Vault Episode 1: Edison House - George and Charlie Cardon - Small Lake City

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
What is up everybody and welcome to the Small Lake
City podcast.
I am your host, eric Nilsen,and I am so excited to be with
you all today, because today isthe day that we launch the
inaugural Small Lake Citypodcast episode.
Now, as you've probably seenfrom social media posts and the
title of this episode, but weare going to be interviewing

(00:30):
George and Charlie Cardin, thefounders of the Edison House, a
new social club that opened upin downtown Salt Lake City in
November of 2022.
So still a very recent thingHearing about them, of their
upbringing in Salt Lake, thenmoving away for a little bit and
coming back to start thisamazing community that they've
built at Edison House.
One thing to note beforejumping into it is there is a

(00:52):
small period during the podcastwhere the audio goes a little
bit quiet and a little bit lowquality, but it does come back
and thankfully is not during animportant part of the
conversation.
So when you get to it, eitherskip ahead to when it gets
better or just power through,but without any other further
ado, let's hear from the Cardins.
So welcome.
Welcome, everybody, to the firstepisode of the Small Lake City

(01:14):
podcast.
This is one I've probably beenthe most excited to record
because of the kind of build upto being a part of it but then
also kind of seeing how it'sbecome what it is.
And I'm talking about EdisonHouse.
For those who don't know,edison House is the newest
social club in Salt Lake CityJust been really engaging and
really creating a true communityin the area and in this city

(01:36):
for this younger generation tokind of grasp hold to in a place
where there's been a little bitmore let's call it stuffy
presence of sorts.
And so I'm here with Charlie andGeorge Carden, the brothers and
co-founders of Edison House,where we're going to talk a
little bit about them and theirupbringing in early days in Salt
Lake, how they came to foundand create this really cool

(01:59):
space and what they hope in thefuture.
So, so excited to have you guysand welcome to the pod.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Good to be here.
Obviously you guys are born andraised in Salt Lake and kind of
want to hear about what lifewas like for you and your
upbringing, but so kind of walkus through, I mean, where you
grew up, kind of the schools youwere with some of your kind of

(02:20):
closest friends, best memories.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
George, go for it.
I mean, we, uh we grew up inthe same households.
We probably have a lot of thesame stories, uh different
perspectives on some of them,for sure, though.
Uh, both from Salt Lake city,though.
Yeah, I mean, we're born andraised here.
We're actually, I think, we'reeighth generation Utah, is that
right?
Yeah, so both of our, both ofour ancestors on our parents'
side, and both mom and dadsactually came across the prairie
and are Mormon pioneers.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Oh geez.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, but we're not Mormon, though.
We grew up not Mormon.
I think it was our great, greatgreat grandparents that broke
away.
So we grew up not Mormon.
I feel like for us, that wasactually, at least for me, sort
of a part of an importantdynamic.
I would say for me, when Ithink about what it's like in
Salt Lake, um, cause, it feltsort of like there was an in
crowd and an out crowd and it'snothing to do with the um, you

(03:11):
know, the, the Mormon faith,it's more just I, I there were
the people who are, you know, um, that sort of that their
community was, and then everyoneelse, you know, sort of had to
fight our own community as well.
You know sort of had to fightour own community as well.
Um, and I, actually it's it'sfunny, you know, now that we're
talking about um and working oncommunity with a lot of our life
um, you know, the Mormon faithhas an incredible community and

(03:32):
learned.
You know, I've learnedno-transcript.

(03:52):
You know that's not mom anddad's story, though you know,
like the story that I heard isthat I barely got born, so and I
think that's that's definitelyyour fault, not Maddie's fault.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
So Maddie's, our middle sister.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Got it.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know, I'm just the honest
truth is, you know, we've had,we had a fairly normal childhood
.
I mean I think obviously thedynamic here with the LDS church
, you know, was maybe foreign toanybody who's not from here.
We went to different schools,charlie, charlie went to uh

(04:26):
Highland and kind of went thepublic school route through
Indian Hills and uh, I went to,I went to Rowan Hall.
So I actually didn't have asmuch um kind of direct uh
exposure to the LDS faith orthat community as Charlie did,
just because, uh, rowan Hall isquite small and it's actually
not very LDS.
So the the people who I was, whoare my peers, um, you know, I

(04:50):
wasn't as exposed to that, butuh, yeah, I mean, I don't know,
I I was kind of fun, you know,funny enough, I actually wasn't
the most social, certainlywasn't the most popular kid in
high school.
I had lots of friends but um, Isort of drifted between friend
groups, um, I was sort offriends with everybody but not
best friends with anybody, um,which I think actually did kind

(05:14):
of give me an interestingperspective when it eventually
came time to start thinkingabout what it actually meant to
build a community here in SaltLake, but, um, yeah, I mean our,
our, our growing up, ourupbringing was great, our
parents were fabulous and greatsupport system and I think sort
of set all of us off on you know, the right path of life, so to

(05:34):
speak.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
And yeah, we're really fortunate.
Mom and dad are pretty awesome.
They're uh.
Yeah, they treated us, treatedus right yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
But yeah, I mean, I don't know my, I'm trying to
figure out a way to make my highschool youth days super
exciting.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Well, you weren't really a troublemaker at all, I
mean the only thing that comesto mind I don't even know if
this counts as troublemaking islike George, he loved Utah Jazz,
he still loves Utah Jazz and hewon back-to-back-to-back and he
won back to back to back.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Something like that Two or three costume dress-ups.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Oh God, I wish we could get these photos out.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
He was dressed as a genie.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
He wore a toga one night.
These are when the Jazz were inthe playoffs these have got to
be on the internet.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
I still have that streak.
I literally went to a NotreDame football game dressed as a
leprechaun last year.
That did factually happen.
Like as a leprechaun last year.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
So every factually happened like as a 33 year old I
love that.
So you said you had kind oflike jumped around from like
friend group to friend group.
Cause I was very similar likethat, where I had kind of my
like core group of friends weremy neighborhood, but like I was
a kid who could walk down and Idon't mean this in like an
arrogant way, but like I justhad a lot of diverse friends and
could like sit and talk withanybody.
Was that mostly based off likedifferent?

Speaker 2 (06:48):
activities you were engaged in?
Or are you just the person whocould be put in a room with a
wall and the wall would be yourfriend five minutes later,
something like that?
I mean, I I will say I think Iuh probably developed a little
bit more charisma as I got older, but you know whatever that
means.
In high school I mean, yeah, I,I it wasn't around shared
interests.
Um, obviously I have a hugemusic person.
I mean, that was alwayssomething that um has been super

(07:09):
important in my life.
But, uh, as it relates to how Iwould connect with other people
, it was more on like apersonality, like kind of energy
basis, so to speak.
Um and I, I have been fortunateto find ways to connect with
lots of different types ofpeople.
I'm a very curious person bynature.

(07:29):
I mean.
I even remember, and I'vealways been kind of an old soul,
so to speak, I mean my, when Iwas probably I don't know how
old I would have been, but I canremember being very fairly
young and always wanting to hangout with my parents and their
friends and always wanting tohang out with my parents and
their friends.
Um, because I maybe it was justa maturity thing or I just was
interested in like adultconcepts, adult ideas.

(07:51):
Um, I remember, you know, I, myparents, would have dinner
parties on a Friday night andlike, instead of going and
hanging out with my friends, I'dbe like, can I come to the
dinner party?
I was that weird little nerd kidwho just was like but it came
from a genuine place ofcuriosity and wanting to
actually get to know thesepeople and, like to this day, I

(08:12):
consider myself at likelegitimate friends with a large
number of my parents' friends.
I mean, I remember like twocouple of years ago me and my
husband went up and spent like aweekend with Tim and Marina.
I'm like my parent.
My Tim went to college with mymother.
My parents weren't there.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
What'd you do this weekend Be like?
Ah, I mean Tim and Marina wehad a great time backgammon and
whiskey and all sorts of things.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
But I, yeah, but I have a like a lifelong history
of just making friends with allpeople from all walks of life.
Got it.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
So I kind of want to keep this theme of community
going because I think it's suchan integral part of what you
guys have done at Edison House.
And that's something that I'vekind of come to realize and I
like the kind of way that youput it.
Charlie is like, especiallygrowing up, you don't really see
it until you can look back,kind of postmortem, and say, oh,
there definitely was like an inand out.
Like I remember seeing the kidswho weren't LDS get made fun of

(09:10):
because they were in a churchon Sunday and like we were all
so naive and young that wecouldn't really put together
like why that was happening.
And now, on the flip side ofthings like that is one thing
that makes Utah so strong isbecause you have these people in
these neighborhoods and prettymuch everybody knows their
neighbors and knows everybody.
I mean it can also be a badthing, sometimes when everyone's
too,much in your business, but I
mean in other places that I'velived.
It definitely doesn't have thatsame sort of like
interconnectedness that we had.
And I love that you two kind ofhave these two disparate

(09:32):
experiences where you haveCharlie, who goes to Highland
and has this very public schoolexperience, just like I mean,
like I did, and then we haveGeorge who did I mean the Roland
Hall track, which I mean I knewa bunch of people went there
and kind of echoed those samesort of sentiments and
especially wasn't until I wentto college and I mean joined, I
mean Sigma Chi, the fraternitywhere I interact with a ton of
judge kids and I was like, oh,there's this whole other kind of

(09:54):
under like community of the nonLDS people who it's like the
Juan Diego's and the judges andthe Roland Hall's and like all
of those people kind of all kneweach other is in the Roland
Halls and like all of thosepeople kind of all knew each
other.
But I was never involved withthat or I didn't really
understand until kind of now asI meet uh kind of people in like
let's call it adulthood and seehow that all comes together.
So was there a reason whyCharlie decided to go to the,

(10:16):
the home of the Rams down theblock in Roland Hall.
Or did they just like, uh,george Moore, or how'd that work
?

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Well, the joke I always say is that, uh, I wanted
to play football and so theydidn't have football at Roland
Hall.
I actually did go to RolandHall for one year and just
didn't.
I didn't, wasn't really for me,um, but I wanted yeah, I really
wanted to play sports.
I love football, um.

