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Colin Lynch os the Head of Global Real Estate Investments at TD Asset Management. Colin is responsible for Global and Canadian Real Estate Strategy, overseeing fund design and structuring, implementation and oversight of acquired assets for the Global Real Estate Strategy. In this role Colin manages Investments in over 1000 properties located in over 20 counties worldwide. In this episode we talked about:  • Colin's Bio & Background  • Financial Crisis  • The Canadian Market from a Global Perspective  • Post-COVID Real Estate Market Overview  • Pricing & Affordability  • Effects of Inflation  • Commercial Real Estate Culture  • Mentorship, Resources and Lessons Learned Useful links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinkrlynch/?originalSubdomain=ca Transcription: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to working capital the real estate podcast. My special guest today is Colin Lynch. Colin is the head of global real estate investments at TD asset management.   Colin is responsible for global and Canadian real estate strategy, overseeing fund design and structuring implementation and oversight of acquired assets for the global real estate strategy. In this role, calling manages investments in over 1000 properties located in over 20 countries. Worldwide. We just updated that now. Colin, how's it going   Colin (53s): Kid. Good. Thank you for having me here.   Jesse (56s): Thanks for, thanks for being on the show. I'm really excited to talk with you today. I think there's a number of things that we'd like to cover, but before we do, as with every guest that we have on the show would love to get a little bit of more information on your background, how you got into real estate. We talked a little how it was a bit of an unconventional approach or entrance into real estate. So take us back, take us back and give us a little bit of a, of your background.   Colin (1m 23s): Absolutely certainly unconventional approach to real estate. So first things first, I actually grew up as very much into music as a musician. And so I was one of those children that was in every sort of music class. By the time it got to high school was performing in a ton of ensembles through the, by the a hundred concerts a year, got to the end of high school, said time to explore something else.   Cause I figured I, I had learned all that I could possibly learn in music, which was incorrect, but I figured I'd at least explored app. And so I went into a business and history. So I did three things in undergrad. I did the world concerned for a music. I did a bachelor of commerce at Queens, and I did a bachelor of arts in history at Queens. And, and then, you know, graduated and it was the heyday of the leveraged buyout, boom. And my mom who said, I was way too all over the place said, you got to get a skill.   You've got to focus and you should go work for those banks because they never run into any issues, their board to stability. And so that's what I did I do to fleet, went out to investment banking and went to Morgan Stanley and got to experience the global financial crisis front and center. Ben went to, went to, to business school. And throughout that entire period, this is where you expect me to say, I had that passion for real estate, which I do, but I also had a passion for commercial aviation.   So joined McKinsey and company in Chicago, but reality was all over the world, did that stuff. And after traveling all over the world, I said, look, that's fantastic, but I'd like to come back to a city I love and a nation I love and that's in Toronto. So I did that and this is where the real estate part comes in. I had been very interested in, in a lot of political activities. And so in 2014, in January, 2014, somebody that couldn't get elected asked me to help him.   And that was the John Torrey mayoral campaign here in, in Toronto. And so 10 months later he was mayor. He asked me to work for him. I said, no. And through that conversation set of conversations that got introduced to this firm called Greystone, a firm that I had never heard of before. And, and after about a year of conversation, Greystone asked me to join. So initially I joined in strategy working for effectively the C-suite and, and then that turned into moving into the real estate world.   So that's a long way of saying I had a very unconventional introduction to the world of real estate, but it was, it was a fun story to, to live through.   Jesse (4m 26s): That's great. So in terms of the, the financial crisis component of that was that you were still a at Morgan Stanley at that, at that time. And if so, what were you doing? What were you doing for them there?   Colin (4m 38s): Yeah, I was doing a number, number of different things. I, so I started started that Morgan Stanley focused on consumer retail and financial services. So financial sponsor stories. So serving pension plans who private equity firms in the light and then also timber companies. And then, and then as, as the financial crisis unfolded that broadened.   And I basically worked across firstly every street, but spent a bit of time in real estate as well. And then from a type of activity, as I mentioned prior to the global financial crisis investment banking was doing a lot of leveraged buyouts and throughout the financial crisis also worked on things like that or in possession financing for companies going through insolvency or worked on a few, reached a sort of a few IPO's did some M and a, but at the conclusion of my term at Morgan Stanley, the governor of the bank of Canada, Mark Carney at the time requested some help on the financial stability plan for Canada that was quantitative easing effectively in Trent and requests was help design a program for the bank to implement a quantitative easing.   And so that's what I did in the last sort of four months or so of my time at Morgan Stanley. So highly unusual investment banking experience for sure. A lot of industries and a lot of different types of activities that I participated in very much a function of the global financial crisis.   Jesse (6m 21s): Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's still topical, I guess even the current environment we're in now. So I think the, the idea of just the macro economic perspective you got, I don't think it's something that's too dissimilar to some of what we're doing right now from a stimulus and, and a quantitative easing perspective.   Colin (6m 40s): Very fair point. And you know, it's interesting because prior to this environment that we're in used to tell folks about that quantitative easing program, which the bank didn't actually have to implement. And the bank was here in Canada was one of the few central banks worldwide. They didn't have to implement quantitative easing well, fast forward to 2020, and we were pretty, pretty heavy on the quantitative Beason train. So, so, you know, it's things, things change and evolve over time.   Yeah.   Jesse (7m 11s): Yeah. Fair enough. So take us to, to the Greystone, to the actual foray into real estate, you know, what, what area did you, did you initially go into, and maybe for those that don't know a little bit about what they do?   Colin (7m 25s): Yeah, absolutely. So Greystone began as the investment management corporation of Saskatchewan. So 35 years ago, thereabouts, it was a department of, of the government and it was spun out from the government and became sort of like the investment authority for the province of Saskatchewan then became owned by pension plans. And at that point looked very much like, you know, the Aimco as an example, what the government of Saskatchewan said at that point, when they spun it out was after five years, the pensions could do whatever they wanted in terms of their investment management services.   And over time management bought out most of the interests of those pensions and, and that, that time Greystone had a very small real estate portfolio. It was a full suite, so public equities and fixed income, but also had real estate. And that real estate grew from about 200 million to on, on, by the time TD came around and bought Greystone in 2018, that real estate portfolio equity was about 16, 17 billion mortgages was around, I believe at the time about 4 billion.   And so it was quite the successful run and Greystone had become a name for excellence in real estate, both equity and debt, even though Greystone began and, and still had quite a strong public equities and fixed income side to it. And so like that, I joined Ray stone working with the senior team in, and once I did a number of things around reorganizations U S expansion, et cetera, I said, look, it's time to fire me because I'm pretty much done.   And then that, you know, originated into originate the conversation, which was, you know, do you want to be a coach, I E a manager, or do you want to be a player on the team? And I looked at that and I said, you know, what, why being a player on the team looks really interesting. And so that's the path I went down. And as we've looked at the different areas in Greystone and where my passion was, my dad grew up in construction. And so I grew up with, you know, floor plans, building plans, sorry, I'm on my, on my basement floor.   You know, I had a fascination for real estate. And so I thought that would be a cool place to be. And so my foray in was working on our asset management division. And so we created a real estate asset management division in house to do a bit of that work a bit on the office portfolio, in the industrial portfolio. And then, so I worked on that, that I was also asked to help co-create the international strategy, which was taking Greystone success that we had experienced over 30 years within Canada and, and expanding that outside of Canada.   And so I worked on those two initiatives and, and then the international strategy went from strategy to being a fund. And I went from creating the strategy to running the fund and then, and then that grew, and it was quite, it's been quite a successful ride. And then I was earlier this year, asked to take over the domestic portfolio, which is that portfolio that had been around for the, for the last 30 years.   Jesse (10m 55s): Yeah. So in terms of, in terms of going into the fund model, what was it prior to that? Was it, was it raising capital for asset specific and w like, what was that transformation like?   Colin (11m 5s): Yeah, so it was actually, so on the international side, it was literally building something from scratch. So Greystone prior to launching the international head, just domestic real estate. And it was a largely one strategy on the equity side and one strategy on the debt side, diversified across property types and by risk strategies and by geography and on international there's, there were a lot of investors con we call clients that were asking us, you know, why don't you have a strategy to invest outside of Canada?   And for about a decade, the Greystone response was we hear you, but we're focused on delivering great results in Canada. And so when I came around and said, look, I really am interested in, in, in being a player on the team versus the coach, they said, great help us solve this. And so we, we literally had a whiteboard. That's how we began. And we, and we designed ground up a single, comprehensive global strategy, investing everywhere from Australia to Europe, to the U S across all the property types and all of our strategies in all formats.   So it could be a fund investment or can be a JV, or it could be a club. And, and so we designed something with a tremendous amount of flexibility, which took a long time, but it was quite fun to be able to just literally create something from scratch and then, and then to actually build it, which, you know, you have all of the legal ramifications, regulatory ramifications fro in selling Greystone to TV in the middle of bad. And now you're pro you're owned by a traded bank and they've got their own regulations and then sort of, you know, build a track record and, and take that to the market and, and raise capital and, and deploy it.   So that's been, that's been the journey on the international side and it's definitely been interesting.   Jesse (13m 11s): Yeah, that is interesting. So we had a Michael Emery on the show a few months ago from allied REIT, and we know every time I have some Canadian Canadian guests that has started or work for a large Canadian real estate company, I always ask them the comparison to the U S or globally, where you have individuals playing in our backyard for a certain amount of time. And then I can imagine just like you're alluding to here, the regulatory environment, the probably the accredited investor differences and those kinds of complexities. Well, I'm sure there was a bunch of things that were challenging, but was there one thing or one or two things that was really one of the, one of the hardest parts about that transformation or about that ability to go from not just in playing in a Canadian market, but into a global space?   Colin (13m 58s): Oh, that's a good question. Certainly the regulatory dynamic is, is, is challenging. The European union, as an example, is a highly regulated regulatory construct. And, and there's a lot of rules around if you're marketing a fund, there's something called a passport and you sort of have to have this passport that applies to certain European countries.   We have a vehicle in Ireland called the ICAP, which Cyrus collective acid vehicle runs pretty akin to accompany. So with a legitimate board and, and, and all of the infrastructure service providers, companies that service that ICAP sending that up was quite, quite, quite the work, particularly as we're getting to the ninth ending of this, of this story, right, as COVID started. And so we sort of certainly felt the heat of regulatory concern just in general, as, as we were creating this as, as COVID habit.   So that's probably a little bit of a boring answer cause folks, folks, really, not too many people get up in the morning wanting to talk regulatory details, but, you know, we had eight, eight external law firms helping us around the world on, on that, on that point. And so, you know, the, the complexity of that I think was unexpected. I would say I'd stepped back from that and say, there's a cultural difference, you know, in, in the U S for sure.   You know, I think a bit more aggressive in Canada, we've got a smaller number of participants in the market that are fair. You know, quite a number are fairly well capitalized and have very long-term perspectives in terms of ownership, property. That's not uniform around the world. And certainly the U S is a deep and liquid place. And, and, and the regional variances are quite significant, but I think that broad sort of hates a little bit more aggressive is actually probably true.   I'd say the real estate challenge for us is there's just a host of participants worldwide. And so, you know, we're active in Australia, we're active in the UK, we're active in Germany, we're active in Japan and, and finding sort of like-minded investors across all of those regions. It's just a lot to learn a lot to introduce yourself a lot of introductions to make, and a lot of subsequent sort of conversations. And then you layer that on, into, into do that in the pandemic.   And, you know, fortunately we S we did maybe three years of those introductions and, and subsequent meetings, pre pandemic, but still we've, you know, we've had quite a number of those conversations. So layer on doing, doing that in a pandemic. And it becomes a quite interesting,   Jesse (17m 2s): Yeah, a little more challenging than, than any other time or most times in terms of, if we go there on that, you know, lockdowns the government stimulus, what we we've talked about before eviction moratoriums a lot has happened in the, in the last crazy to say almost two years, how has that perspective for you? And I understand it's a big question, but how has that, how has your perspective as a, as somebody that deals with real estate on a, on a domestic and global level, you know, how has your opinion of the market and asset classes changed over the last year or two?   Colin (17m 38s): Yeah, that is a big question. So generally put, I've been reminded of the ever present role of government in our lives and in particular in real estate. And I, and I don't think that can be overstated, right? So whether, you know, the, the eviction moratoriums, or simply put closing down a lot, a lot of the retail, et cetera, and that was a global story.   And, and going through the different government programs requirements, et cetera, particularly during the first two waves of COVID was, was an exercise. And, and there's things that we know about. So the shopping malls closed, et cetera. There were other things that got a bit less play, but were also meaningful. I E different requirements for international investors use Australia as an example, there were new requirements for international investors looking to bring capital into the market due to COVID.   So, you know, that, that was interesting now to real estate foundationally. I don't think COVID has changed my perspective on the different property types. So as an example, while located office and CPDs high quality had the view that if, you know, pre COVID, if, if you're making office investments, that's probably where you want to invest during COVID, don't have, I haven't changed my perspective on it, you know, has my overall sort of thoughts on office as a property type being tempered clearly.   But I, you know, I think you talk to folks and say, and what you hear is, you know, COVID, hasn't really changed their direction of travel. I think that's, that's largely the same for me. I do think on the retail side at some point. So I used the UK as an example, where we saw a lot of devaluation of retail. At some point, you hit the level where you say, you know, the land value is, is, is higher than what folks are sort of trading in the market for.   Right. And I think in the UK, you actually have some of those situations, but I think in, in Canada, there were probably some deals to be had in the retail space, depending on the type of retail you're looking at. And that probably, that would be a different point of view than one I would have had two years ago. It's just, we've seen, you know, a lot interns evaluations over the last two years, multifamily and industrial. I mean, you know, I think we've all been very interested on the industrial story, the E the E grocery dynamic, something I'm focused on a bit, most folks don't see that being a significant concern in, in, you know, for those that own grocery boxes.   But I do think that that E grocery, even though most would say, it's fairly unprofitable for the operators. I do think it's worth watching. And, and then on the multifamily side, you know, the, the story say, Hey, everybody's moved out, Tim, we're all gonna live in, in, you know, in two hours outside of the metros or we're going to move someplace far. I think we're seeing that kind of played out to a small degree, but largely hasn't fully, and folks have moved back.   And especially in, in the U S where folks have moved back into urban Metro San Francisco's a bit sluggish on that. But beyond that CEO look at Seattle, look at Boston, you've seen, you've seen those apartment rants quite dramatically increased this year. So, you know, some, all of that up and say, not dramatic changes in my view on real estate overall, but certainly certainly reinforcement in some areas and, and deeper thinking and others.   Yeah.   Jesse (21m 57s): I think I'm probably agree with everything you just said, from my perspective of what you're saying, it sounds like very similar to our outlook. Obviously we're biased in brokerage, but on the office end, I think that there was, if you were really in tune with what was going on in office, you saw a lot of these changes really predated COVID in the lockdown, the different ways of working, the ability to have people come in on potential alternating days. So I th I share your position on downtown well located transit oriented office.   I think the story hasn't changed much for them. What's, what's been amazing is that record prices that we've seen in, in industrial and multi res industry industrial, you know, has been the darling of the industry, multi Rez. I think at the beginning of the pandemic, there was this concern that eviction moratoriums would have caused this, you know, mass vacancy, which I think just generally we didn't see, we saw people paying their rent, which I guess in theory, or in practice was kind of subsidy subsidized by the government's.   Colin (23m 3s): Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. It was. And that goes back to the first point on the large role of government in, in our society. And, and to be fair, so much of our society was underwritten by the government, especially in that first lockdown, but our multifamily it's interesting because one could juxtapose a national headline from CNN, for instance, saying nobody's paying rent and rent collection is only at 70%. And multi-family, and then what I was hearing from, from institutional owners was, oh, no, our rent collections are 95%.   And I, the worst I heard was like maybe 89%. And so, you know, that, you know, those two stats juxtapose show the importance of institutional ownership of the multifamily space and, and how that really paid off in, in, in, in, throughout the crisis, not withstanding the point that yes, government definitely helped pay the bills for a number of folks, but that really, really mattered. And also the types of multifamily that you were in, this is more of a us common than Canada, because, you know, you have a much broader spectrum in the us, but certainly some of that luxury multi-family was, was hit pretty hard in the U S but interestingly, it is bouncing back.   Now I was in Boston six weeks ago, or so touring a bit of this product and it's, you know, it was quite interesting. The bounce back has been pretty robust. So anyway, for me, the point is institutional ownership and management of, of multifamily really made a difference in, in the crisis. Yeah.   Jesse (24m 49s): And I think on that point with trip, you know, AAA or high-end multi res, I know that there was intra construction, you know, pivots from, okay, maybe let's go be like, you know, maybe we don't need the Taj Mahal, whereas prior to COVID, they might've gone for that super high end. But yeah, I think a big component of it has been, despite some of the government policies, people have continued to pay the rent. And it seems to be at least from the data that we have, that the not only the prices keep going up, but net operating income keeps going up.   So the question really from my point of view is, you know, w where do we hit the wall first and pricing or affordability, you know, what, what tempers multi rise.   Colin (25m 30s): Yeah, that's a really good question. And take it take cities like Vancouver and Toronto, which have robust shadow rental markets where that condo inventory is, is really, you know, subbing in for that luxury rental. And I candidly think that it's those owners that will have to deal with that question first versus a multifamily owners. And if I were to sort of locate myself along that spectrum, I have to think affordability's going to start being an issue one way or another.   So whether it's, you know, people are paying, you know, the income proportions after, after tax income is, is, is off the charts. I'd say as, as a proportion of rent on average, you know, in, in, in, in Toronto and Vancouver, again, to a lot of that sort of condo shadow inventory, but it's worse for folks that are owner occupiers, just based off of the, you know, the significant appreciation that has happened.   So, you know, I think it's a legitimate concern. I just don't think institutional multifamily Canada is going to be the first in line to address it. I think there's going to be some other folks who dressing at first and we'll see how it gets addressed. And then the big thing that everybody talks about in, in the public equities world is interest rates. And when will they go up and, you know, folks are concerned about inflation. And I think we genuinely are, cause it sucks that things are a lot more expensive quickly, but I think a lot more people are much more interested on how will central banks, if they decide that this inflation run is a bit more permanent than they thought, Hmm, how will they adjust interest rates to, you know, deal with that.   And, and, and there, you know, if I look at that's the challenge and the folks lined up to, to face that challenge, those multi-family owners, aren't first in line, they're probably third in line. The first SIM are probably, you know, I would say highly leveraged homeowners that have, you know, purchased a product in the last year or so.   Jesse (27m 47s): Yeah. Fair enough. In terms of moving on to a little bit more on the interest rate, inflation inflation environment, you know, we keep hearing whether this is transitory, whether inflation that we have right now, for those that don't know, I think the fed very quietly, you know, mentioned that they would no longer be targeting the 2%, you know, their, their typical target of a 2% inflation. And it kind of went under the radar, I think even from, from kind of financial news, but w what are your thoughts?   And I guess in your role at TD, obviously you have to take a pretty broad global approach. How, how, how did that decision and what you've been seeing as inflation kind of creeping up, how is that influencing or changing, if it does your opinion on, on, you know, where you think you want to lock in rates where you think that you can, you can be in, in variable environments.   Colin (28m 44s): Yeah. Good question. So numb number places, one on, on the fixed versus fair, but we, we have generally put, had a predisposition to have as much fixed as possible on the view that, you know, this environment is benign in terms of the cost of debt. And so if we could sort of lock in some of that, that's, that's quite attractive now in certain places, it's pretty hard to do that. So construction financing being one, but we're possible that's being broadly the approach and, and this, and now that's a worldwide thing.   So, you know, I think that approach was most pronounced pre pandemic in places like Japan and also in Germany and other European countries. But I think now that's a Candace point, a us point, et cetera, on the other side, which is on the property type side, that's interesting, right? Because multifamily have one year, at least a student housing and maybe eight months, maybe 12 month policing. And when you look at an inflation world of rising interest rate world, that becomes quite interesting, even pre pandemic we're down in Australia, looking at industrial, we took a lot of comfort from the structure of leases in, in, for industrial product in Australia, which have a rental escalations each year.   And it's quite quite attractive at two to 3% per year. And so some now, sorry, that's quite attractive right now, right? Hopefully, hopefully it's attractive in five years, but I think that's also important. What's the structure of the leasing in, in the property types that you're investing in. And, and it's interesting, even in the office environment today, we're seeing leasing transform a little bit. We're seeing shorter term leases, not due to inflation, just due to uncertainty in office, but the, you know, the, I guess the net benefit of what might be viewed as more challenging leasing dynamic is you might have a little bit more flexibility in the shorter term if we, if we do have, you know, rising rates due to rising inflation.   So it is a complicated point, but we, we really began thinking about it in earnest in 2020. You know, we, we thought about it in 2019 and 2018, but in 2020, as we saw some of those significant changes and by the way, on the fed. Yeah. So that was a watershed moment. At least to me, when they moved off that sort of target, they also sort of announced, I think in the September meeting to be, you know, that they would begin tapering. Now we've been tapering in Canada for awhile, but I also think that's an important announcement that probably didn't get as much press as it should.   And then the program to taper fully, I think goes until June of next year. And after that, you would, you know, at least conceivably expect that rates would begin to rise. And I think to most people that would be sooner than what most people anticipate for the U S fed to, to do so. Yes, the feds made a few announcements that I think of come beneath that radar screen.   Jesse (31m 59s): I think it's one of those things that when it comes down to the ground level for us at the property level, whether it's, you know, office leasing or retail, I think there is potential for return of, you know, we've had leases where in the nineties and eighties, you'd see these legacy leases where they didn't have step-ups discreetly, but they had, you know, each, each year your rent would rise or your base rent would rise as a function of the CPI index. So it'd be interesting to see if we go back to more of kind of targeted step-ups that really want to go up with inflation, you know, if that's going to be a big enough thing where you, you see that translate, but yeah, it's, it's definitely something that's on the interest rate side, curious for all everybody, you know, we have people on that are, I find extremely smart that will have complete opposite opinions on inflation and interest rates.   So it's one of those things where you watch carefully, but in terms of having a crystal ball for where, where rates are going to go, I mean, I think I've confidently said rates will have to go up for the last 10 years.   Colin (33m 5s): Yeah, that's right. That's right. And, and, and eating a bit of humble pie is essential when, when, when prognosticating about these saints, because it's, you know, it's, it's almost like predicting currencies. There's just so much that goes in to, to, to, you know, what the fed does or what the bank of Canada does. And, you know, you can raise rate rates quickly or slowly. You might raise some that dance through there is, there's quite a lot in there.   And then you've got geopolitics, you've got a health pandemic and, and, you know, so sitting in 2019, nobody would have anticipated, right. Where rates would be today, just nobody would have gone in that. Right. So to your point, yes, I, I definitely eat some humble pie as well.   Jesse (33m 54s): Yeah, no, fair enough. You, you control what you can control. And, you know, we were in one of those few industries where you can directly almost directly pass on inflation to your customer, but it's a interesting point, especially in the Canadian environment, when you talk about student rentals where you essentially can mark to market your rental rates almost almost annually, usually two years, three years. But, you know, for those that don't know the Canadian environment, even in multi res, even though they're one year leases, you're not really marketing to market within, you know, every year, you know, the turnover can be, depending on the asset can be quite a bit different than, than student res.   Yeah,   Colin (34m 32s): Absolutely. And that, and, and, and that will be interesting going forward, right? Because you had folks in the last year or so, depending on the market and depending on the product, and this is more of a condo shadow inventory point that moves to take advantage of some of the lower rents in the multi-res side, that due to, you know, rent control, both, you know, use Toronto or Ontario as an example, you would think that the turnover rates going to decline materially, at least in the short term, as a result and in, in the student world, you know, it's, it's doubly interesting.   So number one, you've got your normal turnover folks graduate, but you also have this year and next year cold called the bulge in the class. You've got people that might've delayed, that are now taking the class people that were at home that are now going back to campus. You've got campuses that were virtual, like Ryerson here in Toronto that are going back to in-person in January. So that re all of that combined, and then you've got international students that are coming back.   It makes it a really interesting place to be in the student world. Yeah.   Jesse (35m 50s): Yeah, for sure. Colin, I want to be respectful of the time here, but I do want to talk about the, the black opportunity fund for those that don't know what it is. I just want to, you know, before we, we ask our final questions here, I mean, just in kind of asking the question, are you able to talk a little bit about the fund moving on to kind of culture in our commercial real estate world? You know, we can talk about specifically here in our area, but I think culture is very similar, our commercial real estate culture.   So I'd like to just kind of get your view on where we're at right now, from your point of view, you know, we're what improvements from a cultural standpoint you think that we can make and, and yeah. And on that talking a little bit about the fund and what it is.   Colin (36m 37s): Yeah, absolutely. So first the culture culture in real estate, in the commercial real estate world, it is a highly congenial culture and relies a lot on personal and interpersonal interaction and the log on the power of networks. And that's just a global global point and familiarity with each other on the basis, usually of doing deals and transactions and working through situations, none of that's overly bad.   What I have found, whether it's going to expo in new Nick or whether it's going to, you know, an animal con conference in Beijing is it's extraordinarily a male and be uniform. And when I stepped back from that, I think, you know, the folks that occupy our properties are not all male and not all uniform. And we live in one of the most incredibly rapidly changing and advancing times ever, right?   We're in the fourth industrial revolution and everything literally is changing. And so how can an owner operator of real estate realistically tell their investors that they're the best in the world at what they do, but their staff is only, you know, only calls from a quarter of the population in the country or city in which they're in. I just don't think it's possible. There are smart people out there, brilliant people out there that would make fantastic real estate investors that aren't actually able to get into real estate for X, Y, Z at ABC reasons.   So I think that's a problem for the real estate industry as much or more than it is a problem for society. But if we can solve that problem, we create better outcomes. And this isn't just that, you know, this isn't a CSR thing. I E the thing at the back of the annual report and where everybody's smiling, no, this is actually a, Hey, you can do, you can create better returns by having smarter people running the strategies, running the real estate.   So what's the black opportunity fund, a billion and a half world's largest pool of capital to fund a black led black focus, black serving charities nonprofits on one hand businesses entrepreneurs on the other hand. And why, because when we went through the last two years accelerated by what happened, George Floyd, we saw a ton of organizations doing fantastic work, just subscale.   They just need a capital. And it, why? Because we thought, Hey, why don't we start an, you know, a scholarship? Well, there's a ton of organizations getting scholarships. Why don't we start an after-school program? There's tons of organizations. There are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of nonprofits, by the way, didn't say charities because they don't have even the scale to get through the process to become a registered charity. So they're non-profits, but they're, you know, moms and pops doing their best with the limited resources that we, that they have.   So black opportunity for motivate contributions from corporations, governments, individuals, families, anybody, we think it's a whole, a candidate problem to scale up these charities, nonprofits on the businesses and entrepreneurs side. There are thousands of entrepreneurs and businesses, all of them virtually all of them, very small. And the number one issue statistically as surveyed is access to capital.   And there is both and a perception issue and also true difficulty accessing meaning financial institutions are less likely, and this was studied by the, the federal reserve are less likely to give to an individual of color. There, there are like more likely to be determined, to be high risk.   And as a result, individuals of color are less likely then to go to those financial institutions. So you have sort of this negative wheel created. And so we're just trying to break that and create an assessable pool of capital to provide. So that's the goal of the black opportunity fund. We have been raised capital TD just announced a couple of weeks ago, $10 million plus office space. Plus the conduct individuals, national bank announced 6 million, just over $6 million to, to the black opportunity fund.   There's been a number of other contributions, but we're early meaning we've got a ways to go. We spent a lot of time creating the infrastructure at the correct governance, the board, et cetera, et cetera. And it's been a huge effort, more than 300 folks involved. We talked to thousands of businesses and charities and all, all across the country. And that's important to geography. Folks think about Toronto and Montreal. They overlook St.   Johns and Halifax and equalizer. We want to focus completely across the country, French and English, female, and male, and, and, and also LGBTQ plus, et cetera, that is important to us. And so that's the black opportunity fund.   Jesse (42m 29s): Yeah, I think, I think for, you know, from the point of view of the industry, I think me personally, I think that's why it's important to have these carefully, these organizations do these care for careful, you know, dis w whatever you want to call them, disparate impact studies, but we're looking at what policy actually does at the end of the day. You know, we have XYZ goal for policy, but what is really happening in reality? One thing that really clicked for me was I was in business school years ago in Toronto, and we had a venture capital capitalist that was talking to our class.   And he said that he had his daughter, she was going into computer science and programming and university of Waterloo for, you know, the Americans listening pretty much our Silicon valley in Canada. And he said, he went, brought her into programming and it was an orientation. And as most people could imagine, 99.9, 9% male. And initially I remember thinking, well, you know, if, if you go into something and you have people that are interested in that and they want to do it, and it happens to be disproportionate to society, you know, that's people making, making decisions, but then you said something, I think it would always stuck with me.   And when we have these conversations, I always think about this is, he said, these are, this is the generation that's going to design the virtual reality in geography. We plan the way that we navigate the world is a lot of it is going to be on the computer. A lot of it is going to be software. Do you really want this one cohort of people, no matter how great they are with all the blind, you know, the blind side, you know, the blind spots that they have. Do you want that to be what creates the future and designs it, or do you want to have a multitude of different views where the collective blind spots, you know, create something that is very clear?   Colin (44m 22s): Yeah, no, that's exactly. That's exactly it. And the tech world to that point has had its owns for the realization. Cause you know, commercial real estate, isn't alone. I mean, I'd say broadly the investment world, same thing broadly, broadly the tech world. But if you stay, you know, I stepped back and I've, and I've posed this question and truly a few times, it's like, why, why is it that virtually all of the administrative assistants are female. And it's like, do you, do you grow up?   Are you born? And you grow up and there's an innate desire as a female to become an admin assistant that doesn't exist for males. And clearly the answer is no, at least at least my interpretation and understanding of medicine yields me to conclude. That's probably not the case. It's probably a societal expectation. But if you take it to your example or the instance of commercial real estate owners, you know, how, how is it that you will grow?   How can you grasp future trends? How will you understand how people want to live, work and play, how they want to shop the types of retailers? They w retailers that they want to go to the experience that they want to have in lifestyle oriented centers. How can you actually understand that? If it's five dudes planning out the layout of the mall, right? It just, I don't get it. So to me, it's kind of like, well, you want to, you want to draw people in so that you have these different points of view.   So   Jesse (46m 0s): You're just going to go to that mall and not have any place for, for your, any daycare to put your child.   Colin (46m 7s): Yeah. Pretty much   Jesse (46m 9s): Awesome. And okay. I've, you know, we've been very, very generous with your time here calling. We have four questions. We ask everybody on, on the show. So if you're cool, I'll S I'll send them your way.   Colin (46m 20s): Sounds good.   Jesse (46m 22s): Okay. What's one thing, you know, now in your career, you wish you knew when you started,   Colin (46m 27s): I say, boldly use using the Wayne Gretzky analogy, which is old flea. Think about where that puck is going and skate, where that puck is going versus looking at the shiny object today and going to that shiny object today.   Jesse (46m 46s): Yeah, that's great. I haven't heard that in a while B be where that thing or that puck is going to be not where it, not, where it is in terms of, we always ask guests in terms of what you would tell younger people, getting into our industry, and just generally your view of mentorship,   Colin (47m 3s): Jay mentorships, critical more than my mistakes has been not caring mentors throughout my career. As I progress, meaning I have lots of mentors as I began my career. And then you sort of, you know, go through the different levels and you know, you get busy, it falls off you, you know, whatever, it's a terrible thing. I think mentors are absolutely critical. Gives you a perspective on, on things that you're seeing today that, that person's seen in a different way, 3, 4, 5 different times, and can tell you what they did or what didn't do more important than that is a mentor calls out your bullshit.   And that's really important sometimes. And so that's valuable somebody coming into the industry today, what would I say? It is a relationship industry at the end of the day. I mean, you got to do the work you got to do well, you got to have passion for it. So if you don't have passion for real estate, don't go into real estate. So assuming you're passionate for real estate, it's a networking industry, it's a relationship industry. And so take that time to go out and take somebody to drinks.   Or if you don't drink, take them to lunch, whatever it is, because that, that is what gets your career going in the industry.   Jesse (48m 29s): Yeah, absolutely. What is one or two books or podcasts that you are constantly recommending?   Colin (48m 35s): Yeah, that's a good question. I do like Malcolm Gladwell's books a lot. I wish I could say I've got a long book list. I wish I could say I've read all the books on that book list. There's a book that comes to mind. It was it's the power of one. I read it in literally high school, but it, it, it, it just speaks to me as a story about courage and resilience that, you know, I think is beneficial today.   And if I go back to your earlier question about advice, people used to say in, I banking world, it's a marathon, not a sprint. It absolutely is. And so to run that marathon, you need resilience and you need that, you know, that, that capacity to endure, to learn, to fall down, to, you know, make mistakes and to get up even better. Yeah. That, that book, the pair, the power of one was quite, quite instrumental to me, even though I read it so many years ago. Awesome.   Jesse (49m 39s): We'll put a link up to that. And the last question, my favorite layup first car make and model.   Colin (49m 48s): So funny enough, I've never, I've never owned a car because I've always lived in, in urban centers and have, you know, subscribed to the notion of taking the subway, walking everywhere and now taking Uber's. But the first car is likely to be some form of electric vehicle. Can't say it's going to be a Tesla, but it might be a, so let's go with Tesla and some electric vehicles.   Jesse (50m 16s): I like it. That's the first guest to prospect there, their first car. And the second one that, that they've always, they've always been public transit oriented. So I think that trend is going to continue going in that direction.   Colin (50m 30s): Yeah. I was early on that train cause you know, you know, it was very unusual, but you know, just like the, not having a landline telephone, a terrain that was early on that too, but eventually I'm going to have to give them, I know I can, I can see it coming in. It's probably going to be that Evy, hopefully when those batteries are better, there you go   Jesse (50m 50s): Calling for those, for those interested in getting in contact with you or anybody that wants to see, you know, what you guys are up to, what would be the best place to reach out?   Colin (51m 1s): Yeah. So LinkedIn is, is, is good. People do reach out through that in terms of finding, you know, what we're up to black opportunity fund for bear has a good website, lots of info there. We keep it up to date as it relates to T them and global real estate and our Canadian real estate, there is a T damn website, like most websites in the, in the investment world. We don't tend to overload it with information.   So, but T them does have a LinkedIn page. And so that is also quite active. So following either TDM on LinkedIn or on Twitter, there's there's information there. And if you don't want to do either and just want to message me on LinkedIn, you can, and eventually I'll get back to you.   Jesse (51m 54s): My guest today has been calling Lynch con thanks for being part of working capital   Colin (51m 59s): Pleasure. Pleasure. It was great conversation.   Jesse (52m 8s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five-star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one take care.

