What Do You Get Out Of The Build In Public Fellowship (feat. BIPF1 Fellows)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Building Public Podcast. I'm your host KP, and on this show I interview world-class entrepreneurs, ambitious startup founders, creators, and builders on the internet who are boldly building the future in public. This podcast is my excuse to take you all on a curious journey to understand, learn, and hopefully be inspired by the worldviews, insights, and stories of these fabulous people changing the world. So far, I've gotten the rare privilege to sit down with incredible We've had incredible guests like Gary Vee, Alexis Ohanian, Kat Cole, Sahil Lavingia, and many more leaders. So check out the full podcast listing at buildingpublicpodcast.com. Now buckle up and get ready for our latest episode. Hello everybody. Welcome to the Building Public Podcast.

I'm your host, KP, and today I am super thrilled to invite What looks like the biggest guest list that I've ever had on the pod. And every one of the guests today are super special to me. They mean a lot to me. They've become so close. We've become friends over the last few months. And we're gonna have what I was sharing before we went live. We're gonna have something of an actors roundtable kind of conversation on the Building Public Fellowship, BIPF1, the first cohort. So Without further ado, want to invite all the OGs into this show. So welcome, Rachel. Welcome, May. Welcome, Jesse. Welcome, Edgar. All right. So they're all waving. If you're listening to this on audio, they're waving and grinning and smiling. Just kidding. Okay. So to kick us off, I actually want to read out a few bios. I mean, kind of introduce our guests today, kind of give you a little context of their backgrounds and, you know, specialties and skills. So we'll kick it off with Edgar. So Edgar's a marketer, he's a coach, he's an entrepreneur, passionate about helping startups, products, and people grow. He spent the last 4 years building and scaling technology startups as a founder and early marketing hire. Edgar and I go all the way back to my time at On Deck. You know, he was in the growth team and he was prolific. He was amazing. He was one of the most energetic and hungry growth people that I've ever met. And he's so talented and he's like, I knew that he was going to start a company. He was going to be a founder at some point. And just, I think couple of weeks ago he became a founder. So Edgar, do you want to close the loop on sort of your bio? Anything else you want to touch on that you've done in the last 5, 6 years?

Yeah. First of all, thanks so much for that kind intro, KP. And it's a pleasure to be on the pod and also just continuing to work together and getting to know you better through the Build in Public Fellowship. Anything I'll add. So I was actually a founder before I joined On Deck, so I've kind of just been building and growing companies. That's the way that I frame it. After I left On Deck, I started doing exec coaching and freelance marketing consulting under a brand called Principled Growth. And that's when I joined the Build in Public Fellowship. And through the fellowship, through the support of the community, all the conversations, the masterminds, I ended up starting my next company, which is called Engine. And we are a tool that helps startups build programmatic SEO landing pages that rank super quickly for Google. So we basically help startups grow Really where we're focused is both helping startups rank for Google currently, but also as the kind of method in which people interface with their devices switches from organic search on Google to ChatGPT and other chat-based platforms. We really want to be the platform that allows people to rank for chat-based optimization, which is what we feel is going to be a new kind of industry as we move into this AI-first world. So that's a bit about me.

That's amazing. It's amazing. And you, one last comment about sort of when you applied for BIPF 1, you actually— I knew that you had a few ideas in your head, but I didn't know that this was going to come out of it, right? Like, so it was pretty, very fulfilling to watch you go from exploration to now locking in an idea and now, you know, using all the lessons and whatever you learned from BIPF and applying them.

Yeah, um, I definitely came at an inflection point, as I think we say, and The support of the community, all of the questions that I was having around whether to go back into building or whether to go get a job at a larger company, even navigating like bootstrapping versus raising venture and the approach to sharing all of that online and just being authentic with that journey. I really think that this community was amazing for helping me navigate all of those, all of those changes. That's awesome.

All right, that was good, Edgar. Thank you. So our next guest is Jesse Link. Oh my God, Jesse, I could write a book on you. I know you would write a book on you, all the things that you would wanna say and share with the founders. But quickly, Jesse's a New York-based entrepreneur, strategic advisor, coach, connector, and former Goldman Sachs VP. He was like 7 years at Goldman, I think. Passionate about building things at the intersection of innovation, culture, supporting mental fitness and the wellbeing of the world. He wore all 3 hats, founder, advisor, and investor. Deeply understands the responsibilities, experiences, and perspectives required of each. He runs 3Cs Founder Advisory, which is his latest thing where he supported over 2 dozen high-performing early-stage founders, helping them raise 8 figures, close meaningful relationships, partnerships, and grow their teams. There's a lot to be said about Jesse. He's a 2x founder himself, built a DTC SaaS company and a CPG company. And then the way I knew him through when he was building Rella, which is, you know, his previous venture, and we both connected through Day One Community, which I was part of and was active there for a while and just felt all in all like such an authentic, very honest and high energy and very vulnerable founder, which is very refreshing. And he says what he means and he means what he says. And without further ado, that's, you know, that's my segue to Jesse to finish up whatever that I was going to say about you and kind of fill in the blanks about your bio. Anything else you want to

add? Well, look, KP, you know, always, always so, so humbled to hear the kind words that you bring to the table about me. You know, I— it's been a really interesting journey. You know, I think the BIPF, sort of the first cohort here and the people around us on this conversation have been really instrumental for me in the last 2 months. Especially, I had shelved my last business, or I like to say put it on a top shelf that can only be reached by a very expensive ladder in the future. About a week before we started this, and KP, you and I had a sort of 2 back-to-back conversations on thinking about what my next steps were, being really clear that as much as the corporate world brought me a lot of value in terms of my personal growth, I'm sorry, my intellectual growth, my personal growth, has really come from my own journeys in the zero-to-one space, both with myself internally, a lot of that vulnerability, which I'm sure we'll get onto a little bit in this conversation. But yeah, I'm humbled to be a part of this. It's a really interesting experience to view yourself not from the lens of someone sort of inside a big corporate bank or even as the CEO and a founder where those things tie to your identity versus what we're doing here and what we've discovered through BIPF is the identity of just our authentic selves. And it's a very, very exciting hat to wear. It can be heavy. It can feel like it's being blown away a lot of times, but it's just the beginning of the journey. And so I'm very thankful to be on board with all you guys and all your support has meant the world.

