The Connective Tissue

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And welcome back to the Tacos and Tech podcast. I'm your host, Neal Bloom. I've got on a longtime ecosystem friend here, Eric Weiss, the founder, executive coach, and really, you know, founder whisperer through Chaos to Clarity, as well as president of San Diego Design Week. And he's also the Vice Chair of Startup San Diego. Eric, thanks so much for being on the pod. And also thanks so much for helping build this community that we're all a part of.

Likewise, man. I mean, great to see you as always. You know, we go way back. And yeah, I mean, as a fellow ecosystem builder, I mean, I feel like, you know, we could, we could fill up this, this podcast pretty quickly.

We can. We did it on yours maybe 6 months ago-ish, which was fun. Maybe we just need like a semi-regular spot where we just like chop it up on the state of the Ecosystem.

Um, I like that.

But, uh, you know, we go way back to what I think is kind of the founding cradle of the startup ecosystem, EvoNexus, when it was a community platform, not just an incubator. I would say back, I moved in, I moved to San Diego because of my startup portfolio and getting into EvoNexus in 2013. Were you already in it or when, when did you— was that right?

We had—

yeah, yeah. So we were in the program, we had graduated. Um, sure, when I met you, we had graduated from Evo and, and moved up to the co-working space upstairs, The Vine. Okay.

Yep. The post-Evo, same building, but pretty much everyone moved there at some point.

Uh, part of the startup campus, you know, if you will.

Yeah, the vertical campus that was, uh, 101 Broadway, which really was the hub which birthed San Diego Startup Week and then Burt's Startup San Diego, you know, kind of around that and many, many other things. So we're gonna talk about that a bit. But first, just wanna know, how did you find your way to 101 Broadway? Like where did it all start from like tech path for you, Eric?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I've been a hacker and a developer my entire life. I mean, I was, you know, ripping apart electronics as a little kid and started, learned to code at 9 and you know, that whole thing became a bit of a black hat hacker. My adolescence, gotten not a little bit of trouble, a decent amount. But, you know, of course, saw the errors of my ways and reformed and all that. But, you know, came out here— actually, I came to San Diego on the way to the Bay Area to do the whole startup thing. I actually just came to San Diego for a summer just to kind of like have a San Diego summer before I went and did the startup grind. And I never left. And that was like over 20 years ago. I've been, you know, I do a ton of work up in the Bay Area. I've interviewed at like a dozen jobs or more up in the Bay Area. And every time I look at the math, I look at the calculus, San Diego always wins. So here I am.

Yeah, it does. I mean, an hour flight to the Bay beats any drive anywhere else, that's for sure. Honestly. And you're just like plopped right into the middle of the Bay, just like San Diego. You start off right in the middle of San Diego from the airport there. So yeah, like live here, work there. Totally has worked. You've been building some really good relationships over there as well too. I know you've really almost— I feel like you've shepherded people down here to get them to plant roots here. A friend, Brad Corona, and others, right? Like, take us through, you know, how you've taken your role internally from startup builder to startup ecosystem builder. Like, what was that journey? And give us the why on that.

Yeah, I mean, you know, so this started— I mean, I got to go way back to like 2006-ish. Where the startup community was very, very nascent. There was a group called Startup Circle, which met at Mintz Levin, now Mintz, which is still, you know, a pillar of our, of our tech ecosystem. We're hosting a day of Startup Week there this year. And I got plugged into Connect. I was a Springboard mentor early on. This was all while I was getting my MBA in entrepreneurship at San Diego State. So that plugged me into the startup scene, started doing kind of management consulting on the side when I was working at Raytheon and then at Sony and then at Qualcomm. So I always had my kind of foot in two areas. I was in like big enterprise technology, um, and then, you know, my role in startups was a lot of mentoring and, and, and consulting and advising and things like that. Um, you know, getting equity and trying to help startups succeed, um, and really looking for that opportunity to like really dive in. Uh, and that didn't kind of— that came a lot later than I had expected. Um, it didn't come until around like 20— yeah, like 2014, 2015 when, when I joined Rock My Run, which was an Evo Nexus startup. But, you know, I've always just had a love for helping entrepreneurs and being in that startup world. And, you know, again, San Diego just didn't have the critical mass in those days. And so I, you know, again, kind of had my foot in, in both domains.

What was it? Take us through a little bit of like the big tech you worked on and more just because I'm always curious, like startups start as a little bit of like a disruption against the big, but have to turn into the big a little bit. They go through this transformation of like, oh, the big is the incumbency, but to be successful is to also become the incumbent. Were you feeling that like one foot in both worlds? And how did you, where did you feel like you lived?

