Lessons

Lesson Info

Dave Morin - Entrepreneur

I'm about to go interview Dave Morin. Dave is creative at heart. Dave takes photos, that's how we met him. We've gone on a ski trip last winter in British Columbia that was really awesome, he invited Morgan Phillips and I to go just skiing with them at deep powder. So David takes photos, enjoys the process of taking photos, he's creative, but his day job is a VC. He's an investor, he's an entrepreneur, he started a bunch of companies you might have heard of, he built the Facebook app platform back in 2008, so he's a very smart guy who has a very sharp brain in what is going on with the world in general. So I've always enjoyed talking with him just about ideas in business or even in photography. And I thought it was really important to interview him because of his knowledge and his acute eye for what is going on in the world. He's gone through several crises. I mean, he moved to San Francisco from Montana actually in kind of at the end of 2002. If you know what happened in 2003, you kno...

w why I'm talking about this. 2003 sort of internet bubbled, collapsed, and a bunch of... A lot of tech companies went down that were overvalued. So he was there to see that. And after that, he was also working when '08 happened, the subprime crisis. So he's gone through... What I'm saying is that he's gone through a few of these. This one is completely unprecedented, COVID is completely unprecedented, but still he's learned a lot from these previous times that I wanna ask him what that... You know, what those insights are. He also comes with the creative spirit. See, he also has a creative spirit, so he's gonna be able to relate to photographers more than a lot of VCs. And he overall has a ton of business experience because he's pitched hundreds of times investors to raise money for his different projects. So he understands what makes a good pitch and you know, what we can do as even as creatives to present ourselves better and to land more business. So it's gonna be a good conversation just because of his experience. And he's very different than everybody I've interviewed in the workshop. So yeah, let's do it. Enjoy my talk with Dave. (phone ringing) Yeah, she's rolling, we're rolling. Dave Morin, thank you for being here. We appreciate you, man. Really wonderful to be here. I don't feel worthy, but I'm happy to be here. (laughs) Now, come on, you have a massive experience with... Just in the business world and as a creative. As I mentioned, you and I met on a ski lodge in the mountains of BC. So just your mindset and your desire to bring creatives and business people together is the main reason I wanted to reach out to you for this workshop. And I know your time is really valuable, but the fact that you go out of your way to bring sort of Silicon Valley people who work in tech or finance and just run of the mill creatives, who have essentially been given an awesome opportunity to meet new people and to hear about new ideas. It's something I really appreciated you for doing. And I wanna extend these conversations we had here and the conversations we've had over text the past few months of what's going on during COVID for the benefit of all the outdoor photographers or filmmakers, creatives, anybody who was in a freelance position. So I know your insights are gonna be really valuable. Well, I certainly appreciate that. And I view myself as a creative first and as you know, photography is... Probably, it's beyond a hobby for me, it's kind of the only art other than what I do in technology that I've done for my entire life. And I certainly look up to many of the folks that you're interviewing on this series and aspire to learn from them as well. So it's the least I could do to be here. All righty, thank you. So how have you been staying creative during sort of lockdown and shelter in place? What have you been up to? Well, one of the things that I did right out of the gate was I looked around my house and realized that I'm a photographer (laughs). And I ended up on a lot of Zoom calls, I think as we all have throughout this time and decided that I could make my Zoom calls look a lot better. And so I got really into figuring out how to create a photography pipeline for video. I was gonna talk about that. I was like, is this the elephant in the room? It's like, how do you look so good compared to everybody I've interviewed (laughs)? How is that so much depth of feel behind you? It almost looks like a fake Zoom background, but better. Yeah, 'cause like-- Yeah, I mean, 'cause that was kind of what happened, it was... I was... I think like all of us, I was really shell shocked and I was getting migraines every night and, you know, I kind of couldn't believe what was happening and starting to get, you know, asked to be on calls. And I have two young kids and, you know, I was trying to balance all of that and make it fun and interesting to be on these Zoom calls every day. And all of my camera equipment was just sitting in my bag or in my, you know, in my closet. And I looked at it and said, I could probably make my Zooms a lot better. And part of what I've been trying to do throughout the COVID time period is still make some creative projects happen, you know, build relationships that were necessary for some business things that I was trying to get done. And I just wanted to show up in the best way that I could, even though we can't do it in person. So that became a very interesting creative outlet, I guess, which led to... I've been a little bit out of the app game, I guess you could call it. My typical background is in building technology and putting together technology at to very large scale. And I've been lucky to have been part of building some very large systems on the internet. And I really did take a few years away from that because the last one that I did was very taxing and consuming and left me feeling pretty defeated in a lot of ways. And I just... I think I hadn't found creative inspiration in a while and-- We're speaking about paths, yes. Yeah, that path was my last big project. I think of it as almost making music, you know, that was the last album that I worked on and I haven't done one in a while and I actually ended up over the last 60 days getting really involved in an app project around contact tracing, which I guess if you would've asked me, would that be what I worked on during the last 60 days, during a global pandemic? I don't think I would've told you yes ahead of time. Yeah (laughs). But dear friend of mine, and another wonderfully creative technologist, who've actually known for 20 years called me and he said, "Dave, we've been drafted. We've gotta get the avengers together and try to do something." (laughs) The avengers, it's like (indistinct) sort of team. Yeah, and I was like, you're right. And you know, I... For the first couple of weeks I kind of couldn't even work and then I got into it and you know, I got really creative and just been working and doing this for the last, however many weeks now. And it's been a really wonderful project and we launched it this weekend, starting to roll out. Oh yeah. In Baltimore and a few other cities. We've we got it up to a hundred thousand users in three days now and so that's exciting. I mean, it's very timely, right? What is it called? It's an app called Citizen and it's a company that I invested in a few years ago. I was the first investor and they started out in personal safety. So they digitized 911 information in New York city and made it available for you on your phone. So, you know, when you're walking around New York, you now can get notifications and open up a map that shows you all of the crime and safety information directly around you. Wow. And it now has over a million users just in New York city alone, million daily users. So you guys have changed the tech to work with contact tracing in COVID. Yeah. Smart. And really two categories, it's contact tracing on the one hand. Well, I actually three categories. There's contact tracing, which dense places like New York city is gonna be really important, but secondarily it's testing. So, you know, if you get notified that somebody gets... You cross paths with somebody who was COVID positive, then you need to go get tested. And so we've been working really hard to integrate with all of the testing centers and testing providers and you know, getting people to know where to go get tested or order an at home test or whatever technologies. But then the third category, which I've been really most excited about is just general... I've been calling it the weather report given where you're standing anywhere in America or the world, what is the, you know, probability that COVID or any other virus in the future is increasing or decreasing. When you look at a weather app, you don't need to know whether it's gonna rain five inches or 10 inches, you just need to know is it gonna be a 80% chance of rain or a 20% chance of rain? 