Ep 168: Feelings Check-In on Product Market Fit with Ben Rubin

[00:00] The Feelings Check-In is a podcast for people who love to listen to two women overshare about the challenges of building a business, navigating careers in tech, and trying to have a personal life. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No. No. [00:20] Just boy stuff. [00:21] Hi. Hi. Here we are. This is the feelings check-in. This is a [00:28] Mm-hmm. [00:29] podcast if you didn't know sure is this is a podcast where dina and i talk about our feelings and we bring on friends and very smart people to talk about their feelings and their businesses and their lives and we have a very special guest today we had on ben rubin who is a serial entrepreneur he is one of the founders of [00:54] meerkat [00:55] And... [00:56] house party two pretty household names in the social app [01:01] landscape. And he is now building towns. And really smart guy with some really deep emotional intelligence around his work, which I always appreciate. Yeah, I agree. High EQ guy. Yeah, today's conversation is spiritually centered in [01:17] the idea of product market fit. [01:18] PMF. And the holy grail for tech entrepreneurs finding PMF. And it's something that we think about all the time, constantly. All the time. So you're going to hear an interview from him. And then Dina and I are going to share some of our own feelings about

[01:36] PMF. I will say product market fit. [01:41] Kate... [01:42] Our lovely Kate. Mm-hmm. [01:43] She was like, I have a meme concept that I'm really excited about and I want us all to jam on it. And I was like, anytime. Call and I will answer. Ask and you shall receive. And she was like, I think we should do photos of different things that have like, [02:01] and then say like product market fit found or something like that. So the one that she had to start the carousel was, so it's, this is PMF and it is a, [02:10] a lower back tattoo that says skinny girl, like the skinny girl Margarita logo. And then we jammed on them and it was so funny. And one was like a Zen style rug. One was like the amazing video of a [02:27] Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain on the red carpet where he's like kissing her arm and it's like very sensual. Anyway, really funny and like had such a fun time, all of us jamming on this. And then it performed really bad. It performed really bad. Yeah, that wasn't one of our winners. They're not all going to be. [02:46] Oh, man. You're going to have some. But I would say that sometimes... It didn't have product market fit. It didn't have product market fit. But sometimes... [02:54] it's all about the friends you make along the way. We had a great time doing it. And that's what mattered for that one. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Give it a listen. [03:03] Hey, Natasha. So a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help you along the way. If you're ready to check out

[03:33] to kraken.com backslash boys club and see what crypto can be not investment advice crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to us customers through payward interactive inc [03:45] On today's podcast, we have Ben Rubin. Ben is the CEO and co-founder of Towns, a decentralized messaging platform. Prior to Towns, Ben founded two venture-backed startups, Houseparty and Meerkat, which listeners may recognize. Scaled to many [04:04] many millions of users. Houseparty was acquired by Epic Games in 2019. Now you're a Web3 consumer social guy and we're excited to chat with you about that. Welcome to the show, Ben. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Dina. [04:18] We're super excited to talk with you. Without gassing you up too much, I have heard from many people that you are one of the best thinkers when it comes to social applications. You think a lot about user experience and digital spaces. I know that your background is in architecture and you've kind of moved that thinking into how people engage and interact online. So I want to start with your background a little bit. [04:48] engage with those platforms. [04:49] Yeah, you got to kind of the guiding force, I guess, of all of it, which is the architecture. I always wanted to be an architect since I was a kid. I always knew I'm going to be an architect. I think the one thing that was different is that I think in third year or something like that, I was just like, I think digital buildings could be cooler. And there is much more to build and explore and rethink when people just like walk around with a portal to different, you know, engagement in their pocket.

[05:19] we and I don't like that kind of takes away from being present but I think there is a sense of togetherness that can only be manifested when not everybody is in the same room and in a sense that's I don't know that's been like a motivating factor for me for the longest time like for I don't know maybe 13 years I left school to build this so I really care about create I don't know why I don't [05:49] feel with whatever it is that we're doing that other people are not doing. Hey, that's a really bad type of honesty. No, it is. It's true. You know, it might as well acknowledge that, right? So I think, you know, I understand the shape of the whole, but I still don't know why it's there. That's kind of a life journey. But for me, bringing people together and finding opportunities, how to create interesting dynamics, it's something that I find a lot of creativity and energy and [06:19] To me, it's very satisfying. Can we talk a little bit, just for folks who aren't familiar, what Meerkat and House Party were? They were very much household names in the consumer social landscape when they were started. And I think what sets you apart from a lot of [06:34] maybe other founders of Web3 is that you have... [06:37] built and scaled an app with millions and millions of users. So can you just quickly tell us a little bit about what those two products were? And then I want to pivot into what you're doing with Towns right now. So coming out of architecture school, what I wanted to do is just to do live presence of people on the phone. So I started the company called Life on Air.

