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0:23

Thank you. Welcome

0:37

to another episode of the Prop G pod.

0:39

In today's episode, we finish our special three

0:41

part series covering the future of entrepreneurship. And

0:43

last week's episode, we answered your questions about

0:46

life after a startup exit and whether to

0:48

pursue an MBA. I

0:51

remember taking a long walk on the beach when I sold my company. I'm

0:55

like, okay, that's it. I'm done. And

0:58

I remember thinking, does it feel different? And

1:01

it wasn't that it was like a sensation or a high. It

1:04

was just a bit of a feeling of like an absence

1:07

of anxiety and a feeling, quite frankly, of

1:09

pride. It felt really good about the people

1:11

I'd worked with and it felt

1:13

good about myself. Will

1:16

an MBA make you a great entrepreneur? No. So

1:19

just divorce your kind of aspirations about being

1:21

an entrepreneur and say, do

1:23

I want the skills and the experience

1:25

that an MBA offers? And

1:28

then if you decide to be an entrepreneur, great. Today,

1:33

we will be featuring an episode from one

1:36

of our newer shows, First Time Founders with

1:38

Ed Elson every first Sunday of the month

1:40

at interviews, you guessed it, first time founders.

1:43

In the episode we share today, Ed speaks

1:45

with Tyler Denk, the co-founder and CEO of

1:47

Beehive, a newsletter publishing and monetization platform. They

1:50

discuss Tyler's background at Morning Brew, his thoughts

1:52

on selling secondary shares and dealing with the

1:54

death of one of their early employees. So

1:57

just a disclosure, I don't think my producers

1:59

know this. I'm an investor in BI, small

2:01

investor, not a big deal. I don't

2:03

think I've influenced the editorial program here

2:06

based on my own financial interest. But

2:08

guess what? I would absolutely do that.

2:10

The dog needs to eat and he likes that

2:13

expensive shit. You know that food that costs more

2:15

than what most families spend on a dinner

2:18

out at Red Lobster or

2:20

what's the other one? The onion one?

2:23

Wait, the green olive. That's right, the green olive. I used to

2:25

go to Sizzler. I used to go to Sizzler.

2:27

I don't have a lot of them. I've seen those commercials in Sizzlers in

2:29

the 90s, if you're old like me. I don't have

2:31

a lot of money. I don't have a lot

2:33

of time. Sizzler. Me and my friends

2:35

would be like, I don't have a lot of

2:38

class. I don't have a lot of taste. Sizzler.

2:42

True story. During the summer, one

2:44

year at UCLA, I gamified saving money. I

2:46

got to the point where I only spent

2:48

$77 a week on

2:51

everything including rent. My big treat was every

2:53

Sunday night, I would take a coupon from

2:56

the Daily Bruin and I would head down to Sizzler and

2:58

for $3.99, me and the rest of the crew team could

3:00

for $4 each do

3:02

all you can eat. We

3:04

would show up at five when it opened and

3:06

we would stay till nine and try and have

3:09

two or three enormous meals and basically eat for

3:11

the week. Anyways, good times. Good times. Anyways,

3:14

enjoy Ed's conversation with Tyler Dank. Scott,

3:17

you invested in our next founder. What

3:20

do you look for when you're investing in a startup?

3:23

Someone who's been able to attract really talented people.

3:25

I try to interview the whole management team. It's

3:28

more really looking for a

3:30

team of talented people who clearly get

3:33

along. I went on the

3:35

board and was an angel investor in a

3:37

company called Olapik, which was like a

3:40

visual image curation software platform.

3:43

It was three guys from Columbia and

3:45

they just could finish each other's sentences. One was a

3:47

tech person, one was the marketer, one was the CEO.

3:51

They're all very, very smart, very hardworking, got along

3:53

and I thought I just want to back this

3:55

team. It's really

3:57

when you're an early stage investor, you're really

3:59

not investing. The and A or resting and. Soundest

4:07

I met else. Online

4:10

newsletters have exploded in recent years

4:12

during a pandemic. we saw the

4:14

right substance, which became a home

4:16

for writers and creators who wanted

4:18

to monetize their work independently. Newsletters

4:20

are also a census. Our business,

4:23

Scott, considered our newsletter, No Mercy,

4:25

No Malice to be our flagship

4:27

product. We've invested significantly in the

4:29

South that we now have nearly

4:31

half a million subscribers interacting with

4:33

our contact every week. That's why

4:35

I'm excited to introduce. On next

4:37

guest Tyler Dank, she's an expert

4:39

in all things newsletters or to

4:42

leading growth and product And Morning

4:44

Through Toilet started a newsletter distribution

4:46

platform called Be Eyes in less

4:48

than two years behind amassed a

4:51

network of nearly fifteen thousand active

4:53

newsletters, fifty million readers and five

4:55

hundred million monthly impresses, and unlike

4:57

so many software platforms these days

4:59

to achieve profitability now he's looking

5:02

to take on the incumbents sub

5:04

stuck at the top of the.

5:06

Hit list Tyler, thanks for joining us,

5:08

They swam me happy to bear. The

5:11

story of Beehive really begins at Morning

5:13

Brew. Could you give us the rundown

5:15

of first? what. Morning. Brew actually

5:18

is and then also what you did

5:20

there and how that led to the

5:22

creation of this newsletter platform. Bee Hives?

