Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's that we're purpose driven platform, like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
Speaker 1: really is? What's up? I'm Laura Currenty and I'm Alexa Kristen.
Speaker 1: This is the moment at Landia, a moment we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about, a moment that's coming. This is our last
Speaker 1: episode with Panoply. What do you think, Laura, I'm getting emotional.
Speaker 1: Are you You're going to cry? It's been two years
Speaker 1: of unbelievable conversations UM. So many incredible people that we've
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to meet, meet and network with and
Speaker 1: introduce to the community. UM. And speaking of the community,
Speaker 1: I think it's been an unbelievable experience to get to
Speaker 1: have conversations UM with so many listeners who have become
Speaker 1: a part of the narrative with us and are taking
Speaker 1: the ideas that they're hearing on the show and applying
Speaker 1: it to their business and finding ways to advance the
Speaker 1: industry forward as practitioners for practitioners and people who are
Speaker 1: unwilling to say, yeah, just put it on the spreadsheet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just what I was told to do. The people
Speaker 1: who are willing to question and take risk and say
Speaker 1: what if, why not, but actually do it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of the magic of the Adlandia community.
Speaker 1: While I'm getting emotional too, So with that, we have
Speaker 1: the founders of the Infatuation, Andrew Steinthal and Chris Sang.
Speaker 1: Andrew's obviously been on the show. They've had incredible growth
Speaker 1: over the last year really since we spoke with him,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting to see how their entrepreneurial spirit and
Speaker 1: certainly ability to be scrappy and network and average all
Speaker 1: of the assets that I think we value and turning
Speaker 1: their business into a contender in the food space. What
Speaker 1: I think that you and I find so compelling about
Speaker 1: them and what's so different about them is what I
Speaker 1: think Andrew talks a lot about is like, we're not
Speaker 1: going to sell someone, We are actually going to partner
Speaker 1: with people, and that means their relationships, their pitch, the
Speaker 1: work that they end up doing is totally different. He's like,
Speaker 1: we are idea guys that actually do things, build things,
Speaker 1: make things. We execute, we know how to do it,
Speaker 1: and that really is the spirit of I think at Landia,
Speaker 1: the show and and the community of listeners that we have.
Speaker 1: So with that, our last episode at the Pana Police Studios,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back and we're back in the studio
Speaker 1: with the co founders of The Infatuation Andrew Steinthal. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. Andrew. Hey, oh, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about the Knicks and what's up? Christang? Hi, Christang,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming you guys. Why can't we talk about
Speaker 1: the next? I love you talk about the next? All
Speaker 1: the tweet about it a lot you do. Okay, we
Speaker 1: don't have to talk about it. Let's just read tweets
Speaker 1: this whole show. Yeah, that's a great idea. That could
Speaker 1: be a new segment. Andrew, you came to visit us
Speaker 1: roughly a year ago. Um, The Infatuation was in a
Speaker 1: much different place, so much that this episode we actually
Speaker 1: had to go through your comms team to get you
Speaker 1: on the show. Listen, we're growing, which is a sign
Speaker 1: that you've made it. Yeah, bureaucracy once you have breacracy
Speaker 1: in place. That's how you know things are going really well.
Speaker 1: We've got layers of approvals. Don't tell anyone are our
Speaker 1: comms guy is also a really good friend of ours
Speaker 1: and one of our first clients ever from a partnership
Speaker 1: we did with Whole Foods back in the day, and
Speaker 1: might love New Jersey more than I do. So talk
Speaker 1: to us about what's happened since we last saw you.
Speaker 1: You've had incredible growth, a big acquisition, some new news
Speaker 1: coming out. Yeah so, I guess the last time you
Speaker 1: were here, Andrew was pre these a GAT announcement. Yes, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we bought the GAT from Google, which was an experience,
Speaker 1: to say the least, for how much I can't talk
Speaker 1: about He can't say that, But I do have a
Speaker 1: question because one of the things that people didn't report
Speaker 1: on it's like, how did you actually get it out
Speaker 1: of the hands of Google. Like one of the things
Speaker 1: that people were talking about was Google was sitting on
Speaker 1: this asset right and no one really recognized it and
Speaker 1: they didn't really do a lot with it. How did
Speaker 1: you even go to have that negotiation? Like I think
Speaker 1: listeners want to know, like what was the insight. How
Speaker 1: did you even know Google had it? Were you just
Speaker 1: doing research? Were you guys tracking this stuff? And then
Speaker 1: who did you go and talk to it Google and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's take it off your hands. So
Speaker 1: I'd love to give myself and everybody a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of credit about having this like savvy, like sit down
Speaker 1: strategically and then how we're gonna go like knock on
Speaker 1: Google's door. They emailed me on a Friday night, literally
Speaker 1: and they said, we're going to sell this. Would you
Speaker 1: be interested. I was in London with our team and
Speaker 1: I just literally, you know, it's probably eleven in the
Speaker 1: morning San Francisco time, but Friday at eight o'clock or
Speaker 1: something like that at night in London, and I looked
Speaker 1: at the email, and I was on my way and
Speaker 1: to have dinner with our team there, and I just
Speaker 1: like couldn't really even process it. So I just kinda
Speaker 1: put the email down, had dinner, and then woke up
Speaker 1: the next morning and got on the plane to come
Speaker 1: home on Saturday and started just like thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 1: if we did this, what would it look like and
Speaker 1: what why would we do it? And it really over
Speaker 1: time as we started talking more and more about it
Speaker 1: just seemed like there was a big opportunity there, to
Speaker 1: your point, to take advantage of maybe something that you know,
Speaker 1: Google didn't take advantage of, and maybe we would be
Speaker 1: very positioned to do something great with it just because
Speaker 1: of our domain expertise. So how did they know about
Speaker 1: you guys? I don't know. I think they literally like
Speaker 1: looked me up. I'm not It was the weirdest set
Speaker 1: of circumstances ever. Hi, Hi Chris. You don't know me,
Speaker 1: but I'm Google and we own That was literally almost
