February 5, 2023 • 51 mins
We have released one of our vaulted episodes featuring David Carpenter. We hope you enjoy as we dive into the world of production and broadway!!!
David Carpenter is the CEO of Gamiotics, Inc., a live entertainment software company that enables real time communication between audience and content and is powering the next generation of immersive and experiential entertainment. Gamiotics mission is to deliver authentic experiences through audience agency. He is a twenty-year veteran of the entertainment industry and a Tony nominated producer.
He is currently a managing partner in the new interactive experience, The Twenty-Sided Tavern. Bringing a D&D style RPG game into live entertainment space using Gamiotics technology to power the audience engagement, this exciting new project will premiere in 2022.
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Dustin Steffey (00:00):
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Welcome to your top rated business
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Without further ado, welcome tochopping wood fire ladies and
gentlemen, let's chop it up
Dustin Steffey (01:31):
Hello, and welcome to an episode of
chopping wood fire you arejoined with your host Dustin
Steffey Jaden is on a hiatuswith coaching the last few games
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feiyr.com that houses everythingto keep you guys up to date and
has links to all of our socialmedia. That being said, that's
all the housekeeping I want todive right into it with our
expert today.
Currently, we have a uniqueexpert that really is going to
be able to give us some goodadded value today. His name is
(03:24):
David carpenter. He has 22 yearsof entertainment experience
bringing in technology withininto live entertainment. With
that being said, David, how areyou? I'm great. How are you
doing? Good.
New York. I know that's whereyou're you're in the upper part
of New York, right? It's prettythere. It's fall. It's fall.
(03:45):
It's great. I live in I livejust outside of New York City in
the suburbs. And it's likeperfect fall. You know, war was
warm up until yesterday. But
David Carpenter (03:53):
yeah, it's more it's gorgeous time of year up
here. And I actually just I justgot back from Chicago, where I
was for three weeks and theweather was perfect. So it's
like I've been I've been allover the I've been all over the
north part of this country. Lastin Alaska a couple of months.
That's awesome. Yeah. See inReno, the weather's bipolar.
Because basically we had summerall the way up until like, last
(04:15):
week.
So we weren't getting that coldback cold weather. Now it's
starting to it's starting. It'sstarting to hit it. I've been
staying ahead of it as I've beenas I've been traveling back east
slowly but surely.
Dustin Steffey (04:27):
Yeah. You never can tell the weather where I'm
at it just it flips a switch onus here. So we actually had a
snow a couple days ago so it waspretty crazy. Yikes. And now
we're not even Yeah, I'm notready for that either. Just like
the people that put up Christmaslights like in October not ready
(04:47):
for that either.
David Carpenter (04:49):
Yeah, right.
Exactly. Yeah. Wait tilleverything's giving wait till
everything's doing
Dustin Steffey (04:52):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I am not ready for that
at all. So your yourentertainment veteran, you have
to technology that you'vebrought into the entertainment
industry. Let's, let's take astep back for a second for
everybody to just kind of havethem feel like where your
journey has been. So tell me alittle bit about yourself.
David Carpenter (05:13):
Yeah, so, um, I, I've worked in a theatrical
entertainment. I worked invehicle entertainment for most
of my career, I moved to NewYork right out of college and
started working on Broadway, inproducing offices, and we
originally started and then Iworked. I worked in sales and
marketing for a long time andvarious places on Broadway. One
of the places I work was wasDreamWorks theatrical. So I was
(05:35):
part of the sales and marketingteam that brought in the
original production of Shrek theMusical when it came in, which I
think was in Oh, eight. And thenthat which was, which was a
great experience. It was a itwas a lovely show. And, and
after, but it didn't work.
Unfortunately, it didn't itdidn't sell it and so on up on
Broadway, it was also it wasalso like a family show in a
recession is not a it's not afun place to not a fun place to
(05:56):
be because families tend totighten their wallets first. So
I worked. I worked for anotherproducer for about five years
running up running a productionoffice and learning, you know,
learning more about financingand development, and getting
some really cool, got projectsmoving. And then I left that
office and with a former partnerstarted my own production
(06:17):
company, which I have for aboutfive years, there's a company
called tilted windmills. Andwhile I was at tilted, I had the
distinction of producing a playcalled puffs, which puffs is a
parody of the Harry Potteruniverse. And it was a huge hit.
It ran in New York for threeyears, and is now the number two
most produce show in the USright now. I don't produce it's
(06:39):
late, but licensed like everyhigh school middle school in the
country does it in some wayshape or form, like Google
Alerts, especially in the fall,right like Google Alerts tend to
go a little crazy on the othertitle the show just because it's
like the foul play thateverybody does. The really
funny, kind of beautiful,poignant story. While I also I
produce on Broadway CO producedon Broadway did a bunch of stuff
(06:59):
there. But while I was doingthis, so I've always been a big
video gamer and sci fi fan andfantasy nerd and board gamer.
And you know, gaming was alwayslike part of my life, but always
like my hobby, like the thingthat I was doing outside of it.
But I took it very seriously. Asanyone who's played board games
(07:19):
with me can attest, and or videogames for that matter. And I
stumbled upon this play, thatwas a for lack of a better word.
But basically what happened isthat it was it was a it was a
rom com and the audience washanded remotes like for button
like push button remotes whenthey walked into the theater.
(07:40):
This was many years back in2013. And basically the audience
would vote on this show whenthey where they wanted it to go.
And it was a rom com was with aguy going on a date with a girl.
And they voted on. Like, what hewore, which girl he went on a
date with where they went, whatthe dialogue was set a key
moments in time. And it wasfunny. But it also it it um,
(08:02):
depending on how the voting wasdone, like how what they voted
for the audience would they getthey get like 10 different
endings, right. So if they votedvery successfully for the guy
all the way through, he sleptwith the girl at the end, they
voted very negatively for theguy the end. He would like
throws off of a bridge orsomething terribly dark like
(08:25):
that, right. And I just was verykind of caught by this idea of
bringing in this concept ofgaming because it was it's
gaming, right? You're makingchoices, you have agency and
this idea of agency with a liveentertainment space. And I've
never seen anyone successfullyexecute a concept like that
before. Now, the show itselfwasn't terribly good, right?
(08:47):
Like if he wasn't, it wasn't avery good show. But the concept
behind it I was really takenwith and so actually option, the
show and I started working onit, go to the author and take a
note to save his life. But whileI was doing that, one of the
things I said was like, Look,you can't hand an audience
something when they walk in thedoor, right? Like that isn't
(09:08):
like that's not a scalable idea,you know, even in live in our
team or anything. But I love theidea of them having agency. What
if we take it to the phone andthe other times like, oh, we
explored apps are too expensivein the back then. And you know
what happened? I don't know whatit costs now. But an app itself
will cost like three to $1,000.
And Bill is like I just there'sno way I'm gonna do that. I was
like, Oh, hi. I don't think it'san app. I think there's
something else. And veryluckily, I got hooked up with
(09:31):
this programmer named DaveKeane, who was at one point his
career was the senior architectof the Sony PlayStation Network.
Right. And, and he was workingin healthcare at that point, but
was a big theater lover. And weconnected and I said, Hey, I
have this really weird problem.
And he was like, what if we makeit an app? And I'm like, I don't
think it can be an app. He'slike, Well, you're right. He's
like, You shouldn't be an appbecause you can ask someone to
(09:52):
download something before theygo to a live event. Right. Like,
like, it's one thing I think wenow know in terms of app app
development. Like, we see a lotof resistance now to people
downloading more and more appson their phone for a lot of
reasons, right? Like, I have afew apps that I that I like, and
I keep but mostly apps on myphone I don't ever use now. And
I for a logger timorous. Hesaid, he said, Well, what if it
(10:13):
was web based, and it was webbased, and it's disposable. And
that's what I'm after. He said,All right. And he built the
first iteration of what is nowgaming on IT software. And, and
so I had that, so So basically,what happened was, I had this
software. But I didn't have ashow, because the author and I
parted ways after about sixmonths, and I commissioned a new
(10:34):
show. And I started working onthat as a side project for a
couple of years. And really,what the, what the function of
gaming addicts is, is that's atwo way communication device
between audience and content, itallows the audience to be able
through the web browser, ontheir phone, make choices and
take actions collectively as agroup or individually that
affect the content that'shappening before and in front of
that. And during this time,we've seen the rise of
(10:57):
experiential entertainment and areally significant way. And I
kept thinking, Gosh,experiential entertainment is,
is is getting bigger and biggerand bigger. But it's, it's going
to hit this limit in terms ofwhat it can do, unless we unless
we bring technology into it togive more purpose to the
audience in these experiences.
(11:19):
And so that's why that's where Istarted really kind of driving
game biotics at that point. Um,so So I had so I had Bruce a
Broadway show back in 2019. Alot of snow show, producer brain
leaks on Broadway. And then mypartnership broke up with my
former partner, and I tookcontrol of the companies and
more importantly, I took controlof the software company. And in
(11:42):
January of 20, I startedfocusing full time on the
software company, and then thepandemic hit in March. So that
was fun. And I'm sure you get alot of pandemic stories on your
podcast and like, Oh, God, what,what, because we're all now have
them, right? Yeah, right. Yeah.
And especially in anentrepreneurship podcast,
there's a lot of like, well,what do you do? Like what
happened during that timeperiod?
Dustin Steffey (12:05):
We have yet to have one on our show that like,
describe flopping right, duringthe pandemic, because it was a
lot that did flop unfortunately,what weren't prepared.
David Carpenter (12:19):
I mean, there was no, there wasn't a way to be
able to prepare for thatpandemic, right. I mean, we saw
it coming. I would say, I wouldsay, I would say I remember,
about two weeks before the liveentertainment shutdowns. A lot
of entertainers shutdown waslike, roughly March 12, and
2013, when suddenly everythingglobally went went dark. But two
weeks before I started thinkingon the mark is the remember the
(12:40):
market start getting reallyvolatile. And investors started
saying, I can't I can't get Ican't write a check right now. I
gotta wait one second, for themarket volatility to stop. I
remember the day before theshutdown, I said to my former
assistant, I was like, this ison a Thursday, I was like, if we
come in tomorrow, we should havea talk about what's going to
happen next. And then and then Idon't think I ever saw him in
person again, actually. It'slike, I don't think I ever saw
(13:02):
that guy ever again in Berkeley.
