Probably worth it for a lot of people on earth to pay a thousand bucks for the year to figure out if they should make the jump, because, if you think about why most people don't do it, they're scared and they're scared. Financially, the garyvee audio experience vaynernation. How are you excited to be in the office to do this? Podcast two lovely gentlemen that i will introduce in a second, but first of all i just want to say thank you to the community. It's been um an amazing couple years as uh as i've started to like hit the world post coven, though it's not fully out and literally had four people this morning, email caitlyn rob like just like bombarded, so i think this kind of what always happens, but nonetheless, I think the world is uh gathering itself on dealing with the pandemic and, as i get more and more about um, you know uh super bowl this last weekend for my friend's birthday, just as i hit the streets of the world just completely blown away by the Kindness and admiration of the people coming up to me and thanking me for the content that i thank you in return, and it was very top of mind for me, so i wanted to start this podcast episode with that.

I also continue on the journey this year with interviews that are interesting to me, and i think you could tell by the interviews i've done this year even closer to me. This is one of those scenarios, because what we're about to talk about is something i'm very passionate about day. One the startup we're about to talk about with the co-founders here is a startup that i think is attacking a subject matter, that's very near and dear to my heart. I think the world is evolving.

I think that is going to require entrepreneurs. I think there's a lot of strengths and weaknesses in everything: government, education systems, entrepreneurship has plenty weaknesses, including when it gets super popular like it has in the last decade, and a lot of people enter it, even though they aren't meant for it, and it leads to A lot of anxiety and judgment that is very hard on entrepreneurs and, if you're not built for that, it can be very challenging on the flip side what entrepreneurship does more than anything, in my opinion, as an entity energy in the world is it creates the things We need - and i think right now in this time of transition web 2 web 3 technology. We need things and startups to attack the realities of people's lives and i think college was an incredible innovation. And but i think that we need stuff for people, and i think when phil toronto first told me about what you two were doing.

Phil is my right hand and my partner in my investing um. It really struck a chord, and so with that set up. Why don't you to introduce yourselves and tell us what you guys do thanks gary, you don't have to look in camera. What's up camera first, i'm good appreciate you having us um andrew here for everyone.

Listening um co-founder of day one with my partner, cool and and yeah day, one uh is our startup. We built it uh it's about two years old now and i kind of go back there to say we launched day one in the early days of the pandemic. You kind of referenced that we're just sort of coming back to life a little bit and it was really in the summer of 2020, when um, when we were launching day one we went out, we come from different backgrounds. I come from startup worlds.

He comes from the social impact world, he was doing investing, i was building startups, but in that summer of 2020 we were feeling what we felt like millions of people were feeling they were. You know completely uh cut loose they're moving out of the city, they were leaving their nine to fives, or at least thinking about it, and there was just like energy of entrepreneurship, and so what we built back then, was we built the community that we wanted ourselves Right, we were all going remote. We built this virtual community. That was more than just a slack.

You know it was. It was intentionally built to get entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial people right way. More than just most of the folks who joined our community uh would not call themselves founders at the time they had entrepreneurial tenancies, but were executives. They were executives.

They were i'm looking around these buildings like they were. They were here right now. Maybe they were in their apartments in brooklyn, but and they were isolated and they wanted to do something they had that drive. They didn't know what to do, and so we gave them a room to to come together to build these relationships.

To how long have you two known each other prior to starting the company six months, we met in the way that entrepreneurs me, which is at one of these networking events physically physically yeah um? But then it was. I mean this is a great story. You can probably tell a whole bunch, as you know, i put a landing page up for day one and will apply to it literally yeah. So i i'm so.

I always joke that. I'm a gen xer stuck in a gen z body, started out in oil and gas. Then did social sector work lived in india, building ultimate frisbee leagues for village girls, doing service work, loved the nonprofit side of things. I came back and basically set up and ran fundraising 501c3 shops for international girls orgs.

So that's where i learned how to fundraise a lot of my board. Members were vc folks, i really kind of got integrated into what's happening and how innovation starts. A lot of the programs that i was raising money for was around social entrepreneurship, and people around the world makes little to nothing right, but they're, trying to innovate, education and water scarcity and all these other things um. But then, as i want to do like every couple of years, i switched careers, and so i got into innovation about three years ago in new york when he was still at human ventures.