Yeah, it's kind of hilarious that, you know, working at— I worked in sort of big enterprise architecture and software and everything. And, you know, my enterprise company as well as clients as a consultant and a coach, they're always asking me, you know, how do we be more like a startup? Help us be more innovative and agile and all that. And then working with the startups, it's all about, you know, how do we scale? How can you bring that sort of big company rigor and expertise to, you know, to help us scale up our startup? So yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, two sides of the same coin. But, you know, so my, my work at Raytheon, I worked on these integrated defense systems. So the, all the systems on, on these aircraft carriers that were integrating all of their, their sensors and communications and weapons systems and all that. So it was like really serious stuff. And so I actually got really into like Six Sigma. There's kind of this cult around Six Sigma process improvement and all that. And that became my like operator operations kind of engine or system that carried throughout my career. Um, I got really sick of that and then I went in the totally other direction when I worked at Sony. I worked on the PlayStation 3. So, uh, we were building the first network platform, PlayStation Network platform, uh, as well as, you know, all of their massively multiplayer online games, you know, EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies and all that fun stuff. Um, so, you know, brought that same kind of, you know, operational rigor there where it's like, you know, global distributed systems and, you know, constant hacking and security threats and all that. Um, then, you know, once that, after the PlayStation 3 launched and the company kind of wobbled a bit, I moved to Qualcomm where I got into, um, data science, kind of early machine learning, predictive modeling, um, like large-scale data engineering, basically connecting all of these like massive data sources., across all of Qualcomm and then being able to make predictions about where the industry is going to go and where they should be investing in R&D and that sort of thing. Got to sit in, you know, Paul Jacobs' office and as his sort of personal data scientist for a while. Um, so that was all, you know, pretty exciting. And so then again, when I was, uh, mentoring and consulting and advising with startups, it was that, okay, how do we develop that rigor, that operational rigor, to help us scale up.

Amazing. Seen some few different industries.

Yeah.

Um, you know, some who've never been, I feel like Raytheon may have never been a startup for as, for as much as it feels like. Uh, but Qualcomm definitely had startup roots and definitely always has said like, you know, has had to kind of like reinvent itself at different times. I'm sure that's going through again in this new AI revolution. Um, but pretty interesting. What, what, I don't actually know the path to Rockman Run. Where did you end up there?

Yeah.

Um, so the, the, the founder and I were really good friends. We went to grad school together. We worked at Qualcomm together. Um, and so, you know, he jumped off to just to found the company. Um, you know, I was an early advisor, sort of technology advisor. And, uh, and, you know, once they raised a little bit of angel money, uh, it was enough to get me to break those golden handcuffs and, uh, and jump in.

I love it. Yeah.

Well, yeah, there were actually in that year, there was a few Qualcomm spinouts, Housecall Pro, all former Qualcommmers.

Very good friends of mine as well. Yeah.

Uh, even I think, uh, Josh Komenda maybe from Veo also, I think, a former Qualcommer too. So yeah, there was like an interesting 2012, '13, '14, like Qualcomm spinouts that— I wouldn't even say spinouts, they're just former employees that started new stuff, and Evo Nexus became that home for many.

So interesting. Like, that was a period where, you know, Qualcomm had hit its peak and had started doing rounds of layoffs. And we would always joke that every time Qualcomm does layoff, 100 new startups are formed, which, you know, kind of a good thing, a bad thing, but it means like tongue-in-cheek that, you know, there's so much capacity that's locked up in these, you know, in these big institutions with these, with these big handcuffs. So, yeah, you see it as a blessing, right, that folks get a little bit of a parachute. And so I actually even volunteered to be laid off. There was a, there was a round of layoffs and, and I had this, you know, this thing going on the side and I actually was able to save somebody's job because I said, hey, please lay me off. Give me the severance, I'm gonna go do the startup thing. And again, saved somebody who wanted to stay.

So true.

Wow.

What's fortunate for us, for sure, uh, they say like in macroeconomic downturns, that's when some of the most disruptive startups are born, right? And, uh, even in a local lens, big enterprise company in San Diego laying off, that is its own like microeconomic event. Uh, you know, I just heard that Google had some layoffs, you know, on their wearables side that are— I think this was all the Fitbit, a lot of the Fitbit people who work at Google San Diego. It's like 70+ people that are looking for something that would love to find a San Diego spot, right? Like 70 engineers is actually pretty big for the tech San Diego community. So yeah, it's interesting. What It's one thing to say, I want to go work on something disruptive in technology. It's another thing to say, I want to build the connective tissue and the ecosystem around it to help those companies be successful. You're doing— a lot of times you've been doing it at the same time. Like, what's that like? And how do you step up and lead while also doing the thing? Because that's a hard part of ecosystem building.