'Cause it changes whether you wear a coat that day, right? And so I think about this very similarly that you need to know, do I wear a mask where I'm standing or not, and what's the probability? And so we've been doing a lot around that just to make it so that irrespective of whether anybody else has the contact tracer or any of this stuff that requires other people to participate, you should be able to open an app and have a nice set of information that helps you get some awareness of what's going on around you. I think that's super smart because we're going from the scared of everything state, it's like we can't do anything to slowly doing more things. So I think the app is gonna be... I mean, just having that technology to make better decisions like, well, I'm in the forest unlikely. So let's just not wear a mask, right? I'm here. Yeah, I think it's really powerful. Yeah, I'd also think that negotiating between each other is gonna be really important. So just being able to say to somebody, look, you don't know... You question, whether you can trust whether I'm telling you the truth about where I was yesterday. Like being able to have an app that you can use to show people that. A lot of the conversation has been about like, I don't wanna be tracked and I don't wanna live in a surveillance state. Yeah. I agree, I don't either, but I also want to have powerful tools that I can use to talk to the people around me, right? And make my own decisions. And so to me, it's been about power to the people. I think it's... Yeah, man, I think it's... Again, it shows your pioneer spirit. And just kind of jumping back to your building your home studio. Yeah. It shows that you have a keen understanding on how to present yourself and what you're building, right? It's like I'm gonna be on camera, I need to be... Look the best I can, right? Why not do that? Yeah. So this is kind of a jump, but you have... As we were talking earlier, you have massive experience in pitching and business experience, right? Because you've pitched several times. I mean, I don't know how many times, a lot of times to convince investors. (indistinct). Okay, well, to convince investors to either buy what... Buy into your idea or buying into that dream you're building. So, to take this to a more tactical level, because not everybody listening here can go and pitch investors or is going, but at the same time as freelancers, we have to pitch clients every day. At least we should be pitching clients every day. What are some of the approaches you've developed or the philosophy you have around pitching that somebody can use for wherever they're billing? Because a lot of freelancers right now are wondering, is it the right time to pitch? Should I go with my ideas or brands buying or not? Okay. If they are, how can I do that in the best light? And how can I show my ideas and get them sold? Do you have an approach on that? Yeah, I think number one, the audience really matters, right? So context matters, right? Like I could tell you different types of pitches, depending on what context you're going into, but-- You start with the audience and the context. Sorry. So you start with the context. Yeah, and-- Okay. I think that understanding, you know, that matters a lot because it changes your pitch. So for example, I always say, I'm much more used to pitching ideas that may become a startup or a business. So that's an important context to know about the advice that I'm gonna give. And you know, if it's the beginning, like it's a new idea, right? And you're pitching it for the first time and you're trying to get people to come along with you, I always say to people, you're pitching a dream, you're pitching people a journey, right? People often get focused on there's a sale to be made or dollars to be counted or, you know, a deal to be closed, but frequently when you're first developing relationships, particularly with like a new client or a new investor or somebody who you're just starting to get to know, you're actually pitching them to come on a journey with you and to develop a relationship. And I really always think of it through that lens. That really what we're doing, it's almost like dating. Like you're trying to decide, is this somebody I wanna be on the phone with every day or you know, frequently throughout the next several months, if not years? or maybe if it's a really good client. I mean, I know Alex, you've got clients you've been working with for years now, right? I have five, six years, yeah. Yeah, and I know we've got a mutual friend in over at La Marzocco, right? (Alex laughs) And Scott over there is a really wonderful guy and he's a guy I call to get advice on how to... What to buy, how to fix my machines I would work with all the time. You know, there's... Every pitch is actually the beginning or not beginning of a relationship. And so I always think it's really important to remember that, especially in the beginning. Yeah. And to think of it that way. Like, you know, you're pitching a dream, you're pitching an idea, you're pitching a journey that you're all gonna go on together, right? And I think that's really important if that's the context. If the context is you're coming back to the table for, you know, the next step in the same client or it's a... You're in a competition or something, I don't know like that might be very different, right? Like you might not be pitching a dream anymore, you might be getting down to brass tax, and so-- So, you meaning a separate face of the pitch. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if it's like, you know, you're doing... This is the second time we've worked together, third time we've worked together, you know, they don't need a fancy beautiful articulation of the adventure you're gonna go on, they might just want like brass tax like this is the budget, here's what we're gonna do, here's the outcome. In the case of investing, you know, I always... In the investing world or the startup world, we call them series, there's the seed round and the series A round and the series B round. And when you're getting out there in series B, our joke is that that's when finance shows up, right? Like it's... The series C and the series A frequently show a revenue model and people know it's BS, right? They know you have-- It's a good analogy. Strong numbers out there. But once you get out there to series B, it's like, no, actually this business now has revenue and we know how much it costs to make the product, we know how much it costs to market the product and get a new customer and we know whether we're making money or losing money when that happens. And so if I'm gonna give you money to invest in this, I wanna know exactly how that money is gonna multiply, and I wanna know that you are gonna be able to do that, and I don't want any BS, like I want brass tax, right? And that's the relationship, right? And so I think that frequently people get crosswise when they go into one doing the other, right? It's like you go into a series B pitch or a second pitch, or third pitch, pitching an adventure and people are like, what are you doing, man? Like we're here-- Yeah, we just need the numbers (laughs). Same goes-- Okay. It's