I went and we met and i i was kind of our customer. I have all the things on paper that you need in terms of grit and spike and domain expertise and just the want, but i don't have any of that formal education on what to do. How do you validate an idea? We had a really nice conversation, so you're a good dude, but you know not a good fit for what we're looking for, which was more of the classic venture, top zero zero one percent of people that will invest in building an idea. I was in a number of other communities and then six months later summer of 2020, my buddy andrew i went for 20 minutes.

Had a linkedin post, saying: hey, i'm starting this community for early stage founders looking to have their hand held a little bit to like walk you through the process. I apologize so you're in and you're investing and summer of 2020. By the way, it's been so long that i thought this was the summer before so this is colbert happens in march this. So you start this.

This is the real question for me. Curiosity, you start this because you think this could be a lead, gen community, for your investing or you were ready to live your hypothesis. You wanted to operate no longer bet on operators exactly. I was at an adventure studio.

I was always the bridesmaid, not the bride. Right yeah, i was helping all these entrepreneurs build these businesses, and did you have like the human belief of like this wait, a minute these guys and gals that i'm helping? This is just you talking to yourself and we're always, hopefully, actually something i'm trying to get more people to be. I was about to say we're always our biggest fan. I've come to learn for the last 15 years.

Most people aren't their biggest fan, which is pretty much the framework of all the content i'm trying to make, which is make everyone a bigger fan themselves. So they can be nice to others as a byproduct. But but you had a moment that makes a lot of sense to me, which is why i'm jumping in you must have been like wait a minute, this business. They wouldn't even have done that, if i didn't say this in the first meeting or that and all of a sudden you're seeing an exit and you're saying wait a minute, even if i just said hey, let me be your co-founder.

I might have made 10 million bucks instead of having this salary. Where i was the core. You know that must have happened, it was it was. It was even more than you're saying the job it was even worse.

It was. It was the job i had at this adventure studio was. I was the sort of right hand, person um to all these entrepreneurs coming through. It was my job to help them go from literally a blank whiteboard to an idea to an investable idea.

To you know i let that you know they flew the coop scaled, the business, but i was a conveyor about helping people launch businesses. What was the biggest success, whether you had any impact or a ton of impact? We don't need to get into that. What was the big just, i think, it'd be fun for the listeners. What was the biggest success that came through the conveyor belt um? Has there been one yet tiny, organics, of course, so tiny organics two founders came in i'm an investor they were.

They were trying to build something in the baby space they're trying to build something they thought they wanted to build. They had a kind of cool idea around a baby book idea and we're like let's walk this back, take your passion for for moms and parents and let's go tackle this basically stagnant market, yeah, baby food and so they're at their a they. Just raised 30 million bucks or something um, so yeah, you know they're on their way they're on their way. So right, so so did you yourself when covid hit in march, like have this been sitting in your head for 18 months and you're like this? Is now the moment? No, i literally had the same.

I think realization people had which was like things like. I was like i'm not working at the office anymore, like i'm, starting to see things with some fresh eyes. Well that, and i like a good fresh eye - and the thing i saw was some overhaul situation of like there's people knocking on the doors. So you know we built half a dozen businesses a year.

That's pretty good for a studio yep. We probably turned away 500 boundaries a year, yep very, very politely, of course, of course, people, and so what about those 495 founders right, you intuitively know and knew and probably saw here - are 17 no's that went on to do something. They do something but they're not getting any, but it was from a place of empathy right so he's building businesses. He talks to a hundred gets to build 16..

I'm investing as an angel like have a hundred conversations, invest in five. The thing that we bonded over with the little time that we spent together was the next 100 200 300 right now in the marketplace. They're, just basically given a pass yeah and they don't have a place to go community where they can just figure out the next building blocks to be able to get the yes to. You know to be able to get in right, there's no, tangible, digital infrastructure.

For that community, so we wanted to build for that community, because that was the hypothesis, that's the hypothesis, and then you know we're now, like literally almost two years into this business, one more time, because i know we're bouncing around being empathetic to the audience in. In most simple literal definition form: what does the business do exactly black and white so day one we run a fellowship, it's a community, but we call it a fellowship because it's much more intentional, it's you know we are building relationships among these members. It's a curated group and um it's for very, very early stage entrepreneurs, and - and is it free? No, so it's like a membership-based community, you've heard of ypo yeah you've heard of these, and if you, google, around those others super curated very expensive, and you have to have made a million bucks, you have to make 15 million bucks right day. One is like that, but for folks in these office buildings right you have that so do people apply or anybody can pay.

