian, that if we prayed and connected with our Creator, connected with God, that that would have a scientific outcome on our physical human bodies and our mental health? And so we're seeing that actually take place right now from some of the studies that we're conducting.
- [21:41]
Ray Spadoni
Well, you know, I've, I've seen over the course of my professional career that for the most part, we compartmentalized our faith lives outside of our professional lives. You know, sometimes they could intertwine, but that was probably more the exception than the, than the rule. And since I became a coach and as I've been, you know, working with a number of clients, it's not uncommon to get into meaning making and, you know, concepts of purpose and a person's core values and the reticence to get into issues of faith seems diminished now compared to five years ago. You know, five years ago it was pretty uncommon that someone would want to get into a conversation about this. But that seems like that's diminishing the intersection of business and faith. Have you had any observations there with even perhaps some employees or employers being willing to be more direct about it?
- [22:47]
Matthew Potter
Yes, absolutely. In fact, there's now something called the Ready Index that came out not too long ago. And the Ready Index is gauging companies diversity, religious diversity, and openness to accepting people's whole person at work based on their religious beliefs. So, yes, I think those walls are coming down of, hey, this is work. And we only talk about work at work to you can feel comfortable bringing your whole person to work. And we're already seeing employee benefits programs doing that. There's employee benefits programs to go to the gym or to download the Calm app and you get a, you know, a Buddhist meditation from the Calm app. Or you can download and use the pre.com app in these employee benefits programs. So employers are realizing that, you know, it is tough to compartmentalize someone that's a person is a person and they can bring their whole person to work right. While following HR guidelines. But they want to invest in their people more than ever before, which is why they're developing out these employee benefits programs that give them access to apps like prey.com, calm, Buddhist meditation, headspace, Buddhist Meditation, some of these different things because they're realizing that if people are using Pre Calm, they're, they're spending less sick days away with mental health issues. They're coming to work feeling better every day. They have purpose, like the Purpose driven life by Rick Warren is the second best selling book of all time besides the Bible. Right. So people want to feel like they have a purpose and like they matter, and their purpose matters for what they're doing at work. And employers are developing out those programs. They also have what's called employee resource groups, which is kind of like a club at a company. So you would, you would. You know, people think that, you know, employers don't want to have religion at work, but Google has an employee resource group for Christians, Facebook has an employee resource group for Christians. And they meet and they have a Bible study and they bring speakers in. You know, all of these large corporations are starting to move to these employee resource group models because they know that people want to bring their whole person to work. So, yeah, that is changing. Those walls are coming down.
- [25:16]
Ray Spadoni
Okay, well, it's interesting, you know, this is the language of return on investment. Applying it to faith is new. You know, there's. There's something about that that feels unique to me.
- [25:29]
Matthew Potter
Yeah, you know, it. It is actually all about margin and mission, profit and purpose. Like, you have to be about both if you want to build something sustainable today. You know, because we are people, we're all people. And with people come people problems. Right. And we want to feel like we can bring our whole person to work. And that's, you know, our beliefs set a lot of things, morals in our life, our integrity, you know, that comes from our belief systems. And for Christians, those belief systems foundations are in the Bible. And so employers are recognizing that and they're realizing, hey, we should have these groups and these things set aside for people of faith.
- [26:16]
Ray Spadoni
Well, given what you do, given the purpose of the app and the platform and your path to its creation, it's not a stretch to say there's a ministry here, but it's a business. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the interplay or maybe at times potentially the conflict between, you know, the fact that you've got financial expectations, growth expectations, perhaps there are, perhaps there's, you know, return expectations with the fact that this is faith and there is a ministry dimension.
- [26:55]
Matthew Potter
Yeah, that's a great question. And@pray.com that is what we preach, you know, every day is margin and mission, profit and purpose. And as long as you set the foundation of your organization, your company, as we are going to serve the customer, which is what the very best companies in the world do, they're obsessed with the customer. They serve the customer, overserve the customer. And our customer is, you know, Christian. People and people who are curious about their faith. And so we've already aligned the objectives perfectly. Right. So, you know, we, when we make a business decision, you know, sometimes we may make a business decision that doesn't make sense in the short term, but we're making long term business decisions to focus and be obsessed with that customer and helping that customer. And the customer is those people of faith. So if they're using the app and our business goals are aligned with the customer's goals, then we'll always make the right decision for the customer and those, those things will be aligned instead of juxtaposed.
- [28:05]
Ray Spadoni
Is that ever challenging or have you found that that alignment has been something you've been able to achieve and maintain?
- [28:15]
Matthew Potter
Yeah, you know, it does get called into question, you know, always right. And we always need to be looking at and auditing our decision making processes and how we do things and our internal processes, meeting rhythms, all those good things. So it does get called into question and it does get tested. But overwhelmingly after those tests, it comes back to are we aligned and obsessed with our purpose, our mission, and with the customer's purpose and mission? And every time we over serve the customer and do what's right for the customer, then the business part ends up working itself out.
- [29:01]
Ray Spadoni
Artificial intelligence. Can we talk a little bit about how you feel that may impact your business, your platform, how is it affecting the culture as it relates to faith? And you know, is this impacting ministry?
