WEBVTT
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Hey folks. Before we get started, I wanted to tell you about the
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consumer VC summit. The consumer VC
summit is a threeday virtual event that is
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focused on ECOMMERCE, retail and innovation. This is all happening in February,
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twenty three through twenty five, two
thousand and twenty one. Mark Nathan and
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I have really poured our souls into
it. During the day, is a
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mix of talks and panel discussions with
some incredible founders and investors that focus on
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these sectors. In the evenings,
we're going to be throwing networking events and,
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if you're a founder it will also
have access to mentoring sessions, which
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means you'll meet three investors or industry
professionals for feedback about your business. All
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please check out summit dot the consumer
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twenty percent discount. This is also
located in the show notes. We look
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forward to seeing you there. Now
on to the episode. Hello and welcome
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to the consumer VC I'm your host, Michael, and on this show we
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talked about the role of veture,
capital and innovation in both consumer technology and
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consumer products. If you enjoy this
show, please tell a friend or colleague
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about it and helps read the word. If you want to also search other
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episodes or learn about some of the
other resources that are available to you,
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head over to the consumer viccom.
Thank you, Samar Hernandez, for introducing
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me to today's guest, Stephen Wolf
Pereira, cofounder and CEO of Incentos,
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an award winning at Tech Company that
believes kids learned best rough play while teaching
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kids twenty one century life skills.
We discussed some of Steven's learning's working at
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both technology companies and communication companies,
the inspiration and insight behind and gun thos
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and how he introduces new brands.
Without further ADO, here's Stephen. Stephen,
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thank you so much for joining me
today. How are you? Are
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you during Mike? I'm thrilled to
be on. Thanks for having me so,
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so awesome. I think you're the
first guest that also lives in culver
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city as well, like me,
so it's really great to have you here
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on the show. But you're so
close by care time and touch you.
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I know, I exactly if only
right, if only. Only. Yeah,
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man, well, Hey, so
talk to me a little bit about
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the beginning. What was your initial
attraction to technology and media? So initial
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attract statistics, anology and media.
I mean, I think it's one of
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the things where you never really know
what your affinity is. Growing up,
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I think I was always attracted to
technology and if I had known that computer
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science was a thing, I probably
would have majored in it. But I
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think I not naturally gravitated to tech. Once I started my career actually in
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finance and invest thanking for I got
signed to work on a lot of TMT
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type deals, so technology medium telecom, and I worked a lot on privatizations
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of telecom companies in Latin America,
and so that was actually my first party
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into it. No, that's trifect
and I remember we spoke last time.
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You were talking about how you were, you know, working on the cloud
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before the cloud was a thing.
That's true, man. I was at
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Alkhamai technologies in one thousand nine hundred
and ninety nine and that's when it was
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on demand computing. You know,
it was definitely they were one of the
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pioneers and no one kind of understood
what they were doing, but everyone thought
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there were a hardware company, but
they were actually doing a brand new category
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called content delivery, and today aquamis
about thirty five percent of global HTP traffic.
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That's amazing. That's awesome and I
know you is well worked on the
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media side of things. You also
worked at you division and was of all
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of them on the marketing side.
What I find interesting in this is,
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you know, based on our parasition, I understand how your experience and media
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would really really help you in terms
of, you know, building and Cantos.
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But I also found interesting was also
the enterprise sass part as well,
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really was helpful to a your approach
to shardy business. I would love to
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just if you could maybe just take
us through how you think about your past
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and media technology and really some of
your learnings, especially in the enterprise sass
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part, and really how that is
transformed and guy you and really helped you
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with your business. Absolutely, man. Well, it's a long, strange
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journey right. I mean it's funny
how all these things are truly connected.
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But I think the three most important
macro trends of the twenty one century are
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director consumer you know, which is
all set around First Party data, personalization,
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which is only power, you know, possible and powerful when you have
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first party data and then subscription,
understanding that you were not going to have
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our occurring revenue relationship with your customer, and it fundamentally transforms the way you
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go to market. But I feel
like a lot of that experience started by
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working in tech, originally at Alfa, my technologies, but I've been working
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in tech for over two decades and
my last three games before joining in Contos
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fall time was actually as a Cemo
of different data technology company, whether that
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was data logics, which got acquired
by Oracle, New Star, which was
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a public technology company that got taken
a private and then the last one being
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quantcast, which was an ai and
know what it's company. But I'd like
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the common thread was always understanding how
software as a service, how understanding data
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and performance marketing was rea going to
drive and connect audiences, and I feel
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like all those skills are exactly the
I guess raw materials are the ingredients for
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me to really kind of provide that
to and Gondos and bring it to Ed
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Tech, which I think has been
sort of relacking those skills. Yeah,
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I would say what was your attraction
to Ed Tech and as well as I
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guess you eventually then founding in Kentos. Would love to learn more about the
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origin story. Yeah, well,
I mean, look, I pride myself
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and trying to be a lifelong learner. I think I've always had an affinity
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to education. I know my family
from the Dominican Republic and I think any
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type of immigrant family you're always thought
that the one thing that people can take
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away from you is your education.
So there's always a lot of value put
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on education. But specifically, I
think I was just always inspired by learning
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right and how do you really just
be a sponge and just, you know,
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be passionately curious and learn from anybody
and everybody? And I feel like
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that was one of the things that
I always took from me because I didn't
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really have that exposure. I mean
I grew up at a time when the
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Internet wasn't really a thing. I
think when I was in my senior year
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in College, I graduated ninety five
I think they were just coming out of
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pie and having email servers coming across
campuses. So you know, it was
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really this idea of how do you
learn things, how you learn new technologies,
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how do you learn businesses and industries? And you know, I think
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by starting in finance I just got
exposed to lots of different fields and it's
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want to soak it all off.
But I've always been passionate about education and
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I always thought that at some point
I would go into teaching, but it
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turns out that I'm just taking off
of my experiences on the business and technology
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side and now bringing it into attack. That's awesome. That's awesome. So
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tell us, for those that aren't
familiar with in Kento's tell us a little
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bit about your company's mission and also
I'd love to know to just how you
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think about the education space. It's
there's so much technology that's going into it,
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there's so much innovation happening. I
would love to kind of hear how
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you think about it, be be
on a macro level. And also,
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were in Kantos slots in per se? Absolutely well. I mean, first
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off, you know it kind of
took a pandemic to make Ed Tech Cool.
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I think it's kind of crazy.
I mean, we started a company
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in two thousand and sixteen and the
whole idea was, how do you take
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those kind of three trends that I
mentioned beforehand? Director Consumer personalization and subscription
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but how do we bring it to
Ed Tech Or, you know specifically education,
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but using technology to really enable it? And what we want to do
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is build a direct to it's a
director consumer. We effectually call it direct
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to learner because we're focus on kids
and families. But how do you build
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a direct to learn a subscription platform
that is powered by brands? And I
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think the insight was, you know, Sesame Street, kind of pioneer this
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ages ago, right, like you
want to learn through play, and Maria
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Monto story spoke about this. You
know, over a century ago, that
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kids learn through play. So it's
not necessarily something that is new. But
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I think the whole idea that entertainment
is candy and it could only be a
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toy story for frozen too, like
it's not going to have substance. That's
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kind of one side of the spectrum. And the other side is that education
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has to be serious. It's about
testing and you know, standards and you
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know all this kind of rigger around
it, but it really makes it boring
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and it takes all the fun out
of it. And one of our early
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advisors, Sir Ken Robinson, was
the most watched Ted talk of all time.
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How schools kill creativity. You know, there's a lot of thought of
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you know, how schools really focus
more on education but they really don't focus
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on learning and inspiring kids to,
you know, learn how to learn.
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So we thought if you could take
the best of entertainment and the best of
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education but have a powered by technology. You know, that's kind of what
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we're trying to do and the way
we talked about it is we think that
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we're developing a brand new category called
story teaching, and that really is exciting
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because you're taking characters and worlds that
kids want to be a part of,
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focus on twenty one century skills,
the learning, literacy and life skills that
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kids need to learn, but we're
fusing it in a subscription platform with digital
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and physical products. That's fascinating and
thanks so much for explain that as well.
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I'd love to know how you think
about when you maybe introduce a new
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product, or how you think about
the software component versus a physical goods component,
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because that to me just seems quite
complex, and maybe it's not,
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but it would love to just kind
of hear your part to it. Sure.
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I mean I think part of it
is really having a very clear north
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stock. And so for us,
the whole North Start for for Exonsi says
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we want to be the home for
inspiring kids to learn twenty per century skills.
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So it actually starts with the pedagogy, right. It really starts with
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do you have the learning, literacy
and life skills that kids need to learn,
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but packaging it in a really fun, entertaining, engaging way, and
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that's where the story comes into it, the characters and obviously we want to
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have cultural conticity because if you look
at kids today, over fifty percent of
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them are diverse. So really understanding
the story and who is telling the story
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matters. But once you kind of
understand the entertainment and the education side,
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how you bring it to life.
That actually is the fun part, right,
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because now you can leverage all these
incredible technologies to really engage kids.
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And we're truly at the tipping point
of the next way of innovation, because
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the first by the iphones, just
came out. You know, there's a
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lot of hype around it, but
it's going to probably take a couple of
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years to really start to see all
the different use cases and technologies that are
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going to be enabled by five J
but we're really bullish on how five g's
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going to enable R and V are
in terms of every single industry, but
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specifically for entertainment, of Education,
and when you think about really having integrated
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digital and physical experiences, that is
where the story teaching gets really exciting,
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because you can start something in an
APP, but the learning doesn't have to
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stop there. I mean, I
think most parents know you can't have a
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kid on the screen for eight hours
at a time, right. I mean,
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I'm struggling that with you know,
my my kindergartener going through zoom kindergarten
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right, like. You don't want
them in the screen that long, but
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they're obviously there are a lot of
vantages to learning through APPs and so once
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that experience is done, you could
continue the learning through physical experiences, through,
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you know, either learning through play
with, you know, products,
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you know, like blots or toys
or games or puzzles. There's so many
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different ways that have physical and digital
working together and the software that could personalize
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those learning experiences. That's the exciting
work. No, that's really interesting.
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I love that. What I appreciate
about it is because not only obviously we
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can all learn so much online and
be dashed at the same time, it's
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also probably not the best thing for
kids to always be online, right,
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so also having physical goods that they
can actually, you know, touch and
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feel and play with. That's great, and learn that way. I love
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to know how do you think about
on story teaching? How do you think
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about when it comes to like introduce, you see, new characters or building
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stories? I know they obviously you're
learning about very maybe modern elements with,
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you know, cultural diversity, which
really shouldn't be modern, but you know,
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just introducing these things that maybe aren't
really thought about it being introduced maybe,
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you know, twenty thirty years ago, but would love to just kind
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of hear about how you think about, you know, introducing new characters.