So you apply uh leave that not for the quality of the idea, because we know you're going to change as much for your ambition day. One's company makes a subjective call on humans, based on its protocol to the best of its ability right looking for people who want to build, but that's the truth right behind like at some level like i always people are always like. That's not like last night, the oscars forget about all the chaos just the core part of the oscars. Like i was talking to somebody i was like you know this.

They were like huh and i was i'm not gon na go too deep into i'm, like no. No, that's everything right. Everything is a subjective call. Everything is a call.

Everything is a subjective call and people act as if there's nobody wants technology like technology, bad and then they want everything to be technology. If humans are involved, it is subjective like when i rate wine, when somebody lets you use empathy, since you brought it up when somebody rates this like robert parker wine spectator, when i did my library tv, it's not right, it's a subjective call. I think it's important, because i have a funny feeling: a lot of people are about to apply to day one through this podcast and the ones that get rejected. I just want to remind it's not rejection.

There was humans behind whatever i have no idea what your infrastructure is on this, but they made a subjective call to the best of their ability. Yeah, we focus on eq. The idea is like giving people a place that are pre-momentum pre-revenue pre-everything. To still have that same level of support, so so keep going.

It's you! You apply, you get approved. What happens next, so we onboard folks in cohorts right there's a lot of parallel to a university, although i think that's, where we're really we're going to disrupt that right, like the four-year college, the two-year mba, but you join uh, you have a cohort. You have a class, we do things to get you embedded and integrated um, it's virtual, and so you know we can't just throw you into a zoom room right. There's there's a lot of intentionality to make the community tight, but then we let the power of the community go right: we're facilitating connections but you're, building, you're working on your ideas, your business you're, collaborating you're, finding people work racing with skids and helping people connect.

So there's some tech, community and education infrastructure that you guys are human being on top of as curators to push it along the way. Yeah i mean, and how much does it cost it's 9.99 a year right now, it's probably the best price thousand bucks yeah thousand dollars a year. We um i mean i'm an educator um from prior life or who has a background in education. We think all day about how do you is it structured fluidly or is there marking periods, there's literally a mix right? There's there's both the timeline.

That's fluid. Choose your own. Adventure meet the people you want to meet, come to the sessions and the workshops you want to come to and then there's other structure where, if you so both are about to fundraise, come to our fundraiser. If you're about to you know so it's a fun rate.

Sprint, inclusive of the 9.99 a year, so everything's inclusive. It's like it's like going to college where you pay 50 grand a year. I've heard so we're trying to make it as simple as possible. Um, you know how's it going two years in we've had about 250 fellows, come through our doors, you know early days.

It was awesome to see like a year and a year and a half in fellows pivot and launch new products fellows raise money fellows. You know team up, um build business, this together, very diverse, very global. You know probably 20 countries represented. Is the hypothesis um based on taking executive and helping her or him figure out themselves to decide if they want to be an entrepreneur? Have you already or is it i've decided? I want to be an entrepreneur or is it both? There is about there's an exploring build track that we that's our biggest bifurcation right so because i think the explore part is a big business.

If i think about it from a business man lens, is it worth if you guys get great at it, you might say you're great at it now and i'm sure it's better than just me sitting and pondering in my own head. It's always um, your friends and family can't relate to what you're trying to build all your corporate friends can't right. All of your colleagues yeah everybody around you is on defense. You don't have a community that you can actually talk to people about.

Talking to your customer. Talk to 100 people, it could be the customer learn from them. These are all basic things that kind of those of us that have done it get it. But three years ago i had no clue.

I was completely lost, i'm like how do you most people build a product? Then they go out and try to find an audience. We tell people flip that find the audience. First then understand what you're building you'll save yourself a whole bunch of headache. Yeah the opportunity cost of of getting it wrong is so much higher than whether it's the time investment, the money investment.

We talk all the time about making asymmetric upside bets and entrepreneurship. Is that right, the the cost of doing an entrepreneurial move is literally 1x. The time and the money you put into it, but the upside can be infinite right and for all these folks who have time the the problem is, that's the logical part of it. The emotional part of it is the reason nobody does it.

Is they don't want to lose in front of others? One of the metaphors that we use for day, one it's literally like one of our intro slides, is - is a crossfit gym right in a crossfit gym, i'm actually literally. I almost never don't think i've ever been in one, but i hear the stories i get that it's like there's this, like you start to get like towards the top of your reps. There are people cheering you on right, like if you fail, if your form is bad, people are helping you correct, but it's more than a safe space. It's like encouraging to go past your boundaries.

