SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, it is Friday and you know what that means. Settle in, get yourself a happy hour cocktail because it's a variety show and it's a thick boy. First up though, we are trying because

SPEAKER_01: we have so much great content today. We're trying a new format. Let us know what you think. Rapid

SPEAKER_03: fire news. Yes, it's five for five Fridays, everybody. Five for five on a Friday. That's my Z100 radio voice. Molly and I are going to run through five awesome stories, five topics and

SPEAKER_07: the five minutes each and we'll see five times five is 25. Can we do it? You'll find out

SPEAKER_09: next. We talk about Rivian, Nicola, Fisker, NFTs crashing, the creator economy surging, a little

SPEAKER_10: Taylor Lorenz dunking, Biden's crypto executive order, Freedom and Molly's favorite, her crush

SPEAKER_12: on the new Peloton CEO. I do. I love him. I got a man crush. It is Taylor Lorenz shout out

SPEAKER_14: day, not dunk day enough of that. She's dunking on other people. Oh yeah. Yeah. She's totally

SPEAKER_13: dunking with her awesomeness. Yes. There you go. Then I talked to Jay Malik of countdown capital for angel season six, a guy right up my alley with his investment thesis. Absolutely.

David Friedberg: And finally, producer Rachel with another edition of okay boomer. It's a long interview. She jumped the fence on this one. She's going long. I think she's coming for us. Molly. I know.

SPEAKER_21: Look out, but I think it's worth it and it's going to be a great show. Stick with us.

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SPEAKER_25: Hey everybody. It's Friday. We've got too much show for you. We do news. We do interviews. And then we got Rachel reporting. She jumped the fence. She decided I'm going to start doing

SPEAKER_27: long form interviews. Okay. I can't control the show anymore. I've totally lost the script. So we're, we're getting into the two hour shows, but we got so much news, Molly heading into the

SPEAKER_28: weekend that you want to comment on. I want to comment on this docket is insane.

SPEAKER_00: It's loaded. So we are, we're trying a new format, aren't we? We're trying to do like a lightning round where we're putting producers in charge of shutting our faces after a certain amount of time. This is, this appeals to me in the radio way, which is like, we've got five minutes per segment tops. So here we go. Here we go. First scoop. Taylor Lorenz has been at the Washington post five minutes and already has this freaking fascinating scoop today about how on Thursday, we're recording this Friday, the 30 top Tik Tokers were hosted by press secretary Jen Psaki on a zoom call to receive

SPEAKER_38: information about the war in Ukraine. That is extraordinary. Mm hmm. Congrats to tell Lorenz.

SPEAKER_27: Uh, I, I know she's been getting in a lot of back and forth. Um, there was some article in between her New York times and then she took a book break, friend of the show tell her rents. We'll have her on again. She did a great appearance. We had a great back and forth. Um, and then, uh, she's at the Washington post, but before she went there, it was, I don't know if you saw the whole brouhaha where she's like, New York times doesn't let you build a brand. True. Uh, and not that you would have an experience in this. So that was kind of interesting. And then her Washington post future colleagues then proceeded to have a dunk fest on her. What? Yeah. You didn't see this. I didn't see that part. It was pretty controversial. And then, then, then that created a second media cycle of New York magazine and everybody else saying, here's all the best dunks on Taylor rents. Cause she said, listen, you, if you're a, a journalist now, you gotta build a brand. I tell you what, she's right. She's absolutely right. She's a hundred percent right. But these old school journalists are like, we're reporters.

SPEAKER_13: So there's she's also absolutely right about the New York times, letting some people build brands and

SPEAKER_00: not everyone. And it's the picking and choosing and gatekeeping. That is the mess. However, here she is with the scoop about, because one of the things that she, I think has struggled with is the New York Times respecting her actual beat for one thing. Right. And then this idea of like, is this beat important? Is the creator economy important? Is what these crazy kids are doing on tick tock really matter? Well, okay. It turns out that among other things, yes, we have all realized in the past five or six years that information warfare is a thing that the information people see in particularly young people see is incredibly important. And that in fact, tick tock is a place that young people are going for information. And so I think it's actually very smart and progressive, and they must have some people

SPEAKER_44: under 165 years old in the white house who were like, we need to talk to prominent tick tockers so that they can, you know, get our message out. Congratulations for Taylor for getting the

SPEAKER_47: story. Number one, incredible scoop. So for all the, you know, say rumors, she got on her, you didn't

SPEAKER_27: get this story and she did. So she just came in and literally hit a half court shot or dunked on your all asses. So I think you got to bow down to the queen here. She came in there and set the tone. The zoom call covered the US's goals in the Ukraine and answer questions covering distributing aid, working with NATO and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons. This is important work because young people are getting their information from tick tock, from podcasts. And this is what this administration and the democratic party and our government needs to do. There are a bunch of people out there talking and communicating. They become influencers, dare I say, they should do this with podcasters, not when we're informed, but I do think if, I don't know, two or three years ago, the democratic party had sat down with Joe Rogan, who is voting for Bernie Sanders and who it, you know, thinks Michelle Obama should run for president.

SPEAKER_07: He is a lifelong Democrat who is the most left leaning guy. They should have sat him down and said, here's what is happening with COVID. Can we give you the latest information? Can we give you inside information and do that with 20 podcasters? You know, the ones on the right, the left, you can bring Ben Shapiro into this, whoever, like, and just say, if you want, we'll brief you and bring them into the tent. So you're all on the same side. I give the Biden administration, incredible credit. I give Taylor Lorenz incredible credit for getting the story. A plus on both. A plus on both.

SPEAKER_52: Completely agree. And to those wondering, you know, off the, off the top of their heads,

SPEAKER_13: if this is government sponsored propaganda on tick tock. Yep. And the reason it's there is to counter the spread of misinformation. That's government sponsored propaganda on tick tock. So like,

SPEAKER_00: there's nothing wrong with having an honest conversation with people about what you would like them to take away, right? We do that when we meet with companies, with founders, with PR people, like, this is an incredible, to engage Gen Z at this level and not act like this doesn't matter, is a super pro move.

SPEAKER_27: But, but let's be clear. Propaganda is when, you know, it's bias or misleading. Yes. So this is pure information. So it's information. So that hopefully you can un-propaganda the misinformation. Um, I don't think we're trying to give them bad information, right, Molly? Um, we're trying to win an information war against people with propaganda.

SPEAKER_13: Right. And look, I, I, we can't debate the semantics for one thing. We only have 20 seconds left of what is or is not propaganda, but if somebody is saying one thing, you should

SPEAKER_01: counter it with more information. That's just simple.

David Friedberg: Bingo. Yeah. All right. Next story as we move along here. And if you're watching this on youtube.com says this weekend, you will see a nice infographic. Rivian stock is down 79% of its peak as of noon

SPEAKER_27: Easter on Friday. And its valuation has compressed from a high of $150 billion down to $35 billion after cutting its 2022 production forecast in half. Molly, you want to give us a couple more numbers

SPEAKER_44: for sure. Uh, yeah, there are so many, let's see a Q4 results. You said $55 million in 2021 revenue,

SPEAKER_00: uh, negative gross profit of $383 million from selling and delivering about 900 vehicles in 2021. Uh, they produced about 1400 vehicles so far in 2022. That's as of March 8th. I can't imagine they've produced many more since then. Uh, as we're recording this on the 11th, they produced about a thousand cars in 2021 and they have, ouch 83,000 pre-orders. So that's like if a restaurant's orders are real

SPEAKER_61: backed up. Yeah. Yeah. They're in the weeds, as we say in the weeds. Oh yeah, exactly. The pre-orders

SPEAKER_36: by the way, did include a fully refundable thousand dollar deposit. So even if Rivian is treating that as a little bit of a revenue, it's not very, it's not very much. All right. You guys know my position on

SPEAKER_67: this nonsense. I, I called it out early on. I said on episode 55 of all in, listen, Rivian's worth 20

SPEAKER_27: billion. And I came to that calculation because it's 17 billion in cash. So I put the enterprise value at 3 billion. 3 billion is amazing. That's a unicorn. If I invested in a company and it became worth 3 billion, I'd be stoked. 150 billion was a pipe dream. It was nonsense. Uh, right now, Rivian's trading at 35 billion and they have about 18 billion in cash. Um, and I'm sure how they get that little bit of extra cash. I will say a thousand dollar deposit to me is meaningful. I think anything over $500. Oh, for sure. You know, somebody's got to think about that. Put it on their credit card. It's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. So I give them a lot of credit for that. I give them a lot of credit for the product. I give them a lot of credit for making a product that I think is pretty compelling. You

SPEAKER_07: know, it's got a lot of cool features and obviously people really want it. Good looking truck. Good looking truck. Uh, and you know, $67,000 is not cheap, but you know, those trucks, you know, the high end trucks go for even more than that, like an F-150 if you're getting there. But reality wise, if they're, you know, only producing 700 cars a month, like maybe we can give them credit for 10 or 15 this year, I would be shocked if they had 25 K I will put their deliveries, the over under

SPEAKER_71: at 17,000. Uh, this is a train wreck because of the valuation and it's a lesson to everybody. When the market goes out, everything comes back down to performance, not promise. And you should not give

SPEAKER_17: this much credit to any company. You have to look at the fundamentals of public companies. If you're betting on momentum, you are going to lose all your money. And there are bag holders here, which

SPEAKER_71: are the public who bought some pipe dream. This company will not be worth 150 billion, uh, ever again is my prediction. If it does become worth 150, it would be between 10 and 15 years from now, maybe 15 years from now, it's going to take a long time. The stock's going to go down to 20 billion is my prediction, maybe 25 billion, uh, in the coming months. It's a disaster.

SPEAKER_00: I'm looking up Ami Amazon's investment because the other thing I wonder is, you know, at what point, so they, Amazon has a 20% stake in Rivian. Um, hopefully Amazon is not sitting there waiting.

SPEAKER_13: This is a bit of a side note, but I hope that Amazon is not just sitting there waiting for Rivian to produce trucks so that it can convert its fleet. Like, please go ahead and buy other

SPEAKER_09: electric vehicles in the interim hybrids or high gas mileage, like whatever you got to do, right. You know, but I think that they have this investment, but you got to dovetail this with Trevor Milton's, uh, episode 10, 90 appearance. That's going to zero. I think Nicholas trading at 3 billion right now. That company is worth a hundred million. That company's gonna be sold for parts. Anybody who buys that stock is a moron. Sorry. And if you own that stock and you don't sell it, all money has value. Losing 90% of the, you know, 10% you have left is just, you might as well take the 10% and put it into something that could 10 X and maybe you get even nickel only has

SPEAKER_77: 497 million in cash. Uh, they're going to run through that real quick. Um,

SPEAKER_44: it just like the whole thing just sort of feels like, I mean, it's just, it's like American celebrity

SPEAKER_13: culture playing out in the stock market, right? It's like, Oh, it's a big, sexy launch. And then

SPEAKER_01: in Rivian's case, Oh, they've got Amazon and Ford on board. And they don't understand that. Like when an Amazon or a Ford or even GM, which I think GM may still be an investor in Nicola, because it's like a rounding error for them. Sure. They can place that bet. Like they're like venture capitalists

SPEAKER_00: placing a bet, but it's seen, but it gives the imprimatur of incredible legitimacy to a company

SPEAKER_01: like Rivian when it goes out to the stock market. And frankly, investors and, or the computer

SPEAKER_17: algorithms should be smarter. I encourage everybody who's new to the stock market to not get confused

SPEAKER_27: by vanity announcements and metrics. Vanity announcements and metrics are ones that don't include a customer buying something or a product being delivered. So any announcement Amazon put in orders, like this, this stuff's not binding. When people get the product and they're delighted with the product, that's how you evaluate companies. If you're evaluating a company based on, you know,

SPEAKER_07: Nicola may be having a letter of intent, which means nothing. All of this stuff is designed to

SPEAKER_27: create substance where substance does not exist. If substance existed, like Ford or Tesla or Amazon or Uber or DoorDash, they would talk about the number of orders, the number of rides, the number of cars

SPEAKER_17: delivered, yada yada. It's a disaster. Nicola and Fisker, I believe both go to zero. Um, because you now have, I mean, how many of the established bikes you just did the was the Audi you reviewed

SPEAKER_77: that was excellent. Mm hmm. And then you bought another Evie from another company that I did about a pole star. And it's good. Or great. Great. Awesome. So here we go. Like, this is no longer

SPEAKER_07: Tesla versus hybrids. This is like, Tesla figured it out. And it's a juggernaut. And now you have the other juggernauts who are going to come in second, third and fourth, there is no room for Fisker,

SPEAKER_27: there is no room for Nicola. And there's likely no room for Rivian. All due respect. Fisker 1.2

SPEAKER_71: billion in cash, they're gonna run out of cash. Probably in the next two years, I don't think it's gonna be able to raise money again, that company has been restarted. I think this is the third time they, you know, shocked it with a defibrillator and brought Fisker back from the dead. The cars are terrible. I know somebody who bought one of the original ones. And then I saw like, there's all this nepotism going on. I don't want to get into it. But stay away from these stocks, and buy the companies that actually deliver cars if you really want to.

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SPEAKER_48: All right, next we are over time already. We're only on our second story.

SPEAKER_94: All right. It's okay. We're doing all right. We're gonna get it back. According to a Financial

SPEAKER_00: Times report daily trading volume on OpenSea is down about 80% month over month in March 80% dropping from moms talking about going to zero dropping from almost $250 million a day to $50 million a day. This also, at least according to morning brew is the one year anniversary of that, um, people,

SPEAKER_44: amazing, the people NFT selling for $69 million. Yep. And let's see.

SPEAKER_98: What's his name. COVID? No, not COVID COVID. I think so. Yeah. So you see this trading volume

SPEAKER_13: declining. The numbers are fascinating, right? The, the selling price has dropped 48% since November.

SPEAKER_00: It's selling price of an average NFT. I mean, the average price of a board ape has dropped about 44% over the past two weeks since the Russia Ukraine conflict began the number of weekly active accounts

SPEAKER_36: buying and selling NFTs fell like 49% from 380,000 in November to about 194,000. And then another

SPEAKER_01: Financial Times piece noted that if you measure the NFT industry by total active accounts rather than dollar amount, then the industry does seem pretty small, although pretty small is evidently

SPEAKER_36: something like $17.7 billion in 2021. I guess the really fundamental question here for Jason is like,

SPEAKER_101: where are we on the bubble meter? Yeah. Okay. So a couple of things in the, I mean,

SPEAKER_09: we should just pull up the tool of mania chart at some point here. Uh, this is tulip mania all over again. You guys can look it up, but there was a mania here around NFTs. They have no intrinsic value. The only value they have is in scarcity, which is built into, you know, blockchain and NFTs. And they're one of one, except there's an unlimited number of them that are created. So they're one of one in billions. So you know how they say like each snowflake is unique? Yes, but there's a billion of them every time you have a snowstorm. And then there's like a million snowstorms. So we're talking

SPEAKER_04: about quadrillions of, you know, these things. So really good point. That's a really good analogy.