- [29:18]
Matthew Potter
Yes. So there's, there's a lot of things to talk about with artificial intelligence. And for us, it's not a secret. We have a, we just did a very large press release with palantir and the CEO over there. Alex. We are utilizing AI in every aspect of prey.com almost every aspect, minus the, the actual content creation. But we are using AI in every facet of the business. And it's helping us be more efficient, you know, being, being a better fiduciary of the stewardship of the resources that we have. But it's also creating a better experience for our customers and for the churches and leaders that utilize our platform. So, you know, AI, just like any other new technology, can be used for good and can be used for evil. Right. Any new technology you look at, nuclear technology, can be used for good, can be used for evil. Nanotechnology, biochem, biotechnology, right, Everything can be used for good or for evil. So it's my belief that if people are not using it for good, evil will overcome. And so we need to utilize AI technology for good. And the way that that looks like@prey.com and how we utilize it is, you know, it helps us create incredible cinematic audio, incredible animated series that we can create now at a more efficient price point. It helps us customize and personalize content and content series for people and help change those paths over time. You know, with, with the AI technology it can serve up. If you've ever felt like someone, when you were in a large group was talking directly to you, that's what AI technology can do through a platform like prey.com if you're dealing with a mental health issue, it can recommend content for that issue until it sees results of it being resolved or as it is resolving in your life. So AI can do so many incredible things now. Is it going to be used for evil? 100%. There's cults in Silicon Valley of people who worship AI right now. I mean literally they go to what they would call a service and they worship AI. So can. And, and that's just, that's not even like it being utilized for, for bad, for evil. Right. It's just people, I would say confused but you know, will absolutely be used for deep fakes and all sorts of things, lies and making the truth more obfuscated. Right. Like you can do that with AI technology but if no one uses it for good, then it'll only be used for evil. And so we want to utilize it for good, for helping people through those mental and spiritual health crisises that they have in their lives. We get reviews Ray, all the time. Mom is in the hospital at 3am with their 16 year old child who just got in a car accident and they're looking to connect with their faith in that moment because they have no one to call at 3 in the morning. Police officer.
- [32:54]
Ray Spadoni
I'm sorry, go ahead.
- [32:55]
Matthew Potter
Police officer who got shared prey.com in the perfect moment when he was in his garage going to commit suicide and someone shared him the pre.com app right then when he was going to take his service pistol and end everything. Like AI can be used for so many incredible things and we need to continue to use it for those amazing and good things.
- [33:24]
Ray Spadoni
There's much to consider there. Going back to something that you mentioned earlier about community, I think we've all seen that as you stated, with AI there's good and there's challenging and I think with all technology it's not meant to replace human interaction, it's not meant to replace community, but it does form a different form of community, one that's more accessible and is open 24 hours a day, as you just suggested in that vignette. Is there anything else that worries you about your business, about the future, whether it's AI or anything else, like what's, what's the challenge? That's, you know, the monster under the bed here.
- [34:13]
Matthew Potter
Yeah. With, with everything that's happening right now, we live in the most connected world, but we have the least amount of best friends.
- [34:24]
Ray Spadoni
Right.
- [34:24]
Matthew Potter
And, and it's definitely correlative as technology is continuing to grow and become more part of lives, that we need that human to human connection more than ever before. And I think that's what worries me is we'll figure out the technology and how to make it perfect for people. We'll figure out the programs and the ways to help with mental and spiritual health, but nothing can replace the human connection like you said. And so that's what worries me. We are in the most connected world, but we can't lose our humanity at the same time.
- [35:04]
Ray Spadoni
Yes, that's a, that's probably a powerful point to, to conclude on, Matthew, if folks are interested in trying the app, if, you know what, what's the, what's the, the entree point for prey.com and you know, what does that look like? And is there a way that folks can, can give it a try for a period of time?
- [35:29]
Matthew Potter
Absolutely. So the app has a free and paid section, and I wasn't planning on doing this on this podcast, but just for listening and tuning in. And you may not be religious at all, but just in case you want to check it out, I'm going to give you the entire app for free, just for listening to the podcast. So if you go to pray.com forward/mat M A T T, you will get the entire app for a year for free. You only have to enter in your email address and that's just to keep your login safe and secure so that you know you can log in and, and consume the content that you want to consume that you might want to check out. So again, if you just go to pray.com matt.m a t T, you can get the entire app for free. Now you can go to your App Store, Apple, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and download the app. But if you go to that URL first, you'll get the whole app for free just for listening to the podcast and listening to my story. So thank you so much.
- [36:36]
Ray Spadoni
Well, thank you. That's very generous and I would say it's worth checking out. I think there's, there's probably a lot on there that would be beneficial. I've certainly been playing around with it and I'm quite impressed. So thank you so much. Thanks for being on my podcast, Matthew and I wish you the very best and your team there. You're doing something really important and you're having a great impact in our culture and our world. So thank you for that.
- [37:05]
Matthew Potter
Thank you, Ray, so much for having me on the podcast. It's been an honor and a blessing and just really appreciate it and grateful for you.
- [37:13]
Ray Spadoni
Thanks for listening. Leaving a positive review and letting others know about this podcast will help a great deal. My mission is to help empower organizations that matter by supporting those who lead them. I offer coaching, mentoring and consulting services. You can learn more about me@racetoni.com.