Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Screaming baby to 300M downloads: The Dwellspring story

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Screaming baby to 300M downloads: The Dwellspring story · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
Hey everyone. Ryan Estes here with another
0:02
episode of AI for Founders. And today's guest is Brandon
0:05
Reed, the creator of what might be the most successful podcast
0:08
you've never heard someone actually talk on.
0:11
It all started with a screaming baby and a sleep deprived dad.
0:15
Brandon couldn't find a decent white noise file online, so we
0:18
created 12 straight hours of brown noise uploaded as a
0:22
podcast. And boom, 300 million downloads
0:25
later, he's the founder of Dwellspring, a mobile app and
0:28
sound platform helping over 1.3 million people sleep, focus, and
0:33
chill out every week. What began as a utility became a
0:36
juggernaut. In this episode, we talked
0:38
productizing an audience, finding residents through audio,
0:42
why taste matters more than algorithms, and how to bootstrap
0:46
a sound empire from your kids nursery.
0:48
And hey, if you want to try the Dwell Spring app, Brandon's
0:51
offering our listeners an extra free month.
0:53
Just use promo code founders in the app to unlock it.
0:57
This one's a blanket for your brain.
0:58
Let's get into it. But first, some business.
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Be reezy. So, so glad to have you on the
2:52
show today. Thanks, Ryan.
2:54
Good to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to talk to
2:57
you. You know, there was, it was full
2:59
of discovery, doing research on you.
3:00
And I pride myself in my introduction.
3:04
So I I want to give you the proper introduction and what
3:07
it'll just go something like this.
3:12
Perfect, man, that's perfect. Oh, that.
3:15
I need no further introduction. Yeah.
3:19
Yeah, I'm so excited. For context, tell us about Dwell
3:24
Spring. Yeah.
3:25
So this whole thing started, you know, my oldest son is 6 now,
3:30
and it started when he was a baby, so six years ago.
3:33
And he was not sleeping. And I couldn't find anything
3:36
online that was producing sounds that were long enough for a baby
3:41
to sleep to that didn't have, like, looping and fading and
3:44
other interruptions that would wake him up.
3:45
And so I just created 12 straight hours of a what's
3:49
called brown noise. It's like white noise, but it's
3:52
like deeper, fuller, different kind of noise color.
3:55
And I posted it as a podcast. Long, long story.
3:58
But basically there was no file limit on podcast uploads, but
4:01
there was on music uploads and I needed in the cloud to access
4:04
from like the smart home routine from my kids nursery.
4:06
So I was like, whatever, I'll upload it as a podcast.
4:08
And it just really took off very organically from there.
4:12
I posted brown, then white, then pink, like different tones and
4:15
frequencies of of noise that people sleep to study, to
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meditate to. A lot of people made it their
4:20
anxiety, use it for ADHD and neurodivergent things.
4:23
And so it was really organic from the beginning, grew very
4:26
quickly. I was working at Disney at the
4:29
time in technology and did that full time.
4:32
And this was on the side. And as it grew and grew, I
4:34
figured over time I really realized that, man, I get to
4:38
treat this like a business and pay attention to it like that.
4:41
Treat my audience like they're, you know, a valuable group of
4:44
people that can really turn this thing into, into a product and a
4:47
business. So I started doing that more
4:49
seriously about 2 1/2 years ago or so.
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I left Disney, built and turned that brand.
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That podcast was called 12 Hour Sound Machines.
4:58
I literally named it one sleep deprived night as I was holding
5:00
my screaming son. And it was never really meant to
5:03
be a brand. And as I treated it more like a
5:06
business and grew it like a business, I thought, all right,
5:08
what? What is this brand that the
5:10
podcast and then these other digital products that I'm going
5:13
to create, what are they going to sit under?
5:15
Dwell Spring is what came out of that.
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Dwell Spring is now the umbrella brand that holds the podcast,
5:20
have a couple other things, a Roku apps and Alexa skills, and
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then the mobile app, which is the cornerstone of the business
5:25
now moving forward. And my focus, even though all
5:28
three others are very much still going and, and living and that
5:31
the podcast, sorry, the app bears the name of the company.
5:34
It's Dwell Spring as well. And that's where we're off and
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rolling to now. Unbelievable.
5:39
There's so many things about this that I love.
5:41
You know, as a podcast guy, I love to see podcasts that are
5:45
successful. You know, I love novelty.
5:48
Like my dream is just to is to reinvent the Chia Pet.
5:51
Or the tenor. Yeah, that's right.
5:53
You know what I mean? Like, I, I mean, I like serious
5:57
business. Great, great, great.
5:59
But like a silly business, even better.
6:02
It's it's so cool. So the novelty of this is
6:05
incredible in, you know. I would even use the word Ryan,
6:09
you were even more the novelty. What I found this business to be
6:13
is a utility, it's a tool. It's something that people have
6:16
used as a legit. And that's what's so weird is a
6:18
podcast. It's not really a podcast.
6:19
It's just it's a tool. It's an end.
6:21
It's people who are at a hotel like shoot, we forgot our white
6:24
noise machine and our baby doesn't sleep without 1.
6:26
So they just Google like, Oh my gosh.
6:28
And then they they run across my podcast.
6:30
My podcast is about to hit 300 million total downloads.
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It reaches 1.3 million people every week.
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And like that it's a, it's a juggernaut in and of itself.
6:39
And then Dwell Spring really was my attempt to build something
6:42
that was more sustainable, that I owned the experience more end
6:45
to end, could build a more effective tool because I'd own
6:48
my audience, own the experience. What I don't on the podcast
6:51
really. And then use the momentum of the
6:54
podcast as a megaphone to point to that and say like, hey, if
6:58
you if this, if this content is helpful, you can also go over
7:01
here. So that's what I've used at US.
7:02
Yeah. Amazing.
7:04
Plus it's, it's so smart as a founder, it's like you build the
7:08
audience first and then once you, you, you know what they
7:12
want, then you're able to deliver them products in
7:14
different ways and test it, you know, but once you have the
7:17
audience, I mean, that's the crucial thing.
7:18
There's so many tools. I talk to a lot of people all
7:21
the time that don't have any distribution and it's like,
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dude, you, you built the best thing in the world in your, in
7:26
your closet, you know, like it has to enter the world.
7:30
A lot of people really struggle with, you know, they bring it to
7:32
the goal, but they don't get the distribution to punch it into
7:35
the end zone, you know, But if you really start with the
7:38
distribution first, which is something I'm focused on, you
7:41
know, using building fun little tools just to see if it catches
7:44
fire. Because if you have a tool and
7:47
people are using it, you can always add a login, you can
7:49
always add a subscription, You can always.
7:51
There's a many ways to to monetize a tool, but first you
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have to have the. Audience and I actually had to I
7:57
had to answer the question really early on, Ryan with this
8:00
with the podcast of is this podcast to your point is this
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podcast my business or is this podcast the audience to my
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business like what is this thing and I ultimately decided for
8:11
lots of reasons we don't have time to go into it's the
8:13
audience to my business and that's the one then I decided my
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experience and background with Disney is in mobile app
8:18
development is in building mobile apps and this thing and
8:20
what it is should have always really been a mobile app all
8:23
along. So that was a natural fit.
8:24
So I built that and then use and said, all right, well the
8:27
audience is what I've built. That's the rare thing that's the
8:29
hard thing. If I have that, how can I point
8:31
them to something that's ultimately more profitable and
8:33
then more valuable for the user? So, yeah.
