99% Invisible - Roman Mars on ZigZag

Episode Date: July 6, 2018

This is a special presentation of episode #4 of Radiotopia's newest show ZigZag. Manoush and Jen give themselves 36 hours in San Francisco to come up with a financial backup plan, just in case this whole blockchain-token-thing doesn’t work out. Silicon Valley runs on VC money so maybe Stable Genius Productions should too? First, they talk to a well-known venture capitalist on whether aligning their mission with investor expectations is a laughable goal. Then, they visit Roman Mars, host of 99% Invisible and Radiotopia co-founder, at his headquarters in Oakland. He explains how he built his podcasting empire and advises Manoush and Jen on their plan. ZigZag Subscribe in Apple Podcasts Subscribe in RadioPublic

This is not 99% invisible, but I am Roman Mars. This is a special presentation of the newest radio topia podcast, Zigzag. We're in Manou Sumerodi and Genpoion, create a new woman run podcast company called Stable Genius Productions. They're exploring funding through traditional avenues, but also through cryptocurrency. Inside of the reality show that follows their progress, you're going to learn a lot about the digital economy and how decentralized cryptocurrency could change everything. Or not, it's a huge experiment that you don't want to miss.

I'm in this episode that we're featuring a whole lot, so I thought that 99 P.I. fans would dig it. It's super fun, but unlike 99% invisible, there is swearing in zigzag, even ice thought that 99 P.I. fans would dig it. It's super fun. But unlike 99% of visible, there is swearing in zigzag, even icewear in zigzag. So I just want to warn you. All right, enjoy. I'm Anouche Summerodi and this is chapter four of Zigzag, a podcast about changing the course of capitalism, journalism, and women in tech. We're exploring these very big ideas through our own personal story. At this point, it's late April, and Jen and I still don't have enough money coming in to pay ourselves.

We're moms. Not having paychecks was giving us stomachaches and eye twitches. Was it time to nail down a plan B, a financial backup? Or is this just how startups work? You just got to knuckle down and wait out the uncertainty. We go looking for those answers in this episode, chapter 4. Specifically, we pitch, sort of, a well-known angel investor, and then go see the co-founder of Radio Topia, Roman Mars, to find out how he built his podcasting empire. This is me and my husband Josh, not to be confused with Josh Benson, our blockchain matchmaker from chapter one. You need to go have a little vacation from your family? Not exactly. It is really early on a Sunday and we're in the car on our way to the airport.

He was going to Puerto Rico. Going with Governor Cuomo. Why are you speaking so slowly? Because it is 5-12 in the morning and it's taking me a little time to formulate my words. Josh covers politics for a local TV news station. We have two kids, but don't worry, my mom was home with them as we scattered ourselves across the globe. I was going to San Francisco.

What are you doing out there again? OK, so I'm going out there. Well, for a multitude of reasons, we're going to pitch an angel investor a first for me. We're going to hang out with Roman Mars for the day, tomorrow in Oakland. What do you think of my hole in Devor so far? Are you worried about any aspects of it? No, I'm worried it's too strong, I term.

I mean, I'm happy for you, I'm psyched for you. I'm kind of like, just sort of following along. I mean, we like, we've been both very busy, like, giving to my office despite the fact that it's a block away. So instead, we're having the conversation at 514 on the way to the airport. It's our special time, Josh. We should just get up every Sunday morning, around 4 and take a ride to the airport and back. Yes. Josh has been super supportive of me doing this startup thing. I texted our little chat to Jen, who was also headed to the airport to meet me for our flight.

That was really cute, you guys. Marriage is fascinating. I assume that Josh like new every detail for some reason of what's going on with you right now. So that's pretty funny. And that's badass that you guys both are like, we're both going to do our thing. So fully support. Josh and I are really lucky to have families who live nearby who help out a lot. Jen doesn't have that. Most people don't. But that wasn't stopping both Jen and I from worrying how we were going to make this

podcast and run a business. We needed a team. And that takes more than a cryptocurrency that doesn't exist yet. It takes cash. Which is why Genonai decided to go on a reconnaissance mission. A trip to San Francisco. To see if we could find a backup plan, a plan B. Because that's what responsible adults do these days. They don't put their savings on the line. They get rich people to invest in their business. Right? So far, we'd lost our first grant, that was chapter one that we'd been counting on,

that was awful. Then we'd gotten this other small grant that was half in real money, end half in cryptocurrency that still didn't exist yet. It was like Ziggy-D Ziggy-Woo-Woo, but like, maybe it was time to find some stability by having an investor. Well, with that, just create bigger problems. We weren't sure. Jen and I had done our fair share of reporting on tech companies that put their profits ahead of basic humanity to appease shareholders.

But there's also the good side to Silicon Valley. Big ideas can happen because people believe in them and back them was big money. Okay, we just landed. Here's our plan. It's jam-packed. We were meeting with an angel investor named Jess Verrelli that afternoon. And I guess we're going to pitch her, right? Yes, we're pitching her. We're going to tell her our plans. Yeah. See if she gets it. Yeah, hopefully, we're pitching her. We're going to tell her our plans.

Yeah. See if she gets it. Yeah. Hopefully she will. And then, you know, say, what's the next move? A couple hours and a shower later. OK, we are walking down Third Street in the mission to a coffee place to meet Jess Verelli.

Who's Jess Verelli? She was an early development strategist at Twitter. You've done your homework, Jen, Poion. We got to the coffee shop where we were going to meet Jess a little early. And we just could not stop talking about what we had seen on our walk to the coffee shop. It's definitely the most extreme version of wealth disparity that I've ever seen in America. Yeah, look down and person after homeless person is lying in the streets.

Look up and there are spiffy, extremely wealthy people zipping by on motorized scooters in their ATHLEASURE wear. Jen and I had to abruptly end our conversation about the economics of San Francisco because Jess had arrived. It's here. We all agreed that the cafe was way too noisy. We appreciate that. Can we get you something to go over?

I have a picture. There's one coffee for me. I'm going to get some coffee. So we grabbed some ice coffees to go and went down the block to Jess' apartment building. Sir, thank you. She said we could talk in the conference room by the lobby. It's industrial. What's this?

It's San Francisco, so apartment buildings have conference rooms. Yeah, hi, I'm Jessica Verelli. We were connected through a mutual friend, Crystal Soca, who I've known for a long time. And I am a founding partner of hashtag Angels, which is an investment collective I co-founded with five other women three years ago. And I spent my career working in Silicon Valley at Twitter over eight and a half years

and started my career actually also working for a venture capital firm. We were frankly initially very resistant or maybe not resistant, but we had reservations or skeptical about going for investment at all because we were a little worried about having to push for these returns. So, online is such a between the last two. That is a smart question for you to ask. I think that is a mark of us, a really thoughtful founder, which is essentially how do I make sure the vision or expectations and hopes I have for my company

Align for the expectations of an investor, which is a great question to ask and something that you do want You want to spend a lot of time making sure you get that right? So we're kind of obsessed with it Like we're we talk about it all the time Venture capital is a great way to finance if you want hyper growth. And so hyper growth. Hyper growth. And not to be obtuse about this is the rate of growth and the, like we want to grow, that's going to take anywhere from one to five years I would imagine for us to launch

three shows and then spin those off into those different multi-platforms, that's growth. But I guess the question is the, maybe the exit strategy, you know, would we be expected to exit all of those questions about like, what do the investors want back? Like, what level of growth is expected and do we have to know all of that at the beginning? Generally, if you're raising venture capital, investors are looking for a business that they believe can transform an industry. Was this a pitch or more like a tutoring session?

I guess my hope, and I want to be, you know, upfront about it, is that we do have investors who care as deeply as we do about the, you know, the societal impact of the stuff that we make. That's really important to me. I mean, I definitely want to be big because I think these ideas need to be big and they're big ideas. But I also think, like, is there room for that to be, at this point, Jen kicked me under

the table. conscientious. By accident, she told me later. But at the time, I thought you wanted me to shut up. I think so, I think it's all about finding that right fit with an investor and given how important that is to you and given that might trump growth.

I think being as exactly as you are being rather explicit about what your goals are for this and what success looks like to you is gonna help you find an investor that were that aligned. Do you know, does this sound like far-fetch like to you is going to help you find an investor that were that aligned. Do you know any, does it sound like far-fetched to you? Wait, was this weird that we were kind of pitching someone to fund our work, which would basically criticize the tech platforms that they had also funded?

I think these people exist. I think I want to spend a little bit more time with you on the ambition for what you want to build and what that business and scale might look like. Yeah. This phase should be all about building the product and getting feedback from customers. If you need money right now, then you have to think a little bit about like, okay, what is the right source to,

whether it's revenue or grants or seed funding. But if you have a little bit of time before you're back in a fundraising mode, I don't think we do. I think we need seed funding. But if you have a little bit of time before you're back in a fundraising mode, I don't think we do. I think we need seed funding. I mean, grants like we can, we're in the process of applying, but they take time to get to happen. Just like the process is very often very bureaucratic. And we might have sponsorship, I mean, well, sponsorship. But that takes time to, you know, you need the shows to come out. Until the sponsorship money like this. We're definitely gonna have to

go into debt unless we get some seat funders. I think that's basically what. No, that's correct. Yeah, for sure. She hadn't looked at her watch yet, but did you just think we were wasting her time? Truthfully, you all are taking most of the risk here. And so it's about finding the right alignment with folks that believe in you and believe in what you're building. So friends and family around may be possible. What you've shared so far does seem like something where the impact investors might be the better fit, but I don't want to jump to that conclusion to a page and it's like really like talk through that. It sounds like you have an incredible background to do this.

You've been successful doing this in your prior roles. And so I would ask you to like, can I take a look at that? Can I listen to that? Can I hear some of that feedback? Try to validate that that's true. And then the open question though is like, how big of a business is this? Is this the next like massive like global media company? Is this the seed of something that can be really big?

And is that what they want to build? Do they believe there's a path to doing that? Okay, so we were gonna do that. Could we, how quickly could we come back and do that this week? Yes. Yeah. Cool. Really? Yeah. Okay, so I think what we should do is go talk and decide whether we want to do that. Oh, I think we definitely want to do that, don't we?

Definitely want to do that. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that we definitely want to do that. We're partners, so I want to make sure that you want to do it, because I want to do it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Thank you. You're super welcome.

Nice to meet you both. Jen and I walked out of our meeting with Jess and kind of stumbled, stunned into the waning light of a crisp spring evening in San Francisco. What a weird experience! We had presented a united front to avenge your capitalists, but meanwhile our brains had been talking to each other like ESP. Don't do this, do this? Do you want to do this? I don't know, don't do this.

Alright, that was exactly two hours. She said she'd meet with us for two hours. She met with us for exactly two hours. She said she'd be with us for two hours. She met with us for exactly two hours. Since that meeting, by the way, Jess has been named the newest partner at the Google-backed venture capital firm, GV. So at least she knew what she was doing. Jen and I needed to debrief and eat dinner.

Oh, the frisay salad and more bacon doesn't taste good. Yes, one main course or any appetizers? I think just the main course. Yeah. I feel like that was bad. Like a disaster. You do? Why do you feel that way?

That's so interesting. It's because it's not, I think in our guts, she knew and we knew that it's not the right fit. Like, I definitely wanna pitch this and I was like, oh, I'm surprised. I felt pretty out of my comfort zone. Sure, me too. We've stayed in the media business.

Like, we both like it. We like the people who are in it and we like the emphasis on ideas as opposed to valuation. And I just don't want to be thinking about money. Like to me, the greatest luxury is not to be thinking about money all the time. I can't wear a business people now, we have to. I understand that, but my goal then

is to get to where I don't have to think about money. My goal is not to like have caps and... Cap tables? Yeah, and all of that. It's really not. Like, I don't think. Like, I really care very much about like, making stuff with you and feeling that creative...

Wonder and like, people feeling moved by the things that we make and like, that matters a lot to me. Oh, matters to me too. I just don't know how we're gonna do it. That leads me to, okay, this wasn't right. Like, do we even wanna go back and actually try and pit her? I mean, it sounds like no.

In the short term, she kinda said like, grants and family and friends. Right. I think the bigger thing is what we're gonna do. Like, we work our asses off until we launch this show, and then we go back to like a model where we just see where the sponsorship comes and we grow it way slower together. And there's no like, is there shame in that?

I feel like we feel like there's shame in that. But I just, what scares me is Dan keeps telling us that that's not possible. Dan was a business consultant who was helping us project future budgets and revenue. I mean, seriously, we need to have this entire conversation over again with Roman tomorrow. Yeah.

It's gonna be, it's gonna be completely different. I don't think there's any shame in that. That's essentially going back to like the real bootstrapping model. And then seeing where we go from there. So I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. Which is, yeah, some totally fine with it.

All right. It's weird how you, I feel like, you know, there's so many amounts here, which is so utilitarian in many ways, there's not a ton of soul. It makes me so happy, you said that. Right. It really does. Yeah, really?

Yeah, dude, you know I'm very much about soul. I mean, not like in the, yeah, yeah, why do we mean not like, breathe a frank like that? Yes. Yeah. I think the other thing that's so strange I mean that like in the... Hey, why don't we not like breathe a frankly? Yes. Hahaha. I think the other thing that's so strange is that we believe so wholeheartedly and like, we are women, we could do this.

Why don't we take that opportunity? This is crazy. Not to. But it's not right for us. And that's hard. That's why it feels like a disaster to me because I'm like, does it feel like a disaster? Let me be clear. You know what I'm realizing? It's like part of me was like,

yes, we'll pitch you because I think I'm so worried about letting you down, money wise. You're taking it. Like, you're taking it. I'm worried about the same thing, dude. I'm taking a big risk, but you're, you've invested a lot already into it. So I'm worried about big risk, but you've invested a lot already into it. So I'm worried about the same thing. I mean, it's not like we don't have some money coming in. Right.

Right. Don't forget the tokens. Don't forget the tokens. Oh, that looks yummy. Great. And I want to eat one of your french fries. Thank you so much. Yes, please. That's beautiful.

So much. Yes, please. That's beautiful. Wow. Hold on. We really wanted financial support to make our mission-based journalism possible, and we really wanted honesty from each other. Right now, we have the latter.

You're listening to a special presentation of Zigzag on 99% of visible. Coming up Jen and Manouche come to Oakland where I'd dispense some chill wisdom. We are featuring episode 4 of Zigzag. To follow along with the staple geniuses is they forward a new path for women in media and tech. Go to zigzagpaw.com to subscribe. You've probably heard us say that we are proud members of Radio Topia at the end of the first three episodes.

Some might say that we have rapper POS to thank for our entree into that awesome podcasting collective. Last year he put out a song called Wearing a Bear and he gave shoutouts to me and radio topia's summer party in Roman Mars is wippy, yeah, whip, whip, and scrub, bend in the corners of the cup holder, low warm flat soda, but the passenger's ice cold, pushing down the pressure, then when a die, I'll get a hashtag, a spit better. Now Jen and I were the newest members of Radiotopia, and that meant we owned all our work. I had hung out with Roman before, but he and Jen had never met. And when he suggested that we come out to spend the day with him, we were both super psyched. I heard glass,

jad, album rod, Roman Mars. These are the great names and narrative audio storytelling. So it was kind of like going to kiss the ring, except all of them are public radio, nerdy cool. so... Not really. Enter code to place call. But in a way, that morning, Jen and I were most definitely not cool. Motherfucker. Just getting into the building seemed to be a struggle for us. Hi there, I'm trying to get in touch with Roman Mars. Do you know which floor he's on?

