Discussing Venture Studios and New Venture Building with Charles Cormier of the Founders Wisdom Podcast

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Transcript:

welcome to another founder wisdom pod

with Danny Nathan he's founder and coo

at Apollo 21 interesting background he

has um serial founder was a teacher at

some point as well going to talk about

that pivot and being sucked in the black

hole of startups whole website he has

you can go check it out at

b2. this PO is brought to you by my

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no fomo it's just a pure iy guy and a

broken ATM pob

bar.com I was about to call you Nathan

uh how how about that for a brain uh a

brain F Danny welcome to the Pod tell us

a bit more about yourself and about

Apollo

29 21 but yes thank you I'm happy to be

here um so Apollo 21 uh basically sits

somewhere between a business consultancy

and a product design studio so we work

with our clients to help enable scale

either by Building Technology to solve

operational challenges or by helping

companies scale through the creation of

new Ventures so we help uh launch

startups out of larger companies help

build uh Venture building efforts within

larger organizations and then we also

have a venture Studio arm aply named

Apollo 21 Ventures where we build a lot

of our own products that we carry

through to launch and uh also work with

a couple of Founders here and there to

help them bring their ideas to

life why Apollo as a business

name uh Apollo 21 hit me uh for a couple

of reasons one you know I was thinking

about the idea of moonshots and the you

know the old adage that everybody's

trying to uh to reach for the star

and um if you dig into the history of

the Apollo program the last scheduled

Apollo mission was Apollo 20 the last

one that actually flew was Apollo 17 and

uh it just seemed like a nice segue to

me to think about Apollo 21 as the next

iteration of that um that effort and

helping people achieve their moonshots

through our business ventures and things

like that and so it all kind of aligned

along with an interest in you know all

things space and uh the idea that that

is sort of the final frontier and you

know so is a lot of a lot of what

Venture Builders and business Builders

do is kind of looking at what the what

the next Frontier of their industry or

uh their efforts are and so I I felt

like there was some really interesting

alignment across all of those ideas then

let's cover your eclectic career

Danny Nathan's career journey includes roles in advertising, innovation consulting, and founding startups like I Want An Nom and Date Night.

freelancer at first then editor and

blogger then art director then teacher

uh which brought you to makeable for for

five years and then you launched your

first startup into food I wantan and num

tell us about

that yeah I uh I started my career in

advertising actually and realized very

quickly that the most fun you'll ever

have in advertising is during AD school

and so I spent a couple of years kind of

struggling to find my purpose in the

advertising world and finally threw up

my hands and decided that it was time to

move on and um started exploring where

to go after that thought about going

back for another degree

uh I was really interested in industrial

design at the time and the idea of

creating things that were tangible that

we could touch um and then uh as I was

searching for New Opportunities I ended

up landing at a place called poke uh

like poke in New York which was um a

very digitally focused uh kind of

Technology native company that did a lot

of innovation Consulting and was born

right around the time that social media

was becoming uh a thing uh the company

started about 2007 so it was right

around the the Boom in social media the

time when the iPhone came out and so it

was a really interesting time to

transition out of the world of

advertising and into the world of more

technology-driven efforts especially

around marketing and Innovation and

seeing where the opportunities fell to

think about how these new technologies

enabled Brands and companies to interact

with their customers in interesting ways

and um it was also the first place that

I worked where the founders of the

company were willing to um effectively

say no to people uh we had a couple of

really interesting rfps cross our desks

that we we took kind of a contrarian

view in responding to I remember one

that always stands out to me is um

Fujifilm the camera company sent us an

RFP asking us to uh pitch building them

a new photo sharing website and this was

in the Heyday of Flicker and our

response to them was sending them a box

of photos of folks around our office

actual physical prints and on the back

of every photo in the Box we had

scribbled uh the URL for our RFP

response which was www.the last thing

the world needs is another photos

sharing website.com

and that kind of response was exemplary

of how we appro approached problems at

poke and the perspective that we took in

terms of um what did companies have the

license to publish what did the world

need at that time and it was really

refreshing Take on the world for me kind

of uh formulated my view and my

perspective on the world really from

that point forward in my career and um

that led to some teaching opportunities

and then uh as we progressed in that

world at poke we started working with a

lot more startups which got me

interested in that world and um that

then led to the creation of I want to

Nom which was less a startup and more a

side project but it was effectively

Pinterest for recipes and we launched it

not too long I think before Pinterest

had come out and eventually they came

along and as I like to say 8 hour lunch

the whole way through and really kind of

knocked us out of the market there but

um it was a really fun effort and a fun

foray into what it takes to build

something on your own and how to attract

an audience and things like that so

Date Night was created to help couples maintain relationships, leading Danny Nathan to focus on startups and Venture building.

