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All right.

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No countdown or anything.

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Yeah.

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So Last week we, our accountant sent us some business expenses.

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They had an email that had like a few listed and said like, Hey, what are these?

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Like, can you help us categorize these?

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mine were all related to like some meetings that we'd been hosting, but I noticed one of
yours was the, the Light Phone.

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Is that what it's called?

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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The light, the Light Phone III Well, I, this is my, I've, you know, I sort of realized
like, yeah.

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my expenses, maybe the topic for conversation.

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yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I've been used to for a few years having my,

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personal business, you know, being in business for myself, having my business expenses be
unobserved by any outsider except my accountant.

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so it's a Light Phone III.

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I don't know what the Light Phone I was actually, but I.

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when it came out.

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It has sort of a Kindle -esque type of screen.

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Yeah, but I think that's also the Light Phone II Maybe the Light Phone I and II were kind
of similar.

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Anyway, I'm not quite sure, but I have either a Light Phone I or a Light Phone II And
honestly, I, it would be hard for me to justify impossible for me to justify based on my

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experience with the Light Phone whichever one I have, buying another one because it's, I
never really used it and it bricked.

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now it's just like, it doesn't even turn on.

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Yeah.

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But.

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I find the idea really compelling.

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the idea with the Light Phone is it's this black and white screen and it's a really
simplified smartphone.

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So the Light Phone I was just a cell phone, the idea with Light Phone III is what has
maps.

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has music.

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It has, you know, a flashlight.

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has kind of the core set of stuff that if you think of the iPhone being introduced in

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You know, minus the browser, like some of the iPod in your pocket.

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it's kind of like the good, non -distracting, non -infinity pool type of stuff that you
would want to have on a smartphone.

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Totally.

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So it's kind of an attempt and I've found recently that the, are, you know, there's,
there's a constant battle to keep the distraction free iPhone, which as you know, that's

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this, this thing that you and I have both been doing for, years.

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it's the idea that you take any infinite attention, potentially sucking thing off of the
phone.

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And normally on my iPhone, I, I

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don't have Safari, I don't have any social media stuff.

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I don't have anything that's potentially got infinite information.

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And it helps keep me kind of sane and, and, and focused a bit more on whatever the thing
is in the moment that I'm doing.

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But lately, for example, the, the ability to turn off Safari in the phone broke.

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So it's I could, there are probably ways I could figure out how to,

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block it with a third party app, but I just, don't have good self control.

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like, will, you know, I Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And you can't imagine it's like super high on their priority list to fix.

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PM is like responsible for that feature is like, man, nobody shuts off Safari.

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Who would do that?

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so far.

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Yeah.

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It's annoying though.

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I actually is annoying because it's parental controls, right?

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It's supposed to be part of like screen time and parental controls.

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Like really?

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Like that doesn't work.

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That was your big thing a couple years ago, So the white phone is in this big category of
gadgets where I buy them because I think almost like you're making an investment in a

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startup, like an early stage startup.

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think most of these I'm not going to ever use, but

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Every now and again, there's going to be one and it's going to have this.

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It's going to be a hit and it's, and it's going to open up something new for me.

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So that's the light phone.

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the wave of new video conferencing cameras that came out.

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There was the Opal, which I still use sometimes.

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The Opal, there was another one called Loomy, I don't know if you know what we're talking
about.

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There were a couple of years when there were a bunch of those coming out.

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I bought all those.

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More recently, there's been all the...

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AI native devices like the rabbit and the limitless pin and I've like bought all those.

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have not opened the box of any of those that I have received yet.

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Not sure what to do with that information, but I totally know what you mean.

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Like when these new things come out, it's like you want to bet on them and there's a
chance that like one of them will be useful.

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yeah, it's kind of fun to like be a seed investor in

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those new products.

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Yeah.

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And the funny thing is I think there actually is, depending on the kind of work that you
do, like I think the kind of work that we do, there actually is a payoff sometimes.

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it could be a payoff and an insight into like, the way, the way these folks did their UI
here or whatever, the way this product is positioned, the way it's differentiated in the

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market, that that lends an insight that we in turn share with one of the companies we
invest in as kind of a lightning demo.

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also possible.

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not differentiated, right?

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Maybe that there's something that is initially appealing to us.

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There's a hook where we're like, that's cool.

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But then it doesn't deliver on that.

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It doesn't follow through on the pitch that it made to us as customers.

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Yeah.

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And there are these cases and I'd say like an example for me would be the Remarkable
tablet, which is this kind of E -ink screen, just a thing for writing on.

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And that one has turned out to be really useful for me.

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I've gotten a ton of this sort of disproportionate value and it occupies this space for me
that like the iPod.

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doesn't solve it on my laptop doesn't solve it.

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My phone doesn't solve it.

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And so there's always the hope that that's going to be one of those.

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so we'll see as with any of them, my hopes for the Light Phone III as an individual thing
are not high, but it is one of those, one of those basket of bets.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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All right, should we kick this thing off?

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Let's kick it off.

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Okay, this is the very first episode of Jake and J Z.

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It's our new podcast.

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And what are we gonna talk about on this podcast, Jake?

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Well, we're going to talk about startups.

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We're going to talk about design, probably, products in general, things that are
interesting to us, what's going on in our lives and in the world.

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And, those are some of the things.

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What else did I forget?

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Yeah.

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Well, we are among other things that co -founders and general partners at character, which
is a seed fund.

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So we'll also talk a lot about what we're seeing kind of on the ground, working with
startups at very early stages as they design new products and bring those to market.

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but, mostly we, we want to have fun.

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We want this to be sort of an entertaining, different flavor of podcast, a podcast that
you can put on and kind of feel like.

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We're just having a conversation.

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We're hanging out with you and we hope you find it interesting.

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If not, we'll have a good time.

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It's always good to to you.

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So what do we have on the list for today?

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All right.

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So, well, the first thing I wanted to talk about was something that we did last week.

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We, for the very first time, did an in -person kickoff of Character Labs, which is a
program that we run with pre -seed founders a couple of times a year.

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Jake, do you want to kind of explain what Character Labs is?

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maybe we could chat about just some of the reflections on how it went doing it in person
for the first time,

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Yeah, yeah, it was wild to be in person.

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But yeah, before we get into that, Character Labs is basically, so we started Character a
few years ago and this gave us the opportunity to invest in a super early stage company,

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we realized like, you know what we could, put together a program where we got a few
companies at once, it would make sense for us to spend

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however much time we thought was the right amount of time with them.

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And because they're just getting started, it would also make sense for us to put together
like whatever we think is like the perfect start.

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Like if you were beginning a big, big project, you're beginning actually your startup from
square one, what would be the perfect sequence of things for you to sort of figure out in

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those, in those first weeks?

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And so, man, that was awesome because it feels like forever when we were.

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Like we go on way back to working at Google, working on products when we were working as
partners at Google ventures, when we were working with startups who were, you know, maybe

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they were Series A or Series B.

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They're like, we kind of get, you know, dropped into whatever phase they might be in.

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It was never that perfect first, first moment.

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Well, it was occasionally there were a few times when we, when we hit that, Flatiron
Health was right at that moment, for example.

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Digit was another great example where I remember being on the whiteboard with Ethan when
he's like, I think it should work like this, literally just sketching out the idea.

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But was sort of random.

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Sometimes it would be this really perfect early moment where I think you and I have the
most fun, and we think that we can help people the most.

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But yeah, that was sort of

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exception.

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More often than not, the company was a bit further along and they always had interesting
problems and challenges that we could help with, but it wasn't that really special start,

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that special beginning moment of the company.

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Yeah.

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And obviously with the Design Sprint that John and I have been, creating evolving over all
these years, we were really into the start.

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it was, it was so cool to, to realize okay, we could craft this.

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then so Character Labs is what came out of that.

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we're on what this is the fourth time we've run it.

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So yeah.

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And.

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called G3.

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I mean, it's not confusing to me because I think for some reason I find it very amusing
that we started with zero.

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It's this nerdy reference that like let's start with zero.

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But yeah, it's G3, which is actually the fourth group.

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Yes, it does make the math slightly counterintuitive when you're trying to figure out what
number we're on now.

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So the, yes.

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So the notion with Character Labs is start off with a foundation sprint, which is a thing
that we do now.

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it's kind of a very, very beginning, very early kickoff, sort of forming the, the rough
draft of, of your strategy for the, for the project, and then go into a sequence of Design

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Sprints And so this whole thing takes place over the course of four and a half weeks.

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And it's.

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It's really great.

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gives teams a chance to go from kind of zero to having an idea of what the product might
look like and maybe trying to build some confidence in product market fit.

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And that's what we really tried to tailor it to.

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What does it take to build as much possible confidence that you're on the right path to
product market fit before you start building something.

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So they leave Character Labs and they're ready to, ready to run in that direction.

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And, and always having.

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overcome a lot of dead ends and false starts because that's what happens when you are in
the early stages of an idea.

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The form of it won't be exactly right.

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And we can figure that out in, days and weeks rather than months and years.

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We have seven companies in this group.

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We always try to find five companies, but more often than not, there's too many good
options.

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I think first time there were eight, the second time there were five, then I think now
we've had seven twice in a row.

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So we seven companies who are working with us.

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And one thing that was meaning to mention to you was that...

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One of the founders who's like, and pretty much all of the founders are like pretty
technical, right?

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They're mostly engineers or maybe an engineer who became a product manager or something
like that.

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but one of the founders who's an engineer, we were having lunch and he was like, it feels
really weird to not be writing code.

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Like I feel uncomfortable.

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I feel anxious that I, I just like, I quit my job.

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started this thing and I'm not writing code.

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And I was like, yeah, I.

