First Time Founders with Ed Elson – This Founder is Disrupting Our Addiction to Our Phones

Summary

Podcast Summary: First Time Founders with Ed Elson – This Founder is Disrupting Our Addiction to Our Phones

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
• Host/Author: Vox Media Podcast Network
• Episode: First Time Founders with Ed Elson – This Founder is Disrupting Our Addiction to Our Phones
• Release Date: July 6, 2025
• Description: Ed Elson interviews Graham Dugoni, Founder and CEO of Yondr, about his innovative approach to combating smartphone addiction through the creation of intentional tech-free spaces.

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Introduction

In this episode of First Time Founders, host Ed Elson delves into the pervasive issue of smartphone addiction, particularly among the younger generation. He introduces his guest, Graham Dugoni, the visionary behind Yondr, a company dedicated to creating phone-free environments in schools and various public venues.

The Pervasiveness of Smartphone Addiction

Key Statistics:

• Screen Time: Gen Z spends approximately 109 days per year on screens.
• Sleep: 106 days are lost to sleep, leaving about 150 days for all other activities.
• Social Decline: Americans spend 70% less time with friends than a decade ago.
• Loneliness: 12% of Americans report having no close friends, up from 3% in 1990.
• Mental Health: Diagnosed rates of depression and anxiety among the youth have more than doubled since 2010.

Discussion Highlights: Ed emphasizes the correlation between the rise of smartphone usage and increasing rates of depression and anxiety among the younger population. He poses a critical question: "Is it a coincidence that this all went up when the iPhone came out?" ([05:00])

Graham's Perspective: Graham concurs, highlighting that while humans biologically haven't changed, the tools we use have. He posits that smartphones have introduced unprecedented changes in human interactions, often acting as a crutch that erodes essential social skills. He remarks, "There's certain things that can't be replaced," emphasizing the detrimental impact of smartphones on developing coherent worldviews and social interactions ([04:09]).

Yondr's Solution: Creating Phone-Free Spaces

Product Overview: Yondr offers a simple yet effective solution—a lockable pouch that allows individuals to store their phones securely, ensuring they remain inaccessible during specific periods.

Implementation in Schools:

• Pre-Launch: Yondr collaborates with schools to plan and communicate the transition to phone-free environments.
• Day-to-Day Usage: Students place their phones in the pouch upon entering the school, keeping possession of it at all times. The phone remains locked until the end of the day, promoting a phone-free campus ([13:23]).

Impact Observed:

• Academic Improvement: Schools report improved academic performance and higher student engagement.
• Behavioral Changes: Significant reductions in disciplinary issues and bullying, often exacerbated by phone usage.
• Social Benefits: Enhanced social interactions, with students feeling less anxious about being constantly recorded. One notable change is the increase in students comfortably eating lunch without the fear of being filmed ([07:16], [11:24]).

Notable Quote: "We’re giving kids six to eight hours a day to just be kids and we're creating a framework." – Graham Dugoni ([13:58])

Founder’s Journey and Personal Experience

Graham's Decision to Go Phone-Free: Graham shares his personal journey of abstaining from smartphones for over a decade, a decision that directly influenced the founding of Yondr. He explains, "I needed to try to embody that mindset," underscoring his commitment to the company's mission ([20:45]).

Origin Story of Yondr: Initially starting in 2014 with minimal resources, Graham faced numerous rejections from VCs and potential customers. His breakthrough came unexpectedly when he secured a collaboration with Dave Chappelle, which significantly validated Yondr's approach. Despite early struggles, Graham's persistence and belief in Yondr's mission propelled the company forward ([25:35], [36:44]).

Challenges Faced:

• Early Rejections: Faced skepticism from venture capitalists and potential clients who were hesitant to embrace a phone-free approach.
• Product Development: Handcrafted early products and conducted door-to-door pitches with limited success initially.
• Scaling Post-COVID: The pandemic accelerated Yondr's growth, highlighting the urgent need for phone-free environments as remote learning underscored the distractions caused by smartphones ([34:04], [36:30]).

Business Model and Growth Strategy

Comprehensive Programs for Schools: Yondr offers more than just the pouch; they provide full programs that include:

• Pre-Planning: Policy development and communication strategies.
• Implementation: On-ground support and logistical assistance.
• Ongoing Support: Continuous monitoring and data collection to demonstrate program efficacy ([39:33]).

Revenue Streams:

• Product Sales: Selling lockable pouches for various settings.
• Service Fees: Charging for the comprehensive implementation programs tailored to each institution or venue.

Growth Highlights:

• Key Partnerships: Collaborations with high-profile venues and personalities like Dave Chappelle significantly boosted Yondr's visibility and credibility.
• Global Expansion: Yondr's solutions are now utilized in over 35 countries, encompassing schools, concerts, comedy shows, courthouses, and even homes ([33:21], [32:48]).

Notable Quote: "We're very direct. We help people create a phone-free space. It has a direct effect on their life." – Graham Dugoni ([49:00])

Operational Philosophy and Ethics

Minimal Use of Social Media: Yondr consciously avoids leveraging social media beyond LinkedIn, prioritizing in-person strategies and authentic customer relationships. Graham explains that this approach aligns with their mission to foster genuine interactions without the clutter of digital distractions ([47:41]).

Emphasis on Quality and Trust: Yondr rejects conventional advertising methods, believing that true value lies in the direct impact their products have on users. This philosophy ensures that the company's growth is mission-driven rather than profit-driven ([49:00]).

Notable Quote: "Our ethos as a company is being in person. But once you get to day one and you're a student walking through the door, you've got your pouch, it's assigned to you." – Graham Dugoni ([13:32])

Impact and Success Metrics

Academic Performance: Schools implementing Yondr report notable improvements in student grades and overall engagement in the classroom.

Behavioral Improvements: Reduction in disciplinary actions and bullying incidents, indicating a more harmonious school environment.

Social Well-being: Students experience less anxiety related to constant phone usage and feel more present and connected with their peers.

Parental Feedback: Parents observe positive changes in their children's phone usage patterns at home, fostering healthier digital habits beyond the school environment ([40:16], [42:49]).

