Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Process: Introduction to Kairos (Ep.1)

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

Welcome to “The Process” a new audio series from Dr. Michael Gervais and Finding Mastery.In this series, we’re going to learn about The Process: What really goes on “in the thick of it,” for those on the pursuit of mastery?In this first season, we’re going to follow Kairos and their CEO Alex Fiance.Kairos is a global community of fellows, founders & advisors that work together to identify society’s most pressing challenges and then build and fund new solutions to address them.They focus on areas where outdated industries and governments are failing to meet our communities’ needs.Over the course of the next 6 months, we’re going to learn about young entrepreneurs tackling the worlds biggest problems – what are some of the biggest problems? How do they find the entrepreneurs they believe can solve them?  How do they determine which companies to invest in? And we’ll dig into the mindset of these entrepreneurs.Young people have the ability to make a big difference and we’re going to learn from some of the brightest minds of the next generation.Episode 1 focuses on how Kairos was formed and what to expect over the next 6 months._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. All right, welcome to the process. This is Michael Gervais, and this is a new audio series where we're going to learn about The Process, what it takes, and what goes into people that are in the thick of it, those that are on the path of mastery. And in this first season of The Process, we're going to follow Kairos and their CEO, Alex Fiance. And Kairos is a venture capital firm and a global community of fellows, founders, and advisors that work together to identify society's most

pressing challenges and to build new solutions to address them. And they focus on areas where outdated industries and governments are failing to meet our community's needs. Over the course of the next six months, we're going to learn about young entrepreneurs tackling the world's biggest problems, everything from what those problems are, how Kairos identifies the entrepreneurs they believe might be able to solve them, and how they determine which companies to invest in. And then we'll dig into the mindset of these young entrepreneurs. We'll be checking in with Alex and his team every month or so. I'm really excited to learn. I'm excited to do this mini series with you guys. I'm excited for getting the Finding Mastery tribe involved as well. There'll be more of that to come. And with that, let's jump right into it. And this is the

debut episode with Alex Fiance. Alex, how are you? Good, Mike. Yeah, okay, good. I'm looking forward to this because what you've created is something that's new and it's fresh and it's stimulating and I'm really excited to follow what you're doing. And so before we kind of jump into the weeds, can you give me just a little bit of your background and kind of how you came to being one of the founders of your agency here? Yeah. So Kairos is focused on what we call problems worth solving. So we invest in and help build companies tackling what we consider clear unmet consumer needs. So we look at spaces where everyday people are clearly getting squeezed, right? Cost of housing, cost of healthcare, things like job retraining, workforce retraining, student loans,

kind of the building block industries that affect people at huge life stages. So we think those are, you know, massive opportunities for entrepreneurs. And if an entrepreneur is successful, it can really change the world for millions of people. For the most part, those have been industry or government responsibilities. Okay. How old are you? I'm 29. Okay.

So why? It's a relatively young age. Not that it's like, not that you're green. I'm not saying that. Yeah. We started this 10 years ago. Right. Okay. So you started this at, okay. A lot, a lot of questions here. One is why, like what,

why is this more about a business play? Is this more about a bleeding heart that you want to see people, uh, have better opportunity? Is it the combination of the two, but at your age, it seems it's wise beyond cheers in the approach. Yeah, I think the goal at a high level is to get the brightest minds from around the world thinking about the biggest problems. These are massive business opportunities, and if they're solved or addressed properly, it really can change lives and change industries, right? So for us, the first question was, you know, how do you get the brightest minds to even believe they can solve the biggest problems? And how do you show that entrepreneurship is the vehicle, right? So timing was perfect for us.

We started in 2008 on the heels of the financial crisis when, you know, the trendiest job in the world was banking and people would, you know, kind of blindly follow this path into universities and then into banking and assume, okay, if I just drop my head and work hard, I'll have that six-figure salary and my life is kind of set. And then all of a sudden, the jobs disappear. And people who did everything right through school, whose families helped them get to the best universities or maybe they even got scholarships, they still don't even have the jobs they wanted. So for us, we said,

why not channel some of this talent and energy to spaces like the future of energy, the future of healthcare, the future of education, billion if not trillion dollar industries that also are clearly starting to break. And if you combine the timing of the financial crisis with just the progression of technology, we were early innings on seeing tech start to enter spaces

like logistics, housing, transportation, things that are clearly making a big difference today. Okay. Take us back or take me back to what it was like growing up because I want to try to stitch together why this is the mission that you've set out to do. And maybe some of the early ecosystem that you grew up in helped shape that. So what, whatever is important for me to begin to understand who you are, what are some of those events and, um, people that have influenced you. Yeah, I grew up in LA, right? So, you know, friends, parents would be agents, talent managers, you know, you kind of have this ecosystem around you of, you know, people really caring about and searching for talent even at the beginning, right?

Okay, so I was going a different direction. So this is more about talent identification and development? Well, in a sense, the question I asked was, why can't this type of ecosystem exist for entrepreneurship and innovation, right? You got thousands and thousands of people all over the world helping people understand the path to becoming a pro athlete or understand the path to becoming a musician or entertainer. And when I got to college, it was just fascinating to me becoming a pro athlete or understand the path to becoming a musician or entertainer. Um, and I, you know, when I, when I got to college, you know, it was, it was just fascinating to me that

none of that mindset really seemed to exist within entrepreneurship. Okay. Where'd you go to school? USC. And then how did you get into USC? How did I get into USC? Top tier school. Yeah. Great, great school. I think there's, there's always, uh, some strange, uh, fortuitous events for me. I got a really high score on the PSATs, like the pre SATs and USC was just automatically offering people, um, scholarships at that time. Oh, if you scored well, it was, it was kind of like, it's just a combination of luck and timing. How did you score well? What did you know how to do to score well there?

I think I was always just a good test taker. Okay. So did you study? No. No. Okay. So the reason I'm asking questions like this is try to deconstruct like your intelligence is high, your skill taking, your test taking skill is high. Like what are the factors? Is it just that

you paid attention in a deep level and things were easily absorbed in school? What were some of the things that... It's funny, for me, it was always more so that if I just did my homework and got high scores on tests, I could do everything else I wanted to do. That's what your parents said. I could, it was just obvious. Yeah, they never had to say it, but it was just, you know, it was clear. Like if I, if I did my homework or studied as efficiently as possible, I could go spend more time playing sports. I could go to the baseball card store. I could do whatever I wanted to do. Brothers and sisters? Yeah, two. So my brother and I would, you know, we'd, we'd grow up kind of, I don't know if hustling people's the fair word, but we would be trading beanie babies, Pokemon cards,

sports cards, whatever we could. So even from like age five, you know, we thought it was fun to, to collect things and trade things. And we certainly had a little bit of the entrepreneurial DNA. You did. Okay. What is your brother doing now? He started a seed fund for UC Berkeley. So he was actually the youngest VC fund manager ever at one point. Um, he beat you to it. He beat me to it by nine months. Oh, he did. Okay. So both of you guys are really early. Like, yeah, that's no joke. Okay. All right. Okay. So you also mentioned, mentioned sport. Yep. Okay. So I want to try to get the dining room table. I want to try to get like what it was like in your home. And then specifically, I want to try to get the dining room table. I want to try to get like what it was like in your home.

And then specifically, I want to also ask, what is something that mom imprinted on you? What is something that dad imprinted in a statement or two or a word or whatever, like in a condensed way, if you could? Yeah, I think the formative experience for us, for our family was, you know, my dad came from the East Coast. He would always talk about lacrosse. He played football, he played lacrosse, but he's like, oh, I wish there was lacrosse in California. And then one day I was in middle school and he just teamed up with a group of people to start a league. And, you know, at first it was kind of

the ex-football players, maybe some of the ex-baseball players just running around with sticks. So wait, dad had an, okay, so dad had an experience in lacrosse. Yeah, he played college lacrosse. But it didn't just, okay, where'd he go to school? He went, it was back east in Ithaca. Okay. All right. So he loved it. Yeah. He had a great experience from it, but he didn't just stop there. So he started the league?

Yeah, there was a, you know, let's say co-founding committee of, you know, five to 10 people. And it's called that, right? It's called the league. Well, it's called the Conejo Valley lacrosse league at the time. Now it's a CIF sport. That's okay. Yeah. So, so the, I mean, the, the point to me was that, you know, you'd hear about it. Oh, okay. Wait, sorry, sorry. Not the professional league, not, not the lacrosse professional league, but he got it to become a CIF youth sports. Oh god into high schools yeah so so so he's he tells us he's starting a league and then six months later i'm playing you know and then right um and then my brother's playing you know he's one of those people like as if he grew up on the east coast with a lacrosse stick in his hand at age you know eight so you know he went on to

become an all-american The sport became CIF approved. All of a sudden, they start sending D1 athletes to the East Coast. But I think in terms of the family dynamic, everyone was just all in. My dad, my mom, just we're starting it. This is happening. Okay, cool. So startup was part of it and it was startup and sport. This is what was a formative experience.

So you got a first look at dad starting something up that he was passionate about yeah i think it's just the mindset that you could create anything from scratch with the right people right whoa whoa whoa whoa say that again i think it's a mindset that you can create anything from scratch with the right people dude i you know so i don't know if you know this but i measure success throughout my day by how many times my hair stands up okay so that's one it's early in the morning. Yeah, that's good. You know, and so now a little note to all, all the athletes I compete with, like, so I've got plenty of folks that I work with as a sport and performance psychologist, and this is one of the ways we compete.

So a little note to them, it's already early in the morning and I just got one from this conversation. We're going to go for the record. Okay, good. Breakfast record. I just got two actually. That's good. I just got two knowing that I'm kicking someone's ass. No, okay, good. All right, so thank you on that. But that, so that started with the, if you have an idea and you have the right people,

things can change. Yeah, and these are all on a small scale, right? I mean, I had a really nice fortunate upbringing. So I think, you know, when I first heard about the idea or concept of Kairos, it just made so much sense to me, and it felt like the biggest application of that mindset. What does that mean the first time you heard it? So Kairos started as more of a grassroots movement, right? It was a small group of us at universities who believed in the concept that young people should begin thinking about these big problems at the beginning of their career. Because oftentimes what would happen is you get wealthy through some form of capitalism. Let's say you get wealthy through banking, if you're lucky enough to get wealthy.

You then would find a cause to give back to, and it would likely be nonprofit. And what we noticed was the small subset of young people who even thought they could be entrepreneurs at the time, this is 2008, we're thinking about just more like small businesses. Right. That's really cool. Just starting just something starting something familiar to them. Right? You'd be like campus dry cleaning services, t shirts on campus, like cool entrepreneurial stuff. But, you know, in theory, the mindset of starting something could be applied to any industry. Okay. And then is this very much a millennial type thought, you know, and I don't, I'm not saying that in a disparaging way. I know that millennials have a bad rap for some reasons that are noted. And then others, you know, I've got this thought that millennials are going to change the world period in some ways for the, you know, it's going to

challenge the status quo, which is cool. Some ways good, some ways not good. And so is this, does this feel like a millennial thought, which is I'm going to get the brightest mind together and I'm going to change the world. Yeah. I think there's a, a why not us type mindset amongst millennials. Like, is that how you identify with? Yeah, I would say there were some formative experiences growing up that I think a lot of people our age witnessed. You see the dot-com boom and then bust, right? You see the financial system completely collapse. So I don't think there's an entrenched,

just like automatic respect for old systems or sort of legacy structures, right? You've seen some of the biggest systems in the world collapse in front of everybody. It just kind of, to me at least, I believe it creates this mindset that there's always a way to improve or innovate no matter how big something seems. Yeah. So if we go back 50 years, 60 years, the government is the, it's the, the government. Yeah. You go back 20 maybe years, it's like, Hmm, there's some fallibility in systems. And so enter your DNA that comes into the scene that says, well, maybe entrepreneurs,

maybe we can do it better. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One of the biggest lessons is, you know, as we've gone through it, I can get more into it, is entrepreneurs can't solve every problem. There was this explosion of entrepreneurship, let's say from 2008 to 2012, where all of a sudden every school has an entrepreneurship program and it becomes a new glamour job. And there may be too many entrepreneurs in the market right now. There may be a lot of problems that entrepreneurs think they need to solve that are government or industry problems. So for us, we just focus on finding those specific opportunities that are best solved by an entrepreneur. Okay. So why a VC approach? that capital is a very important way to accelerate the growth of something that's starting to work within a startup. So we believe capital is important, but our approach at Kairos has been more so to help entrepreneurs with the things other than capital.

Exposure, access to other industry leaders who can mentor them and help them find the right path to market, a peer network of other people who are crazy enough to believe that at age 23 they could change a massive industry. So those are the things we've always been doing. I think capital is just the most efficient way to become formally in business with some of these companies that are really changing in industry. So we view capital more as a commodity or a means to an end to just get in business

formally with these entrepreneurs. Okay. So let me see if I get it right. You early age, your family's ripping and running, building things. You're part of it. Sports an important part of the process. You have an appreciation for trade, selling Pokemon or whatever, right? So this is like the family. I wish I said something cooler. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. So, but, and then you, you've got a model that if I take care of my work,

then I can play. Okay. So you would lock down when it was time to lock down, you tested well, got into a great school. Then there was an ecosystem that took place there. In that ecosystem, you were attracted to a group of people that were trying to solve big problems. So this is the forming, like a grassroots forming of what later became Kairos? Yeah. So we started in 14 schools in the U.S. What does we mean? We, it's, you know, Encore Jane is, let's see, the true ground zero founding person.

Encore? His name's Encore, yeah. Encore. A-N-K-U-R. And, you know, he went to Penn, which was the epicenter of the banking world, right? So the financial, you know, it's an amazing school. And it's kind of funny that the effects of the financial crisis became so apparent there, right?

Because it's like the elite students who thought they were going to have this perfect, beautiful banking job. Like, uh-oh. Yeah, surprise. Black rock, where are you? Yeah, exactly. So then the origin story is Encore literally on a plane flying campus to campus looking for proof points that there are young people thinking about these big challenges. So I'm a big believer in social proof.

It's that young people are heavily, heavily motivated by what their peers are doing, maybe someone one or two years older. So what we first set out to do was find the young people who were doing this already and give them a seat at the table that they weren't used to. Okay. When you say we, was it like you and 12 others, you and Encore? It's let's say 15, 20 people at this point. Across a couple of different universities. Across 14 universities that then became 100 universities around the world. Okay. Over 50 countries. You started as like a council, if you will.

Yeah. And then it turned into something else. Yeah. And you were at tier zero, tier one, building this. Yeah. I mean, we were just looking to find like-minded people. Okay. And we, you know...

And the mission then was the same? The mission has always been the same, right? It's build companies that solve the world's biggest problems. I think one of the philosophies is that it's not only... It's not that we believe that only young people can do this. It's that when you're young, you have this really fresh perspective with no bias around what works or doesn't work in some of these industries, right? Which can be-

There's an innocence there and a freshness to that. Yeah. It's an asset, right? When combined with the right mentors and advisors- Okay. Did you have mentors? Is that why mentorship is part of your model now? I think, you know, I always had, you know, role models, right? I think the way that we talk about mentorship is more so people who have been there, done that in an industry who can help a new idea get to market quicker, right? If you're 21 and you're trying to enter the healthcare space, it really helps to have people who can open doors for you because there's a bias towards, you know, expertise, right? So it's been amazing.

We've seen young people doing incredible things, but no one will take them seriously or give them a meeting because they're young. There's a company that I've advised that is building a new kind of telco business. Telecom. Literally a new way of subscribing and owning a cell phone, right?

Is this happening now? This is happening now, yeah. They're called Lunar Labs. It's a pay-per-app-per-day model, for example. You can pay $0.25 per app per day, and it's targeted more at lower-income populations who really want to choose what they use their money on and want unlimited data when they use it.

They don't need 100 apps. They just want five. Okay. But the point is that the telco industry would inherently kind of laugh when a young person wants to reach out and make a big change. And part of it is because they're resistant to change, but the other part of it is they just don't give the young person the credibility or they don't think it's serious or they don't think it's permanent. So where we come in is we help represent these amazing founders and companies and say, this is serious, right? These are some of the industry leaders that we've introduced them to that are starting to advise or help the company. These are how many businesses we've reviewed to ultimately pick and start working with this company, right? Okay, so that's interesting. Is that a company that you're funding or supporting? They predate our fund. They predate your fund. Okay. So that's interesting. Is that a company that you're funding or supporting? They predate our fund.

They predate your fund. Right. Okay. All right. But, you know, as part of the story of how we got here, like the reason why we went from student run grassroots organization to fund is we started to see real examples of these really ambitious, smart, young people actually building like clear, successful companies. Okay. Did your funding, your initial funding for your VC corporation or whatever it's called,

firm, did that come from the college kids or did you go outside of your first network and find some other capital? And if so, what was the relationship? We raised outside capital entirely to fund this, right? So I would say the important part is that in between us starting this and me going out to raise the capital, we had some really interesting success stories pop up. We had a Kairos fellow go on to become co-found Casper. Casper Beds. Yeah, Casper Beds.

So he was part of your college ecosystem, is that right? Yeah. We've seen company. Casper Beds. Yeah, Casper Beds. We've seen. So he was part of your college ecosystem. Is that right? Yeah. And he cracked one. Yep. And then does he come back? Yeah, yeah. He mentors younger entrepreneurs in Kairos. He comes to our events. I think we're actually friends. I think that's what's most important, right? Did you say, I think we're friends? No, we're actually friends. Yeah. I'm just one of those people who says I'm friends with everybody. I think that the point is like, this is, his name's Neil Parikh, right? He joined Kairos in 2011. His focus at the time was finding business solutions to bring clean water to India. And the point is like, who knows what

someone's career journey is going to look like but you know you meet someone at that stage in life and and you know you you build lifelong friendships you share values right and um is that a model that you work from that values shared values is how you build relationships you you can't like nobody would would want to even apply for kairos unless they're crazy enough to think that young people can help tackle some of the world's biggest problems. So there's some self-selection there. But I wanted to drill into that insight that shared values is what builds relationship. Have you said that before?

Is that something you think about? Yeah. And we keep everything we do free, right? So we run a program called the Kairos Fellowship, which is for entrepreneurs just out of university that are starting to… Oh, wait, wait, wait. This is good. I want to get a timeline in my head. Okay, so because that's like how you're actually servicing the companies that you like or companies that maybe you're grooming or whatever. It explains you like or or companies that are maybe you're

grooming or whatever it explains how we even got to a venture fund right okay so go go go back to water in india yeah yep so so the kairos fellowship is is what we started as right it is a community of peers who are starting to work on big potential solutions to global challenges, right? Two things, right? Two focuses, right? One is actually finding like-minded peers on college campuses around the world. The other is connecting them to industry leaders. So we would host events that would give them exposure to industry leaders.

I mean, our first summit had this former CEO of Boeing, the CEO of DuPont, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We had an endorsement from Bill Clinton. We had an endorsement from Bill Gates. Oh, my goodness. You know, you could tell there was a sense of energy. You're way over your pay rate. Yeah, no, but I think it's with, you know, when you do something.

They were into it. Yeah, yeah. When you do something really ambitious, people want to help, right? I mean, who doesn't want to contribute to, you know, a group of young people who are sincerely actually trying to solve these big problems? I mean, when you go and meet some of these Kairos fellows, it's like in the NBA, you know, it's a players league, right? You're marketing the players. And for us, Kairos has always been around, how do you create as much exposure for these amazing founders who are really trying to do something, right? So, you know, you see someone building a glucose monitoring contact lens,

they'll look you in the eye and they'll say, I'm going to beat Google to bring this thing to market. You see someone building a new shock absorption technology, and then two years later it's in Mercedes vehicles. I mean, you know, we've seen it, right? So this isn't an idea fair. This was us looking all over the world for the outliers who could start to prove this theory that we had, that you could incentivize and inspire more young people

to go after these problems and take more shots on goal early. Okay. So how do you go from fellowship across 14 universities? Oh, 14 to a hundred. We started in 14. Yeah. And then we scaled to a hundred. Yeah. Okay. And you're getting a degree at the same time. Yeah. Okay. All right. I mean, a lot of Kairos fellows are age 25 and under. A lot of them will, I would describe it as that stage in life when you're just deciding what you're going to really commit yourself to. Okay. How do you then turn from a fellowship, which probably still exists, I would imagine, but how do you turn that into a firm? Yes. So the next thing we built out, so I came on to be the first full-time leader of the organization. Right. And I started something called the Kairos 50,

which was a recognition of the 50 most promising companies that were coming through the Kairos community. Right. So this is. By the way, Alex, I, I,

for so many reasons, I love this. Like for so many reasons, like groundswell, community engagement, relationship based value, structured, switched on like groundswell, community engagement, relationship-based, value-structured, switched on for big ideas, bright minds, you know, like organically having the ecosystem in place before you're trying to crack something alone.

Like I love this for so many reasons. We've been patient. And I think, you know, we had no idea exactly what this could be when we started it, right? Which is part of the fun. But, you know, the Chiro is 50 to qualify. You had to have a product or a prototype. So that kind of goes with this philosophy of ours that you just have to prove it. So it's one thing to hear about this big community of all these young people working on problems.

It's another thing to see 50 of them right in front of you. Working products or prototypes that you could act on. Meaning that there's some blood, sweat, and tears already engaged. Oh, yeah. And if you're one of the industry leaders attending our showcase, to see the Kairos 50, you could do something about it. You could invest. You could advise. You could become a customer.

I love it. So you've already got the 50. I'm sorry. You've already got the- It's like our scouting combine. Yeah. It's all the five-star recruits. And you've got the legit world-class doers and thinkers that are coming checking checking out the 50. Maybe one or two of them come, four or five of

them. I don't know how many come, but is it like, is it like a combine where it's like a large convention, small convention type of thing, or is it intimate? What does it feel like? I mean, it's intimate. We try to do it in venues where people wouldn't normally get to go. We did the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. We've done the Warner Brothers lot. How do you get the floor of the Stock Exchange? It's the same thing. If you're doing something big and ambitious, more people want to help.

Very cool. There we go again. The Stock Exchange wants to be associated with this as well. It's young people hopefully creating the next future companies that will trade on the stock exchange. So then you've got the 50 that have switched on, blood, sweat, and tears involved. There's something there that you and your team have vetted to say, we like it, they fit. And do you have a semi-structured or formally structured process to vet the 50? Yeah, we have a structured process to vet the 50.

What are some of those criteria that you look for? Look, first, the intangible thing, it's something, frankly, I'm sure you could be a big help for us on, is just the founder and the team, right? Are they wired to go the distance as an entrepreneur? It already shows something about them to have built a product or prototype it shows they're a doer and they're not just like good at class projects and making presentation decks right

um but yeah there's there's kind of this intangible around you know tenacity and grit and determination and creativity that you need to be able to go from you know prototype to big ipo or exit right big Big IPO or exit hopefully means you solve the problem in a big way. And are you, do you look at those exits as a thousand day company, three thousand or a thousand day company or a 3000 day company? Like how do you think about arcs for businesses? And maybe that's a naive question, but there's, there is a transition that happens from founder type to CEO type to strategist type, you know,, there is a transition that happens from founder type to CEO type to strategist type, you know, like there is an arc and, you know, getting a company ready to go

public and getting a company ready to go exit and getting a company for some sort of sustainability cash cow. I, you know, I, I guess those are the three options. They're different. And so what are you looking for at the 50 mark? At the 50 mark, I think it's, you know, we call it problems worth solving, right? So is this a real problem? Okay. Right. Is it a real problem or a perceived problem? Right. So we work with industry experts to actually help us understand, is this a problem or is it a perceived one by the entrepreneur? So the external side of our diligence is really around problem identification market sizing and ideally you know we've gotten to know this entrepreneur for a year or two through the kairos fellowship okay anyone can apply to the kairos 50 it's by merit right but i would say

if team is 50 of the rubric and we've had a chance to get to know you and see you execute over time you're more likely to do it, right? I think some people call it a lines, not dots philosophy, right? Most people, when they meet a startup, they just kind of see it as it is, and they rarely get to see any progress or patterns over time. And all you can really do is hope you find a founder that can execute, that can lead, and can keep growing. So they got to have a product or service in place prototype. They've got to have a founder spirit that you've got some characteristics that you just described.

And they've got to have a problem worth solving in your mind. Are there any other characteristics? For the Kairos 50, no. No. And it's global. It's all over the world. And entrepreneurs apply with a problem they want to solve. We don't force them to solve a specific type of problem or have specific boundaries. But they know the ones that you're

interested in, like the big governmental type of thing. Okay. And then is there, so I'm imagining the stock exchange where you've got all these young minds coming and pitching their wares, so to speak, and their vision and products and strategies to industry visionaries. That sounds too easy. That sounds like that's too standard. That sounds like what everyone would do. Is that exactly what you're doing or are you doing something differently? I think in that format, we don't get too fancy. It's more so the audience that we invite. So it's not just VCs in the audience. I mean, we have media leaders.

Last time we had publications that ranged from CNN to Forbes to Inc., but also Vanity Fair, right? So we want to make it an interesting cultural event too. Oh, cool. Where it's not just VCs that get to see what's new and what's next. It's consumers, it's media, it's industry leaders. So the event itself is private, right? There will be sort of C-level executives, media leaders, and then some investors.

But then we will also publish it, ink test the annual release. There's kind of a consumer-facing moment. Very cool. Okay. And then do you have a system in place where the heads of large corporations or industry leaders, that they're sharing their struggles or they're sharing? Yeah, this last event, we called it Reverse Shark Tank. It was 45 industry leaders pitching to an audience of Kairos fellows on the biggest pain points in their industry. It was really awesome. This is not part of the 50?

No, no. So we host an annual event that's kind of our showcase, our flagship moment of saying here's where we are right now. Here are the problems that we're seeing solved. Here's what we wish we're seeing solved, right? So let's say half of it is about celebrating and showcasing the startups that are building something meaningful. The other half is around trying to identify and inspire more people to go into the spaces that we aren't seeing enough innovation in. Okay. And what would you imagine that if you, okay, so you created an environment where big time ballers are coming in and saying,

Hey, listen, here's my pain point. Then you got all these switched up, switched up, switched on minds that are in the audience going, Oh, light bulb. Oh, I got it. Oh, if that's what their pain is, my ecosystem and network and thinking strategy, and then they can leave their creative prototype and come back and apply for the 50. Absolutely. Yeah, there you go. That's what's up. It's not always that linear, right?

So we don't try to over-structure it. We don't think entrepreneurship should be too structured. But that happens. Okay, can I pick your brain a little bit on entrepreneurship? Okay. Do you feel as though your life experiences, your training, your business experiences have led you to, I don't want to say advice, but give me some valuable input on entrepreneurship? And I'm talking about me personally. Sure. I mean, I think great companies start from some clear unmet consumer need.

Well, actually, sorry, let me back up. I think there are two really interesting ways that great companies get started. One is a true technological breakthrough. It's a deep, deep tech, right? Something like the future of 3D printing or artificial intelligence. That is not our specialty, right? There are great funds in Silicon Valley

that specialize in that. And it's very hard to predict when a tech breakthrough will translate to a market solution. So we focus on the now, right? We focus on things that can be brought to market within 12 months that address an existing unmet need. For example? I mean, one of the more interesting spaces we've been looking at right now is just the cost of rent. It's like, where can businesses be built that eliminate friction? So

we, you know, work with a company called Rhino, um, that is eliminating the security deposit. So, you know, instead of the $2,500 upfront payment, you can, you can pay a $20 a month for a simple insurance product and keep most of that cash, right. Instead of having it locked up forever in security deposits. Um, when the average American has, you know, less than, I think it's 4,000 in savings, um, with a significant subset of that having less than $400 in savings, like that,000 in savings, with a significant subset of that having less than $400 in savings. That is a big deal. And a lot of people are trying to find completely new ways of building buildings, 3D printing buildings. That probably is the future, but that won't impact people today. So the security deposit one is something that is live now.

You can literally get your security deposit back through Rhino and change over to a monthly fee, a small monthly fee. Another one is called Residence. They created these prefab units that could convert, let's say, a three-bedroom into a series of eight private studios with shared spaces. So in New York, where you can't just pop up new buildings, and when many of the new buildings are just catering to the wealthier demographic, that's a big deal. All of a sudden, you could live in West Village for $1,500 a month in your own space. Okay. Are these two companies that you're funding? We funded them, yeah. Residents and Rhino? Rhino, exactly. Is that with an H? Rhino with an H? Yeah, like the animal.

Okay. And so if folks want, if they're listening to this, could they go check them out? Yeah, yeah. You can go to sayrhino.com. Residence is not really publicly launched yet. They have their first unit in Harlem. Okay. And if people are loving it in Harlem, we already have a two-year wait list for rooms. Okay.

So if people are loving it in Harlem, we feel very good that they're going to love it as we expand to West Village and other parts of the country. When I first got into the sports psychology industry, I would come into, I'd be invited into a team or a club and the, the coach or GM or somebody would say, Hey, listen, you know, here's some things that I think our team could benefit from and to see how you can help. Okay. And then what I felt like early on, and I didn't like this part of the experience, and that's eventually why I left traditional stick and ball sports is that I was putting my finger in a bunch of damn holes. Right. And I didn't know what I was doing. I was so green. PhD had no understanding of really

how to be successful in the application. Okay. So I'm putting my finger in all the damn holes. I'm exhausted and just trying to keep it together. Yep. But there was a problem uphill, right? And the uphill problem was, I don't know. I mean, there was lots of them, but now looking back, I can identify them, but I was stuck in my fingers in the damn hole. When you solve one of those problems and I put my finger properly in the damn hole, like solving the housing issue, it creates pressure somewhere else. So there's a downhill flow that is also taking place. So you have more people in a condensed city. And I'm sure to stitch together one, a thought with it, because you're solving pain. Is that right? Problems or pain? Like, how do you think about what you're trying to solve? We believe if there isn't a felt pain, or at least, you know, frustration, right? Like, not all of these businesses we work with are carrying cancer. There are companies out there that are trying to do that, right? But so, you know, you look at something like a Casper, it,

it definitely isn't solving the world's biggest problems. But it addressed... Sleep's an issue. Well, sleep's, of course, sleep's definitely an issue. And people hate going to the mattress store, right? So it was, you know, it was a felt pain. You know, this was more of a consumer pain point than a global catastrophe, right?

But, you know, the pain was real. It sucked buying a catastrophe, right? But you know, the pain was real. It sucked buying a mattress. Okay. So, so I think we just believe that if there isn't a clear existing felt pain, it's going to be hard to get people to buy it quickly or buy it now. And I think one of the roles venture capital plays is accelerating some businesses path to market. Okay. So go, I want to go back to pain for just a second. And I feel like I'm off track a little bit on where I wanted to go, but we'll get there. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Actually put a pin in that statement for just a second. I love that on the pain thing. I can't tell you how much I'm nodding my head saying that. Yes. When I'm trying to spend time to vet, to understand if somebody is going to do the work to change. And if they change it, it has to come. My philosophy

is it has to come from pain. And so if there's not enough internal suffering and pain, I don't think people do the work to change. And is that something that you're thinking through? Or is that, are you more external about the pain? Like, hey, here's an industry pain that trickles down to people pain. Well, I think in a dream world, it's both, right? I mean, there's this incredible company, they're called Vital VO. Again, they kind of predate our fund, but I know the founder well. And she started this business that creates LED lights that kill bacteria and disinfect surfaces. So lights that kill bacteria.

But she started it because her grandma contracted an illness in the hospital, nearly passed away from something she got while in the hospital, which is supposed to make you better. So she had this very personal pain and attachment to the problem. And clearly it was an issue, right? That was felt by, you know, I mean, millions of people get, you know, preventable diseases from surfaces and environments like hospitals and locker rooms. You had the whole, I believe it was, uh, Mercer will run through a locker room. It's yeah, exactly. It was the, it was the Tampa Bay bucks. I remember that. Um, so, so that, that pain was felt on a kind of, let's say, micro and macro level, right? I don't think every entrepreneur has a personal pain. I think great entrepreneurs, you know, the ones that can shift from industry to industry, I think, are amazing at feeling and having real empathy for consumer pain points.

And really just drilling deep into the customer and making sure they're solving the problem. Okay. You had mentioned a thought, which is, we'll figure it out. Is that a philosophical approach to business that you have as well? Well, it's entrepreneurship for sure. I mean, every business, at least every good entrepreneurial business is doing something that no one's ever done before. Right? So I think, you know, just from kind of the ground floor, first principles of the business, like you're solving a problem that already exists, but you're doing it in a way that's never been done before. So, you know, you get from one milestone to the next and one milestone to the next. And it's a

series of, you know, thousands of decisions and hundreds of milestones before you really get to where you want to go. Okay. Failure along the way. Tons of failure along the way. How do you think about failure? Because I've, I don't want to load you up on this, but I've got a different way I think than failure. And I hear all the time, fail fast, fail forward, fail often, fail, fail, fail, fail. How do you think about failure? Failure in entrepreneurship, I think, is like playing a video game. You may lose the level or lose your life, but you get to keep trying and keep trying and keep trying,

and you'll get to the end goal. Great companies, I think, start with a clear end goal or mission in their DNA. We want to make cancer diagnostics cheaper, or we want to make housing accessible in New York. You know, there's some sort of goal, right? And I think the great entrepreneurs are flexible on how to get there, and they're willing to adapt and listen and learn. So they can fail thousands of times. I mean, I think PayPal is a great example. Like, you know, I was on the verge of dying several times before they found their perfect customer niche, which was eBay, power sellers. Their vision was always, you know, enable the world to send money online. But the approach, I think, probably changed, you know, a hundred times, right?

We actually had the CEO, the the former ceo of paypal yeah ebay john donahoe on the podcast and he did talk about that as well yeah and so all right you know okay but there's failure is hard when you play a when you lay a bet and it doesn't work out and then somebody says oh just fail again wait a. Wait a minute. I just cost time. I cost resources. I might have cost credibility. And you don't get to lay so many bets. So how do you think about failure? And there's consequential failure that can end businesses.

Yep. That could end careers, ends marriages. And like there are failures that are consequential and some that are not. So I think it's the space between differentiating catastrophic and when to be specific about laying catastrophic. Yeah, there's an element. I mean, managing risk, I think is huge, right? You shouldn't be, you know, laying down decisions that can bankrupt you if you go wrong as an entrepreneur. And I think you're right. It's very nuanced, right? If you've raised $20 million and you have the backing of the best investors, that's different than if you're bootstrapping a business from your garage, right? So, you know, I think failure is part of the process of entrepreneurship and some people are just luckier than others to have more, let's say, extra lives.

Okay. All right. So then you give advice to young folks saying, don't sweat the failures? Is that how you think about it? Because you don't want them blowing your money either, right? who they can call to ask these questions like, hey, I'm 22. How do I hire a 50-year-old? Or what do you say to get an investor to give you a yes or no answer? There's these really nuanced things that change all the time where it's just really helpful to have like-minded peers around you. How often do they get to fellow? We have usually 1,000 active fellows, right? We have 3,000 alumni, over 3,000. So quite a few people have been part of the community at some point in their life. Many have gone on to start really cool companies, but some are in government or media or started their own venture funds. You know, I think like at the beginning, it doesn't matter, right? We

just want to identify really talented people and make sure they know each other and make sure they're thinking about big problems. Seattle Seahawks and I have spun up a joint venture taking his intellectual property on how to switch on the process to switch on a culture to help amplify people's best. And then mine is my intellectual property is how to train and do mindset training, literally mindset training for people who are hungry to be their best. And we added one plus one. It felt like it was far greater than two. So there was this little story story we're heading into our first super bowl together and we're in the hallway of the training center for the Seattle Seahawks and coach just kind of we're in the hallway and he leans over and he says can you feel how electric it is I was like it's amazing like it's like the people are switched on the company's switched on it's amazing right And so what ended up

happening was he quickly, without skipping a beat, he says, do you think anyone would be interested in what we're doing outside of sport? So without skipping a beat, we nodded our heads. He went his way. I went my way. A couple of days later, we came back with our notes on our intellectual property and what we're doing as a shared practice. We took those notes. He called Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. Satya nodded his head, said, yes, this is rad. These are some of the same things I'm trying to solve. Let's start an incubated process in the company. And the timeline is not quite as clean as that. We actually had some incubation going. And so it turned from 12 people to 25 people to 2,500 to eventually 30,000 people and 30,000 people at eight hours a person. So we've

done 240,000 man hours of training over two years of mindset training inside the corporation. Okay. I'm looking to you. So that's the nuts and bolts. We're a small staff, six people. And what would you say is the next level of success? So we've cascaded from in-person training to digital training where we've got a four week online course. And in that course, we've trained Olympians and sports psychologists to be the mindset coaches for, for the employees. Well, I'm just looking for some free, free guidance here. Like, what would you say is the next phase for us to go to? Or like, we both have a higher appetite for risk, both have a high appetite to, um, create

something that is sustainable and is offering good to the world. I think the question is, is just who feels the pain because they don't have this or they don't have access to this, right? Like it makes perfect sense why a corporation would want this. Like the corporation wants to reach its highest potential and it knows it can't do that without people.

I think at the individual level, what is the demographic or psychographic of customer that needs this in their life or is breaking because they don't have it. Right. I think generally that's the quickest path to market, right? Now there's this mindset that everybody should care about this, which I think is true. Right. I think, I think people like you believe that the world would be better if everybody thought this way. And it's true in a sense, but people like you, people like, no, no, no. It's like true believers believe like me too. I mean, I, I obviously believe this about what I'm doing. It's like, I think I wish everybody in the world when

they were young thought, you know, when you grow up and you, you see Michael Jordan, you also see, you know, Elon Musk and you say, I could do that too. Like I believe that, right? The question is, is right now, how do you get this in front of people so you can just start seeing it work? And you guys clearly did that already with big companies. Well, I love your thought though, because what we've identified is a strategy for, there's only three things as humans you can train. You can train your craft, your body, and your mind. And most people are spending 90% of the time training their craft, a little bit conditioning their body and very little time formally training their mind. And that is a skill that can be developed. It's coming. I'll tell you as just a pull in the Olympics, is that they understood the mechanics of how to train confidence. They understood it.

They knew, they know the value of it and they wanted to fine tune it where 10 years ago, people were like, well, like what exactly are we talking about? So it's changing. And I'll just share this as a pain point for anyone listening. If you're not training your mind, you might be falling behind. And the reason is because our world is ripping and running digitally, fast-paced, Insta access to everything, high demand for performance. And what we're doing right now is we're spending far more time thinking that we need to do extraordinary things to be extraordinary. And as a global community, we're tired.

Yep. We're fatigued, you know, and that's why the big buzz about mindfulness and a big buzz about sleep. We're tired. We're tired of working so fricking hard that thinking that we need to be okay. If we just make a bigger dollar or get recognition in some kind of way. So it's time to flip the model on its head. We're excited about being a tier zero on it. And, and so, so does that sound close to being right? Yeah. Yeah. I think the, one of the points though, is that I've seen a lot of arguments that, that to address this, we need to be changing education, for example. So, so, so when you look at this problem, right, there's clear, there are clearly ways you can solve it through government, right? You can be changing the curriculum of public schools. It seems so big though.

Maybe this is me being old and you like to your young mindset, like you're like, yeah, you can change that. To me, it feels like it's too big of a warship. Well, I mean, we, that's, I think a separate rabbit hole, but you know, we're going to have to change the way we teach people because you know, you, when you can go on Google and look up a fact in two seconds and a lot of people in the world have that at their fingertips, right? It's maybe not as necessary to be memorizing facts just from a chemistry class. Yeah, that's good.

Like teaching problem solving at an early age, but you can do that through a business solution. There you go. Yeah. You know, I think an interesting question is like, what kind of timeline are you on? Because there have been amazing businesses that don't operate on a VC timeline. Like a VC timeline is let's get this to market as quickly as possible. There have been sort of deeper movements that may take years, right? Or even like companies like Vice or even like might sound weird, but the UFC, you know, they were around for decade plus before they really became this like big cultural phenomenon, right? So if you're not in a rush, you could keep, you could do it your way. If you want to get this thing out as quickly as possible as a business, I'd say who, who is feeling the pain?

We, um, for us, we, we, we try to differentiate between like what people need now versus what, you know, clearly they should do. Right. And the example I would give you is there's this amazing founder we work with and he's trying to change retirement planning. He's saying, you know, we are so screwed because nobody's saving for retirement. But when we've looked at the problem, it's like, yeah, everybody will buy into the concept that, yeah, you should be saving more. You should be saving more for retirement. But then you think about how the average person has barely any money to even fund an emergency event. It's like, yeah, you're going to have to be patient to create that world.

So he thinks of this as a 10-year, 20-year vision. I want to meet him. Because that's the exact same challenge that we have. Everyone ought to train their mind to be their very best because we're running on patchy software, if you will, running our brain. But the need is not clear. Where do I find the time? It's our challenge for people, and we're saying it's fundamental. And then he's saying, where do they find the money?

Yep. Right. Yeah. Okay. And I think you found a customer for it. You found athletes who are breaking because they don't think this way. And, and you're starting to see it at the corporate level, right? You know, globally at the corporate level. And then the next question is like, who's the consumer that feels that way? And they definitely exist. It's just, you know, are they, are they more likely to be 22 or 40 or 60 or are

they, you know, what channels and platforms are they on? Who knows? Okay. You know. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Um, I wish you could poke some holes. Maybe we'll do this later. Poke some holes into the business approach. I'd really value that. I don't know if I'm still overstepping my boundaries with you. Okay. Um, six months from now, where's your company? What's the vision? What are you looking like? We're in a really fun phase where the first wave of companies we've invested in are launching. So in six months, I'd say first and foremost, when I talk to you about these companies addressing housing, or we have a company addressing elder care, baby food, childhood nutrition, all sorts of different spaces, right? We're kind of all launching within the next six months.

So first of all, I hope to have very clear data around what's working, what isn't working to solve some of these problems, right? I hope that residence is in 15 properties in New York and San Francisco and maybe one other major city. I hope that 100,000 buildings are offering Rhino, right? I hope that, you know, Sarah, this elder care business that we invested in to help people actually get care in the home as opposed to a hospital or an elderly home, I hope they've expanded outside of London. Like, success is very clear to us right now

in the sense that we just need our companies to get to the next stage. They're not going to solve the world's biggest problems within six months, but they can get to the next stage. The other thing is we're looking at spaces where we haven't found enough solutions. It's very frustrating, like a space like workforce retraining, right? A lot of people are talking about what happens when all these jobs get automated, right? And where can business solutions exist? We have not found a lot. Anyone listening, if you have solutions or ideas, we're actively looking for them. We are looking at spaces like fertility and the modern parent.

We haven't found the right company to partner with there. So you're open for people to make it into the Kairos 50? I'm open to people to make it into the Kairos 50. We're open to companies to invest in. I think the Kairos 50 is really a showcase of companies solving interesting problems. We as a fund have specific problems that we want to see solved now where we also think our team is well-suited to help. What are your pain points as a man and then what are your pain points as a company? As a company?

Oh, no. Start with the man. Start with the man first yeah yeah i know you want to yeah i look i i think that we're still in no you you you as a man okay what is hard for you because it from the outside you got it all buttoned up no no no i i think i'm just very comfortable with challenges or adversity, right? Like I raised this fund with my business partners. We had no formal venture expertise.

So we showed people why we believe what we believe, what we've learned from 10 years of Kairos, and we got people to believe, right? We had plenty of horrible meetings and people laughing us out of the room and telling us that it wasn't going to work. But that, you know, I guess we've just gotten comfortable with it, right? So the next stage for us, you know, what the pain for me is just proving that we can pick good companies and help them in an indisputable way. And if you fail? Well, if we fail, I mean, look, we don't have unlimited shots on goal. But we would, you know, take a minute and say, are we are we picking problems that really should be solved by an entrepreneur? Is there some flaw in how we're picking the founders to invest in? Like, we are open to that, right? But, you know, right now, we're just dropping our head and working. I

think, for us, what pains me is just focus, right? It's like there's so many things we could say yes to and so many opportunities. And every founder you meet thinks they're solving the biggest problem in the world, which is an amazing position to meet someone in. But no chance that's all true, right? How do you structure your day to know that you're being effective with your time? Yeah, look, we have a really amazing team and we are very focused on tying each thing we decide to do that week to our company's quarterly goals, right? So it's just a quick filter of like, is this really worth our time? Does this move the needle towards what we

agree to, to collectively focus on, right? So I would say that's how we plan our week. Our day, I think, is very flexible and variant. When you wake up, is there any specific things that you start your day with? No, because I travel so much. I think it's just I wake up and think about how I'm going to get to where I need to go. We spend a crazy amount of time just planning logistics and travel

because we're working with entrepreneurs all over the world. How's your sleep? Sleep's good. It could be better, but given we're balancing different time zones, I'm okay. I mean, I'm aware that I need to improve it, which is, I think, the first step. Yeah, and do you have any strategies to help with that?

I just do something that is not work for at least an hour before I go to sleep. I just never go to sleep with my? I just do something that is not work for at least an hour before I go to sleep. I just like never go to sleep with my mind racing about work because that will bury me. Okay. Fitness?

Fitness, yeah. Workout. How many times a week? Five times a week. Oh, okay. So you find that. Any sort of spiritual groundedness or approach

or training or? I just make sure I spend time with the people closest to me friends family fiance yeah okay all right um it all comes down to perseverance pressure comes from pressure comes from caring you don't feel pressure if you care say that again in my opinion if you if you really feel feel pressure if you care. Say that again. In my opinion,

if you really feel pressure, it means you care about something. You really want it to happen. You really want it to work. The weight of people around you caring too is pressure. I am resilient. And you laugh.

My vision is? I hope that, you know, eight year olds in school in 10 years will say, I want to be like so-and-so and it's a Kairos entrepreneur. Someone who solved a big problem. Very cool. All right. I'm really geeked to follow you and your company. I think what you're doing is extraordinary. Thank you. I'm really looking forward to meeting some of your entrepreneurs and following what they're doing. They're crazy. They are.

You're going to love them. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, good. You got like the person who founded Residence. He started what became the biggest youth hostel chain in Eastern Europe when he was 13. Come on. Crazy people. Come on. 13? In this case, I've never seen that before, but in Eastern Europe when he was 13. Come on. Crazy people.

Come on, 13? I've never seen that before, but in this case, it was 13. Okay, I got to meet him. So it's people who have this maybe delusional optimism, this amazing self-confidence, but ideally they also have a self-awareness that they haven't figured it all out yet. Brilliant.

So the goal here, the vision, if you will, is to follow your process and how you're becoming and what you're doing to help others become and follow that process for us to learn about what you're doing. And I don't know if people can, you know, be part of like, if there's people that are funding VC firms, I don't know if you're open to funding or when you're, when you are, if you are, but we'll learn about that as we go. We'll also learn, I think, the struggles and the pains and the opportunities that your entrepreneurs are going through. And our community hopefully can help amplify and switch on and challenge those in all the right ways. And as we go, is there any way that our community could potentially participate in the Kairos 50?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Kairos 50? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Kairos 50 is technically open to anyone. The criteria is founded the company while under the age of 30. Okay. So what I'm thinking, okay, so under 30. So if you're not under 30, you know, there's ways to participate more as a mentor or advisor or to work directly with some of the companies we're talking about, right? So there's a place for everyone, but the programs we run are specifically targeted at young founders, again, because we specifically believe we're the ones best suited to help those specific

types of founders. Okay. I want to structure a program for Finding Mastery listeners with you and think about like accessing our community of people that are on the path of mastery and might have a game changing idea. Right. And then move that idea to a prototype and then potentially into Kairos 50 and then potentially, you know, part of your ecosystem. So, um, yeah, so let's, let's shape that as we go as well. So I'm geek to follow what you're doing and your people. Last question. What is your working definition or how do you articulate the concept of mastery? So I think mastery,

especially in the context of entrepreneurship, is learning as quickly as possible to get to the next stage and keeping that as a skill set, right? So I think in sports, there's a clear end goal and you can repeat and repeat and repeat. You know the end goal. Basketball, it's to win the game. Or maybe it's to score as many points and win the game.

In entrepreneurship, you kind of have this idea of the end problem, but the mastery is what happens between the lines. It's like you need to learn how to hire and lead. You need to learn how to fundraise. You need to learn what your customers really want or care about. And then depending on the company, you might need to master manufacturing or product development or government regulation. So we believe mastery is a series of sort of short-term, really intense learning experiences or skills that need to be developed by entrepreneurs. And that's why if you think about what binds those types of people, it is these intangible

traits like resilience and grit and empathy for consumers. It's these very intangible sort of personality traits. But you'll be able to tell as you talk to some of these entrepreneurs, they all kind of have that ability to master what's in front of them to get to the end goal. Very cool. We're in the process now. We're in the process now and it's messy and we don't know exactly how we'll get to the end goal. I love it. Okay. All right. Where can people follow you? Find what you're doing? What are the social platforms? Kairoshq.com. So K-A-I-R-O-S-H-Q.com. Kairos means the opportune moment in Greek, right? So that we view it as, you know, the right time to start a business or

the right time to solve a specific problem. So again, K-A-I-R-O-S. You can reach me at Fiance. My last name is Fiance. F as in Frank. I-A-N-C-E at Kairoshq.com. I may be crazy for giving my email out. Did you just offer your email? I told my email. But honestly, what's even interesting to us is just ideas on problems worth solving. Where are we missing big big meaningful problems that entrepreneurs can solve today. So even if someone isn't an entrepreneur, the identification of problems

is critical. Would you be open to coming on our finding mastery tribe and answering some questions because people are going to have direct questions. Yeah. And then like offer that to them. Yeah. I'd love to. I think, you know, we, we also have a big community of industry leaders who help us with these specific market facing questions, right? I think what on my end, it's more about, you know, how to start a company. Should this company be started? What does a VC look for? If you're going to go that route? How do you actually bring this thing to the world? That's what I love. Brilliant. Okay. So those would be the right types of questions for you. In the weeds, in the process about those questions.

Okay. And then did you do social media as well? Twitter, Instagram? Yeah. Everything's at Kairos HQ. At Kairos HQ. Yeah. Okay.

Brilliant. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. And for everyone listening, I hope you're as inspired as I am to follow Alex and his community on their approach to change the world and through entrepreneurship and through ideas that matter. So thank you. And those of us who are wanting to ask specific questions, head over to finding mastery.net forward slash tribe. Alex will be there to answer some questions. You can also find me on Twitter at Michael Gervais. Finding Mastery is for Instagram. And then on LinkedIn is Michael Gervais as well. All the best. Thank you, Alex. Thanks. all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you we really appreciate you being part of this community and if you're enjoying the show Thank you. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up.

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