#9 - Harold Hughes: Proof of Experience, Blockchain, Collaboration, Entrepreneurship

We have a bad habit that we need to talk about. We tend to think that everybody has the same problems that we have. And every time we have a problem, we tend to go to the same places to find a solution. It's a bad habit for two reasons. First, we're limiting the kinds of solutions that we're going to get; and second, we're missing out on hearing from a lot of incredible problem solvers - people who would bring new and innovative perspectives if we took the time to find them and listen to them.

This is one of the topics for discussion in this week's interview with Harold Hughes. Harold is a founder from a very different background than the typical ivy league, Silicon Valley scene, but his company, Bandwagon, is making no less of an impact. Bandwagon is an experience technology company using blockchain to authenticate experiences and bring communities of all kinds closer together.

Bandwagon's Proof of Experience technology is an idea that could revolutionize the entertainment industry and possibly provide an easy solution to the problem of AI-fabricated news, but Harold isn't interested in talking about "disruption". Instead, he says collaboration is the way to move us forward and amplify the quieter voices in our community.

When Harold isn't running Bandwagon, he's advocating for minority entrepreneurs and equipping a more diverse generation of solution providers. Our conversation was an encouragement to me. I hope you enjoy it.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome everybody to Roadwork Ahead, a podcast that
explores the unmapped future ofbusiness and technology.
My name is Sam Gert and I amyour host.
We have a bad habit that weneed to talk about.
We tend to think that everybodyhas the same problems that we
have, and every time we have aproblem, we tend to go to the
same places to find a solution.
It's a bad habit for tworeasons.

(00:29):
First, we're limiting the kindsof solutions that we're going
to get and, second, we'remissing out on hearing from a
lot of incredible problemsolvers, people who would bring
new and innovative perspectivesif we took the time to find them
and listen to them.
This is one of the topics fordiscussion in this week's
interview with Harold Hughes.
Harold is a founder from a verydifferent background than the

(00:50):
typical Ivy League SiliconValley scene, but his company,
bandwagon, is making no less ofan impact.
Bandwagon is an experiencedtechnology company that's using
blockchain to authenticateexperiences and bring
communities of all kinds closertogether.
Bandwagon's proof of experiencetechnology is an idea that
could revolutionize theentertainment industry and

(01:12):
possibly provide an easysolution to the problem of AI
fabricated news.
But Harold isn't interested intalking about disruption.
Instead, he says collaborationis the way to move us forward
and amplify the quieter voicesin our community.
When Harold isn't runningBandwagon, he's advocating for
minority entrepreneurs andequipping a more diverse

(01:33):
generation of solution providers.
Our conversation was anincredible encouragement to me
and I hope you enjoy it, harold.
Just to start, I'm reallyinterested to hear about
Bandwagon and what you're doing,but I'd really be curious to
know how that came about.
What was the driving forcebehind founding such a unique

(01:55):
company?
What needs were you solving for, and is there a big disruption
that you're planning for?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah Well, first off, that's perfect that you started
with disruption, because Iintentionally tried to avoid
that word.
I find that it is more oftenthan not it puts a big target on
your back when you really don'tneed it.
You think about any idea thatyou've come up with and you're
thinking about trying something.
That's really, really, reallyhard and it's going to be harder
than you even imagine, but youknow it's going to be hard.

(02:23):
The idea of saying we're goingto disrupt healthcare, we're
going to disrupt ticketing,probably creates more
competitors for you and morechallenges for you than
opportunities.
When we started Bandwagon, itwas really straightforward and
simple.
I'm a big Clemson fan, firstgeneration college grad, first
one in my family to go to school, and Clemson was where I went.

(02:43):
I remember getting there andnot really knowing that many
people, despite being from SouthCarolina, and seeing how, on a
game day, you've got strangershugging and high-fiving because
your star quarterback justscored a touchdown, I was like,
wow, this is crazy.
Look at how connected we are.
The next day, which is Sunday,in the South is segregated by

(03:05):
race, religion, socioeconomicstatus.
People live in differentcommunities.
You're like, wow, the samepeople you were hugging and
high-fiving on Saturday you'recrossing the street for on
Sundays.
I wanted to find a way, when Istarted Bandwagon, to connect
more fans of their same teams,to hope that we'd be closer
together.
This was coming into 2016 or2014, and so understanding that

(03:32):
the country was changing in itsways and so thinking through how
do we create more community atthese live events?
That's why we started Bandwagonnot really to disrupt anything,
but really to bring more peopletogether in hopes that the
person that you hug andhigh-five at the game may be
someone you may grab a beer withor grab a meal with.
Then that type of emotion rollsover to Sunday and then Monday

(03:52):
in your co-working and in youroffice relationship.
So that was why we startedBandwagon.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
I think community plays into a lot of what you do.
It's not just your company.
Community is, I think, morebroadly.
The Harold Hughes brand is.
You're outspoken about buildingthose communities.
I want to spend a lot of timetalking about that, but just
very quickly I'm Bandwagon.
I'm curious was it always ablockchain company?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
It wasn't, we ended up stumbling the blockchain.
So in 2014, we startedBandwagon.
I was coming off of my MBA atClemson at the time.
I think I graduated on May 9thof 2014 and then incorporated
the company as an LLC on May11th, and I took all the hours
that I had spent in class andhomework time so maybe around 20

(04:37):
or 30 hours a week to try tothink through if this idea could
be a company.
So I spent the next year and ahalf just kicking the idea
around of what we could buildbecause, again, we wanted to be
additive.
We didn't want to eliminateTicketmaster or StubHub.
We wanted to figure out a wayto complement, and so the idea
was really straightforward in2014 was how do we help fans of
Clemson resell their tickets tofans of Clemson with

(05:00):
frictionless and so right now,if you're a Clemson fan, you
want to sell to a Clemson fan,you can sell to your buddies
directly, but you're not goingto get market value.
Or you get listed on StubHub,which is going to take a lot of
fees and you can't guaranteethat a Clemson fan is going to
buy it.
Or the third way which is a bitunsavory but it still happens
is that you'd go into thesemessage boards and say, hey,

(05:20):
I've got four tickets, and thensomeone replies and you're
meeting a stranger in aStarbucks parking lot and
exchanging cash, hoping that theticket that they're giving you
are real, and for us, we're justlike, okay, we've got to figure
out a way to do this, and so wewere trying to think through
the databases, and it was a bigchallenge in understanding how
information moved from theprimary market to the secondary
market, and that's when werealized that blockchain could

(05:42):
solve it.
So blockchain ended up justbeing the hammer to the nail
that we were trying to address,and that's how we ended up using
it.
And so since then, the companyhas since pivoted, especially
due to the COVID-19, thepandemic.
There weren't live events, andso we actually ended up pivoting
in 2020 to what we are today,which is an experienced
technology company where we leanmore into digital experiences

