This week in startups is brought to you by
send Pro online from Pitney Bowes
save time and money no matter what you ship or mail. Try it free for 30 days and get a free ten pound scale when you visit PB.com twist Del for entrepreneurs level up your Hardware today and save up to 43%
and twist listeners can get an extra 5%
off by going to dell.com
MC twist
and mod Loft
the only modern furniture brand that offers Elite Design Fair
prices and delivery in days not months Cy Founders Venture capitalists and celebrities choose mod Loft get 15% off and free shipping at mod Loft.com twist. Hey everybody. Hey everybody. Welcome back to this week in startups. So excited about our next guest because
Like me he's been around for a while and he's built a lot of apps a lot of startups. He's got a lot of scar tissue and lessons along the way and he's going to share them with you today. My guess is none other than Mike mazur from Big Sky Health. You may not know the name Big Sky Health, but if you have been fasting you are probably been using an app called zero which I've talked about all the time and you might think that Kevin Rose is the founder of it because he's involved in it. Somehow we'll figure out what that involvement is today.
Mike manager has been in the industry since the web 1.0 days and he hired an intern marketing intern at some point associate from a Craigslist ad my good friend Kevin Rose and then Kevin hired him to go to dig a little company that Google was going to buy for a hundred million at the last moment. Google pulled out of the deal brutal. Mike also spent a bunch of time at Electronic Arts doing all of the big licensing titles and
Marketing for those you know, the Lord of the Rings kind of video games and seems like they made 20 of them and then went on to create fitstar which was bought by Fitbit which was a really Innovative iPad app, and that leads them to today when he is building a little collection of apps one in meditation Oak one of them in mindful drinking to cut alcohol consumption. That seems like something Kevin Rose would benefit from or has his fingerprints on
Called less of joking Kevin, but he you know, he likes to be like to Spirit or two and then of course, I think the Home Run of all home runs the the leading fasting app 0 which you know when I use it seems to have 700,000 people are so fasting concurrently. What's the usage? Like welcome to the program like amazing.
Thanks Jason. Great to see you. Great to be here. Yeah and a great run down. I should capture that for my own bio.
But yeah 0 is it's just been an incredible run and you know during covid we've seen as many Health apps usage shoot up. So On Any Given night you were talking about, you know, people can currently fast and using zero, you know, we're
850,000. Oh, so close to a million euro close got your second comma dose commas
coming does countless going, you know, and what's amazing is you can see week over week.
You know Monday Tuesday, Wednesday are the big big nights and then you know, Friday Saturday Sunday for obvious reasons it Trails off but it's around 800 850 thousand on the other
night. I noticed it seemed to have doubled in the last six months of my correct because it seemed like I was at three or four hundred thousand.
Yeah the end of last
year you've doubled in the last six months the act of
fasters more than doubled. So December of nineteen to today were more than 2x both daily fasters and monthly active users. Wow.
And part of that is the January effect, you know people show in New Year New You kind of stuff and they and we get a natural bump as do most of the health and fitness apps, but then we saw this another huge truant of growth not right at the beginning of covid. I think at the beginning of covid actually we saw down usage because people were they were freaking out constructing. Yeah distracted. They they were just trying to figure out where the world was going. But then around April it really
ticked up and as remained
I guess people like I did I was fasting and then that was exactly my pattern. I added the quarantine 15. It was probably last crew like the quarantine 10 and then I've been back on the app and then lo and behold I had emailed you earlier and said why can't I pay for this app? Like there's a bunch of features I want but you're not letting me pay for it. You just launched the paid version explain to people 0. + yeah explain to people what they get in the basic app, which has been free for a couple years.
I think and then what they get in the pay down
sure. Well the basic app and we should talk about that transition because that was really, you know, one of the most challenging launches I've ever done is taking a huge user base that's been free for years over to a paid product. But in terms of free versus paid the really the easy way to think about it is the free product is more of utility. You can track your fast we give you some basic content you get your Biometrics and stats.
Things like that and always the vision for zero is to provide more guidance. A lot of people when they're starting fasting. They don't really know what they should be doing. What the protocol should be. They don't know how they might feel during fasting how to work out what might happen to their sleep. So a 0 plus you get all of that knowledge. So you get you understand a lot of what's Happening inside your body when you're going through different phases of fasting, you know, 16 hour fast creates very,
And biomechanics and outcomes than maybe a three day fast. So we have this coach feature which on board you would ask you a bunch of questions kind of what you're fasting history. What are your goals and then it provides a longitudinal program for you to follow and it'll algorithmically adjust if your will check in with you on a weekly basis, and if you're wanting to push harder and and sort of increase the duration of your fast over time will help you do that or we can dial it back.
okay, and then a ton of content so our chief medical officer Peter T is one of the foremost World experts in longevity incredibly humble guy, so he probably wouldn't say that about himself but he is and so we have hundreds of videos and audio clips and segments and articles that really delve into the science of fasting and also the lifestyle of fasting so you get all of that with zero plus as well as really interesting correlations of your data, so you'll see
Our fasting affects your sleep fasting affects your resting heart rate all the things that fasting pretty quickly. I know you've been doing it for a while can have a pretty quick and dramatic impact on and so we give you that deeper dive into your Biometrics.
Yeah. I thought that it was really interesting how when you click on the center of the wheel and use like a sort of like a clock a circular clock to you know, track your progress it showed you the phases you were in you know,
Elastic bands. Yeah the fasting zones, but when you click on that Center and you try to learn more about the fasting zones, hey, that's when you get kicked into the upgrade cycle. And it's only 50 bucks a year or something
for ya a month five bucks a month. It's it's actually it's 999 a month. Okay? 6999 a year. Okay, but you know, we've had a few promotions we got a big promotion for our existing user base bringing them over and yeah, I mean we were committed again because this we have this huge user base most companies don't start.
Free and stay free for as long as we did or maybe they move into advertising but they don't make the subscription ask when you have as big a user basis as we do in most cases and so we were committed. Hey, let's keep everything free that was free to really reward users who have been with us not pull the rug out from under them, but it just put the onus on us to create a lot more value in the paid product. And so we're happy if you want to keep using it for free. We're obviously happy if you want to come in and pay
And you know, we're in V 1 of 0 plus has literally been out for not even eight weeks and our roadmap is super exciting but we're taking
it. Yeah, it seems like it was more than enough to convince me. What is the expectation? What was your expectation ballpark in terms of conversions 10% of users five percent of users and then ballpark, what would a Founder expect to convert low personal single-digit percentage is 1/2 percent convert on something like this.
Yeah. I think you know what?
We saw it fit star and that's that was my kind of comp, you know, we saw around three percent conversion, you know on the aggregate cause you've got different conversion rates on Android versus iOS, I think, you know a really great conversion rate if you can sustain it is around 5% and if you get 5% plus you're in kind of rarefied air. Now, of course it differs by, you know, the realm that you're in the type of app that we're talking about, but you 5% is what you want.
