The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Democratizing One-Click Checkout — with Ryan Breslow

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Ryan Breslow, the founder and CEO of Bolt — a technology company that has raised more than $600 million and 18x’d its valuation in 18 months, joins Scott to discuss scaling the company, fundraising, and his approach to company culture. Follow Ryan on Twitter, @theryanking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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cards, savings accounts, mortgage rates, and more. NerdWallet, finance smarter. NerdWallet Compare Incorporated. NMLS 1617539. Welcome to the PropGPod. Today, we're mixing it up. We're crazy. We're cray-cray. And instead of answering office hour questions, we're sharing our interview with Ryan Breslow, the founder and CEO of Bolt. Bolt is a technology firm transforming the checkout experience

and has raised more than 600 million to date and 18X its valuation in just 18 months. We discussed with Ryan how he has been able to scale this company so quickly, all at the impressive age of 27. My gosh, it's so intimidating and so discouraging that a kid of 27 can have to shit this together. Anyways, we'll also hear his advice on fundraising, investing in crypto, and approach to building

a company's culture. Ryan, where does this podcast find you? I'm in my home in South Florida, in Miami. So talk to us a little bit about Bolt. What is Bolt? How do you guys make money? We are a checkout platform and a shopper network. And so retailers use us to power their checkout flow. And we do all the hard things around orchestrating their payments and managing their transactional stack.

We call it Checkout OS. And if you're using our Checkout OS, the shoppers go through our checkout. We enroll the shoppers in accounts that are not just for that merchant, but across the Bolt network. So when we see the user at the next Bolt merchant, it's an instant one-click experience. So isn't the idea that you're taking Amazon one-click and enabling it or democratizing it to every retailer that you sign up once, give your information, and then you can end all that registration bullshit across multiple retailers? Is that a fair explanation? I think that's it. They've had one click since 1999, I believe. And it's over 20 years later, and the rest of the world still doesn't have that.

And there's a huge transfer of wealth from independents to Amazon, who will pay to get a shopper interested, and the shopper will go on their site, they'll get educated, they'll have intent to purchase. And then they just end up buying and buying that thing on Amazon. So the retailer is paying for Amazon's transactions. And we're ending that paradigm. Every independent business should have that same Amazon-level experience. Yeah, I just want to talk a little bit about this company. You've raised $600 million in funding.

Your valuation grew 18x in 18 months. What advice would you have? You've obviously been remarkably successful raising capital. What advice do you have for young entrepreneurs in terms of raising capital? I even wrote a book about it. It's called Fundraising. If you follow a process where you build your network, you build momentum, and then you raise, as that momentum is built, you can help ensure a high likelihood of success. Mm-hmm. And so you're obviously a very young man. You're 27, and you've built an incredible company with around 10 million shoppers. Can you point to any key moments or any specific things that have helped you achieve such a level of success at such a young age?

I mean, I think I would argue, I'm going to go out on a limb here. If you raise $600 million, you have a company worth somewhere between, I don't know, $5 and $10 billion, and you're 27. You're one of the youngest, I don't know what they call them, mega unicorns when something reaches that valuation. What have been the influences or the biggest influences on you since getting out of college? Or was it college that was that influence? Well, I've thought a lot about this. I think, you know, a characteristic trait of not only myself, but the company is activity. We're always going. We don't get stuck. We just keep moving. And so persistence really pays. And the team you build around you also has a big impact.

And so I've always taken pride in bringing the best people in the world around me. I spend a lot of time making sure we have the best. We're also very thoughtful about how we do things. Like we are taking a radical new approach to culture. We call it conscious.org, conscious culture. So actually, all of our attributes on conscious.org around our operating values, I would say also describe how I personally live my life.

And so it makes sense to try and attract the right, the best people. But do you find that it's, I mean, how have you been able to do that? You know, attracting people is your number one job. And so I'd say the biggest lesson there is focus. You have to be focused on it. If you're not focused on it, it's not going to happen. And your most lethal asset or weapon that you have, especially early on, is your vision. And so we were able to attract top, top folks very early. Now it's obviously easier because it takes less imagination,

but we never hesitate to lean on that imagination, especially early on. You're sort of, I mean, you must be sort of drinking from a firehose in terms of managing. You guys have, I think you have approximately, you have what sounds like around 400 employees, is that right? Yeah, almost 500 now. 500. So you're, you've had to mature as a manager. You've really kind of, it's sort of trial by fire. What have you learned as a manager and as a leader over the last several years running this company? How has your initial view or approach to management and leadership evolved or changed? Well, I've really learned what good leadership is. And even a couple years ago, I would not have considered myself a great leader. Now I know

what great leadership looks like. Having learned from others around me who I hired who were great leaders and having learned from others who weren't and being like, what's going wrong over there? Is it the company or is it them? And they would try to blame the company and we put someone else in and it would solve all the problems. And I realized that leaderships have certain traits that now I start to look for in myself and in others.

