Unboxing Quibi: Inside the New Mobile Streaming App and Its Shows
Sam Blake
Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake
Quibi deserves credit. The app is top-notch and the content that I watched is high-quality (I suppose it ought to be, given reported production costs of up to $100,000 per minute for some shows, and all-star talent across its initial slate of 50 programs).
Even the daily weather report was witty, with a fun shoutout to Quibi's founder and chairman: "Down in SoCal," reported my mobile-sized meteorologist, "I'm calling for sunshine and low 70s -- that's just for you, Mr. Katzenberg."
And it was gutsy to stick with its April 6th release date, despite the coronavirus crisis.
But what it amounts to, for now, is breakfast for dinner.
Let me explain.
Quibi has spent the last year focused on three things, as their chief product officer put it on Wednesday.
Number one: elevating the mobile viewing experience. With technology that allows viewers to watch shows in either portrait or landscape mode, and a collection of exciting mobile-oriented features yet to come, they've achieved this. (Several times during my sheltered-in-place viewing party extravaganza, I rotated my phone 90 degrees, watched the shot seamlessly adjust, and thought to myself, "Neat!")
Number two: striving for simplicity. The app has just four tabs. It opens onto the Today For You page, which includes recommendations based on what and how you've watched.
Unboxing Quibi: The 'Today For You' tab www.youtube.com
The Browse tab enables searching across category, genre, title, cast member or creator, or scrolling through different groupings like Trending, New Releases, and More to Explore.
Unboxing Quibi: The 'More to Explore' Tab www.youtube.com
The Following tab hosts the episodes you've flagged.
Unboxing Quibi: The 'Following' Tab www.youtube.com
And last is the self-explanatory Downloads tab (which are unlimited).
Number three: focusing solely on mobile. Steadfast in its belief that young companies -- even if they've raised $1.75 billion -- should "strive to be the best in the world at something," Quibi will not be available on tablets, laptops or television screens.
"Our content is made exclusively for the phone app with new technology that makes a beautiful watching experience," Jeffrey Katzenberg told Screen Daily on March 31st. He has repeatedly described Quibi as pioneering a "new form" of media.
Put another way, Quibi has merged innovative technology with premier content to try to optimize video for mobile phone viewing. And in my book, they've absolutely succeeded.
But the thing is, stuck at home in lockdown, I found that I would have preferred to watch these shows on my tablet, laptop, or TV.
It's like this. I love breakfast. And I eat breakfast, most of the time, in the morning.
Now, I could optimize breakfast for eating it in the evening. I'd like that -- breakfast for dinner -- once in a while. Who wouldn't?
But here's the rub: I prefer breakfast in the morning. Much as I appreciate the effort to optimize breakfast for dinner, I quite like breakfast as it is. In the morning. So I sincerely commend Quibi for optimizing video for a mobile screen; it's just that I would prefer to watch these shows on, well, a bigger screen. I don't want to eat breakfast for dinner when I could just as easily eat breakfast for breakfast.
And during the quarantine, while I'm cocooning at home with my tablet, my laptop and my TV all accessible as can be, I am surrounded by breakfast. I don't need a different way to eat breakfast right now.
As for when the quarantine ends, that could be a different story.
Quibi, after all, was built for "in-between" moments, from 7am to 7pm, as Chief Executive Meg Whitman has explained. It's not meant to compete with the many other ways that I can watch shows when I'm not "on the go." It's supposed to be for when I'm commuting, or standing in line, or waiting for my bank robbery getaway car to pull up.
But no one's robbing banks right now; we're in lockdown.
Katzenberg has his response: "You have as many in-between moments today as you had a month ago. They're just different," he told the L.A Times.
That may be true. People may indeed want to tune into a 5-minute newscast in between homeschooling their kids (demand for news is way up right now, after all, and Quibi's got a lot of it). Or, when folks are sitting on the couch and their family is hogging the big screen, they may enjoy catching an episode of blindfolded chefs getting a dish exploded onto them then having to guess what it is and cook it for judges who themselves don't know what it's supposed to be. Some may enjoy basking in the fresh air of a backyard, reaching into their pocket and watching a movie-in-chapters, like Most Dangerous Game (I certainly did).
But although these bite-sized episodes are undoubtedly high-quality; and the six-to-ten minute episode length feels fresh and workable; and the variety of shows promises to include something for just about anyone in Quibi's target demographic of 18-44 year olds, I'm not sure I would pay $4.99 (with ads) or $7.99 (without) per month--especially when I have so many other options immediately at my disposal.
Once things go back to some semblance of normal, and those on-the-go in-between moments return, I wouldn't be shocked if Quibi caught on.
In the meantime it's available for a 90-day free trial to anyone who signs up in April. The problem for Quibi is that at that point we may still be in lockdown. Then again, I do find myself wondering what will happen to Liam Hemsworth....
---
Sam Blake covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA
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Here’s how L.A.’s Curative Plans to Move Saliva-Based COVID-19 Testing to Other U.S. Cities
May 04 2020
Fred Turner, the 25-year-old founder of Curative Inc., is the man behind L.A.'s push to bring universal testing to the region. But, he has bigger plans.
Turner, an Oxford dropout, just landed a deal with the Air Force to test military worldwide and he's now eyeing national expansion for his startup. By the end of this month, the company he started months ago is expected to pump out more than a million test kits a week.
"We are a strange company because our goal is to essentially put ourselves out of business," Turner said.
<p>Turner, who was named UK Young Engineer of the Year at age 17 when he built a DNA machine from his bedroom to figure out why his brother had red hair and he had brown hair, turned his focus to coronavirus in January. He upended his life as head of Shield Bio, which sought to eliminate sepsis, and moved to Southern California after a local venture capitalist connected him with a lab that he could build out for COVID-19 testing. </p><p>Curative Inc. was born. </p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE4NjM5Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTkyMDg3Mn0.Fy0dtjHfIsqIXJAOI7MUohie11857cWDACI3OksmLt4/image.jpg?width=980" id="515a2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7ee43a7a9c8e7ea09bd6cdb251d45ace" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Curative, Inc. Founder Fred Turner is the man behind L.A.'s push to bring universal testing to the region.
<p>For weeks he lived in hotels as he created what has become the backbone of testing in America's second largest city. The company, one of the few saliva-based tests that have gotten emergency approvals from the FDA, has a 10% false negative rate, according to their own non-peer reviewed studies. Turner argues the rate is better than most of the nasal swab testing out there and oral tests, which can be self-administered, are the only way the country can reopen quickly.</p><p>He is now operating two labs, one in San Dimas another in Washington D.C., with plans for several more across the nation. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is watching to see if Los Angeles' promise of universal testing meets the expectations with some already complaining about the difficulty of securing an appointment.</p>
<p><strong>dot.LA: Curative is responsible for 95% of Los Angeles COVID-19 tests. Can you meet the demand for universal testing?</strong><br/></p><p><strong>Curative, Inc. Founder Fred Turner:</strong> We will be able to fulfill demand. There's more infrastructure that needs to be put in place. With the collection site, the mayor's office has been working hard to scale those up and make sure that the collection site infrastructure is in place. On the lab side, we definitely have enough capacity to serve the area.</p><p>In (the San Dimas) lab we have capacity for about 20,000 per day. We're going to be scaling this lab up to 30,000 over the next week or so, eventually, probably slightly more than that. </p><p>Ultimately, the goal is to do as many tests as we need to reopen the country and I think we've had many different estimates of how many that might be. I've heard estimates (that it will take) as high as five million tests a day to reopen, but the current supply chain is nowhere near going to be able to keep up with that. The next goal we are shooting for is a million tests a week by about mid-May, end of May.</p><p><strong>If we're testing more people will that strain the turnaround time? Right now, I understand it's about 24 to 72 hours. Can you take it down to several hours or even minutes?</strong></p><p>We are always aiming to push it down. I think it can be pushed under 24 hours, but we tend to focus more on scaling it up at that point. I think 24 hours is around optimal as you bring on more capacity. We're obviously being careful to match the capacity coming into the lab against the turnaround. </p><p><strong>Curative is one of the few companies that the FDA has provided emergency approval for use of a saliva test. Do you think this is the answer to universal testing nationally?