I love that. And it's so true about sort of bringing our authentic selves to this thing. And that was actually my intention when I was starting the fellowship was, what if I didn't have to pretend? What if I could just wake up and be myself and get paid for it? But also apart from the monetary side of it, what if I just didn't have to turn off being authentic and being who I am? And You all know that I have a giver self to me, a little bit of pixie dust that's about kindness and about permissionless giving we talk about all the time. And I was like, I have a feeling that there are other founders out there who feel the same way, but they're stuck in a system that doesn't incentivize that. They're stuck in a system or a culture that doesn't let people be themselves, doesn't let you or give you breathing space to like hold 2 or 3 ideas at the same time and still be okay about it, right? Like when Edgar, like it's okay to not know what happens after inflection point, right? So a lot of you came into the IPF at very critical inflection points and I realized I felt like one of my— a lot of my conversation initially with you was about releasing the pressure valve and saying, it's okay, it's okay, you know? And I felt like for 4, 5, 6 years, you guys were like in this crazy pressure cooker situation. And all I had to do was just like open the lid and said, it's okay, you know? And you're like, oh no, it's messy, it's chaotic. And it's like— and constantly apologizing to me and to the community, like, I'm sorry, I'm a mess. And I'm like, it's okay. It's okay to be messy because we're all human. And now 6, 7, 8 weeks later in the journey, when the pressure is released and you all could like now creatively explore what you're doing, I'm so filled with pride and like weird pride that I think of maybe a parent would feel like when they know the kid could meet the potential and when they do or when they're in the rising and you're like, man, I'm so glad we had that convo 5, 6 weeks ago. And so another thing that this is a theme across BIPF is that I personally had one-on-ones with everybody that came in, applied. I didn't just let someone swipe a credit card, get in. And in every conversation I was trying to let them be themselves because I was trying to like signal that this is what is the expectation. You know, don't need to perform, don't need to, you know, impress anybody. And I'm so glad that, you know, you guys are living embodiments. And more importantly, now you went from being fellows to alumni fellows. So you are the elders in the community now. All right. So we got 2 more intros and I'll reserve my questions for after the intros. Rachel Bernard. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. Oh my God. The funniest Aussie in our BIPF1 community. Sorry, Alex, you lost the mantle there. Alex is another Aussie from BIPF1 who is probably listening to this and like hating on me. But the funniest Aussie. The kindest Aussie, Rachel G. Bernard has designed and facilitated hundreds of sessions for thousands of people to step into their greatness and contribute powerfully to the world around them. And she's the founder of Young New Yorkers, which is a first-of-its-kind arts-based alternative to incarceration program in New York City and assisted over 1,400 young people to exit the criminal legal system. In this role, she partnered with and created programs for multiple criminal legal agencies, including NYC Criminal Courts, Kings County, NYC's DA's offices, NYC Department Probation, and NYPD. Rachel has been mapping for over 2 decades. Her mapping includes art and coaching model, which was advanced during the decades she took YNY from one-off project to building it to be a massive million-dollar annual budget behemoth that it is. She's herself an artist. In her past life, she's also an architect, which shocked me. But all this to say, she's, she's a badass. Now she's the CEO and the founder of Map Society, which I highly recommend. I'm going to leave links to all your bios and also the current projects in the show notes. Rachel, Oh my God, what could I say about you on air that doesn't get me in trouble? Just kidding. You're just fantastic. I see so much of me in you. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I just love your energy. And I think you and I have become a lot closer as friends. And if there were somebody who I would give the keys to BIPF in terms of hosting, in terms of events, I think it would be you, you know, because you see me, you get me, you get what I'm trying to do here. And you have the combination of an amazing facilitation skill, which is very, very important. But also, you know, but also letting people shine and just being the kind sort of, um, kind elder in the community, right? I'm aging you now, but Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, KP. And I don't mind at all that you called me an elder because I've felt a lot of the times like the baby, um, because like tech-wise I am the baby, but I really do see what you're doing here. And I feel so grateful from, for the friendship with you and with everyone. And I've just felt so lucky the whole time. And I do. I do have the art of seeing other people's greatness and holding space for that, but I've not really had a space for myself. And you and the fellowship have provided that for me. And everybody on the call, because I've had a few gnarly business situations the last few months, have like stepped up and said, when I'm having a self-defeating kind of narrative and behavior, said, no, we see you for your greatness. So right back at you, always here to help. I'm a fan of you and everyone on the call. And I, yeah, I'm Very grateful to be a part of it. So thank you.

That's just awesome. That's again, once again, a testament to who you are. Last intro, last but not the least, Memuna Mohammed. We call her May in the fellowship. What could I say, May, about May? When I first talked to her, well, I'll read out a couple lines. Her LinkedIn's a little scant, which is a cue, May, you may have to borrow from Jesse's words and kind of fill up your LinkedIn a bit better. But she was a venture partner at Hectagon Finance. She's a venture partner at Greyhorse Venture Fund, venture partner at MindRock Capital. Web3 partner at 3X Capital, venture scout at Ganas, I think by Lolita Taub, and so on and so forth. So she's an investor, entrepreneur, I think 2X fintech entrepreneur, a lawyer, and she's— I mean, she's badass. All I could just say was I was intimidated my first one-on-one call with May. I was like, I felt like an Indian Idol or American Idol audition and she was auditioning me. No, just kidding. But I just appreciated her trust in the fellowship, and I think we spoke for 15-20 minutes and For me, it was an obvious fit that she was going to be a great OG, great fellow in the community. And what blew my mind off was, which I didn't know on that call, was she not only was a contributor, giver, she was helpful and all that, but she was prolific, like literally. And I got chills many times. So she went from, I think, 5 or 6 tweets a week. And eventually when we— when she finished, she did 1,000 tweets. Wild, nuts, crazy prolific. These are the words that I have for you, May. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, Upi. It's been a pleasure to be on the podcast, part of the fellowship, and really officially be part of the OG cohort. I mean, I think the first call was a very similar experience for me. I kind of knew 5 minutes into the conversation, I absolutely had to do this. And I remember, you know, when we had our first one-on-one, you asked me what my goal was. And I didn't have a goal because I didn't have a product to launch. I wasn't building anything. So I remember just saying, I just want to write. And I think just being able to get out of my own head and be able to do that consistently was the most beautiful part of the experience for me. And I remember there was a lot of conversation about what a niche was going to be or finding your niche. And I never had one. I still don't have one. And, you know, a huge part of what I now do in terms of like trying to curate a community for builders came from a conversation I had with my sister. And she said, well, you're not embarrassed to do stupid things and you're not embarrassed to be embarrassed. So just talk about that. And so now I talk about failure and that's my niche.