(10:43):
So I went to Highland to mostlyto play sports.
I love football.
So I went to Highland mostly toplay sports and it was close.
I grew up with a lot of the kidswho went there, went to Indian
Hills and all of the kids thatare in that school funnel into
Highland, so sort of like mygroup that I was with all the
way from when I was young, allfunneled into Highland.
So that's how I ended up there.
But you know, yeah, roland Hall, I did it for one year but it

(11:09):
just wasn't.
It wasn't the right fit for me.
I still don't really know why,but I was the new kid.
I don't know if you ever beenthe new kid.
I was a new kid for one yearand I was too soft to like power
through it and like become notthe new kid the next year and I
was like I'm going back.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
So when I was so my parents got divorced when I was
10.
And so I grew up predominantlyin the avenues until then and
then we moved, uh, kind ofYelcrest area and so I went to
enzyme through the end of fourthgrade and then moved and did
fifth and sixth in Bonnevilleand I remember going in and like
that area I mean you guys areprobably familiar, it's like
very close knit, everybody knowseverybody.
Like you mentioned one name andall of the other names kind of

(11:42):
tend to domino around and so Iwalk in as this kid who I mean I
like my mom's a single mom soshe isn't friends with all of
those women and it's just like,well, who the hell is this kid
that showed up?
And I remember I would go homeevery day and be like mom.
I don't want to go back to thisprehistoric school because it's
old school and kind of like knewa couple of familiar faces from
doing like swim team and stuffin the past, but definitely can

(12:04):
understand that Like new kid, no, like sitting alone, kind of
not knowing how to make friendssuper well and kind of like
always trying to like almostforce your way in and that's
that's never fun for, even evenin adulthood.
If I try to find myself in anew situation, like shit here we
go again.
Just go talk to someone andkind of make it what it is.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
It's hard.
I mean making, I mean part, alarge part of what we're doing
at Edison house is trying tohelp people meet, you know,
friends and make connections.
And it's challenging, you know,even with, you know, a beautiful
space and all the programmingand all of that um, it still
takes work and investment and,um, but every you know what part
of the reason I love what we'redoing is I find the most

(12:43):
enjoyment in my life.
Other relationships I have, andyou know, the most
relationships I have are myfriends, you know my, you know
my family and I have my, myamazing girlfriend.
But outside of that it's like,you know, a hundred
relationships with people that Ireally care about and that
really brings a lot of joy to mylife.
And so I find, you know, I findan immense amount of

(13:03):
fulfillment and trying to, youknow, create spaces and
opportunities for people to tomake those connections, cause
it's hard.
It's hard Even even withinEdison.
Now it's going to bechallenging and outside of it I
find it extremely hard to makefriends and just meet people and
get out there.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
That might say something about you, Charlie.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Well, george and George, and specifically his
husband Matthew, are like theultimate social butterflies, so
you actually might not evenunderstand the challenge, george
.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
He sits down and starts playing the piano and
next thing you know there's 20people, 20 girls, when I was
young I used to be so jealous.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
George would sit down and play the piano and girls
love when you play the piano andGeorge would have like girls
would be swarming.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
What piano and like girls love when you play the
piano and georgia, like girlswould be swarming.
What a waste like wrong teamladies, wrong team.
Hindsight makes that story evenbetter.
Exactly, I know I love that, soso I like that.
You guys kind of had this,because so you guys are four
years apart, so my next oldestsister is like three and a half
years apart and like we likewe're close, but not like really
close like today we're.
She's one of my best friends,she's like one of the people I
can talk to anything about.
Have you guys always had thissimilar bond in kind of this,

(14:12):
like strong brotherhood, or whendid that start to show up?
That's a good question.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
I mean, we were always like amicable, I don't
know.
I used to kind of harassCharlie and usual older brothers
.
Yeah right, I used to whip hisass on the you know, the living
room floor and all that shit,but uh, he still doesn't like
that, uh.
But no, I mean, you know, I'mthe.
I think the like you alluded to,the four-year gap, is enough to

(14:39):
create legitimate separationwhen you're younger, because you
, when you're in seventh grade,that's a very different life
space than when you're in 11thgrade, right, when you're like a
junior in high school.
So I, and then you know,obviously you graduate and you
go off and do your thing.
So so we've always had a verypositive relationship.
We never had like animositybetween us.

(14:59):
But I would say that thestrength of our relationship,
you know, when we reachedadulthood it definitely
solidified, I mean, charlie.
I think going to Notre Dameafter I went to Notre Dame
created a common sort of bondbetween us, that sort of set our
relationship on a closer pathand then, obviously, with like

(15:22):
starting a business together,like're like that's a, that's a
whole new sort of arena.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
So which I applaud, like I love my family so much,
but the thought of like okay,like see you tomorrow morning
and then see a family dinner andsee you on the holidays.
See you here Like that's a wholenother level of of familial
relationships that I mean Iapplaud.
Like one of my best friends isa dentist who's works for his
dad and and is working on takingover that practice, and it's

(15:48):
like I just see him like, oh, soyou just see your dad like all
day, every day, he's like yeah,but he's like my, there's like
work dad and then there's likefamily dad and they're like two
almost very different people andso that's awesome that you guys
have had, um, I mean, a goodfoundation to begin with of
growing up in the same householdand I mean it sounds like it
there wasn't any I mean badblood or like I mean hatred, but
it just kind of, as time wenton, just that that grew stronger

(16:11):
and became more and more strong.
I mean, obviously you guysdecided to do this together and
I don't think anybody would doit if they're like, hey, I kind
of iffy about you, but are youin yes or no?

Speaker 3 (16:21):
And there's always that sort of extra risk.
We talked about it early on inthat like we're not going to let
the business ever get inbetween, like family
relationships.
And you say that early on we'vebeen fortunate there hasn't
been that issue, but we talkedabout that up front.
We were like we want to alwaysput our relationship as brothers
first and our father's involved.
And so he, you know, made ussit down and say hey, we got to

(16:43):
talk about this because this isanother layer of risk that goes
along with working together.
But we're lucky we haven't had.
I mean, we go at it, but wealways come back to the middle,
your brother, if you have a goodrelationship, is?
It feels like I can actuallypush the boundaries a little

(17:03):
more than I could with anotherco-founder, or at least a
co-founder.
You'd have to have years andyears of trust with them, yeah,
where we can really push theboundary and get mad at each
other and, you know, really pushthe boundary, um, and always
come back really quickly, and sothe level of sort of like
transparent communication thatoccurs between us is really high
, which is so helpful inbusiness.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Oh without a doubt Politics to like zero.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
So I like that you're I mean like dad has come
involved and like, hey, if youguys are going to do this,
here's some ground rules thatyou need to have, because a like
I mean this could flop tomorrow, but to be able to walk away
and say, hey, still love yourbrother, like on onto to the
next, whatever that might be.
I mean, what kind of role didyour dad play in like your
childhood or early ages to kindof set this foundation of you

(17:50):
wanting to do this?
Or maybe it was completely outof the wheelhouse of what he had
done previously?

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Let's take a quick break.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Hope you're enjoying the episode so far.
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We have great shirts, hats andsweatshirts.
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(18:21):
Go cop some gear and look greatthis season in your new small
lake city merch.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, well, I I before we jumped to that.
I actually want to clarifysomething because I think it's
an important distinction.
I wouldn't say that Jeff saidhere are the ground rules,
because Jeff very much treats uslike adults and you saying like
here are the ground rules isthe way you would treat like
your children when they'rechildren, and I think that's
just a really importantdistinction around like why this

(18:51):
relationship and this dynamichas been successful.
It's because we all have a lotof mutual respect for each other
, not just like as family, likefamily is the foundation for
like the love and the trust andthat you need that before
anything else, but like tofunction as, like a, as a
business unit.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
You also have to have like that respect that's based
on each other as likefunctioning adult human beings
competent people Like cause it'sone thing to have family and I
think everybody can agree thatlike there's probably some sort
of family, whether it's I meanclose family, siblings, cousins,
second cousins, whatever butthere's like I would not start a
business with this personbecause I don't think they're

(19:29):
competent and they couldn't doit, which is like you can still
love them and like they can havetheir own strengths.
But, like, I like the way thatyou put that, charlie, where
it's like oh, like, we had thisfamily relationship that was
strong, we loved each other, weloved each other, we trusted
each other, but on top of that,we could look at each other and
say, hey, you're a competentperson with skills that I think
we could do this and executewell, and you're someone I would

(19:49):
want to back and and like let'sgo do this together, instead of
just saying, hey, you know whatLike love, you appreciate you,
but this is my thing.
Maybe in the future, but fornow, thanks, but no thanks,
right.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, totally.
I mean, and if and if it didn'tgo well, it wouldn't be you
know oh, I was went into thiswith a rose colored glasses
about George's competency.
It would be us as a team, we'reequals, and like if it works
great, it's because we equallyput in the time and we're, you
know, equally successful, and ifit doesn't go well,

(20:28):
no-transcript.
And that was never the case.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
And I think we've all heard of like so many examples
of that, both like personallyand like I mean call it like
case studies or stories you hearthrough I mean the interwebs
that it just slowly like startsto blow up and then they hate
each other and can't come backtogether and it's, I mean, not
what anybody would want to comeback to and I liked that.
When it's family, usuallythere's that vested interest
that's a little bit more strongof saying this doesn't matter,

(20:54):
you matter more than whateverthis could potentially be Right.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
And we say all this, and I've also seen witnessed
family businesses blow up.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
So, like I also feel very fortunate that, uh, you
know things are going well too,it makes it a lot easier, right,
totally.
But so kind of want to talkabout your parents' influence on
this.
But I mean, was this somethingthat when you were growing up,
you're like I want to start myown business, I want to do my
own thing?
Or your dad or mother orwhoever was these influences
saying or teaching you about allof these core concepts and
principles and and thinkingabout it in a certain way, or
their examples, or did thisstart that early?

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, I mean, well, jeff, uh, you know, was one of
the founding members of thecompany that he spent his whole
career with, uh, which isWasatch global advisors.
You know, he was like the thirdor fourth employee and built it
into like a powerhouse in thefinance industry.
So, um, you know, that wasalways kind of part of our

(21:51):
family history, um, andobviously there's a great deal
of respect and admiration thatgoes along with that, um, so,
yeah, I mean by just sort of bynature of like, you know, you
inherit your family story andkind of what that means, there's
a I won't speak for Charlie,but I would imagine he probably
feels similarly which is, youknow, that begets a very serious
like interest inentrepreneurship and starting
your own business.
Um, and also there's a part ofyou that maybe just sort of self

(22:14):
identifies with that, becauseit's kind of like where you came
from.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, and I would say too, I mean, for me I always
felt like seeing you know dad bereally successful.
He never put external pressureon us to sort of chase being
really successful in businessbut for me personally created a
lot of internal pressure to tryand to kind of, you know, really
take your career seriously andreally try and strive for

(22:40):
success.
And this is kind of somethingthat I actually didn't know
within myself or reallyunderstand until, you know,
within the last few years.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
I don't know, charlie stresses more than I do.
I do stress a lot Only theparanoid spry.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
I do.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
I just don't like to lose, but there is.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
I hate losing, but there was something for sure for
us about like at least for mepersonally where, seeing him
being really successful, I wasalways like I need to do that in
order to have his approval.
And that was not external givento me, it was something that I
kind of produced within myselfjust by growing up around him.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
It's always interesting how that is right,
is right because so.
So my family my mother's apediatrician, my father's uh, it
wasn't he's retired now, but apediatric neuropsychologist and
I couldn't be further away frommedicine in my life and like
that is the biggest likenon-starter to me, uh, where now
I work in I mean data analyticsand I just look at numbers all
day and tell people what theymean, but then I have like my,

(23:41):
my sister, who's a pa, and likevery involved, I mean mean in
medicine and everything.
So it's so funny to see howthere can sometimes be this huge
correlation between kind ofparents and what they're doing
and demonstrating and makingthat actually happen and like
passing that down, compared tolike yeah, like thanks, but
maybe no thanks in the long run,the long run.

