#32 - Jakob Diepenbrock, Founder & GP of Discipulus

0:00Our worry was like, are all these 20 year old guys who have no experience at all gonna actually figure it out or are they're gonna just like flop. Why didn't YC try to build something very similar to this? I think it wasn't proven for sure. There was not like a long-term play here. Like the point is like let's just try it out and see what happens. Our first batch has raised like$60 million now in like less than a year. It worked out. Today I'm very excited to interview Jacob Diepenbrock, the founder and GP of the only hard tech residency here in El Segundo. Your first cohort was I believe like last year in early April-ish.

0:35um but before that you kind of started off by doing like fireside chats how did that initially kind of come together basically it was a couple events we did different schools with the goal of like we got sponsors like like 1517 fund sponsored one contrary sponsored one those kind of types of funds who basically wanted to see interesting deal flow and we had interesting focus because i think people started to know what was going on in like hard tech or american animism yeah generally um and then those went really well had a lot of interest from people there and then the thought was like what's the best way to get people who like fit this persona that we'd found through through these events and talking to people um into a place that like fits the values that folks were trying to do i'd been a guest this around like that summer before and i saw al secundo as making sense for a place how did you end up you know being in al secundo well i remember we almost did the first cohort actually in like san francisco really we almost did it there but then i remember i was like in europe and i saw like gus's tweet about else you know like this like makes sense for what we care about and this is after the el salvador trip yeah this is like i was i was in europe for like christmas break and i was just like scrolling on twitter at night and i was like i was like i know this guy he's in elson you know um i just texted him like yo like it looks kind of cool can we just like pretty much a cost and sleep in your office and then he said yes we ended up not doing that because we ended up just getting an apartment because it'd be easier yeah um what what was it like because you actually did the first cohort and just like the garage on the side of augustus's building yeah i mean we did the last one actually like a lot of a lot of it there yeah on the like upper floor right before yeah yeah exactly okay it was fun i mean that was when it was valor's space yeah um so but there was like nothing there like it was like literally it we just had the whole space which was kind of cool um so yeah it was fun i mean the last one it's cool like seeing how stuff has grown like the first time it was like because it had like bottom half like it was just a couple people isaiah was like there's like a table and there's something on the table i there's some other stuff like it was obviously they've grown a ton in the last like less than a year which is kind of insane let's say you're you know in your bed at night in december of 2023 i think it was right um oh i think it was yeah yeah you've done a few talks like fireside chats with people you've talked with like a few different i think funds and like gotten advice and stuff um and you're designing the program or what you are considering the program were you like afraid at all that no one would show up or anything like that yeah i mean i think well i remember thinking about it's like i remember thinking about this now and i understand how much these funds don't care about money it's like it's a little bit less but i was kind of like it's like 20 grand or something like that i don't want to just blow it nothing happens out of it um and then it's just like my chance is gone that didn't happen which was good but i think i was thinking like oh like it's like my money changed this none of these companies all suck and they just go back to whatever they were doing before like it's kind of that's good it's bad for what i care about and it's also bad for just in general yeah and i also imagine that it's like bad for you know you tried out this thing where you're like okay here you know try to help a lot of companies with similar values succeed and suddenly it just like doesn't work yeah and it doesn't feel great you know yeah yeah I think it's I think it's a good good sign and all of them know pretty much all of them have all raised a lot of money of the ten yeah every single one besides one okay yeah crazy yeah yeah a series a for the first batch two weeks ago obviously Ted is doing really well so yeah pretty pretty awesome so the the cohort is in March and you're gonna stay in i guess this place decide not to do that like how much did it cost for the airbnb i think the airbnb we definitely did that illegally right because they were not cameras not zone for business sorry not zone for business yeah exactly we like for people on cot like uly's was on a cot i remember i think ted was on a cot too um we like like two bunk beds stacked up next to the other like a call on the ground like a mattress on the ground um were the conversations with the founders before they joined like hey this is a new thing and there may be some cases the first one was like completely like we didn't ask for anything beforehand just like come hang out and like see what happens oh so there wasn't even necessarily like insane structure it was just like come oh just come pretty much and like if it works we'll try to make something work afterwards which it did like i yeah it did work afterwards um but yeah basically you just yeah come hang