I Asked a $100M Founder for Life Advice
jayhoovy2023-11-16
Eric Wei#Trykarat#Karat Podcast#How to build a busieness#Business advice podcast#Startup Podcast#Graham Weaver#Stan#Founder Podcast#Founder Success Stories#Millionaire#Billionaire#How to find what you're passionate about#Professional Development#ted talk#Entrepreneurship#Eric Wei Karat#Startup Success Stories#How to make one million dollars#How To Raise Money For Startup
129K views|8 months ago
💫 Short Summary
Eric discusses the journey to success, emphasizing the importance of focusing on what truly matters and finding one's passion. He suggests that speaking with industry professionals, conducting mock interviews, and understanding the mechanics behind opportunities are crucial for building confidence and achieving success.Eric Wei discusses the strategic entry point of the credit card into the creator financial services market and the importance of addressing the heart, mind, and ego with product offerings. He also emphasizes the need for a good acquisition strategy and the potential for creators to become the distribution channels for financial products.
✨ Highlights
📊 Transcript
✦
Eric explains that achieving conventional success should not be the focus, and suggests shifting the mentality to not caring about external validators in the first place.
00:00Eric warns against caring too much about external validators of prestige.
He shares his personal experience of realizing that conventional success did not bring him happiness.
Eric suggests focusing on what one truly cares about, which involves a journey of self-discovery and conscious choice.
✦
To replicate success, one should speak with industry professionals, conduct mock interviews, and have a deep understanding of the subject through first principles thinking.
06:36Speaking with industry professionals and building valuable connections is important for success in interviews.
Conducting mock interviews helps in identifying and improving areas of vulnerability.
Having a deep understanding of the subject through first principles thinking can also contribute to building confidence and succeeding in interviews.
✦
First principles thinking involves reasoning from scratch and understanding the fundamental components of a problem, which is crucial for coming up with new ideas.
12:39First principles thinking is the process of reasoning from scratch and understanding the fundamental components of a problem.
In business, first principles thinking can be applied to break down problems into sub-problems and find innovative solutions.
The key to first principles thinking is to dig into the underlying elements of a problem and redesign solutions from scratch.
✦
The speaker suggests that in order to increase revenue for a t-shirt company, one needs to sell more t-shirts, which involves running more ads and working with content creators.
18:55To sell more t-shirts, the company can decrease prices, throw more ads, and work with content creators.
More ads require more capital or collaboration with content creators for organic impressions.
The approach is to break down the problem of increasing revenue into sub-problems and find different levers to achieve the goal.
✦
The speaker discusses the importance of finding a co-founder with complementary skills, getting feedback from users, and quickly prototyping and testing ideas.
25:00Finding a co-founder with complementary skills, friendship, trust, and the ability to dedicate time are important.
Talking to users, understanding their problems, and creating prototypes are crucial steps in the early stages of a business idea.
Testing and getting feedback from users is more valuable than theoretical planning and analysis.
✦
Building a product that solves a problem for a small group of creators is better than creating a mass-market product.
25:53Entering the market with a credit card is a strategic move that opens up the vision of building a bank for creators.
The Black Card for creators is a clever combination of addressing a user pain point and creating a viral organic growth.
Creators can also serve as a distribution channel and refer other business to the company.
✦
The company needs to focus on acquisition and building a brand to succeed in the financial technology and services industry.
28:11Effective underwriting and acquisition are crucial for success.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve card is an example of a card that built a brand and brought in customers for other products and services.
The company's goal is to bring creators into the Carro ecosystem and cross-sell other products in the future.
✦
Carrot aims to be the financial ecosystem for the creator economy, powering every dollar moving in and out.
30:01Distribution algorithms and business models are evolving in the creator economy.
Nectar, a brand of alcoholic seltzer drinks, developed a podcast as a marketing mechanism due to restrictions on traditional ads.
Creators are the new distribution channels in the evolving business landscape.
✦
Organic content is more powerful for brand building than traditional ads in the creator economy.
32:02Creating organic content helps people to connect with the brand and trust it.
Inbound marketing through organic content is better than outbound marketing.
The key to success is to create content that resonates with people and makes them adopt the product.
✦
The speaker suggests not to listen to advice blindly and to consider it as pure input.
34:20Acknowledgment that no one truly knows what they are doing.
The realization that the speaker knew more about certain topics than a successful and powerful individual.
The importance of making decisions based on what one thinks is right, despite the possibility of being wrong.
