YBIOTL Episode 15 Publish
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Shubh: [00:00:00] This is a presentation of Indian Dad media in association with,
Philippe: this is a Thursday Media production.
Shubh: Welcome to episode 15 of Your Businesses. On the line, you bottle, uh, Canada's, I don't know, we're gonna say Top 10 Entrepreneurship podcast. The podcast we're entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, friends of ours, cool people we know. Come on, talk a little bit about their real business, but mostly come on to pitch the type of business idea you would pitch to your friends.
Uh, at 2:00 AM for you guys at like 9:30 PM for me. 'cause I'm much older, uh, that's sort of like, Hey, what if, uh. What if the toothbrush just had the toothpaste inside it? That kind of, that kind of thing.
Philippe: Oh, that's actually a great idea. I,
Shubh: that is, oh shit, I should have said that one. [00:01:00] Damnit. Yeah, that's actually Rita's.
I stole that from my wife. She had that from 10 or 15 years ago. Ah, but it sounded better if I just made it up on the spot, right?
Philippe: Yeah,
Shubh: I'll cut that part.
Philippe: I just wanna be clear though, not everyone is a cool guy that comes on. Um, specifically Dallas Price. Yeah. Not cool.
Shubh: Philip Burns co-host, Chaz Summers producer on the call, uh, referencing Dallas Price.
Uh, who Philip has beef with. Uh, Craig Dere comes on today's episode. I don't want to tease the whole episode, but, uh, he wins you over Philip by also taking a rip at Dallas Price.
Philippe: Uh, yeah, that's right. He, he definitely won me over. Um, question, do we keep the part of the episodes where, where Craig Pitches.
Shubh: Yeah, I
Philippe: can Bad porn. Yeah, we kept it. Okay. Oh, you guys are in for a treat then,
Shubh: because if I don't, if I cut that one little bit [00:02:00] out, it makes the whole first 10 minutes that I have to cut,
Philippe: right?
Shubh: Yeah. Okay. I mean, listen,
Philippe: I love that part.
Shubh: This is where we are.
Philippe: So you guys are, this is
Shubh: where we are
Philippe: little.
This is where are for the episode.
Shubh: Yeah. A little teaser. Um, um, as you know, I've consistently skirted making show. Sure. This show appeals to wide audience and, uh, uh, two weeks ago, Philip, you, um, had like a five minute bit on dildos and then, uh, you know, on this episode, uh, things got a little, a little spicy.
So, so I guess, uh, store in my life, I'll be the one professional in the room while this chaos. Uh, circles around me.
Philippe: The dildo bit was not my fault. Someone pitched a dildo that applied sun motion. I mean,
Shubh: no, they pitched a hand that applied sun lotion. You, you converted it. Uh, thank you Danny. Uh, okay.
Thursday, April 2nd, Calgary, Alberta [00:03:00] offsite YYC doors open at four 30 Tech Thursday event. Philip, once again express our gratitude for tech Thursday, uh, Canada's number one, events and ecosystem and community building organization. Is that right? Can I, can we, can we, yeah, I think so. Who else?
Philippe: I think so.
Shubh: Who else would be, I can't think of anybody. I can name a whole bunch of people who wouldn't be.
Philippe: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Ken's most active tech community. Oh, and by the way, uh, uh, privately funded. That's right. Only funded by sponsors. It's just privately funded, thanks to our sponsors.
Shubh: That's the thing we've been doing the last couple episodes is whispering stuff.
I don't really know why.
Philippe: Antique government funding and A SMR,
Shubh: uh, okay. Tate Hacker from ZayZoon is coming back. April Hickey from Toast is coming [00:04:00] on. She, um, has been hard at work, I think prepping her pitches. I'm pretty excited. Um, my brother-in-law yesterday said, uh, so what is this live recording of the podcast gonna be?
I said, well, you, you just, you just said what it's gonna be. But he's a very accomplished, creative, like he's written plays. So now I'm feeling like I should have something, maybe do a little, a little sketch, like a little skit, like the origin story. Should we podcast? So anyway, what would we do? One time, a year and a half ago, Phil and I had coffee and we were like, somebody should do local media.
And then a year and a half later, we did a podcast without talking about it in between.
Philippe: Whoa. It's not, is that, is that the origin story?
Shubh: I don't know. I think it's pretty close, isn't it?
Philippe: He was thinking I was just a guest cohost, but maybe I'm the inspiration behind it all.
Shubh: I know. I mean, let's not get carried away.
Uh, Phillip, you were just saying you were, uh, in Skoki. [00:05:00]
Philippe: Yeah, my friend last minute said someone dropped out of a family trip to Skokie, uh, which is a back country ski lodge, uh, about 10 kilometers by skiing behind Lake Louise. Uh, and I was just like, yep, I'll come. Let's do it. Um, and so kind of a last minute trip, but spent the weekend, no phone with incredible food and, and sort of cross country skiing around the back, the back country.
Um, and it was awesome. It was a great time.
Shubh: Did, did you see a barbershop quartet in Skokie?
Philippe: Uh,
Shubh: extraordinarily deep usual suspects. Cut. Uh, for those of you who enjoy that film,
Chaz: I love that film. I still didn't get the reference.
Shubh: Yeah. Yeah. He, when he's, uh, when he's telling Virgil kids telling the story of everything, and then, uh, he says, I once saw a barbershop quartet in Skokie.
Was, uh, and it's because the quartet makes the whiteboard. Skokie, Illinois. [00:06:00]
Chaz: Oh,
Shubh: anywho.
Chaz: Good reference. Good reference.
Shubh: There's like three people that will appreciate that,
Chaz: that are howling at that one.
Shubh: Yeah. Skokie, the first thing you said when you said Skokie, I was like, oh, usual suspects. First movie I ever watched the director's commentary for.
Philippe: Oh,
Shubh: the director's commentary. I know what's interesting. They don't do director's commentaries anymore, and it should be easier than ever to do a director's commentary.
Philippe: Can I, can I tell you two stories about Skokie?
Shubh: Before we get to that, should I do a director's commentary of this podcast?
Philippe: Yeah, that, that would be good.
Shubh: All right. Sorry.
Philippe: It would be good. Go ahead. Uh, well just, I mean, first story is just that I got so many blisters on my feet from renting cross country boots. I got a big one and it's like,
Shubh: like you were cross country.
Philippe: Yeah, cross country skiing. Oh. Which is like, I try to go downhill, which like we were doing big passes and then like, so we would go up, it'll be fine with like [00:07:00] skins on our skis and then we'd have to go down these like pretty substantial hills.
And you, you're not only the front of your foot is strapped in. So the way you go downhill is like, you just go 20 meters until you're going way too fast and then you, you crash and eat shit. That's like the way you do it on cross country skis. It was horrible.
Shubh: Were you an avid cross country skier before this trip?
Philippe: I had gone twice before.
Shubh: Oh my goodness. Okay. Wow.
Philippe: Yeah.
Chaz: Are you like, do you do downhill skiing?
Philippe: Uh, I can. I can, but you know, I'm a good prairie boy, so I didn't get out there that often.
Shubh: You said you had a second story about Skokie.
Philippe: Second story was, um, yeah, when I was going it was like, I'm, I'm fine with all the athletic stuff.
I think what will be interesting is like just kind of this random family dynamic that. I, I step into it and I walk into
Shubh: it. I think it's great that these people were kind and generous enough to invite you on your trip and now you're gonna get into their personal. So let's talk about it.
Philippe: Maybe I shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't.[00:08:00]
Um, maybe I won't. Yeah, okay. I won't. Do they listen to the pod? Uh, I mean, it might get back to them now. Apparently we're blowing up, so, you know.
Shubh: Yeah. You know what's interesting is I do have a number of people have randomly reached out and said, I listened to the podcast. Um, it's very likely it could get back to them, Phil, so.
Chaz: Oh, yeah, that's true. Especially when I clip it and send it to 'em.
Philippe: I mean, I can't leave ever. I'll tell you, I'll maybe, I'll, I'll obfuscate, but, um, I get there at the rental shop and one of the guys. He is wearing a MAGA hat. And that guy walks away. I, I go to the girl he was talking to who's also on a trip.
I go, who is that? He goes, oh, he's on our trip. I go, he's gonna wear that hat into this like lodge of 20 people. And I get so nervous. Uh, but uh, thankfully he did not bring the hats to the, to the back country lodge and it did not come out. And we avoided largely all political topics, landmines. Anyway, [00:09:00] that's the story.
Do you think there'll be a, that person will be offended if they hear this.
Shubh: Oh, the mega hat guy.
Philippe: Yeah.
Shubh: He's not gonna, I, I don't think that's part of our demo.
Philippe: I think, yeah, I think he's got other podcasts that he is listening to that
Shubh: when you were out with this, uh, other, uh, family. So now when we have, um, say we're going somewhere and our kids bring a friend, sometimes the kids bring the parents, send them with money to pay their own way.
And I'm like, no, no. No, I invited you. We'll, we'll, we'll do that. But is that a thing, when you guys were growing up, did you, if you're going out with your friends families, did you take money for the movie or for snacks or whatever? Philip, did you take some spending money for Twizzlers and stuff on the ski trip?
