Discussing New Product and Venture-Building with Julian Torres of the Behind Company Lines Podcast

Danny Nathan is the consummate "square peg." Throughout his career, he's been called a product person, a UX guy, a designer, a strategist, and a marketer (and a few other choice names like "The Cleaner"). And with over 18 years of experience in product, design, and technology, most of those are spot-on.

Today, Danny leads the team at Apollo 21 — an entrepreneurially-minded crew focused on building products, services, and companies. Apollo 21 sits somewhere between software consultancy and venture studio. The team works with clients ranging from small startups who are building their first product to multi-billion dollar corporations looking to generate operational efficiency through the creation of bespoke technology.

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Transcript:

[Music] hey everyone thank you so much for

joining the behind company lines podcast today we have Danny Nathan CEO at Apollo

21 uh Apollo 21 is an entrepreneurial Collective focused on exploring new ideas and building new Ventures Danny

I'm so excited to chat with you and learn more about what you're building and the ideas that you're seeing in the world um as we were chatting before I you know

the for the show I'm really excited about it kind of the whole development process but also I think

um the idea faves in the iteration of ideas I think is always so Illuminating for a lot of Founders on on how to

either view something within philosophically or even strategically but before we get into all that good

stuff you mentioned I think Apollo 21 was developed and built during the

pandemic what opportunity do you see between the pandemic that led you to start the company well first off thanks

for having me I appreciate that you're taking the time and you're sending the invite uh we did start out during the

pandemic we launched in April of 2021 and uh it was largely opportunistic um I

was previously had a product for another small startup here in La called Seer that was focused on video technology but

while I was there I spent about the last year of my tenure um helping other portfolio companies

through our primary Investment Company and uh that sort of got me noticed amongst the folks at the investment

company and um make a long story short they had a number of other projects floating around and uh just throughout

the network there were a few folks here and there who have been asking if either myself or other folks that I knew knew

somebody who could help them bring product services companies to life and so uh we sort of hit a point where all

of a sudden it made sense and there were enough opportunities floating around to um to kind of take a run at it and so I

left sear started Apollo 21 and uh year and a half or so later we're still

kicking I love that and it's so fascinating um you the one thing that really stuck with me about that was a lot of Founders

will say the same thing where it's like at some point it made sense to move into this direction and I love that because I

think that that Echoes to a lot of Founders experience when they're exploring new ideas and and exploring um

just two Avenues and where they can use their skills um what in particular about you know building you know whether it

was products or startups kind of fascinated you what about the process was there anything in particular you liked or was it the diversity of things

you could do what inspired you to start 821 and really go full into building out

different products I the idea of building products and services and

helping bring companies to life has done sort of a through line throughout my career um I started in advertising years ago

and very quickly realized that the most fun you'll ever have in advertising is in school I I found an opportunity to

leave that and ended up at a small Innovation company where I really cut my teeth on thinking about what it means to

bring a product to life what it means to think about how to service consumer needs and balance those with business

needs and and um I've just sort of been pursuing that since so that's been the last God I don't know 15 plus years of

my career yeah I've been focused on um product development and kind of helping

other folks create startups helping larger companies launch new services or

um build Services internally for example to help with operational efficiency things of that sort and so yeah for me

it's really about the problem solving and it's about the the kind of impressionist that every new client

brings to the table there's no no problem uh is the same as the one that you've tackled prior to it and you know

often you get asked kind of what what industry or vertical are you most interested in or whatever and for me the

answer has always been I'm kind of agnostic to what industry is I'm more excited about solving the problem and so

um you know if you come to me and tell me that you're interested in creating the world's best nuke trash bags and

you're patches are about trash bag eggs and you can get me excited about trash bags for example I can readily tell you

that I've never once in my career thought about how I could go about making trash bags a better product but I

if it comes to light in the right way you know there's always opportunities to take a problem and tackle it and new

interesting unique perspectives to bring to the table around new products and so if that's trash bags that's great if

that's um you know consumer applications or applications for operational efficiency whatever it is uh at some

point in my career I've probably touched it yeah what what kind of strategies or I guess what do you look at when you

think about taking a product to life I mean we think about the user Journey we think about you know the total adjustable market and how to even tackle

