Episode 6 with Josh Fabian (Co-Founder and CEO, Metafy)

Hello everybody, I'm KP and welcome to Building Public's next episode. On today's episode, we have, uh, one of my favorite B2C venture-backed founders, Josh Fabian. Welcome to the show, Josh.

Hey KP, thanks for having me. It's, uh, super cool to be here.

I, I loved, um, Josh's background. I loved reading his, uh, newsletters, you know, investor updates that were like pretty much shared openly. And we're gonna get into a lot of these things, but why don't you give a quick intro to those who may not have heard about you?

Yeah, I'm Josh Fabian. I'm the CEO of Metafy, a platform that enables the greatest minds in gaming to monetize their talent with their audience through coaching and playing with them.

Excellent. And so if you were to give me a quick backstory, you know, what got you to start Metafy, what would that be?

Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing for me is I'm hypercompetitive. It's just a part of who I am. It's probably a character flaw, if I'm being honest. It's like a childhood trauma. But every time I pick something up, the first thing I do is I look, who's the best in the world? What can I learn from them about this? Whether that's design, whether it's games, it doesn't really matter. But gaming and competing in gaming has been a significant part of my life. When I left Groupon, where I was the lead designer of the Groupon Stores initiative, I went into gaming, you know, and that was a game called Clash Royale. I was top 20 in the world in that game. for a little over a year. And I started coaching in that game mostly because I wasn't making money on Twitch, cuz that's just, it's a crapshoot. And that, and I did okay there, you know, nothing insane compared to like what I was making in tech, but I did okay. But I eventually quit and I went back to tech, but then my kids got into competing, you know, they caught, they caught the— The curse. And for them, it was the Pokémon trading card game. And that's exciting for me. I played Yu-Gi-Oh as a teenager, and I was nationally ranked. I competed very seriously in that game. So for me, card games, I cut my teeth on card games. I can teach you guys card games. Sit down with Dad. I'm going to show you what's what. What I didn't realize was my kids don't give a shit what I have to say. They don't care. They just say, Dad, what do you know? And that's nothing. So, you know, they wanted to get better, but they didn't wanna learn it from me because I'm just their dumb dad. So I eventually reached out to one of the best players in the world and I asked him to help the kids learn if he'd be open to it. And he was super down. You know, he said he'd do it for $20 an hour, which to me it was shocking. That's less than I pay our babysitter. You know?

And this person was one of the best In that game, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. At the time he was considered the best player in the world. Wow. And yeah, it was insane. You know, for my kids, when I told my kids, hey, we've got this guy, he's gonna work with you, they reacted in the same way that I would've reacted if my dad would've came into my room when I was 9 and said, Josh, Michael Jordan's at the basketball court behind the house. He's gonna help you work on your jump shot. Like, my head would've exploded. Like, it would've been too much for me to process. And for them it was the same. Um, but after a couple weeks of doing it and just seeing the growth that they were seeing, uh, it felt like real magic, not just for the kids, but for me too, to see, to see my kids evolving, uh, as individuals.

I'm curious if— what is the lens that you want to encourage parents who are listening to this, um, to view e-gaming? Or, um, because it's a new phenomenon, right? And especially coaching within e-gaming. So what's the lens you want parents to look at when they approach it?

I think the biggest piece of it is that culture is changing. You know, what I find very interesting is that when I was in school, I was pretty athletic. I wasn't athletic because boy, oh boy, do I love sports. I was athletic because I wanted to attract girls and that made me more popular. That's changing. My kids are getting cooler and other kids are being measured for how cool they are based on how good they are at gaming because gaming is the new medium. Gaming is where the celebrities are now. And when we look at how many people, and look, I'm not trying to shit on sports, but the reality is when we look at how many kids are like, oh, I love this football player versus, oh, I love this gamer. Yeah. I mean, the difference is stark. And when, when that shift happens, as a parent, you do have a little bit of responsibility in how well your kid fits in with their peers, whether we wanna admit it or not. You know, like we've all, we've all had that, that experience where like, oh, that's the homeschooled kid. That doesn't mean all homeschooled kids are weird.

Right.

But if you, if you just homeschool your kid, they never interact with other kids, they're a little ostracized for it. So homeschooling requires this other piece to it. And I think that when we're talking about things like gaming, it's becoming such a phenomenon that if your kid isn't playing games, they're kind of odd. They're kind of strange because it's just such a part of the fabric now.

They're digital natives. Yeah. I mean, so connect the dots now to what— so you had these bits and pieces of observations and insights about the behavior, and what's cool now with kids and what kind of gaps you saw in the way they wanted to improve. And how did this lead to Metafyze MVP or the first version?

