This Week in Startups - Adrian Grenier: launching a new fund + FounderU: balancing product vision & customer feedback | E1277

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

First, Jason discusses how to balance product vision with customer feedback in a FounderU segment (0:57). Then, actor and investor Adrian Grenier joins to discuss the launch of his new fund DuContra Ventures (20:52), the importance of saying "No" (33:24), acting (41:23) and more!

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Visit Zendesk.com slash twist today to get started. Okay, I want to talk to you about a question I get asked all the time. How do you balance your product vision with all the customer feedback you're going to be getting? This is part of our Founder University, by the way, which is becoming a multi-month course. Founder University is typically as two days, an intensive program, five, six hours a day. We're now going to make a 12-week course, and you can read about that at Founder. dot university. We're figuring out what we're going to charge for it, if we're going to charge for it,

but we're looking for 50 founders to join this program, founders who maybe are thinking about building a product, they have an idea, but they haven't even gotten started. So this is before you come to an accelerator incubator, you come to Founder University. It teaches you how to build an MVP, maybe even get a customer or two, and then be able to apply to an incubator or accelerator.

So this would come before the launch accelerator or TechStars or Wycombinator. And so we're just trying to build a product that can help people in the world. And again, we're in the laboratory with it, but I wanted to talk about some of the course work that we're building for it. So you've heard me say this before about the startup flywheel. You build a team, you build a product, you delight customers, and then you repeat that process. Hopefully, you make a little bit of money delighting those customers, which allows you to put

more resources into your team, and that results in a better product or a faster cadence. In other words, you release more product and test more product because you have more people and more resources to do so. When you only have two people working on a startup, the co-founders, and they're building everything, how many different tests can you run? How many different products can you trial? So let's talk about balancing here, building your product based on your vision while implementing all that customer feedback. There are two wildly different camps on this and many different versions in between, to be totally honest. you have people like Steve Jobs who just want to build their product vision,

and then you have obsessive people like Eric Reese and the lean startup who are just looking at customer feedback to define what the product is. And I'm talking about your product vision versus what the customer actually wants. And a lot of times we as founders have a vision of what we want in a product. And it could be narcissistic and it could be based on what we personally want to use in the world. And sometimes it could just be what we assume, customer wants. And the customer tells us they want something else. And the customers can be wrong too, by the way. Sometimes the customers will tell you they want something and then never use it,

right? Because just the act of asking somebody what they want could make them think, well, I got to give them an answer. I can't just tell them I'm satisfied with the product as it is. And sometimes people are actually not aware of what they are doing when they're using a product. They're not actually looking at their metrics. When you got your iPhone as an example, and it started telling you what you were using most often and you looked out and you're like, oh my God, I'm playing bejeweled for nine hours a week and oh, I'm doing Twitter for seven hours a week and I'm actually doing my email in Slack for one hour each. You know, some people got a rude awakening of how they were using their phone because they

weren't actually measuring it. They just had an idea of what they were doing and maybe they even projected into that their aspirations. So I talked about delighting your customer and you can check out that episode on episode 945 of this week in startups. So let's just start with what it means to delight a customer. It's important to understand this because you do need to understand your customers if you're going to ask them for money and you want them to be loyal to your product and not churn from it.

You want to basically get to know them. So you can create a super group, just a group of the top five or 10% of your customers. And you can measure this by how much money they spend with you or how often they use the product. Both of these are valid. You probably want to take a mix of them, right? So you might have people who spend a lot of money. If this was a casual game, I mentioned bejeweled before, or one of those threes or, you know, games. Well, you could look at how often they play, and you can look at how much money they spend.

What are you optimizing for? Are you optimizing for people who use your product a lot? Or you're optimizing for the whales who spend a lot? You're probably doing a combination of both because both are good customers. Now, you take this feedback from them if they want to give it, but you also have to ask them for feedback. So the people who send you feedback, that can be hit or a mess. they could want some custom software, or they could point out when there's problems and use the feedback for customer support. It could be a problem with their phone or the memory on their

computer. So you have to take all that into account, but asking for feedback is a great way to do this. These customers in the top five or 10 percent, they're going to understand your product, and they might understand it better than people who work at your company because the customers are using it every day. They've probably searched every nook and cranny of it. When you're working in your company, even as the CEO, when's the last time the CEO of the company went through the sign-up flow? You've already signed up.