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I get that, but also that's kind of the point, right?

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Because when we look at what that team is trying to figure out in Labs it's like, well,
what code would you write?

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Because they have like kind of these two very different directions.

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there's always some, I think if you have an idea of the market you're in and the problem
you want to solve for customers, like there's always some foundational stuff you can start

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building and sort of scaffolding, you know, infrastructure that you need to build your
product.

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But really

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these two founders, they have two very different approaches to solving their customer's
problem.

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And so, I hope that by the end they will say like, that was different, but that was good.

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now when we start writing code, we know that it's something that our customers want.

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We know it's something that when we show it to them, it's really going to click with them.

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but it was just, I don't think anybody's ever said it quite like that to me.

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I don't think any founders ever been

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just straight up like this feels uncomfortable to not be coding right now.

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It was fascinating because that discomfort, mean, how true is that in all kinds of
situations too, not just when you're an engineer who just left your job to start a

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startup.

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00:13:57,732 --> 00:14:00,567
mean, You're like, my God, got to get this thing going.

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We're always chomping at the bit to make progress that we can see in a way we're familiar
with.

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And I always feel that way when we start a writing project, I'm chopping at the bit to
write words, you know, and, and it's very important though, to make sure that that effort

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that can then unspool and quickly become, as I said, like months and years is headed in
the right direction.

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I mean, it's funny to think of it as slowing down because we're, we move so uncomfortably
fast really in these sprints, but.

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It's all about trying to make sure that that code gets written on the right, the right,
create the right form of the right thing.

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Have you ever done like a race, like a running race?

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00:14:41,850 --> 00:14:47,895
You know, like once, also at field day when I was a kid, But yeah, but only like once have
I run a 5k.

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00:14:48,117 --> 00:14:51,518
So I ran track and cross country when I was in high school.

203
00:14:51,518 --> 00:14:57,020
And I was just thinking about this because of the Olympics and watching sprinters.

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When we work with teams, we usually run sprints, the name for how we work together.

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And I was thinking about how obviously the race is fast, the work, if you will, of the
race is fast.

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That's the whole point.

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But I was reflecting on how the moments before the race are the slowest.

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moments of time possible.

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And I think that's kind of what it's like when we work with startups in a sprint.

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And maybe this is sort of like what that founder was saying about feeling slow, feeling
anxious about not writing code.

211
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there's this very slow period at the beginning, this uncomfortably slow period when you're
sort of like getting ready and collecting your thoughts and like making sure that when you

212
00:15:41,756 --> 00:15:44,966
do press go and go as fast as you can,

213
00:15:44,966 --> 00:15:49,458
you're totally set and you're totally ready to make the most of that burst of energy.

214
00:15:49,458 --> 00:15:50,759
Yeah, totally.

215
00:15:50,759 --> 00:15:51,940
Totally.

216
00:15:52,161 --> 00:16:05,497
I watched not a lot of the Olympics, but I did watch the hundred meter I was struck by one
of the runners before they got even in the blocks, came out and was kind of just jumping

217
00:16:05,497 --> 00:16:08,631
around, mugging for the camera and just.

218
00:16:08,769 --> 00:16:11,790
And I was like, man, like save your springs.

219
00:16:11,790 --> 00:16:14,682
You know, you're going to have to, you have to run like right now.

220
00:16:14,682 --> 00:16:19,985
But I mean, obviously, and I think maybe even he won, but I was really impressed that
what's that.

221
00:16:20,426 --> 00:16:21,226
Yeah, it works for him.

222
00:16:21,226 --> 00:16:21,746
Yeah.

223
00:16:21,746 --> 00:16:22,327
Yeah.

224
00:16:22,327 --> 00:16:34,601
But I was really impressed that like he's yeah, he's got like that much excess, you know,
bounce and it still has, cause you, mean, at the Olympics, would have to.

225
00:16:34,601 --> 00:16:36,262
You have to put everything in.

226
00:16:36,262 --> 00:16:39,123
I'm imagining for that, for that stretch.

227
00:16:39,123 --> 00:16:45,707
And, and it's, but it's kind of that nervous, you know, excitement energy that you feel
when you're at the beginning of something new.

228
00:16:45,707 --> 00:16:57,553
And so often I think that that excitement, it's really important and powerful, but it's
really crucial to harness it in the right direction and, and, know, to get it pointed the

229
00:16:57,553 --> 00:17:01,575
right way, because it's going to lead you off the blocks fast.

230
00:17:01,575 --> 00:17:04,416
But if, if, know, if you're like running.

231
00:17:04,416 --> 00:17:10,356
parallel to the, or I don't know, at the 90 degree angle to the course, this metaphor
should probably stop immediately.

232
00:17:12,776 --> 00:17:13,956
Yeah.

233
00:17:14,036 --> 00:17:16,426
But in person, we were in person.

234
00:17:16,426 --> 00:17:17,916
So that was wild.

235
00:17:18,116 --> 00:17:19,176
I loved it.

236
00:17:19,176 --> 00:17:21,976
It was so different.

237
00:17:21,976 --> 00:17:27,156
And it's so funny that it was so different because we used to say, we're never doing stuff
over a video.

238
00:17:27,156 --> 00:17:32,079
We tried a couple of times in the pre pandemic era to do

239
00:17:32,083 --> 00:17:35,456
Sprint Design Sprints with teams when people were in different locations.

240
00:17:35,456 --> 00:17:37,278
And I just remember it being a mess.

241
00:17:37,278 --> 00:17:38,559
It was so hard.

242
00:17:38,559 --> 00:17:44,174
People's video and audio was always screwy and the collaboration tools weren't there.

243
00:17:44,174 --> 00:17:49,668
We were used like Google slides or, you know, Google docs was just, it was just a mess.

244
00:17:49,929 --> 00:17:50,290
And.

245
00:17:50,290 --> 00:17:58,861
for background, you ran essentially the first Design sprint was in 2010 with the Gmail
team, right?

246
00:17:58,861 --> 00:18:04,091
And then you joined us at GV in 2012.

247
00:18:04,251 --> 00:18:15,932
then like from then until COVID, like until 2020, we ran probably a couple hundred Design
Sprints and maybe five of them were like remote or there was a remote aspect.

248
00:18:15,932 --> 00:18:16,903
And usually it was

249
00:18:16,903 --> 00:18:20,510
one unfortunate person who was in a different office.

250
00:18:20,510 --> 00:18:22,934
And we were only sort of like half paying attention to them.

251
00:18:22,934 --> 00:18:29,866
But yeah, when COVID started, we were like, okay, I guess we're gonna have to figure out
how to do these sprints in person.

252
00:18:29,977 --> 00:18:33,910
Yeah, we have to do them over video and we're going to, yeah.

253
00:18:33,911 --> 00:18:34,982
then that was a struggle.

254
00:18:34,982 --> 00:18:36,434
That was about a total pain.

255
00:18:36,434 --> 00:18:39,216
And then it turned out Miro was really great for it.

256
00:18:39,216 --> 00:18:41,128
And we've created templates in it now.

257
00:18:41,128 --> 00:18:45,151
And now just like everyone, but we're doing so much stuff over video.

258
00:18:45,151 --> 00:18:51,479
And it's turned out that with these startups, although I think you and I have been totally
ready to go do sprints in person.

259
00:18:51,479 --> 00:18:52,169
It's.

260
00:18:53,328 --> 00:18:55,010
It just most of the teams are distributed.

261
00:18:55,010 --> 00:18:58,794
usually it's the case that when you want to do a Design Sprint you should do it right
away.

262
00:18:58,794 --> 00:19:03,477
And it's hard to schedule travel and coordinate everything in time better to just get
going.

263
00:19:03,838 --> 00:19:06,440
So it was weird to do it in person again.

264
00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:12,445
And also fantastic, but also felt weirdly, you and I both have this observation that it
felt slow.

265
00:19:12,445 --> 00:19:18,830
It was when you were doing steps with paper and sticky notes and whiteboards.

266
00:19:18,971 --> 00:19:20,302
It's slower.

267
00:19:20,302 --> 00:19:31,041
than if you're working in parallel over video and you're filling out things in a template
that we've had the opportunity to design and think about and put the instructions in and,

268
00:19:31,041 --> 00:19:36,107
it streamlines a lot of the, actual narrative and explanations we have to give.

269
00:19:36,107 --> 00:19:44,493
And there's so many nice advantages to doing it over video, but it loses this one key
thing, which is when you're actually in person, the connection that you make with the

270
00:19:44,493 --> 00:19:47,286
people who you're working with is really powerful.

271
00:19:47,286 --> 00:19:49,307
And our colleague, Kristen was saying,

272
00:19:49,651 --> 00:20:01,938
There's also something about just embodying some of these things that are on a whiteboard
or on the wall and you're physically putting, you're making a dia whenever you're making a

273
00:20:01,938 --> 00:20:09,913
diagram of something or whenever you have like a lot of information you're trying to store
and you put some stuff somewhere in the room and you can just kind of know like, I think

274
00:20:09,913 --> 00:20:11,343
it's kind of over there.

275
00:20:12,184 --> 00:20:12,885
It does.

276
00:20:12,885 --> 00:20:17,598
memory where it's like, yeah, that thing lives physically over there, that thing lives
physically over there.

277
00:20:17,598 --> 00:20:22,098
It's different than when it's just all on a 2D surface on a screen.

278
00:20:22,098 --> 00:20:31,363
Yeah, this used to happen more before the world of GPS driven maps, but when you give
someone directions and, maybe you them like walking directions in your neighborhood and

279
00:20:31,363 --> 00:20:32,544
you're like, okay, yeah.