Speaker 1: word for word that you know, I'm not kidding. It
Speaker 1: was like, hey, I think they said they found my
Speaker 1: name in pitch book, which I still don't even know
Speaker 1: what that is. Um, and they were like, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to sell it, and I just
Speaker 1: thought you guys might be interested in So I actually
Speaker 1: said to her, I was like, well, can I just
Speaker 1: call you on Monday because this is way too much
Speaker 1: for me to try and you know, digest from an email.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if she expected me to
Speaker 1: respond back and be like yeah, well yeah right, but
Speaker 1: uh yeah. And then so we just we just started
Speaker 1: talking and it became apparent that they had a few
Speaker 1: sort of priorities in mind, one of which being getting
Speaker 1: a deal done quickly. Um, and I basically kind of
Speaker 1: hit them and I was like, look, you know, Andre
Speaker 1: and I are the board and we can get this
Speaker 1: dawn on Friday if you want, and uh, and started
Speaker 1: that process. But then, of course it took, you know,
Speaker 1: six months to do the deal. So, so for our listeners,
Speaker 1: give the high level pitch on why Infatuation was founded,
Speaker 1: what it's mission and purposes, and how this acquisition may
Speaker 1: change that. Yeah, so, I mean, what for for a
Speaker 1: bunch of reasons. When we launched this thing in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, I think what we were talking a
Speaker 1: lot about and maybe realized, even though we didn't realize,
Speaker 1: we realized it, was that there had been this big
Speaker 1: shift in popular culture in the sense that people treated
Speaker 1: dining differently, probably because of Food Network and food television,
Speaker 1: probably because of early days social media like Facebook and
Speaker 1: Twitter and people sharing photos, you know, mid let's call
Speaker 1: it two thousand's there was this real shift in consumer
Speaker 1: behavior around dining, where like everyone was suddenly interested in
Speaker 1: food as a passion and not just a thing you
Speaker 1: did before you went to a concert or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: and suddenly, you know, a night out with a date
Speaker 1: or with a friend was burgers and beers and not
Speaker 1: you know, French food and white tablecloths. And what we
Speaker 1: felt like, for a variety of reasons, was that there
Speaker 1: hadn't been a correlated shift with the sort of people
Speaker 1: that are covering dining or you know, in restaurant discovery,
Speaker 1: meaning that you know, The New York Times was still
Speaker 1: kind of talking at a very high level about you know,
Speaker 1: restaurant and the chef and the concept of the restaurant.
Speaker 1: And we felt like, well, let's what if we created
Speaker 1: something that was like, hey, I know you're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out wheld have a first date in the Lower
Speaker 1: East Side. Here's the best restaurant that fits into those parameters.
Speaker 1: And so we started conceptualizing with them might look like.
Speaker 1: And then there became this other layer about well, you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine when we started, Yelp was new
Speaker 1: but big, and people were trying to figure that whole
Speaker 1: thing out, and even then you felt like there was
Speaker 1: just this like you know, missing major missing elements. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people were like hated it, even though it wasn't even
Speaker 1: that old, right, you just could tell that there was
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of problems, you know, with
Speaker 1: with the nature of user generated content, especially if there
Speaker 1: weren't you know, smart ways to moderate it and smart
Speaker 1: ways to sort of make sure that the content is
Speaker 1: of a certain quality, um and then the other you know. Additionally,
Speaker 1: there's like this whole idea of just making sense of
Speaker 1: the fire hose, and that the Internet had produced food
Speaker 1: blogs of all sorts of you know, shapes and sizes,
Speaker 1: and you know, social media again was a place where
Speaker 1: people would find opinions and see content. So we just
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to create something that had a very
Speaker 1: clear point of view that would help people make sense
Speaker 1: of the fire hose. And then like you could agree
Speaker 1: with us or disagree with us, but at least you
Speaker 1: knew where we stood. And then we wanted to make
Speaker 1: it funny and entertaining and all that other stuff. But
Speaker 1: that was that is and was it wasn't is still
Speaker 1: the thesis and the mission for the Infatuation is to
Speaker 1: create situational restaurant recommendations for people and have a relatable
Speaker 1: voice and be um, you know, have the tone that
Speaker 1: sounds like you're talking to a really knowledgeable friend um,
Speaker 1: and when we started thinking about how difficult that is
Speaker 1: to scale, meaning that you know, you go city by
Speaker 1: city and you hire teams of writers and editors and
Speaker 1: you really have to you know, do your work a
Speaker 1: certain way so that you're seeing as trustworthy and objective.
Speaker 1: It's hard to become a really big company, and you know,
Speaker 1: a global company quickly. So we we knew pretty immediately
Speaker 1: that we were going to have to confront you GC,
Speaker 1: user generated content, just because that's what scales. If you
Speaker 1: create a platform, people fill with content that can get
Speaker 1: really big, really quickly if you do it right. So,
Speaker 1: you know, when we started talking about that, there was
Speaker 1: always a concern about how do you you know, connect
Speaker 1: user generated content of some sort with you know, with
Speaker 1: the infatuations editorial voice and not muddy the waters. Well,
Speaker 1: turns out the Gap was the first ever example of
Speaker 1: user generated content in the in the dining space back
Speaker 1: in when you know, Tim and Nina the founders had
Speaker 1: their friends filling out surveys. So that was really the
Speaker 1: light bulb moment with the acquisition was can we take
Speaker 1: there's a Gap brand, which is arguably the most successful
Speaker 1: brand in the restaurant discovery space. That's ever existed, take
Speaker 1: it back to its roots of user generated content, and
Speaker 1: create a platform by which we could then have both.
Speaker 1: So we have u g C and editorial content. At
Speaker 1: some point people can cross reference both. Gives us a
Speaker 1: bigger percentage of the market. It seemed like a good idea.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that Laura and I hear
Speaker 1: a lot from our listeners is people talk about doing it,
Speaker 1: but they never do it. You guys were colleagues right
Speaker 1: in the music We were friends first and then colleagues
Speaker 1: and then colleague. We never actually worked at the same company.