that some strategies that we might do for go to market but it all kind of relies on a well-built product that

users can tangibly interact with and what yeah what do you consider when when bringing products to life that that

you've does it end does it change uh by the different product You're Building or is

it kind of regimented at this point I yes and no I mean every product is different and the consideration set for

every product is different but the the thing that never seems to change is uh

figuring out what the consumer need is and balancing that with the business opportunity and the two in my mind have

to work hand in hand if you can't bring something to Market that uh I use

consumers Loosely but that people want um whether that's internal stakeholders who you're building for or a directed

consumer Market whatever it is you know you have to solve a problem and bring something to them that offers value and

utility to them but at the same time you can't just give it away and expect to you know create a viable business out of

it and so you know there's always sort of the the unspoken rule of um starting a company or building a

product that is well you know we've got to make money on it yes you do um and ultimately that is the end goal

of what makes a company or a business a company or a business but at the same time you know you have to start from the

perspective of can we build something that we can bring to Market that has value and can we do so in a manner that

then has a viable business behind it so that we can continue to bring interesting things for that audience or

new audiences to Market yeah yeah and it coming from a product background what advantages do you have that that you

feel um can help expedite this process of bringing products to life but also you

know creating them in a sufficient way that that allows them to take on the advantage of business opportunity because I think a lot of Founders think

about building think about all the features but without that background or experience it's hard to know to focus on

yeah I mean I think you fit the nail on the head it really does come down to experience you know I've been doing this for God longer than I wanted probably

about four years now and um yeah that makes me feel old um

you know the reality is that you start off in your career learning about specific aspects of how to bring a

product to life then that might be designed that might be marketing that might be uh project management something like that but over time

um you know often you have the opportunity to start to Branch out and start to understand a larger breadth of what that system looks like and um you

know that experience set and being able to know that you've done it before and

you've seen where things can fail where things can go right and what works and what doesn't

um just gives you that much more confidence and that much more uh background to lean on when you start

building something new so that you understand um what are the repeatable things that you want to look for uh what are the

points of validation that you need to understand you know identifying the risks and the challenges and uh you know

the opportunities behind a new idea in my mind really does stem or at least

benefit from years of experience and it's not a question of somebody new not being able to do so

part of me um it's more of an issue of uh how quickly you can get there and you know

as we all know for better where speed plays a role in in this world and you know we talk a lot about the market and

first mover advantage and all of that which you can argue either side of it and kind of beside the point that I'm

trying to make here but um you know really the ability to get to a decision-making Point quickly and to

understand what it is you're pursuing and where those business opportunities are um I think is where experience comes

into play and you know I'm lucky in that I have surrounded myself with a team at Apollo 21

um one who I've worked with for a number of years I know all of all of the guys that I work with quite well now and so I

we know how to work together we know what each other's strengths and weaknesses are and we're able to check our egos at the door and you know when

when my head of engineering for example tells me that I'm an idiot because I don't understand something or because

I'm proposing something that's impossible which I love to do you know I I can hear that from him

without taking it personally and you know I can articulate an idea to my head

of product and design for example and have some sensibility that he will pick up quickly on what it is I'm describing

even if I'm not doing so with the uh the most Clarity and know that for you know 80 to 90 percent of of the thought

process will be on the same page and you can kind of course correct as we go yeah when you think about or or for those who

are considering building and or are currently building and you think about the tools that you use I think it's always fascinating for me at least to

ask what tools are you having to design and also what technologies are you looking or are you seeing that people

are building we think about like a react native for for mobile applications if you want to be able to go on both IOS

and Android we think about um you know all these other tools even even like no code platforms and things

like that but I know it's a kind of offshoot question but Tech from technical uh lens what are you using on

a product side to kind of develop the ideas and then what technology are seeing um implementing them

sure the reality is we tend to be somewhat technology agnostic I mean we have kind of a core stack that that we

lean on when we need to move quickly because we know that that's what we understand but we pride ourselves on viewing technology as a tool and not as

the outcome and so you know if uh if a business need or a business solution is

what you're aiming for to your point sometimes a no code example is the easiest way to to get rolling and yeah

uh you know starting with something simple that you know you can build quickly and get out the door even if it

only a couple of the features that you have in mind obviously allows you to get to Market quicker and you know the fact

of the matter is uh learning from a real consumer audience just simply can't be

replaced by anything else and so uh honestly one of my favorite tools is the design Sprint or some sort of kind of