Because like we because we, youknow, I'd stayed upstate in New
York. And you know, the shutdownthe office, and like that was
that. But during the pandemic,so since everything shut down,
basically what I did is I, Itook I took the software, and I
call it a bunch of friends ofmine, who entertainers who are
all at work. And I said, what ifwe just entertain people using
(13:25):
the software and try and developsomething, and they're like,
Sure, I'm game, I'm not doinganything. I'm collecting
unemployment. And so we startedthis journey that went on for
about 18 months, where I createda production company that
existed only over zoom, a liveentertainment production company
over zoom, we thought either athome or wherever they were in
the country, or wherever theywere in the world would use game
bionics to play along with ourshows, right? And so it was all
(13:46):
live action. So the actors wereactually reading from a from a
Google document that hadhyperlinks to jump where the
audience chose them to go onthat journey. And we did murder
mysteries and branchingnarratives. And, and, gosh, a
Christmas show a Halloween show,we did escape rooms, we did game
shows, we did puzzles, I mean,we get all manner of things. And
(14:07):
that's where I learned actuallywhat gave me Onyx was as a as a
software platform in terms ofhow it had the ability to be
able to communicate in real timeto audiences out at a live
event. And, and and getconnectivity right? And so we
were able to form thisrelationship with this online
(14:28):
audience where they felt veryconnected to each other because
they're all participating in theentertainment a lot of people
compare it like oh, it's likeJack box and I'm like, Jack box
isn't like Yeah, I mean, like,you know, like your career lens,
but like you and your group offriends are playing a game
together live, but what I'mactually doing is a live
storytelling event right? Or alot you know, it's something
(14:48):
something that and that isdriven by the agency of the
consumer. So we would we developthese murder mysteries right?
Where we have, you know, four orfive actor actors or actresses
I'm on screen with a big script.
And we built this much gamingmechanic into it, where we're
because we do like we do like aWii. So I did I did at I did 20
(15:10):
hour long shows in 18 months,right? Like I worked at a
furious pace to put all thisstuff out, right. And one of
them, some of them are mysteriesthat we did, there was a
mechanic where the audiencewould make a seemingly innocuous
choice at the beginning of theshow, they vote for this, they
vote for that, or they take thisaction, and that would determine
who the murderer was. So theactivity show up not knowing who
the murderer was right when theywould start the show. And it was
(15:31):
a really interesting dynamic.
Wait, it's like playing likeplaying flu with your friends,
right? When you play clue as aboard game, you don't know who
the murderer is, when you start,it's wrapped in an envelope. And
you've got to go through it. I'mright. And we built a
storytelling device around thatsame concept to then that that
allowed the audience to vote andparticipate in trying to figure
out who the murderer was. And itwas super, super fun. So I shut
down that company, the onlinefracture, we may have, I guess
(15:57):
it was May of 21. And, andbecause it was like, No, I
didn't want to do zoomentertainment anymore. No one
should do zoom entertainmentlike that. It's not a
performance platform orbroadcast, Opperman, I stretched
the imagination, but one of theone of this, that I needed to go
back and focus full time on theon the software company, because
I had guy had, I had gottenangel funding, raised about a
(16:20):
half million dollars over theover the pandemic and angel
funds. Just by virtue of thefact of like, Hey, I have the
software and it's working. Andonce I've retained what comes
back, and I can move this in therain I like, you know, help me
help keep this going. So, youknow, but I was getting kind of
the end of the angel funds thatI need to really concentrate on
seed round and right, you know,angel funding and seed round
(16:42):
funding are two entirelydifferent things, that the
stakes are very different. Thewhat you're doing is very
different. And you know, it tookme six months to figure out how
to get the right get get theright place on on the seed round
for the company in terms of whatwhat I was building as a
software company. Because therewas that I'm sure you talk about
(17:02):
the show, there's that I hadstarted this in a b2c
environment, right with doingthe online production company.
But that wasn't what thesoftware company wanted to be
the software is a b2b company.
And so I actually had to learnhow to pull myself away. And
that's ironic. So I'm going totalk about another b2c company
in a second. But I had to pullmyself away out of the habits of
(17:25):
being in a b2c company andreally start focusing on what it
meant to be in a b2b company tolaunch the launch this and also
start start thinking about acloser to a SaaS company,
meaning other people being in touse the software. So I did a six
month journey on trying tofigure that out and get to the
right place, which ultimatelywas successful in securing a
seed round. Um, but, um, so so.
So I go on that journey. And oneof the things that we had
(17:50):
produced on the onlineproduction company was a live
action Dungeons and Dragonsstyle gaming experience, where
we had players we had, we'reusing radionics, for audience
interaction, and we had a storegame master or dungeon master.
And of everything that I did,that one struck the loudest
chord, who not only with me, butalso with fans. And so as I was
(18:13):
shutting down the onlineproduction company, the two
people who were who worked withme at this, this previous one, I
went to them, I said, I thinkthis is the thing, I think this
is the thing, right, I thinkthis is the thing that that I
want to pursue because it's abeautiful application of my
software. And I really love thisidea of bringing an RPG live
event to the stage in a way thatnobody else has ever been able
(18:37):
to do before. Let's pursue thisright. And so that is a that is
a the title of show is calledthe 20 sided tavern. And, and
it's like I said, it's a liveaction RPG event that is in the
style of a dungeon Dragons gamewhere the audience is using the
software all throughout the showto choose pathways and decisions
(18:57):
that affect the show and thegame as it's being played out.
And so we started, we started atthe Philly Fringe Festival a
little over a year ago, we puton a we put on a couple of
performances just in front of arandom audience just being like,
it's awesome folding tables anda bunch of props and having no
idea what we're doing. And theaudience went nuts for it. I
mean, just went nuts out of thegate in a really huge way. And
(19:19):
me and my partners in thatventure were like, Okay, we have
something here, let's go figurethis out. So, right around that
time, I, I, I secured my seedfunding. And remember saying to
the investors, I'm just gonna,I'm just gonna do this one thing
over here, right? Like, I'mgonna build this software
(19:41):
company. I'm gonna do this onething over here and they're
like, they're like, that waslike they're like, Okay, let's
see it go but don't get toodistracted. Right. And, and I
ironically, like what 20 siirthas grown up to become is the
first and my first EnterpriseClient for my software company.
So by I am also the CEO of the20 star tavern company as well
(20:02):
along with two partners, webuilt a live entertainment
production company based on thisidea and are having wild success
with it right now. So, so Ihaven't talked about it more,
but that I think that in anutshell, is my journey.
Dustin Steffey (20:16):
I think that's a pretty robust journey, to be
honest with you. A couple ofthings that popped up that I
wanted to hone in on onedescription of the different
investors, I think that that's athat's a good thing to define,
especially for entrepreneursthat are looking to get funding.
So I'd like to dive into that.
And then I'd like to dive inafterwards to some pandemic
(20:40):
evolution. So lessons learnedfrom the pandemic, and like
where you're heading now,because I think every country in
the or every country, I'm sorry,every company in the country has
evolved. Yes, pandemic. I mean,it hasn't disappeared. But
they've evolved. I mean, wedidn't have very many jobs that
were work from home. And now, itseems like a lot of them offer
(21:05):
the flexibility of a blendedatmosphere now of working from
home or and or going to work orboth.
David Carpenter (21:15):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, sorry, go ahead.
Dustin Steffey (21:19):
So I think I think we dive into kind of the
different funding strategieslike what is an angel investor?
What are some of the differentterminology so that way people
know and then we'll dive intothe pandemic evolution?
David Carpenter (21:34):
Yeah. So so I had to, I had to learn startup
financing from scratch in thelast three years. And I say that
because I have been working intheatrical and specifically in
Broadway and off Broadway formost of my career. And the
financing for that is fullydifferent than anything else in
the world, right? And in fact,doesn't make any sense at all.
(21:57):
Have you ever talked to a yachtor talked to a Broadway investor
you talk to people like it is a,it is a very weird world
governed by a very strange setof rules from the New York State
Attorney General's office in theSEC. There are similar
similarities to start dancing,but it's also a very specific
set of circumstances in order tofinance a financial live
entertainment play. So I didn'tlike financing that way. I mean,
(22:19):
I break millions of dollars, inmy years in financing, but on on
on theatrical, but I never Inever liked it, I think that I
think the main issue that I hadwith it, and this gets kind of a
little bit of a deep cut in atthe upper financing is that one
of the weird things intheatrical entertainment versus
(22:39):
like movies and film, or moviesand television is that the, the,
the work, the scripts, in moviesand television are owned by the
studio, right? And intheatrical, they're there.
They're the right, those rightsare ultimately always retained
by the author. And what you dois you option that right from an
author, you don't buy themoutright. And so when you're
(23:03):
doing an investment, theinvestment the company doesn't
actually own any IP, right, whatit owns is the the the
exclusivity on this particularpiece of work, and the right to
income from future traffic,ticket sales, you know,
depending on production,depending on on subsidiary
rights or other things, but theownership stake is always
retained by the author. So in anoption agreement, there's a time
(23:26):
limit on it. So it's notsomething you can scale, and
it's not something you can sell,there is no exit in in
theatrical right? So you canmake an enormous amount of
money, like Hamilton makes anenormous amount of money Lion
King makes an enormous amount ofmoney. But there are those are
the rare exceptions to the rule.
So as I started kind of gettinginto it with gaming addicts, you
(23:48):
know, I had to like I said, Ihad to learn a whole new
language. And so we're gettingso you know, you're kind of your
first round, right is like is,is basically saying, I have an
idea, I need money to pursuethis idea, right? And I'm going
to I and my journey on this isgoing to get to either a
(24:09):
prototype or a minimum viableproduct, right? Like something
I'm gonna I need money to showthat my idea, potentially, I can
build it right. Not even I cansell it. Yeah, I can build it.
And that is an extremely highrisk investment. So an angel
investor, a lot of times in thein this world, our friends and
(24:31):
family, there are people whoknow you personally, people who
may have invested with youbefore, right and other in other
rounds, but it's a high riskinvestment, because it's not
really secured against anythingbecause you haven't actually
built the product yet. So whatis that investment security
gets? Because you're not goingto have patents. You're not
going to have copyrights whenyou're building a thing that all
comes in time and so a lot ofthe vehicles that the financial
(24:53):
vehicles and I believe this wasby if I have my history correct,
this is pioneered by white YCombinator back in the day is
through what's called Safeagreements, right? Which are
simple agreement for futureequity, right. And it's
basically a piece of paper thatsays, If I am successful, and I
get to an equity round meeting,like I got I raised Ronny, you
(25:14):
will get a, you will get a bonusfor for the money that you put
in right now, that's it notsecured against anything, does
it if the company goes belly upthe next day, right, that's it,
you lose your money. And it's avery, very high risk investment,
right. And so a lot of but a lotof Angel rounds are run through
or run through safe investments.
(25:36):
You know, back in a napkincalculation, most people raise
anywhere between three and$500,000 in a safe, because
that's usually about the limitof people writing small checks,
in order to do it, or how muchyou're gonna be able to raise on
that, against that, in fact, Ifound that, I found that now
several times, which is like,the, the limit for me seems to
(25:56):
be somewhere around three to$500,000, that, um, find a
willingness and stage before youwant to start securing it before
you need to show progress toinvestors for them to either
come in for more. So I'm gonnabe honest, I raised about
$500,000, on a safe over theover the course of the over the
course of the pandemic. Now,these were all family, friends
and previous investors of mine,there were a few new people in
(26:17):
the pile. But they were allpeople who knew me or knew the
work that I'd done before. So itwas important that I had a track
record, right as, as someone,you know, working in live
retirement or as anentrepreneur, good or bad, I
needed to have a track record.
