Overcoming Depression, Asian Parenting and Best Pokemon of All Time | Eric Wei DSH #332

It's a really fun time to see people making money off their passions because that's where you have true happiness, man.

Yeah.

If we're being honest, when you're just working for money, it's usually not happiness.

Where initially to be happy, you just need very basic things like shelter and food and then it's like friendship.

But eventually you get to like self-actualization.

And as humans, we have this like really weird tendency where we adjust our happiness level depending on our environment.

Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe.

It helps a lot with the algorithm.

It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team.

Truly means a lot.

Thank you guys for supporting.

And here's the episode.

Ladies and gentlemen, very special guest today, Eric Way of Carrot.

How's it going, man?

Pretty well.

Sean, thanks so much for inviting me on today.

Absolutely.

We had a fun dinner last night, dude.

Yeah.

Great catching up with you.

I'm just happy.

You know, I know you were traveling in a town.

I got a text stream like, hey, man, dinner tonight.

I'm on.

Whenever you're free, I'll come down.

Love it, dude.

And that means a lot to me because I know you're running a big company and you're probably all over the place.

Trying my best.

Making time for me.

I feel special.

Respect and appreciation step-wise.

Let's start off light.

Okay.

We'll dive into some serious stuff later, but what's the best Pokemon of all time?

I would have to go with Ditto.

Ditto?

Yeah.

So, first of all, just spiritually, I like that Ditto is very adaptable, depending on the environment, the situation.

It turns into what it needs to be in that given case.

And also, I play a little bit of competitive Pokemon too, these simulators online.

Ditto is actually very, very good because you can equip it with an item that not only means that it copies exactly what the opposing Pokemon is, but that it's faster.

And so if you let an opponent's Pokemon set up and power itself up, you can just bring in a Ditto.

It'll copy all of those changes, all of those stat boosts, and be faster and be able to take them out.

So I really, really like the Ditto vibe, the Ditto.

I've never gotten that answer before, so I'm impressed.

Yeah, it's probably because uh most of the people you interview aren't giant pokemon nerds they're their basement but uh that's that's me it's usually like pikachu charizard blast toys no that's too basic that's the starters that's the mascot right ditto's got a little bit of spice what does competitive pokemon look like i didn't even know that was a thing so nintendo has an official pokemon set of rules but it's all focused on doubles like you have two pokemon fighting against your other trainer who also has two pokemon but the thing is in the games no one ever really fights that much with doubles.

It's usually singles.

And so I really love this.

A bunch of grassroots Pokemon fanatics, it's not sanctioned by Nintendo.

They came up with their own rule set for singles Pokemon battling, and they built their own software and website called Pokemon Showdown.

It's all unofficial.

It's all unsanctioned by Nintendo.

And there are probably thousands and millions of people who now just go online and can play Pokemon and battle against each other.

picking these simulated teams without having to go through the games and like train up their specific Pokemon.

Wow.

Yeah, I see it as a great example of like sometimes the originator might not build out the grassroots competitive scene, but if the players like it, they'll go and figure it out themselves.

That's so cool.

So it's not like a specific game, it's like its own game.

Yeah, it's like its own game with its own varied rules because no one really wants to go through like the actual game and train their Pokemon to be perfect when you can just generate them.

And then you just get to focus on the strategic part of battling against each other.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's dope.

That's a ton of fun.

And I play it way too much.

I'm going to check it out.

That sounds cool because you don't have to spend time leveling up to 99 and then doing exactly.

And I also do a remote, it's called random Pokemon battle.

So you get a completely random set, they get a completely random set.

You don't know what you have initially until you see it.

They don't know what you have either.

So that is a little bit of a strategic.

Oh, wow.

It almost feels like

in chess, there's like the normal version, but then they have like blitz mode where you play for like five minutes.

I'll get in like games here and there when I'm in the car.

It's pretty fun.

That's cool.

I'm a big fan of chess.

I play every day.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I play five-minute chess yeah i uh i feel like all the time i should have been learning chess i played pokemon so i mean there's pros and cons to both right yeah one's a ancient game revered by millennia of masters and the others you know cute nintendo japanese animal designs well the biggest ip of all time yeah it's kind of crazy i think for a long time so as you know my company focuses a lot on working with creators and businesses like yours who understand how to use content for a long time we'd always hear this common refrain when we told investors and partners what we want to do.