Speaker 1: We worked at the same parent company, but we never
Speaker 1: worked together. And so when you started talking about it,
Speaker 1: what was and I don't believe in the moment, Like
Speaker 1: I don't believe in having this moment. What were the
Speaker 1: steps into just doing it, you know and just like
Speaker 1: moving it forward? I mean, look, the day that we met,
Speaker 1: we looked at each other and we're like, we're going
Speaker 1: to do ship right like like like that was how
Speaker 1: did you know? We juste corpse lights? Actually, but you know,
Speaker 1: we we had a million different business ideas over the
Speaker 1: course of time. You know, we spent ten years trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what it was that we were going
Speaker 1: to do together, you know, and at first it was
Speaker 1: gonna be a record label. And once you get in
Speaker 1: the music business and from the years two thousand two,
Speaker 1: you know, to that and twelve, you realize that's not
Speaker 1: the best idea, that that wasn't the best time to
Speaker 1: do that. Um. We had a T shirt company at
Speaker 1: one point, we made one T shirt, had one meeting, UM,
Speaker 1: and we had a bunch of other ideas, and you know,
Speaker 1: the doing part was never going to be the problem
Speaker 1: with us. We were we were. The thing that kind
Speaker 1: of brought us together is that we were both big
Speaker 1: time doers of many things. You know, we really enjoyed
Speaker 1: whatever it was, whether it was the music, whether it
Speaker 1: was going out to eat, whether it was traveling, all
Speaker 1: of it, you know. And because a lot of people
Speaker 1: go to meet ups and networking events to try to
Speaker 1: find like minded partners. So even just unpacking that I
Speaker 1: think would be helpful for our listeners who are entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: or thinking about ideas but are looking for a business
Speaker 1: partner to sort of move forward with. Aside from twenty
Speaker 1: three corps lights and being doers, like, what were the
Speaker 1: things that you looked for in one another and how
Speaker 1: you complimented each other to build a business. At first,
Speaker 1: I don't I mean we just got lucky. I mean
Speaker 1: we Yeah, that's that's true. Actually, it really I think
Speaker 1: we were probably I think about this a lot because
Speaker 1: I don't know. I actually don't know. But it's funny
Speaker 1: because that was It's sometimes when you when you tell
Speaker 1: these stories, you sort of tend to like embellish things
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, we just knew that we were
Speaker 1: going to be business partners and and usually that's bullshit.
Speaker 1: But actually in our case, it was a true that
Speaker 1: we we became friends because we were somehow certain we
Speaker 1: were going to be really successful together in business somehow,
Speaker 1: but I don't really know that either of us could
Speaker 1: articulate it then now looking at how things have played out,
Speaker 1: the reason we've been successful is because we're very different,
Speaker 1: but we trust each other so like I have a
Speaker 1: totally different skill set than Ander does and vice versa.
Speaker 1: And like if you saw our day to day at
Speaker 1: the office, like we hardly interact with each other because
Speaker 1: we're both kind of off of our off in our
Speaker 1: own world. But it's so fine because we know we're
Speaker 1: both trying to do the same things, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: like there's no there's none of that nervousness about like, well,
Speaker 1: what's what's he up to over there? What we know
Speaker 1: is he going to do the right thing in that meeting?
Speaker 1: There's none of that there. So if you have business
Speaker 1: partners that have this same skill set as you do,
Speaker 1: or that you know, even if there's like an ounce
Speaker 1: of uncertainty or distrust, it can be really, really really
Speaker 1: hard to even make it three steps out of the gate.
Speaker 1: So I think he's right, Andrew's right, and that we
Speaker 1: did get lucky for sure because we just happened to
Speaker 1: have very different skill sets. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: isn't luck is that, for whatever reason, we recognized it,
Speaker 1: and then once we did end up starting the infatuation,
Speaker 1: that then, as it started to play out, became really
Speaker 1: our biggest strength. I think you just gave tons of
Speaker 1: advice to brands and marketing teams because there's this really
Speaker 1: interesting thing about pairing people that are actually different but
Speaker 1: have the same ethos. So often, you know, cmos and
Speaker 1: brand leaders are looking for this really cohesive team, and
Speaker 1: they're looking at attributes that are too similar, and there's
Speaker 1: like something they're in the tension of being different. That's brilliant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really necessary. But the thing is is the craziest
Speaker 1: part about all of this is that I feel bad
Speaker 1: for people that are just sort of having a checklist
Speaker 1: of you know, I know the feeling we wanted to
Speaker 1: start something and wanting to start a business, and I
Speaker 1: understand and totally relate to that, but it's I can't
Speaker 1: imagine having like a checklist of being like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: need an idea, and then I need a business partner,
Speaker 1: and I need a business plan and having to sort
Speaker 1: of like check those things off in order, because that's
Speaker 1: never how it happens. It's always so messy, and you know,
Speaker 1: you start doing one thing, then another thing happens, and
Speaker 1: then something else comes up and you maybe chase an
Speaker 1: opportunity or you don't. And that's the hardest part to tell. Like,
Speaker 1: when you give people advice about how to start a
Speaker 1: business or how to find a co founder, you can
Speaker 1: definitely give them fundamental pieces of advice like this, but
Speaker 1: so much of it's just like you got to just
Speaker 1: start doing stuff and seeing what happens. So what was
Speaker 1: the first thing that the infatuation did. Well, there's a.
Speaker 1: There's a story around this that's really funny actually, because
Speaker 1: we've been talking for a while about doing what ended
Speaker 1: up becoming at the time called the Maculate Infatuation, and
Speaker 1: the really the only reason we actually pulled the trigger
Speaker 1: was that at the time I was single, and Andrew
Speaker 1: wrote me into doing some like New York posts like bachelor. Now.
