CEO and founder of security startup Vanta, Christina Cacioppo, joins to talk about how she was able to raise a huge Series A ($50m at $500m valuation). We also talk about her jump from being a VC to a founder, why Zoom-based fundraising is here to stay and whether female founders get a fair shake from the tech press.
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Welcome, welcome to the second episode of dead cat.
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I'm Eric, newcomer, the newsletter writer who named his
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newsletter after himself. I'm here with Tom, Tom, and
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Katie, Benner. You guys just want to say hello.
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Hey, Hey hey hey hey newcomer and we're here with Christina
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cacioppo. Did I get that right?
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You got that right? Thank you about our seven second
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episode and sort of I was talking to Katie, you know, who
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used to cover the tech industry is now covering the justice
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department. And she was like, oh, you know
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what? What are the cool startups,
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these days? And, you know, I sort of
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struggled because it is sort of amazing how we write about the
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same. You know, companies over and
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over again. It's, you know, it's Will I
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still write a ton about Uber and you know stripe is still cool
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after all these years. But then you know, I thought
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about Christina's company which you know what we talked vanta
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was clearly about to raise like a cool series a and she'd been
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very sort of withholding on taking Venture money and raised
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a 50 million dollar, quote-unquote series a a 500
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million dollar valuation. So Christina.
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I mean how Tell us a little bit about that story.
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How are you? Is that really a series a round?
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And what sensor, how did that? Just tells us we're a little and
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a little bit about what your company does this well, for
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sure. So, vanta automates security and
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compliance for other startups, starting with sort of, with a
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sock to certification, and Now, cover ISO, and HIPAA, and a
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whole alphabet soup of things. But basically helping other
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startups, get secure, and then demonstrate that they're secured
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other people. Often their buyers.
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So the series a / are legal documents, which is probably the
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most legalese answer. I could give you, like, use the
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first Equity round into the company, so technically yes,
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doesn't look like your standard series a even in the, you know,
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2021 tiger era but it is technically our series a, I
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mean, you'd been in Venture sort of briefly what Union Square
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Ventures. Right?
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But were yeah, I mean how How did that shape sort of how you
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thought about sort of building the cap table for the company?
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A ton, you just kind of being exposed to some of these
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decisions and this was like a decade ago, you realize are
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really hard to change when someone's on your cap table,
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it's near impossible to get them off if you ever wanted to do
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that. And so they're kind of one-way
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door decisions like in start-up parlance.
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So some of trying to be thoughtful In that sense.
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And then the other part was, I think we talked about this and
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March or whatever that was, but trying to be thoughtful about
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how, you know, money might be important to grow the business,
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but it is not the point of the company and and, you know, these
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can be helpful but they're not, they're not kind of the Arbiters
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of the gov Company. Success.
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How much leverage did you feel like you had just with a series
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a to be able to hand pick the people that you could bring onto
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your cap table? I mean it's so interesting
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talking to The founders who will say, I mean, you know, there's
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almost like a, I don't want to say desperation to it.
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But, you know, you don't feel like you really have a ton of
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Leverage in that first round to be able to say you're in.
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You're out and I can call the shots in a way that sets me up
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for not getting fucked over by these guys later on.
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Yeah yeah so look I mean I think if we'd raised you know whatever
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two years before at the standard like million dollars in Revenue,
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we would have been like cast a wide net and get the best person
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you can and like hold on to your hats whatever.
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Having waited a while and having a like cash flow Breakeven
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business. I was 10 million dollars in
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revenue and nearly 1 customers and all, you know, and
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like be like oh you know, usually in a series a it does
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don't you have product Market fit, you know.
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And we don't we don't think about customer acquisition and
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then you show up in your like, I've acquired a thousand
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customers that like, really good economics.
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So, definitely felt you know, much more confident there.
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I will also say though, I don't know, like anything else you
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have these moments where you're like, oh I'm on top of the
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world's like I get to choose. Is everything.
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And then you know, four hours later you're like who would want
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to fund this business? Why are we working got it right
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into that roller? Coaster is still there.
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It's just even it just divorced from reality which is, of course
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in between but to pulse and was wondering if you could talk a
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little about some of the specifics of fundraising in this
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era, particularly fundraising as a female founder.
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I I remember when I was a reporter hating hating hating
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getting pitched on companies, only because the founder was
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female, which happened all the time, And it was, I found it
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really offensive and terrible. That was an actual pitch that
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was going out at the same time. In my colleague, Aaron Griffith.