You probably forgot there even is a sign-up flow. And then you look at it with fresh eyes and you're like, oh my God, this is a disaster. So the other thing to note here is casual users might have a lot of opinions, but they're not your ideal customer, right? So somebody who uses Uber Eats, you know, twice a year because they love to cook and they love to go to restaurants. And they use Uber Eats.

and Postmates and DoorDash twice a year. You really care about that person, and they start complaining, oh, well, you don't have this Michelin's Tard restaurant, and oh, you should have separated the sauce from the dish, and it would have come out better, and this wasn't the right temperature. That's not the customer for Uber Eats or DoorDash. The person who orders Uber and DoorDash five times a week,

even if they're spending less per order, that's your actual real customer, isn't it? So you want that ideal customer profile. You want to define that, and you want the users who have a lot of skin in the game. A person who rarely uses your product and wants to give you their opinion, well, that opinion, it's kind of like somebody giving you an opinion about your movie and they only saw the trailer. Do you really care about that person's opinion or do you care about the person who's watched

the movie twice and who's bought the comic books and really cares about your franchise, right? You want that person. All right. So I think talking to customers, I don't have to tell you as founders that that's important. How you do it is critically important. And most people will do a survey. Now, surveys are fine. They do give you some information, but they don't give you the complete vision of the user.

And so founders really need to get to know who their users are in order to understand what they need and why they pay for your product. And if you're meeting those needs and how they're actually using the product and service. Now, collecting qualitative data is not easy in surveys, right? So regular data, quantitative data, how would you rate this product on a scale of 1 to 10? That's super easy. It's just a piece of data. Qualitative means you did an actual interview with them and you met with them and you watched them use the product.

That's called the Listening Lab. Or you actually interviewed them and talked to them about it. And maybe you asked them the same question three or four times in order to get three or four swings at the answer. And then you can make a super cut of that video or audio and play it to your team and really start talking to folks because when you do qualitative stuff with a highly qualified, with a highly qualified customer, you might get insights that you wouldn't see in a quantitative survey monkey or type form or your classic NPS score.

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If you look at delighting customers, we had Superhuman CEO Raul Vora on the program. He's obsessed with this. And he references Sean Ellis's leading indicator of initial product market fit. Since startups fail, I think this is where he got. this idea from, I assume, since so many startups fail, and when they do fail, people are like, oh my God, you took the product away, it's turning off, and then all of a sudden they show their love for it and offered a pay for it. This happens all the time. Just like when they cancel a TV show, people are like, oh my God, you're canceling that show. And it's like, well, you guys

weren't talking about it. We didn't know you liked it. And then somebody comes along and saves the show, right, and gives them another season on another network. It's kind of like that, right? He asks, how would you feel if you could no longer use the product? How would you feel if you could no longer use the product? If greater than 40% of users say very disappointed in their responses, you have product market fit according to Sean Ellis and amplified by Raoul at Superhuman. So he takes it a step further, Raoul, and he asks users four questions in a survey. How would you feel if you could no longer use Superhuman?

Very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, not disappointed. What type of people do you think would most benefit? benefit from Superhuman. In other words, you define the ideal customer profile as a customer. What is the main benefit you receive from Superhuman? Main being, singular. And how do we improve Superhuman for you? Just an open box to allow you to get feedback. And Superhuman can then segment and analyze the surveys better. This allows them to implement the features that matter most to the users they want to fall in love with the product. So if you said, I wouldn't be disappointed,

or I'd be somewhat disappointed if superhuman went away. Are you the ideal customer? Is your feedback important? Well, the person who's very disappointed. They might be so loyal to the product because it's fast and it lets you use quick keys that their advice on which quick keys to add next and which features might be more important than the people who are not disappointed. They might say something like, well, if it was free, I'd like it.

Like, okay, is that really valid feedback? and then he tries to track users over time. And so this is a great recipe from Raoul for building features that delight customers, which obviously Superhuman has done. They will send these updates to you in email constantly with the new features they're launching. And they really are power user features, which then leads people to misunderstand. Oh, superhuman, I don't get it. Why is Superhuman so loved by its users?

Well, they are really overservicing their power users, this ideal customer profile. So again, everybody's feedback is fine to collect, but whose do you actually implement is at the core of understanding product market fit. And you're not almost any product that has ever been made is made for a specific subset of users. And then other users become more advanced over time. So the Tesla that came out originally was for people who were super passionate about electric cars. and it had a lot of limitations like range, etc. And expense. But then over time, you can slowly make that product available to more people.

You don't have to obsess about it from the start. Let's keep talking about this product vision, because in season two of scaling your startup, we leaned hard into product development. And I had FitBod, which is an exercise app, Alan Chen on the program with Craig Zingerline of Growth University to talk about what are the most important growth metrics that you're looking at. And we had another episode with Jesse from FitBod and Raul from Superhuman. That was episode 5.

That's Twist episode 1214. And we'll have this all in the show notes because you can go really deep on these. These founders talked about their streams of product development while building a high-growth startup. And so there's core feature development. This is like the main features of your app, experimental-based feature development. Okay. Just what we say it is here in experiment. See if people like it.

And then there is the importance of product-led growth. which is, hey, if a startup doesn't grow, then why does it exist? It probably will not exist for long. So let's start with the core feature development. So these are features that your product cannot exist without. So if you're Zoom, you cannot exist without video conferencing. If you're a travel booking website, you have to have payment processing. I mean, how else are people going to book their room?

