Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / The Creative Capital Revolution: Eric Frost's Blueprint for Startup Success

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The Creative Capital Revolution: Eric Frost's Blueprint for Startup Success · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:17
  today's guest is Eric Frost, Managing partner at Demos and
• 0:21
  partner at Zeus Jones. They are a creative consultancy
• 0:25
  focused on strategy and design with a mission to keep
• 0:28
  creativity at the heart of problem solving while
• 0:31
  envisioning future possibilities.
• 0:34
  They have worked with some of the world's most iconic
• 0:36
  companies, including Nike, Apple, Chipotle, Meta, Three M,
• 0:40
  General Mills, Nestle, and Fidelity.
• 0:43
  They are recognized as AB Corp, underscoring their commitment to
• 0:47
  ethical and sustainable business practices.
• 0:50
  And while that's an impressive roster of clients, what makes
• 0:53
  Eric's approach truly unique is his creative capital model at
• 0:57
  Demos, where he doesn't just invest money, but provides world
• 1:02
  class creative services that help start-ups gain a
• 1:05
  competitive advantage. By helping these companies
• 1:08
  develop the best brand story and positioning, he's essentially de
• 1:12
  risking their growth and helping them stand out in emerging
• 1:15
  markets. Now before we get into all that
• 1:18
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:21
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
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  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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  AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 1:51
  today, Founder Managing Partner, Demos, Eric Frost.
• 1:55
  I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
• 1:58
  Yeah. Thanks very much for having me
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  on and I appreciate it. All right, Eric, so you got your
• 2:04
  start in the earliest days of the commercial Internet.
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  After earning a graduate degree in creative writing in San
• 2:11
  Francisco, you joined an interactive agency building the
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  very first websites for brands like Patagonia and Land Rover
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  eventually LED you to Sapient and then Fallon.
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  Big agencies, big name agencies, you know, top agencies at the
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  time. Eric, I, I would love to kind of
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  zoom in on this early chapter in your life for a moment before we
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  talk about that creative capital model at demos.
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  So from your perspective, what was it like being on the digital
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  side of brand building at a time when people still didn't really
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  understand what the Internet was?
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  OK, For me, it was a dream job at the time, you know, getting
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  to, I'm someone who's always been an early adopter in my
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  personal life, lover of technology.
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  So these brands and this technology and information
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  becoming more accessible at the early days of the Internet was a
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  super exciting time. At the same time, totally new,
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  very wild, Wild West. We were working through browser
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  compatibility issues on these websites all the time.
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  The the website wouldn't look the same as it was.
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  The tools were very archaic at the time.
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  It was very, it was a challenge. It was always like a creative
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  problem solving challenge to take what the designers would
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  come up with and translate that into the website.
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  At that time, because it was just the technology was so much
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  early, it was harder to express the brand in the way that you
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  wanted and deliver the type of even though that experience was
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  breakthrough, the idea that you could say, shop for Patagonia
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  clothing on a website as opposed to a catalog was breakthrough.
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  But, you know, these are the best brands in the world.
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  They have very high standards for how their brands show up in
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  the experience they're delivered to consumers.
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  And that that was very challenging.
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  But you know, just like any new technology, it rapidly improved.
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  And you know, by the time I was at Fallon working on, say, a
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  website for BMW, you could do so much more than you could even
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  just a few years prior. So I had a business involved in
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  the early days of Internet design as well.
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  I exited in 2000, 2001 and we were still dealing with a lot of
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  browser like interoperability issues.
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  Have those largely been resolved, or is that something
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  you still wrestle with? No, that's, that's largely been
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  resolved and a lot of the sort of archaic tools that we use to
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  create layouts. You, you can do just about
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  anything. I mean, you can do programmatic
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  animation at this point. You can do, do all sorts of
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  stuff. It's it's pretty amazing.
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  And now with the advent of AI and AI being being able to just
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  custom code websites and applications for for people, I
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  feel like we're about to take another massive leap forward in
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  the technology. And I stepped away from actually
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  coding probably in about 2003, 2004.
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  It's been a while. So it's been a while.
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  I haven't been up to speed recently.
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  And you know, whenever I encounter any of that, I'm I'm
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  so amazed at at where, where things have gone to and what you
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  can do. Pretty much anything is possible
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  at this point. Yeah.
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  So can you remember a moment where it really hits you, Eric,
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  that the way that brands interact with customers was
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  completely changing, just unfolding in front of your eyes?
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  Yeah. So when we when we were at
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  Fallon, I I think seeing how customers were starting to
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  participate and actually starting to create and shape how
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  brands were sort of operating online.
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  So taking some of the brand elements and sort of recasting
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  or reshaping them for themselves, be that in in social
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  post in sort of as Web 2 point O started to emerge or on blogs or
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  remixing them on T-shirts or clothing or things like that.
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  We started to see even back then the early days of what we call
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  like participatory brands, where as opposed to this idea from
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  mass communications where a brand is something that the
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  brand besides they're going to stand for this one thing.
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  And you, you deliver that message over and over again
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  through mass communications and you beat it into people's heads.
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  It was really started to be more of a conversation between
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  consumers and brands about what the brand stood for, the
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  products and services that the consumers wanted from the brand
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  and helping shape the future of those things.
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  So we saw brands like Starbucks and Google and all of these
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  brands emerging that weren't shaped by advertising and mass
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  media. They're really shaped by the
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  Internet and Internet culture, which was much more
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  participatory, much faster moving, and much, much more of a
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  sort of community feel like the community really felt like they
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  owned part of that relationship with the brand as opposed to
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  this top down mass communication model.
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  Was there one or maybe a small handful of brands that seemed to
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  really pioneer this approach? At the time, you know, when we
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  were at Fallon and thinking about sort of pioneering this
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  new approach that eventually led to us leaving and starting Zeus
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  Jones. We were looking at brands more
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  specifically some of the kind of tech native or tech oriented
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  brands like the the Googles and Facebook at at the time.
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  But even traditional brands like Nordstrom that were built on a
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  much more service model like the legendary service was the thing
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  that everyone talked about. So what we wanted to do was work
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  with companies and brands to figure out what is that sort of
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  most viral part of the the interaction, What is the most
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  valuable part of the interaction that everyone else is going to
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  talk about or pass on. So in the early days with
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  Google, that might have been how much better Gmail was or how
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  much better Google was as a search engine than than anything
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  else. The early Starbucks of
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  experience of like for the first time coming to this third space
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  in in the United States where it had these amazing products and
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  amazing food and you really felt like you could hang out there
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  and and interact and really gather.
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  Those were entirely new ways of building brands at the time, as
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  opposed to mass communications deals, you know, banner ads, all
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  those kind of things that felt very transactional, felt very
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  one way and they felt very interruptive, didn't feel like
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  it was delivering a lot of value to consumers.
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  So we were really asking ourselves like what is marketing
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  or what is the way of building a brand that delivers and builds
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  value that feels participatory and that invites consumers in to
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  a deeper relationship, not a transactional relationship.
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  So I'm kind of going back through my memory banks and it
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  seems to me that maybe all of this kind of got started or
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  kicked off or was possible because of Facebook
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  specifically. Was am I right?
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  Was that the only platform? Were there earlier ones that I'm
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  not kind of thinking of that sort of allowed this brand and
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  consumer participation to come together?
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  Yeah, I think at the same time Facebook was coming up, it was
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  sort of like, you know, we sort of moved from Web 1.
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  You know, we, we always refer to us.
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  That was the read era. I'm a passive consumer.
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  I'm I'm consuming this Web 2 was right, which is like I've been
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  invited to now create. So from block platforms like
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  Blogger and Tumblr and and social media, early social media
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  platforms like Twitter and Facebook, that was where you
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  really started to see this brand evangelism people really kind of
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  early days of what we would now would call influencing with
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  brands taking assets, giving, giving feedback, new recipe
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  ideas, new content, like that sort of interaction just became
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  much more possible in those early days.
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  But yeah, you're absolutely right.
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  Facebook was one of the big cultural forces at the time.
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  We spent a lot of time building up, you know, brand communities
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  on, on Facebook at that time. So how would you characterize
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  where we are now with sort of, you know the the graph of this
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  trend and where do you see it going that may not be super
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  obvious to the average layperson?
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  Yeah, one of the things that I've been interested in, it's
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  funny because this movement has been maybe a little bit hijacked
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  by the AI narrative, but I think might actually end up blending
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  in the end with the AI narrative is.
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  So once again, I'll revisit. Web one was read.
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  I'm a passive participant. Web 2 was was right.
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  I've been invited into this thing.
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  However, the sort of means of of production that all of the
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  search engines, all of the data is still controlled by a few
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  large parties. It's the Googles, it's the
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  metas, it's the Microsoft's of the world Web 3 point O, which a
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  lot of people would refer to as crypto or blockchain.
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  I like referred to it as Web 3 point O because it does feel
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  like this next iteration of the Internet is what we're calling
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  the own era of the Internet where these communities or
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  people are invited into the actual infrastructure and to
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  participate much more fully in the economy that's forming
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  around this next era of the Internet.
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  So the idea that communities are going to own and participate in
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  value creation and value extraction is much different
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  than a lot of the value accruing up to say, a few very large
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  companies, which honestly those same companies are dominating
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  AI. So that's why I think it's going
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  to be interesting to see how AI versus Web three starts to play
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  out, especially as we deal with things like data rights and data
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  sovereignty. The blockchain in some ways is a
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  very elegant tool to to deal with a lot of those problems.
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  If we have an immutable Ledger that very transparently says
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  this is where this thing came from, this is who owns this
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  data, this is who created this art, et cetera, et cetera.
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  So it'll be interesting to see how those things evolve, Co
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  evolve and how they continue to interact.
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  Can you maybe give a specific example of what it is that
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  you're envisioning or thinking about?
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  You know, you're talking about individuals being able to
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  participate from an economic standpoint more.
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  Is this sort of like the idea of like I would truly own my data
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  on Facebook and kind of lease it back to them kind of a thing?
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  That's that's a very good example.
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  So if you think of medical data is very high value at this
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  point, but consumers it's, it's these patients data, they have
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  no ownership over it and they're not compensated in any way.
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  However, a lot of that data is shared or resold currently on
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  the market by other companies that say might use that in
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  clinical trials or to set up research or to set up now AI
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  models to do like sort of AI driven research for new drugs or
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  different therapies or things like that.
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  So if you're thinking about someone owning through the
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  blockchain, all of the medical data especially, it's
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  interesting because the most valuable data comes from the
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  people who generally have the highest healthcare expenses.
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  So people who have rare diseases or conditions or multiple
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  conditions, that data is extremely valuable.
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  And if we could help offset some of their personal cost, but also
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  the cost of the system by valuing this data and sharing
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  that value back with people, you start to create a a whole
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  different sort of economy and ecosystem around healthcare and
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  health data and how that data is used and how the sort of value
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  of it accrues to different parties.
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  What's the likelihood of something like this
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  materializing? Because it seems like it flies
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  in the face of the incentives for the people who are basically
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  in control of our data now. Yeah, I, I, it, it does.
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  It does indeed, very much so that's why I think.
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  And that's one of the things that's bad when you have a few
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  companies that basically control the sort of modern
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  infrastructure of the Internet because it de incentivizes
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  innovation. So if you look at there are
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  parts of the Internet that are open protocols, like for
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  example, TCIP and e-mail, and you still see lots of innovation
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  and 3rd party tools and things being built on that.
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  But what is the innovation to build tools and apps and things
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  at this point on say, Facebook? So there's no real incentive for
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  innovation there because Facebook controls the entire
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  market. You know, they control what apps
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  are or aren't allowed in the ecosystem and they control all
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  the monetization of that. So one of the things I think is
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  bad about the current Web 2.0 sort of system in the way it's
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  controlled is we've stifled innovation in the Web 3.0 world.
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  I think, you know, a lot of this is going to be consumer demand
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  or people sort of moving towards better models.
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  If say a company, a ride sharing company spun up and you knew
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  that the drivers through tokens with the blockchain were part
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  owners of this whole system. I think a lot of consumers would
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  preferentially move to a service like that because it would have
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  more social capital because you'd know that these people
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  were earning a living wage. It would be transparent.
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  You'd know that they were owners partially in the system.
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  So it's a little bit like the traditional Co-op model of say,
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  grocery stores where you can go. There's a there's a community
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  ownership, the community has a voice.
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  They're able to vote on certain initiatives and help determine
• 15:27
  the future of the service or the business.
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  So I, I think a lot of people would naturally gravitate that
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  the nature of it would give you a competitive edge over some
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  certain services that are in the market today.
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  Do you see anything either from a technological or a social
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  perspective being a hurdle to still overcome to get to some of
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  these ideas? Yeah, I think the reason why Web
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  3 hasn't caught on and hasn't had more mass adoption is we we
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  don't have like the killer app yet.
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  I think in in the same way that most people like when I
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  reference TC IP and Internet protocols and stuff or like what
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  is that? I don't know what that is
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  because it's entirely seamless and trans, you know, transparent
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  to them. The Internet just works.
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  I open up my browser, open up my computer.
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  That's what's great about AI too.
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  I just chat with something and it delivers me this value.
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  And I think Web 3 is on the verge of getting to that point.
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  And all the apps and services that are being built that will
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  seamlessly deliver where I don't have to go exchange dollars for
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  tokens and I don't have to go open up a separate, you know,
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  blockchain wallet in order to navigate these services.
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  All of that will be kind of done away with and you'll have a more
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  seamless kind of interaction like you do with the current
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  Internet. And I think we need to get to
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  that point for it to be something that sort of allows
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  for that sort of mass, mass adoption and shift where we
• 16:50
  truly go from a web two world to a web three world.
• 16:54
  OK, let's come back to now, Eric's path back to Fallon.
• 16:59
  You're getting a lot of great experience there.
• 17:02
  What was going on that sort of gave you the inspiration, the
• 17:05
  idea to to go off and start your own thing with Suce Jones?
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  Yeah. So I was working in a small
• 17:11
  group there that was Fallon Interactive.
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  So it was really the people who had come from that sort of web
• 17:17
  world who had spent a lot of their professional careers
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  adopting that new technology. Sorry, one second, I'm just
• 17:26
  going to went out of a chat here.
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  Adopting new technology, pushing the way that brands were being
• 17:34
  built. We were already sort of
• 17:35
  practicing these new much more dynamic ways of building brands,
• 17:39
  building services, doing all that stuff.
• 17:43
  So we were already kind of thinking that way.
• 17:45
  The larger agency was still stuck in sort of that more mass
• 17:48
  media mindset. So we were pushing the
• 17:54
  boundaries and really experimenting with how brands
• 17:57
  were built. We were doing things like
• 17:59
  branded entertainment where, you know, Amazon films, shoppable
• 18:03
  experiences, shoppable music videos for Nordstrom, obviously
• 18:07
  pushing the boundaries on digital and websites and how
• 18:10
  shopping was happening there, but we were looking for
• 18:13
  entirely. Like product placement kinds of
• 18:15
  things. Yeah, inside these movies.
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  Yeah, so it was everything from Fallon was an agency that
• 18:21
  created what what I think many people credit is the first
• 18:25
  branded entertainment films. They created a film film series
• 18:28
  online called BMW Films with Clive Owen, where there were
• 18:31
  these action films. The insight was where's the car,
• 18:34
  the star? And the answer is action films.
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  So BMW partnered with all these, you know, from Guy Ritchie to
• 18:42
  Ang Lee to all these amazing directors to create short films
• 18:46
  that really featured BMW vehicles and then gave them away
• 18:50
  for free on the Internet. So it was, we just hit this
• 18:53
  point where it's possible to start streaming high quality
• 18:56
  short films on the Internet. So it was a sort of perfect
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  intersection of this inside of, well, we can deliver content
• 19:03
  directly to consumers. We can do this in a high quality
• 19:05
  way. It's basically more exciting
• 19:08
  than watching an ad. It's content, but it's showing
• 19:11
  the ultimate driving machine, which was BMW tagline at the
• 19:14
  time in the perfect scenarios of these action films.
• 19:18
  And you have have this guy, the driver, Clive Owen, who who is
• 19:21
  on these missions where the car is really the tool that he's
• 19:24
  using to accomplish these missions.
• 19:27
  Gotcha. OK.
• 19:28
  So you guys were at bound, you were going to pushing the
• 19:31
  boundaries on all this and you wanted to do more of it.
• 19:33
  That was kind of the reason to go off and do your own thing.
• 19:36
  Yeah, that's absolutely right. And there it's interesting
• 19:39
  because there are different periods of sort of Internet
• 19:42
  adoption. Like we saw and you probably
• 19:44
  experienced this from the early times.
• 19:46
  There was this massive boom and then there was a crash in about
• 19:50
  2001. Everyone started getting laid
• 19:52
  off. People were saying stuff like
• 19:54
  the Internet was over. Well, that was fun.
• 19:56
  But now the Internet's over. And then really everyone just
• 19:59
  quietly kind of kept building, building, building, and then
• 20:02
  added this other layer of functionality that Web 2 then
• 20:05
  created this boom. True e-commerce, social media,
• 20:10
  all that kind of stuff that happened and web 3 has gone
• 20:13
  through similar sort of bust boom kind of cycles where
• 20:16
  everyone's like, well blockchain's dead.
• 20:19
  It's like well everyone just keep building AI has seen
• 20:22
  similar narratives. So one of the things I've
• 20:24
  learned through my time as a business person is like truly
• 20:28
  what the adoption curve actually looks like and the different
• 20:31
  stages of adoption of new technology.
• 20:34
  And to never really believe something is dead or over
• 20:37
  because really it's just quietly building in the background and
• 20:39
  it's going to hit mainstream inflection again in a couple of
• 20:42
  years and in a much bigger way. So that's one of the things I've
• 20:45
  sort of learned which has helped me as an investor as well,
• 20:48
  understand those sort of bust and boom cycles and what signals
• 20:52
  to pay attention to and what signals to ignore.
