Sharing the 2023 HIBT Lab Highlight Reel

Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Roz. So 2023 was our first full year of how I built this lab. Our weekly highlight of some of the most innovative and inspiring companies and the leaders behind them. This week we're sharing excerpts from a few of our favorite live episodes from this past year. And if you want to hear the full stories, just scroll back in your podcast feed to find the full episodes. These are Great stories, well worth listening to. First up, Pinky Cole. She's the founder of a chain of vegan fast food restaurants called. Yes.

Slutty Vegan. Peaky story is a reminder that an innovative idea doesn't have to be super technical or scientific. And Slutty Vegan wasn't Pinky's first attempt in the restaurant business. In 2014, she opened up Pinky's Jamaican in Harlem. But just two years later, that restaurant was destroyed in a fire. And Pinky had no choice.

But to start over. So make you You pour your heart and soul into this restaurant. Pinky's Jamaican. For two years and then

In an instant it it Literally all goes up in flames. I I can't even imagine how How horrible that must have been. Um, but of course you are the owner this restaurant. You can't like close your eyes and make it all go away. So

So what happened once that fire was out? What did you do? So there were things at the front that were salvageable. But majority of the items in there, the roof it came in, like it was not salvageable. So I'm like, Okay, cool, like fire insurance is gonna take care of this. So I called my insurance agent and they were like, No, you don't have fire insurance. And I'm like, What? Like you just have regular basic business insurance and if you wanna be able to, you know get the things that you got back. Like we aren't responsible. Like we don't have a policy for that. Yeah.

So That's literally Blood, sweat, and tears down the drain. And I don't wish that on my worst enemy.

You lost everything. I lost Everything. And I make a joke about it like I almost lost my mind, but I really almost lost my mind. You gotta imagine what I've told you so far is I used to throw parties

I was the it girl on campus. I um got this job working in TV. Like everything that I've done. Have always been successful. Right? Like anything I touch turn a goal. Pinky Cole got the mightest touch. But I didn't have the Midas touch on this one. And I felt like the biggest failure at the time.

Mm-hmm. It didn't feel good to me at all because my pride and my ego wouldn't allow me to be that vulnerable. So when it happened, it really humbled me. in a way that it's never happened in my life, but I needed that level of humility guy. Yeah. I mean going into the

As you know, going into the restaurant business is so complicated and the margins are so thin and it's so challenging because I mean it's a crash course. in running a really complicated business, um, which I you know I've never done Yeah.

Um It's hard. Yeah. Tell me about

What you learn doing that. Mm. I wish I could come here and like tell you like it's all rainbows and lilies and like it's not. Like it's really not. Um I walked in so blind. Yeah. And when I say blind, I didn't have anybody that has done it before to ask those kind of questions. Yeah. So I was in a lake all by myself. But being in a lake, like I really stuck myself out there to like do the research. So I'd be on Google all night.

I'd be on YouTube. Like I would I I would go to different restaurants and just look around and like it it was a lot of trial and error. Yeah. Hell, it still is trial and error. Um but When I what I realized is that Creating it the way that it was created gave me the opportunity to learn every side of the business. Yeah. Like I had no choice but to learn accountant.

I had no choice but to learn how to like cook burgers and fries. And I didn't grow up eating burgers and fries. Like I had no choice but to be customer service. Mm-hmm. So You lost your restaurant. So that's like not not a good place to be

Um, I can imagine you were Depressed. Uh what else can you be? I mean Yeah. Right.

Within a week or so you get this call. I think it was from A show that's on the Oprah network, right? Own? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And and they offered you a job and you went and you took that job. Yeah. I took that job. And I don't know why I'm having all these revelations while I'm talking to you guys. But you you ever been in a situation where you like

Okay, it's time to move on. Okay, this is not working. Yeah. Has that ever happened to you before? Yeah. Totally.

Yeah. So that was the moment that I was in when I had the restaurant right before the fire. And it was so many things happening at that time. And when it happened, I didn't understand it then. But then I got the opportunity to go on a show and I'm like, I don't got nothing to lose at this point.

Like I might as well go and be great and fly and start over because one thing about me is I was never afraid to start over. And when I got to LA to work on the show. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. Because it was actually like a healing therapy show. I'm like, go figure healing therapy, like I'm coming from a depressed space, like great. But I needed it. Yeah. Because it allowed me the opportunity to get the therapy that I needed to heal.

Yeah, this show's called Fix My Life and it was conversations about struggles and challenges, right? And exactly and in this show. They would kinda try to resolve these. challenges or just just talk through them. Yeah. It was like a therapy show.

It was like a therapy show. But What I liked about the show is that I got the opportunity to connect with people who were also going through it. Yeah. So you're working for the show in LA. Mm-hmm. Back in LA, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And And while you are working on the show. You decide because you are a little bit of a masochist that you want to go back into the restaurant business. I'm crazy. That's why um and you come up with this idea.