5:24

Yeah for sure. So I joined Morning

5:26

Burrow Back and Twenty Seventeen as the

5:29

Sec employ in a very fine rove

5:31

ranging from growth in engineering and product

5:33

just doing anything we could possibly do

5:35

to scale the newsletter size. that sounds

5:38

a year. Pretty familiar with the whole

5:40

game of the able to scale your

5:42

audience expand the newsletter. My first project

5:44

was treating the Morning Brew Referral program

5:47

where. by incentivizing different readers you

5:49

can earn t shirt coffee mug

5:51

crew neck whatever that looks like

5:54

we realize that we are existing

5:56

audiences already natively sharing with classmates

5:58

friends family city to help further

6:01

incentivize them with rewards. One

6:03

thing led to another. I built that on contract.

6:05

Austin Reef asked me to come on full time,

6:07

and I came on and just built anything that

6:09

would help us grow. I guess

6:11

to take a step back and answer

6:13

your question, like, what is Morning Brew?

6:15

Morning Brew is a, or at the

6:17

time, was a daily newsletter Monday through

6:20

Friday that covered business news and finance,

6:22

kind of like Bloomberg, but more for

6:24

younger demographic, millennial, told in

6:26

the conversational voice and tone. I

6:28

joined it, went to about 50,000 people every

6:31

day, Monday through Friday. When I

6:33

left, it was seven days a week going

6:35

to three and a half million subscribers. And

6:38

then, so the team grew from, obviously, me as the second employee to

6:40

about 35, 40 people when

6:42

I left in 2020. Why

6:44

did you decide to join a daily

6:46

newsletter with 50,000 subscribers? What

6:50

led you there? Yeah, it sounds crazy now, right?

6:52

Yeah. Yeah, looking back, everyone's

6:54

like, oh, you were early on Morning Brew. That's

6:56

amazing. At the time, it was the furthest thing

6:58

from like a sure opportunity. There

7:01

was the two co-founders and a

7:03

writer in a closet-sized office in

7:05

the NYU campus dorm when

7:08

Austin, who is a friend from Baltimore, reached out

7:10

to me. I had $4 in my bank account. And

7:13

when he asked if I would be able to

7:15

build a referral program, I lied and said that

7:17

I could because I needed money and I built

7:19

it. And after building

7:21

that in the two to three weeks of

7:23

that, it was the first time that they

7:26

had a engineer, quote unquote, I'm self-taught, but

7:28

an engineer to help build something. And

7:30

of course, it's like a team that's growing. They had

7:33

a laundry list of things that they wanted to be

7:35

built, and I provided an opportunity. So I spent that

7:37

summer building a little bit of

7:39

everything from the website, the referral program, social

7:41

share icons where you could share the

7:44

individual stories on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. And

7:47

during that process, I had full access, like

7:49

you do in a startup, to everything from

7:51

the inbox, from user feedback to other

7:53

people talking about the product and seeing how the

7:56

team works from the inside out. saw

8:00

the rabid fan base that they had of

8:02

people emailing in daily, being like,

8:04

I can't start my day without reading Morning Brew.

8:06

I've shared it to my entire class. All

8:09

my co-workers are reading it. They're raving about it. And

8:12

it was kind of like that, like, aha moment

8:14

of they clearly struck a

8:16

chord and an opportunity in a market that

8:18

I think there's already a huge

8:20

market for business news from looking

8:23

at Bloomberg and all of the

8:25

other larger established publications. They

8:27

were doing it in a very fun, novel way. And it

8:30

clearly resonated. And then

8:32

seeing how passionate the team was, was

8:34

kind of like my two months on

8:36

trial experience of being like, I actually

8:38

think they're onto something massive here. And whether

8:40

they go into education or just being

8:42

one of the largest publications for millennials

8:44

to get business news, I felt both were

8:47

a pretty promising opportunity. So then in

8:50

around late 2021, you decide you're

8:52

going to start your own newsletter

8:54

platform, when things I

8:56

presume were going super well at Morning Brew.

8:59

Why did you do that? Yeah, so there

9:01

was a slight gap. I left Morning Brew

9:03

in 2020, right before they got acquired by

9:05

Business Insider. I didn't know that that acquisition

9:08

was happening. But through that experience

9:10

of three and a half years at Morning Brew, I

9:13

fortunately Morning Brew was like a huge

9:15

success. We were making a lot of

9:17

money. We had 40 people on the

9:19

team. We were like the go to

9:21

email newsletter. And I had built everything

9:23

from the referral program to the website

9:26

to our content management system, to an

9:28

ad management platform that our sales and

9:30

copywriting team would use to handle all

9:32

the different brand advertisements. So

9:34

more or less kind of built a platform

9:36

within the company that was internal for our

9:38

employees to use. And it worked really well.

9:40

It was kind of what made us

9:42

a well oiled machine to be able to operate at

9:44

the scale that we did. And at

9:47

that same time, the good thing about emails,

9:49

you can always receive replies from your readers

9:51

and get feedback. And there was

9:54

always feedback coming in daily of what referral

9:56

program do you use? It works really well.