280
00:20:32,544 --> 00:20:39,266
So you go, like you go down and you're going to, you're to see like this big tree and then
you're going to like trick like this whole part of your brain that if you're on a

281
00:20:39,266 --> 00:20:42,518
whiteboard that's on screen, that part is not engaged.

282
00:20:42,518 --> 00:20:43,408
I don't think.

283
00:20:43,408 --> 00:20:46,850
whenever somebody gives me directions like that, I'm like, -huh, -huh, -huh.

284
00:20:46,850 --> 00:20:51,613
And then like the second they stop, like, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't catch any of that.

285
00:20:52,814 --> 00:20:53,655
Like, okay, yeah.

286
00:20:53,655 --> 00:20:54,005
Okay.

287
00:20:54,005 --> 00:20:54,535
The big tree.

288
00:20:54,535 --> 00:20:54,806
Okay.

289
00:20:54,806 --> 00:20:55,496
The third house.

290
00:20:55,496 --> 00:20:56,006
All right.

291
00:20:56,006 --> 00:20:56,777
Yeah.

292
00:20:56,937 --> 00:20:57,797
Nope.

293
00:20:57,838 --> 00:20:58,712
Totally lost.

294
00:20:58,712 --> 00:21:02,826
it, to construct that 3D world in your mind.

295
00:21:03,988 --> 00:21:06,460
My GPU is not up to the task.

296
00:21:08,653 --> 00:21:09,214
man.

297
00:21:09,214 --> 00:21:13,258
beginning to be slightly old models, slightly outdated models.

298
00:21:13,258 --> 00:21:15,118
So I need an upgrade.

299
00:21:15,118 --> 00:21:16,069
That's right.

300
00:21:16,069 --> 00:21:16,689
Yeah.

301
00:21:16,689 --> 00:21:17,049
Yeah.

302
00:21:17,049 --> 00:21:29,409
Speaking of which, I just recently heard that possibly the first GPU, like the first time
that that concept was really used where it was a separate processor that was just

303
00:21:29,409 --> 00:21:34,014
processing graphics is the Nintendo entertainment system.

304
00:21:34,014 --> 00:21:38,683
they wanted to create, spent a really long time developing it.

305
00:21:38,683 --> 00:21:46,716
during the, and this happened kind of during the video game crash in the U S but they
developed it originally for the Japanese market.

306
00:21:46,716 --> 00:21:57,863
But part of the CEO's vision was this thing that's going to be way ahead technologically
of the competition and, also inexpensive.

307
00:21:57,865 --> 00:22:03,665
And so the combination of those constraints and they're like, it's okay if it takes us a
really long time to build it, but we want to do those two things.

308
00:22:03,665 --> 00:22:07,885
We want it to be way ahead of the competition and, also inexpensive.

309
00:22:07,885 --> 00:22:16,468
And usually you can't be like, better and cheaper, but this notion that they spent years
figuring out when they came up with was, well, we're going to use these sort of off the

310
00:22:16,468 --> 00:22:24,224
shelf, even already in like 1983 or whenever they develop, it was already an old
processor, but we're going to pair it with another one.

311
00:22:24,224 --> 00:22:27,357
That's going to render the graphics.

312
00:22:27,357 --> 00:22:31,080
And that actually was tough for other people to, to beat.

313
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,002
was, it was way ahead of what other things were doing.

314
00:22:34,002 --> 00:22:43,183
I heard this on a on Acquired is the Acquired podcast, and it's, it's, you know, more
about business than it is about tech.

315
00:22:43,183 --> 00:22:49,884
So I, I don't, they were sort of like, we think this is the first time there was a GPU,
but we're not, so somebody might.

316
00:22:49,884 --> 00:22:51,415
hear this and say, you're wrong.

317
00:22:51,415 --> 00:22:52,045
It was something else.

318
00:22:52,045 --> 00:22:54,547
But, but I thought that was pretty fascinating.

319
00:22:55,209 --> 00:22:59,752
anyway, a total tangent from what we were talking about, good one.

320
00:23:00,193 --> 00:23:01,334
we were talking about directions.

321
00:23:01,334 --> 00:23:14,064
We were talking about physical versus, virtual meetings and the, the power that has been
durable of our, of our get together, at least durable for one week, cause this was just

322
00:23:14,064 --> 00:23:17,964
last week, but this week we've been working with those same teams over video.

323
00:23:17,964 --> 00:23:26,670
And it's remarkable to me seeing people over video, talking to them over video now, after
having met them last week, it's so different because most of the time with our startups,

324
00:23:26,670 --> 00:23:29,512
we, we go a long time before we meet them in person.

325
00:23:29,512 --> 00:23:37,597
We might not meet them in person until after we've made an investment and maybe they come
to our annual meeting or maybe we're visiting their city and then we meet them in person.

326
00:23:37,597 --> 00:23:38,438
This was so different.

327
00:23:38,438 --> 00:23:42,421
We meet in person right at the get -go and then now we're, we're over video.

328
00:23:42,421 --> 00:23:47,624
again, it sounds kind of silly because in the normal way of doing things, you do start out
in person.

329
00:23:47,628 --> 00:23:52,990
But that there's something really valuable to it that in person is, is special.

330
00:23:52,990 --> 00:24:00,994
And I remember this from the days of working at Google and working in the Seattle area and
our office in Kirkland, which is across the lake from Seattle.

331
00:24:00,994 --> 00:24:08,437
And that was where the engineering office was in, Seattle and the Gmail team, while I was
working with was in Mountain View.

332
00:24:08,538 --> 00:24:10,454
And so I would.

333
00:24:10,454 --> 00:24:14,580
I would be working with the engineers that I worked with in Kirkland.

334
00:24:14,580 --> 00:24:18,256
And then once a month, I would go down to visit mountain view.

335
00:24:18,317 --> 00:24:22,442
And you probably experienced, you experienced this too, because you were in the Chicago
office at first.

336
00:24:23,024 --> 00:24:23,713
Yeah.

337
00:24:23,713 --> 00:24:27,163
I, cause I worked at a startup called Feedburner in Chicago.

338
00:24:27,163 --> 00:24:34,484
I was acquired by Google 2007 and most of the teams that I was working with were working
on ads.

339
00:24:34,484 --> 00:24:45,294
so both like the publisher side of like, where did the, like the AdSense is the name of
the program, like ads that show up on, on publisher websites, but then also the advertiser

340
00:24:45,294 --> 00:24:45,694
side.

341
00:24:45,694 --> 00:24:49,162
So AdWords, which is like the tools to place your ads and

342
00:24:49,162 --> 00:24:51,496
So those teams were like in, a lot of them were in New York.

343
00:24:51,496 --> 00:24:55,115
So I remember like I would take day trips from Chicago to New York.

344
00:24:55,115 --> 00:24:56,749
And some of them were in Mountain View.

345
00:24:56,749 --> 00:25:00,796
I would also travel out to the Bay Area quite a lot.

346
00:25:01,315 --> 00:25:06,088
Did you ever have a cadence, a length of trip?

347
00:25:06,129 --> 00:25:08,291
What were those trips look like for you?

348
00:25:08,291 --> 00:25:10,472
And what was your goal when you traveled?

349
00:25:12,381 --> 00:25:17,345
I remember that my goal particularly, so it was a little bit different.

350
00:25:18,346 --> 00:25:23,190
the Mountain View trips to me were more about relationships.

351
00:25:23,190 --> 00:25:33,461
It was more about just hanging out with people and kind of being around and like going to
lunch and like just, you know, sort of getting to know the teams a little bit better.

352
00:25:33,461 --> 00:25:38,647
The New York trips I recall were often much more about having that

353
00:25:38,999 --> 00:25:48,697
very high bandwidth communication pipe, you know, sort of that opportunity to like, just
sit down next to somebody and just hammer through a bunch of decisions.

354
00:25:48,697 --> 00:25:58,545
like, you know, pair designing, like two people looking at like, you know, I guess
Fireworks probably what we use back then for design the UIs and just be like, okay, I was

355
00:25:58,545 --> 00:25:59,246
thinking we should do this here.

356
00:25:59,246 --> 00:26:00,406
And they're like, no, what if we did it this way?

357
00:26:00,406 --> 00:26:01,127
I'm like, okay, cool.

358
00:26:01,127 --> 00:26:01,557
Let's do it.

359
00:26:01,557 --> 00:26:01,837
Great.

360
00:26:01,837 --> 00:26:02,107
Okay.

361
00:26:02,107 --> 00:26:02,377
Next.

362
00:26:02,377 --> 00:26:05,716
Like, and I could, from Chicago, I could fly.

363
00:26:05,716 --> 00:26:17,536
be in New York by like 9 a or 10 a pretty easily for a day trip and I could spend multiple
hours there just cranking through stuff with the teams there and then fly back and be back

364
00:26:17,536 --> 00:26:19,620
by like seven or eight at night.

365
00:26:20,839 --> 00:26:29,346
As a side note here, a sort of a footnote, guess, Fireworks when John says Fireworks he's
not talking about literal fireworks.

366
00:26:29,346 --> 00:26:46,161
Fireworks was a design tool, a drawing tool that, I mean, it was a weird tool that we used
at Google to design the UI back in the 2000s to draw pictures because it was pixel by

367
00:26:46,161 --> 00:26:47,182
pixel and that's...

368
00:26:47,182 --> 00:26:49,683
the way we were thinking about things for screens.

369
00:26:49,724 --> 00:26:56,395
And it's of course been replaced by Sketch and now Figma, but it was like, for us, it was
Figma at that time.

370
00:26:56,395 --> 00:26:57,416
yeah.

371
00:26:57,416 --> 00:27:06,112
And it was similar to Figma in the sense that it was one of the few tools that really was
native to designing for on screen, designing for UIs.

