This Week in Startups - E1008: VSCO CEO & Co-founder Joel Flory is building a photo-sharing platform free of ads, likes & comments to empower creators, shares insights on appealing to Gen Z, expanding their global reach & the magic of subscriptions

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

1:08 Jason intros Joel Flory 2:12 What is VSCO? How is it different than Instagram, Facebook & other photo-sharing apps? 4:33 How does VSCO grow at hyper speed without follower counts, likes, etc.? 8:28 What is VSCO's scale so far? 12:23 How does VSCO get people (mostly Gen-Z) to pay for a social network? How do they view pricing? 18:09 How VSCO uses themselves as a tool for other social networks 19:52 What is a VSCO Girl? How have they capitalized on the Gen-Z meme phenomenon? 21:31 Joel's thoughts on e-commerce 27:19 Joel is a long-time TWiST fan! 30:00 Mistakes Joel learned from in his 9-year journey at VSCO 32:26 Has iPhone photography ruined the photography industry? 36:53 How does VSCO deal with inappropriate content? How does their feed algorithm work? 43:59 Jason goes through VSCO's funding history and asks why Joel didn't sell VSCO for a massive profit 46:06 Is the greatest art created by those who don't care about what others think? 47:41 Collapse of the photography industry & sense of belonging at VSCO 51:44 Advantage of having HQ in Oakland 54:59 VSCO global expansion 57:17 Magic of subscriptions 1:05:01 The 3 truth's of VSCO

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their startups and how they want to change the world and there are two lies two one two lies that they have been telling in Silicon Valley for the last decade one is you cannot compete against Facebook and two people will not pay for a social network. These two things have been proven false by my next guest who has one of the hottest social photography community apps in the world today. That app is called Visco. And it's spelled like disco but with a V and no I. VSCO. You can go to VSCO.com or you can search for VSCO in your app store and download it right now and find out what all the buzz is about. And that founder is Joel Florey.

Welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me. Yeah. It's becoming a bit of a phenomenon. Somebody was like, oh, that girl is just a Visco girl. And I don't think this was meant in a derogatory way. This was meant in a complimentary way. What is Visco mean?

What does Visco mean? Yeah. So Visco, it's a mobile app. It helps you take professional quality photos from your mobile phone, really kind of bringing creativity in a more accessible format and then really built with this community around self-expression. So less about how you want the world to see you, more about how you see the world. Got it. So it's less about selfies and more about photography or beauty?

Think of the lens of a yes and because a selfie could still be about how you see the world. You could still be expressive with taking a photo of yourself. but it is more around turning that camera around and capturing what you see around you. Got it. And how is it different, and I'm sure this is an annoying question, but how is it different than the market leader, Instagram, or the other market web-based leader, Pinterest? Because those are the two juggernauts and photography, correct?

They're both very large, yeah. So for Visco, it's never been in either or. it's more about when you take a look specifically even with Gen Z who makes up over 75% of those that use our app. Okay, those are people under the age of 25ish. Yeah. They have this social playbook. They know what they're going to use an app for. It's not this one size fits all. You know, they know the platform they want to use for one-to-one messaging. They know one-to-one. And for Visco, it's really that lens of, it's not about aspirationally how I hope people see me. So it's not my personal point. portfolio or brand. There's not this compare culture with it. This goes really, you do it for yourself. You share photos because it feels good. So it's the beauty of the photography. It's the moment you captured, maybe some pride in work, but less about FOMO, less about, you know, showing off maybe. Almost entirely not about FOMO. So like when we talk, we talked to our consumers recently in a recent

survey and over 87% we're talking about how on visco they don't feel pressure to be compared to someone else there are there never been public likes or comments it's never been or follower accounts you can't see how many people someone has as a follower it's about you are you sharing because you want to so you stripped out the devices that were meant to addict people we architected it from the beginning so it wasn't even like you had it you decided never to put in the violence loops and the addictive nature of social networks, which is to get likes and see how many you you have, to see who liked you. That makes you come back to the app.

And to get comments, which gives you this reinforcement loop and lets you drive followers. And you don't have the video game high score of follower count. Correct. So then how does it grow? Because you've sacrificed something very significant in the playbook of growth. How has it grown? and do you have, do you regret making that decision and growing slower or are you growing just as fast? Because there must be pressure you have venture capital's investing to grow.

And those are the easiest ways to grow. Yeah. So we look at the, you never put in the easiest ways to grow. I think the most organic and healthy way to grow is by word of mouth and someone finding value in it. And I think if you, from a, been a longtime listener and one of my favorite guests that you had on the show was Chip Connors. And Chip Conley's book, Peak has this concept of kind of the top of the pyramid, self-actualization, like finding yourself, doing something about finding your voice and who you are as a person creates this evangelist for your product. And so, you know, almost all of Visco's growth is organic. It's someone has this experience with the app, with the community and the sense of what it means for them. And they share that with others. So we architected it in a way that it would be built for you and how to have long-term success of making you feel good and finding your voice versus these short-term kind of gains. So it's marathon running, not sprinting. Yeah. And I think it is. With that,

though, we also, like, we did build feedback loops into the app. So there are ways to message, but it's only if you have a mutual, if you mutually follow each other. So you can start a one-to-one chat with somebody if you like their art. And they like yours. So, and if they follow you too. So you both, both have to follow each other. Right. Like Tinder. Yeah. You can favorite someone's image.

They get a notification that you favorite it, but they don't get to see how many favorites that image has. When anyone goes to look at the image and even you as the creator look at the image, you don't see a total of how many favorites are with that image. Got it. Let's pull up a little video here. You had a little sizzle reel of it. So for people who are watching, they'll get to see it in action.

And here we see somebody just scrolling through a feed of images. They can, of course, like them, but as you said, it's going directly to the creator of that image. It's private. It's never publicly displayed. And then you're also given and really where Visco started is building these professional quality tools. Like filters. Like filters. And we take it a lot further. So now we launched a membership. And so we have other video creation tools around that. Higher professional quality tools such as HSL. What is HSL? Hugh, saturation and luminous. Got it. So you can make it really beautiful. And that's what I noticed is when I looked at the filters, they really helped you make very beautiful, stunning photography. Is it different than the Instagram filters? How should I think about it as a potential user?

I think there's something for everyone out there. And I think for Visco, the perspective that we've taken with our tools, it's really to help you find your voice. So we have the community that gives you a source of inspiration, but that's all in service of you then going and creating yourself. And so a lot of our presets are kind of one click. They get you a lot of the way there. But you can even double tap kind of into that preset to have finer tune controls if that's what you want to really hone and find your style. Okay. What is the scale of this app? How many people have downloaded it? I know you've been featured many times by Apple now. Yeah. So right now we're a little north of 20 million weekly active users.