[06:57] And live on air, we tried so many ways to do live streaming on the internet. And at the time, there was like so many ways to go live on the internet. And after like two, three failed tries with different products that we introduced, we kind of understood the funnels or like basically like how many steps it takes the user to get excited about something. And we realized that [07:21] Okay, the problem is that people don't really want to build another social graph [07:26] in your platform. [07:28] Thank you. [07:29] So, Mirka was... [07:33] an attempt to create a one button go live to all your Twitter followers. That's what it was. [07:40] And we were able to do it, like first time was like two clicks because you needed to opt your user. But after that, it's literally one click go live and all your followers see it. [07:51] And the reason it works is because we made a lot of assumptions that correlate to how people use Twitter, meaning, you know, oh, if you're watching somebody's live stream and you're commenting, that should be a reply to the tweet or... [08:06] you know, and how to use hashtags and other things that kind of worked really well within Twitter. [08:11] And it made every live stream become viral in a way that people felt like it makes sense. You know, nobody was like, why is it doing these things on my behalf? Or this doesn't make sense. This is spamming. There was also a lot of, I guess, intention in how we organize the user interface. It's the first product that had, you know, the people who are watching you on the interface.

[08:31] which is now kind of like something that happens everywhere. And also to take a lot of social [08:37] like location, geotagging, hashtags and things like that. Oh, cameos. Cameos into live stream, that's like Meerkat OG, like [08:46] picking up somebody from the waters and bringing them on stage. [08:50] A lot of what you're describing is sort of [08:52] what [08:53] live on Instagram looks like today. Yeah, no, this is this is like the blueprint. Yeah, this is like the blueprint for those things. And at the time, it was like insane for people, you know, just like, it was like, whoa, I get to go live and see all these people and I bring them on stage and I can tag the location. And that was a lot of fun. Same with house party. It was like the precursor to [09:15] group video chat to video face video chat yeah which we we all use now so now you know how you have the equal parts we have it right now equal parts [09:25] And this is just 2016, so it's not that long ago, even though maybe it's eight years, so it is. But it's like there wasn't group FaceTime. The FaceTime was just like one big rectangle of the person you're talking to and you're very small, even in groups. And we kind of made it equal like a Brady Bunch. We also made... [09:45] a lot of, again, assumptions, [09:47] about the metaphor of what it means to have a space that is a party, a house party space, meaning [09:53] where there is lines of intimacy that is like, oh, these are friends and friends of friends. [10:00] but it's not strangers.

[10:02] Right? And what does that mean about how you expect the interface to be? So in the house party, any one of your friends who was live on the app, you would see that they're on the app. And just like in the house party that you can walk to Natasha and say, hey, what's up? How are you doing? Like you can... [10:19] Join Natasha. Even if she's talking to Dina that, I don't know, it's her friend. [10:26] But because I'm a friend of Natasha and Natasha is currently talking to Dina, I could join, which is exactly the kind of like, I love the kind of blurry lines of things that you can do on the product that you couldn't do. Otherwise, unless there is a real house party that is cool. Yeah. And I think these are the cool things that make me excited. I want to hear about your feelings during this time. Like you launched these two products, they don't work. And then you launched Meerkat. [10:53] And what's the timeline between how long you start picking up traction? When do you start to think, okay, this is actually working? With Meerkat? Yeah, with Meerkat. I have an email somewhere where Twitter is letting me know that I was testing it with the CTO at the time. And we were testing it on not on staging, like on production. So we started tweeting those Meerkat streams. [11:15] Thank you. [11:15] And within one day, we realized that Twitter is actually evangelizing those tweets [11:22] to our followers. So I got an email from Twitter saying like, you missed, you know, Itai's live, like tweet. And the tweet was the live stream of the thing. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is going to be explosive. Okay. Because as people are going to use it more, more people are going to know about it. And the way we left breadcrumbs is the right word for it. But the way we left the like what how it looks when the stream ended,