SPEAKER_27: Yes. They're all unique. Like, and this is what I tell young people like, yes, you are a unique snowflake. I know your parents told you, but you're one of like a billion in like the next hour of snow dumping on Tahoe. So the other thing is that NFTs were total grift and a totally manipulated market. That doesn't mean the art that was created was not gorgeous and a value in many cases. That doesn't mean the underlying technology is not brilliant. That doesn't mean the people at Open Sea are not brilliant. All of that can be true. And also this, the playbook for NFTs was built on a scam. So here's, here's tulip mania. You know, imagine you bought on the way up here and like that it flatlines and then nobody needs any tulips. Bottom line, I would say 90% of the traffic was painting the tape and false trades. That's my estimate. I would not be surprised again if 90%

SPEAKER_17: of the trades were insider trading. In fact, was it OpenSea that had an insider trading instance? One of the two platforms had an insider trading instance with one of their senior employees that

SPEAKER_108: they had to let go. Right. It was OpenSea. It was OpenSea. OpenSea had somebody

SPEAKER_07: internally front running. If the people inside of OpenSea are front running, what are the people

SPEAKER_27: launching these projects do? I can tell you when you go on Signal or Telegram or Reddit or Discord, there are rooms filled with anonymous accounts painting the tape and they call the rooms like pump

SPEAKER_07: and they come up with ways to pump this stuff. They created false trades. That's why the trades are collapsing. Maybe OpenSea is starting to police the false trades. Who knows? But it was, that was never reality. People were trading between themselves and even Melania Trump

SPEAKER_71: reportedly bought her own NFT. So if Melania Trump, OpenSea employees or employee singular, who knows? And then everybody else is manipulating this market. And you're buying these things in the

SPEAKER_112: last year. You're the bag holder. You lost all your money. Period. Full stop.

SPEAKER_00: That's what I wonder about the people who are left in our last minute, I believe. Who is, um, who's left? Like when you look at the trading volume declining, are the people left? Are they bag holders or are they like the remaining savvy investors who are scooping up deals? And because

SPEAKER_01: right when a thing is like super hypey like this, it can go through a hype cycle, then a crash. And then after the crash is when it finds an actual landing sometimes. I mean, it's not like tulips are incredibly valuable, but

Chamath Palihapitiya: teeny babies. Yeah, fair enough. So bag holders then. Yep. Yep. I mean, I think if you look at

SPEAKER_27: Fisker, Nikola, NFTs, ICOs, uh, the, and we saw a.com company is like, what are the shares of the globe.com worth? They're still worth zero, right? They became worth, you know, the company was worth billions and now it's worth zero. Things go to zero. This is the hard lesson people are going to learn. This is why, when you invest in something, if it's an investment, you're looking at the intrinsic value of its ability to generate future cash flow, which means there's a product and a service

SPEAKER_71: and a customer and all those dynamics. And here you didn't have any of those dynamics. So you're

SPEAKER_52: just buying stuff because it's pretty or you're gambling. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Amazing. We're

SPEAKER_00: back on track. There was some very interesting news in addition to the White House meeting with TikTokers, uh, coming out of the creator and influencer economy over the past couple of days. And by interesting news, I just mean so much fricking money. Friday, Friday beers, which I had never even heard of, right? Started as a comedy Instagram account two years ago,

SPEAKER_01: just raised $6 million and rebranded as almost Friday media, which is funny. The Friday beers, Instagram now has 1.6 million followers and they've created some other accounts. They've got a little over 2 million followers on all Instagram accounts, 700,000 plus followers on all TikTok accounts. They make money by selling merch, staging live events and working with sponsors. It's basically a community building company that just raised $6 million. Speaking of product and future revenue,

SPEAKER_00: where do you see, where do you see this falling? I mean, creators are the new distribution is how I

SPEAKER_27: look at it. So Mr. Beast is like in a way Disney or Walmart. So like Disneyland, if you have a store there, or you have a store, if you had a store in the mall, if you had a store on Main Street,

SPEAKER_71: or you had shelf space in Walmart or Target, that's distribution. The new distribution is Cardi B, Rihanna, Mr. Beast, all of these influencers that have millions, tens of millions of followers on social media, when they talk about a product, it grows. And so the Kardashians fall into this as well. I saw that Kim Kardashian, I think raised that 3 billion. And so if you combine any kind of product alignment or a brilliant product that gets product market fit, with a Mr. Beast,

SPEAKER_27: and I think Mr. Beast has tried a couple of things, I don't think Mr. Beast burger stuck or was very good. But that's probably a lesson for him. So if let's say there was a Mr. Beast burger 2.0 or chicken wings, or he's doing a chocolate bar now, if that product was truly exceptional and transcendent, then you could have a supernova like event, free distribution, right, free distribution, digital free distribution. So I think one of the Kardashian sisters makes lip gloss. Is it Kylie,

SPEAKER_77: the one who makes the living Kylie makes like thank Kylie. So I think it's Kylie. Yes.

SPEAKER_09: Oh, pretty sure. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Gen Z producer. Yeah, Rachel. Yeah. And so what that means is like, it's on brand. She wears it. She's an Instagram model, right, a notable model, I believe, is her skill set. And it's on brand. And it has product market fit. And from what I understand, it's pretty fantastic. So that thing supposedly with the drops, I was talking to somebody, they said, like, you don't understand this thing is selling out every time she does a drop, it sells out, it's got incredible margins, no distribution cost, sell direct, they don't need to be on Amazon, they create a landing page, Instagram, YouTube landing page done. So this is the future. And it's pretty amazing. They just need to make better products.

SPEAKER_44: They do. Also, I wonder if a pink flag for this future is the platform based distribution,

SPEAKER_36: because you do still see these creators, it's free distribution, but on someone else's platform, like it's sort of, it harkens back a little bit to the question, the conversation we had about Facebook taking, you know, who's that guy Joe Spicer, the $100 million, the $100 million business to zero. Now, this is different in some ways, except that it still is totally dependent

SPEAKER_13: on being able to get traffic through these platforms and then sell products. And I feel

SPEAKER_01: like if there's a risk factor for the creator economy, the only thing that the only thing I

David Friedberg: see there is the platforms. Immediately, what I thought of with this Friday beers thing was, what if that account gets turned off on Instagram, right? So what they need to do is collect emails,

SPEAKER_27: collect phone numbers, SMS, so they can send messages, get those each one of those is worth 10 or 100 of the followers on TikTok, etc. So that's what any creator has to do. I talked to Mr. Beast

SPEAKER_71: about this, he didn't have a lot of emails, I said, you need to take every your team's mission should be to convert 2% of subscribers on YouTube to emails every month, and just compound that over time. And maybe in three years, you'll have this incredible base of emails. So you just email people in their phone numbers. And don't be dependent on any one platform. So if you look at the Kardashians, they have a TV show or had a TV show. You know, they have Twitter, they're incredible on Instagram, they're incredible on TikTok, I don't know if they engage YouTube,

SPEAKER_01: you've really got to be multi platform, you really do see also Taylor Lorenz, you need to own your own brand independent of the big name that is distributing you because they are not your friend.

SPEAKER_71: Taylor Lorenz stories. You are your only friend. So well said to dovetail the two stories into a callback because people want to read a Taylor Lorenz story now. Yeah. And it doesn't matter if it's in the Atlantic New York Times, uh, or at Washington Post. And, uh, you know, at this point, Substack's probably thinking, let's send her 500k. And the same thing with Kara Swisher, who's a brand under himself, or you and I. Yeah, Kara Swisher was on Recode and Vox. And then New York Times was like, oh, Jim Bancroft did all this work at Vox, making Ezra Klein and Kara Swisher into brands. New York Times like, we'll take those two.

SPEAKER_09: We'll take them. And they just took them. Yep. So Ezra Klein's out. And so now it's like New York Times, like you said, is the Amazon of content. Oh, they're just gonna run the deck. But those I think hopefully

SPEAKER_36: those creators are also smart enough to understand that the platform doesn't love you back. So it's all about

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SPEAKER_00: And then finally, the Biden administration released an executive order related to crypto on Wednesday, we didn't get a chance to this is how bonkers this week has been. It was like an executive order on crypto. And we were like, we can't, we don't even have time for this. But this is very interesting. This is a moment, I think, in the crypto economy. So the order mentions the following a task, the Department of Commerce with establishing a framework to allow the US to

SPEAKER_01: dominate in crypto mentioned exploring a state backed CBDC, a central bank digital currency or Fed coin, as it's been called, this is this sort of like spin off idea where we've got a stable coin, but it is in fact, backed by federal reserve dollars, and then asked federal agencies to up

SPEAKER_36: their action on illicit activity in crypto and its potential national security risks.

SPEAKER_71: Yeah, I mean, this is a this is big news. Because it's an executive order. And they want to engage and win. I will say I have been and I've said this for a long time, these CBDCs, central bank digital

SPEAKER_27: currencies are the future. And no country is ever going to allow the control and power that comes from running money to be handed over to an anonymous manipulated tech stack, just not going to happen. Yep. And I know that that's the dream for everybody that like, you can't stop BitTorrent,

SPEAKER_60: you can't stop Napster, but we're all subscribed to Disney Plus and Hulu and Netflix. It did get

SPEAKER_152: stopped. And I do sorry if I mean Spotify. No, it's true. We've seen this cycle. We've seen this before.

SPEAKER_154: And we've seen this with stuff that was relatively trivial compared to the world's reserve currency.

SPEAKER_67: Correct. So what's going to happen here is and I predicted this forever. And everybody was like, you don't get it, Jake, I'll have fun being poor. The US government is going to have, thanks.

SPEAKER_71: A little chance of that with the number of starters. I know I'm like,

SPEAKER_159: I'm always on the inside. She's like, well, we're putting some money.

SPEAKER_163: I'm not that worried. I'm not worried now. CBDC. It's kind of funny that it's CBD, right?

SPEAKER_27: It totally is. The Fed coin will, uh, allow the government to do all kinds of interesting things, get rid of fraud, get rid of illegal transactions and a tax evasion. So if people are gambling, or they're handing envelopes to each other, or, you know, you know, sending $5,000 things, you know, like 1099s and w fours and all this reporting that happens in accounting is all going to be built in to a private blockchain called the US government. You're not going to be able to cheat on your taxes. You're not going to be able to hide revenue. You're not going to be able to give inheritance on the slide and pretend it's something it's not. This is going to be a tax, um, bonanza for the IRS. And if somebody does something illegal, it's going to be instant seizure. So somebody does something illegal, or they don't pay their taxes, I guarantee you in 10 years, the government if you didn't pay your taxes, we'll just boop, take your dollars off the blockchain. So this is about control. It's going to be more control for the government, less fraud, which is good for the people who are good actors. And then anything that's Bitcoin or USDC or tether, God forbid, or any of these other projects are going to be taxed. They're going to tax them. And they're going to say, you can be this big. So they're going to say if you if you're this big, you need to have this set of regulations, as I predicted. And then if you're this big, you're going to miss that and you get taxed at these rates. In other words, they're going to make it impossible to compete against Fed coin.

SPEAKER_168: Yep, exactly. And when wins, that's what this is about.

SPEAKER_00: Let's be 100% clear. This is the United States has been way behind the ball here. And the moment of freak out for them was when China announced that it was about to introduce a digital currency, because that digital currency, should it get to be traded on the margins between countries that we now

SPEAKER_01: realize might not have the best of intents toward the world order, if you will, could upset the dollar

SPEAKER_36: as the world's reserve currency could also start to be a preferred option for countries and companies.

SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, and I mean, listen, I interviewed the head of the incoming head of the FDIC in 2019, and was like, what is the United States government doing about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency? And she was like, I don't know, we're kind of looking at it. And it was not six months later that China was like, we're doing a digital currency that is 100% government controlled and back.

SPEAKER_52: And now you see this move. That is not a coincidence.

SPEAKER_71: Yeah, I mean, the ECNY, which is the digital one, some people call it the digital renminbi. This was launched January 4, officially in 2022, before the Olympics. And you can get it on Android,

SPEAKER_27: you can get on your iPhone. One billion users in WeChat have it. And games are before the Olympic games, they forced, I believe, McDonald's to take it. So, you know, the Chinese government, because it's a dictatorship and an authoritarian, they can just say, this is how it is. And in an authoritarian country, let's say you say something against the government, that they don't like, or you buy a book that they don't like, they can just seize all your money, they can just turn it all off. So this is going to be something crazy to navigate, it's going to create more control, less fraud. You know, China, we have no choice, to your point, more surveillance,

SPEAKER_77: like, don't kid yourself, that is a part of this.

SPEAKER_07: It's about control. And so we do need to have a discussion about freedom, and not getting rid of,

SPEAKER_27: we cannot get rid of print money, just like, right, you should still be able to drive a car that doesn't have a low jack in it. So we're going to need there's going to be some freedom principles here. We embrace digital currency, if people want it, but you still got to accept cash, the moment they say you can't accept cash in the United States. Yeah, that's when we go into authoritarian,

SPEAKER_07: like danger zone. So be careful, folks, call us white house, we'll help advise you all around the

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SPEAKER_00: Our favorite CEO, our other favorite CEO, not including Jason and Frank Sloopman. And

SPEAKER_180: Glenn from Redfin. Glenn from Redfin, he's so great.

David Friedberg: Yeah, we had no all in this week. So I was like, sorry, there's no all in this week. But here's a list of five incredible interviews we've done that you can watch on this week at startups,

SPEAKER_00: folks. No big deal. Anyway, our CEO that we are still hoping will come on the show, Barry McCarthy, new CEO at Peloton reported, the Wall Street Journal reported that Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy said, it isn't clear yet, the role that Peloton machines will play in the company's future. This is a big, potentially big shift here. He said, roughly 80% of capital spending goes toward equipment right now with the rest spent on software. And he thinks that number should be

SPEAKER_01: reversed. Peloton is experimenting with subscription models. And as you know, he had hinted at this idea that Peloton would test new monthly subscription services,

SPEAKER_00: where customers pay a single bike and connected fitness subscription 60 to 100 bucks a month, with the option to cancel any time. Right now, of course, the company offers a bike purchase

SPEAKER_36: at $1,745 or 14, you know, 1500 plus 249. And then the bike plus is $2,500 with free delivery. And then the subscription is separate at like 40 bucks a month. So I guess he's so he's basically saying,

SPEAKER_01: how can we combine the hardware and the software, but maybe even in the future phase out hardware?

David Friedberg: I don't think so. I think the hardware is Apple level right in this. Yeah. So I think this is an

SPEAKER_27: and not an or, I think what he's saying is, you know, in terms of dollars deployed, we need to greatly increase our investment in software as a Peloton user, I will say the product is perfect. But you

SPEAKER_07: don't see updates. If I looked at my, my treadmill from three years ago, I can't tell you anything in the software that's updated. Yeah, I literally can't. I'm really thinking off the top of my head. Oh, no, I do know. After they had this series of tragic accidents, which I don't believe are their fault. They're just the nature of treadmills. They put a pin code on it. Literally nothing has changed in the interface or software. It's perfect. They left it. But it would be like if you got your iPhone, and you had it for three years, and they never updated the OS, or you had a Tesla and three years later, nothing had changed. They should be adding Spotify, Sirius XM, Netflix, Disney, every month, new features should come on your Peloton, period, full stop. And I should be able to pick my playlist to go with a class, I should be able to watch window in a window, I should be able to have CNBC in the corner while taking a Peloton class, pull a podcast while I'm listening.