out it was it was the first one was only a week yeah it's a little bit but the first one was like if it was like three months in college it'd probably be a bigger deal but it was okay um and everybody liked it afterwards it was like this is awesome ask ted he's he'll tell you i think i think everyone liked it and i think that it was just kind of like uh it was like scrappy and it fell scrappy exactly but that's like also the optimal way for a startup to start yeah so yeah and yeah it worked out like yeah i mean i already went off to raise money afterwards again most people so i was like if they didn't raise any money they'd be a little bit more mad yeah but it was i think i think it was also good value there's not really any place in the world where it's like young young people young guys who are trying to build these companies like are just insane if they do work and like you just are like literally living with them right like that that's like that wouldn't work just for like hr reasons for most for most other funds um so yeah it's cool it's like it's an interesting vibe yeah i would also kind of wonder i imagine that you've thought about this a lot but like why didn't yc or some other accelerator residency uh try to build something very similar to this because it worked well i think i think it wasn't proven for sure like i kind of just like took a bet on i think it's like the value because i think i the good thing was i basically there was not like a long-term play here like the point was like let's just try it out and see what happens so i could bet on like augustus he was like it only raised a pre-state at that point or and like the culture culture they were like pushing out there as opposed to like i don't think yc would do that at that point because nothing was really proven at then they have to like making big decisions like now i think it's pretty proven at this point um but i i think yeah i think i'd like we had the opportunity that like we could try stuff out of it most people can't and then i think now i think now it makes sense i think the issue now is like also can do is very unique and like again the culture part plus like the actual application of the culture like what people building which is like hardware mostly and in industries that matter a lot more for like the like the nation um and i think i mean i think main issue is just like i mean if it's i'm gonna like if you want to talk about yc in particular i think it's just like the software mostly software focused group and sf is mostly software focused like the investors most invest in bpsas or general like software um the talent's mostly like software talent which is which is fair and that's important just like you got to pick what you want to focus on like you can't really do both it's just every different types of companies right um and it's people like self-select too what they want to go exactly exactly and i think like yeah it's just hard to it's just they're not similar enough where you can like combine the two in a way that works well um yeah that's the main issue do you have any awesome stories from that first batch yeah i mean i think like we did like runs every day that was fun some people got mad i remember there's one name names some people didn't like the run they just like wouldn't do it that's funny do you just love running no i thought it was like fun i got like 6 a.m i didn't sleep much that week most people didn't but yeah we just got 6 a.m go to be like like 1 a.m like like drink like cores or whatever i don't know we had like whatever it was to one and then just like while working with a bunch of like i remember peter goldsborough the guy who started to ruin um they you know he brought these like swit or swedish like nicotine pouches that were like 35 milligrams something insane oh wow people were just trying to oh like didn't feel good absolutely out of it yeah he took him like a boss but that was fun yeah i mean it's just like very high intensity and did they also did you also get the uh like loadout package at last the first cohort as well or just this one for like monster and since that was cohort two is higher higher quality we got everybody got zin then we got monster energy drinks everybody got a white monster white monster everybody got a quarter zip so uh it worked out amazing amazing okay what were the biggest like uh things looking back on that you think from like cohort one to cohort two you're just like obvious things in hindsight but at the time you just made a mistake on not knowing to to think about them honestly like not not not a ton change because i think the first color works so well they're like yeah like i like we had companies come in like our first batch has raised like 60 million dollars now in like less than a year um so i think i just kind of thought a lot more about like what what did work for there's not nothing like didn't work it's more of like what worked really well how we like and what can we like press on exactly yeah which is like the types of companies we focus on like where to find these people that kind of stuff well it was less of like what can i remove because we didn't remove a ton just because nothing like was an issue what were the biggest like levers uh did you keep the morning runs we we did we did yeah runs we did a gym sesh i didn't have money i didn't have enough money to pay for the gym for everybody last time so we just do runs plus like the squat rack and right not anymore wasn't rainmaker at time that's my combo now we got like we got in the gym and i work out so yeah how long did it take uh before like i know that you just spent i don't know was it like six or eight months raising money after that so end of the cohort which was like march end