Harvard Dropout Builds Nation’s First Car-Free Utopia, with Ryan Johnson and JD Roth

23:34She's, other than the CEO, she's running most of the company. And that was, to me, obvious that she would grow into that kind of leader, even though she had not done anything like that before. So in your case, you have now reverse scaled, right? From a team of 450 to a team of 30. What have you had to do in order to adjust to that? Some of it's in terms of like, what's the exact number of employees? Like there's also lots of people that are building on the site that they're not employees. So there's over 100 on many days here. On a smaller scale, and more importantly than the size, it's a slower scale, is hyper growth creates a lot of natural urgency, right?

24:12And without that, you know, being deliberate and setting the strategy and managing to milestones and things like that, because there's less natural pressure. The challenge is to not get rich too slowly. That's right. Right. It's like, you know, talk to someone who's run a restaurant or run a grocery store or a corner store and ask them what's the hardest time to manage. It's not when they're really busy, it's when they're really slow. The reason that I'm asking so many questions about business and management and the management of teams is a lot of the people who are listening to this are either entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs.

24:49And most of them are going to be bootstrapping. Most of them are going to be starting off as somebody with a side hustle. Is there any advice that you would want to share with them? A lot of times when people start, and you can keep a lot in your head, right? You can do so much individually. And some of the easiest times for me, or some of the happiest times even building were with two people, where you just have one communications thread. And if the two of you have the right context, it's pretty easy. When it gets to be more people, it's harder. but people can keep a lot in their head. But learning to build systems, and especially before you need them, right, how to do tracking, how to bring on technology, how to manage vendors, which are effectively employees, what tools to buy, and how to run all the things in a multidisciplinary way.

25:38Those are the things that people need to work on before they become a larger company. Given how dynamic and ever-shifting a small company is, how can a small team, a team of one or two people, nail systems in place given that those systems might change three months down the road? Yeah, you don't want to put things in place too far between you need them. A lot of the things that work at a larger scale are actually more painful at a smaller scale. But generically, getting good at operations, right? Things like task management, following up, understanding that just because you told somebody something doesn't mean they're going to execute it perfectly.

26:15like learning to repeat yourself, learning to follow up and check in, learning how to manage upward, downward, laterally, and inward, which is often the hardest. So those are all skills that people need to build. What for you has been the biggest challenge in terms of managing inward? Inward is understanding what strengths and weaknesses to focus on, right? How to accentuate strengths and how to improve and the things that I've needed to be good at change in different parts of my career. really understanding that and understanding how that impacts the relationships that I have with teams, et cetera, has been a big learning.

26:51I've actually worked with a leadership coach, which is highly recommended if someone, if someone's interested in that. I've never heard of a leadership coach. So what does a leadership coach do? So a leadership, it sounds like it's self-explanatory, but yeah. So a leadership coach is someone that, that works with leaders and it can be CEOs or doesn't have to be CEOs. And they're good at coaching them to, to be a better leader for understanding these different dynamics and what the things that are unique about them and that they need to work on. And there's different forms of it. One of the forms is where they actually talk to the other people at the company.

27:21So then they start to have an understanding of those relationships and they can get, they can help you think through like really precise things like, okay, the nature of, you know, this is how you've been managing. There's this leader on your team. There's this other leader on your team. And this is the dynamics of these three. And given that let's talk together about how we might work through this situation. Right. And they're also helping you with that inward stuff. Exactly. Yeah. Right. For the things that can be conflicting. Also, some of the things like hard conversations, right? Helping you learn to inspire, learn to challenge better.

27:56Yeah. Do the hard conversations ever get easier? So as businesses grow and as you become a more senior leader, it just becomes more normal, right? And then it's something that would have been a major event in a month or a year then just becomes an everyday thing. Oh, interesting. And you just kind of, it becomes more normal. It reminds me of watching athletes where they're in the Super Bowl and you're like, how could you handle that much pressure? And you're like, well, because the game to get into the Super Bowl was also a lot of pressure and they had a lot of pressure in college and a lot of pressure in high school and they just ramped up.

28:25I would say it never gets normal. I think we all have a little bit of insecure overachiever in us. Right. For the people who are listening who are currently running a side hustle or maybe they are a one-person or two-person team, how should they think through the decision as to whether they want to stay small, keep it a lifestyle business where it's sort of a part-time side hustle that allows them a leisurely life, or go big, go an order of magnitude bigger? So this is real interesting because it brings in the sort of personal side with the professional side, right? In the startup world, lifestyle businesses are frowned upon, right?