We'd be like, Yeah, we think this is going to be a booming industry.

We want to support them on the finances.

And they'd be like, Well, like, I don't know.

Like, can you really get big off doing content and building IP?

And I'd be like, What are you talking about?

Like, exactly, look at Pokemon, like, look at Rihanna, who's a billionaire, look at Taylor Swift.

Like, people for hundreds of years have built brands through the power of media that end up becoming unicorns.

And weirdly, a lot of folks in the tech industry don't value that the same way as they do as like a tech.

Shout out to My First Million, hosted on the HubSpot Podcast Network.

It is one of my favorite shows.

The hosts, Sean and Sam, have both sold their companies for over eight figures to Amazon and HubSpot.

They have on guests like Mr.

Beast, Rob Deerdeck, Alex Ramosi, and much, much more.

They bring on some of the top guys in their space.

They'll help you brainstorm business ideas that you can start tomorrow.

It's a very tactical podcast.

A lot of advice and tips in there that you can utilize right away.

I've literally seen almost every episode.

It's one of my favorite shows.

They do it remotely, which is super impressive.

In my opinion, most podcasts need to be done in person, but these two know how to make it happen.

So check them out wherever you listen to podcasts, MyFirst Million.

Tech platform, right?

Like from a tech investor POV, obviously they really appreciate and care about companies like Facebook and DoorDash, but they until recently didn't really appreciate, oh, like celebrities also can build six, seven, eight, nine-figure brands.

I see Pokemon, like, yeah, that's an example of IP.

And now the next Pokemon I think is more likely to come from McKinnon's basement drawing designs and blowing up than it might necessarily have to come from a conglomerate.

Yeah, I love to see where the creator economy is going because at first they just relied on views for money.

Yep.

And now it's this branding.

I feel like that's the next stage, right?

Mr.

Beast with the chocolate bars, Logan Paul with Prime, a bunch of creators.

Yeah, it's like eventually you want to scale and like kind of do your own thing.

To be clear, I don't think like the Pokemons of the world are going to go away.

I always think you're going to have companies launching their brand and IP that's going to blow up.

I'm just saying there there could be more versions that are a little bit more grassroots.

Yeah.

And now there's Pokemon creators that are making millions off Pokemon content.

Oh, yeah.

I watch a lot of them.

I watched that one guy.

What's his name?

He opens up the Pokemon cards.

Leon Hart.

Leon Hart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Leon Hart.

He's awesome.

And I think his stories are really cool because, like, Leon Hart used to be a lawyer.

Wow.

So many of us, when we grow up, we have a passion, and our parents tell us, oh, that's like a fun hobby for you to do on the side after you go and get your real job, presumably, you know, in law or finance or medicine or consulting or banking, what have you.

And I think Leonhard is an example of someone who went through that, was a lawyer, and now his life is focused on his passions because the internet makes it possible for you to support yourself doing what you love and sharing that with others.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a really fun time to see people making money off their passions because that's where you have true happiness, man.

Yeah.

If we're being honest, when you're just working for money, it's usually not happiness.

Yeah, I think it sort of comes down to like, you you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where initially to be happy, you just need very basic things like shelter and food.

And then it's like friendship, but eventually you get to like self-actualization.

And as humans, we have this like really weird tendency where we adjust our happiness level depending on our environment.

So

what maybe your parents who come from a different background might be satisfied with, like my parents, obviously immigrants, they were very happy just getting to a place of economic stability.

For me, it's because of their work.

Oh, actually, I'm thinking about that next level.

I am thinking about that self-actualization where it's not just, oh, like, how do I literally support myself?

It's because of their work that I generally can.

It's much more about, oh, like, what do I actually want to do because I want to do it?

Not because I have to and I need to get the finances and income to support it.

But I put that in the context where people often forget that like, it is a privilege to be able to think about work as something that personally fuels me.

And I think you only get to think of that when you've reached at least that minimum bar of, oh, I make enough to survive.

Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest?

Well, click the application link below in the description of this video.

We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life.

Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys.

Right, there is a certain threshold income-wise you need to reach first to come to realize.

And I'm very aware of like the privilege I have for my parents working hard and the education they helped put me through that I get to focus on those things because yeah, sometimes I hear people be like, no, like work should 100% be what you enjoy.