Discovery process up front that allows us to get to that point of consumer input and audience validation as quickly

as possible and I love baking that in before we start thinking about technology at all I mean you know if you

want to talk about the tool set that we're getting sure uh often those will come to life is a figma prototype or you

know prototype but even that just kind of depends on what the team is that you're involved with what their skill

set is and what they are most able to bring to Market or bring to bear quickly so that you can get into that testing

and the value that you see out of that quick turnaround for feedback

I to me just I has so much value to it because you get there in a couple of

weeks at most you um don't have to focus on wasting time

frankly Building Technology to get to the point of Discovery or validation rather you can just sort of wave your

hands a little bit and uh suddenly learn from people that they like what you're talking about or they don't like what

you're talking about or you know it's not hard to get somebody talking and hear from them oh this is great but and

immediately within a couple of weeks and for a very low cost as compared to actually going and trying to build a POC

or a prototype of something you've got answers to questions that you probably didn't even know you needed to ask just

because you sat down and started talking yeah and describe the relationship 821 has with this clients I'm excited to to

learn more about how that process is how you kind of look through and evaluate ideas do you have a lot of them come

through a day if you have any stats that'd be wonderful um but describe not only from the idea standpoint how do you evaluate an idea

from being I would say quote unquote good or I guess viable or solving a problem versus uh someone that's not and

then whatever the relationship go from there uh yeah you know our clients were split

uh kind of 50 50 between more corporate oriented entities with whom uh you know

we partner to build often internal technology so I've referenced operational efficiency a couple of times

in our conversation here and uh I I do so because one of our clients for example is a um financial services

company that came to us not because they wanted to release the next QuickBooks or whatever but because

um you know they were handling everything internally via email and they basically came to us and said help we're

drowning an email but we're not a technology company we don't know how to fix that and so you know we we begin at

the beginning and we go through a discovery process to where uh you know we learn about their business and what

the operational efficiency needs are where those are falling apart and we work with them hand in hand to design

the software that will help Drive the flow of information and the flow of tasks through the kind of machine or the

the Rube Goldberg mechanism that is you know their internal process and you know it just it varies for every

client we have another corporate client for whom we just finished building a consumer-facing application and then on

the other side you know we tend to partner with um small startups companies Founders who are just getting started often they'll

come to us and sort of say hey we have this idea but we don't really know how to get from idea to thing out in the

world or even how to prove that that thing should exist and so um again that's what that design Sprint

process comes into play and we start early by um helping them articulate what the

feature set is that they think is necessary validating whether or not that computer set is right or Not by testing

it with real world users who at least face out you begin to fit Their audience uh kind of demographic or rubric and um

you know often we'll go through a couple of iterations there to help them get from uh idea on napkin to a clear-cut

set of requirements that we can then go and build or they can take somewhere else if they would prefer to go build

although obviously you know we prefer to keep those partnership ships going and often we do

um you know we have a couple of clients who brought us an idea of that sort and who we have now created first iterations

of applications for so um we have partnered with a Founder who

is creating a um platform for authors that is designed to help them self-publish faster and bring their

audience closer and actually involve Their audience in um like commenting on the platform

itself around the content and uh to the point where we've even talked about you

know second edition for example involving people who have participated in and commented on the first edition so

that the process of publishing becomes almost an iterative kind of product in

and of itself where you know the first iteration of your book was the author's sought for example and the second

iteration is the author's thought plus the audience's back end how the author reacts to that so lots of interesting

opportunities there and you know and we'd love of working with early stage Founders because that that zero to one

space I think is where our team really shines and where we have the opportunity to

um kind of combine our interest in our need for helping Define and solve business needs and Business Solutions

with the technology that is uh able to be built to bring that to light we're

doing the same thing for another company that is uh trying to streamline music licensing for on-demand content which

sounds straightforward but is actually incredibly difficult thing to solve for uh perhaps you you have some experience

there but you know when you go to sync music to video all of a sudden the conversation about licensing changes and