8:37
Yeah. So let's talk about that, that
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explosive growth early on. What what triggered that?
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Did you get picked up by a news source?
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Was it APR thing? How did that?
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How did people find out about the podcast?
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Through anecdotal evidence over years, I have pretty much cludes
8:52
together like, OK, I think this is what went on, what happened?
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Because really that I have no actual like data, informed
8:58
evidence of like, whoa, this will have.
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I don't have somebody that picked me up earlier.
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Some celebrities like this thing's really helpful.
9:05
Really what happened, I think ultimately is that early on if
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if you get, if you remember back in 2018-2019, Spotify was buying
9:16
podcasting. Like they were just buying
9:18
everything and podcasting and they were like trying to, you
9:21
know, own the space. And as they were doing that,
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they were pointing a lot of people in the algorithm towards
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podcasts. And I think there was a variety
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of things, a number of things that oddly like the way I titled
9:33
my the content. So, so basically and plainly
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and, and, and hopefully the way the tool just solved people's
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problems, no fluff about it. It just solved the problem.
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It helped people sleep, it helped people study, help people
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meditate. That combined with, I think on
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Spotify in particular, the algorithm pointing towards
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podcasts, this space in music was already very big, was like
9:55
this ambient tones, ambient sounds in my music.
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So as people were searching for things like that, I think I got
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a lot of algorithm love early. And so I got I got a lot of
10:04
that. There was a natural.
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And then at some point the snowball becomes large enough to
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spin on its own. And that's when I started saying
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like, OK, this isn't just like an accident anymore.
10:13
There's an actual thing happening here.
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It's not just algorithm love. This is a real thing that's
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happening. People are really sharing this.
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I mean, it's in, it's in like 143 countries.
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It's used in like 143 countries. It's in the top 1% of all
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podcasts in the world shared globally.
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Lot of people share it and that's when I started really
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focusing on it and saying, OK, it's a thing in and of itself
10:35
and we can really grow this thing from here.
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Unbelievable. Do you have a Spanish version
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for Spanish speaking people? I do.
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We did the first probably maybe 25 episodes.
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And obviously, no, I don't know if that was a joke because yeah,
10:49
it's it just sounds. It was, but I realized.
10:51
So yeah, it's a joke because yeah, no, like it's not like
10:55
it's like a different language, but the all the metadata is in
11:00
Spanish, Spanish. And I did that for like 25
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episodes of CI, like, all right. Is this elsewhere?
11:03
I've tried a couple. I did 12 hour sound machines to
11:05
calm your anxious dog, like to try to do the same sounds but in
11:09
a different niche. And nothing's really taken off.
11:11
Those things are still alive out there.
11:12
But no, I did have a Spanish Spanish version but no different
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sounds. Man, I, I'm telling you like I
11:20
am really pleased. I mean, we known each other for
11:22
some time and I didn't realize you were this.
11:24
Kind it's just funny, man. It doesn't matter what
11:26
conference I go to because sleep is universal anxiety is
11:30
universal, stress is universal. And so I'll go to it doesn't
11:33
matter where I go it inevitably when I run into anybody of
11:37
people, new people to introduce myself and they're and you know,
11:39
we're in a professional environment where then I have to
11:41
and then I talk about my job and I'm like, well, in this podcast,
11:43
it's 12 or sound machines. People are like, dude, I slept
11:46
to you last night. Like it happens all the time.
11:49
It's so many people, 1.3 million people every week.
11:52
It's just like if you're in a room of people, it, it really is
11:55
crazy. People know the show and that's
11:57
crazy. Well, in the the time spent too.
12:01
I mean, that might be the brilliant part too, that like
12:03
you, you throw in your your air pods or you throw it on your
12:06
your bed stand and it 6-7 hours a night.
12:09
It's all right. I have.
12:10
My data shows that at at six hours, I still have 80% of
12:14
people and at 10 hours I still have, I still have 25% of people
12:18
at 10 hours. So it's crazy.
12:20
Estimate to the efficacy. That's right.
12:23
You know, incredible, you know, and, and to your point, it is,
12:26
it's true. Like I have a collection of
12:29
idols and I'm fascinated with this kind of like, you know,
12:32
prehistoric medicine idols because the fact of the matter
12:38
is, is humans needs don't change and never will.
12:42
So like the things that were really important to people, they
12:44
would make little gods about. So do you like fertility gods
12:47
for women or fertility gods for men that looked a little bit
12:50
different physically, you know, or they had, they wanted to grow
12:54
more hair or they wanted to lose or gain weight and they made all
12:57
these like little gods like, and this is true of humans all over
13:00
the globe. So I have that as an inspiration
13:03
'cause I'm always like, if you're developing a product, tap
13:06
into a primary need that people need all the time.
13:09
And if you thinking about needs like sleep is gotta be primary,
13:13
you know, it's like it's like air, water sleep, you know.
13:17
Yeah, and and you know, there's so many things out there now
13:20
with sleep where people, it's so hard to sift through what is
13:24
real as far as like, man, if you're not getting it 8 hours,
13:26
you're 50% as effective. And it's hard when you're living
13:29
your life and you, you have young kids or you're starting a
13:31
business or you're moving jobs across the country and it's hard
13:34
to match that with what's real life.
13:37
It's like, well, listen, I only have time for 5 1/2 hours right
13:39
now and I'm living like I know I'm not.
13:42
I know I'm tired every day, but like I'm figuring this out.
13:43
I have my caffeine routine, I have whatever.
13:45
So it's hard to sometimes match that with.
13:47
But when you when you find a sound that works and it helps
13:51
you sleep the the the beauty about this.
13:53
There's a lot of really awesome things about the simplicity of
13:56
this product, But one of the things I've found that I love
13:58
about it so much is that it it I don't have to sell it like it.
14:02
If it works for you, man, do you cannot.
14:06
People will pay me if I threaten to take it or people are like,
14:08
don't take this away from me. Like there's it's it.
14:12
But there is a moment. And actually, we're, we're
14:14
testing, we're AB testing this in my app right now to
14:16
understand what this actually the number is like the day
14:19
number is, but there's a point at which it becomes like, Oh,
14:22
this is cool, cool. I find this pleasant to listen
14:23
to to. Oh, this is useful and helpful.
14:26
This actually does help me sleep a little better to like, don't
14:28
you dare take this away from me. I can't live without it.
14:30
Now. It's a habit.
14:32
It switches from a like a nice and a luxury to a habit to
14:35
something I have to have. And to your point, it just, it
14:38
solves the need and, and when you, when you solve the need and
14:40
sleep, which is something so basic, whether you believe, you
14:44
know, and, and there's tons of absolutely sound scientific
14:46
evidence out that it says more sleep you have, the better you
14:49
do and the better your brain functions.
14:50
But whether, whether you can connect that to your real life
14:53
or not, if you just listen to the sound and it helps you sleep
14:55
longer, helps you sleep deeper, helps you sleep less
14:58
interrupted, you're going to feel that.
15:00
And you don't have to like, read some study you believe, you will
15:03
just feel it and know it, and then yeah, it'll be true.
15:07
Well, as far as like the the connection between sonics and
15:10
sleep and quality of sleep, you have to have one of the biggest
15:13
data sets on planet Earth maybe. I mean it's.
15:16
Crazy like what are what are the hits like what what do people
15:19
like most? Do they switch?
15:21
Do they have a mix tape? They got a weekend?
15:23
It's like sleep mix tape or. How are people using it?
15:26
No, it's a great question. The definitely the more people
15:32
find a sound that works for them and that's what they stick to.