20 million weekly active users. Yes. Which means every month the number would be higher. Much higher. Yeah. It'd be double probably because you have some amount of casual users. But 20 million a week. Those are people who are core users. And that's what we really focus on because an app that you're using on a weekly basis is not just a tool. but it's also not the we're not looking for that utility of messaging where this is what you need to use on a daily basis to communicate with someone. We actually want, we don't measure time spent an app because our business model is not an ad model. We're not about selling ads or selling data, we're about selling you a subscription and an experience that you're willing to pay for. And so for us, a lot of that, everything that we do is in service of creating. So are you getting out and making something?

So we see a lot of patterns of finding inspiration, capturing and creating, and then maybe on the weekend or at some point with downtime, actually going in and editing and telling a story with the work you've created. Interesting. And when we get back from this quick break, you have gotten a large number of these 20 million weekly users to actually pay you for the product. Yes. Which is something we're told by the Facebook industrial complex that is destroying democracy and people. mental health. I said it, not you. The Facebook Industrial Complex, the least American patriotic company in the world, including companies in North Korea as well on that, they have said explicitly, people will not pay for social network. And there's no appetite for that. When we get back from this

break, I want to know how many people are paying you for the app and how you convince them to do it on this week at startups. Hey, everybody. I'm here with my friend Jason Maynard, who works at NetSuite. Tell everybody, what do you do, Jason? I do many things here at NetSuite, but I run the field operations for the business unit. And field operations means what? Sales, marketing, business development, all the stuff in terms of how we acquire customers,

take care of them, service them, make sure they're happy. What are the other tips for scaling your company? As people go from that 10, 20-person company to the 100-200-person, what are some tips you can share with how to scale. So I'll give you a story. When I got to NetSuite, I came from Wall Street, and I had all of these brilliant ideas. And they were just sheer genius ideas. And then after 90 days, I realized I knew nothing.

They were all wrong. I had all these expansion plans. You should do this. We should do that. And one of the things I realized is that you've got to stay focused as a company. And too often than not, I think founders lose interest in their core mission faster than their customers do. So I think it's staying.

That's such a great way to say it. They lose focus faster than their customers. Customers want more. Yes. And the founders are like, okay, I did that already. I'm going to go on to my next thing. It's always sort of, I've got to find the next adjacency, the next of this or that. Shiny new object syndrome is going to kill a company.

So even a company like our size, we have to say no more often than we say yes. Right. And you could say, well, you're mature. No, we're less than 5% penetrated globally for the ERP market. We need to stay focused. And I think when you're in those early stages, it's so easy to think about this extension or that extension and just putting all your wood behind the main thing. All right. Right now, NetSuite is offering you valuable insights with a free guide, the seven key strategies to grow your profits.

So go to netsuite.com slash twist, netsuite.com slash twist and get that free guide. Seven key strategies to grow your profits. We appreciate the work you're doing in the startup community. It's great stuff. Thanks, pal. All right. We'll be back one more. All right.

our guest today is Joel Florey. He is the CEO and founder of Visco, which he started 2011. 2011, yes. So it's been another overnight success, a decade in the making. Yes. But of those 20 million people, a significant number have elected to pay you money for a social network, which we're told was not possible. And you started charging, about two years ago? Beginning of 2017. Okay, so we're going on three. Yeah, we've always had something to pay for in the app.

It started as a paid app. Then it was a free app within app purchases. And then in 2017, we launched a subscription. Oh, the best. Subscriptions are the best. $20 a year. What? One price, global.

Buck 50 a month? A little more, but yeah. Oh, goodness. Yeah. Cheap. And with that, in end of 2018, we reached north of two million. paid subscribers. What?

And we're on pace. We'll double that in the coming quarter. Coming quarters. Whoa, whoa, hold on. Stop the clock. We've got to take a pause here for a second and let this sink in. There are 20 million people using the app every week. Yes.

You have built up a subscription base of over two million. Correct. So 10% of the people in your social app that use it every week are paying. Yes. And it's amazing. And here's the real kicker. Over 55% of them are under the age of 25. So young people with no discretionary money theoretically, that's not true, but are now paying you.

So if we were to look at something like Facebook or Instagram with, I think, collectively, closing in on 2 billion users, maybe it's 1.5 now. Somebody can fact check me with what they each had last month. But they have 10%. that would be they could have 200 million people paying them. Yet, they go in front of Congress. They go in front of, you know, illegal, you know, entities around the world, whether it's in England or here in America, and claim that people are not willing to pay for this.

And the only way you could possibly make a living is by selling people's data. Do you sell people's data? We don't. Do you even have data on people? Do you know? What do you know about people? What we know is we know what they're creating. So as they're sharing images to the platform, we are understanding the context of that image, the quality of it.

But all of that is in service then, as you saw in the demo on the app, there's a Discover section where you can see content based upon what you've created or what you've engaged with that you might also like. So even what we're using that for is to help surface other content on the platform, other creators on the platform that you might find. inspiration for. Amazing. And what is the, why is it so cheap? How did you come up with $20? I mean, Netflix is what, 12, 14 a month and people probably are getting similar value. Did you consider trying 20 a month or 100 a year? We've considered a lot of things and we'll still continue to explore them. What we found though is so over 80% of Visco users are outside the U.S. and over 60% of those subscribers are outside of the U.S. So as we're extremely global with a smaller company,

we're now at 150 employees here in Oakland, California, in the Bay Area. We went with what was, you know, the most approachable price that we could do from a global perspective and we'll continue to go from there. Can't you charge different prices around the world? Do you charge a subscription price in, you know, India or China, that would be different than here. Yeah, for focus and for getting this off the ground. That's where we started. So you're making $40 million a year from subscriptions.

I'm not perfect at math, but two times 20 is 40. That was what you were doing? Yeah. And end of 2018. Yeah. And so now you're doing much more. So the business, if you have 150 people, you're basically wildly profitable already. Or break even or could be profitable.

Yeah, we're investing heavily. Both from, so that growth of 150 employees, it's 50% year-over-year growth in headcount. And you're spending money on marketing to get subscribers? Well, we just started. It's less than 5% of all of our subscribers are coming from a paid standpoint, all organic. It's a wonderful thing to have a subscription because you now have a lifetime subscription method. You could have two, if people do. two or three years on average, let's say, you know you're going to make $50 or something like

that. You could acquire customers for $50 and be at break-even. And if they tell their friends, which they will, you can make it on that subscriber. Is that how you'd think about it? It's icing on the cake to the organic growth. We love to think about it as this experience, a sense of belonging and being a part of something that is around your identity. If you want to know who I am, check out my visco. A safe space to be who you are. And with that, we can continue to grow with our consumers. We can continue to provide more value, more opportunity. So I mentioned earlier video. It's a big area of investment for us. So we'll be launching in the coming months, a lot of new features around video. We already have some, but we'll really- You don't have stories

that format yet. No, we don't. So you could theoretically add stories and this thing could go supernova. Well, what we like to think about is, again, back of that, like, not either or, like, how are you creating content? Because we're also really big on helping you share elsewhere. So Visco's really large on TikTok. The hashtag Visco has over 4 billion views. Interesting. Or the number one and number two branded hashtag in the world on Instagram combined over 400 million.

