Top 10 podcast moments that shocked, cracked us up, or both!

10 moments. 10 guests. Total unpredictability on Life on Mars.

This isn’t your average “best of” episode. it’s a chaotic, hilarious, insightful rollercoaster through the most unforgettable english-language moments from life on mars, the startup podcast by MarsBased.

🔥 from death metal growls to burning down offices (literally), surprise cofounders, and existential founder questions... this episode has it all.

if you’re into tech, startups, or just love a good story, hit play.

Transcript

Episode Introduction and Overview

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to Life on Mars . I'm Alex Sion , founder of MarsBase , and in this episode we bring you the top 10 best moments of the English version of this podcast . A few days ago , we released a Spanish version of this in which we covered the first 150 plus episodes of the Spanish version of Life on Mars , and I went through with our friend David with the most instructional , fun and inspirational moments of 10 of the best episodes we've had so far . In these very episodes we do the same in English . So I wanted to start with probably the biggest name we had in the earlyitude of the remote worker not meeting your co-founders or even your team members for years in their case , which struck me as pretty surprising , and all the things . And actually you know he doesn't speak very much in other podcasts and I think that's something that makes me even more grateful for his time . I think we learned a lot from Sketch , a company that we admired , that we actually have used for many years in Mars based , and we can learn a lot from Peter , both from technical side but also from the management side of

Peter Omblay: Remote Work Pioneers

Speaker 1 1:40

things .

Speaker 1 1:40

So let's take a look at the interview with Peter Omblay . Let's go to the very beginning . What we're going to talk today is mostly how to keep the love alive with your co-founder and with your team after so many years , after experiencing growth . You guys also raised investment . We're going to cover all of this throughout the years . Let's start from the very beginning . You met your co-founder , but actually you didn't meet in person after the launch of the product . Right , you had been working for a while . How did that come about ?

Speaker 2 2:08

Yeah , no , that's true . We met a couple of months after we launched that version of Sketch . We worked on it together and that was just because we were both flying to the US and said , well , it makes sense to meet up somewhere before we get on the plane . Well , it's made less makes sense to meet up somewhere before before we can get on the plane . We worked together for um , I think at least a year before we , before we , before we saw each other in person and just uh , back then I was working from , uh , london , he's , he was and still is based in portugal and we just connected over . I think back then was called I chat , um , uh , you know , we just talked like that , uh , lots of lots of texting , lots of exchanging images , and we just we just started working together .

Speaker 2 2:56

Yeah , I got , I got in contact with emmanuel through another designer I worked with before that on another app I built , and that designer I had never met either . We built that app together . We launched it . He went off to Apple I was looking for a new designer because of that and he said , hey , let's go have a chat with Emmanuel , I think you two should like each other . And that's how we met , never meeting in person .

Speaker 1 3:29

And now for the second highlight . I bring you Founder Partners , a company that I collaborate with . They are from Silicon Valley . They're a group of seasoned entrepreneurs and M&A advisors for bootstrap and semi-bootstrap companies that I like a lot . You will see that these friendships transpires into the conversation , and I think this is a must for companies that want to sell or companies that want to buy .

Speaker 1 3:53

Actually , and one of the most fun moments in this episode is where , actually , brian and Dimitri go back 20 years and when they are confronted with the question of what has been your most expensive fuck-up and Brian starts telling a story that sounds familiar to Dimitri's and I'll leave it at that , I think , for not being prepared . It's one of the best sort of improvised moments in the history of this podcast , so let's jump right into it .

Founder Partners: Expensive Mistakes

Speaker 1 4:30

Time for the last question . This is a signature question of the podcast . You guys have to share , each one of you , your biggest fuck up and how expensive it was , and don't give me the usual things Everybody tries to give me the I hired the wrong person . No , I will not accept that one . Just try to think of a big fuck up that you've had in your career , if related to M&A , of course , all the better . And if you can quantify in money how much was lost , don't worry , we've had people setting fire to this , oh yeah .

Speaker 1 5:08

Okay , this is great . Okay , you want to ?

Speaker 4 5:09

go most expensive . First , I want to talk about things other than m&a and , dimitri , you focus on the m&a thing because we can cover . I'm going to talk about um me as an my biggest fuck up as an entrepreneur and as an investor . Dimitri , you talk about it Awesome .

Speaker 1 5:28

I like it , like your attitude .

Speaker 4 5:30

So I've started and sold quite a few businesses and I think I , my I became a little bit too confident , maybe a little too cocky , and I thought that because I was a software guy , I've always been a software and a digital media guy and so I thought , hey , and I even brought Dimitri and I thought I could build a business in the consumer package good space , and it was called New York tapped , which was basically bottling New York city tap water and and I was pumped . I thought it was a brilliant idea . We were on the David Letterman show , we were all this free PR that came around and I was like , yeah , this is going to be a cool business and it went bankrupt . I lost Dimitri's 25 grand as the angel investment and it was just like God . But that was a .

Speaker 4 6:10

That was a screw up and and , by the way , I've had others . I mean I've I've been a serial entrepreneur . I've had some other failures besides all the things that look glamorous and good on the outside . But what I learned it's it's actually the screw ups are about learning , frankly , right . And so I learned I better stick to my knitting . My knitting is software . Just don't go outside of that . Don't look for me to do anything in biotech or semiconductors . Just stay to software , alex . Have you ever seen a $25,000 bottle of water ? Thank you for rubbing it in my goddamn face , dimitri . I love you .

Speaker 1 6:49

I hope you like the anecdote of Brian and Dimitri as much as I have and go back and revisit the entire episode , because I think it's full of wisdom nuggets and I think that's an episode that every entrepreneur ought to watch at least once in his life . Every entrepreneur ought to watch at least once

Julian Truchon: Death Metal Techniques

Speaker 1 7:07

in his life . For the next episode , I bring you a personal friend of mine , julian Truchon . He's the singer and the leader of a death metal , grind death metal band . I don't even know how to describe this band Benighted . It's one of my favorite extreme metal bands and you know sort of crimecore death metal , brutal death Depends , pretty technical as well , and I really like him . He's a super charming person and we discuss business and music and technology for band members and touring bands and what do they use ? What's the shareholder agreement ? How do they finance themselves ?

Speaker 1 7:54

Not much of a technologist , but I think I wanted to highlight in this episode what I really enjoyed the most and I remember like wow , this is going to blow some people's minds is the one-on-one for growling , the 101 for growling . You know these brutal death metal screams and good rolls , shrieks and cries and whatnot different techniques that he's got , and I asked him to provide a short demonstration on camera and I had a lot of fun . That was totally not prepared as well , like everything we do in this podcast , and it's pretty uncommon for the rest of the content that we have . So I hope you enjoy this , but , seriously , just go back and revisit the entire episode , because I think it's also really fun and teaches you how difficult it is to monetize and to grow business out of music . Let's go . Do you learn how to sing with bass and how do you like ? You took lessons , I guess , but like , what do you do in order not to fuck up your voice forever ?

Speaker 8 8:47

Well , at first I never took any lessons for that , I just learned by myself in my car most of the time , because people maybe not know . But this kind of vocal practice when you do it at home you have to have very tolerant neighbors because it's very loud and it's very it's , it's noise . It's noise . I mean , for example , my vocals , because I think most of the people don't know what I'm talking about . Uh , I have one , two , three , four , five main , uh , kind of uh of vocal .

Speaker 1 9:19

But first we go through them can . Can you demonstrate the five of them ?

Speaker 8 9:23

I can say through them can you demonstrate the five of them , I can't say number one death metal , pretty high , pretty low then I've got the high pitch , which is , yeah , and um , something more hardcore . That's pretty much the last . The big squeal that one is the brie .

Speaker 1 9:52

That's the brie . Yeah , how did the brie story come about ? Just because you're French ?

Speaker 8 9:58

It came pretty stupidly because I realized that I was doing the . You know this kind of voice and for some words where there's E inside , when I wanted to go down the E , it really sounds like a pig that you got . That's very funny , let's use that as a gimmick . And some singers were trying to get close to that with inhaling vocals , but I only exhale to do the screams .

Speaker 1 10:26

I inhale . Can you do it exhaling ? I thought it was inhaling all the time . I don't know , everything is exhale , I inhale to do the high pitches . So that's , oh my God .

Speaker 8 10:38

Yeah , lots of people do inhaling . But , yeah , I do everything by exhaling , including my big squeal . And that's

Josh Felberg Interviews Alex Sion

Speaker 8 10:47

why me , when I sing , every kind of vocals I do are using my fake vocal cords not the spoken vocal cords , but the fake one . Above were more like a huge membranes to protect the spoken vocal cords . And I went to a doctor , a throat doctor , who put a camera in my throat and he told me well , your vocal cords are safe because you don't use them when you scream and that's also why I can do all my screams , as you saw , without any warm-up and without hurting myself . I mean , I could be totally mute because of the cold , I can still do my .

Speaker 1 11:27

Oh my god .

Speaker 8 11:28

It's a great comfort for a singer . Trust me .

Speaker 1 11:31

It's a great comfort . I love karaoke and then I fucking destroy my voice because I don't know how to sing properly , and sometimes I go for a growling style and it's like , no , not going to happen the next day . I'm not .

Speaker 8 11:44

With this kind of techniques you're pretty safe . Of course , at first it hurts a bit . It's like in your muscle . You have to get used to it . So of course at first it's pretty painful , but then you're safe , yeah , for our audience .

Speaker 1 12:00

Don't try without an adult supervision because you might fuck up your vocal cords . That was fun , wasn't it Cool ? And to the next highlight this is a very special episode for me as well , probably one of the most creative ones we've done so far in which one of my best friends , josh Felberg , has actually been a customer of Marsways for many , many years , a great person overall and somebody I deeply admire and respect . And he said man , can I interview you for your podcast ? I said why would we do that ? But at the moment it sounds kind of like a crazy idea . But then I slept on it and I said well , why not ?