SPEAKER_27: Why is there not a podcast player? If I'm on my treadmill, I listen to podcasts. So I got to bring my where I watch Netflix or Disney. Like I got to bring my iPad and I have a plastic thing that they

SPEAKER_07: sell on Amazon for 15 bucks to cradle your goddamn iPad on your Peloton. It's so dumb.

SPEAKER_13: I'm just making like amen hands because yes to all of that. And the idea of flipping this on its

SPEAKER_01: head and not making everything and frankly, this will undo the iPhoneification of the concept of

SPEAKER_00: hardware, right? Which is that it has planned obsolescence and you I bought on the other hand, as you know, like the half price Peloton about the mix bike. Yep. Great bike. Yes. Good subscription. And then they introduced a new bike and it has all these new software features. So I'm like watching workouts now paying my 40 bucks a month and I'm on my old bike. So the stuff they're talking about, like the RPMs or this and that tracking or whatever doesn't exist because they didn't update my old bike. So like once you get off of the treadmill, no pun intended of selling people new hardware, because all the new software only supports new hardware, then you can actually delight customers instead of pissing them off by essentially bricking their old hardware that they paid a lot for. And then now what are they supposed to do with it? So like, I see this as nothing but more proof of Barry's continued genius. Also, literally the second, I could buy a Peloton on a subscription model

SPEAKER_198: and have all the content included done, done and done. Yeah, I mean, they have access to capital.

SPEAKER_27: They should press that advantage. And they should let people buy these things for $99 a month. And after 24 months, your subscription, if you pay it off, after 24 months, you drop down to 30 bucks a month. Yeah, there's so many the number of people who would be onboarded. And listen, the stock has crashed already. So let's go for scale. Let's set a goal of 10 million subscribers by any means necessary. And if the bike costs them 1200 if the hardware costs 1000 to make and they still have for 2000. For the love of God, just like make it $99 a month. Not anybody can afford $99 a month. That is literally for an Uber driver or DoorDash driver. I think like eight runs or something. If you make 10 bucks on average 15 bucks on average, it would be you could do it in a day. So you'll be careful with

SPEAKER_52: that anybody can afford but it's a choice that you would be willing to make. I'd say 75% of Americans

SPEAKER_01: can afford versus $2500 out front and outlay in a country where Americans most Americans can't come

SPEAKER_17: up with $400 in an emergency. So yes, like it's a much more. I mean, if the average rent in America

SPEAKER_27: is $1,000 or average mortgage payment is 1000 bucks. There's obviously a widespread here. You're asking people to come out of pocket for two months rent? No, or three months rent? Heck no. $99 a

SPEAKER_55: month is a 10th of your rent. It's easy. It's easy. And then benefit from ongoing software updates and

SPEAKER_01: feel valued as a consumer not like a sucker who invests in hardware that's now. Yeah, I will say

SPEAKER_210: there hasn't been they haven't obsoleted the peloton hardware, right? And because it's Android, I do

SPEAKER_27: think they could very easily send somebody to your home for 500 bucks every five years to upgrade. Yeah.

SPEAKER_77: Hey, Molly, tell us about your amazing interview today for Angel season six.

SPEAKER_44: Yeah, speaking of hardware, our interview today is Jay Malik from countdown capital who

SPEAKER_00: is not afraid of hardware countdown capital's thesis is to invest strictly in hardware products and

SPEAKER_44: American manufacturing and defense.

SPEAKER_162: Jeez. Let me tell you something. Hardware is hard. Cannot wait. Has he figured it out?

SPEAKER_36: I mean, I guess we'll find out. It's super interesting. He is a first time fund manager. I talked to him for an interview on Angel season six. It's it's a good one. Check it out.

SPEAKER_17: Absolutely. And if you want to, you can search for Angel podcast, maybe Angel Jason Calacanis, and you'll find it in your player. We have a separate subscription just for all six seasons.

SPEAKER_27: If you want to just have a nice, easy play through all six of them, and you'll get 60 interviews with amazing investors, masterclasses across the board.

SPEAKER_217: Let's get to the Molly's amazing interview.

SPEAKER_21: Jay Malik of countdown capital. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_218: Thanks for having me, Molly. How's your day going? So great. Such a great day. It's like almost Friday. It's all coming together. How are you?

SPEAKER_220: Love it. Yeah. Same here. I am perpetually excited that I get to do this job. So I'm just,

SPEAKER_00: I'm happy. Very, very happy. Right. It is a super cool. Let's like, just take a step back and say, this is a super cool job. It is. I mean, specifically with what

SPEAKER_220: I'm doing, investing in hard tech companies, you know, probably the most futuristic stuff.

SPEAKER_223: It just gets me so hyped about the future, honestly. Totally. Well, we're, we're jumping

SPEAKER_00: all the way ahead to the middle, but so you are here as part of our Angel season six, episode eight, where we're focusing on first time funds. How first time is countdown capital?

SPEAKER_220: Well, we've been around now for around 18 months. Um, we have raised one fund to date. And so I guess we are very much a first time. Yeah. Yeah. But we have, we've made now what nine portfolio investments. Um, so been around the block a little bit over the last, uh, year and we've learned a lot. So, um, it's been, it's been a fun journey so far, but we got another 10 years. So I'm, I'm buckling up.

SPEAKER_44: Give us the, um, if you would, the, the basics of the fund, it looks like you raised $3 million

SPEAKER_220: with a 506 C. That's correct. Yeah. So it was a $3 million fund one. Um, we did a 506 designation, which allows us to raise in public, um, and to advertise about ourselves, which was unique. I think at the time when we had done it, the only other fund manager that had done it was Mac. And so Mac and I had, had spent a lot of time together figuring out the best ways to do this, which is fun. You

SPEAKER_44: know, that that's, that's the story to date. Um, Mac, I think actually was our very first guest on this

SPEAKER_13: season of angel. Yeah. So, and we've sort of been, it seems to be not only is there the theme of

SPEAKER_00: first time fund managers, but this theme running through of the different ways that people are now

SPEAKER_36: approaching raising funds and how many options there actually are. So tell us about the process. I know Mac, I think, you know, his deal was just calling a thousand people a day or something along those lines.

SPEAKER_13: Like how did you, how do you hustle up a fund in public? Yeah. I mean, honestly, it was a similar

SPEAKER_220: process. Um, lots of tweeting. I think I, you know, at the peak of when we were raising, I was probably tweeting every day, if not more than every day, which is a lot for me. We got flooded with both interests from founders to want us to invest in them as well as LPs. Like for example, we, you know, I, I had a couple of family offices message me on Twitter and they were all in stealth mode. I would have never known that they were following me. Um, but it was interesting to see, uh, people come reach out to us and then also us getting to have them sign up to a list and then set up meeting after meeting after meeting. So in total, our process took roughly three or four months. Um, we probably did five or six meetings on average day, which is a lot. Um, and we try to cut to the nose as quickly as possible and focus on the yeses. So that, that was our process.

SPEAKER_236: So what, I mean, you just raised $3 million on Twitter. Like what's your background? How do you think, what was it about these tweets that were landing so well?

SPEAKER_220: Yeah. So, I mean, it was definitely not just the tweets. Um, my background is specifically having helped build a couple of startups now in the intersection of machine learning, um, and, and national security. So the interest set that I have in hard tech and specifically how it relates to, um, the strength of the United States is very tangential to my, uh, experience that, right? So that definitely helped. Um, but I think, you know, in general, people have been feeling a lot of energy around hard tech and wanting to build really ambitious products to help solve things for our climate, for our country, um, as we're now seeing, obviously what's happening in Russia and Ukraine. Um, and I think COVID really ignited the flame. And so we were riding a lot of that energy and, you know, to, to this day, I think we are one of the only funds that, that has been raising in deep tech publicly. And that, that energy that people had, I think came to us as we were racing. So that was, uh, we, we were lucky

SPEAKER_223: definitely to be raising the time that we did, but that's definitely part of the reason why we've been

SPEAKER_120: able to raise this fund. Um, I definitely want to dig in more on the thesis, but a little bit more

SPEAKER_44: about you and, and your background in hard tech. Let's see. I think I saw that you had two, you, or you said you had two startups in this field. I was the first national security, machine learning

SPEAKER_13: startups. Tell me about those. Can you tell us about those or will you have to kill us? No, no,

SPEAKER_242: they're totally fine. I just wanted to make that joke one time and I will not do that again.

SPEAKER_220: So the first startup, um, is a company called a Crete and they were essentially using, they are, they're still alive today. Um, using machine learning to essentially process unstructured data, and working with different government agencies like the DOD on special projects for that. Right. Um, second startup, uh, got acquired startup called forge AI, and they were using graph machine learning. Um, similarly to analyze unstructured data, but specifically working with the intelligence community and the CIA. So we got invested from in Qtel, uh, and a couple of other great Boston

SPEAKER_223: based firms. So yeah, you know, I, I really learned, uh, how good products are built and how bad products are built from our mistakes. Um, and that is definitely informed the way I look at,

SPEAKER_36: um, investing today in hard tech. And so then at 26, you're like, I'm ready. Um, but what made you

SPEAKER_13: decide that venture capital was the way to go? Like, it seems like you could have gone to another startup potentially or built, but you, were you like, I want to build a lot more things and not

SPEAKER_220: just one at a time. Yeah, that's right. I think my, I realized early on in my career that my superpower was supporting people, uh, who were building things. So for example, as a product manager, helping the CEO work on certain projects. And that really, um, helped me clarify that, that I thought that VC was the right role for me because so much of this role is just helping founders, supporting them and being there, you know, right hand person for whatever they need, especially at the early stage where we are. So I think having realized that I thought, okay, VC is a way to scalably support many people who are building the future. And I'm kind of sick and

SPEAKER_223: tired of putting my eggs in one basket. I want to support as many people as possible.

SPEAKER_13: You're describing enthusiasm for hard tech, um, as a pretty new climate tech investor, but somebody who's covered this industry for quite a long time, I can say there's also a lot of fear and hesitation about hard tech. So do you think that you struck a nerve with a, you know, particularly

Jason Calacanis: adventurous set of LPs who said like, let's be risky, you know, definitely. Yeah. So my, my LPs are very,

SPEAKER_220: very mission aligned. Um, they're not your garden sort of regular family offices, or even just individuals looking to park their own money. Um, they're all a mission driven set of people, people who have invested or built deep tech companies before. Um, and that was strategic also to help us obviously, uh, grow our presence, but certainly, um, we're very opinionated and our LPs are

SPEAKER_223: also very opinionated as a result. Is that a good thing? I think so. Yeah. Um, it, because opinionated people, uh, including myself, I think, um, we, we tend to hold strong opinions loosely and when we do

SPEAKER_220: learn and when we do get ourselves burned, uh, we're pretty flexible and, and understand that we,

SPEAKER_223: we did mess up and we learn from it and we try to win again. So, um, I think it's, it's good for us.

SPEAKER_13: When you say though, that your LPs are opinionated, do you mean that they are pretty active maybe even

SPEAKER_220: in comparison to other funds? Yes. And we try to stimulate that activity. So we have a Slack channel. We try to promote a lot of conversation about different topics and issues, not necessarily about our portfolio companies, but really more about, you know, broader industry themes. Um, and we learn a lot from our LPs, you know, uh, one of my LPs is building a company right now. Um, not even sure I can talk with the details, but it's definitely, uh, it's longevity focused and it's like a 30 or 40 year timeline. And I've learned so much just from hearing about his experience building a deep tech company. So, um, yeah, we just, we're constantly learning from, from all of

SPEAKER_13: our LPs. Let's talk a little bit more about the 506c designation and what that did for you. Because again, there is a lot of, you know, there can be reluctance around deep tech and hard tech because of those long timelines or because of the pipeline from research to commercialization. It sounds like there was something special about being able to make this pitch in public that got you over the finish line quickly. How long did it take you to raise this fund?

SPEAKER_228: Yeah. So it took roughly four, four to five months. And I think the, yeah, the beauty of finance,

SPEAKER_190: by the way, people are going to be listening to this going, what am I doing?

SPEAKER_220: I think the beauty of it was that we were truly one of the first ones like Mac. And so we just got a lot of eyeballs. Right. And as a result, just the, the pure scale of the impressions we got and what we were doing, it was, it was natural that at least one or 2% of those people had the capital and were interested in what we were doing. And so, you know, I think what's unique about the 506c is that it just shortens the timeline to getting eyeballs on what you're doing. And we were able to jumpstart the process as a result and raise quickly. So were you full time during those months? I was part time. I was part time raising, but also part time finishing up my gig at a different fund that I was on the investment team of. And so I got to spend all of the time that I wanted to doing fundraising and helping, you know, moving that through the pipeline. And at the same time, finishing up my gig where I was getting paid a little bit to help that fund. So I did manage to keep my, my pocketbook afloat, which was really important for me. I'm young, I don't have a lot of

SPEAKER_223: wealth. But I wanted to make sure that I gave this the best shot I could. So I was happy to get that

SPEAKER_72: balance. And then the digital tools, it seems like we're also pretty useful for you because you're

SPEAKER_13: not in the valley or in a tech hub, right? You're in Missouri. That's right. Yeah,

SPEAKER_220: Twitter definitely compressed my network. Incredibly. So I've met so many incredible people through Twitter. My entire network is pretty much through Twitter at this point,

SPEAKER_236: which is incredible to say. And you just joined, can I go back and say you just joined Twitter in

SPEAKER_13: 2019? I did. Yes. That is you. You should probably take some time and write a manual about

SPEAKER_01: how to use Twitter unbelievably efficiently. I wish there was some science towards it,

SPEAKER_228: a lot of it is just shower thoughts, to be honest. So you join Twitter in 2019,

SPEAKER_13: you're raising from Missouri, you are known in certain community in a certain community right around machine learning and national security. Raise this fund now is Twitter the primary way like you just

SPEAKER_228: said that you're keeping deal flow going. Yeah, it's it's definitely I would say it's not just

SPEAKER_220: Twitter is generally using social media and and spontaneity at the same time. So for example, our investment in Hadrian came through me DMing Chris on Twitter and looking at his bio and saying, hey, that's a really cool thing that you're building with chat. And next thing you know, they raise a seed round from founders fund looks capital like three months later, right? So that was fun. And then I also did investment into a company that didn't exist until I had found the guy on LinkedIn out of nowhere because he had an interesting background. So I just messaged them him saying, hey, cool background, you're doing climate as well as deep tech. It's very rare to find that. Let's chat. And five days later, we were leading the pre-seed round. So it was it was insane. Just getting to

SPEAKER_237: see how social media helps our deal flow and how we use it. Yeah. Wow. Tell us a little more

SPEAKER_36: about Hadrian. And and you know, I think that'll help some people who may not be familiar with what you even mean when you say you're investing in hard tech and deep tech.