For A like a vegan Fast food. Place. Um Tell me about how you came up with

With the this concept at first. So again, I told you that like I got a couple of screws loose, but it's okay. So right before I started Sluddy Vegan. Something just went over me. I don't know what it is. But now that I look at like the holistic picture, I'm like, it happened on purpose. So when we were on hiatus, you know, when you have hiatus on the show, you gotta find ways to supplement your income. Right,'cause usually there's a season you work, it's like four to six months and then you've got

four or five months off. Yeah. So like you can have a a whole lot of money and then you could be trying to figure out like how you're gonna pay the next bill. Yeah. Like that's how it works. Nobody really talks about that world, but it's the choice.'Cause is project based. They don't like a salary. You get paid for the project and you're done. Yeah. And then you gotta figure it out while you're done until it comes back. So I'm like, okay, all right, let me do door dash. So while I was doing door dash, I'm like, all right, let me start working out. Let me start um reading a book every day. And I did that. I read a book every day. I was raw vegan. I did door dash um and I ran five miles a day consistently. Like I did that because I was practicing discipline. This can I just pause for a moment? This is just Five and a half years ago we're talking about that you were doing this. It's it's it's coming up on five years. Yeah, I mean and because what we're gonna talk about where you

you are today, which is incredible. This is five years ago. You're like, okay I'm gonna figure out. I'm just gonna there was no End goal. You were just like, I just wanna be disciplined. I wanna run every day and read a book. It wasn't like and then that will lead me to this. It was just I'm gonna do this because It's gonna

Focus me. G well, you know what my thought process was now that I think about it. I'm gonna do this because discipline breeds rewards. Yep. I know that if I'm disciplined on something, there will be like a cosmic A fact that happens. when I display that level of discipline.

And I did that. And now that I'm thinking about it, I did it all of my life. There were certain levels of discipline, and some of it probably was a little bit more extreme than others. Yeah. But That level of discipline really like opened up my mindset to be able to receive what it is that the assignment was. And the assignment was to open up Slutty Vegan and build a multi-million dollar brand. I by the way, I hope my mom is listening to this interview because you sound exactly like my mom. And the connection between discipline and rewards. And my mom always used to say, The busier you are, the more time you have.

Being disciplined and How does this this idea of a A vegan fast food. Like comfort food kind of.

You know, fast casual restaurant come to your mind. Okay, so When I was a uh the casting director,'cause I had gotten promoted within that time. Yeah. They asked me to move to Atlanta temporarily to do the show. Mm-hmm.

So while I was living in Atlanta I was in my two bedroom apartment and God, I can only be transparent, so I'm gonna tell you the honest truth. I don't smoke, right? I'm not a I'm not a weed smoker, but on this night I smoked. And after I smoked, Sluty Vegan literally like hit me like a light bulb. And I gotta be transparent about that story because literally, I don't know if I was super relaxed, if my conscience was open. I s I'm still trying to figure it out. But when I when I came up with Slutty Vegan. It was literally like the universe just put it in my hand, like, Okay, run, fly and be free. Yeah.

And I called up my best friends and I asked them like what y'all think about this idea? And they're like, Oh, Vicky, that's good. Like you need to do that. I'm like, All right, cool. You had the idea and the name. All in that night. Yes, all all in that time. Literally. It was gonna be called Slutty vegan, which is I mean it's it's not it's not Pinky's vegan. No it's not vegan fast food or You know, vegan burgers it was

I mean you picked a provocative name. Listen, because slutty and vegan ain't supposed to go together, right? Like right when you think that's like how peanut butter and jelly goes together. Like slutty and vegan don't go together. But what it did is It really was the biggest oxymoron. So I'm like if I we all know veganism to be like very rich and wealthy and like clean and like the person who's vegan works out all the time. No, this ain't that. But it literally really like took all the politics out of what being vegan was. So

Came up with the name, literally started to do the work. Like I got all my permits, I did everything that I could, all on my own. And I um I said, Hey, um, can I I I I saw something in LA when I was working for DoorDash and basically it's a cloud kitchen. So can I do a cloud kitchen here? This was before cloud kitchens got popular, guy. Yeah. This was one of those g like right, these um

A lot of people who have like farmers market stands, they'll use these the they're commercial kitchens, they're shared kitchens. Exactly. And and that's that's what it was. You rented space in in one of these kitchens. Yeah. And um so they allow me to do it. So I hired two employees And we were making Burgers and fries.

And I came up with the recipe for the sauce. It's like a similar to like a what a McDonald's sauce would be, but not. Yeah. Right. So But vegan, so no egg in the mayonnaise and So Mind you, I'm not a chef guy. So I came up with a recipe, like I was just tasting and putting my finger in like, okay, this is good. Yeah. And Came up with that.

Came up with the fry seasoning and I was just like doing as I go and like everything was tasting really good. So we started selling it. How? Online through DoorDash, um Postmates, Grubhub. Um and Uber Eats. You started a

literally a ghost kitchen called Sluty Vegan. Yeah, Sluty Vegan was a ghost kitchen before it was anything else. Wow. Yeah. This is this is so interesting. There's this famous book by Seth Godin where he talks about the purple cow. The purple cow theory is like if you're gonna start a business you wanna think about a purple cow business'cause like if you're driving through You know, the countryside and you just see a cow in a field, you're just gonna keep driving. But if it was a purple cow in the field, you would jump out of your car and hop in front of that cow and take a f selfie with that cow and then put on Instagram and say, Look, I found a purple cow that was slutty vegan. It was a purple cow.