And that helped me get that fundfinancing run so, so the seed
round, different, right? Becauseyou are many times securing that
(26:37):
against equity or convertibledebt, right? In that you are and
you are going for a largeramount of money. Okay. So in
order to build traction, right,I think that's what that's what
you're kind of like so so Ibuilt my prototype, build my
MVP, now I actually have tobuild the actual product now,
right, and sell it to consumersand see if there's traction in
(27:02):
the marketplace. And that route,like that's usually anywhere
from a million and a half to $3million. In most tech companies,
most most things were to see andsaying, Alright, I need to build
a team. And if I need to finishthe product, I need to roll it
out. And I gotta see if I canget some early clients and
establish a baseline of sales orinterest that can start
generating revenue, right? Soyou know, when that when you get
(27:23):
to that point, you're talkingabout valuations pre money
valuations, the company postmoney valuation of their
company, like, Alright, I'mgonna give you a million and a
half dollars, what do I get?
Right? What's my stake in thiscompany, versus what's your
stake in this company, versuswhat the original wrestler stake
in this company so, so, um, andthe seed round, and investors
tend to be still risky, right,there's still a lot of risks,
(27:45):
but it's little bit less,because you've proven that
you've gotten something working,right. And now you're gonna go
to market with it, and see ifthere's a strategy. And then
after that is when is when youstart getting into either second
seed or a Series A, or whereit's like, I have money, I have
revenue, I mean, all mybenchmarks from from
sophisticated veterans say, onceyou get to a million a year in
(28:05):
revenue, you know, and your,your your annual run rate is
sitting at about a million ayear, then you can sit down and
open up a series a for five to$10 million, right, depending on
how you're going to sit yourmusic evaluation, and then
you're moving up into more andmore sophisticated class of
investors, people are runninglarger checks, larger offices,
larger venture firms who havewho have no interest in writing
(28:27):
small Texas. That's actually thehardest part about all this is
that the people with a lot ofthe money are not interested
unless they're writing a millionor two or $3 million checks out
of the gate. Because there's nota big enough bet for them. They
can't make enough off of$150,000 or whatever it is,
right. Um, so yeah, so that's,that's so I learned I learned
(28:48):
how to do this right through thepandemic, and I'm still learning
like it hasn't the educationperiod hasn't stopped.
Dustin Steffey (28:54):
I think the pandemic has evolved us, right.
Yeah. So if we look, if we lookat evolution, it's evolved us.
And I think Furthermore, we'reall still learning. I don't
think we have the perfectsolution right now. But I think
that we're getting closer andcloser each day that passes,
because the pandemic changed us.
And we all all of us that own abusiness, outside of working in
(29:19):
normal nine to five, right? Wehad to evolve and we had to
evolve and pivot on the fly, orelse we we failed. And so I
think it's important to one,congratulate you on making it
through the pandemic becausethere were other businesses that
weren't so fortunate, but to toreally just understand that,
(29:42):
like us as business owners,we're still evolving right now
currently to perfect thatequation. Yeah. And so, I come
in, I commend you, right for forfor making it for through
because there were othercasualties that were involved
that didn't. And it'sunfortunate and it It's
(30:04):
upsetting because I'm a very bigproponent of entrepreneurship
often, obviously with mypodcast, but I'm also a big
proponent of it, because I feelthat's what we were founded on.
And that's what drives moneyinto the economy is the small
businesses, the largebusinesses, yes, they drive
money into the economy. But dothey drive it in the same manner
(30:27):
as a small businesses like thesmall businesses really like? I
think drive the economy a lotmore in my opinion.
David Carpenter (30:36):
Yeah. Well, and that's also I mean, like, I was
saying to you earlier that oneof the things about gaming
addicts is that it's a b2bbusiness, which I'm really
interested in. I spend, I mean,like, when you are producing a
show, or you're producing atheatrical, you're actually
effectively running a b2cbusiness, right? You're selling
tickets to consumers, right?
Creating Content selling thingsas a consumer such as what you
do right directly consumerfunding, forgive me Onyx is like
one of the one of the thingsthat I'm after for, is I love
(30:57):
experiential entertainment.
Right? Experientialentertainment is everything from
what secret cinema is doing overin the UK, and soon to be in the
US to what Sleep No More does toescape rooms, right? I mean, you
could look at Disney World asthe largest example of
experiential entertainment, likeyou're in an environment that is
crafted for you to tell a storyand give you an experience that
(31:17):
is specific. Yeah, well, ofcourse, the US has a big
experiential attainment, contentproducer. So there's a lot out
of them. And they keep in there,and it's they're rising, there's
more and more stuff that'sstarting to happen. These these
galaxies quest, have you heardabout that, which is the star,
right? That's experientialentertainment for short, right?
It's also very expensive, butit's that type of thing. We're
(31:39):
starting to see more and more ofthis. But one of the things that
I identified early on was thatthere wasn't a lot of access for
experiential creators to be ableto build commercially successful
models, right? When when meowWolf is a great example. I mean,
they are they're absolutegeniuses at what they do. But it
(31:59):
took a three and a half milliondollar check from George RR
Martin to get that company offthe ground in the early days. So
not, not everybody can can buildsomething, you know, can can get
that three and a half milliondollar check to start right. Not
to say that they started thatpoint. But but you know, it's a
tricky thing. So one of thethings with gimme Onyx is that,
because it's a web based, andbecause it's software, it's a
(32:22):
platform that allows you tobuild branching narrative
experiences, right there allowsyou to build a new type of
storytelling experiences wherethe consumer has that agency to
make decisions that affect theexperience as it's going along
the changes, the experience ishappening in real time. And I
was always struck by this ideathat experiential seems so far
(32:42):
off from the everyday contentcreator, I was like, well,
that's stupid, because we neededto democratize this a little bit
more, we need to create a cheapplatform for people to be able
to and I don't mean like, anaccessible platform, cheap is
the wrong word, but accessibleplatform for people to be able
to interact with their audiencesand build their version of what
they want experiential oraudience interaction to be. And
(33:05):
that and that's one of thefounding pillars of Guinea Onyx
Is that is that is providing thesoftware into the hands of
content creators so that we cansee an economic revolution
happening within experientialentertainment. And by many,
many, many more people spendinga lot less money building their
own things, right. And like,that's, that's what technology
(33:26):
is supposed to do. I mean,that's what that is what
technology has done right?
Throughout our lives for thelast 40 years. And the fact that
everybody can use it, likeremember, it was, for a while it
was microsoft word now like thatGoogle has, you know, has
document and it's spreadsheetapplications that are free to
(33:46):
use for anyone, anywhere on anycomputer, right? So like that
democratizes our ability to beable to do business down to
anybody being able to do it. AndI think there's something really
from an entrepreneurial level,is that if you're in this
system, where only only thewealthy right, have the keys to
be able to do stuff, you're notcreating a very vibrant economy
(34:07):
or ecosystems for creators,right. And and and I'm seeing
that in experientialentertainment, where where there
isn't a lead, there's certainlya little bit of an elitism
that's happening, but the peoplewho have access to funding or
the access or have the abilityhave the talent that's like,
well, how are you building thenext generation? Right? How are
you giving them the tools to beable to create on their own not
inside another system? Becausethat's kind of what I'm after
(34:30):
long term with, with what I wantfor Guinea ox to be able to do
is to be a tool in the hands ofcontent creators all over the
world to say, well, I want to domy own type of thing. I wanna do
my own game right I want to domy own like experience without
with that, that that I don'tthere's no rules. There's no one
telling me what to do. I justhave the software platform to go
create it on. Um, yeah, sothat'd be so like, in the gaming
(34:52):
world. Unreal Engine has done areally interesting way of doing
that. Creating Games is a veryexpensive proposition. But if
you look at some of thesebackbone, like pieces of
software and architecture thatdrive a lot of stuff, they're
driving a lot of the developmentthat's happening in AR and VR
right now in a really great waybecause they made their platform
(35:12):
accessible, to be able to drivenew types of content. So like,
there's a reason why VR hasn'ttaken off is because not enough
content creators have access totools to build high quality
content, like it simply does. Ithasn't been there hasn't been
there for the last decade. Andwe're slowly starting to see
that change now that these toolsare becoming more readily
available and easier to be ableto use. So I'm after that in a
(35:33):
lot of entertainment spectrums.
I love live entertainment, likeI like I have my entire life.
But But to your point, you knowwhat your point on
entrepreneurship at some pointon the on people like part of it
is just like having the abilityto create and build something
without a being costprohibitive? Right. So there's
(35:54):
something about the hungerbiotics that I'm after on that.
I mean, first things first islike, I'm building the first
experiences myself, becausesomeone has to right, I'm not
gonna wait around for somebodyelse to build, like, I'm gonna
go to pave the way about how weabout how we build these things.
And that's, that's somethingthat I'm doing. That's what I'm
doing right now with Morningsidetavern. Yeah, I,
Dustin Steffey (36:11):
again, it all goes back to evolution, right.
So all of your conversation has,has shown us kind of the, I
mean, it's not the be all endall of evolution, but it's shown
us how a business has evolvedduring the time of the pandemic,
right. And I guess where, wheremy question is, with this is,
(36:34):
with you evolving post pandemic?
Is this the new normal? The whatI'm trying to get at is their
businesses that evolved, right,like I was telling you that have
worked from home and all of thatsome of them reverted back.
Right. And they did not keep thesame structure, post pandemic,
which I think is a failure,because I think most businesses
(36:57):
that succeed today, are the onesthat change over time. And so I
feel if you're not changing withthe environment, then eventually
you're going to fail.
David Carpenter (37:11):
Well, I think the new normal question, I think
the numeral because initially, Ithink what the pandemic did, is
that accelerated existingtrends, right. And, and I would
say, I would say the work fromhome, like if the pandemic
hadn't happened, people werealready itching to work from
home anyway, people are alreadywanting it to happen. So there
were, you know, it might havetaken another decade before we
(37:32):
had rethought how this pile thisoffice environment works. And
obviously, there are peoplelike, you know, kicking and
screaming against this idea,right. But there, we were
already looking at a trendline.
of what of what workers werewanting out of experiences.
Right. So So I just think it Ithink it vastly accelerated that
trendline. From me, inexperiential experience, what
(37:57):
was rising at a fast clip,right? And that's just that is
based on the fact that, thatconsumer habits change every
generation, right? The kidsdon't want to do what their
parents did. They want to go andin and our entertainment habits
are changing greatly, right. AndI think the pandemic accelerated
(38:17):
that. The saddest thing for mewas I went and saw a movie at a
movie theater a couple of weeksago. And it had been the only
things I saw on the movietheater during the pandemic were
the Marvel releases, right?
That's it, everything else, likeeverybody was watched from home.
But there's no reason why peoplecan't go back to the movies
right now. And I am when Iwalked in, I was actually really
(38:40):
quite sad because I was struck.
This was a Friday night, right?
