0:00
DTC hearing aids, I think that's actually going to be a big deal.
Search this video
0:01
And they were profitable?
0:05
I mean, I'm just turning you on. Yeah, they were. Are they Mormon? Say it again. Are they Mormon? Oh my god.
0:15
How far How far away from the coast did they live? Are they inland? All right, we're here. Steph Smith's here.
0:33
One of the all-time all-time favorite guests.
0:36
Uh this is I think appearance number six.
0:39
So, if you love this one, go go listen to the other five that Steph's done.
0:42
Steph is great because she brings a dossier.
0:46
I can't even call it a document.
0:47
It should be on googledossier.
0:48
com because it is a 15-page document of trends, ideas, uh small like, you know, observations that might, you know, half ideas that might become something, which makes you essentially the perfect MFM guest.
1:04
Um and you're you're also cool and fun to hang out with.
1:06
So, thank you for coming back. Yeah, good to be here.
1:09
Every time I come on, I get way more nervous than any other appearance cuz you guys hype me up like that.
1:13
Sean, do you know how I met Steph? Uh no. It's Tell me the story.
1:15
I will forever take credit for Steph Smith's career.
1:20
It has nothing to do with how hard she works. what I do.
1:24
No matter how hard she works, no matter how smart she is, it's all me.
1:26
I've I'm a couple of So, basically, she had this blog.
1:31
It still Is it stephsmith. io?
1:36
It's It was a really good blog and she had this headline.
1:37
And the headline was to be great, just be good consistently. Is that it, Steph? Basically. Uh what was it? What is it exactly?
1:46
Yeah, it's like how to be great, {question mark} just be great repeatedly. Be good repeatedly. Oh, yes, be good.
1:51
And I was like, I DM'd her.
1:54
I was like, "Steph, this is the best headline I've ever read.
1:55
This is a really good headline.
1:56
Like, we're launching this thing called Trends. Do you want to join us?
1:59
And she was like, "Ah, maybe."
2:00
And I was like, "Look, come work for us for a couple years, and I have a feeling you're going to like go and leave us, and that's totally cool.
2:07
Come do like a tour of duty."
2:07
Now, it's been about a year and a half, maybe a year since she's left.
2:11
She's uh at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the uh biggest VC firms in the world. How is that going? It's going great.
2:18
Yeah, we just hired a producer, which is nice cuz for a while I was kind of hacking it together myself, but yeah, I feel like the podcast finally is taking off, and we're trying a bunch of different formats.
2:29
It's actually like I feel like I'm easing into it. I'm finally having fun.
2:33
Like when I listen to My First Million, you can tell you guys talk about it's like the best job in the world.
2:37
I'm finally easing into that, which is nice.
2:39
What's it like working there?
2:41
I mean, when I think about working there, I think of like uh like the TV show Billions, you know, like it's just like fun [ __ ] all the time.
2:47
But is it just normal company [ __ ] I mean, it's just like is it more normal of a job than I think, or is it as spectacular as I would imagine?
2:54
I mean, it's kind of both because day-to-day it's totally normal because you're just doing your job. You're just doing work. go into an office? Are you remote? Um I'm remote. They do have offices.
3:04
I go in every so often just because I started working remotely a year into my career, and so for the last like 8 years or so, I've never had an office, and so it's like a novelty for me.
3:15
Everyone else is sick sick of the office, and I'm like, "Ooh, candy bars."
3:19
You're like, "Oh, you just sit here all day? Wow."
3:23
You can't leave this box? I know. It's crazy.
3:25
I'm like, "Ooh, a call booth. Like how special."
3:28
I think uh the way Sam talks about like when his wife Sarah worked at Facebook, and he's like, "And you know, when you work in a place, you just sort of get used to everything, and you kind of optimize for convenience, and so like, 'Oh, the all-hands meeting's on.
3:38
I can either go down to the cafeteria and listen to it, or oh, they have like a streaming option cuz there's employees all around the world.'
3:45
And like, 'All right, whatever, I'll just stream it uh from my desk. Yeah, that's easier. I'll eat my salad here.' And Sam was like, "No.
3:50
You need to go, sit front row with a pen and pad and when he says any questions you need to like jump out of your chair and ask him a question every single week until he invites us over for dinner."
4:02
Like that was basically Sam's like master plan.
4:04
Until you're his best friend.
4:05
I kind of think you should be doing the same thing.
4:06
Like what's the point of working at Andreessen Horowitz unless you're just like at the office every day just waiting for some like awesome Marc Andreessen moment to happen or just like you're there when he just yells at somebody and uh it just goes off or like, you know, they're doing a blood you know, like the the 12-year-olds come in to give them blood and like you're like, "Yes, this is the weirdness I came here for."
4:27
It's like It's like every It's like every movie ever where there's like the big boss at the conference table and it's like, "Who which analyst put this together?"
4:34
And then the manager's like, "Oh, one of my guys. Bring your guy here.
4:37
Let me talk to that person."
4:39
Or like uh Marc Andreessen's going to say like, you know, "Who thought to do this?
4:44
The number on this is blank and you blank."
4:45
And you say, "Actually, sir, it's 6473." "What did you say?"
4:50
"It's 6473 because uh this Come with me."
4:54
Yeah, it's like who "For 6 weeks I've been leaving crumbs in the kitchen to see if anybody would clean it up.
4:58
And finally somebody did.
5:00
Let's pull up the security footage. It was Steph Smith. You're promoted. You're at the top now." Right? These are the fan fake.
5:04
This is what I think is going to happen if you But you just got to be there.
5:08
I can't believe you're not there every day.
5:09
You should be Every day in the office. upside of your job. It's not your salary.
5:14
It's that you can go hang out with some of the smartest people in the world.
5:17
But you got to do the hangout part not the like just when we're on calls then we talk. You're right.
5:22
I got to hover around the office.
5:24
Just like you do on the internet. You got to lurk.
5:26
You got to be a lingerer.
5:28
If you told like 21-year-old you that you would be in this position and you'd be like, "Would you just stay home and just kind of do your own thing or would you like go be there and hang out and lurk and like, you know, just be serendipitous about like what's going to happen?"
5:41
You know, the 21-year-old you would be like, "Oh, I'm definitely going in.
5:44
I'm going to meet these people.
5:44
I'm going to see what's up.
5:45
Uh but I think it's easy later to be like casual about it. Yeah, I got to embrace.
5:50
I feel like Sam, if you're in the office, you like go up to someone grabbing a snack and be like, "Hey, what's up? How's it going?" And I'm like so awkward.
5:57
I'm like, You need to be romantic comedy bumping into everybody and dropping all the papers that you're holding and then being like, "Let's clean these up together."
6:05
Like not even for the romance, just to like you create a little like intersection between you and the and these people. Yeah.
6:12
I when I was at Twitch, when we got acquired, um I literally I even told people there openly.
6:18
I was like, "I'm not here to do my job."
6:19
I was like, "I'm going to find whatever the most interesting things are happening here and I'm just going to go be in those meetings and do that."
6:24
Like you're not going to worked, right? Like worked amazingly.
6:28
Like You're friends with Emmett.
6:31
Yeah, me and Emmett, you know, I I got to I was like, "This is the most interesting guy in this building."
6:34
So, anytime it's like you need to go talk to, you know, Jerry on the fourth floor, it's like, "Nah, I think I'm just going to hang out in Emmett's I'm just going to stay in the meeting."
6:42
Like we do the meeting with Emmett, everybody gets up and leaves, and I just kind of stay there on my laptop.
6:47
Next group walks in, I'm still there.
6:49
I'm just going to hang out and see what happens.
6:50
Like no one's going to say anything.
6:52
Or uh I remember when Ninja got poached, so like the top streamer on Twitch got poached and then there was like I know there's secret meetings happening about like, "What should we do?
7:02
Should we like counter offer?
7:04
Or what is it Is it like a code red moment?"
7:05
And there's only But I wasn't in those.
7:08
So, I just wrote up a plan and I sent it to like the three top executives.
7:10
I was like, "Here's the plan for Ninja.
7:12
I know I'm not even on the team."
7:13
But then they were like, "Attend this meeting tonight at 8:00 p. m."
7:17
And I was like, "I'm in."
7:19
I got into the cool [ __ ] by just like not doing my job.
7:20
And that's that's my recommendation to you.
7:23
If you're going to be around these like 9,000 IQ people, that's the real upside of your job.
7:29
Don't do your actual job.
7:29
Do the job of hanging out.
7:31
Speaking of which, Steph, are they actually Do you think that the talent there are they actually significantly smarter than any other uh like pretty decent tech company? Um I would say yes.
7:42
I I would say I've worked at I mean not that many companies, but a direct shot at you, Sam.
7:47
She's only really ever worked for you and Market Pie.
7:49
No, I've worked for I've worked for a couple I'd say like at least five five companies where I've been a full-time employee and I would say yes.
7:57
She's like, "My my previous job was a lot of checkers and now I'm playing chess."
8:03
What the [ __ ] do those geniuses know about newsletters?
8:05
Well, you you guys have something at the beginning of this you were like, "Oh, I get nervous for this more than anything else."
8:09
I'm curious, do you feel nervous when you are in one of these like A16Z like whatever meetings?
8:13
Like are you like, "Oh, these are These are like the people I used to follow on Twitter and [ __ ] like that and now I'm in this room." Yeah, definitely.