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Just wrote a story about women, trying to raise money being
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often compared to Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of their
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nose. And as we all know, there are
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knows flamed out under a lot of accusations of Fraud and
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wrongdoing, and that homes is going to be making an appearance
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in federal court soon over this disaster.
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So I was wondering If you felt that story was accurate.
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If you know there were things about raising money as of women
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that have changed from a few years ago that haven't changed
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or if people are thinking less about gender today.
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Yeah a few but I did read the article, I laughed because I
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think that was the only reasonable reaction.
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I have been everything else. Would just not have been good.
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I have been jokingly compared to Elizabeth Holmes, right?
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And you're like B2B SAS security startup right?
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But it's like, oh Stan. And female entrepreneur.
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Like I know one of those and you're like, oh right?
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Anyway, moving on, that's really how it goes.
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I mean, the depth of thought that VC's have when a company
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comes in at the female founder like oh, like Elizabeth Holmes.
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Yeah. This was an especially
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connection that they'll make this wasn't a professional VC
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but like, yes, it was one of those where you're like, I'm
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glad I'm not blond, like I'm not quite sure what to say.
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Next time, eat more mature wear a turtleneck to the no I'll
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speak at a high, you know, High tone of voice.
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People who naturally speak in a low tone of voice.
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Exactly. That is the way some people
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speak. I don't know, the people who
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likes like terrible acts, like they're the ones who are
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suffering here. Yeah, it's a Real Fashion.
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Yeah, but jokes aside, so yeah, let me think those are like
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offhand comments. That.
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I mean when one hand actually for me like they get said and
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it's like I don't even know how to respond.
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So we're just going to move past that and then, you know, of
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course, several hours later you come up with Good and Starkey.
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That it's much too late to use, but I don't think they're, I
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mean, they're the most striking /.
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Damning part is like, I don't think they're met with malice or
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people like art of Being, you know, like trying to find common
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ground and similarity and sort of Allied over the Also may
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have, you know, defrauded, 10 million, people fact.
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And like that's not something that it's nice to compare
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someone to but I don't truly don't think that's top of mind.
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I think it's just a little bit of kind of speaks to how A few
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female Founders, there still are.
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Right? Where the top of Mind One is
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someone who is now on trial for fraud and you're like, well, we
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need some more here for and so his currently he's quite old to
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you know, I do wonder if a young founder coming in, you know, who
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had worked, as a venture capitalist.
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Who had a resume similar to yours but who was a man?
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If in meetings somebody would say, well you really remind me
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of Brian chesky. I mean, I think old, that's
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that's wrong time. They love.
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They love you know, pattern matching Arie, I can see I'm not
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defending it anyway but it's such a yeah they can't help
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themselves would say, oh, you fit the profile of this and then
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when but if that's the only pattern matching you can do, it
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means you do not know enough women.
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If the only running you know, is Elizabeth Holmes?
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I think there's some of that I think so.
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Fundraising this time, I mean, it is really different.
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Some of it was business results and some of it just was all over
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exhume, right? I did this then, Kind of early
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2021. And so everyone was said, on
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zoom, and I mean one effect of it at just sped everything up
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and I'm not, you know what I saw, you know the industry saw
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but there was just, it sort of turned everything into the days
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after iyc demo day, we sort of know the company is like running
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around and having 47 meetings a day, right?
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Like that became everybody's financing process because he
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could just sit on Zoom for 14 hours straight and they didn't
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have to like drive down this anthill and schedule.
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Admin and like oh the person, you know, whatever and that just
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sped everything up hugely because you could credibly say,
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like hi I'm having meetings from this day to this day.
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I'm looking forward to term sheets on this day and I'll make
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a decision by this and people would be like, oh there, that's
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probably true. So we have to follow the
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timeline which again, and I like non Zoom world people to be
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like, oh it's going to slip you know like oh she really going to
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fly out to New York and back you know, blah blah blah blah blah.
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So just because it better, was it easier?
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To raise money over resume, totally.
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Yeah, nine thousand percent. Yeah, what specifically about
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it? I mean, obviously you can
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probably knock out more meetings and day because you don't have
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to, you know, slap your ass up around Sand Hill Road.
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But like, is there anything specific to the dynamic there
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that you think is, you know, could foundationally different
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to how it was done previously, especially as a VC and like
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having these people come in and Pitch?