And if you're a social app, you kind of have to have a feed, right? Where do people consume the updates from the people they're following? So this is where startups can overbuild. They start building all the features that aren't the core features, because the core feature is done, and they're like, okay, if we build some shiny new object, that'll get more people to adopt our product. It actually turns out that Facebook and Twitter and YouTube learned something completely different.

But they learned where the new features were not as important as a lot as you. making the core feature work better. So what is the core feature of YouTube? uploading videos, sharing videos, watching videos, and then recommending videos. If you look at those core set of videos, anybody who produces for YouTube knows it's really easy to upload a video, even to do a live stream is dead simple now. And to watch a video on YouTube couldn't possibly be easier and faster. You've probably all had this experience. You are traveling, or you're in another country or you're in area with really low reception. You go try to watch Hulu or Netflix or some website with a video embedded on it,

and it's really slow. And then you go use YouTube, and it magically works, and you're like, how is that possible? Well, YouTube realizes that the faster they make downloading a video, the faster they start a video, the faster they make scrubbing through a video, which is when you move the little dot at the bottom for the timeline, and you can see the thumbnails, all of those add up to increased, consumption. Adding another feature may not increase consumption. Why? Because only 5% of people may use that feature, like playback speed. I've been using playback speed on a YouTube. I found out

about it a year or two. You can go in there and you can just like on a podcast player make it 1.5. How many people do you think actually do that? Five percent of users, 10 percent? It's possible. Now, would you work on that feature in the beginning or would you work on making YouTube videos just lightning fast and fast to upload and fast to play. Of course you're going to work on making a fast to play. And then what about what video it plays next? If they get that right and you're listening to an amazing interview with Quentin Tarantino like I was, and they kept showing me Quentin Tarantino fighting with a photographer.

And finally I gave in and clicked on it because I was like, what is this about? Why do they keep recommending this? And is Quentin Tarantino kicking a paparazzi at Sundance who was giving them a hard time? while he was getting a Starbucks. And I was like, all right, at least I got that out of my queue. But they relentlessly hit me with Quentin Tarantino clips. And you know what? I didn't realize that listening to Quentin Tarantino talk about film is so compelling.

And now I've listened to like five interviews in two months. That's the type of feature that can drive a business to great heights. But it's very hard for a founder to stay focused just on making that feature better. But that's what Facebook did as well. Their feed, Instagram, TikTok, is the, I think the ultimate now example of this, where all they seem to care about is making sure you get an highly entertaining video next.

And don't be afraid to delete unused features. That's another thing that people generally don't do a good job of. Why should you delete features people aren't using? Well, they're a distraction because they keep people from the primary features. And they become cruft for your team to maintain. So the second you realize, listen, less than 5% of people are using this feature, and they use it less than 5% of the time. If you made an X, Y axis,

what percentage of people use this feature and how often do they use it? If it's something really, really low on both of those accounts, you can probably deprecate it and nobody will fight you. And you'll find out if you give people a 30-day warning that you're getting rid of a feature,

they'll tell you if you're wrong or not. Charles Hudson gave the following feedback at Founder University number 18, and it's just so notable and true that we pulled it out here. The number one thing I end up, talking to people about is, how can we do fewer things, but do them faster and better? Two key observations there, faster and better. Do less, but do it faster and do it better. If we were looking at a startup like Airbnb, they needed to make the check-in process faster and better.

And most of you didn't use Airbnb in the early days, but you had to request that you wanted to stay somewhere. the person looked at your profile. They didn't have instant booking and they didn't have super hosts and the host didn't have their inventory in there. It was kind of like a back and forth. And people found that really frustrating because if you need it to book a place,

oh my goodness, I want to book that place and move on. I don't want to have to book that place and wait and see. And if I do have to wait and see on Airbnb, I'm just going to go to another service. So that led to Airbnb creating super hosts. All right, that's part one. of me talking about product market fit.

I'm going to do a part two to this one as well. But let's get to my interview with actor and investor now, Adrian Grinion. Don't you wish you could hire a ringer to help scale your startup and get your marketing type? Well, with market or hire, now you can. Marketer hire gives you access to expert freelancers on demand with no long-term contracts or risk.

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Right now, marketer, hire.com slash twist. M-A-R-K-E-T-E-R, hire.com slash twist. All right, everybody got a real treat for you. Actor, virtuoso, Adrian Grenier is here. You may or may not know. He also is an entrepreneur, music producer, documentary film producer, and now capital allocator. Welcome to the program, Adrian.

Thanks for having me. Hello, everyone. You obviously have been a very successful actor. I think most people know you from Entourage. You are now living in the Austin area. And are you out of Hollywood now? Are you retired from Hollywood? Because you seem like you're good at it.

Yeah. Why, thank you, Jason. I appreciate that. I know you're a big fan. You watch all my work, I'm sure. All of it, yes. Well, no, you know, truth be told, I never technically lived in Hollywood. I always kept my place, my address in my New York City driver's license.