And I'm like, well, there are a lot of people like my parents, they didn't have that luxury.

Right.

And I also hear, and what I think is really cool, there, I've gone through my work now to meet a lot of people like yourself.

Like I remember for you, like you've built your own businesses.

You really had a grind.

Yeah.

Like if I recall, like you basically like in school had a decision and you're like, yeah, I need to do this to make money.

And that just is what ended up blowing up into its own thing.

I had to drop out to do it.

I couldn't.

There was no way I would have been able to do both.

Because school's a full-time job.

How much of it came from a place of passion versus a place of I literally need to survive or, you know, both.

Yeah.

So at first I would say money was the number one focus

the first five years.

Yep.

And now I'm at that second stage where money matters, but it's not the number one thing.

Exactly.

Like for me, there's a similar version.

So today I co-founded and helped run a company, but before that, for five, six, seven years, I just worked corporate jobs because that was my version of, well, first I need to make money and build the confidence that I can like live and survive.

And yeah, so I think just a lot of people forget there's always that first part of the journey.

You need to build that safety net and it could be doing something you don't like, which is most likely what you're going to do at first.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then once you're there, things start to get more fun, I think.

Yeah, that's precisely right.

Yeah.

And I know you've gone through periods of that where, you know, you were depressed, you were doing stuff you didn't like, and you learned a lot from that, right?

Yeah, I think like,

so life is always filled with stuff that you don't like, that is hard and bad.

In fact, I actually think it's by overcoming those things.

That's how you get meaning in life, right?

You read stories of like hairs who have like grown up with millions of dollars in their pocket and they haven't to do anything.

And I'm not sure if they're happy because they haven't felt like they've accomplished something.

You feel like you've learned and grown and grown and feel good about yourself when you've overcome something difficult.

Now, the tricky thing is the type of difficulty.

Is it difficulty that you feel like you had a hand in choosing, yeah, I'm okay going through this type of

because it's on my own terms and I'm going to overcome it?

Or do you feel like it's just pushed on you and you didn't have a choice and you're doing it and you're not even sure why?

For a lot of my life, it was the latter where I internalized all these expectations around, hey, this is what a good life means, right?

You want to go to Harvard, work these corporate jobs.

And like, yeah, the difficulty there, it's essentially, as you implied, this corporate drudgery where you're just working for other people.

And I think if you yourself helped decide this is the type you wanted to work you wanted to do and you feel it's meaningful, then it's okay.

But for me, I don't know why I was going through that.

I was just like, I guess at the end of the day, I'm doing it all to like make money, but then I have the money and it's just like, well, this sucks.

And so that's why, you know, like four or five years ago, I made a decision to try and do my own thing.

And like the difficulty, in some ways, it's even more on a day-to-day level.

It's really uncertain what we're doing on a day-to-day basis, but existentially it feels better because it's a challenge that I've chosen myself on my own terms more.

I love that.

Was there anything impactful that you learned at Harvard that you still carry with you to this day?

Yeah, I remember my freshman year, part of the reason I also got really depressed was because I had given up, in my mind, most of my life in high school to try and get into Harvard.

Like I didn't have friends.

I didn't have a social life.

All I did was just like stay at home and like study and grind tests.

And getting to Harvard, the big realization I had was like, oh my gosh, there are like so many people here who

have friends and have hobbies and spend time with each other and pursuing passions because they actually care about those passions instead of just doing so for this arbitrary mark and distinction.

And so in a weird way, it's like you can end up at Harvard because you optimized the heck out of getting really good test scores.

Or you can end up at Harvard because guess what?

You You just followed a passion you really, really cared about and you were so good at it that even Harvard had to sort of be like, okay, I recognize you.

Like both of those types of people end up there.

And I think it was me in the former camp meeting people in the latter camp where I was just like, huh, like they're not miserable.

Yeah.

And they're at the same place I am.

Maybe I've been confusing

the work to be done with how it reflects from a societal perspective.

Like I've been too focused on the latter.

And I should instead think about, hey, maybe there are actual passions that I should pursue and it'll get me to the right place anyways if I just follow them instead of just trying to grind.

The tricky thing was, you know, Sean, I didn't even know what those passions were.

So I had to go through a lot of years of just figuring out what I even cared about.

And how were you able to find that thing you cared about?