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You. Yeah.
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And I mean, that power Dynamic, right?
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Because like as an entrepreneur and we would do like you'd come
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in and they try to be like oh where do I sit.
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And then they sort of like sit at the end of your chair and be
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my like all the PCP Like sitting in their normal chairs, like
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taking up a lot of space on their chairs, just because
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that's your chair, you know. Be like you have your, like
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glass of water that you're like, balancing your laptop with and
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then you like don't know if you can put the water on the table,
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you know? Just like all of that nonsense,
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right? Or like unfamiliar environment,
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like what if I spill my water around here?
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Nice carpet. Yeah, better for the PCS though.
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I mean, don't they appreciate that?
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Sort of power Dynamic, don't really put you at unease and I
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know like from covering the, the entertainment industry.
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Three, and maybe another episode, I can share my story of
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like meeting with a very high level agent, who played all
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kinds of bullshit power games with me, making me sit in
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different shares through, humiliate me.
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And I'm not saying these do that intentionally but like, you
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know, part of the Mystique of being a venture capitalist is
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that they're in charge and like them.
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Owning the room is probably a part of that.
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No, I think it like maybe somewhat like unintentionally,
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but like, they don't, you know, it's just part of life, right?
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It's not really thought that through.
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There was one firm in New York that shall remain nameless that.
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I remember a Go going into like I was a PC associate met.
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Another VC associate. It's like, oh, let's go into
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this room where we meet entrepreneurs, literally a desk
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with two chairs and one was like a giant, you know, like leather
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worked are the other was like a folding chair.
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Cool, right. Never coming back here.
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I'm curious. Your, I mean, your experience
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with the media so far. I mean, I sort of talked about,
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you know, the glut of of just a tension on these same Brands.
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I'm curious how you experience that, or what your experience of
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sort of, like, working with the Press has been so far.
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Yeah, it's interesting. I think the primary.
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So, we did. We kind of did some presser on
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the financing and y'all know this better than I do.
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But just being like, hi. We have some numbers to share
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and you know big beefy for like, would you like to write about
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that? I think since it's been
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interesting and that you know, my perspective Go out and say,
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hey the ant is launching this new product.
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That happens to be a security or compliance product.
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So it's not something that we find Tech reporters.
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Super enthralled about writing about getting some funny looks
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hip. I don't know what you do love
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hip-hop, who's joke that even in Bloomberg, we never wrote about
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companies. Proportional to the market cap,
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right? Even the most business, you have
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business places the amount of money.
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It generates, they don't, they don't necessarily Were it that
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way? It needs to be a good story.
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Yeah. And I mean, the feedback I've
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gotten a little bit is like, oh, well, why don't you go tell your
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story. Christina and sort of looping
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back to the female founder piece like, oh, you know, why don't?
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I don't do no one actually ask this.
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But like, what about this female founder profiles from three
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years ago and you're sort of like, what about that?
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You know, that feels like a little bit of a Minefield but
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generously, I mean, you kind of gestured to the fact that a lot
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of those female founder profiles didn't turn out well in the end
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because it The ark was, they Rose very high and then they
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came down really hard. So, you know, do you feel like
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that was something that was unique to those profiles?
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Or do you feel like that is something that goes hand in
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glove with whenever there's a lot of hype around the personal
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story of a founder? I mean, I think, yeah, a lot of
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I do feel a little bit like, inviting hyper on the personal
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story and to some extent making the story about in my case
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myself and not the company is sort of like inviting bad things
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to happen in the future. Like it is just not, you know,
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not something, we've done, not something I'm excited about
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doing at all. Yeah, it's sort of like you're
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just kind of asking for the subsequent wave of.
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You know, here's all the terrible broken things at the
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company and I think kind of thinking about the stories like
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that, that have been written about some of these companies.
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There were some terrible, broken things at them.
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I think the the next question is like, is that how true was that
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of, you know, other other quickly growing growth, stage
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companies, were these actually outliers not to say the things
00:14:11
that were happening were good or to condone them or anything like
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that. But I think that's just like a
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wider awareness of how isolated or not some of these behaviors
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may have been what sticks out to me on this.
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I'd be interested in Thoughts. Here is that a lot of these
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stories about female founded companies that end up, you know?
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Going the other direction is that is very you.
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The Mystic of you there. Yeah.
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Is that they line up spectacularly, right?
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Yes, it but also like very personally, right?