Yeah. You know, it's wild. Like, when people ask me at a networking event what I do, it is the hardest question for me to answer because it is not one thing. I like to joke that I'm a parallel entrepreneur instead of serial entrepreneur, but I like to be— I like variety. I like to be involved in a lot of different things. And I'm, I'm just passionate about community building. It's— I honestly say, like, there's no reason for it. It's just in my DNA. I will say that, like, I used to be a musician, I used to be a DJ, so I used to throw events and throw parties like all through high school and college and everything, you know, big warehouse raves and all that stuff. And so getting people together and seeing just like the vibrancy of community is something that not only I love, but I just have a natural gift for. And so it's sort of like I always tend to fall into leadership vacuums. So when there is a community that sort of needs that support and needs that, a lot of times it's also just the consistency and kind of the— a little bit of like execution or operational rigor just to kind of keep it going. I will often fall into it. You know, you mentioned Design Week. You know, I kind of tangentially was curious about this thing that was happening in my world, but a little off to the side. And I said, oh, you know, I want to get involved in that. And I went from being a volunteer to a board member to the vice president to the president within about 6 months, just because the way that the board had turned over, there was this leadership vacuum and it was like, I'm not even a designer, but if I don't do this, it seems like nobody else is going to do it. So screw it, let's do it, let's jump in. And I'm actually in my, my fourth year leading Design Week now, so it's pretty exciting.

Wow. So the design world, I feel like, has always been like really parallel to the startup world. Like, there's, there's like, we like touch at times. I think it was 2016 Startup Week on the Broadway Pier where we actually hosted the very first Design something by the—

Move Forward Summit.

Yeah, Design Forward Summit, I think kind of kicked off at Startup Week, you know, together. But we always feel like we're like two ships traveling together and never really aligned. What— tell me more about like design thinking versus— and I've had Don Norman on the pod, by the way.

Where—

what's the opportunity here to actually like have design and startups thinking alike and doing more together in each other's ecosystem?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny cause I sit on both boards and so I'm trying to do this kind of all the time, but, but yeah, no, I mean that, that is the inception. So Design Forward Alliance is the organization that I'm the president of. That's the organizer of San Diego Design Week, uh, was founded in 2016 when this Design Forward Summit happened at the, at Startup Week. And that was a coming together of, you know, Don Norman, who founded the Design Lab at UCSD., and you know, all the other sort of pillars of industry to say, hey, we've got this really strong design, you know, economy here in San Diego. How do we really put it on the world map? And there were, there were, you know, a few things that sort of came out of that, but the ones that really stuck were, um, uh, were San Diego Design Week and, um, the World Design Capital, which is a kind of global distinction. You kind of think of it's like the World Cup or the Olympics of design. Every couple of years there's a country that gets this distinct or a city that gets this distinction. And it was a 5-year process to put the bid together. I mean, it was like all the institutions, the mayor, you know, the city, the big foundations, Prebys and Burnham and all that, and did this huge like study and put together this bid. And we won. It was actually San Diego and Tijuana as sister cities. So it's the first American city. We are the one and only American city, uh, to ever be World Design Capital, and the first binational, uh, region to be World Design Capital. So it took 5 years in the making. And again, kind of like, I saw this happening because I was involved in the design world as just a part of being a product leader. Um, and when I, you know, I started seeing this happen, I said, this is really cool, I want to be a part of this. They just pulled me in and said, all right, come on, come volunteer, come join the board. And then that was the year where like a lot of people had kind of burned out because they'd spent 5 years getting the thing that they couldn't. They had to pass the torch. So I took the torch and stepped in as president during the year of the World Design Capital, uh, which was, you know, which was bonkers. We also took Design Week over from the Mingei Museum in Balboa Park. So they, they were one of the partners. They, they founded Design Week in 2020, which was a wild time to to, you know, kick off a new, a new conference. And, you know, so through the whole pandemic, right, it was that weird like hybrid stage 2021, '22, and then '23 we took a year off because it, you know, we've had to kind of prepare for the Role Design Capital. And so like we were pretty much doing this all from scratch. It was the first like in-person year, all in person. It was the first year that the Design Forward Alliance was really leading it. And, um, and it was also a part of this huge World Design Capital thing. So it was, it was bonkers. But so when I was asked to kind of step in, I was like, well, I'm an operator. I'm an executor. I'm a project manager. Like I'm a startup leader. Like, let's just go, let's do this. Um, and so, you know, we're designers are more creative and, and, and, uh, and, you know, um, uh, I don't know, a little bit mercurial. I was able to just say, all right, let's herd these cats. Let's wrangle this thing and get it done.

Amazing.

Yeah, yeah. What was— what I love about Design Week, and I've been to a pretty minimal amount of events to be honest, but here and there I'll pop in, like it's not— it's a stage of company agnostic, which is cool, right? You'll have just as much, you know, Qualcomm and Intuit hosting events as, you know, someone radical at the startup level or, or the cons— the, you know, kind of agency side, which has got deep roots in San Diego, uh, kind of the UX design, you know, agency community here. I think of Chet Robley and some of these others, right?