Because people are gonna say, What a weird Name. I have to know more about this thing. It's so weird. Yes. And guess what it did? I love the purple cow theory, by the way. Purple is my favorite color, so it just works all the way around. I gotta grab that book. Um

But what I realized is This Concept. Came at a time where People wanted something new. And in wanting something new, if I can make them uncomfortable and ask questions at the same time, or laugh, or chuckle, or be surprised, then I know that I have their attention. And when I have their attention, I can teach and educate them on whatever it is that I want to. So I took the approach to

Educate people on how veganism can be cool and be fun and not be stuffy and uptight, but you can have a good time and will meet you where you are. Yeah. So when you started out Right. In in a ghost kitchen, which is true. Like if you go to DoorDash or Uber Eats today, like a lot of the and I do it all the time, I'll order up and like oh this looks pretty good. I don't even know if it's a restaurant. I just I'm ordering it. I don't know where it's coming from and it is often coming from

You were doing this in twenty eighteen and were you just buying like garden burgers and and buns just off the shelf initially at the beginning, just from the grocery store. No, you know what I did? There was like a procurement director and She was showing me some new products that they had. Like there's this newer company called Impossible. And I'm like.

Oh. Let me taste it. And and I tasted it and I'm like, Oh, this is good. And I'm like, I want it. So she got me a delivery of the impossible patty. And I started from there and I added my little razzle to the already dazzle. Wow. And

I started growing and building. Those were hard to get. I mean restaurants could get them, but Now of course impossible meat is available everywhere, but you were basically turning those into patties. And Getting vegan cheese again. Yeah. And

Basically. Packaging them up. And then Some driver would pick him up and then That was it?

Well, that's how it started. How how it ended is that I got kicked out of the facility and I appreciate them for that because they push me to get uncomfortable. Why? Because I had too many people coming. Like people started talking about the brand so much that customers started Instagramming us, sending us private messages saying, Hey, can I order um The one night stand with the fries, ketchup on the side, and I'm like, Okay, I'm not gonna not take the order. So I would take the order From

Instagram while taking orders from these online platforms. Wow. And it got out of hand, guy. When I tell you like people from everywhere were coming, literally it was like three hundred people standing outside to get their food. Fr from I mean, you're on DoorDash, but if you type in vegan it'll show you a bunch of restaurants and usually, you know, they're You know, I live in the Bay Area, so I'm not I'm there's some great ones, but nothing called slutty vegan. No. If you see that, you're gonna be like, What is this? Yes. But people didn't come for the food. The food was good. That was like the cherry on the top. Yeah. But to say that you were a part of this experience that felt cryptic and you could only get it at a certain time. People love the art of scarcity. Yeah. You know, like the art of scarcity makes you want it more.

So I would only open up for like three hours at a time. And once I close the block, that's it. Nobody else can order. So like I I put people on a time frame on when you can get the food. And they complied. And I'm like, wow, people really want to be a part of this movement just to say that they got it. And When I got put out. Um, they told me that I could use the parking lot. Like, hey, you should get a food truck and you could do it out the parking lot, but you can't do it in here because it's disrupting the other tenants.

'Cause people were so many delivery drivers were coming to Pick up orders there. Yes. And it was disrupting the business of the other tenants. And everybody was like, What's she doing that I'm doing wrong? How's she getting all this business? Yeah. So it was crazy, man. Listen, when I got that food truck. I went to this uh place called Mr. V's in Atlanta. So I went inside and they told me that the food truck would be forty five thousand dollars. Wow. So I'm like, all right, well, I'm making a lot of money, but like I don't have forty five thousand dollars like in my hand right now. But what I could do is I can pay you ten thousand dollars a week for the next four weeks. So it was it was like ten thousand, I think. Um And this was the cash flow from

And maybe also some savings you had from that. I never had to tap into my statements. Wow. This was just the cash flow from The ghost kitchen business. Yes. Wow. So when I got the food truck

the owner allowed me to pay every single week. And I would go on the east side and the west side and I would post up three hours before and say, hey, the Sluddy Vegan Food truck will be here from four to seven. Those were my hours, like four to seven or four to nine. I would post on Instagram. Yeah. And every time I post on Instagram, I literally had between three to five hundred people that would stand outside. Waiting. Yes. Yes. Waiting for a burger. Wow. And I realized, but it wasn't about the food. People wanted to be a part of the experience.

You're like you're like McDonald's in Moscow in nineteen eighty nine. Just like lines with thousands of people. So so you Have this food truck and obviously You're I mean, you started this I read that within six months of starting

Yeah. Your revenue is four million dollars. It's incredible. I mean and and And this was based on Burgers and fries.

Yeah. Burgers and fries. And literally, hold on, let me not even just burgers and fries. I didn't sell drinks. I I literally only sold burgers and fries. I didn't sell desserts. So you were literally coming.

For some French fries. In a sandwich. But guess what what else you got? You got the cultural capital of being able to To have the currency of food and take a picture with it, and people get excited because they want to hear about your experience. It's a brand. It's a brand. Yeah.

And Do you know my business is almost five years old and I still got lines down the block. It's incredible. Піпл стіл кама супомі. But I realized

I am the slutty vegan. I'm raw on the tongue, plus I'm educated. You know, I move with intention and I'm intellectual. Plus I like to have a good time. And I'm real and like I meet you where you are, and I'm just a vibe. Sluty Vegan is a vibe. And as long as that happens. My business will continue to be successful. That was an excerpt from my conversation with Pinky Cole, founder of Sluty Vegan. To find out how Pinky won over her skeptical neighbors and how she grew the brand to places beyond Atlanta, check out the full episode of the show. Welcome back to How I Built This Lab, I'm Guy Roz, this is our best of end of year show. And last year, I also had a chance to speak with Nosir Yasin.