(06:04):
and connecting those fan baseswith their favorite artists,
athletes, teams, entertainersfor that community to be longer
than just that two and a half orthree and a half hours.
So we learned a lot in thebeginning, but blockchain kind
of found us.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
I think that's what's most interesting to me about
the whole story is that youstarted with this vision.
You then blockchain became areally good application for
accomplishing it, but then, inthat pivot, the whole proof of
experience concept doesn't workwithout blockchain.
It's almost like the blockchaincame out of the need for this
one thing and then your newpivot came out of your

(06:42):
experience with blockchain.
Yeah, exactly Now we're goingto avoid the word disruption,
but what do you see happening inthe future with this proof of
experience idea, with blockchainmore broadly?
That's going to change the waythat we think about well, about
community.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, I think there's two things.
Number one, we're seeing thatgenerations like ours and the
ones that'll come after us carea lot about experiences and care
a lot about unique experiences,and so being able to earn that
experience is something that Ithink we're all taking more and
more pride in.
And then, secondly, when welook at how experiences or our

(07:20):
entertainment changing like whenwas the last time you had a
physical ticket to anything,your flights boarding passes
digital, the concerts ticketsdigital, the sporting events
tickets digital and so when youthink about how big the
collectible space has become andhow much commemoration
commemorative items are goingfor, the idea is how do you

(07:40):
prove that you were somewhere?
How do you prove that you didsomething?
We've all heard stories wheresomeone says like oh yeah, you
know, my uncle went to Woodstockand it's just like okay, if
everybody's uncles went toWoodstock, there's a way more
people there than they werethere.
And so the part that we'reexcited about with how
blockchain plays into this, isthat I can immediately say oh
wait, you went to that concert,I was there too and being able

(08:03):
to have valid photos.
The way we think about it is isthat you can look at like a
Honest Wagner baseball card andyou have to believe that that is
certified by an entity that itis real and authentic.
Well, as you look at an erawhere you're dealing with
misappropriation of content,false attribution of content and
people creating things with AI,it's going to be really really

(08:26):
difficult to know when a personwas somewhere when something
really did happen, and so we'rereally excited about how we'll
be able to connect people withtrue and real life experiences
and using the blockchain toprove them in a global way, in a
transparent way.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
You mentioned proving an experience in light of AI
generated content.
Is that something where youfeel like this could be applied
to building trust, say like withnews outlets or these other
organizations where you haveessentially a digital file of
someone saying something andthere needs to be some kind of
validation in this day and agethat that actually took place?

(09:04):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Absolutely.
There was an example and I wishI had it on the like, actually
knew the example by name, butthere was an example of I want
to say it might have been thePentagon, but there was some
building that was on fire andthere was posted on social, and
so then the markets took a crazyswing because they thought that
there was some type ofterrorist type activity.
Turns out it was an AIgenerated image and the people

(09:27):
who shorted it obviously made abunch of money and people lost
money in that time.
And so it was kind of crazybecause for us, as we started
off thinking about entertainmentand creating digital fan clubs
and say, hey, I want to proveI'm the biggest Beyonce fan
there is.
I've listened to her music for5,000 hours.
I was at this show when shefirst performed in Houston

(09:47):
decades ago Like I want to beable to prove that that was
great.
That was how we started.
But as we started to talk morepeople, they were just like well
, what do you do about newsapplications?
Because you think about a lotof the content we capture.
There's a lot of AI likeregular civilians recording
things and submitting it to thenews, and then it becomes a
thing.
And now, as you think about howfast things move, the

(10:09):
verification isn't happening,the rate we probably should see
when it comes to the media, andso being able to know that, oh,
this could serve as an oracle oftruth of real life events, not
only in venue and in stadium andin an entertainment industry,
but beyond that.
That's what we're super excited.
So, as we look at ourselves asa it technology is a platform

(10:30):
company.
The entertainment side is justone of the biggest applications
we see and we're super excitedabout it.
Who wouldn't want to play inthat space?
But as you look at theapplication overall, it can be
used, obviously, in news and inother ways as well.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
There's so much that is, I think, worrying people
right now, right with regards to, you know, the power of the
systems that we have and howthey don't really have anything
raining them in.
There's no technology thatstops me.
You draw parallels to thesedifferent periods in time and
you look at what happened with,like Napster, yeah, and how file
sharing just completely turnedthe music industry upside down

(11:06):
because they didn't have a planfor it, and Then all of the
protections that came out in theyears following were terrible.
They didn't, they didn't workvery well.
They they were more of a burdenon the actual consumer than
they were on the person who wassharing files.
And so, with, with AI, with allthese other technologies coming
out, we already know that wehave this great need for some

(11:29):
kind of validation, verification, yeah, but I'm not sure very
many people have an idea of whatthat could look like.
It sounds like you are I mean,truly it sounds like you're on
the cutting edge of these ideas,and I love the fact that it
starts with the idea that wejust like to collect things.
We love experiences, we like tocollect things.
We had the.

(11:50):
You know that there was thathuge NFT I'll call it a bubble.
It was a bubble.
There's a huge fc thing thathappened a couple years ago.
I'm sure you were very involvedin that, because that's, I mean
, that's, that's the technology.
It's the same technology.
How are you?
Are there ways apart fromentertainment where you're
applying this to business today?

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
And so before we move to that,I definitely want to talk about
the Napster thing, because Ihadn't thought about until you
mentioned it.
But you know, going to collegeduring the Napster roof shark
line wire era, you could takeyour favorite song on the radio
right now and back then and alot of people listening Maybe
younger or whatever may not knowhow crazy it was, where you

(12:32):
could type in a song title andthe artist and still see Dozens
of results and then you're gonnaclick one or download it and
hope that it's the right one,that it's not some bad file.
And so then, when you thinkabout what we have today with
streaming, with Apple andSpotify and title and all these
other ones, well, what it?
What actually happened?
Well, number one, we gotclarity and sent like

(12:53):
centralization so this songcomes from this entertainer and
so we know it.
There's nothing blurry there.
So we had centralization.
Next there was the ability tounderstand Okay, well, now
there's trust here, because Iknow that Apple wouldn't have
put this on here if this was bad.
So someone else is doing all ofthat work.
And so for us we're saying do weexpect that to happen with

(13:14):
ticketing?
Do we expect ticketmaster andstub hub to merge?
Do we expect Instagram andFacebook and Twitter to suddenly
start Verifying if photos arereal before they're posted on
their platform and get hundredsand thousands of lights?
Probably not.
And so when I think aboutbeyond you know the NFT
application, which you know myson and I loved some of them and