Notable Quote: "I'm seeing my student's eyes again. Their body language changes. They're not down, they're not grumpy, their eyes are open." – Graham Dugoni ([40:16])

Vision for a Healthier Relationship with Technology

Graham envisions a society where smartphones and digital tools are less central to daily life, allowing for richer personal experiences and stronger community bonds. He advocates for creating more phone-free spaces to encourage genuine interactions and personal growth, particularly among the younger generation.

Final Thoughts: Yondr's mission extends beyond mere restriction; it's about fostering environments where individuals can thrive without the constant interruption and distraction of smartphones. Graham hopes for a future where digital tools complement rather than dominate human interactions, promoting a balanced and fulfilling lifestyle.

Notable Quote: "If people put more weight on the experiences they have without them and the things they enjoy doing in the physical world and with community, I think that's a shift." – Graham Dugoni ([56:06])

Conclusion

Ed Elson wraps up the conversation by acknowledging Graham's profound impact on addressing smartphone addiction through innovative solutions. Yondr stands as a testament to the possibility of creating meaningful change by prioritizing human connections and mental well-being over technological convenience.

Closing Remarks: "This was great. Thank you for joining me." – Ed Elson ([57:10])

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Key Takeaways:

• Smartphone addiction poses significant challenges to mental health and social well-being.
• Yondr's phone-free pouches offer a practical solution to mitigate these issues in schools and various public spaces.
• Comprehensive implementation programs ensure the successful adoption of phone-free environments.
• Minimal reliance on social media aligns with Yondr's mission, fostering authentic and direct customer relationships.
• Positive impacts include improved academic performance, reduced bullying, and enhanced social interactions among students.
• Vision for the future emphasizes a balanced relationship with technology, prioritizing personal experiences and community engagement.

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This detailed summary encapsulates the core discussions, insights, and conclusions from the podcast episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened.

Transcript

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[Ed Elson]

Welcome to first time founders. I'm Ed Elson. Today's kids are growing up glued to their devices and the numbers are staggering. Teenagers now spend nearly nine hours per day on a screen and it's affecting their education. With 72% of US high school teachers reporting that phones are a major distraction in the classroom, my next guest saw an opportunity to change that by creating intentional tech free spaces. Starting in schools, he built a simple yet powerful solution, a lockable pouch that allows students to hold onto their phones without having access to them. Today, his product is used by millions of students across 35 countries and it's giving them all something increasingly rare a break from their phone. This is my conversation with Graham Dugoni, Founder and CEO of Yondr. Good to have you on the show.

[Graham Dugoni]

Graham thanks for having me.

[Ed Elson]

So we will get to the company in a second, but I want to just start off with some stats, or I'll start with just a number. Actually, the number is 109, and that is the number of days that Gen Z spends per year looking at a screen. And we spend 106 days asleep, which means that we have 150 days left over to do everything else. And so the way I often describe it is that basically 40% of our waking hours are spent on a screen. Pair that with the fact that Americans are now spending 70% less time today with their friends than they were a decade ago. Pair it with the fact that 12% of Americans today say they have no close friends at all, which is up from 3% in 1990. My view, and I think a lot of people's view, is, is that we are the loneliest and most depressed generation in history, and it's because of the phone. So I want to get your view on that, but more generally, I just want to get your view on the following question, which is, what has the phone done to us?

[Graham Dugoni]

I think the smartphone, and this goes back to maybe even before I started the company and I started it in 2014. Yeah, I thought when the smartphone came along, it was a hyperbolic expression of a very old theme. You know, the drive to make things faster, cheaper, easier, and more available everywhere. It's been going on for a very long time. But the smartphone brought in so many new, unprecedented aspects of that. So my hypothesis back then was that this younger generation growing up with a computer in their pocket, that's a fundamentally different human experience, and that had not been tried before. What was that going to look like? I thought there were going to be a lot of possibilities, but. But a lot of unexpected consequences. So when you talk about those things, about social engagement, how do you develop a coherent worldview? How do you learn to talk to people? How do you read body language? How do you build community? A lot of the conversation back then around the opportunities related to not just the phone, but social media and the Internet, I thought were very rosy, but I didn't really see them mirrored anywhere in history or in human nature, honestly. And so I think that's what we're starting to realize is that there are incredible possibilities on the Internet and with tech and phones, but there's certain things that can't be replaced. And when you bring those devices into certain situations, it tends to become a crutch and a path of least resistance and erode some of the things and the Skills that people really need.

[Ed Elson]

We're losing our skills. We're not as social as we were. But I feel like that almost softens the blow because the depression rates outright have more than doubled since 2010, at least among the young generation. And those are diagnosed rates. Same with anxiety. Diagnosed anxiety rates up more than 100% since 2010. Is it a coincidence that this all went down when the iPhone came out? Basically. I mean, the iPhone came out right around then and suddenly you had this gigantic explosion in depress, anxiety, loneliness. That's not a coincidence, right?

[Graham Dugoni]

No, of course not. I mean, biologically, humans haven't changed much for how long? A really long time. What's changed recently? The tools we use have changed. So it's an obvious tie to make. The more difficult question is, what do you do about it? How do we wrestle with that, knowing that the world is moving so fast in a certain direction and so much basic infrastructure in daily life and society is being woven through these devices in, you know, forcing people kind of through these mediums to just live their life, access basic services, find information, navigate. So it's, in a way, it's easy to diagnose, but what to do about it is, I think the trickier thing.

[Ed Elson]

In the intro there, I mentioned that seven in 10 high school teachers say that the phones are a distraction in the classroom. I'm just curious to know a little bit more about that. What are we finding is happening in the classroom right now in America as a result of kids having phones?