• 20:56
  I mean, that's, I think you hit on something key there, right?
• 20:58
  Because the hype cycle, we've seen it over and over and over
• 21:02
  again, right? The early days of the Internet,
• 21:04
  right? Come 2000, 2001, when we had the
• 21:07
  bubble pop, people were saying, oh, Yep, the Internet was a fad.
• 21:11
  There's no use like this is going to fade away.
• 21:14
  People who are actually using it and building on it knew that
• 21:16
  that wasn't true. It's just, you know, the, the
• 21:18
  hype had kind of levelled out. We saw it with blockchain.
• 21:22
  We're seeing it to some degree with AI now.
• 21:24
  And it's hard, you know, when, when you're in the midst of that
• 21:27
  hype cycle, it's hard to separate the hype from the true
• 21:32
  value, right? That's absolutely right.
• 21:35
  And I think the thing that's getting interesting is the
• 21:37
  cycles are getting shorter as well.
• 21:39
  And it will be interesting to see what effect AI has on those
• 21:42
  cycles as AI makes culture and business and innovation move
• 21:46
  even faster. Like, do those cycles get even
• 21:48
  shorter? We're talking about instead of
• 21:49
  years, we're talking about three to six months between these
• 21:53
  different cycles. Now.
• 21:54
  It'll be fascinating to see what happens.
• 21:56
  And so as you guys started Zeus Jones and you were really
• 21:59
  aggressively, you know, excited about this new participation
• 22:04
  model kind of getting, you know, the consumers and the brands to
• 22:07
  sort of, you know, have that conversation together.
• 22:10
  How was this received by the marketplace?
• 22:13
  How were your? How were clients kind of opening
• 22:14
  up to it? Yeah, it was, it was a really
• 22:17
  interesting time because a lot of people knew in the early days
• 22:21
  of social media and digital now having a a very firm foothold,
• 22:26
  e-commerce being being a force knew that how brands were being
• 22:31
  built and how advertising and how marketing was being done was
• 22:35
  changing. So there was a lot of doom in
• 22:37
  the gloom. You'd open up advertising sites
• 22:39
  like Ad Week, and every week there'd be an article about the
• 22:42
  sky is falling, the sky is falling.
• 22:44
  But the interesting thing was no one had any answers for what's
• 22:48
  next. And one of the things that we've
• 22:50
  always been excited about is like being part of the voice and
• 22:54
  the thought leadership that helps people determine what's
• 22:56
  next and help take helps take these big, especially
• 23:00
  traditional brands, usher them into that next position of
• 23:04
  leadership by bringing what's next to them.
• 23:06
  So what we were excited to do was come out and really rewrite
• 23:10
  the rules of marketing and how brands were being built based on
• 23:14
  a lot of these examples that I mentioned earlier, the
• 23:16
  Starbucks, the Googles, even the Nordstrom's, but you know, the
• 23:20
  Nikes of the world, how they were adopting this much more
• 23:23
  innovative model. And then we went and had those
• 23:27
  conversations with these big Fortune 100 companies.
• 23:32
  And what was interesting is they were kind of, you could see them
• 23:35
  sort of relaxed in the room. We had this side by side chart
• 23:39
  that we used to say like that's the the $1,000,000 chart because
• 23:42
  we would, it would unlock projects instantly.
• 23:45
  So it took us a while to arrive at this.
• 23:47
  But when we got to the side by side, we literally said, this is
• 23:50
  the way you've been practicing marketing on the left.
• 23:52
  These are the new rules of what modern, how modern brands are
• 23:55
  being built. And when we got to that slide,
• 23:57
  you could literally see people physically relaxed in the room
• 24:00
  and be like, finally someone is bringing me a new methodology
• 24:04
  and a new way to build my brand and to move forward.
• 24:07
  And I recognize all these things and I've been feeling them, but
• 24:11
  I don't know how to get there. And so really what made Zeus
• 24:15
  Jones very successful in the early days and catch on was that
• 24:18
  fundamental philosophy and that side by side chart and that
• 24:21
  recognition of like we know and we can help transform you to
• 24:26
  this new way. And what was that new way?
• 24:29
  What specifically were you outlining on that magical
• 24:32
  $1,000,000 slide? It's a lot of the things that
• 24:35
  we've been talking about. It's like building a community
• 24:38
  around your brand, recognizing that brands are now
• 24:41
  participatory elements that your consumers want to have a say and
• 24:44
  they want to have a voice. They want to interact with you.
• 24:46
  They just don't want to hear from you and be marketed to
• 24:50
  they, they want to tell their friends about services and value
• 24:55
  you're delivering to them, not just the messaging.
• 24:58
  It's we had a a very early mantra that was in all of our
• 25:02
  desks was like actions speak louder than words.
• 25:06
  A brand should be built on the value deliver and what you do is
• 25:09
  much more important than what you say.
• 25:12
  What you say can catch someone's attention.
• 25:14
  But if you're not delivering value, if it's not a compelling
• 25:17
  product experience, if everything underneath the veneer
• 25:21
  of the marketing isn't best in class, isn't solid, isn't
• 25:25
  amazing, they're going to move on to the next thing.
• 25:28
  Because there's now with the Internet, they know all the
• 25:31
  options that are out there. There's more options than ever
• 25:34
  and you really need to stand out and deliver an amazing
• 25:36
  experience. So for people listening, maybe
• 25:39
  they own a, a small brand or a big brand or they're, they're
• 25:42
  working at one. What's a, a piece of low hanging
• 25:45
  fruit that you can give them? Like here's something we see a
• 25:48
  lot of brands miss. You put it in place, it doesn't
• 25:51
  fix everything. It doesn't, you know, convert
• 25:53
  you into a Unicorn overnight. But this is a big lever to pull.
• 25:58
  Yeah, a lot of what we do with our clients, big or small, no
• 26:02
  matter what size is really look out.
• 26:05
  We pride ourselves on being like very in tune with what's
• 26:10
  happening in culture. And I think that cultural
• 26:12
  resonance is the thing most companies, big and small miss.
• 26:16
  It's funny because even startup companies, I think you have a
• 26:19
  founder who's very passionate. They understand what's missing
• 26:22
  or how to unlock or create a better experience in in a
• 26:26
  certain market. They understand the culture in
• 26:28
  that moment, but as they build their company and as they start
• 26:31
  to scale it, they, they don't continue to keep pace with how
• 26:35
  culture is evolving. So a lot of companies, sometimes
• 26:38
  they're small, sometimes they're big, very established companies.
• 26:41
  We, we generally sense they've lost sense.
• 26:44
  And this happens more and more because culture is evolving
• 26:46
  faster and faster. They've lost sense of the
• 26:48
  cultural resonance of their of their brand, their product and
• 26:52
  what they need, how they need to be connecting to communities.
• 26:57
  So really what we do is the first part of any fundamental
• 27:00
  brand strategy we do is we're looking at deep consumer
• 27:03
  insights. We're looking at culture.
• 27:05
  Our culture is evolving and we're bringing those cultural
• 27:08
  and consumer insights to those brands and generally reshaping
• 27:12
  what those brands stand for and how they're delivering those
• 27:15
  those products. OK, now here's the part of the
• 27:18
  conversation I'm really excited to get to is to finally
• 27:20
  transition into how did Zeus Jones sort of spawn this idea of
• 27:25
  what you're doing at demos? How did this door open up?
• 27:29
  Yeah. So I would say we we've been
• 27:31
  doing demos for about four years.
• 27:33
  So we're about 15 years in. We were working with some of the
• 27:37
  best brands in the world, looking at the sort of long term
• 27:41
  strategies of how their categories are evolving.
• 27:44
  So we did a project with Nike about the future of sport.
• 27:46
  We did a project with Nestle about the future of food, with
• 27:49
  Mayo Clinic about the future of healthcare.
• 27:52
  You know, we're looking at these big sort of category and
• 27:54
  societal shifts, sort of the ultimate version of that
• 27:57
  cultural fluency that I was talking about earlier.
• 27:59
  Like how is the world going to evolve in this area in the next
• 28:03
  5-10, fifteen years? And because we're doing this
• 28:06
  deep strategy that went all the way up to the C-Suite, one of
• 28:09
  the things we saw is these big companies, you know, they have
• 28:13
  lots of resources, but one of the things that they're not
• 28:16
  great at is moving quickly and taking advantage of
• 28:18
  opportunities and innovation. So a lot of times the way
• 28:21
  they're realizing these opportunities is through
• 28:25
  acquisition, through M&A activity, buying companies that
• 28:29
  help them deliver or take advantage of these new value
• 28:32
  streams or shifts in the market. So we realized M&A was going to
• 28:35
  be a massive part of these people strategy.
• 28:37
  And I think that was the original impetus to say our best
• 28:40
  way to participate in that is to go out and help start-ups sort
• 28:45
  of build their services and build their companies in a way
• 28:48
  that connects to the way that we know these categories are
• 28:51
  evolving. And the way that we know that
• 28:53
  these big strategic players are thinking about the future of
• 28:56
  these different categories and say food, the transformation of
• 28:59
  agriculture and the food system, transformation of health and
• 29:03
  transformation of, say, financial services and financial
• 29:06
  equity and things like that. And so you start doing this, you
• 29:10
  start going and, you know, doing some work for these startups
• 29:13
  and, you know, kind of giving them this, this big picture
• 29:15
  vision and all the skill sets that you guys have access to.
• 29:19
  And how rewarding was that? It was immensely rewarding.
• 29:24
  I think we, we knew that we could add value.
• 29:26
  We didn't understand what an unlock and and unfair advantage
• 29:30
  honestly bringing world class branding to these early stage
• 29:34
  startups who otherwise couldn't afford this level of branding
• 29:37
  and talent and brand strategy experience would be to catapult
• 29:41
  some of these early stage companies to category leaders
• 29:44
  within some of these emerging categories.
• 29:46
  So, and what we saw was that not only did that allow these
• 29:52
  companies to become leaders, but it allowed us as a someone who
• 29:56
  was a a sort of fledgling fund in this category to really get
• 30:01
  into deals we otherwise wouldn't have been able to get into with
• 30:04
  some of the much more established bigger players in
• 30:07
  the venture capital space. Are there other folks doing this
• 30:10
  kind of model where, because I mean, the way you're describing
• 30:13
  it, Eric, it sounds like, you know, your work at demos, it's
• 30:16
  almost like a cheat code for these these start up companies.
• 30:20
  It's like you've got the vision, you've got the talent, you've
• 30:23
  got the skills. You've done this for brands that
• 30:26
  are just, you know, just starting to come about.
• 30:28
  You've done this for big established brands like you've
• 30:31
  got the playbook and you put that on top of, you know, a
• 30:35
  great product or great service that is in its early days and
• 30:39
  it's like gas on the fire. Yeah.
• 30:42
  I mean, we certainly like to think of it as a cheat code and
• 30:45
  I think our our VC and investment partners and the
• 30:47
  Stardust we partner would certainly think of it that way.
• 30:51
  You know, it took us a while to sort of refine and arrive at at
• 30:54
  the the way the model is now. There are a couple other firms
• 30:57
  that are doing it. There's some some friends of
• 30:59
  ours on the East Coast called Bullish that are doing it, but
• 31:03
  they're laser focused on sort of consumer brands and consumer
• 31:07
  products. That's where their expertise is.
• 31:10
  They're delivering services outside of the companies that
• 31:14
  they invest in, and we're actually going to start to do
• 31:17
  that at demos as well, whether or not we're investing with you.
• 31:20
  We feel like we have a model that now works for early stage
• 31:23
  companies and that honestly, it was always a struggle at Zeus
• 31:25
  Jones. We struggled to make the same
• 31:29
  sort of financial structures that we were working with Nike
• 31:32
  work for these small companies, which is why honestly investing
• 31:35
  made sense. It's the first time we were able
• 31:37
  to actually work with these companies because we had skin in
• 31:39
  the game. So over investing suddenly made
• 31:42
  sense because it was a there was long term value, it was a long
• 31:45
  term partnership. But ultimately the next
• 31:48
  evolution of demos now will be we're actually going to build a
• 31:51
  small creative studio inside of the fund who will be directly
• 31:54
  delivering those services as opposed to, you know, using Zeus
• 31:58
  Jones resources. We're going to take everything,
• 32:00
  all the expertise, you know, everything I've learned in my
• 32:03
  career and my founding partners have learned in their careers.
• 32:05
  We're going to bring that into demos, but build a nimble team
• 32:09
  that works at the pace and the financial structures that work
• 32:11
  for these early stage companies well.
• 32:13
  That makes a lot of sense, yeah. When you're working with
• 32:15
  somebody like Nike, they've got a budget that can support, you
• 32:19
  know, the types of talent that you know, you guys need to bring
• 32:22
  in for these projects. When you're working with a start
• 32:25
  up, they could certainly benefit from, you know, your skills, but
• 32:29
  they don't have the same kind of budget.
• 32:30
  And so now you guys can get creative, the creative capital
• 32:33
  model that we've been referencing here.
• 32:37
  And so I'm curious, how do most of these deals come about?
• 32:40
  Is this you kind of going around like knocking on doors or are
• 32:44
  they finding you? It was sort of sort of us either
• 32:49
  through existing Zuster's relationships or looking at
• 32:53
  trends, investment trends and then going on to finding
• 32:56
  startups that meant that that I would say that was the early
• 32:59
  days. Now we've really established
• 33:02
  through the the case studies and the work that we've done and the
• 33:05
  value add we've shown with some of our companies in our very
• 33:09
  first fund, we now have a track record that basically is
• 33:13
  attracting people and we have lots of people coming to us.
• 33:15
  So we'll look at, I think we've looked at 1700 deals in the last
• 33:19
  six months to get to probably 4 investments.
• 33:23
  So we're going through an enormous amount of these
• 33:26
  companies and we're only picking the very best opportunities that
• 33:29
  have undeniable momentum where it feels like our strategic fit
• 33:34
  and the the strategic advantage we bring to the table can can
• 33:38
  truly be that unlock. And where we have connections to
• 33:42
  potential partners or big strategic companies that can
• 33:44
  also be a value added in those relationships as well.
• 33:47
  So, you know, in the in the ag space that might be a partner
• 33:51
  like Land O Lakes, in the medical space, it's Medtronic
• 33:54
  and Mayo Clinic and, and people like that that we can hopefully
• 33:58
  bring a partner, you know, bring partnership or at least the
• 34:01
  possibility of partnership to these investment opportunities.
• 34:04
  When you say bring partnership to the investment opportunity
• 34:07
  like additional funds in or like some kind of like a, I don't
• 34:13
  know, like you mentioned Land O Lakes, like they're going to be
• 34:15
  like a Co packaging partner or what, what what do you mean by
• 34:18
  this? Yeah, so Land O Lakes has a
• 34:20
  massive Co-op of farmers. I think in some form or fashion
• 34:24
  they have about 40 / 40% of the acres under management in the
• 34:27
  United States is part of a Land O Lakes Co-op in one form or
• 34:31
  another. So if you have, say, a new nano
• 34:36
  agronomy play that replaces insecticides in row crops, you
• 34:41
  know, if Land O Lakes isn't interested in what you're doing,
• 34:44
  you're probably not going to be able to scale that company
• 34:47
  because they're such a massive player.
• 34:48
  So one times what we'll do is we'll go to a partner like that
• 34:51
  and we'll even vet the idea before we invest.
• 34:54
  That's one of the ways we can uniquely do due diligence as we
• 34:57
  bring in those key strategic players through our
• 35:00
  relationships. And then we asked them, you
• 35:02
  know, are you interested in trying this?
• 35:05
  Like is this something you'd be interested in, you know,
• 35:07
  bringing to your Co-op network and trying out same thing with
• 35:12
  with a Mayo Clinic. And sometimes we'll look for
• 35:14
  deals who are already in conversation or working with
• 35:17
  Mayo Clinic, and we know that we can even maybe further advance
• 35:20
  those or we know we can help, you know, make sure that
• 35:24
  relationship stays strong. But what?
• 35:27
  Yeah. We look for those true
• 35:28
  partnership opportunities where it's about either Co product
• 35:30
  development, development of a new service or that, you know
• 35:34
  that Land O Lakes or Medtronic might be the end customer or
• 35:37
  even the end acquirer of this startup company.
• 35:40
  That's really interesting because I, it occurred to me
• 35:43
  that the big thing that you guys would be looking for is, oh, can
• 35:47
  they benefit from sort of, I don't know, a rebrand or our
• 35:51
  expertise in, you know, being able to build that participation
• 35:55
  between the community and the brand.
• 35:57
  And I'm sure that that's part of it too.
• 35:59
  But the big thing that you're talking about here is the
• 36:02
  ability to connect them with other folks that you've got
• 36:04
  great relationships with. That's that's absolutely right.
• 36:07
  And if they can do that, they're much more likely to make it to
• 36:10
  that next stage down the venture capital chain.
• 36:13
  So the whole game is about how do we get you to the next stage
• 36:16
  of funding, the next stage of development.
• 36:19
  And it when those partnerships are enormously important as as a
• 36:22
  part of that, that that's a signal to the rest of the market
• 36:25
  that these people are going to be a leader.
• 36:27
  They're being taken seriously by the most important players in
• 36:29
  the market and that creates, you know, a very advantageous
• 36:34
  situation for them. So we, we really see the
• 36:36
  branding is, yes, it helps establish you as a category
• 36:39
  leader, but with that comes an unlock of more investment, an
• 36:43
  unlock of more partners, whether it's partners we're bringing to
• 36:46
  the table or partner conversations, they're in a
• 36:48
  tighter brand, a better story, makes people want to partner
• 36:52
  with you. It attracts the the best talent.
• 36:55
  So we see it as as an unlock on numerous fronts.
• 36:58
  Can you talk about any of the companies that you are currently
• 37:02
  doing work with or maybe you've sort of completed your work
• 37:05
  cycle with them at demos? That would be a great case
• 37:08
  study. You're super excited about what
• 37:10
  they're doing. Yeah, there there's a great
• 37:12
  example of a brand and this this one can maybe speak to some of
• 37:16
  the kind of connections and things were able to form as
• 37:19
  well. There's a brand called Shield
• 37:21
  AI. What they do is they create what
• 37:24
  what they call a physical AI agent.
• 37:26
  So it's a device that goes in the corner of a hospital room.
• 37:30
  It has a camera and it has AI built in and it tracks every
• 37:33
  surface surface in a hospital room or an operating room that's
• 37:37
  touched. And then as soon as someone
• 37:39
  steps out of that room, within 12 to 20 seconds, it can use UV
• 37:43
  light to disinfect every space that's been touched in the room.
• 37:47
  And it does it much more accurately than someone who's
• 37:50
  manually cleaning or bringing in like it just AUV tower.
• 37:54
  So they've proven through through studies with Stanford
• 37:57
  Hospital and with Loma Linda that they can 96% more
• 38:01
  effectively eliminate bacteria and bioburden.
• 38:06
  And that's just the start of what they do.
• 38:07
  They also can monitor fed rails and patient falls and hand
• 38:11
  washing and ORS and tools and compliance and all sorts of
• 38:15
  stuff. They're continually adding
• 38:17
  services to help these hospitals be safer, more efficient, and
• 38:22
  just, you know, automating kind of the future of healthcare and
• 38:26
  healthcare intelligence. So that's a complicated story.
• 38:30
  So helping them tell that story in in an effective way, because
• 38:35
  it's not just about disinfection, it's really about
• 38:37
  the future of intelligence and healthcare, intelligence and
• 38:40
  automation. So helping them paint that
• 38:42
  vision, connecting them to some of the players like the Ecolabs
• 38:47
  in the world who currently are involved in disinfection and
• 38:51
  cleaning and a lot of those hospitals.
• 38:52
  So Ecolab is a client of ours. They already have some
• 38:55
  relationships there. But you know, we we can, we can
• 38:57
  help them on that front. But yeah, just rebranding,
• 39:01
  making sure they don't look like they're all brilliant engineers.
• 39:04
  They don't know anything about design and marketing.
• 39:06
  But if we can make them look like someone that would be
• 39:10
  partnered with Mayo Clinic or when when Mayo Clinic looks at
• 39:13
  them, it's like we're proud to share their materials.
• 39:15
  We're proud to have them associated with our brand.
• 39:18
  That goes a long way to making sure those introductions are
• 39:22
  successful. And honestly, they're like a
• 39:24
  poster child right now. For every time we talk to them,
• 39:27
  they've signed up 10 new hospitals.
• 39:29
  They're like off to the races. They're absolutely amazing.
• 39:32
  So that's one of those examples of undeniable momentum.
• 39:36
  When I say we're looking for, it's like so.
• 39:38
  It's obviously more than just cameras and data, although
• 39:41
  that's huge because you're talking about being able to like
• 39:44
  direct UV light to, to disinfecting and this is all
• 39:48
  sort of within the same unit or it's a camera unit communicates
• 39:52
  to the UV unit. No, Yeah, the camera in the UV
• 39:56
  is all in the same sort of small little box that sits up in the
• 39:59
  corner of the room and can disinfect everything.
• 40:03
  And like I said, in an or a hospital room.
• 40:05
  And what's amazing about them is as the smart, what we would call
• 40:11
  the smart hospital, the future as.
• 40:13
  You know, more patient sensors, all these things, there's lots
• 40:16
  of disparate devices that don't have a brain to sort of take all
• 40:20
  that data and input it and actually proactively act on it.
• 40:23
  So I think what we, what we're our vision for them and what we
• 40:27
  want them to do, and I think they see this as well, is to
• 40:29
  really be the brain that can pull some of these smaller, more
• 40:32
  functional devices that can pull that data in process it make it
• 40:36
  meaningful and digestible to the hotel staff.
• 40:39
  Because I think one of the reasons that the shield AI
• 40:43
  device is catching on right now is because of post COVID
• 40:47
  hospital staffing. This is really difficult.
• 40:49
  The healthcare system is overburdened.
• 40:51
  They're really short staffed. So if we can bring in something
• 40:53
  that actually reduces their costs and makes it safer and
• 40:56
  reduces that burden on the human staff, but also makes them feel
• 41:00
  like they're safer as well. At the same time, they're not
• 41:03
  going to get an infection from these improperly cleaned rooms
• 41:07
  or, you know, dealing with patients.
• 41:10
  That's why I think they're catching on so fast.
• 41:12
  And it's like sort of viral product at the moment because
• 41:14
  they're just had that perfect market fit for for the cultural
• 41:19
  moment we're in. Where are, you know, we're
• 41:22
  seeing, you know, a greater burden on the hospital system
• 41:26
  through all the what be it COVID or the other norovirus or
• 41:31
  different things that are going around.
• 41:33
  We have staff that's burned out. So people are exiting the
• 41:36
  healthcare space, but we can bring in the smart device and
• 41:39
  actually reduce costs and reduce that sort of staff burden at the
• 41:42
  same time. So they probably had and and
• 41:46
  tell us the name of the the business again it's.
• 41:48
  It's shield spelled SHYLD Shield AI.
• 41:53
  Great. We'll make sure we include a
• 41:54
  link to that in the show notes. So I'm sure that Shield has
• 41:58
  their hands full just sort of tackling the the hospital
• 42:01
  market, which is enormous. Are there visions about like
• 42:05
  where else to take this? What other industries that this
• 42:08
  tech could be applicable to? Absolutely.
• 42:11
  So I'd say that we, we like to say it's like AI for healthcare
• 42:15
  spaces. We don't actually use the word
• 42:16
  hospital because if you think of the the sort of boomer
• 42:21
  generation and the amount of people who are going into senior
• 42:23
  care facilities and that that industry already being really
• 42:27
  short staffed, obviously any sort of retirement home, senior
• 42:31
  facility, these devices could be in as well.
• 42:33
  I'd say those are like those hospital slash healthcare
• 42:37
  adjacent spaces. But then you think of cruise
• 42:40
  ships, which as we saw during COVID were enormously
• 42:44
  restaurants and hospitality spaces, hotel rooms, all the
• 42:48
  places where you felt most vulnerable during COVID are
• 42:52
  amazing sort of early markets for this technology, honestly.
• 42:56
  Let's talk about 3D printed batteries.
• 43:00
  You've got somebody in your portfolio that you're pretty
• 43:04
  excited about in that space. Yes, very interesting company.
• 43:07
  They're called Material, the first company in the world to
• 43:10
  ever successfully print a lithium ion battery.
• 43:14
  What's interesting about that is obviously the majority of our
• 43:18
  battery infrastructure right now is overseas.
• 43:21
  And as we know with tariffs and Foreign Relations, our supply
• 43:24
  chain is getting more and more complicated.
• 43:26
  So building out efficiently, building out a domestic supply
• 43:29
  chain for batteries that are don't look like Tesla's
• 43:32
  Gigafactory, they look like small 3D printers.
• 43:35
  You know that you can easily scale up, that are portable,
• 43:38
  that you can move to different spaces.
• 43:40
  That's really exciting. But I think what's especially
• 43:42
  exciting about what materials doing when they 3D print
• 43:45
  batteries, so they can do what's called conformal printing.
• 43:48
  So they can print the battery to fit the product, not the other
• 43:50
  way around. So instead of having to design
• 43:53
  your product around existing battery form factors and shapes,
• 43:56
  they can 3D print a battery that fits in the empty spaces or the
• 44:00
  available space of your product. So you're getting better power
• 44:03
  density, lower weight, a lot of design freedom in the way your
• 44:08
  product looks, the way it's shaped, you know, the way it.
• 44:11
  So when we think of next Gen. wearables like augmented reality
• 44:15
  glasses, small earbuds, drones, things like that, that have
• 44:19
  limited capacity, this is the perfect technology for any of
• 44:22
  those kind of emerging next Gen. tech spaces.
• 44:26
  So I don't understand the the construction of your typical
• 44:31
  battery. Obviously there's some sort of
• 44:34
  the part that's the actual fuel cell, right?
• 44:37
  But then there's some wiring that goes to it.
• 44:40
  You're not 3D printing the wiring, but you're 3D printing
• 44:43
  everything that the wiring connects into.
• 44:46
  Is that an accurate way to think about it?
• 44:50
  Yes. So, so if you think of a
• 44:52
  traditional battery like a AA battery, even not not just
• 44:56
  talking about the batteries that go in your Tesla or whatever,
• 44:59
  think of a battery. There's that round part on the
• 45:01
  top that they call a current collector.
• 45:03
  They've actually eliminated that in addition.
• 45:05
  So what they do is they have what are called nano wires that
• 45:08
  turn the entire surface of the battery into a something that
• 45:11
  charges or discharges. So that's part of what allows
• 45:15
  them the shape freedom as well as these nanowires like we've
• 45:18
  gotten rid of, you know, there's no jumper.
• 45:20
  You don't hook the jumper cables onto the current collectors at
• 45:23
  the top. Yeah, it's the whole, the whole
• 45:25
  surface of it becomes that sort of charge and and and discharge
• 45:29
  available surface. So that also creates a lot of
• 45:33
  design freedom, which is really interesting, especially in these
• 45:36
  next Gen. spaces. So something like what you're
• 45:40
  describing and 3D printing in general, in my experience, is
• 45:43
  really great for prototyping. Do you see this being scalable?
• 45:50
  Can it not just be used to be like, OK, we're envisioning a
• 45:53
  new product, what would it be like if we constructed a battery
• 45:56
  of this shape and size and put it here?
• 45:57
  But OK, now we know that this is what we want.
• 46:00
  Now let's make 10,000 of them. Yes, yeah.
• 46:03
  So, so it is scalable. One of the things it's scalable
• 46:06
  in multiple ways. So I would say they can scale it
• 46:08
  up to produce if say someone needed 100,000 BAT battery packs
• 46:13
  or batteries that that is very possible.
• 46:16
  One of the other things that's interesting is although the
• 46:19
  first thing they printed was lithium ion, they're actually
• 46:21
  chemistry agnostic. So they can print any chemistry
• 46:24
  of battery. But what's even more interesting
• 46:27
  is they can test those those new chemistries really efficiently.
• 46:31
  So instead of having to build the facility to say do a sodium,
• 46:36
  you know, dry sodium cathode battery, or I'm not a battery
• 46:40
  chemistry expert, but there's all sorts of new ones that are
• 46:42
  coming out, they can just print that for you on their existing
• 46:46
  3D printer. So you can iterate battery
• 46:49
  chemistry much faster without having to, you know, have the
• 46:52
  capital expenditure of building out factories.
• 46:56
  Have you actually seen the the printing process?
• 46:58
  The manufacturing process. I have.
• 47:02
  Yeah. Yeah, we've.
• 47:03
  Seen fascinating to me. In in the lab, they're actually
• 47:07
  just got a new space and are are scaling in their initial lab was
• 47:14
  was outside of Austin. Their new lab is in Miami
• 47:18
  outside or yeah, in Miami. They just got a new warehouse.
• 47:22
  They're installing multiple printers there to sort of scale
• 47:25
  up for their first product, which will be coming out later
• 47:27
  this year, which they announced at CES in January.
• 47:30
  So these are, this is real. Some of the stuff sounds like
• 47:33
  sci-fi, but these are real things.
• 47:35
  They'll be in products by the end of the year, and they're
• 47:38
  currently in development with multiple partners for future
• 47:41
  products as well. OK.
• 47:43
  One more. Is there another interesting
• 47:45
  Portco that you're excited to talk about before we kind of
• 47:48
  move on to the next parts of our conversation?
• 47:50
  Yeah. This is fun stuff like.
• 47:52
  That it's. It's super fun about this stuff.
• 47:54
  Yeah, Yeah, there's a really amazing company we're very
• 47:58
  excited about, which is funny. Right before we stepped in the
• 48:01
  interview, I saw them announce that China had arrived at a
• 48:03
  world first breakthrough in this space where I'm like, this is
• 48:06
  very frustrating because this company Minutia is doing what
• 48:10
  they called this world first breakthrough out of China for
• 48:12
  the last two years. So there's a company called
• 48:15
  Minutia that we invested in very brilliant founding team founded
• 48:20
  by a, a, a very passionate set of Co founders who've been
• 48:23
  living over half the team has been living with type 1
• 48:27
  diabetes. So they wanted to really develop
• 48:29
  what they felt like was a viable cure.
• 48:32
  And the thing that they wanted in their bodies to deal with
• 48:34
  type 1 diabetes. So what they do is they take
• 48:36
  stem cells. Stem cells are very malleable.
• 48:39
  So you can create stem cells that basically mimic the healthy
• 48:42
  cells from your pancreas that create insulin in the body.
• 48:46
  So they can inject in your forearms these stem cells which
• 48:50
  are totally safe. They've been in in certain
• 48:54
  humans for two years in a small trial and your body just starts
• 48:58
  recreating insulin naturally again.
• 49:00
  So it's effectively a cure for type 1 diabetes in this non
• 49:04
  invasive outpatient procedure that they're currently
• 49:09
  developing. So they're going into their next
• 49:12
  accelerated trial soon, which will then be, you know, one step
• 49:17
  closer to market ready. So of course, you know, there's
• 49:20
  still probably a couple years out yet from the market.
• 49:23
  But the idea that, you know, we have basically technology that's
• 49:27
  been proven that's stable and safe that can cure type 1 and
• 49:32
  also eventually type 2 diabetes is amazing to me.
• 49:35
  And participating in something like that and helping someone
• 49:38
  realize that vision is what makes the work we're doing Ademo
• 49:41
  so rewarding. So let me see if I understand
• 49:43
  what exactly exactly it is that they're doing.
• 49:45
  They have figured out a way to reprogram stem cells in a very
• 49:50
  specific output so that when injected into somebody they just
• 49:55
  know to go and start producing insulin again.
• 49:58
  Which is the problem that type 1 diabetics have is that they
• 50:00
  don't have that capability naturally.
• 50:03
  Yes, that, that's exactly right. So they're able to basically
• 50:06
  replace or restore that sort of healthy function so that you can
• 50:11
  just make and regulate insulin naturally.
• 50:14
  And the other exciting thing about what minutia is doing
• 50:17
  that, you know, there's a couple other companies that are also on
• 50:19
  similar paths. They're they're a little further
• 50:21
  behind. Like I said, there was just this
• 50:24
  announcement about them doing this with stem cells in China is
• 50:27
  what Minutiae has is they have a nanotechnology built into those
• 50:30
  cells where they can use a very specific frequency of light to
• 50:34
  turn the cells off if there's a problem.
• 50:36
  So it's effectively a kill switch that they can turn off
• 50:40
  the stem cells and and basically sort of start over, reboot if
• 50:45
  they need to. That measure of safety is really
• 50:47
  important when you're dealing with something that can interact
• 50:49
  with the immune system of your body.
• 50:52
  So having that technology built in is honestly a game changer
• 50:55
  into something that the FDA is looking at regulating for all
• 50:58
  cell therapies, basically saying all cell therapies need to have
• 51:02
  this moving forward. But a lot of cell therapies have
• 51:05
  not even begun the development of this kind of safety measures.
• 51:08
  So the fact that minutiae has this or can potentially license
• 51:11
  it to other cell therapies as well is another reason why we're
• 51:14
  so. This could end up being even the
• 51:16
  bigger technology out of sort of the two.
• 51:18
  That's right, because it would apply to so many different use
• 51:21
  cases. And so how is the light actually
• 51:24
  applied? Is it like through the skin?
• 51:26
  Do you have to go in with a scope like under the?
• 51:28
  Skin, yeah, it's a through the skin.
• 51:31
  They have part of their technology as well as they have
• 51:34
  like these sort of unique shaped cells that make it easy to track
• 51:39
  where the stem cells are. So they they 99% of the time
• 51:43
  will just stay put. But what they have this way of
• 51:46
  tracking and identifying through these very unique shape cells.
• 51:51
  So once they find those cells, you just shine a very specific
• 51:54
  frequency of light. It's not something you would
• 51:56
  encounter in your everyday life. So there's no, it's not like
• 51:59
  you're going to be walking around with this and think
• 52:00
  you're cured and someone's going to shine a light to check your
• 52:03
  ID and it's your insulin. It's going to turn off.
• 52:07
  Yeah, exactly. So it's a very, very specific
• 52:09
  frequency. This is technology that's been
• 52:12
  developed and is being used in in other purposes and other
• 52:15
  applications as well. So yeah, you can just turn,
• 52:19
  basically communicate with the cells and tell them to turn off.
• 52:22
  So you guys are in a very enviable position there at
• 52:26
  Demos. You've got the respect of large
• 52:29
  brands, you know, big private equity and venture capital funds
• 52:33
  that know your work and know that you guys are the cheat code
• 52:37
  for, you know, a lot of these companies that they're investing
• 52:39
  in. You've got, you know, what'd you
• 52:42
  say, 1700 deals that you've looked at this year.
• 52:45
  You picked 4 like you you could sort of cherry pick the the best
• 52:49
  of the best. Where do you see this going?
• 52:52
  What is the future of demos look like?
• 52:55
  Yeah. So I think for us, the future
• 52:57
  really looks like building up, like I said, that studio model
• 53:00
  inside and then scaling up to, you know, our first fund had
• 53:04
  five companies. Our second fund will have 8
• 53:07
  companies where we wrote slightly bigger checks.
• 53:09
  Our next fund will probably be 25 companies that we're
• 53:13
  investing in. So being able to make a bigger
• 53:15
  impact by writing more checks, maybe being more involved, we're
• 53:20
  sort of evolving our model to potentially provide ongoing
• 53:23
  marketing and brand support to these start-ups as well.
• 53:25
  So not just a moment in time as they're getting started, but
• 53:28
  potentially through the relationship and as they grow.
• 53:31
  Yeah, just scaling the impact that we're making, doing more in
• 53:36
  these categories to help, you know, transform climate, AG,
• 53:40
  food and health faster than what we're doing.
• 53:43
  And ultimately, like you said, Zeus Jones is the B Corp.
• 53:45
  We've always felt like business should be a force for good in
• 53:49
  the world and can be an enormously powerful force for
• 53:52
  good in the world. So the fact that we can
• 53:54
  directly, more directly impact these startups, you know, that
• 53:58
  are solving diabetes or helping hospitals be safer, like the
• 54:02
  fact that we can make more of that kind of impact is really
• 54:05
  where the future is. Is there a reason that the
• 54:09
  services that you're providing to your port coast now are sort
• 54:12
  of like just at a moment in time and not ongoing?
• 54:15
  Is it just sort of a limitation either of your own resources or
• 54:19
  you know what the the startup company can afford?
• 54:22
  Yeah, part of it was a limitation of the economic
• 54:24
  model. So the only way it worked as
• 54:26
  part of the initial deal, you can afford our services.
• 54:29
  But now we've restructured the services in a way that I, I
• 54:32
  think they're afford more affordable in an ongoing way.
• 54:35
  And as companies mature through that cycle and they're unlocking
• 54:38
  bigger and bigger rounds will still be very efficient.
• 54:41
  I think it could be a sort of ongoing partner for these
• 54:45
  companies, both on the marketing and on the funding side.
• 54:48
  Eric, what is your superpower? I feel like my superpower is
• 54:57
  helping come up with innovative ideas that drive business.
• 55:01
  I feel like I've always been the person who can generate the
• 55:04
  ideas really quickly, which is why I've been an entrepreneur a
• 55:09
  lot through my life. And sort of after a while, after
• 55:13
  starting four or five companies, you start to get exhausted and
• 55:15
  you realize I would rather just support other people on their
• 55:18
  entrepreneurial journey. That's a lot of work.
• 55:20
  But even even in part of that journey, a lot of that is still
• 55:23
  generating these really innovative ideas for unlocking
• 55:26
  some of this growth and and future things as well.
• 55:29
  So I feel like idea generation and really innovative
• 55:32
  breakthrough idea generation has always been my superpower.
• 55:36
  But I think a lot of that is driven by curiosity.
• 55:39
  And what I would say is like just being curious and wanting
• 55:43
  to learn about all these new companies and technologies.
• 55:45
  Like, I didn't know anything about stem cells and nanotech,
• 55:48
  you know, four months ago, but having to learn all about all of
• 55:52
  that so that we could properly do diligence minutiae as we were
• 55:55
  investing. If if you can't lean into that
• 55:58
  and you're not fascinated by that, then this is the wrong
• 56:00
  industry for you because you're have to constantly be learning,
• 56:03
  constantly staying up with what's happening in culture,
• 56:06
  what's happening in these markets.
• 56:08
  And I think just being relentlessly curious and
• 56:11
  consuming podcasts and media and everything you can get your
• 56:14
  hands on is a really important part of staying at the forefront
• 56:20
  of what's happening at the bleeding edges of culture.
• 56:22
  Do you think people are just born either curious or not?
• 56:27
  Or do you think this is something that can be fostered
• 56:30
  and I'm asking as a parent? Yes, I, I, I think that it's
• 56:36
  part partly a personality trait, honestly, but I do think there's
• 56:41
  a lot of nurture built into that.
• 56:43
  I think it's the way our school system has evolved.
• 56:47
  I think maybe earlier and earlier educational models like
• 56:50
  a love of learning and lifelong learning was more often
• 56:54
  encouraged. And now we've kind of gotten
• 56:56
  maybe a little over obsessed with passing tests and meeting
• 56:59
  metrics. So then that makes that that
• 57:02
  personal drive or the role of a parent in fostering that
• 57:05
  lifelong love of learning and teaching people how to learn.
• 57:11
  I think that's even more critical if our education system
• 57:14
  isn't delivering that in the same way that it used to.
• 57:17
  Any advice either to parents or to employers or individuals who
• 57:23
  sort of say I I kind of want to coach this in myself or or those
• 57:26
  who are around me? I think people giving people and
• 57:31
  especially kids the time and space to go after what they're
• 57:34
  passionate about. I think one of the things that
• 57:36
  that I sometimes would get from my parents or people is like,
• 57:41
  are kids being told, for example, here's a good example,
• 57:43
  like a graphic novel isn't a book, so you can't read a
• 57:45
  graphic novel at school. I think any form of reading and
• 57:49
  a diverse set of reading across fiction, non fiction, all of
• 57:52
  that should be encouraged. Anytime a kid or an employee or
• 57:56
  someone is really passionate and leaning into something,
• 57:59
  understanding that that's, you know, engaging them in their
• 58:02
  whole self and their interests and their passions and pursuits
• 58:05
  and encouraging those things, be that outside of work and
• 58:08
  recognizing that that's a valuable thing they bring to
• 58:12
  work, you know, their their outside passions or the things
• 58:15
  that they're interested in digging into or diving into or
• 58:17
  learning more about at work. Encouraging those things, I
• 58:20
  think is vitally important. Quick fun personal story along
• 58:24
  these lines. I've got two young boys 9:00 and
• 58:26
  10:00 and we want them to read more and we're fine with it
• 58:29
  being a graphic novel. Great.
• 58:30
  Find the thing that you want and go for it.
• 58:33
  But we decided to give it an extra level of customization.
• 58:35
  So we worked on a ChatGPT prompt to where it will create a story
• 58:39
  for them based on characters that it gives.
• 58:42
  You know, the kids give it and we'll plug in sort of the grade
• 58:45
  level, you know that it should be at the approximate reading
• 58:47
  time and you know, 55 question quiz at the end.
• 58:51
  And so now the kids are are, you know, they're not just doing one
• 58:54
  story, they're sitting down and they're sort of building a
• 58:56
  series and a sequence and they're taking the same
• 58:58
  characters to the next place. And the Super proud dad moment,
• 59:02
  sorry, we're going to turn this back to you in a second, but the
• 59:04
  Super proud dad moment was when my youngest started going
• 59:07
  through and making these stories.
• 59:09
  And he's like, dad, I think I'd just rather go write my own
• 59:11
  story. Like it's not writing it the way
• 59:13
  that I want it. And I'm like, yes, that's even
• 59:15
  better. Go for it.
• 59:16
  And so he ran up to his room and he made a comic book.
• 59:19
  That's great. Yeah, Very cool.
• 59:22
  So we're talking about a lot of your successes, Eric, and
• 59:25
  there's been a lot of them. I mean, you guys have worked
• 59:26
  with some great brands. You've got a fantastic model
• 59:29
  with demos going. You get to, you know, pick from,
• 59:33
  you know, the the cream of the crop.
• 59:35
  But surely there have been challenges in your life that
• 59:38
  you've had to overcome. Probably, you know, some
• 59:40
  serious. I'd like to hear about one of
• 59:42
  those, how you got through it and what you learn coming out
• 59:46
  the other side. Yeah, I think, you know, we've
• 59:50
  sort of talked about my superpower was the idea
• 59:52
  generation when I was in the advertising environment, one of
• 59:56
  my early partners who I would go on, he was my creative partner
• 1:00:00
  in that environment. And like any partner in a
• 1:00:03
  relationship, people bring different skills and strengths
• 1:00:06
  to those relationships. So my skill was coming up with
• 1:00:09
  the ideas, and his skill was helping sort of shape the
• 1:00:12
  storytelling and the presentation of the idea.
• 1:00:15
  So because we have that relationship, I never really
• 1:00:17
  honed those kind of presentation skills, as you can imagine in my
• 1:00:21
  life now. When we moved to Zeus Jones,
• 1:00:24
  there was no hiding behind anyone else or any account
• 1:00:27
  people or anything like that to present ideas to clients or to
• 1:00:30
  pitch your ideas in meetings. And now I'm constantly pitching
• 1:00:34
  startups, pitching to potential investors that we want to come
• 1:00:37
  into the fund. I have to get them really
• 1:00:39
  excited about these startups and tell these stories in a very
• 1:00:42
  rich and engaging way. So while I was a very good sort
• 1:00:46
  of written, coming from a creative writing background,
• 1:00:49
  storyteller presentations were a real sort of pain, pain point
• 1:00:55
  and weakness for me. So in the early days of Zeus
• 1:00:58
  Jones, I would, you know, stumble or potentially fail in
• 1:01:02
  some of these meetings and presentations and just not live
• 1:01:05
  up to what I felt like was the potential of the idea.
• 1:01:09
  And I really struggled in those days to figure out how can I get
• 1:01:14
  better at this? And really just getting more,
• 1:01:18
  more wraps, getting very, very comfortable with the idea,
• 1:01:22
  learning how to really truly internalize the material so that
• 1:01:26
  you can present and pivot and be quick on your feet as people are
• 1:01:29
  asking questions and engaging you.
• 1:01:32
  And then sort of starting to master that, but then also
• 1:01:36
  helping other people as I had to mentor other creative people who
• 1:01:39
  were coming up in the organization who were struggling
• 1:01:41
  with the same issue. Figuring out, OK, I figured this
• 1:01:44
  out for myself. And I've gotten very good at
• 1:01:46
  this. I've had lots of exposure.
• 1:01:48
  I've presented at innovation conferences in front of massive
• 1:01:51
  audiences. I've done countless new business
• 1:01:54
  and client presentations. I pitched the the agency and
• 1:01:59
  ideas over and over again. How do I now translate this to
• 1:02:02
  this next generation of people? That was, I think, another
• 1:02:05
  challenge and another task of like, OK, it's one thing to
• 1:02:08
  figure out this out for yourself.
• 1:02:09
  Now, how do I teach this to someone else who might be
• 1:02:12
  struggling with in a similar issue, but struggling for
• 1:02:15
  different reasons? So part of the way that you
• 1:02:18
  figured it out was just more reps, right?
• 1:02:20
  You kept stubbing your toe and OK, that didn't work, let's try
• 1:02:23
  something else. But did you have any mentors,
• 1:02:26
  any courses that you took, any sort of resources that you went
• 1:02:29
  to to try to level up that that skill set?
• 1:02:33
  Yeah, I, I think listening to storytelling podcast, but then
• 1:02:37
  also reading things like, for example, the book Story by
• 1:02:40
  Robert McKee, you know, that's not about giving presentations.
• 1:02:44
  It's about compelling, how to create the most compelling
• 1:02:47
  screenplay. But even understanding in those
• 1:02:50
  situations, like how to create compelling dialogue and how to
• 1:02:53
  tell a really compelling story from one of the people who had
• 1:02:56
  really mastered that in in Hollywood.
• 1:02:59
  And a book that's considered the, even though that's not a
• 1:03:02
  marketing book. Once again, I think being
• 1:03:06
  curious and looking outside of your immediate area for some of
• 1:03:09
  those really interesting inspirations, I think things
• 1:03:13
  like that are great. One of the startup leaders CE OS
• 1:03:17
  we're working with just read Phil Knight's book about his
• 1:03:20
  coaching career in basketball and said it was by far the best
• 1:03:23
  business business book he's ever read.
• 1:03:26
  So I think looking at these adjacent spaces and taking.
• 1:03:29
  Bobby Knight. No.
• 1:03:31
  That would be the coach. Phil Knight is the Nike guy.
• 1:03:35
  Oh, sorry, Phil Jackson. Sorry, I misspoke.
• 1:03:39
  Phil Jackson. That it'd be Phil Jackson,
• 1:03:43
  famous obviously, of 90. Bulls and then the.
• 1:03:45
  Lakers and all that. So yeah, sorry, I misspoke.
• 1:03:48
  Phil Jackson, you're right. Phil Knight, shoe dog, Nike guy.
• 1:03:53
  Phil Jackson, basketball coach Phil Jackson's book.
• 1:03:58
  And I think you know that there are lots of that would be a very
• 1:04:02
  unconventional sort of CEO style as well.
• 1:04:05
  So I think there's something really interesting about the the
• 1:04:07
  energy that he brought to those teams.
• 1:04:11
  What's something you wish more people understood about your
• 1:04:13
  industry, Eric? You know, one of the things
• 1:04:17
  we're trying to do in demos is bring an unconventional set of
• 1:04:22
  investors into the fund. So a lot of the people we're
• 1:04:25
  bringing in our first time venture capital investors, we're
• 1:04:27
  sort of broadening, you know, the the demographics or the
• 1:04:32
  profile of the the typical venture capital investor.
• 1:04:36
  A lot of them are business or agency leaders, You know, people
• 1:04:40
  who have had successful business careers but want to continue to
• 1:04:43
  make an impact, want to be part of a community that's talking
• 1:04:46
  about all these things at the bleeding edge of culture and
• 1:04:49
  business. So I would like more people to
• 1:04:51
  understand that you can actually get, it's easier to get involved
• 1:04:54
  in venture capital than you think.
• 1:04:55
  It shouldn't be an exclusive club of West Coast very wealthy
• 1:04:59
  elites who are just enriching more West Coast elites.
• 1:05:02
  You know, it can be all sorts of people are involved.
• 1:05:06
  It's actually the best performing asset class of the
• 1:05:08
  last 20 years. So, you know, thinking about
• 1:05:11
  maybe moving a small part of your retirement or a part of
• 1:05:15
  your net worth into something like venture capital.
• 1:05:17
  And I think you can find there are lots of different venture
• 1:05:19
  capital companies. You can find one that's really
• 1:05:21
  values in line. You can find one that's
• 1:05:23
  investing in your local community if you want that.
• 1:05:25
  Or if you're passionate about climate and food and health
• 1:05:29
  transformation, you can find someone like us who's investing
• 1:05:31
  in those thematic spaces that are personal passion or maybe an
• 1:05:35
  interest area of yours. Well, that's a good question
• 1:05:40
  then. Like, how would people get in
• 1:05:42
  touch with you, follow your story, contact you?
• 1:05:45
  They're interested in either your services or, you know,
• 1:05:48
  they're interested in investing. Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  So you can reach out to me through the Demos website, which
• 1:05:54
  is Demos DMOS funds dot IO. That's our website where we're
• 1:05:59
  posting news about the new companies we're investing in.
• 1:06:02
  We also have a presence on LinkedIn or you can find me on
• 1:06:05
  LinkedIn where I'm constantly posting news of the companies
• 1:06:08
  that we're investing in, the work that we're doing for those
• 1:06:10
  companies and and all that good stuff.
• 1:06:14
  One more question for you, Eric, before I ask it, I'm going to
• 1:06:17
  invite everybody to go ahead and hit the follow button on their
• 1:06:19
  favorite podcast app. We've had a wonderful interview
• 1:06:21
  today with Eric Frost from Demos Ventures and I want you to get
• 1:06:26
  continue to get more great content like this.
• 1:06:29
  So last question for you, Eric, I, I'm curious to hear.
• 1:06:32
  We had a nice conversation here. I hope we stay in touch.
• 1:06:34
  Let's say we do. And a year from now you and I
• 1:06:37
  sit down 'cause you're celebrating something, you're
• 1:06:39
  very excited. What's that thing that you're
• 1:06:40
  celebrating? We're, we're, we're imminently
• 1:06:46
  looking at our, our first, what they call liquidity event, which
• 1:06:49
  means an exit from a fund one company.
• 1:06:52
  And that's really what you need to like show, you know, we have
• 1:06:55
  lots of on paper valuation increases.
• 1:06:59
  You know, we're tracking in the top 1% of funds for our very
• 1:07:02
  first fund. But really it's that return of
• 1:07:04
  capital to investors. That's, that's the rubber hits
• 1:07:07
  the road moment. So I, I think we'll be
• 1:07:09
  celebrating that within the next year.
• 1:07:11
  We have line of sight for one of those companies into, into a
• 1:07:14
  pending liquidity event. So very excited about that.
• 1:07:17
  Probably don't want to mention their name at this point I'm
• 1:07:19
  guessing. I I can't really say, but yeah,
• 1:07:23
  makes. Sense yeah and once that happens
• 1:07:27
  like you said that's sort of like proof of concept.
• 1:07:29
  I would think that funds start to flow a lot more freely your
• 1:07:34
  way because it's like, OK, we, we bought into the model up to
• 1:07:38
  this point, Eric, we see the value that you guys provide and
• 1:07:41
  now like they're dollars and cents.
• 1:07:43
  We can see it on paper too. Like we want, we want to be a
• 1:07:46
  part of this, right? That's, that's sort of the
• 1:07:47
  mindset of. That's exactly right.
• 1:07:50
  As soon as you do what you you said you were going to do, then
• 1:07:53
  people tell their friends about it and recommend you to other
• 1:07:56
  people. And you start to have my partner
• 1:08:00
  who's the financial guy who has the fund management experience,
• 1:08:03
  has gone through this process. And he's like, we'll get to the
• 1:08:05
  point where people are coming to us saying, you know, I really
• 1:08:09
  want to invest. And that's after generally
• 1:08:12
  you've delivered that value back to your existing investors.
• 1:08:15
  Makes a lot of sense. Well, Eric Frost from Demos, I
• 1:08:18
  want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your
• 1:08:20
  time and your story with us today.
• 1:08:22
  I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you very much.
• 1:08:24
  I really enjoyed the conversation.
• 1:08:26
  Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
• 1:08:29
  podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:08:30
  today.