Latest / Deep Tech Germany – AI, Robotics & Frontier Innovation by Startuprad.io™ / Sukha's Steven Puri: Flow-State Systems for Founders
Transcript
- WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:00.400 Foreign, 2 00:00:09.280 --> 00:00:12.800 Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 3 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:16.480 startup scene with news interviews and 4 00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:17.760 live events. 5 00:00:20.080 --> 00:00:23.760 Hey guys, welcome back to episode number two of my 6 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:27.600 interview with Stephen, which was originally planned just 7 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:31.280 as one episode one interview, but turned out 8 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:35.060 we were talking for nine questions for like 15 minutes. So here 9 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:38.220 are the next questions. You are the 10 00:00:38.220 --> 00:00:41.860 founder of Suka, a flow app that helps you get 11 00:00:41.860 --> 00:00:45.700 into flow. Having other people online meeting 12 00:00:45.700 --> 00:00:49.500 with you, being seen visually to work, which makes 13 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:52.780 a big impact. And you've been working 14 00:00:53.260 --> 00:00:57.020 in the film industry in the past and for example, on stuff like 15 00:00:57.180 --> 00:01:00.380 Independence Day, Braveheart, True Lies, Godzilla. 16 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:04.600 You worked for example on 17 00:01:04.600 --> 00:01:08.440 Transformers prime and so on and so forth. Pretty awesome 18 00:01:08.440 --> 00:01:11.720 stuff. And we just picking your brain here 19 00:01:11.960 --> 00:01:14.920 on, on more stuff on more productivity hacks. 20 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:21.160 What is your five minute trobbing ritual? 21 00:01:21.240 --> 00:01:24.360 What are the exact steps and tools and environment 22 00:01:24.520 --> 00:01:28.040 tweaks, like from your framework, your playbook? 23 00:01:28.280 --> 00:01:31.440 Okay, that is a great question. Okay, so I'm going to touch upon a number 24 00:01:31.440 --> 00:01:35.220 of things for those listening. Some of these things are going to 25 00:01:35.220 --> 00:01:39.020 be very prescriptive. Like here is something you can try. Some of 26 00:01:39.020 --> 00:01:42.540 them will be illustrative to say, like, this is how it applies in my life. 27 00:01:42.540 --> 00:01:45.940 Okay. So you can understand the context of it. So in 28 00:01:45.940 --> 00:01:49.580 episode one, we talked a bit about time 29 00:01:49.580 --> 00:01:52.660 blocking, right? So I'm not going to cover that here, but that is a very 30 00:01:52.660 --> 00:01:55.580 important thing for me. When I come back from the gym in the morning, I 31 00:01:55.580 --> 00:01:58.550 go get up at 5, go to the gym, come back, I. I have a 32 00:01:58.550 --> 00:02:02.030 few hours of incredible quiet. Those are 33 00:02:02.030 --> 00:02:05.670 sacred to me. You can't even book it in my calendar. And 34 00:02:05.910 --> 00:02:09.710 when we were scheduling this podcast, this podcast is at this 35 00:02:09.710 --> 00:02:13.510 time because I've already completed my focus work for the day, which 36 00:02:13.510 --> 00:02:17.270 feels amazing to know that in those three, four hours, I did enough for 37 00:02:17.270 --> 00:02:20.790 an entire day's work because I was not distracted. So listen to 38 00:02:20.790 --> 00:02:24.070 episode one if you want to talk more about. Listen more about time blocking 39 00:02:24.670 --> 00:02:28.390 and chronotypes. Right? So here's another one 40 00:02:28.390 --> 00:02:31.870 we didn't cover that helps me, which is 41 00:02:32.030 --> 00:02:35.390 it is about the relationship between your mind 42 00:02:35.790 --> 00:02:39.630 and physical spaces. And I will tell you 43 00:02:39.630 --> 00:02:42.670 a story actually about Roland. So when we met, 44 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:45.870 it was interesting to me that 45 00:02:47.550 --> 00:02:50.990 there was a house, this villa in Puerto 46 00:02:50.990 --> 00:02:54.840 Vallarta, Mexico, where Roland and Dean, who wrote their scripts together, 47 00:02:55.400 --> 00:02:59.160 Universal Soldier, Stargate, all the stuff they would 48 00:02:59.160 --> 00:03:03.000 go to write, apparently it's this beautiful white marble villa in the hills 49 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:06.800 of Puerto Verita. When Roland 50 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:10.520 and Dean needed to go write Independence Day, Roland told his assistant 51 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:14.320 Joey, he's like, Joey, go run the villa. And Joey came back 52 00:03:14.320 --> 00:03:17.760 and said, it's rented because this is like pre Airbnb. But it was like an 53 00:03:17.760 --> 00:03:21.350 Airbnb that you sort of vacation rental. And I asked 54 00:03:21.350 --> 00:03:24.830 Dean why this was so important to them. He said, you have to understand there 55 00:03:24.830 --> 00:03:28.550 is a room there where in the morning the sunlight comes over the 56 00:03:28.550 --> 00:03:32.390 pool and inspires us. We don't think about our agents. We don't 57 00:03:32.390 --> 00:03:36.150 think about the budget of the movie studio notes, you know, what 58 00:03:36.150 --> 00:03:39.950 cast is available. We just think about what's the movie we 59 00:03:39.950 --> 00:03:42.870 would want to watch. And we try and write that. 60 00:03:44.310 --> 00:03:47.920 So when Joey told Roland Roland, the place is not 61 00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:51.600 available, Roland called his entertainment attorney that Friday 62 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:55.440 and said, John, John Deemer is an amazing attorney. John, 63 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:59.680 buy the villa. By Monday, roland 64 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:03.480 owned a $5 million villa in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I do 65 00:04:03.480 --> 00:04:06.760 not know the current people who are renting that villa where they went. I'm sure 66 00:04:06.760 --> 00:04:09.760 they were nicely paid to find another villa in Puerto Vallarta. 67 00:04:10.480 --> 00:04:13.200 And they went down there. And six weeks later, 68 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.840 Roland and Dean returned with the script that became the third 69 00:04:17.840 --> 00:04:21.120 highest grossing movie in film history. At the time, that was 70 00:04:21.440 --> 00:04:25.160 this important thing for their mental state to be in there. Now, it is 71 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:28.840 not that everyone listening to this has to go buy $5 billion villas. We're 72 00:04:28.840 --> 00:04:32.680 not saying that later when I'm at DreamWorks, 73 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:36.400 right? So I was an executive vice president with Alex Kurtzman and Bob 74 00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:40.150 Orsi, who are great guys. And we had that 75 00:04:40.150 --> 00:04:43.910 Amblin compound, the Dreamers compound is on the Universal Studios lot in 76 00:04:43.910 --> 00:04:47.510 Hollywood. Directly across the street across 77 00:04:47.510 --> 00:04:50.510 Lankershim is the Universal Hilton Hotel. 78 00:04:51.230 --> 00:04:54.950 Now, I'm going to be kind. This is 79 00:04:54.950 --> 00:04:58.230 the hotel where you stay with your three kids the night before you go to 80 00:04:58.230 --> 00:05:01.750 Universal Studios theme park. This is not a place you seek out in the world 81 00:05:01.750 --> 00:05:05.480 as a great hotel, right? But when 82 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:08.720 Alex and Bob were in crunch time, oh, we have to finish 83 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:12.280 Transformers 2 in three weeks, right? Oh, we have to finish Star Trek 11. 84 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:17.280 They had their assistant rent a room over at the Universal Hilton. And they would 85 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:21.040 go there every day like it was the Office for several weeks. And I 86 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:24.680 thought to myself, they're making a couple million dollars every script. 