The Startup Ideas Podcast - 2 $1M+ EdTech Startups you can launch tomorrow

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Join me as I chat with Sarah Lacy, Co-Founder of The Best Book Store , as we discuss  a variety of EdTech startup ideas.  Sarah also shares her the lessons she learned from studying Mark Zuckerberg and her advice for networking and storytellingEpisode Timestamps: 00:00 Intro01:46  Startup Idea 1: Pre-MBA Entrepreneurship Program for Tween Girls23:53  Networking and Storytelling as Key Skills31:13 Lessons Learned from Mark Zuckerberg36:33 Startup Idea 2: AI-Powered Author Coaching Bots1) Startup Idea 1: Pre-MBA Entrepreneurship Program for Tween GirlsWhy it's HOT:• Tackles confidence drop in adolescence• Teaches negotiation, self-worth, ideation• Potential to transform female leadershipKey features:• Online curriculum for schools• Real-world challenges with local businesses• Focus on digital marketing, not outdated door-to-door salesMonetization strategy:• Sell to schools (public & private)• Sponsorships from big brands (Nike, anyone?)Pro tip: Use storytelling to sell to sponsors. Remember the water charity campaign? ONE story can lead to big numbers.2) Startup Idea 2: AI-Powered Author Coaching BotsProblem: People buy self-help books but struggle to apply the lessons long-term.Solution: Daily prompts & coaching from an AI avatar of the author! How it works:• Personalized daily check-ins• Reminders to apply book concepts• Voice & look of the actual authorPotential authors to target:• James Clear (Atomic Habits)• Adam Grant• Brené Brown Business model:• Partner with publishers• Drive book pre-orders (10k = NYT Bestseller!)• Offer exclusive access to early adopters3) Zuckerberg Insight 👀What made young Zuck unique? EXTREME HUMILITY + self-awareness."He knows when he doesn't know something, and he doesn't just go in to learn it. He gives himself... a position of extreme humility." - Sarah Lacy4) Key takeaway: NETWORK + STORYTELLING = Startup successRemember: It's not just WHO you know, but HOW you pitch your idea! Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideas Work with me and my team: LCA — world’s best product design firm to build apps, websites and brands people love. https://latecheckout.agencyBoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/Community Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses http://communityempire.co/FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND SARAH ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://x.com/sarahcudaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahcuda/The Best Book Store: https://bestbookstore.com/

Okay, last question before we move on to the next startup idea. Biggest thing you learned from Mark Zuckerberg shadowing him for hundreds of hours. This is the key to what makes him so unique. So the fact that he is, it is this extreme humility and amazing self-awareness. So he knows when he doesn't know something and he doesn't just go in to learn it, he gives himself or he used to, and I don't, I'm not close to him anymore, But he would really put himself in a position of extreme humility. And he had no ego in the fact of, oh, I don't know this thing.

I have to posture like I know it. He'd be like, I don't know this thing. And it's vital. And I learned this firsthand because. Okay, we got Sarah Lacey on the pod. She's an idea machine. And I was emailing her before this. I was like, come with ideas.

I'll give you 30 minutes. And she's like, I don't need 30 minutes. I'll see you there in a few. So thank you, Sarah, for coming on the pod and sharing some of your ideas with us. It is my pleasure. I, you know, it's really, anyone who has built several companies knows, like, the fun part is coming up with ideas. Like, we can all come up with ideas. Like, the shitty part is actually trying to build them. So I am fortunately at a stage of my career where I can just come up with ideas. All right. Should we get into it? Let's go. So where do you want to start? Do you want me to just pitch you my ideas? Is that how this works?

Yeah, you share your ideas and I will, yeah, we can just talk about if we like it. We don't like it, how we'd start it. I love it. All right. So I was thinking about this. My last startup that I did, which, you know, had a, you know, a lot of successful startups always have these near-death experiences. I think I had near, you know, generational wealth, huge success with it.

always would just grab the defeat out of the jaws of victory. But it was this company called Chairman Me. It was started as Chairman Mom. And, you know, we went on a lot of sort of pivots and iterations. But the part of the company that I love the most was during the pandemic, when women were really stuck at home and employee resource groups, which had really worked to, like, boost women and give them solidarity and ways to get ahead, like those were kind of gone because everyone was working from home. we started doing these really functional, really effective online courses for women. And we just nailed how to do online courses.

Like we had 90% completion rates, whereas online courses usually have 5% completion rates. And we taught really tactical things by the best people in the world. So like we had this course on negotiation taught by this coach who used the scientifically proven way to negotiate without a gender backlash. and on average got people 30% increases in salaries. Like they were really like Navy SEALs of courses to get women to the next level. They worked. They had huge results. Sounds great, right?

Do you know why that company failed? Because every day I had to do battle with women's internalized misogyny. And it was like I was falling into a pit wrestling with Gandalf. Like it was I couldn't do it. And that was ultimately why the company failed because women did. did not, they'd been so emotionally beaten up in condition by them that they didn't deserve to have more. It was, I mean, we changed tens of thousands of women's lives, but I couldn't reach millions of women's.