I'm so sorry, thanks. That conversation with Jess must have rattled us more than we knew. Start? We have the code. I know, but oh. We have the code. We have the code. Okay, let's try now. Here we go. Yes!

Can I know? Here we go. Yes! Ah cannell. How many? This is it. Wow it's nice. Hi. Hi. How are you? Good. We're Maneucia and Jen and we're going to see Roman. This is Jen.

Hi. It's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. We got right and we're gonna be Roman. Awesome. This is Jen. Hi. It's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. We got right into it. It was Roman. Dude, we've had like an insane 24 hours. What did you arrive? Yesterday.

And then we had like an epiphany last night. Oh, goodness. But we need your help because... Oh, we're already recording. Oh yeah. We're full. We've been a public radio producer, making shows, Oh, we're already recording. Oh yeah. Where's the fall? He's been a public radio producer, making shows, barely making any money, when podcasting started taking off

about five or six years ago. He went to PRX and they decided to just concentrate on that. Former collective were the podcasters owned their work. They'd stop worrying about making radio shows and make a business out of podcasting, or at least a decent living, still doing great public radio style content. Roman and radio Topia had done one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in the history of Kickstarter. I am Roman Mars. I am the host of 99% of visible, and I am the co-founder of Radio Topia from PRX.

And we're sitting in your office. Yes, in beautiful downtown Oakland, California. Roman had definitely taken some big financial risks in his time. I mean, to me, it's just like it's a business like any other. So you make enough money to pay a salary or two, and then you see, and you make enough money to add another person, add another person,

then you make enough money to have money left over to reap the benefits of owning a thing. And it took me, and I've been doing 99PI for almost eight years, and the way it operated in the beginning was that I didn't pay myself. I mean, were there moments where you were like, fuck, what if this doesn't work? I just feel like you can always get a job. So what does failure mean in this case? Failure means you do the thing that everyone else does. That's not really failure, right?

Right, so that's true. So like, I don't know, I didn't, I feel more scared of it now than I did then. Yeah, because I have 10 employees. And then, and then radio topia itself, like a lot of the revenue that operates radio topia is the percentage of my show because my show brings in a lot of ad revenue. And so like, now I feel like, well, now I better keep hustling. It's like different. We've been struggling to decide how to fully fund the show or to have to decide, I suppose

we've been talking about whether we should seek out investment or get grants or just make the thing and then get the sponsorship that way. Well, a huge part, I mean, you should do all of it. In a way, in terms of radio, topia fundraising, because we have a model which supports shows that can't support themselves completely as advertising based, we really need donations to support the slate,

like the whole slate of shows. And we have to do that to me is like, that's how we make art, rather than chase commerce. Right. What you just said, art rather than commerce kind of sums up the soul searching that you and I have been doing, Jen. So the question that we keep getting is,

what do you want? It depends what you want. What do you want? Well, what do you want? It depends what you want. What do you want? What do you want? And it's like, I think we're getting closer to knowing what we want. Well, I think it's because Venush was starting to succeed in these ways where she was being asked to speak. She was doing the TED Talk, so we could naturally see a model that would work that was bigger

than just a show. We are about to document this experience, both of making the show, making this business, all the different choices that we're just talking about, right? And it feels very vulnerable to admit all of this on tape. Yeah, I can see that. I'm glad I wasn't documenting that. Yeah, especially publicly as too women to do it. But you also, yeah, I get that and I get that that's a risk.

But you also, you're gonna get a lot of strength from that too. Again, it's like this balance of risk and reward and you have greater risk and lots of reward. Yeah, the reward could be big, right? It could be big. And also, it's just like, I fully believe that your goal in life is to live an extraordinary life, like live a weird life.

Yeah. I think that's true, and I think there are a lot of women out there that need to hear other women doing this. You know, we've asked for a lot of advice from a lot of people, and every bit of advice when it comes to business seems to be like, well, the way a business works, like, you're not going to be able to do this. Like, we've had a lot of people kind of say, like, it's not going to work. Well, it depends on what type of business you have or want. I totally, I think.

