The Startup Ideas Podcast - The NSFW Framework and the Magic of Community-Product Fit with Amanda Goetz

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Sometimes the best products don't start as products. On this episode of Where It Happens, Amanda Goetz (@AmandaMGoetz), founder of House of Wise, shares her amazing journey of building a community and creating products that are breaking the stigmas surrounding women's health. Hosts Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) and Sahil Bloom @sahilbloom) explore a news concierge business and discuss the potential of the NSFW framework.Want to watch the episodes? Subscribe to our YouTube channel here.Want more community? Learn more here.Special thanks to our sponsors Mercury and AppSumo.

Sahills literally lost his words. We just had Amanda from House of Wise do an episode with us. And she really challenged our thinking. Yeah, she's amazing. Had so much fun talking with her. Honestly, this whole like not safe for work framework for business building is so cool. So excited to dive into this one. I also loved how she talked about start with the community and then build the product and how she co-created the product from scratch to build it to what it is today.

It was amazing. Let's dive right in. I hate banking. Most banking products suck. So when I was starting all these new businesses and going on this new adventure, I turned to Mercury. Mercury is banking for founders by founders. They make everything so easy and a beautiful, elegant design. There's free wires, virtual and physical debit cards.

They even have a raising platform where they will connect you with other investors out in the ecosystem. Have you tried Mercury? I have. And let's be honest, when you log into traditional banking websites and apps, it's hideous. When I go into Mercury, it's like a walk in the park. So I love using it. It feels fresh. And I can't use anything else. You should definitely check it out at mercury.com. It will completely change the game for your banking experience. I guarantee it. App Sumo is the number one place for entrepreneurs. It is a marketplace where entrepreneurs can find products they need to build and scale their businesses. Its founder, Noah Kagan, is a creator. He's a builder and he understands what you need in order to scale. So he's created a marketplace

where you can find those things. It's amazing. I've found so many unique products there. And as a creator, you can make and list your products at a super low cost and have this incredible discovery engine to go sell and scale your business. I highly recommend you check it out today. go to absumo.com backslash the room. It's red. Cameras are rolling. Mike is hot. That's probably in the shot. We got Greg on Twitter here, so I'm going to wait.

Twitter is a hell of a drug. Dopamine hits galore. Which actually leads to my question for you to start today. Turning off. Talk to me about how you turn off. Like, what, unwinding? What do you do? So you're like me

You're on Twitter You're building And it's hard to stop thinking about this sort of stuff And You got to It's like healthy to turn off Yeah So over the years

I've been collecting Little life hacks to turn off And everyone is different So for me I'll just like list off the ones I come to mind Yeah the office the show the show okay yeah i was going to say going to the office doesn't sound okay got it the show michael scott yeah i mean just like when i put on the office like i could it puts me in a meditative state

okay so is that like a before bed unwind thing like pop it on netflix and watch yeah so i think the lesson there is like find your office yeah like it could be mine is family guy it's true which is really bizarre because I don't think anyone really watches Family Guy anymore. I love Family Guy. I watch it almost every night before bed. So it could be Seinfeld, Friends, it could be Rick and Morty, like, you name it. Yeah. Mindless.

Mindless. Yeah. So that's one thing. I recently tried like a CBD tincture. Okay. What is tincture? So it's like, it's basically like a bottle where you have a dropper. Droper. Yeah. Okay. And people use it for sleeping. Okay.

And people use it to just kind of relax. Someone described it to me as like an ibuprofen. Like it's just like a natural ibuprofen. Okay. And it helps you sleep because one of the hardest parts of sleeping is turning off. Getting your mind to just like be at ease. Chill. That's one of the hardest parts of life, by the way.

Like you say the hardest parts of sleeping, I think I have a really tough time. Either focusing my mind in on one thing because we're like in this constant connection. state where there's just constantly, you know, you're like notifications and things bugging you. I mean, you talked to me the other day about do not disturb mode on your phone. It's changed my life already. Notifications turned off. Suddenly you don't have the like constant drumbeat of things hitting you. But I think it's CBD's an interesting one. I've never tried it for it. Yeah. I mean, I think you know, you don't have to get it with THE, which is the psychoactive ingredient in it. It's just pure CBD. And, you know, people will use Ashwaganda. That's another one. Yeah.

There's mushroom tinctures. There's a company called Rainbow, R-A-I-N-B-O, I think. Not the crypto wallet. Not the crypto wallet. That, you know, also sort of helps with that sort of stuff. So I think it's like, find your tincture is maybe another good little life hack, which is something that you take as a part of a ritual that helps you unwind. And ideally that's not something that, you know, is destructive, right? Like don't go on, like Twitter might not be that thing for you, right? Yeah. You need to find ways to escape general reality.

It's interesting because today we have a guest in who is building something that is basically in line with this overall thesis. They're like people are overly connected. They're not finding ways to unwind. They're not finding healthy ways to kind of escape and to get away and to improve their health and well-being and their mental health and stress levels, et cetera. And so it'll be fun to talk to Amanda about how she's thinking about that. And also, honestly, destigmatization, right? All of this stuff, CBD, THC, I mean, all of it.