People use this as a tool to make better content to use on other social networks. And you're fine with that. That is part of your goal to let them export it. You're not thinking like Zuckerberg of like lock everybody in. No. So it goes back to that kind of playbooker that social operating system.

You know what you want to use for different different purposes. And so for Visco, it's really about that sense of investing in yourself. Creativity, and as we talk to our consumers, so much of, as you mentioned, social media has this negative impact on mental health. And the survey that I mentioned earlier, 97% of those surveyed talked about how social media had a negative impact on their mental health. Of course. Over 80% of them talked about how creativity has a positive impact on their mental health. And so for Visco, So this is this space where they can invest in who they are. They're carving out time in their day for creativity.

And visco is that place for them. Now, what they create, they're expressive. They do have these needs to share elsewhere. And so we help do that. So we've launched partnerships with Snapchat to help make easier to share to snap. And we're working on more there. And so it's something we're excited about. So you'll have stories or some tools around that because that's become like a format now in

of itself. Well, we already have the ability to help you share directly into the story format on other platforms will help you do more creative expression around that on Visco itself. And what is a Visco Girl? Because that went viral at some point on Reddit or somewhere. TikTok. TikTok. TikTok. Visco Girls. What is a Visco Girl? It's just a stylish girl. It's a girl who likes to play with the filters. What is it? Yeah. So, here we go. Becoming a Visco Girl. Oh, my God. It's a whole thing. Oh, this is beyond the whole thing. And so I think at Visco, and especially from our consumers, we don't love to put labels on people. So this is something that's out of your control now.

Yeah. And I think this is a trend that we've seen on Visco for a long time, probably since 2015. No, your meme. No, your meme's good. I like that. Yeah. There's a component with this where on Visco, it's a safe space to be who you are. You're not doing this for others.

You're doing this for yourself. There's a trend and kind of a characteristic around. this trend and meme that is a sense of like, I don't care what you think about me. I am who I am. And so from that aspect, it's no coincidence that this was born kind of within our community, although a visco girl is not what it means

to be a girl on visco. It is just a small snippet. And if you were to jump onto the app and kind of type in disco girl and look through search, you'll see that diverse community that's representative of so many different walks of life. Is what percentage of the users are women? Is this like Pinterest where it's used heavily?

So we're not collecting data around that? You don't care anyway. Because we don't need to sell it. So for us, I mean, you can see from the content that young women, because it's predominantly under the age of 25, is really, you'll see this taken into the platform. What do you think about commerce combined with social networks? It seems like Instagram's clear a path and obviously how's. and Pinterest have sort of led the way on this. An object that's beautiful, that could be purchased as well,

or a beautiful object in a beautiful image that could be purchased. We buy things visually in many cases. We see something gorgeous, and we see somebody who we're friends with, you know, champion something, the influencer marketing space, which I believe, although it's maybe derogatory in some cases where people speak about influences in a derogatory way, I see them as experts and curators.

There seems to be a positive spin, to it. Have you considered allowing people to link to other opportunities to buy stuff and then you can get an affiliate? Or would you allow some great brand or do brands even participate now? Would you consider letting them link out to their commerce pages or just do the commerce in the app? So, I mean, you can have a link in your profile, but that's not what you would use Visco for. So I'd actually look at those creators, those influencers. They are still using Visco to create their content. And back to that like playbook, they have the platform that's going to be focused on commerce. And so for us, that's not what we're focused on. We're focused on building

a community and an experience that someone's willing to pay for for a sense of belonging and being a part of. So we're hyper focused on creative expression and really creativity is a global language. But you can't put a link on the photo itself. No. And is that intentional? We again Because that's always been a thing for me with Instagram. I'm like, why can't I just link to what I'm talking about here? It's so hard to click on link and profile. Again, the links and the content within an image is less about broadcasting that out.

So for others seeing it, and it's more about you being expressive in creating and finding inspiration. It feels more like a magazine almost or a portfolio. Was that the intention? There's a bit of that. I think there was an early concept that we were thinking. about was around a museum, a sense, when you walk into a museum, you don't see the artist's net worth. You don't see how many, there's not a ticket counter that shows you how many people have seen this painting or this piece of art. And there's definitely not a place for people to put

like heart stickers on something to say they love it. It's more about an experience that you have. Does it make you feel something? Does it inspire you to go do something and create? And really the lens of like the whole purpose of our community is it allows you, to see the world through that artist's eyes. And it was something that my mom, she immigrated to the States when she was young, she was always telling my sister and I, like, you have to see the world through other people's eyes. Right.

You walk a mile in other people's shoes and have a little empathy. Exactly. And so the whole vision around Visco is to create a world in which differences are celebrated. And in order to do that, we have to have a community where you can share how you see the world, where you're safe to be who you are. All right. When we get back, I want to know how you police the community, because I'm a lot of you. obviously whenever you hit some level of scale, bad actors show up. Anonymity and the internet

has a sort of baked in anonymity to it. People could be sharing photos that are offensive, that could have racism or hate speech or be trolling people. But you seem to have very little of that. I want to understand how you're managing 20 million people and how a week and how you think you can scale that to managing 200 million. And maybe we can even talk a little bit about what Facebook is doing and Twitter is doing in that regard as well. When we get back on this week, Probably got a remote team like me and you're probably tired of all these AV problems, bad sound, bad video

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I love it. Okay, let's get back to this amazing episode. All right, over 20 million people are using Visco. If you're not, I need you to pause the podcast. go do that swipe up, go to the app store, type in VSCO, download it. It's going to be 20 bucks a year. They're going to hit you up with that. I want you to pay it immediately because we want to support independent social networks

and independent founders to succeed. If you're listening to this podcast, you've got 20 bucks. You've been listening to the podcast for a while, huh? Since 2013. Wow. Yeah. It was one of the first. I was a non-technical co-founder.

I had been a photographer with my wife for a decade before starting Visco. mainly Bay Area. Oh, wow. So, yeah. So we were listening to it and everybody's telling you you're non-technical so you can't start a company. But they said like, and it kind of going back to like what I've loved over the years is I get to see the perspective of so many other founders. Also the with the news roundtable, the perspective of the media of like the interpretation of what's going on in the industry. So I've always really been fond of that.

Yeah. Any other favorite guests you've seen on the pod or people who's like lessons you actually took? So I mentioned Chip. That was a really He was a very influential guest. So mindblung for people that people, to me, like hearing that you've been listening to the podcast since 2013 and you said you've watched a lot of episodes,

it's always mindblung to me that people listen to this. Oh, it's, I mean, for me, it was like a lens into a world that I didn't have experience in and I didn't have a network with. So it was definitely, and I also then listened to the books that guests recommend. and so read about a book a week through Audible.

Wow. I mean, it's very touching for me. Thank you for saying that because, you know, you do this. We're about to hit a thousand episodes next week, which is so weird. You can come to the 1,000 episode party. David Sachs is it? David Sachs is hosting, yeah. And it's so weird for me because I do it because I like this moment where you and I are talking.

