Agenda:
Takeaways:
Agenda:
Takeaways:
welcome to this startup is being recorded. This recording is improvised fiction. Similarities between it and the real world are entirely intentional. Now enjoy the recording.
Kate:Okay. Uh, we're recording. Um, so Eric, wasn't able to make it today, but we're just going to do stand up for everyone else. Um, oh, I guess for any new employees listening, we are set, we record all of our meetings where, you know, an up and coming couch marketplace that also is just helping revolutionize trade for really the whole country and the whole world, hopefully. Um, and. Yeah today, we just need a kit, a couple quick executive up items, and then, you know, probably a quick in and out, uh, Um, I'm Kate banshee. I can start I'm. Um, the chief of staff to John, um, John will be a topic at, in what I have to bring up, uh, but he himself couldn't be here. He did send me a series of texts, um, between like one to four words. Each that kind of helped fill in some of the gaps, but are not super helpful.
Matt:Hm. Classic. Uh, well, I can go next. I'm matt.yachts. That's also my website and I'm the CTO here at Let's try that one out, I guess. That's
Kate:Is that the
Matt:repeated vowel than it would be a
Kate:it,
Matt:sit.
Calathea:Well, you could do like, um, is it a dot over the Y? Which one is it to make it long? Maybe the,
Matt:Well, I always think of it as the long bar makes it.
Calathea:that's right. Yes.
Matt:but that doesn't really help me. Cause then I would, then I'd be back to sit and I think, I think I'll just sit with, it.
Calathea:it's
Kate:okay.
Calathea:Yeah.
Kate:Okay.
Calathea:Well, I can go. I'm Kelly I'm the chief creative czar here at CIT.
Kate:yeah. Um, okay, awesome. Well, I'll just kick it off. Um, I hope you all have seen the memos poster on the office and then I emailed out, uh, We as a company are no longer eating seafood. Um, we, after the whole debacle with the, um, what was it? The Amber scent, the
Calathea:Amber Green.
Kate:Amber grease scent. Yeah. And, um, our commitment really to use, uh, byproducts from sea creatures in, in a lot of our materials. We kind of went through an exercise with John of how to reconcile this with our company values. And the way we netted out is that if the entire company just doesn't eat seafood anymore, it'll neutralize the impact that we have on the oceans and the aquatic life. So that is a new part of our employment contracts. Um,
Calathea:I just want to clarify two things. One. Does that mean you were not successful in convincing him not to use Amber grease? Uh, and two, do you mean in personal lives as well for
Matt:same, same question. Very much same.
Kate:Yeah. Um, unfortunately the answer to both of those is yes, he was extremely convinced that Amber grease was, was right for us, despite all of the samples, which I, I did spray at him at various points in our conversation. Uh, we already kind of have a no fish policy in the office because of the whole like scent and the microwave thing. Yeah. Um, but now it's just no, no fish or seafood period, any.
Matt:I CA I feel like this is a dig at me, because I've been trying to get John to resume what used to be very frequent sushi dinners, where we would catch up and talk about things and, uh, Somewhat coincidentally, when I started as CCO here, he kind of dropped those. And, um, I don't know if it's related. I, but I'm, I'm feeling it personally. Um, though I've tried several times to get him to go to some excellent vegetarian and vegan sushi places, avocado and peanut has all the protein that you need. And it's.
Calathea:I totally agree. There are some really great, great places.
Kate:I'm going to write some of those down. We do have a couple of folks on the support staff who are pescatarian. Um, so they're a little worried about the fact that we're cutting out some of their main sources of protein. Um, I ha I have a few calls scheduled with their, uh, nutritionists, which I'm a little
Matt:because
Kate:nervous about.
Matt:you can get that back with like pea proteins and some other plant proteins, but, uh, it's the oils. It's the fatty acids, um, like the omega threes and omega sixes. That's, that's hard to replace.
Calathea:Yeah. This is, there are definitely solutions. I mean, 95% of the creative team are vegetarian. Um, with that last one person being on this Ducker Berg method of only eating, you know, animals or fish that he's personally killed. Um, I think nutritionally, we can definitely make that work. Um, I would challenge John on the greater environmental impact that, switching from fish to other land-based sources might be, uh, a worse impact on the planet. You know,
Kate:Yeah, I mean, he.