(24:01):
So I love that he was able to,and especially like a healthy
way to say hey, here's theexample I'm setting.
I built this thing that turnedinto something really special.
I'm not going to put this weirdpressure on you that says you
have to go build something onyour own, but to really see that
example and in turn say howcool would it be to do something
similar.
So I love that.
That kind of guided you in ahealthy way, instead of just a

(24:23):
anxious and like overbearing waythat you can.
I mean, we can probably allthink of two to three people in
our, in our own personal livesthat that goes that way.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
For sure, and it's it's, I mean, for me, like I'm,
I've done a lot of moreself-reflection the last few
years and I've come to realizeand you know, every anybody who,
like, studies psychology isgoing to be like, yeah, no shit,
dude.
It's like the level ofinfluence that your parents
impart on you in both you know,overt and invert ways, where

(24:52):
they're like, you know, tellingyou exactly yes, do this, don't
do this, and then the way theyact and the way that you know
you see them in setting examples, it's pretty.
For me it's been reallyeye-opening and really
interesting to sort ofself-reflect and be like, wow, I
see where a lot of these thingsin the way that I act, in the
way that I think, where a lot ofthat comes from.
And self-awareness for me hasalways been like, or has been

(25:15):
recently been like, the sort offirst step to really start and
understand all your motivations.
You know why you do things,because everything you do you do
for a reason.
You just don't always know whyyou know, and I found it, it's
been interesting for me to seehow much of that comes from sort
of that history.
I don't.
I don't know if, like George,you feel this way at all, or you
do, eric, but like.
This has been aself-realization I've had in the

(25:36):
last few years.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, no, I mean I.
There's no question that yourchildhood influence is super
important and I do spend a lotof time thinking about.
I would probably say that Ispend more time thinking about
how to change my behaviors thanI do about like where the root

(26:00):
of those behaviors come from,even though I understand that
they're intrinsically tied toeach other.
But I'm I'm very much like alike.
All the books I read are aboutlike how the brain works, and
you know that there are, thereare angles on psychology that I
find super interesting.
Um, I have spent not as muchtime doing like the classic,

(26:20):
like Freudian self-reflection,but I do.
I do find um the human brainsuper fascinating in terms of
how people behave and how youcan um motivate and both
yourself and other people, and,and, yeah, I mean like we could
get into like the reptilianbrain versus like the developed

(26:42):
brain and all these other sortof like angles, but, um, I do
share an interest in thattotally no, I'm the same way
because, like it wasn't till,because I think of like my 20s
is almost like a wash, exceptfor like the maybe later part.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
And it wasn't until like I was a lot more
introspective and thinking aboutlike almost the way I think,
where I mean as like a childhoodand early adult, like you see
your parents and you see theirbehaviors.
But isn't until then you'relike, oh, I do this in the same
way that they do that, or thiscorrelates the way they are.
Now I understand why they dothese things, because I am

(27:14):
inherently part of them andthere's so much correlation
behind it and that's yeah.
I mean, we could spend hours onthat subject, but cool.
So I want to kind of transitioninto post-Utah.
I love that you guys both leftUtah for a period and it's so
interesting that you both endedup at the Fighting Irish of
Notre Dame.
I mean so, Charlie, what wasyour decision process of

(27:38):
deciding to go to Notre Dame?

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Well, I was the little brother who went and
visited.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
George, sorry, let's start with george, because let's
go chronologically, I'll answeryour question for charlie uh,
cool cool older brother, onehere, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Uh, no, I mean, um, I knew, uh, two things.
Well, I knew three things.
I wanted to go to a good school, I wanted to get out of the
state of utah and I wanted to gosomewhere that had a good
football team.
Notre Dame checked all three.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
So there you go.
And when did you study there?
Finance?
I was a finance degree.
Nice, I was a finance major aswell.
So what was the?
Did you start off as a financemajor, knowing what you're going
to do, or what was that?
Well, at Notre.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Dame, yeah, notre Dame, they do general, like they
don't actually allow you todeclare until you're a sophomore
.
And then I entered the Schoolof Business and then same thing,
they don't actually allow youto specify your major, I think
until your junior year.
I never like switched trackssignificantly.
I didn't have any goal, or youknow, some people are like I
don't want to be a VC orwhatever.

(28:42):
I just had a broad interest inbusiness and it seemed like the
thing to do.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
there you go and that was a fine detail, you know,
yeah as we talked about.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure that's totally no, I love
that.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
It's uh.
It's always interesting to seepeople's processes because, like
for me, for example, I startedat the?
U and I was like I'm going tobe a architect, that is my what
I wanted to do.
I love playing with legos, Ilove building connects.
And then I was sat through myfirst intro to architecture
class and I was like, nope, noteven a little bit like.

(29:18):
This is not my.
Not enough jobs, not enoughmoney, not enough creativity or
my type of creativity.
I should say and went and I cantalk about it forever.
But it's like architecture,civil engineering, pre-pharmacy
I don't know what the hell I'mgoing to do.
Let's go check out business.
I'm a numbers, social,collaborative person, gravitated
towards finance and then kindof been the rest is history for

(29:40):
there.
So I always love seeing howpeople kind of either go in with
a hypothesis and then are like,eh, it's not what I thought it
was going to be and does it?

Speaker 3 (29:48):
does it make you take a bunch of classes, sort of
like like a baseline generalclasses for the first few years,
or do you go right into yourmajor?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
I mean, there's always like the prereqs for like
the major itself, which, inessence, are pretty exploratory,
but there definitely isn't asmuch of like an intentional hey,
you can't focus on anythingspecifically until you have
these years of foundation underyou to to understand, which I
think is absolutely the rightway to do it.
Like no one knows what the hellthey're, even even people that

(30:18):
graduate they graduate theydon't even know what the hell
they're doing.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yeah, they just.
They just changed it anotherday where if you want to go to
the business school route sorry,undergrad business school route
you have to apply into thatbusiness school coming up high
school.
I don't think they require youto take all business classes
when you first get there, butfor me I'm like man, I had no
freaking idea what I wanted todo and I found taking all these

(30:43):
prereq classes, whether liketake you know writing XYZ or you
know philosophy of this.
I found all that extremelyhelpful and being like what am I
interested in?
What do I want to spend thenext you know 30 years of my
life doing?

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, no, I think that's wise and like cause like
the University of Utah hassomething similar about that
like graduate, apply towardsbusiness, like the business
scholars.
And then I was kind of rubbingthe wrong way.
I'm like does anybody evergraduate high school?
It's like, hey, I'm going to gobusiness.
That's like that.
That is it Ready, set go?

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Not very many.
Not very many, not me Cool.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
So that's so.
So Charlie goes in.
You know finance speaks to me.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
So what was your decision process of saying you
know what I'm gonna follow bigbrother's footsteps and I'm
gonna go to notre dame as well.
Well, for me I had asemi-similar process.
I was looking more for a schoolthat was really fun and school
that was not in the state ofutah and a school that was good.
Um, I didn't have a footballthing.
I was kind of surprised to hearthat and I went out to visit
Notre Dame while George wasthere and when I was, a couple

(31:52):
times throughout my high schooland, you know, went out there
when they had a football gamegoing on and it's just like the
most fun in the entire world.
It's full day activities withyou know, beer pong and
tailgating and tradition andeverything, and I just like
immediately fell in love with it.
So I was like this is, this iswhere I want to go.
I kind of didn't even reallyexplore.

(32:12):
Honestly, after I went out andhad that experience, I was like
didn't really explore anywhereelse.
I applied other places.
Obviously, I wasn't sure I'dget into ND, Um, but I was like
this is it and I, I love.
I mean I'm like still a hugefan.
I mean I'm a huge Notre Dameguy, Totally.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
And like.
So after college I moved toSeattle and I'm not sure if you
guys know, but like, seattle isa place where, I mean Michigan
places a ton of students, notreDame places a ton of students,
so there's this huge presence oflike Midwest and I mean
everybody I talked to was like,like it was the time of my life,
because you're, I mean it's,it's a college town.
Everybody wraps their headsaround it.
There's so much community.

(32:48):
Again, the theme of communitykeeps coming on in its way
through and so, yeah, I'm alwaysenvious of people who are able
to get away from Utah and go dokind of like an out-of-state,
like more traditional collegeexperience, because, don't get
me wrong, I had a greatexperience in University of Utah
and everything that Iexperienced there.
But there's always part of methat like was, like it would
have been, it would have beenfun to get away, get out and go
kind of have this almost like uh, tight-knit um area or almost

(33:13):
this like yeah, just superconcentrated area of college you
did, you did your van your vansix months.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
I think everybody wishes they could do six months
in advance.
So, it sounds like you made upfor it.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, you know, net, net, we all got what we wanted
to some extent.
So okay, so let's like talkabout like after school, Cause I
know, uh, Charlie, you moved toNew York for a little bit and
got that experience there.
I mean.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
Charlie, chicago, chicago sorry.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Chicago.
Yes, you moved to Chicago andhad that experience.
I mean, charlie, what was yourpre-Edison, post-notre Dame
experience like?

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah, so I moved to Chicago which is really common
out of Notre Dame Exactly, I'dsay maybe a quarter to half of
the kids out of the businessschool moved to Chicago.
I moved there.
I was kind of looking for jobsin private equity and venture
capital.
It was right.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
It seemed like there was this period.
Sorry, we didn't talk about it.
What did you study at NotreDame?
I studied finance.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
I know right, it seemed like there's a bit of a
switch where there used to be avery clear path where you had to
go investment banking, privateequity investment banking, mba,
venture capital.
There's a couple firms, thoughthat especially smaller, even
startup firms, which is where Iended up landing that.
There's a couple of firms,though that especially smaller,
even startup firms, which iswhere I ended up landing that
were taking kids right out ofundergrad, and so I really

(34:31):
wanted to work on the buy side.
Um, my Jeff you know our dad,jeff he has been an investor his
entire life, so I kind ofabsorbed a lot of that and
really enjoyed the process, andso I wanted to go on to the buy
side.
So I was looking for jobs inthe buy side and landed at a
company called BirchwoodHealthcare Partners, which at
the time, was a startup privateequity firm.
So our founder, isaac Dole, andRatul Shah had just started

(34:55):
this firm, maybe a year and ahalf before.
There were three other partnerswhen I got there, so there was
a total of five, four peopleplus myself, and the four people
were partners.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
So I was like the one young guy.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, I mean I did everything and it was actually.
It was actually really fun.
It was a great experience forstarting a business because I
got to see I got to do just awhole bunch of stuff that a
small business does.
You know, I did everything fromlike help out with accounts
payable at times, like I wouldsometimes have to go to our
portfolio companies and help outwith accounts payable, which is
like a very like smallbusiness-y thing, and did a

(35:32):
whole bunch of stuff like that.
So it ended up being a greatfoundation for me to, you know,
start a business.
And I also got a really great,really great exposure to finance
and sort of thinking throughinvestments, building financial
models, all the sort oftraditional things you do in a
private equity or investmentbanking role, and I find that

(35:52):
also to be really helpful aswell.
So that was, I mean it was areally fun experience.
I was like I'm never leavingChicago.
I love Chicago.
I had so much fun there, stilla ton of friends there.
But George called one day andwas like hey, I got this.
Like so much fun there, still aton of friends there, um, but
George called one day and waslike hey, I got this like kind
of crazy idea.
What do you think about this?
And at first I was like no way.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, Good idea, Uh pass yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Just, it felt so sort of new and like at the time,
you know, Soho was Soho, who'skind of what we're mostly
modeled off of.
Let's pause there for a sec.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
I want to go to George and his experience after,
and then we can get to him inthat phone call.
So you graduate from Notre Dame.
And what was your path, George,as far as steps after college?

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Well, I lived in Indianapolis.
I worked for Angie's List.
I did a lot of different workedfor Angie's List.
I did a lot of different thingsfor Angie's List, really
enjoyed my time there, learned alot about a lot of really
positive things, a few thingsnot to do, but mostly I have
very positive things to sayabout Angie's List.
I think it's one of thestrongest cultures cultures that

(37:02):
I've ever seen.
Um, certainly within business.
Um had the opportunity to workin marketing.
I worked directly with Angieactually still in contact with
Angie and talk with her once aquarter.
Um, and yeah, just spent fouryears there learning.
I worked in their product space.
I ended up helping them.
Um open a department.