Philippe: Uh,
Chaz: Philip always got Twizzler money on them. Shit.
Philippe: I mean, I, I paid for my room and then, alright. Okay. And then that included the food and then he, he covered the drinks. But then I, I'm, I need to still pay for, uh, like the beers I had. So I [00:10:00] paid my way, I think, but Okay. I wasn't expecting it, it to be covered, but I'm also 29 though, so that might be different than if I'm 11.
Shubh: The, the next thing is, uh, Chaz, I think maybe I've mentioned this to you over the years. When I grew up and I walked into my friend's house, it was Mr. And Mrs. Staples, Mr. And Mrs. Wong like. My friends call my parents Dr. Mrs. Du. Like my kids' friends, many of them will call us Shoub and Rita, very jarring. Sho her.
Am I out to lunch? Like there's a whole segment of 'em. Call me Coach Shoub. Right? Because they, they play sports with my kids. Is
Chaz: that enough respect on your name
Shubh: or, that's okay. That's okay. Um, am I being unreasonable here? So I said to my kids, I said, what do you call your friend's parents when, when you go to their house?
And they're like, uh, we don't, we don't really call them anything. Well, what do you mean? Well, well, we just talk to them, but we never like Yeah. Talk to them by their name. And I was like, well, that's kind of rude too. You should sort of say [00:11:00] Hello, Mr. And Mrs. Burns, how are you? Hello, Mr. Summers. How are you?
So, am I being unreasonable?
Philippe: Uh, I don't know. I, um, maybe my only thought on this is like in French. If, if you wanna be formal, you use, uh, uh, vu, the, the pronounce vu, which is like, um, more formal. And then when you know someone, you say, so it's actually more, uh, people get insulted if you know someone and you vu them, like, uh, so I don't know.
I, I would say, I would say it's actually more respect maybe to call you by your first name.
Shubh: Well, my, one of my best friends since first grade, um, I saw his dad last year and I was like, hi, Mr. Staples, how are you? And he, and he says to me, he's like, Hey, you could call me Larry. We've known you for 40 years, right?
And I was like, I can't, can't do it. Maybe it's just ingrained. So [00:12:00] you're saying that maybe, so there are some people who would be offended if you call them Mr. Mrs. Seed. So like growing up as an Indian kid. If you had any close friends and family of your parents, it was always auntie and uncle, like auntie and uncle.
So you, you'd like Right. This was not an issue. Right. One of the many things I'm adjusting to is being a parent is when a child walks into your house and says, disrespectful. Hi, how are you? And it's not disrespectful. I know. They're being very polite and kind. I just, I get, I get like, I, I get rattled. You know?
Philippe: I get super uncomfortable when people, people call me Mr. Burns. I was like helping. Well,
Shubh: well first of all, nobody calls you, uh, Mr. Burns. Seriously. Everybody that I've talked to calls you to you is like, uh, it's like ironically, like all beyond Missy. Guys call you Mr. Burns. Um,
Philippe: not to my face. They're calling me Mr.
Burns behind my back.
Shubh: Oh, this is, uh,
Philippe: that's crazy.
Shubh: Uh, sorry, dad. Sorry. Graham. Um, who calls you Mr. Burns, like when you're at a hotel or
Philippe: something? Uh, no, I, uh, I was [00:13:00] helping out friend's daughter who's looking for an internship, so, um, she was by the office and I was just like, yeah, what do you wanna do? Okay.
I made some intros, whatever, and in all of her email correspondences, she called me Mr. Birds even after meeting. And I was like, first I'm like, not that much older than you. Right. But, but also, um, but also like, please call me Philip. You know? Yeah.
Shubh: Then did she switch to calling you Philip after you You asked
Philippe: me.
I, she stopped responding to my emails.
Shubh: All right. So, uh, what we're learning here is this is something I have to deal with because, uh, it's not a reflection of how people feel about you. Uh, listen, man, parenting is a, is an interesting, uh, journey because you're figuring everything out on the fly.
Philippe: Yeah, I bet
Shubh: It's the ultimate startup scale up experience.
Uh, I tell my fir I I tell my first born all the time. I'm like, Hey man, uh, just so you know, I've gotten a lot of stuff wrong with you. And [00:14:00] she goes, uh, thanks. Like it's important to, you know, be honest and straightforward. Does she call people's parents
Chaz: Mr.
Shubh: Or Mrs? No, she, she's, she's the one I ask and she doesn't call them anything.
She's just like, oh, hi, how are you? I'm like, ah, you gotta,
Philippe: she just says, I dunno if that's worse. She says, when's dinner?
Shubh: Make me a bicycle clown.
Philippe: That's what she says. She says, she just says, where's my Twizzler money?
Shubh: Uh, okay. Today Craig de Cruz from Inverted Ventures coming in. Craig, super interesting guy, was very well prepared for the episode. Craig's got his pitches. Philip t's one of them already. I chose not to heavily edit this episode, so this might be our last, might share our last episode.
It's not that bad.
Philippe: We're not the
Shubh: one saying it's not weird shit. Well, now you just made it weird.
Chaz: Just throw the guests [00:15:00] under the bus.
Shubh: Philip has come on to this intro and is like, I'm gonna throw all these people who have done me a very nice thing under the bus. This very kind family invited me on a ski trip.
Let me talk about
Philippe: their political
Shubh: views them for a while.
Philippe: What one singular person's political views.
Shubh: Hey, a very busy person, uh, came on this, uh, one of my many podcasts. Let me just, uh, you know, throw him under the bus a little. I,
Chaz: I'm very grateful to everyone.
Shubh: Uh, before we get to Craig Chaz, uh, what's been going on with you man?
How's, uh, how's this apartment working out?
Chaz: Uh, it's pretty good. We just dealt with the first illness in the apartment. Peyton was got some type of stomach bug yesterday and she was not in great shape, and I kind of caught a little bit of it today.
Shubh: Okay, good. I'm just gonna make a joke, but I let, I let it go.
Uh, you did some pooping, huh?
Chaz: Uh, no. I wish my stomach feels like I need to, but I can't. It sucks. No, we don't need to edit that out. [00:16:00]
Shubh: Jesus Christ. Even for me, that's a lot. I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm a curious fella. I was a lot of poop talk on last week's episode. The problem is we've broken the seal on poop talk on, uh, uh, toys for pleasure talk.
Um, now the problem is you guys think it's a, it's a, it's a one-way door. Now we can talk about that stuff all the time. Uh, okay, so she's feeling better though.
Chaz: Yeah, she's better today.
Shubh: All right. Well, I thought there was gonna be like a cool, exciting update. Like, uh, you know, we, we painted a feature wall in the apartment.
Chaz: No, well, we've hung, she's been hanging up some art and stuff, which has been kind of nice.
Shubh: Uh, have you hung up anything?
Chaz: Uh, I made requests, but I didn't do the actual hanging. She used to, she used to work at an art gallery, so she actually is like a girl. Oh. So
Shubh: she knows what she's doing. Okay, gotcha. Yeah,
Chaz: she's like, good, really good at it.
Yeah.
Shubh: You should tell her about those lights now that you can put above your art. Uh, but they're, oh, they're, they're rechargeable. So you, you stick 'em to the wall. Yeah. So if you don't have, you know, [00:17:00] lighting, you can really Interesting. Really up the, uh
Philippe: Oh,
Shubh: that's nice. Up the ante in the old apartment. Yeah.
Chaz: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Philippe: I have one friend who comes over to my house and she ruthlessly makes fun of me for how low my art is hung. And so, I don't know, I gotta send maybe Patton some photos and she could, uh, she could tell me. I think it's normal height.
Shubh: Can you get somebody to take a photo of you standing beside the art so we can get like a, a proper representation?
Philippe: Yeah,
Shubh: I can do that. Because you're, you're, you're how tall Phil for the audience?
Philippe: Uh, 6 2 6. The audience. Yeah. Six two for the radio audience. Yeah. I'm really tall. Yeah. I'm five 10, by the way. But
Chaz: by the way, for any ladies listening, that's not a joke either. That's for, yeah.
Philippe: He
Shubh: is five 10. Yeah, he is. Which is the, uh, I would say optimal height as someone who's also five 10.
Chaz: Well,
Philippe: yeah, it's a perfect height. Six foot is too tall, right, guys? Yeah.
Shubh: Yeah. Hey, you know what I could do [00:18:00] with all my clothes? Buy 'em off the rack. Yeah. Chaz, how tall are you?
Chaz: Um, six foot, like one
Philippe: too tall. Okay. Giant. Get down from
Shubh: there. Uh, okay. Craig Dere. Craig's not a cool sound of name though. Let's talk about that for a quick second.
Craig De well, we've already been talked. Cruz.
Chaz: Yeah.
Shubh: Craig. Dere. Dere. Oh my God. It's cool. And it has an apostrophe in it. The name's with an apostrophe edit. Imagine if your name was Chaz De Summers.