87 00:05:25.320 --> 00:05:28.680 Like, they could buy a villa in Puerto Vallarta or they could go anywhere. Why 88 00:05:28.760 --> 00:05:32.460 this? And what I realized was this. They 89 00:05:32.460 --> 00:05:36.020 met back in school and 90 00:05:36.020 --> 00:05:39.460 that hotel room with, like, Kurtzman on the edge of the bed with his 91 00:05:39.460 --> 00:05:43.020 laptop and Bob at the desk, that evoked dorm 92 00:05:43.020 --> 00:05:46.540 room, that brought them back mentally to, 93 00:05:46.700 --> 00:05:50.500 oh, we're These writers who have to prove that we're great, we have to pull 94 00:05:50.500 --> 00:05:54.260 this off. And that was how they used mental 95 00:05:54.260 --> 00:05:57.500 space. They knew that about themselves. So why do I say this? 96 00:05:58.930 --> 00:06:02.370 I made that mistake when I started working remotely. 97 00:06:02.770 --> 00:06:06.210 In the morning, I'd be in the kitchen because you have breakfast, and my laptop's 98 00:06:06.210 --> 00:06:09.370 there and the light is beautiful. I work from there, come upstairs, work from my 99 00:06:09.370 --> 00:06:12.930 office at lunch, the sofa in the late afternoon. 100 00:06:13.170 --> 00:06:16.930 And I realized I was not taking advantage of this thing where you say 101 00:06:16.930 --> 00:06:20.370 to your brain, oh, I'm in this space. This is where I code 102 00:06:21.010 --> 00:06:24.780 or this is where I write. And a lot of 103 00:06:24.780 --> 00:06:28.500 the great writers, a lot of the great engineers use that technique. So 104 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:32.260 when you start to do this over time, your brain falls into that mode. 105 00:06:32.260 --> 00:06:36.060 I walk into my office up here now, and my brain gives 106 00:06:36.060 --> 00:06:39.780 up a lot of distractions around, should the laundry be done? Oh, did the 107 00:06:39.780 --> 00:06:43.620 trash need to go out? I walk up here and I think, oh, you know 108 00:06:43.620 --> 00:06:46.980 what, Let me open up my coding assistant. Let me open up, you know, my 109 00:06:46.980 --> 00:06:50.550 blogging platform and do that thing. So a very 110 00:06:50.550 --> 00:06:54.230 simple part of my ritual to get into flow. Then, of 111 00:06:54.230 --> 00:06:57.710 course, there is music. And by the way, a lot of research 112 00:06:57.790 --> 00:07:01.390 shows for most people, the sweet spot is 60 to 90 113 00:07:01.390 --> 00:07:05.229 beats per minute. Ambient, non vocal, certain 114 00:07:05.229 --> 00:07:08.950 key signatures, rhythmic music. We 115 00:07:08.950 --> 00:07:12.670 all have some friend that gets into flow using 116 00:07:13.470 --> 00:07:17.150 90s gangster rap or Tchaikovsky or something. There are many 117 00:07:17.150 --> 00:07:20.390 outliers. But for most people, this works. 118 00:07:21.590 --> 00:07:25.430 And I'll tell you a couple things that I learned outside the science. Because 119 00:07:25.590 --> 00:07:27.950 when we designed Suka, we said, oh, I have a lot of friends who are 120 00:07:27.950 --> 00:07:31.750 film composers. Write me a thousand hours of music that's basically like 121 00:07:31.910 --> 00:07:35.510 lo fi beats or upbeat or down tempo sort of 122 00:07:35.510 --> 00:07:39.070 stuff. We threw in some binaural beats, which I know when you have beautiful headphones 123 00:07:39.070 --> 00:07:42.070 like you do, you probably have experimented with binaural beats. 124 00:07:43.190 --> 00:07:46.940 Something I did not know was this. One 125 00:07:46.940 --> 00:07:50.780 of my friends does the sound for the 126 00:07:50.780 --> 00:07:54.260 LucasArts games, like the Star wars games, lives up in Marin. 127 00:07:55.700 --> 00:07:58.980 His high school graduation present to his son 128 00:07:59.300 --> 00:08:03.060 was his son wanted to go to Nepal, so they went there. When he 129 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:06.820 came back, he said, stephen, this is going to sound weird, but when we were 130 00:08:06.820 --> 00:08:10.420 in Kathmandu, this one day, it poured rain. 131 00:08:10.500 --> 00:08:14.330 It was this beautiful, lush rain. And I had some of my recording 132 00:08:14.330 --> 00:08:16.890 equipment there, so I recorded two hours of it. Do you want it? 133 00:08:18.170 --> 00:08:21.770 I was like, okay, that's kind of an odd offer, but sure, 134 00:08:21.770 --> 00:08:25.010 kind of cool. So we threw it up as a playlist. I didn't know it 135 00:08:25.010 --> 00:08:28.570 was going to happen. I just said, let's call it Himalayan Dream Reign and we'll 136 00:08:28.570 --> 00:08:31.970 just throw it in and see if people discover it. It's our third most 137 00:08:31.970 --> 00:08:35.690 popular playlist. And when I asked some members that I saw 138 00:08:35.690 --> 00:08:38.290 listening to, I was like, hey, do you mind? I noticed you listen to this. 139 00:08:38.290 --> 00:08:42.080 Can you tell me about that? They talked about how that worked for them. 140 00:08:42.160 --> 00:08:45.840 Sort of like the physical space thing that we're talking about. Oh, it reminds me 141 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:49.240 when I was little, I grew up in this part of the country where it 142 00:08:49.240 --> 00:08:52.120 rained all the time and I'd be doing my homework to the sound of the 143 00:08:52.120 --> 00:08:55.880 rain. So then I started asking, what other sounds 144 00:08:55.880 --> 00:08:59.600 help you get into flow? And it's interesting, some people said, oh, 145 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:03.720 surf. I grew up by the water. Oh, I grew up by this 146 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:07.490 lake. We had the sound of a stream 147 00:09:07.490 --> 00:09:11.290 in Japan. And then a number of people said, and this brings 148 00:09:11.290 --> 00:09:14.570 us back to the beginning of the episode. Number of people said, 149 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:19.010 oh, you know what? Coffee shops, I can't go there anymore. Like, I have 150 00:09:19.010 --> 00:09:22.090 little children. I used to, you know, when I was younger I would go to 151 00:09:22.090 --> 00:09:24.530 a coffee shop and work from there. And, you know, now I can't do it 152 00:09:24.530 --> 00:09:28.170 with kids. But I loved that feeling of being there. So we found 153 00:09:28.330 --> 00:09:31.730 someone who recorded a couple hours in a coffee shop in 154 00:09:31.730 --> 00:09:35.410 Vienna, Austria, and we 155 00:09:35.410 --> 00:09:39.050 threw it up with a little, you know, the sounds of the baristas, you know, 156 00:09:39.050 --> 00:09:42.850 the plates clattering in this. And we called it Cafe Vienne. 157 00:09:44.290 --> 00:09:48.010 It's become incredibly popular. So it's weird the way people have their mental 158 00:09:48.010 --> 00:09:51.810 tricks. Actually, I'll link here in the show notes. 159 00:09:51.810 --> 00:09:55.490 I found a 26 second sample from 160 00:09:55.490 --> 00:09:58.290 your company on YouTube with this 161 00:09:59.170 --> 00:10:02.930 Himalayan dream brain and I'll link it down here in the 162 00:10:02.930 --> 00:10:06.480 show notes. Okay. Yes. So a long answer. 163 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:09.800 There are a lot of things that help. They're part of my flow practice. But 164 00:10:09.800 --> 00:10:13.480 there is music, there is time blocking, there is mental space tied to 165 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:16.040 physical space, and there are others we can talk about. But I know that was 166 00:10:16.040 --> 00:10:16.720 a big chunk. 167 00:10:20.400 --> 00:10:23.520 Give us the flow week operating system 168 00:10:23.920 --> 00:10:27.520 rituals on Monday, Tuesday versus Thursday, Friday. 169 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.160 Meeting winners and how you defend. Make your time. 170 00:10:32.200 --> 00:10:35.760 Okay, so I will tell you this. I don't 171 00:10:35.760 --> 00:10:39.160 have research and I don't have anecdotal evidence 172 00:10:39.400 --> 00:10:43.240 of different days of the week. When I look at the distribution 173 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:46.280 of member usage of Sukha, 174 00:10:46.920 --> 00:10:49.920 there are so many people in so many different time zones in so many different 175 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:52.920 countries that they have different rhythms. 