(37:23):
Uh, I.
I also was in data analytics onthe business side, not on the
tech side Really enjoyed it.
Yeah, I got a well-rounded kindof fast-paced education in all
things startup and decided Iwanted to go to get my MBA if
the timing was right.

(37:43):
So I ended up in UCLA.
Uh, in LA, also did a six monthtraveling stint.
Uh, spent about a month onevery continent when I was 25.
Hell, yeah, uh, yeah, which waswhat eight years ago, which is
kind of wild.
Um.
And then, yeah, spent the spenta couple of years in LA.
Didn't set out to open a socialclub by any means, but knew

(38:09):
that I was hoping to dosomething entrepreneurial.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
So you just had that like itch and we're just waiting
for the right idea, kind ofyeah.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
I really didn't know what I wanted to do.
I mean, I I may even be givingmyself too much credit, cause
I'm not sure that I actuallywent to UCLA with a hard and
fast idea that I wanted to starta business.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
And did you meet your husband in California?

Speaker 2 (38:33):
No, I actually met him in Indianapolis.
We ended up moving to LAtogether.
Um we weren't married at thetime but um, but yeah, we uh I I
actually had generated aninterest in the hospitality
space.
We had an old family friend whowas kind of a serial
entrepreneur, who sparked aninterest in me at a young-ish

(38:57):
age in the bar industryHopefully not too young.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Yeah, that's why I said young-ish.
Right, um, hopefully not tooyoung.
Yeah, that's why I said youngish.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Right, Um, but I there, he, he had these theories
around, um, there being like anarbitrage opportunity in dive
bar acquisitions because thesebars were cash flowing at a much
higher rate than would bereflected in their financials.
Because the old dive bar rollup strategy.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
That's literally what it was.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
I've heard that a million times, literally what it
was, and he wasn't totallywrong about it.
His, uh, his theory was correctin so far as, if you were to
look at what they're reportingon there, you know to the IRS
like they're taking a lot ofmoney under the counter, lots of
cash, a lot of cash transaction, poor cash management, you know

(39:47):
, and then there's just kind oflike operational, you know
benefits from coming in assomebody who actually knows how
to run a business and taking itover from somebody who has no
idea what they're doing.
So, um, I actually that waswhere it started was I was?
I literally wanted to start adive bar roll-up business.
That was what I set out toresearch.
Um, and so I definitely spent acouple of days like literally

(40:09):
to like cause.
My theory was I need to knowlike the full picture of these
dive bars.
So, on like a Tuesday, at likeone 30, I would go to like four
different random dive barsaround LA and like the middle of
nowhere, and I'll tell you whata dream.
You definitely see somecharacters.
It was an interesting insight.

(40:29):
Pretty quickly learned thatwasn't the environment I wanted
to surround myself with for therest of my career.
Very memorable moments, had agood time.
Glad I did it.
A couple of days was enough,but I did time.
Glad I did.
A couple days was enough, um,but I did.
As we started to actually chasethe bread crumbs, start to

(40:50):
uncover, you know, you, you Igenerated an understanding of
these hospitality businesses andwhat worked about them and what
didn't totally, and so therewere all these interesting sort
of stones that I would turn overand be like, oh well, that's
kind of an interesting idea.
And you know, I assembledenough of those and ultimately

(41:13):
it led to Edison House and thebusiness model of a social club.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
So from all that dive bar experience, let's call it
market research.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
It really was.
I just have this Forging andtonics on a Tuesday afternoon
I'm working dive bar experience.
It's called market research.
Yeah, I just have this Forgingand tonics on a Tuesday
afternoon.
I'm working dive bar research.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Just walking in this dive bar you're like you guys
have a piano.
Yeah, like I have a tip jar.
I'm just going to sit down andwe're going to see how this goes
.
Last time I was at a dive bar Iactually did some fantastic
karaoke and it was actually inSanta was actually in santa
monica, so it makes me laughthat you're in la going to
divers.
I'm like is this the same divefarm?
Probably.
I can't remember the namebecause that's how good of a

(41:49):
karaoke night it was but so okay, so you're doing all this.
You're looking at dive bars.
To be like this is kind ofinteresting.
Let's look at these uniteconomics.
Let's look at these operations.
You have these guys who don'tknow how to run a business.
Ton of opportunity there.
I mean, what was that momentwhere it clicked, where you're
like, hey, maybe not this, but Ithink this.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Yeah, I don't know that, there was any single
moment.
It was an aggregation of acouple of ideas.
One of them was we realizedthat all these bars were sitting
there empty, like you know, 80%of the time, but they're paying

(42:26):
a lease 100% of the time andthey're monetizing Friday and
Saturday night.
They're highly exposed from arisk perspective because they
don't have diversified revenue.
All their money is contingenton people showing up in this one
narrow time.
So the question becomes well,how do you monetize that asset
right?
How do you think aboutmonetizing this space that

(42:49):
you're paying for 24, seven, um,and there are whole like side
economies around that questionthat we sort of ran down that
rabbit hole right, like you know, you can find I don't know how
these businesses are doing today, but at the time, like there
were new crop, you know,cropping up, there were new
businesses around likerestaurants would lease out
their space during the day tosmall startup, you know, to

(43:12):
people who just wanted somewhereto go Right.
And so then that begins thequestion.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
I don't know why my brain instantly goes to those
like paint and sip classes,cause I'd be like walking into
like a bar on a wednesday at twoand they're like, hey have a
seat and listen to thisinstructor.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
I'm like touche.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
But yeah, like totally, I mean like then you
have like I can almost see thislike brunch proliferation, where
people like, oh yeah, let's getpeople in in the morning
because they're always there atnight, and then and yeah, I
could totally see that like thatconnection between there's
these core times they're makingmoney, which is Friday, saturday
, weekend nights I mean probablysome sort of relative
consistency during the week butthen at the end of the day you
have this bartender sittingthere idle with maybe one

(43:52):
depressed dude at the bar, butbesides that that's not going to
make a dent in lease payments,Right right.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
So that was kind of one idea.
And then you've chased that,right, and it's like, well,
people are looking for a placeto go.
It's like, well, why is thathappening?
Right, why do?
Because?
Because there was this wholeother side thing that was
happening with WeWork and andthe remote working economy,
right.
But then, and so there's thatdynamic happening where people
are no longer tethered to anoffice from nine to five, and so

(44:22):
there was a lot more mobilityand people's, you know, ability
to to go wherever they want.
Um, and so there were all thesejust kind of pieces that
started clicking into place.
Another one we talk about, likenon-diversified revenue.
Well, you know, the idea of amembership revenue was really
sort of one of those criticalpieces, because it then unlocks

(44:42):
this idea of like oh well, theidea of a membership revenue was
really sort of one of thosecritical pieces, because it then
unlocks this idea of like ohwell, all of a sudden, you're no
longer, like, highly exposed today-to-day, like operational
success.
I mean, we don't get me wrong,we are very much tied to
day-to-day operational success,but if somebody, you know, if we
have a slow Friday night, it'snot like our business is

(45:03):
suddenly at risk.
Right, it's that we had.
There is more leeway and moreopportunity for us to build a
more long-term relationship withour customers.
Um, through that.
So all of these differentpieces started kind of like
coming together.
It's like, how do you take thisidea that people have more free
time?
And the idea that somebodywould want to go sit in a bar

(45:25):
simply because they need to getout of their house is like,
really, it was like, well,that's kind of weird, why is
that Right?
And then, and then you chase therabbit hole of the third place,
which has a long history.
Starbucks is the third place.
That's the original, you know,american third third place.
They captured this beforeanybody else, the third place
being not your home, not youroffice.
Where's the other place thatyou're going to spend your time?

(45:47):
Totally right.
And so what does that 21stcentury first third place look
like?
Well, what would you want in aspace where you could go and
spend your time right?
And then, and then it just kindof started coming together
while you and then you, you andthen, of course, to Charlie's
point, their Soho house, and sothis business model does exist.

(46:07):
And so then you start doingthat research.
Well, what are these otherclubs?
What are these 21st centurysocial clubs actually?
Look like, um, and you go fromA to B to Z and you end up with
a business model that was, I'dsay, like 75% of Edison house.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah, and I mean it also.
To me, soho is carrying thetorch of social clubs, that's,
and that torch has been burningfor a long time.
I mean, people don't realizethis in the U?
S, but in the UK, especially inLondon, social club culture is
very important.
There are, there are, hundredsand hundreds of social clubs in
London alone, um and Soho.

(46:43):
We talk about soho becausewe're the most similar to them.
Um, because they really, in ouropinions, kind of reinvented
the social club model for youknow today, um, and brought it
over to america.
So we kind of george was goingthrough this whole discovery in
the hospitality space and piecedall these things together and
then said, whoa, look, there'sthis other company that's doing

(47:07):
this.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
They just started to come to the United States and
they're having a ton of success,which has got to be so
relieving.
Because, like you, have allthese thoughts going in your
head of how do I create thisspace, what's going to
incentivize people to be there,how do we make it a viable
business model?
And all of a sudden, here'sthis like perfect case study

(47:29):
that like almost kool-aid mansits ass through your wall to say
, hey, this is how this can work.
And like even I was in austin acouple months ago visiting a
friend and I mean there's a sohohouse there that's been popping
.
But then there's also likethese other different, kind of
like nuanced social clubs thatare popping up.
Like there was one I can'tremember the name of it for the
life of me, but it's a countryclub but then they also have a
social club downtown for members.
I mean they have like a reallynice simulator but it's like
really great rooftop bar, barspace.
So it's like, oh, there's thisnuance to it, all of kind of

(47:51):
seeing how people want to createthat space.
So I mean like just thinking oflike the timeline of things I
mean what year was this goingthrough your head?
Or maybe like the year that youcalled Charlie and said hey, I
got an idea.
Are you in?

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah, so what?
I graduated like mid 2018.
So it would have been allthrough that.
I mean, the really the bulk ofall this research was happening
kind of my second year in gradschool, which was like fall of
2017.
And we actually set out to dothe dive bar, um, like business
model, uh.
And then halfway through, likewe did the first semester

(48:28):
chasing that, and then halfwaythrough I basically because it I
I essentially recruited some ofmy class, because you do it as
a team, it's like that's the waythat the thesis works.
So I had recruited my team ofpeople to help me.
And then it became veryapparent to me because I was
serious, I was like I didn'tknow that I would open business,
but I was thinking about it,and the others were all like it

(48:53):
was very clear, like they're notgoing to they're just focused
on their summer internship.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
Yeah right, exactly, so they can go to McKinsey and
do their thing and kind of go on.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Exactly.
So halfway through we had donelike all this research and then
I basically strong armedeverybody and was like, yeah,
we're going to change, we'rechanging course, we're doing the
social club thing.
And they didn't really want it.
Like there was a lot ofpushback, they were like we've
already done all this research.
I'm like I really don't care,because, like I'm actually going
to probably open this business,or I certainly may, and like

(49:22):
I'm just making this call.
So I forced all my class andthank, thank you to all of them
for going along with myinsistence, and so we spent the
next half of the time there, thenext semester, essentially kind
of like pulling in this wholebusiness model concept together.
Love that, yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
So, charlie, so you get this call from your brother
saying, hey, I got this ideaYou've been doing I mean
healthcare, private equity andhe says, hey, I got this idea.
What was your initial response?
Reaction to this idea?
I mean my first reaction waskind of like.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
This is crazy.
You know, neither of us have abackground in hospitality, first
time entrepreneurs.
You know, in my head an Edisonhouse even grew in terms of size
and scope since we firststarted and at the time even the
size and scope felt large.
You know big.
You know we're talking multiplerestaurants.
We didn't have the rooftop poolat the time, but multiple

(50:16):
restaurants, gym, all thesethings, and I was, I was
actually pretty hesitant, I waslike I don't think this is a
great idea.
Um, but he, he kind of chippedaway at me, he, he sent me his
research deck.
Um, what I think really sort ofsold me was sending me to Soho
houses website and saying, hey,check out what they're doing.
And for anyone who hasn't beento Soho house, it's, you know,

(50:39):
the, the, the main social club,I'd say, of the last 15 years
Totally Incredible.
I mean, they've got 35 clubsacross the US and any Soho House
you go into you're going to belike, wow, this is freaking cool
.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
I've never been.
Are you serious?
I've been to the one in Chicago.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
Don't tell people that I was in the one in Chicago
, like last week.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
I mean it's We'll get you a guest pass.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, I have my own vision ofwhat we're doing.
I mean you do own your ownvision.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
He has his own club.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
I don't need Soho House.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
But I'll tell you, they've been around for a long
time, so they've had a long timeto mature and really get it
right and and really get itright.
And I feel like they really gotit right.
Did you go to the one in Austin?
I?

