Podcast appearances and mentions of seth levine

Podcast guest 744 is Seth Levine and during this UFO podcast we looked at his UFO videos and more. Seth Levine is a Star Seed who has experienced a life long contact and interface with many Interdimensional Races; he is well aware of his origin in terms of the central sun and his SOL stream which has held many positions in and above this game grid simultaneously. Seth has realized that he is a catalyst in people's lives as a facet of the Higher Force here on Earth; and not only has he been Initiated into the Great Mystery; he also holds position to assist this process with others. Seth is also a kambo practitioner; a multidimensional healer, he knows how to read the field on a multidimensional level; and also has proved it on certain levels of disclosure with the hard evidence we are going to share here in this Segment. Seth's YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@solarlion144 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jeffrey-s-reynolds/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jeffrey-s-reynolds/support

On this week's pod ep I sit down for a chat with Seth Levine, Partner of Foundry. Seth has played a significant role in shaping the venture ecosystem over the past two decades and is known for his work in accelerating the democratization of innovation outside of Silicon Valley.We cover a range of topics but do a double click on the importance of having a clear intention and plan for the future of a venture firm, which includes the need for VCs to adopt a business-building mindset. We agree that venture capital firms need to be better at running their own businesses and making strategic decisions for the long term, especially if the goal is to have the firm outlive its founders.Seth is amazing and shares valuable insights into the dynamics of the venture capital industry and the efforts to advance society through entrepreneurship, a topic he covers in his book The New Builders. We chat about that book, plus the new one he's currently working on (which I can't wait to read).Overall, this was a great chat. Big thanks to Seth for coming on the pod!LinksGuest Links: Book | The New Builders by Seth Levine, Article | A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its ProfitsFollow us on Twitter: @sether, @foundryvc, @newbuildersbook, @mpd, @interplayPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn

Should you take venture money? "You really need to be up for growing a business, growing it relatively quickly, and finding an exit." — Seth LevineOn this episode of Authentically Successful, Carol interviews Seth, the managing director and co-founder of Foundry Group. The venture capital firm was formed in 2007 and has now grown to 75 employees. You'll hear about Seth's winding journey from majoring in psychology and thinking he would become a professor to working long hours at an investment bank to eventually leading a large company. He talks about the founding of Foundry Group and the world of venture capital. According to Seth, taking venture capital is not always the best course of action for entrepreneurs and they should do their research carefully before taking the plunge.They also discuss Seth's first book called “The New Builders: Face to Face With the True Future of Business” and the surprising facts about entrepreneurism today. BIOSeth Levine is a successful venture capitalist and co-founder of Foundry Group, a venture capital firm based in Boulder, Colorado. In 2007, Seth and his team faced numerous challenges while raising their first fund, and he even considered finding another job to support himself after investing his life savings in the company. However the fund finally came together, and Seth and his team have since experienced great success in the world of venture capitalism.Learn more about Seth Levine and Foundry Group.You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

0:00 -- Intro.2:10 -- Start of interview.3:00 -- Henry's "origin story". His other book "China's Superbank: Debt, Oil and Influence - How China Development Bank is Rewriting the Rules of Finance") (2012)5:03 -- His current role at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.6:09 -  The origin of his book Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green (2022).10:09 --  On the new battery age and the origin of lithium-ion batteries for EVs.12:53 -- On Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and its founder Robin Zeng.18:34 -- On the Chinese lithium industry and its champions Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi Lithium. "They had a golden period where they could pick up assets globally, but now the West is catching up." Example: Government of Canada orders the divestiture of investments by foreign companies in Canadian critical minerals companies.21:10 -- About Tianqi's $4bn acquisition of SQM's stake in Chile. [Disclosure: I wrote about this case in 2018 here, here and most recently in my latest newsletter, here.] On the future of the Lithium Triangle (Chile, Argentina and Bolivia) for the global lithium supply chain. The unclear future of lithium in Chile, the government has hinted on the creation of a new Chilean national lithium company. "It's a once in a 100-year opportunity, are they just going to sit back and lose out on market share? This opportunity does not come very often."27:09 -- On the new US industrial policy to foster the EV and battery industry (and divest from China). The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS & Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (“the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history”) combined will invest more than $135 billion to build America's EV future, including critical minerals sourcing and processing and battery manufacturing. The impact for the global supply chain, particularly in Latin America, Africa and rest of the world.33:03-- On geopolitics, ESG and sustainability of the global battery supply chain and EVs generally. The problem of greenwashing. Amnesty International's report on Cobalt in Africa (2016) "This is What We Die For" (on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the global trade in Cobalt). "Chinese consumers are also getting more environmentally conscious."38:02  -- On the challenges of the energy transition from ICE vehicles to EVs. The importance of renewable energy. "Clean energy clusters will become very important."40:09  -- On energy security, cleaner battery producers (example Northvolt from Sweden), the rise of Gigafactories, the shift to EVs from global OEMs (A Reuters analysis of 37 global automakers found that they plan to invest nearly $1.2 trillion in electric vehicles and batteries through 2030) and the future of jobs in this industry. "Vehicle manufacturing employment, which stands at 13.6 million globally, already employs 10% of its workforce in the manufacture of EVs, their components and batteries." (see IEA world energy employment report). "It is a race for the jobs of the future, and that's where the West has lost out. That's what making this industry so critical." "But the West will definitely catch up, I'm very optimistic about the U.S."46:03 -- On whether the U.S. will encourage more mining in the US to bridge this gap. "The mining industry has not done a good job at convincing the public that this is what is needed. People who support clean energy find it hard to support mining. That's the crux of the issue."48:14 -- On Tesla, and whether they will move upstream in the supply chain with more refining or mining. And their China operations and supply chain dependence.53:19 -- The 1-3 books that have greatly influenced his life:The Quiet American, by Graham Greene (1955)Books by Somerset MaughamDeng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, by Ezra Vogel (2011)Other books he recommends on the battery global supply chain:Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy, by Seth Fletcher (2011)The Powerhouse: America, China, and the Great Battery War, by Seth Levine (2016)The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment, by Peter Dauvergne (2008)55:28 -- Who were your mentors, and what did you learn from them? Michael Forsythe, now with the NYT. When he was in China working for Bloomberg, working with investigative journalists.56:23 -- Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by? "Sooner or later...one has to take sides – if one is to remain human." by Graham Greene.57:18 --  The person he most admires: Greta Thunberg.Henry Sanderson is a journalist and author of Volt Rush, the Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green. He's currently an Executive Editor at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the leading provider of data and information on the battery industry. Before that he covered commodities and mining for the Financial Times for seven years in London. He was previously a reporter for Bloomberg News in Beijing, where he co-authored a book about China's financial system and state capitalism, China's Superbank. He grew up in Hong Kong and lived and worked in China for seven years.  __ You can follow Henry on social media at:Twitter: @hjesanderson__ You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Seth Levine is a Co-author of "The New Builders", a book that brings you Face to Face with the true future of business. A long-time venture capitalist, Seth is a co-founder and Managing Director of Foundry Group, a Boulder, CO based venture firm. He's a passionate advocate for entrepreneurship, Seth also spends time as an advisor to venture funds and companies around the world. In this episode we talk about: -How Seth started Foundry? -Reverse Inflation in Venture Capital -All about his book The New Builders -Why e thinks entrepreneurship in the US is in a state of decline and a lot more.. Links mentioned: Get the book: https://thenewbuilders.com/ Seth's blog: https://sethlevine.com/ Foundry Website: https://foundry.vc/ Follow Seth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sether Follow Seth on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethjlevine/ Full episode blog at https://vc10x.com/the-new-builders

About my Guest: Seth Levine, CFA is a professional, institutional investor and creator of The Integrating Investor website. His investing experience spans a variety of markets, products, and mandates. Seth uses The Integrating Investor to explore macroeconomic and investment strategy related themes that results from his varied experiences and studies. Seth holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and is a CFA charterholder. You can learn more about Seth at www.integratinginvestor.com and follow him on Twitter at @SethLevine2. What we Discussed: - Understanding Crypto - Mt. Gox - Thought on what happened with Luna - The Financial Market - The Dot Com Bubble - Bitcoin is not for Social Justice - Trend Investing - The Bitcoin Whitepaper - Understanding NFT's - Manage your Risks and more ============================ All Episodes can be found at www.thecryptopodcast.org All Social Media, Coaching + Donations link https://bio.link/podcaster Our Facebook Group can be found at https://www.facebook.com/thecryptopodcast Video https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjZ0gSSEA7wjORL4tgKrDqw --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/roy-coughlan8/message

Seth Levine, CFA is a professional, institutional investor and creator of The Integrating Investorwebsite. He also hosts a weekly YouTube show. Seth uses The Integrating Investor to exploremacroeconomic and investment strategy-related themes that result from his varied experiences and studies.Seth holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and is a CFA charter holder. You can learn more about Seth at www.integratinginvestor.com and follow him on Twitter at @SethLevine2. Support the show

In this podcast Seth Levine shares his story on how he became an institutional investor. Seth shares his understanding and knowledge of the markets but more specifically the crypto market. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stockshowdown/message

With this episode, we continue our podcast series in celebration of Women's History Month. Meet co-authors of The New Builders - Elizabeth MacBride, business journalist and Founder of the Times of Entrepreneurship, and Seth Levine, a venture capitalist and Partner at Foundry Group. Together with Dr. Rebecca Corbin and podcast producer Nataliia Berezhna, they explore the changing nature of entrepreneurship in America today and define its future success. Learn more about how NACCE and Everyday Entrepreneur Venture Fund support local economies via entrepreneurship, and share your stories with us on Twitter @NACCE. 

On June 24th, 2021, Seth Levine joined High Alpha Partner Kristian Andersen for a conversation about his new book, The New Builders, and his career working with startups for 20+ years. Seth Levine is currently involved in venture capital investing as well as operational, transactional, and advisory roles at both public and private companies. He is a Partner and Co-Founder of the Foundry Group.  Seth Levine began his venture capital career at Mobius Venture Capital. Prior to Mobius Venture Capital, Seth Levine joined FirstWorld Communications, which is a restart of a data communications company. He then led the IPO process for FirstWorld's IPO in 2000 and negotiated simultaneous equity investments from Microsoft, SAIC, and Lucent Technologies. In this episode, we revisit Seth's Speaker Series where you'll learn: The catalyst for his latest book, The New Builders  Current and future state of entrepreneurship Stories about new builders making an impact in their local communities

Seth Levine, CFA is a professional, institutional investor and creator of The Integrating Investorwebsite. He also hosts a weekly YouTube show. Seth uses The Integrating Investor to exploremacroeconomic and investment strategy-related themes that result from his varied experiences and studies.Seth holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and is a CFA charter holder. You can learn more about Seth at www.integratinginvestor.com and follow him on Twitter at @SethLevine2. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/back2basicsmode?fan_landing=true)

Seth Levine is a founding partner of Foundry Group, one of the largest networks of entrepreneurs and early-stage investors in the country, and a co-founder of Pledge 1%, a global movement that encourages and empowers companies of all sizes and stages to donate 1% of their assets to charity. To purchase The New Builders, visit https://thenewbuilders.com/ Check out Foundry + Pledge 1%: https://www.foundrygroup.com/

We get to hear a fresh and interesting perspective in this new conversation on the CryptoTenX Podcast. Co-host and co-founder of BAND Royalty NFTs Barnaby Andersun talks about bitcoin and NFTs from an investor's side, bringing on Seth Levine, long-time investment advisor and blog poster on subjects such as crypto, NFTs, and even the metaverse. Gain insight and clarity on the real reason behind such a muddled variety of opinions on bitcoin. Finally, see the value of investing in crypto's technology versus the value of investing in crypto's rising financial popularity without pit-falling into a perception Seth has found all too often. Find out what gets Barnaby excited about Seth's insights: “I love what you just said, there!” 3 Key TakeawaysWhy you should be careful not to conflate technology value with the investing value of bitcoinWhy there is so much muddled and diversified thinking around bitcoinLooking at NFTs from an investment standpointResourcesThe Integrating Investor Podcast: theintegratinginvestor.com (sign up for a monthly email)Twitter: @SethLevine2Instagram: @theintegratinginvestorCheck out his article: “Bitcoin Doesn't Fix DeFi, DeFi Fixes Bitcoin”

*Disclaimer - The interview is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing mentioned throughout the video is intended as investment advice.*On todays podcast I am happy to be hosting Seth Levine CFA, Creator of the Integrating Investor Blog.On todays episode we talk about how the financial crisis changed everything,  changing the definition of Growth and Value stocks and the Eurodollar phenomenon. I hope you enjoy! Seth is an analyst with 18 years of experience investing in equities, hybrids, credit derivatives, corporate bonds, levered loans, and high yield bonds in more than a dozen industries and for varying investment mandates. He is an independent thinker and writer able to identify and critically analyze key investment themes across multiple markets.The opinions and views expressed by Seth in the video are solely his own and do not reflect those of his current or any former employer.Seth - Blog - https://integratinginvestor.com/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-levine-cfa-1a708912/Twitter - https://twitter.com/SethLevine2Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theintegratinginvestor/WTFinance:Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wtfinancee/Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/67rpmjG92PNBW0doLyPvfnTikTok - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeUjj9xV/iTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wtfinance/id1554934665?uo=4Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-fatseas-761066103/Twitter - https://twitter.com/AnthonyFatseas

I'm an accidental entrepreneur. I started Box of Crayons about twenty years ago because I had just been fired from the job I had, and I was slowly coming to realise that I was largely unemployable - not because I didn't have some skills, but because I wasn't good with bosses and hierarchy. I'm also a barely-adequate entrepreneur. Both companies I've started have had some success, and just keeping a company going for twenty years is commendable. But I'm not going to be making an appearance on Shark Tank or Dragon's Den anytime soon. The truth of it is that I don't think I'm an entrepreneur at all. It's too loaded and fancy a word, and sort of implies that I'm trying to create a billion-dollar business. Maybe I'm just confused - what is an entrepreneur, anyway?  Seth Levine is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, right at the heart of being and thinking about entrepreneurship. I think you'll find Seth to be a little different from your typical Silicon Valley tech guru. Get‌ ‌book‌ ‌links‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌at‌ https://www.mbs.works/2-pages-podcast/  Seth reads two pages from ‘Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital' by Carlota Perez. [reading begins at 16:08] Hear us discuss:  “There are lots of people who have great business ideas, but don't have the capital to start their businesses.” [25:00] | What makes a new founder? [26:00] | Finding the balance between purpose and profit. [28:52] | Misconceptions of entrepreneurship. [33:31] | Being a good ally: “A lot of people in power don't think about their ability to affect other people by extending their network.” [36:33]

Seth Levine is a professional institutional investor and creator of The Integrating Investor website. He uses The Integrating Investor to explore more abstract investment ideas that result from his varied experiences and studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seth Levine & Elizabeth MacBride of The New Builders joins Nick to discuss The Decline of Entrepreneurship in America, Systemic Inequity in Supporting Small Businesses, and the "Capital vs. Labor" Debate. In this episode we cover: Why did you write the book? I'd actually like to start w/ Chapter 6, which is a history of entrepreneurship in the US… we can't really do it justice in the interview but can you give us an overview of the history and where we are at today? You cover that entrepreneurship has been declining in the US for the past 40 years and more significantly within the past 15. What are some of the big factors that have led to that decline? Why are entrepreneurship and new business creation so important for the future of our country and society? How does the Silicon Valley version of entrepreneurship differ from the reality of entrepreneurship? What does the real profile of entrepreneurship look like vs. what we see in the data on the tech / venture-funded part of entrepreneurship? What can Main Street entrepreneurs learn from the Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship? You did a lot of research and pulled together data sets/stats for the book — what were some of the most surprising findings from the data? Can you define the ‘capital vs. labor' debate for us and give us your stance on that debate? Is this book a call-to-action… are you trying to encourage more broad-based entrepreneurship? Seth, how do you reconcile your interests and recommendations from the book with your career which is geared toward funding a very small percentage of founders that are focused on building multi-billion dollar outcomes? You address some issues that are systemic to our country -- government policies, economic system, etc. -- How big of a role do you think politics have in shaping entrepreneurship for the future? What advice or final thoughts would you like to share w/ listeners? Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. The host of The Full Ratchet is Nick Moran, General Partner of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in the exceptions. To learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our Website and LinkedIn and be sure to follow us on Twitter. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and tell us about your business. We'll send a list of possible investors right to your email's InBox!