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There's always like an extreme personal element to do stories
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that drives the narrative. It's like this person was a
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maniac. This person was a slack
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terrorists and they were, you know, getting into fights with
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co-founders or it just seems like it's less about, you know,
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this business maybe wasn't very well-run.
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Or, you know, at the fundamentals were week.
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It's like, no, they were an asshole.
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And but, I mean, that's good storytelling.
00:15:04
That's what we were just saying about Parker though, how people
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love the condoms in the stairwells, you know not the
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actually the revenues of lipped you do are weighed out and
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beaten the Parker case. I mean that was like you know,
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there was allegations of flouting, you know, Insurance
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rules and stuff is totally incompetent.
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All right, it was personal, did you ask if a man is accused of
00:15:29
being an asshole of that really a criticism?
00:15:31
But if a man is accused of being incompetent, that is a real
00:15:33
criticism. And if a woman comes to being an
00:15:35
asshole, I mean, one of the reasons why Christine Quinn did
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not become mayor of New York is because there was a big story
00:15:40
saying she was a jerk and what's so crazy about that is that one
00:15:45
could argue, she might have been a better measure than Bill de
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Blasio very controversial. Do you feel that at all?
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I mean, you know, I guess you're you run a great company and this
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will never happen to you. But definitely this is the
00:16:01
stories that get written seem to be so much more personal.
00:16:04
And I guess, you know, there's a smaller number to pull from
00:16:06
because they're just fewer companies that do have female
00:16:09
Founders, but I just think it's a journalist its glaring to me.
00:16:14
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, you can well as someone, someone
00:16:18
actually shouldn't do this because it'll probably be
00:16:20
depressing, but like, if you go back and look at like, at the
00:16:22
coverage of Facebook, The 2000s, right?
00:16:25
Like there's a lot of like, management turnover but I think
00:16:27
a lot of those stories ended up being like they didn't align or
00:16:30
I mean co-founder turn over whatever but it was a lot like,
00:16:33
oh well they didn't get in line with sucks vision and so they
00:16:35
were out clearly because that's what you would do, right?
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Where that's not how we write about, I don't know, outdoor
00:16:42
voices or whomever, right? It's like this founder of the
00:16:44
Tyrant and needs to, you know, be removed.
00:16:47
I mean I do think it's just this complicated consumer Brands
00:16:50
helped fuel. It, there are a lot of prominent
00:16:52
female lead Were brand companies but also the whole female
00:16:56
founder sort of persona issue the Katie talk about.
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So, yeah, it's hard to like separate.
00:17:04
The companies themselves were selling an image of a certain
00:17:08
kind of person, which is also very tricky, you know, so if in
00:17:13
your branding and your marketing for your project, you're
00:17:16
celebrating a, you know, this 21st century woman who is You
00:17:23
know, socially conscious and values, equality and values,
00:17:31
respect for others. And then the personality, the
00:17:34
founder seems to run counter to that.
00:17:36
That's also an added layer of complication that you probably
00:17:40
aren't going to have. If your company is making You
00:17:45
know if your compliance Enterprises or it won't be such
00:17:53
a hypocrite, she said that everybody who used her software
00:17:56
was going to run around in size to leggings and look hot while
00:18:00
also fighting for equality and look what happened.
00:18:03
I mean as I like it just sort of a different know I wish I was
00:18:07
not your I pitch it sort of glassy I felt like I did.
00:18:11
I'm not that person. I just I just follow her on
00:18:13
Instagram. By the way, I love Emily Weiss
00:18:16
and everything better. This is a true actually
00:18:19
financing story. There was one term sheet.
00:18:21
I negotiated while wearing a glossy a sweatshirt, no one else
00:18:24
cared but I was so perfect. I think what I love is that I
00:18:27
read the gloss for so long before she started glossy a.
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I just I loved everything about that block.
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I don't wear any makeup. I don't really own anything but
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I really liked her blog and she understands the media really
00:18:41
well. She understands like, why
00:18:44
consumers Like products sort of this idea.
00:18:47
They provide magic. And so, you know, she I just
00:18:50
thought it was. That was very cool.
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So if somebody writes a glossy a takedown story, I'm going to be
00:18:54
real sad, real sad. Like, what do you do you think
00:18:58
there's any benefit than to? I mean again you run a company
00:19:02
that has a solid business. I don't really know what value
00:19:05
there is to, you know, spending a ton of time pitching media on
00:19:09
on more publicity on your company other than maybe, you
00:19:12
know, getting more customers or something.