Chaz: That does
Shubh: sound a little bit, that's a whole different person. More powerful.
Chaz: Yeah.
Shubh: Right.
Chaz: Yeah.
Shubh: Chaz de Summers is a, is a, is a fashion designer, runs a, runs a music studio.
You know, like Chaz de Summers, a whole different guy. Chaz de Summers doesn't need anybody to tell him how to hang up his art. Lemme tell you that much.
Chaz: That's true. Maybe I'll just start going by that.
Shubh: I'd be so sick. I mean, would you'd have a Z in your name followed by the D. It'd be a lot like Craig de Cruz.[00:19:00]
You could just steal Craig's identity. Don't do that. Don't steal our guest identity. Not a good for another. Identity theft.
Philippe: Yeah, identity theft is a serious,
Shubh: talented Mr. Ripley. People with ai,
Philippe: that movie's so good. What a fashion. Inspo that movie too.
Shubh: But, uh, it's no
Chaz: usual suspects. Alright, we'll be right back with uh, Craig de Cruz.
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Check out new network.ca for more details. The new network, I couldn't have done it without them.
Hey Phil. Uh, let's say, um, PIP slips really started to take off. Yeah. Would you trust your product roadmap to automation a lot?
Philippe: Absolutely not.
Shubh: So why do people settle with it for their r and d tax credits?
Philippe: Great questions.
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How you doing, man? It's been a couple months since we chatted.
Craig: I know. Yeah, it's been good. Been a very busy start of the year, to be quite honest.
Shubh: Do you and Philip know each other?
Craig: No.
Shubh: You guys don't know each other?
Philippe: No. We met one time very briefly at a dinner. Are you, we still near at the time, one
Craig: 18 [00:22:00] Empire or something like that?
Philippe: Yeah. Um, like in, uh, in Luer Main or something.
Craig: Oh, okay.
Philippe: Um, yeah, I don't know. You, it would've been like three or four years ago. That is, it's okay.
Craig: Okay.
Philippe: Yeah. But it's, it's nice to, uh, more officially meet you.
Craig: Yeah. This is, this is great. I,
Shubh: I think it's really funny that you, you don't remember Phil, and he does remember you, so,
Philippe: yeah.
This, you're like, you typical the other way around where like, yeah. No, so I, people are like, no, we've met like five times and I'll be like,
Shubh: love it. I love it.
Craig: I feel a piece of shit. I'm sorry.
Shubh: No. Yeah.
Philippe: That's how I usually feel. No, no, no.
Shubh: Phil should, sorry. To be clear, Phil should feel like the piece of shit.
Philippe: Yeah. Yeah. For being forgettable. Yeah. Yeah. Shares me. Right. I'm making, this isn't a
Shubh: Craig problem. This is a Philip.
Craig, have you had a chance to listen to any of the episodes?
Craig: I sure have. Yeah. I've listened
Shubh: to. Oh, you have? Oh, okay. Yeah. Uh, so you kind of, I think, have a sense of a bit how this is gonna go. [00:23:00] This is a fun, stupid podcast. Um, we do like to also highlight like, people's entrepreneurship journeys. And I think, um, one of the most fascinating things as we've gone through this exercise is how people have come into either, um, venture or to, uh, operating from a background you would not expect.
And I think you definitely have that. So, um, yeah,
Craig: guys fit that bill, I guess.
Shubh: Um, I don't wanna ruin it for Phil, so we'll do it.
Craig: Yeah. Keep it fresh
Philippe: for me.
Craig: Oh, okay. Sweet.
Shubh: Sorry. Before we do that, uh, no, I wanna make sure I pronounce the last name correctly because I, everybody always pronounces my name incorrectly.
Craig: Okay. It's, uh,
Shubh: dere. Okay. Well, it's exactly what I thought. I just, I don't know. Its like it's the
Philippe: coolest last name too.
Shubh: It's got an apostrophe. Okay. Yeah,
Craig: it's got an apostrophe.
Shubh: All right. Okay, we're back with Craig Dere of Inverted Ventures. Say hi. I made it sound like I didn't know Craig, but I did Craig and I know each other a little bit.
Philip, you and Craig met, uh, five minutes and 10 seconds ago.
Philippe: [00:24:00] That's right. Well, um, yeah, technically dinner. Oh, sorry. Both dinner not,
Shubh: yes, actually you met a,
Philippe: I met Craig. He didn't, well, he doesn't remember meeting me.
Shubh: Yeah, he doesn't, and Craig said, oh, he felt badly about that. And I said, no, Craig, Philip should feel badly for being so forgettable.
Philippe: Exactly. Yeah. Not as memorable as I once thought I was.
Shubh: How do you, you feel like you're back footed already now, right?
Philippe: Yeah, exactly. You, you big dog. Me, yeah. Craig, you calling you Big dog Me immediately.
Shubh: Uh, also, Craig, uh, we apologize to you already, but I'll do it on air because, uh, logistically we were all just hanging out ready for you in the studio and you were waiting remotely because, uh.
Shockingly for our audience, we didn't have our shit together.
Philippe: Yeah. Whose fault is that? Chaz?
Shubh: Yeah, Chaz. I mean, I would love to say it's entirely Chaz's fault, but I, I think I might have to take a fair amount of the responsibility.
Philippe: Chaz, you gotta put the, the location in the Google meets, bro.
Shubh: Yeah. So Craig, [00:25:00] uh, you and I have met Craig does remember meeting me.
Incidentally.
Craig: Absolutely. Yeah.
Philippe: Where'd you guys meet?
Shubh: But I'm just pointing out here on the scoreboard.
Philippe: Oh, okay.
Shubh: Shove. Memorable one.
Philippe: Shove one.
Shubh: Well, 'cause everyone always talks about how memorable Philip is, and I just feel like, yeah. Hey, that's a real underdog story that Craig remembered me and not Philip
Philippe: feels good, doesn't it?
It feels
Shubh: good. It feels incredible. Do people just walk around feeling like this all the time?
Philippe: Yeah.
Shubh: Oh my God. The memorable ones feel is this, Philip
Philippe: is the memorable ones too, not
Shubh: normal. Is this what you normally feel like?
Philippe: This is what I, I mean, today I'm not gonna feel like that. Yeah, but
Shubh: But normally you feel
Philippe: normally I feel that.
Yeah.
Shubh: Oh, okay. Craig, uh, sorry. We're just talking over you. An at you. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us. You, unlike some of our recent guests, won't name names, have actually listened to the podcast before, so I won't give you the whole spiel and background. But this is a podcast where people come on to pitch sort of, you know.
Somewhat unserious business ideas. Sometimes there's a little seriousness in there. And we're [00:26:00] trying to just make this whole world more accessible for people by launching a business comedy podcast. Uh, I, I am obligatory have to say we are still charting on the national charts, on the entrepreneurship charts.
We've been top 10 for a couple of weeks. Woo. Nice. So that's pretty exciting. Greg, could you mind just maybe telling folks maybe a bit about yourself and, uh, your background into this whole universe that we all operate in?
Craig: For sure. Um. Yeah. Just to preface, yeah. I will start out with calling out people Dallas, wy.
You listen to this pod, what's going on Dallas? To my buddy? Yeah.
Shubh: Dallas Christ. Yes. I love enemies. You know your n you're, you're back in, you're back in Pip's. Good books. Let's go. I, I think Craig Craig's team Drake. Come on. Oh, incredible Callback. Craig. Thank you. Take that Dallas. We should just end the episode right now.
That was the, that was the [00:27:00] perfect first guest entry. That, anyway, well done, Craig. Uh, yeah, so Craig, just, Craig just earned himself a sec, second booking on this.
Craig: There we go. And I'll, I'll do it in person next time. That's good.
Shubh: Well, I mean, not if we tell you not to.
Craig: That's true. I'll just be walking around somewhere downtown and you guys are in the, you know, you guys are in Englewood or something, and I'm just walking around in the belt wine.
Yeah. Uh, thanks for having me on, guys. Uh, my name's Craig Deru. I'm the COO of Inverted Ventures. Uh, we're a single family office here, here in Calgary that invest in early stage startups. We love doing, um, you know, getting into pre-seed and seed stage companies and, and helping them through the journey of getting to that series A.
My background, I was a chef for 24 years. Whoa. Before joining the family office and becoming the head of our venture portfolio that I was tasked by my family to build. That's awesome. No sense. Um, even when I say it, the words come outta my [00:28:00] mouth and it doesn't really make sense. Um, I ran, uh, the Marriott downtown was the chef of the Teles Convention Center through Marriott.
Wow. Um, I was the chef of, uh, the Delta Airport, Delta Beau Valley downtown. Um, and then I was the chef of the University of Calgary for the students union, uh, for nine and a half years, all the way up through COVID. Um, so Cool. And then during COVID, I ended up working with my cousin Nick, who just started Inverted Ventures in 2019.
And the idea of that was to really get into investing in early stage companies and do some angel investing and then do some like equities and commodities trading. And what happened was COVID, I. Yeah, he pivoted and put everything into cryptocurrency. Um, whoa. Everything, like, everything that we had allotted for all of these investments, he was like, yeah, I'm just gonna buy Bitcoin and Ethereum.
