SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_02
Fur Con is here, in the house. How's it going guys? What's up? So background, who's Fur Con? Fur Con is my co-founder, CTO at Bebo before we sold, and we've been working together, I don't know, five, six years now, maybe six, seven years. Yeah, it's getting towards seven, I think.
It's one of those things where you just keep saying five years, no matter how long it's been. But he has an interesting background before that. Very good background.
You want to give us the highlights.
SPEAKER_00
All right, the highlights, I grew up here in the Bay Area. I got started just programming as a kid, and so I had a unique experience where I worked at a dot-com when I was 15. And that was kind of like, were you going to high school at the time, or did you drop out? I was going to high school, I had just finished my sophomore year, and I was really into computers, and my dad was like, hey, I know this guy, they need to hire some people.
They're looking to make a website at the time. They had a router for hotels. So it was like, hotels wanted to put in DSL and good internet.
And they were like, oh, we need this interface, the links this interface for your router now. Just the HTML side of things. Yeah, and HTML at the time was really nothing.
It was like, you could put some stuff. And I showed my dad how to make a menu, and he was like, wow, this is groundbreaking. There's no JavaScript.
SPEAKER_02
How much were you going to pay at 15 to do this?
SPEAKER_00
If I had worked the whole year, it would have been about $120,000. Wow. Pretty ridiculous. So this is dotcomboom.
Dotcomboom, probably, because they're hiring 15-year-olds.
SPEAKER_02
Right. And then that happens. Then you did an e-commerce thing.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and so that company didn't work out, obviously, spending money. Paying 15-year-olds $120,000. Exactly.
And so I kind of was back at high school, and then I'm bored, and I'm really into computers and gaming. And I had this idea that, hey, people like to trick out their cars. Like, they like to put lights and fun things in their car.
Like, why don't people do this with computers? People are really passionate about it. And so I looked it up, and I found some forums online. And people were doing this.
It's just there was nowhere to buy things. There's nowhere to do things, especially here in the US. So I started an e-commerce store.
Kind of accidentally, I was like, oh, these things are really expensive. If I buy them in bulk, I just get them cheaper. I'll sell off some.
I'll have some more cash on the side. And I think we started $800 of stuff in the corner of my garage. And then within the first year, we did $1 million of revenue.
Wow. And it was like. How old were you? I was 17.
Holy shit. I was in high school at the time. And so that was pretty crazy because it went from one corner of the garage to full three car garage to living room, family room.
Like, there's boxes everywhere. My parents were super supportive of this, obviously. And so that was kind of like the early days, I would say.
SPEAKER_02
And then we'll fast forward because there's a lot more to the story, but we'll do the highlights. So if I'm listening to this, when I ever ask people with their background, really what I'm trying to say is give people a sense of who you are. And also it's kind of just like credibility.
It's like, why should you be interested in what I have to?
SPEAKER_01
You're trying to impress people.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it's like this is the time to basically brag. So I'll brag for you because you're a pretty humble guy. You don't brag a lot.
So the other interesting parts are, took a couple years off, played poker professionally, kind of in Europe, traveling around. That was fun. When you came back, did your own startup failed? But then the next startup, which you started with Adam and a couple other guys, you guys tried and failed on a bunch of ideas.
I think probably nine ideas.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was about nine ideas across two or three years that we tried. Kind of, one idea, I would say, was real serious. We tried that for about nine months.
And you're going through like three month chunks of like really bad ideas and attempts. And then.
SPEAKER_02
And my favorite anecdote of this whole time, because I think this is very, very, you don't hear people talk about this, was sometimes when you guys were in between ideas or you just weren't working, what did you do? You'd come to the office and do what?
SPEAKER_00
We would just play FIFA all day.
SPEAKER_01
I mean, literally. That's what you guys did at Monkey Inferno.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we would do it for like an hour. These guys would just like, that was the day.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was like eight hours of FIFA. Oh man, that was a tough day.
SPEAKER_02
Let me get back home and kind of get back to it. And did you think that was weird? Adam and those guys had had success. So if part of you was probably like, look, if these successful guys think this is all right, this can't be too bad.
But I would be anxious if we were doing that.
SPEAKER_00
There was some anxiety, but they were super common collected. So that kind of was like, well, why am I worried?
SPEAKER_01
Well, so Adam was pretty wealthy.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he previously worked on a couple of ad tech companies. And they had grown to be pretty big. I would say like, no one was worth maybe $50 million.
And the one before that might have been in that range too. And so he had done some stuff. John, who is the other co-founder there, had worked at VMware early and he had worked at ad products like that got bought by.
SPEAKER_01
And they were self-funding the company? Yeah, they were self-funding. I cannot believe how I would be like, no, we're getting to work.
SPEAKER_02
I'm self-funding the people.
SPEAKER_00
My fucking buddy. And I think we worked hard. I mean, the cool thing was you sat around, you talked about things.
How many people? We were probably like five or six people. Got it. So it was pretty small.
It wasn't, I mean, we had a good office in Palo Alto, bigger than we needed. But you could tell they're not worried. I shouldn't be worried.
You sit around for a week, you get some ideas. Then you go and work on them. And it all felt pretty natural at that point.
SPEAKER_01
And the outcome of this was what? Yeah, so you cracked the nut finally.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so we had, you know, they had a previous background in ad tech. We had made this product called App Lovin. That was an app where you could see what apps your friends were using.
So it was like a social network where if you're playing Candy Crush, oh, it says, hey, Sam's playing Candy Crush and you should play too. But we're like, wow, this is pretty interesting. People really convert with this.
This should just be an ad product. And then that kind of drove it and said, wait, we should just make a real network out of this. And then we sat down, we built that for a couple months.
And then it kind of skyrocketed after that.
SPEAKER_01
And how big is it now?
SPEAKER_00
They're really massive now. It's been a while since I've been over there. But a couple years back, they had a big liquidity event over 1.
4 billion. So I think they've probably grown in multiple since then.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I heard that it sold like only three years after it started. Yeah, it was really fast. And it was doing like 6 or 700 million in revenue, like some crazy number.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was magical to see what product market fit really looks like. Like I always thought, oh, these things are working. No, they weren't working.
And this is what working looked like. And it was probably one of the best versions of it. So maybe my view is a little skewed on that.
But the first month, it was like, man, we just jump up to like 10,000 plus in revenue a day. And then you just kind of keep skyrocketing up from that. And it's pretty crazy as an engineer too, because now your servers are being hammered.
You're like running around all night, pulling all nighters just because money's flowing. And you got to kind of keep it up. So that was kind of crazy, but fun.
SPEAKER_02
So the Apple oven story is $4 million in self-funding initially. Then they raised a small strategic round. I don't know exactly what the total is, but about $5 million total funding, right? Yeah, I think that's exactly what it was.
And then the first liquidity event, they sold a portion of the company to a Chinese company for over $1.4 billion. And so that's like massive capital efficiency.
You were CTO kind of co-founder there. So we met after that. We started working together, became really good friends, and have built a bunch of stuff together.
And what I like about you, which is why I wanted you on the podcast, is not necessarily, we're not even going to talk too much about App 11. That's just establish who you are. You are like me, you're an idea guy.
You always have a bunch of ideas. You see interesting stuff. But you're deeply technical, but then get the business side and the product side too.