like if you go into a new relationship being like here's the numbers, people are like, wow, man, this is like... This guy's pretty transactional, he feels mercenary to me. I thought we were gonna go on a mission together, right? Yeah. And I would say like missionary or mercenary, which one? You know which one do you (indistinct)? So now this is... I can hear the underlying points in there. To take it even one more level tactical if you're down with it. Let's say that you personally, I know you're building a sprinter van right now, yeah, that's an awesome idea. Yeah, maybe. Trying, we'll see. Trying to build a sprinter van. So let's say that you're a creative and you've built a sprinter van, okay? And then, you know, there's company that makes, let's say Goal Zero rechargeable solar stuff for your van, okay? And you wanna convince them to give you money to put their stuff on your van and you wanna convince them to sponsor your national parks adventure, for example, okay? So, one idea. Let's say you've defined your journey, you know where you're gonna go, you know the timeline roughly, and then you just hit up this guy on LinkedIn who works at Goal Zero, okay? And you're like, "Yoh, here's my van, here's my idea." What would you do to get this person to buy into your idea? It's really tactical, yeah, it's really tactical. But I think a lot of the principles apply in it. Am I still am I still in COVID land or do I get to meet this person in person? Okay, shit. Why don't we go through-- I mean, context? Like I said, context is king, right? COVID land, then COVID land. Yeah. Let's go COVID land. Man, you just took this to like PhD level. That's what we have to deal with every day, dude. I know. No, it's good, interesting. Well-- I'm sure this is 10,000 feet from what I usually do. Well, I mean, you kind of teed it up pretty well, right? Like in COVID land, look, why did I make this setup look how it looks, right? So you go with the why. I was actually... At the beginning of COVID, I was doing a bunch of pitches. I was raising some money for a big project I'm working on and I wanted to be able to communicate effectively to the people that I was talking to over Zoom. And to do that, there's a component of building new relationships, which like I said, is just building new relationships, right? Like you said, there's sort of... We're going fishing, right? Like there's throwing the hook out to get the relationship booted up in the first place. So you know, one of the ways that I do that, I typically don't use LinkedIn. However, I probably would use LinkedIn now because I deleted my Twitter account. Okay, delete-- Before I deleted my Twitter account, I used to use Twitter to, you know, reach out to people who were somebody that I wanted to get a hold of. And sometimes they'd be following me, other times they wouldn't and I'd just try that way. You can also do it on Facebook, LinkedIn, it doesn't matter which platform. Okay. We've all done this, right? Like you've tried to get the meeting. Yeah. That's less effective than routing through someone you know who might know person. Getting an intro, yeah. Yeah. Is that your defense? I tend to always work that way. Like I work through the network almost always, I rarely ever will go out through the internet. I'll almost always try to... You know, if I knew you worked with Goal Zero, or if I knew you worked with La Marzocco or Land Rover, I mean, I know I've actually called you and asked you about Land Rover stuff before, right? Because I knew you worked with them. And my wife, you know, she does this... She runs a media company, does a lot of this work, she represents an advertising based business, they do a lot of partnerships. So we do a lot of this and often that is how we will find the relationship in the first place. So-- Once you've got that established-- I was wondering the layer of complexity, Dave. Can I add a layer of complexity or is it already-- Yeah. Okay. For somebody-- I think we're trying to work through this. Yeah. And what if somebody doesn't have a network yet? Right? They just... You know, they've been shooting photos for two years, they've shot for their local coffee shop, they shot for a national company last year, right? They're thrilled, they have a little website, they have an Instagram account, they have something going on for them, right? They have some momentum, they've quit their full time job, okay? But they don't know anybody at Goal Zero. What do they do? And they don't have the massive network you have or that I may have. Sure. What do they do? They... Other than using LinkedIn like we've been talking about? I mean, that's one, that's LinkedIn is good because it has a lot of attention that's under... I mean, like not everybody's hitting people on LinkedIn I found, right? Usually you can find who the person is that runs marketing at Goal Zero on LinkedIn or somewhere. Yeah, you can. If you can find out their name, you can usually use their first name at goldzero.com or their first letter of their first name and their last name at goldzero.com. Hacking it. And just send an email and try to see if they respond. Boom, full email, I love that. I have used this. I cannot tell you the number of times to... I mean, I literally... We got a partnership for path with the head of Android because one of my people at path did this without... I didn't even tell him to do this, He was using the same using the same app. Just went for it. Yeah. I've heard about it, it's awesome. Yeah, it works. You know, I mean, people respond to their email, right? And so part of it is just guessing email and then showing up an email effectively, you know, which means writing complete sentences and telling a good story. Writing complete sentences, I love that. You know, the thing I was gonna say in times of COVID, if what you're doing to do the pitch is you know, you're telling a story like this story you set up for this part of the interview is I'm building this van and I want to put Goal Zero energy in it. And I'd like to, you know, go on this really cool adventure. And here we are in times of COVID, local adventures are all we really have. And I would bet that Goal Zero is gonna see a big increase in people that want to figure out how to put their energy solutions, either the solar panels on top or the energy in the actual vehicle and that could be any vehicle. It could be... You know, I know tons of people that are sleeping in their cars and exploring the, you know, Yosemite Valley, and the Uva valley. And I know Hipcamp is like gone completely vertical right now. And so-- They've crushed it, yeah. Yeah, and so it's like how... Okay, so like now you've got their email address and you're trying to show up, well, there's a few ways you can do that. You can try to get a meeting and then show up as effectively as possible over streaming. But even if you get that, you still need to tell a story of the adventure that you're gonna go on. So ideally you've either shot photography that you can use to augment that story and turned it into keynote presentation that you can deliver over live stream, or you've recorded yourself delivering that over live stream. I like, I like that. Or you create a video that, you know, shows a version of that adventure, even if it's just tiny bits. You know, one of the really interesting tricks that we've learned in my wife's business is that if you've actually got a lot of archival footage, whether it's, you know, video footage you've shot on other adventures you've been on or photos, you usually can cut that together into what looks like the adventure you might go on, you know, this time around, and cut in narrative audio, you know, using basic audio tools just by movie. You know-- I just wanna pause because you mentioned something that's powerful and I think we should mention it again. I had never heard before the idea from anybody who I've talked to, the idea to... Actually to... 'Cause traditionally how it works is that you talk to the brand. Okay, they kinda like your idea, you told them the idea over the phone, right? Like I wanna do this and they're like, "Cool, send us the deck," obviously he's like send us a treatment, send us something. And then you send that by email, it's a PDF and then they might get back to you, they might not. So I think that I'd like to try this, but I think you'd be able to increase conversion by a country mile just by doing what you said, which is record a video of you, either presenting this, even just (indistinct) with your computer, and then doing some screen quick time in there, you know, like screen recording and then sending that their way or even better, I think is the one I wanna try, it's like walk them through the presentation on video. 'Cause usually you do this over the phone, it's like let's all open the PDF, I'll walk you through it on the phone. But in COVID I think that's a really good idea, thanks for that. Yeah, look, I think there's two versions of this, there's three versions. There's you can record it, walk them through it, and send it, or if you can get a live Zoom meeting then get them on the meeting, do the presentation over the Zoom. I've done a ton of this in the last 60 days. Like they're fun. Yeah. And then there's a third version, which is even more awesome, which would be get the meeting, go on the adventure, show up on the adventure with the Goal Zero that you wanna promote like on the meeting, right? So that when you show up on the call, it's like they're already in the adventure with you that you're pitching them, right? Hang on, you call them from your van? Yeah. (Alex laughs) So I'm in the desert? It's totally possible, right? Like you-- Yeah, technology is there, that's really cool. And I guess that's my point. Like I was pitching in a way... I was pitching, you know, to build a big financial fund project, right? So it's like I wanted to show up professionally in an sort of an office looking environment like this. But if I were pitching that, like I'd probably wanna show up in a van and you know, show up in the context that is-- Goes back to the context, dude, I love that. Powerful, nobody's talked about context like this. Boom, okay. So we've got... So we can move through this example, but we've walked them through the presentation, they're into it. Let's say you want $5,000 for whatever, $5,000 cash and some equipment, right? You're starting out, that's fine. And they're like, "Sorry, we just don't have any money, we can just give you the equipment, but we kind of want the same deliverables in a way, we still want you to give us photos." What's your approach on that? There are a lot of different opinions on the internet, just curious on what would be your approach to that? Let's say you're in a position where you need the cash, right? Like do you walk away? Do you consider it? Do you negotiate? It really depends on feel. I mean, this is kind of a negotiation tactic question, I think. If you really need the cash, then you have to say no, right? And saying no often is a really effective negotiation tactic, it's the most important piece of advice, is to always go into a negotiation with nothing to lose, right? Meaning, the more it appears you don't care, the more the other person wants you, right? Like I always say mystery makes history, right? Like the-- Mystery makes history. Sort of thinks that you don't care or that it... You could get this negotiation or not, like doesn't matter. Life's abundant for me, like I'll move on to the next thing. Like you don't wanna be saying that, but you want to be being that, right? And so-- It's really powerful. You wanna feel that way when you're in the conversation, it's hard, but it's partially, it's a mindset thing, right? Like people, I think-- Abundance mindset versus scarcity mindset. Yeah, I spend not enough time thinking about their mindset in these conversations. And it's almost like I think of it like meditation. It's like a mindset thing where if you're in a mindset of abundance that like I will find another project, I will figure out the hash to make this adventure happen. I've like set that goal in my mind, like that is my intention. Then if you're in the negotiation with this potential client and it doesn't work out, then it doesn't feel like a setback because you've already set your mind set into the state that this is just one checkpoint of, you know, going along and the right thing's gonna come along when it comes along. So meaning you've walked away from it mentally, before it's even happened. Yeah, and that enables you to be in the negotiation and say, you know, "Look, I value my work and my time, I just don't have the ability to do this for free right now. If you want my work, then it's $5, or, you know, you could get even more aggressive now it's 7,500." Whoa, whoa (laughs). Yeah, in a way you might... What that might be telling you is that you're not charging enough for your work, right? If it's that easy for them to tell you that they would rather have free than to pay you your rate, then maybe you're not making them think hard enough. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, I mean, it's like... So I co-owned a magazine called Dwell and one of the lessons I learned when I first bought into work that magazine and I started working on it was that there are advertisers which will not put their ad in a free magazine, right? They will only put their ad in a paid magazine. So when you think about standing in front of the magazine rack at an airport, there's like the free side and the paid side, and the free ones are always the ones you're like, eh, I don't know if I wanna go for one of those, like I'd much rather read Dwell or outside or something like that. Yeah. And advertisers are the same way. There are advertisers who will not put their ad in the free magazine, they'll only buy the ad in a paid magazine, which is really interesting to think about. It's like-- Yes. And the reason for that is positioning. They don't want their ad next to brands that would buy an ad in a free magazine. And so I think it's important to think of yourself in the same way. Like do you want your work out there for free, right? Like that effectively puts you in the free magazine, not in the paid one. And so each time you do that, it dilutes your brand because you are putting your work out there for free. Now I understand there are also people who you might need to do that to get your career off the ground. That's okay, but there comes a moment in time when you're sitting there negotiating for a $5,000 contract, like that's a big... Those are big dollars. And so if somebody across the table from you says, "Well, I think you can do this for free," then when I hear that, at least for me, Dave, my instant thought is I'm not charging enough because they think that I'm willing to do this for free. And so that must mean that I'm not charging enough for the quality of my work. They might read into the fact that you already have a van, you already gonna do the journey, so let's give him the gear, set him up, right? And you you'd be surprised how many times we can hear that. And that comes from-- Oh, no, I know this... I hear this from a lot of people. I know this is out there, it's standard, but I think that's also why... Look, there are a lot of advertisers, there's a lot of abundance. Like, you know, yes, the budgets are getting hit, but it's not like people aren't gonna, you know, still be making great outdoors products. In fact, there's a pretty high likelihood that there's gonna be even more now, right? Like this is what we're gonna go do. Outdoors are deemed safe. Yeah, I mean, I just think that respect yourself, respect your own work, value yourself, right? And project that in the negotiation. And then if they don't respect it, then you know, you might not wanna be in a relationship with this person, right? I get that, I love that. And your ground set a boundary, right? Like walk away. And if they really wanna work with you, they'll come back. I feel like we're getting down to a new sort of place of real estate in the workshop and I quite like that. We're... Because you're touching on a lot