And I would have just had lunch with you previously. I would have just had coffee with you at the battery or something or lunch at Kokari just to get to know you. And then when I heard about this podcasting thing from David, Weiner and Adam Curry who were like grinding on it and then Ev Williams did audio and we're all kind of sitting around and I was like, this is a really good excuse to talk to somebody for an hour that isn't lunch. So I'm going to try this. And that was the start of the podcast was just this is more efficient than lunch because I can share my lunch conversation and immediately started getting like 500 people would listen. And I was like, this is my blog. 500 people heard our conversation. And I said that to Evan Williams. You realize that when you came on to talk about audio before Twitter, nobody knew what it was and then 500 people now know about it. He's like, that's crazy. And now like two or 300,000 people.

What I love is like a lot of the guests that you've had over the years, I would not have access to meet them or talk with them as easily. And it gave me a lens into their world, how they ran their business, the thoughts that they, the intention that they put into building it or the mistakes. I think often we learn the most from the mistakes of others. so not to repeat them.

Yeah. What mistakes have you made in this, so for a nine-year journey from photographer with your wife to launching a photography app? How much did the first app cost you to make? You outsourced it? We did, and then we scrapped everything that we outsourced. Of course. I could have guessed that.

Built it in house ourselves. Of course. So you blew $100,000. You blew $50. You blew $50. It was dog do-do. Yeah. It was frustrating.

You banged your head against the wall. It was unbelievable. And you said, I need to get either a co-founder or hire somebody who's a pro to do this with me. Yep. And we made our first few hires because we actually grew this without funding. So we launched... Bootstrap, are my favorite type of founder. Well, and even bootstrapping, it wasn't that we put our own money into this. We launched a product. It's called Visco Film. It was a desktop plugin for Lightroom and Photoshop. We made a quarter of a million dollars in 48 hours off of selling this, off of five tweets and a one-page website.

Wow. And from there, it was like, we need to drive sales of this desktop product. So we launched an app. But it was that moment, it was April of 2012 of launching an app. It was a paid app, 99 cents. Right. Back when apps, people forget this. Apps were kind of like pet rocks or frisbees. Like they were kind of a goof.

It was like, look, I got an app. It's a lighter. And you'd light the lighter by using like the volume up button. Or it was like, watch me pour my beer. And you go like this and the beer would empty into your glass. You're like, isn't it cool? And they're like, look, I have a flashlight app. I can turn on my LED.

and I have a flashlight. You buy the flashlight app for 99 cents. Calculator apps, like all the things. It was so dumb. But for us, it was trying to drive those sales in, but then almost instantly we saw this, it just things all started to happen with. The iPhone 4S came out.

The only thing at that point that Apple was driving sales of the new phone was over the camera at that point, with the 4S over the 4. And we're like, we're going to take this. Was that like some special camera? No, it wasn't great at all. It still sucked. But it showed Apple was willing,

as an OEM and Apple doesn't think just in a few months, I think in years. So if their roadmap of, yeah, if their roadmap of this phone of this iteration was a better camera, that was going to continue to be how they were going to innovate. I mean, take a look at what the latest

keynote over, you know, felt like over half of it was all about the camera in video. I know, it used to be battery life, storage, the processor speed. People are like, yeah, all good enough. Camera. Camera. Creativity. And this goes back to like

this whole view. you know, for such a long time as a professional photographer and when it started out shooting film, it was all about, you know, creativity was only for those that were like the pros or that like self-identified as it. Yeah. And you had to be good at it. Are you a snob about this? You still like the SLRs and you think like we've lost something by everybody using these or have we gained something? We've gained even more than something. I mean, we've gained an opportunity to equip the world with the creative device to capture what they're seeing around them. I mean, it's...

So you're not like a purist. Some of these people with the SLRs who are kind of like, God, this photography is subpar. It's better, isn't it? The average photo taken on an iPhone 11 or Pixel 4 is better than the average SLR photo taken 20 years ago? But I even go, like, better is so, like, subjective. I mean, to ultimately, like, more people expressing who they are sharing how they see the

world is better. Yeah. That's actually an interesting way to look at it. Is there a purpose for a DSLR? Absolutely. Do I still shoot with it? purpose of an SLR today. Like, when you decide I'm going to take my SLR and dust it off and try to find it in the

back of my closet, what is the circumstance under which you do that? It's usually around portraits of my family. So portraits are still better. But the phones are, I mean, everything serves a purpose. You have a tool for a different job, and if I'm going to want to use something, sometimes I'll do it. I think also just the process. So when I still shoot with film,

There's something about the creative process and taking time. And we have a dark. So the fact that it throttles you is more appealing because it makes you, it's charming or more intentionality? Yeah. And there's a moment for it. Not every moment. I'm not carrying, you know, a film camera with me right now.

I'm not carrying a DSLR with me now. It's my phone. So, I mean, there is. What do you miss most about film? If you had to pick the two or three things you missed most, I'm going to give you mine after. So the thing I miss most is that there's this gap between capturing something and then actually seeing what you captured.

Yes, the anticipation. I mean, people will never realize, like, I traveled through Europe while I was in college, and it's like six months and bags of film that you have no idea what you captured and you get home and I took it to Walgreens and, you know, it was like, got my film back and it's like flipping through for the first time and getting to relive that experience. It's now different. I now get to, you know, at any moment's notice, pull up my camera roll and flip through. and see those moments and connect back to it.

It was so great when we used to do the magazine covers back in the day of Silicon Island Reporter. There was a famous place in Manhattan in the Flat Iron District. It was 20th Street. I forgot the name of it in Fifth and Sixth and Seventh maybe. And I would go pick up there. It was a famous place for developing film and all the professional photographers used it. And we had those big thin film canisters. What was that called?

Quarter-inch or something? I can't remember. That would we do like the covers of photo. Probably shooting it on medium format on that. medium format. And they would be blowing through these roles and they would have to be an assistant there. I always love the photographer's assistant who would, they would be handing their one SLR over. They would get another one handed to them with the film already in it. They would be labeling it, putting it in. They have a whole row of 50 of these things on the table. And then we would go pick the photos up. And sometimes I was so excited that I would go with the photographer, Frank McIllada, and. And, and I would go with the photographer, Frank McIllada, and we go get them together. And we just sit there in a cafe and open them up and just one by one, turning them over until we saw this beautiful cover.

It was just magic. And I think that magic is really what we're trying to recreate within the app. It's that moment of so much of how we present ourselves online today has to be perfect. And people feel this pressure to be someone else or like something else. And for Visco, there's this notion of like creativity. where the process, there's like beauty even in the things that don't turn out. And back to those moments of like looking through a contact sheet, you would look through a series of images and you'd be like, oh, that's not great or, oh, I love this one.