And I went, your dad's gonna murder you. Um, yeah. So, but it ended up working out really well. We did a bunch of research.
Shubh: How many times, uh, how many times does Nick remind you that he was right?
Craig: Oh, like every day. Every day I'll, [00:29:00] I'll, I'll, you know, argue about him with something and he is like, yeah, but what about that 14 x on crypto?
And I'm like, yeah, I'm got, I'll shut up now. You know, like, it's, it's pretty funny.
Philippe: But, but your commodities portfolio would be doing pretty well right now too though.
Craig: Yeah. Um, if we were,
Philippe: if
Craig: you still, you know, doing active,
Shubh: well you guys a lot of active trades. You guys did the smart thing that none of the rest of us do is you, you went up.
But then you didn't write it all the way back down. So that that's, yeah. That's an investment lesson for everybody. Yeah. When it goes way up, maybe it takes some money off the table,
Craig: and when everybody is insanely bullish and talking about how it's gonna go up forever, that's exactly when you sell. That's, yeah, pretty much the idea, right?
Shubh: It's probably the most useful piece of information we've gotten for people on this podcast.
Philippe: Yeah. So what's the thesis of inverted? What, what kind of companies do you invest in?
Craig: I mean, we're kind of broad strokes in a way. We're semi agnostic. What we look at is like legacy industries. What are, what are the slow moving industries that use technology every [00:30:00] day?
But the majority of the people within that industry don't have no understanding that they're utilizing, um, you know, tech, we're an oil and gas family. My uncle was an oil and gas. He was a, he was a mid-market dealer of Liquidized Petroleum. And, you know, one of the big things was we talk these oil and gas guys and they're like, oh, you're in tech.
Like, we don't get tech. And I'm like, well how did you know within your company to drill 3462.64 feet into the ground? You weren't using them, you know, like a dipstick and just throwing it in the ground. You were use technology. And when you kind of put it to them that way, they're like, oh shit. Yeah, we do use technology.
So we're, we're looking at industries that are construction food because of my background, restaurants, um, ag, things like that, that use a ton of technology. Um, but we're looking for the first movers in those industries in a way, looking for some founders that are trying to flip the industry on its head, utilize the technology, and by the time the industry starts to catch up or needs to catch up, our companies are ahead and primed for [00:31:00] great.
Co-invest, if not to be taken over
Philippe: any, any recent, uh, uh, investments that you're super jazzed up on?
Craig: Yeah, so we just did an investment in December in a company called Nature Mary. Okay. And it's our, it's our first dabble into CPG, which is consumer packaged goods. Um, oh, cool. They're a wellness brand.
They're a brand that has created plant-based terpenes, um, that access the endocannabinoid system. So this is a lot of big words, but it's like, it's not a cannabis related product. So they're getting a lot of traction in the Middle East and in Asia because those areas do not like cannabis.
Shubh: Has the, has the same physiological impact, but doesn't operate, isn't, isn't the drug.
Craig: Isn't the drug. Yeah. Oh,
Shubh: cool. Wow.
Craig: So it, it totally takes care of nerve pain and a lot of, you know, intermuscular pains and it does well, a lot of people in our family use it now that have had, you know, knee surgeries and bum knees and strain this [00:32:00] and that, and it works really well.
Shubh: What's the name? One more time?
Craig: Nature Mary.
Shubh: We always like to pitch the products that people are representing, so I'm gonna check it out.
Philippe: Perfect. In case they can't big enough at
Shubh: one point where they
Philippe: wanna sponsor us.
Shubh: Yeah, that's right. It's a, yeah, it's a long-term play for us. Uh, can I, sorry, just rewind a tiny bit because again, we do have a portion of our audience that knows nothing about our world.
What's a family office, Craig?
Craig: Sure. Okay. So a family office is there, there are two types. There's a, a single family office, which is what we are, we're one family that manages our own capital. So a a lot, a lot of family offices are. Families that made a lot of money, um, doing something. So ours did it in oil and gas.
You know, some other families like the Campbell Soup people, they have a family office. Uh, Tom Brady has a family office, right? So it's like you make money and then you either hire, um, hired guns, so some folks to manage your money for you and help you get some nice gains and, um, invest into different asset classes like venture capital, [00:33:00] private equity, the stock market bonds, things like that.
Or you can do it in internally like what we're doing. There's also things called multifamily offices, which is. Like an investment group that has multiple, like five, six to a thousand family offices altogether.
Shubh: Awesome. Thanks for explaining that. I, it's funny, like I say that for everybody else, I think seven years ago, me personally, I'd never heard that term before and I was like, oh man, it's 'cause I'm hanging out with the wrong people.
Philippe: Yeah. You
Shubh: know? Now everybody I know, like, you know, 20 family offices, I'm like, oh, these are all the people I need to know earlier in life here. Um, and you do have one other company in your portfolio? And, and we can cut this if it's not doing well, but, uh, when you and I talked, there was like a, a, a company that was doing like local sports streaming or something like that.
Do I have that right like that outta, outta Saskatchewan? How, how are they doing?
Craig: Yeah, so the company is called Home Team Network. Um, they're doing AI broadcasting for live streaming [00:34:00] sports. So pretty much what they've done is aggregated a ton of data through these machine learning robots. And what they're doing is they're watching games, whether it be flag football, um, hockey, um, baseball is probably their biggest vertical now in the sports world.
And it will track the ball. So if, if the guy's at bat, there's a camera that is watching the guy at bat and the pitcher, and then as the pitcher throws it, it'll cut to, and if this is all autonomous, so there's no humans actually making the cuts like a. Like you would on a normal sports net broadcast or something like that.
This is all done through AI and through machine learning. So, uh, they have a ton of deals that they've signed in the US and yeah, it's a Regina based company. They just closed around at a $31 million US valuation. It's a great company. They're gonna do fantastic.
Shubh: And they're literally, Phil, they're streaming like [00:35:00] four sports that you would normally not be able to stream or broadcast.
So like high school sports or like, uh, I'm, maybe I'm getting this wrong, Craig, so you can cut me off. Uh, but even like AAA hockey or, or, um, some junior college baseball team, like Yeah. You watch like tv especially like, interesting for, you know, my world, we've had a couple of the parents that I coach their kids playing soccer with, and oftentimes you're traveling and it'd just be nice to be able to watch it.
And it's not the same tech, but we had a little inclination. Somebody had one of those cameras that tracks the ball and they mm-hmm. Recorded some game tape for the kids so they could actually see what we, I was yelling at them about. And I was thinking about you guys. I was like, god damn, that is such a good idea.
Philippe: Yeah.
Shubh: I love. That's brilliant. Then the local, Phil and I talk about this all the time, like local media angles, you know, do you remember when we were growing up, there'd be like high school sports updates sometimes in the paper, on the radio. Like there's no way to get that easily anymore. So I just think this is such a cool concept.
So I don't know them, but uh, just tell them Good job from Chubb.
Craig: Awesome. I will let them know.
Shubh: I appreciate that. Restaurants,
Craig: yeah.
Shubh: Chef to [00:36:00] this world.
Craig: Yes.
Shubh: I'm sure the learning curve must have been just insane.
Craig: The learning curve was, was nuts, but I, I don't know. I'm on the spectrum. So it was one of those things where, where, where that makes
Shubh: three of us.
Yeah. I was gonna say just keep going. Just count everybody that we know. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Craig: When I was told, you know, we're looking at doing this venture capital thing within the family, is this something you'd be interested in? Because I was asked to do the trading side of things and I said no. I was like, no, I'm a chef.
That's not that, that is not gonna get me outta bed for 12 hours a day. Right? But then I started looking into what venture capital was. That space in the investing. And I went, oh, I think I can dig my teeth into this. Um, and then I did what I do, and it was seven days a week, 16 hours a day of just reading books, watching YouTube videos, going to seminars and webinars and trying to meet people within the industry to figure out if this was something that we could do, that I could do or we would have to hire someone for.
Um, and it was one of those things where I, I really fell in love with [00:37:00] it. What I never realized until about six months into the role was that as a chef, I was running a startup for 24 years. Right? You have shitty budgets, you've got staff turning over, you're trying to turn. Something from nothing. You know, you're bootstrapping, you're doing all these things, and you've got time goals and time crunches and all these different things that I just never realized how much alike the two worlds were.
And once I figured that out, it made things so much easier as to relate to the founders and to really dig into their problems and understand some of the, you know, tough situations and scenarios that they go through were things that I went through in my everyday life running a kitchen. Right. It, it doesn't, it, on paper it doesn't make a lot of sense, but once you dig into it, you're like, it actually does rhyme a bit.
Shubh: Yeah, it's super interesting, like the operating background, whether you're operating a kitchen or restaurant. Or operating a business. A lot of the problems are the same. Yeah. One [00:38:00] last question before we get into you. The reason that maybe people listen to the show, Phil and I all the time, talk to founders who are like, oh, I can't get in front of people to pitch, or I pitch an investor and it doesn't resonate without getting too deep into it.