[11:51] Just make it so visceral, you're just wait a second, I just miss this. [11:55] live stream, you know? And I remember forwarding him the email and like, [12:00] That's going to be explosive. And within three weeks of launching, it became, I think we had like a million users. Okay. Okay. [12:10] Whoa. Yeah. That's crazy. That's insane. That is. [12:13] That is crazy. And a week after it was like Jimmy Fallon was live with Seth Rogen like and we did [12:20] Nothing to make it happen beyond, you know, just... [12:23] - The product. - Building it. - Yeah. - It reminds me of the story of the Twitch [12:27] team where they started, they had tried a lot of different streaming things first, Justin TV or something like that. And [12:36] then [12:37] the the gaming stuff was like their fifth try or something and it was kind of accidental and yeah [12:43] That's so cool. It's so fun to hear about that. I want to pivot to [12:48] to web three [12:50] So [12:51] You had all this success in Web 2. Yeah. Now you're building towns. Tell us about towns. What is it? [12:56] So, Towns is, you know, in a lot of sense, it's just still communication. You know, people ask me like, "Oh, are you a crypto founder, Web3 founder?" and I'm like, "No, I just really am curious about what is a graph?" Like, we know all the graphs so far, right? We know Friends is a graph. We have a broadcast graph that's Instagram and Twitter. [13:15] Friends graph is what we know from Instagram closed profile where you need to accept and Facebook. We have a semi-permissioned address book with WhatsApp, meaning if I have your number and you have my number, therefore I'm allowed to text you.

[13:31] On WhatsApp, kind of makes an assumption that if we both have each other's number, then we're allowed to talk. But we do not have a graph of we have a shared experience. [13:42] We're listening to this same music. We're going to the same restaurants. Our political opinions, when you think about things like Polymarket, [13:49] In a sense, it's a graph of people who are so into candidates or so into the result of candidacy or sports that they are putting money behind it, which creates actually the side effect of it is creating... [14:03] a graph of behavior, a graph of behavior that is open. And this sounds so weird, but when I think about designing digital spaces, [14:11] The dimension that is really interesting to play with is the dimension of how people are coming together. [14:17] And there is an opportunity to bring people together based on shared experiences. [14:23] and action taken versus [14:26] I have your number, you have my number, I asked you for friendship, you accepted it. And I think this is [14:32] maybe the most interesting thing to work on in this new phase on the internet [14:37] To be honest, I don't care if it's blockchain or it's a horse or carriage, like if it pulls that weight, [14:43] I'm there because that's the important part for me. I think about, you know, fan groups like Taylor Swift fan group. And now then I think about what does it mean to them? And what does it mean to me as a fan of not Taylor Swift, but I can [14:58] I do have a couple bands of them as exciting as a Taylor Swift band on. But the reason I bring Taylor Swift is because Live Nation actually have some experiments where in order to combat bots,

[15:10] They enumerate the action of purchasing a Taylor Swift ticket, and actually the same user going and checking in into the stadium. [15:18] as a transaction on chain [15:20] in order to have an understanding that is, oh, who is a real purchaser and who is a bot purchaser. The reason I'm bringing Taylor Swift is because here's an example of some proof of attendance that can be spawned into a fan group that is, [15:36] Only people who went to three out of ten universities [15:39] latest Taylor Swift shows can join this group. [15:43] and what kind of conversation [15:46] is going to happen there. I know Natasha and I think I will speak to you and I speak to myself, I don't think we will ever join a group of like New York foodies. [15:55] It's just random that anyone can join, right? I wouldn't do it. I believe you wouldn't do it. I would not do it. Yeah, but now let me put a spin on it. There is some attempts by Blackbird. And let's assume that the market of New York is going well in... [16:12] Therefore, now there is an open graph of the people who check in to the newest restaurants all the time. [16:20] And there is a group chat that the only people who can talk are like have a right entitlement are people who are checking to most often to the newest restaurants. That is to me that's interesting. Like that's an interesting place to to actually ask questions and learn something because there is something romantic about not knowing who is on the other side of the keyboard.

[16:43] but trusting that you have some sort of interest alignment or at least you have some [16:51] you can be assured that you have some form of trust that [16:56] that they are going in the same direction or have kind of experiences that you can qualify their answer in a way that leaves you open minded, actually. OK, can I just I want to make sure that I'm understanding what Towns is doing. [17:09] correctly. So just to repeat back to you what I heard, it's chat. [17:13] and messaging. [17:14] Yes. That is gated by an interest group. [17:18] graph and so basically like a four square with a chat. Yeah so imagine like WhatsApp or Telegram [17:25] but instead of looking at the address book as the graph, [17:29] You can compose. [17:31] And it's not that it's for engineers, although engineers can go to the code and you can put together any blockchain transactions. [17:41] as you think, that represent something that will qualify. [17:46] here. And the idea is that right now I think a lot of protocols that do do that IRL kind of mapping of real world actions to blockchain, it requires somebody to be more geek on how they put together those things. But the way we are working on that from the interface perspective and where I think those things are going, my hope is that you don't even see, you don't even think about [18:11] contract and smart contract. In fact, we're in a good spot with it.