9:58

How does your newsletter look so good? good

10:00

in all these different male clients. How are

10:02

you able to share your stories to different

10:04

social platforms and trying to work with the

10:06

developer and build something similar? There

10:09

was both an appetite for email newsletters

10:11

at large, and there was an appetite

10:13

for software that did what Morning Group

10:15

did well, which is make the

10:18

emails look great, make it easy on the

10:20

team, be able to integrate advertisements, being able

10:22

to integrate different growth tools and analytics to

10:24

understand who your audience is. Historically,

10:27

those were five or six different

10:29

platforms. Building something very

10:31

robust that worked well through trial and error

10:33

for three and a half years gave me

10:35

the opportunity of seeing what worked, what didn't,

10:37

and how can we make this applicable to

10:39

anyone with a newsletter. That was the

10:42

real moment of the more feedback and

10:44

input we got from readers. Our

10:47

readers weren't even necessarily newsletter operators, and there

10:49

was an appetite with them. I figured there

10:51

was some value in what I had built

10:53

internally with my team at Morning Group. Then

10:56

around the same time as you alluded to in the intro,

10:59

other companies like a sub-stack were raising money

11:01

at $650 million valuation plus, and

11:05

using their software, using what I had built

11:07

at Morning Group, I thought that what I

11:09

had built and the tactical boots on the

11:11

ground experience at Morning Group was a pretty

11:14

core competitive advantage. That's what

11:16

really led to wanting to launch a

11:18

company to white label a lot of

11:20

that. You basically went to a startup,

11:22

no experience, built a product for a

11:25

startup that took them to growth and success.

11:27

Then you were like, okay, I'm

11:29

going to just take this product that I built and

11:31

start selling it to other people. Is

11:34

that a fair characterization? If you were to take a

11:36

few steps back, you could probably summarize it like that.

11:39

Would Morning Group be upset

11:41

in any way that you

11:44

took your core differentiated

11:46

product that you'd built in-house, and then

11:49

started selling it to other

11:51

companies? Very loaded question. I

11:53

would say a few things. There was a

11:55

point in Morning Group where I had

11:58

pitched this idea actually to. build

12:00

this and white label it to other software

12:02

vendors. At the time,

12:04

they were already going through acquisition talks

12:06

with Business Insider and others. So it's

12:09

a curve ball to also pivot into

12:11

SaaS, like in the ninth inning of

12:13

acquisition talks. There's also

12:15

a lot of traditional media companies who

12:17

have attempted to get into software and

12:20

failed. I think Washington Post just shut

12:22

down their media or their tech division

12:24

relatively recently or their software platform. So

12:27

there's a lot of nightmare stories as to why you

12:29

don't want to divert away from something that's

12:31

working really well, which is their core

12:33

competency, I don't think necessarily was the

12:35

software and the product. That's a lot

12:37

of the operational things that made things

12:39

move the way that they did. But

12:41

I would argue Morning Brew's core value

12:43

prop was understanding their audience and creating

12:45

the best content for that audience. The

12:48

tech was behind the scenes, the underlying thing

12:50

that facilitated a lot of that to happen

12:52

at scale. Yeah, definitely. You've also mentioned Substack.

12:55

What was the key differentiator in your mind

12:57

when you decided, okay, I'm going to go

12:59

start my own competitor? Very directly, I thought

13:01

I could compete because at the time, when

13:03

signing up for their product, I wasn't overly

13:05

impressed and knowing what I had built that

13:07

Morning Brew, I actually thought our internal tech

13:10

had a lot more flexibility and customization

13:12

for our writers. I'd say the

13:14

other big difference is, I

13:17

think fundamentally they have a principle

13:19

around wanting to enable writers to

13:21

earn a living, the Patreon and

13:24

OnlyFans model of monetize your audience

13:26

directly. Charge a

13:28

subscription, which I subscribe

13:30

to several paid newsletters. I think they're

13:33

great, but I do think it's very

13:35

difficult to charge a premium subscription for

13:37

newsletters in a competitive media landscape where

13:39

there's HBO Max,

13:41

Netflix, all of

13:43

these other paid products. It's really hard to

13:45

deliver reliably a newsletter product that

13:47

warrants paying for. I

13:49

actually think that's a very small market where

13:52

my initial thought was,

13:55

in seeing what made Morning Brew

13:57

successful, in seeing the hustle axios.

14:00

all get acquired. They were all ad-based newsletters.

14:02

And I think actually the most difficult thing

14:04

that we did at Morning Brew was scale

14:06

a sales team that could really take the

14:08

data and understand who the audience is and

14:11

be able to sell that to premium

14:13

advertisers. And so that is what

14:15

we are building at Beyhive is one, just

14:17

facilitate make it so easy to create good

14:19

looking content where you can engage with your

14:21

readers and understand who they are. But if

14:23

you want to monetize rather than you having

14:25

to sell all of these D2C brands or

14:27

premium advertisers on why they should monetize and

14:30

advertise in your newsletter, we can

14:32

actually help facilitate that transaction and place premium

14:34

ads in these newsletters. So you have the

14:36

upside of monetizing without having the sales team

14:39

to do so. So where is the majority

14:41

of your revenue coming from? Our primary business

14:43

model is more of a traditional SaaS. So

14:45

we have the free plan to get started.