I think

the first thing for me was just to recognize that most of the things I thought I cared about were just coming from a place of insecurity and fear, things that I did because I thought other people would find me cool.

And if I removed that, I'm like, well, these aren't really things that I would want to do.

I think

learning to be aware of that was the first step.

The second step was then like, okay, now I should find things I like to do and not care what people think.

And they're like a little bit of two separate steps, right?

The first one's just being aware, like, oh, this thing I thought I liked, actually, do I really like it?

The second is, let me actively go do things, even if I think other people won't think highly of me.

And if that first step came during Harvard, that second step actually came when I was already like 27 years old with like years of the corporate world

because I had finally gone through enough of it to be like, yeah, you know what?

Like no one knows what they're doing.

This is not worth it.

And I'm just going to do what I want, even if it doesn't work out and people think it's really dumb.

And that's kind of what led.

to myself and my co-founder starting Carrot.

And I think the third thing that I'm realizing right now is, hey, you're aware that you have to figure out your own desires.

You now are willing to do them independent of what other people think.

I think the third thing that I'm personally going through right now is like,

yeah, just the level of uncertainty, right?

Like working in a corporate job, worst case is like, okay, you get fired.

You just go get another one, which, you know, is a lot of work, but there's at least like, it's kind of clear what you need to do.

Doing my own thing with my co-founder, yeah, it's just, it's like, we could be doing amazingly, or this could all just not not work.

And it's very, very hard to say at this given point in time.

Yeah, the startup world, that's something people don't talk about, but mentally, it's very tough because there's no safety net.

Right.

You have employees, you have families that are relying on you to provide income, and there's a lot on the line.

Yeah, I think learning to grapple and deal with uncertainty.

One of my friends, JT Barnett, once said, as a creator, the key to serious success is your ability to take as many punches to the stomach as possible.

Because like you put out content and like maybe it does well, maybe it doesn't.

And the point he was making was you just have to keep doing it.

I think that applies to entrepreneurship as well.

The effort that you put in is steadily increasing, but the outcomes of whether your effort is worth it, it's a step function, right?

You might see nothing for a very long period of time and then suddenly it works.

But you've been grinding this whole time.

That's something my co-founder told me.

And so there's this mismatch where you're grinding linearly and you're just seeing nothing and you don't know where you are.

It could be you're right just a little bit more or it could be, no, you're going to plateau for years more.

And this was just not necessarily a good use of your time.

Yeah.

And that's, I think, with the uncertainty, the anxiety, and there's a balance, right?

Because you can also experience stress and burnout.

Totally.

So you really don't know where you are on that map, like you said.

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, there's only two reasons why companies fail.

The first, of course, is you run out of money, which is obvious and basic.

But the second that people don't often realize is the founders give up.

And this

actually happens in the venture-backed world a fair portion of the time where the founders, they still have money.

And they're just like, you know, I have lost conviction of why I want to do this.

And I'm going to return it and just shut the company down because I think the opportunity cost is too high and I might figure something else out.

And so I really think, first of all, everyone makes their own decision, what is right for them.

I really think it's almost a balance between the initial mission, why you started your company in the first place, versus, as you said, like the burnout and uncertainty that you face along the way, which is like, it's hard and it's a lot.

Yeah.

How did you choose your co-founders?

Because that's probably a big reason companies fail, bad partnerships, you don't trust each other.

I think that the biggest determinant of your life is who you're spending the most time around, which is is why, of course, the partner that you date in a relationship that you might end up marrying, huge determinant in your life.

And if you're starting your own thing and you're working with a co-founder, it's the same.

Arguably, I spend more time with my co-founder than I do with my girlfriend.

And so they are and should be of equal serious consideration.

When

I was thinking about doing a company, for me, it was very important to find the right co-founder.

That actually, in a way, came even first before the specific concept or idea.

And I approached it as I would approach dating, which is

you have to expose yourself to as much surface area and opportunity as possible.

It's this concept of making your own luck, right?

Like ultimately, you don't know where you're going to meet that person.

So you kind of just have to put yourself out there as much as possible, going to different events, like meeting different people, following up on every potential lead.

So I ended up meeting my co-founder because, so I had made a career change.

I used to be in banking consulting and I already could see the people that I'd meet there weren't necessarily the ones that I wanted to be more like.

And I had done a project out in Silicon Valley and met people who I thought were like absolutely wacky and like super inspiring because they're so different from what I was used to.

Like one of my very good friends and I met him like in 2015 out in Silicon Valley.

He was like living out of his car, like working on so many random ideas.

And then one day he came to me and he's like, yeah, I convinced the co-founder of PayPal like, give me a million dollars.

I was like, what?

Wow.

And he told me this whole story of how he like finessed this interaction.

But it worked because at the end, he so believed in himself.

And the best way to pitch what you're doing to someone else is to really believe in what you're doing and just do what comes naturally.

And so I was like, I need to come out of Silicon Valley.

That's why I moved from consulting and making to technology.

It's why I joined Facebook and Instagram.

And one of the engineers on one of the teams I was working on one day invited me, like, hey, do you want to come to this board game event that I'm hosting?

I was like, sure.

again in this mode you kind of want to say yes to everything and i went there and my co-founder was just one of the guys there playing board games and i really liked him he is going through a similar realization where he had also worked in a lot of like really prestigious jobs yeah like he was working at goldman sachs he like worked at pelantier and he also was like oh you know maybe i want to do my own thing which for him was start a venture fund or maybe i just want to like run off to the woods and just like go do pottery like henry david the roastan i was like oh i love that independently minded spirit like this is also a guy who's figuring out what he wants to do with his life.

And we just really became good friends for years before we really ended up deciding to do anything.

That's cool.

What are the biggest differences between corporate America, which you worked in for five years, and startup world?

Do you notice a lot of big differences?

I think in corporate America,

take Facebook as a great example.

Mark Zuckerberg sits there and figures out the goals for his company.

Like maybe it's increase revenue, or maybe it's build new technology to help us win the metaverse or AI.

And then he essentially has a team of people who take those goals and break it down into like five discrete chunks.

Like, let's say the goal is like increase revenue.

Well, like, okay, like, what are the five ways we make revenue?

Okay, it's like advertising revenue from Facebook versus Instagram versus WhatsApp or whatever.

And he'll

have another team go and break down each one of those segments into five more goals.

Let's look at like revenue from Instagram.

Like, how do we break that up?

Okay, here's like the five different ad formats.

And then you continue to have layers of people break down the goals into like five more components until eventually it gets to you.

And so

in corporate America, you are a cog in a machine where there's been some broad goal and it's been broken down to formula and split into like five, 10, 15, 25, depending how many layers there are until it's gone to you.

And now it's like, hey, Sean, like accomplish your goal to hit this one metric because if you do, and everyone else does that, it's going to hit this metric, which eventually ladders up to the actual goal.

And there's so many levels of abstraction that it might be hard for you to see how your work directly contributes.

And it's also been broken off into these tiny chunks.

Now, it's almost a truism that when a company gets big enough, you end up having to do this.

People have tried to figure out other ways.

In fact, Jeff Bezos at one point tried to have everybody focus on one goal, didn't matter what your function was.

It was figure out how the work you're doing directly contributes to company revenue.

Like if you're working in customer service, it's like, well, my customer service means the customer is like 10% more likely to buy from us again, which translates to revenue.

Or they're like 15% less miserable, which translates to like 5% more sales down the line.

And you end up dropping it because it was so much work for certain people in certain roles that are like 15 layers down to construct a math equation of here's how the work I'm doing like ladders up to this broader company goal as opposed opposed to when you're doing your own thing, especially in the early days, you don't have someone chunking up the goals for you and saying, this is your own little box.

It's just like, cool, like, go do whatever and figure it out.

And then eventually, as it grows, you actually weirdly have to become that system that breaks things into goals and gives it to other people.

That's why a lot of people say doing your own thing is really different from managing other people because managing other people is the art of taking those goals and splitting it up and apportioning it out.

Yeah, it's a whole other ballgame once you're outsourcing the work, right?

Yeah, super hard.

In terms of hiring employees, what stands out to you?

Do you even look at the resume, the college experience, or do you kind of get a feel in person?

I think the first important piece of context is I am still learning how to get good at this because it's a new skill to hire people and

know not only are they fantastic, but also

is the company the right place for them because you could hire somebody fantastic, but if your company's goals and plans change and it doesn't work out, then it's not a good fit.

And that wasn't even on them.

That was on you as the company leader, which is especially hard because you might not know exactly what the plans of your company are going to be.

