00:04:00 · Sid Yadav
So every two weeks or every three weeks, there would be a product launch that would inspire me. I remember using YouTube before Google bought them back when they were actually dating site. I reached out to the founders of YouTube. You know, I probably 14 or 15 back then, and they gave me an interview. They were just two very normal guys, and I remember kinda thinking, like, they're not that different from me. Like, they also started, coding at a very young age. They live in America. They live in Silicon Valley, and it really felt like it was a land of opportunity. You know, every two weeks, I would write about something new that YouTube has shipped, how the product is evolving, and I did that for tens of other companies. And so as a teenager, I always remember thinking, like, most of the world that we live in doesn't change that much. But in technology, every six months, every twelve months, there's something new, there's something exciting, there's something going very big. In my head as a teenager, you know, I was already an entrepreneur. I was just... I had to get to The US and make it real, but in my head, I already saw myself as one of these guys. I saved up my blogging money. I had a second cousin, so like a distant relative who lived in, Silicon Valley who had just graduated from Stanford. And so I emailed him. I didn't, know him very closely back then, and he very kindly offered to host me. So I went. He picked me up from the, the airport. He took me to see Stanford. He took me to the Google Headquarters. His his sister worked at Google. So that was my first experience in in The US as a 16 year old. My mind was blown. So about five years after that, when I was, towards the end of CS degree... So I'd visited Silicon Valley. I thought maybe I should check out New York. I had another cousin who lived in New York, so I was staying with him for about a month. He's the one who introduced me to a startup that he was interning at. They were looking for their first engineer, first designer. And so if they hadn't offered me that, I don't think I would have come to New York. At my first startup, it was a massive learning experience. I was the first engineer for
00:05:57 · S0, S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6, S7
Ad[00:05:57] S0: This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini in Chrome is here for it. Ad[00:06:13] S1: Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required compatibility, and availability varies 18 plus. Ad[00:06:22] S2: You've been asked to run the company's social channels, but company content plays by its own set of rules. It needs a logo in the first three seconds, but it can't feel like an ad. It needs subtitles, except when it doesn't. It needs to run at two times speed and deliver a complex message simply, of course, within nine by 16. Ad[00:06:44] S3: Thankfully, your company has Canva, Ad[00:06:46] S2: so you can easily edit your video and every version of it. What will you Canva today? Ad[00:06:52] S4: This episode is brought to Ad[00:06:54] S5: you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. Ad[00:07:04] S6: It boosts your job post Ad[00:07:05] S5: to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply.
00:07:17 · S5, S9, S10
Ad[00:07:17] S5: is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:07:21] S9: I hope I don't have to cancel again tonight. Chronic migraine means fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxin a, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It is not approved for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. Botox, the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment, prevents, on average, eight to nine headache days a month Ad[00:07:41] S10: versus six to seven for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Ad[00:08:16] S9: Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 18044 to learn more.
00:08:22 · Sid Yadav
[00:08:22] S8: Designer. That was a seed stage startup. What I got to learn there is, you know, just because you've raised a million dollars doesn't mean that the company will succeed. You have to grow. You have to show metrics. You have to build a real business to get beyond that point. I worked eighty hours a week. I had nothing else to do, and I put my heart and soul into making that company a success, and the startup could never raise a, series a round. I realized about two years into that, that startup was not going to work out, and I left. And what led me to Teachable is I also realized that I needed more work experience before I could be an entrepreneur myself. I wanted to join another early stage startup, another founding team that I could learn from. So I went in for an interview. It was a team of five people back then. You know, it's such a great interview. It's such a great chat where I felt like we already became friends, and I wanted to learn from these people. And I love the market, so teachable space is all about empowering online educators to build a course business. I didn't know that it would get so big back then. At least this time, the company grows and finds product market fit. My role changed at Teachable every six months. I started as a first designer and the second or third engineer. About six months into that, you know, there are more engineers, so I became the lead designer and focused on design. About six months after that, the company needed a PM, and so then eventually, I was promoted to the VP of product. I didn't know much about product management back then, but the team really trusted me. Every week, I would try to meet with two or three senior product leaders in New York City for coffee. So I would email them saying, hey. I just became a head of product. I don't know what I'm doing, but I would like to learn from you. Can I get you coffee? I'll meet you anywhere you like. And that was a massive learning experience. I also made a lot of mistakes at Teachable as a first time manager, first time VP. But it was it was such a learning experience where, you know, at a very fast growing startup environment, you get to flex all your muscles, and you become better, because the stakes are are high, and you are trusted to get the work done.
00:10:24 · Sid Yadav
That's what the teachable experience meant to me, which is, one, falling in love with the creator space, and two, getting to level up as a human being, as a manager, as a leader. At Teachable, when we first started in 2014, no one was using the word creator. We called them online educators. After I left Teachable, this was in early twenty nineteen, I knew that I wanted to build something in this space, and I knew that I was gonna partner up with, two of my cofounders. I'd known these guys from the Teachable days. We've now worked together for about ten years. I knew who I was building company with. I knew what space I was gonna be in, but I didn't know what the idea was. During that day, we would do is we would try and talk to as many people. We would talk to them about what their day to day looked like in building a business. What were the opportunities that they were seeing? And what are the problems that we could help with by building a product? So Circle was not actually the first idea. We had other ideas like that. One idea was to make a bank for creators to be able to give them loans, and another idea was around education. What really ended up with us deciding on Circle as the community product eventually was what we found when we were talking to the initial customers was that community for a lot of them was very disjointed from what their intention was. So to give you an example, we spoke to a YouTuber who was a a teacher of the German language, who had an online course teaching primarily students how to learn German as a language. And he had a community on Slack that was entirely disjointed from where his members were, which was on their online course. That disjointed experience made us realize that there really needs to be one product that caters to all of these needs. So building a community online, being able to sell an online course, being able to run virtual or even in person events. That was the initial goal of Circle, which is really to build that unifying experience, build a home for all aspects of community, not just the chat experience. When we showed the mock ups to the people who are talking to us and we asked them, hey. Is this the product you would want?
00:12:23 · S0, S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S7
Ad[00:12:23] S0: This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini in Chrome is here for it. Ad[00:12:39] S1: Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility, availability varies 18 plus. Ad[00:12:48] S2: You've been asked to run the company's social channels, but company content plays by its own set of rules. It needs a logo in the first three seconds, but it can't feel like an ad. It needs subtitles, except when it doesn't. It needs to run at two times speed and deliver a complex message simply, of course, within nine by 16. Ad[00:13:10] S3: Thankfully, your company has Canva, Ad[00:13:12] S2: so you can easily edit your video and every version of it. What will you Canva today? Ad[00:13:18] S4: This episode is brought to Ad[00:13:20] S5: you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Ad[00:13:42] S7: Hiring now? Then this