(13:35):
collected some of them together, and I still have them because
why not at this point?
They're not worth anymore today.
But when I think about thebusiness applications, we think
about the extension of theLifetime value of a customer,
and I'll talk about that like wedid an activation with
VaynerMedia, pepsi, lifewater,and normally, when you go to an
event, at a conference or afestival, the brands put their

(13:57):
logos all over stuff and they'regiven away.
For what?
Cousins, t-shirts and thingslike that.
What happens after the event?
Nothing normally like okay, weordered a thousand shirts, we
gave away 800 of them.
Now what?
And so what we love about theway in which the technology can
be used is that we're actuallycreating a dynamic Marketing

(14:18):
asset.
We're creating a vehicle thatcan unlock other Experiences,
and I love what Nike's doingright now.
Nike's partnered or is usingblockchain and created the dot
swoosh Movement where they said,hey, if you've done this, you
get this, and everyone that hasthe second thing is Eligible to
buy the third thing, andeveryone that bought the third
thing can now have theopportunity to get the fourth

(14:40):
thing for free.
And so that's what we've beenable to do when we work with our
partners is being able to say,okay, instead of getting a
t-shirt or a coosie at the event, what if you could get a
digital collectible?
What if you could get just astamp that says, like a password
stamp, a stamp that says I washere for this, and then it's
assigned to your email addressand the next event that we have,
if you use the same emailaddress, we're actually gonna

(15:02):
give you VIP, so only peoplethat can have VIP.
Well, if I already demonstratedsome connection to our brand,
some affinity for our brand, andthen you build from there.
So you think about the customerlife cycle and LTV and all
these user journeys, you'reactually able to start saying
like, okay, great, like I know,if I create a reward here, x% do

(15:23):
the next thing, and then y% dothe next thing, and now you're
getting into the niche levels ofunique Experiences, and that's
where we think the opportunitygets really really fun and
really really big.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, I think there's a huge.
It sounds like there's a hugeopportunity there to really
boost the way we think about, uh, personalizing, yeah, content
and brand experience, but alsogamifying it, giving giving
people Almost a one-on-one,unique experience with the
brands that they like tointeract with.
You go back in time.
You got like the newspaper adsand you know that's how you

(15:56):
interacted with a brand you'd goto the store and you'd buy it,
and then Social media changedall of that and people had to
figure out okay, now we canactually talk to our customers
and this just adds that entirelynew level to it.
It's absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Anyway, I cut you off .
What were you gonna say?
No, no, no, I was saying thatthe gamification is one of the
things I think is super exciting.
Well, we did an activation withwill shipley Clemson's running
back Last year, where hebasically said I want to see
what fancy like, I know what Ilook like on the espn, but I
want to see what it's like fromthe fans perspective.
And so he basically went andcreated this opportunity with
our part, with our technology,and said fans, submit your

(16:33):
content from game day.
I mean, you go to his websiteand you're able to upload your
pictures and whether that's youat home watching the game, you
on the field with him.
Afterwards he took all of thosepictures and they made one big
mosaic and that was a digitalcollectible that he sold and it
was 50 bucks or 100 bucks orwhatever it is, and then having
that digital collectible got youdinnered with him or access to

(16:56):
golf with him or Streaming ontwitch with him, and so that was
like giving multipleopportunities.
And but now we're seeing, likeone of our brand partners said,
we want to do an activationwhere we see our product at
sunset, and so you want toencourage everyone to do this.
And so today, you would postthat on one maybe instagram and
say like okay, okay, follow uson instagram.
He falls on instagram we wantto see your content.

(17:18):
Well then, what happens whenpeople are posting filters over
it or they posting big text overit?
And so one of the examples wecame up with was you know, I'm a
Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan.
When tom brady came to play forour team, I was like this isn't
gonna help us.
We're not a quarterback away.
Like we, we have many otherissues.
Well, sure enough, the guy winsa Super Bowl, and then,

(17:39):
ultimately, he's gonna retire.
And so when he did retire, Ialways thought, man, he's gonna
be able to have highlightsagainst all 32 teams.
And I said, man, it'd be reallycool if whoever wanted to do a
brand Um commercial and say youknow, we want to take
user-generated content from 32different teams, from fans, how
would you do it?
And so the idea is like okay,are you gonna have people

(18:01):
uploading links on your website?
Are you doing this in this, andso on.
Our platform is like great, youclick it, just like upload an
instagram video or an instagrampicture, and then you know,
because it's on the blockchain,who did it?
We have geo location, we havetimestamp, we have all those
things.
Or it's like oh, you didn'tscreen, record this off of
instagram and upload it.
We can tell that you capturedit in your phone, um and so when

(18:22):
you think about thegamification of it, it's huge.
It like that is Huge and theaverage person won't consider
themselves a collector, but wecollect things, not thinking
about it, and experiences isdefinitely that thing.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, absolutely agree.
I can't think of a singleperson who doesn't collect
something, even if they say theydon't right, right, um, so when
?
When does the light turn onwith with blockchain?
You kind of stumble upon it,you, you apply it to your
company.
When does the light turn on andyou start seeing all of this.

(18:56):
Like what's that experience?
Like when did you, in a sense,fall in love with this idea of
blockchain and all that it could?

Speaker 2 (19:01):
do.
It was 2018, so q4 2017 thecompany was running out of money
, um, so I sold my townhouse.
I told my wife that I was goingto move to awesome texas and do
this accelerator, and if we ranout of money by may, then you
know that was the end of thecompany.
But in 2018, uh, I gotconnected with the accelerator.

(19:22):
We got connected with mentors,like meli price, who had sold
her company front gate tickets,um, and so she had an exit in
the ticketing space, so nowshe's an advisor.
We started working with orlandojones, um, actor, writer, having
his insight.
But the technology took off.
We got invited to dubai, uh,for the blockchain summit to

(19:42):
talk about what we were doing,which was wild because it made
me realize that, while I may bebanging my head up in greenville
, south carolina, talking aboutblockchain, the world is ready.
The world is looking foropportunities to use the
technology in real ways.
That wasn't scammy and wasn't,you know, running around trying
to grab a bunch of money, likethe ICO craze was, as we look

(20:04):
back on it.
And so for us, it was 2018 tosee, oh, this is a real live
application, people are seeingvalue in what we're doing.
And then we sign one customerand move into the next one.
So that's when the light bulbreally went off and said like,
oh, this is more than justsolving the problem we had.
This can create a platform tobuild everything on.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
So when did you come up with the idea to write the
book?
You wrote a children's bookabout blockchain.
Yeah, clearly, that's that's aninvestment into the technology
that goes well beyond anybusiness.
That's, that's the idea thatour kids need to know this as
soon as possible.
Yeah, so when did that happen?