Just that process of reflecting on what you've created. What do you learn from that? How are you going to do something different the next time? We're trying to bring those moments back through the app and make it more accessible for everyone. Now, what about racism, trolling and all this stuff? nonsense. It's supposedly impossible to manage these communities. Is it impossible? Do you have a trolling problem? How many of the 150 people on staff, how many have to take care of people sharing

porn or things that are inappropriate or hate speech? Yeah. So our community has never been about broadcasting a message to as many people as possible. So if you think about traditionally from a bad actor standpoint, it's usually to have that those behaviors seen by as many people as possible. Visco's community has always been about how you see the world been about yourself and creativity

and our community guidelines are strict isn't the right word but they're very intentional actually and they're intentional to create an environment back to our vision

a world in which differences are celebrated you have to be safe to share how you see the world and that cannot inflict upon someone else and so Visco's not a place for hate

it's not a place for speaking down or trolling on someone. And there's just, there's never been about that. Our community helps with that. So it's a very active community. So you don't need to have a hundred people on this issue. You know, it's not our, it doesn't have to be what everyone focuses on because it's not an epidemic. Do you, if I follow a hundred people in my feed, is it ranked algorithmically or is it ranked chronologically? Chronologically. So you must have this internal debate every

two weeks where somebody says, well, why don't we show the most interesting stuff first? and you say what to them? So we have both the feed in which you see a chronological order of... That's the default? The defaults to your studio, but it actually then remembers where you left off last. So if you were consuming in the feed and you reopen the app, it'll bring you back to the feed.

Got it. But we're always trying to learn what people want in that. So you would consider making it algorithmic? No, so what I was going to say is the second section, so it starts with the feed, then there's the Discover section. The Discover section really is our algorithm. way, but algorithmic for you. So it starts with a section called Just for You. And this is

content based upon which you've engaged with on the platform. Other content recommended to you. And then we have a series of our team creates editorial work based upon the content on the platform, telling an even richer story of the creators on the platform. So you say you trust your team more than you trust the algorithm. We also have algorithms. So if you continue down into that, then we have levels of curation based upon models that we've built around different styles, around fashion and wanderlust, and you can explore in their different styles in which our trained models are curating content from the community. But it's not like I'm going to open 100 accounts in Manila and pay somebody getting paid $1 an hour

to create all these spam accounts like them and then trend. No, because there's... Because there is no, but in that, that would all be in service of selling something. Right. If you were trying to sell eyeballs for an ad around that or engagement. So there's no incentive. You've taken the incentive out. And incentives matter.

But there's a nuance there, but we architected it from the beginning not to have those incentives. It's not like we saw everything around us. And it was that we wanted to create a safe space where people could be who they are that was fostering creativity. Take an example of one of our friends. you know he was like oh man I love your landscape photos and he's like I hate him I was like what do you mean he's like but they're the only thing I get likes on on Instagram right now and so that's what I'm creating and it's like but he's like I really want to be creating portraits but that's just not what people are engaging with it's so weird how fragile and weak we are as humans to this being liked and the fact that they use the word liked like we want to be liked we want to be understood it is like a basic part. And then the really tragic part is they use that like. So if you don't get likes, by default, you were unliked.

And so sometimes even myself, I'll post something to Twitter and I'll be sitting there with my wife and bed and I'm like, God, I thought that was going to get more likes. And then I catch myself and I'm like, who cares? Like I did that tweet for myself. Like that's, I think that's an interesting tweet. Who cares what it's like or not? So that's the exact mindset of what we're building for. And I think, you know, all of the other platforms do serve a purpose. You know, we have an unprecedented ability to make an impact on a global scale today because of these networks, both for good and for bad. And for Visco, that investment in yourself, making it for how you feel was really what we wanted to build and do that from the beginning. I want to ask you a question about great art in the world.

And you can answer when we get back from this last break and we go around the third base. As you know, that's when the hard questions start and the interesting stuff starts. So we'll come around third. Do you think great art is created by people who care deeply about the audience or people, truly great art is created by people who do not care about the audience when we get back on this weekend start. Okay, when Brex founders Henrique and Pedro came to the U.S. from Brazil, they were working on a virtual reality start-up. and they were rejected over and over again for a corporate card because they had no credit history.

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That's B-R-E-X.com slash twist and use the promo code twist at sign up. Okay, let's get back to this amazing episode. All right, welcome back. Joel Flore is here from the surging visco. You've raised a ton of money now. You bootstrapped it, and then you did a $50 million series B back in April of 2015. And the first round was a $40 million series A led by Excel in April of 2014. That's bonkers.

Wow. So that was during the really hot mobile and social media era. You haven't had to raise since? We have not had to raise since. But I know that people have offered to buy the company. You have declined. Why? We're really excited by what we've built and we're even more excited about the future in front of us.

And so those areas of investment that I was talking about around video, around this global opportunity and a growing user base, It's really exciting times for us. So a billion dollars is not interesting to you. The mission's more interesting than a billion dollars, is what you're saying. The mission and vision. So for us, it's always been about how can we accelerate and reach as many people as possible around helping everybody fall in love with their own creativity. So that is what we're focused on.

Yeah. So you literally love the mission and the vision more than a billion dollars. I respect that. I think it's the right decision, by the way. If you can get to 2 million paying subscribers, guess what? You're not going anywhere. And so many people, Instagram being the primary example, sold too soon. Instagram should have never sold. It was the biggest mistake in history. Instagram will undoubtedly become bigger than Facebook. And they sold it for one 500th the value of Facebook. It's a terrible decision, especially in today's market. You know, YouTube had no choice but to sell for 1.6 billion because back then, No investors wanted to take ginormous risks, funding, you know, a lawsuit or just not taking the quick, easy money. 1.6 billion back then was like, okay, why would we even try? Now it's like, well, because it's sustainable and it's important.

You can take a long view of these things. Let's talk about that art. Best art created by artists who don't care about the audience or artists who are obsessed with the audience. What do you think? It's a big debate in art. It's artists that are doing it for themselves that are expressing, this kind of comes back to the whole reason why Visco exists for you to express how you see the world. Correct answer.

It's the correct answer. Because almost universally, artists are fully appreciated when they're gone. When you think about it, it's like when an artist dies or an artist is out of their prime, people start going, wait a second, the audience catches up eventually. And the audience goes, wait a second. That's actually extraordinary. I didn't get it at the start. When you look at Bob Dylan's work in the 70s and 80s, early 80s, late 70s, people

were like, what are these albums? I don't understand them. They're weird. And then now people are like, yeah, blood on the tracks, infidels, Empire Burlasses, slow train coming, all these albums now people are like, wait a second. These were brilliant masterpieces. We weren't paying attention. And it keeps happening with art.

Like the wire was not appreciated in its time. It was appreciated after the series ended, I think. Same with the Rested Development. Arrested development, right? They had to cancel it for people to appreciate it. They're like, you don't know what it's got until it's gone. And I think for creative and for everyone, my comments then would be is you're worth it. You're worth spending the time to make something to create, not because of what others will think about it, not how it compare to anyone else or anything else, but because you're worth spending that time and investing in yourself.