372
00:27:06,112 --> 00:27:10,636
Photoshop was always about, well, the name implies, editing photos.

373
00:27:10,636 --> 00:27:16,321
Illustrator was, again, as the name implies, always about creating illustrations or
artwork.

374
00:27:16,321 --> 00:27:20,204
But Fireworks really was for designing on screen graphics.

375
00:27:20,204 --> 00:27:22,045
It was one of the like

376
00:27:22,401 --> 00:27:24,844
quirkiest, weirdest tools.

377
00:27:24,844 --> 00:27:28,026
But it pioneered some pretty interesting concepts.

378
00:27:28,707 --> 00:27:29,508
What are they called?

379
00:27:29,508 --> 00:27:34,092
I think in Figma, they're called components or symbols.

380
00:27:34,092 --> 00:27:40,067
Basically, idea, maybe I'm thinking of they're called something different in Webflow as
well.

381
00:27:40,067 --> 00:27:45,802
But this idea that you could have, if it's a button, you can create that button as an
object.

382
00:27:45,802 --> 00:27:49,485
And then you can have that same button design show up everywhere.

383
00:27:49,693 --> 00:27:54,074
If you edited the color or the curvature, then it would update everywhere.

384
00:27:54,074 --> 00:28:00,998
But you could also have aspects of that element, like the label, the text label, that
could be different per instance of the button.

385
00:28:00,998 --> 00:28:04,129
And that's something that I think we take for granted now in design tools.

386
00:28:04,129 --> 00:28:06,760
But I think Fireworks created that.

387
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,981
I think they were the ones to come up with that idea.

388
00:28:10,209 --> 00:28:16,665
Which is really a wild idea to come up with from now, if you don't have that idea and then
you, know, it's, that's a huge one.

389
00:28:16,665 --> 00:28:29,173
I mean, I I went from, I come from working at Microsoft and there we would design our
mockups using Photoshop, which is not, you know, not intended for that kind of work and

390
00:28:29,173 --> 00:28:29,964
Fireworks What?

391
00:28:29,964 --> 00:28:34,097
Yeah, it was better, even though was like a much, in many ways, like a lower quality
product.

392
00:28:34,097 --> 00:28:38,950
could just, you know, Photoshop been around for many years and it's more robust at that
time, but.

393
00:28:38,952 --> 00:28:39,172
Yeah.

394
00:28:39,172 --> 00:28:50,993
Anyway, that's a, sorry about, sorry about that diversion, but I, a little nostalgic for
fireworks, but that idea that you would make a trip in a day and, either to collaborate or

395
00:28:50,993 --> 00:28:55,796
to have that in -person, that sort of relationship booster or both.

396
00:28:56,016 --> 00:28:58,458
And I would do the same thing from, from Seattle.

397
00:28:58,458 --> 00:29:03,441
would go to Mountain View for, for a day and leave in the morning, come back at night.

398
00:29:03,822 --> 00:29:05,582
And it was a.

399
00:29:06,207 --> 00:29:18,935
It was an interesting time at Google because I mean, the teams were really pretty small
and it was sort of easy to go down and in a day meet the people you needed to meet with

400
00:29:18,935 --> 00:29:26,402
on, maybe a few different projects, maybe meet a couple new people who were, leading up
other projects and build this.

401
00:29:26,402 --> 00:29:30,364
Like, I always felt like you're kind of refilling a bank account of

402
00:29:30,388 --> 00:29:40,643
rapport, you know, like you, when you're away from people for too long and working
together, I think there's a natural, a natural thing that happens where we start to feel

403
00:29:40,643 --> 00:29:48,736
like they're, they're the outsiders and like our tribe is just the folks here and that
we're working with the same person.

404
00:29:49,377 --> 00:29:49,853
Yeah.

405
00:29:49,853 --> 00:29:53,947
an abstraction of a person instead of a whole person.

406
00:29:53,947 --> 00:29:54,508
Yes.

407
00:29:54,508 --> 00:30:04,520
And I think it's probably a survival thing from, you know, like days of, of your, like
you, you can, you, you know, you can read the people who you are around all the time.

408
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:09,251
You, you know, you can develop a confidence that they're trustworthy.

409
00:30:09,272 --> 00:30:17,534
And, and when you don't see, when you haven't seen someone for a long time, you have to
sort of redo that, all that assessment of, I trust this person?

410
00:30:17,534 --> 00:30:22,067
Anyway, obviously we trust the founders that we invest in, but it's.

411
00:30:22,067 --> 00:30:26,149
Just a different feeling having come off of working in person.

412
00:30:26,149 --> 00:30:29,390
And now it just feels so much better working over video.

413
00:30:29,390 --> 00:30:40,135
I also though, came out of that thinking, okay, I have a bunch of ideas for how to make
the only do the physical stuff on the wall and on the whiteboard.

414
00:30:40,135 --> 00:30:49,258
That's really the most powerful and do everything else using, using Miro, even in person,
because it's going to be faster and more efficient.

415
00:30:49,258 --> 00:30:51,293
It's going to feel like we.

416
00:30:51,293 --> 00:30:52,985
we spent our time well.

417
00:30:53,106 --> 00:30:56,732
Although I still think we spent our time well, but we can do it even better next time.

418
00:30:56,732 --> 00:31:07,940
Yeah, we're always trying to get better at how we run sprints and how we run Character
Labs It's a, that one 100th.

419
00:31:07,940 --> 00:31:09,461
Yeah.

420
00:31:09,461 --> 00:31:18,447
My favorite thing about doing Character Labs in person was being able to much more fluidly
move between the teams and help them out.

421
00:31:18,447 --> 00:31:25,896
And this is, this is really like part of our pitch to founders is when they participate in
Character Labs that

422
00:31:25,896 --> 00:31:27,616
We're going to invest.

423
00:31:28,096 --> 00:31:29,496
That's the table stakes.

424
00:31:29,496 --> 00:31:33,396
We're going to write a check, small investment in each of the companies.

425
00:31:33,396 --> 00:31:36,866
But then we're going to work with them.

426
00:31:36,866 --> 00:31:48,757
They're going to get to work with us and with Eli, our partner, our co -founder, who's
been a VC investor for almost 15 years now,

427
00:31:48,757 --> 00:31:50,578
And so that's like the promise, right?

428
00:31:50,578 --> 00:31:53,199
That's the pitch of Character Labs.

429
00:31:53,239 --> 00:32:00,901
And I think that the in -person version of it delivers on that promise much more fully
than the remote version.

430
00:32:00,901 --> 00:32:06,653
And some of it just has to do with the physical or logistical ease of like, I'll just take
three steps over here.

431
00:32:06,653 --> 00:32:10,425
And now I'm looking at the whiteboard for, for team X

432
00:32:10,425 --> 00:32:21,402
Yeah, there's, it's funny to sort of, were in this big room, we booked this big, I don't
know what like massive conference room in a, in a hotel that's where we were kind of

433
00:32:21,402 --> 00:32:22,482
camped out for three days.

434
00:32:22,482 --> 00:32:25,353
And so during that time, it's really cool.

435
00:32:25,353 --> 00:32:34,688
Like you walk around and like, okay, right now every, all of these teams are working on
their differentiation and they're figuring out like, what's going to differentiate them

436
00:32:34,688 --> 00:32:35,378
from the competition.

437
00:32:35,378 --> 00:32:38,421
And so you walk around and look and you can just like,

438
00:32:38,421 --> 00:32:41,136
drop in and get involved in that conversation.

439
00:32:41,136 --> 00:32:42,068
That was really cool.

440
00:32:42,068 --> 00:32:43,158
Cause that's like.

441
00:32:43,158 --> 00:32:48,278
could be like, that, you know, honestly, this doesn't feel that differentiated.

442
00:32:48,278 --> 00:32:55,399
Like, you know, this doesn't feel like an area where you are really, where you really have
an advantage over your competition.

443
00:32:55,399 --> 00:33:00,982
is there something else you can consider and be able to do that in 30 seconds, you know,
just like step over and like do that.

444
00:33:01,021 --> 00:33:01,601
So cool.

445
00:33:01,601 --> 00:33:10,047
then the geographic reference, can picture in my head now when we're, as we're online
talking to these teams, I kind of like, okay, those guys, right.

446
00:33:10,047 --> 00:33:11,338
They were over there.

447
00:33:11,338 --> 00:33:15,941
can see their, I can see their thing like on the wall, you know, something like my mind's
eye.

448
00:33:15,941 --> 00:33:17,302
like, it's all, it's all there.

449
00:33:17,302 --> 00:33:18,733
I that's the way our brains are wired.

450
00:33:18,733 --> 00:33:20,624
Like that's anyway.

451
00:33:20,807 --> 00:33:35,531
TLDR, that was cool doing it in person and, also fun to be back home and, know, be able to
be in sprints every day and then afterward, be at home, which is, which is what I dig too.

452
00:33:35,531 --> 00:33:37,263
So it's kind of the best of both worlds.

453
00:33:37,263 --> 00:33:40,077
And I don't think we could have done this,

454
00:33:40,077 --> 00:33:42,578
long program so easily.

455
00:33:42,578 --> 00:33:52,591
It would have been very challenging to put this together and get the same kinds of teams
as involved, as focused as they are, if we were trying to do the whole thing physically in

456
00:33:52,591 --> 00:33:53,852
person.

457
00:33:53,852 --> 00:33:54,462
we're lucky.

458
00:33:54,462 --> 00:33:56,192
Yeah.

459
00:33:56,893 --> 00:33:57,653
Totally.

460
00:33:57,653 --> 00:33:58,593
Yeah.

461
00:33:58,754 --> 00:33:59,714
Yeah.