that's where I kind of first cut my

teeth in the world of startups and then

you didn't stop there uh at getting your

lunch eaten uh you were like yeah I'm

going to show them still so you launch

date night is

yeah that was uh that was really the

beginning of the end for me and I've

been focused on um startups and Venture

building since then throughout my career

and so uh I launched date and ideas with

my then girlfriend now wife as a

response to the world of online dating

and kind of focusing on the thought of

okay all of these online dating sites

exist to help people meet and start a

relationship but there aren't really

tools that exist in the digital space

for helping couples and EST Lish

relationships kind of keep that spark

alive and so date night is focused on

the idea of helping couples uh remember

to continue dating one another and to

help them find interesting opportunities

for date nights and things like that and

so we built that out for about three

years and then um eventually sort of

turned our focus elsewhere and started

working with um other startups in a

variety of spaces I shifted from there

to uh video and AR IAL intelligence

startup called tacosaurus that was

focused on um helping machines

understand video in the same way that

humans do and that really kind of

launched my focus on video which lasted

for uh about the next I don't know eight

maybe 10 years and across the next three

or four jobs that I had so I went from

tagasa surus I spent a short stint at

legendary pictures out in La the the

movie studio on like a small technology

SWAT team and then a few of us left

legendary and started a company in La

called seir which was again focused on

uh video management distribution helping

um both small creators and large video

organizations movie studios things like

that think about how to apply technology

to their video libraries come up with

you uh new and interesting ways to

monetize that content uh things of that

sort and then that eventually led to the

creation of Apollo 21 um kind of coming

out of my experiences here so is a b 21

funded what's your model to develop all

Apollo 21 is fully bootstrapped, dividing time between client work and Venture Studio with the revenue funding their own projects.

these ideas and have them enter

Market uh we are actually fully

bootstrapped so we do not have a fund

attached um we basically split our time

between client work and Venture Studio

work um so basically we work with

clients as I said to help uh build out

operational technology help them launch

new Ventures and we utilize a port of

the uh Revenue that comes from those

client efforts to fund our own projects

and to get them out to Market so the

better we do as a consulting company the

more opportunity we have as a venture

Studio what are some of the most

impressive product Market fit you've

seen in these last three

years oh wow that's a great question one

that I have not thought much about

um interesting from the deployed pref

H the ones that I've deployed got it

A notable product-market fit Danny worked on was Teton Ridge, integrating technology to grow the Western sports space through data and consumer-facing apps.

okay um we worked on a really

interesting project through most of 2022

actually uh we worked with a company

called Teton Ridge which is focused on

of all things the Western Sports space

so think Cowboys and rodeos and bull

riding and things like that that uh

generally aren't a aren't sitting at the

Forefront of technology and uh ton Ridge

was a relatively new company when we

started working with them and they came

to us explicitly with the idea of

utilizing technology and data to help

grow the Western Sports space and to

help connect athletes and fans across

that space and so we started on a very

small project with them helping them

kind of organize and gain access to a

bunch of data that they had gathered

from disparate sources and to make a

long story short that engagement

eventually grew into building everything

from their internal operations platform

to uh a consumer facing mobile app that

really was was uh designed to be kind of

ESPN for the world of rodeo and designed

to create that unique touch point

between Rodeo athletes and the fans of

rodeo across the US and what's so

interesting about that space is you know

not only is it a little slower on the

uptake of Technology but in spite of

that it's got a huge following I I read

a stat recently that rodeo and Western

Sports is actually I think the seventh

largest uh kind of consumer sport in the

US and yet it's one that we don't tend

to think about all that often because

it's it's got kind of that Niche

following and so thinking about how to

engage a really interested and excited

audience in a space that doesn't usually

Launched an app for National Finals Rodeo and American Rodeo events, growing user base to 50-60,000 in a few months, focusing on user engagement and feedback for new features.

