Below The Line With James Beshara

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode was originally recorded near the end of February, and we usually take a week before releasing a recorded podcast. But with the exponential disruption that the Coronavirus was unleashing in many places around the world in the subsequent weeks, we wanted to hold off on releasing this episode until we felt like people had been able to get their feet beneath them. We recorded a COVID-19 focused episode and released that recently with Eric Ries — Now we're back to our more typical conversation style today with Mike Duboe from Greylock Partners. Mike is an old friend and colleague, and he's one of the smartest thinkers when it comes to startup growth in Silicon Valley. He has a rare combination of analytical, practical, and creative thinking all-in-one which makes him a pretty high in-demand advisor, investor, and name that comes up when people start talking about healthy (and still aggressive)

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode was originally recorded on February 26th. We usually take a week before releasing a recorded podcast, but with the exponential growth and disruption that the coronavirus has been unleashing on the world, we wanted to hold off on releasing this episode and a few others until we felt like people had been able to get their feet beneath them. We recorded a Covid 19 focused episode and released it recently that you can check out. And now we're back to our more typical conversation style today with Geoff Lewis. Geoff is unique in that he is a previous founder himself, turned venture capitalist at the world-class Founders Fund venture firm, and then became a founder again combining his two passions (founding and investing) by starting his own venture capital firm called Bedrock Capital with partner Eric Stromberg. We talk about Geoff’s entrepreneurial path, the lessons he learned alongside some

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Mentioned in the podcast: SchoolClosures.org Ben Horowitz on Layoffs HelpwithCOVID.com From our individual to our community-wide responsibilities, I chat with best-selling author, founder, and investor Eric Ries about what might be, what could be, and perhaps what should be going through each of our minds right now. I keep hearing people say this moment is surreal. I look down empty streets, and it does feel that way sometimes as we struggle for perspective and control of the circumstance. But it dawned on me that, what’s surreal was the moments before all this, when we were under the delusion of control. This is real. Who knows how long it stays this real, how long before we are back under the illusion of control, but no matter the timeline, this is real. We’ve been shaken out of our surreal illusion, and we find ourselves here. You cannot escape circumstance, but you can transcend it. For every leader,

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Mentioned in the podcast: https://twitter.com/shl/status/1229844208959152128 Today we've got another deep-dive episode and this one is on monetizing your creativity. It's with Sahil Lavingia, who is the founder and CEO of Gumroad, who's been on the podcast before. A great Below the Line episode with him going into detail in reflecting on his entrepreneurial path. Today goes a little bit more into detail on one specific thing, and that's monetizing your creativity. Not only has Sahil monetized his own creativity, but he is also the founder of a company, a writer, and a painter. But his company actually powers the monetization of a countless number of creatives around the world. Whether they are creating art, making music, writing books, or wanting to pursue a side hustle. Sahil tweeted about this recently, and that tweet thread is why I'm having him back on the show. He sent out a single tweet that went p

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Companies mentioned: Nori - https://nori.com/ Indigo - https://www.indigoag.com/ Joro - https://joro.tech/ LiveGreen - https://livegreen.io/ Sinai Technologies - https://www.sinaitechnologies.com/ Project Wren - https://projectwren.com/ Prometheus Fuels - https://www.sciencemag.org/ Solugen - https://www.solugentech.com/ C16 Bio - https://www.c16bio.com/ Heart Aerospace - https://heartaerospace.com/ Wright Electric - https://weflywright.com/ Drawdown - https://www.drawdown.org/ Y Combinator Carbon RFS - http://carbon.ycombinator.com/ Watershed Climate OpenOcean Today's episode is another deep dive into a brand new space that actually has a *lot* going on already. Though it's a very recently coined term, “Climate Tech” is going to be here for a while. I’m joined by Gustaf Alströmer, a partner at Y Combinator, and Diego Saez-Gil, the founder of Pachama.com. There's Health Tech