Speaker 1 12:40

We actually speak a lot about other companies , but we don't really speak about ourselves that much . And so Josh was very intentional about drilling deep into the company culture of MarsBase . And we speak about transparency . We speak about like why am I so outspoken in politics ? For instance , how do I combine my multiple projects with MarsBase ambitions ? And I've selected this particular part of the episode because it's one of the longest episodes we've recorded . But this part in which he touches really , you know , somewhat not confidential but an uncomfortable part of business , which is are you going to sell the ?

Speaker 6 13:25

company . It's sort of all the tech companies . They all strive to not pay any tax and they make out this all self-made billionaires' CEOs . But actually , if you look at the infrastructure , or rather how the company operates , whether it's Tesla , amazon , netflix , they're ultimately all built on a government-created infrastructure which needs tax money to exist , right ? So it's ironic that they then kind of go the other way and they claim oh , I'm against big taxes and I'm not going to pay any taxes , or as little as possible , and they sort of claim it is all self-made , whereas actually you can't have big internet infrastructure in simple , you know , as a very simple universe . Yeah Well , we all know that the internet was created out of university . The World Wide was created by tim berners-lee . You know , none of that was made by those other guys . They built on top of it , right , um , and that was funding free tax money .

Speaker 6 14:19

But talking about investment and and sort of growing big , they say they want any of this regulation , everything . My space has got quite big . Tell me in a second . Uh , I'm not gonna ask for your revenue numbers , uh , but I'm not sure how many staff revenue numbers , uh , but I'm not sure how many staff you've got . I mean , if I remember 20 something , I'm sure you've been approached about investing and having people invest in you and potentially being acquired . What's your thought around that ? Would you ever accept because you've got quite if they were aligned with your values or anything and you felt actually this might be a good idea because it can help us grow and kind of continue our mission excuse the pun mission to mars based um we ? Would you rule it out forever or what your thoughts on that ?

Speaker 1 15:02

we'd have to consider it . I mean , throughout the years . Yeah , we've had the . I mean there's two things here . Investment doesn't really make sense . Why would you invest in an agency ? Some people do it to make sure they can just like scale shit up and kind of like blow up and open an office in 50 countries , right , Well , you're basically buying a team of devs in your case , right Like you've got all the infrastructure set up .

Speaker 1 15:28

I've had people like I remember last year there was this Israeli investor with whom I have a great friendship with . It's like dude , I'm ready to make something big in Spain . Do you want to become the next big consultancy ? We could totally pour a few million into the company and then just help you to scale up with Dundas in Israel . And I'm like thank you , but I don't want to do that . Like , what's the point ? It's a great offering , but not for me , not for my co-founders , not for the company , so that one was turned down right away .

Speaker 1 16:00

Acquisition that's a different conversation . We've had acquisition talks over the years , namely twice . By always it's always our biggest client . Right , the two times where our biggest clients two separate companies that you know , you've been working for them for a few years , you've got a big team there and they're your biggest client . At a certain point I don't know if it's intentional or not they might know that they are your biggest client they're like okay , let's talk about doing something bigger , which always comes down to how about you join our company ? Like we buy your team and you're part of the company ,

Elisenda Boll: Worst Day as Founder

Speaker 1 16:42

you can run it independently with this and that , blah , blah , blah , and then you're stuck between a rock and a hard place because you don't want to say no to your client , you definitely want to entertain the conversation , but what's the protocol right ? You don't want to lose them . In both cases , we politely turned them down . We followed protocol . We had advisors and this some of our best friends in the industry and so we had to turn them down because they were not . One of them was definitely not aligned with our , the way we perceived it was a bigger consultancy and they , they , they like we said , like house , how is it going to be like on the first day after the acquisition ? And they're like well , so you people will have to go to the office and then you , you know , like that's not gonna happen . Well , I mean , you know there's always a price for everything and , uh , you know , give me , give me two billion for Mars diesel , like I'll sell it tomorrow , but that's not going to happen . We know that's not going to happen . Cool , for the next highlight , I'm going to go back some years , actually some years before we actually started the podcast .

Speaker 1 17:46

We recorded this episode , this event of Startup Grind . We recorded this episode , this event of Startup Grind , an event that we used to organize and we ran for almost 11 years and more often than not we would cover founder stories , investment , you know , scaling the business , management , leadership , company culture and whatnot . But on rare occasions I would bring the CTOs , because I don't know of many companies that the CTO in Spain can actually give good conversation in English and is a co-founder and knows how to speak in front of an audience . And in this case , I found the perfect match Elisenda Boll , co-founder and CTO of Vellings , a company that was acquired by Apple a few years back , and of course , they really wanted to nerd out and talk about technology , but the audience wasn't the right one . At Startup Grind , we had entrepreneurs , people from corporate investors and whatnot , but not so many developers . Therefore , we don't really dig down very deep into technology . Of course we cover technology , because at the time we were speaking about TensorFlow , we were speaking about AI , machine learning , how to hire engineers , and that must have been around 2017 , if I remember correctly , 2017 , 18 , something like that . Around 2017 , if I remember correctly , 2017 , 18 , something like that .