29:10And part of it's because venture capital financing and you get congratulated when you raise money, even though you should actually be celebrating the milestones. But something that is not trying to raise a lot of money and is not trying to become a big company can actually provide a great lifestyle for people. There's businesses that are generating substantial cash flow and those people might actually be happier. So it's a very deeply personal thing because making something a startup and trying to become larger can be very stressful. So that's something people have to think about for themselves.

29:41So there's some people that maybe should go the lifestyle path, but there's also some people that should be thinking about this actually could be a bigger business and to challenge themselves. And a lot of times the people who get to do startups are the people who dare and the people who take a chance and they put themselves out there. And sometimes it also involves like getting lucky by meeting the right mentors, the right investors, the right partners, et cetera. but a lot of people may have an opportunity to build something larger. You said the people who dare. What does daring look like? Well, big part is having the mentality of like, I'm going to try this, right?

30:19And I could do this and I could be a leader. There's this imposter syndrome of like, oh, I could never start a company. I could never be a CEO, but everybody had to start somewhere. Great people can grow into things maybe even more than they thought. So sometimes there's people that are overconfident, right? You know, some, there's job postings that I'll have out for something that like really does need substantial experience. And you'll get like a college junior just coming in guns and plays qualified, right? So there's, there's some people like that, but then there's also lots of people who are much more qualified than they think, right?

30:50Also, when you have these job postings, you'll see people that are overqualified on eight aspects of the description. Marginal or not quite technically by one of the bullets. It's like, no, no, these people absolutely should be applying. Similarly, founders can come from anywhere. Leaders can come from anywhere. And so a lot of people should aim a little higher. I've been around entrepreneurs all my life. And I think this is an important point that you make about daring. I think it's too casually dismissed by a lot of people who are not fond of the more negative aspects of capitalism, but there really is a lot of risk-taking and a lot of daring that occurs when people do the sorts of things that you've done or that Paul has done.

31:29And it's an important part of being a successful entrepreneur, whether you're talking about sole proprietorship or building a big company. Absolutely. How do you manage the risk of ruin? Thinking about it a lot. The, you know, Warren Buffett, who just wrote his memoir to Charlie yesterday. He was a big inspiration. The Berkshire Hathaway letter just came out as of the time that we're recording this. As of the time we're recording it. It's like any string of numbers, if there's one zero in there, zero, and multiplied together. And so it's something to think about a lot and think a lot about looking for opportunities that have asymmetric upside, like thinking about the things that can go wrong.

32:15There's known knowns, there's known unknowns, unknowns, unknown unknowns. I'm bursting with follow-ups, but the two follow-ups that are in my brain right now is one is how do you identify asymmetric upside? The other is how do you become conscious of unknown unknowns? The asymmetric upside opportunities are rare for a reason. Warren Buffett talks about, what does he say, whale hunting or something? He's looking for these perfect businesses and it's so rare to find those opportunities. Recognizing them is, yeah. Yeah. And then in terms of unknown unknowns, being conscious that they're out there, being prepared for when they come up and being able to handle those situations and making as many of those as possible known by asking experts in new fields, by paying attention to more dynamics.

33:00Oftentimes there's warning signs. There are warning signs, but often they don't become clear until hindsight. Yeah. How do you translate hindsight into foresight? So ideally, it could happen with repeat transactions and working with people that have done it before. One of the challenging things is that there's no substitute for personally experiencing something to get that experience. In real estate, things that start off as one-offs over time turn into a huge range of experience, especially with single-family residential. The first property that we did had a huge margin of safety. right and it's part of the reason why why i got into the business because my parents eric's parents were like not in real estate not excited about it right his parents especially like he was supposed to be a doctor right and we were interested in business opportunities and gravitated to real estate and this place rented for 1400 the mortgage was 580 seemed like it was worth significantly more and we knew that we weren't experts in real estate we had some mentorship but we also knew that we would figure it out.

34:06Two months after we buy the first place, we had our first residents in. They call us and they said, the ceiling's raining. What? So it mostly only rains in August in Arizona and it had a flat roof and it had those old roof tiles with the perforated holes and there was a leak and it was coming down. And we're like, our lives are over and what were we thinking? Like we're going to... Our lives are catastrophizing. Like why did we think this was a good idea? Well, it turns out that The whole repair was like under a couple grand. There was even insurance. And it actually wasn't a huge disaster. And that was one of the lessons around being extra diligent on roof inspections and roof repairs.

34:48And take that and then take 100 things like that. And then over time, you have a system. Then eventually, you turn it into checklists. Then eventually, you turn it into software. And you have the right cadence, the right management system to implement it. And now you have something that can handle a whole range of scenarios. And there's always still going to be something that's new. What assumptions did you make about being the leader of a business that turned out to either be correct or incorrect prior to these two major businesses? I never needed to be the leader, actually, right? Eric was the leader at Open Door.

35:21For me, it was about what is a great business and being part of it. the other thing that I was really excited about in parallel with Open Door was transportation technologies. Uber and Lyft to me were clearly going to be complete changers. And same with driverless cars where it's just going to change so many different things. And it was evident that that business was so much bigger than a taxi company and was going to be changing real estate. And so it was sort of thinking about those were sort of the two different angles, the two different angles at the time. But for me, it was never actually about like, I need to lead something.

35:56Right. But it's inevitable that as one of the founders or being on the founding team of Open Door, you would inevitably be part of the top brass there. Yeah. And because I was there so early, I knew what the business would look like and shaped it in some ways. And then over time, especially because as you know, I left, it's important to have leaders that can carry that on. It seems very risky, actually, to leave something that's working. So 2018, Open Door has massive proof of concept, right? It's got 450 employees at that point. It's working, it's well-funded, It's successful. And you left to start a car-free city in the desert that you're building from scratch.

36:47Yeah. At the time, we didn't know it was going to be in the desert. We knew that there was demand everywhere, including in the desert. And it was a great point for Open Door. Open Door had just hired some key senior execs. It felt like the right time. And cul-de-sac is something that has been a dream for a long time, and it seemed like the clear moment for it, right? When you think about a lot of the great companies happen because of another technology and what it enables. So the iPhone enabled things like Instagram and Lyft and Uber and Instacart and DoorDash and so many different apps. And if you think about what changes in transportation technology enable, it's going to enable new ways to build things.

37:25And because of the timing of when those were happening, it felt like the right moment. I also had the right credibility in my career to take a bigger swing. and it's such an important problem. It's one of the most important problems of our day. How our cities are in the U.S. and how we've built them and how we're forcing people to live have made people less happy, less healthy, less wealthy. Our cities have less funds as a result of it and we need to make it better and it's what people want and it's possible but it takes doing something bold but it's urgent and important. Actually, you said something yesterday that I want to highlight because yesterday you spoke about the difference between dendritic cities versus grid cities.

38:16Can you, for me, as well as for everyone listening, elaborate a little bit? I have an immediate visual intuitive understanding of what you mean, but can you elaborate on that concept a little bit and then talk about the ramifications of that on happiness, health, and most significantly for this podcast, wealth. Yeah. So a grid system, and you can think of New York City, for example, there's more connections between places, more connections between neighbors, easier to navigate. A dendritic system, you could think of the way we build so many subdivisions where they're purposely secluded and there's lots of dead ends, the proverbial cul-de-sacs.

38:53And that means that there's fewer connections between neighbors. It takes longer to get places. there's less spontaneous discovery. The implications of that, it's hard to overstate how painful that is for a lot of aspects of our lives. And we now no longer know our neighbors in the U.S. It's created a loneliness epidemic. We've become more sedentary and it's dangerous to bike and there's not places to walk around. And that's made us less healthy. It really is a big challenge in all aspects of life. How does it impact a person's net worth? A big part of cities is the connections that people form.

39:32Cities at their core are job networks. And when there's more of those connections, people can thrive better. There's better jobs. And also just directly on what people spend. So the two biggest buckets of spend are housing and transportation. Together, they're about half of the household spend. And so much of it is inefficient spend, right? The average household spends 18K on car now. Average new car price is 48 ,000. Average monthly cost of the car is$800. And that's not to talk about all of the extra price that people pay when you go to the grocery store and that grocery store had to build a parking lot.

40:07You pay more for that, even if it's indirect. Your taxes are because the cities are built inefficiently and fire departments have to travel farther. Police departments have to travel farther. The maintenance costs are so high. It's so expensive to maintain these road networks. And there's also still big prices to pay. There's a reason people are complaining about potholes, because it's just really inefficient to build roads that way. And the bill for this is actually still in the future for cities. You know, when you're a kid, you dream about being an astronaut or working with wildlife or all these cool things.

40:39And then when you grow up, you think about not just what you want to do, but also you think about this other layer to it, which is how do I want to impact the world? What legacy do I want to leave behind? And how do I want to do that through my work? For a lot of people, that's when you start dreaming about owning your own business. But to do that, you're going to need a website, a payment system, a logo, a way to find new customers. And that can be really overwhelming and it's a big workload. That's where today's sponsor Shopify comes in. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the US, ranging from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands that are just getting started.

41:18If you need a website, Shopify's got you from the get-go with beautiful ready-to-go templates. You can get help with everyday tasks like writing product descriptions, generating discount codes. Shopify can help you find your customers with easy-to-run email and social media campaigns, and they have award-winning 24-7 customer support. turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your one month,$1 per month trial period and start selling today at shopify.com slash paula. Go to shopify.com slash paula, shopify.com slash paula. You know, we've all set health goals.

41:57Maybe we want to exercise more or eat better or lose weight, but without a plan, they often fade. That's where Prolon comes in. It's five-day fasting mimicking diet gives you a science-backed, structured approach to stay on track and see real results. So Prolon offers an injection-free way to get help to lose weight, get help to burn fat while protecting lean muscle. And in just five days, it can help activate fasting pathways to help support metabolic health and rejuvenate cells, all while letting you enjoy real food. Prolon is a plant-based nutrition program featuring soups, snacks, and beverages designed to help nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state.

42:36It's been shown to support biological age reduction, metabolic health, fat loss, and energy. And NextGen builds on the original Prolon with 100 % organic soups and teas, a richer taste, and ready-to-eat meals. I have definitely eaten way too much junk food over Thanksgiving, and so I'm actually planning on starting the five-day program because I need a reset. For a limited time, Prolon is offering listeners 15 % off site-wide plus a$40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five-day program. Just visit prolonlife.com slash Paula. That's P-R-O-L-O-N-L-I-F-E dot com slash Paula to claim your 15 % discount and your bonus gift.

43:15prolonlife.com slash Paula. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition.

43:37Listening to you, it brings up a question that I've had for a long time, and I feel like maybe you've got the education and the knowledge and the practical experience to answer it. So I've noticed that in most areas of the country, especially where I'm from in the Pacific Northwest, we use land use planning, right? Everything's zoned residential, commercial, industrial, and so on. And that's just the way we do it. There must be reasons, and you probably know them why it ended up that way, but it creates a separation where you've got these dendritic residential areas and they're isolated from the commercial hubs.

44:11And those are isolated from the industrial jobs. And when I go to Europe, when I walk around Europe, one of the amazing things to me is how the commercial is just blended casually with the residential. Do you have knowledge about like, why did the land use planning come about? And is this actually affecting the way our cities are developing in a negative way. Yeah, absolutely. As the U.S. was growing quickly, putting in these planning policies was part of, you know, it was helpful for moving more quickly. But we didn't realize at the time how damaging it was to make cities car dependent. And the challenge now is that we've basically made it illegal to build walkable neighborhoods in most of the country.

44:52And it's changing, fortunately. But if you had to boil it down to one topic that I think is perhaps the most important, it's parking spaces where parking minimums, where most land uses in the US, in most cities, you're required to build lots of parking. And that means that the city is going to be more spread out, which, and it also means that people need a car to get around because there's not things that they can walk and bike to. And we haven't invested in public transportation. And so then there's this illusion of that people want to live to have a car, but it's because they didn't have a compelling alternative, which has led us to think even more that we need to have those minimums because people want to have those parking spots.

45:32But we need to break this cycle. And Donald Shoup, who we have a conference room named after, and he's still alive. He's like 84 now. He met with our team. He's still at it. He's still like posting on social media. He really raised awareness for this. And it's not a coincidence that his big book that came out while I was in college, right? What book is that? The High Cost of Free Parking. The High Cost of Free Parking. Yeah. It's this cycle that perpetuates itself. But we need to break that. And that's what we're doing at Cul-de-sac. And this has become the reference project for cities and for developers to say, you actually can build like this.

46:05And look, actually, neighbors love it. And you have a much better place for residents and a much better place in the area. And we should just state for people who are wondering what exactly Cul-de-sac looks like. We've kind of skipped over that. Yeah, what it feels like on a day-to-day basis. It's a mixed-use development. It has restaurant and retail and is near light rail and is constructed in such a way that apartments form clusters known as pods such that there are interior courtyards where people can hang out and socialize. What am I missing? You're doing a great job. And part of the reason why we love having so many visitors is so that they can spread the word and tell people what they saw and tell developers in cities that they want to see more like this.

46:50But yeah, so Cul-de-sac is a mixed-use neighborhood. We're on 17 acres, and we're right on the light rail. We basically have our own light rail stop. We're a couple miles from Arizona State University and downtown Tempe. And our first phase is now open. So we have something like 150 residents, and we'll ultimately have something like 1 ,000. And this looks nothing like the typical apartment complex in the U.S. And we do that because we're really focused on community, mobility, and open space. And because we don't need to have a massive parking lot, we can instead have lots of great things like a plaza.

47:27We have a great restaurant. We have a corner store. We have great retail and micro retail. We have a park that's going in. And this is made possible by not having the costs or the pain of an asphalt parking lot. And also, we don't have the heat island effect. where this apartment complex feels 15 degrees cooler than the apartment next door. Can you elaborate on that just for a moment? I mean, intuitively, my guess is what you're saying is by virtue of having less asphalt, it's cooler because there's more plants and less concrete. And that's useful in Phoenix. Right. Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah.

48:04There's three big things that make this 15 degrees cooler than the apartment next door. There's not a drop of asphalt. The buildings are white, which reflects heat. And there's narrow corridors, which create lots of shade. And I'm also answering the question you haven't asked yet, but everybody always does with the heat, which is like, oh, how could you build this in Arizona? And you're like, well, first of all, there's 5 million other people that live here, so clearly it's okay. Also, if you think about what people are talking about when they're hot, they're talking about when they get in their car on that burning asphalt and the greenhouse gas effect after shopping.

48:32And that's like 175 degrees, right? Interestingly enough, when you get in a lift, it's air conditioned. When you're on an electric bike, you use the throttle, you get a great breeze. You can electric bike comfortably at like 105, 110. In the desert, so the diurnal temperature range, if you look at the delta from the high to the low, in Tempe, it's 33 degrees. And in something like New York or San Francisco, it's like 15. So it's like twice as much here. So you're in a T-shirt. But like tonight, it'll get really cold. Like if you wake up at 2 in the morning, it's going to be… It's still going to feel warm to me.

49:00Okay. Well, yeah, compared to… I've been cold in the evenings for sure. Desert. That's true. The desert gets cold at night. I put on a sweater last night. Yeah. But that's because by building asphalt everywhere, it's absorbing heat. It releases it at night, and that's part of what's made it less livable in our cities. The investors who have come on board, are they interested in the mission, or do they purely look at this through a profit lens? I can see just strictly from a profit lens, there is also the case that when you're dedicating square footage to residential housing or commercial mixed-use retail and restaurant, you don't have to devote that to parking spaces, which economically fetch less money.

49:48Yeah, it's actually a key thing that the project is profitable because if it's not profitable, it can't scale. by showing that there's the demand for this. It's part of how it's going to show others across the country that this can scale, right? So it's an important part of, as with anything, with investing in something, it's important that it makes money. I think also you can care about the impact at the same time. There are so many things that a given investor could be investing in right now. And particularly at this moment, we're right at the brink of AI. There's a lot of hype about that. But everyone and their dog is excited about the next AI superstar.

50:25And one of the biggest, and even today, the most clear manifestation of AI is driverless cars, right? We'll reshape our cities substantially. Right. So then why are investors, given opportunities to invest in anything else, why are they allocating capital towards this? Because we've been building our cities in the wrong way. And this is what people want, right? Like we were part of Y Combinator. One of their key slogans is make something people want. and people across the country want to live this way. Every generation would pay a premium to live in a walkable neighborhood. This is a national association of realtors study, including 92 % of Gen Z.

51:01And if you look at the percentage of students in colleges and high schools that are even getting their driver's licenses, this is going to be a tidal wave. Yes. And I see that in the young people I know. Right. Gen Alpha, they're probably also going to be the AI generation, but they're going to be the e-bike generation where they're taking those to school and they're realizing that this is a better life. It combines leisure and transportation. It's not stressful and having a painful commute like a car. When people see those tailwinds, they see where things are going. That's why people are excited about it.

51:29So you keep talking about the demand, that there is a demand for this kind of living in this kind of community. Have you seen that firsthand? Is there a waiting list to get in for the... So far you develop, what, 100, 150, 200 units or something like that? There's 174 units open. We've got another 114 that are under construction now. Do you have a wait list? So right now we're almost full in phase one. What we hear a lot is like, people are like, I want to have this in my city, right? I'm sharing that for any developers and people in other cities that hear this to make sure people know that we hear that every day that someone was like, I would live here in a second if it was in my specific area.

52:07So a lot of things have to go right for someone to come specifically here. Jobs and things like that need to line up. That's why we have plans to grow. And this has become the reference project for others to have the confidence to build car-free. I'll be honest, before I came down this weekend, I was skeptical of it because I've seen other people try certain things like this. I told you in Portland, they're not exactly like this by any means, but they try to encourage car-free communities. It doesn't really work. It's just, it's like putting band-aids on a bigger problem. Are you competing against the massive subsidies that we give towards cars?

52:43Yeah, exactly. And so for me to actually experience this for four days, I'm like, okay, I should have Ryan send me some propaganda because maybe I want to buy a place down here. We also hear that a lot. This one's for rent. And another thing is we hear people that want to buy. And one of the things that's interesting is the average hold period in Phoenix is like over 15 years for property now. Oh, wow. And when you think about how strong these tailwinds are, like still less than half the country's tried rideshare. In 15 years, like it's pretty clear that we're going to have lots more driverless cars and that the world is going to be a very different place.

53:14And so a lot of people are like, hey, even if I'm not personally confident that I could live like that, where things are going and I want a piece of it. And that's one of the reasons why you'll see us have some for sale product in the future. Well, for me, when I say that I want propaganda, I don't mean just for for sale product. I'm like, well, maybe I can rent a place down here too. So yeah, we'd love to have you there. I'll email you about that. We're coming to the end of our time. Again, I'm committing the cardinal sin of asking two questions at once. What's the final takeaway related to transportation, related to the way that we design our cities and car-free or car-reduced living?

53:54What is the final message there that you want to impart to the audience? And the second question is, what final lesson do you want to impart to the audience, to the people in the audience who have a side hustle, who have a small business, and who are thinking about potentially scaling and want to know what they ought to do next in order to think bigger? Yeah. So the first part of what messages around transportation, which is the era of private car ownership for everyone with cars that are parked for 95 % of the day is going to be coming to an end. And instead, people are going to use a portfolio of transportation options and choose the best way of getting around.

54:36Our residents here at Cul-de-sac, they use the light rail, electric bikes, they use Lyft, Waymo. We have car rental on site for weekend trips. And also there's great things on site and nearby. That is very different than the model of only driving everywhere. And it leads people to be happier, healthier, wealthier. And I would encourage people to try that, right? I'm sure there's people listening that haven't tried Lyft. And y 'all should make sure to try Waymo while you're here. And becoming power users of those services and also delivery services, Instacart, DoorDash, et cetera, will show how this is possible, right?

55:12Like a lot of our patterns and habits are so ingrained. I want to say that for me, I'm having in my head that, oh, my only options are walking traditional bicycle and driving. And recently I was in Austin and I tried one of the electric scooters for the first time and I was like, oh my gosh, this is revelatory. Yeah. I mean, I'd seen them for years, but I thought, oh, it can't be that big of a deal. But I went home immediately and I ordered one. And now I'm just waiting for the rain to go away in Portland or Corvallis so that I can ride it around all summer. I love it. Yeah. Once people try this, right, electric bikes, the minute they hit that throttle, they're like, oh, this is not just a little bit different than a bike.

55:48Yeah. It was awesome. Like I told you, I rode 18 miles to the Frank Lloyd Wright house and then 18 miles back today on an electric bike. And yeah, it was fun. Yeah. Nice. And what about the final message for anyone who's listening who has a side hustle or a small business and they're thinking of scaling? What wisdom do you want to impart them with? Thinking about aiming higher and thinking about doing what's right for them. One book I love is Be So Good They Can't Ignore You. By Cal Newport. Yeah. Yes. That's a relatively recent book. That's the book that I wish existed when I was in college. It's really good.