He's a content creator, probably best known for creating a brand called Nas Daily. Back in 2016, Nasir quit his job as a software engineer and began traveling around the world. And for a thousand straight days. he produced a daily one minute video documenting his trip. Today, Nas Daily has around 40 million followers across its social channels.

And Asire has turned his social media platform into a multi-dimensional media business that helps other people become content creators. Okay, so you make it through one thousand days. of Nas Daily. And at that point you decide to start a company with a mission Of bringing people together.

But I wanna talk specifics. W what are the products and services, right?'Cause you've got to sell something. Yeah. So first of all, media brings people together. So we decided to build a production house. That creates stories and tell stories. This production house. Helps.

Nonprofits helps governments, helps big corporations. to create content. That brings people together, not Coca-Cola ads. But like deep storytelling and I felt There's money in that. We could charge, you know, fifty K to 100K for every video or every campaign.

That's a lot of money. You could do like a brand studio with a mission. Exactly. And for me, scale is really important. hundreds of millions of views are important because The more people that use your product The better the world is. And that's what we believe.

So now we need to figure out what scales, right? Technology brings people together. And it scales. That's why we decided to build a technology company over the last two years and go back to my engineering routes. And build NASIO, which is a community management software. It's basically the infrastructure for communities. It allows you

to start a community on the internet. And monetize it. And run it? Very, very easy. It's everything I've been tr doing for the last seven years, all the meetups and the communities I've built up the last seven years.

I built the software to enable it. And we think Technology? And media. both can scale and bring people together. And that could be a thing for the next thirty years.

So that was this thing that you built NASIO, which was sort of like Salesforce for people who want to build a social media community, um, like a customer relationship management tool. Exactly. So we've built monetization features to help you monetize your community. And we take a ten percent cut. from from anything you you do in the community. Simple. And did you

bootstrap that? Did you just use the money that you had from from Nas Daily, or did you raise money to build that? So at the beginning it was self funded. So receive funding was done uh by myself, but then I decided that okay. This is gonna get really expensive. I need investor money. So one year in. We went and raised twenty three million dollars total to achieve this vision.

Got it. Okay. So you've got that business. Meantime There's another part of the business called Nas Academy. Yes. We will train you to do what we do. We will teach you everything soup to nuts about how to make Viral videos.

Yeah. So so NAS Academy is is the same business as NAS IO. It's just two products. NAS Academy is basically cohort based. education of how to become a creator. Uh it runs all on top of the NAS IO software. And it's five months long. And basically from when you join until five months.

We teach you everything that we know. Right, me and ten other teachers. Every person teaches you their specialty. They're all creators. And then you graduate and then you know you you go on to get a job in the media space or to become a creator yourself. Um, and what we think is gonna happen is that

There's going to be a need for digital universities to complement traditional universities. To teach engineering? Content creation. And you know, maybe entrepreneurship.

Those are the only three things we want to teach. So it is an education arm, it's a profitable business unit. But it's still community driven. It brings people together. And having these different arms of the business. Can you just kind of break down where your revenue comes from? So last year's revenue for all of Nas company is eleven million dollars.

Uh seven million dollars was for uh the production, the Nas daily. Then the four million, uh uh majority of it comes from Nas Academy. And then now Nasa Yo is the newest one. It's two months old. So it's still starting, right? But I think by the end of the year it'll be a like a major revenue driver. And the reason why I like Nassau is it's a scalable model. It's something that could get Ten X bigger in a month.

Which is very different from Nas Daily and and Nas Academy. Alright, let me let me ask you About Where you draw the line. traditional media organizations have very strict rules about

how they cover things. And and you're right. I think you open up The Daily Paper and a lot of the news is negative and a lot of the spin is negative for sure. And you were trying to do something different. But

When you're working with a government, for example Where do you draw the line? I mean you look at a country like Russia, for example, okay. Yeah. And Russia has invaded Ukraine and it it it imprisons dissidents.

But it also like has a thriving art and fashion scene and an incredible culinary scene. You know, it's so If if the Russian came to you and they said you know Hey. We don't want people to think about us as like the invaders of Ukraine. We want us we want people to think about us as like this incredible, vibrant

culture where we have great food and fashion and art. Can you make a video for us or help us make a video? that does that, what would you do? To be clear, we've had people from China, C C T V Tell us to go to Xinjiang and talk about the culture and the food. And not to talk about the people who are imprisoned, the Muslim Uyghurs. Yes.

For me that was a step too far. So I said I said no. But we also had people from the State Department Tell us hey. Why don't you make videos about China and how bad it is? Um, in my opinion First of all, we have one rule, which is we don't really discuss politics. We promote tourism, we promote

Nations And we promote things that are a little bit not like geopolitical in nature. Um Second of all. With Russia it's a little bit tricky.

Don't forget that I'm from Israel. And for at least a billion people on the planet working with Israel is like a big no no. So w and I we've never worked with Israeli government, to be clear, but one thing I've realized is that This whole what's taboo and what's not is very relative. For you, Russia is a big no no.

But for people in Saudi Arabia, they're like Russia is our friend, or people in Syria, Russia is our friend. And so for a creator in Syria, they're much more willing to work with Russia. It's all relative to what you think is a no-no and what you think is a is an acceptable thing. So I have to make my own little sort of Pumpus. What's acceptable and what's not.

My compass is very different from an American perspective compass. And that's what many Americans need to realize is that the world does not center around America and American interests. And then my compass, I just follow that. In general. I'm wondering how you

You know, you say you've got your compass, and I believe that you have a strong compass. But there's still It's tricky. I guess and again, I'm not I'm not knocking or criticizing you. I'm trying I'm trying to kind of break it down because I think it's really interesting and I think it's look, as somebody who was a journalist my whole career, you deal with all kinds of dilemmas as a reporter. Yeah. But

I wonder what whether it is necessary to work with governments. In other words Let's say you didn't you decided I'm not gonna work with governments. But if a Russian tech company or a Russia or a Saudi business wants me to work with them, Great.

happy to do it, especially if what they're doing is innovative and interesting. And there you're dealing with a company that m might be from a country that is in the middle of a geopolitical conflict, but you're not focused on the government of that country, you're focused on the business in that country and what they're doing. I mean, wouldn't that be A cleaner. Kind of approach. Yeah.

So that is that is an amazing American dream. In which private sector and public sector are separate entities. Yeah. But that doesn't exist in Singapore. In the UAE. They're so intertwined. Like you I have a business in Singapore. We all love Singapore, right?

But the government knows everything about every business and works with every business, right? Mm-hmm. And so like Yes, you can do that separation in America, but you really can't do that separation in many countries around the world. 'Cause they're just so intertwined. Yeah, that business in Saudi Arabia is

Half of it is state owned. Now what do you do? Do you work with it or not? L let me let me ask you about this world of content creators. I mean obviously today it's all seems like everybody is a content creator. And you have this academy that really helps people build out.

their brands and their platforms and to monetize it. But can we have a world where everybody is a content creator and that and and and for that world to be productive and harmonious and sustainable, I mean part of me is like I I kind of w worry that so many people wanna become YouTubers, so many young people, my kids. You know,

They're friends. And again, I might just be like have the worst stupidest perspective about this. I I can see, but I don't I'm not sure that's sustainable, that we can all become content creators. So first of all.

We are at one percent of the way there with how many content creators we need. Similar to how many software engineers we need. We are at one percent of the way there because monetizing videos has been very, very new. So we're just at the beginning. Okay, we're not at the end. Second of all, when you say content creator, you think a guy with a model on a beach saying, Hey guys, I'm here, come to visit this beach with my girlfriend. That is not what a content creator is. For every content creator can be in front of the camera, but there's 10 people that can be behind the camera. A video editor is a content creator, a scriptwriter, a researcher, a producer, right? A Discord community manager, a Nassau community manager.

Why shouldn't we create those jobs? The world needs those jobs. I mean when you say it's not somebody on a beach saying, Hey, come check out this awesome beach and my hot girlfriend, right? That I that that's not what you're you're hoping to build. What do you want? those content creators to do? Do you want them to do videos like you did at Nas Daily?

Right. So when it comes to content creators, I mean The average person has 11 or 10 different hobbies, right? You can create content about swimming and how much you love swimming. You can make educational content about running, how much you love running, painting, you know, your country, you can make travel. I mean,

Here's the thing. For the majority of the internet, media has been created in Los Angeles and consumed globally. But there is no Nas Daily in Libya. There is no Nas Daily in Morocco. There's no Mr. Beast in Egypt. There's no Mr. Beast in in in Denmark. So these are all opportunities for local content to be created in the future. There is a room for a hundred and ninety five more Hollywoods to be created. The days in which the whole world is watching Will Smith on TV and Tom Cruise for the fifty fifth movie.

Are done. Yeah. That's why we need content creators. s totally convinced that hundreds of m maybe billions more people

Can create sustainable livelihoods as walking billboards, right? Like If if essentially what you're saying, hey, I'm really into running in Libya and I'm gonna have a running channel in Libya And then like there can be Fifty thousand people who do that in Libya.

Like is there enough advertising to support all of those people? And do we really want to be inundated with that? No, there isn't enough advertising. And advertising based content creation is a flawed model. And I would dare say it's a fraudulent model. This is the model that has been working, but it will not work in the future. So I'm a runner. I start a community for a hundred people. I create content for a hundred people and each one of them gives me 10 bucks. I'm already making a thousand bucks a month. So you can create new jobs. And that's where the future is heading, in my opinion. I'm trying to cut all all my subscriptions back. I got Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, Disney

What else do I have? Peacock. I'm I'm I'm I'm up to my ears in in subscriptions. That's just like the fraction of them. Now you want me to pay my friend who's a runner for to join his Discord? But guy, these are not communities. These are streaming content software. But are you part of a let's say tech community in San Francisco? I hear you. I hear you. Right. There they're clubs, you join them, you pay a fee. And so the idea is that you have these self sustaining communities. Of People who are building content that's valuable.

Yes. Okay. So I know you're about to do Another Now it's daily series, you're gonna go to a bunch of other countries. I mean

People are still coming for you. So are you still in front of the camera? And Five, ten, fifteen years? No. So I'm getting hosts. So now I have different hosts that

Get in the videos. I'm taking myself out of the video slowly but surely. My personal ambition is very simple. I want to do things that are life and death. That's it. I don't wanna be selling Coca-Cola. I don't wanna be creating furniture. I don't I wanna do things life and death when I'm fifty, sixty years old.

So what is life and death when you're fifty and sixty years old? Healthcare. Right. Hospitals, doctors, medicine. Government politics.

That's it. In my opinion. Nothing else is important. So The way I see my life is The next fifteen, twenty years I'll be in the private sector.

Great, then I will have no meaning from the private sector. I'll have somebody to run it. Then I'd like to go and and join a government, any government, and try to actually create Life and death solutions. I think that's amazing.

There's a lot of power in that. There's a lot of influence in that. And that's much better than any YouTube video you can make. Right, right. So then tell me about the future vision for the NAS universe, right? I mean you've got the CRM, you've got the academy you're still doing brand and and government partnerships and you now have over a hundred employees Uh you brought in some investment, right, and your revenue is growing and you have a uh vision clearly to turn us into a multi billion dollar brand, I think,'cause you're ambitious and smart.

Where does it go in ten or fifteen years? So I'm gonna give you a bit of observation. I found out that the American way of building companies is very different than the Asian way of building companies. The American way of building companies tells you. Build one product, make that product really big. Go on IPO.

And just like continue working on that product for the next ten, twenty years, like Slack. Slack is a one product company until it got acquired. Perfect. Right. That never made sense to me. So I'm much more inspired by the Asian way of building it, which is

Build an ecosystem. Build. twenty different companies that all complement and help each other. That's my vision. I think there's an opportunity. For the next

Virgin Group. Because Richard Branson built an incredible ecosystem of I'm gonna take a boring business and I'm gonna make it fun. And it's like physical stuff. My ambition is to build similar to Virgin, but I'm gonna build products that bring people together in technology.

Media. Travel. So the way I envision the next ten years is Not staily. Not hotel.

Nas Io, Nas Summits. You know, Nas Foods, NAS Venture, NAS whatever. And what about the NAS ecosystem where every business line helps the other? That's my thirty year vision. We're not building something to be acquired and put it on the LinkedIn.

I'm building something that I I believe has the capacity to live beyond my life. That's Nosir Yassin, founder of the Nas Company. You've just heard an excerpt of our conversation and to hear more about Nosir's journey from software engineer to social media influencer to tech entrepreneur, listen to the full episode in our podcast feed. You can find it by searching Nas Daily and how I built this. Welcome back to how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So for years, listeners have asked us for updates from past guests.

So this year We started doing it, and in twenty twenty four we will hear from lots more, including Jim Cook, the creator of Sam Adams Beer. Who was on the show for the first time back in the first season of the show. But earlier this year, I caught up with Whitney Wolf Hurd. She's the founder of Bumble. Whitney was first on the show in twenty seventeen, and if you haven't heard that episode.

Definitely go listen. It's in our podcast cue and it's a great story. Anyway, Whitney came back onto the show a few months ago just before stepping down as Bumble CEO. And one of the main things I wanted to ask her about was What she thinks the future of dating Might look like it's a little bit more.

You know, I met my wife at a barbecue, right? Like twenty three years ago. And then, you know I remember there was like in the in the eighties when I was a little kid, I remember like there's matchmaking, right? And then internet dating really starts in the nineties. And then apps is how

young people are connecting today. What's like The next version of this, how are people gonna be connecting and Ten years from now.

So the next version of this This is gonna catch you off guard, but It's meeting at the barbecue. But Via Bumble.

Okay, so I think the next horizon is going online to get offline. So In the near future It will not be unimaginable to get on bumble. And instead of

You know, swiping yes and no on a bunch of people. You might be swiping yes or no on things that sound compelling to you in the coming days. You know, maybe you're in the mood to go to a barbecue that has certain music playing at it on Friday night. And we know that there's thirty five other people going and you can see that half of them have some level of compatibility to you, but we don't disclose who they are until you get there and we let serendipity

and fate kind of do a little bit of its own old fashioned work. Once you arrive. So I think that is one piece of this. I think the other piece of this is And I cannot

emphasise this enough, it's where I'm spending Eighty percent of my free time right now. AI is how we are going to meet people. It's how we're gonna meet people. Yes, right now when you get onto a dating platform you are basically

Sifting through A thousand options to walk out with a few. Right? And then of the few You might have real compatibility and chemistry with a couple.

And of the couple. Maybe one will work out. Right, so it's a lot of work, it's a lot of energy, it's a lot of time, it's a lot of let down. Yeah. And

The issue is that In kind of Old era dating apps, which I would say anything before Generative AI. It was very hard to capture signals and uh dynamic

qualities in a person beyond just their surface level interests, right? I like to go running, I like to eat this, I like to Listen to live music. I like to do this. This is my religion. I want kids. Whatever these. These different um kind of filters are But How can we really find out if someone is

Loyal. How can we find out if someone is kind? How can we find out if someone is funny? These are signals that technology really mutes. Right. And so I think the future is leveraging these

machine learning capabilities to actually bring photos to life. Bring people to life. uh on the screen and my dream guy Is ten years from now? We will be able to prevent breakups before they ever happen.