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author This plog (podcast+blog post mashup) is called “Routines & How to Avoid Stupidity”. A little over a year ago, a really smart investor, Adam Robinson, was speaking with Shane Parrish on his podcast. He defined stupidity really clearly for me. I hadn't heard it defined this way before, thought it was really great, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. What makes us miss crucial information right in front of our faces? And how can we avoid that? Listen to this mini-episode to learn more. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today, I’m going to be trying out something that I’ve been starting on an app called TalkShow where I record short daily plogs. It’s basically an audio post instead of a written blog. This will be anywhere from 5 to 6 minutes each but they’ll be on different topics. The first topic is about podcasting. It seems like a fitting way to kick-off this type of experiment and it’s expounding on the concept that podcasting is the truly free press in my mind. I think the internet, in the last 20 years, has been amazing for many things but I think it was built for podcasting more than anything else. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with Ben Witte. He's the founder and CEO of Recess. You might not have heard of Ben or Recess but it is perhaps the fastest-growing beverage in the country over the last year. You can go to www.takearecess.com to check out their product which is amazingly well done from the brand to the taste of the drinks. I often have a weird quirky drink that I share with a guest on each episode and Recess was one of the first. I remember Justin Kan loved it so much that he asked for some afterward. It is a CBD drink, that is for me, instead of having a beer at night or Saturday afternoon or day drinking, just have a Recess. I really love the taste more than anything else and second to that is the brand, and the kind of universe that Ben has designed around the drink. If you go check out their site or their Instagram, you'll see what I mean. It's really unique. I think what's most interesting about

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today’s episode is with Vlad Magdalin, co-founder and CEO of Webflow. We sat down and chatted about his insane story of failure that spanned for 15 years before getting it right, his early experiences that shaped him as a founder, and what he thinks about that he rarely gets a chance to talk about. Webflow raised $75 million from investors a few months ago and was one of the largest Series A's of the last few years. We talked about the debt he went into financially and personally, including with the most important of co-founders, his spouse, almost ten years before this milestone. He shared with us what he thinks about today as a leader, and we also talked about the r-word (religion!) openly and publicly! It's an in-depth conversation, and it is one of my favorites to date. I think you're going to enjoy this very different kind of conversation and founder story. You can email James questions directly at

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today on the program, we've got Sarah Tavel. She’s a venture capitalist at the legendary and enigmatic venture capital firm, Benchmark Capital, which is one of the most renowned firms in the world. We covered a whole range of topics like, how her partners work together, how she chooses an investment, examples of what made her pass and then later invest in a company that she now loves, and the dynamics with a founder in that situation. We talked about the Gartner Hype Cycle and its implications for what the psychological journey in creation is like, whether it's launching a new company or launching a new feature. We also talked about the stories that have helped shape who she has become (and what has made her so damn impressive). Listen in for all this and more. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with J

Today's episode is another deep-dive (meaning it's a little bit different than the regularly scheduled episodes), and it is with a founder, Diego. This was recorded as we met and chatted about his startup. About three minutes into meeting / him pitching me his company, I said, “Hey, hold on, hold on. Could we record this? Could we actually sit down and record this as a podcast episode and just release it to the world so that people could see what it was like to have an angel investor coffee.” Many people think that these things are like a shark tank pitch — and that it's adversarial or that the investor sits there wanting to poke holes to fluster the founder. But for angel investors and very early stage investors, even through series A or B investors, they want people to understand that they're not trying to poke holes to try to undermine the founder or try to catch them in a crazy scenario. Great investors want to imagine what the world could be like with that founder. That was what I loved about my favorite

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with Kamal Ravikant, the author of the best selling books “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It”, “Live Your Truth”, and “Rebirth”. Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It”, a self -published book that became a phenomenon (selling over 400,000 copies world-wide, all without a publisher), is now reprinted, updated, and re-released this month. If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend it. This episode talks about where Kamal was in his life right before writing the book, the stories that shaped him, and his experiences that then shaped what became “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It”. There’s a phenomenal message within the book, and it might sound like you've heard something like this story before — or that it is just another book in the self-help section — but this one is really special, and you'll get to hear a little bit of why during this episode. So go

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is another deep dive with Dr. Peter Carnochan, who the coach to some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. He spent 25+ years as a psychologist and psychoanalyst before becoming an executive coach. I love getting Peter's key takeaways from the psychological side of things from recent guests. So today we covered Dr. Andrew Weil’s episode and the topic of death, Paul Austin on psychedelics, Cal Fussman on storytelling, Ann Miura-Ko on investing, Joseph Emmett on yoga for the intellect, Justin Kan on the inner journey of being a founder and creator, and many other areas where Peter shared his insights. Enjoy. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Serena Dugan is a founder, an artist, and a delight to chat with — This episode is a founder story that isn't like many founder stories. She didn't set out to create a world-renowned brand. She actually just walked into a small local shop, and before she knew it, she was meeting with the shop-owner the next day... and from there, they were planning world dominance. They ended up creating Serena and Lily, the famous home decor brand. If you don't know about home decor brands, ask anyone who does, and they'll tell you that Serena and Lily is perhaps the most respected brand within the space. But that didn't happen overnight. Serena talks about the honest version of creating Serena and Lily. She also talks about the life experiences that have helped shape who she has become, beyond just an artist and founder. From a consultant to an artist, then to a co-founder, and now back to art... Every time that we