</strong> </p><p>Oral fluids is the technical term, which is slightly different from saliva. Our protocol involves having the person cough first, which releases virus from the upper and lower respiratory tract. Some of that is then caught in the saliva, and also viruses in the saliva. The idea is you're effectively sampling multiple sites at once, which we think gives a slight increase in the sensitivity of the testing.</p><p>Self-collected sampling has got to be the way forward. There's just no way that we can do a million nasal pharyngeal swabs, or we call them 'brain swabs,' it's just not practical. We don't have the medical staff, and as a country we just can't do that many swabs. And so the way forward is going to be self collection. That's the only thing we can do at scale.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="93ba4781c410d06eb2cfed59cce147a8"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LNopEE7lC6E?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Covid-19 Oral Fluid Test Kit Instructions</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNopEE7lC6E&feature=emb_title" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
</small>
</p><p><strong>Curative recently secured a contract with the Department of Defense. What's next?</strong><br/></p><p>We haven't settled on the exact number, but we will be in a large number of states. That is the plan, building out the infrastructure for this kind of testing. We can take the L.A. model and scale it across the country. We have a version of the drive-thru software that other cities and states can take. We have all the training material. We have a team that fly around the country setting up these drive-thru sites. We have really tried to make a plug-and-play package where cities and states that want to launch drive-thru testing, we have everything they need. </p><p><strong>Is Los Angeles a testing ground and a proving ground for national efforts?</strong></p><p>Yeah, I think Mayor Garcetti has definitely demonstrated what can be done if the city moves very quickly to build out the infrastructure, I do think the drive-thru testing, walk through testing is going to be an essential component of this.</p><p>It's just much faster to get the samples to the lab than shipping it out and then shipping it back again. The infrastructure piece is critical for getting these tests out there and we're working with several other states now on building out a similar infrastructure. Some of them have existing programs that we would be plugging into and expanding, and some of them are looking to roll out their own similar programs. You can test a lot more people with the oral tests with far fewer staff.</p><p><strong>What are the challenges with the supply chain in terms of making your tests more widely available?</strong></p><p>We need more plastic, more robots, more people. Most of the components that go into these tests are just already maxed out in their production capacity. And so we've been throwing online a bunch of internal production, such as injection molding to make our swab kit tubes, as well as bringing on other sources of similar materials that are not being used for COVID-19 testing and validating them for COVID. So for the swabs, for example, we use a swab type that is usually used for testing clean rooms. It works just as well for COVID testing, but nobody else is using it for that purpose. </p><p>We don't want to be competing with other people, stopping them from getting access to resources. We want to bring on new supply so it's not a zero- sum game, and the total amount of tests will increase. But, I think distribution is going to be a bigger bottleneck over the next month. Los Angeles has done a fantastic job in building out infrastructure and collection. That needs to happen now across the whole country. </p><p><strong>What would it take to meet national demand?</strong></p><p>It would take a network of multiple labs that we are calling gigalabs that can process 50,000 to 100,000 tests a day across the country and a significant scale up in the production of the physical components that go into the tests. We've been investigating lab sites in a few states, something central like Texas or Colorado. </p><p><strong>Are you concerned that you have too high of a false negative rate at 10%?</strong></p><p>All COVID tests will have false negative rates. In our studies, we demonstrated that the sensitivity is at least as good if not better than the nasal pharyngeal swab tests. So, there will definitely be false negatives as there will be in every test, but we think the data supports us having a low rate of false negatives. The sensitivity is about 90%.