WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:13.360 Welcome to the second episode of the Creator Spotlight Podcast. Today's episode is with Eric Cantor and Adam Katz from finance media company Vincent. Vincent's offerings include three weekly newsletters and a podcast. 2 00:00:13.540 --> 00:00:25.660 Their work is about keeping their audience of around seventy thousand subscribers informed on what's happening in the world of alternative investments, meaning things like crypto, real estate, collectibles, art or venture opportunities. 3 00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:38.260 Enjoy. So tell me, Eric, I guess you start. Who are you and what is Vincent? And start from the beginning of what is Vincent. Yeah. So my name is Eric Cantor. Vincent is the fifth company that I've started. 4 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:43.129 Uh, so I guess you could say I'm a technologist. I've also been very deep in private market investing. 5 00:00:43.860 --> 00:00:57.580 So I've done at this point a, a little less than a hundred, been counting, counted recently, a little less than a hundred, uh, angel and seed checks into early-stage companies, many of which were people who I worked with, people who spun off from my companies. 6 00:00:58.240 --> 00:01:14.240 Um, the way Vincent got going is in, in twenty nineteen we were seeing this, this real increase in interest among friends, family, you know, users we were seeing and talking to in, in, in different types of testing around wanting to invest in these asset classes. 7 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:38.860 And, and we're talking about venture capital, we're talking about crypto, private real estate, private credit, art and collectibles, all these sort of hard to access asset classes, whether it's because you need this specialized knowledge, um, like s- like what a couple of our partners bring to the table with, with collectibles and cards or whether it's, uh, sort of gated like venture capital is very hard to access that just because you gotta write million-dollar checks. 8 00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:52.380 And as we were seeing this increase in interest because people wanted to get into different, you know, diversified portfolios, we were also seeing this explosion of, of new managers, new asset classes, th-this theme of the democratization of investing. 9 00:01:53.360 --> 00:02:12.160 Um, and with the background of the founders, and we will tell you about Adam, we also have myself, um, who's been in the space for a while, Slava Rubin, who was one of the founders of Indiegogo as well as one of the authors of the Jobs Act which was the, the congressional, uh, legislation in twenty twelve that really opened the door for a lot of these new investment types to exist. 10 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:24.580 All that came together and we said, you know, let's go out and help these investors understand these confusing, fascinating, challenging, frustrating, profitable markets that, that we've been navigating ourselves. 11 00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:33.380 So, so that's really what, what Vincent is and why we're here. Okay. Yeah. Uh, Adam, can you give your, your intro? Yeah, for sure. So I have a legal background. 12 00:02:33.420 --> 00:02:42.380 I'm a lawyer, but, uh, about ten years ago I started getting into real estate investing and spent quite a bit of time. 13 00:02:42.480 --> 00:02:55.320 I live in Brooklyn, and so the New York real estate market is obviously very desirable and with a few good investments I saw how powerful that could be. 14 00:02:55.400 --> 00:03:07.660 And like Eric said, it's a very difficult thing to access, obviously in New York specifically, but any kind of real estate investing. That was sort of my entry way into alternative investing was with real estate. 15 00:03:08.220 --> 00:03:23.840 And I have a- an interest in sports and art and collectibles, and over the last, you know, four or five years as those spaces have become a little bit more democratized, I've done a lot of research and done a lot of writing on those areas 16 00:03:24.880 --> 00:03:37.340 and I, I was drawn to this idea of opening up historically difficult asset classes to everyday investors. It's still very much a work in progress. 17 00:03:37.440 --> 00:03:44.160 Um, you know, there's still a lot of things that are very difficult to access, difficult to understand. They're very opaque markets. 18 00:03:44.380 --> 00:03:51.740 Some of them are open to only accredited investors, some of them are opening up to everybody. 19 00:03:51.750 --> 00:04:02.540 And there's a lot of companies, a lot of platforms, a lot of things in this space that are claiming to offer certain things, and some of them do great jobs and some of them don't. And so 20 00:04:03.540 --> 00:04:19.440 what drew me to this was the ability to help people who were like me a decade ago get into this market because I do think that it can be life-changing financially if you do your research, you understand what you're doing, and you make smart decisions. 21 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:20.140 Cool. 22 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:36.460 So it's-- you guys keep talking about this like, like access and giving access to these asset classes which if I'm correct, like looking back at those-- the TechCrunch article, like the early maybe first iteration of Vincent was like a, a search engine for the- these kind of, these kind of assets. 23 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:46.280 Uh, correct me if I'm wrong. And then now it's developed into like instead of search engine being the way to provide access and, you know, give access to an audience, now it's content. 24 00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:53.980 And it seems to me like you guys have gone from being sort of a, a tech company to now a media company. Is that, is that correct? Yeah. 25 00:04:54.020 --> 00:05:05.300 I mean, you know, we're on a mission to, to help people navigate this challenging market, and there's a lot of ways to get there, right? Um, building apps is frankly what I-- that, that's my, 26 00:05:06.380 --> 00:05:13.780 my main path whereas like the, the content stuff is more of a passion or a hobby. It's not something I've ever done professionally, but I do really enjoy it. 27 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:19.740 You know, it's really like how are we gonna help solve this problem of information, of access? And like, yes, you're right. 28 00:05:19.780 --> 00:05:32.310 We've, we've built some tech, we've built some, uh, websites, we've built an app, we raised a fund, um, but really now we're focused on, on just like telling the story, engaging the investors, 29 00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:45.020 and this is just the way that we're, we're delivering that mission today. Uh, and I think the evolution is, is actually pretty sensible and it's really been consistent in terms of what we want to accomplish. 30 00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:55.010 We've just realized that, you know, okay, if approach A doesn't work, try the next one. Yeah. That's, that's really interesting. Like again, again, what I was, what I was saying earlier about how it's like 31 00:05:55.920 --> 00:06:07.219 it seems like you guys have come to this in a different way than like most other creators, but I would put you in this category of creators where it's like, you know, you are the-- you're coming from the expert angle where you've got these years of experience- Mm-hmm. 32 00:06:07.260 --> 00:06:12.676 -on the topic. So like that then... is why people come to you, which, uh, I do wanna ask about the audience. 33 00:06:12.776 --> 00:06:24.076 I, I think looking at the site there's-- you say you have seventy thousand subscribers to Vincent Spotlight, and there's the three newsletters. Uh, there's the Spotlight, Premoney, and the Real Estate. Correct? 34 00:06:24.316 --> 00:06:32.976 Um, so is the seventy thousand, like, is that total? Is that just for Vincent Spotlight? That is just for Vincent Spotlight. 35 00:06:33.056 --> 00:06:41.605 We've got about forty thousand on the Real Estate Report, and I think about thirty-six on Premoney. Nice. Nice. 36 00:06:41.736 --> 00:06:57.756 Um, and then, like, who that audience is, I'm curious if you know, if like how much of that is people who are, like, actively investing and, you know, like, engaging these activities, and then how much is more, like, aspirational, like they're just interested in the space but not necessarily engaging. 37 00:06:57.796 --> 00:07:01.036 Do you-- do you have any idea? It definitely runs the gamut, right? I mean, this... 38 00:07:01.236 --> 00:07:09.696 We've been building this audience for four years now, because even when we were doing the other chapters you referred to, we were really digging deep into... 39 00:07:09.876 --> 00:07:14.496 We, we had this weekly newsletter, Spot, which is now Spotlight- Mm. -um, since twenty nineteen. 