I could not convince them their lives could be better. They could have more money. And it was terrible, but that's the reality. So I give all that as a preamble because I think what someone should do is build an equivalent for tween. girls because right when girls go into adolescence is when they start losing their confidence. And there's all these studies about this. Actually, always the tampon and pad company did a commercial about this for a Super Bowl one year. And it was like this run like a girl campaign. People should Google this if they haven't seen it because it's stunning. They ask like little girls. Well, first they

asked like older girls post-adolescence what it's like to run like a girl and they're like everyone's like making fun of girls and stuff they ask young girls they're like running all out and they're badass and like it is a drop off in confidence and belief in yourself right when you hit adolescents that's when the internalized misogyny starts I think if we could have a program in school that's like a pre-MBA entrepreneurship confidence program not STEM because STEM's great but that doesn't teach you how to negotiate, how to have self-worth, how to ideate. But if you had that in schools before they hit the confidence rock bottom, I think in a generation it would transform female leadership. And I think it's one of those things that I guarantee you in 20 or 30 years,

whenever people would be like interviewing, you know, the Fortune 500 female CEO and they'd say, how did you get there? They'd be like, well, I did this program. when I was in sixth grade. And people say the Girl Scouts, you know, help teach entrepreneurship. But like really, like families go through it and they're like, it's just a marketing scheme. It's just a pyramid scheme. I think there's really cool ways that you could teach a lot of these fundamentals to kids.

Then you could also even partner with local businesses to have a lot of this stuff in the wild. Now, a lot of schools do entrepreneurship clubs, but they're taught by teachers. or they're taught by a parent who comes in. They're not curriculum rich. They're not saying, hey, here's where you're going to stumble and here's where you're going to work through it. And the reason I'm so confident in this is because in the pandemic when we were

building all these courses and I was filming a lot of them in my home, editing them, doing a lot of office hours with these world-renowned instructors. It was during lockdown. So like my kids were home and they were a little bit young. Now they're 11 and 13. But, I mean, they learned amazing negotiation skills. They learned amazing executive function just by kind of being in the room and absorbing these things and asking me follow-up questions. And now, you know, we own a bookstore in downtown Palm Springs, which we kind of, we live here part of the year and there's no bookstore.

So our family opened one. And both of my girls have a business within the bookstore. My youngest daughter makes these good luck pom-pom monsters. And if you buy $50 in books, you get one for free. And then my older daughter makes these pride cranes, origami cranes. And if you spend, I think, $30, you get one for free. And I'm telling you, people come in this store and they will grab an extra book to get one of those two items. They sell out in like two.

days. So I pay them like a dollar a monster or I think a dollar 50 crane. My kids have like, I would be regularly giving them $80 and it is not pity money. The store is 100% made money. And so we look at supplies. We look at chains. There's small businesses all over America who would be willing to sell friendship bracelets, baked goods, cards, all kinds of things kids could be making. So that's idea number one. Shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses.

They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into a one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat cheat. The idea bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access.

Your next cash-loving business is waiting for you. Essentially, what I failed to build for women for tween girls. So your vision of this, is it like an online thing? an in-person thing, like, how does it, how does it look like? Well, I think the most scalable way to do it would be to do it as an online thing, but something that happens in the schools. And like, most schools now are actually, like, using a lot of technical tools, whether it's Khan Academy or other curriculums. Like, it's pretty common right now that there's private school curriculums that teachers are basically following a framework, pressing play on.

There's a lot of STEM curriculums like this. So I think you would slot into that model. Okay, cool. So, yeah, I think the way, I think that makes sense. I think I would do it online. Like, you put out the content online, but the challenges happen, IRL in schools. So, for example, my elementary school, for, you know,

was for boys and girls. We were, in order to teach entrepreneurship, what they did and charity, what they did was they handed us a bag of 20 chocolate bars and said, you need to sell these chocolate bars. And each chocolate bar was $2 each. The catch was we had to sign a paper that said, we owe the school $40. So all of a sudden, as a kid, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm in debt $40. Like, it's such a horrible feeling and, you know, you hated it. But you learned a lot around like, okay, debt is not good.

Okay, now I need to sell this thing. How am I going to sell this? And then there were some support structures around how to sell certain things. And then the money went to charity as well. So that could be an example of like, I can imagine like a monthly challenge like that so that people can go out in the world and learn. well. But let me tell you the problem with that method in today's world. And I say this as someone whose kid was just given 20 raffle tickets that she has to sell. So we're in debt $200 if we don't

sell these things. And so what's happening? Well, in 2024, my 13 year old is not going to go door to door selling things. That doesn't work. It doesn't work. Why does it not work? First of all, people don't know their neighbors in the same way they used to. Also, we have ring doorbells. People don't answer their doors if they don't know who it is and they don't come. A lot of people don't have doorbells. Like, we're not built for a world where kids can go door-to-door selling stuff. And so then what happens?

One of two things. Either the kid has parents like me who, and by the way, by the end of this episode, I will sell you a raffle ticket. You could win a rap four. But like, so you have someone like me who pings a bunch of people and is like, hey, Eli's to sell these raffle tickets. Or I just had the idea today, I'm actually going to make her do a sales pitch on video and then I'm going to text it to our neighbors. Because I think they would love to do this, but they're not going to answer their door. And so, but so that's not really teaching her anything, is it?