Yes. I think it's a much welcomed niche, right? And then it's called Sunset Club, correct? Yeah. And I'll link out the URLs in the show notes. But I'm so glad that you, again, very accidentally arrived at that thing like we talked about. The larger theme, and this is a segue to our next question, but the larger theme for me, I'm gonna start off by saying I was constantly blown away every week coming into the sessions and the masterminds, constantly blown away by someone reporting some accidental discovery or accidental big leap that they took or advice shipping himself from Canada to SF to do an ODF thing, or Jesse just having a fantastic interview with a big accelerator program. I'm constantly blown away. It could be any one of you. I didn't know who it was, but I knew that I was coming in with a sense of awe and admiration for what you guys are achieving and just the high caliber. I think something that I'd never been to Stanford and Harvard and MIT, so I don't know what it's like to walk those Awaktus campuses, but this is probably what it feels like to be in a petri dish of top inventors and top founders and top, like, talent, I think, because every day they're doing something cool and they're not afraid to take risks. So that's what I walked in in many, many weeks with you guys. And so I'm thankful for that. One question I have, which I want to go around the table and ask, is if you had to look back and sort of talk about one non-obvious, you know, takeaway From doing the fellowship? A lot of these things probably were obvious to you. Like it's gonna be a 6-week cohort. You've done cohort-based courses. It's gonna be some teaching, some masterminds. Some of this is obvious, right? It's not rocket science what we're doing here. That's why I'm like, sometimes it's hard to know how are you different? I'm like, it's not different. We just do it greatly. We just appreciate everything and all that. But anyway, what was a non-obvious takeaway from your own experience of being 6, 7 weeks here and beyond? Let's start with Edgar.

Good to go. Amazing. And I loved hearing once again about everyone's experiences in the program. It's just so refreshing. One non-obvious takeaway from BIPF, I think many people touched on it, but it's really about the idea of focusing on identity and becoming the type of person who shares ideas, insights, failures, learnings openly and ships every day. And I think for me, what was interesting was I've done a lot of the growth courses. Like I did Demand Curve when I got into growth. I did Maker's Mark, which is actually from another On Deck alumni. So learning how to grow on social media wasn't really what I was looking for in this experience. For me, after having had like a fairly volatile past 2 years at hypergrowth companies and being at this kind of inflection point, I really wanted to focus on just removing that pressure, as you said, removing that valve and showing up authentically. And it was amazing to see a program that was actually designed to do that. And I remember our first week, you had focused on James Clear stuff from Atomic Habits and the idea of putting in the reps And focusing on becoming the type of person who does something rather than just doing the things. And I think we saw that all as a community, and that's kind of the foundation in which all of these projects ended up being launched and all of this progress was made, but just starting out with the people. So for me, that was amazing.

Love that, love that. Nothing to add to it. I want to go to Jesse. One non-obvious takeaway?

Yeah, so this is, um, in the work that I do both founders that I support and the journey that I've been on myself over the last year of pivoting a business, trying to get a seed extension, having to make tough decisions about letting people go and putting a business ultimately on the shelf. The one thing that was the common place for all of those is so much of the time I spend is on helping others fill their own blind spots, right? So doing exploration on behalf of others, being able to open my mind, think creatively, think from a different perspective. I think what was Unbelievable reminder from this cohort because I frankly was looking to explore the ins and outs, both from an analytical perspective, but also an emotional perspective of how do you actually go and build a personal brand? The only thing that all of us had in common besides wanting to show up was this consistent vulnerability on being our authentic self. And so it's something that not just founders can relate to, but literally every single human at every sort of every stage of life experience. And so it's Non-obvious because it's entirely obvious that we go through every single day of our lives forgetting that we have this natural link with other people and just being able to be that light for them, not trying to find the things that you can help support them on because they already know, right? And so I've already seen how I show up with some of the founders that I coach and I work with. I'm showing up in a different way, less advisory and more letting their own mind lead the way to the right path. And so I think there is sort of a really interesting truth around our own sort of vulnerabilities and the obviousness of the non-obvious on our day-to-day.

Yeah, that's profound. Mei, what's your take?

I feel like this is a difficult question to answer because to be fair, we're not all completely there yet in terms of our building public journey, right? So, I mean, I think maybe an hour. Yeah,

hopefully that came off very clearly too, right? I think a lot of you, when you first met me outside, like outside the fellowship, you were like, KP, it's easy for you, or you've done this many times, 5 years in the game. And hopefully you saw the ways the— like I showed you my cards and it was not as, you know, like Michael Phelps-like as you may have thought. Some of you, I don't know, but I still struggle and it still takes vulnerability and still takes a lot of effort, intentional effort. And I think that's what I wanted to show all of you is that greatness is just repetition of the obvious habits over and over and over again. But somehow the narrative in your head has to be about You're having fun, so you forget how many thousands of reps you have to take. So,