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, so it was two things.
Number one so I wrote the bookin 2021, or the end of 2021 came
out last year.
But there's two things thathappened.
One was that I've got a nowseven year old and I'm trying to
make sure that he understandswhat dad does for work.
But also I have an aging mom.
I have people in my life whohave no idea what I do, and I

(21:00):
thought to myself like there'sgot to be a simpler way to
explain this stuff, and so Iwrote a kids book about
blockchain Literally that's whatit's called Because I wanted my
son to be able to tell hisfriends like this is what my dad
does for work, you know, and Iwanted him to be able to explain
it.
But I also wanted my mom to know.
So I was emphasized like wefocus on six to 60 in that
subject matter, where we want tomake sure everyone's able to

(21:23):
understand very at the basics ofit.
The last thing about it is isthat growing up, we didn't
necessarily have.
I remember we got our firstcomputer and then we got a well
and the little disks online, andbut we were a household that
went to the library to use thecomputer, and so when I think
about the opportunities that mypeers had because they'd access

(21:45):
the technology sooner, I didn'twant my son to have that, have
that disadvantage, and so I saidnot only are you going to be
aware of what dad does, butwe're going to play around,
we're going to do some of thecool stuff with it, and so that
stuff was really really cool forus to explore together and he,
you know, I'm glad that hehelped inspire me to write that
book.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Have you gotten a lot of attention because of that?
Has there been this desire tosee this moves earlier and
earlier into a kids education.
Because of that.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, so we're talking a different national
organizations about how can beadded to curriculums.
I'm speaking a different likecolleges and now high schools,
and so we're trying to get evenyounger and younger.
But overall it's just makingsure that people understand the
applications can be so, so low.
You think about Roblox and someof these games that kids are
playing.
There's a lot of opportunitywhere the technology helps.

(22:31):
There you think about oh, youcreated something and now you
can be paid on it forever.
That's really cool and so, yeah, it was definitely super
inspiring to do that.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
It reminds me a lot of what we're seeing with like
artificial intelligence andbringing kids up on the idea of
like what it is and what it'snot.
So that we don't get 1020 yearsout and have a group of people
who think it's something thatit's not right, or have a group
of people who are justunnecessarily like a verse to it
or hyper, you know.
Big on it I was.

(23:00):
Yeah, I was really encouragedto see it.
I thought it was a really coolbook, thank you.
When you think about yourbusiness and we think about the
technology in general, you lookback one year, five years and
then you look forward one year,five years.
That trajectory, it seems likewe're picking up speed.
Where do you see us being inlike that one year, five years
out with technologies?

(23:23):
Well, I should say, withcompanies incorporating
blockchain technologies intowhat they're doing and then,
more specifically, with whatyou're doing, incorporating
things like proof of experienceinto digital assets as a way of
validation.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, so I think in the next year we'll see a lot of
supply chain continue to gothere, which is the not sexy
part of it.
So you know B2B trying to thinkthrough like, where did this
product come from?
I think that that's definitelygoing to be one of the things In
corporate America.
I spent about a decade thereand I remember how everyone said
Walmart is going to make RFID athing and they put a lot of

(24:00):
investment on.
Walmart is going to impact thesupply chain and so everyone's
going to use RFID tags and ittook a little while, but now
RFID is everywhere and so Ithink that it's going to be a
little bit slower, but we'llstart seeing it in supply chain.
But then the second piece is inentertainment.
I don't think that thattoothpaste is going back in the
tube.
I think we're going to continueto see digital experiences
become prioritized.
I think you're going to seethis blend between virtual

(24:23):
reality and augmented realityand thinking about how you can
tokenize experiences.
I think that that's going to behuge.
But in the next five years Ithink that we end up in the same
way that the cloud is like.
People had all of these likefeelings and adverse reactions
to the cloud and now you realizelike, oh, it's not stored here,

(24:44):
it's stored somewhere else.
That's really all blockchainwas.
It's like, oh, it's not storedhere, it's stored somewhere else
, and we're able to have someconsensus mechanisms to help
understand it.
Like this makes sense.
Like it makes sense.
But I think that with the ICOs,with the NFTs ICO, initial coin
offering, nft, non-vunjabletoken those things created this,

(25:08):
yes, euphoria, but also put badtaste in people's mouths on
like, oh, these are all just getrich quick schemes.
When it's like, oh, no, this isactually a technology that can
build infrastructure on top ofthings Like one of the examples
I give in the book is aboutblockchain based voting in the
future, and that's not too crazy, because countries like Estonia

(25:31):
already use the infrastructure.
They're using cryptography intheir elections and instead of
the United States, where we haveone election day, estonia they
do it for several days, and soyou could change your mind, you
could waffle when they havehigher participation,
participation rates because ofsome of those like choices.
But being able to use thetechnology to advance those

(25:52):
types of things that may notseem obvious is really important
, and so that's one of thethings I think about is that we
talk about collaboration and wetalk about diversity.
You know, one of the examples Igive is that if you take the top
12, your top 10 engineers inthe world, and say here's a
hammer, what can you do with it?
They'll come up with a reallysolid list, like on a whiteboard

(26:14):
right out, this really greatlist.
You take them all out and youtake, you know, bakers, and you
take zoologists, and you takelibrarians and all these other
people and say, hey, what couldyou do with this thing?
You're going to get thingsadded to that initial list, but
right now we're still in thatphase where the only people
building blockchain technologyapplications are people who are

(26:35):
in blockchain, and so we need tofind a way to bring more people
in.
Tell everyone the water is aspine, it's not crazy.
You can do this so that thetechnology can get to where it
needs to faster and safer.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
It seems to me like the you thinking back over the
ICO fad and the NFT, those,those bubbles that kind of
happened, where you sit huge,run up crazy prices and then now
there's really no value thereat all.
People were just so enamoredwith the technology and it was.
That was the confusing part fora lot of people, as the
technology really is incredible.

(27:08):
I kind of feel like then whatwas happening was you weren't
applying it to anything.
There was no real pain that wasbeing solved for, and so it
turned into.
This thing was like this isgreat, why do I need it?

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Well, I think, I think there was a pain.
I think so here's.
Here's my controversial take onNFTs.
All of that timed up perfectlywith the pandemic.
You and I were sitting at homeby ourselves, right?
So you either were like somepeople said.
They went days and weeks andmonths without seeing another
human being in person.
At the same time, you had aninflux of cash, and what we were

(27:45):
experiencing is a bull market,and so people had money, but
they had no ways to show it off.
So if I'm wearing a really niceRolex or have a really nice car
, you can't see my Rolex, youcan't see my car.
And so I think it was twothings.
One, people were lonely anddesired community and felt a
need to be connected, and sothey found these little

(28:06):
communities that are based onthis animal or that animal or
this art segment or this artstyle, and said, yeah, this is
my identity and these otherpeople share that identity, and
now I just have to pay thisamount of money to be in it and,
oh, I have the money, andactually, as this goes up, I can
show off my status.
It becomes even more of a thing.
I think those are.
Those are the things thatcollided.