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So the way we think about is
that we're actually building franchises, right.
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So you know, you could have
Mickey Mouse and you could have pepper pig
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and you could have ricky chicky,
which is, you know, our neat
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character from kind of pecost which is
our number one by liberal preschool. But
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I think behind all these characters there
has to be a creative right, there
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has to be a beating heart of
a creator that has a story they want
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to tell, and we're fortunate that
my cofounder and, you know, kind
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of my partner in purpose as this
woman suite how to meet your who is
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a world class creative talent. You
know, she is an emmy nominating director,
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producer, artist, illustrator, she
went to crash, she's does an
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incredible talent, and having someone that
really knows how to tell stories and that
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has the eye and, you know, also the fund of the wit right,
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because it's not meant to be boring. I think that's the problem with
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a lot of education does in general
and Ed text specifically, where you're taking,
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you know, credible physical work sheet
and you're just going to digitize it.
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That's not a right. Oh,
you had some you know, kind
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of you know, business rules or
some machine learning around something, the person
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white something that's still not, you
know, enough. You really need to
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create, you know, the world's
that kids want to be a part of.
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You want the HAG rewards, you
know, that's what kids want to
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live. They want to be in
Erandale like. They want to be a
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part of these worlds and have characters
that they actually fall in love with,
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but also that they could see themselves
with. So the fact that we actually
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have characters that look like what America
looks like right. I mean when you
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have thirty percent of kids today being
without, you know, and there's nothing
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out there, literally nothing, I
mean what you had door from twenty years
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ago, I mean I think you
could do better. So I think there's
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just pent up demand from if you
know, ninety percent of new parents are
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millennials today. I think they've grown
up in a world that is diverse.
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They want the kids to be citizens
of the world. So how do you
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create characters and stories that are entertaining, engaging but also educational? And I
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feel like that's the fusion that we're
doing and it's part of our secrets.
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Off though, that's really inspirational,
to be honest, and that's just amazing.
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What do you think about? You
know you're giving back and legacy and
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maybe what are some of those?
Well, you know, as a business,
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because of course you're developing this new
area of education, which is really
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exciting, but would love to know
as well what you think in terms of
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business traits that you think might have
been overlooked, not existed maybe twenty thirty
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years ago and that maybe you're kind
of shiving for with in Kentos. Of
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course, I mean for us it
was really from the beginning we set the
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company up as a public benefit corporation. So I think a lot of people
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are for maybe the be court movement
using business as a force for good,
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and we actually took it a step
further. We actually incorporated as a public
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benef for corporation, so it's written
into our by laws. Were a sea
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corpses like any other sea corps,
but by being public benefit corporation. And
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it's not just about shareholder value,
it's about stakeholder value. And probably the
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most famous public benefit corporation, PDC, is Pedagonia, but there are so
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many others. You know, there's
all birds and there is etc. And
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there's kickstarter and you know, there's
tons of folks that have really adopted this
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mentality of really doing well by doing
good. And part of our whole ethos
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says all our brands have a cause
that they support. So, for Canthikos,
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if we're the number one biling will
preschool brand. Well, guess what?
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That brand is supporting bilingual educators and
we support those teachers around the country.
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Right there's so few resources and just
tools to help these teachers teach two
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languages. I mean you want your
kids to be kindergarten ready and two languages.
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That's what that brand is all about. So by giving back to the
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community. Certainly there's tons of lowingdom
communities that we support with free products and
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you know free you know, kind
of coach to the APP. But we
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want to make sure that each of
our brands has a social cause that they
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support. No, that's that's amazing
and it seems like you you not only
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talk the top of you walk the
walk in terms of building products that are
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helping children, but also have a
company that has a triple bottom line.
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It's not just about financial returns,
which is just amazing. So I know
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you brought up your tree bands.
Will love those. Just dive into the
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three bands that you currently have developed
under in Kentos and how you think about
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developing more brands. What's the thought
process? Sure, so, I think
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the fun thing is we get to
be direct to consumer and because of that
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it gives us a lot of freedom
in terms of how we bring a brand
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to light. And so you know, in previous lives, when I was
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either at univision or and public scenes
I surround the Walmart media business. I
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still at all the cultural media business, but got to work with Walmart and
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PNG and coke and craft and Himeken. So I seen world class brands up
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close. The Fun thing is we
now get to create world class brands that
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are going to stand the test of
time. mean, they really mean something
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to you know kind of kids and
families today. So we're really identifying back
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to the North Star of inspiring kings
to learn twenty one century skills or trying
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to identify those lanes that really no
one is focused on, and we are
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creating a brand that is going to
be cultural, authentic, is going to
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have organically those twenty one century skills
woven into it, the learning skills like
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creativity, critical thinking, communication,
collaboration with they called the four seas literacy
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skills, and it's not just you
know, kind of reading, writing and
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with with that kind of thing,
but it's also literacy around civics, right,
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literacy around the environment, around health
and wellness, you know stem.
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I mean there's so much that needs
to be kind of understood from a literacy
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perspective and arguably one of the most
important areas are life skills, right.
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How do you develop the social emotional
skills that kids need especially in a time
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when you know isolation happens through social
media. Obviously kids aren't able to interact
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with each other at school because of
the pandemic, but these are the life
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skills that parents really want their kids
to learn and they're not being taught in
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the school. I mean the whole
idea of play based learning really kind of
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ends at kindergarten. Once you enter
elementary school, that's when you start the
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rigger of test it right, and
so you lose all of them. Want
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the story based play blakes learning.
We want to continue back through our brand.
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So we pick a lane like bilingual
education, and we've created a kind
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of peoples. We picked our next
brand to be tiny travelers, and that's
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all about helping kids become citizens of
the world. How do you expire kids
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to work about geography, language and
culture? And so we're literally doing every
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country from around the world. And
we started all of our brands with books,
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but that is going to be an
animated series, that's going to be
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a subscription APP and subscripting box and
so on and so forth. So all
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these brands have again digital and physical
ways that the brand comes to life.
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But again we're picking these swim lans
that are really in demand and again overlooked,
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and it happens to be with either
diversity, equality inclusion at the heart
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of the brief. There's a number
of good points in there. I think
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one point that I didn't think about, and it makes a lot of sense,
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that that, as you say,
after kindergarten, that's when testing starts,
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and that's really almost one of your
I guess maybe formal education starts per
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se, so kind of continue that
path for children. Yeah, I think
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that's extremely important. Obviously is a
venture capital podcast, so we also want
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to talk about the fundraising side of
things, and so I'd love to know
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what was your approach when you first
began thinking about fundraising. Sure. Well,
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you know, it's excited. We
just posed our series see, which
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we're super proud of. We had
Charles Hudson that precursor ventures lead around and
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we had some really great folks partingsipate, like Jeff Weiner's next play ventures.
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We had Steve Cases Revolution, the
rise of the rest bun led by David
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Hall. You know, we also
have some great individuals like Spencer Ass pop
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and our new chairman and solved to
here who it was actually the the first
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left, you know, to be
the see of a fortune one hundred and
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fifty company and he's been on the
boards of, you know, target and
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Bank of America and WPP. So
you know, I feel like we really
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have a great group of folks that
are mission aligned. I think that was
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really the key thing that we were
focused on. Is Capital Suraw a commodity
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and you know, you really want
people that believe in the mission. And
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when you start to talk about something
that is quote Unquote Ed Tech or impact
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oriented, you have lots of folks
could have roll their eyes right. I
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mean for a long time at tech
was really not an interesting area for folks.
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They kind of overlooked it. And
the minute that you say, Oh
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yeah, we have some content as
part of the mix, well then that
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becomes like a third rail, right, because no one wants to invest in
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content. No one wants to invest
in immediate company. But we don't have
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advertising as part of our business.
Park where a subscription based blended learning platform
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and we're doing direct to consumer brand. So it was very interesting to see
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that it took a while for some
folks to realize what we were building and
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by design we didn't kind of play
our whole hand from the beginning, because
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we actually started our company in a
very lean tech way. We just started
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with physical products, actually with books, but we kind of had the system
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and we actually became our own publisher
and the whole idea was to really figure
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out how to use physical products,
to start to into innovrate them with digital
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products and use all that as hooks
to drive subscriptions. But now we're at
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that point and you know, I
feel like it took a pandemic again to
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make d tech cool. I think
now everyone is realizing that Ed tech is
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an incredibly vibranty sector. There so
much to be doing in this space and
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you know the whole idea of homeschooling
and things like that. You know those
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markets are going to triple the next
part. You know, Twelve d eighteen
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months. Know, that's really helpful
thing. So much for explain that,
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and that's interesting to as well,
just on the business strategy side of things,
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how you thought about maybe the physical
good as the hook in some ways,
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and then getting learners to lean into
them pain for the subscription. That's
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a really fascinating way. It mean, but also fascinating to is you know
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Ed tick now it's a lot more
popular, for sure. But what's interesting
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as well is that, you know, like DTC businesses, the physical good
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businesses, they've, you know,
at least tech investors have kind of shifted
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away from those areas just because you
don't have those growth opportires opportunities that you
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did in the early two thousand and
ten late to thousands. and was wondering
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was that ever an issue, the
fact that you were selling physical goods to
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investors are now? Yeah, I
mean, you know, it's interesting,
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right, like, I mean Disney
just have their investor day yesterday, right,
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and they announced monster growth in their
Disney plus subscription in that and that
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is literally, I think, where
you're going to see every company kind of
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go through. Everyone is going to
go direct to consumer in some way,
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shape or form. So I don't
view it as a fat I appreciate that
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from maybe adventure side, you know
there's an arbitrage opportunity and you know you
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want to be the first one or
the second one in. But, like,
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I'm trying to build brands that are
going to like last, you know,
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the test of time. Right,
like we're building brands that actually mean
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something to the consumer. We're focused
on the audience that we're serving and by
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going direct. That just happens to
be part of, you know, kind
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of the business model, right,
but I don't view it as a fat
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I think it's critical that by getting
first party data from a direct relationship with
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your customer and because we're building a
learning platform where they will grow with us
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over time so that we can cross
Oll an upsell. That is part of
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that whole you know, kind of
idea of going direct and the fact that
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we have both digital and physical products. Of course, we know when people
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saw like Oh, we had a
book, there were likes crashing their heads
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like what are you talking about,
like I don't want to be in a
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book business. No, like this
is a means to an end, but
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not not everyone saw that, you
know, in the beginning. For sure.