00:19:13
But Crude ain't right? Yeah, these are kind of the
00:19:16
things we sell to startups. And so there is just a bit of
00:19:19
like, how do you? I mean, we like to take a very
00:19:22
large and if anyone's listening it we're very large and
00:19:25
competent. But no, like kind of like
00:19:26
playing bigger than we are and like, aren't we mentioned in the
00:19:29
same sentence? As, you know, Uber, even though
00:19:31
you're like cuz kind of hilarious and ridiculous.
00:19:33
Right. Anyway.
00:19:34
So there's like, I mean, that part of like, the Silicon Valley
00:19:39
play bigger pieces is it's real cause it does matter so much
00:19:44
whether or not it should. It definitely does.
00:19:46
They're recruiting piece. I am here is just quickly, I
00:19:49
know, you know, on that. I mean, it's always so front of
00:19:52
mind for Founders and just what the environment is right now,
00:19:57
when you're trying to hire people and there are so many
00:19:59
companies with such high valuations and what that
00:20:02
experience has been, it's clearly like it's a new normal.
00:20:06
I mean, I think all the reasons that like the rapid financing
00:20:09
are great for entrepreneurs. They're also great for people
00:20:13
for job Searchers, right? Because you can have 14
00:20:15
interviews a day and you can get your offers in three days and
00:20:18
then you're, you know, you can bake off companies.
00:20:20
However, you want, and like, it's all true and like, as much
00:20:25
as it, you know, not super helpful to Fanta, like candidate
00:20:27
should do that, and I think that it's their new it.
00:20:32
So there's that Dynamic like the Zoom Zoom speed, things up
00:20:35
Dynamic applies in recruiting. The other dynamic as you know,
00:20:38
everyone is Tiger funded and a unicorn.
00:20:40
And so it is harder to stand out even if you're like No we
00:20:45
actually have a good business like we're the real ones and
00:20:49
there's a sense they chase high valuations or how much do you
00:20:52
think that's true? I mean we're there.
00:20:55
Yeah I mean I think we talked about this with Parker.
00:20:57
I mean just assessing comp based on the valuation times their
00:21:01
shares versus yeah. The potential upside I guess.
00:21:06
Yeah. I think it's very true.
00:21:07
I mean I was I am you know kind of to this day staunchly like
00:21:11
you know, bant has the same company.
00:21:13
I mean yesterday and today, the day before For this cookware,
00:21:15
for your dancing and the day after like and candidates, do
00:21:19
not see that this way. Like, recruiting got
00:21:21
incrementally, you do to us after that round same company,
00:21:25
but it matters and so like, I'm just pulling that forward.
00:21:28
You're like, what? A billion dollars matter like
00:21:30
probably. Do I hate that.
00:21:32
Yeah, definitely. Just, I'm sorry.
00:21:34
Just just having the Sequoia like imprimatur on the business
00:21:37
made recruiting easier. Yep.
00:21:40
More more inbound candidates and incrementally easier to close
00:21:43
because they felt like it was a More Direct business because
00:21:47
they felt that there was support support from a firm that they
00:21:51
believed would be there when times got rough support from us.
00:21:54
And that's one of the, that's one of the fascinating things
00:21:56
because the idea of the role that VCS play, you know, when we
00:22:01
spoke with Parker last week, he very much put forward the thesis
00:22:03
that when times are good VC's are there for you.
00:22:05
When times are bad, they kick you out, obviously that comes
00:22:08
from a very personal experience, but it is interesting that for
00:22:12
prospective job candidate. They would see VC uses this on
00:22:17
balanced force for good. Oh yeah.
00:22:20
The kingmakers. They've the Magic Touch.
00:22:24
I wanted to get to vent a little bit and sort of the business and
00:22:28
understanding it. Well, I guess you'll give your
00:22:34
22nd description better than I will.
00:22:36
So will you just quickly sort of describe the business as is
00:22:39
today? I guess that's your first 30
00:22:41
seconds and then sort of the broader aspirations of it.
00:22:45
Just so we have that for. Yeah, for sure.
00:22:47
So today we work with generally startups, helping them, and
00:22:51
generally be to be ABS. So some tool they're selling to
00:22:54
other businesses as some part of that sales process they get
00:22:58
asked like hey are you secure? If we give you a bunch of data,
00:23:00
you going to leak it on the internet.
00:23:02
So we help those businesses kind of shore up their security
00:23:05
initially and then get some sort of compliance certification,
00:23:09
probably a sock to that sort of says yes someone looked at us we
00:23:13
are reasonably secure. You can buy us in the incentive
00:23:16
is basically because there Customers will want them to have
00:23:21
this and so in pitching, big customers you're giving them
00:23:25
this signal? Yes, exactly.
00:23:26
So, like the big customer is going to say, Hey, you know,
00:23:29
love your product, but, you know, you're ten people, you
00:23:33
know, on a couch. Basically, how can we trust you
00:23:37
enter your? Like, I've gone through this
00:23:39
process, I had someone look at all these things.
00:23:40
They wrote up this long report like we're very reasonable over
00:23:44
here. Couch, you could trust us but
00:23:47
then the long ERM the goal is to come up with your own standard,
00:23:51
or what can you say about it? I mean, it's not like, I don't
00:23:55
know. Sock to doesn't sound like most
00:23:57
thought through standard ever not being an expert in it or
00:24:02
yes, suck to his incredible product Market fit.
00:24:05
I can say that I'm going to just use by Everman.
00:24:08
Everyone else about it, right? And including people who don't
00:24:11
kind of know precisely what it is but it sort of doesn't
00:24:14
matter, it is just like the imprimatur of the first way you
00:24:17
say like I'm Baseline reasonable.
00:24:19
So yeah, one thing we think a lot about is, you know, there's
00:24:23
some good parts and some less all three parts.
00:24:25
Like how can we kind of work with Security leaders to design
00:24:28
something that actually thinks about you know, the true
00:24:32
security and a 2021 sense and all that it takes to keep a
00:24:35
company secure in 2021 and applies that on a continuous
00:24:39
basis to that. The other thing about these
00:24:41
reports is our sort of done point in time, someone comes in
00:24:44
last, like, on Tuesday asks you a bunch of questions, write the
00:24:48
report you're Good for a year and that's not how software
00:24:51
works. So, we're working on that.
00:24:54
What would incentivize companies to want to participate in a
00:24:57
harder standard early? Why would the market ever
00:25:00
incentivize? You know, business has to be
00:25:03
sort of self-regulating and that way without the government,
00:25:06
requiring it, yes, to sort of twofold.
00:25:08
I think the boogeyman answer which is I think the less strong
00:25:13
one is like at some point the government will care.
00:25:16
And so can the industry sort of get it to act?
00:25:19
Gather ahead of time. So this happened with credit
00:25:22
cards like PCI DSS, if those letters sound Vaguely Familiar,
00:25:27
vaguely, vaguely. Basically they came out of like
00:25:29
early credit cards. The banks were male and credit
00:25:31
like five credit cards to everyone, no matter who they
00:25:34
were some point. The government was like this is
00:25:36
extending this much credit to everyone.
00:25:38
Willy-nilly is probably not what you want to be doing.
00:25:41
If you guys don't fix this, we're going to come in anyway so
00:25:44
that kind of got that ball rolling.
00:25:46
This first bit, I think when we think about like the B
00:25:49
administration's priorities software security, force a
00:25:52
offenders, as, you know, probably probably below the cut
00:25:54
line currently at least to say, I think the better answer really
00:25:59
is because the customers get hurt, right?
00:26:05
So, like if declares his like totally hypothetical but like,
00:26:10
you know, if it's a good example in the Sony hack it's like so
00:26:17
nice, you know. Doc's gets breached.
00:26:20
Its the headline might be Sony gets breached, the headline.
00:26:23
Might be Google gets breached and either way it's a bad look
00:26:26
for both of them and so they're actually kind of
00:26:29
organizationally pretty incented to make sure like those
00:26:32
headlines. Don't get written and so when
00:26:35
you know schmancy industry terms this is like third-party risk
00:26:38
management. But it's basically just when you
00:26:42
use software if it gets breached it looks like you get breached.
00:26:45
No one wants that headline? How do you make sure it doesn't
00:26:48
happen. Have you been able to come up
00:26:50
with ways to get around the media for things like
00:26:53
recruiting? You know, so it in a world where
00:26:57
the media is not the best fit in some ways for you to tell your
00:27:04
story. You know what other tools you
00:27:06
have at your disposal? When it comes to recruiting,
00:27:08
when it comes to raising awareness, customer acquisition,
00:27:11
doesn't seem to be a problem for you at all.
