Investing $46M in "Hustlers" with Eric Bahn

I invested in his company. He was 14 years old. He had faked having diarrhea with his t-shirt to go to a bathroom stall for 30 minutes. It was super clear he was in the bathroom stall. I heard other boys in there using the restroom, flushing the toilets. He went on to deliver one of the most solid pitches about what he wants to build. On the spot, within like 25 minutes, I offered him some of my own capital because he might actually be crazy enough to pull it off. Scrolling, tapping there, we ain't done yet. Let's blow up the internet.

So why should VCs have good content? Doesn't everybody just, you know, just want the money? Why do they care about a vision or cool brands? Why does a VC need good content?

So that's a great question, you know, because even a couple of years ago, Jason, it wasn't that common for venture capital firms to produce that much content. It was just a handful of firms, maybe A16Z, First Round Capital, They were doing that for years, and then now there's this explosion of content. And even those who are content-forward, like Harry Stebbings of 20VC, just raised $400 million for his most recent fund, and he really did that by being content-forward. I think it comes down to the expectation that venture capitalists are now being held to that startups have been held to for a long time, which is when you're investing in a startup founder as a VC, you want them to be a great storyteller, someone that can attract not only just great investors, but also great employees and especially great customers too. And for years, decades, you know, startup founders have been investing in building really good content capacities. And now that venture capital has become a little bit of a commodity, Jason Levin, with this explosion of venture capital funds that have happened over the last 5 years, it's really hard to differentiate them, right? So those that can tell their story, what makes them different, how they can help their founders or help the broader ecosystem with their values, I think have a good mechanism to differentiate themselves if they can tell that story well.

Yeah, I had Ciki Chen on my podcast a few weeks ago to talk about storytelling in startups, talking about how important it is as a founder. And I've never really thought about that from a VC's perspective. You know, you think about it as in like a VC has a thesis, but what about a story? Um, so what is kind of the story behind Hustle Fund and the story that you're you're sharing and perspective with the world.

Our firm focuses on pre-seed stage investments, which is this very early tranche of capital that founders typically raise with maybe some family members if they have a wealthy enough family or angel investors. We try to come in as an institution alongside of those kinds of folks. And our story is pretty simple. We think that the very best leading indicator of success that goes beyond where you went to college or where did you work or what do you look like is this quality that we call hustle. So we define hustle as great execution meets high velocity. And I see you shaking your head, Jason Levin, positively nodding because, uh, you probably understand this really well. Teams that are just highly experimental, oriented towards measurement, are constantly trying the throughput of what they can ship each week, each month, each year, will tend to grind out the best businesses over time. And the really amazing thing is when you judge people on hustle, It turns out that great hustlers look like anyone and come from anywhere. You know, for those that are within our core portfolio, it's naturally 50% women, naturally 27% underrepresented, naturally 60% of our companies are outside of Silicon Valley in places like New York or Charlotte, Indianapolis, everywhere across the United States and even the world because great hustlers look like anyone and come from anywhere. And being able to serve those who are a little bit overlooked because of race, gender, ethnicity, beliefs, geography is something that gets me really excited about where this industry needs to go and how we can serve founders.

Yeah, I love it. I am, you know, have always called myself a hustler and, you know, just hard work and whatever needs to get done gets done. And so really believe in the same thesis. And, you know, personally, college dropout here. And, you know, if you're hustling, if you're doing well, like no reason to keep going with that if you've got your own thing going. Did you invest in ErgZoo? As well.

Oh yeah, yeah. I'm a personal investor. He's not out of the fund. So it sounds like you know Eric pretty well.

Yeah, yeah. So I interviewed Eric for my book, Memes Make Millions, a while back. He is an absolute meme lord hustler himself. You know, amazing at going viral on the internet. You might have seen him working from his bathroom when he was, you know, in school.

That's where he pitched me.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I think hustlers can look like anyone, anywhere. They could be 16. They could be whatever age. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Eric was like middle of Ohio or somewhere like super random, like, yeah, yeah.