Or a Sunday night, whatever itwas, right. And I was just
struck by the fact that when Iwas a kid, because I'm 45 years
old, now, when I was a kid, whenI was in middle school, that is
what you did on Friday nights,you went with your friends to
the movies, you got popcorn, itwas packed, there were lines out
the door. And we're seeing thistrend line of like consumer
(39:05):
entertainment is has moved toprimarily at home now. And the
movies are up in the screens fora brief period of time. And then
but we were seeing we wereseeing that we were like, we
were seeing that trend yearsago, whereas it used to be that
a movie could play in a movietheater, or they were going back
to the 80s Right? Playing movietheaters for you know six
months, it would stay on thescreens, right? Like if it was
(39:26):
popular, which is concerning.
Right now. It gets in and out inlike three weeks whatever
doesn't have a huge openingweekend that could be two weeks
right? And then they're out andthen their second I kinda like
the the movies themselves aren'tbecause the consumer habits were
already changing before thepandemic of saying we got to
opening weekend or not. And nowit's kind of moved to war in the
movie theater and then we'reimmediately online. Right? Which
is like, it's the people don'tgather at the movie theaters the
(39:51):
way they used to consumers.
Consumer entertainment habitshave changed. When it comes to
watching film and whatnot. Sowatching film like that people
want to stay at home and watchit at home. So it's so yeah, I'm
not I'm I just think it's I justthink it was an IT acceleration
of existing ideas notnecessarily a chain like a
(40:13):
radical change. Right.
Dustin Steffey (40:15):
Yeah, I agree. I agree with everything that you
brought up with that. How do youfeel moving forward? How do you
feel with everything changingthe future? What do you think
the future is going to hold withevolution of our businesses? I
mean, a pandemic changed the waywe do business. I mean, like you
(40:37):
were saying, the movies evenhave changed, where more people
are just doing things at home?
Do you think that that trend isgoing to continue forward? Or do
you think that we're gonna goback to having more
socialization outside of thehouse?
David Carpenter (40:52):
Well, I don't think that we've ever not had
socialization outside of thehouse, right? I mean, I think
that I think, obviously, I workin live entertainment, like, I'm
a big believer in the gatheringof people like together in a
place right to do something,because I don't think that you
can replace LeBron came in, inany way, shape, or form, people
will still go to concerts,right, that that certainly will
still happen. But I think that Ithink that I think what we do in
(41:14):
the live entertainment arena, interms of what it is that we're
consuming is, is is going tomorph, they're going to change
and, and audiences today don'twant static experiences, they
want dynamic experiences, theywant to feel engaged, they want
to feel listened to, they wantto feel involved, I think that
we're going to see a change inthat in that trend towards
towards more dynamic, moreengaged content than we have
(41:39):
seen before. And social mediaobviously has changed has has
been a disrupter and all ofthat, which is your your
community of people who areliking the same thing that you
like, and the people that youcan talk to, and the people you
interact to now can happen withanyone all over the world. And
so you are, you're able to formdifferent types of communities
now, around the content aroundthe ideas and the things that
(42:03):
you like doing in a reallydifferent more global way. And
this is obviously this has beengoing on for the last 20 years
now is that we're seeing howsocial media is participating
in, in the engagement around thesubject. So like, for instance,
like what one of the things thatthat we have on 20 Tavern is
that we have a very vibrantdiscord. Because Discord is a
(42:24):
place where gamers like togather full stop already, right.
And we opened up our Discordchannel to give our fans direct
access to the actors and thecreators of the show, to be able
to engage with them inconversation. And it's amazing,
right? Like, it's amazing,because first off, it's a safe
space for the creators, they canparticipate or not, the actors
are just bigger not. There isn'tany. Like it's not like meeting
(42:48):
people at the stage door oranything like that. But it
allows them to form a an ongoingconversation with the fans in
the fandom in a way that hasnever been able to be done
before. And so I love I love ourDiscord. I think our Discord is
an amazing place because it issimply about engagement, and
validation and recognizing andsharing the joy of the thing
we're doing. But it's alsogiving a little level of access
(43:09):
to the fans, not only to thecreators, but also to each other
about this thing that they love.
And it's all and it's allhappening. It all happens in
real time. It's Discord is aplace for conversations, you
know, Twitter, and Facebook isnot really a place for
conversations, you know, don'treally get in, like you might
get into a fight on, you know,on someone's wall. But it's not
a place that facilitatesconversation. Discord is discord
has become really interesting interms of facilitating
conversations. And then ofcourse, you have this outlet of
(43:31):
podcasts, which are wonderfulways to disseminate information
and ideas and thoughts andthings where you can have that
passive experience as a user andlisten to what's going on. So
the fact that we have so manychannels now informs us in
entertainment creating, rightlike, like we have to be able to
engage on a lot of differentlevels, not just put on a show.
(43:53):
And I love that I find thatterribly, terribly exciting.
Because at the end of the day,it's about fan engagement. It's
about it's about creating acommunity and creating a fan
engagement and the more tools wehave to build to do that more
ways we have to engage thebetter the product ends up being
at the end of the day.
Dustin Steffey (44:12):
Yep, I agree with you on that. I just got a
question that came in. So gameyoptics has changed. Live
entertainment, right?
David Carpenter (44:22):
Well, I want to I am not there. I don't I
wouldn't say I've changedanything quite yet, but I'm
working on it.
Dustin Steffey (44:26):
I think it's heading that way though. I I
strongly feel it's heading thatway. With that being said, what
else do you see? Or even whereelse do you see gamey objects
being used outside of liveentertainment?
David Carpenter (44:39):
So there's a there's something that we're
working on right now, which isin the oddly enough in the
museum space, right, which is, Ilove the idea of being able to
not have a passive experience ata museum. But if I want to go on
an adventure, I can go on anadventure at a museum. And
again, this is As a kid who grewup with all those sci fi books
(45:02):
about going on adventures inmuseums, right, and the audio
guided tour, well, wonderfulinformation is a is a linear
journey that is told to youabout what's happening. And you
don't have any agency in thatjourney other than I'm going to
press this number and listenthis next track. And so I'm
developing, give me a tool andgive me optics that allows us to
(45:23):
then create an experience out ofmuseum space. And I used
magazine by example, this couldbe just about anywhere, but to
be able to create an experiencewhere your choices determine
where you go, and what you learnand what happens next. So that
you could come back and do itagain, and go on a totally
different adventure. And be ableto do it over and over again. We
see that on 20 sites, however,in terms of audiences coming
(45:45):
back, because it's never thesame trip twice, I want to take
that idea. I don't want to applythat idea of agency and
adventure, and a dynamicstorytelling and dynamic
experiences based on the choicesthat I make as a consumer, not
what I'm told to make. And Ithink that that is actually a
really powerful idea. And somethat I'm pursuing very hard.
Because I think I mean, it iselection day, we are recording
this on Tuesday, the eighth,right? That we are never that
(46:09):
agency and voice in in our livesis never not going to be really
important. Moving forward.
Right? Because we are we are inand I say that, you know, on
both sides, everybody wants tohave a voice. Everybody wants to
have agency. And I Oh, and Ithink that that what I'm doing
in the entertainment spectrum,is I'm just doing entertainment,
not doing politics, but thenit's entertainment spectrum, is
(46:29):
is is answering that call, andsay well, what if what if we
were able to give more choicein, in our experiences? Netflix
did did it back in 16 1617? WithBandersnatch. Right? They they
they they created a show nowthat wasn't a new idea, right in
(46:50):
any stretch of the imagination,what what they did, and it was
but it was novel at the timebecause I watched Netflix on my
ps3, I think it was ps4 Probablyps3 and was able to choose the
direction the story and I knewpeople who were like I went down
every single possible thread onthat thing I did that I played
that whole thing through andthrough. And I remember
(47:11):
thinking, gosh, they're reallyonto something. It wasn't a very
good show, right? Like contentwise, it wasn't a good show.
It's never gonna be the firsttime you try it. But it provided
this this intersection ofgamification and entertainment
that I was already working onand saying, Oh, this is this is
kind of what we're, this is kindof what I'm after now. Right?
(47:32):
It's gamification is everywherein our lives, right? sports,
sports entertainment, they callit sports, entertaining, for
reason, sports is just gaming.
Right? That's all it is. It'sjust it's just a game. It's a
live action game that people areplaying. And so as we start to
find these intersections ofwhere the agency is where the
audience can have agency, Ithink that's where we start
seeing change. That's what andthat is what I'm interested in
(47:53):
it.
Dustin Steffey (47:54):
I think there's some good things coming out of
gaming Audix. And I can't waitto see what the future holds for
it. Because there's so much morethat this application can be
used for. And I'm sure in thefuture, we're going to see it
all over the place.
David Carpenter (48:10):
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree.
Dustin Steffey (48:13):
So congratulations on finding a
niche that is important, in myopinion. And that is fun, too.
So I mean, all of us that gointo entrepreneurship, we like
to try to do something we'repassionate about. So I think
that this is your passion as thepodcast is mine. So I I
definitely appreciate everythingthat you've given to us today.
(48:37):
One final thing, if you couldleave our listeners with one key
golden nugget, which I knowyou've left a lot of them in the
episode but one very importantnugget, what would you leave
them with?
David Carpenter (48:52):
Oh, I mean, you know, I always say people, the
the nose, like and this is thisis something that this something
that an investor of mine said tome, and this is a quote
attributed to several peopleright now, but it's really every
no brings you to a yes, youcannot let someone who say no to
(49:13):
you get you down you have to saythis is this is just one more
step towards getting to a yes.
Because if you get mired and Ido, right, like I absolutely do
get mired in the rejection, youhave to take a step back and
realize that 99% of the peopleare going to reject you, right?
It's just the 1% that's gonnaget you across the finish line
or you know, but but you can'tyou and learn something from
(49:34):
every No, why did they say no?
Is it me? Or is it them? Rightis my idea goes out and you'll
reach a point where it's like,no, the idea is good. They just
don't get it. But in thebeginning it's the idea isn't
good. You're not selling thisright. And learn how to sell it
right. And then when you get ayes, learn from that. Yes. And
make that yes, better. Right.
But you're still gonna get noseafter you get Yes, it's right.
(49:55):
And so it's a it's it. I wascalling it it's a trench fight.
right you're just in a trenchfight, trying to get trying to
get this stuff done. And, andyou just have to you just have
to steel yourself against it.
It's It is a tough, toughbusiness, especially if you're
not if you're not walking thetable with, you know, a, you
know, you know, trust fund,right to start a business like
(50:15):
if you're if you'rebootstrapping it yourself,
you're doing yourself like it isit is a, it is challenging, but
you know, nothing easy is worthit.
Dustin Steffey (50:25):
If anybody wants to get a hold of you, David and
kinda is interested ineverything that we discussed
today, what's a good medium toget a hold of you?
David Carpenter (50:32):
Right through the website, David at Guinea
audix.com easily accessible, youcan find me on LinkedIn,
LinkedIn is really easy as well.