Mushrooms, like, all of these things are really stigmatized still in our culture. And so it'll be interesting to talk to her about how you build out in front of that destigmatization. I'm interested in the startup side of destigmatation, right? So it's like how do you, like what's, you know, it's really the Wild West. Yeah. And like how do you build a business around it? Yeah. And how do you navigate like the legal aspect of it?

Yeah. What does it look like shipping CBD products? Yeah. Cross state lines. Cross state lines. Countries. Interesting. How does that like?

Yeah. Be an interesting question for it. Yeah. Let's start right into it. It's good segue. What are we drinking? We are drinking. My favorite tequila

I actually just I tweeted this yesterday I was like I only drink comos You can just twist it I think And it'll pop right off Boom Friend Joe Thank you for the comos

He sent us over some Some comas So I'm gonna give you We talk about unwinding And we're talking about de-stressing A nice stiff pour of tequila Drink in moderation Drink in moderation

Cheers Cheers Cheers to you, man. Cheers. All right. That's good. Okay. So I actually thought that was a good segue to some of the stuff I wanted to talk about today.

I've got a couple ideas around this. I know you do too. So where are we going to start? De-stigmatization as like a thesis or a backdrop to build businesses. It relates to a lot of different things we've talked about in the past of you need to have a view of what the future looks like, have it be different and then right. And this is an area where you can do that, right? Like we talk about CBD, you're talking about cannabis and the way that that industry has

developed over a long time, talk about psychedelics. All of these are industries where historically they have been viewed very differently than what they are likely to be viewed as in the future. And so how do you build a business around that? So the question is, how do you build a business around a destigmatize? Yeah. Yeah. De-stigmatization as a mega-trend.

And then where are the opportunities from a business standpoint around that? So the hardest part about building a business in a stigmatized arena is people are not educated. So you have to get them to unlearn certain things. So for example, with cannabis, you know, for decades, there was, you know, essentially propaganda. Yeah. That was actually highly racist around. And, you know, saying that, you know, if you use cannabis, you will go crazy, basically. Yep.

I think it started in, like, the 20s and 30s. And, you know, here we are today in 2021 where... There are people in jail for selling small amounts of marijuana. It's absolute black. I mean, it makes absolutely no sense to me. It's crazy. Yeah. And I think, you know, at the core of it, it comes down to racism and control.

but there's been so many studies around, you know, cannabis helping all sorts of people, anxiety, cancer, dealing with stuff, PTSD. So there's plenty of, you know, medicinal use cases of cannabis and also recreational, you know, in moderation. So my point is when you're when you're creating a business in one of these arenas, like let's say you want to create a startup in CBD. your first step is educating people about hey like here's all these use cases and here's like here's why you should be using this yeah and that's tough right that's tough to do like that like whenever you're educating a market you have to spend money to educate the market ultimately like spend resources time content yeah but maybe there's a business you can so I think you're hitting on something really interesting it's making it's giving me a business idea so

So bear with me on this. So psychedelics have a similar set of profiles to where I think marijuana, THC, cannabis was 10 years ago, in that it was criminalized in the 60s and 70s, I think, as part of this massive moral panic that happened in the U.S. Like some people, you know, did some bad things when they were under the influence of psychedelics. In extreme cases, that happens with a lot of, yeah, it happens to people on no drugs. And so it became this like moral stigma. The government took it into their hands, criminalized all these things. And the reality is science is starting to show in a meaningful way that psychedelic compounds can be extraordinarily useful for people dealing with depression.

I mean, it's going to completely separate and completely change antidepressants, anti-anxiety medicines. And part of it is like lobbyists and all the money they're spending for pharmaceuticals and big pharma. And all of that's going to get blown out. but right now you're at a point in time where people don't understand it. And so to your point on education, what business can you build around that? My mind goes to this idea of like a concierge. I've talked about concierge ideas in the past. I love this thing.

But think of like psychedelics as a service, like psychedelics as a concierge and how you could build a business around that. So say I'm new to this space. And I want to learn more about how these compounds might be able to help me, you might be able to help me experience new things about myself mentally, physically, spiritually, whatever it is. I have no idea where to start right now. I mean, I could go and read for hours and hours. There's no one that I can go to that's like my point person, my river guide, if you will,

to kind of guide me through this landscape. So my idea would be you start a business that is kind of part education, but part you just have a point person, a concierge to guide you through the entire range of experiences that you might be able to have and then actually make the connection points and the introduction so that you can execute those experiences as you see fit or as you want to. I actually, first of all, I love concierge businesses in general. I actually started in 2012, I started a company called Five Buy, which was our tagline was your online video concierge.

And you went there and it served you up the best internet videos based on who you are, you know, that sort of thing. So I think like whenever you want to give, you know, something on a silver platter, a concierge business makes sense. And like there's a ton of verticals that you can apply to. Now when it comes to, let's say psychedelics, I think it's perfect. So I think my question comes to like comes down to like what is the business model? Is it like a monthly fee that you pay? And how does it work?