Speaker 1: I haven't thought about it. I just found I know,
Speaker 1: I I I blocked that on my mind obviously because
Speaker 1: I just moved and I found the newspaper. I have
Speaker 1: a bunch of them. It's hilarious. So he Andrew was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you just gotta do this, because he
Speaker 1: was just so excited about me embarrassing myself in New
Speaker 1: York media. But so I was like, you know what, fine,
Speaker 1: I'll do it as long as we launched this website
Speaker 1: thing and I'll mention it in my blurb in the
Speaker 1: New York Post. And that was the catalyst as to
Speaker 1: why we finally did it, was it was like, alright, fine,
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna do this embarrassing thing, give me something
Speaker 1: out of it. And that was what happened. Wait, so
Speaker 1: what was the track like four people? I don't know,
Speaker 1: I really don't know, but that that was it that
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is it's always that's the hardest
Speaker 1: step is always just saying cool or to do it.
Speaker 1: Because once we started doing it, whatever whatever we got
Speaker 1: from that New York Post thing, which was nothing, didn't matter.
Speaker 1: What we did though, was we had this thing that
Speaker 1: we could now put into a newsletter that Andrew put.
Speaker 1: You know, we literally, between the two of us, put
Speaker 1: every person we knew on this email only send it out.
Speaker 1: And that was the beginning of the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: we're and look at our careers in the music business
Speaker 1: came into play in a huge way. You know, I
Speaker 1: was a publicist, Chris was a marketing guy, and like,
Speaker 1: we used our skill sets to drive this thing. Attributes
Speaker 1: that I love most about the both of you, and
Speaker 1: I think it comes through very clearly when you partner
Speaker 1: with you to do business or the way you talk
Speaker 1: about your brand is the sort of scrappiness and the
Speaker 1: leveraging of a network and the human connection and authenticity
Speaker 1: that you both bring to the marketplace, which is so refreshing.
Speaker 1: How are like, what do those skill sets look like
Speaker 1: for the both of you? And then how are you
Speaker 1: bringing that into your company with the employees that you're hiring. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, are as a pr guy in music, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you get handed a bunch of crappy bands a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, and you've got to hustle your ass
Speaker 1: off to try and make do something, find it, find
Speaker 1: something that could potentially work. But then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you get one or two good ones and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is you know you and you can feel the
Speaker 1: audience talk back to you right like immediately, and that
Speaker 1: and that that's the kind of thing that happened with
Speaker 1: us where we put this out into the world that
Speaker 1: you know, we weren't sure it could have been a
Speaker 1: not so great band, or it could have been somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, one that people wanted to hear more from.
Speaker 1: And immediately we here, we you know, felt this poll.
Speaker 1: And once we felt the poll from the public, we
Speaker 1: were like, let's go and we kind of you know,
Speaker 1: took this. We have. One of the things that attracted
Speaker 1: each other to one another is just the drive part
Speaker 1: of it, right. We were both really determined to be successful,
Speaker 1: to win, to build something, to whatever it was within
Speaker 1: our careers or whatever we were going to build. And
Speaker 1: once we started rolling. That was that was how we
Speaker 1: went and then and that really helped push us into
Speaker 1: you know what ultimately became leaving our jobs five years
Speaker 1: later and building a company. And I think that has
Speaker 1: always been the fundamentals of what we are. We we
Speaker 1: we want it badly, and we want to do it
Speaker 1: our way, and we want to be honest and real
Speaker 1: and transparent, and you know that's you know, I hired
Speaker 1: another public assists. You know, I'm I run our sales,
Speaker 1: I'm our c r O and whatever. I've got a
Speaker 1: I brought another publicist in that we have worked with
Speaker 1: in the music business. Her names Savannah, and she's crushing
Speaker 1: and sales. She's never done sales in her life neither,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, and so like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what people are supposed to be doing in these roles.
Speaker 1: I've just been figuring it out along the way and
Speaker 1: being pretty real with the brands and just trying to
Speaker 1: create real human relationships with people and expose them to
Speaker 1: the infatuation in our audience and all this cool stuff
Speaker 1: from culture that we can bring to the table for them.
Speaker 1: How many brand partnerships have you done today? You know,
Speaker 1: we've probably worked with over a hundred and fifty brands
Speaker 1: or so. Wow, what does success look like? Success looks
Speaker 1: like this, the infatuation existing forever, the inpetuition, and now's
Speaker 1: a gap, you know, being the default for restaurant recommendations
Speaker 1: everywhere forever and building a really sustainable successful business? What that?
Speaker 1: What eventually evolves? And how that? How we get there?
Speaker 1: I don't know? But how are brands finding you? I
Speaker 1: was just I just set off Mike. I was telling
Speaker 1: a brand about you today and they're like, good, heard
Speaker 1: of them, Please please keep doing that. Well, it takes
Speaker 1: a look that That's how brands find us. People who
Speaker 1: know tell people or people there is generally one person
Speaker 1: inside an organization that's like sees the stuff we're doing
Speaker 1: and it's like I want to work with them, or
Speaker 1: like I spend all of my time trying to find
Speaker 1: those people, unearthed those people. You know, our business is
Speaker 1: built on integrated brand partnerships, right, Like we have a
Speaker 1: you know what Chris was talking about, right, we have
Speaker 1: we have this audience that we've developed a real personal
Speaker 1: human relationship with that. You know that we feed social
Speaker 1: capital to that. We are you know, we're credible, Like
Speaker 1: we pay for our own meals. We can't you can't
Speaker 1: buy the infatuation stamp of approval, right, and like we
Speaker 1: are really selective with who writes for us on the
Speaker 1: editorial side. But at the same time, and like we're
Speaker 1: incredibly selective and proactive with what brands we work with.
Speaker 1: You know, we only want to work with brands that
Speaker 1: fit our brand and that our audience will feel like
Speaker 1: there's an authentic connection to Like we can't you know,
Speaker 1: we can't go work sorry McDonald's, but we can't. Like
Speaker 1: we will we will lose the credibility and connection to
Speaker 1: the audience. But there's another key part of this though,
Speaker 1: which is that we're not building businesses that people who
Speaker 1: advertise with you know, digital media companies are used to write,
Speaker 1: So like, we don't produce content for volume sake, We
Speaker 1: just don't do it because that's not what we're building.