SPEAKER_228: Yeah, so Hadrian is basically building factories of future. They're using software to power hardware

SPEAKER_220: to deliver aerospace parts to start with other industry parts as well in the future, but aerospace parts to start with to customers as quickly as possible beating out, you know, legacy mom and pop shops across the country. So they're vertically integrating, they're using software, they're leveraging hardware, but they're not building any unique hardware themselves, which is super cool. And, you know, they're working with some of the biggest space companies in the world. You know, Astra, ABL space, all the ones that you're probably seeing on the news, they're they're working with. So it's it's a lot of fun. I was a very small check. And Chris is definitely a lot bigger and building something way bigger than I think even I could have imagined when I first invested.

SPEAKER_237: But, you know, kudos to him. And I'm just really, really grateful to be a very small part of this.

SPEAKER_51: So let's use that as a jumping off point for the thesis. So your thesis you write is time,

SPEAKER_13: it's time to rebuild the American industrial base, one rocket ship, literally at a time. Talk to me more about the thesis and how you deploy in that direction.

SPEAKER_220: Yeah, that's right. So I think there are three main components to our thesis. The first is stage pre-seed. The second is the focus on technology, which is hard tech. And the third is our opinion. And that is founders rebuilding the industrial base of America, right? The first two pre-seed and hard tech really came out of my experience. I found that there's always room to be a first believer in technically difficult capital intensive companies. It's risky. Obviously, there's a lot of capital that needs to go to work to make these companies successful. But where there's risk, there's usually high reward and low competition. And so, similar to how Peter Thiel looks at building a startup, I looked at it from building a funds perspective. And I said, hey, this is a really interesting opportunity. I think if we focus on this, we can actually generate a lot of alpha, right? So that was really the first building block of our thesis. The second, as I touched on earlier, this opinion around founders rebuilding the industrial base, I found that honestly, back since like 2015, 2016, with Brexit, there was going to be a backlash to globalization. And there was a lot of money that could be made by bringing manufacturing supply chains, energy back home, but not necessarily relying on traditional frameworks of labor, but using technology to automate a lot of that, right? And so what I believe very strongly was we can remain cost competitive with countries like China and Russia, if we use technology to drive our manufacturing base and other industrial base activities. And so that's how we came to that part of the thesis, really.

SPEAKER_120: Um, and like you said, doubling down on America, as you sort of implement this thesis, are you thinking

SPEAKER_13: about it in specific buckets? Are there directions that you want to go? Are there filters that you're applying as you sort of decide? Or are you opportunistic, you know, within the thesis?

SPEAKER_220: I would say that there are definitely themes that we like. And one thing we really do like is vertical integration. So owning everything from the manufacturing point of view and supply supply chain point of view, all the way to selling to the end customer, that's very compelling to us, as you can drive margins, high margin activity over time. Second, I think defense tech in particular, is one sector that people really didn't think was going to be impactful, but I think we're seeing will be very, very formative this decade. And so we've been focusing on it, honestly, since day one, but even now, more so, we're thinking about ways we can support defense innovation, um, as a theme. And then finally, I will say, um, anything with anything relating to manufacturing, let's call components or materials that are very important for us security, like timber, for example, or semiconductor chips,

SPEAKER_223: we're always looking to find ways that we can invest in those sectors. So those are the themes that,

SPEAKER_21: generally speaking, we do like, talk to me about check size, because you're describing expensive operations, potentially, and you're a $3 million fund. Do you have a big network of

SPEAKER_13: co investors? Or are you really trying to say, let's get these off the ground and then find them

SPEAKER_220: a landing place? Yeah, I would say three things, one big network of co investors, we usually co invest with other angels, who are value add with us, or larger firms. So that's number one. Number two, being a first believer itself, again, is really important. So we find that just by saying that, hey, we will invest, that usually adds fuel to the fire for the rest of their fundraising around, and we can help them do that. So again, just having the audacity to say yes to hard things is part of what differentiates us. And then finally, honestly, with deep tech and hard tech companies, the biggest thing is finding talented people and getting to join your team early on, even with a small check size of like 100k, you can use that to hire people. And so honestly, the biggest reason why people take our check at the very early stage is just to have that initial

SPEAKER_237: form of capital to start hiring the engineer, they really want to bring on board who's from SpaceX, for example, and can add a lot to the team. So that's, that's the reason.

SPEAKER_13: And then how do you think about timescale the other, you know, the other big panic point about hard tech is how long some of these projects can take? Are you concerned about that? I mean,

Jason Calacanis: I always feel like my counter argument to that, certainly on the climate side is, I'm pretty sure we want them to grow quickly. Yeah, I mean, kind of an urgent situation on all these fronts.

SPEAKER_220: Yeah, I mean, I would say, so a couple of things. First, obviously, we want people to move as quickly as possible. And we invest in founders who move with a sense of urgency. So that's a given. But that being said, it is a reality that a lot of these technologies are not very mature right now. And so we have actually instituted a longer fund life than the average fund venture capital fund today. We have a 12 year fund life with an extension period of another two years. So that brings up to 14, which is pretty sizable. And we also have a slower deployment period. So I know a lot of people are thinking a lot about deploying in six months to a year, it's the new fashionable thing in venture capital, we are doing the opposite view. With hard tech, we want to space ourselves out. And so we're looking at deployment periods of at least three to four years. So that's how we at least mitigate some of the risk on the front end with us. Because we truly believe there are only a handful of great deep tech companies a year. But at the same time, we're trying to give room for our fund to mature on the back end and going up to 14 years, for example,

SPEAKER_44: will help us. Right. That is so interesting. And I wonder how it changes your reporting

SPEAKER_13: relationship with your LPs. You know, I mean, IRR as a metric is sort of fundamentally distorting, right? If you're talking about how much money you return and how quickly, I would imagine you said

SPEAKER_274: to your LPs upfront, we're going to have a different conversation. Yeah, I think everybody

SPEAKER_220: who's bought into the fund is more interested in multiples than IRR. Again, they're all deep tech tangential anyway. So they get that this is going to take a long time. That being said, there's no excuse for not having good returns, right? And we are like, we are definitely a financial driven firm, we are here to make money for our LPs. And if we have to sacrifice an IRR by a couple of percentage

SPEAKER_237: points, we're going to aim to 5x the multiple. So that's the way we look at it. Got it. One or the

SPEAKER_36: other, basically. Yeah, or ideally both. Yes. This is the part where I would love for you to get us

SPEAKER_249: excited about the future. We were sort of chatting a little bit before we started recording about what a cool job this is and what cool things we see. But I now sort of feel like you're seeing the really

SPEAKER_223: cool stuff. We see a lot of really interesting things. We see anything relating from nuclear

SPEAKER_220: fusion technology, obviously, for climate, you know, purposes, all the way up to like hypersonic weapons factories and hypersonic jet factories. So we're seeing things that are literally 20 years out. And it's it sometimes is a little overwhelming, to be sure. Because so many great people have great ideas, and we want to fund all of them. We can't, we don't have all that capital. But at the same time, honestly, just having a call with somebody that's thinking on a 20 year timescale that feels so passionately about building something that nobody else will believe in besides themselves is so so invigorating. And truly, it is more than even software companies, you really have to believe in yourself if you're building something that's that ambitious. And so very true. Yeah, that that itself, the confidence, the spirit of the audacity to want to do something like that is is infectious. And it really helps us as a firm, stay on top of what's happening and to take big bets as well.

SPEAKER_36: Who is on your team to help you vet these ideas? You know, I would imagine sometimes I've already had this experience, sometimes things come along, and you're like, if that's real, it's amazing. Who do I even

SPEAKER_220: ask? Yeah, whether it's real or not? Yes. So what I do have now actually, for the first time, and since I started this fund, I do have a chief of staff, so she's helping me a lot, work through some of the opportunities. But our LP base, as I mentioned, is very, very strategic. We have PhDs in everything relating to aerospace all the way down to optics engineering. And so we rely a lot on their expertise, and have one on one calls wherever we can with them. We also have advisors, we have a couple of advisors who are more business focused, but we have one specific advisor, who is, you know, for example, a PhD in mechanical engineering, that can help us work through any diligence questions we have. That being said, I will say that the technical risk at the stage that we are operating in is very, very overstated. A lot of times for pre seed companies, in hard tech, it's a lot more important to understand that there's a market, and there are customers that will pay for your ambitious technology, as opposed to just building out technology that is, you know, questionably feasible. That's really the more important thing, validating that people will pay for, for example,

SPEAKER_223: your hypersonic weapons factory, not just whether you can build it. Right? Interesting. Do you also work

SPEAKER_13: alongside non dilutive capital? I'm hearing a lot about companies who are raising some venture, but also doing what are some, you know, sort of new and pretty interesting grant programs and fellowship

SPEAKER_220: programs in some of these areas? Yeah, I would say not really, actually, at the early stages. Certainly, as companies scale in hard tech, they will need to raise debt financing and other ways of asset acquisition that are not just venture capital equity. But at the stage that we're at, these companies are super early, and they're just trying to hire people. And what we find is that non dilutive funding has all these milestones and things that you need to get done, especially in hard tech,

SPEAKER_223: whereas venture capital where we're investing in, we're just investing in great ideas and great people.

SPEAKER_36: So and then how do you go about sourcing those or proving out those commercial opportunities on the back end? Like, are you thinking, Look, the government's a giant buyer? Yes, build that funnel?

SPEAKER_228: Well, yeah, so we have a lot of connections, both on the commercial and the defense side,

SPEAKER_220: we definitely run by the market opportunity with people in our network who are placed in those positions. The other really key tell is simply asking founders how much customer discovery they've done. And to give us evidence that they've talked to 20 people, for example, and you would be surprised that most people have not done that. So that to us is a signal that they're looking at it as a science project. And we're not investing in science projects, we're investing in businesses. And if you haven't thought about the customer, you haven't thought about yourself as a business. So

SPEAKER_273: that's the way we look at it. That is outstanding advice, by the way, for everyone here who is

SPEAKER_44: listening. And then finally, before I let you go, I want to ask you about how you're moving to Miami.

SPEAKER_51: Yeah, yeah, I'm so excited. This special thing being the guy in Missouri.

SPEAKER_225: But also, why Miami over, you know, any other tech hub?

SPEAKER_220: Yeah, so I think a couple of different things. First, it's great weather, and I'm sick and tired of the Midwest. Second, yes. Second, lots of free thinkers, independent thinkers that are out there, I like how they kind of embrace creativity and contrarian thought. And that speaks to me on a cultural level. And then finally, there's a growing number of hard tech builders in Miami. Hard tech Miami, for example, is an organization that just got started that's working on providing some space and mentorship to people who are building companies in hard tech in Miami. And I want to be a big part of that when I moved out. And so it's a combination of culture, weather, community. To me,

SPEAKER_01: that's a killer combination. Not the worst when you describe it that way. Not the worst.

SPEAKER_13: I'm going to grab a question real quick from one of our new notice. And by the way, our producer Rachel would like us to know via the slack that she loves hard tech Miami. Oh, amazing. So from Noti Bob G, what makes your fund different from competitors? You answered this a little bit, because it sounds like there aren't many, but I wonder, are more coming into this space? And how will you differentiate?

SPEAKER_220: Yeah, so I think, you know, still, in terms of differentiation, right now, it's being able to focus on pre seed, being the first believer in a company that's, again, really, really hard to do in deep tech, where it's very capital intensive, you're relying basically just on a plan, there's literally literally nothing built. Right. And so I think that's that continues to be a way we differentiate ourselves by taking risks where other people won't. The other is on probably the, let's call it helping founders side of things. So we have started to build out a hiring funnel of deep tech engineers, folks that are anywhere from aerospace and mechanical all the way down to nuclear, for example. And these are all people who have been pre vetted or curated by us, who are looking for a job at a startup. And so when we invest, we have three or four engineers right off the bat, who they can talk to the higher. And so that is a big part recently, that's been helping us with founders who are looking for just more than just a thought partner, they want some actual help.

SPEAKER_223: And, you know, we're able to provide that with the hiring side, which is really the most important thing when you're getting started in hard tech. I mean, what it sounds like is in addition to hard

SPEAKER_36: tech, like you're a sector specialist. Yes. Yeah, correct. Were you maybe like a spy before?

SPEAKER_308: I'm just wondering, it just feels like, you know, a lot of people like

SPEAKER_305: not many 26 year olds can come out of nowhere like that.

SPEAKER_262: I just I guess I work very hard. And that's all just for any of the hours, you know, it is

SPEAKER_36: Yeah, yeah, I do. And you can tell and you're crushing it. Jay Malik, founder and GP of countdown

SPEAKER_218: capital, which you can find on Twitter at countdown BC. Where else can people find you?

SPEAKER_220: Uh, LinkedIn, email Jay at countdown dot capital. I'm very, very responsive. So hit me up anytime.

SPEAKER_65: Jay, this is fantastic. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_220: Thank you, Molly. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_27: It is Friday. Every Friday, we end with an amazing segment called Okay Boomer. This is where Rachel reporting meets a millennial, a Gen Z person, and she expands the consciousness of old people. So we can deepen our understanding of these new generations. Rachel, who do you got

SPEAKER_312: from Molly and I and the audience this week? So this week, I got to talk to Josh from party round. He was definitely the most entertaining person we've had, I think on the podcast so far. So really

SPEAKER_36: excited for you guys to check them out. What is so is party round like it sounds, I assume fundraising. Yeah, so party round is a fundraising. Did you kill him after you talk

SPEAKER_314: to him? Is he a competition? No, no, no, he's he's cool. Don't worry. So party round is a fundraising tool for founders. And basically, they're just gamified the party round fundraising process. Hence the name. Founders can create a round set terms and invite investors to participate. And then party round handles the required documents, signatures, all the other stuff like that to make the process go

SPEAKER_320: smoothly. So it's sort of like a sure fund management, which were investors in and that powered Angel

SPEAKER_107: List and us. Mm hmm. Or I guess more of a competitor to Angel List. Because there's no syndicate lead. There's no fun. You go find your investors. Does it do an LLC and wrap them all into one item on the

SPEAKER_320: cap table? Or does it just manage the process and let them be direct investors on the cap table?

SPEAKER_324: I believe it just manages the process. But that is something I'd have to go look into

SPEAKER_314: quickly because I don't know too much. I know their big thing is being founder focused rather than investor focused because a lot of the platforms out there tend to be geared toward investors rather than the founders. And Josh's role there is doing things like marketing, community growth, things like that. So most of what we talked about was in that space. I think founders and anybody working in that area could take a lot from him. He's very good at what he does. He's 19. Didn't go to college went straight from high school in Canada to working at a startup in SF and

SPEAKER_71: is just killing it. He's 19. Yeah, he's 19. So that makes him a Gen Z. Yeah. And so you know,

SPEAKER_107: there is a handshake protocol that Y Combinator created. So you go to demo day. If somebody wants to meet you, they send this very short email, they kind of copied the format that Angel List did in the early days, which is, you say you want to invest, it automatically forwards you an email from the person the document, you put in how much you want to invest, and you're making a handshake, hey, pending diligence, I want to invest 25k. So what they're doing is like starting you Molly on like second base, like, okay, you saw the presentation, you want to make a bet, what's the bet size, go review the paperwork, we're going to, you know, the three or four things you're going to ask for, we'll just set up right now. And so it's a little bit forward as an investor when you do it. Like I did it a couple times, but I wanted to just meet the founders. And there was like, kind of assuming that either you want to invest or you don't. And there's my maybe like, I want to meet you. So it kind of skips that step. It's kind of like going right to consummating the deal. And, you know, I think tools like this, that at least help people walk through the process forget about gamification, and that's fun and clever. But just creating structure for the process for people who don't create their own structure, this could be done with a Google sheet, like putting your targets in sending specific emails having templates, but to put it all in one place. Sure, it seems like a reasonable idea. Yeah, I'm hoping someone of our founders uses it and gives us some feedback on it. I haven't heard of any founder using it yet. But I think it's new.