176 00:10:53.880 --> 00:10:57.560 So I would love to be an expert on things That I know and I 177 00:10:57.560 --> 00:11:00.360 would love to be not an expert on things I don't know. So you just 178 00:11:00.360 --> 00:11:03.320 asked. I have seen so many people use 179 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:07.320 suka in so many different times in so many different ways. 180 00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:10.960 I can't tell you a pattern of Monday through Friday or even Saturdays and Sundays 181 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:14.760 because I know we have a lot of solopreneurs who are working 182 00:11:14.760 --> 00:11:18.320 on Saturdays and Sundays because they can't do it during their day job during the 183 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.000 week. So I don't have a great answer for you on that 184 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:25.810 one. I have some personal experience to share 185 00:11:25.810 --> 00:11:29.410 here because I found a few things. 186 00:11:29.650 --> 00:11:33.290 One, I need the recovery on the weekend. So 187 00:11:33.290 --> 00:11:36.530 basically Saturday, Sunday, no working 188 00:11:37.010 --> 00:11:40.130 unless it's absolutely necessary. Sure. 189 00:11:42.370 --> 00:11:45.970 And in times of maker time, actually 190 00:11:46.210 --> 00:11:50.010 what I did is after first year of being solo 191 00:11:50.010 --> 00:11:53.380 entrepreneur, I was just looking at, I was 192 00:11:53.380 --> 00:11:56.660 analyzing like the data that I had and I found out 193 00:11:56.660 --> 00:12:00.140 Tuesdays are the least booked days. So 194 00:12:00.140 --> 00:12:03.940 basically I moved like everybody, we, we do 195 00:12:03.940 --> 00:12:07.460 get 100 pitches per 196 00:12:08.180 --> 00:12:11.940 interview slot. So you need to work through the emails, you need 197 00:12:11.940 --> 00:12:15.660 to work through like the meetings with the people and then finally 198 00:12:15.660 --> 00:12:19.390 condense them and get, get like a question list up like 199 00:12:19.390 --> 00:12:22.670 we did here. And so you need to have like different stages. 200 00:12:22.910 --> 00:12:26.470 Plus of course I need to meet with potential 201 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:30.070 sponsors, partnerships. And so. And so I had 202 00:12:30.070 --> 00:12:33.750 two days set up as meeting days and 203 00:12:33.750 --> 00:12:37.510 in between I defend the time to be productive and 204 00:12:37.510 --> 00:12:40.270 my main working day for my paying clients is my Tuesday. 205 00:12:41.710 --> 00:12:45.220 There you go. I'm glad you structured it that way. I work 206 00:12:45.220 --> 00:12:49.060 with an app most people know calendly and 207 00:12:49.060 --> 00:12:52.260 basically on Tuesdays it's extremely hard to book with me. 208 00:12:53.460 --> 00:12:57.100 Yeah, and I love that because what you're saying plays into a 209 00:12:57.100 --> 00:13:00.940 theme that we've talked about in two episodes now, which is how do you get 210 00:13:00.940 --> 00:13:04.340 in control of your life as opposed to be controlled by your life? 211 00:13:08.020 --> 00:13:11.220 You brought up something when we were concluding the last episode 212 00:13:12.110 --> 00:13:14.750 that I think we should talk about, which is 213 00:13:15.230 --> 00:13:18.430 distractions, because I have a lot of data 214 00:13:18.990 --> 00:13:22.670 on distractions and what happens with our members. 215 00:13:23.070 --> 00:13:26.150 I can talk about it in a aggregated way. I'm not going to talk about 216 00:13:26.150 --> 00:13:29.990 any particular person. Like Yorn, you have to get off. You know, you're 217 00:13:29.990 --> 00:13:33.510 watching CNN all the time, right? No, but I can talk about it in 218 00:13:33.510 --> 00:13:36.630 aggregated way because I think this is very interesting and it helps us to craft 219 00:13:36.630 --> 00:13:40.480 the platform. And by the way, you know the value of member feedback, 220 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:44.000 right? User feedback is golden. Our group 221 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:47.760 chat is a fantastic place where people complain and we love it. We're like, oh, 222 00:13:47.760 --> 00:13:51.000 we can fix that, we can make that, we can build that. Right. So 223 00:13:51.640 --> 00:13:55.440 you brought up distractions. Why don't you tell me, for 224 00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:59.120 you, what do you think are the most distracting things and what do you perceive 225 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:02.760 are the most distracting things for others? I'd love to know those two answers. 226 00:14:04.750 --> 00:14:08.590 So distracted things are random phone calls. I 227 00:14:08.990 --> 00:14:12.350 turned to one of, one of the 228 00:14:12.430 --> 00:14:15.870 startups I had here on Interview from Austria, they called 229 00:14:15.870 --> 00:14:18.830 Phonio. So what I do, 230 00:14:19.630 --> 00:14:23.390 I only give up out landline and everybody on landline lands on my 231 00:14:23.390 --> 00:14:26.990 phone or AI and system leaves them a message and 232 00:14:26.990 --> 00:14:30.610 gets here on my email. That's it. And 233 00:14:31.010 --> 00:14:34.450 what a great system. I completely eliminated. 234 00:14:34.450 --> 00:14:37.970 Secondly, people only do like lengthy bookings. 235 00:14:38.050 --> 00:14:40.450 They have to be like four hours 236 00:14:41.810 --> 00:14:45.570 ahead of time. That's also fine. The only things 237 00:14:45.890 --> 00:14:49.650 left for distracting me are actually my 238 00:14:49.650 --> 00:14:52.530 family. But that on the other hand is 239 00:14:53.010 --> 00:14:56.810 basically something you can manage and something that is okay in 240 00:14:56.810 --> 00:15:00.530 some cases. For example, I have like an unwritten rule with my 241 00:15:00.530 --> 00:15:03.430 family, family, if the door is open, you can come in. If the door is 242 00:15:03.430 --> 00:15:06.270 closed right now with the recording, no distractions. 243 00:15:07.230 --> 00:15:10.790 I have a question about that, which is Henry is the son that I've met, 244 00:15:10.790 --> 00:15:14.190 right? Yeah. Right, yeah. So you use 245 00:15:14.190 --> 00:15:17.910 headphones which have become very popular as a signal of don't 246 00:15:17.910 --> 00:15:21.470 disturb me, especially in open offices. Do they also 247 00:15:21.470 --> 00:15:24.510 perceive the headphones as a don't disturb dad? No, 248 00:15:26.350 --> 00:15:30.190 I'm the dad. I'm always available for them 24 7. Okay. 249 00:15:30.190 --> 00:15:33.800 But for you it's the door. It's. The door's closed. Yeah, it's a 250 00:15:33.800 --> 00:15:37.360 door. I actually have a key, I lock it. And when 251 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:41.840 my sons were very small, they had to learn they 252 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:45.520 stand outside, they're knocking. If the door is closed, that's it. That 253 00:15:45.520 --> 00:15:49.280 is not going to open. They had to learn it. It was a few very 254 00:15:49.280 --> 00:15:52.960 tough days because they're outside. Daddy, Daddy. Hello. It breaks your 255 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:56.440 heart but then they've learned it and then you have the pattern 256 00:15:56.440 --> 00:16:00.190 established. Yeah. Okay, okay, please go on. 257 00:16:00.190 --> 00:16:04.030 I'm sorry, I interrupted you. We talked about. 258 00:16:04.030 --> 00:16:07.670 That was example number one and we were talking about 259 00:16:07.670 --> 00:16:11.350 distractions. Question two is, what do you perceive as the biggest distractions 260 00:16:11.350 --> 00:16:14.070 for other people? For other people? 261 00:16:15.270 --> 00:16:18.870 I'm not sure. I think 262 00:16:19.110 --> 00:16:22.230 there are really different type of types of people. 263 00:16:22.950 --> 00:16:26.150 For example, some of them are really 264 00:16:26.150 --> 00:16:29.770 distracted by pop ups, by messages 265 00:16:29.770 --> 00:16:33.250 and so on and so forth. That's actually a new thing that my smartphone 266 00:16:34.130 --> 00:16:37.890 is not doing anything. It's my smartwatch and only very selected 267 00:16:38.530 --> 00:16:41.970 apps that can ping me and in terms on my desktop, 268 00:16:42.130 --> 00:16:45.770 there's barely any app, anything that can send 269 00:16:45.770 --> 00:16:49.090 messages. So everything I have on my cell phone is quiet. 