Speaker 1: We're not building a media company. We're building a resource
Speaker 1: that if you need to find a restaurant on a
Speaker 1: Saturday night, you come to and you find the restaurant,
Speaker 1: you get and you get out, you're done. Like we don't.
Speaker 1: It's not about getting you to consume as much content
Speaker 1: as possible. Actually, we actually have to think about even
Speaker 1: though we measure ourselves differently, because maybe it's not a
Speaker 1: bad thing if somebody comes to our site, spends three
Speaker 1: minutes on it and finds a restaurant and the leads.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing that you're bringing up is a conversation
Speaker 1: that I think is getting more attention in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: Is the new standards or need to evolve the standards
Speaker 1: of measurement in this industry? Right Like, we've had a
Speaker 1: ton of conversations with different entrepreneurs and founders and media
Speaker 1: company executives about measuring things like overnight ratings on television,
Speaker 1: click through rate, volume of impressions. You talk about the
Speaker 1: infatuation being around forever. What does that look like in
Speaker 1: these conversations and brands are coming in, how are you
Speaker 1: getting them to understand that the value of what our
Speaker 1: community is bringing doesn't fit in that Excel spreadsheet. This
Speaker 1: is why we do so many events because when you
Speaker 1: literally put on a food festival and in New York City,
Speaker 1: it sells out and then tickets are going for three
Speaker 1: times face value on StubHub the day after it sells out,
Speaker 1: and then people show up and there's a thousand people
Speaker 1: outside the venue before the doors open, and they're going
Speaker 1: nuts when they get inside. Like that's how you look
Speaker 1: at brand partners or whoever, and you go, this is
Speaker 1: it and that's that's the thing. Is we end up
Speaker 1: intil get it. Yeah, it's not hard like when you
Speaker 1: see it like we there's a famously legendary man named
Speaker 1: Chef Gordon who's now one of our advisors. He's read
Speaker 1: his book or watch his documentary it's called they called
Speaker 1: it's called Superman's the documentary. And he's a he's basically
Speaker 1: the man that's responsible for creating a celebrity chef. You
Speaker 1: could do a whole podcast with him. We'll line that
Speaker 1: up someday. But he's a legend and and he we
Speaker 1: basically paid him to speak at our first food festival, right,
Speaker 1: And he's this guy that literally like created Emerald and
Speaker 1: that was like where it started. And then man, no,
Speaker 1: because he the way he looks at it is he
Speaker 1: brought he brought food culture in people's homes in a
Speaker 1: way that it wasn't existing before, right, Julia Child, Sure,
Speaker 1: but like you know, he did it in a different
Speaker 1: way and and anyway, so he's this like legend and
Speaker 1: we had basically told him. I was on a phone
Speaker 1: call with him prepping him to come to this thing
Speaker 1: and speak, and um. He came, and you know, he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I get it. I think I get it.
Speaker 1: After we were sort of talking about what we are
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and he came to the festival.
Speaker 1: He hung out all day, he was talking to people
Speaker 1: and just like having a great time. And then he
Speaker 1: emailed me the next day. He had just gotten to
Speaker 1: Vegas and he emailed me and he was like, I
Speaker 1: just keep thinking about what I saw there, and I'm
Speaker 1: so happy because it makes me realize that this still exists.
Speaker 1: That like young people in and around the food community,
Speaker 1: they're they're passionate about your thing in an ext this
Speaker 1: and I'm so happy about that. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what that story repeats itself over and over again
Speaker 1: when people who don't know much about us show up
Speaker 1: in our world, especially in that sort of in real
Speaker 1: life environment, because you just look around and you see
Speaker 1: a really engaged community of people spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time just hanging out with each other and sharing like
Speaker 1: my you know, they're like minded people sharing experiences and um,
Speaker 1: and the fact that we can have them lined up
Speaker 1: around the block at you know, a stadium in Forest
Speaker 1: Hills tells a story that's really hard to tell with
Speaker 1: you know, stuff that fits in a spreadsheet. If you
Speaker 1: don't know when you go to a media partner what
Speaker 1: they do well and what they don't do well. We
Speaker 1: want to buy the thing that is not for sale well.
Speaker 1: And also and it's and it's also the truth of
Speaker 1: what makes that company important. It makes it valuable. I
Speaker 1: don't want right, like, don't give me the frill, give
Speaker 1: me the meat. Just to add to that point, like so,
Speaker 1: and this requires the industry, and I'd be curious to
Speaker 1: know how you're going on and pitching your unique I
Speaker 1: p you right, because so many publishers walk in and
Speaker 1: the first thing that you see in a presentation is,
Speaker 1: here's how many people we reach? Like why are you
Speaker 1: competing on scale? Because if I want scale, there's probably
Speaker 1: two platforms that I'm going to to get it. It's
Speaker 1: a commodity and scales. But the thing that you don't
Speaker 1: get to so many times in the presentation is what
Speaker 1: is the unique thing that I can't get anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the market. Sell me that. The problem is all
Speaker 1: of this takes discipline that many companies can't afford it,
Speaker 1: Like it's either they can't afford it because they don't
Speaker 1: have enough money to take this sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put our stake in the ground and this
Speaker 1: is what we're gonna do, and you're gonna buy it
Speaker 1: or not until you realize, Like we're lucky enough. We've had,
Speaker 1: you know, investors and partners that have agreed with us
Speaker 1: that you do it a certain way and build quality
Speaker 1: over time because we say no to all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: you know, like that we I talk about a lot
Speaker 1: that like we're probably more defined by the stuff we
Speaker 1: don't do than the stuff that we do. Like what's
Speaker 1: the stuff you don't do? Digital video for the sake
Speaker 1: of an advertiser podcast because it's a hot it's a
Speaker 1: hot sector. You know, how many digitals, how many mistakes
Speaker 1: have been made in digital media and publishing because people
Speaker 1: start creating content for what they think advertisers want, not
Speaker 1: because they think an end user or reader wants it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've seen the headlines for how
Speaker 1: that ends exactly, But but we're still there because the
Speaker 1: brands are still r fpeeing about, Hey, we want, while
Speaker 1: we want our video views, well you know that, like
Speaker 1: most of those are bullshit, so cool. You can have them,
Speaker 1: not with us, but you can probably get them somewhere.
