In Episode #122, we explore growing the world’s best mushrooms in high-tech mini-farms. We’re joined by Andrew Carter, Smallhold’s Co-Founder & CEO. We cover the science and complexities of mushrooms, distributed farming, and how Smallhold is aiming to revamp the food industry. “Smallhold wants people to eat more mushrooms. We are mainly just trying to get mushrooms on people's plates in any sort of way possible. We want them to be grown locally, so they're fresh and enjoyable.” – Andrew Carter EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/smallhold-andrew-carter FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/smallhold-andrew-carter-transcript This episode is our definitive guide to growing the world’s best mushrooms in high-tech mini-farms. In it we cover: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:51 – The move from hydroponics to mycology 00:13:34 – How Smallhold is getting people to eat more mushrooms 00:19:02 – The science and complexities of growing mushrooms 00:24:02 – The decomposition cycle and mushroom growth technology 00:32:13 – Revamping the food industry 00:37:47 – The concept of distributed farming 00:41:56 – How branding fresh produce is different from other products 00:45:19 – Smallhold’s presence in local restaurants 00:51:52 – Fantastic Fungi has increased interest in mycology 00:54:33 – The importance of letting go ABOUT SMALLHOLD Andrew Carter is co-founder and CEO of Smallhold, which is upending the food industry by growing their mushrooms in Michelin-star rated restaurants, grocery stores, and through their network of onsite and macro farms. Today, 68% of all mushrooms consumed in the United States come from a single town in Pennsylvania called Kenneth Square. 400 million pounds worth of mushrooms per year, to be exact. This means that most mushrooms are transported across a vast distribution network to reach stores all around the United States. Smallhold knew there was a better way, so they spent years creating a proprietary set of technologies that allows them to grow mushrooms in an incredibly small footprint, about the size of a small standing cabinet. Andrew covers why the modern food industry is broken, from why most apples you eat are nearly a year old, and why most fish sold in the United States, even if it's caught in the States, is sent to China to be processed, and then back to the US to be sold. We cover the technology behind Smallhold and all of the lessons Andrew has learned along the way. FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s Spotlight episode featuring Smallhold with Andrew Carter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Episode #121, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun's peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. Adrian Aoun is the CEO and Founder of Forward. We cover why medical wearables don’t work, focusing on impact, and creating companies that can change the world. “Care deeply about the problem, not about your idea.” – Adrian Aoun EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/adrian-aoun-playbook/ FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/adrian-aoun-playbook-transcript/ CHAPTERS In this episode, we deconstruct Adrian Aoun’s peak performance playbook—from their favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on their life. In it we cover: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:21 – Creating companies that change the world 00:06:07 – On being stubborn and persistent 00:09:51 – Why medical wearables aren’t working 00:14:03 – It’s just as easy to work on something big as something that’s small 00:16:19 – Everything should relate to the problem 00:17:39 – On fiction and factfulness 00:19:20 – Cycling as meditation 00:20:23 – The only thing that matters is impact ABOUT ADRIAN AOUN Adrian Aoun is the founder and CEO of Forward, which is building an insurance-free healthcare system focused on preventative healthcare from the ground up. Forward was founded in 2017 to invert the typical model of healthcare. Where most healthcare follows the service model, where one patient sees a single doctor only when they need care, Forward is building healthcare focused on health and preventative care. It's productized so you can use it anytime, anywhere. It's scalable so it's affordable for everyone and always on with help available through Forward's app, as well as a network of doctors' offices around the United States, which might sound like, well, how healthcare should have been all along, which is the goal. In this episode, Adrian shares why he's so fanatical about being problem-focused rather than solution-focused and how he runs problem-centric brainstorms at Forward, where the goal is to beat up on other people's ideas in the name of getting to the best ideas. What he learned working with Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google, as well as the other advisors on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, why modern fitness wearables are broken, and why Adrian thinks we need to build tools to tell people what to do with that data, not just share the data with them. FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s 20 Minute Playbook episode featuring Adrian Aoun of Forward. In it, Adrian shares his favorite books, tools, habits, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Episode #120, we explore reinventing a well-established venture