A new class of entrepreneurs is taking the business world by storm. They're called “New Builders,” and we need them now more than ever before. Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride, authors of the book The New Builders: Face to Face With the True Future of Business, have a few ideas on how to support and celebrate them. In this episode of PIVOT, Seth and Elizabeth join the show to discuss how to level the playing field for new entrepreneurs and why the future of small business is so crucial to the US economy. On this episode, you'll hear: [01:29-02:26] What motivates Seth and Elizabeth about small business [03:00-05:06] The “new builders” starting businesses today and why we need them [05:16-07:23] The obstacles entrepreneurs must overcome to start a small business today [07:23 -09:01] How Seth and Elizabeth helped reshape Congress' PPP legislation [09:02-10:14] Why the venture model is ineffective for broad economic development [10:14-11:28] Unicorns vs. camels [11:28-14:48] The lack of media attention for new builders, and why you can't always trust the numbers [14:49-17:23] The extraordinary story of Sweet Grace Heavenly Cakes [17:23-19:22] How small business engages employees differently and why it works [19:44-23:16] The difference entrepreneurial grit, passion, and resilience makes [23:16-25:27] Why Seth and Elizabeth are optimistic about the future of small businesses After you listen:  Check out Seth and Elizabeth's book: The New Builders: Face to Face With the True Future of Business Order your copy of our book People Operations: Zenefits.com/pops-book Follow the podcast Submit your People Ops questions: https://www.zenefits.com/workest/ask-a-question/

Executive Chef Seth Levine takes us on a flavorful journey through his Top 9 New York City Restaurants. Bon Appe-podcast! Top 9 is a weekly podcast hosted by comedian Tom Cassidy, with Adele Carollo that features a special guest who gives a personal top 9 list of their choosing. Subscribe and write review on iTunes: Watch and subscribe on Youtube: @Top9pod @cassidycomedy @lavoro_adele @chefsethlevine

Ryan reads today's daily meditation and talks to Venture Capitalist and Author Brad Feld about his new book The Entrepreneur's Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors, the common misinterpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy and life, why entrepreneurs have to focus attention inward toward self-improvement, and more. Brad Feld is an American entrepreneur, author, blogger, and venture capitalist at Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mendelson. Feld began financing technology startups in the early 1990s, first as an angel and later an institutional investor. Feld was an early investor in Harmonix, Zynga, MakerBot, and Fitbit. He is also the author of several books including Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist and The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Talkspace lets you send and receive unlimited messages with your dedicated therapist in the Talkspace platform 24/7. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com or download the app. Make sure to use the code STOIC to get $100 off of your first month and show your support for the show.DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization with a heavy-duty in-vehicle storage system featuring slide out toolboxes. DECKED makes organizing, accessing, protecting, and securing everything you need so much easier. Get your DECKED Drawer System at Decked.com/STOIC and get free shipping.LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It's the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Brad Feld: Homepage, TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“I'm a classic case of reinvention in the middle of life,” says Elizabeth MacBride, founder of the Times of Entrepreneurship (https://timesofe.com/), a website that reports on entrepreneurship, and co-author with Seth Levine of the new book, “The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business” (https://amzn.to/3g50weh). “Seven years ago I went through divorce that left me without a job….I had seven thousand dollars in my bank account. The mortgage was $2500 dollars and my only career was as a part time writer.” MacBride, however, noticed a hole in the market at the intersection of finance and entrepreneurship and wondered why no journalist was covering it. “[The website] worked because it's business and finance,” she says. “It was the only area that paid writers at all….I was willing to combine the storytelling with finance.” MacBride speaks with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, about how to ask for employment help from friends and associates and how to really know your value.    FREE GIFT! Don't start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub's starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Part 4 of this exciting episode, CEO of Destiny Podcast "Who are the New Builders?' I had the honor of interviewing Seth and Elizabeth about their new thought provoking book. We talk about economics, commerce, education, media, financing your business venture as well as the role that narrative plays in shaping our perceptions on entrepreneurship and small business development. Who are those driving 40% of our economy and job creation? How large of a role do banks play in financing new businesses? Is Silicon Valley the gold standard for how we see pioneering entrepreneurs? Take a listen, share the episode and let us know your thoughts on the conversation. What do you see as the future of our economy? Like, Share, Subscribe, and Write a Comment Enjoy! AJB The New Builders https://thenewbuilders.com/ ***** About Seth Levine: A long-time venture capitalist Seth Levine works with venture funds and companies around the globe. His day job is as a partner at Foundry Group, a Boulder, CO based venture capital firm he co-founded in 2006 which as of the end of 2020 had almost $3 billion in assets under management. Easily distracted and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurship, Seth also spends time as an advisor to venture funds and companies around the world. A passionate cyclist, above-average skier, and general fan of all things outdoors, Seth and his wife live in Colorado with their three children. He is the co-author of The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business. Twitter: https://twitter.com/sether?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sethlevine/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethjlevine/ ***** About Elizabeth MacBride: Elizabeth MacBride is an award-winning journalist and an entrepreneur with deep expertise in finance, technology and entrepreneurship. She has talked her way into Gaza for a story, reported on changemakers in Nairobi's Kibera slum, and written stories about entrepreneurs everywhere from Northern Idaho to Helena, Arkansas, to Phnom Penh. With venture capitalist Seth Levine, she is co-author of The New Builders. She is the founder of Times of Entrepreneurship, a weekly web publication covering the emerging ecosystem of diverse founders, launched in Feb. 2020, with support from the Kauffman Foundation and Walton Family Foundation. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.macbride.7 Twitter: https://twitter.com/editoremacb Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth.macbride/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-macbride-85a3806/

What if everything you've been told about business is wrong? Elizabeth MacBride and Seth Levine tackle our greatest misconceptions about entrepreneurship in their book, The New Builders. In this week's episode, we learn about the next generation of business owners (hint, it's not young white men) and how they're changing the world. Get The New Builders at https://thenewbuilders.com/