8:21
I mean, I think there's an element too where I don't represent the company running this podcast, but in a way the podcast is like an asset to the firm and I'm like they hired I mean, I'm glad they did, but they hired a 29-year-old who like candidly feels a little out of place amongst these people who have been, you know, like Marc Andreessen basically like invented the internet.
8:41
Like he created the first browser or the the wide-scale browser and so I'm like I do feel sometimes a little out of place, but I feel like I'm a year in and I'm getting used to it.
8:50
I think you should give yourself more credit.
8:52
Uh you're cooler than everybody I've met at A16Z, so you know, I I I think I think they're lucky to have you as far as I'm concerned.
9:00
I'm going to bring in one of those Nick Gray name tags that says cooler than you.
9:04
Sean thinks I'm cooler than everyone here. Exactly.
9:06
This is why I knew she was a good hire because I was like in my head I was like, "Oh, she doesn't understand how good she is."
9:15
I'm like, "This is a deal. I got him." Got him. She doesn't know yet.
9:21
Um, Sam, where do you want to go from here?
9:24
Um, let's just start with the first idea.
9:25
So, this one I think is really interesting um because right now I think a lot of people listening know that there's this issue with commercial real estate.
9:35
All these office buildings, you know, are up for sale or at least people are leaving and Like the highest level of of like vacancy ever, basically.
9:43
And especially in cities like San Francisco, where I think there's like 35% vacancy and going up as soon as people's leases roll off.
9:53
As soon as they can get out of their lease, so they will.
9:55
So, it's like uh you know, it's just a it's a disaster. Exactly. thing?
10:00
So, a lot of people think, "Okay, well, then let's go change Let's swap those that commercial real estate for homes, apartments, etc." That makes sense.
10:10
But, I think there's this huge opportunity for fractional real estate.
10:14
So, click one of where it says see here.
10:17
Click one of those and tell me what you see.
10:20
All right, Sean, you want to go?
10:21
I'll describe I'll describe it.
10:21
So, it it's something called Temple Immersive and it basically looks like a yoga class of some kind.
10:27
It's like dimly lit, candles.
10:29
Looks like a hot yoga class.
10:31
But, then on the roof is this like crazy visual where it looks like you're in the forest and the whole thing just looks super cool.
10:38
Where do you think this is?
10:38
Like, what is this building? I mean, I have no idea.
10:42
This looks I mean, this looks like the lobby of an office building in a way. It's like huge.
10:46
But, they make it look like a temple. Yeah.
10:48
So, this is a club A nightclub. during the the night. A nightclub.
10:50
So, I mean, this is just one example, obviously, of where real estate is used from what?
10:56
Saturdays Friday, Saturday, Sunday That's it. from like 7:00 p. m. to 2:00 a. m.
11:00
And then throughout the week, it's not used at all.
11:06
And so, the thing that I found fascinating, I went to this, called Temple Immersive in San Francisco, and I talked to the woman, they just opened up and I was like, "How'd you find this?
11:16
Like, did you reach out to a bunch of clubs?"
11:17
And they were like, "No, the club reached out to us."
11:20
Like, I guess it makes sense, but this club has just all this real estate that's being unused.
11:25
And I was just thinking about what other, I guess, one this could be applied elsewhere, right?
11:30
Like, in any city someone can go contact a bunch of clubs, link them up with yoga studios, Pilates studios, etc.
11:36
Um but then I was also thinking what else could this real estate be used for?
11:41
Um and another trend that's been taking off is rage rooms.
11:46
Have you guys heard of rage rooms?
11:46
No, but I like the room where you get to smash [ __ ] right?
11:51
Yeah, yeah, there's there's one in SF as well.
11:54
Um but basically people are angry.
11:56
They're losing their jobs.
11:58
Yeah, it's It's called like the rage room that's on Market Street.
12:00
Yeah, it's on The city is the rage room, yeah. CBS is doing a rebrand.
12:14
Okay, what is this rage room [ __ ] So people will literally go and yeah, like Sean said, you just smash it.
12:20
So like they'll give you a bunch of plates, they'll give you like old electronics, they'll give you stuff and I think depending on what you choose, you pay a different amount.
12:28
And you just get a session in this like empty room and you just get to smash stuff, which you just don't get to do in normal life.
12:36
Um and so I was thinking I was like, you know, not just a yoga studio, but a lot of this real estate like go convert like a club during the week to like a a rage room.
12:46
Do we have um I always thought like these little things were were wouldn't be that interesting, but we have this member of Hampton and he's tweeting about it.
12:52
His name's Raleigh Williams.
12:55
just going to bring him up, yep.
12:57
Dude, so he he I think he's in Utah and he created uh it it's like I don't know I thought escape room was like a brand, but I think it's also like the style. Mhm.
13:05
Uh and so he created like a version of an escape room.
13:11
And what did he do, Sean?
13:13
He sold he sold it for about $30 million.
13:15
created a business, he sold it for $26 million.
13:16
And he says is basically he's at a law firm and he doesn't love his job and he's like, "Okay, should I do something else? Like what should I do?"
13:25
He reads an article that's talks about the how lucrative escape rooms were.
13:30
This is back in 2015 when escape rooms were really like just sort of like the new trend.
13:33
It was the new new like froyo basically.
13:34
So he he looks it up, he finds out how much money these make and he's like, "Okay, I think this is a good business, but I don't have enough money to go build it out."
13:44
But in the true entrepreneurial spirit, he doesn't let the lack of resources stop him. He becomes resourceful.
13:48
He's like, "All right, can I build an escape room inside this like abandoned bus?"
13:52
So he goes buy the buys this 1984 Blue Bird bus and he converts the inside into an escape room.
13:59
And now he's got an escape room on wheels.
14:01
He can drive it up to companies' offices and do the corporate offsite right there.
14:05
And so it wasn't perfect in the sense that like if it was a hot day or a cold day, it kind of sucked to be inside of it.
14:14
But other than that, it was like this like super efficient escape room allowed him to get like cash flow going.
14:17
I think he said like the bus itself was making like um five or 10 grand a month of like you know, free cash flow.
14:24
And so he starts opening up more and so he builds out his first real one.
14:29
He opens um you know, five, six more or whatever.
14:34
Then he starts adding to the back of it so there's like real estate.
14:36
So he's getting the the real estate with the escape room and then he's getting more space and he created a trampoline park and an axe throwing things.
14:42
So basically just like this kind of like out of home entertainment is what we call like this category.
14:48
And so he just bundles these together and uh over that period of like 2015 to 2020-ish, he's uh built this thing up and then he starts selling them off.
14:57
So he's selling off uh you know, in in chunks of pieces.
15:02
And he basically said that he made $26 million doing this.
15:05
I think through a combination of the sale plus the distributions along the way. But I I might be wrong. Maybe it's both.
15:10
Uh he said he had uh let's see.
15:14
He spent 10 million building these out and over the over the years there was about 20 million in distributions from uh the company.
15:20
So you you know, kind of an amazing outcome, an amazing return for this guy.
15:25
Yeah, these Yeah, I I didn't think that these would be good and then I like met him and I started learning about him and I was like dude, too.
15:30
People should go follow him on Twitter.
15:32
How do you How do you know him?
15:33
Uh I just know him through Twitter.
15:34
I saw some of Like I've been going back and forth with him a little bit and then he listens to the pod, so you know, he had reached out at some point.
15:43
Uh Steph, talk about this pay transparency thing. This interests me a lot.
15:46
Yeah, so in the last couple years, there's been a bunch of laws that have changed across states.
15:51
I think Colorado is maybe the most well-known where companies have to, depending on the state, um disclose certain aspects of a job related to pay, right?
16:03
So, it might be a range that a specific job requires.
16:05
Um also things like even if you're in a job, you can request your band and, you know, why you're paid a certain amount and how you compare to others across the company.
16:15
Um and so, that's changing. It's still changing.
16:20
It's like very much in flux.
16:20
I think there's at least a dozen states that now um require you to share uh those pay ranges, for example.
16:27
But this one girl, Hannah Williams, she's 26, um so super young, quit her job.
16:32
Um she was making like $115,000 a year.
16:35
And then in the last year, has just been doing the kind of man or in this case woman on the street.
16:42
And all she does is she goes up and she just asks people, "Hey, what do you do? How much do you make?"
16:47
Um but her social accounts have blown up.
16:49
So, she has over a million followers on TikTok, again, in in a year. Um 450,000 on Instagram.
16:59
And she's on other channels as well.
16:59
And so, an article was written about her in January and she had already made $600,000 since her switch.
17:05
And so, I'm sure she's made way more now with the accounts being the size they are.
17:09
Um but this is one of the the cases We've talked about this before when there's like regulation change, there's like a rule change, a line in the sand is drawn, and then that has implications.
17:20
And this one's so far-ranging, right?
17:21
Cuz it it impacts any job within these given states.
17:28
So, if you go to her profile, she's doing a a really good job.
17:30
So, you go to her profile on Tik Tok and you click that link that says Stan. So, check this out.
17:35
So, here's how she's making money.
17:38
So, the top link is an Indeed link where it says, "Get a job as a nurse."
17:41
And so, she's getting affiliate thing.
17:43
Then she has a market research guide, which is learn how you should do learn how much you should be making.
17:49
And I guess that's so she can collect emails.
17:50
But then, click attend and uh attend LA and NYC workshops.