In we had dramatically lower expectations because we have this huge existing user base. They've been getting a lot of value from the free app many people, you know were telling me before we launched plus like, you know, you're gonna have a really tough time and we had an expectation of very low single-digit percent and you know, we're eight weeks in but after launch, we've almost tripled our forecast well on the upside and so it's been
Lots of work to do tons of experimentation. We have an amazing team that's you know, iterating not only on creating new features and more value but also, you know all the experiments that you need to do to get that conversion up. Yeah, but we're you know, we're really excited about the early
results right when we get back from this break. I want to understand pricing and how you determine the price of these subscrip consumer subscriptions that apps because the value of doing a consultation with a dietitian would be the equivalent I think.
Using something like zero fasting + 4 0 + rather which would cost hundreds of dollars a month at least thousands of dollars a year, but people also have now been trained to have Netflix or Disney for seven eight bucks a month or a video game for 50 bucks a year that provides hundreds of hours of entertainment. So I'm curious how you think about the pricing of these new health apps like calm or steezy or zero fasting when we get back on this week in startups.
With send Pro online from Pitney Bowes, you can simply print postage stamps and shipping labels. Even when you're working remotely for as low as $4.99 a month. You'll get access to special discounts and save up to 40% off USPS Priority. Now, if you don't know what priority mail is, it's amazing. It's such a deal Plus for being on this week in startups listener. You'll receive a free 30-day trial to get started and a free 10 pounds gavel
To ensure that you never overpay some Central online benefits include printing shipping labels and stamps even when you're working remotely scheduling package pickups and tracking shipments from departure to arrival and save up to five cents on every letter and up to 40% off USPS Priority Mail starting at four dollars and 99 Cents. You can calculate the exact postage online and print from your PC avoid trips to the post office. All of this is going to save you a lot of
time and a lot of money. So here's your call to action go to PB.com / twist to access the special offer for a free 30-day trial plus a free 10 pounds down to get started. That's P b.com. / twist TW iced tea to experience huge savings in your shipping costs and a free trial of send bro online from Pitney Bowes. Thanks again to Pitney Bowes for supporting the Pod. Hey, everybody. We're talking about apps subscription apps and of course fasting with Mike mazur the I guess
Founder and CEO of Big Sky health or the founder
founder co-founder CEO
great. And so we were talking a bunch about zero fasting. What is Kevin roses involvement in the company's co-founder or an advisor investor. What is he? What is his involvement? Cause I know you know, he's I see I saw he was starting the mindfulness like Facebook group when he was starting all this and I was like watching him experiment. Well, what's the relationship between you two on a business level?
Yes, sir.
Kevin and I go way back and actually Kevin started zero I've gone through some medical challenges and used fasting as part of that therapy and Kevin saw the success. I had using fasting decided while I was at Fitbit after selling fit start of them. He decided to go out and build like a weekend project and it was a very simple but recognizable manifestation of zero today, just a timer
You could track fast and this is back in 2017. I think and then when I left Fitbit and decided I wanted to go headlong into this world and Kevin want to go work a true and kind of add abandoned 0 I took it over. So Kevin's the creator of the original product and I went to true in April of true ventures in April of 2018 where Kevin was then a venture partner and Tony Conrad who's our board member now and went to them and said hey, I have a vision.
For this Kevin. Why don't I take it over we'll do a seed round of funding and then you stay involved as you know as the original Creator and part of the investment team and that's how it's stood until today and he's very involved in, you know, the future reviews and ideas for the project going
forward and you you hired him as a marketing associate. So he was like 20 years old. He just answered a Craigslist ad and you
Been pretty good at hiring Talent. Tell me about that moment in time when Kevin Rose comes walking into your office at the age of 20 his head. Yes. And what did you think?
Well, I mean Kevin and I have been friends for 20 years. Now that was back in around 2000. Yeah. I was a CMG I company and I didn't really know what I was doing. I was director of marketing I had left until as a marketing manager kind of a rank and file employee first start up first, you know head of marketing job for me.
Me and I knew I needed some help really on the marketing side, but analysis and product ideas and I had a small budget small head count and I put an ad in Craigslist. I think or Monster one of the early job boards. Kevin called me up. We kind of instantly had a rapport and you seemed really on the ball, even though his career was just getting off the ground. I think I was his first first or second boss.
And he just made a great impression and my gut told me, you know, maybe I'm taking a flyer on this guy, but I usually trust my gut on these things which is proven to be generally good and I brought him out to San Francisco. He was in Vegas brought him out to San Francisco and very quickly. He became kind of my right hand helped us grow the company even though the eventual outcome wasn't great for the company and we became mostly really good friends. So I saw the
On the wall for that company left Kevin stayed but we remained friends, you know up until today.
So you brought him to the ship then you abandon ship and then you never lets me forget that. Yeah. No, I know that and so but you had worked at CMG I which is hilarious for people who don't know 25 years ago an a guy named David whether all am I correct? Is that the right guy? I remember I interviewed him when I was a journalist. I think he was up in Boston on that Route 128 kind of
of Boston Tech Circle, but CMG, I was essentially like a soft bang / y combinator hybrid where they would start their own internet companies. They had billions of dollars in cash and they were publicly traded I believe and they had hit like a fifty billion dollar market something in saying them in vertical net. There were a couple of these ideally I was going to go public and the idea was it was the start of studio, right?
Yeah. They were the poster child for startups.
Yes, / I don't know what their exact thesis was. I didn't work for CMG a proper. I worked I was a portfolio company of them, but they just spread dollars and we're riding the wave of you know, no fundamentals in these companies. Eyeballs. Everything was eyeballs based. Yeah remember to this day that was the catch phrase of the time and I mean, they were sponsoring stadiums for you know, fifty million dollars and just doing all the things that have become kind of memes or
Or mythology of that time and yeah, we were we were in that Circle and then it as fast as it went up it cratered and it was during that crater time that I thought. Okay. I've got a got a rent to pay. I'm in San Francisco and left Kevin. He stayed a little bit longer but eventually went on to his own
Grand is what 2002 or something this is
2001
2001. Oh so before the.com crash, right because CMG I was still a little
resistant crash. Yeah,
really?
First thing when you think about that moment in time and I really haven't thought or talked on this podcast about the.com era in 5 or 10 years. Maybe we talked about in the beginning because it's such ancient history,
but we're old timers week we can relate to
this. What would you think about this for a second Mike when you think about capturing eyeballs that's engagement that's intention. That's attention, which is exactly what Instagram Facebook and YouTube are based on today because that engagement turns into advertising. The only thing they got wrong was that it was real.
The data right? It wasn't just the engagement. It was the engagement data. What did people watch what did they engage with which is really interesting. They got it, right and they went really
there's no there was no sense of unit economics either like that, you know today right? You can look at eyeballs and engagement as top of funnel, but then what is it accrue to right? And that's where there was no answer
people had no historical information on how much a user was worth. So a company with a million users. We now know if your Facebook Twitter, whatever.