14:47

We have a $49 plan, a $99 plan,

14:50

which is a fraction of a lot of

14:52

the competitors in

14:55

the space. But that is like a traditional

14:58

if you were sending emails, I'm sure you're familiar with

15:00

No Mercy, No Malice. There is a

15:02

monthly fee associated with paying the software

15:04

vendor used to send those emails. That

15:07

is the majority of our revenue. I alluded

15:09

to the ad network as well, we take

15:11

a transactional cut on ads place. So in

15:14

place of you having to source your own

15:16

advertisements and pay commissions to a sales team,

15:19

and do all of that work, we facilitate

15:21

premium ad deals for you. And we take

15:23

a cut of that which varies. So that's

15:26

a second revenue stream. And then we also

15:28

have like some transactional like growth tactics built

15:30

into the product where you can recommend another newsletter

15:32

in the BI ecosystem, we take a 20% cut

15:34

off of like co registration

15:37

is essentially what it is. So

15:39

those are the three primary revenue

15:41

streams, we facilitate premium subscriptions

15:43

like sub sec, but we don't take

15:45

a transaction fee. So that's 100% revenue

15:48

to the content creator. I feel like

15:50

the big milestone that people

15:52

that founders like to talk about is one

15:54

mil in ARR. So when

15:56

did you hit that? And how longer

16:00

to take for you to hit that? And then finally, what

16:03

decisions did you make that

16:05

you think led to that milestone being achieved? There's a

16:07

lot there. I feel like I can kind of do

16:09

like a masterclass of like everything going on in my

16:11

head in terms of how I would, I mean, any,

16:14

I feel like any company that starts and can go

16:16

from zero to 1 million ARR in

16:18

a very competitive space has dozens of

16:20

growth tactics and things that they did

16:22

very intentionally to help reach that milestone

16:25

because the zero to one is by

16:27

far the hardest part, especially in a

16:29

hyper competitive industry like email in general.

16:32

So it took us 14 months ago from zero to

16:34

a million ARR. And there's probably

16:38

dozens of things I could attribute that to,

16:40

but a few that jump out is one,

16:43

our very first seed round,

16:45

which actually Scott is an investor

16:47

in, we strategically had a long

16:49

tail of strategic investors who have

16:51

newsletters who have media experience in

16:53

the hopes that being our early

16:55

adopters, kind of incentivizing them to

16:57

move their newsletter over. Again,

16:59

when you launch like your product is the worst that

17:01

will ever be day one. And when

17:03

there's much more mature platforms in market, you

17:05

kind of need like an extra incentive to

17:08

win over those early adopters. And so leading

17:10

on early relationships and investors is like one

17:12

kind of like growth hack to get that

17:14

initial cohort in the door. So

17:17

that helped. Two is, I

17:19

would say building in public has

17:21

been very powerful for us. I know it's cliche

17:23

and a lot of people do it. Some people

17:26

are like totally against sharing numbers and metrics. I'm

17:28

the opposite. Everything is an open book.

17:30

I share costs, I share revenue, I

17:32

share growth, I share the upsides, the

17:34

downsides, because one, I think people can

17:36

align with a person and a story

17:38

more than like a business and a

17:40

brand. And so I never intended

17:43

to really be the face of the brand, but

17:45

in being able to share and promote other newsletters

17:47

who are having success on the platform. And also

17:49

being very quick to respond to user feedback

17:51

and how we can make it better. I've kind

17:53

of become the face of the brand. And in

17:56

doing that, I have been

17:58

very vocal in how we're building. the

18:00

business because I actually think it

18:02

won its hardest shit. I think

18:04

that people actually resonate and are intrigued to learn

18:06

about how you go from zero to one,

18:08

and even how you hit scale, how we're prioritizing

18:11

engineering versus support, versus product,

18:13

versus growth, what's working and

18:15

what's not. So I've done

18:18

it through content and just being able to share the journey of

18:20

how we've been able to do that. Then

18:22

I'd say the last one is, we've

18:24

developed a reputation for shipping features very quickly.

18:27

I think a lot of that's actually born

18:29

out of the insecurity of being

18:31

a young company. When

18:33

we're in this space where our top

18:35

10 competitors are so much further, they've

18:37

been around for five, 10 plus years,

18:39

they have a much more robust feature

18:41

set. What I wanted to prove to

18:43

the market was, one, we

18:45

can ship really good product very quickly. What

18:48

that tells them is maybe we don't have

18:50

feature XYZ, but if you've

18:52

paid attention to our pace and velocity of

18:54

shipping, odds are we will get to XYZ

18:57

very quickly. So it buys you

18:59

a little bit of time of winning

19:01

people over with whatever features we do have.

19:03

If they grow frustrated that we don't have something,

19:06

earning their trust that we hear them, we know

19:08

what's important and that we can prioritize that. Yeah.

19:10

The building in public thing is so interesting. We've

19:12

had a lot of founders

19:14

on who've discussed this topic. Why

19:18

exactly is building in public

19:20

good for generating revenue versus

19:22

just getting followers? I actually

19:24

think if you were deciding between a

19:26

different software vendor and you're up in

19:28

the air between two or three, being

19:31

able to bet on trajectory and a person

19:33

that you think actually has your best interests

19:35

in heart and is trying

19:37

much harder to make this work and

19:39

succeed, and that you have their ear

19:42

directly to provide feedback, I actually think is

19:44

a pretty key selling point. Yeah. Whether it's

19:46

the most scalable selling point is TBD, but

19:48

I'm sure that there's plenty of people that

19:50

I've DM with over the days that view

19:53

it as competitive advantage to be able to say, here's three

19:55

things I think you can do better. I

19:57

have the track record of listening to them and

19:59

delivering. Those three things pretty quickly. her.

20:02

And then like Lassie when hit you when you

20:04

hit milestones, it opens up a lot of doors.

20:06

Reading: I don't have to share on Twitter and

20:08

linked in that we had three. Millionaire are for

20:11

Millionaire are fine. Millionaire are. but when I do.

20:13

I. Get dozens of warm leads from people

20:16

who are like have been following the journey.

20:18

I think I'm moving off platform max to

20:20

jump over to you or hey, can I

20:22

make an introduction to this investor this advertiser

20:25

this newsletter because I think they'd be a

20:27

perfect set and I think it's just like

20:29

maximizing your luck surface area. The more you

20:31

can share, the more hype that you can

20:34

build around the narrative that you're building on,

20:36

the more opportunities and doors that open of

20:38

people who either align with you and want

20:40

to help you succeed or at least system

20:43

with like the algorithms. And everything else

20:45

being of the surface. your success as

20:47

a broader opportunity to whether it's investment

20:49

is what you're going for or new

20:51

customers. It helps expand the opportunities there

20:53

if you're willing to disclose it. How

20:57

much of the company d own and

20:59

have you taken any off of the

21:02

table? I won't say or how much

21:04

I on but I have not taken

21:06

any off the table and I am.

21:08

What is your opinion on selling second

21:10

or says he approves disapprove. Would

21:13

you ever do it yourself? Yeah, I think

21:15

everything's like a big like. It depends on

21:17

the person and situation right? So if you

21:20

had his family if you need is a

21:22

larger house because he just had a kid

21:24

ah whatever. it is a dire circumstances in

21:26

life I think I think that they a

21:29

classic. Saying are saying within start

21:31

a quarter by paying yourself very little

21:33

as a sounder because you need to

21:35

focus all your time on a business.

21:37

And Mckinney, they have earned that salary.

21:39

And I completely disagree. Without like, I'd

21:41

rather I'm able to poor fourteen sixteen

21:43

hours a day into a start up

21:45

because I pay myself well enough that

21:47

I'm not stress financially to have to

21:49

worry about bills and other miscellaneous things

21:52

that distract your life. And so, by

21:54

giving myself a livable salary that I'm

21:56

okay with, I can focus on hundred

21:58

and ten percent on the business. Yeah

22:00

and I think I can be extended to

22:02

secondaries as well, right? Like if you are

22:04

a in a place in life where your

22:06

significant other and you have a kid and

22:08

you need a larger space and you don't

22:11

have the available liquidity, do that to be

22:13

able to sell secondary and and be have

22:15

to take care of your family so you

22:17

can focus on the business I think is

22:19

totally acceptable. I mean I have to go

22:21

for it to give an idea of equity

22:23

stake out to cofounders. we didn't split equally

22:25

but roughly and and we've done a seed

22:27

round and extension and then are serious day

22:30

so. Fairly diluted and and I'm also

22:32

someone who doesn't love the traditional like Raised

22:34

in a Razor be raised to see like

22:36

that's why you alluded to in the intro

22:38

like we were profitable for two months earlier

22:40

this year. Since raising our A, we've hired

22:43

a set time and are not profit when

22:45

a month a month basis by think we

22:47

should get pretty close to properly again in

22:49

two thousand twenty four in the goal is

22:51

to not raise again for a lot of

22:54

the reasons we kind of just mentioned right

22:56

like I am diluted. A good bet some

22:58

having to go founders and having two rounds

23:00

of funding. And I think we've

23:02

been able to run the company extremely lean.

23:04

We have people who are really good at

23:07

what they do in. the business itself is

23:09

pretty high margin so I don't see a

23:11

reason to continue to burn task just so

23:13

we can go to the series be I'd

23:15

rather build like a sustainable business. I can

23:17

eventually said the sweats and an optimized for

23:20

profits. To what stance is my

23:22

motivation you as you build this business

23:24

and do consider Beehive to be to

23:26

sing that will set you up financially

23:29

to the rest of your life. The

23:31

goal. Is for that answer to B

23:33

S rank. So five million A or

23:35

are right now like months twenty and

23:38

that doesn't include the other revenue streams.