Yeah, I eventually asked our coach, I was like, hey, are you doing this Pokémon thing for a living? 'Cause the numbers didn't add up. I'm paying you $20 an hour and we're getting a lot of time with you, like 3 hours a week. And he said, no, I wish. I make $30K a year working in a warehouse. Uh, and for me, that was it. You know, I think everyone has that moment. Yeah. And you know, we have that moment where our ego, our ego kicks in and we say to ourselves, there's no one else on the planet that can do this as well as I can do this. Is that true? No, not even close to true. Right. There are probably 1,000 people in my state that can do this as well as I can. but they don't have the ego big enough to help them make that jump. And I did. So for me it was, okay, let's run with it. Let's try this. Let's try to make it happen.

I love that. And also, you know, ego is both a double-edged sword, right? I mean, it is also the courage that, the conviction that is sometimes required to make a giant leap like that. But also, you know, it is also the burden you carry, you know, for a long time. So at least you're self-aware. Uh, tell me, maybe share a couple more inflection points that brought us to this moment. You know, what were some key wins or key, you would say, inflection points in your company's journey?

Yeah, I mean, the idea for Metafy, you know, the seed for that was planted 3 years ago. We started building 10 months ago. So there was a huge period of time where it was just, um, just that idea in the back of the head. And that, that aspect of my career is going well. Do I blow it up to do this? And when you have, you know, 4 kids, it's not quite as easy to blow up your career as, as it is when you're a bachelor. Right. You know, so for me, it was this long period of like, do we do it? Do we not? And then COVID happened and Black Lives Matter happened. And I started really thinking like, this could be the timing, right? This could be the wave that gives someone like me, who doesn't really have— I'm a high school dropout, right? Mm-hmm. I've got a GED. I never went to college. You know, I don't have the resume of my competitors, you know, so it's not easy for me just to pick up a phone and say, hey, here's the idea, gimme money. So for me, that doesn't mean I give up. I just have to be scrappy. And as a result, I look for opportunities, and when I see the opportunity, I jump on it. And that was it for me. Black Lives Matter is happening, COVID's happening, gaming's bigger than ever, investors suddenly give a shit about colored people. Like, let's go for it. And that was this process of like, how do we get ready for this? How do we do all of this? And then I saw Product School. the advertisements for Product School. And I applied to Product School much in the way that you buy a lottery ticket, right? There was no ceremony to it. I didn't think I was gonna win. It was just, let me shit some info on the page for 10 minutes and send it. I wish I'd have done a better job now, right? Now that we actually did get in. But it was so lazy that I was just like, eh, whatever, I'll send it 'cause all my friends are sending them in too. And then when he replied, I remember thinking like, you know, our dream of raising $300,000 could be bigger than this. And that's all I need. I was like, I need $300,000 and we can run with this.

Right.

And when we got into product school, we got $100,000 on the convertible note. And then, I mean, Jeff has been such a mentor to me and just helping me just think and be more ambitious. that, you know, 10 months later we have $8.65 million in funding.

So let's double-click on the Product School experience and shout out Jeff, if you're listening. You know, Josh has said great things about you even before the interview began. So this is true. What were like, let's say, 1 or 2 things that you learned from Jeff that were counter-obvious, counterintuitive to you?

You know, I think a big thing that I learned from Jeff was just like how okay it is to lean into product. Because when I— I'm gonna be throwing some shade, I hope you're ready.

Yeah, go ahead.

When I look around startups and tech today, I see an incredible lack of love for product, a lack of innovation. Craft. Yeah, craft. Like, give a shit, try. So when I look, I just see It's, hey, this was lazily done. Here, use it. And then everyone wonders, why didn't it work? Why don't people love this? Why don't people wanna get this tattooed on their body? And it's just like, for me, it's just like, no one gives a shit. That's why. Like, if you are lazy, why are they gonna like it? And then when I was talking to Jeff, it was just this shift in my thinking where it was like, well, that's just not, that's just how it is for some companies. But there are some companies where craft is important to them. And from his experience, he was like, yeah, you should always be running product experiments and you should, Do the weird things, embrace that weird part of you that wants to try things that have never been tried, you know, the novel approaches to old problems. And that was huge for me. That was big for me.

Kind of finding your tribe of, you know, other product-loving people.

Jeff changed my mind on investors. I still have a bit of beef with tech, like startups and tech in general. Um, and you'll see that come through a little bit of that little animosity there, just 'cause I think a lot of it's fake. I think a lot of it's stupid, and I think a lot of it's just, just so self-indulgent. But when you meet people like Jeff, when you meet people like Alexis, uh, when you meet people like Brian O'Malley over at Forerunner, you start to see, oh, there are some people in here that really give a shit. Yeah. You know, they're not all like that. Some of them actually do care.

Yeah.

And that changed everything for me.

