 This is Startup Resort Fund. In 1996, Apple had lost $867 million. And by 1997, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. According to the New York Times, they cut one third of their workforce or about 90 days out from running out of money. In a Hail Mary attempt to survive, the board brought back Steve Jobs as CEO. He eliminated 70% of their product plans, launched the now famous Think Different ad campaign, and reimagined their entire product line. Just a few short years later in 2001, they launched the iPod, which propelled them out of the red and into the black. Fast forward to today, and Apple is now worth over $2.3 trillion. Every company has to navigate setbacks. It's an inescapable part of the journey. This is the final installment of a three-part Bright Live podcast series where we break down how to build a distinct brand. In this episode, we are focusing on navigating and overcoming setbacks. On the panel, we have Jacob Pashnik, the founder of Lettuce Bro, Manu Savay, the founder of Alpha IO, and Lauren Brocastle, the founder of Sweet Lawrence. In this segment of the series, we discuss dealing with implicit bias while raising capital, why embracing big problems can lead to big growth, and how making the decision to become an entrepreneur is like switching religions. Welcome back to our last hour, how to build a distinct brand. On this topic, we'll cover navigating setbacks. I'm Nick, this is Diego. We're from Startup and Storefront. To my right, we have Manu Savay from Alpha IO, Lauren Castle from Sweet Lawrence, and Jacob Pashnik from Lettuce Grow. Let's get into it. All right, here's a setback. I'll give you guys a story. So right now we're in Benny Boy Brewing. You guys may notice some tanks behind us. We started this project pre-pandemic. We have to get approval to make beer or wine. In order to do that, it has to go to City Hall. In order to do that, you have to meet the council member and there's some politics that goes on. Our appointment for City Hall approval was St. Patrick's Day, and City Hall shut down two days prior to that because of the pandemic. And so now our project was in free fall. The bank was really almost walking away. And so we already had investors. We had already spent probably $100,000 just to get to this point. And it was like everything was about to fall apart. And the pandemic was not helping and everyone was in chaos, if you might remember what that was like. And so that was a real setback we had literally to walk through. Our tenant was also thinking, so Benny Boy Brewing was also thinking about canceling the whole thing. Who wants to open a restaurant or a brewery or a cider during a pandemic? Didn't make any financial sense. Nothing made sense at the time other than just like let's just anchor down and figure all this out. And we also didn't know how long it would be. We had to navigate by talking to the bank, moving some things with the seller. We were all in the same position but really we just committing to forward progress even though you're really flying blind. If you remember what that was like at the time and even the notion of building something where people would be indoors again was a huge question mark at the time. In LA, if you had any indoor space you were shut down as a business which is why there's a beautiful beer garden outside. And so the land of pivoting, you all have amazing setbacks. Let's get into it. Manu, you have my favorite one. Oh my God, yeah, I have a few. But let's start right at the beginning. So early days of Alpha, Manu has left her high-paid job in finance, has also left her husband, has decided to go start this crazy company and move to another country too. It was like everything kind of like came down together. And so we went out, we built out a deck, we did a business plan of, you know for the initial concept of Alpha which was an art company. The idea was to democratize the visual art market. We didn't know exactly how we were gonna do it but we had kind of like an idea vision. We went, we made a pitch deck and we started talking to people. And then I was in New York one day at my stepmother's office and she's an investment banker. And she's like, oh, this dude, you should talk to him. This lawyer, he represents this angel investor. He could be the right fit for this project. So we talked to the lawyer. The lawyer was like, he's gonna love this. He's been trying to find a tool to make the creative economy fairer for so long. This is perfect. And we're like, okay, cool. So we go and we have a call of this guy. The guy like gets it. He's like, you know what? You're trying to raise half a million. You don't need half a million. You need a million. Flight of New York, we were in Brazil at the time so we can meet in person, discuss the new diligence, go through the whole process. We sat in a room of a lawyer for a week, drafted this like crazy agreement. And like part of the agreement was we had to move from Brazil to New York which is the most expensive city in the world to actually go and build the company. So he starts sending a little bit of money, like $10,000 a month, $10,000 another month. So we're like, okay, we got our visas and we moved to New York. So we get to New York and I think it was like the second or third month in. We'd rented an office, done a really expensive branding process with Big Human which was like, they did the branding for Gemini. That's the agency we hired because we had a million dollars, right? And then he just comes by one day, sits down with us and says, listen girls, I've had a personal issue. Not gonna be able to send any more money. And how much was left on the table? So of the million? Of the million we received over small installments, 200. That was the total. 