capital firm. We’re joined by Steve Vassallo, General Partner at Foundation Capital. We cover Minimum Awesome Product, the prepared mind vs. open mind, and learnings from tearing down and rebuilding an investment firm. “The best product matters, but it is not what defines a generationally important company.” – Steve Vassallo EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/foundation-capital-steve-vassallo FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/foundation-capital-steve-vassallo-transcript CHAPTERS This episode is our definitive guide to reinventing a venture capital firm. In it we cover: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:39 – From electro mechanical engineering to product design 00:06:22 – Interdisciplinary innovation and missionary misfits 00:10:24 – How investing snuck into Steve’s career 00:15:33 – Working at the intersection of building and investing 00:19:24 – A 15-year window into the investment world 00:24:45 – Tearing down and rebuilding an investment firm 00:39:04 – Identifying a firm’s turning point 00:41:21 – Going down the rabbit hole of crypto and enticing investors to follow 00:51:35 – The prepared mind vs. open mind 00:54:44 – Building the best product matters, but it doesn’t guarantee success 00:57:56 – The Minimum Awesome Product and evolving product-market fit 01:02:07 – Advice for new founders ABOUT FOUNDATION CAPITAL Steve Vassallo is General Partner at Foundation Capital and author of "The Way to Design." In this episode, we explore what it's like to reinvent a venture capital firm. Foundation Capital was founded in 1995, 27 years ago by Bill Elmore, Catherine Gold, and Jim Anderson. One of the foundation's early claims to fame was that it was one of the first investors in Netflix back in the early 2000s. This episode is our definitive guide to reinventing a venture capital firm. In it, we cover Steve's early years bringing design, product, and engineering together at IDEO, and what that taught him about building successful products and companies, the early warning signs he saw that made it clear Foundation Capital needed to be reinvented, how Foundation rediscovered who they were and who they wanted to be as a team, how they changed the way they operated and made investment decisions to giving partners more latitude to invest in the ideas they thought could be massive companies in the years to come, how they began making crypto investments, which led to massive wins in Solana and Brave by making small bets and winning over LP support as the wins added up. FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Lear...
Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s Spotlight episode featuring Foundation Capital with Steve Vassallo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Episode #119, we deconstruct Michael Brandt's peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. Michael is the Co-Founder and CEO of HVMN and Ketone IQ. We cover barefoot running, creating brand synesthesia, and the magic of walking. “Do not reinvent the wheel for 80% of what you're doing. Because the 20% of what you're doing that's really special and interesting, that's going to take a 100% of your time. It could and should.” – Michael Brandt EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/michael-brandt-playbook/ FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/michael-brandt-playbook-transcript/ CHAPTERS In this episode, we deconstruct Michael Brandt’s peak performance playbook—from his favorite book to the tiny habit that's had the biggest impact on his life. In it we cover: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:02 – HVMN and ketones 00:04:17 – Barefoot running and improving running form 00:06:50 – Speaking multiple languages across the business as a founder 00:09:37 – Continuous glucose monitoring and heart rate monitoring for peak performance 00:13:27 – Embedding Ketone-IQ into daily life 00:15:58 – Creating brand synesthesia with design 00:22:22 – Recommended books, from Shoe Dog to Born to Run 00:26:43 – The importance of daily activity and the magic of walking 00:31:19 – Find more mentors and don’t reinvent the wheel for 80% of your business As a listener — that’s you — you cantry Ketone-iQ and save 10% off today. Simply go toHVMN.me/OutlierAcademyor use code OUTLIER at checkout. ABOUT MICHAEL BRANDT Michael Brandt is the co-founder and CEO of HVMN which makes the world's first drinkable ketones. HVMN stands for Health Via Modern Nutrition. And in 2017, they launched version 1.0 of their drinkable ketone product after landing a six million dollar contract with the US Department of Defense to study how ketones could improve the performance of our special forces warriors. HVMM launched version 2.0 called KetoneIQ last year in November 2021. Michael is also an avid marathoner, long distance runner, and biohacker which we talk about a lot in this episode. In this episode, Michael shares his product design and branding principles, including his theory of synesthesia or why every part of your aesthetic and brand has to relate to every other part. He talks about how he uses drinkable ketones and KetoneIQ in his daily life, including what products he stacks it with. We discuss his favorite books on running, and the design and engineering thought that went into HVMN. FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Learn more about your ad choice...
Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s 20 Minute Playbook episode featuring Michael Brandt of HVMN and Ketone IQ. In it, Michael shares his favorite books, tools, habits, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Episode #118, we explore healthcare as a product rather than a service. We’re joined by Adrian Aoun, Forward’s CEO and Founder, and we cover why healthcare should be a product, not a service, being problem-oriented as a founder, and why the health insurance industry is destined to fall. “Solutions don't really matter. Problems matter.” – Adrian Aoun EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/forward-adrian-aoun FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/forward-adrian-aoun-transcript CHAPTERS This episode is our definitive guide to healthcare as a product rather than a service. In it we cover: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:02:37 – From Google to Forward 00:09:01 – Why founders should be problem-oriented 00:12:31 – Advising the President on the future of technology 00:17:22 – The root problem of the healthcare industry 00:25:24 – Why healthcare should be a product, not a service 00:30:01 – The imminent fall of health insurance 00:35:06 – Does the healthcare system really matter? 00:45:47 – Why medical specialties don’t make sense 00:55:02 – How Forward is a mission that happens to have a company attached to it ABOUT FORWARD Adrian Aoun is founder and CEO of Forward, which is building an insurance-free healthcare system focused on preventative healthcare from the ground up. Forward was founded in 2017 to invert the typical model of healthcare, which follows the service model where one patient sees a single doctor whenever they need care. Forward is building healthcare focused on health and preventative care that's 1) productized so you can use it anytime, anywhere, 2) scalable so it's affordable to everyone, and 3) always on with help available through the Forward app and a network of offices around the US. This might sound like, well, how healthcare should have been all along, which is the goal. This episode is a special one. In it we cover why Adrian is fanatical about being problem-focused rather than solution-focused, what he learned leading special projects for Sergey Brin at Google, and why Forward is focused on productizing healthcare to bring down the cost of treatments, make healthcare available 24/7, help customers manage all aspects of their health, and increase the pace of innovation and iteration. Adrian shares his perspective on what happens as the percentage of GDP dedicated to healthcare reaches 30% and even 40%, and he talks through how he uses extreme perspectives to pick apart complex issues and come to ground truths. FREE NEWSLETTER https://www.outlieracademy.com/newsletter LISTEN ON iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/outlier-academy/id1523851182 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/58edVNgqaPNaCSGSxM6pef?si=88f37a5d20434775 Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1523851182 ABOUT OUTLIER ACADEMY Learn timeless lessons on work and life from iconic founders, world-renown investors, and bestselling authors. Outlier Academy is the forever school for those chasing greatness. Past guests include Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Adobe, Joey Krug of Pantera Capital, Mark Sisson of Primal Kitchen, Luke Gromen of The Forest for the Trees, and Brian Scudamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Website: https://www.outlieracademy.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/outlieracademy ABOUT DANIEL SCRIVNER Outlier Academy is hosted by Daniel Scrivner. Over the last 15 years, Daniel has led design teams at Square and Apple, turned around a $3M+ ARR SaaS business, and invested in more than 100 companies. He launched Outlier Academy in 2020 to learn from the world’s best founders, investors, authors, and peak performance experts. Website: https://www.danielscrivner.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Listen to one of our favorite moments from tomorrow’s Spotlight episode featuring Forward with Adrian Aoun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices