GlaspTalk_41_Julian by Kei

GlaspTalk_41_Julian

Kei

Feb 3, 2025 3:24 PM

Summary

Introduction of Julian Weiser (00:03 - 00:57): Julian Weiser, CEO and co-founder of ODF, an entrepreneur, angel investor, and mentor, has supported over 1,000 startups that raised over $2 billion. He runs the "Text with Founders" newsletter to provide actionable advice to entrepreneurs.
Overview of ODF (00:57 - 02:54): ODF's mission is to help exceptional individuals explore starting companies. It targets those who are unsure about entrepreneurship rather than those already established, providing a community for networking and identifying opportunities.
Program Evolution (03:21 - 05:28): ODF has changed its format from a three-month program to an intensive one-week onboarding session, followed by a digital community, reflecting the shift in participant preferences post-pandemic.
Selection Criteria for Participants (06:25 - 12:05): ODF is highly selective, admitting only 2-3% of applicants based on timing (readiness to leave a job), experience (potential as a founder), and spirit of service (willingness to contribute to the community).
Founder Traits and Momentum (21:18 - 25:55): Successful founders often demonstrate a strong passion for their work, resilience in the face of difficulties, and an understanding that maintaining momentum—particularly customer momentum—is crucial for startup survival.
Advice on Founders Networking and Building (1:11:34 - 1:12:56): Founders are encouraged to focus on building meaningful networks that align with their entrepreneurial goals instead of just amassing contacts. The process of creating valuable products or services naturally expands their network.
Legacy and Personal Motivation (1:14:00 - 1:17:41): Julian aspires for others to recognize the importance of authenticity in pursuing their passion. He aims to leave a legacy that promotes the value of genuine interest over external validation, encouraging people to embrace their whole selves.

Transcript

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Grasp Talk. Today, we are very excited to have Julian Weiser with us. So Julian is a dynamic entrepreneur, angel investor, and a mentor with a passion for empowering founders and building impactful startups. He's a CEO and a co-founder of ODF, where he has helped launch over 1,000 startups that collectively raised over $2 billion. As the creator of the Text with Founders newsletter,

Julian shares insights and strategies with the entrepreneurial community, helping founders navigate their journeys with actionable advice. He's also an angel investor, having backed over 150 innovative companies like Abells, Astrophoge, and Magic School. And with a background in growth and product management, Julian brings a wealth of experience to the table. And today, we will dive into Julian's journey, his experiences with ODF,

and his vision for the future of entrepreneurship and innovation. Thank you for joining today, Julian. Thank you to you both for having me. I'm so excited. Thank you. So first of all, you are the CEO and a co-founder of ODF. Could you tell us, you know, what ODF is to the audience who don't know ODF yet? Yeah, totally. So ODF exists to help more people explore starting companies. We don't believe that most people should start companies.

In fact, most people shouldn't start companies. But we do feel that there are far too few great people starting them today. And if we can help more of those great people explore starting companies and end up making a decision one way or another, that's a very positive thing for the world. Ultimately, we hope that some people who participate in ODF decide that starting a startup isn't for them or isn't for them right now.

But then some of the other people who participate in it actually realize that this is the perfect thing for them to be doing. And this is just a great thing for them to spend the next 10, 15 years of their life on. And what we do with ODF is we bring people together who are at that exploratory stage, bring them all together so that they can then learn from each other and learn from people who are just a few steps ahead of them.

And through that, we help them essentially find what I like to describe as the missing pieces. And the missing pieces are kind of who might I start my company with? What might we build? You know, who might the initial customers be? All of these things that I think are the precursor to actually starting a company, you kind of have to know what you're going to be building and who you're going to be building it with.

So that's kind of the goal of ODF is to bring people together who are at the stage of figuring that out. Some people ultimately figure it out. Some people realize that starting a company isn't right for them at the moment. And both of those goals or both of those sort of ways that you can end up after participating at ODF are really excellent because you're gaining conviction in whichever direction you decide is right for you.

I see, yeah. Actually, I went to ODF nine, cohort nine. That was, I think, two, three years ago. And I met a great founders at the time. I really appreciate, you know, the community and all the dedication and help and support from ODF team. And, but I realized like recently, you changed the program, like because at the time I went to ODF nine, the program was about three months or so. And now I think you changed the style,

I think format, right? And you, it's now more like intensive two week and so on and so on. Could you tell us a little bit about history and the cohort and, you know, things you learned and so forth? Definitely. So, you know, ODF has been around in hell almost six years. It might even be six, our six year anniversary now that I think about it, 2019. So, you know, we've been around for almost six years. We've tried a lot of different formats over the years.

We started out in-person in San Francisco and people loved it. And the goal was bringing, again, bringing together people who are at a similar stage of trying to figure it out. And then of course the pandemic happened. And instead of us trying to just do a sort of bandaid or a duct tape solution, where we were thinking about, hey, can we do some virtual thing as kind of a stop gap measure before we switched back to in-person?

We really wanted to make an earnest effort towards building something that could be really long standing and digital. So we went digital with the pandemic, but with the intention that we could try and be digital after the pandemic as well. And to a large part, we were successful there. We did have a digital community after the pandemic and all of that. But we ended up realizing that, you know, a year after the pandemic was over,

that people were just having such a strong pull to come back to in-person as well. So while the digital component was strong, it made a lot of sense to actually reintroduce that in-person experience, which was so powerful in the very early days of ODF. And so we launched it as a one week, what we call an onboarding week to the community. And that's in-person in San Francisco. People come from all over the world.

I would say about half of the people who participate are based in San Francisco. The other half, roughly speaking, half of that half come from outside the United States. The other half come from inside the United States. Different parts of America, you know, Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, New York City. And they come here because they want to explore building a startup with other people at the same stage as them, being in San Francisco.

And then, you know, again, just figuring out what's next. So we have that onboarding week, which is intensively in-person. We suggest that people should try to really clear their calendars for that time. And then after that onboarding week, we have the digital community. We have ongoing events. But that week is really meant to be a forcing function for making a lot of progress on the figuring it out stage. I see, yeah.

It's really, yeah, that makes sense. And then, and I actually have some friends went to the recent cohort. And they say they are so satisfied. And then they make friend. And yeah, that's, yeah. I hear great things about the recent cohort. Awesome. And yeah, I was curious. I'm not a member of ODF. But so I think, you know, for ODF, there are many, like, you know, people joining, who want to join. So you got many applications, right?

Then so what, you know, how do you choose people to join the community? And what is the most important factor or, you know, things to join the community? That's a great question. And you're right. It is very selective. I think it's somewhere around 2% or 3% of people who apply, get an offer and join the community. So very selective. And we look at things a little bit differently than maybe an accelerator or someone like that does.

So, you know, accelerators, they're typically, you know, they want you to have co-founders usually, right? They want you to have a product usually. And the reason they're doing this is because they're typically going to invest in your company, right? And they want your company to grow, grow, grow, grow. So that once you grow and you do really well during the accelerator, you end up coming out of the accelerator having a demo day and fundraising, right?

And the fundraising is really important because that is follow-on investment into the companies that these accelerators have backed. So that's really good for them. It's really good for the companies because they need more capital to continue to grow, that sort of thing. With us, we don't look at, you know, whether or not you have a co-founder. In fact, if you have a co-founder, that might actually be a reason to not do ODF.

There are plenty of reasons to do ODF, but the more things that you have in the sort of missing pieces column checked off, the more likely it is that you might not get as much benefit from ODF. So for instance, if you already know who you're starting your company with, you already know, you know, where, who your initial customers are. You already know sort of how you're going to think about charging them or making money.

You're already in San Francisco. Like the more things that you have figured out, the less likely it is that you're a fit for us, right? Because what we're trying to do is bring people together at this very specific stage. So to answer your question very specifically, we look at about three things. The top ones are timing, experience, and then spirit of service. Now timing is really important. Are you six months away from leaving your job?

Well, we're really looking for people who are about three months away from leaving their job or less, and they already have maybe left their job. You know, I would say about half the people in any given cohort have already left their job, probably as much as two thirds have left their job already, and they're actively exploring starting a company. The other third or one half, those are people who are hopefully

going to be leaving their job. If the things work out the way that they hope, they'll leave their job in the next couple of months. You know, again, if you're six months to a year out, it's not a really good fit. The other side of the spectrum is if you've already got a co-founder, you've already raised a million dollars, well, then you're probably too far along, right? So there are people who are too early for us.

There are people who are too far along, and we really focus on that. And so the timing is really important because if you don't have the timing right, then that person is not going to necessarily be able to be at the stage where they can benefit from each other quite as much, right? So timing. Experience is really interesting, right? Because we're not just looking at whether or not people have startup experience

or whether or not they have engineering experience. We're looking at sort of what could help them be a good founder. And, you know, depending on somebody's age, depending on where they're coming from, the things that they have that might point towards them being a good founder could be really different, right? So, you know, somebody could have worked at in tech in Silicon Valley for 12 years, but... they've mostly worked at big companies and they don't seem like they're actually going to take

the risks necessary and be comfortable with the risks necessary to start a company, right? Well, maybe they're not a good fit. Well, maybe there's somebody who's been in tech for 10 years, but they've been at mostly smaller sort of growth stage companies, right? And they've kind of bounced around from a few and now they have some experience of maybe tinkering with side projects and that sort of thing, right? I would say that probably the worst sign, you know, I'm speaking

openly here. The worst sign is when you see somebody who's been working at a FANG type company for, you know, many, many years and they have no history of working on any side projects. That's a really bad sign because if they don't have any side projects that they can point to and they've been working in tech for that long, do you think that they're really going to quit their job and go and pursue something when they could have had some time to pursue a side project

that maybe could have led to a startup in the past? If they've exhibited no history of that, it's not a particularly promising sign. On the other end of the spectrum, there are these people who are very young, right? And they could be really phenomenal, but we have to look at sort of what they've accomplished relative to their age. And then the last question, or the last variable out of the three, timing, experience, and then spirit of service, which is frankly,

is this person going to be a good community member, right? Do they want to contribute to the community? Do they think about more, like, will they help other people? Or are they just trying to get as much value as possible, right? So that's really the three main things that we look at. And, you know, it's pretty clear sometimes when you talk to someone whether or not their spirit of service is not a match, right? Or whether or not their timing isn't a

match. And we try to essentially avoid making these interview calls happen if we know that somebody is a year away from starting their company. We just send them an email and say, hey, thank you for your interest. But if you're truly a year away from starting a company or leaving your job, you really should talk to us maybe six months or nine months from now. I see. Yeah, that makes sense. But has that, those three things, you know, change over time?

Because when you started, I think, you know, let's say ODF won. I think founders, you guys, you know, just invited, you know, your friends, or maybe people, and then there's no, like, a qualification call or meeting. But over time, maybe there are some mistakes or something, I think. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that the thing that we've made mistakes on in the past, and I think it's always a learning journey, is this hope that somebody will leave their sort of

high-paying, well-compensated job when they don't really have much data that might support that happening, right? I think that oftentimes one of our mistakes, if we make them, is that we're too optimistic about somebody actually finding the missing pieces and quitting their job and starting a company. And this usually happens with people who are more senior and who have been in tech and in their existing companies for quite some time. So I'd say that's the first sort of mistake that

we often get, is that we kind of, we are on the side of this person's amazing community fit, and they have, you know, a lot of really great experience. And they're telling us, they're swearing to us, that they're going to quit and start a company in the next three months. But there's just this little bit of kernel of doubt, right, on our hands, and then it usually ends up being the case, right? It's wishful thinking on our part, and on their part,

that they're going to end up starting a company. And then on the other side of it, I think that sometimes we don't do quite enough to make sure that someone is going to move fast enough. I think that actually looking at speed at which somebody executes, whatever it is that they're doing, is really important. So understanding that, I think, is one area that we've learned to ask different types of questions for. I see. Yeah. Going back to the three, like,

important things to join the community, you mentioned timing, experience, and the spirit of service. I think, you know, spirit of service is pretty difficult to judge. Oh, yeah, this person is, you know, give our mind on, not take our mind. So, you know, what kind of things do you see, or do you have any process, you know, to filter out like those kinds of people? Because when Africa, you know, upright in the, you know, community, so I can say, yeah, I can contribute to the community.

But later on, after joining, so yeah, he doesn't contribute at all. So how do you see it? Yeah, you know, I think that there's sort of, if you think about kind of a filter, right? There are some people who just make it immediately obvious when you talk to them that, frankly, they're jerks, and that they're not going to actually do anything very good. And usually, you can kind of eliminate the worst people without accidentally letting them into a community,

right? So I would say that, you know, anybody that we were actually, you know, really, you know, we've avoided most of the errors around this. And in terms of, you know, the people who do get in, I don't really ever have many concerns about the people being like really bad community members. We don't have that issue, really, like the main thing is, these people are kind of obvious. And usually, they don't really realize how obvious they are.

There's like a lack of self-awareness there. And the other thing is, you can ask a few questions that just kind of give people the opportunity to really share how they think about this. And if they can't articulate any sort of good thoughts around community around contributing to other things, then they probably haven't given it enough consideration, or it doesn't come naturally enough to them, which doesn't mean that they might not be able to develop that over

time. But it does sort of give you a sign that unless they really dedicate more time to developing this, you can't expect much from them. So usually, it's actually the easiest question. I think the hardest question to assess is the timeline, because people are very optimistic about when they're going to quit their jobs. And I think the easiest one is spirit of service. The hardest one is timing. And then the experience one is also quite easy relative to timing, for sure.

I see. Thank you. And I think you have seen over 1,000 founders so far through ODF or through your personal investment. And have you found any interesting project of founders so far? Do you have any? Do you remember some memorable founders or some? Yeah. What kind would be most interesting to hear about? In terms of maybe founder, let's say, personality or traits, and this aspect, I think. Personality. Or traits or impact wise.

Yeah. You know, it's really hard because there's so many amazing people in this community to think of very specific people. I think that maybe I can talk a little bit about various attributes that I think are really, really incredible about various founders. So I think that in terms of bias towards action and sort of just moving very quickly, I think that Ryan Delkett-Primer is one of the best examples of that. I think that the way he just really

I think that the way he just reacts very quickly and is extremely responsive. He just unblocks the team and moves really quickly as a company. And I think that you need that in order to be building the complicated business that he's building. In terms of building an incredible sort of internal organization in a very complex industry, I think that Grace, who is the founder of Kintsugi, which is a vocal biomarker company that actually can understand things like depression

through listening to vocal biomarkers. I think that she's just done an absolutely phenomenal job of building a company culture that sort of has the patience to do sort of the long-term game of building a healthcare company, but also the impatience that's necessary to be a successful startup. Let's see who else. I think that Mike Shabbat from Traba has just done an incredible job when it comes to leading by example with sort of the cultural values of Traba.

One of them that really stands out to me is this idea of Olympian's mindset, where they really think of themselves as a high-performing sports team. And you can just see how he carries himself and just the way that the company operates, that the entire company is completely bought into this concept. Let's see who else. I think Celine Haliwa is just an absolutely fascinating founder and really inspiring.

inspiring to me because she's a solo founder. She started her company relatively young and as a solo founder building in one of the most complicated industries. I just find the way that she's built her executive team and hired people has just been remarkable. I think she's easily one of the most inspiring people I know and the speed at which she moves it. But I think that the thing that I find really remarkable about her is how she's built, amongst

other things, how she's built out such an incredible team as a solo founder. I think you have seen many successful founders, but at the same time, things don't always go as we expected. Some founders are not successful at some point, but do you see any difference between them? Because from your article, Founders and Momentum, you said most people think companies die because they run out of money. But the reality is they run out of hope first, and Momentum is everything.

Sorry, I quoted your writing. In that sense, do you see the difference between, oh, these people, these traits, or personality, or common things I see in successful founders and this or that, or something like that? I think that a lot of startups go through existential moments, even when they're successful. Ultimately, I think everybody deals with potential calamity, potential collapse, death of the company, that sort of thing.

I think that it really comes down to a couple of things. Do you actually really, really, truly care about what it is that you're working on? I think that a lot of people say, oh, passion is overrated, and you can go and build any type of great business. I think that there's largely two types of people. There's people who really want to build for a specific reason. They want to go and solve a very specific problem, and there are people who just really

love to build. I don't think either of those is a bad type of founder, but I think that you really need to understand what type of founder you are, because if you're the type of founder who really cares about building for a specific thing, in a specific area and solving a specific Well, then if you end up getting tricked into being told by other people, oh, it doesn't really matter what you build. Just build a great business.

You probably won't actually stick with it long enough to actually be successful, because when something hard happens, you're like, I don't know, do I really care about this that much? I really actually care about that thing over there that I could be working on, which is something that I care about much more than whatever business I've happened to pivot around into. And then there are other people who just really love building great businesses, and I think

that whatever they end up finding that gets an edge or gains traction, those people will be really motivated by. So I think it really depends on what it is that actually keeps you going. And then the other thing is, I think you just need to have this sense of, if you keep going, you can make it through. I really think that a lot of this stuff is just punching through to the other side, and it's really hard.

And don't get me wrong, it isn't easy or anything like that, and it's not painless. It's very painful. But ultimately, I think that most of the time, most companies' deaths can be prevented. The problem is, they couldn't have been prevented necessarily weeks before the company's died, but they might have been prevented months or a half a year or a year before the company died. And by the time a company is a month or two from shutting down, it's pretty much already

dead, right? You really need to, as you were saying when you were quoting that article, Founder's Momentum, the hopelessness is already set in by that point. And it's really hard to get back from hopelessness. So I think that as long as you can get to a place where you have a great support system, you believe in what you're doing, you really want to keep going, and you believe that there is always another card to play or something like that, then you have a good chance of

continuing to push through. Now, obviously, some companies will still fail. People work really, really hard and try their damnedest, and they still don't succeed. So I'm not saying that every company that failed didn't try hard enough or something like that. But I do think that the main reason companies die is because they lose hope. And I still remember that eye-opening moment that, I think I remember you tweeted before

about Founders and Momentum, then, oh, actually, fun fact is, companies don't die when they run out of money or something. And then I thought, oh, that's really true. Even if we run out of money, if founders have hope and can do something, then we can run the company and do something. I still remember that. Thank you for sharing great, insightful things with us. So at the same time, you said Momentum is everything, right?

Would you elaborate that part? That is a strong statement. Yeah. So I truly believe that Momentum is everything. And not all types of Momentum are equal. I believe that customer Momentum is the most important type of Momentum. So customer Momentum is the most important type of Momentum for a very specific reason, is that it transfers to other types of Momentum. So think about it like this. If you have customer Momentum, more people will want to invest in your company, right?

If you have customer Momentum, you'll have people who want to join your company as teammates because they'll say, oh, wow, that thing is going really well and people want to buy it, right? If you have customer Momentum, you'll actually have more customers, right? Because they'll hear about it, they'll see that other people are buying it. And people want to get things that other people are getting, because it looks like, you know,

there is something worth getting, right? This is why you go to, I don't know, a farmer's market or something. And some of the stalls have just a huge line, right? It's because the product is good, right? But it's also because there's a huge line, right? These are reinforcing things that are happening, right? So customer Momentum transfers. Those other types of Momentum don't transfer nearly as well. What do I mean by that?

I was just telling you how the customer stuff can actually lead to investors into hires, right? New teammates. Investor Momentum does not transfer in that way. Sure, you can get some great investors, and maybe that will cause you to have, you know, a couple additional customers, right? Because maybe they'll introduce you to some customers or something like that. But it's not as a direct align, right? If you have great investors, that might cause some people to want to join your company.

But do you really want those people to join your company? If they're only joining because some really famous investor invests in your company, it's actually a bad sign, right? Because they're not joining for the right reason. They're not joining for the mission. They're not joining because of the incredible customer love that you have. They're joining because some investor put their stamp of approval on it, right?

Same thing with customers. They hear about a fundraising announcement, they download your product. Maybe they download it because, you know, they say, oh, I really had that problem, right? And I'm so glad that I saw this announcement because this actually solves a problem for me. Or they're just like, I want to try this out because this is a really hot company invested in by a hot, you know, fund, right?

So ultimately, the customer Momentum transfers, and the investor doesn't. And the teammates joining doesn't really transfer that much either. That totally makes sense. And thank you for sharing that. And I think many founders, you know, as a founder, we see many like, investment news. Oh, we raised 5 million, 10 million from XYZ, like really top tier founders. And I think some founders are, how to say, like, distracted by them.

Oh, this is the right path or something. Some people misunderstand that. But yeah, thank you for clarifying that. And do you have anything? Yeah, please. I was just going to say that, you know, oftentimes people get hung up on fundraising, right? And they get hung up on announcements and launches. I think the reason that people get hung up on fundraising and are so obsessed with it is because they really like the validation of somebody who has invested in a successful

company, investing in them as well. Makes a lot of sense, right? Oh, wow. These people, they invested in Stripe. Oh, wow. These people, they invested in Ramp. Oh, wow. These people invested in, you name it, right? Here's the problem, though. When they invested in Ramp, they also invested in a bunch of other companies you've never heard of that have all since gone on to fail, right? So that stamp of validation that you're seeking was stamped on many companies that are long

dead. So don't take that stamp and consider that the target or the goal. You only want to be the next Ramp or the next Stripe. Don't think about whether or not you raised money and it's from a cool investor who also invested in a great company because they invested in so many companies that went nowhere. You don't want to be that one. And I think that the companies that focus on who they raised money from and sort of

optimizing for fundraising and spending all their time on that ultimately have a risk of just being one of those companies that, oh, yeah, I raised from this great fund, but my company died. I see. But that doesn't mean the startup shouldn't raise VC money, right? I think there are two types of startups. One is fundable. One is not fundable. Yeah. We should think about that. But after that, would you recommend, what's your thoughts on bootstrapping versus VC or

angel investment backed startups? My friend, Heaton Shaw, he recently corrected me on bootstrap. He says, I don't like the word bootstrap. I like the term self-funded. So I'm going to use self-funded instead of bootstrap, though I always used to say bootstrap. I think that there's this interesting premise sort of in the statement that you made, which was something along the lines of, there's two types of companies or there's fundable

companies or not fundable companies. I think that's true. But I think there's also sort of a level underneath that, which is, is this company fundable? Yes. Do you want it to be fundable or do you want to take funding, right? There are plenty of companies that are fundable companies that don't need to take funding necessarily, right? Maybe we should think a little bit more from the perspective of what's best for this business

and what's best for me, right? As sort of the founder, you can go and raise money for a startup, but that has very different expectations and very different types of stakeholders than if you don't raise money. I don't think that there's necessarily a good or a bad way of doing things, but I think ultimately you're making decisions that kind of inform the next few years of your life. And I think that oftentimes people don't necessarily give it as much thought before they make that

commitment one way or another. So fundable or non-fundable, I think that it's very true. There are a lot of companies that aren't fundable and they could become fundable, but they're starting out, they're not necessarily fundable because they're too early or something like that. I see. In that sense, I have two questions that came up. One is, what's your thoughts on going to startup accelerator in that sense?

It's not different like a funding or getting fund, but yeah, the startup gets fund, but at the same time, it's accelerator. So they push you eventually to raise money. So in that sense, if let's say the founder, no, oh, we are a fundable company, but let's say founders eventually realize, oh, we shouldn't be funded or something like that. That case happens sometimes. But they already went to, let's say, YC or famous accelerator so that they take the VC

path already. So in that sense, they have a pressure, oh, once you raise VC money, you got to keep raising and keep growing and the founders need to deal with that pressure. And in that sense, how should we think about it? So I actually think this is not a big deal, to be quite honest, because I think it's a much bigger issue if you raise, let's call it a $3 million seed round, and then you realize that you're not wanting to go and raise follow on funding.

If you do something like YC, they invest in so many companies, and they invest at such a high ownership percentage relative to the amount of money that they invest. And they do that because they understand that a lot of these companies are not going to become huge successes. And that's totally fine. That's why they have the accelerator model. And I think this is a great thing. I think I read something from PG recently where he said, look, we've baked it into our

model that some people are going to go back to school after doing YC, and they're not going to end up starting their company, right? Or they're not going to end up building a company that goes the distance. So he and YC have built this in, so they're not expecting every company to be a success. But if you're a VC and you're only investing as a lead investor in a couple of companies per year, well, then you're really hoping and expecting that those companies are going

to try and go the distance versus investing in hundreds of companies per cohort like YC does. So I think out of anybody, YC is probably the most likely, at least from a VC standpoint, is they still are a VC. They have this fund model, but they're still a VC. They're the most likely to be supportive of somebody who only raises the $500 from YC or $500,000 from YC, and then ultimately build something that is revenue generating,

is a profitable business, but doesn't necessarily go on to raise more funding, because they don't have all of their chips or 30% of their chips on that one startup compared to or relative to these VC funds that are much more concentrated with their investments. So I don't think it's as bad for an accelerator. I don't think you're going to get quite as much pressure from an accelerator to take the VC route after the fact if you realize that things have changed than you would from

a lead investor. And I do think that lead investors would encourage you to go and raise more money and to do follow on funding, because I think we just have to acknowledge that that's sort of the way that the incentive structure works. Most VCs who haven't been in VC for many decades, they have a reputation that they're still building, and they want to be able to report to investors, their investors, LPs,