23:40

So at about seven million dollar run

23:42

rate in under two years I feel

23:44

really good about our team who are

23:46

extremely talented, extremely hungry armed, run really

23:48

lean and the space I think is

23:51

pretty right to be disrupted. And so

23:53

I don't see any reason where if

23:55

mail chimp can get acquired for twelve

23:57

billion dollars I say our goal our

23:59

ambition is a much broader than the

24:01

software that they built when they got

24:03

acquired for twelve billion rough. And so

24:06

I do think this can be a

24:08

massive multi billion dollar business which I

24:10

think by most measures a success would

24:12

be financially set is that were to

24:14

happen. So that's like for serve the

24:16

goal and division of what we're looking

24:19

to build. Ah I'm I forsake my

24:21

as a motivator like. I remember

24:23

any younger stage in my life thinking people

24:25

always they were after an entrepreneur so the

24:27

company talking about like their users and talat

24:30

the new acquire like didn't set up their

24:32

users for success long term and like there's

24:34

always like kind of headaches after an acquisition

24:37

or that there can be and I always

24:39

see that as I to who cares you

24:41

can purchase walked away with one hundred million

24:43

dollars. you really give a shit and are

24:46

are seems a lot on that and make

24:48

the answers like yes because there's a lot

24:50

of users and people who really stuck their.

24:52

Neck out and helped us get to the

24:54

point that we are. Yeah, there's a lot

24:57

of users who put out with months of

24:59

our products being like a clear number ten

25:01

in the space for trusting that we would

25:03

figured out and build and actually proactively provide

25:05

a lot of feedback and so. Years

25:07

ago a very unique perspective in like

25:09

I want to do what's best for

25:12

our users and I've also in building

25:14

this you kind of forget. A

25:16

lot of these businesses. Our newsletter:

25:19

First businesses that are trusting us

25:21

as a twenty months company to

25:23

run their business to monetize to

25:25

be able to push conversions downstream,

25:27

and there's a lot of responsibility

25:29

in making sure that we do

25:32

that really well. I'm. Not

25:34

gonna borsig. You'd say that money isn't anything

25:36

that I care about. I for sure have

25:38

aspirations, would love to be financially free to

25:40

be able to support my family and those

25:42

that I care about. Ah, but there's a

25:44

lot of like mission and vision built into

25:46

that that was always there from the beginning,

25:49

but it actually becomes a bit more amplified

25:51

throughout the journey. I'd say to really look

25:53

after your users and make sure that their

25:55

best interests earnhardt. The

26:00

right movie. Superfund

26:14

a show comes from Mercury. Financial operations

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are needlessly complex. Startups have to cobble

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Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank

27:02

and Trust members have to I

27:04

see. We're

27:14

back with first time sounders. One

27:17

of the biggest challenges you face.

27:19

Starting. A company as a sound yeah I

27:21

mean a lot it it. I remember like

27:24

when everyone always gives like the observer really

27:26

high and the lows or really wow and

27:28

they say like any we can be the

27:30

highest highs and lows slow and I always

27:32

like think like any our can be the

27:34

highest high and low a slow and at

27:36

hadn't. As someone who I was super optimistic

27:39

on joining the company Tarnished found an offer

27:41

and then the next hour have a massive

27:43

user say that they're turning from their platform

27:45

and moving over to us. and the swings

27:47

are wild and when you care as much.

27:49

As I do like, it's very my

27:51

sample find. Something I'm trying to work

27:53

on is trying to be a little

27:55

bit less. In L a little bit

27:57

more steady along the journey because there's a lot of.

28:00

Wang we would have are not

28:02

yet cofounders but first I'd say

28:04

employ are seat yo Andrew park

28:06

and was a good friend and

28:08

he ends up passing away about

28:10

eight months into the journey and

28:12

so see lot. He works with

28:14

us before we went full time

28:16

for like that summer in Twenty

28:18

twenty one and built the company

28:20

had our initial seed round. He

28:22

joined full time along with my

28:24

to cofounders and unexpectedly passed away

28:26

in may have Twenty Twenty tail.

28:29

And so as a company of I

28:31

think six people at the time he

28:34

was kind of like are X factor

28:36

He was like at Ten x engineer

28:38

out think Ten exactly does it does.

28:40

This is like incredible and. Just.

28:43

About the time that we were really

28:45

hitting product market said we had a

28:47

lot of big time users with high

28:49

expectations moving over and he was kind

28:51

of like the de facto guy to

28:53

Six Thing. Saw things as features out

28:55

on says like a small six person

28:58

can be losing arguably the most important

29:00

person the company. both like a persona

29:02

emotional level but also. The

29:04

technical competence and everything in between us.

29:06

I mean, it's hard to compare anything

29:09

as being like a more difficult experience

29:11

in the journey than losing probably the

29:13

most important person the company. also the

29:16

time really when. Startups are

29:18

so difficult. And. You know,

29:20

like of the metrics or nine ten startups

29:22

fail and was right around that time. in

29:24

like March April where we really hit struck

29:26

a chord in the market. We. Are

29:28

really starting to compound and scale and

29:31

it was like that oh shit like

29:33

I think we broke through the is

29:35

this even going work and get off

29:37

the grounds like this is off the

29:39

ground and working Now we just need

29:41

to execute and scale and everything. we

29:43

are pouring sixteen plus hours a day

29:45

until to have someone in your core

29:48

team your Ccl pass away one are

29:50

mostly and personally like devastating from everyone

29:52

that was stopped him on the team

29:54

myself included And man just for my

29:56

god it's hard to not complete the

29:58

business. In the personal. What it's

30:00

like, everything we worked so hard could

30:02

completely fall apart unexpectedly because of this.