I grew up in New York, and that was, you know, part of my identity. So I wasn't prepared to give that up until recently when I just actually got my Texas driver's license. Oh, wow. Yeah. So needless to say, not Hollywood, but yes, Texas. and, you know, mom still lives on the East Coast, so still got ties there as well. So you and I met, I'm trying to remember where we met,

but it was amongst our mutual friends in the tech industry maybe five or six years ago. I think it was Miami, which I'm guessing I was there for Art Basel, which is one of the reasons to go. I mean, don't ask me, but that feels right. It can be any number. Yeah, exactly. How did you get plugged into the tech industry

as somebody who was in Hollywood, I'm curious. I think probably really started getting into it during my shift.com days. I created the first sustainability lifestyle online portal. And that brought me to San Francisco, started meeting people. We won Webby Awards. So it got some accolades in that respect.

And of course, the internet was just popping off in the early aughts. I was like really interesting and curious. And so a lot of my friends call me app curious. So I was like exploring different ways to, you know, what I find is like express ideas through technology. Then you started investing at some point because you had a network of friends who were in tech.

Is that how you sort of got the bug of investing? You make a little money acting. And everybody in acting wants to invest in tech, it seems. And then all the tech people want to make movies. and hang out in Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. For a while,

a lot of my San Francisco friends were like, how do we bridge the gap from San Francisco-centric community to Hollywood? And then the Hollywood types were like, how do we, you know, get into this new thing called technology?

So I was sort of right there straddling the two. So I got a lot of deal flow, a lot of access. And also my environmental work as a UN environment ambassador, and just lonely whale and just generally speaking, shift.com. I started just seeing a lot of deal flow

within the impact space as well. And now you're starting a new fund and tell us about that because you had been investing, I think, quietly out of a smaller fund. And now I think we can talk about you raising another fund or can we not? Sure. I think so. Yeah.

I think so. So tell me about the original fund and how you decided to do that. and then what's going on with the new fund? So for years, I was investing informally, you know, just sort of fielding stuff as it came my way, you know, as a pure novice. Like, I mean, I didn't really,

I would invest in things just because I liked the founder or I thought it was a cool idea that needed to exist without the real sophistication of being able to do any deep dives. You know, I had some successes. I got lucky and then others, you know, not so much. But that seemed to be, a pretty standard track record with investing and hit some winners, hit some grand slams, and then otherwise, you know, you're striking out. So it was fun. It was really low risk.

And it wasn't until I met Bob Mnuzi, who started Umana House of Funds. And she's basically working with people with a public profile who want to align their investments with their values. And we started working together. And she took my investing from being just this casual thing that I was fielding to let's actually pursue opportunities. And so that's how it all started to sort of formalize my investing with the first fund. And then now this next fund is sort of a, you know, it's just the next step in our relationship as partners. So she's going to be able to handle all that infrastructure for you, as you meet with companies, do diligence and all the stuff.

She's the brains. Yeah. Well, I mean, it is a lot of work, these backends and the diligence you have to do. So having somebody who can do either what you're not good at or what you don't want to do is critical. Yeah. And I'm the romantic. I'm the dreamer. You know, so.

And I've built businesses myself and I understand how hard that is. But you need to have a, you know, a laser focus on the vision and the belief in it. It's not unlike making a film. You know, there's so many obstacles that if somebody doesn't believe in it and make it happen no matter what, despite the odds, you know, every time I see a movie, I just have, even if it's a movie, I have to applaud the fact that it exists. And the same with business, you know, it's a grind. I was about to say, when you were talking about the process of being an angel investor and how most things fail, it doesn't seem to phase you. I'm guessing going on auditions

your whole life, and most of them, they tell you you're amazing, and then you don't get it, right? And... Well, usually, you only hear when they say you're amazing, and otherwise, they just speak, talk behind your back. But you feel it. You get used to rejection, right? Yeah, oh, yeah, you have to get used to rejection.

And, you know, I've learned to just sort of turn that part off. You know, you don't, it's, I don't even listen to the compliments, you know, even when someone says that you're, you know, like, yay, they're. they did a great job. I was like, are you just saying that because I'm right in front of your face? And you don't have the guts to tell me that I was... Um, so I tend to not take the compliments or the criticism. I just sort of, you know, lean into what the vision is and my, my creative craft and,

and the passion for a project. Um, because, you know, what they say, you know, uh, art isn't finished. It's abandoned, right? So, and, and I think probably the same. with business on some level. Eventually, you know, someone's going to come in, buy you out, and you're going to make an exit. And, you know, there's so much you still could do, but you have to step away at some point. I think the equivalent of that is, you know, startups don't die because they ran out of money. That's what most people think. They tend to

die because the founder gives up. Because we've seen many founders who run out of money, and for some reason their startup doesn't end. And they just keep grinding, and then they find money three months later in the startup still there. And there's other people who are like, oh, my God, I can't pay myself $200,000. I'm shutting everything down. Yeah. No, that's a good point. And that's, you know, what we do at DuContra is we look for people who have that long-term,

you know, vision and passion. And they're not just looking for a quick exit, you know, just to bloat or pump and dump, as they say. Yeah. So that's important. It's like, are you a true visionary? Are you truly committed to this? Or is this just a vanity project and a moneymaker?