Speaker 1 (51:23):
just walked by.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
I was with the one in Chicago.
You walk in.
It's so cool, the food is great, the music's perfect, the
people are cool.
You go up to the pool.
They just got to dial it in.
The one in Chicago is 15 yearsold, so they've really got it
dialed in at this point.
But that is really what sort ofchanged my mind on this,
because it's such a big swingthat it's like if this thing, if

(51:48):
it, if it doesn't work out andthere's always that opportunity
that there's that possibilitylike it's.
You know, it's not easy tounwind and doing that without
having someone else who hasproven that the model works was
would have been really hard forme to make that step.
Like I don't think I would havetaken the step if I hadn't seen
Soho house being like this is atotally new thing, that like

(52:09):
we're just kind of inventing outof thin air which we're not.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Right, yeah, I should probably clarify.
I have been to many othersocial clubs.
We did a whole trip where wewent and visited like a bunch
that was a badass business trip.
So I didn't.
I have done my due diligence asa competitor, but no, yeah, I
mean I think yeah, Charlie'sright, Like they built the

(52:33):
industry.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
And for me, I was just like I'm not going to.
It's not like a tech startupwhere you know you can do, you
know, test it, mvp, it see if itworks.
It doesn't work, it does work.
You go in this direction, right?
It's not that way.
It's like you got to take afull, full ass swing.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
All in all in.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
You got to go all in and I'm like.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
I've got taking that proof of concept because that's
ballsy well, it's also aconsistent theme, which is
charlie is more risk averse thanI am.
I am there you go.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
I am risk adjusted well, because it's a good
balance so I remember the firsttime I heard about soho house,
like I, I just saw someone likeda post on instagram and it it
was this.
I have to go back and find itjust to kind of giggle at it now
, but it was a picture of thelot that we're now, I mean,
standing in in the second floorof a three-story building, yeah,
and it was just like I thinkthere's literally goats eating

(53:27):
grass and they're like soho, Imean, not so house.
Well, uh, edison house coming,uh, 2020 something.
And I remember just like mysmug, dumb ass was like, believe
it, when I see it, you knowlike you're applying.
Oh, is that you all?
Like you're applying?

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Oh, is that you All right Membership, you're out,
it's over, that's fine Iactually do remember that.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Well, mostly not, not at you particularly, but there
was a, you know, yeah you get it.
You get a fair amount of likesnarkiness and the early stages
of that.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
I think a lot, I'm sure a lot of um business.
Like you know, founders gothrough this, but, like I caught
my yeah buddy phase, which wasI would tell people what I'm
doing and they say, yeah, okay,buddy, and it was like I had.
We had a long yeah buddy phasecause, you know, we didn't break
ground for a year and a halfafter we decided to do it.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
So it was like COVID time, it's COVID.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
It's tough.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Cause were you guys deciding on doing it before
COVID, and then COVID came andthrew a wrench in things.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
So we purchased the property and about three or four
months later COVID happened.
And then we broke ground in themiddle of COVID.
Right, yeah, that was right, webroke ground.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
That sounds about right.
Yeah, we broke ground, butthere's a lot that's happened,
but we purchased it, which islike it's not a point of no
return.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
But, like you know, we've put down contractors, bid
the project covet hits.
So it was, we were down.
We were far enough down theroad that, like there was no,
you could turn back.
But it was.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
We were like we're not turning back yeah,
thankfully most of our like ourour bids were locked in.
So at least from a financialperspective, there was some
there's quite a bit of financialhedging that had happened that
we were not exposed to, had webeen six months later.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
When you talk about being lucky too, it's like we.
If we had, if we had been notfar enough down the road and
COVID hit we, I'm sure we wouldhave just thrown our hands up
and be like there's no way we'regoing to.
We know what I mean Like we'rewe're not doing this.
But if we had been too far downthe road and we tried to open

(55:23):
it during COVID, it would havebeen the worst experience ever.
We actually have a colleaguewho I won't say who she is, but
she got caught up in the middleof this, was supposed to open
during COVID at a beautifulspace and just got, you know,
steamrolled by it.
It breaks your heart.
I mean awful.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
It's actually funny.
I was listening to you, george,talk about, I mean, mean,
putting together your deck andyour thesis of like why this is
a good thing.
So I was actually at one pointgoing to open up like a chopped
salad place in utah, because yougo to any major city, yeah,
there's a chopped salad place mygirlfriend would be there every
single day.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
She talks about this non-stop someone says it so and
we have food and beverage.
We have food and beveragesupport.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
Man, let's do this, let's team up and I was like
literally had like the analysisdown, like everything was like
green light, and I eventually itgot to the point where, like,
because I was planning on doingit downtown, planning on having,
I mean relying on I mean thegolden sacks, the wells, fargo,
built like kind of that corething, and then obviously
coveted I'm like well, nope,like absolutely not, and it's

(56:22):
still like in the back.
I mean, who knows, maybe oneday, but seriously, come find us
if you uh we got a lot ofkitchens you can cook out of and
figure out how to do it.
Hey, we can grubhub the hell outof here.
Oh yeah, um, but that's soawesome because, like,
especially thinking of like suchan ambiguous idea that takes, I
mean such like a I mean goingback to your example in
comparison of like a techstartup, where I mean you can

(56:43):
get a tech startup going get anmvp stood up with relatively
little investment and then youcan go do the typical route of
go raise your money and go scaleand product market fit, etc.
But here it's like we boughtland, we have a building being
built, we have all these otherinvestments, like that's a lot
of like I mean capex investmentand like, as you're going
through this process of I meanthe bidding, the purchasing,

(57:05):
getting everything going.
I mean, what were some of theunexpected headwinds and things
that came across, oh man I meanwe ran, we've ran into a lot.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Yeah, we can talk yeah, we've run into a lot of
problems but, um, you know, I'msure it's this.
It's the same with everystartup right, there's just
there's always things that gowrong.
I mean, I would say broadly,the construction process was
extremely challenging, givencovid and the supply chain.
Um, what comes to mind when Ithink about what was really hard

(57:35):
the last few years was justlike navigating that as
first-time developers and thenlayering on top of that COVID
and it was just crazy thingswhere we got a call one day from
our contractor and he was likethey're running out of steel and
we had some issues with permitsand whatnot.
We hadn't figured out ourpermits but we had bid the
project and he was like you needto buy your steel today or we

(57:59):
will not get steel for a yearand a half.
And I'm like how much money isthis?
Like four hundred thousanddollars?

Speaker 1 (58:06):
I'm like what did you take, cash or check?

Speaker 3 (58:07):
yeah, I'm like you're serious.
He's like I'm dead serious.
You need to put in the ordertoday and I need to wire the
money to them pretty much todayand you have to make a decision
pretty much in the next likehour because obviously you have
a huge history of steelpurchasing and, oh my, the past.
I mean the first question Iasked him was like what happens
if, like, we don't go through?
He's like you own $400,000worth of steel.
Like I don't know what happens,you have to go to the mill and

(58:30):
pick it up you know, and that'show Edison pivoted to the second
steel industry.
I mean in during COVID, we couldhave made money and just been
out.
You know, we could have justmade out like bandits.
But, um, you know, there's,there's so many of those stories
.
I mean at one point, like thecity of Salt Lake they're one of

(58:52):
their planners had an issuewith our rooftop pool and like
just there's, there's, justthere was so much, there was so
many things that came up, um,but I think a lot of that is
development broadly.
Um, in so far as like there'sjust, it's a, it's a complicated
challenge doing developmentscomplicated challenging, I did
not realize how gnarly it wasgoing to be totally yeah, um
yeah, I just I mean I mean funnystory.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
I have some it's probably all funny in hindsight.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
It's all funny because it's well it's sort of
funny, because when you, I mean,I don't know, maybe it's just
like I'm a little bit older andI have a little more perspective
, but the whole thing seems alittle nutty now that you say it
out loud.
It's like you've neverdeveloped, you've never
entrepreneured, you've neverdone.
I mean it was like we justliterally made the shit up.
We're like we're gonna buildthis big place with four bars
and a pool and a gym likeliterally we've never done any

(59:34):
sounds like you're building likethe ideal barbie mansion, but
instead it's an actual building.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
I mean I mean yeah, I mean yeah, it is.
I agree, it is kind of crazy.
It also, I mean there's otherI'm just thinking of some other
like funny, crazy stuff thatlike we were in Costa Rica, we
had just started excavating,george and I are playing like I
don't know.
We're with our friends likedrinking and hanging out, and I

(01:00:03):
don't even remember we had thisreally intense water storm, like
rainstorm Remember that Filledthe entire hole.
There was a forklift at thebottom that was floating up and
George and I were like holy shit, what have we got ourselves
into?
We literally just broke groundThree months earlier.
Rooftop pool turns intoin-ground pool.
Ground pool oh my gosh.

(01:00:23):
Yeah, it was pretty funny Atthe time.
It wasn't funny, but but now itis.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
You can always laugh about something once it's been
enough time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Right, exactly, I mean it was hard and funny and
whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
So one thing that tends to be a lot of issues.
I mean, I would imagine asituation like your guys' was
like alcohol permitting in utah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Did you guys run into a ton of issues with that?

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
oh man, um, definitely yes, as a function of
the way the legislature haswritten the law um, which is
probably super easy, convenient,not at all painful.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Well, I I would actually say that, um, checking
the boxes had, like it wasn'tparticularly difficult in the
sense that, um, I think theyactually did make it fairly
clear what we needed to do inorder to qualify to get a liquor
license.
Um, you know, some of the rulesmade it fairly prohibitive in

(01:01:20):
terms of, like we discussedearly on, do you want to be a
restaurant so that we can allowkids in?
And things of that naturebecame very clear very quickly
that, based on some of therestrictions of non-bar liquor
licenses, that we needed to be abar right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Most importantly, thank you for that important
decision.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Well, it was a decision we talked about.
I mean, we did you know wetalked about that and I actually
think it, from as a productperspective, it's actually
beneficial that we are a non,that we're a 21 and over
establishment.
Um, I think people appreciatethe fact that there aren't
children here, uh, butnonetheless, um, most
importantly, if any other liquorlicense would have prohibited

(01:02:01):
the, the movement around theclub, so you would have to, you
wouldn't be able to, like, takea drink from one room into the
next, and you know you, you'reobviously a member here Like
that just doesn't work.
It's not that?