56:19The first part of the book picks apart the passion hypothesis and says a lot of times you ask these people after they've accomplished something what to do. And it's like find your passion. And actually, no, those people are actually a bit disconnected from the earlier career stuff. And instead, it's like build skills and having impact is what will create passion later. And nobody wakes up and says they want to do B2B SaaS. But there's lots of great careers in that for some people. I hope that people get a chance to visit cul-de-sac. And I love watching new businesses emerge from small businesses.

56:49Fantastic. Well, thank you. Thanks for visiting. It's been great having you. Thank you. It's been great being here. Thank you, Ryan. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Number one, the world around us is constantly evolving and changing and developing. And sometimes it can be difficult to see how a particular development might have a long-lasting impact on how we live and on where we live. Ryan Johnson, who really spent his career at the intersection between real estate, technology, and driverless cars, he believes that we are witnessing developments that will change how we live and where we live for decades to come.

57:34And so in this first key takeaway, he explains how ride sharing and driverless cars have the ability to significantly change how communities and homes are built and why this will impact real estate. There was big changes in transportation technologies where you saw the emergence of Lyft and Uber. You saw clear destiny where driverless cars and AV ride hail are going to be the biggest impact on real estate in decades. Also, you saw hourly car sharing empowered by technology, electric bikes, electric scooters, and even the evolution of things as simple as light rail. When you don't need to have a parking space, it lets you build the city differently.

58:16and it's different for passengers and it's more importantly different for how you can construct things. So here in Phoenix, there's something like eight parking spaces for every car. And that has led to the sprawl. But all of a sudden when you can get around and the car can park itself or you could use ride shares, AV RideHale is compatible with our cities today. They can just plug in with the existing road network. And yet because they don't need a parking space, it really does change everything. And it can really also lower the cost burden. And those cars can evolve over time to do carpooling and look more like buses.

58:51So that is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two. When you want to start or grow a business, the biggest limitation is often yourself. And that applies whether you are bootstrapping a side hustle or whether you're starting a funded major company that is going to be playing in the big leagues. In this takeaway, Ryan shares the pieces to focus on when you're looking inwards and assessing what your business needs and who you need to be in order to bring that to the business. He also shares the impact of coaching and talks about how coaching can be incredibly beneficial regardless of whether you want to start your own business or improve within your role at work.

59:42Inward is understanding what strengths and weaknesses to focus on, right? How to accentuate strengths and how to improve. And the things that I've needed to be good at change in different parts of my career. And really understanding that and understanding how that impacts the relationships that I have with teams, etc. has been a big learning. I've actually worked with a leadership coach, which is highly recommended. A leadership coach is someone that works with leaders. And it can be CEOs or it doesn't have to be CEOs. And they're good at coaching them to be a better leader for understanding these different dynamics and what the things that are unique about them and that they need to work on.

1:00:22So regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur or you want to get promoted at your day job, coaching and a devotion to lifelong learning overall can be beneficial. That is the second key takeaway. Finally, key takeaway number three. Begin with the end in mind. Before you start any type of a project, assess whether you want to build something that's going to be an eight-figure business with a huge team of employees. Is that what you want? Or do you want to build something that's a lifestyle business that will allow you to have a little bit of part-time residual income while you enjoy a leisurely life?

1:01:04There's no wrong answer. Both of these are great. But decide what you want before you get started. That way you can build your business accordingly. By knowing the answer to this question in advance, you'll know whether or not you want to build the type of business that's based on systems that can scale. Or whether you want to really optimize for a mom and pop side hustle that will bring in some residual income that adds a little added luxury to your retirement. Those are three key takeaways that come from this conversation with Open Door founder and Cul-de-sac CEO, Ryan Johnson. Thank you for tuning in.

1:01:51If you got value from today's episode, please do three things. Number one, please make sure that you're following us in Apple Podcasts and in Spotify. Please follow us on both. And if you don't mind, if I can throw in a third, YouTube, youtube.com slash afford anything. And while you're there in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can leave us up to a five-star review. That's number one. Number two, share this with a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a colleague. Share it with someone in your life. And number three, subscribe to our show notes, which are available at affordanything.com slash show notes.

1:02:28Thank you again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I'll meet you in the next episode.