17:54
So, she partnered with Capital One to do local of like seminars at their banks like cuz some of their banks have cafes.
18:04
And then she also has, I think, I believe it's a subscription database where you can see individual salary data packed with contextual information. This one is awesome. This is how you do it. Also, shout out to Stan.
18:19
and Sam uh invested in Stan.
18:19
So, good good use of Stan here for the uh putting a a link in the bio that lets you lets you make a bunch of money. Um yeah, this is cool.
18:26
We've uh we've talked about levels.
18:28
fyi on the pod before, which is a similar concept, which is like crowdsourcing salary info.
18:34
So, you can if you're an engineer at Facebook, you can go find out, "Am I getting paid what other L4 engineers get paid?
18:38
Or should I be working at Google and what would I get paid if I was over there?"
18:41
Um I think they're they're doing an awesome job of this.
18:44
When we had mentioned this on the pod, somebody did this for doctors.
18:47
They were like, uh we I think we had said you should somebody should do this for nurses and doctors.
18:52
And then they they were like, "Hey, we're med students."
18:53
And so, they went and did this for doctors and created a database.
18:56
I think they got acquired by levels uh actually after after hearing it on the pod uh and then taking action on it.
19:02
So, definitely think that there's opportunity here and I like uh Sam, what do you call it? Regulatory inflections?
19:08
Uh What's your big word you like to use in flections? Inflections.
19:13
Is it the I word, the inflections, which is anytime there's like a law change, there's Well, there's like multiple inflections.
19:18
So, there's like a tech inflection, which is like Uber exists because everyone now has an iPhone or and you have GPS in your phone.
19:25
Then there's like cultural inflections, which is like teens feel comfortable filming themselves.
19:29
And then there's regulatory inflections, which is this drug is now legal or this patent is about to expire or you now in Colorado have to disclose your salary band, therefore opens up new opportunities.
19:43
So, this is done There's another one you have here that going to say the So, you guys have talked about hearing aids on the pod before.
19:48
So, as of October, the FDA relaxed their rule, which basically meant hearing aids could be sold over the counter.
19:54
Which is [ __ ] that they're not sold over the counter.
19:56
It's [ __ ] [ __ ] Like it's been bothering me so much.
20:00
That and glucose monitors.
20:01
I'm amazed that they're not sold over the counter.
20:03
I've been trying to get a hearing aid and they make me go to all these appointments and I miss them. It pisses me off. Yes.
20:09
Another fun fact around hearing aids, which I feel like is interrelated to the fact that they can Is it now or already that they can be sold over the counter or is it this coming October?
20:20
Okay, so they already can.
20:22
But apparently 99% of hearing aids or custom hearing aids are 3D printed already.
20:28
And so there's a few companies that basically own this market currently.
20:33
But the reason I love this is because 3D printing is the epitome of like tech hype cycle.
20:37
Started in the 80s, then got way over hyped, wasn't ready, everyone thought it was dead, but it's like come back in these really niche places like hearing aids.
20:50
We talked to people on trends a while ago that were using 3D printing for like dental implants, things like that.
20:53
And so I feel like it's it's something that actually is like overlooked because people were like 3D printing is dead.
21:03
Wait, what do you Sean, you said yep as if you know.
21:04
You know people doing this for teeth?
21:06
Yeah, one of my best friends, one of my best friends from college, he's a he's a surgeon and he's a ENT surgeon, so ear, nose, throat.
21:12
And what he I was like while he was in med school, so this is like over the past like, you know, 8 years or whatever he's been guys has been at school forever.
21:20
And I was like, how's it going?
21:22
He's like, oh, you know, it's fine, but like I'm having a the most fun because now I run Duke's 3D printing facility. I'm like, 3D printing?
21:30
Like just like for engineering?
21:32
Like you making toys or what are you doing?
21:33
He's like, no, like the medical 3D printing.
21:34
And I was like, wait, I thought I thought 3D printing is like not even a thing for normal [ __ ] You guys are already using it in medicine?
21:41
He's like, dude, I I surgically implanted part of a a skull that I 3D printed the other day.
21:45
Like, you know, we take your jaw shape and then we're able to like create like the perfect shape that we needed for this implant, this this this surgical process.
21:56
And I was like, wow, I had no idea.
21:59
And they're doing this with a like basically it's interesting.
22:02
Some technologies take forever to get into medicine cuz it's like the high stakes spot and for some medicine is the only justification for putting in the time and the money that it takes to get the technology to work.
22:14
And I think that's kind of where where um uh 3D printing has has gone where it's like it started as like this hobbyist thing, but then the real commercialization so far has happened on the the medical side.
22:27
I think the same thing's happening kind of in VR.
22:28
People trying to be do the hobby thing for a long time, but one of the better more commercial use cases of VR is you know, doctor training, flight you know, pilot training, um things like, you know, you know, imagining construction Yeah, exactly.
22:43
Anything where you need to sort of visualize and and plan something.
22:47
You it's worth the money to develop a a really high quality VR simulation because it's cheaper than doing a real a real prototype of it.
22:56
Damn, I didn't know you I didn't know you I I didn't know you had this side of you, Sean.
22:59
friends in I I friends in hospitals as they say.
23:02
Well, you're Indian, of course. Of course you do.
23:05
You're the odd man out, but you know, you're you're shilling web three for years.
23:10
Turns out you're a practical guy as well.
23:13
We put the blockchain in your brain, baby. Um Yeah.
23:16
Do the Do this Well, I also for this hearing aid thing, I met these guys that were doing 7 million a month in sales on their hearing aid brand that I had never heard of.
23:25
And I was like, "Oh, huh.
23:28
Maybe uh this makes a lot of sense, actually. Like DDC hearing aids.
23:30
I think that's actually going to be a big deal. Um Was it bootstrapped?
23:37
They I don't know if they're fully bootstrapped, but like yeah, they're not like venture act.
23:39
It's like But they made profit.
23:42
bootstrapped and then like their uncle gave them some money to keep it scaling it.
23:44
That's that's seem like that sort of vibe.
23:47
And they were profitable.
23:49
I mean, I'm just turning you on. Yeah, they were. Tell me more. Are they Mormon? Oh my god.
23:59
How far How far away from the coast do they live? Are they inland? All right.
24:05
Let's uh Our software is the worst.
24:09
Have you heard of HubSpot?
24:11
See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
24:18
I think I love our new CRM.
24:20
Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better. We have two things.
24:24
Sean, you want to go first?
24:26
Yeah, I got to come clean.
24:26
I have a um like a very late disclaimer I have to give.
24:31
So, a few episodes ago, maybe like four or five episodes ago, we had talked about a business idea that was like a children's play space.
24:38
Basically, you go there and you like Yeah.
24:41
It's just a place to play.
24:41
You pay pay membership fee and you go play with all these cool toys inside.
24:44
Anyways, I was like, "Oh, it turns out like interesting business.
24:48
It's a franchise thing, blah blah blah."
24:51
Anyways, my did And you you just went there.
24:52
You didn't know anything about it. go there. Ben went there.
24:54
My business partner went there, and he was telling me about it, and he's like, "Yeah, like, you know, I was talking to the guy, and here's their occupancy, here's their If that's true, then here's what they would be making."
25:03
Well, I went and looked at the website and uh before and after.
25:08
And basically, meetings, like bookings to like inquire about a franchise, got booked out for like 4 and 1/2 months after the pod.
25:14
And I just want to say, I have no idea if this is a good business or not. That was a estimate.
25:22
That was a single experience.
25:22
It was a "Hey, this That's kind of cool, huh? That could make money." I do not endorse this.
25:28
I don't know if it's good or bad. I can't say either way.
25:30
And I really hope that a bunch of people didn't go buy franchises of this thing thinking that uh that I was vouching for this.
25:37
So, I just had to say that cuz I saw all those meetings get booked, and I got a little nervous. I was like, "Oh, wait.
25:42
This is not a uh I can't cosign this.
25:42
I can't vouch for this either direction."
25:47
And I just needed to say that up-front.
25:48
So, please don't uh mortgage the house and go buy a franchise of this thing.
25:52
Did they reach out to you? No, they didn't. No.
25:53
I don't think they knew what I don't think they knew what happened. That MFM effect.
25:58
Well, and the second thing is So, we have like these sources wherever like I'm about to talk about something health-related or like I don't know, in your case in that example, the franchise-related or real estate-related, we have like three or four buddies who will like text and be like, "Hey, we're thinking about talking about this.
26:15
What's your opinion on X, Y, and Z?"
26:16
And they'll kind of give us some insight.
26:17
Uh one of those guys, his name's Adam Bornstein.
26:20
I met Adam because he was like he basically ran a lot of Infersys stuff.
26:26
And one time he had this conference called 212.
26:28
He invited me to go, and they would rent out like the Four Seasons.
26:30
And one time I checked into my room, and it was so big, I called down to the front desk, and I was like, "Hey, who do I share this room with?"
26:36
Is that And it was a 4,000 square-foot Four Seasons penthouse, the presidential suite, that had like a 16-person dining table, a movie theater.
26:46
And that's how I met Adam is he invited me to come to his event.
26:49
And so, I've always asked him for health stuff.
26:51
Well, he just had a book come out.
26:52
It's called You Can't Screw This Up.
26:54
I'm trying to think of the best way to summarize it, but it's basically So, I have this thing written down.