Andrew Gazdecki is the founder and CEO of MicroAcquire, the world's most founder-friendly startup acquisition marketplace. MicroAcquire helps entrepreneurs buy and sell startups.After founding and later selling two successful startups, Andrew decided there needed to be a better way to connect buyers and sellers in the startup marketplace. He founded MicroAcquire to fill this void in the startup acquisition arena.In this episode, Andrew shares how he grew his Twitter audience from 30,000 to 70,000 followers in a few short months. He uses his connections with others, his partnerships, his brand, and savvy marketing techniques to boost engagement and attract followers. It's a fun and entertaining episode, and I think you're going to enjoy it.In this episode, you'll learn: The one thing you should spend at least half of your startup's budget on Proven strategies and tactics to grow your Twitter account How to bootstrap your business and retain your autonomy Links & Resources TechCrunch Cameo Effie Empire Flippers Flippa Bizness Apps Sam Parr Stripe Baremetrics ChartMogul Bumble Brandarrow Bootstrappers.com Y Combinator Salesforce Nick Huber David Cancel Josh Pigford Clearco AngelList Avaloq Naval Ravikant Dharmesh Shah The Ladders of Wealth Creation blog post Andrew Gazdecki's Links Follow Andrew on Twitter Follow MicroAcquire on Twitter Episode Transcript00:00:00 Andrew:I'm a big fan of stair-stepping and entrepreneurship. One of my favorite tweets that I've ever written is, “Start with an agency, get to cashflow positive, and then bootstrap an asset—whether that's a SaaS company or your e-commerce business—sell that asset, become financially secure, and then do whatever you want.”Along the way, you prepare yourself for the next stage of business. 00:00:35 Nathan:In this episode, I talked to Andrew Gazdecki, from MicroAcquire. Andrew started a couple other businesses and sold two of them. In that process, he decided there needed to be a better way to buy and sell businesses. So, that's where MicroAcquire came from. Their marketplace originally focused specifically on SaaS businesses, but they broadened to all of software.The reason I want to talk to him—he doesn't write a traditional newsletter or something like that—but he uses audience really well to grow MicroAcquire. He uses his personal brand connections with others, partnerships, a bunch of fun things.We get into how he grew his Twitter audience from 30,000 followers just a couple months ago, to over 70,000. His approach to Twitter, some of the arguments or beefs that he started with TechCrunch and others, and where he thinks those lines are.We also get into how he uses Cameo; he has these great ads announcing partnerships and others from Russ Hanneman on Silicon valley talking about this, and they're really entertaining.So, there's a lot of fun things in this episode, and I think you're going to like it.I'll get out of the way, and we'll dive in.Andrew, welcome to the show.00:01:41 Andrew:Thanks for having me, Nathan. Always a pleasure to be chatting with you. 00:01:44 Nathan:There are a lot of companies in the brokerage/help-me-sell-my-business space. I think of Effie International, Empire Flippers, Flippa, all of these. So, one, you're going into a really crowded market with MicroAcquire, and then, two, you're coming at it like you're a force of nature.Sam Parr and I we're actually talking about this, of how some people start a project and it's like, “Oh, I'm going to do this thing.” And then other people do effectively the same thing. I mean, it's different in a lot of ways, right? But the same category, and come in and just completely dominate, and grow so fast, and it feels like a fundamentally different thing.What's your take on that, of coming into a crowded space, and then the amount of momentum that you've come in with?00:02:34 Andrew:Yeah. I have a lot of respect for all those companies that you mentioned, and appreciate the compliment.The market that is specifically acquisitions hasn't seen a lot of innovation in a decade. Two of the businesses you mentioned are service businesses, Flippa being a marketplace. I looked at that, and I just thought, there's an angle here where sellers could benefit more than the buyers, and I felt buyers were benefiting. So, I took a left while everyone was going right.Then coming in from an entrepreneur's view instead of a buyer's view, or an investment bankers view, or an MNA advisor view, this was me saying, okay, I'm gone through two acquisitions, I think I have a few unique insights into what it would take to make me comfortable putting my business, generating millions of dollars, on a new marketplace. Then, what information and educational pieces would I need to feel comfortable to facilitate an acquisition.So, I just built what I felt acquisition should be. We still have a long way to go. We've done a really good job of connecting buyers and sellers, and all the acquisitions are facilitated off platform. We've been working on a lot of tooling to really add value to the acquisition, if that makes sense.So we're looking to innovate on things like due diligence or even simple items like writing a letter of intent or streamlining escrow, because everyone complains about escrow.com. so yeah, I mean, sometimes it just happens in markets. Like a new entrant comes in with a different angle towards the problem And different viewpoint. and I think my unique, insight there was just, I had been on. The side of the table that maybe the other, companies had not. but it's also, a giant market. So I, think, arising boat lifts all tides. So, you know, we're here to my require. I just made my group or to help entrepreneurs get acquired and, and, succeed.And so, I think also as, you know, Mike require pick steam and helps everyone else in the market as well. So, but, yeah, I don't have a good answer to that. I don't know. I think if I, if I, this, this will sound cheesy, but you know, I, I I'd like to say I built my group hire would love, like I launched it in the middle of the pandemic. I didn't have a business model. I had no idea how I was going to make money. I just knew I wanted to work with entrepreneurs and startups. And the rest is kind of history, you know, along the way, talking to customers, getting feedback from them, pretty much everything we do is basically feedback from customers.I'm not Steve jobs or anything like that. So I can't read people's minds. So I ask what, what ideas do you have? but yeah, it's been, it's been a fun journey so far. my group is about to turn two, which is pretty wild. 00:05:56 Nathan:That first version, that you launched, what did that look like? What, what was the very early stages of it? 00:06:02 Andrew:The first version was, it was just a simple marketplace with a couple of. Changes that I haven't seen in the market. One was privacy and anonymousy and then no fees or commissions for founders. So it was the first marketplace where you could meet buyers and sell your business without paying a 15% commission like you typically would with a broker or something like that.So I think that was kind of a change. And our business model today is we charge buyers for access to the platform to connect with sellers and, you know, having negotiations that lead towards negotiations. But yeah, the first version, required a lot of vetting of the buyers. Every buyer needed like a LinkedIn profile.Some people have complained about that, but I personally would never sell my business as someone, without a LinkedIn profile. I need to know where you worked, like you know, do you have anyone that's bad for you? not just like John 9, 9, 2, 4 5. You know, I need to know, who you are. and we're going to add other ways of verification, but I think that was a big one. and then also real-time metrics integration. So when we launched, you could connect like Stripe and chart, mobile and probable and bare metrics to get like a real, like a nice, pretty graph, like the revenue to help with due diligence. and then also founders and everything was private. So you didn't know what the business was.And as a founder, you had complete control over the process. So when you were with a broker, sometimes it could be kind of showing your business to a lot of peopleAnd you may not know who those people are. they could even be competitive to your business. And so I think what Mike required did that kind of, and I'm just guessing here because I haven't really liked. Taking a step back and then like, what did we do? Right. you know, I'm usually thinking about what can we be doing better? we really put the founder in control. You know, they were the ones able to choose which buyers to speak to. they were the ones able to share which information they wanted to and which information they did not want to share. And again, it was completely free. So it was very low friction to get onto the platform. And then I think just the, the high, the caliber of buyers and the caliber of listing. So we vet every listing. We vet every buyer. Now that registers as a micro require premium buyer, that's where you can contact sellers. so I think it was just kind of like, you know, going from let's just call it like a car dealership to like a Ferrari shop that makes sense where all the cars are, That it, and if you want to know who the owner is, you have to pay for that access, but it was a very specific towards startups, specifically SaaS.So I think that's another thing that I'm thinking of now is we, we went very narrow at the beginning, very narrow. So we were very specific on, specifically, bootstraps, SaaS companies.00:08:59 Nathan:Yeah. I think the approach in different marketplaces is always interesting when, you know, a marketplace is how businesses has like is a generic category, but then the twist on it, of, the seller not paying anything. And it being the buyer who pays, you know, a subscription for access. Why I think that that makes for an interesting twist, because then you're going to have this much higher pipeline of, you know, high quality businesses to look at.And so if a seller is paying for that, that makes sense. It reminds me of like, Bumble as a dating app being like, yep. So within the category of dating apps, but, women have to send the first message, you know, and, and like, that little bit of a twist makes it the marketplace feel, very different and changes the dynamics of. 00:09:40 Andrew:Yeah. I was going to say something, someone called micro fire shark tank, like if shark tank and dinner had a kid, I thought that was kind of an interesting analogy. but yeah, I'd say the, the key. The unique insights I had was again, like, from my perspective, if I'm going to list a business, I need to know who's seeing my information. I want to be in control of, you know, what information is being disclosed or being displayed publicly. and I don't want to commit until I really know, the quality of the buyers. And so that I think was very appealing to just being an entrepreneur. I think I. You know, understood the needs of other entrepreneurs and just kind of got it.Right. But I'm not gonna lie. When I, when I first launched it, I have this, I keep a journal that I update every month. It's not like a weird, you know, Hey dear diary thing. It's I do like, what's going really well. What are some things I'm worried about? and then things I'm grateful for, just to, you know, kind of keep it story log of my life. And before I launched my group wire, I actually, cause this idea had been attempted before, like a real startup acquisition marketplace. I think some of the other market places are more, geared towards, you know, content sites and domains and 00:11:07 Nathan:Yeah, 00:11:08 Andrew:Affiliate websites, but not real. Startups like SaaS companies, e-commerce companies, crypto companies, we've moved into a number of different categories.But, I wrote in my journal, I was like, I don't know if this is going to work, but at least it looks good. cause I, I just thought it needed to exist so bad for entrepreneurs that, we put a lot of thought into user experience and design. So it felt modern. You know, when you're working with startup founders, you kinda, you know, you want to really build trust, like yeah, if you're going to sell your business with us, your startup, you know, we also, we know how to build startups as well, and design them well and make them feel like something like this, this feels legitimate.And I think that's a, what I would call, you know, closing the credibility gap, you know, really, that first impression is so important. So we really kinda overdid the initial MVP. 00:12:06 Nathan:Yeah. I think that design is one of those things where you can go a long ways. And it's probably the first thing that people cut when it comes to the MPP. And that's just, I'm like, Nope, that's not an MVP. You have to cut features. You can't cut like the quality of, of the design. And if I have a limited budget, I'm for sure.Spending half of it, if not more on design. So I think you made the right move there.00:12:29 Andrew:Yeah, I think, I think today, I don't know if we're going to go off topic here, but I think a lot of startups today can legitimately have user experience in design as their competitive advantage. Just saving people, a Couple of clicks, making things easier to use, having a product where you don't have 50 tutorial videos, you've got to watch, or course you have to take. that's a huge advantage. and there's a lot of products that are very clunky and kind of feel like a car with, you know, like a jet ski engine added in. And I just kind of like a Jenga thing, you know, there's just so much technical debt to the product. I think though there's some products out there that I think could be rethought in terms of like the experience and the design they're delivering to the customers.But that's, that's probably a whole nother topic.00:13:22 Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. But we agree. And anyone who's listening to this show knows that I care deeply about design. one thing that I want to ask about and spend a lot of time on is content strategy. if I go to your website and go to the about page, it just lists your title or like your, your job description and your role as marketing. and so I'm imagining that's where you spent the majority of your time in, from the outside. It looks like content marketing is, either a very large or the largest portion of where you spend your time and how you're looking to grow MicroAcquire. Can you talk about how you think about content marketing and the growth of the business? 00:13:59 Andrew:Yeah, I think that was twofold. So number one, the first thing that happened to me when business apps was acquired, I had like five founder friends reach out and they said, how did you sell your business side is, is, were what, you know, so as entrepreneurs, we're not trained to sell businesses, we're not educated on what is due diligence, what are the legal steps of an acquisition?So I felt it was a twofold, the problem with the benefit. And when I say two folded, not right. Prom, but well point number one. Yeah. It's a phenomenal growth channel for us. we think heavily in terms of, you know, what is the content that, entrepreneurs will need when they're going through an acquisition, because the more we can educate them on acquisitions, the more we'll be able to facilitate.And I think that's been crucial, but then two there's just no content in the market that like there's books on fundraising, there's books on marketing there's books, on design there's books on there's a couple of books on, exits, but there just is such a disproportional amount of content available for everything, but a startup being acquired, that we felt, you know, there's an opportunity here to kind of be almost a, I don't want to say thought leader.00:15:20 Nathan:Yeah.00:15:21 Andrew:Kind of write the book, if you will, on, you know, this is, but also important to note is we write content for the seller, not for the buyer. we kinda think, you know, the buyers are set, you know, the buyers that we work with are, you know, private equity firms, corporate dev teams, other startups, people that, generally are sophisticated with, and also a lot of first-time buyers, but so the condoms still applies, but it gets you in the head of the entrepreneur, but we wanted to really empower the founder.So you'll notice every piece of content is angled towards the seller, not the buyer, if that makes sense. And I felt that was critical and just something cool to do for other founders, not like, Hey, this is an article on how to get like the cheapest SaaS acquisition possible. so we read articles on how to maximize your startups exit as.00:16:14 Nathan:Yeah. I mean, that, that perspective is in your, like your founding story for the company, But then it's interesting, like, all right, it makes sense that it carries through all of your content marketing as well, because in the same way that you have know who your customer is, which in the marketplace, you have a lot of different customers or you're, you know, you have both sides of it, but, 00:16:32 Andrew:That's that's something. Yeah, you're onto something. So that's something that, we determined, very, very early. So when we raised our, our seed round, I hired my former VP of product, VP of engineering. My former CFO, and my former head of marketing who's now gone. Cause he went, he was, he was, he was like one foot in he's started this, agency called brand arrow. so if anyone needs help with, Facebook ads or just any sort of SaaS marketing shadow, Tim brown now I told him like, Hey, you got to, I'm a big fan. I need like a micro mafia at one point. So I, I told him to dive in on that, but, we did an offsite and we, defined our culture, you know, our values, but really specifically, like you said, who was our customer?Cause it could be so many people, it could be okay, buyers, but there's so many different types of buyers. You know, which ones are we going to cater towards? And then there's sellers, you know, there's so many different types of sellers. There's people looking to sell comments. Again, domains, Amazon FBA businesses, SaaS founders.And so we really narrowed in, got super specific with our buyer And that really guides a lot of the decisions that we make all the way from the content to the product. I think that's really crucial in the early days, because you can always expand outwards. There's a theory. I don't know if you've heard of this, but the bowling ball theory, you've probably gone through this with your business where, you know, you start with one sorta audience and then I one customer segment, and there's just like these natural sort of like, you know, other segments that target for us, it was like e-commerce.And then we've been seeing a lot of just miscellaneous. You know, profitable software companies. So now we're a little bit more broad. So when I described my required of people, I say, it's a marketplace. So profitable software businesses, not just SaaS anymore, but yeah, we started really specific with SaaS founders being, our initial customer,00:18:37 Nathan:Yeah. Like narrowing it on. That is always a good thing. Okay. So content strategy, I'm seeing you do a lot of different things. one at let's just take Twitter, as a starting point. So I was looking back in August, you had 30,000 followers on Twitter. You have 73,000 followers today. You're tweeting five to 10 times a day.Often. Like you got a lot of, a lot of posts going out. It seems like they're resonating, obviously from the growth and all of that. you have a lot of these single posts are like single sentence. You know, here's an idea latch onto it, like positioning type things. So like one, one example is, instead of thinking of a hundred plus startup ideas, pick a customer you'd love to serve and solve their problems.That gets a thousand likes, 150 retweets or more. I want to know, two things, one, tell me about your Twitter strategy of how it fits into the broader business and what you're trying to do there. And then two, we'll just get into what's working. What's not working. 00:19:33 Andrew:Yeah, definitely. So Twitter strategy, there is absolutely none, aside from having fun. And I'm a firm believer of this, I think when people try to have a social media strategy where their goal is to grow followers. And so you start doing stuff like looking at other people's tweets, and then you take a tweet and this how I see this all the time with some content I put out like, oh, that looks very familiar, but I don't, I don't, you know, I don't care. but they're trying to grow their audience and they're not being authentic to who they are. And they're trying to be, you know, they're trying to, I guess what I'm trying to say is, Find a way to utilize, you know, social platforms in a way that you enjoy. So, one thing notice if you look at all my tweets, they're all from my iPhone.Like they're not from my web app. They're not from a scheduled Twitter thing. I just like that tweet. I remember writing that tweet. I was like, in my kitchen, I was just like, did it, you'll also see a tweet right before this podcast. That's just me. I was waiting for you to come on this podcast. I was like, so I think my point being, and I think this goes even broader is just, you know, if you want to be great at anything, and I'm not saying in any way, shape or form, I've created Twitter, but you just have to enjoy it.And then if you enjoy it, you're consistent at it. And then, I do have a few rules though. I don't usually comment on people's cause like you know, once you start getting to a certain point on Twitter, people, you can just post like Entrepreneurship is awesome. And then people have like a hundred questions and I just don't have the bandwidth to answer all those questions.So I usually will, I'm watching those questions and I'll usually, if some, if something's interesting, I'll, use that as a new tweet. and then you get tweeted out a lot, like, Hey, follow me. Like, Hey, we'd be on my podcast. So I kind of have a rule of like stay in my lane, if that makes sense. I've done a little bit of like beef marketing and stuff like that, you know, I'm sure you saw me like call out like tech, Raj, or maybe like throw a couple of shots at like, just joking, like VC sort of like, you know, shit posting type stuff. And that works. It definitely works. And there's some strategy behind that. That's probably one part of my social media strategy that was, strategic, it's effective, but it's not for the faint of heart. cause you do you make people pick sides, so you're going to upset some people and you're going to make some people really cheer you on.And so, I'm kind of done with that phase. that was fun. 00:22:20 Nathan:So if someone is in that phase or they're thinking about it, right. They, have a specific audience for their business or like a specific focus. They've chosen a niche and they have some strong opinions and they're not that kind of person who's like, you know, like let's not cause any conflict.They're like, no, I'm actually, I'd be, I'd be willing to get into a little bit of conflict. what would you say what's, what's your advice on going down that path of like, if you're thinking of oh, there's a TechCrunch in your space or someone else that you might want to pick a fight with? 00:22:49 Andrew:Did you just gotta really believe it? like, and I think it has to be factual, like what I said about, TechCrunch, as an example, just go on their website right now and see it. And tell me if you can find an article about a bootstrap startup. like, that's all I said is like, you guys are a publication that writes about just venture backed businesses. and you know, what kind of really struck a chord with me with that was my prior company business apps. You know, we were in TechCrunch, all the time. Like they loved writing about, you know, real business building storage partnerships, you know, version 2.0 launches, you know, international exp like, you know, stories that inspire entrepreneurs.And they moved towards, you know, this really venture backed sorta, you know, you're, you're either in it, or you're not in it. And I just blindly called them out on time and then some people. were like, yeah. And then I was like, huh, maybe there's something here. And then I just, and this is how I always think of or how I validate ideas as well as, so I have a publication now called, bootstrappers.com, which is just kind of like my.Like what I wanted, like just, you know, I want inspiring stories, like back in like 2010, you would read articles on TechCrunch about like, two people. They just launched a product, no funding. I remember some of the writers I used to work with, are they all left? They're all gone. It's like a new, it's a new company.It's, it's been acquired by four different companies. And you know, some of the older writers you're out, but, the older crew, would kind of joke and say, Hey, BC's like, I hope you banked me one day for writing about all the companies that I discovered. and then you find it later. now the opposite is entirely true. And so I, I wanted to bring that style. You know, journalism back where it's stories about companies making like 200,000 a year or 500,000 or 2 million. because you know what, I read an article about a company raising 200 million and then 500 million, like the next week. it doesn't really inspire me too much.And I think that celebrated so much today and, you know, the startup community that I think it's a little dangerous, I think, as a young entrepreneur, like if you think the path to being a successful founder is. Get into Y Combinator, raise a bunch of funding, get featured in, you know, these magazines, because that's what happens when you get fun.That's like the only way to get covered sometimes, is funding announcements. and even then it's hard cause there's so many. so I think that creates an environment where a lot of entrepreneurs are focused on raising capital rather than raising or generating revenue from customers.And that was just something that I lived through.I had a really good mentor. We're told, are we going off topic too far?00:26:04 Nathan:Well, I do want to take you back to, like the idea of like picking a fight. But finish the thought with a mentor. Who's everyone, everyone listening knows that ConvertKit is bootstrapped. I'm a huge fan of that and the same things, the same reason that you're picking a fight with TechCrunch or that you did, I would do the same because we experienced that, you know, we could have more revenue, more customers, all of that than, anyone else, but they're only going to write about the VC funded version.So, 00:26:28 Andrew:Yeah. So so long story, short business apps, my company prior, boot shove that business, and I just had a really good mentor Christian free Freeland. And he was always challenging me to think against the difficult soak on early pap. And we were based in San Francisco for five years, eventually moved to San Diego and that's where we exited the business. but, yeah, now that like I'm on my third, I took a little hiatus and went into crypto land for a little bit. So it got away from like SaaS and stuff like that, but now I'm back home. and yeah, just saw that and said, okay, and then actually TechCrunch did write a little bit about bootstrapping and then I've also seen a lot of other people start saying the same thing, like agreeing, which I think has been cool.It, which isn't like it's not a bad thing that TechCrunch or any publication, I don't want to just hone in on, on TechCrunch. because th they're, they've done so much for so many founders. but yeah, other people, I feel like the first shot was fired. Like, Hey, You know, we miss the old version of, you know, maybe mix it up a little bit.And they've taken some of that feedback and I've actually written about some bootstrap companies and then other people have kind of said the same thing. Like, you know, the startup ecosystem is really turning into this, you know, fundraise craze news cycle. And, you know, there's 99% of other startups that aren't going down that path.So that creates kind of like a movement. So that was like the benefit of, of beef marketing sometimes is you, again, make people pick sides. Some people agree with it, some people don't. yeah. So advice for anyone in terms of beef marketing, I, I, again, I, going back to my original point, it how you have to believe it, you have to believe what you're saying.It can't just be like, you know, one foot in, from my perspective, Most of the major tech publication should write about, you know, businesses that are profitable and sustainable and ones that are raising a bunch of capital and going public like a good mix would be amazing because then that gives you a true picture of, you know, all the different styles of entrepreneurship, you know, the ones that are at the top of the top and the ones that are taking a more sustainable practical approach, just giving a more realistic view into the world of entrepreneurship instead of just kind of, you know, putting this one style on a pedestal.Yeah, I mean, just get ready for, I mean, nothing bad happened. so I would just say also with beef marketing, it doesn't have to be just, an individual Oregon or, or an organization. Like good examples. So I've always had a, like, kind of an, a branding, an enemy, and all my businesses for business apps.It was a large businesses. Like our main sales pitch was, you know, Starbucks down the street, paid 2 million for their, mobile app, blah, blah, blah. You know, would you like to create that same customer experience for your customers and, you know, like David versus Goliath type story, you know, Mike group, we're kind of fighting for the founders.Then all the other stuff that I just talked about, but Salesforce had, their, their enemy was on-premise software. They essentially invented SaaS, you know, the company. Say a little chat thing. Yeah. They had a big campaign of just no forums. Like no one wants to download an ebook anymore, like forms go away, please. and I thought that was very clever, box.com had some beef with Microsoft, which was definitely fun to watch. I've I've been around long enough where I remember seeing in San Francisco, like, the billboard of like box, just basically saying Microsoft sucks. you know, Uber and Lyft were throne, had a food fight for awhile.That one probably went over over the line maybe. but yeah, my point is, is there's other examples it could be, for your business, it could be expensive. To like, I don't know, like it could be, it doesn't have to necessarily be like a organization or it definitely shouldn't be a person either.Like don't ever like just straight up call. That's just, that's not cool. Like if you have a problem with a person, call them and tell them your problems, like, that's it now. Like that's not, I don't, I don't support that at all. I think that's ticky-tacky and just a sign of just weak character, if you're just literally, you know, trying to tear someone down for your business's benefit,00:31:28 Nathan:One thing that's interesting, I think is you probably watch some, maybe beefs between individuals is just how many of them, maybe are planned or facilitated in some way. that is interesting. Like someone, messaged me today because, sort of like Nick Huber who's, has a popular Twitter profile under sway startup.Hopefully we'll have him on the show soon. He was, he posted something like controversial, which I know is one of his top of funnel tweets, right. To try to get as much attention. And so I purposely like aggressively disagreed with it, you know And then we're just separately texting, like, Oh, thanks for the engagement, you know Right. Because we know that by deceit, like if he strongly takes one stance and I strongly take the other stance, then like one, no one will think we're actually mad at each other, but then too, like, it'll get a lot more attention engagement. So a lot of people are doing. Some version of that. or if you see a happening usually between two individuals often, they're probably on really good terms behind the scenes. 00:32:26 Andrew:Yeah, I did not know that that's, that's me staying in my lane. I, I, I missed it. but yeah. I, mean that's business entertainment, you know, there's, there's nothing wrong with that, but I, think there's a line to be drawn, you know, like, If you do engage and stuff like that. number one, I think it's always great when, like, if it's real and then they like, like, Hey, we're cool now.Like, you know, we did this in pub and now like, okay, we're on 00:32:59 Nathan:Close that loop. 00:33:00 Andrew:Yeah. I think, I think that's really cool to see. but yeah, public food fights, not my thing. don't have appetite for that or any advice, but I will say, I will say Nick is coming hard on some, some of the stuff I've said, like, 00:33:16 Nathan:Whole angle. 00:33:17 Andrew:Yeah.The, the one thing I'll say about that though, that style like shit posting, you know, I was like some view of like VC funds just based on like shit posting and stuff like that. what I've noticed, ‘cause this, this actually, this is probably a good tidbit for, you know, if you're considering, beef marketing and what happens is you draw in a type of crowd that likes that negativity and it, and that can drain on you.And so if you should ship posts all the time, like a large amount of your followers are just going to be shipped posters, and they're going to be, then all your comments are like, use a blah, blah, blah. I mean, if you go on Nick's feed, you can just kind of look, just look at his comments. He has like a million people.Unfortunately insult, I kind of feel bad for him sometimes because I've also seen him comment how it affects him personally. I, I don't know him, so maybe it doesn't give a shit, but, that's why, again, I say, stay in my lane. Just keep it positive. Aye. Aye. Microfibers entire marketing strategy is literally just inspire or support encourage entrepreneurs.It did. not, I mean, not getting beefs with people and stuff like that.00:34:33 Nathan:Have you. like, there's the side that you're, you're taking of, using your personal brand for marketing, you know, growing a Twitter audience, all of that. You're very off the cuff of like, you know, just firing off, tweets or things that you, you think about. But at the same time, like you're a professional marketer and you tend to, from my new at you and other places, like you're very methodical, you tend to attract things really well.Do you track efforts that go into Twitter and Like how that translates into, you know, deals on MicroAcquire or new buyers or sellers, you know, like listing listing companies or any of that. 00:35:10 Andrew:So I'm a big believer in, so David can sell from drift said this really well where, I think I might've mentioned this to you the last time we talked, but, he, he broke it down into like three phases where, we've gone through three phases of SaaS. Like the first phase was invention murder. The first person to kind of build a tool one, the market.And then the second phase was the first company to really figure out the best, go to market strategy, like LTV to CAC, you know, AEs STR ratio who could, who could land grab the market fast enough. And then right now he says, he calls what we're in today, the Procter and gamble phase, which is your brand. So it's most defensible part about, your business is your brand. Your technology can be copied. it's easier than ever to raise capital to build a team to do that. There's also other things like your culture and your team's talent and just, you know, again, your unique insights into the market. People can copy chapter one, but not chapters two and three and four that you have planned. so I think a lot about that, a lot in terms of just brand and market reputation. But So, no, we don't, I don't measure it. when a tweet goes viral, like the one you just mentioned, I don't look at the comments because when a tweak gets like a thousand likes00:36:33 Nathan:Yeah,00:36:34 Andrew:Is gosh, like the questions and the people like disagree with you and just, you know, you start to enter, it's like, you're in a stadium of, you know, 200,000 people are reading this and then like 200 people have comments, not everyone's going to be like, yeah.Like half of them are going to be like negative stuff. So, yeah. So I, I push, I push away all negative energy. So if, if it's not positive, I'm over it. 00:37:05 Nathan:W what you're describing is interesting of the city of idea of, if you think about it, like maybe your immediate group of friends, you post something, the people who reply right away, you interacted with them a bunch, like that's who's on the field or whatever. And then the next group is like the coaches, the diehard fans, like the re the support staff, everyone else, like those are your Followers. And then you can tell every time that this tweet goes beyond that, because you start to get, like, I had one on company culture that, was like a thousand retweets and went really far. and you could just immediately tell when it had gone to like two levels beyond the people who follow me, cause it just, it went totally off the rails. And you're right. That the only thing you can do is like mute your own thread and move on. 00:37:50 Andrew:Yeah, I just, and you could tell, cause I usually will like everyone's tweets just cause I respect everyone's opinions, like bringing, Nick back up. He, I remember I had a tweet, just something about how entrepreneurs that have maybe struggled in their childhood, have an advantage. He came in with like a strong disagreement and kinda, but I respected it.But then I, we, we kind of close the loop with like, Hey Mike, I think you're taking this out of context. so I'll respect everyone's opinion, but once it goes, you know, I'll like all of, them. And then once it goes viral, that's when it's like all, everything is just nuts. Like, you know, I can't, I would never want, I can't keep up with it.And then too, I've probably already moved on to like three or four other tweets that, you know, I'm thinking of or something like that, but I think, I think that's another important side of, just social media in general is just understanding like everyone has a right to their opinions. So even if people do strongly like disagree, that's awesome.You know, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Everyone has, You know, unique view of life And how things work. and I respect all those opinions, but I think one. thing about social media that can get kind of crazy is when you're taken out of context, I've had that happen a couple of times. Like the one time with Nick, maybe, he took it as I think like, people with really great families, you know, like divorced dads make less than married men. and I, was like Nick, no, this isn't about diverse families. It's just about like entrepreneurs struggling with when they grew up. Like I were Joe, and then I had another one. This one was, this is a crazy one. I had one, I tweeted out. Hire people you'd be friends with. And that was, literally someone literally took that as far as saying, nice job describing why tech is sexist and racist in five words.And I, and I was like, what? And I was hanging out with my sons. I didn't have like enough, I didn't catch it in time. And so I come back, to my phone and I had to delete the tweet. And then I actually, you know, put more con like, Hey, I meant that as like, you know, hire people, you'd be friends with and you'd care for them personally and professionally, not just hire a bunch of white people or something like that.Like what? So sometimes you gotta be careful, when that kind of stuff goes down. And it's also just fascinating how people can, again, their, their perspectives, like their perspectives and their viewpoints. you know, you can say one thing and it means one thing to you and something completely different to someone 00:40:47 Nathan:Right.Yeah. I remember a time that Josh Pigford, for bare metrics, had a tweet about concerns in your, in a resume when someone, you know, has had 10 roles in 10 years or kind of thing, or like jumped between roles every 12 months. And that, I I'm not even fully sure why, but, but that one, like he got jumped on in a very similar way of people taking out of context and saying like, this is what's wrong with technology and 00:41:14 Andrew:Let's talk about that for a second. So when you're, when you're taken out of context, Just admit it, just say, Hey, that, that this is not what I meant. And then I recommend is deleted tweet, and just clarifying, just like, Hey, I wrote a tweet, this, this is what I actually did. I deleted the tweet. And then I said, Hey, I had a tweet taken out of context and it's obviously a little embarrassing, you know, but it's the right thing to do is like, Hey, like that's not what I meant.So also admitting, you know, that's not what you meant, but clarifying when people like, that's not that that was not my intention of those five words in any way, shape or form, even like, that, that, that experience was so far off. I still kind of scratch my head on it. But my point being is, you know, it, you know, take one back, like, Hey, listen, I, I said something, it was taken out of context.I apologize. this is what I really meant for further clarification. And it'll just make your life a lot easier instead of trying, to defend, because I know the thing is if Mrs. Also I don't really comment too much on social media. Number one, it's just exhausting because you can have so many, then you're like a, full-time like customers support person on Twitter. again, you know, once You kind of engage with someone who vehemently disagrees with what you're saying, or has taken you out of context, it's really hard to change their opinion, if not impossible. So even trying, once you, if you just try you lose. You just start throwing food and stuff like that.So that's just kinda some of the crazy stuff I've seen happen on, on Twitter as, you know, gone a little bit more active. cause I, I wasn't active on Twitter, so all this is like new to me too. I'm still learning like, oh shit posers. I didn't, I didn't know those existed or like, oh wow. You can get really taken out of context and it can go viral and people can say some mean things.So yeah, my, again, going back to just saying I stay in my lane and just talk about stuff that I liked it. Talk about.00:43:35 Nathan:I like it. something else that you've done that I hadn't seen other people to do before, but I get it as a strategy. so separate from like just sort of specific, but it's using cameo and using spokespeople on cameo. for your business specifically, you got Chris, demon topless from Silicon valley and all of that to do announcement videos for partnerships and one they're amazing. but like w where did that come from? And, how'd that turn into something that like, And, now if someone says like tres commas, like in relation to micro choir, everyone's like, oh yeah, that makes sense. 00:44:15 Andrew:So for the longest time, it was just me running Mike requir. I was a solo founder. and on the team page, we just like, as I was working on the design with, I initially use an agency to help with, the development. And, there was a team page and I was like, ah, just put Richard Hendrix, Gavin Belson, and Jen yang from Silicon valley.And it just kinda was, I just thought it was cool. And some people like, you know, called it out and was like, are these really your team members? And I'm like, yeah, they were super harder recruit. So I'm, I'm a huge fan of the show because it is shockingly accurate and just hilarious. and then, yeah, so I actually, you know, before, like right when I launched my crew choir, I.When on cameo saw Russ Hanneman Chris. I can't pronounce his last name off the top of my head, but, you know, he was available and he was like my favorite character. And I was like, yeah. W do you want to talk about my group choir? And since then we built, you know, a pretty good relationship in terms of, you know, just working with them.And he's a really great guy. Like he's a really, really, really nice person. but my point here is I'm always thinking about what's, I'm always learning and I'm always trying to think of what is changing in marketing today? For example, the marketing playbooks that worked five years ago don't work as effectively today because everyone adopts them and starts using them.And then it starts to, feel like marketing and the best marketing doesn't feel like marketing it's entertaining, or it, captures your attention in a way where you go, whoa, I haven't seen that before. So I'm always trying to think of unique ways to, capture or actually I should say, earn audience attention rather than buy it, or, you know, writes an ebook and engaged it and get your email and then send you 30 trip emails, which worked fantastically a decade ago, which killed a decade ago.But So that's kind of where the thought process and then candidly. I would say, I might laugh the hardest out of those videos. So it's like my like guilty, like pleasure. cause you know, they're not free. So like, you know, I, I probably am lapping the hardest, like when those go out.00:46:46 Nathan:I've I've laughed pretty hard at a lot of them, especially as like, they end up in a series where they like build on each other. The, he uses jokes that he first coined and, you know, first video. And,00:46:58 Andrew:Yeah. a little background on that too is, I didn't tell him to make up anything like he's made of like gas Decky style, micro Gaz, micro, and like, I don't tell, I just basically, cause you're only able to write in like two sentences and he he's just a hilarious person. So any startup looking to, you know, announce something, I highly recommend checking it. 00:47:21 Nathan:I guess how has the business side of it work? Right? Cause if you go on, on his page in particular, it says $349 for personal use or 909 plus for business use, which makes sense that there would be a split there because you've obviously gotten a lot of earned, earned, attention from those. how does it work actually on the payment side? 00:47:41 Andrew:In terms of like using Kamya.00:47:44 Nathan:Yeah. Using cameo, maybe using Russ specifically. Well, Chris, not Russ. But using him specifically or, you know what you've done, you've done with, other people on cameo. 00:47:56 Andrew:Yeah. So he's kind of the only we did a partnership with Clearco and I had like the game, the rapper, duke came here just because I kind of went on like a cameo binge, like I've been a fan of you forever.00:48:12 Nathan:Cards on file. You know, you're just like00:48:15 Andrew:Yeah. I was like, I'd love for you to just say micro choir. Like this is awesome. who else did we get?I can't remember off the top of my head, but, what's been interesting to see what Chris is. when I first booked him, he was $200. Now he's 5,000. So he, has definitely, you know, made some waves in the startup community. And So it's, it's cool to see him like, you know, making people laugh and helping startups get exposure and then raising his prices too, which is, I think something that, you know, most startups should do.So he's done a very good job of that. It, it went from like one K to two K to three K. Now it's at like, 5k, so he's expensive. 00:49:00 Nathan:So that's like when we see something like that, right. If the nine and nine plus, in the buying process, then later, does it tell you like, oh, here's like once you fill out, the initial form, it'll tell you what, what the price is or how's that work?00:49:13 Andrew:So there's, there's a personal use. So you can use his personal, I don't know his like personal cost, but let's say it's like 500 bucks and that would be for like a birthday wish or something like that, which can be a great way to motivate like your team, like, Hey team, great. You know, Q1 or Q4 that's ending, here's our goals for next year, you know, made, they want to me to give you all shout out, that'd be 500 bucks, but then a business use where you posted, externally, so on Twitter or social media, or, within some sort of piece of marketing content.The price for that is usually 10 X, you know, internal use. 00:49:55 Nathan:Did any of the other ones that you tried? Did you feel like they got attention or that kind of thing make you want to do it again? Or was it more just the ones with Chris that really resonated. 00:50:04 Andrew:I think probably you'll see less cameos, out of me, I think, you know? there, there, there gets to a point and we could, we could probably have another podcast about this, about like things with diminishing returns. And I think I've kind of, you know, used them so many times that, I mean, for the really big like, announcements that we have coming up, like maybe twice next year or something like, that but I think there's sort of a diminishing return, especially with the cost, you know? I think building in public kind of falls into that category a little bit. audience exhaustion in terms of like paid ad campaigns. you know, so I'm always thinking of that stuff too.I like, are we overdoing it? cause then it just kinda starts to get corny is when you're doing it over and over and over and over. and it's not really like, whoa, he's here. Like I didn't expect this. And when it starts to become expected, I think if there was just kind of a little bit of luster. 00:51:05 Nathan:Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. something else that you do a ton of is partnerships, whether it's with PYP or angel list or whoever, it feels like micro choirs coming out with a partnership. Every, I don't know what the actual cadences, I feel like it's every two weeks to a month. what's the, what's the strategy there. And is that like a very deliberate, marketing strategy or is it just like, look, this is a natural fit. And so we're just going to do a better job. It made sense to do the partnership and we're just going to do a better job promoting it than most people do. And when they come out with a partnership, 00:51:35 Andrew:Yeah. I mean, so the pipe Clearco Angeles partnerships all made total sense. They help startups get acquired, which is, you know, the purpose of our business. And, you know, our, our main metric of success is helping startups get acquired. So helping them get financed, increases the buyer pool, which then can lead to more acquisitions.So there's, those made a ton of sense. and then we also want to expand internationally. So we partnered with, essentially like the angel list of, Africa that serves 40 countries in Africa. And so I thought that was a really fun partnership in terms of, you know, helping, really underserved. areas of the world, or support underserved areas of the world with my group who are in terms of, you know, just our message and just our encouragement and we're going to continue those.So we're looking, actively speaking with, individuals that are, you know, accelerators or like, start a boot camps and like Turkey or Europe or the UK or Australia. I have a number of conversations, but we'll probably go a little lighter on those because I also feel like the partnership thing is it's like, okay, another part is another partnership might require really. but that's, I think partnerships are, what I would call a non-linear growth strategy. So it's basically, you know, what you're doing is you're leveraging, you know, number one, Another company's brand So you're, you're borrowing some of their brand equity saying like, Hey, we're partnering. So their capabilities are now part of our capabilities and vice versa. so there's benefits on both sides. And then you know, with products that, you know, pipe clear co and Angeles offers specifically, it adds value to our product. So it's like a win, win, win. It's a, it's a good marketing play, good brand play. And then it's good. Just, you know, product play without, a lot of, you know, engineering needed. 00:53:41 Nathan:Is there, like, do you have engineers internally just devoted to, you know, these integrations or, or did they tend to be more on the marketing? you know, our business ops side rather than on the product side, because then they can be expensive on the product side.00:53:55 Andrew:Yeah, they definitely can. I would say they're more. On the marketing side then on, like for example, the angel is partnership is just a landing page that so Avaloq, the CEO of Angeles is an investor in might require and then evolve in an investor in my rewire. And so I just asked, I pointed out this other company that was making an SPV product for private equity firms.And I just said, can you make me a landing page? I'll promote it. And so inside my group where there's like a drop down that says raise bonds, and then it takes you to a landing page. So minimal product integration there, but it's just kind of like us saying, Hey, if you, if you're looking to raise funds, this is where we recommend you doing it.We've done that with mercury bank as well, which is just, again, you know, you acquire a company, you probably want to transfer those assets and do a new entity. That new entity is going to need a bank account. So we're just kind of getting all the re they're almost like perks. If you will.00:54:54 Nathan:Yeah. That makes sense. And then it's not this big integration that you're having to maintain for years to come or.00:55:01 Andrew:Yeah, no, it's not like a, like a Facebook, like a, you know, SSO log-in or something like that. you know, it's a, it's a lot simpler. It's usually just like a lane kicking over to a landing page, you know, driving traffic to them and then we get some sort of kickback for whatever business we drive to them.00:55:20 Nathan:Is there anything in particular that's worked well on, like the partnerships that have been a, a, huge boost, right? Where either you've gotten a bunch more attention for Mike require built the brand. Like, are there things that you see in common on those ones where you're like, yes, that was a home run versus the ones where you're like, I think that was worth the time to put together.Maybe 00:55:40 Andrew:Yeah. I mean, I'd say, I'd say all of them, I'd say my favorite are definitely the Clearco and pipe partnerships. like. Hers is he, oh, he bought me this to kick off our partnership. It's assigned Mike Tyson glove and we've done a number of acquisitions together. I think their company's fantastic. I love working with our team.Clearco same thing. So pipe, I was finance all of our SaaS deals exclusively, and then Clearco all of our e-commerce deals exclusively and they're just great teams and it's a clear need. You know, some people want to finance these with, these companies and we make it extremely seamless to connect to those companies.And we even do like pre-financing. So if you're a founder looking to sell on Mike required and you want to give a line of, you know, potential financing in advance to a buyer, we can, pre-approve a seller. So it just makes kind of the, you know, when you're going to buy a home, it's like it's pre finance or something.I don't know if that's a good analogy, but, those are, those are partnerships that really add, like they were on the product roadmap and they just, you know, we just went to the best ones in the market with the most credibility, with the largest capital pools. but also with the engineering resources.So, you know, anytime a company is, you know, financed through pipe, we get a notification within slack. It says like, Hey, add preapproval number to this company. So we just, we, instead of working with like a ton of different financing partners, we just pick the best ones and then then integrated deeply with them.00:57:23 Nathan:That makes sense. One of the things that I wanted to ask about before we wrap up is, on the sort of the investor influencer side, you have a lot of people, like know, you mentioned Deval and, and others who, have invested in MicroAcquire. And is that, helping of like helping you you know, amplify some of these things on Twitter amplify, these partnerships, open doors in some way.Do you think you get something similar with like a influencer program or has the investor side really been a good, good angle for that? 00:57:54 Andrew:Yeah, that's a good question. So yes, there's definitely the group of investors that my career has is like all my, like idols, like, you know, founders of companies that, you know, I like, you know, Dharmesh from HubSpot, Neval like, From Angeles, like those are some of my favorite companies and I get to, interact with them on a, on a very limited basis. I don't reach out to them for advice, very often. So I think that also adds to just, you know, brand equity of just, being a marketplace, you know, and us wanting to build this with the startup community. That was kind of more of the thought process behind it. But now, I mean, you could even look at my likes.I, I ha I, was, has evolved over, liked something of, mine now has Dharmesh maybe once, like, so now I don't rely on them for like social media support or anything like that. but it, it is, a good way in terms of, you know, when you raise your entreprenuers, you get kind of, again, unique insights because most of them have been through MNA. so, so typical VCs, but, I, I really liked that, style of, of fundraising is when, obviously I'm a bigger advocate of bootstrapping because that's kind of, you know, where I've spent, or had the most success. But if you're gonna raise capital, I, I recommend entrepreneurs for us because they have experienced building a business.And then typically with, you know, acquisitions specifically in my case, which is you know, extremely helpful. 00:59:33 Nathan:Yeah, you and I are both known for bootstrapping. And we're also, I think, pretty well known for not being that dogmatic about it, of being like, here's what we did. Here's why it works well. Here's why the other path can be fine too. you know, rather than being super dogmatic in one camp or the00:59:49 Andrew:Yeah. That's one thing I've noticed since being vocal about bootstrapping that I think is a little toxic; if you're funded, it's like, I hate you. Then, if your bootstrapped, venture capital's just a tool. If you know how to use the tool correctly, it can be a great accelerant to your business. Everything comes with a cost. So, when you bootstrap, you have to kind of eat glass for much longer. I've lived that life, but at the end, the rewards can be epic.So, if your goal is to make money, you should probably bootstrap, because you can sell the business whenever You want. You have no approvals. You own the whole thing. Nathan, if you wanted to sell your business, you don't have any investment or approvals, or anyone saying, “No, you need to hit that billion dollar mark.” If you want to really disrupt the market, or change a market or, go a little bit bigger, faster, venture capital is just a tool to accelerate that. It all comes with a cost.The cost of bootstrapping is, sometimes you have to do customer support for longer. You have to do some of these roles where you can't bring in talent earlier. The cost of venture capital is, you give it back equity and control within your business. There's usually controls. You need approval to raise capital. You need approval to sell your business.So, everything comes with a cost, and it has pros and cons. I think bootstrapping makes sense for 99% of entrepreneurs, because the bar today is building a billion dollar business, and that's not easy to do. So, for many first-time founders, I'm a big fan of stair-stepping and entrepreneurship. One of my favorite tweets that I've ever written is, “Start with an agency, get to cashflow positive, and then bootstrap an asset—whether that's a SaaS company or your e-commerce business—sell that asset, become financially secure, and then do whatever you want.” Swing for the fences, go on a beach, whatever. Along the way, you prepare yourself for the next stage of business.01:02:24 Nathan:Yeah, I completely agree with that. I have an article titled “The Ladders of Wealth Creation” that touches on the similar idea of using the skills from one ladder to move up to the next, and go from there.Well this has been fun. I always enjoy watching the partnerships, what you're doing on Twitter, and everywhere else.I think that MicroAcquire is a great example of what you can build with an audience. Thanks for coming on and hanging out with me and, and we'll have to talk soon.01:02:52 Andrew:Yeah, Nathan, thanks for having me, man. I enjoyed the chat.01:02:55 Nathan:Alright. Catch you later.01:02:56 Andrew:See you, man.