That's just me being forced to handhold because otherwise I'm just buying the tickets because where else is she going to sell them? You always see kids walking into like around malls or something and shopkeepers that they consider loitering. They shove them away. So it's like, you know, what are you supposed to do? And I also think in the best of times, all that does is teach kids sales. And starting a business is a lot more than sales. I think some of the most creative parts of starting a business are thinking about the product. I mean, obviously you agree because that's the whole point of your podcast.

but like ideating. Like, what does this look? Did you find product market fit? What did you do wrong? How do you pitch this to investors? There's so many pieces of this that are not sales. And like, I think sales is great because sales is like the number one thing that women sort of get socialized out of. Like there's so much talk about not enough women going into engineering.

Like women in sales is even more of a desert because there's all kinds of gender dynamics. there, only less than 3% of female founded businesses ever do a million dollars in revenue, which I think is due to the socialization against sales. So like, I'm all for sales. But I don't think it's the only skill. And I don't think a world we grew up in exists anymore. Yeah. So I think that's a really good point around.

On the door-to-door sales piece, like what is the equivalent of door-to-door sales in 2025? it's probably more like recording a video and posting it online and, you know, setting up a gum road and learning about how to sell and build a product on the internet. You know, it's it's almost like the startup ideas podcast, but for tweens, you know. Totally. And ideas that they have are amazing. I mean, we always, like the cliche in Silicon Valley is you want to find like the next Mark Zuckerberg who's never held down a job.

and is this like brilliant young nerd who has a total clean slate, well, like, okay, let's go even earlier and hear like what tweens want. And I think the sales piece of it is like a typical like growth marketing funnel. Like these kids are so much better at digital tools than we are. My 13 year old can put any growth marketer to shame with her canvas skills. So like I think do an Instagram campaign, do a TikTok campaign, do an email marketing, funnel. Like the sales pitch is still coming from you, but you're learning how to do it. And, you know, also do that thing where you're like, you're, you know, part of the, where I see people who feel awkward about sales and aren't good at sales tend to go wrong is like they,

they send their first email or cold call trying to like close the deal. And that's not what you're doing. You're trying to close for a conversation. So teaching kids like those fundamentals, it's going to help them in every aspect of life. Because what are you doing when you're trying to get into college? You're selling. What are you doing when you audition for a role? You're selling. I mean, you're trying to get a summer job.

You're selling yourself. So I think this is something that would absolutely transform the demographics of the labor market because I'm telling you, I spent 30 years as. a journalist and I always asked people, you know, when they got interested in starting their own business. And I can't tell you how many boys told me about their damn paper route or their yard business or about, you know, their side hustle they did or, you know, stories like Tony Shea selling pizza for a dollar. This is something that male CEOs and male entrepreneurs have always been doing. But we don't, the equivalent for the girls is they're selling, you know,

pyramid scheme chocolate bars for the Girl Scouts and setting up a stand with, you know, a little uniform and a required skirt on. Like, I think we can do better for girls. Yeah. And I think we can do better for everyone is, you know, I think, uh, no, I think the boys would be jealous. Yeah, or in L.A. And there's no reason it should be gender binary. But honestly, like, if I were starting it, my go to market would be initially for girls because I think that is the pain point. And I think, you know, I've just, I've learned, one thing I've learned the hard way with entrepreneurship is, like, the riches are in the niches. We always think by by narrowing something that we're restricting, but we're not. Like how many people shop at Forever 21 who are not 21? We, you know, by being

super specific, I think you speak really directly to someone and then, you know, other people will want to be part of it. Like when we started chairman mom from day one, 30% of our customers, numbers were not moms. Like it never precludes people if they want that thing. And I think it's, it sends such a clear value of what it is. So I actually probably would start it aimed at girls, but, you know, like the Girl Scouts or whatever else, say like it's open to everyone and, you know, and not discriminate. But I think there's, I bet there is public money you could get from public schools to roll this out. And it would be a guaranteed revenue stream. You know that any elite boarding schools or private schools, there's a dad who would write a check for that thing.

If their daughter was getting a heads up on entrepreneurship, I think you'd make a ton more money than I made trying to sell it to corporate women, sadly. I was just doing some quick Googling. Like, Girl Scouts, does a billion, does, wow, they do over a billion dollars a year in revenue. They make more money than Oreo makes. That's amazing. And this cookies aren't even around all year long. It's crazy. That's crazy.

Yeah, but so I'm in on this idea. I'm in. Like, I think, I think it's a great one. I think it would work. I think it resonates. I think the why now is here. Also, you would get magazine cover stories about it because of the issues with girls, because of the things they could be doing.

You could do an annual, like, you know, demo day in all of these communities that everyone would feel great about sponsoring and coming to. I mean, it's just one of those feel good things people want to be a part of. And it's it's where people could, like, people could virtue, virtue signal and still actually meaningfully support young women at the same time. And if you were, so the only thing that challenges me on this idea is, the funding piece of it. You know, it's like, you just said the Girl Scouts does a billion dollars. I don't think there's any issue with the funding piece of it.