So let's go through some of the early bets you made. I see you were in public.com doing social investing. That's done incredibly well for you, I'm assuming. Yeah, yeah. What else have you invested in? And is there a theme here for DuContra in terms of sustainability or world positive and how do you balance what you know is going to help the world, but what you know is the reality of venture capital,

which is if you don't get a return for your investors, they're not going to come back for the next fund. Yeah, and hopefully our track record shows that we're not just sort of naively looking to change the world and make an impact, but we're actually looking to be successful and continue to grow our impact. But we have four verticals around sort of the up-leveling of the human being and society at large. So human flourishing, which is personal development, health, wellness, mental health,

sort of the longevity, the betterment of the human beings so that we can actually invest in people making better choices and participating more successfully. So future finance, which is upleveling our relationship to money, equity, access, how do we get as the tools of how we build the world, money, into as many hands as possible, many up-leveled hands, of course. Communitas, so bringing people together, how we connect them so that they can do good work together, because that is the one thing that makes us humans different from all other animals, is that we know how to collaborate and we can collaborate.

So that's very important to us. and then sustainable consumption. So CPG products and new materials, marketplaces, software. So we really look at what we consume and how. So through those four verticals, we find a lot of great, great companies that fit nicely within that. What stage do you want to invest in? Pre-launch, launched, Series A, Series B, have you thought about when you're going to meet founders.

Do you care what stage is? This is really a growth fund, so A and B, not beyond that, most likely. And we're shined away from those like early stage companies because, you know, we've sort of done that for the past couple years and now we just want to, you know, we have a lot of companies that are looking for follow on rounds. So we want to continue to support the companies we've already invested in. and then, you know, look for other companies that need that, you know, that wind. Everyone knows Zendesk is the go-to for customer support, but what you may not know is that Zendesk also

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and check out Zendesk's new podcast, sit down, Startup, available on all major podcasting platforms. Every customer accounts when you're a startup, especially now. So start building the best customer experiences with Zendesk. Explain to me how you deal with the inbound. Now that you're publicly stating, hey, I'm an investor, and you add to that, your celebrity, you've got a big Twitter following.

Obviously, people want to meet you. How do you deal with the influx of people coming at you? Because I have a lot of influx, but I got to think that being a celebrity who starts investing, there could be a lot of people who just want to meet you and take a selfie with you, and then maybe they don't have real businesses, et cetera. So how many people are trying to contact you? And how do you sort through all this?

Yeah. And I've been down that road many a time where you give a lot of yourself and a lot of time and you meet up and they get the picture and that's really all they wanted. And it's just, it feels gross. It's disappointing. And it's a waste of time. So yeah, you know, we we tend to, well, first of all, you know, I'm a pretty open person, you know, so you can, you can reach me on Instagram and I'll answer. Like, so I'm pretty hands-on in terms of just, you know, being personable.

But then, you know, very quickly, I pass it on to the team. They vet deals and they make sure that people are legit and that they're, they're sincere in terms of what they're looking to do. And then, of course, the business, as much as you want to support every single business, it's just not possible. We're not able to do that. So we have to be a little bit conservative about, and we see hundreds of deals. And, you know, in the totality of the fund, we're going to, hundreds of deals a month,

I should say. And we will probably end up investing in 30 or 40 of them. Out of this fund. And one of the big ideas from founders I here is I'm going to get the celebrity, this athlete, whatever notable person on my cap table, and then they're going to help me amplify the business. How do you balance that? So if an Adrian Reiner invest in your company or Carmelo Anthony with his fund or LeBron James investing incom, how do you deal with them wanting you to tweet it or talk about it and you get paid for endorsing, how do you manage that? Obviously, you're passionate

about some of these businesses. So you have no problem talking about them, but do they want you to do commercials for them and tweet constantly or yeah yeah i think they'd probably enjoy that uh but it's just about having that candid conversation you know um i i have been very careful to protect my brand and that i don't just you know promote anything because i get paid for it you're not you're never going to see me in a you know McDonald's commercial yeah um or a burger king i mean i some of these celebrities i look at them i'm like did you really need the money you had to do you know you know a catheter, you know, a commercial on late night? Really?

You needed the money? They didn't. It's like deranged. It's just a money grab, right? Like some people are doing crypto. I see people doing crypto stuff and I'm like, really, Floyd Mayweather is doing crypto, pumping up schemes. I'm like, and then he gets dinged and you're like, what did you think would happen?

Like, why would you take that money? Yeah, I mean, so I really avoid those. And it's not easy because they want to throw a lot of money at me something. Sometimes I'm like, ooh, maybe, you know, maybe I will eat that burger. But, you know, I've said no to a lot, a lot of money. And I'm proud to say that I have because I think I'm happier because I stay true to my deeper values. And, you know, that's what DuContra really is, is trying to align our investments and our moneymaking with our, you know, hearts and our, you know, truest, sincerest ethics. but the way I mean, I don't usually do transactional relationships.