So quick story about this. When I invested in his company, he was 14 years old, like had his braces on and everything like that. I think he was a freshman in his high school in Indiana, I want to say in the Midwest. And, uh, he had faked having diarrhea with his t-shirt to go to a bathroom stall for 30 minutes. And then he had the audacity, I loved it, of just like not hiding his background, not doing any noise cancellation. It was super clear he was in the bathroom stall. I heard other boys in there using the restroom, flushing the toilets and so forth. But he went on to deliver one of the most solid pitches about what he wants to build. And on the spot, within like 25 minutes, I offered him some of my own capital because I thought this is someone that has so much audacity, uh, and you know, so much creativity too, that he might actually be crazy enough to pull it off. And now he's in San Francisco a couple years later, assembled an amazing team and is making it happen. It's been so cool to watch him. So cool to watch him.

100%. Um, yeah, Eric has been, uh, doing some crazy, amazing things. And that kid has hustle and definitely defines what it means. Like, are you going— are you willing to go to any crazy lengths? So like when I, when I wrote this book, Memes Make Millions, I flew out to SF, hung out with Eric, and we decided to bring a toilet into a blue bottle. And we literally went to Home Depot, found a friend who had a car because, you know, he was young and I didn't have a car. I was just visiting. And we'd bring a giant toilet. We'd buy a toilet from Home Depot. And bring it into Blue Bottle to go sit on to work and recreate the Eric Zhu office.

Oh my gosh.

Now that he's an SF.

Yeah, it's an interesting one because memes also have interesting life in the sense that I think if you were to ask him now, he's probably starting to move away from the toilet memes. It was really great and effective in differentiating him and his story now, but he's now maturing. He actually acts and behaves just like a scaled leader should. And so the toilet thing's an amazing gimmick, but I think there's gonna be a period of time where he has to rest that probably now.

What's funny is he actually said in, in my book, he said like, the toilet thing's not gonna last forever.

Yeah.

You know, you have to, you have to change, you have to grow. And he said it was a great way to get attention, but eventually, you know, I'll, I'll be moving on to new things and, and, but it was a great way to meet people. So that's something like people shouldn't, I guess, underestimate is like memes, humor, being a goofball on the internet. Like that's how a lot of very big people get started. And then they could— you could transition into more serious roles. I mean, you look at Turner Novak, right? He memed his way into a VC fund and now he's been, he's been a lot more serious lately on Twitter generally. There's a, there's a ton of examples like that. So. Yeah, I think—

Yeah, Turner's another great example. I mean, the two commonalities between an Eric and a Turner is Turner's based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I actually know him quite well too. We tried to hire him at Hustle Fund even before he actually began Banana Capital. And in those kinds of places where you don't have the natural, really convenient to access network effects of being here in the San Francisco Bay Area, it's even more important, I think, to focus on your story. 'cause who wants to talk to some random guy in Michigan or Indiana when there's all sorts of really incredible talented people who are here in San Francisco? So it's amazing as examples that you cite those two because they're really good examples, I think, for founders, especially outside of these embedded networks to learn from.

I mean, I started out startup life when I was in Bumblefuck, New Jersey, right? And no one, I wasn't even in New York at the time. And memes are just kind of a way to connect you with people, just Twitter in general, internet stuff, but it's a good way to stand out. I also like just a huge fan of the branding of Hustle Fund in general, like your guys' use of phrasing and words. You know, as a writer myself, like you're very specific using— you basically like make up your own words sometimes on the site, which I just love. And like using silly words, emojis even. It's just not your typical VC fund. If you're watching this, go check out their website. I really recommend it because it's just done so well. Didn't you guys hire the first employee at The Hustle, right? Sam Parr's The Hustle, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's Kara. She leads our marketing and events. And thank you for the kind words too, because—

Yeah, I'm just a big fan. Yeah. I'm not, you know, it's been really cool to watch.

So I'll tell you a little secret in terms of our writing style. Actually, this is something that almost anyone can come up with. If you go to our website, hustlefund.vc, you're going to find that it is pretty irreverent. It's a little bit juvenile, but it's certainly differentiated. We have things like fake animals like hippocorns. I'm actually looking at one right now on my screen. So part hippo, part unicorn. For some reason, we added some Pegasus wings. When we were designing it, by the way, my value add was like, this is cute. Can we make it farting rainbows though? And it farts rainbows. So you can see that on the website. But this is the secret, which is any piece of content that our team produces must pass through the following filter. This is our voice guide. Imagine a 15-year-old girl who is super sarcastic, but a closet idealist. So Jason, you might be looking at a 43-year-old Korean man in his garage right now, but actually you're looking at a 15-year-old girl who's super sarcastic and a closet idealist. This actually represents our team perfectly. If you were to see our Slack communications, the way that we interact with each other in person, it is sort of at that level. But because it's so organic to us, it makes it— it gives us almost permission to be really fun with the content. And also some of the gimmicks that we get to do. One example, which I was going to show you, but it's not in front of me anymore, is we actually sell things like little plushie dolls of that Hippocorn I just described. Those are enormously popular. But it's turned into an amazing mechanism for us to have branding and even deal flow, because when people get those things, they put it on Instagram or TikTok, and then they mention like, oh my gosh, I got this from like the Hustle Fund team. And it sparks that curiosity and just allows us to open up to more Gen Z builders as well. So it's all these kinds of little things that we can have fun with, but that's for us. What I encourage those who are out there who are startup founders, yourself, Jason Levin Levin, also other VC funds, is figure out what your organic persona is and then just really lean into that.

Oh, 100%. I love that. Yeah, I saw on your merch store an anti-VC VC club and it's like the Antisocial Social Club in yellow font, like your guys' font and like stuff like that is I would actually wear it, you know, it's, it's just done very well. You don't see many VC funds doing merch. And something that I always talk about a lot because, you know, I have a similar irreverent meme lord style with my writing is like, yes, it will offend some people, but it will attract the people who I vibe with and like who I actually am. And that's how you, you know, you build real followings, build real relationships is by being who your natural self is. And it's okay to like repel people. The internet's really big. I don't think a lot of people realize that, like how big the internet is. It's okay if not everybody likes you. That's fine. There's always more people like who, who you will find who like you. So I love it.

I mean, it's almost like a Rorschach test the way that you're describing this too, Jason, because you're right. Sometimes our content is probably gonna be clowny to people. You know, I can actually understand that. It's like, are these serious people? Like, why would I ever give them cash or take their money or whatever? But those who get you will really get you. And, and that's kind of the wonderful self-filtering that happens, which is I I bet you, Jason Levin, there's a certain kind of persona, a person that you enjoy working with that gives you joy, just like interacting with that person, doing business together, being teammates, whatever. And just putting out your natural self and filtering for those who actually get you, I think just creates an ecosystem of more joy over time, right? And it's okay if the others don't get it and they could be great opportunities too. But life is long. There's a lot of amazing talented people building out there, great partners as well. You can be selective for those who really do understand you.

100%. I actually, my best employees, uh, two that I have that still work with me found me, um, just from putting out content.

That's right.

You know, like I put out one piece about, it was called Digital Apprenticeships and it's basically how I worked with Greg Eisenberg and learned a lot from him and worked with another, uh, big Twitter folk. And, um, you know, the future isn't just, you know, past apprenticeships or internships. It's like actually getting an apprenticeship from somebody you might never meet, but who you look up to.

Yeah.

and like people reached out to me from that and like became good friends and people I work with. Uh, so content is like, it's just such a magnet. And if you're being truly honest with your content, if you're being who you are, like you'll attract the people you like. If you're being fake, you're gonna attract people you don't like. It's pretty simple. Like just be real with who you really are.

So, you know, Jason Levin, the thing I really enjoy about this conversation that we're having is we're almost now painting funnel for how you can get going, which is, you know, memes is a great way to attract initial attention. Content's a great way to have longer-term engagement and relationship building. And eventually that turns into community. Those who are gonna do business with you, support you, but also become teammates of yours, investors of yours. It sounds like you really figured out each of these stages as well. And I do hope that this is starting to become a takeaway for some of your listeners from this conversation.

100%. Yeah. Greg Eisenberg talks a lot about the ACP funnel, audience, community, product. For me, I sort of accidentally did that, started with the audience, then Meme Lord community of people who read my book, who are in my paid community. And then now I have a meme marketing software called Meme Lord Technologies that, you know, people all over are using it at a lot of startups. And so it's been— it's definitely been cool to see. I'm curious, did you ever have negative reactions from LPs around this kind of stuff?

Yeah, there has certainly been some. So in the beginning, when we are really starting to find our voice, there certainly was some confusion as to like, what is is this strategy? The most skeptical view of what we do could be like, why are you so chronically online? Like, why are you tweeting the most ridiculous stuff all the time? Why is there so much content being produced by our team? Is this a distraction to the core work? And I think the answer to that is, I think it's actually a critical part of the venture capital game here too. And largely for this reason. So maybe we need to split up venture capital into two tranches. Like there's like early stage venture capital, and then there's like later stage venture capital. So let's say that you and I start a later stage venture capital firm, we're investing Series Bs and beyond, right? I would argue an effective approach to that would be not necessarily tweeting out pictures of hippocorns and talking about minivans, which I do a lot, but instead building super solid relationships to earlier stage funds like Hustle Fund or Jason Levin or whatever, right? Because they're going to be the ones that can drive deal flow your direction. They're gonna send their best companies to you that you can lead their Series Bs, whatever, right? So you can, you can be much more under the radar, I would argue, so long as you're great at the tactical relationships. However, you know, guys like us, like Angel Investor Jason or Hustle Fund, uh, and Eric Levin Levin, so we should always assume that there is an amazing founder out there who is just getting started, who has no knowledge of startup terms, venture norms, or even has any of the embedded networks yet. But is still incredibly brilliant and has the potential to build something huge. For those people, you know, who are coming on board every day, you have to constantly be marketing, right? Like here, here's like a analogy that kind of inspired me. If you remember during the holidays, and I guarantee you're gonna see this if you go to a movie theater during the end of your holidays, like you usually see Coca-Cola ad with polar bears, you know, family, a cute drinking Coke and all that stuff. Coca-Cola is the number one soft drink manufacturer in the world, but they're also the number one software manufacturer when it comes to ad spend. So I bet you if you turned off all those ads for this year or next year or whatever, it'd still be number one. But they know the lesson, which is to remain number one, you have to aggressively put yourself out there in the brand marketing and everything, right? And I think actually this era of venture capital is kind of similar. If you're aggressively putting out lots of great educational content, helping to just serve this ecosystem with hopefully some good karma, you tend to get rewarded back. And the way that we measure that reward, whenever I get a pushback, let's say my LP Jason Levin's like, yo dude, like, what's up with this clowny content? Like, why are you spending time? My response is Hustle Fund now sees over 1,000 deals a month, right? Like, we're probably within the top 1% comfortably of deal flow that a venture capital firm receives. Globally. This stuff really does work and it creates an amazing selection bias of the types of founders that understand our values and the ones that we enjoy working with all the way to billions of dollars of outcomes.

Yeah. Speaking of billions of dollars of outcomes, uh, congrats on the Rupa Health, uh, acquisition. That was yesterday, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, actually closed actually exactly a week ago as of this recording on October 16th. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. So what was it like working with, uh, the team over at Rupa?

You know, outside of the, the cash that comes back and all that, that's lovely. But in this game, there's something that I've realized is actually the real joy. I was lucky enough to get to know Tara, who is the original founder. She has a second co-founder, Rosa, as well. She brought in right after we invested, who's also amazing. But I really got to know Tara when she was just a solo founder, one person. She knew that she wanted to do something in the health space. It was obvious from the one first minute of talking to her that she's super brilliant, but she didn't really understand like what she wanted to build just yet. And being able to witness that journey from like nothing to the outcome that she was able to produce for herself, for her teammates and her investors as well, was nothing short of just pure inspiration. I mean, like this was like a 5.5-year journey of my getting to know her and seeing and bearing witness to unbelievable journey that she had. And the thing that I think is always gonna be most satisfying about that is just, you know, this, this is, I don't want this to come off as like condescending or anything like that. Katara is absolutely brilliant. But like when you're in the business of pre-seed stage investments, oftentimes you're investing before the founder actually truly believes that they can pull it off. They, they have a lot of confidence, don't get me wrong, but like it's still kind of theoretical, right? And then, and then you see this moment where they figure out product market fit. And then they realize like, I am actually as good as I thought I could be. And being able to witness that moment of self-actualization in a human being, I can't emphasize enough, is one of the most emotionally moving things that you can witness. And to see there and see Tara just become the leader that she is, and now one of my role models as well, you know, I can't believe how blessed I am to have this job where I can just bear witness to that. And yeah, pretty soon you'll have her on this podcast so she can share her journey too.

Nice. I've spoken to Kobe. He was— he was—

Kobe Conrad. Yeah.

Yeah.

He's an amazing hustler. I was talking to him last night, actually.

He's a great hustler for real. He's really smart. I think I'm doing a guest post on his blog soon. Really nice guy. I love the idea of like believing in somebody before they truly believe in themselves. And also, like, I think it's pretty crazy to think, like, you're investing in somebody. Does it ever freak you out? Like, they might change their idea. Like, that's, that's crazy, right? Or, I mean, it's a good thing if they need to pivot, but a lot of people, like, who aren't in startups, VC, like, that's freaky, right?

Well, it's, it's interesting that you say that because I actually believe that for a long time. I was the founder for 15 years before I became a venture capitalist, and I did some pivots as well. Uh, my first company had 7 pivots and then finally it worked out. So imagine how, how much heartache, uh, some people had over that one. But now that I'm on this side of the table, and now that I'm focused on early, early stage, pre-seed stage investments, I can comfortably tell you that 33% to 40% of the companies that we invest in will have an entirely different idea later. They will pivot. And what I quickly learned in this business is like, it's not about necessarily Jason Levin building this amazing meme lord business now. And when I write that check, it's actually a bet on Jason Levin, which is like, if he discovers that like the bigger opportunity is in like organic cat food or something, something totally random. But you trust that this is actually a real builder who is aggressively scaling and has massive ambition to grow this into like an incredible business, a generational defining business. You always take that bet. You always take that bet because the greatest founders are always going to lead you to the opportunity.

Yeah, 100%. I love that. Reminds me kind of what South Park Commons is doing, investing in founders basically pre-idea as well. And I was just blown away by that concept too. I was literally talking to, you know, a kid today who like has this idea that's like going and you're like, you just know he's so smart and when he nails it, nails it. I'm curious, what is a sign of a hustler? How, like, if I had to say, it'd be like, maybe this is a little fucked up, but like sold weed in high school, like, you know, made a first, made some money when they were like 12 or 13 doing some weird stuff, you know, maybe like duct tape wallets. That's something I did, like eBay when they were like 11 or 12. Like, yeah, you know, all this kind of stuff. Do you have any like signs of a hustler like that?

It's, it's, I, I like those kinds of stories for sure, but we have a really specific definition that I'm going to come back to. And I want to talk about like why we called it hustle fund, because there's some pretty interesting connotations behind this. Hustle for us is defined as great execution meets high velocity. I'll tell you what's not for us. We don't actually prescribe necessarily to a definition that it's about working like 100 hours a week and like killing your body and then dying rich and alone. Like, you know, that's not necessarily like some of the best hustlers we ever worked with actually. Manage relatively reasonable hours, but their throughput of what they can ship in any given unit of our work is like almost 10x or 100x more than other people. They know how to prioritize and they know how to ship. Experimental growth mindset, and they just ship, just super biased towards action. So it almost feels like the rate of learning is a 10x or 100x more than a normal human being. That to me is a true hustler. You get that sense usually from like a sense of humility, which is like when you give 'em a direct, honest answer, which is like, what can kill your business? Let's take this one for example. This is actually a, a red flag for me. Sometimes I get founders who are just like, nothing's gonna kill this business. Like, I'm amazing. And while I appreciate that confidence, I actually think it is a lie. Like, there's so many things that could kill a business that are quite reasonable. But if you actually have like a little bit of self-awareness of like, here are the gaps, and then here's what I think I need to actually fix or fill in order to get there. Taking a step back about hustle though. So my first encounter with the word hustle, actually there are two encounters. One was like, there's a porno mag in middle school I saw like Hustler, right? So that was like, okay, that's funny. But actually the real first start of hustle, of me actually understanding it, what happened in 1993. So I was in 8th grade and then I bought the Ready to Die album by Notorious B.I.G. Right? And then, and when his song Juicy says like, you know, I was hustling on the street to feed my baby daughter and all that stuff. So back then it actually meant like do illicit activities to make it happen, you know? Hustle Fund, when we actually began actually this journey, is unique in the sense that first we're a women-led fund. I think very few people actually recognize that. Like I'm a man, but like 2 out of 3 general partners are women. 60% of our team are women. And we thought it was kind of fun to take a term that has historically been associated with men owning into a context that's actually being redefined by women. And then the second part was this, which is like, for like a real hustler, for me, is just like, you can give Jason any problem and by any means he's going to creatively find a way of solving it. Those are the people that I like to work with the most, like that growth mindset, absolutely creative, and just know how to ship. And we thought that we had an opportunity to redefine that word hustle. But I will say this as my last comment here, Jason Levin. In the beginning, Fund 1, we got a lot of people saying no to us to invest in our fund because they didn't like the word hustle for all the things that was mentioned in the past. Like there was a porno mag called Hustler. There is, uh, you know, the, the illicit drug trafficking or whatever that, that meant hustle. And they just really didn't get it, but they kind of did us a favor because I don't think they really understood our vibe. And what we're trying to accomplish here. And I do think now hustle's moving into a much more healthy era of connotation. So that's something that I'm really proud of that we're trying to push it towards that direction.

Okay. Uh, I definitely like it. I'm curious, have you seen a decrease in deal flow at all due to AI and stuff like that? Like all these no-code tools or, or, you know, Curse, or like, do they not need to go hire as many people and not need VC? Like, is that happening at all or no? Just outta curiosity.

I guess within my little microcosm, which is the deal flow that I see, we're still growing our deal flow. Again, I see 1,000 deals a month. It's, it's continuing to grow. So the appetite to build companies is still quite high, and I would argue getting higher. I have two thoughts about AI. One is I'm always excited by the idea of bringing more voices into startups. And it was not that long ago, even like in the '90s or early 2000s, where people were saying like, if you're gonna start a startup, learn to code. Right. It's very helpful to code even now, for sure. But do I think that a lot of businesses could form who are tech-enabled where you don't know how to code? I think the answer is like a resounding yes. Like I would argue you and I could start an amazing e-commerce business selling white ceramic mugs with cool, like, like slogans on it with no technical skill, but with our growth chops, maybe we can, and meme chops, like we could turn this into like a really successful business and that's a tech-enabled business. Right. So more voices, I think, and that which is, which is creating more access for people who especially don't have technical backgrounds to start companies is exciting. That's one trend. And the second thing too is, you know, at one point I was sort of holding this idea that AI is gonna remove a bunch of jobs and then, um, you know, maybe people are gonna raise less money and still build great companies. And maybe some of that's gonna happen for sure. But what I think I now believe, Jason, is just that people are ambitious, they're going to use whatever tools they have available to them to accelerate their work, but they're probably still gonna work the same number of hours. Um, so, but like, may— maybe there's like a, a phase here, which is like, could you find product-market fit with fewer people? I kind of buy, and maybe a little bit less capital. I can sort of get that too. But if you're gonna scale up to be like a, a multi-billion dollar business, I still believe that at some point it becomes your job as CEO is to bring in the best talent, enable them with the right tools to just like 1000x their work and then just dominate the globe. So, you know, for us at Hustle Fund, because we sit so early, it, it doesn't really affect us or not whether you want to raise a lot or a little because we're generally like in that first round anyway. So all this stuff is to say that I'm just excited and bullish and I do think that there's going to be a lot more people starting companies as a result of AI.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that sounds about right. It's easier to find PMF and then at some point you're going to need the capital to go hire a bunch of people and, and take over the world.

I, if that's your ambition. And actually I do see another class where maybe your thesis is right, which is like, let's say you and I only care about making $10 million a year, like only, uh, and like you split $5 million, I split $5 million. We do this for 10 years. I actually think that's an amazing life and I would never poo-poo that as a lifestyle business ever, because like that's still gonna require a bit of a grind. But could we do that with like 6 people or something like total? I, I think it's completely possible and maybe that is an ideal path for a lot of founders and I wanna celebrate that too.

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I chose to bootstrap, um, Memelord Technologies, what I'm building.

Awesome.

Was talking to a few VCs who were interested and, and got to the point where I was just like, all right, profitable, doing good. Maybe down the line there comes a point where like, need some capital, go scale and like really blow it up. But, you know, it's, it's doing good right now. And yeah, it's cool. I don't know how to code. I just, you know, I don't. And I was just able to do this right. And so It's amazing. I think that's the future where we're living in right now, which is a hustler with some Red Bull can grind something out, make something that's profitable, and maybe he wants capital down the line, or maybe he wants what you said, the $10 million a year business. And it gives you more options. I think the AI, no-code, it gives you more options over what kind of life you want. Um, and what you're comfortable with.

Well, I'm going to add this final point here, Jason. So, which is that, uh, you know, I, when, when a company goes through an acquisition, As the investor, you get, uh, what's called like a waterfall at the very end where you see where all the dollars from the acquisition flows. So how much did the founders make? How much did every single investor make? It's actually the most voyeuristic and wonderful thing ever, because like you can see like, oh my gosh, like Jason Levin got in like before I did and like his valuation is very—

he's getting more.

It's, it's funny to watch that stuff. But, um, you know, there are situations where a company sells for $300 million and then I see the founder only made like only made like $6 million, right? And I, I can't help but think about the thought experiment of just like, how hard did this person have to sacrifice for a $6 million outcome when maybe they would've been better off bootstrapping for a little bit longer, selling for $50 million, let's say, instead of $300 million, and then they keep all $50 million for themselves. And then I would argue that just like that's probably the better outcome. You just have to wait a little bit longer because maybe you're a little bit more capital constrained in the beginning. So, uh, it's a choose your own adventure, but I see this all the time and it breaks my heart a little bit.

Yeah, 100%. It, there is nothing sadder when somebody raises VC that doesn't need it and then it's just like, oh shit, what do we do now?

They just gave it away.

You could have just bootstrapped and, and lived a good life. Um, I think it's, a mix of ambition and greed or something of the sort. I want to jump into angel investing real quick because I know you guys have Angel Squad. I talked to Brian a while back actually, and I just made my first angel investment and I'm pretty stoked about giving this a try. And what's kind of your experience with angel investing and any tips and tricks for the people out there?

Yeah, thanks for chatting with Brian. So Angel Squad is our investor community of 2,000 angel investors that train on early stage investing in the Hustle Fund style. And we also open up opportunities for special purpose vehicle investments into our own portfolio companies. It's a really cool program. Check it out at hustlefund.vc/squad. I actually began my career in venture actually first as an angel. I was angel investing for, I want to say, 6 or 7 years before Hustle Fund. So just like you, man, I was an operator and I started to just write these small checks into teams and then Some of them ended up becoming pretty amazing to give me the optionality to actually have the credibility to start things like a fund later on. But I would say that beyond just like setting yourself to become a VC, if that's a goal, is actually the thing that was the secret amazing benefit outside of just like, okay, maybe this is going to make me some money. You shouldn't assume it will. Like angel investing is just really high-risk stuff. But what it does buy you access to is a seat at the table. With the other investors. So what I started to realize was like, okay, I'm investing in Jason's business and I can see all of his other investors who are in, let's say he's like Peter Thiel or Reid Hoffman or whatever, stuff like that. Like I can ask him for those introductions and be like, yo, we're both supporting Jason Levin. Can we get to like know each other? And it did, it dramatically exploded my network of just like funders, people who are like senior operators, like influencer types and celebrities who are in, in this ecosystem as well. So my advice for you, Jason Levin, my advice for your audience is if you have the means to do so, to write even like a $2,000 check into a company that is really promising, offer it. The money won't necessarily mean that much to the founders, but also offer to roll up your sleeves. So example, Jason Levin, for you is like if you're just getting started out trying to invest in me, it'd be like, look, I'm going to write you a tiny check. It's my first one. I only have $2,000. Let's pretend in this scenario. Uh, but what I can do is really help you with your communications. I can really help you understand memes and driving your business. So I think my value is gonna be way more than the check that I write, and I just wanna be part of this journey. It's a solid pitch. I think, uh, 10 outta 10 times a founder should take your capital because you're offering so much more than that. And in exchange, you get to be part of that seat at the table as well with those other amazing investors.

That's literally, uh, what I did. So yeah, I wrote a small check and the founder already uses meme marketing a lot of the time. And so I already have like, you know, started retweeting and sharing him in like a list of startups that are using meme marketing and just trying to like help as much as I can and talk about that stuff. And so far so good. But wow, I never thought about the buying you, almost letting you get connections and do that buying, buying a seat at the table is A very cool way to put it. And I think that's really smart and underrated tactic and like a cool use of capital that, that people don't really talk about too much.

So yeah, and I think that's a good like summary from this like segment of the conversation, which is when you write the check, also try to understand who else is investing in the company and see if there's anyone that you can get a warm intro from your founder to get to know that person. And it just, everyone benefits. Investors love to meet other co-investors. That's part one. You guys can sort of strategize to help the founder, but also when you build stuff that might be venture-backable or have other deals, you can go back to this network as well. It's just this wonderful flywheel that feeds itself forever.

Yeah. Oh man, that's so smart. I love it. I hope people listen all the way through and they got that tip. That's really all the major, major questions I wanted to cover with you. But where can people find you, Eric? Where's the best place? How can people get in contact if they have a startup idea that they want to talk to you about or talk to the team about?

Yeah. Well, first of all, Jason, thank you so much for this amazing service that you're doing with this ecosystem, with this podcast. You're clearly a super talented interviewer. So it was an honor to actually just have this conversation with you and swap some stories like this. If you're a founder building something new and you're looking for your first investor, we would love the opportunity to get to know each other. You can check us out at hustlefund.vc. There's a button that says, what do you hustle? Hustling, our team reviews that submission form all the time. And whether a warm introduction or cold, we actually ask everything, every single founder to go through that process so that we can have an equal footing for how we're actually viewing the amazing new talent that's coming to the marketplace that we might have a chance to serve as well. So check out hustlefund.vc. I tweet a lot chronically online as we discussed. You can find me at @ericbahn, E-R-I-C-B-A-H-N on X, Twitter. And, um, yeah, those are probably the best mechanisms. So again, thank you so much, Jason, for this opportunity.

Yeah, thank you. And back to the phrasing, man, the, the button, what are you hustling on? Like, perfect. Like, it's just so on brand.

I love it. All right.

Thank you so much, Eric.

All right. Appreciate you, man.