And there's very few people who do that.
SPEAKER_01
I'm definitely going to ask about App 11 in a little bit. Before we even get to the ideas, let me, I got to tell you something real quick, because this is related. So my best friend started Vongole, which was App 11's competitor.
They raised $16 million. When they got acquired, they had 100 million in cash. What did it sell for? 750, half of what you guys sold for.
Very successful. Yesterday, Jack was, this was after you left. So okay, so we have to apologize a little bit.
Yesterday, Lance Armstrong popped in and our episode got ruined, kind of ruined. Or made. Or made, whatever.
It was hectic. And we did this thing. It was cool.
Sean, you left. Jack was here. It was me and Lance and Adam and Jack, just chilling right here.
And Jack's kind of savante. Like he's like real smart, but he doesn't pay attention to a lot of things. And we were talking about the podcast and I was saying Lance, how big is your podcast? He said it's like whatever, 100,000 listeners.
He goes, it took me a long time to build that up. You know, after I got cut out or cut off and Jack was like, what cut out? What do you, like what happened? Like Apple shut you down or something. He goes, no, you know, like from the incident that happened seven years ago.
Like I, like everything dropped off. And he goes, Jack was like, what, what do you mean? And Lance looked at me and he goes, he's like, is this guy serious? I'm like, yeah, dude, he's like a business avan. That's what happens.
He doesn't know. And he goes, this is awesome. Sam, you gotta, hey, bring more people like this around me.
And he goes, Lance goes, Jack, I basically went from hero to zero overnight. Like I lost everything. And Jack was like, oh, okay.
And he's like from, you know, like it was hilarious. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02
That's awesome. And if you, Jack did a whole episode and you can kind of tell he's like, and the stuff he cares about, he's so deep in the weed. He's like Rain Man.
And then other stuff he's completely oblivious to, which is awesome.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was, it was so funny. And Jack started your guys, or maybe they were first, I don't know, but your competitors. So that reminded me of that.
So what do you want to do?
SPEAKER_02
I want to hear some ideas. You said you have a story. Was that the story or you had- I'll tell it tomorrow.
Okay, cool. So we want to have guests that come in and bring their ideas, stuff they find interesting. So either little phenomenon they've observed, ideas they've been cooking up, something off their list to have on their phone, whatever it is.
So do you have stuff like that? Do you have a list of ideas you do or no?
SPEAKER_00
I wrote down some ideas for this. I usually just keep them up here. And like, you know, the important ones make their way out.
SPEAKER_02
Let's talk about the process. Where do you get a lot of like, when do ideas come to you? Usually when I'm not trying to come up with an idea. In the shower or whatever.
SPEAKER_00
In the shower, driving, just kind of around, not really thinking about anything. And then something pops up. The second one I would say is like, when I'm reading online, like if you read something interesting, you're like, wait, that's cool, but it would be cooler if it was.
And then like, that's kind of where my mind wanders.
SPEAKER_01
I think that the best idea is you just steal, right? So like, it's kind of like that you're like, oh, but what if you applied it? Like the way this restaurant industry is, this restaurant's working, they should actually apply that to like Indian food. And it would be way bigger.
SPEAKER_00
Right. Yeah, it's like remixing, right? Like I want to sample some ideas real quick. And then I want to turn it into my own idea.
Right.
SPEAKER_02
So what you got? What's interesting to you?
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so I'll start with one that we went go-karting a couple of weeks back. And so I'm really into kind of VRAR. I mean, you know this, I've kind of gave you an Oculus just so you can, you know, feel my mind.
You gave him one? Yeah. Yeah, I gave him a great gift, right? That's awesome. Yeah, I was like, Sean, you got to do this.
You're never going to buy one on your own. You're going to be a skeptic forever. Here you go.
SPEAKER_02
Are you using it? Yeah, because he was telling me, he's like, there's just one thing. Cause I was skeptical. I was like, is there any good games? Like, what am I going to do with this? And he's like, dude, you got to try this poker stars thing.
And I was like, okay, what a VR poker. Why do I need that? It is fucking amazing. It is like, have you tried this thing?
SPEAKER_01
We've seen it. Well, I've done boxing. I've played all the games, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_02
You've got to try the poker one. It's incredible.
SPEAKER_01
I'm going to go buy an Oculus. Just to play.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, seriously, you should. They're sold out. So it's going to be tough, but you know, maybe we can get you one too.
You really can't buy one? Right now they're out, dude. They're totally from Christmas, they just completely sold out, and then they haven't been able to refill it. They said it was January, then February, and now it's March.
And then they're talking about all these delays from China.
SPEAKER_02
That's a good sign for VR.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. I mean, they totally, it's the first device where I looked at it and I said, I can give it to somebody that's not a VR junkie and they would actually get excited about it. And I think the poker one is great because you actually, people want to build these really immersed experiences like boxing, but actually you don't really want entertainment like that all the time.
I actually want more sit on the couch experience. And so, you know, some of the things I've been thinking about in VR, I say, what can I build while I'm on the couch? Yeah. And so this idea had is not about that, but that was a 10-day VR, but we went go-karting.
And you know, when you go go-karting, it's really about how quickly you make these turns, how fast are you, how good of a driver are you, you know, how aggressive are you, you know, things like that. And afterwards we were just kind of talking about some ideas and I was like, dude, it'd be cool if we could, you know, go to a go-karting place, but it's like Mario Kart instead, where you have these AR goggles over your head, and it's not about quick turns. It's like a longer track where you can kind of like, have some space, but I, you know, would digitally go over this box.
And I now have a weapon that I could shoot at your car. And if I hit you successfully, your car kind of shuts down for a second, and you're stuck. So like the real life Mario Kart.
SPEAKER_02
Is this like the sandbox thing? So this would be like sandbox or like Museum of Ice Cream at BA, place you go, put on this thing, and play with a bunch of friends or strangers.
SPEAKER_01
I'm big on sandbox.
SPEAKER_02
Like laser tag.
SPEAKER_01
It's like modern day laser tag. Do you think that sandbox is a big business?
SPEAKER_00
I think sandbox is fantastic. I mean, it's hard to see if it's going to be successful or not because retail has all these problems and having space has all these problems.
SPEAKER_01
But that's not retail.
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, it's not retail, but they're, they kind of have retail spaces, right? Like they want to be. Freaking mortar, right? Yeah, they want to be like in a spot where there's a lot of.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, it's just an activity. It's just like escape room or something.
SPEAKER_02
It's like escape room, but it, escape room. And I know guys who own like 200 escape rooms. Are they awesome? It's an amazing business.
Cause escape rooms are super lightweight. You don't do anything. You just have a room.
If one person, you buy the kit, and you just keep like reassembling the room and you have these like very small. How big is that company? Well, it's not one company, but it's like, like you can just own a different franchise.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but like you can own a McDonald's franchise. They still report revenues as one.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. I've seen this guy's private.
SPEAKER_01
I've never been in. I would, I will never go to an escape room. That's my fear.
I don't want to. Because I claustrophobic. Cause I'm really claustrophobic.
I don't like flying. No, I will never go.
SPEAKER_00
In general, VR or AR experiences are going to be, I think fantastic. And you could see theme parks going to this. Like I heard about a theme park that has a roller coaster ride in VR where they give you goggles.