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Now that's really helpful. Yeah,
I always think that it's interesting,
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you know, just investors. I
come on the show when you talk about,
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you know, brand some of them
have kind of way away from brands.
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Others are like that's crazy. I
was of them only invest in brands
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and love vested brands and won't invest
in anything about brands. So I always
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just find this stuff really just interesting. So was it harder to fundraiser and
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covid? So, you know,
it's interesting. The trajectory is we you
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know, we were bootstrapped. You
know, I was fortunate to have,
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you know, ability to start the
company after, you know, some of
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the exits that we had, and
so we really took our time to kind
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of build out the model and I
feel like that is really where we're focus
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on, trying to build this very
scalable platform, because everyone in venture once
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in that is venture scale, right. Everyone wants the next facebook or whatever
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it is, or maybe our facebook
these days, maybe airbb. But you
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know, it was really interesting.
Early on we had some initial interests from
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folks that were again very mission aligne
and I feel that that was where I
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can't thank them enough. But,
you know, mintioned free too, keeper
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capital. They were the lead for
we did to convertible notes before we did
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this series see, and they were
the ones that really the saw the opportunity
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and the fact that we were building
something that maybe you know at that moment
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in time in two thousand and seventeen
and two thousand and eighteen, you know,
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it wasn't all there, but as
obviously a means to an end we
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were getting there and they participated in
an actually all three rounds, but it
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was really getting a group of folks
that believed in what we were building and
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it was definitely not for a lot
of folks. I mean, people either
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didn't like attach or they didn't understand
why we're doing books, or they thought
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that this was like a hit dripping
business and so we don't want to be
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in media. And then, honestly, it was a lot of folks that
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didn't understand the diversity angle, you
know, and I think maybe in the
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wake up black lives matter and the
murder of George floor and all of a
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sudden people now kind of care about
diversity. But definitely in seventeen, eighteen
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nineteen it was a much harder pitch. Yeah, that's also just really interesting
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to hear. It was a harder
just meeting with folks as well. I
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mean I've heard investors say that establishing
conviction with founders remotely has been really challenging.
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Did you ever sense that around so
much, you know, when covid
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hit, I think that's where all
was. We're just like wow, what's
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going to happen? And we definitely
saw at first everyone, I think,
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was the shell shop in March.
But very slowly but surely we started getting
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a lot of inbound because again also
people were waking up to let oi cow.
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Everyone's going to be learning from home. Nine out two found the planet
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are now learning at home. So
we actually were able to get meetings with
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folks. Obviously will resume very easily. I think the thing of actually closing
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around, like everyone will take a
meeting and maybe some people are just trying
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to meet because they wanted to sit
a network a diverse founder. I mean
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we're obviously very unique because it's a
full, you know kind of a diverse
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set of exacts at the company.
It's actually for Latin ex founders, but
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you know, we have, you
know, an incredible you know mix of
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talent at the company and we're also
female majority owned. So there are a
409
00:25:40.839 --> 00:25:42.720
lot of interesting angles from back lends. But I think some people just took
410
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:45.920
the mean to check a box.
To be candid, some people were generally
411
00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:49.269
curious about okay, I think there's
something here in Ed Tech, but it's
412
00:25:49.309 --> 00:25:53.750
maybe outside of my, you know
kind of comfort zone or my horror competencies.
413
00:25:53.869 --> 00:25:57.470
But they were curious about Ed tat
and then legit some people were wow,
414
00:25:57.630 --> 00:26:00.190
I really see the opportunity and the
fact that, you know, you
415
00:26:00.349 --> 00:26:03.420
have brands that are meeting this moment. We want to help you get to
416
00:26:03.460 --> 00:26:07.140
the next level. But definitely,
if you look at the folks that have
417
00:26:07.259 --> 00:26:10.900
invested in us, it's interesting that
a lot of them happen to be either
418
00:26:11.059 --> 00:26:14.579
women, people of Color or people
that have kids. I think that has
419
00:26:14.619 --> 00:26:17.940
been you know, definitely folks that
understand what it is that we're building.
420
00:26:18.059 --> 00:26:19.930
If they don't meet that criteria,
maybe it took a little bit longer for
421
00:26:21.009 --> 00:26:23.410
them to understand what it is.
Yeah, I think also just folks understand
422
00:26:23.450 --> 00:26:26.529
the problem, right, folks that
really identify with the problem itself. That
423
00:26:26.609 --> 00:26:30.089
makes a lot of sense. So
I would say, what is one thing
424
00:26:30.490 --> 00:26:34.400
that you would change about venture capital? One thing I would change about venture
425
00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:40.720
capital? I think it's a really
great question. I think there is perception
426
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.200
that having impact, you know,
means that you're in a nonprofit business something
427
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:48.509
like that. I feel, I
like the whole ability and if you read
428
00:26:48.549 --> 00:26:51.990
some of the research that keeper capital
has done and they they put out their
429
00:26:52.069 --> 00:26:55.789
impact report, you really can see
that, I focusing on impact, you
430
00:26:55.869 --> 00:26:59.470
could actually still have outside returns at
the same time. So I feel like
431
00:26:59.509 --> 00:27:02.259
that is kind of something that needs
to be debunked. I also just feel
432
00:27:02.339 --> 00:27:04.779
that the whole idea of all you
just need to do one thing right like
433
00:27:04.940 --> 00:27:10.019
this very linear, like you need
to do one thing and just not really
434
00:27:10.339 --> 00:27:14.980
understand that sometimes one thing is actually
integrating a couple of things. I feel
435
00:27:14.980 --> 00:27:17.490
like there's a lot of conversation about
that, because people would be like,
436
00:27:17.490 --> 00:27:19.049
well, why are you doing a
book thing? Just do the APP,
437
00:27:19.170 --> 00:27:22.650
and it's like no, there's actually
a reason why. This is a blended
438
00:27:22.690 --> 00:27:25.569
learning approach and you actually need both. But some folks were like no,
439
00:27:25.730 --> 00:27:27.849
I just want you to do one
thing and Oh, it's kind of pattern
440
00:27:27.890 --> 00:27:30.920
recognition, right, like they only
understand. I've seen, you know,
441
00:27:32.119 --> 00:27:34.240
fifty APPs. This is what they'll
do. You don't meet that model,
442
00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:38.440
so I'm not interested, and that's
fine, but then they're certainly missing the
443
00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:41.440
opportunity, because it just feels like
lots of people are chasing the same thing.
444
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:45.910
I mean, you know, look
at clubhouse right like Oh, let's
445
00:27:45.950 --> 00:27:48.829
give a ridiculous valuation to something and
you know, here you go, but
446
00:27:48.950 --> 00:27:52.710
there's no track record and you know, but where used to that power recognition
447
00:27:52.829 --> 00:27:56.710
versus something that might look different.
But that's kind of the zero to one
448
00:27:56.869 --> 00:27:59.660
right. Like I feel like,
and you know Airbnb when they were starting,
449
00:27:59.779 --> 00:28:02.180
right, like how many people turn
them down? I mean Brian Talks
450
00:28:02.180 --> 00:28:03.980
about it all the time, right. So I feel like it's harder to
451
00:28:04.059 --> 00:28:08.099
understand that zero to one, but
really investing the time to not just blow
452
00:28:08.099 --> 00:28:11.779
it off because it doesn't fit that
model. Those are the folks that I
453
00:28:11.859 --> 00:28:14.250
feel like we're going to make the
outside of return. Yeah, I think
454
00:28:14.289 --> 00:28:15.690
it. Those are all great points. And relating it back to you and
455
00:28:15.769 --> 00:28:18.769
your business, I mean, you
know, I also think physical goods.
456
00:28:18.849 --> 00:28:22.130
For the investors that think about it
just as a SASS business or want you
457
00:28:22.170 --> 00:28:26.440
to do one thing, it's also
your differentiation, a hundred percent your differentiation.
458
00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:30.920
The fact that you're doing both physical
and software and aren't just focusing on
459
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:33.720
one, so it also be done, just incredibly valuable to I mean,
460
00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:36.880
you know, I really look you
know, as an analogy. You Know
461
00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:41.119
Pelton, right, I mean them
as a subscription business, but that bike
462
00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:44.789
is the physical good. That bike
is the hardware. That is a reminder
463
00:28:44.869 --> 00:28:48.549
of you know, that read in
the house. You know when you close
464
00:28:48.630 --> 00:28:51.470
the APP, you know it's obviously
out of mind. But if you actually
465
00:28:51.470 --> 00:28:53.750
have a physical product like one of
my books that are beloved, that are
466
00:28:53.750 --> 00:28:56.460
award winning, and they also,
you know, because it's the kids in
467
00:28:56.539 --> 00:28:59.779
family space, you know, when
you're putting your child to bed, you
468
00:28:59.819 --> 00:29:02.259
don't want to have a screen front
of your kid, you want to read
469
00:29:02.339 --> 00:29:04.859
to them. So understanding the consumer, you know, not just using it,
470
00:29:06.059 --> 00:29:08.339
as you know, kind of a
throwaway line that I'm customer obsessed.
471
00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:12.569
No really understand what the day in
the life of the consumer is, and
472
00:29:12.650 --> 00:29:15.369
in our case it's the parent.
Right, it's the parent, it's making
473
00:29:15.410 --> 00:29:18.769
the purchase. There's going to be
a time for screens, there's going to
474
00:29:18.809 --> 00:29:22.329
be a time for physical products,
and I think that blended learning approach is
475
00:29:22.369 --> 00:29:25.400
what is unique about car model.
It just happens to be wrapping the subscription,
476
00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:27.039
but it definitely took some time for
some folks to see, oh,
477
00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:30.160
why are you doing physical problems?