[18:15] Right now, I think to do more interesting stuff, you need to be a little bit more like configuring things, which I don't like. But I think we can get to a point soon where it's literally... [18:27] How you think about inviting people to dinner, you know, I want these kind of people and that kind of, and now you're creating this town. And all of a sudden, if people are joining, you might not know them, but they qualify in a sense that they meet your point of view about what will create a good discourse in this group chat. [18:57] that you thought a lot about the social graph of how-- and used that experience to create a flywheel effect that had this, like, viral-- [19:06] effect with Meerkat and I think House Party as well. And then after you finish those [19:12] startups. [19:13] So... [19:14] within [19:15] blockchain or web three or whatever you want to call it, a new frontier of social graphs that could be mapped more closely to interest and not just to Instagram or WhatsApp or whatever. Yes. And I never actually thought about flywheel. When we do work of thinking about the funnels of the user. [19:35] We never think about flywheel in the sense of the flywheel. We're thinking about it. Is it going to contribute for somebody to get an experience that they then go and talk to their client?

[19:47] friends about and only that's the flywheel I care about. So it's never there's a good friend of mine actually on the Internet, Nikita Bear. [19:56] who is only focused on how do you get people to post stuff. [20:00] You know, and like how-- [20:02] which is a different approach on how do you get them to decide that they're going to, they're so excited that they want to share. So like, you know what happened today? Say more about that. [20:12] So the difference is like Nikita's approach would be like, how are we building [20:17] social sharing into the experience that's as easy as possible. And you're saying, how do we make the experience as incredible as possible that they can't help but be compelled to share about it? Is that correct? Yes. And that's your philosophy around product market fit, right? Like I've heard you talk about sort of like this dinner party moment. Can you share a little bit about how you think about it? Absolutely. I think before you put a product out, like actually out, like you launch, there is only, I think, one point of view that matters, [20:47] Whoever is the head of product, whoever holds that zero to one, that embryonic stage, I guess, of the product. [20:54] because you can't do design by committee. [20:57] and [20:58] What's important in that moment is to [21:02] Ask yourself what will get you, what kind of experience will get you [21:06] to say, in a dinner table, to say, [21:08] You know what happened today and you actually share like today I did this thing. [21:13] that I wasn't expecting, therefore

[21:17] one two and three happen and then ask yourself what is the thing that you're saying [21:21] Right. And, you know, as we were going through this experience with counts a year ago, one of the things that I was so adamant about is like nobody starts today. I connected a wallet. [21:32] Like nobody starts that. Like they're just like not gonna work. And nobody is like, today I installed a PWA. [21:38] like a progressive web app to the thing. People just don't do that. But I do think today I joined a political group of only people who [21:47] bet $100 or more on Donald Trump, that's cool. [21:51] I think that's, I don't know if the group is cool, but I think that's an interesting discussion. [21:58] for everyone in the table to talk about what is the kind of conversation that is happening [22:03] inside of [22:05] a group chat where only people who made certain amount in trading over the past month are able to engage in a conversation. Could it be me? I would not be part of that group. We are locked out of that particular chat. But I think this is so fascinating. No, but just to add one more thing, like I was at my friend's wedding and I didn't have what he considers an appropriate shirt. [22:35] that he liked. [22:36] Great. [22:37] And I got like a little thing that came with the shirt because they now [22:43] put those purchases on chain, a chain that's called Aura or something. Oh, yeah. I was like, that is, I don't know what kind of sketchy places people trade, you know, Prada, Vintage Prada, other designer thing, but I will, I for sure think that there is

[22:58] something interesting where people can say, hey, I'm qualified to be in this conversation because I am either trading, purchasing, helping people buy certain products, right? In the Prada shirt chat. Fancy boy chat. I also am not in that one. Okay, it's so fascinating and I really respect your [23:19] approach to thinking about design and it's so human first and I could tell that that like is really your principle and I [23:28] I think that a lot of crypto and Web3 founders need to take a page from your book for sure. I think that one limitation could be that there's not a lot of non-financial on-chain actions that would lead to a really robust interest-led campaign. [23:44] Chat. [23:44] app. There's sure the example of the Prada shirt and the ORA blockchain, but... No, but that's also derivative of financial. It is, yeah. And so I'm wondering like, [23:54] It feels like there needs to be an inflection point in on-chain actions. [23:58] really for i mean i could see version one of towns no dina i completely agree with you by the way i agree with you and that's you know that's the biggest risk here is that it doesn't grow beyond that i am hopeful that another fun and kind of like playful place where it happens is some games that are there's not enough games that are like not crypto games that also have on-chain footprint but there are new ones and more joining where there is some on-chain footprint where i think [24:28] is interesting. I have

[24:30] stopped myself from playing games like 10 years ago. I haven't got back because I just like, you know, I get too deep into this. Sometimes I play here and there out of curiosity, but like, I do remember that it's like really hard to find other people to play online with that are at your level, even like if your level is just basic, so you don't like embarrass yourself. [24:51] And there are things that can be very helpful once people have certain skill or certain loot or certain overlapping things where you know that if you go to that group, [25:00] These are people who are playing these three games. They're in this level and are in this certain skill or have this certain loop, a loot that you're looking for or certain weapons. I don't know, whatever they is on chain from that game. So I think that's an interesting one. Education is not there. Work is not there. You got Gitcoin, but that's also a proxy for financial things. Another dynamic that I think is in play is the fact that there's going to be a lot more pressure, market pressure, [25:29] to enumerate behaviors of humans on chain because of AI growth. So there's going to be so much things that have infinite replication to the point that you cannot identify. [25:40] what's real and what's not. So there's going to be incentive alignment by the market to actually say, all right, if you accept all cookies, you're also accepting, you know, the fact that we're going to track your behavior to make sure that you're the human and nobody's pretending to be. So yeah, I agree with you. I want to ask you about what you think about the current Web3 social network. [26:00] landscape. This is something I feel like a lot of people are very excited about.

[26:05] People are claiming that it's where there's some fit Web3 social applications, like a lens or a far caster. I'm curious. [26:14] what you think about them i am very skeptical they all seem like just replicas of current social platforms that we already have they don't seem novel they don't seem particularly distinct in what they're offering to the users i'm curious if you have any thoughts around that drag them where i'm sorry unless you want to sponsor this podcast and then my heart will change first of all towns is not going to look very different than a discord or uh or slackers first you it's not [26:41] - Yeah, is that intentional? - The scars on my body taught me, my abstracted body, that you need to pick whether you innovate the medium or you innovate on the graph. If you do two, you're losing, it's too new to the user. [26:54] Okay. Like WhatsApp is a new medium of large group chat on the address book graph, which was an old graph, right? Instagram, you take the broadcast graph, which was introduced by Twitter, which at that point was familiar to people, the broadcast graph. And you put the medium of like, oh, and you got the iPhone, you got the camera, you take a picture, you put a filter, which was the innovation of the medium. And then [27:18] You put it on the broadcast graph. [27:20] Twitter was an old medium text on a new graph broadcast. So there is always this kind of dynamic where you kind of tar between medium and graph and medium and graph, but it's never... [27:33] never two together. It's never both of them together. And what's the motivation with Towns is actually create conversations that are order of magnitude more meaningful because they use this new graph that people can just come together without knowing who they are, but trusting that they have some form of shared experience so much.

[27:53] inherently this conversation should be much more substantial because otherwise the people wouldn't be here right so sure it influences some of the nuances of how you do the medium but you definitely you know group chat is kind of figured out you don't want to mess with it and as for your question about like web 3 so i really don't think about web 3 or web 2. i don't think about her at all i don't think about that i really don't think about it because it's like we're talking about [28:23] talking about music. [28:25] And nobody's going and saying, what do you think about the new marble sculptures? Or you think about these [28:31] People who are now, like maybe they do, but that's a moot conversation because what we should be asking ourselves, [28:38] what are the kind of new feelings or feelings this thing evokes [28:43] that it didn't before. Right. What kind of reflection I can have through this on my own experience. [28:51] that I didn't have tools or language before. Because I think otherwise, like, what are we doing? I think that one thing that Farcaster suffers [28:59] from in particular is, by the way, I use Forecaster. I really like it. I enjoy the sort of interest graph [29:05] that they've, [29:06] built, it's not gated in the same way that it sounds like you're describing, but I love Reddit. I love an interest graph first. I love Reddit. Love Reddit. So I'm excited about what you're building. I think that a side effect with Farcaster is that there's a lot of people that are just on there talking about crypto or in Web3. And you know, kind of it has self selected for

[29:26] that kind of person and then therefore that kind of conversation. So they're not talking about what [29:30] the marble structure invokes and what the feeling you get from the art they're talking about layer twos and layer ones and so i think that that's like a risk when yeah you're building and i i just yeah i'm wondering when we pushed past that when we stopped talking about web3 it stopped being so self-referential and start talking about whatever the thing is is that we're actually interested beyond the technology itself [29:53] So I don't, similar to Natasha, [29:56] I have not find [29:59] the [29:59] fact that some mediums have the same graph [30:03] a new thing for me, you know. [30:05] I do understand that there is a growing market that have [30:10] it's more, I guess, expensive in energy for them to [30:14] create the social conversation that they want to have in [30:19] old mediums and here that gives them kind of like a new opportunity to reach their audience much faster. So I understand that completely. [30:27] And I think that's valid, but it's a Twitter graph. It's the same. It's a broadcast graph, right? So for me, I'm looking into what kind of conversation I couldn't have had. I cannot have somewhere else, you know, and that or my curiosity always goes to not like, oh, here it's the same thing, but somebody can make money. Here is the same thing, but... [30:47] it's crypto it's not like here it's not the same thing [30:51] Yeah. It's not. You know, it's, [30:54] All the people that are checking to all the new restaurants, like that's new to me. All the people that are actually going through the same events.

[31:03] that I'm going or the same like I think that's that's really interesting. What is the overlap of all the people that are going to the Met or some museums in New York and [31:14] insert whatever it is that you're excited about. That's very interesting to me as a point of references, as I mentioned, in a group that is [31:22] not just 20 or 10 of my close friend. - Yeah, I love that. Okay, one final question here. I have heard you talk about entrepreneurship as creation. [31:32] And at the beginning talking about filling the hole in our hearts. Yeah. And I think some of the most unwell people do that through entrepreneurship. What has that been for you? How do you see entrepreneurship as this sort of way to create in the world? [31:48] I'd love to hear you talk about that a little bit. - So I think there's one meta imbalance that I think exists [31:53] which is men, we men cannot create life. We just can't. So something I'm realizing about myself is the more [32:02] I try to understand why I care about creation. And I cook and I play piano and I learn about piano and I learn about cooking and I learn about basically everything that I'm excited about. I spend time in trying to understand why I do that. And I think that if you get to build something that other people use and then it starts having kind of a life of its own. [32:26] If you're lucky, [32:28] you might get very close to the thing you will never be able to do, which is creating life. And evoking feelings, which is why I love cooking and hosting, or playing piano, which is... There is something about introducing some form of a ripple effect that has a life of its own,

[32:47] that [32:48] To me, it's the essence of why I build stuff. And, you know, I used to be upset that... [32:56] I don't go to war. [32:59] on those things. [33:00] you know in house party there was a moment where i was end of 2018 early 2019 we realized that we're not growing past the the high schoolers and i looked at all the users that are using the product [33:16] that are not high schoolers and there's people that are using our desktop product for just work. And I wrote a four page memo. [33:22] to the board about how we're going to introduce housework for work and it's going to take 9 to 12 months. And I put like four points about like why remote work is on the rise and how we're going to do it. [33:35] And the entire leadership and the board were like, no, we need to sell it. And for me, it was either I go to war or I just let it be, let it flow. And I didn't go to war because [33:46] And sometimes I reflect on it because if I did go to war, then you play 9 to 12 months after. House Party was already under Epic Games, but it grew in like 100 million users. [33:59] Only in that scenario, we would also draw a house party for work. It's like during pandemic and it would be a different result, you know. And sometimes I'm like, you know, the fact that I'm... [34:09] the way I put my energy out, like that's okay. That's part of it. And yeah, I don't go to war for my problem. Ben, thank you so much. It was so fun to talk with you. I love the way that you think about these things. And it's always fun to talk to you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Dina, nice meeting you. Really nice to meet you too. Thanks for coming on. Bye-bye.

[34:27] It's time for a more open, inclusive, and transparent financial system. A system that serves nearly everyone, everywhere, all the time. That's why we love today's sponsor, Kraken. Kraken is a crypto platform that provides a super simple on-ramp to the world of crypto with a 24-7 support team. Crypto transcends physical and imaginary borders. No matter where you are, you can send funds easily and quickly to almost any part of the world. Plus, forget about waiting times and waiting lines. You can send, receive, and trade crypto anywhere near instantly. [34:57] B at kraken.com backslash boys club, not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to us customers through payward interactive Inc. No third-party transfers available. [35:09] Great episode. Smart guy. Smart guy. I know I said this in the interview, but I really appreciate getting the opinion and perspective from someone who has built and scaled real products before. [35:23] I feel like... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is that too harsh? It's a dunk on literally every other person who's been on this podcast. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not about people we talked about in the podcast. It is... [35:36] people that [35:37] you know, we talked to just going to conferences, we're [35:40] constantly on the road and talking to different entrepreneurs. And I appreciate the spirit of each and every one of them. And each and every one has a courageousness and a go-getter attitude that I really love. And it energizes me. And that, you know, I think back even to our Indiegogo days, like working in and around entrepreneurship is so energizing. And it takes a level of Delulu to believe in the vision of your thing so much that you're going to

[36:07] sacrifice everything to try and make it happen. All that said, there are people who have [36:13] are doing it for the first time and there are people who've been around the block and I think that [36:17] he has been around the block and he's seen a lot and I think that brings [36:21] I don't know, just... A sobriety. [36:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And I think that that is just really refreshing to talk to someone who totally [36:30] has that perspective. I totally agree. And I think when you talk to people, [36:35] young entrepreneurs often myself included there is like a [36:41] manic aggressiveness around their thing needing to work. [36:46] That speaks to a naivete around entrepreneurship sometimes. And when I talk to seasoned entrepreneurs, they don't have that. They're very... [36:58] sober about I'm working on this thing. This is what I think it should be. This is why I think it's important. My experience speaks into why I think that this thing should exist in the world. And there's a quiet confidence in that [37:10] type of... [37:12] entrepreneurship and leadership and that type of founder that [37:16] is really nice to be around and really nice to talk to because... [37:20] It takes some of the frenetic, manic, fear-based energy that comes from starting your own thing and trying to make it work in the world out of the conversation. And it gets to much more interesting and much smarter, I think. [37:33] perspectives on why [37:35] why they're building something and also why you're a builder in general and why you're a founder in general. And I feel...

[37:39] that from this conversation and other more seasoned entrepreneurs, I think. And that's been really nice. Yeah. You had some feelings that came up from this pod. I did. I had some feelings that came up and I've been kind of sitting in them for the past... [37:53] bit and [37:54] think [37:55] what it boils down to is... [37:58] The grass is always greener. [37:59] first of all always always [38:02] Always. In this case, [38:05] I left the call. [38:07] being jealous. [38:08] of [38:10] from where I'm sitting, what looks like a simplicity [38:13] And... [38:14] the challenge that he's taken on, which is that he's he's building [38:18] a thing [38:19] It's an app. [38:21] It lives outside of himself. [38:23] It's a thing that he has assembled a team to work on that exists. [38:29] outside of Ben Rubin. [38:31] and [38:32] That app. [38:33] he is going to take to market and he's going to do a number of different things to market that and to try and find the holy grail of product market fit and he will have presumably [38:44] determined in advance [38:46] what [38:47] those metrics are in order to hit product market fit. He will have some metric that he's like, I need it to look like, [38:53] this number of new signups per day, this level of churn, this whatever it is that app designers all have these numbers, this cohort needs to perform in this way or whatever. And it's going to be [39:06] relatively black and white, whether or not it's working or not.

[39:10] and [39:12] He's going to go through all sorts of different things to try and make it work. And it's not going to work the first time probably. And whatever. That path will look... [39:19] I'm sure very complicated on that side when you're him. Yeah. But... [39:24] I think for me, what came up was [39:26] Sitting here. [39:27] on the other side of the fence with a media company [39:30] Hmm. [39:32] where it's much more [39:35] ambiguous whether or not this is working. [39:38] There's very little hard metrics to be able to point to to say... [39:43] as a media company, this is working or it's not working. [39:46] we have found product market fit or we haven't found product market fit. It feels a lot [39:51] more nebulous. And I'm jealous of what feels like a more singular mission to like launch an app into the world and see whether or not it works. I think also embedded in that feeling for me is [40:04] I feel like so much of finding product market fit for Boys Club and finding success for Boys Club is hinged and tied to people liking me. And I'm like, I don't, I, that's... [40:15] I don't want to be linked. [40:18] It feels like every day I'm carrying that around and it may or may not even be true. But I don't feel like the Boyzco brand is is robust enough on its own for it to exist outside of me. [40:30] in the way that Ben Rubin is creating [40:32] towns and it's going to sit outside of him. Force Club is not sitting outside of me in that way. Yeah. And I'm also jealous of that. So I don't know. [40:40] Those things came up for me. Yeah. Dina's jealous of Ben Rubin.