Who—

and Chuck Logonecker, who some are like, some like, like big think thought leaders and operators locally. What do you look at when you see kind of like what, what's the full reach of design in San Diego?

Yeah, well, so, so that is the, you know, that's the birthplace. So the digital product UI/UX design sort of, that's again the tech side that I came in from. Neal Bloom, um, is, was sort of, you know, launched this thing. And, um, so when, when 2024 World Design Capital finished, 2025, you know, all of that like big grant money went away and it was like, okay, now what? That was just this big question. Now what? Okay, we, we finished this thing. What does the next leg, what does the legacy look like? Um, and so we had to go back to grassroots, right? Again, a lot of the funding dried up. This was also when, um, You know, our new president, uh, stepped in and essentially all of the funding for arts and culture evaporated overnight. Um, you know, the institutions lost their funding, you know, all the— and anyone who didn't lose their funding, everyone tightened the purse strings because they just didn't know what the heck was going to happen. Uh, and so we pretty much— I think our, our budget for 2025 was one-tenth of the budget of 2024. So again, as a sort of a startup guy, I had to just say, all right, we have got to go back to absolutely square one. We're a startup again. Um, we need to figure out how to do this purely with like volunteers and, and, uh, uh, and in-kind, uh, support. So, so 2025 was, was definitely like a transitional year of like, can we pull this off, make it sustainable? But what I had noticed when I was sitting at Design Week that year was, um, like kind of how corporate it felt. Like it really was a lot of the professional, like large corporations and, and very digital kind of heavy. And I was getting a bunch, we were having a bunch of people showing up saying like, this is not at all what I expected Design Week to be. Like when I think of design, I think of interior design and architecture and fashion design and so on. But, and like, where is all that? And I was like, you're absolutely right. Where is all that? And it's because that was who we were as an organization. That was our board. So I said, okay, my mission now is to have the broadest representation of design possible. Uh, and so I went and did a whole new recruitment drive and now we have a fashion designer on our board. We have an architect, we have a landscape designer, we have, um, you know, multimedia design and all these different facets of it. And so this year we have all new tracks. Um, and the goal is to really make it much more accessible. Much more like family-friendly and, and sort of available to the public. And it's more— less about professional designers teaching each other how to be better professionals and more about how do we teach San Diego about design in all of its forms. So I'm actually like more excited about it this year than I've ever been. I mean, it's, uh, it's going to be a ton of fun.

Well, let's talk about it more then. Like, what's—

when is it, uh, and what does, you know, this year look Uh, so it's September 15th to the 20th, um, and, uh, it's all over, but, um, you know, we've got, uh, some pretty amazing things happening. So the first thing is there is this massive project called the, the Arts and Design District downtown. So there's something called the Downtown Partnership. Um, it's being led by the, the Prebys Foundation and, you know, a bunch of other, um, just important folks, um, in the city and, and in, in philanthropy as well as like the land developers. And they basically have sort of bought up a 10-square-block, uh, area of downtown near Horton Plaza to the Civic Center. Um, and, you know, all of this sort of empty office space, it's really cleared out since COVID Um, and they want to revitalize it and turn it into an arts and design district. And so we said, you know, the kind of the, the initial story was like, well, in 5 to 10 years, this is going to be amazing, and then you guys can come and do all, you know, work here and and live here and everything. And I was like, well, why don't we just do it now? Like, why? We're designers. We're, we're used to being in the mess. Like, let's just get in the mess. And when it's a work in progress, and then we can even help shape what it's gonna be. So this year we're actually launching this partnership with, uh, with the Arts and Design District. Um, the hub is down at 401 B Street. So like the Wells Fargo building kind of right in the, in the epicenter there. Um, and it's, again, it's just like a bunch of like, empty office space that we can just do whatever we want with, and, uh, and it's going to be a real sort of work in progress. Um, on top of that, we have like real pillars of the community. We've got, uh, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego is hosting a full day of fashion and costume design that we're putting on. Um, that is going to be, you know, just amazing, right? Bringing in fashion is like— fashion design is actually not a big thing here, not as big as it used to be. Um, and our, our board member who's in that space just has some really big ideas and is going to bring some cool stuff to the MCASD. Uh, we have like the La Jolla Playhouse who's going to open their doors and show us all of their, the costumes that they've designed for all the various plays and kind of talk about the business of costume design. Um, we have Adobe coming in as a, as a title sponsor this year. They're putting on, you know, multiple workshops and a huge sort of capstone event. Um, and so they're kind of plugging into, you know, teaching folks about, uh, about graphic design. Um, gosh, I mean, there's, there's, there's so much. Yeah. That I can, I can keep going on, but it's gonna be exciting.

No, I love the layered approach to it too. You know, it's, it, and I know it's been happening this way for a while. I think Tech Week, uh, has popularized, you know, kind of the community calendar. Uh, but this kind of sounds similar, right? It's not just some conference at one place. It is go immerse yourself and go be where the designers are, not the other way around where, you know, bring the conference, make everyone come to you. That's so cool. Uh, and, uh, I know back in the early Startup Week days everything was downtown, so you actually just like walk the streets seeing people with all throughout downtown with their tags. A little harder in the design world when it's all over San Diego, but still just to be able to look on a map and say, whoa, look at the, the how the broad the design community is here, uh, is pretty cool. So thanks for championing that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, people always ask me, right, like, why do you do this? Like, what, you know, you're not a designer, like, how— got all these other things going on, why this? Because it's just freaking cool. It's so cool. It's so fun. Like, it's exciting. It's creative. I mean, it just gets all the, the, you know, the juices flowing. And so, um, yeah, it's one of those things where there was a leadership vacuum. There was a real— there was a thing that I just realized needed to exist. And at least at the time, there was nobody to take the torch. So I said, okay, fine, I'll take it. Uh, and until I, you know, find somebody else to take the torch from me, uh, I'm going to continue to, yeah, give a part of myself to it.

I totally appreciate that. I think the whole community does, uh, whether they're saying or not, uh, cause kind of keeping connective tissue or even creating it is a really, really big thing. You know, I've— I'm under the opinion that we've lost some connective tissue post-COVID. Even I think we were even losing it in the startup world before COVID without having that physical space that really built trust in all of us, you know. What's your kind of take now, now that you're, you know, helping lead Startup San Diego as well, and you're seeing a different world, you're being able to like A/B test design startups, startup, like where do you think startup, the startup community is locally?

Yeah. I mean, yeah, you absolutely hit the nail on the head. I mean, being a part of that moment in time when we had that startup campus, there was just so much, so much that happened effortlessly. There was so much that happened sort of naturally just by having all of the right people in the building, right? The fact that there was a, you know, a space where you could host networking events and whether you were a brand new incubated startup in Evo versus, you know, somebody who had scaled up like Portfolium, right? Everybody's in the same, in the same place. And those connections are made and you don't have to do it like on purpose. It doesn't take work. So that's actually why I'm so excited about this arts and design district. It's downtown. And yes, a lot of people have moved up to North County and we have to kind of reconcile that. But I believe that, that, that's why I want to invest in this because if we can build that that district again downtown and have that just natural third space where everybody already is, um, it's just gonna, you know, it just, it creates economies of scale. Um, so from a startup perspective, yeah, we're, we're struggling with that. Um, you know, you and I have even, you know, talked about this online, is that need to create these hubs, these third spaces that aren't just co-working spaces, right? But they're third spaces where people naturally want to go. Like, where's the watering hole? Um, and it's just, it's gotten so dispersed. I mean, San Diego is a huge county and we've got clusters up in Carlsbad and downtown and even down in Chula Vista and over in Rancho Bernardo. And it's really hard to get people to, to travel. Traffic sucks in the city. Uh, and so it needs to be a kind of a thing where people are like already there and then, oh, there's some networking or, oh, there's some opportunity for people to connect. And I think we just have to be able to build that while understanding the economics of real estate, which is, which is really hard.

It is really hard. The economics of real estate generally don't have the same kind of timelines that startups do. Um, but I think also one thing we, we often overlook from the glory days, if you will, was that there was— it was professionally community managed, and it was Evo Nexus that footing the bill for two community managers, Michelle and Kristen, who really were that like glue, honestly, right? I think a lot of us took it for granted that, that like, oh, just things just happen. It's like, you know, they planned a meetup to happen every night and sometimes every morning so that the random traffic would pass by our desk, right?

Yeah.

But that was, that was even 2.0.

You know, I remember Michelle even like making sure that we'd get fed. There was like a, like a Vulture mailing list, uh, you know, that, hey, there's, there was an event on the, on the second floor, come eat it. And then all these, you know, starving startup people eating their ramen would go downstairs and, you know, that's how we would get the fuel to push through. But, um, yeah, no, there, there really needs to be, and that, and again, from at least from a design perspective, I'm hoping that these foundations like Prebys and even the city, will, will support some of this. But yeah, these, these subsidized real estate, the ability to get all these people in a space together, um, is unfortunately, I think, a critical part of the equation. But it's the idea that, hey, they're investing in their future tenants, right? Because if these startups never get off the ground, then they're never going to need a floor of office space, or they're just going to go fully remote, and then they're always going to be fully remote. Out. Um, and so I think there is a vested interest there. But then you got folks, you know, we got to shout out, uh, our mutual friend Ryan Kuder, who is trying to do this up in Encinitas with Founders and Co. Um, you know, I'm, I'm day one, I was like, I'm in, whatever it takes. I don't even live in Encinitas, I just need this to exist. Um, but, you know, he's, he's right now he's trying to, to, you know, close on the office space and create that that Founder Lounge, that third space, uh, you know, up in North County.

Totally same. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's the community management professionally that he is building. Uh, the space will be the tool where those happen, but he has already proved that he's able to capture people together, whether it's in his courtyard, uh, or online or in other ways. Like, that's, that's what we need. We need more curated purposeful bumping-into of the right people at the right time. And it's great that's happening.

And on that note as well, right, we got, you know, Philon Riesen and Ping Wang with Ancere doing the similar kind of thing, right? They're kind of focusing on, on the AI and deep tech space. You know, you've got Aquilius out in, you know, Forest Ranch and in the life science and medtech space. So there's a few folks that are, that are creating these kind of hub and third spaces, and we just We need more of it. We need every single industry represented. We need every neighborhood, you know, we just need to be able to, to meet together. So, so that's it. Again, a lot of what I kind of do with my, with my free time or my subsidized time from the work that I do coaching founders is, is helping kind of spawn these communities, right? I have kind of a playbook. I find somebody with a vested interest in the space and I say, okay, here's how you can do this. Keep it consistent. Right. And kind of coach and train people on how to spawn community. So I've done it in the medtech space. I've done it in the VC space, um, SaaS as well. And, uh, it's just something where you just got to find somebody who like naturally has a vested interest in the thing existing. And then there's just a lightweight amount of consistent effort that, that needs to happen.

Yeah, no, I think the consistency part is big. It, it builds trust that people are like, oh, this is not just gonna be a one-time thing. I'll take this seriously and I'll make sure I make good relationships. And then when I come back, I'll work and tend to those relationships. So I think that's really important, uh, the consistency piece there. So, so thanks for doing that. What have you learned from the, from Design Week that we can kind of look and foreshadow into Startup Week coming up in November that you think will be different and new this year?

It's representation. We, you know, again, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a tech guy. I'm a SaaS guy. I'm a software AI big tech guy. And that's just always been my kind of mindset. But what I realized is that, you know, San Diego, especially from a startup and entrepreneurship perspective, is a lot more than that. We have CPG, we have, you know, physical products, we have, you know, goods for the home and things like that. We have surfboard shapers and wetsuit makers and, you know, you name it. There's a lot of other businesses that aren't purely tech businesses that I think we need to do a better job of representing. Again, similar in Design Week, like as soon as we opened our eyes and said, oh my God, design is not just digital and UX, it's fashion, interior, and architecture and all that. All of a sudden we got, we got more volunteers, we got more eyeballs, people interested in coming to our events. We got more sponsorship dollars. Um, and, uh, and so the same thing, I think, from the Startup Week side is like, I think we need to kind of reckon with what it means to be an entrepreneur and be a startup in San Diego, and it's not just copying the Bay Area.

I totally agree. Uh, do you think our design innovation, you know, mapping has helped uncover more and more of people who maybe don't even know they call themselves a startup or startup thinking, but have the kind of the same like disruptive mentality?

Yeah. Uh, you know, it's a tough one. Um, I mean, again, as somebody who like, I spend most of my work in the Bay Area and in New York, um, the, the bar for disruption and innovation is very, very high. Um, I would say like, you know, my opinion on the strength of the San Diego ecosystem, certainly from a tech side, is actually much more in the deep tech and the hardware and the life science space and less of the kind of hot, sexy, you know, internet startup. Um, now those things are very disruptive. They just take a long time, right? Developing a medical device, developing a, you know, a piece of defense tech or a, or a, you know, drone or submersible or whatever it is. You know, we have some incredible technology being built here, but it's just a much longer timeline. And so it doesn't get the same recognition, I think, as being disruptive.

Um, it's there.

They're just a lot quieter about it, I think, than the folks.

Yeah, I think you're right. And right now, you know, the Bay Area has completely sucked up all the oxygen around AI, you know, anything related to it. I mean, I think it's On a pretty regular basis, it's 60 to 65% of all venture capital is now Bay Area company headquarters related. And those people are back in person in SF. I'm hearing again San Diego, not again, maybe for the first time San Diego founders who are here saying my hardware team's in San Diego, my software AI team is in the Bay. And that's the only way it has to be, right? And I don't know. I don't think we had such bifurcation in the past. It was kind of like, ah, my team's in the SF, me, the CEO might be living here and splitting time. No, this is like AI team has to be up in the Bay. Um, and that's not just a San Diego problem. That's a worldwide, like talent density thing, because this is the moment of stepwise change. What are your thoughts on that? What's, what's that going to do for an ecosystem like us?