0:00 SURPRISE 0:09 Intel nabs back Apple Silicon leader 1:24 BMW E Ink and 32:9 display 2:17 France slaps Google, Meta's wrist 3:10 Seasonic 3:51 QUICK BITS 4:01 XMG watercooled laptop 4:30 Noveto N1 ultrasonic speaker 5:06 Thread smart home stuff 5:46 Konami NFTs 6:07 Drone saves man with AED delivery News Sources: https://lmg.gg/nH34V

We just completed the seventh week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape the character and employment of all instruments of national power. Today's class: The Second Space Age: Great Power Competition in Space.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple's Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Enjoy the podcast?: Shop Apple at Amazon to support 9to5Mac Daily! New episodes of 9to5Mac Daily are recorded every weekday. Subscribe to our podcast in iTunes/Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast player to guarantee new episodes are delivered as soon as they're available. Stories discussed in this episode:   Kuo: AirPods Pro 2 to offer Lossless support, new form factor, more Gurman: Apple developing new external display that's around half the price of the Pro Display XDR Apple Silicon transition could be completed by WWDC Apple giving top employees major stock bonuses as some engineers leave for Meta Follow Chance: Twitter: @ChanceHMiller Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Overcast RSS Stitcher TuneIn Google Play Share your thoughts! Drop us a line at happyhour@9to5mac.com. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

We just completed the sixth week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape the character and employment of all instruments of national power....Today's class: Unmanned Platforms and Autonomy

Student Sunday

News On Apple #84 - iPad de 15" poderá ter apps de Mac e controlar dispositivos residenciais inteligentes, chips Apple Silicon dos Macs podem ter ciclo de atualizações de 18 meses, usuários de Apple Watch têm problemas de carregamento após atualizar para o watchOS 8.3, perguntas de ouvintes, entre outros assuntos, sempre com muitas dicas e um bate papo descontraído com as curiosidades do mundo Apple. Apresentação: Rafael de Angeli (@rafangeli), Pedro Celli (@pcelli), Fernando Cunha JR (@cunhajrfernando) e Marcelo Dada (@miloticdada). Oferecimento/Parceiros: Hospital Mais Phone (@hospitalmaisphone) e Mundo Apple BR (@mundoapplebr). Saiba todos os rumores e novidades do mundo Apple em www.newsonapple.com

End Well to Begin Well

As an entrepreneur at times you forget that being in charge doesn't mean you have to know everything. When it feels like you're trapped facing an unsolvable dilemma, and wrestling with a seemingly intractable problem, remember that “getting out of your head” is the personal equivalent of the Lean Startup mantra “get out of the building.” Learning this was a big step in making me a more effective entrepreneur.

Cinema Display for Mac Comeback?!

We just completed the fifth week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape all the elements of national power (America's influence and footprint on the world stage). In class 1, we learned that national power is the combination of a country's diplomacy, information/intelligence, its military capabilities, economic strength, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement. This “whole of government approach” is known by the acronym DIME-FIL. Class 2 focused on China, the U.S.'s primary great power competitor. China is using all elements of national power: diplomacy (soft power, alliances, coercion), information/ intelligence, its military might and economic strength (Belt and Road Initiative) as well as exploiting Western finance and technology. China's goal is to challenge and overturn the U.S.-led liberal international order and replace it with a neo-totalitarian model. The third class focused on Russia, which since 2014 has asserted itself as a competing great power. We learned how Russia pursues security and economic interests in parallel with its ideological aims. At times, these objectives complement each other. At other times they clash, as Russian policy is run by Vladimir Putin and his political institutions. The fourth class shifted our focus to the impact commercial technologies have on DIME-FIL. The first technology we examined were semiconductors, the oil of the 21st century. The U.S. is dependent on TSMC, located in Taiwan, for its most advanced logic chips. This is problematic as China claims Taiwan is a province of China.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple's Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Sponsored by ALOGIC: Get 10% off ALOGIC"S new BLAZE Docks & Hubs with code ALOGIC10. Enter the MacBook Pro giveaway. New episodes of 9to5Mac Daily are recorded every weekday. Subscribe to our podcast in iTunes/Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast player to guarantee new episodes are delivered as soon as they're available. Stories discussed in this episode:   Rumor: 4nm Mac 'M2' chip to arrive in second of half of 2022, followed by 'M2 Pro' in 2023 - 9to5Mac Gurman: ‘Strongly believe' Apple will launch a new external display for Macs - 9to5Mac Stalking concerns raised as person finds AirTag hidden under the wheel well on her car - 9to5Mac Enjoy the podcast?: Shop Apple at Amazon to support 9to5Mac Daily! Follow Chance: Twitter: @ChanceHMiller Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Overcast RSS Stitcher TuneIn Google Play Share your thoughts! Drop us a line at happyhour@9to5mac.com. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

- Tổng Bí thư Nguyễn Phú Trọng dự lễ kỷ niệm 190 năm thành lập tỉnh, 80 năm thành lập Đảng bộ tỉnh và 25 năm tái lập tỉnh Hưng Yên. - Chủ tịch Quốc hội Vương Đình Huệ thăm bang Karnataka – nơi được coi là thung lũng Silicon của Ấn Độ. - Nga chính thức rút khỏi Hiệp ước Bầu trời Mở; đồng thời lên án Mỹ phải chịu mọi trách nhiệm về sự đổ vỡ thương lượng. - Bình luận: Ngoại trưởng Mỹ thăm Đông Nam Á: Vội nhưng chắc. Chủ đề : Thung lũng Silicon, Karnataka, Bão rai, Bão số 9 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vov1thoisu/support

Choose Joy

Leading global tech analysts Patrick Moorhead (Moor Insights & Strategy) and Daniel Newman (Futurum Research) are front and center on The Six Five analyzing the tech industry's biggest news each and every week and also conducting interviews with tech industry "insiders" on a regular basis.    The Six Five represents six (6) handpicked topics that will be covered for five (5) minutes each.    Welcome to this week's edition of “The 6-5.” I'm Patrick Moorhead with Moor Insights & Strategy, co-host, joined by Daniel Newman with Futurum Research. On this week's show we will be talking:   Meta First Party Silicon https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2021/12/16/as-metas-datacenters-needs-change-the-company-will-diversify-its-approach-to-silicon/   Oracle Buys Cerner? https://siliconangle.com/2021/12/16/report-oracle-targets-healthcare-data-analytics-firm-cerner-30b-acquisition/ https://twitter.com/PatrickMoorhead/status/1471686547464503304?s=20 https://twitter.com/danielnewmanUV/status/1471684368162775048?s=20   CES Expectations https://www.ces.tech/Show-Floor/featured-exhibitors.aspx?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=CES22-0010&gclid=CjwKCAiAh_GNBhAHEiwAjOh3ZC6dcB6B_pO7IbWqowrbpPe9fSmGB4Lcp1d72nPVcP5kA46MgWnEfxoCX8IQAvD_BwE   Adobe $ADBE Earnings https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/16/adobe-plunges-10percent-and-heads-for-second-worst-day-in-past-decade-.html https://twitter.com/danielnewmanUV/status/1471527467244470282?s=20   Planet $PL Earnings https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2021/Planet-Reports-Financial-Results-for-Third-Quarter-of-Fiscal-2022/default.aspx   HPE Wins Barclays Bank Private Cloud https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/press-release/2021/12/barclays-selects-hpe-greenlake-for-private-cloud-platform.html https://twitter.com/PatrickMoorhead/status/1471684410529488908?s=20 https://twitter.com/danielnewmanUV/status/1471528556417392640?s=20   Disclaimer: This show is for information and entertainment purposes only. While we will discuss publicly traded companies on this show. The contents of this show should not be taken as investment advice. 

2 MUCH TV - The Best Comedy/Songwriting Podcast of 2021 - Real Magazine This week we're talking about the tech comedy series SILICON VALLEY and we're overcoming wind storms and massive depression to ask one important question: is it Silicon or Silicone and what's the difference? Also unrelated but what does a DJ do?? Our guest this week is Jesse Laderoute of the band Blonde Elvis and he's bringing back the long lost concept of the GUEST SONG. Jesse also does charitable work making food for people in need in Toronto. If you would like to donate you can reach out at Torontofooddonations@gmail.com. Follow Jesse: https://www.instagram.com/jessejamesladeroute/ https://www.instagram.com/blondeelvis101/ https://blondeelvis.bandcamp.com/ _________________________________________ www.patreon.com/2muchtv www.prettymatty.com www.ponytheband.ca twitter.com/prttymtty twitter.com/PONYtoronto

A great new episode with an incredibly original alternative interpretation of the genesis story of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood and the interpretations specifically of the nature of Adam, Eve, & Lilith and the true origins of humanity in connection with these three symbolic figures in this very symbolic story of Genesis shared by most major world faiths and shamanic ways. Skip to the 20 minute mark to pass a channel announcement for the the content of the episode. linktr.ee/beyondtopsecrettexan  anchor.fm/beyondtopsecrettexan  Check out my podcast & videos on Tik Tok #terrortok #videodeterror #ovnis #truth #cryptids #evidence #ufos #ufotruth #occult #paranormal #area51 #aliens #monsters #hollowearth #darkweb Instagram @beyondtopsecrettexan youtube.com/c/BeyondTopSecretTexan LBRY/ ODYSEE: Beyond Top Secret Texan patreon.com/beyondtopsecrettexan --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/beyondtopsecrettexan/support

On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.In this episode, you'll learn: Identifying and attracting lifetime value customers How to get and maintain customer loyalty Three causes of subscription fatigue Why customers cancel their subscriptions Links & Resources Strava Intuit Survey Monkey Oracle The Subscription Economy Tien Tzuo: Subscribed Eric Crowley Seth Miller CrossFit Shopify Calm Matthieu Rouif PhotoRoom GoPro Elevate VSCO Robbie Kellman Baxter's Links Robbie Kellman Baxter's website Follow Robbie on Twitter Robbie's book: The Forever Transaction Robbie's book: The Membership Economy Robbie's LinkedIn Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard, and with me, as always, RevenueCat CEO, Jacob Eiting.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Hey Robbie, welcome to the podcast.00:00:58 Robbie:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you both. 00:01:00 David:I was introduced to your work by somebody recommending your book, The Membership Economy, and it really struck me. I was so excited that you agreed to be on the podcast, because here's a book written in 2015, and we'll talk about your other book that was written more recently, but written in 2015. I was looking through it, scanning the chapters, so I bought the book. I was like, this is everything we're talking about now, thinking it's all so novel with subscription apps, but really consumer subscriptions have been around for decades. You've been working in this space way longer than any of us.So, I thought it would be really fun to have you on the podcast to talk more broadly about these principles of consumer subscriptions that apply equally to D to C subscriptions, as well as the app space that we work in. That's where I wanted to kick things off.So, how did you get your start in consumer subscriptions?00:01:57 Robbie:A couple of threads came together. I was in product-marketing for what is now called SaaS, for five years, right before I hung out my own shingle and started consulting. So, I had that background as a product manager working with software products that were being sold as subscriptions, and then as an independent consultant.My fifth client was Netflix. I fell in love with their business model, and I was wondering why isn't everybody else falling in love with their business model, too? This is amazing. Recurring revenue, predictable cashflow, the amount of data they were collecting on their customer. The fact that they're offering was just a much better way of delivering on a promise that many of us wanted delivery for, which is a professionally created catalog of video content delivered in the most efficient way possible. It meant not having to put a raincoat over your jammies to go pick up a movie, with cost certainty and no late fees.I was consulting with Netflix. I was already a customer, and a few people started calling and saying, “Hey, we heard you worked with Netflix. We want to be the Netflix of our space.” Whether that was news, or music, or bicycles, or dental pain management products, or clothes, there was a lot of interest in what it was that Netflix was doing.So, I started trying to create frameworks, trying to say, what are they doing? Which parts are applicable to other businesses, and which parts are just unique to that group of people solving that particular problem?That's really where I got started, and it turns out to be big enough and deep enough that it's kept me really busy for, it's been 20 years, 20 years. 00:03:55 David:Fifth client to, to land as a consultant. That's a. Really great. And so you were with them before they even introduced the, video on demand on the internet, right. You started with them when it was DVDs in the mail, 00:04:09 Robbie:Yeah. 00:04:10 David:Traditional D to C subscription service. 00:04:13 Jacob:But, but even then was satisfying a lot of those, almost all of those conditions. Right. I didn't have to go outside just to my mailbox, not too bad price certainty. I didn't have late fees. and then like, you know, insanely large catalog. Right. you know, it was, it was, it wasn't. We tend to wait for the technology to get that right.And then, then we had VOD being, 00:04:33 Robbie:Yeah. And they were already thinking, I mean, it was amazing to me. So I was there, you know, the time that I worked most actively with dev 2001, 2003, even during that time, which was all DVDs, all three DVDs out at a time, they were already thinking about streaming versus, you know, should they let you download it?And then have it explode after, you know, you know, some duration. What was the best way to deliver it? Should they come through your, you know, for awhile? I remember I think it came through your PlayStation or your, your we, were thinking like, 00:05:06 Jacob:My first like set top box experience with Netflix would have been on Nintendo. Yeah.00:05:10 Robbie:Yeah. I mean, so they, they were already thinking about it and I think that's a really important part of any subscription is even if your subscription works great today and it's good enough to get people to sign up the product team has to be thinking, how are we going to continue to evolve it in particular fringy? Right. How do we continue to stay relevant to these people while also having those new and improved features that bring new people in? And I think a lot of organizations. I have been taught to over-index on acquisition benefits and not thinking as much about those, the sticky engagement benefits that often are really hard to talk about credibly. Right? If I say to you, you know, sign up for my subscription, my, my video subscription, because it's the most, it's the easiest to find the next piece of content. And you're going to love our algorithm, right? People aren't going to believe you. You don't have credibility. So, all they're going to say is, oh, you have Hamilton, I'll sign up for that.And then I'll cancel. And then it's still up to you, you know, if you're Disney plus to get them from Hamilton to princess movies, national geographic titles, ESPN, all the other great stuff that they have. Star wars.00:06:26 David:I'm 00:06:26 Robbie:Yeah. 00:06:26 David:My son right now. Yeah. That's great. And then I do want to kind of step back and you're kind of right into the weeds with some really actionable advice, but I want to, I want to step back a little bit and talk more broadly. So after working with a few, companies in the subscription space and Netflix so early eventually wrote this book, The Membership Economy, which I love.Phrase and wanted to ask actually, did you, did you coin that phrase then how did you at the time and how do you still kind of define this membership economy that you wrote about. 00:06:57 Robbie:Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd love to say that, like I just came up with it and it was so natural and obvious, but, you know, I was thinking, I was like, is it, is it about subscription pricing? Is it about premium services? Is it about recurring revenue? Should I call it the recurring revenue that I was trying to think?What is it? And where I came out was it's not about the subscription pricing, which I think is a tactic. it's a tactic that you earn the right to do by having. Relationship that is trusted with your customer. The customer trusts you so much that they're like fine. You can charge me every month or you can charge me every year and I will just keep paying you and not look for alternatives.And for me, that was based on a certain kind of human relationship. And that's where I came up with this concept of membership that you belong. That it's, you're committing upfront to a long-term relationship as a vendor, and then you earn the right to have subscriptions. So that was kind of where I came up with it.I worked with Netflix. I also worked. At that time Intuit. I worked with a survey monkey and their predecessor. Uh Zoomerang and I worked with Oracle on the B2B side, and those were some of the companies that helped me sort of connect the dots and figure out how. The framework, of, you know, here's some ways to think about what happens when you treat your customers like membership members.Here's what you need to track. Here's how you need to think about it. And here's what it, what it can do for you. Honestly, the first book, all I was trying to do is say, this is a good idea. You might want to consider it for a bunch of reasons.00:08:26 Jacob:Think of it in opposites. I think it's is it the. the Zuora founder's book subscription economy,but but you're right in the sense that subscription kind of implies like 00:08:37 Robbie:Okay. 00:08:38 Jacob:Particular tactic for monetization that does go really well with this concept. But when I think of membership, as opposed to just subscription, like membership implies also community to me, right.00:08:48 Robbie:Yeah. 00:08:49 Jacob:Like building this. This, this ecosystem, this community that, that, which was then in genders trust, which then allows you to monetize, right. And and this great business model. about it in those terms, I think is a really nice way to put it as opposed to like, let's take something.Let's take something that, that we were monetizing another way and just slop noodle on it, which is something a lot in the, in the app world, this transition from paid upfront or micro-transactions driven apps to subscriptions, some have made it and some have not. And I think the ones that have made it are the ones who look at it in that light, in the membership light, in the.Earning their business repeatedly through content or through community. so I, yeah, that, that framing I think is really accurate.00:09:36 Robbie:Your point about, you know, so many companies to slap a subscription price onto whatever they already had, you know? Okay. We have a usage based model. Let's see what happens if we do a subscription based model for the same product, or let's see what happens if we take, you know, a model where you have ownership, where I download the app and it's mine, and I can use it forever, even if it's really, really obsolete.If it solves my problem, who cares, to one where you're being forced to pay every month. Yeah, extensively to get upgrades and maybe access to your peers and some kind of community functionality. It really is a different product. You need a different product for subscription than for, you know, a purchase or usage based model.And, you know, I love teens books. Subscribed is a great book. I recommend it to people. It's very, well-read has a lot of interesting ideas. but I didn't go with that, you know, subscription economy model just because I really want. To focus more on the culture and the relationship and not jump straight to let's get some of that subscription pricing stuff so that we can get a good valuation, you know?00:10:39 Jacob:Yeah. Yeah. I, it, you made me think of this one experience I had just as an anecdote was, X-Box in for three or four years ago, released an Xbox subscription. And I thought this is a really cool one because I could defer, I buy another X-Box every three or four or five years. So it was like, oh, I'll just spread that cost out.I didn't have a lot of cash at the time. I was like, this is a great 40 bucks a month. I get a new Xbox, right. And so I went in to do this at the, at the Microsoft store. What it really was, was they were giving me like a cash advance, like they were giving me, like, basically I had to get a credit check to get a subscription.And I was like, this is 00:11:12 Robbie:That's not a subscription. 00:11:13 Jacob:In mind. Exactly. Right. Like I thought I was joining the, the X-Box club and I was going to just get an expert and they're going to place my Xbox for me. Right. example. of that case of just like slapping subscription pricing on what was essentially a loan.00:11:26 Robbie:Yeah. Yeah.00:11:27 Jacob:Now my credit score, I have loan for a 19 20 16 Ford edge and a next box, on those are my two like credit items I've ever had. So it's really weird.00:11:37 Robbie:And they've come a long way. I mean, Microsoft has come a long way with their subscription strategies, you know, not just on the gaming side, but you know, with, with office 365 and you know, they've done a lot of thinking about subscription, but it really is super complicatedto, to make it work. 00:11:54 Jacob:Right? Like with software zero marginal costs or whatever you can It makes a lot of sense. will say, I will say, I want to give Microsoft some credit, back in the gaming world there Xbox game pass product product, which I also subscribed to has been amazing.I bought a new X-Box game in forever, cause I don't really care about title individuality. I just, whatever it is, $10 a month or $15 a month. And I get access to like 50 different games that rotate. Plenty. That's plenty for me. And I will probably never unsubscribe from that. Right. But it feels like a 00:12:22 Robbie:Yeah. 00:12:22 Jacob:Cause it's, software-driven, in there. There's like there's changing and there's events stuff that comes in and out and they make it a big thing. built it up into this, into this. Yeah. This kind of, it feels like a membership, as opposed to, yeah, just slapping an affirm loan on an X-Box purchase, basically.00:12:39 David:I do want to step back to your, to your book, The Membership Economy, and, I love the subtitle. Find your super users, the forever, transaction and build recurring revenue. finding super users is something we've actually talked a lot about here on the podcast. So looking for those cohorts, one of our recent podcast, guests, Eric Crowley.Talked about locals versus tourists. Seth Miller, another recent podcast guests talked about how, you know, figuring out these cohorts was just a huge unlock for their business. so what's your process? How do you recommend clients find these super users and how do you think about these, super users?You mentioned all the way back in 2015 before any of us were thinking about these things.00:13:24 Robbie:Yeah. Well, so for me, what I think about with super you. So I think about, you know, anybody does subscriptions knows. Segmentation is like re like the most important thing. You have to know who your customer is. Not just at the moment of acquisition, what they look like. You know, when you're like, that's the person I want, but how are they going to behave once they join?The moment of transaction becomes the starting line for understanding your customer, not the finish line. What like, oh, we knew them well enough to get them to buy it. We knew them well enough to get them to buy. And then to get them to make this a habit and then to get them to go deeper and to stay for a long time and maybe even bring their friends.So, you know, the first thing I always do with my clients, I say, let's focus on who you're, who you're making the problem. What is the promise you're making, who are you making it to? and that's kind of part one. And then we map out the journey. What is it? What is the goal that they have that is ongoing or the problem that they have that is ongoing?And what are the moments on their journey where you might be able to intervene and help. Right. So in the beginning it might be just one or two places, right? I'm I'm, I'm QuickBooks. I help you at tax time, but then it might be, oh, and I'm going to help you with some other key moments in your process of adulting financially.Right. You know, one of the things is you move at your parent's house and you pay your own taxes. Another is you might take out a loan for that. Awesome. You know, for whatever car you said, you know, you're going to get an, get a car and you need a loan and you know, they can help you. And so you're layering in those different beds.On a journey cause you want them to stay. You want to keep providing value. and then once you know what that person looked like, then you go tell your marketing team to go get lookalikes, get more people like that. Super users goes one step beyond that, which is not only are they great customers, you know, high customer, lifetime value, easy to serve, whatever.They also were putting their own money and effort, their own resources into strengthening your model. So these are people that bring in. These are evangelists who bring in other members. These are people who give you feedback on your products and services, which sometimes doesn't feel like a gift, but always is a gift.And it's, people who are willing to help onboard. New members. Right? So the ones that, you know, explain in the user group, you know, that, you know, this is, this is how you use that product, or this is, this is my workaround, or this is, you know, what was hard for me and how I fixed it. So those people, you know, that make referrals, that that speak out on your behalf that gather, you know, others they're so valuable.And I got really into this idea actually with CrossFit. my sister is a, is a big CrossFitter and watching her. in addition to all the money she was spending to, to be a member of this CrossFit box, the amount of time and effort she was spending to onboard new members to invite them over. When the, when the box was closed, she and her husband would put out their equipment on their live on a cul-de-sac.They put it all out on the street and invite the whole box, come over and get their workout done there because they love the community so much, right. Their own time and money to support the community.00:16:27 David:There kind of specific, Ways, especially digitally like, with, with or customer service, what are the tools that, that you see people be successful in finding those kinds of users and understanding those patterns and who they are and what they 00:16:45 Jacob:Yeah. 00:16:45 David:Like. And those sorts of things. 00:16:47 Robbie:So the, the starting point, I think is always lifetime customer value. So. You look at the group of customers who stay the longest and spend the most right. And the ones that people would say, we wish we could make more of these, you know, and then you look, you develop hypotheses. What does this group share?And it can be as simple as writing the names of your first 10 customers on a boards. These are the 10 customers we had. These five have been awesome. These. You know, didn't stick around long canceled, complain a lot, you know, whatever the reason is. And then you try to come up with what is, what did this group share that this group doesn't share?That's the simplest way in a, in a data world where you have the data you're doing the same thing, but digitally, how did they onboard? What was the source of the lead? what time of year? Like which cohort are they in? Did they join? You know, people like, for example, with QuickBooks people that join in tax season, Might be behave very differently than people who join as a new year's resolution or who joined in August.Right. What kind of person starts thinking really hard about managing their money in August? Great. you know, so, so looking for those things, developing hypotheses, looking at the data, trying to say what's the difference between our most valuable customers and our not most valuable customers, which is not your worst customers, because your worst customers are often outliers, but just the ones where you're like, they're just not that good.They came for two months, they left, they binged, they used up, you know, they were using us really heavily for six weeks. And then they left. What's different about them than the ones who continue to use this gradual. For five months. and I think that's where the hypotheses come out and then tactically, what you do after, you know, as you look at the difference in onboarding those different groups and you optimize your onboarding experience.To build those habits and then you mark it. This is often requires a tremendous amount of discipline. You mark it to only attract the high value people and not to attract the others. So if I walk into McDonald's with a gown on with my husband and I say, it's our 20th anniversary, show us to your finest team.Give us the best you've got. And we'd like a nice bottle of champagne, right? Customer's not always right at McDonald's. Right. They're not going to say, oh man, Robbie needs champagne. Somebody scraped down to the seven 11 and you know, get a bottle of Prosecco and you know, we'll try to pass it off. They say, that's not really what we do here.Dummy. They might not say dummy, but they might be thinking it, right. That's not what we here, you know 00:19:10 Jacob:The 00:19:12 Robbie:Right. We're here, you know, we're cheap, we're fast. It tastes good. Your kids love it. You can drive through and eat it. But we don't do, we don't do special occasion stuff. And so they know who they are.Right. And they're okay with me not coming in. Right. They're even okay with me saying, by the way, don't go to McDonald's, it's a terrible place to celebrate your anniversary. Right. They're kind ofCause it. 00:19:32 Jacob:Just all 00:19:33 Robbie:Right. The leaning is terrible. It makes your skin look awful. You know, the point is that if they took care of. Right. What am I going to do? I'm going to tell you, you know what, just go there for your anniversary. Just tell them it's your anniversary. They'll run out and get all the stuff you need. Right? And then they have all these people that are expensive to serve. Right? It's the same thing digitally, right? If you bring in the wrong people who are going to binge on your content in the first month, or the people who are going to push you to create features that nobody needs, except that.Right. It's just going to throw your whole business off in the wrong direction. So having that discipline upfront to know what you do and you don't do well. And to say no to some prospects, it's really hard to say no to prospects, right? If they have money and they're like, just add this feature and I'll pay.You know, Netflix in the early days, a lot of people wanted them to have video games. Right? Video games were also on discs seems easy, right? As an outsider, as an expert, right? I'm like, ah, video games, same thing. Video games work in a totally different way. And what Netflix said is we don't really understand how people would view.Games. We don't understand how they've use them. We don't understand how many we need. We don't understand how they value that. We don't understand how to negotiate terms with gaming companies, but that's a whole different thing we're going to, we have plenty of runway here. Just focusing on video content.00:20:51 Jacob:Yeah, it's, it's really interesting that, that, that feeling as a founder, especially true in SaaS, when you have literally 10 customers and like you will do 00:20:59 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:00 Jacob:For the, your 11th, it's a little bit true in consumer. Two in the early days, like you, you're just kind of like, how do I get the funnel bigger?How do I, how do you, I think you are a little bit myopic on, the top of the funnel and not thinking about this long-term thing, partially because we don't have a lot of data. You launched your app six months 00:21:19 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:19 Jacob:Trying to make decisions on customer lifetime value. And you don't really have a good sense because you don't know who's sticking around.You probably don't have a ton of data, but one thing you said. That really got my gears turning was that of putting them on a board and just looking at them, looking at the 10 customers or whatever it is, a hundred, even in consumer SaaS, where you have hundreds of 00:21:37 Robbie:Yeah, 00:21:38 Jacob:So it's not that many, you can grab it.You'll be surprised at how many things I've in my old days in consumer's house of like just clicking into a customer and just watching how they use the app, like an individual, right. It doesn't, not data, but it gives you hints and you can start there. And then, and 00:21:54 Robbie:Yeah. Hypotheses, right? 00:21:55 Jacob:Yeah. Hypothesis. And then you actually talk to those people, if you can, like get them on the 00:22:00 Robbie:Yeah. 00:22:00 Jacob:Surprised what they tell you. One of our, our guests Matthew and photo room a few weeks ago talked about, they would take their app to McDonald's and just show it to people to keep the McDonald's references going, and get like in-person feedback.And that helped them learn, you know, they, they were, they were an app that thought that. For everybody and find out later that they're actually like, kind of like a pursuer app for Shopify people, people 00:22:23 Robbie:00:22:24 Jacob:And people with, with e-comm and, and that like kind of exploded their business for this exact case.You're talking about where they found out. Okay. Yeah. We're not for this entire, like long tail of low intent users where for this really core set, but that can be really scary if that sets kind of 00:22:39 Robbie:It's always scary to niche down, but it's almost always. a good strategy. And I wanted to tag onto something else that you said, Jacob, which I think is really important. People often say, how can I make any decisions about, you know, based on, you know, who has the highest customer lifetime value?When, you know, we've only been around for three months or six months, we have to wait until they leave. Hopefully not for three years or five years, but what I've found. And, you know, I wonder if you've seen the same thing. Most people who leave leave in the first two months. So what you really want to do is optimize for onboarding, you know, are they adopting habits that look like people who are steady users getting value, and you can often tell that in the first month, by how many people drop off by who stays and buy, you know, are they bingeing or are they using it in kind of a normal way? And so you don't have to wait for 18, 18 months or however many periods, a lot of it, you get your answer right away. Do they cancel at the end of the first period?00:23:43 Jacob:Yeah, it's good to think about your product in terms of not just. Like signups and getting through the end of onboarding, like that day one experience, but think about what hooks are like, what are the things that people are actually investing contingent on? I always think that that's, that's a, know, you think about this long-term relationship, giving users, in your product to invest and to give back and to connect, like putting in 00:24:05 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:06 Jacob:Themselves.Like there's passive usage consumption. Netflix does a good job. Like you can save, listen stuff that they do a lot of this just in passively, right? Like you consume content and they learn about you and then they have a profile. but I think some of the best apps, like let put in and that's going, gonna also not only probably make them stickier users, but also it gives you early indications and some things to hook on and be like, okay.I mean, Dropbox, this was a big thing in Dropbox. This story. they, they could get people to like understand the concept, but we had massive product issues, getting people to put a file in the thing, right? Like 00:24:41 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:42 Jacob:Not necessarily the most user friendly thing. Like is some sort of app that runs in the background whenever they would, they did, they pulled users in, they watched them do it and totally fail.And then they fixed the product. Right. and, that's, that's. core product problem, but it relates to this this story of getting somebody to membership, right? Like getting them 00:25:00 Robbie:Yeah 00:25:00 Jacob:And focusing on that.00:25:02 David:One of the things that you talked about in your most 00:25:05 Robbie:No. 00:25:05 David:That I think, is so important to understanding the activation. Is is this concept of a forever promise. And so, so your most recent book that forever transaction we'll we'll link to in the show notes and whatnot. but in order to activate, in order to even just build a business, especially a subscription business, you need to start with Promise that you're going to make to customers. and then, especially again, like you said earlier to justify recurring payments, like, so tell me how you think about a forever promise and how, how any app, any business that wants to set up recurring payments should be thinking about this forever promise.00:25:47 Robbie:Yeah, it's, it's really simple. You take a step back and you say, when my customers come to. What is the ongoing problem they're trying to solve, or what is the ongoing goal they're trying to achieve and how can I best align my product and my messaging with that goal, that ongoing goal or that ongoing problem.So what can I promise them about it? So with a Netflix, it's about, you know, entertaining. You know, I'm going to provide you with the biggest selection of professionally created video content delivered in the most efficient way, right. With cost certainty. you're never going to have to pay extra fees and you know, there's a lot of, a lot of apps that are around.You know, helping you with some part of your business process, getting a certain kind of work done or tracking your finances or creating beautiful images for, you know, personal use for your hobbies. What have you gaming apps for fun? And I think first getting really clear on what your promise is and who you're making it to, and then you design the features and benefits to support them.Forever on their journey. And you say, as long as you continue paying me regularly, I am going to continue improving the way I deliver on my promise to you. Right? If I'm a gym, I'm going to have new equipment, I'm going to have new classes. I might offer you stuff online. If I'm news source, I'm going to offer it maybe through an app.Maybe I'm getting the access to the journalists. Maybe I'm getting, get the access to conferences or webinars on top of news because. My promise is I'm going to help you understand the world around you so you can make better decisions. And I don't have, like, if you even think about that promise, There's nothing about that promise that makes you say it needs to be a newspaper, right?It could be a conference. It could be classes, it could be a community of like-minded people sharing their learnings and their observations. So why not layer all of that in over time so that you get closer and closer to guaranteeing that they're going to get the impact that they hoped for on an ongoing basis.00:27:55 Jacob:It's interesting. in some ways relates to like what a company mission can be for a different audience. Right? You say, you know, revenue has as a mission. And that's one thing that I won't change, right. That that's kind of what we do. And that's part of joining the company and whatever. But, but I do think there's value in communicating that as well.This is like the customer facing version of that. Like, what's our 00:28:15 Robbie:Exactly. 00:28:16 Jacob:Charter. Like, why are we here? And what can I 00:28:18 Robbie:Right, 00:28:19 Jacob:That's not going to change. Right. It, especially when you think in those terms of not the like person who's coming to do a very quick transactional thing as in, I'm going to binge you put it, or maybe I just some trying this out, or I have this like one limited life or limited pain, like a limited time pain. Like what's 00:28:35 Robbie:Yeah. 00:28:36 Jacob:Engagement that we're going to do, is really interesting ground when I read the, framing of just the forever transaction forever promise. It's really exciting because we have the infrastructure for the first time in human history to really make this efficient at scale that like computers can do these sort of like, patronage relationships for us.Yeah. And, rethinking how we frame and, and relationships with customers, I think. Yeah. I mean, it's some of the work are a bit ahead of us on.00:29:05 Robbie:Yeah. Well, I mean, I, you know, I've been here a lot. Like I got here first cause I was here for a long time, but you know, it kind of a dubious distinction, but you know, I think you're right. Like you step back and you say, what are the problems? What's the ongoing problem. The ongoing problem is I'm constantly running out of laundry detergent.Right? The ongoing problem is I look in my closet and I have nothing to wear for this occasion, whatever this occasion might be. Right. you know, something that I think is really interesting to think about, you know, Amazon. Talks about removing all friction from all buying decisions, right. They started with just books.Right. And you still have to wait two weeks to get the book right when you ordered it, but they had this. All the different friction in all the different buying decisions. We're just going to, you know, layer by layer. We're gonna remove all of those things. And, you know, at some point, you know, I think they want to get to the point where I think to myself, those are really cool headphones that Jacob's wearing.I wish I had those. And before I even say. They're on my ears. And then I'm like, oh, these are uncomfortable. And they make my hair look bad. They're gone. Right. That it's almost magical. That's what they're moving to. No friction. I don't even have to say a word. It just happens. you know, I think having that kind of guidance of like, that's what we're trying to do, there's so many times when I've gone shopping and I've needed something, whether it's like buying a new house or buying a white blouse for an event and thinking this shouldn't be that hard.I have enough money to pay for. I know exactly what I need it for. And I've already spent four hours or four months, or in the case of buying a house for years, trying to find, you know, the needle in the haystack. It should not be this. When, when you say it should not be this hard, that's probably00:30:46 Jacob:An 00:30:46 Robbie:Good, 00:30:47 Jacob:Opportunity. 00:30:48 Robbie:Opportunity.Yeah, 00:30:49 Jacob:No, I I'm. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking about revenue. Cats are, you know, this is a shameless plug time to talk about my company, but, I think about our forever promise and we, our mission is like we help developers make more money. That's our goal. but I almost think that. Kind of like a short, pithy way of like phrasing. It really it's about how do we remove the way he put his barriers? Like, how do we remove all the barriers for a developer to make money? How do we remove all the for a developer to value with software for other people? and often like people see a lot of these.Yeah. Subscription, infrastructure problems, data problems, all these, all these things are not why somebody got into it. Right. When they started Netflix, it wasn't like, I just can't wait to do like cohort analysis. 00:31:35 Robbie:Okay. 00:31:35 Jacob:Like all these things, it's like, no, we want to deliver entertainment to people the easiest way possible.And so, you know, for us, like, In some ways, our particular problem that we're, we've committed and, and going to the forever thing to, you know, our product is, it's a subscriber, it's a, it's a subscription essentially. but it's a long-term commitment by the nature of it. It's very infrastructure-related so like I've always talked how to, you know, is there something the early days had to give a lot of assurances to folks like yeah.We're, we're sticking around like, yeah, this is, 00:32:06 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:07 Jacob:The long-term goal for us. But I think, I think that comes down to consumers too. Like the best companies I've seen. In our space doing consumer software apps, subscription apps essentially have like a really deep connection to the mission. And the problem I think of calm, I think of, 00:32:24 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:24 Jacob:Photo room, this app, we work with that the, you know, they've been in vision, computer vision, and they've worked for GoPro and they've just, this is in their DNA to 00:32:34 Robbie:00:32:35 Jacob:Of image manipulation.And then, and then on the other spectrum of that, you think of. Companies that are just stamping out, don't know anybody ever heard that company stamping out utility apps or like whatever it is, and then slapping a subscription thing on it. Yeah, it works. I'm going to get marginally more LTV than they were, you know, before, but 00:32:54 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:54 Jacob:Not going to, that's 00:32:55 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:56 Jacob:The level of like computer or like problem solving for consumers that we were then we were doing before.00:33:02 Robbie:I think you have to be really passionate about the customer needs and the customer's journey rather than on your product. And this is, this is always a really rough conversation because a lot of businesses, really, really, really hold their products in high regard, whether it's. Automobiles or, you know, software, I mean, software, you know, most companies around here in Silicon valley, like the software team, they run everything.Like that's, that's the talent and everything, you know, they can build what they want. And, you know, I, I used to joke that, you know, when you work with. The car world, right? Sometimes it's just about the cup holders, right? It's not about, it's not about the big engine, right. Which is what a lot of the people, a lot of people go into the world of cars, automotive because they love cool cars, but a lot of people who buy cars.Don't buy cool cars. They buy practical cars that solve certain problems for them. And you have to be passionate about the problems you're solving for the customers. That again. So I did a lot of work early on with, in my sort of subscription life in the high-end bicycle industry. I was working with the bicycle product suppliers association, really, really interesting space.But one thing about it is that most people who own bike stores and work in bike stores and sell bikes and manufactured by. Our bike researchers and off-road, you know, risk-taking bike enthusiasts that have nine bikes at home, there's a whole huge untapped market of people who just need a bike to get to school or a bike to get to work or a bike for, for Saturdays to go to the farmer's market.And they ask really annoying questions at the bike store. Like, does this come in pink or can I get a basket for this? Or, this going to get em, you know, Reese on my, on my work pants and at some point, even, you know, like there's always this tension because the people who create the products, sometimes they're like those aren't problems I want to work on.Right. Or, you know, I worked in the hospital, you know, kind of in the, in the, in the health industry. And I talked to a lot of surgeons and they're like, yeah, you guys can do whatever you want around customer, this customer that treating customers like patients, whatever. But I want to see my patient unconscious on a table and I'll cut them open and I'll fix them and make them better.And I don't want to do all that other stuff. Right. it's hard because they're the talent. you know, I think this is a big issue with subscriptions because those Mark Key elements, aren't always the thing that's going to drive engagement, retention.00:35:30 Jacob:It's falling in love with your own product, right. It's falling in love with the 00:35:33 Robbie:Yeah. 00:35:34 Jacob:And not the problem, you know? you 00:35:37 Robbie:Exactly. 00:35:38 Jacob:I mean, I've been in the, you know, in the past, when I was in the weeds, like you start to really over it. I think analytics can actually like be, this is where, yeah.Back to the discussion of like, just throw 10 users on the board and maybe don't like, get the finest. Tooth comb to like go through your data. First is like, when you have like super high fidelity data on everything, you can start to get really data oriented. But if your product is the thing, collecting the data, you sort of inherently bias the data collection you're doing based on the product you have.You miss a lot of opportunities because you're not just thinking about the problem space. I worked on this app called elevate, which was training, and I can remember so many. So many like heated discussions about, this flow, should we do this or X and Y and Z. And not as many as we should have had about like, why are people actually coming to this app like addressing those questions from like head-on, and thinking about ways that we can improve the product with that.The beginning. And I haven't seen that revenue cat too. Like we have a lot of which are really deep and rich and people use and they're in love with, and we can, you know, you can spend a lot of brain power and a lot of focus thinking about the next iteration of that thing. The re yeah, like you said, the, the, the, the bike shop owner who's really into bikes are like really into some particular technology touch with.Yeah, these bigger things, it's like forever promise this, like, what are we actually building? Like what does revenue cap mean? And in a decade when the problems we're solving now, actually, maybe aren't that relevant the case. We've talked a lot about media companies and I almost snuck in a metaverse joke.And now I will just refer to OMA 00:37:14 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:15 Jacob:Joke your headphones, but like, Yeah, we think about this as like modes of consumption are going to be changing. that's where these, like, missions, customer mission or forever promises kind of come in. It's like making sure that regardless of a Netflix delivered on a DVD or on a streaming set top box, or into some sort of like brain 00:37:34 Robbie:Okay. 00:37:35 Jacob:Like this, the subscribers will transfer.Right. 00:37:38 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:39 Jacob:Yeah. And this is one of my, like now I'm now I'm ranting, but think is one of the reasons I'm still really excited about all of these pieces coming together, is because it does just feel like we've reached some stage in our economy where we can align a lot more incentives this way.Then maybe we have been able to in the past, which I think is just exciting.00:38:00 David:But as we align those incentives and people get more and more subscriptions. Nice little transition there. Thank you, 00:38:07 Jacob:That's great. David, you're getting this podcasting thing, like really turning it in.00:38:11 David:There is a growing, chorus of, but subscription fatigue, People are tiring of all these subscriptions and no matter how much you can align incentives And everything else, people are just not going to want to pay subscription. So having, having seen the, the growth in subscription, consumer subscription starting way back at Netflix in the early two thousands, and now we are layering on more and more and more.What what's your perspective on this, this concept of subscription fatigue, our consumers really tiring of, paying in this way. 00:38:49 Robbie:Yeah. So the upside of, you know, this explosion and subscriptions is that consumers, and actually businesses alike are much more receptive to subscription offerings. They understand them, they understand the value they can provide if they're done. Right. and they're easier than ever before for any kind of company.You know, from the smallest mom and pop up to the, you know, the biggest multinationals to offer subscription pricing. The downside is there's this glut of subscriptions. Every company has them and not all of them are well-designed as, as we've been discussing. and that leads to subscription fatigue, and, and there's sort of three things.Contribute to that. One of them is where these, the product does not justify subscription pricing, right? This is a product I'm going to need once and you're requiring me to subscribe to it. That feels unfair. you know, or I'm never, I'm hardly ever going to use this in. You're making me subscribe, even though, you know, my use case doesn't justify that investment.Second problem is kind of the flip side of that, which I think of the subscription overwhelm or subscription guilt, which is. This great value. Actually, your product is fantastic, but I can't use all the value because of my own issues. And that makes me feel bad about myself. Like this is when you, you know, you have the new Yorker magazine piling up on your bedside table.Right. And you just cause you just want to Netflix and chill cause you're tired. But like your thought at the beginning of the day is I'm going to get so smart. I'm going to read all these great. That makes you feel bad about yourself, you can't, you know what I would suggest for example, that a new Yorker does is to educate consumers, that you only have to read one or two articles to get the full value of your subscription.It's all you care to consume, not consume all of it or you're, you're lazy. but I think that overwhelm, or, you know, same thing with blue apron where the meal kits are in your fridge and you're not using 00:40:34 Jacob:No, Don't even fatigue. it's a rough subject.00:40:39 Robbie:Yeah. Cause you feel bad, like the meals are calling to you and you're like, don't go out with your friends. 00:40:44 Jacob:Yeah. 00:40:44 Robbie:In the fridge. Don't be a waster. 00:40:47 Jacob:With my spouse about cooking because we have the giant meal kit to do. but it's great. I love the time.00:40:53 Robbie:Yeah. So then, and then, and then I think the last one, I mean, but it's, it's great. Cause it's not the fault. The meal is great. It's I don't feel like eating it today or someone invited me over for like the crazy one is when someone invites you to dinner. And so then it's not even a question of finances.You're like, well, either way, I'm not going to have to spend any more money and I'm going to get a delicious dinner. Do I want to make the blue apron dinner or go to my friend's house? Who just invited me? Well, I can't go to my friend's house because I feel bad throwing the blue apron in garbage 00:41:19 Jacob:To, the lettuce is going to be wilted by the next by tomorrow.So. 00:41:22 Robbie:Day I can cook. And then the last issue, so there's there's know, bad product-market fit. There's this subscription overwhelmed or subscription guilt. And then the last one is hiding the cancel button. And I'm really interested in what you guys think about that one. Cause a lot of subscriptions, make it really hard for you to get out of this.Cancel anytime relationship, even though. That's what they pitched. Join and cancel any time. If you can find the cancel button, which we've hidden behind 27 clicks with a call us on Tuesday, you know, extra hurdle.00:41:54 Jacob:Yeah, I think it's, well, my take is it's terrible. And anybody that does, it should really reevaluate what they're doing in software. Cause like, I think it violates that trust, right? Like, welcome. We're going to ask for this thing where you're gonna you're you're gonna let us charge. We're just going to suck money out of your bank account every month, because you've decided to like enter this relationship with us and then we're going to go ahead and betray that trust.Right. We can turn around and betray that 00:42:16 Robbie:Yeah,Advantage. 00:42:17 Jacob:But, yeah, I hadn't. Thought of fatigue in so many channels like that are so many aspects, but like the, the overwhelming aspect is interesting. And I resonate. I feel that, like, I feel that with, with dinner boxes, for sure, but even in software too, there's certain pieces of software.Like, I feel like, ah, I can't cancel it cause I have these intense and things like that. And that's not really what you want to, those, aren't the relationships you want to focus on. Right? Like so. 00:42:40 David:Side there, I think like I use this example a ton, but, Visco, I'm not a daily user. I'm not even necessarily a monthly user, but when there's a photo of my kids or just a photo, I took that I really cherish. I important into Visco and Fisco makes it better. And that to me is so valuable that I didn't even care.I mean, 20 bucks a year, I think is too cheap for their product. I would pay a lot more, even though I maybe only use it quarterly sometimes, or maybe once a month or, you know, when I'm on vacation, maybe I use it every day for a week, but it's interesting that that product. Doesn't create that sense of, oh, I'm not getting enough value out of it because I get so much value when I do. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe if it were $60 a year, it would be too much. But I mean, I just, I just would never consider canceling because I it's just, when I have a photo I care about, I take it to Bisco and it's better and it like, that's their forever promise and it just resonates so well with me that I don't, I don't get that, guilt you know, I get more than $20 a year of value out of 00:43:49 Jacob:00:43:50 Robbie:Yeah, I think, I mean, it's interesting. I think one of the things about this, you know, sort of dealing with subscription overwhelm is, you know, is it framed like whatever the customer is, anchoring their pricing to. where they say it's valuable enough. So, so for example, I worked with, one of these produce box companies, and one of their challenges was that most of their customers said that most weeks they ended up throwing something away.Right. Because it's never the exact right amount of produce. Right? So you end up at the end of the week with like soggy kale or, you know, turnips, and then you go on vacation and you come back and they put them into with these turnips. But one of the things that we did is we set expectations. That it's okay to throw out a little bit of produce that you're still getting a better price than you would at the store.And you're still supporting farmers, local farmers. So sometimes it's as simple as just reframing what the expectation is like saying for Visco. You know, if you, if you use, you know, if you use this for two or three, you know, memory pictures a year, You know, doesn't that pay for itself in 20 bucks worth, you know, three great shots of your life.You know, the three best moments of 2021. a lot of it is about, is about, I think, expectation setting and understanding your customer and what the value is. Like. I don't know how much I pay for Amazon prime. I don't care.00:45:05 Jacob:Yeah, 00:45:06 Robbie:I it almost every 00:45:07 Jacob:I 00:45:07 Robbie:Mean, I don't. 00:45:08 Jacob:A decade ago and haven't thought about really 00:45:11 Robbie:Right. But I use it every day. Like I don't care what it costs. I mean, if they start charging $3,000, I would care. But like, if it's a hundred dollars a year or $85 a year or $115, I don't care. And that's a really important point about pricing is that at least I've found with many of the subscription companies I've worked with and a lot of, you know, software products when they don't sell well, when their business isn't growing, they immediately jumped to the. Must be too expensive. We'll have to lower our price. But in so many cases, it's not about the price. It's about the value. I'm not using it. If I'm not using it, it doesn't matter if it's a dollar or a hundred dollars. and so thinking about why aren't they using it before you jump right to, well, I guess I'll take 10% off the top.00:45:56 David:Yeah, let let's let's talk pricing real quick.Cause you, you do have several strategies that you get through in the book and in what you were, what you were just explaining was one of the things I really took away from your book. is it you say in the book that it's more important to understand product-market fit and willingness to pay than finding the exact right price.And so you, you were, you kind of backed into explaining that, but let, let's elaborate a little bit. And essentially what you were just describing was that a product that doesn't have product-market fit, it doesn't matter what you price it. You know, what are, what are your, what else, what are your thoughts on that?00:46:36 Robbie:Yeah. I, I just think, I mean, in so many things in life, you're kind of on a continuum. Like, you know, I remember when many years ago I started doing weightlifting and, you know, I told people that I was doing it to be more fit and you know, stronger, and now it's very common, but at the time a woman doing weightlifting, you know, working out with weights and people would say to me, I don't want.Huge muscles. And I was like, oh honey, you are so far from that being a problem. Like we're at the other end of the continuum. Like there are certainly people, women who work out and get too muscly and that's not what they want men to wear. Like then it intervenes with my ability to do my sport. But for most people it doesn't just happen.And I think in the world of apps, I think most people. Kind of over index on pricing and think that that's going to be the key thing to figuring this out. When a lot of times there's actually a pretty big gap between, you know, kind of where you can make money and where your customer is willing to pay there's lots of room, lots of different prices. And as long as you launch somewhere in that. You're going to make some money and over time, there's lots of ways to become more sophisticated and get to a better and better price point. But a lot of people assume that if they have a highly elastic product, meaning that for every dollar you increase your pricing.Your number of customers drops by a predictable percentage. And I think in many cases for a lot of products that are inelastic, if I use it, I'll pay anywhere between five and $10 month. And if I don't use it, I will pay nothing. And so if you notice that people aren't are canceling and they're the same people who aren't using the product, it's probably not a pricing problem.It's probably a product problem.00:48:17 Jacob:Right. I mean, if you're talking about product-market fit and a forever relationship like that, I'm going to pay incident money in terms of my lifetime. Right? Like I'm going to pay 00:48:27 Robbie:Great. Right. And it's, and the thing is that people assume like, so what I would say is if. If you're trying to figure out your first price, I'd say, don't worry about it too much. if you need to do a land, grab like a Spotify priced low and you can raise your price later, although that's hard, but just do it cause you, you want people to adopt your solution.If you're worried about, you know, hurting your core business, And so, you know, then start by pricing really high and you can lower it as you have increased confidence and understanding of use case. But there's a lot of room in there and that's really, my advice is be somewhere in that range. And if people aren't buying it or aren't staying.Look for the other signs of what might be driving it besides pricing, like, is it that they, you know, failure to launch? They never onboarded. They never activated, they never used the best features. is it that they were using it for a while and then their usage trickled off. Maybe they used it up, right?Either they binged or, you know, they've watched everything they've seen, maybe their job changed. So these features are no longer relevant to their work, but really try to be a detective about where the problem is like. it's like you have a party, in a bar you're not making money from the party in the bar. Like before you lower the price at the front door, see like, are people walking by and not recognizing that you have a party, so you have nobody in there because that's an awareness problem or is it that people come in the front door and can't find their way to the food and drink and music. And so they think it's a lame party is that they leave and they never come back.You know, that's an onboarding problem. Is it that they've been eating all the food and dancing to all the music and they're like, I'm tired of these songs. I'm tired of this food, which is a different kind of product problem, product assortment problem. Or is it, I went downstairs to the food and there was no food and the music, you know, the speakers weren't working and that's an operational issue.Right. So fix the problems before you drop the price.00:50:20 David:That's such...00:50:21 Jacob:I mean I think about it, if you have product-market fit, you're going to go this way (up and to the right on the curve). All the price is going to do is maybe define that inflection on that curve. Exponential curves, the slope doesn't matter often all that much in the longterm. You can optimize it eventually, but it's really getting that product-market fit. Then it just takes care of itself.00:50:52 David:That that is a great bit of advice to wrap up on.Your book, The Forever Transaction, is fantastic. Reading it was so fun just to think about—we put our blinders on with this podcast and in the space we work in with apps—but realizing that so many of the ideas that we think about, so many of the problems we work on, are things that are across the entire industry, across all consumer subscriptions, even a lot of overlapping in B2B SaaS.So, it was just so fun reading your book, and then getting to ask you questions here. I had 30 more questions that I wanted to ask you. I could go another hour or two, but I'll, put links to your LinkedIn, to your website, to your Twitter in the show notes.Is there anything else you wanted to share with our audience as we wrap up?00:51:42 Robbie:No, I think we covered a lot. If there's one thing that I want to leave people with, it's this idea that if you start with the promise you're making to your customers, helping them with an ongoing problem, or achieving an ongoing goal that's important to them, and then you optimize your offering around that, your chances of both acquiring and retaining your customers going to go way up.00:52:06 David:Such great advice. Great place to end.You mentioned that there's some extra goodies listeners can get if they click on the link in the show notes, they can get your book and some extra goodies along with that.So, thank you so much for being on the podcast.00:52:22 Robbie:Yeah. A real pleasure.