of march when the cohort happened i basically knew i was like i wanted to do something here i spent like i talked to one of my uh advisors josh from champion hill about this for like a while and then i like decided i was gonna raise a fund in um in june i was trying to figure out the best way to structure it like i almost thought about i told you earlier like basically i thought about doing like operating company like we just raise money at the operating company and then just deploy out of that so there's no time bound um why'd you decide to not do that there's like a clear way to structure a fund that i couldn't like keep behind it the benefit basically of doing the operating company i couldn't figure out like the strong benefit behind doing that it's like a fund it's like very clear use like raise money take the take care easy operating company it's like like you said how do you value it like what's the whole process behind like when you raise it like it's like a lot more things that come up that like investors are also saying like if you raise you know a million dollars to ten million valuation they're like why am i only getting one tenth yeah exactly like be able to project anything at that point yeah so it's just like yeah how do you value like 10 million whatever I don't know it's all dependent on like your ability to feed like raise in the future yeah it's the first people's you know the first believers first they did it that way actually I don't know that like they raised like recently I think 100 million like some insane valuation so they did it that way but yeah I just couldn't really figure out the exact benefit of it doing it I'm doing it that way interesting okay so after you decide taxes also are worse as well yeah it's like 30 % tax it's like double taxation because it's like you see core versus like LP is no tax until you make profit yeah yeah so after you decided to not do that like what were you thinking next and how'd you go through the process of like deciding okay I'm gonna do a normal fund structure or relatively normal fund fund structure and then just go about raising it yeah well yeah I decided like I was doing the fund structure I think in like June and I spent like the summer pretty much just talking to people I was in DC for the summer working at one of my friends startups just doing software stuff inside and then yeah then basically yeah did decided that june july august like i would talk to people like getting calls and gps and just like get their feedback and then so i think i like started officially fundraising august like my deck out and everything and then it was like insane how long it took to raise like for why do you think that was like it seemed i i mean multiple companies had raised already by the time you're starting to raise like and everything like even in fundraising even like fun especially for like lp stuff right yeah especially i literally like i get why they didn't weren't super like i think it worked obviously worked well it's just like i was 20 i'd never run a fund before i like yeah i mean it's probably main stuff like i and i had no like real like monetary track record like i didn't invest in all these companies i had like options to it kind of how i did after the way it worked i was like afterwards like hey like can i invest at your pre-seed price when we're the fun everybody's like yeah so i did that that's i that helped to raise some money but like the first check for like 25k 50k i had one person pull out like i have a 25k check at my first like and i had like 100k raised at that point and then i'm like shoot dude and then people like just wouldn't talk to me it was like it was a pain actually i had one guy he ran a fund of funds like i he like in his link he's like linkedin it was like click this link to book a call with me and i booked the link and he said who are you and i said i'm jake like how big is your fund i'm like uh i'm gonna raise like probably like six million like just hung up on me like on the call yeah then he blocked me on linkedin what i don't know why i was insane like i had to have it i'm like probably didn't want to raise from that guy anyway then yeah probably not but like I had a lot of stuff like that where it was like three calls to raise like 50k or something like that and it was like it was like that for a long time then I the first close was around like a million or so so I had a couple like I was kind of figured out like yeah I'd like get people it's not raising all about like getting the right people on your side right so like I gave like some carry to like some advisors that like knew a lot of fine networks that's kind of how you have to work and find out where for your first fun usually and then that like basically send people my way who when they people ask about fun fun stuff so like josh diamond helped a lot with that early on and josh manchester as well um like kevin harks i don't know him he was like one of my original lps he helped a bunch of interest people and that led to a lot of stuff so yeah like once i got like i put their faces on my deck as well and that helped a lot how do you think about kind of getting uh people to support you because there's like a bunch of not only is there are a bunch of people that are supporting you on like the fundraising side but there's also like a bunch of the best founders here in el segundo and like hawthorne torrents and all that want to like you know do a session with all the cohort yeah founders well i think most people want to help like if you say like hey we have like 10 of the best founders in the world who are like at the earliest stages of buildings like next generation of these important companies like where a lot of them were in this they were in