of things that I hear people complaining about or having issues with, which is that negotiation first, people are uncomfortable with that. So just hearing you being down to business, like is what it is, this is how we would do it, is awesome. And then second valuing your work. A lot of people... And to some people it's clear cut, their value... At least the value I bring, I know I'm bringing it and that just comes from hearing it over and over and over, right? But when you don't know the value you bring, it's challenging to even know it's worth it. I mean, a lot of people are even pretty well established who don't have an agent are still unsure that their work is worth that much money or that it's worth money. What would you tell these people and how can they better value their work? It's so hard. We are all-- As the one liner. We are all deeply insecure. Yeah. I'm insecure sitting here on this call right now. Dude, what are you talking about? It's like, when you... Alex, when you asked me to do this call, my mind literally said I'm not worthy because I've viewed it that my photography is not even close to the caliber to be interviewing, talking on this call. And I expose that to you to tell you that we all have this no matter who you are, no matter... You know, the most successful people in the world. Like, you know... I mean, I think one of the most amazing things about coronavirus is that it has shown this so clearly. It's like we've got the most famous celebrities and billionaires all in their homes. There's like these narratives that when something like this happens, these people like escaped on their secret jets. No, like everyone is just like you, we're all deeply insecure, we're afraid of what other people think, we're afraid of the person across from us, we're afraid that our work isn't good enough that we aren't creative enough, that we didn't put enough work in, that we could do better, that it could be more. It's like this is the thing that runs in our minds over and over again. My best advice to you is to learn meditation, which might be an orthogonal piece of advice that you didn't expect me to stay here. But a lot of where that comes from is back to my previous comments about mindset. If you can develop practice, you know, one of the things about particularly photography innate in it is this skill set for adventure, exercise outdoors. Alex, you do some of the most extraordinary adventures, things that I look at and I'm like, I don't even think my body could get me there, right? Totally. But you've done a lot of practice. You'd go and do it, you keep trying, your body gets better at it and people think of these things, as you know, it's very easy to think of like, well, I wanna be better at running. And so I'm gonna, you know, just... I'm gonna run a lot until my body's used to it. And then I can run, you know, or I wanna get better at hiking. Your mind and your mindset is the same thing, right? Like to become good at creativity, to become good at valuing yourself, to become good at knowing that what you are... Who you are, your creativity, you know what you're working on is good and should be valued. It's a practice from just like any other. And so I think of it that way and a lot of these thoughts that come up that are self defeating, right? Like, I'm not good enough, my work's not good enough like I shouldn't be in this meeting, this person, I don't know why they're taking this meeting with me, I don't know why I'm on this interview all that stuff is just stuff that comes up. It's like when you learn to practice meditation, the first lesson that you learn is that your mind just does things that you can't control. Yeah, it just races. And so lot of really what meditation is is just getting a handle on that. Like, well, my mind is just always saying things to me and if I can kind of learn to deal with that, then when I'm in a negotiation and I need to project that I'm confidence and that I'm gonna figure this out, and if I don't figure this out, I'm gonna find another one, being able to put yourself in that mindset intentionally in the moment, that's how you beat it. And the only way to do it is to practice. And that's all meditation is, it's just practicing. And so I frequently will do it like I I'm doing it right now, right? Like I'm in the middle of this interview and saying like, I'm not worthy, I shouldn't be here. No, what am I talking about? (Alex laughs) You know, and so I think that that's a huge part of it. And-- I think it's-- Far more than of the other things that... The other stuff just just happens if you practice that. And yeah, I think I've been... I mean, I've been on a journey like that too, where I haven't necessarily have had problems valuing my work because I come from... I'm a single child. So my parents only had to worry about me. So they give me, I think, a lot of... Not praise, but a lot of security with whatever I did. It's like, yeah, do that. Just got to try a lot of things. In a way you didn't have to compete, right? Yeah. Like I had a younger sister that was way better at me at certain things, I was better than her at some things, you know? But we had to compete for attention at the end of the day. Interesting, yeah. I've never been too competitive, maybe that's why. It's like... Even my brother will tell me, "Why don't you compete skiing? Why don't you compete mountain biking and you're good at it? You should compete." I'm like, "I don't have an... I mean, I don't feel drawn to it." He's like, "Yeah, but you'd be good." Like I feel like I compete enough in the photography space, you know, where I already have to do all these things. I'm like, when I go biking, the last thing I wanna worry about is a competition. I just wanna go into the woods and smell the trees, right? So, I mean, this is a segue to-- Yeah, even noticing these... Yeah, noticing these things, like being able to just sit and be like, you know, I was an only child and maybe that meant that I didn't have to compete for my parents' attention, and me over here being like, I had to key to my parents' attention and I'm like really competitive in some things and other things I'm not at all. So it's simply just knowing these things and starting to think about and understand these things. That's maybe the advice that I'm giving is awareness, like-- Yeah, awareness. Just becoming aware of these things and why your mind thinks of certain things at certain times and others, that's all that... Like meditation is this word that carries a lot of meaning. Really that's all it is, is just beginning to understand why and in your mind, does certain things and being able to like have some intentional ability to control your mindset when you need to. And these negotiations, particularly around the money you're gonna get for your next project, is this client gonna come on board? Can I stay present in this meeting where I'm trying to build a new relationship and decide whether I'm gonna go on an adventure with this client? Like these are times where it's like you wanna be in total control of your mindset and in total presence with the person, right? I like that, I like that you're saying that going back to the abundance mindset, I'm a believer of that, is that... I think Gary V says that "You can't convince the inconvincible." And I think that's always powerful, right? 'Cause sometimes some brands just aren't into it, they just don't wanna do it. And it's fine, move on. Yeah, and another way to say that, which I think of... Yeah, another way to say that that I think of a lot is be the change, right? Like be... It's much better to just be what you're pitching than it is to say it with words, right? Like if you come in... And I feel that about you, Alex, too, like you... The minute we met for the first time in person on that adventure in British Columbia that we went on, I was just like, this is the guy inspires me, he inspired me through the internet. Now, I'm skiing next to him and we're climbing up this mountain and you know, he's inspires me just the same. Like I wanna go do things and you know-- Sweet. And you just are... You know what you project, right? And so I think there is something about that. And people respond more to that. Like humans, we are mematic creatures. We like... We copy each other from the day we're born, right? Like we copy our parents, we copy the people we think we're inspired by. And so by being what you want people to come along with, that's the best way to communicate. I love that. And we could take... I mean, we could dig down this for hours, but I know that your time is really valuable. So I would like to switch gears to industry trends. One of the reasons I wanna talk to you is because first of you have experience in crisis just by having been in business longer than I have and a lot of people have. So you've gone through '08, you might have gone through '02, '03. So what are... So first, what are the things that you learned through these phases, those tough times? Yeah, I showed up here right at the tail end of '02. So... Well, let me count the things. (Alex laughs) Well, I find it useful, number one, since you framed it in these sort of big, at least internet structural crises, and now this is like a, I mean-- World? Let's not get into this one yet. We can go back to '08 for a second. People forget that the App Store had not launched in 2008. So, I remember this vividly because I was working on a project at Facebook in called Facebook Platform where we made Facebook into an operating system that you could build apps on top of. And our goal was to get it out the door before the iPhone launched. And so we launched it in May and then the iPhone, I believe, came... It must have been Q4 of '07. And if you remember, the iPhone did not have an App Store for the first year. Yeah, it was just the apps you had were the apps you had? Yeah. And so it was a year later that the app App Store showed up and the crash was in October of 2008. So that means that during the last crash, there was no Instagram, no Snapchat, no TikTok, no... Like nothing that we know of as the modern internet and no Uber, no Lyft, no... Like there were no... There was no iPhone, there were no apps, the Android didn't exist, you know? And so everything that we know of as modern technological, whatever society, didn't exist in 2008. That's crazy, yeah, I never thought about that. Think about that. Now, here we are in a crisis that's way worse, right? And so I stay optimistic (laughs), I guess, through these crises, by thinking about contexts, like what I just was explaining, that what else hasn't been invented right now that's going to be invented next year that could totally redefine society over the next 10 years? And staying alert and aware and like, you know, and staying alert and aware and like, you know, or maybe it's already here and knowing to sort of attach or move onto the creative flow of what's next and you know, getting to go be part of that. I view this crisis that we're in right now as extraordinarily hard. I don't know a single person. I mean, across the board from like the most powerful business people I know to people that are... I grew up in a small town in Helena in Montana. I have a lot of friends that are suffering very deeply right now, but there is suffering across the board, right? Like... And this is affecting people, I don't wanna diminish that. But I do wanna say that I think that there's going to be some really amazing entrepreneurial opportunity over the next decade. I mean, there can't not be, right?. Like it's gonna be sad. There's gonna be a lot of our favorite small businesses, we already know this. Like I think Facebook released a big study yesterday that 38% of all the businesses on Facebook, small businesses in, I don't know if it was US of America, have already gone out of business. 38? Yeah, and that number is gonna get higher, right? Like I think that's gonna be one of the most sad things that happens because of this. We're all in our houses still for the most part. And most of the small businesses that were parts of the coffee shops, the bread shops-- Rituals. The rituals that we all did every day, they're not gonna be there, the restaurants, they're gonna be gone. And that is super sad. But at the same time, there has to be new ways to eat, new ways to gather, new ways to do rituals. And in a way it's such a blank canvas of creativity, it's like kind of amazing, right? Like down here in California, there's cities that are rezoning streets, right? Like they're just gonna get rid of streets and like turn them into outdoor space for dining and whatever, you know? And it's like, yeah, I mean, look at your reaction to that. My reaction was the same thing, like yeah. Like this is how it should have been always, right? Yeah. And I just think there's gonna be a lot of really cool, really amazing innovation. And if you look at other time periods from the past, and maybe this is the advice that I'm giving, is I tend to try to find principles or learnings from past periods in my own life that I can look at and say, "Well, that was a hard period. How did it end up to try to, you know, have some framework for dealing with the current crisis?" And so we just talked about '08, but another way to do this is to look towards books and stories of the very far past, and look for place spots, where there were similar patterns and... So you could go back and read about and everything after, you know, the roaring '20s, like where did the roaring '20s come from while they came on the heels of World War I and in the Spanish flu epidemic, right? And look at that period of creativity, right? Okay, zoom forward to post World War II. The '50s were actually defined as extremely... They were very rigid in a way, people were... Wanted to get America back on track, you know, wanted to get things back going. And so it was actually a very conservative era, but that gave way-- For the '60s. Towards the end of the '50s to the beatniks. Next thing it started with the beatniks and jazz and this... It was like jazz was this beatnik poetry stuff, it was like a direct reaction to the rigid, just extraordinarily suffocating culture of the '50, gave way to (indistinct) with the like, you know, I'm not gonna have any structure to what I'm doing, right? Yeah. And that gave away the '60, right? And in this extraordinary comparative creativity, which arguably is still influencing culture today. And so, would that happen now? Probably, like I think it's probably gonna be pretty tough for I don't know how long. Yeah, it wouldn't post. But it'll give way the types of creativity. We're already seeing it to some extent, you know, there's like interesting things happening over Zoom and things that are pretty cool, but-- Just like this-- I think once... Yeah, I mean, once we can all get together again in person, like there's probably gonna be a lot of really interesting stuff. And also new product categories that... I think the other cool benefit of what's going on is there's gonna be entire product categories that don't matter to people anymore. You know, they're gonna realize like why I didn't need that when I was in my house for three months, right? Do you have any examples? I don't need... You know, I think there's like probably gonna be a lot of beauty products that don't matter anymore. It's like people I think are in like mass realizing like a lot of the vanity sort of aesthetic stuff that you did to like make yourself look good or, you know, wear these clothes 'cause of that, or whatever, it's like a lot of it doesn't matter, you know? It could-- You mean the same stuff. Now, all we wanna do is dress up, you know, but either way it's a new category, right? Oftentimes culture and creative culture is a direct reaction to the constraints of the prevailing culture, right? Like it's like, whatever the constraints are, whether it's a conservative or liberal, majority running the microphone, you know, the presidency or whether it's enormous economic constraints, like these are the things that are the mirror that generates the music and the art and the creativity and... Like it's probably gonna be true that a whole new, you know, this last era of like the Instagram photography culture was defined by this, you know, that... The prototypical like person sitting in front of the mountain looking out, right? (laughs) Yeah. Or the Land Rover, you know, in the... In Iceland. Oh yeah. Like I would be willing to bet that that aesthetic goes by the wayside and gives way to some new, you know, type of aesthetic that is yet to be defined. So yeah, in-- (indistinct). Yeah, TikTok is going that direction, like it's more of a reality TV rawness to it, but I don't know that that's it. I'm relatively convinced there's like a new aesthetic that's gonna emerge from all of this that's kinda unknown right now and there's a lot of opportunity in it. And I'm not sure what it is yet. It probably has to... It's probably nature based, but it's like I don't think it's what it was because what it was represents an emotion of a generation that is changed now, right? And I think our generation had a point of view of adventure and the nomad life and the adventure van. And you know, there was this sort of way of being that was defined by a real sort of abundance and almost luxury mentality. And that doesn't work when you've got a... This isn't just a global recession now, it's gonna be... There's gonna be a lot of people hurting, right? So there's something else, there's like a new aesthetic. Anyway, if you look at Spotify, for example, the way the charts changed almost instantly, like the sound aesthetic changed almost overnight. Like the music that's happening now is not the music that was happening three months ago. And so-- Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, just go look at it, go look at the Spotify charts and you can see. I mean, it's like the entire top 100 changed by like, I think it was 60 or 70%, like almost in a months time. Really? Oh yeah, charts. That's crazy. Now I'll look them up. (Indistinct) think that the musicians are trying to account for music and photography in a lot of ways is the direct communication of emotion using a medium, right? And so the musicians are trying to account for the emotions that we all feel being indoors. I saw this one photographer that was doing this pretty extraordinary portrait series where he was going around his neighborhood and taking portraits of his friends through their glass windows, which I thought was... I was like, oh. Like my initial thought of like, what's the ultimate COVID photo set was like-- That's the one. Well, it was kind of like your style, you know, you've given me great advice to like find an activity that you can go to. Like if you're on an adventure, find a kayak or a boat or something that tells a vehicle that tells the story of a journey. And I know that's like a part of your (indistinct). My thought was always like, well, show somebody with a drone very high up like very alone in like a vast wilderness, right? Like that's COVID. That's how we feel, yeah. But actually it kind of is, but it kind of isn't, like's actually more defined by like... I'm talking to you through glass, you know? Like it's like-- Yeah, people in their apartment buildings talking to each other across like the patios, yeah. Yeah, I don't know that there isn't... Like what we're experiencing now, but I think there is going to be a feeling that happens coming out of this that a whole new aesthetics gonna probably emerge. So what would you tell all the freelancers out there? How should they utilize their time? How should they prepare for what's ahead in your view? Don't lose hope. I think focus on practices that build resilience for the next time that we go through this. It might not be this. You know, down here in California, we've had fires that are so bad for the last two summers that virtually everyone was either scared they were gonna have to evacuate or you know, did have to evacuate. So while it wasn't a pandemic, it was like, you know, very disruptive. I had masks because I've had to have masks for the last two summers. For the smoke. Right? So what do you need to do? You need to build resilience, right? How do you build resilience? Learn yoga, learn meditation, right? Being able to care for your mind and your body inside of one room is critical right now. And learning meditation is like exercising your mind, learning yoga is a way you can exercise your body if you can't leave your house. Number three is go figure out how to exercise in nature, right? Because you can leave your house being able to do something that you love doing in nature, outside of your home, right there near you is critical. And so I think those are things that are sort of brass tax things that are good to be doing right now. Because they will help you in whatever the creative, whether it's being creative or figuring out, you know, the next business thing you need to do, which is what I'll say next. But like doing those things, I think, those are really effective. The only other thing I would say is learn to cook, you know, find things that you... Learn how to take care of your body. A big part of resilience is feeding yourself foods that work for you and being able to know how to do it. So, I learned how to make sourdough bread over COVID. And I never thought I would be able to learn how to do this. And now it's turned into it, I'm like doing it every day, It's like a daily practice, it's much easier than I expected, it's like it takes an entire day to prep the thing and then I can cook it the next day. But it really does just become part of your day once you get used to it. And it's not actually that hard. And I used to be like gluten intolerant, but I can eat sourdough bread that I make myself every day with no problem. Of course. Yeah, 'cause you're not using yeast. Yeah, and buy the Tartine bakery book and it's in there. And if you don't like that, do something else, learn how to make, learn to garden and grow your own plants, whatever. Just know how to take care of your body because it's a big part of resiliency and whether it's being creative, handling these negotiations or just relationships with collaborators and partners, like you've gotta be in a good mindset and you can't be if your brain is starved for sugar or whatever, right? And eat as many plants as you can while you're doing that. Yeah. Drink coffee, I know Alex will always tell you. Good coffee. Make sure your coffee is really good. Make sure you have your presser. Yeah. And okay, if you're taking care of yourself and your relationships and the people around you, then as far as business goes, I think just staying tuned in to what's going on, try to be in the moment and don't... I think right now, especially for this thing, there's a lot of people in denial that they're... Whatever was going on, I've been calling it BC, whatever's happening before Coronas is gonna come back. And I don't think that's true, I think that, you know, they say that to develop a new habit takes six weeks. Well, we just... We all just broke every habit that we all have ever had. And so everybody's gonna be developing new ones, whatever they might be whenever we all re reemerge, right? And so that means there's extraordinary amount of opportunity for new rituals, new habits, new businesses, all kinds of things. Consider working on things that are local, consider working on, you know, whatever. I do think that... And Alex, you and I have talked about this a lot, I think one of the things that happened in this last era of the internet, in particular with creatives and people that work on and through the internet on various sides of it, a lot of people got very sucked into the advertising business in one way or the other, right? Whether it was pitching clients that are doing advertising or whatever, and that is a very hard business to be in because your next dollar depends on either selling your time or, well, really, it depends on selling your time, right? And selling your time is not how you build wealth. You build wealth by owning things that make money while you're asleep. Yeah. And that is the most important thing that you can think about and learn, I think while you're in Corona. And doesn't that mean that you necessarily need to figure it out now, but I think that figuring out what part of your life and business and things that you're doing, whether it's your photography, you know, do you have an online? Even if it's just simple, like do you have a square space where people can go and buy large prints of your photos? Like that's a very simple thing, right? Are you syndicating your photos, places that you could be making money from? Are you collaborating and are you doing a workshop locally? Like are you making a workshop online? You could just sit in front of your... You know, I'm sitting in front of an SLR, hooked up with an HDMI converter to my Mac mini. And I could sit here and tell people I could do any number of... I could cut 12, you know, 30 videos and teach people whatever. And am I putting that on a Vimeo or a Stripe thing and making it possible for people to subscribe to it, right? Like there are many different ways that you can think about creating content assets or, you know, things that could be making money for you while-- Yeah, revenue streams. Yeah, and creating cash flow, right? If that's not what you wanna do, help your friends get businesses off the ground. And if you help your friends get their business off the ground, ask them for some ownership in the business because if-- Yeah, as photographers, it's a good thing to do. Yeah, like I've always wondered why photographers do not ask for equity in the brands that they're working for. That's a good question. If you own shares of Goal Zero, if you said I'll take 2,500 of those $5,000 in dollars and I'll take $2,500 in stock, or if they say I would like you to do this for free and you say, "Okay, I'll do it for $5,000 in stock," and they might just say yes, right? And learning to think that way, I think is critical because I think oftentimes what happens particularly with creatives and with small business owners in general is you get into this... Again, it's a... It's not... It's a scarcity mindset, not an abundance mindset. You think I own 100% of my business, I don't want anyone else to own any of my business, and so you... Then you don't think of the notion of owning small shares of other people's businesses. It's much better to own 1% of 100 businesses than have 10 of those 101% that you own doing really super well, than only 100% of a business that only depends on advertising and when pandemic happens you have no revenue, right? So that... One second, how do you know which companies have stock and which ones don't? Like do you go on angel.co? How do you figure that out? 'Cause some of them are not publicly traded. Some of them have stock, but it's private. How do you figure that out? All businesses have stock. All businesses have stock of some kind. It is harder for a business that's an LLC to give you ownership than it is for a business that is a traditional C Corp. And I guess we could do an entire other episode on how to think about structuring businesses. Let's do it. I'd be happy to do. But generally, unless the business is a sole proprietorship, which not many are these days-- No. There is ownership to be had. And it just depends on pushing that conversation. And in fact, I did not think of it earlier when we were talking about your Goal Zero example. It's a good one. But a very good retort to do this for free for me would be, okay, I'll do it for equity because then you're getting long term value. And generally, people will treat their equity as it's like cash is always really valuable, right? And so... But people are... You know, almost always willing to give some equity. And so if you just say I'll take 5,000 in equity instead of 5,000 in cash, if you can afford it, your example earlier was that you couldn't afford it. Yeah, yeah. But if you can't afford it, taking 5,000 in equity is way better for you long term, because then you've got ownership in something that's out there selling batteries and making money while you're sleeping, right? If you do that with even 50 clients, yeah, it's huge. Yeah, I mean, I spend most... I spend all of my time is yin and yang. I build creative projects and businesses that I sometimes own a lot of, sometimes I get investors and don't own the whole thing. And you know, by the time I sold Path, I think I only owned 10% maybe of it. Oh, wow. And you know, we raised a lot of capital. We raised almost $100 million to build that business. And by doing that, you're selling percentages, right? But by selling percentages, you get a lot of really talented people that you get to work with, right? If I decided to do it alone, it may never have gone anywhere, right? Yeah, true. And then I spend a bunch of my time investing and helping other people build their businesses. And I do that because I love it. And I get a lot of energy out of helping people, make their ideas, you know, happen and make them bigger. and I love seeing people successful. And to do that, I get either, you know, I will either get shares like I said, people will give them to me just for helping and, or I'll invest a little bit of money. And you know, it's really interesting, you can go on Robinhood now, which is a company I've invested in, but I really love it because I think just this month they made fractional shares available. So you can invest a dollar in any stock. So even if it's like-- Yeah. If it's Tesla stock, you know, Tesla is like $200 a share or something, like you can buy a dollar now. Well it's $800 a share. Yeah, but you can buy a fractional share on Robinhood now. And so a lot of people usually would say, "Well, I can't invest in anything 'cause I don't have enough money." Definitely can. I started investing when I was in college and I only had $100 and that was how much you needed to open an E*TRADE account. And before I had the $100, I actually used an AOL portfolio that I pretended like I was trading dollars just to get used to, I put this many in and what happened, right? And so maybe that's my advice is start thinking like an investor during this time. Even if you've only got like... Let's say you've only got 50 bucks, or 20 bucks, or $10, go take your $10 and get a Robinhood account and invest $1 in each stock you think is interesting this week and see how it goes. And does it go up? Does it go down? And don't trade it every day, but just look what happens next week, and look what happens a month from now and where you write, where you wrong? And that starts to help you think about it this way and then you can apply that to conversations with clients and et cetera. Solid. It's just a. Again, it's an... It's a mindset to practice. And I think that that's like another way to build resiliency because... And a good investor will never invest all of those $10 in one stock. You wanna put it in 10 stock. It's kinda like index funds, but in good way. So my whole (indistinct) here is if you were running a consulting, freelancing, creative business where your only revenue stream was clients, just start thinking about other ways that you can diversify that going forward. Even if that's what you love and you really wanna keep doing, think about your negotiations and how you might be able to diversify what you're getting, out of those negotiations. Get stock, get, you know, get more than just free product, try to get other things too. Awesome. I think that's... Yeah, there's a whole other workshop on that, on investing. Let's do it. Yeah, all right. Well, for now I think we have a lot of really good stuff. So yeah, thank you for that. We've been going over time. So thanks for taking the time, man. Thank you for the opportunity and you know, just... If anybody wants to learn anything more, you can contact me in various places on the internet. Man, that's generous. Feel free to reach out. I always love talking to people about their ideas and their businesses and-- That's right. You know, Alex and I are talking about more ways to collaborate and help help creatives. And so, I'm always here and there's nothing to love more. Oh, thanks man.