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
it's not the dynamic here.
You need a whole, double yourstaff of just transportation,
right?

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
So just walking with trades, so I think there were
there were some limitations onthat that by far and away the
biggest issue was just thenumber of liquor licenses
available and whether or not wewould be able to get one.
Um, we, we actually felt thatthe DABS and all those involved
in like the issue in the issuingof the license were fairly easy

(01:02:37):
to work with and and made itpretty clear what we needed to
do, but they have no say in thenumber of licenses that they
have to distribute.
And that was really scary upuntil essentially the last
minute, because the DABS madethe decision to essentially
require that we be ready to openbefore they would give us a

(01:03:02):
liquor license, which meant wehad to staff our hundred person
business, take on a, you know,very sizable payroll and prepare
ourselves to open our doorswithout a liquor license.
Yeah, up until I mean, I'mtrying to think I think we got
our liquor license about a weekbefore we actually opened, which

(01:03:24):
is an enormous amount of riskand trust that they asked us to
place in their hands andthankfully it all it all worked
out.
Um, it hasn't been an issuesince we've opened.
We've been it's been perfectlysmooth sailing since then.
There was definitely a coupleof month period where there were
very high stress levels aroundacquiring a liquor license got

(01:03:46):
it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
I guess I'm on like the other side of the coin.
What is something that you feellike went better, or like just
happened to have gone reallywell, that you didn't anticipate
well, as I said, I'm kind oflike always the optimist, maybe
to the point of being a littlenaive.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
So I don't know, like I don't know that I would have
set out on this path if I didn'thave like a high degree of
confidence that what we weregoing to do would be successful,
to find that it seems likethere is a genuine demand for
the product the way that we hadanticipated.

(01:04:24):
It seems like we have had, youknow, I don't know that we
talked about this in kind oflike my research phase, but one
of the things that we really tapinto as a product is we
actually provide people a senseof belonging.
There's a very like fundamentalneed for people to have a sense
of community.
We throw that word around veryloosely in day-to-day
conversation, but it actually isa fundamental like need of

(01:04:49):
human beings, without a doubt.
And so it's been veryinteresting and and and you know
and really nice to see memberswho have expressed a real degree
of gratitude for providing that, to the point where we've had
members cry during interviewsbecause they were so grateful.

(01:05:12):
We've had members tell us thatthey were preparing to move out
of the state of Utah until theyjoined Edison House.
Until they joined Edison house.
Um, we have a number of likereally high involved members who
have embraced our product andlike truly what it means, that
it's like deepest core andreally run with that baton, and

(01:05:34):
that's been very, uh, gratifying.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
No, and I can echo that a hundred percent Cause.
So as someone was born andraised in Utah I mean was raised
very LDS moved to Seattle aftergraduation where I mean it's a
place where I remember havingtalks about religion like twice
maybe and it just wasn't a thingand I kind of put it on the
back burner.
Then came back to Utah I meanno longer participating active

(01:05:59):
member.
I was kind of done with that inmy life.
But I also didn't want to goback to like my old social
circles because I developed as aperson and so I wanted to find
a community, especially peoplewho weren't necessarily from
here.
And so that's when I moved intolike hardware apartments
because I knew that there wasgoing to be people not from here
, probably wasn't going to be aton of Lds people and like

(01:06:19):
trying to find like thatcommunity.
And I found like and I moved inlike two months before covet
hit and so all of a sudden we'reall locked in this building and
like gained some amazingfriends there that I mean I
still hang out with all the timeand still keep in contact with
that are that are amazing.
And then, and still like againduring that time is when I saw
this and I was like, oh, that'dbe of cool of an idea, but don't

(01:06:40):
know if it's going to actuallyhappen, what it's actually going
to be like, and then fastforward to now where I remember
walking into the grand openingand being like, oh, like, here's
my P, like here are the peoplethat I do want to spend time
with and even in my life causelike one thing that I've
realized and had so manyconversations with friends with
is, I mean, your early lifesocial experiences and social

(01:07:02):
connections are handed to you,like literally, you grew up
going to the same place everyday with the same people and
they become your friends.
And like, if you could do thattoday, it was like, hey, we're
all going to go to the sameplace, we're going to hang out,
we're going to have recess,we're going to play four square
and dodge ball, we're going tohave music.
Like, sign me up.
And then you, you go to college, where that gets amplified even
more.
And then, all of a sudden, afterthat it's just like this cold,

(01:07:24):
I mean clean cut from thesesocial experiences, and it's
like, okay, like go, go, figureit out.
And that's really hard forpeople and it was like, honestly
, pretty hard for me because Ididn't know where to go to find
my people or to go find thesecommunities that I needed.
But to your point, george, likethat is so much, part of the
human experience is having acommunity that you can have and
I mean I mean both of you see mehere enough to know that like

(01:07:47):
I've embraced this place.
I um, I mean love coming here,love experiencing people, and
even like there's times like Imean even last week I was going
to go sit by the pool and justwork on my laptop and I was like
I really need to do betterabout talking to people.
I need to do something.
I don't know if I want to, andall of a sudden someone's like
oh hey, do you work at a companyI'm employed at?
And I was like yeah, andthey're like, oh, my sister

(01:08:10):
works there.
And two and a half hours laterwe're like, oh my gosh, here's
your number, here's my number.
Let's follow each other, let'shang.
Just continually, perpetually,keeps being a reminder of a.
It's a place that we can havethose social connections, feel
that sense of community and haveit fostered and grown and have
it reminded all the time.
So it's not like this, show uponce and like, oh, I met someone

(01:08:32):
, but people are still guardedand not there.
But and I keep talking to othermembers and other people and
it's it just keeps being thatway and I bring friends here and
they're like well, how do Ijoin?
Like this seems like amazingand and it is really such a cool
experience you guys have beenable to foster.
So kudos to you guys and theexecution and the curation and
like the ambiance and the vibeand everything.

(01:08:52):
It's kind of whatever you need.
You can find some extent hereand I know there wasn't a ton of
like natural experience beforeit, but I think you guys both
hit it out of the park and Iknow it took a village to get it
all done and like I mean, allthe bartenders are some of the
coolest people ever and theylike remember my life and we get
to sit there and bullshit and Isee my morning crew and I go to
the gym and go get my coffee ofAmelia and Kenzie and and it

(01:09:16):
and it's so fun to fun to havethat in the right people and
like and obviously I don't knowhow many people know this, but
it is also intentional by youguys, cause, like the way I met
Charlie is, I mean, I applied, Iget an email saying hey, we
like to interview everybodybefore to make sure we're
letting in the right people, andthen I'm sitting in the back of
my van.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
You're in the van.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
I think I was in Vermont or something and I think
you check that box.
So, like, what questions do youhave for me?

Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
And yeah, like you're in a van dude, you're cool Like
this is it.
He took the risk.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
I think it worked out .
But so I mean so thinking aboutwhere Edison house is now.
I mean, I mean, what does thefuture entail?
I mean, where does, where doesthis vision take, you guys?

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
I mean, we're still super focused on Salt Lake.
Um, you know we want to grow,we are interested, we're looking
at other markets.
Um, right now we're stilltuning the car.
Um, I love that story that youmet someone here and had that
connection and like became, youknow, friends and hopefully that
grows.
When I hear that, I'm like thatis why I do this.
Like, I love hearing that, youknow, because what I, you know,

(01:10:24):
I'm really like reflecting onwhat you said about how hard it
is to meet people and build acommunity.
As an adult, everybody that Italk to feels this way, like,
and I think a lot of it has todo with the world that we've
grown up in.
That is unique to the world thatour parents grew up in.
It's so easy to like and I havethe same feeling all the time.

(01:10:45):
I was laughing and you're like Idon't want to get out of the
house today, I can just sit homeand I can get that dopamine
drip by looking at being onNetflix by you know, getting on
my phone, by staring atInstagram, whatever the things
that we all do, and I findmyself getting pulled into that
a lot in a way that, like, Idon't feel good about.
And every time that I'm likeyou know what?

(01:11:06):
I'm going to go out, I'm goingto go talk to somebody, I'm
going to meet someone I alwaysleave those conversations,
especially with people at theclub, and I'm like that was
awesome, like that was sofulfilling as a human.
Like I don't know what it is, Iknow it's something in our
software and our brain, but itjust like really fills me up and

(01:11:27):
but I always feel that pull.
That's like I don't want to dothis today, like this is, you
know, this is I want to sit home, watch Netflix and I feel like
we all have that Cause.
that's that easy dopamine dripI'm tired, it's been a long day.
I don't think they didn't havethat ability to get that like
sort of cheap dopamine dripwhere they can just, like you
know, turn on Netflix.
They would be like you know.

(01:11:47):
They'd be like I'm going to godown to the bar down the street
because otherwise I'm going tosit here twiddling my thumbs you
know what I mean and like um.
So I just think that this worldthat we've grown up in is is
sort of dangerous from thatperspective.
It's kind of a honeypot and Ifind myself even challenged with
that and I spend all day in asocial club.

(01:12:09):
But just to I know I digress,but just to talk about the
future.
I mean we're looking atexpanding Edison House, but
we're still super focused onnumber one.
We just launched an initiativethat we're really excited about
called Clubs, which is a way forus to help build community
within the community of EdisonHouse around identities and
interests.
We've spent a lot of timethinking about what are some of

(01:12:31):
the great communities and whyare they great communities?
One of them really is proximity, when you're talking about
earlier.
If I could go back to school,where it's recess and we're all
there together, just being inproximity, builds community and
I think there's an extra layeryou can get deeper on which is
around.
You're connected on somethingand we think the great natural

(01:12:52):
things different clubs basedaround interest and identity.
We have women on the identityside women, bipoc, lgbtq.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Did I miss something?
What are you laughing about?
We have eight.
We have eight.
Sorry, I can't even keep track,but you got the three identity
clubs.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
Those are the three identity clubs and we have
Outdoors Club ConcertIlluminates, which is our
charitable organization.
I'm really excited about that.
Um, what are the last two?
Wine club and the book club.
Wine club and the book club Um,and so that's when we think
about the future.
We're still thinking aboutEdison house one, and how do we
fulfill that mission, even moreso than we have today, like,

(01:13:39):
keep pushing that forward andsaying how do we continue to
help people, build connections,build community, meet one
another, make friendships?
So when I think about thefuture of Edison House in the
far off, I see, hopefully youknow two, three, four, but right
now, really, what we'rethinking about is one being like
how do we get, how do we dialthis in and really fulfill that

(01:14:02):
mission in such a way that wefeel so good about it that we're
ready to take it to the nextmarket?
George, do you think more aboutnumber two, three and four than
I do?
I mean probably.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
More risk averse right.
That's why we're both togetherOne focus is here.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
One focus is there.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
No, but I think what you're saying is broadly correct
.
I mean, from a businessperspective, we sink so closely
that we're aligned on that.
It's very important for us toget the first one right and to
get it to a place where we canresponsibly start looking at
expansion, and I think we'reclose, but we're not quite there

(01:14:41):
yet.
I think I think through the endof the year it would be foolish
of us to start, you know,taking our eye off that ball
just yet.
But I do think, probably beforeyou will, charlie, um, I will
start to maybe push us in thatdirection.
It's a little bit the dynamicthat we have, um from a risk

(01:15:02):
perspective, and just like theroles that we play, um, but I do
think that we're very closelyaligned on where we see it going
.
You know, I think, taking thatmantra of build community, um
bring beautiful spaces to people, um create spaces for people to
connect, like that's whatEdison house is.
It's not a building of fourwalls, it's about the people who

(01:15:24):
are in it.
And I think there are ampleopportunities for us to take
that mission and press it outinto the world, and that's what
we'll do.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
I like the way you said that Edison's core
principle boiled down hiscommunity, and the more that you
can have more hyper-focusedcommunities, more nuanced
communities, more reason forpeople to come show up to ignore
that dopamine drip, thatNetflix, that Instagram, that
whatever it may be and bepresent here, I think will only
set more success, as I mean two,three, four, five, 50, a

(01:15:58):
hundred, whatever that might be.
But until it is a place thatpeople want to go like the
community is the community.
The building is just a bunch oflike bricks and $400,000 of
steel.
But I think that you absolutelyhit it on the head as far as
the priorities goes is nail thecommunity side and then I mean
replicate it once it's there,cause I mean it'd be so easy for

(01:16:22):
I mean a lot of other people tobe in your situation.
Be like, okay, it's successful,people are paying, we have
members.
Now let's keep fucking, let'sjust get as many of these as we
can, and then we can go swim inour gold coffers and go right
off into the sunset well,there's also a critical mass
component.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
I think the thing is a year from now.
The risk profile goes way downas we continue to grow
membership.
And we are growing membershipfor anybody listening.
What are we up to right now, doyou know?