similar places at one point people will do that issue is like I think it's hard to get people to come if it's like just talk at my school nobody care but it's like a very unique thing all right where it's like we're gonna use group of guys together unique like the only fun the gun yeah now it's easy but like the first one I was more of just they go into my advisors who knew people like we got like Scott Nolan first one through like Josh Manchester delian who just like DM on Twitter and he's responded like Chris power same thing so there's a lot of that stuff and you're talking about like who we brought in like the founders with the backgrounds were because we the only group and gun to those trying to do something like this and people like that when you're thinking about like trying to not necessarily i wouldn't necessarily like say scale but i would say that let's say like post batch um give those founders some sort of advantage how do you think about that yeah i think like the biggest value we have is like with this network nobody else can just like give you access to like that like i think the fact that we are here means we can get all these people that like wouldn't fly up to sf just like that they're just here like they can just drive over here right so i think like the network is like the biggest advantage like if you are i don't know like for first batch like peter who's an andrew like he had no connections to to these funds or to these founders and like he met them interesting when he's around like right out of the batch and like that wouldn't have happened without there so i think it's just like if you are early if you are technical if you're young you have like a deep passion what you're building you have been more focused like the heads down building side of things if we can just be like that original network connector obviously we're not going to teach you how to talk to people like most people haven't figured out and we scream for that but like being like the initial partner into like the network that actually matters for venture is important and that's helpful.

17:02So I think it's like a lot of the network and then fundraising. Fundraising really just like basically get a lot of people in front of the founders, right? Like good founders will raise without our help, but if we can just get like 100 investors in front of them, just like that. Make it easier. That's a lot easier, right? Because especially when you're early on, the connection is just like a pain. It takes a long time. For this like next cohort that you're going to do, is there anything that you're going to change drastically or are you going to keep the same like two weeks um do a demo day at the end yeah yeah so a lot yeah it's gonna be two weeks first one's only one week um so that's one change why two weeks instead of longer or shorter feedback they're like people don't want like the three months type thing the most patches they actually don't want it yeah exactly i just think like the value is like how quick and like intense it is yeah and like afterwards if you want to love these people like you feel free but like three months is kind of long if you don't want to just live all the times like you get the good people you figure out who you like if you like it you get the main value which is like the network connection like the like the plug into this like brand new network i'm in the fundraise help and then once you finish that up it's like if you want to love these people go for it um but yeah i think but mainly you're just like plugging them in and then letting them the main thing is like be part of this this like exclusive group of like the best founders coming together like that's the main value i think people like people like that and everybody we have like a lot of good people behind us already that like if you get buy-in for me you buy from a lot of these people that like our advisors are part of the fund in some way so that's like the biggest i mean the biggest access point is like you have none of these connections can be pretty hard to just figure out you're like you can dm people if you want but it doesn't really work like that unfortunately anymore yeah have you been is is there like a big enough magnet right now where you can get people that could have or might have built companies in like sf or elsewhere to come here well i think like the culture part we like i found the people who we bring in like need to know like about the gundo like a lot a lot of people like not a single founder really like can explain them what else you know it was that was never the case did they all come through like twitter mostly twitter like referrals from people in the area it's not still still the way it is it's just it's really hard like most founders csf would fairly so have like the hub of entrepreneurship which it is but um yeah i think most people who know about what we're doing or like for what we're doing like know in some form already um yeah how are you thinking about like actually scaling the program yeah i mean there's like two options like one um like do like hfz or you were there the other day with me like that kind of kind of like bigger long longer term thing which i'm not how excited about because i think like our thing works we get similar economics to them and it works well um i think the other thing works for sf i think our thing works for el segundo um so i think that's like first thing is like it's an option i don't know if i'm gonna do that I think other options are just like, we have a very clear advantage just being here and else can you do every day that we can like know these people really well, like, like know the inside scoops on stuff and that's valuable and just investing generally.