Like, you're going to pay me and then I'll tweet. You know, I don't want, and you're not buying access to my Twitter handle. You know, if you want to build something together and have a long-term relationship in which we have mutual shared goals, then I'll tweet way more. I'll participate way more because now I have a vested interest in accomplishing the same thing. Right. And that's just worked. I mean, I worked for Dell.

for almost five years as their social good advocate. And that was the relationship from the get go. Initially, you know, they sent the contract and they're like, you know, this many, you know, retweets and, you know, pictures and appearances and this. And we convinced them, luckily, to both of our benefit, to totally throw out that transactional contract and say, look, we're going to build, you know, different campaigns together. And we're just going to run with it. And because of that, we actually created many different little small entities that still exist today.

So we're actually building a supply chain for ocean bound plastic that has 15 international companies all at the table actually pledging money to actually build this infrastructure and this supply chain. So that is the result of the non-transactional relationship. And maybe I could have made, you know, three times as much. It doesn't matter because now that's on our track record. Yeah, it's interesting. People will be like, hey, can you tweet? Some founders were like, we have a job opening. Can you tweet this?

I'm like, I have 350 investments. You all have seven job openings. That's 2100 job openings. It's not possible for me to tweet all of them. So use the bat signal lightly. how do you deal with your other celebrity friends who want to get in this when you talk to your other friends and they say hey I want to get it on this you've done well ashton kutcher's done well and they start seeing some people you know let's face it like accumulate some more wealth in investing than

they did in acting or in Hollywood how do you advise them of how to do this properly and and what the commitment level is because your commitment is pretty serious to this like you're raising a fun. That's a lot of, that's a lot of skin in the game. Yeah, well, you know, I think most people are solely focused on making money. And you said that, you know, with crypto or NFTs or any new fad, it's like purely, how do I make as much money as possible in this moment versus, you know, how is this going to be a lasting legacy of what we're building and creating in the world? So I always, advise in that way. You know, it's like, what are you actually trying to do?

If you're trying to make a quick buck, I'm probably not the guy to help you because, again, I'm the dreamer. I'm thinking of like the big picture. And so, and I honestly, I don't look at my, you know, the bank account. I don't look at the numbers. I don't track how much money we're making, how well we're doing. The team does that so that we, you know, have some eyes on sort of the direction we're going, but I'm more interested in the entrepreneurs and the founders and supporting them and really being a part of their success because I know that their success will ultimately result in positive ROI, but also will achieve our mutual goals of making this world more livable.

And so that keeps me going. Yeah. And there's something fabulous about entrepreneurs in terms of building just things that change. the world, the excitement that comes from that, it's just something that's just a lot of fun to be part of it. When you have a fund, you get to be part of it 30 times. So you have this incredible group of people around you who are so world positive and want to make things better. It's just, it's addicting, right? Yeah. Absolutely. And those are the people that I call friends. I mean, frankly, you know, I get along with artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs the most.

Well, you said it earlier. You think about what it takes to make a film, especially today, where it's like everything is content from streamers and, you know, the idea of indie films where you got started is like, huh, does that even exist anymore? And you really have to want that movie to exist. I mean, it takes what, five, ten, fifteen years for these indie films to ever come out if they do. Brutal.

Indie TikToks are so much easier to make. Are you on TikTok yet? Have they got you on there? I am not. I am not. You feel too old for TikTok now? I'm a, you know what? I got some moves.

Maybe you get in there and I do so. I just thought at 50, you're 40 something. I'm 50 now. I'm just like, you're 45 now? Yeah, it's just like, I'm not sure if we can be on there. All right. Tell us a couple of Hollywood stories here.

We got you. Everybody's fascinated by Hollywood. What is the greatest part that you wanted that you didn't get? What was the most soul-crushing part you missed? That you came close on. I don't want to disappoint. There must be something that you came close on. Because they wanted you for superhero movies too, right?

Like that was kind of the whole plot line of entourage was you were going to play Aquaman, which is hilarious that Aquaman eventually came out. But you were in line to get other superhero movies, correct? Okay, so it was a Jake Gyllenhaal took the part for me. Oh, really? Yeah, it was, it wasn't just one movie. It was a series of movies that I was up for, and Jake Gyllenhaal kept snagging from me.

Really? So he's your nemesis in a way. He's just... Well, I mean, maybe I didn't really have a legitimate shot, but I thought I did. Yeah, maybe he's just a better actor. I don't know, but I just kept thinking that I was so close and then he would get it.

But, maybe there's lots of disappointments. Yeah. A lot of them. But, yeah. Most, uh, yeah, who's the craziest person you ever worked with? Because you, who is the, um, who's the guy who was on entourage who is known as being like Hollywood Kooky? What's his name?