SPEAKER_319: They are interesting part, this isn't about party around, but about Josh's platform is they do a bunch of drops, think like mischief, things like that. So they didn't NFT drop and you were a part

SPEAKER_338: of it. There was a Jason NFC. Really? Yeah, we talked about in the podcast. Oh, I think I told him what the are you doing with my likeness? I'm promoting yourself. Take this down. Cool. Yeah,

SPEAKER_343: you probably did. No, I was not cool with it. I was like, Hey, dude, like, you're using me to market

SPEAKER_09: a startup product. They get paid for that. Like, don't do that. And I think he took it down. Or then they said they would use it for charity. And I was like, yeah, ixnay on that. I you know, like, please don't do this kind of stuff. I mean, I'm flattered. But if you're if an artist painted a picture of me and made an NFT, like, I'm not going to stop that. But if you do it to grow your business, that's using me in an advertisement, that would be like me taking I don't know, I don't know, shark tank and taking the shark time people and being like, join the syndicate. And they'd be like, wait a second, I'm getting paid to do that for, you know, another syndication platform. Like,

SPEAKER_344: that's, there's a concept of using celebrities likenesses in the real world. And so I thought

SPEAKER_01: that was kind of lame. That is so interesting that we have totally talked more than once about that exact generational difference. Like this question, this, this total concept that there

SPEAKER_36: just is not ownership. There is not, you know, doesn't exist. The law doesn't exist. Right?

SPEAKER_225: Exactly. You don't have to run anything by an attorney. It's super. Yeah, it's it is. I mean, it's actually kind of appropriate that we're having this okay, boomer conversation, because

SPEAKER_52: literally boomers are like, I'm sorry, stuff can be owned. And it sort of now feels like with

SPEAKER_09: with the youngs, it's like, no, again, I've literally had somebody use me in their marketing video. I'm like, one of these, like, you know, there's, there's like really cool crowdfunding platforms for public seed invest our crowd masterworks, you know, like these are like really on the up and up. But like, there's like this whole underbelly of these ones. And one of these underbelly ones, the founder, put me in there in their marketing video, because he had asked a question on Ask Jason, I won't say which company and then they made me the focal point of the video. And then all these people invested and then people in the threaded comments were like, Oh, Jason Calacanis is investing. He's the Uber guy. And I like was like, Hey, guys, take me out of your video. And they're like, Well, we were on your show. And I'm like, the keyword in that sentence is my show. You're on my show. And this is you're using my content for this. Well, you didn't get permission from us. I was like, I implicitly got permission from you. When you asked me a question at a public forum, like, you opted into that I did not opt into this. And I had to like explain to this idiot, multiple times. And then he got really offended. And he was like, you are anti startup. I'm like, Okay, don't pull the anti startup card. You're using me to market this. And you're confusing angel investors who are influenced by this. And I talked to the platform. And the platform was like,

SPEAKER_349: Yeah, we don't want to be in a battle with Jason Calacanis. Like, so like, can we be on your show?

SPEAKER_107: And I was like, Listen, I just don't want people to be confused. How many people have done this equity crowdfunding? Like, there's like 200 investors. So like, will you just make sure because you have now misled them? That's securities fraud, you sold them a security, thinking that I am the investor, and that I'm the proponent of this, because at some point, I said, Oh, what a great idea. And like, they're like using Oh, what a great idea in the video, like, I'm endorsing the fundraising, like, they you know, did the like crazy edit. Long story short, they emailed everybody. Just to be clear, Jason isn't in it. And they finally removed me from it. And then the guy emails me a year later, after I have this battle with him over it. And it's like, Hey, are you sure we can't use you in our video? Like, yes, I'm sure. So you know, some people might say, Hey, what about writing a review of your book or doing that? You can review anything you want. It's when you use somebody's likeness to mislead the public that that person is associated with your product and then to sell a product. So when you do commerce, which is what they were doing. So if somebody did an NFT project, my favorite entrepreneurs, and I made a painting, and they're an artist, that's different. Anyway, there you have it. Well, I can't wait to listen to that. Anyway, r.i.p. Josh. Sorry,

SPEAKER_210: Josh. Yeah. Sorry, Josh. In many other ways. But he probably did that when he was 17 years old. He had no idea about, you know, using cultural differences on display. Yes. Yeah. Well,

SPEAKER_312: this is definitely one of my favorite episodes. So I'm excited for everybody to check. All right,

SPEAKER_38: everybody. Here we go. A little controversy. We found a fight. Let's go. All right. Let's hear

SPEAKER_363: Rachel reporting. Okay. Okay. Boomer. I understood the assignment. Hello, everybody. And welcome to

SPEAKER_365: another segment of Okay Boomer. Today I have with me Josh from Party Round. I would say his last name. However, everybody knows him as Josh from Party Round. Josh. Thanks so much. And Anna. Yeah. Do you want

SPEAKER_369: to drop your last name in here or no? No, no, no. I'm good. I'm good. I think I'll keep that one. Keep that

SPEAKER_365: one in the bag for now. Awesome. So Josh from Party Round. Can you explain what a Party Round is

SPEAKER_372: and what Party Round the company is? Yeah. Yeah. So Party Rounds are when founders are raising, fundraising for their startup, and they have a round with a ton of investors. And it's also, we named our company. So Party Round is a fintech startup that we started about nine months ago, founded by Jordy and Sarah Chase Hayes, our lovely founders. And it's basically a tool for founders to fundraise on. So it takes all the pains of fundraising, like your legal docs, spreadsheets, tracking down investors. Just raising around as a founder is a very painful process. And so we took all that, we automated it, and we turned it into a beautiful app that feels like cash app to raise on. It's not a crowdfunding platform. It's just a tool, but it lets you handle your fundraise effortlessly. We automate your legal docs,

SPEAKER_377: we track your funds, we transfer your funds. And so you just have to start around on our app and then

SPEAKER_379: handle it as an OS from there. That's awesome. So do you have to be an accredited investor to use the app?

SPEAKER_372: So accreditation is, we're not really focused on investors. It's really a founder-focused tool. We're trying to build the best experience for founders to fundraise on. And in that process, we make a really good tool for investors. But when we're talking about using the app, you use the app if you're a founder. We're building for founders. But that being said, all that, the type of investors that a founder wants to let in is up to the founder's responsibility. So that is totally their jurisdiction. But yeah, our users are founders. But we do think it makes a

SPEAKER_381: great investing experience better than, I think, a lot of the tools that people use nowadays to

SPEAKER_383: invest money in. I definitely agree on having it be a beautiful app. I was invited to my first party

SPEAKER_365: round on the app. Oh, were you? Yeah. I didn't end up. Which round? You didn't end up investing? Brutal. I did not end up investing in it. I mean, like, maybe, maybe, who knows? But no, I didn't end up investing in it yet. Maybe that'll be a future Rachel thing.

SPEAKER_387: Are you a jurisdiction to say which round is, or do you want to keep that private?

SPEAKER_388: I'll let you know all fair. You know the person who it is really, really, really well,

SPEAKER_364: the girl whose company it is. But I was invited to the app. So I got to see the app firsthand. And

SPEAKER_365: what made me really scared about it actually was how easy it is for your friends and family now to basically give away $1,000. Because you're right, it was incredibly seamless, like the entire apps process, which I think is really cool. A lot less steps, I'm sure, than the normal investing process.

SPEAKER_369: Well, this is actually, this is actually sort of what the crux we're trying to get at. Because

SPEAKER_391: nowadays, in like modern society, you can, you can buy, like stocks, stocks have been gamified, like crypto, which is, I'm like, I'm pro crypto, but it's incredibly gamified, you can like,

SPEAKER_372: blow like thousands of dollars on NFTs with the click of a button, you can do sports betting, like sport, there's like sports betting apps that I can sign up for in like 10 seconds, and I'm well underage. But you can't invest in like startups, which have been this like dominant force for good, and like one of the few ways for like people to actually gain value and like, like all that is closed off to retail investors. So like, the average person has the only options for them are basically like pseudo gambling, you know, like trading crypto or trading stocks or trading NFTs, or literally just sports betting, like all of those things you've been done with a click of a button, but investing with your investing in your friend's company, or like investing in your team, you know, the people around you, you actually can't do and that that's the problem. So yeah, I don't think that's scary. I think that's one of the things we're trying to fix. I think people should be investing in startups. I think like, I think NFTs are super fun. But if people could invest that money into their friend's company, yeah, they would and they should that's better for society. That's what people should be able to do. So sorry, that was a little bit of a rant

SPEAKER_396: there. No, I think that's what we're trying to get at. It is. And that's awesome. I also think it's scary that I can throw away $1,000 doing things like sports betting. I don't know how like,

SPEAKER_365: much of a fan I am with apps that make sports betting incredibly easy and other things like that. But I guess I guess that's a different story. We actually talked about that as producers, how easy it is to kind of get in the cycle. Once you start using these tools. But honestly, like you said, investing in your friend's company, investing in especially companies that you believe

SPEAKER_400: in should be an easier process because it's incredibly difficult. I think investing is an

SPEAKER_399: incredibly serious decision for most people. Like I think everyone contemplates it. I don't think

SPEAKER_377: people take it lightly. But what is a pain is when you've gone through all the work of deciding that you're going to invest and then actually sending money is like a huge waste of time. So it's like really hard to keep track of. So that's what we're trying to fix. I think everyone should, you know, invest in startups around them vary with a lot of like, you know, consideration. But when you're ready to invest, we want to make sure that process is accessible and quick for people.

SPEAKER_396: So you guys don't do anything right to help with like a due diligence process beforehand. It's simply

SPEAKER_377: just the investment. We're not for we're not for investors. It's it. I mean, we are, we are

SPEAKER_372: investors, but we're, we're building for founders. So every decision we make is like, how can we make this an incredible experience for founders to raise a round on? And in doing so, we make it really easy

SPEAKER_377: for investors, but it isn't, it isn't really about you guys. It's just, there's lots of platforms that are designed for investors, but part of your own is built to make it easy for founders to raise,

SPEAKER_396: raise their round. So what makes it different between an app that's geared for founders versus a

SPEAKER_365: platform that would be geared towards investors? Like what specific features make it a founder

SPEAKER_404: focused app? Yeah, I think, I think a lot of like the tools you'll see around like, um, you know,

SPEAKER_377: I don't want to, I don't want to spend this whole time shitting on a lot of like really cool platforms

SPEAKER_372: out there. Um, but they're, they're designed with like, you know, they're not designed with ease of use in mind for founders, um, in, in, in managing around and like setting everything up. Um, and they're

SPEAKER_377: also oftentimes like built for a different type of like legal structures. So right now we're building for, you know, safes and, and priced rounds for founders to, to raise on. And I think a lot of these tools are just like, I think there's different types, like there's crowdfunding tools out there,

SPEAKER_372: which is like, you know, you stick a company up and anyone can put money into it. I think a lot of startups like, don't really want to use that. There's things like AngelList where there's like rolled vehicles, but a lot of, or like SPVs, but a lot of those aren't like founders don't have a say in them. They like give away part of their, part of their company just gets like sent out to random investors and even just simple stuff like the UI, the, like setting up the structure, managing the money as it comes in. They're not really designed with ease of use, uh, for a founder in mind. So I think it's a, like using the app is, is one of those experiences that like really has blown a lot of founders minds. Cause it's, it's so many things just make a ton of sense. Like you can upload your docs and start or kick off around super quickly, like just a few tip taps. Um, and then you're given this screen where you, you can, uh, manage all your invites that you're sending to your investors and friends and community members. And then you're just chilling there watching, you know, watching the invites, seeing money comes in, when money comes in, getting notified, um, and tracking everything from your phone. So yeah, I think, I think over the last decade, we've seen a transition from like web to, uh, to mobile. And I think party around is built with like web tooling in mind, you can raise around, um, on a web browser, but the future of all these things is, uh, is mobile down the line. And we're really excited about that. So yeah, I, uh, I, uh, I think it's, I think there's not really other tools that are designed for, for people building

SPEAKER_396: startups. So I think that's awesome. And I completely agree about, uh, putting importance about putting importance into UX and UI. I feel like finance and FinTech in general, it's a total overlooked space, especially in design. Obviously there are a few apps like here and there, like Robinhood wealth front that look really nice. But for example, like fidelity, which is just something I use for like my Roth IRA is quite literally the ugliest and hardest to use app. If anybody out there wanted to design like a new app, just for funsies for their portfolio, I highly recommend like doing project fidelity because it sucks. So it's good that you guys are focusing on the ease of use, because I think like the barrier for that is becoming increasingly important. Like personally, I won't, this sounds bad, but like for a lot of apps, like if the app

SPEAKER_364: looks bad, the chances of me using it are very slim, even if it's like an incredibly useful app.

SPEAKER_377: Totally. Yeah. I mean, it isn't, I think our amazing UI, thanks to our, our, our head of, uh, product and design, Brandon, Brandon Jacoby. Um, that's just the cherry on top of like a great experience. I think there's a lot of tools that you like can raise on, if that makes sense. Like you, it's possible to, but it requires a ton of work for founders. Like you got to upload all your docs, you got to talk to a lawyer, you got to get your legal docs organized. And then you like technically can track your fundraise, but you know, like you got to do all the wiring and it's a bad experience for both founders or investors. Um, and we compartmentalize that all on the app. So like we automate your legal docs, you literally just click, start around. Um, and you can handle all the valuations and terms in app with just a few clicks. And we like all the, all the flow of funds, all the transfers are done super easily on the app and you don't have to do extra work. So yeah, I think it, I think it all comes together. It's like, it's, it's, uh, it's building a great

SPEAKER_412: experience across the board. So anyway, sorry. So I'm like, I'm not like, I'm shilling our startup, but it's a, it's an amazing startup. Um,

SPEAKER_414: No, the podcast is called This Week in Startup. So, I mean, like you're, you're at the right place

SPEAKER_371: to be doing that. We're out here. I will, I can talk for, for years about, about how awesome

SPEAKER_396: PartyRound is. Yeah. Well, anyway. Yeah, we can keep going. No, we can keep talking about how awesome PartyRound is. And like you said, there's just like so many portions of PartyRound that make

SPEAKER_365: it awesome. One of which is its marketing, marketing strategy, which I know you do a lot with. Can you talk to me about your role at PartyRound, the marketing strategy behind it?