that the companies are doing really well. And one of the best ways of doing that is talking about the higher valuation that the company is raising. So you want to make sure that as a founder, that if you're not sure about whether or not you want to continue raising round after round, that you don't get in a position where the people that you're working with are expecting you to do that, and their success is essentially

determined by whether or not you do that. And you mentioned like a higher valuation, and I had that question too. Because founders are like a competitive creature, naturally, I think. So they try to raise at higher valuation. It's what I see from other founders sometimes. But when they raise higher at the higher valuation, then the next round, they might need to go through like a down round. And some people like investors, and I think you, warning, warns that you shouldn't raise

that too much high valuation. So do you have any advice or thoughts on like a valuation, like a range, or any like tips? Yeah. I was talking to a really smart investor friend, and they said, I don't think I've ever seen a company that raises five on 25, meaning a $5 million round at a $25 million post-money valuation. I don't ever think I've seen a company that's raised five on 25 for their first round do

very well. And there's a couple of reasons for this, at least what they were thinking. I'll try and represent their point of view on this, which was when you're raising $5 million and you don't have a product, you just have some co-founders, you're very likely to sort of increase your spend prematurely, build out a team, because you have all this money, so why not use it? And ultimately, you end up usually burning through the money in the same sort of speed

that you would, regardless of how much money that you had. So meaning, you'll probably end up with 24 months of runway, no matter how much money you have. And it's really hard to nail those first 24 months. So you kind of run into a situation where you might end up with the same amount of traction that you would have gotten with a million dollars, but having spent $5 million. So you haven't shown that you're very capital efficient, which isn't a particularly great

thing to show. And then I think that the big challenge is now you've gotten a million dollars worth of progress for $5 million, and now you're trying to get a valuation that's higher than your last valuation. which is $25 million, right? So really, investors are going to want to see you raising at an up round from the last round of financing. So you're kind of looking at needing to raise at a $50 million, $60 million, higher than

that valuation. So it makes it really hard to kind of get to a place where you can warrant that next valuation jump, versus if you think about it, you're raising at an $8 million valuation or a $12 million valuation, well, then you always have the opportunity to go to that sort of $25 million valuation for the next round. Or if you're making so much incredible progress after raising at $8 or $12 or $15, you might

be able to just jump straight to raising at a $50 million valuation and doing a series A, right? And this is, again, assuming that you want to take the venture path and build sort of an adventure trajectory startup, which I think is a helpful discussion for people perhaps to hear. If that's the case, though, you kind of really do a couple of favors for yourself if you raise slightly less money and you raise at a slightly lower valuation.

And that's, again, you lower the bar for the next round. You give yourself the ability to completely knock it out of the park and actually skip a round. So I know one company recently that raised a pre-seed round, a couple million bucks, and they were doing so well that they went out to go and raise, I believe it was somewhere around $5 or $6 million. But they were doing so well after raising that pre-seed and making progress that they

ended up going straight to series A and raising, I think, at an $80 million valuation, right? And there's another VC that I really love. I probably shouldn't mention them by name because I don't know how much they like to talk about this publicly. But they were telling me that, and they're one of the top VCs in true seed investing in the world. They told me that they think that really the best thing you can do as a founder, if you're

raising a true seed round, is raise anywhere from $1 to $2.5 million, but anything beyond that for a first round, unless, of course, there are outliers like some of these really big LLM plays or AI plays, it might make sense to raise more money. But they felt that this was sort of the sweet spot for a true seed round. And where was I going with that? They also often get founders maybe thinking, are they just saying this because they get

a better valuation, right? Because the founders are like, well, if VCs say that, are they just trying to do something that's good for them and not for me? And the reality is, I think that they're actually doing something that's generally good for the founder when they're suggesting, anybody's suggesting to raise maybe slightly less and raise it a slightly lower valuation, because ultimately, that step up is very difficult

to make unless things go really well for you. But wouldn't you recommend, let's say the startup valuation, that light fair value is let's say, assuming $50 million valuation, they shouldn't go too much higher, but would you recommend going lower than so that they can close the round earlier, like faster? Like, oh, I think we are okay with $30, $25 million valuation, let's say, fair value is $50 million, but let's go, 50% is gone, but we want to close earlier.

Does that make sense, or they shouldn't? Yeah, I think that the main thing that you should optimize for is terms and partner. And I don't mean terms in terms of valuation, I mean terms in terms of everything else. You know, like, for instance, what's the board setup going to be like? When you start to get into the, you know, $30 plus million valuation, there might be a board component to this. Who's going to be on the board?

What's the board structure going to be like, right? You know, all sorts of things that go beyond sort of the valuation that are worth considering. And then the other thing is like the partner, you know, are these people reputable? Are these people who, you know, you would actually want to spend time with? There might be people who are very reputable, or you just, you know, or like are good in some way, but you just don't hit it off with.

And if you really are going to be spending the next five to ten years with this person, and they're sort of a lead investor, that really matters. So you know, I don't think that the most important thing to focus on is valuation. I do think it's an important lever to consider, right? And the other thing is, you know, if you have multiple term sheets and multiple offers and they're different valuations, this allows you to negotiate terms with various investors.

And some investors might change their valuation if you have other terms that are maybe a higher valuation than what they're offering, if that means that they can, you know, win the investment. Thank you. Is there anything that you talk or share with founders during the cohort? I think you share about, you know, founders and momentum and those like tips and lessons, you know, to founders, but do you have anything else like?

Yeah, we talk a lot about co-founders because co-founders are such an important aspect of starting a company. You know, it's fine to not have a co-founder, but I think that generally the worst types of co-founders are the ones that you kind of get just because they happen to be the one who's around versus they happen to be one that's, you know, a really good fit to work with you. So we call those types of co-founders, co-founders of convenience.

And we think that they're really dangerous because, you know, sometimes it's just better being alone than, you know, sort of just having some kind of suboptimal match that you kind of just took because they happen to be the only person that you had in your network who is available at the time. And, you know, there's all sorts of co-founder kind of like pitfalls and mistakes that can be made. And I think ultimately, you know, usually when you talk about sort of co-founders or

companies don't run out of money, they run out of hope and that's what causes them to fail. A huge part of what causes companies to fail is co-founder sort of disputes and challenges that actually cause people to run out of hope. Because it's one thing for the business, the product to not be working very well, right? And it's one thing for the customers to not be liking it or to be churning or something

like that. That sucks, but, you know, that's doable. But imagine that's happening and also you and your co-founder are just hating each other and really resent each other and are having a really hard time with your relationship. Now imagine the opposite is the case and you have all this stuff happening with customers and things aren't going well and fundraising is not working, right? All this stuff is going wrong, but the co-founders still really love each other and still really

care about each other and want to help each other be their best versions of themselves. Well, that's ultimately the thing that takes a situation that might be hopeless if the co-founders were kind of like butting heads and really disliking each other and angry with each other and takes it and actually makes it a really hopeful thing, right? Because now they're supporting each other through this really tough time and they have

that optimism that together they can actually make something happen, right? So I think that's actually really important is the co-founder piece is probably the most important thing, you know, outside of the market that you're building in. Yeah. Yeah. So related to that, so I think you have much many co-founders through ODF or you just like introduce many co-founders to like, you know, founders. So do you see any, like, you know, you know, common things in successful co-founders or

like, you know, if you have like any like signs, so yeah, those co-founders will, you know, fail. So do you see any like tips or like common things in co-founder relationships? Yeah, for sure. I think that most co-founders really, you know, the obvious one is that they complement each other, right? They're not just overlapping skills. But I think the other thing is that oftentimes the most successful co-founders are very clear

and very aligned on who the CEO is. If you don't have that alignment early on or there's a lot of ambiguity and it doesn't seem like people are 100%, maybe 200% on board with who the CEO is, that's going to create all sorts of conflicts. So it's really important that that is something that people are very aligned on in the early days as co-founders. Another thing is we look a lot at sort of whether or not somebody is kind of coming

up with the idea together as co-founders or whether or not they're bringing the idea and sort of recruiting co-founders to it. There's nothing particularly wrong with either of those, but it's worth mentioning that when somebody brings an idea to the relationship and they're very dedicated on essentially recruiting a co-founder to work with them on a very specific thing, well, that is. tough if the thing doesn't work out because that might mean that the person who came with the idea

is less in love and less open to moving off of the idea that isn't working versus if you come together and you say hey we have complementary skill sets we really like being together and we think that we we would just enjoy working on something together let's co-create an idea together let's go explore an idea together that is much more likely to be a success in the long run because there isn't there isn't this sort of sense that we're dedicated to a specific idea

now obviously there are some incredible counter examples to this of course some of the best companies have been started by people who essentially had a really deep insight and recruited a co-founder so i'm not saying that that's not the case but i'm saying that when things get tough with the original idea it's much easier for the co-founders to pivot and co-create the next idea together when they've kind of come into it with this level of openness about you know

what it is that we should be you know what it is that we're working on we don't really know we're going to kind of figure it out together and we're going to kind of see where whatever we end up pursuing um is kind of a a thing that we do together right versus something where you're kind of uh you're kind of getting into it from this perspective of you know one person being sort of the owner of the idea or the originator of the idea yeah thanks yeah and yeah i think you already

shared many things and lessons about odf but so where do you see odf in like five years 10 years or 20 years so in the future well that's a good question because i don't think that if you ever ask somebody where it's going to be um in the next five years uh it's going to change constantly so i'll tell you where it is now but you're gonna have to check in with me in a year um to see sort of where things go because a lot of the things that are changing how we operate are

external factors right it's the external market right and i don't mean like other people building stuff in you know early stage startups i mean like the world right you know we were a digital community for a really long time exclusively digital because of the pandemic ai i think is really good to change the way people build companies um so you know ultimately i think it's hard to be um super prescriptive about what the future looks like but i'll tell you

a couple of things that i'm really excited about the first one is that i think that um now more than ever in the next couple of years um you're going to be able to do far more with less um and i think that really is going to change the dynamics of how people think about who they're going to start their company with uh whether or not they need to start a company with another person or whether or not they can be solo um you know how they how they think about fundraising because do

you need to fundraise for a lot of businesses anymore i think that when the cost of creating things continues to go down you know uh you you could argue that um servers like you know moving to cloud was a huge unlock right um in terms of reducing costs well what is um essentially unlimited labor right uh like being now being now like you know almost too cheap to meter right with things like cursor or replica ai um these things are almost getting too cheap to meter so you you

now have this uh scenario where the cost of actual like labor to build these things is continuing to go down so that means that you might not need to fundraise where you might have had to fundraise previously so i think that a lot of things are going to change about company formation uh fundraising structure um sort of how people spend their time i think that the way that university happens and the way young people um sort of develop skills is going to change really

significantly so you know do i think that most uh sort of junior software engineers are going to have roles um at startups anymore i don't necessarily know i think that you're going to have to do a whole lot more to get hired um as an engineer at a startup uh and that you're going to probably end up by going through the process of learning outside of school and outside of you know college and all that you'll probably end up building your own things that make money so maybe you won't even

ever join a company as an engineer because you already have been so successful so i think that like to very concretely um answer what you're saying i think that in the next five years um we're going to see many of the people who do odf fundamentally change how they think about structuring and building companies and we're going to be evolving the way that we support them uh to match with that and hopefully we'll actually be um really the ones who are helping them kind of

figure that out and and developing new models for building companies based off of that um i think that part of that has to do with financing how these things get financed i think that financing still plays an important role but i think it's going to be a changing role and then ultimately um you know i there's another aspect of this which is like how odf kind of fits into the broader scheme of things and you know what we're doing um you know the company is called odf but it's a

little bit of a misnomer because what we're doing is we're building all of these sort of standalone communities and products that kind of fit together um and that overlap in really powerful ways so we have odf which we've talked about for you know the majority of this conversation which is for people who are exploring starting a company in san francisco trying to find the missing pieces another thing that we do is a thing called merge and merge is for people usually people who are

13 to maybe 19 years old who are looking for just a small amount of money anywhere from a hundred dollars to a thousand dollars maybe even a little bit more than that looking for a small amount of money to be able to be unblocked on working on a project that they're really ambitious uh you know and passionate about and the idea with merge is that these aren't companies these are projects where people are working on hardware or trying to develop something really novel and maybe some of

these won't become companies but ultimately we think about the things that we do with odf and merge as being sort of complementary and alongside of each other uh we also have another thing that we're working on you're called landing club which is helping people you know move from abroad uh to the united states to build startups so you know when when you look at all these things and put them all together and you start to think about the future of of odf uh not just odf the the program

but sort of that that broader thing um the goal is to really make things which is both products and communities for people who make things and you know we think the way that things are made is going to change really significantly in the next five to ten years just how it changed really significantly in the last 10 years um so we really want to continue to evolve alongside the way these things that are um that are changing about the way we make things

um and and that's kind of like the thing that we're most excited about um in the years ahead Likewise and then and also i'm in that sense you know regarding the ai and the ai agent let's say essentially and do you think the future like startup founders need to have co-founder in that sense because you know let's say they can hire a agent ai agent cto like a co or cbo and so chr and so do you think i'm curious about the importance of co-founders in the future

of startup i think the um i think the the the funny thing to say which is which is probably not accurate uh but the funny thing to say is why do you even need founders um if you or why do you why do you need human founders i think uh i think you could say right like um do you even need them i think you could say right like um do you even need them right uh because because you know you could you could kind of make the argument that oh like all you need is actually electricity uh

and compute right um and therefore you know just somebody who has capital can afford electricity and compute so you're just sort of going and telling me you're everybody becomes a venture capitalist right everybody becomes an investor um and they just tell the agents to go come up with an idea for a business uh obviously that that's that seems a little far-fetched but maybe not um i do think that you know if you if you think about the perspective of co-founders what do

they actually provide um sometimes it's a complementary skill set but i think the main thing is that it's really really lonely to build a company right so some people might empathize with robots uh or with chat bots um and and they might be able to get that level of support from them or from a community like odf a lot of people who are solo founders have said that odf and the community has been really helpful to them um but you know ultimately i think of it as um are they

going to be replacing just the technical or just the the the skill part of the co-founder relationship or they're also going to be replacing the uh the emotional uh part of the co-founder relationship and um the answer is maybe uh it's it's hard to say um but at the same time a lot of people don't even have co-founders and they're successful today so um you know i'm sure that some people will use ai instead of a co-founder and i'm sure that that's already happening though they probably

at least today don't consider ai their co-founder or or ai isn't on the cap table i should say say. It's more of a tool that's being used in lieu of a co-founder in the same way that, you know, an AWS instance is being used instead of an actual, like, literal server, like, in your closet. Yeah, really interesting perspective. And I think we really want Julian's Chrome or AI agent we can reach out to. Because, you know, I think you are helping many founders and many founders

reaching out to you and rely on you, you know, ask your help and so on. And two questions, I'm curious, how do you manage, let's say you are helping many founders, how do you manage and your time handling those messages? I think you receive hundreds of messages, I think, from, you know, various founders from early stage to later stage. And second is, what's your personal motivation? Yeah. Helping people. Why do you love working with founders?

So, I think it depends on the type of founder or the type of sort of stage that they're at. I really like helping people sort of in the figuring it out stage, because I think there's something just really amazing about sort of this idea that you're kind of at the cusp of a really sort of transformative moment in your life, right? Where if you take a certain fork in the road, it will completely change where you potentially end up, right? Or if you shift sort of

the trajectory of where you're aiming by just a degree or two in a positive direction upwards, then, you know, in the near term, it doesn't look like you're really changing where you're ending up, but you've extrapolated out a few years, and that little shift in degrees at the beginning ends up having a really outsized impact on where you end up in the long run, right? So, I think there's just something really magical about that moment, and something really fulfilling

about helping people sort of figure that out, or make progress there, that I just really love. I'm also kind of, I'm definitely the type of person who enjoys being sort of like a mile wide and inch deep when it comes to ideas. You know, I love to take various concepts or various things that I've experienced or heard, and apply them to things that are not seemingly, at least superficially, relevant to each other. And the only way I can do that is by just vacuuming up information and

knowledge, right, from all of these incredible people who are working on such a wide array of things. And the cool thing is, they have a lot of specific things to each of their business, like Glass, for instance, has very specific things to your business, right? But they're also, this is sort of horizontal layer of things that are very generalizable across businesses, right? So, you get to learn about the business specific things while helping with the

generalizable things. And it's just an incredible exchange of knowledge. So, I find that really fulfilling. And then, I think the other piece of it is, you know, when people are a little bit further along, they have a company that's going, the thing that I really love is being there for people when they're having a really tough time. And the reason for that is because, like, I've had a lot of, like, tough times as a founder, and also just personally, like, I've had tough times.

And I've always benefited from other people who helped me. And I always want to be the person who does that for other people. And especially if I can help them through something that I've already seen before, right? Or I've already seen another founder deal with before, because that means that they don't need to try and, you know, evaluate this from, you know, without prior data, I'm able to provide them data from past sort of interactions with the problem, right? So,

that's really fulfilling. And I believe you asked me a question before the question about personal motivation. Can you? Yeah, how to handle and manage your time? Yeah, because you're messaging many founders, I think. Sure. So, I think that it's interesting. I think with AI, there will be additional ways to, you know, help kind of like triage and, you know, give people support, and all of that. A couple of things come to mind, though. Oftentimes,

I have people who ask if they can meet with me. And it's usually from the perspective of getting feedback for fundraising. And, you know, usually, they'll want to meet for 30 minutes, I would say, is sort of the default, right? Whenever anybody schedules time. And, you know, I've usually found that the best way to do this is to not actually meet live, when somebody has materials that they want me to review, but instead for them to send me the materials, and then I record a Loom video

reacting to the materials. And I think that the reason that this is really good is because I'm not with them. So, therefore, they're not steering me, I'm kind of doing a blind user test. And I'm also recording it so that they can reference that and go back to it over and over again. And then what we'll do is I'll send that video to them, that Loom video, and they'll be able to go in and add comments, and I'll be able to add comments, we'll be able to have a discussion

back and forth. And, you know, it might actually end up taking me over a week of going back and forth on these Looms, it might end up taking me 30 minutes, right? Because I might spend 10 minutes on making the initial Loom, and then all the back and forth. But ultimately, I think that that flow actually results in better quality feedback being logged, better discussion around the feedback, than one of these calls where the call ends up kind of just not going in the direction that's

particularly productive. So, trying to default to async is really good. But I think another piece of this is creating materials that do the work for you, right? So, that's where we're talking about AI, and we have an agent, or we have some sort of, you know, chatbot or something like that, that answers questions for you, sure. But, you know, I already do that. My agent is just, like, a URL, right? I just send people a URL about, like, how to make a good pitch deck, or,

you know, how to think about investor inbound. Like, so many people ask me, Julian, like, I have this investor, they just hit me up, and they want to meet, but I'm not fundraising, what should I do? Well, instead of me repeating everything that I've written in this blog post, I just send them a blog post, because I spend a lot of time writing the blog post, but I've probably sent that to hundreds of people ever since I wrote it. And every time that I send

it to somebody, they're like, this is exactly what I was looking for. They don't need to get on a call with me at that point, right? So, I think that part of it is creating artifacts that make it so that people can interface with me without interfacing with me live. And then, if people want to interface with me and I don't have artifacts, or it's something specialized, again, reviewing their deck, then we can do it async. Again, I'm not one of these people who's

async always type person or anything like that. But usually, I try and default to the method that I think is going to be most helpful for people. And I think the async loom videos is the most helpful for deck review, as an example. And I think sending somebody a really thoughtfully written essay or blog post about a very tactical topic is much better than having me try and riff through it on a 30-minute call, but I've already documented it and written it down.

That totally makes sense. And hope this interview is not you repeating the same thing. No, not at all. You're keeping me on my toes. Okay, thank you. So, yeah, two more questions. And sorry, time is running out. But one is, let's say you gave us many advice, gave founders many advice, but would you add something else? Do you have any advice to founders you didn't talk about today, if you have any? Yeah, sure. I think that there will be a lot of forces at play that pull you

sort of magnetically towards things that are unproductive. There will be forces that try and pull you into an investor meetings before you're actually ready to fundraise. There will be forces that pull you towards the allure of talking to press or trying to get press instead of actually launching your product and just getting into a handful of users' hands. There are all these forces that will kind of pull you towards things that seem productive,

but aren't actually directly productive. And as long as you can avoid those forces and focus on the customers and focus on building for those customers, you're going to be in a really good spot. But those forces are incredibly powerful. So, you'll have to continually ask yourself, am I letting those forces pull me off the path that I really need to be on? And if you find that you are getting pulled off the path, it's actually a really good thing,

because most people aren't aware and never develop that awareness to actually acknowledge it, right? I'm not a master meditator by any means, right? But one thing that they teach everybody when it comes to meditation is that You're supposed to focus on the breath or at least one mode one meditation you focus on the breath, right? And then as soon as you realize you've let your mind wander to something else

You don't say damn it mind like you really suck like you you say Okay, let's let's bring it back to the breath, right? And that's the same thing when it comes to getting distracted by all these forces that are pulling you in various directions as the founder You want to make sure that you're not beating yourself up for getting distracted But you want to bring yourself back to the breath return to the breath

Return to the thing that you actually need to focus on and then move on And I just read your today's newsletter also for young founders and mentioned like Mentorship funding balancing study startup and building it for those things can be obstacles Distractions. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I think I think that specifically I'll just talk about that what you're referring to there I think Building networks Everybody's like how do I expand my network?

and I think that there are good ways and good reasons to expand your network So for instance, I think when you're exploring starting a company You don't want to start a company with just whatever random person happens to be available You want to go and start a company with somebody who's a really good fit for you Who wants to actually go and build the same type of business as you and work towards the same type of ideal outcome, right?

so Expanding your network or spending more time with people and trying to grow your network to find that person who's really aligned with you There's a really worthwhile opportunity or a really worthwhile sort of thing to allocate some time towards right? That's why we build ODF The goal here is to make it so that you can plug into a group of people who are at a similar stage as you And figure out what it is that you're gonna do

The other type of building network though is not building network in service of anything It's just sort of vaguely building a network because you think it makes sense to have a network And here's the thing about building that type of network The way that you build a great network of awesome people is by building things that are awesome That cause people to be interested in you, right? And part of this is making people aware of the awesome thing

But there is this aspect of when you build awesome things, they generally tend to become more known to people, right? Similar to how when you start to get customers that also starts to get you more customers, right through referrals or you know That analogy of the long line at the farmers market Causing more customers to come to that farmers market tent or to wait in line to go into that restaurant, right?

So ultimately if you do really great things Then your network will be a result of that versus if you're just going around trying to add people on LinkedIn Huge waste of your time because you're not actually spending time making something that's great And that's ultimately the thing that gets you respect Makes people want to send you great opportunities, all of that Thank you for the sage advice. Thank you. Yeah, that's great advice

And this is the last question So since Grasp is a platform where people can share what they're reading, learning as a digital legacy We're gonna ask you this question. So what legacy or impact do you want to leave behind for future generations? Well, that's a tough one not because not because it's a tough question, but because it's just like a very kind of like emotional one You know, I think that the first thing I would like people to maybe take away

From the things that I do Is that I Try to do things based off of what I want to see in the world Not based off of what I think Other people would think is cool. I try and do what I think is cool because I think that ultimately if I like something There will be other people who would like it too and I have to be really honest with myself Do I actually like it if I don't actually like it and I'm lying to myself and pretending I do

Then that's doing no one any good But I hope that people look at what I'm doing and see that this is a person who's working on stuff they really care about they really believe in and it gives them the encouragement to Maybe not just try and do the thing that kind of looks externally cool or they could explain to you know Their relatives or or something like that, but is actually the thing that's kind of a representation of who they are and what they care about

So, I hope that people see that and maybe you can take some inspiration from that I think that you know, I hope that people see what we're doing at ODF and and realize that there are different ways to Build communities and there are different ways to invest in startups. You don't have to build another accelerator To build something really great for the world. I think ODF is great for the world You know, I'll brag for a second and say that I think it's like a really a really positive

Influence on not just technology, but the world. I Think that you can do things your own way and have a really important impact and I think that I Think that you know, I have this publication that I that I run outside of ODF sort of a personal thing called multitudes and You know, I call it multitudes because I like this concept that we're so much more Typically than the kind of what we actually Show to any one person in the world

And I feel like sometimes we're kind of like putting on different masks to sort of you know Fit a certain image that we want people to have of us at any given point in our lives or in various aspects of our lives and The reason I just started this publication and the reason I started putting out the things that I put on multitudes is Because I decided that I didn't want to I didn't want to have these different masks anymore. I wanted to just like be be me and put that out there

and I think that Sort of like figuring out ways to kind of really represent the whole the whole self Is really valuable because I think that that's the thing that's unique Yeah about each person not some sort of kind of filtered down Diluted Fragment of the person that you think kind of like checks the boxes for other people, right? So, you know with I think that hopefully people will look at that and see okay

This is a person who isn't trying to segment themselves and maybe I don't need to segment myself as much either Yeah Thank you and beautiful, you know, thank you for the beautiful answers and Yeah, I left, you know that publication too and we learn a lot from you Yeah, and I'm personally grateful for ODF to exist in and since you know I met a lot of great founders and you and yeah, I love the community and thank you

Thank you so much for joining today Of course. Thank you for having me Thank you

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