And also like how do you make sure that the concierge is giving recommendations that, you know, isn't like his buddy, you know. So here's how I would do it. It needs to be trust. Trust is really important in concierge type businesses. Yeah, so here's how I would do it. I'd go, first off, I'd go premium. So the price point would be high.

Call it $100 plus a month that you're paying to this concierge. I would go regional. So basically I would go pick an area that had a high density of high stress working professionals, probably. Okay. Tell me why you'd go premium. Why I would go premium? Versus just like... So I think that it goes to trust.

Like when you're paying a premium price point and you're getting like something that feels really premium, the trust is kind of baked into the appearance and the feel of it. Like when you go to a website, it's a really nice premium website, you immediately have this feeling of trust. You don't worry about putting your credit card information in there. There's just like a degree of trust that comes with something looking really appealing. And I think premium pricing and a premium feel to the entire experience

creates a level of trust. And so when you're dealing with something that's stigmatized, you're dealing with like a sin industry, quote unquote, I think it's really important. That's why. Yeah, okay. I buy that. I like starting high end and then making your way sort of, you know, mid-tier and low end. So you're going to start there, 100 bucks a month. And then how, like, how does the product work?

Like, do I have, is it via text? Is it, do I get to speak to someone? So the way I would do it is I would, like I said, regional, say you started in New York City, a ton of working professionals. people that are highly stressed out. They subscribe to this service, and it is your point person. It's like your river guide that can give you the entire range of experiences, both through the website or through like individualized, you know, texting, calling platform, whatever, where they'll give you all of the different kind of options.

What is out there? I honestly don't know. I would benefit from something like this. Is it ayahuasca? Is it mushrooms? Is it LSD? Is it asset? Like all of the different things that exist in this ecosystem, and all those words sound

scary to a lot of people. And so having one person that you can ask questions about it, you can discuss the risks, you can ask about what the range of experiences is. And then there's like an open platform for who they recommend, like the best experience with ayahuasca. Maybe it's someone in Joshua Tree and they know and they're like a preferred provider through this. But basically this becomes your conduit to get information, ask questions, be connected to safe and high quality providers of these things. And this, this This company, the concierge, actually kind of sits as like a middleman where you're not dealing with all of the issues of actually distributing or sharing these products. But you can kind of exist as like Switzerland, if you will, sitting in the middle layer of it.

I like the idea of, so to add to your idea, maybe it's like a monthly call that you get with your river guide. By the way, I've never heard of the term river guide, but actually it's a great term. So like maybe you call this thing river guide. Yeah. So you go to riverguide.com. and you set up like your monthly call. And it's, it's not only about the transaction of like buying whatever you need to buy, but it's about like, hey, it's almost like a, you know, a therapy session, right?

So you're like having this like therapy session, 30 minutes, 45 minutes in an hour. Maybe it's $100 to $500 a month, maybe more, $1,000 a month. Yeah, you can charge more. And then if it makes sense, that's when it's like, oh, hey, like, I, like, I, I think this is a really important time for you to have like a spiritual quest. Yeah. And it might not be every month. It might be once a year.

Yeah. But you have that and you're building that ritual. Yeah. And it's a highly word of mouth driven. River. We should call them, yeah, it should be River Guide. Yeah. Because it's a guide.

I love River Guide. I love River Guide. Yeah, it's a guide. And it has the resonance too for people with like a psychedelic experience. You have a guide. But I like the idea because it has, you're taking like the therapy aspect, which I like that you just added that. Because then you're kind of figuring out and you're creating a pattern of like, what does this person need? What is the experience?

Like, are they highly stressed out? Do they need to have? And, you know, are they anxious? Do they have issues with depression? Like, and you can curate the overall experience that they're getting with the different psychedelic components with that. That's how you, and the website, when you get to the website, it should feel like you're signing up with like Pandora, right? Or something like that. Yeah.

Where it learns about you. So, like, for example, with five by, uh, are. mobile app that we started in 2012, the first thing it said was like, in our onboarding, it was like, are you the type of person that likes to go to Coachella or like ski in the Alps or like go hang out on the beach? And we would like ask a series of these questions. And from that, we would infer a lot of data to get them to a place where they were getting great, you know, a great content experience.

Yeah, I like that. Like when you come into it, you're like onboard. that you could create is asking these different questions that then kind of put you into a path that your person can flesh out and provide insights around. The thing I like to is just these businesses where when you're playing in destigmatization and we should talk to Amanda about it when we have her in, the product path is really tough. And so I'm interested to get her perspectives because dealing with the product pack, you have to deal with shipping.

You have to deal with things across state lines, federal regulation versus state regulation. With this, like I said, you're kind of Switzerland. You can exist in this middle layer where people haven't really wanted to touch it. it because it is stigmatized as an industry, but you don't have to deal with all those shitty challenges that you have to deal with when you're on the product side. So you can kind of take the pure profit of this monthly recurring revenue and not have to deal with it.