Advice you have for founders that are trying to get to folks like yourselves and then also what you wanna hear about in that first, you know, 10 minutes that they've got your attention.
Craig: Um, I think is be original, uh, none of the, Hey, and then go right into your pitch.
Shubh: Start a business with comedy podcast maybe.
Craig: Yeah. Start a, there you go. Start a business comedy podcast people
Shubh: do I have a pitch for you, Craig? Do you wanna invest in the number one business comedy podcast in Canada? Yeah. Do you want all the stress and difficulty of running a restaurant with none of the upside?
Craig: Yeah. Send me, send me the pitch deck.
Shubh: Well, sorry, that wasn't, that was, that was,
Craig: that was the
Shubh: pitch. Okay. Sorry. Be original. You were saying
Craig: be [00:39:00] original. You're talking to another human. I, I get that There's, um, certain things that you have to hit on the pitch and you just go right into it. Don't, I think that's the big thing is just talk to 'em like, like they're a human.
Like you're having a beer with them. Right. That's the one thing I always tell a lot of people, and one of the biggest things that I've been saying to folks now is it's okay to get the no. But also like learn when the no comes. I, I say to a lot of people, I, I was in a room just, uh, like a month ago and this guy came to me and was pitching his idea.
And I'm like, that's a great idea. It's just not for us. It's not in our thesis. We don't really invest in that vertical, whatever it might be. And then he just kept going. And I finally said, okay. Like after about a minute and a half, I went, okay, I'm gonna tell you something. I don't wanna be rude, but that minute and a half, two minutes we just spent with you talking, you could have been talking to someone that might have wrote you a check.
Shubh: Yeah,
Craig: I, if I meet anybody who likes what you're doing, I will introduce you to them. But you shouldn't be talking to me right now. Like there's a [00:40:00] room full of 300 people go talk to go find your person.
Shubh: You might be more willing to do the intro if they don't keep pitching you either. Right? If they actually hear your feedback.
So
Craig: yeah,
Shubh: it's kinda there. There's another, um,
Philippe: who said this, but um. Uh, some person of value. We'll just, uh,
Shubh: we'll edit that out later.
Philippe: Yeah. Was, it was like the best founders in the world to spend 20, their 20% of their time doing something completely different than building their company. Like either that's like high performance, um, skiers or runners or, you know, there there's an element to like, when you say be original, also just like be interesting, right.
Do something mm-hmm. Every year that makes you a more interesting person and that that'll make you like a more likable person to talk to. Right.
Shubh: I've been watching a lot of Peaky Blinders lately. Does that count?
Philippe: That definitely counts. Yeah. Yeah. In I've
Shubh: never, oh, no. Oh no. Craig, you will. After this. Tommy Shelby.
Um, any who, nobody. Again, we often talk about things that maybe Phil and I, [00:41:00] we talk a lot about basketball, for example, on this podcast, I can guarantee you 98% of our audience does not know what we're talking about, but, uh.
Craig: It's your podcast. You can do whatever you want.
Shubh: Thank you, Craig. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaking of doing ever whatever we want, Craig, fascinating background transition from chef to venture capitalists. Can't be that many of those. That must be a very small club. Yeah. Uh, congrats on all the success. Some of the port cos or the portfolio companies are really, really interesting and cool.
You've highlighted a couple today. All that being said, that's not why you're here. Craig. You get pitched a lot today. The shoe is on the other proverbial foot.
Craig: Okay.
Shubh: Do you have an idea that you would like to pitch Phillip and I today?
Craig: I do. And I've been racking my brain for a while about, yes, the right way, the right one.
Shubh: You spent a bunch of time, uh, being interesting and likable, so you check right. Right. Yeah. You didn't just jump right into the pitch, so you taking your own advice. [00:42:00]
Craig: Yeah. Were
Shubh: you
Philippe: about to say that you have three?
Craig: Yeah. But two are totally hair-brained ideas. One is, one is a joke. One that I think is hilarious because, oh,
Philippe: wow.
Craig: Okay. How, how old are you guys? You guys are younger than me, obviously. Uh,
Shubh: I'm 46.
Craig: I'm 20. No, you're not.
Shubh: I am. I just look incredible.
Craig: You do. My God. I'm 42 and you look 20 years younger than me. Dude. Stop. Man.
Shubh: It, Greg, stop it. Well, imagine if you were in studio, you would've thought I looked 85.
Craig: Youre gonna like my pitch then.
You're gonna love my pitch. How about you? Let's hear. How about you, Phil?
Shubh: I'm, uh, 29.
Craig: Okay. So you might not unders, you probably won't understand this, but
Shubh: we'll, we'll bring him along for the ride. Uh, we had to explain him what a computer tower was a couple of weeks ago.
Craig: Oh, my g Yeah. You're not gonna understand this at all, so, but I
Shubh: what Craig, you hit a start with whatever one you want.
Let's go.
Craig: I'm gonna start with that one. 'cause it's, it's, to me it's hilarious
Shubh: again, idiot.
Craig: It's all that matters. I am, um, it's, it's called Make porn Scrambly again, [00:43:00] like
Shubh: the
Craig: young people. You
Philippe: have my note I used to watch. Okay. Oh my God.
Shubh: This is the part of the episode. I might not be able to air.
Philippe: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Shubh: So you're, you're referring to, uh, the era of our lives where paid TV was all scrambly?
Craig: Yes.
Shubh: You could hear it, but you couldn't see it.
Craig: Yeah. And as the old man shaking my fist to the sky.
Kids and young people are so lucky to have
Shubh: access to.
Craig: It's too easy. It's too easy.
Shubh: That's so, I mean, I know you use the, uh, the, uh, adult, uh, entertainment example. Yes. But I will say as a child of the, uh, late seventies, eighties,
Craig: mm-hmm.
Shubh: Um, I used to watch a lot of wrestling.
Craig: Okay. I still watch a lot of wrestling,
Shubh: WrestleMania, whatever you would be, it would be on the Pay-per-View channel.
Yes. It'd be scrambling, but I could hear the audio.
Craig: Yes.
Shubh: So I literally would listen to it like I was listening to the play-by-play of WrestleMania on the radio. Now you just go onto [00:44:00] Netflix and you can watch. All the wrestling that's ever existed.
Craig: Yep.
Shubh: So I'm with you. It's too easy.
Philippe: I like
Shubh: how
Philippe: you turned like, like
Shubh: any content
Philippe: everyone is seeing through
Shubh: this, I got off the pornography very quickly.
No, don't clip that. Cha uh, yeah. So you make, uh, make, uh, make stuff scrambling again.
Philippe: Make stuff scrambling again. So, so wrestling, is that the whole pitch? Just make wrestling win
Shubh: scrambling.
Craig: I'm the biggest wrestling fan that you guys probably will ever know. I am a, oh Chaz, I'm wrestling a producer nerd.
Shubh: Chaz is on the call, our producer.
Craig: Okay.
Shubh: Uh, he would probably just good man, you and him could start a wrestling pod together.
Craig: That would be awesome. I have been looking for that and it would be great. 'cause I'm a wrestling nerd. I go to WrestleMania every year. I have wrestling tattoos.
Shubh: Wow. I'm Lou
Craig: Dessert.
Shubh: Pretty legit. Um, wait now, so hold on a sec. Um. You will make scrambly things [00:45:00] scrambling.
Craig: Yes.
Shubh: See, I'm just tapped at You'll make things scramble. You'll make things scrambly again, because it's too easy to access. Right. Too easy to access. So it's like an audio only format.
Craig: I guess so, because yeah, that was fine.
You could at least hear the audio when you're, or
Shubh: do you just wanna completely scramble and there's nothing.
Craig: No, no. I, I, it needs to, it can't be, it can't be worse than what we had. I just think it needs to be what we had. It made us scrappy, you know what I mean? We, and in our demographic, we, we have to go through some tough times, you know, you
Shubh: have to dig through to find the content you were looking for.
Craig: Absolutely.
Shubh: Video stores, hours, you know. Anyway,
Craig: Sears catalogs, zeller's, Zeller's, newspaper ads, like, it was bad. It was bad. You know,
Shubh: uh, we should put a scrambly video together with this, with this audio, will they format.
Craig: So I apologize for that right away, like, just throwing that. No,
Shubh: it's great. You don't have to [00:46:00] apologize for anything. I think that was, you've, you've correctly read the tone of the program.
Craig: Um, and then I've got one that I'm thinking about and it's, um.
It's more dystopian, this one. Oh yeah. In terms
Shubh: of you are really just going to all the ends of the spectrum here.
Craig: Yeah, I, yeah. I fly a lot for work and travel and you know, one of my most hated places in the world is the airport because of it makes me lose faith in humanity. Right? Like humans are at the airport, humans are just disgusting, awful people, right?
Yep. Agreed. So I think there needs to be like a, kind of like the social scoring thing, but like at the airport, if you screw up at the airport, you're back in the line, right? Oh
Philippe: wow.
Craig: You go through, you go through security and you have your watch on and the things going off and you have to go back four or five times through the scanner 'cause you didn't take off your belt and whatever.