What do you think about the collapse of the photography industry in terms of a way? way to make a living because of the increasing, you know, quality of the amateurs. It used to be, if you had a magazine or a newspaper, you had a staff of photographers. You were part of this group. You were trained during this period, right? You worked as a professional photographer in the 90s or 2000s? From 2002 to 2012. And that was the end of the line for photographers. It started to come apart. People couldn't get full-time jobs in photography anymore. The rates went from thousands of dollars a day to hundreds. Is that a loss? Or is it worth the loss for what we've gained? Because now newspapers and magazines have no problems telling their journalists. When you do the interview,

just take a couple of pictures and we'll put one of them in the magazine or newspaper. They don't even send a photographer anymore. You know, I think as with everything over time, it evolves. And with any business and any even creative, you're needing to figure out how to engage in the times and with the with the medium of choice that people are consuming and creating. So I think while it may seem like there's a reduction, there's actually probably a greater increase of opportunities for people to be paid for their work, whether or not it's a full-time staff job at a certain, but the opportunity for them to be, as you mentioned earlier,

either from an influencer or to be paid to create, there's a greater need for content than ever before. Right. So it's interesting. it used to be the photographers used to keep all their secrets to themselves. They would never share how they did things. And now the Internet made every, you know, tutorial available to everybody. Fifty different tutorials on the same topic are created.

Anytime a new lens technique or flare technique or a filter technique or any technique is discovered, it is unpacked and deconstructed a hundred different ways, and that's good for art. It is. This is actually the biggest turning point in my business as a photographer. was when my style and aesthetic and what my wife and I created was not about the tools we used. It was about our perspective. What was that, by the way?

Well, that perspective really was just like how we saw people and how we engaged with people instead of like the editing style of an image. And so even for Visco, it's not about being known for the preset you use or even the aesthetic of the photo. It's that we're equipping you with the means to like tell your story in your unique way. And so I think for like every creative out there that we all have a story to tell, it's all worth telling. And how can we come alongside you to equip you with the tools and inspiration to do that? What about groups and multiplayer mode?

Do you think about that a lot? Because it feels like social is also having a bit of a renaissance with groups and people maybe creating sub communities within apps. Have you thought about that? We think about it a lot. We see it a lot already on Visco. With tags? with tags and people coming together. So a great example, a young man by the name of Rico, who is in Oakland, and we were chatting

with them. And he was like, oh, yeah, you know, really wasn't into like photography or anything, was reading an editorial piece by your team on street photography. I got inspired. I was like, I can do that. And so went out and started capturing photos in Oakland through Visco, found other photographers in Oakland that were creating photos. And now they get together almost on a week.

weekly basis during a lunch break or something to go out and do street photography together. They've created a sense of community and belonging. And so for us, a large part of the future is not a subscription of features, but a membership experience, a sense of belonging and being a part of something. And so the community plays a big part of that. And we see this both in the app, but also offline. So we have a free studio in our office for people to come in and create. Really? We have a gallery. We're hosting events and we're always looking for ways to do that at a greater scale. I was going to ask you about that.

You put the first H2 in Oakland, the seconds in Chicago. Is it an advantage for Bay Area companies to be in Oakland? Because I think three of my 12 people commute from the Bay or four. It seems like it might be an advantage to be over there. Is it? Well, I think Oakland is a huge advantage. I love the people of Oakland and the community. It's like San Francisco used to be.

Well, I mean, I've born and raised in San Diego. Neandero, which is just south of Oakland, and then also Oakland. And so for me, from, like, the perfect place in the world is a Friday night at the Oakland Museum of California. It's gathering of food, music, art, and community, and everyone from around the world's coming together to celebrate. And so for me... What is this?

The Oakland? Oakland Museum of California, OMCA. Okay. Have... They do this every Friday. Every Friday night. Friday nights. Food trucks, food.

whatever. Yep. And then there's music and dancing instruction. There's art programs. I don't even know about this. Half-price admission to the museum. It's, it is literally, you know. I never understood this about museums. They're open during the day, but not at night. Everybody's working during the day. Nobody's... They should just flip the whole script.

It's it is really, like, you have to come down. Like, it is... Actually, you know what I've been to this. My favorite part was the cannabis exhibition. You have a whole cannabis section. Oh, at OMCA, yep. I'm joking. And they do? I just made that up. They have. They have literally, they're like, here's your tacos, here's your art.

Oh, no, not at the, yeah. And here's weird. Yeah, not as a part of the fight. Actually, now, my understanding is they decriminalize psilocybin and ayahuasca and everything. So Oakland's going to become a real destination. You're going to have some great brainstorming sessions, I predict, at Visco in the near future. Literally, it's going to be legal. Or I can now, it's, don't quote me on this, but they deconorming.

criminalized. Anything that grows out of the ground. So I think magic mushrooms, psilocybin, and Iowa, and this stuff are going to be, oh, you're not going to get arrested for it, which means the next step is it's going to be legal. So literally, people are going to be tripping in Oakland very soon, like legally tripping. There's going to be crazy. Why Chicago for the second headquarters? So Chicago, for a variety of reasons. One, for within the U.S., it's our largest active user base of a city in the U.S. Any idea how that happened? Is it because of the Art Institute or something?

Large community. One kind of example, we hosted an event. We helped launch the Today at Apple, their events within their apps, the Apple stores. We hosted a community event there. Oh, right. This was a little while back.

We've always just had a thriving community there. I think Chicago is also, you know, and when we look at creativity, we've talked a lot about photo, mentioned a little bit about video, but it really spans everything. I think specifically for this generation, Gen Z, it's not about self-identifying as a photographer, a designer.

You just make stuff. And so the art and music and fashion scene of Chicago is really very growing. It's groovy. When you look at the global marketplace, what are the top markets? And did you intentionally build those markets? Or did you just wake up one day and those markets with the top ones? So we have.

We have paying subscribers in over 160 countries around the world. Okay, so everywhere. It's everywhere. What are the top three? Non-US. You know, you'll see as a region, Southeast Asia, very large. Really? You'll see Europe very large.

But again, it's... Europe makes sense. Very photogenic and people are very artistic. But for Southeast Asia, you have a lot of people coming online with devices for the first time. Looking for something to do. And really for a form of self-expression and sharing how they see the world. So we're just seeing that with the rise of the smartphone adoption and usage, you basically... Do you have any intentionality about the global expansion?

Are you, like, translating the app? Well, we absolutely do now. When we started, it was, we realized how global it was. So we couldn't afford much. So we're just like, everything was icon-based. There was very little words in the app because they didn't have to translate anything. Right. So those are some of the things when we started.

It's easy to translate now. Oh, there's services, right? Do you use a service for that? We use a variety of different things, but we actually even think about it. It's much more than just translating. It's around creating original content and engaging the community in those countries because ultimately, authentically, you're wanting to see more from where you're at and from other creators. Why not allow people to subscribe or donate like Patreon to their favorite person?

Have you considered that? it feels like it's very in line with your mission in fact. You asked one of the biggest mistakes or lessons learned from early on. And I think for Visco, it's always been about focus. So both the lack of, it can be around the times in which we try to do too much. And then great focus, 2017. We kind of stopped a lot of different business lines. And we're like, we're going to go all in on subscription.