it becomes immensely difficult because yeah there's lots of different people that have to be satisfied so

every challenge is different and we love digging in and um you know often that uh that takes the shape of us then

um you know take mistake or putting skin in the game alongside our partners and helping them get off the ground which is

interesting for us because it keeps things exciting and it um it helps establish kind of a future

view for us and you know helps us function I think more in terms of what

what my kind of future vision is for a41 which is uh something more akin to a venture Studio or a hybrid of Adventure

studio and you know the consultancy there that we tend to lean towards today uh and so you know those opportunities

are things that we're always looking for and always thinking about um how we can support our partners how we can help them bring things to life

and by taking on some sense of ownership it keeps us thoroughly invested it makes

sure that our team uh feels the weight in the same way that you know their founder might in terms of

the importance of what we're building and especially at an early stage where every little feature and every little

thing that you do is such a Make It or Break moment um we take that very seriously we um

yeah and uh you don't have to get into too many specifics but how do you partner with the early Founders are you

taking kind of like a road share or are you doing like what the accelerator does where they take an equity portion of the

company is it service based it just depends on what the opportunity there is and what the partner has

appetite for um to be honest we are we're pretty open and flexible or at least willing to talk

about or entertain any and all of the above because as I said we like feeling

like we're participating so um it really gets evaluated on a case-by-case basis and we figure that

out alongside the founder in terms you know by looking at what works for them what works for us and uh what will help

that relationship grow in the future yeah well in in regards to kind of the the current I guess uh structure of a

lot of companies it seems like a lot of companies are becoming I don't know fragmented is the right word but it's

almost like special like departments are almost specialized in services companies um are becoming more at the Forefront to

accomplish whether it's you know an MVP product or take on you know traditionally it's like advertising or

you might go with an agency or something like PR if you're trying to get involved um is that is that a function of just

the remote work in culture sure increasing and and Founders just having to be more uh more or less just created

with finding the right Solutions or is it something else I think it's less about you know remote

culture culture and the change over the last couple of years and more about um kind of the funding landscape and the

difficulty that uh Founders have getting the funding that they moved go after you

know what you might think of as a more robust build and so you know because um financial institutions and VCS Etc

are less inclined to fund free you know pre-product Market fit or without some

demonstration that you're you're on the right track it almost forces Founders into a world where they have to be

Scrappy about coming up with um enough of a product to demonstrate to those funding opportunities that there

is something to their business and that they have an actual business and you know there's there's years of examples

of companies that have been built on the backs of uh of VC funding and that have operated a loss for years even to the

point of exit and um I think the appetite for that is changing right now and we're seeing both from Founders and

from funders that um the idea of hopping on the VC treadmill and knowing that

you're going to be signing up for a growth at all costs kind of mentality

um doesn't sit well you know in this market and so I think a lot of folks are

turning to companies like uh Services businesses where who can help them get

something small off the ground and prove the value either because they have to in order to go and get the funding or

because they have an appetite to potentially try and bootstrap something and live in a world where you know

they're not beholden to a board for example and you know when you look at an exit like uh like MailChimp had recently

where the founders owned 100 of the company all of a sudden you kind of look around and go oh wait you know it's

great to hear about billion dollar unicorn exits but when the two guys who started the company are talking about

that kind of exit as opposed to how much is getting funneled out to a VC and you

know you're looking at a world where uh Founders and entrepreneurs are walking away with five to ten percent of their

company and look five to ten percent of the billion dollars is an amazing windfall but at the same time if you

don't have to do that or if you can walk into a funding conversation with Revenue in your pocket for example

it puts you in suck a strong negotiating position that in my opinion these can't

Overlook that opportunity and so you know when you look at partnering with somebody like Apollo 21 we have

experience in that Opera in an entrepreneurial area and can help people who perhaps don't have that experience

or who are bringing some other skill set to the table navigate those Waters we can help

articulate things like investor decks or strategic decks things like that yeah but more importantly we can help them

get from zero to one or even zero to revenue without having to go and raise millions of dollars and feel like

they're indebted into a board or a group of other people who For Better or Worse are in it for the money right Brian

um tell us a little bit about the traction and and what's been exciting about not only maybe this year at Apollo