Speaker 1: But do you want to actually watch someone and interact
Speaker 1: with your product in a meaningful way. If you do,
Speaker 1: we can talk. We're marketing partners and executors. We don't
Speaker 1: fit in the spreadsheet at all. We can play in
Speaker 1: the spreadsheet, but if you don't know who we are
Speaker 1: and you just look at the spreadsheet, you're not going
Speaker 1: to understand why to work with. There's no context. There's
Speaker 1: no context. So for us, we are very proactive working
Speaker 1: trying to work brand direct right. So we work with
Speaker 1: American Express, we work with Don Julio over Ago, we
Speaker 1: work with smart Water, inside a Coca Cola and some
Speaker 1: of the other brands there, um and and we're super
Speaker 1: proactive with building long term partnerships with brands that align
Speaker 1: well to our values and that are trying to reach
Speaker 1: our audience. You know, the kind of audience that we reach,
Speaker 1: which is the you know, young influencer, but real influencer,
Speaker 1: not like nonsense marketing term influencer. People in their circles
Speaker 1: who are influential right, the first ones in who really care,
Speaker 1: Because ultimately, if you care and you spend the time
Speaker 1: figuring out where you're gonna eat, right, you also care
Speaker 1: about what you're wearing, what car you're driving, what you're
Speaker 1: listening to. Literally everything good taste is good taste. And
Speaker 1: you know we are we we have an audience full
Speaker 1: of people with good taste, and you know, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to reach those people too, and so much of
Speaker 1: what we do is bringing those people out into real life.
Speaker 1: Last year we did sixty five events across all across
Speaker 1: the country and you know, into the world in London
Speaker 1: as well, and you know we're we are able to
Speaker 1: cultivate localized audiences in a lot of different pockets that
Speaker 1: brand can interact with. Brands have goals, they have a
Speaker 1: whole narrative they want to ladder up to. We can
Speaker 1: be a great partner to help them do that. But
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier for us to do that on
Speaker 1: the front side of the RFP than on the back.
Speaker 1: You've got a couple of announcements we've heard that you
Speaker 1: want to share on the show. Yeah, sure, so, um
Speaker 1: we do a food festival. I'm not sure if everyone's
Speaker 1: aware but now you are called eats Con and it
Speaker 1: it happens in both New York and Los Angeles. Um.
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles Festival is coming up this year on
Speaker 1: May eighth and nineteen, and the most important part of
Speaker 1: that little phrase, there's the end. Uh. This will be
Speaker 1: the first time we're doing two days. UM. So we're
Speaker 1: scaling it up in Los Angeles, which is really really
Speaker 1: exciting and UM just sort of you know, building on
Speaker 1: what we started two years ago in that market, which
Speaker 1: is the whole concept is really that you know, as
Speaker 1: we built this massive audience of young people around the
Speaker 1: brand and around the content, we realized that our audience
Speaker 1: and really probably an even larger audience of young pool
Speaker 1: who are social media savvy and you know, the people
Speaker 1: that walk around this planet between the age of twenty
Speaker 1: and you know, thirty five, they're not going to like
Speaker 1: the New York City Food and Wine Festival because that's
Speaker 1: just not how they live their lives and it's not
Speaker 1: what necessarily what they're looking to do, which is dropping
Speaker 1: eight hundred fifty dollars for a weekend past to go
Speaker 1: like eat a little tiny bite of pursudo and you know,
Speaker 1: catch a celebrity chef, you know, for thirty seconds. So
Speaker 1: we wanted to build something that felt more community driven,
Speaker 1: that felt more uh focused around the restaurants. We talked
Speaker 1: about it being like a music festival, but were the
Speaker 1: restaurants of the headliners. Um, And we programmed with with
Speaker 1: speakers and we have bands and it's an awesome day
Speaker 1: and now two days. But it's really an interesting part
Speaker 1: of our business that's growing. And it was a you know,
Speaker 1: an example of us moving into another space that's adjacent
Speaker 1: to us but feels very related to what we do.
Speaker 1: We just saw big white space and there's other spaces
Speaker 1: like that that I think we're gonna move in too
Speaker 1: soon as well, but um, potentially someday. But there's stuff
Speaker 1: in the food food space that's still wide open that
Speaker 1: we want to go gobble up. But there are other
Speaker 1: sort of lifestyle things out there that are not being
Speaker 1: as well addressed. I think we'll probably chase those things
Speaker 1: down first. There's a big hole in travel. I don't
Speaker 1: know that we're going to jump right into travel, but
Speaker 1: there's a big, massive hole there. We know that for
Speaker 1: a fact because we get people hitting us up all
Speaker 1: the time being like hey, I read the Rome recommendations,
Speaker 1: but where do I stay? Text tracks are texting platform.
Speaker 1: We could ask all kinds of questions that have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with restaurants inside of that platform because people
Speaker 1: trust us, so they'll start asking us, yeah, dating, what
Speaker 1: should I watch? I mean people literally hit up that
Speaker 1: platform and ask us what should they be watching while
Speaker 1: they order delivery or something like that. So there's there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of interesting stuff. Is I want someday for
Speaker 1: us to be able to serve people in the way
Speaker 1: that we do around restaurant recommendations with and help them
Speaker 1: make other decisions. I don't really know what that means yet,
Speaker 1: maybe a recommendation brand as opposed to brand. It's like
Speaker 1: a little bit of it just down to helping people
Speaker 1: make decisions, you know, Like we use this we talk
Speaker 1: about social capital, right, there's that there's a great deal
Speaker 1: of social capital and being the person in your group
Speaker 1: of friends or in your family who can pick a
Speaker 1: great rest staurant or great bottle of wine, order a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine off wine list, all of those things,
Speaker 1: so you know, and that's what's actually way more powerful
Speaker 1: than just being like, yeah, we give people restaurant advice.