(28:26):
So I do still think that thereis a need to feel connected,
there's a longingness of beingclose, but I think that what
ended up happening is that weblurred the lines between what
is art, what is community, whatis needed to be in a community,
and so now we're seeing a lot ofthat come back to earth.
So you know as much as many ofmy friends and I have lost in

(28:49):
that space.
I think the opportunity is isthat the, the core of it is
still there.
We still want to be part of acommunity, but how do we do that
?
And so that's what kind of howwe're looking at with bandwagon
is like oh, there's a communityof you know bad bunny fans.
Like this is how you do it.
It's a little different, butthis is how you use that same
technology.
So that's my thought on it, andI think there was a problem,

(29:10):
but we just chose the most wildway to solve it initially.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, what I was going to say is when, when you
look at the very real problemsthat are getting brought more
and more to the surface whereblockchain can be applied and it
provides that very realsolution, I feel like the more
felt pain you have that can bearticulated, the more people are
just naturally going to say,yeah, this is a good solution.
So you know whether, yeah, sowhether it's, you know, digital

(29:37):
rights protections for videogames and music.
You know, a lot of the problemwas people.
People were like only the onlythe very small segment of, like,
kids and college students wereusing Napster, right, and the
only people who were talkingabout Napster were those kids
and college students and thecompanies who were losing money
because because of it.
But they have a person like myparents didn't know what Napster

(29:59):
was Right, and you know, I wason there download music, but
they didn't know what it was,and so there wasn't this real
felt problem.
And it wasn't until much laterwhere digital rights solutions
actually became usable and theyactually became, like you know,
comfortable that we had successwith them.
Yeah, and it also took a littlebit more of a felt need on

(30:22):
everybody's part, I think, as,as you have this intensified
felt need to verify what you'reseeing online or what you're
seeing with digital assets.
I think it's going to be aneasy sell over, sure to bring to
bring blockchain, you know,validation, proof of experience
into that and say you know,here's, here's the solution that
works for that.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
It has to be.
It has to be.
I mean, we are one bad picture,we're one very good AI
generated picture, away fromthis being oh, we need posts to
be validated before they goonline down to an anonymous user
, like.
It's going to have to happen,because if someone posts

(31:02):
something that goes so viralthat we can't stop it and I've
been to the capital and beentalking to different members of
Congress and state legislationas well there's no way to slow
this down from a legislationlevel.
We're going to need tounderstand how the technology
companies help here and do theirpart, and I think it's going to
be really interesting and Ihope that we're able to be part

(31:23):
of that solution.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yeah, me too.
I mean that sounds excellent.
I'm curious for your take onthis, though.
Do you think that one picture,do you think that that happens
and we lose all trust in digitalassets before we find a viable
solution for rebuilding thattrust, or do you think that we
can transition seamlessly?

(31:45):
I kind of feel like we're goingto have to go through that
period of pain and broken trustbefore people wake up and
realize what we need.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, I agree.
I think that there's going tobe a I don't know what is real
anymore, especially as you thinkabout how global media is right
now in the news and thinkingabout the fact that, like, I
only know what's happening inthis area because someone said
that it happened in that areaand the content that I'm seeing

(32:13):
is from the I believe to be fromthat area, and so once we're
able to start creating people,once we're able to start
creating content video, pictureswe are in for a problem, and so
I do think that we're going tobe dealing with something where
it's like I don't know what'sreal anymore and conspiracy

(32:34):
theories are going to sound alittle bit more reasonable,
realistic, like, I don't know,they could be on it, so I'm very
concerned about it.
I hope that the media platformsare willing to accept
responsibility for this beforeit becomes the problem it can be
Two things that I don't want tohappen.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
The first is I don't want people to go so far
overboard that they demand a badsolution now just because they
can have it now, right, right.
And then the other thing that Idon't want to see happen is I
don't want to see anoverreaction from the powers
that be in penalizing the oneswho make it so free and easy for

(33:14):
us to distribute content, todisseminate content.
I don't want that burden placedon them to have to verify
everything that goes up on theirplatform.
I don't think that's good forthe internet.
I don't think that's good forthe world.
So we're right in this reallysticky place where you know it
could fall off on either sideand create a lot of bad outcomes

(33:34):
for a long time to come.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
It's interesting.
I mean, so you know, so youremain in rain.
I know like if you uploadsomething to Instagram,
instagram owns it.
So if you upload something toInstagram, instagram now has a
global perpetual license on thatcontent and that content goes
viral and then impacts a marketor impact someone's livelihood
or several person's livelihood,instagram should be responsible.

(33:59):
And so at that point, you wouldwant Instagram to say, ok, we
don't outright own all thecontent that's on the platform,
but then if they just say thattheir business model is impacted
directly, so they're going tohave to figure out which is it,
do you own this content once Ipost it and then you have to
deal with ramifications, giantmega company.
Or do you want to allowindividuals to own their content

(34:23):
, which is what I think more ofus want?
To have more control for thecreator and understanding that,
yeah, you may lose money here,but you can create a way for
this content to be verified andauthentic, like it wouldn't stop
Instagram at all, for exampleand I'm using them just because
they're a popular one but itwouldn't stop anything for them
to say like oh, this, we knowthat this was uploaded by this
verified user.
They have an account for thislong.

(34:46):
This picture was uploadeddirectly from their mobile
device.
It wasn't screenshot recordedand cropped like our devices
know.
That it wouldn't stop them fromdoing it.
They could absolutely confirmthis is an authentic picture
taken with geotag location done.
They just don't do it, and soit's the same thing that we deal
with in the ticketing spacewith Ticketmaster.
They just don't do some ofthese things that feel obvious.

(35:06):
You know, I someone said man, Ireally hope that which all you
are building, you know, cansolve ticketing and bots.
I was like they don't want tostop bots, like if they wanted
to stop bots, bots would be done, and so it will be interesting.
I do fear and dread that daywhere that thing goes viral,
whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
I feel like it would have already gone viral at this
point, but we're still kind ofwaiting on it.
At this point, I do feel likethat trust is just kind of
falling off a cliff.
Right, we're so accustomed tojust a clown show, right,
everywhere we look, that, youknow, nothing surprises us
anymore, and whether you trustit or not, it's irrelevant
because we don't take itseriously, even if it is real.
So it's, yeah, it's going to beinteresting to see what they do

(35:48):
with it.
There are I think there arevoices out there who are like
raising red flags, raisingalarms.
Whether or not they're goingabout it the right way is up for
debate.
But you got like, you know,elon Musk bought Twitter
basically to change Twitterbecause he didn't, you know, he
saw Twitter as beingperpetuating, kind of what
you're talking about, and it'sthe largest media company in the
world, and so if you're abillionaire, like, why buy the

(36:11):
Washington Post when you can buyTwitter?