We can actually tell you in which country how much they make per user per month and it's five bucks or 10 bucks or three dollars or thirty bucks a year. So you can actually value a business based on that today, but they got so much right if you think about it. It was just the timing wasn't sustainable and the way they were putting capital. I wonder if people will look at SoftBank as that moment in history as well or if somebody will get it right because there actually is a there they're in a lot of the companies they invested in
when anything right. I mean if you look at
you know pets.com was the poster child right for you know web one that I how are you going to ship dog food, you know, the economics didn't make sense and they imploded and now you look at chewy Brian's, you know, let's so fast forward to you know, easier standard technology Cloud really looking at the funnel and unit economics the infrastructure around shipping. I mean, it's working now. Yeah.
On one point five trillion dollar company, right? I mean who'd have known that the bookstore would have actually taken over the world as it were so Kevin and you you go down to EA. Yeah, you learn a lot there about video games. That's when I guess you go to La that's where he is headquartered was right and ply of Z stare at that time
started in Redwood City where their HQ is and then did a couple of years down in La Iniesta Juggernaut today year was, you know, the leading publisher when I was there.
Are a lot more competition now and everything switch to mobile and online but I mean, I just learned an incredible amount of that place the rigor they put around launches the size and scale of the revenue and the the audience that was really where I cut my teeth and how to how to run a business or at least part of the business at scale with really smart people around me. I was more of a minion it didn't tell where I was in the late 90s, but he is where I finally got a lot more.
The in and learn to put a ton that I brought with me until
today and you were responsible for marketing these games which the marketing would be Millions tens of millions of dollars in marketing at that time and they would make tens of millions or low hundreds of millions of dollars in Revenue
at I think the marketing so usually the formula was around 10 percent of the revenue would go toward marketing give or take and so with Lord of the Rings franchise. I think we worldwide we did a billion dollars.
Or thereabouts because we had multiple titles and on multiple platforms and so a hundred million dollars would not have been out of the realm of possibility for marketing
their amazing. It's a hundred million dollar budget, but people don't remember back then there's no Facebook. I think Google might not even be taking ads May. They're just starting to so really you're buying print television and radio. Is that right? Or maybe the AOL portal
ads so we did what we call the air War.
There's a ground war in an era where the ground war was talking to the community doing PR, you know things like that which was much more limited than because you have to like message ports. You didn't have Facebook. You didn't have all the methods that we have to talk to some the Insiders but the air war was where the action was at and that was traditional advertising. So you TV was the big lion share of the of the marketing budget and then print ads like Game Informer.
PC Magazine, that was where you would wow, you would have these beautiful large full color
adds multi-page beautiful ads back cover like these gatefold ads and gorgeous. They are some so can either put her I wasn't that busy.
Yeah, I mean and and look we've moved on and the the media is way more efficient and more engaging and more interactive. But there was something about you know, waiting for that magazine to show up in your mailbox a great experience this game and and and it really added to the mystery because you didn't have all this information.
Mission leaking on the web you that's where you got your news and you got your reviews about games
and and so invoked a lot of emotions, right? It was like a very powerful medium magazines people forget the the power of like looking at the table of contents or the back. Yeah age or you know a particular column this column. It's really there's something lost in that art form. You know, I cut my teeth on magazines in the early days.
So it's like vinyl. It's like it's like vinyl, right? Yeah. It's
I think if somebody started a magazine today about apps or startups or you know digital media a magazine about digital media today. That was a luxury product like $30 a magazine like the magazine books Trend in Japan where their keepsakes. I think it would do wonderful. I don't know if I could get to a million subs or a hundred thousand Subs like, you know apps do all the time but it was certainly is fascinating when you think about that art form. Just going away.
I know God may be looking back like vinyl maybe that maybe that could be something you dabble in.
No, it's too it's so painful when we get back to this quick break. I want to get back to how you priced and I want to hear the story of dig. So we're going to get into that when we get back on this meeting started.
Hey everybody. Are you ready to upgrade your workstation? It's time and I can get you up to 48 percent off right now. If you go to dell.com twist, yes Del for entrepreneurs is an actual program run by my friends over at doubt. You know, I love my down laptop. I got the Chrome OS on this one. I got these giant down monitors all over the office and I've been a fan of Del forever, especially the widescreen monitors. I love those and I love the laptops having all the ports on the side USBC.
Old USB ports HDMI cables ethernet ports all built-in no dongle life for me. I got the whole this shebang right here on this laptop. And what they do with Dell for entrepreneurs is they're trying to support Founders by providing resources and financing and tools to help your startup grow with their technology. So if you're scaling your company, that doesn't mean just hiring, you know, you're going to have to get high-quality laptops monitor storage all that important stuff networking printers, and you're probably going to have to send
this to people to build their home office is right now and what an amazing moment it is when you send one of your team members a beautiful chair or a beautiful desk and of course that beautiful curved 38-inch Dell monitor, all of my people have those not only at work they have them at home and they've always had them at home because I want them to be super productive and they will give you also free IT consulting with experts and they will help you do things like analyze your Cloud spending and
Save you money. You're probably spending too much. Of course, they'll has Del financial services. But this means is qualified Founders can Finance their entire Hardware project and pay for it in low monthly installments. What an amazing thing to do don't blow all your capital on buying a bunch of new machines pay for it monthly overtime great idea. And these tell machines are up to 48 percent off right now this summer right now get their dell.com twist twist listeners can get
up to 43 percent off and take that extra 5% off right now at dell.com. So Twisted thanks to Dell for making awesome products that I personally love and I've been using for decades as well as running a great company and providing this great support to the founder Community that's part of this week in startups really means a lot to me. Okay, let's get back to this amazing episode. All right, Mike mazur is here the CEO of Big Sky health and Kevin, you know, Kevin Rose friend of the show friend of mine launched. This is
A fasting at back in the day. Mike took it over got funding from my friend Tony Conrad who was also an investor in Fitbit which watch that one of my events in a friend of mine as well. They backed it and they have a trio of products Oak meditation less mindful drinking app. So you consume less alcohol and zero, which I think is the tip of the spear in the big one in this which you should try and she go pay for zero. It's called zero plus the paid product. What do you call it?
0 plus 0 plus got it. And so how did you get the pricing you came to $70 like six bucks a month something like that when you pay by a year a month. Yes
70 year and we had a launch a launch price of forty nine year for are all of our existing user so they could come in I got in a good yeah like to hear that. Yeah. Are you enjoying the product? I mean
I yeah, I really just on the advanced product. It wasn't what I wanted, but I was delighted to hear about the by.
Do you early I'm email Kevin early on and he siju. What I want is I have a high message thread where me and my brother who's lost 15 pounds fasting and my other friend Mike Savino who investigators Adventure partner in my firm. We would just post our results from our fast and just kind of give each other encouragement and then we would kind of drop off for a month then we get back on it and I want to have all three of the fasting circles synced so we can all do our fast.