26:58
It's basically Ryan Holiday, James Clear, Tim Ferriss, like that style of writing and like that like I don't know, simple hacks, but that's kind of a bad word, but I don't mean it that way.
27:08
But like these simple hacks on how you can create healthier diet habits.
27:12
So, the book is called You Can't Screw This Up.
27:14
He also works with Arnold Schwarzenegger and that's who got uh he got to write the foreword.
27:21
So, I just want to give a shout out to Adam.
27:22
He's a friend of the pod, so I want to give him a shout out.
27:23
But Let's do this jobs of the future.
27:25
I think this is a a good one.
27:26
And I also love that you're branding this Steph's list. Well done.
27:30
Way to way to take I had to. I had to. I love Sarah's list.
27:35
Um but yeah, this all comes from I guess two things.
27:37
One, people think AI is taking all of our jobs.
27:40
I personally don't fully agree with that.
27:43
We don't need to dive into that.
27:44
Well, what's the what's the official stance at A16Z right now?
27:48
Is there like a I don't know the official stance for A16Z, but we're tech optimists. Yeah.
27:55
Did they just like Is there like a poster where it said like Web3 is future and they just like put an X over it? They just wrote AI? No comment. No comment.
28:02
But what I'll say is we even on this pod I've talked about different jobs um that don't quite exist or maybe are starting to exist.
28:13
I've talked about chief automation officers.
28:14
Sean, you've talked about this idea of like a mental fitness coach.
28:18
Um and I guess this idea of Steph's list is partially I want to share a few ideas today, but I also want to hear from the listeners.
28:25
Like what are the jobs that you think are as you know, some people might say a little more anti-fragile, but also that again, like don't quite exist yet or early, the types of things we would have talked about in trends.
28:39
this stat you have here cuz I think the stat actually makes it clear that these aren't just like like oh, cute things on the fringe.
28:45
It's like, no, this is the future.
28:49
Yeah, so apparently, 85% of employment growth in the last 80 years came from new jobs.
28:54
So, AKA between 1940 and today, 85% of employment growth came from jobs that did not exist in 1940.
29:04
But, did they not exist because like AI didn't exist, or did they not exist because it's by new new businesses, like new businesses that have been created?
29:12
title didn't exist is what you're saying. Yep.
29:15
So, even you know, simple examples of this that I think anyone can recognize from even the last few decades, before 2008, 2009, the idea of a social media manager did not exist.
29:25
The idea of a UX designer did not exist.
29:27
And those are jobs that truly like what?
29:30
Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people now do these jobs.
29:34
And so, there's going to be versions of this.
29:37
I think it's a little more brain racking to figure out in the age of AI because you can always ask like, oh, well, is this going to disappear in 3 years instead of 30?
29:47
Um, but I think actually there there's maybe like frameworks to think about this.
29:52
So, for example, I think drones are kind of hitting that we talked about 3D printing, hitting that stage where a lot of consumers own drones, but a lot of companies are also starting to use drones.
30:03
And so, like what within that that industry could exist?
30:07
It could be like drone technicians.
30:09
If there's a lot of drones, people are going to need to fix those drones.
30:13
Is there like drone traffic control?
30:16
There's aircraft traffic control, so why wouldn't there be, Safety inspector, charging installation, blah blah blah, right? Exactly. Exactly.
30:23
And so, my question for you guys is like, anything on your radar?
30:28
Like Well, let's start with the ones you talked about before.
30:30
So, you said it quickly, but I think it's worth repeating cuz you were on, I don't know, like a year ago when you said it.
30:34
So, chief automation officer.
30:35
When you said that, at that time, this was kind of like definitely pre-AI being like the thing that everyone's talking about.
30:44
Um what does a chief automation officer do and why did you think that was a cool job, uh like a job of the future?
30:50
Yeah, so I mean a lot of companies will have a CTO.
30:53
The CTO typically though is so wrapped up on like what's our infrastructure, is you know, cybersecurity, what's our our um how are we tackling that and how are we keeping our you know, our company safe, our data safe?
31:08
What they often aren't focused on and maybe some people would argue this is the role of the COO, but is how do I actually take the technology that exists today like AI um and enable every single person within my company to understand how to up-level their jobs, right?
31:23
So like to become 3x more productive.
31:27
Because most of those people unfortunately either aren't plugged into the technology, don't have the like excitement to actually implement it within their job, or honestly it's just one of those like you don't know what you don't know.
31:39
Steph, can I give you Let me give you a compliment.
31:43
I remember that pod that we did where you talked about that.
31:44
At Hampton, the first hire we made was an automation expert. The very first hire. His name's Grant.
31:52
All he does is automate stuff.
31:52
So he's basically a Zapier plus Airtable expert. Yeah.
31:58
And because one of our values early on was we want to grow to be big, but we don't want to have to hire loads of people.
32:03
So let's right away start automating stuff and it was because of that conversation.
32:07
So the very first hire we made was an automation expert. So And you know what? It is [ __ ] awesome. It is awesome.
32:16
is not typically like you have to create new things.
32:18
It's that they're Basically you're bridging a gap between duct tape a ton of stuff.
32:23
There's a process we're doing that's kind of tedious, manual, repetitive, or low value add, but needs to be done.
32:31
And then there's tools that could do that if you knew they existed and you knew how to pipe them together and stitch them together so that they actually work.
32:36
And what this person does and that like I I do this at our company almost by accident, which is uh like for our e-commerce companies, like I just discovered yesterday there's somebody who's just has to like spend hours a week just like square cropping photos so that they look better in Shopify from what the photographer gives them.
32:54
And I was like, "Wait, you do this for how many pictures?"
32:57
And they're like, "Yeah, it sucks."
32:59
And I was like, "You know there's this tool that will just bulk you bulk upload and it'll do that and then it'll put them it'll pipe it to you here in Slack and you can see it you know, we'll use a different tool to pipe it into Slack and
33:11
you'll see if there's one that's off cuz you can just kind of skim this with your eyes and and then you'll just be able to fix the one off that's not good, but 98% of them will just be done well the first time automatically by this one tool." And they're like,
33:23
And they're like, "Oh [ __ ] that's like you know, thank you.
33:25
That saves me a bunch of time.
33:25
And now I can go do things that are actually going to drive a little more growth versus just like some [ __ ] that had to be done.
33:32
And how many of those are there?
33:34
In every company there's a ton of those.
33:36
And So I think And the problem the problem is Sean is even let's say that hypothetically you only have 10 people, even though that you've been 10 people for 3 years, just 10 people has created enough habit that even getting an automation person in now it's going to be like, "Oh man, where do I start?"
33:53
So doing it with 10,000 people is like an impossible task.
33:55
That's why we were like, "Let's get this right away.
33:59
Let's do this right away."
33:59
Um There should be like a ratio.
34:02
Like for every 10 employees you have, you have one chief automate or not chief automation officer, but someone who knows how to automate.
34:08
And you just pair them with teams and you they literally do user interviews.
34:11
They sit down, they say, "Hey, let me shadow you for a day.
34:16
Let me just see what you do."
34:16
And then from there, I bet anyone, myself included, who tries to automate what I can, they would just pick up so many things of like, "Why are you doing that at all?"
34:25
So I think you should also have this for um team collaboration.
34:30
Have you guys ever read this book Five Dysfunctions of a Team?
34:34
Yeah, by Patrick something.
34:34
I don't even know who he is.
34:36
It's a great book, honest. I love that book.
34:38
I I think other people drama, right?
34:41
people I think don't really like it.
34:42
It's kind of like fiction It's a It's a business advice book, but it's written as a fictional story, which is cool cuz that's not usually how those are written.
34:50
It basically describes like there's a company, you know, whatever Acme Inc.
34:54
And they go to this like team offsite and they're trying to figure something out.
34:57
And then you have these like four personalities or five personalities or whatever.
34:59
And um and it shows the like different ways that a team can be dysfunctional.
35:06
And once I worked in a bigger like, you know, I've worked in kind of like two-person teams, that's what I'm in now.
35:11
Uh Well, I I think the takeaway of the or the what the You forgot the part where it says the point the the reason the book's called that is uh successful teams all look different, but every dysfunctional company looks the same.
35:22
And And here's the five things that they all have in common. Exactly.
35:24
And you kind of identify them but it it identifies it in And the way the book's written is kind of cool.
35:28
I think it's a sort of like it's it's here's a situation that you have two people who both have kind of like valid perspectives or one person doesn't realize that the thing that they're saying is causing the other people to feel a certain way and causing all these like second-order effects.
35:42
Um anyways, it's a good book for like management, I guess.
35:43
But what I the I guess my real takeaway is like I've been in a bunch of companies where they do these like it's like [ __ ] builds up and then they're like, "We need an executive coach. We need a team offsite.
35:55
We need to like break down all this scar tissue that's being built and like dysfunction that's in the team and resentment that's in the team and what all these things that are not allowing us to perform at our best."
36:06
I actually think that companies should embed this in the company.
36:07
So, I think there should be somebody that floats around that's basically like the the chicken billions who's like the the team psychologist or whatever. It's sort of like that.
36:16
But instead of one-on-one What's her name? I love that lady.
36:19
Yeah, I stopped watching the show after season one. So, I I I forgot. But uh she's awesome. She's Wendy Rhoades. Yeah.