I absolutely agree. I mean, as
478
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:33.440
I was just looking over it,
because there's a palace Han right next to
479
00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:37.160
me and seeing it is always reminds
me that that I need to do it
480
00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:38.430
every day, even though I wish
I did every day. No, I
481
00:29:38.670 --> 00:29:42.549
totally agree. I totally agree,
and I think that relationship to of the
482
00:29:42.670 --> 00:29:47.829
physical products and Sasspass and only all
the innovations that becoming out pealot add your
483
00:29:47.910 --> 00:29:51.390
business looks really, really fascinating,
and others. I think it's just the
484
00:29:51.509 --> 00:29:56.180
almost this new wave of these different
types of businesses that are both thinking about
485
00:29:56.180 --> 00:30:00.099
physical goods as well as like a
software component. What's one book that inspired
486
00:30:00.140 --> 00:30:03.180
you personally and one book that inspired
you professionally? I mean there's so many,
487
00:30:03.420 --> 00:30:06.940
so many good ones. I would
say, you know, from the
488
00:30:07.529 --> 00:30:11.490
personal it actually is like any of
the books by Sir Ken Robinson. So
489
00:30:11.569 --> 00:30:14.490
I'm just a very big fan of
his. Unfortunately he actually passed away this
490
00:30:14.650 --> 00:30:18.130
here, but he was just such
an innovator in terms of education and you
491
00:30:18.250 --> 00:30:22.359
know, when you think about how
kids learn, when you think about the
492
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:25.880
things that you want your kids to
learn, you want them to be creative,
493
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:27.200
you want them to be innovative.
You know, we talked about all
494
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:32.839
these things all the time, but
it's so disconnected from what the I effectually
495
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:36.950
call the industrialized, you know kind
of educational complex, right, the way
496
00:30:37.230 --> 00:30:41.029
that education is built for the twenty
century of you know, the industrial era.
497
00:30:41.309 --> 00:30:45.990
It just doesn't lend itself to creativity
and innovation and, frankly, all
498
00:30:45.029 --> 00:30:48.910
the things that kids need to not
just, you know, survive, but
499
00:30:48.069 --> 00:30:51.339
to thrive in the twenty one century. You know this is going to be
500
00:30:51.380 --> 00:30:53.220
the AI era. If it is
going to be, you know, anything
501
00:30:53.259 --> 00:30:56.539
that can be automated will be.
Is the mantra right. So kids need
502
00:30:56.660 --> 00:31:00.819
to learn things that only humans can
do right memorizing something, gets what a
503
00:31:00.819 --> 00:31:03.529
machine will do it better. And
they don't sleep. So if you want
504
00:31:03.569 --> 00:31:06.890
your kid to be creative, if
you want them to be innovative, if
505
00:31:06.930 --> 00:31:08.890
you want them to have critical thinking
skills, you need to lean into that.
506
00:31:08.970 --> 00:31:12.130
So anything by Sir Ken Robinson.
And then on the professional side,
507
00:31:12.130 --> 00:31:15.809
I feel one of the best books
that I've read is UN scale by one
508
00:31:15.849 --> 00:31:19.920
of the VC's over a general Katawas
him it's just a brilliant book. I
509
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:25.720
feel like it really feeds into the
whole narrative of the twenty century was all
510
00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:30.480
about economies of scale and mass markets
and the twenty first centuries not unscaling and
511
00:31:30.599 --> 00:31:33.789
really getting to, you know,
markets of one. And so that ties
512
00:31:33.829 --> 00:31:37.230
into the whole idea of going direct, personalization, and subscription. No,
513
00:31:37.349 --> 00:31:40.269
I love that. I love that
and neither have been featured on our book
514
00:31:40.309 --> 00:31:42.269
list. So really excited to add
both of me. SORCER kinds a great
515
00:31:42.269 --> 00:31:47.180
book called element. You know,
he's written extensively about, you know,
516
00:31:47.180 --> 00:31:51.099
kind of education, you know,
how finding your element, you your child
517
00:31:51.259 --> 00:31:53.220
in school, out of our minds. I mean he just has such great
518
00:31:53.259 --> 00:31:56.819
stuff. I think his last book
was you, your child and school.
519
00:31:56.059 --> 00:31:59.579
That's awesome. That's great. It's
great. I'll certainly have a check them
520
00:31:59.619 --> 00:32:01.730
out. That sounds that sounds really, really cool. Also watch the Ted
521
00:32:01.809 --> 00:32:05.930
Talk. I mean again, the
most watched of all times. Yes,
522
00:32:06.210 --> 00:32:08.730
yes, I certainly need to.
Is Not only is it's not provoking,
523
00:32:08.970 --> 00:32:14.369
he's also might as well be a
standup comedian because he's also ridiculously funny and
524
00:32:14.410 --> 00:32:16.079
as a brick. He's got that, you know, that British humor.
525
00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:21.279
That that's awesome. That's awesome.
Al Wos, certainly check it out.
526
00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:23.720
That's amazing. My final question to
you is, what's one piece of advice
527
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:30.029
that you have for founders? You
just got to start like there is no
528
00:32:30.269 --> 00:32:32.950
perfect time. You're never going to
have perfect information, you're never going to
529
00:32:34.150 --> 00:32:37.710
have things are going to satisfy,
you know, the vent, your community,
530
00:32:37.150 --> 00:32:40.190
you know, partners, whatever it
is. You just got to start.
531
00:32:40.349 --> 00:32:44.940
Just go direct and talk to your
on Adience. Like all the tools
532
00:32:44.940 --> 00:32:49.619
are there. I mean we started
in two thousand and sixteen and we bootstrapped
533
00:32:49.740 --> 00:32:52.660
and we put out a book and
an APP and a youtube video just to
534
00:32:52.779 --> 00:32:57.460
test and learn, just to get
initial data. was their demand for this,
535
00:32:57.660 --> 00:33:00.970
and a year later we had over
thirty million views of our youtube videos.
536
00:33:00.089 --> 00:33:02.410
Right. I mean that's what kind
of led to us doing the partnership
537
00:33:02.410 --> 00:33:07.690
of Nickelodeon and then we got the
emmy nomination and so we would have never,
538
00:33:07.170 --> 00:33:09.450
you know, been able to do
all that stuff and get to where
539
00:33:09.490 --> 00:33:13.880
we are today, where, you
know, we now have our subscription APP,
540
00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:16.000
which just got nominated for best learning
APP by kid scream, competing with
541
00:33:16.079 --> 00:33:19.960
Lego and sesame street. I mean, you know, it got its third
542
00:33:20.039 --> 00:33:22.839
nomination for, you know, Best
Digital Preschool series. So this thing all
543
00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:28.309
took off by us just putting something
out there and getting real time feedback from
544
00:33:28.430 --> 00:33:30.589
customers. All the tools are there. Don't wait for it to be perfect,
545
00:33:30.630 --> 00:33:35.269
just start now. If you are
an entrepreneur, start right now now.
546
00:33:35.390 --> 00:33:37.950
That's a great that's a multiple good
points. I think you said to
547
00:33:37.029 --> 00:33:40.309
me. The two real ones obviously
start right now, and then also is,
548
00:33:40.390 --> 00:33:44.819
well, listen to feedback for your
customers and when you're starting, look
549
00:33:44.859 --> 00:33:46.900
at maybe it on the iteration side. Okay, what are people like?
550
00:33:47.099 --> 00:33:51.220
What they don't like about your product? And so no, that's that's that's
551
00:33:51.220 --> 00:33:52.859
really helpful and I completely agree that. Guess there's never a great moment to
552
00:33:52.940 --> 00:33:55.730
start to just always start now.
It's great. Yeah, and there their
553
00:33:55.769 --> 00:34:00.250
lab is. You know, talk
to other entrepreneurs right. I mean obviously
554
00:34:00.329 --> 00:34:02.890
there's a lot of different folks that
have opinions, you know, the venture
555
00:34:04.009 --> 00:34:07.049
side, on you know, partner
side, whatever it is, but talk
556
00:34:07.089 --> 00:34:09.199
to people that have been in your
shoes. It's really interesting to get advice
557
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:13.559
some people that have never started a
business. It's really interesting to talk to
558
00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:15.360
people that are giving you advice on
what to do with your company, but
559
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:19.599
they've never kind of really been in
your shoes. And some of the best,
560
00:34:19.679 --> 00:34:23.159
most candid device that I've received it's
from other entrepreneurs and, you know,
561
00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:27.869
I feel like really understanding people that
are walking in your shoes. It's
562
00:34:27.909 --> 00:34:30.869
never going to be, you know, the exact same experience, but just
563
00:34:30.070 --> 00:34:34.710
understanding some of those common alleys from
the from the founder side, from the
564
00:34:34.989 --> 00:34:37.469
entrepreneur side. I think it's really
important. No, that's great advice as
565
00:34:37.510 --> 00:34:42.179
well. Talk to others and a
hundred percent agree that that could be a
566
00:34:42.260 --> 00:34:45.659
way more valuable with folks that have
been in your shoes and folks that might
567
00:34:45.699 --> 00:34:47.019
not have started a company, by
the way. I mean, you know,
568
00:34:47.260 --> 00:34:50.739
maybe it's like how do you actually
get off the ground and what's the
569
00:34:50.780 --> 00:34:52.409
best way to do that? You
know, maybe it's Oh, you know,
570
00:34:52.449 --> 00:34:55.010
I did a convertible note. Should
I do another convertible note? Or
571
00:34:55.050 --> 00:34:58.889
I do I try to go straight
to a price round this under standing the
572
00:34:58.969 --> 00:35:00.929
impact, because there's so many things
that you're just going to get blindsided by,
573
00:35:01.050 --> 00:35:05.130
right, you know, all the
things that only from a founder perspective,
574
00:35:05.210 --> 00:35:07.920
you know, understanding delution. You
know, maybe it's not so much
575
00:35:07.960 --> 00:35:09.599
about to lotion. Maybe it's more
about control. Like those are like the
576
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:14.760
the real question, that's the real
talk at so few folks really trying to
577
00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:16.599
light on but you're only going to
get that feed off from other fountain.
578
00:35:16.719 --> 00:35:20.920
Now that's really, really helpful,
really helpful. Well, Stephen. Thank
579
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:23.429
you so much. For coming on
the show. I I love the conversation.
580
00:35:23.670 --> 00:35:27.349
Thanks so much again, Mike.
Thanks so much and I hope I'll
581
00:35:27.349 --> 00:35:30.269
see you in downtown cover sometime and
we can ever drink exactly once all this
582
00:35:30.389 --> 00:35:34.070
clears out. Will certainly have to
do that. And there you have it.
583
00:35:34.230 --> 00:35:37.460
It was terriffic having seven on.
Stephen, thanks so much for coming
584
00:35:37.500 --> 00:35:39.579
on the show and for chatting.
