Finding The 'Right' Problem (Othership)

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robbie: then we realize that this space like crazy stuff starts happening. So like people become friends, they start dating, they like get married, They're like, it's the first time I thought about my daughter, not about work and thank you.

And then it was like, wow, I think there's actually something here That's like very unique and that just kind of emerged.

jason: This is funded a show where founders who raised billions in venture capital share the gritty side of what it actually took to get that money in the bank.

I'm Jason Yeh. Not too long ago. I was trying to get my ideas funded. And back in the day, I was a VC listening to founders, pitch me for money.

Step one of being a founder

Step one of being a founder, find a problem people need to solve. Right. Well kinda. Today's guest Robbie bent, founder of wellness, startup, other ship. Is a Testament that the right problem is not just
[00:01:00] one that will get funded. It's not even the one that will be a hit with consumers. It's the one that you want to solve. Because maybe if you're like Robbie, it's a problem you can't stop thinking about or one that you need to solve for yourself as well.

Other ship is a Toronto based company that is giving people what modern life often deprives of connection and community. It's both a physical space and a mobile app Designed to make new friends, see old ones and practice what Robbie says helped him get sober. Breath work.

jason: So I kind of want to hear a little bit about, uh, kind of early days growing up. What, what were you like? What were you into, um, and then we'll go from there.

robbie: um, like high achiever, always since grade two, you know, putting up my hand, like I know the answer, I know the answer. Like everybody look at me and like getting that validation and coming home with a good grade.

And my parents who were strict [00:02:00] being very, yes, this is important. You know, I remember winning this like academic achievement award and in like grade two, that's what came to mind. And my parents were like, this means you're special. Like this means you're good. And that like stuck with me through my entire life.

And in some ways they were trying to prime me to work hard, to find safety. And I, I think they had the scarcity mindset cuz we didn't grow up with, with anything or they didn't grow up with anything. And so that was like really important, like be safe, be successful. But what it instilled in me was very, oh, you need to achieve to be loved and through no fault of theirs.

And I love my parents a ton and feel a lot of love from them, but also like this lack of self love was sort of my core limiting belief. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs have that because you have this like massive drive to succeed and yes, you wanna solve problems. You wanna help people. But a lot of what's pushing is, is ego and it's, I need validation from others.

And so I, I got that from parents, from, you know, friend support, like, oh, it felt good to be the center of attention or [00:03:00] for, you know, girls to, to like me and to feel cool and play sports. And, and so I was like a very outgoing person. I did a lot of those things, but it was, um, trying to fill this, this hole.

And then I was kind of like a weird kid, also like deep down, but then had this like desire to conform in elementary and high school. Cause it's really hard to be yourself and like stick out.

jason: Where, where did that, um, sort of achiever mindset, bring you to,

robbie: Yeah, no, I, I lived in Toronto and this is 2002. So entrepreneurship dropping outta school is not really a thing. Like to start a company at that time was so expensive and it kind of like right around that time, you're seeing like the Facebooks get created, um, like two years later. So it's just kind of possible, but where I lived in Toronto, like not big tech focus, not many of my friends, if any, went to be software engineers, there wasn't a ton of like jobs or there wasn't Y Combinator.

And so what I looked at was. Okay, how do I get rich? And, and to me, like rich was the measure of success and it sounds shallow, but at the time it was [00:04:00] like, yeah, I want nice things. And I want people to respect me and like I want to achieve. And to do that, I wanna have a job that pays a lot of money. And so, uh, I was really competitive and kind of looked and it's like, I'm gonna go to business school.

And so business school meant like, I didn't know this at the time, but it's, you know, you can choose accountant, banker, like investment banker, consultant, basically. And the most competitive in business school is investment banking. So I was just like, you know, what this desire to achieve was like a combination of like ego competition and winning proving to my parents.

I was worthy. And so it's like, I'm gonna be an investment banker. And so, I studied really hard, worked really hard, you know, prepared for the interviews and, and got a job doing that. But like, I didn't even know what that was. You know, I thought I banker was internet banker when I went to school and then I never really thought about like, what does this actually mean?

I just thought, well, I'm gonna be the top of the class and have like a six figure salary at a school. And that means I've made it. When like, realistically, it should be, well, what do you like want to do with your life? And I never even thought that once, you know, like, like, who am I and what do I want to do day to day?

And what [00:05:00] problems do I wanna solve? And so, very basic, super common path. Uh, and then I, I went and worked in finance as a banker and then at a hedge fund out school for around three, four years. And then I was lucky because it's really tough to leave that career because each year your, you know, your, salary goes up 30%, 40%, and then the job gets slightly easier.

And you're always ringed into like a two year bonus cycle and promotion cycle. And so any job you, you know, in a startup at the time, like, you know, 70 K a hundred K for like an operations role, maybe. And so you're like, oh, I'm gonna cut my pay in half, go do this thing that may not work. That's hugely risky, but the longer you stay in finance, like your skills at your fire skills are like finance related.

So the harder it is to become a generalist, the harder it is to leave. And so I got lucky in that our hedge fund imploded and the credit crisis. And I kind of, at that point was like, okay, I live in LA, there's no jobs. And I don't wanna be any of these people. And like, I look back on my life, like my 21 to 24, like it [00:06:00] sucked, you know, it was in no working out was like at the office every night till 11, like every weekend.

And just like, what am I, what am I doing?

jason: Robbie, I'm gonna sort of chime in here just cuz. I, I think this is a, is a great line to just have an open conversation around, because I think as you said, as you, when you were starting, there are probably a lot of similarities that entrepreneurs feel, and I certainly did. And then there's something about this realization that not every founder, especially first time founders gets a chance to see or understand before they go out.

And maybe this conversation helps that. So I just, I just wanna say I had the exact same background, uh, almost to a tee. And, um, one of those things where you don't know why you're doing the things, you just know that it's the goal. It's like, you know, I have an older sister that was valedictorian of her, yeah, of her high school and went to Harvard undergrad and then got the big tech job.

And it was just this bar that I had to keep [00:07:00] trying to match, you know, try to be valedictorian. I did, I was number two. I was salutorian and then try to get to the best school. And I like, and then try to get the best job and then, go to Harvard business school, all these things that I, I knew I had sort of mindlessly went after and, um, you know, one other parallel I'll draw and then kind of want to talk through your transition to startups.

But when, when people look at what I'm doing right now, and I'm like, really, really in my zone of genius and working on stuff that I love and it's, and it looks like I took this big chance, you know, like I, like, I took this big chance and went after it, but there was a very similar, um, sort of storyline where things kind of got pulled away from me.