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Seth Levine and Elizabeth Macbride, authors of the new book, The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business. We talk about the current and future state of entrepreneurship and hear some stories about new builders making an impact in their local communities. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help you rethink, reset, and remix yourself and your organization. Each week, we'll bring the latest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses, as well as the tools, tactics, and trends you'll need to thrive as a new innovator.Interview Transcript with Seth Levine and Elizabeth Macbride, Authors of The New BuildersBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have some amazing guests. Today, we have Seth Levine and Elizabeth Macbride, authors of the new book, The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business. Welcome to the show. Elizabeth Macbride: Thank you very much.Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you on. Let me start out with a little background and bios for our audience. Among other things, Seth, you are the co-founder of the venture capital firm Foundry Group and Pledge 1%, which is a global network of companies that have pledged equity and time and product back to local communities.And Elizabeth, you are an award-winning business journalist, and founder of Times of Entrepreneurship, which is a new publication covering entrepreneurs beyond Silicon Valley, which is a topic near and dear to our heart. So welcome to the show. The first question I want to start with is what's the current state of entrepreneurship and what led you to write this book?Elizabeth Macbride: So, the current state of entrepreneurship in the United States is not nearly as good as people think it is. We concluded after our two years of working on the book, that entrepreneurship in the US is in this, in a state of profound decline. It's been declining over the past 40 years for a whole host of reasons. And I know we'll get into that some more. But I'll just answer the question as well about how we came to write the book, which is that I'm the original, like overlooked, not the original one, but an overlooked founder myself. Right. So I got a divorce seven years ago and had to reinvent my career pretty fast as a business journalist to feed my two kids. In doing that, I ended up founding this publication times of entrepreneurship. And along that journey met Seth, who has, a side specialty to being a venture capitalist, which is really supporting overlooked entrepreneurs. And so, we bonded over that and decided to write a book two years ago. That's how it came about.Seth Levine: Brian, I guess I'd add to that. We knew that there were really interesting stories, right? You tell many of them on your podcast of people building businesses that were for starters outside of Silicon Valley, and the big tech hubs. But also, really interesting businesses, but that weren't necessarily these sort of high growth tech focused businesses.And we wanted to tell their stories. Frankly, we thought it'd be kind of a lighthearted book. Interesting look at some founders that maybe were a little bit different than what people think of when they think of founders. But as we did all the research, we realized for starters, what Elizabeth just described, which is that entrepreneurship in the US is actually dying.And then we also learned that the types of people that are starting new businesses are very different than those people realize. Specifically, that the majority of new business owners are black, brown, female, and also quite a bit older than most people realize. And that, we realized as we came across these data, that these stories really need to be told. That it sort of went from a lighthearted, Hey, this will be fun. And we'll tell some interesting stories of people doing things out of the mainstream media eye. To, oh wow, there are some critical stories that we need to be telling here because we have a window here to change the trajectory of entrepreneurship in the us, and we'd act on it. Brian Ardinger: You know, and I think that's one of the things that we obviously talk about, you know, Tech Crunch and you hear the stories of the unicorns and things along those lines. And obviously that's important and that. But can you define, like, what is entrepreneurship to you? It's not just the tech giants that we're hearing about. How do you define a new builder? And what's the difference that you saw out there? Elizabeth Macbride: The way entrepreneurship traditionally has been defined is broader than the way it's currently defined. And so, when we looked at it and really, there's no reason why we should think of entrepreneurship as only the tech founders of Silicon Valley. They're part of the universe. They're not really the center of the universe. And definitely not the entire universe right. They're maybe 1% of all businesses in the US get venture capital funding.So, the fact that we're so consumed by that is sort of crazy. Because the other 99% are in fact, the drivers of a lot of jobs, they're actually drivers of innovation, we would argue as well. And they support and are part of our communities in just a host of important, different ways. And as the economy transitions, I think they're going to be even more important. So we define entrepreneurs as a very fundamental basic thing, right. They're  people starting businesses. Seth Levine: And that's always been the case in the US. And really, if you look back, I mean, certainly the US was founded by entrepreneurs. I mean, in some cases, quite literally, right? The Massachusetts Bay Companies, you know, all of these initial settlers that came over were essentially entrepreneurs, right? Who are in business ventures to go and settle new land and send raw goods and other materials back to Europe? And still, we have this long history of entrepreneurship and something changed in the last maybe 30 years or so, where the concept of entrepreneurship, use to be very broadly defined a shopkeeper is an entrepreneur, a local business owner was an entrepreneur.It got eaten up by the tech narrative, right? And this idea that the only entrepreneurs that were worth talking about were technology, business founders, and frankly, the only businesses that were worth talking about in the entrepreneurship context are businesses that are, have this aspiration for growth. Right? You referenced unicorns. And we think that that's incredibly dangerous to the overall dinosaur and frankly just the health of the US economy, because it really only describes such a small number of businesses. And frankly, and I say this from inside the world of venture capital, I'm not convinced that venture is a very good model for creating. Certainly, it's not a good model for creating broad-based economic development. Right. I mean, we know it can create some really big companies. And by the way, those companies are incredibly important. And other businesses end up being built on those companies. So Shopify or Google, like those are incredible innovations that help other small businesses, but it's just, it's not the only thing. And I think we've sort of lost sight of that. So it's, we don't argue in the book that, you know, that big is bad, for example, and small is good. We argue that there should be a balance just like we don't argue that venture capital should go away or anything crazy like that venture is great. But we talk about needing to create not just unicorns, but camels. So much more party actually real and not mythical, you know, animals that, you know, businesses that are sustainable and, and, you know, really are the drivers of our economy.Brian Ardinger: So you mentioned in the book, the research and that, around entrepreneurship and that it's going down and there's challenges around that. What is hindering the rise of new builders? Elizabeth Macbride: There's a lot, that's hindering a rise of new builders. You know, what we focused on in the book is really finance and that's the world that Seth and I both come from. So, we felt like we had a lot to say about it. And it's probably, I think it's deeply woven with the question of networks, but right, businesses need capital to grow. They just do. Like, we've also gotten consumed by this myth that what you need is grit, or perseverance in that, yes, that's all true. But we found so much grit and so much perseverance in the new builders that we interviewed. What they were missing was access to capital. And that is happening for a whole bunch of reasons.But maybe the clearest thing to say is that our system of community banking is really broken down. And I think that's the most direct tie. The other kind of pervasive issue is that the new builders reflect the increasing diversity of our country. So, they're women and people of color, immigrants, as they always have been, and older people. And they're really disconnected from the networks that also lead to that access to capital Brian Ardinger: in the book, you talk about something that really resonated this idea of a ghost startup or these companies that will never be created because of the lack of access to capital and things like that. Can you talk and explain a little bit more about that topic and the impact of that? Seth Levine: Hard for us to understand sometimes as Americans. Or really it's just humans, the thing that doesn't exist, right. We can look at the company that's true and see it was successful or it failed. Right. But what we struggle with is understanding businesses that just never got off the ground. And there's actually been some research that has studied this. And it sounds so simplistic.  But it's not right. I mean, Elizabeth describes capital is a key asset for starting businesses. And there have been some studies that looked at businesses that had more or less access to capital. And what they found is that there was no real difference in the innate qualities, right? The talent, the grit, those things that, that will make someone successful for people who had access to capital. And who didn't have access to capital in their businesses. But of course, there was a huge gap in terms of the success of those businesses. Companies that have access to capital, are more likely to be successful. And I think that's something that we really need to address.  And then Elizabeth talked about 1% of businesses receiving money from formalized institutional capital, like venture, which surprises most people.I think most people in our world think that it's a much larger, I mean, it's a big dollar amount, but it's a small number of companies. Which just goes to show you just how many more mainstream companies are actually being started out there. But only about 17% of businesses take money from banks. And so Elizabeth talked about a community banking system. We clearly need to bolster that system and increase the 17%. But we also need to recognize that a large number of businesses never take any formalized capital. They raise money from friends, family, you know, aunts, uncles, or they use a home equity line. And what's happening is that unfortunately people who don't have access to capital and don't have wealth built up over generations are struggling to start businesses. And this is diametrically opposed now to the people who are starting businesses, because the wealth gap in the United States, as many listeners may realize is 10 X between, the average white family, the average black family. That's true across every income level. That's true across every educational level as well.And the wealth gap as well for people from Hispanic origin is not quite as bad, but it's seven to one. So, at the same time that we're really relying on people's own capital sources to get them going, we're also the type of person who starting a business is shifting to the group of people that are less likely to have those personal capital resources.We need to address that. And we talk about in the book about a number of ways that we might, adapt, change, augment, help, better support our existing systems of finance to do a better job of supporting these new builders. Brian Ardinger: Are you seeing particular communities or particular areas of the US doing better when it comes to this fostering, this new builder?Elizabeth Macbride: That's a good and interesting question, actually. So, we did focus in the book on one particular community. We just ended up telling some woven stories about Stanton, Virginia. Which in a holistic way, I think did a ton to rejuvenate their community by entrepreneurship. So they started a community loan fund.  They have an angel network for that is like wealthy people in the community investing small sums in companies aren't necessarily tech businesses, but it could be like a pie company or whatever. They have both of those things going on. And then there's like, just a bunch of other community support. There's a maker-space there that I went down and visited. And it turned itself around that way. Right. On the foundation of some revitalization efforts that started in the eighties where some visionary business leaders downtown said, Whoa, we are not going to like destroy our historic downtown. Instead, we're going to, push really hard to preserve it. And on that foundation, the community was really able to rebuild itself economically.And its population is rising, which is kind of like the most basic measure, of community's health. Right. And actually, like super inspiring things during the pandemic. I mean, it ended up, of course it was suffering along with small, with communities everywhere, where small businesses were hurt so badly. And it also had a terrible flood in August that had like a storm cell just park over it and dump like eight inches.So enormous amount of rain washed out the downtown. You know, there were like cars floating around and as we reported it, we wrote about it for CNBC as well. And it's in the book as well. The community really came together. And there were people like digging out mud from storefronts to get their small businesses back up and running. It's inspiring what is happening in communities across the country that are pulling together. Seth Levine: So that's a story that sort of a physical, like a geographic community coming together. And it's a really good example of one. They took a long-term view. Lots of people got involved. There was a lot of buy-in.And, you know, a lot of what, like my partner, Brad Feld wrote the book, Startup Communities, a lot of what Brad and Ian his coauthor talk about in Startup Communities, I think was true in Stanton, but the other types of communities that we talk about a lot in the book are these sort of communities of like-minded people, right? And especially in this day and age, those don't need to be bounded by geography. Certainly the book is a hopeful book, Brian, and we talk about ways in which we believe that entrepreneurship can be revitalized. But we talk about some of these communities systibiz  in Denver or Ohub or digital and divided. EforAll we talk a ton about them. That, you know, these are all various communities of people that come together to help support new builder businesses. Some of them are place-based E for all works in certain locations. We talk about some of those, cause we, one of the entrepreneurs we highlight went through their program in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Others are a little bit more virtual, right? Where they might help people all over the place or bring people in together. But Silicon Valley has always been great at that. Right. And you know, there's so many stories of, I mean, how many accelerators are there in the world? Right? The Foundry, my venture firm, my day job, is the biggest investor in Techstars, which is one of the larger ones.And that's a great model, but how do we bring that. The network and the help that comes from being surrounded by a community of people that want to see you be successful? How do we bring that to new builders? And I think one of the things that we learned that scared us is that many people starting businesses feel like they're out on an Island and they're alone and they don't have resources to help them out. And that's why the community banking system that Elizabeth alluded to earlier is so important. We, it turned out, we were not seeking out community banking stories, but it turned out a number of the new builders that we talked to, their business trajectories were totally changed by, you know, what's in many cases, seemed like a chance meeting with a community banker who really spent some time to understand the business and then help them figure out how to finance it.Brian Ardinger: Well, and it comes back to capital is more than just the cash and the actual dollars that you put into it. It's capital of that network. Like you said, the ability to actually even find a, a banker in your backyard that you can form a relationship with and build that trust. And, you know, eventually leads to the, the capital capital you need to build a business. Seth Levine: Here's a statistic that should scare everyone. 25 years ago, there were 14,000 banks in the United States. Today there are 4,800. Most of that consolidation has happened in the smaller end of the scale, as we've created, essentially these utilities out of banks, by the regulations that we put on top of the banking system.And so obviously some of those regulations were warranted. There were banks that were, you know, engaging in predatory lending behavior or behaviors and you know, needed to be curbed. But, it perhaps went a little bit too far. And the result of that is what we're seeing in terms of the consolidation of banking, which is not good for anyone.Brian Ardinger: So, you mentioned the pandemic and obviously that's had an effect, but some of those trends were happening before the pandemic. How do you see the pandemic affecting entrepreneurship, both good and bad?Elizabeth Macbride: Well, traditionally, there's a surge in entrepreneurship after a big economic downturn, right. Because people lose their jobs. And so, they like to start businesses because they're trying to pay the bills. And we've seen evidence that that's happening right. There was a huge surge in new business applications in the fall. So September, October. I think, you know, that's on one hand, a hopeful sign. On the other hand, we think those people will have a harder time starting businesses than say they would have 20 or 30 years ago, because of all the changes that we described in the book. There's a huge number of people that are entrepreneurial in the United States and want to be entrepreneurial as evidenced by the participation in the gig economy, which is 60 million people in 2019. But making the leap from that to becoming a business owner and a small business owner, and there are so many benefits to making that leap.That's what's become much more difficult, right? Is formalizing yourself into a business. And I just want to add here, because I think your listeners might be really interested to think about exactly how that word entrepreneurship was co-opted because when we looked into the research and of course I'm a wordsmith and Seth is a word lover, too. We discovered that it was Ronald Reagan. Right. Who figured out that he could sort of marry the ideas that were coming out of Silicon Valley, this vision of the aggressive sort of free thinking, innovative entrepreneur from the tech world. And he used the word entrepreneur to describe only those people and use that as sort of like a push for global democracy and capitalism.You know, he just synthesized all these ideas into that word. Silicon Valley, the marketing genius's  took it and ran with it. And an important thread in that was this libertarian idea. That I think is really holding back some of the things that we could do to support the broader world of entrepreneurship.Because if you buy into that myth, that entrepreneurs grew up, that they're libertarians. That it is a concept. It's the free market. Then you don't invest in some of the social safety net programs or the government support. You don't pay that much attention to government regulation. I mean, so many CEOs in Silicon Valley have said to me, government's always behind, right? We don't need to worry about it. Like we'll just succeed despite them. And that is really not reflecting the true history of Silicon Valley at all. Brian Ardinger: Yeah, it's quite ironic because a lot of obviously Silicon Valley came from the rise of government dollars going into defense and other things that were, that provided that R and D and original push to start some of this amazing stuff. Elizabeth Macbride: Yeah, exactly. Right. And it's just disturbing the extent to which that piece of the story is left out. Right. And it looks like a very convenient retelling of the history. Seth Levine: And I think it's also important to note that, you know, the government, we've talked about this a little bit, not a lot in the book. But government spending is not bad right on research and development. And in fact, there's some quite a bit of evidence that companies are not always great at spending on R and D, especially as they get larger, right. A lot of innovation comes smaller companies, but then when companies get larger than they don't necessarily invest in R and D.And a great example of just that inaction was the, the tax cuts that were enacted a couple of years ago, where, you know, the deal was that we were going to give companies a trillion-dollar tax cut, and they would then invest in their businesses. Right in R and D. And the exact opposite happened. They didn't. And they instead really bought their stock back. Which for any individual business that was looking to increase its share value, that might've been the right thing to do.But it suggests that the people running those businesses certainly felt like investing in buying their stock back was a better bet than invest in R & D because they just simply didn't know where to put it. Brian Ardinger: So, let's talk a bit about some of your favorite stories in the book. Who are some of the entrepreneurs you met and what are some of the positive, hopeful things that you found through the journey?Seth Levine: There are amazing stories in the book, and I certainly hope that your, that the listeners will go and pick up a copy and really read it. Because I think we really tried to write a book that was balanced in terms of storytelling, but also facts. And hopefully that's coming through on this podcast as well.You know, punctuating the facts with real stories. So, you can get a sense for those facts and action. You know, we think is a really good way for people to understand what's really going on the ground. So one thing that I would probably point out is Isaac Collin, who owns series of Yogurtini businesses in Kansas City.And he's just an incredibly compelling guy. And it's a story of someone who really, you know, with both, persevered and had a lot of grit, but also was helped by others. So he got into business because he won a business plan competition. And by winning that business plan competition, he actually won both the monetary help as well as business helped by this very successful relatively well-known in that area, businessman. And he got to start a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory with this guy. And, and ultimately that was a successful business because he's just a good business person. And he was able to sell that business, use the money, the proceeds from that sale, then to buy his first Yogurtini  business.What I really love about Isaac and this is true of really all the new builders we talked to is his connection to community. And just how important it was for him. He now has three, I think the fourth was not quite open, he's about to open a fourth location of his Yogurtini   businesses around the KC area.And, you know, community for him, isn't even just KC, it's like the individual neighborhoods where those businesses are located. And he has that deep sense of community. And, and it comes through in his business in the way that, you know, people who work at the businesses, open the door for their customers. So, they welcome them in and kids are welcomed to come in and do their book club and, and earn free yogurt. And he's just a great example of a quintessential new builder who is hardworking and has reached out and figured out how to build a network around himself. And has other things going on. He and, and two other women started a yoga series that goes into inner city schools and helps teach kids how to calm and center themselves through yoga. Just as one example, I mean, he's just someone who's constantly giving back. So he really stands out for me as just the quintessential rebuilder. Elizabeth Macbride: I'm so glad you talked about Isaac, because we haven't, we haven't actually talked about him in our interviews so far. I would highlight the entrepreneur who is sort of the center of the book. Her story is woven throughout and that's Danaris Mazara who started her bakery in Lawrence, Massachusetts, literally with $37 in food stamps. You know, she just has this amazing story of lying on her couch. Her husband had lost a job. This was in the great recession. She had a newborn baby. She was like, I don't have enough money to feed my family here. With that $37 in food stamps, she bought the ingredients to make blond sold it at the break table at the Samsung factory where she was working. And it went from there and she was lucky enough in the process of developing her company. So she did those early couple of years with, by herself and with the help of her friends in the community, and then happened on  EforAll which Seth referenced earlier.And I love the EforAll story. And we tell Danaris's story in the context of the founder of EforAll which is Desh Deshpande who was a telecom entrepreneur in the 1990s and made loads and loads of money and gives it back to the world in many different ways. But one of the things he did was found EforAll and he really has some interesting insights that we report in the book about the differences between encouraging entrepreneurs in the main street world and encouraging them in like an MIT or Stanford. Because at MIT or Stanford, there's all these smart people in search of a problem to solve. On the main streets of America and elsewhere, there are million problems in search of a solver. And he really talks in a compelling way about how you encourage both of those communities. And we end the book with Dinaris's as well, and her optimism looking toward the recovery post pandemic. And so, she's incredibly inspiring. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Well, it's definitely exciting to hear those stories and it'll be exciting to see how this plays out as the world changes in front of us. Elizabeth and Seth, if people want to find out more about the book and more about yourselves, what's the best way to do that? Seth Levine: We set up a book website. We'll put it in the show notes, but it's www.thenewbuilders.com. And that's a great place to find out a little bit more about the book. You can read a little bit about us, and most importantly, you can buy the book there. We have links to a number of local booksellers. We're certainly encourage people to consider buying from local independent bookstores, whether it's the handful that we have listed on the site or their own independent bookstore. We do have links to Amazon, to Barnes & Noble of course they're bigger platforms. And those are also great ways to buy the book. There's a Kindle version that will be released. It'll be out by the time this show airs and there will also be an audio book that should be out right around the same time that the show airs as well.Brian Ardinger: Well, Elizabeth and Seth, thank you again for being on Inside Outside Innovation, sharing these stories very much like to continue the conversation and have you back on in the years to come as, as the world evolves. So, appreciate your time. Seth Levine: Thank you, Brian.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. 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On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Seth Levine and Elizabeth Macbride, authors of the new book, The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business. We talk about the current and future state of entrepreneurship and hear some stories about new builders making an impact in their local communities. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help you rethink, reset, and remix yourself and your organization. Each week, we'll bring the latest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses, as well as the tools, tactics, and trends you'll need to thrive as a new innovator.Interview Transcript with Seth Levine and Elizabeth Macbride, Authors of The New BuildersBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have some amazing guests. Today, we have Seth Levine and Elizabeth Macbride, authors of the new book, The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business. Welcome to the show. Elizabeth Macbride: Thank you very much.Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you on. Let me start out with a little background and bios for our audience. Among other things, Seth, you are the co-founder of the venture capital firm Foundry Group and Pledge 1%, which is a global network of companies that have pledged equity and time and product back to local communities.And Elizabeth, you are an award-winning business journalist, and founder of Times of Entrepreneurship, which is a new publication covering entrepreneurs beyond Silicon Valley, which is a topic near and dear to our heart. So welcome to the show. The first question I want to start with is what's the current state of entrepreneurship and what led you to write this book?Elizabeth Macbride: So, the current state of entrepreneurship in the United States is not nearly as good as people think it is. We concluded after our two years of working on the book, that entrepreneurship in the US is in this, in a state of profound decline. It's been declining over the past 40 years for a whole host of reasons. And I know we'll get into that some more. But I'll just answer the question as well about how we came to write the book, which is that I'm the original, like overlooked, not the original one, but an overlooked founder myself. Right. So I got a divorce seven years ago and had to reinvent my career pretty fast as a business journalist to feed my two kids. In doing that, I ended up founding this publication times of entrepreneurship. And along that journey met Seth, who has, a side specialty to being a venture capitalist, which is really supporting overlooked entrepreneurs. And so, we bonded over that and decided to write a book two years ago. That's how it came about.Seth Levine: Brian, I guess I'd add to that. We knew that there were really interesting stories, right? You tell many of them on your podcast of people building businesses that were for starters outside of Silicon Valley, and the big tech hubs. But also, really interesting businesses, but that weren't necessarily these sort of high growth tech focused businesses.And we wanted to tell their stories. Frankly, we thought it'd be kind of a lighthearted book. Interesting look at some founders that maybe were a little bit different than what people think of when they think of founders. But as we did all the research, we realized for starters, what Elizabeth just described, which is that entrepreneurship in the US is actually dying.And then we also learned that the types of people that are starting new businesses are very different than those people realize. Specifically, that the majority of new business owners are black, brown, female, and also quite a bit older than most people realize. And that, we realized as we came across these data, that these stories really need to be told. That it sort of went from a lighthearted, Hey, this will be fun. And we'll tell some interesting stories of people doing things out of the mainstream media eye. To, oh wow, there are some critical stories that we need to be telling here because we have a window here to change the trajectory of entrepreneurship in the us, and we'd act on it. Brian Ardinger: You know, and I think that's one of the things that we obviously talk about, you know, Tech Crunch and you hear the stories of the unicorns and things along those lines. And obviously that's important and that. But can you define, like, what is entrepreneurship to you? It's not just the tech giants that we're hearing about. How do you define a new builder? And what's the difference that you saw out there? Elizabeth Macbride: The way entrepreneurship traditionally has been defined is broader than the way it's currently defined. And so, when we looked at it and really, there's no reason why we should think of entrepreneurship as only the tech founders of Silicon Valley. They're part of the universe. They're not really the center of the universe. And definitely not the entire universe right. They're maybe 1% of all businesses in the US get venture capital funding.So, the fact that we're so consumed by that is sort of crazy. Because the other 99% are in fact, the drivers of a lot of jobs, they're actually drivers of innovation, we would argue as well. And they support and are part of our communities in just a host of important, different ways. And as the economy transitions, I think they're going to be even more important. So we define entrepreneurs as a very fundamental basic thing, right. They're  people starting businesses. Seth Levine: And that's always been the case in the US. And really, if you look back, I mean, certainly the US was founded by entrepreneurs. I mean, in some cases, quite literally, right? The Massachusetts Bay Companies, you know, all of these initial settlers that came over were essentially entrepreneurs, right? Who are in business ventures to go and settle new land and send raw goods and other materials back to Europe? And still, we have this long history of entrepreneurship and something changed in the last maybe 30 years or so, where the concept of entrepreneurship, use to be very broadly defined a shopkeeper is an entrepreneur, a local business owner was an entrepreneur.It got eaten up by the tech narrative, right? And this idea that the only entrepreneurs that were worth talking about were technology, business founders, and frankly, the only businesses that were worth talking about in the entrepreneurship context are businesses that are, have this aspiration for growth. Right? You referenced unicorns. And we think that that's incredibly dangerous to the overall dinosaur and frankly just the health of the US economy, because it really only describes such a small number of businesses. And frankly, and I say this from inside the world of venture capital, I'm not convinced that venture is a very good model for creating. Certainly, it's not a good model for creating broad-based economic development. Right. I mean, we know it can create some really big companies. And by the way, those companies are incredibly important. And other businesses end up being built on those companies. So Shopify or Google, like those are incredible innovations that help other small businesses, but it's just, it's not the only thing. And I think we've sort of lost sight of that. So it's, we don't argue in the book that, you know, that big is bad, for example, and small is good. We argue that there should be a balance just like we don't argue that venture capital should go away or anything crazy like that venture is great. But we talk about needing to create not just unicorns, but camels. So much more party actually real and not mythical, you know, animals that, you know, businesses that are sustainable and, and, you know, really are the drivers of our economy.Brian Ardinger: So you mentioned in the book, the research and that, around entrepreneurship and that it's going down and there's challenges around that. What is hindering the rise of new builders? Elizabeth Macbride: There's a lot, that's hindering a rise of new builders. You know, what we focused on in the book is really finance and that's the world that Seth and I both come from. So, we felt like we had a lot to say about it. And it's probably, I think it's deeply woven with the question of networks, but right, businesses need capital to grow. They just do. Like, we've also gotten consumed by this myth that what you need is grit, or perseverance in that, yes, that's all true. But we found so much grit and so much perseverance in the new builders that we interviewed. What they were missing was access to capital. And that is happening for a whole bunch of reasons.But maybe the clearest thing to say is that our system of community banking is really broken down. And I think that's the most direct tie. The other kind of pervasive issue is that the new builders reflect the increasing diversity of our country. So, they're women and people of color, immigrants, as they always have been, and older people. And they're really disconnected from the networks that also lead to that access to capital Brian Ardinger: in the book, you talk about something that really resonated this idea of a ghost startup or these companies that will never be created because of the lack of access to capital and things like that. Can you talk and explain a little bit more about that topic and the impact of that? Seth Levine: Hard for us to understand sometimes as Americans. Or really it's just humans, the thing that doesn't exist, right. We can look at the company that's true and see it was successful or it failed. Right. But what we struggle with is understanding businesses that just never got off the ground. And there's actually been some research that has studied this. And it sounds so simplistic.  But it's not right. I mean, Elizabeth describes capital is a key asset for starting businesses. And there have been some studies that looked at businesses that had more or less access to capital. And what they found is that there was no real difference in the innate qualities, right? The talent, the grit, those things that, that will make someone successful for people who had access to capital. And who didn't have access to capital in their businesses. But of course, there was a huge gap in terms of the success of those businesses. Companies that have access to capital, are more likely to be successful. And I think that's something that we really need to address.  And then Elizabeth talked about 1% of businesses receiving money from formalized institutional capital, like venture, which surprises most people.I think most people in our world think that it's a much larger, I mean, it's a big dollar amount, but it's a small number of companies. Which just goes to show you just how many more mainstream companies are actually being started out there. But only about 17% of businesses take money from banks. And so Elizabeth talked about a community banking system. We clearly need to bolster that system and increase the 17%. But we also need to recognize that a large number of businesses never take any formalized capital. They raise money from friends, family, you know, aunts, uncles, or they use a home equity line. And what's happening is that unfortunately people who don't have access to capital and don't have wealth built up over generations are struggling to start businesses. And this is diametrically opposed now to the people who are starting businesses, because the wealth gap in the United States, as many listeners may realize is 10 X between, the average white family, the average black family. That's true across every income level. That's true across every educational level as well.And the wealth gap as well for people from Hispanic origin is not quite as bad, but it's seven to one. So, at the same time that we're really relying on people's own capital sources to get them going, we're also the type of person who starting a business is shifting to the group of people that are less likely to have those personal capital resources.We need to address that. And we talk about in the book about a number of ways that we might, adapt, change, augment, help, better support our existing systems of finance to do a better job of supporting these new builders. Brian Ardinger: Are you seeing particular communities or particular areas of the US doing better when it comes to this fostering, this new builder?Elizabeth Macbride: That's a good and interesting question, actually. So, we did focus in the book on one particular community. We just ended up telling some woven stories about Stanton, Virginia. Which in a holistic way, I think did a ton to rejuvenate their community by entrepreneurship. So they started a community loan fund.  They have an angel network for that is like wealthy people in the community investing small sums in companies aren't necessarily tech businesses, but it could be like a pie company or whatever. They have both of those things going on. And then there's like, just a bunch of other community support. There's a maker-space there that I went down and visited. And it turned itself around that way. Right. On the foundation of some revitalization efforts that started in the eighties where some visionary business leaders downtown said, Whoa, we are not going to like destroy our historic downtown. Instead, we're going to, push really hard to preserve it. And on that foundation, the community was really able to rebuild itself economically.And its population is rising, which is kind of like the most basic measure, of community's health. Right. And actually, like super inspiring things during the pandemic. I mean, it ended up, of course it was suffering along with small, with communities everywhere, where small businesses were hurt so badly. And it also had a terrible flood in August that had like a storm cell just park over it and dump like eight inches.So enormous amount of rain washed out the downtown. You know, there were like cars floating around and as we reported it, we wrote about it for CNBC as well. And it's in the book as well. The community really came together. And there were people like digging out mud from storefronts to get their small businesses back up and running. It's inspiring what is happening in communities across the country that are pulling together. Seth Levine: So that's a story that sort of a physical, like a geographic community coming together. And it's a really good example of one. They took a long-term view. Lots of people got involved. There was a lot of buy-in.And, you know, a lot of what, like my partner, Brad Feld wrote the book, Startup Communities, a lot of what Brad and Ian his coauthor talk about in Startup Communities, I think was true in Stanton, but the other types of communities that we talk about a lot in the book are these sort of communities of like-minded people, right? And especially in this day and age, those don't need to be bounded by geography. Certainly the book is a hopeful book, Brian, and we talk about ways in which we believe that entrepreneurship can be revitalized. But we talk about some of these communities systibiz  in Denver or Ohub or digital and divided. EforAll we talk a ton about them. That, you know, these are all various communities of people that come together to help support new builder businesses. Some of them are place-based E for all works in certain locations. We talk about some of those, cause we, one of the entrepreneurs we highlight went through their program in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Others are a little bit more virtual, right? Where they might help people all over the place or bring people in together. But Silicon Valley has always been great at that. Right. And you know, there's so many stories of, I mean, how many accelerators are there in the world? Right? The Foundry, my venture firm, my day job, is the biggest investor in Techstars, which is one of the larger ones.And that's a great model, but how do we bring that. The network and the help that comes from being surrounded by a community of people that want to see you be successful? How do we bring that to new builders? And I think one of the things that we learned that scared us is that many people starting businesses feel like they're out on an Island and they're alone and they don't have resources to help them out. And that's why the community banking system that Elizabeth alluded to earlier is so important. We, it turned out, we were not seeking out community banking stories, but it turned out a number of the new builders that we talked to, their business trajectories were totally changed by, you know, what's in many cases, seemed like a chance meeting with a community banker who really spent some time to understand the business and then help them figure out how to finance it.Brian Ardinger: Well, and it comes back to capital is more than just the cash and the actual dollars that you put into it. It's capital of that network. Like you said, the ability to actually even find a, a banker in your backyard that you can form a relationship with and build that trust. And, you know, eventually leads to the, the capital capital you need to build a business. Seth Levine: Here's a statistic that should scare everyone. 25 years ago, there were 14,000 banks in the United States. Today there are 4,800. Most of that consolidation has happened in the smaller end of the scale, as we've created, essentially these utilities out of banks, by the regulations that we put on top of the banking system.And so obviously some of those regulations were warranted. There were banks that were, you know, engaging in predatory lending behavior or behaviors and you know, needed to be curbed. But, it perhaps went a little bit too far. And the result of that is what we're seeing in terms of the consolidation of banking, which is not good for anyone.Brian Ardinger: So, you mentioned the pandemic and obviously that's had an effect, but some of those trends were happening before the pandemic. How do you see the pandemic affecting entrepreneurship, both good and bad?Elizabeth Macbride: Well, traditionally, there's a surge in entrepreneurship after a big economic downturn, right. Because people lose their jobs. And so, they like to start businesses because they're trying to pay the bills. And we've seen evidence that that's happening right. There was a huge surge in new business applications in the fall. So September, October. I think, you know, that's on one hand, a hopeful sign. On the other hand, we think those people will have a harder time starting businesses than say they would have 20 or 30 years ago, because of all the changes that we described in the book. There's a huge number of people that are entrepreneurial in the United States and want to be entrepreneurial as evidenced by the participation in the gig economy, which is 60 million people in 2019. But making the leap from that to becoming a business owner and a small business owner, and there are so many benefits to making that leap.That's what's become much more difficult, right? Is formalizing yourself into a business. And I just want to add here, because I think your listeners might be really interested to think about exactly how that word entrepreneurship was co-opted because when we looked into the research and of course I'm a wordsmith and Seth is a word lover, too. We discovered that it was Ronald Reagan. Right. Who figured out that he could sort of marry the ideas that were coming out of Silicon Valley, this vision of the aggressive sort of free thinking, innovative entrepreneur from the tech world. And he used the word entrepreneur to describe only those people and use that as sort of like a push for global democracy and capitalism.You know, he just synthesized all these ideas into that word. Silicon Valley, the marketing genius's  took it and ran with it. And an important thread in that was this libertarian idea. That I think is really holding back some of the things that we could do to support the broader world of entrepreneurship.Because if you buy into that myth, that entrepreneurs grew up, that they're libertarians. That it is a concept. It's the free market. Then you don't invest in some of the social safety net programs or the government support. You don't pay that much attention to government regulation. I mean, so many CEOs in Silicon Valley have said to me, government's always behind, right? We don't need to worry about it. Like we'll just succeed despite them. And that is really not reflecting the true history of Silicon Valley at all. Brian Ardinger: Yeah, it's quite ironic because a lot of obviously Silicon Valley came from the rise of government dollars going into defense and other things that were, that provided that R and D and original push to start some of this amazing stuff. Elizabeth Macbride: Yeah, exactly. Right. And it's just disturbing the extent to which that piece of the story is left out. Right. And it looks like a very convenient retelling of the history. Seth Levine: And I think it's also important to note that, you know, the government, we've talked about this a little bit, not a lot in the book. But government spending is not bad right on research and development. And in fact, there's some quite a bit of evidence that companies are not always great at spending on R and D, especially as they get larger, right. A lot of innovation comes smaller companies, but then when companies get larger than they don't necessarily invest in R and D.And a great example of just that inaction was the, the tax cuts that were enacted a couple of years ago, where, you know, the deal was that we were going to give companies a trillion-dollar tax cut, and they would then invest in their businesses. Right in R and D. And the exact opposite happened. They didn't. And they instead really bought their stock back. Which for any individual business that was looking to increase its share value, that might've been the right thing to do.But it suggests that the people running those businesses certainly felt like investing in buying their stock back was a better bet than invest in R & D because they just simply didn't know where to put it. Brian Ardinger: So, let's talk a bit about some of your favorite stories in the book. Who are some of the entrepreneurs you met and what are some of the positive, hopeful things that you found through the journey?Seth Levine: There are amazing stories in the book, and I certainly hope that your, that the listeners will go and pick up a copy and really read it. Because I think we really tried to write a book that was balanced in terms of storytelling, but also facts. And hopefully that's coming through on this podcast as well.You know, punctuating the facts with real stories. So, you can get a sense for those facts and action. You know, we think is a really good way for people to understand what's really going on the ground. So one thing that I would probably point out is Isaac Collin, who owns series of Yogurtini businesses in Kansas City.And he's just an incredibly compelling guy. And it's a story of someone who really, you know, with both, persevered and had a lot of grit, but also was helped by others. So he got into business because he won a business plan competition. And by winning that business plan competition, he actually won both the monetary help as well as business helped by this very successful relatively well-known in that area, businessman. And he got to start a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory with this guy. And, and ultimately that was a successful business because he's just a good business person. And he was able to sell that business, use the money, the proceeds from that sale, then to buy his first Yogurtini  business.What I really love about Isaac and this is true of really all the new builders we talked to is his connection to community. And just how important it was for him. He now has three, I think the fourth was not quite open, he's about to open a fourth location of his Yogurtini   businesses around the KC area.And, you know, community for him, isn't even just KC, it's like the individual neighborhoods where those businesses are located. And he has that deep sense of community. And, and it comes through in his business in the way that, you know, people who work at the businesses, open the door for their customers. So, they welcome them in and kids are welcomed to come in and do their book club and, and earn free yogurt. And he's just a great example of a quintessential new builder who is hardworking and has reached out and figured out how to build a network around himself. And has other things going on. He and, and two other women started a yoga series that goes into inner city schools and helps teach kids how to calm and center themselves through yoga. Just as one example, I mean, he's just someone who's constantly giving back. So he really stands out for me as just the quintessential rebuilder. Elizabeth Macbride: I'm so glad you talked about Isaac, because we haven't, we haven't actually talked about him in our interviews so far. I would highlight the entrepreneur who is sort of the center of the book. Her story is woven throughout and that's Danaris Mazara who started her bakery in Lawrence, Massachusetts, literally with $37 in food stamps. You know, she just has this amazing story of lying on her couch. Her husband had lost a job. This was in the great recession. She had a newborn baby. She was like, I don't have enough money to feed my family here. With that $37 in food stamps, she bought the ingredients to make blond sold it at the break table at the Samsung factory where she was working. And it went from there and she was lucky enough in the process of developing her company. So she did those early couple of years with, by herself and with the help of her friends in the community, and then happened on  EforAll which Seth referenced earlier.And I love the EforAll story. And we tell Danaris's story in the context of the founder of EforAll which is Desh Deshpande who was a telecom entrepreneur in the 1990s and made loads and loads of money and gives it back to the world in many different ways. But one of the things he did was found EforAll and he really has some interesting insights that we report in the book about the differences between encouraging entrepreneurs in the main street world and encouraging them in like an MIT or Stanford. Because at MIT or Stanford, there's all these smart people in search of a problem to solve. On the main streets of America and elsewhere, there are million problems in search of a solver. And he really talks in a compelling way about how you encourage both of those communities. And we end the book with Dinaris's as well, and her optimism looking toward the recovery post pandemic. And so, she's incredibly inspiring. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Well, it's definitely exciting to hear those stories and it'll be exciting to see how this plays out as the world changes in front of us. Elizabeth and Seth, if people want to find out more about the book and more about yourselves, what's the best way to do that? Seth Levine: We set up a book website. We'll put it in the show notes, but it's www.thenewbuilders.com. And that's a great place to find out a little bit more about the book. You can read a little bit about us, and most importantly, you can buy the book there. We have links to a number of local booksellers. We're certainly encourage people to consider buying from local independent bookstores, whether it's the handful that we have listed on the site or their own independent bookstore. We do have links to Amazon, to Barnes & Noble of course they're bigger platforms. And those are also great ways to buy the book. There's a Kindle version that will be released. It'll be out by the time this show airs and there will also be an audio book that should be out right around the same time that the show airs as well.Brian Ardinger: Well, Elizabeth and Seth, thank you again for being on Inside Outside Innovation, sharing these stories very much like to continue the conversation and have you back on in the years to come as, as the world evolves. So, appreciate your time. Seth Levine: Thank you, Brian.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  