I think you have so many comps. You've so many comps in companies like everyone from BlackBod to like all kinds of like private curriculums that sell into schools. Like the reality is not even just public schools. One of my daughters goes to Catholic school. And like they don't have the budgets for custom curriculum. So what the teachers are doing is buying private curriculum and teaching it in the classes. I think there is actually, I think 20 years ago you'd be right.

I think now there is such a pathway of getting things into schools and there's so much money and budget for it. Not on, you know, maybe a per unit basis, but, you know, there's a lot of schools in the country. I think what you need, though, is you need a CEO who's sold into that before. Right. I think if you had a CEO who sold into that before, has connections there. I actually think the funding piece of it is like a no-brainer.

You'd probably do a seed round, build it, get a proof of concept, do one series A. And in five years, it would go public like Snowflake. I think you would need one funding round. I wonder, I also wonder, like, I'm not a huge fan of cold emailing. But I imagine a lot of these teachers, like, you probably can get their email addresses. and if you did a really, really, like, tight, cold email campaign with, like, maybe like a selfie video from one of the girls talking about her experience and, you know, just very tight.

I actually bet these people are not getting hit up that much. With high value, like value add content that are actually going to make their jobs easier in a lot of ways, right? They're looking for this stuff, aren't they? Yeah. No, they absolutely are. And I think that you could have campaigns where you could say either this is what it costs and you make it like as cheap as possible and just go for volume and then say here's what it costs. If the school can't afford that, you know, we can do a fundraising thing. You could even have, you could run programs where local businesses or families sponsored it. And then part of the costs were paid for by the, the proceeds. I mean, you could get really, really creative on how to do this because it's software, right? You're not hiring a teacher to do this. You know, you're, you know, you have like 80% gross

margins on those online courses. So it's also something that can be done and can be scaled up and down. You know, you can have more support at high-end boarding schools where we're facilitating a demo day or making intros to, you know, people in the community. But you could also do a a bare bones version of it for, you know, inner city schools where it's, you know, maybe like, maybe Nike wants to support it for a thousand schools. I mean, I think you could get really creative with how to pay for it. And because it's online courses, there's also like amazing recurring revenue because once you're in a school and people are getting value, it's not going to be ripped out of that school. In the past, I know you've, you know, because you've, you've been in media and

you've probably done a lot of sponsorships. Like, do you have any advice for people on how to sell like a Nike? Like, how do you know, because people probably hear that and they're like, it's so out of reach. I don't even know how to do that. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world.

They were behind getting some of the biggest companies, downed on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO and that's why I use boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays?

So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. You know, I think, I mean, look, there are two reasons that I have done, been able to do anything that I've done in my career. And it's two superpowers that I have. And the first is networking. I meet people constantly. I am never too old or too networked to meet more people or really engage in those networks.

And, you know, I think that there is an art to networking that is not standing around at a cocktail party being awkward, but building relationships and building relationships with people without an intended thing you want out of it. And I think that in maintaining those relationships over a long time and being there and showing up and being genuinely interested and, you know, building relationships and networks when you don't need to, frankly. And then tapping them and making asks of them when you do need to. And, you know, I think every piece of that are things that people tend to fail on. You know, they don't make networks when they don't need them. And then they, if they have them, they're squeamish about making asks of them. Whereas, like, we all, you know, we love when people we care about ask us for things because it makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we can ask them a favor in the future.

So I think that's a huge one. And I think if you start, especially for people in their early 20s, start building your network now. And it doesn't have to be with the CEO of a company. It can be with someone who's a peer because y'all are all going to come up together. And then those people are going to wind up being the people who are decision makers in the future. You just don't know who's going to turn into what job and what you're going to need from someone. And like case and point with this idea, maybe like right now, I mean, you know, if I'm in my early 20s, thinking I want to work at a startup, maybe I don't think my friend who is going to school to be a

superintendent would necessarily be a great contact. But lo and behold, here's my startup idea. I need to get into schools. Like anyone can be a great contact for you because you don't know who they know and you don't know what they're going to be and you don't know what you're going to wind up building. So I think that's number one. And I think if you've been doing your job and trying to network, then I bet you know someone who knows someone senior at Nike. I guarantee you I could find someone at Nike or a connection to them in my network. Number two, the second thing that I always was really good at it, I don't think I realized to later in my career how powerful was and why is story.

I mean, one of the best books about story ever written is Lisa Cron's wired for story, and it basically breaks down the neuroscience of story and how we have been wired since caveman days to respond to story in a way that we are biologically, wired to our heart to race, blood to rush to our thighs because we know we're going to have to run away. You know, think about how often, like the downside of this is when people have anxiety and they're like, oh my God, I know that it's not rational. And it's like, yeah, it's not rational. It's because like your brain is telling your body a story of what's going to happen to you if you set on stage in front of thousands of eyeballs looking at you and have to give a keynote. So I think that, you,

that story is the most powerful tool. I think it's the reason that most women who raise large amounts of venture capital do not come from a math background, but come from a media background because it is like the great leveler. So I think those two things, right? You find the right contact and then you put together the right story. How is this going to make, how is this going to transform Nike? How, what heartstring are you pulling? What, you know, you mentioned getting a kid in the video. I mean, I would absolutely do that. There was a brilliant marketing campaign for this nonprofit that, I think, does water. It helps provide water. And they went to this, rather than saying, this is a huge number of people who go without water and isn't, you know, isn't it staggering,

there's this many people on the earth who don't have fresh water. No one cares. We don't care about numbers. We just don't. We have too much shit in our own life, right? But they, they, They showed one boy. And as a result in this one village, like the bulk of kids would not make it to their sixth birthday because of water. So they took this one boy in this village. And they, when he was five years old, took him around the world completing his bucket list because he was going to die at six statistically. And it is the most moving three minutes you will ever watch. And even if you've seen it, even if you know the ending, you will still cross. Why? You can't not because it is so designed to grab you in this evolutionary way that we all, that we all do. And so it's like, you do the equivalent of that. And like, of course Nike's going to say yes. Also, like you build like a marketing campaign with them where they can talk about what they're doing for girls. It makes everyone at the company feel good.

Maybe the one, you know, maybe it's like the equivalent of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Does Nike do the national gala of all of these amazing, tiny little 10 and 12 year old badasses who've built these things? And do they, you know, hold it in New York and give the number one winner like an internship? I mean, come on. There is so much media they get out of that. There's so much feel good. And like, how much would it cost?

Like a couple million dollars? How many seats could you get with a couple million dollars? They could make a massive, massive difference. This conversation is reminding me about the first time I ever went to New York City as like an 18-year-old. I'm from Canada. And when I was in some of these meetings as like a kid, basically, and I heard people

talk like you were talking, it shattered my world. Like it made me realize that thinking big and mindset is such an important part of making things happen. You know, in our minds, we're always kind of like, a lot of us are like, yeah, it would be nice to get it. I don't know if I can actually close it. I don't know if I can actually get their email. I don't know if I can actually. But, you know, you're right.

When you actually like lay it out and you're like, okay, it's really just story and people. And it's your to-do list. And it's common interest of that, right? I mean, it's like, you know, every day, what can you do that will be a, a favor to the future you who's going to be in this position and need to sell Nike? Who can you meet? What can you learn? What can you put in place?

I cannot tell you the numbers with both of my startups I was building the numbers of future favors to the future me that I had no idea I was doing in my 20 or 30s, 20s or 30s that were company changing moments in my 30s or 40s. Before we move on to the next idea, because I need to hear your next idea, because you're a legend. Can you give one quick story of someone who you met maybe in your early 20s or in your 20s that ended up being like, you would have never expected that person would be so valuable in your career? I mean, I have a hilarious one, which is Mark Zuckerberg. Like when I was at Business Week, I first called Mark Zuckerberg when Facebook had just closed the Peter Thiel round of funding. And he had just moved to Palo Alto.

And I called the company and he answered the phone. Like that's how long ago it was. Now, he had already raised money from Peter. He was in the valley. But you can't imagine at that moment how much, even when. David Z did the $500 million gray lock round. I made a bet with another CEO

over a fancy dinner anywhere in the world because he insisted not only, the bet wasn't even will Facebook go public and be worth $500 million, which seemed unbelievable to everyone. The bet was, will they be

out of business by this time last year? Like people were so burned because this is the other thing we're hardwired for is pattern recognition. And people were so burned from the dot-com bubble and they were so burned by things like Friendster. No one believed in this company. And so I started, you know, building a relationship with Mark and like covering him as a journalist and getting interested when he was 19. And then, you know, within a couple years, I was one of the only two journalists in the world who had access to him. Yeah, because he trusted you.

Yeah, and he also knew it's like, I thought there was something interesting about him when no one else did. I thought he was a remarkable person when no one else did. And again, it's like network. It's all relationships. Like we don't like it was, I was just finishing, um, uh, Indra Noyi, the former CEO of Pepsi was just finishing her autobiography, this, or her memoir this morning. And she says at the end, like, so many amazing things happen when you were the same. CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. And I knew when I left, when I left, my friendship circle was going to shrink because those people, as nice as they were, weren't interested

in me. They were interested in what I could do for them. And so people never underestimate when you're someone who believed in them before the entire world wanted a piece of them. So, I mean, that's an obvious one. In my first book, which Mark was, which was about the rise of Web 2.0, and Mark was one of a handful of people that I spent hundreds of hours, uh, You know, I mean, I, that was, my advance in that book was one of the, it was like the second biggest advance in business week history at that point and allowed me to buy a house in San Francisco that I still have to this day. So that one phone call paid a lot of dividends. Okay. Last last question before we move on to the, uh, the next startup idea.

Biggest thing you learned from Mark Zuckerberg shadowing him for hundreds of hours. Well, I mean, this is, unfortunately, this is kind of something everyone knows about him now. But I think- If it's biggest thing that, non-obvious thing that you learned. Well, so let me give you the twist on it because I do think this is the key to what makes him so unique. So the fact that he is, you know, he talks a lot of it's like every year there's a big thing he wants to learn, right? And he like throws himself into it. And I know a lot of CEOs who like talk a big game about always wanting to be, like, always wanting to be,

learning or whatever and growth mindsets have become super popular after that. But I think the piece that Mark does that other people don't always see from the outside is this extreme humility and amazing self-awareness. So he knows when he doesn't know something and he doesn't just go in to learn it, he gives himself or he used to, and I don't, I'm not close to him anymore, but he would really put himself in a position of extreme humility and he had no ego in the fact. And he had no ego in the fact. of, oh, I don't know this thing. I have to posture like I know it. He'd be like, I don't know this thing and it's vital. And I learned this firsthand because at one point, I was like, why is this person giving me so much access? Because really at the beginning, he was like, why do we need press? Like,

there's no one, he's in Facebook's audience who's reading Business Week. Like, he was pretty skeptical of all the thing and he didn't talk to other journalists. And there came a point where I was just like, why am I getting so much access? This is so bizarre. And so I asked him that question. And he said, because I've noticed when I'm talking to you, I go in not thinking I'm going to say things. And then I suddenly start telling you things. And you're so much better at people than I am. And so as you're asking me questions and I'm telling you things you need for your job, I'm trying to figure out how you're doing that.

Wow. Isn't that amazing? So amazing. I love that. Okay. So part of what I'm doing now, post-chairman me, I do not have another venture-funded startup in me. And I also don't want to become a VC because I'm too opinionated and too controversial, and I couldn't back someone who was a sociopath, which is kind of required in that field.

So like all people in my position who can't do either of those things anymore, I've become a consultant. And the thing that I have found, people want to pay me an absolute. absolute fortune to do for them. And this is not a pitch because my time is completely booked is help them figure out what is the book that they should write, that only they can write that the world would want. Who's the best agent for them? What is the process like? How do you build your marketing channels in anticipation of this? I absolutely love doing this because writing books has been super life-changing for me, and it is an amazing thing to have this tiny piece of your soul in the Library of Congress forever. It's just something that hasn't been

disintermediated, and it takes four years. And it's like, I talk to all of these tech people, and they're like, can't we shortcut this? And it's like, you really can't. You really can't. So every time, no matter who you are, no matter gender, where you live, anywhere. people walk in a bookstore, they see a book they loved, meant something to them. I don't care if it's twilight or good to grade. They all do the same thing, which is they pick it up and they hold it to their heart and they tell someone they're with about why it meant so much to them. There's nothing else that has that impact still. But here's the thing. You read a good to great. You read a Wired for Story by Lisa Cron, which I mentioned earlier. You read a Tim Ferriss book. You read a Tim Ferriss book. You

You feel like as you're reading it, okay, I got it. I'm going to do all this stuff. It's going to unlock every problem in my life. All problems will be solved. Everything's going to be great. You finish the book and maybe, maybe you remember one or two things from that book. Maybe you apply them to your life. Maybe you do it for a short period and then forget.

But it's actually really hard to apply a framework, whether it's a wellness framework, something like atomic habits or, you know, something that is more substantive, like a business book, a career book. It's really hard to consistently remember what was in that book that you read and keep applying it to your life. And no one has the time to reread a book because there's always so many books coming out. And so you will just forget. And I've talked to so many people where they're like, oh my God, I totally forgot about the hedgehog strategy and good to grade. I need to go back and reread that book. What do they do? I think there's an amazing opportunity for AI here to build coachable AI bots based on authors. And I am so skeptical about AI and so many things, but I think

the detail and the rigor and the framework and the word count of a book, I think if they had lectures, speaking gigs, online newsletters, you know, the more things that speak to that worldview, the better. I think it's a rare case where you would extend someone's influence and not in any way cannibalize the underlying product. I still don't think it's a shortcut because I know a lot of people who are like instead of a book, can I do this? And it's like, I still think there's why a book is hard as it's the thought process,

it's the interrogation. It's figuring out what have you not thought for. It's the research of where does this framework fit in the world. Who else has researched this? I think that's what you can't shortcut because that's also all filtered through your life experience and your genius as the author. I think AI cannot shortcut that. But I think what it can do is it can extend you. So for instance, Lisa, who I've mentioned four times now, if she were Beatle 2, she would have appeared. She is like a story coach to the stars. And when my partner, Paul Carr, was going to write his first novel, he'd published many nonfiction books, but writing a novel is totally different.

He read Wired for Story and was like, oh, my God, this is genius. I'm completely sold. But I don't really understand how to apply this to what I'm doing. I don't understand. And when am I doing this right? When am I being specific enough? What am I putting enough blood on the page? All the things that she talks about that make compelling story.

And so we reached out to her and was like, do you do coaching? And she's like, I do, but I have a really long wait list. Now, he was someone canceled. He made a compelling case. He was able to skip her wait list. They've spent four years working together on multiple novels. He's now in his third novel. But the book wasn't enough.

He needed that back and forth. And I think a lot of people feel that way when they read Adam Grant's book, when they read Tim Ferriss's book, when they read any of, you know, Brenay Brown books. I think the ability for these people to leverage themselves, even as like a daily reminder with doing nothing more than everything they've already written being put into a nice U.X. So I totally buy the premise, by the way. Like, especially by the premise. By the way, there's so many people working on this. This is not even a super new thing because so many people have asked me about it. But I think the way I'm thinking about it is somewhat different.

But anyway, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I think the insight is correct, 100%. I think the insight around people are buying books from their favorite authors or new authors. And it's an incredible experience. And even the best books, you know, like the ones, you mentioned, you kind of lose, you know, you forget and you, there needs to be a better way to get you in the habit. Now, I always think about, this is kind of old school of me, but I always

think about, like, who builds the best community in the world or one of them or who's done a really good job, at least, of spreading the gospel literally. It's like religion, like churches and stuff like that. And if you think about like the Bible, like literally, you know, in Christianity, for example, every Sunday, like you come, you listen to, you know, what, what you're reading or Judaism. Every, you know, every week you learn about a section of the Bible. And that piece, that missing piece is what brings you back to actually reread the book, make it a part of your zeitgeist. And so I think that insight is so right. And the other insight that you have, which I think is really right, is the why now around

AI provides an ability to extend. Now the question I have is like how does what does the extension look like? Yeah. So I think what it's not is a newsletter because I think most authors and there are many that do this really well. And this is definitely like a core strategy I use when I'm helping an author build a multi-year strategy. Right. You send a newsletter and it's like, hey, remember this thing. or like, hey, here's something you could try today. And those are really interesting ways of continuing to, like, bring back those habits or frameworks or, you know, Adam Grant might send a thing that's like, hey, here's a new piece of research that backs up what I wrote about and give and take. And I think that's great. But I think what you need is like a daily prompt.

Like the equivalent of when I wake up in the morning, you know, I'm going to look at my email. I am going to see if anyone has texted me. And then the next thing I do is I go do like the basic four daily New York Times puzzles. And it's great because it is not a time suck. Like there's really no archive on most of them. And if there is, I've already like done them. So it doesn't matter. But it's like I'm going to spend maybe anywhere between five and 20 minutes.

I'm going to feel really great about myself. Because I won't feel like I just doom scrolled. I'll feel like I did something that made me feel smart. And then the app is like, okay, see you tomorrow. It kind of kicks you out. So like Paul, my partner has so many issues where he like has a smartphone and gets rid of it and has it then gets rid of it because he's like, I get sucked in and it's a time waste.

But the one app he always has is the New York Times game app because you really can't get sucked in. And so I think it's a similar thing. I think you have your coach and, you know, every, you can set the, you can set the time, you know, if you're like a nursing mother, maybe 2 a.m. is the right time for you. You know, what is the time you would naturally have that downtime? And you get a prompt from your AI coach being like, hey, have you thought about this today? Or asks a question. Like, let's say it was let's say it was something about being more in the moment and being more, you know, grateful. Maybe like that's what you want to work on. Like maybe you get a prompt that's like,

Like, you know, you need to put down your phone for the next hour. Or, you know, right now pick what hours you're going to not be on your phone. Or, you know, right now, write down like five things that you're grateful for. Or, you know, let's say it's like a, you know, whatever, something around fitness. Like, you know, what is your plan that you can commit to for working out this week? And by the way, five minutes a day is totally appropriate because it's still putting you in a habit. You know, it can be totally customized. Like I think if James Clear was doing this, you know, maybe you pick the different atomic habits thing you want to do.

I remember when I was at Chairman Me, one of the things that I took was like, you know, in making like daily cold sales calls, which is like no one thinks is fun. I don't even think is fun. And I'm like, I love sales. And it's like I had a specific time, a specific day. I would have like a specific like treat or beverage for that. And I would like say out loud every day when I get home after dropping the kids at school, I'm going to go sit in my airstream with some mint tea and I am going to do 10 sales calls. And it's like so it's like I had that discipline for I don't know two weeks.

Like what if James Clear was popping up in my phone saying, have you done it? How's the mint tea? It's a great idea. It's a great idea. I think if I was doing it, if I was building an MVP here, I think the way I would do it is, first of all, I'd be selling to these authors. So I'd figure out, you know, what is the smallest thing that they'd pay for? So I'd go, I'd reach out to the, maybe not James Clear to start, but like, B's and C's first,

get their feedback. Then I would try to create an AI avatar. bought basically. And it doesn't need to be personalized from day one. I think to make it easier on yourself, whoever ends up building this, you could have it so that on day one after you finish the book, this happens. On day seven, this happens. And everyone's kind of based on that. In the future, you could personalize it based on your goals and other things like that. And then, and I think with the rise of like AI avatars and stuff like that,

you can make something that looks like James Clear, that talks like James Clear, that feels like James Clear, that could be really exciting to people. Imagine having James Clear is your coach. Like that's so cool. Yeah. And really, I mean,

when James Clear is coaching someone, I bet he's saying the same things 80% of the time. And I bet he would be thrilled to be able to extend himself and say the same things. Like another great person to do it would be Kim Scott. It's like if you had a Kim Scott bot, which rhymes, which is nice. Like what if they came in every day?