You're also welcome to follow me on twitter
585
00:35:39.619 --> 00:35:45.099
at Mike Gelb. For all episodes, please visit the conserviccom thanks again for
586
00:35:45.219 --> 00:35:45.900
listening. Folks,
1
00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:03.720
Hey folks. Before we get started, I wanted to tell you about the
2
00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:09.310
consumer VC summit. The consumer VC
summit is a threeday virtual event that is
3
00:00:09.390 --> 00:00:14.310
focused on ECOMMERCE, retail and innovation. This is all happening in February,
4
00:00:14.310 --> 00:00:18.190
twenty three through twenty five, two
thousand and twenty one. Mark Nathan and
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00:00:18.230 --> 00:00:21.539
I have really poured our souls into
it. During the day, is a
6
00:00:21.620 --> 00:00:26.660
mix of talks and panel discussions with
some incredible founders and investors that focus on
7
00:00:26.699 --> 00:00:30.660
these sectors. In the evenings,
we're going to be throwing networking events and,
8
00:00:31.140 --> 00:00:34.700
if you're a founder it will also
have access to mentoring sessions, which
9
00:00:34.780 --> 00:00:40.490
means you'll meet three investors or industry
professionals for feedback about your business. All
10
00:00:40.530 --> 00:00:44.289
of our talks and panels will also
be available for replay. With the ticket,
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00:00:44.570 --> 00:00:51.280
please check out summit dot the consumer
vccom and enter consumer VC for a
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00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:55.640
twenty percent discount. This is also
located in the show notes. We look
13
00:00:55.679 --> 00:01:12.790
forward to seeing you there. Now
on to the episode. Hello and welcome
14
00:01:12.870 --> 00:01:17.430
to the consumer VC I'm your host, Michael, and on this show we
15
00:01:17.590 --> 00:01:21.980
talked about the role of veture,
capital and innovation in both consumer technology and
16
00:01:22.099 --> 00:01:25.659
consumer products. If you enjoy this
show, please tell a friend or colleague
17
00:01:25.659 --> 00:01:27.459
about it and helps read the word. If you want to also search other
18
00:01:27.579 --> 00:01:32.379
episodes or learn about some of the
other resources that are available to you,
19
00:01:32.739 --> 00:01:37.969
head over to the consumer viccom.
Thank you, Samar Hernandez, for introducing
20
00:01:38.049 --> 00:01:42.890
me to today's guest, Stephen Wolf
Pereira, cofounder and CEO of Incentos,
21
00:01:42.049 --> 00:01:48.079
an award winning at Tech Company that
believes kids learned best rough play while teaching
22
00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:52.959
kids twenty one century life skills.
We discussed some of Steven's learning's working at
23
00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:57.359
both technology companies and communication companies,
the inspiration and insight behind and gun thos
24
00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:09.870
and how he introduces new brands.
Without further ADO, here's Stephen. Stephen,
25
00:02:10.030 --> 00:02:13.550
thank you so much for joining me
today. How are you? Are
26
00:02:13.590 --> 00:02:15.900
you during Mike? I'm thrilled to
be on. Thanks for having me so,
27
00:02:16.860 --> 00:02:20.379
so awesome. I think you're the
first guest that also lives in culver
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city as well, like me,
so it's really great to have you here
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on the show. But you're so
close by care time and touch you.
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I know, I exactly if only
right, if only. Only. Yeah,
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man, well, Hey, so
talk to me a little bit about
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the beginning. What was your initial
attraction to technology and media? So initial
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attract statistics, anology and media.
I mean, I think it's one of
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the things where you never really know
what your affinity is. Growing up,
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I think I was always attracted to
technology and if I had known that computer
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science was a thing, I probably
would have majored in it. But I
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think I not naturally gravitated to tech. Once I started my career actually in
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finance and invest thanking for I got
signed to work on a lot of TMT
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type deals, so technology medium telecom, and I worked a lot on privatizations
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of telecom companies in Latin America,
and so that was actually my first party
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into it. No, that's trifect
and I remember we spoke last time.
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You were talking about how you were, you know, working on the cloud
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before the cloud was a thing.
That's true, man. I was at
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Alkhamai technologies in one thousand nine hundred
and ninety nine and that's when it was
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on demand computing. You know,
it was definitely they were one of the
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pioneers and no one kind of understood
what they were doing, but everyone thought
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there were a hardware company, but
they were actually doing a brand new category
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called content delivery, and today aquamis
about thirty five percent of global HTP traffic.
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That's amazing. That's awesome and I
know you is well worked on the
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media side of things. You also
worked at you division and was of all
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of them on the marketing side.
What I find interesting in this is,
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you know, based on our parasition, I understand how your experience and media
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would really really help you in terms
of, you know, building and Cantos.
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But I also found interesting was also
the enterprise sass part as well,
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really was helpful to a your approach
to shardy business. I would love to
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just if you could maybe just take
us through how you think about your past
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and media technology and really some of
your learnings, especially in the enterprise sass
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part, and really how that is
transformed and guy you and really helped you
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with your business. Absolutely, man. Well, it's a long, strange
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journey right. I mean it's funny
how all these things are truly connected.
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But I think the three most important
macro trends of the twenty one century are
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director consumer you know, which is
all set around First Party data, personalization,
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which is only power, you know, possible and powerful when you have
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first party data and then subscription,
understanding that you were not going to have
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our occurring revenue relationship with your customer, and it fundamentally transforms the way you
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go to market. But I feel
like a lot of that experience started by
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working in tech, originally at Alfa, my technologies, but I've been working
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in tech for over two decades and
my last three games before joining in Contos
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fall time was actually as a Cemo
of different data technology company, whether that
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was data logics, which got acquired
by Oracle, New Star, which was
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a public technology company that got taken
a private and then the last one being
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quantcast, which was an ai and
know what it's company. But I'd like
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the common thread was always understanding how
software as a service, how understanding data
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and performance marketing was rea going to
drive and connect audiences, and I feel
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like all those skills are exactly the
I guess raw materials are the ingredients for
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me to really kind of provide that
to and Gondos and bring it to Ed
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Tech, which I think has been
sort of relacking those skills. Yeah,
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I would say what was your attraction
to Ed Tech and as well as I
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guess you eventually then founding in Kentos. Would love to learn more about the
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origin story. Yeah, well,
I mean, look, I pride myself
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and trying to be a lifelong learner. I think I've always had an affinity
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to education. I know my family
from the Dominican Republic and I think any
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type of immigrant family you're always thought
that the one thing that people can take
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away from you is your education.
So there's always a lot of value put
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on education. But specifically, I
think I was just always inspired by learning
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right and how do you really just
be a sponge and just, you know,
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be passionately curious and learn from anybody
and everybody? And I feel like
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that was one of the things that
I always took from me because I didn't
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really have that exposure. I mean
I grew up at a time when the
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Internet wasn't really a thing. I
think when I was in my senior year
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in College, I graduated ninety five
I think they were just coming out of
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pie and having email servers coming across
campuses. So you know, it was
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really this idea of how do you
learn things, how you learn new technologies,
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how do you learn businesses and industries? And you know, I think
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by starting in finance I just got
exposed to lots of different fields and it's
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want to soak it all off.
But I've always been passionate about education and
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I always thought that at some point
I would go into teaching, but it
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turns out that I'm just taking off
of my experiences on the business and technology
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side and now bringing it into attack. That's awesome. That's awesome. So
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tell us, for those that aren't
familiar with in Kento's tell us a little
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bit about your company's mission and also
I'd love to know to just how you
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think about the education space. It's
there's so much technology that's going into it,
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there's so much innovation happening. I
would love to kind of hear how
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you think about it, be be
on a macro level. And also,
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were in Kantos slots in per se? Absolutely well. I mean, first
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off, you know it kind of
took a pandemic to make Ed Tech Cool.
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I think it's kind of crazy.
I mean, we started a company
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in two thousand and sixteen and the
whole idea was, how do you take
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those kind of three trends that I
mentioned beforehand? Director Consumer personalization and subscription
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but how do we bring it to
Ed Tech Or, you know specifically education,
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but using technology to really enable it? And what we want to do
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is build a direct to it's a
director consumer. We effectually call it direct
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to learner because we're focus on kids
and families. But how do you build
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a direct to learn a subscription platform
that is powered by brands? And I
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think the insight was, you know, Sesame Street, kind of pioneer this
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ages ago, right, like you
want to learn through play, and Maria
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Monto story spoke about this. You
know, over a century ago, that
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kids learn through play. So it's
not necessarily something that is new. But
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I think the whole idea that entertainment
is candy and it could only be a
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toy story for frozen too, like
it's not going to have substance. That's
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kind of one side of the spectrum. And the other side is that education
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has to be serious. It's about
testing and you know, standards and you
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know all this kind of rigger around
it, but it really makes it boring
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and it takes all the fun out
of it. And one of our early
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advisors, Sir Ken Robinson, was
the most watched Ted talk of all time.
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How schools kill creativity. You know, there's a lot of thought of
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you know, how schools really focus
more on education but they really don't focus
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on learning and inspiring kids to,
you know, learn how to learn.
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So we thought if you could take
the best of entertainment and the best of
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education but have a powered by technology. You know, that's kind of what
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we're trying to do and the way
we talked about it is we think that
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we're developing a brand new category called
story teaching, and that really is exciting
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because you're taking characters and worlds that
kids want to be a part of,
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focus on twenty one century skills,
the learning, literacy and life skills that
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kids need to learn, but we're
fusing it in a subscription platform with digital
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and physical products. That's fascinating and
thanks so much for explain that as well.
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I'd love to know how you think
about when you maybe introduce a new
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product, or how you think about
the software component versus a physical goods component,
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because that to me just seems quite
complex, and maybe it's not,
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but it would love to just kind
of hear your part to it. Sure.
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I mean I think part of it
is really having a very clear north
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stock. And so for us,
the whole North Start for for Exonsi says
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we want to be the home for
inspiring kids to learn twenty per century skills.
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So it actually starts with the pedagogy, right. It really starts with
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do you have the learning, literacy
and life skills that kids need to learn,
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but packaging it in a really fun, entertaining, engaging way, and
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that's where the story comes into it, the characters and obviously we want to
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have cultural conticity because if you look
at kids today, over fifty percent of
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them are diverse. So really understanding
the story and who is telling the story
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matters. But once you kind of
understand the entertainment and the education side,
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how you bring it to life.
That actually is the fun part, right,
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because now you can leverage all these
incredible technologies to really engage kids.