36:28
So, basically instead of that, it's somebody who just sits in meetings and takes notes and every week they just deliver like, Sam, do you know that you do this and you say this and that that's making these Did you Did you Did you notice that that makes these people
36:41
feel this way and it And how then when they walk out of the room, you know, they're not going to go do the thing you want in the way you want because of the way you said it or this person just didn't have that information and they were put on the spot. Maybe you should put in a process
36:52
Maybe you should put in a process that gets the information on the dashboard that everybody sees beforehand or whatever, right?
36:57
Like somebody that identifies dysfunction cuz let's say for every 10 people you hire, if you can make that team 10% more efficient, you've basically created one extra employee without that payroll.
37:08
And so, I think that the numbers would the ROI would be there if you had this, but I'm surprised this doesn't exist.
37:15
So, I think that's a kind of a job in the of the future is basically like a collaboration expert.
37:19
So, somebody that like is a is like a internal um, you know, compass team compass to figure out like, you know, how where are the trouble spots. doula?
37:30
You got to use that word doula here.
37:32
Yeah, I guess I guess I'll just keep using doula as a guy uh and pissing everybody off. Sam, what do you think?
37:38
Any jobs that stand out to you?
37:41
What are you guys hiring for? Um, I don't [ __ ] know.
37:45
Uh, but nothing that like uh, some of the ones that are like [ __ ] that you see out there and then I see their titles and I'm like, "Oh, you don't You're not actually good at that." is community manager.
37:57
So, like community manager is like a title that I actually don't think most people know how to make community.
38:02
So, that's kind of like a nonsense one.
38:04
Uh, we we Here's one from the podcast that we've talked about like uh, we have like a podcast producer, uh, Ben Wilson right now and we have, uh, you know, people will have like social media manager.
38:13
They have like all these different functions, but what I told the team, I was like, "I think we just need like a band manager."
38:20
It's basically like if podcasts are as they get more successful, they're kind of like a band.
38:25
You have the talent, they're the face, they get on stage, they perform, and then there's all this [ __ ] that that that needs to be done like whether it's like we're going on tour, we want to sell merch, we want to um like develop this cult following of fans that just love us cuz we just do dope [ __ ] that like is fan service, fan love.
38:39
Then you have the recording stuff that's got to get done, and you kind of just need somebody who's like a hybrid of a business manager or an agent as well as like somebody who's kind of had got the community building skills of a community manager.
38:51
And that's what a a band manager is for bands, and I think that you're going to see this more for uh for podcast and YouTubers is like a it it is is a role that's sort of like the the band manager.
39:01
Like the Nelk Boys and whatever, they have that.
39:03
It's like but most others don't have it underneath them. But yeah, for sure.
39:08
What are the What are the What's the What are the lists that you have here?
39:11
Head of Remote and then Cyber Actuary. What are those?
39:13
So, Head of Remote is kind of similar to the thing that you mentioned, Shawn, but it's like there's so much dysfunction at companies, especially the ones that transitioned from being non-remote to remote.
39:24
They just copy and pasted a bunch of things from the office.
39:26
They don't actually know how to build a remote organization from the ground up, how to do things asynchronously.
39:31
And so, it's kind of crazy when you think about how macro a shift that is for like, you know, thousands of people to be doing things all one way and switching to a totally new way and to have no like expertise from someone to actually guide that.
39:45
Um so, that's the idea of Head of Remote, and Some companies already have this, right? GitLab. work officer, a RWO. What would they do?
39:54
It's like, well, people like I know in our company it's like, well, first they have to It's kind of like IT.
39:59
There's like, well, they need to have like a good home setup.
40:01
Sam, you talked about this like, we need to not look like dog [ __ ] on camera with whether internally or with our clients and our customers.
40:07
So, like how do we make sure everybody's got like a good Zoom setup?
40:09
Okay, secondly, like how do we create some best practices around remote working and and how to like, you know, do stuff that's different now that we're not all in the office and can just like look each other and talk to each other real quick.
40:20
And how do we set boundaries for different time zones?
40:22
How do we plan meeting, you know, like all of that I think is is definitely in in the Location based pay.
40:28
I mean, isn't this crazy like to your idea with Hampton Sam of the nice background?
40:35
The same companies that had these really strict clothing rules, like you have to show up in a suit and you have to look this way, are letting people sit with their MacBook under their chin with like a dirty ass background behind them showing up to their business meetings trying to win a client.
40:50
And it's like where's your digital suit? You don't like Right. They don't care.
40:55
They don't even think about that cuz it's so outside of their field of view.
40:59
But that's just one example and I think Do you guys do that at A16Z?
41:01
Cuz like when I imagine A16Z I'm like that's a khaki pants that's a khaki pants type of place.
41:09
I don't I don't think we have a clothing code but we do have Lululemon's ABC pants is like the official pants of Silicon Valley.
41:19
Here's something that A16Z does do that I never like put together as related to this but like their design team will create every quarter these beautiful Zoom backgrounds that the the company uses and they actually look good.
41:32
You know, I feel like a lot of Zoom backgrounds are like the company's logo kind of awkwardly like photoshopped in the background and Like bouncing around in the corner.
41:42
Um and they again, they refresh them every quarter.
41:44
Everyone has access to them so there's at least that visual consistency um but I don't know if we have a clothing code.
41:50
But I hope some of your bosses and employees listen to this and I just want them to hear me say this.
41:56
It is me and Shawn making fun of you guys, not Steph. Just why?
42:00
That was a good threat there. That was awesome.
42:03
You're like It's like on TV where like put the camera on me. Put the camera on me.
42:08
Put put the camera on me and then you look down the the and you just some like wrestling promo.
42:12
That's what I thought you were about to do, but you were trying to cover your tracks.
42:15
version is like, "Look at me."
42:15
And he's like, "You're great."
42:19
Yeah, he said No one believes in you more than me.
42:25
Well, I had a friend that lived in China and I used to like text him all the time and I'd be like, "Dude, your government sucks.
42:32
What's going on with that?"
42:32
And then I would reply with, "By the way, whoever's reading this, it is me saying this, not him."
42:41
Yeah, don't disappear, my friend.
42:43
Uh I'm glad they invest in the cool Zoom backgrounds and stuff, you know?
42:46
They got the uh I think what, like 700 million in management fees?
42:50
Those management fees have got to go somewhere, so I'm glad they're putting them to good use. Yeah.
42:56
Um but I mean, just to summarize on the head of remote thing, think about I think maybe the easiest way to think about it is there's all these macro tech trends, right?
43:04
Like remote work, AI, automation, cybersecurity, right?
43:08
Like the idea of a like chief security officer didn't exist like 10 years ago, right?
43:13
Because that just became such an important um I guess concept within especially tech firms.
43:20
What's this and so And what's this food engineer one?
43:23
Well, I wanted to ask you guys about this because never talked about this.
43:26
Canna, do you guys remember that?
43:28
Yeah, it was so hyped about it. I know.
43:30
But I still think the concept of like a food engineer will exist.
43:35
I think this one's a little further out. So give the story, Sean.
43:38
Yeah, so uh a lot of people know David Friedberg now cuz he's on the All-In pod, so he he kind of got a little more more popular or famous, but uh this awesome guy used to work at Google, created this thing called Production Board, which is his like kind of thing incubator startup studio, whatever.
43:51
And they build things that are kind of like hard tech, so it's like uh in things that interface with the real world.
43:59
They have like hardware, they're making food or making, you know, biological, you know, substances or whatever.
44:04
Like they're they're creating real-world things.
44:06
And uh he had this company called Cana that he created that was basically like the Coke Freestyle machine in your kitchen.
44:11
So, you would have this device, this Nespresso machine that sits on your countertop that can make like a thousand different drinks exactly to your specification using basically like the equivalent of a printer cartridge.
44:23
So, it's like you put in this cartridge that's got all these like micro flavors and then you hook it up to your water supply and it's like it just takes water, it makes it cold, hot, or bubbly and then it pipes in the exact dose of flavor to create whatever drink you wanted. You want tea?
44:38
Here, you can make hot tea.
44:40
You want uh sparkling water that's like flavored like, you know, blackberry? Boom, done.
44:45
And so, it was this awesome idea that it was it it was it was going to be good for the sort of like the the world in a way because a lot of the supply chain is basically spent bottling water or soda, putting it in cans, putting it on shelves, putting a cardboard around it, transporting it to the store, transporting it to your house, then transporting the the trash to the dump.
45:05
I was like, "Dude, what if we just took the water supply everybody already has to their home and we let you make whatever drink you want?" Very cool idea.
45:12
Um And then out of nowhere just suddenly got canceled and they were like, "Yeah, unfortunately to scale up we needed a lot of money and uh you know, in this funding environment we couldn't do it." That's a [ __ ] excuse.
45:22
Who can't raise I mean I mean they've got like that top tech podcast in the world.
45:29
Um yeah, they also maybe an interesting way of framing that idea was also it was it it came from the idea that they had done research and they had realized that basically every drink out there, whether it was tea, whether it was wine, whether it was beer, 95% water.
45:45
it not just 95% water, but even the chemicals that go into it.
45:46
I don't remember the number, but it was something like there's only like 30 or so that you need to basically generate every taste.
45:53
Um but yeah, I don't know, maybe something for something else.
45:57
him on or I'll tweet at him.
45:57
I want to know what what really like not what really happened like there's a scandal, but like tell me more because clearly he could sneeze and raise $30 million for an idea.
46:06
So, like I'm surprised if it wasn't like it must have been that And his sneeze his sneeze will be lovely flavored, too.