I mean, I hate to say again, as a software guy, um, we have really struggled to be competitive in that space. Um, since the very beginning, I mean, they're, like I said, the thing that's been drawn me to the Bay Area all these years, uh, is because I'm a software engineer. It's just, you know, who I've always been. And I've been sort of fighting against that. Um, but, you know, coming out of companies like Qualcomm, coming out of the defense, uh, companies, the big, you know, biotech and life science, um, companies here. There is so much talent density here around hardware and deep tech that it's, it's formidable, you know? And so I think we just, again, need to reconcile with who we are and what our strengths are and not try to compete head-to-head with them. Um, I mean, the, the great thing, kind of what you're saying, the, the other side of it is like, well, isn't that great that this Bay Area company, you know, has a hardware team in San Diego as opposed to, you know, the other way around. They could just as easily, you know, just relocate and have everything up there. But there is something to be said about the caliber of hardware and deep tech here in San Diego. I think on a more broad sense though, because again, I spent a lot of time going back and forth. A lot of my best friends actually left San Diego after grad school and moved to the Bay Area. So we're always hanging out and having dinner and drinking and like talking about the differences between the two cities from an ecosystem perspective, because I also, by the way, do some ecosystem building up there as well. Um, I, I run a chapter of an organization here called VC Village, yet another thing that I do. Um, but there's a San Francisco chapter as well that we, we partner with. So I go up there a lot and talk with the investors up there about, you know, the differences between, um, you know, San Francisco and San Diego. And the two things that I kind of came home with, um, about the strengths I think of San Diego, one is that by being smaller, um, our network is tighter. It's much easier to navigate the network and, again, connect with the people you need to connect with here versus up there. Because, you know, I go up to networking events up there and a lot of folks are saying like, I don't really know, like, I don't know anybody here. I don't know, like, everyone— no one's in my industry. There's so much going on that it actually is harder to navigate and connect to the right people. So I think that density of the network is actually something that's a strength of ours. And then I think the other is the, is the constraint, the, the lack of capital and the lack of, uh, you know, available talent and so on means that it's shaking out the imposters here. So if you're, if you're a serious startup founder, You can build in San Diego and you're going to get the attention of the investors and you're going to attract the talent. Whereas up there, it's a ton of noise, like all the grifters and all the imposters, in addition to all the superstars and the geniuses, are all up there fighting for the same capital and the same talent and everything. And, uh, and again, if you're down here, if, if you're not serious, yeah, you're going to wash out. But if you are serious, everyone else is washed out and you can kind of, you know, you can stand tall.

That's a good way of saying it.

I like that.

Um, I think David and Goliath, you know, it is, it is a little David and Goliath, but I think, you know, in the Bay, uh, it's also a little bit more like everyone just judges you right up front. Like, where do you work? You know, definitely talks about that. Where here we almost are the complete opposite. We don't even share, we don't even ask someone where they work. They're just like, oh, my neighbors, that's, that's Tom, my kid's coach, my kid's softball coach. And only 2 years into it, realize, oh my God, they're like the VC from— that's, that living here but based in the Bay, right?

It's almost a lot of sleepers here.

Yeah, almost to our detriment that we forget to ask people, what are you working on? Because we don't want to like upset the lifestyle piece. Because once you're, I feel like, on the Bay Area escalator, you gotta like, escalate. You got to go up. You gotta just start judging, like, are you a winner or something like that? Are you, you know, are you on the up? And I got to attach myself to the people going up. So I think that part is like, we're almost like avoiding doing that here, uh, you know.

Well, yeah, if that mindset is, you know, are you worth my time? Is it worth it for me to invest in you? Well, that depends on who you are. Versus here, it's more about like, well, do you make my life better? Like, do I enjoy spending time with you? That's the, you know, that's the lifestyle piece.

Yeah, it's interesting. And I find the more I am the investor, the more that I have to live two different worlds because my investment world is, do I write you a check? Which is, are you a winner, right? To a certain regard. Yeah. Which means I have to get quickly to a no to many people so I can go find more yeses. Right.

Which—

so the investor part is tough here, I feel like, because to be authentic is to be a yes or no to many people at some point. But it doesn't mean one, it doesn't mean no forever. It also doesn't mean I don't like you or I don't want to spend time with you. It's like you just don't make the four corners of this thing called a fund.

Right.

But that doesn't necessarily define me. That's just what defines my professional role right now. So I find that part to be tougher and tougher to just like be the community guy is like, I'm also the picker, you know, which, uh, which is now I'm starting to understand why VCs who live in San Diego like tend to disappear in San Diego.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because you want to like spend time with people, you know, like there's people I really like, uh, that I'm just like, this isn't a fit, and that shouldn't define our relationship, you know.

So yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, you don't want to be judging them, and you also don't want to be asked for money all the time. You want to Correct. Just have a friendship. No, I get it.

Yeah. Yeah. But I think we're doing the right things, right? We're having the right people together. We're making authentic relationships and picking the people we want to be around. Like, that's life, right? Like, we don't have time to do things with people we don't want to do with, you know? And I think San Diego forces that. Like, you know, pick, pick the time because we could all just go do the things we want to do, which is be with our families out in the sunshine. You could see my face. I just did it big time this weekend, uh, you know. And so, but getting to work with the people you like is what it's all about. And thanks to you, Eric, you're, you know, helping connect that tissue to the people to find more people that you may like, whether it's in the design world, the startup world, or everything in between, as those webs hopefully continue to connect.

That's for sure.

Um, I do know one thing we all love to do here is eat tacos. That's for sure. Yeah, we all like— we may not like each other's taco spots as much as our own because we all got our own special taco spot, but we will always try another taco place.

Where do you go?

Where do you take your people? Or maybe you don't share it. Maybe you've got a secret spot that you don't take everyone to.

I do have a secret spot. Uh, you know, I would say my daily go-to is, is City Tacos. I mean, I live in Bird Rock. There's a lot of great taco shops in town, um, but there's City Tacos right next to Crystal Pier. That's just my kind of daily go-to. I know it's the most authentic, uh, you know, Rigoberto's, uh, type place. And I got a few of those too. Um, there's a taquería on Cass, it's really good. But my, my sleeper pick, uh, is actually called Charlie's Landing. You heard of it? Oh no, so it's, it's, uh, it's right across the street from SeaWorld. It's on Dana Landing, so it's like tucked away. So if you're going south on Ingram, right before you get to Sunset Cliffs, there's that turnoff, there's like a hard right and you're getting into this marina. So it's basically this place just for like boat people, um, and it's— it started off as like a smash burger place and they have incredible smash burgers, but they make, in my opinion, the best Baja fish taco in town. It is on point. It's incredible. I also do actually know the owners. So the owner's kid went to school with my daughter, so that's how I kind of got plugged into it. And so when we would have like basketball games for the kids and stuff. We'd always go after— go there afterwards. But you're, you're sitting right on the water, right on the marina with all the boats right there. Um, Garibaldi floating in the water, seals popping their heads up now and again, and you can have incredible Baja fish tacos, smash burgers, and, uh, you know, your beer of choice.

Oh, I love it. What a good sleeper. Uh, we won't overwhelm them too much, but there definitely will be some new traffic coming their way for sure. Uh, what's the, what's the right order there? What do you get? What's the go-to taco you get every time?

Yeah, I just get the Baja, Baja fish tacos. I get a couple of those. My kids usually get, you know, share a smash burger.

Um, a smash burger and a taco. I love that. That's so awesome.

Favorite, uh, and then your favorite, you know, San Diego IPA of choice.

Of course. I'm just pulling up where it is.

Okay.

Got it. It'll be a new addition to the Tacos and Tech podcast. Taco Database, which we do keep up to date with entries. We've got entries from all over the world. I love that we're still adding new spots to here in San Diego. I think we even mapped it once. We even physically put a map together of all the pins. So we'll get that updated. But Eric, first of all, thanks for being on the pod, for joining my pod, which has been great, and to what you're doing. Thank you. Hats off. The community thanks you for your your years of service that, you know, really is going to benefit us continuously down the road. So thanks again.

I appreciate it. And likewise, again, you, you know, you're right there with me. And, uh, you know, I hope we just continue to, to work together to, you know, make San Diego the best damn startup ecosystem on the planet.

Absolutely. Here's to that. Cheers, buddy.

Thanks again.

Tacos in Tech is on smash for the green. Guacamole, keeper, countin', countin' beans. Contador, cuentan frijoles. Founders tryna raise some queso. La vida, San Diego. School of Rappi, rappin' fire. Tortillas, round jalapeños. In these modern times, a craft beer and coffee. Makoto and yoga, posse. Fold the body, origami. We be Surfin' Coronado, eatin' tacos El Gordo. The tacos tenen puesto, lucha libre, and sombrero. Gotta shout out to Coast Angels by the ocean, watch the sunset. La Jolla shores, entrepreneurs tryna get funded when San Diego Startup Week is poppin' in the summer. Oceanside to Tijuana, SD be full of hustlers. From couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach. Tech leaders who believe stars are within reach. We interviewin' founders who be shootin' for the moon. #SDTacos with your host Neal Bloom. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech, you know we got it.

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