20%. 20%. And you were left high and dry. And like a year and a half because he trickled it down slowly and we were always trying to find out what was happening and the company was starting to grow and we had this big project coming in the summer and obviously it was terrifying. It was awful. I had literally no money to go out to dinner in a really, really cheap place with my friends for a while but we made this decision to really focus on creating sources of revenue. We started to find these bigger B2B deals and that's how we became a B2B company because we found out that the sales effort to sell to a corporation is exactly the same as to sell to an individual that's gonna buy one unit. That's why marketplaces are so hard. People don't grasp how hard it is to kind of like leave that scenario and we pivoted. And we got a licensing agreement with Zola and we started placing art in hotels and we started kind of like finding ways to like make ends meet but it was still really, really, really hard. And then when we started to find our groove I had a horrible bike accident and broke the right side of my body. So I couldn't move my arm, my right arm for six weeks. I had to like move back to Brazil, move in with my mom. She had to like wash my hair, feed bee, et cetera. And like while trying to run the company and trying to figure everything out. So definitely character building. So you're not the same company today if that investor hadn't pulled out. Like there's just no way that you would have been able to see that pivot and become who you are without that. Do you think it's the anger that fueled you though? Honestly, because to me it's like a real motivator, right? For someone to turn their back on you and for you to want to prove them wrong. There's several things. There's a lot of fire that comes from that. There's several things, right? I had some of it approved to myself that I hadn't like quit all of these things for nothing and that I could make this idea which was so important to me work regardless of the application of it. The other thing is it was maybe the best thing that ever happened to us because if we had gotten the full million, we weren't prepared. I was too young. Like I was in my twenties, like early twenties. And we would have burned through all of that money and we wouldn't have found a formula that actually connected with an audience and was scalable because that's what happens all across the Ivy Leagues of America. All of these overfunded business plans that never find product market fit because they don't have to because they can raise on a pitch deck. And for women generally, we already have to show way more kind of like attrition. After that happened to us, we had to show that we were a serious company before we could even think of raising a dollar. And so in a way I'm very, very grateful and he's one of my biggest allies to this day because he didn't do it out of- Yeah, he was really going through something. He was really going through something. It's not that he wanted to invest. Like he drafted all the agreements. He paid maybe 70 grand in legal fees on the due diligence that he wanted to do. So yeah, you learned way more through failure and you layered way more through pandemics and like all of the crazy stuff that has been poured down on us than if everything goes right. You win or you learn. You win or you learn. Lauren, what is, obviously you have a health setback early in your life. I think when I was diagnosed with cancer and I was 22, I mean that was like, I think that was a pivotal moment for me because thankfully I was cured. I saw life in like two ways. I was like either I just like give up and like life is happening to me and this sucks and life sucks or like I'm gonna do everything in my power to like build my dream life and like do whatever I can to be healthy and just take control of the situation. And I think like that's what turned me into an entrepreneur. It's what lit a fire in my belly because I think once you really see what it's like, sometimes I think we can feel invincible and until something happens to you or someone you love and then you're like, oh wait a minute, life is like super precious and I like wanna live with intention every day. And so I think like learning that lesson at a young age made me feel a lot older than early 20s and it made me just feel like whatever I have to do has to have a positive impact on the world. I have to love it. I don't really care about the petty stuff anymore. And I think when I realized my strength of just like overcoming that and like the mental strength, the physical strength and how impactful natural foods are to your body, like that just lit me up in a way that was just like, there's no, that was my truth. And so it was like I have to find a way to like make this kind of my calling. But when we launched actually the company, like when I launched Sweet Lawrence, our original