I'm very visible. So yeah,that's the best way to get a
hold of me.
Dustin Steffey (50:42):
Awesome. And I'll provide relevant links in
the episode description and makeit easier on the listeners and
on you. Perfect. I appreciateeverything that you've given to
us. So thank you. Thank you forcoming on.
David Carpenter (50:55):
Thanks so much.
Thanks for your time today.
Appreciate it.
Dustin Steffey (50:57):
Yep. Thank you.
This week's episode is brought to you by
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And of course, our website ifyou guys want to keep completely
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website is www dot chopping withfire that ch o p p i n with
(03:01):
feiyr.com that houses everythingto keep you guys up to date and
has links to all of our socialmedia. That being said, that's
all the housekeeping I want todive right into it with our
expert today.
Currently, we have a uniqueexpert that really is going to
be able to give us some goodadded value today. His name is
(03:24):
David carpenter. He has 22 yearsof entertainment experience
bringing in technology withininto live entertainment. With
that being said, David, how areyou? I'm great. How are you
doing? Good.
New York. I know that's whereyou're you're in the upper part
of New York, right? It's prettythere. It's fall. It's fall.
(03:45):
It's great. I live in I livejust outside of New York City in
the suburbs. And it's likeperfect fall. You know, war was
warm up until yesterday. But
David Carpenter (03:53):
yeah, it's more it's gorgeous time of year up
here. And I actually just I justgot back from Chicago, where I
was for three weeks and theweather was perfect. So it's
like I've been I've been allover the I've been all over the
north part of this country. Lastin Alaska a couple of months.
That's awesome. Yeah. See inReno, the weather's bipolar.
Because basically we had summerall the way up until like, last
(04:15):
week.
So we weren't getting that coldback cold weather. Now it's
starting to it's starting. It'sstarting to hit it. I've been
staying ahead of it as I've beenas I've been traveling back east
slowly but surely.
Dustin Steffey (04:27):
Yeah. You never can tell the weather where I'm
at it just it flips a switch onus here. So we actually had a
snow a couple days ago so it waspretty crazy. Yikes. And now
we're not even Yeah, I'm notready for that either. Just like
the people that put up Christmaslights like in October not ready
(04:47):
for that either.
David Carpenter (04:49):
Yeah, right.
Exactly. Yeah. Wait tilleverything's giving wait till
everything's doing
Dustin Steffey (04:52):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I am not ready for that
at all. So your yourentertainment veteran, you have
to technology that you'vebrought into the entertainment
industry. Let's, let's take astep back for a second for
everybody to just kind of havethem feel like where your
journey has been. So tell me alittle bit about yourself.
David Carpenter (05:13):
Yeah, so, um, I, I've worked in a theatrical
entertainment. I worked invehicle entertainment for most
of my career, I moved to NewYork right out of college and
started working on Broadway, inproducing offices, and we
originally started and then Iworked. I worked in sales and
marketing for a long time andvarious places on Broadway. One
of the places I work was wasDreamWorks theatrical. So I was
(05:35):
part of the sales and marketingteam that brought in the
original production of Shrek theMusical when it came in, which I
think was in Oh, eight. And thenthat which was, which was a
great experience. It was a itwas a lovely show. And, and
after, but it didn't work.
Unfortunately, it didn't itdidn't sell it and so on up on
Broadway, it was also it wasalso like a family show in a
recession is not a it's not afun place to not a fun place to
(05:56):
be because families tend totighten their wallets first. So
I worked. I worked for anotherproducer for about five years
running up running a productionoffice and learning, you know,
learning more about financingand development, and getting
some really cool, got projectsmoving. And then I left that
office and with a former partnerstarted my own production
(06:17):
company, which I have for aboutfive years, there's a company
called tilted windmills. Andwhile I was at tilted, I had the
distinction of producing a playcalled puffs, which puffs is a
parody of the Harry Potteruniverse. And it was a huge hit.
It ran in New York for threeyears, and is now the number two
most produce show in the USright now. I don't produce it's
(06:39):
late, but licensed like everyhigh school middle school in the
country does it in some wayshape or form, like Google
Alerts, especially in the fall,right like Google Alerts tend to
go a little crazy on the othertitle the show just because it's
like the foul play thateverybody does. The really
funny, kind of beautiful,poignant story. While I also I
produce on Broadway CO producedon Broadway did a bunch of stuff
(06:59):
there. But while I was doingthis, so I've always been a big
video gamer and sci fi fan andfantasy nerd and board gamer.
And you know, gaming was alwayslike part of my life, but always
like my hobby, like the thingthat I was doing outside of it.
But I took it very seriously. Asanyone who's played board games
(07:19):
with me can attest, and or videogames for that matter. And I
stumbled upon this play, thatwas a for lack of a better word.
But basically what happened isthat it was it was a it was a
rom com and the audience washanded remotes like for button
like push button remotes whenthey walked into the theater.
(07:40):
This was many years back in2013. And basically the audience
would vote on this show whenthey where they wanted it to go.
And it was a rom com was with aguy going on a date with a girl.
And they voted on. Like, what hewore, which girl he went on a
date with where they went, whatthe dialogue was set a key
moments in time. And it wasfunny. But it also it it um,
(08:02):
depending on how the voting wasdone, like how what they voted
for the audience would they getthey get like 10 different
endings, right. So if they votedvery successfully for the guy
all the way through, he sleptwith the girl at the end, they
voted very negatively for theguy the end. He would like
throws off of a bridge orsomething terribly dark like
(08:25):
that, right. And I just was verykind of caught by this idea of
bringing in this concept ofgaming because it was it's
gaming, right? You're makingchoices, you have agency and
this idea of agency with a liveentertainment space. And I've
never seen anyone successfullyexecute a concept like that
before. Now, the show itselfwasn't terribly good, right?
(08:47):
Like if he wasn't, it wasn't avery good show. But the concept
behind it I was really takenwith and so actually option, the
show and I started working onit, go to the author and take a
note to save his life. But whileI was doing that, one of the
things I said was like, Look,you can't hand an audience
something when they walk in thedoor, right? Like that isn't
(09:08):
like that's not a scalable idea,you know, even in live in our
team or anything. But I love theidea of them having agency. What
if we take it to the phone andthe other times like, oh, we
explored apps are too expensivein the back then. And you know
what happened? I don't know whatit costs now. But an app itself
will cost like three to $1,000.
And Bill is like I just there'sno way I'm gonna do that. I was
like, Oh, hi. I don't think it'san app. I think there's
something else. And veryluckily, I got hooked up with
(09:31):
this programmer named DaveKeane, who was at one point his
career was the senior architectof the Sony PlayStation Network.
Right. And, and he was workingin healthcare at that point, but
was a big theater lover. And weconnected and I said, Hey, I
have this really weird problem.
And he was like, what if we makeit an app? And I'm like, I don't
think it can be an app. He'slike, Well, you're right. He's
like, You shouldn't be an appbecause you can ask someone to
(09:52):
download something before theygo to a live event. Right. Like,
like, it's one thing I think wenow know in terms of app app
development. Like, we see a lotof resistance now to people
downloading more and more appson their phone for a lot of
reasons, right? Like, I have afew apps that I that I like, and
I keep but mostly apps on myphone I don't ever use now. And
I for a logger timorous. Hesaid, he said, Well, what if it
(10:13):
was web based, and it was webbased, and it's disposable. And
that's what I'm after. He said,All right. And he built the
first iteration of what is nowgaming on IT software. And, and
so I had that, so So basically,what happened was, I had this
software. But I didn't have ashow, because the author and I
parted ways after about sixmonths, and I commissioned a new
(10:34):
show. And I started working onthat as a side project for a
couple of years. And really,what the, what the function of
gaming addicts is, is that's atwo way communication device
between audience and content, itallows the audience to be able
through the web browser, ontheir phone, make choices and
take actions collectively as agroup or individually that
affect the content that'shappening before and in front of
that. And during this time,we've seen the rise of
(10:57):
experiential entertainment and areally significant way. And I
kept thinking, Gosh,experiential entertainment is,
is is getting bigger and biggerand bigger. But it's, it's going
to hit this limit in terms ofwhat it can do, unless we unless
we bring technology into it togive more purpose to the
audience in these experiences.
(11:19):
And so that's why that's where Istarted really kind of driving
game biotics at that point. Um,so So I had so I had Bruce a
Broadway show back in 2019. Alot of snow show, producer brain
leaks on Broadway. And then mypartnership broke up with my
former partner, and I tookcontrol of the companies and
more importantly, I took controlof the software company. And in
(11:42):
January of 20, I startedfocusing full time on the
software company, and then thepandemic hit in March. So that
was fun. And I'm sure you get alot of pandemic stories on your
podcast and like, Oh, God, what,what, because we're all now have
them, right? Yeah, right. Yeah.
And especially in anentrepreneurship podcast,
there's a lot of like, well,what do you do? Like what
happened during that timeperiod?
Dustin Steffey (12:05):
We have yet to have one on our show that like,
describe flopping right, duringthe pandemic, because it was a
lot that did flop unfortunately,what weren't prepared.
David Carpenter (12:19):
I mean, there was no, there wasn't a way to be
able to prepare for thatpandemic, right. I mean, we saw
it coming. I would say, I wouldsay, I would say I remember,
about two weeks before the liveentertainment shutdowns. A lot
of entertainers shutdown waslike, roughly March 12, and
2013, when suddenly everythingglobally went went dark. But two
weeks before I started thinkingon the mark is the remember the
(12:40):
market start getting reallyvolatile. And investors started
saying, I can't I can't get Ican't write a check right now. I
gotta wait one second, for themarket volatility to stop. I
remember the day before theshutdown, I said to my former
assistant, I was like, this ison a Thursday, I was like, if we
come in tomorrow, we should havea talk about what's going to
happen next. And then and then Idon't think I ever saw him in
person again, actually. It'slike, I don't think I ever saw
(13:02):
that guy ever again in Berkeley.
Because like we because we, youknow, I'd stayed upstate in New
York. And you know, the shutdownthe office, and like that was
that. But during the pandemic,so since everything shut down,
basically what I did is I, Itook I took the software, and I
call it a bunch of friends ofmine, who entertainers who are
all at work. And I said, what ifwe just entertain people using
(13:25):
the software and try and developsomething, and they're like,
Sure, I'm game, I'm not doinganything. I'm collecting
unemployment. And so we startedthis journey that went on for
about 18 months, where I createda production company that
existed only over zoom, a liveentertainment production company
over zoom, we thought either athome or wherever they were in
the country, or wherever theywere in the world would use game
bionics to play along with ourshows, right? And so it was all
(13:46):
live action. So the actors wereactually reading from a from a
Google document that hadhyperlinks to jump where the
audience chose them to go onthat journey. And we did murder
mysteries and branchingnarratives. And, and, gosh, a
Christmas show a Halloween show,we did escape rooms, we did game
shows, we did puzzles, I mean,we get all manner of things. And
(14:07):
that's where I learned actuallywhat gave me Onyx was as a as a
software platform in terms ofhow it had the ability to be
able to communicate in real timeto audiences out at a live
event. And, and and getconnectivity right? And so we
were able to form thisrelationship with this online
(14:28):
audience where they felt veryconnected to each other because
they're all participating in theentertainment a lot of people
compare it like oh, it's likeJack box and I'm like, Jack box
isn't like Yeah, I mean, like,you know, like your career lens,
but like you and your group offriends are playing a game
together live, but what I'mactually doing is a live
storytelling event right? Or alot you know, it's something
(14:48):
something that and that isdriven by the agency of the
consumer. So we would we developthese murder mysteries right?