Yeah. You're, you're zone 12 getting on the plate. Right?
Philippe: I love this zoning based on your like Uber rating or like your score, your
Craig: flight [00:47:00] etiquette. Like how fast did you get through it? Not. Make anyone else like impact the lives of the other a hundred people in line around you. You know? And
Philippe: if you, if you've ever like jumped rows, you, you know, when you, you're deboarding a plane and like someone tries to get in front of the row, that's deboarding.
Oh, that's, so what are you doing? I like step in front of those people. I'm like, absolutely not, bro. Like, what are you doing?
Shubh: Okay. I also love this idea. How do you, uh, how do you put it together, Craig? So let's say we, we are gonna go, uh, to pitch Calgary airport tomorrow and the airlines and we're gonna say, Hey, we, uh, want people to get on the plane based on the order of, uh, how cool they are, how easy they are at the airport, right?
Craig: Yeah.
Shubh: Um, how do we do it? Is the, the security people got a little button. We leveraging AI and cameras. What are we doing here?
Craig: We're leveraging AI and cameras and the fact that you have to scan your boarding pass like three times. So Yeah. They know who you are, what flight [00:48:00] you're getting on, they know your name, all that kind of stuff.
So if they scan it before you get the security Yeah. Or you're at security and you're, you know, taking off your shoes and doing all that stuff and then it, it beeps well, there's a little bit of an X on your, 'cause they have that info. So you'd have to create an app or some sort of platform that all of the kiosks at the, um, where you're boarding your plane are like the gates.
Shubh: Yep.
Craig: That all the airlines would have access to for everyone on board. And then you would get ranked,
Shubh: we've talked about this before in the pod, how the airport's the worst, which is why I wanted a bowling alleys at the airports. It's just ran bowling alleys. Po
Philippe: lanes.
Shubh: Po lanes. Um,
Craig: yep.
Shubh: What are you gonna call this thing?
Craig: So I had a couple names, so I'm thinking, um, flight Ocracy.
Shubh: That's pretty
Craig: flight. Oh, flight risk. Aristocrat. Like flight risk. Flight risk. Crat
Shubh: as a brown Skin Man flight Aristocrat sounds too close to flight risk. Crat.
Craig: [00:49:00] That's exactly what I was trying to say. Flight risk crats, which you, I would never get on a plate.
Shubh: Yeah, we would, we would just be hanging out. We would be bowling at the airport all day, every day
Craig: and I'd be okay with that.
Shubh: My
Craig: favorite name of this would be Flight of the Dumble Bees. Just for the dumb people that aren't gonna be in
Shubh: the back of the. That's pretty great. Yeah. Chaz right now is all nervous.
He's like, how am I gonna get flight of the Dumble Bees in the show header? It's too long.
Philippe: What if it was, what if it was Lord of the Flies?
Shubh: Flights
Philippe: Flight?
Shubh: Oh, flies. Oh, well, oh, I see what you did there.
Philippe: Yeah,
Shubh: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Philippe: Because it's, it's, I like
Craig: that. That's great.
Philippe: Yeah. It's also a story of, of humanity sort of falling apart when there's no rules.
Yes. Yeah. I would always, I'm not, this is a humble brain and self-assessment, but I would always be zone one. Yeah. I am efficient. I am, I, you know, I, I think perfect airport etiquette. Im walking on for my zone exactly on time. In fact, I preempt it like I know [00:50:00] when they're about to call my zone, so I just, I tailgate the last person and then by the time they're calling the Zone, I'm at the gate.
Craig: There
Shubh: you go. See if that's, I, I, I would say I also have terrific flight etiquette, even when we're traveling with the kids. Perfect flight etiquette. I've got the kids, like the, the liquids are packaged right at the top in their iPad, so there's no waste even when we're the family and the family line.
Craig: Yeah.
Shubh: Fast, fastest family.
Craig: Boom, boom.
Shubh: So, uh, I think we both love this idea. The only people who wouldn't like this idea are people who are bad at airports.
Craig: Exactly. Yeah.
Shubh: The Dumble Bees.
Craig: The Dumble bees
Philippe: and Joan 12 feller.
Shubh: Yeah. Just, you never get on the plane. You wait for the next one.
Philippe: Yeah. I would pay extra to force other people to not be able to fly.
Shubh: Would you pay instead of like, uh, having, you know, your, your status, you know you can pay for status now you can. Would you pay to de status other people?
Philippe: Yeah, I would. I think. Yeah. He's such a [00:51:00] flex.
Shubh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm super elite. Uh, not anymore.
Philippe: That guy hated your etiquette.
Shubh: 10, 10 people. If 10 other people downgraded you, your status, you lose it.
Philippe: Yeah. You know, when you're walking. Oh, that's
Craig: awesome.
Philippe: When you're walking by first class, one guy looks at you. Funny downgrade. Uh,
Shubh: I can't speak for Craig, but when I walk through first class, they all look at me funny. Yeah. Especially when I sit down. Okay. I love this idea. Well, so Craig, we rate at a, uh, salsas here, 75 salsas.
Yes. Philip Photocracy. Uh, Lord of the flights flies, flight of the dumble bees. What would you rate this idea?
Philippe: Yeah, I I I love it. I, I think, um, it
Shubh: feels like he's really just speaking to you.
Philippe: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I'm both pretentious and, uh, I love and love status and, and love to fly. Um, you gotta fly.
You gotta fly. It's, it's really good. I, I do wonder about social scoring. You know, I think even [00:52:00] Uber ratings, I think are, are, um, uh, are like a dangerous step towards, right.
Shubh: They
Craig: absolutely are.
Philippe: They absolutely are.
Shubh: You do understand, we run a podcast where we rate people every time.
Philippe: That's true. I, I wish there was an Uber rating for my passengers.
You know, like the passengers I have like,
Shubh: oh, your friends.
Philippe: My friends. Exactly.
Shubh: All of my poor Uber ratings are because of my friends.
Philippe: Yeah, me too. I think people, friends think that they can misbehave when they're not the ones calling the Uber.
Shubh: That's right.
Philippe: Including, uh. A story about a friend of mine who vomited Oliver, an Uber in San Francisco.
Oh no. My wedding guest to my brother's wedding. But, um, it's a story for another time.
Shubh: At least you didn't out them by exactly describing who
Philippe: they were. No, she knows who she is.
She still has a baby, the cleaning fee. Um, but anyway, uh, but I think this is a great idea. I, I like it, but, but only because, well, I guess, what's the rev? What, what's the revenue model here? How's this thing making money? Or are [00:53:00] people paying more?
Craig: I, I absolutely did not even think about that. That's,
Shubh: yeah.
Craig: Yeah. This is free on the app store and it's just to. Make me not hate humanity as much. I guess that's kind of the
Shubh: word. Ads. Yeah, ads, yeah. Everybody's in this thing trying to get everybody else to the back of the line, you know? And then you're just popping up a little ad for coffee.
Philippe: Or I guess it's like a, a, maybe an airline would implement this as their loyalty program.
So like an airline would be like, Hey, we want like delta's, like we think that people would prefer this.
Shubh: Oh, this is, yeah, totally. This is like the insurance when they wanted to put the, uh, the OBD two connectors in your car. 'cause if you were a good driver, 'cause technology would tell them and your insurance rates would go down.
Philippe: Yeah,
Shubh: this is it. This is the win. This is the win.
Philippe: Yeah, totally. Okay. I I, to me this is like a, a, a, I think 55 sauces. I, I, I love the idea. I think it's great, but I'm a little worried about the social, the [00:54:00] social ranking.
Shubh: Yeah. I'm gonna give it 52. I also love the idea, I think the, uh, implementation of might be a bigger
Philippe: fish to
Shubh: fry.
A bigger fish to fry. Though there's something there with Phil's idea of going right to the airline saying, Hey, your loyalty program is based on like the quality of how the person operates at the airport. Which, yeah. Honestly, I'm not,
Philippe: it's kind of brilliant. Like, maybe I wouldn't wanna fly united if everyone in United Flights was good people.
Shubh: Uh, shout out United sponsors any airline. We'll take any airline. Any
Philippe: airline. Yeah.
Shubh: Porter, uh, what's the one that flies to the Northwest Territories? North Air.
Craig: North Air, yeah. Sun Wing.
Shubh: I think it's North Air, sun Sunwing. Sun Wing's still around?
Philippe: I think so. Yeah. They're their, their C-Suites coming to our dinner tonight.
Actually we have a
Shubh: Oh, okay. Well, we'll be real careful. Sponsor Sun. I, I've flown Sunwing. I had a delightful experience with Sunwing many times when [00:55:00] I vacationed, uh, to Vinny's sunwing destinations around the world. Boom. Sun wing.
Craig: There you
Shubh: go. That, that's pretty good. That was pretty good. Craig, what? You got another one?
You said you got a third one for us.
Craig: My, my third one
Shubh: in this four. You notice we didn't, sorry. You, you noticed I didn't let us, uh, score the Scrambly one, right?