15:34
They will try a lot. I'll see a couple weeks.
15:37
We have way more data and visibility into the app.
15:39
And so as I see app usage and we get my analytics better and
15:43
better over there, I see people trying, trying, trying.
15:45
When they find one they like, they generally stick to it.
15:48
When I release new things, if it's in the same category, like
15:50
if they love their like their a crackling fireplace with with a
15:54
thunderstorm, it really hits for them and they listen to that
15:57
nonstop. If I come out with something
15:58
else that has to do with fire, something else has to do with
16:01
Thunder, they'll try it, but they stick to that kind of
16:03
general thing that works for them.
16:05
The thing that works the most for the most people by far is
16:08
noise Colors. That is far and away my most
16:11
listen to set of sounds. And then within that there's a
16:16
clear winner of brown noise. Every night on my podcast, about
16:20
210,000 people listen to brown noise, just just brown noise on
16:25
my podcast. And so it's incredibly popular.
16:28
It really so I call I call brown noise.
16:30
Have you ever, have you ever put headphones in your ears, Ryan
16:33
and turned on brown noise? Have you ever done that?
16:36
Yes. OK, so you've used brown nose
16:38
before. Like you, you you know what it
16:39
is OK, so it for people that haven't, it's really hard to
16:42
explain unless you do It's like, OK, I I could see how that would
16:45
be pleasant, like a nice constant tone that's like a but
16:48
until you do it, you don't understand.
16:50
And the best way I can get it across is it's like a blanket
16:53
for your brain. That's what I say.
16:55
It's like this one. It's a it feels like home.
16:57
It feels calm, it hones you and it centers you and it can help
17:02
really fix your mind in or I also call it a fidget toy for
17:05
your ears because what it does is allows this passive
17:08
activation through sound to allow you to hone into whatever
17:12
you're trying to do. I work to it all day long.
17:13
I have it turned off right now so it doesn't go into my
17:15
microphone, but I have I work to it all day long.
17:18
I sleep to it so it helps me sleep, but it also helps me
17:20
focus and study this blanket that just covers me and I hear
17:23
that all the time from people with anxiety disorders as well
17:26
as ADHD with autism. Brown noise is a savior because
17:29
it provides that comfort, that blanket, that calm in whatever
17:33
chaos you're in, whether that's a busy work environment or
17:36
you're in a noisy hotel with noisy neighbors.
17:38
It helps in so many situations. And so to answer your question,
17:41
though in a roundabout way, noise colors and then even
17:44
within noise colors, brown noise.
17:46
So cool. You know, I I used I don't sleep
17:50
with it. I've recommended it to my wife
17:53
because her favorite sleep noise is freaking forensic files.
17:59
You're 20 years, so you're. My dude.
18:01
Psychopath. Got it.
18:01
Got it. Yeah, it's.
18:03
Like rape and murder story right by my I have developed a skill
18:08
that I can completely completely tune.
18:10
I don't hear it at all, but I, I was a couple years ago and I, I
18:14
brought the app and I was like, baby, just try this.
18:18
But she found her thing and that's.
18:19
You're still waking up to and the body parts were scattered
18:22
all over the field and you're like, whatever, Yeah.
18:25
Yeah, the when I've used brown noises to calibrate recording
18:30
studios because it, it's, it's basically the entire spectrum
18:35
of, of human sound from 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz all present at
18:39
the same time. So you can kind of and I'm sure
18:41
there's different ways you can mix like the the spectrum there.
18:46
Do you get into that at all? Are you actually effectively
18:48
saying like, you know what, it actually needs a little more
18:50
mids, it needs a little bit of delay or?
18:53
Yeah, I know it's a it's a great question because you know, what
18:56
I found with this in particular is that I I've asked a lot of
18:59
questions about the early success of this product and why
19:02
that yes, it could be the algorithm of yes, it could be
19:04
like the timing of things could be the way I named my product, I
19:06
think. But I think the the thing that
19:09
probably is tribute to the most is that I know this sounds silly
19:12
because like brown noise is like brown noise is like my brown is
19:16
just like anybody's brown noise. And to degree of that, there's a
19:19
degree of truth there and that like, you know, noise color is
19:21
noise color. But brown, pink, white, green,
19:25
Violet, those things are in actual scientific terms, those
19:27
are just generally people call white noise something that
19:30
sounds higher, staticky like TV static.
19:32
Brown noise sounds a little deeper and my brown noise sounds
19:35
different than someone elses brown noise even though it's in
19:37
the same spectrum and feels somewhat the same.
19:39
But there is something that I, I, I can't tell you, man, I
19:42
probably get a dozen comments a day about I have tried every
19:47
brown, I've tried everything. This is the only brown noise
19:49
that works for me. And as I was explaining that to
19:51
somebody at one point, someone was, someone told me, you know,
19:54
I think we really under underestimate and underrate a
19:57
taste in entrepreneurship and in building a business.
20:01
I think that taste matters for a lot.
20:03
And I think that I think that for, and I'm not like
20:06
attributing myself as like someone with this great taste
20:08
with brown noise. I'm just saying for whatever
20:10
reason, my ear, my taste, because I just tuned it, man.
20:13
I was just for my kid. Like I just tuned it to what?
20:15
Felt pleasant to me. He's like, uh yeah, Cooper
20:17
probably gonna sleep good to that.
20:19
And like, something about the way my taste worked for my ear
20:22
works on a really big scale for whatever reason.
20:25
So I went with that vibe for every one of my noise colors,
20:28
you know, babbling brook in a peaceful forest.
20:31
That's one thing. There's some taste.
20:32
There's like how many birds to have versus how loud the stream
20:34
should be versus. But in noise colors, there's
20:37
just an infinite amount of variation there to all your
20:40
points. And so there really is AII
20:43
literally I went into my software and I just, yeah, I
20:46
pulled this here, I dropped this here, I lengthened this here.
20:49
And I was like, that's no, that sounds good.
20:52
And like that's, that's, that's how I did that.
20:54
And, and it seems to resonate with a lot of people.
20:57
And so I think that there's something to be learned there or
20:59
with with taste, I think that if you can find an area that you
21:02
have resonant taste in, like taste that resonates at scale,
21:08
that that's not something to be like that you should be paying
21:10
attention to that and using that to guide the product
21:12
development, I think. Are you worried that like Kanye
21:16
West is going to drop Brown noise?
21:18
Brown noise. No, no, I'm not worried about
21:21
Kanye. Not easy.
21:23
Easy. Just stay out of this space.
21:25
That's right. Cool.
21:27
It's also really interesting kind of the synesthetic
21:30
attribute of this. You're talking about noise
21:32
colors and you're describing it as a blanket and the feeling
21:36
like it maybe there is something about just kind of like the
21:39
neutral sound quality that allows your brains to it pulls
21:43
other sensory images into it. Why is it brown?
21:46
Well, it just has a brown vibe. Is it is it Violet?
21:50
It has that Violet vibe. I don't know what to say, but
21:52
but like this, when people kind of experience synesthesia,
21:55
usually it's in kind of higher consciousness times when the,
21:59
you know, different kind of abstract connections are being
22:02
made with the brain. Now I know there's a also a big,
22:05
I don't want to say healing component, but like you're doing
22:08
other things. Like binaural beats to me have
22:10
always been super fascinating. I don't know why.
22:13
It's kind of like if someone plays like the the the glass
22:16
bowls, it's just like tones and sounds have like a a big
22:20
attraction. How are those things being
22:23
received on the app? Yeah.
22:24
Good. Really.
22:24
Well, what we do with the binaural beats in the app is we
22:27
just essentially allow you to take there's these groups of
22:30
wavelengths, Theta, delta, beta, alpha, gamma.
22:32
And you can within that there's usually a spectrum of like 1:00
22:36
to 8:00 or so different frequencies of sound that will
22:39
kind of allow you to choose from and see what you like best.
22:41
A lot of people will use our like our custom sound machine
22:43
mixer that we have in the app that you can layer sounds and
22:46
other mixes and then you can grab a binaural beat that you
22:48
created and put it in there too. And binaural beats, without
22:50
getting into all the science, essentially it tricks your,
22:53
well, tricks is the wrong word, but it tells your brain, your
22:56
brain every thought has a wavelength, has an actual like
23:00
OK, when you're scared, that is emitting that wavelength from
23:04
your brain. If you were to hook yourself up
23:05
to the Wunder machine and see. And So what it does is it pumps
23:09
left and right channel 1 frequency into one and one
23:12
frequency into the other. And they're dissonant.
23:14
Well, maybe even dissonant is the wrong word, but different
23:16
frequencies. Say we do 4IN my right ear and,
23:19
and, and eight in my left ear. The difference between those two
23:22
things is 4 right, eight and four.
23:24
And you fight and you target the brain state that you're looking
23:28
for, let's say. So 4 is actually very low.
23:30
So that's a good it's in the delta if I'm thinking right.
23:33
And that's a good state to target for, for sleep.
23:37
And so if you're trying to have your brain emit a wavelength of
23:40
four Hertz, you will put 8 in your left ear, 4 in your right
23:44
ear, and your brain makes up that difference and starts
23:46
emitting what's needed to make up that difference.
23:49
And that is the most rudimentary terrible I that's explanation.
23:53
But in, in practice, in, in theory that that is what's going
23:57
on. And so we will do that, right?
23:59
We, and we will say, all right here, do you want 12, 12 Hertz?
24:04
And then we create the frequency in the left, frequency in the
24:07
right, build that beat for you. And then you can put that into
24:10
whatever other mix you have. And people love it.
24:12
People mostly use it for sleep, but I'd say the second most used
24:16
for for that is for like you can enhance creativity, focus,
24:19
memory retention. And we have a lot of students
24:22
that use binaural beats as they study.
24:25
Yeah, and for some reason it's just really pleasing.
24:27
Yeah, it's super depend. You can make it very non
24:30
pleasing if you get down into the nitty gritty of how all the
24:32
dials you can turn to make a boneural beat.
24:34
What it is, it can be like the the wavelengths can be very high
24:38
if you'd be like really fast and almost disconcerting.
24:42
But there's ways to make them very pleasant.
24:43
Yeah. Yeah, it, it reminds me, there's
24:47
this like pretty challenging record called Bitch's Brew by
24:50
Miles Davis. It's kind of like a it's like
24:52
more avant-garde type stuff when he was older.
24:55
But he what he's doing is he has a big delay on his horn.
24:59
So when he'll play these whole notes and what he would do is he
25:02
would stretch the note like that.
25:04
So it would create in a sense that that, that whoa, whoa,
25:07
whoa, whoa feeling. It was the first time I'd ever
25:09
heard that. And for whatever reason, I just
25:12
loved it. And I was like, dude, this is so
25:13
cool. And then I was turned on to the
25:17
the binaural beats from this machine called the Voyager.
25:20
They're it's like a light machine with binaural beats.
25:22
Have you ever done? One of those.
25:25
Oh my. God, light machines.
25:27
Yeah, light machines. They're glasses that are opaque
25:30
that have like maybe a cluster of LEDs on both.
25:33
And they're just like red LE DS and they they strobe in
25:36
different patterns. But what happens is when you put
25:39
the glasses on and you close your eyes and then it's it's to
25:42
the beats. Interesting it.
25:44
Creates this psychedelic completely.
25:47
Wise, yeah. Being super trippy, yeah.
25:49
Wow. Yeah, it's, it's wild.
25:51
So I remember finding that thing and then finding like binaural
25:54
beats and just like, and just being curious if like why?
25:57
Why is this pleasing to me? But it is.
25:58
Yeah, yeah. And and even to sit with
26:00
binaural beats you especially if tuned right, you're you don't
26:04
notice that you're not like, whoa, that's really high in my
26:07
right here. That's really low in my left.
26:08
You're not, this is an indetectable thing and
26:10
indiscernible thing, but you're excuse me, your brain picks up
26:13
on it and and and it really, and that so it's something that just
26:16
like, and you can hide, like we'll put you can hide binaural
26:19
beats. A lot of people hide binaural
26:20
beats behind like sleep music. It's a tone.
26:22
It's you're not hearing any want, want, want.
26:24
You're not hearing, but your brain is, it's picking up on the
26:27
distance of frequency between ears.
26:29
And yeah, it's a fascinating and there's absolutely, you know,
26:32
you can read up on your own on the science on it, and it's
26:34
really compelling and really interesting to hear the results
26:36
people have had. Yeah.
26:39
Let's talk about productizing the audience and and how you
26:42
decided to to rebrand one, what kind of tool you were going to
26:46
use and then how ultimately you're going to generate revenue
26:49
with the tool. Yeah, with the app in
26:50
particular, yeah, so man, I, I remember went to a conference
26:58
and, you know, I have three young kids, three kids under 6.
27:00
And so time away at like conferences is like so important
27:03
because I can actually do actual deep work.
27:06
And so I remember just filling my hotel room, like all four
27:10
walls anywhere that a post it note could stick to mirrors and
27:12
other flight services. I was sticking post notes and
27:14
trying to brainstorm what is this thing?
27:17
Like, what is next? I'd already answered the
27:19
question of it's the it's the audience to my business, not my
27:22
business. OK, like, great.
27:24
But like, where the hell does that land me?
27:27
And what and how dual spring came out of that is a is a is a
27:30
lot of thought and a lot of process.
27:32
But the easiest way to answer how it ended up as an app was
27:35
like that was where Mike's well, it is that that content makes
27:38
most sense as a mobile app. And just serendipitously, that
27:40
was also the bet. My background and experience was
27:42
in mobile app development. So I knew how to build a world
27:45
class digital product. You know, we I built for Disney
27:48
parks and resorts for years. We had over a million daily
27:51
active users on that app. I mean, as a world class
27:53
application, as anybody who's used Disney digital products
27:55
knows. So I knew how to do that, but
27:58
needed to to, to make, to give this content to users in a way.
28:03
Yeah, that was compelling and that was valuable for them and
28:08
profitable for me in the business and ultimately just
28:12
took my content that I had on the app or sorry I had in the
28:15
podcast, put it into the app and then allowed them to do more
28:18
with it built. It's just it's an enhanced
28:21
increased functionality. Obviously you can play it
28:22
indefinitely. It's not limited to 12 hours
28:24
like the podcast. There's number of things you can
28:26
create binaural beats, you can create your own noise colors,
28:28
adjust frequencies to find things that are just right and
28:30
then mix all your own. There's a community aspect to
28:33
it. You can post on the creator
28:34
exchange, we call it. You can post a custom mixes that
28:37
you build. People can comment on it, like
28:39
it, follow creators who are posting mixes and get notified
28:42
when they post. There's a community aspect to
28:44
it. But ultimately, yeah, it should
28:47
have always really been an app all along.
28:48
And I knew how to build mobile apps.
28:50
And so that was the direction I I took with that in particular.
28:55
And then what's the business model?
28:56
Is it subscription for the app? So here's for the app you can
28:58
subscribe in for the podcast for like an ad free intro free feed.
29:02
It's just the sound. You lose the intro.
29:04
I'm like, welcome to 12 hour sound machines and you lose the
29:07
I I don't do any ads in the podcast other than pre pre roll,
29:11
which means like right at the beginning.
29:12
So I'll do my intro. There's an ad slot and then it's
29:15
12 hours of uninterrupted sound that you can sleep to or
29:17
whatever. But there's an ad free intro
29:20
free version. But then the pot, the app is,
29:22
yeah, it's a, it's a monthly or an annual subscription.
29:25
And then you get access to, to all the features in the app.
29:28
And then my next step of real focus for me is a business in
29:32
2025 into 26 is going to be B to B relationships and trying to
29:36
understand how do I take this content that has resonated on a
29:39
worldwide scale at a really incredible level and productize
29:43
my back catalog as a product in and of itself.
29:47
How do I take my content that's very valuable and inject it into
29:52
other companies with a larger distribution network that
29:55
already have an existing digital experience, but don't have the
29:58
content that I do that their users and customers would want.
30:02
So like, how do I should be, dude, I should be on the back of
30:04
every Delta seat because those customers are sitting there baby
30:08
screaming behind them. They have an existing digital
30:10
experience right there on the in the in flight digital
30:13
experience. And there should be an
30:15
opportunity for people to go to and listen to a dwell string
30:18
sound machine right now that right there that masks out other
30:20
sounds and helps them sleep. I want to get into hotel rooms
30:24
where there there's whole idea of sleep tourism in these chains
30:27
or they're putting like blackout curtains in, they're putting
30:30
lavender diffusers in and a dwell string sound machine like
30:34
the opportunity for people to block out sounds around them,
30:37
bring sounds that they have at home.
30:39
One thing the app does is you can actually record sounds
30:41
around you and add them into your mix.
30:44
So like if you sleep next to an air conditioner that like
30:47
rattles a certain way that you sleep to every night, you can
30:49
grab that, record it as a sample, put it into your mix,
30:52
and then it loops out and and you can like take that with you.
30:56
And that's really comforting for people as they travel in
30:58
particular. So how do I as a business,
31:01
productize my back catalog and sell that to existing digital
31:04
experiences to say, Hey, here's 300 sound machines that like,
31:07
you know, 300 million downloads later have really resonated
31:11
well. And that could be helpful for
31:13
your audience because our target audiences overlap.
31:17
Brilliant podcast, pivoted to video really hard.
31:20
Is there Is there visual components?
31:21
As well, there's not visual components.
31:23
We do post on YouTube just as an RSS drop, but like it.
31:27
It's just the thumbnail. We don't have a video component
31:29
to it at all with that podcast. Is there any plans to is there?
31:34
Would it take something away? Yeah.
31:36
Well, that's a really good question.
31:37
That's the I haven't, I haven't not done, we haven't not done
31:42
video because the answer to that question is we think is yes.
31:44
I so I haven't like come to that conclusion, but no, there's some
31:49
really, you know, there's, this is on YouTube in particular.
31:52
This is a huge space, man. It's been for a long time.
31:54
Yeah, I I was coincidentally like one of the first podcast,
31:57
if not the first podcast to do just what I'm doing when this
32:00
all started happening. Now there's a lot of podcasts
32:02
that do this, but, but way before the podcast was YouTube
32:06
videos and people do some really cool things that are really
32:09
calming. They have like if it's a
32:10
crackling fireplace like I was talking about with a
32:12
thunderstorm, they'll do a simulated scene of that.
32:14
And it's like really peaceful to look at.
32:17
And so it just depends on what you're after.
32:18
If you're after sleep, I mean, a lot of people love that stuff
32:21
for sleep. It is not my, it would not be my
32:23
bag to like put my any device next to my phone and turn it on
32:27
and have that light in my face like that as I go to sleep.
32:29
But some people love it and it's calming to look at.
32:33
Yeah, it's cool. Are you comfortable giving a
32:35
range for revenue annually with the with the business?
32:39
Put now. No, probably not, no.
32:45
I appreciate that. You know, another way that you
32:48
came up in conversation probably just a week or two ago,
32:53
interviewed so many founders on this show, which I love.
32:56
It's my favorite thing in the world, as you do too.
32:58
And I'd love to talk about that. But one thing that always comes
33:02
up is stoicism. It's like it is the religion of
33:05
founders. And I was like, you know, this,
33:08
there's got to be a great idea for some novel podcast where
33:12
basically the title I had was, boy, this is really hard.
33:19
Or it was either that or it was wow, this sucks.
33:23
And then all it is is the recording is just like, Yep,
33:27
just keep going. So like every day it's like a a
33:31
stoic test published an episode that's like, wow, this really
33:34
sucks. Yep, keep going.
33:36
Right, right. Not like some elegant solution,
33:38
just like yeah, yeah, it does keep keep doing it.
33:40
Yeah, but again, it, it popped up 'cause I'm like, wow, the the
33:43
the sleep noise podcast is such a great idea.
33:47
It's such a utility for people who need it.
33:49
Like there's, there's just these things that that arise and pop
33:52
that are so fascinating to me. I love it.
33:54
And I mean, you know, the stuff I'm talking about is like a
33:56
trend or a gimmick or something like that.
33:58
But like, what's fascinating about yours is like this you
34:01
become integral to like their sleep.
34:04
It's like it's, it's not a gimmick at all.
34:06
It it it it does work. For a while there I thought it
34:08
might be for a while there I was like, this is really taken off.
34:14
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35:29
People must think this is hilarious that there's 12 hours
35:32
of brown noise out there and there's like, check this out.
35:33
This is 12 hour, but it was pretty quick.
35:36
Soon I, I started, you know, very early on, within the first
35:39
couple months having the podcast, I had a dad reach.
35:42
I this was when I had brown, pink and white and I had just
35:46
made a little change to the white noise.
35:47
I knew some people had found it and that was bizarre to me, but
35:50
I was like, whatever. I made a change to the white
35:52
noise, published it, just updated the sound in that
35:55
existing episode because I was like, that's a little too bright
35:58
and a little too shrill for me. I turned it down a bit and I got
36:01
I got a text one night and it was like, Hey, are you the
36:04
Brandon of 12 hour sound machines?
36:07
And I was like it What like looking out my window like what
36:09
is school? And he was like, I'm so sorry,
36:12
man, this is so creepy. But I started my wife made me
36:15
track you down. I found you through another
36:16
product. I once had this like idea I had
36:19
a long time ago. I had my my phone number on
36:21
there. He found it, texted me and said,
36:23
I'm so sorry, but this is the only the your white noise is the
36:25
only sound My twins sleep to. And you just changed it and
36:30
please change it back. And I was like, you could tell
36:34
me it was the tiniest man. I like went into the file and
36:37
like took one of those little dots and was like, and then like
36:39
republished it just to my ear. I was like, OK, that sounds a
36:42
little better. And the babies weren't sleeping.
36:45
And so he was like, my wife made me find you.
36:47
And so to your point, yeah, it becomes really, really integral
36:50
to people to their lives. You know, we have a lot of
36:52
people in the healthcare space use this.
36:54
We have acupuncturist that use it in their waiting rooms to
36:56
keep people calm before procedures.
36:58
We have a lot of chiropractors and other things and other there
37:01
are healthcare professionals that use it in waiting rooms or
37:02
in procedure rooms, and it's integral to them and their
37:05
patients as well. So yeah, it's crazy how people
37:08
have ended up using it. Is there any compulsion to go
37:13
full Tyler Durden and about 6 hours in start whispering on top
37:17
of it? No, no there's not.
37:21
No, no, I could never. Amazing.
37:25
OK, let's talk a little bit about your other projects too.
37:28
I want to get to the lightning round here, but I know you're a
37:31
man of many talents and particularly the podcasting.
37:35
Let's talk about that. Yeah, I have another podcast,
37:38
it's called Ready Set Startup. I just had you on that recently,
37:41
Ryan And yeah, I interview founders and we talked about
37:45
their stories and experiences and journeys in the world of
37:48
entrepreneurship, how they built what they built.
37:50
I have mostly founders on, but also have investors and analysts
37:53
and people tertiary, well, still in but not directly involved in
37:57
building the business, but around the startup community.
38:00
And yeah, yeah, it's been super great.
38:01
It's pretty new. I think we have like 15 episodes
38:04
live or so. I've recorded maybe 30 and we're
38:06
a couple months into it. But it's been really fun are.
38:10
You frustrated that you don't have 300 million down?
38:12
Yeah, Like come on, what's? Jeez, I post, I post 12 hours of
38:16
grilling meat on the other episode, 50,000 people listen in
38:19
three days and like, I can't, I can't.
38:21
Come on, people. Yeah, actually sharing insights
38:25
into the world and I can't get 100 downloads.
38:28
That's cool. Why?
38:29
Why do you start a startup? Podcast, you know, I spent the
38:33
1st 10 years, like I said of my career at Disney and realized
38:36
when I left and the goal was always to build my own thing.
38:38
So it was always my desire, always my passion.
38:40
I was just waiting for whatever I was going to.
38:42
Didn't think it would be sound machines, but I was waiting for
38:44
whatever it was that I was going to leave and go do and realized
38:47
that once I did that and had the opportunity to and it really in
38:50
so many ways it was harder than I thought it was going to be.
38:52
In so many ways it was even beyond what I dreamt I wanted
38:55
and knew it could be is entrepreneurship and being in
38:57
the founder world. Because I did that, I realized,
38:59
man, I spent 10 years building the wrong network.
39:03
Like I, I don't know the right, I don't know legal connections.
39:07
I don't have the right, yeah, I don't know, trademark like so
39:11
many different marketing and, and development.
39:14
And I only had my corporate network and from my corporate,
39:18
the corporate workforce. And so I needed to build that
39:21
and thought, all right, you know, podcasting is such an
39:24
opportunity as, you know, to like get in front of people.
39:27
I can have dude, Ryan, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have
39:29
gotten, you know, I said, we got connected through mobbers
39:33
through another. And then you were like, Hey, I
39:34
see your podcast. I can be on that too.
39:35
And like, but even that you probably wouldn't have sent that
39:38
initial e-mail. It said, hey, man, like I'd love
39:40
to offer my insights on your show if I, if I did not have
39:43
that podcast as an outlet to do that.
39:45
And now I have this opportunity to sit with people who I need to
39:49
learn from. Like these are, this is all new
39:51
to me to do this full time, to do this founder thing full time.
39:54
And I thought, what do I have to offer man?
39:56
Like to somebody who's like, I could be one more guy trying to
40:00
raise my hand and be like, excuse me, can I get 5 minutes
40:02
of your time to like maybe ask you one question to if I can
40:06
give them an outlet and a voice and build a real high quality
40:09
show. I'll get an hour of their time
40:11
to ask them my questions, like things that I want to know about
40:14
how I build my business. And that's of course, I use that
40:16
as an influence of what I hear from my audience and what they
40:18
want to hear. But it's pretty much part and
40:20
parcel. That is, that's the same as like
40:22
we're all just new founders trying to figure this out.
40:24
So I have this amazing forum to learn from and grow from and,
40:27
and hear insights from people who are doing, like doing things
40:30
that I want to be doing and are where I want to be.
40:32
And so that's why I decided to do is like, I need to make
40:34
connections in this space. These are questions I have and
40:37
this could be an opportunity to offer value to people I want to
40:39
get connected to that can come share.
40:41
So that's why I started it. So cool, I totally agree.
40:45
All right, let's do the founder challenge question.
40:47
Are you up to it? This is brought to you by
40:50
kitcaster.com. OK, you have 4 categories.
40:53
You have tough and unfiltered, you got explosive and
40:56
intriguing. You have scandalous and risky
40:59
and or you have raw philosophy and self reflection.
41:02
And I'm going to choose a category in which the questions
41:04
come from. OK, what was the first one?
41:08
Tough and unfiltered. I like that one but the second
41:10
one was something UN risky. What was that?
41:13
Scandalous. Oh, scandalous and risky.
41:16
Scandalous. And risky, man, I'm one of those
41:17
two. Let's go with the first one.
41:18
Tough and unfiltered. OK, tough and unfiltered.
41:22
All right. How much personal debt did you
41:23
rack up to fund the company? Man, I am so grateful that this
41:27
thing started making some incredible money while I was at
41:30
Disney. I was at Disney for several
41:32
years and made really good money at Disney while I made, I mean,
41:35
you know, I, I won't share all the numbers of all the company,
41:38
but while I was at Disney making over 200, you know, a year
41:42
without benefits, I was base. I was making about 60 grand a
41:47
month on the podcast. And so it was I, I was able to
41:51
save a lot and was able to build the business.
41:54
I haven't taken any professional money and I'm super grateful for
41:57
that. Incredible.
41:59
So no raises, no raises, it's just all bootstraps.
42:01
Yeah, that's right. I did have to take a loan,
42:04
$100,000 loan six months ago as we were building the app to get
42:08
the app across the finish line. But it has paid that back.
42:11
And yeah, super grateful. Incredible.
42:14
What's your most frivolous, craziest purchase with all the
42:16
success? Oh man, I'm very conservative
42:19
when it comes to that kind of thing.
42:23
But like, I don't do big purchases frivolous that often.
42:28
What though would we say? Oh man that's big?
42:33
I really am not super into that. How about like a name plate in
42:39
diamonds B? Oh see that's the thing I'm not
42:41
into. Oh man, no, like we didn't go
42:45
buy a new car. We've so we capped our ink, we
42:48
capped our living expenses. My wife and I when we first got
42:51
married said that we won't have living expenses over 100,000 a
42:55
year and we've stuck to that. And so we have everything beyond
42:58
on that we save and we invest. But I mean, my largest purchase
43:02
is this sounds like, I don't mean for this to be like self
43:04
indulgent or, or, or braggy, but like our largest purchases have
43:07
been investments, homes and other things we've invested in.
43:09
And so we've used the income from making this to, to further
43:12
invest. And very grateful for that.
43:14
I get that answer because I know what you're after.
43:16
And I'm not trying to be like, I don't, I spend so responsibly.
43:19
I only invest like I make your responsible decisions too.
43:22
I just can't think of 1. Yeah, don't you don't have like
43:25
a gold. Switch.
43:25
I don't have a gold Switch play, man.
43:26
I don't have a Rolex. I don't.
43:29
I don't know man. How big's the team?
43:32
Me on payroll, I have I have contractors between all my
43:38
contractors doing marketing and development stuff who's some
43:41
somewhere around like 15 or so that that are that are on the
43:45
product. But but me on payroll, that is
43:47
the choice. There is pros and cons to that
43:49
man. And I can share all that with
43:51
anybody who wants to know. But yeah, that that's the choice
43:53
I've done and it's been good so far.