</p><p>When you include all patients, the nasal pharyngeal came in at about 79%. A new (non-peer reviewed) Yale study shows a higher sensitivity from saliva and all fluids than the nasal pharyngeal. I don't think we have the evidence to say that we're better yet, but we have the evidence to say that we're at least equivalent. The ease of doing oral tests and the accessibility is obviously significantly better. We're not using PPE. We're not exposing healthcare workers. It's just a much easier test to roll out that people can test themselves.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Florida_National_Guard_%2849677710741%29.jpg" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGd2lraXBlZGlhJTJGY29tbW9ucyUyRmYlMkZmOSUyRkZsb3JpZGFfTmF0aW9uYWxfR3VhcmRfJTI4NDk2Nzc3MTA3NDElMjkuanBnJmhvPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGdXBsb2FkLndpa2ltZWRpYS5vcmcmcz0yNzMmaD1hZDI1NWIwOTNkYWE5ODBjMzU4NjMzYWM0YmE2OGYwYmYxZGRlMGNmYjFlNjdjNDhlMjQxZTZkZDZjZDE3YzNhJnNpemU9OTgweCZjPTEzMDE3NDMyMjYiLCJleHBpcmVzX2F0IjoxNjE0NzExNjkyfQ.BvjB0Zw5cLoqqcX5ba4uhPBwCzyao_4h0HSdTdD7IEk/img.jpg" id="cbbc9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8965d4da3c9fec19960a954cded4abca" /></a>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">File:Florida National Guard (49677710741).jpg - Wikimedia Commons</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Florida_National_Guard_%2849677710741%29.jpg" target="_blank">upload.wikimedia.org</a>
</small>
</p><p><strong>At one point, Curative was attempting to roll out at-home testing and then had to pull back after FDA warnings. Will you be making home testing kits again?</strong><br/></p><p>I can't give a time estimate but we are actively working with the FDA right now. I think their concern is "can people adequately collect the sample, or will they do it wrong, and then get a negative test result," which is incorrect. Our plan is to use telemedicine observation. What we've seen in our clinical studies is that if you give people the chance to do it wrong, they will do it wrong. In fact when you have somebody observing, they read the instructions better and they collect a better sample. We're still working on the pricing and potentially looking at whether there is federal or state reimbursement for some of that testing and the potential of billing insurance. </p><p><strong>Tracing technology has been promising. Do you have any plans to tie tests to these applications to testing?</strong> </p><p>We've had several conversations with contact tracing apps and we continue to work in collaboration with public health departments in their contract tracing efforts. Having the test is obviously one thing, but you have to use the information to actually stem the tide of COVID infection. And so, it is an essential step in working closely with various people. </p><p>I do like the app-based models where you obviously want to maintain people's privacy, but having people opt-in to share their location history if they test positive so you can contact nearby people.</p><p><strong>What does Curative do once there's a vaccine? Are you obsolete?</strong></p><p><strong></strong>The U.S. needs to maintain some kind of spare capacity so that next time we are not having to build all of this during a pandemic. But we are a strange company because our goal is to essentially put ourselves out of business. Ultimately, and I say this to everyone we hire, we don't know how long this will go on for. We want to provide as many tests as needed, but the goal is to end COVID and not be doing COVID testing anymore.</p><p><strong>Curative took off in March when you arrived in Los Angeles from Silicon Valley, how has the journey been for you personally?</strong></p><p><strong></strong>I don't have very much free time, but it's been a lot of fun to be able to work at this pace and have the support of people like the city, the mayor's office to really just do what is needed to scale this up. When we work with suppliers, and we say we're doing COVID testing, they just move heaven and earth to make things happen. It's been really inspiring to be a part of that push forward.</p><p>We are just pushing as hard as we can to scale up as fast as we possibly can and bring on as much testing as we can. The city opening up testing to everybody is kind of a culmination of that. We're making about 50,000 kits a day right now and we want to make that as widely available as we can. I would like to get a little more sleep. </p><p><em>The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. </em></p><p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Curative's saliva tests have a 10% false positive rate. In actuality, the tests have a 10% false negative rate.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Nate Cavanaugh has a penchant for prophecy. The 24-year-old founder of Venice-based Brainbase wrote a letter to his future self when he was 13 in which he presciently asked, "Do you still want to start your own computer company?" At 18, in a high school assignment describing his role model, he chose Mark Zuckerberg, and proclaimed that "I, too, plan on starting my own technology company in college... (and) plan to drop out of college once I can comfortably support myself."
<p>According to plan, he enrolled at Indiana University and promptly founded Guuf, an esports tournament platform, before leaving school and selling the company shortly thereafter. Inspired by a talk on the problem of patent trolls from Union Square Ventures' co-founder Fred Wilson and a <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you" target="_blank">blog post on the subject by Elon Musk</a>, at 19 Cavanaugh formed <a href="https://www.brainbase.com" target="_blank">Brainbase</a>, a technology company meant to simplify and streamline the management of intellectual property (for example, trademarks, patents, copyright). </p><p>Five years later, the company has around 40 employees and its customers include BuzzFeed, the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, and Sanrio (of Hello Kitty and friends fame). Its flagship product is called Assist, which includes a dashboard for tracking royalty payments and schedules; analytical tools for comparing IP asset performance by property, territory, partner, category and distribution channel; automated invoice generation and contract management; and artificial intelligence tools to identify potential opportunities for exploiting IP. <br/></p><p>Now, fresh off an <a href="https://fortune.com/2020/05/20/brainbase-funding-automation-legal-work-nate-cavanaugh/" target="_blank">$8 million Series A led by Bessemer Ventures</a> with participation from L.A.-based Struck Capital, Alpha Edison, Bonfire Ventures, and Tera Ventures, Brainbase is expanding its product suite with a marketplace to facilitate IP-oriented transactions and a tool to enable IP filing and renewal. In a statement about the investment, Kent Bennett of Bessemer described Brainbase as bringing "the archaic, paper-shuffling world of IP management into the 21st century."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzMzU3NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjcxMjU0MX0.oGqvKhcgjf9zXVjAySWEpeGqRfsAuaUXNB_pswRveR8/image.png?width=980" id="5639f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f9e6a1dd1b6dc8e305d232f6432bd203" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Brainbase's Assist product helps customers manage their IP </small></p><p>Cavanaugh has long been interested in business and tech. His dad is a serial entrepreneur himself whose current venture, <a href="https://teamready.com/" target="_blank">Ready Nutrition</a>, recently signed brand partnerships with NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and L.A. Rams pro-bowler Aaron Donald. As a 10-year-old kid he remembers marveling at videos of Steve Jobs, which he often rewatches now that he, too, runs a business. "The reality is it's in my genes," he says.<br/></p><p>dot.LA caught up with Cavanaugh to ask about his journey so far and what motivates him to keep going, sometimes in the face of skepticism around his youth. His latest prediction? He says the next stage for Brainbase is <a href="https://medium.com/brainbase/its-going-to-be-hard-brainbase-raises-8m-series-a-2524e47788ba" target="_blank">going to be hard</a>, but he's up for the challenge. </p><h4>dot.LA: Tell me about your background and how that led to the company you sold after dropping out of college. </h4><p>I'm originally from Pittsburgh and I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My dad had been starting companies since I was born, so I was essentially interning at startups from the time I was eight years old. In my junior year of high school I started a website design and services business, and I was making enough money from it that I didn't want or need to go to college. </p><p>But I went to Indiana, largely because of Mark Cuban – he's from Pittsburgh, too, and he went there. I knew I didn't want to finish, but I don't think I had the risk tolerance to just not go; I wasn't ready to be a full-time founder yet. I didn't want to keep doing my website business so I decided I'd go, and try to start a startup with the intention of leaving early. </p><p>I'd been interested in gaming and esports, and as I kept learning about venture capital I thought a services business would be interesting. There was a company called Major League Gaming that was doing well at the time and my freshman year I formed a company that was basically a platform to facilitate esports tournaments. That was really before esports took off and frankly I think we sold it a bit too early.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzMzU3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTA5NDg1OH0.wOStI2Zzr7Aj43BvQJBfVAzQEkYWKxSz23UNNSBkG3E/image.jpg?width=980" id="9c1c0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a619824be5fa86ea98469a29525af17e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Nate Cavanaugh is the founder of Brainbase