[40:45] Yeah, I really feel that. [40:47] I was struck by a similar thing of... [40:50] there's [40:51] Just a real... [40:52] clarity to [40:54] what he's building. And of course it's not like that when you're in it. And I'm also sure he's going to, he's going to listen to this and being, and be like, [41:01] What are you even talking about? What are you guys talking about? My path isn't clear at all. And the challenge ahead of me feels insurmountable. I don't know. Maybe he won't. But that could very well be. [41:13] what it feels like on that side. [41:14] Yeah, totally. Something that has been really encouraging in other conversations I've had with him is when I was talking about Boys Club and what we're building and what we've been up to. [41:23] and... [41:25] I was like, oh, yeah, we're bootstrapped, of course, because I can't not talk about it. And he was like, oh, you guys, you guys went on hard mode. [41:34] And... [41:34] It was a really nice thing to say. [41:36] And I've thought about that a lot because it does feel oftentimes like we are on hard mode. And the conversation that followed was basically talking about the priorities of a business that is bootstrapped and how much it's more about. [41:51] European L and [41:52] being able to pay yourself and your employees. And there's like a real business that exists here where there's exchange of money. And that feeling really something I'm really proud of. And like something that I think when I [42:07] feel all the downsides of building something that is a lifestyle brand, which feels incredibly [42:12] unclear what [42:14] sometimes the goals are and what sometimes the

[42:17] what this business is going to look like in five years. And when I talk to all my other friends who are [42:21] builders and founders that are [42:25] building businesses that are meant to scale and that are venture backed and that are in a very different sort of situation in their day to day around the thing that they're thinking about. [42:35] feels really hard and very isolating and [42:38] I'm just struck by that we're building a different type of business and that there are some good things to that and some [42:45] downsides to that. I will say one thing that happened this week that was really encouraging is one of the girls that I met in Singapore, who was like, looking for her people and found me and now we are now is like, come into the boys club fold. And she was like, Do you want to get a drink this weekend? I was like, totally. So I met her, of course, Times Square, Ledeve, for a little drink and small lips to talk about our careers and our lives. And she's so cute. And she's great. [43:10] and very young and 23 years old, first job in New York, whatever. And, [43:16] something that she said that [43:17] really encouraged me was she was like yeah I didn't know anything about boys club and then [43:22] I talked to she talked to another boys club member on Singapore and she was like, yeah, we talked for like two minutes. [43:27] or less around boys club and she was like yeah and I was just like immediately yes immediately yes these are my people and when I tell back the story of building boys club to people and like [43:36] how it started and the lore of... [43:39] of it. One of the things that I say is like, yeah, for the first year and a half, you and I did not focus on building a business. We focused on building a brand. We were just like, let's just build something

[43:49] that [43:50] got a ton of smart people in the room, and had them care about this thing. And we did that for a year and a half. We made zero money. [43:57] End. [43:58] every dollar that came in went to the community, really, like throwing parties and doing events and things like that. And like that was in an effort to build something that had. [44:07] a lot of legibility in terms of who it was for. [44:11] And that has always been our guiding principle. Like we don't really know what the business is going to look like in five years and we don't really know like, OK, media work, I guess products maybe and like doing that. But the thing that we've had a lot of clarity around is like, who is Boys Club for? And that being really legible three years later to someone who randomly meets another member at a conference. [44:32] felt [44:33] really encouraging and felt like, oh, there's some lasting power here. There's some equity that's been built into this brand that I'm really excited about. And that makes me feel not a scarcity mindset around it. [44:43] And I think sometimes it's really easy to get into what is our product market fit? And honestly, like that girl being like, this is for me. That's our product market fit. Yeah. There's a brand fit there that opens up a lot of doors, I think, for us. [44:53] Totally. [44:54] I think the counter to that could be our market [44:57] It's the three women that were at Breakpoint. But the market perhaps is smaller than... [45:04] Other than WhatsApp. A competitor to WhatsApp. Smaller than WhatsApp. Anyway, if you have the opportunity to talk to Ben Rubin about your project and being an entrepreneur, I really, really highly encourage it. I do too. All right. Thanks for listening. Bye.