462
00:34:01,176 --> 00:34:04,948
The I actually, this is related to what we talked about at the very beginning.

463
00:34:04,948 --> 00:34:09,171
I'd had email installed on my phone.

464
00:34:09,171 --> 00:34:18,532
all last week, because in addition to Character labs, we also, we were hosting our annual
meeting, which we had about 95 people, many of our, our investors who are LPs and then

465
00:34:18,532 --> 00:34:22,592
many founders, not just the ones who are in Character Labs but other founders we've
invested in.

466
00:34:22,592 --> 00:34:26,053
Everybody was gathered together and I was running that meeting.

467
00:34:26,473 --> 00:34:28,474
so I just had, I had email on my phone.

468
00:34:28,474 --> 00:34:33,887
It was like this very like sort of busy kind of like lots of, lots of moving pieces

469
00:34:33,887 --> 00:34:40,322
Over the weekend, so we had the annual meeting on Tuesday and on Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday was Character Labs.

470
00:34:40,322 --> 00:34:42,914
I uninstalled email from my phone.

471
00:34:42,914 --> 00:34:52,733
I didn't look at my email from Friday night until Monday morning, which I don't know the
last time I have taken that long of a break from email, but it was a very good and very

472
00:34:52,733 --> 00:34:56,923
needed reset from the intensity of last week.

473
00:34:56,923 --> 00:35:06,968
Well, part of our whole mode of operation for the last decade plus has been we will do
something that's radically different from the way other investors work.

474
00:35:06,968 --> 00:35:21,035
We're going to work together with teams in these like intense bursts where it's days, even
weeks at a time working together all day, every day, and trying to line those up when

475
00:35:21,035 --> 00:35:21,855
it's.

476
00:35:21,967 --> 00:35:28,910
A great moment for the company when it's a, you when they need that help, great, we can,
we can offer this to you to do that though.

477
00:35:28,910 --> 00:35:35,545
It/we have to, make sure we're marshaling and balancing our own energy in the right way.

478
00:35:35,545 --> 00:35:40,227
Because a, like you, you can't do that every day.

479
00:35:40,227 --> 00:35:41,907
You can't do that every, every week.

480
00:35:41,907 --> 00:35:45,921
And I remember like a high water mark in terms of number of sprints per year.

481
00:35:45,921 --> 00:35:50,161
There was probably a time at Google ventures where we did like maybe up to like 30 in a
year or something.

482
00:35:50,161 --> 00:35:51,612
And it was almost every week.

483
00:35:51,612 --> 00:35:53,342
Did you occasionally have a week off?

484
00:35:53,342 --> 00:35:59,822
And it was something that, you know, a younger Jake could do for like a year or two years.

485
00:35:59,822 --> 00:36:03,412
like it, but it's like, it's not sustainable in the longterm.

486
00:36:03,412 --> 00:36:04,772
have to figure out how to balance it.

487
00:36:04,772 --> 00:36:13,482
So you're really doing the best work and also so you have enough time to have these other
conversations with founders to be picking good companies and to be,

488
00:36:13,523 --> 00:36:22,169
kind of aware of like, are we working in the best way and continuing to like find the best
spot so that we're not just continuing to assume that the plan or approach that we came up

489
00:36:22,169 --> 00:36:25,030
with a decade ago is still the best one.

490
00:36:25,233 --> 00:36:26,124
Yeah.

491
00:36:26,606 --> 00:36:33,499
The other cool thing that happened this week actually, one of our portfolio companies was
acquired.

492
00:36:34,262 --> 00:36:35,667
Yeah, it's really exciting.

493
00:36:35,667 --> 00:36:36,327
Yeah.

494
00:36:36,327 --> 00:36:37,229
Yeah.

495
00:36:37,229 --> 00:36:43,677
So this was, this was an investment originally that you and Eli made.

496
00:36:43,677 --> 00:36:46,385
you like, me the, give me the quick backstory.

497
00:36:46,385 --> 00:36:46,865
Yeah.

498
00:36:46,865 --> 00:36:47,176
Okay.

499
00:36:47,176 --> 00:36:56,292
So the company is called Reclaim and they have a product that basically manages your
calendar with AI.

500
00:36:56,953 --> 00:36:59,235
you, yeah, you give it some, some information.

501
00:36:59,235 --> 00:37:01,987
say, these are like my, my habits.

502
00:37:01,987 --> 00:37:05,480
have, I think they did a pretty good job with like the nouns in the product.

503
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:06,581
Like they have habits.

504
00:37:06,581 --> 00:37:12,433
it's like, what are the things you want to make sure that you do that often, you know,
kind of get pushed to the side.

505
00:37:12,433 --> 00:37:19,378
exercise, lunch, leaving the office at a certain time, whatever, sort of define those
things, tell Reclaim about those things.

506
00:37:19,378 --> 00:37:21,279
The next noun is tasks.

507
00:37:21,279 --> 00:37:24,912
So it's like, what are the work projects you need to get done?

508
00:37:24,912 --> 00:37:28,285
And a lot of times that comes from a task management system.

509
00:37:28,285 --> 00:37:30,706
You know, people use all different tools for that.

510
00:37:30,706 --> 00:37:32,597
And then, and then meetings are the other thing.

511
00:37:32,597 --> 00:37:37,080
So you kind of tell it the meetings you need to have, and Reclaim sort of, it sort of

512
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:47,361
Shuffles all those things up, you know, just like you would imagine if you had like a
really great assistant working with you and kind of, lay out your calendar and, an optimal

513
00:37:47,361 --> 00:37:47,671
way.

514
00:37:47,671 --> 00:37:50,981
there's a bunch more to it, of course, but that's kind of the simple concept.

515
00:37:50,981 --> 00:37:56,021
And, A few years ago, this was in 2020.

516
00:37:56,021 --> 00:38:02,581
Eli and I had started, we basically had decided we were going to start Character but we
hadn't raised our first fund yet.

517
00:38:02,581 --> 00:38:05,781
We were still kind of in the planning period.

518
00:38:05,909 --> 00:38:09,342
And I had been writing a newsletter.

519
00:38:09,342 --> 00:38:15,877
back then called Time Dorks, which became Make Time, our second book.

520
00:38:16,197 --> 00:38:27,962
And I remember I had written about this idea of scaffolding in your day, in your schedule,
and that you should set up some scaffolding.

521
00:38:27,962 --> 00:38:30,765
Just like you're painting a building

522
00:38:30,765 --> 00:38:34,906
You you could put up a ladder and you could paint, but then you'd have to like walk.

523
00:38:34,906 --> 00:38:38,297
You'd have to climb down, move the ladder, go back up the ladder, paint again.

524
00:38:38,297 --> 00:38:39,357
Very inefficient.

525
00:38:39,357 --> 00:38:41,508
If you put up the scaffolding, you can stand there.

526
00:38:41,508 --> 00:38:43,219
You've got a nice solid surface.

527
00:38:43,219 --> 00:38:43,859
It's secure.

528
00:38:43,859 --> 00:38:44,939
It's safe.

529
00:38:44,979 --> 00:38:46,364
And you can, and then you can just move.

530
00:38:46,364 --> 00:38:48,230
You could paint, you can work freely.

531
00:38:48,230 --> 00:38:50,020
You can use both of your hands.

532
00:38:50,621 --> 00:38:56,122
and I think if you can create some scaffolding in your schedule, you can say this is,
these are the big building blocks of my day.

533
00:38:56,122 --> 00:38:57,504
These are the things that are important.

534
00:38:57,504 --> 00:38:58,848
I need to make sure that I.

535
00:38:58,848 --> 00:39:05,402
that I eat and I exercise and I have time to unwind that you can work with both hands.

536
00:39:05,703 --> 00:39:10,105
You can be more free to do the work that really matters to you.

537
00:39:10,105 --> 00:39:23,004
So I had written, a newsletter about this and I get a response from Patrick Lightbody and
Patrick is the founder of Reclaim and he said, hey, love your newsletter.

538
00:39:23,004 --> 00:39:24,545
We actually have.

539
00:39:24,599 --> 00:39:36,914
built a lot of these ideas into our product Reclaim And one thing that people listening
should know about me and you is that we have tried like a zillion different like, you

540
00:39:36,914 --> 00:39:45,978
know, productivity, like tools and different calendars and, you know, similar to like
buying if there's a new type of phone available, we'll try it out or a new type of, you

541
00:39:45,978 --> 00:39:47,709
know, a device we're going to try it.

542
00:39:47,709 --> 00:39:48,869
Like same for software, right?

543
00:39:48,869 --> 00:39:52,562
If there's a new thing that's going to like help us better use of our time, like we're
going to try it.

544
00:39:52,562 --> 00:39:58,956
So I had tried a lot of things and I was a little skeptical at first, but I checked out
the product and it was really interesting.

545
00:39:58,956 --> 00:39:59,988
It worked really well.

546
00:39:59,988 --> 00:40:05,060
Eli and I get really excited about investing, but we hadn't raised the first character
font yet.

547
00:40:05,060 --> 00:40:07,851
So we invested, he and I as individuals.

548
00:40:09,464 --> 00:40:18,712
later we ended up transferring those shares into the first Character fund But yeah, that
was the backstory of our investment in Reclaim.

549
00:40:19,122 --> 00:40:26,717
I remember John introducing me to the idea of like, you know, you got to kind of design
your day and the calendar and then the calendar becomes reality.

550
00:40:26,717 --> 00:40:30,118
So that's a way to like control reality for yourself.

551
00:40:30,779 --> 00:40:34,121
That's a good, powerful concept on the individual level.

552
00:40:34,121 --> 00:40:39,304
It's really hard to create software that will make that happen.

553
00:40:39,304 --> 00:40:43,992
Make like an individual habit concept, come into real life.