Speaker 1 19:13

But in this episode , I remember I had a lot of fun moments . Haley is such a great speaker . She's inspirational and fun at equal parts , and I remember that I started more or less around that time to ask about the worst day at the office . I wanted people to share the lows of entrepreneurship and more often than not I was also asking the most expensive fuck up , but also wanted to know , on a personal level , how did you feel , what did you do to overcome this Mental issues that we all suffer from and I speak pretty openly about . I wanted to open up on stage in front of an audience and I think we had a very , very insightful conversation and I like to remember fondly this episode , this event with Ellie . So just take a look .

Speaker 7 20:06

I wouldn't say that here the rhythm is less like I think . Usually I tend to think that Palo Alto , or like Silicon Valley , they have very good working hours . Yeah . Because they , I'm just not meaning that .

Speaker 3 20:22

They're just kind of more business oriented . They tend to take decisions very fast , whereas here we're more like yeah , I'll postpone this decision to like next month .

Speaker 7 20:30

No , that doesn't happen . Okay , it doesn like next month . No that doesn't happen . Okay , it doesn't happen in your company . No , I don't think that happens to us . We're really quick at taking decisions . I don't think we have a different pace . I think most of the problems are mostly like how do you organize Because we have also people in Taipei , so sometimes like finding the right meeting time when you have US , barcelona and Taipei , it's just impossible . It doesn't work . Somebody has to be in a call at 1 am or 2 .

Speaker 3 21:03

But apart from that , Right , a bit of quick questions before we open up the floor for other people's questions . What has been your worst day at the office as a founder ? I think , we like to open up here .

Speaker 7 21:20

Worst day at the office .

Speaker 7 21:22

Something you really struggled with and you took a terrible decision , or Sometimes it's not exactly the question you asked , but one of my biggest problems is when somebody from the team people that you respect a lot and they're team leads and you rely on them a lot they come to you and they look at you like you have all the answers .

Speaker 7 21:48

They look at you like I'm going to ask you what's the future , what are we going to be doing in one year or two years ? And they're looking at you like you must have all the answers right . You don't have them . Most of the time it's like you're taking guesses as educated as you can and you're sharing with the team and you're open for ideas . So maybe that's the past , but maybe it isn't . So one of the moments that I struggle mostly with is when people look at you and they're expecting you to have the right , perfect answer for any single problem that there might be . You know , and they're like I mean , I'm just trying to lead this thing , but we're a startup just trying to figure out every day .

Speaker 7 22:31

I don't have the perfect solution for everything , so we're going to just keep figuring out as we go .

Speaker 1 22:36

This is a really good one . I really really like this episode with Jamin Holmgren , one of the co-founders of Infinite Red , a company we look up to , a company that had a podcast that was

Jamin Holmgren: The Fisherman Parable

Speaker 1 22:50

called Building Infinite Red , which the co-founders sort of group discussed Building the company very openly , and it was great . I have listened to that podcast about three times , all of the episodes , because they're very inspirational and insightful and instructive for companies like us . We look up to them . We've never really worked together , although we keep in each other's minds . They're really fun and you will see it , damon , despite being a CTO , really knows how to talk in public and he's got a great sense of humor .

Speaker 1 23:23

He also loves tractors . If you follow him on Twitter , you will know what I'm speaking about . And we had a very , very good conversation about the pains of building agencies , the pains of bootstrapping , the pains of leaning on the side of quality not quantity , being a super specialized company , when they decided to go all in on React Native and stop doing Rails like they had been doing for many , many years , just to be clear that they specialize in only one thing , and it was . You know , one of the pinnacles of this episode was when he started recounting the parable of the rich man and the fisherman , and I don't want to spoil it for you , so I'd rather have you watch it , because I think it explains very well what we do with the bootstrap and lifestyle businesses .

Speaker 9 24:17

So let's take a look . So about 10 years into my first agency , I met a couple of other guys , actually three other guys Ken Miller , todd Worth and Gant Laborde and we you know they we decided that we were going to merge our companies together . So at the beginning it was just me , todd and ken , and when we kind of got things together we would have these long discussions , you know , in zoom , and it was really great . And eventually I was like why don't we do a podcast ? Because there's so many cool things that we talk about that it feels like we could just make this a public discussion and people would enjoy it .

Speaker 9 24:54

Um , and so , building infinite red , uh , which is buildinginfinitered on the web you can go find it . Uh was born and uh , we went through the first season , uh , and then gant actually joined as an owner , uh , the second season , and Ken left us , actually , incidentally , to go work for a product company . And because it turns out that it really is two different type of people and for him the idea of doing consulting , you know , just didn't match with what he wanted to do , is totally fine . What's really cool is that we're still good friends with Ken , you know . What he wanted to do was totally fine . What's really cool is that we're still good friends with Kent . You know , like we went and Gant and I were down there last April and , you know , went to his house and went to lunch with him and you know we're great friends with him . But it's just . You know , it works better with certain personalities .

Speaker 9 25:44

So Building Infinite Red was born . We did one season , we did another season . We've talked about a third season . We did one season , we did another season . We've talked about a third season . We want to do a third season . But in the meantime , like we had sort of gotten to where we had said what we wanted to say and I think we would have to relaunch it with maybe a little different focus , because a lot of the stuff just holds up over time , you know it's surprisingly thus , surprisingly well .

Speaker 9 26:10

Yeah , pre-pandemic , like you know , it wasn't like we weren't doing this when everybody was remote and stuff like that . So there's maybe some new things to talk about .

Speaker 1 26:18

That was way back , way before people started jumping on the cool wagon of the podcast . Like must have been like 2017 , 18 , something like that .

Speaker 9 26:26

Yeah , that's when we did the podcast , but we were remote in 2014 .

Speaker 1 26:30

So almost 10 years ago , because I met Ken must have been like 2015 , something like that in San Francisco . That's my original connection to Infinite Red , and one of the reasons I bring this up is because oftentimes and you will also know , this is agencies , and more so , bootstrap companies agencies usually are bootstrap are perceived as unambitious projects . Right , yeah , it's true . However , we stand the test of time because right now , like companies are going down like flies , and especially startups , right , or companies are basically so , based solely on growth and no real financials to back them . So they're , you know , favorable weather companies , favorable weather companies , fair weather companies , I think you call them right In English .

Speaker 1 27:15

So , my point being , there's not a lot of literature around building agencies , like everybody tells you about building product . You know the ABC of entrepreneurship , right ? Get some friends , get a co-founder , talk to customers , find an idea , find product , market fit Ideally not raise capital in the meantime , but a lot of people have to because they're just not good at sales . Build something , try to scale it up , blah , blah , blah . Raise another round , round , round , round . After , like every 12 months , raise some money , and so , however , if you're trying to learn how to create an agency , there's not a lot of good content out there . It is . I think people assume that it's kind of like freelancing but scaling it up . There are so many things that just don't fit this description . So that's why I think that podcast if you really want to start an agency , you should consume it from beginning to end .

Speaker 9 28:08

I appreciate that that's really kind of you to say . And you're right , there really isn't a lot of uh there really isn't like a model to follow there . Um , I think partially because , uh , you know , a lot of silicon valley kind of looks down their nose a little bit . Um , the ones that are , you know , the big ones out there , pivotal and whatnot . They have a certain kind of goal and way of way of working that you know fits what they like to do . And uh , I'm have a certain kind of goal and way of way of working that you know fits what they like to do . And uh , I'm connected with a lot of you know people that are in operations and leadership within uh larger agencies and they do have a different mindset . It's very much like push , push , push , uh type of a uh mindset . Um , there's sort of this like , um , you know kind of negative uh wording of saying mindset . There's sort of this , like you know , kind of negative wording of saying that that you know , oh , you're building a lifestyle business , like a business that's sort of like built around your life , rather than trying to be ambitious , and I get that . But I don't optimize for dollars and cents necessarily . I don't optimize for , uh , perceived , um , you know , stature in the world . Um , we do optimize for certain types of impact , uh , so impact is part of it . One of our , one of our core pillars is significant positive impact , um , but we feel like we can do that in different ways than building some sort of , you know , startup that changes the world . What we really love , at the end of the day , is to work and build things with our friends and , you know , build things with people that we care about and build a great life for our families . You know happiness we're optimizing for happiness and fulfillment and contentedness , things like that and at the end of the day , you can , you can kind of like , throw away your family and throw away your personal life and your health and everything else and chase the dollar or you know the big splashy startup and then , and then what you know , someone else probably runs it after a while and you're stuck there with , you know , with not a lot , you have a lot of money , but like what else ? So I really think that you know there there's this . I've told this story countless times and it's not my story , but it's a . It's a kind of a uh , a parable , if you will . Uh , that I think is very interesting .

Speaker 9 30:34

There's this , uh , this fisherman who is , uh , he takes his boat out and he goes fishing in the morning . He goes from , you know , he sleeps in , so he's probably going out around , you know , 8 o'clock , 9 o'clock , 10 o'clock depending on the day , and he'll go out and he'll catch a couple fish and then he comes back in by noon and you know , he has lunch with his wife and he takes a siesta , and then maybe he goes into town and he , you know , kind of hangs out with his friends , has some wine , and then , you know , he and his wife go dancing in the evening and then he goes and , you know , hangs out with his kids and goes to sleep . In the morning he does it again . And one day a businessman is there , he's on vacation in this , you know this kind of like fishing village , and he sees this guy going out and doing . He says , why don't you just stop at noon ? Why don't you keep fishing until five o'clock ? You know , why don't you work harder ? And uh , the guy says , well , why would I do that ? He said , well , you can take the fish , the extra fish that you catch , and you can sell them and you'd get more money . And then you could buy a bigger boat and you'd get more fish because you could have , you could hire people to come on the boat , help you with it , and then eventually you could get many boats and , you know , have a whole fleet of fishing boats and be managing all that . And , uh , you know like , uh , you , you just be doing really well .