We will be able to prevent bad relationships from ever having a potential of happening and More importantly, my big dream is We will help people love themselves so that they can love others. And I think that is our biggest issue in this country right now when it comes to connection.

It's self hatred. Low confidence. So if we can Reverse engineer that. We're on to something really special. I absolutely love your optimism around this. I love your energy. I love your passion, but I I'm gonna throw some skepticism because

I worry about a future where I don't know. Um I mean I got all these things go through my head. Minority report, you know, just well we're served the perfect menu of five to seven people that w that been chosen for us based on machine learning. When we know that

That humans change. You know, I'm a different person today than I was twenty three years ago when I met my wife, we've grown and changed together. You know, I remember my grandmother telling me Yeah.

About how when she was a child most marriages around her in her village were arranged. And that oftentimes they didn't not love each other, but they grew to love each other over time, and those marriages worked. I'm not saying I support arranged marriage. I'm just saying that. It still feels to me like there's so many factors, so many just intangible things about being human. And about love. That

I worry Can't fully be captured. by a machine that I'm an optimist about. A I do do you know what I mean? Do you want do you do you understand some of that? concern? I do. I do understand that concern. And I think what we're focused on is making sure that we don't build products that hurt us.

Then as we implement AI further into our business, which I expect our business to be A real AI business. Uh, I'm very anchored on it and I believe in it. I wanna make sure it's done ethically. I wanna make sure it's done with

real human connection at the helm. And I think You know My concerns with AI are that there are a lot of people out there That are building products To get people to actually replace humans with AI.

And I think um as it pertains to love. My big focus is to never ever. Ever Replace a real human dynamic emotion, want or need. With a computer, with a system, with a model, with a bot.

Right. And so what I would like to do is Help. Humans. Connect better.

So what's really fascinating, Guy, is A huge chunk of survey respondence. of people that are single and want to be in a relationship, but don't use a dating app. Yet.

They don't do it because they think they'll be bad at it. They think that they don't know how to date. They think that they're not capable of it. That to me Із ремакву оpportunity.

To create goodness in the world by using AI to inspire. Confidence. Yeah. So we have been hard at work exploring ways to have uh coaches or matchmakers or friends in your pocket, whatever you wanna call it. You know, basically be that wing woman, wing man, wing person. in your pocket to really

show you that you've got this and to to have your back, give you positive affirmations and to kind of guide you along the dating journey. So If they are scared to chat, right? Like they're scared to start a dating chat, for example. They would then chat with their coach first.

And their coach, which is AI Would coach them through it, give them feedback. Help them feel ready and prepared for the game. So how can we actually help people show up as better versions of themselves? And I think it's interesting we've seen the very first iteration of Self help tech.

call it the head spaces of the world in the calm. I would say those are very one point oh versions. They're they're not dynamic in the moment when it comes to connecting with others, right? These are things you do kind of on your own, meditations, breathings. How can you do these things in real time as you're on the quest for friendship or love? So essentially it sounds like what you're saying is if AI is used in the right way in this context for love. There is somebody for everybody in theory.

There is somebody for everybody in theory. You know. Obviously I Can't make that promise. But what I believe is You rarely attract a relationship healthier than your self esteem.

Mm. Instead of us just saying, Here's a person and here's a person and here's a person Why don't we actually focus on self-love first? How can we help you build your self esteem? AI can be a great catalyst to this through different mechanisms and tools. I mean You've seen people learn languages through Duolingo.

Why can't you learn the language of of self esteem and love, right? Um, and so I think we can be a really powerful tool in helping people feel better about themselves at the get go. And then guys, something amazing happens here. If you have a user base and a supply of people Feeling better about themselves with higher levels of self esteem.

What do you get less of? Abuse? Harassment. Toxicity. Ghosting.

All the icky stuff that comes with dating Well subsequently decline. I'm wondering. what you think about

I mean there there are Infinite ways to connect a meet today. More so than ever. I mean you can do it from your bedroom, right? And yet there is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States and e even in other countries. Given the the fact that there are so many more ways you can connect today than ever, what Wha why do you think that is? What explains that?

So The pandemic did not help. Yeah. completely exacerbated the issue. But here's the thing.

You started this by saying you can meet people from anywhere now. You're we're all online, we're all super connected. The reality is We're all very connected and disconnected at the same time. When you are on social media You are technically

By definition, connected. But you are emotionally Disconnect it. So friendship has moved online. And it has actually killed friendship.

Chatting with your buddies on TikTok and Instagram does not count as relationships. That is not a So for real relationship and candidly It creates more of a voyeuristic

Fear of missing out. dynamic than it does a real safe connected environment. So what you've seen us do with Bumble for Friends, our new standalone friendship app. is we said let's use Tech to connect.

Not tech to disconnect. And there's a real Real gap here. And there are not enough products in the world. that are actually technically engineered to get you online to then go offline.

In fact, the monetization models On the majority of social media. is dependent on you being on your phone as possible because Their ad. businesses.

We are not an advertising business. Sure, we have some advertisement, but we are a subscription model because we don't care. If you sit and use our product for two hours or two minutes. In fact Everything we are working on from a product prioritization standpoint right now is to shorten the duration that you're using our product on any given time because we want you To go online.