Give Joy

IoT continues to shape our lives in a world that is transforming – often in some pretty confusing and unexpected ways. So it's comforting to know that somebody, at least, knows which direction we're heading and what steps to take. One of them is Pete Bernard of Microsoft. His official title is “Senior Director, Silicon and Telecom, Azure Edge Devices, Platform & Services”. Also in this episode, Kenta Yasukawa, founder of Soracom, a Japanese technology innovator, talks about the future of IoT connectivity.

Repaso a todo lo que los chip M1, M1 Pro y M1 Max nos han deparado a lo largo de este año, incluyendo el repaso a todos los Mac que los han integrado y han sido presentados este año. Invitado: Javi Zaldivar.- Hazte suscriptor VIP de La Manzana Mordida en https://bit.ly/lmmpremium - Visita nuestra web de noticias en lamanzanamordida.net- Suscríbete a nuestro canal de YouTube en https://bit.ly/YTLMM

How are M1 Pro & M1 Max so fast?!☎️ SAVE on your phone bill with http://rene.ting.com and get a $25 credit!2 Icestorm high efficiency cores. Up to 8 firestorm high performance cores. Up to 32 G13 graphics cores. 16 Neural Engine cores. With up to 64 GB of unified memory and 400Gbps bandwidth to keep it all fed. A new display engined not just to drive XDR displays, but multiple XDR displays, a third thunderbolt and USB controller for more I/O, a new media engine for super fast, ultra efficient H.264, HEVC, and ProRes encode/decode. Up to 57 billion transistors. And maybe, just maybe, our first glimpse at what's coming next for the iMac Pro and full-on Mac Pro. These are the M1 Pro & M1 Max, Apple's new MacBook Pro silicon, explained!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speak Joy

Welcome to Hardware Addicts, a proud member of the Destination Linux Network. Hardware Addicts is the podcast that focuses on the physical components that powers our technology world. In this episode, we're going to discuss the world's first 4nm SOC and guess what… it isn't made by Apple, Qualcomm, or Samsung, however, we also cover some news that just dropped today about Qualcomm Snapdragon that's going to change everything. Then we head to camera corner where Wendy will discuss Tripod Heads for Photography So Sit back, Relax, and Plug In because Hardware Addicts Starts Now! Products Discussed: - G.Skill Trident Z Neo 64GB: https://amzn.to/3d9f36n - One Plus 9: https://amzn.to/3oc1CsU - AboveTEK Lapdesk: https://amzn.to/3dcBSq0

Live from Breakpoint 2021, Brendan Eich sits down with Anatoly Yakovenko to discuss integrating Solana into the Brave Browser, the huge potential for a decentralized search engine and NFTs as entry point to the metaverse. 00:09 - Intro00:54 - Integrating Solana in Brave08:00 - Challenges with creating the browser09:23 - How to scale crypto to the general public11:57 - A Decentralized search engine14:46 - NFTs as entry point to the metaverse16:35 - Mobile vs. Desktop18:00 - Languages and smart contract development20:40 - How to grow crypto to mass adoption22:44 - Global Peer-to-Peer environment in Crypto Brendan (00:10):Great conference.Anatoly (00:11):I know. Thank you. I'm really excited to be on stage here with you. You're-Brendan (00:15):Same, [crosstalk 00:00:17].Anatoly (00:16):... One of my heroes. As a programmer, JavaScript is a language that really revolutionized how we do application development, how we build. It's the foundation of the web. And I often think of web 3.0 really just being the web, just part of the bigger web.Brendan (00:34):Yeah, me too. That's how the web grows, by evolution. So we think the web 3.0 browser should be the gateway to a billion crypto users. And we are therefore integrating Solana into Brave soon as we can. And here's the cool thing, this is an evolutionary path. We're going to make it so any dapp that is Solana enabled, wherever other chains, EVM compatible or Ethereum, whatever it supports, if it supports Solana as well, we'll make it use Solana by default. So dapp builders who build for Solana as well as other chains. In Brave it's going to use Solana. And that's going to just help, I think, pull all the dapps on the Solana.Anatoly (01:24):Super exciting.Brendan (01:25):You like?Anatoly (01:25):Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah.Brendan (01:28):Let's see what else. What do we like about Solana? We like NFT games, we like DeFi a lot. We want to make it easy for users to earn and get yield without having to be super expert or do a lot of complex operations. So we're going to work on building that probably in the first half of next year into the wallet so that you can just robo-earn, robo-yield. And we want NFT galleries and NFT transactions to be super slick. I was inspired by the Jules Urbach talk earlier today, and the demo earlier here with NFTs, there were several of them actually, it's all good.Brendan (02:07):We want as many NFT marketplaces integrated as we can, so that's on the agenda. And yeah, [Radium 00:02:13] is there, of course. Radium's still earning, yielding good. The thing that we do now with basic attention token tends to have to settle on Ethereum and it's going to cost you gas. And our valued settlement partners like Gemini, Uphold bitFlyer in Japan, but once we're on Solana, I suspect that BAT, which is already reflected through Wormhole, proxied through Wormhole, might just find it's better to settle on Solana. What do you think?Anatoly (02:41):Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.Brendan (02:44):I'm giving you the softballs here. And we really do want to get this out to all users. We think, whether you're having a hard time in some part of the world where it's hard to get banks to let you save or borrow, or you're beyond banks like a lot of us are or want to be, Solana is the way to do it. And I mentioned auto earn already, got ahead of myself, but I think this is going to be huge. It takes some skill, you got to make sure if you get on the wrong side of yield farming, you go somewhere where the grass is greener, but we'll make it as automatic and easy as possible. And it's just so much better on Solana. I'm making you blush. And yeah, the dapp ecosystem is growing, but if we do this Solana default on multi chain dapps, I think we'll just pull every dapps that's really popular over that Brave users want, and I hope that's going to be every dapp.Brendan (03:37):So here's more NFT marketplaces. There are lots of cool projects in crypto, so we're not doing only Solana, we have obviously Ethereum, we're going to do Bitcoin in the new wallet. It's coming up fast, it's in the Brave nightly builds. And we might do other chains, but I think it's important to pick a chain as default. This is a lesson we learned the hard way with search engines, because when you make a search engine the default, first of all, you can get paid if you get a deal, not always true. And really the user expects to just type keywords into the address bar and search. We want the wallet to have a fast, good default and that's Solana. So enough said. And we're bringing it to mobile too. This is important. I think a lot of fragmentation has occurred due to how wallets are split across mobile and desktop. We're seeing some good mobile first or mobile also wallets. We want to do it mobile and desktop feature parody, evolve at the same time. And we're happy to do that with Solana's partner.Brendan (04:42):So the last bit of news is the BAT system is a triangular system that involves privacy preserving ads. And users opt into it to get 70% of the gross revenue. What we've built so far has a part of our BAT ad system requiring us to verify things, to be the trust third party, which is a security hole. And so we started a project called Themus and worked with several crypto projects to see if we could bring it to high speed chains that can do things, like you need smart contract systems for zero knowledge proofs, you need some part of it in the browser because you're measuring attention. You don't want to put your detailed attention log on any blockchain, however fast, because it'll fingerprint you. So we're using black box accumulators in the browser with Themus and we're then minting ZK proofs. And the cool thing about Solana is we can just put those on-chain, no aggregator, no trusted third party. So we're getting rid of ourselves, we're firing ourselves as a trusted third party. And that's something we're excited about.Anatoly (05:40):And that's awesome. That was, feels like two years of research. It took quite a while to get to that design.Brendan (05:47):And now it's going fast. I think now we've got good working relations with Solana and we can crank out the Rust Co, because we love Rust. Because I was executive sponsor of Rust at Mozilla, so I have a tear in my eye to see my little babies all grown up. And Amazon's hired a bunch of the Rust core team. It's okay, they need jobs. But yeah, we want BAT to be fast, low fee, DeFi base pair and for ads on Solana. So Brave and Solana are doing the new crypto and ad system and it's going to be awesome. Thanks.Anatoly (06:24):That's awesome. I'm a huge fan of the web, huge fan of all the work that you guys have done and Brave. And I remember pre-mobile days, I was working on Brew and I was trying to optimized the web and flip phones. And there was a brief moment where the iPhone came out, we had a browser, and it felt like the web has opened up. And then it just got away from us.Brendan (06:49):That's right. Jobs said when he did the iPhone one, he said, "The web finally works on a phone." And then the story I heard from somebody who would is that they had to port a bunch of games which were C++ or whatever, and they had to do native apps. And they never looked back after that. But I think the web can always catch up and should catch up. And web 3.0, if you have this evolutionary path with dapps and dapp triggers from webpages, then you just evolve into it.Anatoly (07:19):Yeah, that to me is the really exciting part, is there's now an opportunity to have cryptography power the next generation, how web is monetized. Whether it's through advertisement, like with zero knowledge proofs or through direct payments and micro payments. Do you feel like Apple's going to crush us?Brendan (07:41):People a few years ago were worried about this Facebook thing, Libra and now DM. And they got crushed because some politicians hate them. But Apple is very cautious, and if they're doing anything with blockchains, it's a ways out. And then when they arrive in, it's going to be the diva at the party at midnight, like, "Start the party now," and the booze has already run out. So we're going to drink all the booze first.Anatoly (08:06):All right. I'm down for that. What are some of the challenges with building a browser for general consumers, but also with cryptography?Brendan (08:17):This is the problem with browsers is they are universal apps. You spend a lot of your digital life or online life in them. And so if you make the crypto stuff be this expert only area, or it's scary. I use wallet apps, I use ledger hardware wallets, but it's a little bit scary because you feel like, "Did I forget my pin in or did I have to reset it and do the word list?" And there's some anxiety and fear of loss. We want to make crypto be a positive sum, that's why the robo-earn is important to us. Just like with BAT private ads, you could get 70% of the revenue.Brendan (08:53):So you're always building up your assets as well as spending or sending them. And it should be slick, it should be for e-commerce. You can even do things like dis intermediate Amazon. I won't give away all my secrets, but we think we can do that without having a bunch of JavaScript user scripts attack every merchant checkout flow. We think there's a way to get into the interchange charge and do it. And crypto everywhere. It should be slick, should be easy, should be comfortable, make you feel like you're going to win, not lose.Anatoly (09:23):What about custody and keys? How do I get my parents to understand this stuff?Brendan (09:28):Yeah, it's really a little different, but we're looking at Taurus, we're looking at various ideas for backing up your keys that don't just put it on paper and word list in the safe, which we've all been through. And in some ways, the old web went with username and password and had to add a second factor, which often had to be a temporary access number generator on your phone. So at that point you're almost as complex as self custody. I would say you just have this more conventional recovery path. You lose your phone, you know your email, you can try to prove that you're the same person to Coinbase or whatever. But I think self custody has a complimentary role and we want both. We want people to use self custody and be comfortable with it, so we're looking at all these usability challenges. And we think we can get it just almost as good. And then unfortunately the regulators insist, if you want to do Fiat on/off, you're going to go through a custodian.Anatoly (10:20):Of course. The challenges, that's the exciting part. No one has figured this out yet and we're going to dive right in and see, how can we actually scale crypto to the general public?Brendan (10:31):Make it easy for your parents.Anatoly (10:32):Yeah. Yeah, would love to see it. What do you guys see as the tension between the app store on the mobile device and the mobile web?Brendan (10:42):Discoverability is always a problem. And we don't want these brutal curators like Apple. So having lots of stores is good, but then you have the need for a search engine, which Brave now has, which is a private engine and also involve users opting into building the index incrementally, that's the web discovery project. So we're going to aim, because we're very crypto first and our ad sales teams, one of who's here, always looks at crypto options and NFT options, we're going to aim at making our search engine best for crypto. It already uses [inaudible 00:11:14] charting, and it's still in beta, but we're working out all the kinks, so I think search, the good old search we remember from 2004 when Google was great needs to come back and it needs to be the way you find stuff in marketplaces and crypto exchanges.Anatoly (11:29):That's awesome. What kind of information do you think users would want out of a crypto first search engine or curated environment that's different from the traditional web?Brendan (11:39):Search almost gets into, is somebody trying to SEO you and compete for keywords? We're aware of this problem and there's no silver bullet. But we think with crypto, you might actually have a better chance at mechanizing this and having a fair playing field, an automated system for finding the lowest fees and the best yields.Anatoly (11:57):Is there hope for a decentralized search engine?Brendan (12:01):Yeah. So I had a friend who was involved with pre-research, Rich Scrantom, and pre-research looks like it's running a bunch of nodes [inaudible 00:12:07] Google, which Google does not like. And if they're running on [inaudible 00:12:10] IPs, Google's going to shut them down or use their anti-bot team to take them out. We're building a legitimate search engine, but we can't decentralize the algorithm easily because search is sharing queries, looking for some kind of objective best results like page rank, the eigenvalues of the random walk. And decentralizing that is a research problem as far as I know. But we have an active team, we're evolving search and we need your help because we're trying to crowdsource the incremental indexing of the web, we're not trying to index everything from 1998 on. Only Google can do that. Hats off to them, but their time is passing.Anatoly (12:49):When I was growing up as an engineer, the web was just starting, I was really passionate about Linux. And I had this dream of a Microsoft-free personal computer. It feels like the web 3.0 is potentially a dream of ad exchange free, that parasitic Google free web. Is that possible?Brendan (13:13):If you don't collect the data you won't go wrong that way. There's still other ways that central powers can turn on their users and take advantage of them. But I think there is, and that means ultimately you might need hardware that's indie or that's user first. And Brave's not capitalized to do this yet, but I know people, including friends from Firefox OS, which actually after it folded at Mozilla, continued in [inaudible 00:13:37] OS. And there's an open source lineage that you can trace back. And people at Qualcomm, we both know-Anatoly (13:42):Of course, yeah.Brendan (13:42):... We are working on it at the time. So I think there's a chance for a new open source OS that has web 3.0 and none of this Java or swift native stuff. And JavaScript, web 3.0 All the way down.Anatoly (13:55):Are we going to end up building a phone?Brendan (13:57):Brave OS. I don't know, I'd have to raise some more capital.Anatoly (14:03):Yeah. Yeah, that's a way to nerd snipe me for a couple years.Brendan (14:07):But people need independent hardware that serves their interest first. Absolutely.Anatoly (14:10):For sure. It always feels like that's a really tough challenge. But every two it gets easier and easier, hardware gets cheaper and cheaper and the tools get better and better.Brendan (14:19):And then Apple has something new and shiny that the commodity hardware can't match for another year or two, but that's just the nature of the game. So I'm sure we'll have iPhones, but we can probably have BAT phones too. Solana phones.Anatoly (14:33):The BAT phone. I love that. The BAT phone sounds really cool. As you guys see the web 3.0 evolving, I think from your presentation, NFTs were such a huge focus as well. Do you think this is the entry point for the Metaverse as people call it or that really interactive rich environment with ownership of the stuff around you?Brendan (14:56):Yeah. I think you have to keep running at these problems. And usually if you're a startup and the timing isn't right, or something goes wrong, you run out of capital and then the investors reset, or maybe they try again. With crypto, we have this great ability to just keep leveling up. So we're seeing Bitcoin, now we're seeing smart contracts on Ethereum, now we're seeing Solana. And as you level up, you can start to do some of these things that seemed hard before. Like you want some kind of cryptographic proof of ownership.Brendan (15:26):I think one of the demos talked about this. You want to make sure that somebody doesn't copy the pixels. And if you get into VR, there's been interesting research on this. And my friends at [inaudible 00:15:36] have done some work on this. You can actually watermark in a way that's indelible. And if somebody copies your art and tries to remove the watermark, they degrade the quality, because it's been convolved with the luminance and the chrominance. So I have hopes for this being useful in games and connected verses. And to me, that's the Metaverse, it's not going to be something centrally planned at Menlo park by Lieutenant commander data.Anatoly (16:02):I hope not. What I see out of the gaming companies that we talk to is that, especially the ones that are crypto focused, is the one to build browser first games. Everyone that I talked to had this idea that as soon as you open the page, you jump right into the game. There's no sign up, there's no friction, your wallet is your identity. And you're just exactly where you left off.Brendan (16:24):That took a lot of work at Mozilla, by the way. We did [inaudible 00:16:27] JS and that led to web assembly. And you could show games, in the story, you can start playing them and then you just convert. I think it's a great model.Anatoly (16:34):Do you feel like mobile is expressive enough for that? Or is the difference between iOS and Android and desktop is too hard to actually make that work?Brendan (16:45):There's certainly a difference. Even with the latest chip sets, you're just not as fast, you have less bandwidth all around. But games can scale down because the view port's smaller, there's hope that you can use the kind of tricks that we see with the remote rendering, cloud rendering. So I think mobile is the future, but I heard this 12 years ago, people would say around Silicon valley, mobile's the future. And then they would say, "That means there's no desktop." And that is very false. Everybody with a laptop or any big enough screen and a keyboard is still very high value. And that means the economics there don't go away, it just doesn't grow as fast.Anatoly (17:19):That's true. If you look at the growth of the Solana ecosystem, a lot of the users are basically dust up only.Brendan (17:27):Yep.Anatoly (17:27):That to me says that a lot of folks, maybe there was a switch during COVID where we went from being so much immobile to where we're staring at screens again.Brendan (17:36):A bit of that. You go to India and a lot of people are mobile only, but you need both. And I think as mobile gets stronger, you're just going to see more parody, you won't see this need for apps, which is often artificial. It's like holding the browser back, sandbagging Safari a little bit. This is what my friends at Google, or one of them who went to Microsoft, always accuse Apple of, and it's not wrong. You got to give the browser it's due and then it can compete with native better.Anatoly (18:00):Got to ask you about languages.Brendan (18:03):Okay, [inaudible 00:18:04].Anatoly (18:03):How do you see smart contract development in the future as somebody that had incredible depth and understanding how application development happens on the web?Brendan (18:12):Yeah, I think the thing you're seeing with type script, especially with large teams, is more information that you need some kind of proof system or it could be just a warning system, but it's based on model checking. Often it could be based on higher level models than you can express in sound type system, which is something where there's just this timeless world of types that's potentially syntactically checked and prevents bad things from happening at runtime. You need dynamic systems, dynamic code, JavaScript, and the static checkers.Brendan (18:44):And you get the best of both worlds if you have really good ones. So I remember at Mozilla, we were investing in model checkers for C++ because it's memory unsafe. And you could build these higher level checks that knew about security properties you wanted to enforce. And I think this is what you're seeing with smart contracts. I was talking to somebody I met at the hotel bar about this, because it's still a very fruitful area that's had good research in computer science, programming language theory. And it hasn't always been brought to the programming masses like it should. There were companies like [inaudible 00:19:17] Covarity and others like that. The compilers themselves grew the ability to do plugins for static analysis. And now [LOVM 00:19:26] is there.Anatoly (19:27):Do you think that smart contract development needs to have a high level, easy to use language environment? Or can it be driver code?Brendan (19:37):Yeah, exactly. Driver code in the era of C was the worst code in the kernel.Anatoly (19:42):Driver code with Rust is a little bit less frightening.Brendan (19:45):In fact, a friend of mine who was at Microsoft at the time went to Mozilla and has his own startup now, did it at Microsoft, a checker for driver's C code. Which he could skirt the halting problem and kind of statically reason about it and say, "This is garbage driver code, send it back to the vendor." But yeah, I think you don't want to have happy, fun, JavaScript looseness if there's big money at stake. So I think it's important to have the right tools with the right static and dynamic checking.Anatoly (20:13):Do you think smart contract development is strictly financial or are we going to see things that are not financial that you can actually [crosstalk 00:20:21]?Brendan (20:20):You'll see things that are not obviously financial, but they'll turn into reputation in a game or gifting and those tend to matter too. So you still don't want too many dynamic errors.Anatoly (20:32):That's true.Brendan (20:33):So I talked about this in my chapter in coders org, I'm still a fan of static, even if it's unsound semi-static checking.Anatoly (20:40):What do you guys see as like the opportunity for us to grow crypto to a hundred million users, actual signers?Brendan (20:49):Yeah, I'd to get Brave to that scale in a year or two. It depends on everybody here and others. It also, I hate to say it, depends on the nation states of the world not doing something adversarial. But I think given the state of the world, not a great state, but there will always be options to do things with crypto. The internet routes around censorship, and that's true in the web 2.0 And the web 3.0 world. And it's true with blockchains. You still have concerns you have to fork to undo the censorship, but at least you have options. DoAnatoly (21:26):What kind of applications do you envision will actually drive that growth?Brendan (21:30):I think at first it's going to be people using crypto for payments and for DeFi. And some leading edge of that user base will be getting more sophisticated in doing other things. But just having things like gift cards, where we often find that they're useless points, even if we can use them or Congress passed the law to don't expire, we still just don't use them. We should have much more liquidity. We should have liquidity across all kinds of assets. And this is where you start talking about tokenized securities, and can you have primary and secondary liquidity for companies? I think if you're as old me, you all had a tiny piece of some startup that went sideways for 10 years and then sold. And you couldn't trade it easily. And you might have wanted to do that because you might have been squeezed out when it sold. So there's lots of room for blockchains to solve these problems. I think in general, connecting people more directly getting rid of these officious or censorious intermediaries. A lot of room for application.Anatoly (22:29):In this new evolution of the web, I often describe crypto as a fully connected network, as opposed to a social graph, like on Facebook.Brendan (22:40):Yes.Anatoly (22:40):Do you think that's true? Do you think we're going to enter a stage where I am effectively with my cryptographic signatures, I'm in this true global peer to peer environment?Brendan (22:50):I hope so. I showed at web summit last week, I showed the slide with the correct diagram, which is more like a mesh for decentralized, and the incorrect one, which sometimes is called decentralized, which is really distributed, but it's mostly tree structured. Or if it's a graph, it has a dominating spanning tree. That's Google, that's Amazon. So with projects like Helium, with web RTC making it so you can make connections into the endpoints instead of only out. In the old days in the nineties, we could only make TCP connections out from the browser. I think we're heading toward this world. We have to build it iteratively and collaboratively, we have to get around the concrete firewall problems that web RTC mostly got around, it's still a little dodgy. And I think that is the future. I think we should all have Helium nodes if we can. I'm a fan of the project.Anatoly (23:38):That's awesome. The idea of decentralized browsing on an open source phone connected via an open network.Brendan (23:49):Low raw radio.Anatoly (23:50):Yeah, run by the people. Accessing Solana, that would blow my mind.Brendan (23:55):It sounds too good to be true, but I think it could be true, especially if we build it carefully and quickly enough and get it out there and make it usable, which is why I've always wanted to make Brave be about crypto. Even when we started using Bitcoin for our prototype, it was clear once you shield the user by blocking all those trackers, you break all the economics that pays advertising money into the publishers after taking a big slice out for the middlemen like Google. And if you cut that out, how are you going to reconnect it? It's crypto, peer to peer.Anatoly (24:26):All right, let's do it.Brendan (24:28):Awesome.Anatoly (24:28):I'm excited. So thank you, Brendan. Thank you so much for doing here, for working with us.Brendan (24:34):Thanks.

