Advice Line with Joe Gebbia of Airbnb

Summary

How I Built This with Guy Raz – Episode: Advice Line with Joe Gebbia of Airbnb

Release Date: January 30, 2025

In this engaging episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz, host Guy Raz reconnects with Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, to provide invaluable advice to budding entrepreneurs tackling diverse business challenges. The episode, titled "Advice Line with Joe Gebbia of Airbnb", delves into Joe’s latest venture, Samara, and features insightful conversations with three ambitious callers seeking guidance on scaling their businesses. Here's a comprehensive summary capturing all key discussions, insights, and conclusions.

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Introduction to the Advice Line

At the outset ([02:19]), Guy Raz introduces the Advice Line, a segment designed to help entrepreneurs solve their business challenges with the expertise of legendary founders. This week, Joe Gebbia joins as a guest to address callers' queries, drawing from his rich experience building Airbnb.

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Joe Gebbia's New Venture: Samara

Shift to Backyard Guest Houses

Joe Gebbia discusses his latest startup, Samara, which focuses on creating high-end accessory dwelling units (ADUs) or backyard guest houses. Originating from an R&D group within Airbnb, Samara aims to address California's housing crisis by offering well-designed, prefab ADUs that are turnkey solutions. As Joe explains ([04:51]):

“We’ve got five different models from the studio, 400 square feet, all the way up to two bed, two bath at 960 square feet.”

Design Philosophy

Highlighting his deep-rooted design background, Joe emphasizes that design extends beyond aesthetics to include functionality and holistic processes ([06:00]):

“Design is actually the way that something works... a very holistic approach to designing a product or a service.”

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Sticking to Your Vision vs. Pivoting

A pivotal moment in the conversation occurs around when to adhere to one’s vision versus pivoting in response to criticism. Joe shares his experience with Airbnb ([08:00]):

“You have to nurture the connection with your heart and with your gut... listening to your body, listening to your heart.”

He recounts how, despite widespread skepticism, their firsthand positive experiences with early Airbnb guests fueled their conviction to persist, ultimately leading to Airbnb’s phenomenal success.

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Caller 1: Marina Lido – Luffy and Friends

Introduction to Luffy and Friends

Marina Lido, the founder of Luffy and Friends, calls in from Austin, Texas, with a mission to excite children about learning a second language through music-infused board books. Her flagship product, Board Books that Sing, offers books in six languages, each embedded with a computer chip and speaker to play songs that encourage interactive learning.

Business Model and Challenges

Marina operates Luffy and Friends as a side hustle while working as a user experience researcher at Meta. She shares her journey of starting the business to solve the challenge of engaging children with multilingual education without relying on screens. Her main challenge ([14:34]) revolves around balancing sales between her website and Amazon:

“We found that the fee structure at our volume levels just didn't pencil and it was cannibalizing our website sales.”

Advice and Insights

Joe and Guy provide strategic advice on brand building and leveraging various marketing channels. Joe suggests embracing platforms like Amazon to expand reach while simultaneously building a strong, recognizable brand through other channels. He encourages Marina to explore creative marketing strategies, such as appearing on local news channels to boost visibility:

“You can go to every... local news channel talking about this thing... it's going to take a little investment.”

Marina responds enthusiastically to Joe’s suggestions, eager to implement new ideas to strengthen her brand’s market presence.

Notable Quote:

Marina Lido [14:34]: “How can we build a brand to withstand potential Amazon competitors? Or should we embrace Amazon and just focus on finding ways to thrive there?”

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Caller 2: Ray Ricky Rivera – Norwalk Brewhouse

Introduction to Norwalk Brewhouse

Ray Ricky Rivera, founder of Norwalk Brewhouse, a self-distributed craft beer brand targeting the Latino market, shares his journey from managing local bands to launching his own beer brand. Operating out of Los Angeles County, Ray emphasizes the unique cultural angle of his beers, such as the BDBD Blond Blonde, a Mexican American blond ale.

Scaling and Funding Challenges

Ray confronts significant hurdles in scaling his business, primarily due to a lack of established credit and limited access to loans. He explains his reliance on crowdfunding and bootstrapping ([26:23]):

“I don't have any established credit, I don't have bad credit, I don't have any established credit. So I can't get a loan.”

Advice and Strategic Guidance

Joe advises Ray to target investors within the food and beverage sector, highlighting the importance of networking and connecting with experienced entrepreneurs who can offer both funding and mentorship. Joe underscores the value of persistence in fundraising, encouraging Ray to embrace the inevitability of rejection as part of the process:

“You just got to keep going, man.”

Guy adds to the conversation by emphasizing the potential of creating distinctive products to attract media attention and facilitate growth, suggesting innovative approaches to marketing and branding.

Notable Quote:

Joe Gebbia [30:18]: “The best time to go raise money is when you don't need it.”

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Caller 3: J.L. Thorpe – Game Day Social Apparel

Introduction to Game Day Social Apparel

J.L. Thorpe, CEO of Game Day Social Apparel, calls from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. His company produces trend-forward sports apparel exclusively for women, holding licenses with around 2000 retailers across North America. J.L. highlights the uniqueness of his brand in focusing on fit and silhouette tailored for female fans.

Growth and Scaling Strategy

With annual revenues around $10 million, J.L. seeks advice on assessing growth opportunities as his company transitions from a scrappy startup to a more structured, scalable enterprise. He acknowledges the challenge of maintaining design and quality while expanding.

Advice and Insights

Joe praises J.L. for successfully bootstrapping and building significant revenue without diluting equity, advising him to consider fundraising when the company is strong and profitable. Joe emphasizes leveraging that strength to negotiate better investment terms and to align with strategic investors who understand the apparel and licensing industries.

Guy adds that securing a strategic investor with experience in apparel can facilitate scaling, especially in expanding design and manufacturing processes. He also highlights the importance of diversifying manufacturing to mitigate risks associated with geopolitical changes.

Notable Quote:

Joe Gebbia [48:57]: “The best time to go raise money is when you don't need it.”

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Final Insights and Closing Remarks

Towards the end of the episode, Joe reflects on his journey with Airbnb and shares a poignant piece of advice:

Value of Mentorship

“I wish I had found mentors earlier... they really helped me avoid some pitfalls and some landmines on the road of entrepreneurship.”

Joe underscores the importance of seeking guidance from experienced mentors to navigate the complexities of building a successful business.

Notable Quote:

Joe Gebbia [55:18]: “Have more mentors. They can provide advice and perspective, so you're not on your own.”

Guy Raz concludes the episode by encouraging listeners to explore Joe’s original interview on Airbnb for deeper insights and highlights key moments that showcase the transformative journey of Airbnb from a fledgling startup to a global powerhouse.

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Key Takeaways

1. Stay True to Your Vision: Despite external skepticism, maintaining conviction and listening to your gut can lead to monumental success, as exemplified by Airbnb’s journey.

2. Strategic Fundraising: Approach fundraising with preparedness and confidence. Seek investors who align with your industry and long-term vision, and consider seeking help even when you don’t immediately need it.

3. Brand Differentiation: Building a distinctive brand that caters to specific market needs can set your business apart in competitive landscapes, whether in educational products, craft beer, or women’s sports apparel.

4. Embrace Mentorship: Having experienced mentors can provide invaluable guidance, helping entrepreneurs navigate challenges and avoid common pitfalls.

5. Adapt and Innovate: Whether expanding product lines or exploring new markets, continuous innovation and adaptation are crucial for sustained growth.

This episode not only offers practical advice from a seasoned entrepreneur but also inspires listeners to persevere, innovate, and seek the right support to build their iconic brands.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution:

• Joe Gebbia [06:00]: “Design is actually the way that something works... a very holistic approach to designing a product or a service.”

• Joe Gebbia [08:00]: “You have to nurture the connection with your heart and with your gut... listening to your body, listening to your heart.”

• Marina Lido [14:34]: “How can we build a brand to withstand potential Amazon competitors? Or should we embrace Amazon and just focus on finding ways to thrive there?”

• Joe Gebbia [30:18]: “The best time to go raise money is when you don't need it.”

• Joe Gebbia [55:18]: “Have more mentors. They can provide advice and perspective, so you're not on your own.”

---

This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of the episode, providing a thorough overview for those who haven't listened while maintaining an engaging and informative narrative flow.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

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[Guy Raz]

Hello and welcome to the advice line on How I built this Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. And each week I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And so if you are building something and you need advice, go ahead and give us a call and you might just be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a 1 minute message with your name, a bit about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. Or you can send us a voice memo at [e-mail] and make sure to tell us how to reach you. Also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's filled with insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for [e-mail] or on substack and we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's go. Joining me this week is Joe Jebbia, co founder of Airbnb. Joe, welcome back to the show. Welcome back to How I Built this Guy.

[Joe Jebbia]

Thank you so much. It's great to be back.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you were one of our very first guests on the show. As you know, back in 2016, OG came on to tell us the origin story of Airbnb, which many people listening will know. So it's just great to have you back.

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, thanks for having me, guy. That was a memorable conversation and I can't tell you how many people have come up to me since saying that was their favorite episode.

[Guy Raz]

I love it. By the way, we'll put a link to that original interview in the episode description if you haven't heard it. And you can also easily find it just by searching How I Built this and Joe Jebbia with a G. Lots of really great and valuable insights in that episode, including why you guys had so much conviction in an idea that a lot of people were skeptical about originally.

[Joe Jebbia]

That's right. We wanted to build a website where people would post pictures of the most intimate spaces inside their homes on the Internet and then complete strangers would book their homes and pay them money to stay there.

[Guy Raz]

Now, today, you look back on it, you're like no brainer. But of course, that wasn't the case in 2007 and 8. I know that today. You are an advisor to Airbnb, and more recently you launched a new startup that I'm very interested in talking to you more about. It builds backyard guest houses, or ADU's accessory dwelling units that are popping up certainly all over California because of the housing crisis, and people are putting them in their backyards and renting them out. The company's called Samara. Tell me a little bit more about it.

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, it was a genesis that started actually inside Airbnb. I had this R and D group that was thinking about ideas for the future. And in California, as you mentioned, ADUs are one of the fastest growing housing segments that exist, and hosts on Airbnb were actually listing these places. And I Thought, that's interesting, who's staying there? And it's actually people for 30, 60, 90 day stays, people coming for months at a time, rotations at the company they work at, et cetera. And I just thought like, you know, there's gotta be certainly a high end version of these ADUs, a prefab, factory made version. When I looked out at the market, there was nothing. It was all in my mind, fairly cheap, not well designed. And at this point I was also in the market for one of these myself and I thought, well, I'm just going to wait around till the Tesla or the Apple of this product category emerges. Guess what? It didn't emerge.

[Guy Raz]

And so why not build it myself?

[Joe Jebbia]

Solve your own problem.

[Guy Raz]

I've been looking at the website, it is awesome. And it makes so much sense for you to do this because you have a design background. I mean, that was really what you did at Airbnb. Your focus was around design.

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, design is, I define it in a very specific way. A lot of people think design is the way that something looks. Design is actually the way that something works. Like when you look on Smar's website, design is certainly the piece of architecture at the home that you're looking at. But design is also the process of how do we handle the ordering process, how do we take care of all the permitting, how do we pour the foundation, how do we actually bring the home into the land where it's being installed. And so design is actually a very end to end way to look at something. A very holistic approach to designing a product or a service.

[Guy Raz]

It's so cool. And these houses range from 400 square feet to about a little under a thousand square feet, I think, right?

[Joe Jebbia]

That's right, yeah. We've got five different models from the studio, 400 square feet, all the way up to two bed, two bath at 960 square feet.

[Guy Raz]

And they're ready to go. They're turnkey once they're done. Like you just. It's got the kitchen, it's got everything in bathroom, it's all in there.

[Joe Jebbia]

Guy. Our last install in California, from the time it arrived on the truck and we took it off with the crane to the time it got installed on our foundation was 23 minutes.

[Guy Raz]

Wow, I love it. It's so cool. I'm gonna talk to you about this cause I've got a little bit of land in California that I'm thinking about doing. Anyway, we'll talk about that later. Joe, before we bring on our first caller, I wanna ask you Just one thing about your story. When you originally came on, you mentioned this idea that great ideas usually start out as polarizing, right? Which is what Airbnb was. Right? Some people just couldn't understand it, and some people loved it. You know, we're going to be talking to people who are starting businesses now, and there's going to be skepticism around some of their ideas. When a founder hears criticism, right, sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's right. Sometimes it makes sense from, you know, sort of from your perspective. When do you know that you should stick to your vision rather than versus, like, completely adjusting course or massively pivoting to a. A completely different idea or model?

[Joe Jebbia]

I think this is one of the toughest things about being an entrepreneur. You have to, like, you got to nurture the connection with your heart and with your gut, because there are times where it gets really tough and the world is against you, and really smart people are telling you you're crazy. And if you don't have some signal coming from deep within you, a conviction, you're going to get sucked into what other people think and what other people say. And I think, you know, look, I'm no expert at this. This is something that's honed over a lifetime. I think it's. It's just about listening to your body, listening to your heart. And, you know, in Airbnb's case, that's. That's what we did. And I can't explain. There's no scientific method behind it. It's just a feeling that we had something. And I'll tell you why, Guy. It's because we experienced it firsthand. We had those three guests stay with us that one weekend in San Francisco. And for every person who said that will never work at scale, I just thought to myself, well, they haven't experienced it yet. Yeah, we did.

[Guy Raz]

It's absolutely amazing. I mean, especially what's happened since then and even since when we spoke in 2016. I mean, absolutely amazing. Anyway, we should probably take our first caller. Joe, why don't we bring our first caller. You ready?

[Joe Jebbia]

Let's do it.

[Guy Raz]

All right. Hello, caller. Welcome to the Advice Line. You're on with Joe Gebbia, co founder of Airbnb. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little about your business.

[Marina Lido]

Hi, Guy and Joe. So excited to learn from you both today. Thanks so much for the opportunity. My name is Marina Lido, and I'm calling in from Austin, Texas. I am the founder of Luffy and Friends, where our mission is to get kids excited about learning a second language through the power of music. And our flagship collection features board Books that Sing, which we currently offer in French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So these are board books that when you open them up, there's like a computer chip and speaker in there and it plays. It sings a song.

[Marina Lido]

Yeah, essentially. So each of our books has six different songs, and each song has kind of an illustration to accompany it. And then the kids will sing along, dance along, that kind of thing.

[Guy Raz]

Cool. And where are the books sold right now?

[Marina Lido]

We primarily sell our books on our website, Luffy and friends.com and we also sell a little bit on Etsy. We previously sold on Amazon. My question is little bit related to that, but about 90% of our sales are through our website. We do a few local bookstores, but we've really focused on dtc.

[Guy Raz]

And Wendy, tell me a little bit about the origin story of the business.

[Marina Lido]

Yeah, absolutely. So my husband is from Argentina and I was born in Russia and immigrated to the US when I was about 4 years old. So when we had kids, we were super excited for them to be multilingual, but we very quickly discovered that it was much harder than we expected to get them excited about it. What we noticed is that music really resonated with them. But as many new parents are, we were pretty much terrified of exposing our kids to tv, to phones, et cetera. And we wanted to find a different way for them to engage with music that didn't require a screen. So we kind of took Joe's solve your own problem approach and we developed Bookset Singh so that they could learn through music and at the same time develop a love for books. We started with a Kickstarter campaign to fund our first run of Spanish language books. And yeah, here we are today.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome. Marina, are you. Tell me, is this your full time job?

[Marina Lido]

This is not my full time job. This is my nights and weekends.

[Guy Raz]

This is your side hustle? Yes. What do you do during the day?

[Marina Lido]

I am a user experience researcher. I actually work for Meta, which has been very valuable for me as just a way to learn too, about how ads work. So that's been awesome because Facebook ads are actually one of the best ways for us to generate revenue and attract new consumers to our brand. So that's been kind of an added bonus.

[Guy Raz]

What's the goal for the business? I mean, do you see this as sort of a fun side business or do you. Do you see this as something that you can maybe shift and transition into full time?

[Marina Lido]

Oh, that's a very tricky one. I love my job. I actually really enjoy my day job. I love my night job as well. It's so interesting. I think maybe this comes from the way I grew up, but I have a very unique combination of entrepreneurial spirit and risk aversion. And so it's very hard for me to. To take that kind of like a leap growing up with my parents moving here when I was 4 and kind of seeing how hard all that was. I do think maybe someday down the line that would be something I'd love to explore, but it's not in my kind of immediate plan.

[Guy Raz]

And so are you and your husband writing all these books or doing all the design and everything?

[Marina Lido]

So that's actually been one of the most rewarding pieces of this is no one wants me to be singing in any book. I can promise that that would keep any babies happy. We'd be like lots of crying babies. But we work with artists and illustrators from around the world and musicians from around the world and we work together to select songs that resonate, that people can connect with and then kind of have them bring them to life, bringing in some of the unique aspects of their cultures and of those songs.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, I love it. I've got a bilingual family, so we're. My kids both speak French, but we did that because we forced them into French schools from the time they were little. But this is a great way to expose kids to language. There's no question about it in my mind. It's awesome. Tell me your question for us today.

[Marina Lido]

Yeah, so my question is we used to sell on Amazon but we moved away from it actually this year. As a mom, I love Amazon life saving. Yet we found that the fee structure at our volume levels just didn't pencil and it was cannibalizing our website sales, which is where we can actually generate a little bit of margin where we can get better feedback from people because we get kind of that two way conversation. But I know that when a competitor comes up on Amazon, people are likely to gravitate towards that option because of just how easy Amazon makes everything. So my question is, how can we build a brand to withstand potential Amazon competitors? Or should we embrace Amazon and just focus on finding ways to thrive there? And if so, how might we approach that?

[Guy Raz]

That is a very tough question and specific one. All right, Joe, thoughts about first Luffy and friends?

[Joe Jebbia]

Yeah, it's very cool. I was just looking at the website. This is a very cool idea and you know, there's a lot of people out there who are looking for things to give their kids. They don't have a screen. So I think you're. You're in the right space now. You made a comment just now to Guy, which perked me up about potential competitors. Are there competitors today or are there potential competitors?

[Marina Lido]

There are competitors in the Spanish language, and they're obviously books that are musical in English. And we did really well on Amazon the first year and then saw a number of Spanish language competitors come up. So our Spanish language performance hasn't been very strong since then.

[Joe Jebbia]

I see. Is your customer, I'm going to guess their moms.

[Marina Lido]

We do obviously have a lot of parents, but one of our biggest customer segments is actually grandparents. So we have a lot of grandparents who maybe immigrated to the United States and had kids here who are wanting to pass the language along to their grandkids. The books really resonate with them because a lot of our books feature traditional songs. And then we do also have a segment of parents that are just interested in exposing their kids to second language. Even though they may not have had that exposure themselves or maybe had it later in life. They are very excited to share a piece of their culture with the next generation.

[Guy Raz]

Can you give us a sense of roughly what your sales are every year? Are you selling more than 10,000, $20,000 worth of these a year?

[Marina Lido]

Yeah, actually. So we took it slow the first few years, but this year we are on Track to hit $200,000.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Marina Lido]

So very excited. We've had a good year.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome.

[Marina Lido]

Obviously our margins, you know, could be better, but, you know, we're profitable and there's room for growth, I think.

[Guy Raz]

So you have a really nice. So you've got some traction and have you sort of. I mean, I'm assuming you're gathering information or at least emails from the people who are ordering.

[Marina Lido]

Yes, absolutely. When they make a purchase, they can join our newsletter. We also have other ways of collecting at different stages in their journey with us online.

[Guy Raz]

And so you got a newsletter and you're communicating with your users, with your customers regularly?

[Marina Lido]

Regularly would definitely be a stretch the.

[Guy Raz]

Goal, but yes, I mean, because you want to remind people that there are other languages and there are other kids to buy these for. Right. I mean, it seems to me that customer retention, that is often more valuable than customer acquisition. Right. That that's really where you actually grow and expand by retaining customers initially and then. And then keeping them happy and then, of course, pursuing an acquisition strategy as well.

[Marina Lido]

Yeah, that's a great point. And I think something we Definitely need to put some more effort behind. I do find that people will connect to that one language and kind of not necessarily think of us on other occasions. So we definitely could do a better job of giving them a nice little nudge.

[Guy Raz]

Joe, what do you think? I mean, I think that she's gotta be on Amazon.

[Joe Jebbia]

It seems that way at this stage. You know, I think the idea is that eventually, over time, you build. Build a brand that people recognize and you grow out of your reliance on on a platform like Amazon and you have your own distribution channels that are independent. But I think at this stage, you know, if it's about reach and sales and growing the company, I would wouldn't be too picky about where somebody wants to buy my book.

[Guy Raz]

Do you go everywhere? Right? You'd be everywhere.

[Joe Jebbia]

I think I'd go everywhere. I would try to like, figure out how do I get this in front of the. My core customers, if that's the grandparents or the parents, Obviously it's like, you know, is it on like one of the morning shows or somewhere where they're like, consuming content and you get to appear? And I think now as I'm looking at your brand, I'm reminded of one of Seth Godin's books. It was called All Marketers are Liars. And this was like my template early on when I first read it back in 2005, 2006. Somewhere in that time. I think it's probably worth reading that because it would really might spark an idea of how you can take the brand that you already have, which is already in a great spot, and elevate it to the next level to get people's attention and the kind of thing that, like, what would get you on a morning show?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, and there's a way to do that, Joe. I mean, I've got a. I'm not trying to promote it, but I've got a whole kids podcast and a whole kids science business. And we just release like toys. So we've got exploding volcanoes and stomp rockets and they're sold in shops and on Amazon. And we basically did a whole day, two, three days of just back to back to back local news interviews. Me and my partner, Mindy Thomas, you know, you just basically hit up every local news channel talking about this thing. I mean, your story's great. And local news needs to fill time. I promise you that. You can go to every, I mean, from South Carolina all the way to Eugene, Oregon and beyond. I mean, it's going to take a little investment. Not as much as you Think, though.

[Marina Lido]

Great. Yeah, definitely. We'll look into that. I know we looked at it a little bit early on, and it felt like it was a huge investment, but maybe we're ready for that.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, gotta invest in marketing, but that money will come back to you.

[Joe Jebbia]

One thing real quick is I'm thinking about the Seth Godin hat on of the Purple Cow of making something that's really distinctive and really stands out. The songs I saw in here are expected songs, which is great because that's maybe how you want your kid to learn. But what if they weren't expected songs? What if they were very unusual, something that would be very unexpected to be in a children's book and translate into another language, that people would turn their head and go, wait, what was that? You need something that's, I think, going to stop people in their tracks. That would get you very easily onto Good Morning America, for example.

[Marina Lido]

Yeah, I love that idea. We experimented a little bit with creating our own songs for our Spanish language books, and we have songs about routines, but that's not like a stop in her tracks kind of thing. So I love that idea. It's very inspiring, fun.

[Guy Raz]

All right, Marina. The business is called Luffy and Friends Books to teach kids how to sing in foreign languages. Good luck. Thanks so much for calling in.

[Marina Lido]

Thank you so much, Guy and Joe, I just really appreciate all the inspiration today. Always can't wait to put these ideas to life.

[Guy Raz]

Good luck.

[Joe Jebbia]

Take care.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Bye.

[Joe Jebbia]

Bye.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, you could do, like, when you said, like, weird songs, I was like, like, you know, like Shel Silverstein. He has some weird poems, like, people think of, like, where the Sidewalk, like the Giving Train stuff. But, like, you go into his back catalog, there's some weird stuff in there. Like, he was super countercultural, like, some of that stuff. And so I'm thinking, like, what if he had a song that was super weird like that, you know?

[Joe Jebbia]

Right.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Yeah.

[Joe Jebbia]

Or something, I don't know, like something iconic that you just would never expect in a children's book.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And there's a lot of iconic stuff that is. Does not require any license anymore. So worth a try. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz. Stick around. You're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.

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So when I can find time to exercise, which is pretty much every day, that's a win. But whether you're a new parent or traveling for the holidays or training for something big, or you're just busy, Peloton has all kinds of challenging classes that can fit into any schedule. There are literally 10 minute hikes, 15 minute cycling rides, 45 minute strength classes, and everything in between. And with Peloton's All Access membership, you can challenge yourself anywhere. You can work out at home, on your bike, tread and row, or you can take your favorite classes on the go and at the gym with the Peloton app. Find your push Find your power with [e-mail] you know, every year I think to myself about the new goals I'm going to set for myself. But did you know that only 8% of us will stick with the resolutions we make? Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a simple tool that makes it easy to lock in years and years of healthy money habits in just five minutes. Head to acorns.com built or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future. Today, paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier 5 compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC Registry Investment Advisor. View important [e-mail] built welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Joe Jebbia. He's the co founder of Airbnb and we are taking your calls. Let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the Advice Line. You're on with Joe Jebbia, co founder of Airbnb. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Kai and Joe, thank you so much for having me. My name is Ray. Ricky Rivera. I'm the founder operator of Norwalk Brewhouse, a self distributed craft beer brand. We launched in January of 2022.

[Guy Raz]

Nice.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

And we work with local established breweries to produce our product and then we wholesale direct to retail. And I handle all of the sales, distro, marketing, branding, all of that.

[Guy Raz]

Everything you do everything. You're the company, you're the whole company.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

I am. Can you call one person a company?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Okay. I'm a one man company.

[Guy Raz]

But you know, on your business card it should say account executive. So then people think that's a really big company.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

No, it is.

[Guy Raz]

Yourself. I'm Ray. I'm an account executive with Norwalk Brewhouse. So my brother in law did that when he started his business like 30 years ago. It was very smart idea. All right, so tell me about the beer. What kind of beers are you making?

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

So we're a what I like to call a Latino forward brand. So I like to tell the entire world that this is owned and operated by a Mexican American because there's not that many of us in the craft beer industry or in the beer industry rather. But we make light lagers, Mexican style lager. Our flagship beer is called BDBD Blond Blonde, which is a blond ale. So, you know, in general, it's your typical beer styles that tend to do well in the market.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome. And before we dig in a little bit more, tell, tell us what your question is for us.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

So obviously I'm, I'm tiny, but I've been having some success in my local market. I have decent demand this in the.

[Guy Raz]

La, in like LA area.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Yeah, in Los Angeles County, a little bit of Orange county as well. But I've been struggling with scaling. I've had some great opportunities to land bigger retailers, but I haven't had the proper capital to scale and really take advantage of these opportunities that have been coming my way. When I launched this brand, the seed money I gathered from selling off old DJ equipment, I launched a small Indiegogo crowdfund campaign and off I went. And my issue is I don't have any established credit, I don't have bad credit, I don't have any established credit. So I can't get a loan. I've been applying what feels like for over a hundred grants. Back in 2022, I managed to land one, which was amazing. But other than that, it's bootstrapped, super lean, super scrappy, and I Need help or ideas in that area? Like, what are my options for finding funding?

[Guy Raz]

This is an interesting challenge. Okay, before we get to tackling this question about cash, Right, tell me how you got. Because you mentioned that you sold DJ equipment to finance this business. So I'm assuming you were at one point making some money as a dj. How did you get into brewing? Like, how did this start?

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

So I have like a solid 20 years of being in the music industry.

[Guy Raz]

Nice.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

And back in about 2000, 12, 13ish, I was managing local bands here in the city of Norwalk, and I noticed that there was no local venue to book these live acts. So I thought, hey, maybe I'm the one to open up a venue and book local live entertainment. That sort of led to me thinking that it could be a bar and grill serving California craft beer. Fast forward to 2014. My wife was giving birth to our daughter. There was some issues there at birth. And we found ourselves 45 days at the hospital. So I needed something to do. Picked up some books. One of the books was Brewing up a business by Sam Kajun.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, yeah, Dogfish Head. It was on the show.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Yeah, that's right. I love that episode. Anyhow, that book really inspired me to think about potentially building something more than a bar and grill. And in 2015, I co founded a homebrew club called the Socal Serviceros, which became the largest Latino based homebrew club in the country.

[Guy Raz]

Nice.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

So as I'm diving deeper into the homebrew hobby, I'm starting to realize there's this huge void in the industry. There's not very many Latinos on the ownership side. So I saw there was like a potential opportunity there for a brand to come out and really speak to the Latino consumer. And during all this time, I'm managing and I'm DJing on the side. So when the pandemic hit, any DJ work that I had happening was completely gone. So I just figured, hey, here's an opportunity. I might as well go after it. Started selling off my equipment, microphones, mixing boards, and speakers. I made a few thousand bucks, launched an indiegogo campaign, and I think I got somewhere around 20 grand and launched this brand.

[Guy Raz]

Amazing. I love that story, Joe. All right. Ray is at a crossroads. There's demand, but he's got to raise money, he's got to raise capital in order to try to, you know, scale this thing. But he hasn't any luck with loans, and he, you know, he's trying to figure out what to do. I have some thoughts. What do you. Where should he, where should he start?

[Joe Jebbia]

Yeah. Hey Ray, great to be with you today. My question is what percent is selling for tap to bars and what percent is retail and cans to consumers?

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Well, if I'm selling a keg to a bar, they're purchasing that from me for about 180. It's probably costing me between 120 and 130 a keg depending on the style. At retail, it's cans only and I think my margin there somewhere between 40 and 60%.

[Joe Jebbia]

Right, right. Yeah. I just want to get a sense of. You think there's more upside in the Future on the B2B side or is this more of like a get, get to retail stores and expand there? Is that the real opportunity?

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

I, I feel the real opportunity is to be in direct to consumer and long term that has been my plan. I really want to open up Norwalk Brewhouse, the physical location and you know, if we're selling beer direct to consumer over our bar, then our margins are the biggest there. So the reason why I chose to go the contract brewing route was because it was lower risk, lower investment. But it's a really tricky time right now. When the pandemic hit, everybody went from on premise to off premise. So retail sales were through the roof.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Now a lot of that has, has shifted and on premise or going after draft accounts, it's super hard. It's a challenge because, you know, I've had experiences where I've managed to land accounts and then the bigger distributor will come in and remove my keg from the tap.

[Guy Raz]

And with what you're doing, you got to work with a big distributor, otherwise you get swallowed. And just out of curiosity, are you in or have you, have you approached like some of the retailers like in California, like Bevmo or Total Wine or any of those places?

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

I have not. And it's mainly because I, I'm confident that I could land those accounts. But if I do land those accounts and I'm going to have a huge purchase order that's going to take significant, you know, capital up front that I don't have. Yeah. So I, I've been slow to go that route.

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, you know, I think Ray, I, I look at you now as a, you're a food and beverage entrepreneur and you know that's a, that's going to attract a certain type of investor. That's not a tech investor, it's not Silicon Valley, but there are investors for food and beverage obviously. So I feel like that's the space that I would Go network in and explore and really try to surface some names of who's out there, who's even local to you, kind of regionally based, or expand beyond that. And I don't know, I would start reaching out to people. I would start to find connections to food and beverage investors, probably at the angel level, but maybe at the VC scale. And I would start to have conversations with them to just put your idea in front of them and start to make pitches.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Right, so what you're saying is find somebody who's in Food and Bev, maybe another founder, like somebody who created the Obama O's. Somebody like that.

[Guy Raz]

Somebody like that, maybe, yes.

[Joe Jebbia]

Somebody with definitely more experience than the guys that created the Obama.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Touche, Joe.

[Guy Raz]

I think that's really good advice. You know, Ray, we did an episode, you may have heard, not too long ago, about Athletic Brewing, which is a non alcoholic beer, and nobody wanted to work with him. You know, he couldn't even find a brewmaster to work with him because it's non alcoholic beer. And he went around to every single person he knew, teachers, friends, family friends, anybody asked anybody to invest in the brand. You're now working on a product. I mean, look, let's be honest, Mexican beer is having a moment. And so there seems to me like there's an opportunity here with what you're doing. You know, you're doing a Mexican style beers, lagers, IPAs. I don't even know if anyone's doing Mexican style IPAs in the US right?

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Technically that's not a thing. Like a style. But we can make it a thing, right?

[NerdWallet]

Exactly.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Like my flagship BDBD Blonde Blonde. And for all the Latinos listening, they'll. They'll understand that reference. BDBD Blonde Blonde. We market it as a Mexican American blond ale. Technically, that's not a actual style.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, but we're.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

I'm saying, hey, I'm a Mexican American and this is our beer.

[Guy Raz]

So there you go. This is our beer.

[Joe Jebbia]

You're making the style, right?

[Guy Raz]

You're making the style. He's making. So. So in terms of, of fundraising, I mean, look, the reality is everybody has a network, even if you think you don't. And it's the person that you see at Starbucks or a friend of a friend, or someone's parent or someone at your church or community center, somebody. There are people that you can talk to and find out if they'd be willing to put in a small investment. Because I get it, it's hard to ask people for help. But here's A trick I use. If you think of what you're doing, which it is as a mission, it's not about Ray getting rich or Ray serving himself or his interests. It's about the mission that you are pursuing, which is building this brand that you believe in, that you believe a lot of other people will believe in and get value from. And just putting yourself in that mindset might actually help a little bit when you're asking people for help. I mean, it's the hardest thing about fundraising. It's asking. Most people have a hard time asking for money, but if you can get past that and just be prepared to hear, you know, 99 no's for every yes, it's eventually going to succeed.

[Joe Jebbia]

Yeah, I think you'll eventually find that person. And I don't have the sense that, Ray, you have. You have an issue with asking people for help. You're on this call with us right now as an example.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

I'm definitely getting better at it. I do struggle with asking for money, to be quite honest, but I know it's definitely necessary and it's something that I just got to do.

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, Ray, this is your call to adventure here, because if you're going to be an entrepreneur in this space, you got to be comfortable asking for money. And look, you're going to get a lot of no's and you gotta. I will share an equation with you, actually, this is one I learned back at school. I snuck into an entrepreneurship weekend at Brown University. This guy was giving a presentation on failure, and he put up this equation, SW squared plus WC equals mo. And he broke it down and he said, when you're selling a product, you're asking for money. In this case, some will want to give you money, some won't. SW squared plus wc, who cares? Equals mo. Move on. You just got to keep going, man. Like, and I think you just got to get out there and start cold emailing people showing up at events. Like, you got. This is where the hustle. You got to get into hustle mode to cross the bridge between where you are now and where you want to get to with regards to fundraising.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

That's good. Thank you for that. Yeah, that's helpful.

[Guy Raz]

The brand is called Norwalk Brewhouse. Ray, Ricky Rivera. Good luck, man. We're rooting for you. Cheering you on, man.

[Ray Ricky Rivera]

Guy and Joe, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[Guy Raz]

Cheers, Ray, thanks. Thanks for calling in.

[Joe Jebbia]

I gotta say, looking through their website, he's. He's got. He clearly has authorship. You know, he knows how to create something distinctive.

[Guy Raz]

These cans are really nice. He's got the loterias from the cards from that, you know, the Mexican game, loteria. It's cool.

[Joe Jebbia]

There's authenticity to it, which is working in his favor. I feel like he's not too far away from reaching. There's cult brand status for him out there somewhere.

[Guy Raz]

I think so too.

[Joe Jebbia]

If he can just get to the right investor.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, I think so too. And that's how it starts, right? For sure. All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the advice line right here on How I Built this Lab. There are people making the same amount as you, down to the dollar who aren't stressed about money and you find yourself wondering how do they do it? Where does all of my money go with Ynab? Wherever you tell it to. Ynab spelled Y N A B is a life changing money app that helps you give every dollar a job so that you know your hard earned money is going towards things you actually care about. Listeners to How I Built this can claim an exclusive three month free trial with no credit card required at www.ynab.com built Life is short. Spend it well with YNAB.

[NerdWallet]

Welcome to Athletic Jan where you can do dry your way with great tasting NA brews. So here's one way I love to reset in January after a long hike.

[Guy Raz]

Or a bike ride. I don't really want to crack open.

[NerdWallet]

A beer because I've got the rest of the day ahead of me and so I usually reach for a can of upside down golden from Athletic Brewing Company.

[Guy Raz]

It tastes so good you'd be hard.

[NerdWallet]

Pressed to think that this was a non alcoholic brew. No matter what you're looking for in a great non alcoholic brew, the answer is always athletic.

[Guy Raz]

Great flavor.

[NerdWallet]

It's athletic. Huge variety. It's athletic. Fit for all times. Enjoy them anytime, anywhere. There's nothing dry about Athletic Brewing Co. Non alcoholic brews. Give it a try and head to athleticbrewing.com built to find it near you. That's athleticbrewing.com built B U I L T to grab some fun and flavorful brews near you. Athletic Brewing Co. Fit for all times near beer.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome back to the advice line on How I Built this Lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking calls with Airbnb co founder Joe Jebbia. So Joe, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome. Please tell us Your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Hello, Guy. Joe J.L. thorpe, founder and CEO of Game Day Social Apparel. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm excited to be here. The company's based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We launched in 2021 to produce top quality trend forward sports apparel exclusively for women. And to date, we're Featured in around 2000 retailers across North America.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. And these are, just to be clear, these are sport sports for college professional.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Both our licenses are with universities, currently universities.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so you have licenses with universities and you make sports apparel primarily for women. So, like, if you. It's Michigan, it would be like Michigan sweatshirts for design for women.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yes, yes, precisely.

[Guy Raz]

That was probably a massively underserved market. When you tell me how you started this business, how'd the idea come about?

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yeah, well, no, big time. So my background is small brick and mortar retail. I really cut my teeth in the fashion industry owning a women's boutique. And through that, I started producing a few graphic tees for a local university, and that really came about. There just was never anything that my friends and I wanted to wear to games.

[Guy Raz]

What was. What was the university, by the way?

[J.L. Thorpe]

South Dakota State.

[Guy Raz]

Nice. Okay, so you started making them just for you and your friends, like cool shirts and sweatshirts that looked better because a lot of them are really kind of designed for the male fan, right?

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yes. You understand my industry perfectly, it sounds like. So I owned these two women's stores in South Dakota, and so I started producing shirts to sell through the stores. And I think pretty quickly, I recognized there just was a much bigger opportunity than what we could sell to South Dakota State.

[Guy Raz]

Amazing. And tell us, before we ask you more questions, what's your question for us today?

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yeah, absolutely. So, like I said, we're about four years in, and we've experienced a pretty incredible sustained growth rate. And so as we get the right people and the processes in place to just create stability and to continue to grow, I keep looking at the next stage, and I just know that that that scrappy mentality that got us from zero to here is not going to get us from 0 to 50 million. And so as we consider growth, I would just love to have a conversation with both of you on how you recommend that we assess the opportunities that come our way.

[Guy Raz]

Before I bring in Joe, just can you briefly give me a sense of what is your revenue right now?

[J.L. Thorpe]

Around 10 million.

[Guy Raz]

$10 million. You must be the biggest small business we've had. On the advice line. That's amazing. That's incredible. Congratulations. I mean, most of the businesses are doing, you know, 10 to 50 grand a year. Okay, Joe, I want to bring you in. First of all, amazing story.

[Joe Jebbia]

It really is. It really is.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Well, I still have plenty. Plenty to learn. That's why I'm here.

[Joe Jebbia]

So, J.L. like, when you think about what I'm always curious, when people think about their company and their brand, what do you think is the core idea behind your brand?

[J.L. Thorpe]

I mean, really, Guy kind of summarized it. It's product built exclusively for women. And so, I mean, what I love about you and your background and what you built and the disruptive nature of it is that the whole idea was design. A lot of where that started. And so, to me, it's all about design and quality. And as we scale, that obviously gets more difficult to preserve that design and quality. But I think that's. I mean, that's our secret sauce is just creating products that are so unique and distinctive that they stand out.

[Joe Jebbia]

That all makes sense. I want to push a little bit further, though. What is it about Game Day social that a woman buys from you and not somebody else who also makes for women, womenswear?

[J.L. Thorpe]

Well, I think one area that we spend a lot of time on is the fit and the silhouette. And I think that's really what it comes down to for women is when you pick up a piece, it's all about how it lays, how it feels, how it drapes. And a lot of the sports apparel out there is really men's garments with a little bit different spin.

[Joe Jebbia]

So when you talk to your customers, I'd be curious, like, what are they saying? They feel like what is wearing one of your garments do for them emotionally? Like, what have they said to you over the years?

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yeah, no, I love that question. We say that. So our tagline is we're for the social fan. And the reason that I picked that is because I personally am not. I'm actually not a sports fan, which is kind of funny that I wound up in this industry. But honestly, that's kind of really part of what makes us special is that I wanted to be able to go to games and feel like part of that environment, part of that social experience. But I don't know anything about the team. I'm not paying attention necessarily to what's always happening on the field. And so I think really what we're able to bring is this just sense of belonging in that community to a female fan, but also just in an elevated way where she's representing her own personal aesthetic.

[Guy Raz]

I feel like I'm looking at your website here and looking at all these different universities, and the designs are missing. My assumption was you would just have these cookie cutter designs with the different school names. Every single school has different designs, which is pretty remarkable.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Thank you.

[Guy Raz]

And they're really cool. And are they sold? Are you selling? What's your main channel? Are you mainly wholesale or D2C?

[J.L. Thorpe]

We're very predominantly wholesale. That was the strategy that we started off with. We'd love to grow the D2C side, but that's a slower build.

[Guy Raz]

And you are. So you're sold in, like, shops on campus or around the campus.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Campus stores. We sell to a lot of boutiques, small mom and pop shops. That's my roots, so I'm faithful to that customer base. But we also work with a lot of national retailers as well.

[Guy Raz]

And have you taken on any investment yet?

[J.L. Thorpe]

No, I've been able to get to this point without diluting the equity. So the goal is to keep it that way.

[Guy Raz]

So you own 100% of the business?

[J.L. Thorpe]

That's correct.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So now. All right, so you're talking about where to go next, right? Because obviously you want to grow. Joe, what do you think about. I mean, there's a lot of different directions we could take this in. Like, do you seek out investors right at this point? Do you slow down growth? Do you speed it up? We're about to have an episode where I interviewed. Interviewed Michael Rubin, founder of Fanatics. Right. Biggest sports apparel brand probably in the world. And you're gonna. It'll be a lot for you to learn from that episode. But, you know, multi billion dollar business, Joe, when you think about. About growth at this stage, $8 million brand, really good category, college sports. It just seems like there's endless growth. What do you think? What should she be thinking about?

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, jl, you've already done the thing that I would have advised, which is to bootstrap as long as you can. That was one of the best things that we ever did at Airbnb, is that we built up value, scraping by without giving out too much of the company too early. And so as we went to fundraising, as we knew it was time to scale, as we proved out our model on our own dime effectively, it allowed us to go into investor conversations, having a real seat at the table, having a full hand of cards to work with as we got into discussions with them. And it seems like you may be at that time, you've got years behind you. You've got clear success, you've got real revenue. And I'll give you one other piece of advice, which is the best time to go raise money is when you don't need it. And so if you're in a position where you've got ramen profitability, where you're able to cover your expenses and your costs, and it's effectively unlimited Runway, you have a unique advantage to go out to seek investment at this point. And so I think it's really where I would start is where do you want to end up? Like, what is your biggest dream for where you could take this company? And I'd work backwards from that.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yeah. And honestly, that's, I mean, I would love to hear more from you about that process of, like you said, when you got to that point where you had the hand of cards and you had the seat at the table of also just looking at what, what, what did that, what, what were you guys looking for in terms of that investment? What did that, how did you weigh those opportunities? What did that kind of look like?