21 but maybe in the near future who are you working with if you can say any names um or uh or an equivalence um you know

what's the growth of like and what's exciting about kind of the next chapter for Apollo 21. yeah that's a great

question I mean if I look back at what it's taken to get Apollo 21 off the

ground um 2021 was utterly painful as it is for many Founders and entrepreneurs

um you know we closed the year with well under a half million dollars in Revenue uh you know I went

for a year without taking a paycheck or anything just to kind of just to make ends meet and um I was prepared for it but I was in no

way prepared for what it meant and what the impact would be um and then uh we sort of turned things

around or turned a corner I guess uh right at the beginning of 2021 or 2022 excuse me and um signed a couple of

sizable contracts that uh that really set the tone for the rest of the year one of which has turned into Far and

Away our largest client and who we have uh spent the year working very closely with building out

I don't know if I could say the entirety but a huge portion of their technology infrastructure helping them get

everything from their data warehouse and data structure and insights engine put together all the way up to building as I

mentioned the consumer facing application that just launched recently um all for you know a space that I never

in a million years would have expected to build technology for uh they're focused on the on the western space I

think Cowboys and rodeos and wow things of that sort were uh technology is traditionally not as far ahead as where

it is in some other places that you look at in the market and so it's been really exciting uh to start working with them

and to to dig into a market that has such a green field opportunity and is so

ripe for the addition of Technology into how they do things both in terms of

engaging fans and even operating as a business um and then you know as I look forward I we

are we're finally kind of taking the opportunity not only to partner with some smaller companies and Founders to

bring their ideas to life but we're also in the process of bringing one of our first products to like that will be

wholly owned by Apollo 21 and um I am thoroughly excited about seeing

kind of where that goes and being able to put a feather in our cap that uh is

just kind of proof in the pudding around the mentality that I started the company with which was

somewhere between consultants and technology company and Venture studio and uh it feels really good to be able

to look forward and feel like we're making progress towards that eventuality and that um maybe it's more than just a pipe

dream yeah yeah for other Founders out there what advice would you give someone going through you know that 2021 period

that you were talking about really taking understanding the the the level of uh commitment that you have to do you

know they have to they have to commit to when you're building a startup but also um you know fighting with that and the

reality of what that commitment means kind of in your day-to-day life will help you get through it uh what what maybe strategies or things that you can

you advise other Founders that were helpful for you start off by building a small team who

you know and trust with people around you who share in your vision and who

will um share in the don't give upness that is required to uh to kind of make it happen

um I'm lucky in that uh I have a head of engineering who I've worked with in the

past um and I knew that I got along with really well but he signed on out of the

gate and every single step of the way has been sitting right next to me saying and then this was a long haul let's do

what we need to do and uh just having having his support and having somebody who understands what you're going

through to kind of bounce ideas off of and through share in both the celebration then the

uh the misery I think is immensely helpful and then beyond that you know find other people who can help whether

they're advisors or business partners or whoever it is um you know find people who you can lean

on to ask the questions I mean I I thought that I knew what it took to start a company and to be Frank this is

not the first company that I've started but it's the first company that had gotten to a point where I needed to

worry about employees and you know just dealing with all of the the realities of

what it takes to stand up a corporate entity and to understand and navigate all of the all of the issues around

legalities and taxes and all of that and you know you would think that with all of the materials that exist in the world

for uh entrepreneurs and Founders and for the number of blog posts and

articles and whatever you can think of out there that are you know here are the 10 things that you need to know and here's the toolkit that you need to

start your business none of them seem to cover everything and none of them will cover

all of the things that you specifically need so um you know it's amazing to me that there isn't a checklist of oh you have a

company that's established in Delaware here's the 17 things that you need to do every year and the date on which they're

like why does that not exist yeah but at least I haven't found it yet and nobody

that I've you know worked with has been able to refer me to one and so navigating that just requires help as

far as I'm concerned and you know if you can get somebody to help struggle through all of that with you

you'll come out the other side I think it's better for it yeah yeah I love that and I think you alluded to this earlier

but I would love either to reiterate or expand upon it but if everything goes up what's the long-term vision for Apollo

21 I know you mentioned Adventure Studio but um what beyond that or what what kind of

the goal of the mission um the North Star I'll be honest to some extent I'm still figuring that out you know we're uh we're a young company and

you know you start off on day one and you just kind of go okay I'm gonna open the doors can I get somebody to help me keep the lights on can I get enough

money into you know to pay the people that are going to help me build it and once you kind of get over the hump and

feel like maybe you have a couple of uh a couple of clients and a couple opportunities in front of you that that

isn't exactly the worry anymore although that certainly never goes away um then you kind of had the opportunity

to start looking towards the future and so like I said I mean literally just in the last month we're getting to a point

where um we can explore creating products for ourselves and things that

that kind of establish or align to that Vision that I've described and so the

closest that I think I could offer right now is that um the idea of sitting somewhere between

a Solutions oriented Consulting business that does what we do that help clients

and customers build technology and solve business problems uh is kind of step one and then combining

that in an interesting way with the idea of investing with our partners and investing in ourselves

um to me sounds really interesting uh you know there's a long road to travel there there's always the question

especially with Adventure studio type of model whether you're going to raise a fund and actually start contributing

money into the the partners that you're working with um I also have been operating

on the theory that investing time is a is kind of a valid and potential way to

make that work that could make life easier for everybody and you know I mean we don't necessarily have to go and uh

raise a fund but could actually do that either internally or by investing from

within the company back into the things that our partners are pursuing and we're

starting to see some traction around that idea with some of the Partnerships that I described earlier and you know as

I've mentioned a couple of times now getting our own products out into the market further support that idea and so

I could see a future where success means that we've spun out a couple of companies that are operating independently where you know we're still

pursuing client work and helping other people do exactly that or helping other people streamline their own business or

get their companies off the ground all of it's exciting to me and so any or all

of that sounds like a great future and I think you know it just comes down to figuring out in the same way that our

clients need to figure out what product Market fit is so do we and uh you know we're we're traveling down that road but

I will not begin to tell you that we've solved it yet yeah yeah one finder told me that product Market it fit is a point

in time and so as time moves on so has so does it fit and so it kind of evolves

and develops and becomes an organism that maybe you know had planned to to create but also something that that very

much fits the direction so um it's awesome to hear that that you're very much on that road

um oh I agree with that 100 I mean if you want to talk about advice that that's actually a great piece of advice

and if you deserve the credit for this one but um it was another founder not me well all right at least you deserve the

credit for bringing it up but yeah you think your company tomorrow might not be what you thought it would be or you know

what you think it is today I think it's something that every founder kind of has to get uh comfortable with because in

order to get to that point in time that you're describing where you feel like you have product Market fit um if you're

too stringent about what it is you're going out into the world to create then you're probably never going to get there

because ultimately what you're building is what's in your head and not within your customer sense yeah so at some

point you've got to kind of come to terms with the fact that you might be wrong but it doesn't mean that you know

you're gonna fail yeah yeah what are some of the biggest risks that uh Apollo

21 faces today you know I come from an agency in a Services background and from

day one of Apollo 21 I've been extremely cognizant of getting caught in the Trap

is kind of a tough word but in the um in the moment of you know we staff up for for a big client who has a need and

eventually for whatever reason that client goes away and you know often that happens when there's a change in

leadership on the client side and they they want to make their Mark um and so they move their business elsewhere

um being able to react to that and not finding myself in a position where I have a team that suddenly has to be

paid for but uh you know I don't have the client to pay for it has always been something that

um is kind of the biggest risk in my mind and you know as a Services Company people are our primary cost and we're

fully remote so you know we don't have to worry about office space or anything like that which is great but you know we

manage that risk by having kind of a combined team of employees who are kind

of The Trusted leadership within the organization and then augmented by

contractors who are focused on specific projects and who let me be clear you

know their their family and they feel as much like a part of our company as our employees do especially the folks have

been working with us for you know the better part of being here now but at the same time the harsh reality is that they are

contractors and they're contractors for a reason because if my world implodes I need to know that

um you know a certain subset of the team can be I'm gonna sound really harsh here it can

be offloaded without um impacting my business uh negatively to the point where you know it puts the

entire company underwater luckily I have found some Partners who are able to work with us and kind of