It's sort of like I got pitched recently on like a Sin Stripe business. You know, like Stripe doesn't want to touch porn and they don't want to touch, you know, all of these other industries, drugs, all of the other things. And so there's an industry that's forming to basically build Stripe, but it's a payment rail. that don't care about what you're doing and just let it happen. It's sort of like what Silk Road did way back in the day,

and obviously Ross is in jail. But that whole idea of build something around an area where people don't want to touch it because of the stigma. Yeah, I mean, I think PaySafe is the PayPal of sin. They're a three to four billion dollars. Sin in quotes, because I don't think many of these things are really sin. Well, I think like how, how, how, society views it.

Yes. And there's tons of... Biblical sin. Biblical sin. I think there's tons of opportunities to build there. If you want to build there, I just think that, going back to I was saying earlier, I think it's the challenges with those types of businesses are often education. But there's tons of opportunity there.

And there's actually VC firms that are popping up to support those industries. Like 10 years ago, five years ago, like, good luck, great. Sorry, I couldn't hear what you said. Five years ago, ten years ago. Say it again, because my Apple Watch is being very rude. Five years ago, ten years ago, good luck finding a VC to back your CBD business. Now there's a lot more support for that sort of stuff. And there's even VC firms dedicated to these industries.

Yeah, well, that's interesting. I mean, it's like consensus, you know, forming over. over time, right? Like, VCs get a hard time for just, like, following the crowd and doing the same thing as everyone else. But it's cool when you have these VCs that are starting to think differently about these industries and deploying capital into them. Because ultimately, I mean, I'm a capitalist and I'm a free market guy. I think that when you start having capital flow into these ideas, capital plus people, talent, like people that are watching this and starting to think about psychedelics or destigmatization, you're going and building in that space, that's how

change happens because there will be a lot of smart people building in it, building new things, new ideas, you start having regulation, you know, kind of as a lag and following that. I do think in 10 years it's hard to imagine the level of criminalization around psychedelics as exists today. And so if you were out in front of it and building, you should reap outsized rewards for doing that. Yeah. So I would say like for those listening watching, I think like start with the science, like believe in what you're doing. Yes. And it has to be authentic. Be authentic. Figure out what is the easiest way to educate people. people in a consumable way that's fun and interesting.

Pick a vertical. Like, don't just go for everyone. Like, if, you know, go to New York or premium or pick people who are stressed, like, come up with that identity. The atomic unit of this, by the way, is exactly what you said, which is education and the component of, like, you could build something that all it is, is that opening portal you mentioned that you guys did with Five Buy, where you just log in, you click, you know, different things you're experiencing.

It's like gamified. It's a fun little game. And it spits out here the kind of different compounds that might be a fit for your life and for what you need. And here's how they might benefit you. That literally could be a business in and of itself. You could probably do advertising around it, bring in advertisers that would want to sponsor the page and make money off of that.

And that's how probably you should start. Yeah. Which is like very simple way to do customer acquisition. No code. No venture capital. That's actually probably what you do. Validate, build the audience. like learn and then from there it's like okay you know where do we go from here and I think like

one of the best ways to build a business is when you you know you've built an audience right yeah you've built a big audience around a particular vertical so like you built a big audience around people who want to sleep better using CBD yeah and and that's what I want to talk to Amanda about actually like she built an audience on Twitter yeah and learned a lot on Twitter, didn't, you know, and then from there kind of, like, built a business around it.

So I think, like, yeah, curious your perspective there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I agree with the idea of building audience and going and using that and the distribution around it.

I think we should talk to her, we should bring her in. I want to talk to her about this idea because I'm curious for her thoughts. I know she's going to have a lot of interesting perspectives on it. And I have, like, it's forming in my mind now

from hammering it around with you the exact way that I would go and do this. And I think you can just, like, hammer away with audience and with targeting distribution, like buying ads in a specific locale, to bring people into that, like, opening funnel and just use that to launch a business very quickly in this space. But I want to talk about it with her.

Yeah, and I also have a question about, like, ads, right? Like, can you buy Facebook ads for this sort of stuff? I don't know. It's a good question, actually. Let's bring her in. Let's bring her in, and we'll talk about this. This is a good one. How did you do homeschool three kids, eight, six, and four years old?

I guess they were seven, five, and three. and you started your business last year. Are we even recording right now? Oh, okay. I'm like, I actually want to know this. We can throw it in later, but like, how did you actually manage that? That's insane. So I moved, I left New York City, moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, just because I wanted

space and, like, outdoors. And I found two 24-year-old girls to basically live with me for a year. Amazing. And it was a small village because, like, they were in the house all the time. I would have four moms from the neighborhood in my garage, packing up house of wise, shipping it out. Like, we had a little compound. But, like, child care, if you think back to, like, what it was hundreds of years ago, it's, like, tribal. And now we're, like, left to do it on our own or, like, hopefully with a partner.

But, yeah, I felt like I brought that tribal mentality back, and it was incredible. My kids were flourishing. because they had all these people who loved them and were helping them, but we all have different views and experiences. So cool. It was cool. It's like it takes a village thing. Yeah.

Yeah. It's interesting. Just like historically, that was the way that kids were raised. And they were part of, it was part of the overall community. And there was really a community feel. I don't feel like society has that community feel anymore. I'm trying to convince like two of my friends in Brooklyn to move into a house with me. They have two kids.