Together and have like the Fitbit Fitbit compare competition because there's a there is a section in Fitbit where I got into these challenges the challenges work we hustle weekend single day, whatever and Peloton has that same Dynamic it's not so much for competition. I'm not trying to beat anybody support. It's more chat is it's more for being in it together and like yeah when I would be a runner I would run with people who I was the slowest runner in the group, but I ran my fastest times right which tells you
Thing right?
Well, let's break a little news on the show. Okay here or what?
Yeah that breaking news.
We are very close to rolling out exactly what you're talking about and with with challenges and with your friends, you know, they'll be group challenges. But also these kind of tighter Social Circle challenges and perfect. That's my team has no idea talking about this but
it's so on point with what you're looking for and what I'm looking for and what a ton of people looking for that can't can't help myself. So I do it. We are you
gonna do the thing where the circles are matched so like, you know Apple has the circles. Yeah, I go if I would love to see like all of us on the same shark will be on the same circle with our
pictures are you won't be on the same Circle, but you'll see your circle versus your friends circle perfect, and they'll be initially will have kind of
Of preset challenges that we set up right then you'll be able to do custom bespoke challenges with you and your friends. So it's been on our roadmap for ever. You know, we know people want this more Community. You see the number of people fasting but you want to actually interact with them. Yeah that encouragement. So that is imminently coming. I
love it. Thank you for breaking that it me and I understand why you went with the coach and the education piece first because I was going to Tim Ferriss as
Add cast or you know, listen, I'm friends with Tim. I was texting with Tim asking him questions about fasting. So like a newbie like you could read my books and I was like, no I'm friends with you. Tell me you just answer my goddamn questions on attacks. Like why would I read your books? Like aren't we friends to tell me just tell me what to do is I got six chapters on this. That's like when you asked me about Angel Investing, I answer the questions, I don't tell you read my book, but you know, I kind of had to do my own research on it and you know, like a pop over to Joe Rogan pop over to Tim Ferriss pop over to
Roses podcast but so I understand like you put it all in the app. That's kind of table Stakes. But yeah, these challenges are going to make it go crazy. And of course that's a premium feature. So you'll I think you'll convert the rest of the folks and it's kind of an interesting
ezw them. They'll be some for free to like we are very committed to democratizing this practice and I think you're going through what I went through my own experience with fasting. We just want a lot of people fasting God and and then it's
it's it's incumbent upon us to create real value not bullshit. Like, you know, we try and trick you into upgrading like real value for that paid tier. So some of these things will be free and some will be paid with with
inhale. I mean, if you if the free basic, you know, like Hey, we're in a competition together or we're sharing our stats that makes the product viral right which it is in viral now, so you get a little virality which is good for you.
It's word of mouth is our virality right now. Yeah, nothing in the
product. Nothing in the I mean literally I've turned 10 people.
The product just by saying my brother my friend Mike Savino people on our team because it is so great. And when you think about pricing that was another thing we were I wanted to get out of you, you know, the seventy dollars a year. It's the exact price of a a list title video game. Yeah, it's half the price of a Netflix subscription. How do you think consumers think about this as best as you can tell
there? It's a phenomenal question and there's no perfect answer I for us.
Us we went about it a couple different ways one the easiest way for anyone developing a new app to launch is look in your category. So Health and Fitness in our case and just look at your peers look at your nearest neighbors and see who's having success and and where their pricing so that's that's like table Stakes where you start so calm I think is you know, there's some analogs between fasting and meditation. We have content most of our competitors.
There's not enough content. So you kind of can start there and then you look at all. So you mentioned if you went to a dietitian. Well in our case we have dr. Peter Atia whose architecting both the coach programs heon's actually it's he and his team have like six or seven people have had a direct hand and we'll continue to have a direct hand in our coach algorithms recording all the content all the knowledge. They have amassed over there, you know hundred-plus.
Dated years of knowledge if you tried to become a patient of Peter, which I don't think he's taking new patients. It's a lot of money, right? And so if we can take the greatest hits kind of the 80% of what Peter how Peter would onboard you into his practice from a fasting perspective, which is a big part of this practice and kind of bottle that and give you that feedback loop and that content like we're
one percent of the
cost that way less than that. Yeah.
No, I mean he you would be a lot of money to do a personal consultation.
That's right. So we try to anchor on we obviously we can't anchor on that but that's I think the value exchange is if and if people are sort of seeing that and that's what Peter wanted Peter wanted to scale himself you can write you can only see so many patients. He sees how powerful this intervention is for metabolic health for weight management for for cancer prevention Moore's the science is showing, you know, what's that?
Gwyrth and our think are our users. They look at this as a lifestyle not a diet. So 75% of our users we pulled them they say fasting is a lifestyle, but I want to learn way more about it. They're kind of predisposed to wanting to dig in and 70 bucks a year. Yeah. Maybe it's the cost of video game. This is a year of that knowledge that. We're always improving upon I think, you know, we're seeing in our metrics that it feels like the right price and we're also running a ton of
Pricing experiment. So anyone out there who's grappling with this question like we did, you know, we have a whole infrastructure around, you know, annual versus monthly pricing free trial no free trial and you can pretty quickly over we've been at this for eight weeks now in Market, we're honing in pretty quickly on that economic curve of you know, what people are willing to pay what the lifetime value LTV is, but I think
During on your peers is probably the quickest shortcut to get which is a signal and is Need Is Right. How are
you? Yeah, the business will tell you and Andre doubles will tell you next year.
That's right and every month we're getting renewal data. So
yeah, I mean selling monthly is just I think the worst ideas
because it's tough It's
well, you know, the I think putting the yearly price at 223 the yearly price that one-third of the monthly price is where people are going to get to because if you are forcing people to make it
Of time a year decision. It's too much cognitive overhead. It's too much cognitive overload. It makes people anxious whereas if you grossly underpriced it and they pay once a year then when you're to comes around and if they used it twice, it's fine. Right so that I think that's the double-edged sword of maximization of Revenue and I think
that's a very astute comment and I think that we are, you know, we're really anchoring toward that I think right now we're at around 1/2 will continue to play with our pricing where it's maybe a half or closer to
to a third of monthly. Yeah, and the other Dynamic is we know we're at the beginning we're going to keep adding a ton of value to this product. We're not resting on our Laurels. We have an entire year if someone subscribes annually to really just get them even more stoked when that annual subscription renews, and we also don't have apple emailing you every month saying okay your monthly things billing. That's this hot you
don't overload that I can't hear ya. I just pay for everything yearly now and I'm just like the yearly is such a better.
All you and I encourage all our startups to just go with yearly because and grossly underpriced it because there's so many users out there if you look at what Apple I'm sorry Disney did to Netflix. I think the introductory price I paid for Disney was $7 a month. I
think if they with Verizon,
you got it free with rice. Yeah, if they had said to me you could buy it for five years at seven dollars a month, which would have been 60 months times seven. You know, I would have done it. I would have done it I would
I have paid the 450 or whatever. It was. I being you know, I would have just been like yeah, I'll pay it for five years like going to be watching Disney and Star Wars and Pixar film. Yeah the next five years and that just takes you think about the base of users that com.com has and full disclosure investors in the company from the seed round. So but we have steezy a dance company and we have fit bod a fitness company both doing incredibly well, and I think if you look at their
but not have monthly at all or they
just I think you all have charged have to order you have to offer.