In this episode, Elizabeth and Seth talk about why entrepreneurship is dying, where would the next wave of entrepreneurship come from and what can be done to turn the decline of entrepreneurship

Guests: Eric Schmitt, Missouri Attorney General, On to discuss the For the People Act. Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founder of the Tea Party Patriots, On to discuss critical race theory. Seth Levine, Co-founder of Foundry Group Elizabeth MacBride, Award-winning Business Journalist, On to discuss their book "The New Builders." And ... Your thoughts on the war of the thermostat in homes and offices around the country. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join Shalom Klein on his weekly radio show, Get Down To Business with guests: Jeff Badu Dan Rogers Seth Levine

Despite popular belief to the contrary, entrepreneurship in the United States is dying. It has been since before the Great Recession of 2008, and the negative trend in American entrepreneurship has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic. New firms are being started at a slower rate, are employing fewer workers, and are being formed disproportionately in just a few major cities in the U.S. At the same time, large chains are opening more locations. Companies such as Amazon with their "deliver everything and anything" are rapidly displacing Main Street businesses. Elizabeth MacBride and Seth Levine know a lot about these trends and more. They are the authors of the new book,The New Builders - Face to Face with the True Future of Business. They joined me on the Go For Launch Podcast. In the book, they tell the stories of the next generation of entrepreneurs -- and argue for the future of American entrepreneurship. Elizabeth MacBride is an award-winning business journalist and the founder of Times of Entrepreneurship, a new publication covering entrepreneurs beyond Silicon Valley. Elizabeth has reported on business, economics and entrepreneurship around the world, from New York City to Gaza to Northern Idaho to Cambodia. A former managing editor of Crain’s New York Business, her work has appeared in Forbes, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Quartz, HBR.com and many others. She’s also been an entrepreneur herself as co-founder of RIABiz.com and 200kfreelancer.com, and she was part of the founding team of Wealthfront, the first online investment advisor. Seth Levine is a long-time venture capitalist who works with venture funds and companies around the globe. He is a partner at Foundry Group, a Boulder, Colorado-based venture capital firm he co-founded in 2006—which as of the end of 2020 had almost $3 billion in assets under management. Seth also co-founded Pledge 1%, a global network of companies who have pledged equity, time and product back to their local communities. He is on the board of StartupColorado, which promotes entrepreneurship in areas of Colorado outside of the front range. He also works with a number of funds and companies - especially in the Middle East and Africa - to help promote entrepreneurship and economic development.