Craig: Yeah, obviously. Yeah, that
Shubh: one I just, uh, you know, I just, uh, paper mache over that bad boy. It is definitely making it into the pod though.
Philippe: Yeah, that's right.
Shubh: Especially 'cause I just called back to it, so now I can edit it out.
Craig: Yeah,
Shubh: yeah.
Craig: Alright. Um, okay, so my third one is. Something that I would fund would want to do because, to, to give you a little bit of a backstory, when we started, when I joined the company, my uncle asked my cousin and I an existential question of, if you had a blank check, what would you do for, for the world?
My cousin's idea was educate the world. Make sure that every child and every human has a good education. They can make better decisions around the world. And [00:56:00] my idea was feed the world. You know, if you're going to school, whatever, but if you have an empty stomach, all you're thinking about is your gurgling gut.
Right? And with my background was, was cooking. So with now the advent and the growth of supersonic flights and technology, we have millions of pounds of foods that go to waste every day in North America. Right? How would we be able to get a box of romaine that's a little bit rusty? Right and get it to the places that need it the most.
They don't care that that lettuce is rusty. It's perfectly fine for them. We throw out food because it's ugly, not because it's inedible, right? In our countries, we're spoiled. So I would love to be able to fund a technology where you would be able to, in like the largest city centers, we have airports, we have the infrastructure for it.
Go to the Cisco GFS distributors, restaurants, convention centers, whatever it might be. Get the leftover food and you know, these [00:57:00] supersonic flights can fly anywhere in the world in four hours,
Philippe: right?
Craig: Let's get food to these people within four hours and find a way. It could be funded easily by the Elon's of the world if they wanted to do good, you know, and what, whatever it is.
We can have corporations that would want to do that. You would have a great way to have the world fed using this new technology,
Philippe: using Concords.
Craig: Yeah. Like they supersonic jets. Like, uh, there's, yeah, a few companies coming up. Right? So
Philippe: what about drones? Could we have drones that like fly lettuce, drop lettuce into, I
Craig: dunno.
Shubh: Like, I think that, like, this is a little bit more of a real idea. Like a serious little, yeah. This is
Craig: actually,
Shubh: see I switched voice to a serious voice. This one would be called Flight of the Lettuce. Wait, do you have a name for this one?
Craig: Um, I had like, you know, like sonic boom, but it would be like Sonic food, something like that.
Yeah.
Shubh: Uh, we got a problem [00:58:00] though because of the Sonic. The Sonic People wouldn't like that one. You know, like Sonic, the hedge. The, the burger. No, the burger. People
Craig: like the burger joint. They could be one of the sponsors to donate some
Shubh: of
Craig: their
Shubh: true leftovers. Right? That's true.
Craig: True. Yeah.
Shubh: That's true. What, what about Sonic Shroom?
Nope. That's something totally different. That's right.
Craig: I was on one of those a couple weeks ago. And Bernie, you know, like it's a Yeah.
Shubh: Fa fast food.
Craig: Fast food. Yeah.
Philippe: Yeah.
Shubh: Phil's not sold. This is a real serious idea, but I actually think the funding models, corporations would totally do this because corporations will do these, like, um, charitable exercises, shout out aspiration, or they will say, we planted trees on your behalf.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Shubh: Uh, that's how KK got his money, so.
I think corporations will totally be like, Hey, we are doing a corporate donation or a sponsorship of getting this food from this place to this place. There's a [00:59:00] significant expense to doing something like this. That's the only thing. But
Craig: it's,
Shubh: but I do think corporations will be like, we are doing good.
This is a charitable endeavor. There's a sustainability angle, there's a, there's a humankind angle. There's all kinds of things. I think this is maybe the most, well, we, we did have, um, uh, Rachel Zimmer from Simple Ventures came on and talked about making adoption easier. Mm-hmm. This is right there with the most benevolent, crazy ideas that we've, we've had on the pod.
Craig: Yeah.
Shubh: This one, uh, this one would be neat. I wish somebody would do it. Craig said, I'll fund it and listen, founders out there, don't come into Craig's office and be like, oh, Craig, I heard you on the podcast. I really want to pitch you, uh, how we would do your idea. But before I do, let me pitch you my other idea, which is AI for fucking dry cleaning.
Right? Don't that, that sounds
Philippe: like a good idea.
Shubh: Hold on. AI for dry cleaning. DRAI.
Philippe: Dry cleaning.
Craig: [01:00:00] Oh, dry.
Philippe: What would it do, Philip? I don't know, but I met a gal who, uh, she, she's like the, the VP ops at uh. Gibson, the Gibson dry cleaning. She's really cool. She was trying to do like some tech stuff, so, oh, we could pitch her.
I don't know what it is, but we could pitch her.
Shubh: I really, well I think this is one of those times, Philip, where uh, we, we score this idea. We have to give it a perfect score. 'cause otherwise people will listen to it and be like, oh, those guys don't give a shit about feeding people.
Philippe: I'm comfortable giving this a low score.
I was thinking give this a low score. Not to shit on your dream, Craig, but I think it needs some work. Super. So flights, first thing we're gonna do is put lettuce on this flight. Gimme a break. Get a grip. What if this is a 20 sauce idea? 20 sauces. 'cause that's how many sauces are gonna fly on this?
Shubh: Send your letters to Philip thought burns.
Uh, yeah. I think the [01:01:00] logistics are the biggest challenge. Of course. How do you get the food? We, we might, what if, do we have to put it on jets? Can we just get this food? I know there's some companies trying to do this. What if we can just redistribute this food from where it is to the people who need the food?
Because like the food bank, incredible. Obviously, unless Phil, you wanna shit on the food bank. Uh, food bank. Incredible. But you know, the food bank, it's always non-perishable. Right. But is there a way for us to, in real time, maybe we don't get the jets, but if we're, you know, your downtown Calgary restaurant, Craig was at the convention centers, all this food leftover from the big corporate event can go to people.
Right? Because you do this all the time. Yeah. Sometimes you walk out of a restaurant, you get takeout and you see somebody on the street who might need it and you just hand it to them. Right. But like, could we, could we platformized that man? Maybe take the jets outta the equation just for a minute.
Craig: No, it's true.
But when, when I would work, I mean, any of the hotels, whatever, I'd work and you'd get a box of strawberries and if it looked just. Too ripe. There [01:02:00] wasn't mold, there wasn't anything on it. It was just, this isn't gonna last four days in my fridge, I gotta send it back.
Shubh: What? And then that just goes somewhere.
Yeah.
Craig: Yeah. And someone could take it, but a lot of the times it just ends up going to whatever. And it, and it's all about aesthetics here. Like, and can't serve a mushy strawberry to a guest. 'cause they're gonna go, oh, you're serving me mushy strawberries. Even though that is the most perfect strawberry because it's at its peak ripeness and, you know, sweet as can be.
That I think is where our problem is here. Whereas if we were able to get it to someone in three hours, that wouldn't turn it their nose up to it. Um,
Shubh: you know. How
Craig: about, uh, uh, how about teleporting? Sorry. Oh, sorry. Schu. I was joined.
Shubh: Yes. Yes. I would invest in your teleportation idea if you've got the science and the technology behind it.
Craig: Yeah.
Shubh: What would you call that Phil Star Trek
Craig: style. What
Shubh: would you call the teleportation company?
I'll come back to you. I bought some mangoes at Superstore, shout [01:03:00] out Loblaws. And they were like, uh, perfectly imperfect is the Noname brand. So the mangoes look, I guess I didn't notice that. They looked a little, but do they look a tiny bit off and then you mm-hmm. You pay less for 'em. Yeah.
Philippe: So what, what, what's your score?
And, and, because I wanna try a new segment with Craig. Yeah.
Shubh: But you also gotta get going.
Philippe: I, yeah, yeah. I know. But, uh, okay.
Shubh: My score, I, because I'm a man of the people and of the world, 70 Celsius.
Philippe: Wow. Get, yeah.
Shubh: Yeah. Because Craig just said, Hey, I worked in an industry where we basically, the food looks a tiny bit off, and they were like, eh,
Philippe: yeah.
Shubh: Not for us. I didn't even think about that. I was thinking about food waste after the fact. I wasn't even thinking about the food. That just doesn't look right.
Philippe: Right. Yeah.
Shubh: That's crazy. We gotta do something with that food. So whether the the jet idea is the right idea or not doing something with the food is what I'm here for.
Philippe: You're Yeah. I, I, I'm all for doing something with the food.
Shubh: Well, I don't know. It didn't sound
Philippe: like,
Shubh: it didn't sound [01:04:00] like
Philippe: I, Craig, I, I wanna try a new segment on you because you're a venture capitalist.
Shubh: Okay.
Philippe: And we don't have very much time, so, so it's gonna be a rapid fire.
Shubh: This is not a new segment. We've done this once before You just weren't here.
Philippe: Right. Exactly. We did this with Dallas when I had to leave the room. Yes. And, uh, he famously called one of my ideas the worst idea he's ever heard or something like that. And so he's become my arch nemesis.
Shubh: So when you say this is a new segment you're doing, you're just actually this segment's called Redemption for Philip.