43:55
Sure. Is there anyone you've had to
43:57
fire that you personally like but professionally couldn't
44:00
defend? A really good question man, no.
44:05
You asked for. 20, yes, you asked, it's a really good
44:07
question. I really like that one.
44:09
No, fortunately no. You know, it's been all
44:12
contractors and every relationship has been
44:15
professional. And so, no, I mean, and then
44:18
even in my Disney day, but yeah, specifically talking about
44:21
founders, no. Yeah, amazing.
44:25
OK, let's do the the lightning round.
44:28
And this is just some canned questions I try and ask
44:30
everybody. You're a podcaster, you're going
44:36
on podcast, but everything else you're doing is kind of behind
44:39
the scenes. Is there a thread that runs
44:41
through it or it? Why is being a founder out
44:44
front, aside from the relationships you make,
44:47
important to you? Reframe the question, Why are
44:52
relationships important to me in my work?
44:55
No, the why is leading with a podcast important to you Now I
45:01
know it's relationships you're building and you get to have
45:03
people's time and ask questions and stuff, but you could be
45:07
behind the scenes guy, I said. But is that the only reason
45:09
you're? Talking about with ready set
45:10
startups. Yeah.
45:12
Is there a push for a personal brand?
45:16
There's not a push for a personal brand.
45:18
You know, my social media team, like always wants me to do more
45:20
talking videos on my, on the social media, like personalize a
45:24
brand more and, and put my face out more.
45:27
And that's, that's not, that's not my goal.
45:29
I, I don't, I don't shy from that.
45:31
Hopefully eventually when I have a bigger company, I'm happy to
45:34
be the face of that brand and be the voice of that brand.
45:36
That's not what I'm after here. It's not what I'm after with
45:39
ready set startup. I would say that I think if you
45:41
were to say, you know, Brandy, you're a lot of ways you could
45:44
grow yourself professionally and build your network.
45:46
All the reasons I gave you of why I did ready set startup,
45:49
they there's a lot of ways to do that.
45:50
Why did you choose to do it in a way that built relationships?
45:53
I'd say that that's because that's just how I'm wired as a
45:55
human being, as relationally driven.
45:57
And so I know that that's where I can bring value.
45:59
That's what I enjoy. Those are the types of
46:03
interactions I usually do best in.
46:04
And so probably went that route for that reason.
46:06
So I've always been. You have any ideas potentially
46:12
let's say of a company you could start building tomorrow that
46:15
would end the year with $1,000,000 run rate?
46:19
Yeah, Yeah, I do. You gave me goosebumps when you
46:21
said that because I do, Ryan, I do.
46:24
I don't know how to do it yet, but I I do.
46:28
And it's in my back pocket and I've always wanted to build it
46:31
and one day I will, but I can't figure out what the monetization
46:34
model looks like for it. But it essentially, I don't even
46:36
have the pitch for it. But what it is is it's called
46:39
life list and it is basically people who create their goals of
46:44
dreams, their goals, their life's ambitions and in a way to
46:49
create a community in which you can share your resources to
46:53
accomplish your life's greatest goals.
46:55
So like if you I'm are a pilot and you live in San Francisco
46:59
and I work at Disney and I'm in Florida and on your life list is
47:02
to go to Disney World and on my life list is to skydive over the
47:05
Golden Gate Bridge. Like we figure out how to share
47:07
our resources and help each other like accomplish our life's
47:10
greatest goals. I love that that's I know, man.
47:16
I can't figure out the monetization model for but I've
47:19
I have stopped and started life list.
47:21
I'm not kidding, like 5 times. It's my first idea ever, like I
47:24
have when I was in middle school.
47:25
It's on actually a notebook of like the first like things I did
47:28
with life list and one day I'll do it.
47:30
But and, and I believe, I believe it has legs, dude.
47:33
Like the reason I had goosebumps when you said that is like, if I
47:36
figure when I figure out how to build this, it's going to work.
47:39
I know it will because I believe it needs to exist in the world.
47:42
I believe that like really deeply inside me.
47:44
And so if I believe that I can make this work, but I just
47:46
haven't figured that out yet. And it's not time yet, but when
47:49
it is, it'll happen. Yeah, man, sign me up.
47:53
I mean, I think especially where, you know, post COVID era,
47:57
you know, and I think everything, everyone's probably
48:00
healed from being isolated, but I think there's a big need for
48:04
like in person events. I've been planning something in
48:07
at the Denver Press Club doing like in person podcast events to
48:11
get the energy and bring people together and there's just
48:14
something magical about it. I love it, Yeah.
48:16
And something else so cool about Lifeless Man is like, I think
48:20
that part of the I part of the idea of the business is to help
48:23
people live those things out and actually accomplish those things
48:25
in their life. But one thing that people don't
48:27
know how to do, Ryan, is even identify what they're passionate
48:30
about. What are they truly inspired by?
48:32
People are see, here's a great example I always use with life
48:35
list is I'm like, so I love horses, my favorite animal.
48:37
So I go on the life list and I'm like, how many people in your
48:41
life would answer the question, if you're like, what are you
48:43
most passionate about of anything in the world?
48:45
What are the things you want to accomplish on your life list or
48:47
bucket list? People would go, I, I don't
48:50
know, I'm not really passionate about much.
48:52
And the answer is yes, you are. You just don't know how that
48:54
manifests itself into things you can do in the world.
48:57
And like, if someone would go, I don't know, I like horses.
49:01
And it's like, OK, great. Did you know?
49:03
And if you signed up for lifeless.com or whatever and got
49:06
part of the community, you'd, you'd see the other people who
49:08
also like horses and what they're doing.
49:10
And what they're doing is they're visiting Osatiqua Island
49:12
off the the northeast coast of America, where there's more wild
49:15
horses than there are people. And like, how incredible would
49:17
it be to go there? And they go, oh, well, yeah,
49:19
that. Yeah, that's on my life list.
49:21
And you can help people identify what they're passionate about.
49:24
And then the second part is like, then as a part of a great,
49:27
great community, there's someone that lives in Ossatiqua Island.
49:30
And guess what? They have a Airbnb, and you have
49:33
something they need or want. And you guys can help each other
49:36
accomplish what you're after. Anyways, don't get me on my
49:38
lifeless soapbox. But one day I'll build it.
49:41
Well, I tell you what, I have a complimentary product I think
49:43
would work really well with. Yes, please talk to me.
49:47
OK, this this is a a a project a a buddy of mine worked on
49:51
probably for too long honestly, but it's you got the life list.
49:55
I got the death watch. OK.
49:58
And the death watch, what you do is you put in different
50:00
attributes, your age, lifestyle, these kind of things and then
50:04
you hit the button and that will program your watch to a
50:07
countdown of days. So it might be like 7452 days
50:12
and it counts backwards by the second.
50:15
Basically calculating like this is how much time you got left.
50:18
Now it's interesting how it plays to the the life list
50:22
because we're working on this and I'm like, dude, the only way
50:25
I'm going to do something like this is if we take the revenue
50:27
for putting it out there and like go on a pilgrimage and find
50:31
like a Tibetan monk and sit at his feet and tell him what we
50:35
did and see what he said. No, you can.
50:38
No, it doesn't have to be something like that, though.
50:40
That's like this evil. What it could be is it could be
50:42
a motivator to live your life. It's interesting.