I mean, it's so refreshing when you run into— I mean, this is one of those things that I think I had a conversation one time with one of my mentors and I asked like, what is the most unpopular thing right now? Right? Like hot take or whatever it is. And then he said something on the lines of, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, the most refreshing thing you can do for your career is being authentic and being authentic online. and building in public, which is a great segue for my first question. Why the hell are you building in public?

Yeah, good question. You know, the honest answer is we didn't know we were building in public initially. You know, the project that my co-founder and I, Tom, we were working on before Metafy was called Kitsu. And it's a, a, a social curation platform for anime and manga fans. Kitsu's totally open source, everything from the code to the design. Uh, and it's still running today, over a million users. And the community adds to it. The community just localized it into like 100 different languages. Wow. So like for us, the default was this open source community where you're just building in public cuz everyone can look at your code, everyone can look at your design, you're in Discord, so on. So when we switched to Metafy, a natural, it just felt natural to be just like there because something that I noticed when we were building in public was how much more evangelical your community gets. Yeah. When they see how the sausage is made, they really care more. And, and whenever something goes wrong, they're more willing to let it slide when they know that you're actually, you're humans, you know, there's humans behind this thing. And that's how it started. And now it's just this build in public thing started really kicking off and we were kind of doing it. So I just fucking leaned in. Like, why would I not? You know? So like, is some of it a gimmick? Yeah, 50% is a gimmick. Right. But is it working? Yes. I'm gonna keep doing it until it stops because I'm competitive. I'm here to win.

There could be worse gimmicks, right? I mean, people do like worse, like it's, yeah. And also more expensive gimmicks. I think what's been, surprising to me in, you know, studying your journey and just, you know, reading up about it is you're literally using Revu and you're just putting out content. Like, and it's—

Right.

That stuff is free, except maybe it costs your time. But I think, you know, a lot of what you've done is essentially opening up your playbooks. And there's a lot— there's an open source energy there. I can, you know, as I— and now as I talk to you, I think I got the connection there. But I think a lot of this stuff is actually free, including the way you got into this podcast. This is earned media. People actually pay for this shit, right? Outside. Yeah. So by doing and by opening up your playbooks and by co-creating with your audience and creating these communities, I think the long-term ROI is often ignored in the beginning because people are always looking for like, what's my quick Q2, Q3 ROI? So how do you battle these narratives? There's 2 narratives in venture, right? I mean, especially venture-backed companies, you got to think the 10-year, are we going to be the next Twitch, the next narrative? At the same time, investors want to see Q1, Q2, Q3 growth. So how do you handle that as a founder and CEO?

Yeah, I just don't. I don't give a shit what investors want. My take on it is, if investors really get what we're doing here, what we're trying to accomplish here, right? The big picture for Metafy is a platform that enables the old guard to pass on their knowledge to the next generation, right?

Yeah.

It's something that could impact culture, impact the way millions of people make a living. So for me, it's if an investor can't see that because the short-term numbers aren't there, okay, next. There's so many that are— that exist, that I don't want to waste my time on investors that are too cautious and like they're too risk-averse. And that just— it's fuel for my fire because I'm— the reason I'm working 12 hours a day every day is because this is my— this is my thing, you know. I don't get another MetaFi. This is the— this is out of the hundreds of ideas I've had, this is the one that works, this is the one that's sticking, and it's the one I'm most passionate about because it's core to who I am. So for me, I don't really care if an investor says, hey, this isn't right short-term. Okay, so what? And the investors that we have behind us now, these are investors who see the long tail.

Yeah.

They see where this can go.

I was about to say, I think fortunately you're surrounded by the kind of people like the Lexus and the 4Runner and JMJ, of course, people who get it, right? So you don't have to do a lot of convincing and explaining, um, which is the new guard. So that's, that's also, um, a shift that I've noticed in, in, um, some of the founders I bring on this podcast, but also generally some of my founder friends, is that they're leaning into, um, people who get it, you know, whether it's building public or whether it's creating communities, uh, than trying to like explain to the traditional funds, you know, why you're doing certain things, you know, as a founder. Um, so let's get to One specific thing that really caught my attention in your newsletter, straight up in, I think, your second paragraph, you open boldly with saying, we raised $5.5 million at $32 million post-money. This is April's— is it April newsletter?

Yeah, I think so.

And the valuation secret is out. Now everybody knows. Why did you share this openly? Because this is supposedly

the

The, you know, like trade secret among founders raising, right?

It just, it all just feels so silly to me. Like, and that's what I'm talking about, like my beef with just like the industry where it's just like everyone's so obsessed with what their valuation is or if they're raising, how much they've raised. And at the end of the day, it's like, do you have great partners behind you? Yeah. Listen, the investors that we have, if we had them at a $15 million valuation, I'd be just as excited. I'm not, I'm not doing this so I can be a billionaire, right? Do I hope I become a billionaire? Yeah, totally. I want to buy a boat and wreck it and buy another boat. But the reality is that like, if I just wanted to be rich, I would just stay in tech. So for me, what I'm trying to do is bigger than that. So I think that we celebrate the wrong things. I think we celebrate valuations. We celebrate just raising money for the sake of raising money. And I think that by putting it out there and being honest and open about it, it makes it easier for everyone to see what I actually care about. And I don't care about being celebrated by the tech community. I really just genuinely don't. Most— some days I lie and I do care, but most days I don't care. And today's one of those days.

