Billion Moonshots

Shane Mac is building a crypto-native communication protocol for web3. Similar to SMTP for email, XMTP will enable communication between existing crypto wallets via its own independent protocol and decentralized network. 

XMTP has raised a $20M Series A from a16z Crypto, with participation from strategic angels like Packy McCormick, Alexis Ohanian, Anthony Pompliano, Austin Rief, Balaji Srinivasan, Bored Elon, Naval Ravikant, Rahul Vohra, Scott Belsky, and Sriram Krishnan.

We talk about being young and lucky, learnings from interviewing Gary Vee, writing a book at 23, entrepreneurship, the origin story of XMTP,  and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shanemac

Blog: https://blog.shanemac.com/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Young and Lucky 

(12:22) - Getting calmer

(18:31) - Gary Vee 

(25:37) - Hosting Podcast

(30:57) - Great podcast episode

(32:08) - Heavy Conversations

(40:33) - Culture

(42:50) - Writing Book

(52:00) - Entrepreneurship 

(59:06) - XMTP 

(01:04:25) - Meaning of Life

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tyler Denk led product & growth at Morning Brew, did product stint at Google and then last year, launched beehiiv - a newsletter platform empowering creators to monetize and grow like never before.

We talked about building startup in college, dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew, scaling newsletter to 3M subcribers, product management lessons from Google, launching beehiiv, why email newsletter is a great business and more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio?fpr=prashant and use code BMS05 for 5% discount

GUEST LINKS

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerdenk_/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/denk_tweets

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Building startup in college

(4:57) - Dropping Big 4 consulting firm to join Morning Brew

(9:05) - Early success of Morning Brew

(10:40) - Sending newsletter from bars & games

(14:31) - Lessons from growing newsletter to 3M subs

(17:42) - Economics of newsletter 

(20:38) - The Hustle & competition

(22:28) - Morning Brew's world-class Referral Program

(27:25) - Product Management lessons from Google 

(36:10) - Origin story of beehiiv

(41:28) - Why email newsletter is a great business?

(50:37) - Growth channels 

(53:28) - Taking ad-share away from Facebook and Google

(56:05) - Homegrown Success Story: Milkroad.com

(58:01) - Fundraising

(58:55) - Web3

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Rachael Zisk is a journalist at Payload Space - where she covers the business and policy of space in their daily newsletter. We talk about becoming a space journalist, development of the James Webb Space Telescope, all the magnificent JWST images, instruments onboard and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaelzisk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RachaelZisk

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Becoming a Space Journalist

(5:40) - Background of James Webb Space Telescope

(12:45) - Instruments onboard JWST

(15:15) - Possibility of life on WASP-96B

(16:41) - Beautiful cosmic cliffs of Carina Nebula

(17:21) - How stars are born?

(19:25) - Southern Ring Nebula

(20:39) - Stephan's Quintet

(22:18) - GLASS-z13 galaxy

(26:07) - 344 Single Point of Failures

(28:47) - Deciding what to capture

(32:40) - Is money spent on space worth it?

(36:25) - JWST sustaining a micrometeoroid impact

(41:57) - New Space Science newsletter

(50:50) - Conclusion

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Arvin Khamseh is a NFT marketing expert. He has helped 400+ NFT brands sell out. One of them made $10m+ in 20 hours. 

We talked about the current state of NFT market, biohacking, web3 vs web2 marketing, working with 400+ collections, and much more. 

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvinkhamseh/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/arvinknft 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arvinknft

Website: soldoutnfts.io

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Current state of NFT market

(4:16) - Noise vs Signal in NFT conferences

(10:12) - How he got into Web3

(21:15) - How NFT marketing works

(23:27) - Marketing in Web3 vs Web2

(32:13) - Making $10M in 20 hours

(37:06) - Is sell out guaranteed?

(40:46) - Are NFTs hyped?

(45:11) - $800 for a 30 min call

(49:15) - Does good artwork or utility guarantee sell out?

(52:00) - Biohacking

(57:15) - Conclusion

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Kurtis Hanni helps business owners understand their financial statements and teaches them how to use numbers to think strategically about the business. He also runs a podcast called Frameworks & Finance. 

We talk about personal finance, living with intention, content consumption, storytelling, credit cards, the Waterline Principle, and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtishanni/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KurtisHanni

Website: https://kurtishanni.com/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Graduating in the 2008 crash

(3:11) - Should you cut your credit card?

(10:15) - The importance of learning business finance

(23:00) - Living with Intention

(25:20) - Jurassic Park movie is not about Dinosaurs

(27:55) - Increase your content consumption

(37:57) - Frameworks for Life and Business

(47:00) - Rhythms of life

(51:10) - Building 'Frameworks & Finance' Podcast 

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Josh Kaplan is the Co-founder & CEO of Smooth Media where they help creators build media businesses. After graduation, he joined PwC and then, led Audio Products at Morning Brew. 

We talked about getting into Morning Brew, experiences working with founders, lessons learnt from launching Business Casual podcast, origin of Smooth Media, and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-kaplan-35029b73/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JKaplan1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josh_kaplan_/

Website: https://www.smoothmedia.co/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Quitting PwC to join Morning Brew

(2:56) - Early days of Morning Brew

(4:46) - Growing Business Casual podcast to millions of downloads

(7:05) - Getting Mark Cuban on the pod

(11:09) - Origin story of Smooth Media

(13:41) - Landing Colin & Samir as first client

(17:44) - Smooth Media vs Jelly Smack

(22:52) - Trends in Creator Economy

(26:52) - Business Model of Smooth

(28:22) - Solving Tax Filing for Creators

(29:54) - Potential of Creator-led brands

(32:58) - Being Founder vs Employee

(36:40) - Creator Anxiety

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Aditi Kothari is the Product Manager of Razorpay Rize. She got into product management in an unconventional way, after randomly meeting the founder of Rapido in a cafe. Previously, she was PM at Bounce and runs a CBC (cohort-based-course) on No Code for Airtribe.