It like, it got forced on me where then it was like, okay, I guess I have to make a decision now. And so I just wanted to make it be known that you and I we're on this path now. maybe not because of an overwhelming sense of [00:08:00] bravery or our desire to just forge ahead, but a certain situation that pushed us there.

And, you know, that might be the case for a lot of people there. So, um, this is, is really cool.

I, I wanna hear a little bit about your first journey into startups and, um, kind of as quickly as possible, tell me how it went, how far you got and maybe your own sense of, of what it taught you.

robbie: Basically everything possible I did wrong, like everything. And so I lived in Toronto. I, you know, there was no hardware companies that were successful yet. There was hardly a startup ecosystem. There was no Shopify, you know, Y Combinator is not a thing. I didn't had never read lean startup. I had a hedge fund background, and all I knew was a bunch of like wealthy finance guys that I could put a business plan together.

And so we had, you know, the goal was like build a global telecom platform, uh, kind of like GoogleFi is today. And this is like way before GoogleFi. And so we kind of give somebody a SIM and they would travel and then they would get a text message saying. [00:09:00] You've saved 900 bucks after they made a call

So, you know, we ended up building all the software.

We built the, uh, hardware for the SIM card. We built the building platform. we built the carrier interconnect platform, another enormous mistake, building everything in advance and thinking people, once it's ready, they will come. And so, you know, we spent so much money to build and we did that because we wanted to like, you know, own the entire stack just didn't even really think it through as like, what is the value we're adding?

Like we could have rented all of that stuff and just focused on the software. And then it was like, oh, it has to be for, you know, people in Canada and the US traveling to all countries when we should have just said, iPhone 4 users, direct to consumer, you know, people in Ontario going to the US. Right.

And like one carrier deal, simple use someone else's billing platform. And, and so it, we ended up getting pretty far. So we raised 25 million bucks. over a four year period and like had customers built the product, but it took two years to get the [00:10:00] product perfect. And, and this is like building and then they will come.

And so, you know, we end up building a super expensive system and it turns out that like the SIM card was actually pretty hard to insert and it was fine if someone did it for you, but if, you know, we wanted to sell retail and so we're selling it best buy. And like one out of 10 are getting returned. Two out of 10 are getting returned.

Like we can't, we can't support this. People are returning this product. Like, and so we're like, oh man, okay, well, this isn't gonna work retail. It's too hard. And like, we didn't even think about that. You know, it was just like, it's gonna work. And so.

jason: Yeah. there's some remnants of the stuff that you were, you were dealing with before in that. And, and the only reason I can identify this is cuz again, super similar path with my startup. probably much smaller, uh, scale wise, you know, we raised a couple million dollars, you raised 20 some.

but you know, I wonder if you, you recognize this too, but this sense of like. Feeling like it needed to be perfect when you put it out, there is, this is another feeling of, um, imposter syndrome and you don't want anyone to doubt you. You always wanna be right [00:11:00] and lean startup and launching fast. And having people be like, this is not, I, we don't like this.

And then having to deal with that and talk to them and be like, well, don't you like this? Like, what would you want? You know, what would you like? What should we have? Um, was something I, I just had such a hard time doing. It was like, we couldn't launch because we were just like, you know, some people might not like it if we don't have this and you know, you wait until you think it's perfect.

And then whatever's in your head, turns out, uh, not so perfect.  so I wonder, you know, does that, does that ring true with you or, how did that manifest itself?

robbie: I think, I just didn't even know that's what you're supposed to do. And so I thought in my head like, oh, you're supposed to build all this stuff at once. And like, when the product's ready, it's ready. But in reality, there's actually zero percentage chance that you're gonna put a product out and it's gonna work.

Like it's zero, cuz you don't have any idea of what the customer wants, how they're gonna use it. So, you know, now I don't even care, like yeah, throw I'll throw out the shittiest product. Like we were testing for a breathwork app, a kit and we made the [00:12:00] kit at a cardboard and had a plastic breather and a, you know, an incense stick and it was just like super ugly.

You know, and just kind of like, okay, let's see if like anyone uses this and like what they use it for. And we ran and it's embarrassing. Like if I look back at the product it's garbage and you know, and we sent it out to 50 people and they use it. These are like investors and stuff. And so I, I just, I think it's better to send something out and just collect feedback and then be like, Hey, this is just a test, you know, do people use it?

Will they pay for it? So it is just such a different mindset than before, but I just didn't understand that no matter what you put out, no matter the quality, it's still not gonna be good enough. So, you know, you just need to get into your customer's hands, like as fast as possible.

jason: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's like, uh, a good transition because I wanna spend more time on Othership and, and your transformation and the kind of approach you've taken to running this company and capitalizing this company. Um, so you're not running that company before. You're, I mean, you [00:13:00] were talking about a telecom, uh, software, hardware startup, and what you're referencing is quite, quite different.

I wonder if you can tell us what happened at the end of that company and then your transition to finding the next thing.

robbie: Yeah, so that company failed. And so obviously we'd spent, as you can guess, way too much money building. And so it became at a point in time, just very clear that like, we, weren't gonna be able to recoup the investment, even if this works. And at the same time, roaming prices declined like 90%. And so I battled failure for two years, knowing in my gut, this is likely to fail, but like, all these people depend on me and my parents had invested.

And like, that was the worst two years of my life just fearing failure. Uh, eventually it failed. It was sort of the last person there, uh, like packing. I just remember like packing everything up, taking equipment out of a data center to try to get it going. But like right after that failed, it's like, oh, it was two feelings.

One is, I'm a failure. And you know, like selling my car and house and moving back in with my parents, which is like very, like very common in entrepreneurship to, okay. It doesn't work, you know? And then second feeling is hope. [00:14:00] Because for the first time in two years, it's like, okay, maybe I can find something that's actually gonna work.

And so those two sort of battled each other at first, like 95% failure, 5% hope. And then I thought like, Hey, I need to get my, my life together. Um, it just wasn't working out. And so I was struggling with addiction and a few other things, uh, to deal with that level of stress. And so I moved to Israel, got really into meditation and, and psychedelic medicines, uh, just super interested about how I'm feeling.

And that's another thing that entrepreneurship teaches you is like, you know, I'm feeling the stress and anxiety at such a rollercoaster. Like, why is that? And like, what is my mental state actually mean? And how do I master that? And so at this like rock bottom point, that's what I kind of dedicated a year to was just like, how do I feel better about myself?

