Flow State Rituals for Founders: Deep Work, Distraction Hacks & AI Focus

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Foreign,
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Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German
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startup scene with news interviews and
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live events.
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Hey guys, welcome back to episode number two of my
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interview with Stephen, which was originally planned just
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as one episode one interview, but turned out
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we were talking for nine questions for like 15 minutes. So here
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are the next questions. You are the
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founder of Suka, a flow app that helps you get
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into flow. Having other people online meeting
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with you, being seen visually to work, which makes
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a big impact. And you've been working
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in the film industry in the past and for example, on stuff like
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Independence Day, Braveheart, True Lies, Godzilla.
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You worked for example on
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Transformers prime and so on and so forth. Pretty awesome
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stuff. And we just picking your brain here
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on, on more stuff on more productivity hacks.
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What is your five minute trobbing ritual?
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What are the exact steps and tools and environment
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tweaks, like from your framework, your playbook?
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Okay, that is a great question. Okay, so I'm going to touch upon a number
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of things for those listening. Some of these things are going to
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be very prescriptive. Like here is something you can try. Some of
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them will be illustrative to say, like, this is how it applies in my life.
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Okay. So you can understand the context of it. So in
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episode one, we talked a bit about time
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blocking, right? So I'm not going to cover that here, but that is a very
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important thing for me. When I come back from the gym in the morning, I
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go get up at 5, go to the gym, come back, I. I have a
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few hours of incredible quiet. Those are
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sacred to me. You can't even book it in my calendar. And
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when we were scheduling this podcast, this podcast is at this
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time because I've already completed my focus work for the day, which
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feels amazing to know that in those three, four hours, I did enough for
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an entire day's work because I was not distracted. So listen to
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episode one if you want to talk more about. Listen more about time blocking
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and chronotypes. Right? So here's another one
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we didn't cover that helps me, which is
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it is about the relationship between your mind
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and physical spaces. And I will tell you
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a story actually about Roland. So when we met,
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it was interesting to me that
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there was a house, this villa in Puerto
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Vallarta, Mexico, where Roland and Dean, who wrote their scripts together,
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Universal Soldier, Stargate, all the stuff they would
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go to write, apparently it's this beautiful white marble villa in the hills
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of Puerto Verita. When Roland
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and Dean needed to go write Independence Day, Roland told his assistant
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Joey, he's like, Joey, go run the villa. And Joey came back
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and said, it's rented because this is like pre Airbnb. But it was like an
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Airbnb that you sort of vacation rental. And I asked
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Dean why this was so important to them. He said, you have to understand there
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is a room there where in the morning the sunlight comes over the
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pool and inspires us. We don't think about our agents. We don't
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think about the budget of the movie studio notes, you know, what
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cast is available. We just think about what's the movie we
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would want to watch. And we try and write that.
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So when Joey told Roland Roland, the place is not
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available, Roland called his entertainment attorney that Friday
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and said, John, John Deemer is an amazing attorney. John,
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buy the villa. By Monday, roland
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owned a $5 million villa in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I do
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not know the current people who are renting that villa where they went. I'm sure
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they were nicely paid to find another villa in Puerto Vallarta.
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And they went down there. And six weeks later,
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Roland and Dean returned with the script that became the third
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highest grossing movie in film history. At the time, that was
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this important thing for their mental state to be in there. Now, it is
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not that everyone listening to this has to go buy $5 billion villas. We're
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not saying that later when I'm at DreamWorks,
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right? So I was an executive vice president with Alex Kurtzman and Bob
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Orsi, who are great guys. And we had that
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Amblin compound, the Dreamers compound is on the Universal Studios lot in
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Hollywood. Directly across the street across
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Lankershim is the Universal Hilton Hotel.
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Now, I'm going to be kind. This is
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the hotel where you stay with your three kids the night before you go to
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Universal Studios theme park. This is not a place you seek out in the world
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as a great hotel, right? But when
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Alex and Bob were in crunch time, oh, we have to finish
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Transformers 2 in three weeks, right? Oh, we have to finish Star Trek 11.
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They had their assistant rent a room over at the Universal Hilton. And they would
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go there every day like it was the Office for several weeks. And I
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thought to myself, they're making a couple million dollars every script.
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Like, they could buy a villa in Puerto Vallarta or they could go anywhere. Why
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this? And what I realized was this. They
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met back in school and
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that hotel room with, like, Kurtzman on the edge of the bed with his
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laptop and Bob at the desk, that evoked dorm
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room, that brought them back mentally to,
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oh, we're These writers who have to prove that we're great, we have to pull
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this off. And that was how they used mental
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space. They knew that about themselves. So why do I say this?
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I made that mistake when I started working remotely.
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In the morning, I'd be in the kitchen because you have breakfast, and my laptop's
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there and the light is beautiful. I work from there, come upstairs, work from my
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office at lunch, the sofa in the late afternoon.
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And I realized I was not taking advantage of this thing where you say
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to your brain, oh, I'm in this space. This is where I code
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or this is where I write. And a lot of
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the great writers, a lot of the great engineers use that technique. So
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when you start to do this over time, your brain falls into that mode.
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I walk into my office up here now, and my brain gives
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up a lot of distractions around, should the laundry be done? Oh, did the
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trash need to go out? I walk up here and I think, oh, you know
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what, Let me open up my coding assistant. Let me open up, you know, my
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blogging platform and do that thing. So a very
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simple part of my ritual to get into flow. Then, of
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course, there is music. And by the way, a lot of research
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shows for most people, the sweet spot is 60 to 90
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beats per minute. Ambient, non vocal, certain
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key signatures, rhythmic music. We
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all have some friend that gets into flow using
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90s gangster rap or Tchaikovsky or something. There are many
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outliers. But for most people, this works.
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And I'll tell you a couple things that I learned outside the science. Because
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when we designed Suka, we said, oh, I have a lot of friends who are
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film composers. Write me a thousand hours of music that's basically like
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lo fi beats or upbeat or down tempo sort of
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stuff. We threw in some binaural beats, which I know when you have beautiful headphones
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like you do, you probably have experimented with binaural beats.