May 7, 2021 The New Builders Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride and Responsive Leadership Jackie Jenkins-Scott

Chuck Bean - Chuck Bean from Martec Group to discuss how companies can effectively determine what types of employees are in their remote workforce and what people should be allowed to return to the office first compared to those who would benefit from continued work-from-home policies? Seth Levine - Seth Levine is the co-author of The New Builders: Face to Face With the True Future of Business .The book argues that the next generation of entrepreneurs—made up of women, people of color, immigrants and people over 40—are not getting the support they need, because our business culture has become so consumed with celebrating size and the technology industry above all else. The authors explore the past, present, and future of small business in America and advocate for a new national movement to support entrepreneurs, including new forms of finance and mentorship.

Chuck Bean - Chuck Bean from Martec Group to discuss how companies can effectively determine what types of employees are in their remote workforce and what people should be allowed to return to the office first compared to those who would benefit from continued work-from-home policies?Seth Levine - Seth Levine is the co-author of The New Builders: Face to Face With the True Future of Business .The book argues that the next generation of entrepreneurs—made up of women, people of color, immigrants and people over 40—are not getting the support they need, because our business culture has become so consumed with celebrating size and the technology industry above all else. The authors explore the past, present, and future of small business in America and advocate for a new national movement to support entrepreneurs, including new forms of finance and mentorship.

Today on The Daily Objective, Jonathan Hoenig, Seth Levine and Keith Weiner discuss: is gold the next Bitcoin? Consider supporting our work by becoming a member: https://aynrandcentre.co.uk/membership/

The popularity of Bitcoin has been increasing recently, and there is a lot of enthusiastic chatter around it. Yet, Seth Levine is skeptical of the cryptocurrency. He joins Jonathan Hoenig on today's episode to discuss this. 

Today on The Daily Objective, Jonathan Hoenig and Josh Dickson are be joined by professional investor Seth Levine, to discuss the GameStop phenomenon.Consider supporting our work by becoming a member: https://aynrandcentre.co.uk/membership/

We continue our VC Fundamentals series with Portfolio Construction & Management — how do you build and manage a fund's portfolio as a whole, beyond each individual portfolio company and investment decision? We brought in two of the very best people in the world to help us dissect this topic: Jaclyn Hester & Lindel Eakman of Foundry Group. Jaclyn and Lindel have been early and longtime LPs in some of the best venture funds in the world: USV, True, Spark — and of course Foundry — and now also sit on the GP side of the table at Foundry. Tune in for a master class on how the best VC managers think about generating and optimizing fund performance. Share this episode: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/vc-fundamentals-part-4-portfolio-construction-management-with-jaclyn-hester-lindel-eakman-of-foundry-group  Topics Covered: 1. The bar for what "good" venture fund performance looks like in terms of returns: Where venture sits on the spectrum of capital allocation options available to limited partners The difference between "gross" and "net" fund returns and why IRR is still important The distribution of returns across venture firms & funds — how many hit the performance bar — and the importance of diversification vintage years 2. Portfolio construction: how do you allocate the fund's capital across companies? Why have a "portfolio" at all vs. loading up on a few high conviction investments — and what an LP's incentives are for diversification vs. a GP's How to determine overall $ size you should target for a fund Concentration vs diversification and the concepts of "shots on goal" and "groups" of high-potential companies within a portfolio Fund reserves planning — are you "making your money at the buy", or able to buy up over time in your winners? 3. Balancing playing offense and defense: The upside potential of "interstitial rounds" Whether it's possible to save a company with more capital, and if pivots are a good idea 4. Time allocation vs capital allocation within a fund: Understanding and managing your own cognitive biases Why time & effort allocation across a portfolio rarely matches capital allocation (and shouldn't) Why a firm's partnership dynamics are typically the most important driver of funds' outcomes Links: Foundry Group: https://www.foundrygroup.com Seth Levine's post on skewed VC returns: https://www.sethlevine.com/archives/2020/10/vc-fund-returns-are-more-skewed-than-you-think.html Fred Wilson's posts on losing money and portfolio outcome distributions: https://avc.com/2016/04/losing-money/and https://avc.com/2012/07/the-power-of-diversification/

That's Seth Levine - he co-founded Foundry Group with Brad Feld, the founder of Techstars. Seth went to school in Minnesota but left for New York after graduating & found himself working on wall street. He left after a few short years because the mountains were calling. Having spent many summers in Colorado, that's where he wanted to re-locate & build his life. One phone call to a friend & he was hired. A few career turns later & he found himself working with Brad Feld at Softbank-backed venture fund. They then left to start Foundry Group, which in their first fund included one of the first investments in Fitbit, Zynga & AdMob. He also co-founded pledge 1% with the likes of mark bennioff, the founder of salesforce. He has an incredible journey & is incredibly humble. The reoccurring theme is his desire to allow the next generation of entrepreneurs & builders to build a better future standing on his shoulders. You can read more about Seth on his website: https://sethlevine.com/ Check out foundry group here https://foundrygroup.com/ Or learn more about Pledge 1% https://pledge1percent.org/ Links to imbue Links to imbue: https://imbuefitness.com https://imbuefitness.com/l follow us on LinkedIn https://linkedin.com/company/imbueworld follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/imbueworld follow us on Instagram https://instagram.com/imbueworld follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/imbueworld Survival podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/1WTXTSlDf1SCRuJFzPmBk9

Adam Sachs is the COO of Team Coco and a veteran podcast and digital media executive. Adam works with some of the biggest names in Hollywood like Conan O'Brien, and even Barack and Michelle Obama. We discuss his time as CEO of Midroll Media and its sale to E.W. Scripps, founding a group dating website that he sold to IAC, and the power of being foolishly confident. Full episode transcript is below.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPTChris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up. A podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Adam Sachs:I think we were foolishly so confident. We just thought, "Oh, we have a great idea, so it's going to be successful. Let's just quit our jobs and start this business." And didn't really understand that so much has to go right in order for it to be successful. And not only does so much have to go right, but it takes so long. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Adam Sachs. Adam is a true digital media OG. And today he works with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, like Conan O'Brien and even the Obamas. So we got a lot to talk about. We'll get into how he started a group dating website and then moved his family to India for it and sold that to Barry Diller. Then we'll talk about how Adam joined as the CEO of Midroll Media, and then orchestrated its sale to E.W. Scripps, one of the biggest deals in podcasting at the time. Chris Erwin:There's many other stories in between. Adam's a fantastic guy. This interview is a lot of fun. Let's get into it. Quick heads up that my interview with Adam was recorded back in January and prior to COVID. Where do you think your entertainment and comedy origins really starts? Adam Sachs:I don't know. I've always been obsessed with comedy from a very young age. I was obsessed with Adam Sandler and then Jerry Seinfeld, and Seinfeld the show was a really important part of my life. At one point, I think I could recite every word of every episode of Seinfeld. I would just watch the tapes over and over and over again. And the same for Adam Sandler movies before that. Yeah. I don't know. Adam Sachs:I just always loved it. And the idea of having a career in comedy, I didn't really know what that would be, but I always wanted to have a career in comedy. And at points I thought, "Well, maybe I'll be a comedian." I never really was I think, talented enough to do that. Chris Erwin:I always remember you as being kind of like a class clown and very funny and very witty and always, like you said, sightings really funny, like Seinfeld references and jokes for everything that we did. But it seemed like you started to take it more seriously when you're like, "Okay, I'm going to join the improv jam in Red Bank." When you started doing that, did that further solidify your like, "Yeah, there's going to be a future for me here." Or you're like, "Oh actually, maybe this is not for me. This is harder than I thought." Adam Sachs:I really enjoyed it. But I was also never one of those people who was super comfortable on stage. I think what I realized after I started doing these improv classes at the local internet cafe, but I did love it. And I thought that the people around me were really talented and I really enjoyed that. And so yeah, even going into college, I thought, "Oh, maybe being on stage isn't really for me, but maybe I'll be a comedy writer. Maybe I'll write TV shows like funny TV shows." Adam Sachs:And I did pursue that. I had a regular college education, and at one point thought maybe I'll end up going to law school and even studied for the LSAT. That was sort of like a hedge, I think, because in parallel I had like a writing partner who I went to college with, Ally Hord who still a good friend of mine and we would write comedy scripts together. And she was the more talented one. She went on to be successful. Chris Erwin:I think you guys are both incredibly talented with great success. Adam Sachs:No. She is really, really funny. And now she's a writer at Seth Meyers. Chris Erwin:I remember Ally Hord. I think I was working because Adam and I both share a Northwestern Wildcat blood. And I was working on a startup idea when I was in grad school there. And I think I had asked Ally who was at Funny Or Die at the time. I was like, "Oh, can you be a beta tester of my product?" And she was always very supportive, and she was like, "Oh yeah, we're using it. We're using it on set. It's super helpful." Chris Erwin:And I don't think they actually really did anything with it, but she was a great sport. All right. So you're at Northwestern, you decide that you're not going to go to law school. And so instead of doing that, you decide to teach English abroad as your first move right out of undergrad. And what was the reason for that? Adam Sachs:I had a friend Howie who's a year above me who he is now a lawyer, but he was also like not sure if he wanted to be a lawyer or what do you want it to do. And he went to Madrid and he and I were really close. We stayed in touch and it sounded really cool. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had taken the LSAT. I didn't know if I wanted to go to law school. In my gut felt like I didn't really want to go to law school, but I wasn't sure. And so I was just decided I'll just take a year and like go abroad and maybe I'll figure it out. Chris Erwin:It's almost like in a way a lot of kids now are taking a gap year before they go to school. But getting some free mental space to be like, what do I really want to do to reflect, be exposed to new experiences? And I think a lot of people should do that more often in their careers and more often in their life. And don't. And I remember that you were telling our group about that. I'm like, "Well, Adam has always such an ambitious focus person. Is he already falling off the wagon?" Adam Sachs:I felt like that, to be honest. First of all, going abroad is like, it was a huge privilege. I made a little money teaching English, but not everyone can do it. I don't think, but it was like, I look back on it and yeah, halfway through it, I was like, "My friends are already ... they already have jobs. I'm really falling behind. What's happening here? My college friends are like getting jobs at like JP Morgan or they're in law school or whatever it is." Adam Sachs:And I'm like, "What am I doing? I'm going to be so far behind all of my peers when I get back after this year." And that now looking back, like in retrospect, that was dumb. I shouldn't have been worrying about that because it was an enormously formative experience in my life because it was like I was able to see a lot of the world and meet a lot of people and just gain perspective that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And I still have really close friends from that period that live in Madrid or live in Prague. Chris Erwin:No. And that's interesting to hear that you had doubts during that period. But at the end of your year of teaching English as a second language, were you starting to feel comfortable like, "No, this was actually the right decision. I've learned a lot." Adam Sachs:Maybe. Now I feel like it was a right decision. At the end of that year, I don't know. I still felt like I got to get back. I have to get home and like start doing something so that I'm not the bum. Chris Erwin:Yeah. And that's a theme throughout your career narrative is that you've made decisions where I've looked at them early on, was like, "Oh, Adam's going and teaching abroad. That's kind of a weird move right out of undergrad." And then, "Adams he's starting a tech company and is applying to Techstars. What is that? Startups aren't cool yet." And it was always kind of like this contrarian approach where there was probably like doubt within you, but doubt within the peer group. But it's clear that all of these buts have really paid off. Kudos to that. Adam Sachs:Maybe. You're giving me a lot of credit. We'll see where all this goes. Chris Erwin:Okay. So after abroad, you decided to go to Sony. How did that come to be? Adam Sachs:I knew people at Sony from my internship, so I reached out to them and I got a very kind of entry level job in Sony Pictures Television in New York. Chris Erwin:And did you feel that when you were doing that because your career took a big turn when you started your first company soon after, or maybe concurrently while you were at Sony. Did you look at Sony as, "Hey, this is something I want to invest material time into," or is this, "This is just a stepping stone. And I want to get maybe that traditional validation of working at a big company." Adam Sachs:To be honest, I think at first I thought I'll get my foot in the door of this like really great company. Everyone that was a radio TV, film major at Northwestern, if they didn't go into being a writer or director or pursuing that path, if they went into TV, the hot thing was like to go into development. And I was like, "I think I want to go into development." I didn't even know what it meant really. Adam Sachs:I was just like, "But it sounds cool to be a development executive." And I think I applied for those jobs and I didn't get them or whatever. So I got like a different job in the ad sales department at Sony. But I think my thinking was, I'll get in the door there and then I'll figure out how to have a development career. And hopefully along the way, I'll figure out what development means. So, that was my thinking. Chris Erwin:I think I want a development career. I don't know what it is, but it's sound has cache. Adam Sachs:But it sounds cool. And people who do it think it's cool. So I honestly think that was my thinking at the time. And there was also always a New York, LA kind of conflict in my mind. This was in New York, but I did feel like LA was an inevitability at some point if I wanted to pursue that sort of career. But at the same time, my good college friend and I, Dan Osit, we started to talk about this startup idea that we got, that we've got really obsessed with. Adam Sachs:And it was the idea of, we were in our early mid 20s living in New York City and going out with our group of friends and going out and meeting other friends. And we started to think, "Man, isn't it crazy that there's no dating site that were like, you go out with your friends and meet other people. And wouldn't it more fun and less awkward and even safer to have an experience where you went out with your friends and met another group of friends." Adam Sachs:And the more we talked about that idea, he was also in his first or second year of working in a finance job out of college. The more we talked about that idea, the more we thought like, this is a really good idea. And we talked to friends who thought it was a good idea. And I think I was planning to move to LA and move in with Matt and Rob and some of our buddies and just figure out like how to get a development job basically. Adam Sachs:But then I became obsessed with this business idea and this idea of starting a startup. And the more we talked to our friends, the more we got excited about it. And then we quit our jobs and we started pursuing it. Chris Erwin:So how'd you guys think about how to start actually building the company? Today feels like there's millions of guides for like how to build a business. But 15 years ago, there was a lot less resources out there. So what did you guys turn to? Adam Sachs:Here's how different the landscape was then. We sent an email, Dan and I sent an email to like all of our friends, like a blast email being like, "Does anyone know anyone who has ever started a company because we don't know where to start?" Chris Erwin:I may have been on that email. Adam Sachs:I'm sure you were. And we got like one response or two responses, and we ended up meeting the guys who started meetup.com, which was a really good connection for us. But today, if you ask that question, everyone knows someone who has started a startup. Chris Erwin:The Lean Startup, Four Steps to the Epiphany, like all of these books. Adam Sachs:Exactly. And that stuff didn't really exist. Or if it did, we were unaware of it. It was like, there was a less of established path at that point because we didn't know what to do. We said, "Okay, we want to start this thing." But what if we had literally just had to try to start taking people out to coffee to understand how do you do this? Chris Erwin:Yeah. So what was the point where you guys made that decision, we're leaving our jobs, we're getting off this path to become development execs, whatever that is, or financiers? That is a big decision to make at an early age. Also considering like what your peers are doing, your parents probably not understanding the opportunities within the startup space. What was that catalyst point? Adam Sachs:I think we were, and to be honest, like foolishly so confident that we had a great idea. And I think because we knew so little about starting a business, didn't realize how important execution is. And we just thought, "Oh, we have a great idea. So it's going to be successful of course, because our idea is great. And we've asked our friends and they think it's great too. So let's just quit our jobs and start this business." Adam Sachs:And didn't really understand that so much has to go right in order for it to be successful. And not only do so much have to go right, but it takes so long and it's going to take a lot of endurance. But it was not easy. Like my friends all continued on in their jobs in New York City. I had to move home. I didn't really have a paying job for a long time. So I had to move in back in with my parents in New Jersey. Chris Erwin:Yeah. I really like how you described that you had to be foolishly confident. I think when you do the math, the odds are totally stacked against you in starting a company. So you have to be delusional in a way and saying like, "I can do this." And so whether that's just like in your blood or in your nature, or at your point, you just didn't even know any better. Adam Sachs:No, I just didn't know any better. Chris Erwin:That's an asset. Adam Sachs:Exactly. I think it was truly in my ignorance helped in that way, because I just didn't know any better. Chris Erwin:I think I remember. So you used to host at your father's house in Little Silver, used to host a lot of basketball games. You play a lot of like three on three or five on five, what have you. I think we were over there one day and I think I had heard rumors that you're like, "Adam's starting this company and now he's applied to Techstars and he's getting into this program." Chris Erwin:And I was like, "Adam, I don't understand what you're doing. I'm confused. What is this?" Startups we're in cool yet. But you had a mission, you had a plan. And so then you applied to Techstars. What was that application process like? Adam Sachs:We realized that we had to raise money in order to build this thing. And so we ended up meeting through friends of friends some early stage VCs. They were rightfully for the most part, like, "You guys are not really investible at this point. You don't really know what you're doing." And we hadn't really built much at that point. But one of the VCs who really, I think believed in us was this guy, Jason Mendelson, and his partner, Seth Levine at the Foundry Group in Boulder. Adam Sachs:And we got connected with them and they were also like, "You guys are onto something here, but you're in New York, we're in Boulder." But I think they really liked us and believed in us. And so they encouraged us to apply to Techstars. And we had never heard of Techstars before, but they're intimately involved in starting Techstars and supporting Techstars. Adam Sachs:It was not an obvious thing for us to do because I had never heard of it. I didn't know what a incubator or accelerator was at that point. Again, this is a different time where now there's a million accelerators. Chris Erwin:That's great. And this was literally 12 years ago. So it's not we're talking about 35 years ago. This was like within generally past decade. Adam Sachs:Not that long ago, but it was a different world. And so yeah, we applied and I think through the help of those guys, we ended up getting in. But even then I think, again, points to our kind of foolish ignorance, we were like, maybe we're a little too far along for this Techstars thing is what we thought. We were like, we have some users on in our Facebook app. That's how we started. Chris Erwin:Okay. It's just also funny to hear, like this speaks to the delusional part of actually we're pretty advanced, like we have users, so we actually really needed to be a part of this program. Maybe we should just skip this. That's what you guys wanted. Adam Sachs:Again, pretty dumb, but it was really, really valuable experience. It's a mentorship driven experience. We needed mentorship. I studied history and film in college. Dan, I think studied communication or something. We didn't really know what we know. And also there's really not a great curriculum probably even to this day for starting a company. In my opinion, you have to talk to people who have done it. Learn from people who have done it. Adam Sachs:I think it's not something that you graduate, even if you, I know very few schools have an entrepreneurship program, but I think even if you graduated with a degree in entrepreneurship, you still don't really know what you're doing until you get in there and start doing it. Chris Erwin:Yeah. So you're at Techstars, clearly it was a positive experience. You graduate. Adam Sachs:Yes. Chris Erwin:And then did you raise money immediately upon graduation at demo day? Adam Sachs:Yeah, immediately. We had a really good presentation actually. We were working with our mentors and again, these guys, Jason and Seth at Foundry Group became our mentors. And the second half really of Techstars is like for preparing, at least at this point. It might've changed. Again, this is 2008, so this is a long time ago. But at that point, the first half is a lot of mentorship. The second half is really like preparing for demo day. Adam Sachs:And I remember we put together a presentation, a draft representation. We brought it over to Jason in his office and sat down with him and walked him through it. And he was just like, "Yeah, it's pretty good. I don't know. It's fine. But it's missing you guys," is what he said. And I think he'd gotten to know us and know our personalities or whatever. And we went back and I remember we locked ourselves in a room with our small team of four of us for like a weekend and came back to him on Monday. And it was a funny presentation. It was like a comedy driven presentation and he was just like, "This is it, this is it." Chris Erwin:Actually I never thought about that. But thinking about your roots in comedy, entertainment, improv, and then writing with Ally at Northwestern, pitching to investor is about telling an incredible story of excitement, why we are the best team to do this, really peaking their interests. And I was like, you have like the formula for that. And I guess that's what this guy wanted. And then he didn't know what you had in you. And you're like, "No, let us show you." Adam Sachs:Yeah. So the presentation went great. And I think for a lot of people, did a lot of the VC side of it. There's 300 VCs in the audience or something like that. I think for a lot of them, it was the first time they saw like an actual funny VC pitch or whatever, like startup pitch. And I don't think it was necessarily like the humor that attracted ... Any smart VC is not going to be like, "I'm going to invest in the funniest entrepreneur." Adam Sachs:On the surface, it was funny. But when you got beneath it, it was like, "These guys actually know, they have a good handle on what their vision for the business is." So yeah, we did raise money immediately. Chris Erwin:An interesting highlight from that point though, is I think when investors see for an early stage company is okay, do they have a product? Have they built something? Are they solving a real problem? But it's so early. Even if they have a little bit of users is likely pre-revenue. So there's just an incredible amount of risk. So they're really betting on the founders, on the ability of the founders to attract future capital, tell a good story, recruit a team, and build a team and motivate people. Chris Erwin:And so what they could have seen in you is like, "Okay, there's this magnetism of this team that's going to be able to attract people to their team and get them excited about this ridiculous mission that they're on." So it seems like you have this asset of your storytelling, was actually like checking a major box for these investors. If you think about it that way. Adam Sachs:Yeah. Maybe. We also rushed the fundraising because this was like August, September of 2008, and the financial world was starting to just collapse around us. And so, once we saw that happening, we were pushing our investors to like, get your checks and get your checks. Because that we knew that very shortly after that, we could feel like the economy was collapsing. Chris Erwin:Got it. So money comes in the bank. And how much did you raised initially? Adam Sachs:So funny. Again, only 12 years ago, but we raised a series A and it was like a $1.2 million, which today is like a pre seed amount of money. But at that point, that was our series A. Chris Erwin:Okay. And that was on top of a little bit of family and friends money that you raised. Adam Sachs:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Got it. So you have the money, your team is feeling excited. You move to New York City. I remember that you had offices in Union Square. I don't know if you moved immediately there. Adam Sachs:Yeah, we did. Chris Erwin:I was part of a beta test for a group date in the lower Eastside. Adam Sachs:I think like a Max Fish or something. Chris Erwin:Yeah. There's like six or seven guys. Six or seven girls. We're all competing and say who's getting them like the most amount of face time with the other side. It was a really funny experience. There was also a launch party that was associated with it. Adam Sachs:Yeah. At Barna, which no longer is on Park Avenue South. Chris Erwin:So I remember I was like, okay, I don't know what Adam's doing, but if I get invited to cool parties and get to go on like group dates and maybe meet women, I'll be supportive. All right. So tangent. You're in New York City, you have the company, and now you're there for the next six years. What do you remember as a major inflection point after raising that money and saying, "Okay, now we're scaling this company." What were some of those key milestones? Adam Sachs:One of them, the biggest one for sure is we were out there hustling having parties. We would literally like throw a party at a bar in the East Village, bring our digital cameras because that's how you took pictures then and computers and buy people drinks to like sign them up in exchange for having them have a profile on our site. So we'd be like, "Hey, do you want to try our site? We'll buy you a drink." Adam Sachs:And so, we would then take their picture at the bar and make a profile for them. Because it was a grind to get people to sign up. Chris Erwin:Were most people amenable to that? Or were some people turned off? Adam Sachs:Half and half I think. We had like maybe dozens of people signing up every day in New York, but we'd go home at night and look at our Google analytics and be like, "Hundreds of people signed up today in India." Or like thousands of people signed up today in India at one point. And so that was sort of the inflection point, which is like, we're pushing too hard for something that maybe there's not as much of a demand for here as there is for other places. Adam Sachs:And so at that point it was like, let's understand this, what is going on here? We didn't understand India or some of the other markets where we were seeing this natural, organic demand, and India was one of them, for sure. Also like Singapore and Malaysia and Indonesia and other Asian countries. And at that point, it was like, that was a huge inflection point. And it was let's understand what's going on here so that we can decide, is this worth pursuing. Chris Erwin:We're back from a quick break and maybe unbeknownst to Adam, but I just actually we have a bunch of our high school friends on group text, and I just sent a crowdsource message of any questions that we should ask Adam on the podcast. So I might check this at the end when we get to the rapid fire, that has been seated within the group. Adam Sachs:Awesome. Chris Erwin:So we'll see what happens. Adam Sachs:Our friends are deviance. I don't want to see what their questions are. Chris Erwin:So we were just talking about you're now in New York City with funding, you're scaling Ignighter. You're hustling, you're grinding, you're going out to the bars, you're signing up people like on location. So then what you're just touching on, which is interesting is this theme of the unexpected. So you're building this business, you're looking at your metrics, and all of a sudden you're seeing user growth in India and in Singapore and these Asian countries, that's not what you're necessarily intending for, but it's happening. Chris Erwin:So as you start seeing this information, there's certain types of leaders and people that would say, "That's that's interesting, but we're not going to do something about it." What was the point where you're like, "This is meaningful. And now we're actually going to pursue this. This is opportunity." What was that decision making process? Adam Sachs:At first, it was like, this is interesting, but it's not our mission. So we ignored it. For I don't know how long, for maybe a few months. And then eventually it was like the discrepancy between how hard we were hustling and grinding to sign up users one at a time in New York versus literally I think at our peak, there were like 5,000 people a day signing up in India. And it was like, "What are we doing here? Let's figure this out. What is it that's making it click there?" Adam Sachs:And that's when we started to talk to people who knew the market way better than we did, talk to people who knew the culture better than we did. Chris Erwin:How do you do that? Who do you talk to? The same thing, like figuring out who do you talk to about Techstars? Did you call up your investors, did call friends? Adam Sachs:It was a little bit of both. Yeah. And we were able I think through our investors and through the Techstars network to meet people who are either entrepreneurs who were maybe of Indian descent and had family in India or who had family that were building companies in India. We actually shared an office with a company, coincidentally enough called exclusively.in. I don't know if they exist anymore, but they were a company that was building like fashion products in India. Adam Sachs:And they were really closely connected to the market. And so they started to like help us and connect us to angel investors in India and VCs in India. And those people help. Once we started to understand this, we went out and we raised more money from investors who were interested in that path in pursuing that in India story. Chris Erwin:Growth in Indian market. Adam Sachs:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Okay. And how much money did you raise at that point? Adam Sachs:I think maybe three or three and a half million, something like that. Chris Erwin:Okay. And at this point, are you feeling excited? Adam Sachs:Excited but scared too. We'd never even been there at that point. We still hadn't even been to India. It was hard enough I think building a company like in a market that we knew inside and out. And so the idea of building a company somewhere else felt like how's that going to work? Chris Erwin:I can understand the mix of emotions because maybe there was some frustration with the challenge in getting traction in the United States where you were focused. So this is in a way maybe a bit of a lifeline. Adam Sachs:It felt like a lifeline, but it also felt like we were riding blind a little bit too. Our first move was like, now that we know we have all the traction in India, let's put up a landing page so that only people in India see that shows people that look like they're in India and not people that look like they're in New York so that and you can kind of geo target in that way. But we didn't know the market well. Adam Sachs:So I remember our first landing page in India we're like, here, these are two beautiful looking Indian people. Let's put them on the landing page. And it turned out, we put a picture of like a bride, like a woman wearing a bride's outfit. And we were trying to be like the antithesis of like one of those like serious like marriage dating sites. And it was like literally a woman in bride garb. Adam Sachs:And then one of our investors who I guess knew the market was like, "What are you doing? That's not what you guys are." Chris Erwin:Not your brand. Adam Sachs:Yeah. That's so off brand. So it took us a while to figure it out. Chris Erwin:This all leads to a point where you end up moving to India. Adam Sachs:Yeah. Chris Erwin:And you moved there with your wife, Molly. Adam Sachs:Sort of. We had an apartment in New York where we lived and then I got a place in India and mostly it was me going over there. Molly did go. But it was mostly me going by myself. Chris Erwin:Is there one memorable moment of like you're in India and you're just in shock being like, "Wow, this is just feels so different." Adam Sachs:I think just in general, just the business norms were really hard. Like when we wanted to start processing payments, for example, I remember we had to get some kind of certification from like the Royal Bank of India or something like that. And then that took forever and we had to be compliant in a certain way that I didn't really understand. And at one point I was really an expert in all this stuff. Adam Sachs:And I've fortunately since forgotten, I think most of it. But it was like very hard. And then also people didn't really have credit cards or a lot of people didn't have credit cards. And so you have to figure out other ways to pay. And there were people that were paying with their mobile phone credits and it was very, very different and in that way, challenging. Chris Erwin:Got it. So then you eventually sale to Barry Diller's IAC. How did that come to be? Adam Sachs:Well, to be honest, and this is something that they don't really tell you when you start a dating site is that there's not that many buyers out there for dating sites. There's one universal behemoth in the dating world that wants to be the globally dominant business and that's IAC. So a typical sales process would have competitive nature attached to it where there's like a bunch of different companies bidding for your business. Adam Sachs:It was hard for us to drum up a competitive process when there's like really just one buyer out there. Chris Erwin:So you sell to IAC. And then at that point, I think that was a big milestone because you started a company, you ran it, build and scale the team, transitioned to an international market, and then you exited it. And I don't believe this was like a major liquidity event for you, but it was a sale. And that is a big stamp of approval. And so now it's kind of like you have this big entrepreneur stamp on your back. Chris Erwin:And so next, I think that you ended up going to Midroll Media, and this is another major inflection point in your career where you kind of lay the foundation for becoming this early and seasoned audio executive. And this now like fast growing industry. And what sold you on going into podcasts and audio and then moving to LA? Adam Sachs:First of all, all my time spent on planes going back and forth from New York to Mumbai and then being in Mumbai by myself, I had become obsessed with podcasts. I was listening to them all the time. They were my companion in India, basically. And as we have already established, always wanted a career in media. I've joked, like I've studied radio, TV, film. I never thought I would be doing something in the radio piece of it, or the RTVS, because that wasn't even really part of the curriculum. Adam Sachs:But I became obsessed with podcasts. I met a guy named Jeff Alrich who started Earwolf. And in fact, Ally Hord introduced us. And