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And we're truly at the tipping point
of the next way of innovation, because
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the first by the iphones, just
came out. You know, there's a
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lot of hype around it, but
it's going to probably take a couple of
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years to really start to see all
the different use cases and technologies that are
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going to be enabled by five J
but we're really bullish on how five g's
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going to enable R and V are
in terms of every single industry, but
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specifically for entertainment, of Education,
and when you think about really having integrated
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digital and physical experiences, that is
where the story teaching gets really exciting,
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because you can start something in an
APP, but the learning doesn't have to
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stop there. I mean, I
think most parents know you can't have a
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kid on the screen for eight hours
at a time, right. I mean,
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I'm struggling that with you know,
my my kindergartener going through zoom kindergarten
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right, like. You don't want
them in the screen that long, but
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they're obviously there are a lot of
vantages to learning through APPs and so once
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that experience is done, you could
continue the learning through physical experiences, through,
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you know, either learning through play
with, you know, products,
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you know, like blots or toys
or games or puzzles. There's so many
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different ways that have physical and digital
working together and the software that could personalize
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those learning experiences. That's the exciting
work. No, that's really interesting.
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I love that. What I appreciate
about it is because not only obviously we
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can all learn so much online and
be dashed at the same time, it's
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also probably not the best thing for
kids to always be online, right,
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so also having physical goods that they
can actually, you know, touch and
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feel and play with. That's great, and learn that way. I love
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to know how do you think about
on story teaching? How do you think
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about when it comes to like introduce, you see, new characters or building
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stories? I know they obviously you're
learning about very maybe modern elements with,
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you know, cultural diversity, which
really shouldn't be modern, but you know,
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just introducing these things that maybe aren't
really thought about it being introduced maybe,
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you know, twenty thirty years ago, but would love to just kind
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of hear about how you think about, you know, introducing new characters.
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So the way we think about is
that we're actually building franchises, right.
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So you know, you could have
Mickey Mouse and you could have pepper pig
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and you could have ricky chicky,
which is, you know, our neat
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character from kind of pecost which is
our number one by liberal preschool. But
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I think behind all these characters there
has to be a creative right, there
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has to be a beating heart of
a creator that has a story they want
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to tell, and we're fortunate that
my cofounder and, you know, kind
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of my partner in purpose as this
woman suite how to meet your who is
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a world class creative talent. You
know, she is an emmy nominating director,
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producer, artist, illustrator, she
went to crash, she's does an
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incredible talent, and having someone that
really knows how to tell stories and that
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has the eye and, you know, also the fund of the wit right,
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because it's not meant to be boring. I think that's the problem with
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a lot of education does in general
and Ed text specifically, where you're taking,
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you know, credible physical work sheet
and you're just going to digitize it.
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That's not a right. Oh,
you had some you know, kind
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of you know, business rules or
some machine learning around something, the person
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white something that's still not, you
know, enough. You really need to
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create, you know, the world's
that kids want to be a part of.
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You want the HAG rewards, you
know, that's what kids want to
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live. They want to be in
Erandale like. They want to be a
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part of these worlds and have characters
that they actually fall in love with,
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but also that they could see themselves
with. So the fact that we actually
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have characters that look like what America
looks like right. I mean when you
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have thirty percent of kids today being
without, you know, and there's nothing
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out there, literally nothing, I
mean what you had door from twenty years
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ago, I mean I think you
could do better. So I think there's
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just pent up demand from if you
know, ninety percent of new parents are
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millennials today. I think they've grown
up in a world that is diverse.
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They want the kids to be citizens
of the world. So how do you
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create characters and stories that are entertaining, engaging but also educational? And I
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feel like that's the fusion that we're
doing and it's part of our secrets.
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Off though, that's really inspirational,
to be honest, and that's just amazing.
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What do you think about? You
know you're giving back and legacy and
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maybe what are some of those?
Well, you know, as a business,
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because of course you're developing this new
area of education, which is really
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exciting, but would love to know
as well what you think in terms of
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business traits that you think might have
been overlooked, not existed maybe twenty thirty
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years ago and that maybe you're kind
of shiving for with in Kentos. Of
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course, I mean for us it
was really from the beginning we set the
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company up as a public benefit corporation. So I think a lot of people
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are for maybe the be court movement
using business as a force for good,
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and we actually took it a step
further. We actually incorporated as a public
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benef for corporation, so it's written
into our by laws. Were a sea
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corpses like any other sea corps,
but by being public benefit corporation. And
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it's not just about shareholder value,
it's about stakeholder value. And probably the
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most famous public benefit corporation, PDC, is Pedagonia, but there are so
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many others. You know, there's
all birds and there is etc. And
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there's kickstarter and you know, there's
tons of folks that have really adopted this
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mentality of really doing well by doing
good. And part of our whole ethos
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says all our brands have a cause
that they support. So, for Canthikos,
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if we're the number one biling will
preschool brand. Well, guess what?
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That brand is supporting bilingual educators and
we support those teachers around the country.
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Right there's so few resources and just
tools to help these teachers teach two
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languages. I mean you want your
kids to be kindergarten ready and two languages.
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That's what that brand is all about. So by giving back to the
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community. Certainly there's tons of lowingdom
communities that we support with free products and
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you know free you know, kind
of coach to the APP. But we
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want to make sure that each of
our brands has a social cause that they
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support. No, that's that's amazing
and it seems like you you not only
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talk the top of you walk the
walk in terms of building products that are
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helping children, but also have a
company that has a triple bottom line.
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It's not just about financial returns,
which is just amazing. So I know
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you brought up your tree bands.
Will love those. Just dive into the
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three bands that you currently have developed
under in Kentos and how you think about
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developing more brands. What's the thought
process? Sure, so, I think
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the fun thing is we get to
be direct to consumer and because of that
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it gives us a lot of freedom
in terms of how we bring a brand
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to light. And so you know, in previous lives, when I was
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either at univision or and public scenes
I surround the Walmart media business. I
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still at all the cultural media business, but got to work with Walmart and
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PNG and coke and craft and Himeken. So I seen world class brands up
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close. The Fun thing is we
now get to create world class brands that
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are going to stand the test of
time. mean, they really mean something
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to you know kind of kids and
families today. So we're really identifying back
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to the North Star of inspiring kings
to learn twenty one century skills or trying
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to identify those lanes that really no
one is focused on, and we are
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creating a brand that is going to
be cultural, authentic, is going to
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have organically those twenty one century skills
woven into it, the learning skills like
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creativity, critical thinking, communication,
collaboration with they called the four seas literacy
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skills, and it's not just you
know, kind of reading, writing and
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with with that kind of thing,
but it's also literacy around civics, right,
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literacy around the environment, around health
and wellness, you know stem.
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I mean there's so much that needs
to be kind of understood from a literacy
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perspective and arguably one of the most
important areas are life skills, right.
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How do you develop the social emotional
skills that kids need especially in a time
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when you know isolation happens through social
media. Obviously kids aren't able to interact
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with each other at school because of
the pandemic, but these are the life
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skills that parents really want their kids
to learn and they're not being taught in
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the school. I mean the whole
idea of play based learning really kind of
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ends at kindergarten. Once you enter
elementary school, that's when you start the
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rigger of test it right, and
so you lose all of them. Want
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the story based play blakes learning.
We want to continue back through our brand.
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So we pick a lane like bilingual
education, and we've created a kind
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of peoples. We picked our next
brand to be tiny travelers, and that's
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all about helping kids become citizens of
the world. How do you expire kids
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to work about geography, language and
culture? And so we're literally doing every
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country from around the world. And
we started all of our brands with books,
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but that is going to be an
animated series, that's going to be
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a subscription APP and subscripting box and
so on and so forth. So all
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these brands have again digital and physical
ways that the brand comes to life.
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But again we're picking these swim lans
that are really in demand and again overlooked,
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and it happens to be with either
diversity, equality inclusion at the heart
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of the brief. There's a number
of good points in there. I think
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one point that I didn't think about, and it makes a lot of sense,
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that that, as you say,
after kindergarten, that's when testing starts,
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and that's really almost one of your
I guess maybe formal education starts per
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se, so kind of continue that
path for children. Yeah, I think
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that's extremely important. Obviously is a
venture capital podcast, so we also want
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to talk about the fundraising side of
things, and so I'd love to know
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what was your approach when you first
began thinking about fundraising. Sure. Well,
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you know, it's excited. We
just posed our series see, which
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we're super proud of. We had
Charles Hudson that precursor ventures lead around and
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we had some really great folks partingsipate, like Jeff Weiner's next play ventures.
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We had Steve Cases Revolution, the
rise of the rest bun led by David
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Hall. You know, we also
have some great individuals like Spencer Ass pop
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and our new chairman and solved to
here who it was actually the the first
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left, you know, to be
the see of a fortune one hundred and
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fifty company and he's been on the
boards of, you know, target and
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Bank of America and WPP. So
you know, I feel like we really
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have a great group of folks that
are mission aligned. I think that was
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really the key thing that we were
focused on. Is Capital Suraw a commodity
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and you know, you really want
people that believe in the mission. And
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when you start to talk about something
that is quote Unquote Ed Tech or impact
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oriented, you have lots of folks
could have roll their eyes right. I
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mean for a long time at tech
was really not an interesting area for folks.
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They kind of overlooked it. And
the minute that you say, Oh
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yeah, we have some content as
part of the mix, well then that
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becomes like a third rail, right, because no one wants to invest in
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content. No one wants to invest
in immediate company. But we don't have
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advertising as part of our business.