Where we have, you know, four orfive actor actors or actresses
I'm on screen with a big script.
And we built this much gamingmechanic into it, where we're
because we do like we do like aWii. So I did I did at I did 20
(15:10):
hour long shows in 18 months,right? Like I worked at a
furious pace to put all thisstuff out, right. And one of
them, some of them are mysteriesthat we did, there was a
mechanic where the audiencewould make a seemingly innocuous
choice at the beginning of theshow, they vote for this, they
vote for that, or they take thisaction, and that would determine
who the murderer was. So theactivity show up not knowing who
the murderer was right when theywould start the show. And it was
(15:31):
a really interesting dynamic.
Wait, it's like playing likeplaying flu with your friends,
right? When you play clue as aboard game, you don't know who
the murderer is, when you start,it's wrapped in an envelope. And
you've got to go through it. I'mright. And we built a
storytelling device around thatsame concept to then that that
allowed the audience to vote andparticipate in trying to figure
out who the murderer was. And itwas super, super fun. So I shut
down that company, the onlinefracture, we may have, I guess
(15:57):
it was May of 21. And, andbecause it was like, No, I
didn't want to do zoomentertainment anymore. No one
should do zoom entertainmentlike that. It's not a
performance platform orbroadcast, Opperman, I stretched
the imagination, but one of theone of this, that I needed to go
back and focus full time on theon the software company, because
I had guy had, I had gottenangel funding, raised about a
(16:20):
half million dollars over theover the pandemic and angel
funds. Just by virtue of thefact of like, Hey, I have the
software and it's working. Andonce I've retained what comes
back, and I can move this in therain I like, you know, help me
help keep this going. So, youknow, but I was getting kind of
the end of the angel funds thatI need to really concentrate on
seed round and right, you know,angel funding and seed round
(16:42):
funding are two entirelydifferent things, that the
stakes are very different. Thewhat you're doing is very
different. And you know, it tookme six months to figure out how
to get the right get get theright place on on the seed round
for the company in terms of whatwhat I was building as a
software company. Because therewas that I'm sure you talk about
(17:02):
the show, there's that I hadstarted this in a b2c
environment, right with doingthe online production company.
But that wasn't what thesoftware company wanted to be
the software is a b2b company.
And so I actually had to learnhow to pull myself away. And
that's ironic. So I'm going totalk about another b2c company
in a second. But I had to pullmyself away out of the habits of
(17:25):
being in a b2c company andreally start focusing on what it
meant to be in a b2b company tolaunch the launch this and also
start start thinking about acloser to a SaaS company,
meaning other people being in touse the software. So I did a six
month journey on trying tofigure that out and get to the
right place, which ultimatelywas successful in securing a
seed round. Um, but, um, so so.
So I go on that journey. And oneof the things that we had
(17:50):
produced on the onlineproduction company was a live
action Dungeons and Dragonsstyle gaming experience, where
we had players we had, we'reusing radionics, for audience
interaction, and we had a storegame master or dungeon master.
And of everything that I did,that one struck the loudest
chord, who not only with me, butalso with fans. And so as I was
(18:13):
shutting down the onlineproduction company, the two
people who were who worked withme at this, this previous one, I
went to them, I said, I thinkthis is the thing, I think this
is the thing, right, I thinkthis is the thing that that I
want to pursue because it's abeautiful application of my
software. And I really love thisidea of bringing an RPG live
event to the stage in a way thatnobody else has ever been able
(18:37):
to do before. Let's pursue thisright. And so that is a that is
a the title of show is calledthe 20 sided tavern. And, and
it's like I said, it's a liveaction RPG event that is in the
style of a dungeon Dragons gamewhere the audience is using the
software all throughout the showto choose pathways and decisions
(18:57):
that affect the show and thegame as it's being played out.
And so we started, we started atthe Philly Fringe Festival a
little over a year ago, we puton a we put on a couple of
performances just in front of arandom audience just being like,
it's awesome folding tables anda bunch of props and having no
idea what we're doing. And theaudience went nuts for it. I
mean, just went nuts out of thegate in a really huge way. And
(19:19):
me and my partners in thatventure were like, Okay, we have
something here, let's go figurethis out. So, right around that
time, I, I, I secured my seedfunding. And remember saying to
the investors, I'm just gonna,I'm just gonna do this one thing
over here, right? Like, I'mgonna build this software
(19:41):
company. I'm gonna do this onething over here and they're
like, they're like, that waslike they're like, Okay, let's
see it go but don't get toodistracted. Right. And, and I
ironically, like what 20 siirthas grown up to become is the
first and my first EnterpriseClient for my software company.
So by I am also the CEO of the20 star tavern company as well
(20:02):
along with two partners, webuilt a live entertainment
production company based on thisidea and are having wild success
with it right now. So, so Ihaven't talked about it more,
but that I think that in anutshell, is my journey.
Dustin Steffey (20:16):
I think that's a pretty robust journey, to be
honest with you. A couple ofthings that popped up that I
wanted to hone in on onedescription of the different
investors, I think that that's athat's a good thing to define,
especially for entrepreneursthat are looking to get funding.
So I'd like to dive into that.
And then I'd like to dive inafterwards to some pandemic
(20:40):
evolution. So lessons learnedfrom the pandemic, and like
where you're heading now,because I think every country in
the or every country, I'm sorry,every company in the country has
evolved. Yes, pandemic. I mean,it hasn't disappeared. But
they've evolved. I mean, wedidn't have very many jobs that
were work from home. And now, itseems like a lot of them offer
(21:05):
the flexibility of a blendedatmosphere now of working from
home or and or going to work orboth.
David Carpenter (21:15):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, sorry, go ahead.
Dustin Steffey (21:19):
So I think I think we dive into kind of the
different funding strategieslike what is an angel investor?
What are some of the differentterminology so that way people
know and then we'll dive intothe pandemic evolution?
David Carpenter (21:34):
Yeah. So so I had to, I had to learn startup
financing from scratch in thelast three years. And I say that
because I have been working intheatrical and specifically in
Broadway and off Broadway formost of my career. And the
financing for that is fullydifferent than anything else in
the world, right? And in fact,doesn't make any sense at all.
(21:57):
Have you ever talked to a yachtor talked to a Broadway investor
you talk to people like it is a,it is a very weird world
governed by a very strange setof rules from the New York State
Attorney General's office in theSEC. There are similar
similarities to start dancing,but it's also a very specific
set of circumstances in order tofinance a financial live
entertainment play. So I didn'tlike financing that way. I mean,
(22:19):
I break millions of dollars, inmy years in financing, but on on
on theatrical, but I never Inever liked it, I think that I
think the main issue that I hadwith it, and this gets kind of a
little bit of a deep cut in atthe upper financing is that one
of the weird things intheatrical entertainment versus
(22:39):
like movies and film, or moviesand television is that the, the,
the work, the scripts, in moviesand television are owned by the
studio, right? And intheatrical, they're there.
They're the right, those rightsare ultimately always retained
by the author. And what you dois you option that right from an
author, you don't buy themoutright. And so when you're
(23:03):
doing an investment, theinvestment the company doesn't
actually own any IP, right, whatit owns is the the the
exclusivity on this particularpiece of work, and the right to
income from future traffic,ticket sales, you know,
depending on production,depending on on subsidiary
rights or other things, but theownership stake is always
retained by the author. So in anoption agreement, there's a time
(23:26):
limit on it. So it's notsomething you can scale, and
it's not something you can sell,there is no exit in in
theatrical right? So you canmake an enormous amount of
money, like Hamilton makes anenormous amount of money Lion
King makes an enormous amount ofmoney. But there are those are
the rare exceptions to the rule.
So as I started kind of gettinginto it with gaming addicts, you
(23:48):
know, I had to like I said, Ihad to learn a whole new
language. And so we're gettingso you know, you're kind of your
first round, right is like is,is basically saying, I have an
idea, I need money to pursuethis idea, right? And I'm going
to I and my journey on this isgoing to get to either a
(24:09):
prototype or a minimum viableproduct, right? Like something
I'm gonna I need money to showthat my idea, potentially, I can
build it right. Not even I cansell it. Yeah, I can build it.
And that is an extremely highrisk investment. So an angel
investor, a lot of times in thein this world, our friends and
(24:31):
family, there are people whoknow you personally, people who
may have invested with youbefore, right and other in other
rounds, but it's a high riskinvestment, because it's not
really secured against anythingbecause you haven't actually
built the product yet. So whatis that investment security
gets? Because you're not goingto have patents. You're not
going to have copyrights whenyou're building a thing that all
comes in time and so a lot ofthe vehicles that the financial
(24:53):
vehicles and I believe this wasby if I have my history correct,
this is pioneered by white YCombinator back in the day is
through what's called Safeagreements, right? Which are
simple agreement for futureequity, right. And it's
basically a piece of paper thatsays, If I am successful, and I
get to an equity round meeting,like I got I raised Ronny, you
(25:14):
will get a, you will get a bonusfor for the money that you put
in right now, that's it notsecured against anything, does
it if the company goes belly upthe next day, right, that's it,
you lose your money. And it's avery, very high risk investment,
right. And so a lot of but a lotof Angel rounds are run through
or run through safe investments.
(25:36):
You know, back in a napkincalculation, most people raise
anywhere between three and$500,000 in a safe, because
that's usually about the limitof people writing small checks,
in order to do it, or how muchyou're gonna be able to raise on
that, against that, in fact, Ifound that, I found that now
several times, which is like,the, the limit for me seems to
(25:56):
be somewhere around three to$500,000, that, um, find a
willingness and stage before youwant to start securing it before
you need to show progress toinvestors for them to either
come in for more. So I'm gonnabe honest, I raised about
$500,000, on a safe over theover the course of the over the
course of the pandemic. Now,these were all family, friends
and previous investors of mine,there were a few new people in
(26:17):
the pile. But they were allpeople who knew me or knew the
work that I'd done before. So itwas important that I had a track
record, right as, as someone,you know, working in live
retirement or as anentrepreneur, good or bad, I
needed to have a track record.
