BRAIN FOOD vol. 5

You are a Neural Network???

Ofc we humans are so much more, but as far as experiencing life, our brains function as follows:?

1. Sense external stimuli?
2. Generate knowledge?
3. Build a model of predicted outcome

Voilà, we get our behavior . And in November, we were on our best behavior. Aside from 4 dazzling shows with marvelous insights and belly laughs on the Silicon Zombies Podcast , Brain Food also hit 1,000 subscribers!

And for us, that's pretty huge- like Lenny Kravitz' scarf huge . Especially given that Spotify has over 5 million podcasts, and growing.

???Spotify ?ranked us in the top 5% of most shared podcasts globally ??

?? They also ranked Zombies in the top 25% of most followed podcasts globally ??

Takeaway here is be consistent, and be good. To the Zombie Community: The best is yet to come ??????

At any rate, on with the show!

Gary Fowler believes intellectual capacity is evenly distributed around the world, but opportunities are not.

After working all over, he realized a lot of entrepreneurs (especially Eastern Europe) just didn't have the voice to reach their audience - yet they are solving a lot of big problems. This self-described 'country boy from a farm in Philadelphia' is also an award-winning tech-executive with 3 decades of success, including the Salesforce acquisition of ClickSoftware for $1.35B. Needless to say, Gary is the definition of smart money; startups fortunate enough to be in the?GSD Venture Studios ?portfolio (there's currently 140+) get to leverage his expertise in global strategic innovation, sales, marketing, operational management, and insights around tech innovation, like:

The Quantum computer is 100 million times faster than the faster supercomputer today. What would take 10,000 years takes 200 seconds         

Technology for Peace ??

About a year ago, Gary spoke at the United Nations on how to solve big problems. Like by 2050 we have to double our food supply to feed the planet - and we can't increase our livestock as a quarter of pollution is methane gas from cows . "Population explosion. Rising temperatures. We gotta figure out how to work together, using tools and technology to help us solve these issues."

Let's open our minds to what the possibilities are. To give some perspective, Gary's friend Christopher Altman (Quantum Physicist and NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut) shared with him:

"There's 6 billion earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy in the 'goldilocks zone', close enough to a star to be habitable. Not to mention an estimated 2.2 Trillion galaxies in the universe."

Gary continues, "We need to open up our arms, our hearts, and our souls to startups from around the world- and that's worked out really well for us...we can create inter-generational teams...and it'll make the world a kinder, richer way." In fact, his TED Conferences is all about Passion, Optimism, and visualization.

 
Most consistent quality in study of 3k+ top entrepreneurs? 

Amnesia - They don't get stuck in the past.         

"Having originally been a humanistic clinical psychologist, I know the importance of listening, of unconditional love. Do things that show you care."

-Gary Fowler

This outlook is great, given he's an early stage investor with a heart for entrepreneurs from around the globe. Tino Go, ASID, IIDA had a chance to pitch Baru (locally made, custom furniture), as did Daniel Cohen from LumaCell Systems , detecting small molecules and their neurological effects; starting with impairment testing. Superb feedback all around, and a few closed with a follow up meeting.

Was awesome to be on his GSD Ventures Podcast (link here ) and hope to have Gary Fowler on again. He's got a brilliant mind for business and a huge heart. LP's hunting for a good vehicle and founder's searching for the right investor: look no further than GSD Venture website here , and full Spotify episode here .

"Sometimes we focus so much on sales and forget to take care of ourselves," share's sales coach Kevin "KD" Dorsey . In reality, the opposite is true. Having recently spoke at a 500 Startups founder's summit in Mexico City, he said, "It's more about integration than a work/home life balance."

His last team would use the following acronym: WWKDA:What Would KD Ask? Good or bad, KD has questions. Both because he's curious, and also he knows to work backwards so his students get the right answer. Some questions are to learn, others to teach.

"Slow down enough to involve your people in the building process: An approach seasoned with patience and humility, & drives accountability"

-KD        

On whether or not to twist the knife ??

Salespeople need to highlight a prospects problems, but don't stay there too long. Discovery questions (to find uncover frustrations) is one thing, but also show how the 'now' is preventing them from where they want to be. How would it feel if there was resolution? What would you do with that extra time? Another way to put it is"Show me you know me" from Kevin's friend, Samantha McKenna , which focuses on proper questions as if you were in their shoes.

Re: His 100k LinkedIn Followers, it's not how, it's why ??

Why you are building a brand is more important than How. KD's reasons were two-fold.

?? Get access to people smarter than him.

?? Get people to want to work with him.

Visibility into past content helped drive credibility, allowing him to ask them questions and build a relationship. Your brand will attract the right kind of people. Some of his favorites? Among others, Dan Kennedy who says

Marketing is "behavioral psychology and math, and nothing overcomes bad economics" -Dan Kennedy

Being a student of language and how we make decisions, KD's focus is around messaging and process-creation (allowing for scale). Peter Wang asked the difference between marketing sales, to which KD said,"most sales leaders are not as metric-driven, but that's developing. There's no school for sales leadership - but we are trying to change that."

Modern technology Innovations

Founder Jessica Breed asked what platforms marketing teams should be leveraging, and according to KD, Call Intelligence is underused. Gong is a perfect example; to better understand engagement and objections which drives content. Lavender likewise has proved valuable. Kidventurez let's family's design a perfect trip with instant survey trip design.

Check out Kevin "KD" Dorsey 's podcast Live Better, Sell Better here and the full SZ episode here .

Could you imagine hiring a new employee, only to then send them to your customer for a several months?

This is exactly the practice of GoodTime founder Jasper Sone , because you can never be too close to the customers problems. And once you hit product-market fit, it can generate millions if not billions of dollars.

We were lucky to have Jasper on for several reasons.

First is his grasp of scaling businesses with creativity, second being his ability to simply communicate bleeding edge technology at every level of the stack. But even further - He’s a good human and very humble. Jasper shares, "A difference I could generate for myself...is by spending a lot of time asking questions to find holes in the market."

Getting to Sustainability: Blue Ocean Strategy

Finding underserved (aka unsolved) problems allows you to drive long-term value, says Sone. The less competition, the better. In fact, Peter Thiel also famously championed that in his Stanford lecture turned landmark book Zero to One , saying, " There are 2 kinds of companies, non-monopolies, and monopolies; and competition is for losers."

But Cool Doesn't Pay the Bills

To rewind a bit, GoodTime started off as a product called Etch, which launched at a hackathon in 2015. Etch made it super easy to exchange BTC using wearable devices. But even with 30k downloads a day - which caused the 3 cofounders to leave their full time jobs- they realized money was running out. Jeffry Marinelli (who co-hosted) asked about when they knew to pivot. The market for recruiting was hot, but a lot of the important processes struggled operationally.

Product Market Fit, For Real

Being obsessed about understanding your customers pain allows you to build products they'll praise, love, and share. Jasper's CEO took a job at one of their potential customers, and benefitted from learning at an accelerated pace. This Breadth and Depth approach allows for true research and insight; not sterile surveys or focus groups. The biggest result (aside from essentially zero churn) is confidence in building the right product because you know it'll hit home. Jen L. inquired how we can know when PMF, when often there's just not enough time to use retention a signal. Jasper's answer: Ask for money. When customer's are ready to pay, ask for $10. If they agree, double the next customer to $20. Then $40, and so on until you get a No. You may surprise yourself.

PMF in 3 Steps:

     Step 1: Connect with people that can express real problems

    Step 2: Validate there are no existing solutions in the market

         Step 3: Make learning cheap so you can build to PMF
        

"After implementing this (breadth and depth) methodology, we went from 1/10 hit rate (product ideas getting to strong fit) to now around 7/10." --Jasper Sone

They learned most meetings are a waste of time, and Elon agrees ??

After talking to more customers, they realized 80% of meetings were considered a waste of time (quite a bit, considering 55 million business meetings happen in the US every week). Their core technology was applied in a new direction, and the product continued to develop. Billionaire investor, engineer, and CEO Elon Musk also had some notes this week on efficiency, released from an internal memo to Twitter ,

1) Avoid large meetings: they waste valuable time and energy, discourage debate, and there’s often not enough time for everyone to contribute. Only schedule if they provide value to everyone.

2) Leave a meeting if you’re not contributing: If a meeting doesn’t require your: Input, Value, or Decisions, Your presence is useless. It’s not rude to leave a meeting, but it is to waste people’s time.

3) Forget the chain of command: Communicate with colleagues directly and not through supervisors or managers. Fast communicators make fast decisions = competitive advantage.

4) Be clear, not clever: Avoid nonsense words and technical jargon. It slows down communication. Choose words that are concise, to the point. Don’t sound smart, just be efficient.

5) Ditch frequent meetings: Less is more. Instead, use meetings to:Collaborate, Attack issues head-on, and solve urgent problems. Once you get resolution, typically no longer necessary. Instead, send a text, send an email or slack message and don't ruin the teams flow.

6) Use common sense: If a company rule doesn't make sense or contribute to progress, re-assess. Don't follow rules, follow principles.

Grateful for all the wisdom and discernment from Jasper Sone ??. Be it for an interview, or every other meeting, GoodTime helps you schedule smarter—so you hit goals faster, build better relationships, and make the most of your time. click here to learn more, and here for the full episode.

A storm is brewing.?

And that storm is the demand for the liquid that makes life on earth possible:?

You guessed it, water???

A single drop contains billions of water molecules, yet we can’t last a week without it. The stark reality is that 785 million people lack access to clean water, and that number is growing. Women and girls spend an estimated 266 million hours hauling water every day, an enormous economic opportunity cost.

Enter applied science ??

Atmospheric water generation?(AWG) uses condensation/filtration tech to produce potable water from surrounding air. It confronts the growing problem of depleting levels of drinking water in the world. Crucial innovation, given that in few years, 50% of the world's population will live in areas without access to clean, fresh, and safe drinking water. Fortunately, Sarah Benson-Konforty, MD ?and the? Watergen Ltd team are tackling this challenge to improve the human condition. And there's certainly a lot of politics involved; Dr. Sarah recommends 'Dark Waters' (2019) , based on The lawyer who became DuPont's worst nightmare.

How Does AWG Compare to Desalinization? Are we Messing with Nature?

Tricky to compare the two. For one, 'Desal' requires a large body of water. Not to mention, we don’t really know the impact on water cycle; and there’s been issues in the past in manipulating with the environment. In 1952 there was ‘cloud seeding’ via Operation Cumulus. The UK flew above clouds, dumped out silver iodide, dry ice, and salt to make it rain (specifically on enemy fronts). The result? ?? 250x the normal time of rain in 2 weeks, and 35 people died. On the other hand, Watergen Ltd pulls water from the air, similar to a giant humidifier.

A Change in the Tides

But there's good news: the modern consumer is more conscious about their selection of products and services. 苹果 CEO Tim Cook says, "We believe that business at its best serves the public good, empowers people around the world, and binds us as never before."

Speaking of whom, our very own Sharyn Bires had a chance to have dinner with Tim for the 6th Annual FIRST Inspire Gala, a robotics community that prepares young people for the future; supported by the nation's most passionate STEM education advocates. Ana Paula Monge asked a terrific question about the government's water restriction on breweries and wineries, specifically in drought-plagued California. Turns out, that's a terrific use case. ?? Sarah mentioned over 80% of our water is used for agriculture and irrigation, and there's talk in some counties of placing limits of 50 gallons per day per person (less than 1/2 of average person consumption).

Fun facts about agriculture in the Golden State

• CA is the 4th largest economy in the world, having just surpassed Germany ????
• CA grows 43% of the nations fruits, nuts, veggies ???????????
• Largest producer of food, least amount of farmers (we've got the best climate)

This focus on ESG , specifically sustainability is not new to Dr. Benson. As Head of Sustainability & Innovation Center in Palo Alto, she and colleague Nick Harris work to further their mission. How does the science work? The Heat Exchanger (the brain, of sorts) uses food-grade polymer to first heat it up, then cool it down. After the filtration system, there's the buffer tank then a UV light for sterilization. Think higher quality than mineral water, and up to 1,500 gallons a day per device.

Thank you to Dr. Sarah Benson-Konforty, MD for a superb show! She's an Israeli-born serial entrepreneur, executive, tech investor and a medical doctor based in Silicon Valley, California. She also serves as the Managing Director USA of Be’er Itzhak Energy , A family Office investing across industries and markets around the world.

Listen to the full episode here .

Events ??

The Bay Angels , Shawn Flynn , and Leo Ma hosted a spectacular Startup Pitch night in San Jose, with a VIP cast of judges including B Capital 's Nick Thompson and angel-investor/fractional General Counsel Matthew Lopez . Terrific pitches from the founders ??

Plug and Play Tech Center hosted their year Silicon Valley Summit, attended by luminaries Deep S. Jordan Wahbeh , Zahava Stroud , and others. Superb keynote given by former CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer . Also, Boardwalktech CEO Andrew Duncan and SVP of Sales JB Kuppe shared how the Enterprises data is becoming actionable. Talk about knowledge management in action! Control the chaos of your information universe here .

Huge Congratulations to Building Education on hosting their 3rd Annual Charity Gala at The Green Room in San Francisco War Memorial with over 120+ attendees. The locally based non-profit raised funds for their 5th school in Nepal that will support over 500+ students. Founder Wendy Shew started the organization when an earthquake hit Nepal and damaged 9,000 schools. Since then, only 4,000 have been rebuilt.

Excited to see more tremendous work from Wendy and team ????

Founder of the Month???

This month we have the pleasure to honor Olivia Gambelin , who is pioneering EaaS (Ethics as a Service) with Ethical Intelligence : is building the first ever Ethics- as-a-Service (EaaS) platform. They support AI- driven organizations create trustworthy & responsible AI. We power our solution with the EI Expert Network, a rapidly growing community of verified top talent in Responsible Tech. Interested in beta testing? click here .

That's all from us, catch ya next month. Until then, be good to yourselves, and be good to each other ??

Need help building product? Check out our friends at Necodex . They've done great work with founders in the SZ community like Daniel Id?kowski ????/???? , Matt Lentzner , and others.

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