19:59So I think like if we have the first look at all the best founders that we brought a ton of people here, like you saw here this morning, all the people were part of our batches in some form and like, we know them super well. Like I'm friends with them. I know what's going on in their lives. I know it's like how their companies are actually going. It's not, not how their investor facing, but like how they actually are doing. And that's helpful to make decisions for investing. So I think, yeah, I think that's going to be the problem. Do you have like a privileged position of knowing maybe more of the like raw story of what's going on and having that relationship with founders?

20:25Exactly. I think like being young, being friends with them. Like I literally am sleeping in Duren's office. How'd that happen, by the way? Ted's just a nice guy. Ted's just a nice guy. Hey, I need to get in an apartment at some point. Do you have an apartment? No, I sleep at John's. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're the same boat. Same boat. Yeah. um are you gonna do anything on scaling the batch size uh or are you gonna try yeah i mean that's definitely i don't want to scale like yc said i think yeah like 10 15 in that range you want to keep it that that small i do want to keep it small yeah okay if like it's if we get a lot more interest like we just can't deal with it in like one batch i would just do more batches that's what i would do like right now we're doing three years of plan i would just do like four or five years if i could they are two weeks long it's pretty quick right i just don't think it never works well if you have 200 300 whatever people in your batch just becomes so hard like you can't know anybody personally no one builds a cool like no one builds connections exactly exactly no nothing like nobody's close like people in our batches are so close which is cool like they're like friends of people like they actually want to hang out with them like that's not how most stuff is what's been the most surprising thing for you one thing i think i i was like early on i think a worry was like are all these 20 year old guys who have no experience at all building X Y or Z and actually figure it out or they're gonna just like flop right like I think seeing like even during early on they were like they're like across the street actually and I was like just Ted and like there was nothing in the office there's like Ted and yeah it was like I think there's definitely a worry from a thumb investors like oh no not him generally just like generally like it's like these are kids right or young young people did Did any of the people actually build any hardware during the week?

22:13Or was it just grinding on? Vibes, grinding, fun days. You were just vibe-maxing. Exactly. Which worked. It worked. Like a Darren dude. Yeah. What are you most excited about for the next batch? I think we've hit a point where I'm getting so much inbound now, which is pretty cool. I think first batch, that was not the case. I'd find people and just hunt them down and beg them to come. Not beg them, but I had to ask them to come. Second batch was like we had inbound. and people were excited about what we were doing. I mean, last batch was the first one we just invested all the companies just like that.

