#021: Ronak Trivedi - How Pietra is Reshaping a $250B Ecommerce Market

You don't need to fundraise. You don't need to raise money externally to build a company. People have just assumed that every business is like the end goal is to get venture money from a top-tier firm. And I learned the hard way that in many ways it's harder to build a company when you go take money from a top-tier firm. I think what I tell founders is like, ask yourself, the best businesses in the world get big bootstrap, learn how to make money, make money from day one. Don't waste money, become big. Like there's a lot of examples of awesome businesses like that. And as a founder, That is like the holy grail, I think. You control your own destiny, you build a business with good business fundamentals, and you don't have any cheat codes of like cash from somewhere else.

[MUSIC] Ronak Trivedi is the co-founder and CEO of Pietra, one of the fastest growing companies in the commerce infrastructure space. The platform helps creators and brands connect with suppliers, design products, and set up their e-commerce storefronts. Ronak recently closed a $15 million Series A from Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz amongst others, to double down on its growth. In this episode, we cover how the creator economy is rapidly evolving, Pietro's insanely ambitious 10-year growth plan, and why he decided to raise venture capital for his vision. Welcome back. Today we have Ro Trevetti from Pietro joining us. Thanks for hopping on today, Ro.

Thank you for having me.

I'm excited about this one because I've heard about Pietro from multiple different people, and we got connected through Tiana, uh, but I think it'd be great to hear from the horse's mouth where this all started. Um, I think I would love to just start with the fact that you told me this business started as like a jewelry business, which it couldn't be further from that now. So I would just love to dive into the evolution of that.

Oh my God. Yeah, that's some PTSD. Um, so basically what happened was after Uber, um, I was like looking for my next thing. I took a sabbatical. I was brainstorming different ideas. Um, And the earliest idea that I had that really resonated with people when I was asking around was why in 20— I was like 2019 or something. Do you still need to know a guy to get a diamond engagement ring? That was like the first idea that, that we had, like the cafeterias of Uber. We were talking about it. And then the more we dug into it, it was, you know, I can't believe I'm pitching this again, but jewelry is one of the fastest growing luxury segments. I think in the last couple of years, like diamonds and like high-end jewelry had like the best year in 100 years. So it was a fast growing segment. It was yet to be digitized, like from the ground up, from the people that were creating the products all the way to how it was being sold online. And, you know, it was trailing, you know, clothing had its moment to go online, then shoes and sneakers with like GOAT, etc. had their moment to go online. And the hypothesis was this would be the next, you know, multibillion-dollar industry to go online. And when we got into it, that was like the first idea. So we're like, okay, let's go build, you know, some version of Pietra where we help jewelry designers and diamond dealers basically bring their businesses online and sell their products online. It's like the highest level. And then, you know, fast forward, we were building that. It was growing. It's like, think about like the Pietra, you know, today, which helps businesses start and operate, but it was just for a very specific segment of the market, like these, you know, high-end, like fine jewelry designers. And what we found is even in the engagement ring, in the diamond space, a lot of the, a lot of these diamond dealers, they actually make most of their money selling jewelry. Like they'll sell you the engagement ring, it'll be close to that cost. They don't make a lot of money on it, but then they'll design and sell you, you know, anniversary jewelry and birthday jewelry. Et cetera. So we got deep into that, into that space for the first year we were building. We had some success. I mean, we were growing, but as we were growing and we started, you know, we're a year in, we started realizing, okay, maybe there's a bigger opportunity doing what we're doing, but with other easier segments, right? We were like, fine jewelry and diamonds is like so difficult to sell online for a whole host of reasons. So I think like we, we had this realization and we were like, we're growing, but we're going to pivot because we think that like the natural end is not going to be as big as we thought. And there might be some idea, there might be some inkling internally that other verticals will be way easier and will grow way faster. So I think like we, you know, internally we're like, yeah, I think this feels like the right move. We then quickly like repivoted, you know, our landing page and we added a couple of categories beside jewelry and we tried to like standardize it. And as soon as we did that, I think like signups 10x'd in the next week or something. We're like, oh wait, this is definitely something we should like follow. And then that snowballed from, I think it was like jewelry, then it went to like candles. And then once we had that signal, we went into beauty. And then once we had beauty, we're like, okay, now we got to do the big one, apparel. And once we had those, you know, 4 or 5 verticals rolled out, it like, we saw the exponential curve and we're like, all right, let's turn it into the company that you see today.

And is that the current iteration of Pietro?

Yeah, exactly. So what we realized, like at, again at the highest level was we were building software and infrastructure to help power these designers to launch their jewelry businesses. So all the way from like how do they get stuff designed and manufactured all the way to setting up a storefront and selling it online. And what we realized is like whether you were a jewelry designer or a sneaker designer or a streetwear designer, the tools could be built in a generic way to help all of them. We had to build it a little bit differently, but once we realized that, we started taking a step back and saying, okay, let's make all our tools generic across different industries. So instead of, you know, working with one jewelry manufacturer or one jewelry supplier and one packaging supplier for jewelry boxes, let's turn it into a marketplace where you can work with any factory in any category and you can work with any packaging factory in any category. So the change was not that severe, like significant. From a design perspective. And yeah, it ended up working out well.

I want to talk about those pivots. Were there kind of two big ones that happened?

Yeah, yeah. One's a more recent one, less of a pivot, but more of like a refining of our customer.

So through those, I guess, refining of your customer, if you want to call it that. Yeah, yeah. You can call it whatever you want, man. But through those motions, like looking back, you can be like, oh, this clearly wasn't working, or it was kind of working. And so very calmly, we moved on to this and we moved on to this. But walk me through, like, in those times.

Yeah.

How did you get through them?

Yeah, I'll give you like the real kind of like the— how it really went down.

Okay.

There was no like, I woke up one morning and I'm like, this is what we're going to have to do. Or someone like ran through the halls and like had an idea. It's very interesting as a first-time founder, I thought, you know, I had this like ill-conceived vision of like how things work. And so one of them was, that the idea that you have on day one is going to be the one that is the really, really big idea or the biggest idea you can build. I wasn't really open to this notion that that wasn't the big thing that we're going to like commit to. And like shout out to Andrew Chen, one of my first investors who he wrote literally the first check into Pietra. He helped me understand that it's possible to have a company that people like. That is growing and that might not be as big as like the venture scalable outcome that you want or that you thought. And even though it's working, you're going to spend a couple of years and the natural kind of cap to that business is going to be something that you have to sell to another company that's actually bigger. Right. And that's what it felt like in the— like when we were stuck in one vertical, we were like, what's the natural evolution of this company? Like, we can get as big as we want, be the biggest in one vertical. but we don't have any adjacencies. We won't be able to like cross-sell. We won't be able to like invent that many different things in the next 5 years. Um, so he helped me understand that like that was possible. And so when you're growing, you know, 20% month over month or whatever, week over week in the early days, you're like, this is going to work. Like, this is awesome. Um, and then to hear someone like, let me, let me, let me tell you about like the ultimate goal of this company and why everyone is here. And like, we want to build something big and great. He didn't force it on me. He just helped me understand, like, there is a world where you are successful on a smaller scale.

Mm-hmm.

And do you want to build that company? To which some people say, yes, for sure, I want to build that company. But there's another thing of like, if you have a thread that you can pull on that's a bigger company, then you have to decide with your team and your co-founders, do you guys want to build a big company or do you want to build the smaller company and sell it? And like, you know, and so once he helped me understand that, I was like, okay, We know we had to pivot out of jewelry. It was like super constrained. And so that was like the first pivot. And that's how it felt. And like, I remember being on the phone in a phone booth in a WeWork in Dumbo and being like, and coming out being like, damn, we could like hit our seed stage milestones and still have an investor be like, this is like not going to end up the way you think. And it's like it took so much effort to just hit that milestone, right? But it really opened the eye, my eyes to like how it actually works and like what venture returns must be like. You know, it was helpful.

I want to touch on— I mean, you've obviously raised a ton of money to date, and I think this is something we were talking about previously, but there's a lot of founders who just have this idea in their mind that they have to go raise money. And I think honestly, it's to the fault of a lot of investors too, who throw money at things without actually running the hard numbers of like, wait a minute, this is not going to return. Even at a successful outcome, it's not necessarily going to return the numbers that I need as a, as a GP to give back to my my LPs. Um, I'm curious to know, like, did you raise money before you started the Diamond part of the business? And then as you continued down that path beyond that conversation with Andrew, like, what was the turning moment for you where you actually realized you had so much conviction in this being like a billion-dollar business to, to pivot and go all in?

Yeah, I think, you know, I'll be the first one to admit I thought the typical path was leave Uber, go to Andreesen Horowitz, pitch them, pitch a big firm, get a seed check, start a company. So that was like, I was naive and I thought that and we got lucky that someone trusted us and our team and our team is awesome. But ultimately it wasn't done with, you know, great analytical rigor. It was like, this is how you do it. You go get a check and then you— it's some millions of dollars and you go launch this company and hopefully one day it'll be a billion-dollar company. Now when I talk to founders and I give them advice, I talk about it in a different way, right? Like the first thing I say is like, you don't need to fundraise. Like you don't need to raise money externally to build a company. There are some companies that you do want to take on capital to spend and get to some specific scale that will eventually lead to venture-backable returns. Right. And I think what's happened, at least in the last like 3 or 4 years, is people have just assumed that every business is like the end goal is to get venture money from a top-tier firm. And I learned the hard way that in many ways it's harder to build a company when you go take money from a top-tier firm. And whether it's a medium-level firm or a top-end, like a high-end firm, none of that really matters. I think what I tell founders is like, ask yourself, The best businesses in the world are— best businesses in the world get big bootstrapped, learn how to make money, make money from day one. Don't waste money. Become big. Like, there's a lot of examples of awesome businesses like that. And as a founder, that is like the Holy Grail, I think. Right? You control your own destiny. You build a business with good business fundamentals and you don't have any cheat codes of like cash from somewhere else.

This guy's doing it right now.

Yeah, there you go.

I appreciate that.

No, it's like now that I've been in this game, I realize If I could build a venture or a bootstrapped business that's profitable from day one and can get big, I would do that 100% of the time. Now, what I also have experienced is there are some, you know, business models and companies that necessitate some level of investment to get to some scale for the unit economics to flip, for you to deliver value in some outsized way. And in that world, you have to go to the people that are willing to take on that risk of like, hey, you have to build the launchpad for the rocket ships to go into space so Elon can deliver internet with Starlink, right? But like, there's, you know, it's like there's no way to get it up there if you don't give me the money for this.

We could talk all about that with you at Uber, me at GoPuff. It was like, like, let's go raise I don't know how many billions of dollars. Didn't Uber hit profit or did they like 14 years later?

Yeah. Wasn't it 14?

How many years is it? 14?

Yeah.

Something like the last quarter that they were profitable.

Yeah, I think last quarter they—

good on them.

I just like to then try and go back to day one to be like having a vision for a business where it's like go to an investor, I envision this business to be profitable between like year 10 and year 15.

Look, I think there's a— yeah, I mean, you can look at it in two ways. Like look at Lyft's market cap right now versus Uber's. Like it's— I'm, you know, I'm obviously biased, but I look at it and say you know, over a long period of time, they execute on a lot of their goals and they are now profitable and they're a huge company and their main competitor that took a lot of different decisions along the way, maybe some would say safer decisions, are a lot smaller of a company. And I think kudos to like Travis and Emil to really like think, think so far ahead. And obviously that was a different world. I think most founders that I talk to aren't capable of thinking at that level. Like, those are like top 1% founders, right, on Earth. But I think the reality of people thinking that money is the only way to build a successful company with a huge outcome or a huge market cap is just fundamentally wrong. And I think, you know, I'll admit that was pumped into me the 10 years prior to graduating, right? And now, you know, I, The number one thing I say is like, do you need the money to get to a level of scale to prove out whatever you're trying to prove? Or is there another way? And it comes with some strings attached to it too.

Has essentially like market correction, I guess, starting what, October last year? I'm sure you've had a lot of these conversations maybe behind closed doors, but from whatever you can share, how have you had— how have you had to shift and grow up as an operator and as a founder? Let's start with you and then how you've actually had to change the business.

Yeah, I think like, oh my God. Yeah, I'll just be straight up, which is like, I think that so Keith Rabois joined our board and found us on our Series A. And I think like the, the single most important thing I did was like decide to accept Keith's offer and like work with him. And I think one of the things that I value in that relationship is I remember when he sat me down on maybe like the second meeting when we really got into it, he helped me understand what it takes to build a healthy big business. You know, what are the preconceived notions that I had that were just like wrong? Maybe some things that I learned that were not things that I should pull forward from Uber, right? That, you know, I would be like conditioned to think was the correct thing.

What are some examples? I know beyond the first one you mentioned, which was like the idea that it's the first thing you come up with.

Yeah, it's honestly, they end up being really, they seem like simple, stupid things like, like charge for your product and see how, like make sure people pay for the value you create as soon as possible. So we had this thing where like our whole platform was free for such a long time. Right. And it's like, and I would always be like, you know, we're going to do it free and then we're going to start charging for it. And I did the classic kind of spiel. And I remember him sitting down and being like, no, no, no, you should like try to charge for the product as fast as humanly possible. So, you know, and I was like, of course, like a lot of people are going to pay. They're all getting value because it's free. And then you turn on monetization and it's like, oh wait, we got to build a completely different company to when they're actually going to pay for it. Or, you know, these types of things matter. So small things like that, I think. Chasing, you know, like junk food, which is like non-profitable growth and will never be something you make money on, was something that I was very conditioned on in my— not even just like watching it at Uber, but like really not understanding where to spend money to grow and when it's smart, when it's dumb. So really going through, you know, from that stage to like people got to pay for your product and like build for that all the way to, you know, business fundamentals of You know, how do you think about accounting? How do you think about strategic finance? Do you need to hire someone because you're not going to come up with the answers? Like on the— we had a COO. It's like, did she come in and like, what are the things that she should be doing every day? How do you measure the company? All the little things that if you don't have someone who's that good and he's, you know, probably the best in the world, has seen it all, it's very easy to go on Quora, read some Twitter threads, read some blogs, and then get the completely wrong idea of what to do. And so those are, you know, those are two small examples. There's like millions along the way. And look, I sometimes, you know, as a young founder, I think like it's very helpful to have someone who helps you view the world in the way that is like not the rose-colored glasses. Goggles. Most of the time it's like, you're like, you're looking at it and you think it's going to work, and then it's good to have someone who's like, no, no, I've seen this like 100 times, um, this is how it's going to play out.

What about the, the mental models you use for hiring? Like, is that something you've learned from, from guys like Keith in terms of trying to bat as close to 100% as you can on hiring true A-list players?

Uh, so I do, you know, I do, uh, I do follow the, the barrels and ammunitions framework that Keith has written extensively about. I didn't originally. I just have found it to be true and now I, you know, use it and advocate for it. I think one of the things that— this might be controversial, but one of the things that people always say is like, you should only ever hire the best people you can possibly get. I think there's like some nuance there, right? Where I would, you know, we had a huge Uber alumni network. They're super expensive, right? They're coming from these big companies. We're at the seed stage, we're at Series A. We're like, we can't afford you. Like, we know the great people, but to some degree you just can't always get those people that you know to be great. So I think the two things from a hiring framework that I use is like the barrels and ammunition. For those who don't know, is the barrels point the ammo into the direction they want to go. So barrels are the people that, you know, make the hard decisions, are on the strategic side of the business, can make things happen. Um, and there's not a lot of them, right? But there's a lot of ammunition. So you can— a barrel can point where the bullets go, and then the bullets can just basically go at a million miles an hour in one direction. But they need some direction, right? Um, and it better be the right direction. So making sure that your company has enough of these leaders in enough of the key areas of the company was super important. So for First thing was like the framework was identify, do we need someone who's done this before? Do we need someone who could do this work? Does there need to be someone who wakes up every single day and like thinks about this specific problem and will that get us to the promised land? So once you decide that, then it becomes finding the diamond in the rough, right? Like you really are, you know, I'm Toronto, so I'm from Toronto, so I'll use a Blue Jays analogy, which is like, the Blue Jays can't go get Aaron Judge, right? Like, we don't have the salary for it. It's like, you know, they already play for the Yankees. He already plays for the Yankees. So much like us at the Series A stage or the seed stage, you're trying to find someone like Vladdy Guerrero who will eventually be the Aaron Judge. And your job is to, is to find these people and, you know, give them a shot and identify them.

So yeah, what do you do when someone who you hired to be kind of in an ammunition role, right, very much execution within a specific scope, and you know, they want to become a barrel, and maybe they could be on the track to do so, and you want to give them more exposure, but kind of what you need right now for the next 2 to 3 years is that same thing, and there's salary bands, you can make more, but you're still going to be capped within kind of an ammunition.

Yeah, I think So the amazing part is like at the early stage of a company, like the idea that something can be capped, especially if you're fast growing is like false. It's like there's always some level of like there's more stuff to do. The framework we use internally at Pietra is if someone shows signs of growth and that they can take on more, right? They have a, their intellectual capacity is bigger than the role they have. We will continually keep giving them more stuff until we find what their capacity limits are. So we're always looking for— if you come to Pietra and you want to work hard and you deliver on what you say you're going to deliver, we do our best not to constrain you. And, you know, it's the job— I think it's the job of the leaders to, like, make sure that we're always giving those people the next hardest task. And, you know, the next hardest task doesn't even necessarily need to be, like, in your area. Right? It's like this company needs this thing, can you put it on your plate and can you fix it for us? Or can we like fix it together, whatever it may be. So I think it's the job of the leaders, myself included, to identify these people and say, look, this is someone who will eventually be able to take on this and that. And I see these signs of like these little flashes. Let's give them 10% more, let's give them 10% more. And Time and time again, the best people take on that work, deliver on it, and the truly best people, it's hard to find their capacity limits because before they find their daily limits, they're smart enough to know they gotta delegate and they hire someone and they still get the work done, but they do it in a smart way. That has never led us astray and it's something that we're consistently doing.

[Speaker] Yeah.

And then once you get big and you get specialized, it's like kind of hard because it's like we have to give you more work within this field. But if you take that framework, there's always more to be done in the, in the area that you're working.

I think something I'm intrigued about with Pietro specifically is that model you just alluded to with employees. I feel like holds true for your business from a product perspective in the sense that like you kind of offer this array of— and we've talked about this a little bit, but like you offer this array of services But then it's like a master of all is master of none. So where do you double down versus like building your partner program that we've discussed? And how do you identify those areas that you plan to double down in?

Yeah, good, good question. I think, you know, our, our philosophy is there's a so much opportunity in the parts of the platform that we've already decided that we as a company are going to double down in, right on like manufacturing and sourcing, packaging, creative services. Fulfillment, storage, all these things, marketing tools that we want to build like SMS marketing, et cetera. We look at it and we say, it's hard to have a line for a brand to be like, follow this step, then this step, then this step. So we've thought about it as an à la carte platform. You can come in at any size and use any parts of our business. And the more you put together, The cheaper it is, the easier it is, etc. Now, in terms of how we think about partnering, we look at it very simply and we say, can we today or in the near future, you know, before we run out of money, be the best in the world at delivering this value? Can we be the cheapest? Can we be the best experience? Can we be the fastest in some cases, etc.? If we can't, then the best thing we can do for our customers is to partner with someone that will be the fastest, cheapest, best, you know? And we don't want to compete on something that we know we're not going to be the best at, because our success is our brand success. And so a lot of the times it comes down to, you know, you look at some of our partners on the tax side or the banking side. We look at it and we say, look, look, we are not going to be the best at delivering these solutions. Not anytime soon. Right? But we know that our customers will be better off if they use these best-in-class tools. And that's how we think about partnerships, which is like, we want you to succeed. That is our goal. Like as a brand, as an entrepreneur. If you use these great companies to help your company, then we all win. And so that's how we think about it. Now, if we can deliver it, better, cheaper, faster because of our vertical integration, because of the way we built our team, etc., then we will compete, right? We'll compete head to head. But again, the customer will always win, right? They'll get a better, faster, cheaper service, etc.

Yeah.

So that's how we think about it.

When it comes to better, faster, cheaper, I feel like every— I'm sure we've all had these moments where we're like, that's what we need to do within our industry. And then I feel like the stages that I've gone through as Verbatim has scaled up, It's been like early days. I was like, better, faster, cheaper. Okay, Adrian has to go figure out how to do it. Second phase was better, faster, cheaper. Okay, now I've hired. Now you go do faster, you go do better. I feel like I'm only just starting to get to the phase. We just hired like our first, like real kind of senior leadership.

Can I guess what this next phase is? Well, now it—

now I feel like it's just brainstorming, like, hey, this is the direction. What do you guys want to do? But I'm curious from your lens, what learnings have you had along that path or has yours been different?

Like in terms of like how we think about the next, you know, the product roadmap and what we want to be focused on.

Yeah, well, it's like, look, if better, faster, cheaper is the North Star, how do you ensure that you're not diving into it and just telling people what to do versus like, hey, you guys decide and then we'll follow those?

Yeah, I think like we, we like to have, you know, open brainstorming and this idea that ideas can come from anywhere. I think where we focus a lot of our time are, are we identifying the problem correctly? Right? Because what I find is if you go solution first, anyone can sit in a room and like really just rattle off solutions to random problems. What we try to do is we try really hard to focus on conviction around the problem. And are we uniquely— are we uniquely positioned to deliver a solution, whatever that solution may be? Right. And what I found is like, you know, even at the leadership level, I think we try and avoid, let's just build the solution. And if the North Star is better, faster, cheaper, we try and refine it as much as we can. So we'd say, okay, we wanna be better. We wanna have a better experience when you're sourcing packaging for your brand, for an example. We do the standard product market fit things. We talk to a handful of customers. We say, we validate the pain points. And we try and say, what about that process? Is the— does the solution need to solve, right? Is it the experience of finding a factory? Is it comparing price points? Is it getting quotes? Is it the shipping time? Is it coming from one part of the world? Is it defining whether it's recyclable or sustainable? Or there's all these different like potential problems and potential solutions. And then, you know, we will engage our customers as much as possible. There's a fair bit of intuition as well in the early days where You can't talk to everyone and you can't really ask them what they want. A lot of the times they don't know. And so we, we try and focus as much as we can on like, does everyone understand the problem? And then we go super wide with like a bunch of different solutions that meet the criteria of the problem. And that's when I think the broader team gets excited and it's really fun where you can do an offsite, you could all cram into a conference room and say, all right guys, like the problem is well understood. Here are all the levers that we have. You know, here's all the ideas. Now let's start thinking about the solutions. And then after that, what I've found is you'll have 10 ideas. You'll stack rank them. The first 3 ideas are the ones that everyone is really excited about. And the other thing, this is Keith Rabois has written about this and talked about this a bunch too, which is another thing you'll find is your best ideas will naturally flow to the top of the list. And you wanna work on those first, the hardest things, the best ideas first. To see if they're going to work. It gets a lot harder when you're on like idea 6, 7, 8, you know, and like maybe these are going to work. It's like there's a reason they weren't 1, 2, 3 in the list and it's very hard to kind of change that. But that's how we think about it internally, which is as long as everyone is— to summarize, right? It's like as long as everyone is well versed on the problem, then the solutions, you got to go wide and you got to let everyone have like the wacky solution ideas. As long as you're recording it, putting it on a list, like discussing it, I think it's like, really helpful.

As you guys have evolved, what part of the market have you been like doubling down in, in terms of like the ICP as far as like revenue of the brands?

Yeah, good question. We, we— so that was like more of the refinement on the second pivot. I think a lot of people probably know our company as a company that helps, that originally helped creators and influencers start companies. The idea is, you know, you're an influencer with an audience, you want— you're a mommy blogger, maybe you want to start a maternity line of clothing. It's a good example. You could sell it to your followers. What we realized was, and this is probably a whole separate podcast on like what we learned about the creator economy and there's part 2. Yeah, dude, I'm telling you, that's a whole thing.

I'm so invested in that conversation.

Yeah, there's— I think a lot of people will get angry at me if I tell them the truth from the data for what I found. Give it, hit it.

We want the hard-hitting numbers.

Look, I think, yeah, the hard-hitting numbers is No, no, I'm getting sidetracked. Okay, the, the, the subject—

hard-hitting numbers.

But you always, you always—

I want to say, I don't want to—

you always want, you always want the guest to say the thing they're hesitating to say, because that ends up being the most interesting.

There's a lot of people in the creator economy that think that they— their audience will buy something that they create. There's a lot of people in the creator economy that, um, overstate their influence, influence. And then also are very inauthentic around their desire to start a company. And so like the punchline to the whole thing, you can slice and dice it a million different ways. But what we found was the best influencer and creator brands were actually the people that treated their companies and their brands and their businesses like anyone else who wasn't an influencer, meaning they, they cared about it. It was authentic to their to their brand and what they say. They were willing to, at 6 months and 8 months and 10 months, be there through the hard times of the business. They're willing to invest when they need to invest some money. They were willing to take some risks. I think what we also found was like when the creator economy was exploding and Pietro was starting, everyone really wanted to, to, to build a business. You know, you see the Kim Kardashians of the world, you see The Rock, you see Kevin Hart. There's like, like, you know, Seth Rogen. But the willingness to actually put in the work and the unwillingness to realize that you— there is almost no way to build a great brand and a great business without putting in the work. Right.

I don't think that's that controversial, though.

No, no. But I think it's just like the number of people that you would think would be successful in this, in this way. And they're just like, they're just like not able to. Was, was staggering to us.

The one, the one detail that would add to that, at least from my experience, because like when I spent time at GoPuff, we worked with a ton of creator-led brands. I think the number one thing that I realized is that if the brand was authentic in terms of what the literal product was, authentic to the way that person behaved or lived, that was the only way that it worked. Like my favorite example is Chamberlain Coffee with Emma Chamberlain.

The girl drank coffee every day, right? Right.

It was very easy for her to integrate her own product into every single thing she did because it was very synonymous with it. It's when you have these creators who, like, are obsessed with the idea of starting a business, but then they have the wrong, like, advisor or manager who's pushing you into, like, a product category that's not synonymous with who you are.

It was like a big category or something somewhere.

Not everyone can be MrBeast. We're like, I don't know how many chocolate bars that guy actually eats, but like, he can inorganically get on a YouTube video and say, hey, go get my, my chocolate. And like 5 million people will go get it. But like, he's an anomaly. So I think to your point, there was two, two pieces to it. The first one was it has to be something synonymous. And I think the second biggest miss that I saw from the time I spent at GoPuff was that one of the big issues with these brands is they would build it in a way where it was fully reliant on the creator themselves. So if they weren't pushing the product, the brand just died. I think that the best way to build the creator-led brands is to operate it like a business, as if the creator didn't exist.

Yep.

And then just know that you have that little extra firepower for those moments when you want to amplify something.

Totally. And like, my favorite example is like Houseplant, like Seth Rogen's, right? It's like beautiful ceramic ashtrays, smoking accessories. Like such a good example of a— that brand is— people will buy that product not knowing any celebrity affiliations, right? And if you talk to that team, they're super smart and they get it and You know, you're exactly right. So coming back to your question, which is the refinement that we had was we never wanted to become a company that pulled into the— where we help celebrities start companies. And so we found is like we had a lot of celebrities that use the product and like there's countless celebrities that are using Pietro Chenet. But what we did as a refinement of the company is we said we are going to treat the the biggest celebrity brands as the same as any other entrepreneur or any other brand. Of course, there's different things that you use at different sizes, but we're not going to sit here and try and make Celebrity X's brand better than this person. We want the entrepreneur who came out of fashion school that wants to design sneakers have the same feeling of that we support them as, you know, a Chrissy Teigen or a Seth Rogen or something who, yeah, might know our customer support team, but, you know, they're, they're both trying to start and run these businesses. So the refinement was we went from everything in our self-service platform, uh, is not gonna cater to the size of following. So we went from, you know, when you're signing up and you'd say, what's the size of your following? And we'd show you some features that are based on your following. We removed all of that from the platform.

Mm-hmm.

We wanna have an even playing field, whether you're my uncle who's starting a brand or a celebrity, the same tools, different like support levels and stuff, but the same tools. And the same capabilities. And then the second one was just understanding that the broader e-commerce market, like the number of entrepreneurs that are out there that are inspired by the celebrities is like a million x more, right? And what we're like, oh, we, we want to refine our ICP to just identify themselves as like these are small businesses, small e-commerce businesses starting from the emerging segment, micro SMB, SMB, all the way to mid-market, right? Literally $0 in sales, like $20, $25 million in sales. And we said, we're going to double down on building tools and infrastructure for these brands. And that was a huge, huge turning point for the company because what we really started doing is like when you're working with, you know, everyone from an emerging segment all the way down to like mid-market e-commerce brands, you find that doesn't matter who you are as you're going through the ranks, you need like these soft, these features in the software and like this type of storage needs, this type of fulfillment needs, these sales channel connections, et cetera. And really opened our eyes to like, oh wow, the problem, or sorry, the market here is way bigger than we thought. Like I think people used to say like creator economy is a massive market. I'm like, the one thing I learned or I felt at Uber was it's so amazing to have a company where the idea is actually big. Universal. I also tell this to founders where, like, when they're fundraising money, I was like, what I learned was Uber could be a $100 billion company because the idea was and the problem was so universal. I'm like, you go to every city in the world and they had problems with transportation. No one's sitting there being like, I would not like a car sent to me right now to take me to my next thing, right? Like, it doesn't matter if you're in Indonesia, if you're in Austin, like, it literally doesn't matter. It's a universal problem. So it like actually can be big. And then for, for us, what we realized is like when you, when you opened up the aperture and we're building these generic tools for e-commerce, it had the same feeling where you go to any bar. I challenge everyone that's listening, go to any bar in any city and like you're going to find someone who has a business idea, you know, like you're going to find people who want to start businesses and sell products and make money everywhere in the world. And that was a very, very clear realization once we opened it up to be like, this platform is for entrepreneurs. To build your businesses, and they could be any businesses anywhere in the world.

So if you got paid for just the amount of ideas you spit at a bar, everyone in this world would be a billionaire.

Exactly. But hopefully with Piatto, it's like now it's easier than you think, right?

No, I think you made it. You made an interesting point about like knowing if a business is universal or not. When you mentioned Uber as the example, the way that I think about it is taking some of those businesses that have become universal and imagine the reality you live in if that business didn't exist. Like if you took Uber out of the economy today, I think so many people, including myself, would actually like feel that.

Yeah. Oh yeah. It's like those are the best companies. You couldn't imagine a world before it. Yeah, exactly. I was talking to someone recently and I was like, like he was like, I was like, I think I'm moving to L.A. or something like that. And I was like, oh man, you're going to have to get a car. And he's like, I could just Uber around. I'm like, oh yeah, I guess you can. But like, I guess like not that long ago, you like, if you decided not to move to New York City, you like had to get a car, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, yeah, it just There's one city that's like walkable, and then every other thing you have to invest a huge chunk of change in your first job out of school on a car. And I was like, oh man, that's a weird world. Like, I'll never leave New York, but just think about it. Like, you can't imagine a world that doesn't have Uber in it.

What about New York? Where's your office?

In SoHo. You're in SoHo. Lafayette.

Do you live nearby too?

Yeah, I do.

What about being around in these neighborhoods specifically? Are the right fit for the stage of both career and life that both Pietro is in and you are personally in?

Yeah, I'm a— what's interesting is like, I'm not even like a SoHo proponent. I think like I'm a— I'm an East— yeah, I'm an East Village, like Lower East Side type of guy. Um, now I think like, how do you define that? Yeah, it's just like, it's a, it's a feeling, really.

Um, it's a vibe.

More of an old-ass guy.

Yeah, it's, uh What's like something that like, it's like you just know it, you know? It's like you just know it.

You're like, okay, you know when you're around your people.

Yeah, you just, you can feel it. No problem, you know, being on Ludlow Street at 3 AM and like, it's just like, it's just, that's life.

I just love it there so much.

Yeah, it's just, it's fine. No, no, what I was saying was like, for, I think what was important, 'cause we started the company in Dumbo. So there was like a— and I lived in East Village at the time, so we had like a little bit of a commute. I think what I love, like, not specifically about SoHo, but in New York, is it's so hard to build a company. And so you just have to understand that it's so fucking difficult that you don't want the other parts of your life to also be on hard mode. It's like annoying more than anything, right? Like, you know, you have to build this company and it's going to take some effort. Nodding. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

So like, that's Best thing I've heard maybe since we started this.

Yeah. So like, why is getting lunch—

the thing I can resonate with the most.

Yeah. Like, why is getting lunch have to be like, why am I on hard mode to get lunch? Like, I—

meal delivery in the fridge.

Yeah, exactly. But even like, even the one night off where you're like not thinking about work, it's like, why is it going to be so hard to figure out how to coordinate to get to the place you guys want to go to, like, have an after-work drink? And so what I think is like the conveniences of New York are so helpful, at least to me as a young founder. Where you can spend as much time as you need to on the business and you can get the conveniences of everything else you need in life easier than if you know, in other parts of the other parts of the world. And people are going to say, look, you just jump in your car and you drive 20 minutes. I'm like, all of that is fine. But you know what's like faster than jumping in your car and driving 20 minutes? Like literally a 14-second walk across the street to like this place that's going to get my sandwich.

Yep.

Right.

Or like a 7-second walk up the stairs for the podcast.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like literally a 57-second walk from our office to here.

I love it.

I underrated how impactful it would be to— I moved into a new building in Greenpoint and like one of the new ones with the gyms and everything. Better for my health, better for work. I wake up every day and even if I don't work out, at least go down and stretch. Just the convenience of having it there. Is one of the best things that's happened in my life in a long time.

Totally. And like, also, like, people don't say this explicitly enough. Like, also, New York's like the best city in the world. Like, I've lived in many of these cities. There's so much to do for all different types of people, right? Like, you can— when you talk to recruits and you're hiring them in, it's like, you know, that they're going to be able to find some community, something that they like to do versus like when I lived in Seattle or even San Francisco. It's like, yeah, you're nervous. Like, I remember I was getting my first haircut in Seattle right out of school. I was working at Microsoft and I like sat down. I like just got there and I was like, the first thing I do is I get a haircut for my first day. Like, sat in the seat, get my haircut. I was like, all right, man. So like, what type of music do you like? I'm like, hip hop. He's like, ooh, it's going to be hard to find a place to sit, place that. And I was like, where did I move? Like, this is annoying to me now. Right now it's a little bit different. That was like 10+ years ago. But I don't have to worry about that. Like when you go talk to recruits and you're like, come work at Pietro, for example, I know they're going to have a great time. They're going to be able to find something that they like.

I also think in terms as it relates to like the personal aspect of it, like what you just alluded to, the person who I think frames this the best is Alex Hormozi when he talked about how he started buying Chipotle every single day for lunch for like a period of his life. But his reasoning for that was like, you start to calculate every hour of your own time and like actually put a dollar value on it.

Right?

So like, you're running a business that has raised $36 million. Like, to get you to sit down for an hour is— yeah, like, on a math problem, you know, like, you could theoretically send us a pretty large invoice. Like, yeah, like, this was fun, here you go.

But like, well, that's actually happening, right?

Yeah, no, we'll talk— your team will talk to ours. Um, no, but you think about like, oh, you're gonna go buy groceries, you want to cook your own meal, then you're going to clean the dishes, and you actually like quantify that, it's really expensive. So if you think about the different aspects of your life where you can make it incrementally better by having a gym in your building, by having 20 restaurants within walking distance, the bars for the happy hours. All those things add up when you don't have much time to devote to anything other than work as is.

Totally. And like, the hot take that— it's not even a hot take, but the thing that I realized, the thing that I realized is like, it actually made me like doing chores in a weird way.

Procrastination?

No, no, not even that. No, I was like— it was— I thinking about the other day, which is you know, because I have all these conveniences now, the few times, for example, that I don't order out and I wash the dishes, I'm like, I can like get into this. I'm like, I'm not worried about work, I'm not worried about work, I'm gonna wash the shit out of these dishes. And like, this is like 20 minutes. I'm like, yeah.

But if I told you you had to do that 7 days a week— exactly, you take the dish and throw it out the window.

Totally. And so I was like, yo, I'm like liking this. So like, yeah, you got 25-minute break. I'm like, gotta put out a podcast or like listen I'm usually like, yo, I can get into this. Like, it's, it's, I'm not forced to do those things because I have alternatives. And I don't know, it's just like something that, you know, I went from, went from like, like I got to, you know, do the dishes or clean the house or whatever to like most of the time, you know, someone will come in and I'll hire someone to help clean my apartment, right? A cleaning lady. Well, then the one Saturday morning that like I just poured a cup of coffee and I'm like, you know what? I don't have nothing to do. I'm going to spend 3 hours and I'm going to like do a deep clean of the house. It's like really satisfying. Right. Cause I'm like, oh yeah. Like, uh, yeah, I can like, I'll do it. I'll get into it. It'll be a bit meditative. I won't have to think about work. And I know that I don't have to do this every week or every other day. And that gives me some happiness.

I think I resonate with that when you have the optionality to do it or not do it. But I guess a question I have. Uh, shifting gears a little bit, like, what are your daily non-negotiables?

Um, good question. Um, they're like weird ones, but like shower in the morning and a cup of coffee. Like, I just, I can't not do that. I think it's weird when people shower at night.

I— wait, why not two a day?

Sorry, two showers?

Yeah, it's fine if you shower at least in a second. If you shower, it's fine, but if you skip the morning one and only shower at night, that's weird.

Yeah, you gotta shower in the morning.

I think, I think you gotta shower in the morning. I think you can leave your house without showering, like, get out of here.

No, I don't care.

You—

I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna wake up, work out, and then shower kind of guy.

Sure, but like, in the morning there's a shower. Yeah, you know, there's people who are like, I'm just gonna ride the day out and shower at night, straight to the subway. Dude, that's— yeah, are you kidding me?

Um, not hiring you at Pietro.

Yeah, exactly.

So when do you shower and how many per day?

Yeah, exactly.

What time of day is your first shower? Uh, fired.

So Roseman canceled.

Yeah, no brushing before you eat. No, like, uh, no, no, but, but I think like, yeah, my morning routine I would say, um, is like a non-negotiable. I think that I'm someone who, uh, needs to have that morning to like have a cup of coffee, get ready. I take a long time to get ready.

Walk us through the day starting with when you wake up.

I wake up, um, what time? It'll vary, honestly, it'll vary based on a bunch of different things.

We've got some crazy answers on this podcast.

Really?

I'll tell you after you tell us.

So I like to think of it like they're like eras, like, like they're— I've lived in eras, like first year and a half of the business. I was like, I need to wake up 6:45, regiment the hell out of my life. 6:45, go down to the gym, workout, come back, you know, 8:15, I'm making this. And like, I have my overnight oats that I put in the fridge.

I'm like, that's first year.

That sounds like a pre-seed. That sounds like a pre-seed first time.

I knew I graduated early.

I'll tell you when it ended. Is I would do this thing where I would walk home from the Second Avenue train station and Union Market is there, and I would get like sushi at like 9:30 PM at night. And it was like so optimal where I would like walk and get the platter of sushi, but I would eat the sushi with my hand. No, no, I wouldn't. I would pour the soy sauce in the grocery store, like right after I checked out, over the sushi and then eat it with my hand on the walk home to be like so efficient. Right? And I was like— and then I remember I would get to like the corner of my apartment because it was exactly like 6 blocks, and I can eat the sushi, and I would throw the, the empty platter like in the garbage. And then I like— one day I was like, like, this is wrong. Like, this like hyper-optimization—

what the fuck am I doing?

They're like— I'm like, why am I optimizing every second where I'm walking and eating sushi home at 9:30? Like, 9:30 PM at night?

Yeah.

So the second era was like, okay, like get into a bit of a balance. You don't have to be hyper-efficient where every single thing is regimented for every minute of every day and get it a more comfortable, like, do the things in the morning that you need to, you know, you don't have to go to the gym 5 nights a week, 5 days a week, 5 mornings a week. Um, you could do, you know, 3 days a week. Um, and so that was era 2 where it was like, get super comfortable. But, and then, and that thing broke down where you realize like, if you give yourself a little bit of comfort and stuff gets really messy on the business side. This is what really happened. The company started growing really, really fast, like in the second half of that era, let's say the second one and a half year era. And then I started realizing like, oh, because I wasn't so regimented, I would give up all the stuff that I should be doing right away for the business. Like I'm talking like late night Big Mac meals, skipping, you know, like skipping the gym all the time. Before you know it, You're right. It's like it's been 6 weeks since I've done anything like super healthy and like I'm not even close to that, that regimen that I had. So now I'm in that third era, which is current day, which is the non-negotiables are like, got to eat healthy, got to work out some level of exercise. I found that every day— not every day. I find that actually when I force myself to do it every day, I actually would get super tired at work. So I need to force myself to have recovery days. Otherwise, like, people that I work with would be like, "Ro's pissed today." And it's like, yeah, because he hasn't slept in 4 days because he's like trying to just do this weird streak. So like really getting some balance, but making sure at least 3 days a week I'm trying to do something. Eating healthy is like mandatory. Not allowing myself to work super late at night. And like I would do things where I like don't eat dinner till like 10:45 PM. And then it's like, then it's actually hard to get a, you know, Sweetgreen salad and you're getting a Wendy's Baconator or something. I don't know. So the non-negotiables for me again is like I need my mornings to think. I like to do creative work in the morning. I like to work out, get my body in shape. And then the other non-negotiable is like I try and sleep before midnight every single night. Like that's one thing that I would never do. I would like write it till 2 a.m., write to 2:30, and then I'm like, damn, these— the numbers just get pushed back. It'd be like 2:35, then 2:40.

2:40, and you're just like, how many hours of sleep do you get a night?

I try and get 8 hours of sleep.

Do you know who— do you know who Bryan Johnson is? Yeah, did you listen to— yeah, did you listen to his podcast with Stephen Bartlett, the Diary of a CEO? So he said something on there that really resonated with me. So obviously he sold his company for $800 million, so now all he cares about is like living forever. He literally says that. I think his biological age is 18 and he's chronologically like 40 at this point. But the thing he said is that the most important aspect of our lives is sleep. Yet it's the one thing that we let everything else in our life dictate. So like your sleep schedule depends on what your work is, what your social life is. And the one thing he's done is flip that upside down and actually stick to it where his sleep schedule stays the same no matter what. He builds off of that. So he says he goes to bed every single night at 8:30, which, look, there's levels to it. Like this guy's extreme. But I think the principle is very, very valuable. Where he goes to bed at 8:30 every single night. His friends all know that. So like, if he wants to socialize with them or they want him to socialize with them, they know that they have to plan something at a time of day where like he can accommodate his schedule. So like, I heard that and I'm, I'm like, as of literally last week, I'm like, I want to try to like be in bed by 10 PM and like wake up at 6 o'clock every day, but not like a groggy 6 o'clock, like wake up before my alarm because I'm energized. Because I really just think this notion of you have to work 120 hours or until 2 o'clock in the morning, I don't necessarily think it's a direct correlation with success. I think you have to find what works for you.

Totally. I look, I will also say that I think raw hours put into something will help, especially the earlier stage your company is.

Agreed.

Right. Like that is something that people— so a lot of the people that give this advice, I agree with. But they're also people who don't, in my mind, really have a trade-off. Like, it's kind of a trade-off that that guy sleeps at 8:30 and he doesn't have to— his friends have to, like, oblige. I like to push people to think about, like, okay, what would you have actually done in your first company? In your life? And what you find is, like, for his first company, if you go, he's like, yeah, when I was actually running my company in the first year, I was like working until 2 a.m. Oh, he talked—

he talks about that. So that's why it's like it's hard to take the advice from someone who you can't relate to. Yeah, right. Like, like when you're sitting in different shoes or walking a different path than what they're walking now. It's easy for me to sit across the table with $800 million in my bank account being like, I go to bed at 8:30 every night.

Rich people are the best. Rich people are the people that said money doesn't matter the most. I'm like, I know, I get, I get the sentiment. I get what you're trying to say. Yeah, right. I may or may not like understand it, but, you know, to me it's these— and I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying like there's these things like the best things in life are free. I'm like, I get it. I understand that idea. But currently in my situation, like, you know, I'm angry that I can't get this. And so just repeating that the best things in life are free is not going to help me in this situation. I think that the thing that no one really pushes hard on is the hard questions like, are you building the wrong company if the company necessitates that you wake up at 2 or you stay up till 2:30 AM or more in the morning? Should you be talking to your investors being like, let's actually put a little bit more money into the company so I can hire someone so I can sleep and really having a good partner on that side. And I think a lot of founders, myself included, you know, before the Series A, it was like I was in a famine mentality. And then I remember one of my investors were like, you're still in that mindset. Like you now have the money, you can hire someone. To help you. Like, you don't, you know, and of course, in the early days, there's a lot of work to do. So you could always stay up late. But I think the hard questions that people don't— I find themselves not asking is, are you prioritizing correctly if you can't sleep for 8 to 9 hours a night? Is this a company that— is this a temporary thing? Are you like borrowing performance and like it's going to get better? And like this, okay, we can go into it knowing that like, okay, for the next 6 months it's going to be rough, but don't worry. Right. That's another way to think about it. Or is this going to feel like no matter what you do, you're not focusing the— you've focused the roadmap and you know exactly what you need to build. But the problem that you've decided to tackle is not going to be automatable, is not going to go away. You're going to have to hire people and then capital is going to dry up from because you're funding this system. Those are scary questions that founders like don't want to know the answers to. Right? Like they want to be like, I'll just rather just stay up until 2:30 and like do the work versus imagine someone which is like, you know, they're very open and they're like, this whole thing you're building is going to need a tremendous amount of capital because you can't automate it no matter who you hire. And the work as it grows is always going to be this type of work. It's scary, right? You kind of like founders want to not hear the bad news that often. So until people like address that, I think And we see, you know, even people like investing money in a different way to support that lifestyle choice. I think it won't change. And I don't see that happening openly right now.

What, what are not some of what was the single biggest mistake that you made over the past couple of years?

Ooh.

Like a real fuckup.

Yeah, that's a good one. We made a bunch. I think the single biggest mistake that I think that I made was, was in the before the pivot, you know, convincing myself for far too long that because this makes sense on paper, this like has to make sense in the real world. Right. And so even if you look at, before we fully pivoted, it was probably like a year and a half. And it was like, I just look back at that and I go, oh my God, that's like we kind of knew 4 months in and then you convince yourself for 4 or 5 months that you could turn it around and then you're in the 3, 4 months of like, it's not going to turn around. We got to decide what to do next. That was like a really big one. And then I think the other one that was equal, now that I think of it, maybe even worse. Is the biggest mistake, I would actually say this is much bigger. This is like a more broader life thing, and I tell this to other friends and founders who talk to me, which is I waited way too long to start the company, right? This idea that I need to stay at the company, or they need me for this project, and like, let me put in, you know, I'm telling them I'm gonna leave, but I'm giving them 3 months of time.

You're talking about staying at Uber?

Staying at Uber, yeah, staying at Microsoft even before that. Um, what I realized, like, the biggest mistake was like, all I lost was a year of my life at both those companies. I knew I was going to leave. And then I look at it and I go, what did those things get me? Like maybe a small bonus because I stayed for another year, maybe a small unlock. But like very quickly those things become a rounding error to what I'm building now. And I still see this in people, right? They're like, I see this on a small scale when we're like hiring someone. They're like, I need to stay at Company X. For 3 months before I join you. I was like, trust me, you don't. That's like a waste of everyone's time. That's like, you don't need to give them the 3 months. They don't really care that much about your projects. And trust me, in 1 week after you leave, they'll figure out what to do, right? Like on a small scale. And then also a lot of people that are like, I'm not going to start this company. I need to go work at a big company for 2 years to gain the skills. Like, you ain't getting no skills at a big tech company. Like related to starting a real business. Like starting a real business is such a dogfight. Like, trust me, working at a big tech company for 2 years is just a waste of your time.

We are going to clip this comment and like play this everywhere. I've had 2 moments in my life, like very pivotal moments, I would say, in my life that like tie back to that exact thing you just said. The first one was, and I've said this a couple of times on the podcast, but I just think it's relevant. I gave up my corporate job 12 hours before my first day. I was supposed to do M&A consulting at EY, and I told them 12 hours before the first day I wasn't coming. And the reason for that was because it turned into getting an offer to join GoPuff. In my mind, before I got the job at EY, when I was still in college, I said, I'm going to go work in consulting for 2 years and then I'm going to do BD at a high-growth tech startup because they won't hire kids out of college. It's like it's a known thing. They'll go look at banks and consulting firms who have like kids with 2 years of experience. Who understand a little, you know, a little bit more of the fundamentals, they say, and are savvy enough to like be dealmakers. When I got that offer in my mind, I was like, wait, so you're telling me that I can skip this 2-year like learning period I'm supposed to do to get to the place I want it to go anyways? Like, I'm just going to jump and skip it.

Like, like, where's the camera? It's like someone needs to say directly to me, that's yours right there. It's like, go start that business that you want to start. I'm like, you just need to hear that. Is what I tell people.

So I did that and I joined GoPuff, which at the time I still all along knew I wanted to start a company, but again was still stuck in the mindset that I had to do something and learn from some other people, which maybe there's a little bit of validity because like you don't know what you don't know. But what happened was I was there for a year, uh, we were working on a business unit that effectively I was working on for 7 months, uh, on the BD side, like signed up 25, 30 brands to operationalize this. 2 weeks before we launched the product, we found out that the PM built it all wrong and they had to scrap it and start over, at which point in the fifth round of layoffs they laid off like the entire team, including myself, who was working on this specific thing because it wasn't even happening. But I will say that like it gave me the insight into the ecosystem and now which my company that I'm building today is in. And a lot of those relationships were very helpful. So I don't actually think I would be working on the thing I am today if I didn't spend 7 months so intimately learning about all of that.

I will say, like, there's a caveat. I think, and I'll say, like, my previous statement was most people think, like, their dream is just way further out than it is, right? Versus, like, like, I won't even say this live, but like some of the stuff that I've got to experience through this company, where, like, they seem so dumb, but a younger me would have, like, been so excited about it. Like, like, I wouldn't even be able to fathom, like, sitting down at lunch with, like, a Kanye West. Like in my life. And then like this company through different ways, like I got to do that. I'm like, damn, this is like— if you told me 7 years ago, like, would that be possible? I'd be like, it's literally impossible, right? And so now I sort of realize like maybe that crazy idea of something that would be cool in my life is actually closer than I think if I put in the effort and do it in a smart way, right? I'm not like forcing it, right? I had to go build this company to get those experiences. So I think that's like the first part, which is like it's closer than You know, things in the mirror are closer than they appear. It's like what I was saying. It's like it's, it's easier than you think. It's still hard, but there is some validity to the point of, um, you don't know what you don't know. And so what I tell people is the point I'm trying to make is just don't go work at a big tech company because those skills are rarely transferable. But if you want to go work at a high-growth startup and see what true killers do to build a billion-dollar business, it will give you the blueprint on what to do. And so like, I will say my time at Uber, like watching Travis build Uber and the way he thinks and the way he analyzes problems and the way he executes on things when I was working on Uber Pool was like so helpful in my mental model and I wouldn't have had it any other way. And so now I can like, you know, like, like really like lean on those experiences.

I think, I think something that's so important after reflecting on my time there is going into those positions though, like make sure you're crystal clear with yourself and what you want to get out of it. Because like just to say I'm going to go work at a big tech company just to check the box and be like, I'm going to learn some skill set because if I spend 2 years there, it's inevitable I'm going to learn something like, no, go into it being like, I want to learn how to hire a team, maybe how to manage a team, how to build a product, whatever that thing is. Just make sure you're seeking out those experiences because I think a big misconception I had is that because a company has a big valuation and it's large, they have shit figured out. Not the case whatsoever. Get to a company that's valued at like over $10 billion, assuming that like all the processes are figured out. And I get there and like the BD team I'm working on was like still trying to figure out how they're going to run like the all-hands meetings for our team. And I'm like, wait a minute, what? Yeah, you guys have raised like $3 billion. What do you mean?

Yeah, it's like you also get, you know, you, you peel back the onion and you're like, everyone is figuring it out at a level that you don't even understand. Like, like Uber's pricing is like run through spreadsheets that some dude uploads into a tool Thursday and it goes live on Friday morning and you're like, this is year 8.

This is really how it's done.

Yeah. And I'm like, it's real. It's really one of my favorite photos that I've seen recently was like there's a photo of a laptop and it was like, please do not touch this laptop. All of Uber Eats in Toronto runs on this laptop. Email me at here. I'm going to get lunch. And I was like, what is going on here? It's like, you're my favorite.

My favorite GoPuff anecdote is I found out that until they launched the new app, like years into the business. They used a dev shop initially, and there was like a subset of the codebase that they couldn't access. Like a big piece of the app was run on something they couldn't get a hold of because like the engineers that built it, they had like a falling out with, and they were just like, see ya, like you're not getting this. Like, how are you running a multi-billion dollar business on something you can't touch?

Yeah, well, uh, yeah, it's So you should never be surprised. And like, no amount of like working at Microsoft or Facebook or Google is going to like help you learn that lesson and you shouldn't be scared of it. And so I think like even coming back to how like when people ask me like, how do you know? Well, I knew right away at Uber when it was my time where it was really interesting thing. I had like worked a couple of years and I felt that now one full turn of the crank happened and my bad ideas from year one that were punted out, I was like resurfacing in year two. I'm like, oh wait, as soon as you feel like your job is now, you can predict it. It's like copy and paste. You know, it was like year two. You're like writing the same product requirements doc. And I think at Uber, the specific moment was we had this big long meeting about what we should build next. And I was like, I think I like wrote a doc a year and a half ago about this. And I like went into my Google Drive and I was like, you know, transportation something. And like a fully baked product requirements doc showed up and I was like, I obviously have to go. Like, what am I going to submit? This is like my new idea for this year. And like, obviously I had a year and a half ago and that's what I'm saying. Like, if you're learning and you're growing and it feels like it's all new and you're soaking up all that stuff, stay. Like you're getting new experiences.

Was there one particular moment in your life where you felt like you were turning pro? I mean, I think The way that we think about that is the premise of this podcast is getting up from one poker table, going to another that's more high stakes.

Oh yeah, it was very, very, very clear to me at Uber. So I think Travis, I like, I owe him, you know, many parts of my career by allowing someone like me to go and take Uber Pool and work in a way that he was involved. The team was small. I understood all parts of the business that you would never get at a big tech company from like top of funnel marketing dollars, product metrics, business metrics, you know, all that type of stuff. And what I, what I realized was like the turning pro moment was you're not really a product manager until you learn or until your product or the thing you do results in a payment from a customer. Like if they're not swiping their credit card, you're working on something that is not building your product management skills. The real product management skills is What is someone going to pay for and swipe their credit card? And as soon as you learn that it's fucking hard to get people to swipe that credit card, like, then you start looking at it from a product manager perspective of like, I used to at Microsoft, I work on Microsoft Office and I was like moving folders around and like the ribbon or some crap like that. And then at Uber was the first time where I was like, oh, we have to get them to spend like $25 on this ride and I am only going to be like evaluated on if they spend the money. And that is the hardest thing you get. You got to cut out all the noise. You got to provide real value and then they'll pay that.

Right.

And so when you see all these outsiders now, like Uber, it's like a great idea, good execution. It's, it's, it's obvious, you know, like, like taxis are really crappy. You got to get some cars. Of course you bring the cars online and people are going to pay for it. You have an app and like you see them like reducing a company that's been built. To like, this is relatively easy. I'm like, go build anything in the world that gets $1 million, just like anything.

So hard.

It's so much harder than you think. So hard, right? And people look at these companies that are like only $3 million of ARR. I'm like, are you kidding me? You go try and figure out something that you can build from scratch that other people in the world that you don't know, not friends or family, will swipe their credit card. So it adds up to $3 million. And if you do that, I'll give you props.

That's what Zach Holland said. So someone who— do you know Zach from Select Few? He was on a previous episode, but He said to us that he won't take money from an investor who's never been a founder. Like, that's like a hard— that's a hard line rule for him as a founder. And I think that speaks to what you just said.

Yeah.

When you have an investor potentially who's never built something before and like, oh, it's only $3 million ARR, like, come back to me when you're at $10 million.

Yeah.

It's like you don't understand because you've never done it.

Yeah. My favorite is when you, you know, like some of the value of someone like a, like a Keith Rabois on the board meeting is he's also a current day CEO. So like he's— he has up-to-date knowledge of like how the world works and it's like so valuable. But you get further and further away from that and you get to like, like classic investors that have never started a company and you start hearing them all saying the same thing, which is like hilarious.

Like 25-year-old associate.

Yeah. No, no, no. I'm talking like, like a partner, like senior VCs that are like respected, but they'll still say stuff like, you tried a referral program? I'd be like, you think I haven't tried a motherfucking referral program by now? Like I think about this every minute of every day. Like, this is a real question. They're like, you know, product-led growth. And I'm like, yo, if you like, this is not helpful. Yeah, right. Or even worse, sometimes they'll be like, you know, back in the when they worked at some company, they're like, when we were doing Yelp, like this worked. I was like, that doesn't work anymore. It's like 10 years later. Like that was when Instagram didn't work, right? But they're like, they have these like, you got to do product-led growth. You got to launch a referral program. And I'm like, well, it's week 3 of our company, so there's no referrals to be had, right? There's not enough happy customers. But like, thank you for your generic advice on like how to grow, right? But then you talk to real CEOs who are like, okay, I'm not going to give you these like most of it must be organic. They start talking about like, look, we get it. It's like hard to get 10,000 customers to visit your website unless you pay someone for the marketing. So it's like, talk about the smartest way to do paid marketing, you know? Versus there's all these like, is it 99% organic traction? And you're like, dude, at a scale of 10,000 customers a month or something like that, like there's no organic traction. Like that's so hard to do. Yeah, right. Some, some companies will obviously defy the laws of gravity, but it's— I find it where you can suss it out very quickly. Um, who's someone who's never really done this before?

Have you, uh, have you used, uh, Tome, that like Google Slides alternative? It's like AI driven.

No, that's a Uh, I know that Keith is the founder of that company, Tome, right?

Yeah.

Tome. Yeah. I haven't used it personally, but it's to make decks, right?

Yeah, it's to make decks beautiful. And I was using it last night and a client was like, hey, can you download it as a PDF? I was like, oh, I've never used Tome to do that. And to download, I had to upgrade to Pro, which I didn't know there was a Pro tier. Got 'em. And it was like $8 a month. And I was like, I downloaded it, I paid it. I said, I'm going back to fucking Google Slides. I was like, not going to use this. And it's so brutal in that moment, because I feel for the team. But the equation, I was just like, it's not that valuable.

I think Keith's an awesome guy. And that hits me right in the feels, because I worked on Microsoft Office. So I worked on the incumbent side of that. And there was something working on that side of the product, what I realized was there are so many problems products out there. Pietro is one of them that has this feeling of spreadsheets are crappy, right? It sucks to— you're managing your small business with spreadsheets and email, right? It's like such a classic thing that I, that I hear and I tell myself all the time, I'm going to go build a way to like do this. And time and time again, what we saw when I was at Microsoft and now what I feel in the real world is, man, it is very, very hard. To replace email and spreadsheets, like just in general, right? They're like, I call them like they're primitives of communication where it's like very hard to displace them. So you could build all the fancy stuff, right? That is like workflow management and connected. But man, finding a workflow that replaces email and spreadsheets is so difficult. And I shout out to the founders who are trying because like you have to build real value and be so good at design, so deeply understanding of your customers and their workflows to nail it. And if you do, I'm just like, wow, that is— that is like hats off to you.

I just think better email, better spreadsheets is the answer. Like I use Superhuman and I love it.

Yep.

And I'll never go back. That's like an example of a tool.

But also what's interesting is like I feel like Superhuman, it's not like taking you out of email or even pretending it's not email. You know, a lot of these— and I'll use Pietro as an example. A lot of the, the, the factories or the customers, when they work together, they'll be like, look, I use PayPal, I'll just pay them. I'm like, why don't you pay them on platform? Like, it's all through this integrated system. You're protected, you get insurance, etc., whatever we want to say. And they're like, yeah, like PayPal is just like easy and it's there.

They're just used to it.

And like, oh yeah, you can't like displace PayPal. You know, it's like one of the common tools that everyone is using and you can make a better payments experience, but Man, that's hard. You got to think about other value around that payments experience.

It's like Teams versus Slack.

Totally.

Teams is free and already part of it.

Totally. And like, I'm a big Google Slides user. And I think to myself, like, what is it going to take for me to pay for a replacement of Google Slides? I don't think it can be something that Google Slides does. I'm like proficient in it. It's great.

Proficient in Google Slides.

I build the slides.

I know all the slides. And my product designer takes it and rebuilds it in Figma. And he hates me for it. But I'm like, dude, I don't know how to use Figma as efficiently as Google Slides. So that's just the way it's going to go.

Yeah. And look, I think they— there's— you can reinvent these tools, right? Like Asana was created, right? It's like at some point there was just spreadsheets and email, then Asana was created for project management. Product managers use it everywhere to track their tasks. But I think like, yeah, it's, it's— I feel for founders when it's like it's so hard to build a differentiated experience. Like, Superhuman is one of them, but like, think how many people before Superhuman came and tried to like reinvent the inbox. And like, when I was at Microsoft and working on Office, I just saw them come and go. I'm like, it's very, very hard. You like weirdly come back to Outlook, you know, and like Gmail, like that's it. And reinventing email is, ooh, that's a tough game.

It'll be in round 2.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think we're, uh, we're at time here. I don't know if you have any, any final questions.

This is fucking awesome.

Yeah, I enjoyed that.

Awesome. Come back anytime. I'll bring some more hot takes. Love it.

You want to look, look at the camera, let everyone know where they can find you and what you're working on?

Yeah, you can, uh, check us out at pietrostudio.com, and then my Twitter handle is TheRealRowShow, all one word.

Love that.

Love it.

Thanks for coming on, man. Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.