recipe wasn't plant-based. It wasn't gluten-free. It wasn't nut-free. It was really just like a natural cookie dough and the goal was like just to take out any chemicals, anything processed and just make a delicious natural cookie dough that people could bake and that could really compete with the conventional stuff on the shelf. And I will say like it wasn't product market fit yet because it wasn't different enough from the big guys to really compete in the major supermarkets in the US. And so once I started getting national distribution in like the big supermarkets, I started to get comments from people that would say like, oh my husband's gluten-free. Can you create a gluten-free line or my kid has a nut allergy or I'm trying to be plant-based. And so I created one skew, like one product that was just basically free of all the top allergens and sensitivities and was like, I'm just gonna test this. And it became our number one skew overnight. And so over the last four years, you know, Sweet Lawrence, all of our cookie dough is now just delicious but it's also, you know, non-GMO, plant-based gluten-free, nut-free. I didn't start the company that way, but it's really, you know, I saw the product market fit as like, okay, like if you don't pivot, like we would have died if we didn't, I think like pivot and just say like, how do we create a product that no one can compete with? We have a question from KP here. Our first question of the session comes from Caitlin, who wants to know what it was like to go out and raise money as a female founder and if there was any implicit bias in the investor meetings. Of course, of course, of course. It's gonna be harder as a woman. It's like the statistics are there to say it, 98% of funding dollars go to men, 2% go to women, .02 or something go to Latina women. So it's just like the statistics are there to speak for itself. But it's way better now than it was probably when we started, like the amount of funds that have as a mandate to invest in women, to invest in minorities, to invest in Latinx, et cetera. And they're gaining a lot of power because guess what? We are a better business. Even though we only get 2% of funding dollars, I believe we produce 12% of unicorns. So it's a very powerful statistic to ignore. So women have very specific characteristics as well when it comes to fundraising. And I heard this a lot from investors early on, or close advisors. You need to be more aggressive with your projections. You're being conservative. A man walks into a room and he's already Google on his immediate approach. As women, we don't want to disappoint. So we're showing forecasts that we actually achieve. I achieve my forecast year after year. And eventually you start finding the kind of right kind of investor that understands that as well. But I would say use our differences, like what makes being a woman so special, like the multitasking, the ability to look at a lot of different problems at the same time in your advantage and find the people that understand that. And you'll be able to fundraise and you'll be able to fundraise with the right partner because the investor should be a partner, someone that's going to be there that you can call them up when you have a problem. Because they want to help you. You're on the same team. But yeah, there's been crazy comments in my career. Like, there was a guy on LinkedIn that literally posted on an article that I wrote about fundraising that women have smaller brains than men because of the hunter-gatherer mentality. It was like something so... Pseudo-science. Like insane that, you know, and you know what I did? Instead of like hiding behind the keyboard in the comments, I print screened that. I wrote another article. The whole thing went viral. The guy was fired from his company on LinkedIn. And that's kind of like our responsibility to like stick together for each other and not let these kinds of things being okay anymore. And so I'd say that part of my life's work as well is bringing more opportunity into, you know, diverse founders. And my time is always available. If someone needs help, I help so many different female founders that are getting started with just getting, you know, pitches prepared or connecting with the right people. And you know, and we've introduced each other to so many people, it's mutual. Because then they're out raising their other round and they'll find someone that is interested in a blockchain use case and they'll send them my way. I'll say too, like women, I'm an investor in some companies and I'll say, if you're an investor who disrespects a woman during the fundraise, that's gonna spread and that's not, and so that person's gonna get, is gonna miss out on deals on all sides because nobody wants that person on a board. No one wants, and so I think the tide is changing because women are becoming more of a powerhouse and people are taking notice. Lauren, do you have any comments? Yeah, I mean, you could imagine when I started, you know, it's like, I'm starting a cookie dough company. People will be like, oh, that's so cute, you know, and you'd be like, I'm not doing this to be cute. Like this is gonna be a billion dollar business. Like this is gonna change the food industry. So like, I think I definitely experienced that to some degree, but I think just as she was