In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Max Friedman, co‑founder and CEO of Givebutter, a modern fundraising platform. Max shares how an obsessive curiosity—from video games to Craigslist flipping to coding—has driven his entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the value of diving deep into interests. He highlights human connection as the primary catalyst for charitable giving, explaining that personal asks outperform generic ads and that thoughtful design must tap into empathy. Offering advice to his younger self, Max wishes he’d learned technical skills earlier and discusses coping with imposter syndrome. He defines happiness as maintaining optimal health habits and peak personal performance. Max recommends the memoir Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, drawing lessons about bootstrapped funding, grit, and iconic branding. His favorite quote is Benjamin Franklin’s “Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today,” which he uses as a productivity mantra. Finally, he provides his social media handles and directs listeners to getbutter.com.
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Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner, and today's sponsor is Flipboard. Flipboard curates the world's stories so you can be smarter in your work, life, and play. Choose from thousands of topics to personalize Flipboard and get the latest stories from the best publishers and experts delivered to you 24/7. So You can get started now at flipboard.com. And now let's jump into the episode.
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner, and today I have Max Friedman with us. He is the co-founder and CEO of GiveButter, a modern fundraising platform for small groups and the causes they support. So welcome to the show, man.
Thanks, Tyler. Glad to be here.
Awesome to have you on. So Max, the first question I got for you is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Uh, I think the big theme of my life has just been, uh, sort of getting obsessively interested in things. So when I was a kid, I just was super hooked on video games. And then towards the end of high school, I got really into flipping stuff on Craigslist and I never really thought much about it. But then when I got to college, I got really into coding. And so for me it was kind of interesting once I started putting it towards a business practice when I got into startups, which is that sort of following, When I had an itch, I scratched it. When I thought something was interesting, I just went all in to a very extreme point, like staying up to ungodly hours, waking up early, just doing it all the time. It's served me well now that I'm actually being productive about it. But I do think that it's not really a particular story, but it's definitely something that's been a huge part of just my story and just being able to do what I do. In my life, yeah.
And then what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Human connection. So it's kind of interesting how some of the— so we work in fundraising technology, but specifically fundraising, and I do design, I do product. I didn't get into it because I was interested in fundraising, but I thought there was an interesting problem to be solved. And so much of design is human, right? It's like human empathy and where should a button go to make sure someone understands where it should be and should do the thing that it's supposed to do without them having to think about it. But that's also very applicable to fundraising. So when you're thinking about donating, how can we sort of trigger those things to make you want to donate? And at the same time, we've learned that you can only take the technology so far. And that the number one reason why a lot of people give to causes, and you'd think it might be because of the cause, it might be because they're really passionate about the issue, charitable giving is important to them. The number one reason is because someone they know asked them to donate. Think about how many times you've been probably asked for someone's running a marathon or they're doing Movember and they're growing a mustache. They want to raise money for men's health, whatever it is. Someone's asking you to give. You're much more likely to donate than just seeing a Facebook ad with a with a sad image and a story. Yeah. The human connection is actually pretty broad, I think, in a lot of industries, but also art.
My next one for you is if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I'm 23, so that's a tough one.
When you were 3 years old.
3 years old. I had a really good sense of style back then and parents were good. I don't know. Life was pretty good then. I think the thing I think about when I was younger is just like, I wish I got technical sooner. I had a great childhood and growing up, and like I said, I'm 23 and I just graduated a year ago and college was great. So I could go as far back as I want. But just in general, when I got into coding, it's like learning a language, right? It's like the sooner you learn, the sooner it becomes— so much of coding and design and all this stuff is time. A lot of people can do it. A lot of people think they can't, but they can. But the more time you spent doing it, the better you get. It's just faster. You know what problems are going to happen, and so you can get ahead of them without having to refactor your code later. So things like that. I just always wish I got technical sooner, but I don't necessarily have regrets just like that. One other small one is just like, I've had this a lot, just dealing with imposter syndrome, and I just feel like if I could just have an older version of myself over my shoulder just being like, everyone feels like an imposter, literally everyone. If you're doing something new, that's a good thing. Don't let that stop you. Don't let that hold you back. Don't let that make it so that you don't do things that you want to do or things that you think you can't because you're too young or inexperienced.
Then going down a different path, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
I think it varies. I think it's definitely a person-to-person thing. For me, it's knowing that I'm at my best. Everything from I'm eating well, I'm getting enough sleep. I'm working out, I'm active. Pretty much none of those I'm doing right now. But I love that feeling when you just feel like you're fully optimized as a human being. It's like I'm doing everything I possibly can to put myself in the best position to be a healthy, happy person. And I think that applies to career stuff too. It's definitely a huge source of my happiness, but it kind of starts with those fundamentals, knowing that everything I'm doing, I'm at peak performance and I'm doing the best I can because so much of what life is, you just got to deal with the cards you're dealt. You got to just do your best. So if you can nip those variables in the bud, I'm doing what I can do to make myself in the best position possible to succeed and be happy. Those are the things that are within my control, and the rest might be out of my control, but at least I did those intangibles to put myself in that position.
And then what is the best book that you've read, and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
I really like Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. I like memoirs. I like reading people's stories in more of a narrative form, and I just thought it was such a great, easy read, but then also specific to the lessons learned. There's a story I love in the book where he tells a story about how there's no venture capital when Nike's being founded, or I guess then it was Tiger. Tiger Shoe Company or something like that. And he talks about— or Blues, I don't remember the name— but he talks about how he got a bank loan from his local bank. It's the only place to get money, and he got it on his father's good name. It's just like, these are like OG times of starting. I mean, startups are so sexy now, we're starting a company. But back then, it was just like, this guy was doing business in a foreign country well before a lot of the technology we take for granted. And the story is just incredible. It's just like a great true tale of just success. Doesn't happen overnight. It's gritty, it's hard, it's tough. And I think it just did a really good job of kind of like Nike, the logo, someone drew it for like $25 and it's this iconic brand. You know what I mean? It's like these little things that you're kind of like, huh, maybe some things are lucky, some things are hard work. There's a balance there, but other things are just like, it's just interesting to actually hear the background of some of the stuff that we look at as so iconic today and how it actually happened.
Yeah, that is— that's one of my favorite books as well. And then what is your favorite quote and why?
Quotes are hard. I'm not great with quotes. I don't really think in that way. But I feel like something that jumps to mind right now is, I think it's Ben Franklin, like, "Don't put off tomorrow what you can do today." It's just like, it's just like, go fucking do it. Like, just go, go do it. And stop like twiddling your thumbs thinking about it. I think I do that a lot. I think of that one just because I'm constantly like— I plan too much sometimes. It's like, just go get it done. Just go do it. I think that one comes to mind.
Absolutely. Well, dude, thanks so much for coming on. The last one I got for you is where can our listeners find you online?
Well, I'm trying to tweet more so you can hit me up @max_friedman8, @max_friedman8 for my stream of consciousness, Instagram for my life, LinkedIn for self-promotion. And of course, getbutter.com.