Speaker 2 (36:15):
And so, yeah, I mean he has said a lot of things
about what he wants to see anddo differently and obviously
he's made changes.
It'll be interesting to see howwe as users navigate it, and
because I mean, how many Twitterclones have they tried to
create?
I mean, maybe a dozen differentcompanies have said, oh, we're
going to be the new Twitter andit's really hard to change user

(36:36):
behavior, and so at that pointthat goes back to what I was
saying earlier is that we needthe platforms to make better
choices to help us, becauseusers aren't necessarily going
to make the right choiceimmediately and we don't want
them to clamor for a baddecision right now just because
they can get it right now, asyou said, I want to switch gears
and talk about community,because it is such a big deal
and it's such a huge part ofyour brand and your company's

(36:59):
brand.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, I want to.
I want to hear some of themotivation behind bandwagon and
even other projects that you'vedone, like the book in, in
bringing these technologiescloser to home and building
stronger communities, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I mean, for me it's really thinking through
foundational principles when Ithink about who is going to take
the next you know idea and makeit big.
I want to make sure that theyknow that they have the space to
fail, because that gives you alittle bit more flexibility to
go really, really hard.
As a black founder, as a firsttime founder, as a founder

(37:43):
building building in Greenville,south Carolina, instead of like
Silicon Valley, new York.
As a founder that went toClemson University, a state
school, instead of Stanford, orone of the IVs.
As a founder that didn't workat Facebook or Apple or Google
or Netflix.
I worked at, you know,scansource, a Greenville, south
Carolina company.
Those five things made myperspective different from
everyone's that I was going intothe market against my

(38:06):
competitors but as well as manyof my peers, and so when I think
about community, there has tobe someone who's a manager at a
you know, mid-level technologycompany in their local city that
has an idea.
There has to be a person thatwent to a state school and may
have a bunch of student loandebt and has an idea.
So when I thought about me, Ithought about the things I
needed.
Like, really, I just looked andsaid, man, what would have

(38:28):
saved me 10 grand or 50 grand or50 hours?
And so when I think aboutcreating community, it really
comes down to how do I findpeople who are looking for
resources desperately in somecases and not be the person who
provides them the resource butconnects them with other people
who may share that pain and theymay find that problem, that

(38:49):
solution, together.
And so for me, it's always beenthat community is everything
for me.
Social capital is huge.
I started in Accelerator withone of my friends, chandra
Washington.
She's the CEO of Blackat Labs,which is basically a program
where we are deliveringaccelerator content for startups
and so, early stage, we'reworking with Benedict College in

(39:13):
South Carolina here and theidea is a 12 week virtual
program and we're giving theminformation on fundraising and
marketing, research and all thatother stuff.
But one of the core tenants ofit is thinking about
storytelling and making surethat people understand the
importance of being able toclearly articulate your story
and your business's story, andwe wanna make sure we bring
people together.

(39:33):
And so the community that we'retrying to solve for Black,
they're women, they're people ofcolor, they're veterans,
they're disabled we wanna makesure that everyone has access to
those tools, and so when Ithink about community and I
think about we, and I thinkabout the inclusive we, not the
exclusive we, and so that's kindof to your point.
That's my ethos.
I just wanna make sure thatpeople don't feel alone and

(39:56):
don't feel like they don't havethe resources to get to the next
level.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
It seems to me that there's, like this huge pool of
available resources as one wayof looking at it, there are all
of these people, groups ofpeople, individuals, who come
from different perspectives,like what you were talking about
, coming from this really uniqueperspective as a founder, and a
lot of times when we have theseproblems that we wanna solve

(40:24):
for the hurdle is notnecessarily that we don't have
the means to solve for it.
The hurdle is that we don'thave the means to think about it
being a problem that needs tobe solved for and us being a
solution provider.
And so there's this mindsetshift where you go from well, my
job is to be a consumer or myjob is to be a user, versus my

(40:46):
job is to make this world abetter place.
My job is to interact with thisworld as somebody who has admin
permissions, not just userpermissions.
I can go out there and I canchange settings.
And I think a lot of that startswith education.
Kids are four, five, six yearsold, not necessarily throwing a

(41:09):
computer into their hand andteaching them how to code, but
giving them a mindset that saysthis world is yours to play with
and change, and fostering inthem as young people that
freedom to fail, like what youwere talking about.
Something that we've broughtinto our company recently here
is building a culture that saysyou are free to make mistakes.

(41:32):
We just want you to continuepushing yourself.
That's what we value most.
Yeah, I love that.
What are some of the ideas thatyou're bringing into your own
communities?
Trying to because I think thisis something that you're trying
to do trying to change thatmindset.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah.
Well, the first is definitelyto not talk about disruption,
and I say it a little bitdifferently.
I say collaboration overcompetition.
When you go into a market, itmakes much more sense for you to
say this massive yacht can'tturn 90 degrees in the way that
your three person company can,and your three person company

(42:11):
can have like an $8 million ayear revenue business and be
great and compliment the billiondollar company.
So how can you collaborate,create value in a market, create
user value and make surecustomers are getting satisfied
and then compliment it?
So collaboration overcompetition is definitely number
one.
Number two we're trying tothink about when we talk about
the social capital.

(42:33):
This is something personal forme, but I care very much about
who can say they were part ofbandwagon story.
Oftentimes people will say likeoh yeah, I was an early
customer, I was an earlyinvestor, I was this and that,
and it's just like, yes, youwere an early customer, but you
gave us a really horrible reviewon Google and then we actually
lost money on you because youhad a review.

(42:53):
Like, people want to idolizehow they may be impacting of
your story and I think it'simportant to make sure that
folks understand that you cancontrol who gets to participate
in this journey with you, and sobe intentional about who you
surround yourself with.
And then the third thing Iwould say is that when you are

(43:13):
building whatever it is you'rebuilding, understand you do not
have to be a startup founder,and I like to emphasize this.
There are a lot of CEOs andfounders and all the other stuff
, but you don't have to be afounder.
You could be employee numbertwo, or you could be employee
number 20, or you could work atcorporate America and be the
company that said, or be theperson that says hey, I heard

(43:35):
about this company on thispodcast.
Maybe we could try and be apilot customer for them.
Or you could be a person thatmakes $150,000 a year and say
I'll take a flyer on this thing.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
I like the gist of it and, oh,I like it enough to where I can
give them some advice and advise.
Or I can be okay with theshipping coming seven days later
instead of Amazon delivering ittwo days later or the next day.