Park where a subscription based blended learning platform
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and we're doing direct to consumer brand. So it was very interesting to see
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that it took a while for some
folks to realize what we were building and
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by design we didn't kind of play
our whole hand from the beginning, because
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we actually started our company in a
very lean tech way. We just started
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with physical products, actually with books, but we kind of had the system
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and we actually became our own publisher
and the whole idea was to really figure
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out how to use physical products,
to start to into innovrate them with digital
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products and use all that as hooks
to drive subscriptions. But now we're at
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that point and you know, I
feel like it took a pandemic again to
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make d tech cool. I think
now everyone is realizing that Ed tech is
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an incredibly vibranty sector. There so
much to be doing in this space and
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you know the whole idea of homeschooling
and things like that. You know those
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markets are going to triple the next
part. You know, Twelve d eighteen
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months. Know, that's really helpful
thing. So much for explain that,
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and that's interesting to as well,
just on the business strategy side of things,
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how you thought about maybe the physical
good as the hook in some ways,
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and then getting learners to lean into
them pain for the subscription. That's
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a really fascinating way. It mean, but also fascinating to is you know
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Ed tick now it's a lot more
popular, for sure. But what's interesting
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as well is that, you know, like DTC businesses, the physical good
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businesses, they've, you know,
at least tech investors have kind of shifted
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away from those areas just because you
don't have those growth opportires opportunities that you
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did in the early two thousand and
ten late to thousands. and was wondering
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was that ever an issue, the
fact that you were selling physical goods to
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investors are now? Yeah, I
mean, you know, it's interesting,
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right, like, I mean Disney
just have their investor day yesterday, right,
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and they announced monster growth in their
Disney plus subscription in that and that
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is literally, I think, where
you're going to see every company kind of
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go through. Everyone is going to
go direct to consumer in some way,
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shape or form. So I don't
view it as a fat I appreciate that
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from maybe adventure side, you know
there's an arbitrage opportunity and you know you
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want to be the first one or
the second one in. But, like,
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I'm trying to build brands that are
going to like last, you know,
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the test of time. Right,
like we're building brands that actually mean
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something to the consumer. We're focused
on the audience that we're serving and by
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going direct. That just happens to
be part of, you know, kind
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of the business model, right,
but I don't view it as a fat
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I think it's critical that by getting
first party data from a direct relationship with
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your customer and because we're building a
learning platform where they will grow with us
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over time so that we can cross
Oll an upsell. That is part of
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that whole you know, kind of
idea of going direct and the fact that
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we have both digital and physical products. Of course, we know when people
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saw like Oh, we had a
book, there were likes crashing their heads
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like what are you talking about,
like I don't want to be in a
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book business. No, like this
is a means to an end, but
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not not everyone saw that, you
know, in the beginning. For sure.
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Now that's really helpful. Yeah,
I always think that it's interesting,
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you know, just investors. I
come on the show when you talk about,
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you know, brand some of them
have kind of way away from brands.
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Others are like that's crazy. I
was of them only invest in brands
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and love vested brands and won't invest
in anything about brands. So I always
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just find this stuff really just interesting. So was it harder to fundraiser and
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covid? So, you know,
it's interesting. The trajectory is we you
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know, we were bootstrapped. You
know, I was fortunate to have,
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you know, ability to start the
company after, you know, some of
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the exits that we had, and
so we really took our time to kind
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of build out the model and I
feel like that is really where we're focus
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on, trying to build this very
scalable platform, because everyone in venture once
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in that is venture scale, right. Everyone wants the next facebook or whatever
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it is, or maybe our facebook
these days, maybe airbb. But you
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know, it was really interesting.
Early on we had some initial interests from
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folks that were again very mission aligne
and I feel that that was where I
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can't thank them enough. But,
you know, mintioned free too, keeper
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capital. They were the lead for
we did to convertible notes before we did
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this series see, and they were
the ones that really the saw the opportunity
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and the fact that we were building
something that maybe you know at that moment
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in time in two thousand and seventeen
and two thousand and eighteen, you know,
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it wasn't all there, but as
obviously a means to an end we
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were getting there and they participated in
an actually all three rounds, but it
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was really getting a group of folks
that believed in what we were building and
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it was definitely not for a lot
of folks. I mean, people either
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didn't like attach or they didn't understand
why we're doing books, or they thought
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that this was like a hit dripping
business and so we don't want to be
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in media. And then, honestly, it was a lot of folks that
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didn't understand the diversity angle, you
know, and I think maybe in the
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wake up black lives matter and the
murder of George floor and all of a
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sudden people now kind of care about
diversity. But definitely in seventeen, eighteen
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nineteen it was a much harder pitch. Yeah, that's also just really interesting
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to hear. It was a harder
just meeting with folks as well. I
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mean I've heard investors say that establishing
conviction with founders remotely has been really challenging.
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Did you ever sense that around so
much, you know, when covid
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hit, I think that's where all
was. We're just like wow, what's
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going to happen? And we definitely
saw at first everyone, I think,
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was the shell shop in March.
But very slowly but surely we started getting
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a lot of inbound because again also
people were waking up to let oi cow.
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Everyone's going to be learning from home. Nine out two found the planet
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are now learning at home. So
we actually were able to get meetings with
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folks. Obviously will resume very easily. I think the thing of actually closing
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around, like everyone will take a
meeting and maybe some people are just trying
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to meet because they wanted to sit
a network a diverse founder. I mean
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we're obviously very unique because it's a
full, you know kind of a diverse
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set of exacts at the company.
It's actually for Latin ex founders, but
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you know, we have, you
know, an incredible you know mix of
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talent at the company and we're also
female majority owned. So there are a
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lot of interesting angles from back lends. But I think some people just took
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the mean to check a box.
To be candid, some people were generally
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curious about okay, I think there's
something here in Ed Tech, but it's
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maybe outside of my, you know
kind of comfort zone or my horror competencies.
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But they were curious about Ed tat
and then legit some people were wow,
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I really see the opportunity and the
fact that, you know, you
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have brands that are meeting this moment. We want to help you get to
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the next level. But definitely,
if you look at the folks that have
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invested in us, it's interesting that
a lot of them happen to be either
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women, people of Color or people
that have kids. I think that has
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been you know, definitely folks that
understand what it is that we're building.
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If they don't meet that criteria,
maybe it took a little bit longer for
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them to understand what it is.
Yeah, I think also just folks understand
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the problem, right, folks that
really identify with the problem itself. That
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makes a lot of sense. So
I would say, what is one thing
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that you would change about venture capital? One thing I would change about venture
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capital? I think it's a really
great question. I think there is perception
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that having impact, you know,
means that you're in a nonprofit business something
427
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like that. I feel, I
like the whole ability and if you read
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some of the research that keeper capital
has done and they they put out their
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impact report, you really can see
that, I focusing on impact, you
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could actually still have outside returns at
the same time. So I feel like
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that is kind of something that needs
to be debunked. I also just feel
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that the whole idea of all you
just need to do one thing right like
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this very linear, like you need
to do one thing and just not really
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understand that sometimes one thing is actually
integrating a couple of things. I feel
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like there's a lot of conversation about
that, because people would be like,
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00:27:17.490 --> 00:27:19.049
well, why are you doing a
book thing? Just do the APP,
437
00:27:19.170 --> 00:27:22.650
and it's like no, there's actually
a reason why. This is a blended
438
00:27:22.690 --> 00:27:25.569
learning approach and you actually need both. But some folks were like no,
439
00:27:25.730 --> 00:27:27.849
I just want you to do one
thing and Oh, it's kind of pattern
440
00:27:27.890 --> 00:27:30.920
recognition, right, like they only
understand. I've seen, you know,
441
00:27:32.119 --> 00:27:34.240
fifty APPs. This is what they'll
do. You don't meet that model,
442
00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:38.440
so I'm not interested, and that's
fine, but then they're certainly missing the
443
00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:41.440
opportunity, because it just feels like
lots of people are chasing the same thing.
444
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:45.910
I mean, you know, look
at clubhouse right like Oh, let's
445
00:27:45.950 --> 00:27:48.829
give a ridiculous valuation to something and
you know, here you go, but
446
00:27:48.950 --> 00:27:52.710
there's no track record and you know, but where used to that power recognition
447
00:27:52.829 --> 00:27:56.710
versus something that might look different.
But that's kind of the zero to one
448
00:27:56.869 --> 00:27:59.660
right. Like I feel like,
and you know Airbnb when they were starting,
449
00:27:59.779 --> 00:28:02.180
right, like how many people turn
them down? I mean Brian Talks
450
00:28:02.180 --> 00:28:03.980
about it all the time, right. So I feel like it's harder to
451
00:28:04.059 --> 00:28:08.099
understand that zero to one, but
really investing the time to not just blow
452
00:28:08.099 --> 00:28:11.779
it off because it doesn't fit that
model. Those are the folks that I
453
00:28:11.859 --> 00:28:14.250
feel like we're going to make the
outside of return. Yeah, I think
454
00:28:14.289 --> 00:28:15.690
it. Those are all great points. And relating it back to you and
455
00:28:15.769 --> 00:28:18.769
your business, I mean, you
know, I also think physical goods.
456
00:28:18.849 --> 00:28:22.130
For the investors that think about it
just as a SASS business or want you
457
00:28:22.170 --> 00:28:26.440
to do one thing, it's also
your differentiation, a hundred percent your differentiation.
458
00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:30.920
The fact that you're doing both physical
and software and aren't just focusing on
459
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:33.720
one, so it also be done, just incredibly valuable to I mean,
460
00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:36.880
you know, I really look you
know, as an analogy. You Know
461
00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:41.119
Pelton, right, I mean them
as a subscription business, but that bike
462
00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:44.789
is the physical good. That bike
is the hardware. That is a reminder
463
00:28:44.869 --> 00:28:48.549
of you know, that read in
the house. You know when you close
464
00:28:48.630 --> 00:28:51.470
the APP, you know it's obviously
out of mind. But if you actually
465
00:28:51.470 --> 00:28:53.750
have a physical product like one of
my books that are beloved, that are
466
00:28:53.750 --> 00:28:56.460
award winning, and they also,
you know, because it's the kids in
467
00:28:56.539 --> 00:28:59.779
family space, you know, when
you're putting your child to bed, you
468
00:28:59.819 --> 00:29:02.259
don't want to have a screen front
of your kid, you want to read
469
00:29:02.339 --> 00:29:04.859
to them. So understanding the consumer, you know, not just using it,
470
00:29:06.059 --> 00:29:08.339
as you know, kind of a
throwaway line that I'm customer obsessed.
471
00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:12.569
No really understand what the day in
the life of the consumer is, and
472
00:29:12.650 --> 00:29:15.369
in our case it's the parent.
Right, it's the parent, it's making
473
00:29:15.410 --> 00:29:18.769
the purchase. There's going to be
a time for screens, there's going to
474
00:29:18.809 --> 00:29:22.329
be a time for physical products,
and I think that blended learning approach is
475
00:29:22.369 --> 00:29:25.400
what is unique about car model.
It just happens to be wrapping the subscription,
476
00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:27.039
but it definitely took some time for
some folks to see, oh,
477
00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:30.160
why are you doing physical problems?
