Sachin and Adam
00:03:08 · Sachin, Adam
[00:03:08] S0: lot of encouragement. And then it's strange to see people that you've never met, people that you've never really had interactions saying stuff about you publicly. But where does that anxiety come from? Is it the anxiety of them being right about us? Is it an anxiety of future attacks on us? What what what in particular right now this moment is making you? I think it's like an anxiety that's caused by not being [00:03:29] S1: in control of something. Mhmm. Because what are they gonna say? I actually I think it's about like misrepresentation when someone takes something out of context, when they start to spread lies or they start to say things that I don't think they'll say if I actually met you in person. And that's like, you know, that's a little bit hurting. Yeah. But I think that's the nature of being a founder as Like you can't meet every single person out there, every potential like listener or customer. So, yeah, I think just over the long term, you prove them right with your mission.
00:04:08 · Sachin
[00:04:08] S0: Mhmm. I think that's interesting around the lack of control because I think that, like we try and control every variable we possibly can but there's inevitably things that we just have to surrender to. Like you can just put your best foot forward, have all the best intentions to do certain things but like sometimes you just, like, need to surrender to the outcome. And I think that's actually a good lesson for us. Like, I think we're gonna look back on this and being, like, having confidence that we did everything right, we have the right intentions, we didn't mis... Like, also, we have nothing to be apologizing for because we literally did nothing wrong. And for context, people that don't know about the controversy, we can just quickly go over it. Essentially, there was an AFR article about us and our race, and some people in the industry then used us as almost like a straw man for women not getting funded. And their whole point was that a women led business with the same business model wouldn't get funded, which one, like, I don't actually agree with because I think, you know, pre... Appreciate it's all about the founders and, like, we know that there's an issue with women not getting funded as much as men and which which is something we're both passionate about. I think they use that... Us as an example to attack us and attack our business model when that article is a very surface level kind of representation of our thinking. So that's kind of the context. And that happened on about day three of our launch. And so on day three of our launch, this stuff started kind of picking up and almost clouded a bit of the stuff that we'd done. And I think, like, since then, it's just been a very reflective period for us. Like, we've been reflecting on what we can do better in the future. We can... We're reflecting on, like, how do we just drown out noise a little bit better and just focus on our imports and just focus on the things we're doing really well? And I think there's a there's a distance between theory and practice here because everyone knows the theory that you just don't listen to it, you don't go on to it, when it's happening to you, it's quite different.
00:05:57 · Sachin
And and I love what you said about lack of control because it's like by reading those comments, you feel like you can control it a little bit more and more and you actually know what's going on, and you're almost like just not surrendering to these things that are happening, but we just can't... There's no longevity in that strategy.
00:06:14 · Adam
[00:06:14] S1: Yeah. I think that's the thing that gets to me is when like you know internally that you're doing the right thing and that you have deep conviction in your mission, but other people don't see that. And I think... So I've got three points written down here. And that really leads into my first point that I think you've just got to prove people wrong over the long term, that you stay focused and in your lane. And if you know that you have a virtuous mission for the world, you prove them. Like, we are all about education and inspiration and empowering other people. And it it's fine if people, like, level insults and attacks at us. And they can just... We can prove them wrong. And then secondly, I also think there's an opportunity or an invitation here for us to really level up with how we articulate our bigger business vision. Mhmm. Because I think that, there's work that we can do on that, and there's things that we can do practice that better. Yeah. Because I don't think we fully got that across that well enough in the AFR article. And so that's a really good thing that we can lean into. I think, like, two points I'll make about the whole sort of like controversy and stuff. I'm not gonna, like, bring up any of the people that said anything. Like, I don't really believe in doing that. I think the first point is that what they bring up is fundamentally important things. We've absolutely agree in fairness in systems and not having a lack of bias. And I think that's a conversation that we can lean into more as well on this podcast, speaking to influential figures in the industry about this. So there's an invitation to lean into that. And then the second thing is that I just think there's nothing more that me and you agree with about being positive some in life. About this is the most important day and age, I think, to be an optimist, not just, like, generally on social media, but about technology as well, and thinking about how we can use tech to enhance people's lives and better people's life. Because there's a lot of hate out there and there's a lot of personal attacks. And I really think that as we stand this mission, we should try and be as optimistic and positive as we can. Yeah.
00:08:15 · Adam, Sachin
And that we should try and counter position against angatainment, counter position against people trying to pull people down and really focus on uplifting and inspiring content. And when we're building out the bigger business, all being about that. Yeah. I agree. I think that's a [00:08:30] S0: good reflection. I think, like, to the point around representing ourselves clearer, I really agree with it. But I think coming from VC land is like, you know when there's a pre seed investment made that there's so much uncertainty. And I think the thing that we got wrong, and this is actually probably more what I got wrong in the article, is that I expose that nuance and I expose that uncertainty. Right? Because inside every VC's head at Preseed having made some of these investments before, there is this kind of almost agreement that the business is going to change tact. They're going towards this future thing and it's going to pivot a lot along the way. But I don't think people outside of the VC world get exposed to that. Right? They see these people with very clear missions and stuff that will change a 100 times. They'll start with this ultimate clarity, and I think we may be exposed too much nuance. We could have easily been a lot more definitive with the things we've said and said, this is what we're building, this is what we've got now, etcetera, etcetera. But I think we expose the nuance too much, that's probably a learning of like, you know, it's represented differently to outsiders and insiders in the industry.
00:08:30 · Sachin, Adam
[00:08:30] S0: good reflection. I think, like, to the point around representing ourselves clearer, I really agree with it. But I think coming from VC land is like, you know when there's a pre seed investment made that there's so much uncertainty. And I think the thing that we got wrong, and this is actually probably more what I got wrong in the article, is that I expose that nuance and I expose that uncertainty. Right? Because inside every VC's head at Preseed having made some of these investments before, there is this kind of almost agreement that the business is going to change tact. They're going towards this future thing and it's going to pivot a lot along the way. But I don't think people outside of the VC world get exposed to that. Right? They see these people with very clear missions and stuff that will change a 100 times. They'll start with this ultimate clarity, and I think we may be exposed too much nuance. We could have easily been a lot more definitive with the things we've said and said, this is what we're building, this is what we've got now, etcetera, etcetera. But I think we expose the nuance too much, that's probably a learning of like, you know, it's represented differently to outsiders and insiders in the industry. [00:09:32] S1: So we're just taking a quick break from the podcast, and we're here with our friend Ryan from Zed Law who's building a legal marketplace. And he's absolutely obsessed with helping startups access the top talent in legal. When we first got a coffee with