SPEAKER_412: Yeah. I think a lot of people sort of treat us like this startup that's like, oh, they have like a,

SPEAKER_372: a hypey Twitter about them. Um, we're a really product focused startup. We just are also good at marketing. Um, I think people are seeing that now, like when they use the app, they're like, oh, holy, this is an entirely engineering and product focused startup. Um, but yeah, we're good at marketing on the side too. And I think, I think it's not because we're good marketers. We just like making cool, make, making stuff that we, can I swear on this podcast or yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. We just like making like, our strategy for marketing is pretty simple. It's like, we want to make stuff that's funny and we want to make stuff that's cool. And we want to make stuff that's useful for founders. And if we like it, I think other people will like it. And we've proven that. Um, so we were just like, we're going to go out there and we're going to have fun. Um, I think a lot of startups underestimate like that building a brand is, is, uh, is really important. There's like a, a trend in the last, I think five years, Silicon Valley, that's like, you shouldn't worry at all about marketing. You should just like ship and do engineering and like build out a really functional product. And that's actually true. It is totally true. And we do that. It's just like, I'm not an engineer. I, I can't sit there and like code. We have a fantastic engineering team, uh, led by our dear Brian Armstrong. He's an amazing, not the Coinbase one, the better one, head of engineering at Barnaround. Um, we have an amazing engineering team and they're fantastic. And we have an amazing product team, but, uh, me and my boss still now Briscato on the side. Uh, we were having fun. We're just like showy casing our love for, you know, founders and the startup world and like building awesome things. So yeah, we have a couple of strategies. We're like, we have a, a very pop in Twitter. I'd say, uh, a lot of founders use Twitter and we were like, Hey, okay. At the start of this all, we were like, we want to reach founders. We are our founders. And I think like tech Twitter and crypto Twitter are like this, this really rare high density collaboration of people building stuff. Um, so we immediately like, let's just channel all our energy into it. Um, and Twitter is great. It's amazing. It's a really meritocratic platform in the sense of like good stuff comes to the top. So we just make good stuff. We made stuff we find funny and we, uh, we interact with our, with our followers heavily. Um, and it's been great.

SPEAKER_377: We've had endless amounts of founders come through our Twitter. We have a waitlist. It's like 40,000 strong right now. And we are onboarding founders as fast as we can. Um, but it, uh, Twitter was incredible for us. And then we also do drops, which are just like launches of like little mini products that are kind of unrelated. Sometimes they're fun. Sometimes they're useful. Sometimes they're like just insane. Um, and those have done really well and gone viral and brought more founders on board. So yeah, I, uh, can dive into it. That's sort of what I do at party around. I I'm like a growth hacker. So I do a lot of our Twitter and community and I also build these products on the side to go viral. Um, but yeah, do you, can I jump into some of the drops? I think you should jump into some of

SPEAKER_396: the drops. And I also think you should like rebrand yourself as like a professional poster.

SPEAKER_423: I don't think I actually don't, I mean, I think I'm funny on Twitter, but it's not really what I want to be. Um, eventually I, I'm more excited about like building great tools and, uh, I have fun posting, but like one of the things we're talking about right now is like party around is

SPEAKER_377: this super functional product. We want to make sure we don't, we don't want to get carried away with that. There's like, yeah, I think it's like a skill. You can be funny on Twitter. It doesn't mean to be your whole, you know, your whole lifestyle identity. Um, so there's stuff for you down the line outside of marketing. I mean, there's stuff. Yeah. I don't, I think even our drops in our, our Twitter in the last and really, really functional. Like we had, we have had some pretty, some pretty cool tools like, uh, like big tech fellowship was this, was this, um, it was this

SPEAKER_399: drop that we made that we paid someone $50,000 to quit their big check job, uh, and go make a

SPEAKER_377: startup. And I mean, it's totally fun and like mischief-esque and very exciting. Um, and it got a ton of viral hype around it, but it is, that's like a really cool thing. Like we totally transformed someone's life. Um, and they're building an awesome startup right now. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think I want to make stuff that helps the, I just want to make cool stuff. And I think some of those drops already have been highly functional. So yeah, we have fun on Twitter,

SPEAKER_372: but I think it comes from a place of like, what do we find funny? What do we find cool? And what do we find useful? And we hope that, uh, founders agree. So.

SPEAKER_396: Do you have like any advice on Twitter and on branding in general that you think could be used by a multitude of startups? Like, is there any one point in people's, yeah, by founders, do you see any branding that you're just like, this sucks so hard that people can change?

SPEAKER_432: Or like roast Twitter brands? I'm not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_379: Yeah, literally. No, go for it. Cause I feel like there's some stuff that's being reused on Twitter over and over and again.

SPEAKER_399: Twitter's a really hard platform and I think people don't get used to that. So like Instagram and stuff, are they're very like repetitive, like platforms. So like you win by posting a ton, basically like just getting very consistent with posts and Twitter is not like that at all. It's highly exponential.

SPEAKER_377: So like a viral tweet will get exponentially more than like a hundred normal tweets. So you really just, you should really just focus on like, like hitting home runs, if that makes sense. Like I can do a hundred tweets a day and you know, they'll get like, they'll get like, I don't know, like a thousand views each. But if I do one viral tweet in that same timeframe, it will get millions of impressions. So I think the problem is people take that strategy. A lot of brands are constantly trying to retweet and post stuff and constantly like have a really good calendar schedule for like content. And that's bad actually. Like, like face it, you're a brand. Like we're highly cognizant of the fact we're a brand. Our followers don't want their timeline crowded up with brand stuff. Like we, they don't, they don't want the founders are busy people and Twitter is a really useful tool, man. They gotta be like checking out hiring. They gotta be checking out other stuff. So the only time we're on a founders timeline is like, if we have something that we find really funny or really cool. And that's the only time that we're interrupting you. Um, so yeah, I think that's probably the main problem with brands. It's like, stop, stop posting so much. You're, you're a brand. So, um, that's what I'd say. I, but I think it's, I think it's, uh, I think it's a great platform to get the hand of it as a, uh, as a, as a company, I would say this though, like Twitter is really useful, but it's only useful for certain types of things. So it's like, I don't think every branch should go on Twitter. Um, like I think some should. Um, and if you have the assets to like, do it, like we have a lot of flexibility because we have two really fantastic marketers in the team and we can, we can go wherever we want, but like you need to, as a founder, invest in specific avenues. So Twitter was our first one because it was like, this is where 90% of our customer base is out, is always on. Um, and now we're sort of reaching out to other sectors and sections, but yeah, just make a strategic decision. Like our drops and our Twitter strategy and everything was a highly strategic decision that we made that was like, here's where founders are the densest. So you need to look at that yourself. Like, I don't think that people should just do drops as a strategy. Like we love mischief and we had a really good game plan around how we did our drops, but the truth is marketing is like you, it's about making something fresh. And if everyone's making drops, which they are now, it's like, it loses the excitement. So, so like people who copy our strategy, they, it's like trying to copy like a high frequency hedge fund trader a week after they've made their trades. Like, it just doesn't make sense. Like we're already, we were still doing drops of course, but we're already working on other things. Like we're really excited about, you know, dinners for founders and just like, um, creating like new types of really interesting content for people in the tech world. Um, and we're excited by like longer term structures. Like, like, but I think we want to productize things like the big tech fellowship or like founder houses or just as a ton of other things. Like it's, you got to find what's next. Um, and you got to find what fits for your brand. Um, like we, we were in a situation where we didn't want to talk about our product publicly for seven months. And I think a lot of startups will just like not market at all, but we were like, we're going to still have fun. So we were the class clowns of the tech world. We were interacting with founders. We built this like founder brand and then we launched our product. Um, and we told everyone we were, but you got to strategize yourself. So I, I think it's fine to not do marketing if you don't have the resources for it. It's not always the best investment we could, and we did it really well. And so it was amazing investment. It got us a lot of hires. It got us connected with, you know, amazing investors. Um, and it put us in touch mainly most importantly with like a bunch of founders, but yeah, I think it comes from a strategic place, figure out who you're trying to reach, um, and then figure out a fresh and exciting way to reach them. Um, and don't just copy what people tell you on marketing. So yeah,

SPEAKER_365: it's super frustrates me whenever I see. Um, and most of the time I see these on tech talks, but all people that do like social media marketing managers or whoever they are, and they just like tell you trends or like this sound is trending right now. And I'm like, oh my God, that's going to create like such bad content. If you just regurgitate what's trending right now, rather than putting like a critical thought or try to incorporate like your brand's voice rather than just speaking out, um, and copying what everybody else is doing. It's kind of like, it's like Buddhist

SPEAKER_399: in a way where it's like, you have to give up the pursuit of what you're trying to do to reach it.

SPEAKER_377: So if I go into marketing and I'm like, oh, I need like a million impressions this week. I'm not going to hit that. But if I go in from a perspective of like, I'm going to make something really beautiful and share with the world. I'm going to make something that like, that like is, is good and is helpful. That will do. That is like something that's a value out of the world. And I think a lot of marketers approach it from like a, oh, I need to like run you to rip up my, uh, I need to get more reach. I got to get these numbers up, you know, value extraction way of looking at marketing and marketing is really just like make beautiful things. So yeah. Well,

SPEAKER_396: you and I were just talking about this yesterday, how I was like, I just want to create

SPEAKER_365: really good content. And I think that it's so easy to stray away from that though. And like, I'm definitely at fault of that. Like what could I post right now that I know will get like the most

SPEAKER_396: hype, even on like my own personal accounts, like what, trying to think of everything strategically rather than just trying to create content because I like creating content at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_442: That's who you're, I think people and brands should want their marketing professionals to be.

SPEAKER_377: We have a drop coming in the next like couple of days that is like so useful for founders. It's a, I can't really talk about it because it's going to be out in like a week. By the time people hear it, it will probably be out, but it is like such a highly functional tool for founders. I'm really excited. So we try and mix it up. We've done like collabs. We've done like mischief style drops that make you like scratch, that makes you like crack up. And we've done like just funny stuff. And we've done like things that are like actually change the world. And now we're like, let's just make a really useful tool for founders and drop that. So I'm excited. But yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a great team and we're having a ton of fun in the marketing.

SPEAKER_443: And we're also, yeah, we're also having fun building a great, a great product. So.

SPEAKER_364: I just want to talk about how you got this job because I know you're 19 years old. I know that

SPEAKER_446: you also hate that you're 19 years old, but I think it's absolutely freaking incredible because you're obviously very well-versed and very good at your job. I'm like, I'm not though, I'm five years older than you. Are you five years old? Yeah, I'm five. I'm five years old. I'm barely, I'm barely a gen. No, just kidding. You're like

SPEAKER_364: full, full, full gen Z. But how did you get this job? Were you in high school or were you like directly out of high school first off?

SPEAKER_377: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's jump real quick to, to, to party on stuff. And then I can talk some more about my, like my, my life, my life path. So, uh, I, I was pretty much like messing around a little bit online and I was making kind of like fun little products that went viral. And Jordy just picked me up off Twitter and DM me and was like, um, I want you to join my new

SPEAKER_450: startup. Uh, this was right after- What do you mean like little products that went viral?

SPEAKER_391: Um, maybe we should just actually start from like, sorry, I guess we should, we should bring it back because it makes sense in the picture. I'm sorry. I'm f***ing up your podcast, but-

SPEAKER_377: No, you're not at all. Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_375: Yes. I was, I was in high school. Um, I wanted to get into the tech world and I was, I was, I'd,

SPEAKER_377: I'd like fall in love with startups like HQ, Trivia and like Citizen from a young age.

SPEAKER_372: Uh, and when you're in high school, there's like four jobs you know about. It's like investment banker,

SPEAKER_377: doctor or lawyer. Um, so I was like, okay, before I make a startup, I gotta go like work at Bain for like four years. So I went to a good college for finance. Um, and I was like, I'm going to go like, do like, I'm going to go like, you know, my classic gunner route and like go work at like Deloitte or something. Anyway, it's super lame stuff. This is just like, you just don't know this stuff when you're young. Um, I, I'm 19. So my first year of high school, my senior year of high school, like COVID was already starting then. So my first year of college, like I, I couldn't be on campus

SPEAKER_372: or anything. Um, so I ended up just like dropping out. Um, I started messing around a little bit in like the venture world and I quickly realized that like the parts I like about finance were venture capital and the parts that I like about venture capital were startups. Um, and so pretty quickly I was like, okay, I want to go make a leap, uh, into a good startup as fast as I can. Uh, it took me a long time to find a really great startup. I worked for a Justin con for a little

SPEAKER_377: bit. Um, as a, I like basically helped run his fund go capital for a while. Um, and then at the same time I was just getting into like, I was just like sort of playing around on the internet. So I would like skip my finals, my midterms and stuff and skip my classes. And I would just like, uh, for the, like for the two months I was in college, I would just like spend it all on clubhouse and I would just talk to people. Um, but yeah, I, I, I spent a lot of time in venture and then I was like, okay, this, this sucks. Venture as a, as a, as a student, as a young person is a total scam. Uh, I don't have any decision making here. I want to go build something that I can like take ownership of. So I pretty quickly was like, I want to go join a startup. Um, I, Jory just picked me up. He's messaged me off Twitter because he saw some of the stuff I was doing and was like, I want to talk to you about my new startup. And we got on a call and pretty quickly we were like, just, it was electric. Like we are, we are both like, oh, I'm really inspired by mischief. I just want to make really cool stuff. And I pitched him this thesis actually, that I was, I was working on for marketing. I ended up actually, I got another job offer. I got a job offer to do product to do not pay. Um, and so I called up mommy mentors and I was like, here's the situation. This is a company that I like. Um, that's, you know, given me a good stable role in their big company, not, you know, not big, but like they're established company at the time they were like worth $80 million. Um, and there's other like new startup that literally is like, it was Jordan and Sarah, the founders they're married. Um, it was their company that just started it. They had like, they were in the process of hiring Um, and it was like, it was like so new. And I was like, but I'm, I'm really excited about what they're doing. Like, I think it's world changing. And my mentors are fantastic. I, uh, I, a lot of people like my parents and, um, JD Moresco, um, David Giles, these are like these people that have just taught me a ton. They were all like, that's great, but you, you should take the like stable, get your foot in the door career thing. Um, so I ended up, I ended up picking job pay. Uh, but then they, I got like a bad reference check or something. I, it was like an awkward process. I, the founder of it told me I was interviewing for marketing. And then he put me on a call with like the head of product who I only found out like 45 minutes into

SPEAKER_423: the interview was actually interviewing me for a product role. So the whole time I was pitching marketing stuff. I'm like, we can change marketing forever. And he was like, so do you want to do product here? And I was like, Oh, wrong thing. Anyway, it fell through. Um, so I was like stuck. I, I just got in a place in SF so I could work down there for them. And I was like, Oh my God, I don't have a job. I just dropped out of college for this. Uh, I have like no credentials. I had like a thousand Twitter followers at the time. So I called Jordy. I'm like, I will like, I, I'm sorry. Like I was like, I basically was just like, let's, uh, I was pissed off at the time too. I was like super spiteful. I was like, I, I will mess. I will, I will up. Let me,

SPEAKER_377: put me in coach. Um, so Jordy was like, this is awesome. We, I joined party around May 10th. Um,

SPEAKER_396: it was like nine or 10 months ago. Dang. So you sound like the most ideal candidate, by the way, let me just say this. Now you sound like the most ideal candidate for a startup. Cause I think if you find somebody that is like young, super passionate and ready just to absolute, I always, I don't, I think you might've tweeted something similar to this. How like, it's how,

SPEAKER_444: I don't even know how to put it, but you, yeah. What was it about? Like, I don't think it's bad to

SPEAKER_391: like be spiteful. You know what I'm talking about? I was arguing some guy. Yeah. I mean, I think that's like one of the purposes of life is like getting back and like showing, but maybe I'm just a spiteful

SPEAKER_372: motherfucker. So that could be it. Like, I think it's a beautiful process. Like, I think people are really scared of being like petty and revengeful, but these are like the stories and legends that make

SPEAKER_377: victory, achieving, achieving victory, proving yourself, proving your worth. Um, so I have

SPEAKER_465: no hard feelings against, uh, like all the companies. Nothing is more motivating than hearing somebody else say no. Like nothing is more motivating than being told no. I feel that. So we took,

SPEAKER_377: I took all that strategy I wrote for them and then I immediately put it to work for party round and I was like, I'm going to build this, this, uh, I had like no idea what the fuck I was doing. Cause I was just out of high school. So I'm like sitting there and Jordy's like, yo, like, let's, uh, let's do marketing.