DONATE TO HELP GET TOTS TURNT!POWER HOUR: It's a POST THANKSGIVING celebration, we have special guests like ZOINK (Nman) and Jake (The Pokemon Cowboy) in attendance! Let's get some drinks!TOTS TURNT: It's that time of year already! When Train says to SHAKE UP THE HAPPINESS, it means it is time to get the TOTS TURNT.Sitcom Jim: Jim has questions of wedding bands (Jake doesn't wear one) and a bird that got loose in his house.DON RICKLES!, HORSE LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS!, NORM!, DIRTY WORK!, PISS!, LADIES AND GERMS!, COVID!, POPSNAP!, LEFT!, APOLOGIES!, POST THANKSGIVING!, POWER HOUR!, FLIRTY THIRTY!, DRINKING!, ZOINKS!, MEGATRON IS BACK!, NMAN!, PRANK!, NOPE!, CONTRACT SIGNING!, MIKE VS ZOINK!, CHRISTMAS CHAOS!, CURTAIN JERKER!, #1 CONTENDER MATCH!, CVW!, DIRTY ROTTEN BISCUIT!, DJ LETHAL!, LIMP BIZKIT!, DJ AM!, ROBERTOS!, SPICY PICKED CARROTS!, TOTS TURNT!, DONATION!, CHARITY!, TOY DRIVE!, HOLIDAYS!, CHRISTMAS!, GIVING!, KLARNA!, PAY IN 4!, HOLIDAY SEASON!, UNDERPRIVILEGED KIDS!, EXCUSE OUR JOKES!, JACKSON 5!, SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN!, PATRICK!, WHALE HUNT!, STREAMATHON!, AHAB!, SANDWICH!, HOBO!, GIVE BACK!, MIDNIGHT MASS!, WEDDING BAND!, RING!, DUDE RINGS!, COCK RINGS!, KEEP HIMSELF AVAILABLE!, THE ONE RING!, FANDOM!, STAR WARS!, SILICON!, DAKOTA RING!, NICKNAME!, SPIDER!, BIRD!, LOOSE!, IN THE HOUSE!, GUIDE IT OUT OF THE HOUSE!, VIDEO GAME!, STRATS!, VAULTED CEILINGS!, KITCHEN!, MURDER IT!, KILL IT!, RACIAL STUFF!, MARIAH CAREY!, STEREOTYPES!, ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU!, PROBLEMATIC!, ALMOST 20K!, BRICK IN YO FACE!, LOCAL MEDIA!, COMPOUND MEDIA!, BARSTOOL SPORTS!, PEDOS IN HEAVEN!, SNL!, PAUL TREMBLAY!, AUTHOR!, KYLE RITTENHOUSE!, BATTERED WOMEN'S SHELTER!, YORKIETHON!, LAYAWAY!, RMR!, SALUTE!, BAPTIZED!, BABY!, RELIGIOUS!, CHURCH!, DAD SHOT!, CHRISTMAS CARD!, CHARLIE BROWN!, CHAD DUNKERLY!, GREATEST GUY!, BRIAN!, PUNK GOES JOJO!You can find the videos from this episode at our Discord RIGHT HERE!

Thankfulness

Thankfulness

Comic Reviews: DC Wonder Woman: Black and Gold 6 by Christos Gage, Michael Conrad, Sheena Howard, Liam Sharp, Marguerite Sauvage, Kevin Maguire, Jamal Campbell, Noah Bailey, Adriano Lucas Marvel Black Panther 1 by John Ridley, Juann Cabal, Federico Blee Hulk 1 by Donny Cates, Ryan Ottley, Frank Martin Hawkeye: Kate Bishop 1 by Marieke Nijkamp, Enid Balam, Oren Junior, Brittany Peer Star Wars: Life Day 1 by Cavan Scott, Ivan Fiorelli, Chris Sotomayor, Ariana Maher, Justina Ireland, Georges Jeanty, Victor Olazaba, Pete Pantazis, Steve Orlando, Paul Fry, Alex Sinclair, Jody Houser, Kei Zama, Ruth Redmon X-Force Killshot Anniversary Special 1 by Rob Liefeld, Chad Bowers, Bryan Valenza, Federico Blee, Mirza Wirawan Amazing Spider-Man 79 by Cody Ziglar, Michael Dowling, Jesus Aburtov Infinity Comics: It's Jeff by Kelly Thompson, Gurihiru Infinity Comics: Lucky the Pizza Dog by Jason Loo Image Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost 1 by Jim Mahfood SFSX Vol 2 by Tina Horn, G Romero-Johnson Dark Horse Joy Operations 1 by Brian Michael Bendis, Stephen Byrne Cats! Purrfect Strangers GN by Frederic Brremaud, Paola Antista, Cecilia Giumento IDW Star Wars Adventures Annual 2021 by Chip Zdarsky, Cavan Scott, Adrianna Florean, Jason Loo AfterShock: Miskatonic: Even Death May Die 1 by Mark Sable, Giorgio Pontrelli, Pippa Bowland Magnetic Carbon and Silicon 1 by Mathieu Bablet Scout Commander Rao 1 by Fell Hound, Jeremy Simser Thud 1 by Bryan "Peabe" Odiamar Mapmaker GN by Ben Slabak, Francesca Carita Additional Reviews: Okay Witch vol 2, Doctor Strange by Aaron Vol 2, Hawkeye eps 1 and 2, Encanto, South Park: Post Covid, Doctor Who, Robin Robin, Batwoman s2, Justice League by Snyder vol 2 News: Nocterra optioned for a series, Sony making Rhino and Sandman movies, Ho Che Anderson Luke Cage cancelled, Jeff-related news, more Holland Spidey movies, new comic publishing platform, IDW loses some licenses (Transformers and GI Joe), The Recount optioned from Scout, Doctor Who speculation, Robbie Amell returns to Flash Jurassic Park Dominion Prologue Comics Countdown: Radiant Black 10 by Kyle Higgins, Igor Monti, Marcelo Costa Night of the Ghoul 2 by Scott Snyder, Francesco Francavilla Black Hammer Reborn 6 by Jeff Lemire, Rich Rommaso, Malachi Ward, Matt Sheen Usagi Yojimbo 24 by Stan Sakai House of Slaughter 2 by James Tynion IV, Tate Brombal, Chris Shehan, Miquel Muerto Thor 19 by Donny Cates, Nic Klein, Matt Wilson, Brad Anderson, Dave McCaig Flash 776 by Jeremy Adams, Fernando Pasarin, Matt Ryan, Jeromy Cox Decorum 8 by Jonathan Hickman, Mike Huddleston Time Before Time 7 by Rory McConville, Declan Shalvey, Joe Palmer, Chris O'Halloran Robin 8 by Joshua Williamson, Max Dunbar, Gleb Melnikov, Hi-Fi

From foraging and hunting to domestic agriculture, man has come a long way. Now man sits in his home ordering prepared foods, meals ready to eat, and groceries from the tap of a button. Soon all of these convenient options will be catered with drones and autonomous vehicles rather than humans. In the process of this technological progressive evolution, the soul has been separated from man alongside his relationship to food and soil. This Thanksgiving we serve you the Robot Turkey, a new kind of bird promising cockroach milk mashed potatoes, red#40 cranberry sauce with no cranberries, genetically modified corn, and tofu turkey with 3D printed bones. It's a cornucopia of silicon. Eat up. Support this podcast

Minął już rok odkąd komputery z jabłuszkiem wyposażone w czip Apple Silicon szturmem podbiły rynek i zdobyły serca (i portfele) macuserów, zarówno Świeżaków jak i recydywistów, Niedawna premiera MacBooków Pro 16″ i 14″ zaznaczyła półmetek tej ryzykownej tranzycji. Mimo sporego doświadczenia Apple w podobnych tematach (przejście z procesorów Motorola MC68k na PowerPC a następnie na Intel), postawienie wszystkich kart na czarnego konia znikąd było ryzykownym posunięciem. Już wiemy, że decyzja okazała się trafna i firma stanęła na wysokości zadania. Nowe Maczki są niesamowicie szybkie, ciche i energooszczędne. Jednak udany sprzęt to zaledwie połowa sukcesu. I choć Apple zoptymalizowało system operacyjny macOS oraz większość swoich aplikacji tak by efektywnie wykorzystały potencjał procesorów rodziny M1, a także dostarczyło deweloperom narzędzia programistyczne ułatwiające kompilowanie programów na nową platformę to o pełni sukcesu będzie można mówić dopiero, gdy cały software będzie wspierać Apple Silicon. Bez pośrednictwa tłumacza – Rosetta 2. Sprawdziliśmy jak wygląda stan software na chwilę obecną i linkujemy do przydatnych witryn, dzięki którym sprawdzicie, czy Wasza ulubiona aplikacja (albo gra) już działa natywnie na SoC M1, M1 Pro i M1 Max. Aplikacje dla Maca z procesorem M1 w MAS Lista programów działających na układach Apple Silicon – RoaringApps Lista programów działających na układach Apple Silicon – IsAppleSiliconReady Lista programów i gier działających na układach Apple Silicon – DoesItARM Interaktywna lista gier działających (lub nie) na Apple Silicon – AppleSiliconGames / Google Sheets Lista zgodności gier na platformie Apple Silicon – AppleGamingWiki Aplikacja odcinka: Witryna programu Transloader 3 for Mac Aplikacja Transloader 3 for Mac w katalogu Setapp Partnerem applejuice i sponsorem podkastu kompot jest Setapp. Nasz podkast znajdziecie w Apple Podcasts (link), możecie też dodać do swojego ulubionego czytnika RSS (link), wysłuchać w serwisach: Spotify (link), Google Podcasts (link), TuneIn (link), Overcast (link), Castbox (link), PlayerFM (link), Pocket Casts (link), myTuner (link) lub przesłuchać bezpośrednio w przeglądarce (link). Zapraszamy do kontaktu na Twitterze: Remek Rychlewski @RZoG. Marek Telecki @mantis30. Natomiast całe przedsięwzięcie firmuje konto @ApplejuicePl.

The simple material we call Silicon has literally revolutionized human civilization to this point.   Testifying to its greatness is more than 70 years' worth of steady progress in electronic computing: from the first primitive desktop calculators to that pocket-size supercomputer we call a smartphone.  If you formulate silicon just right, and shape it into a transistor, it can be both a conductor and an insulator, depending on the charge you run through it.  If it wasn't for this unique property, the entire digital revolution…everything from TikTok to Covid vaccines-- would be impossible. Silicon is plentiful. It makes up 28 percent of the earth's crust.  But silicon is showing its age when it comes to technological advancements. Some say the reliable doubling of the computational power of microchips every two years, known as Moore's Law, is dead. Today, we'll examine the materials being developed to keep Moore's alive and the capabilities may shock you. Then Medicare and health insurance expert Shelley Grandidge joins us. A fascinating show for you, so don't miss it...MASTERING MONEY is on the air!!!!

Positive Resilience

Los próximos "M1 Duo" pintan brutal, pero hay que estar atentos a la guerra entre Qualcomm+Nuvia y Apple Silicon. Más info del Apple Car Patrocinador: BluaU de Sanitas http://bluau.es/ es el nuevo complemento digital del seguro médico de Sanitas que incorpora la más alta tecnología para ayudarte en el cuidado de tu salud y la de tu familia. — BluaU lanza Conecta con tu Salud http://bluau.es/, un nuevo servicio que te permite comunicar directamente tu actividad y estado físico con tus médicos, psicólogos, nutricionistas y entrenadores personales. Acaba la primera temporada de Fundación con una recepción mixta por parte de la audiencia. Repasamos las garantías que tendrán los productos de Apple si decides repararlos por tú mismo con sus piezas genuinas el año que viene, y sobre todo ponemos en contexto los procesadores del año que viene: tanto el hipotético "M1 Duo" con doble die para Mac Pro, y los "inminentes" M2 para MacBook Air, iPad Pro, etc. Desde Qualcomm dicen que con la incorporación de los diseños de Nuvia, creada por ex-empleados veteranos de Apple, se pondrán a la altura de los procesadores de Apple Silicon en 2023. Veremos qué ocurre, pero la historia de John Bruno, Manu Gulati y sobre todo Gerard Williams es más que interesante. Hablamos también para acabar de las mejoras de Apple Maps, y de cómo Apple sigue desarrollando la versión "carruaje" del Apple Car. No lo veremos en muchos años, pero el desarrollo sigue fuerte en los "laboratorios" internos de la compañía. Qualcomm desafía a Intel, Apple y AMD con su nueva CPU Nuvia https://hardzone.es/noticias/procesadores/qualcomm-snapdragon-nuvia/ Apple permitirá que cualquier usuario repare su propio dispositivo https://www.lavanguardia.com/tecnologia/20211117/7868425/apple-permitira-usuario-repare-propio-dispositivo.html New Green Century Shareholder Proposal Presses Apple* to Expand Access to Repair | Green Century Funds https://www.greencentury.com/green-century-shareholder-proposal-presses-apple-to-expand-access-to-repair/ The shareholder fight that forced Apple's hand on repair rights - The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/17/22787336/apple-right-to-repair-self-service-diy-reason-microsoft Actor Replacements That Totally Ruined The Show https://www.looper.com/35589/actor-replacements-ruined-show/ Apple sues Nuvia founder, claims ex-employee broke contract - DCD https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/apple-sues-nuvia-founder-claims-ex-employee-broke-contract/ (89) Gerard Williams III | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-williams-iii-27895aa/ Apple silicon roadmap reveals plans for Mac Pro, MacBook Air | Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/leaked-apple-silicon-roadmap-reveals-plans-for-mac-pro-macbook-air/ Apple (AAPL) Aims for Fully Self-Driving Car - Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-18/apple-accelerates-work-on-car-aims-for-fully-autonomous-vehicle Apple Defends Its Ads for Third-Party Apps, Says It Regularly Communicates With Developers and Has Been Running Them for Five Years - MacRumors https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/15/apple-defends-its-ads-for-third-party-apps/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4 Mail Privacy Protection Seemingly Undermined by Apple Watch [Updated] - MacRumors https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/16/mail-privacy-protection-undermined-by-apple-watch/ “Oye Siri, avísame de los incidentes en ruta”: El reporte de anomalías en ruta en Apple Maps llega a España https://www.applesfera.com/servicios-apple/oye-siri-avisame-incidentes-ruta-reporte-incidentes-apple-maps-llega-a-espana Un "Apple Drone" coge fuerza con la aparición de varias patentes que describen sus sistemas de control https://www.applesfera.com/accesorios/apple-drone-coge-fuerza-aparicion-varias-patentes-que-describen-sus-sistemas-control Puedes ponerte en contacto con nosotros por correo en: alex@barredo.es Suscríbete al boletín de información diario en https://newsletter.mixx.io Escucha el podcast diario de información tecnológica en https://podcast.mixx.io Nuestro grupo de Telegram: https://t.me/mixxiocomunidad

Edward Glaeser is Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He is perhaps the world's leading expert on cities. He recently authored, along with David Cutler, Survival of the City – Living and Thriving in the Age of Isolation. Edward leads the Urban Economics Working Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and co-leads the Cities Programme at the International Growth Center. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration. In this podcast we discuss: What defines a city? How have pandemics impacted cities across history? Why are people healthier in cities than in rural areas? Why is there large inequality within cities? Importance of education What led to the urban renaissance of the 1990s Why didn't tech revolution end cities? Will Zoom revolution change cities? What lead to growth of Silicon Valley Factors that drive gentrification Three recommendations for helping cities. Edward's book recommendations: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Jacobs), Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (Cronon), Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Saxenian), Framing the Early Middle Ages (Wickham) and Origins of the European Economy (McCormick)

Craig Curelop is a Real Estate Agent and Investor. He is an Author of The House Hacking Strategy: How to Use Your Home to Achieve Financial Independence and Co-host of FI Team podcast. In this episode we talked about: - Craig's Bio & Background - House Hacking Strategy - Expansion of Craig's Real Estate Portfolio since 2017 - Working at BiggerPockets  - Real Estate Investing Strategies  - Writing a Real estate Book - Sourcing Deals - View On Current Market Environment - Short Term Rental Market Outlook - Financing Deals - The Advice to People who Consider Making a Career in Real Estate - Building a Team  - Mentorship, Resources and Lessons learned Useful links: https://thefiteam.podbean.com https://www.instagram.com/thefiguy/?hl=en Transcriptions:  Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jesper galley and you're listening to working capital the real estate podcast. Our special guest today is Craig . Craig is a real estate agent and investor. He is author of the host hacking strategy and co-host of FII team podcast, Craig, how's it going,   Craig (37s): Jesse? So good to be here today. I'm doing great. How   Jesse (40s): Are you? I'm doing awesome, man. I can't complain we're on the tail tail end or just, just pass Halloween. So I, for those that can't see us right now, we've got a couple of mustache here, but I feel like yours is for a Movember   Craig (53s): Mine's is just for life and his life. The lady, the lady loves the mustache, so we   Jesse (58s): Keep it. That's amazing. So it's just a lifestyle choice.   Craig (1m 1s): It's a lifestyle choice. Yeah, man. It's been like a year. I think it's, I'm almost, I'm approaching my one year mustache anniversary, so I love it. There should be a, there should be a celebration for that.   Jesse (1m 10s): Oh, I said we were just chatting. I have mine on, I meant to shave it off. I was afraid of mercury for Halloween and now I, and now we're in November, so I don't know what to do, dude. You   Craig (1m 18s): Look good. You should keep it.   Jesse (1m 21s): I appreciate it, man. Are you joining us today from, from Denver?   Craig (1m 25s): Yeah, I am here in Denver. Yeah. Been here four and a half years.   Jesse (1m 30s): Sweet. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. I think we'll have a great episode here. Talk a little bit about your background in real estate and love to get into house hacking and the book. But before we do, maybe what we could do is talk a little bit about how you got into real estate and bring us up to speed of what you're doing these days.   Craig (1m 52s): Yeah. So I got into real estate because a lot of people like a lot of people, I hated my job. And so I was actually working like a venture capital type role in Silicon valley, which sounds super sexy and super cool. And I was hanging out with mark, like I was hanging out with mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and all that, but that wasn't, that's not really the case. Right. I'm actually just like buried in spreadsheets, working hundreds of hours a week is what it felt like. And really just getting paid like an abysmal amount on an hourly rate. And I just kinda came to this conclusion that there's no way I wanted to do this for the rest of my life and what, like, what's the way to out.   What's an early way to retire. How do I achieve financial independence? And that's what kind of real estate came to mind through a lot of iterations I went through, I tried to do start my own startups, which was just horrible, horrible stuff. And then I was like, I don't need to be mark Zuckerberg or Steve jobs or anything like that. Right. I can just be a real estate investor. And so I found bigger pockets pretty quickly after this deciding I wanted to get into real estate just was absorbing absorb, absorb information for about six months. And then I was like, okay, I got to get out of Silicon valley. Cause I just can't afford anything here.   It doesn't seem like this whole house hacking thing really works in Silicon valley. So I actually moved to Denver, got a job at bigger pockets, which was like a dream come true. Started surrounding myself with real estate investors and people that were doing things that I wanted to do. And, you know, got my first property in that was April, 2017 or actually started June, 2017. I got my first property   Jesse (3m 21s): Right on. And that first property was that a, was that a house hacking proper property. And, and I guess before you answer that, maybe for listeners just to update people that don't know how sacking would, is it?   Craig (3m 33s): Yeah. So how's hacking is the idea that you buy a one to four unit property with a low percent down, typically three to 5% down. You have to live in it for a year. So if it's a single family house, you're living in a room, if it's a two to four unit, you're living in a unit and you rent out the parts that you're not living in, so that the rent covers your mortgage and you're able to live for free or at least drastically reduce your housing expense. And because your housing expenses probably your largest expense, you're actually able to save a lot more money. So you can go ahead and buy the next investment.   And so that's what I did on that first property. I purchased a duplex. This was before anybody really knew about the rent by the room strategies before that was popular. So the only way to house at this time in my head was to buy a duplex live in one side, rent out the other. So it was an uptown duplex. I lived in the bottom, rented out the top and I wasn't quite covered my mortgage. And I was like determined to cover my mortgage. It would have been a great house either way, but I was determined to cover my mortgage. So I Airbnb it out my bedroom and put up this like cardboard box room divider thing, slept on a futon and made that where I slept for one year.   And that was my 24 year old hustle self.   Jesse (4m 47s): So that, that is a pure house hack right there. So in terms of the, the uptown, was it already, was it already converted to the ability to have a walkout? What did that?   Craig (4m 58s): Yeah, it was totally turnkey. And so with house hacking, I firmly believe, and I stand by this. I was like this to the grave. Is that a turnkey property? That in by Turkey, I just mean the rehab is totally completed for you is much better than doing a rehab when you're doing the house. Heck because with house hacking, right, the, the magic is buying one every single year on the year and your year does not start until you close on that first property. And so let's say you close today's November 1st, let's say close today, November 1st.   I can't buy another one until November 1st of next year, but if I'm doing a rehab, that means I am spending more money. I am not getting money from my tenants. And that may push me back if I have to save another 20 or 30 grand to get the house hack on November 1st. So who cares if I have an extra 30,000 of equity in my house, which I can't use, I need 30,000 in my pocket, which I can go buy the next house for.   Jesse (5m 52s): And the one year is that, is that a financing thing? Is that just a strategic thing?   Craig (5m 57s): Yeah, that's a financing thing. So in order to get those low down payment loans, the three to 5%   Jesse (6m 1s): Down the bank says, you need to live there for at least one year. So yeah. Yeah. I find, I find too, there's a, depending on kind of the weather American Canadian, depending on which state you're in, I know that the ability to move in or displace a tenant oftentimes has a one-year horizon on it that they want you living there for one year. But to your point, yeah. In terms of finance, I think most areas you're going to get that lower financing. When you can say that you're personally moving into the, to the property in terms of the, so, so you start with, you start with that property, how, and that was a 2017, you   Craig (6m 37s): Said 2017.   Jesse (6m 38s): So from 2017 to where we're at right now, a couple of things have changed in the market. You know, some minor things in terms of how you kind of grew the portfolio. If you have from then to now, what does that look like?   Craig (6m 52s): Yeah. So the growth at first, it's really slow because you just don't have a lot of money, right? Like, you know, I remember on that first one, I pretty much depleted almost my entire savings and maybe had like 10 grand left and I needed to save up another 20 or so grand and get the next house hack. And you know, at that time I was maybe saving $2,000 a month. So it was like gonna take me probably a whole year to save up for the next house. Heck. So what I was doing, you know, I call it the lull period in between house hacks where there's really not much you can do. I mean, if you want to be a real estate hustler and start wholesaling and flipping, you could get into that, but I wasn't really interested in those things.   So I just doubled down at my work. I was working at BiggerPockets at the time, doubled down on my work there. I actually asked Scott who Scott trench to see yogurt buckets, basically, how can I make more money here? And I was able to, he actually gave me an opportunity and we created a pathway together to where I could make more money at my, at my W2 job. I was doing Airbnb arbitrage. I was throwing out my car. I was basically just figuring out any possible way that I can make some more money because I want to hit financial independence as early as possible, like so badly because I hated that feeling of being stuck.   Jesse (8m 4s): Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's looking for different or different streams of income. And for those that don't know, like Turo Turo is great. It's a, it's basically an Airbnb for your card and I'm pretty sure they're in every major market, but so it sounds like, it sounds like for you, it wasn't so much the flipping and the fact that you're going to run a business, you wanted more so passive income and, and longer term, longer term growth.   Craig (8m 25s): That's right. Yeah. I was, I mean, maybe I was scared honestly. Like I didn't want to handle hard money. I was in Denver. Right. So buying a house for 400 grand hard money on that, it's going to be like 50 grand. And I was like only about 20 grand. Right. And then you still got to put 20% down. So it became such a high effort thing that like, I wouldn't be able to do that and have my W2 job. And I really loved my W2 job at the time. Like I was hanging out at BiggerPockets, we were talking real estate network was growing. I had a lot of opportunity at BiggerPockets.   So I was like, just, that is my number one focus. So   Jesse (8m 59s): At the time, what were you doing at BiggerPockets?   Craig (9m 2s): So I was their finance guy. So I say the finance guy, because I was the only person on the finance team at the time. And so basically like doing all their books, running the numbers, making reports for management and stuff to look at. So I, at one point I knew pretty much every number that BiggerPockets had, but unfortunately I don't have that anymore. So my numbers are probably three years expired.   Jesse (9m 26s): Okay. Fair enough. And you've moved at sounds like you've moved from BiggerPockets to another W2 job or are you investing full time?   Craig (9m 35s): No, so yeah, I knew that BiggerPockets is going to be my last w two jobs. And so my, yeah, so I figured pockets. I basically had done three house hacks. So over the course of about three years, I did three house hacks and I felt like I was financially independent, but I wasn't sure. And so the way I test it was I took a zero paycheck and maxed out my 401k. So like my entire paycheck for three months was going to my 401k and I figured, Hey, if at the end of three months, my checking account is higher. I'm financially free.   And if not, well, then I'm pretty darn close. And I just, I just maxed out my 401k. And so lo and behold, it was a lot bigger and I was like, I can, I think I can make it on my own. And so pretty much a month after that, at the end of January of 2020, I quit BiggerPockets and went full-time as a real estate agent, helping people, coach guide and mentor people, helping coach guide and mentor those who want to house hack.   Jesse (10m 32s): Fair enough. So in terms of the, the host hacking itself, so you, you move on to that anniversary, you move in purchasing another property. How sack of that property, what are you doing with the former property in terms of whether you're selling refinancing? What does that look like?   Craig (10m 46s): I don't do anything. I just move out and I put someone else in my place. So just rent it out. I did refinance my first two properties because interest rates were so low this past year in 2021. And so it made a lot of sense. I think I reduced my monthly payment by like, like a total of a thousand dollars over the course of two properties. So easy way to boost your cashflow. And so, so yeah,   Jesse (11m 9s): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But in terms of the, cause the Denver market, it's not the cheapest market in the world. So in terms of you were still able to cashflow, even when you're, you're moving out of these properties with, with the down payment as low as it was.   Craig (11m 24s): Oh yeah. So on that first property, my, my mortgage payment before I refinanced was 22, 2300, I was getting 1650 for the upstairs and 1300 for the downstairs. So my rent was 29 50 and my mortgage payment was about 2300. So six 50 over the mortgage, of course there's reserves and all that kind of stuff, but it was a newer property. So there wasn't a whole lot of maintenance and stuff. It wasn't a great location, so not a whole lot of vacancy. And you know, maybe you put reserves for two or $300 a month and it's still cashflows $300.   And it's in a great area. It's appreciated like probably 200 over 200 grand now in just a few years. So like great property now, since I've refinanced it and rents have gone up this year in 2021, you know, it's, I think I'm making a little over $3,000 on the rent and my mortgage payment is only like 1700 or maybe 1800. And so, you know, now it's closer to a thousand dollars of cashflow on the property and then yeah, same, same thing, same thing as it goes like each one, probably each property that I have in Denver cashflows about a thousand dollars a month.   Jesse (12m 33s): That's great. So being the numbers guy, when you look at these properties specifically on the host hacking side of things, is there an approach that you take that might differ from, from other investors or other investments?   Craig (12m 46s): Yeah. So when you're house hacking, you want to fit, you want to have multiple strategies that you can do, or at least I like having multiple strategies. And what I mean by that is, you know, if you've got a duplex, can you rent it out? Each unit like traditionally and still cashflow, it may not be your best cashflow, but can you still do it? Can you Airbnb it? Can you rent it by the room? How does the layout work? Can you, you know, in a single family house, can you split the upstairs and the downstairs or, you know, the left side from the right side and make two different units out of it. And so properties like that are the ones that we really like.   I pretty much in Denver now, I pretty much only buy single family houses that we could easily convert it to duplexes just based on the layout. And that way, you know, you're getting the house at a single family price in a single family type neighborhood. He renting it out as two separate units that are actually would get you higher rent than you would have to duplex because it's in a nicer area, it's a nicer house. And so the numbers work really well in places like,   Jesse (13m 41s): Yeah, no, that makes sense. And you kind of moved into, I guess, writing with the house hacking strategy. How did that come about? What was that process like?   Craig (13m 52s): Yeah. So writing has, you know, the miracle morning. I do. Yeah. Great. But yeah. Great. So amazing. Both of you haven't read that book. You need to read it a life-changing book, but ever since I started doing that, I started to write every morning and I think he had Ellen Rogers who wrote the book meant means like journaling, but I just enjoy actually just like writing content in the morning. And so basically I write every morning and I was writing blog after blog, after blog for bigger pockets. I think I have probably close to 60 blog posts on bigger pockets. And so they asked me, Hey, do you want to write this book on how second you can?   I was like, hell yeah, I do. And so I, you know, basically instead of writing the blog post every morning, I would just take a stab and write a piece of the book every morning. And after about a hundred days, I had a first draft of a book. And then, you know, for a few months later after the edits and stuff like that, it got published. And that was definitely a, an inflection point in my life.   Jesse (14m 43s): Yeah. I'm always fascinated as listeners probably know of the, the process, the, the, the writing process. We had Chad Carson, coach Carson on the show, by the time you're listening to this, that episode probably has aired. He was talking about the same thing. It was basically from blog to multiple blogs to book. It seems like a strategy that a lot of writers, especially in our space use, as well as, you know, on the other side of, for the individuals that maybe writing isn't isn't their passion, or it's just something that's that doesn't come easily easily to them.   I found that some, some people put content out audio and then basically transcript the audio and then kind of edit from there. But yeah, it's, it sounds like you were the former on that.   Craig (15m 24s): Yeah, no, I, I genuinely like to like touch the keyboard, which is weird, I guess, but like, I like to like make that thing go and yeah, it doesn't take long, you know, if you can just sit yourself, I mean, there's a word counter right on the bottom left, like a Microsoft word document. So I would just be like, I'm not, I'm not leaving this computer until a thousand words richer or whatever you want to call it.   Jesse (15m 43s): And for those that are interested, we'll put a link up for where you can reach out and where you can get the book. But in terms of the, the framework of the book, did you, I mean, obviously you, you wrote through blogs, but in terms of the framework itself, did that change from when you initially wrote it and you know, how did you approach that?   Craig (16m 1s): Yeah. So when you're running a book, it's all about the outline. Like you should spend half the time of half the total time writing the book on the outline, because that is the most important part. If you got the outline, good, the book will just write itself. Right. And so it's almost like almost, you just keep expanding, expanding its spending on the outline until it becomes the book and then you have to go back and, and make it flow. And so really it was just a mixture of yeah. Having a solid outline. Also, I took a lot of my blog posts and just kind of repurposed them a little bit for the book because I mean, a lot of my information is out in the world somewhere.   That's the great thing about a book, because you can even sit into one little thing. And so, and so, yeah, I mean, that was pretty much the process, you know, outline, outline, outline. And then after I had a thorough outline and I went over it with bigger pockets, I just, just started writing a thousand words a day. Every day. You had a, before you had a book.   Jesse (16m 55s): No, that makes sense. So in terms of the, you know, one of the biggest things right now that we're seeing in our market is it continues to be a lot of capital chasing fewer and fewer deals. And it just seems that deals are harder and harder to find where, you know, it's usually one or the other. And in times where there's a lot of deals out there, it's usually financing is harder to find. So in this environment, for those, whether they're looking for longer term properties or looking specifically to do house hacking, what's your approach for sourcing deals and you know, what do you tell clients and investors that you coach?   Craig (17m 28s): And so we get almost all of our deals on MLS and how second is kind of a different beast, right? And the reason for that is you don't need to get a property, super undervalued, add value to it and refinance it, right? The magic is just like slowly collecting rental properties with a low percent down. So you can buy a $600,000 property here in Denver and you're putting 5% down. That's 30 grand, right? And so you've gotten this, you have this property for 30 grand. You have to make the deal work by creatively trying to figure out ways, right? So we've got a lot of people that like to Airbnb, a lot of people that do rent by the room, we've we teach people how to do these split things that, that I like to do.   And those almost always cashflow, right? It may not be a thousand dollars a month at first, but over time, rents are going to increase. You're going to be paying more of your mortgage payment down. Maybe you can refinance to a lower rate. You can take off your PMI and you figure out ways to increase your cashflow over the course of five, seven years. And you know, that that's, the play is the long-term buy and hold. So that's why the MLS works is because again, we don't, we're not trying to like add a whole bunch of value and refinance it, deployed money back out. We're just okay with letting the $30,000 in and keeping it in there.   Jesse (18m 38s): Yeah. And it kind of sounds similar to what we do on the commercial real estate side. We always find that the owner occupier is the one that can pay the highest price for the, for the property because of the, the economies that they have, or the fact that because they're operating out of there. So I guess in a similar way, the person that is house hacking, maybe, you know, not that you're going to pay more than you should, but you probably can be more competitive than somebody that's purely going in there to rent it out.   Craig (19m 2s): Yep, exactly. Right. You can, you can. Yeah, exactly. You can pay more because again, like you're going to be thinking about your competition because the, the, the market's competitive. Right. And if your competition is a lot of it is like home buyers, it's probably more so than house hackers. And so as a house hacker, you can pay more because you're already offsetting your mortgage payment with rents. And so sure, like, what's the difference of like a $50,000 difference is like $250 on your mortgage. Right. It's significant, but it shouldn't be life-changing.   And that $250, you're going to make that back in a month with appreciation. Right. So like, it doesn't even like the price almost doesn't even matter, but make sure you run the numbers and it makes sense, but like with how exactly, I've just never heard anybody lose. Like, and I know a lot of house hackers.   Jesse (19m 50s): Yeah. No, it makes sense. I mean, especially that you're in the property, are there properties that you basically try to avoid or properties that, you know, comparing two properties, say one, like you said, that needs, needs renovations or needs capital improvements. Do you try to avoid those? And, and also just kind of on the same, on the same wavelength when it comes to properties that, you know, you can put a walkout in that doesn't currently have one that would be perfect and create a house hacking property. Is that something you also would look at when you're, when you're looking at properties?   Craig (20m 23s): Yeah. So we like to look at, so creating a walkout can be very hard if the house, like, you know, if the basement isn't already at like our level. So we try to find a house where the stairs to go, like stairs to go from the main level to downstairs is right by maybe a back door or garage door. So you can just kind of wall off where, you know, the backdoor meets the upstairs. And then the, so then just, so when you walk in the back door, it's just, you go down the steps.   And so that those lamps are the ones that we really like, and there's a ton of them in Denver. So that's what tends to really work. I think you had another question, but I forgot what you asked   Jesse (21m 4s): In terms of the, just other capital improvements. Are there, are there certain properties that you, you try to avoid when it comes to, you know, when it comes to spending a certain amount of money to get it to where you need it to be? Okay.   Craig (21m 16s): Yeah. So again, I like the layout to be, like I said, right where the, the less amount of work I have to do the better. So if I have to like dig a separate entrance, like that's a lot of work, expensive egress windows can be very expensive and they've gone up in price in my market when I was putting them in like a couple of years ago, it was 3,500. Now it's close to $5,000 for a regressed window. And so if, if egos windows are already in there, that is really helpful. If there's some sort of plumbing fucked up to the downstairs, we can hook up a kitchen fairly easily.   That's really nice. And so, yeah, those are all the things that I kind of look for. There's nothing that I, I like nothing in particular that I wouldn't do, but if it's like, not even like it, but I wouldn't like force a house to make it a house hack. If the layout doesn't work and all that, like, there's, there's plenty of houses where the way it does work.   Jesse (22m 5s): Yeah. Fair enough. So just shifting gears in terms of where we're at in the market right now, I know that, you know, as you mentioned, you, you write a bunch of blogs. I've seen different posts that you've had. I'm curious to get your thoughts on the current market environment that we're in. Obviously, you know, there's been lockdowns for a few years, almost two years now, if not, yeah. Over we're coming into it right now to two years in terms of how that's affected, if it has at all, the way that you're viewing the real estate market. And is it informing decisions that you're making today?   Craig (22m 37s): Yeah, that's a good question. So, so COVID was probably the best thing that ever happened to me from a, it from a financial standpoint, which maybe I'm, I think I'm one of the few, because when everything's shut down in April and may of 2020 is right. When I basically started my real estate agent business and no one was doing showings. Right. And it was super competitive before that, but no one was doing showings and Denver never really shut it down. Like they never made it. So you couldn't schedule it. Like there were some markets where you couldn't schedule it Denver, you can still schedule it.   And I was talking to like my buyers and I was like, well, no one else is looking right now showing percentages, showing times like showing rate is down 88%. So I swear we're probably the only ones even looking and the seller wants to sell and you want to buy, so if you're cool with it, like I'm cool with it. Let's just go and it will be, you know, six feet apart wear the mask, whatever, like, you know, and, and so we did that and we were for like a few months there, every offer that we were putting out there was getting accepted and it was at asking price. And it was like, it was even below asking price, which was like beautiful for them, for the buyers.   Obviously that was only a short window. And then as things started to heat up again towards the end of last summer, and then all through winter 20, 20, 20, 21, and throughout 2021, things got started really heating up and getting really, really competitive. And that's where house hacking comes into play. Right. Because it's like, Hey, not only were the price is going up, but rents were also going up as well. But we were saying like, okay, let's just analyze the deal, right? Like it's listed for 500,000, can you pay five 50 for it? Like, this is what your mortgage payment would be.   This is what you'll get in rent. You're still going to be making over a thousand dollars a month, like who cares what the listing price is and how much over we have to go. Then the only downside was the appraisal gap coverage, right. Where, you know, for the listeners that may not know is if the appraisal is, comes in lower than the purchase price, someone's got to make up that difference in cash buyer or seller or combination of the two. We kind of had a, a way around that as well. And so should I get into that or please do so, so one thing that we did a lot of was we would set the inspection.   So we would set the inspection for maybe seven to 10 days out. So let's say, you know, you're under contract on November. First inspection would be November 10th. We would then immediately call the lender and get a rush appraisal to be done like that same, the same week. So we're reporting this on a Monday, the appraisal would be backed by Friday before the inspection deadline. If the appraisal comes back super low, we can still back out because of the inspection. So we were able to fully waive the appraisal while still having to be able to back out on the inspection. And that was a strategy that I think a lot of, well, maybe we were the only ones to do it, but I'm sure we're not the only ones to do that strategy, but that worked really well for us in terms of getting deals in our contracts, getting deals done and making sure both parties were very happy.   Jesse (25m 33s): No, fair enough. And in terms of the short-term rental space. So I think you've, you've written blogs on this in terms of that area of the business, you know, how has, how do you see that market given everything that's transpired over the past year and a half, two years? And do you think, do you think it's a S it's a space that is going to be coming back? If it has an already   Craig (25m 55s): It's already come back and it's tough. It's like, it's doubled since, but it was, so I had a whole bunch of short term rentals. I was one of the scared ones that shut, shut everything down and turn into long-term rentals during COVID. And I think a lot of people did that. So the supply and demand just wasn't there. So then as more and more Airbnbs came on and we started air, like our clients started being, they were just crushing. It they're like, dude, I like you told me I was going to make like 3000 a month. I'm making 5,000 a month, like, like the are conservative numbers. Like they were blowing our numbers out of the water, which was great.   Like, I would much rather have people be happier in that regard. But, you know, as, as, as, as far as where it's going to go, like, I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know. That's why I always say like, Airbnb can be your plan a right. And that could be the way you make your most money, but like, make sure you have a plan B that also cashflows, even if it's only a hundred bucks over the mortgage, just so you can hold it, hold it through this recession or whatever, because, you know, when, when, whenever this recession hits that we're going to have at some point, right? Like the first thing that's going to go is recreational travel business travel is probably going to be a lot less, especially with zoom and all of these things that have come to fruition through COVID and there's going to be a lot less reasons for people to travel and want to travel.   And so if the Airbnb, I mean, at the end of the day, Airbnb hasn't even gone. Hasn't even made it through a recession yet the company Airbnb. Right. So we don't even know how they would handle it. So just to have that, have that like backup plan, I think it's super important.   Jesse (27m 24s): Yeah. In terms of the actual financing of deals, obviously you're doing a particular strategy and niche when it comes to the house hacking, but generally speaking, do you have a, a certain methodology or philosophy about how you handle the debt side of your business?   Craig (27m 41s): So I, I personally am trying to get as many, as many Fannie Freddie loans as I possibly can, because we all know that's the cheapest and that's the best kind of debt you can have. I think you're allowed to have up to 10 Fannie Freddie type loans. Once you've maxed out at your 10, you know, then you have to start thinking about other creative ways. And so right now, I think I'm at like seven or eight, I'm going to probably be at 10 by early next year, but I'm fine with that.   Like, I kind of just want to exhaust my 10 because now I'm going into like more commercial real estate investing, triple net, lease side stuff and all that. And that's where I see the future of my real estate investing going. But yeah,   Jesse (28m 24s): No, that makes sense. I want to kind of shift a little bit to something we talked about at the beginning. So your W2 job, or, you know, your, your normal kind of day to day job. You're not dissimilar to a lot of people that we have on the show that make the jump into full-time investment for people that are looking to get into real estate or people that are into real estate. And they're coming up to what, you know, you had an inflection point, you know, what do you, what, what would you say to those individuals in terms of actually kind of leaving the, the day job and you know, what seems like a pretty, and it is a scary, scary move, you know, what, what are your thoughts on that?   Craig (28m 59s): I mean, it's uncomfortable doing so, right. But think about it this way is that your worst case scenario is the scenario you're in right now, right? Your worst case scenario is as you quit, you maybe lose $5,000 on an experiment of trying to, you know, do something for yourself. And then you have to go back and get another job. Right? Like that that's really a hardest. And so if you can kind of just like, look at it as an experiment and look at it, like nothing is permanent, just because you say you quit, it doesn't mean you have to quit forever.   Right. And also, I like the idea that, yeah, you've got enough rental property, passive income to support at least your basic living expenses so that you have enough runway. So that it's, it's not, you know, it's not an issue, you know? Yeah. So   Jesse (29m 44s): For you, it wasn't, it wasn't like a burn, the boats thing where you just absolutely, you know, drop it and say, I'm going to start buying real estate. It was buy real estate, figure out what that number is to make it, make it at least somewhat more comfortable to make, to do that transition. Do I have that right?   Craig (29m 59s): Yeah. Yep. Is that right? Right. I mean, I think for me, I had like $3,000 of passive income and I was like, I'm a single dude. Like I can live off of that as long as I say frugal. And then once you become your entrepreneurial self, you can make a million times more than you ever could have W2. And that will just funnel you're, you know, getting more financially independent or, you know, more fat financially independent, or however you want to call it.   Jesse (30m 22s): No. Fair enough. So in terms of the, you know, you mentioned you, you did get licensed, so as a licensed realtor, you kind of moved into that space, the fit team. Is that, is that on the investing side or is that the, is that on the broker agenda things?   Craig (30m 36s): Yeah, so I ended up being like so busy last year that I either had to quit or start a team. So we started a team. We, we got a team about 1520 agents now that are all house hackers, all investors, at least on the investment side. And so we help coach guide, mentor people through that process of house hacking. We've got pretty much everything you need in terms of, you know, relationships with vendors, leases, calculators, like we'll walk you through the entire process if you need us to just because that process is so scary to like the first person putting their, like 30 of the $40,000, they've saved up for their whole life into one house.   It makes you feel better when you've got a whole team of people with, you know, hundreds of deals under their belt, kind of guiding you through that.   Jesse (31m 23s): Yeah, for sure. And I mean, in terms of the team itself, the, the team that you built out and the coaching that you have, was that something that happened, it seems like you, you had the demand. So you built out the team for those that are building their own team w with real estate, whether it's sourcing real estate, trying to get property managers, what are your recommendations? Kind of some of the stuff that you've found that were helpful to you when you were starting out and you're buying these first few properties,   Craig (31m 52s): I I'd say like, just document your systems as best as you can. Loom is something that I use a lot. So I'm sure people know about it by now, it's a screen recording thing. It's a plug-in on Chrome and anything you do that is repetitive, you should be looming it. Right. And you save it somewhere so that someone else can do it. Right. So, so these days I'm doing very few. I really don't do any showings. I really don't do any contract writing. I've got the team that does that and they can ramp up so easily without asking me hardly any questions, because I literally have videos and videos and templates and samples of all of that.   Right. So we can onboard a new agent pretty quickly and they're up and running very quickly. And the questions they asked me are like high level questions that they should be asking me. And so I can stay kind of in my 20%, which is know content creation coming on, podcasts like this, right. Doing stuff like that to just to just grow the, grow the brand.   Jesse (32m 46s): Yeah. That's great. I love the loom. And it's funny now, like two years or a year and a half after everything, that's, that's really been going on in the world. It's nice that we have zoom, loom, Skype, where you can actually, you know, when you're hiring something, somebody just the other day, my partner and I were like, okay, we can give instructions to this person. Or we could just record the call, the onboarding call. And then, you know, they, he, or she has a reference.   Craig (33m 7s): Yeah. It's, it's so amazing. Like, and I think it's way easier. Like the old fashioned, like paper trail documents, like your type every step-by-step. We have a little bit of that, but the loons are just so much easier and so much better too. Like it's a picture is worth a thousand words. Right. So video's worth like a million.   Jesse (33m 24s): Yeah, no, a hundred percent. A 100%. And then you ha it's, it's more dynamic, right? Yeah. You can have somebody in real time asking you questions and then solve it, solve it right there. Awesome. Well, we have, we've got four questions that we ask every guest that comes on the show and want to be mindful of the time here. But before we get to that, in terms of the coaching that you have for people to reach out we're where can they find find you? And, you know, what's the best route for them to, to take on.   Craig (33m 51s): Yeah. So, you know, we've got our podcast, the fight team podcast is actually being rebranded here shortly. So we're going to come up with a new name, so be on the lookout for that. And then, you know, if you're, if you're in the Denver area or you need a real estate investor from the real estate, Adrian, the fight team.com is where you can find us. And I'm also on Instagram. If you want to just kind of check out my stuff at the fire guy.   Jesse (34m 12s): Absolutely. We'll put a link to everything in the show notes, but yeah, let's go to the final four here. If you're, if you're ready to go, I'll send them your way. Let's do it. Okay. What's something, you know, now in your career, it can be real estate or business that you wish you knew when you first started out.   Craig (34m 30s): I wish I knew the who, not how concept have you heard of, you know, that mother basically. Yeah. That whole thing of why stay in, what do you do best in stay in your zone of what you do best at anything. You don't do good. Hire someone to do it for you. Cause they're not only going to do it better, quicker and probably cheaper, but it's going to also grow your business much faster and you're going to be happier.   Jesse (34m 56s): Yeah. I can't, I can't recommend that book enough when we were at the BP con BiggerPockets conference in new Orleans, I was think Dan Sullivan is the author awesome book. It's it really is. It really changes the way you look at things because for so long, we're taught, you know, if you, if you get somebody to collaborate with you, if you give somebody a task that you're, you know, you're cheating in school. Right. But really the idea of find, find out who's the best person to do that. And it should be, should it be taking up your bandwidth or not? Yep. Love that.   Awesome. All right. Number two here. What is a, a book that you seem to constantly be recommending and we'll put the who not, how on put that aside for a second or podcast that you, that you keep recommending?   Craig (35m 40s): I guess the miracle morning doesn't count either. Cause he already mentioned that one, definitely the miracle morning and who knows how or applied my tattoo a podcast, obviously there's a bigger pockets podcast. That one is kind of a no brainer. Can I just depends on where you are in your journey. But I think like for, for fundamental business books, miracle morning changed my life. Who knows how it changed my life. And also the E-Myth is, is really, really good if you're thinking about growing a business and long people wanting to step away someday.   Jesse (36m 9s): That's great. We'll put links up to those as well. In terms of people that are getting into the industry, people that are, whether it's through brokerage or looking from the investor's lens, what would you tell them in today's market? And just generally your thoughts on mentorship?   Craig (36m 27s): My thoughts. So, so in terms of the market today, I think like you have to just like keep buying no matter what the market's doing, because timing the market is like been known to be fail failure right now, known to fail. So just dollar cost, average it by one a year with the course of 10 years and you'll buy it the highest you'll buy it. The lowest in terms of mentorship and stuff. I think you really, I hate that term mentor. I hate when someone asks me to be their mentor, I kinda just wanna be your friend, right? Like I'll be friends with almost anybody, as long as you're, we've got the same values, the same morals, and we're kind of on the same page.   So just like go to meetups and just start talking to people, right. And then follow up with them and grab a coffee with them and grab dinner with them and go on a hike with them. And before you know it you're, you've got a friend and maybe they're more experienced than you. Then they become your mentor. Right. They're going to naturally just give you advice. They're going to want to help you. And so that's like my favorite way to mentorship is just becoming friends with people that are both above you. So you can be the mentee and below you. So you can be the mentor.   Jesse (37m 25s): That makes sense. All right. The last one, Craig, first car make and model.   Craig (37m 30s): Oh man. He tried to get to my bank accounts. It's a 2002 Dodge. Intrepid was my first car   Jesse (37m 38s): Right on. And I said, that's not the one you put on Turo.   Craig (37m 41s): No, no. The one I put on Turo was a Toyota Prius, which got smashed up. But yeah, that's a fun, fun story. Maybe we'll dive into it real quick. I think I lost you on the yeah.   Jesse (37m 57s): Okay. Yeah, no, you can get into it. Cause I know you put a, you put a blog out as well about, about just different income streams I think. And Turo was a Toro was definitely one of them I believe.   Craig (38m 8s): Yeah. So yeah, back in the day, Touro was a street, was an income stream that I had to kind of while I was at bigger pockets and I could fight to work. And so basically I, I was proud of myself. I read, never split the difference by Chris Boston negotiating book. And I was able to negotiate the price of that car from 12,500 down to 10,000. So I bought the car for 10,000. I Ubered it for awhile. I toll road for awhile. The car probably made me about $10,000 over the course of two years. And then someone crashed on Turo. The Touro com whatever the company has, some insurance policy where they actually paid me out like 11,500 for it.   I ended up like getting more than I ever paid for it initially after, you know, however many miles later. And then I bought a crappy car for like 50, for like five grand and kept the six grand and invested in real estate. So   Jesse (38m 57s): There you go. Always, always on the move. Awesome. All right. Well, we'll put links up to, to everything that we talked about here. And just for those that, you know, I know you have a presence on Instagram as well. Could you just let us know the handle for that as well?   Craig (39m 11s): Yup. It's a, the fire guy. So like the financial independence guy.   Jesse (39m 17s): Awesome. My guest today has been Craig Kurloff Craig. Thanks for being part of working capital.   Craig (39m 21s): Thanks for having me on Jesse. Appreciate you.   Jesse (39m 31s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care.  