22:45That was one thing that's proven now, which is good. So now it's like, just repeat the same process. Last batch worked great, I'm happy with that. I mean, now it's just like, repeat the same process, and now I think we're at the point where it's just - Just show consistency. Just consistency, exactly. So I think that's where we're at now, which is good. When do you think you're gonna do the third batch? It'll be in the fall. It's already, yeah, September, October. What's the logic behind doing that then versus, like I don't know a month faster or something just it's just fundraising you can't fundraise in the summer like July June you can fundraise but like it's already June and the last batch ended and it takes two months to prepare it's like that wouldn't really work because it was in April so it's like it would have to be like earliest July but like investors don't exist in July they're like in Europe or something August vacation so like September is in like the earliest we do so probably September is the plan okay what's the hardest thing you've overcome this is not like crazy but i think uh i think there's definitely a point where like you're like not in network then you're in network you know what i mean like where like stuff flips and i think like when i was in high school i would like linkedin connect with every single person and then nobody respond like i actually have people now responding to my linkedin messages from high school because like they see me on linkedin or whatever or wherever i don't know but like it's definitely something and they just like say hey man and i did I texted you when I was like 15 and you ignored me for six years something like shows like a six-year gap that's literally what it was but I think I think most people like just don't get the point of their part like there's definitely a flip like when you're I remember Gus is telling me in El Salvador like he was like hey like you're at the point now where you can like talk to anybody you want I thought like wow like this is actually probably true just like inside in the right room at that point I think but I think like most people don't get to that point I think like that's the hardest part like getting people to actually think you're legit not just like some outsider you know what i mean yeah i mean probably had the same thing it's like nobody took you seriously probably when you first started and just like just keep being consistent until people see you over and over again they're just like oh this guy's here all right so what was the uh what was the first company that you founded so basically the first company was a actually three companies i just forgot about the other one so first one was a watch company called luso luxury watches and i made a wick store to try to sell how old were you like 13 13 okay try to dropship watches i didn't know what drop shipping was i just thought it'd be a good idea and then actually there's a lot of coming why'd you why'd you start why'd you start that instead of like anything else was it just because you were like oh it's you know expensive and i can create an online store easily yeah exactly and it looked horrible i couldn't i didn't want to pay for like the premium wix right so i was just like like so it's the ten dollar like free wix version with like a wix bottom yeah amazing yeah did you end up selling any watches no i sold zero sold zero and then the next thing did work kind of basically the next thing was i figured out what dropshipping was dropshipping was after that and then i started selling i started dropshipping back braces and that one pretty well i sold like not not that like a thousand dollars something like that of and then like boom then I and how were you there around the same age like 13 14 yeah like yeah like a freshman year of high school you'd evolved from no sales to some sales yeah exactly right exactly and then direction the next one was cool basically I the back brace yeah that way yeah sound bucks there you go the next door another drop from these doors I felt like the key was just like you got hit the product that works and it'll scale this would actually did work but it was bad because this is right when China like since then COVID I went in China right like try exports for a lot of stuff so it was like basically I pirated some course off of like I found on reddit I like how to drop ship business guys like strategy or whatever and then like I did this I'm I told like I sold those like computer stands you can like stand up and type yeah yeah I mean and then I sold a bunch of those I did Facebook ads for that and it's grimacredean nice hold like it's like I sold way too much and I couldn't fulfill the orders how many of these computer stats did you sell I saw like a hundred bucks I bar like five bucks and how much were you spending on Facebook ads and stuff like nothing like three bucks max like total crazy until I like oversold too many there was like I sold the whole stock and I didn't everything left and I like literally there's on left left like like I just like waited and then I try to like I took way way too long people you know like where's my back like my or my stand thing and then i couldn't give to them so i'd like get my money back and i just stopped drop ship like this is not that cool it sucks actually no it's perfect no it's great i uh i had the same experience with like empanadas but yeah not quite i i don't know how many online stores and other things i started and then just like zero zero zero zero five thousand zero zero yeah exactly uh i got banned from tiktok what or like shadow ban it basically i figured out i was basically like if you like post financial numbers something like that they do like shadow ban you did some research that's kind of what I figured out and then or like you promised them it was something something about like the financial nature of yeah they don't want you to like promote financial advice and stuff something like suddenly they get sued I think exactly so then I basically like started a new account and like similar like vibe but then I instead of trying to sell something I basically just have my not young investors that work thing which is my like the last thing that I did in high school and I did that for a couple years I was thinking I met Ben like this whole thing which was basically just like it was it's all it was like if you're young you want to work in investment career generally and you're like Seattle area like well basically just like come and we can like do events and like happy internships still like that and like you can we can do you just want to help you like yeah yeah exactly we started like a chapter in London with a kid other kid who was there off of that that went well and then did like a bunch of big events in Seattle not big like a bunch of that's in Seattle and then that's how I met a bunch of people like I'm sure I thought I'd adventure and that's how I like led to the bummer stuff like oh that's kind of the whole process and then yeah bummer then uh this was like i mean this makes total sense looking back in hindsight you like start some businesses in high school you have like a few go well what was going through your mind when you had uh like tiktok success but i imagine that you're is it one of those things where you wake up in the morning and you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like i'm making money but i mean i remember thinking like people would see my take like people were at school would see my tiktoks and they would like they thought it was cool i got during covid i like i went i didn't really know many people when i was at public school like the first year and then covid happened like kind of blew up on tiktok people like saw my stuff like i got like just decent amount of views you know what i mean and people like saw that i was just cool and then that was like that was kind of cool to see i was like sophomore high school yeah and then um yeah but i think it was like obviously i didn't want to be a tiktok influencer yeah for finance exactly it's bad so This was a sophomore in high school, so you were like 16-ish, something like that.