270 00:16:49.650 --> 00:16:53.450 And there are like two or three tools 271 00:16:53.450 --> 00:16:57.240 on my desktop computer that can send me messages. That's it. Okay. 272 00:16:57.800 --> 00:17:01.440 Would you like to know what we've discovered about distraction? Sure, 273 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:05.040 go ahead. Okay. So I 274 00:17:05.040 --> 00:17:08.360 started, as many entrepreneurs do, solving a problem that I had, 275 00:17:08.920 --> 00:17:12.399 right? And for me, there are two 276 00:17:12.399 --> 00:17:15.640 problems that were painful. One was 277 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:19.280 procrastination about getting started, the inertia of getting started, and how 278 00:17:19.280 --> 00:17:22.880 easy it was to scroll through the news or return emails or do 279 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:25.270 something, as opposed to eat the frog, right? 280 00:17:26.790 --> 00:17:30.590 So the second problem was about distraction during the 281 00:17:30.590 --> 00:17:34.230 day. And I found that I was the most vulnerable when 282 00:17:34.230 --> 00:17:37.830 I would be encountering an obstacle. Oh, 283 00:17:37.830 --> 00:17:41.590 I'm. I'm trying to get this, this bit of code done, 284 00:17:41.590 --> 00:17:45.310 and the build keeps failing. What is wrong with this? You know, I'm writing 285 00:17:45.310 --> 00:17:48.870 a blog post and I know that it's terrible. 286 00:17:48.950 --> 00:17:52.270 Like, the muses are not singing to me, and I'm just reading it, going, I 287 00:17:52.270 --> 00:17:55.730 wouldn't read this. Why am I writing this? Right? So in those moments of 288 00:17:55.730 --> 00:17:59.250 frustration, I would then be very vulnerable to my hand 289 00:17:59.250 --> 00:18:03.050 going, picking up the phone. Well, you know, I'm just going to check and see 290 00:18:03.050 --> 00:18:06.410 if, you know, you are in whatsapped me or, you know, who, who sent me 291 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:10.050 a message. I can just return that and that turns into then, oh, opening the 292 00:18:10.050 --> 00:18:13.690 YouTube video or the TikTok or something. It's just nothing good 293 00:18:13.690 --> 00:18:17.490 happens from that. Right? So those are my two problems. Let me tell you 294 00:18:17.490 --> 00:18:20.610 about how I solve that and let me expand to what I've seen in user 295 00:18:20.610 --> 00:18:24.300 data. So with the first one getting 296 00:18:24.300 --> 00:18:28.060 started, I realized I would procrastinate 297 00:18:28.060 --> 00:18:31.820 because I was overwhelmed. There are too many things on 298 00:18:31.820 --> 00:18:34.900 my to do list. It's paralyzing, or 299 00:18:36.580 --> 00:18:39.700 this thing I have to do is so big I can't make a dent in 300 00:18:39.700 --> 00:18:42.300 it. But between now and the podcast that you and I are going to do 301 00:18:42.300 --> 00:18:46.140 today, I can't write my book or something, right? So why get 302 00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:49.820 started? And I realized the solutions to those were very simple. 303 00:18:50.380 --> 00:18:54.220 When I organized my task list in Suka, as soon as I hit 304 00:18:54.220 --> 00:18:57.980 play and the music starts, it hides everything but my 305 00:18:57.980 --> 00:19:01.620 three top tasks. So it forces me to 306 00:19:01.620 --> 00:19:05.340 prioritize and say, okay, what are the three important things to do today? And then 307 00:19:05.340 --> 00:19:08.740 not think about the 14 other things that could 308 00:19:08.740 --> 00:19:11.820 clutter my mind or make me multitask. Right? 309 00:19:13.350 --> 00:19:16.710 So that was a very helpful thing for me to Say, oh, when I see 310 00:19:16.710 --> 00:19:20.470 three things and I'm working, it seems very achievable. Can I tell you, 311 00:19:21.030 --> 00:19:24.790 since we started that feature where we hide everything but your top 312 00:19:24.790 --> 00:19:28.630 three, our members are 77% more 313 00:19:28.630 --> 00:19:32.350 likely to finish three than before, when they could see 314 00:19:32.350 --> 00:19:35.590 their entire task list and they would finish one or two. 315 00:19:36.790 --> 00:19:40.390 Simple hack, nothing changed. The same tasks, the same members, 316 00:19:40.880 --> 00:19:44.400 the same amount of time. The only thing that changed was, it 317 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:46.320 seems achievable I can do three. 318 00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:51.120 When I thought about, oh, you know, 319 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:55.760 this task, I have to go create the new website, write the book. 320 00:19:56.240 --> 00:19:59.880 Those are not tasks, those are goals. So you can ask your smart 321 00:19:59.880 --> 00:20:03.400 assistant, hey, help me break this down and it'll be, you know what? You aren't. 322 00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:06.680 I saw you already wrote the outlines for chapters one and two of your book. 323 00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:10.430 What if today's task, it's just outline chapter three and you 324 00:20:10.430 --> 00:20:13.950 can do that in 30 minutes? I've been watching you. You do your outlines in 325 00:20:13.950 --> 00:20:17.750 about 30 minutes. Suddenly your task list seems achievable, right? So that 326 00:20:17.750 --> 00:20:21.350 was a way of getting over that inertia, that procrastination at the beginning of the 327 00:20:21.350 --> 00:20:24.310 day. That's a problem for me. And in terms of distraction, 328 00:20:25.350 --> 00:20:28.950 I didn't want to download. I mean, there's some great apps, don't get me wrong, 329 00:20:28.950 --> 00:20:32.750 that block your phone. They lock it. They're physical hardware devices like 330 00:20:32.750 --> 00:20:35.870 Brick you can buy that bricks your phone. Like, there are many ways to do 331 00:20:35.870 --> 00:20:38.480 that. But I realized, you know, I'm not a child. 332 00:20:40.080 --> 00:20:43.840 What I actually need is I just need the friend sitting next to me 333 00:20:44.080 --> 00:20:47.120 that says, hey, Steven, like, what are you doing? 334 00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:51.840 So when I hit the play button in Suka, a QR code comes 335 00:20:51.840 --> 00:20:55.360 up. Tap with my phone, start work. 336 00:20:56.240 --> 00:20:59.680 If I pick up my phone, the little voice 337 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:03.560 comes and says to me, hey, Stephen, it seems like you picked up your phone. 338 00:21:03.560 --> 00:21:07.250 Is that distracting you? And that 339 00:21:07.250 --> 00:21:10.690 gives me that one moment to say, who do I want to be? 340 00:21:11.490 --> 00:21:14.330 And that's sometimes all I need. Just say, you know what? I'd rather be done 341 00:21:14.330 --> 00:21:17.930 earlier and do better work than stay up later 342 00:21:17.930 --> 00:21:21.650 tonight. Exact same thing with websites. I can declare my custom 343 00:21:21.650 --> 00:21:25.410 list of what distracts me and say if I open one of 344 00:21:25.410 --> 00:21:29.210 these websites, more than five seconds, not just tab surfing, but 345 00:21:29.210 --> 00:21:32.780 I stop on it, give me a modal that says, 346 00:21:32.780 --> 00:21:36.540 hey, is this distracting you? And then I just get that moment like a friend 347 00:21:36.540 --> 00:21:40.140 was sitting with me to say, who do I want to be Now? I'll tell 348 00:21:40.140 --> 00:21:43.740 you what's interesting is I have seen now running this for years, the 349 00:21:43.740 --> 00:21:47.340 seasonality of distractions. There are 350 00:21:47.340 --> 00:21:50.700 so many people with very specific sports sites, for example, 351 00:21:51.580 --> 00:21:55.380 that come and go, I'm telling you. Yeah, and 352 00:21:55.380 --> 00:21:59.130 it's the same thing as, you know, across the world. Whether it 353 00:21:59.130 --> 00:22:02.650 is, you know, football, soccer, we, you know, call it here, American football, 354 00:22:02.730 --> 00:22:06.450 whether it's baseball, whether it's ESPN in general, there 355 00:22:06.450 --> 00:22:10.210 is a huge amount of seasonality to. Oh, the 356 00:22:10.210 --> 00:22:13.810 thing that's distracting me is this. Whereas with the shopping 357 00:22:13.810 --> 00:22:17.370 sites that is also very holiday based, 358 00:22:18.010 --> 00:22:21.330 right? So you see like for us, Amazon and the 359 00:22:21.330 --> 00:22:25.020 Etsy and those before the Labor Day sales, 360 00:22:25.180 --> 00:22:28.900 which is our fall holiday, before the Christmas, before the spring Memorial 361 00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:32.220 Day sales, those spike and some people 362 00:22:32.460 --> 00:22:36.100 now in advance toggle them on, say please the next 363 00:22:36.100 --> 00:22:39.900 month, stop me if I open up Amazon. And 364 00:22:40.060 --> 00:22:43.420 I love that people are starting to get to know themselves because again, that's a 365 00:22:43.420 --> 00:22:46.780 signal of I want to be the best version of myself. 366 00:22:47.100 --> 00:22:50.930 I want to be in control of my life. So that's something 367 00:22:50.930 --> 00:22:54.650 that I am very passionate about is just saying, you know what, find 368 00:22:54.650 --> 00:22:58.090 the tools and it does not have to be suka. You can find 369 00:22:58.330 --> 00:23:02.090 freedom. You can find so many of these tools that 370 00:23:02.090 --> 00:23:05.850 help you or get a box. I don't 371 00:23:05.850 --> 00:23:08.810 think I ever showed you this. This is something I experimented with. 372 00:23:10.970 --> 00:23:11.610 See this? 373 00:23:14.810 --> 00:23:18.580 Yes. There's your logo on it and it's action box. It's a 374 00:23:18.580 --> 00:23:22.420 little phone coffin. So I can put my phone in there 375 00:23:23.860 --> 00:23:27.620 and I put it down and you know what, it's just the energy 376 00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:31.340 of trying to like open it and get my phone out that stops me 377 00:23:31.340 --> 00:23:35.100 from picking up sometimes. And it's just a bamboo 378 00:23:35.100 --> 00:23:38.900 box by the way. I have a bunch of these. So 379 00:23:38.980 --> 00:23:41.620 things like that, if you get to know yourself, you say, you know what I 380 00:23:41.620 --> 00:23:45.390 need is this. Because ultimately what we want is 381 00:23:46.350 --> 00:23:49.270 we want to do the thing we're capable of and we want to feel in 382 00:23:49.270 --> 00:23:53.030 control of our life. And that's what I love. And I love how 383 00:23:53.030 --> 00:23:56.830 many people come to you because they are in the startup scene and 384 00:23:56.830 --> 00:24:00.550 they are saying help me, teach me, give me tools, help me to 385 00:24:00.550 --> 00:24:03.630 do this thing. And that's awesome. 386 00:24:05.710 --> 00:24:09.550 I would now move a little bit away from the productivity 387 00:24:09.550 --> 00:24:13.310 tips more a little bit into 388 00:24:13.630 --> 00:24:16.350 because you're a startup in an investor view. 389 00:24:18.750 --> 00:24:21.790 When an investor asks 390 00:24:22.430 --> 00:24:25.950 why you are in a crowded category, 391 00:24:25.950 --> 00:24:29.710 what's your differential thesis versus 392 00:24:29.710 --> 00:24:33.430 focus? Music, apps and co working cameras. Well, I'll tell you two 393 00:24:33.430 --> 00:24:37.250 things. I have been very proud of the fact that we 394 00:24:37.250 --> 00:24:41.050 bootstrapped this. I've 395 00:24:41.050 --> 00:24:44.690 raised over $21 million of venture for three 396 00:24:44.690 --> 00:24:48.530 companies. One successful exit with Roland and Dean, we 397 00:24:48.530 --> 00:24:52.290 did syntropolis effects and two failed startups where I raised about 398 00:24:52.290 --> 00:24:56.090 3 million for each. So I have learned a lot 399 00:24:56.090 --> 00:24:59.850 of the ways in which you raise venture money. In doing 400 00:24:59.850 --> 00:25:03.580 this, I said to myself, you know what? I have seen 401 00:25:03.580 --> 00:25:06.300 how sometimes raising venture 402 00:25:07.100 --> 00:25:10.820 obscures the unit economics. You think, oh, we have 403 00:25:10.820 --> 00:25:14.420 $4 million in the bank, we can be giving away our services or giving away 404 00:25:14.420 --> 00:25:18.139 the thing below what it costs us 405 00:25:18.139 --> 00:25:21.940 to create this. And I went into this and I said, 406 00:25:21.940 --> 00:25:25.620 you know what, if we're not delivering a product that people want to pay 407 00:25:25.620 --> 00:25:28.780 for, then we have to ask ourselves, what's wrong with the product? 408 00:25:31.470 --> 00:25:35.310 And that has been really helpful with Suka 409 00:25:35.310 --> 00:25:39.070 because I can tell when I see cancellations and we just shipped a 410 00:25:39.070 --> 00:25:42.750 release that had a new feature or took away a feature, 411 00:25:43.230 --> 00:25:46.910 that is the most honest user feedback you will ever get. 412 00:25:46.990 --> 00:25:50.790 When someone cancels, you know, people will be nice to you 413 00:25:50.790 --> 00:25:54.470 all day long. Oh, Yoern, I love your app. Really? Because you never use it. 414 00:25:54.470 --> 00:25:58.140 Oh, no, it's so good. No. And when people tell their 415 00:25:58.140 --> 00:26:01.940 friends when referrals go up, that is 416 00:26:01.940 --> 00:26:05.740 a great signal of, okay, we just shipped something that people are like, oh, my 417 00:26:05.740 --> 00:26:08.980 God, Stephen, check this out. This is a really cool app I use. And 418 00:26:09.540 --> 00:26:12.980 for that reason, with this company, I didn't raise outside 419 00:26:12.980 --> 00:26:15.140 venture. It is all me. 420 00:26:16.820 --> 00:26:20.460 And I think with other startups 421 00:26:20.460 --> 00:26:24.280 that, who knows, friends are doing, there are great reasons to raise 422 00:26:24.280 --> 00:26:28.120 venture. But I love the discipline of saying, 423 00:26:28.200 --> 00:26:31.560 if we can't afford that because members are willing to pay, 424 00:26:32.600 --> 00:26:34.760 then is it really that valuable? 425 00:26:37.719 --> 00:26:39.080 Makes total sense. 426 00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:43.720 Let's go a little bit into, 427 00:26:46.520 --> 00:26:50.330 into, into some, some other pieces of the story. 428 00:26:50.330 --> 00:26:53.810 Because you co founded Centripolis FX with 429 00:26:55.330 --> 00:26:58.210 Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. 430 00:26:59.410 --> 00:27:03.250 Yeah. And sold it. How do you translate 431 00:27:03.730 --> 00:27:07.530 that deal craft into startup fundraising and 432 00:27:07.530 --> 00:27:10.370 business development today? You know what, 433 00:27:11.330 --> 00:27:15.140 when we, you know, when you 434 00:27:15.140 --> 00:27:18.620 win an Academy Award, it helps with 435 00:27:18.620 --> 00:27:22.060 fundraising. Let me just say that. Right? So, 436 00:27:22.220 --> 00:27:25.980 yeah, makes sense. Having produced the digital effects for Independence Day. And I 437 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:29.540 want to be very humble, a thousand people are responsible for that 438 00:27:29.540 --> 00:27:33.300 visual effects. Like, that was a huge number of people who worked very hard. 439 00:27:33.300 --> 00:27:37.020 So it is not any one person. But having 440 00:27:37.260 --> 00:27:41.060 been the guy very close with Roland and Dean doing that, of 441 00:27:41.060 --> 00:27:44.060 course we went out to raise that. People said, oh, you have credibility in this 442 00:27:44.060 --> 00:27:47.860 field. You seem to be a subject matter expert. You have insights 443 00:27:47.860 --> 00:27:51.420 into why this can be done the way you did it, and it 444 00:27:51.420 --> 00:27:54.620 worked. So that was A very different experience 445 00:27:55.020 --> 00:27:58.660 than my later fundraising. And my later 446 00:27:58.660 --> 00:28:01.820 fundraising people didn't care that 447 00:28:02.540 --> 00:28:05.900 I had done independence pay. People didn't care that I'd sold Syntropolis. 448 00:28:06.750 --> 00:28:10.510 Investors were very critical of, well, you haven't done this before. 449 00:28:12.430 --> 00:28:15.590 And that is when I learned the power of 450 00:28:15.590 --> 00:28:19.230 storytelling, even in fundraising. Now, there are 451 00:28:19.230 --> 00:28:22.430 fantastic people who write great advice on fundraising. 452 00:28:23.870 --> 00:28:27.710 Do your research on the investors you want. One of the things 453 00:28:27.710 --> 00:28:30.910 that I think is very important that some young founders don't 454 00:28:31.070 --> 00:28:34.190 realize is don't accept 455 00:28:34.990 --> 00:28:36.590 dumb money. 456 00:28:39.310 --> 00:28:43.030 There are people who will give you money, and they do not 457 00:28:43.030 --> 00:28:46.870 contribute anything to the company. They don't have relationships where it's like, 458 00:28:46.870 --> 00:28:50.110 oh, I need. I'm doing a shopping app, and this person happened to be part 459 00:28:50.110 --> 00:28:53.950 of Amazon. They have insights in how the business should run, or they have contacts, 460 00:28:53.950 --> 00:28:57.790 right? You want to bring 461 00:28:57.790 --> 00:29:01.100 people in who have smart money. They can give you 462 00:29:01.580 --> 00:29:05.260 knowledge, expertise. They can tell you where the potholes are on the road 463 00:29:05.260 --> 00:29:08.860 ahead of you. Right? And importantly, those 464 00:29:08.860 --> 00:29:11.740 seed investors that are smart, not dumb, 465 00:29:12.940 --> 00:29:16.139 their names send a signal to later investors. 466 00:29:16.780 --> 00:29:20.580 Because when they say, oh, you got Joran, who is VP of Europe 467 00:29:20.580 --> 00:29:23.020 for Amazon, in your shopping app, in your seed round, 468 00:29:24.220 --> 00:29:27.940 that's a really great signal you're going to succeed. As opposed to Steven, who has 469 00:29:27.940 --> 00:29:31.770 a bunch of, you know, real estate guys in the United States in his 470 00:29:31.770 --> 00:29:35.570 seed round, right? So that I learned to be very 471 00:29:35.570 --> 00:29:39.250 important. You want to accept smart money, not dumb money. It 472 00:29:39.250 --> 00:29:43.050 is about storytelling, especially at the early stages. When you are selling the 473 00:29:43.050 --> 00:29:46.850 dream, you're like, we don't have 10 years of ARR to 474 00:29:46.850 --> 00:29:50.610 model. We can't. We're not, you know, we have an idea. We have 475 00:29:50.610 --> 00:29:54.210 market research. But more than anything, we have a strong thesis and we can 476 00:29:54.210 --> 00:29:57.960 explain why we think we are the ones to execute on it. And then 477 00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:01.240 you start to deal with, how do we overcome what you brought up, Jorn. 478 00:30:01.560 --> 00:30:05.360 Hey, it's a crowded field, Steven. There are a lot of other apps that 479 00:30:05.360 --> 00:30:09.160 do whatever you do, right? And that is 480 00:30:09.160 --> 00:30:12.880 where you say, it's a crowded field because there's 481 00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:16.640 a huge market for it. These other companies are 482 00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:20.120 not our competitors. They were the ones who proved out 483 00:30:20.440 --> 00:30:23.700 that there is a market. What we are going to do is, is take it 484 00:30:23.700 --> 00:30:27.180 to the next level. We are going to build on their shoulders and say, we'll 485 00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:30.020 do it better now that you've shown, people will pay for this. 486 00:30:31.140 --> 00:30:34.980 And that's something where investors go, oh, so you're right. The crowded market actually 487 00:30:35.300 --> 00:30:39.140 makes you more attractive, not less Attractive. Okay, well, tell me how you're better. 488 00:30:44.420 --> 00:30:48.140 That totally makes sense. I 489 00:30:48.140 --> 00:30:51.580 was wondering. We're talking such a lot about 490 00:30:51.980 --> 00:30:54.860 your tool, but you also partner with tools. 491 00:30:57.420 --> 00:31:00.940 If you partner with tools like Notion, Linear, 492 00:31:00.940 --> 00:31:04.300 Slack or something. Yes. What native integration best 493 00:31:05.020 --> 00:31:08.460 boosts flow without adding any noise. 494 00:31:09.740 --> 00:31:12.700 You know what we do is this is we believe 495 00:31:13.580 --> 00:31:17.260 there are some beautiful tools out there and some people 496 00:31:17.260 --> 00:31:20.940 use todoist, they use asana, they use Jira, they use, you know, 497 00:31:21.020 --> 00:31:24.820 slack or whatever. And we don't really 498 00:31:24.820 --> 00:31:28.580 want to replicate that. If those are the fantastic tools 499 00:31:28.580 --> 00:31:32.299 that someone uses, what we want to say is great. So continue to use todoist 500 00:31:32.460 --> 00:31:36.060 or linear when you want to work. 501 00:31:36.300 --> 00:31:39.980 Wouldn't it be easier for you if you could just integrate 502 00:31:40.700 --> 00:31:43.900 that task list and just pull from it so you never have to retype a 503 00:31:43.900 --> 00:31:47.690 task or copy and paste a task. You can just simply choose from 504 00:31:47.690 --> 00:31:51.410 your linear and just work on that. Today, Today I'm going to close these 505 00:31:51.410 --> 00:31:55.250 three, you know, linear tickets. Oh, I'm going to pull in these tasks from todoist. 506 00:31:55.650 --> 00:31:59.330 And that's our point of view. One thing we're working on right now, and I'll 507 00:31:59.330 --> 00:32:02.810 tell you, this is hard. We have not solved this yet. We 508 00:32:02.810 --> 00:32:06.370 switched to clerk. Do you know the. The auth platform, Clerk? 509 00:32:07.490 --> 00:32:11.170 It's become very popular here in the United States. Right. So 510 00:32:11.490 --> 00:32:15.030 alternative, like we move it off Firebase. So 511 00:32:16.230 --> 00:32:19.990 we used to offer the ability to connect your slack 512 00:32:21.030 --> 00:32:24.830 and the reason we did that is when you hit play, it would 513 00:32:24.830 --> 00:32:28.590 set your slack to away mode. So people knew, oh, you're in a focus 514 00:32:28.590 --> 00:32:32.310 session, you're not going to respond instantly. And it took the pressure off you 515 00:32:32.310 --> 00:32:35.990 to be talking back to people so they would see a 516 00:32:35.990 --> 00:32:39.750 message. Hey, I'm in a flow session, I'll get back to you. And people really 517 00:32:39.750 --> 00:32:43.560 loved that. I'll tell you something, and this is, I'm working 518 00:32:43.560 --> 00:32:46.600 on this. We've not solved this yet and it bugs me is 519 00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:50.760 so when we move to clerk, one thing that clerk has 520 00:32:50.760 --> 00:32:54.280 not gotten to work yet is the 521 00:32:54.280 --> 00:32:57.920 multiple auth thing where people use 522 00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:01.680 Slack. Yarn. Yes. Sometimes. Yeah. How 523 00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:05.520 many workspaces do you have connected? I would need 524 00:33:05.520 --> 00:33:09.080 to check, but it's got so distracted that it's 525 00:33:09.080 --> 00:33:10.280 out of my. 526 00:33:12.990 --> 00:33:16.790 Out of my auto start. And I'm only checking 527 00:33:16.790 --> 00:33:20.423 when I do have some time. 1, 2, 3, 4, 528 00:33:20.509 --> 00:33:23.470 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. 529 00:33:27.070 --> 00:33:30.350 I would say somewhere in the area of 2022, 530 00:33:30.750 --> 00:33:32.750 but you have to see there. Also, 531 00:33:34.430 --> 00:33:37.870 since I'm involved in different startup communities, I also like to look 532 00:33:38.340 --> 00:33:41.780 around. There are slacks on startup communities. For example in 533 00:33:41.780 --> 00:33:45.540 Lyon, France, in New York City, where I'm still a member, 534 00:33:45.540 --> 00:33:49.380 I don't have like to contribute a lot. It's more to get a feel 535 00:33:49.540 --> 00:33:52.740 and to be connected. If I go there, I write, hey guys, I'm coming. 536 00:33:52.980 --> 00:33:56.820 Who's up for coffee? Or something like that. Yes. So 537 00:33:56.980 --> 00:34:00.740 you are like many people that have multiple Slack 538 00:34:00.740 --> 00:34:04.420 workspaces. Clerk has not launched that yet. You can't do 539 00:34:04.420 --> 00:34:08.060 multiple auths with Slack. So we used to offer the ability where when you 540 00:34:08.060 --> 00:34:11.420 started, you hit play, the music starts, everything's blocked. 541 00:34:11.580 --> 00:34:14.980 Your Slack, all your workspaces would automatically say, hey, 542 00:34:14.980 --> 00:34:18.740 Jorn's in a flow session, I'm in flow, I'll get back to you. And 543 00:34:18.740 --> 00:34:21.940 we don't do that right now. And it bugs me every day. And we've been 544 00:34:21.940 --> 00:34:25.300 talking to the devs at Slack at Clerk to say, could you 545 00:34:25.300 --> 00:34:28.980 prioritize this? Because that's a big one. That is a big distraction. 546 00:34:28.980 --> 00:34:32.750 All little Slack messages, they come in. So 547 00:34:33.390 --> 00:34:36.190 got to work on that. And 548 00:34:37.310 --> 00:34:40.950 when I saw your startup, what are you guys doing? I was 549 00:34:40.950 --> 00:34:43.790 wondering what KPIs do you actually 550 00:34:45.230 --> 00:34:48.750 optimize for like flow hours per 551 00:34:48.750 --> 00:34:52.510 user, per week, task completion velocity or 552 00:34:52.510 --> 00:34:56.110 something else? And why? Oh, okay, that is a 553 00:34:56.110 --> 00:34:59.820 really, really good question. Very few people ask me 554 00:34:59.820 --> 00:35:03.620 that because they're usually very curious about flow state. Welcome to startup radio. 555 00:35:04.180 --> 00:35:07.300 No, no, it's a fantastic question, right? So many people want to go deep into 556 00:35:07.300 --> 00:35:10.340 flow states and mental techniques and all that. I'll tell you this 557 00:35:11.380 --> 00:35:14.740 because of other startups that I've done and I've been part of, 558 00:35:15.460 --> 00:35:19.260 there are a lot of the downstream engagement metrics that I used to be 559 00:35:19.260 --> 00:35:23.100 very focused on. Like you said, okay, how many tasks are people inputting, how many 560 00:35:23.100 --> 00:35:26.580 are they completing, how much time are they spending? And I'll tell you, 561 00:35:27.140 --> 00:35:30.900 I've been very focused on top of the funnel recently and I'll tell you why. 562 00:35:32.900 --> 00:35:36.700 Our retention, if you sign up to pay, if you do 563 00:35:36.700 --> 00:35:39.780 your seven day trial and you say, oh, I get it, I want to pay, 564 00:35:40.260 --> 00:35:43.980 our retention is incredibly high. It hovers around 565 00:35:43.980 --> 00:35:47.700 94 to 96% month over month paid retention, which 566 00:35:47.700 --> 00:35:50.740 is insane because the reason for that is 567 00:35:51.660 --> 00:35:54.660 when you experience a flow state and you look up and it's three o' clock 568 00:35:54.660 --> 00:35:58.300 and you're done and you feel good, you're like, why would I work any other 569 00:35:58.300 --> 00:36:02.100 way, right? Here's the problem. Here's 570 00:36:02.100 --> 00:36:04.940 the problem. What we noticed was 571 00:36:05.900 --> 00:36:09.660 we would get unique visitors, like first Time users 572 00:36:10.300 --> 00:36:13.980 who would come to the app and try it for five minutes or 10 minutes 573 00:36:15.020 --> 00:36:18.460 and leave. And it was a very clear bifurcation. 574 00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:22.760 If they came, hit play, listen to music for five minutes, 575 00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:26.240 they go, oh, it's a music app like Brain FM or Endel, and 576 00:36:26.240 --> 00:36:30.000 leave. They never got into a flow state. They didn't come with a task 577 00:36:31.360 --> 00:36:34.720 so they could have the experience of like wow, man, what happened? 578 00:36:35.040 --> 00:36:38.240 That's awesome. I want more of this. Right? And 579 00:36:38.640 --> 00:36:42.440 I gotta tell you, it was black and white, that metric. When we figured out 580 00:36:42.440 --> 00:36:46.090 where it was, we were losing people in, you know, first time user experience 581 00:36:46.410 --> 00:36:49.690 was so clear. I have been focused on that one 582 00:36:49.930 --> 00:36:53.690 metric. How do we move that needle? 583 00:36:53.690 --> 00:36:57.330 So someone has to say, I want to come back tomorrow and develop 584 00:36:57.330 --> 00:37:00.810 a habit and I'm come back on Wednesday and it's free for a week. 585 00:37:00.970 --> 00:37:04.810 You can use it 168 hours in a row if you want without ever 586 00:37:04.810 --> 00:37:08.170 putting in a credit card. And I wanted people to say, 587 00:37:08.650 --> 00:37:11.850 oh, I'm going to do this a few times, I want to have that experience. 588 00:37:12.170 --> 00:37:15.650 So if you notice when you sign up now, there are a couple times in 589 00:37:15.650 --> 00:37:18.730 the first time user flow in the onboarding where I say, hey, 590 00:37:19.370 --> 00:37:23.170 don't go to the next step unless you have a 591 00:37:23.170 --> 00:37:27.010 task you need to do. Because I know 592 00:37:27.010 --> 00:37:29.850 that if you just hit play, you listen to music, you'll bounce in one minute. 593 00:37:29.850 --> 00:37:33.250 You're like, oh, okay, it's music, whatever. And that's not the 594 00:37:33.250 --> 00:37:37.010 magic. Yeah. And the selection is not as good as on platform X 595 00:37:37.010 --> 00:37:40.850 and Y. And that's actually not what you're competing on. Exactly. 596 00:37:40.850 --> 00:37:43.970 Right. So that is, there are many metrics you brought up, but I'm going to 597 00:37:43.970 --> 00:37:47.810 tell you that is the only metric right now that I'm caring about is how 598 00:37:47.810 --> 00:37:51.090 many people have a first session that's over 60 minutes 599 00:37:51.810 --> 00:37:55.170 because that is a determinant if they will end up signing up or not. 600 00:38:01.330 --> 00:38:04.930 Let's talk a little bit about 12 to 24 month 601 00:38:04.930 --> 00:38:08.520 roadmap. Where does the AI assisted 602 00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:12.760 facilitation fit? Like not just break time as 603 00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:16.120 pairing. Oh, another great question. 604 00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:19.360 I will tell you my vision and this is the thing that we are working 605 00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:22.920 on because we are wrestling with the hallucinations 606 00:38:24.040 --> 00:38:27.880 and every day we're getting closer to this, but we're not there yet, 607 00:38:28.200 --> 00:38:31.880 which is where we have the design. 608 00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:35.910 Our goal with the smart assistant is that in the morning your 609 00:38:35.910 --> 00:38:39.310 smart assistant greets you. It's familiar with your task list. It 610 00:38:39.310 --> 00:38:43.110 suggests Joran, you know what I've Been watching what you've been doing every 611 00:38:43.110 --> 00:38:46.910 day. Here are the three most important things 612 00:38:46.910 --> 00:38:49.630 in my point of view. Are these the right three to start with? And you 613 00:38:49.630 --> 00:38:53.390 can say yes or no, you can adjust it. By the way, I noticed you're 614 00:38:53.390 --> 00:38:56.390 starting work today at 8 o', clock, which is right in your sweet zone, your 615 00:38:56.390 --> 00:38:59.710 flow state zone. You work 616 00:38:59.790 --> 00:39:03.630 20% faster when you listen to this playlist in the morning. Can I put on 617 00:39:03.630 --> 00:39:07.300 sonic caffeine for you? And you're like, oh, I appreciate 618 00:39:07.300 --> 00:39:11.100 that you're paying attention to me. It's not a bio wearable sort of thing. It 619 00:39:11.100 --> 00:39:14.740 is a, you complete your tasks on time, you complete them under 620 00:39:14.740 --> 00:39:18.500 time. I've been watching. Here's what you do. Would 621 00:39:18.500 --> 00:39:21.660 love for that smart assistant to say, hey, and by the way, I looked at 622 00:39:21.660 --> 00:39:25.460 your task list like we were talking about before and there's 623 00:39:25.460 --> 00:39:28.980 something on here that's not a task. Would it be okay if I broke that 624 00:39:28.980 --> 00:39:31.420 down for you into actual like tasks 625 00:39:33.020 --> 00:39:36.660 and that sort of companion that's looking at like, what are you listening 626 00:39:36.660 --> 00:39:40.420 to? What kind of breaks really recharge you? What time of 627 00:39:40.420 --> 00:39:43.940 day should be working? Like, by the way, Joran, I know that right now you 628 00:39:43.940 --> 00:39:47.420 put on the list you want to do write some 629 00:39:47.420 --> 00:39:51.180 code, but this is not actually your sweet spot. Can I put that on the 630 00:39:51.180 --> 00:39:54.900 list for later tonight maybe when the kids go to bed. And then right 631 00:39:54.900 --> 00:39:58.020 now let's do this other thing that you're good at doing at 11 in the 632 00:39:58.020 --> 00:40:01.330 morning. Right, that level of 633 00:40:01.330 --> 00:40:04.570 personalization. That is where I'm going. 634 00:40:06.010 --> 00:40:08.970 I see. So basically your own 635 00:40:09.930 --> 00:40:13.690 habit forming AI assistant. Yes. Okay, 636 00:40:14.730 --> 00:40:18.410 prediction. Will remote makers 637 00:40:18.490 --> 00:40:22.170 swing to co located micropods or even 638 00:40:22.890 --> 00:40:26.340 better virtual rooms? What breaks the tie? 639 00:40:27.780 --> 00:40:31.060 What breaks the time? What do you mean by that? Yeah, 640 00:40:31.460 --> 00:40:35.140 what breaks the tie? Where does one win? Where does one lose? 641 00:40:35.300 --> 00:40:38.740 Oh, what breaks the tie. You know what, I will tell you this. I have 642 00:40:38.740 --> 00:40:42.260 seen such strong use cases for solo work, 643 00:40:43.140 --> 00:40:46.940 virtual co working where you may be in a zoom room, maybe 644 00:40:46.940 --> 00:40:50.790 in some sort of group co working and then physical coworking. I couldn't tell 645 00:40:50.790 --> 00:40:53.230 you which one will win. I wish I had an answer for you, but again, 646 00:40:53.230 --> 00:40:56.430 I only wanted to be an expert on things where I should be an expert. 647 00:40:56.590 --> 00:40:59.150 And this is one where I don't know how it's going to turn out. 648 00:41:01.630 --> 00:41:05.390 A little bit contrarian to what we heard from 649 00:41:05.390 --> 00:41:08.990 you before. Hustle culture kills innovation. Do you agree? 650 00:41:09.390 --> 00:41:12.990 And if you could be like Stephen Almighty, like 651 00:41:12.990 --> 00:41:14.910 for one day ruling all the world like 652 00:41:16.670 --> 00:41:20.220 the movie Bruce Dalmatian do you agree with? Yeah, Bruce Almighty. 653 00:41:20.220 --> 00:41:24.020 Exactly. And would you agree? And with what 654 00:41:24.100 --> 00:41:27.860 would you replace it? Okay, I'm going to give you 655 00:41:27.860 --> 00:41:31.620 two answers to your one question, right? Because 656 00:41:33.300 --> 00:41:37.140 the direct answer to question is if you're saying, 657 00:41:37.140 --> 00:41:40.660 hey, Steven, is hustle culture anathema to creativity? 658 00:41:40.900 --> 00:41:44.700 No, it's not. Smart productivity, like healthy 659 00:41:44.700 --> 00:41:48.350 productivity, is a thing. And great leaders know how to 660 00:41:48.350 --> 00:41:52.070 create greatness without enforcing the sleeping 661 00:41:52.070 --> 00:41:55.750 bag under the desk. You're here, I'm going to burn you out and kill you. 662 00:41:55.750 --> 00:41:57.910 And here are some stock options. Go. Right. 663 00:41:59.430 --> 00:42:03.110 There's a certain kind of leader that just doesn't understand how great 664 00:42:03.110 --> 00:42:06.710 work is done. So they only understand grinding it out. Like they're drawing blood out 665 00:42:06.710 --> 00:42:10.550 of you. And they do get blood, but at what 666 00:42:10.550 --> 00:42:14.030 cost? So there are ways in which you can do very healthy productivity. Say this 667 00:42:14.030 --> 00:42:17.870 is. How am I going to manage the team now? When you said, if I 668 00:42:17.870 --> 00:42:21.670 were Stephen almighty and for one day I could 669 00:42:21.670 --> 00:42:22.990 change everything, 670 00:42:25.630 --> 00:42:29.350 the thing I would change is not hustle culture. If people really want 671 00:42:29.350 --> 00:42:32.870 to spend more time than they need to on something, okay, we'll let them. If 672 00:42:32.870 --> 00:42:36.150 someone wants to be efficient, they can do their thing. The one thing I would 673 00:42:36.150 --> 00:42:38.670 change is this. I 674 00:42:40.040 --> 00:42:43.800 would change everyone so they were slightly more empathetic. 675 00:42:46.040 --> 00:42:49.880 And how that would change the nature of the world, including the nature of work, 676 00:42:50.920 --> 00:42:54.680 I think would be profound. Interesting 677 00:42:54.680 --> 00:42:56.760 thoughts here. Interesting thoughts 678 00:42:58.840 --> 00:43:02.520 for our audience. I would love to know what's 679 00:43:02.520 --> 00:43:05.960 one ritual you'll try this week to 680 00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:09.080 protect 90 minutes of deep work? Tell us in the comments 681 00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:12.900 below, tag us on social media, will reshare it 682 00:43:13.700 --> 00:43:17.300 advice and close Stephen, we are now talking for 1 683 00:43:17.300 --> 00:43:20.980 hour, 44 minutes and a few seconds. It's been great, though. 684 00:43:21.060 --> 00:43:24.620 I've really enjoyed this. Yeah, me too. Let's get to the last two 685 00:43:24.620 --> 00:43:28.460 questions and then there will be a few more questions in our founders 686 00:43:28.460 --> 00:43:30.100 world published later. 687 00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:35.860 What single environment change yields 688 00:43:36.020 --> 00:43:39.810 the fastest productivity lift for solo founders? 689 00:43:41.250 --> 00:43:45.010 I would say the oral environment. And by oral, I mean au oral, 690 00:43:45.010 --> 00:43:48.770 like what you're doing with sound. Sound has a deep 691 00:43:48.770 --> 00:43:52.290 influence on the brain's ability to focus. So if you're in an environment 692 00:43:52.530 --> 00:43:56.210 where there are sound distractions, bings of your phone, 693 00:43:56.610 --> 00:44:00.410 you know, children running by the doorbell, it's 694 00:44:00.410 --> 00:44:03.530 a horrible way to break focus. So if there were one thing I had to 695 00:44:03.530 --> 00:44:07.270 say about the environment, it's easy to say, oh, declutter your desk 696 00:44:07.510 --> 00:44:10.870 or go work in this particular space. But I would actually say 697 00:44:11.670 --> 00:44:14.710 work out your sound environment, your oral environment. 698 00:44:18.150 --> 00:44:21.310 What's Your boldest closing insights about 699 00:44:21.310 --> 00:44:24.310 creativity, resilience and building through 700 00:44:24.390 --> 00:44:28.030 uncertainty. Well, about creativity, we talked about the other 701 00:44:28.030 --> 00:44:31.630 thing. That is something that every time I've been blocked on 702 00:44:31.630 --> 00:44:35.350 something, I go back to what Jeff said to me 20 years 703 00:44:35.350 --> 00:44:39.190 ago. You have to be doing the other thing to have 704 00:44:39.190 --> 00:44:42.710 the back of your mind say, and here's the solution you've been waiting for. So 705 00:44:42.790 --> 00:44:45.670 if I'm blocked, I will go for a walk, I'll go downstairs, 706 00:44:46.390 --> 00:44:50.070 I'll take a shower, I'll do something, and then let the back of my mind 707 00:44:50.070 --> 00:44:53.030 do that. So that is my biggest hack in terms of creativity. 708 00:44:54.390 --> 00:44:58.150 And did you all say mental focus or energy? What was the 709 00:44:58.150 --> 00:45:01.760 other part of your question? The 710 00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:05.520 boldest closing insights about creativity, resilience 711 00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:09.080 and building through uncertainty. Resilience. Okay, so 712 00:45:09.160 --> 00:45:12.760 creativity, it is about the other thing, about resilience. 713 00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:16.680 It is that every role model you have has failed 714 00:45:16.680 --> 00:45:19.560 miserably. Period. 715 00:45:20.520 --> 00:45:24.200 Everyone. So you can look up to whomever you want. 716 00:45:25.090 --> 00:45:28.370 And just when you have that moment of like, oh, my God, this thing happened, 717 00:45:28.850 --> 00:45:32.450 we didn't close the round, or we lost users this month or whatever, 718 00:45:33.330 --> 00:45:36.050 everyone you look up to has had a worse loss than you. 719 00:45:37.090 --> 00:45:40.690 And I'll tell you this. The Austin Film Festival was recently here 720 00:45:40.690 --> 00:45:44.490 in Austin, and a number of people that I know from my 721 00:45:44.490 --> 00:45:47.490 film days, which is over a decade ago, were here 722 00:45:48.290 --> 00:45:51.830 with premieres of their movies, their TV series. So they 723 00:45:51.830 --> 00:45:54.430 invited me. They're like, hey, I'm in Austin. I know you live here now and 724 00:45:54.430 --> 00:45:56.950 you're in tech, but, you know, do you want to come to my premiere? I 725 00:45:56.950 --> 00:45:58.350 will tell you this, Joran. 726 00:46:00.510 --> 00:46:04.270 If you asked me 15, 20 years ago, who are the 727 00:46:04.270 --> 00:46:06.670 people that are going to be having premieres, 728 00:46:08.270 --> 00:46:11.710 I would have guessed wrong, because I thought the 729 00:46:11.710 --> 00:46:15.550 determinant was talent. It is not. 730 00:46:16.680 --> 00:46:20.320 It is tenacity. The people who were here 731 00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:24.000 a month or two ago and were like, come to my premiere. I had come 732 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.720 to this. They are not the ones that my friends and I all 733 00:46:27.720 --> 00:46:31.080 thought, oh, my God, that's the best director ever. Oh, it's the most amazing writer. 734 00:46:31.160 --> 00:46:33.960 They're the ones who could take no to their face 735 00:46:35.080 --> 00:46:38.600 and still get up and say, okay, I'm going to try again. 736 00:46:40.520 --> 00:46:42.440 Very, very true. 737 00:46:44.270 --> 00:46:47.990 Stephen, it has been a big pleasure talk to 738 00:46:47.990 --> 00:46:51.830 you. It's been wonderful. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much. It 739 00:46:51.830 --> 00:46:55.310 was now the final recording time will be around 740 00:46:55.470 --> 00:46:59.270 one hour and 50 minutes, I would say. 741 00:46:59.270 --> 00:47:00.510 It's a long movie, right? 742 00:47:04.030 --> 00:47:07.630 Yes. Awesome. Great. With such a 743 00:47:07.630 --> 00:47:11.420 pleasure having you hope to have you back in some time. Thank you very 744 00:47:11.420 --> 00:47:13.780 much. All the best. Okay, bye. 745 00:47:19.140 --> 00:47:22.660 That's all, folks. Find more news streams, 746 00:47:22.820 --> 00:47:23.980 events and 747 00:47:23.980 --> 00:47:28.340 interviews@www.startuprad.IO. 748 00:47:28.660 --> 00:47:30.980 remember, sharing is caring. 749 00:47:36.990 --> 00:47:44.230 Sam.