Matt:moving it around. Uh, the fact that there is illegal whale hunting involved in getting the Amber grease for the
Kate:Yeah.
Matt:I don't know that I like we would have to run our own fisheries and create more sea life. I don't think cutting. There's no amount of cutting we could do to make up for whaling involved. that make.
Calathea:wheels are yeah. And wheels have a great carbon storage capture. So they're, I mean, this is, uh, this isn't just like killing of a life it's killing of a potential climate change solution. Um, I I'm just, you know, again, We'll also just bring up the illegality part of this and the difficulty in inquiring, Amber gree. Um,
Kate:know.
Calathea:tried on the creative team to go with just grieve that naturally washed up on shores. Um,
Kate:Okay.
Calathea:that's very limited. and. The nefarious people we have to go with to get a secondary source is it's just an undesirable position to put our company in, especially a company with a history. And I'm sorry to bring this up yet. Again, of killing bald Eagles.
Kate:I know God, I feel like our, our track record and environmentalist and a dangerous species to just like going down the drain. Um, We're couch marketplaces shouldn't have anything to do with us, but somehow we are tied to the ocean.
Matt:great job. Uh Califia with the messaging so far that has kept a lot of that conversation out of it. I mean, You know, people like to bring it up on social media. about the environmental impact of blah, blah, blah, of what sits doing and, um, paying folks to come by and say, this is about couches. Why are we talking about the environment? Um, has been very.
Calathea:Yeah. I mean, we've, we've done as good as we can, um, doing some very public, uh, you know, environmental projects and also basically bullying anybody who brings up the impact, um, to submission.
Kate:Okay, well, I'll just put this out there. I think, you know, we added the information about not eating seafood to the contract, but it's really frankly, unenforceable based on what our lawyers have told us after spending about seven minutes on the topic. Um, so, so maybe we just kind of put it out there. Okay. Tell John it's there, but we don't have to necessarily like proclaim it as a, as a CIT company value. Very often.
Calathea:totally agree less. I just want to just be on the record that I am less concerned about eating fish, again, being vegan and on a team that are largely vegan and vegetarian and more concerned about the. Hoops that we are currently jumping through and, um, the international poachers that, uh, we now have on speed dial to obtain Amber Greece.
Matt:I think we're all in agreement on this one.
Kate:Yeah. It's bad.
Calathea:Okay. I just, we're all on record here. Um, we can move on, um, you know,
Kate:Yeah. Okay. Um, we'll keep working on it. Any who wants to go next and stand up? Uh, hopefully it's not as terrible of an update as much.
Matt:uh, I can go next. Um, uh, just an update, honestly, pretty quick. Probably, um, camera, camera, replacements, uh, pretty much wrapped up throughout the facility. Um, Califia thanks for having all your team combined with, uh, all the various devices, uh, and thanks for your patience. Um, getting that replacement glass for a lot of those things, uh, it's tough apple products, you know, they're not made to be taken apart, um,
Kate:Right.
Matt:removed and mostly replaced the cameras, uh, in a lot of those devices. I would say we're about 95% done here, uh, in the office. The bad news is that contact tracing, uh, has. Really tough. So, um, yeah, the, the, we watch app, uh, when it installs itself, uh, it has you agree to also preemptively install it on device you come across that it's able to. Um, yeah, so we've been trying to. Track down everybody that, uh, everybody was in contact with during that week of testing, uh, before we started locking this down and, um, that's, that's getting to be a lot of work for my team. Maybe folks should make a priority list, you know, like maybe let's keep it to a dozen people who you really care about, uh, whose wellbeing is important to you their opinion of you is important to you and limit it to like that. Cause at some point, you know, we're, uh, We're not You know, this isn't our software worm. We didn't create it. We just, uh, just were patient zero for it.
Calathea:I would like to say too on our end that, um, as you know, both John and I went to several high profile parties, uh, during the time in which we are that free trial and our team is working on. Providing very, very generous influencer packages to most of those people. Um, I mean, honestly they have very little requirements to actually promote us. We're basically higher paying them hush money, but, um, it's, it's what we're doing to just make sure that, we don't have any blow back, uh, from some of the high profile people.