46:13
I mean I I I feel like he must not have believed, meaning like the team must have realized it's not feasible or something like that.
46:20
They must have proven that the thing is not feasible or not economic in some way for them to not be able to raise money cuz just on the concept I feel like they could have raised more money.
46:31
Um So, so I think you know, that's a that's an interesting one. What what went wrong?
46:34
But He said that he was going to send us one and then like his assistant or someone at the company was talking to us and they just quit replying. send us one.
46:40
They were like, we want you guys basically their idea was like, if you could make any drink flavor on the spot.
46:45
Okay, then what happens to drink brands?
46:47
And his idea was like drink brands become software.
46:48
So, they just become brands.
46:50
So, like we would create a drink flavor, you know, Sam's, you know, you know, almighty root beer or whatever and it would just be like a specific dosage of flavors and that somebody could just buy it for a dollar on their own can of machine and it would just like dispense the drink and we would make money for every one of those like flavors sold, basically.
47:11
Every one of those drinks sold.
47:14
Um that was the the kind of the concept.
47:16
So, they wanted us to make one and they were like, come down to our facilities.
47:18
We never got around to doing it and now it's gone.
47:21
Did you guys see the freestyle machine for condiments? Yes, I did see this. Dude, sign me up. Sign me up.
47:27
Dude, this stuff is it's Have you been to like hot pot in Asia where they have the sauce bars? No, tell us.
47:31
It's Well, if you go to hot pot in Taiwan, like they're literally there will be like a like a style of food or like a Yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:41
It's like So, basically you get a big pot of hot water.
47:44
Um they give you broth of a certain sort and then you basically go shopping on this wall and you you pick Oh, I want some like some noodles.
47:50
I want some like beef, whatever and you pick it out and then you basically cook your own soup.
47:56
But as part of that, they have rice and other things and they have they typically have this huge sauce bar of like maybe like 20 to 30 different things like like garlic or ginger, soy sauce, like ponzu sauce, whatever.
48:09
And you make your own sauce.
48:11
And so when I saw this coming, I was like this is genius because like it this is exist in Asia, but only in these like hot pot occasions. Right.
48:21
Yeah, I I I kind of love this.
48:21
I really do want the future of food to be a lot more interesting.
48:24
I think it I think it's going to be.
48:25
You have So in your jobs that you got food engineer, got that one.
48:31
Um cyber actuary, what does that one mean?
48:32
Did you Have you explained that one?
48:34
Yeah, so basically I mean a lot of people even if we relate this back to AI are worried that like, you know, there's just going to be a lot more cyber {quote} crime, right?
48:42
People like replicating your voice, like getting your bank details and I think this idea of being a cyber actuary is basically actuaries assess risk for anything, right?
48:54
Um how risky is it for us to deploy, you know, this celebrity's voice in this way?
48:59
How risky is it for us to um I don't know, like open source our new LLM?
49:05
Like there's going to be all these implications of things um I guess be becoming a lot more online if they aren't already.
49:13
And so this idea of a cyber actuary is like there's already a ton of actuaries that figure out how much insurance should cost in, you know, the typical world, like if you buy a flight.
49:23
And I think there's just like this huge white space around um risk that people have not calculated yet.
49:28
Did I tell you guys about Eden data? No. No.
49:33
So I met him because he's joined Hampton.
49:35
His name's Taylor and he I don't know if he was playing up to my ego stuff, but he told me he created this because of an article that one of us wrote on trends.
49:41
I I I don't know if that's true or not, but he launched this thing called Eden data and uh in just 2 years it's now doing like 6 or 7 million dollars in revenue.
49:51
And basically, what they do is if you are a smallish startup, so like 50 to 100 people, you have to have a certain type of compliance in order to sell software to enterprise companies.
50:03
And so, the service that he provides is and this is like an oversimplification, but there's basically like a 50 to 100-point checklist of all the things that you need to do.
50:14
And a lot of these startups they can't afford a full-time chief security officer.
50:17
And so, instead they pay Eden data eight to or seven or eight or 10,000 dollars a month.
50:21
And he's got a team of outsourced people overseas who goes through your website and goes through your entire like the checklist and make sure that all 50 or 100 things are done.
50:32
And they have like templates to do it.
50:33
And then they stay on top of it and they monitor it in case any changes have to happen.
50:37
So, now you when you go and pitch like this enterprise company to sell your software, and even though you're a small startup, you've already done all the stuff that needs to get done.
50:45
And in I think it's I think he's only 2 years in.
50:48
I think he's going to do 8 million in revenue this year.
50:51
Um and it's like a service that's it's subscriptions it's like a subscription consultancy almost. And he's killing it.
50:57
It's a crazy company with huge margins. Damn. I have it pulled up.
51:00
Your digital security sidekick.
51:02
Yeah, when I see companies like this, I think like I'm in the wrong industry.
51:08
to somebody that was doing this or wanted to do this for rich people?
51:11
It was like just a overall security audit for rich people. And like everything.
51:15
Your house security, your bank accounts security, your crypto security.
51:20
Like just somebody who's going to come in and try to uh like just poke holes in your stuff.
51:24
And at a certain dollar amount of net worth, like it definitely makes sense.
51:28
And you're not the expert.
51:32
And you have more to lose than you have, you know, than than the cost of the service.
51:35
Like you have a lot more to lose.
51:36
It's like asymmetric downside, basically.
51:38
And I think that I've reached out to tons of people.
51:42
I've reached out to tons of people doing it.
51:44
And the problem that I saw is that a lot of them for some like they're all like ex-military guys, too.
51:50
And so like I remember I was talking to Pop.
51:52
I was like, "Pop, after the show is like, what do you do for security?
51:54
Like can you walk me through it?"
51:55
He goes, "Oh, I got this guy named Chad.
51:56
We do this, this, and this."
51:57
And then I talked to Chad and it it's a little bit mom-and-pop.
52:01
There it's not like just like I can just log in and you can just tell me what to do or it can just get done.
52:06
You know, there's no like Plaid or whatever that other software where you like just log in with your bank accounts and it just does what you need to do.
52:12
It was very much a manual process and it was like 15 grand and like this person's going to do this.
52:17
And so I do actually agree with you.
52:19
I think there's a start I do think this is like a um fragmented that's a it's a fragmented service and I think that one great company can can can do all the all the stuff you need to do.
52:30
some of these other random trends you have.
52:31
Um Uh don't mention the one I wrote don't mention because I got something in that space.
52:37
So don't mention that one, but uh do uh do some of these other ones.
52:39
Let's start with uh mouth tape.
52:43
Yeah, so mouth tape I first heard about this like 6 months ago because some guy on Twitter was like, "I tape my mouth shut every night for the last 6 months and it's the best thing I've ever done."
52:53
The hot dude the hostage tape guy will not stop DMing me. so aggressive with it.
53:00
We have this guy who's got a company he called Hostage Tape and it's just tape for your mouth and he told me he's going to launch it and I'm like, "This is dumb."
53:06
And then 6 months later he's like $500,000 in sales. Yeah. I'm like, "Great."
53:11
And then he's like a year later, "$2 million in sales."
53:12
And he's like just rubbing it into my face.
53:17
I don't think he's an official sponsor, but Andrew Huberman has been talking about it and we in my household we like to call him Father Drew as a joke, but if Father Drew promotes something in this day and age Yeah, he's like the bro Oprah in a way where like if he says bro science Oprah if he says it's good he's going to you're just going to get a huge spike.
53:37
Yeah, so that's the I mean these are just like I don't know where this goes.
53:40
I don't know what opportunity there is other than going and selling some mouth tape, maybe rebranding it, but that's one trend.
53:46
This guy's company's called Hostage Tape.
53:48
Like I saw it was like, "Oh, this is the worst This is the worst thing ever. Like this is awful. What do you do?"
53:53
But he's proving us wrong.
53:55
was your weight loss idea?
53:55
Remember, wasn't it called Hostage?
53:58
Yeah, a hostage as SF where I kidnap you and just don't feed you for 4 weeks. You You should partner. This guy is crazy.
54:09
So, whatever, kudos to him.
54:12
Yeah, but um I guess we didn't even mention Do you guys understand what's good about mouth tape?
54:16
Like Well, it makes you breathe through your nose and breathing through your nose is better for you than breathing through your mouth. Okay.
54:23
Speaking of health benefits, another trend that I would love to see take off because then I would have called it is lupini beans. So, people like health.
54:34
Haven't you been talking about this bean forever? Yes, for the last year.
54:38
I just got I went into a I don't know all the American grocery stores like Ralph's or something. bean?
54:44
Yeah, so it's got Dude, you've been talking about this bean forever.
54:46
You keep telling me about this bean.
54:48
I've been out with you a bunch of times.
54:49
You always tell me about the 50% more protein than chickpeas, 2% or two times more fiber than edamame, 80% fewer calories than almonds, 60% fewer carbs than pistachios, 35 g per serving.
55:01
Obviously, they cherry-picked this data and compared to like the the best option for them, but these beans, I think they're like originally from Italy or they're popular there.
55:12
But I just have seen this over and over and over as someone who traveled a lot where like edamame edamame was not popular in North America 20, 30 years ago.
55:20
Like no one knew what it was, right? It came from Asia.
55:21
And so, now when you go to restaurants, it's like a very common thing.
55:28
How would you like to invest in the next edamame?