But I think the pricing attractive to go annual is so attractive that you like a for when it's four months, you know, so when it's 40 bucks or 50 bucks, I think for people it's just such an easy decision to make yeah use it twice the enough value. I actually subscribe to I think early on like some video service for like foreign films Voodoo or something or video. I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, I'd signed up for it for a year and I watched like two movies and I was like, okay.
Itself, right even though it
wasn't as a cam you're an investor and has they have a lifetime skew we've grappled.
Yeah, I think life. What is your lifetime? 300 bucks? I think it's 300 bucks. Yeah. I remember when they said that experiment. I was like, I just forward it to Alex and I was like brilliant because think about it. You can always turn it off when you hit a million of them, right? Yeah. That's right. Okay. Yeah, the next nine million will pay but there's this is something special is going on here with consumer subscriptions where consumers are willing to pay for software again, what do you think?
Is behind that?
I think the software has gotten materially better in I mean they've always been willing to pay for video games and that's content. I think in the health and fitness space production mean when I started at fitstar production values horrible and you know fitstar partly was a success because of our production values, which was direct lineage back to my video game days where production value really mattered. I think the machine learning and AI to serve up content that's relevant to you.
Is is also infinitely better and I think users are finally getting value from these. I mean, I'm talking specifically about health and fitness but in general if they're deriving if they're driving value or having their life improve through these products then I think the value exchange is 50 bucks a year 60 bucks a year. I'm happy to pay it and so I could say I think the most
interesting point Mike is that outcomes.
from phenomenal I think he said really two really interesting things there the first I think people don't think about enough which is the production value, you know in video games the artwork the music the voiceover like they really pull out all the stops and they think of it like because of the revenue numbers like a major production like a movie whereas in apps people just think what's the least I can spend and that's my you know control costs, but outcomes is really the
First thing because during covid-19 saw was all the SAS companies had this like 10% 20% pull back and it was a pullback. I think like an acceleration you just after my business subscriptions of people who weren't getting the outcome and covid just made them look at their bills, right? Let's review my bills. I'm going to I don't know how long the stock market crashed. I don't know how long it's going to last. So let's do a quick audit. Let's check the Ledger. What can I turn off and now I will
My team's I put all of our SAS billing on to like a credit card that has a cap and that we can just turn off that one credit card. Like they're burner cards so that if we don't want if we want to stop paying for this particular product or these products, you just put a size card at one dollar a month and then they
burn a card my personal life
to yeah, there's that there's a bunch of companies do not pay privacy.com a bunch of them now exist. We can create these burner cards and I think banks are going to wind up doing.
Yet there's divvy for business that we tried. We tried three or four of them and I don't have an endorsement yet and nobody sponsoring the program yet. So but I think they all basically do the same thing, which is here's a card for you and you could do it. You can do unlimited card so you can make a car just for your necklace because it so I did that for the first one I test it was the Wall Street Journal you ever try to unsubscribe from The Wall Street Journal impossible impossible and I emailed Rupert Murdoch about it. Like literally I you know, I was like
You guys are taking my money who has hard to make the guys laugh. I just emailed them and I was like whatever this thing doesn't make sense to me like so you take our money through a web form, but you won't let us unsubscribe to a web form before security reasons because that's what the woman on the phone said to me. I said, can I ask you a stupid question? Why do I have to call you to unsubscribe when you'll take my money? She's oh because of security reasons. Obviously. I said isn't unsubscribing more secure like that's less of a worry than being.
Wrapped and like dead silence because I just work here sir. And I was like, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to turn to a cabin up the phone but I seems like apples that was the other thing people were saying was this subscription changes that apple and giving more control to people and surfacing the subscriptions and sending that monthly. Yeah. Yeah, what's going to cause problems and I think it's the opposite. It's built trust.
It's princess Yue Apple really made that stuff opaque. I you know, I'm obviously, you know company. I'm heavily involved member trying to
Tap through nine menus today. What do you find it? Yeah, it's like your Apple ID and then you're down a rabbit hole, but I think that's that's important. Right and you'd like I think the companies that are durable than the last it's like they make it as easy to unsubscribe and maybe they don't put in front of your face, but like don't try and trap someone. No, don't be a stable company. Yeah, and I think that you know, what a Rupert say, you're right back.
He didn't show you another time I pulled
A celebrity card micro celebrity card is my NBA League Pass.
Oh my God. I was dizzy
actress the first years build. Yeah. I hope this billing and I said, hey, wait a second. I signed up and then the building went up like a hundred dollars. So I emailed Adam Silver the commissioner of the NBA and I said Adam what's going on here? Like I never agreed to this and you raised my billing and it doesn't work by the way it you're blocking.
Out every Knicks game. This thing is not worth paying for unless I can get all my Knicks games. Like this is just too confusing and you charge an extra hundred bucks from what I paid and one of his people emailed me back and said you have a to free your subscription Adam appreciate the feedback. So that was kind of cool. It's cool. Yeah
CEOs, I don't have those emails I can write and I'm get I've been being double billed somehow by Netflix for I just checked my credit cards. Like I did what you said to going through my credit card stuff. I've been double bill by
Netflix for like 18
months he I when we get back from this quick break, I'm going to tell you how to solve all your reoccurring please Credit Card issues when we get back on this music
Hey everybody. Do you like modern furniture? I do and I am in love with a company called mod launch you may have heard of them. They make gorgeous really well-built elegant but affordable modern furnishings and I have one of their beautiful tables in my home and then I have another table that was imported and I get more compliments on the one that cost a fraction of the cost of the imported one from Italy I kid you not it is amazing. I love mod Loft because
Are built to last and they're beautiful and they're a fraction of the cost and also model
offers a lot of cool
services like risk-free at home trials and they deliver in days not months where team in stock we're looking for stuff that's in stock so we can get it there. We don't want to wait six months and their prices are spectacular even though they've won all these International Design Awards. They will give you free interior design Consulting to fit your style and they have exceptional customer service. I know this because
because the model of folks reach out to me at some point they said hey, we're big fans of your podcast and I said, I'm big fans of yours and we're like, oh, okay. Let's do something together. And here we are Ahmad Loft will furnish your entire home from your bedroom to living room dining room and outdoor with stunning items that will leave you and your guests in awe get in there and go visit mom Vlog.com twist for 15% off and free shipping. That's why Founders Venture capitals pro athletes and top recording artists all
Maude lost including me. So thanks to mile buffer sporting this week in startups and for making great products can't believe I love the products. Okay, let's get back to this amazing episode. All right, like mazur is here. Gosh. I mean, I literally need to have you on the show for like two hours because you've had such a career another way of saying you're old and you got the you got the scars web 1.0 Web 2.0 web 3.0 and now whatever rid now maybe it's called business now. It's doesn't need to be carved out but we were talking about
Out the reoccurring subscription hacks it turns out when you cancel your credit card, they keep your number so you as a feature and I don't know if it's a feature. They you still get your bills. Right? So if your credit card gets stolen and you redo your credit
card, yeah, you know Heather's the AmEx. So I had to them lost my card then they keep telling
me. Yeah, so here's what you do you cancel the card.