You're in this kind of mechanical thing, but then you're actually in a dungeon and there's lava and like it's a totally immersed experience. And I think that people are going to experience it first like that. And I could totally see you coming up with all kinds of different content types.
And whether it's Mario Kart or escape room.
SPEAKER_02
That's a great point. So here's a cool model of this. I have a buddy who worked at this company called 2-Bit Circus.
We ever heard of them? No. The guy, the founder, his dad started Chuck E. Cheese. As Nolan, whatever the guy's name is. Atari guy.
Started Atari, started Chuck E. Cheese. Now his son started this thing called 2-Bit Circus. And I love the concept.
I think the son kind of, I don't know the guy, but like my read on the situation is just sort of like, E80 wants to do a million things, not really like executing on this business as he should, but the concept is amazing. They go city to city traveling circus, like Cirque du Soleil or whatever. And they pop up this thing and it's like a weekend thing where parents bring their kids and all the attractions are like digital wonders.
So it's like VR thing. How big is that? A hologram thing. And they were doing really well.
Every city they were going to, they're selling out like crazy. But he was also getting distracted and they were doing things like a company would be like, hey, we'll give you half a million dollars to do our company retreat. And then boom, the whole company, the CEO comes in and says, hey, we had to go do this corporate retreat.
And the company's just like, dude, we need like one direction. Okay, quick break. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit about my Saturday morning routines.
So every Saturday I wake up in the morning and some people watch cartoons, some people read the newspaper, some people check the mail, some people exercise. I go to quietlightbrokerage.com and I check out what's for sale.
So if you don't know, Quiet Light is a platform where you can buy and sell online businesses. So if you don't wanna start something from scratch or you don't know if your idea is any good, you can go on here and you can see ideas that are already proven, they're already working to some extent. And you can either sell your business or you can buy a business off here and try to grow it and improve it.
And so if you've been listening to the podcast, you know, one of our most popular episodes was with Ramon, Ramon Vanmeer, who sold his soap opera blog, even though he'd never watched a soap opera in his life, he built one of the most popular soap opera blogs for nine million in cash on this website. He has bought multiple businesses off Quiet Light as well. And we had Paul on here, he sold his FBA business for seven figures on Quiet Light.
So it is a fantastic place to sell your business. It's a fantastic place for me to look for businesses. Like I'm on it right now and I see a kids monthly subscription box.
It started in 2018, so it's fairly new. Asking price is $149,000. So you could buy this on a SBA loan.
You don't have to put too much money down. And you know, it makes 50K a year in profit. And there's ones that go all the way up to millions of dollars in profit per year.
So whether you're looking for something small or something big, Quiet Light's got a great, great little selection. And it's not just like everything that's for sale. They curate and they qualify.
Only certain businesses get in and get on here. And when you're interested in something, they have all the financials in a folder organized. They have interviews with the founders that will tell you how they run their business, how many hours a week they put in, that sort of thing, very good business.
All right, so for any listeners for the podcast, they're offering a 25 point checklist to see how sellable is your online business. So if you have a business right now that's making money and you're interested, you would love to sell it someday, check out this thing, check out what the 25 point checklist is to see how sellable your online business is. To get the free guide, it's at quietlightbrokerage.
com slash myfirstmillion. Again, that's quietlightbrokerage.com slash myfirstmillion.
SPEAKER_01
Can you look up Dave and Buster's revenue and look up Chuck E. Cheese's? I bet Chuck E. Cheese is owned by Private Equity.
Chuck E. Cheese probably makes a killing.
SPEAKER_02
And if you've gone to a Chuck E. Cheese,
SPEAKER_01
Chuck E. Cheese has gone to shit. Well, where I'm from in Missouri, they were probably popular.
It's like where like trashy poor people go. I mean, it's pretty whack. Like I wouldn't go there because it was famous for like the parents would fight, get drunk and fight.
SPEAKER_02
Did you go get divorced?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, like Chuck E. Cheese, it was like peewee hockey and Chuck E. Cheese. That's like where parents get drunk and fight. What's the number? Dave and Buster's $332 million and $896 million for Chuck E.
Cheese.
SPEAKER_02
Annual revenue, so Dave and Buster's $330 million Chuck E. Cheese, almost a billion dollars annual revenue. But definitely ripe for like doing something new because these things are stale.
SPEAKER_01
Is Chuck E. Cheese public? It just says it's a public company. Trying to buy stock? Well, I want to see what the income is.
Trying to buy Chuck E. Cheese, you know? No, I'm into this. I think that these things are cool.
I think I'm terribly into it. When I tried Oculus, I was like, I'm going to quit my company and only do this.
SPEAKER_02
By the way, random story. I found this YouTube channel once that was talking about all these old brands that are just gone to shit, like a Chuck E. Cheese. And he was like, this guy just short stocks. And he was like, my short pick of the year is Tootsie Roll.
And he was like, you ever met anyone who likes Tootsie Roll? I love them. He's like, people who like Tootsie Roll are all 35 and up. He's like, no kid wants Tootsie Roll.
They go out for Halloween.
SPEAKER_01
They're a public company.
SPEAKER_02
If they get Tootsie Roll, they throw that shit away. He goes, Tootsie Roll has no other products. It's just Tootsie Roll and their population is dying.
He goes, secondly, the owner is like some 76-year-old woman who will never sell the company. So nobody can turn it around. Nobody can change it.
That company is just going to die.
SPEAKER_01
Tootsie Roll is a public company.
SPEAKER_02
And so he was like, you should short the stock. So I watched his two minute YouTube video. And I was like, I took out a short position.
It did great. It's been awesome.
SPEAKER_01
That's badass. Is it public?
SPEAKER_02
Is it like a link over here? Yeah, this guy.
SPEAKER_01
They try to go public and it collapsed. So another thing that I would do, I love this. I would also, Six Flags has had a hell of a turnaround.
Positive for him. The guy who, there's this guy named Bob Pittman. And he was one of the inspirations for me starting the hustle because Bob Pittman was, he created MTV when he was in his 20s.
And then he went and started this thing called The Pilot Group, which launched loads of different email newsletters, including Thrillist, which is like a huge thing. It's like a billion dollar media thing. Anyway, Bob Pittman is now the CEO of iHeart Media.
And formerly was also the CEO of Six Flags. And he turned it around. And it's really good.
It's been around forever. And it ebbs and flows, but it's good.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think entertainment can always level up. And when you're leaving the house to go do something, the more immersed and more exciting it is, that's what you want. I can get all the rest of the stuff at home, but that's why I think Sandbox is fantastic.
The only negatives I've heard is, hey, I've gone to a twice. It was similar content, but they're going to work that out. They're going to keep growing it.
I think it's going to be amazing. I love this. The spin-off of this idea for the lazy people that I have.
So I was like, OK, you've got to go to this place and go go-kart.
SPEAKER_02
I'm like, all right, what's the other? Why can't I stay at home?
SPEAKER_00
Correct. If you replace the carts with drones, you let people sit at home on a controller and control these drones. Real-life drones.
Real-life drones are flying around this warehouse. And I'm fighting you. And again, same thing.
It's all digital, so I can hit something, shoot you your drone just like flies and breaks. You've got to go and start over again.