absolutely. Anyway, I mean, I think what was most powerful about the community was just the fact that everyone was so willing to share what they were struggling with, not just what they were winning at. And I think that's really important as well. But I think a hugely non-obvious thing for me, and I've spoken to everyone about this sort of off record, and everyone said the same thing, there's been something incredibly powerful about just having a small community and an intentionally small group. So I've done cohorts and programs before, and you're kind of overwhelmed because there are like 300 people on board. And there's— you're never going to actually ever be able to have a one-on-one conversation with 300 people in the duration of that cohort. And it just gets really difficult to then sort of build that sense of familiarity. I think the easiest way for me to explain this fellowship has been you hosting a dinner party, right? Yeah. And you've put in an intentional amount of thought as to how you wanted to host it and the people that you wanted to invite. And It's felt the same degree of comfort in terms of attending a dinner party. Like the best way to explain the Build in Public Fellowship for me to anyone that I know is it's a really well-hosted dinner party. Because I was just talking to someone about this this morning, where I said hosting is such a difficult thing. Not everyone's good at it. And it really is an art and a science. And I feel like you've done that really well in terms of kind of putting it together. But then the other kind of non-obvious thing for me, and sorry, I'm probably saying 2 instead of one. but has just been the fact that there are no rules around building in public. Yes. So like one thing that I struggled with right up until week 6 was I don't have a niche. And I think there are people in our cohort that have a very obvious niche, right? Like someone's got an AI niche, someone's got a no-code niche, someone might have something completely different. And I realized your niche doesn't have to be something you're good at or what you're interested in. It could maybe just be who you are. I think just that whole conversation we've had around authenticity and identity and like making who you are your niche has also been like a powerful, non-obvious learning for me.

That's amazing. I mean, I feel like that I should put that in the trailer of this podcast because that was such a profound thought in terms of both the tactic, but also something that we— it's a part of the culture is that we don't— the other thing a lot of times, you know, which I struggle with is that people keep asking me like there's some magical framework that I have, right? What is that magic? What is the secret bullet? And I struggle with this question because actually I don't have any frameworks. And so hopefully that came off like there is— I do a lot of things, just like all of us, we do a lot of things at the same time. I don't have any frameworks, so I just discard the things that don't work and I don't fret about them, right? Like the SponsorSoup thing. I don't know if you guys saw the tweet that I made. That sucked. That failed. That was a disaster. But I didn't take 6 months' time in a rehab somewhere thinking like, man, what have I done, right? Like, it's okay. And I just moved on to Leaderbird and who knows where it'll go? I don't know, right? But I think this being around people who are always willing to give a certain emotion a certain amount of time, but then they're willing to pick themselves up and get onto the next thing is insanely energizing, 'cause it frees you up from the pressure valve situation, right? Okay, so Rachel, what was your non-obvious takeaway?

I like what everyone said. I love what May said about the dinner party. I think that's so true for me as well. And Jesse about the blind spots. I think I didn't realize I was like under a founder malaise. And then like in like week 3, I was like, I have to show up to this. Really, like, not just turn up, but like really show up because everyone's amazing. And I think the unexpected thing for me is like being inspired to have bigger problems because there's no shame around having problems. In fact, you can't not have problems and be a founder and be building and having big goals. Like, it's like married to big problems. And that was really unexpected for me to, you know, Show up, be mindful of your energy, and like the unexpected inspiration, momentum, energy fuel I got from everyone else and like their problems that I might have even been a little bit jealous of slash inspired. It was really a great experience.

It's a direct personal attack at Nick, right? If he's listening. Just kidding. Just kidding. But I remember you telling me about the one-on-one you had with Chris and you were like, wow, Chris, KP, Chris has this abundance problem that is a— that And I'm like, yeah, there. I mean, that's another thing that I loved. For me, another unexpected sort of, not a takeaway, but an unexpected flavor of this fellowship, the first OG group, has been the diversity of experiences of all of you. And I think maybe I hung out with too much of a one-type crowd in the last 2 years. And I guess maybe it felt like a bunch of superstars around me from different arenas. It's like, I don't know what's the right, it's like a Coachella stage and you had like R&B and you had hip-hop and you're like, whoa. Yeah. But it's the same music. Everyone's trying to go through the same problems, but then you're like, whoa, you know, it felt good to be around other people that don't have the same kind of background as you, you know? So like Jesse's corporate background and, you know, and Rachel, like your social justice and stuff. So switching to another prompt that I have, which I think is relevant, I feel like the— I know that you will agree to this, which is the mega takeaway or the mega benefit has been mostly intangible stuff, stuff that can't be measured, stuff that's hard to put But there also have been some tangible lucky breaks or lucky wins that you probably have had. I'll share mine, but I want to go across the room and ask, what are some lucky breaks you've had since joining, since taking up BIPF1? Because unfortunately, even all of you, you need the outcomes to justify you doing the right thing, right? Which is so dumb because I don't believe in that. We all don't believe in that, but our rational brains want some kind of a justifiable Small wins. So let's go around the room. Edgar, what's a lucky break or a small win, a tangible win you've had since joining?

Yeah, I'd say, um, mine aren't that small. I thought they were small.

That's another thing, by the way. Like, there were so many times where somebody would join the mastermind and be like, yeah, it's a small win, and it's like a mega win.

Yeah, but yeah,

that's— yeah,

definitely. I think a perfect example of that— I'll go with 2. The first is, even though I I wasn't trying to grow on Twitter. One of the tweets that I posted was probably my second or third highest performing tweet ever. And I was blown away by that because the last thread that I wrote that went viral was like a thread on growth. And if I'm sure the listeners have seen the typical, like, 99% of founders don't understand this, here are 7 ways to grow your startup, like a thread that is designed to go viral.

Formulaic threads. Yeah.

Right, exactly. And there's a reason why that format works, but at the same time, that's a lot less authentic. And I think it's why people that start out, including myself, with that format stop after a while, because it doesn't feel like themselves and you, you lose motivation over time. So one of the frameworks from BIPF was just like celebrating the small wins. So one day I had had my first paying customer for Principled Growth. It was a coaching client and it was like 10 PM and I was like, you know what, Why don't I just ship this thing? And it said, small win, just got my first paying customer for a new business, feeling grateful. And the way that my network, my followers, everyone showed up to amplify that— tons of founders that I respect that I haven't had even one-on-one conversations with yet, they just came behind me and supported me. And it ended up actually performing super well past all of the other threads that I had written. So that was amazing. And I think it just again showed that power of authenticity and vulnerability and, and celebrating finding joy. And you can see some real tangible outcomes of that. Well, the other second—

or let's see, I was gonna say, yeah, you want to go on?

Yeah, so the second is even bigger. I was gonna say, yeah, as, as I mentioned, I came into the fellowship kind of figuring out coaching versus consulting and kind of the bootstrapping thing. And I actually ended up meeting someone through the fellowship that we ended up exploring ideas around AI and growth and applying to YC together. And what ended up happening is from that application, which was the same thing around the mindset of just shipping it, getting the momentum moving forward, and the type of people that are in the fellowship. So this guy's name is Aaron. He's also building a company called Waitlist, which is kind of a rocket ship. You'll, you'll probably see it soon. His mentality was, you're trying to get off the ground too. I will help you build out the first version of this of this software, no equity, no cash, nothing. Like, I just want to help because I want to give first without expectation. Wow. And for me as a growth person, that was enough motivation to get going. So I started tapping my network. I started saying, okay, we're going to confirm the first 10 to 20 beta customers because we have the ability to build it out. So I tapped my network at On Deck and they encouraged me to apply for On Deck Founders. Which is for the first time back in person in San Francisco. And they actually just opened up applications for their next cohort. But so I shipped myself all the way to San Francisco from Toronto, booked it super last minute, and I went in full energy ready to go. And I ended up meeting a co-founder there who we're now equal co-founders. Where he's based in Canada, tons of serendipity, had an existing project that he had been working on and was looking for a marketing and sales co-founder. So we just clicked right away and we're heads down building now. We have a newsletter where we're sharing our journey every single week, the things that we've accomplished, and we're moving pretty fast. So you'll, you'll see some exciting updates soon. But none of that would have happened without the Build in Public Fellowship.

Wow. I mean, that's just such a great testament, right? And again, I think it's the power of shipping, power of moving quickly, power of trusting your gut. Jesse, what was— what were your One or two lucky breaks or tangible wins.

Yeah, so first of all, I mean, I just sit here and smile. I just I just love hearing at your story, man. Like you know, we've had some great conversations. Unbelievably thoughtful mind. You can you can you can hear how both intentional and passionate, but also just just genuine he is and how kind he is. And you know, it's awesome just to see the direction you're going, man. It's truly really exciting.

We're talking to a future billionaire here among us. I have no doubt.

Many,

many, I would say. Actually, I have no doubts that there are at least 3 or 4 billionaires in our BAPF cohort, future billionaires. I have no doubt. I'm throwing myself in the ring too. Just kidding.

Yeah. The one thing I'll say on that is, as someone who spent a lot of time around those types of echelon people in my Goldman days, let's just— I hope for our sake that we're all the happy type.

Yeah.

The happy type.

Monk mode, right? Anyway. Exactly.

So I think I'm going to jump on Edgar's shoulders on the giving side, right? A lot of what I've done in the last number of years is, well, it's sort of in my nature, is I've built up a lot of goodwill with others, right? I've got a pretty meaningful network myself, and part of the way I think about things is always connecting the dots for others and connecting the dots for myself in a strategic sense, but not in an emotional and a personal sense. The one big post that I did have was something I'd been working on just in my own mind for probably arguably a month before I even closed down my business. And mind the fact that that one post about why the way society categorizes failures is utterly wrong. Sure. It had 55, almost 60,000 impressions and a lot of different people reached out and my 2 clients both that I work with now came from that. But what's interesting is the number of people that didn't like it or commented on it on LinkedIn that sent me text messages around the edge. And the reminder, the big win on that to me internally is one, appreciating that people that I haven't spoken to in 6 months, a year, 2 years, 3 years, that length of time really doesn't matter. Mm-hmm. But the things that you've done for them, the value you've provided for them, the things that they see in you, that stands the test of time. And so they want to show up for you if they can. And so I saw the win is seeing a lot of bifurcation both in my network on types of personalities, but also a reminder that part of giving is giving people the opportunity to give.

Yeah.

Right. And sure, that means you are potentially a taker and a beneficiary of that, but that gift to them is a really powerful thing. And so the small win that I have is really remembering that and harnessing The bigger win comes a lot more from the mindset I have around the lifestyle that I want to build, right? As someone who has opportunities right now expanding between the zero to one in the corporate world, I've been really reminded throughout working with individuals in the cohort, as we keep sort of being, the horse is very much kicking. There's lots of people who are building things at various stages, but all doing it from just a place of passion. And it's been a huge reminder that it's actually being as early as possible in the lifecycle of building a business. The journey of the founder is where I want to spend the majority of my time and where I want to build and where I want to add value. And so my big win is a sense of clarity, right? And that comes from being a part of 4 or 5 sessions every single week around people that are letting their own clarity and their own passion drive them forward.

That's huge, right? The sense of clarity. is huge when you spend some time with, with like foggy things and things that are like unclear. Mae and Rachel, what are your big wins? Mae, you want to go next?

Yeah, I mean, I think when we first had that conversation where we spoke about what are your goals from this fellowship and what's something you want to make sure you don't end up at, at the end of the fellowship, that was sort of the precise question. I remember saying my goal was volume and not results, so I was never looking about a tweet going viral or getting a ton of engagement on tweets. Although that did happen. I mean, I ended up crossing 100,000 impressions and shipping 1,600 tweets and all of that so far.

Wild. Because I was just casually just glossing over like some crazy stats.

But I think what really helped me get comfortable with this lifestyle, I think is the better way to put it, of building in public was just being consistent and getting volume out. So for me, the big win was kind of getting not just one but two Substacks. You know, the second one just launched a week and a half ago, and what, I'm about 3 or 4 subscribers away from 100 subscribers. And growth in Substack is so slow that I was really concerned because I was like, I'm gonna have to stare at the screen for a year to see any growth happening. But the fact that it's just sort of all happened organically has been really helpful. And then I remember I remember asking you as well at this point when we had this challenge around make your public ask, and I wanted to ask people, and I said to you, you know, at what point should I ask people? Because my Substack is so new, I only have like 2 or 3 long-form pieces shipped. And you said to me, do it when you've got 5 long-form pieces out. And it's so funny because I think this morning I'd shipped my, I want to say, 11th or 12th long-form piece. Wow. But I'm no longer at point where I have to make an ask. So I've actually had people that I wanted to reach out to reach out to me instead, not just because they found me on Substack, but even like on Product Hunt and otherwise, just saying, hey, we should chat. And I said, well, I was gonna do that. And so funny how that

happens.

Yeah, exactly. So I think, I think just that belief in terms of volume and getting consistency out there for me was sort of the, the main focus. And that for me has been the big tangible win, uh, In terms of just having that body of work to kind of look at.

I cannot co-sign that hard enough. The body of work thing, Mei, and I think you and I are in the same camp. Like some of my friends think I'm psycho, like because I ship 50 tweets a week like it's nothing and I feel like I haven't done enough. And it's not a question of burnout or I'm like tired or like, oh man, I want to outcompete. It's just my own personal challenge. I'm like, I've done 55 last week and I had so much to say and I feel like it's almost a duty that I have to share and teach and give away or whatever. And so I hold myself to a very high standard. But I'm easygoing, I'm having fun, but there's a standard so freaking high, right? And one time I had— I asked a very, very prolific content creator who I looked up to for so long and asked, how do you do this? Because I think he had like 600 episodes or something on podcasts. And I was— my question more so seemed like, I'm doing the right thing, but it's just taking longer than I expected the results coming to me. Should I do anything else? And his answer was, His answer was, be nuclear, be prolific, be so good that people are afraid to get in the lane with you. Like, not in that like competitive way, but like, and build a mountain of body of work. Like something that you look back and you're like proud of how much trail you've left. And this is like 3 years ago. I never looked back since then. And that's the message I try to give to all of you is that you don't second guess, don't overthink this shit, just build a mountain. Once you have a mountain and you stand on the mountain of your own content, you're a king or queen or whatever nature that you want. Most people can't get there. Instead, they think, oh, should I be better? Should I be different? Should I be— no, you're enough. Like, all of us, we're enough. Just build the amount of work, which will take some time. That's fine. So Rachel, you have to go after Mei, which I'm sorry for that.

I love Mei's success. Like, she's like, okay, I'll wait for the 5th newsletter, and then all the people she was gonna reach out to were reaching out to And I love that. And Mae has been so generous to me in just, like, advising me on a few things that have—

I feel like Mae could be, like, the president of the world. Like, if there was an election.

She is, you know.

I would nominate Mae.

We just don't know yet.

I think the other, the other unobvious thing in the Build in Public group is people are always around to hype you up. So, I've never felt like I've never felt like my confidence is running low on any particular day.

It's all earnest hype. It's not even gassing you up for fake reasons, right? It's like, yeah, legit. All right.

My second and third vat, by the way.

Yeah. I mean, and this is, look, I have a lot of fans that I'm feeling, I feel most of the time I feel like my wife likes to humble me and ground me, but like fanfare is something else. Like genuine appreciation is unbelievably energizing, right? And I think that's something I look forward to on Fridays. for us, for our masterminds, which we still go, which we still do. Rachel, sorry.

I know, I love that you just said that because I hadn't really thought of it like that before. It's, you do get feedback and support and cheerleading from people in your life, but they're not in the game. So they don't know what you're doing and what it takes, even just from an emotional perspective. And when other people that are fully in the game are giving you that kind of support and seeing you that That's so energizing. It's kind of been a lifeline.

At the same time, I'm just sorry to cut you, but at the same time, there's a lot of, I feel like intellectual pushback and intellectual honesty around feedback too. I've noticed, you know, and like when somebody puts out something like, you know, a landing page or whatever, like I remember like not just me, but all of us chiming in and saying like, this is great, just ship it, awesome, but this could be better, right? And there is a lot of that back and forth going on and we don't bullshit as well, which I think is very important 'cause otherwise it's just only one side.

Yeah, there's a real commitment for each other's success. And Mei did that for me. She didn't say this, but she was basically like, your business model doesn't work. She just like asked me about the numbers and I was like, oh. And I mean, it really helped me.

But the same way, like Rachel, I remember you and I having that one. First of all, I remember you in one of the masterminds saying like how there's some business lines that are not working as effectively as you want them to. And I think I was catching your self-defeating thought and like stopping it and saying, stop that shit. And the follow-up is we both went on, jumped on a call, and I literally reviewed line by line all of your, you know, copywriting. And some of that was bullshit. So I was like, delete this, delete this, delete this, rewrite this. And it's such a, it's again, it's not just because I did it or you did it, it's just such a joyful exchange.

It's, yeah, it's a wonderful collaboration where you get to burn off all the BS, you know?

Yeah,

like they're a giant inferno. Anyway, I redid my website, as you just pointed out. That was something that I tangibly did not expect to be redoing. I decided to focus on founders, from which was being coachable by you, KP, and I really appreciate that. I've since had some wonderful, amazing one-on-one sessions that have just left me feeling really alive and inspired. Like, my clients are blowing my mind, and like, I can't believe they're paying me. I came up—

By the way, that's Exactly how I feel about all of you. Literally, that's exactly how I can't believe you're paying me or you're paying the fellowship. And because some of you actually, I went out of my way and recruited you. And it's like I remember for some of you, I actually begged you to join because I knew you would add so much value than the bullshit price tags. So I was like, please don't look at the price. Like I just want you to be inside, like be an elder. And it's the most satisfying thing I've done is begging people. Like not begging, but you know what I mean, right? It's like recruiting because it's like a dinner table. It's like a dinner party, and it's important to set the tone and the culture.