People celebrate everybody else's personal best, regardless whether it's a hundred pull-ups or six pull-ups everyone's cheering, the sixth person on as much as they are a hundred which is really what entrepreneurship is yeah. I mean i think, as somebody who was born to the great fortune of having a mother who cheerleaded all my entrepreneurial ventures. Parents don't do that most parents put school on the pedestal, thus subconsciously training their child to conform to the system. I mean the amount of entrepreneurial parents, parents of emerging entrepreneurs that i get emails from, because i'm so aggressive with my anti-college.

You know um content that have helped them is really powerful and - and i'm not anti-college for everyone, i'm anti-non-self-awareness right. So our journey. This is probably a good segue, so i hear all this i get into it and then i don't know if we're ready to really tell the whole world the whole thing, but the one of the things that brought me to you guys was this whole track of Anti-Self-Awareness back to like what i didn't pick up on when we decided to do something formally together, i actually think a lot of businesses should be formed to have a low-cost way to help you make a decision right like like. I wonder if people would pay a thousand dollars a year in their mid-20s to find out from a source that they feel has good intent if they're ready for parenting, like it's a wild thought but like like.

I would never do that because i'm just too intuitive and we'll go, but but i think a lot of people would find solace in you know going through a very i mean, look at parenting books and all that stuff like it. You know in a 360 way of gray and black and white it. You know i'd like to think no matter how great that startup is that if the startup said you're 4.2 years away from parenting that somebody wouldn't exactly wait 3.4 years to before, but but but i think that you know it really just caught my attention here. In talking to you, i'm like wow, that's actually very powerful, because that's what led me to you guys from what i've been trying to solve, which is.

I have back to a studio. I have 900 ideas. This was one rezzy was another v. Friends was another and all three of those have been remarkably successful with a small group of people.

I teamed up with to go and execute it that i really knew that i really knew, and the only thing that's stopping me from doing the other 39 businesses that all would dominate is having a process to have operators what i would call ceos or ceos with A heavy hand for me, which has led to something we're going to be rolling out soon together, yeah right, something within day one a little sub gary vayner thing, but i don't think we're far enough along and we'll put out that announcement at some point. That was awesome for me, because i was going to build that business anyway. My first thought was: i'm gon na buy a hundred acres in wisconsin start us operating school because the lindsay blums, the kim garcia's, the eight like the people that have come through vayner that i'm like. Oh, i wonder in seven.

You know you know they're happening serendipitously through vayner, and the two amazing, ladies that i just met mentioned i mentioned because their life events didn't get, and my life events didn't give me the timing to say hey like john and nate, who did empathy with me. Their life events work as a matter of fact. Their life events led us to selling the company, knowing both of them were about to get engaged and like like, i, i don't think we would have sold empathy had their life of so life. Events are big life.

Events are big and i think that creating a framework to find out if somebody's capable to be a ceo or ceo in my world is something that i've been obsessed with. And i appreciated your guys, openness to create another framework within day one and so we'll we'll we'll tell you more about that as that gets closer to vayner community, it's very close um, i'm a little bit more excited about the fact that i think a lot of People that are listening to my podcast are very close to starting their own business and it's one thing to go through general assembly or skillshare. I mean i saw all those companies come through this community aspect and, more importantly, a very low cost to get an answer. Excites me yeah, i mean i mean i'm sorry to interrupt last question.

Actually pointing question of the 250. Did any of them leave it, even though it might have not been built for this saying? Oh wait, i don't want to be an entrepreneur, a couple yeah yeah. I mean actually, i i was just catching up with a fellow who she has an idea: she's very new to entrepreneurship. She's, going up this learning curve, um life happened and she got a job offer.

She took it. She told me she's, like i'm, actually using all yeah as i've learned in this job, and i was like. Can i write your story because right because now, all of a sudden same goddamn game right, which is i mean this was the point of my opinion. This is why you know i'm really hoping this gets a lot of ideas running through everyone who's.

Listening to this, we need things. This goes back to my whole like why? Don't we teach taxes in school like we, don't do normal, like the fact that, to your point, who's winning at vayner in my 1800 employees, the ones that have entrepreneurial tendencies but play within the lines which is very powerful for an organization of course, she's doing that She's seeing different perspectives, which add to her repertoire, which, when you come back to the you mentioned just i have to say this like. If you have a job and you jump in and take a shot at entrepreneurship, you are so much more employable after the fact. You've tried things how about this: how about, if you go and fish for a year and you'll, be so much more employable, because people don't understand, there's always going to be a job.

Yeah yeah this this we have to get this out to the world. If you quit and scratch and itch stay at home, fathership fishing for a year for mental health being an entrepreneur because you just are curious or anything else that i didn't mention, which is there's 77 trillion taking care of a sick parent. Because you don't want to regret when they're gone and name 77 other viable things that will be top of mind for everybody. When you go back to get a job, it will be there, there's just jobs.

What people don't like doing is taking a step backwards in on their track right. Well, my friends have a home. Well, my friends all have kids now well, my my parents were married at 30.. Well, my dad made a million bucks by the time he was 40..

All these things that had nothing to do with your life yeah one of our first fellows in the first cohort who's now the co-founder and had a luxury brand nft company um on his exit interview. He said something that sticks with me this day because day one helps you slow down now and do the important things you can speed up later. You know talk to a customer, build a thing figure out what you want to do so to your earlier question. Yes, we have had people raise money and go to the next round and build out, but we've also had people decide that they want to build a million two million dollar business.

We've had people figure out that they've taken the skills they want to go back to their job and be reinvigorated, and for some people who just kind of had this idea, it's been kept. It was a hobby, it was a hobby, they just realized, but at least they validated it, they can speak well. They can go back to their emails. My biggest take away from this is oh okay.

I know why insurance is such a big business. It's it's selling! Against fear, it's giving you peace of mind, you know a flood, a fire death with life insurance. I think you're tapping into something that is a huge category. If there's low-cost ways to let people go through a process of answering a burning question for themselves, there's a real thing, yeah and i think that's in a lot of categories, almost everyone listening to this right.

This second has a hypothesis of a business because of how entrepreneurship has become popular culture, not having to quit your job and raise a million dollars, which nobody knows how to do not. You know not a million other, like this genre of like human assistance, with a layer of practicality at low cost, i think, is replicatable yeah i mean you mentioned. There's the skill shares the udemies that was 1.0 of ed tech right. Yes, education went online.

Yes, you had like 500 years of university. You had like 15 years of like these platforms, and you know this pandemic accelerated by five for 10 years. This next thing community driven uh. You still learn there's still structure, but it's that beautiful mix of like the best college campus.

You can imagine right where you learn by staying up late in the dorm, but you also learn from professors who care about you. You learn from a lecture from somebody that you might not agree with who comes in and talks it's a university, but for night it's not just experts. Like you said it's in the dorms. It's staying up late and kind of you get so one of the other big things is like people come in thinking, they're just the student, but over time, of course, in the community.

It helps that right, identity. It's a mental health help like you really feel. Well, listen, i mean the biggest argument i get from people today. It who are super pro blind college parents that are friends coming from a good place.

They're like yeah, but gary you know, ricky is gon na meet people and mature. Then i'm like ricky. You can go to europe and do that you don't need to go into 180k in the dead. A lot of people like ricky, too yeah, i mean look.

I think yes, ish right. I think that's fair, but you know this even at harvard or stanford, and i'm not even talking about gender race there's even as hard like. What's awesome about humans is it's true snowflake life? I agree with you, but like even if it's high low middle class, whenever you go, you gravitate towards yeah you. You know, i think you, i think you serendipitously run into different people's like they might be exactly you on paper, same school, same income levels same parents.

It may look exactly the same and it's gon na be completely different, yeah yeah, i agree with the late night thing. I think i think a lot about 2 30 in the morning deep conversations, so many people that went through college can immediately, as i'm talking right now think about those first couple talks they had with who ended up becoming their core friend group, where they were. Finally, at a mature enough state to speak about vulnerability or other things like that that moment right that moment, i mean other people, passionate about the same things, you're passionate about yes, i mean i'm super here for creating getting 100 acres in wisconsin for the uh. The campus version of this you know like why not like that.

I mean for me for me when we stumbled on each other. I like really want to build a infrastructure to create a way for me to judge. If i believe someone can be my partner - and you know in a world where i will come up with the idea - be the driving force for the fundraising be the driving force for the demand. You know, i think somebody owning five to ten percent of that to be the core operator is a gift.

I really do it's gon na be life changing. It has been for everything i've done so so i'm excited about that um and building that out with you and we'll have a lot more of that in the future vayner nation men. Thank you for being on the show, thanks for having us talk to you soon, this was awesome. Uh like comment subscribe, yep guys.

Please please leave comments. I mean the likes subscribes. I know what you want drock, but the comments uh for this episode specifically would be very interesting to me on the insight or the seed of the idea that maybe this podcast created thanks for being on again guys, we'll see you next time, you.