55:34
Sam, do you remember when Bobby at at Hustle Con would go around pitching people as a joke and he's like his pitch was tuna water?
55:40
Tuna No, I thought it was hot dog water. It was tuna water.
55:48
Dude, the uh have you guys had chickpea pasta? Of course. I don't like it.
55:51
Makes you fart like crazy, man.
55:54
Makes you It just It'll give you the number three.
55:56
Like 40% of any calories is almonds, but 70% more gas.
55:59
It's like that's the lupini beans uh you know pitch.
56:03
Um okay, so you've been calling this for a little while.
56:05
I see I mean this seems like a good like D2C product idea, to be honest.
56:09
Um There's like one company doing it.
56:13
This one brand or something? Yeah, Brami.
56:15
They also do I think the chickpea pasta.
56:18
Um but I just think maybe there's something in the supply chain or like how hard it is to you know procure this stuff, but to me they're they're pretty cheap. They taste really good. You eat them plain?
56:31
Well, they at least this company will do flavored versions.
56:33
So, they'll do like rosemary garlic or Does it give you gas? I don't think so.
56:40
I didn't do an AB test, so.
56:40
You can Well, you can admit I don't think it did. This is a safe space.
56:48
Seems like you can say it. Sam farts every episode.
56:52
This is a great product idea. Uh okay.
56:54
All right, I'm going to buy some of this stuff. this idea.
56:55
Yeah, I'm going to try these out and see uh see how I feel about it.
56:59
Um By the way, this is the type of product that when we say on MFM there's going to be 13 people that start this for 6 weeks.
57:06
And then nobody 6 months later will be doing it for whatever reason.
57:10
It's like And then the same people that tell us they're going to come back in 8 weeks and they're going to say actually, what do you think about this idea? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
57:18
It's like If if my DM history has four different ideas from you that you were pitching me for investment, like it it's probably not going to work out at that point. forever.
57:26
That's exactly You got the forever no. I'm still on that line. This is a no forever.
57:38
Um, let's do Can we do one more around these advent calendars cuz I feel like that's another case where like I I don't know.
57:45
Someone in the community is going to jump on Sean, do you even know what advent is?
57:48
No, is this some like Catholic [ __ ] What is this? Hell yeah.
57:51
This is This is as Catholic as as Catholic can get.
57:54
So, every Is advent Advent's in December.
57:57
So, uh so, we uh Catholics I'm Catholic. Are you Catholic, Steph? No. Ah, heathen. Sorry. The Catholics Oh, yeah.
58:13
You're not one of us, but it's okay.
58:15
Uh the we have Lent, which is like 40 days and that was when like Jesus like walked around in the desert and you're not supposed to eat meat and [ __ ] like that.
58:22
And then we have Advent, which is the 30 days leading up to Christmas.
58:25
And often times there's an advent calendar where it tells a story about like what Mary and Joseph, Jesus's parents, like what they did, like with the donkey and the mule and how they got like all these gifts from people, whatever.
58:37
It tells that story and each day you open up the calendar.
58:42
It's like the kids' favorite thing.
58:44
There's a piece of chocolate in the calendar.
58:47
Yeah, I'm sure you've seen the advent calendars like at some point it was a religious thing, then capitalism got involved and then, you know, every day kids are opening a little chocolate.
58:56
my whole life I thought the advent calendar was those little calendars that are like you peel it and there's like you peel the calendar for each day. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
59:02
I've been walking around thinking that's what an advent calendar is for for for a lot a long time.
59:07
My whole life I would say.
59:09
This one you like peel back like always chocolate inside? That's the idea? Usually. That's what it is.
59:13
at like Target or whatever and yeah, it's like a couple dollars, but it's like the most simple, you know, you you buy it for your kids or So, what's your idea here, Steph?
59:21
The better advent calendar is my idea. Five minute abs. Yeah.
59:30
No, so this comes from I got to give this guy Nam Azaki Paul, um, credit.
59:36
He doesn't He doesn't sound like a Catholic. No, no, no, no.
59:38
So, this is a I don't think this has to do with religion, but I actually got this for Cal, um, this past year because here's the thing, advent calendars, yeah, I I guess it was tied to religion, but they happen around the holidays.
59:51
And so, people are scrambling to figure out last minute like what should I get my family as a gift that's kind of thoughtful but fun.
59:57
And a lot of people get advent calendars, but they get these like shitty versions that are like, you know, expired milk chocolate from the year before.
1:00:07
What Paul did is he created this sake calendar.
1:00:10
And so, if you click, um, That's the best way to celebrate Jesus' birth, too.
1:00:16
He, uh, he created this sake calendar where basically every day for the month of December or you can use it after, you open your little advent calendar, but it's not little.
1:00:26
It's like the size of a printer kind of thing.
1:00:27
Um, and you get this like special sake that he has hand picked from Japan.
1:00:33
This is partially like his job, his existing business.
1:00:35
Um, and he sells them for 300 bucks and every year he sells 500 of them, which he caps.
1:00:41
And you do the math, that's like $150,000 just from that one one drop for him.
1:00:51
And he doesn't get that much traffic.
1:00:52
Like if you look at his existing site, it's like 2,000 visits per month.
1:00:54
So, not something he would typically be able to make much money from.
1:00:59
Um, but that's one example that just got me thinking, especially since we're like what, 6 months ahead of Christmas?
1:01:06
What advent calendars is the My First Million community, what are you going to make that is way cooler than the expired milk chocolate?
1:01:13
I mean, I've seen some stuff like hot sauce calendars, LEGO calendars, um, but it's got to be something that like someone can open either for 12 days cuz some people do the 12 days of Christmas or all of December. I This is actually cool. Yeah.
1:01:28
I actually think this is a This is really This is really cute and cool and awesome.
1:01:35
Um, you have a picture of this person who has a binder full of condiments like individual ketchup packets.
1:01:41
And I see your vision here. This is actually cool.
1:01:45
I see I smell what you're stepping in and I think it's awesome.
1:01:50
Well, there's so the tweet you're talking about, Sam, What is that phrase?
1:01:55
is this girl Nicole who says her tweet just says organize my sauces and it's like do you guys remember, you know, if you collected like playing cards back in the day or um, coins?
1:02:06
They had those binders with the little Yeah, with the little I don't even know what they're called, but this tweet got 460 8,000 likes.
1:02:17
Um, I think it's probably one of the most popular tweets of all time and it's just her organizing her sauces from around the world.
1:02:24
So, these are not for use.
1:02:24
This is just like collections.
1:02:27
That one is for a collection.
1:02:27
I feel like the advent calendar you it would be for use. Yeah. Wow, this is crazy.
1:02:35
What I like about you, Steph, is like you find things that I would just scroll by, but you're pretty good at finding interesting things and applying them and like connecting to like five other things.
1:02:46
Yeah, when I scroll past something and I think this is stupid, you write that thing down and make it sound smart. It's amazing.
1:02:52
I waste my time curating an Evernote that is just full of random internet [ __ ] But and but what you do something that's different is you actually remember it.
1:03:03
So, I like bookmark so much stuff and then I just like forget all about it.
1:03:06
You actually remember it and then you like It's just the difference between like good and great in terms of like whatever the skill set is that we have.
1:03:12
You like actually are organized.
1:03:15
That the you know, what makes someone good versus great is like being organized.
1:03:18
You are very very very organized with this stuff and that actually helps your like thought process I would think.
1:03:22
When are you um Dude, when are you just going to bail and start creating some of this stuff?
1:03:29
I feel like you started this train, Sam.
1:03:31
So, before I joined The Hustle, I was working at a company and in my last year at that company, I said and I must have been what, 24 or something? 20 Yeah, around that.
1:03:41
I was like, next this is the last job I I'll have, right?
1:03:43
Like after this I'll go and do my own thing.
1:03:48
But then ever since then I just kept keep getting offered really cool stuff that And more money. And more money.
1:03:53
Well, I get to be paid to like go research trends and go down these internet rabbit holes that I'd be doing anyway. Okay, great. Oh, we got acquired.
1:04:01
Now I'm at HubSpot and I get to build this like cool creator program. Okay, great. And more money.
1:04:08
Now I'm at a16z, I get to talk to interesting people. And more money.
1:04:15
I got to meet this interesting person with more money in my pocket. It was amazing.
1:04:22
You're learning this Steph is sitting there she's like, how can I get the things that are in their bank account to my bank account?
1:04:29
My daughter does this thing where she she's 3 years old and she says this thing where she goes, this is my best day ever.
1:04:34
Like and I'm like, she might actually be telling the truth.
1:04:38
This might have been like the best day ever for her. Like this is the one. I love this story.
1:04:44
whenever she gets a raise at a16z.
1:04:44
This is my best day ever, guys.
1:04:51
Well, I I like Steph you and I were talking about like how much money like you've had like you like we were going through an exercise of like at 20 we had this, at 23 You've had a nice run.
1:05:03
You've had a very nice run.
1:05:03
A very very nice run compared to where I came from. So, yeah.
1:05:07
Like you were saying earlier Sean, if like 21-year-old me would have said, like this is where you'll be.
1:05:11
This is how much you'll make.
1:05:13
These are like the opportunities you'll have." Yeah, it's pretty wild. Are you even 30? No. Oh my god.
1:05:20
would What would 21-year-old you say?
1:05:23
Like, what would the reaction be?