Our guest today is Ron Schneidermann, CEO at AllTrails, the ultimate guide for outdoor adventures. AllTrails was early to the consumer subscription space, launching a $3/month premium tier way back in 2012. Ron joined as CMO and COO in 2015, and then took over as CEO in 2019, helping to grow AllTrails to over 1 million subscribers and tens of millions of active users worldwide.On the podcast, we talk with Ron about the magic of consumer subscriptions, experimenting with freemium strategies, and how private equity isn't always as bad as you've been led to believe.In this episode, you'll learn: How to refine and optimize your freemium strategy Two things you need to keep an eye on as a founder The pros & cons of outside funding vs. organic growth How Ron fast-tracked AllTrails' profitability Links & Resources Accenture Hotwire Yelp Liftopia Alex Honnold Spectrum Equity Ron Schneidermann's Links Ron Schneidermann's LinkedIn page AllTrails Celebrates 1 Million Paid Subscribers! (January press release) AllTrails' website AllTrails is hiring Follow AllTrails on Twitter Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Our guest today is Ron Schneidermann, CEO at AllTrails, the ultimate guide for outdoor adventures, AllTrails was early to the consumer subscription space, launching a $3 per month premium tier, way back in 2012. Ron joined as CMO and COO in 2015, and then took over as CEO in 2019, helping to grow AllTrails to over 1 million subscribers and tens of millions of active users world.On the podcast, we talk with Ron about the magic of consumer subscriptions, experimenting with freemium strategies, and how private equity isn't always as bad as you've been led to believe.Hey, Ron! Welcome to the podcast. 00:00:59 Ron:Thanks for having me.00:01:00 David:Yeah. Really looking forward to the chat today. I wanted to kick it off, and most people know what AllTrails is, and it's a fantastic brand. It kind of tells you what it is right there on the tin. What's your pitch? We're in 2021, post pandemic.Give us the short version of what AllTrails is. What does it mean? 00:01:21 Ron:Yeah. So AllTrails is a free app and website that helps you find trails all over the globe, so you can spend more time enjoying the outdoors, and spending time in nature.00:01:34 David:That's awesome.00:01:35 Jacob:That's a very nice mission. That's way more beautiful than helping developers make more money. Both are important, but I can smell that. It smells, “piney” and I like it.00:01:46 David:Yeah, it smells like the Colorado forest. I haven't been hiking forever, and doing all the research to chat with you today was like, oh man, I need to go hiking more.00:01:55 Ron:I heard there's a great app for that.00:01:57 David:I heard that.So, I did want to also ask about your journey to AllTrails. You got there fairly early, and then grew in, and you're now CEO. Tell me, off the bat, what led you to AllTrails way back in 2015 when it was just six people?00:02:20 Ron:Yeah. To answer that I'm going to go a little bit further back in time. My first job right after college was at Accenture, at a global management consulting firm. It was great. A good jumping off point, and I learned a ton. I didn't know anything going into that job. You know, you get the rubber stamp and it opens doors.By the end of my third year there, I kind of had a realization. Epifany is a little too strong a word, but I just kind kinda realized I can't take a job just for money again. The amount of time and energy that I was putting into it, and the lack of work-life balance, it really made me rethink who I want to be. Who does working Ron want to be?So, I was able to parlay that Accenture job into a biz dev role over at Hotwire, an online travel company. That was really where it opened my eyes. Like, I am so much happier, and I am honestly so much better when I'm working at something that I'm just personally passionate about.That guiding principle has really held through throughout my career trajectory. From Hotwire, I want to do my own startup in the ski space. I love to ski. So, I did that for nine years. It was a ton of fun. Then I was over at Yelp, doing growth for a bit. I love finding non-chain restaurants, and supporting mom and pop businesses, and stuff. I live in Yelp, so that was great.Then, when the opportunity for AllTrails presented itself, it was just kind of a no-brainer. Of course I'm going to take this.I'll say this to you, one little addendum, one of the things I learned along the way, too. I am not a zero to one guy. That is not when I am at my best. It just causes me stress and anxiety, and just, figuring out how to keep the lights on for another day.So, again, knowing kind of that sense of self knowing. Like, alright, I'm best at B to C. I'm at my best when I'm using products I personally want to use and like talking about. I like hypergrowth, and I think that's probably my sweet spot.So, it starts to all align when AllTrials showed up.00:04:34 David:Yeah. And then how did that go from? You joined the company as COO, right? And then, what was the progression inside the company to eventually taking over as CEO?00:04:45 Ron:Yeah. So if you want to demo and COO, I dunno why I really wanted to have both, like, I didn't want to just be CMO in a vacuum, but not have any ownership or agency over kind of team composition and strategy and stuff. So I thought that it was really. Really important. And when you're a six person company, it's pretty easy to grab titles.It's not like how to take it from anyone.00:05:08 Jacob:I was going to ask, like, I mean, it's, it's not like you see this a lot where it's like a six person company and they had like five C-levels and you're like, okay. Yeah, sure. Like, like my title, for example. But like, I'm kind of curious, like, you know, you like your background, you founded a company, like you were like a real CX whatever.Right? Like it's not like it was fake. So how did, how did that, how did you go as like an executive, like choosing your next thing? That'd be a hell of a pitch to get you to like join a tiny little like, team like that.00:05:36 Ron:You know, I think I, I spent a lot of time thinking through again. I don't know, I, to be perfectly honest, I was, I was a little bit bored at the end of my tenure at Yelp. I love Yelp. It's a great company, but it was just, it was too big for me. And so I spent a lot of time thinking through what's next again?That whole question, like zero to one. Do I need, do I need to start something myself or what? So the smallness didn't bother me. I actually really liked the smallness cause it was almost like, it was almost like a cheat code. Like I got to do a startup, like basically from scratch, but I didn't have to do it from scratch.And then.00:06:09 Jacob:They had, they had a kernel of something at00:06:11 Ron:They did, they did. And you know, it was actually to, to give my predecessor credit. It was, it was actually more than that. Like they had, they had solid product market fit from a monetization perspective. And then what really got me across the line with their product channel. And I feel like that's often overlooked and that's something you kind of pick up in time.Like it's not just like, is this a product people are willing to pay money for, but just straight up, how are you going to get this out to market? And can you, can you do it in a way that is, you know, viable and scalable and, and ultimately, you know, going to be, be more efficient than, you know, it's kind of like net out, right?Like the whole LTV to CAC thing and everything that00:06:49 Jacob:Yeah. It's, it's something more efficient than paying for every single install. Right.00:06:53 Ron:Exactly. And so. You know, I, it felt like there was good bones, you know, maybe it was like a fixer upper kind of house. but it had good bones, like it had, it had the foundation in place. And I could see, you know, back in 2015, the product sucked, it sucked. and, and what was shocking after I came was how bad the data was.I didn't realize that when I was kind of doing my own diligence, but it was00:07:20 Jacob:You mean like analytics on the internally, what the company knew about itself or you mean like the, the, the trail00:07:25 Ron:The trail data, like the trail data that we were showing, you know, and that's that's subs high consequence. and so that was like a hard pivot, within a couple months, like, all right, this is, you know, all hands on deck thing.We're not doing anything else until we figure this out. but again, it just, it felt like there was a diamond in the rough, in this one. You know, I've been here six years now and I can say like, unequivocally, this is the highlight of my career. Maybe I just got lucky. I don't know. But, man, like, yeah, this has been a really, really great run so far.00:07:59 Jacob:I was just going to ask about the, that channel and monetization fit. I mean, I guess this was maybe I'm jumping ahead in our agenda here, but, but yeah, they were already charging a subscription before you got there. Right. And in terms of like monetization, maybe like describe that model a little bit and, and how that has changed.00:08:20 Ron:Yeah, I had never done this subscription business before coming here. So this was my first subscription business. And I'll tell you, you guys already know this. I'm sure your listeners already know this too. subscription businesses are magical. Oh my goodness. Compared to like e-commerce or you're trying to re when, you know, the transaction every single00:08:40 Jacob:I know I was looking at Hotwire just now, when you mentioned it. And I was just thinking about like, how many of those there were at that era, right? Like, and still are like, when you had to book a hotel on Google and they're like, oh, here's 15 different sites. You can actually like book it through it's like Wolf,00:08:53 Ron:Oh, so tough. Same with Liftopia. Liftopia the ski startup. There was the same thing. Right. you know, but, but with a much smaller niche and segment, and then, and then Yelp is, you know, they're, they're kind of the media model and then trying to, you know, kind of pivot more towards like B2B and subscriptions for businesses and value added services and stuff.And coming here doing a consumer subscription business, an annual subscription, the auto renew. It's like an annuity, like it just builds up every single year. Like obviously, like you can't take retention for granted and I'm sure we'll talk about that, but you know, just, if you're able to kinda, you know, do a, do a pretty good job on the retention side and you see this thing build up And just.Raise the tide every single year that I've been here and have it just, is that much more momentum that just gets like brought into each new fiscal year for us. It's just, it's incredible. It is incredible. the leverage that it offers. So that was cool. That was definitely a, 00:09:51 Jacob:One of those good bones.00:09:54 David:Yeah. And that's what I was going to ask you say the bones were good. Yeah, AllTrails had launched their subscription in 2012. So about three years before you joined, what was the state of that? And that's really early in the kind of consumer subscription software space. Was there a lot of push back was like, how was traction, chargebacks and things like that was the bones were there, but were there some serious doubts or questions in your mind as to how this subscription app space was going to play out? 00:10:28 Ron:Yeah, I mean, so can I share a secret with you guys? I honestly didn't know that our subscription business loss in 2012, until you guys showed me the research that you did leading up to this, I had always thought that, it launched with our ass. We launched our apps in, I think early 2015, I joined in September, 2018.And I just lumped everything together just in that, you know,00:10:53 Jacob:Yeah. It's yeah,00:10:54 Ron:Yeah. So I, I, I had always thought that it, that we had launched it when our apps launched, but I guess we were on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, the subscription space here.00:11:05 Jacob:So, so, but that, then I'm, then I'm correct to assume that, you know, if you launched a description 2012 was on the web, if you didn't have apps until 20, 20, 15. Right. Right. Which, I mean, my, my experience, I guess I've been on old trails website, but like my vast majority of experience has been on the web.Right. Because I'm like, or sorry on the, on the phone because I'm going for a hike and I'm like, I need a map and like, boom, there's AllTrails. Right. Which I guess is that channel fit. You're talking about.00:11:27 Ron:Yeah. And that's been, that's been one of the cool things when I started. So a couple, a couple, I guess, data points, just to show like, sort of that, that snapshot in time of 2015, we probably had 20,000. subscribers at that point, maybe a million cumulative registered users since 2010, when we first launched and maybe 20,000 active paying subs.And in January of this year, we put out a press release. We don't normally do that, but it was two pretty cool milestones. We had cracked 25 million registered users and a million paying subs at the start of this. So, you know, again, like the, the, the unlock has been really cool and very, very powerful. but the other thing, like you said, like this was, you know, a web driven subscription business.At first, when I, when I first started here. probably 70% of our, of our web traffic was desktop desktop to mobile 70 30. And obviously that's inverted, since then, and then Mo the, the, the mobile apps, the native apps are by far the best form factor for what we're trying to do. Like you said, Jake would like take it with you on the go, the navigation, the GPS stuff, everything baked in there.And so that's become really the workhorses of, of subscription business and, and of our overall, UDC flat.00:12:42 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, it's so helpful. you guys have good SEO when you search a trail, it comes up on AllTrails. Right. But that's, I would imagine like this stage probably mostly like demand gen for the app,00:12:53 Ron:That's exactly it. No, that's exactly it. Right. So our se our legacy SEO, this is what, again, one of the beauties of being around for 11 years and counting, we have this amazing legacy SEO and that's, that was that product channel fit that brought me here was the sales pitch was he just showed me Google analytics.And he just like, look, look at all of this for your00:13:12 Jacob:Just like a hyper-local very valuable data, right. Index. And if you're, if you're the winner, that's a great real estate to00:13:20 Ron:I know. And, and so what we've been doing obviously as, sort of consumer behavior has changed and gone mobile first is, we're able to parlay all of that mobile first SEO traffic it's, incremental organic app installs, and that's a huge driver. Of our business. We get millions and millions of incremental app installs that we don't pay a dime for every mom's.00:13:42 Jacob:Yeah. And going back to your point, like yeah. Not having to push. Up the hill completely is a bit, you know, you think about a Compounding annuity analogy as you made, right? Like the cost of that compounding really, you know, if you net out the whole asset, right? Like that's going to be a big part of it is like, how much does it cost to push that that, that, that flywheel up a little bit. 00:14:02 Ron:It's a moat for business too, you know, you're around long enough and you're doing something good. You're going to see a ton of competitors start flooding into the space, which is great as validation of what we're doing, but the product market fit product channel fit conundrum is, is real.It's real. And you know, I see really great products, you know, beautifully designed products that just crank can't crack the code on either of those. And then they kind of, you know, whether on the line, right? Like see it all the time.00:14:31 David:No, that was actually my next question is that in those early days, and you already said when you joined and when y'all launched the apps in 2015, they were crap. So take me, how did you go from this crap up and what experimentation, what pain, what suffering did 00:14:53 Jacob:There's some, there's some old, there's some like a old guard at, at all trials that are going to listen to this and be like, crap. They were great.00:15:00 David:But what did it take and what was the approach to, to find you, you had some level of product market fit, but then to actually build a great product around those early signs. 00:15:12 Ron:There, there are a couple of philosophical things that we decided immediately. One was around funding. Do we want to go take funding, and try and do this faster? Do we want to do this kind of organically? And my predecessor had done a small seed round. I think he raised 3 million bucks in 2012.And we were still kind of drafting off of that. And then there was a little bit of subscription revenue and then a whole bunch of just, you know, classic entrepreneur head on the swivel stuff. Like let's throw a bunch of shit up on the wall. Like, let's see what we can do. So there's, you know, a media play and programmatic ads.Whatever, right. Just trying to buy time more than anything. Right? Like keep the servers running for a little bit longer. But we decided we very intentionally decided not to take funding. We wanted to control our own destiny. And part of it to be clear, part of it was the handshake agreement with the original founder, was to grow it and sell it.He wanted us to, to, to sell it. And so, so then if that was kind of the. The Mandy. And I was like, well, why would we even just, you know, deal with the, the opportunity cost and the headache of going out and trying to raise funds, as a pain in the ass. So, you know, it was like, let's just, let's put our heads00:16:22 Jacob:Especially, especially for our consumer subscription company in 2015, like00:16:27 Ron:Right? Yeah.00:16:28 Jacob:Ben kind of been party to that. It's not, it wasn't easy. Let's put it that way.00:16:32 Ron:Tried doing it in 2005, by the way I was with Liftopia was insane anyways. but so we decided to put our heads down and just say super scrappy, super scrappy, super lean. And so, it just came down to like relentless prioritization and essentially what we ended up doing was triaging sort of a different funnel metric each quarter.Right. So one quarter is. We've got to tackle bounce rate. All right. Now we've got to tackle signup rate and now we've got to tackle pro conversion rate. And now we've got to talk over attention and we just kind of spent cycles, through 2016 and through 2017, just each, each quarter, just like laser focus in on that one metric and do what we can and then move.And it worked because by the end of 2017, we actually achieved profitability. Which was cool, which was really, really great. You know, like we wanted again, when you've been around the block long enough, you talked to enough entrepreneurs, you've seen, you've seen enough. there's so many examples of people going and getting too much funding too soon, and then they develop bad habits, right?Yeah. Let's get a little hot in here. Is it.00:17:36 Jacob:I never heard of that.00:17:39 Ron:So, you know, but so you see it right? Like that you, you get the, unsustainable growth channels, again, the product channel fit question, like how are you actually going to bring this to market? And how are you going to do it when that VC money dries up? Like, is this actually00:17:50 Jacob:Five X that VC money, right.00:17:52 Ron:Right? Is this sustainable?Or you're just connecting yourself to the next round of00:17:56 Jacob:You can put yourself in a, in a dead man's corner, right. Where you're not your, market's not big enough, whatever you end up killing and otherwise like really great business,00:18:05 Ron:Totally. And I, you know, I'd seen that, I'd seen that. I really didn't want to do that here. It felt like because so much of our growth was coming through SEO. It felt like obviously there's an opportunity, which we later unlocked on the ASO side of things. It felt like even beyond both of those though, it's just like word of mouth and PR and viral loops and network effects.00:18:27 Jacob:Product market fit as a broad thing, right? Like growth kind of have you have a really good product and it serves a niche, like grit just starts to start to go.00:18:36 Ron:And especially organic growth, right? Like, and that was really the big key as like, do we need to be like one of these DTC companies and just raise millions of dollars for Instagram ads? Or can we, can we do something that's more sustainable for the long haul? And that was, that was one of the bats.The other big bet that we placed was, from a brand positioning perspective. You know, when I came in the app was definitely geared towards like the through hikers and search and rescue and, and the hardcore, like, you know, back country folks. And the challenge with, with, with that segment is that there's always these, you know, really esoteric and extreme product requirements that they want because they're they're edge cases.They're by definition, all edge cases. And in this space in particular, a lot of them. Kind of living the, you know, the van life, life, you know, trying to live as frugally as possible. and so they don't want to really pay you any money either. It's like this isn't a good growth segment. We got, we gotta rethink this one.And so, I've told this story a lot, you know, this strong man to this day still is, is my wife where like she likes going outside with me. You know, she's always down to go on a high. you know, spend time outside. We have three kids, totally trying to raise them on the trail. we have a dog who loves being on the trail and, but, but if I'm not there, you know, she's, she's not going out there.Right. So it's like, okay, okay. Maybe here's the play. Like what, what if we use technology? Kind of tear down the barriers for entry, like instill confidence, whether through like product functionality or content, but really make it so that someone like my wife and the hundreds of millions of people around the globe, like her who, who know that they feel better when they time spend in nature.They're just a little scared to do it. Like, can we help augment that? Can we help supplement that? And I think that's going to be the unlock. And that was the big bet. That was the other big bet that we placed in 2015. And you know, 00:20:30 Jacob:And just to summarize that, I understand it's like to kind of not ignore these like extreme users that are on the edge on the edges, you know, serve them, but maybe not in the way that they would want, but like let's focus on, you know, this larger segment. I mean, I think that's the thing, even some good founder advice is good for founders.Sometimes doesn't always apply. Like B to C stuff sometimes where it's like, yeah, like, listen to your most vocal users often. There's something there, but like with an ounce of like moderation, because yeah. They can lead you in really strange places. And think about the network. Think about the like user.Maybe you're not talking to her, her the next year saying next a hundred million users that you have to get. and that's potentially a much bigger surface area. And that doesn't mean you're going to abandon those court users. Like they might grumble a little bit and they might not be totally served by your use case.And like, that's maybe just life. but, but you know, you've now potentially, like if you think about the, you know, the mission of just getting people outdoors, like you've achieved that much better by going for this much larger market segment. Right.00:21:31 Ron:Yeah, and they're not mutually exclusive. It's just which one are we prioritizing? Which one are we preferencing? And how are we, you know, what kind of language are we? Are we using lingo or not? Right. Are we making this accessible for everybody or not for imagery? Right. Are we doing like, you know, Alex, Honnold like dangling one handed off of a cliff,00:21:51 Jacob:Or just, or just a picture of the N the end cap at an REI, Right. Like,00:21:56 Ron:Yeah. Yeah. Or, or just like, you know, a family like smiling and having fun out in nature together, you know, like, all right. It doesn't cater to the core, but they're not necessarily going to like walk away because they see that stuff either. 00:22:07 Jacob:Right. I mean, and that comes to. Channel fit As well, right? Like not your products fit and your products oriented for, and that like B to C you kind of, you can't divorce the two, like you can't have totally independent marketing and channel channels for the product itself, which maybe you could get away with a little bit in B2B.But, but, but they, but they don't necessarily have to be like completely like linked, you know, you can kind of serve both niches on the, on the product side to your point.00:22:34 David:And speaking of getting more folks out in the mission of AllTrails. I'd love to hear about your freemium strategy, because that's a huge part of it. Like what early on, what was your approach? And then how did that evolve over time? As far as what features you do give away for free to kind of reach the broadest audience possible, and then what things you pay wall to actually get paid? 00:22:57 Jacob:And, and, and I'd like to highlight how Ron, when we asked you to describe AllTrails, you put free in the name, which I'm sure was very intentional. Right? You said it is a free app, right? It is not a premium app. I mean, it is a premium app, but the highlight the free. So00:23:09 Ron:Yeah,00:23:10 Jacob:That framing, what, what, tell us about your free app.00:23:13 Ron:There's, this is a, this is, an ongoing. Like not debate, but, it's an open question always. And we're constantly like asking our employees and our board, like let's challenge our assumptions here just because we did something a certain way last year. Doesn't mean we need to do it this way.Like let's constantly reevaluate this, for us, there's sort of three main buckets we have. Free on authenticated users and then we have free registered users. So kind of that registration wall is like the first key funnel, metric. And then there's, pro subscribers, right? So we have two, two kind of core, success metrics.One is registration rate and one is pro conversion rate. And then what goes in front and behind the paywall and the red wall, the registration wall. Constantly influx constantly. And plus we actually just did this really fun workshop a couple of weeks ago, internally here. It was like the history of AllTrailss pro and just showing kind of which features started when I, you know, again in 2015, like what was the pro feature set?How much of those? We actually ended up pulling in front of the red wall and new features that we put back behind the paywall. So I feel like we're constantly in a state of experimentation here. we've been, we've been experimenting with that since day one. We've been experimenting with pricing also on day one.And there's still, I don't feel like we've cracked the code at all at all. When I, when I first started here, I'll chose pro was 50 bucks a year and I spent the first, like two months just trying to get as, as much like, obviously all the quant data that I could get my hands on, but as much qualitative data as I could get to.So reading every app store review, every Reddit thread, every blog post. Talking to customers, all of it. And aside from everyone telling us that our data socked and, you know, we can, we got them lost. So we got them tickets from the park ranger for telling them to bring a dog when it's not that currently, whatever it was.The other piece of feedback that we got was like 50 bucks, like it's way too much. And so we immediately started testing pricing and, and, and we tested it at 30 bucks a year and we tested that 15 bucks a year to kinda all right. If we really just take that price down is, the in incremental, purchase rate, gonna offset, you know, the, the change in that revenue per transaction.They were about to wash it, which was really interesting from a net revenue perspective, 15 bucks a year versus 30 bucks a year was, was basically flat. But we went with 30 because it gave us more maneuverability. We could do more. for the folks who were like price sensitive, do do discounting, intro offers, whatever.At 15, we really couldn't go any low, lower. So it's just like, this is it for everybody all the time. but even that we're revisiting now and thinking through like, all right, maybe are there other different tiers? We've never done monthly before. So what is, what is a world in which there's a monthly price?I don't, I don't love it. I mean, again, annual is magic. Like why mess with a good thing, but there is a cohort of users, especially outside of the U S where that's a pretty high00:26:16 Jacob:Oh, I mean, I live in the Midwest. Like I would, I only need your app from, from April to November. Right. Like I really don't need to pay all year.00:26:24 Ron:For the two weeks in00:26:25 Jacob:Yeah. I, but I mean, I think there's the counter argument there of the simplicity. It's like, yeah, sure. But. Whatever your value is. So your, your, your, this is the price.I really, I I've seen that effect before on the price experimentation, you just end up with the same area under the curve. Like, no matter how you move it, and some apps are like that, some apps are not. but I do think it's really fascinating, the wisdom of crowds, right. And just how, like, they know like the, the, the, the masses have priced and valued your products.And then just like showing that like, it's very efficient, right. No matter where it goes, then you can come down to like, It's almost a good place to be. Cause then yeah, you have that like opera, you can choose where you want it to price. You can basically, you're freed from the like fiduciary duty of like maximum extraction.And you can like, like, just focus on like, okay, what's gonna what's right. For us for some of those goals on company growth and stuff like that. If it was right for the mission. And then like also give yourself some like tactical opportunities in terms of discounting and other stuff like this, and then positioning as well.Like what is it? I think that's almost as important. It's like, how do you use. How do you see all trials? Like how do you see it as like, what's the value of perception? Like a $30 skew and a 50 and a 15, those are very different. Right. And those are, you know, I think about consumer goods on those scales.That's like each one of those things has like a different, like, feel to it.00:27:43 Ron:Totally. And, and then on top of it, though, our business is driven by UGC, right? We have this classic UGC flywheel. And so obviously we know our pro users are more engaged, but a ton of engagement comes from our free users as well. And so you can't kind of, turn the squeeze on them too hard without like really fundamentally damaging the business.00:28:05 Jacob:What kind of user generated content? Is it like pictures and updated and stuff or what? What's00:28:10 Ron:Yeah, ratings, reviews, photos, recordings, you know, and then there's this also this virtuous cycle that we have, this beautiful relationship we have with our users, where they, they help us create as well as Curie our trail Content. So that's the thing with trail content, just to go down this rabbit hole for a second, Joe Content, super fluid, like it's not like streets that are, that are relatively static.You know, a trail is you get, you get flooding, you get fires, you get maintenance, you get development, down trees, whatever. Like they're constantly in a state of flux. And it's really, really hard to stay on top of it. We can't do it alone. And so we00:28:49 Jacob:And there's no, it's not like, it's not like roads where there's like a national database, right. Of like uniform data00:28:55 Ron:Yeah, no, not at all. Right. so we, we do. We have this like really beautiful symbiotic relationship with our, with our users, you know, and, and it's kind of like, we both get value from each other and we're both very transparent about like the relationship, like you guys help us and you help the community.Right. And we'll package it. We'll, we'll keep improving and investing in the product experience and everything else. and again, like, this is where it seems to be working, but this is when, when we were talking about. Th th the choke points in the funnel and that, that red wall and the broken version Weill, this is the thing that's top of mind over all of it. 00:29:30 David:Yeah, that's great. I did want to move on and talk about in 2018, AllTrails raised, 75 million led by spectrum equity. And so I'm curious about that, about that story. So, I know, you know, the plan was to sell and then you've shared on other podcasts that, part of that was the founder taking, taking some money kind of his exit event.But I'm really curious just from like a company building perspective. I think so many founders and entrepreneurs think, oh, if I can just. More money. If I can just hire more people, everything's going to be easier. but I imagine that's not the full story. So I'd love to hear about the raise, but then also kind of how that changed the company and changed the trajectory.00:30:18 Ron:Yeah. So like I said earlier, right. That the handshake agreement was to grow and sell it. So we knew going in exactly what the deal was. and once we hit profitability in 2017, it kind of felt like, all right, it's probably next year. It's probably our year. And we got an inbound from one of the big tech companies early, you know, probably end of Q1 of 2018.And so I was like, all right, game on, right? This is it. We'll go get a bank. we'll run a formal process here. And we started going through it. We started going through it. This was actually, it was fun, right? Like I got to put together sort of like, all right, here's our top 100 strategic partnerships broken out by category, broken out by vertical.Here's like the, you know, the accretive value here is, you know, the, the investment credit. It was like a really fun thought exercise. You know, we're talking to online travel companies and real estate companies, and obviously like the retailers and just so many different types of companies out there. And we ran a process and it was, it was fun.But, and as we were going through it, well, a couple things happen. One is our business really took off. Like it was a breakout trajectory year for us. So that always helps. Anytime you, you meet with someone, you share your plan and then you come back a month later and it's like, Hey, actually, Outperforming outpacing.So your price just went up. so that was, I mean, that was great. Like a great position to be in. I've never had leveraged like that. And the other, the other thing was like, we could walk away at any point. If we, if we didn't like it, I had done a lot of fundraising before and that I've never had a position of, of leverage like that.So that was cool. But as we were going through the process and talking to these different strategic acquires, the other thing that kept jumping out was like, I don't want to just go be middle management at some big company that I already like have chosen not to work out anyways, because it doesn't align with what I want to do with my time.And so, you know, we're kind of going through, it's like, is this really, is this it is this the only path? and we're talking to our bankers about it and like, you know, there's a, a huge ecosystem of financial investors that are really excited about this consumer subscription space. let's, let's do a spike there.And so we started talking to somebody. Different financial firms out there. And that's where it got really, really interesting. you know, I think, I think we all probably have preconceptions about like private equity groups, like, you know, I know, right.00:32:36 Jacob:Just, it then the light dimmed here. When you said00:32:39 Ron:I know, cause a lot of the classic ones, they're just there in your shorts about like your bottom line expenses and micromanaging and telling you to cut costs and00:32:47 Jacob:That's, that's the, that's the, the stereotype at least.00:32:50 Ron:Totally right. but there's this whole class of growth equity shops out there and, and we, we sort of plugged into it and I would squarely put spectrum equity and that one, and the first time we talked to them, it was so clear. They're like, you guys, aren't thinking big enough. It's like, what? I love that.Okay. Let's talk growth. You know, like you guys need to be thinking global. Right. And it was just like, there was so much alignment around. This, this opportunity in front of us. And instead of like pulling the rip cord and just kind of being absorbed and integrated into something else, it's like, how about, like, we really make a, make a run at this.And so the more we talk to them, the more it's was like, yes, hell yes. And it wasn't just from like, a funding perspective, you know? Cause if it was just that like again, then you just do an auction and you just see whoever's the highest. But we really wanted, like I needed a partner. I wanted a value added partner that I wanted someone who could bring in, you know, a sense of community, not have to reinvent the wheel all the time.That's always nice when you can plug into our portfolio of similar companies and just pick their brain. All right. Like how did you guys00:33:54 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, that's an under, that's an underappreciated aspect of raising versus like going at your own. It's like the network, like it's, I think feces oversell it, but maybe founders undervalue it. Right? Like00:34:05 Ron:A hundred percent. Couldn't agree more. It does. It really does. and so yeah, we kinda went, yeah. I, I feel incredibly fortunate that we were able to partner up with spectrum equity. And so David two question, I have, it's like it for us, it was this huge unlock. It was this huge online. Like we have another partner, we're going to be more formal, with our board structure and, you know, the, the sort of like metrics, which is great, like we needed to level up, and our corporate diligence and everything.And they've been, they've been a partner and we've, we've grown the board. We've added more expertise. And again, like the, the portfolio being, being sister companies with, with like Headspace and the not worldwide and survey monkey, whatever, like these cool companies that I respect and be able to, you know, hit up the CEO and be like, okay, how did you guys deal with this?Because like you said, like there are a ton of challenges that come when you're going through that, you know, that the slope of the curve at that point, right? Like the true hyper-growth curves. All right. You know, we can't fall back on, on money as an excuse, you know, like it's purely an execution play and how do we do more faster?And that's honestly like, that's my, I think one of the coolest things I can say about my board, that the single biggest piece of feedback I get from them where they're just like yelling at me all the time and a great way. It's like, you gotta do more faster. Why aren't you doing more faster? Right. Like that is the mantra here because everyone sees this opportunity.It's ours, it's ours to go take. Right. But we got to execute and do it as fast as we can.00:35:33 Jacob:Yeah. That's that's, I mean, I'll say as somebody recently constructing a board, like that was sort of my cause as a founder and as a CEO, like you're always, you're just, you're you're at, you should be at the limits if you're doing your job. Right, right. Like you should be kind of feeling at least like thinking, you know, what your limits are and what the company's limits are.And it's nice. Even if there isn't anything more you can do. It's nice to have some people who like, ostensibly are aligned with you to be like, Are you sure there's not more right? Like, is there anything like, are you doing like, could, could you change this? Like, could you go go faster potentially? And sometimes the answer's no, but it does always kinda, you leave those board meetings going like, like maybe there is like, maybe there is some way we could do this, like better or faster, right.00:36:10 Ron:Yeah. And then you build a team, right? And that leads back to like the team growth. And this, you know, this is our third year in a row of, of doubling head count. Hopefully next year will be our fourth year in a row. And all of the leverage, I'm a big believer, like two things are the lifeblood for companies like ours.One is culture and the other is momentum. And you can't, if you lose either of them, Right. Like, you cannot take your eye off of either of those as a CEO, as a founder, whatever it is. and so like building both, you know, they, they got to go hand in hand, or you can sacrifice culture as you're doing the internal hypergrowth.00:36:43 Jacob:Have an exit strategy, right?00:36:45 Ron:Exactly.00:36:46 Jacob:Going to last very long.00:36:47 Ron:Because you'll never get it back. That's exactly right. But, but generating momentum through like value added hires and raising the bar or bringing, you know, a bringing in a plus, I love being the dumbest person in the room. That's my favorite thing at all. Choose walking in there. It was like, all right, I'm going to learn something.Someone's going to teach me something cool. and building a team.00:37:06 David:So it sounds like the biggest unlock for y'all taking the money was just the ability to hire faster, hire better folks, offer better pay. but was there anything else that you feel like taking funding helped unlock for AllTrails? Did you, were you able to spend Mo did you start spending more on, on user acquisition or ramping anything else out? 00:37:27 Jacob:Can I ask a clarifying question without like you sharing your term sheet or whatever, but like D w like these, these deals can be very different than like a venture deal, right. Where like, almost always all of it hits the books and it's dilutive, meaning that the company gets the money, but this was like kind of a buyout for the founder as an alternative to a sale.It's like, did you guys structure it? So some hit the books and not, or was it all to the founders or how did it, whatever you're comfortable00:37:50 Ron:We, we hardly took any primary capital in 2018. I didn't, I didn't want it. I don't want it. Like I liked our organic trajectory. I didn't want. And obviously I've gotten to know spectrum a lot better. They're not built from the CNA, but you take money from a VC. And the expectation is like the success metric is suspended as hard and aggressive as possible because they're incentivized to keep you hooked, you know, on the next round.And I wanted to, you know, accelerate more like on the product development side of things, but I didn't want to get stuck in a, a growth model that's dependent on unsustainable paid acquisition. Right. So. almost the entire deal with secondary capital, which was great, which was00:38:33 Jacob:And for the financial illiterate IME, like 18 months ago,00:38:37 Ron:Yeah,00:38:38 Jacob:The company gets the money. Secondary would be somebody who's already a shareholder gets the00:38:41 Ron:Exactly the people on the cap table. so it was buying out the founder, buying out the original investors, like really cleaning it out. It was a new chapter, a new book altogether. At that point and, you know, start sort of starting together. I think, you know, to the question earlier, in terms of like the other value as like, I really can't stress enough, just the strategic value add that I was able to get like, again, because as a founder or as a CEO or as an example, You're kind of stuck in your own head a lot and you can talk to other founders, but you know, there's this like culture, especially in Silicon valley, like, oh bro, coaching it.Yeah. I mean just crushing it, you know? No, one's, you know.00:39:19 Jacob:I didn't, you didn't have to put air quotes around culture there, but like, I could hear the00:39:24 Ron:Yeah.00:39:24 Jacob:I'm called.00:39:25 Ron:You know, and very few people are like really open and transparent, about the challenges and what have you. And so being able to go in. and have this board that I trust that I feel like we're all aligned. I've had boards, you know, especially VC backed boards, where you get like a different, you know, venture capitalists from every round that you do.Like you have a lot of misaligned incentives. You have a lot of sharp elbows in a room.00:39:47 Jacob:I was gonna say, there's a lot of, you know, these are all competitors in a lot of cases, right? Hopefully you pick well, and you have people that are professionals, but like you can totally end up in a situation where you have frenemies,00:39:57 Ron:Yeah, you're watching your back at your own boards. That's a horrible way to live. Whereas with this one, it was so clean. It was like, we were owned by spectrum. This is great. I work at on their behalf. This is great. We've got the two of them there's me. And then, and then, but to their credit, they're like, let's bring on two more operators.And so, you know, they didn't care about like, well, we have to have 51% plus of the seats. It was just like, no, let's just surround ourselves with really awesome. And so we got, you know, we got the former CEO of ancestry, who, you know, they know a thing or two about, subscription businesses. And then we got the COO of Robin hood and obviously like they know a thing or two about hyper-growth and everything else.And again, like, so it's almost like it's this team, you know, it's like this dream team we're just collectively, like they're helping me chart stuff. Like see things. I wouldn't have been able to see on my own, whatever the pattern00:40:45 Jacob:Yeah.I mean, I think it's, it's, it's a good story in the sense that like, I think, I think we think too terminally sometimes about companies, right? Like it's like, they're born, they are grown and then they get sold and then they die usually like nine times out of 10, right? Like it's, it's not often that an intern, like I say, all goes well and the integration goes, well, some spectrum of results.Right. But this is a result where I think you, you guys have a company that's two important. To let die, right? Like if you had sold, I don't know what, you know, your fangs or whoever was like, I'm sure I could see any number of massive tech company wanting this to be a part of their data set or part of their like social, like aspect of whatever.It's just, I could see a plugging into a lot of things, but you know, to get Google's exciting acquisition today and not saying you guys. Talking to Google or not, but as an example, like their exciting acquisition today is tomorrow is like, you know, happy trails, blog posts, right. That actually a good name for the, the shutting down AllTrails, acquisition at Google blogposts.But, but the, you know, and this is a, this is a path where, you know, people who are passionate about the mission, the employees and the users, like can kind of, you know, get that exit that people are looking for. But without like jeopardizing. Thing that's important. And like, maybe this is very hippie, right?But like, I think there is some aspect of companies that's beyond like the capital value and beyond like, even like the culture, but like actually achieving the mission and, and making that change in the world or providing that service. That's, that's, that's more important than, you know, Hypergrowth or whatever.And look, I mean, we should get into talking about now, like posts around, but it sounds like you guys are in hyper-growth anyway. Right. So it didn't, it's not like it's, it's this false dichotomy of right. Like either you're like raising for venture and you're like going at it really hard or Like you're a lifestyle business or, you know, whatever.And it's just like, Maybe, whereas maybe us like lampooning, this straw man of a false narrative has like most of the talking about this to like make that is the, the, the totality of the false dichotomy is us talking about it. But I really think this is a great example of like one of those like interesting, you know, outcomes and, and stories.So it tell us about what's happening now. 00:42:52 David:I appreciate you sharing that specifically because even in researching it, I listened to a couple of your other interviews. I still assume that that the. A pretty big primary chunk that, that went into the balance sheet of the company and then it accelerated it from there. So it's an even more interesting story to me that that raise was mostly secondary.So from the $3 million seed way back in, whatever it was 20 12, 20 13, it really has been an almost bootstrapped company and becoming what it is today on. Little capital is really incredible and it really kind of speaks to consumer subscription space and, and how you can operate and go big without spending a ton of money.If you do it right. If you don't, if you don't just plug into Instagram and blow $5 million of VC money acquiring the wrong users, if you actually talk to them and build a good product and everything else. but I did00:43:55 Ron:Well, and I was just stay on top of not only that at the first board meeting that we had with. I, I walked in and I said, Hey, you know, this is great high five super-stoked, we're also, I think we should donate 1% of our revenue to environmental causes. I know you guys just shelled out a whole lot of money, but would that be okay?And to their credit, they're like Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. And you know, one of the first things we did post-transaction was signing up for 1% for the planet, you know, like there there's totally a different path here. I didn't realize it. And I think it's cool for people.I don't know. I, I wish I heard this earlier in my career. Like there are, like you said, like there's not a dichotomy, like there's so many different ways to do this. I think we have. Fetishizing almost, or like putting on a pedestal this whole like massive VC round kind of stuff, you know, and there's a time and a place for it, for sure.But like, that's not the success metric in and of itself, like more often than not, especially for earlier companies, the death knell. And so I think that, I'm always, you know, I get, I get hit up by people, you know, for whatever I'll all the time talking about this kind of stuff. And so I was like, dude, if you can boot shop, if you can control your own destiny, like do it, you know, find right partners that are gonna unlock growth and everything else.Don't fall, don't fall victim to that. Like, just that story that you think is like the classic Silicon valley startup story, which is you go out, you raise a big round and you have an IPO. It never works. It never works that way00:45:19 Jacob:Who would do that?00:45:20 Ron:To too many man.00:45:22 Jacob:We're running out of time. I do want to know. So you're talking about like doubling and so I'm guessing like the pandemic, like we've seen across the ecosystem has been really, especially, I can imagine there's two aspects to it, right? Like one your digital service.And then secondly, like you're very good compatible with like, social distancing. So did you like think you would be having this conversation for whatever four years after the spectrum, deal like doubling every head count every year? Cause that's typically not what private equity companies growth rates look like.00:45:51 Ron:I know. No, it was, I mean, so I'll preface this by saying we were incredibly fortunate during COVID and sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes you get like, there's a ton of great companies out there that just like how to pull sales reps out of the field, or we're an equip for like the supply chain issues or whatever it was.Right. Like, Well, like you said, we're digital first company. we, we already, we had a somewhat distributed workforce, so we already like using zoom and slack and going fully remote. Like we, we saw no, no drop in productivity. Now granted like when, when the world shut down mid-March that was a little bit scary.But we knew it would be temporary. I, you know how long no one really knew. Bye bye. Mid April, we were going to our board and saying like, look like, I know things look a little bleak right now. Like the, the machine has fully ground to a hall, but we think actually like this is going to be an insane accelerant.Once things open back up, there's nothing to do. Like you said, it lends itself perfectly to social distancing. You know, people who can't travel anymore. Like, all right, we're going to explore our local state parks now, you know, like we'll scratch that. It's that way I got three kids and you know, school is canceled and obviously, you know, summer camps forget.What are we going to do? What are we going to do with these kids? And it's like, we're going to run them ragged on the trail, you know, every weekend we're just going on the trail and we're running them ragged and00:47:10 Jacob:There's a good ad campaign in there. Just00:47:11 Ron:Totally right. And so,00:47:13 Jacob:Sleeping kids in the back of a Subaru Forester and it's like,00:47:16 Ron:Yes, exactly. So, I mean, you know, we made, we did make a big strategic decision, to get in front of it and, and start hiring like crazy, and just make, you know, make a play, make a play. And, and again, Sometimes you get lucky. you know, that works, that works all these companies around us, that we were never able to like really poach from or whatever.Something like we're able to go grab their talent. Like not just from people who are like, oh, but people were actively working there who were just like, I don't want to do this with my life anymore. I like spending time outside. I had the number of people, the number of inbound applicants that like write in their cover letter.I was looking at which apps I use the most. And I just started applying to those jobs. You know, I think that there really is. It's like really. Great. And I applaud it and I love it. And I hope it never stops people like taking more agency and control over their career and not just like reactively, you know, just doing whatever leftovers00:48:10 Jacob:Yeah. I mean, the geographic unlock of remote, I think is a big part of that. Right. Cause suddenly like you're, you can just literally go on your phone and pretty probably today, nine times out of 10, you're going to be able to work for that company depending on your like, you know, locale or like time00:48:22 Ron:Totally.00:48:23 Jacob:It wasn't that way two years ago,00:48:25 Ron:Not at all, not at all. Exactly. So, a lot changed. A lot has changed in this time. With all of that, with the big accelerant they were seeing on the usability side through 2020, there is, I think David, you had asked this like pre pre-show, you know: there's two big questions hanging over our business as we went into 2021.One is, are the registered users who we got last year during COVID are they going to convert to pro like our conversion to pro happens over time? We look at a lot of stuff through a cohorted basis, and it goes up and to the right. It will take years for some users across the line to go pro, but it's great.It just keeps going up. So, are the folks who signed up when there was nothing else to do, are they ever going to convert to pro or not? The other big question is: all the folks who converted to pro in the height of the pandemic in 2020, once the world opens up, are they going to retain? Or, are we going to have the bottom drop out from under us?These were two questions hanging over our heads. We have a seasonal business, it follows the sun pretty much. So, as we headed into May, June, July of this year, thankfully that the answer for both was a resounding “yes.” The folks who signed up last year are converting at a higher rate than normal.The folks who subscribed are retaining at higher rates than normal, too. And I think it's kind of more of a testament to how the zeitgeists has changed a little bit post pandemic. Being outside just makes people feel good. I guess it's that simple. It's not very complicated.You feel better when you spend time outside, and people are just incorporating it into their regular routines.00:50:08 Jacob:Yeah. It's interesting. For positives and negatives, I think you came up three cherries, right? It just really lined up, and then it's continued. You're talking about the hiring thing, too. Like a lot of habits changed during COVID, and I don't think anything will necessarily go back. Especially if people have found a new, happier, maximum for their lives. You guys are part of that. That's great. and that seems like, I dunno, we don't have total good analytic quantitative data on this, but it doesn't seem like the whole boosts from last year totally collapsed.It seems like it just was like an accelerate, and I think other industries would sort of back that up. 00:50:54 David:Yep. Well, we're coming up on time. Is there anything else I should've asked you? 00:50:59 Ron:No, this was fun.00:51:00 Jacob:You guys are probably hiring, right?00:51:02 Ron:We're hiring like crazy right now. Yeah, absolutely.00:51:06 Jacob:AllTrails?00:51:07 Ron:Yeah.00:51:08 Jacob:There you go.00:51:08 David:Any particular roles you want to shout out? 00:51:11 Ron:We're always starving for great engineering talent. Android, iOS, front end, back end dev ops, security, all of it. PMs, product designers, mapping designers, customer support, the full gamut. The entire company, every department is hiring right now.00:51:28 David:Well, it sounds like a really fun company to work for. We'll put links to your job page and to your personal LinkedIn, and a few other places in the show notes, but this was really fun chatting with you today, Ron. Thank you so much for taking the time. 00:51:41 Ron:My pleasure guys. Thanks for having me. This was fun.