SPEAKER_02
So there's a pit of people who just go pick up the drone.
SPEAKER_01
All right, I can add to this. There's this guy I know. I don't know if they're public, so I won't talk about him yet.
But anyway, what they did was in Vegas or in Nevada, where it's really cheap, they bought something like 100 or 1,000, a significant amount of claw machines. You know claw machines? Like for arcade machines? Yeah. And you download the app and you pay a certain amount of money.
And you control the claw machine remotely. And it picks up the item and drops it down to the thing. And then you just get- It's huge in Japan.
SPEAKER_02
You just get emailed like a gift card. They mail you a thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_01
I don't know if they, I don't know what the mailing system is. I don't know if you actually get mail that thing or if it's a gift card that you get sent. But-
SPEAKER_02
I saw my friend doing this on his phone. I was like, what are you playing? What game is that? He goes, oh, there's an arcade in Japan and I'm controlling the claw. So- I was like, what? Yeah, this is crazy.
SPEAKER_01
We had talked about it at some point. OK, but here's how my buddy's building this business. He's building it to be like, like H, he's building it to where it's going to take off and they're going to capture all the value and it's just going to slowly die.
SPEAKER_02
I guess he's- A known fad, basically, is what you're saying. Like, he knows it's a fad.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, which I love. I like that, those things. But that's how he's building it.
SPEAKER_00
You can do it on Wish products, because they're so cheap that you could kind of have a transcription thing where it's like, hey, you have to get one random Wish product.
SPEAKER_02
That's what Wish should do, your browsing Wish. And after two minutes, it's like, enter bonus round. You have the claw in our warehouse, pick something up.
SPEAKER_01
I'm into this. I think it's cool.
SPEAKER_00
All right, what else you got? OK, so have you guys used-
SPEAKER_01
Wait, hold on. Here's what we'll do, actually. In the next couple of days, I'll come prepared with some Six Flags and Chuck and Cheese numbers.
OK, cool.
SPEAKER_00
I'm interested in this.
SPEAKER_01
I want to hear these numbers, too. I want to know what the startup costs are for Sandbox VR.
SPEAKER_02
And I'm curious, tweet at us if you like, because we nerd out on, like, I wonder how that business does. And we go look up the numbers and figure out who this guy is, who's Bob Pittman, and how much income do they make. I don't know if we're unique in that.
But if you like that stuff, like either in the Facebook group, just my first million, or on Twitter, tell us if that's like, just be like more of that or less of that. Just be honest.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that's great. You're going to get your listeners to tell you what they love. We'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, because that's the weird thing with podcasts. You don't know what they want.
SPEAKER_00
What else? So in general, like I look at themes. So it's like, OK, Apple releases a bunch of random devices. So I'll call them AirPods, not really random, but this Apple pencil.
I don't know if you guys have seen this. I have one. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it's what's 125 bucks?
SPEAKER_00
It's expensive. And like the iPad Pro, it's expensive. But then I'm like, great.
This new capability is there. What product exists for it? And so recently, I've been kind of playing around a lot with the iPad. And I'll kind of try to show you guys this.
SPEAKER_01
I can hold the mic. Do you use a, are you one of the computer, you get rid of the computer, only use iPad?
SPEAKER_00
I'm all for that.
SPEAKER_01
I think that's weird. I think it's fucking weird.
SPEAKER_00
I like this in certain cases. Like when I'm traveling, it's a lot better than me lugging around my laptop. Did work pay for that? No, this is mine.
SPEAKER_02
So I just. For kind of the like to submit expenses, reimbursement. Really bad with stuff like that.
When we sold Bebo, how many unreimbursed things? How much dollar amount did you have? That is like at the tens of thousands. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely in the five digit range.
SPEAKER_00
I should be better at that.
SPEAKER_01
But you know, Adam did that. I had to pay him five grand out because he didn't like submit shit.
SPEAKER_00
Life has been good to me. So I'm not really going to. Not stressing anything.
Yeah. But.
SPEAKER_02
The general theme is like new hardware comes out. What can I do with this?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that's the general theme. And so one of the things I've been playing with is this app called Flow. And it's basically like this kind of whiteboard app.
Right. And so it's kind of hard to show, obviously. But the idea for me was, you know, you sit in a meeting room, right? And you love the whiteboard.
You love getting up and moving.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he does that shit all the time.
SPEAKER_02
Whiteboard. You like getting up. I like to get my Steve Jobs on.
SPEAKER_01
Well, he always has like analogies over shit. He's like, we're trying to build a race car, but let's start with the bicycle.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. That is the analogy that we go in. And so the idea was, OK, you take this kind of experience with the iPad and pencil, but this whiteboard over here should just be digital.
Right. So if I want to show you something, I just start from here. And it just shows up there.
You're like, no, no. And you want to kind of feed off of it. And like we could just have a.
SPEAKER_02
OK, so for those who can't see what he's saying, so he's basically saying, you got a little iPad in front of you, a little tablet. You're in a big meeting room. If you should be able to quickly sketch something or write something or draw something, and it just used the whiteboard as a display, like it's a TV, basically.
SPEAKER_00
Correct. And then it's remote friendly. So everybody can get the same whiteboard experience.
Because I mean, what happens if you're remote?
SPEAKER_02
That happened to me yesterday. I was remote conferencing. And the guy gets up.
He's like, here's what this really means. He drew something on a whiteboard I can't see. And everyone in the meeting was like, oh, yeah, that makes total sense.
And you're like, so I'm pocked.
SPEAKER_01
I'm pocked to a bunch of people. So do you know this guy named Wayne? I forget his last name. He sold something to Twitter.
Yeah, they're doing digits now. Ma, or is it ma?
SPEAKER_02
I think it's ma or ha.
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, I was talking to him. He said they're 100% remote. And I was like, how do you do that? Because we're struggling with this whole whiteboard thing.
And he was like, man, there's this one app that they never update. And that's kind of what we've hacked together to use. This is a problem that.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think people are going to remote work both because there's really good talent elsewhere that you're like, man, this is a perfect fit, but you're not here. That's not a good enough reason anymore. And then the second thing is just cost.
If you're in the city, people kind of don't like, they don't want to pay that much for their house rent.
SPEAKER_01
So just basically making the whiteboard work for remote workers?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and also. Or even if you're here, yeah. Yeah, I still want a big view of it if I'm here.
Like if we're all here, we want to get that.
SPEAKER_01
That's badass. I'm into it.
SPEAKER_00
And so the pencil and the iPad, I think, is a good combination to where people will have that around. I think it'll become more common. Now you can kind of connect all these groups together.
SPEAKER_02
So last podcast, I was saying meeting tech. Meeting tech. Stuff that makes meetings more effective and efficient, because all like so many billions of dollars are spent in people's time in meetings.
SPEAKER_01
Do you know how cheap? I mean, it would cost way less than anything to make this. Do you know that? OK, this is a screen. This is a 55 inch.
I think out there, we have a 65 inch TCL 4K. Or no, we didn't get the 4K at 1080p. You know how much that costs? It's like $399.
No, no, no. It was like $250 or $180. It's like.
It's probably cheaper than this whiteboard.