And it's working. And it's working. So for us, there's a lot of great opportunity that we can do to help accomplish our mission and envision and grow with what we already have. Right now, we're hyper-focused around creative expression and a community that helps drive it. Yeah, I mean, if you 10x from here, that would be extraordinary to have hundreds of millions of dollars in subscription revenue that you can count on is just incredible.

I mean, it happened to us withcom.com. We were the first major investors in that company. I think we owned 5% of it, and nobody believed in it, and nobody believed in subscriptions. they switched from like $10 for the app one time, like you were $9.09 to subscriptions, consumption went up. There's something magical about subscriptions. What is it?

I think we live in a day and age in particular where people are very clear that if they're not paying for something, they are the business. Got it. And you think consumers are? I think consumers are aware. I think specifically Gen Z is,

you know, this time next year, they'll be the largest purchasing generation over 146 billion in direct purchasing power. And they are making decisions based upon causes that they care about and brands that support those causes. And not just that they're throwing money at these causes, but that they authentically care and are doing something about it. And so we definitely see that people are willing to pay for something to value. That was the whole premise around Viscove building something for the consumer of value that they're willing to pay for. And what I love about a subscription is it's not just paying that one time.

We're incentivized, so all 150 plus people now at Visco are working towards delivering an experience that you'll continue to pay for. That's interesting. It is causing significant confusion in Silicon Valley because you have the venture capital community very focused on marauding capitalists and the drive towards profitability and driving revenue. you. And then you have this younger generation coming up who are saying, we don't care about that, which is then leading some of the venture capitalists to go like, okay, well, we're not going to focus on that generation. We'll focus on the people who do care about that. But I believe, and I've always believed that they'll be ignored until they can't be ignored. So the cause-based stuff was causing people to not get funded in Silicon Valley. So I would tell all my founders,

please don't become a B corporation. It's going to, you know, just scarlet letter you. people are not going to want to invest in your company because I think you're like, you know, Ben and Jerry's and you're going to be some do-gooders and they do not want do-goaters. They want people who build real businesses. And you're basically building the business around this tiny demographic who actually cares. But now that demographic is getting so big. In 10 years, I think it flips where they're so influential that we're going to see the biggest companies are the ones with the social mission.

But I still don't think we're here yet. Well, I mean, for us, the way that we think about this, so I believe that mental health is a very pressing issue at hand. If not, it should be one of the top discussions of everyone, especially in Silicon Valley, with what we've built and the opportunity that we have to make an impact. So for Visco, it's around the positive impact that creativity has on mental health. Now, I believe, and we're seeing this, that in particular, Gen Z is willing to pay for that. So it is, I think, if you can align your mission and vision and values to a business model that scales. Yeah, that's threading the needle right there. Do they actually, are you paying customers aware of the fact that they're the product on Twitter and Facebook and they feel icky by that and feel better to pay and be part of you?

Do they say that to you? They say they are aware of what is happening on those platforms and the negative impact it has on them. Really? They are, but in a mass phenomenon, yeah. But I think what's very interesting is that they're aware of it. They're actually not, I think it's a lot of maybe our generation and other generations that are stuck and unsure of how to navigate. I get so much hope talking to our community.

They know how to navigate this. They're like, I'm very aware of what I'm doing on this platform and the impact it has on me. That is why I'm counterbalancing this with investing in my mental health. through creativity. So they're aware of, but they know they need to engage and they use this great tool for communication or broadcasting to as many people as possible. They're finding these outlets in investing time and money. So smart. So smart, dude. It really is interesting when you, for every, one of the great things about capitalism that I think is getting lost on the public's overall view of it and even the press is that every time capitalism goes overreaching,

is in one direction, it becomes an opportunity for another set of founders. So if privacy is being invaded massively and people are concerned about leaks, you have something like Hacker 1, a company designed to hack people's companies in a white hack kind of way. If people are concerned about their privacy, all of a sudden VPNs, which were this obscure 1% of the audience, now people are like, I use a VPN. I'm not going to, you know, I mean, how did VPNs become mainstream? And now you see it with social networks. People are literally saying, I'm deleting Facebook for phone. I'm only using Twitter at work on my desktop when I have something that I need to communicate for business reasons. I'm not doing it all day long. I'm removing these things from my phone.

And then even Apple is conceding by putting the screen time limits on it. Think about that as an opportunity for Apple. Facebook and Google being so insanely obsessed with collecting data has given Tim Cook the ability to say your privacy is a feature. of our phone. The hardware's feature is that we don't take your data, we leave it on your phone encrypted. That's pretty amazing. Capitalism works.

I mean, my hope is that all of this leads to. I love seeing that other platforms are experimenting with removing likes and comments. It's not a threat to Visco. Should Twitter? I think... If you were advising Jack, you know Jack? Listen.

You know Jack? I don't know Jack. I believe that every company should be doing what's in the best interest of the consumer. So if they are focused on delivering, value and building something of the consumer. They should be doing what's in the best interest of them. I would love if they got rid of the retweet.

I think the retweet and the likes are killing Twitter. Just get rid of them. Who cares? Right? It doesn't mean you can't use it for the algorithm to surface something. But we're in this like weird video game where people are obsessing over it. And I think it does create this overhang of anxiety and this dependency. on it. When I see one of my tweets go, like I had a tweet the other day, I tweeted something

where Obama was telling people to like stop. It was kind of meta. He was, Obama said, listen, you know, being outraged on social media is not activism. Activism and going into the world, real world and doing change is activism. So don't give yourself any credit for retweeting something or being upset on social media. You actually got to go in the real world and do something. And I tweeted that and I was like, well, when Obama is telling you to stop being hysterical, and to start actually doing work in the world that says something. And it went unbelievably viral.

I maybe had 10,000 likes or something crazy. And I felt so good. And then I realized, wait a second, why am I feeling this enormous sense of pride at a sentence of me just describing what he was saying? I was like, oh, validation. Validation is so important for humans. We look at it.

It's dangerous. It's dangerous and it's also an opportunity. And so I think for Visco, we're always looking at three things. And as Greg, my co-founder and I, in building Visco, three human truths that I am known, I belong, and I'm taken care of. I'm known. I've been seen. Someone sees me for who I am. Right.

Who I really am. Who I really am. Yeah. I belong. So there's a level of acceptance and approval. So some form of validation. And they see me and they accept me. And they acknowledge, yeah.

They acknowledge. And then there's a sense of taking. care of. There's a level of helping and service hospitality. One of my favorite books, The Outward Mindset by the Arbinger Institute. It's real. Outward mindset. What is it about? Exactly that. It's around in the workplace in particular, but in life, understanding the needs of others and helping meet those needs is actually really beneficial for work. So if I know what you're trying to accomplish because we're working towards a common goal, if I can better understand what you need, and how you're feeling in this moment situation.