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of the 21st century with the observation that startups aren't smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures...

Silicon shortages have been famous for the STM32 and ASIC droughts, but even simple mosfets have been harder and harder to find. For our PropMaker FeatherWing, we use 3 high current FETs to drive a 3~9W LED, and what used to be a near-jellybean part now needs a replacement! See on Digi-Key at https://www.digikey.com/short/qtj8zd4n Visit the Adafruit shop online - http://www.adafruit.com See more Desk of Ladyada on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjF7R1fz_OOXUtaFu7-_D1UCugC8OecKv See other episodes of The Great Search https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjF7R1fz_OOVHqJN28IbXLBj1FKCxw-xD ----------------------------------------- LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit Subscribe to Adafruit on YouTube: http://adafru.it/subscribe New tutorials on the Adafruit Learning System: http://learn.adafruit.com/

We just completed the fourth week of our new national security class at Stanford – Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the class to cover how technology will shape all the elements of national power (America's influence and footprint on the world stage). In class 1, we learned that national power is the combination of a country's diplomacy (soft power and alliances), information/intelligence, military power, economic strength, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement. This “whole of government approach” is known by the acronym DIME-FIL. And after two decades focused on counter terrorism, the U.S. is now engaged in great power competition with both China and Russia. In class 2 the class focused on China, the U.S.'s primary great power competitor. China is using all elements of national power: diplomacy (soft power, alliances, coercion), information/ intelligence (using its economic leverage over Hollywood, controlling the Covid narrative), its military might and economic strength (Belt and Road Initiative) as well as exploiting Western finance and technology. China's goal is to challenge and overturn the U.S.-led liberal international order and replace it with a neo-totalitarian model. The third class focused on Russia, which is asserting itself as a great power challenger. We learned how Russia pursues security and economic interests in parallel with its ideological aims. At times, these objectives complement each other. At other times they clash, Putin's desire to restore Russia into a great power once again leads to a foreign policy that is opposite the interests of the Russia people. As Putin himself has said, “The collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century,” and that quote offers a window to his worldview as he tries to remake Russia into a great power once again.” Having covered the elements of national power (DIME-FIL) and China and Russia, the class now shifts to the impact commercial technologies have on DIME-FIL. Today's topic – Semiconductors.

Jesus Believed What?

Moore's Law could soon be a dead letter. That's fine by Beijing.Read the article by Dave Yin: https://www.protocol.com/china-microchip-leapfrogNarrated by Kaiser Kuo.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You can find Alex's writing for Employ America here. You can find him on Twitter hereYou can find Hassan's blog here and his Twitter here.You can find their writing on the semiconductor industry and shortages here and here.Our lifeboat badge winner of the week is jasme, who helped someone figure out how to fix email validation with Laravel.

0:00 help 0:06 EPYC Bergamo 128-core CPU 1:03 Apple Silicon 3nm 2:04 Pixel 3 charging sucks 2:54 Vessi Footwear 3:28 QUICK BITS 3:35 Nintendo Switch 2 coming...eventually 4:18 Win7, 8.1 OneDrive support ending 4:46 Wind and solar energy r good? 5:18 Walmart driverless deliveries 5:43 McDonald's uses IBM AI News Sources: https://lmg.gg/HDtD5

Comenzamos la semana como antiguamente hacíamos durante la semana, hoy lunes os traemos 4/5 noticias de la actualidad del mundo Apple con debate de por medio, empezamos el lunes con mucha fuerza, un saludo a todos nuestros oyentes, cuidaros mucho. Un saludo Applelianos/as. //Donde encontrarnos Canal Twitch Oficial https://www.twitch.tv/applelianosdirectos Amazon Afiliado http://amzn.to/303LRYD Grupos Telegram Applelianos privado https://t.me/joinchat/5E0F_4C-r9xjNGM0 Canal Telegram Applelianos Episodios en FLAC https://t.me/ApplelianosFLAC Twitter Oficial https://twitter.com/ApplelianosPod Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/applelianos-podcast/id993909563 Ivoox https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-applelianos-podcast_sq_f1170563_1.html Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2P1alAORWd9CaW7Fws2Fyd?si=6Lj9RFMyTlK8VFwr9LgoOw Youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/ApplelianosApplelianos/featured