And I'm like, let's just all raise them together. Create a mini commune. Like, wouldn't that be awesome? And then if, like, if I want to go out, they can watch kids, if they want to go on a date? You know what it's like? It's like the kibbutz. You know those in Israel? Jewish people, they did the kibbutz in Israel, which is.

Well, no, it is. It's like an Israeli, it's an Israeli Jewish thing. Yeah. It's like a communist thing. Yeah. It's a socialist thing, too, right? It's a socialist. Like, they share in their, like, basically, you're, like, farming, right?

You're farming and you create stuff. And then you share it and you're all together. We're in it together. It's a mean little socialist society. I grew up on a farm. Where at? Okay. It's like 800 people.

My parents didn't go to college and they built the house I grew up in and they're still in. Like my parents have never been on an airplane. Like super small town. To this day. They still live there? Yeah. And they built the house three miles from my grandparents' farm and my mom is one of 11. So growing up it was just you'd go and spend all weekend.

at your grandparents' house with all of your cousins and no one was watching you. Yeah. It was not safe. Unstructured. But yeah. I spent a lot of time with unstructured. Do you have siblings? One older brother.

What is he doing? He's in central Illinois. I'm kind of the like, no one understood. Yeah. Okay. What I was up to? Yeah. What, like, just what sparked that?

Were you like from a young age super independent and wanting to escape and go run away and go do something? Literally, my parents had to put like alarms on the house when, I was two because I would literally just leave the house. I'm done. Someone just told me a business idea about this with having kids where, so I'm about to have my first kid. And thank you.

And apparently you need to like baby proof your house where like dressers and things, you need to have them like attached to the walls so the kid can't pull them over. And someone pitched me on this business idea of like a service that comes in and baby proofs the house because I don't want to do it. Like, I have to hire a handyman. I don't know, like, electrical side. There's probably a bunch of things I don't know that I actually need to be babyproofed. And so could you, like, build a service that just comes in and does all that stuff for you?

You pay them, like, 500 bucks. Close years. Yeah, they come in to do the whole thing. Maybe that's a good segue to actually bring it to our actual conversation. So, Amanda, amazing to have you. We're so, so excited. You're someone that I've looked up to and admired from afar for a long time now for a number. for a number of reasons which we can get into.

But a big piece of it is you are building something that a lot of people would be scared to build. And you are someone that is building a product company as part of this wave of destigmatization around an industry. What we were just talking about before you came in was this whole idea we have around building a company to educate and like river guide people through psychedelic experiences. And so this whole idea that, like, you can create a concierge and charge a premium price point to have a business that explains to people, educates them on this entire new world that most people are scared of and don't understand. You have any thoughts on just like that as a business? I mean, there are companies in the ketamine space that are doing this where you can do like a ketamine experience at home. I mean, I think we have to break the. conversation down into like medicalization versus like recreational use.

Okay. Because I think that there are two separate conversations of like which one you're, you're thinking about because the thing that gets me, I guess most heated or most like animated about this topic is just that there's so much that these, that psychoactives, cannabis, etc. can be used for like depression, anxiety, PTSD. and everybody's lumping it all together and we're like at this like blocker. Whereas if we decouple the conversation and say, okay, there's decriminalization. Like if you're using it for personal use, like you don't go to jail.

If we still have 40,000 people sitting in jail for cannabis charges when it's like not yet federally legal. Insanity. It's insane, right? And it's mostly young African Americans and Hispanic people by the way. So like the racism overlay to this is very real. Sure. So, I mean, the.

the criminalization of cannabis is so rooted in, like, it's named marijuana because it was a tied to Mexican race. So there's so much. Wow. I didn't know that. That's interesting. There's so much rooted in racism there. And like the war on drugs is like truly a war on people.

Yeah. Right. But, but yeah, I think that there needs to be, if we don't decouple these things, people, people are dying from mental health, like every single day. We saw today's Veterans Day, like reading about veterans and how they can't get used to, like, medical use with cannabis. So I'm, there has to be more focused on this because it will help people. So let me pitch you on this idea. So I'm a working professional in New York.

Imagine. Imagine me like, I mean, you kind of are. I'm not a banker. I don't have banker energy. But imagine I'm a banker in New York City. and I'm stressed out all the time. I work a ton. Maybe I have some depression issues, some anxiety, probably, just because I'm getting 8,000 emails a day.

And I want to learn more about this because I've heard or listened to a podcast that talked about it. Huberman, like some of these amazing podcasts, Michael Pollan's book, Change Your Mind, How to Change Your Mind. And I want to learn more about it, but it's intimidating. These new industries, new spaces, you're like, oh, all I've heard about it was from my parents. It's a different generation, to your point. The narrative hasn't shifted yet. There's a lot of noise, right? Tons of noise.

So you create a business where I go into this, like, beautiful looking website. And I put in, like, yes, this is the industry I work in, finance, and I have some issues with anxiety. And maybe I take a couple of these medications, whatever it is. And it spits me out, like, here are the psychoactive compounds in different experiences, whether it's ketamine, whether it's mushrooms, whether it's LSD, whatever it is. and here's the kind of range of things that might benefit you given your profile. And now, by the way, here is this amazing, beautiful concierge experience you can have where someone will talk to you once a month and guide you through all these different things and refer you to the right people where you can have a safe experience with these.