1:05:23
Well, it's funny because I would I feel like I still have like throughout my whole life, cuz I didn't grow up very wealthy, a very like money orientation.
1:05:32
Not that I need that much, but just like, "Oh my gosh, like you have that much money? Like, go buy a car.
1:05:38
Like, go buy nice clothes.
1:05:38
Go, you know, go like you've always wanted but never had."
1:05:42
But, it's funny because now that I have more money, I'm still like just as cheap as I ever was.
1:05:47
So, I don't know if that stuff ever leaves you.
1:05:49
Did Sean Did you know that Steph's uh half Are you Taiwanese? Taiwanese? My My mom's from Taiwan. Yeah. Did you know that?
1:05:57
Uh no, I didn't know that.
1:06:00
There was be super special or what?
1:06:00
Why are you telling me that?
1:06:04
At our old company, when someone found that out, and I was like, "Yeah, I mean, I I could see that."
1:06:08
And then there was like people like, "Steph, why are you lying to us? You're Canadian."
1:06:13
I've had some Well, Canadian's not I know. That was the joke.
1:06:16
They're like, "Quit lying.
1:06:18
Why are you lying about being Taiwanese?"
1:06:20
Jordan was like there So, there's a huge spectrum.
1:06:22
I don't know why like what it is about the way I look, but some people when they hear that I'm half Asian are like, "Oh yeah, of course. Like, I knew that."
1:06:31
And then other people are truly shocked.
1:06:33
Um Jordan was one of those, and he went to Sam Or no, he asked me, and he was like, "Does Sam know this?" Your secret's safe.
1:06:42
Uh yeah, that that tells you more about them than about you you're the way you look.
1:06:46
Uh it's just like what is their level of exposure to different races versus anything to do with you. Um Yeah.
1:06:55
Yeah, by the way, this you're this Think about being cheap.
1:06:57
I read uh I was reading the story yesterday about this guy who um made a bunch of money, and uh they're like, "What was your first purchase?"
1:07:03
He goes, "I hired a consultant to help me spend money."
1:07:06
And he goes, "Uh you know, I had learned over 25 years how to make money.
1:07:09
It took me a long time to learn how to make money.
1:07:12
And I was just very honest with myself that I have no idea how to spend money.
1:07:16
And I could shorten that learning curve if I get a coach to help me spend money.
1:07:20
What was this coach called? A wife? Ah. I'll be here all night.
1:07:27
I was going to say, isn't that like Ramit's thing, too?
1:07:28
I feel like he talks about that all the time, right?
1:07:30
Like you got to learn to spend. It's like it takes reps.
1:07:34
What was the coach actually called? I I mean, I don't know.
1:07:38
It's just like I don't know his actual job title, but you know, a spending consultant, let's call it. I don't I have no idea.
1:07:43
But what do they like teach you how to do?
1:07:45
I think it's I don't know.
1:07:47
I mean, he didn't go into details on exactly what the guy said, but let's just pretend for a minute that he did.
1:07:52
I would imagine he does two things.
1:07:54
One is um figures out where your psychology is screwed up about money, cuz everybody's got like this It's like, you know, people have like body dysmorphia.
1:08:02
I think everybody has bank account dysmorphia, too.
1:08:04
Like, uh you know, you think you need more money than you need.
1:08:08
You Even when you have money, you still act like you don't have money.
1:08:12
And like you It's like all this like weird stuff.
1:08:13
It's like, dude, you're you're fit now.
1:08:15
Why do you still think you're fat?
1:08:16
Like, you know, you have to sort of like retrain yourself to see something different in the mirror.
1:08:19
I think that's part of it.
1:08:20
Like, just just talking to figure out what are the ways your your brain is a little screwed up about money.
1:08:26
Let's identify that first.
1:08:28
Some people spend too much, some people don't spend at all.
1:08:29
And then, I think the second thing would be like, all right, what do you really want?
1:08:31
So, uh let's try to outline your like dream lifestyle or your your you know, the things you really want. Identify those.
1:08:39
And then let's calculate like, okay, how much do those cost?
1:08:41
Could you afford those now?
1:08:42
Could you afford a step in that direction?
1:08:44
And like giving you the encouragement to pull the trigger on the things that you actually want, or setting certain rules, like you have to spend this much per month.
1:08:51
What are you going to spend it on?
1:08:53
And like also on the protect your downside.
1:08:55
So, it's like, hey, we're going to set aside this amount of money so that your like safety reflex is satisfied.
1:09:02
Like we agree that logic by all logic this amount of money being here untouched means you're safe. Okay, cool.
1:09:09
So now we can talk about this other spending part without triggering your like fight or flight mode around your your fear of of financial safety. I should be fine.
1:09:19
this Where where was this article?
1:09:19
Yeah, I want to look this up.
1:09:20
I I need one of these things.
1:09:22
Uh yeah, you should look it up. I don't know.
1:09:24
I don't know if this exists.
1:09:25
Maybe it's a job of the future.
1:09:27
I don't know if his recent episodes are the same, but Ramit's early podcast episodes would do those, right?
1:09:32
They'd talk to like millionaires who are fretting about $8 blueberries at Whole Foods.
1:09:37
Or like I remember one episode where this guy was like I think had at least $10 million and was picking up like a stroller on the side of the road.
1:09:47
Um things like that where it's like clearly like yeah, you haven't upgraded your thinking or your mindset to where you are.
1:09:53
Dude, I just made $400 selling used gym equipment from from like from some stuff I'm not using and I'm like This is This is This is my best day ever. 100 bucks.
1:10:04
Yeah, this is like Best day ever. day ever.
1:10:05
Like it's like I feel more happy about that $400 than I do making much larger sums. Yeah.
1:10:12
Uh and the best part is that I paid $300 for it 5 years ago.
1:10:14
Now I got $400 and it's like the best high this thing that was like um this guy Timer who created He's got this company called Causal and uh it's like this Excel competitor.
1:10:26
But he he has this blog post I really liked where he was like He was trying to figure out in a nerdy way how to decide if he should buy something or not.
1:10:34
And so he's like um He's like well, I break everything down into kind of like I don't remember the the the exact message, but it was something like this.
1:10:42
It was like the frequency of like how frequently am I going to get the benefit of this?
1:10:47
And then like what's the like magnitude of the benefit?
1:10:50
And so he's like something that's it doesn't have to be a big shift, but if it's going going all the time or like 10 times a day or something like that.
1:10:58
Like, you know, like I bought a phone case that just feels better in my hand.
1:11:02
It was like a great purchase because like the hand feel of my phone is something I'm I'm touching my phone all the time.
1:11:06
And just making that feel a little smoother, a little better was like Dude, what what's that case called by the way?
1:11:10
I'm looking for a good Uh let me hand feel phone. So, it's the Oh, wait.
1:11:13
Do we know how much it cost?
1:11:16
Yeah, free Is it going to be free plug for you guys.
1:11:18
Mo Moaz, I think is the name of it, but it's got this like this is not like plastic feel.
1:11:22
So, this feel right here is like a it's almost like the feel of a basketball.
1:11:27
It's like a almost like a like a like a traction kind of like feel.
1:11:32
Cuz I was like, I hate the plastic feel of cases.
1:11:34
Um like I I think that feels cheap.
1:11:37
And and I don't enjoy it.
1:11:40
I didn't want the leather ones either.
1:11:41
So, I was like, what else is there? And found that.
1:11:43
And so, he he identifies like, if you're going to do it if it's going to be frequent, then the magnitude needs to be less.
1:11:49
If it's going to be infrequent, then the magnitude of the joy it brings is going to need to be high.
1:11:53
And you can kind of multiply those two together to figure out like the value of that item.
1:11:56
And then you sort of say, okay, that's the value to me.
1:12:00
And then what's the price to me?
1:12:01
And you sort of use that to figure out, you know, where should you where should you spend versus not.
1:12:05
And what people mostly get wrong in that is they undercount frequency.
1:12:09
So, like a better pillow or something like that is great because you're going to sleep on it every single night versus Yeah.
1:12:17
bag a Louis Vuitton bag that's going to sit in your closet.
1:12:19
Like, my wife bought a Louis Vuitton bag and she literally never takes it out cuz she doesn't want to get messed up.
1:12:23
It's like well, that's the you know, most expensive you know, $6,000 thing that just sits in a closet for no reason.
1:12:27
Um versus things that you get joy out of all the time.
1:12:32
And so, I I bet if you guys looked at like, what's the best purchase you made or your your your most satisfied with this year, it's probably something that you interact with somewhat frequently or it was like a one-off life-changing experience that was just like crazy magnitude. Yeah.
1:12:47
What was that article called?
1:12:47
I want to I want to read that.
1:12:49
Uh let me I need some I need some good money therapy in my life.
1:12:50
Money therapist, that's the title. Yeah.
1:12:52
Yeah, I need some good money therapy.
1:12:55
Yeah, send me that article.
1:12:56
But Steph, um appreciate you doing this.
1:12:59
You're always coming with fire.
1:13:00
You're You're a Twitter You're a Twitter person still, right? I'm a Twitter person.
1:13:03
Steph Smith IO is the handle.
1:13:06
And if you want to support my day job, go listen to the a16z podcast.
1:13:11
We're doing some cool stuff there.
1:13:12
And that's just what it's called, a16z podcast, right? Yes. Mhm.
1:13:15
All right, we appreciate you. Thank you. Appreciate you.