You just cancel the card and then you get a new card that has the ability to have burner cards and then you see who in the family or the company or you yourself what you miss because there's nothing on there. That's a showstopper and trust me when you're on a subscription when we did that with our SAS bills. We got a lot of phone goes really fast and I was like, oh one God somebody from the company bought this and we never looked at it. I think every company if they're not using burner card should cancel all credit card.
AIDS and start over every year it should be part of the financial part. So you all get it was a
burner card like it's certain type of card or you just allocate this Chase Visa is going to be a burner car.
No, you take your bank account. You connect it to the service or UK and then they say here's a card number. Here's a card number. Here's a card never give this card number or name and I called it Wall Street Journal and then I set it to one dollar and then what I did was I they'll let you change your card at Wall Street Journal, so I went to the
Your Journal I changed my card to the burner and then the very next month. I stopped getting billed that I need to call them on the phone. I need this it works. So well, I was like oh and I think this is going to become the standard is to put it and this is what happens when you squeeze too tight. I think this is like one of the things people learn you squeeze customers too tight. They come up with really interesting Solutions like BitTorrent, you know or Napster or you know, do not call right? We had the kid from do not call on the
Odd. Yeah, it was a great episode. So you had a health scare and you're willing to talk about it. So let's go there. Let's talk about the house care how that introduced you to fasting because I realized we haven't actually even talked about fasting itself and why this has become a trend now, we know that in our community people are into the Quantified Self and that started 10 years ago or 12 years ago with Fitbit and other things that you would clip to your belt and get your steps. So I don't think we
Talk about that piece but fasting specifically I stole my friend Phil libin who was fatter than me. I mean, he was big lose a hundred pounds and I was like Phil what happened? And he said to me fasting this is three years ago, and I said, I'm so impressed. We have to go get coffee when got egg bites and Starbucks the sous vide egg whites and he said here let me explain to you all about fast. And then I heard Kevin and Tim talk about it. So tell me about how you discovered fasting and what fast why fasting is
becoming a phenomenon.
Yeah, so the short shorter story of that is my road and fasting is very different. Thankfully than most people's most people get into it for kind of some kind of weight loss. That's a very common entry point the most common entry point my road was different. So when I was in the midst of selling fitstar to Fitbit, this is fall of 14. I've been feeling really kind of ill kind of like
flu and fatigue and just not well at all and you know fit the Fitbit deal is going through and within a week of getting fitbit's statement that they wanted to buy the company hadn't gotten term sheet yet, but they said we want to buy you and they were there were serious because they've been looking at this for a while a week later. I got diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Basically what I you know, we they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. They did an ultrasound and they said
I got lymphoma, and it looks like it's you know significant and so I went through I went to Stanford amazing institution have great conventional medicine very blessed to have that but I didn't want to just go through the standard protocol without digging in and figuring out how I could be the best patient how I could stack the deck in my favor with things that I would do in my lifestyle while I'm going through treatment and I came along the work of
Guy named dr. Valter Longo. He had been some very early work in applying fasting to mice that had cancer and we're going through chemotherapy and his hypothesis was which is turned out to be true. If you are in a fasted State and we're talking multi-day fast like five days your cell is going to a Mode called autophagy. It's like here it is, right. Yeah few cells itself, which is a protective state for your healthy cells.
But the fast dividing cancer cells have one Mission which is to take over the host keep dividing. And so because your fasted cells slow down or protected State and the cancer cells are fast dividing and going fast. It creates a bigger differential. Hmm for the chemotherapy to properly Target the cancer cells and that just made sense to me. I watched a YouTube video. It was like in his basement of USC in the school of gerontology. It was like this homegrown video, but of all the stuff that I look,
Looked at on my own that was the one that made sense and I felt like there was very little downside. It wasn't emaciated. I had enough body mass to take on a fast if I had the discipline and that's what I did. So I did five day fast for each of my six chemo treatments. So 30 total days of fasting over about three or
four so you a doctor nothing you just drank liquids water five days before and bullion, which is just be
Yeah, hisses no calories electrolytes. So I would do two days before the treatment to get into that state of autophagy right the day of treatment so that the chemo could Target the cancer cells more effectively and then two days after so that when I introduced food, I wasn't creating any kind of a growth signal when my stem cells were being produced after that third day of fasting which happens after a long fast.
Get stem cells so giving them a kind of a pure environment and I'm sure I'm watching some of the science here, but that was the general gist and I got they did a scan after two of the six the first two of the six treatments. They do a sort of a progress the Afghan a pet scan and they had they couldn't show any evidence of cancer. Whoa and it had sort of gone into remission. Now, I went through the rest of the treatment because that's the Playbook and you know, dr. Stick with
look for a very good reason but it was incredible it is you know, and and also my my response to the chemo fasting because one time I broke early my response to the chemo was much less kind of painful and nauseating when I did the fasting versus when I introduce food early in my in my treatment, so and
there's that's what there's been studies for a long time the science on
Calorie restriction is very clear that calorie restriction in mice and other folks or I don't even know if they've done human trials on this and I don't know how you do a human
trial Biosphere 2 if you remember Biosphere 2 were the scientists went in Arizona and they have really lived in a bubble for two years. They were all calorie-restricted. There's there's some different opinions on calorie restriction, especially if it's sustainable from a lifestyle standpoint.
And the nice thing about fasting in the reason so that was my introduction. I thought then I went nerd out on the lifestyle benefits the metabolic benefits. What are they have any benefits taking us through each of those sure so and this is really what we've been working on with Peter. So the most clear one is is really managing your levels of glucose. And if you're pre-diabetic meaning if you have a glucose that's between us.
Think a hundred and a hundred and fifty, you know, when you when you do a finger prick or go to the doctor, you can meet a pre-diabetic State and if you don't make lifestyle changes that can turn into type 2 diabetes. So there's really compelling evidence that fasting manages down your glucose on a sustained basis. So that's that's one clear benefit. There's a lot of science emerging around coronary disease and also around
Alzheimer's and cognitive decline. So all what what Peter Atia calls The Four Horsemen, which is cancer coronary disease diabetes and Alzheimer's he's a firm believer in The Sciences showing that fasting can really accrue to be preventive or at least help you if you have them in those in those Mallet, which is
a fascinating makes direct we have thousands of
users.
Thousands of users Jason that have told us that they have reversed their type 2 diabetes using zero and fasting now we're consumer-grade app. We're not a medical grade app. Everyone taking this on should consult with a doctor. And yeah, I'm regard especially if you have type 2 diabetes, but thousands of these people have told us they reversed
their type 2 diabetes which people have talked about that for a long time that in the willpower is the issue. So what are your thoughts on Willpower in relation to this? And do you think about that in terms of the app?