SPEAKER_02
That's the retail price.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, like on Amazon, I bought it for, I think, for sure less than $300, maybe less than $200.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I believe it. Screens are really cheap. And so where else can you put screens? And I think you can actually enhance the meetings.
If somebody puts up slides, I want to write over the slides. Like I think you unlock more capabilities than just supplement what you have today. And I think that that's where this will become superior than us going to the whiteboard with those Expo pens and kind of writing there.
SPEAKER_01
Right. Meeting tech. Yeah, meeting tech.
I didn't get it yesterday. I mean, I was. But now you're getting it.
SPEAKER_02
You didn't have.
SPEAKER_01
I didn't have good examples. You said a meeting in a box.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it was bad. It was bad. I like your other idea of the meeting.
You know the ARR one? I was trying to get to that. But then I fumbled the initial thing. I said meeting in a box and it sounded stupid to me.
SPEAKER_01
And then Lance Armstrong showed up. Yeah, Lance Armstrong showed up. I felt like a chump.
It's a meeting in a box. That was fucking stupid.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, fuck that guy. The other one I like is everyone has their AirPods on now. And I think AirPods did one thing like Apple does really well is nobody wanted to walk around with a Bluetooth headset.
I think we all agree. You didn't look cool. You looked tacky.
SPEAKER_02
It was a known douchebag thing.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was like having the cell phone on your belt.
SPEAKER_00
Great analogy. Perfect. And so I was like, great.
People have AirPods now. And so what else can you build with this? Again, Apple's unlocking capabilities and hardware. So what software can you build? And so there's two ideas.
One's mine to one somebody else's. But I'll take it as mine.
SPEAKER_01
Whoever says it, it's theirs. By the way, Apple or AirPods, how much? 10 million units is the last X amount of time. So what's that? Is that 10 billion in sales?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, just multiply by, let's say, 100. It's just to be roughly. Plus in sales, right?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it would be a Fortune 500 company.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I agree. It's fantastic. And so one of the things I was thinking about was, great, if I have these on all day, can I just have this on connected to my wife or somebody? So whether you do it for work or for a personal, you always have it on.
There's no audio flowing. But then if I'm like, hey, Sean, what's up? It knows, do you have your AirPods on? If it doesn't, it tells me, hey, he's not there, but you can record a message. You'll get it later.
But if you're there, you'll just hear my audio. And you still aren't on yet. You kind of opt in again to be like, yo, what's up, man? It's like, how do you take the phone call away from like that? And you're like, I'm not going to give this capability to everybody.
There's a couple of close people in my life, like my wife, that I'm going to be like, great, I just want to have this on and this capability that's there.
SPEAKER_01
It's like in the office. They do this in the TV show.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Jim and Pam have their thing just constantly. Yeah, this is good because it's not it's not on when you don't want it on. So let's say I have my AirPods in, you have yours in, and I'm walking around.
I'm at lunch. I have this idea for the podcast. I basically just say, yo, Sam, what we should do is we should do this.
And then you basically receive, but you're not sending back unless you say whatever the keyword like, you know, like how Alexa works, right? Like it's like Sean or whatever it is. And that's way more lightweight than me picking up my phone and starting to type or phone call. Like who wants to do that? Right.
SPEAKER_00
So phone calls feel weird 100% right now.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. I'm less bullish on that than the first two.
SPEAKER_00
OK, OK, we'll do that. The second version of this idea with AirPods was, you know, forza, right?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. What is it? Oh, your homie? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
One of our friends and we're doing a small hackathon at the house and he's like coming up with this idea again for AirPods.
SPEAKER_01
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're doing a hackathon at your home. Like for fun? Yeah, just for fun.
Damn, maybe you do this like every week, right?
SPEAKER_02
Or like two weeks. Like, so what do you guys do? Like Jake's here. Jake, did you go to the last one?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we just kind of sit around a table. We're on our laptop. We're talking about ideas.
We come up with something and we just kind of try to make it. Usually you don't end up finishing on the first one, but then the second one you try again, the third one you try.
SPEAKER_01
God, fucking nerds.
SPEAKER_02
Jake, what would you build? What'd you build at the last one?
SPEAKER_00
You want me to talk about it? Yeah. Yeah. So Jake was making this thing where he was like, it'd be cool if you could test your website from like locations around the world, but it would like video record what it looked like and how it loaded. So not only do you get this like technical.
Not a number. Yeah. And then you can show people this is how crappy our website looks like from some random country or in the US and what it looks like for other people. And so that's awesome.
Yeah, that's really awesome. Everyone's kind of testing numbers, but we're visual.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. What you care about is, oh, look how long that took to load. Look how shitty this look.
SPEAKER_01
Have you heard of user testing? Is it user voice or user testing? You know user testing? Yeah. That's like $150 million a year business.
SPEAKER_02
Shout out to my mom. Works at user testing. Really?
SPEAKER_01
It's huge, right?
SPEAKER_02
It's big. They're trying to go public. So that means they're at that scale where they're doing 100 million plus.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And all they do is there's someone in the Midwest who's cheap who.
SPEAKER_02
Screen records.
SPEAKER_01
All right. Well, let me look at your website. OK. I'm scrolling down. I don't really know what this means.
So that's more about confusion. This is more about performance. No, but they they they're similar.
They're similar. They're similar issues.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. And I think today he's looking at it like a performance tool. Like how do you kind of make it load well? But I think you could totally look at it and apply some machine learning to it where it's like, this doesn't seem to work well.
It's below the fold on these devices, right? Like some of those things when you design it and then you like put it together, you're not thinking, oh, what does it look like on the iPad? Right. And then you kind of just show it like that. And then you have a video, but also it could detect and say, man, this is like your main button.
That's awesome. It's showing up down here. And you know, you could.
SPEAKER_01
What are you going to do with this?
SPEAKER_00
Good job, Jake.
SPEAKER_02
I like that project. Right here. I figured it out.
OK, so what were you saying?
SPEAKER_00
What was the other project? So this idea was around cooking and you're like in the kitchen and you're like, oh, I want to like hear these recipes and things like that. And so again, your hands are dirty in the kitchen. Yeah. What do you do? You pull out your phone, your laptop. Doesn't make sense, right? Like, and so the idea was you have your AirPods on.
It kind of walks you through this depth and you can go next, go back. And it's like, you know, a little recipe thing. I don't know the name that you came up with for it, but I think you could come up with a better name for it.
SPEAKER_02
Kitchen in a box. Yeah, kitchen in a box.
SPEAKER_00
There you go. I think he called it like kitchen pods or something. And I was like, God, that doesn't have to.
SPEAKER_01
Have you? OK, so this guy's name, Andrew Mason, you know, that name. He started Groupon. He, a few years ago, his second act, he started this thing.
Detour. Detour. There it is.
They shut it down and he pivoted to. Descript. Descript, a podcast thing.
Look at us.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there we go. And anyway, what was the first one? Detour. It was awesome.
It was so cool. And this was before AirPods. So explain what it did you do? So I used to do them all the time, but I understand how it wouldn't be huge, but I was a power.
SPEAKER_02
Cool product, not a great business.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And so what it was is you know how when you go to a museum and you have a guided tour that says, like, all right, when you get to this point, press this thing. And then you press the button.
You tell you about it. You see this painting. You see there's a small smudge that you'll see up left.