have technology at its disposal for that

kind of Engagement was a really exciting

opportunity and we ended up launching an

application right around um a big event

called the National Finals Rodeo that

takes place in Las Vegas every year and

then that was shortly followed by the

American Rodeo which is a Teton rich

sponsored event and very quickly grew

that uh that application user base to 50

or 60,000 people over the course of a

couple of months and so it was really

exciting to see how those folks engaged

with what we had built and what they

were clamoring for as we continue to

build out new features and build things

like live video streaming into the

application so that more people could

consume that content from just about

anywhere how did you get these guys in

your pipeline

uh they were introduced through you know

through my internal network uh the one

of the folks behind Teton Ridge was uh

an early investor in seir and so I sort

of knew the the family group uh through

that connection and they came to us

after I had started Apollo 21 to to see

how we could help them grow their

Engagements vary from standard work-for-hire to equity splits, depending on client stage and financial capabilities, emphasizing partnership and collaboration with clients.

technology efforts on the sports side

you have a system to reach out to these

companies with which you can partner and

then what's the deal with them like they

pay you to build the app do you have

shares in that or do is it profit

sharing tell me a bit more about your

systems um so it's interesting that

you're you know you're kind of tapping

on the the sales opportunity there and

to be quite Frank that's something that

we're still still exploring and still

working on if if anything it has

probably been one of the most difficult

aspects of our business in terms of

finding the opportunities helping them

understand what we can do for them and

why we're different from a standard you

know software development shop and I

mean let's be honest there's hundreds if

not thousands of software development

shops in every city at this point and um

I think part of what sets us apart is

that we really view technology as kind

of a secondary aspect of what we do the

uh the business Consulting and the

business understanding is very much the

first step of any engagement that we

have with a client and so we um we

collaborate I like to say we collaborate

relentlessly with our clients and really

kind of embed ourselves into their teams

to understand what their business needs

and their business goals are and then we

work with them to build the technology

to fulfill or to solve those needs and

problems and so um sometimes that is you

know work for higher kind of standard

you pay us we build it you own it that

type of thing um as we get more into the

Venture side of our business we do have

uh Equity splits for some of the

projects that we work on and it really

just kind of depends on what stage of

the business our client is at and and

what their appetite is and to be frank

what their you know what their financial

um capabilities are in terms of either

paying in cash or paying in equity and

so we're open to both of those Solutions

and we enjoy working in both scenarios

but it does change the relationship a

little bit when you start talking about

um taking an equity stake and we start

to view it as much more of a partnership

and um even more so than what I

described a moment ago in terms of our

our Relentless collaboration you know I

think that uh we would view our as

deeply partnering with even our work for

higher clients but we take that a step

further with our Venture partners

because we see it as uh kind of a

personal investment of ourselves into

whatever that business is working on and

so we really need to be um from

Believers in that business and that

opportunity in order to kind of take

that stance of you know Equity is in Le

of

cash yeah I need to show you my product

Market fit system and get your feedback

on that could be quite interesting to me

it seems that you take like your

strengths right and you probably take

some referrals or from all the

experience that you accumulated in your

career and some opportunities come to

you that way and then you're evaluating

them and you're taking a contrarian

stance on these projects which is very

much needed right and sometimes well I

think a lot about Ai and AGI but I don't

think it can compete against that human

factor you know like when you're cream

of the crop and you have these Odd Ideas

from these accumulated human experiences

which now ai cannot grasp you often

think about Ai and that human magic and

uh when is AI gonna catch up or if you

AI is GNA catch up to that human magic

yeah absolutely we think about that a

lot um you know a lot of our work is

focused on helping companies streamline

operations helping them Define processes

and think about the uh kind of the

collision between technology and the

human aspect of what their business is

Focus on helping companies implement AI thoughtfully, considering automation as a starting point before diving into complex AI solutions for streamlining workflows and operations.