And I'm certain you
do we do I mean we try to you know, we try not to push people beyond what you know, that's it's a fine line between discomfort and pushing through that discomfort and and truly listening to your body on when to stop but the willpower game is really one I think with fasting and you've probably discovered this for yourself the diets for last the last 50 years have been you know what to eat right? There's a lot of religion on Paleo versus keto versus
has the South Beach Diet and you're sort of all day like trying to figure out what levers to pull and what you can eat and what you can't eat. It just gets very overwhelming and complicated that depletes willpower and discipline. Yes, the magic of fasting which is the when because it's so binary once you build up a little bit of a muscle for fasting it actually becomes super easy. You just don't eat in this window. There's no decision fatigue.
And then you set your goal of maybe it's 16 hours. Maybe it's 36 hours and you just know when you can eat again. And I think that's the biggest
unlock. That was the unlock for me. I lost like 15 pounds doing it and it was just and then I came back a little bit and I'm going to get back on it. But for me, it was really simple stop eating at 6 and then eat again at 10 a.m. Not the end of the world, right? Because if you think about it some number of those hours some number of those 16.
An hour's I'm asleep. So I'm asleep for half those hours or so. So that's not hard. So you really talking about just not eating for eight hours. And when I when you put a plate food front of me, well, that's a really hard decision for me. I just wanna eat everything. I love food. I'm gonna come
on you go to the here's a perfect example when I fly when I used to fly it right? I don't know what else shall never fly again when I would fly to the east coast. I used to like, you know, eat the crap. They bring this stuff around should I eat the cookie so night the
cookie
Haagen-Dazs and Memento without yeah, I know you're an American Business. I know you dig out the fresh-baked cookies. You just you gave it up you're in business class. It's okay to science.
Yeah, they eat whatever they brought to me,
but they get specifically American they put those fresh baked cookies out and they
all have two or three knighted. You're not gonna wear
United as a Sundays
if you make it into if you get the bump to First Class they have the cookies in the
Sunday's got it. But yeah. Yeah. I thought everybody got
us know.
On the back you get the peanuts. I got not penis against two halogens. Yeah, stop that do but I just I just said on this trip. I'm just on this flight and the pre-flight and post-flight. I'm just going to fast right and so it took all the and I used to feel like shit, right because I would you know irritation arioch and then there'd be a you know, maybe there'd be a drink or two whoop and you get to your destination. You just feel horrible. And so I just started fasting and it's a game changer.
Yeah such a game changer.
Tell me about MMA you had a great experience. I think when fitstar sold correct, there would be a yeah between good and great
good and great, especially circumstantially because I was you know, I was being treated with cancer in the Fitbit team and the true team who are oh right. I've seen the board of Fitbit. They
that's a material. That's material. You have to disclose that. So yeah you
Are in the middle of the yell and had to tell them. Hey the founders got
cancer dude. I was I was sitting in my, you know, hospital bag getting jacked up with chemo doing red lines on the term sheet. And then I had to figure out the right moment to tell them which was right after that and I yeah, I had to disclose it and I was that killed the deal.
a hundred thousand percent I was dealing with
Cashier
possibly dying and the deal done.
Yeah. I ended up having stage for I figured out so I was stage 4 wow, and I thought this is going to destroy the deal. Yeah, so like imagine my mental state at that time and those got I mean, you know, I guess a ton of bad luck got followed by a ton of good luck and deal went through and they supported me through it.
That's fantastic. You knows. I don't know if you've read Bob iger's book.
Ride of a lifetime. We're trying to get Bob on the podcast. I think he's going to come on and he tells the story of Steve Jobs telling him right before Pixar was being announced like the day before. Hey, I got to tell you something in confidence my cancers back and Steve jaw and Robber Tigers left in this crazy situation because he promised Steve Jobs. He had no, I won't tell anybody. It's like only my doctor my wife and you know, Bob Iger so Bob's left with this.
Choice of do this is material information, but that are locked the largest shareholder of Disney post. This acquisition is going to be Steve Jobs or his estate. Do we tell everybody I think where they wounded up to see didn't which means if the Pixar deal went South you would have this material piece of information hanging out there that could be actionable right if they if they thought job that's
crazy. I didn't realize it was you know,
it was somebody fact check.
The book is not super clear, but he I think he just decided it wasn't his place to tell everybody or maybe he yeah. No, I think he didn't tell everybody so it's
crazy. I knew that James Park would have to you know, digest it for himself right his own analysis and talk to the board. But I you know, I was I was 99 percent convinced it was yeah it was going to be it was going to and then and I how could I fund rate? I mean it was like it would have been riding a company because yeah.
What's that? What's that like being in your 40s?
And you get that diagnosis and you go home on that weekend and you're with yourself. Like what is that? What do you know about life that we don't having had that experience?
Yeah, a lot of things. I mean it's going to sound incredibly trite but I just really appreciate every day. Hmm and I think it but it manifests in real ways. You know, when I set up this company, I I said if the only way I can start another company is I got to have tons of balance. Hmm. I've got a live where I want to live. So I live in Montana now, not the creation of Sam.
Cisco I don't want to go into an office every day because that stresses me out. So I said the company from day one to be distributed. I set my life. I was very intentional about how I was going to be the healthiest mentally and physically I could be in running another company and that's turned out to be a blessing on many levels but really putting myself first not not in that sounds selfish, but it's really just part of that appreciation of being alive. Just wanting to be
alive and Thrive and then make my contribution in the world. And I think that that was brought home by this whole experience along with a bunch of other
stuff. Yeah, that that is I think very instructive that people don't realize the journey is all you have at the end of the day and we get very focused on the outcome of the startup of The Fast and you know, you have to enjoy the fast as well as the outcome that you're looking for. That's right Joy the process. I think that's why people get addicted to fasting when you think about it is
Lifestyle when I hear universally from people is I recaptured, you know, two hours a day of my time because I'm not spending it, you know eating you get back like an hour or two a day which you
can read to go your your efficiency and your time unlock is hard to explain to someone that hasn't tried it. But just getting back to that point about what I appreciate. Yeah, and I guess maybe instructor for you know, I hope no one has to go through this journey to get to that place where they're kind of making
um decisions that don't compromise their health or their happiness, but you know to give a shout out to Tony Conrad when I first went to him, I wasn't sure I wanted to do this. I was I still had a lot of scar tissue from what I called. I told him I used to read line everyday and fitstar. I was like stressed neurotic wasn't sleeping and I knew I can't read line like that again. I can do it for you know a few seconds, but I can't I can't sustain that and I almost dared Tony not to invest I said
Me I'm not gonna have an office. I'm going to split time between San Francisco and Montana and ultimately I just moved to Montana. I I may sell this thing for like ten million dollars or nothing which would be sort of a washout for you or I might go to the long run. Yeah, like I couldn't give him any like all the things that I said to get my round of funding at fitstar all the promises all the I just threw that all at the window and just said, here's what I need to be successful right and if you can't invest I told
Totally get it and he I think appreciated so much that day. I knew what I wanted. Like I was very deliberate with what my ask was and that I made the ask that I was transparent and honest with him. I think that probably ultimately made it an easier decision for him.