And that helped me get that fundfinancing run so, so the seed
round, different, right? Becauseyou are many times securing that
(26:37):
against equity or convertibledebt, right? In that you are and
you are going for a largeramount of money. Okay. So in
order to build traction, right,I think that's what that's what
you're kind of like so so Ibuilt my prototype, build my
MVP, now I actually have tobuild the actual product now,
right, and sell it to consumersand see if there's traction in
(27:02):
the marketplace. And that route,like that's usually anywhere
from a million and a half to $3million. In most tech companies,
most most things were to see andsaying, Alright, I need to build
a team. And if I need to finishthe product, I need to roll it
out. And I gotta see if I canget some early clients and
establish a baseline of sales orinterest that can start
generating revenue, right? Soyou know, when that when you get
(27:23):
to that point, you're talkingabout valuations pre money
valuations, the company postmoney valuation of their
company, like, Alright, I'mgonna give you a million and a
half dollars, what do I get?
Right? What's my stake in thiscompany, versus what's your
stake in this company, versuswhat the original wrestler stake
in this company so, so, um, andthe seed round, and investors
tend to be still risky, right,there's still a lot of risks,
(27:45):
but it's little bit less,because you've proven that
you've gotten something working,right. And now you're gonna go
to market with it, and see ifthere's a strategy. And then
after that is when is when youstart getting into either second
seed or a Series A, or whereit's like, I have money, I have
revenue, I mean, all mybenchmarks from from
sophisticated veterans say, onceyou get to a million a year in
(28:05):
revenue, you know, and your,your your annual run rate is
sitting at about a million ayear, then you can sit down and
open up a series a for five to$10 million, right, depending on
how you're going to sit yourmusic evaluation, and then
you're moving up into more andmore sophisticated class of
investors, people are runninglarger checks, larger offices,
larger venture firms who havewho have no interest in writing
(28:27):
small Texas. That's actually thehardest part about all this is
that the people with a lot ofthe money are not interested
unless they're writing a millionor two or $3 million checks out
of the gate. Because there's nota big enough bet for them. They
can't make enough off of$150,000 or whatever it is,
right. Um, so yeah, so that's,that's so I learned I learned
(28:48):
how to do this right through thepandemic, and I'm still learning
like it hasn't the educationperiod hasn't stopped.
Dustin Steffey (28:54):
I think the pandemic has evolved us, right.
Yeah. So if we look, if we lookat evolution, it's evolved us.
And I think Furthermore, we'reall still learning. I don't
think we have the perfectsolution right now. But I think
that we're getting closer andcloser each day that passes,
because the pandemic changed us.
And we all all of us that own abusiness, outside of working in
(29:19):
normal nine to five, right? Wehad to evolve and we had to
evolve and pivot on the fly, orelse we we failed. And so I
think it's important to one,congratulate you on making it
through the pandemic becausethere were other businesses that
weren't so fortunate, but to toreally just understand that,
(29:42):
like us as business owners,we're still evolving right now
currently to perfect thatequation. Yeah. And so, I come
in, I commend you, right for forfor making it for through
because there were othercasualties that were involved
that didn't. And it'sunfortunate and it It's
(30:04):
upsetting because I'm a very bigproponent of entrepreneurship
often, obviously with mypodcast, but I'm also a big
proponent of it, because I feelthat's what we were founded on.
And that's what drives moneyinto the economy is the small
businesses, the largebusinesses, yes, they drive
money into the economy. But dothey drive it in the same manner
(30:27):
as a small businesses like thesmall businesses really like? I
think drive the economy a lotmore in my opinion.
David Carpenter (30:36):
Yeah. Well, and that's also I mean, like, I was
saying to you earlier that oneof the things about gaming
addicts is that it's a b2bbusiness, which I'm really
interested in. I spend, I mean,like, when you are producing a
show, or you're producing atheatrical, you're actually
effectively running a b2cbusiness, right? You're selling
tickets to consumers, right?
Creating Content selling thingsas a consumer such as what you
do right directly consumerfunding, forgive me Onyx is like
one of the one of the thingsthat I'm after for, is I love
(30:57):
experiential entertainment.
Right? Experientialentertainment is everything from
what secret cinema is doing overin the UK, and soon to be in the
US to what Sleep No More does toescape rooms, right? I mean, you
could look at Disney World asthe largest example of
experiential entertainment, likeyou're in an environment that is
crafted for you to tell a storyand give you an experience that
(31:17):
is specific. Yeah, well, ofcourse, the US has a big
experiential attainment, contentproducer. So there's a lot out
of them. And they keep in there,and it's they're rising, there's
more and more stuff that'sstarting to happen. These these
galaxies quest, have you heardabout that, which is the star,
right? That's experientialentertainment for short, right?
It's also very expensive, butit's that type of thing. We're
(31:39):
starting to see more and more ofthis. But one of the things that
I identified early on was thatthere wasn't a lot of access for
experiential creators to be ableto build commercially successful
models, right? When when meowWolf is a great example. I mean,
they are they're absolutegeniuses at what they do. But it
(31:59):
took a three and a half milliondollar check from George RR
Martin to get that company offthe ground in the early days. So
not, not everybody can can buildsomething, you know, can can get
that three and a half milliondollar check to start right. Not
to say that they started thatpoint. But but you know, it's a
tricky thing. So one of thethings with gimme Onyx is that,
because it's a web based, andbecause it's software, it's a
(32:22):
platform that allows you tobuild branching narrative
experiences, right there allowsyou to build a new type of
storytelling experiences wherethe consumer has that agency to
make decisions that affect theexperience as it's going along
the changes, the experience ishappening in real time. And I
was always struck by this ideathat experiential seems so far
(32:42):
off from the everyday contentcreator, I was like, well,
that's stupid, because we neededto democratize this a little bit
more, we need to create a cheapplatform for people to be able
to and I don't mean like, anaccessible platform, cheap is
the wrong word, but accessibleplatform for people to be able
to interact with their audiencesand build their version of what
they want experiential oraudience interaction to be. And
(33:05):
that and that's one of thefounding pillars of Guinea Onyx
Is that is that is providing thesoftware into the hands of
content creators so that we cansee an economic revolution
happening within experientialentertainment. And by many,
many, many more people spendinga lot less money building their
own things, right. And like,that's, that's what technology
(33:26):
is supposed to do. I mean,that's what that is what
technology has done right?
Throughout our lives for thelast 40 years. And the fact that
everybody can use it, likeremember, it was, for a while it
was microsoft word now like thatGoogle has, you know, has
document and it's spreadsheetapplications that are free to
(33:46):
use for anyone, anywhere on anycomputer, right? So like that
democratizes our ability to beable to do business down to
anybody being able to do it. AndI think there's something really
from an entrepreneurial level,is that if you're in this
system, where only only thewealthy right, have the keys to
be able to do stuff, you're notcreating a very vibrant economy
(34:07):
or ecosystems for creators,right. And and and I'm seeing
that in experientialentertainment, where where there
isn't a lead, there's certainlya little bit of an elitism
that's happening, but the peoplewho have access to funding or
the access or have the abilityhave the talent that's like,
well, how are you building thenext generation? Right? How are
you giving them the tools to beable to create on their own not
inside another system? Becausethat's kind of what I'm after
(34:30):
long term with, with what I wantfor Guinea ox to be able to do
is to be a tool in the hands ofcontent creators all over the
world to say, well, I want to domy own type of thing. I wanna do
my own game right I want to domy own like experience without
with that, that that I don'tthere's no rules. There's no one
telling me what to do. I justhave the software platform to go
create it on. Um, yeah, sothat'd be so like, in the gaming
(34:52):
world. Unreal Engine has done areally interesting way of doing
that. Creating Games is a veryexpensive proposition. But if
you look at some of thesebackbone, like pieces of
software and architecture thatdrive a lot of stuff, they're
driving a lot of the developmentthat's happening in AR and VR
right now in a really great waybecause they made their platform
(35:12):
accessible, to be able to drivenew types of content. So like,
there's a reason why VR hasn'ttaken off is because not enough
content creators have access totools to build high quality
content, like it simply does. Ithasn't been there hasn't been
there for the last decade. Andwe're slowly starting to see
that change now that these toolsare becoming more readily
available and easier to be ableto use. So I'm after that in a
(35:33):
lot of entertainment spectrums.
I love live entertainment, likeI like I have my entire life.
But But to your point, you knowwhat your point on
entrepreneurship at some pointon the on people like part of it
is just like having the abilityto create and build something
without a being costprohibitive? Right. So there's
(35:54):
something about the hungerbiotics that I'm after on that.
I mean, first things first islike, I'm building the first
experiences myself, becausesomeone has to right, I'm not
gonna wait around for somebodyelse to build, like, I'm gonna
go to pave the way about how weabout how we build these things.
And that's, that's somethingthat I'm doing. That's what I'm
doing right now with Morningsidetavern. Yeah, I,
Dustin Steffey (36:11):
again, it all goes back to evolution, right.
So all of your conversation has,has shown us kind of the, I
mean, it's not the be all endall of evolution, but it's shown
us how a business has evolvedduring the time of the pandemic,
right. And I guess where, wheremy question is, with this is,
(36:34):
with you evolving post pandemic?
Is this the new normal? The whatI'm trying to get at is their
businesses that evolved, right,like I was telling you that have
worked from home and all of thatsome of them reverted back.
Right. And they did not keep thesame structure, post pandemic,
which I think is a failure,because I think most businesses
(36:57):
that succeed today, are the onesthat change over time. And so I
feel if you're not changing withthe environment, then eventually
you're going to fail.
David Carpenter (37:11):
Well, I think the new normal question, I think
the numeral because initially, Ithink what the pandemic did, is
that accelerated existingtrends, right. And, and I would
say, I would say the work fromhome, like if the pandemic
hadn't happened, people werealready itching to work from
home anyway, people are alreadywanting it to happen. So there
were, you know, it might havetaken another decade before we
(37:32):
had rethought how this pile thisoffice environment works. And
obviously, there are peoplelike, you know, kicking and
screaming against this idea,right. But there, we were
already looking at a trendline.
of what of what workers werewanting out of experiences.
Right. So So I just think it Ithink it vastly accelerated that
trendline. From me, inexperiential experience, what
(37:57):
was rising at a fast clip,right? And that's just that is
based on the fact that, thatconsumer habits change every
generation, right? The kidsdon't want to do what their
parents did. They want to go andin and our entertainment habits
are changing greatly, right. AndI think the pandemic accelerated
(38:17):
that. The saddest thing for mewas I went and saw a movie at a
movie theater a couple of weeksago. And it had been the only
things I saw on the movietheater during the pandemic were
the Marvel releases, right?
That's it, everything else, likeeverybody was watched from home.
But there's no reason why peoplecan't go back to the movies
right now. And I am when Iwalked in, I was actually really
(38:40):
quite sad because I was struck.
This was a Friday night, right?
Or a Sunday night, whatever itwas, right. And I was just
struck by the fact that when Iwas a kid, because I'm 45 years
old, now, when I was a kid, whenI was in middle school, that is
what you did on Friday nights,you went with your friends to
the movies, you got popcorn, itwas packed, there were lines out
the door. And we're seeing thistrend line of like consumer
(39:05):
entertainment is has moved toprimarily at home now. And the
movies are up in the screens fora brief period of time. And then
but we were seeing we wereseeing that we were like, we
were seeing that trend yearsago, whereas it used to be that
a movie could play in a movietheater, or they were going back
to the 80s Right? Playing movietheaters for you know six
months, it would stay on thescreens, right? Like if it was
(39:26):
popular, which is concerning.