00:00 the number one thing that determines
00:01 whether you can raise money is if people
00:03 want to give you you've basically
00:05 collected achievements like Infinity
00:07 zones Harvard grad Blackstone Banker
00:10 Mackenzie consultant Instagram pm and
00:12 you raised $100 million for your own
00:13 startup what's the framework that
00:15 someone else can replicate to be as
00:17 prestigious as you've been I think
00:18 number one someone went to Harvard oh
00:21 yeah I know I guess it shows if you'd
00:23 oblige us I'd love to talk about the
00:25 practice the Tactical maybe we start
00:26 with how the heck you raise $100 million
00:29 so you ready
00:35 ER all right let's do it so Eric you
00:39 have a star studded resume Harvard grad
00:43 Blackstone Banker McKenzie consultant
00:45 Instagram pm and you raised $100 million
00:48 for your own startup so when you think
00:50 about being an early 20s kid or the
00:53 early young version of you what would be
00:55 the Playbook you would give that kid so
00:57 that they could re recreate that success
00:59 I think they the very first thing I tell
01:01 him is please don't give a and care
01:04 about any one of the things you've
01:05 listed
01:06 because it's all these external
01:09 validators of prestige frankly they're
01:12 all things that I did because I didn't
01:15 know what I wanted to do and I cared so
01:18 much about what other people thought so
01:21 like getting into Harvard was my life
01:23 stream and once I got there I was like
01:26 oh my gosh what was this all for I have
01:28 no sense what I actually care about
01:30 immediately lashed on to what I saw as
01:31 the next ladder up which was oh let's go
01:33 and work at Wall Street let's work at
01:35 Blackstone didn't like it went to
01:36 McKenzie then went to Tech and it wasn't
01:38 until about four years ago that I said
01:41 gosh none of this actually is making me
01:45 happy and I need to sit down and figure
01:48 out what I truly care about which
01:50 involved a lot of therapy and soul
01:51 searching so when we talk about a
01:54 Playbook I would focus Less on my
01:56 younger self on here's what you need to
02:00 do to hit conventional success and get
02:03 these jobs because I actually think the
02:06 bigger outcome is Shifting the mentality
02:09 to not caring about them in the first
02:11 place so I I can sense the hesitancy in
02:14 like giving the Tactical cuz I really
02:16 want to tease that out of you because
02:17 you have so much knowledge to share so
02:19 then before we dive into that maybe I
02:21 can get that out of you later but then
02:23 let's then why don't we set the right
02:24 foundation yeah why don't we set the
02:26 healthy question of how do you figure
02:29 out what you genuinely want to do versus
02:32 what Society has told us to do in order
02:34 to be happy so there's this interesting
02:37 analogy it's called like Goldberg's
02:39 moral system of reasoning it's like how
02:41 do people someone went Harvard oh yeah I
02:43 know I guess it
02:45 shows it's a theory that describes like
02:48 how do people like develop a sense of
02:49 like what is right like what is ethics
02:51 and I'll tie this to like how you figure
02:53 out like what is right for like you as a
02:55 person what you care about so the system
02:57 basically says like when you're growing
02:58 up your sense of morality like what is
03:00 right or onest dependent like initially
03:01 it goes through for like four steps step
03:03 number one is just like does this make
03:04 me happy personally individually if it
03:06 makes me happy it must be morally good
03:09 and like this is like when you're a kid
03:10 like you do things that make you feel
03:11 good you avoid things that make you feel
03:12 bad that's number one number two it
03:14 becomes oh it's like what authority
03:16 figures tell me like this is what my
03:18 parents tell me like my morality is
03:20 dictated but my parents think is good
03:21 and bad and number three it becomes oh
03:24 it's not my parents and authority
03:26 figures it's like the law it's
03:28 Society if the government has a law
03:31 dictating like you should do X or you
03:32 should do y like I am a law abiding
03:35 citizen that is what is moral that is
03:36 what is just and many people stick to
03:39 that level there's a fourth level which
03:41 like Martin Luther King Jr alludes to
03:43 and is like you know letters from aam
03:45 jail which is you develop your own
03:47 independent sense of morality where you
03:49 look at the laws of society and you say
03:51 laws are but in imperfect measure of
03:54 like what is right just because it's a
03:55 law doesn't mean it's right it's a
03:57 attempt to try and capture it so I can
03:59 come come up with my own sense of what
04:01 is right even if it's different than the
04:03 law and I go through all of this to say
04:05 I think that to find out what you're
04:07 truly passionate about you have to go
04:10 through like this very similar Journey
04:11 where initially you like as a kid the
04:15 things you want to do are actually very
04:16 easy for you to identify like we all
04:18 have like our childhood dreams like for
04:19 me it was like reading and writing and
04:21 watching YouTube and playing video games
04:22 and that's why sometimes people say to
04:24 find your passion go back to when you
04:25 were a kid because like there's this
04:27 very simple system of reasoning it's
04:29 like if I want this it is good and then
04:31 in the second and third stage is like we
04:33 lose that because our parents our
04:36 classmates our friends the school system
04:38 the government begins to instill into
04:40 you what we think is right and so you
04:43 internalize and that's when we lose
04:44 those childhood dreams and that's when
04:45 me Eric shifted from like I want to do
04:47 something creative to like you know
04:49 10-year-old Eric's like I want to be an
04:50 investment banker yeah like not even
04:52 knowing what it is like my dad thinks
04:54 Investment Banking well I want to be
04:55 investment banker and I go to Harvard
04:56 and like everyone's going to Investment
04:58 Banking and management consulting like
04:59 oh I want to do that too and then you
05:02 get to that final stage it's like what
05:03 do I actually care about and that's
05:06 where I think you have to go back to in
05:08 some ways like what you liked as a kid
05:12 but now make that conscious Choice do I
05:14 want to reprioritize what I liked as a
05:16 kid being aware of the trade-offs that I
05:19 am making like there's a reason why your
05:21 parents in society recommend these goals
05:24 for you like hey for me my dad was like
05:27 you I really want you go into finest to
05:28 have this like stable Financial career
05:30 that I never had and because look
05:33 Prestige nobody can take that Prestige
05:36 away from you you can always be like I'm