554
00:40:43,992 --> 00:40:45,610
so many people have tried.

555
00:40:45,610 --> 00:40:46,271
Yes.

556
00:40:46,271 --> 00:40:46,741
Yeah.

557
00:40:46,741 --> 00:40:55,980
So many people have tried to do those things and especially something that can do it at
the level, not just of like help any individual access it, but help like a team of people

558
00:40:55,980 --> 00:40:56,901
access it here.

559
00:40:56,901 --> 00:40:59,924
We sound like we're giving like a big pitch for Reclaim And at this point, it doesn't
matter.

560
00:40:59,924 --> 00:41:00,674
They've already been purchased.

561
00:41:00,674 --> 00:41:03,346
So, you know, you could use them or not.

562
00:41:03,407 --> 00:41:09,253
we just recommend it because it's a product that might help you in your life, but we will
not accrue any future benefit.

563
00:41:09,376 --> 00:41:11,750
yeah, probably won't be acquired again.

564
00:41:11,750 --> 00:41:12,224
Yeah.

565
00:41:12,224 --> 00:41:14,181
Yeah, won't be a quality.

566
00:41:16,571 --> 00:41:28,194
Yeah, so it started as this angel investment by me and Eli, then a Character ended up
investing a couple of times.

567
00:41:28,915 --> 00:41:37,387
made an initial investment and we ended up then making a big bet on the company and making
quite a large investment.

568
00:41:37,387 --> 00:41:44,719
And part of why we decided to make that large investment was because we had worked

569
00:41:44,745 --> 00:41:48,707
you know, in between sort of the beginning and then that, that big bet, like we had worked
with them.

570
00:41:48,707 --> 00:41:54,930
We had worked with, Patrick and Henry as co -founder and gotten to know some of the rest
of the team.

571
00:41:55,281 --> 00:41:57,082
we had run sprints with them.

572
00:41:57,423 --> 00:42:03,968
I remember, you know, you mentioned in passing this Foundation Sprint which is what we do
in, in Character Labs.

573
00:42:03,968 --> 00:42:08,750
And one of the, one of the earliest Foundation Sprints that we ran, we had a different
name for it back then.

574
00:42:08,750 --> 00:42:11,754
We called it an Opportunity Sprint which is we could probably spend.

575
00:42:11,754 --> 00:42:14,294
three hours describing the differences.

576
00:42:14,294 --> 00:42:17,294
won't, we'll spare you that.

577
00:42:17,774 --> 00:42:29,194
Yeah, the 10 hour episode, it'll be like, what's that Taylor Swift song that has like the
eight minute version?

578
00:42:29,494 --> 00:42:31,274
All too well, I think it's called.

579
00:42:31,274 --> 00:42:35,714
There's like the normal length and then there's like a version of the song that's like
eight minutes long.

580
00:42:35,774 --> 00:42:40,226
Anyway, so we had run basically a Foundation Sprint with them.

581
00:42:40,510 --> 00:42:42,971
they were kicking off a new project.

582
00:42:42,971 --> 00:42:45,974
they already had, know, Reclaim existed in the market.

583
00:42:45,974 --> 00:42:52,818
But they were at this important moment for the company where they were going from like
single player mode.

584
00:42:52,818 --> 00:43:03,976
So it was a tool you would use to help manage your own calendar to like multiplayer mode,
which is where you could now use Reclaim in a team inside like a company.

585
00:43:03,976 --> 00:43:05,086
it becomes like...

586
00:43:05,086 --> 00:43:11,820
exponentially more complicated and more challenging from a technical perspective, but also
from a product perspective.

587
00:43:11,820 --> 00:43:19,035
Cause you're just having to think about, well, you know, just anytime you, sort of open
multiple calendars to see like, let me try to schedule a meeting.

588
00:43:19,035 --> 00:43:20,718
it's automatically tricky.

589
00:43:20,718 --> 00:43:28,033
And to think about like a UI for doing that in an automated way, it's just like this, this
potential like complete.

590
00:43:28,477 --> 00:43:36,150
you know, black hole of like, like, complexity and discussions and debates about like the
best way to do it.

591
00:43:36,150 --> 00:43:42,470
I think now they're, you at the time of the acquisition, had like 300 ,000 monthly active
users.

592
00:43:42,470 --> 00:43:45,910
think 40 ,000, more than 40 ,000 companies are using Reclaim.

593
00:43:45,910 --> 00:43:49,350
So they, they, they grew quite quickly.

594
00:43:49,570 --> 00:43:58,750
and so when we see that combination of like, okay, there's, there's strong quantitative
evidence that you're onto something and we've been able to see behind the curtain and work

595
00:43:58,750 --> 00:44:03,350
with the team in a sprint and build our own conviction.

596
00:44:03,350 --> 00:44:06,222
That's sort of the magic recipe for us to.

597
00:44:06,474 --> 00:44:11,622
you make an even bigger investment into a company, which we did in the case of Reclaim.

598
00:44:12,568 --> 00:44:15,419
Cool, cool story.

599
00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:16,431
pretty exciting.

600
00:44:16,431 --> 00:44:24,023
think that I like, my hope is this will mean a lot more people see this product and get it
in their hands.

601
00:44:24,023 --> 00:44:30,546
I know that was a lot of the motivation for the founders was like, Hey, a lot of people
use Dropbox.

602
00:44:30,546 --> 00:44:36,429
it's not easy to grow an audience as a, tool that you use at work.

603
00:44:36,543 --> 00:44:39,619
A lot of people do already have Dropbox in their work life.

604
00:44:39,619 --> 00:44:46,101
So we, we hope that it'll, it'll get to a lot more folks and help them make better use of
their time.

605
00:44:46,101 --> 00:44:48,856
That's kind of the, the bottom line.

606
00:44:48,856 --> 00:44:49,747
Yeah.

607
00:44:49,790 --> 00:45:02,130
One final cool thing about this is that the acquisition of Reclaim by Dropbox was really
driven by the CEO of Dropbox.

608
00:45:02,450 --> 00:45:13,743
he actually, when Dropbox went public in 2018, the CEO Drew like described

609
00:45:13,743 --> 00:45:18,463
this future where essentially a tool like Reclaim would exist.

610
00:45:18,463 --> 00:45:27,163
But I just pulled it up and he wrote, imagine getting to work in the morning to find your
calendar reorganized so you have a three hour block of time to actually focus.

611
00:45:27,163 --> 00:45:33,643
Imagine starting your day and seeing the perfect to -do list, one based on a deep
understanding of your priorities and your team priorities.

612
00:45:33,643 --> 00:45:39,727
So Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox, he wrote this in 2018 in like the

613
00:45:39,727 --> 00:45:44,607
the filing, you know, when the company went public, he was like, this is part of the
vision of the company.

614
00:45:44,607 --> 00:45:58,448
And so then like, you know, fast forward to early 2024, six years later, and Reclaim had
like, built all of that quite, but like had a pretty darn good start on building that.

615
00:45:58,448 --> 00:46:04,532
So when they got connected, there was just really good alignment between what the
Reclaim...

616
00:46:04,532 --> 00:46:08,538
founders were trying to do and what Dropbox was trying to do.

617
00:46:08,538 --> 00:46:19,122
definitely great to see that it wasn't just about the financial side of it, the deal,
which of course is important for us as investors, but to see that there's something more

618
00:46:19,122 --> 00:46:20,704
to this acquisition.

619
00:46:20,857 --> 00:46:21,628
Yeah, totally.

620
00:46:21,628 --> 00:46:23,529
it'd be really interesting to see what happens.

621
00:46:23,529 --> 00:46:29,543
mean, as we all sort of know Dropbox is this ubiquitous utility.

622
00:46:29,543 --> 00:46:36,538
And then I think they're, they have been trying really hard to figure out how they grow
beyond being this ubiquitous like file utility.

623
00:46:36,538 --> 00:46:38,659
And they have a lot of software tools.

624
00:46:38,659 --> 00:46:43,380
And I said, like a huge audience of a lot of people who, who use the product.

625
00:46:43,380 --> 00:46:46,264
But for many people, it's just this thing that just works.

626
00:46:46,264 --> 00:46:47,444
Like I don't think about it.

627
00:46:47,444 --> 00:46:48,475
It's just a pipe.

628
00:46:48,475 --> 00:46:54,489
It's a way I send links to people to files and the ways I make sure that my files are on
different computers and just works.

629
00:46:54,910 --> 00:47:05,799
I, that's like a really good, from our standpoint, being super time nerds, that's a really
powerful vision to have in the pre AI boom.

630
00:47:05,799 --> 00:47:08,710
Like, if AI was sort of doing this for you

631
00:47:08,710 --> 00:47:09,470
Yeah.

632
00:47:09,470 --> 00:47:14,672
Well, before we sign off, we share a couple of recommendations?

633
00:47:14,672 --> 00:47:17,222
You have anything to talk about?

634
00:47:17,222 --> 00:47:19,023
Actually, I'm going to kick off.

635
00:47:19,023 --> 00:47:20,593
going to answer my own question.

636
00:47:20,593 --> 00:47:23,634
I have a request for a recommendation.

637
00:47:23,634 --> 00:47:30,597
I recently was looking for a great timer app for my phone.

638
00:47:30,898 --> 00:47:34,639
And it's been a while since I looked for an app like this.

639
00:47:35,779 --> 00:47:38,460
There's really a lot of junky apps out there.

640
00:47:38,461 --> 00:47:42,623
just, I want a timer that just like will repeat.

641
00:47:43,765 --> 00:47:52,470
I want to set like a time, like two minutes and just have it like count to zero and then
to start over again, without having to, what's that?