So you kind of exist as like a Switzerland. Like you're not selling the product, but you're kind of sitting in the middle and you're educating plus connecting people to have these experiences and like creating the on ramps to this next. So love everything. Two things you're not solving for that are really big issues is acquiring and quality control. Okay. Both of those are unsafe right now.

Like I've had bad experiences where you don't know where it's coming from and you have a really bad trip, right? So you're telling people what to use, but then that's a huge leap to like where do you go? How do you get in? Who do you call if you have a bad? trip, like all those things, I feel like it would be very dangerous to start that company without the, like, pathway to acquisition. Yeah, so that's a great call out. So I do think, I think that's a great point, and it's a dangerous point if it goes wrong.

So I think you would have to have, like, preferred providers, people that you know, like, sort of like on Yelp or on any of these sites where you have the, like, people. Five-star dealer. Yeah, exactly, like, you know, exactly. But because you wouldn't be the one actually with the product, you know, you know, you you kind of de-risk yourself a little bit from a business starting standpoint, but I think you have to have that. I totally agree with you. I think you should also have like a help line. Like if you're having a bad trip, yeah, that's a great point. If you're having a bad trip,

like you need someone that you can call that could talk you out of it. I think that's like, I mean, I'm curious your perspective on that, like how important is talking someone off a clip when they're having an experience? And have you seen any services out there that help people? I mean, the ketamine one, like, Mind Bloom is the one that comes to mind. Like, they're being funded. Like, our in-house sex expert just did a at-home ketamine treatment. She, like, did a whole TikTok series on it. That's a big company now, Mind Bloom.

It's like getting a ton of traction. I don't know if you've seen that. It's a very cool company. Yeah, I haven't done. Neither have I. Haven't experienced it. Yeah. Interested to see what it, like, would do and unlock.

Yeah. It's more of an antisocial experience. from what I've heard in the sufficient doses. And so it's a little different from how a lot of people think about these things where you're going out and experiencing things. It's more like internal. But to answer your question, dosing, like you're talking about like you've already taken too much, right?

And so like. Or bad product. Or bad product. So again, it's like everything that has to happen before the person ever takes something, which is what is the proper dosing? Because like I'm in the cannabis industry and I still like quality control is a thing. Like if you take an edible from one dispensary versus another and that's the other issue. Like most of what the FDA is doing tests on is from like Mississippi and it's like really diluted.

They dry it out so the turpines aren't in it. Like it's not like they're not even doing research on like the stuff that is actually in dispensaries. So it's not one to one. And so dosing is a huge issue. quality control is a huge issue. So I think you have to vertically integrate this whole thing for it to be, I think, a really great company. Yeah.

This is an interesting point because my whole thesis was you could create the Switzerland. Like you could create this middle layer where I called it a river guide and like business name. Like you need someone to guide you down the river and like guide in a real sense as like for these trips, but also when you hit rapids or when you have a bad situation, you need someone to be able to guide you through it. And my whole thesis was that you could be, you could be horizontal in it. What you're saying is that it's actually really hard to do that because, and you've experienced this, so I actually trust your opinion much more than my own. But verticalization within this

is important because then you can control the entire experience for people. So that's interesting. I'm curious for your perspective, like you're doing the product side of this. You're building. something that honestly is still stigmatized. People don't like to talk about sex. Like even now, which is, it's crazy, but on the, when I go to your page, House of Wise, what I see on the front page is sex gummies. So like talk a little bit about building product that still triggers people a little bit. There's something that people feel when they, when they see those words.

For me, I go into the, I get really curious on like, why are people triggered? by talking about something that everybody does. And that comes from a very patriarchal society, right? Women aren't supposed to talk about sex. Right. And also, like, if you think about sex as utilitarian, when you become a mom, like, why are you posting sexy photos? Because you've already had your kids.

Like, and as a mom, like, I just think that changing the narrative, for me, the thing I get out of bed every day and say, we have to change the narrative on owning your sexuality. not for, in a heteronormative sense, a man's pleasure. And that's why there's so many things that affect libido, especially in women. Like we have hormonal cycles. We have a higher stress level which blocks cortisol and or high cortisol blocks like testosterone release, et cetera, right?

So there's so many things that affect your libido. But yet there have, sexual health has not been a VC category until about like two years. years ago. Seriously. But yet erectile dysfunction medicine, huge industry, but we're not supposed to get help because we're women. And it's because the BCs are generally white males that didn't want to talk about it. Right. I go in there talking about sex gummies and they're like, yeah, we're done here. Or they just like feel you get pushed back in your chair and you see a bunch of guys like, oh, I don't want to talk about this. But it's our number one's on product because women need help in that department and that shouldn't be stigmatized right like like we're all having

sex partner or not like let's have an actual conversation so we can figure out so if we're not even having the conversation we can't figure out what the problems are so then we can't solve or create products to solve those problems and so I'm just fortunate that I have a ton of women yeah in my community in like our Slack channel that we have like real-time user research on what the actual issues are so we can talk to it. Like create content that actually speaks this in a way that's like not this like polarizing thing where we're super, super taboo and like trying to make you blush. It's like, no, sex is healthy.