<h4>You're now on your third company and you raised over $12 million before turning 24. Have you had any pushback along the way because of your age? </h4><p>Of course. There's a lot of negative press about young founders who aren't ready to run companies at scale. Until you sign that first set of impressive customers or raise money, you get doubted. I was 21 when Brainbase first raised VC funding and I didn't have traditional domain expertise in intellectual property. I was basically self-taught, and there were a lot of people that questioned our story.</p><h4>What kept you going? </h4><p>I'm extremely competitive. When I commit to something I have a will to succeed. And dropping out of college to start something makes you want it to succeed extra badly and do whatever it takes to make it work.</p>
<h4></h4><h4>What would you consider some of your biggest personal achievements so far?</h4><p>I'm a big believer that raising money is not necessarily a successful milestone – you need a strong outcome from that, so there's still a lot of work to do. But the fact that we were able to get a round done with Bessemer during COVID-19 was certainly not easy and I'm proud of that. We also recently did a deal with a big university for trademark licensing; I applied there for undergrad and was denied, so getting rejected and then getting them as a customer is kind of a a funny accomplishment.<br/></p><p>And the customers we've been able to get, like Sanrio; they're one of the biggest licensors in the world and we got them as a customer within 12 months of starting. </p><p>Also one of our first investors was the founder of Duolingo, a unicorn, and they're from Pittsburgh, so I was proud of that too.</p><h4>How did your dad's business experience impact you? </h4><p>He had two businesses when I was growing up that got up to a fairly impressive scale, and then he wound them both down to start Ready Nutrition when I was in high school. So he was starting a clean-slate startup when I was a junior. I saw that grow from a one-person business to making nine figures in revenue. I worked as an unpaid intern and I saw how he ran meetings, interacted with employees, how he closed deals. That gave me a lot of valuable experience early on. It's one thing I don't talk about too much when I'm fundraising – as a founder you want your merits to live separately from that – but I was fortunate to be able to grow up with that.</p><h4>How has your relationship with your dad evolved as you've had your own success? </h4><p>We have an interesting dynamic. My family is still in Pittsburgh – when he and I talk it's almost all about work; it's the nature of our relationship. It's interesting to be able to talk about different ways we've done things. His business is bootstrapped, whereas we just closed a Series A. It's been really cool to be able to bring my experience with tech, VC and startups and to hear about his side of things in consumer goods. It's fun to be able to talk about and learn from the challenges he and I are going through.</p><h4>Who else do you consider your role models? </h4><p>Of the people in my network, I spend a fair amount of time with Adam Struck, the founder of Struck Capital; he's been a helpful mentor and is on our Board. Severin Hacker (co-founder and CTO at Duolingo) and Kent Bennett (Partner at Bessemer Ventures) have also been helpful. It's been great being able to go to them for function-specific questions.</p><p>I've been a fan of Steve Jobs and how elegantly Apple markets their products. I still go back and watch his interviews with Kara Swisher. I'd watch those when I was 10 years old. </p><p>I also admire Ben Horowitz; his book <em>The Hard Thing About Hard Things</em> is excellent. Andy Grove (former CEO of Intel), too. And I'm also interested in Peter Thiel, who often provides a contrarian view compared to the mainstream tech narrative.</p><h4>What's your impression of the L.A. tech scene?</h4><p>I've been really impressed, on a couple of levels. There's sufficient seed-stage capital from funders and the Series A market is maturing. I still think for Series B and beyond most founders think you need to go to NYC or San Francisco to raise, or at least to make the process competitive. And from a recruiting standpoint, there are so many impressive companies here and the region has a ton of engineering talent. So from the capital and recruiting standpoint it's only maturing and I expect that'll keep growing. </p><p><em>This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.</em><br/></p><p><em>---</em></p><em>Sam Blake primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA </em>Related Articles Around the Web
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