The Yaro Podcast

Tim Ferriss needs no introduction. 

Author, lifestyle design pioneer, angel investor (Wealthfront, Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba, Shopify, Duolingo), peak performance bio hacker, accelerated learning leader and of course, podcast host.

Tim first appeared on my original podcast all the way back in 2007 when few people knew his name and he was talking about his new book, the 4-Hour Workweek.

In 2012 he returned to my podcast to talk about how to accelerate your speed of mastering a skill, the main topic of his new book at the time, the 4-Hour Chef.

At the same time as we recorded that interview, I also asked Tim to record a secret interview just for my membership site members -- an interview where I asked Tim to explain what happened during the years BEFORE he wrote his first and most famous book.

Today I'm excited to release this special trilogy podcast featuring all three interviews, edited and re-released as one big Tim Ferriss flashback.

Tim is a superstar. So many entrepreneurs credit his book as a starting point for their entrepreneurial journey and millions more people listen to his podcasts.

These interviews I am publishing on this episode feature Tim during much earlier phases of his career, but of course Tim never disappoints, so there is timeless wisdom to be gained by listening in today.

 Enjoy the trilogy,

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

Sonya Petcavich is the founder and CEO of Meowtel.com, an 'Uber for cat sitting' service where a vetted cat sitter will come to your house and look after your kitties for as long as you need them to.

Full disclosure: I am an angel investor in Meowtel and Sonya via the Jason Calacanis syndicate.  

When I first had the opportunity to invest in Meowtel I was immediately a yes because I love cats and would use a cat sitting service straight away since I travel as a digital nomad (assuming I had a cat again - I haven't since I left Australia in 2015).

I also couldn't believe this service wasn't already widely available under one dominant brand because I've heard of similar services for dogs, for example Rover, which recently announced an IPO via a SPAC.

Sonya is a great founder, who keeps us investors updated with regular reports on the progress of Meowtel. 

Unfortunately, shortly after I invested Covid hit, which hurt Meowtel big time. Thanks to Sonya's decisive action downsizing her company, they survived the worst of Covid and in 2021 have been growing like crazy as people head out to travel again.

During this podcast Sonya shares the origin story of Meowtel, including how she 'wasted a lot of money' to build the first version of her platform, and also covers how she dealt with Covid, her strategy for growing a two-sided marketplace business and what the future holds for Meowtel.

Sonya is a first time venture-backed founder, so it was interesting to hear her thoughts on what it's like raising capital, and why if possible, she will avoid doing so in the future if Meowtel can continue to grow organically having just recently turned profitable for the first time.

Enjoy the episode.

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

Paul Biggar got started as a computer engineer early in life. He became a specialist in the field of compilers (software engineers use compilers to test code to see if it works or not). He liked compilers so much he completed a PhD on the topic.

Paul had a few false starts as an entrepreneur, including a stint in the Y-Combinator program, but nothing really took off.

Eventually in his late twenties, while working at Mozilla, Paul foresaw that the process of compiling and testing software will move to the cloud. He had the skillset and experience to understand the need, so decided to launch another startup -- and CircleCi.com was born.

Paul, along with his co-founder, built the first version of CircleCi, charging a monthly fee for access. They were able to acquire early clients thanks to a strategic investor who introduced them to 20+ companies who needed what CircleCI offered.

The Road To A Billion Dollar Valuation

During the interview Paul said he didn't expect CircleCI to one day crack unicorn status. At the time of this recording, during the most recent round of funding, CircleCI was valued at $1.7 billion dollars.

Paul stayed on as CEO all the way up to their A round of funding, raising $6 million at a $20+ million valuation. He left after this, when he realized he was more of a product guy than a CEO who has to focus on culture and hiring.

Paul today remains on the board of directors of CircleCI, but is focussed on DarkLang.com, an ambitious project aimed to take out the layers of complexity that software developers have to deal with when coding applications.

In episode 8 of Vested Capital I featured an interview with VC and entrepreneur Elizabeth Yin.

During that interview Elizabeth shared the story of how she founded LaunchBit and later sold the business to Todd Garland, the founder of BuySellAds.com . This happened in 2013.

In 2012, I had Todd Garland on my podcast, where he explained how he came up with the idea and launched BuySellAds.com as a startup he created during nights and weekends while he was working at Hubspot.

I went back and listened to the interview and thought it offers some great insight into what Todd did to grow his company to an eight figure business. 

Hence I decided to resurface it for you today as a Vested Capital flashback episode.

Here's the original description I wrote for the podcast...

Todd Garland is the founder of BuySellAds.com, an advertising management platform and ad selling service that I have to say I am quite jealous of.

Why am I jealous?

Because Todd has built a company – a company doing over $10 million a year in revenue – with the same idea I had.

Amazingly enough, after talking to Todd for this interview it appears we had almost exactly the same idea around the same time (2007), except Todd went on to implement it straight away, where I waited another four years… sigh.

In this interview, you will hear how Todd was a college dropout and after both his mother and father died around the same time, found himself at a big crossroads. He managed to get work at a development firm, and eventually started a couple of design sites on the side – CSS Elite and 13 Styles.

His websites became popular and he started selling advertising. As a result of this experience, he had an idea for an advertising management service that would help you manage and sell ads. The key differences to any other platform at the time were that Todd wanted to sell ads for a monthly fee on subscription and he wanted his software to make the ad-buying process completely automated.