05:38 doing the right thing well there's a
05:40 trade-off when you now decide when I
05:42 decided to leave that behind I'm now
05:44 giving up the financial stability like
05:47 everything could go to like I run a
05:48 venture back startup my co-founder like
05:50 we could lose everything that's just the
05:51 risk and now like I have to find ways to
05:54 validate myself other than external
05:55 Prestige like yeah we raised over $100
05:56 million but what if we hadn't for a long
05:59 time we didn't what if it doesn't work
06:01 and so you almost have to like
06:03 consciously decide to go back to what I
06:05 wanted to do as a kid knowing oh it's
06:08 going to suck in a very few specific
06:10 ways and am I okay with those different
06:13 ways in which it is going to suck H you
06:16 know what I'm realizing
06:18 is I think we've existential ised yeah a
06:22 lot of this conversation we're we're
06:24 overintellectualizing the founder
06:25 Journey so now I'm curious if you'll if
06:28 you'll oblige me now oh certainly we've
06:30 done enough therapizing talking about
06:32 the journey at large in a philosophical
06:34 way I'd love to get tactical cuz this is
06:36 about living life and now crushing it
06:38 it's both life is both theory and
06:40 practice sure so you've basically
06:43 collected achievements like Infinity
06:45 Stones you were like an Asian parents
06:48 wet dream I'm so glad I don't introduce
06:50 you to my mom like I would have an awful
06:52 time hearing about you for the rest of
06:53 my life there you know independent of
06:58 whether or not going to Harvard or
06:59 getting into Mackenzie is something
07:01 truly right for someone there is however
07:03 like a distillable process it's
07:04 repeatable tactical framework what would
07:07 you say is that like what's the advice
07:09 you would give to someone who wants
07:10 those things I think number one it's
07:14 speak with as many people in the
07:15 industry already who are doing it and
07:17 that's really important because a lot of
07:19 how I succeeded on these interviews was
07:21 because I fundamentally had a better
07:23 understanding of like this is what the
07:24 job actually is and so I understand why
07:26 they're asking these questions and and
07:30 you build valuable
07:32 connections who may be down to give you
07:34 an edge in the recruiting process so I
07:36 think that's Point number one point
07:38 number two and this is actually Ted my
07:40 first point is getting as many mocks as
07:43 possible where say you've done the work
07:45 to like speak to as many people in the
07:46 industry and you learn what the job is
07:48 like and you maybe have an edge in the
07:49 recruiting process great now I ask you
07:50 do mocks with them same point you made
07:53 on Theory versus
07:55 practice you can like intellectualize
07:57 all day on what you should be answering
08:00 these questions and how but you just
08:02 have to go and do it when we applied for
08:06 y
08:07 combinator I went and lined up like over
08:09 20 mocks from people it's not even that
08:10 many but we had very short period of
08:12 time and just went boom boom boom
08:13 through each one and each time I got
08:15 markedly better same thing with Facebook
08:17 Instagram the prodct manager interview
08:19 the Consulting interview for McKenzie
08:21 the financial statements analysis for
08:23 Blackstone I just do a ton of mocks
08:25 and sometimes there's this fear where
08:26 you're like I don't want to like look
08:28 stupid or like no I should wait until
08:30 like I've studied more myself and then
08:32 then go do the mock and I'm like no just
08:34 go into the mock now because that's
08:36 what's going to reveal your
08:37 vulnerabilities yes more than anything
08:40 the lesson learned there is just do it
08:42 we're so we're so in our heads with so
08:44 much fear intellectualizing things
08:45 trying to build the perfect scenario
08:47 rather than just like living it going
08:48 for it yes and so I'm curious for you
08:51 how have you had the confidence to just
08:53 go for these big things like to have the
08:55 Brazen confidence to some degrees be
08:57 like I'm going to get into Harvard or
08:58 like the Brazen confidence to leave your
08:59 Instagram job to be like I'm going to go
09:02 build a company and then think that I
09:03 can raise $100
09:04 million part of it is what we spoke to
09:07 earlier on collect enough Infinity
09:10 Stones and you build enough
09:11 psychological safety that you make risk
09:12 your decisions so confidence Builds on
09:15 itself over time like I've done enough
09:18 of these externally pretigious
09:20 occupations that I can now know to
09:23 myself I'm not a idiot which I
09:26 don't say that to sound pompous I say
09:28 that because for 99% of my life that's
09:32 what I thought about myself deep down
09:34 I'm actually just stupid and a fraud and
09:37 I finally got to a point where I'm like
09:39 no I don't think I'm an idiot now I have
09:42 so many other Warriors and insecurities
09:43 like I don't know if I'm a good founder
09:45 I don't know if I'm a good manager but
09:47 at
09:48 least all the things I've done
09:50 previously have given me the confidence
09:51 and be like I am not an idiot and I can
09:52 sit here and I can figure things out now
09:54 that answers part of your question
09:56 because then of course it begs well how
09:58 did you you build confidence in those
10:00 earlier phases to get those things in
10:01 the first
10:03 place I think so much of it
10:08 was really coming down to the previous
10:10 Point around mocks where I could tell
10:13 myself look I don't know if I'm going to
10:15 get this or not but I have done more
10:19 mock interviews than anybody else and
10:22 and this is the third point I was going
10:24 to say if part of it's like talk to many
10:26 people and the second point is do the mo
10:27 the third is like what I allude to
10:29 genuinely understand via first
10:31 principles uh like the answers these
10:33 questions such that you could even come
10:34 up with more questions yourself and riff
10:36 and just ask yourselves this and I think
10:38 it the confidence I had in one that I
10:40 done a lot of mocks and two like I
10:41 actually understood the mechanics Behind
10:44 these things and I think on a level that
10:46 other people never really did I remember
10:49 when I was recruiting for investment
10:51 banking one of my mentors and friends of
10:53 mine was like a 30-year-old plus VP in
10:56 like structured Finance coming from bar
10:58 or something and he like took me out for
11:00 lunch he asked me a
11:03 question that I don't even remember
11:06 exactly what it was it was something
11:08 around like Bond pricing and like how
11:11 you price a
11:13 bond if like the markets are doing
11:16 especially worse I don't remember
11:18 exactly but it was like nothing in like
11:19 any one of these like books yeah
11:22 and it wasn't like anything he pre me
11:24 like I'm going to ask you a question
11:24 about bond prices like usually the
11:26 questions we got in these Investment
11:27 Bank interviews aren't even on that
11:29 right and I answered it because I
11:32 remember distinctly I had been curious
11:35 enough about this exact question like
11:37 months ago like no one asked me this I
11:39 was just like sitting there trying to
11:40 understand how Bond pricing worked we
11:42 like nerd yeah I know totally nerd and
11:45 like as you know like very high level
11:47 right like there's a certain return
11:49 investors expect from the market and
11:50 from this individual company and if like
11:53 the coupon rate of what the bond returns
11:55 is a certain amount but suddenly becomes
11:56 riskier than the price at which the bond
11:58 is being obviously drop the Y becomes
12:00 higher there's like some side cor of
12:03 this mechanism that I just was like
12:04 curious about and so he asked me a
12:06 question I really knew the answer and he
12:07 literally just looked at me and he was
12:08 just like I go out to the floor right
12:10 now and like the traitors I work with
12:12 would not know the answer to this yeah
12:15 so you mentioned a very famous Silicon
12:18 Valley buzzword which is first
12:19 principles thinking yeah I I live and
12:23 Breathe by this now I I attribute so
12:25 much of our success to First principles
12:27 thinking but
12:29 if you were to press me to describe that
12:31 it's so abstract could you concrete
12:33 could you give everyone here watching a
12:35 concrete understanding what is first
12:37 princial thinking and then why is it so
12:39 important so when you're reasoning how
12:42 to do something you can learn either via
12:46 analogy by falling into Frameworks of
12:49 how you've seen similar things occur or
12:52 examples or you can sit down and reason
12:56 everything from scratch it's almost as
12:59 if like hey I want to like build a
13:04 camera I from first principles would
13:07 think through literally like okay what
13:10 is and by the way I know like nothing
13:11 about cameras photography but like what
13:13 is the purpose of a camera like what is
13:15 a camera trying to solve it is trying to
13:17 capture an image of Me In This Moment
13:19 such that it can be reflected how do I
13:22 even capture an image like you would
13:25 almost reconstruct from scratch the
13:28 principles of how a lot of things work
13:30 it's the opposite of abstraction
13:32 abstraction is very helpful I don't need
13:33 to know how this camera Works in order
13:35 to use it I just need to know I press
13:37 this button and that's good enough
13:38 because we're in a knowledge economy
13:40 where everyone specializes you get paid
13:42 very highly specializing in one thing
13:44 and everything else is abstracted that's
13:46 fine but when you want to come up with
13:48 something new you have to dig into the
13:50 things that you've taken for granted and
13:51 say if I were to redesigns from scratch
13:54 how would I do this actually
13:56 understanding every component of it I
13:58 love it you know the other way that uh
14:01 we think about first principes Sometimes
14:02 is just in problem solving in terms of
14:05 if the problem is as simple in business
14:07 as like I need to increase revenue and
14:09 you run a t-shirt company I think the
14:11 way that I think about first principles
14:12 thinking for this lens is like okay well
14:13 if you want to increase Revenue what do
14:15 you have to do you have to sell more
14:16 t-shirts and you just keep going down
14:18 layers of logical hierarchies where it's
14:20 like okay well how do I sell more
14:21 t-shirts well I mean I need to run more
14:23 ads right I need more people to buy more
14:25 t-shirts and so you end up finding all
14:27 these different levers of how you can do
14:28 that so it's like I could decrease price
14:30 or I could throw more ads well how do I
14:32 actually throw more ads at something
14:33 well I need more capital or maybe I can
14:35 work with content creators to get more
14:37 organic compressions basically it's just
14:38 like breaking down a problem into its
14:40 sub problems until you get to the core
14:42 which is that foundational principle
14:44 that problem soling method is very
14:46 similar to the theory that Consultants
14:47 do the difference what separates us from
14:49 Consultants is we then go and try as
14:52 quick as possible to confirm whether
14:54 some of her assumptions are correct or
14:55 not and then charge $100,000 in fees
14:58 well that's also what they do and what
14:59 we don't do so that's another difference
15:00 between us and Consultants I'm realizing
15:02 we should take a step back actually and
15:04 because there's so many folks watching
15:06 now who want to start their own business
15:07 one day if you were to go back and be
15:09 Eric from 2020 starting your first ever
15:11 company let's say maybe even use car as
15:14 an example how do you literally
15:16 tactically it started like how do you
15:18 actually create traction how do you know
15:21 that it's a good business idea to get to
15:22 the even point where you have enough
15:24 data to go out and
15:25 raise so I think
15:29 there's two approaches to this and I
15:30 think both work and you need both of
15:32 them it's just a matter of sequencing
15:33 the two things that are most important
15:34 is one your
15:35 co-founder and second do people actually
15:39 have a problem that needs to be solved
15:42 let's talk about the first one
15:44 co-founder I know there are a lot of
15:46 amazing solo Founders out there I have
15:49 no idea how they do it truly I couldn't
15:51 do it because the journey it's really
15:55 really hard and I think for me at least
15:57 part of the motivation behind starting
15:58 company obviously part of it was my own
16:00 agency the potential Financial upside
16:03 the mission of building for creators
16:04 part of is also wanting to work with
16:05 people that I actually really really
16:07 like I mean I'm sure all of us have been
16:08 in workplaces where we work with
16:10 co-workers that we don't like working
16:11 with if you're going to do your own
16:12 thing you might as well do it with
16:13 someone you actually appreciate I think
16:15 is so important for me you almost in a
16:18 way want to start with your co-founder
16:19 and you know Paul Graham from White
16:20 commentator says like some of the best
16:22 times to find your co-founders like when
16:23 you're in school because you are to find
16:26 a good co-founder you need to find
16:27 someone who
16:29 has a complimentary set of skills to you
16:33 you get along well as friends and you
16:34 trust them and is in a place in life
16:38 where they can just spend a lot of time