30:06

And. Thought that was an extremely challenging

30:08

I'd say several months of shuffling

30:10

city I was trying to hire

30:12

seats yo try to regroup the

30:14

team when we are so small

30:16

and fragile. And. In

30:18

a way like not that there's and he pauses out of

30:20

that. But. To go through that

30:22

experience and be able to rebound the team

30:25

and really a line and execute and everyone

30:27

tennis step up their get done. What they

30:29

needed to get on has put a lot

30:31

of the other challenges into perspective. Can I.

30:34

Hope that nothing as it is ever as

30:36

terrible as that was and that makes the

30:38

other like dated a challenge is a little

30:40

bit more manageable. What Did

30:43

you? Do personally to

30:45

move. I. In

30:47

not. Pass. But how

30:49

does you motivate yourself personally in

30:52

the midst of I'm sure extreme

30:54

Greece and and how to do

30:56

as a company move past that

30:59

like what kind of. Tone:

31:02

Do you even strides with your employees

31:04

when something like that happens? He? I

31:06

feel like it's the classic like fight

31:08

or flight or like wartime peacetime. see

31:10

our were. Not that I wasn't already

31:12

giving it a one hundred ten percent

31:14

in cared way too much about this

31:16

business and was like giving it everything

31:18

I can put my way of dealing

31:20

with. It probably not the most healthy

31:22

in retrospect, but like I need to

31:24

work twice as hard to make sure

31:26

that we can get through this. And

31:30

also. Kind. Of toeing the

31:32

line between vulnerability and going through that

31:34

while also being like everything's going to

31:36

be okay. It really was a time

31:38

in the company where you're so young

31:40

you don't have like dependencies and everyone's

31:43

contact sharing like he was owning, missing

31:45

critical things to the business and outside

31:47

of the person on. Tragedy

31:49

that it was. It's like oh shit,

31:51

who knows how to do anything and

31:53

like the business itself going like people

31:56

are sending emails that next day. Accessing

31:58

X y Z A worked perfectly. No

32:00

one knows how X y Z actually

32:02

works in the company and so sick.

32:04

A very tactical like any for everything

32:06

and anything had to be done on

32:08

my toe. Founders are incredible Sound. Both.

32:11

Of them are engineers as well. They

32:13

were teaching themselves new languages that he

32:15

was owning just to get caught up

32:17

on everyone. was like working extremely hard

32:19

as I feel nights. When.

32:21

Your. Son. Or a C

32:24

Are you have to have this

32:26

almost delusional level of excitement and

32:28

enthusiasm for your business. You have

32:30

to turn it into the bill

32:32

and all of your entire existence.

32:35

And I can imagine when something like

32:37

that happens. It might

32:39

trigger feelings. Let the my true

32:42

feelings. That is what it. What

32:44

is this will fulfil. Did you

32:46

feel. That you had

32:48

to sort of. Take. A

32:50

step back and kind of reevaluate the things

32:52

that they were important to you. As a

32:54

as a seer, I think that probably would

32:56

have been the healthier way to do it.

32:58

I. Have browned out and

33:01

like. That's why it's difficult to talk

33:03

about because it was so sick of

33:05

very high stress, chaotic situation. Yeah, it

33:07

was also like my way of dealing

33:09

with it was delusional. like. That

33:11

is terrible. But I'm going to put

33:13

my head down and work harder than

33:15

I possibly can to push forward to

33:17

Dm every single person on linked in

33:19

who could be a Ctl to help

33:22

us to reach out our contacts to

33:24

email every single user who's having issues

33:26

explaining the situation that we're working on

33:28

it but my way was the unhealthy.

33:30

like just grind it out and get

33:32

it done and like we will see

33:34

the other side of this and then.

33:37

Asked like I went to the scene

33:39

or on a tearing everything from his

33:41

friends and family of how much he

33:43

like. I didn't know lot of this

33:45

at the time but how much he

33:47

had attempted to.other start ups in the

33:50

past and kind of sale but how

33:52

entrepreneurial he was and how passes he

33:54

was about the I've actually a is

33:56

a lot of. Passion.

33:58

And like motivation and me. In. Giving.

34:01

It a broader purpose beyond. just

34:03

like yes, there's building a

34:05

successful business and. I'm. Extremely

34:07

competitive. I want to build a market

34:09

defining business and like the money and

34:11

same and everything else. Like all of

34:13

the other extraneous things that you would

34:16

build a company for by his mom

34:18

owns part of the company and adding

34:20

that as like a motivating factor too

34:22

kind of do it for him in

34:24

a way is also something that is

34:26

very top mind. What's. One

34:29

piece of advice for you: A gift

34:31

to. Have a young entrepreneurs

34:33

the you think is worth knowing for

34:35

decided to start a company. Yeah

34:37

it's a difficult last right? I

34:40

guess know why you're doing it? Yeah,

34:42

it's there's not a purpose like there's

34:44

a lot of terrible things that happen

34:46

in a day to day week to

34:48

week basis that you really need to

34:50

have the drive and like an end

34:52

goal of like what is your why

34:54

of why you want to build something

34:56

and without that I think it's really

34:58

easy to get caught up in the

35:00

negatives. Are building a business distress. Saw

35:03

lack of work life balance the expectations.