SPEAKER_423: I was, I was like Googling, like how to market to start a startup. Anyway, we just quickly got

SPEAKER_377: a base on the strategy, which is like, Oh yeah, literally it was like, I remember making the party around marketing notion. I was just sitting there staring at this new tab called marketing in our

SPEAKER_423: notion. I'm like, I have no, I'm way over in my head right now, but yeah, it was strategies pretty

SPEAKER_372: quickly. We were like, all right, founders are on, on Twitter. We want to reach founders and we want to make cool stuff and cool content and have a ton of fun. Um, and I would say we've, we've crushed that

SPEAKER_377: over the past month. I don't know if people like know us. I don't want to be arrogant if like people on this podcast don't know party around, but check us out. We have a really sick, sick product and we also have a ton of fun online. So, uh, we have, we have done quite well for the few of our drops in

SPEAKER_372: terms of marketing. Um, one of the ones we made was this NFT drop back when NFTs were cool. It was

SPEAKER_383: called helpful VCs. Oh, it's bad. Dang. So wait, Jason was Jason, I think was a, one of them, right?

SPEAKER_412: And he was also like, Jason got all whiny because he used his face. He was like, oh, sorry. I guess I

SPEAKER_391: can't get that Jason on this podcast. Jason was like, are you allowed to like, you're using my face out of wine. And we're like, dude, dude, dude, it's all good. We're like, we're having fun. We're like, we

SPEAKER_372: donated all the process proceeds from that to like, to other, to like, we gave it out in grants to founders. Um, but yeah, we made NFTs of VCs and their likeness in crypto punk style. And we were like,

SPEAKER_391: if you want these, you have to retweet to claim. And just like, everyone went,

SPEAKER_476: they just like lost it. It was like all these. Did anybody get Jason? Did anyone get Jason?

SPEAKER_390: I think Jason retweeted it to get his own. Jason got his. So on the block was like, I need this.

SPEAKER_377: Um, and it was amazing. We had a ton of reach. Um, and then we took around and took all the money we made German and we gave it out to founders. Um, but yeah, it was really fun. It was really fun drop. Anytime you can sort of play around with VCs, he goes, we have a lot of. Yeah. Mischief is one.

SPEAKER_396: So for those of you who don't know, because we've mentioned Mischief a lot, Mischief is an art collective. I believe they're actually based in Brooklyn. Um, Gabe, I believe is like the founder.

SPEAKER_483: They're trying to be an art collective. They're, they're, they're a product studio.

SPEAKER_396: They do audacious stuff. They made Grimes had a sword, um, on a red carpet event and the sword was made by Mischief and it was like a repurposed gun, which is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_423: They do a bunch of stuff. I'm going to hot take this because I want to preface this by saying I'm a spiteful, like sad, bitter person. Oh my God. I've always been slightly offended that

SPEAKER_377: Mischief has never tried to hire me because when you're like a growth hacker, Mischief is like the Harvard of the growth hacking world. Um, I think they've, I think it's like, they had set an amazing standard and they totally changed the way people look at like products and marketing, but I think they've fallen off a tiny bit. And in part because a lot of the really talented people there have like gone to go work and lead other startups. It's like Andrew Watts, head of marketing at Simulate is like an amazing example. He's like one of the most talented, funny people I know. Um, I barely even know him, but he's, he's close friends with my boss. Still never scout out. Um, but yeah, I, I think Mischief is, uh, they're struggling with like repetition and keeping it fresh. It's really hard to like over to productize that things. Like there's a lot of pressure on them. Every week you have to have something cool. They had an SAT drop that was pretty neat, but

SPEAKER_396: um, I think it's a little like I, uh, I like dead startup toys where they had like the actual desk toys, but for like, it was like Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos lab, like desk toy, like how investment

SPEAKER_364: bankers have toys that sit on their desk, but these were like toys that were just of dead startups. I,

SPEAKER_492: I like that drop. I thought that was cool. Did you get any of the toys? I feel like I'm talking.

SPEAKER_372: If anybody has one, I want one, please, please, please. It was, they were like really cheap plastic toys. But anyway, I'm, I'm mischief changed my, mischief changed my life in terms of inspiration. Um, but yeah, no, we, we bought a bunch of those toys. We did. We have a bunch of our office.

SPEAKER_494: We didn't have one. Oh my gosh. Look out. Like I'm about to freaking rob you guys.

SPEAKER_369: Okay. Yeah. Well, no, we'll give them to you for video. They don't work. They don't work.

SPEAKER_390: That's what I'm saying. The Theranos one dude is literally just a chunk of plastic with a sticker.

SPEAKER_396: Yeah. I thought, is that what like investment banking toys are though? Like the literally like the deal, it's not called deal toys, right? And they just sit on your desk. Yeah. Speaking of deal toys,

SPEAKER_372: we have NFT deal toys when you close around at PartyGround. Wow. So is it like a deal? Wait,

SPEAKER_434: do you get a toy, physical toy that looks like a board game or do you get like a NFT? This is

SPEAKER_372: actually inspired by Jason. Jason, you know, has always been like, I was one of their early checks in Uber, um, which he probably was, but we don't want to leave that up to like, we think the blockchain

SPEAKER_377: is a great, like, um, a great use case. So, so for like commemorating these things and tracking them and putting them on record. So when you invest in a company, um, he it's on,

SPEAKER_372: it's on the blockchain and you can, you get, this is mostly just for a for fun thing. We're not an NFT startup, but we just, we, this is exactly how we approach products where it's like, we want to build useful stuff for founders. And we also just want to have fun. Um, so yeah, when you, when you raise around as a founder, your investors get NFTs to commemorate their

SPEAKER_377: investments. Um, they can flex and show off and they're really pretty. So.

SPEAKER_480: So do you think it's more important to do things like these drops and have really

SPEAKER_396: thoughtful outside the box marketing, or do you think it's important for a brand to absolutely just double down on, on Twitter, like on one platform? Like, which one do you think?

SPEAKER_412: I mean, we're kind of, I think it's like a strategy thing. I would say we're doubling down on Twitter. Our, our drops are good on Twitter. I, we're, we're only now getting into

SPEAKER_372: things like Instagram and other form content, but it's really just a strategy thing. Figure out where the people you're trying to talk to are, go to them. So, I mean, if we were a CPG brand,

SPEAKER_396: I'd be on Instagram. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's something that really frustrates me. And sometimes when I see brands that are CPG, um, a lot of brands I've noticed that are more geared towards fun food, I've noticed a lot lately are on Twitter, go over to Instagram and blow up Instagram. I think fun food on Instagram, my mom, my mother will spend endless amounts of money. If you have a link to a fun food product, that woman is. And that woman is not on Twitter. Like I can tell you

SPEAKER_508: that. I think there's some really, some really cool. It's all about like doing like finding value and marketing. It's very similar to like, I just like, if everyone is on Instagram for

SPEAKER_377: something, you know, it's actually not, there's some really cool CPG things that have popped up on Twitter. So it's really just about strategy, but it's like, everyone's on CPG Instagram. Sometimes you can actually get really good alpha on, uh, on other platforms. So, but yeah, no, I, I agree with you, but, uh, I think it's always about like, yeah, come up with, with creative stuff.

SPEAKER_399: There's a few CPG brands I like on Twitter, but anyway, we aren't a CPG company. Unfortunately,

SPEAKER_497: we did do a CPG drop once, but it was, uh, yeah, it was Cometeer coffee. It was party grounds.

SPEAKER_514: Yeah. We party grounds. Um, I just talked to somebody that works there. So Cometeer coffee,

SPEAKER_396: there's, they're like these little pods, but they're not K cups, but it's basically just condensed coffee. So, you know, the shipping and supply chain is a lot better. So we actually just had on the can of founder, which also has like a similar ideology where it just costs so much money to freaking ship. Like the supply chain of beverages is like psycho and Cometeer coffee is similarly in that realm of like, you know, it's really expensive to ship, um, liquids. Cometeer coffee has like condensed coffee, I believe in like little pods. Um, and you guys did party ground, like you just said,

SPEAKER_380: and the packaging looked really sick. Brandon followed, follow at Brandon Jacoby on,

SPEAKER_372: on Twitter. He's amazing. Was it Brandon Jacoby that did it? Brandon Jacoby? Well, I was, uh, yeah, he is like, I mean, all these things are a team effort. Like when we talk about product and marketing, it's a whole team getting involved, but, uh, he's an incredible designer.

SPEAKER_380: So yeah, head of Mark and uh, and PM. Oh, sorry. It's at Jacoby Brandon. I'm, I'm with it up.

SPEAKER_399: Sorry. Sorry, Brandon. It's at Jacoby Brandon. We have a, we have a challenge right now. First of us to 10 K followers gets to make the other person get a tattoo. So I really shouldn't be shouting him out, but I'm, I'm pretty confident I'm going to beat him to 10 K. So what are you

SPEAKER_396: going to get a tattoo? Or do you want to get a tattoo of like the party round circles? Like your

SPEAKER_422: guys' logo? Yeah, I think I will get a tattoo. I'm waiting until I get my equity just cause like, you know, I feel like that's just like a, a more, more, once I invest, I'm, I'm getting that tattoo.

SPEAKER_379: So you also have a tattoo of something else that has to do with NFTs, right? On your arm.

SPEAKER_372: Oh God, don't expose me like this. Yeah. I, uh, I have a, a ERC 721 tattoo. It's, it's, uh, And what does that mean? What is ER, what is that? I'm a loser. My, my thesis on tattoos is like,

SPEAKER_519: You gotta explain what that is. You gotta explain what that is. Cause people listening.

SPEAKER_372: It's a, it's a DAO. I got a tattoo to join a DAO. You got me. I'm an idiot. Um,

SPEAKER_396: But isn't that like the legal, the legal document, right? Like the actual tattoo you have is the name of

SPEAKER_372: the legal document for NFTs or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So ERC 721 is a type of token, um, theorem token that lets NFTs, you know, work. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's, I just got a tattoo to join a little group chat. It's really fun. So you'll like meet other tech people around the world and they'll have the same tattoo and then we like nap each other up. That's pretty good for community building. It is. It is really fun. Um, 60 seconds left, Rachel. What is, what are the

SPEAKER_400: final questions here? We can go over it. Oh man. We're gonna have to go over it. Cause we haven't even

SPEAKER_396: talked about, um, I do want to pivot our conversation a little bit more to, um, just young people living in New York city, especially young people living in cities that work in tech. Yep. Yep. Tell me your

SPEAKER_399: thoughts. Yeah. In general, I think like, uh, good places. I think you should just get to a city if

SPEAKER_377: you're young and you're a technologist or you're building cool things. Um, I think then first is

SPEAKER_372: just like where you want to go SF Miami, New York. Um, I'm very biased. I lived in SF for about eight months. Um, it was great, but I, uh, yeah, I don't really have any hate to SF. I think as I was really cool when you're young, I know there's a lot of like people hyping up the crime and that stuff right

SPEAKER_412: now, but it's like, you're young, you know, like just carry some pepper spray to hang out with a bunch of like fine, fine friends that can fight. No, I'm kidding. It's really not that bad. Um,

SPEAKER_391: but, uh, New York was my first love. So I, I love New York. I think a lot of people should come

SPEAKER_372: here. I think Miami is cool. I just, cause no one gets work done in Miami. I also like every time I go to Miami, there's like a ton of drama and that goes down. So I just like, don't want to work in Miami. I don't know. New York's great. I, you guys should come to New York. Um, but yeah, dropping out is like, is a, is a little bit of a, a unique situation. Cause you do, you do trade off a lot of like, like I say, I would say like social life and anytime you have to make a decision around college, it's like, it's like, okay, credentialing, um, credentials, connections for business connections for like friends, like your relationships. And then like, how does this actually help you in your career? Um, I think credentialing in general in college is stupid. Cause college is like a fallback plan.

SPEAKER_377: It's like basically like, Oh, if I don't have a job, I need a college degree to like get a job. But like, that's a fallback plan. You're planning for like the worst case scenario where you can't get hired. And I just don't think many, many people, especially in tech, like a lot of people in tech are trying to do insane things with their life. Like I'm risking my entire life on like the one in a zillion chance that I can be someone who makes something absolutely great, which is,

SPEAKER_391: I'd say that chance is higher now that I work at party round. No, I'm kidding. But like, um, yeah, like don't live your life for fallback plans. That being said, uh, it's great to like not have responsibility. Like I'm 19 and I live like a, I live like I'm just in my mid twenties. And that's some of the things I'm like, I'm, I didn't really have an option cause I, I wasn't

SPEAKER_377: going to have any community at college anyway, cause it was in COVID. But I think people nowadays, it's like, do really consider this situation, uh, deeply. Um, it's nice to not have a ton of responsibility. It's nice to have a period in your life where you don't have to like, just be an adult. And, uh, college is great for that. Um, I personally hated college cause I didn't like being just like a normal person. Like I was just a guy there, you know? Like I, I think it's partly cause I'm, I'm very like, um, uh, dude, maybe I'm just like a narcissist. No, I just like, I believe in myself a lot to a fault. And it was like having this sort of dissonance when you get to college and just being like another guy there was like, I was like, this sucks. I do not want to have just, I don't want to be normal. So I was like,

SPEAKER_528: I'm going to go and I'm going to go and gamble with my life and try and try and do something great. Um, but yeah, I think it's a community. How do you find community without? So like,

SPEAKER_396: if you're like, if you're over 21, I, I guess like we met in a, we work, so we works and co-working

SPEAKER_530: spots are like very cool places. Um, we also met, we actually met in an airport, I'd say the first

SPEAKER_377: thing you need if you're a college dropout, get a fake ID. Um, yeah, I mean, New York is unique. Like, even if you go to college in New York, it's not like you're going to college, it's more like you're just like, like going to NYU is the closest thing to dropping out.

SPEAKER_432: You can do without dropping out. So, um,

SPEAKER_535: Explain, explain your thoughts on there.

SPEAKER_412: It's like a commuter college.

SPEAKER_535: You literally have so much NYU in you. It is insane.

SPEAKER_412: I don't have NYU in. I have a lot of friends at NYU. I think NYU is a great school. I would have loved to go to NYU. I didn't go to, I couldn't have gotten in. So, uh, I'll, I'll say that.