So let's extrapolate that a little into like getting to know about your values. Yeah. What, what are some values that drive you personally? You know, the Josh Fabian, you know, not, not the person who just raced around, right?

Yeah. I wanna, I mean, for me, it's pretty simple. I'm, I'm terrified of my mortality. Uh, and as a result, the things that I do, the things I spend my time on, I wanna have an impact. I wanna live on through those things. So for me, building Metafy isn't about, can I get featured in these publications? Can I get all of this? It's about, can I do something that just matters? Can I leave a dent in the planet that matters? And again, a lot of that again is probably, you know, a character flaw. You know, this, this, this, this need to be accepted, this need to be important. But whenever I look and I, and I see all of these people, all these incredibly talented people, who are forced to do clickbait videos to make a living doing what they love, or they're forced to work a blue-collar job and then do the thing they love and they're incredible at night. It just seems like such an incredible waste of potential. Right. So for me, that's what I care about is, can we help be a catalyst to this future where people, they're working on the things that make them feel alive rather than the things that keep them alive.

I mean, there's a couple threads in there that I deeply resonate with. There's another specific quote that you included in the newsletter. By the way, first of all, the writing is hilarious. I think it felt so real, so from the heart. And so please continue to sprinkle that humor all through. The specific quote I'm referring to is you said like, now that the sausage— now that we showed you how the sausage is made, because you said something on the lines of like, it's made in a glass room. Yeah. And normies are seeing this glass room instead of just Fancy Rich Guy newsletter. So why is it important for you to show the process to everybody and not just investors?

Yeah. And again, it goes back to who matters here. Do the investors matter? Yeah, sure. But they matter as much as my team matters. But they're not using the product. They don't— they're not risking their careers on the product. So for me, it's this standpoint of people don't trust businesses anymore. People don't trust entrepreneurs anymore. People don't trust each other anymore. You know, we, we are in a state of cultural distrust unlike any other.

Yeah. Era.

Uh, in history. Right. And, and the internet exacerbates that, sure. But we just don't trust each other anymore. And I think that's, that's a problem for startups. Whenever you're asking, especially a startup like ours, we're saying, hey, trust us with your business. Trust us to power your business, to, to feed your family. Right? To be the, the, you know, the, the engine helping you feed your family, rather. And if we're asking that much of them, is it so much for us to say, here's what we're building, here's why we're building it, here's why we're making the decisions we're making with our money? So to me, it just feels like the least we can do if we're asking them to go so far as trust us to run their business through us, you know?

I love that quote about trust. I mean, I think transparency breeds trust in anything, like even relationships, right? And I think we're seeing the line between your company and your community blurring. Yeah. And I think that's like a new breed of companies. I mean, not everybody, of course, there's like still old school, old fashioned, but we're seeing like a rise of new companies like Metafy, where the line between where the company ends and the community begins is blurry, right? I mean, I wonder at some point, like, you, you'll have employees who are users of your product. If you already do, you probably do, right? But, um, in that sense, then don't you want them to be in the loop as well, you know?

Yeah.

And also, don't you think that some of this comes from a feeling, from, from a place of insecurity, they're trying to hide and hide the flaws or hide the imperfection. The other thing you quote, which is my favorite part about, is you said, so what, we show our failures.

Yeah, that's the thing is I think that if anyone in tech came to me and was like, oh wow, you guys, you misstepped, you haven't really. Like, we're an early stage company. We don't know what the hell we're doing. We're trying to figure it out. So like, To pretend like we're not still learning, to pretend like even the big companies don't fuck up sometimes, it's just really silly to me.

Right.

Uh, and, and then to live with the anxiety of trying to be perfect, of trying to appear perfect. I, I have enough anxiety around running a startup. Yeah. You know, around being a CEO, around growing as, as quickly as the company is growing as an individual. and as a leader. So like, I think that piece of like never being able to admit publicly when we made a mistake, it's just stress I don't want. I'd rather just be honest and say, hey, we were a little dumb here. Here's what we're gonna do to fix it.

Right. I love that. So this is a common question that I get in my DMs and I wanna punt it to you. People say, what if things go wrong? building in public is great when you're succeeding. Wouldn't it be terrible if things aren't working like you've expected?