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
I won't.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
I won't disclose that , but there has been a and I, I
when.
So when we first opened, wepaused growing membership and
that narrative has been sort ofmisconstrued as, uh, you can't
get in, and so that's actuallybeen one of the challenges that
we've had in growing membershipis, we'll talk to people who
said, oh, I heard it's like an18 month wait list.

(01:17:12):
It's like, no, that's not thecase.
We're, we're grateful to have alot of interested parties, but,
um, we are yeah but when we'reas inclusive as an exclusive
club can reasonably be.
So our goal is to grow themembership to the point where,
you know, the vibe really hitsthe way that we want it to, and
it does most of the time, butthere's still plenty of

(01:17:33):
opportunity for us to bringpeople into this building
without deteriorating thequality of the product.
In fact, I think the moremembers we can add, at least for
the time being, the moredynamic the community is going
to be.
And that's kind of the pointI'm making, which is, as we
mature the community and themembership, the more
self-sustaining the businessbecomes, and at that time it

(01:17:57):
would be responsible for us tothen be able to look elsewhere
to expand the business.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
And I mean, on that point, like one of the great
learnings I think we had is thatthe this building is freaking
big and it swallows people.
Like we had 250 people herelast Friday.
I want to say it was at the.
Was that country night?
We had a country night.
It was really fun.
I'm probably 250 people checkin and the building had energy,

(01:18:22):
but it was not full by any means.
Yeah, and that's that's likekind of a double-edged sword for
us, like it's really excitingbecause it means that we can
have more members than weoriginally thought when we first
built the business model, andthe other side of is we need to
make sure that we grow andmaintain that energy because the
building can swallow people.

Speaker 1 (01:18:41):
It's just so big oh, without a doubt, especially with
like summer's.
Now here the roof is is popping, yeah, and because I remember
when I first started coming likeI mean on the weekend it would
be busy, especially when it wasnew, yeah, but then you'd come
on a weekday and be like I thinkI might be the only person here
there's probably a hundredpeople in the building.
Even more so too and like that'sI love, and like there's a

(01:19:01):
story I'll share with you.
Where it was was a mother no,it was Easter, and it was me and
three friends and we were alittle hungover and we just
wanted to get brunch somewhere.
Yeah, and so I'm hopping on thephone calling every typical
brunch spot in Salt Lake.
They're like, let me make onequick call, edison, there's a

(01:19:28):
table waiting for you.
We walk in, we sit down, wehave brunch and we have this
space to ourselves.
It's nice.
If I want to go sit around with20 people and have that like
drunken, kind of like let's callit ragey night like you can

(01:19:51):
have that too.
Or if you want to come see ashow, or like like there's
something for everyone.
And like the other thing I wasgoing to add to what you guys
were talking about is kind oflike what you've been curating
is like the diversity is soamazingly done because, like if
you walk into I mean the countryclub, for example it's going to
be a bunch of stuffy old whitepeople that are just pretentious

(01:20:12):
and hate each other.
And if you remember there andyou don't feel differently, then
prove me wrong.
But we're here.
It's like oh, I walk in and Isee like everybody from the age
of 21 to like 61 and there'speople covered in tattoos,
there's people not covered intattoos and like it just the
diversity and seeing the peoplehas been really awesome, cause I
was kind of one of the oneworries I had before I joined is

(01:20:34):
like I'm like what is this?
Could just going to be like myhigh school friends and carbon
copies of them, but absolutelywrong, like it's been every
walking way of life.
But it's also like good people.
So it's not just this likerevolving door of whoever wants
to come, but it's like goodpeople, but good, very different
people.
Um, to create this likefoundation of community.

Speaker 3 (01:20:53):
Yeah, we've.
We've worked really hard andintentional on that.
Um, we are broadly way morediverse than Salt Lake is, uh,
and when it comes to industrytoo, which you know is at least
for me personally, when I was inChicago in finance, I ran in
finance circles From an industryperspective, no single industry
makes up more than 15% of ourmembership, and that adds

(01:21:17):
another really interestingdynamic where you just run into
people you would never run into.
I have a friend here, stu, andhe runs a mountaineering film
festival, of all things Right,and I'm like I would never run
into to Stuart and he's like thecoolest, most interesting cat
on the planet and I love thatsort of bouncing into people

(01:21:37):
that are not the type that you'dnormally have in your orbit,
and then all of them to yourpoint.
We work really hard to curate onfour different axes and it
sounds sort of like a little bitcliche or tchotchke but it
works and we really believe itwhich is we look for people who
are interesting, social and kind, and those are the three things

(01:21:59):
that we look for in people.
And the last one is authentic,which is just be yourself beyond
those four things, and we foundthat to work really well,
because those are the types ofpeople you want to be around.
You want to be around peoplewho are interesting and social
and they're just nice, goodpeople.
Um, and we've, we've I feellike at least the majority of
our membership are veryinteresting and have a lot of,

(01:22:21):
you know, cool things to say andhave interesting life
experiences, um, which is notalways the case with everybody
in the world you know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
So it's like now that you say that I can't think I've
ever like walked in and hadlike one of those typical, like
let's call it a Karen moment,where someone's yelling at a
bartender for some stupid thing,Like everyone's like good
people, like through and through.

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
Yeah, I mean we, we work really hard for that.
I mean, we had a whole we.
We either every member iseither referred by a current
member that we know or is isinterviewed, and it takes a lot
of work.
I mean, I, our membership team,lauren, who's our head of
membership, is amazing.
Um, uh, lindsay, who's ourcommunity manager, is amazing.
They've interviewed probably, Imean a lot, a lot of people.

(01:23:08):
They've they've done hundredsof hours of interviews, probably
, or a hundred hours ofinterviews, whatever.
It is More than that, more thanthat, yeah, a lot of interview
time.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
Um, most popular people in Salt Lake by this time
.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
She knows everything.
She says she's gotten bribed.
I mean, she has a bunch offunny stories about that.
Um, listen, I suck, but youtake a thousand dollars, just
let me.
But we take it seriously, youknow, and that's, that's part of
the reason that we feel uh, youknow, the community has been so
awesome, you know, so full ofgreat people yeah, no,
definitely kudos to you guys,but I kind of want to transition

(01:23:40):
a little bit and just thinkabout, I mean, salt lake city
itself, utah, utah itself.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
What excites you guys about being back in the city,
back in Utah.
Is there anything particularthat draws you back to here
specifically, or somethingyou're excited about, or just
kind of a good place to callhome for the time being?

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
Well, I mean, part of the reason we came back here is
because we understood themarket really well.
We knew more people.
There was a home courtadvantage.
We understood the market reallywell, we knew more people.
There was a home courtadvantage.
Beyond that, though, I thinkthere is a special opportunity
in Salt Lake as it relates tothe evolution of the city that

(01:24:18):
doesn't exist in most places.
The city is very different thanthe one I grew up in, and, as we
discussed earlier in theconversation, the predominant
religion here not in any good orbad way, just in my observation
has created a dynamic herewhere there's the LDS population

(01:24:40):
and then there's the non LDSpopulation, and that's that
counterculture for lack of abetter word is very strong and
that that's been around for avery long time, and so there has
always been this under current,where that non LDS population

(01:25:01):
is sort of looking for theiridentity, and and I think that's
kind of what we're starting tosee it's what we've capitalized
on to some degree here at EdisonHouse is there's a huge influx
of people who are moving here.
Obviously, there's a tremendousamount of growth and change.
I think the number of peopleliving in downtown proper is
going to double in the next fiveyears.

(01:25:21):
Right, and a lot of that isabout how does this city that
has access to the outdoors in away that no other city in the
United States does Right,there's so many sort of
geographic advantages to livinghere Um, how does that, um, how
does that counterculture sort oflike find their own identity?

(01:25:44):
How does the city sort of growup in a in a way, because the
city has been underdeveloped fora city of its size, right?
I mean, for a very long timethere wasn't somewhere you could
go and get a drink.
I mean the the liquor laws hereare infamous, right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
You used to have your membership card.
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Yeah, there's an irony there, right, but yeah.
So I think Salt Lake is just ina really interesting place
where it's like there is thisreal grassroots movement to
unpack what Salt Lake Cityreally is and really can be, and
the strength of thatcounterculture is there.

(01:26:22):
There's a lot of momentum there, um, and we're just hope to be
a part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
I know Absolutely Like I I love that you kind of
mentioned that counterculturebecause with like again going
back to like the LDS comparisonof like there's a such a strong
community there and then I meanpeople who like leave the church
or come like they still seekthat community Cause it's one of
the biggest losses from leavingthat and I mean that's one
thing I've learned kind of in myI mean like 20s is like there's

(01:26:48):
so many subcultures in Utahthat are so strong and so
accepting that you wouldn't evenknow Like I mean I think I'm
wearing a heavy metal shopt-shirt and like there's a huge,
I mean on our metal community.
There's a drum and basscommunity, we have one as LGBTQ
communities, I mean it's geekcommunity and culture Like I
could go on and on and on andthey're usually all so accepting

(01:27:13):
where if you were to just likeI mean to sound cliche and
almost boomery go on Facebookand find a group, you could join
it pretty quick and like findfriends and meet up and like
start to grow something.
And I think that's only goingto proliferate as we continue to
go forward and have people comeand try to find that community
proliferate as we continue to goforward and have people come
and try to find that community,and I think this is going to be
a nice oasis for so many peoplewho really do just want to find

(01:27:33):
those social connections andcommunity.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
For sure, it's like the way that you put that, yeah,
salt Lake's a.
I'm excited to see Salt Lakesort of for lack of a better
word grow up or evolve into alarge city.
You know, coming from Chicagoand I was just there last week,
I mean and maybe this is I don'tknow how many people feel this
way, but so maybe it's just mebut like I crave and I love the

(01:27:56):
energy of a big city, like Iwent down to Chicago and it was
like noon on a Thursday and meand my friends went out to a
restaurant, out on like the lakeand it was like or on the river
, and it was just like electric.
It was like there's a hundredpeople in this restaurant,
there's people streaming by,like everyone's having drinks,
like it was sunny out and I waslike, wow, this is so cool.