Philippe: No. This segment is called, let's Make Fun of Dallas a little bit more.
The price is wrong. Yeah, that's right. The Dallas Price is wrong. Um,
Craig: he's gonna hate me. I'm gonna see him in a couple months at Uniting the Praise and he is gonna just slap me in the face. Yeah,
Philippe: that's right. No, uh, this is why I want pitch you, I wanna pitch you two ideas.
Craig: Sure.
Philippe: What size of check do you typically write at the, at the preseason stage?
Craig: Um, [01:05:00] anywhere between 150 K and 300 K. Let's call it.
Philippe: Okay, so, so let's say you have 300 k that you're gonna run into one of these two ideas.
Craig: Okay? Sounds good.
Philippe: And you, you just have to pick which one is better.
Shubh: Can you go one 50 each?
Philippe: Yeah. You gotta pick one idea. Yeah, you gotta pick
Shubh: one. Okay.
Philippe: So two ideas.
The first one was pitched on our podcast by Courtney Kos, and the idea is called Jesus Plus. And it's, it's a marketplace for prayers. So if two
Shubh: sided,
Philippe: if, if I, if I have an exam coming up and I need some prayers, I can go on this app and I, I can say, okay, $5 and I want Sister Margaret to pay to pray for me.
And she'll go, she'll take, sister Margaret will take the prayer, she'll make, you know, four 50 and we'll make 50 cents off the prayer. Right, but here's, here's the beautiful thing about this. First of all, you think about there's subscription models as well. Yeah. You could do subscriptions, you can buy your friends' prayers.
A lot of [01:06:00] opportunities here. And it's also non-denominational, so of course it's Jesus. But you could do, you know, you could have rabbi vibe, a rabbi pray for you. You could have one prayer vibes,
Shubh: just vibes. You could just pray. Just
Philippe: vibe. Yeah. Hippie could send you good vibes. Um, the, but the beauty here, the, the sexy part of this idea is the corporate structure.
Okay, Craig. Okay. It's set up as a church, which means, which means no tax, tax free.
Craig: Ah,
Philippe: so someone would say it's a K cow. Okay, so that's ideal one. Kash Cow.
Craig: Okay.
Philippe: Kash Cow. That's ideal. One. Idea. Two, it's a dating app.
Craig: Okay.
Philippe: It's called Arranged. Okay. Chubb has, has a fabulous wife. Are you, do you have a partner?
Craig: I do. I'm married. Yep.
Philippe: Yeah, you're married. Okay, awesome. Yeah, so I'm a single guy, and so I would join arranged, I would set up my profile, but I [01:07:00] wouldn't do any swiping. Instead, maybe I, I would pick a couple friend of mine that I thought had good taste and represented me well, so maybe I'd pick Craig, you and your wife, or Shub and Rita, and they would actually swipe on my behalf, and if they liked someone and that person's arrangers also liked me, then the four arrangers would get into a group chat and kind of go back and forth.
And if all four agreed that this would be a good match, then me and that person have to go on a date.
Shubh: Yeah. This is just like how, how my people used to do it. You know what I'm saying?
Craig: Yeah.
Shubh: This is arranged marriage instead of your parents, right? Yeah. Whose judgment, you know, they might not know who you are.
This is getting your friends. I'm, I'm for this idea, I keep waiting for Phil to build it so Rita and I can start working on
Philippe: this. Yeah, we actually are.
Shubh: So you're asking, uh, Craig to pick between
Philippe: Jesus plus
Shubh: couples arranging for their friends
Philippe: arranged. Yeah.
Shubh: And just an extension of the arranged idea, which I really loved is, uh, maybe you [01:08:00] could, uh, subscribe to watch the date.
Maybe we get the home team folks, uh, right. Yeah. Like on, on this thing.
Philippe: Oh, that's good. Ai.
Shubh: Yeah. Phil also augmented that idea by, you could drop little gifts during the dinner if it's not going well, like the Hunger Games. And then, uh, of course, like
Philippe: sponsored champagne or
something.
Shubh: Jesus Buzz is the biggest marketplace in the world, probably.
Philippe: Right?
Shubh: And, and pray for me is the overall parent company. So, you know, non-denominational. Yeah. So if you had to pick between those two ideas, Craig, you gotta write this check in the room. This is a YC demo day. And you gotta, you gotta write that check by the end of the day because all these other venture capitalists around, you're like, oh.
Philippe: And let me tell you, they are circling, by the way, there are checks to be written.
Shubh: He's, I think he's talking about me and it's not a check.
Craig: See, I would, okay. I would write to the pray for me because it's just.
Shubh: Yeah. Yeah.
Craig: There's just so many. And then I would, being me, if I saw a [01:09:00] friend of mine going, can you pray for me that I pass my test?
I would spend $10 for someone to pray for them to not pass their test. Like it would be, you could also use it for evil. So for
Philippe: evil,
Craig: that's,
Philippe: huh. That's an unintended consequence. It's a three-sided con place now. That's right. That's right. I'm gonna pray that the lettuce never makes it onto the jet. It's a, this
Shubh: is a, it's like prayer arbitrage, right?
Like, uh, I'll, I can just start holding people hostage. I'll be like, Hey Philip, I've just spent $10 that your date's not gonna go well. Yeah. And you'd be like, oh my God, I gotta go spend $12. That it does go well, but you don't realize. I'm a part owner.
Philippe: Right. Exactly. Pay for me.
Shubh: I'm just like,
Philippe: yeah.
Shubh: Stirring shit up.
Philippe: Yeah. And we can track which one
Shubh: this is. I mean, this is actually happening in the world right now with prediction markets. Right. People of influence are actively influencing the outcome. Yeah. We could, Craig just, I think, expose the potential loophole [01:10:00] or
Philippe: no
Shubh: negativity. An opportunity. Yeah. We said no negativity.
We did say we weren't allowed to pray for bad things to happen to other people.
Craig: Oh, okay.
Shubh: Yeah. Yeah. But then you would just, it sounds like Craig would just,
Philippe: yeah. Okay. You just want the negative one.
Shubh: Yeah. Craig would set up another company called Don't Pray for me.
Philippe: I mean, I do actually have another idea for the negative side.
It's called the bad vibrator. And it's, it's just a landing page with a text box and it's a dollar and you can enter someone's name and then it says, send bad vibes. And then like a sorcerer's hands come up and then it says, you know, bad vibes sent. Uh, but it actually goes nowhere. But you would just like run paid ads on different people and just see which ones make the most money.
So like, you could run paid ads on, like send bad vibes to like Donald Trump, for example. Or like, maybe
Shubh: we don't do politics on this podcast.
Philippe: Okay.
Shubh: Send bad vibes to somebody.
Philippe: To somebody. Or you could go send bad vibes to like Timothy Shale me, which like, everyone's in his corner, but there's gotta be some haters
Shubh: on Facebook.
I story, I don't think, I [01:11:00] think recently, not nobody's in his corner.
Philippe: Yeah. Everyone in the opera scene is gonna send bad vibes into
Shubh: the, I think he might have been self, they're pretty angry. He might have been self bad vibing
Philippe: with that, with those operas.
Shubh: Yeah. Uh. The bad vibrator, you could just go build right now.
Yeah.
Craig: Yeah.
Shubh: But also, I don't love that bad, bad juju
Craig: ai. Yeah,
Shubh: that'd be perfect. Don't, uh, Philip, I don't love that for you. That doesn't fit. Everybody else talks about how your vibe is very positive. So if you launched a company called The Bad Vibrator, I think you're, that's a brand problem for you. We need to find someone who's a little bit of a dick to run it.
Philippe: Yeah. Although I'm very quietly judgmental. I'm
Shubh: sitting right there.
Philippe: Yeah. Okay. You can take that. It's your way of usurping me.
Shubh: See what I did there,
Philippe: Craig? Yeah, yeah. That
Craig: was
Philippe: perfect.
Shubh: Perfect. Yeah, I'm seen around corners. Um, Craig. Listen man, that was awesome. We really appreciate you coming on, really appreciate you being locked and loaded with so many different ideas.
Also appreciated you taking the time to kind of explain what you guys do [01:12:00] and how you got into that world and what some of the founders out there can do. I actually think that advice that you gave about just like be a real person might be the first time I've asked that question of a venture capitalist and that's the answer they've given.
It's like be a real human being is actually kind of really great advice, right? So thanks man again, uh, so much for coming on and, uh. Yeah, it sounds like you're not on board with the Phil's bad vibrator and, uh, I hope that the bad vibrator doesn't get built. 'cause I feel like a lot of bad vibes are coming the podcast way.
Yeah.
Craig: Yeah. Great to, well, thanks for having, great to meet you. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, great. Well great seeing you again.
Shubh: Great seeing you. Thank you. Exactly. Nice save Craig.
Craig: Yeah,
Shubh: don't worry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let him know every day about that.
Craig: But thanks for having me on, guys. This was a lot of fun.
Appreciate it.
Shubh: Awesome buddy. Thank you.
Craig: All right, you guys take [01:13:00] care.