Supply on demand people resources uh that we can spin up and spin down very

quickly and you know that's what their business is designed for and so it happens to align perfectly with that

side of our business and uh frankly I don't think that we would have gotten to the point that we're at if I

hadn't kind of uh managed to find that partnership and to establish a team that works the way that I'm depriving so yeah

it has uh it's really helped me kind of get around that key risk and then from

there you know it's the same thing that I think just about any other services type of company would say you know

continuing to fill the top of funnel finding the right clients finding the right Partners to work with ensuring

that um you know that our pricing is competitive enough that when we do find those right Partners we can get the

contracts that we had signed and yeah so on and so forth so those are the things that that I would sweep over a percent

yeah um I would like to ask this next question as not only selfish research but also for my audience as well

um whether it's early in your career now what books or people have influenced you the most

oh god um I'm gonna give two Pat answers and uh

they're Pat answers because they you know these books gain popularity for a reason but they were kind of pivotal in

terms of timing for me and so the first one years ago as I said I started in advertising and uh I hit a real Downer

moment where I just wasn't enjoying doing it and was debating whether to go back to grad school for a second

master's degree which just you know was a path forward but didn't sound like a real exciting prospect after uh after

six years of college um and I read I I went to the bookstore and

I bought a pile of books that were popular at the time but uh kind of aligned to my sensibility and my

thinking and the the one that I remember the most is uh second Purple Cow and it was one of the first books that I I sat

down and read that really made me feel like um the things that I didn't enjoy about

my career in advertising and when I was advertising I'm as I mentioned I've been doing this for a while and I'm talking

and radio and print ads like back in the day before um you know before the internet was so

deeply ingrained in our lives um and I just I wasn't enjoying it and you know this was at a time this was uh

2004 2005 right around the time where marketers and advertisers were realizing

the impact that the internet would have and looked at the ability for Brands to

get closer to Consumers and to approach that relationship in a manner that

wasn't just I'm gonna put a billboard up and because I put a billboard up you're going to want to buy the thing on the

billboard but rather could um could look more like a relationship and

more like a conversation uh it was all very new and you know in my mind a lot of that kind of uh thought process was

exemplified in purple cow and it was just one of those books that I read and kind of went oh my God I'm not insane

there is a group of people that thinks this way I need to be a part of this and

you know that stack of books and purple cow in particular led me to refocusing

the entirety of my job search and um ultimately just kind of help me re-articulate the way that I

view the world and well and told about six weeks later I had a new job at a company that I absolutely loved called

uh poke which was the New York office of a similarly named London company and I

had an opportunity to work with uh the founders there very closely and that

experience deeply shaped the rest of my career yeah it was the first company

that I had worked for that was a Service Company where the founders of the company and the leadership of the

company were willing to say no there's another way to do it there's a better way to do it and um

lived and breathed that mentality and that opportunity and it was utterly

eye-opening that was what sort of led me to my involvement with some smaller

companies and to start kind of eyeballing the startup space and and beginning to understand what that world

looked like which leads me to my second book which is um again a little bit of a pat answer but the Lean Startup did the same thing

for me in the world of startups and technology that purple cow did for me in

how I approached the thinking of kind of Brands and the relationship to Consumers

and so each of those are widely known books that I'm you know I'm not going to

earn any points for sharing something exclusive and unknown with you but at the same time they were both utterly

pivotal for my career in terms of how I thought about what I was doing and how I

approached the work that I was doing the way that I was thinking about again the

relationships between Brands and people and technology and people and then what

it meant for technology to enable people to create brands for other people yeah

and so you know if you look at uh you know I forgive me I don't remember exactly when we'd start up with

published but you know 2010 2012 something like that um you know if you look back at the last

10 to 12 years and the way that um brands are interacting with consumers

out of the gate based on the technology that we all have at our disposal and the

uh you know the proximity of that technology to our everyday lives because you know we're all walking around with

these things in the pocket everything has changed and um I feel like my career headed a really

interesting time where as I said I started in the dark ages of advertising

with you know print and television and saw the launch of the iPhone and what

impact of that and then social media and then the ability for

um technology to enable direct to Consumer applications and Brands and

companies and products to kind of Hit the market it changed everything in a way that I feel

like I've gotten to kind of experience all the way through in a very short period of time you know in the grand scheme of things that um

has really shaped kind of the way that I approach things and therefore certainly

the ways that uh that Apollo 21 functions and what I look for a team what we look for in clients and partners

and how we approach solving problems for them amazing that was a very long author to a question about Tupa no no it was I

love the thought process I love the evolution and also I think timing is so hugely important and a lot of Founders