Andrew Warner has been part of the internet startup scene since 1997. Andrew and his brother built a $30 million per year online business, which they later sold. After taking an extended vacation and doing some traveling, Andrew started Mixergy. Mixergy helps ambitious upstarts learn from some of the most successful people in business.Andrew and I talk about his new book, Stop Asking Questions. It's a great read on leading dynamic interviews, and learning anything from anyone. We also talk about longevity and burnout as an entrepreneur. Andrew gives me feedback about my interviewing style, the direction I should take the podcast, and much more.In this episode, you'll learn: Why you need to understand and communicate your mission How to get your guest excited about being interviewed What to do instead of asking questions How to hook your audience and keep them engaged Links & Resources ConvertKit Gregg Spiridellis JibJab Ali Abdaal The Web App Challenge: From Zero to $5,000/month In 6 Months Groove Zendesk Help Scout Jordan Harbinger Noah Kagan Bob Hiler Seth Godin Morning Brew Alex Lieberman Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) Notion Sahil Bloom Ryan Holiday Brent Underwood Ghost Town Living Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator Damn Gravity Paul Graham Y Combinator Nathan Barry: Authority Ira Glass NPR This American Life Barbara Walters Richard Nixon interview Oprah interview with Lance Armstrong Matt Mullenweg Chris Pearson Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue Peter Thiel Gawker Nick Denton The Wall Street Journal Rohit Sharma SanDisk Jason Calacanis Dickie Bush Sean McCabe Daily Content Machine Jordan Peterson Tribes Warren Buffet Sam Walton Ted Turner GothamChess LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) Inc.com: Selling Your Company When You're Running on Fumes Chess.com Mark Cuban James Altucher Rod Drury Andrew Warner's Links Andrew Warner Stop Asking Questions Mixergy Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Andrew:The top 10 interviews of all time are news-based interviews. We, as podcasters, keep thinking, “How do I get enough in the can, so if I die tomorrow, there's enough interviews to last for a month, so I can be consistent, and the audience loves me.”That's great, but I think we should also be open to what's going on in the world today. Let's go talk to that person today. If there's an artist who's suddenly done something, we should go ask to do an interview with them.[00:00:32] Nathan:In this episode, I talk to my friend, Andrew Warner, who I've known for a long time. He actually played a really crucial role in the ConvertKit story in the early days, and provided some great encouragement along the way to help me continue the company, and get through some tough spots.We actually don't get into that in this episode, but it takes an interesting turn because we just dive right in.Andrew's got a book on interviewing. He runs Mixergy. He's been, running Mixergy for a long time. We talk about longevity and burnout, and a bunch of other things. He dives in and challenges me, and gives me feedback on my interviewing style. Where I should take the Podcast, and a bunch of other stuff. It's more of a casual conversation than the back-and-forth interview of how he grew his business. But I think you'll like it. It's a lot of what I'm going for on the show.So anyway, enjoy the episode.Andrew, welcome to the show.[00:01:25] Andrew:Thanks for having me on.[00:01:26] Nathan:There's all kinds of things we can talk about today, but I want to start with the new book that you got coming out.This is actually slightly intimidating; I am interviewing someone who has a book coming out about how to be good at interviewing. Where do we even go from here? You were saying that you have thoughts?[00:01:47] Andrew:I have feedback for you. I have a thoughts on your program.[00:01:51] Nathan:I'm now even more nervous.[00:01:52] Andrew:I've been listening, and I've been following, and I've been looking for questioning styles. Is there feedback I could give him? I mean, I've wrote a whole book on it. I should have tons of ideas on that.I don't. Here's the thing that stood out for me watching you. There's an ease and a comfort with these guests, but I'm trying to figure out what you're trying to do with the Podcast. What is connecting them? Are you trying to bring me, the listener, in and teach me how to become a better creator who's going to grow an audience and make a career out of it? Or are you trying to learn for yourself what to do?How to become closer to what Ali Abdaal doing, for example, or Sahil Bloom? Are you trying to do what they did, and grow your audience? Or is it a combination of the two?I think the lack of that focus makes me feel a little untethered, and I know that being untethered and going raw, and letting it go anywhere is fine, but I think it would be helpful if you gave me a mission.What's the mission that Nathan Barry's on with the Podcast. Why is he doing these interviews?[00:02:56] Nathan:Oh, that's interesting. Because it's probably different: my mission, versus the audience members' mission.[00:03:05] Andrew:I think you should have a boat together and, but go ahead.[00:03:08] Nathan:I was going to say mine is to meet interesting people. Like that's the thing I found that, podcasts are the pressure from two sides, one as a creator, as an individual online, like I'm not going to set aside the time to be like, you know what, I'm going to meet one interesting person a week and we're just going to have a conversation riff on something like that.Doesn't happen the times that, you know, the years that I didn't do this show, I didn't set aside like deliberate time to do that. And then the other thing is if I were to set aside that time and send out that email, I think a lot of people would be like, I kind of had to have a busy week. I don't know that I've, you know, like yeah, sure.Nathan, whoever you are. I did a Google search. You seem moderately interesting. I'm not sure that I want to get on that.Like a, get to know[00:03:58] Andrew:They wouldn't and it would be awkward. And you're right. The Podcast gives you an excuse. I think you should go higher level with it though. I think you should go deep to the point where you feel vulnerable. I think what you should do is say something like this, isn't it. You have to go into your own into your own mission and say, this is what it is.And just, so let me set the context for why this matters. I think it helps the audience know, but it also helps you get better guests to give better of themselves. I talk in the book about how I was interviewing Greg spirit, Dallas, the guy who created jib, jab, you know, those old viral video, it was a fire video factory that also created apps that allowed you to turn your yourself into like a viral meme that you could then send to your friends.Anyway, he didn't know me. He was incredibly successful. He was, I think, person of the year, a company of the year named by time. He was on the tonight show because he created these videos that had gone viral. And yes. He said yes, because a friend of a friend invited him, but I could see that he was just kind of slouching.He was wearing a baseball cap. It wasn't a good position. And then he said, why are we doing this? And I said, I want to do a story. That's so important. That tells the story of how you built your business. Yes. For my audience. So they see how new businesses are being built online, but let's make it so clear about what you did, that your great grandkids can listen to this.And then they will know how to great grandfather do this and put us in this situation. And that's what I wanted. I wanted for him to create that. And he told me that afterwards, if he had known that that was a mission, he wouldn't have put his hat on. He said that after that, he started thinking about the business in a more in depth way, visualizing his great grandchild.And then later on, he asked me for that recording so that he could have it in his family collection. So the reason I say that is I want us to have a mission. That's that important that yes. You could get somebody to sit in front of the camera because you're telling me you're doing a podcast, frankly.Right. You're with ConvertKit they're going to say yes, but how do you bring the best out of them? And that's it. And so that's why I'm doing this. And so one suggestion for you is to say something like.I'm Nathan, I've been a creator my whole life, but I'm starting from scratch right now with YouTube.I've got 435 people watching YouTube. It's not terrible, but it's clearly not where I want to end up. And so what I've decided to do is instead of saying, I've created the book authority, I wrote it. I'm the one who created software that all these creators are using a ConvertKit. Instead of, instead of allowing myself to have the comfort of all my past successes, I'm going to have the discomfort of saying, I don't know what it's like.And so I'm going to bring on all these people who, because maybe I've got credibility from ConvertKit are going to do interviews with me. And they're going to teach me like Alia doll and others are going to teach me how they became better creators, better business people. I'm going to use it to inform my, my, growth on YouTube.And by the way, You'll all get to follow along. And if you want to follow along and build along with me, this is going to come from an earnest place. Now I've obviously gone. Long-winded cause I'm kind of riffing here, but that's a mission. And now we're watching as you go from four to 500, now we care about your growth.Now there's someone giving you feedback and more importantly, there's someone who then can go back years later and see the breadcrumbs. Even if the whole thing fails and say, you know what?Nathan made it in virtual reality videos. And he's amazing. But look at what he did when YouTube was there. He clearly didn't do it, but he aspired right. I could aspire to, if I don't do it, I'll do it in the next level. That's that's what I'm going for with it. I talk too much sometimes and give people too much, too much feedback. How does that sit with you?[00:07:14] Nathan:I like the idea. I particularly love anytime a creator's going on a journey and inviting people along for it, right. When you're sitting there and giving advice or whatever else, it's just not that compelling to follow it unless there's a destination in mind. So I did that with ConvertKit in the early days of, I said, like I called it the web app challenge said, I'm trying to grow it from zero to 5,000 a month in recurring revenue.Within six months, I'm going to like live blog, the whole thing. people love that another example would be also in the SAS space, but, the company grew, they did a customer support software and they, I think. They were going from 25,000 a month to 500,000 a month was their goal. and they even have like, in their opt-in form, as they blogged and shared all the lessons, it had like a progress bar.You'd see, like MRR was at 40,000,[00:08:08] Andrew:Every time you read a blog post, you see the MRR and the reason that you don't remember what the number was is I believe that they changed it, you know, as they achieve the goal, they, they changed it to show the next goal on their list. And yeah, and you've got to follow along now. Why do I care? The groove, HQ or groove is, is growing a competitor to Zendesk and help scout.But now that I'm following along, I'm kind of invested now that I see how they're writing about their progress. I really do care. And by the way, what is this groove and why is it better than help scout and the others? Yeah. I agree with you. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think in conversations also, it makes a lot of sense.I think a lot of people will come to me and say, Andrew, can I just ask you for some feedback? I'm a student. Can I ask you for support? It's helpful for them to ask, but if they could ground me in the purpose, if you could say to somebody I'm coming to you with these questions, because this is where I'm trying to go, it changes the way that they react.It makes them also feel more on onboard with the mission. I have a sense that there is one, I'm just saying nail it, you know, who does it really good? who does a great job with it is a Jordan harbinger. He starts out his each episode is almost if you're a fan of his, it's almost like enough already. I get that.You're going to do an opt-in in the beginning of the Podcast. I get that. What you're trying to do is show us how to whatever network now and become better people. But it's fine. I'd much rather people say, I know too much about what this mission is. Then I don't.[00:09:26] Nathan:Do you who's afraid anyone else tuning in? What, what is Jordan's mission? What would he say is the mission that[00:09:32] Andrew:It's about, see, that's the other thing I can't actually, even though I've heard it a billion times, he's adjusted it. It's about, self-improvement making me a better person better, man. And so the earnestness of that makes me accept when he brings somebody on who's a little bit too academic who's, Jordan's interested in it or a little bit too practical to the point where it feels like I'm just getting too many tips on how to network and I don't need it, but I've got his sensibility.He's trying to make me a better person. And so I think with interviews, if you, if you give people the, the mission, they'll forgive more, they'll accommodate the largest and it does allow you to have a broader, a broader set of topics.[00:10:14] Nathan:Yeah. I'm thinking about the mission side of it. Like all of that resonates. and I love when an interview is questions are Like are the questions that they specifically want to know? It's not like I went through my list and this seems like a good question to ask instead. It's like, no, no, no, Andrew specifically, I want to know what should I do about, this?And I'll even call that out in a show and be like, look, I don't even care if there's an audience right now. Like this is my list, you know?[00:10:41] Andrew:Yes.[00:10:41] Nathan:But the, like if we dive into the mission, the one that you outlined doesn't quite resonate. And I think the reason. I think about, creators who have already made it in some way.And it starts to lose that earnestness. Like, honestly, I'm not that interested in, in growing a YouTube[00:11:00] Andrew:I don't think that that's I don't think that that's it for you. It's true. That's a little bit too. I don't know. It's it's a little, it's a little too early in the career. There is something there. I don't know what it is and it can't be enough. It can't be enough to say I need to meet interesting people because that's very youth centric and I'm not on a mission to watch you, unless you're really going to go for like the super right.And we're constantly aspiring, inspiring. the other thing it could be as you're running a company, you're trying to understand what's going on. No Kagan did that really well. I actually have the reason that I know this stuff is in order to write the book. I said, I have all my transcripts. I can study all the ways that I've questioned, but I also want to see what other people have done.And so Noah Kagan did this interview with an NPR producer. I had that transcribed to understand what he did and what he learned. One of the things that he did in that, that made that such a compelling interview is. He was a podcaster who wanted to improve his podcasting. And he, I think he even paid the producer to do an interview with him on his podcast so that he could learn from him.Right. And in the process, he's asking serious questions that he's really wondering. He's trying to figure out how to make a show more interesting for himself. Now. Clearly someone like me, who wants to make my Podcast more interesting. I'm like mentally scribbling notes as I'm running, listening to the podcasting.Oh yeah. The rule of three, like what are the three things you're going to show me?Well, yeah, at the end he did summarize it and he did edit. I don't like the edits at all because the edits take away some of the rawness of it and the discomfort which I personally enjoy, but I see now how he's editing it out.And it's, it's interesting to watch that progress.[00:12:32] Nathan:Yeah, I'm thinking through. The different angles that I could take with this. cause I like it and I feel like there's a, a thread that's not quite there. And I felt that on the show. Right. Cause people ask, oh, why are you having this guest on versus that guest? and it is that like, I, I find them interesting.There's also another angle of like probably half the guests maybe are on ConvertKit already. And so I want to highlight that. And then the other half of the guests aren't and I want them on ConvertKit and so that's an, you know, an incredibly easy, I can send you a cold email and be like, Andrew switched to ConvertKit.Right. Or I could be like, Hey, you know, have you on the show, we could talk. and we've gotten great people like in the music space and other areas from just having them on the show and then[00:13:18] Andrew:Can I give you, by the way, I know it's a sidetrack and I give you a great story of someone who did that. Okay. it's not someone that, you know, it's a guy who for years had helped me out. His name is Bob Highler every week he would get on a call with me and give me advice on how to improve the business.And then at one point he said, you know what? I need new clients. I want to start going after people who are, I want to start going after lawyers, helping them with their online ads, because lawyers aren't, aren't doing well enough.He started doing all these marketing campaigns because he's a marketer. And so one of the things he did was he got these cards printed up.He said, they look just like wedding invitations, beautiful. He, he mailed them out to lawyers. He got one, two responses. Like nobody would pay attention to a stranger, even if they were earnest and sending those out. And he goes, you know, and then he gets on a call. He doesn't even know what to say to people.If he just cold calling goes, I'm going to try to do that. And Andrew, I'm going to do an interview show for lawyers. He picked bankruptcy lawyers. He started asking them for interviews. They were all flattered because they also want another good Google hit. Right. And so they said yes to him and he asked them questions.Then I started learning the language. I forget all the different terms that he learned about how, about how they operate. But he said, inevitably at the end, they'll go after it was done. And say, by the way, what are you. And then he'd have a chance to tell them. And because he's built up this rapport and they trust him, they were much more likely to sign them.He signed up his customers, just like that, just like that. It's a, I think it's an, it's an unexplored way of doing it, of, of growing a business, taking an interest in someone, shining a light on them, helping them get that Google hit and helping them tell their story. And then by the way, will you pay attention to the fact that I've got a thing that if you like me, you might like also,[00:14:50] Nathan:So a few years ago, I was in New York and Seth Goden had come out to speak at our conference and he'd ever said, Hey, if you're in New York and want to make the pilgrimage up to Hastings on Hudson, you know, of outside the city, like come up and visit. And so I did that and it's so funny, cause it is like this pilgrimage to you, you like take the train up along the river. You know, I don't know what it is an hour and a half outside of the city. and I was asking Seth advice at his office, about like how to reach more authors. I think that was the question I asked him specifically and he just, he was like, well, what do authors want? And I was like, ah, I, some more books I guess.And he's like, yeah know. And so like we went through a series of questions, but he's basically what he came to was, find a way to get them attention so that they can grow their audience to sell more books. And he was suggesting a podcast is the way to do that. What's interesting is that's the side, like that's the other half of it, right.I want to meet interesting people. I want to, Like get more of those people that I find really interesting on ConvertKit pushed the limits of like, our customer base in, in those areas. And then the third thing is I want to do it in a way that's high leverage in my time. Write of, I want to do it.That creates something, for people watching and listening along so they can follow the journey. But I still don't see,I would say two thirds of that is about me, right?[00:16:18] Andrew:It's not only that, but all these things are byproducts more than they are the clear goal. You're going to get that. No matter what, if you just talk all day about what? No, not talk all day. If you do, what was it? I'm the founder of morning brew does nothing, but like a 15 minute, if that sometimes five minutes.[00:16:37] Nathan:Alex Lieberman.[00:16:38] Andrew:Yeah, just what, what goes on in his life now it's changed over the years or so that he's done it, but it's just, here's what we were thinking about today. Here's how I'm deciding to hire somebody BA done. He's just doing that. That's enough to get attention enough to also broaden his audience enough to bring us in and then so on.So I think if you just did nothing, but get on camera and talk for a bit, you'll get that. But I think a higher leverage thing is to tap into that personal mission and let all the others come through along the way and all the other benefits, meaning that you will get to meet people and change the way you think you will get to get people to switch to convert kit.And so on, by the way, that's such a, like an impressive thing for you to admit, to say, I want to have these guests on because I want to assign them up. I think a lot of people would have those ulterior motives and[00:17:23] Nathan:Oh, no, you got to just talk about, I mean, that's something you and I, for as long as we've known each other have been very, very transparent in both of our separate businesses and our conversations and it's just, everyone wants that. Right? Cause they're like, I think I know why Nathan is doing this, but he wants.And that would be weird, but if we go to the mission side of it, there's mission of like this, I'm going to improve the world side of mission, which definitely exists that can protect you. And I got my little plaque behind me. It says we exist to help creators are living. And so we can take that angle of it, thinking of like the, the goal journey side of things, since we're just riffing on ideas.One way that might be interesting is to make like a top 100 list of the top 100 creators we want on ConvertKit. And the whole podcast is about interviewing those people and reaching them. And, and so it could be like, this is what I'm trying to accomplish. And you're going to learn a whole bunch along the way as a listener, but you, you know, we check in on that.And then another angle that we could take that would be different is the, like we're going together. We're going to help the creator make the best version of their business. And so you make it more of a.We're both peers diving in on your business, riffing on it, you know, how would we improve it? that kind of thing.[00:18:43] Andrew:I think helping creators create a business, seems like something others have done, but not quite your approach, your style, the way that you will go and carve something is this is the thing that's over your head that says create. Is that something you carved in your wood shop? Then I saw on Instagram.Yeah, right. The sensibility of I've got to create it my way. Instead of that's a pain in the ass, I got a business to run who like, right. You're not going to see, for example, infusion soft, go, we need a plaque. Let's go to the wood shop. No, you're not. It's just not their sensibility. Right. Coming from a sensibility of someone who cares about the details, who every button matters in the software, everything behind your shoulder matters to you for yourself, even the stuff I imagine.If you look forward would have a meaning there, it wouldn't be random chaos. Is it random chaos in front of, on the[00:19:32] Nathan:The desk is random chaos, but there's a sign that says the future belongs to creators up there. And[00:19:38] Andrew:Okay. I think I might've even seen that online somewhere. So I think that coming, coming from the business point of view, With a sense of creator's taste, I think is something that would appeal to a lot of people. For whom seeing, for example, my take on business would be completely abhorring. All I care about is where the numbers are and what it's like.Right. Well, even allium doll's take on, it would not be, would not be right, because he's much more about every movement needs to matter. He can't just have a checkbox in notion it Ellis has to fire off five different other things that notion because otherwise you're wasting time. Why type five things when you could type one, right.It's a different sensibility. And I think you've always done really well drawing in that audience. I remember talking to a competitor of yours who started around the same time, also done really well about why you were, you were really growing tremendously faster. and they said he nailed it. He nailed who his audience is.It's the bloggers. It's these early creators who, who didn't have. Who didn't have anyone speaking for them. And you did that. And I think maybe that's an approach to saying, look, we are creators. And the business of creation is, or the business of being a creator is evolving and we want to learn about every part of it.And then it's interesting to hear how somebody growing their audience in an interesting way. How is somebody thinking about writing? I love that you asked Sahil bloom about how long it took him to write. I know he talks about it a bunch, but it's, it's interesting to hear him go with you about how it is like a five hour, seven hour writing job for him, right.To write fricking tweets. He's writing tweets, right? You've got people just firing off the tweet. He's spending five, seven hours on it. And, and he's also not a guy who's just like, right. It would be something if he was still in school playing baseball, and this is his intellectual, whatever. No, he's now running in investments.He's making decisions. He's helping promote his, his portfolio companies and he's spending five hours writing and he's doing it like one a week instead of one an hour. Right. It's all very interesting. And that approach, I think, ties completely well with ConvertKit.[00:21:41] Nathan:Okay. So where does that take us on like the mission or the hook for the show? Cause we're.[00:21:48] Andrew:Okay. Here's what I would do. I would, I would just keep riffing go. My name is Nathan Barry. You probably know me from convert kit. I'm doing this podcast because I like to meet interesting people. And here's the thing I'm trying to do or I'm I I'm doing it because I'm compelled to talk to these people who I admire.And I also want to learn from them about how they create and just riff on it. Like every week, even have every interview have a different one, until you feel like, oh, that's the one that feels just right. But if we just here, I want to have this person on, because I'm trying to learn this thing. I want to have this on because secretly I'm trying to see if I can get him to be at, see if I can get Ryan holiday to actually be on convert kit.Right. Boom. Now, now we're kind of following along as you're figuring it out. And that's also[00:22:29] Nathan:Yeah.[00:22:29] Andrew:The way, is Ryan holiday going to be on here or what?[00:22:31] Nathan:On the show,[00:22:33] Andrew:Yeah.[00:22:34] Nathan:Probably we were just talking the other day. We have a shared investment in a ghost town, So we, we often talk about that,[00:22:40] Andrew:Oh yeah. I've[00:22:42] Nathan:Other thing[00:22:43] Andrew:That ghost town. Oh, that's a whole other thing I've been watching that[00:22:45] Nathan:I need to have speaking of the ghost town, I didn't have Brent Underwood on because that Is an insane story of everything going on with town, but it's just been building this massive audience.[00:22:58] Andrew:Who's doing YouTube videos from there? He[00:23:00] Nathan:Yeah. And he's now got 1.2[00:23:01] Andrew:Yeah,[00:23:02] Nathan:Subscribers on YouTube, like 2 million on[00:23:04] Andrew:I had no idea. I watched him in the early days of the pandemic go into this place by himself. Almost get trapped, driving his car to get there. Right. I go, this is fun content. And usually when you watch someone like that and good morning, America go, and I'm going to jump out of this thing.And I've never jumped before, maybe whatever. I don't know.Yo, the producer's not going to let you die. It's fine. Here you go, dude. Who's just trying to get attention for this thing. Cause he has some investors who he wants to make sure get what they want. Yeah, you could die. What the hell is you doing?What? Like I'm going to, I'm going to go down this hole and see if there's anything over you yet. Dude, you could[00:23:41] Nathan:Yeah. It's, it's pretty wild. I actually, some of the weeks that he don't, he, that he didn't post the videos. I'd like, texted him, be like, Brett, you're still alive because you know, the video was the way that we knew every Friday, like, okay, Good Brent. Still alive, everything. Everything's good. Anyway, I got to have him[00:23:58] Andrew:All right. If you do talk to, if you talk to Ryan holiday, I feel like you totally nailed his writing style, where you, you said in one of your past episodes that he can take a whole historical story, sum it up in two sentences to help clarify the moment that he's writing about. And it's like a toss away thing, right? Just toss it away and then move on and go, dude. That's a whole freaking book. In fact, just turning the whole thing into just two sentences to fit in there would take silo, bloom five hours. You put it in a book with other, like there a bunch of other sentences. So that's good. But here's what I think you should talk to him about.Or here's my, my one suggestion. He has not talked about Marketing since he created, trust me. I'm a lot. Trust me. I'm lying, which was a phenomenal book that then I feel like he distanced himself from when he became more stoic and more intellectual. Fine. He is still a great, great marketer along your style, your tasty.And in fact, he's becoming the people who I can think of that are very, ConvertKit like philosophy in their creation plus promotion. He nails it, right? Art that takes so much pain that you've mentioned, and we've all seen it. He has boxes of index cards to create these sentences that most people would just throw away, not pay attention to, but are super meaningful.And at the same time, he knows how to promote. He knows how to get his ideas out there. He knows how to sell a coin that says you're going to die in Latin, that people put in their pockets that are more than just selling a coin. It's selling this transferable viral, real life thing. Right. So anyway. And is he should be on a ConvertKit too.[00:25:29] Nathan:He is, he is[00:25:30] Andrew:Okay. Good.[00:25:31] Nathan:Half of his list started in Berkeley. The other half are in the process of switching over. So, you know,[00:25:36] Andrew:Okay. Yeah, that's the hard part, dude. I I'm with infusion soft. I can't stand them. If you understand how much I do not like them. I do I ever talk negatively about anyone. No. Bring up politics, Joe Biden, Donald Trump. I got no strong opinion about anything you talked to me about, about infusions. Ah, but the problem is it's so hard to wean yourself off of these things because once you're in a system, that's it[00:25:56] Nathan:Well we'll make it happen. W w we'll figure out a way, but the new book landing page for it, I went on there and inspected element. It's definitely a ConvertKit for them. I was pretty happy about it.[00:26:06] Andrew:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So truthfully it was, I said, I'm not going to school around here. It would have probably been easier for me to go with, with infusion soft because then we all we'd have to do with tag people who were interested. And then I could, I don't want that. I don't want that nonsense because it comes with overhead.That becomes an obstacle to me, communicating with my audience by, by overhead. I mean, they've got historic legacy. Requirement's that mean I can't do anything right. You I'm on my iPad. I could just go in and send a message out. Or actually I haven't sent a message out. Someone else has sent a message out.Our publisher sent a message then from damn, ah, damn gravity. But I, but if someone says there's a problem, I can go in and see it.[00:26:44] Nathan:Right.[00:26:44] Andrew:And make adjustments. The whole thing just fricking works. Right?[00:26:47] Nathan:So I want to talk about the book more. Let's talk[00:26:49] Andrew:Sure.[00:26:50] Nathan:And now I have you here.[00:26:52] Andrew:Ben needs, us to talk about the book. He's the publisher.[00:26:54] Nathan:We'll get to that, then don't worry. Ben, we've got it covered. so you were giving unsolicited feedback, which by the way is my favorite kind of feedback. Okay.So as you've been listening to the show, what are some other things that maybe you recommended the book, maybe like as you set people up for interview questions, any of that advice that you would give beyond?We started with the men.[00:27:15] Andrew:I'm going to suggest that people who listen to you do pay attention to this. One thing that they should, I I'm interrupting you in a roadway now there's some good interruption that I write about in the book and I can tell you how to do it. Right. And I also have to say that there's some new Yorker that's built in, even though I've left New York a long time ago, that I, I always interrupt when we need to get into the bottom line.Okay. Here's one thing that I think people should pay attention with you. You don't just ask questions. You will, at times interject your own story, your own, take your own experience. And I find that a lot of times people either do it in a heavy handed way. It's like, look at me, I'm equal to you. I deserve to be in this conversation too.And that doesn't just happen on Mike. It happens at dinner parties or it's more like I have to be reverential. So I'm asking questions and it's me asking about them. And one of the things that I learned over the years, Getting to know someone interviewing someone, whether it's like you and I are doing in our podcasts and shows or doing it, in a, in a dinner conversation, it's not asking questions.It's not about saying here's my next thing. Here's my next question. It's overwhelming and draining to do that. You do need to say, well, here's me. You do need to sometimes just guide the person to say, now tell me how you wrote the book. Now tell me how long it takes to, to write a tweet, right? Whatever it is, you need to sometimes direct the person.And so I call the book, stop asking questions because that counter intuitive piece of knowledge is something that took me a fricking interview coach to help me accept that. It's true, but it helps. And you do it really well. And here's why you do it. Well, you interject something personal. Somehow you do it succinctly.You don't get rambling off. Maybe you edit that.No, no, because the videos are there. Yeah. It's, it's not edited. It's just you saying here's, here's my experience with this. And then when you come back and you ask something. It informs the guest about where you are and what they could contribute to that. It lets them also feel like this is a dialogue instead of them being pounded with demands of, in the forms of question.[00:29:15] Nathan:Yeah. Yeah. I think that for anyone listening and thinking about starting a podcast, it's really like, what's the kind of thing that you want to listen to. And I like it where the host is like a character in the, in the Podcast, in the episode where they're contributing content and it's not just like, oh, if I listened to Andrew on these 10 shows, I'm just going to get Andrew.Like, I want it where it's like, no, I'm getting the blend between these two people. And the unique things that come from that intersection rather than, you know, I've heard this[00:29:46] Andrew:Yes.[00:29:47] Nathan:I've heard about it.[00:29:48] Andrew:I think also it took me a long time years of, so I started doing this in 2007, give or take a year and I think. No one needs to talk about, I don't need to talk about myself. They don't care about me. They care about, you know, Paul Graham, who I'm interviewing about how he found a Y Combinator, someone.And I would get tons of emails from people saying, tell us who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself. And I would argue with them and say, no, but I understand now on the outside, when I listen, I don't know who you are. And it feels very awkward to hear it. It feels very much like, I don't know why, where you're coming from.And so I don't know why I should listen. It's kinda, it's it's counterintuitive.[00:30:29] Nathan:Yeah. I think it just comes with comfort over time. Like, I, I don't know this for sure. If I bet if I listen back to my first podcast episodes, the ones that I did in like 2015. I have a different style because I bet I'm less comfortable or more worried about like, make sure that I shut up quickly so that the guests can talk more because people came here for the guest and then over time you just get more comfortable.[00:30:53] Andrew:So you wrote authority and I remember you, I remember buying it and I remember you bundled it with a bunch of stuff, right. And oh, by the way, it's so cool. I was listening to it on a run and I heard you mention my name in the, in the book I go, this is great and I'm running. but I remember you did interviews there.I don't remember whether the style matches up to today or what, but you did interviews in it. Right.[00:31:15] Nathan:I did.[00:31:16] Andrew:And what you had there that I think is always important to have with all, all interviews is you had a sense of like, well, the sense of mission, I knew what you were going for, because you were trying to say, here is this book that I've written on this topic.I'm want to bring these people in to bring their, their take on it. We were all kind of working together. And I feel like, when I look at my earlier interviews, I listened to them. The Mike sucks so badly. I was too ponderous. Cause I wanted to be like, IRA glass from, from NPR, from this American life.And you could hear the same rhythm, the same cadence, like I'm copying him. Like I'm his little brother trying to learn how to be like a real boy. but I had this real need. I was trying to figure out how these people were building companies that work to understand what holes I had in my understanding to see what was working for them that I didn't know before.And you could see that and it, it helps. It helped me continue. Even when I was nervous with the guest, it helped the guests know where to go. Even when I wasn't doing good job, guiding them and help the audience keep listening in, even when the audio stopped, because there's this thing that Andrew is trying to understand.And you almost feel like you're the sense of vulnerability. If it doesn't scare you away, then it makes you want to root.[00:32:40] Nathan:Yeah. And I personally love that style because I want to follow someone going on a journey and, and trying to accomplish something specific. But let's talk about the not just the book, but asking questions or in this case, stopping it, stop asking questions. What are the things that not even just specific to this job, what are the things that you listened to interview shows?And you're like, okay, here are the three things that I want to change or that I want to coach you on in the same way that I was coached on.[00:33:10] Andrew:Okay. So what I started to do is I go through my own transcripts. I mean, I had years of transcripts to see what worked and what didn't I already done that. So I said, I need to now add to it. And so I went back and looked at historical interviews, like when Barbara Walters interviewed Richard Nixon and got him so frustrated that he didn't want to ever talk to her again.Or when Oprah finally got to sit with Lance Armstrong, how did she do that? I think. You know, you know, let me pause on, on Oprah and Lance Armstrong. She got to interview him after he, he was basically caught cheating and he was about to come out and do it. Great. Get, I think the fact that she interviewed him, there's a lesson there for, for all of us who are interviewing, interviewing the top 10 interviews, I think of all time.And you go back to Wikipedia and look it up. You see art or interview podcast or interview, sorry, our news-based interviews. We as podcasters, keep thinking, how do I get enough in the can so that if I die tomorrow, there's enough interviews to last for a month or whatever, so that I can be consistent in the audience loved me.That's great. But I think we should also be open to what's going on in the world today. Let's go talk to that person today. If there's an artist who suddenly done something, we should go and ask to do an interview with them. If there's a creator, if there's someone. So for me, one of the top interviews that people still it's been years, people still come back and talk to me about is when Matt Mullenweg decided that he was gonna pull out Chris[00:34:35] Nathan:Pearson.[00:34:35] Andrew:Per Pearson.Pearson's, themes from WordPress. And I got to talk to both of them at the same time and I published it and it went all over the internet with all over the WordPress internet. So hundreds of different blog posts about it, eventually all the people in the WordPress world write a lot of blogs, but also it became news.And so we don't do enough of that.[00:34:57] Nathan:I remember that interview because I was in the WordPress community at that time. And I remember you saying like, wait, I'm in Skype and I have both of you in two different things and you pull it together and not to pull Ryan holiday into this too much, but that's where he ended up writing the book.Was it, he realized he was one of the only people who was talking to like both Peter teal and, who's the Gawker guy.Yeah. Anyway, people know, but, but being in the intersection of that, so you're saying find something that's relevant on the news[00:35:33] Andrew:Yeah. Nick Denton was the founder of Gawker. Yes. Find the things that are relevant right now. And when people are hot right now, and they know you and you have credibility in this space, they trust you more than they trust. Say the wall street journal, even right, where they don't know where's this going.I think that's, that's one thing. The other thing is I think we don't have enough of a story within interviews. If we're doing S if we're doing at Mixergy, my podcast and interview where we're telling someone's story, we want them to be somewhere where the audience is at the beginning and then to have done something or had something happen to them that sets them on their own little journey.And then we make this whole interview into this. Into this a hero's journey approach. So I think better when I have an actual company in mind, so, or a person in mind. So last week I was interviewing this guy, Rohit Rowan was a person who was working at SanDisk, had everything going right for him. His boss comes to him and says it, you're now a director, continue your work.But now more responsibilities he's elated. He goes back, home, comes back into the office. Things are good, does work. And then a couple of days later he's told, you know, we mean temporarily, right? And he goes, what do you mean? I thought I got, I got a promotion. No, this is temporary. While our director's out you're director of this department.And then you go back, he says, the very next day, he couldn't go back into the office. He sat in his car, just, he couldn't do it anymore. And so he decided at that point, he'd heard enough about entrepreneurship heard enough ideas. He had to go off on and do it himself. And so we did. And then through the successes and failures, we now have a story about someone who's doing something that we can relate to, that we aspire to be more.[00:37:13] Nathan:So, how do you, you, your researchers, how do you find that moment before you have someone on? Because so many people will be like, yes, let me tell you about my business today. And oh, you want to know about that? How'd, you know, you know, like, as you,[00:37:27] Andrew:Yeah,[00:37:28] Nathan:That hook in that moment? That actually is a catalyst in their own dream.[00:37:33] Andrew:It's tough. It's it takes hours of talking to the guest of, of looking online of hunting for that moment. And it takes a lot of acceptance when it doesn't happen. One of my interview coaches said, Andrew, be careful of not looking for the Batman moment. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, you're always looking for the one moment that changed everything in people's lives.Like when Batman's parents got shot. And from there, he went from being a regular boy to being a superhero. Who's going to cry, fight crime everywhere. His life doesn't really work that way. There aren't these one moments, usually the change, everything. So I try not to. Put too much pressure on any one moment, but there are these little moments that indicate a bigger thing that happened to us.And I look for those and I allow people to tell that without having it be the one and only thing that happened. So if Pharaoh, it, it wasn't that moment. It could've just been, you know what, every day I go into the office and things are boring. And I think I have to stop. What I look for is give me an example of a boring.Now he can tell me about a day, a day, where he's sitting at his desk and all he's doing is looking at his watch, looking at his watch and he has to take his watch, put it in his drawer so that he doesn't get too distracted by looking at his watch all day. Cause he hates it. Now was that the one moment that changed everything?It was one of many moments. It might've happened a year before he quit, but it's an indication. So when we're telling stories, we don't have to shove too much pressure into one moment, but I do think it helps to find that one moment that encapsulates their, why, why did they go on this journey? Why does someone who's in SanDisk decide he's going to be an entrepreneur?Why did someone who was a baseball player decide that he had to go and write a blog post? Why is it? What's the thing that then sends them off on this journey? It helps. And I would even say, if you can get that moment, it just helps to get the thing that they were doing before that we can relate to. So what's the thing that they did before.So anyway, we have two different types of interviews. One is the story-based interview where we tell a story of how someone achieved something great. And so that hero's journey is and approach. The other one is someone just wants to teach them. All you want to do is just pound into them for an hour. Give me another tip another tip another tip of how to do this.Like pound, pound, pound, pound pound. If you want the audience to listen. I think for there, it helps to have what I call the cult hook because I said, how do I, how do cults get people to listen to, to these people who are clearly whack jobs sometimes. And so studying one called I saw that what they did was they'd have a person up on stage who talked about how, you know, I used to really be a Boozer.If you came into my house, you would see that there'd be these empty six packs. I was so proud of leaving the empty six packs everywhere to show myself how much alcohol I can drink. My wife left me. And when she left me, she just told me that I hadn't amounted to anything in my life. And I was going nowhere.And I just said, get I here. Instead of appreciating that this was just like terrible. And I ran out of toilet paper and don't even get me started with what, what I did for that. And so you see someone who's worry worse off than you are on this path of life. And then something has. They discover whoever it is.That's the cult leader. And they say, now I've got this real estate firm I encouraged by, oh, by the way, all of you to come over and take a look at that at this, I couldn't believe it. My whole life. I wanted to buy a Tesla. I now have the Tesla S it's amazing. It's just so great. And I did it all because I changed the way I thought once I came in and I found this one book and the book told me, I mean, anyways, so what we try to do is we say, if you're going to have somebody come on to teach how they became a better blogger, let's not have them start over elevated where everything they do is so great that we can't relate, have them start off either relatable or worse.I couldn't write here's my grammar, mistakes. My teacher told. Right. And now what's the thing that they did. They pick them from where they were to where they are today. it's this real set of realizations. Now I want to go into that.Let's pound into them and see how many of those tips we can get. Let's learn that I want to go from where he was to where he is.[00:41:28] Nathan:Yeah, I liked that a lot. Cause my inclination would be like, okay, we're we're doing the, educational, tactical conversation. I'm going to facilitate it. Let's dive right in and let's get to the actionable stuff right away. So I like what you're saying of like, no, no, no. We need to, even though this is going to be 90% packed, full of actionable material, we need to dive in and set the stage first with the story and making it relatable.And I like it.[00:41:55] Andrew:Yeah,[00:41:55] Nathan:Oh, yeah. I was just, just in my own head for a second. Cause I say, ah, that makes sense a lot, so much so that I've had three different guests or listeners email me and say like, just don't say that makes sense as much would, now that I'm saying it on the show, I'll probably get more emails every time that I say it.Cause that's like my processing, like, oh, oh, that makes sense. As I'm thinking of the next question and all that, so[00:42:22] Andrew:I do something like that too. For me. It's IC,[00:42:25] Nathan:Everyone has to have something.[00:42:26] Andrew:I can't get rid of that and yeah.[00:42:28] Nathan:So what systems have you put in place on the research side so that you're getting this, are you doing pre-interviews forever? Yes. Are you having your[00:42:38] Andrew:Almost every single one, some of the best people in some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet, I'm surprised that they will spend an hour or do a pre-interview. And sometimes I'm too sheepish to say, I need an hour of your time and I need you to do a pre-interview. So instead of saying, I need you to do a pre-interview.I say, here's why people have done it. And I've paid for somebody to help make my guests better storytellers of their own stories. And truthfully people will go through that. Pre-interview even if they don't want to do an interview, they just need to get better at telling their story for their teams, their employees, their everyone.Right. and so I say that, and then they will take me up on the pre-interview and say, yes, I do want to do the pre-interview. and so what I try to do is I try to outline the story. Ahead of time in a set of questions. And then what we do is we scramble them up a little bit based on what we think people will tell us first and what will make them feel a little more comfortable.And then throughout the interview, I'll adjust it. So for example, no, one's going to care about the guest unless they have a challenge. No guest wants to come on and say, I'm going to tell you about what's what I really suck at or where I've really been challenged. If they do, they're going to give you a fake made up thing that they've told a million times to make themselves seem humble.So we don't ask that in the beginning. We don't even ask it in the middle. We save it till the very end. Now they've gotten some time with us. They've gotten some rapport, they trust us. Then we go into tell me about the challenges, what hasn't worked out for you. And we really let them know why tell people the higher purpose you want the audience to relate.You want them to believe you. You want them to see themselves in you, and to learn from you. We need. They tell us, and then I have it in my notes as the last section, but I use it throughout the interview. I sprinkle it. So the goal is to get the pieces that we want and in whatever order makes the most sense and then reshape it for the interview Day.[00:44:33] Nathan:So on the interview itself, you would, you would flip that and you know, okay, this is what I want to start with and, and dive in right[00:44:41] Andrew:Yup. Yup.[00:44:43] Nathan:Lose. They already told you about that. And so now, you[00:44:46] Andrew:Right,[00:44:46] Nathan:In and start with.[00:44:47] Andrew:Right. That helps. Now, if there's something I want to ask someone about that they're not comfortable with. One thing that I do is I, I tip them off. So Jason Calacanis invited me to go do, interviews with, with investors at one of his conferences. It was just a bunch of, investors. And I looked at this one guy, Jonathan tryst, and he looked really great.But he, what am I supposed to do? Ask him about what startups should do to run their businesses. He's never run a startup. His, he hadn't at that time had a successful exit. As far as I knew, like mega successful exit. He's just a really nice guy. You can tell he was going places, but that's it. And the money that he was investing came from his parents.So what is this rich parents giving their kids some money. Now he's going to tell everyone in the VC, in the startup and VC audience, how to live their lives. So I said, I'm either not going to address it, which I think most people are, or I have to find a way to address it where I'm not going to piss them off and have them just clam up on me and then go to Jason and go.This guy just is a terrible interviewer, which is not true. So what I decided to do was tip him off. I said, look, Jonathan, before we do this, before we start talking to the audience, I have to tell you, I saw it, that you don't have much of a track record as an investor. Your money came from your parents and you're not like a tech startup, like people here.If we don't talk about it, people who know it are going to think, oh, this guy, Jonathan, look, who's trying to pass him soft self off. I don't have to force it in here, but if you allow me to, I'd like to bring it up and let's talk about, and it goes, yeah, absolutely. If it's out there, I want to make sure that we address it and sure enough, we talked about it and he had a great answer.He said, no, this came from my parents. It's not my own money. I don't have as much experience as other people, but I took my parents' money. I invested it, fat parents and family and so on. We've had a good track record with it. And now have raised the second Fallon fund from outsiders who saw what I was able to do with the first one.And by the way, I may not have this mega exit as a startup investor, as a startup entrepreneur. But I did have this company that did okay. Not great. Here's what it did Here's what I learned And that's all informing me. And that's where I come from now. You've got someone talking about the, the, the thing that matters without pissing them off so much that they don't say anything else.And you feel like you feel superior as an interviewer. I got them. But in reality, you got nothing[00:46:57] Nathan:Right.[00:46:57] Andrew:Cares.[00:46:58] Nathan:I think that's a really hard line of talking about the things that are difficult and like the actual, maybe things that someone did wrong or lessons that they learned without just like barely dipping into it for a second. And I liked the format of tipping them off in like full transparency.So on this show, I had someone on who I really, really respect his name's Dickie Bush. He's one of the earlier episodes in this series and in it, he, okay. Yeah. So in that interview, one thing that I knew is that his, the first version of his course plagiarized text from another friend, Sean McCabe, actually Shaun's company edits is Podcast and all that.And I've known both of them for, for quite a while. I've known Sean for like, I dunno, six, seven years or something. And I was like, struggling with how to bring that up. And I wanted from the like founder, transparent journey, that sort of thing I wanted it brought up because I, I actually like, I'm happy to talk about like some pretty major things that I've screwed up and what I've learned from it.And I just think it makes a better conversation. And then from the interview side, I don't feel good, like doing an interview and not touching on that, but I didn't tip Dickey off to it. And I, that was one of the things that I've regretted that he gave a great answer. He talked about the lessons that he learned from it.It was really, really good, but I felt bad that I didn't set him up for the most success in like in setting up. And part of that, part of it is because even at the start of the interview, I was still wrestling with now, I'm not going to bring that up that, ah, maybe I should, it wouldn't be an authentic interview if I didn't like wrestling with that, I hadn't figured out my own, like made my own decision until we were in the middle of it.And so I didn't, I didn't set anybody up for success. And so it's an interesting line.[00:48:52] Andrew:It happens. And it seems like I'm now in the point of your transcript, where you, where you ask him, it's a 31 minutes into the interview. I think his response is great. He came in and he took responsibility for it. He says, yeah, that, that, that was a dramatic mistake, or a drastic mistake on my side and caught up in it.He wasn't the most articulate here and he'd repeated words. Like I, I, a couple of times, so I could see that he probably was uncomfortable with it. but I think his answer was great. I think, I believe that we all are broadcasting out, whether we know it or not, our intentions and where we're coming from, as some people are really good at faking it.And so I'm not going to talk about the outliers and some people are so uncomfortable that they're messing up the transmission, but for the most part almost. broadcasting our intentions. If you walk into that, Nathan, with the, I got to get him because he, he got one of my friends and I need him to finally get his comeuppance.He's going to pick up on that. And truthfully, it's such a small thing for a person like you who's, who's already a likable person. You have a lot to offer people, right? As far as like promotion and everything else, it will be forgiven, but it'll be picked up on, it's also something that people could pick up on, which is Nathan really want to know this thing.It's been bothering him for a while. And if you could, just, before you asked the question, say, where am I coming from with this? And know that the audience will mostly pick up on it. And obviously people are gonna like read in whatever they feel like, but trust that the vast majority of us understand, I think it'll work[00:50:21] Nathan:Yeah,[00:50:22] Andrew:You don't have to even tip. You don't have to tip off, but it does help. It, it definitely helps.[00:50:26] Nathan:It's interesting. I was watching an interview with, Jordan Peterson who wrote 12 rules for life. He's like a very controversial figure. And I was just often these controversies pass by, on Twitter and other places. And I realized like, oh, I don't understand them. And rather than jumping on one side or the other, at least try to like dive in a little bit and understand it.So watching this interview, and I can't remember, I think it was some major Canadian TV show or something, and that you would tell the interview was just trying to nail him it every possible chance, like whatever he said, just like dive in. And, so I think you're right, that you see the intention, like in that case, you would see the, the interview, his intention was specifically to try to trip him up in his words.And then in other cases where it's like, This is something that, you know, if you take the other approach, this is something that's been bothering me, or I want to talk about it. Like I genuinely want, you know, to ask or learn from this. It's a very different thing.[00:51:20] Andrew:I think people pick up on it. I remember you, you mentioned Seth Godin. I remember interviewing him when he wrote the book tribes back before people had online communities. And I didn't just say, okay. All our heroes, all the best entrepreneurs just run their businesses. Then don't run a tribe. I brought out books.I said, here's a book about Warren buffet. Here's the book by Sam Walton. The Walmart here's a book by Ted Turner became a multi-billionaire to creating all these, these media empires didn't have communities. They don't have tribes. And now you're telling me that in addition to my job, I also have to go and build out a tribe.It feels like, you know, an extra job. That just seems right for the social first. This just sounds right on social media and you could actually see. He's watching me as I'm saying it, and he's smiling, he's watching it because he's trying to read me, is this like what I get wrapped up? Is this going to be some kind of thing where some guy's going to try to be in the next Gawker media?Or is, is this a safe place? We're all doing that constantly. And then he also saw, okay, this is someone who really wants to understand this. And he's challenging me. I like a challenge. And you could see him smile with like, this is what I'm here for. And so I think when you come at it from a good point of view, people can see it and then you can go there and you can go there and you can go there and it will be shocking to you and them and the audience, how far you go. But when you're coming from that genuine place, they get, they get it.They want it.[00:52:44] Nathan:Yeah, that's good.I want to talk about longevity in like the online world. I think that so many people that I started following in say 2007, 2008, nine, and then I didn't start creating myself until 2011. most of them aren't around anymore. Like a lot of the big blogs, Yeah, just so many that I can think of.They're not around anymore. They're not doing this. You're at a point where like you started messaging in some form in what? 20, sorry, 2004 to somewhere in there and then interviews.[00:53:17] Andrew:Yeah, I keep saying 16. It's like, yeah. 2004 is when I started the interview started 2007 ish somewhere there. Give or take a year. yeah, long. I, I will say that there are parts of my work that I am burned out on right now. This year has been that, but I'm not on the interview. And the reason I'm not is because I do enjoy conversations.I hated them for a long time in my life because I just didn't know how to have them, how to have it make sense. I also didn't give myself permission to take the conversation where I wanted it to go. And it helps now to say, I can talk to anyone about anything. That's an opportunity that, that feels fun because I know how to do it.It's an opportunity to, it feels like, like, you know how everyone's so happy. You can go to YouTube and you could get the answer to anything. Well, I could go to anybody and I could get the answer to anything and talk about how they didn't have a customized to me, YouTube, not customized thing to me, I'm watching Gotham chess on YouTube.He's teaching me how to play chess, but he will not customize to the fact that every time I get into a car con defense, all the pieces like bunched over to my side. But if he and I did an interview, or if I do an interview with an tomorrow's entrepreneur, it's going to be about, here's the thing I'm trying to deal with.How did you get past that? Talk to me about what you're up to there.[00:54:31] Nathan:Yeah, that's definitely energizing. Okay. But what are the things that you're burnt out on? Because I think a lot of people are seeing that burnout. And so I guess first, what are you burned out on? And then second, we can go from there into like, what are you changing and how are you managing.[00:54:46] Andrew:I'm burned out on parts of the business behind, behind Mixergy I'm burned out on. I was aspiring to like unbelievable greatness with the, with the course part of it, with the courses, it didn't get there and I'm tired of trying to make it into this thing. That's going to be super big. I'm tired of that.[00:55:10] Nathan:His greatness there, like linda.com? Like what, what was that?[00:55:15] Andrew:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. She was one of my first interviewees and, and so yeah, I saw the model there and I am frustrated that I didn't get to that and I, I don't have a beat myself up type a perso

Welcome to Hardware Addicts, a proud member of the Destination Linux Network. Hardware Addicts is the podcast that focuses on the physical components that powers our technology world. In this episode, we're going to discuss Apple's Macbook Pro line-up and we have a lot to say. So many rumors, exaggerations and also some really impressive tech. We're going to uncover it all here on this episode. Then we head to camera corner where Wendy will discuss the Panasonic 20 Year Anniversary and a hyped camera with a big problem. So Sit back, Relax, and Plug In because Hardware Addicts Starts Now! Tech Discussed: - Acer Nitro XZ342CK Pbmiiphx 34" 1500R Curved WQHD https://amzn.to/2ZE4lS2 - Magneto's Endoscope https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PBF6DX5/ref=ppxyodtbasintitleo01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 - Lenovo Tab P11 Pro https://amzn.to/3GPkrJN

Canary Cry News Talk #405 - 11.01.2021  SILICON CURTAIN: Elon's Reset, Harai's Humanity, Global Minimum Tax, CERN's Beauty Quarks - CCNT 405 WEBSITE/SHOW NOTES: CanaryCryNewsTalk.com LINKTREE: CanaryCry.Party SUPPORT: CanaryCryRadio.com/Support MEET UPS: CanaryCryMeetUps.com ravel Podcast (Basil's other podcast) Facelikethesun Resurrection (Gonz' new YouTube channel) Truther Dating experiment   INTRO Gonz metaverse exit strategy idea Clip: Dressed as Joker, Halloween Stabbing and fire on Japanese train [arrested, smoking cig] #PoopyPantsBiden goes viral after rumors from Vatican   FLIPPY UPDATE Automated robotic arm is photo booth that draws your portrait (Yanko Design)   METAVERSE/GREAT RESET Elon econ power move vs UN, willing to pay billions for hunger (DailyMail) Meta means “dead” in Hebrew (Times of Israel) [meta or metah in hebrew] Note: Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, says Facebook Meta is not good for humanity (Insider)   TRANSHUMAN dissident prophet Clips: Yuval Harari on future of Human Race, 60 Minutes (CBS) Note: This is Daniel 7:5 prophecies   COVID19/I AM WACCINE 9,000 NYC workers on leave as mandate takes effect (US News) Psaki tests positive, FDA delays Moderna for adolescents, and other stuff going on (USA Today) University of Arizona wearable tattoo that detects diseases   BREAK 1: Executive Producers, Paypal, Patrons   NEW WORLD ORDER (COP26) Time Mag cover breakdown Clip: UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa, we need Trillions (6:30) Clip: 15% Global minimum tax on Multinational companies presented Clip: Trudeau on phasing out oil  Harry Legs Clip: Biden on what Russia, China, SR is not doing for climate change   SHILLZILLA Chris Shillzilla ANALYSIS “Lets Go Brandon!”   POLYTICK Clip: Kamala fails to pump up crowd, embarrassing  Clip: ISIS terror threat in North Virginia Anti-trump group takes credit for tiki torch stunt (WTOP News)   BREAK 2: Art, Reviews, Jingles, Meet Ups   BEAST SYSTEM Meet homo bodensis (The Globe and Mail) CERN: Discovery of “beauty quarks”   ADDITIONAL STORIES: Clip: Prosthetic silicon arm controlled by the mind (Seeker) Bill turns 66, hangs with Bezos (Insider) Digital humans in the Metaverse (Futurism) Meet the folks trying to take over crypto (NY Times) Apple needs Great Reset after poor Q3 (Seeking Alpha) Climate Change could destroy pacific islands (LA Times) COP26 launches, “Last, best hope” (AP) FDA reviewing myocarditis in adolescents for Moderna (NY Times) 3D printing robots are on the rise (WFMZ) Barclay's CEO resigns after Epstein ties (Zero Hedge) New study shows trust in media is in “free fall” (Reclaim the Net) Clip: Boston Dynamics video of robot Mick Jagger  Tonga lockdown after first ever Covid case (1News) Water is next target for Net Zero (NBC)   PRODUCER'S 405: Aaron J** Mary C* Jenaffer B, SpearsDesert, Finn M, Erin F, 57 Chevy Girl, Morv, Heatheruss, Child of God,  Amanda R, JC, Sir Sammon Knight of the Fishes, Mrs. Elliot, Gail M, Sir Casey the Shield Knight, Scott K, Veronica D, DrWhoDunDat, Brandt W, Ciara, Runksmash, Karla, Amanda, Jennifer A   TIMESTAMPS: Jade Bouncerson   JINGLES: Alex G Men without Tin Foil Hats   ART: Dame Allie of the Skillet Nation Sir Dove, Knight of Rustbeltia Ryan N   MICRO FICTION: Runksmash - BASIL and NFG return to 2024 to find it as distopian as ever, but they notice a Wanted poster with a picture of them offering a 2000 inu reward for the capture of these robots. Incensed NFG exclaims “I'm not a robot, I was made in the metaverse!”

Canary Cry News Talk #405 - 11.01.2021  SILICON CURTAIN: Elon's Reset, Harai's Humanity, Global Minimum Tax, CERN's Beauty Quarks - CCNT 405 WEBSITE/SHOW NOTES: CanaryCryNewsTalk.com LINKTREE: CanaryCry.Party SUPPORT: CanaryCryRadio.com/Support MEET UPS: CanaryCryMeetUps.com ravel Podcast (Basil's other podcast) Facelikethesun Resurrection (Gonz' new YouTube channel) Truther Dating experiment   INTRO Gonz metaverse exit strategy idea Clip: Dressed as Joker, Halloween Stabbing and fire on Japanese train [arrested, smoking cig] #PoopyPantsBiden goes viral after rumors from Vatican   FLIPPY UPDATE Automated robotic arm is photo booth that draws your portrait (Yanko Design)   METAVERSE/GREAT RESET Elon econ power move vs UN, willing to pay billions for hunger (DailyMail) Meta means “dead” in Hebrew (Times of Israel) [meta or metah in hebrew] Note: Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, says Facebook Meta is not good for humanity (Insider)   TRANSHUMAN dissident prophet Clips: Yuval Harari on future of Human Race, 60 Minutes (CBS) Note: This is Daniel 7:5 prophecies   COVID19/I AM WACCINE 9,000 NYC workers on leave as mandate takes effect (US News) Psaki tests positive, FDA delays Moderna for adolescents, and other stuff going on (USA Today) University of Arizona wearable tattoo that detects diseases   BREAK 1: Executive Producers, Paypal, Patrons   NEW WORLD ORDER (COP26) Time Mag cover breakdown Clip: UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa, we need Trillions (6:30) Clip: