Ben Sharf On How He Almost Died & How He Plans To One Day Exit Platter

And we're live. Ben, thanks for, uh, for coming in and trekking in from, from SoHo to, uh, the far, far Brooklyn. Um, I appreciate you taking the time, man.

Appreciate you having me.

So I told you a couple seconds ago, there's a little tidbit, a little story, a little something the world doesn't know about you from what's already out there.

Yeah, I almost died when I was born.

Oh.

Uh, my lungs collapsed at birth. And I think the quick, the quick 2-second story for you. So my dad's a doctor, my mom's a nurse, and I was born on Valentine's Day in the middle of a snowstorm. And we, when they gave me to my parents initially, my mom was holding me and my dad was standing there and was like, something, you know, after a few minutes, like something doesn't seem right. And he basically went to the nurse that was there and was like, something's not right here with his breathing. And she looked at him and said, you're just a nervous father, but didn't realize that he's been a physician for longer than she's been alive. And so he's like, I want to speak to the, the doctor that's on call. And basically what had happened is they realized that the hospital actually broke the protocol. The doctor that was supposed to be on call had like a nurse covering for him, which is extremely illegal. And they also didn't have an ambulance there when they were supposed to. And so I had to get transferred to another hospital. Long story short, because my dad pushed back against this nurse, they realized that my lung had collapsed and I wasn't getting enough oxygen. And luckily I'm here to tell the story. But in the end, the doctor that was on call ended up getting fired and relieved of his duties because they completely broke the law. And had my dad not been a medical professional, I don't actually know if I'd be sitting here to tell the story.

What was it about your breathing?

My lung had collapsed.

No, but I mean, like, what did he notice?

Oh, it was like the cadence of it, and it sounded like I was struggling to breathe. But that's because I was getting half as much air as like a normal baby. Um, and obviously your lungs aren't strong when you're a newborn, so you need oxygen because it will just affect your brain and everything else. It's like a downstream effect. Um, I mean, I'm sure there's parts of this story that are not fully right because, you know, I don't talk about it very often. It happened a long time ago. But I think it's, it's an interesting thing to hear or to think about when Sometimes things get tough. It's like you got to be positive and think about the fact that you are even here, right? Like, things could always be worse is kind of the moral of the story.

Um, when, when did your— when did you know about this? When you were young, did they, did they tell you, or—

yeah, I mean, the first time they probably told me, I don't know, I was probably like 13, and then I'm sure I forgot it, and then you get reminded of it when you're a little bit older, and then I think it kind of becomes part of your identity at some point, for sure.

So I was actually—

I was just—

I'll— we'll dive straight into it. I was just on Platter a few seconds ago, um, before you came in, uh, and, and funny enough, I'm working on a project where I think Platter will be a great tool for me. Um, and I, I just have like— I have so many questions and, and want to pick your brain about everything. But just for listeners or viewers that are not familiar, we just give me the, the quick 2seconder, um, fill them in on what Platter is.

Yeah, Platter is a Shopify theme and app bundle to help improve profitability on e-commerce storefronts.

Yeah.

So in layman's terms, what that means is we are consolidating a lot of the Shopify apps into one solution to reduce the number of apps you have on your storefront, reduce the number of support teams you have to deal with, and reduce your monthly expenses. And then we're also giving you best practices around how to increase your average order value and conversion rate on your storefront. So we can quantify making you money and saving you money at the same time. The big insight into the business we're building is that there's a misalignment between brand owners and development agencies because agencies get paid for their time, so they're incentivized to make things complicated and expensive and drag them out, whereas founders are looking for efficiencies and cost savings. And so because there's a misalignment, you hear about all these trauma stories of people getting burned by overpaying, not getting what they wanted, things becoming too complicated. And so the The misconception is that building a high-converting storefront is really expensive and takes a really long time. If Platter is successful in 5 years, it's because we debunked that myth.

Now, will you, like, in practice, what does that look like for, I'm a Shopify owner, I just launched my, you know, baby changing baskets, and I'm like, okay, I've heard about this Platter thing. What is one use case where it would help me as someone who's let's say just gotten into it?

Yeah, so what we do, like, we do an end-to-end process with brands. So we'll reproduce new wireframes for you based on your brand assets and your requirements. We'll produce wireframes, you'll approve of those, and we'll implement those and build those into a new store for you. So what essentially what we've done is just productize the process of building a storefront and brought that timeline from 6, 12 months down to like weeks or a month or two. And so because we've been able to productize a lot of that process, it's cheaper, it's faster. And because we've been building a lot of the most popular functionality into one solution for the last 2 years, we can give you something that is on— at parity with a storefront that would cost you 6 figures if you tried to build it from the ground up with like a typical agency.

What if you don't go the agency? What if you're— maybe this is a dumb question, but like you're kind of in between? I'm not going to pay 6 figures for an agency. I'm going to do it myself. Does Platter basically fall as that middle ground?

Yeah, because you— Yes, because if you do it yourself, you're most likely going to lack complexity because you either don't have the budget or the knowledge. And if you don't lack the complexity, you're probably in that 1% of people who are savvy enough for like— that's not our target customer. But what we're, what we're able to do is help the little guy compete against bigger players because we can give you a more cost-effective solution that also has the same functionality and capabilities of some of these bigger stores. So we can tend to those guys who are up and coming And also we can go to the ones who are larger and like, you don't know what you don't know. Here's a whole wealth of knowledge. And they're like, oh shit, like, I didn't even realize this. Can you tell me more?

So then, so the process is— correct me if the process is wrong here, but do you— would somebody open up their Shopify account and then come to Platter, or Platter— you start with Platter?

No, we, we usually work with brands that are already doing 7 figures online.

Okay.

So we'll go to brands and say, hey, this is what you're currently doing. But here's how you can make more money and save more money. And there's plenty of different use cases and entry points into brands. Like, you have everything from a brand doing $1 million online who's a solo founder who now realizes they're spending too much time managing their store and they want someone to support them. You also have the brand doing $20 million online who is struggling to improve their conversion rate, and they are paying an agency $15K a month, and they're dealing with a lot of issues on their storefront. And they want someone to help them. And then you have brands that are doing even more than that.

What about the brand? What about a new brand that's, that's just starting their online business? Is Platter the right tool for them?

The caveat, it depends if they have money or not. Like, we don't, we don't shy away from saying that, like, if you're bootstrapped and have no budget, it's probably not the right solution for you. Just because it's not, it's not cheap necessarily. Like, if you're just getting started, there's nothing wrong with starting with like building something yourself to learn like the exercise of doing it. But we do have use cases where there are brands who are just getting started. Like, I'll give you an example. There's a brand that we're working with now. Do you know who Kaley Cuoco from The Big Bang Theory is?

Her ex-husband was my tennis coach.

But no way. Yeah, she launched a brand called Oh Norman. Okay, which is a pet brand. Yeah. And her co-founder, who's more the operating partner of the business, came to me, was like, hey Ben, I have this competing quote. They told me it's going to take 10, 12 months, $150K to build the storefront. Like, what can you do? And I was like, we can do this for you. You know, at the time it was like for less than $15K in like 45 days. And she thought I was like scamming her. She's like, what? What am I missing here? Like, this is too good to be true. And I was like, no, this is real. They never had a store. Like, this was the inception of the brand, but they were venture-backed and so they could justify putting budget into building a store. So I'd say if it's for new stores or new brands, it's either for people who've built stores before and understand that you need to invest dollars upfront to build stores, or it's people who are funded. For founders who are scrappy and bootstrapped, who don't have budget yet, like I always say, go get a store up and running for cheaper, get something out in the wild. As you start to grow and recognize you want to make improvements, like that is the entry point to have a conversation with us. But what I don't want to do is mislead you or deceive you. In thinking that like you're gonna get a superior product without having to spend any dollars because like you get out of it what you put into it, right?

And, and there's, there's like, there's 3 different price points.

There's, there's 2 different price points, but like we all, we show the different offerings because like we have, so we have a theme product and an app product and then a bundle. Um, the app is $4.99 a month and then the theme and app bundle is $6.99 a month plus an implementation fee. That implementation is just depending on the complexity of your storefront because we build all the designs and implement them.

Okay.

And then we just show the theme on the website, but we don't offer that as a standalone product because it just doesn't make sense to do. But it's there for informational purposes.

And so then how much of when somebody signs up for either $499, $699, is your team involved or is it all like if you have a little bit of experience and savvy enough, you can all just do it yourself?

It's white glove right now.

Okay.

Yeah. Our team, our team takes you through like a very step-by-step strict process, uh, because if you follow those steps, the outcome is, is fantastic for you. I think maybe in the future we'll look to offer something that's more of a self-serve, but we've realized early on that a lot of people that we talk to either A, don't have the knowledge base to do it, or B, don't want to spend the time to go learn it and then implement it. And you actually end up opening yourself up to a whole can of worms.

So then the, the white glove aspect of it, how hands-on is it?

It's, it's pretty hands-on for the first like 45 days. Okay. First 60 days you guys set it up and then it's just like— and then you take it in. Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

It's like the first couple of months are very hands-on. Once we pass off the finished product, you can take it and run with it. We have some people who come back for ongoing work, others who we haven't spoken to in 6 months, and they're extremely happy.

But you still— and you still pay that monthly subscription, whatever it is.

Exactly.

Okay. And what have you found is the best feedback and some of the perhaps harshest feedback with regards to the product currently?

The best feedback is, I've been looking for this for a long time. Like, why hasn't this existed? And I think it's peace of mind that they're getting from it. 'Cause part of it is like being an R&D partner where you don't know what you don't know. And we always say brand builders are best at focusing on building a brand. Like, let us be the e-com nerds that are telling you what to do online. So it's like peace of mind. It's, uh, economies of scale because they're getting a very discounted price relative to the functionality that we're offering.

Right.

Because we've built it into one solution. So I'd say that's the positive feedback. I think on the other side of it, early on, uh, feedback that we were getting was just around like it was almost overkill for smaller brands, which was more just feedback for us to recalibrate who our target customer is. Okay. Because if you're not really doing revenue online, you're you're not going to necessarily reap the benefits that you would if you were a brand doing like 7, 8 figures, right?

Because it's like, okay, you see the differences.

We increase your conversion rate by 1% and now you're doing $500 a day instead of, you know, whatever, $400 a day. Yeah, yeah, it's very different when you're doing a million dollars a month and we increase your conversion. So I think it was just, uh, being honest with ourselves as to who our target customer was. And piece of advice that I got, uh, which is really helpful for early stage founders because a lot of times if you're a new founder, you're just a yes man and you want to sign anyone who's willing to pay you, right? But advice that I got from someone, they said if you kiss ass, you'll end up kissing ass. Uh, which I thought was a really good way to look at it, is like, I bend over backwards to get you as my customer, and I know it wasn't a good fit, but I wanted to sign you, and now I'm reaping the downfall because you're bothering me more than everyone, you're paying the least amount of money, we're not a good fit for you, but now we're in this contract and it's dragging my time and attention and my team's time and attention away from like the customers that are a good fit for us.

Do you ever— how many customers do you have at once? Because that— if you guys are hands-on white glove in the beginning, if you had 1,000 customers at once, I imagine that for a smaller team would be hard.

I know we've— we're scaling right now. Like we— I would say the way that our product is built, it's like we have an agency and a tech product under one umbrella where it's like tech-enabled services.

Okay.

We built— we build technology technology to make our process more efficient. Uh, we're almost at 100 brands right now.

Sick, good for you.

Yeah, I think we onboarded 12 last month.

And when, when did you see, uh, the biggest spike in terms of—

the last couple months? Why do you think? Uh, we launched Platter as a brand in Q4. Okay. We've basically been building the product for almost the last two, like about two years. Under a different brand and really didn't do any marketing because it was one of those products where we needed to get far enough along before it was really valuable. And so in Q4, we launched the new brand, we hired a head of growth and really started to tell the world like who we are and what we're doing. And that was when I started to lean in more to like organic content, right? And I feel like we've started just now to hit that flywheel where people are starting to hear about us and big names are coming forward like, oh, who are you? Like, tell me more.

Yeah.

And I think it's now you just got to ride the wave and double down and keep going.

What— quick technical question on the— when you say functionalities, like describe it for, for, you know, a Lehman listener who doesn't know what a functionality, a positive functionality could look like.

Yeah. So everything we build is around mostly trying to make you money. So that would be upsells, cross-sells. Our product is very much built around the thesis of like increasing gamification.

Yeah.

So like incentive bars, the human psychology of making you feel like you're earning something when you do a behavior, spending money, it's so real. It's like spend $20 more and get a discount.

Yeah.

People are like, oh, I want that discount, so I'm going to spend more. So everything we do is around like guiding the customer journey to help make them spend more money and buy more frequently. Got it. So if you talk about specific features. It's like I said, upsells, incentive bars, cross-sells, uh, cart drawers, mega menus, bundle builders.

What's a cross-sell and a mega drawer?

Mega menu.

Mega menu.

So mega menu is when you hover over like a button that says like shop, let's say, and it shows like a big screen of like images.

Okay.

With promotions instead of just like a long dropdown list.

Got it.

It's a little nuanced and a little technical.

Yeah.

It's a much easier thing to grasp if you like look at it visually.

I see. I see.

But basically what we do is figure out like how can we optimize the consumer journey so they know the information they need faster and they're more inclined to buy quicker and they're more inclined to buy more.

Okay.

So everything we build is around the psychology of making that happen.

So then like if, if I'm a new brand and I come to you and I'm like, yo Ben, help me out here, we're trying to do XYZ, we want to lean into Maybe we're like very, very, very consumer-focused in the sense of like it's all about the founders and we want to lean into that as an extra selling mechanism when a client is or a customer is actually on the site. Are there— is it personalized to that level or is it like here are everything that we do and you're going to tell me, you're going to tell me exactly what you want and then we're just going to build that?

It's, it's more the latter, but it's, uh, Look, it's part art, part science. Like, the reason the name of the business is Platter is because we build a lot of optionality and then you pick your platter, like you pick and choose what you want and how you craft it. And so through the onboarding process, we get a better understanding of like what's important to you, what features or functionality do you really want, what are your non-negotiables? And from that intake information, we will produce something that hopefully meets your requirements and expectations.

How many people are on the team currently?

We are 14. Wow. Super cool.

And you— do you ever raise or bootstrap the whole thing or—

We bootstrapped to profitability and then we raised a pre-seed in January of last year and then we were profitable again last month. So the future remains to be— remains to be seen.

Are you— I mean, I know in your natural hunger, is that might never be satisfied, but like, where do you— where, where's your content level as to where you are today?

I mean, I'm proud of the progress that we've made. Like, you start as, you know, 3 guys in a basement with this silly idea, and now you're putting food on the table for your employees and their families, and you're the infrastructure of multi-million dollar stores of brands you used to buy when you were a kid.

Yeah.

So in that regard, it's like pretty cool. But at the same time, I think a lot of the most successful founders are those who always approach it from the lens of what could be better and not like, what did we do great?

Right.

And so if you think about where we're at today relative to my ambition level, like we're in the first inning.

What could you do better? Like, it's part of it.

Part of it's a function of time. Like, I just always want to go faster. Like, I think we have a really healthy balance with my co-founders where I'm the irrational guy who's like, everything needs to be done yesterday.

Yeah.

And then you have one who's like, slow down, take a breath. Like, we're making progress. And you have one in the middle who kind of like listens to both. But I always like to push the pace. I think a quote that I heard from Elon Musk actually that really resonated with me when I was younger, like thinking I wanted to be an entrepreneur, was something along the lines of like, if you try to accomplish your 5-year plan in 1 year, you probably aren't going to do so, but you'll probably get a lot further than if you try to accomplish your 1-year plan in 1 year.

Okay. Yeah, I like that one.

And so I always just want a little bit more, which for better or for worse, I don't know if that's healthy, but that's, I think, a commonality of a lot of entrepreneurs.

Do you? And so it's now been how long in total that you've been working on Platter? What was the name before?

So the name before this was Smart Theme. Okay. And before that it was Framework Labs.

Okay.

So it's been about 2 years. Okay, we started as an agency with the goal of bootstrapping our first product into market. So it was like any profits we made from the agency just went into R&D for the products. And then eventually it was like, let's focus on building out more of the product side of this. And that's when we like raised a little bit of money.

What do you feel like you're best at work-wise with regards to your— the biggest value prop to Platter?

I'm a super connector and a vision guy, so I I think when I'm— so another piece of advice that I live by is make your A's, A pluses, and find someone else to do your C's for you. Like, I'm a problem solver. So if there's someone on my team is like, I need you to go get this person or do this thing, like, I'll go figure it out, right? And I'm— I like to connect dots, and I'm definitely a big picture guy. I'm, I'm at my best when I'm not stuck in the weeds. So it's, it's like, how do you build an infrastructure to then bring in people to help do the things that you're maybe not the best at, but also to allow you to spend your time on the things where you'll be the highest impact to the business.

Do you imagine your dream one day is to sell it?

Yeah.

Do you have a number in mind?

I do.

Do you want to share that number or no? No, no.

But I will. I'll make a note to myself to give you a call.

Please do.

After it happens, I'll tell you if I hit my number or not.

And then dinner's on you.

Hey, God willing.

Um, so I want to take you back, like, because I was listening to an interview of you— of yours earlier, um, where you talked about before you were gonna go into corporate and then didn't, or quit right before. Um, have you always had this, you know, entrepreneurial spirit, wanting to do your own thing? Do you think it's maybe also don't like authority over you? Do you think that's part of it? Have you always been this kind of person?

Yeah, 100%. I think I've been entrepreneurial since I was a little kid. Yeah, I think for the longest time in my life, I kind of fell into following this path that other people told me was the right path.

Right.

Not necessarily. And when you're younger, you know, you, you're a product of your environment and the information around you is the information you're going to take in and make decisions based off of. And so I think I grew up in a very traditional household. It was like, go to college, get a degree, go get a stable job, you know, and follow this path per se. And I think for the longest time I subscribed to that. And despite that, though, even in high school, like I was entrepreneurial, I was always selling things or building things and then got to college, you know, still in this kind of like back and forth cycle. Where I would tinker with different ideas around entrepreneurship. And then I went to Colgate University, which is a very corporate competitive school, and all these people around me are trying to get the best corporate job they can. I'm competitive, so I was like, okay, fuck it, I'm gonna try to get the best job I can too. And then I got it, and I was like, wait, why did I get this? Like, I don't really want to do this. And then eventually it was just taking the leap of faith and pulling the plug, which I think in hindsight was the best decision I ever made, because I joked that I probably would have get fired like a weekend anyways, uh, because I don't really do well with authority. But I think more than that, it's just that like I like to beat to my own drum and I always want to bet on myself. And so I, I think I finally realized that there is a world where you can do what makes you fulfilled and also support yourself to live like a— live a life.

Yeah, no, I think, uh, I think what I like about you and what stood out when I was, when I was researching you and when I first found you too is you're not like one of these— I can't stand like the corny entrepreneurs of like, this is how you do it, like this, this, that. Like, you're very real in the way you speak. And there's— and I think you, you address it very well in terms of like entrepreneurship is lonely. It's, it's not, it's not all the, the nonsense that you— that we see nowadays on, on social media and things like this. But there is, there is, I think, a specific type of person. And, you know, I have, like you do as well, a lot of friends that are in the corporate realm. And I think there's now a glorified— obviously entrepreneurship is glorified, but there's also like a negative connotation with corporate. I think it's just two different types of people and you fall into the entrepreneurial type of person. Do you have a lot of your friends that are in the corporate sense or corporate world that that you talk to that you— that either want to make that leap and you— and a commonality that you found on to as to why they don't. And then vice versa as well. I'm curious, do you, do you ever advise some of your friends that are in the corporate world to, to actually make that leap?

Yeah. So I think one thing I always like to make clear as well is that I have nothing against the corporate world. I think there's no— there's a right and there's no right or wrong answer. It's about identifying what's best for you as an individual. Or like, I have a couple of friends in the corporate world. I'm like, you crush it in this situation. Everyone has a different background, everyone has different financial situations, everyone has different flexibility for like different risk profiles, etc. And so there are a lot of people who are in that world. I'm like, you're right where you're supposed to be, in my opinion. With that being said, I've had multiple friends who've reached out to me actually asking for a job, which is wild to me.

Yeah.

Yeah. What have you said? None, none to date. I think it's a combination of a timing thing, uh, a fit, etc. I'm not opposed to it, it just hasn't made sense yet. Yeah, um, but I think one of the things that I realized in this process is that you have a lot of people who can't withstand that 3 to 6 month period of uncomfortable and unknown, which actually leads to them living a full life doing what they didn't want to do because they'll never take a leap for a small amount of time. I always think about it— how many people do you know that ever took that leap and really went all in for 3 to 6 months and actually got to the end of 6 months, was like, I failed so miserably that I have to go back and get a job? Yeah, far and few in between, at least in my— from my experience.

I think it's— I think what makes me sad is that I, I don't know. I think it's— it almost— to see someone scratch, like, jobs or corporate this versus— it's just more the, the idea that you're not, like, actually trying something, or that you're not— that you're so fucking scared to fail. And I think that's, like, the issue. And I try to preach it to my friends. It's not to convert them to this or that. It's more to be like, whatever, just go go like do it and shut the fuck up and do it and actually like, like think about it, feel uncomfortable, like live in that uncomfortable moment. And so when I had— when there's people like you that, uh, that I talk to, I think it's really cool to, to see how— I'm sure there were a lot of uncomfortable moments for you and probably still are. And you know, it's just more like— and I think for me, the greatest people, the ones that have the most success, are the ones that can like still maneuver and navigate uncomfortable waters. I think that's like the biggest testament of all.

I have a Post-it note on my dresser that says regret hurts a lot more than failure.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just like to remind yourself that you either try it and you, you learn from it or you just think about what if for the rest of your life.

Question for you, like when you're, when you're implementing that in your conversations or even in your own life, like there's— because I also have the friends that they want to be more like you or like this, right? In terms of like going for it. But they, they do have the thing that holds them back, which is fine. How do you, how do you either recommend to get over that or I guess in your experience, which could inspire somebody else?

Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing I'll say, one of the questions I've always been so interested to ask people people is like, what— and I heard this on a podcast one time, which is, what do they think are the commonalities of high performers?

Yeah.

And I think the number one commonality of high performers is insecurity, where they never feel like they're enough, so they're always striving for more. And you're on like this perpetual rat race of every time you get to one rung in the ladder, you're trying to get to the next. So I think in one regard, you have like just a personality type of people who are going to do it because their brain won't let them not do it, right? I think for the people who might be listening who are like, I've been wanting to do this for so long but I just haven't been able to— from what I've heard, the number one reason that people usually don't is because they're scared of being judged. Like, they're scared of what other people around them are going to think. So for example, if you're going to start putting out content, nothing's more cringier than putting out a short-form video of you talking to a camera with 150 followers and you who can't fathom that thought. So the advice I would have there is, if you have friends who start ridiculing you for doing that, number one, they're not your friends. Yeah, whether you like it or not, you have to face it for what it is. Uh, doing vulnerable things is a great filter for figuring out who's meant to be in your life and who's not, because those who unapologetically support you for who you want to be are the people you want around you, right? And so I think that, um, my first advice is you actually can see it as a very big positive because it helps you figure out who you should be spending your time with. The second thing too is if you operate with integrity in the sense that you're honest with yourself and you work hard and you do the right things, like, you can't be mad at yourself at the end of the day if you fall short doing something. And the third thing that I'll say is that if you always, like, look into situations that you got into and then backtrack into moments in your life where you made big decisions that actually are the reason you ended up where you are, it's really crazy to think about how being a yes man can be like the best trait that one can hold, in my opinion. Like, I'll give you one little anecdote that I think would be helpful. Um, do you know Danny Miranda? Danny's got a pretty big podcast. Yeah, him and my friend Zach Pogrob, who's a pretty big runner, they were co-hosting a run club in Austin, Texas a few months ago. It was a 4-mile run, and I was on FaceTime with Danny the night before. We were joking around, and Danny's like, come run with us. And I was like, dude, what? Like, I'm not flying to Austin, Texas for like a run. Like, what are you talking about? He's like, do it, you won't. And I was like, all right, well, if you're going to put me on blast, like, I'm going to do it. And I ended up booking a flight to Austin, Texas. I flew across the country to Austin, got there at 1:00 a.m., woke up, ran 4 miles with him and Zach in their run club at 7:00 a.m., and then flew back to New York at 12:00 p.m. And people are like, you're just unhinged. Like, what, what are you doing? That was ridiculous. And I was like, you're missing the bigger picture. Like, when you have an opportunity to increase your surface area of success by putting yourself around a lot of like-minded people, good things will happen. I ended up meeting a guy who's now my biggest referral partner and a big investor in my company because I went to that run club. And so that's all to say, like, I love putting myself in uncomfortable situations. And so I think, like, to synthesize that answer, like, don't care what people around you think. Like, say yes to opportunities and just be honest with yourself, and you're probably going to be happy with where you end up in whatever time horizon. Horizon.

I think too, I love that story, but I think too what I realize and I almost want to start doing is just, uh, putting like 30 minutes in my cal every day to the actual like connecting, networking, whatever you want to call it. Because I've noticed like same on a similar line of that It's— if I had statistics around it, which I don't, but if I had statistics on every— the more that I meet people and connect with them in an organic way that are, you know, similar kind of entrepreneurial vibe as me, opportunities have always arisen from them and continue. And it is— and it just only like elevates that more and more and more. And I think that it's kind of going back to just— it's a numbers game, like giving yourself as many opportunities to either find success, meet new people, uh, be in positions like yours where then you meet somebody on a, you know, because— and they also probably respected the shit out of you for doing what you did. And then that relationship, and then I'm sure that relationship leads to something else. You meet that person and so on and so forth. But what I wanted to ask you is on the— the— you've referred to yourself as a super connector. Obviously in terms of the networking aspect, I'm sure you're excellent. For you, I think that this networking idea— get like the word kind of annoys me because I think people misuse it and they throw it around and they think that like shaking somebody's hand or writing an email one time is connecting with somebody or growing your network. For you, what is like actual quote networking or super connecting look like on a daily basis and how has it helped you in, in actual practice?

So what's interesting about it is I know I have a list of all the biggest super connectors in my life who share this same quality. Networking for people who are super connectors is— it doesn't feel like a task. It's just part of your everyday life. It's the way you live. I've always known since a young age that like my value add is going to be my network. And so it's something that I value and take very seriously, right? But the way that I do it is like, how could I add value to people without asking for anything in return? And it's not because I'm expecting them to give me something at some point. It's just like karma is a real thing. Like, things, you know, the world takes care of itself the way that it's going to. And so if I just do right by other people, I'm sure when the time comes they'll be there for me if I need them. And so for me, it's like every time I meet someone, like, I always ask, like, what is your biggest priority right now? What are the things in your way? And I instantly just think about my Rolodex of people people, like, who can I introduce you to to get you closer to solving the problems you're dealing with today, right? And it's just, it's just something I've done my whole life, and it's something that I continue to do. And I found that there's just so many instances where I'm able to just connect people and beautiful things come from it. And it's really like not something I ever expect something from in return, but I think when you just do the right thing, it comes back around.

Is there one Is there one— uh, I want to go back to when you were talking about the insecurity and kind of like how that fuels you. What is it that you think you're most insecure about?

I think when I— one of the challenging parts of like looking around to try to figure out, you know, it's like you want to figure out how to do X, go find someone who's already done it. And like listen to their story or how they did it, whether that's listening to podcasts, reading books, etc. One of the challenging parts about reverting to successful people as like your means to try to learn how to reverse engineer what they did is that you get stuck in this comparison game of feeling like you're not enough. Yeah, you're not good enough, right? Like, I have friends who are my age who've already sold their businesses for $50 million and have done the most insane things or have big audiences or whatever it is. And so I think I— when you surround yourself with successful people, you oftentimes will look in the mirror and just feel like you're not enough. And so for me, I think I, I struggle with that insecurity of recognizing that there's levels to this game, and there's always going to be someone better than you, and there's probably always going to be someone worse than you. And so when I get stuck in this game of comparison, I'm like, I don't have as much money as I should today, like I don't have as much success, uh, publicly as I should today. I don't have, you know, it could, it could stem into any, any, um, part of what you quantify as success, whether that's health, wealth, relationships, uh, financial freedom, freedom of your time. And so I think for me, my biggest struggle is just comparison. As much as I would like to tell myself that I'm on my own path and, and I respect that and honor that, like I'm always looking around me and it's not healthy and it's something that I'm trying to work on. And to be honest with you, it's something that I've worked on a lot with my therapist over the last couple months. And what I've been able to unpack over the last couple months of talking to her about this is it all comes— but it all comes down to trust. Like, if you don't— if you don't trust in yourself, you're always going to feel like you're not doing enough, or you always need to do more, or you're never content, and you're always preoccupied and anxious about doing things. Because if you actually trust yourself, you can go to sleep at night knowing that, like, you did what you should have that day. You put in the honest effort, you did the right things. And that you'll get to where you want to go if you just stay this path instead of constantly second-guessing yourself, always thinking about what more you should have been doing. And so eventually, like, she asked me after hearing me talk about, like, where these problems stem from for a while, she's like, do you trust yourself? And I was like, to be honest with you, I, I thought I did, but I actually don't know if I do.

But why do you think you weren't trusting yourself?

Because I think that lack of trust comes from comparison, because it's like, okay, if, if person X is already this far along and we're the same age, why am I not there?

Right, right.

But you know, you forget that maybe, you know, I have a friend who started a company, but he started when he was 17, so like he's a decade further along in his entrepreneurial journey. So when you get stuck in this game of comparison, you start to second-guess if you're doing enough because you're not where they are, and it's all perception. Yeah. So I think part of that is learning how to be more okay with myself in terms of where I'm at on that journey of accomplishing whatever those goals are. And again, back to the point I made before, that if I trust myself that I'm doing the right thing, working hard and operating with integrity, that I'll get to where I want to go. But I have to respect the fact that everyone's time horizon is different.

Do you, do you find that, that— I don't want to say the word issue, but did you find that the lack of trust also seeped into who you are as a person, putting the professional aspect aside?

Yeah, probably. I would say whether it's conscious or subconscious, I'm sure, I'm sure that it has. Like, I think, you know, one area that definitely played a big part of my life was I played Division I hockey in college and I, you know, long story short, like, I, you know, my whole— I played my whole life. That was like my number one goal to get there. And then my freshman year, I only played 8 games. The assistant coach basically told me I wasn't big enough, strong enough, fast enough, had a bad attitude, should even think about if I want to come back next year. Ended up doing it and then led the team in points my senior year. And that's all to say that, like, I lost trust in myself along the way and didn't think I was capable. And then you get to this point where you just outwork everyone next to you and go above and beyond. And that was an instance where I just felt like I didn't trust myself, so I had to do more. And then I got into this perpetual cycle of always thinking I needed to do more to get to where I wanted to go. And so then I think I basically developed this like all-or-none extreme mentality in every aspect of my life, right? It was like I woke up 12 weeks before a marathon and had never run more than 5 miles. I'm like, I'm running a marathon. It's like, why couldn't you just like go run a couple of miles? Why did it have to be a marathon? Or I was like, you know what? Like, I'm, I'm going to stop drinking. And now it's been like a year and a half. I haven't had a sip of alcohol. It's like, was that really necessary? Like, no, but same way everything I do is like all or none. And so So part of it was trust, and the other part was like, how could you try to be less extreme in your decision-making processes?

But I don't know, I kind of think like that's part of— because I'm the same way— it's part of what makes us us. And I think what— totally, you know, for better or for worse, right? Yeah. Like, it's the, the reason why you can find success is also the reason why you can't sleep at night sometimes. And, you know, and also why some things work and some things don't. Like, I think if anything that I personally have tried to do is just like forgive myself a little bit more, you know. Like, I can't— you can't always be the best, and very unlikely— it's very unlikely that you will, you know. But like, even if that's always what you're striving for, um, for you, what's, uh, on the entrepreneurial side, what do you think was the most formative experience?

I think there's probably two. I would say there's probably two things that I can speak to that were most formative. The first one was moving to— so I played a year of junior hockey where I lived in Western Canada for 7 months.

How old were you?

I was 17 at the time, 18 maybe. And then I moved to Silicon Valley and did a coding bootcamp for 4 months because I had this idea that I wanted to do but couldn't find an engineer. So it's like, I'm gonna go learn how to do this myself.

Sick.

That was definitely formative. I was like, all right, this is what like the big boys do who are building real businesses. And then I think the second thing was when I was working at an early stage COVID testing startup, uh, that scaled to $50 million in revenue in 5 months. And I basically built a team of 60 under me in in like 50 days and was responsible for like managing that. It was one of those times where like I didn't have time to even think, so I just did it. And then after the fact, I was like, holy shit, that was wild. I've never had a startup experience like that in my life. And that just teaches you about the importance of having a bias for action. I think that's another commonality of successful entrepreneurs. What—

break down what that means.

Just like progress over process. Uh, there's a time and place for process, but people who just do and put things out into the world that are not perfect and understand that everything is, uh, about iteration and incremental improvements, right? Like any business you look at today, any product you look at today, very, very few, if any, was like the first version of what they made is what they still have today. So I think a lot of people, again, it goes back to this concept of vulnerability or worrying about judgment, that oftentimes people go slower than they should cuz they're scared of what people are gonna think instead of just like shipping things and figuring it out along the way.

How much of the coding do you still code? Do you do any of the tech stuff?

I don't. Uh, I, I—

it's helpful though, I'm sure. It—

well, it was helpful, number one, to be able to like understand the principles, to be able to communicate with technical people. But I also think it's a lot easier to figure out what you don't like versus what you do like.

Yeah.

Uh, I think figuring out what you don't like to do is a much faster way to getting to what you do like to do because asking someone what you enjoy is a loaded question, but it's a lot easier to ask someone what you don't enjoy.

What benefits have you seen starting your podcast?

I mean, there's been a number of benefits. I think the first one, first and foremost for me, has been like, it's a great networking ploy. I mean, if you call it spade a spade, like, people love to talk about themselves. So if you give them a platform to come sit and talk about themselves, they'll take you up on it every time.

100%.

I think back to what I had mentioned about relationships. A podcast is an instance where you're giving something to someone else without asking for anything in return, uh, which is great. I think the next piece of it is I've always enjoyed having interesting conversations with interesting people. The only difference is I'm just turning a camera on. And so from like a personal brand building perspective, it's a very low-touch way to redistribute content on different platforms for, uh, you to increase your surface area of people hearing about your story and resonating with it. And to be honest, something that I very much think about, and I think holds a lot of weight as well as it relates to podcasts or content in general, is that you can't, you can't use like the number of likes or comments or views as the metric for like success, because all it takes is one person to hear something or see something to resonate and resonate with it that could change the trajectory of your life.

That, and I think also too, and I tell a lot of people that I work with on, you know, when I help them with their shows, it's like— and you're, you're actually an excellent example where you have— then somebody could listen to you and it's a business owner with an e-commerce store, and that just turned into a paying client who's paying $700 a month times 12, $8,000 a year plus. So there's so many, like— but who the fuck cares if there's 12 likes on the video or whatever it is, right? Like that, that's at the end of the day, that $8,400 in Platter's pocket is way more— that way more beneficial than any type of viewership or listenership or whatever it might be. So I think like it's a cool— I, I couldn't agree more. I think this is the greatest tool honestly that exists. And like, how long have you been doing it?

Have you, uh, we've put out 24 episodes. Uh, we've been at— we started working on it like a year ago.

Yeah.

And then it took a little bit of time before we ever put anything out because I think a big piece of it for me too was actually to productize a lot of the process, uh, where it's very hands-off, right? It's like I'm now at a point where I don't really do anything besides like research my guests and sit down and talk to them.

Yep.

Because I'm running a company and it can be very time-consuming very quickly. And so I've always said I wanted to optimize for consistency and not virality, which is also the reason we turned my living room into a studio.

Yeah.

Uh, but we've now been consistently releasing one a week for the last few months.

Are you in a relationship?

I am.

How long have you guys been together?

Officially, only a couple months. Unofficially, like 7, 8 months.

Is it somebody that's, or, uh, entrepreneurially driven, or Complete opposite.

She is a PA for a plastic surgeon, physician's assistant.

Sick.

Yeah.

What, what have you noticed as, I guess, dating somebody that's different in terms of work, and which I imagine then also in life, what has that been like and how do you, how do you balance your relationship?

So we're different in terms of what we do professionally, but we have a ton of similarities just from like a personality perspective in the sense that like she's super competitive.

Okay.

Uh, always wants to push herself to be better, is a super curious person. So we'll, you know, she like does some real estate stuff on the side and is always trying to like figure out other things to do. I think she just really like acts of service is definitely one of her love languages. So she loves her job and like helping people, which I think is fantastic.

Mm-hmm.

But it's been refreshing to not have to sit and talk about startups and entrepreneurship and like the couple hours a day that I'm trying to disconnect from it. But at the same time, I think one of the very cool parts about it is that she is very understanding of my priorities and integrates into my chaos seamlessly, which is a very hard thing to do when you're dating someone who's building an early-stage startup.

Yeah.

So like very supportive and understanding, but also like can keep me grounded and make me realize that it's okay to like step away for a few minutes here and there.

Couple minutes. Yeah.

And it's actually wild how we met.

How'd you meet?

Not to go down a tangent, but I don't know if you knew that I had a YouTube channel.

I think I had. Yeah.

Called Birthday Series.

Yeah.

Long story short, we did a 131-mile run from Montauk to Times Square.

It's fucking nuts.

And I needed a medical person because I had 20 runners and a 17-person production team. So I needed someone there just in case.

This was when again?

June of last year.

Okay.

And I reached out to— my dad's a doctor. His mentee is also a doctor who is based here in New York. And I reached out to him. I was like, hey, do you have anyone at your practice that you think would be interested in helping me? Because I wanted someone from a private practice who had insurance. Okay. Because if not, I just would have to pay for the insurance out of pocket. Because if you work at a hospital, it's not covered for activities outside, right? And he's like, I have one PA who might actually be interested. And it was her. And the even crazier part about it, she'll probably be mad if she finds out that I said this on a podcast. When he gave me her number to reach out to her to just like tell her about the situation, and I called her, she actually stepped outside of a room while she was going through a breakup to answer my first phone call, uh, because she knew I was calling about this thing. And she just told me that like a month and a half ago.

So funny. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, so, and so it was a 131-mile run?

Yeah, it was a relay race. Okay, so then how, how much did each person There were 10 runners on each team.

Okay.

Uh, each team had an RV and you guys could split it up however you wanted. We had people run anywhere from like 5 to 40 miles.

Fuck.

Uh, it was basically like a reality show meets competitive running where like most of the people were runners, but we had a couple who weren't serious runners but were hilarious personalities to just like add. Cuz there's a whole dynamic of being stuck in an RV for 24 24 hours with the people you just met.

Are you gonna do it again?

Not anytime soon. Um, I don't know, I've like— it's the YouTube channel has kind of been put on the back burner for the time being just because like Platter has taken up a lot of my time. I love the content stuff, but I've realized like YouTube is the hardest thing in the world as far as content, and it requires full-time attention if not close to it.

Yeah.

Um, it was one of the craziest experiences of my life. Like, I My claim to fame is that I got Nike to sponsor my first video ever that I put out on the internet, uh, which is a pretty fun fact. Yeah, but I don't— I mean, it's funny because some of those runners like want to run it back and do it again, but I don't have like the time or the bandwidth. Maybe in the future.

So then wait, so then how do— who hit on who once that came around?

Yeah, I mean, she'll probably tell you a different story, but I, I mean, it was more so that like when I met her, I was like, okay, this girl is definitely, uh, intriguing, but I'm gonna professional until the run ends. And then after, like, I reached out and we went out and the rest is history.

Love it.

Yeah.

So to wrap things up, when— well, if we come back sooner, but let's say you come back in 5 years, where do you want to be at professionally, personally? How do you want the Ben Sharf brand to look like at that point?

I think there's a couple pieces to it. I think the first one is having full autonomy and freedom over my time. Like, I truly want to be able to do whatever makes me happy and fulfilled at the expense of nothing. And I think you need financial freedom to be able to do that. I really, I really want to just be able to truly be honest with myself and saying that I'm doing the things that excite me every day. Like, I love being able to wake up inspired by the things I get to work on and the people I get to do things with. And so, you know, right now I just want to continue down the path that I'm on. But I think 5 years from now, probably want to have a nice outcome with, with what I'm building today and then hopefully continuing on to explore my curiosities.

Sweet. Well, I appreciate you coming in. I know time is precious, so I appreciate you making the time. And I look forward to seeing all the things that you build and whether it's Platter and all the future ventures. I have no doubts that you'll find success with them.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks, man.