Yeah, my answer to that is, um, early stage startups are about storytelling. That's your job as a CEO of an early stage startup is to tell a story that is compelling enough for someone to give up on something secure, to take that risk and join you in that story. Uh, so How many stories have you read? How many movies have you seen where nothing ever goes wrong? Right? That movie would suck. Nobody wants to watch that movie. It's like, oh great, everything's going well still. I guess I'll wait another hour and hope it changes. So things going wrong is normal. Things going wrong makes the story better. I think you lean into that. When things go wrong, lean into it. There's a lot to learn. There's a lot to unpack there. And I think people respect you more whenever you can say, here's what we learned from what went wrong. Right? It's— the narrative is much more interesting when things do go wrong. So I don't think it's something to be afraid of. I think it's something to embrace. And here's the reality. If shit keeps going wrong, public or not, you're probably gonna fail.

This leads me to ask a curious question. Like, one of the traumatizing experiences for early-stage founders, you know, especially the ones who are about to raise a round, is knocking on VCs' doors, doors and pitching and sharing the pitch deck and just talking, basically pitching that story. Yeah. And hearing the nos, right? The rejection is this huge, huge burden that a lot of people carry and feel strongly about. So from your experience, how was that journey for you? You know, have you had to go around and pitch a lot and learn from that? Or how was your, Experience while you were fundraising?

Yeah, we've been privileged there. You know, we've benefited from gaming being hot right now. We've benefited from Black Lives Matter. We benefit from having great people around the table already that add to our halo effect. So it would be incredibly insincere for me to say that it's been anything but privileged. But I will say that that doesn't mean the nos don't come. And even though we haven't had a ton of nos and we have been oversubscribed in every round, here I am flexing KP. But even though that's happened, the nos still hurt. Yeah. The nos still suck, but it hasn't been terrible for us. You know, we've been much luckier than a lot of my friends have been even. But I will say that I take it incredibly seriously. You know, whenever we're fundraising, every question that I get asked in a pitch that is a negative against the company, I write down. And then after I'm done pitching, I figure out how do I incorporate that into the story I'm telling in a way that I'm addressing their problems before they get a chance to ask them. And the reality is they have an hour thinking about your idea. You have thousands of hours, right? You have the advantage here, but you've gotta take it serious. You can't just say, oh, I've gotta, I've gotta pitch in an hour. I'm not gonna prep. You should be prepping. You should be taking it seriously. If you think about the way I think about it is, hey, this, this is a 30 to 60 minute call that could turn into a couple million dollars. You know, like you gotta take it seriously. Right. Right. And in a lot of ways it's a game, especially at the early stage. It's about the story you can tell and the vision you can sell.

So switching gears and going into this segment about haters, and I loved that paragraph, actually 6 paragraphs that you wrote about the specific concept that you called it the hater tipping point. So you wanna share, cuz it was hilarious, but also very relatable. So you wanna share what that was and, you know, and explain to our audience?

Yeah, I think there's a point where, as you get to this certain threshold of popularity, that people just start hating for the sake of hating you. Not because there's a good reason, it's just more, The way I like to think about it is if everybody likes you, uh, but it's also true that people wanna be noticed and acknowledged and seen as an individual, it only makes sense that when everyone is yelling the same thing on a megaphone, the best way to be heard is by yelling something different.

Yeah.

Uh, and that's the hater tipping point, right? It's that point where somebody realizes, if I yell the different thing, people will turn around and look at me. Uh, and, and, When you're brand new and insignificant, somebody just saying on Twitter, hey, X thing sucks, just makes them look crazy. Like, no one knows what you're talking about. When it's familiar enough that everyone knows what that thing is, at least tangentially, then saying, I hate this, you know, it gets attention, but it also acts as a rally cry. Because I don't think these people, they really want to be alone in this. They're looking to connect with people. Everyone's looking to connect, whether we want to admit it or not, even the cool guys. We want friends. So by saying, hey, I hate this, you know, you're— it's like wearing a t-shirt for your favorite band, right? It just sends a message to attract people that like the same thing or dislike the same thing as you.

Right.

And negative things are more powerful than positive things, you know? So it's natural, I think.

I mean, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, if, if since everybody, like say everybody loves the Beatles, right? Like, but if you write fuck Beatles as a t-shirt, that's gonna be selling out so quick. Right. At H&M than anything else, right? So—

Yeah. And there would be a guy at every coffee shop who's like, you hate the Beatles? I hate the Beatles too.

Right.

And so you guys are best friends on that alone.

Right. I mean, I think, you know, removing yourself— one thing there's been, one thing that I've noticed, Josh, is, is as egotistical like that you claim that you to be, you are, uh, there's a refreshing amount of, uh, detachment from you The thing that you do, the thing you're right now obsessively doing, which is Metafykes, was your actual personality and who you are. It seems to me that that's coming from a mature and strong and secure place with a little bit of humor in there. Tell us a little bit about your routines that you think Your routines or habits in the day that you do that energize you?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I have like great routines. If you caught me on a different day, maybe I'd lie right now and say like—

Don't, don't, again, don't flex on me or don't like, don't just make stuff up, but what, what are truly things that, I mean,

for me,

you may do. Yeah. That may energize. Yeah.

It's pretty, I'm pretty simple and pretty, Consistent where like I get to the office, like I don't work at home. I like, I get to an office and it's just a little shithole that costs $300 a month. And I'm there by noon every day, weekends included. And then at 3:00 PM every day, I go to the gym during Monday through Friday. And I hate the gym. I don't like going to the gym. I just go because a trainer texts me and is belligerent if I don't come. And that's what keeps me going. But I only do that because for me to do these long days, I need to, I need to live my life like an athlete. You know, I need to stay physically and mentally sharp. So I try to stay consistent with the food I eat, being healthy. I use Trifecta. I'm gonna be switching cuz I actually don't like it that much. And then I generally leave the office somewhere between 10:00 PM and 3:00 AM, just depending on the day. And I do it again the next day. So for me, it's just like the product experience keeps me energized, seeing these coaches who are making money, you know, like not just like, oh, I made a little bit of money, but people that are like, this is a big part of my life now. You know, like this is enabling me to do things I couldn't do before. That's what keeps me energized. And just the constant innovation that we're trying to do. Some of it's dumb, some of it doesn't work, but some of it does. And that's exciting.

I love that. Um, so you, you seem to, um, understand the power of storytelling, and then I know you mentioned that's very, very key in early-stage startups, but how do you view marketing as you scale? I think it's going to be a very key function of your company.

Yeah, um, I don't really know. We started, we started toying with marketing a bit. We've got Great people on our marketing team. But for me, I do think a shift is happening again. Just like I said earlier, people don't trust businesses anymore. They don't trust marketing either. I think there's a visceral reaction to to marketing where people are just like fuck off with that. I don't want to see it in my face. So I think that the the better path for us is a path where if we're putting things into the world, the things that are interesting. You know, so if it's marketing, sure, but it can't just be learn from the best players in the world, click this button. It needs to be content that we're putting out from a marketing standpoint where it's worth watching. Right. Or, or it triggers an emotion in some way, whether that's, you know, happiness or anger or whatever it is, it should, it should be an emotional trigger in some context. And that's how I, how I think about marketing and how we should be approaching it. But we haven't done it yet. Everything we're trying right now is pretty traditional. So we'll see if I ever get around to that.

I'm curious to follow along and watch how you execute. So switching back gears to building public, if you have to be real and raw, like what was one real story you encountered that you could have given up building in public? But you didn't instead?

Yeah, I mean, if I'm being honest, it hasn't happened yet. And again, it's just because I don't really care, right? Like, whatever I write, I just assume nobody's gonna read it. So if we ever hit this critical mass, maybe that'll be enough to stop me from doing it. But for now, it all feels small enough that it doesn't really matter what I write. It doesn't really matter. Who likes it or who doesn't? I mean, a lot of investors read our stuff. A lot of like tech people read it, but I care more about the coaches that are reading it. So for me, I don't— there's nothing that makes me think like we should stop. There are certainly things that give me anxiety, right? Like last— the last update, our numbers were down. That gave me anxiety, definitely. But to me, it feels like an obligation. I owe it to our community to continue doing this. So the idea of stopping, to me, that's the same as the idea of like not changing your baby's diaper. Right. You don't wanna do it, but you gotta keep doing it.

Right. He's, he's dropping this on me because I just shared that earlier before the episode. I'm loving this. I'm, I'm so glad. I'm so— yeah. So a couple, a couple other questions. All right. Now. Given that you are a venture-backed B2C founder, what are some tips that you have for other people who may be in your path about building in public?

Yeah, I guess the first piece of advice I would have is, you know, don't be me. You know, I think that a lot of what has worked for me probably won't work for other people. And with our investors in particular, like, my attitude of like, I don't care, just being a jerk. Of course, I don't view them that way. I deeply respect the investors we have, but there was an understanding from the very beginning of here's how I operate, here's what I want to do, here's my long-term vision. And if you don't have that in place, then you're kind of asking for trouble. But I will say that, that aside, It's so important for you to just be you.

Yeah.

Right. And, and getting past that hurdle is something that I struggled with early on of like, and you'll see it go through my Twitter. You'll see it of me like posting this like guru shit, like I'm some kind of expert. And then the next day I'm not doing it and then I'm doing it again. And all of that's just me being a hypocrite. Right. It's just me thinking, here's what I gotta do for people to care. But I don't, yeah, I don't know. I don't know enough to be a guru on Twitter. I try sometimes, but I, it's stupid and I hate it. But like, what am I good at though? I'm good at talking about product. I'm good at talking about what we're doing and why we're doing it. So that's what I lean into. But maybe you have incredible insight into something else, right? So I think, I think if you're building in public, you shouldn't be copying others. You should be doing it in your own unique style. That is, if you're funny or you think you're funny, and that's enough sometimes, lean into that. If you are Deep and insightful. Lean into that instead. Don't try to be funny if you're not. And I think for everyone, do, you know, you wanna be a shepherd of emotions, right? You wanna trigger something in people that read it, but it doesn't have to be the same thing the next guy's doing. You know, trigger what you're able to trigger for people, and that's enough for them to care and wanna come back. But that's the biggest thing though, is you have to be triggering some kind of emotion. Right. Give them a reason to read it because nobody wants to read a dry fucking investor update. You know, nobody wants to read this, like, a lot— these just numbers. No one cares,

right?

Give them a story around it,

right?

That's my biggest advice.

I mean, uh, so numbers are like meat, story is the sauce or the gravy. And I think a lot of the time people just throw dry meat, you know, or, or people just throw—

Right, eat up the animals.

And then, um, and it takes a lot of work, right, to be a good storyteller. And, and, uh, there's no In, you know, in my view, there are no bad stories. There are just bad writers, you know?

Yeah.

No matter what you're going through in life, no matter what stage you are in, in your career, uh, early stage, should you say, whatever, everybody's like anxious about something. People are always saying, KP, I don't have enough to share. Like, I don't have enough exciting things in my life to share. I'm like, what are you talking about? You know?

Yeah.

Like, reflect not as a jerk to yourself, reflect as a friend. Like, I'm sure your friend would agree that there's like some fun stuff that you do or something useful that you do. Um, but I think, you know, we're— we live in this cultural moment where we're so harsh on ourselves. I don't know where that's coming from, Josh. Um,

well, I think a big part of it is that like we're just surrounded by incredible people, right? Everywhere you look, but just incredible people. And it's just like, I'm not that guy. I'm not that smart. And it's hard to feel like you have anything to contribute, I think. At least that's how I feel. Right. But at the same time, I've got this gigantic ego, so I'm just like, I should do it anyway. Deep down, I'm smarter. And that's— it's a trap. But I think as long as you're careful and cognizant of that aspect of yourself, it's okay. But to go back to what you said, I think that there's a great— excuse me, a great quote from Mark Twain. I think it's him, which is, you know, great stories happen to the people who tell them. Yeah. I love that.

Yeah. It's amazing. Like, you know, when you look at it from the lens of like, either what am I learning from this, or how is this either both incredibly like exciting or like unbelievably devastating? Like, you know, and my favorite part with I was watching Seinfeld the other day and he talks about writing a joke every day, right? And it's the consistency, right? Of course, you're not going to tell a compelling Steve Jobs-like story at launch if you haven't prepped 200 times before. So in fact, I would argue that, to your point about using Twitter and sounding either like a guru or not a guru, I would argue that if anything, use Twitter to almost write your autobiography one tweet at a time, right? In public. Yeah. You will never get this chance to relive today. Like literally the fact that we're gonna have— you and I had this conversation, you're never gonna get this 20-second micro-moment after this podcast is over to reflect and say, oh, this is how I felt. Here's my emotion. Let me document this. You know? And over time, when you do this, it compounds and you— it helps you you know, become a better storyteller.

Yeah.

You know,

I think that's great. I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hopefully, um, hopefully that'll resonate with, with, with everyone listening. So one of the side benefits, and this is not to me like the main one, but I think there's— this is one of the side benefits I've noticed, um, with billing in public is how, um, it can lead to attracting the kind of people you'd want to work with anyway. Like it basically helps you with key hires, like talent, you know, agencies, like anybody who you think are actually a good fit for your story, for your niche, for what you're building, building in public just accelerates the discovery of them. How have you seen this in your realm? Do you, first of all, do you agree? And if so, then how have you seen this in your experience?

Yeah, I mean, and that's a big part of why, You know, in my second newsletter, I call it a gimmick. It's because, yeah, it's working. You know, our first newsletter, we saw over 70 applications come through for people that wanted to work at Metafy same day.

Wow.

Like, that doesn't— hiring's hard right now. Hiring's harder now than it's been in a long time because everyone's raising money. There's so many startups in the ecosystem. And for us, this is a cheat. You know, this gets us— we have so much inbound talent. It's It's insane. So for us, whenever I say it's a gimmick, it's me acknowledging that like, yeah, of course there's a piece of me that's doing this specifically because it gives me an unfair advantage. I'd be lying if I said like, oh, it's just for me, it's for the community, it's altruistic. No, I'm trying to win. So that's a part of it. So like, yeah, I think that's a huge piece, but also investor interest, investors following along. How many investors have the people listening to had say, keep us in the loop on your updates, right? Like, keep us up to date with how things are going, generally when they're passing on you, which hurts, but still, maybe it is a thing for later. If that's the case, it's much easier to say you can just subscribe. Yeah. And I like that aspect of it. So yeah, it's an advantage now. I don't think that advantage will last forever. I think that if everyone starts doing this, the advantage goes away. But if you're listening, now's kind of the time to jump on and start doing it while there's an advantage to it, right? Eventually it's—