I absolutely agree. I mean, as
478
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:33.440
I was just looking over it,
because there's a palace Han right next to
479
00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:37.160
me and seeing it is always reminds
me that that I need to do it
480
00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:38.430
every day, even though I wish
I did every day. No, I
481
00:29:38.670 --> 00:29:42.549
totally agree. I totally agree,
and I think that relationship to of the
482
00:29:42.670 --> 00:29:47.829
physical products and Sasspass and only all
the innovations that becoming out pealot add your
483
00:29:47.910 --> 00:29:51.390
business looks really, really fascinating,
and others. I think it's just the
484
00:29:51.509 --> 00:29:56.180
almost this new wave of these different
types of businesses that are both thinking about
485
00:29:56.180 --> 00:30:00.099
physical goods as well as like a
software component. What's one book that inspired
486
00:30:00.140 --> 00:30:03.180
you personally and one book that inspired
you professionally? I mean there's so many,
487
00:30:03.420 --> 00:30:06.940
so many good ones. I would
say, you know, from the
488
00:30:07.529 --> 00:30:11.490
personal it actually is like any of
the books by Sir Ken Robinson. So
489
00:30:11.569 --> 00:30:14.490
I'm just a very big fan of
his. Unfortunately he actually passed away this
490
00:30:14.650 --> 00:30:18.130
here, but he was just such
an innovator in terms of education and you
491
00:30:18.250 --> 00:30:22.359
know, when you think about how
kids learn, when you think about the
492
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:25.880
things that you want your kids to
learn, you want them to be creative,
493
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:27.200
you want them to be innovative.
You know, we talked about all
494
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:32.839
these things all the time, but
it's so disconnected from what the I effectually
495
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:36.950
call the industrialized, you know kind
of educational complex, right, the way
496
00:30:37.230 --> 00:30:41.029
that education is built for the twenty
century of you know, the industrial era.
497
00:30:41.309 --> 00:30:45.990
It just doesn't lend itself to creativity
and innovation and, frankly, all
498
00:30:45.029 --> 00:30:48.910
the things that kids need to not
just, you know, survive, but
499
00:30:48.069 --> 00:30:51.339
to thrive in the twenty one century. You know this is going to be
500
00:30:51.380 --> 00:30:53.220
the AI era. If it is
going to be, you know, anything
501
00:30:53.259 --> 00:30:56.539
that can be automated will be.
Is the mantra right. So kids need
502
00:30:56.660 --> 00:31:00.819
to learn things that only humans can
do right memorizing something, gets what a
503
00:31:00.819 --> 00:31:03.529
machine will do it better. And
they don't sleep. So if you want
504
00:31:03.569 --> 00:31:06.890
your kid to be creative, if
you want them to be innovative, if
505
00:31:06.930 --> 00:31:08.890
you want them to have critical thinking
skills, you need to lean into that.
506
00:31:08.970 --> 00:31:12.130
So anything by Sir Ken Robinson.
And then on the professional side,
507
00:31:12.130 --> 00:31:15.809
I feel one of the best books
that I've read is UN scale by one
508
00:31:15.849 --> 00:31:19.920
of the VC's over a general Katawas
him it's just a brilliant book. I
509
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:25.720
feel like it really feeds into the
whole narrative of the twenty century was all
510
00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:30.480
about economies of scale and mass markets
and the twenty first centuries not unscaling and
511
00:31:30.599 --> 00:31:33.789
really getting to, you know,
markets of one. And so that ties
512
00:31:33.829 --> 00:31:37.230
into the whole idea of going direct, personalization, and subscription. No,
513
00:31:37.349 --> 00:31:40.269
I love that. I love that
and neither have been featured on our book
514
00:31:40.309 --> 00:31:42.269
list. So really excited to add
both of me. SORCER kinds a great
515
00:31:42.269 --> 00:31:47.180
book called element. You know,
he's written extensively about, you know,
516
00:31:47.180 --> 00:31:51.099
kind of education, you know,
how finding your element, you your child
517
00:31:51.259 --> 00:31:53.220
in school, out of our minds. I mean he just has such great
518
00:31:53.259 --> 00:31:56.819
stuff. I think his last book
was you, your child and school.
519
00:31:56.059 --> 00:31:59.579
That's awesome. That's great. It's
great. I'll certainly have a check them
520
00:31:59.619 --> 00:32:01.730
out. That sounds that sounds really, really cool. Also watch the Ted
521
00:32:01.809 --> 00:32:05.930
Talk. I mean again, the
most watched of all times. Yes,
522
00:32:06.210 --> 00:32:08.730
yes, I certainly need to.
Is Not only is it's not provoking,
523
00:32:08.970 --> 00:32:14.369
he's also might as well be a
standup comedian because he's also ridiculously funny and
524
00:32:14.410 --> 00:32:16.079
as a brick. He's got that, you know, that British humor.
525
00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:21.279
That that's awesome. That's awesome.
Al Wos, certainly check it out.
526
00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:23.720
That's amazing. My final question to
you is, what's one piece of advice
527
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:30.029
that you have for founders? You
just got to start like there is no
528
00:32:30.269 --> 00:32:32.950
perfect time. You're never going to
have perfect information, you're never going to
529
00:32:34.150 --> 00:32:37.710
have things are going to satisfy,
you know, the vent, your community,
530
00:32:37.150 --> 00:32:40.190
you know, partners, whatever it
is. You just got to start.
531
00:32:40.349 --> 00:32:44.940
Just go direct and talk to your
on Adience. Like all the tools
532
00:32:44.940 --> 00:32:49.619
are there. I mean we started
in two thousand and sixteen and we bootstrapped
533
00:32:49.740 --> 00:32:52.660
and we put out a book and
an APP and a youtube video just to
534
00:32:52.779 --> 00:32:57.460
test and learn, just to get
initial data. was their demand for this,
535
00:32:57.660 --> 00:33:00.970
and a year later we had over
thirty million views of our youtube videos.
536
00:33:00.089 --> 00:33:02.410
Right. I mean that's what kind
of led to us doing the partnership
537
00:33:02.410 --> 00:33:07.690
of Nickelodeon and then we got the
emmy nomination and so we would have never,
538
00:33:07.170 --> 00:33:09.450
you know, been able to do
all that stuff and get to where
539
00:33:09.490 --> 00:33:13.880
we are today, where, you
know, we now have our subscription APP,
540
00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:16.000
which just got nominated for best learning
APP by kid scream, competing with
541
00:33:16.079 --> 00:33:19.960
Lego and sesame street. I mean, you know, it got its third
542
00:33:20.039 --> 00:33:22.839
nomination for, you know, Best
Digital Preschool series. So this thing all
543
00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:28.309
took off by us just putting something
out there and getting real time feedback from
544
00:33:28.430 --> 00:33:30.589
customers. All the tools are there. Don't wait for it to be perfect,
545
00:33:30.630 --> 00:33:35.269
just start now. If you are
an entrepreneur, start right now now.
546
00:33:35.390 --> 00:33:37.950
That's a great that's a multiple good
points. I think you said to
547
00:33:37.029 --> 00:33:40.309
me. The two real ones obviously
start right now, and then also is,
548
00:33:40.390 --> 00:33:44.819
well, listen to feedback for your
customers and when you're starting, look
549
00:33:44.859 --> 00:33:46.900
at maybe it on the iteration side. Okay, what are people like?
550
00:33:47.099 --> 00:33:51.220
What they don't like about your product? And so no, that's that's that's
551
00:33:51.220 --> 00:33:52.859
really helpful and I completely agree that. Guess there's never a great moment to
552
00:33:52.940 --> 00:33:55.730
start to just always start now.
It's great. Yeah, and there their
553
00:33:55.769 --> 00:34:00.250
lab is. You know, talk
to other entrepreneurs right. I mean obviously
554
00:34:00.329 --> 00:34:02.890
there's a lot of different folks that
have opinions, you know, the venture
555
00:34:04.009 --> 00:34:07.049
side, on you know, partner
side, whatever it is, but talk
556
00:34:07.089 --> 00:34:09.199
to people that have been in your
shoes. It's really interesting to get advice
557
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:13.559
some people that have never started a
business. It's really interesting to talk to
558
00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:15.360
people that are giving you advice on
what to do with your company, but
559
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:19.599
they've never kind of really been in
your shoes. And some of the best,
560
00:34:19.679 --> 00:34:23.159
most candid device that I've received it's
from other entrepreneurs and, you know,
561
00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:27.869
I feel like really understanding people that
are walking in your shoes. It's
562
00:34:27.909 --> 00:34:30.869
never going to be, you know, the exact same experience, but just
563
00:34:30.070 --> 00:34:34.710
understanding some of those common alleys from
the from the founder side, from the
564
00:34:34.989 --> 00:34:37.469
entrepreneur side. I think it's really
important. No, that's great advice as
565
00:34:37.510 --> 00:34:42.179
well. Talk to others and a
hundred percent agree that that could be a
566
00:34:42.260 --> 00:34:45.659
way more valuable with folks that have
been in your shoes and folks that might
567
00:34:45.699 --> 00:34:47.019
not have started a company, by
the way. I mean, you know,
568
00:34:47.260 --> 00:34:50.739
maybe it's like how do you actually
get off the ground and what's the
569
00:34:50.780 --> 00:34:52.409
best way to do that? You
know, maybe it's Oh, you know,
570
00:34:52.449 --> 00:34:55.010
I did a convertible note. Should
I do another convertible note? Or
571
00:34:55.050 --> 00:34:58.889
I do I try to go straight
to a price round this under standing the
572
00:34:58.969 --> 00:35:00.929
impact, because there's so many things
that you're just going to get blindsided by,
573
00:35:01.050 --> 00:35:05.130
right, you know, all the
things that only from a founder perspective,
574
00:35:05.210 --> 00:35:07.920
you know, understanding delution. You
know, maybe it's not so much
575
00:35:07.960 --> 00:35:09.599
about to lotion. Maybe it's more
about control. Like those are like the
576
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:14.760
the real question, that's the real
talk at so few folks really trying to
577
00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:16.599
light on but you're only going to
get that feed off from other fountain.
578
00:35:16.719 --> 00:35:20.920
Now that's really, really helpful,
really helpful. Well, Stephen. Thank
579
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:23.429
you so much. For coming on
the show. I I love the conversation.
580
00:35:23.670 --> 00:35:27.349
Thanks so much again, Mike.
Thanks so much and I hope I'll
581
00:35:27.349 --> 00:35:30.269
see you in downtown cover sometime and
we can ever drink exactly once all this
582
00:35:30.389 --> 00:35:34.070
clears out. Will certainly have to
do that. And there you have it.
583
00:35:34.230 --> 00:35:37.460
It was terriffic having seven on.
Stephen, thanks so much for coming
584
00:35:37.500 --> 00:35:39.579
on the show and for chatting.
You're also welcome to follow me on twitter
585
00:35:39.619 --> 00:35:45.099
at Mike Gelb. For all episodes, please visit the conserviccom thanks again for
586
00:35:45.219 --> 00:35:45.900
listening. Folks,