16:40 on something that might not work and
16:42 weirdly like college is a great way to
16:43 do that I met my co-founder actually in
16:46 about 2016 gosh it's seven years oh my
16:49 gosh we were friends three years before
16:50 we started carrot four years of carrot
16:52 where we just met a board games and we
16:53 just really hit it off because we were
16:55 both asian-americans trying to think
16:57 through I'm working these corporate jobs
16:58 I don't like them I want to do something
16:59 different and he was about to quit
17:03 studying at Stanford to start his own
17:05 multi-million doll Venture Capital firm
17:07 as like a 20 year old or 21 year old or
17:10 however old he was back then I was like
17:11 that's really cool this guy's really
17:12 dope and eventually that turned into we
17:14 should do something together so I think
17:16 that's the most important thing and
17:17 everyone ask like how do you find
17:18 someone it really is like dating right
17:21 yep and I say it's like dating because
17:23 that's how you can reconcile hearing
17:25 this like classically advice
17:27 like it will happen when you're not
17:28 looking with them with the like well if
17:30 it's like completely useless advice like
17:32 why does everyone say it because it is
17:33 like dating you can be very focused and
17:36 go and actively try and find people and
17:38 you might not meet someone and you might
17:39 meet somebody when you're not looking
17:40 but the best way is to make your own
17:42 opportunities and try to expose yourself
17:44 to as much surface area as possible
17:46 build as many relationships and friends
17:47 go at as many events as possible that's
17:49 how you increase the probability you
17:50 will run into something that eventually
17:53 leads you to your co-founder the second
17:55 thing as they said is like actually talk
17:56 to goddamn users I can tell you how many
17:59 friends I have like because you know I
18:01 used to be a consultant a lot of
18:02 consultant friends and like they tell me
18:03 they want to do something like okay like
18:05 what have you done so far like here's a
18:07 great example like oh yeah I want to
18:09 like come up
18:11 with this new type of supplement that
18:14 helps people sleep better at night and
18:15 it's like more organic than like what's
18:16 out there today like melatonin or
18:18 whatever it's like a better alternative
18:20 and I mentioned this because I remember
18:22 we literally talked with a consultant
18:23 friend who's Like This brilliant guy and
18:25 my co-founder and I weirdly enough we're
18:27 looking at the same thing ourselves
18:29 and the approach we took and the
18:30 approach she took were so diametrically
18:32 different approach we took was we
18:33 literally just like went around to a lot
18:36 of people and we're just like hey like
18:38 what are the problems you have with
18:39 sleep and like understood like oh you
18:41 know I have a huge problem with sleep
18:43 because I stay up till 3:00 a.m.
18:46 watching YouTube this is what I do right
18:49 and I really then have to wake up in the
18:52 morning for like my 8: a.m. thing and
18:53 then I have trouble falling asleep and
18:55 then it's like well you hear that
18:56 problem and it's like oh like is the
18:57 sleeping supplement like really the best
18:59 way to solve that like I don't know but
19:01 like hey I'm talking to an actual user
19:02 I'm hearing the actual problem they have
19:04 versus our friend who's a consultant
19:05 like he had the same idea what was the
19:07 first thing he did he didn't talk to
19:08 anyone he just built an Excel model he
19:09 built an Excel model that just projected
19:11 over the next no yeah it just projected
19:13 over the next like 1 2 3 4 5 like up to
19:16 like 10 15 20 years like here's the like
19:19 overall size of like the sleeping
19:20 supplement Tam like the overall
19:22 addressable market and like here's my
19:25 model with like here's my Revenue driver
19:27 I'm just going to like assume what
19:28 percentage of that addressable Market I
19:29 get over time and then like what's the
19:31 cost I think to like manufacture this
19:33 product and so like you know by like
19:34 year 10 we're like a billion dollar
19:35 company yeah and it's like oh that's
19:37 like so wrong like not only are you're
19:39 not talking to users you're also not
19:41 like testing and doing something like
19:42 you're purely intellectualizing which we
19:44 were doing before yeah you're you're
19:45 totally just like you you're right like
19:47 you're basically building this like
19:48 model and scaffold you're not doing much
19:51 like it's so much more to talk to people
19:52 and then like try and get a hacky
19:54 prototype even if it like sucks
19:55 and it's entirely manual like our first
19:58 credit card quote unquote that we built
20:00 it like wasn't even a real credit card
20:01 like literally when we onboarded
20:04 creators we onboard like some Youtubers
20:05 with millions of followers and they like
20:06 they spent money with the card that we
20:08 Advanced to them and we were like they
20:11 were like oh like how do I like remit
20:12 money back to you there's like no
20:14 product feature built out for that yet
20:15 and it's because we just didn't build it
20:16 and we're just like you're special like
20:19 you're part of her like our first set of
20:20 users like you're so special you like
20:23 don't need have the free money yeah you
20:24 don't you don't need to like remit
20:26 payment for like three plus months like
20:28 we'll just like just like take the
20:29 advance it's fine like it's not a bug
20:31 it's a feature like we weren't willing
20:34 to even wait until more of that was
20:35 built out to just go and test it you
20:37 have to the best advice is if you're
20:38 shipping when you're not embarrassed
20:39 you're shipping too late exactly like
20:41 you need to like H feel like yeah you
20:43 have to cringe you have to physically
20:45 it's a read hoffen quote it's like you
20:47 got to feel shame because like if you if
20:49 you wait until it's perfect guess what
20:51 you're probably wrong you've wasted time
20:52 and so like yeah part of it's finding
20:54 that co-founder part of it is like you
20:55 got to like go out talk to the people
20:57 quickly like I
20:58 I've been talking I've been working on
21:00 carrot in some way since like 2017 18
21:03 because I just like go to conferences
21:04 just talk to people and be like what are
21:05 the problems you have right yeah and
21:07 then like get something out really hacky
21:08 and so I think like those are by far the
21:10 most important things and my co-founder
21:11 and I we did lots of things before
21:13 eventually going for care like there's
21:15 one afternoon we like literally went
21:16 around like pal Alto and just talked to
21:18 parents being like Oh like how do you