saying, like I'm passionate about the food industry. Most shoppers of most consumables, but definitely food are women. But yeah, women control the food in most homes. And so I think that, you know, looking at that stat and being like, well, why are men making most of the food then? Like I'm the perfect person to create this product because I know how to appeal to them. I am that customer. And first of all, getting to know myself enough to know that like I am a CEO. I want this responsibility. I know I can do it. And then I think once you have that confidence and vision, like no one should get in your way, whether it's a man or a woman. And like you just have to attract the right personality. I've never raised institutional funding. So like I've raised from some friends and family. So I've never had to deal with it on that level. But yeah, at the beginning it was like a joke to some people and you just have to prove them wrong. Any negativity, I turned that into like a positive. Like I was like, I can't wait to prove you wrong. I'm an investor and a founder. Her name is Brooke and every time she fundraises, she dyes her hair pink. And it's her way of like showing up to the table and almost giving this FU. And it's also her cape. And I just love that she does it. And it's really, it's beautiful honestly. It's a big FU, but at the same time it's, it's you're already doing like her call out as you're already thinking it, I'm just wearing it. And it's this, it's interesting. We'll bring up Brian Vaughn now. We got another question here. Brian found it interesting when it was brought up earlier in the evening that having too much capital could be a bad thing and how it relates to finding product market fit. So with that in mind, could the difficulty in raising capital be a good thing? Yeah. So we were talking about this this week actually because we are going through a second crypto winter. My second. I went through crypto winter number one as well in 2018 and you know, very different scenario this time around because like capital has dried out-ish but it's still there. They have massive dry powder. They're looking for good use cases to invest in. So you're still gonna get the money. You're gonna make a smaller route. We were raising 20 before this whole thing imploded and we stopped. Like I'm not gonna go raise a series A in these conditions but then we set out to raise three and now we're gonna have to do five because we're completely oversubscribed. So it's like the market is telling us what the right's eyes of round is, you know? And it's like we're just listening and the other side of it is it was really hard to hire. We have a tight labor market like what we were experiencing a year ago like especially for a startup it's like you're competing against, you know, a really real meta. Facebook once again, you know? And crazy salaries and crazy benefits things that you are not able to give and even if they are passionate even if they do believe in the vision like when it's that level of difference in terms of salaries, it becomes competitive and you know, and that also drives like the crazy fundraising round. So it's kind of like it's nice to have a little bit of a cool down so we can have more efficiency and we can see the real businesses that are supposed to be here be here and gain market share because guess what? Competition is gonna spend less money on marketing and the best product at the end of the day will win and it's creating a lot of opportunity in the ecosystem. It's, you know, J.B. Morgan used to say a blood on the streets. I'll say as an investor it makes my job easier actually because it makes you sharper but also you kind of go back to what you know when it comes to startup investing but at the same time it's like you know the strong survive and you can pick that out in a conversation really quickly. You know if there's an idea on the table that a startup has that they're not convinced about yet. They think they might be convinced but they're really not yet or the product market isn't there or the velocities don't match if they're in CPG. Velocities being like they're not going off the shelf like Lawrence as an example. And so it makes it almost easier as an investor which is a really weird concept but it certainly saves me a lot of time I'll say. Go ahead Angela. Angela really enjoyed hearing the stories and how our guests overcame their setbacks in career, health and fundraising. So she was curious if knowing what they know now if they had any advice for their past selves as they were going through these setbacks. I have setbacks maybe daily you know and I've had like pivotal life setbacks and then just like the everyday you know life setbacks but we can't really control what the universe delivers you know but you can just control your attitude towards it. So I personally don't see anything as inherently good or bad and I just sort of like okay how am I supposed to deal with this? And some of the things, some of the like what the worst things that have happened to me you know if I embrace them you know I've had like an amazing outcome. Like my previous company was in the financial markets we ran trading platforms and the worst thing is to go down you know and our system went down you know and like JP Morgan was our biggest one of our biggest customers in yelling