35:05

From now I have forty people that

35:07

look to me for answers, look for

35:09

me, force providing for their family and

35:11

there's a lot of expectation to continue

35:14

to build a successful business that can

35:16

pay them and provide for their family

35:18

And so without having like a real

35:20

vision and drive and why for what

35:22

you're doing, it becomes a lot easier

35:24

to lose sight and lose focus I

35:27

believe and also just like what it

35:29

takes to build a successful business. Like

35:31

what am I more controversial? But I

35:33

don't think that controversial takes is that

35:35

it's a huge competitive advantage to be

35:37

a single founder and like it. I

35:39

didn't it take that? However, you like

35:42

that I have other friends who are

35:44

building businesses and they can't work on

35:46

Thursday nights because they have to go

35:48

out to dinner or they're taking their

35:50

kid to the park on Saturdays. and

35:52

like I don't have that his I'm

35:55

for him for better or worse. I

35:57

like. My top ten priorities are how

35:59

do I make this business better and

36:01

stronger and how can we position ourselves

36:03

to dominate in this market? And so

36:05

the short term and in the medium

36:07

term and maybe long term like. That's

36:10

the only thing I really care about.

36:12

And I do think that's like a

36:14

huge competitive advantage relative to other people

36:16

who have other extraneous situations and circumstances.

36:18

Do you think that you. Had.

36:21

Your your wise? Yeah, that. Is.

36:24

Find your Why? Have you found it? Yeah,

36:26

I mean. I also think it

36:28

there's a level like is I complain all

36:31

the time but how stressed I am and

36:33

how they're so much to do and none

36:35

of time in the day but again day

36:37

is really find my god I'm solving problems,

36:39

I'm working with really talented smart people that

36:41

I like to work with and we are

36:43

the underdogs in a very competitive industry. Were

36:45

doing really well and it is like a

36:47

fun thing to do and I think is

36:49

fundamentally taking a step back and like you

36:51

work for what fifty sixty seventy percent of

36:53

your waking hours. You might as well do

36:56

something you care about and that's fine as

36:58

enjoyable. And challenging and every day is

37:00

a challenge. So on a personal level

37:02

the why I continued to learn, continuing

37:04

to build and do something that I

37:06

care about. I am also extremely competitive

37:09

and so I take notes of everyone

37:11

who said no to us on the

37:13

investing sigh all the competitors who think

37:15

that they can run over us like

37:17

the list goes on as like different

37:20

small things that motivate me but be

37:22

soon the competitive and wanting to build

37:24

something that I think can be as

37:26

synonymous as like a. A mail chimp

37:28

or a Google at one point is like

37:30

something that I'm trying to build and it's

37:33

a big, audacious goal And that's what makes

37:35

it fun is kind of put your head

37:37

down and try to build it. Or.

37:39

And with is what is what's been

37:41

the best moments. In this journey.

37:44

Your. Highest Highest. Yeah it might not seem

37:46

like much but there was a time

37:48

when I think one of our second

37:50

or third engineers joined and we were

37:52

making two thousand dollars a month and

37:54

I think maybe and off ten months

37:56

ago to put in slack is like

37:58

our missing twenty thousand dollar. The mounted

38:00

like panic since I've been here but

38:02

they that level of ownership of I've

38:04

been here and I help build that.

38:06

am I? Seeing that from someone that

38:08

you hired and has worked really hard

38:10

was like really close like a parent

38:12

moment of like someone who you trusted

38:15

to do alive and he's built it

38:17

in cross It's but the fact that

38:19

he can light. Really resonate

38:21

with hey I've been working my ass off

38:23

in building something and like here's why I

38:25

can show for like we've ten next seven

38:27

years since I've been here and I feel

38:29

like this I am happy to be a

38:31

part of. That is like all I could

38:33

ask for as the founder and providing opportunities

38:35

for people to do meaningful work that they

38:37

care about. And so that was a moment

38:39

where Sat had me and makes breeding that

38:41

was like really awesome. I'll be able to

38:44

do that for other employees as resale and

38:46

really Mickey to that one feels like they're

38:48

part of something special in there. Actually contributing

38:50

is like. My top priority as a found this

38:52

Oh thank you so much for coming on time

38:54

or the says this is awesome fat per se

38:56

as me. This

39:01

episode was produced by Claire Miller and

39:03

engineered by Benjamin Spencer or executive producers.

39:05

Adjacent started and cancer didn't and True

39:08

Bars or technical director thank you for

39:10

listening to First on found his from

39:12

the Vox Media for of Network furnace

39:14

on Wednesday for office hours. Monday off

39:16

the most. Superficial

39:39

comes from. Mercury doesn't are to make

39:41

him a complex. So simple everything should

39:43

be and sank so that even the

39:45

smallest parts of a bigger purpose simplistic

39:48

and transfer your business operations. That's why

39:50

Mercury powers your financial workflows from the

39:52

bank account. So ambitious companies have the

39:54

buses and control and focus they need

39:57

to perform at their best. apply and

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minutes. Admiral. the.com.