Yes, I love the dinner party metaphor. I love that. I came up with the title Map Society and this idea that, you know, we can build our own authentic path and contribute powerfully to the world around us, and that those things are tied together. And then my favorite takeaway, I think, is probably when I was having a one-on-one with Chris, who you mentioned earlier, who has hit product-market fit in 3 areas, not just one. And he is Is overwhelmed, and then you know, and I'm there supporting him, like in the way that May supported me in my one-on-one. It was you know, it's not always fifty-fifty. And he's like, "And how are you?" And I was like, "Well, you know." Da da. He's like, "This is great. Tweet about this because in a year when you're in my position, you can look back on it." And I'm like, "What kind of crazy empowering?" Like it just came out. He's like, "That's awesome. This is gonna make a great narrative." I think that is such a joyful, generous, and it was really authentic. And that, like, to me, that interaction that, that just rolled off his tongue when he's like, too many people want to give him money and it's overwhelming, is just really— yeah, that's— it's amazing. And I carry that with me on the hard days. It's like in my little pocket.

I love that. I love that. Thank you, Rachel. All right, so one last question before we wrap up. I feel like we could go 6 hours on this. As I said at the beginning, there's so So much we can share, so much, you know, so much fun we've been having in the fellowship and on this episode. But to put a bow on this, let's say if there's somebody who's listening to this, you know, and they're interested about building in public and they want to sort of learn the craft and get better at this, but they don't understand the difference between learning the craft themselves DIY style and then joining a fellowship, you know, and then being part of the group, right? What is your advice to No hard selling, but like genuinely, you were in those shoes 4 or 5 months ago. What is your advice in terms of how they should evaluate what's best for them? Why a fellowship would make sense for them? Edgar, you want to go again?

Sure. Happy to kick it off. There's so, so many reasons, I would say. I think the biggest thing is just getting out of your own way and doing that through the support of community. Absolutely. I think there were a ton of themes mentioned throughout this conversation around the value that being around other authentic, vulnerable people that have a doer's mindset, that are shipping, the value that you get from that. I think not only the inspiration, the appreciation, the support, but having a safe space to fail, to try ideas, to test them out. I think we all had experiences like that throughout the 6 weeks, and we were just lifted up by others. And I think when you're just around that type of energy, you just move so much faster and you really enjoy that journey. And I think one of the things, KP, that you always brought into our conversations and in the fellowship is just like choose joy and like have fun throughout this process. Like business and Twitter and marketing and all this stuff, like It's hard enough if you're doing it on your own. So just choose to have fun while you do it and choose the type of people that you want to surround yourself with. And that'll just put you in a place that you can't even imagine where you're at right now.

So what are the odds of me picking the most— the 4 most well-spoken people in the fellowship for this interview? It's like every word is a bar. Like, you guys are killing me. I have nothing to add, nothing to say. Edgar, that was amazing. And I fully resonate with everything you just said. I think the number of times I've said in our fellowship, and I still say I say this to myself too, find the joy in the journey, right? Find the fun. Chase fun, chase joy. It's been so— it's become my mantra personally to me. And I know you guys, you know, resonated too. I appreciate it. All right, Jesse.

So I'll hit 2 quickly. One is in a similar light of Edgar's as it relates to the founder journey itself, whether you have co-founders or not, it's still unbelievably lonely. And that's not just building a startup, whether you're looking for venture capital, it's building anything. And there is something unbelievably profound about feeling everybody else trying to find that light for themselves at the same time, trying to run away from some of that darkness, that loneliness, that self-doubt, and doing it in the exact same space, that safe space. There's just an unbelievable lightness to the amount of respect that people bring to that space. And then the second part about it that I think is really fascinating, especially to me, as I'm, again, I have a lot of things that have not been published, but my amount of writing has grown dramatically. And there's lots of reasons why it's not out there yet. Part of it is what I just mentioned. We're still working through a lot of those insecurities and those vulnerabilities and figuring out who it is that I want to be and want to put myself, my authentic self out there. But as Mae talked about before, in terms of writers are supposed to have these niches, and then over time she actually found her niche is just herself. I think there's something really powerful about being a part of a collective community where you are noticing that not just everybody is iterating at the same time, but they're iterating in different ways, right? Because you can get really lost in the vortex of the biggest names and the biggest voices on Twitter and on LinkedIn that look very formulaic. And as Edgar and KP, you guys mentioned before, there is something to those formulas, but it's not the only way. And all of the masterclasses out there in the world will tell you, here is the sure-proof, surefire way to do this. And I think you need to ask yourself, do you want to do it like everybody else. And I think the great part about this community is that everybody is doing it differently at the same time. And as you've just heard from this podcast, it's all working in various ways. And so I think that's a really exciting part about it.

Yeah, couldn't have said it better. And I think inside the fellowship too, we don't knock on formulaic styles, right? I think formulaic approach builds a following, but the real deep question Is do you want fulfillment or do you want following? You know, and I think if you blend, we we talk about styles, we talk about templates. We have a lot of formulas and frameworks we use inside. We talk about you know. So if you blend authenticity with the formula, oh, it's gonna you know be blown away, and you get following, but also you feel fulfilled, which I think is key. May and Rachel, the prompt was: What would you go back and say to the May who was on the fence about joining? Yeah, I mean,