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Something I did not know was this. One
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of my friends does the sound for the
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LucasArts games, like the Star wars games, lives up in Marin.
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His high school graduation present to his son
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was his son wanted to go to Nepal, so they went there. When he
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came back, he said, stephen, this is going to sound weird, but when we were
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in Kathmandu, this one day, it poured rain.
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It was this beautiful, lush rain. And I had some of my recording
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equipment there, so I recorded two hours of it. Do you want it?
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I was like, okay, that's kind of an odd offer, but sure,
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kind of cool. So we threw it up as a playlist. I didn't know it
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was going to happen. I just said, let's call it Himalayan Dream Reign and we'll
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just throw it in and see if people discover it. It's our third most
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popular playlist. And when I asked some members that I saw
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listening to, I was like, hey, do you mind? I noticed you listen to this.
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Can you tell me about that? They talked about how that worked for them.
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Sort of like the physical space thing that we're talking about. Oh, it reminds me
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when I was little, I grew up in this part of the country where it
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rained all the time and I'd be doing my homework to the sound of the
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rain. So then I started asking, what other sounds
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help you get into flow? And it's interesting, some people said, oh,
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surf. I grew up by the water. Oh, I grew up by this
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lake. We had the sound of a stream
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in Japan. And then a number of people said, and this brings
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us back to the beginning of the episode. Number of people said,
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oh, you know what? Coffee shops, I can't go there anymore. Like, I have
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little children. I used to, you know, when I was younger I would go to
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a coffee shop and work from there. And, you know, now I can't do it
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with kids. But I loved that feeling of being there. So we found
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someone who recorded a couple hours in a coffee shop in
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Vienna, Austria, and we
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threw it up with a little, you know, the sounds of the baristas, you know,
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the plates clattering in this. And we called it Cafe Vienne.
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It's become incredibly popular. So it's weird the way people have their mental
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tricks. Actually, I'll link here in the show notes.
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I found a 26 second sample from
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your company on YouTube with this
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Himalayan dream brain and I'll link it down here in the
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show notes. Okay. Yes. So a long answer.
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There are a lot of things that help. They're part of my flow practice. But
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there is music, there is time blocking, there is mental space tied to
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physical space, and there are others we can talk about. But I know that was
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a big chunk.
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Give us the flow week operating system
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rituals on Monday, Tuesday versus Thursday, Friday.
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Meeting winners and how you defend. Make your time.
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Okay, so I will tell you this. I don't
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have research and I don't have anecdotal evidence
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of different days of the week. When I look at the distribution
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of member usage of Sukha,
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there are so many people in so many different time zones in so many different
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countries that they have different rhythms.
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So I would love to be an expert on things That I know and I
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would love to be not an expert on things I don't know. So you just
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asked. I have seen so many people use
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suka in so many different times in so many different ways.
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I can't tell you a pattern of Monday through Friday or even Saturdays and Sundays
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because I know we have a lot of solopreneurs who are working
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on Saturdays and Sundays because they can't do it during their day job during the
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week. So I don't have a great answer for you on that
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one. I have some personal experience to share
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here because I found a few things.
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One, I need the recovery on the weekend. So
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basically Saturday, Sunday, no working
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unless it's absolutely necessary. Sure.
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And in times of maker time, actually
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what I did is after first year of being solo
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entrepreneur, I was just looking at, I was
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analyzing like the data that I had and I found out
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Tuesdays are the least booked days. So
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basically I moved like everybody, we, we do
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get 100 pitches per
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interview slot. So you need to work through the emails, you need
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to work through like the meetings with the people and then finally
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condense them and get, get like a question list up like
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we did here. And so you need to have like different stages.
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Plus of course I need to meet with potential
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sponsors, partnerships. And so. And so I had
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two days set up as meeting days and
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in between I defend the time to be productive and
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my main working day for my paying clients is my Tuesday.
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There you go. I'm glad you structured it that way. I work
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with an app most people know calendly and
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basically on Tuesdays it's extremely hard to book with me.
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Yeah, and I love that because what you're saying plays into a
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theme that we've talked about in two episodes now, which is how do you get
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in control of your life as opposed to be controlled by your life?
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You brought up something when we were concluding the last episode
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that I think we should talk about, which is
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distractions, because I have a lot of data
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on distractions and what happens with our members.
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I can talk about it in a aggregated way. I'm not going to talk about
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any particular person. Like Yorn, you have to get off. You know, you're
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watching CNN all the time, right? No, but I can talk about it in
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aggregated way because I think this is very interesting and it helps us to craft
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the platform. And by the way, you know the value of member feedback,
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right? User feedback is golden. Our group
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chat is a fantastic place where people complain and we love it. We're like, oh,
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we can fix that, we can make that, we can build that. Right. So
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you brought up distractions. Why don't you tell me, for
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you, what do you think are the most distracting things and what do you perceive
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are the most distracting things for others? I'd love to know those two answers.
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So distracted things are random phone calls. I
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turned to one of, one of the
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startups I had here on Interview from Austria, they called
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Phonio. So what I do,
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I only give up out landline and everybody on landline lands on my
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phone or AI and system leaves them a message and
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gets here on my email. That's it. And
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what a great system. I completely eliminated.
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Secondly, people only do like lengthy bookings.
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They have to be like four hours
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ahead of time. That's also fine. The only things
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left for distracting me are actually my
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family. But that on the other hand is
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basically something you can manage and something that is okay in
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some cases. For example, I have like an unwritten rule with my
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family, family, if the door is open, you can come in. If the door is
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closed right now with the recording, no distractions.
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I have a question about that, which is Henry is the son that I've met,
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right? Yeah. Right, yeah. So you use
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headphones which have become very popular as a signal of don't
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disturb me, especially in open offices. Do they also
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perceive the headphones as a don't disturb dad? No,
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I'm the dad. I'm always available for them 24 7. Okay.
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But for you it's the door. It's. The door's closed. Yeah, it's a
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door. I actually have a key, I lock it. And when
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my sons were very small, they had to learn they
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stand outside, they're knocking. If the door is closed, that's it. That
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is not going to open. They had to learn it. It was a few very
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tough days because they're outside. Daddy, Daddy. Hello. It breaks your
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heart but then they've learned it and then you have the pattern
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established. Yeah. Okay, okay, please go on.
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I'm sorry, I interrupted you. We talked about.
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That was example number one and we were talking about
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distractions. Question two is, what do you perceive as the biggest distractions
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for other people? For other people?
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I'm not sure. I think
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there are really different type of types of people.
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For example, some of them are really
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distracted by pop ups, by messages
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and so on and so forth. That's actually a new thing that my smartphone
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is not doing anything. It's my smartwatch and only very selected
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apps that can ping me and in terms on my desktop,
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there's barely any app, anything that can send
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messages. So everything I have on my cell phone is quiet.
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And there are like two or three tools
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on my desktop computer that can send me messages. That's it. Okay.
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Would you like to know what we've discovered about distraction? Sure,
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go ahead. Okay. So I
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started, as many entrepreneurs do, solving a problem that I had,
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right? And for me, there are two
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problems that were painful. One was
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procrastination about getting started, the inertia of getting started, and how
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easy it was to scroll through the news or return emails or do
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something, as opposed to eat the frog, right?
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So the second problem was about distraction during the
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day. And I found that I was the most vulnerable when
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I would be encountering an obstacle. Oh,
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I'm. I'm trying to get this, this bit of code done,
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and the build keeps failing. What is wrong with this? You know, I'm writing
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a blog post and I know that it's terrible.
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Like, the muses are not singing to me, and I'm just reading it, going, I
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wouldn't read this. Why am I writing this? Right? So in those moments of
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frustration, I would then be very vulnerable to my hand
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going, picking up the phone. Well, you know, I'm just going to check and see
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if, you know, you are in whatsapped me or, you know, who, who sent me
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a message. I can just return that and that turns into then, oh, opening the
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YouTube video or the TikTok or something. It's just nothing good
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happens from that. Right? So those are my two problems. Let me tell you
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about how I solve that and let me expand to what I've seen in user
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data. So with the first one getting
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started, I realized I would procrastinate
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because I was overwhelmed. There are too many things on
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my to do list. It's paralyzing, or
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this thing I have to do is so big I can't make a dent in
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it. But between now and the podcast that you and I are going to do
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today, I can't write my book or something, right? So why get
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started? And I realized the solutions to those were very simple.
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When I organized my task list in Suka, as soon as I hit
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play and the music starts, it hides everything but my
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three top tasks. So it forces me to
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prioritize and say, okay, what are the three important things to do today? And then
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not think about the 14 other things that could
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clutter my mind or make me multitask. Right?
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So that was a very helpful thing for me to Say, oh, when I see
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three things and I'm working, it seems very achievable. Can I tell you,
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since we started that feature where we hide everything but your top
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three, our members are 77% more
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likely to finish three than before, when they could see
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their entire task list and they would finish one or two.
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Simple hack, nothing changed. The same tasks, the same members,
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the same amount of time. The only thing that changed was, it
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seems achievable I can do three.
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When I thought about, oh, you know,
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this task, I have to go create the new website, write the book.
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Those are not tasks, those are goals. So you can ask your smart
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assistant, hey, help me break this down and it'll be, you know what? You aren't.
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I saw you already wrote the outlines for chapters one and two of your book.
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What if today's task, it's just outline chapter three and you
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can do that in 30 minutes? I've been watching you. You do your outlines in
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about 30 minutes. Suddenly your task list seems achievable, right? So that
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was a way of getting over that inertia, that procrastination at the beginning of the
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day. That's a problem for me. And in terms of distraction,
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I didn't want to download. I mean, there's some great apps, don't get me wrong,
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that block your phone. They lock it. They're physical hardware devices like
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Brick you can buy that bricks your phone. Like, there are many ways to do
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that. But I realized, you know, I'm not a child.
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What I actually need is I just need the friend sitting next to me
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that says, hey, Steven, like, what are you doing?
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So when I hit the play button in Suka, a QR code comes
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up. Tap with my phone, start work.
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If I pick up my phone, the little voice
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comes and says to me, hey, Stephen, it seems like you picked up your phone.
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Is that distracting you? And that
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gives me that one moment to say, who do I want to be?
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And that's sometimes all I need. Just say, you know what? I'd rather be done
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earlier and do better work than stay up later
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tonight. Exact same thing with websites. I can declare my custom
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list of what distracts me and say if I open one of
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these websites, more than five seconds, not just tab surfing, but
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I stop on it, give me a modal that says,
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hey, is this distracting you? And then I just get that moment like a friend
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was sitting with me to say, who do I want to be Now? I'll tell
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you what's interesting is I have seen now running this for years, the
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seasonality of distractions. There are
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so many people with very specific sports sites, for example,
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that come and go, I'm telling you. Yeah, and
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it's the same thing as, you know, across the world. Whether it
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is, you know, football, soccer, we, you know, call it here, American football,
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whether it's baseball, whether it's ESPN in general, there
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is a huge amount of seasonality to. Oh, the
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thing that's distracting me is this. Whereas with the shopping
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sites that is also very holiday based,
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right? So you see like for us, Amazon and the
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Etsy and those before the Labor Day sales,
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which is our fall holiday, before the Christmas, before the spring Memorial
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Day sales, those spike and some people
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now in advance toggle them on, say please the next
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month, stop me if I open up Amazon. And
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I love that people are starting to get to know themselves because again, that's a
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signal of I want to be the best version of myself.
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I want to be in control of my life. So that's something
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that I am very passionate about is just saying, you know what, find
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the tools and it does not have to be suka. You can find
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freedom. You can find so many of these tools that
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help you or get a box. I don't
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think I ever showed you this. This is something I experimented with.
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See this?
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Yes. There's your logo on it and it's action box. It's a
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little phone coffin. So I can put my phone in there
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and I put it down and you know what, it's just the energy
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of trying to like open it and get my phone out that stops me
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from picking up sometimes. And it's just a bamboo
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box by the way. I have a bunch of these. So
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things like that, if you get to know yourself, you say, you know what I
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need is this. Because ultimately what we want is
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we want to do the thing we're capable of and we want to feel in
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control of our life. And that's what I love. And I love how
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many people come to you because they are in the startup scene and
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they are saying help me, teach me, give me tools, help me to
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do this thing. And that's awesome.