Journey not only with building and starting companies but the information or the mentorships the relationships it's all kind of the whole outlier

mentality from um from Gladwell when he talks about you know a lot of the

exceptional people um are are I don't want to say I don't want to say fortunate but they find

themselves in a period of of timing that compounds on itself and leaves them to you know where they end up being

um and I love and I love that I mean that it can be for anyone as well if you're kind of open a Keen Eye to it

um yes yeah I mean change begets change and change if it gets opportunity and so as you look round and kind of look at

what's changing around the world uh you know I think that's where you can find opportunity and it doesn't have to be

big I mean just throw another one out there you know the 100 startup I think is of a similar ilk but from a very

different mentality and I love the idea of the 100 startup kind of balanced with

the ideas of the lead startup and the idea that starting a thing or making a thing that you can put out in the world

doesn't have to be a huge corporate Endeavor and you know

and like the tools and Technology to support those efforts are available

today in ways that they've never been available before I mean the idea that I could sit down and buy tomorrow open a

storefront that sells a thing that literally transacts money that I can put out in the world and own wholly without

you know needing to think twice about it and you know I I have a side gig that is

um I belonging short of it is a is a Shopify store and I you know I do it partly because it's in an interest area

that I have fun with partly because it gives me an opportunity to pardon me turn my Ascension away from

Apollo 21 every once in a while and kind of decompress a little bit but at the same time it's also kind of my

experimentation Zone and forces me to remain in touch with the Tactical side

of things that we're talking to clients about and um it it puts me in their shoes because

I'm solving the problems for myself that I'm hearing them bring to the table when they come through Apollo 21 and you know

whether it's understanding how Shopify works or connecting a Commerce platform to an Instagram account or understanding

the impact of tick tock on the world of digital Commerce like all of those things are new but they're new in a way

that is infinitely approachable and that just about anybody can sit down and start exploring and I I don't know I

love that to me that just it opens the door for everybody's kind of entrepreneurial Spirit to come to life

and it it removes a lot of the limitations that I think people will see

around oh well I can't start a company or I don't know how to bring this to life and in reality is you just sort of

go and do it and figure it out along the way yeah I love that to go and do it mentality it's it it's I think something

that it I don't know if it's archetype or personality type or attribute that Founders have but it's it's like it's

like stubbornness to continue moving forward and and also the light-heartedness to just take on any challenge because I don't think a lot of

people talk about that when you face things it's the weight of of how you view them that that leads your

motivation to go and move past them or overcome them and um yeah it's it's so so awesome to hear

you talk about what inspired you and the the creative side um the Tactical side and how it influences your company and I know I

know we're over the episode but it's so I think we could talk on hours on end um

of the startups and building but I always like to give my guests a chance to give us your plugs what are your

linkedins what are your your websites what are your twitters where can we get involved and see the amazing themes that

Apollo 12 is 21 excuse me um is pushing out there into the market and and the product that

um that we hope to see launched soon yeah uh our website is apollo21.io and

uh you'll have to forgive me I don't even remember things like our Twitter account because I we just haven't been

good about using them so we're Apollo 21 on LinkedIn I think we're Apollo 21 io

on Twitter if I remember correctly but tweet at us I'll try and answer but you

know um we've been we've been focused on building and not tweeting lately but we are working on bringing a new product to

Market that uh is basically a platform to help

um CEOs office managers Etc kind of maintain an awareness of where their company is spending their reading time

and thinking about kind of what are the analytics that readings yeah we are really excited to bring it to

Market and hope that I'm going to put a stake in the ground and we're aiming for the end of the year but uh you know we'll see see how that goes and uh of

course we will share that on product hunt and all their The Usual Suspects as well so amazing keep an eye out for it

there please amazing well Danny I hope you enjoyed yourself on the show and thank you so much for joining I did

thank you appreciate it

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