29:40Yeah, so I was, yeah, 15, 16. And you worked on a fellowship for like three years? Young Investor Network? Yeah. That was like, yeah, sophomore year. So like TikTok was like one year, like my sophomore year. And then Young Investor Network was like sophomore year to senior year. Wait, so for the Young Investor Network, were you trying to get young people to be interested in investing or like the finance field? Get interested, like have like information access. Yeah. and then like meet other people who are interested in that and then hopefully get jobs from like why'd you leave from that to like uh entrepreneurship instead yeah i just liked i learned about vc through starting young investors network and i liked vc a lot did you meet uh ben at one of those events i he talked to one of my events i spoke about one of my events originally and that's how i heard about it was through him i heard about venture because he worked at pioneer square lap which is like one of the funds in seattle and then um another guy who i worked for uh who was like my cub scout leader or something like that i like looked and messaged him and i and he's like hey we should me and then i did like some internship stuff for him and he was like the venture guy i mentioned earlier yeah i interned for in high school do you think you've got a little bit of uh i don't know if high risk tolerance but willingness willingness to fail which kind of allows you to reach out to people and say like i'm doing a thing yeah i'm putting on something will you come help me you know it's got a good we've got a good reason for doing it yes like i think i started linkedin messaging a ton of people because like one of the guys told me like just like talk a lot of people that'll help you we're like no like i've done things that are impressive in your eyes so i just like started linking messaging a lot of people like get a couple responses and that like was interesting and i'd use that to like plug into my network the way it was like basically a way to like it was like a funnel of like you respond to my message i don't want to just like have nothing to offer so i was like hey like come to this event i'm people like that then like so you give them a reason for engaging yeah exactly yeah that's right add some value in some way which is like come to the event speaking meet a lot of people and you really have some publicity in some way or like meet potential interns or something like that crazy yeah and you still had like an insanely difficult time where was there any moment where you were trying to raise and then just decided not to for the first cohort for the fun or for the first cohort yeah first cohort was like non-profit money so it was like we had like 5k paycheck like a couple 5k checks why was it non-profit by the way just to basically if you raise a whole fund you couldn't basically like yeah i just i wanted to basically prove this out i think i could raise a way bigger fund than if i just like a smaller cohort one fund first of all it costs a lot money to like start a fund just like legally as i told you yes and then second it's like the admin like funds are 10 years right i've been like a one cohort fund would not be worth it so it was like if i can do one cohort just to like prove it out then do like a multi-color fund that makes sense to do to run for 10 years or like admin for 10 years then who are the first people that invested or gave you money for the non-profit uh josh manchester mentioned him like cubic capital which is a fund um i think michael gibson from 2017 gave me some money um it's random fun i forget any of them like angel like angel group type thing just like yeah coming four people to hit it up the rule we're going out on it and helpful we're