So, the first context I'll say is: this is something I'm still trying to figure out.

The second piece of contics, you very specifically asked about, like, oh, like background, right?

Like, okay, like, I went to Harvard.

Like, do I really care if the people that want to join also went to Harvard?

I actually don't.

I see it as,

hey, there are so many metrics and markers in life that we care about because they might be reflective of certain virtues and attributes we're trying to capture.

But number one,

oftentimes you can game the system and get these markers and metrics without actually building those internal attributes and virtues.

Right.

And number two,

those internal values and attributes that you think are the right fit that are most important for your company and job, maybe they're not.

Maybe you're just actually selecting for the wrong ones.

So both of those areas of instrument combined mean that like, hey, like if you're meeting someone and they're like, oh yeah, like I went to Princeton and like raised all this money and whatever, it's like, okay, like they might actually be a really good fit or they might not, because it's really easy to, as I said, manipulate your life to hit these things without actually building the virtues that people think they correspond to.

So for me, I don't actually focus on those.

I try to focus much more on like, do you have, you know, there's X, Y, Z traits I'm looking for?

Do you have them?

That's a good point.

Yeah, because you can manipulate, you could cheat on tests, you could have family alumni in those universities.

You don't really know the backstory.

You don't.

And that goes to the first point I said, where, yeah, it might just be gamed.

And the second point I was saying, the virtues and attributes you think you're selecting for might not be the right ones.

Say someone like actually really did

from the bootstraps, from nothing, like made their way and graduated from Princeton or Harvard or whatever.

Maybe it just means they're really, really good at grinding and like taking tests.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean they could be good.

Like, hey, Sean, you brought them in.

You said, like, make content for me.

Doesn't mean that set of virtues they've cultivated are even the right match.

So it's kind of both sides.

It's like, is that actually even truly accurate of the virtues they've built up?

And then, like, are the virtues that they have even the ones that you want?

Exactly.

Yeah, they say book smart and street smart.

And for me, street smart's like business experience.

Yeah, totally.

And I much rather prefer working with street smart personally.

Nothing wrong with getting good grades.

Yeah, it's just different things for different roles for different types of people.

Yeah, exactly.

So with the current economy all over the place and being in the fintech space, you see banks getting bailed out by the Fed right now.

Is that worrying you at all?

The

market always goes through cycles where sometimes it's doing really well and sometimes it's not.

And we were fortunate that the past few years, for most of it, things were doing really well so well that inflation became an issue.

And the Federal Reserve said, okay, everyone needs to chill.

We're going to raise borrowing rates, which has helped to contribute to the economy in its current state, where it's so much more expensive to borrow money that people don't have access to credit.

That obviously slows down investment, slows down opportunities.

Similarly, investors are like, well, I can just put my money in treasury bonds and get like 5% plus or whatever.

I don't necessarily want to go put it in like more risky areas.

I think anyone who's doing their business needs to reorient their thinking from growth at all costs to how do I survive.

And I think realistically, if you're doing a fintech venture-backed company, you should just assume that you're not going to be able to raise four years and adjust your plans accordingly.

Right.

So a lot of success, it seems like, is timing.

Yeah, totally.

A huge part of success in life is opportunity and luck and timing and how markets are going to do.

Yeah, because you completed a Series B right before this,

I guess, recession.

I don't know if they're calling it that.

Yeah, totally.

We were very fortunate on timing.

And my co-founder and I don't pretend we knew what was going to happen.

We just got lucky.

And,

you know, obviously luck is preparation meets opportunity.

We're also ready at the time, but so much of it, you just don't know.

I remember we were going through Y Combinator, which is an accelerator for a lot of startups for us, but also companies like Airbnb and DoorDash and Stripe.

And usually Y Combinator culminates in what they call a demo day, where startups go and raise.

And it's supposed to be a big deal.

Like everyone's out there on stage.

All the investors are there.

It's when the fundraising dynamics are most in your favor for you to go and raise.

And we were in the winter 2020 batch, meaning our demo day was going to be around like April 2020.

I remember my co-founder and I, we had gotten some investment interest even before demo day,

which is good.

And it happens to a lot of companies.

And you make a decision, do I engage with this now or do I wait until demo day to maximize the opportunity?

Right.

And my co-founder and I were like, well, we really want to focus more on the business because we think we can get it to an even better place before demo day.