(43:57):
And so those are the types ofthings I wanna make sure that
folks understand.
Is that to be a champion in theentrepreneurship space.
You do not have to be anentrepreneur, you do not have to
be a founder.
We all play a part in thisecosystem and so when I think
about the ideas that we'retrying to make sure, it's like
you don't have to do this.
If you want to and you have themeans, to please by all means.
But there are a lot of ways youcan be supportive and

(44:19):
contribute to a growing startupecosystem and we hope that more
and more people feel comfortable, as shows like Shark Tank and
such have idolized what anentrepreneur is.
There's a lot of reallyimportant people to that the
equation that we wanna make sureknow that they're valuable.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Okay, you don't have to get it terribly specific, but
can you give me some examplesfrom your own experience of
those champions that you reallyyou look back on and you think
they probably have no idea whatthey meant to me?

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah, I mean I had a early investor who basically
said hey, what do you wanna dowith this company?
And I said, oh, I wanna buildthis big tech company and blah,
blah, blah and they said, well,what does that have to do with
StubHub?
And I said, oh, nothing, really.
I mean it's happened to be abig one.

(45:09):
They said you shouldn't.
What do you say?
He said oh, he said beware thecollateral damage of disruption.
And I said what do you mean?
And he's like you are thinkingthat you're going to impact the
market in this way, but you haveno idea the other things that
will happen if you aresuccessful doing it this way.

(45:31):
So if you are more mindfulabout the rest of the market,
you'll likely have more success.
And from there we were able tocreate a partnership with a huge
ticketing company.
That actually helped ourbusiness grow versus going in
saying we're going to put themout of business.
And so that type of feedbackfrom early investor, like I
remember I was sitting at Smokeon the Water in Greenville
having lunch at a booth rightacross from the bar and I got

(45:53):
that advice and beware thecollateral damage of disruption.
And that changed how I lookedat collaboration and changed how
I looked at folks that could bein my community, because the
little butterfly effect that youhave can be negative or it can
be really, really positive, andso we've been trying to figure
out or I've been trying tofigure out how to make it as
positive as possible.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
There are a lot of voices in our communities who
are quiet, and it doesn't meanthat their ideas are bad.
Their ideas are actually reallygood.
What are the ways that weshould be listening for those
quiet voices?
I'm thinking in communities,geographically, but I'm also
thinking like larger companies.
I'm thinking about spaces liketech or education.

(46:36):
How can we be listening for thegood voices that maybe are just
a little quiet?

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Well, I think one of the biggest takeaways that I've
found personally is that thesolution to the problem may not
come from within the industry,it may not come from within the
organization, and so the way Ilook at that is if you've got a
bunch of buddies who are all inthe same industry and you talk
to them constantly about theproblem and they're like, yeah,

(47:02):
I'm dealing with that sameproblem too, if you talk to
someone who is outside theindustry, you may find, let's
say, it's a truck driver, it'stalking to a baker, and the
truck driver is like, oh, wesolved this with this.
Well, it's not that the problemyou're dealing with hasn't been
solved, it's that you don'tknow the answer.
And if you keep this close knithand, closed type of circle

(47:24):
that doesn't allow for things toget in and it's really
homogenous and you don't havediversity representing the
experiences you're hearing fromthe perspectives that you're
getting, it may take you longer,it may cost you more to get the
problem solved.
And so, for me, I like to bereally intentional about saying,
hey, I know you don't knowanything about this, but here's

(47:45):
something I'm dealing with.
What's the first thing thatcomes to your mind on how you
would approach this, and that,to me, is where you go beyond
the quiet voices in yourindustry.
You're going to voices thatwouldn't think to speak up
because you wouldn't have askedthem.
They didn't think you would askthem and they have no business
to offer it without being asked,and so I think that that's
probably one of the biggestopportunities we have is looking

(48:05):
at who isn't raising their hand, creating a comfortable space.
That's one of the things I talkabout creating a comfortable
space and then going to them.
And I'll say this when I do mypublic speaking, I'm normally in
a T-shirt or hoodie, and peopleare like, oh, you're not like
to wear suits and I love to getdressed up, but at the same time
, I understand how off putting aperson in a three-piece suit

(48:27):
could be if the person who wantsto walk up is in a T-shirt and
jeans, and so I tell people notonly am I dressed comfortably, I
want you to feel comfortabletalking to me, so I'm going to
remove some of those things thatmay subconsciously stop you
from walking up.
Here.
I was like, hey, come on up,let's talk about it, and I think
that that helps create a louder, a more opportunity for those

(48:49):
quiet voices as well.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
There's this idea and I mentioned it in an email, I
think that I sent to you.
There's a guy, he's out of MIT,neil Gershinfeld.
Have you ever heard of him?

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
I've heard of him.
Ok, are you familiar with whathe's doing?

Speaker 2 (49:02):
No, but I've been keeping up more.
I'm just trying to create moreopportunities for my brain to
casually know more things.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
OK, so his work at MIT, his Center for Bits and
Addams.
It comes out of this idea of adesire to see autonomous
fabrication, autonomous robotics, things like that.
But he's recognizing that wecan't have that until we have
that idea applied to people, andso he's personally founded

(49:36):
thousands of these little makerlabs around the world.
We're talking everywhere aroundthe world, in places where you
wouldn't expect it but the ideais to equip these labs to build
bigger tools, better tools,which can then be used to build
bigger and better tools, whichcan then be used to build things
, big things.
And it's this incredible idea.

(50:01):
But then you see it in practiceand it blows your mind, because
what you're seeing is you'reseeing everyone all of a sudden,
all of those hierarchies thatwe're so accustomed to thinking
about.
Now, all of a sudden, thepotential from sectors where you
just didn't even have eyes.
The potential is just magnified1,000 times because you've got

(50:25):
people who have their ownproblems, who have their own
solutions, who now, all of asudden, have their own labs
where they're building toolsthat we've never even thought of
to solve problems that we'venever had.
And this is the foundation forsomething much more science
fiction, much more out there interms of self-replicating

(50:46):
automata and all of that.
But what he's done, I think,has done more for communities
than most people give him creditfor, simply because he is
giving those quieter voices themegaphone, as it were, and the
stuff that's coming out of that.
It's absolutely incredible.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Well, and he's given them picks and shovels, he's
allowing them to create.
And the thing I was just on atrip last week with some folks
from a group chat that I met inWeb3.
And it was really interestingbecause everyone had unique
perspectives and their differentwalks of life and experiences.
And I was saying that I was atthis conference years before I

(51:28):
was at this conference and theguy was saying what's your
moonshot idea?
And he said it to a group ofblack entrepreneurs and it was
interesting because we wereworking on good ideas and things
that mattered to us, but theyweren't moonshots to him.
And I thought about it and Iwas just like, well, we don't
have the latitude, we don't havethe space, we don't have the

(51:49):
time and we don't have theresources to come up with a
moonshot that would be yours.
Like, I'm trying to think aboutsolving this.
Someone's trying to think aboutsolving a problem that's
immediate to them, and so Ithink that that is where you get
the opportunity is that as wecreate more of a level playing
field on the baseline resources,as we create more of a level
playing field on the access toinformation, we're going to see

(52:12):
people move themselves up.
The argument I got into atdinner last week was the guy
saying there's no one on theplanet like Elon Musk, and I
said well, I mean, I don't thinkwe know anyone who's like Elon
Musk, but there has to be.
Like there's eight, sevenbillion people on the planet
Like surely there's other peoplewho are smart and creative and
have big dreams, but they aren'tas well funded.