SPEAKER_391: Cause NYU is a commuter school. New York specifically is a unique scenario, but I think there's lots of ways. Like tech is one of the most

SPEAKER_377: welcoming opening places for connections. Um, I like, even last week I tweeted out like, how do I meet people to go party with that aren't in tech? And like a billion really cool tech people replied. And so I'm spending the next like four weeks just hanging out with more awesome tech

SPEAKER_508: people. I, I think it's important to be like, I, I, my, it's my tribe. Like I, I, uh, I love people

SPEAKER_372: that are trying to do great things with their life. And I, uh, I think I've made a ton of lifelong friends doing hacker houses and stuff. I would strategize like, if you're a young person, you want to drop out, consider that deeply. And then if you're ready to like basically sacrifice your life to do something amazing or try and take that risk, drop out, uh, figure out

SPEAKER_391: a hacker house in a city somewhere. If you're young, uh, go live there and meet a lot of really cool people in the city. Did you do a hacker house in SF? Yeah. Yeah. So me and my room, I, uh, I did edify. Edify unfortunately just got, um, I don't actually know how to say edify no longer exists. Uh, it was an amazing, like nine month project though. It was a bunch of houses around the world,

SPEAKER_372: uh, in SF. They had houses in Seattle and in New York. Um, and it was amazing. I think I'm sad edify doesn't exist anymore, but the founders are my roommates and, uh, they're doing something really awesome. Um, so that's very, I think hacker houses are fantastic. Um, but yeah, I would say go down there and meet a bunch of people like you. It was really great. It was like, we, we had a house in SF. There was like 10 of us in this like mansion that we all were like, I was like sharing a room with some guy and you just meet a lot of like fantastic people. Like the difference from college was immediately apparent. These are people that were like doing absolutely insane stuff in their lives. Um, but yeah, it's like tech versions of college. So I always think we should keep that open. I know edify doesn't exist anymore, but there's, there's new stuff already popping out

SPEAKER_383: in cities around the world. Yeah. I saw our mutual friend, Ami, I believe is in one. Yes.

SPEAKER_422: Yeah. Ami's great. I don't, I, uh, Ami's letting tech people ball out. Yeah. He's a, he's a 19 year old messing up the, the balling economics. He literally is. So we have a friend

SPEAKER_379: that is also, I believe 19 and he has a DAO called dropout DAO and is currently living, I believe in

SPEAKER_396: a hack house or something equivalent to a hacker house. And he seems like he's absolutely killing it in SF. Um, I agree. I think that it's very difficult though, for people outside of the tech community to understand how welcoming the tech community is. Because when I tell my friends,

SPEAKER_465: yeah, we met on Twitter, that doesn't necessarily like go over the conversations different when

SPEAKER_422: you're talking to a non tech person. I'm speaking of the choir here. Cause I think this podcast will mostly be shared on Twitter, but like getting on Twitter is, it's so important. It's a, it's an

SPEAKER_372: incredible platform. It's like, it's like a life changing platform. I've done like almost all the good things in my life have come from Twitter to a point where like, I'm pretty sure I'll probably like get married to someone off Twitter. I'm kidding, but I hope that doesn't happen. But like, there's just such a huge portion of things in my life that have been good. If I got hired off Twitter, I found, I found that I met my roommates off Twitter.

SPEAKER_377: Yeah, I got hired off Twitter. Ben hit me up and was like, I'm making this house in SF uh, called Edify. Do you want to join? And I was like, yes, that let me functionally drop out of school. So I think we should always keep that route open for technologists.

SPEAKER_396: I agree. And I think that it's, it's Twitter's one of those platforms too, where the chances of you signing to someone's DMs, that's doing something like you think is absolutely amazing. And then responding are incredibly high. There's literally no other platform. When we're doing outbound and I have to get like a really cool founder, um, on the show, my first place I go is Twitter, because like, it's just amazing. Yeah. I, uh, you can just like tweet at people too.

SPEAKER_377: I forget what I just did, but I, uh, oh yeah, I wanted to meet Jackson, Jackson Dahl, who's the guy who, uh, he's a co-founder at 100 Thieves. He's like a huge, huge idol to me. And I was at East Denver,

SPEAKER_423: and I was like, I just tweeted out like, yo, I want to meet Jackson Dahl. And, uh, turns out a few of my friends, um, Michael, you're talking about 100 Thieves, like League of Legends.

SPEAKER_377: Oh yeah. I'm a huge league nerd on the side. So I have an, I have an account where I actually just like write sports and at like 538 style sports analytic blogs, but for, uh, but for esports.

SPEAKER_372: Um, that's awesome. So anyway, huge. Yeah. But I actually was talking to him about founder stuff, uh, and like his career, his career and his visions and like how to make decisions. So he's awesome. But anyway, Michael Dempsey is this amazing investor at compound and, uh, a really good basketball player too. And he, uh, we're, he was like, oh yeah, I, I, uh, I'm good friends with Jackson. So he just

SPEAKER_377: connected me and it was awesome. So yeah, Twitter's life changing. Um, you do need to build a,

SPEAKER_372: like, it's definitely getting more like powerful for me right now. Cause I have like, I'm about to hit. It sounds like I'm not, I don't actually have that many followers, but as soon as you get like a good, uh, critical mass of followers, it becomes this incredible tool. So I wonder what like Mark Andrews and his thought of my tweets. Cause like statistically, he has probably seen them. Yeah. I mean, he retweeted one of my tweets once, but like, I don't think he, it didn't come from me, you know, it was like retweeting something that Turner Novak retweeted that was from us. But, um, yeah, sometimes I just wonder like when

SPEAKER_423: Paul Graham is scrolling Twitter and he sees like a, like a party around like meme tweet,

SPEAKER_373: like, I wonder what he thinks. So yeah, well, I saw like Alexis Oharian respond. I just need, he's probably like an investor of your guys is, but like, does he follow you? Like,

SPEAKER_422: I feel like that's kind of cool. 776 is a, is an investor in party rounds. Um,

SPEAKER_372: very awesome. I think one of the good strategies founders can do to like boost their, their like stuff on Twitter is like, just go get your investors to like, like, and comment. They're, they're amazing. Paki, Austin, um, Nick Sharma, Nick Milanovic. Um,

SPEAKER_365: Oh, Nick Sharma. Another good person in the marketing, in the marketing world.

SPEAKER_372: Pretty much all those guys, like they are, and I'm sure I'm missing a ton. We have a ton of people that help us. Alexis too. They just like, they interact with our tweets. They're like, really, it's like a, a low lift for them, but it's still a really valuable value add. So, um,

SPEAKER_396: Do you have any recommendations though on like building your personal brand as a founder, as like an individual, not a brand on Twitter?

SPEAKER_566: Yeah. Yeah. Um, honestly, no, I, I don't know. Um,

SPEAKER_571: Um, yeah, I haven't really thought about that. I see a lot of people tweet. Is it again though,

SPEAKER_514: like wall, um, quality over quantity, because I see a lot of people that just spit out so much,

SPEAKER_412: so much content. I think if you're like trying to, I think like, obviously it's good to think about a personal brand, but like I'm, my Twitter is very personal. I'm not trying to like make it go

SPEAKER_372: big. So I actually am going to probably be, I'm a little, be a little sad if it gets any bigger, but, um, yeah, I don't know. I, I think your personal brand is, is, uh, you know, like obviously the basics, like tell good stories, but otherwise I'd just be like, stop, stop caring so much. Just be yourself. Yep. I was just about to say,

SPEAKER_396: I actually hate the term personal brand. Cause it makes me feel like a commodity. Like somebody today texted me. Yeah. She was like,

SPEAKER_365: can I help you with your personal brand? I was like, I don't know. I don't know. Because like, I don't want to, I don't think you need to help with your personal brand.

SPEAKER_453: I feel like you have a pretty good one. Uh, thank you. I don't know. I'm not out here almost at 5,000 followers have to say. 5,000 people don't want to, don't want to listen to what

SPEAKER_399: I would say. Twitter's the only platform where you can have like 5k followers and consistently reach

SPEAKER_372: like millions of people. That's true. Like I think probably like 3 million people.

SPEAKER_477: I think TikTok, you could do that. I definitely think with TikTok. No, not with like 5k followers. I think so. I think you could have like,

SPEAKER_453: I've seen literally accounts with like 500 followers hit like a million views.

SPEAKER_377: I mean, yeah. I mean, I've seen, yeah. You can also like go viral with like nothing on, on TikTok, but it's very random where I can consistently with 5k followers, like get an insane amount of impressions. But yeah, I, I mean, I think the value of like a Twitter impression is so much more valuable than like a TikTok impression. I agree. I honestly think TikTok's heavily restrictive in like what type of content can do well there. So yeah. What do you mean? I'm like very anti TikTok in terms of like using it as your main marketing channel. Unless you're like a brand that's like, just like selling to like kids. Uh, just cause it's like stuff won't go viral unless it's like funny. Um, well I can like make a product announcement and get like a zillion impressions. So I think it's not great for building

SPEAKER_372: a personal brand cause you have to like bow to the algorithm. Twitter has no real algorithm. It's really mathematical. It's just like, if people like and comment on stuff, it gets, it's like allows it to get more views. So it's very, it's very much like a mathematical function versus like this. Yeah. This, uh, this constantly changing tracking algorithm. So yeah, I think Twitter's more meritocratic in terms of content. I think you can do better things. I, uh, I think one of these days just to like prove myself, like if I am really good as, as good of a growth hacker and like viral, like mimetic person as I think I am, then I should go and prove that by making myself an influencer. So I might spend like, I might start that in like a month or two, like spend six months

SPEAKER_434: Becoming an influencer, but like as a joke.

SPEAKER_372: Not as a joke, just to prove it. I mean, it's like, if I, if I am really as good as stuff as I could, um, I should do that. Right now I'm working on writing a lot. I think that's probably going to be my next thing. I want to like, party rounds where I'm going to be for the next, like X amount of years. I love the team. I love working for Jordy. I'm learning a ton there, but I also like probably start building like little

SPEAKER_546: mini side projects on the side. Um, especially in like, in like crypto or in like viral, like mimetic stuff. And then I want to write more. Um, so I'm starting a blog.

SPEAKER_402: Have you read wanting? You keep saying, you keep saying mimetic. Have you read the book wanting yet?

SPEAKER_546: No, no, no. I haven't. What is that? Good one. It's all about mimetics.

SPEAKER_390: Are you saying wanting as in like that? So that's actually mimetic. You're, you're saying M I M E T I C. I'm saying M E M E T I C. So mimetics with an I is, is sort of the theory of how things that are alike,

SPEAKER_372: like very similar naturally come into conflict. And mimetics, which I'm talking about is basically the

SPEAKER_390: mimetics are like the traits that enable ideas to survive and spread. Um, so mimetics actually is

SPEAKER_412: like this, like cultural, uh, like it was like this term created and then immediately like killed

SPEAKER_372: by its creators. Like it's, it's, uh, it's a not even considered true. Um, in like cultural idea theory. It's like not, it's like, it's like this term that was immediately left for dead and like thrown into the corners of the internet, but it survived. Um, and so I find it incredibly fascinating. It's basically how like, like giving animals have like speed or like strength or intelligence and that helps them evolve and stay alive. But like being fast isn't the point of being an animal, just like staying around kind of is the point of evolution. And so mimetics are the traits that make ideas get sticking around. So like truth or like not true or like virality. Those are all traits that ideas use to stick around. Um, so yeah, I, uh, I think it's a relatively new idea. People talk a lot about memes, um, which are like, I think less, they're like less important actually on the grand scheme of things than like understanding mimetics. But yeah, I think we're seeing a lot of like, that's going to be one of the trends that's going to probably going to come to like dominate society. Like right now with this Ukraine, Russia stuff, like you're seeing a lot of like highly mimetic, like M-E-M-E-T-I-C, like, like war going on. People are like making sure their takes spread. They're like trying to dominate news feeds, um, on either side. So yeah, I think just something people need to be constant, cognizant of like, um, we've reached this point

SPEAKER_399: in society. I think we're virality is like almost too strong in the metagame. Like it's too strong. What do you mean? Um, and so like a lot of times there's, so metagames are like the natural state of things.

SPEAKER_372: And like, if like you play like tic-tac-toe, there's like a metagame, there's like an optimal strategy. Um, and optimal strategies aren't always balanced. They're often like deeply unbalanced.

SPEAKER_377: And I think in the spread of ideas and in sociology, virality has come to like dominate society. So like the internet is like the most of the content you see is highly, highly viral. Um, truth gets destroyed by like false truths just cause false truths can be more viral. Yeah. Um, just like basically virality is almost too strong. Um, so there's a lot of implications that has for society. That's some of the stuff I like, I like to write about, but, um, yeah, it's like a relatively new, new thing. It's like, no one really is talking about, I mean, there's like a lot of like stupid, like tech bros that are like, oh, memetics and like how you can use it to like get like 5% more growth metrics. But this is like really like, like society

SPEAKER_399: defining stuff, like how we transfer ideas and how, what ideas we prioritize. So, um, anyway.

SPEAKER_597: And when will we be seeing, um, some of your blog posts come out or is this like a,

SPEAKER_375: in the works process? In a week, um, I'm working on a piece called anti-memetics. Cool, cool.

SPEAKER_377: And I'm not going to talk about it because I, it's like, I think it's probably the most important idea I'll ever have in my life. Um, so, um, do check that out when it's out. Sorry, I'm shilling my blog now, non-existent blog.

SPEAKER_601: No, and by the time this comes out, I actually think the blog will be out.

SPEAKER_371: Oh, well, I'm terrible at writing. So we'll see. I'm sure it's phenomenal. I'm sure it's great.

SPEAKER_379: Do you have any advice I'll let you pick between people that are young and want to work at a startup or

SPEAKER_364: growth hackers for either of those groups?

SPEAKER_377: Advice for either of them? No. I mean, I think people with growth hacking abilities know they're growth hackers, so I don't need to give them too much advice because I'm, you know, I'm competing for them.

SPEAKER_372: So in general, I think to kids, like, like advice is just people trying to build great things with

SPEAKER_399: their life. Um, yeah, I'd say the metagame for what startups are optimal to join risk reward has changed. So find something with like 20 employees that's like raised around or something and join that.

SPEAKER_377: So like before people told you to like join breakout with startups that were like, have drawn a startup with product market fit with like a hundred something employees like Airtable. Sorry, nothing wrong with Airtable, but like, don't join that now. If you're a young person, like go and take a bet. Uh, there's a lot more upside on a small startup. And if you are a talented engineer or a designer or a growth hacker, or God knows what, uh, talk to me. We are constantly hiring amazing people party around. So my advice is just join party around guys.

SPEAKER_402: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm really excited to hear

SPEAKER_371: what Jason has to say. No problem. I hope Jason doesn't, you know, I hope Jason tweets at you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I might be below his line. Um, but one of these days I'll get above it. So yeah, let's hope, let's hope.

SPEAKER_607: Yeah. Well, thank you for being on so much. Hey everyone, producer Nick here. I want to tell you about the SAS syndicate. If you're a founder of a SAS company with a product and market, our investment team wants to talk to you, head over to the syndicate.com slash SAS S A A S to apply to raise from the SAS syndicate. And you can join Jason syndicate of over 9,000 accredited investors

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