We talked about breaking into product management, landing PM role at Razorpay, the fundamental difference between Swiggy and Zomato, micromobility strategy of Bounce,  and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditi-kothari/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aditikothari_

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aditi_kothari_/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Got into Product Management after meeting a founder in cafe

(7:25) - Life as a PM 

(11:24) - Strategy of Bounce during COVID

(12:19) - Cracking Razorpay

(14:31) - Interview rounds of Razorpay

(18:38) - Fundamental difference between Swiggy & Zomato

(20:50) - Impact of Razorpay Rize Program

(25:23) - Reality of No-code tools

(30:30) - Hosting CBC on No code with Airtribe

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Jeremy Moser is the CEO of uSERP, a $4M SEO agency that he scaled from 0 to $1,000,000 in ARR in just one year. They’ve worked with brands like Freshworks, ActiveCampaign, Monday.com, Robinhood, etc. He also owns a SaaS business called Wordable and he occasionally writes for Entrepreneur magazine.

We talk about being a Twitch streamer even before it was a thing, why startups should invest early and often in SEO, why agency can be an incredible business model, acquiring SaaS startup, using Twitter for lead generation, infinite networking, and much more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyamoser/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jmoserr

Website: https://userp.io/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Getting paid to play video games in high school

(3:18) - Why SEO

(4:30) - Why agency is an incredible business model

(6:45) - Reaching $1M ARR in the first year

(10:04) - What does a successful SEO agency do?

(11:40) - How are brands adapting to the upcoming recession?

(13:26) - How to price your services and capture upside?

(21:16) - Objections to closing clients

(23:16) - How long does it take to get results from SEO?

(26:30) - Monday.com Case Study

(29:52) - Economics of Acquiring a SaaS startup

(37:47) - Leveraging Twitter for Lead Generation

(41:02) - Twitter vs LinkedIn

(44:55) - Good copywriting requires unlearning everything that school taught

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Anshul Rustaggi graduated from IIT, then IIM, worked at a hedge fund in London, came back to India, went to law school, got into the cannabis business, and now is building in web3 with Zionverse. 

We discuss crypto bear markets, tokenomics, how web3 incentivizes the right behaviour, the Bible of Metaverse, why Twitter only allows 280 characters, web4 and more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

GUEST LINKS

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anshulrustagi/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anshulrustaggi/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnshulRustaggi

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots

OUTLINE 

(0:00) - Crypto Bear Market

(11:14) - What kicked off Bear Market

(18:32) - Stablecoin is gateway to mass crypto adoption

(24:50) - Wikipedia should adopt cryptocurrency  

(27:44) - Web3 incentivizes the right behaviour

(31:53) - Zionverse 101

(39:29) - Why Metaverse will be Mobile-driven not VR-driven

(46:07) - Why do they hand out "Snow Crash" to every new team member

(49:47) - Building a Web3 company 

(01:01:35) - Roadmap of Zionverse

(01:05:48) - Why do we play Teen Patti on Diwali

(01:08:46) - Web4 ?!?!?!

(01:13:43) - Video games are extremely valuable for Kids

(01:20:51) - Future 

TOP EPISODES

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi] 

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast 

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Peer Richelsen, Justin Nguyen, Paul Griffiths, Gautam Gupta, Sang Le, Rahul Rana, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.

Tibo started his career selling TVs and now makes $1M in ARR from his Twitter growth tool, TweetHunter. 

We talk about learnings from the first startup, shipping a product every 2 weeks, success of TweetHunter, acquiring initial users, finding a co-founder, making $1M ARR, and more.

SPONSORS

BridgeUp: DM me on Twitter to raise $100,000+ in non-dilutive capital

Listnr: https://listnr.tech/?via=prashant

Dukaan: https://mydukaan.io/

Recast: https://recast.studio/

CONNECT 

Prashant Bagga: https://linktr.ee/prashantpbagga 

Billion Moonshots: https://linktr.ee/billionmoonshots  

GUEST LINKS 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tibo_maker

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thibaultll/

OUTLINE 

(0:00) Selling TVs 

(2:32) First Startup: Motivating Kids to do chores

(9:50) Shipping a product every 2 weeks

(14:59) Success of TweetHunter

(19:26) Acquiring Initial Users & Finding Co-founder on Twitter

(25:20) How to validate idea

(28:18) Importance of building audience for Founders

(34:55) Marketing your side projects

(36:49) Making $1M ARR from TweetHunter

(40:45) The viral TweetHunter Challenge

(43:48) Replicating TweetHunter Success on LinkedIn

TOP EPISODES     

77: Shashank Kumar, Founder of Razorpay [Hindi]

75: Kyla Scanlon, Founder of Bread

74: Adam Jackson, Co-founder of Braintrust

68: Natalie Brunell, Host of Coin Stories Podcast

62: Suumit Shah, CEO of Dukaan [Hindi]

Past guests of Billion Moonshots include Shashank Kumar, Suumit Shah, Natalie Brunell, Kyla Scanlon, Adam Jackson, Danielle Strachman, Chirag Taneja, Suhas Motwani, Aditya Mohanty, Jan-Philipp Peters, Mo Islam, Sang Le, Grace Ling, Joseph Choi and many more.