(52:33):
They didn't start off in thesame position.
They may not be in a place thathas access to technology and
the internet like we do, so I'mnot willing to go on a bet and
say he's the only person on theworld, on Earth, that would have
done this.
I just can't imagine that, andso I'm looking forward to seeing
more people from differentcommunities have access to
resources and tools to buildthings, because I think that's

(52:55):
what's going to change how thesolutions are created and how
they're adopted overall as well.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
I like that idea of making a more level playing
field and broadening the accessto technology.
It's not giving more people anIvy League education.
It's giving the people who areon those bottom layers the picks
and the shovels to raise thatbottom layer up even higher.
And the value that's going tocome out of that is going to be

(53:23):
this wildly new perspective thatyou're not going to get out of
Harvard.
The value that's going to comeout of that is this new way of
doing things, a new tool that'snever going to come out of
Silicon Valley.
We don't need more people givenaccess to Harvard or Silicon
Valley.
We need more people out therewho are given the opportunities

(53:44):
to create their own think tanks,their own schools, their own
ways of doing things that canthen, like you're saying,
collaborate and we can worktogether with all of these
different pieces to build thingsthat we never thought were
possible.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Oh yeah, I mean, I think about that.
One of the things we talk aboutis raising the floor right,
like lifting up, as you justsaid, like raising that bottom
layer, raising the floor.
This is so wild and most peopleprobably don't even think about
it and entrepreneurs do, butmost people don't know you get
your health insurance throughyour job, through your company.
So if you're an independentbusiness owner, if you're a

(54:22):
small business, if you're anentrepreneur, you likely don't
have health insurance, and ifyou do have health insurance,
it's really expensive, and soone of the things we were
talking about at the Capitol I'mtalking to some members of
Congress about was having ahealth care plan for
entrepreneurs, because right now, the people who are taking
risks can either A afford them,so they've got a different

(54:45):
lifestyle economically,socioeconomically, whatever or
they are making a crazy choice.
90% of startups fail, and whenthey fail or have a health issue
, their lives and lives of thepeople involved are really,
really decimated because thefloor is so low, and so for us
it's like well, you could, ifyou want to bolster
entrepreneurship in the UnitedStates, you want to continue to

(55:06):
be a world leader in innovation,these are some of the resources
that you need to provide at abaseline level so that everyone
can say, okay, well, I can, Ican give this a shot, and I am
very interested to see more ofthe resources that we can have
at that level to to base.
We don't everyone doesn't needto have Ivy League education,
but everyone needs to have acertain base level of of

(55:28):
security.
To take risks Like that'scalculated risk require a level
of security and we need to getin a position to do that.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Yeah, and throwing it back to what you said earlier
creating these, theseopportunities, fostering this
mindset where people arechampioning the others who are
taking these risks, so that it'snot it's not necessarily
putting the entire burden on theentrepreneur who's taking the
risk and and taking all of thatupon themselves, but creating

(56:00):
around that entrepreneur this,this zone of support, this, you
know, the crowd that's aroundthem, supporting them, is is
championing them in theirpurchase decisions, in their
comments, feedback, in theirinteractions with you, know the
things around them and and youknow if, if everyone takes on a

(56:20):
little bit of risk, then thosefew entrepreneurs don't have to
take on a lot of risk.
Right, very quickly, I justwanted to ask you, harold,
looking forward to the future,you're, you're excited about the
prospects for your own company.
I know what are you mostexcited to see coming down the
pipeline in the next three, fouryears just for businesses in

(56:40):
this space in general?

Speaker 2 (56:42):
I think the number one thing I'm excited about is
creator tools.
I think that one of the thingswe looked at when we started to
to productize our business wasthe idea that everyone's a
creator.
You think about podcasts, youthink about the content.
You know, I made some sea basslast night and I was like, oh, I
want to make sure it looks at acertain angle, and so I've been

(57:03):
watching content creators whogive tips on recording and
pictures and stuff, and there'sso much information out there.
One of the things I often talkabout is that we need to treat
knowledge more like a libraryand less like a vault.
Knowledge needs to be free andshareable very easily, not
reserved and kept to myself sothat I'm the only one that has

(57:25):
it, and so I'm really interestedin us taking the knowledge that
we each have as individuals,that we have community knowledge
and information, and allowingthat to be shared into groups so
that creators are able not onlyto put their ideas and thoughts
into the world, but also toprovide more supplemental income
but create opportunities forthemselves as well, because I

(57:46):
think that in every industry,you find that the person
creating is the one that'scompensated the least.
Like you saw the SAG strike.
You see the folks that arecreating.
You know in every walk of ourlives who are helping us day to
day, but there's some executivethat sits as far away from the
problem as possible, makes abunch of money, and so when I

(58:06):
think about that creator, it'swell, how do we keep the people
who are closest to the probleminformed and educated in a way
that they can create more valuefor themselves?
And I think that that's goingto be super exciting as you
think about content creatortools and then being able to
manage the compensation they getfrom it.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Excellent.
If somebody wants to getplugged in with you, what's the
best way to do it?

Speaker 2 (58:26):
It's definitely Twitter.
It is definitely not LinkedIn.
You can follow me on LinkedIn.
You can, you know, friend me orwhatever it is, but I just
never really on there.
I blame it on being sold abunch of stuff in corporate
America that my company didn'tneed, but I'm on Twitter.
So if you like barbecue contentand food, a little pop culture,
tech startups and random sports, clemson is not doing great, so

(58:50):
maybe I'll start talking aboutNew York Knicks basketball.
So I'm one band wagon fan,that's O N E bandwagon fan,
because I'm bandwagon number onefan my company.
One bandwagon fan on Twitter,and, yeah, that's that's where I
am for most of my my hijinksand shenanigans, hot takes and
information.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
That's awesome, harold, thank you for talking to
me.
It's been really good.
I could.
I could keep going for anotherhour, but I'm more inclined to
say let's just do this againsometime and do a new set of
questions.
That'd be so much fun.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Well, yeah, I'm going to come to Greenville.
We'll sit down and have acoffee or beer and chat.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
I love it.
Yeah, that'd be so cool.
All right, I appreciate it andwe'll talk to you again soon.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Excellent, appreciate it.
Thanks, sam.