642
00:47:52,702 --> 00:48:02,442
I am using it like for stretching basically, like I have a whole bunch of, I have like a
bunch of different stretches that I do and this is maybe, maybe too, too nerdy, but like,

643
00:48:02,442 --> 00:48:03,733
I, I just, I do the math.

644
00:48:03,733 --> 00:48:06,024
like, okay, I have 15 before like my next thing.

645
00:48:06,024 --> 00:48:09,564
it's like seven, seven blocks of two minutes is like 14.

646
00:48:09,564 --> 00:48:12,674
So I can just like do two minutes of each of these stretches.

647
00:48:12,674 --> 00:48:14,118
That's like seven stretches.

648
00:48:14,235 --> 00:48:18,935
That's When I have 15 minutes before doing something, I get distracted for 20 minutes.

649
00:48:18,935 --> 00:48:20,535
That's usually my approach.

650
00:48:20,535 --> 00:48:22,815
So, so I applaud you.

651
00:48:22,815 --> 00:48:26,305
I actually have, maybe I may have the thing for you.

652
00:48:26,305 --> 00:48:26,895
Yeah.

653
00:48:26,895 --> 00:48:27,315
Yeah.

654
00:48:27,315 --> 00:48:31,515
The bit timer app is called bit timer.

655
00:48:32,095 --> 00:48:33,095
Yes.

656
00:48:34,115 --> 00:48:34,615
Yes.

657
00:48:34,615 --> 00:48:37,455
And I think it's still, I think it's still great.

658
00:48:37,455 --> 00:48:39,455
Like, I'm just, looking in the app store.

659
00:48:39,455 --> 00:48:44,312
I've used it not long ago, but I'm looking in the app store right now because I want to
make sure.

660
00:48:44,312 --> 00:48:44,971
Bit timer.

661
00:48:44,971 --> 00:48:46,159
Yeah, I remember this one.

662
00:48:46,159 --> 00:48:51,339
end up with like an old version of an app that's like better and then they kind of don't
get up somehow.

663
00:48:51,339 --> 00:48:53,029
Yeah, no, bit timers are there.

664
00:48:53,029 --> 00:48:54,329
Look, not very popular.

665
00:48:54,329 --> 00:48:57,919
It only has, I mean, it has like 4 .8 star.

666
00:48:58,259 --> 00:49:01,108
It's kind of, yeah, totally, totally right.

667
00:49:01,108 --> 00:49:07,104
like gone into like app store spamming or like advertising or like, you know what I mean?

668
00:49:07,104 --> 00:49:07,455
Yeah.

669
00:49:07,455 --> 00:49:13,630
It's like a simple, I think it's just like a simple app that a guy made and it's like well
-designed yeah, it just works.

670
00:49:13,630 --> 00:49:17,204
So, it's developed by Peter Buick.

671
00:49:17,204 --> 00:49:19,555
Like just looks like a guy.

672
00:49:23,108 --> 00:49:23,688
yeah.

673
00:49:23,688 --> 00:49:25,049
So bit timer.

674
00:49:25,270 --> 00:49:26,250
It's great.

675
00:49:26,250 --> 00:49:28,932
Nice visual design, good sound effects.

676
00:49:29,034 --> 00:49:30,378
just does that.

677
00:49:30,378 --> 00:49:31,401
It's just a timer.

678
00:49:31,401 --> 00:49:32,453
It's great.

679
00:49:33,251 --> 00:49:40,207
Well, anybody, if you're listening and you have any suggestions, you can send us an email.

680
00:49:40,207 --> 00:49:40,848
Yeah.

681
00:49:40,848 --> 00:49:42,432
Can you beat bit timer?

682
00:49:42,432 --> 00:49:44,649
That would be phenomenal.

683
00:49:44,649 --> 00:49:44,959
Yeah.

684
00:49:44,959 --> 00:49:47,069
Request for recommendation.

685
00:49:48,709 --> 00:49:50,819
one other quick thing on that.

686
00:49:50,819 --> 00:49:53,000
I, I probably tried like 10 different apps.

687
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:54,170
Like this was over the weekend.

688
00:49:54,170 --> 00:50:03,270
I was like looking for an app, like one of them that I installed and you know, apps have
gotten like really aggressive about, the in -app purchases, with like subscriptions.

689
00:50:03,270 --> 00:50:05,350
you run into this?

690
00:50:05,590 --> 00:50:06,140
Yeah.

691
00:50:06,140 --> 00:50:07,190
Crazy.

692
00:50:07,210 --> 00:50:08,892
I installed one and the,

693
00:50:08,892 --> 00:50:09,872
There was no free trial.

694
00:50:09,872 --> 00:50:12,726
It was like, OK, you have installed this app.

695
00:50:12,726 --> 00:50:15,078
It was like free in the app store, but in -app purchases.

696
00:50:15,078 --> 00:50:18,541
then the first screen was subscribe now.

697
00:50:18,601 --> 00:50:20,744
And the price guess, guess the price.

698
00:50:20,744 --> 00:50:23,726
Guess the subscription price for a timer app.

699
00:50:25,008 --> 00:50:26,089
It was just a timer app.

700
00:50:26,089 --> 00:50:27,270
Yeah, yeah.

701
00:50:27,270 --> 00:50:29,463
Was a per week per week subscription.

702
00:50:29,463 --> 00:50:30,583
week?

703
00:50:32,563 --> 00:50:38,023
So I'm trying to think in my mind what's the least amount that you can actually bill on
the App Store.

704
00:50:38,263 --> 00:50:45,276
I mean, given that the bit timer exists and is so great in this, I don't know if it's free
or if you pay a one -time thing, but is it 49 cents a week?

705
00:50:45,276 --> 00:50:46,166
what's the least you can pay?

706
00:50:46,166 --> 00:50:48,136
49 cents a week, I guess.

707
00:50:48,376 --> 00:50:49,765
Yeah, that's my guess.

708
00:50:49,765 --> 00:50:53,585
one half, the price was $17 per week.

709
00:50:54,059 --> 00:50:55,280
What?

710
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:56,540
Wow.

711
00:50:56,580 --> 00:51:08,820
I can't fathom what you'd be timing where it would be worth that much because we all have
like, if you have a phone, you do have like a decent timer because the built -in timer on

712
00:51:08,820 --> 00:51:11,940
phones is like not bad.

713
00:51:12,240 --> 00:51:16,480
If the right, but like I'll manually repeat for like $18.

714
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:18,940
mean, unless you're just, that's all you're doing.

715
00:51:18,940 --> 00:51:19,580
21st.

716
00:51:19,580 --> 00:51:19,960
Wow.

717
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:21,340
That's a bold move.

718
00:51:21,340 --> 00:51:23,366
Somebody was really like, I'm just going for it.

719
00:51:23,366 --> 00:51:27,479
a dark pattern for like, like, like I want the app click, let me try it.

720
00:51:27,479 --> 00:51:28,851
Yeah.

721
00:51:29,935 --> 00:51:30,484
Yeah.

722
00:51:30,484 --> 00:51:31,184
it's like a dollar.

723
00:51:31,184 --> 00:51:33,215
Yeah, that's, that's yeah.

724
00:51:33,215 --> 00:51:33,765
Wow.

725
00:51:33,765 --> 00:51:34,965
That's wild.

726
00:51:34,965 --> 00:51:43,567
Yeah, I was so I also on that, I should, here's my recommendation for people, because it
has sort of segues.

727
00:51:43,968 --> 00:51:49,869
It's this, this, these episodes on the podcast Acquired about the history of Nintendo.

728
00:51:49,869 --> 00:51:53,060
And so it's, it's really like three episodes.

729
00:51:53,060 --> 00:51:56,263
It's two about Nintendo, one about like Nintendo from.

730
00:51:56,263 --> 00:52:10,184
founding of the company, which is actually like the 1890s up until the sort of 1990 -ish,
which leaves them kind of on the top of the world dominant with the...

731
00:52:10,184 --> 00:52:18,864
I'm not going to go too into it I'm super fascinated by Nintendo and have read some other
stuff about their history and well, maybe that'll be a deeper dive on a future podcast.

732
00:52:18,864 --> 00:52:23,904
But that's episode one is like from the 1800s to...

733
00:52:23,904 --> 00:52:27,625
Like any S dominant and then episode.

734
00:52:27,625 --> 00:52:27,885
in the 1890s?

735
00:52:27,885 --> 00:52:29,016
Playing cards, okay.

736
00:52:30,128 --> 00:52:31,469
I playing cards.

737
00:52:31,949 --> 00:52:32,250
Yeah.

738
00:52:32,250 --> 00:52:34,693
And originally it was like a cement company.

739
00:52:34,693 --> 00:52:43,532
then the, they, like shifted to, they created this new company basically with like, I
think like the capital from the, which was this.

740
00:52:43,532 --> 00:52:45,155
great passion for games.

741
00:52:46,761 --> 00:52:57,035
Well, playing cards, I think it was a big business opportunity because they had been
illegal in Japan and they became legal, but gambling was still illegal.

742
00:52:58,856 --> 00:53:08,460
gambling was how people really used playing cards because like in a casino, if you were
gambling, you would use a fresh deck again and again again.

743
00:53:08,460 --> 00:53:15,743
so their main customers for a long time were the mob basically, like the Yakuza.

744
00:53:16,183 --> 00:53:21,526
but like over time they got into doing other kinds of like games and toys.

745
00:53:21,527 --> 00:53:31,695
And then that was sort of their, what interested them and made them aware of like the
emerging world of like arcade games and then ultimately consoles.

746
00:53:31,695 --> 00:53:39,369
But the first episode and Acquired which is a, I have not listened to this podcast before,
but it's sort of, you know,

747
00:53:39,369 --> 00:53:41,269
profiles of businesses in its long form.