Right now. It gets in and out inlike three weeks whatever
doesn't have a huge openingweekend that could be two weeks
right? And then they're out andthen their second I kinda like
the the movies themselves aren'tbecause the consumer habits were
already changing before thepandemic of saying we got to
opening weekend or not. And nowit's kind of moved to war in the
movie theater and then we'reimmediately online. Right? Which
is like, it's the people don'tgather at the movie theaters the
(39:51):
way they used to consumers.
Consumer entertainment habitshave changed. When it comes to
watching film and whatnot. Sowatching film like that people
want to stay at home and watchit at home. So it's so yeah, I'm
not I'm I just think it's I justthink it was an IT acceleration
of existing ideas notnecessarily a chain like a
(40:13):
radical change. Right.
Dustin Steffey (40:15):
Yeah, I agree. I agree with everything that you
brought up with that. How do youfeel moving forward? How do you
feel with everything changingthe future? What do you think
the future is going to hold withevolution of our businesses? I
mean, a pandemic changed the waywe do business. I mean, like you
(40:37):
were saying, the movies evenhave changed, where more people
are just doing things at home?
Do you think that that trend isgoing to continue forward? Or do
you think that we're gonna goback to having more
socialization outside of thehouse?
David Carpenter (40:52):
Well, I don't think that we've ever not had
socialization outside of thehouse, right? I mean, I think
that I think, obviously, I workin live entertainment, like, I'm
a big believer in the gatheringof people like together in a
place right to do something,because I don't think that you
can replace LeBron came in, inany way, shape, or form, people
will still go to concerts,right, that that certainly will
still happen. But I think that Ithink that I think what we do in
(41:14):
the live entertainment arena, interms of what it is that we're
consuming is, is is going tomorph, they're going to change
and, and audiences today don'twant static experiences, they
want dynamic experiences, theywant to feel engaged, they want
to feel listened to, they wantto feel involved, I think that
we're going to see a change inthat in that trend towards
towards more dynamic, moreengaged content than we have
(41:39):
seen before. And social mediaobviously has changed has has
been a disrupter and all ofthat, which is your your
community of people who areliking the same thing that you
like, and the people that youcan talk to, and the people you
interact to now can happen withanyone all over the world. And
so you are, you're able to formdifferent types of communities
now, around the content aroundthe ideas and the things that
(42:03):
you like doing in a reallydifferent more global way. And
this is obviously this has beengoing on for the last 20 years
now is that we're seeing howsocial media is participating
in, in the engagement around thesubject. So like, for instance,
like what one of the things thatthat we have on 20 Tavern is
that we have a very vibrantdiscord. Because Discord is a
(42:24):
place where gamers like togather full stop already, right.
And we opened up our Discordchannel to give our fans direct
access to the actors and thecreators of the show, to be able
to engage with them inconversation. And it's amazing,
right? Like, it's amazing,because first off, it's a safe
space for the creators, they canparticipate or not, the actors
are just bigger not. There isn'tany. Like it's not like meeting
(42:48):
people at the stage door oranything like that. But it
allows them to form a an ongoingconversation with the fans in
the fandom in a way that hasnever been able to be done
before. And so I love I love ourDiscord. I think our Discord is
an amazing place because it issimply about engagement, and
validation and recognizing andsharing the joy of the thing
we're doing. But it's alsogiving a little level of access
(43:09):
to the fans, not only to thecreators, but also to each other
about this thing that they love.
And it's all and it's allhappening. It all happens in
real time. It's Discord is aplace for conversations, you
know, Twitter, and Facebook isnot really a place for
conversations, you know, don'treally get in, like you might
get into a fight on, you know,on someone's wall. But it's not
a place that facilitatesconversation. Discord is discord
has become really interesting interms of facilitating
conversations. And then ofcourse, you have this outlet of
(43:31):
podcasts, which are wonderfulways to disseminate information
and ideas and thoughts andthings where you can have that
passive experience as a user andlisten to what's going on. So
the fact that we have so manychannels now informs us in
entertainment creating, rightlike, like we have to be able to
engage on a lot of differentlevels, not just put on a show.
(43:53):
And I love that I find thatterribly, terribly exciting.
Because at the end of the day,it's about fan engagement. It's
about it's about creating acommunity and creating a fan
engagement and the more tools wehave to build to do that more
ways we have to engage thebetter the product ends up being
at the end of the day.
Dustin Steffey (44:12):
Yep, I agree with you on that. I just got a
question that came in. So gameyoptics has changed. Live
entertainment, right?
David Carpenter (44:22):
Well, I want to I am not there. I don't I
wouldn't say I've changedanything quite yet, but I'm
working on it.
Dustin Steffey (44:26):
I think it's heading that way though. I I
strongly feel it's heading thatway. With that being said, what
else do you see? Or even whereelse do you see gamey objects
being used outside of liveentertainment?
David Carpenter (44:39):
So there's a there's something that we're
working on right now, which isin the oddly enough in the
museum space, right, which is, Ilove the idea of being able to
not have a passive experience ata museum. But if I want to go on
an adventure, I can go on anadventure at a museum. And
again, this is As a kid who grewup with all those sci fi books
(45:02):
about going on adventures inmuseums, right, and the audio
guided tour, well, wonderfulinformation is a is a linear
journey that is told to youabout what's happening. And you
don't have any agency in thatjourney other than I'm going to
press this number and listenthis next track. And so I'm
developing, give me a tool andgive me optics that allows us to
(45:23):
then create an experience out ofmuseum space. And I used
magazine by example, this couldbe just about anywhere, but to
be able to create an experiencewhere your choices determine
where you go, and what you learnand what happens next. So that
you could come back and do itagain, and go on a totally
different adventure. And be ableto do it over and over again. We
see that on 20 sites, however,in terms of audiences coming
(45:45):
back, because it's never thesame trip twice, I want to take
that idea. I don't want to applythat idea of agency and
adventure, and a dynamicstorytelling and dynamic
experiences based on the choicesthat I make as a consumer, not
what I'm told to make. And Ithink that that is actually a
really powerful idea. And somethat I'm pursuing very hard.
Because I think I mean, it iselection day, we are recording
this on Tuesday, the eighth,right? That we are never that
(46:09):
agency and voice in in our livesis never not going to be really
important. Moving forward.
Right? Because we are we are inand I say that, you know, on
both sides, everybody wants tohave a voice. Everybody wants to
have agency. And I Oh, and Ithink that that what I'm doing
in the entertainment spectrum,is I'm just doing entertainment,
not doing politics, but thenit's entertainment spectrum, is
(46:29):
is is answering that call, andsay well, what if what if we
were able to give more choicein, in our experiences? Netflix
did did it back in 16 1617? WithBandersnatch. Right? They they
they they created a show nowthat wasn't a new idea, right in
(46:50):
any stretch of the imagination,what what they did, and it was
but it was novel at the timebecause I watched Netflix on my
ps3, I think it was ps4 Probablyps3 and was able to choose the
direction the story and I knewpeople who were like I went down
every single possible thread onthat thing I did that I played
that whole thing through andthrough. And I remember
(47:11):
thinking, gosh, they're reallyonto something. It wasn't a very
good show, right? Like contentwise, it wasn't a good show.
It's never gonna be the firsttime you try it. But it provided
this this intersection ofgamification and entertainment
that I was already working onand saying, Oh, this is this is
kind of what we're, this is kindof what I'm after now. Right?
(47:32):
It's gamification is everywherein our lives, right? sports,
sports entertainment, they callit sports, entertaining, for
reason, sports is just gaming.
Right? That's all it is. It'sjust it's just a game. It's a
live action game that people areplaying. And so as we start to
find these intersections ofwhere the agency is where the
audience can have agency, Ithink that's where we start
seeing change. That's what andthat is what I'm interested in
(47:53):
it.
Dustin Steffey (47:54):
I think there's some good things coming out of
gaming Audix. And I can't waitto see what the future holds for
it. Because there's so much morethat this application can be
used for. And I'm sure in thefuture, we're going to see it
all over the place.
David Carpenter (48:10):
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree.
Dustin Steffey (48:13):
So congratulations on finding a
niche that is important, in myopinion. And that is fun, too.
So I mean, all of us that gointo entrepreneurship, we like
to try to do something we'repassionate about. So I think
that this is your passion as thepodcast is mine. So I I
definitely appreciate everythingthat you've given to us today.
(48:37):
One final thing, if you couldleave our listeners with one key
golden nugget, which I knowyou've left a lot of them in the
episode but one very importantnugget, what would you leave
them with?
David Carpenter (48:52):
Oh, I mean, you know, I always say people, the
the nose, like and this is thisis something that this something
that an investor of mine said tome, and this is a quote
attributed to several peopleright now, but it's really every
no brings you to a yes, youcannot let someone who say no to
(49:13):
you get you down you have to saythis is this is just one more
step towards getting to a yes.
Because if you get mired and Ido, right, like I absolutely do
get mired in the rejection, youhave to take a step back and
realize that 99% of the peopleare going to reject you, right?
It's just the 1% that's gonnaget you across the finish line
or you know, but but you can'tyou and learn something from
(49:34):
every No, why did they say no?
Is it me? Or is it them? Rightis my idea goes out and you'll
reach a point where it's like,no, the idea is good. They just
don't get it. But in thebeginning it's the idea isn't
good. You're not selling thisright. And learn how to sell it
right. And then when you get ayes, learn from that. Yes. And
make that yes, better. Right.
But you're still gonna get noseafter you get Yes, it's right.
(49:55):
And so it's a it's it. I wascalling it it's a trench fight.
right you're just in a trenchfight, trying to get trying to
get this stuff done. And, andyou just have to you just have
to steel yourself against it.
It's It is a tough, toughbusiness, especially if you're
not if you're not walking thetable with, you know, a, you
know, you know, trust fund,right to start a business like
(50:15):
if you're if you'rebootstrapping it yourself,
you're doing yourself like it isit is a, it is challenging, but
you know, nothing easy is worthit.
Dustin Steffey (50:25):
If anybody wants to get a hold of you, David and
kinda is interested ineverything that we discussed
today, what's a good medium toget a hold of you?
David Carpenter (50:32):
Right through the website, David at Guinea
audix.com easily accessible, youcan find me on LinkedIn,
LinkedIn is really easy as well.
I'm very visible. So yeah,that's the best way to get a
hold of me.
Dustin Steffey (50:42):
Awesome. And I'll provide relevant links in
the episode description and makeit easier on the listeners and
on you. Perfect. I appreciateeverything that you've given to
us. So thank you. Thank you forcoming on.
David Carpenter (50:55):
Thanks so much.
Thanks for your time today.
Appreciate it.
Dustin Steffey (50:57):
Yep. Thank you.
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