To get offline. Yeah. I you know, I'm curious about the AI model though. If if you are I mean, to some extent your business depends on Customers coming back again and again and again. People going on hundreds of dates, right,'cause they're

But if this AI model works like better than you expect and all of a sudden like You're matching. perfectly and like they're going on the first date and boom, they're engaged. They're done as bumble customers. I mean w

What are the implications of that? You know, you you make the algorithm better and then you actually have fewer repeat visitors. Every single Saturday, and I mean it, it's like clockwork. I get at least one text message from someone in my network that they're at a bumble wedding. And that bumble was just mentioned either in the vows. Yep. In a groomsman's speech, in a bridesmaid's speech, or it was on the menu, or it was in the photo booth, and it had been integrated some way somehow.

Why do I mention this? A success story is worth more than Two hundred failed dates. Let's just say we have fifty Forever relationships.

Those Fifty forever relationships have now left Bumble app. The dating app. But they have throughout their dinners and lunches and gym and

and professional lives. They have told Countless people. They have pollinated The product they have been brand ambassadors for us in such a way that those fifty success stories

become a flywheel of growth. So Fifty success stories is worth more than thousands of failed dates. Because those failed dates turn into the reverse flywheel of negative feedback. And so we're actually

Absolutely. aligned with the customer finding success. Because their success is our success. And we're in this to help them find healthy and equitable relationships. Yeah, I was thinking about what you're saying about using AI, like to coach people, and I think that's very real. It's gonna be happening more and more. And I wonder c I mean, the logical, potentially logical extension of that is it could it solve loneliness in that and I'm not saying this is a good thing, but Um, you know there's that movie Her many years ago a few years ago. It was a beautiful film and Scarlet Johansson was a voice inside of Joaquin Phoenix's ear and that was he was in love with her. He was in love with an AI voice, and it was very plausible. It was a hu it seemed very real.

It's not implausible to imagine that with where AI is going. I mean Obviously humans, you know, we But

Um is there a world where You know, Bumble has a a a product that is basically A virtual Romance? No.

Not under my leadership. At least. Listen, I that's that's not what we are here to do. We are definitely not in the business of trying to wipe out humanity and trying to get people to fall in love with, you know, fake iterations of of humans. I don't want to use AI that way.

Um I think I mean it will be used that way, you know that there's no Yeah, but but you know what it will like if If that's really what happens, then We've got bigger problems than the future of Bumble. Unfortunately it's

What what what happens to the future of humanity, right? If we if we If we kill love human to human. We replace it with human to AI

We only have another generation left. Right, it'll all be over if that's really the case. So For me, it's how do we actually use AI to make relationships. human to human, I mean Better, stronger, healthier.

More respectful. More equal, more empowering, more inspiring. How do we actually help end loneliness through Getting people to really form and forge real friendships with one another, instead of stay locked away on their phones and their bedrooms or on wherever they are for the rest of their lives. How do we

Get people to look each other in the eye. And not just through a screen. And so that's that's really what we're focused on in The her movies You know, five years ago seemed really sci-fi, but you're right. I'm I'm sure some people will be doing that, but my job will be

To convince them. To meet a real person. Yeah. So Whitney, you you've been at this for a long time now, but you're all still just Young. I mean, um

You have a a lot of life ahead of you. What do you see yourself doing in ten years from now? Do you do you see yourself running bumble? I mean, who knows? You're it's a public company, your board can always throw you out if they want to. But I I mean what is your What's your sort of vision of where where you'll be. So I think I will

Always be focused on the core mission of Bumble. I think it is my life calling. It is my purpose, which is To help the world. Have healthier relationships. Some people dedicate their lives to the research of of rare diseases when it's claimed the life of a loved one.

Some people dedicate their lives to solving problems that have directly impacted them, right? That is I believe that problems and pain and devastation happens to inspire a body of people to go and fix those problems for others. And so it's my sincere belief that I will be

Working towards healthier love, healthier relationships. And Helping people love themselves. That's the why. I think the how will manifest, but I am

Absolutely. Focused on bumble for the you know For for as long as I can see out, there's There's no road in front of me that that is um excluding bumble from my life. I do believe that my time will be better used in

thinking three, five, ten years ahead versus just two quarters ahead, but You know, that that'll manifest as it's meant to, and and I will say that I am absolutely fascinated, um, committed to and on the track of integrating AI into love and connection and friendship and relationships. That is That is my obsession at the moment and it is going to be

um until I really land the plane on it. And I really want us to be part of positive AI. I really want to make sure that we course correct from the mistakes that were made with the the explosion of the quote unquote old internet. By leaving women out of the equation, by not thinking of of the ethical options. And so I really hope that we can. Um be a part of the more ethical path forward.

That was an excerpt from my conversation with Whitney Wolf Hurd, the founder of Bumble. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. There were so many amazing guests on how I built this this year, and if you liked this episode, I hope you'll go back and listen to the full interviews or maybe listen to another episode you might have missed. And from everyone here on the how I built this team. We hope you have a great holiday and happy new year. This episode was produced by Chris Massini, with music composed by Ramteen Arablui, it was edit by John Isabella. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, Casey Herman, Joward, Katherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, Malia Agadello, Neva Grant, and Sam Paulsen. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening.

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