00:27:13
You certainly don't need. I don't, I don't think that a
00:27:15
bit. I don't think that, in your
00:27:16
cover. Everybody wants more customers.
00:27:20
Everybody wants more customers. It's true to everyone's more
00:27:24
customers, but you know, it's there.
00:27:26
The Wall Street Journal is probably better than the New
00:27:28
York Times in some ways, if that's what you're looking for.
00:27:30
I should though the New York Times is wonderful for so many
00:27:33
other things, you know. So what other tools do you have?
00:27:37
Other than the media? Yeah, I mean media Jason but I
00:27:41
think just the last few years the rise of subject and podcasts
00:27:44
and like I'm, you know, talking to study, right?
00:27:46
But like truly are, it feels Is different than the media.
00:27:51
Some of them are certainly friendlier.
00:27:53
Like we sort of did this of like where did the glowing founder
00:27:57
profiles from the media, five years ago?
00:28:00
Go. And like now their podcast
00:28:01
interviews. And so I think we're, you know,
00:28:05
like paint like promoted some paid for some Stacks but I think
00:28:10
those are real and you know will just get bigger what else?
00:28:16
I mean there's like the recruiting stuff is Always a
00:28:20
slog, right? And so that's actually a place
00:28:25
where I think the best companies figure out word of mouth with
00:28:27
recruiting, which is just a say, have employees recruit other
00:28:30
employees and that's sort of the only thing, did you buy the
00:28:34
argument that bubbles up from time to time, that there is a
00:28:37
real option for Founder's to completely obviate the media and
00:28:41
just go through whether it's podcasts or I don't know.
00:28:45
Cool retweets from from guys, with 100 followers music, a
00:28:48
boat's, It's promoting the company and there is like kind
00:28:53
of an internal less public facing Network that you could
00:28:55
use. That just doesn't require you to
00:28:57
waste your time with idiots like us.
00:28:59
You're telling me to channel my inner Elon, Yuan Bao zhi, you
00:29:05
know, any of the guys who decided to make it their life's
00:29:08
calling to, I don't know, make the media irrelevant.
00:29:12
Yeah, I mean less Fair like anti-media screeds but more just
00:29:17
the reach. Those people have like I do
00:29:19
actually think there's something there and like I wish I were
00:29:23
better at Twitter that I am like actually think it would help
00:29:26
Santa you know I do actually think there is something real
00:29:30
there, I think most people don't do.
00:29:32
Well, or don't do it but yeah, the people who do it.
00:29:36
Well, actually have a Founder friend, I'm Judd Mossad from
00:29:39
replicate, he's actually really good at this.
00:29:41
He's quieted down a little bit in the last few months but he's
00:29:44
really good at this like he he can he can like everything is
00:29:49
about the company but it is funny and fun and like clearly
00:29:54
at the sense of humor and just totally and you think that that
00:29:58
helps him with recruiting I mean there's a direct connection
00:30:01
between that and interesting. Yeah.
00:30:02
Yeah, you had 55 employees when we spoke, how many do you have
00:30:08
now? 110 house managing that?
00:30:13
Well, I've never seen them all in person, so, you know, still
00:30:16
TVD we're planning for that, but it hasn't happened yet so I
00:30:19
don't know if they all exist. No, every day is a new every
00:30:23
week. There's a new week.
00:30:24
Advanta promotes a good reasons. If you're growing this quickly,
00:30:28
every week is a new week you could probably I would say get 5
00:30:31
to 10 new employees. Out of this podcast interview,
00:30:35
you know, people come in and say like, oh, you heard you on this
00:30:38
podcast, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.
00:30:40
If you apply for a job advancing, use a promo code dead
00:30:43
cat. Yeah, that's fine.
00:30:52
Yeah, we get them to actually get like a small we'd like a
00:30:54
lamb to school situation of avidya and shared.
00:30:57
What do they call those shared Revenue in shared income
00:31:00
agreements. Yeah, Yeah, we gotta get one of
00:31:03
those set up. That sounds like a great deal.
00:31:05
Cool, thanks so much. Thanks Christina.
00:31:23
So goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
00:31:25
Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye.
00:31:02
Yeah, we gotta get one of those set up.
00:31:04
That sounds like a great deal. Cool, thanks so much.
00:31:07
Thanks Christina. So goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,
00:31:25
goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye.
00:31:27
Goodbye.