Speaker 9 31:59

Fisherman said , well , what would I do ? Then I said , well , what would I do ? Then he said , well , you could sell the thing you could . You know you could go public or something . You could really make tons and tons of money and you could retire early . And the guy says , well , what would I do after I retire ? And he says , well , you could sleep in , you could go out fishing , you could come back in , have lunch , take a nap , go dancing , have some wine , hang out with your kids and go to sleep . You know it's the same thing at the end of the day . You know you're the fisherman and the businessman . He's like I'm already doing that Like , make a business that allows you to have the life that you want Great .

Speaker 1 32:34

That episode with Damon was actually one of my favorites . I could talk for hours . We speak often once per quarter every few months , and we speak often once per quarter every few months , and we can always learn so much from people like Damon , who have been in the industry for many , many years running a company similar to ours . So we can , you know , chat back and forth about the pains of growing these kind of businesses . So for the next highlight , we

Liz Dunn on Imposter Syndrome

Speaker 1 33:00

have Liz Dunn , a very good friend of mine that resides in the States . I met her many , many years ago it must have been 2017 when they were on a break with her partner traveling around Europe and I hosted them at a start-up event and we had very good conversations . We emptied many glasses of wine over the course of a few days in Barcelona , where we discussed business , investment , technology , innovation and whatnot . I said , like you have to be in my podcast someday .

Speaker 1 33:34

I didn't know I was going to have a podcast conversation about innovation in entrepreneurship and her long experience in being in management positions in Silicon Valley , and one of the topics I really really wanted to cover with her was imposter syndrome Imposter syndrome . In this case , I share my imposter syndrome being an angel investor , but we talked about it at length . This is just a part of a very long conversation about many other topics , but I wanted to focus on this one because it doesn't get much press . It doesn't get spoken about as much as we should . So I hope you like this part of the conversation with Liz done Hard question here .

Speaker 1 34:22

Let's open up a little bit Imposter syndrome . Did you get it when you started investing ? Like , am I really an investor ? Can I put it on LinkedIn ? Do I really want to ? You know , advertise me as , like , promote me as an investor . Am I investing enough money to be called an investor or not ? Really , I still got it and I've been investing for six years now . So it's like I'm not really an angel investor when I never put more than 10 grand in a company and I don't know like something like this , I still get it a lot .

Speaker 10 34:51

I know what you mean . I mean , you know , being a woman in Silicon Valley , I kind of always have it Like it's always just like sitting on my shoulder , like do you belong here ? And you get treated that way too , like do you belong here , like . So I kind of I take that feeling and I kind of I use it to make me , like , show up harder .

Speaker 10 35:13

But uh , yeah , I mean , you know , especially at the point where I'd invested I don't know less than ten thousand dollars , uh , sure , I wasn't running around telling people I was an investor . Then , once I got up to , you know , more and I put that on LinkedIn . Then all these people come out of the woodwork trying to pitch you . So then I took it off .

Speaker 1 35:32

Yeah , the wheels start turning right .

Speaker 10 35:35

Yeah . But now I mean I sort of feel like I'll really feel like an investor when I get my first like profitable exit . Actually , I think one of Zach Collius's investments is about to cash out , not hard , but like a two Xer . So then I'll have like that . But my plan had been because I didn't think of myself as a real investor Well , I'm going to angel invest and I'm going to have a couple of successes , and then I'll go work at a big VC company right , because I can show them here's my resume Like I don't have , you know , an accounting or business background , but I have . I've made these successful bets . And then the more that I do this , the more I'm like why should I work for a VC ?

Speaker 1 36:22

Yeah , what's the incentive ? I mean probably , yeah , you can make like a 75X return or something like that on something crazy .

Speaker 10 36:29

Part of it was . I thought I needed that for legitimacy so I wouldn't feel like an imposter .

Speaker 6 36:33

And now I'm like nah , all right , that's interesting yeah .

Speaker 10 36:37

To go out with a business card . It's real .

Speaker 1 36:40

But for me it's like the reason I want to become an investor is to work less , not more . But if you go to a VC fund , you will work like you know until like the crazy hours around the clock , just because they're a VC and they got to have like these returns , because otherwise the fund loses money . And 75% of VC funds worldwide they lose money . They never return the money to the investors , right ? So it's like why do you want to go in a business that it's inherently bleeding money , right ? Well ?

Speaker 10 37:09

I'll send you this article and you can show it in the- .

Speaker 1 37:13

I'll link it in the show notes .