It releases oxytocin. It helps the serotonin. Like these are good things for you. So let's talk about as sexual health. Yeah. It's, you hit on a few things there that I think are amazing. So one, the community aspect, which we've talked about this before, but Amanda, what you did with building an audience around all of this and building the community around all of it is amazing because you're a perfect example of someone who built this audience around the product you were going to be releasing into the market. Like you had built this big audience and you were building this audience prior to launching any of your products.

And so suddenly you were already talking about these things. You were part of the destigmatization of all of these things. And then you were releasing a product into it. And so it's this amazing case study of this new world we live in where you can do that. You can build audience before product and then go and launch into that where you already had people that wanted that from you. Is that what happened? You built an audience and then you're like, I want to see this product. Like, can you walk through a bit of like the timeline of?

I wish I could say I was like this genius that thought through all of that. So when I got my divorce, I was like at the height of my career, marketing for big company and had three kids under the age of four. So that's when I started using cannabis. I had never touched cannabis in my life. I was an athlete my whole life. So never touched it. Realized it was helping me.

Realize all my friends were drinking so much alcohol and they didn't understand what alcohol was doing to them. As you guys put on. But no, like it affects your REM cycles. It does lead. That affects your libido. Like it's this kind of snow. snowball effect, right? And so COVID hit. I saw my friends literally drinking more than I've ever

seen and they are, you know, struggling with depression and anxiety. So I was like, fuck, I need to go create this. It was in my head already that I wanted to create a brand that destigmatized cannabis for people like me, executives, moms, et cetera. Were you still at your job at that time when you had the idea? Yeah. Yeah. Came up with the name on a work trip to India. It was a very like, pray love moment. India has that effect on people. I've spent time there and it's always like this, when you see that many different type of people and the culture and the struggle

that a lot of people have, just like how much that grounds you as a human being. Sorry, I interrupted you, but I agree. It creates clarity in so many ways in grounding. But yes, I sawed my job.

I raised a pre-seed round while I had my full-time job. I told the investors I couldn't leave because I was in the middle of a pandemic with three kids on my like taking care of them so raise the pre-seed and where were you with like twitter followers at this point like were you at 25,000 were you know I just got on Twitter now two years ago yeah you were like the same time as me I remember this yeah I remember this yeah and so I I'm an open book like if we're at dinner like I'm gonna talk to you not only about business but like my dating life or whatever right and so I just started tweeting like I talk And then I would do like tweet threads about marketing or you know this is my second startup

So I would tweet about startups or whatever and all of a sudden it was just like things started to take off and the things that we're taking off were like just me talking about authentic yeah realness like the struggles of being a parent during the pandemic dating like whatever so we launched December 1st my fault like my followers are probably around like 30. something like that. And then I got to meet Jack Dorsey. That was like a cool Twitter moment because they literally reached out and they were like, we don't know how you're doing what you're doing. That's cool. How do we, like what, how can we make Twitter better for women? So that more women voices, there's more space for women.

That is a huge issue they have actually. Yeah. Yeah. It's male dominated. Very much so. Yeah. It's a boys club for sure. Yeah.

It comes with network effects, though. Because, like, you saw it with Clubhouse even, like, in the beginning. It's like, you guys all know each other. Well, that was where we first met was in a clubhouse room. We were both on this panel in a clubhouse room. I remember that. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, so then launched December 1st, started talking about what I was building. But to grow my wise women is what we call them, House of Wise. We have Wise women. So we have 700 women who are micro-affiliates. They talk about the products to their friends. They like use these things to like sell it on their phones, et cetera, right? I tweeted out like, does anybody want to talk about how to have better sleep, sex, et cetera? I'm building something for women.

My DMs were nuts. And so I hired like a person, like a task rabbit to literally go through, put all those names in a spreadsheet. That's so cool. And then I invited all of those women at the time it was like between 400 and 500 women into Slack Channel. And so I treated them like they were part of the company. They were investors. I gave them updates on the products. I would send out a few early samples to have them, they talk, like show them packaging, et cetera.

And then by the time we launched on December 1st, we had over 500 women that had digital assets that were just talking about it. So it felt like it was everywhere. Yeah. So House of Wise is a community-based product, right? It's like community through and through. It started with a community. and the community is really what's driving a lot of the success. Yeah, 100%.

So cool. This is like, it's giving me a new framework. Greg makes fun of me. I'm like the frameworks guy on this show. But this is like the NSFW framework of like building businesses around things that people are afraid to talk about at work. Like things you're not supposed to talk about. You're not supposed to talk about sex.

You're not supposed to talk about drugs. You're not supposed to talk about all these things. they're all being destigmatized. It's all becoming more normal. And we're starting to live in a world where you can talk about all these things. But because it's been so taboo or stigmatized, things haven't been built. The infrastructure, the product companies, the infrastructure layer has not been created yet. And so can you go just use that as a business ideation to go build around that?