doing and so you know given where we are

today a lot of our clients and potential

clients come to us with questions around

how do they Implement AI uh you know how

can AI impact their business and what we

find is that um a lot of companies or a

lot of people think about AI as a Magic

Bullet without really understanding um

both what goes into it in order to make

it work well and the amount of work and

training that goes into AI in order to

make it actionable especially within a

business environment and so we focus a

lot of our time thinking about whether a

client actually needs AI or whether

something like simple Automation and

careful thought around process and

workflow uh is sufficient to help have

an impact on their business and you know

I like to think of it as automation is

simple but not easy and AI is neither

simple nor easy and so if we can start

with the Automation and think about

uh very carefully where automation can

impact workflows and how we can become

smarter about where technology can help

streamline the flow of information and

uh tasks across an organization then we

can have an huge impact there and we can

set the foundation for how AI might

impact those workflows in the future but

you know often we find that um when

folks are asking us for AI it's not

actually what they need it's just what

they think they need based on you know

all of the chatter that's happening out

in the world

today seems that you're also focused a

lot on product and ux what do you

Emphasize building a business first with simple, value-generating products/services before investing heavily in deep app development, focusing on lean methodology and adding value to customers gradually.

say because I'm I'm obsessed with uh

startup Studios as well I'm one

theorically just that my Approach I love

no codes and I love getting the best

bang out of my energy buck so I just

checked the market and I I'm evaluating

opportunities to build a product a very

bare bone product in one or two hours

with no code that can bring me tons

of money and a bunch of clients so what

do you think about that approach and

identifying you know a specific need uh

for example okay um I emailed tons of

people and uh podcasters lists right

like podcasters list there's no like

clear way to get them right now in this

market and I have a tool to get them and

um send these lists to people some

people sometimes are willing to pay for

these lists uh but I still give them out

for free I don't think I should be doing

that so what about if I just start a a

fancy air table with a bunch of podcast

lists in different segments right let's

say Tech podcasters marketing

podcasters and sell these and then have

some kind of backend to that so once

they buy the list uh then I would email

them out like hey do you want me to

reach out to them it's not necessarily

like a SAS but it could be like almost

fully automated what do you think about

these very simple and barebones uh

startups business IDE for startup Studio

like mine vs going all in going really

deep developing an app you know and

investing like a thousand hours in a

couple of months to just to have a a

better

version I I'm a huge fan of what you're

describing and I think that you know a

lot of people get caught up when we

think about aspiring entrepreneurs and

the view of what it means to become an

entrepreneur today A lot of people are

overly focused on the technology side of

it and lose sight of you know what it

takes to actually create a business and

what you've just described is really

more of the perspective of let's build

the business first how little work can I

do to create an actual business that

generates Revenue that provides value

for customers uh that proves that there

is a need for the thing that I'm talking

about creating and then expanding upon

it and so the idea of oh well if I start

with a simple list that either I give

away for free and therefore create value

create a community around the value that

I am offering or even if you decide to

charge for as a you know as kind of a

first step towards monetization um I

think it's a great way to kind of

validate that idea and then what you've

described makes perfect sense in terms

of building a more service oriented

business on top of that so oh here you

have the list that I found for free let

me connect you with the right people and

you know pay me know a placement fee or

a monthly retainer however you want to

structure it to um add more value to

that for that end user and to turn that

list into something that generates even

more revenue and I think that over time

I'd imagine what you'll find is that you

know there's more opportunity there is

opportunity for Automation and

Technology to take some of the workload

off of your plate which means that that

business can scale faster with less need

for human interaction and allows you to

either focus on the next thing that you

can layer in beside that or think about

what comes kind of next in the vertical

stack around okay after I've created a

placement uh opportunity for those

people what else can I do that will

drive revenue and add value at the same

time and I think that um you know

there's there's certain cases and it

depends a lot on what you're trying to

accomplish as to whether you need to

invest a ton of money and go and build

an application or something of that sort

or whether you can provide value and

create Revenue with much L kind of

upfront work and I think that neither

one is wrong by any stretch and I think

that in a lot of ways what you've

described is arguably the quote unquote

right way to do it because it follows

the lean methodology almost to a you

Start by understanding how much effort can generate earnings before considering additional layers and costs, focusing on maximizing efficiency and profitability.