And so the stuff we talked about at the start of the call, a lot of that stuff was unconscious. And so through meditation and, and psychedelics learned a lot. and right after I, I had that, you know, kind of one year transformation, i, I got involved with the Ethereum foundation and the Ethereum ecosystem, and I've chosen to do that because I saw the smartest people I knew [00:15:00] going into that space.

And so my whole drive shifted from, I wanna be successful. I wanna be rich. I'm just gonna build something that needs to be huge to, I'm just gonna go around smart people that I like that have integrity and like, see what happens and experiment. And so like I lived on people's couches in San Francisco. I had no, no money.

Uh, I was going into all these discords offering free help. I went to conferences. I was just chatting with people like doing like 10 meetings a day, to try to dig into like, what is crypto and like getting really pumped about the vibe of the people involved. And so, I ended up getting involved with the Ethereum ecosystem pretty early on.

And over four years, that became extremely successful. I built this big team, like loved being a part of that. And so I went from like, parents' basement, you know, totally no confidence. And, and a lot of those skills I learned at that first startup, I'm like, oh, I'm worthless, I'm useless. I'm, I'm a generalist.

I'm not an engineer. Like what can I do? And it turns out those skills are actually super valuable in terms of like, how do you raise funding? How do you hire a team? How do you structure operations? How do you talk to customers? How do you sell? Like you pick up [00:16:00] those things naturally as a founder, you, you solve problems and you learn like, okay, no, one's gonna tell you anything.

You gotta figure it out. And you start to develop this detector of like, what do I do in this situation? And so I took that and brought it into crypto with a lot of people who had never built companies before. And it was really helpful. And so I built a huge community there, really, really successful.

And while I was there, I was obsessed with meditation and psychedelics because after my, you know, kind of hero's journey, this low, I met my wife, everything was going great. I made a bunch of money, was like, oh this is like, my life is so good. How do I teach these things to people? And that's where the transition to building what I'm doing now.

Uh started.

jason: I,

I wanna pull this apart a little bit and kind of ask you, how this starting point has been so different than the first startup, because a lot of times when I have a chance to talk to a founder and just to do a small session with them, to get them ready, to get raise capital, to keep going on this, this path for their company, like, I, I really wanna spend time with them and, and ask them, so why, why are you doing this?

You know, like, do you know why you're doing [00:17:00] this? and there's so many cliches that you hear, if you were, you were a professional investor or you're just getting into the startup game and you hear about these things. You hear about books, like, uh, Simon, Sinex like, you know, what is your why or whatever his book is. and so I, I always feel a little hesitant to start conversations with this why thing, cuz it feels like I'm just maybe regurgitating some guru's book on why, but there are so many reasons that I've personally experienced. And that sounds like you kind of have that really understanding that makes it so important for the whole startup journey.

But as we'll drive into like what it means to convince an investor to, to bet on you. So tell me a little bit about how different it felt starting this company, and maybe pick out some things that, you know, come to mind.

robbie: So my company now, two things on that really interesting point. So in the Ethereum ecosystem, I often like was helping at Ethereum, but wanted to build my own company. It was really early. And so [00:18:00] myself and my, my technical co-founder, we built a messaging platform using your Eth address. So imagine like Twitter, but using your Eth address.

So you could interact with other addresses, which I think is still like an amazing idea. Uh, as soon as we launched it, we got it, like, you know, MVP prototype users, and another company wanted to acquire it. And we sat and thought, like we were trying so hard to find something that would fit that had like a business model in crypto at the time, just because like, we wanted to build a company, you know, in crypto and like, and so exactly the same, same thing as the first one, not as much as like, you know, I just am doing it for the money, but like okay.

People in this space we like, and it's really interesting, exciting space, but then the product was like, I actually don't care about messaging at all, like, why do we wanna do this? And we talked to each other, we're like, we don't even wanna build a consumer like chat app. What are we doing? And so after like three months, we were geared up to raise a seed.

We had like investors committed and we were just like, pulled the plug. We're like, yeah, we, we didn't even wanna, someone was gonna buy it from us for like two months to like integrate it. And we were like, we didn't wanna do that. We're [00:19:00] like, no, we're just like done with this thing and quit. And so it was like such an interesting, and even this is after transformation, meditation, all this stuff, I know myself pretty well.

And that was just like an eyeopening thing of why am I spending time on something that I don't wanna do? Um, and this is a huge pitfall for founders, cuz you're like, I wanna start my company. I need to find a problem. Okay. Like I'm looking through why Combinators request for companies. I'm like listening to podcasts.

Maybe this industry's hot, like NFTs are gonna find something and, and it's like finding the problem. Right. And so it's just a really tough one to find one you love. And so the, the opposite of that is obviously I love meditation. Psychedelics. Can't get friends into it. Right. Huge problem. Like massive friction.

I'm happy most of them aren't how do I, how do I get them here into that level?

And so we started with, uh, an ice bath, in my backyard, and it was just like, I, I love ice baths. And so, you know, invited people over for an entire summer, every night, ice bath and fire and built a WhatsApp chat of like 300 people were just showing up on their own.

It gets cold out. So [00:20:00] we bootstrap my garage until like, a mini spa with a sauna and ice bath and a tea room. And that grows to 2000 people, word of mouth pre COVID, like 20 grand a month revenue. And this is just like a side project we're doing for fun. Me and my, my wife, and like our three best friends.

There's five of us. And then we realize that this space like crazy stuff starts happening. So like people become friends, they start dating, they like get married, they're coming, they're crying. They're like, oh, I've meditated for the first time in the ice. Like it's the first time I thought about my daughter, not about work and thank you.

And you know, oh, I was addicted to drugs and now I'm not. And we start doing classes. So, you know, dark sauna where people are yelling and screaming and letting go of their anger and, you know, eye gazing in the ice plunge and kind of combining from meditation exercises, the psychedelic realm, all these different practices, we'd learned into something new.

And that just emerged. And like the goal of the business was, you know, was just an, just an ice bath. And then it was like, wow, I think there's actually something here that could be a combination of like, Boutique fitness, mental health, and like a social space. That's like very unique and [00:21:00] that just kind of emerged.

And so we actually just opened, um, during COVID we had to shut down and we've just opened now, our flagship space in Toronto it's it's like world class, first of its kind, emotional regulation classes and like a massive 50 person sauna with like crazy music and breathwork and all these modalities.

And then at the same time, during COVID, we're like, oh, we don't know what to do. We're gonna have to close. So let's just do breathwork for our community because they're, and breathwork is like a more active form of meditation because they're upset. And so we just did free Breathworks for months and, you know, thousands of people are joining and then they're like, can we get the recording?

So, yeah. Okay. That's cool. And then they started asking like, can you make one for fear, for jealousy, for grief. And so we start making just one custom breathwork track each day, and then we put those all up on Kajabi and people are paying, and now we've got like a thousand users and people are like, oh, there's too many pieces of content.

Can you build an app? And so then I was like, and then it's like, okay, so now we have this breathwork app, which we launched last month, which was like number one product of the day in product time and this physical space. And [00:22:00] it turns out, an ice bath in the backyard is actually now a platform for solving loneliness and onboarding people into mental health and all of that was just like pulled out of us.

And so if you're an entrepreneur, like what is the lesson? It's leave time for emergent behaviors because there's nobody using these techniques for like emotional regulation and change in the way that we are and that wasn't expected or planned. It was just something that came from having a product out, watching how people react.

And what you realize is that like the initial ice bath for health, the way like kind of Wim Hof is doing it, or you're hearing about on podcasts actually is the gateway to something much, much, much bigger. And it's a problem. We didn't even know we were solving. And so most larger second order problems are not, um, they're not clear.

And if they are clear, somebody's working on them with more capitalization, then use the whole like zero to one concept is that these problems are not easy to find and that you find them by interacting with customers.

[00:23:00]

So something's clearly working. You heard the guy he's bringing in 20 grand a month without too much lifting. So when we come back, Robbie's big. Next question. Showed he bootstrap his business or does this call for outside capital?

[00:24:00] When we left off. When we left off. Other ship was almost pulling Robbie to start raising. He was quickly realizing there is demand and that he could move faster with a little capital. So where should that money come from? Himself or investors. And if investors, what kind of people should he bring onboard? Here in forego, the traditional path of putting a pitch deck in front of VCs to create a massive angel army on his own terms.

...

jason: we weren't really necessarily gonna raise capital cause we're, we're not sure if this was like a venture scale business. And so when we started, it's like a lifestyle business and it was kind of like, yeah, we'll open a couple of these spaces and have like this online breathwork thing.

robbie: That's cool for people. It's gonna help people that are at our space. And then, as we started to look deeper, it was like, well, how are we actually going to break through? Because like there's 2000 meditation apps. [00:25:00] Content is actually like notoriously difficult right now. Like the cost of ads on Facebook and Instagram skyrocketed all this stuff.

So it's like, you know, the best way what I saw at Ethereum was to build, like, I think it was your term, an angel army. And I just saw when a community is involved in the product, like you get way more buy-in way more sharing. And so I thought, well, The best thing we can do is raise some money from a large group of people.

So that was kind of the, the first spark of, you know, I'm gonna do this for distribution. And if we have these people onboard early, it's gonna create credibility. And I saw the way Levels health had done it. And like, they're a huge inspiration for me. And they, they actually turned out to be investors in our product and have helped us a ton, like almost the whole team.

they've been so helpful for, for me. So definitely look at how this is a free hack for users, but they have a podcast just on like startup techniques for like managing early stage remote teams. It's like, amazing, tactics. And so I thought, okay, well I wanna do what they're gonna do. So, you know, I kind of tried super hard to get an intro to them.

I went through OnDeck and OnDeck community helped me get an intro to [00:26:00] them. And I was always like doing two things with these people. One is like, I'm not raising now. I'm building relationships way in advance to show what I'm working on is, is like fucking cool. I'm the one to do it. And I'm legit. And so, you know, the first intro was this guy, Justin Mares um, started Surely, Perfect Keto, Kettle & Fire. I knew him through crypto. I was like, Hey man, I'll do free breathwork for your entire team. And he's like, well, what's breathwork? Okay. Like did one for him? Whoa, this is really cool. Definitely do it for my team. So did it for his entire team. And he's like, everyone on the team is like, well, this is awesome.

So I'm showing like the product is good. I'm hyping him up and I'm, I'm, priming that for him to introduce me to others. It's gonna be worth their time and my time. And then boom, like he's got a huge network. So all of a sudden I'm on his partner's podcast, Anthony Gustin, Natural State, do breathwork for him, for their team.

And he's like, wow, this is really cool. You're a cool guy. So I think there's a couple things you want to do. It's like hit your network hard way before you're raising money and show value. So like have an interesting story to tell, have, a question that the [00:27:00] person can help you with. I'll talk to somebody if I can help them every time.

No problem. I'll spend 10 minutes. Like here's how I can help. I'm not gonna talk to somebody where it's a waste of my time and their time. And so if you, if you have an ask, you know, and the person can help you, that's totally fine. And if you don't, you wanna have something you can add value somehow. And so you just really gotta rack your brain for creative ways to find people.

And then I did it honestly like 200, 300 meetings free Breathworks for like tons of different CEOs of wellness companies. And then once you have like Sam from Levels told me about this. It's like social proof. So you kind of start small and then you trade up. Right? And so, that's how, like, you know, started with Justin.

He introduced me to Anthony, Anthony introduced me to the Levels team. They introduced me to Mindbloom, these all of a sudden, a meeting like Sean Perry for my first million. And, and every time the email becomes, Hey, you know, Justin and the founders of SoulCycle and Soho house invested in this. So you get the email and then it's like, whoa, this is cool.

Like, that's not like, Hey man, I'm reaching out to you on your website. Cuz [00:28:00] I, I follow you on my first million, like a hundred million people probably follow. So you need to find the people in your network who have a network, you need to impress them. You need to give them value and you need them to make intros and you need to do all that before you're asking for money.

So again, this takes a long time to do. It was like very unique to our situation. We also sell a consumer product that like, these people like and can do and like feel instantly. and then also like tell your story very authentically. Like, so my why is just so clear. It's like, Hey, I was an addict, you know, this is what I used to conquer addiction.

Whoa. That's cool. Then it was like, I joined Ethereum. Oh, I heard about that. That's going crazy. You must be a good operator. And so just kind of like what parts of your story, what breadcrumbs can you tell that are gonna increase credibility? So, so there was

a lot

there. So stop for a

jason: No. Yeah, no, there, there is a ton there and I, I wanna make sure that the perception isn't like, oh yeah, you know, Robbie, he was early on in Ethereum. He was in the hedge fund world. Like he has all these things that I don't have. I can't do that, but there [00:29:00] are a lot of lessons to be learned here, um,

that I think

robbie: sorry. Before you, before you jump into that, just, just to clarify, like for someone who thinks that I went to Ethereum, I was no tech background, failed startup, living in Toronto, not an engineer. Zero connections in Silicon valley, like absolutely zero and just went out. And then in wellness, I didn't know anyone like zero people in wellness.

So all of this was just hardcore reaching out, grinding, talking to people, being authentic, asking for help, helping them. And it

just compounds over

time.

jason: Yep. Yep. And, and that's totally true. And you know, there are certain things you said too, like no deck and other things, but what I wanna bring back to everyone to understand is there's this concept that I'm flushing out and I'll probably publish an essay around it called the lead domino. there's a lead domino.

I mean, people will talk about in, uh, fundraising as a, as a momentum game and people understand it's a momentum game, but I don't think a lot of people have deeply thought about what it means to [00:30:00] start, cold start build momentum. And there's this idea that I have around what is your lead domino, right?

and it's different for everyone. Um, especially when you, if you start fundraising and you have an inflection point, if you have product market fit, if you, a lot of money, your lead domino is super heavy and it'll, start something really quickly.

If, if you're really, really early on and you haven't done any work, your lead domino is gonna have to be something else that gets people leaning in and, and, and getting excited to start this path of momentum.

You Robbie, the fact that you had no deck, like people shouldn't take away from that. Oh, no deck, no deck is like the way to do it. They should take away that your lead domino was years of work within, um, meditation, was 200 plus calls, was all this work to actually start getting people interested in what you're doing to show real proof of work around an identification of a problem and around a [00:31:00] real consumer interest in what you were doing.

And so your lead domino allows you to kind of push into all this momentum. And then the other thing is, um, man, uh, it's so great that you're, you're talking about these real real world examples. So I talk about introductions being the lifeblood of fundraising, because there is so much transfer of trust that has to go through in order for people to make bets, and invest in really early stage companies.

Because I'm fond of saying nothing you show me Robbie, can we extrapolate to infinity into a billion dollars? Right? So we have to be able to trust people, but getting a really great introduction or being introduced and having that be a great experience is a hundred percent just like attracting investment.

There has to be a real ROI in order for the person making an introduction to feel great about making that introduction and to say, and to transfer credibility and say, you're gonna love Robbie, or like, you gotta spend time with him at, at, at the very least. I bet you, he will do [00:32:00] a breathwork session for you.

And that is mind blowing. And so your ability to and your natural instinct to be like, and I have the same thing. I'm like, I never want to come to the table with an ask without feeling like I could help the person like, or, or that I'd be indebted to that person to help in the future. And that's kind of the way the flywheel of early stage investing in startups works.

It's like everyone giving back to a system. And so, I think it's really important for people to hear the process that you went to, to all of a sudden have some really, really big names start promoting you and making introductions for you because. You get this all the time from early stage founders, especially with a lot of the founders from underrepresented backgrounds that I work with where it's completely true.

They don't, they didn't start the process where you started the process. But hearing how you've built up things is I think should be an inspiration. It's like find someone that you can get to. And like Sam Corcos said, [00:33:00] can you start leveling up with social proof? You know, someone that's slightly above you, can you help them?

And then once you get to them, can they, can they put you the next echelon, the next level, the next tier? So, um, yeah.

robbie: There's one. And so one, one comment to clarify on the, the no deck, like we did have a, web platform that was doing like 10 K a month and thousand users. So, and again, we didn't, it was pretty easy to build. It was just content we utilized Kajabi. Um, so it wasn't no deck. I can just raise money, which some people can if they're experienced, but it was like, Hey, there's there's proof here.

And then the other point is if you don't know anyone, another nice way to do this, that's like really tactical is if you have an idea and you think find the investors who've invested in it before. And what you're trying to do is build trust. So think of this, you know, first time founder, how do I create trust with an investor as fast as possible?

And so what you can do is reach out to somebody who's invested in this before, try to get, you know, [00:34:00] it takes you going to an accelerator, an entrepreneurship group and ask them like, Hey, I have this idea. I noticed you invested in like TikTok or Facebook or Instagram or whatever is the parallel idea. And I wonder, do you think this would work?

Can you gimme 15 minutes of your time? And that investor's already an expert in that space. And so they're also incentivized cuz in case you create the next thing they wanna know about it. And so before you're, you've even started your idea when it's in hypothesis form, do that with like 20 investors, see how many calls you can get and ask them like, Hey, what do you think a good first step would be?

And if, if I hit X, what would it take for you to invest? And then three weeks later come back and like, Hey look at all this progress I made. Here's my MVP. And then at least by the time you go to pitch them, You've talked to 'em four times. They know who you are. And not only that, there's this concept of, you mentioned, like, I don't want to have an ask and ask is okay, if you can show that you like executed on the ask and cuz then you're showing like, I'm great.

You didn't, I didn't waste your time. You actually helped me. You should feel good about helping me. And so you [00:35:00] ask investor like, Hey, in this space, is this a good idea? You come back and are like, look, I just did the research. We've got a hundred emails. We're gonna send out a prototype. Thanks for the advice.

Um, we'll hit you back when I got the prototype ready, you know, three weeks later, prototype's ready. It's like, oh, I got a bunch of users. I'm wondering if this traction is good. Can we get on another call or can you give, send me a loom or something? And so that way, by the time you're ready to raise, you've already had like four or five introductions.

You've built that trust. It's like so much easier. And so the investment doesn't start building that deck. It starts when you have the idea and when you're actually validating the idea. And in addition to validating with customers, you're validating with investors. And I think that's something I learned at Ethereum and that's like, I can't even oversell, how important that is for momentum.

Like that's your lead domino. And that will work if you don't have any

network or intros.

jason: that's, that's a great sort of pulling apart of that concept. There's um, one bit of investor psychology that I wanna make sure I drop in here because it pertains to a lot of a few of the things you said, and then [00:36:00] I wanna move on, but there's something that I describe as catching a deal. So it's this

crazy pull within an investor's mind that permeates everything they do and is something that founders need to understand. And, an investor is always interested in whether or not they can catch a deal and catch this. This idea of catching a deal has to do with being early to the game versus late to the game and whether or not they can get the right price, the deal, the opportunity before an inflection point.

And so one thing I'll just point out is, the, the no deck strategy, uh, there are ways that this works and obviously you had traction. but the idea that a founder with a little bit of traction is getting pulled into a fundraise without a deck. And if you do it in a humble way, which I assume you did not like, Hey, F yourself, like, I don't need a deck come to me and get money, but more like, Hey, like, uh, just people have been.

Saying, I should have a conversation with you. like let's, let's have a conversation and maybe some money comes out of that. [00:37:00] The feeling honestly from the investor's side may be that, did I catch a deal early here? Like this is just happening right now. Robbie, wasn't expecting a fundraise.

Otherwise he might have a deck. And so there's this really strong pull of catching a deal. And then, to your examples about asking for advice or, or seeing someone who has an expertise in the space that you're in and seeing like, and saying like, Hey, um, I'm working on this idea. I've iterated a bit would love to tell you about it.

Um, and maybe get your feedback. An investor is super busy right there. 10 10 meetings a day that they're doing, especially now in zoom. And they have things that are loading on top of them, but they're always worried. They're always worried that they might miss out on catching a really great deal. And so there's a little bit of devil in the details and nuance Robbie to, to getting into those meetings that you, you talked about, like, cuz you can't just call an email an investor and be like, Hey, I'm doing this.

Like you're an [00:38:00] expert. But if there is a bit of social proofing in there and you can get that meeting, that meeting is super powerful because it starts the set of points that will be align of relationship building that an investor will be able to call upon whether or not they want to invest in you in the future.

And that initial point is a lot of it is driven by like, I might be able to catch a deal early. I might be able to create a relationship with Robbie who might be the next big thing.

So, um, anyways, I, I, we could probably go nerd out on this for a long, long time. So I know you've raised money.

I don't know how much of this is public, but, uh, have you raised a, a fulled or seed institutional round or has it been mostly, you know, an angel army ready to go out for something big soon?

robbie: So we kept it. We specifically ratcheted everyone down. So most of the checks are like 10 K and we actually had 70 angels, but we had participation from OnDeck, fine ventures, Brier capital, uh, and fived, which is a big firm in the psychedelic space. So there were four [00:39:00] institutional checks, but they were all small.

And, and so the idea was, again, like more participation, more help, more distribution. so, so that's like pretty uncommon. so it just, it worked for us in, in this, Way, because at all those places, people use the product and like, it was just personal relationships, friend, people like a lot of times people were just like, man, this guy's cool.

I like his vibe. I like what he's doing. I use his product. This is cool. I wanna, I wanna be part of this community.

And like, you can't underplay. How important, like how do you make each other feel? And it's just like a feelings thing. So, um, that's not gonna work for later rounds, obviously. Like, you know, people are committing big money, big checks.

They're gonna wanna board seed. It's like much more structured, but for early rounds when it's like 10 25, K a lot of it was just like, Hey man, you're a cool guy. And, and then, and so it

just, it worked

out.

jason: That's awesome. And, and I think the focus of this interview, especially when it comes to fundraising, concepts will be around teasing out the angel army strategy. And, um, you know, we should just like, let's have a really dumb conversation [00:40:00] about this. Uh, cuz I, I wanna, put a very solid example to this.

So you have something like 70 people on your cap table. Some of 'em are small funds, probably anywhere saying 10 and maybe a hundred thousand dollars. Um, so actually real capital after you multiply it by 70, um, what does this mean for when you go raise your next round? Like, how do you think that's going to go because of what you've done thus far?

robbie: So it's again like a momentum building strategy. So, you know, if I went to raise the round now, which we probably, we probably won't do now, but it's like, okay. Product of the day, you know, if you look on product time, I think we had like 500 comments, which will probably be the most, like one of the most of the year.

And so if you look at who's in the comments, it's like, Pretty awesome people, you know, like even talking to you, you're like, whoa, I heard about this on my first million. And so there's always, when you're doing stuff like a little bit of hype, a little bit of sales, what can you point to? So, you know, the number one health influencer in the world, Ben Greenfield using our product, loves it.

Like, you know, Soho house, we've done a bunch of stuff with them, new space, opening, hype video. I send it to you like, whoa, [00:41:00] what is that? And so I already even have now another 50 angels who are like, Hey, I wanna put in for the next round. And I'm having these conversations all the time with podcasters, just collecting like, Hey, you want in like, you know, gimme your information and it's there.

So I think the next round will be pretty easy, uh, to do so, you know, now it's for me is like, how much capital do we need? What are our metrics look like? So what I'm trying to do now that we actually five extra sales in February, um, or sorry, in, in January, um, which is, that's not even over. And a lot of that related.

Some of these influencers sharing and product don't launch, but, um, that's good. That's like, okay. Growth is working well. So next thing I wanna show is that like we have sustainable channels and that our LTV to CAC is solid. So now we're really working on like our analytics, retention, life cycle management, stuff like that.

As soon as I have that set, uh, I'll go back out

into, into the market.

jason: Amazing. Yeah, the, the thing I was just gonna call out is, um, everyone wants to know how they get in touch with the right investors. And I briefly mentioned how strong and important warm introductions are. If [00:42:00] you have 70, uh, well networked people on your cap table, the point is it's gonna be pretty easy to get connected to investors from there.

And Robbie's doing all the right things around awareness and making sure that there is, you know, you come to the table with investors in the future where they've kind of heard of what's happening and they can do their own diligence. They can look at your digital exhaust and be excited about what's happening.

The only thing I, I point out, uh, just for. You know, to, to put a bow on this and make sure it doesn't feel like a total hack. And I know you're doing this is that, that is one side of the equation, making sure that you're actually running your company, you know, making sure that you're actually building on the company and improving it is still the core of things.

I'm, I'm very fond of saying I believe fundraising is really just demonstrating you are a great bet. Demonstrating. You're a great company. And then everything you do to make sure that investors discover that. And so the two things are really important. [00:43:00] Like you have it totally down. Robbie. Of, you know, investors are gonna discover you, right?

Like you have a network of people that will make introductions. You have things going out that people can see on the internet.

Um, but the other thing is just representing that you're a great company and you're representing that. You're a great bet. As long as those two things come together, when you're you're fundraising things go well.

Thanks, Jason, super fun. Hopefully, uh, there's some tactical stuff that can help early stage entrepreneurs. And you know, if you follow me on Twitter, my DMS are open. And, uh, if anything was like, oh, I'd like to learn more about that. Feel free to

robbie: ping

me.

That was my conversation with Robbie bet, founder of other ship. The Toronto based wellness studio and breathwork platform.

When we come back, my producer, Olivia applies. Robbie's epiphany that you need to love a problem in order to solve it. To her own big At first. She [00:44:00] turns the tables on me.

Olivia:

So Jason, I've heard you ask this question a million times to other people. And, it's been a while. And so I thought this would be a good, like,

rekindling experience. Um,

I want to know what were you like as a kid? I have no idea.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): I was really nerdy, um,

Olivia: Hmm,

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): had glasses

and probably in first grade.

Olivia: whoa. Like child's glasses with.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): grade.

Olivia: like child's glasses that Are kind of like goggles.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): Uh, I wouldn't say goggles, but like,

Olivia: Do you know, what I'm talking

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): yeah. I totally know what you're talking about. I didn't have those. Um, but definitely had glass glasses had braces, um, was very academic. my parents. You know, stress, the importance of education in straight A's and very stereotypical Asian American

upbringing.

I played piano

And, violin.

Olivia: Wow. [00:45:00] Okay.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): I had my own

interest in sports, ended up playing, a lot of basketball And golf, just kind of recreationally. Um, Yeah. And, you know, I didn't have anything else in my child other than really like

being great at school. That was kind of like the number one thing that I remember is, is trying to do your best in school and, ended up, you know, being pretty social at the end of high school.

And, yeah, that's what I was like as a little

kid at.

Olivia: That's interesting. That helps me understand why you might have resonated like you and Robbie kind of had similar trajectories where it sounds like you both were chasing kind of like conventional measures of success or whatever to begin with. And then. Really went and did your own thing. But anyway, I just hear you ask people that question all the time, and I just wanted to know what you were like.

Um, okay. But getting more into this episode lesson to you and your childhood, I wanted to [00:46:00] throw I guess, a hypothesis your way. It's not very, um, it's very woo, woo. I guess it's a woo woo observation, but. I thought a lot of this conversation was about finding the right problem. Robbie, I mean is like other founders we've talked to in the sense that he had multiple ventures, before other ship, but he had like kind of a unique takeaway where the way he described.

Why his other ventures didn't really work out, seemed to kind of be like it just wasn't, it didn't excite me that much. It wasn't like the right problem that I

was supposed to solve. and so that kind of got me thinking

that there may be two ways into a

problem. There's like The headway and like the hard way to finding a problem.

And I was really surprised to hear a little bit about, um, I guess in the head category he just mentioned it really casually, but like why Combinators

request for companies or something that that's very interesting, I guess, [00:47:00] that there

are call outs for companies. And to me that would be a real heady way of finding a

problem where someone kind of presents you with the problem.

And then you try to solve it. And I just wanted to talk to

you about that? Is that a division you naturally see when you meet with founders? Like, is this something they've come to logically or is this something that they're really passionate about and is that distinction even important to you?

Does it even matter?

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): Yeah, I've never heard it articulated like that, but, um, I really like that a headway and a heart way. and my own perspective on it has. Very much swung towards the heart, which is a weird thing. I meant we, we began this conversation telling, telling you, um, with me telling you a little bit about my childhood and it was

very head, very in my head and very head oriented, right?

Like the logic behind things, learning academics, like entrepreneurship. Wasn't a real thing for me. And it. was just like, [00:48:00] how, how do I operate within my head, operate within a set of rules And get the grades. And even as I started thinking about startups as an investor, I think I was very head related.

I thought it was very important to understand the detailed nuances

of the business model and the pricing, which is important,

but I think where I've netted out.

Um, and this is why the conversation with Robbie, like

so resonated with me and why I thought we had a great

connection was that

we both started in the same place of being very head first and kind of got to a place where we realized, the sort of soul and connection to the business is super important.

And so a hundred percent, I think there is a distinction. And there's definitely debate around this, uh, what is a great founder connection with a business? And my sense is that, the conviction and the excitement around the company that you're starting is so important because of how difficult startups are.

Um, [00:49:00] and. Because of how talented, the people that are, are starting businesses today. Like there, there are so many other opportunities for them, the opportunity cost of starting a business, um, something that you won't make money off of for many, many years is so high because they could go to traditional jobs.

And so the reason I point this all out is that, if the only reason you're doing something is that.

Mapped out a graph of Y Combinator request for companies and how it charts along profitability and X, Y, and Z. What I always say or think through is that you're gonna be, um, resilient and you're going to be,

ready to push through walls, right?

As an entrepreneur and you push through the first wall, you push through the second wall and you're banging your head against the wall. And you're a hard worker. You're gonna get to third and the fourth, but then, you know, the fifth time you bang your head, head against the wall, the sixth time, if the only reason that you're doing this is because.

You mapped out a profitability chart and saw an opportunity and emergent [00:50:00] behavior off of the Y Combinator request for company list and a belief that it could be a billion dollar business, but you yourself, like your heart is in it. You, you don't love it. And then it'll be so easy to on that fifth time and that sixth time to just be like, is this right?

You know, should I just not do this? And it turns out to, to build a really big business. It takes a long time and it takes a lot of banging your head against the wall. And so the connection to the business from your heart in a woo woo way or just your passion, to me is really important.

And, um, the last thing I'll say before, getting your reaction there is that. The even on the head side of things. So when we talked to guy from steady MD,

if you'll remember he had this, he had the approach to the business of logically identifying the opportunity. And, it turns out There is a type of entrepreneur that. Just loves the analytical components of problem solving. and that is their passion. It turns out that is their passion, is that they just like, [00:51:00] look at that and get so immersed in the details of how to unravel the thing that this is something that they get excited about.

And at the end of the day, that ends up being a heart thing for them as well. So that's, that's how I think.

Olivia: Interesting. A lot of this reminded me of a recent

conversation I had with my dad actually, who, is not a writer, but

recently had an idea for a book

that like, I don't think was that good, But he was so excited about it.

And the advice I gave him, it was weird to give my dad

advice, but I was like, you know, I'm someone who loves writing.

And I, I was like

writing a. Is probably really, really hard. And I can tell you are really excited

about it. And to me, that tells me that

you actually have. A big enough

commitment or it's the kind of excitement that could propel

you to actually get this done. and, he leading up to that conversation was like, you know, maybe I should call my friend.

So and so, [00:52:00] or call this guy and run the idea by them. And I was like, no, let's just gonna dilute the excitement. and you need

to covet that and protect that because that is actually going to give you enough drive. And like you were saying resilience to power through a really hard process.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): you bring up a really awesome early point too, which so driving through the end and getting to the end point of all that, like commitment to it is one thing. But the, the beginning consistency of just like working on the problem, not because you have a million users, because you're just like, So, interested in the very small thing that's right in front of you. that's so important. And remember, we were talking about funded and you were just asking me like, you know, how's it going? and

like,what are things, uh, how's it going? Like, how is it going for season three and how, how do we think about it? And I was like, yeah, things are growing great.

But it almost doesn't matter because I just really like doing this. I just really like doing this and, um, you know, putting out every episode [00:53:00] is such. rush for me and just like such a feeling of accomplishment. So whether one person listens to it or a million people listens to it, just like, I'm so obsessed with doing this and the consistency of putting that out and not needing to chase something that is well into the future is the other thing that the heart connection and the, you know, passion to a startup gives founder.

Olivia: Such a good point. Um I wanted to talk about this guy you mentioned, who seems like possibly like the guru of the Right.

problem. You mentioned this guy, Simon Sinek. And I Googled, I think his main thing is like, Find your why or something, something like that. And I just was curious, like, you kind of made it seem kind of kitchy or like I'm embarrassed to like, bring up this guy.

Just what is his reputation? And like, what is his big contribution or concept to the fundraising game?

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): So, you know, he's not a fundraising guru, [00:54:00] he's kind of a management and leadership guru. Um, he actually spoke at, a conference that, my old venture capital . Firm. held. So I got to hear him speak live, but you know, he has a lot of really interesting things about like servant leadership. Um, but one of his biggest things is like, find your why, and making sure you understand the why behind all these things.

And, um, I think it very much, while it's not fundraising specific, it applies to why you're doing your startup,

why you're even raising capital and all of that stuff. Once you find it and

it's like

deeply embedded in your

startup and. By virtue of it being in your startup, being in your pitch and your fundraising

pitch, becomes very, very palpable, via venture capitalist's mind.

Olivia: Okay. Okay. Gotcha. And like, you said that almost every time you sit down with a, founder, you do ask them pretty directly, like, why are you doing

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): Hmm. Yeah. So for me, um, I often mention this, like the way I talk to founders now. [00:55:00] Is very much, Influenced by my own startup experiences and, and candidly my own, unsuccessful startup experiences. So we got to an, outcome in my last startup, but it wasn't the rocket ship, huge outcome that everyone knows dreams of.

And I look back on the reasons and, and like an post mortem way. Why did it not work out? Why did we not kill it? And, and one of them is because. I just had so little connection to the business, like a core connection to the business. I was just doing it because we knew there was an opportunity and we were right.

Both times we a hundred percent saw the opportunity. I just wasn't in it. And so. I have an Antipater

that I match against when I talk to founders. And I'm always like, trying to like read them to see where

they are in that. And I I'll ask them because

I want to know, like, why are you doing this? It's like such a cliche.

It's such a VC cliche for any

conversation with the founder to be like, why are you doing this? But [00:56:00] yeah. .it is. Um, but it's because like, you're wonder. Why is the founder doing it when they could be doing a thousand different things, you know? So that definitely, definitely dive into that with, with founder.

Olivia: I'm kind of wondering, okay. I'm so glad, by the way, you talked about your own venture because, I was so curious to learn, like, if that was a problem you were excited about and if possibly the, lack of that helped explain, like, you know, what ultimately happened to it. But I'm just curious when you ask people.

why they're doing something like, do most people have a good answer or is it, do you have like a good, I guess you would say like bullshit detector? Like, do you feel like a lot of people, can you kind of tell when people are more coming from a place of head rather than.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): Yeah. So when I talk to groups of founders, I often will bring someone on

stage and run them through this thing. And so, uh, before I get to that, I'll say, yeah. Most founders [00:57:00] have a canned response to like, oh, so why are you doing this? So they, they know that's coming. And I'd say at my core, having talked to thousands of founders and seeing the ones that are successful and not like, I, I think I have a

pretty good bullshit detector.

Olivia: Yeah.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): but you can also do what I, what I do with these founders, which is like run them through like the

five,why's. So if

we were to do that with you, Olivia, I'd be like, Hey, Olivia, like, why are you working

in podcasting? And you would say,

Olivia: Why am I working in podcasting? I would say, oh God, I mean, why I got into podcasting is not why I continue to do it. So that's kind of a tricky answer, but I guess in theory, because I think it's a really good venue for. creativity and curiosity,

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): And then I'd say, well, why do you think it's a great venue for creativity and curiosity?

Olivia: Um, I think that it's really exciting to,

I guess I'm really talking about audio reporting, which I don't do much of anymore. [00:58:00] Um, in theory, like I loved knocking

on doors. I, loved the challenge of, having to report a story where people are

like, I like when I I've only been an

audio reporter once And and it was in Indian country in Montana

and, some of the tribal nations there, their obligation

to, they.

to like confirm when a legislative session is happening or when a bill is, is happening,

has been proposed is a lot like some tribal nations just don't have an obligation, especially to

outsiders like me to

tell those things. And so I loved the challenge of

being like, I'm gonna find out what's going on and, having

to figure out how to convey.

Those details through sound in an interesting way. I think that I

found that very compelling, but now what I do is really far away from that. Yeah,

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): well, well, just as a great example. So like I could have gone a few wise deeper, but your [00:59:00] first answer was very.

Olivia: not good.

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): packaged one, right?

Like, oh, cuz I, no, no, it's, it's not that it's, it's not that it's not good. It's just like the packaged one. It's the manicured one where you're like, ah, I'm like, you know, I like just really believe in the ability for sound or whatever.

And then when I ask you the why, then you like your eyes go up into the right. You're accessing a part of your brain where you're like, you know, I just really loved audio reporting. And then you told me a story So

Olivia: That's

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): who. Didn't actually have that connection would kind of flail

So I'm like trying to access the core, like. Olivia, you obviously like have something in you, like why you immerse yourself in it, why you always work in and around it, because like you had this core memory of, I just really loved

O

Olivia: is

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): like that's what I'm trying

to get to.

Olivia: That's so funny because you remember, like, Something I've talked to you about as a producer is to me, what makes good audio is emotion? Like as an audio producer, when I'm listening back to tape I've gotten or something, the [01:00:00] whole idea is you want people to give you emotion, not facts necessarily, and the gold standard really like what you're going for is a story.

Um, everything else is really a snooze and also just doesn't feel like it's coming from the heart. So that's actually really. Kind of an interesting parallel. Um,

Jason Debrief Audio (aug 21 2022): there, you know, it's like things in life, they're all the same, just different layers of

vocabulary.

Olivia:

thanks a bunch for listening. If you have any questions about today's show, or maybe you're raising money yourself and want some help. Problem-solving. If, so find me on social I'm at that's J a Y Y E H. Or shoot me an email@jasonatfundedpod.com. I'd love to hear from you.

This episode was produced by Olivia Rheingold.

Thanks also to angel Adriano from adamant

And thanks to [01:01:00] Robbie Ben for being an amazing guest and reminding us all to breathe.

As always one last thanks to our sponsor. Without which this season would not be possible. Vanta. The leading automated security and compliance platform.

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