(01:28:16):
There's so much energy.
People are out of the house,they're, you know, experiencing
and walking around, experiencingthe city, and I feel like Salt
Lake traditionally hasn't hadthat so much.
I think some of it is thatpeople spend a lot of time
outdoors in the mountains andwhatnot.
But I do think that Salt Lakeis going to grow into that and
sort of take on some of that bigcity energy and nightlife and

(01:28:38):
we hope to be a part of that andI'm really excited to see Salt
Lake sort of evolve into thatsort of next phase of being a
larger city, because Iabsolutely adore Chicago, I love
New York, I love Los Angelesand I see Salt Lake hopefully on
the trajectory of pulling insome of those aspects, hopefully
just the good ones.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
You know it's always growing pains, but sort of that
big city energy, that I think alot of people really like no,
totally, and I think about kindof the macroeconomic and macro
just pictures in general that'shappened over the past few years
from COVID, especially likecomparing some of the biggest
cities before then that werethriving, I mean like the New
York's, the LA's, the SanFrancisco's, the Seattle's, that
now, post COVID, aren't, in myopinion, like in the same prime

(01:29:25):
that they were, and there's beenjust so many changes.
But then we've also seen thisgrowth of like these let's call
them secondary and tertiarycities, where I mean Salt Lake's
on the map, bigger Denver,shown growth, north Carolina I
mean not North Carolina, um,nashville has been booming.
Charleston, like these othercities, are starting to grow.
And like you look at historyand like it's not like new york,

(01:29:51):
as soon as the pilgrims landed,they're like this is the
biggest city financial hub ofthe world, everybody who wants
to do commerce has to come here,like it was built that way.
And now I see utah kind of Imean especially salt lake, being
one of those four, um, thosefront runners of a potential new
hub like that and and like toyour guys point, like those
those things you mentioned arekey things that have to happen
to get Salt Lake through thisnew identity crisis that it
finds itself in and I'm superoptimistic about it.

(01:30:13):
I love this place, I love theoutdoors, I love the people.
I obviously have a ton of bias,but I'm so excited for what's
coming and what's to growBecause, like you were saying,
charlie or maybe it was the theUtah we grew up in is not even
close.
Like I was driving throughsugar house the other day and I,
like, was sitting at theintersection I closed my eyes.

(01:30:33):
I'm like what did this used tolook like?
I can't remember and I meanthat's.
I mean you drive down fourSouth.
You see all the apartmentbuildings everywhere now and it
makes me excited and seeing howmany people come.
Yeah, always going to begrowing pains, but excited for
the future and excited to seehow Edison house is going to
play a pivotal role for, and bethat community for all these the

(01:30:54):
this, almost as lighthouse forthe new people that show up.
So I'm excited for what you'vedone and kudos for the way that
you guys have done it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:00):
Thank you, yeah, we're, we're working on it.
And to George's point, as hesaid earlier, I think it's only
going to get better too, I mean,as we continue to grow and
bring in more amazing people.
It's on a curve up which isreally exciting Totally.
And to put it in a plug, ifthere's any city planners out
there, the one thing I want SaltLake to figure out is the
public transport.

(01:31:21):
I really wish they could figureit out.
It's so hard to figure out.
Chicago's got to figure it out,New York, of course, as it
figured out.
But God, I wish, I wish I hadthe ability to do public
transport and walk.
That's the one thing.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
I think it's missing.
I miss living in a walking city.

Speaker 3 (01:31:36):
I just love walking cities, man.
I mean there's.
It's so charming, you know.
But that that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
My hypothesis is, we're going to be an e-bike city
in no time.
Because of how spread out weare, that would be radical.
Because so I actually I don'tknow if you guys know this, but
so when I was living in hardware, I lived there's a track, sorry
, a front runner station acrossthe street, yeah.
And so and I had to go down toLehigh every now and then.
Well, I mean, then I was goingprobably like three days a week
and I was like, well, I don'tlike driving because it's like I

(01:32:03):
mean, at least an hour out ofmy day gone.
And so I was like, wait aminute, if I buy an electric
scooter, I can hop on the train,I can work on the train, then I
can scooter from the Lehightrain station to the office and
then do that, and then Iactually don't lose any time,
except for like a collective 10minutes of the scooter there and

(01:32:24):
back.
And so that was the first time Iliterally like double dived
into like Salt Lake publictransit and it was good, yeah.
But once you start using tracksand buses in Utah, now you're
just like hard stop, nope, thisisn't, this isn't working, and
I'd love it too.
But I agree, like any cityplanner.
Please, please, please.
I'll run for something I'llvote for you.

Speaker 3 (01:32:41):
Same thing I love.
I in Chicago.
I rode the L everywhere.
I loved it and the bus systemwas great and I was, and I moved
back to Salt Lake and that wasthe one thing I was bummed about
.
I was like I miss being able towalk everywhere, and part of it
too.
There's density in that you canwalk to a lot of restaurants,
bars and coffee shops from whereyou live, based on how the city
is set up and that's and SaltLake is not really set up for

(01:33:02):
that, you know.
And so there's definitely a wayto solve the problem, but I'm
sure it's, I haven't thoughtabout it at all.

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
There's someone who can and will do it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:10):
Somebody else whose job it is right Exactly.
We know what we want, TotallyJust know how to get it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
So before we sign off here, kind of two quick
questions for you guys is one ifyou were to invite someone to
be on this podcast, who wouldyou want to hear their story of,
and why?

Speaker 3 (01:33:29):
d brewer's one person yeah he's the executive
director of um downtown downtownalliance.

Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
Yeah so he's and he's a great guy.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
He's really.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Yeah, he's a really nice guy um yeah, I mean, like I
I'm a big fan of, uh, I thinksome I don't know if you do you
know, uh, annie kwan and skyemerson are really great.
They're like a power lesbiancouple in town.
They're wonderful.
They're two of my dear friends,um, and they're just really
interesting people.

(01:33:59):
They actually have their ownmembers.
Uh, yeah, they are members andactually they have their own
podcast.
Actually, you should get thethree of them.
The third person on theirpodcast is Amy Redford, who is
Robert's daughter.
Oh, interesting.
And the three of them have theScrappy Broads podcast, which is
very interesting.
It's about Scrappy Broads, butthey're all just very

(01:34:20):
interesting.
Obviously, amy comes from afilm background, but Sky is a
screenwriter and Annie's workedwith Sky Hop and um, they're
just very interesting.
Um, successful people and andthey're lovely.
Um, missy Grease is kind ofcool.
She's found in public, uh,public coffee, oh yeah.

(01:34:41):
She's an interesting cat.

Speaker 1 (01:34:43):
That's a cool brand that's become so popular.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
Yeah, but I mean the truth is is like there are some
the.
The challenge is not inanswering like finding an
interesting person, it's like incombing through all the
interesting people that we knowtotally.
Um, you know who?
Because salt lake is likethat's what's happening here,
right, I mean charlie, youmentioned mickey's the first one
that comes to mind.

Speaker 3 (01:35:04):
Unfortunately, mickey galvin.

Speaker 2 (01:35:06):
Oh yeah, one of our dear friends passed away, but he
would have been great yeah, Imean I'm biased, but my, my, uh,
my friend marlo is a drag queen, is super interesting cat.
Uh, I find him, marlo, marlo's,an interesting dude.
I dig that, uh, yeah, yeah,I've come from the LGBT

(01:35:28):
community, obviously, so I'mlike I'm, my mind goes there.
But, um, you know, troyWilliams is a really interesting
guy.
He runs the equality Utah, um,and he's a really thoughtful
person.
Um, he's not just, you know,there are a lot of people who
live in, you know, the politicalworld and kind of don't know

(01:35:49):
how to like see their, you know,see the world from the other
perspective.
And he's somebody who I reallyadmire the way that he sort of
like approaches the world.
Yeah, so there's a handful ofnames.

Speaker 3 (01:36:01):
Totally yeah.
I mean, I need to think on thatone, because I have a couple of
names that come to mind andnobody really jumps.
I was like, wow, this is great.
I know if I.

Speaker 1 (01:36:09):
So then the second question is I mean, what Utah
related media or people do youfollow to?
I mean keep in touch with, Imean what's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:36:20):
The honest truth is I believe Charlie's true, for
Charlie too we're not hugesocial media people, because is
that what you mean Like from asocial media perspective?

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
I mean whether, however you want to define it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:33):
Yeah, I mean we fall like from a social media
perspective.
I don't, that's not how Iengage.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
You don't need social media, you just walk into the
social club.

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
Well, that's where it's the whole thing, right
social.

Speaker 3 (01:36:46):
Well, it's where it's the whole thing.
Right, get off the dope.
Dopamine drip.
I mean I really don't I when Iwhen now that when you ask the
question, like, wow, I actuallydon't really follow anyone on
the media side in salt lake andI and I think part of that is
kind of exactly what you justsaid, which is like I get all my
news and information aboutwhat's going on in salt lake
from the people I run into atthe club.
Yeah, I didn't know.
I mean it kind of sounds like acop out.

(01:37:07):
I mean I read, like you know, Iread the wall street journal
and I do all this sort of likemore um, I don't know us
national or global type of media.
But when it comes to like, howdo I get my information about
what's going on in salt lake?
For me it's really all thepeople I know and I run into at
the club.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
Yeah, it's a, it's a very like old school approach
and it's totally true.
Like all of the I, I'm I'mgrateful to be friends with a
lot of people who are, you know,making a difference in Salt
Lake city and I.
Almost all of thoserelationships are in person via,
you know, like legitimatefriendships.
I mean, I can throw out names,you know, like David Parkinson's
, a good example of somebodywho's very involved in a lot of

(01:37:46):
boards.
I do, I do some boardparticipation, I'm on the board
at end circle and the symphonyand opera and you, mocha, so
like all of the people who areinvolved through that, um, but
it's very much like an oldschool approach and that's
intentional, got it, you knowanything else you guys want to
plug any restaurants, friendsbusinesses.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
anything else you guys want to plug any
restaurants, friends businesses,anything else going on that
people should know about?

Speaker 3 (01:38:09):
Salt Lake is awesome, come here people.
I always it's funny, I feellike everyone there's always a
joke that it's like Salt Lake isnot that great, don't come here
, people.
Which is like I feel likethere's kind of a opposite of
the way.
I'm like let's, you know, let'sget this, let's, let's, let's
rev the engine, put some gas init, you know um but support

(01:38:31):
local.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
Yeah, don't go to McDonald's, absolutely no, don't
do that yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
But come check out Edison house, if all about, and
come meet George and Charlie foryourselves and see what all the
magic's about.

Speaker 2 (01:38:44):
Perfect, we don't leave.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
So I'm surprised you guys don't have a bed somewhere.

Speaker 3 (01:38:53):
Oh we should.
I've never slept here.
We got, we got wine Wednesdaytonight and then trivia, so the
club will be rocking.

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
Wednesdays are, Wednesdays are fun.
There we go.
Um well, both of you thank youso much for the time.
It has been amazing, just getto know you both better and hear
more about the story of Edisonhouse and, yeah, everyone's
grateful for those that havebeen involved and hopefully just
keep selling, being more of thegreat place that it is.

Speaker 3 (01:39:11):
Thank you, thank you for being a supporter and a
member so gladly all day, ahundred percent.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
Thank you so much for listening to this week's
episode of small lake citypodcast.
Don't forget to like, follow,review, subscribe and share this
episode with your friends andwe'll catch you next week.
We'll see you there.

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Vault Episode 1: Edison House - George and Charlie Cardon

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Vault Episode 1: Edison House - George and Charlie Cardon