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I would now move a little bit away from the productivity
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tips more a little bit into
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because you're a startup in an investor view.
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When an investor asks
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why you are in a crowded category,
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what's your differential thesis versus
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focus? Music, apps and co working cameras. Well, I'll tell you two
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things. I have been very proud of the fact that we
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bootstrapped this. I've
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raised over $21 million of venture for three
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companies. One successful exit with Roland and Dean, we
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did syntropolis effects and two failed startups where I raised about
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3 million for each. So I have learned a lot
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of the ways in which you raise venture money. In doing
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this, I said to myself, you know what? I have seen
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how sometimes raising venture
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obscures the unit economics. You think, oh, we have
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$4 million in the bank, we can be giving away our services or giving away
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the thing below what it costs us
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to create this. And I went into this and I said,
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you know what, if we're not delivering a product that people want to pay
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for, then we have to ask ourselves, what's wrong with the product?
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And that has been really helpful with Suka
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because I can tell when I see cancellations and we just shipped a
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release that had a new feature or took away a feature,
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that is the most honest user feedback you will ever get.
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When someone cancels, you know, people will be nice to you
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all day long. Oh, Yoern, I love your app. Really? Because you never use it.
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Oh, no, it's so good. No. And when people tell their
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friends when referrals go up, that is
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a great signal of, okay, we just shipped something that people are like, oh, my
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God, Stephen, check this out. This is a really cool app I use. And
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for that reason, with this company, I didn't raise outside
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venture. It is all me.
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And I think with other startups
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that, who knows, friends are doing, there are great reasons to raise
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venture. But I love the discipline of saying,
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if we can't afford that because members are willing to pay,
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then is it really that valuable?
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Makes total sense.
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Let's go a little bit into,
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into, into some, some other pieces of the story.
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Because you co founded Centripolis FX with
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Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin.
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Yeah. And sold it. How do you translate
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that deal craft into startup fundraising and
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business development today? You know what,
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when we, you know, when you
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win an Academy Award, it helps with
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fundraising. Let me just say that. Right? So,
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yeah, makes sense. Having produced the digital effects for Independence Day. And I
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want to be very humble, a thousand people are responsible for that
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visual effects. Like, that was a huge number of people who worked very hard.
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So it is not any one person. But having
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been the guy very close with Roland and Dean doing that, of
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course we went out to raise that. People said, oh, you have credibility in this
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field. You seem to be a subject matter expert. You have insights
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into why this can be done the way you did it, and it
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worked. So that was A very different experience
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than my later fundraising. And my later
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fundraising people didn't care that
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I had done independence pay. People didn't care that I'd sold Syntropolis.
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Investors were very critical of, well, you haven't done this before.
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And that is when I learned the power of
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storytelling, even in fundraising. Now, there are
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fantastic people who write great advice on fundraising.
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Do your research on the investors you want. One of the things
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that I think is very important that some young founders don't
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realize is don't accept
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dumb money.
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There are people who will give you money, and they do not
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contribute anything to the company. They don't have relationships where it's like,
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oh, I need. I'm doing a shopping app, and this person happened to be part
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of Amazon. They have insights in how the business should run, or they have contacts,
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right? You want to bring
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people in who have smart money. They can give you
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knowledge, expertise. They can tell you where the potholes are on the road
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ahead of you. Right? And importantly, those
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seed investors that are smart, not dumb,
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their names send a signal to later investors.
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Because when they say, oh, you got Joran, who is VP of Europe
467
00:29:20.580 --> 00:29:23.020
for Amazon, in your shopping app, in your seed round,
468
00:29:24.220 --> 00:29:27.940
that's a really great signal you're going to succeed. As opposed to Steven, who has
469
00:29:27.940 --> 00:29:31.770
a bunch of, you know, real estate guys in the United States in his
470
00:29:31.770 --> 00:29:35.570
seed round, right? So that I learned to be very
471
00:29:35.570 --> 00:29:39.250
important. You want to accept smart money, not dumb money. It
472
00:29:39.250 --> 00:29:43.050
is about storytelling, especially at the early stages. When you are selling the
473
00:29:43.050 --> 00:29:46.850
dream, you're like, we don't have 10 years of ARR to
474
00:29:46.850 --> 00:29:50.610
model. We can't. We're not, you know, we have an idea. We have
475
00:29:50.610 --> 00:29:54.210
market research. But more than anything, we have a strong thesis and we can
476
00:29:54.210 --> 00:29:57.960
explain why we think we are the ones to execute on it. And then
477
00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:01.240
you start to deal with, how do we overcome what you brought up, Jorn.
478
00:30:01.560 --> 00:30:05.360
Hey, it's a crowded field, Steven. There are a lot of other apps that
479
00:30:05.360 --> 00:30:09.160
do whatever you do, right? And that is
480
00:30:09.160 --> 00:30:12.880
where you say, it's a crowded field because there's
481
00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:16.640
a huge market for it. These other companies are
482
00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:20.120
not our competitors. They were the ones who proved out
483
00:30:20.440 --> 00:30:23.700
that there is a market. What we are going to do is, is take it
484
00:30:23.700 --> 00:30:27.180
to the next level. We are going to build on their shoulders and say, we'll
485
00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:30.020
do it better now that you've shown, people will pay for this.
486
00:30:31.140 --> 00:30:34.980
And that's something where investors go, oh, so you're right. The crowded market actually
487
00:30:35.300 --> 00:30:39.140
makes you more attractive, not less Attractive. Okay, well, tell me how you're better.
488
00:30:44.420 --> 00:30:48.140
That totally makes sense. I
489
00:30:48.140 --> 00:30:51.580
was wondering. We're talking such a lot about
490
00:30:51.980 --> 00:30:54.860
your tool, but you also partner with tools.
491
00:30:57.420 --> 00:31:00.940
If you partner with tools like Notion, Linear,
492
00:31:00.940 --> 00:31:04.300
Slack or something. Yes. What native integration best
493
00:31:05.020 --> 00:31:08.460
boosts flow without adding any noise.
494
00:31:09.740 --> 00:31:12.700
You know what we do is this is we believe
495
00:31:13.580 --> 00:31:17.260
there are some beautiful tools out there and some people
496
00:31:17.260 --> 00:31:20.940
use todoist, they use asana, they use Jira, they use, you know,
497
00:31:21.020 --> 00:31:24.820
slack or whatever. And we don't really
498
00:31:24.820 --> 00:31:28.580
want to replicate that. If those are the fantastic tools
499
00:31:28.580 --> 00:31:32.299
that someone uses, what we want to say is great. So continue to use todoist
500
00:31:32.460 --> 00:31:36.060
or linear when you want to work.
501
00:31:36.300 --> 00:31:39.980
Wouldn't it be easier for you if you could just integrate
502
00:31:40.700 --> 00:31:43.900
that task list and just pull from it so you never have to retype a
503
00:31:43.900 --> 00:31:47.690
task or copy and paste a task. You can just simply choose from
504
00:31:47.690 --> 00:31:51.410
your linear and just work on that. Today, Today I'm going to close these
505
00:31:51.410 --> 00:31:55.250
three, you know, linear tickets. Oh, I'm going to pull in these tasks from todoist.
506
00:31:55.650 --> 00:31:59.330
And that's our point of view. One thing we're working on right now, and I'll
507
00:31:59.330 --> 00:32:02.810
tell you, this is hard. We have not solved this yet. We
508
00:32:02.810 --> 00:32:06.370
switched to clerk. Do you know the. The auth platform, Clerk?
509
00:32:07.490 --> 00:32:11.170
It's become very popular here in the United States. Right. So
510
00:32:11.490 --> 00:32:15.030
alternative, like we move it off Firebase. So
511
00:32:16.230 --> 00:32:19.990
we used to offer the ability to connect your slack
512
00:32:21.030 --> 00:32:24.830
and the reason we did that is when you hit play, it would
513
00:32:24.830 --> 00:32:28.590
set your slack to away mode. So people knew, oh, you're in a focus
514
00:32:28.590 --> 00:32:32.310
session, you're not going to respond instantly. And it took the pressure off you
515
00:32:32.310 --> 00:32:35.990
to be talking back to people so they would see a
516
00:32:35.990 --> 00:32:39.750
message. Hey, I'm in a flow session, I'll get back to you. And people really
517
00:32:39.750 --> 00:32:43.560
loved that. I'll tell you something, and this is, I'm working
518
00:32:43.560 --> 00:32:46.600
on this. We've not solved this yet and it bugs me is
519
00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:50.760
so when we move to clerk, one thing that clerk has
520
00:32:50.760 --> 00:32:54.280
not gotten to work yet is the
521
00:32:54.280 --> 00:32:57.920
multiple auth thing where people use
522
00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:01.680
Slack. Yarn. Yes. Sometimes. Yeah. How
523
00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:05.520
many workspaces do you have connected? I would need
524
00:33:05.520 --> 00:33:09.080
to check, but it's got so distracted that it's
525
00:33:09.080 --> 00:33:10.280
out of my.
526
00:33:12.990 --> 00:33:16.790
Out of my auto start. And I'm only checking
527
00:33:16.790 --> 00:33:20.423
when I do have some time. 1, 2, 3, 4,
528
00:33:20.509 --> 00:33:23.470
5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
529
00:33:27.070 --> 00:33:30.350
I would say somewhere in the area of 2022,
530
00:33:30.750 --> 00:33:32.750
but you have to see there. Also,
531
00:33:34.430 --> 00:33:37.870
since I'm involved in different startup communities, I also like to look
532
00:33:38.340 --> 00:33:41.780
around. There are slacks on startup communities. For example in
533
00:33:41.780 --> 00:33:45.540
Lyon, France, in New York City, where I'm still a member,
534
00:33:45.540 --> 00:33:49.380
I don't have like to contribute a lot. It's more to get a feel
535
00:33:49.540 --> 00:33:52.740
and to be connected. If I go there, I write, hey guys, I'm coming.
536
00:33:52.980 --> 00:33:56.820
Who's up for coffee? Or something like that. Yes. So
537
00:33:56.980 --> 00:34:00.740
you are like many people that have multiple Slack
538
00:34:00.740 --> 00:34:04.420
workspaces. Clerk has not launched that yet. You can't do
539
00:34:04.420 --> 00:34:08.060
multiple auths with Slack. So we used to offer the ability where when you
540
00:34:08.060 --> 00:34:11.420
started, you hit play, the music starts, everything's blocked.
541
00:34:11.580 --> 00:34:14.980
Your Slack, all your workspaces would automatically say, hey,
542
00:34:14.980 --> 00:34:18.740
Jorn's in a flow session, I'm in flow, I'll get back to you. And
543
00:34:18.740 --> 00:34:21.940
we don't do that right now. And it bugs me every day. And we've been
544
00:34:21.940 --> 00:34:25.300
talking to the devs at Slack at Clerk to say, could you
545
00:34:25.300 --> 00:34:28.980
prioritize this? Because that's a big one. That is a big distraction.
546
00:34:28.980 --> 00:34:32.750
All little Slack messages, they come in. So
547
00:34:33.390 --> 00:34:36.190
got to work on that. And
548
00:34:37.310 --> 00:34:40.950
when I saw your startup, what are you guys doing? I was
549
00:34:40.950 --> 00:34:43.790
wondering what KPIs do you actually
550
00:34:45.230 --> 00:34:48.750
optimize for like flow hours per
551
00:34:48.750 --> 00:34:52.510
user, per week, task completion velocity or
552
00:34:52.510 --> 00:34:56.110
something else? And why? Oh, okay, that is a
553
00:34:56.110 --> 00:34:59.820
really, really good question. Very few people ask me
554
00:34:59.820 --> 00:35:03.620
that because they're usually very curious about flow state. Welcome to startup radio.
555
00:35:04.180 --> 00:35:07.300
No, no, it's a fantastic question, right? So many people want to go deep into
556
00:35:07.300 --> 00:35:10.340
flow states and mental techniques and all that. I'll tell you this
557
00:35:11.380 --> 00:35:14.740
because of other startups that I've done and I've been part of,
558
00:35:15.460 --> 00:35:19.260
there are a lot of the downstream engagement metrics that I used to be
559
00:35:19.260 --> 00:35:23.100
very focused on. Like you said, okay, how many tasks are people inputting, how many
560
00:35:23.100 --> 00:35:26.580
are they completing, how much time are they spending? And I'll tell you,
561
00:35:27.140 --> 00:35:30.900
I've been very focused on top of the funnel recently and I'll tell you why.
562
00:35:32.900 --> 00:35:36.700
Our retention, if you sign up to pay, if you do
563
00:35:36.700 --> 00:35:39.780
your seven day trial and you say, oh, I get it, I want to pay,
564
00:35:40.260 --> 00:35:43.980
our retention is incredibly high. It hovers around
565
00:35:43.980 --> 00:35:47.700
94 to 96% month over month paid retention, which
566
00:35:47.700 --> 00:35:50.740
is insane because the reason for that is
567
00:35:51.660 --> 00:35:54.660
when you experience a flow state and you look up and it's three o' clock
568
00:35:54.660 --> 00:35:58.300
and you're done and you feel good, you're like, why would I work any other
569
00:35:58.300 --> 00:36:02.100
way, right? Here's the problem. Here's
570
00:36:02.100 --> 00:36:04.940
the problem. What we noticed was
571
00:36:05.900 --> 00:36:09.660
we would get unique visitors, like first Time users
572
00:36:10.300 --> 00:36:13.980
who would come to the app and try it for five minutes or 10 minutes
573
00:36:15.020 --> 00:36:18.460
and leave. And it was a very clear bifurcation.
574
00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:22.760
If they came, hit play, listen to music for five minutes,
575
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:26.240
they go, oh, it's a music app like Brain FM or Endel, and
576
00:36:26.240 --> 00:36:30.000
leave. They never got into a flow state. They didn't come with a task
577
00:36:31.360 --> 00:36:34.720
so they could have the experience of like wow, man, what happened?
578
00:36:35.040 --> 00:36:38.240
That's awesome. I want more of this. Right? And
579
00:36:38.640 --> 00:36:42.440
I gotta tell you, it was black and white, that metric. When we figured out
580
00:36:42.440 --> 00:36:46.090
where it was, we were losing people in, you know, first time user experience
581
00:36:46.410 --> 00:36:49.690
was so clear. I have been focused on that one
582
00:36:49.930 --> 00:36:53.690
metric. How do we move that needle?
583
00:36:53.690 --> 00:36:57.330
So someone has to say, I want to come back tomorrow and develop
584
00:36:57.330 --> 00:37:00.810
a habit and I'm come back on Wednesday and it's free for a week.
585
00:37:00.970 --> 00:37:04.810
You can use it 168 hours in a row if you want without ever
586
00:37:04.810 --> 00:37:08.170
putting in a credit card. And I wanted people to say,
587
00:37:08.650 --> 00:37:11.850
oh, I'm going to do this a few times, I want to have that experience.
588
00:37:12.170 --> 00:37:15.650
So if you notice when you sign up now, there are a couple times in
589
00:37:15.650 --> 00:37:18.730
the first time user flow in the onboarding where I say, hey,
590
00:37:19.370 --> 00:37:23.170
don't go to the next step unless you have a
591
00:37:23.170 --> 00:37:27.010
task you need to do. Because I know
592
00:37:27.010 --> 00:37:29.850
that if you just hit play, you listen to music, you'll bounce in one minute.
593
00:37:29.850 --> 00:37:33.250
You're like, oh, okay, it's music, whatever. And that's not the
594
00:37:33.250 --> 00:37:37.010
magic. Yeah. And the selection is not as good as on platform X
595
00:37:37.010 --> 00:37:40.850
and Y. And that's actually not what you're competing on. Exactly.
596
00:37:40.850 --> 00:37:43.970
Right. So that is, there are many metrics you brought up, but I'm going to
597
00:37:43.970 --> 00:37:47.810
tell you that is the only metric right now that I'm caring about is how
598
00:37:47.810 --> 00:37:51.090
many people have a first session that's over 60 minutes
599
00:37:51.810 --> 00:37:55.170
because that is a determinant if they will end up signing up or not.
600
00:38:01.330 --> 00:38:04.930
Let's talk a little bit about 12 to 24 month
601
00:38:04.930 --> 00:38:08.520
roadmap. Where does the AI assisted
602
00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:12.760
facilitation fit? Like not just break time as
603
00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:16.120
pairing. Oh, another great question.
604
00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:19.360
I will tell you my vision and this is the thing that we are working
605
00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:22.920
on because we are wrestling with the hallucinations
606
00:38:24.040 --> 00:38:27.880
and every day we're getting closer to this, but we're not there yet,
607
00:38:28.200 --> 00:38:31.880
which is where we have the design.
608
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:35.910
Our goal with the smart assistant is that in the morning your
609
00:38:35.910 --> 00:38:39.310
smart assistant greets you. It's familiar with your task list. It
610
00:38:39.310 --> 00:38:43.110
suggests Joran, you know what I've Been watching what you've been doing every
611
00:38:43.110 --> 00:38:46.910
day. Here are the three most important things
612
00:38:46.910 --> 00:38:49.630
in my point of view. Are these the right three to start with? And you
613
00:38:49.630 --> 00:38:53.390
can say yes or no, you can adjust it. By the way, I noticed you're
614
00:38:53.390 --> 00:38:56.390
starting work today at 8 o', clock, which is right in your sweet zone, your
615
00:38:56.390 --> 00:38:59.710
flow state zone. You work
616
00:38:59.790 --> 00:39:03.630
20% faster when you listen to this playlist in the morning. Can I put on
617
00:39:03.630 --> 00:39:07.300
sonic caffeine for you? And you're like, oh, I appreciate
618
00:39:07.300 --> 00:39:11.100
that you're paying attention to me. It's not a bio wearable sort of thing. It
619
00:39:11.100 --> 00:39:14.740
is a, you complete your tasks on time, you complete them under
620
00:39:14.740 --> 00:39:18.500
time. I've been watching. Here's what you do. Would
621
00:39:18.500 --> 00:39:21.660
love for that smart assistant to say, hey, and by the way, I looked at
622
00:39:21.660 --> 00:39:25.460
your task list like we were talking about before and there's
623
00:39:25.460 --> 00:39:28.980
something on here that's not a task. Would it be okay if I broke that
624
00:39:28.980 --> 00:39:31.420
down for you into actual like tasks
625
00:39:33.020 --> 00:39:36.660
and that sort of companion that's looking at like, what are you listening
626
00:39:36.660 --> 00:39:40.420
to? What kind of breaks really recharge you? What time of
627
00:39:40.420 --> 00:39:43.940
day should be working? Like, by the way, Joran, I know that right now you
628
00:39:43.940 --> 00:39:47.420
put on the list you want to do write some
629
00:39:47.420 --> 00:39:51.180
code, but this is not actually your sweet spot. Can I put that on the
630
00:39:51.180 --> 00:39:54.900
list for later tonight maybe when the kids go to bed. And then right
631
00:39:54.900 --> 00:39:58.020
now let's do this other thing that you're good at doing at 11 in the
632
00:39:58.020 --> 00:40:01.330
morning. Right, that level of
633
00:40:01.330 --> 00:40:04.570
personalization. That is where I'm going.
634
00:40:06.010 --> 00:40:08.970
I see. So basically your own
635
00:40:09.930 --> 00:40:13.690
habit forming AI assistant. Yes. Okay,
636
00:40:14.730 --> 00:40:18.410
prediction. Will remote makers
637
00:40:18.490 --> 00:40:22.170
swing to co located micropods or even
638
00:40:22.890 --> 00:40:26.340
better virtual rooms? What breaks the tie?
639
00:40:27.780 --> 00:40:31.060
What breaks the time? What do you mean by that? Yeah,
640
00:40:31.460 --> 00:40:35.140
what breaks the tie? Where does one win? Where does one lose?
641
00:40:35.300 --> 00:40:38.740
Oh, what breaks the tie. You know what, I will tell you this. I have
642
00:40:38.740 --> 00:40:42.260
seen such strong use cases for solo work,
643
00:40:43.140 --> 00:40:46.940
virtual co working where you may be in a zoom room, maybe
644
00:40:46.940 --> 00:40:50.790
in some sort of group co working and then physical coworking. I couldn't tell
645
00:40:50.790 --> 00:40:53.230
you which one will win. I wish I had an answer for you, but again,
646
00:40:53.230 --> 00:40:56.430
I only wanted to be an expert on things where I should be an expert.
647
00:40:56.590 --> 00:40:59.150
And this is one where I don't know how it's going to turn out.
648
00:41:01.630 --> 00:41:05.390
A little bit contrarian to what we heard from
649
00:41:05.390 --> 00:41:08.990
you before. Hustle culture kills innovation. Do you agree?
650
00:41:09.390 --> 00:41:12.990
And if you could be like Stephen Almighty, like
651
00:41:12.990 --> 00:41:14.910
for one day ruling all the world like
652
00:41:16.670 --> 00:41:20.220
the movie Bruce Dalmatian do you agree with? Yeah, Bruce Almighty.
653
00:41:20.220 --> 00:41:24.020
Exactly. And would you agree? And with what
654
00:41:24.100 --> 00:41:27.860
would you replace it? Okay, I'm going to give you
655
00:41:27.860 --> 00:41:31.620
two answers to your one question, right? Because
656
00:41:33.300 --> 00:41:37.140
the direct answer to question is if you're saying,
657
00:41:37.140 --> 00:41:40.660
hey, Steven, is hustle culture anathema to creativity?
658
00:41:40.900 --> 00:41:44.700
No, it's not. Smart productivity, like healthy
659
00:41:44.700 --> 00:41:48.350
productivity, is a thing. And great leaders know how to
660
00:41:48.350 --> 00:41:52.070
create greatness without enforcing the sleeping
661
00:41:52.070 --> 00:41:55.750
bag under the desk. You're here, I'm going to burn you out and kill you.
662
00:41:55.750 --> 00:41:57.910
And here are some stock options. Go. Right.
663
00:41:59.430 --> 00:42:03.110
There's a certain kind of leader that just doesn't understand how great
664
00:42:03.110 --> 00:42:06.710
work is done. So they only understand grinding it out. Like they're drawing blood out
665
00:42:06.710 --> 00:42:10.550
of you. And they do get blood, but at what
666
00:42:10.550 --> 00:42:14.030
cost? So there are ways in which you can do very healthy productivity. Say this
667
00:42:14.030 --> 00:42:17.870
is. How am I going to manage the team now? When you said, if I
668
00:42:17.870 --> 00:42:21.670
were Stephen almighty and for one day I could
669
00:42:21.670 --> 00:42:22.990
change everything,
670
00:42:25.630 --> 00:42:29.350
the thing I would change is not hustle culture. If people really want
671
00:42:29.350 --> 00:42:32.870
to spend more time than they need to on something, okay, we'll let them. If
672
00:42:32.870 --> 00:42:36.150
someone wants to be efficient, they can do their thing. The one thing I would
673
00:42:36.150 --> 00:42:38.670
change is this. I
674
00:42:40.040 --> 00:42:43.800
would change everyone so they were slightly more empathetic.
675
00:42:46.040 --> 00:42:49.880
And how that would change the nature of the world, including the nature of work,
676
00:42:50.920 --> 00:42:54.680
I think would be profound. Interesting
677
00:42:54.680 --> 00:42:56.760
thoughts here. Interesting thoughts
678
00:42:58.840 --> 00:43:02.520
for our audience. I would love to know what's
679
00:43:02.520 --> 00:43:05.960
one ritual you'll try this week to
680
00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:09.080
protect 90 minutes of deep work? Tell us in the comments
681
00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:12.900
below, tag us on social media, will reshare it
682
00:43:13.700 --> 00:43:17.300
advice and close Stephen, we are now talking for 1
683
00:43:17.300 --> 00:43:20.980
hour, 44 minutes and a few seconds. It's been great, though.
684
00:43:21.060 --> 00:43:24.620
I've really enjoyed this. Yeah, me too. Let's get to the last two
685
00:43:24.620 --> 00:43:28.460
questions and then there will be a few more questions in our founders
686
00:43:28.460 --> 00:43:30.100
world published later.
687
00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:35.860
What single environment change yields
688
00:43:36.020 --> 00:43:39.810
the fastest productivity lift for solo founders?
689
00:43:41.250 --> 00:43:45.010
I would say the oral environment. And by oral, I mean au oral,
690
00:43:45.010 --> 00:43:48.770
like what you're doing with sound. Sound has a deep
691
00:43:48.770 --> 00:43:52.290
influence on the brain's ability to focus. So if you're in an environment
692
00:43:52.530 --> 00:43:56.210
where there are sound distractions, bings of your phone,
693
00:43:56.610 --> 00:44:00.410
you know, children running by the doorbell, it's
694
00:44:00.410 --> 00:44:03.530
a horrible way to break focus. So if there were one thing I had to
695
00:44:03.530 --> 00:44:07.270
say about the environment, it's easy to say, oh, declutter your desk
696
00:44:07.510 --> 00:44:10.870
or go work in this particular space. But I would actually say
697
00:44:11.670 --> 00:44:14.710
work out your sound environment, your oral environment.
698
00:44:18.150 --> 00:44:21.310
What's Your boldest closing insights about
699
00:44:21.310 --> 00:44:24.310
creativity, resilience and building through
700
00:44:24.390 --> 00:44:28.030
uncertainty. Well, about creativity, we talked about the other
701
00:44:28.030 --> 00:44:31.630
thing. That is something that every time I've been blocked on
702
00:44:31.630 --> 00:44:35.350
something, I go back to what Jeff said to me 20 years
703
00:44:35.350 --> 00:44:39.190
ago. You have to be doing the other thing to have
704
00:44:39.190 --> 00:44:42.710
the back of your mind say, and here's the solution you've been waiting for. So
705
00:44:42.790 --> 00:44:45.670
if I'm blocked, I will go for a walk, I'll go downstairs,
706
00:44:46.390 --> 00:44:50.070
I'll take a shower, I'll do something, and then let the back of my mind
707
00:44:50.070 --> 00:44:53.030
do that. So that is my biggest hack in terms of creativity.
708
00:44:54.390 --> 00:44:58.150
And did you all say mental focus or energy? What was the
709
00:44:58.150 --> 00:45:01.760
other part of your question? The
710
00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:05.520
boldest closing insights about creativity, resilience
711
00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:09.080
and building through uncertainty. Resilience. Okay, so
712
00:45:09.160 --> 00:45:12.760
creativity, it is about the other thing, about resilience.
713
00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:16.680
It is that every role model you have has failed
714
00:45:16.680 --> 00:45:19.560
miserably. Period.
715
00:45:20.520 --> 00:45:24.200
Everyone. So you can look up to whomever you want.
716
00:45:25.090 --> 00:45:28.370
And just when you have that moment of like, oh, my God, this thing happened,
717
00:45:28.850 --> 00:45:32.450
we didn't close the round, or we lost users this month or whatever,
718
00:45:33.330 --> 00:45:36.050
everyone you look up to has had a worse loss than you.
719
00:45:37.090 --> 00:45:40.690
And I'll tell you this. The Austin Film Festival was recently here
720
00:45:40.690 --> 00:45:44.490
in Austin, and a number of people that I know from my
721
00:45:44.490 --> 00:45:47.490
film days, which is over a decade ago, were here
722
00:45:48.290 --> 00:45:51.830
with premieres of their movies, their TV series. So they
723
00:45:51.830 --> 00:45:54.430
invited me. They're like, hey, I'm in Austin. I know you live here now and
724
00:45:54.430 --> 00:45:56.950
you're in tech, but, you know, do you want to come to my premiere? I
725
00:45:56.950 --> 00:45:58.350
will tell you this, Joran.
726
00:46:00.510 --> 00:46:04.270
If you asked me 15, 20 years ago, who are the
727
00:46:04.270 --> 00:46:06.670
people that are going to be having premieres,
728
00:46:08.270 --> 00:46:11.710
I would have guessed wrong, because I thought the
729
00:46:11.710 --> 00:46:15.550
determinant was talent. It is not.
730
00:46:16.680 --> 00:46:20.320
It is tenacity. The people who were here
731
00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:24.000
a month or two ago and were like, come to my premiere. I had come
732
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.720
to this. They are not the ones that my friends and I all
733
00:46:27.720 --> 00:46:31.080
thought, oh, my God, that's the best director ever. Oh, it's the most amazing writer.
734
00:46:31.160 --> 00:46:33.960
They're the ones who could take no to their face
735
00:46:35.080 --> 00:46:38.600
and still get up and say, okay, I'm going to try again.
736
00:46:40.520 --> 00:46:42.440
Very, very true.
737
00:46:44.270 --> 00:46:47.990
Stephen, it has been a big pleasure talk to
738
00:46:47.990 --> 00:46:51.830
you. It's been wonderful. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much. It
739
00:46:51.830 --> 00:46:55.310
was now the final recording time will be around
740
00:46:55.470 --> 00:46:59.270
one hour and 50 minutes, I would say.
741
00:46:59.270 --> 00:47:00.510
It's a long movie, right?
742
00:47:04.030 --> 00:47:07.630
Yes. Awesome. Great. With such a
743
00:47:07.630 --> 00:47:11.420
pleasure having you hope to have you back in some time. Thank you very
744
00:47:11.420 --> 00:47:13.780
much. All the best. Okay, bye.
745
00:47:19.140 --> 00:47:22.660
That's all, folks. Find more news streams,
746
00:47:22.820 --> 00:47:23.980
events and
747
00:47:23.980 --> 00:47:28.340
interviews@www.startuprad.IO.
748
00:47:28.660 --> 00:47:30.980
remember, sharing is caring.
749
00:47:36.990 --> 00:47:44.230
Sam.