Speaker 10 37:14

yeah , but basically it talks about how , in a sense , vc is . They're so beholden to their returns that like , for example , you look at WeWork , people kept the board , knew it had a problem and it just kept letting that guy do whatever he wanted and the vcs were like this does not make sense . But then they didn't want to lose . They didn't want to , like , lose their money , so they kept just going along with it . It's a great article about how , basically , it's their desire to not to have a return on their fund that made them , you know , prop up a failing business for so long . It's a great article . It's basically like how VC is breaking business .

Speaker 1 37:57

Good , and now for the next one . This is actually a part of a series of three episodes with Mike Cunningham from Transcend Partners in which we discuss M&A everything about M&A . We discuss sales side , buy side . We discuss advisors , boutiques , prices , fees , retainers , deadlines , documents , protocol , etiquette . We discuss everything , and I think we will record three episodes more because Mike is a great friend . He's super generous with his time , he's somebody I like working with and I really enjoy all the conversations over tacos that we have offline , and every now and then I'm like man . It's been a while since we recorded with Mike and when you will watch this part of the clip , you will understand why you want to consume the entire three episodes we recorded with Mike . So let's jump right into it . What's one or two clauses

Mike Cunningham: M&A Insider Tips

Speaker 1 39:00

that only rookie entrepreneurs would accept ? Something that you know seasoned entrepreneurs . When they see on the LOIs , they're like fuck , no , I'm not getting this .

Speaker 11 39:09

Yeah . So I mean , this exclusivity period is one that almost nobody really understands too well . They just don't know what the norms are . So it's kind of they get an LOI and it says 80 days of exclusivity .

Speaker 1 39:22

And they're like oh , 80 days is nothing , right ? Yeah , they're like ah , 80 days is nothing , right ?

Speaker 11 39:25

Yeah , they're like ah , makes sense to me , you know they're going to be investing in- . What's the lowest you ?

Speaker 1 39:30

can get it to Wow . I mean there's 30 days yeah .

Speaker 11 39:32

I mean 30 days would be quite low . But you also want it to be two . Everything you do in this you want to be kind of in good faith in two way , because the more it seems you don't want to be too one-sided . You need to be doing things in a , you know , kind of a partnership way . Obviously you're representing your interests and you want it to be certainly not negative for you but as favorable as possible . But you also don't want to be unrealistic and demanding things that are way off market . So this is another thing an entrepreneur , you know , who doesn't have experience in this , they could say no , you know , I'm not giving more than 15 days of exclusivity , and every acquirer I'm not saying this has ever happened , but it could easily happen Every acquirer would say that's ridiculous , this is a joke . I'm not going to do this process with this guy . He's demanding outrageous things and he has no idea what he's talking about .

Speaker 11 40:20

So it's kind of we know , kind of what's the norm , what's in the market what's reasonable and you know , and what's reasonable but very good for our end , because the range of reasonability is is very wide . You know , and if they , you know , and I would say many times you know , especially if they're not dealing with a professional advisor , you know they're going to try to push things in their favor , why not ? Who wouldn't you know ? I mean , it's kind of you know . If I know I'm just , you know , dealing with a CEO or you know somebody from the board in this process , then you know why not ? You know , make it as favorable for myself . So it's kind of so that's , you know , I think , quite normal on the side of the buyer in those situations .

Speaker 1 41:03

Oh man , this is a really good one , john O'Nolan . That's actually a big achievement for me personally , as a longtime user and fanboy of Ghost , one of the technologies I love the most , one of the products I really admire . I've been following for many , many years . My personal website is built with Ghost . I really like him . I really like John as a leader . He's a charismatic entrepreneur , charming , charming person , super generous with his time .

Speaker 1 41:33

I sent him an email Do you know me , john , I really like to host you on the episode and within two minutes it's like yes , let's do it , let's find a time . Boom , and in three days we were recording . Like that doesn't happen with this sort of caliber and these people high up the ranks of entrepreneurship and technology . So , yeah , I really admire him . Super thankful , we discussed everything . We didn't discuss everything because we didn't have time and I was nervous , as you will be able to tell from the episode , but we had a really , really fun moment towards the end of the episode in which he actually actually he saw and he caught the reference a reference I like to use from Hot Ones , one of my favorite YouTube shows , and he's like man that's from Hot Ones , right , I appreciate the reference Like man that's from Hot Ones . Right , I appreciate the reference . I'm like okay , you're the first one to actually get it . In more or less 100 episodes I've been using these sentences Like I'm rolling the red carpet for you . Here's your camera , here's your camera . I like that style towards the end of the interview , and so we started riffing for a couple of minutes about Hot Ones and his favorite episodes that were not , and I think that that was really , really fun

John O'Nolan and Hot Ones

Speaker 1 42:47

.

Speaker 1 42:47

The entire episode is fantastic . It's phenomenal , but I think this part is pretty short . It's pretty fun . It's good to kind of like wrap up this episode even though we got one more , and so I hope you enjoyed this conversation with John Nolan . I was going to go into that , but I think from this answer you've just given me , I've inferred how not to use Ghost , which I think it's as valuable , if not more . So well , let's just wrap it here . Because you've been extremely generous with your time . I'm rolling out the carpet for you . You got one minute left to say how we can help you , how we can help Ghost and any announcements or anything you want to share with our community .