What do you want, Jen? What do you want? What do you want? But like, you know, like, media is a bad startup in a good business. Because it doesn't return money the way they want it to. And if you do, you have to grow and make things that you don't care about. But if you just want to make a show and pay yourselves, you can do that. That is not that steep hill to climb. You could do that. And then from there, you begin to go, I think that you follow your gut when it comes to that stuff. to go, I think that you follow your gut

when it comes to that stuff. And personally, I think that there's no money without strings attached. The only money I've ever, that has strings attached that I like is money from the audience. Okay, so I'm gonna be very like, business-y, but turn it all or something.

How much you got saved. I mean, do you have a year saved? Can you live without making any money? I definitely cannot. I have like two months maybe left. Okay. So, is that asymmetry in your needs? Does that cause attention in your choices? I would say it did at the beginning where I was like, well, if I'm gonna invest in the company, I wanna own more of it. And Jen said, no.

No. No. I worry that like. Well, her risk is higher. I mean, there's a way you're putting in different things. Exactly. Yeah. Right.

I mean, if the company can never pay me back, that's. Yeah. That'll be its own thing. It's money for. That'll be its own thing. That's money for. That's what I kind of think. I mean, really, money is freedom. That's what it's for.

I mean, the hard part of ownership is that the runway has to be kind of long before you get to the point where it's sustainable. And if the runway is short, then it actually, it fucks with the sustainability. I think we're trying to figure out what's the minimum we can pull in through all these various funding sources if we're not going to do the VC thing and still sustain ourselves until that runway gets long enough for it to become really sustainable. I mean, that's the thing. You have to be prepared to recognize when it's not working. But just think like, like what?

It's kind of easy, if you don't have a lot of other pressures, to hold on to something that you maybe shouldn't be holding on to. What would make you sunset this whole thing? That's a really good question. Yeah, but you know, it's that is so hard to answer. Because if you had asked me that about note to self, I wouldn't have, I mean, should happens and you have no idea. Yeah.

What would make me sunset this whole thing? Is it a better opportunity? It's like, no, because this is the best opportunity. But let me ask you this. Do you just make 99PI forever? Well, I wonder that too. I've given myself a dead, a kind of a timeline of, I need to make it as successful as possible. I'm 43 now. I don't know if the end of it's going to happen when I'm 50. I think I would probably go your route faster.

Like right now, we're people are doing projects inside of the group of nine percent of us will, which will be new things for the world. And I can't really talk about them, but we can say this much. I could imagine that my life is not hosting a show, but running a shop. Also, I feel myself more tired than I ever have. And I just can the interview, but like, you guys are taking a chance. Oh no, but it's a good chance.

Like it's like, that's the thing. It's like, it's more your chance. That's why radio topia works. It's like, I don't own it. You know, we don't own it. It's your chance to take. We just get to be a part of it. And we like to be a part of things that we're proud of. Our session with Roman kind of felt like a motivational pep talk, but we didn't have to

stand on chairs and yell like at a Tony Robbins event. This pep talk was way more children than that. Thank you. Thank you. No, it's my pleasure. I'm so happy to hear. This conversation was just what we needed. Jan and I were resolved.

Investment money for now was not for us. Another zig, and then we sacked. We knew that we needed to focus on making the podcast, this podcast. Stick to the mission. And then if we made it that far, we'd reassess. So we went back to New York and we even put a big red circle around one summer day on the calendar and we labeled it Financial Reckoning Day. But it felt good to know we had the support of not just one, but two collectives, Roman and radiotopia who are distributing this show and selling sponsorship and civil. The experiment using the blockchain

to create a new ecosystem for independent journalists. Sure, the whole thing was dicey, but they had given us just enough money to pay the bills, and maybe the token thing would actually work. Anyway, the civil people felt like are people. like our people. your podcast.