748
00:53:41,269 --> 00:53:43,630
So they're like each episode is like three plus hours.

749
00:53:43,630 --> 00:53:47,371
it's enjoyable to listen to what they, they go, they go up to 1990.

750
00:53:47,371 --> 00:53:52,101
The second episode is about like basically up until today.

751
00:53:52,101 --> 00:53:55,953
And it's, it's also interesting because Nintendo just basically has this

752
00:53:55,953 --> 00:54:08,489
this cyclical pattern of big hits and then big flops and, and seeing how they man, anyway,
we'll, we'll, we'll go into it a bit in a future episode, the third episode is about Sega,

753
00:54:08,489 --> 00:54:13,490
how Sega kind of took over the market from Nintendo in the nineties and then lost it.

754
00:54:13,531 --> 00:54:16,492
and like almost went out of business and that's fascinating too.

755
00:54:16,492 --> 00:54:19,861
The whole thing is fine, especially if like me, you like.

756
00:54:19,861 --> 00:54:23,762
lived through that as a kid and you know, so really fun.

757
00:54:23,762 --> 00:54:35,838
But the hosts were talking about Apple and how, know, Nintendo and Apple have, there's a
bit of a similarity in terms of wanting to really put the customer first and really have

758
00:54:35,838 --> 00:54:38,302
this walled garden

759
00:54:38,302 --> 00:54:46,714
high quality, we're going to be the gatekeepers and make sure that the, games that are
available on the console in the case of Nintendo or the, you know, the apps that are

760
00:54:46,714 --> 00:54:49,785
available on the app store are like of a higher quality.

761
00:54:49,925 --> 00:54:52,026
And that's sort of a promise to you.

762
00:54:52,026 --> 00:55:04,109
the hosts were sort of making the point that Apple kind of set out to do that, but the app
store has really like devolved over the years as it has been a bigger and bigger, like.

763
00:55:04,207 --> 00:55:08,404
cash cow perhaps you know, it's very hard to say no to revenue.

764
00:55:08,404 --> 00:55:12,809
Plus the hardware sales have like plateaued in a lot of categories for Apple.

765
00:55:12,809 --> 00:55:20,077
They're still selling, you know, literal boatloads of everything, but like they're not
growing as fast.

766
00:55:20,077 --> 00:55:25,995
Meanwhile, like their services, like apps, like, subscriptions for like Apple TV, Like
that stuff continues to grow.

767
00:55:25,995 --> 00:55:30,192
So it's really important for the future of the company, but yeah.

768
00:55:30,192 --> 00:55:35,672
see, do they, you know, where do they lose their stamina for their standards?

769
00:55:35,892 --> 00:55:42,113
And I mean, you know, the fact that like the parental controls don't reliably work on
everybody's phones and like, it's kind of spotty.

770
00:55:42,113 --> 00:55:44,793
some people I know are like, no, I can turn Safari off.

771
00:55:44,813 --> 00:55:53,433
because of writing the distraction -free iPhone articles and make time, like I hear from
people about this and it's mixed and like, my son does it actually.

772
00:55:53,433 --> 00:55:57,083
And he's like, yeah, like I got it to work after trying like 20 times.

773
00:55:57,083 --> 00:55:57,603
It's just like.

774
00:55:57,603 --> 00:56:05,381
One time worked and now I just not touching it, but when they launched screen time, they
never would have let this happen that year.

775
00:56:05,381 --> 00:56:12,636
You know, like their attention was on it, but they didn't have the stamina to keep making
sure that everything works because it's not a big part of their business.

776
00:56:12,636 --> 00:56:14,708
It's like, it's just a good enough promise.

777
00:56:14,708 --> 00:56:17,410
And it's sad when you see that happen, but that happens.

778
00:56:17,410 --> 00:56:18,911
And that's kind of the app store too.

779
00:56:18,911 --> 00:56:22,686
Like, can you imagine if in the early days of the app store when

780
00:56:22,686 --> 00:56:27,656
You know, Steve jobs was like on stage talking about how like, don't need fart sound apps.

781
00:56:27,656 --> 00:56:37,466
Like if there had been a timer that charged $18 a week to use and like people would have
noticed, cause when there weren't a lot of apps, people have been like, wait, look at

782
00:56:37,466 --> 00:56:37,676
this.

783
00:56:37,676 --> 00:56:38,486
is crap.

784
00:56:38,486 --> 00:56:40,866
Like this is just taking advantage of people.

785
00:56:40,866 --> 00:56:49,216
And you know, now you cut to like, well, for 12, 14 years later, like their standards
might be a little looser for what they allow in the app store.

786
00:56:49,216 --> 00:56:51,126
Cause they're reviewing everything.

787
00:56:51,126 --> 00:56:52,566
They hypothetically

788
00:56:52,612 --> 00:56:55,775
In theory, they should know that that's the business model for that app.

789
00:56:55,775 --> 00:57:00,599
And that is probably just hooking people in and then like silently painting their
subscription.

790
00:57:00,599 --> 00:57:09,376
The other thing is if you try to ever unsubscribe from something that you've subscribed to
on the phone, or especially if it's something your kid has subscribed to, it's almost

791
00:57:09,376 --> 00:57:09,946
impossible.

792
00:57:09,946 --> 00:57:15,871
Like you have to look up a help app and like you have to go into like iTunes on their
computer.

793
00:57:15,871 --> 00:57:19,444
Like it's just, it's just, yeah.

794
00:57:19,444 --> 00:57:21,704
It's like, clearly they don't want you.

795
00:57:21,704 --> 00:57:23,054
to figure it out.

796
00:57:23,054 --> 00:57:25,535
you know, everything else is just, tap in here.

797
00:57:25,535 --> 00:57:27,246
And it's a just a little switch and settings.

798
00:57:27,246 --> 00:57:28,076
And it's like right there.

799
00:57:28,076 --> 00:57:29,996
They don't want you to unsubscribe.

800
00:57:31,197 --> 00:57:31,857
Yeah.

801
00:57:31,857 --> 00:57:32,237
Yeah.

802
00:57:32,237 --> 00:57:32,617
Right.

803
00:57:32,617 --> 00:57:32,907
Right.

804
00:57:32,907 --> 00:57:33,157
Right.

805
00:57:33,157 --> 00:57:33,397
Right.

806
00:57:33,397 --> 00:57:33,697
Right.

807
00:57:33,697 --> 00:57:34,199
Yeah.

808
00:57:34,199 --> 00:57:35,530
yeah, it's, it's interesting.

809
00:57:35,530 --> 00:57:38,991
And you know, it kind of comes back to that story about Dropbox acquiring Reclaim.

810
00:57:38,991 --> 00:57:45,513
That's something that like, we have very limited control over as investors, but it's
something that we think about in like,

811
00:57:45,513 --> 00:57:47,845
you know, talking to founders about how to make those decisions.

812
00:57:47,845 --> 00:57:58,143
And it is important to try to think about the longevity of the product and where your, you
know, your vision that we also see founders when they're just in the early stages

813
00:57:58,143 --> 00:58:05,859
beginning with what's the best chance that has of living on for as long as possible and
having the best incarnation in the real world.

814
00:58:05,981 --> 00:58:10,986
And we have like, optimism about it, but it's, it's tough in the real world.

815
00:58:10,986 --> 00:58:23,688
So, anyway, would request, recommendations from listeners for, stuff that you've read or
heard about Nintendo's history that you found interesting, because I'm really fascinated

816
00:58:23,688 --> 00:58:24,738
on the topic right now.

817
00:58:24,738 --> 00:58:28,996
And I've, I've read a couple of books about the, the

818
00:58:28,996 --> 00:58:32,539
sort of the consoles, especially in the, for me, it's really fascinating.

819
00:58:32,539 --> 00:58:36,491
Like the, the seventies, eighties, nineties, what happened there.

820
00:58:36,723 --> 00:58:39,385
one that's on my reading list as Console wars.

821
00:58:39,385 --> 00:58:50,333
hear about that one a lot, but it's just such a fascinating story about differentiation
and figuring out how to stand out from the competitors because it's tangible because a lot

822
00:58:50,333 --> 00:58:52,894
of us have had like a visceral experience with these products.

823
00:58:52,894 --> 00:58:54,095
I just think it's.

824
00:58:54,107 --> 00:58:55,734
there's a lot of interesting lessons.

825
00:58:55,734 --> 00:59:00,621
So if you've heard of something great, if you've heard a great podcast, great interview,
let me know.

826
00:59:01,037 --> 00:59:01,437
All right.

827
00:59:01,437 --> 00:59:03,116
I think that's good for today.

828
00:59:03,116 --> 00:59:04,848
Thanks for listening everyone.

829
00:59:04,866 --> 00:59:06,577
Yeah, yeah, thanks so much.

830
00:59:06,577 --> 00:59:17,042
And if you, you want to find out about the work that we do with founders, you want to
learn more about Character go to character .vc If you want to find out about new episodes

831
00:59:17,042 --> 00:59:19,593
of this podcast, please subscribe.

832
00:59:19,593 --> 00:59:21,254
We would really appreciate that.

833
00:59:21,254 --> 00:59:26,667
Whether that's Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you like to listen, or go to the
sprintbook .com.

834
00:59:26,667 --> 00:59:32,079
You can sign up for our newsletter there and we'll, we'll send you an email when we've got
something to share.

835
00:59:33,021 --> 00:59:34,453
Anything else, Jake?

836
00:59:35,796 --> 00:59:37,148
All right, until next time.

837
00:59:37,148 --> 00:59:39,082
Bye bye.

838
00:59:39,082 --> 00:59:39,543
Thanks.