I'm probably going to build off of what Edgar, Jesse, and Rachel have said. It's going to sound like a hard sell, but it isn't, which is how you know it's a good buy. So, I think the 2 things, or actually 3 things, because 3 of you said some 3 wonderful things. So, the first of it for me was, I think the first half of my career, just like the entirety of the first half, was incredibly focused on building an Isolation, right? Maybe some parts of it were because I'm introverted. I also came from the legal sector. I was a city corporate lawyer in London, so you know we're ruthlessly competitive, and a part of just maintaining a very discreet lifestyle is is just doing that. But what I've intentionally realized about myself is the learning framework I want to embrace for the next phase of my career is peer accountability, and I think there's something incredibly powerful about that. But then also going. What Jesse said, I think people get confused about what peer accountability looks like and whom you're meant to learn from. And so a really funny instance I remember that happened for me, and that's how I realized who I wanted to learn from, was when I was a junior lawyer back in the day. I was at this dinner with a big city partner in London, and I asked him, you know, what was your experience like? Something very specific about when you started your career. And he looked at me and I could see him look at me completely blank because he couldn't remember what his experience was like. He'd forgotten because he was so far ahead in his career what it felt like to be in my shoes. And so what I've developed, what I like to call, is the 2.5x rule, which is you always want to learn from people who are 2.5 steps ahead of you. Anyone that's more than 2.5 steps ahead is not worth learning from because they don't realize what it like to be in your position. They don't appreciate your challenges and they don't feel like they can actually offer actionable advice or anything that they say is just going to be stupidly generic. And then you're just like, great, what do I do with that? You know, like people, you know, who tweet things like, don't give up. What, what am I supposed to do with them? So, um, I think what's really valuable about the Build in Public Fellowship is the fact that everyone is part of that 2.5 buyback circle. And, and you don't— we don't realize it, but we fit exactly within that circle. And I think that's what makes it really powerful. And then just the final thought on what Chris advised Rachel, which was you're building your narrative looking at this a year from now. You know, this is going to be what you're going to tweet about, right? This is where I was a year ago. So what, what I've realized, funnily enough, is none of the creators that I now follow or have discovered, I've ever discovered when they were at like their first 1,000 subscribers, right? There's only handful of people that I know who I was like one of the first 1,000 subscribers they had. Like I discovered Saul Bloom when he had 150,000 subscribers. So, you know, he was already a big shot at the time. And so I think the way to think about the fellowship is you are putting in the reps to build your narrative so that that lot that's gonna follow you a year from now will look back at your body of work that you do today, if that makes sense.

Wow. That's brilliant. And again, that the 2.5x thing, by the way, please, please make that your 12th or 13th blog post. I mean, the Substack post, it deserves its own piece. And it's so true. I think it's one of the, it's one of the non-obvious, you know, sort of points about learning in general, because a lot of people want to learn from the top 1%, but you can't learn much from Michael Phelps about swimming. Like the guys literally spent 25, 30, 40 years in water. Like what are you going to learn from someone who's like, you know, trying to learn basketball from MJ, right? It's very, very hard. What you want is the 2.5x person who's 3 feet ahead, and you can use them as inspiration for sure, right, about what's possible. But the real actionable learnings happen from peers. I love that. Rachel, take us home. Last sec, last part of the interview.

Awesome. I love that. I think I just want to talk to the people that don't know what vertical SaaS is, um, because building in public is for everybody. And I joined the Build in Public Fellowship because I'd seen KP in action, and he was He's like, I'm starting a fellowship. And I was like, yes, because I knew I could see the passion and I'd seen him work before and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I did not know what building in public meant really, you know, and I thought social media was just draining and toxic to my psyche. And in the first week or two, I felt like I was in a foreign country because everyone kept saying things like, just ship it. And I'm like, What does ship it mean? And I had no idea that ship it meant tweeting or just putting anything out of your head into reality, you know, which is such a powerful distinction. But I didn't know what you guys were talking about. And building in public is really such a wonderful thing for anyone who's building a business. I understand that some people might be cautious about it, but every business project, new reality that you're bringing into the world needs a community. around it that's invested and engaged in that new reality, that wants that new reality, and that's gonna thrive in, in whatever you're creating for the world. And social media isn't social media to me anymore. It's about having an authentic voice, a message, and a relationship with the world. And I enjoy it. I still don't tweet, but I do have my newsletter and a lot of other things, and it's very rewarding and joyful. And so Yeah, that would be—

You do tweet, not as much as, you know, some of us. I do tweet, yeah. Yeah, you do tweet, which I appreciate, by the way, 'cause it feels like you hold back, you like suddenly wait for a gem of an insight to come, and then you just tweet something. I think the other thing too is, Rachel, thanks for that beautiful message. But the other thing too is people actually, it's so weird, like a lot of the times, you know, when you were in the earlier part of building in public or crowding creation, you think that my thoughts are not so original or like my emotion is not that, you know, special. And people often like look at like big, big accounts like Sahil Bloom's of the world or like Justin Welsh and like, oh, what a refined, beautiful, amazing insight, right? But it's so weird, and maybe this is just me, but when I scroll through my feed, when I get a raw, unfiltered, unpackaged thought from Rachel's feed, Rachel's account, I resonate more than a formulaic, like I know that this went through 7 layers of content creation, you know, like blessing 'Cause we all know, even I have an EA, which means Sahil Bloom has 700 EAs, right? No one is writing their own content, right? And I mean, I'm not knocking on him, but you know what I mean? So it's like nobody, we don't know how many layers of content reviews things go through. So when something fresh comes off either Jesse or you, I look at it and I like it, and then I try to connect with the person, and it's so refreshing. So that's why I always encourage, I mean, I try my best in our fellowship and everywhere else, like, guys, don't hold back. There are people out there like me, and there's many more like me who want to feel heard, feel seen. And you, you are expressing your opinions and your thoughts, perspectives, is encouraging other people to reflect and introspect as well. So with that note, I think we're gonna call this a wrap. This has been probably maybe, uh, I wanna say top 3 episodes among the 65 that I've ever had, or 60 plus. I had so much fun. Thank you so much to each of you. Thank you. For both trusting me on the fellowship and coming into the fellowship and bringing your authentic selves and now kind of passing the baton and the torch to the next round. I'm trying my best to plug you in as much as I can 'cause your energy is so precious. And I will keep doing this in the future too, is to make the alumni as involved as possible because you guys are special. So thanks again and I'll see you on Slack. Thanks. Awesome.

Thank you, KP. It was, it was so much fun.

That's awesome. All right, Mei, all good? Everyone good? Okay, we can call this a wrap. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.