That will happen when you get angry. He did whatever. So what they do this, but they do it for cities.
So it's guided walking tours. But you know, you know this American life. Like, you know how it's like really highly produced podcasts where you can like hear noises and they did that.
But it was GP. It was worked at your GPS. And what they would do is they would say, all right, walk past the street, past Bush Street, keep walking.
And then they would play music and then it would tell when you got there. And it would say, now look down to your right. You see that hole that was there that actually came here from this time.
And it's awesome. It's so cool. He shut it down.
Anyway, what you're describing is almost like the cooking version of that. Right. The utility version. Which would be significantly larger than the detour version.
Because the detour, because you cook all the time, the detour version, I would do it on like a when my wife was out of town.
SPEAKER_02
And it does suck to have your hands covered in food and then be like, oh, let me go to my iPad or my phone and like try to like scroll and click and zoom and like figure out this recipe. How many tablespoons was it supposed to be?
SPEAKER_01
Has there ever been a big business built around recipes other than an ad based media company?
SPEAKER_00
Not sure. There's a problem with a lot of these ideas. You start thinking too far ahead.
You're like, I don't want to go do this. I think because what does it turn into? But I think generally the concept, if you took guided tours, like that concept and you said, what else in my life could be guided? That's interesting. I think there's a couple of very interesting businesses there.
Or at least interesting products, right?
SPEAKER_01
Totally interesting products. Maybe interesting businesses too. Totally interesting product.
SPEAKER_02
I think there's a workout version of this that's doing all right, which is like you go to the gym and it's like in your ears and it's music app telling you what to do.
SPEAKER_01
I use it all the time. Active. You know what that is? No, I haven't seen it.
It's similar. I use it on a regular basis. I pay $100 a year for Ethan Spokane Hustlecon, tens of millions in subscription revenue.
It's what you're describing, but it's for working out.
SPEAKER_00
So I think if you have a great product in a space where a lot of people are doing it, you can come up with a business plan like $100 a year that matches some. I agree with you. So people cook, people go to the gym.
What else are they doing day to day? I think guided meditation is another one that's really interesting. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01
There's the model.
SPEAKER_00
Right. And so there's probably five others in that space, but I think AirPods made it different than Bluetooth headsets and headphones, you know, like.
SPEAKER_02
So here's here's a little guided meditation one. Yeah, that's why we really like that's why he gets the seat. For guided for meditation, a lot of people don't like to sit and meditate.
Like it just doesn't do it for them. Their mind races, all this stuff. And like the answer right now is like, no, that's the point.
Do it. And like, sure, that's that might be true. But for a lot of people, what it means is like, fuck this, I'm going to do something else.
And so there's all these other types of meditation, like transit, or whatever, where you're chanting, it's like a little more active. And then there's all kinds of meditation. Hiking is meditation.
Exercise is meditation because you're controlling your breathing in a certain way. You're clearing your mind space and you, you know, you're freeing your mind. And so I'm curious if somebody can do the sort of detour version that's about walking.
And, you know, it's basically guided meditation, but it's active, not sit down on a pillow and do nothing for 30 minutes or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Like when I would do those detours, you did them, right?
SPEAKER_02
I never did one.
SPEAKER_01
Well, we did. Well, I did one where I went to the cash row and it was all about the AIDS epidemic. And you got to know Harvey Snow or Harvey Snow.
What's Harvey? Harvey Milk, you know, the gay activist that was like killed, whatever. He was a gay activist that was murdered and it was during the 80s when the whole AIDS thing was going on. And the guy talking, he was like, now this is the last time that I hugged Harvey before he died.
And and then he's like, now this house up here, like these guys lived here. And on top of these guys left here, they all died. And I was like so emotionally right.
SPEAKER_02
OK, that gets me thinking, you know, I think this would be not. I don't think this would work. But like, you know, yesterday, you and Lance Armstrong were both like the podcast I like best are these true crime ones.
What if you did a true crime version of the detour thing where it's murder mystery kind of creeps you the fuck out as you walk around? That's cool. Real crimes from your city.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Or you have to. So we did on Trent's.
We did a report. We did a report on this. These app.
What are those? What are those calls again? The you know, I'm talking about. Give me real. No, like these serialized video apps that fucking the lady who started it.
She sold her thing to Songify. Man, I've got to remember what it was. Anyway, you you you get it's like choose your own adventure app.
OK, for thriller novels. Watching things. OK, basically, we did a report on it.
Our hypothesis was that actually the erotic novels, romance novels, is the biggest segment.
SPEAKER_02
You're talking about hooked.
SPEAKER_01
Hooked. Yeah. Yeah. Hooked. Right. Anyway, I think it's a I don't know if it's a great business, but it's OK one.
SPEAKER_02
They scaled up revenue. Hooked was doing, I think, 20 million plus in revenue. If I remember, I think turn was stupidly high.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Anyway, what we're describing is and when we did the report, it was romance novels and thrillers had the highest
SPEAKER_02
performance. Here's the general principle, though, like hooked is the modern day goose bumps. So when we were growing up, we would read goose bumps books.
And that was what hooked us as a kid and you love to read. And hooked said, well, now every kid's got a phone. What if we delivered this through this kind of SMS format, but it's these like scary stories, goose bumps style.
And and what you were talking about earlier with like, you know, Chuck E. Cheese modern day. If you're trying to brainstorm ideas, this is one format to think about.
What did I love as a kid? What's the modern day version of that? And because that's a great framework. People's desires tend to stay the same. Yeah. It's the tools of technology that updates and opens up new opportunities. That's a good framework.
SPEAKER_01
Can I ask you about app loving? Yeah, I got one more idea. Oh, go for it. Go for it.
SPEAKER_00
I'll kind of plug a company I invested into. So I invested in this company called Lucid Drone. I think I told you about it.
They have they basically created a drone that can window wash big buildings. And so instead of sending like a five percent crew and a scaffold and whatnot, where did you find that? They were a YC company. So, you know, YC produces still fantastic companies.
I like these guys because it was like we got this, you know, it's not just drone tech and then God or but it's like that is awesome. Specific application, specific application. And then you think about it, you're like, yeah, five people hanging from a building or one guy working the drone from the bottom and washing it.
Are those legal? Yeah. And so they're out there in a couple of cities. I think there's going to be small regulations.
They're going to have to go. But this makes sense. It's a lot safer and a lot better.
When did they go come out of like saves you money?
SPEAKER_02
If you're the building owner safer than having humans up there trying to wash windows, sad way to lose a life. What a bold idea. Great idea.
SPEAKER_00
And what they did is they actually stopped. So they try to go to the building owners and they were like, oh, man, the building owners are like, well, we have a service like, you know, it's too complicated. So they went to the guys who were servicing the building and they're like, hey, I can make your business more efficient.
So they're sending five guys out per job. You could do five more jobs instead of running this crazy scaffold. You just lease our drone.
And it's like you make their business more valuable. You're not taking their business and then you don't have to go to all the building
SPEAKER_01
to building. Oh, my God, I love this.
SPEAKER_02
One way of looking at it was, oh, we're going to put those guys out of business instead said, no, you're my customer. Correct. We make you more efficient.
SPEAKER_00
Exactly. And I think that's some of the best tech I see is that it's not about replacing the whole workflow. It's like, how do we make these people more efficient? How do we allow them to have more capabilities? And then they can do more.