21:20 like teach your kids and like educate
21:22 them we thought there might be some
21:22 opportunity to build like a thing that
21:24 helped kids figure out what they wanted
21:25 to do when they were young like we
21:26 explored everything but it was always
21:27 like let's go and talk to users let's
21:29 like prototype something really quickly
21:30 actually do there's only so much
21:32 theorizing you can do so I actually this
21:34 is pretty tactical but I I want to dive
21:36 into it because I think you guys were
21:37 super clever in your entry wedge can you
21:40 talk more about this card and I think it
21:43 was such a thoughtful idea so where we
21:46 start out and show it yeah oh I don't I
21:50 don't have my I don't have my wallet we
21:52 can like edit in me with like a photo's
21:55 aoto like right right here this is me
21:57 this is me with the care card yay yeah
21:59 so you know we started initially with
22:01 like oh well like let's apply heris
22:03 stics from what we've seen in other
22:04 Industries like business Capital like
22:06 every small medium business needs access
22:08 to capital capital helps you grow
22:10 Capital means you have cash in your
22:12 account you can do new interesting
22:13 things they're like oh let's go around
22:15 to creators and this is what I alluded
22:17 to before and like try and offer them
22:18 capital and the reason why we decided to
22:20 stop even though we were in the middle
22:22 of Y combinator and we like need to
22:23 fundraise number one like it was so hard
22:25 to get creators trust like they
22:27 literally turned down p free stimulus
22:28 money some dude or woman comes to you
22:31 off the street and it's like do you do
22:32 you want like free money like sign too
22:35 good to be true and like you can have
22:36 like a slightly stricter version of that
22:37 it's not free money but it's like better
22:38 race than a normal Bank do you want this
22:40 they're just like what's the cash scary
22:42 yeah yeah and it's like well look normal
22:44 Banks don't understand how to underwrite
22:46 you as a Creator we do because I'm not
22:48 like 80 years old who like you know live
22:50 in like wherever and never even talk to
22:52 a YouTuber so I can and they still don't
22:54 trust you so like number one like
22:55 there's a big problem around trust
22:57 number two you end up as I said working
22:59 through the middlemen instead of the
23:00 creators themselves and number three
23:02 it's like a very one-time thing you need
23:04 like oh cool like I got my loan or
23:06 whatever and then like you don't really
23:08 need them again and then we're like we
23:10 need to build something that creators
23:12 can understand intuitively so that's
23:13 when John we went to taxes and that
23:16 failed too because you know there's
23:18 saying what's inevitable in life it's
23:20 death and taxes guess what people don't
23:22 like death people don't like taxes
23:23 either I actually thought about before I
23:25 started saying I thought about doing
23:26 Creator taxes too and then I real Iz no
23:28 one wants to have this conversation with
23:30 you nope it's a hard cell to be like
23:32 precisely right I'm going to take more
23:34 money than you and you never started a
23:36 business thinking you would have to pay
23:37 oh yeah it's like I'm going to charge
23:38 you money like I'm saving you money but
23:40 you don't see that you see that very
23:42 abstractly I'm not making you money
23:43 though and exactly same as you we were
23:46 like well okay 99% of the time creators
23:48 do not want to talk about this and guess
23:49 what the 1% of the time they do they go
23:52 to someone they already know and it's
23:53 too late if they don't know you already
23:54 yeah so then we're like okay it needs to
23:56 be understandable simp simple and top of
23:59 mind enough to cut through the rest of
24:01 the noise the reason why we ended up
24:03 developing what became the carrot
24:05 business credit card which underwrites
24:07 creators off socials and financials
24:09 instead of credit history so gives them
24:10 higher limits builds your credit history
24:13 and gives them really good reward it's
24:15 could be customized to all for creators
24:16 it's almost like the American Express
24:18 Platinum but exclusively for creators
24:20 the reason why we figured this out was
24:23 because we were testing 50 gazillion
24:24 different projects and products we were
24:25 sending out a ton of cold emails
24:28 uh like cold is like that's get used to
24:30 the cold grind oh yeah it's like you
24:31 don't know what you're doing you're just
24:32 like ask people and a really massive
24:36 YouTuber with over 10 million
24:39 followers just responded and called me
24:42 it was like insane like he didn't reply
24:44 he literally called me cuz I put my
24:45 number and
24:46 everything and he's just like oh you can
24:48 give me a business credit card with liit
24:50 that makes sense we're just like yeah
24:51 and he's like better not this up I
24:54 was like I will try my goddamn hardest
24:56 not to
24:58 he's like all right let's do this and
25:00 that that one card holder he was such a
25:03 big YouTuber that we were like maybe
25:05 there's something here the second proof
25:08 Point actually was I was watching
25:09 ludwick's stream back a year and a half
25:12 ago he was like streaming
25:14 24/7 and one of my friends was also
25:17 watching the stream he sent me a clip
25:19 where they're like trying to use lwig
25:22 card to like gift Subs to buy subs and
25:24 give them back to viewers to keep the
25:25 sub going and his car keeps getting
25:27 declining his card is a li like $10,000
25:29 something ridiculous and I was like oh
25:31 my God this is literally the problem we
25:32 solving so we cold DM ludwick's team and
25:36 lwig signs up and uses the card because
25:39 we give him a limit that makes sense
25:40 because again lwig despite being
25:42 brilliant making so much money doesn't
25:44 have the traditional set of metrics that
25:46 a normal bank would look at and be like
25:47 this man is worth it and eventually we
25:49 even brought him on as an investor as
25:50 well to be clear most creators don't
25:53 have this problem but it is better to
25:56 build a product that Sol solves a
25:58 problem that a small group of your
26:00 creators and clients and users really
26:02 care about than one that a large mass of
26:05 them kind of go yeah and so I'll do some
26:08 of the bragging for you because I think
26:10 how you guys have entered the market is
26:11 so so clever there's a strategic Ang
26:15 Angel there's a strategic angle to the
26:19 entry wedge of a credit card because it
26:21 opens up your in goal vision of building
26:23 the entire bank for creators right your
26:25 the point of transaction you can do so
26:27 much off of that you can issue more