They ultimately what we're realizing in the startup game is that, you know, experienced third fourth fifth time, you know at the rodeo folks. They don't need to expend.
As much energy energy or time to get the same result as a first timer. So you will have yes. Yeah, I mean the your ability to focus and to block out and delegate what is not
essential and pattern recognitions and beg to
be huge like this time around your ability to say no to shiny new objects and distractions
combats the greatest thing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I used to spend so much time on Chinese.
Objects and like spending tons of time with companies that were sniffing around like nyko Nike sniffing around we spent hundreds of hours, you know, nothing against Nike, but that was just my own naivete this time. We're like zoomed in
and when you're zoomed in ultimately at a startup, what is that zooming in best spent on so when we talk about efficiency like Michael Jordan or Vince Carter or whatever older athlete in there, you know last on their last startup and their last
Been too broad and you see them be more efficient, you know and careful with their body. They train more. What are those things that you train more on and you're just more dialed into in terms of what matters.
I think it's very episodic and very company dependent but for you know, I think for us and for me, it's been what what is the the P1 P2 P3 of what we need to do to get to the next chapter of growth or next phase of growth and really being much better saying no to things.
That opportunistically come in which is very exciting to see that stuff coming in and you're wondering if you're going to miss it. But you know for us I'll give you an example in January, you know, we were getting ready to launch 0 plus and we had a bunch of other partnership stuff coming in and investment interest and we just said as a team like nothing else matters, but getting this product out the door at quality flawlessly and
It just it's kind of like fasting right? Yeah, it was binary is like product. This is what we this is what we had product operations product. Yeah, that was everything at our stage of a company. That's everything now that we have this product out there and we're getting product Market fit and revenue now the game changes now those Crow external Partnerships and growth are important. So we're reprioritizing and we just went through. Okay ours. I've never done okay ours with went to any of my companies setting objectives and key results. Those are very instructive every quarter.
We're sort of what are the focus points. I know you had 15 5 is 15 5. Yeah 1 we use that tool for okay ours and that's been a
greater early invest tool for us early and continue to have loved it. I've invested David's story. He's been on the podcast a couple of times. It was one of these startups they put a small amount of money. And when I was starting as an angel then put a little bit more in because the curve were steepening and then somewhere in year four or five the thing went whoop, and the market was ready for it and they were ready for the market and the okay are
Features got tile you love it who's really for employee feedback originally. Yeah. How are you doing at work? Yeah, and I was like, you know now we have it for reviews and
it's yeah
efficient and great. That's when I think it became essential right and I think like four different users different pieces are essential. That's what's really interesting about. Like for me the challenge is and the community will be interesting because already, you know watched enough videos on it. Let's talk a little bit about MMA you were famously I
Dig when my friend Jay Adelson was in the process of selling the company. This is all come out since the company was going to get bought for a hundred million dollars I Believe by Marissa Mayer at Google Google was getting inquisitive about Web 2.0 wanting to buy things and they pulled out of the deal in the last moment. What what tell everybody the story of them pulling out of the deal why you think they did and ultimately
You know what you learn from the Dig experience.
Yeah, well, you're pulling out all the all the stops on this
60 and you know, I basically left your cancer diagnosis and the Dig call the fun stuff at the end always in the third act because you know what, we've talked for a little while we built up a little Mutual trust and we know each other and I feels like now we can
no one else is listening.
Yeah, we have we've checked all the boxes about the other stuff going on. So let's get real here and have like, what's that moment like because you that was a big number in web too.
No, people think a hundred million now and they're just like never remember a hundred million. This is one houses in Noe Valley cost six hundred thousand. So this this was life changing money in a major way. That's right and Google. Yeah had they would just getting started buying stuff.
Take us through this. Yeah and Marissa Meyer. She was I think running product at that point. I don't know exactly correct rho VP of product and I think that you know, she had seen
What was happening with Facebook? She saw it was happening with Twitter. And I think they wanted to make a run in social media. And so I don't I'm not sure if they selected like the laser focus on this from the beginning and I wasn't at the board level. I wasn't privy to all of the way this manifest but I think she became you know, she had a hypothesis that this new way of organizing data through the lens of humans and they were doing Google News at that time. That was
Of a big big deal Initiative for them. How could you kind of blend Google news and dig to make something that was Innovative
in next gen realize that that's what they're thinking was. Yeah. Very good. Go on Google
News. It was all about it was very connected to Google news. So, you know they again I wasn't Jay was handling the conversations with Google but everything was going well. We had board approval apparently.
And the offer was made the offer was made. We think they did they interviewed all of the employees. So they I
mean this is the thing we're talking about eleven that not the 11th Hour of the 11th and 55th minute. Yeah
of the alignment and word has it. I don't know if this is the truth is that it was either Larry or Sergey, you know, it came across their desk in somehow in a way that was new to them or some detail hadn't been properly communicated and they
Spaced equally overruled wow, huh on the deal. Yeah, and so is this is why I
always gotta deal with the top person if you're doing MMA you always got to be deal with the top person so you don't get this if you
can if you possibly can.
Okay, you need the rabbi. You need the you know, consiglieri you need that champion, but you also need to have the top bot in from the beginning or something like this could happen.
Yeah, and for me that I mean I've talked about this that was one of the most instructive pieces for me on
On any kind of deal Em a fundraising important commercial deal is I mean it is not done until the ink is dry in the money's in the bank 100 like you just have to not count it happening because you don't know what's going to sideswipe you could be covid. It could be a miscommunication in the other company. I had another situation with fundraising m&a fitstar, which I can't talk about because it's under NDA. We're at the 11th Hour literally the 11:59.
Pulled a term sheet. That is crazy. So,
yeah, I mean it just is very instructive for Founder's listen Mike. I've taken enough of your time everybody out there. That's fun. Yeah. It's I mean I could go for another hour, but we've gone well over an hour now everybody go get zero fasting right now pay for it. It's worth it. It's life-changing. Even if you just want to dabble I highly recommend it. I think as a lifestyle change, I've been kind of going on and off of it, but I've had a hundred Day Street was my longest.
Fast streak but you know, I kept at the 16-hour
and leaving like be longer than me as my
longest. I just like the idea on a lifestyle basis because my weakness is the quantity of food Aid the inability to make good decisions about the food I eat and this late-night stress eating and it just checked off all those boxes for me. And so I think we'll check off a lot for you if you're listening and zero is the leading app go check it out now and if you having too many beverages, you know, you may want to check out less.
No judgments there and Oak. If you want to be mindful, you know, and you know after you pay for your cam, you can go get Oak but just in case the at the calm down Focus briefs. Oh, yeah. Okay, no problems. You have to choose you. Can you can download an oak, but yeah continued success. Thanks for coming on the Pod everybody. Go check out zero fasting. Seriously. You need a lot out of it. See you all next time. Bye. Bye.