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, we needed a seed round so that we could hire people. It was still just the three of us working out of our three bedroom apartment. And so we went out to, to meet a couple of investors and sure enough, one of the, the first two that we met with wanted to take a big bite of the apple. And you know, the fact that like, we didn't necessarily have to take their money, it's not like it was sink or swim. Our life didn't depend on it. You know, it gave us some leverage in those conversations. It sounds like you may be in a similar position.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yeah, no, that's, that's extremely, extremely helpful. You know, the other thing that I was thinking about when I was just thinking about you and your story and that like diversification and looking at new revenue streams or categories. I would love to hear you talk about your decision as an organization to add experiences. What was the decision making process for? Let's add experiences to the platform and not vehicles or office spaces or something else, if you're willing to share that.

[Joe Jebbia]

The experiences was born out of us listening to our customer base and also our own vision for wanting to offer more than just a place to stay. A trip is many things. The stay is just one of a dozen things that people need in order to have a great vacation. What are all the things that we could do through our lens of providing local authentic accommodations or local authentic experiences? How could we extend our platform to allow hosts to offer those experiences? When you travel really just answering the question that people have of okay, you helped me get here, now what can I do? And let's answer that in a very on brand way by allowing our host to host.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, that's awesome.

[J.L. Thorpe]

I think that makes a lot of sense.

[Guy Raz]

Jail, I think and sort of, you know, doubling down on Joe's point here. I mean, you know, you have, how many employees do you have now?

[J.L. Thorpe]

We're a team of about 20.

[Guy Raz]

20 people. That's awesome. Okay, so 20 people and I'm assuming you are. Are you profitable?

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

Yes. Okay. But probably your margins are not, they're probably still not super high. Not quite yet.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yeah. Correct.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Apparel is tough, it's tough business but with, you know, bringing a good strategic investor and you're going to want to think really carefully about who that is. Right. You're going to want somebody who has experience in apparel. If you bring somebody on or experience in licensing and design, that gives you the opportunity to really scale up the designs. Right. Because I'm sure that's a challenge. Right. You probably don't have enough designers.

[J.L. Thorpe]

You know, that's actually something that we've really managed to create processes around outsourcing to be able to scale that out, which I am proud of because again, that's so critical to our brand is the design. I would say though the piece to that that we need to scale out, that's just taking time is to diversify our manufacturing base. We really need more manufacturers and that's a long process. And so yeah, I would say those would definitely be, would be important pieces.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And of course given the political sort of winds of change, you may have to think about where you get those manufactured. Of course, if there's issues around tariffs and things like that. So that could pose a challenge. But there's obviously solutions to that as well.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Yes, we've been talking a lot about that and yes, a lot of our manufacturing right now is happening in China, but we've added a great partner in India. But again, that's a lift. I mean that just takes time and cash and so yeah, no, this is super helpful.

[Guy Raz]

Cool. J.L. thorpe. The brand is called Gameday Social. Congrats. It looks like you're doing a lot of things right, so good luck. Keep it going.

[J.L. Thorpe]

Thank you so much. This was such a treat, guy. My 10 year old son, a budding entrepreneur and I love to listen to your show together. Just so exceptional at what you do. And Joe, really enjoy your perspective and just love that you took the time to do the show. So so good to meet both of you. Take care.

[Joe Jebbia]

Thanks, J.L.

[Guy Raz]

Thanks. Awesome. I love that business. I love that idea. There's a product, it's serving a lot of people, right? I mean, sports apparel, college sports apparel. It's such a massive business, and it seems like it just never stops growing.

[Joe Jebbia]

No, there's always more alums graduating from schools that want to stay connected and.

[Guy Raz]

People spend so much money on. We had a whole episode on a hotel company that you may know of, the graduate hotels. You know, it was really started out in college towns. He just. Ben Weprin just started a hotel. He's like, hey, you know, parents, alumni, people kind of visit. Why don't we make a hotel in the college town, but decorate it with the college, like, colors and themes and sports heroes. And now there's like 50 hotels. They sold it to Hilton, you know, so people love college that they're so committed to it, so.

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, there's probably more out there besides college, WNBA and others, you know.

[Guy Raz]

Exactly. Joe, before I let you go, it's a version of a question I ask everybody who comes on to help me out here, which is, you've got Samara and you've learned. I mean, I'm sure because you learned so much with your experience at Airbnb, you probably went into your, you know, into this business with obviously a lot of experience and perspective, probably still made mistakes. Everybody does, you know. But if there was something that you could have told yourself back in 2008, you know, when you were building Airbnb, that might have made things a little easier or would have given you some perspective, Is there something that you can think of that would have been helpful?

[Joe Jebbia]

Well, I'm going to answer that by saying the piece of advice I give myself is to have more mentors. Because starting something as exciting as it is and sounds, it's also at times extremely lonely, especially if you're doing it for the first time and especially if you aren't exactly sure what you're doing. And I eventually found mentors, of course, along the way. I just wish I had found them earlier. I feel like they, once I did find them, they really helped me avoid some pitfalls and some landmines on the road of entrepreneurship. And I'm like, man, I wish somebody told me earlier on, take the time. Go reach out to people and find some folks who have seen the movie Play before and can provide advice, perspective, so that you're not on your own.

[Guy Raz]

That's good advice. Joe Jebbia, co founder of Airbnb. Thanks So much for coming on, Guy.

[Joe Jebbia]

It was a pleasure.

[Guy Raz]

And by the way, if you haven't heard Joe's original How I Built this episode, you've got to go back and take a listen. We'll link to it in the podcast episode description and here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.

[Joe Jebbia]

We ended up going from 0 to 800 homes in a matter of four weeks and I have to tell you, I thought that this was it. Like this was our rocket ship to the moon.

[Guy Raz]

You thought we made it, we're here, we got it, right?

[Joe Jebbia]

If you build it, they will come and look what's happening. And so we get introduced to 20 investors in Silicon Valley. 10 of them reply to our email, 5 of them meet us for coffee, 0 invested in us.

[Guy Raz]

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for a free for [e-mail] or on substack. And of course, if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice [e-mail] or call us at 1-800-433-12. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Carla Estevez with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Chris masini, Elaine Coates, J.C. howard, Devin Schwartz, Kathryn Cipher, Kerry Thompson, Neva Grant, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line on How I Built this Lab. If you like how I built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey. It takes a lot to grow your business. You've got to attract audiences, score leads, manage all the channels. It's a lot of long days and late nights, but with Breeze HubSpot's new AI tools, it's never been easier to be a marketer and crush your goals fast, which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate, like 110% more leads in just 12 months. Visit HubSpot. Com Marketers to learn more.