I think there's still a window before everybody jumps on it though, 'cause I think there's the execution gap. I think there's not a theoretical, will this work gap, but there is a, oh, I know it works. I know KB doing this, building public. I know Josh is doing this. You know, I know a couple others are doing this. but will it work for me? Or also, am I being too ex— like, am I opening up myself too much? Am I— because there's all that, you know, internal dialogue that I think is blocking. And I, I can't wait for the next generation because that's like yours, your kids, they will sweep us away like nothing because they're internet native. They don't give a shit. They don't care about like, you know, uh, old guard, new guard. They're like, what the hell? This is how I play games. Everything is collaborative. Why?

Their investor updates are gonna be on TikTok.

Yeah, exactly, right? So whatever we're doing, it will anyway be washed away in my view. So you might as well have fun, you know, in that micro window we have. But just to underline the hiring element, I think one of the hardest things I'm noticing, you know, among my friends, both internally within On Deck and outside founder friends, is hiring has been so hard now. Top talent, actually locking in a talented like 10xer, is now actually really hard compared to getting an angel investor or getting a VC intro, you know? It reeks of privilege as I say this, but still, like, I think if you're in the right bubble, this is so true, you know? 'Cause the investor may simply write a check and move on, but top talent have to actually freaking work with you. They have to spend time with you and, you know, believe in the mission and believe in, you know, all that stuff.

Even like fundraising, think about that. Like, so we have all these investors following our newsletter. If we say, hey, we're thinking about raising our next round, Suddenly everyone knows right away, same day, they all know immediately.

Right.

I think there's a lot of power to that.

There's a lot of power. Um, so one thing I also want to touch on is I'm curious how you're learning, um, about how community is feeling included in, as you build in public, you know, whether it's coaches, whether it's, um, you know, people who are using your platform, um, how has building in public helped you co-create with your audience?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's just a part of our day-to-day life, you know. So like in our Discord server, like we don't even use Slack, right? The team is in Discord, everything is in Discord. So our team is there, but so are our coaches, and so are our coaches' students. So they're all there. So when something goes wrong, the world sees, you know, anyone there sees. But also when we fix things, they see. And whenever a coach says, hey, I'm having a hard time with this, That's, that's an opportunity. Today, earlier today, somebody said— a student came into the server and they said, uh, I have my first Metafy coaching session today. I'm so excited and nervous. And for me, first off, that's awesome. That's incredible. But second, they're nervous. Why are you nervous? What can I do about you being nervous? So there are just things that happen and questions that you can answer that you wouldn't have the opportunity to answer if You weren't on the ground floor, right? You weren't there with your audience. So for me, I don't, I don't ever want to be in that ivory tower where I just have no idea what the pulse in the community is.

Right.

Um, but I don't know, maybe that'll change, right? Maybe whenever I buy my 16 boats, I'll say fuck the community and I'll get out of here and I'll go, I guess, and I'll go pump Dogecoin. But for now, uh, you know, I like being on the ground floor.

The power we're talking about is sort of Being in the ground floor, like I said, with the community, but also, to me, if you're finding out about the pulse of what users want and where they're going through a formal survey, it's too late.

Yes, I agree 1,000%.

So I think building in public allows you to do that because the more content you create, the more conversations you engage in, You're getting these inputs, you know, whether you act on them is separate, right? You can always make a roadmap, but at least you're listening. And I think there's a tremendous amount of power in that.

There's also power just in the idea that at any given time, any hour of the day, someone who uses or interacts with Metafy can send me a message directly and tell me to go to hell or tell me how much this changed their life.

Yeah.

And I think that keeps you incredibly honest and it keeps you motivated to keep doing a good job because Just like, just like I want our users to know there's humans behind what we're building and we actually care, I need to keep in mind that there's real people that are using our product and they actually care. It's not, it's not okay for us to ship an update that damages the way they use the product. So I think that's an advantage that is easily overlooked, but it's important.

Awesome. I love that. Um, with that said, um, I'm gonna call it a wrap, Josh. It was Amazing. It was a blast having you here. This is probably the most, uh, real, authentic, and raw conversation I've had on, you know, on the podcast so far. And, uh, I appreciate, you know, you being here.

All right, well, if someone beats it, I'll come back. Uh, shirtless. I'll do what I gotta— I'll do what I gotta do, KP. Uh, thanks for the time, man.

Awesome. Excellent. Um, well, uh, wish you all the best for Metafy and hope to see you around. Okay.

Appreciate that, man. Take care.