I really love this book, Winning From Within. It talks about four categories of leadership. One is the dreamer, visionary, right? Two is the warrior, executor. Three is the thinker, problem solver. And four is the lover, right? Empathetic leader, empathetic teammate. And so I find that the great leaders have all four of those. And for me, I was dreamer and warrior, right? That's my comfort zone. And I was less on lover and thinker, right?

And so I've personally worked on those areas, being a more empathetic leader and taking the time to sit and say, okay, let's think through how we're going to solve this versus just, so what we need to do is the vision. Those four quadrants have been really helpful for me. And when you think about bold, who do you describe as your competition?

Are you FinTech? Are you payments? Are you a SaaS company? And I realize everyone wants to bucket someone to make it easier to understand, but how do you describe Bolt? Or who is your competition? Well, we're really a paradigm shift of a business model. Nothing like it exists. And so I say we have the technical mode of a middleware company. It's very hard to build all of our checkout OS integrations. And we have the network effects of a consumer company. And there's elements of fintech,

there's elements of enterprise software, there's elements of a platform. So I think Bolt is kind of a little bit of everything. I mean, really what we're building is Amazon inside out. We're saying, okay, what is their network advantage? And let's create a network effect of shoppers, of data, of economies of scale with technology, and distribute that in a distributed, decentralized way to all independent brands on the internet. So, but for example, does Shopify have a similar payment technology that they offer their customers? Yeah, they do. I would say that's the closest comp. Although Shopify has the network effect

in shoppers and data and tech economies of scale, but in an end-to-end enclosed platform. And so that's fundamentally different than us, which is fully decentralized. And so if you think of the progression of commerce, it's like Amazon, where you have network effects and scale, but on one website, amazon.com. And phase two is Shopify, where you have all of that,

but on one end-to-end platform. And then phase three is Bolt, where you have all the scale and network effect, but in a decentralized platform. And what's the friction in the business right now? It's clearly not capital. It appears that you've been very successful raising capital. Is it finding good people, finding clients? Is it the ecosystem where when you look at the next 24 or 36 months and you think,

okay, you must have this very aggressive business plan to justify the valuation. Where do you see the greatest risk? Where's the friction? You know, for us, we can't be satisfied with what we've accomplished this month. And we can't rest, right? We have to go even bigger the next month. And so, you know, I think for us, it's all execution risk right now. So well-positioned, it's just... So execution risk comes down to the right people and the right now. So well positioned. So execution risk comes down to the right people and the right players. When you're interviewing somebody, and obviously the company's done really well,

how would you describe your culture? And has it been difficult to try and mature this culture in what is probably a mostly remote environment right now? Difficult, yes, but we've been very successful. We have started the conscious culture movement. And so we wrote an entire framework for how to build consciously. And that means how do you take the execution culture of a company like Amazon or Netflix, but bridge it with humanity, mindfulness, and employee well-being and happiness. And so being able to hold those two polarities at the same time, we believe those are going to be the lasting companies of the future. And so, for example, we say, work like a lion, right? Not like a cow.

So that means that we want you all in when you're working, but we also want you resting when you're resting. So we're the first tech unicorn to do four-day work week. That's one byproduct of conscious culture. But there are a lot of other examples. We say protect your own time like it's the founder's time. Don't just guard my time, guard your time. And so if there are meetings on your calendar that are not the best use of your time, speak up. Push for them to be done in writing so it could be done asynchronously over talking. So when you're talking, you're fully present, engaged, and in the moment. And I could

go on and on. So how else do you, I'm fascinated by this notion of a conscious culture. I think that's a, it sounds nice. And I think a lot of people would like to incorporate that into their company. So I know that you implemented a four-day work week in September. What are some other ideas, whether you've implemented them or you're thinking about them to try and create that sort of more mindful culture, if you will? There's a lot of work that needs to be done in corporate culture. Let's talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

That's another big section of Conscious.org that we're about to launch, which are our guides on how to do that in the workplace and create a workplace where all different backgrounds, perspectives are heard, where everyone feels comfortable, where your identity doesn't give you any privilege in the organization, where it's purely your qualities of, do you execute, do you lift up others around you? Another thing we're big on is feedback. If you're playing on a sports team, coach is giving you feedback every day. If you're in the work world,

you're getting feedback once every six months. And, you know, it's a super scary, fear-inducing situation for both the manager and the report. Because you've been in the dark for so long and things have built up that haven't been said, right? And so feedback you want to address at the ground floor, nip in the bud. You want to give people real-time feedback.

And so we do bi-weekly written feedback. We have a whole guide on how to do it in a way where it's embraced and where gratitude is shown around it versus it being fear-inducing. And so that's another component. But we've outlined all of our playbooks on Conscious.org. And it's open source, so a company can go say, oh, I like, I want to use the feedback guide.

I want to use founder mentality as an operating value. Steal it, use it as your own, and make it your own. We'll be right back. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy? Marketing. And when you're starting your small business, while you're so focused on the day-to-day,

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Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you

get your podcasts. So look, you clearly have an ability to kind of see around corners here and envision companies and where technology's headed. What sectors or what technologies are you most excited about? And would you counsel or coach people to invest in and learn about with their finite human capital?