26:28 credit you can help with taxes all that
26:31 stuff but I actually the reason before I
26:34 even met you and knew about the company
26:35 I had so many Creator friends who had
26:37 the Black Card we're going to edit it
26:38 pop up right here there's so many black
26:40 cards it was so Cris it was the AMX
26:42 brand model just like you were saying
26:44 and when you think about your customer
26:47 set these like flashy creators who like
26:49 want to feel special and seen and
26:51 exclusive as soon as someone pulled that
26:53 out we were all just like at drinks like
26:55 oh I want one of those and so that's
26:57 such a clever combination of combining a
26:59 user paino that they clearly have with
27:02 then also like a viral organic growth
27:04 hack so I think there's two three points
27:06 there the first one is yes if you're
27:08 serving creators creators can also
27:09 become your distribution too like your
27:11 very clients their jobs are sharing
27:14 interesting things with other people so
27:15 if you do a good job and you build a gr
27:16 relationship you not only win a client
27:18 you win someone who can refer other
27:20 business to you and I think you've seen
27:21 that as well with st yes the second
27:23 thing so Samir from Colin and Samir I'm
27:27 going to quot him quoting Scott Galloway
27:29 so this like potentially it's a
27:31 bastardized version of what Scott
27:32 Galloway actually said who knows it's
27:34 going through three people at this point
27:36 but he said like what you really need to
27:37 care about is like you want to build a
27:39 product that addresses the heart the
27:43 mind and the
27:45 ego and he was like yeah like look from
27:48 a heart perspective it's about the
27:50 mission of what we're trying to build
27:51 better financial services for creators
27:52 from the Mind perspective it's like well
27:54 a normal bank doesn't know how to under
27:55 at you but we do so we can do better
27:58 and from the ego side it's like yeah
28:00 this is a really cool card that all my
28:03 friends have people forget and this
28:05 least to my third point when you think
28:06 about building Financial technology and
28:08 services you need to win across a
28:11 spectrum of those things and these
28:13 things and we learned this from the
28:13 co-founder of PayPal it's how effective
28:16 you are underwriting it's your cost of
28:18 capital and it's your acquisition yes
28:21 and people sometimes forget even if
28:22 you're better on underwriting which
28:24 arguably we are because we're ingesting
28:25 all this financial and social data and
28:27 like we're extending credit and we're
28:28 learning how to underwrite and Let's
28:30 ignore the cost of capital piece for now
28:31 you have to be really good at
28:32 acquisition and to be really good at
28:34 acquisition you want to build a brand
28:36 many of the top performing financial
28:38 institutions launched with credit cards
28:40 that built that brand in the reality
28:42 that brought in customers who then ended
28:44 up using other products too one of the
28:46 great examples is the Chase Sapphire
28:47 Reserve card which there's an Infamous
28:49 quote reporter asked Jamie Diamond the
28:51 head of Chase at the time says oh like
28:52 how much money did you make off the
28:53 Chase Sapphire Reserve card and Jamie
28:55 Diamond says we made negative $200
28:58 million and John the reporter says well
29:00 that sounds awful how much money do you
29:02 wish you had made and Jamie Diamond goes
29:05 I wish we made Nega $400 million because
29:08 the expense they incur is more than made
29:10 up for the long-term value of Chase card
29:13 holders end up using chase other
29:15 products and services and so it's the
29:17 same for us for marketing POV to have a
29:20 card that creators can share with each
29:22 other and it looks cool and it appeals
29:24 to the ego part of what we described
29:28 great now I have a way of bringing
29:29 creators into the Carro ecosystem where
29:31 I build that brand that relationship I
29:33 get the data to build an underwriting
29:34 model that eventually I can develop
29:36 other products and services to cross-
29:39 sell them onto right and that's very
29:41 much our business model and so now to
29:45 make that really concrete for people in
29:47 terms of your vision if if you were to
29:50 think about this Market going into
29:53 maturity and how carot plays a role in
29:55 this ecosystem what would be your dream
29:57 in terms of what you guys have built how
29:59 you've helped the world how you've
30:00 helped
30:01 creators so in the year 2000 give or
30:04 take and you know we were B young ones
30:06 back then it was really exciting to talk
30:08 about being an internet company because
30:11 that's the new sexy technology we are an
30:14 internet company and we're going to kill
30:16 it you know went through a little bit of
30:18 a bust but
30:20 eventually Everyone's an internet
30:22 company it's so fundamental and basic to
30:25 how you operate as a business that I
30:26 don't think anyone describes themselves
30:29 as an internet company because it's just
30:31 assumed you use the internet to
30:33 accomplish some goal and means as a
30:35 business that's how you describe
30:36 yourself I am a hotel company I am a
30:39 supermarket company I'm a Creator
30:40 company using the internet
30:43 implicit as it becomes easier and easier
30:47 to create content and the distribution
30:50 algorithms become better and better via
30:52 the algorithm and more and more people
30:54 find business models around how to make
30:56 money from
30:58 content everyone's going to be making it
31:01 just naturally just assumed and in that
31:04 world we want carrot to be the financial
31:06 rails the ecosystem that powers every
31:09 dollar moving in and out of that right
31:10 payments coming in payments coming out
31:12 bank accounts mortgages credit we're
31:14 already beginning to see like very early
31:17 versions of this come through from the
31:19 Creator side like a a really good
31:21 example is this brand of alcoholic seler
31:25 drinks called nectar like a competitor
31:28 to whiteclaw I think they're better than
31:30 whiteclaw and well guess what you can't
31:32 really run ads cuz it's alcoholic their
31:33 whole strategy they also developed a
31:35 podcast called The Under the Influence
31:37 podcast and like that con was developed
31:40 in the context of it is a marketing
31:42 mechanism for my product because I
31:44 cannot run traditional ads but
31:46 eventually does the tail start to Wag
31:48 the Dog now the con's become such a huge
31:50 thing they're like doing their own
31:52 original content like in some ways the
31:54 content itself is now a huge business
31:56 line too and then it's like like is it a
31:58 drink cpg company that started a conon
32:00 arm is it a YouTube channel that now has