40 00:07:14.976 --> 00:07:24.896 We also, when, when we were in more in the investing game, we were doing a lot of memos and deal analysis and, and quantitative analysis, so we were writing and, and communicating that way. 41 00:07:25.436 --> 00:07:34.056 The audience, frankly, is sort of the accumulation of all these different pieces of outreach and all these programs, and people we know and people who've seen us on LinkedIn, and it really runs the gamut. 42 00:07:34.096 --> 00:07:52.096 I mean, you know, when we ask, you know, we, we, we find that about a third of our audience is accredited investors, which means they have a net worth of a million dollars or more, excluding the primary residence, or they make two hundred thousand dollars, which puts them in position to participate in a lot more of the opportunities that we talk about and share. 43 00:07:52.136 --> 00:08:02.576 However, there's also a number of opportunities for, for investors that are looking to write smaller checks, and there's many of those. Uh, and then you've got the handful of, of folks who can write, you know, uh, uh, 44 00:08:04.016 --> 00:08:14.456 get my arithmetic out, write like a nine-figure check. [chuckles] Um, I'm not gonna say that, that, that the audience is full of those, but, you know, we, we really don't differentiate on how big is your check. 45 00:08:14.776 --> 00:08:25.116 It's more about do you wanna really get in the weeds on how these industries work, what the opportunities are, what the patterns are, so that whatever investment level you're at, you, you can engage. Yeah. 46 00:08:25.305 --> 00:08:36.525 Um, but the audience is, you know, it's all US-based. It's a third accredited. Um, it's, it's, you know, people that are somewhere on that investment journey. 47 00:08:37.356 --> 00:08:50.536 To add to that, when we've done surveys, we found that about seventy percent of people have come in already having invested in one of the alternative assets. But, you know, there's not a lot of 48 00:08:52.096 --> 00:09:05.486 knowledge overlap necessarily between real estate and collectibles and venture capital and crypto. I mean, there are fundamental investing maxims that we try. You know, do your research. 49 00:09:05.596 --> 00:09:12.536 Make sure that everything is on the level. Due diligence is important. Evaluate every opportunity separately. 50 00:09:12.596 --> 00:09:22.636 There are things that are universal between these things, but what I think we try to offer is if you are interested in real estate, you can come in and learn about all these other alternative asset classes. 51 00:09:23.106 --> 00:09:35.996 Um, and we also have found that about, like Eric said, a third are accredited, but about a third are actively looking to invest five figures or more into some sort of alternative investing opportunity. Yeah. That's... 52 00:09:36.096 --> 00:09:41.276 I mean, that's really impressive you guys have, have built that kind of data profile and that's like a... I mean, that's... 53 00:09:41.566 --> 00:09:47.656 The, the fact that a third of seventy thousand people, you know, are coming in with like the, the two hundred... That are, are accredited, that's, that's amazing. 54 00:09:48.136 --> 00:09:56.676 Um, you said, Eric, that you've been doing the weekly Spotlight since twenty nineteen, but when I, when I was looking, I've only seen, you know, what's on Beehive, which goes back about a year. 55 00:09:57.016 --> 00:10:00.996 So I, I'm curious like how that newsletter has evolved, 'cause that... 56 00:10:01.476 --> 00:10:09.996 If, you know, the Vincent itself has changed and evolved a lot in the past five years, but the newsletter is like that constant that now is your hero product, it seems like. 57 00:10:10.476 --> 00:10:18.236 How has that changed, and like what was the intent with the newsletter at the beginning, and what's been the evolution? What is it now? Is it different than it, like it was five years ago? 58 00:10:18.956 --> 00:10:28.215 It's a good que- I mean, you know, the, the, the inspiration of, of Spotlight was that, hey, we're gonna be in this market. We're serious about this market. We want to, you know, help. 59 00:10:28.376 --> 00:10:30.396 We wanna give before we take, right? 60 00:10:30.436 --> 00:10:40.436 That's kind of like how I operate in general, and, and I think it's also happens to be a very effective tactic at building trust with your industry before you start, you know, trying to sell them some product. 61 00:10:40.456 --> 00:10:53.996 So really before we even had a proper website with Vincent, we would go through the week's news and private markets, cobble together a few bullet points, and send a little memo to our audience, and that through many evolutions is now Spotlight. 62 00:10:54.596 --> 00:11:06.096 Um, but I'm sure if you went... We should go back for fun and take a look at the, you know, March twenty nineteen, uh, pulse w- and, and see what, what that looks like. But really, you know... 63 00:11:07.136 --> 00:11:17.576 Somebody asked me this the other day, uh, you know, "Why are you doing it?" You know, I enjoy-- we enjoy, like Adam and I are geeking out on like, how much did this baseball card go for at the auction? 64 00:11:17.596 --> 00:11:25.416 What are the factors in that? We would be talking about that even if we weren't sending an email about it. We would be talking about that even if we weren't trying to build a company. 65 00:11:25.896 --> 00:11:39.676 So to do this service to everyone and say, "Hey, let's let you in our thinking and save you some time, tell you what the important stuff is, 'cause we just studied it anyway and we're not gonna shut up about it," um, that just seems like a natural thing to do. 66 00:11:39.736 --> 00:11:52.356 So we started doing that, and it kind of accompanied us through these different patterns of the journey, and then a-as you said, we, we woke up one day and said, "Wow, this, this is really the most powerful asset we've built, and the one that we have fun with." 67 00:11:52.476 --> 00:11:55.536 You know? It's... I'm not gonna say it's not stressful, but like, 68 00:11:56.636 --> 00:12:09.256 I mean, we actually look forward to putting this in people's hands, and we look forward to these events, discussions, and podcasts that we do with interesting people, investors, um, and we, we take it quite seriously 'cause it's-- we're also part of that audience. 69 00:12:09.876 --> 00:12:20.932 So I think it's just an outgrowth of, of-You know, what comes naturally to us. I, I would say in the couple of years that I've been, you know, writing these newsletters, it's-- I would say the mission hasn't changed. 70 00:12:21.092 --> 00:12:28.572 It's to educate the audience and it-- keep them informed. We've certainly gone through a lot of different design iterations. 71 00:12:29.192 --> 00:12:51.852 Uh, and like Eric said, if we-- you look back at the ones from, you know, twenty twenty-one, uh, I think we've made significant improvements and, you know, in different kinds of-- different just formats to get people to get this information in the most concise and effective way possible, so that they don't have to spend the hours and hours that we spend reading about this stuff and researching it and looking into it. 72 00:12:51.892 --> 00:13:04.572 They can get in five minutes, get it delivered to them for free once a week and feel like they understand what is happening in these markets. Yeah. That's-- So what you said about like... 73 00:13:05.412 --> 00:13:13.772 Eric, I think what you said about like, you know, that you were already doing this, you guys would be like texting or whatever, meeting up and chatting about this baseball card that went for this price, whatever. 74 00:13:13.812 --> 00:13:18.132 Anyways, I think like that, that, that's like such a commonality with, with people I talk to. 75 00:13:18.172 --> 00:13:28.822 Like I talked to this guy a few weeks ago who runs a, uh, fantasy Premier League, you know, like the English Soccer League, fantasy Premier League newsletter, and it's like he was-- what, what he said was about a different topic, but it's the same thing, right? 76 00:13:28.852 --> 00:13:36.412 He's like, "Me and my friends are like the hardcore experts who are going in and like listening to the podcast, reading the Reddit posts, doing all this." 77 00:13:36.452 --> 00:13:42.292 So it's like distilling that into a, you know, a thing you can read in three minutes is like the value we bring. 78 00:13:42.332 --> 00:13:53.372 And I think that's, you know, that's not the only m-model of newsletter, but I think it's one that like, again, because to really make a good product, you have to be doing it in your own time and, and absorbing it. 79 00:13:53.512 --> 00:14:01.112 So yeah, I don't know. Did, did you like-- did you expect that like you would end up like building this kind of one... It's 'cause it's kind of like a one to many... 80 00:14:02.092 --> 00:14:09.112 It's not consulting, but it's like this one to many like... Is that what you expected to build here? Is that like- I mean, you know, startups are fun. 81 00:14:09.192 --> 00:14:18.492 You, you, you sort of find where the opportunity is and go after it, and by the time you perfect that, you realize that it's already obsolete and you gotta take it to the next level. 82 00:14:18.502 --> 00:14:29.752 So getting our thoughts together and building this like honest and, and complete sort of thorough, um, you know, communication with a broad audience, it has been part of what we've been since day one. 83 00:14:30.632 --> 00:14:40.312 If you asked me four years ago, would that be the focus right now? I, I probably would've said no. But- Yeah... you know, you gotta follow where your passion is, and you gotta follow where the opportunity is. 84 00:14:40.872 --> 00:14:50.632 And, and I feel like- Mm-hmm... you know, th-this has been the best, this is the best quarter we ever had as a, as a business, um, probably because we're doing the thing that we're, we're meant to be doing. Yeah. 85 00:14:51.232 --> 00:15:00.212 How many of you is it, by the way, who make up Vincent? We have a team of five now. Uh, so we have a couple- Okay... c- uh, contributors on the content design side. 86 00:15:00.312 --> 00:15:11.832 We have Adam and myself who run the, the, you know, research and publications. We have Slava who does the podcast. Uh, and then we do some-- we, we from time to time we'll, we'll pull some events together. 87 00:15:12.392 --> 00:15:22.672 Always hard 'cause it's like herding cats. You know, getting everybody to show up at the same Zoom link or, or, uh, physical location at time, but those are really impactful. Uh, we wanna do more of them this year. 88 00:15:23.352 --> 00:15:34.352 Uh, I wanted to ask, so you mentioned Slava in the podcast, and I, I listened to the most recent episode earlier, and I was looking back at like some of the names, people you've had on there, and it's like this congressman, Anthony Scaramucci. 89 00:15:34.612 --> 00:15:42.232 You know, there's, there's all these names where I was like, "Oh, wow." You know, I didn't-- and then I looked up, I was like, okay, Slava was, you know, founded Indiegogo, et cetera. Mm-hmm. Um, starts to make sense. 90 00:15:42.292 --> 00:15:52.492 But I think it's interesting that like there's that, and that is kind of a personality-driven thing where he is really the face of it. But then you guys aren't so much the bylines of the newsletter. 91 00:15:52.712 --> 00:16:01.012 Um, and I, I'm curious like why you've made that decision and if that's something you think about, like branding it more as like p- these are Eric's thoughts or these are Adam's thoughts. 92 00:16:01.092 --> 00:16:04.292 You know, like is there a reason why you haven't done that? And why the... 93 00:16:04.532 --> 00:16:11.932 I mean, the podcast obviously, it's like a one person recorded talking to another person, so you can't really avoid that kind of personal branding. 94 00:16:11.992 --> 00:16:20.492 But yeah, but my question is like, uh, if you have thoughts about that around the byline on the newsletters. I mean, you know, Slava is-- does have that pedigree, right? 95 00:16:20.552 --> 00:16:29.652 He started Indiegogo, which w- you could argue was kind of version one of where we're now in version three of sort of crowd-based finance. He was part of that Jobs Act. 96 00:16:29.772 --> 00:16:38.552 You, you referred to Congressman McHenry, who he knows quite well. Uh, you know, Joe Lonsdale's in there. Scaramucci fits in on the, on the crypto side. So a lot of these like 97 00:16:39.572 --> 00:16:47.112 the types of investments we're talking about, like he had a hand in making possible like ten years ago, um, and he more has that personality. 98 00:16:47.872 --> 00:16:58.352 Um, so yeah, he takes the lead on, on sort of that opinion and, and interacting with, with people who wanna like come on our podcast and share their, their thoughts and backgrounds. 99 00:16:59.112 --> 00:17:12.692 My appro-- I mean, I'm more into the sort of news you can use approach, which is just here's the important stuff, th-there's opinion on it for sure, but there's not, not trying to convince you of some way of thinking or some religious dogma or some, uh, 100 00:17:13.672 --> 00:17:16.012 you know, thesis. I do think that's interesting. 101 00:17:16.052 --> 00:17:25.512 I think we have room for that in the Vincent content universe, but it's like, you know, you wanna get something right before you go and do like five other things, and we just haven't gotten there yet. 102 00:17:26.132 --> 00:17:36.082 Oh, and to answer your question about the bylines, that was a conscious decision we made many years ago that we felt that the newsletter should come from Vincent the company, rather than- Mm-hmm... 103 00:17:36.112 --> 00:17:45.372 you know, this is written by Adam Katz or Eric Kanter. It's also somewhat of a collaborative thing, so it's not necessarily just one of us writing the entire newsletter. 104 00:17:45.452 --> 00:17:50.392 We, we look over these things, and so it really is like a company-wide thing. 105 00:17:50.892 --> 00:18:03.332 And I feel like when you can do that and build trust from the company, that's, that's gonna be more valuable than just, here's what I think about this collectible thing that happened or this art thing that happened. 106 00:18:03.452 --> 00:18:11.772 Especially because, at least for me, I think that the core of the mission isn't, "Hey, we're gonna tell you what to think or what to do." 107 00:18:11.832 --> 00:18:24.740 It's more that we're gonna teach you what's important to look for, and that it is important to do your own research and to diligence things and toTake into consideration all of the information out there before coming to a decision. 108 00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:33.820 And so I think that the way that we have it now where it's just coming from Vincent rather than one of us kind of reflects that ethos the best way. Yeah. 109 00:18:34.580 --> 00:18:45.760 On the-- kind of on the same topic, do you have like editorial guidelines you've baked in? We definitely have it. We talk about it a lot, like on a week to week, um, and, you know, just on-- in the Slack group. 110 00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:56.240 Um, there's definitely principles. If you asked me to send you like forty-seven pages of them like Financial Times, we-- that's not something we can do. But like there's definitely places we go and don't go. 111 00:18:56.280 --> 00:18:59.720 And it also evolves. I mean, we're talking about, well, what's the next frontier? 112 00:19:00.520 --> 00:19:12.300 What's the next investment area that, that our, that our users are asking for, and do we feel like we can deliver that, or how do we get there to do that? Incidentally, just as a side note, um, 113 00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:22.080 I did not go to journalism school, but I did get a Master's of International Affairs degree in between a couple of my companies. And I took a... And it was at Columbia. 114 00:19:22.150 --> 00:19:24.440 I took a number of classes at the journalism school. 115 00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:36.780 And when I finished the, the, the master's degree, I, I said to my advisor, I said, "You know, I think I wanna either build another business with all this stuff I've learned here or be a journalist." 116 00:19:37.860 --> 00:19:44.690 Um, ended up going to East Africa and having another different adventure w- more about building tech and, and a business. 117 00:19:44.760 --> 00:19:55.160 But I, I always did have that kind of interest there, and, and I'm, you know, I'm finding it very satisfying to pursue that now. Um, I don't know. 118 00:19:55.220 --> 00:20:09.080 I don't think I'd call myself a journalist, but like the, the idea of taking complicated ideas, synthesizing them, looking for truth, and then sharing it with people in a way that, that helps them save some time and frustration is, is definitely wired into me pretty deep. 119 00:20:09.540 --> 00:20:12.430 To jump in to answer your question, Francis, there's... 120 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:25.050 You know, within the worlds that we are covering, which, uh, you know, tend to be pretty discreet, you know, I don't think there's, there's areas or things that we're avoiding writing about, you know. 121 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:31.449 I think that we all... Eric and I are both interested, and Slava, very interested in this world. We're interested in the different asset classes. 122 00:20:32.080 --> 00:20:37.420 We each have, you know, our own opinions and own favorites and things that we might not be as interested in. 123 00:20:38.040 --> 00:20:55.900 But I think what, what I-- what's important is that we-- even if I might not think that I would invest in a certain thing personally, it might be something that somebody else is interested in and might find informative and might find interesting, and also it might be a good investment for them. 124 00:20:56.200 --> 00:21:10.430 And so I think that we do our best not to editorialize as much, to try and keep this, at least in the newsletters, m- a more neutral space. We never wanna say, "Hey, like this is a great investment. 125 00:21:10.520 --> 00:21:19.420 You need to get your money in right now." And we also don't wanna say, "Oh, this is a terrible investment," like, "Stay away," unless it is very obviously a terrible investment. 126 00:21:19.580 --> 00:21:31.660 But it's, it's more informative and shaping people towards what they should be looking for as opposed to like giving them the opinion that they should have, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. 127 00:21:31.700 --> 00:21:36.620 No, that make-- yeah, I mean, that makes sense. You're, you're, you're presenting this information. People can do with it what they will. Um, 128 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:52.060 s-still thinking about kind of this journalistic aspect, you know, I'm a big believer in the idea that any, any content anybody is putting out online is in competition with any other piece of content anyone could be consuming, whether it's a TV show or, you know, s- just comments. 129 00:21:52.120 --> 00:21:55.660 You're reading comments on social media, you're on Twitter, whatever. It's all in competition, right? 130 00:21:55.680 --> 00:22:09.340 And I think big picture, like macro level of what you guys are doing, you're in competition, like I said, with like a Financial Times from like a Robinhood, you know, weekly newsletter to people chatting on like Reddit, WallStreetBets, right? 131 00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:14.750 Like anybody feasibly interested in investment is like potentially spending some of their time doing that. 132 00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:24.460 And like I'm-- do you guys think about like your, your content in relation to these other things that anybody feasibly in-interested in investing could be looking at it? 133 00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:35.420 Like how do you make sure that your story stands out and people are coming to you instead of spending, you know, their hour of time every afternoon reading content from any of those other sources? 134 00:22:35.800 --> 00:22:37.380 Hopefully you're spending five minutes, not an hour. 135 00:22:37.460 --> 00:22:47.980 But, um, and maybe you're reading a few newsletters c- because we believe that newsletters and this type of sort of more intimate affinity-based communication is how people are gonna get their information. 136 00:22:48.320 --> 00:22:55.070 G- because they trust the source, they're interested in the con- in the material being covered, and they wanna save time, right? 137 00:22:55.080 --> 00:23:04.140 They don't wanna go Googling twenty-nine different stories, fighting through paywalls, trying to interpret what it means. They just sort of wanna digest. I, I'm the same way with other fields. 138 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:13.500 Like, you know, I read a newsletter in the morning, tell me what happened in the news, in politics, 'cause I don't wanna go dig into that. You know, we're not breaking stories, right? 139 00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:22.319 We're not like the first to find out about, about OpenAI's financing. What we are able to do is tell a certain type of investor, right? And it's not a big hedge fund. 140 00:23:22.540 --> 00:23:33.980 You know, we get a couple of those, but s- we're not focused on that big institutional need, and it's not somebody who just got their first, you know, uh, Robinhood, you know, app and a couple of free shares. 141 00:23:34.040 --> 00:23:51.980 It's, it's the people, the everyday people like us, like the people in between who are really fascinated by these asset classes and, and know there's an opportunity there and wanna sort of learn about it as they go and, and get exposed to some interesting and potentially, uh, hopefully profitable and, and, um, you know, learning-based opportunities to invest. 142 00:23:52.480 --> 00:24:01.980 And that need isn't being served as much. There's a lot of the inside baseball, and there's a lot of the 101 beginner stuff, but there's not a lot of like, let's call it the 201, right? 143 00:24:02.020 --> 00:24:11.640 [chuckles] You know a little bit to be dangerous. Now let's really help you refine that. Um, so that's the audience we have, and that's, you know, we feel like there's a massive audience for this out there. 144 00:24:11.660 --> 00:24:20.850 So it's, it's less about knowing some scoop that somebody else does or doesn't have, and it's more about just meeting people really where they are and where they wanna go. Yeah. 145 00:24:20.900 --> 00:24:35.008 I mean, to be perfectly frank, we don't really think aboutOther people doing this stuff, we're not, we're not sitting around thinking like, how can we differentiate ourselves from, you know, Robin Hood Snacks or Morning Brew or whatever. 146 00:24:35.108 --> 00:24:48.708 Like, we feel pretty comfortable with our place in this particular ecosystem, and we do know that there aren't a lot of people doing what we're doing and covering the asset classes that we're covering and that have our kind of expertise in it. 147 00:24:48.788 --> 00:24:56.688 So, you know, I'm not saying that we're, we're the, the best thing out there, but we don't really take a lot of time to consider what the competition is doing. 148 00:24:56.768 --> 00:25:04.628 I think we have a good idea of what we want to accomplish and how we can accomplish that, and I think we're on the path. 149 00:25:04.868 --> 00:25:20.708 There's obviously s- still a lot of room to improve, but I think that we have gotten better at it, and I think that by focusing on this newsletter stuff, we're getting closer to fulfilling like our mission, our original mission of bringing these asset classes to the general public. 150 00:25:20.768 --> 00:25:25.728 I mean, yeah, if you're spending too much time thinking about the competition, you're just gonna make stuff that looks like the competition too. 151 00:25:25.748 --> 00:25:35.548 And like I said too, it's not necessarily like direct competition, but more so the like baseline content level competition, uh, attention economy competition. Um, 152 00:25:36.568 --> 00:25:45.308 so I wanted to ask about like, again, the audience and growing the audience. So it's at seventy thousand. How, how have you got to seventy thousand? Like, what were the ways... 153 00:25:45.388 --> 00:25:53.188 How did you get like the first, you know, a thousand, first ten thousand? Was there any inflection points? Like, where have those people come from to, to your content? 154 00:25:53.968 --> 00:25:57.888 Yeah, I mean, there's been a number of chapters on them. Yeah, so the first thousand, just like people we knew, right? 155 00:25:57.908 --> 00:26:06.368 We're, we're fairly well connected in like the venture startup community, and, you know, we said, "Hey, we, we're starting this company. Sign up." And then, "Okay, we have all these email addresses. 156 00:26:06.408 --> 00:26:16.068 What should we do with them? Oh, I know, let's send them an update that might be interesting." And, and, you know, it's not so different from user seventy thousand, right? 157 00:26:16.168 --> 00:26:20.908 Like [chuckles] they still gotta put out something interesting that's compelling, and they don't care, right? 158 00:26:20.948 --> 00:26:32.448 If, if you're the seventy thousandth person, you don't really care that there are sixty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine others, right? You want it... This is like a context for me that I wanna get into. 159 00:26:32.748 --> 00:26:38.228 And if I don't wanna get into, it's pretty easy. I just hit this one button, and I'm done. I don't have to think about that again, which I do. 160 00:26:38.288 --> 00:26:42.597 You know, I unsubscribe from newsletters like almost every day 'cause I'm on a lot of them. Um, 161 00:26:43.688 --> 00:26:51.848 so I, I think we've just gone through these different chapters of evolution, and in each chapter, the people who wanna be in, you know, hunker down, and the ones who don't leave. 162 00:26:51.948 --> 00:27:04.428 So by, by a few years down the road, you really have a strong audience in, in the sense that like the people that wanna be there are there. Um, and it's really morphed through... There's a lot of, uh, word of mouth. 163 00:27:04.958 --> 00:27:08.708 There's a lot of different press and launches that we've done. 164 00:27:08.868 --> 00:27:20.768 Um, we do a little bit of acquisition through some of the ecosystems we're in, like Beehive, Spark Loop, just piggybacking on other like similar interest areas and trying to share, um, you know, that way cost effectively. 