50:45
The reason I was like, interesting, I was like, oh,
50:46
that's super dark. And it's like, Oh no, that
50:49
actually is really inspiring. It's like you can use that feel,
50:54
feeling that you, that innate feeling you get if you saw your
50:56
death date to inspire and to enlighten and to enrich and like
51:01
to, yeah, I think people could see that.
51:03
And that could really, you could tie it totally together, the
51:05
life list and be like, listen, if you've got, if you've got
51:07
13,000 days, like what are you going to do with those?
51:10
Yeah. Yeah, and that's it's like a
51:12
Stoic idea, you know, it's like, it's like what the.
51:14
Not everybody would resonate with it, but the people that do
51:17
I think would would in a really powerful way.
51:20
We were thinking about like, OK, go to market, we would have
51:22
literally dozens of customers. What would it be would be based
51:25
on lifestyle like are you a smoker or not?
51:26
Like what do you I don't? Well, I wouldn't want to
51:30
discriminate against fun stuff, you know, So we keep like
51:32
alcohol stuff. Yeah, yeah.
51:34
You wouldn't want to tell people.
51:35
Yeah, yeah, that's funny. Really, it's like it.
51:39
It also comes from a fascination I have with with objects that
51:42
change the energy of the room. You know, it's like if you're
51:45
having a family reunion and everyone's having a great time
51:48
and it's joyful and somebody just put like an unloaded 9mm
51:52
pistol on the table, the the way that would resonate through the
51:56
house. Like there's certain objects,
51:58
very few that have like very kind of well, spiritual weight.
52:02
So you know, the idea you have this watch or whatever you it's
52:04
some novelty, whatever, Casio. And then you put it on your
52:07
your. Oh, you're saying it manifests
52:11
that that date that you that you create on a physical device that
52:14
you wear on you? Oh man, that's really
52:17
interesting. All it all it does and it was
52:20
like we were looking for like real cheap Casios that it's all
52:22
it does. Is it pro?
52:23
It's programmed one time and it's just counting backwards.
52:26
Dude, I can tell you right now the people in my life who would
52:28
wear that. That's that's really
52:30
interesting. Yeah, it's not necessarily dark
52:35
people. It's not like people who are
52:36
morbid or like, it's just, it's a that's a fascinating concept.
52:39
I like it man. Nice lifeless death watch.
52:43
Holy cow. Watch.
52:45
Watch. Out.
52:48
If if you are entering college today, knowing what you know now
52:51
and where we're going, what would you study?
52:56
If it if it did not tie, you're looking for a quick answer, but
52:59
if it did not tie to to to my ability to provide for my
53:04
family. I think I'm fascinated most by
53:06
is people and sociology. I started in sociology and moved
53:11
on from that in college and I would love to go back and do
53:14
that. No, I, I always, I always think
53:16
that because that's where I started, but I'm actually giving
53:18
you my answer. I've given a lot that I just
53:20
forgot about is electrical engineering.
53:22
I would love to actually like build circuits and work with my
53:27
hands. And I've worked my whole career
53:29
in software and I'm actually really fascinated by hardware.
53:32
So I'm curious in actually dwell spring.
53:35
One very viable next step is a physical sound machine.
53:37
And and I'm really excited about what that would look like in my
53:40
ability to like exercise the bug in me that would be hardware.
53:43
So, electrical engineering, That's my answer.
53:46
What would it look? Like the physical sound machine.
53:49
Yeah. So I would want to integrate
53:51
directly into the app. Anything you create in custom
53:53
you can bring with you. And then the thing that I think
53:55
is like missing out there in the market is the portability of
53:58
these things. There's very small sound
53:59
machines. There's things for babies, but
54:00
like it comes on a Caribbean and that's it.
54:02
There seems to be something that you can have on your bed in
54:04
particular, and something in stereo.
54:06
I want a left and a right. So I see it as being something
54:08
that's mounted on your bed. It'd have to be some kind of
54:10
universal I. We'd have to figure that out in
54:12
industrial design. But like, it's over you.
54:14
It's on both sides of you. So it's like 2 speakers.
54:17
And then I'd want to take these pods that are bad, that are,
54:19
that are battery powered, you pop them off and you have these
54:22
because another awesome thing that is the ability to listen to
54:26
it without anything in your ears.
54:28
So you'd slide them onto your pillow if you want while you're
54:30
traveling. Or you have these pods that
54:31
would be like you'd have different mounts that you could
54:33
basically magnetize them to whatever, to your crib, to your
54:35
stroller, to your bed. And yeah, I imagine them as
54:38
these like little discs. We haven't gone through
54:39
industrial design and not that far yet, but I think physical
54:42
sound machines would be a really neat next step for dual spring.
54:46
Sounds like a lot of people are using them for kids.
54:47
A lot of people put them in stuffed animals, yeah.
54:49
No, I have, I have an idea called Sleepy Pete that my wife
54:52
would kill me if I said that on a public.
54:55
She's like, she's like, don't call it sleepy Pete.
54:57
I'm like, I think it's great. But Sleepy Pete is this little
55:00
guy and inside of him is the, is the core of dwell spring.
55:03
And you can build anything on your app, send it to Sleepy
55:06
Pete. And it would like, I think
55:08
vibrate very, very lightly. And then kids can cuddle with
55:11
it. And it would be a very deep
55:12
resonant sound that they could cuddle with in their crib or
55:16
bed. And it would play the sound that
55:17
you choose from the app. And I think it's great.
55:19
But dude, as soon as you start messing with baby products, FDA
55:22
like it, it gets really intense. Like you have to be very, very
55:25
careful. So I don't know if I wade into
55:27
those waters, but I like Sleepy Pete, man.
55:29
We'll see. Amazing Brandon, I kept you long
55:32
because I love this conversation.
55:34
Where can people find you online?
55:35
You can find me Linkedin's probably the best place Brandon
55:38
Reed on LinkedIn. If you want to look more up
55:39
about dwell Spring, it's dwell spring dot IO Dwell like DWELL
55:44
spring dot IO. Check out the app.
55:46
I would love to offer a promo code to anybody listening.
55:50
What promo code would be most helpful?
55:52
I'll go ahead and build that for you guys.
55:56
Let's do it. We'll do a month for free for
55:58
anybody that comes and types in founders.
56:00
Everybody gets two weeks for free in the app, but if you type
56:01
in founders, you can get an additional month.
56:03
Try out the app, play with it, see, see if it's helpful for you
56:07
and on LinkedIn or in the contact form.
56:10
I mean, like I said, it's only me.
56:11
So like the contact form in the website comes straight to me.
56:13
If you have any questions or thoughts or things that
56:15
resonated with you that you'd want to hear more about, reach
56:18
out. Love to love to chat, always
56:19
happy to help. Oh, and you?
56:22
Know, Ryan, I'm sorry to interrupt you, you, you said
56:25
that a lot of founders listen. If anybody wants to share the
56:27
story on, on my podcast, I'd love to talk to him too.
56:29
Ready set startup is the name. So ready set startup pod.com is
56:33
the name of the website and you can come and Share your story
56:36
there. I'd love to hear from you.
56:38
Yeah, and you're a fantastic interviewer too.
56:41
I loved our conversation over there.
56:43
Can I publish that the promo code on the newsletter?
56:46
Too, Founders. Yep, I'll set it up right after
56:48
we get off the call. Amazing.
56:50
Thanks, Brandon. Thank you, Ryan.
56:51
It's great, a lot of fun. Hey founders, let me ask you
56:55
this, are you building with AI or getting left behind by it?
57:00
If you're serious about scaling smarter, faster and bolder, you
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