I met him when I was still at Ignighter or step out. And we just met us to like CEOs kind of commiserating as startup CEOs often do about like the various challenges. But I really loved his business. Even though it was still small at that point, it was bootstrapped. Adam Sachs:So he didn't have investors and it was profitable and it was growing and it was in an area of media that I loved and that I felt like was just kind of getting started. So yeah, we got to know each other. And then the timing worked out that after we sold to IAC, he reached out saying like, "I'm looking for someone to help me build this business, like a COO type. Do you have anyone in mind?" Adam Sachs:And I throw my hat in the ring. And then also the other piece of it was that we, at this point, had like a baby in New York City and we were feeling kind of done with New York. It was hard to have a kid in New York. I think the suburbs didn't really appeal to us. As I mentioned, LA always had some certain draw. We didn't necessarily know that we wanted to leave New York and go to LA, but this just felt like the right opportunity to try it. Chris Erwin:It's interesting. It feels like it's checking a few boxes for you. Because I know in talking to you at that time, I think you had a really great experience at Ignighter. You learned a lot, you've built a great investor network, but it was challenging. You had with investors, a lot of different stakeholders in your business, different points of view, weren't profitable and sustainable and a lot of the stage of the company. Chris Erwin:So Adam, you have a really exciting run at Midroll before you exit a couple of years later. You joined as COO and then in just nine months, you're promoted to CEO. So tell us about that journey. And what did you first focus on when you joined the team? Adam Sachs:It was a lot, we were building this new network called Midroll. The business started as Earwolf and that was continuing to grow, but the new- Chris Erwin:Earwolf was a network of comedy podcasts. Adam Sachs:Correct. Yeah. But the new thing that we were building, which we saw as our real growth opportunity was Midroll and Midroll is what connects podcasters to advertisers. They really hadn't been professionalized at that point in the industry. But as the industry was growing, it was like more and more podcasters wanted to make money, obviously. Adam Sachs:And advertisers were starting to realize that podcast listeners are passionate and they develop this intimate relationship with the podcaster. And so podcast ads could be very powerful in that way. And so that's where we saw a really big opportunity and started to invest a lot. It grew very quickly. Chris Erwin:It's interesting to hear the timing of that because it reminds me when I was at Big Frame, which was, we were creating short form, social content online and managing digitally native creators, people that were on ... YouTubers, people that were on Facebook, on Instagram, et cetera. And a big part of our growing business was connecting marketers and advertisers with our talent. Chris Erwin:And so that's a very similar dynamic to what was happening with you. Okay. So you're leaning into that. And then did you know that within like nine months that the CEO is in my orbit or it's going to happen or it was kind of just bestored upon you? Adam Sachs:No. That wasn't the case. We were growing quickly trying to add people quickly. The business started in a very ... it's credits Jeff, but in a very scrappy way adding more people and elevating the early people who had really done a great job. And I honestly think that the business got to a point where it was ready to go to a different level. There was a scrappy level. Adam Sachs:And I think once it was ready to go to that growth level, Jeff kind of felt like it was better handled if I were in the day to day of it all, and we didn't have a board, which was great. And another thing that really appealed to me and so like Jeff and I were the board, basically. Chris Erwin:Make fast decisions. Adam Sachs:We were able to make really fast decisions. And so, he was still involved in the business, but not really in the day to day. Chris Erwin:I just want to quickly pause here. I think there's a good takeaway for our listeners that explains your rapid rise at Midroll. So I've worked with you and known you for many years, and you've also developed an industry reputation with many others that you're very clear thinker and strategist, and that you have a point of view on market opportunity. You do a quick pros cons analysis, and then you make a swift decision to move forward. Chris Erwin:And then on top of that, you also have this great magnetism that allows you to build teams and rally smart people around you. I believe that this has caused success throughout your career and is really powering your growth now at Team Coco, which we'll get into in a little bit. So I just wanted to call that out quickly. Adam Sachs:I appreciate it. Chris Erwin:So now you're CEO and as we've talked about, because I was a COO at my last company and we used to joke that COO is like, you have a lot of responsibility. You're essentially running the company, running the team, but the buck doesn't stop with you. Like if there's a really tough decision to make like, that's the CEO or that's the founder. Like that's not me, that's them. So you get to be like everyone's best friend. Adam Sachs:Yeah. COO is secretly like the best job in the world. Chris Erwin:100%. So now that changes for you, now you're the CEO, the big decisions really fall on you. How did that transition feel? Adam Sachs:A little bit scary. And honestly, one of the reasons it was scary and I had experienced being a CEO because I was CEO of Ignighter. So I knew what it entailed, but one of the things that was a little bit scary about it was actually that we had so much momentum. We didn't make this transition because things weren't working and we needed to try something new, that wasn't really the impetus at all. It was really about growth and that almost put more pressure on me. Adam Sachs:It was like, don't fuck this up because we have a good thing going and we're growing quickly. So, that part felt scary. It was also challenging to be a part of the management team. If you think there's like the CEO and then below the CEO, there's like three or four C level executives. It was a little bit challenging at first or scary at first to be one of those three or four people on the management team who then became the CEO and had to manage the people who were my peers or on that same level as me. Adam Sachs:So that part is always intimidating at first. I think it certainly didn't come without any growing pains that would never happen, but it worked, it worked. Chris Erwin:That's a very interesting call out. When you started Ignighter and essentially it's nothing, so there's like nothing to lose. It's like you're at zero and there's all this upside potential and you're like, "All right, let's see where we can take it." But now, you go to this company that was founded by someone else that has some real momentum and traction and the rains are given over to you. Chris Erwin:That's a totally different responsibility set or feeling. Clearly great experience. So now you're the CEO and it's funny at this time, this is also people were calling this is Peak Podcast. This I think is around 2014. And so I think there's a chance for a liquidity event. There's a chance to sell the company. What was the impetus for that sale? Adam Sachs:It was a couple of things. It was the first thing that you said, which is like podcasting was having a moment. Serial came out and Gimlet launched and suddenly a bunch of media companies were saying like, "We have to figure out what's our podcast strategy?" And so we started to get a lot of inbound interest from both investors and potential acquirers and having, like you said, we've been so excited about not having investors and we were profitable and growing quickly. Adam Sachs:Personally, I didn't want to bring on investors. And I think that the team agreed. We didn't need it. So why bring in other people to just start having their own kind of agendas? But we did feel like if there was the right buyer, it should be something worth pursuing, at least having the conversations. It was like, because we were bootstrapped was owned by a few of us, the business. Adam Sachs:So, we could have a meaningful outcome potentially without the number having to be astronomical. And so, we thought who knows, maybe this is just the first wave and it goes away forever. And so, we didn't want to miss out on podcastings moment if something new came along. And then the other piece of it is that there was money flowing into the space competitively. Adam Sachs:And so it was like if we were determined to stay bootstrapped and we didn't want to raise money while people around us were raising money and what does that mean from a competitive landscape? So, that was like all the things we were thinking about at that time. Chris Erwin:It was a beautiful moment to sell. And I think the timing was great. And I remember when I was at Big Frame, this is just after we had sold the Awesomeness TV and I was in the offices at our offices at Burundian Olympic. I remember you calling me like late night, like six or 6:30 PM. And we spoke for like an hour, hour and a half of like the pros and cons of a sale. And how do you manage a sale process? Chris Erwin:Because there was a lot that you were thinking through and I could tell that this was a big decision you were taking very seriously and that you are excited, but also scared at the same time. Adam Sachs:That's totally true. I guess as they're six month process of going around and pitching the company. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Which can be brutal because the moments are, this is great. We're headed in a great direction, but this could also fall apart at any moment. There's an investor that's excited, but then in the middle of doing diligence, maybe it all goes away and we miss our moments. Adam Sachs:Yeah. Exactly. Chris Erwin:[crosstalk 00:37:11] on edge the whole time. Adam Sachs:For sure. And I think we were worried that if that were to happen, we did have such great business momentum, if that were to happen, would that kill our business momentum, would that kill everything? It felt a little risky at the time. Chris Erwin:Unique moment that happened where I think as you are talking to different prospective buyers, you had a conversation with Andy Redmond who was the president of Tornante and who we also knew who went through our high school year above us. And that there was a unique moment that happened at Spargo. Tell us that quick story. Adam Sachs:So Andy Redmond is the president of Tornante. Tornante is Michael Eisner, former Disney CEO, it's Michael Eisner's vehicle for investing and acquiring companies. And when I came out to LA, I reached out to Andy and we hadn't stayed in touch really. Our families kind of know each other. We knew each other a little bit growing up, but we hadn't really stayed in touch. But I just reached out to him because I thought he had such a cool job. Adam Sachs:Tornante acquires media companies and invest in media companies. They make content. They make really great stuff. They make BoJack Horseman, for example. They do that. And then they also like just bought a English premier league soccer team. So they do all this and, it all kind of rolls up to Andy. So I thought Andy had such a cool job. And so we met or we had lunch early on when I was out here and he immediately, I think, got interested in what we were doing, and we stayed in touch. Adam Sachs:And then during the sell process, we communicated and he started to get excited and brought us in for several meetings. And then one of them was a lunch at Spargo with Michael Eisner. I told you the story because it was one of my very just surreal, most surreal, I guess- Chris Erwin:LA, Hollywood. Adam Sachs:Exactly, where I was like at a table with Michael Eisner who by the way is from Red Bank. I don't know if you know that. His whole family's from there. So we had this whole conversation with Andy about we all grew up in the same area and- Chris Erwin:Improv jam. Adam Sachs:He was one of the funniest at improv jam. His guessing was incredible. And so we had this whole conversation and he was really excited about what we were doing. And at one point during the meal, Wolfgang puck came over and sat down with us at the table and started giving Michael Eisner a hard time in a playful way about building a house too big that it was obscuring his view and- Chris Erwin:You're just like, what is happening? Adam Sachs:Yeah. And then literally Sidney Poitier's at the next table. And that was all like catalyzed by Andy. It was a very funny thing because we grew up in this very small town that seemingly very disconnected from all things Hollywood and literally geographically, like on the other side of the country. Chris Erwin:There must be something in the water in Monmouth County. That's a really funny story. So you end up selling the company to E.W. Scripps. You end up going over there and helping the company transition for a bit over a year. At that point you had, we were talking about like you had the entrepreneurial stamp on your back from Ignighter, and now you have in the sale of Midroll to E.W. Scripps. Chris Erwin:You have a stamp on your back as you are a legitimate audio executive. Podcasting an audio, digital audio is a fast growing industry. And Adam is a leader that has incredible relationships, has built an incredible portfolio of audio content. While at Earwolf, you also were able to help build out the ad sales arm and build out this scalable profitable business with a successful sale and exit. Chris Erwin:So you have this brand as you're an audio executive. And I think that's really exciting. It's really great. I'm also curious to ask, I don't know if anyone has asked you this, is that the brain that you wanted one, and then two, do you feel that that could also pigeon hole you a bit where it's like, okay, I'm on this path, but maybe my career ambitions are a bit broader in entrepreneurship or in other areas of entertainment? What do you think about that? Adam Sachs:It's a good questions. I am sure I'm pigeonholed in some ways. I'm sure people look at me for better or worse as an audio guy. I think a couple of things. One is, I do think there are a lot of things I've learned in building companies. And certainly, probably more specifically in building Midroll Stitcher that are applicable outside of just audio here at Team Coco, we're building a digital media business. Audio is a really important part of it. Adam Sachs:But there are things I learned through that process that I think are applicable. But I still believe in audio in a way that I think if I were pigeonholed into something that I thought that I wasn't super bullish on or that I thought was kind of lame, then it might be more of a bummer. But I think audio is cool. It sounds dumb. But I don't mind that that's like my brand, if it is my brand. Adam Sachs:And I think it's allowed me to meet a lot of cool entrepreneurs and work with a lot of cool companies. And I still think that the industry is in its early days. And so, I don't mind that being like part of or all of my brand. Chris Erwin:When people look at your career story, just even if just listening to this podcast, that it's very multifaceted. And then in entertainment, I agree, audio is not pigeonholing you because audio is a medium to express yourself and to create story, to share ideas, and to create IP. And that can manifest in a variety of ways, whether it's a TV, film, or a theme park, or short form social content, and you look at all the others in the same. Chris Erwin:And so I think it's actually a really fun, medium to play in right now because it allows you to experiment in a very low cost and rapid yet efficient way. And then if you want to go premium as well, like Conan Needs a Friend, one of the best performing comedy podcasts on the planet right now, there's so much that you can do, but just one aspect of a business. Adam Sachs:Yeah. I agree. I love audio. So, I don't mind it. Chris Erwin:Adam Sachs tagline, I love audio. Awesome. You sell Midroll to E.W. Scripps and I believe the price point was somewhere in the range of if there was like an earn out maybe 55 to 65 million-ish in that range. Adam is nodding. So I think I'm in the right ballpark. So after the sale, Adam has a lot of options. It's after Midroll, you then go do a stint as an entrepreneur residence at Chernin, the Chernin Group. Chris Erwin:You work with some brilliant minds like Jason Bergman and Mike Hearns and the rest of the Austin team over there. Steve [Cosnio 00:43:18] and I'm going to blank on a bunch of other names. You even start advising higher ground audio, the production arm of Barack and Michelle Obama. There's a lot of different things that you can do. And I think some of the options include, you could start your own company, start another company. Chris Erwin:Or you could go work for a team, and you actually end up working for Conan and Team Coco and overseeing his entire digital business. In that moment, how do you decide what you're going to do? Adam Sachs:The way you describe it makes it sound like I had a lot of opportunity, and I did. It's true, but it wasn't obvious to me what to do which is part of the reason I went to Chernin and I was just like, I don't have a ton of conviction around a business that I want to start. I know what it takes to build a business from the ground up. And there's nothing that I'm obsessed over right now that I just know I have to go do this. Adam Sachs:The idea of joining something that was early and interesting appealed to me. So my thinking was like, let me just go where there's really, really, really smart people. And to your point, the Chernin Group, especially as it relates to media, has some of the smartest. And so spending a year with them, first of all, learning how to be an investor, which I had zero experience doing, really appealed to me because I wanted to just understand that world a little more. Adam Sachs:Meeting really smart both investors and entrepreneurs on the media side or in the media world was really appealing because I felt like it would help me just figure out what to do next. And with the Conan thing, and maybe it goes back to this theme of not overthinking it, but it was this opportunity of you can work with arguably the funniest person on the planet who has a reputation for also being a good guy and a team that really is filled with good people and that like each other, and that have been around here for many, many, many years as he explores. Adam Sachs:And they all explore launching something new, but with the added benefit of brand and this talent and this reach that's all here, it was kind of like, let me just see what happens. And as we've already established here, comedy's very important to me. And there was talk of maybe starting a podcast network and that was appealing to me for obvious reasons. So yeah, it literally just checked a lot of boxes. Chris Erwin:How were you first introduced to Conan and Team Coco? Adam Sachs:Through Chernin. It was like, there was a connection between some of the people that turned in and some of the people at Team Coco. And that's how I got to know them. And I did a little bit of consulting work to help think through this business plan, because what it is is Team Coco has existed since 2010, Will keep me honest, 2010. Yes. But it wasn't until a year and a half ago that there was this pivot into building it into a full on media business. Adam Sachs:It existed as a really successful marketing arm that marketed digitally the TV show, the linear show. And that became its own business in a way. The marketing of that, the distribution of those digital clips from the TV show and monetizing them across YouTube and social channels became a business. And then that ultimately became the foundation for what Team Coco is today. Chris Erwin:Just to be clear for the audience, the tent pole format that Conan has is his talk show with TBS. Adam Sachs:Correct. Chris Erwin:Got it. So you're like, okay, this is an amazing marketing arm, but you also had a point of view of like there's a lot more to do with this. Adam Sachs:Yeah. And a lot of that came from my experience at Midroll center, but the year I spent at Chernin, meeting a lot of what I thought were some of the best and most forward thinking media companies. Chris Erwin:And onboarding into Team Coco, it seems that one of your first early projects was getting Conan podcast network off the ground. Is that accurate? Adam Sachs:Yeah, that's true. They had tried a couple, maybe like pilots of a podcast. There was talk of doing a podcast. Conan was half interested, but pretty skeptical. Chris Erwin:On his podcast, Conan Needs a Friend sometimes he'll make references to you as the executive producer. He's like, "Yeah. I don't know what this podcast thing is. Is this even real? Supposedly we have downloads. I still don't know if there's money coming from it. I don't see it." Adam Sachs:Yeah. I think now he finally gets it, but yeah, for a while even after it launched and was successful, he was still like, is this thing real? I don't know. Am I sitting alone in this room talking into a microphone and no one's hearing it? But what's happened is now he gets stopped everywhere he goes, and people tell him, "I love the podcast." So he knows it's real. Or it's like some massive Truman Show scam where everyone is just faking it and coming up to him. But yeah, no, he knows it's real at this point, which is good. Chris Erwin:He has one of the best performing shows. That's probably important. I want to just jump back for a quick sec. Was it hard to get the teams buying or when you were getting recruited, was it like, "Look, this is what I want to do here. I want to build out a podcast network." And so when they brought you on, it was like, "All right, we know what Adam's plan is. So if we actually bring him on a COO, we're going to get things done." Or was it like an uphill battle? Adam Sachs:We put together a business plan that included a variety of verticals, audio being one of them. It was like the digital distribution business, which is the core business. It was live events, it was podcasts. It was stand up specials. And that was part of the whole business plan that I helped put together. And there was buying on the business plan holistically for sure. Adam Sachs:I think what we've seen over the past year is that audio has become a major investment area for us. And it helps that Conan's podcast has done so well. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Maybe you can also reference this like, look, if Obama is leaning into this, there's something. Adam Sachs:Exactly. Now that Conan is one of many A-listers or a plus listers, like the Obamas who are understanding this is a huge opportunity. Chris Erwin:So now you launched Conan Needs a Friend and there's a few other formats as well that you guys have launched. Remind me. Adam Sachs:Yeah, we have several podcasts. We have Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. We have the three questions with Andy Richter, Inside Conan, and Important Hollywood Podcast are all unscripted podcasts that we've launched. We've launched two scripted series so far as well, one called Frontier Tween and one called Smarter. And those are scripted narrative, audio podcasts. Chris Erwin:And are those exclusively on the Luminary platforms? Adam Sachs:Those are exclusively on Luminary. Exactly. Chris Erwin:Got it. Thinking about 2020, how do you want to build out the audio initiative for Team Coco? Where do you guys see as more opportunity? Adam Sachs:We want to continue doing both scripted and non-scripted. So far, all of our unscripted podcasts have been hosted by people literally within this building, Conan and Andy Richter and Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell who are both writers on the Conan Show. And so for us, and this is like a broader theme just for us to be successful as a business, we have to expand our talent network, both in podcasts and in the digital video that we develop and in the live shows. Adam Sachs:Everything, it can't rely as much as you have a huge competitive advantage when you have Conan being the center of a podcast. Because not only is he so famous, but he's so talented, but there's only so much scale you can get out of that. There's only so much you can squeeze out before he just like collapses or revolts. Chris Erwin:If he's listening to this, just like, "Adam's going to like squeeze more energy and time." Adam Sachs:He and I talk about it a lot. He talks about it a lot. He knows that we push him really far and it has an incredible amount of endurance more than most people. He does more than most people at that level, but there's only so far he can go. And so in order to be successful, we have to do more with other people. That's a big theme for us. Chris Erwin:Well, it's interesting to hear about the endurance. Because I think I was listening to a podcast with him and Jimmy Kimmel, where he was just talking about how hard they work. They're taping a show every day, their talk show. And then just all the other content that they're creating a short form format for socials, for marketing, for their podcast. It's just a lot of work. Chris Erwin:So it's not like nine to five, Monday through Friday. It's like they're on all weekend working and prepping and writing and all of that. Adam Sachs:Yeah. He works really hard. Chris Erwin:Along with a great team behind him that works really hard too. Okay. Last question on Team Coco before we get into the rapid fire round and then also maybe do some crowdsource questions from our high school friends, TBD. Does any other things about Team Coco that you're excited about in 2020? Adam Sachs:I think building upon the things we've already started is important for us, like doing more live events, building on our podcast network, doing specials. We're making comedy specials for HBO Max, and hopefully we'll be making more content for other platforms. All that is I think exciting. We also are doing a podcast exclusively on Stitcher premium podcast called The Best of Conan Standup. Adam Sachs:Where we're taking five standup sets from every year dating back to the first year that Conan was on TV each year and highlighting those. So you can listen to ... it's hosted by Laurie Kilmartin also here within our walls. She's a writer on Conan and a great standup herself. That show is every episode is a different season of stand ups from Conan. Think there's like opportunity for us in gaming potentially. I don't know. We're trying to expand. Chris Erwin:Awesome. I think you guys have an incredible path forward. We are massive supporters of your business as you know. Adam Sachs:You guys are really helpful. Chris Erwin:To close out the Team Coco narrative. I think one of the things that Adam brought up in the first part of the conversation was just what attracted him to Conan was his sensibility that he's some amazing talented comedy writer who's silly and funny and smart. But it also like Conan is a good person. He's got good values and he's built out a team that he really looks out for, that he really respects. Chris Erwin:And he's really set the tone at the organization. And I can say, I was fortunate enough to get invited to the Team Coco and Conan holiday party at Yamashiro in Hollywood. And it's funny as I spoke to Adam and then as I spoke to some of his peers, like Willy Nevara, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. Steve Breslow and some of your other business affairs executives, they all said, "Conan sets us really special tone from the top." Adam Sachs:He does. Chris Erwin:I was there with a friend of mine, Maya, and we felt that in the room, it just like we've gone to a lot of Hollywood parties and I don't get excited by most of them, but this one was like, it felt different. Everyone was so open and it was a really good vibe. And I think that really leads to a really compelling and special creative environment working environment. Chris Erwin:And what I also heard from talking to one of the final executives there was that Adam is also a big part of setting that tone with the leadership. She made it very clear that that tone comes down from Conan, but it is also very much embodied in Adam and how he runs the Team Coco organization. Adam Sachs:That's nice. It's Conan and Jeff Ross, for sure. They really take care of their people. Chris Erwin:All right. Before we get into the rapid fire, I'm just going to check the text thread. Joe Venti asks, is this the rebirth of Ask Adam? Ask him to rewrite what dreams may come? Adam Sachs:The Ask Adam was my column in the Tower Tribune in the high school. Chris Erwin:Got it. Okay. I think that's the one that we'll take away from this. We need to go into the other ones. All right. So rapid fire, Adam, these are questions that you could answer very quickly in a few amount of words, one or two sentences or less. Here we go. Proudest moment slash accomplishment of your career. Adam Sachs:Conan's Podcast. I'm really proud of it's reached so many people, it's brought joy to a lot of people. It's brought a lot of joy to Conan who says that he feels really fulfilled by it and it's become, I think, an important part of his, I don't want to speak for him, but I think he said stuff like this. When he looks back on what he's accomplished in his career, I know that this will be one of the more important, special things that he's done. Adam Sachs:And I think it's really good quality. I think it's a really great show and it's because of Conan and Sona and Matt and I'm proud of it. Chris Erwin:Awesome. What do you want to do less and more of in 2020? Adam Sachs:I am always pushing myself to think bigger and to do more bigger thinking and to do less in the weeds of micromanaging. I think I just have like a tendency to do that a little bit and it's not a great quality. And so, I think getting more balanced in that sense I think is something that's important. Chris Erwin:Entrepreneurial advice. What one to two personal characteristics primarily drive your success? Adam Sachs:I think getting shit done. I think a lot of entrepreneurs sit around saying that they want to do something or that they should do something. And I think that the ones who see success are determined to just get something done and also stick around. I think it takes a long time for a company to find success. And it's not always fun, but I think hanging in there is important. Chris Erwin:And a quick side anecdote, we talked about this yesterday, but also you are not petty. You're not political. And even you were telling a story about your wife, who's like, "Adam, I hear that you're taking a meeting with this man or woman. Don't you remember a few months ago that you had like a really bad encounter?" You're like, "I don't remember that." Adam Sachs:I think I have a bad memory. I think maybe it benefits me sometimes, but I'm not good at holding grudges because I literally forget if somebody wronged me. And Molly who was my biggest defender is always does like stick up for me and look out for me. And she's like, "What are you doing? We hate that person. Remember?" And I'm like, "Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot. We hate that person." Chris Erwin:Last three, advice for media professionals going into 2020. Quick words of wisdom. Adam Sachs:Follow the money is one of them. I think a lot of media companies in the digital space have come and gone because deficit financing, digital video in a way that isn't really sustainable anymore today. I think there's a lot of paywalls popping up, which I think is like in some ways a good thing, but in some ways a bad thing. Really understand what you're asking people to pay for, because I think media consumers are willing to pay, but only for certain things. If you're going to build a company in media, try to latch on to the best talent or the best content. Chris Erwin:Smart advice. All right. Last couple. Any future startup ambitions? See yourself starting another company in the near future? Adam Sachs:Probably not. I don't know. Maybe. A lot of it comes back to convicti