Okay, you had a great day, didn't you? Yeah, okay. What conversation did you need to have that you, you know, wriggled out of? Because it felt too uncomfortable. Like, what a good prompt for a CEO. It's like, oh my God, you're so right. I let myself off the hook for that. I did it.

this is a reminder. I need to go do that. And I, you know, I would, I mean, you know, from the Nike comment earlier, I would start with James Clear. I think the biggest authors are always looking for ways to leverage themselves. And they're really likely to roll the dice on something like that, especially. And I mean, it has to be business authors. It has to be tech people. You know, it has to be people who have like that following. But like, in the people who do multiple books, like, awesome. Put a QR code. in the next book. You know, have a special edition that you could sell where the first, you know, thousand people get this, you know, get the beta into the Kim Scott bot. And after that, you have to,

you know, have to be on a wait list or something. You would drive so many bulk sales. You would drive so many first day sales, which is like the best bet of getting on the New York Times bestseller list, if you said everyone who pre-orders gets to be, gets the Kim Scott bot for free, included in their book price, it only takes 10,000 books to get on the New York Times best seller list. That would have a meaningful, meaningful difference in what a book does at market. Totally. And you can do a rev share. Like, don't even charge James Clear or whoever, anything. Just be like, I won't, yeah. Nope. And because here's the, it's like, I would, Yeah, you could do, because you think about like the, I mean, like, AI is a cost sucks. So you have to think about that. But I bet the publishers, if you were driving sales, would give you part of the royalties or would give you some amount of money. Like right now at the store, when we do things like, well, there's a lot of places where we're, we'll do like the only signed copies. And so the publishers will like ship books to that author in LA. They'll sign them. And the publisher will. And the publisher will.

pay for them to be shipped to us. Like publishers have discretionary marketing budgets for this kind of thing. And so yeah, I think probably the money could all come from the publisher. And you wouldn't have to charge the author. But I will say like authors will 100% pay for it. I mean, most business book authors, I mean, I know because I'm paid to help business book authors do a really good job. Like they invest in publicists. They invest in people like me. They invest in ghost writers. They're giving a cut to their agent. You know, most authors will buy copies of their own book that they're giving to, you know, schools or they have in their office. They give someone a copy. So most authors, business authors, are doing it because they want to give back, because they want to

leave legacy because they want everything they've worked for in their career to kind of add up to a philosophy or something at the end of the day or because they're going to get a lot of other things out of it. Like you, I mean, I am living testament to like I don't think I ever earn royalties on any of my books because I'm such a good salesperson. I got massive advances. But everyone I wrote, I got so many monetary career benefits, whether it was speaking gigs, whether it was board opportunities, whether it was, you know, whatever, whatever. I mean, you name it. It is, there's such a moat. to getting a published book out there, that even with self-publishing, even with everything else, that there's all these benefits down the line from having written a book.

So most of the people who take the time to write a book who are at that level, it's not a monetary game for them and they don't want to leave. They want regret minimization. And if they've taken four years of their life to get this book into the world that represents what they think and what they know and what they've built in their career, you think they're going to bulk at spending a couple extra dollars or pennies per copy on a subsidized chatbot? No, because they're also going to think it's cool. Totally. You gave us the sauce. These are two good ideas. A Zuckerberg story. Come on. This is,

this is better than expectations. Sarah, where, plus a cat, a dog, like, You know, if you're listening to this on audio, you missed out because the, you know, the YouTube animal appearances were iconic. Sarah, where, where do you want to plug? Like, what do you want to plug, if anything? I'm so delighted that for the first time in my life, I don't actually need anything from anyone, nor do I have anything to plug. But if you, I can always come up with something. So if you want to buy books not from Amazon, you can go to Best Bookstore.com and buy them from us. We also have an incredible newsletter.

I read about, I don't know, anywhere from three to ten books a week. So I always have amazing recommendations of both fiction and nonfiction books. So check out Best Bookstore.com and sign it for our newsletter. And we also, if there's any CEOs listening, one thing we do, which I love is we do corporate book fair. So it's like the Scholastic Book Fair, but like for your company. And conferences will do book pop-ups. And we've done some for some of the largest software companies on the planet. And even people who are heads of huge companies, when you show them a table of books and they can take anything they want and we'll even ship it home for free, it's like $30 from your company.

There's no other way for that to make someone. look happier. So those are my plugs. More books and more hands. Did you know that there are 19 research studies that show if you read fiction, you become more empathetic. You can understand what other people need and desire. You can get along with more different kinds of people. There are so many studies that show that reading fiction, especially for people, anyone building a consumer product, trying to sell to people, trying to understand the empathy that you gain from that is absolutely a career advantage. So that is always my soapbox because there's some people who are like, I don't have time to read fiction. I got to slay. And it's like you will slay as a result of reading

fiction. Totally. Folks, you're sleeping on fiction. I'll include those links in the description. So it's easier if you miss that. Go and do that. And Sarah, until next time, this has been a lot of fun.