oh this cost us a hundred million dollars blah blah blah. But calling them you know to explain the problem and it was like one of the worst you know phone calls in my life or it started off that way but it built this like really understanding relationship and then you know that person at JP Morgan ended up being my strongest ally you know which then led to so much more growth of our business. So you know I could have run away and I wanted to go bury my head because it could have been like my company could have been over you know with that issue but instead you know I just went with it and that's I see that you know that happens all the time so I just like something bad happens like okay who am I supposed to meet now or what am I supposed to learn now? Angel I have an example for you I'm a real estate developer and I thought COVID was the worst of it you know we had like tenants failing and there was a big mess and then we navigated COVID and now inflation started and now the debt markets are insane and so now I'm dealing with the banks trying to charge us a tremendous amount more money for a project that would have cost half during COVID and so here I thought oh I'm done I'm so sharp I think it's over and now the debt markets are going bananas and I think to Jacob's point what I'm learning is like it's really never over and the world's never gonna really go your way unfortunately and you're never gonna win the lottery so just have a maybe attitude have like to Jacob's point have it like maybe this is a good thing maybe this is good at the end of the day every yeah it is good I think every weather makes you sharper like I've gotten so much better at being a developer and investor because of these things and so I think the things just but in the moment sometimes it's hard to see that but I think ultimately it makes you sharper I think you have to have that mentality though like I want to get sharper because of this because otherwise you're just like oh my god it's COVID like we should shut our doors or you know so I think if you have the mentality of like all right this is an interesting problem like how do I get smarter because of this like I'm gonna figure out how to succeed and like get through this I think as long as you have that kind of winner mentality like it's amazing what doors open up I could have never predicted what happened in my past would lead to you know my future so like I think as long as you have that mentality like you just become sharper and more passionate about what you're doing yeah in terms of advice to my past self it's just this too shall pass I want to talk about this because this comes up on our podcast all the time the impending recessions here arguably it's here I think it gets really weird by February are you guys doing anything different from either a marketing allocation a fundraising perspective you know there are some public sort of companies that are now doing layoffs are you doing anything to hunker down are you playing more offense are you playing some defense what is how what's your mindset going into Q4 Q1 of next year we're closing a round your fund rate you close it yeah yeah so that'll give us plenty of plenty of runway but something crazy happened this week and I'm always listening regardless of the moment of the market et cetera but like I'm an economist and so I really believe in behavioral economics and in the power of like whatever it is that you know consumer sentiment is feeling is gonna happen this is a fabricated recession like what we're living through right now and so last week I got a message on LinkedIn from someone that I considered to be a competitor and you know that I take these calls of a certain grain of salt because the same thing has happened over and over again and I'm always like okay let me take this call and just listen and then as I started to listen I noticed that who I thought was my competitor actually the leadership has no interest in enterprise they are very interested in trying to save their dying business which is consumer to consumer and so the person that called me actually called me and he didn't even know this because I spun him after I showed him my front end tech he doesn't have front end et cetera and so we ended the call with him saying I actually want to leave this organization and I have a list of 400 companies that have tried to work with us that I'm willing to bring over that's quite the bargaining chip and so listen because there will be a lot of opportunities let's get advice anything you guys are doing I mean I think we're definitely watching cash like I haven't raised institutional funding we've built a profitable business so like we're just watch you know we're just really on the business people probably eat more cookies during a recession would have made it cookies are recession free cookies are recession free that was your cyclical question that's why I got into cookies you're fine they're a recession proof but I will say like you know we've gone through price increases and like I think whatever we can do like we're doing extra promotions we're we've never done marketing before really like our growth has been word of mouth and so like it's the first time we're actually like really leaning into like introduce us to new households and I think that will help us no matter what happens it'll keep us even or growing and so cookies are recession proof so you know alcohol they need that comfort like it doesn't people need that comfort during hard times Jacob you have a high price item to some extent right so the demographic of your consumers is probably someone with a little more affluent and so how are maybe not but how are you you know what the price of iceberg lettuce is in Australia right now you do what is it it's twenty to thirty dollars a head a head wow yeah price space are you exporting to Australia no not yet but that's gonna happen here so if I bought a hundred of those I started selling my heads of lettuce to Australia so saying this is like arbitrage right yeah I mean this is an inflation and a price spike hedge for consumers but yeah there is an upfront investment so I'm spending a lot of time just making it more affordable to consumers there'll be financing plans yeah like a firm or something no exactly yeah we work with a firm now but we've got a new unit coming out early next year and then we'll be financing that so it'll be like essentially like fifty dollars a month for everything oh cool so customer will easily grow fifty dollars a produce a month so they'll return will be there they'll have that hedge against the coming do you market that do you market that in some way around we market everything you know but it's hard you know people do have this resistance they think oh I don't have a green thumb and you know so it's like that's like the big one that we need to overcome and it's usually once people start growing with us it's not the economics that really drives them it's the experience they just love it so much and they love the quality of the food and sharing the experience with their kids and giving it to their you know friends and neighbors and you know making growing their own food but there's just so big resistance because we're used to going to the grocery store but for thousands and thousands and thousands of years we grew our own food it's only in the last hundred and fifty years we stopped so we're just trying to get people back you know reconnect people can you plan ahead for looking ahead like let's say iceberg lettuce in the U.S. climbs 10X can you even plan ahead for something like that like I know crop futures are a thing Nick loves iceberg lettuce yeah Nick is very concerned from Australian Nick climbs 10X I'm really bankrupt yeah no but what's happening you know we have so much water issues right so you know farms are going to start diverting water away from low dollar crops to high dollar and so it's going to go away from this stuff that you really need to like nourish your brains you know and that's where you're going to get the spikes from and so it's definitely going to happen here for people listening entrepreneurs future entrepreneurs what is what advice would you give them if they wanted to start a company today in this in this environment they have a great a good idea they're ready to go what's the thing that you would tell them since we're talking about navigating setbacks given all of the setbacks they've talked about it's like the Jewish faith if you want to convert you got to you got to be sent away three times and I would say no don't do it if you come back three times and it's the same idea and you really really want to do it then I'll say okay go to market first don't build anything if your product is you know whatever it is that requires the technology feature map it out in analog life find someone that will pay you for that and then you go and you build like don't build they're not going to come don't build it and they will come they will not come like you know make sure that you build when they're already there let's talk about that so Eric's got a question we'll bring him on stage and then we'll wrap you because this is actually a really good question that there's people in this room specifically my guy Owen who's dealing with this right now Eric welcome go ahead Eric wants to know what it's like to weigh the decision to pivot versus staying the course how do you know when to choose which direction I talk about pivoting like this so let's pretend I wanted to get in really good shape but I'm eating cookies instead of let us grow every day at some point I would go to the scale and I would realize like this isn't working right and so someone told me some really good advice like your startup shouldn't feel like you're pushing a boulder up a mountain every day and I think there are certain very influential people on YouTube that have told you to be in a basement work harder hustle and you'll eventually carve this stone and it doesn't work that way actually I think the thing is to I think Manu said it one of you to listen you really have to listen to the market because they'll tell you they'll tell you what they're really into and when you're not listening you're continuing to shovel cookies in your mouth let's say and expecting to lose weight except Lawrence cookies who are amazing and very healthy but I would say like listening to the market but really being attuned to listening so if you continue to do your sales pitch and your conversion rate is like one client every 300 emails or 300 phone calls it's that's not it you have to do something else you have to go left yeah you can use statistic to base