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with an anonymous guest. We're going to call him John Doe. John and I talked about the “below the line” version of the story of being a police officer. We also covered what has changed in San Francisco, some for the better, some for the worse, over the years. There's no doubt there are many good things that have happened in San Francisco in the last few decades. There are also some really strange and unfortunate things in his estimation, and we talked about the root causes of that in his opinion. As a life-long San Franciscan, who has seen the underbelly while living here for 50+ years, it’s a fascinating take on the city. We also covered why he became a police officer in the first place, what he didn't expect to see and experience, and a whole lot more. This is one of the most interesting conversations we've had on the podcast. And we certainly talked about a world you don't get to he

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today we have another deep dive and this one is a really hot topic in the startup ecosystem and yet so little is written, discussed, researched, and talked about when it comes to how to build marketplace businesses. So after spending seven years at Airbnb, Lenny Rachitsky has been advising marketplaces around the world in 2019. He took that experience, and said his own experience at Airbnb wasn’t enough — and so he had conversations with dozens of other people from 17 of the biggest marketplaces out there and consolidated all of his research into what has just dropped this week, which is about a 50-page amazing deep-dive on what makes these marketplace businesses tick. And this episode is the audio complement to this comprehensive (yet simple to understand) compilation of what he has found. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelow

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with Matt Mullenweg. The founder of Automattic, the parent company of WordPress (which powers an unbelievable 34% of the internet as of recording!). We talk about the beginning of WordPress, about getting started as a founder and organizer, about attachment theory, about what’s in his backpack at all times, his hardest days running WordPress and Automattic, and a whole lot more. We also talked about what it's been like raising $300 million for Automattic just last month, valuing the company in the billions. He also shared with us what he learned in Houston as a kid growing up there and why he still makes it his home base. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author When it comes to productivity, there aren’t many things we do today that we did 200 years ago. We send emails instead of post mail, drive cars instead of horse-drawn carriages, and look up things on our phones instead of traveling miles to the nearest library. However, when it comes to our morning routine, 80 percent of the world consumes caffeine each day to wake them up and give them a boost for their daily tasks. Whether it’s black tea or coffee, most of us consume the same ingredients we consumed 200 years ago without realizing two important facts. First, coffee beans and tea leaves are not the only sources of energy that nature provides us. Second, productivity is more than just wakefulness. Its energy, focus, creativity, decreased stress, and improved sleep, among other things. What can nature, science, and global access to different ingredients tell us about optimal productivity? And which ingredi

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Dr. Andrew Weil has been called “the medical Nostradamus” for his foresight into what’s on the healthcare horizon. He is a world-renowned pioneer in the medical and healthcare space — leading Western healthcare toward an integrative, healing and prevention-based approach to health, decades before it was en vogue. His resume could go on for another few pages, and it still wouldn’t do it justice. He’s the best-selling author of over a dozen books, founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, and the co-founder of one of my favorite restaurants (and my wife’s all-time favorite) True Food Kitchen. He’s also a massive matcha tea fan. He was one of the earliest healthcare professions to openly write about diet and nutrition, openly criticize the over-prescription of pharmaceuticals, popularizing themes like healthy aging, mind-body con

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode was actually a live recording with a good friend, a former investor and a continual mentor to me (and dozens of entrepreneurs who I also love and respect). His name is Justin Kan, and he was episode number one for Below The Line. Justin is a founder and investor based in San Francisco. He has been building startups for close to 15 years now, and he's seen pretty much everything there is to see when it comes to the founder’s journey. He's also a former partner at Y Combinator and has invested in dozens of companies, giving him a unique perspective on both sides of the table. He is the co-founder and CEO of Atrium, a full-service corporate law firm that uses modern technology to serve startups all around the world in a fast, transparent and price predictable way. It's phenomenally useful. I've used it and so has a number of founders that have been on the podcast. You can email James questio