What are you most excited about? Undoubtedly, crypto, I think is going to govern our future, quite literally. And we're just getting started there. And also commerce and financial technology. I mean, I'm not saying anything shocking. The whole world is now realizing that those areas are important. But I've been saying the same thing for the last six or seven years. understand how to execute in a more traditional, softer sense, because I think the mirroring of both of those is going to be where a lot of the future is held. Which components, when you say

crypto, are you most excited about? Is it the big guys, the Bitcoins and the Ethereums? Is it NFTs? Is it the platforms? Is it smart contracts? Help us zero in on which part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem do you think holds the most promise right now. I actually think that it's DAOs, where you can have decentralized governance, and the infrastructure hasn't really been there for it to be reliable. But the second it's reliable, it changes everything. You don't really have the need for a corporation anymore or a government anymore. Or you can have fully transparent governance and reliable governance and voting and all of that jazz. That's an area that I think is under-discussed that I believe is going to change literally everything in the next five years or sooner. So that's all I'd be focused on, basically. So help us take this one step further.

How do you invest around, if you buy into this notion of decentralized autonomous or the decentralized autonomous organization, how do you play it? Are there certain coins? Someone says, okay, I buy this. I heard from this young genius, Ryan, with this great company, and I'm buying the DAOs. How do I play it? Well, it's still early

and it's still a little bit of the wild west, right? And so if everyone knew that this was the future, there wouldn't be as much of an opportunity, right? So you're early. That's the first thing to remember. And so go experiment. Go get involved in different DAOs. Go get involved in different Discord communities.

Get a feel. You know, the interesting thing about DAOs, they're not like starting a software company. They're more of starting a community or a movement. And so it's going to reward those who understand community the best. Before community building used to be tied to people who didn't really have financial upside

or interests, right? It was more social work. Now, they might become the kings of tomorrow. And so you want to think about that. And you want to just get involved and play around and be smart, know all the different DAO infrastructure projects, know the pros and the cons, know the tech, know the culture side as well.

It's granted, it's hard to make money on that right now. So if you need to make money on something, that may not be your main day job, but it could be your main passion area or research area. Yeah, it definitely seems like the idea to elegantly harness with less friction, human capital and IP. And when you think about, I mean, you're an entrepreneur, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. And I think about just the amount of brain damage. I would say the first 24 months to get from letters A to C are just so much brain damage. Hiring Silicon Valley Bank, hiring the law firm, hooking up the printer, finding office space. I mean, you have to do it, but the idea that you could get from kind of

letters A to D sort of instantly almost with DAOs, I think that's their vision. It's really intoxicating and interesting or kind of a mind mill to think about. So let's return back. Where do you want to be in 10 years? Or have you thought about that both for Bolt and for you personally? What is your objective both from the company on a professional level and then personally, what are some of the goals you've set out for yourself in the next 10 years? So Bolt should bring all of the power of a centralized commerce marketplace like an Amazon to everyone anywhere so that creativity and good products win at the end of the day

and not scale. And so that's one, right? It's fully democratized commerce and access to it globally, right? Not just in the US, but we're expanding globally. And so there should be one permeated way to transact. I mean, for me personally, my goal is to help out as much as physically possible with every dollar that I make, use it to lift the world up because there are a lot of problems that I think as society we're turning a blind eye to. It's just to me, I just can't

understand why no one's doing anything. And so I really want to do a lot of things to help. You chair an interesting nonprofit that provides free dance classes for underserved communities in Miami called The Movement. Can you say more about that and how you got involved in that? Yeah. So it was an idea that I had one day. I love to dance. And I was like, you know, dance could really be a scalable way to help. Because I've taught people to dance and it changes their lives, right? You're giving somebody

self-confidence and there's no more precious gift to give somebody than self-confidence. And also dance is very scalable, right? All you need is a floor and a speaker. And so as you know, if I'm going to donate money, right, if I'm going to donate a hundred thousand dollars to my school's endowment, I'm paying for, you know, just another person to work there, right? What then are they making? But if I'm paying with the movement, we've proven that we can teach 10,000 students how to dance for $100,000. And so it's now in Miami, New York, we're launching New Orleans, LA, San Francisco, and then we'll be all over the country really in

the next 18 months. So free dance classes, removing all the barriers, financial levels, all beginner classes, after school programs to remove the transportation barriers. We're just going to get everyone dancing. So you're going to bring seamless checkout and dance to the masses. I like that. Dance. I think that's a really neat vision. Ryan Breslow is the founder and CEO of Bolt, a technology company transforming the checkout experience outside of Bolt. Ryan is also the founder of Eco, a digital global cryptocurrency platform that can be used as a payment tool for daily use transactions. He also chairs The Movement, a charity that provides free dance classes for underserved communities in Miami.

He joins us from Miami. Ryan, congratulations on your success and keep on dancing. Pleasure, Scott. Thanks for having me. Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burrows. Claire Miller is our assistant producer. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Thursday.

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