Speaker 5 43:27

Love the Hot Ones reference .

Speaker 2 43:29

yeah , If you want to check out Ghost You're the first one to get it yes .

Speaker 5 43:36

I would . If you publish online and you have an email list or you have thoughts to share with the world , check out Ghostorg . We're doing a lot of interesting things . Um favorite hot ones episode so far . I mean the DJ Khaled's always a classic right , just for for its incredible failure . Um , what was the one I watched just last week ? Oh , ryan Reynolds , that one was really good .

Speaker 5 44:07

Yeah that's very good . There's a few . I'm struggling to think of them all on the spot . Jimmy Fallon is the one I just watched . He was very funny . What's yours ? Shaquille O'Neal probably .

Speaker 1 44:19

Like I don't understand him most of the time we're speaking , but the faces and the entire performance is superb . That for me is like an all-time great .

Speaker 5 44:30

Ricky Gervais . The Gordon Ramsay one was good as well , just because of how angry he got throughout the whole thing , like why do you do this Exactly ?

Speaker 1 44:38

exactly , they're really good ones . And then I'm really surprised by people who you wouldn't expect it but they tolerate spiciness so well , like charlize their own , for instance , and uh I'm surprised , gary vaynerchuk yeah , yeah , exactly . Some people are like yeah , yeah , spicy , but you know , I'm like yeah , holy fuck like I . I have the bomb , the bomb , I have it in my fridge . It's is literally unbearable Stuff like that I love spicy and that's why I buy all of these terrible sauces and when I see some of the guests that they don't break a sweat , I'm like , no , I don't know how they can do it .

Speaker 1 45:19

I don't know how they can do it , but anyways .

Speaker 5 45:21

I'm a big hot sauce fan .

Speaker 1 45:23

And for the last one , oh man , this

Dorian Carroll: Data Center on Fire

Speaker 1 45:26

is the banger . This is the banger of the episode . So , yeah , we have Dorian Carroll , great , great friend of mine , great person to converse , super interesting , super knowledge about technology , super experienced , being a CTO for companies , silicon Valley , and VP of engineering and technology since I don't know for 40 years right now close to 50 . I got the mistake in , but yeah , he's worked for companies like EA . He's worked for Technorati , for Blogger , for Amazon and for many , many other companies . When I met him back in the time , he was a CTO , slash CIO of Zynga , you know the gaming company , and I really wanted to wrap up this special five years anniversary of the podcast special episode with a banger . And the last one is his technical fuck up in which , well , it's , let's , let's put it like that it is a very hot one an electrician had been working out on the street and he wasn't uh , he wasn't certified .

Speaker 12 46:40

he made some mistake , luckily didn't kill himself , but uh , what he did in doing that , it actually started a fire in the data center , and so we were literally on fire . This wasn't just an emergency . The software is on fire that people often say . No , the data center was on fire . They were able to put the fire out Lateral fire .

Speaker 12 47:03

Yeah , lateral fire , they were able to put the fire out . They were able to put the fire out and we realized we weren't going to have power in that data center for a while and we rented a trailer and unplugged all of our equipment and stacked it in the back of this trailer and drove it over to a new data center where we had been looking at and just we moved the whole thing and we got the site back up and running .

Speaker 1 47:29

How long had it elapsed ?

Speaker 12 47:32

We had realized we needed to change data centers , so we had a footprint in the new data center to some extent , but we hadn't been ready to flip the switch . So I think , if I recall correctly , we were able to flip the switch to at least put up a sorry page , uh , and then , over the course of , I think you know , several hours , we were able to bring up the rest of the services maybe it was somebody who wanted to speed up that process .

Speaker 1 47:53

He was very getting upset that this was not moving and the ceo was not approving the budget . It's like , fuck it , I'm gonna burn the office down if you don't do it . Anyways , last question to you . It's a very , very , very nice way to end this special episode . We learned a lot from Dorian . You can go and watch also the Startup Grind episode we recorded with him , where we discussed more technology . We nerded out for an hour about React , nodejs , javascript , ruby , amazon Cloud and whatnot . We discussed a lot of technologies .

Speaker 1 48:29

But , yeah , hope you enjoyed this special compilation of the five years anniversary of Life on Mars podcast . There's going to be five more years . I assume we enjoy doing this . We want to thank you for your support . I want to thank you for being there , for sending suggestions of content , suggestions of speakers , sending questions , and I'd like to ask you for more questions . If you made it this far , let us know in the comment section down below , because you really and truly deserve a gold medal for being a great supporter and for always being there for us , and so you got some questions for the company , for me , for my co-founders , for some of our employees for David , the marketing guy , whomever , just let us know in the comment section down below . Send it also via email at olamarspacecom . And , as always , if you like this show , just recommend us share it , retweet , repost , hit the like and subscribe buttons and I'll see you all in the next episode .