He coded up BuySellAds version 1.0 by himself and after waiting six months to get over the fear of releasing it, he finally did. Within two months he was making $5,000 a month and it grew from there.

Today BuySellAds is a leader in the direct advertising business. Todd is continuing to innovate, now offering more forms of advertising such as Twitter, RSS, App, and Email Newsletter ads. Listen to this interview and you will hear how it all began.

Enjoy the episode,

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

In the second episode of the Vested Capital Mastermind, featuring Yaro and his three friends - Nick, Mani and Gideon - we answer a listener question about how to get started as an entrepreneur, Nick talks about his latest property investment, Yaro reveals he had an opportunity to invest ConvertKit and Mani and Gideon share updates from their companies.

Dan Young is the son of Chinese immigrant parents who fled China to escape communnism. He then went on to live the American dream, building several companies in the computer hardware space, becoming a multi-millionaire.

Dan's first big success came in the early 1990s, when with his wife they launched a computer hardware business called PC Laptops. 

By offering an unlimited service warranty, using stickers to help spread the word and a crazy television ad campaign, they grew from negative $27,000 in year one, to a million dollars in year two, then five million in year three and kept growing from there.

Dan was quick to turn his business profits back into investments, buying stocks and property. This strategy continued throughout the almost thirty years since the company started, with Dan now having done over $600,000,000 in property deals.

More recently Dan and his team launched an e-commerce retailer focused on high-end computers for video gaming, called Xidax Pcs, and Storage Whale, a cloud based low-cost backup service.

Dan is clearly a deal maker, passionate about entrepreneurship, creating jobs and helping others to gain financial freedom.

Enjoy the interview.

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

Marcel Herz is co-founder and CEO of Tiliter, a company that is accelerating the democratization of computer vision.

Presently they are focused on the grocery store industry, offering a device used at checkout to scan and identify fruits, vegetables, baked goods - anything that is loose without a barcode.

This is just the tip of the iceberg however, as you can imagine being able to scan and identify real world objects will have countless applications, especially as the software gets better and quicker.

I made a small angel investment in Tiliter via the AngelList platform led by Brendan Hill, a previous guest on my podcast. I'm excited by the traction Tiliter already has - currently in hundreds of stores around the world - and also where this technology is heading.

You can listen in to this interview to learn how Marcel and his co-founders built the prototype of the Tiliter checkout, then began approaching large grocery store chains to test it out.

Enjoy the interview.

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

Bryan M Clayton is the co-founder of Green Pal, an 'Uber for lawncare' technology platform, connecting lawn mowing providers to customers all over the United States.

Bryan got his start as a teenager when his father forced him to cut a neighbours lawn to earn some money. Bryan liked being in charge of his income and over the next decade went on to build one of the largest lawncare companies in his city, earning over $10 Million a year in revenue with a team of 150+.

After a decade, Bryan decided to exit his company, selling the business. 

It didn't take long for Bryan to realize he needed a project to focus on to stay happy and passionate, so he decided to jump back into entrepreneurship and even stay in the same industry.

However, his new company was a pure technology play, connecting lawncare providers with customers using a website and app called Green Pal.

Bryan explains during this interview the very hard first five years of his new business. He didn't want to risk the money he made selling his first company (which he instead used to buy property), so along with his co-founders, they completely bootstrapped the project.

They wasted a whole bunch of money working with a development firm to build the first version of their app, then scrapped it all and learned how to code so they could build it themselves.

Bryan breaks down all the steps to grow the company from their first 100 customers to the point today where they do over $20 Million a year in revenue, having expanded across the entire country -- with international expansion coming soon!

This is an inspiring story and a great interview because Bryan was very transparent with what worked and what didn't.

Enjoy the podcast.

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

Pili and Jason Yarusi are real estate investors who today focus on multi-family properties -- buildings that can house for example 90 apartments.

They didn't start out focusing on this type of property. Like many, they began with renovation flips, buying single family homes, upgrading them, then selling for a profit.

During this podcast Pili and Jason take us back through some of their pre-property investment days, including how they met working at a bar, but didn't get together for ten years.

We learn about their first investments, how they switched to investing interstate using the support of a turn-key provider (a partner who helped source properties for them in other cities) and eventually, the mindset shift that led them to think really big, going after the multi-family market.

As you can imagine, it costs a lot more to purchase a 90-unit building compared to a single family home. Jason explains some of the different types of financing they use today to purchase the larger buildings.

If property investing is part of your capital growth strategy, this podcast will definitely open up your mind to bigger possibilities.

Enjoy the episode.

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/

Nathan Barry is the founder and CEO of ConvertKit.com, an email newsletter platform for creators to send newsletters and run email marketing campaigns.

Nathan is well known for transparency, sharing the behind the scenes growth in revenue of his company from day one. At the time of this interview, ConvertKit is generating over $28 Million a year in sales.

During this podcast we first cover all the businesses and roles Nathan had before he started ConvertKit, from running a web design agency at 17, to building IOS apps, to running an information publishing business selling books and courses on digital interface design making as much as $250,000 a year.

Then we switched into the origin and early stage growth stage of ConvertKit. This was a super insightful part of the interview as Nathan explained how after two years of stagnation at $2,000/month in revenue, over the next two years he ramped it up to $500,000/month in revenue.

What a run that is!

I also asked Nathan to explain his philosophy around raising capital, staying private, sharing equity with his employees and what the future holds for ConvertKit.

Enjoy the interview.

Yaro

Podcast: https://www.yaro.blog/pod/
Blog: https://www.yaro.blog/