I love an entourage, by the way. Oh, Gary Busey. Gary Bucy. Now, is he playing Gary Bucy or is that legit Gary Bucy? No, no. He, he was in a motorcycle accident and he had. no helmet on and yeah

now he's unique yeah he's eccentric eccentric yeah uh all right so I got which part you missed uh who is the best who would you look at acting

the best oh who is like you can give me three like you know like what are the most amazing actors you worked with or you were just absolutely amazed by I mean listen you're a great actor so you know great actors I mean, Anne Hathaway was, you know, I mean, it was great to work with her. And, um, oh, right, devil was Prada. Yeah.

That was amazing. That was amazing film. But, you know, the thing about entourage is, I met so many heroes, like so many amazing. Oh, that's right. All those guest appearances. All of them. And so I can say that I was, you know, that I acted in, you know, scenes with all these, these guys. So for me it was just like commonplace.

You know, there's like everybody wanted to be on the show and everybody, you know, there was cameos every day. It seems like that show was just such an amazing moment in time. The camaraderie you guys had on that show was real. Am I correct? Yeah, I mean, we're all New York East Coast kids. Yeah. So we had that baseline rapport, that baseline sensibility that we just clicked on.

Jerry's a big Knicks fan who played Turtle on the show. We follow each other and we DM once in a while. And he's just crazy about the Knicks. Yeah. All those guys were way more into sports than I was. I never really could keep up with that part of the conversation. How often do they want you guys? I tried sometimes.

You did. How often do they try to get you guys back together to do movies or reboot the series? Well, right now it's like everybody's talking about, oh, is there going to be a reboot? Is it going to happen? Are they really? Yeah, because it seems like now is the time to do it, right? Well, who's behind that? I don't know who's promoting those room.

I mean, it's probably Doug Ellen because. Yeah. The producer of it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, creator. Creator, yeah, everything. He likes creator. Yeah, creator.

Would you ever consider doing it again? I'd consider it. Of course I'd consider it. I mean, because it's not just, okay, here's a part do you want to do it. It's here's a part that means so much to so many people. Yeah. That adds a layer of pressure. Yeah. Jeremy Piven also an amazing actor.

I mean, the report you two guys have. had was just fantastic. And Kevin too, right? Kevin Connolly? Yeah, you know, that's one thing about the show is you can't tell whether it was docu-series or, you know, a scripted television show. And there was just so much natural chemistry and rapport. So that's a testament to the, you know, all the actors, you know, just coming in and the way it's shot and the handheld, steady camera vibe of it. Yeah. Which you don't notice is actually another character, really.

That's true, right. You felt like you were one of the, I forgot about that. Yeah, that you were one of the people in it. And is it aging into like this next generation? Do you find millennials have watched that show the way we did as Gen Xers? I wonder if they're like picking up on it yet. I mean, I can't imagine it's not. I mean, being able to peer into a different time when you would not get in trouble

for that kind of stuff. You know, the way. Oh, yeah, that's true too. They would, would you be able to make the show. Well, I mean, look,

to me, the show is fundamentally about brotherhood and family and, you know, and being able to navigate the pitfalls of celebrity by coming to what's important,

which is brotherhood. Yeah. That being said, it was also a wish fulfillment, fantasy for adolescent adult men. So, It's like that that's also a layer of it, which is reflective of a time in our culture where there's a lot of guys who are like, that's me. I'm going to be that.

I'm going to move to Hollywood and be an agent. Right. The amount of we contributed to more people becoming agents and attempted celebrities, which I'm not proud of. Well, I mean, it's also interesting when you think about it. A lot of what that show manifested is now what TikTok and. And Instagram is actually realizing for people, like, I forgot that that show predated social media. And now social media is people want to live that lifestyle. Being affluent, having the cars and the jets and being famous and dating celebrities and beautiful people.

It actually is an interesting, it's almost like TikTok stars are doing what you guys were doing in Ateraj. Yeah. Yeah. And often in fake ways, you know, just. with it's just like taking the picture and pretending like it's their their private plane it's actually kind of interesting you're having met you a number of times now like you're actually a very considered deep spiritual individual who they put into a movie about a series I'm sorry about complete debauchery

and superficial stuff which actually then I think is why the character works so well and that show works so well because you were always the deep soulful person in the show who wanted to do considered stuff in a world of, you know, chaos, debauchery, whatever, and it's actually accurate. Well, yes, yes. I mean, I hope that I brought a layer of, you know, depth and meaning to the show. But I just want to, for the record, just want to say that I'm not a saint. I also have my, you know, tendencies.

Yeah. You had a good time being a celebrity, and now you live on a farm. I did, and I got lucky in that I survived it, because on the show there were no consequences in real life. Yes. You do. You do wake up with a hangover every once in a while in the show. I don't believe one character had a hangover. Yeah.

It is definitely a romanticized version of it. Well, listen, continue to success with the fund. Thanks for talking about your stuff. celebrity and all that stuff. It's great to know you and to have you in the industry. And you're going to keep doing some work as an actor while you do this, correct? Yeah, I mean, I'm on a show now. It's on Netflix called Clickbait. I did see that on your feed. Is it doing well? Number one on like all the Netflix accounts. And so I think that's going to create some buzz and

you know, probably get some offers because of that. But I'm really focused on not just the fun, but also the land here, working the land and being connected to nature. In fact, I didn't mention it, but we're actually creating a media arm, a communication aspect to Contra, where we can actually share and talk about our investments and why we invest and then connect them into lifestyle. You know, these are companies that aren't just moneymakers. They're also businesses that I personally would use. And, you know, I mean, I just had some.

I had some just egg omelet this morning. And I did my laundry with Blue Land products. So, yeah, so it's sort of blending my investments with my outward facing persona as well. I think that's really interesting because you're such a good storyteller. And I actually saw your video about that those like dishwasher pods or the pods that go for doing your wash. And I didn't know they were plastic. assumed they were biodegradable and who on earth would create these if they were plastic. And now I'm like removing them from the house because I watched you do that video.

And I'm also did the same thing with pods, which I think you were on early, the coffee pods, are just like, who's using coffee pods at this day and age? It's destroying the environment. Like single-use coffee pods are ridiculous. And they're so full of shit. They say they get recycled. And it's like, really? People are recycling in their coffee pods?

No, they're not. And they're tacky and they're goche. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, watch out for those kinds of stories that we'll tell. Tell me the name of the company making the detergent that is non-toxic and not bad for the environment again? Blue land. Blue land, L-A-N-D? Blue land.

That's right. Yeah, in fact, I'm in the middle of building a gray water system coming from my washing machine, going to a fruit forest that I planted. And so the other reason why you use non-toxic detergents from Blue Land is, A, no plastic, of course, no plastic bubbles. And then also, if it's going into your food forest, your fruit forest, it can't be toxic. So those are the kinds of stories that we're building. Yeah. And how are those eggs? They're good?

Dust eggs? Incredible. Yeah. Incredible. Oh, they're fantastic. Yeah. It's, it's, I don't want to say it's just like eggs. It's actually, it's almost a new category, but it's like on par, if not better than eggs in many ways.

It's full flavor. Really good. Yeah, I, I've been amazed at how much better these have gotten, like the impossible burger is, it's not exactly a burger, but it tastes as, it tastes, it gives me the satisfaction of eating a burger. And I feel lighter on my feet. So, you know, I think it's amazing. Yeah, 100% better than, you know, tofu, like smashed up tofu. Yeah, no good. Oh, that's interesting.

You're making the egg suvied bites at Just Egg, which is JU.st. You know, we got to get them on the program. I love those suvied egg bites. Those are the same type of thing they have at Starbucks. I don't know if you ever had them, but Starbucks makes those. And it's a great thing to have without having carbs, right? You don't have to have an English muffin with it or whatever. and they make those with the egg substitute.

Yeah, it's fantastic. I think that's going to be, like, you doing the storytelling around the brand and advising them on that, it's better than just like a drive-by tweet. It's actually like, that's going to be amazing. So you're going to make like short movies or films or podcasts? How do you think you're going to manifest that?

Yeah, so it will be a series of both short, more edited and sort of a class. last kind of content, you know, and then also short form and what I call moving podcasts. So in fact, let me invite you. Jason, come on the land and I'll interview you, but I'm going to put your ass to work. Oh, God, I got to pick fruit. I got it, I got a till the soil. Yeah, exactly. So we'll get some work done and we'll talk shop at the same time. So it'll be a podcast, but we'll also get some land time. So you'll be, you know, working in the earth. Exactly. I get Fantastic. Listen, continued success, and I look forward to co-investing with you. And yeah, I think for all the fans out there, definitely do a series for an entourage reunion. Absolutely. We'll see. We'll see.

I mean, God, HBO's got to be crazy not to do that. You did a movie. That was great. The movie came out great, right? Yeah. It's a no-brainer. People want to know what happened to these characters. If I was a buddy man, I think I'm going to get a call, you know, at some point about it. I think so. because all these streamers are looking for your content and now they have HBO Max right and they seem, they're doing sex in the city again without one of the characters. Oh. Yeah.

Maybe I'm expendable. Not you. No, that would be like getting rid of carry. No, I mean, you guys were all like into it. So I can't imagine that you wouldn't get the whole crew back together. I mean, who's not going to come back for that? Kevin Connolly? I mean, he totally.

Would you do a cameo? You know, I would totally do it. And you had Mark Cuban on for sure. That's right. Every day, yeah. You had Mark Cuban on doing, because he was investing in your tequila company. He was investing alongside Turtle. I can't remember the exact plot line.

But Jay and I used to love that show. We would watch it every week back in the day. And she says hi. We'll see you when we're in Austin. Yeah, come visit. We have a tent for you. Oh, yeah, perfect. You got a yurt.

And no, full disclosure. I'm a modest LP in the fund. I have a vested interest in seeing you succeed, and I'm absolutely thrilled that you invited me to join. Yeah. Thanks for joining. All right. We'll see you next time on this weekend startups. Bye-bye.