And besides, what could possibly change in the next month that would totally destroy investor interest?

Yeah, obviously

happened.

Demoday disappeared.

Like in the span of one month, it went from like people were like, yeah, I want to talk with you.

I'm interested in investing to like nobody wants to invest.

Because let me put this way.

When the world is falling apart and you were literally afraid if you will survive, guess what?

You reprioritize your interest.

And then like we're coming along and be like, we want to help influencers with their finances.

Is this really the most important thing?

Probably not.

And that's an example where timing actually hurt us.

And so that's why I say, like, sometimes timing helps us, sometimes it hurts us.

And that's just the uncertainty you have to be willing to take whenever you decide to do your own thing.

Yeah.

Man, timing.

Yeah.

Who would have thought that would have ever happened?

Oh, yeah.

My co-founder, I remember it's like, if life were a sitcom, you would have that flashback where we were literally like, what could possibly change in the next month?

We should just hold off and wait until demo day.

Wow.

So you had to wait until ended to raise money?

Well, we still raised, but it was a lot harder.

And I don't think the terms were as good.

So, you know, but like you just sort of, you hope that if you just last long enough,

the ups and downs sort of balance out.

So like, yeah, right now markets are really, really bad.

But hey, as long as we can maintain the conviction and funds and last through it, we think they'll eventually recover.

Yeah.

Has your end goal vision of the company changed from day one over time?

The mission's always been the same.

And that's to help creators run their businesses because it's easier than ever to make content, to distribute it, and make money.

It's only now people are beginning to think of like this is a business, and everything involved in helping run that around your finances and managing it.

That's what we care about.

It goes back to another broader point I always think about: what defines a company?

Is it the people?

Well, guess what?

The people could change, right?

People come and go.

Even the founders sometimes depart.

Is it the products?

Well, companies pivot all the time.

They might discontinue certain lines.

They might launch new lines of products.

For me, I think it's not the people or the products or the branding.

It's like the mission.

If that stayed the same, that's ultimately like what defines a company as the same continued company.

Yeah, I love that.

I see content creators as sort of the modern day celebrity because it used to be movie stars, pro athletes.

But now you're seeing with these content creators, they have a really engaged following.

Because these movie stars, they'll advertise the same product as like someone with a big YouTube and they won't get the same results.

I think people really resonate with these content creators, these influencers.

Do you agree?

Yeah, I think what's really cool about being a creator is that it is actually an extremely broad term now that encompasses so many different models of how to make a living.

So when you think about creators or content-led companies, they include people who are very much like celebrities.

Like they're influencers.

They're very well known from the content that they put out there and they monetize via advertising or brand deals.

And many of them actually want to go into Hollywood.

But then you meet creators who are not even on camera and they're almost like content production companies and they have no interest in going to Hollywood.

They just want to grow and scale like a faceless content enterprise.

Then you have creators who, you know, they're like a 42-year-old woman who like knits in South Carolina.

She makes videos about knitting and it's enough to support her and have a stable living.

And that's what she wants: to have something where she gets to do what she likes, share with others, and balance her work and life and have time to do the things she likes.

The term creator across so many, the myriad of different platforms, Twitter, Twitch, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Supstack, so many, encompasses all these different types of people.

So it's cool because, yes, you can try and be a celebrity, or you can be more business focused, or more be an artist, or just like, no, like this is how i make a living and it includes all of it i like to think i believe that one day

being able to make content and putting it out there to help you with your life and business will become so commonplace in the same way in 2023 no one's like are you an internet company it's just assumed of course obviously you're on the internet it's just more like what are you using the internet for i think that one day it'll be the same about content like yeah no one's gonna be like oh are you creators like well yeah like sure i make content but there's like 50 different ways that i could could be making and using it.

And that becomes the more interesting question.

Absolutely.

I mean, you see even brands now going all in on content, like old iconic brands that we grew up using and watching.

Oh, totally.

Like, some of my favorites, like, you know, Wendy on X, formerly known as Twitter, literally goes and like roasts people, right?

Or like Duolingo has turned its mascot into this like weirdly, amusingly creepy

owl that will like stab you if you don't learn your languages.

I saw that.

Yeah, and we're now seeing the next wave of creators and entrepreneurs.

It's all integrated from day one.

I have a friend, a few friends who run this company called Nectar.

It's like a heart seltzer.

It's a competitor with White Cloth.

I've seen them.

And they have a killer podcast and content.

And a lot of people don't realize the podcast started as a way to advertise the drink because they couldn't run ads because it's alcohol.

Wow.

And so then it becomes this very interesting question.

Is it a CBG drinks company that's become so effective at content brand marketing?

Or now is it a group of creators and YouTube channel who happen to have their own product that they promote and monetize?

Yeah.

Mine actually gets really blurred.

Yeah, for sure.

And you've been able to crush the corrupt podcast, speaking of podcasts.

Which episodes have been your favorite really resonated with you?

Yeah, no, I mean, thank you so much.

We started it partially, of course, for the brand because we interviewed a lot of creators and work with creators partially because, you know, for me, a big reason why I wanted to do my own thing was to tap more into the creative side of myself and getting to make content, getting to have conversations with my friends and share it was very meaningful meaningful to me personally.

I think for me, the conversations I enjoy the most

are ones where I get to walk away and be like, well, I've like really built a new friendship with this person.

So like I think a couple of really good examples.

So there's an episode I did with a creator named Zoe Unlimited.

And up until that podcast, I actually didn't know her that well.

Wow.

We had seen each other at a couple of different events.

In fact, part of the reason why I asked you to be in the podcast, we were at an an event where I went into use the bathroom, and somehow I forgot Sean to lock the door behind me.

And it's an individual room.

She goes and opens the door, and I'm like in the middle of doing my thing.

She's like, Oh, and I'm just like, Oh, this is awkward because it's not like we don't know each other.

We know each other loosely,

but not well enough that like you can walk into a friend using the bathroom and be like, haha, that's funny.

It's not like, oh, this is weird.

So I came out and I was like, well, okay, the only way I see to address this awkwardness is to like, let's become even better friends.

And I just went to her.

I was like, so I have a podcast.

Do you want to come on the podcast?

She's like, sure.

And we went into the pod and we're very good friends now because we really got to know each other better.

Seen parts of you that no one else has seen.

This is true.

And so, like, in a way, like, I see that as you get to bring someone on a pod and not even just the content, you get to like actually build a relationship.

And so, and there are many, many pods where like Scumbag Dad, Stephen Heat, there are so many where I feel like I've now, I've now gotten to know them much better.

Even yourself, we've gotten to know each other better in the course of doing pods together than we would have otherwise.

And so for me, those are always the best ones.

And that's the beauty of pods, I think, that relationship building.

And now they're doing studies.

Apparently, you need seven hours with someone to really, I guess, mentally connect with them.

I love that.

Yeah.

So that's interesting.

I had my own version of this growing up where I'd say, I have to see you in like two, three different contexts.

Yeah.

But like, you know, you see a teacher, because, you know, I was growing up and I'd see teachers all the time in school.

And like, I don't think of them as necessarily full-fledged human three-dimensional people.

I think of them as teachers.

But then when you run into them, like at at the grocery store,

then you're like, oh.

And I think it ties to what you said.

It's like seven hours.

You need to see them in like a variety of different contexts before you really get to know them more as like a human being.

Were you that kid that went up to them in the grocery store or did you let them shop?

Oh, I would, like, I think I was very awkward.

So I had to like look at them, but like not look at them.

I had to like pretend I don't see them.

And if they like say something, I'd be like, oh, hello.

I didn't recognize you.

I never had the balls to go up to them.

Yeah, I just felt so weird.

Feel really, yeah, exactly.

Very like

wait you're not teaching right now what the hell who are you and so i think the most fun thing is like when you meet a friend and then you like run into them in like a totally different connex or like a totally different set of mutuals yeah and you're just like oh that's cool like now we're actually getting to know each other respect yeah respect yeah eric it's been fun man anything you want to close off with or promote Say Sean, thanks so much for hosting us.

So for those of you who want to learn more, you can find us on Instagram at TryCarrot.

That's T-R-Y-K-A-R-A-T.

You can find my personal socials on Instagram at Eric Tway, E-R-I-C-T-W-A-Y.

And if you want to watch our podcast, we're on YouTube under Tri Carrot again, T-R-Y-K-A-R-A-T.

So nice and simple.

It's a great show, guys.

Check it out.

Thanks so much for coming on, Eric.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you next time.