[Graham Dugoni]

Well, I think just in the last two years, call it post Covid, the conversation radically shifted because we've been working with schools since 2014, and back then there was no terminology of a phone free school. That's something that yonder coined was a phone free school and a phone free space. So back then the zeitgeist was generally, we're going to push more tech into schools. That was the push and it was only post Covid. I think when people started to see what that was actually doing to kids and parents saw what it meant for remote learning and what their kids were actually doing, that that narrative flipped very suddenly. Yeah, but what's happening in schools is again, it's a little different depending on where you, you know, where in the country you are or what different country you're in. But fundamentally, it's the vast majority of fights, disciplinary issues, and bullying is happening through the phone and social media, full stop. Generally, when yonder's brought into a school, what we tend to see on the positive side is we See an uptick in academic performance, much higher engagement in the school classroom and learning environment. But to speak to what you talked about earlier, I think this is less widely understood when you think about anxiety and kids being anxious. One of the reasons that's not talked about is they're afraid of being filmed or recorded anywhere on campus at any time. If you go to a high school, their prom kids aren't dancing. Why is that? Part of it is those skills have become innovated, you know, of being able to interact and socialize, but the other is terrified of being filmed in an embarrassing moment. So when we launch in a school, one of the metrics we try to help schools track is actually, and it's a little sad, but it's important, is how many lunches are being eaten at lunchtime and we see a big uptick. And it's not because the kids are less distracted, it's because they're no longer afraid of being filmed with food falling out of their mouth and it being posted on TikTok. So you have to think about it in a broader perspective of your kid. And you're living in this panopticon, you can be filmed or recorded at any time. And what that does to social activity, freedom of expression is pretty profound.

[Ed Elson]

God, that's really scary that kids are afraid to eat because they're afraid they're being filmed. So tell us what yonder does. Tell us what you've launched and what you're selling to these schools.

[Graham Dugoni]

There's, you know, multiple parts of the business and it's grown since 2014. But the two pillars have always been live shows. So supporting artists to create these phone free tours and shows like in Madison Square Garden and big arena tours and schools, those are the two pillars of what we do. If you Zoom back to 2014 when we were going around evangelizing and you know, at first it was just me in the back of my Toyota Dolphin camper doing this door to door in the bay. We were trying to support teachers who were starting already in 2014 to wrestle with what do they do about this? You know, and we'd go in and we'd say, hey, we'll help you create a phone free classroom. And we had the product which was, you know, a lockable pouch like you mentioned, and we try to coach them how, you know, through how to do it. Basically over the last 10 years and Covid is somewhere in the middle and a lot of experiences and a lot of growth, we've learned that what makes creating a phone free school so difficult. Why there hasn't been such an easy solve is because it gets down to these societal questions about the role of technology in life and younger people in particular. And so if you want to make it work for a large school campus wide, which you have to do, I can explain why, or a whole district, you have to go in and treat it like a community action. You have to get parents on board, you have to support teachers, administrators, and you have to be honest with students about what it is and why it's important. They're not always going to like it. Yeah, but you got to talk to them that way. And so really now what the company does with schools, anytime we launch a big district, if they come to us and say, hey, can we have 20,000 pouches in two weeks? Our answer is that that's great, but have you walked through these steps? And so there's a whole arm of the company that helps them with the pre launch planning, communication, the rollout, the logistics, the ongoing. And those are not just nice to haves, those are things you have to do because again, we're talking about things related to social etiquette.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah. What does the pre launch look like? And I guess more specifically, what is the pushback that you're trying to wrestle with? I mean, how do teachers feel about it? I would assume that a teacher would be like, great, kids aren't on the phones, they're paying more attention in class. I'm all in. I also would assume that parents would think the same thing. I don't want my kid being on social media. I don't want my kid being bullied. I've seen the statistics. I'm afraid of my child's addiction to the phone. I mean, the only person who I think would not like it in a school is the kid. But what say do they?

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah, well, you'd be surprised. In some places they can have a lot of say, okay, for better or worse, you know, they have an important voice. But look, it's like anything, it can be people's associations with the idea. And it's part of the reason we use the language from the beginning of phone free schools. Not a phone because it's not punitive. So our message to parents is right, hey, we're not taking something away. These things that you as a parent are seeing, let's say you're a parent and you're, you have a teenager who's on TikTok all the time and they're, they're scrolling the Internet and you're worried about how they're developing socially, you're worried about their development of critical thinking faculties. Just as a person, you're worried about, you know, how they're forming or not forming a worldview, which I think people really need to develop. And you develop it through experiences, not, you know, simulated experiences. What we try to do is talk to parents on that level and go, hey, these things you're observing at home, these real things that you're struggling with. A phone free school is a concrete way to address those. We're giving kids six to eight hours a day to just be kids and we're creating a framework. So it's kind of like you have to think in a really practical sense about what you're trying to do. Because if you just get caught up in the world of ideas, there's a real tendency for people to just go back and shout it out into the void, to hop onto social media, whatever. And to me, the way technology affects people is especially smartphones. It's not really that way. You have to create physical boundaries and then layer on the education.

[Ed Elson]

How does it actually work? When you walk into the school, does the teacher hand out a pouch and then everyone puts the phone in the pouch? How does it actually work on a day to day basis?

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah, so after all the pre training and the launch and all of that. Because remember, every school campus is totally different. So the ingress, the egress, just like every show we do, it's all super hands on work that our team does. And so our, our business strategy over the years and our whole growth as a company has been totally about being in person, total ground game. We have no social media outside of LinkedIn. So our whole ethos as a company is being in person. But once you get to day one and you're a student walking through the door, you've got your pouch, it's assigned to you. As you step in the door of the school, your phone and any of your wearable tech goes inside the pouch. Once you shut it, it's locked, but the student keeps possession of it at all times so the school doesn't have to worry about confiscating it. The student is trusted to keep their property. But inside that school day, it's entirely phone free campus. So at lunch, no phones out in classroom, no phones out out of recess, no phones out. And what we see spring back into life. It only takes, you'd be shocked, a couple weeks to go from kind of the doom and gloom story we talked about in school to chess clubs, basketball, sports, library, books being Checked. It's amazing to see these things spring back into life once you kind of remove the anesthetizing agent, you know? Yeah. But then back to the day in the life. At the end of the day, a student, they walk out any one of the exits, and they just tap their pouch on one of the unlocking mechanisms on the wall. Boom. Pops open, they call their parents, they hop on the bus or they do whatever. And there's many wrinkles inside of that. We make bespoke for different campuses and what they want to do with the system, but that's the bare bones of it.

[Ed Elson]

Has there been any concern from parents or from teachers that if you're restricting these kids usage and access to a technology that is systemic to our society, then they're in some way going to fall behind or they're gonna be sort of technologically illiterate? I don't buy that argument at all personally, but I'm just wondering if that is a form of pushback that. No, we need to be embracing technology in schools. Our kids need to know how to use the phone. They need know and be aware of the fact that, yes, you can be filmed when you're walking out and about in the world. Is that a pushback that you have.

[Graham Dugoni]

Received in the past? Yes. More recently, I would say over the last couple years, far, far less. But I think it is something some people kind of have a snap reaction to and will say that, like, we need to learn how to teach kids to use these devices.

[Ed Elson]

Right.

[Graham Dugoni]

My answer is always, absolutely, we do need to teach them. But also, how do you suggest we do that? You know, again, we're talking about digital natives born into a world where they're. They've always had screens around them all the time. So, look, I'm a little bit older generation that grew up without smartphones. So part of the genesis of the company was to go, all right, if I'm part of this younger generation, how would I have a flavor for what life looks like without these things if no one ever showed me? So our goal as a company is we create these spaces and try to frame them in a way that people understand. But to open young people, especially to the experience of what it's like, they can make their choice later on as they become older, about if they like that, if they want to have a smartphone, if they don't, the role of social media in their life. But without a perspective on it or an experience of it, I don't think it's a fair question. So, you know, that's it's like talking to anybody, an adult and say, hey, don't use your phone for four hours, but it's going to be buzzing in your hand. Engineered to do what it does and just execute extreme impulse control consistently? Yes, it doesn't really, it's not really how it works.

[Ed Elson]

We'll be right back.

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[Ed Elson]

We'Re back with first time founders. I learned before this interview that you don't have a smartphone or use one, which I just can't really wrap my head around. I once actually tried to in high school, I tried to play out what it would be like to get rid of my phone and get just sort of like an old brick phone. But I realized that it would be too much of a problem, largely because of maps. I was like, well, I need to get around so I'm going to need my phone. And it became clearer and clearer to me, like, actually I can't live without this thing. And so I just didn't try. But I certainly thought about it. How do you live a life and how do you run a company, more importantly without a phone?

[Graham Dugoni]

Well, yeah, I haven't had a smartphone for 10 years. So the experiences you went through just even thinking about it, like, like I could talk for days about it and how. Okay, so my, my perspective on how the world is shifting and basic services, you having to be kind of funneled through these devices is interesting because I feel the walls closing in. What I've seen is in day to day life, not having one creates a ton of inconveniences. I won't, I won't say it doesn't.

[Ed Elson]

Okay.

[Graham Dugoni]

And a lot of people around me would probably be like, it's a gigantic pain in the ass. They don't want to text me because it goes, you know, green or all the things. Right.

[Ed Elson]

The green thing is a problem.

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah, I hear about it and I'm like, yeah, navigating new cities. Like I'm writing down taxi cab company numbers and I get into all sorts of time consuming situations. On the flip side of that and growing the company, I think what has given me is a ton of experiences. I've been in endless cities tour managing our early shows to end things and in schools, in random cities, and I interact with people I have to. I'm like, hey, can you tell me how to get here? Next block, can you tell me how to get there? I'm sitting in a cab. I got nothing to do but to talk to him. So it kind of builds up this level of civil society and personal experience that's helped me just know what's going on. But for a business perspective, I think the biggest part is it slowed everything down. So I manage my inputs that way. I don't hop in the morning on the news because I feel like it's not that I don't want to know what's going on, it's that there's only so many things you can positively affect in a day or in your life. Do you choose them or do they kind of solicit and choose you? And if you allow yourself to be swept away mentally to all the things that you maybe can't directly affect, I feel like it becomes a river without banks. You've got no energy left to affect the things you can positively affect and the chain that follows. So that's the biggest thing is it forces me. It forces people in the business to talk through ideas, to think about it before they call me, and then if they want to write me an email. We, as a company, we place a huge emphasis on good, clear writing. Like, we cut out as soon as AI started to come into emails, blocked it immediately, because I was like, I value our team and the company way too much to have them outsource that resource or that faculty. And beyond that, the idea of two chatbots in different parts of the world sending automated messages to each other is just beyond silly. So those are the kind of the ethos of the company and the lifestyle that I think are part of what have made us successful.

[Ed Elson]

It's definitely true that without a smartphone, because of the access and the utility of it, you have to be more efficient and more intentional in every aspect of your life. And one thing that I found with the young generation, with Gen Z, my generation, is, I think, because of the phone and because of how easy it is to communicate. There's a lack of clear communication, also a lack of accountability, a lack of an ability to plan for things and to show up for things. For example, you're planning a dinner if you don't have a phone. I mean, 50 years ago, you say, we're going to have dinner on Friday, you have to show up for dinner on Friday. Or if you're not going to show up, you got to let them know somehow, at least 24 hours in advance. Just a basic example of how you need to have a certain level of accountability and clear communication. You don't really need that anymore because you can just text like. Like 10 minutes before, whenever. Oh, I'm super busy with work. I can't really do this right now. Let's push to this time or this time. And it does create an environment where everything is just a lot more impulsive and a lot more scattered, I would say, in overall living. So I love that that has been a positive effect on your company. It sounds like that there is more accountability in terms of communicating. This is what we have to do. I'm not going to distract you with all of this dumb fluff around. The point here is the point, and this is what we need to get done. When you got rid of the smartphone, what triggered that? How was the adjustment, and why did you get rid of your smartphone?

[Graham Dugoni]

I had had one, maybe briefly for post college, and so I only actually ever owned a smartphone for probably three. Three years.

[Ed Elson]

Okay.

[Graham Dugoni]

And then in my mid-20s, as I was starting the company, I felt it would be. I had to live the lifestyle I was going to talk about and Yonder was going to back up. And so I felt like to make good decisions in the spirit of what Yonder was trying to do, I needed to try to embody that mindset.

[Ed Elson]

Your decision to get off the smartphone coincided with starting the company?

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah, from the beginning.

[Ed Elson]

In that case, let's hear the origin story of the company. How it all started back in 2014.

[Graham Dugoni]

I was a soccer player in college. I had no ambitions to start my own company. I wasn't like, hey, I'm going to be a founder. I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I kind of fell backwards into the business because I got carried away with the ideas. And the ideas for me, I started to go down that kind of rabbit hole maybe around 2012 when I was living in Atlanta and got my first kind of real job. But it just so happened that the people I was reading at the time, there was kind of a center of gravity pulling all these great thinkers like Heidegger Kierkegaard, Marshall McLuhan, William James, Albert Borgman, Hubert Dreyfuss. There's this theme that kept emerging of the role of technology in daily life. And I think as a young person, just kind of finding myself looking around at the world. I was going, what's going on? What's going on around me? What are smartphones about to do? You know? So that was kind of the bedrock. That exploration that went on for years before yonder started was kind of the shaping of my worldview, that I still is basically the same as it. As it is now. But then where it came to a head is when I moved to San Francisco and I kind of got close up to the tech world. I went a. I read some of the white papers and I went, a lot of this is not as altruistic as it sounds. You know, there's a lot of talk about kind of hijacking people's biology, and I didn't see the inspiration behind it.

[Ed Elson]

But also I was white papers for.

[Graham Dugoni]

This, for like the startups.

[Ed Elson]

Startups and iPhone. I mean, what kinds of social media.

[Graham Dugoni]

Companies or apps or anything in that ecosystem, you know. But I was also just shocked. I felt like many people hadn't read a lot of the foundational stuff behind philosophy of technology, so my viewpoint was very different about where technology was going to go. I'll call it that. But then the. The catalyzing moment for me kind of came. I was at a Music Festival in 2012 in San Francisco called Treasure island. And I was there with a bunch of friends and I was watching this guy. There's a drunk guy dancing at one of the shows, just having a good time. And I saw a guy behind him pull up his phone and start to record him. I was like, all right, well, let's see what happens with this. And then he kind of stopped recording and went down. I saw him open up an app and he started to post it on social media and start to write a caption. And I was like, whoa. And it just kind of washed over me. All the things I'd been thinking about for a pretty long time. I went, this is not a sustainable view of the world. If people can't go not just to a show, but other parts of the public, you know, the public world and have some expectation of privacy. Yeah, you just follow that line logically and you go, well, there's going to be no freedom of expression. No one can take any chances. Artists can't perform. Like, it's not just about distractions. There's a much more existential view towards the whole thing. And so that, that was kind of my moment where I was like, phone free spaces is coming. It's a thing. And we're gonna need to create kind of a national park system of these protected spaces throughout society to protect things we actually that need to be protected.

[Ed Elson]

It's less about the person and what it does to you as A person. I mean, I talk about the distraction and the loneliness and all of that, but what you're really describing is it's actually about the place and it's about the venue. And there are certain venues where we have almost a social responsibility to treat each other with some level of respect. That a lot of it seems downstream of this privacy thing. And I especially get worried about that if we're moving into an AI world where Sam Altman and Jony I've are developing this new technology where it sounds like what's going to happen is it's going to be some sort of pin or maybe some sort of headset that is constantly recording and that's gonna be the phone, except it's live and it's on all the time, which is a totally different way of operating. And so I think that point about we need moments where you know you're not being recorded and you have that assurance is probably gonna be important.

[Graham Dugoni]

That idea of recording in these newer devices of the future, maybe, and what they'll do. Yeah, I mean, look, it's back to the tech view of like, do you think you can get something for nothing? Is there such thing as pure progress? Like, let's say you're in London, you want to make the place safer, so you put closed caption television on every street corner.

[Ed Elson]

Right.

[Graham Dugoni]

You can make an argument that makes people safer. What's the trade off? Personal privacy and the potential for retroactive justice, is that recognized in public discourse that these are trade offs? I don't think it always is, but everything is trade offs to me. Anytime something new comes in, not labeling it good or bad, but it's going to push something out. And so I think part of the wrestle, like what we're wrestling with this generation in society at large is what do we value, how do we protect what we value? Adopt what's new. Not trying to hold off the future, but also be eyes open about what we're walking into. Because that view of the world, that total transparency in all things is going to create this kind of perfect egalitarian society is pure rubbish. It's nonsense and it's going to eviscerate privacy. And without privacy, there's no such thing as intimacy and there's no such thing as personal expression. And I think anyone who can't recognize that maybe hasn't looked at history, but is also not looking at the effect the tools are having. Now.

[Ed Elson]

The counterargument that I'm sure people would say is you can't just stop progress, you can't just stop technology from existing. These things are incredibly useful, incredibly important. We rely on them for so many different things. I don't think you're saying stop it, right?

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah, of course not. Because first off, it's impossible to do. Secondly, there's incredible advances that have happened in different fields that have allowed people to do things that we couldn't imagine. But also technology, like capitalism, it has its own center of gravity. It won't knock at the door and ask permission to enter in a situation. So it's like if it's introduced into a scenario where maybe it doesn't jive well with what you're trying to do. Let's say again, a show, maybe an artist wants to protect their content. But also, why do people go to live shows? You go to a 20,000 person arena to step over the threshold, feel the energy in the room, have that build in the presence of a great artist.

[Ed Elson]

Some people do it to post it on their stories.

[Graham Dugoni]

That's true. No doubt, no doubt.

[Ed Elson]

There are some shows.

[Graham Dugoni]

So you go in, that's the experience you want. And in a great show, you get to that of a static moment. It's not just about people taking photos and stuff. If people are texting and emailing constantly, that energy kind of bleeds out. So it turns out, I think in that context, digital devices just don't really help what the show is meant to do. You know what I mean? So it's not about saying the phone is evil. It's going about, like you said, it's back to spaces. How do you create spaces to support what we're trying to support and not totally negate the other.

[Ed Elson]

So let's go through the spaces that that yonder is being used for. So schools, it sounds like that's the main one. And that's the largest part of the business. Shows, music, concerts is what we've gone through so far. What are some other spaces where yonder is useful?

[Graham Dugoni]

There's a ton. We're used by a lot of people in the home. We hear about that every day. We're in obviously a lot of comedy, a lot of venues. We do a lot with courthouses around the world. So that's it. I find that one very interesting just because it relates to people being present and paying attention, but also degrees of privacy for people giving testimony. So it kind of cuts through interesting lines. We're used in warehousing facilities, we're used in testing centers, we're used on college campuses, we're used for tons of weddings and parties. So it's a very, very broad range.

[Ed Elson]

So you launched in 2014. I assume you're going around the country to different schools, trying to pitch them on this idea. At what point did things really start to take off? At what point did the customer. You realize, oh, my God, the TAM here is huge. People really want this again.

[Graham Dugoni]

When I started in 2014, you have to remember, I knew nothing about business, nothing about music, nothing about schools. And I was on unemployment, so I had no money. I had a few thousand bucks, so that's what I started with. So the early product development and stuff, I went around and tried to do early pitch meetings, you know, in San Francisco, because that's kind of what people did. And I got laughed out of, like, every room.

[Ed Elson]

Really?

[Graham Dugoni]

Oh, yeah. Like, and which, in hindsight, was good. A lot of it was on me. I didn't know what I was doing or talking about. I also just didn't like a lot of the personalities I encountered. But it also reinforced.

[Ed Elson]

You've been laughed out by VCs or by potential customers?

[Graham Dugoni]

Both, but particularly VCs.

[Ed Elson]

Okay.

[Graham Dugoni]

Because it wasn't even that. They.

[Ed Elson]

That doesn't surprise me.

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah.

[Ed Elson]

You're the guy who wants to roll back technology and you're pitching it to the technologist, right? Yeah.

[Graham Dugoni]

I shouldn't have been surprised. But from there, like, you know, the early yonder product and stuff, like, I handmade those in Nob Hill in San Francisco, going to the hardware store, and then I created an account on, like, Alibaba. You know, I would do this at night, and so all that stuff took me a long time to start to wrap my hands around. So before I even got to the first few thousand pouches that I chucked in the back of my old, like, Toyota Dolphin camper that I would cruise around in, I was doing all that stuff, going and printing out the little pamphlets I made in Chinatown and, like, every little thing. And then after that, I was on the ground for about eight months. I pitched door to door. I'd go to six schools every single day. I'd go to two or three venues every single night, and I'd go door to door trying to sell. I did it all through the Bay, up through the Northwest and la, and I did that all before I got a single sale. So in terms of the potential of where the business could go, I knew that from the beginning. I knew where I thought it was gonna go. But the reality of getting anyone to remotely adopt it like, that took me a long time. And even then, the first show was a burlesque show at a biker bar in Oakland. And I did the gig for free. And from that point I just kind of. I got lucky and I took shots, you know, like we did at that. I did a little launch party and a reporter came and wrote a little blurb. After that we did, I think a show with the electronic artist Zoo and like Brooklyn. And you mentioned like flying around the country to meet people. There was no money for flying. Like I did. Got one gig, went out there to Brooklyn, brought some. Brought my future brother in law and a friend. We're out there in like 8 degree weather outside with these handmade pouches, trying to lock up all these young people's phones and just getting screamed at and torn apart. So like the whole early growth of Yonder was that way.

[Ed Elson]

When was the moment where it exploded? And do you think it was because you got good at pitching, or do you think it's because society changed and everyone realized we don't want these things around?

[Graham Dugoni]

Well, there's phases of the company. There's pre Covid and post Covid. So the trajectory after Covid was wildly different. We've been kind of turbocharged, but the earliest kind of sense of somebody getting it was with Chappelle in probably 2015.

[Ed Elson]

Dave Chappelle?

[Graham Dugoni]

Dave Chappelle, yeah. And when he kind of came back on the set scene one day, I got a random call out of the blue and it was his manager. And I flew out to LA to meet his manager. And three days later I was doing a run of shows in Chicago, not knowing how to do shows of that size. It was only 3,000 people, but that was the first one because that put us on the map. That was a big deal. The shows went okay and from a Yonder perspective, but it was huge validation that we could start to. To do something.

[Ed Elson]

I think for children. And in schools, the kids are probably gonna be pissed off. And I know this because when I was in high school, they had these. It was sort of my high school's attempt at doing Yonder. They had these little phone baskets that they would put on the dining tables and they'd be like, okay, this is the phone basket. Like, everyone put your phone in and we laughed it off. We like threw the basket off to the side where we don't want this. You guys are telling us what to do. And as a kid, you know, that's frustrating to be told what to do and say, you can't access this thing that you're kind of addicted to. But I think for Kids, that's fine for adults. Do you ever have an issue with an adult being like, I can do this on my own, I'll just not look at my phone. But why am I being mandated by you, this random company that I'm not allowed to take my phone out anymore? Is that a big issue? You.

[Graham Dugoni]

Not to be a broken record, but like all these, there's kind of a time spectrum, you know. So in the early days, the questions we got in the pushback were way different than they are now. Because at a show, if you're talking to an adult coming in and talking this way, the general awareness of what yonder is, what a phone free space is, what we do is so much higher that the comp. We have very little friction, actually, even at a big show.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah.

[Graham Dugoni]

But still we'll get questions like that. And a big part of our staff's job on the ground is to go, hey, if you, you need access to your phone, we understand, you know, you keep it on you at all times. But also we set up phone use areas inside the venue, the equivalent of like a smoking section. So if someone says, oh, the babysitter might call me, we're able to say, no worries, you'll have your phone on you. If you need to go use it, just go to one of the marked phone use areas. You can unlock it there and you can use it.

[Ed Elson]

Yep.

[Graham Dugoni]

So we've always tried to meet people halfway, like, yes, it is a phone free show. And yeah, that is a rule. But also. So here's what will make it easier for you to do. That's been core to how we approached everything. And even for kids, the interesting thing is now a lot of kids don't like it, we know that. But a lot of kids, if you pull them aside one on one, and teachers do, they'll admit they feel a sense of relief. They actually do enjoy it. It just takes experiencing it first and getting over the discomfort to kind of get there.

[Ed Elson]

Talk a little bit about the business model, how does yonder make money and how does that all work?

[Graham Dugoni]

Well, sure, for schools, we provide a full program. The product is one part of that program. But the most important elements are the pre planning, the policy, the messaging, everything in the preparation, which is more than it seems. And then there's the kind of implementation and support and rollout which we a lot of times will do in person, sometimes remote. And then there's the ongoing stuff, which is ongoing support, being there to fix any problems, help collect information that's going to be helpful for Showing the efficacy of the program, you know, the stats I talked about, and huge reductions in fights academic performance.

[Ed Elson]

Talk a little bit more about the effects in schools once pre and post yonder.

[Graham Dugoni]

Academic performance is huge. So seeing that go up is obviously important. Having a better school environment, more engaging classroom environment is huge for students. But it's also what teachers are looking for. They want to have their kids back, they want to see their eyes. So some of this is quantifiable, some of this is what you hear from educators. They're going to. After yonder launches. I'm seeing my student. It's so simple. I'm seeing my student's eyes again. Their body language changes. They're not down, they're not grumpy, their eyes are open. Right. But also disciplinary issues and fights is a big one, I think for people not in schools thinking about or hearing maybe who are older going bullying in schools. And you go, all right, well, there's always been bullying. Yeah, there has. But when you add in the phone, it's another dimension of that. Because when I went to school I was younger, it kind of would boil up during the day, simmer down overnight. Now it's almost the opposite. If you have phones around the school, it kind of keeps going and accelerating. And then you add in the kind of panopticon effect I talked about of being filmed, recorded, put on the hook, and it's a whole other layer. And then you can have students airdropping to the entire school. There's crazy stories about that. So what we found is again going in, establishing what the culture helping, what the school wants to do to create a foam free culture, but then having all students participate, that's what creates the space for some of these things to improve.

[Ed Elson]

So you build those programs with the schools. You also mentioned that you're using yonder in the home. I assume that's not. You don't come in with a plan for the household. How does that work?

[Graham Dugoni]

That's for people to decide. And we have a product on the website for home use. It's a box and people can use it. It also blocks signals if that's important to people. But it's more about creating the ritual of spaces for something other than being on your phone or technology and what they represent. And we find that a lot of parents, especially at yonder schools, they see the benefits of what it's having on their kid in school and they want to bring those back home. And that's another thing I guess I didn't mention with the program there's things we see in school, the positive effects. One of the biggest things we look for is hearing from parents that they notice a change in the pattern of use of the phone from their student at home. Which makes sense because you've started to break and develop new habits, which is kind of what it's all about.

[Ed Elson]

We'll be right back.

[Graham Dugoni]

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[Ed Elson]

We'Re back with first time founders. What are some other spaces that you think could benefit from being phone free? So we've got, we've said shows, concerts, comedy shows, schools, homes. I mean at a certain point it's starting to feel like we're kind of describing like just get rid of them in all of life. But what are some other spaces that you haven't explored yet that you think would benefit from this?

[Graham Dugoni]

I think there's other that are where information really needs to be private, you know, or that's around privacy. I think places like that, we've worked with some churches which has been really fascinating to see that they've wanted to, at the simplest level, just create a place where people can be there and be present. So I think that's a really interesting one. And then there's always new ones popping up every day. That's the exciting part of our job, is we hear from people all over the world all the time. And when we do a show, a big show, for instance, like, you're getting every subsection of society going to that show, and you're gonna have a million conversations, and people are gonna say, I'd like to use this here. So that's part of just the way our business is set up, because we have such a large on the ground presence that we're constantly kind of, you know, picking up on those things.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, you've grown it. It's a big company. You've grown it to over 100 employees. What have been some of the learnings you found about being an entrepreneur but also being a manager of people and of an organization?

[Graham Dugoni]

Because I kind of fell into the business part. I think the most challenging part for me has been to learn the business part of kind of accepting that it is a business and then what I don't know, to become better at that and how to build it. So I've learned. I mean, look, if I could go back, there's a lot of things I'd do differently, and there's a lot of mistakes I've made, and I'm still making as I go. So I think the main thing I've learned and I've stuck with me from the beginning, is this ide of a kind of, first off, enjoying what you do for the sake of what it is and not what it can bring you, I think that's, like, foundational. If you're just focused on what something can bring you. And I see this in a lot of maybe young people coming out of college now, just thinking about the destination, then, like, the objective can seem so big that there's going to be so many setbacks that can put you off the path, you know, but if you start to embrace, you enjoy what you're doing, and you embrace the process of just learning and getting better and trust that it's not who you are today that's going to take you where you want to be, it's who you're going to be in three, four, five years and how you grow and develop to make those decisions. I think that's the ethos I've tried to inhabit. I think that's a really constructive framework. But in terms of learnings and how I've grown into it, the fact that I'm still growing into it, you know, once I kind of get comfortable with, all right, we're 40 people. Then Covid hits all right, now we're 80 people. Everything changes and changes again. So I'm still, you know, once I get comfortable, I have to adapt to another size and scale and management style that, you know, I guess that's the interesting part of the challenge.

[Ed Elson]

What are your views on the amount of time that we're spending on our computers and how do you use computers and laptops and just other technology that isn't the phone in your business? Do you have any restrictions on that? Do you feel strongly about that? That.

[Graham Dugoni]

Well, the biggest one I mentioned is that we cut off the use of AI in emails immediately as the feature came out. And the reason is I want a team and a company of people who know how to think critically, know how to communicate and know what a customer is looking for and how to help them. If you start to offboard those, you can lose that function incredibly fast. And critical thinking is not, I think it's not necessarily a native faculty, you know, in humans. So you have to develop it and it's very. If it's not developed, it might not come. So that's the part of AI that I think is. I'm very, you know, leery about what.

[Ed Elson]

About social media and specifically like marketing. Like, I mean, you said that you guys aren't on social media except for LinkedIn. It's interesting that you're down with LinkedIn but not the others. But I kind of get it. But how do you operate a business and how do you become successful? I mean, you're a successful business at this point. How have you done it without social media marketing?

[Graham Dugoni]

I feel like a lot of social media is so. It just bombards people with so much information and in parts of it feels so lame to me that I just didn't want us to have it as a business. I felt like, you know, you walk down any city street and there's so much visual clutter and advertising and stuff slapped at people and I just, as a person, I don't like it. It feels chintzy to me and I guess I wanted yonder to stand for very simply for quality that we're going to do what we say we're going to do. And that trust that if we do that, show that in like utterly traditional business model of just doing right by our customers, making more money than we spend could be done and could be effective because especially when I started the company at some degree now there's been some correction. This idea of like amazing, raising massive VC money and going out and buying users and then you'll figure out profitability later. To me, that's not a new business model. That's just a market permutation. That's just spending a boatload of money and then fattening something up to sell it to the next highest bidder. And what I didn't like about that is that's indicative of a lot of things in western culture now. It becomes very derivative. It's like you're just creating liquidity to spin it, to spin it, to spin it. I'm like, what's the point of that? What we do is we're very direct. We help people create a phone free space. It has a direct effect on their life. That needs to be true in everything we do. So why are we going to put up crummy banner ads that say something else or. I've been approached for years about putting ads on yonder pouches. That's lucrative. And I'm like, yeah, but it's a shitty thing to do. Who wants to look at no knocks on Doritos, but who wants to look at a Doritos ad on your. I don't want to do that. So come back at some level maybe to just motives. What are you doing it for? And that to me is why the business has always been so second by far to the mission.