that decision you know if you know that an e-commerce convergence rate for a bad website is 1% and you're converting over that then you know okay maybe I just need to adjust a few other things and see if the funnel changes but if you're converting half a percent like you know Diego said you know go find something that's gonna convert higher and you don't have to do it immediately you know try the two things once again one against the other yeah I think like I mean if you're pivoting I think it's quite obvious something's not working yeah I'm obsessed with our consumer consumers told us everything they've told us all the problems and I've just tried to keep continuing to fix those problems and create a product that solves it so I think like you know there's a different stream like completely pivoting like your business idea like I think like we've done that you know so potentially you know you need to do that to succeed and like that's okay I think like very few companies end up exactly how they started just continually improving and pivoting and tweaking to continually get product market fit is something I think like all of us continually do I mean you know you're just creating a brand new product to fit the financial climate right now you know it's like you're just always finding ways to grow and solve new problems when I was going through white comedy it was a company that started off to like test your blood and at home like an at home blood pressure kid they're on us not there in us funny and then and then it wasn't working like it wasn't it doesn't work her name was Elizabeth and so they pivoted to this company called Magic which it was like you would just go to a search bar you would type in what you want so let's say a tiger to show up at your house in 20 minutes and they would figure that out and that became their pivot and they've raised a ton of capital and it was banana I mean bananas I have so many questions there's so many questions yeah but it was basically like a place like Google but instead of quite asking questions you would say I would like this and then they would email you back saying it's going to cost X and if you were down they would deliver whatever it was I mean the craziest of things we got another one with Andrew Andrew coming in we'll bring Andrew to the stage Andrew wants to know what advice we have for someone who's in a good corporate position and considering leaving their job to start their own company once again don't do it yeah like all it's the opportunity cost is so much higher the amount of time that it's going to take you to actually get success is 10 years to get to the level that of what you were making in your corporate job is going to take you 10 years but if that's okay with you if you're like I don't care I want to take a massive pay cut I really do need to do this thing and I want to change the world just keep it in mind 10 years till you get back to like that same level of income I don't know if 10 years is true but I would just say it's better that they have 10 years in their minds you're going to scare them you're going to scare Andrew I think entrepreneurship it sounds sexy because like you can be your own boss you get to do your own dream you get to and like it is I mean I'm an entrepreneur and like I'd never want to work for someone else I'm pretty unemployable at this point too so I have to do my own thing but like I think you really have to be so passionate about whatever your idea is really see a business case behind it like you know you really see the numbers and business plan behind this idea and it's also your strengths that like you know I think it fits all those things and you're that driven for it go for it I mean I'm the biggest advocate for people falling their own dreams and being entrepreneurs but it is not easy you know so you have to be that obsessed with the concept and see that vision so clearly that you're like cool I don't care if it takes 10 years I'm living my dream Yeah it's a big question if you're doing it because you don't want to have a boss you know your business becomes your boss so it's definitely not freedom it's a lot more freedom having a job but I think yeah if you have a passion and you see the world in some way and that your product or your service is gonna improve it and make it that way and you believe in it I think go for it like you know maybe get some friends or get some other people to you know throw yeah to give them your opinions but some of the things that I've done you know people thought I was absolutely crazy I mean they still think would let us grow but my previous business was a weather derivatives trading platform and we did like over a trillion dollars of weather trading but before people thought I was insane so no one would have said yeah go do this but I still did it so you just have to have a lot of passion and conviction and for me I always like I have to see it like in an ulterior universe this company exists I would say when you're done learning I think if you feel like you're done learning at your job right now or like your boss is in doing the things that are keeping you stimulated and either you know find a new position because entrepreneurship honestly is the ultimate learning about yourself as a human about you become everything you become a jack of all trades in some sense and so I think if you're done learning it's probably time to switch and that could just be a new job that could be a new function that could be a new company final thoughts wow this has been a lot huh navigating setbacks is my favorite topic this is all we talk about on the podcast because this is the reality of it this is how people learn the most truly let's go deep let's go deeper we'll end here what what what type of let's call it like whether you are in therapy whether you talk to a therapist you know what are the things that you've found mental health wise has transformed the way you think about business I'm all for I've been in therapy I'm actually on break now but I've been in therapy for almost 20 years I've done a lot of different kinds of therapy from like therapy with my mom to group therapy when I was a teenager because I was not easy to therapy alone for many years to the the couples counseling with my former co-founder and so you need therapy even if it isn't you know you don't need a traditional therapist per se but you need to find your own safe space because entrepreneurship can be very very lonely but I leave a lot of my frustration out as well and endurance sports and it is therapy for me it's meditation it's movement it's meditation and it's therapy at the same time right you're pushing your boundaries every single moment you're doing things which are supposed to be impossible to your body and you realize that it's all mental and it's exactly the same thing as entrepreneurship and then when you get to the top and you come down it all feels so amazing and you feel like you are unstoppable because you are we are so connected with nature we are so connected with everything around us you brought up Eckhart Tolle Eckhart Tolle is the man Eckhart Tolle you know and he even talks about this like when you find your inner purpose it needs to match your outer purpose or else you will not be living in a happy fulfilled life and I think that's exactly what it is for us right we found our inner purpose in a way with these companies they are a reflection of who we are of what we believe in and so and you know you're able to kind of like enter this place of presence where you're fully disconnected from everything else and that's what I feel like you know is are these moments of quiet or these moments that you can achieve you know on your own on a hike or you know when you're even reflecting about your company in the shower sometimes like it feels like you're just like you leave this earth and you're onto a better place and so it's like find presence in anything you do and find your own safe space so that you can share because don't let it get lonely you know it's it's it can my sister's a life coach and she did something with me that like changed my life it was so simple but she had me draw like a wheel and it had wedges in it and each wedge is like a section of your life like spiritual you know business romantic like health family friends travel whatever all the things that compile your life and she was like you know shade in like how full each of those are and I think it's just a really good lesson like or exercise for everyone to do because it really helps you see the energy you put towards things makes up your life so when I started my business like in terms of friends or like romantic side like that part was like you know it was a little bit shaded and it wasn't like this full beautiful wheel that was gonna like keep this wheel going around and around evenly and I and I you know I think that's when I started to realize like we all have control of our own life and I think that you gotta look at like what makes you happy and what fills you up and to me it's like balance I need to make sure all parts of my life I don't wanna ignore parts cause otherwise something ends up not feeling right so just making sure you're feeding friends nurturing friendships having time to actually have a partner if that's what you're looking for you know things like that cause otherwise you won't get the life you want so that and working out is huge for me just like feeling good being connected to your body meditation and having a really good support system like my family and friends or everything to me like because of them I can like handle any amount of stress Jacob final thoughts? Cold plunge Cold plunge Sauna That's what helps me Yeah It's very Nordic I think we all are in agreement in so many things but the nourishing of the body leads to nourishment of the mind and you have to take care of both you need balance and on that note I'd like to thank everyone here for joining us I'd like to thank everyone online for joining us this has been a lot of fun from all of us on stage we just started a storefront Bright Live and all of our guests we thank you and we will see you next time next again if you made it this far I bet you loved the episode so you should join our YouTube channel membership for only $2.99 a month this gets you access to one the whole unabridged conversation two, you get the episodes on Monday one day earlier three, you get two additional entries to our giveaways check out our Instagram to see what we've given away and four, you get access to seasons one through three that's over a hundred episodes of wisdom and life-changing advice that you're waiting for join