How might I help you? That will help us as a team accomplish our overall goal even better. That's great. Yeah, I mean, I try to explain to people like having a mission and values. The most important thing about doing those as a founder is for you to have clarity as to what you want to do in your life and the world in which you want to go to work every day. Because one of the things I see kill companies is the founder doesn't set a mission. a mission is suddenly thrust on the company just by the nature of its success.

And then the values get set by the most vocal employees. And then all of a sudden the founders coming to work at a company where they didn't set the mission and the values may be incongruous to theirs. And then they don't enjoy going to work. That's the death of the company. If the founders are not enjoying coming to work, what's the mission that you set for the company? So we start with the vision. And so that's a world where differences are celebrated.

A world with differences are celebrated. Yeah. Nice. You've seen the world through other people's eyes. So back to that. Yeah. Back to mom. Yeah.

And did the therapist tell you about, make that connection for you? Did you make a? No. I mean, my... I'd love to be in that therapy session. Yeah. No. What does your mom say?

Yeah. No, I think it's a... My mom said this. I had the impact on me. And I don't know if I truly appreciated it for what it was. was until later in life. And I think now being married and with kids, like, you're doing that on a daily basis. You're needing to understand the needs of others in a way, unlike ever before, where it's not just about you. And I think that for me has had a huge impact. That's what I love

going to work. I love understanding the needs of our team and how to bring them together to accomplish something great together. What are the values? You just set like some values, we are blank. We are blank. Yeah. You know, our values, our, our values, our around being an active participant, not being like a passive observer, around being yourself, having a growth mindset. Yeah. Personally, and for the company. Yeah, and building together. So not doing this on your own. No hero ball.

Yeah, this is about both teaching and learning at the same time. Always put in the creator first. And then if something's worth doing, it's worth doing right. So that's the one I like. That's what Benjamin Franklin who said that, I think. I'm not sure. Yeah, so I think it might have been Benjamin. Anyway, if you're going to do something, you might as well do it right. Right? Like if you're going to put the time into making a steak, make it the best steak you can.

You know? We talk a lot about having intention. So like have a reason for what you're doing because the beauty of that is even if it fails, if you had an intention for what you're trying to do, you then know what you can do differently the next time. So that ties into that growth mindset and ability to like grow and find a new way. It is amazing. I have some founders who come to. work and they just go to work and they just start going through a punch list and it's like,

well, what's important here? And they're like, I don't know, the list. Should I restart the list? I'm like, no, no, no, no. What's the mission of this company? Like, what are we actually trying to accomplish here? And let's talk about that for a second and then set some goals around that. And then you can prioritize. But if you don't have the mission, how do you prioritize what's important? I mentioned Chip Conley and he has a book Peak that was helpful in that. And probably the largest one was Patrick Lincione's book, The Advantage. The advantage, which was his previous books, the five dysfunctions of a team. So that's the one that made me realize that we had a lot of issues and I needed to be very intentional.

It was like the five. Five dysfunctions of a team. And then he did another one like the additional five functions or something like exploring them. But it's about offsite meetings. And he tells it like it's a fictional account. And there's like some high performer but who's a jerk and I highly recommend everyone to read it. Lanzioni. We haven't had him on the podcast.

Let's get him on the pod. The table group. Have you interacted with them or? Because they do off-sides, I think. Yeah, they do. Yeah. Oh, here he is. The advantage.

Why organizational health trumps everything else in business. Yeah. Yeah, Lencione. He's great. He's local, too. Is he? In the Bay Area, yeah. Bring him to me.

Do you know him? I don't know him. Let's take him to lunch. I would love that. I would take him to lunch. Oh, you know what you can go? Have you been to the, I think it's a Mexican joint in the basement, of the first floor of the K-Poor Center for Social Justice.

Oh, agave. Agave. Yes. Have you been there and had the Molle? It's amazing. Oh, my Lord. Every time Mitch Kapor is like, hey, we can have the board meeting for Blockable at my place. I'm like, yes.

And I'm like, do it in the morning. And they're like, I thought you don't like mornings. You're an afternoon guy. I like mornings because I want to go there and get that chicken mole and they make the tortillas and arepas and everything there like to order. Yeah. And then they put this. I was never into Molei source.

sauce. I always thought it's kind of weird. I wasn't sure of the taste. And they do roast chicken. You know like when you have a great roast chicken? It's my favorite. It's unbelievable. And then they shred it apart. They pour this mole sauce on it. And then they make you fresh tortillas. And literally, we got to get the hell out of here. And go back there and get it. It's the line out the door is bonkers. So you can take me there. And then I'll take you to Kosecha, which is also in Oakland. I feel like we're going to be buds. I think you and I might have a bromance. So Monday there's a Monday there's a Muley.

How old are your kids? Mondees. 10 and 8. All right. I got a 9 year old. This is perfect. She's going to be 10. We could go do some with the kids.

You and I could start to have a little thing. You've been watching. There we go. Oh, yeah. Wait a second. Let me see that place. Have I been there? It's in Swan's Market.

Ah, no, I haven't been. I went to another place over in Oakland that's right by Berkeley. That was it. Berkeley. That was, yeah. That's that's CoSetya. and then I went to this other place in Berkeley that's unbelievable. Another, like,

Spanish or Mexican hybrid place. Anyway, the food in Oakland is off the charts. See, this is exactly what happened in Manhattan. But this is the thing. Everything in Oakland is. Like, from the art, the people, I know. I kind of feel like I should move the office there, but it's just so hard to get there.

But once you're there. I know, but I live in Hills Bar. Yeah, from the peninsula. But from Bart, like, it's been a huge draw. So we're just one block off of Bart. See, that's what I think is. I think that the future is going east. I think...

Oh, yeah, there you go. Actually, the top left image is from Cosette. This is my Visco profile. Oh, there you go. Look at that. So, beautiful. Wow, beautiful. What is that?

So that's Airbnb's lobby. Fun fact. I had my high school senior prom. This was at the old gallery at the jewelry mart. I had my high school prom there. And then I also bought the wedding ring for my wife there. Oh, very nicely not. I had this moment where I was waiting for an Uber outside of the out of their office.

And I was like, looking back at the building, I was like, oh my gosh, I've had some big life moments here. Absolutely. All right, listen, I could talk to you for another two hours, but I got to go give a speaking gig, unfortunately. I would rather be here talking to you. I'm going to head to lunch. All right. Everybody, VSCO, go download it. It's going to upsell you on paying for a membership.

I'm going to advise you to just pay it. Be loyal. Let's get them some more members. And really, thank you for Visco. That's what I said. VSEO. Visco. I'm just telling

how to spell it. Is Visco like disco without the eye? Does that mean something VSEO? It did. It stood for a visual supply company. The visual supply company.

All right. It doesn't mean anything. It just means Visco. That's what you need to know. It's Visco. All right. Hey, congratulations, Joe. Really nice to see a good guy

with a good plan, do something so important in the world. And yeah, I'll see you in Oakland. We'll see you all next time on this thing startups. Bye-bye. You crushed it.