I think it's cool. That's a good framework. I like it. I think it's cool. That's a really good one. I think to me this is a classic. example of authentic like you're not your own you're not the only person that's feeling this way right so you like identify this feeling that people have you brought people together you create an intimate

space and you co-created a product yeah you didn't create a product yeah co-created a product yeah i think everyone that was has been there from day one they feel like their fingerprint is on it somewhere which is really cool that's why like the the word even founder like i'm just thinking out loud here but like it's almost like an outdated term. Like because like I feel like the products of the future, you know, it isn't one person, isn't, you know, these like multiple founders. It's like it's your micro affiliates, right? It's your co-creators.

Yeah. You're like the captain of the basketball team. Totally. You also have exceptional founder market fit. Like to use a, I hate using VC terms generally, but like founder market, like you were the right part. Yes, seriously. You got a drink every time you use a VC term. I think it counteracts the A16Z comment.

Actually, so now I'm good. I'm like at baseline. But I think like you were the right person to start this too because it was so authentic and it was something you really deeply cared about and something you had benefited from and experienced in real time. And so to go build a community, it's really hard to build community if you're not authentic and credible around what you're trying to build around. And so you were the right person to build this community because you were experiencing

these things. You were a mom. You were trying to manage your kids and teach them. COVID world, which was nuts. And like, you're trying to manage that with the stress of being a full-time, you know, working person and then starting a business. And it's just like, it all builds up to there's this amazing, credible authenticity that you were kind of going with. I just think it's, I think it's amazing. Yeah, well, the thing that I saw is that there's a lot of VC-backed businesses around talking to women about their careers. Then there's VC-backed businesses that are like,

let's talk to you about motherhood. There aren't that many spaces about your sexuality. Yeah. Right. But like time is our most finite resource. And if I have to go to three different groups of people to talk about my one self, that is so fucking exhausting. That's so true. So I'm like, we are multi-hyphenous.

Like that's like the term that we like to say, like, I am a mom, but that is not my identity. Like, that is a job and function that I'm not. I have. I'm also a sexual human. Like, that is a part of my life. I, like, I'm a marketer. Whatever, whatever your roles are, I don't want to talk to 8,000 groups. So I wanted to create this community that was a space that acknowledged that first and foremost as a principal. Like, you are a full human. Yeah. I love it. I think it's amazing. It's a good place to end, too, I think, because that, like, that final point of embracing everything that you are in the, like, full circle of who you are as a human is a really, really cool takeaway for me. So thank you so much for the time.

You're the best. This was awesome. This was seriously awesome. And where can people find you? I do want to give a product plug here because first off, I'm super excited to take this pre-workout. Pre-workout. Yeah, people think CBD is just a downer, but like when it's paired with really good active advance, it works. I'm really excited for it. House of Wise, not just for women. Right. You can be a wise man. Pre-work out. There you go. Thank you so much. And tell us the website. Houseof-of-Wise.com. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming in.

You're the best. You're the best. Sahel, what was your biggest takeaway from our conversation with the men? So I think for me, first off, I think this business idea is really interesting. The whole idea of creating river guide for these new experiences where you need to educate and you can create a concierge experience. I think there's actually a business to be built here. So as a community takeaway, I would love to get in there and jam on this further and riff with people that might be interested in building it.

Yeah, and my biggest takeaway is that I feel like for years people have been saying that, you know, cannabis is the, they call it the green rush, right? And there's all these like stigmatized spaces and there's all these people coming in. And you're not too late. I guess my biggest takeaway is you're not too late. There's still tons of opportunity, tons of narratives to own, tons of community driven products that you could create. So the future is bright. Yeah. I think the community driven piece is key.

I mean, Amanda is a great example of that, what she built, building that community, stoking that, and just creating a safe space for people to talk about these things that they were never supposed to talk about, and then launching a product alongside it, it's brilliant. So I learned a ton from it. I thought it was amazing and really excited to further the conversation, get in the community with you guys,

and continue to jam on all of this. So if you've got any ideas around stigmatized businesses, throw it in the Discord, and let's chat. App Sumo is the number one place for entrepreneurs. It is a marketplace where entrepreneurs can find the products they need to build and scale their businesses. Its founder, Noah Kagan, is a creator. He's a builder and he understands what you need in order to scale.

So he's created a marketplace where you can find those things. It's amazing. I've found so many unique products there. And as a creator, you can make and list your products at a super low cost and have this incredible discovery engine to go sell and scale your business. I highly recommend you check it out today. Go to absumo.com backslash the room. It's red. I hate banking. Most banking products suck. So when I was starting all these new businesses and going on this new adventure, I turned to Mercury. Mercury is banking for founders by founders. They make everything so easy

in a beautiful, elegant design. There's free wires, virtual and physical debit cards. They even have a raising platform where they will connect you with other investors out in the ecosystem. Have you tried Mercury? I have. And let's be honest, when you log into traditional banking websites and apps, it's hideous. When I go into Mercury, it's like a walk in the park. So I love using it. It feels fresh. And I can't use anything else. You should definitely check it out at Mercury.com. It will completely change the game for your banking experience. I guarantee it.

Join our free community at TRWIH.com.