Seth has been a MergeLane investor and advisor since the very beginning. I invited Seth to join the show because we’ve had some nice conversations about the challenge we each have in managing our personal bandwidth. Since having these conversations, we’ve both managed to carve out more time through some creative outsourcing and delegation, and I thought it might be helpful to share some of our lessons learned. If you are listening to this sometime in the future, it is April 2020 and most of us are under a stay-at-home order because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Since many of us are feeling stretched by the new realities of pandemic life, we thought this topic would be especially useful. Related thoughts: https://www.sethlevine.com/archives/2020/04/investing-in-downturns.html https://www.mergelane.com/post/how-conscious-leadership-bought-me-5-hours-of-extra-time-each-day

In response to the ongoing financial crisis, The Foundry Group has teamed up with Lew's List and High Plains Advisors to create a pro-bono COVID-19 Finance Assistance Network. The group comprises CFOs, controllers, and other senior finance professionals who are helping business owners navigate the new relief programs, as well as advice on planning for cash flow management and business planning in a post-COVID world.  In this episode, Seth Levine from The Foundry Group tells us about this new network and who should apply.  

Today Colin Keeley ( www.twitter.com/colinkeeley, www.colinkeeley.com, and www.techinchicago.co) joins us to talk about venture capital, continued education, networking, and how to optimize learning. Colin has a super interesting story that ultimately culminates in the venture-capital field. He also runs an amazing podcast called Tech in Chicago. I think Colin’s superpowers include: masterful genuine networking, appetite for taking calculated risks, and taking perpetual, non-stop steps toward his lofty goals. Listen for these themes as you make your way through podcast, and I think you’ll see them all over the place. Time Stamps0:00:00 – Introduction to the episode 0:03:00 – Introduction to Colin Keeley 0:03:13 – My favorite episodes of Tech in Chicago: Jeff Carter ( https://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/tech-chicago-episode-8-jeff-carter-vc-hyde-park-angels-west-loop-ventures ), Ezra Galston ( https://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/tech-chicago-episode-6-ezra-galston-vc-chicago-ventures ), and Troy Henikoff ( http://www.techinchicago.co/episodes/2017/1/13/troy-henikoff-techstars-md-vc-math-vp ) 0:04:18 – Macalester College to Inveni 0:04:55 – Seth Levine of the Foundry Group gave a talk 0:05:38 – Cold email into a job 0:07:05 – First start up hire: “athletes” 0:08:30 – Experience with Geneva Denim 0:09:40 – University of Chicago MBA & starting in venture capital 0:15:07 – Bevy Post-Mortem ( https://colinkeeley.com/blog/bevy-post-mortemmy-sharing-economy-startupnbspfailure ) 0:16:57 – How Colin met Paul Lee https://www.builders.vc/people.html#cbpi=paullee.html from Builders VC 0:18:25 – Starting Tech in Chicago 0:20:00 – The vision for Avocado Audio 0:22:44 – Venture Capital 0:34:14 – Continued education 0:36:23 – How to learn without doing in a start-up context: “Why now?” 0:37:38 – Answers to the “why now” question 0:41:57 – Importance of persuasion, sales, and storytelling 0:44:42 – Networking 0:54:00 – Reading text and retention   0:56:56 – Audio and retention 1:00:30 – Podcast analytics lagging behind video platforms 1:02:34 – Books (American Kingpin, eBoys, The Design of Everyday Things) 1:05:41 – Skills (communication, writing, selling, public speaking, producing content) 1:07:56 – Beliefs (improved at letting trivial matters go) 1:09:25 – Strategies for learning (reading, listening to podcasts, writing, meeting with people) 1:09:50 – What he wishes younger Colin knew (make yourself uncomfortable, ask for what you want, start at a larger start-up so that you have a network if things don’t work out) 1:12:10 – Support & Closing Gratitude Give Strategy Chain a 5-star rating and leave a review at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategy-chain/id1492935567 Amazon affiliate links at http://strategychainpodcast.com/support Send me questions at http://strategychainpodcast.com/contact Sign up for the email list at http://strategychainpodcast.com/ Social Media @strategychain (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Medium)

The Psychology of the Markets, Why Stock Buy-backs are so prolific; public vs private market investing; the impact of fear in setting time horizons; why fear IN an economic slowdown is more destructive than the fear OF an economic slowdown; that time when Chuck Schumer told Jerome Powell, 'you're the ONLY game in town.'

Seth is a co-founder of Foundry Group, a Boulder based venture firm with almost $2 billion in assets under management. Read Seth's blog at https://www.sethlevine.com/ Read more about Foundry Group at https://www.foundrygroup.com/

Market Huddle Episode 25: Breaking out the Brown Sauce (special guest: Seth Levine) In episode #25, Patrick Ceresna and Kevin Muir welcome Seth Levine to talk macro markets and more. Fast forward to: 5:49 Seth Levine talking Macro 24:40 Tales from the Trading Desk 28:55 Smart money vs. retail debate 47:24 This Week in Market History 55:19 WTF Clip of the Week 1:08:06 Review Last Week’s Top 5 1:15:52 Top 5 Things to Watch 1:40:49 Parting Wisdom 1:44:27 Extended Interview Seth Levine … Continue Reading >Breaking out the Brown Sauce (guest: Seth Levine)

RIA Advisors Chief Investment Strategist Lance Roberts w Integrated Investor editor Seth Levine on the true purpose of Central Banks, the flaws in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), and how we think about Capitalism, home ownership, and the "American Dream."

RIA Advisors Chief Investment Strategist Lance Roberts analysis and commentary on Monday's (2/25) market moves, Life with The Roberts', Corporate Growth and Economic Indicators: What companies say vs what they do; retirement living at The Holiday Inn; Fed Rate management w Seth Levine tease; World Trade indicators and Onalaska, Texas aircraft registrations.

Seth Levine, partner at Boulder-based venture capital firm Foundry Group, was dismayed to hear the news coming out of Silicon Valley about the sexual harassment and sexual assault claims connected to veritable luminaries in the venture world. Seth and Foundry did what they often do on issues that matter. They moved quickly beyond thought and words to action. Yet this is a complex issue for a firm run by (his words) four middle-aged white guys. They stayed curious, moved carefully, sought extensive input, and continued to ask themselves tough questions about the "right thing" to do. Hear Seth's thoughts in the aftermath of these difficult disclosures and his views on what venture firms must do to not only be fair and decent but also leverage the meaningful investment opportunities with women-led startups. Listen in to an intimate conversation with MergeLane co-founder and CEO Sue Heilbronner on the Real Leaders podcast.

Who better to get the lowdown on investor-worthy scaling and sales strategies for startups, than a Venture Capitalist at a top-rated firm? These guys have seen it all and know what it takes to launch startup growth from the ground up.  Seth Levine is a Boulder, CO based technology investor and managing director at Foundry Group. Seth is an avid outdoorsman and enjoys spending his free time cycling, snowboarding, mountaineering and spending time with his family. He writes a blog on technology, venture capital and living in Colorado at www.sethlevine.com **************************************************************** THE WORD is a #live freestylin' event + live #twitterchat (#SalesJolt) w/ @keenan. Every two weeks, Keenan invites a special guest, experts in human behavoir and #psychology, #sales, rocking the #smallbusiness world, and so much more... Don't be alarmed if things get entertaining in here. Explicit language known to pop in. You've been warned. The #sales and LIFE training, with #swagger. **************************************************************** Website: www.asalesguy.com Twitter: @asalesguy @keenan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/asalesguyrecruiting https://www.facebook.com/heykeenan Instagram: asalesguy

Seth Levine is one of the most successful VCs on the planet having Co-Founded Foundry Group, Seth has made investments in the likes of Fitbit (IPO), Admeld (acquired by Google), Zynga (IPO) and Gnip (acquired by Twitter). The Foundry Group now has 5 funds, 4 early stage and 1 growth fund, totalling over $1bn in assets. Prior to Foundry Group, Seth started his career in venture with Mobius Venture Capital and lead the IPO of FirstWorld in 2000. Seth writes an awesome blog on technology, venture capital and colorado at www.sethlevine.com. If you enjoyed today's show, share the love on Twitter by clicking here!  In Today's Show You Will Learn: 1.) Where it all started for Seth and how he made his move into the technology and venture industry? 2.) Question from James Altucher: Do you have to be in Silicon Valley to get the best access to deal flow? 3.) How has Foundry group developed since 2006 as VC firm? 4.) Why are all funds raised by Foundry the same, $225m? How is VC fundraising the same as startup fundraising? 5.) Question from Elizabeth Kraus: How does Seth stay motivated having enjoyed so much financial success with Foundry Group? 6.) What areas of tech is Seth most excited about?   Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Most Used Apps: Slack, Voxer, DarkSky Seth's Fave Book: The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway Seth's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Hidden Brain Seth Most Recent Investment: Sourcepoint As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Seth and Foundry Group on Twitter here! For a more colourful view of Harry's world and maybe a few mojito sessions, check out Harry's Instagram here!

Seth Levine, Foundry Group and VCIR Winter Co-Chair, introduces the Technology Showcase and Jason Kintzler presents PitchEngine. PitchEngine is a next generation PR platform that enables companies to create and distribute social PR content to better collaborate with media, consumers and other influencers.