32:02 a drink to promote I think over time
32:04 we'll see more and more of that happen I
32:07 think the key Insight that you're
32:08 sharing there stems from actually a nval
32:11 tweet that I read many years ago which
32:12 was eventually everyone will be in the
32:14 Creator economy and then the key Insight
32:17 that I always preach to my team is
32:19 creators are just the new distribution
32:20 channels right even if they could run
32:22 ads for that alcoholic company I would
32:25 argue they should instead create organic
32:26 content cu no one watches ads anymore we
32:29 instead want to connect with people
32:30 right and like organic content that we
32:32 actually trust I think it's a great case
32:34 even for yourself right you create your
32:36 own content undoubtedly I assume in some
32:38 part due to the personal fulfillment
32:40 which I feel is well creating content
32:42 for those of you watching check out our
32:43 podcast on the tri car interview live
32:46 creators it's a lot of fun but also like
32:48 it helps the brand behind what you're
32:50 doing behind Stan again this and for
32:53 people to get to know you and if they
32:54 sign up for Stan it's far more powerful
32:58 than like I don't know I saw some
33:00 commercial and like John was there
33:02 talking about Stan where I know it was
33:04 literally paid to be like forcibly
33:05 placed in front of my eyes totally this
33:07 is organic it's content as you think
33:09 about building your business content
33:12 flips the model from H I think almost
33:15 every entrepreneur starts with the cold
33:16 emails that we sent right to just like
33:18 validate ideas that's like the pain the
33:21 dues you have to pay yeah but then once
33:22 you understand your voice your product
33:25 your strategy you start to create
33:27 organic content that hopefully gives you
33:28 energy and is your artistic expression
33:30 as well that then flips the model so
33:33 that people come to find you cuz they
33:34 see their problems within you or what
33:36 have you and then they come and adopt
33:37 your product yeah in some ways like
33:39 people have always been aware in sales
33:40 like inbound is much better than
33:42 outbound like when people come to you
33:43 it's better than when you go to them it
33:44 was always was framed in this like
33:45 content marketing now it's just like oh
33:47 it's just creating content yes um Eric
33:49 I'll ask you one last question TI us off
33:52 which is if you could put a billboard
33:53 out there with a single phrase sentence
33:56 anything out there there for the world
33:57 to see what would you put on
33:59 it I think nobody knows what they're
34:02 doing because it encapsulates a lot of
34:05 the early more existential points we
34:07 made if nobody knows what they're doing
34:10 then it's hard for any one person to
34:12 come to you and say this is right and
34:14 it's easier for you to care less about
34:15 other people think because cool like
34:17 they think XYZ is cool but like they
34:19 don't know what they're doing and it
34:20 finally simplifies you like pursuing
34:23 your own passions because if no one
34:25 knows what they're doing and you don't
34:26 know then like why not take
34:28 step I think that brings up a fear in me
34:30 where if you grow up as this immigrant
34:33 kid indoctrinated to trust all these
34:34 institutions and all these people that
34:36 were right you collapsed my worldview
34:39 how do you how do you deal with that
34:41 yeah it's very weird because essentially
34:43 the advice I'm giving is like maybe
34:45 don't necessarily listen to advice or
34:47 just like take it as like literally just
34:49 pure input to be considered amongst
34:50 everything else and for me that was an
34:54 existential realization for me when I
34:56 realized
34:57 people don't know I remember I mentioned
35:00 earlier like the key successes to
35:02 financial technology business across
35:03 these three criteria and I said it came
35:04 from the co-founder of PayPal so we had
35:07 dinner with him my co-founder and I we
35:09 were very early in carrot with one of
35:12 the co-founders and I remember being
35:15 like almost like in awe like I was like
35:18 wow this like really successful like
35:22 known person SL billionaire or whatever
35:24 like wants to meet with us that's insane
35:27 and I was just like wow I hope I don't
35:29 like come off incredibly stupid
35:32 and he just like want to ask about
35:34 YouTubers he just had like no conception
35:37 of like what was going on and we're
35:38 asking like very basic questions because
35:42 he just doesn't know yeah and I was like
35:45 oh I actually know these like not nearly
35:47 as much as YouTubers but again I think a
35:50 lot of life is like finding yourself in
35:52 the middle of two disperate knowledge
35:53 bases where I know enough about the
35:55 Creator world
35:57 to answer the co-founder of PayPal's
35:59 questions and enough about the financial
36:01 Tech world to like be at dinner with him
36:03 and I was like oh my gosh he actually
36:04 does not know so like why would I assume
36:07 that like he would know and I was just
36:10 like oh I just assumed he would cuz like
36:12 he's smart and he's rich and he's
36:13 powerful like all these things and I was
36:14 just like I actually know more about
36:16 creators than he does yeah like not to
36:18 say I'm going to be more successful or
36:19 whatever but like I I do and then I was
36:21 like okay you grow up thinking like the
36:24 fish and Market thesis right like
36:25 there's no free lunch like everyone
36:26 knows everything like well guess what
36:28 like actually I can go do work and learn
36:31 things and maybe figure out things that
36:33 other people don't know and that was
36:34 just like a huge shift in how I think
36:36 about things and now having been a
36:38 Founder now for four years like yeah the
36:40 uncertainty is very hard to go through
36:42 and like we have lots of excellent
36:44 mentors no one really knows and at the
36:47 end of the day it's like you got to make
36:48 the decision that you think is right and
36:50 it might be wrong and it's wrong you
36:51 take responsibility for it I love it
36:53 well Eric thanks for joining us for the
36:55 yeah no thank you man I'm glad we got to
36:56 do this cool
36:58 cheers
🎥 Related Videos
![Welp, Here's what the Fed *Just* Said [Fed FOMC Minutes]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fl8u23oq1E9E%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
🔥 Recently Summarized Examples
4 Steps to Master Any Complex Skill (quickly)
40 Years of Fitness Experience in Less Than 11 Minutes.
Gun Controlling Media Makes FATAL Mistake... They Have Tied Their Fate To Biden's & Gun Rights Win
GET READY! Palantir Is Officially The Next Nvidia.
Abundant Thinking: The Hidden Key to Get Everything You Want (Audiobook)