[Ed Elson]

I think it's remarkable to be clear that you guys have hit success without leveraging social media and the fact that you're operating this company without a smartphone. But you're well positioned to do that because that's the thesis and the mission of the company. Do you think that other companies could say you're just like a, I don't know, CPG company, say you're Doritos. Do you think other companies could benefit from going the less technological route that you've taken from not advertising on social media, from not using a smartphone constantly? Is that an actual, is that a legitimately viable way to run a business? Or do you think you are in a unique position because of what you offer?

[Graham Dugoni]

It's tough because everything, you know, even with technology and the tools we choose as a society to develop or not develop. Right. There's game theory in everything. It's kind of like, well, if we don't do it, someone else will do it and it kind of drives everybody faster towards the abyss a little bit. Yeah, that's a hard one to unravel. I do think it's possible to instill a culture and use tools or not use them. That can have much better effects than people realize. I think that is possible. Like, when I was in San Francisco, there's the adage, and still is, of move fast and break things. I met a lot of people over the years there who I was pretty sure were breaking a lot of things and not building a ton of stuff because they were just like, like their head was about to pop off their body. They were just doing so many things and frantically optimizing and shooting emails unthinkingly. I was like, so our ethos as a company has been, and we try to mirror this and the tools we use is, you know, basically speed walk, but don't, don't spill your drink. It's not like, move, you know, don't lose your head in the things you do. And I feel like, you know, creating.

[Ed Elson]

Space at certain point, it's just not even productive. I mean, I think it's sort of like the Elon Doge model where it's like, let's just get in there, be an absolute wrecking ball. And it looks productive because they're making all these announcements and they're saying all this stuff about, here's what we cut, here's what we did, and then by the end of it, he leaves. I'm sorry to bring politics into this, but I think it fits. He leaves, and it's like, oh, Doge is being shut down now and they made however many cuts, which is just gonna be added on again in the deficit. It's just a perfect example of just because you're taking on this wrecking ball mentality doesn't mean you're actually getting stuff done. And it sounds like that's kind of what your ethos did.

[Graham Dugoni]

I think so. I think if you measure twice, cut once attitude, it turns out to be faster even in the startup world. And if there's one piece of advice I could give myself way back is like, don't lose the urgency. You need the urgency to build something totally. But sometimes if I could have accepted to make one good decision in a week and do nothing else, yes, good God, how much time I would have saved in the long run versus trying to do 50 things and shoehorning that one really important decision right into amidst those, you know, that's still. It's tough to practice that even today, but, like, boy, that, that would be helpful.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, it's like focused urgency versus just spray and pray urgency.

[Graham Dugoni]

Well, getting yourself in the right frame of mind to make important decisions because, like, you know, again, if you're on social media, reading the news, it's you could be kind of tasked with like, 20 decisions before lunch. So then when an important decision comes up, you got decision fatigue, you got nothing left. Yeah, and I think that's another aspect is you have to protect that, your frame of mind a bit. So when important things come up, you know what's important. Exactly.

[Ed Elson]

Talk a little bit about the fundraising. Have you raised venture funding? How did that all work?

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah, so in the early days, it was, you know, like I said, I funded it myself and then I did some very early friends and family, very small amount. The first kind of real investor we had was actually Dave Chappelle.

[Ed Elson]

Oh, wow.

[Graham Dugoni]

Yeah. So he came in and that was great on many levels because he's kind of, for us, he's a. He's a North Star and, you know, artist, but also he's. He's tied to the business, which. Which means a lot. So that was an important mark for us. And then much, much later, really, coming out of COVID we did a little larger round, but still no institutional money. So, so. And then now we're in a position where, again, you know, we're. We're profitable and we're growing, so, you know, we kind of have the ball in our hands. And that, that was a decision I made very early in the company was after those terrible VC pitches, which, you know, I probably would have back then wanted them to go, well, I'm glad now they didn't. I realized that also a lot of this decision points we've talked about, you know, how to grow, what tools to use, social media, advertising, I couldn't have made any of those choices if someone else owned Yonder. So it's been a harder path, it's been a longer path, but I still can dictate what I want the company to do. And I don't need to answer to people who are following a playbook. And it's not a knock on VCs. I know that they have LPs and they have a return profile they look for. I just thought for the type of company I wanted Yonder to be and the longevity of it at those stages of the business, it wasn't really what I was looking for.

[Ed Elson]

It sounds like we both agree we're not going to get rid of phones. Phones are going to exist. But if you had to build an ideal world in 2025 where phones exist, what would that look like? What would a society look like that is healthier and had a healthier relationship with the smartphone today, how would that, that. How would that play out?

[Graham Dugoni]

Maybe Social media, phones, digital tools being in some ways less of a centerpiece of people's lives. It's hard because so much work happens now through that. And I, I recognize that. But at the personal level, I think if people put more weight on the experiences they have without them and the things they enjoy doing in the physical world and with community, I think that's a shift and I think a way we'll maybe know if and when that happens is to see young people taking more chances and maybe seeing it as, you know, you mentioned earlier, do kids like yonder and does it take something away? I guess the way I try to talk to them about it is like when you step into the digital world, you're stepping into a board that is already set for you. There is personal expression, there's information to find and useful information, but the adventure, the exploration, the rebelliousness that a counterculture kind of requires and for young people to find their feet and to change the world, like, isn't it a little more raw to go out in the world and do that without those things? And maybe if you try, you'll like it, you know, maybe that's a vision of the world that I hope comes about.

[Ed Elson]

Graham Dugher is the founder and CEO of Yondr. This was great. Thank you for joining me.

[Graham Dugoni]

Thank you, Ed.

[Ed Elson]

This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our association is Dan Shalon. Thank you for listening to first time founders from the Vox Media podcast network. I'll see you next month with another founder story.