They can do a better job. And that's kind of like, I think what I look for in the emerging tech,
SPEAKER_01
especially lucid drones, lucid.
SPEAKER_02
The other genius thing about that is if you wanted to do this, you would either have to go sell every building and that's a lot of sales. Or if you go to the company, like you said, the company that already does the window washing, they might have already 50 clients. So now one sale gets you 50.
Man, that's badass.
SPEAKER_01
We, I'm big fans of boring things like window washing. I think that would be right at my alley. And to add this thing to it would be neat.
And never if you told me that someone had that idea, I'd be like, what? No.
SPEAKER_00
It's really interesting. And so my spin off the remix of their idea was probably you guys, I don't know if you have a car, right? Yeah, I have a car. Great. You guys both have cars. I thought maybe none of you guys would have cars out here in the city, but I never washed my car.
I never go to a car wash. Me neither. If I could just have a little drone that sits in my garage that can come up, wash my car for me every so often, or if you're in a place where it snows, like how do I pour some water in the windshield? I don't got to go do that and I can get into the car.
Like that's what I want. That's a good term.
SPEAKER_01
I like that. You know, this was like a huge failure, cherry. But that was humans.
Yeah. So that that that. This is a Roomba.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. No, I'm not saying. Roomba that washes your car.
SPEAKER_01
Totally. That that failed. But I looked at like the background of why I was like, that's so stupid.
Who would on earth think that was a good idea? It's a big thing in a lot of different countries that and check this out. Bringing gas to bring gas to you.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Bring gas to you in foreign markets. That's like the way that gas works.
SPEAKER_01
So car washes. I say wash funny. I always have to correct or tell people I say funny.
Get prepared. Car washing. Um, can you not say what I can't say? It's a Midwestern thing.
Wash.
SPEAKER_02
I was like, it's easy. It's easier. Car washing and giving the disclaimer.
SPEAKER_01
No, I can't say. I can't say car. Why? No, you just can't do it.
My mouth is like L now.
SPEAKER_02
You have your interview questions. Car cleaning, you know, car cleaning. If somebody says like what's your greatest weakness? It's like, I can't say what ours.
Rogue ours that just make their way into my words.
SPEAKER_01
It's a Midwestern thing. A lot of people say it. Anyway, that's interesting, but I never would have thought.
That's kind of cool. But how on earth could you build a machine that does it?
SPEAKER_02
I mean, that's the thing. It does the drone need to be pretty smart to do that or no?
SPEAKER_00
You know, I think the thing I like about this technology space right now is a lot of the research work is done. And so people have made drones that can fly that can follow you. Like there's literally Skydio.
Yep. It's a thousand bucks. You go running in the woods.
That's their like demo video and it follows you.
SPEAKER_02
If you haven't seen this demo video search Skydio. Is that bullshit though? It's amazing. You literally go you like throw the camera.
Well, I've seen the there's the other one failed. Yeah. These guys say they can do it.
SPEAKER_00
I thought this go on YouTube and look up the users who are doing this and they're recreating it. And you can see it works.
SPEAKER_01
OK. And so like snowboarding and skiing and stuff.
SPEAKER_00
Yes. Snowboarding is another one. I mean, GoPro was like one step up.
But now if you got this drone that can follow you around.
SPEAKER_01
God, I love this shit, man. Drones and VR just.
SPEAKER_02
We need a drone filming this. That's just whoever's talking. It just turns to them.
Oh, and just as the cut.
SPEAKER_00
It just picks up the right mic and the right.
SPEAKER_01
I had one of the first DJI ones and it fell out of sky at a thousand feet. Ruined it.
SPEAKER_00
That happens. But a lot of this technology, there's been so much research work done that's moved it forward. And I think it's at the spot now where it needs application engineers and not that same.
You don't need to be a PhD with computer science and all these math degrees to go create this technology. You take the work that Dave built and Dave kind of established and then apply it to these things. And so flying a drone is trivial enough.
Building a drone is trivial enough. And then the software is easy to program a drone to fly. Object recognition and computer vision is easy now.
And so you combine these two, let's call it easier technologies now because of all the research work that was done and then you can kind of create this product from it. And so I built these small drones. They're like these little four inch drones.
They're up there. You have. Yeah. Yeah. I program my own flight controller. That one didn't work as well.
I use the pre-programmed flight controller. That worked a lot better. But I get really excited about these technologies when I, without a college degree, without a deep technical expertise, can go and learn about it.
And I really just use Google. Like that's my source for everything. How old are you? I'm 35.
SPEAKER_01
You're one of the more interesting people I've ever met.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great. Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_02
That's what I'm throwing yesterday. He's blushing. Look at that.
He's not interesting.
SPEAKER_01
He's cool. I mean, he's interesting, but he's bad at. What's interesting to you? He just, my interests align with yours, but he's more intelligent and more technically savvy.
And he could actually make the things that I think I wish I could make.
SPEAKER_01
Can you talk about app 11? Because you said something. So the other day I was talking to someone about businesses and I'm like, when it's working, do you know what's working? What's that feel like? And you made a comment earlier. Like it's the first time I've ever seen where just.
This is what working feels like. Right. What was that like?
SPEAKER_00
It's the feeling of like, when you're slamming on your brakes in the car, and the car is kind of doing its own thing, and you're like, I'm not controlling the car. It is just flowing on its own. It's like, it's that feeling where, you know, where you build all these products and even at Apple, and we did nine ideas before that, I've done this for a long time where I'm just trying idea after idea.
I try to get people to use it and you're looking for these good signals and you're trying to spot it. And then when it's really working, it's not about spotting it. It's so obvious that there's no question that it's working.
And so it's all the charts are flying up, but then every day you're not even like, man, is it working? Is it not? It's so obvious. I got to do X, Y and Z to solve, you know, these problems that are coming up kind of day in and day out. And so it's definitely a feeling where the pull from the market is so strong that there's no middle ground.
It's, I always thought it was like, oh, I'm going to kind of realize when I'm close to it, but it's actually very binary. It's like, you're here and it's not working and you're trying to push into the market, what you need to do. But when it happens, it just kind of takes off and, you know, I just, I don't have really good analogies for yet, except for that.
Like it just, it's like the loss of control. The market is in control almost and you're just like trying to catch up and like, you know, get into that mindset of like, okay, great, this is working. We're going to keep like pushing whatever we need to do to kind of support this case.
SPEAKER_01
What was the revenue grow? I mean, you guys read zero, then was it like one month that could have been like 20 grand? The next month, it was like a million. I mean, was it that substantial?
SPEAKER_00
It wasn't that crazy, but I think the interesting thing that I learned was there, you know, there were a lot of players in the market where you'd go to this weather app, right? And the weather app would do like, you know, you never realize the scale of some of these apps even at that time. It's like, man, this thing is doing 200 million, you know, impressions per day. And I'm like, a weather app, like really? Like, why is it so big? And then you're like, great, if we get this customer, these things can happen.
SPEAKER_01
And so I think the weather app, the weather app, just how many impressions?
SPEAKER_00
I think I forgot which weather app it was, whether it was weather bug or the weather app, but it was like 200 million impressions a day. Like, and I was like, I was really surprised at some of the scale of some of these apps. And like, you know, yes, we had the best ad platform.
Yes, we made, you know, we made all these small tweaks to the product to like make it work better. And we made our server scale and we did all these things. But I think to me, the fascinating thing was there were all these major players, you didn't actually realize how big some of these opportunities were.
And kind of working at Apple oven, I was like, wait, I want to go do this. And like, when I left there, it was like, I'm not like a huge fan of like ad products. Like naturally, that's not the product that I get excited about.
I love money. So I like, great, it's a fantastic business. I like that.
And I was like, oh, I'm going to go make these apps and games that are going to go do this. And actually, that's how I ran to Sean. I think he had checked out one of my games after I think we can actually Angel list.
SPEAKER_02
Was that right? Yeah, I saw him on Angel list and I was like, something doesn't add up either. This guy's full of shit because who would leave this company that's crushing it? Like most people, when you finally hit a grand slam, you want to do the victory lap and people stay for seven years and then they write this cheesy letter about how great the journey has been. And they're finally ready for their next chapter.
He basically left after three years. You weren't even fully vested, right?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I left a little bit on the table again. I'm not complaining because everything's been fantastic.
SPEAKER_02
And it was something counterintuitive. I was like, why would this guy leave either? He got kicked out. He got fired.
He's not good, blah, blah, blah. I was like, or this guy's amazing. He really just does love the history was like, I just love startups.
I want to build something that consumers use, not really an ad tech platform. And he was like, I was interested in mobile because I saw how big these mobile apps were on our ad network. So he locked himself in his bedroom as like, I'm going to learn mobile in the next six months.
And he just built a bunch of Android games. And then I saw him on Twitter tweeting back with people who played his game. And I was like, dude, none of my developers, all the developers I have in my company that are great, none of them would ever go tweet at a customer and be like, hey, you know, I'm going to fix that bug.
And I can make this better. Hey, what do you think about this? So I was like, there's something different about this guy.
SPEAKER_01
What apps were you shocked at? The how big they were?
SPEAKER_00
A lot of apps. There's 200. The casino game apps.
I mean, that's not shocking. Is it the size of it was definitely shocking. Just because you always assume they're big and they're addictive.
But then that and then Candy Crush and their initial rise was the first time in the industry where I heard like, man, like this thing is a money printing machine. It's like, you know, they would, you know, and not all this was an app love. And it's like, once you're an ad tech, you're like learning about the industry.
You're meeting other people and you're like, hey, these guys are really just blanket pay eight bucks for a user in the US. And I'm like, okay, well, that seems pretty expensive. Like, why are they doing that? And like, how much are they making on the eight dollars?
SPEAKER_01
What they're spending?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think at that time it was like, hey, if we're like a male, you know, 18 to 35 or something, it might be eight bucks or something like that. And then on the other side, I talked to somebody over there and I'm like, they're like, yeah, dude, we make like 20 bucks on them, like in like seven days. And I'm like, and maybe those numbers are slightly off, but like, they were making a multiple to where you were like, wait, so you just have this machine where you just press this button and you put in money and you know, seven days later, three times more money come out.
And I'm like, wow, like, how do I get that? How do I get my bank account every single day to go do that?
SPEAKER_01
Well, you guys had that a little bit with Apple oven.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I've loved and had that. I mean, I didn't have that right. Like I don't have the same mechanic.
Obviously you're at this company, you're vested, you have a shared interest in the long run.
SPEAKER_01
But you know, me being me, I was like, I want that.
SPEAKER_00
Like I want the ability to have that and then the freedom to work on things that I'm really
SPEAKER_01
excited about. And so I tried that.
SPEAKER_00
Obviously it's a lot harder than just, you know, one person is a better doing it.
SPEAKER_01
But what did Adam Apple oven say? Was he like, this just, we had no idea or was he methodical enough to see Adam is
SPEAKER_00
so fantastic at execution that it's just like, he's like a machine. It's like, you know, when the thing I really loved about him and the things I learned the most from him were like, when you wanted to go do something, like, you know, sometimes you're like, oh man, man, this situation isn't working.
SPEAKER_01
And Adam is the CEO of Apple oven.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, CEO of Apple oven. And you know, you have these situations where it's like, I got to go do X or you really feel like you got to go make this move. This deal is bad.
Maybe this hire was bad or this hire was good or something like that. I don't kind of wait on it a little bit after deciding and you kind of create some time. What's a good time to do it? Or maybe I was like, okay, we'll just go do this now.
Like, we'll stop in us. And then, you know, the other things like that were, you know, I started there as kind of an engineer. And then very quickly he was like, oh, you could run this team.
You could manage the whole team. I was like, great, we talked. And then that's kind of always been my experience that like that never really gets communicated.
And then it feels like, cool, I'm like the manager, but not like, I think a lot of people end up in that situation, especially in companies. And then like the next morning is like a meeting with the whole team. He puts the org chart up.
And then every time we changed it, the same situation happened. He was so clear and effective with his communication and execution that I was like, I really need to be like that. Like that's what like, I think A plus execution looks and feels like day in and day out.
And it's like, it's not emotional. It's very logical. It's very quick.
And I think speed in these situations helps create clarity because when you are the other
SPEAKER_01
way around, clarity helps create speed.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, or both, right? Like, you know, and I think clarity in the sense that if you delay it, your team becomes unclear and then it gets a little muddy. And then you're like, wait, what is what's going on here? Why is this guy kind of acting like that? And that person not. And I think just being very fast and quick in that execution, once you decide, you should go and execute it.
And I think that that's, that's the thing that I learned is like, how quickly can you do that and how effectively can you do that, whether it's an email? And I'm really not good at this. It's kind of one of the reasons I point at it because I see myself kind of like, oh, wait on this a little bit or send this email tomorrow. I don't want to open up this kind of work right now.
And then it's actually, that's the exact opposite trait. It's like, just go have a bias for action and kind of go do that. And so from him, I learned just an amazing amount and like, how do you operate at this level? And I mean, since I've left, they've grown so much that it feels like I was only at the 1% of it.
Like, I feel like I don't know a 99% of the story anymore because they've grown well beyond that. They've expanded into other areas. They're really big now from the revenue side.
They're really big now from, you know, what their marketplace is. And they're very well known. And, you know, I kind of get all the benefits from being there a long time ago, which is great for me.
But, you know, I'm sure there were more learnings that I missed along the way.
SPEAKER_01
This whole monologue on app love and that's going to be our clip. Nice. That was a good one.
SPEAKER_02
Cool. We should wrap for today. That was awesome, man.
Awesome, man. For conversing me across the street. So anytime we want to do this again, we can do it again.
SPEAKER_01
So we'll have people.
SPEAKER_02
We'll put your Twitter handle in the notes of this. And so people can follow you, get, you know, tweet at you, whatever after this as well.
SPEAKER_01
And we don't know. I'm so uncertain as to how many listeners we have, but I do know that last time I asked for reviews, we got a few hundred of them in a handful of hours, 24, 48 hours. So if you like this one, tweet at him.
You can say your handle in a second and then let us know and we'll, we'll figure out what, what, what next to do.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Yeah. My handle is a Furcon R on Twitter. That's F-U-R-Q-A-N-R.
Awesome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01
Awesome. Thank you.