know to an infinite extent of uh how

little can I do and how much can I earn

off of that kind of effort before you

start worrying about what else needs to

be layered in and what the cost driver

is to do

so

two quick questions how how do

you how can you be a contrarian without

being a pessimistic is the first

one um I think that being contrarian

Being contrarian does not equate to pessimism; it involves offering alternative perspectives constructively, challenging conventional thinking to innovate and create value.

doesn't necessarily mean being

pessimistic but it means uh attempting

to bring an alternative view or A New

Perspective to something that you know

most people don't see when they approach

that question or that problem and so

it's not about being pessimistic

although I think that in our industry

saying no has a lot of power and asking

why has a lot of power um but it doesn't

have to be done from uh you know from an

adversarial perspective it can be done

from a constructive perspective and it

can be done in a manner that reinforces

the idea of well have you thought about

this or yes and as opposed to no full

stop you know I I don't want to pursue

that idea or I think your idea is dumb

and you know I how many ideas have we

seen that have become massively viable

businesses that most people would have

looked at and said that's stupid we

Successful businesses can arise from seemingly "silly" or unnecessary ideas, emphasizing the impact of visionary thinking and cultural shifts in creating valuable products/services.

don't need that I meann look totally

Airbnb look at the entire world of

social media I mean I can't imagine that

you know in the before social media came

around and before the technology to

support it was around there can't be

that many people that were looking

around going oh we need a place to

collect all of the world's people in the

digital space so that they can spout

whatever's on their mind you know and I

you know when Twitter first started I

can't I can't remember you know how many

people at the time had a first tweet of

you know well I'm sitting on the toilet

you know and I I believe the prompt when

Twitter came out was what are you doing

right now and they were answering the

prompt but like you know at face value

did the world really need it probably

not but it has now shaped culture and

shaped you know the world of uh Tech

technology and how we interact with

other people in ways that are arguably

you know unchangeable at this point it

is it has changed the way that people

look at and interact with the world and

how they connect with people around the

world and so something that was arguably

silly or unnecessary that started with

the question of what are you doing right

now is now massively important yeah it's

all about Visions right like Visionaries

Visionaries play a crucial role in society by envisioning and realizing innovative ideas, shaping cultural norms, and driving societal change through forward-thinking and creativity.

that's why we need them in society they

have that Vision they've seen the light

you know and then they bring it back to

the the

masses if you don't see the vision if

you just see it as you know an entering

a stupid question of what you're doing

right now um of course you're not going

to stick to it but as soon as you see

that friend's post and see that this

friend normally you would he wouldn't

share that with you because he's at work

because it's a facet of him that you

don't know and you're like huh it's cool

that Johnny's uh having a coffee there

with this other friend and then you're

hooked you know you can't stop looking

at it because as humans were're were

voyers vo in French uh we we love seeing

others lives you know and compare and

we're social beings very much and that

took like a Visionary to to understand

that and bring it to the masses so yeah

genius stuff um the last question and

yeah I'd love your empathy angle to

contrarianism you know you can be

contrarian and still be gentle and be

nice and and add value to others um

thanks practice last question do you

want to stay Boutique or do you want to

Aim to scale the business while maintaining a focus on client collaboration and value delivery, balancing growth with maintaining a personalized, boutique approach for sustainable success.

scale I we definitely want to scale uh

how much I think is is kind of the

question for us and you know I think

that part of what we're aiming for is

reaching a scale where um we kind of

find a happy medium you know I want to

be able to support our clients and I

want to be able to continue with this

idea of Relentless collaboration and

becoming a part of the team team that

our clients have in order to bring value

to them and at some point you get so big

that that becomes increasingly difficult

or you have to think very carefully

about um process and culture and team

structure in order to support that level

of Engagement with your clients so that

you're still adding value without just

sort of churning them through a factory

and so I think that um I think there's a

happy medium between how much work can

we support that will allow us to remain

you know successful and viable as a

business and that will support some of

the other Ventures that we want to build

without getting so big that we lose

sight of what differentiates us and what

makes us unique in the market as

compared to a lot of other companies

that we might be compared

to and thanks so much where can people

find out more about you uh best places

on our website at Apollo 2.io and we're

actually on the brink of launching

antire new website I'm literally hoping

today next week sometime in the next few

days that it will look entirely

different and perhaps share a little bit

more in-depth perspective of how we

approach things

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