Speaker 1: We give them the social capital that makes them more
Speaker 1: important in the office, better at dating, all these things
Speaker 1: that are really important to people in their lives. So
Speaker 1: you guys had a pretty good investment from someone in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: We did, and I assume that everything you're talking about
Speaker 1: kind of head nods to a vision that you guys
Speaker 1: have that they bought off on. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: that at all? Yeah, um so, yeah, we we just
Speaker 1: raised a bunch of money from Jeffrey Katzenberg, who had
Speaker 1: the movie executive best known for his uh role in
Speaker 1: founding dream Works. But um, he's obviously a visionary and
Speaker 1: you know, he has done a lot of amazing stuff
Speaker 1: in his career. Um. But one thing that apparently he
Speaker 1: wanted to do is to raise a big venture fund
Speaker 1: and to start investing in businesses. Um. So he built
Speaker 1: a team which was for us very interesting and felt
Speaker 1: are in line with the kind of business of the
Speaker 1: world building which is the main partners. They're kind of
Speaker 1: split between content and media executives from DreamWorks and Disney.
Speaker 1: This woman and Daily who ran DreamWorks next to Jeffrey
Speaker 1: for a very long time. Um, and they have an
Speaker 1: l a office of some other people that are just
Speaker 1: brilliant and come from that world. And then there's a
Speaker 1: team in San Francisco that is UM, led by a
Speaker 1: guy named Suja Joshua who was the CFO at drop Box,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other drop Box people and sort
Speaker 1: of a more tech focused UM point of view. So
Speaker 1: those two things together felt very relevant to what we're building,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, a great product with great content
Speaker 1: inside of it UM. But it was also for us
Speaker 1: exciting to think about partnering with some of that understands
Speaker 1: culture and understands how to storytell and understands how brands
Speaker 1: matter and how you know, what we're building ultimately is
Speaker 1: a big brand that people need to trust UM and
Speaker 1: need to find useful and indispensable to their daily lives.
Speaker 1: So we've been this is our third round raising money,
Speaker 1: and we've been very fortunate, you know, throughout the past
Speaker 1: of having rate investors that you know, really understood our
Speaker 1: vision and understood the timeline and understood that we were
Speaker 1: gonna do things a different way than maybe conventional wisdom
Speaker 1: says we should, based on whatever bucket you want to
Speaker 1: put us in. But UM, so this bigger round, the
Speaker 1: series A, we were pretty nervous, like can you find
Speaker 1: those same kind of people with that same kind of
Speaker 1: patience and that same outlook on the world when they're
Speaker 1: writing a really big check. And I don't know that
Speaker 1: the answer would have been yes, have we not found
Speaker 1: wonder Co which is the name of the fund and
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Nan and suj So it's early days. We just
Speaker 1: closed the deal in August, and you know, are starting
Speaker 1: off a big, ambitious year together. But so far it's
Speaker 1: been great and we have exciting plans and they definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, that was the thing is every time we'd
Speaker 1: sit down and talk, they definitely agreed and believed in
Speaker 1: the same things we did, which is, let's go out,
Speaker 1: let's build a really big business, but let's build it
Speaker 1: the right way and understand that these things take time.
Speaker 1: That you can't just build something that can change culture
Speaker 1: within two years. It's gonna take ten. So Andrew, you're
Speaker 1: gonna tell us about a big partnership that you guys
Speaker 1: are doing and that you're super excited. We're really excited
Speaker 1: we're doing We are We US and T Brand Studio
Speaker 1: from the New York Times UM collaboratively are doing a
Speaker 1: podcast with BMW. I know, you know, look, we were
Speaker 1: the infatuation as a brand has never done a podcast before,
Speaker 1: original content, original content, not at and a story about
Speaker 1: cities and looking through the lens of restaurants and how
Speaker 1: they impact the culture and how you know they drive
Speaker 1: different parts of different cities. Um. And it's it's just
Speaker 1: been a really really interesting experience, definitely a unique experience
Speaker 1: to work alongside the Times to do this, you know,
Speaker 1: a leap of faith by BMW to do something different.
Speaker 1: You know, that's all came from from them being very
Speaker 1: interested in having partners collaboratively come to them with ideas.
Speaker 1: What's the name of the show, it's called the Special.
Speaker 1: What was your role in in the in the concert Upton,
Speaker 1: in the production, like what was the infatuations for all?
Speaker 1: You know, The New York Times is definitely leading the
Speaker 1: charge on the production of the podcast, right, that is
Speaker 1: what they do. Um. So they're they're they're driving that.
Speaker 1: But you know, we were very instrumental in the whole
Speaker 1: like conceptualizing of the idea. And then we have a
Speaker 1: whole plan that we're rolling out that has some really
Speaker 1: interesting content on top of Instagram. Using BMW's with our
Speaker 1: writers in different markets. We're producing a big event in
Speaker 1: l A. That is going to be really fun that
Speaker 1: you know, that's part of our part of the deal.
Speaker 1: So very cool, interesting party, be fun to see how
Speaker 1: it plays out. Before we let you go, since we
Speaker 1: are recording here in New York, must go to restaurant
Speaker 1: off the top of your head, go I still for Charles.
Speaker 1: If people haven't been there yet, that place there, it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to get into. It's in the West Village.
Speaker 1: But can we say we know you. It doesn't work,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. We don't pull those we don't pull those levers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's we don't have relations, Chris. There's a great Vietnamese
Speaker 1: restaurant green Point called D and D that's really amazing
Speaker 1: and just like one of my favorite spots right now
Speaker 1: before we go is our game killed by d I y,
Speaker 1: can it all be Knicks related? Come on, come on,
Speaker 1: I'm so over it. I would definitely buy them somehow.
Speaker 1: I always see your tweets because my entire Twitter existence
Speaker 1: is is sports Twitter. That's what I must have no
Speaker 1: life because you're always at the top of my feed
Speaker 1: because you engage, you just don't don't like them, then
Speaker 1: you won't see so you're buying the Knicks. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: buy the Knicks. I'm gonna kill the traditional media agency model.
Speaker 1: Um more on that another time. Yeah, And what am
Speaker 1: I doing now buying things? No? Doing yourself? Builds a
Speaker 1: printer that actually works. I hate printers and like every
Speaker 1: time I need one, it just doesn't work. They all break.
Speaker 1: I know the first time playing, first time playing is exciting.
Speaker 1: Kill What would you kill? Twitter? Ahead? What's because of
Speaker 1: your next It's because literally I'm just getting to this
Speaker 1: point where like I literally cannot just watch people take
Speaker 1: hot Sideline takes on like every topic in the world
Speaker 1: and always be wrong and always be just like riling people.
Speaker 1: Like it's We've got to find a better way to
Speaker 1: have discourse. Because it's a great platform. I think it's awesome,
Speaker 1: but like that, there's some crazy ship going on on
Speaker 1: Twitter that we could probably just like do without. Do
Speaker 1: you see the Jack Harris Swisher live tweet interview and
Speaker 1: tried to follow it, But it's like one of those
Speaker 1: things that I'm like, now my blood pressure is high
Speaker 1: and I need to go like have a glass of
Speaker 1: wine to just calm down, Like I swear, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: just kill my phone. Maybe it's just my phone. I
Speaker 1: don't want to kill in another company. I'll just kill
Speaker 1: my phone, all right, all right, good? What would you
Speaker 1: buy another phone? What would you do yourself? Um? Doing myself?
Speaker 1: I would love to build something that actually like actually
Speaker 1: build something with my hand, like build a piece of
Speaker 1: furniture or something. What would you make I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a I mean, based on the amount of money
Speaker 1: that like Scandinavian style chairs seemed to sell for. I'd
Speaker 1: probably throw some sheep skin on a modern piece of
Speaker 1: wood and start a whole new business or something time
Speaker 1: within reach. If you don't know about the infatuation, go
Speaker 1: check it out after listening to this show, Andrew Chris,
Speaker 1: always a pleasure. Congratulations on all your success. If people
Speaker 1: want to build an event, a partnership, or just figure
Speaker 1: out where they need to go eat tomorrow night, how
Speaker 1: did they get in touch with you? Andrew? H M
Speaker 1: O E Y bring it on. I won't see you.
Speaker 1: You will never see it because he won't have a phone.
Speaker 1: He's on t he's on his way to buy any one. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. So I could go like forever
Speaker 1: that That conversation I think left me thinking about some
Speaker 1: of the key insights that Chris particularly was hitting on
Speaker 1: around social capital and not being willing to comprom mise
Speaker 1: your core values for add dollars and being comfortable and
Speaker 1: saying like you want to come and engage a community
Speaker 1: and create an experience that is going to drive lifetime
Speaker 1: value or long lasting relationships with our audience. Let's talk. However,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for scale and some sort of commoditized format,
Speaker 1: like we're not for you, And I think what that
Speaker 1: will do for their business is indicative of where they're
Speaker 1: headed and the acquisitions they're making, the investments that they're taking,
Speaker 1: and thinking about how it stands up in the current marketplace.
Speaker 1: And I think what we've seen over the last few
Speaker 1: months is that people were chasing scale, which he was like,
Speaker 1: it's a myth. One thing we didn't ask that we
Speaker 1: should have asked again, we could have gone on for
Speaker 1: four hours, was how long is your pipeline? Like how
Speaker 1: long how long does it take to get someone to
Speaker 1: actually buy and do an activation and how long does
Speaker 1: it take for them to get comfortable with that sale?
Speaker 1: Which I think you know, so many people are quick
Speaker 1: to close the sale, but it as you get into
Speaker 1: the weeds, of the project, you start to realize that
Speaker 1: maybe there's not a whole lot of alignment here. I
Speaker 1: think that's a great point, Laura, and I think that Uh.
Speaker 1: Andrew also, what he was saying is like, we do
Speaker 1: it in front, in the process, in front of the work.
Speaker 1: The process in front of the work is like, let's
Speaker 1: get to know each other. I want to understand you.
Speaker 1: What are you really trying to do, who are you
Speaker 1: really trying to speak with? And what are you what's
Speaker 1: your equity? Right? And those details are not in an RFP,
Speaker 1: not in the standard RFP right. And they even said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we get our FPS, but the way they are handling that,
Speaker 1: the way they think about the RFP, totally different. Infatuation.
Speaker 1: They're going places and so are we? So are we? So?
Speaker 1: Speaking of that, we are going to take a brief
Speaker 1: hiatus and we will be announcing shortly on our Twitter
Speaker 1: at Atlantia podcast where we will be set up next
Speaker 1: and how you can join us. We must thank all
Speaker 1: of our friends and family at Panically for giving us
Speaker 1: this incredible platform and opportunity, in particular Jacob Weisberg, Matt Turk,
Speaker 1: Andy Bauer. We have to thank our most incredible production
Speaker 1: partners who have stuck with us to make the show
Speaker 1: what it is. So big. Thank you to Laura Mayor,
Speaker 1: Cameron Drew's, Laura Morris, and our own Dana Bolic. The
Speaker 1: producers we've worked with and we've had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: get to know are phenomenal. You guys should reach out
Speaker 1: to them because they know what's happening in the audio space.
Speaker 1: They can come in, they can help your brand, they
Speaker 1: can liaise with the studios. They're amazing, and we are
Speaker 1: even going to give you Dana's email in the description
Speaker 1: of the show so you can get a hold of
Speaker 1: her because she is one of the best so Atlantia.
Speaker 1: We will be back, not in two weeks, but soon enough.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sticking with us. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to share what's next. See you saying full disclosure,
Speaker 1: Our opinions are our own.