165 00:27:21.388 --> 00:27:31.968 But yeah, it's, it's... You know, there's a lot of ways to reach the right reader, uh, and they know who they are, and they're, they're [chuckles] they vote quickly, right? Getting in, getting out. 166 00:27:32.108 --> 00:27:43.668 I mean, they make the decision. Um, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that, Adam. I mean, I think that for newsletters, growth is always one of the top concerns, if not the top concern. 167 00:27:43.708 --> 00:27:50.708 You know, you wanna bring more people. And we know that there... We feel there is a large audience for this, and we've just kind of scratched the surface. 168 00:27:50.868 --> 00:28:02.848 Um, and you know, if we were to talk next year, w- I would hope that our audience would be as committed and as passionate, but significantly larger. [chuckles] Hopefully. Knock on wood. 169 00:28:03.428 --> 00:28:11.448 Um, so what about with the, the other newsletters that it's-- I think it's what, six months and three months they've been around respectively, and you said you've got in the thirty thousands for both of them. 170 00:28:11.508 --> 00:28:20.968 Is that just like people... Did you just opt in people from the spotlight, or did you like give the option, "Hey, you can sign up for this"? How did, how did you get those counts? 171 00:28:21.568 --> 00:28:30.088 Like Eric said, we've spent years in kind of different iterations of the business bringing people onto our like master list 172 00:28:31.208 --> 00:28:44.088 from the search engine, from our investors, from people who went to our events or podcast listeners, people who were early readers of, you know, what was then called Pulse is now called Spotlight. 173 00:28:44.148 --> 00:28:49.008 I mean, there, there's, there's a lot of different paths that people got in there. But we-- 174 00:28:50.088 --> 00:29:03.008 I would say j- just before we got onto Beehive with our old provider, we, we did a large audience survey, and we were trying to drill down what asset classes people were most interested in. 175 00:29:03.128 --> 00:29:14.688 And we've actually done some version of that survey, uh, many times over the last three or four years. And consistently, the top two were real estate and venture. 176 00:29:15.188 --> 00:29:29.488 And so we knew that those were gonna be the ones that we wanted to have people... You know, that we wanted to introduce as our like specific deeper dive newsletters. And so we knew who was interested in those things. 177 00:29:29.628 --> 00:29:43.468 We invited them in, and we've done a lot of work to grow those lists separately than Spotlight itself. Like where we, we have these growth programs for each one of the newsletters separately, if that makes sense. Yeah. 178 00:29:43.508 --> 00:29:47.548 There, there is a... There's always been this thesis we've had, and it proves out in the data, right? 179 00:29:47.628 --> 00:29:54.888 Like, Adam, I think you just said that, you know, last survey or one of the surveys we did, eighty percent are interested in venture and eighty percent are interested in real estate. 180 00:29:55.648 --> 00:30:05.688 So, you know, depending how overlap-- It's clearly more overlapping than not, right? So a lot of people wanna be on both of those. Some wanna be on one but not the other. Some wanna be on neither. 181 00:30:06.608 --> 00:30:16.448 Um, the broader publication, Spotlight, is kind of like all-encompassing, so it talks about a lot of different assets. The other ones go a little deeper, which some people like. Um, so again, people filter. 182 00:30:16.488 --> 00:30:24.788 You know, we invite certain people, "Hey, it seems like you're interested in venture. You wanna try this?" Some say yes, some say no, but they, they get themselves to where they need to be. 183 00:30:25.548 --> 00:30:42.280 Um, and, and we think that there's at least two other verticals that areHigh interest, maybe not as much as these two, but two other verticals that we could really engage people in pretty richly and, and meet what, what we believe they're asking us for, uh, just in the private market investment world. 184 00:30:43.380 --> 00:30:49.900 Which is... I mean, it makes sense that people are signed up for all three of them because I think one-- they all go on different days of the week. 185 00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:52.790 I forget if one's like Monday, one, one's Wednesday, one's Friday, whatever. Mm-hmm. 186 00:30:52.830 --> 00:31:00.300 And so it would make complete sense to then have two more, and then you-you're sending a newsletter every day of the week, but it's so like choose your own adventure. You don't have to get... 187 00:31:00.320 --> 00:31:11.100 Like you can be subscribed to only one, and yeah. So I th-I think that, that makes a lot of sense and like, you know, then you're only focusing on one thing. That is definitely the path that we are headed down, for sure. 188 00:31:11.140 --> 00:31:22.200 Yeah. No, that's, that's smart. Um, I wanted to ask like the next... So five years you've got to this from a, a very different start. How are you thinking about the next five years? 189 00:31:22.260 --> 00:31:31.220 Are, are you thinking that far in advance, or is it kind of just like we're, we're, we're sending, we're sending this newsletter issue by issue and we see where we go? Or is there kind of this five-year vision of that? 190 00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:39.360 Five years is a lot, but we definitely are thinking of the future, and we probably look at more like eighteen to twenty-four month increments. 191 00:31:39.480 --> 00:31:49.530 Um, you know, we believe there's a story to be told here that's really at like, at-- such as scratching the surface. So what does that look like at a, at a more, more serious scale? 192 00:31:50.260 --> 00:32:01.280 Like you said, daily newsletters on different topics so people can choose their own adventure, but also a lot more engagement around, you know, a lot of people are thinking about who am I investing with, right? 193 00:32:01.360 --> 00:32:11.160 So there needs to be some either in-person events and conferences which exist in our industry, but they're still very like primitively organized and, and thought through. 194 00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:24.600 Um, and/or, you know, some kind of club or community that you can be, you can be a part of. So we see a roadmap of eighteen months where we just do what we're doing bigger, better, um, and engaging more people with it. 195 00:32:25.140 --> 00:32:37.740 There's also a lot of, of other like complimentary components we can bring in once we get there. Ideally, you're gonna be hearing about Vincent Media on a much bigger stage in, in five years, but even, even two. Yeah. 196 00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:47.810 I would, I would add to that. We're-- we definitely plan for the future. There's always alterations to be made as you continue on, but I do think that there's... 197 00:32:47.840 --> 00:32:58.069 I mean, everybody that I talk to who asks me what I'm doing, you know, what do I do for a living, whether it's friends or people I've just met, when I tell them, there-- I see that there's an interest there from pretty much everybody. 198 00:32:58.600 --> 00:33:07.270 And maybe they're not interested in crypto or maybe they're not interested in real estate, but one of these things that we talk about is gonna catch your attention. 199 00:33:07.320 --> 00:33:11.220 And when you're talking about art or you're talking about collectibles, these things are really interesting. 200 00:33:11.260 --> 00:33:16.900 I mean, that's how I got involved with it in the first place, is that I think that these things are very interesting. 201 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:35.030 And I think that the newsletter is a great way to get people in, but I would love to expand it further and be able to tell more in-depth stories about these things and the companies and the investments and just the asset classes in general. 202 00:33:35.030 --> 00:33:49.120 And I think that that is a path that we're trying to get towards. Um, and in the short term, we definitely wanna build out our, our brand and also, you know, get to a point where we are sending something out every day. 203 00:33:50.180 --> 00:33:57.320 And then past that, just expand our offerings. You know, we're, we're focusing more on the podcast as well now. 204 00:33:57.960 --> 00:34:08.420 I think that, I think that there is a lot of interest in a lot of these asset classes, and I don't think there's a lot of other people covering them the way that we are. Yeah. 205 00:34:08.460 --> 00:34:17.500 Do you-- so right now it's just newsletters and a podcast. You know, you have a Twitter account, you have a LinkedIn account, et cetera, but it's not really a social presence. I'm wondering too if that's like... 206 00:34:17.600 --> 00:34:27.980 If there's, you know, do you expand and you have like somebody talking about these on TikTok every day or whatever? Like do you, do you think about expanding to these other media, or is it just like newsletters? 207 00:34:28.100 --> 00:34:36.080 I mean, obviously newsletters are so perfectly suited for this, right? It's, it's intimate. You can send, you send it out like once a week for each thing, and that's like enough people need. 208 00:34:36.160 --> 00:34:45.460 Um, but yeah, do you think about like getting on social and expanding kind of the media offering, the content offering in that way? Definitely. We wanna be telling these stories in, in various channels. 209 00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:56.190 I, I think we've had a pretty strong belief in do one thing really well [chuckles] and then do the next thing, which is why we haven't gotten as deeply invested in any particular social channel. Um, 210 00:34:57.120 --> 00:34:59.950 and we're, you know, we're a very small team. We'd like to hire, you know. 211 00:35:00.140 --> 00:35:09.740 If you, if you know of anybody who's super skilled in these areas and wants to create and wants to engage, like we definitely wanna go bigger now that we've got like the core team locked down. 212 00:35:10.140 --> 00:35:19.480 But yes, I mean, we definitely think those channels are really relevant to telling any story, and we should avail that to ourselves and to the partners that we work with. Okay. 213 00:35:19.560 --> 00:35:29.780 Next thing I do, I do wanna definitely talk about while you guys are both here is monetization, right? So, you know, I, I know you have ads, um, but I'm curious like what sustains Vincent as a business. 214 00:35:29.940 --> 00:35:39.520 Obviously, all of you who are involved in it are like-- are investing and you have income that way. This isn't your only source of income. That's kind of, you know, just part of the, part of the whole thing here. 215 00:35:39.980 --> 00:35:49.220 Um, but I am curious if like Vincent is sustainable as a business. Is there a, in a revenue stream that allows you to hire a whole another person, et cetera? 216 00:35:49.340 --> 00:36:01.540 Or is it like you are actively investing in the business yourselves to, to keep it going? How-- what is kind of the, the, the revenue situation? Yeah. So, um, we're pretty close to being a profitable business. 217 00:36:01.560 --> 00:36:13.399 We're not there yet. Made a ton of progress on it. Uh, we do have investors, so we do have some capital to rely on to run these experiments or to invest in a new person or a growth tactic prior to it becoming profitable. 218 00:36:13.430 --> 00:36:15.260 But like, you know, we're, we're... 219 00:36:15.280 --> 00:36:24.960 Like everyone else in the ecosystem today, you know, that, that investment better yield some fruit in like three to six months or else it was a bad one, uh, which is really different from the climate of a couple years ago. 220 00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:35.339 But, um, our revenue mainly right now comes from partnerships. So people sponsor our newsletter. They sponsor links in our different newsletters. They create events with us. 221 00:36:35.700 --> 00:36:42.168 They come on our podcast.Um, they pull us into other bits and pieces of their marketing and, and content efforts. 222 00:36:43.088 --> 00:36:50.688 Um, and that is the revenue stream we have and a revenue stream we, we believe we can grow pretty substantially. There, there's a huge need... 223 00:36:51.248 --> 00:37:02.888 Remember we talked at, at the beginning about how this whole ecosystem of investment managers and platforms and providers and issuers now, if you're familiar with Reg A, uh, have, have come to light after the Jobs Act. 224 00:37:03.428 --> 00:37:19.628 So all of those people need to tell their story, and they're generally consumed with either, you know, regulatory and compliance, which is a huge burden in our space as we've all lived ourselves as well and understand, and just running the investment operation of the business. 225 00:37:20.228 --> 00:37:29.868 So this idea of going out and getting customers and telling the story doesn't always come super naturally to them. So that's where we step in. They trust us, the audience trusts us. 226 00:37:30.348 --> 00:37:36.668 We have to try to convey some of that trust. And, and like Adam said, that, that is challenging. We've had situations where... 227 00:37:36.708 --> 00:37:43.188 We had one recently where we said-- we, you know, we looked at one of the investments that want-- somebody wanted to talk about, and we weren't really comfortable with it. 228 00:37:43.408 --> 00:37:53.188 You know, our test is, would you evaluate this for your grandmother's, you know, retirement account? You know, understanding that these are, you know, edgy assets, right? 229 00:37:53.248 --> 00:38:03.328 Like, th-there's always risk in a startup or any of these, these deals we're talking about, but you wanna feel like it's mitigated enough that these are real serious people with serious conversations to have. 230 00:38:03.368 --> 00:38:16.598 And so if it's not that, we won't even run it. Luckily, there's this whole ecosystem of providers and managers and they all want help telling that story. So that's really the opportunity for, for Vincent Media right now. 231 00:38:17.098 --> 00:38:20.888 That's, that's, that's really interesting. I think with the, with, with the ads too, it's like, 232 00:38:22.028 --> 00:38:34.068 you know, you have, you, you have good data about your audience, and you know that it's such a high value audience that, that then allows you to charge a pretty nice fee to, to, you know, to sponsor a newsletter, advertise in a newsletter. 233 00:38:34.168 --> 00:38:45.948 Um, so is that like... Is one hundred percent of your revenue these kind of partnerships inclusive of ads and events and whatever, that's a hundred percent? That is our revenue to date on the media business. 234 00:38:46.028 --> 00:38:57.098 We have, you know, had other types of arrangements in, in the prior chapters of Vincent, some of which still pay royalties to us. But yeah, like, this is, this is all we're selling and doing right now. Um- Mm-hmm. 235 00:38:57.108 --> 00:39:01.968 And this is what needs to sustain the business and, and that's really where the opportunity is that, that we're focused on. 236 00:39:02.448 --> 00:39:13.488 Do you have like a, a couple other revenue streams that you're like hoping to launch in the next eighteen to twenty-four months, or is it still like just scaling partnerships? Um, yes and no. 237 00:39:13.508 --> 00:39:25.777 I mean, we wanna get this right before we move on to the next thing, but there's a lot of services and products that our investors demand and need, and so we are open to how can we help provide that. 238 00:39:25.808 --> 00:39:35.268 For instance, a lot of people would like to take a course on being a better investor in one or more of these asset categories. We have some partners who wanna build that course. 239 00:39:36.108 --> 00:39:45.348 So, you know, do we trust what they're building and wanna launch it with them? Do we wanna let them be a partner and just sponsor us, or do we wanna actually get involved a little more deeply in the delivery of that? 240 00:39:46.248 --> 00:39:55.988 Um, and there, you know, I just mentioned courses as one popular area, but there, there's a lot of different, um, services that would make sense to introduce to our channel. 241 00:39:56.868 --> 00:40:08.328 Something that I just wanna make sure is out there is that we are-- we have no plans and we do not want to, and we are never going to charge for the newsletters. 242 00:40:09.048 --> 00:40:15.217 You know, this is something that we're very committed to, keeping the newsletters free for the readers, because I think that's a big part of 243 00:40:16.248 --> 00:40:23.368 our, you know, our mission is to, to democratize this, these assets, but also democratize this information. So 244 00:40:24.788 --> 00:40:35.748 it w- like, I know that a-- that there's a very natural thing for newsletters to start as a free thing, and then maybe they start charging and you get-- you, you pay a little bit more and you get better features or whatever. 245 00:40:35.788 --> 00:40:43.497 That, that is not something that we are intending to do. Yeah. So I, I like that, like having that, that guarantee, guarantee to the audience. 246 00:40:44.068 --> 00:40:51.568 Um, and I'm always curious when I talk to people who like are building an audience like this, like what you think your responsibility to your audience is. 247 00:40:51.628 --> 00:41:05.628 Like, again, going back to traditional journalism, there's usually this assumption of like the responsibility of, you know, X like national publication is to give readers like some version of truth, right? To this... 248 00:41:05.928 --> 00:41:12.168 The objective journalistic truth, whatever. Um, how do you think about your responsibility to your audience? 249 00:41:12.228 --> 00:41:21.188 Like what, what i-- in what level are you accountable to the seventy thousand people reading the newsletter, right? Like, how do you... Because that's kind of, you know, that's a lot of people. 250 00:41:22.508 --> 00:41:25.668 What do they-- what, what's your responsibility to them? 251 00:41:25.688 --> 00:41:40.268 You know, I mean, I, I, I think we talk to them the way we would talk at a cocktail party or on a stage or in a text message thread with, with your cousin, which is, you know, I don't know everything, but I wanna give you the guidelines to be successful in the space. 252 00:41:40.328 --> 00:41:52.628 And, you know, when we talk about these partners and sponsors, like, people understand that we're giving them a platform to introduce a deal, but you still have to like go look at it for yourself. 253 00:41:53.348 --> 00:41:58.008 Um, th-that's really the, the ethos that we're trying to, you know, perpetuate here. 254 00:41:58.328 --> 00:42:14.108 I mean, I think, I think it's a great question, and I think that it's something that we talk about a lot because we wanna make sure that we're acting with like the utmost integrity and honesty here when communicating, because we don't want to lead anybody astray 'cause this is... 255 00:42:14.508 --> 00:42:25.618 To a lot of people, this is a new and foreign world of investing. And like Eric said, there's a lot of risk inherent in a lot of these asset classes, and specifically in some of the opportunities in the asset classes. 256 00:42:25.648 --> 00:42:31.688 There's a lot of potential reward, but there's a lot of risk, and I think it's really, really important to communicate that. And 257 00:42:32.728 --> 00:42:41.928 I think my goal, and I think our goal for these newsletters, and something that we've talked about a lot, is that we wanna have somebody who's a regular reader. 258 00:42:42.368 --> 00:42:56.824 If you, if you read our newsletters every week, you will come awayNot as a expert or somebody who has a deep knowledge, but you will have a strong understanding of what is currently happening in those worlds right now, 259 00:42:57.804 --> 00:43:05.824 that you aren't gonna feel like you've missed something big that we haven't covered or something important that we haven't covered. 260 00:43:05.844 --> 00:43:18.184 And I think that that, that's what we're trying to, to promise the audience here, is that give us f- five minutes of your time to read this newsletter every week, and you're gonna come away learning a lot more than you knew before. 261 00:43:18.763 --> 00:43:26.264 It's a good proposition, yeah. I have to jump in two minutes, but can I-- I just wanna make one point that you didn't really ask about, but- Yeah... I just wanted to make sure it was in part of this chat. 262 00:43:26.784 --> 00:43:38.044 So, you know, the newsletter business is evolving, and one of the things we geek out on that's pretty fascinating is this trade of newsletters and subscribers and the economics underneath it. 263 00:43:38.084 --> 00:43:43.144 We s- we spoke a little bit about on the call. I just wanted to acknowledge that like a tool like Beehiiv 264 00:43:44.564 --> 00:43:54.864 that goes a lot deeper than, you know, the prior email system we were using that just, you know, you put in a list of emails and you sent some emails, but there was no notion of how many are there? 265 00:43:54.904 --> 00:44:04.114 How m- how much is this worth? How can you earn money? How can you get more of these people? Like, just that, that end-to-end tooling, it-it's, it's... 266 00:44:04.124 --> 00:44:11.444 I mean, A, it's, it's been very influential in like what we've been able to... how we've been able to approach this. B, it's fascinating. 267 00:44:11.624 --> 00:44:25.304 C, I think I have like 17 items on the Beehiiv roadmap, four support tickets in, nine people that I'm harassing on a regular basis. And so like, in a way, I, I do feel like a connection to, to the company. Um- Mm-hmm... 268 00:44:25.314 --> 00:44:29.524 unfortunately, I was never given the option to invest in the company, but, you know, we'll leave that aside. 269 00:44:29.664 --> 00:44:40.864 But, but really, you know, Beehiiv is a part of our operation in a, in a pretty profound way, more than many other tools that we've used in the past or are using now. And I just wanted to 270 00:44:42.284 --> 00:44:54.384 acknowledge that just as part of the chat. No, thank you for that. Yeah. I would, I would add to that, that, you know, we moved to Beehiiv last May, last June, and that has profoundly changed 271 00:44:55.784 --> 00:45:07.424 how we've conceived of this business and the business model, because at that time, we hadn't fully committed to focus the newsletter as our primary source of income and our primary product. 272 00:45:08.054 --> 00:45:20.444 That was part of the transition. We were thinking, "Okay, if this works, this could be a direction that we go down." But I do think that that w- that was a, a big part of it was, was switching over to Beehiiv. 273 00:45:20.784 --> 00:45:29.904 And, you know, I think that it, it's a large reason that we are doing what we are doing right now. It sounds like it was a pretty, like, you know, big switch was flipped. But what specifically? 274 00:45:30.224 --> 00:45:39.524 In my view, I'm gonna answer then I'm gonna jump off. Uh, in my view, it's actually just that Beehiiv understands. Like, it's, it's philosophical. 275 00:45:39.584 --> 00:45:43.913 It's not like the feature, "Oh, yeah, that button on your site's really cool," you know? It's, it's 276 00:45:44.884 --> 00:45:58.804 you guys are like backing up the business we're trying to build and all of the features and all of the roadmaps are driving toward making that more successful. And it's not perfect, right? 277 00:45:58.864 --> 00:46:11.324 You're on the quest to make it perfect, but like the, the concept, the idea is very aligned with what we're doing. That, that's where it's special, I think. Anyway, I gotta jump. Thank you for- Pleasure to meet you. 278 00:46:11.544 --> 00:46:18.344 I'll be in touch soon. Thank you. Um, Adam, if you could stick around for a second, there's... I'd love to ask you a couple more questions. Yeah. Sure. Um- Of course. 279 00:46:18.604 --> 00:46:39.354 Big one that I always like to get as kind of like something to extract for the audience is just any really tactical advice about creating a newsletter, sustaining a newsletter, growing a newsletter, writing a newsletter, whatever it is, any tactical advice about operating a newsletter that's like a, something anybody reading this who also operates a newsletter could take away and, and apply to their work? 280 00:46:40.224 --> 00:46:40.464 Sure. 281 00:46:40.504 --> 00:46:56.864 I mean, this might not be exactly the answer because I don't know how tactical it is, and, and we touched upon it before, and I think you even were talking about it, but it's you need to find something that you believe in and something that you are interested in, because I think the audience is gonna know that, you know? 282 00:46:57.004 --> 00:47:06.634 I think, I think your passion for something and your interest in something is gonna come through in your writing. And like Eric said, this is something, you know, uh, 283 00:47:07.864 --> 00:47:18.804 if you were in our, our weekly meetings, a lot, you know, Slava and I especially are, you know, talking about, you know, these collectible sales and these things. Like, it's, it's, it's what we're interested in. And- Mm. 284 00:47:19.684 --> 00:47:29.504 And also just investing. We all come from slightly different investing backgrounds, but I think we have very similar philosophies. So what I would say to somebody who... 285 00:47:29.814 --> 00:47:36.724 I, I guess this is more advice for somebody who's starting a newsletter as opposed to- Yeah... who currently has one. But if, if you're starting one, you know, you need to... 286 00:47:36.964 --> 00:47:45.224 I-if you, you know, if you love sports or you love a sports team, or like you said, with the Fantasy Premier League stuff, like... Or if you are super... 287 00:47:45.404 --> 00:47:54.304 Even, you know, I know there's a ton of crypto and AI newsletters out there, but if it's something you're passionate about, I think that's gonna come through. Yeah. I guess for existing newsletters, 288 00:47:55.224 --> 00:47:57.884 I think that two things. 289 00:47:58.344 --> 00:48:10.804 One, like, I think it is very important to know your audience, and I think that in this quest for like growing, growing, growing, growing your list, you need to make sure you're growing your list with the right people, with the people who are gonna stick around. 290 00:48:10.844 --> 00:48:22.844 Because if you add 1,000 people in a week, and then two weeks later, three-quarters of those people aren't reading or are unsubscribing or whatever, aren't, are not engaged, it's really not helping you. 291 00:48:22.964 --> 00:48:30.784 It's not helping grow your audience. It's not helping, you know, you, you as a, as a newsletter business because you, you wanna have people... 292 00:48:31.024 --> 00:48:43.704 You know, we have readers who've been reading us every week for four years, you know? And so we can think like, "Okay, those people are gonna probably be with us two, three, four years down the line." And so 293 00:48:45.084 --> 00:48:53.960 I think this kind of like grow, grow your list at all costs mentality can be kind of counterproductive. You, you wanna have the right people. You wanna make sure there's an overlap thereYeah. 294 00:48:54.060 --> 00:49:03.960 I, I very much agree with that. I think like it's not just about newsletters too. It's like, you know, venture funded businesses or whatever, this kind of growth at all costs thing is so... I think is becoming... 295 00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:09.659 People are be-becoming more cautious about it, which is good. Um, that's, uh, I guess that's a whole nother, that's a whole nother conversation. 296 00:49:09.720 --> 00:49:24.620 But, um, I did wanna ask about like maybe for, to underline the tactical bit of advice, like it sounds like you guys run surveys pretty regularly and are quite good at collecting data about your audience and like, and knowing, you know, affirming that these are the right people and probably cleaning your list sometimes too. 297 00:49:24.720 --> 00:49:28.550 Um, so my question would just be like- Yeah. [chuckles] How do you... What do you do to gather that? 298 00:49:28.620 --> 00:49:35.520 Like, what's your advice for like understanding your audience and actually learning about them so you can know these things and make these decisions? 299 00:49:36.480 --> 00:49:42.330 I mean, I think the easiest way is just like an onboarding, a quick onboarding survey. Mm. 300 00:49:42.330 --> 00:49:51.580 Um, 'cause I think that's gonna be when you're gonna catch people's attention the most, uh, is when they sign up, 'cause they've signed up for this thing. 301 00:49:51.600 --> 00:50:00.140 It's also a way to, to filter out people who might have not intended to sign up or, you know, didn't exactly know what they're getting. I think that that's important too. 302 00:50:00.220 --> 00:50:10.320 And there's, there's a give and take 'cause you don't wanna bother people with surveys too often. Um, but I think if you do it when they sign up, that's gonna give you some very good data. 303 00:50:10.360 --> 00:50:17.770 And I think it's important to know what your audience is interested in. I mean- Mm... if, if we hadn't run these surveys, we would not... 304 00:50:17.880 --> 00:50:24.700 I would not have expected real estate and venture to be so overwhelmingly like the most popular thing. So we, you know, we might have launched a different vertical first. 305 00:50:24.800 --> 00:50:31.460 But I think that knowing that made us very comfortable and very confident in doing those as our first two. Yeah. 306 00:50:31.540 --> 00:50:40.260 I, uh, so I imagine you've probably changed your survey, your onboarding survey a few times and, you know, experimented to, to make it better. What's... Can you share anything about like what's the sweet spot? 307 00:50:40.280 --> 00:50:50.580 Like is it like only ask this many questions or like make sure that you're giving, you know, radio button choices instead of a text answer? Like what's, what makes a good onboarding survey? 308 00:50:51.180 --> 00:51:00.140 I mean, keep it, keep it short, right? Short and sweet. Something that you, you can tell them, you know, this is gonna take you a minute to do, and it's gonna take them a minute at most. 309 00:51:00.270 --> 00:51:09.989 'Cause I mean, even I'm sure you've seen, but you know, even in any survey, you're gonna see a huge drop off, uh, after the first question. And so- Mm... 310 00:51:10.030 --> 00:51:23.220 you know, you gotta pick the three things that you really wanna know. And, and I think people are willing to, to click a few times and do it if it takes you 30 seconds. But, and I also, you know, maybe 311 00:51:24.680 --> 00:51:35.620 I think people have different philosophies on this, but I, I think, you know, multiple choice or whatever, giving them the click rather than like having a box is g- is gonna get you a lot more answers because 312 00:51:36.660 --> 00:51:48.160 asking somebody to, to provide the answer rather than just clicking a button is, is such a bigger ask. Maybe like at the end, like, you know, you throw like any, any additional thoughts or whatever, but- Mm-hmm... 313 00:51:48.530 --> 00:51:57.100 uh, you wanna make sure you get the information you, you need, and so you're gonna have to distill it down to- Yeah... to make sure they're gonna give it to you. No, I, I agree. 314 00:51:57.150 --> 00:52:06.740 It's almost like shocking how unwilling people are to give, to give that information. I... There's like some newsletter I was trying to onboard for recently too, and I like... I'm, I'm very patient. 315 00:52:06.860 --> 00:52:14.030 I work in new- you know, I'm very patient about this. Yeah. Sure. Like I'll entertain you. And there was like, I was on like page 10 of like a type form, and I, I gave up. I was like- Yeah... 316 00:52:14.030 --> 00:52:21.640 I'm not, I don't wanna give you all this information. Like I don't care. I'm pretty free with my information. Whatever, it's 2024, you know? The, but I, yeah, it was just like... 317 00:52:22.160 --> 00:52:31.200 Anyways, um, there is, uh, maybe just one more question I wanna ask you and then probably wrap up. Uh- Sure. A- again, talking about like you gotta be passionate about it, you're gonna be working on it a lot. 318 00:52:31.460 --> 00:52:42.160 Do you have any idea how much time you spend on this per week? And maybe it's like, I don't know, you know, I don't know if you're doing Bits at full time and that's, you know, 40 plus hours a week or whatever. 319 00:52:42.500 --> 00:52:46.320 Or like maybe you focus on focusing on just one of the newsletters you do. 320 00:52:46.340 --> 00:53:05.480 Like, 'cause every time I ask this too, I will say, people can rarely give me a good answer 'cause it's like, again, it's like this is just what I'm interested in, so like even when I'm not working on this, I am actually, you know, working on it, and then what I'm like reading for fun while eating my sandwich is like what trickles down into the newsletter. 321 00:53:05.820 --> 00:53:13.420 Um, so now I'm just rambling a bit. But yeah, my question is like, do you have any idea how much you spend on like writing one of these newsletters per week? Sure. 322 00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:27.070 I mean, so to answer one part of that question, it is, it is our full-time job, you know, all of us. Um, and but the newsletter is a substantial part of it. There's also a lot of other business stuff, 323 00:53:28.060 --> 00:53:38.880 uh, and, you know, sales and, and all sorts of fun stuff that doesn't go into writing the newsletter. So, but to answer your question, for one newsletter, I mean, it is... Like what do you count, right? 324 00:53:38.940 --> 00:53:51.900 Like do you count all the time that I'm wasting scrolling on Twitter or [chuckles] you know? I mean, I, I don't know how productive that is necessarily. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. Um, you know, I would say 325 00:53:52.960 --> 00:54:06.160 i- i- some week, like it, it also really depends on the week. Like we have, I've actually, as we speak, Spotlight is coming out right now at 4:00 PM. Um, and, and this issue 326 00:54:07.120 --> 00:54:16.580 I felt was like one of the easy, one of the best ones that I've written in a long, long time and one of the easiest ones because it was just like there's so much good stuff this week. Like so much good stuff. 327 00:54:16.700 --> 00:54:23.240 There's these great auctions, this great article about art. This, you know, big real estate news came out. 328 00:54:23.340 --> 00:54:31.040 Like there's a, a bunch of like big IPOs, you know, Reddit and, and Klarna, and then there's like S- Stripe had a new valuation. 329 00:54:31.080 --> 00:54:40.320 Like there's all this stuff, and then there's some weeks where it's like, oh my god, nothing happened this week. Like, and so you've really gotta dig deeper and be like, okay, how can I make this interesting? 330 00:54:40.400 --> 00:54:50.960 Like where, how, what... 'Cause I don't, I, I wanna make sure that the stuff is coming from that week. I don't wanna dig back to two, three weeks ago to try and find something. Like it has to be current stuff. 331 00:54:50.980 --> 00:55:02.890 And so like- Mm-hmm... on a good week, it's not like it writes itself, but like it feels more like that. Sometimes it, it takes two or three times longer because I have to really figure out what 332 00:55:04.040 --> 00:55:15.600 stories to write about and how to make it interesting and informative. So, you know- Yeah... it, it can be, it can be, you know, five to 10 hours, or it could be 10 plus hours. It re- really depends.