Kate:Though. I did not. I mean, I know we probably shouldn't be happy about this, but like, it was kind of cool to watch those parties. Like, I didn't know, the Kardashians had tigers and that you got to like pet them. We didn't tell us about that.
Calathea:Yeah, I mean, that tiger, um, first was, was not as nice as it seemed. And second was. Like you don't have smell of vision through the camera that tiger was
Matt:Thank goodness.
Calathea:smelly and you
Kate:wow.
Calathea:yeah. It's
Matt:thought about that. I just assumed they would smell like, like a cat, but more.
Calathea:yeah, but imagine a cat, but more like magnified. I
Matt:I don't know. I mean, if it's like a nice cat, I got a good smell. Can get in there a little belly
Calathea:Yeah, tigers they
Matt:smell like cozy.
Kate:well, speaking of which Matt, like I, the office cat spends a lot of time in your office and the cleaning lady. Actually specifically asked me if there's a way that we could like distribute it a little bit because the cat smell just is frankly not coming out at this point.
Matt:Yeah. I mean, I don't know what to do it, it likes me. I mean, I can, I can try and shoo it away, but it, it follows me pretty much wherever. Right.
Kate:well, I, I think it's cause you always keep anchovies on you and you feed it to them. And I just, that's also another smell from.
Matt:yeah, I'm not going to have those anchovies anymore. Uh,
Kate:Right.
Matt:know, there
Kate:That's true.
Matt:option. Um, maybe that'll take care of it.
Kate:Okay. Two birds with one stone. Um,
Matt:I just, I don't, I don't want anyone to be or jealous if the cat continues to like me, even after the anchovies.
Kate:I think we understand the cat has its own preferences. Um, we've learned at this point that.
Matt:cat and an official employee. Can the cat not have seafood now? That's potentially an
Kate:Oh, no.
Matt:like not all cats can eat all.
Kate:Oh, I didn't even think about that. Um, I'll check their records. I think there are contractor, which probably means that those same benefits and restrictions don't apply.
Matt:Okay.
Kate:Yeah. Okay. Well, um, Thank you for the update, Matt, I'm very excited to get, um, some of my devices back with working cameras, uh, that I don't
Matt:yeah. I wanted
Kate:have to worry about.
Matt:It's been hard to get replacement parts for some of these. Um, are you really still using this, uh, 2003 iMac that you brought in?
Kate:yeah, no, it works great. I mean the newer IMAX they have so locked down that you can't add extra, like hard drives and different things to it.
Matt:Yeah,
Kate:one's really, um, well, personalized to me
Matt:Okay. It's just, um, yeah, I mean, it can't, it can't be a good experience for you using that to do much.
Kate:I mean, it gives me time to multitask, right? Like I have, I have the iMac, I have my Samsung S3. Um, and between those two, like I usually have something to do at most.
Matt:Wow. Okay. Well, I was going to offer you some replacement upgrades because in some cases it's cheaper just to give you a new phone, for example, than to try and find replacement parts for another. But, uh, if you're, if you're dedicated to it, I will. You.
Kate:Yeah. I mean, it's just that the recycling programs for Samsungs are not great. I just don't know if I could live with myself, knowing that that's just going into a dump, potentially leaking into water sources, hurting children. I don't, I think about that sometimes at night and I don't think I want that on my moral conscience
Matt:yeah. Fair enough.
Kate:anyway.
Matt:Uh, that reminds me of Califia. Um, for, for your team members that asked we did get the new iPad pros in and, um, we have, uh, sent away their, uh, old additions for recycling.
Kate:What's recycling program. Did you use.
Matt:Um, it's it's the apple.
Calathea:okay. Um, that's uh, good to know. I think, you know, some, a couple of our members enjoy those vintage apple products. So it might be a
Matt:oh yeah. Oh no, no, no. We flagged, we flagged those, um, believe me, uh, my team, developed a whole program make sure everybody's device came back to the exact person. Um, but there were a couple of requests, uh, for, for new ones. So, uh, we just went ahead and did the upgrade if anybody for it?
Calathea:uh, that came out of your budget.
Matt:Yeah. I mean, I figure a lot of this one is on us, uh, for letting folks install the watch app. So yeah, we're, we're just eating that, um, make, do with our server stack as it is.
Calathea:well, I'm I will any sort of flack that you get from the creative team for taking away some of their, um, old pros as they would call them. Um, I'm happy to, be at the front of the. Um, and I'm sure they'll love the new with. Um, I can give an update on our end. Uh, I'm so sorry, Eric can't join us today because, uh, wanted to announce that we have rolled out our new augmented reality, uh, couch feature that has
Matt:oh,
Calathea:Popular, uh, usage. Um, I, as you know, it, it allows people to see how our couches might look their space. And, uh, it's been really great on social media. People are a look at couches that they probably reasonably couldn't afford to buy and, a look at how that fits. It's really nice aspirational, uh, piece with them.
Kate:Yeah.
Calathea:we were happy with it.
Kate:Nice.
Matt:I
Kate:Um,
Matt:want to ask, um, is, are people using the adventure mode?
Calathea:yes. So many people are using the adventure road. Uh, yeah, it, it is exciting to watch them, uh, be able to basically create like a little, uh, couch, you know, video game, board game on their wall. It's it's been so many.
Matt:awesome. Yeah, I've, I've been some of my favorite tabletop gaming streamers, uh, get involved in this. Um, I think Califia. I sent you a list of names, uh, to, to contact on Twitch. Uh, I don't, I don't, you know, I definitely don't want to tell you how to do your job. I just think, I think it would be really cool to see them.
Calathea:I we've definitely reached out with, to some of the.
Matt:That's.
Calathea:You know. Yeah. I expect that we'll be able to see it. I also enjoy that, that feature. You can add Ella, like new couches to that game by going out into the wild. So it's been very cool to watch our users really expand their thinking and be able to see how our couches might look and parks. Um, and you know, public spaces it's led to people actually delivering couches to. All over the country, which is actually we've, we're getting some blow back, but what part? Couldn't use a good couch.
Matt:Yeah, a lot of municipalities have really cut back on seating as a way of preventing homeless people from setting up, you know, places to stay. And I think that.
Kate:Great.
Matt:It's a pretty awful civic policy, honestly like houseless individuals are as much a community member as anybody else. So.
Calathea:I totally agree with you, man. I mean, I am totally against, um, antagonistic architecture and, know, designs like that. I'm You know, um, a couch for the people or some sort of campaign might be next of, know, this is a new marketing opportunity. Like we, if we have saturated the couch in home situation, you know, where can couches go next?
Kate:true. Um, I will say that we're having a few issues. I mean, this is, this is kinda like early days of Pokemon go, right. Everyone's just walking around with their phones in front of them. Not really looking where they're going. Okay. And there've been a few cases of, of buses running into people with couches who were trying to deliver them to parks, uh, or just like playing the game in the middle of traffic. Um, I guess, like for instance, in New York, there's not a lot of street space to put a couch, so people tend to try to go towards the middle of the road. Um, so I guess I'm just wondering if there was a complete, we could adapt this. Okay. It doesn't work outside or at least
Matt:partner with, you know, like a. I guess Uber and Lyft are probably more car than sized, moving vehicle companies. Maybe maybe we could bring our own logistics team into this. Uh, be great to have couches sent through our system and, you know, get to pay the overhead of going to the warehouse and getting put back out on the truck. then people don't have to try to move them to them.
Calathea:Yeah, this could also, you know, we could work with municipalities, like bird does to, to put like geo restrictions on where people can deliver couches to, you know, instance, you know, the middle of intersections though, if you guys saw the four intersection couch, I mean, it created just this beautiful little green space at a busy intersection and Boston and I mean, it was. Well, if a bunch of Bostonians yelling at you and cursing at you while you have funded an inflatable pool is your style. Which who
Kate:yeah.
Calathea:love that. I
Matt:Yeah.
Calathea:that was so good.
Kate:And frankly, it was amazing. I mean, it's, it's, it's March, right. And it's so cold there and they just continued heating it with that fire, you know? And I mean, as we learned, right, like fires do melt, inflatable pools. So not like the greatest homemade hot tub situation, but, uh, yeah, I, I just, is that really the kind of PR.
Calathea:I don't know. I mean, it definitely. It increased couch sales, you know,
Matt:Yeah.
Calathea:that fire melted the pool, but not our couches, which is great, you know, especially after some of the fire risk
Kate:Yeah,
Matt:Yup.
Calathea:in the past.
Kate:we've worked hard to make all of our couches absolutely fireproof, um, quite the opposite of what they were actually a few, a few months ago.
Calathea:I mean, are there challenges in this new. Yes, but is it redefining where couches can go and aren't we about redefining marketplaces?
Kate:True. True speaking, speaking of which, um, you know, this series a is coming soon and I really think we need to put more time into thinking about what's next.
Matt:Yeah.
Kate:Couches have, have really been a great, uh, cornerstone for us. Um, but we're about more than just couches. And I think this extra influx of capital will give us the chance to do more
Matt:I can't wait for us to talk about this on the yacht. Uh, cause cause we're taking a big vacation, right? Like we're we're doing the full month.
Calathea:Yeah.
Matt:Great.
Kate:sort of. Well, I mean, I know we said like a month long sabbatical would probably be built into the series a but there have been some negotiations. Um, since that there will, it will definitely be a couple of days at minimum
Matt:uh,
Calathea:A
Matt:that's. That's like we get, we get one of those every week. It's called the weekend.
Kate:three. I, I think we can definitely get through.
Calathea:We need way more time for
Matt:Yeah.
Calathea:then in three days,
Matt:the series a is, is not just like an influx of cash. It's a leveling up of our company. It's a leveling up of our identity and we need a break. We need a complete, divorce from the people we are now from the company we are now. And the only way to do that is through an intensive lavish experience on. Will we be working there? Yes. Somewhat. Like we're going to talk about the future of the company, but we also need to be able to get three square meals a day from the dining hall to enjoy late night karaoke, lounge, singing to swim, uh, and uh, most importantly, uh, ride in the waterpark tubes on top of the ship to take day trips, uh, in places that require extra vaccinations, like all of that is going to help us become the company we are now.
Calathea:And if I were to just say, you know, to the core of my being a belief that I have is that things get worked out on boats. And if we want these things to be worked out, we need a boat.
Kate:and I love the idea of this multi-tiered boat, um, that can sail all around the country or world really. But, I mean, we have operations, we have to like, keep the business running during that time we're going to, we're going to get, be getting all of Facebook's traffic, right. Then like, what if things break? And, and I also like, I mean, you mentioned divorcing ourselves. I just, I don't know that I could go through that again.
Matt:it's just a metaphorical thing, Kate. We leave behind the people that we are in order to become the people that we, we will be. look, we're
Kate:Okay. So we don't have to have like custody issues. We're not going to go through like custody battles for, for our previous personalities aspects.
Matt:no, I don't why. Well, I mean, there's, there's the Bugsby thing, but I didn't think we wanted to,
Kate:I don't think you want to bring that up either. Um,
Matt:Califia.
Calathea:know it's okay. Um, yeah, I don't, I, don't have the mental capacity. I mean, we just went through a really rough branding exercise. is, that is take it all by Angela mental energy. So have I forgotten and, um, use strategies to forget about this custody battle a hundred percent. Um, bug speeds. Loss in Iowa really has changed him as a mascot. And, um, Nope, Nope, Nope. I just don't have the brain space to,
Matt:Yeah. Okay. I
Kate:Yeah,
Matt:want to, one more thing about, about the boat. Okay. Um, it's it's not forever. We're not bringing the entire company. Okay. Everybody. We'll delegate work to their teams and leave behind contingencies. Uh, know, it and dev we've got, we've got internal docs in manuals on just about anything that could possibly happen short of a meteor hitting the data center. Uh, and most of the zombie response plan will cover that. So, uh, we'll be fine. Like we'll, we'll go out for some weeks. There's satellite internet on the boat, uh, and we can handle anything that comes out. But, I mean, Kate you've got trusted lieutenants, right? If you've got folks that you delegate.
Kate:Trusted delegators. Um, I mean, that is something that is certainly a idea for me to pull together. I just think it's been so hard when I've tried to hand over HR or finance or the relationship with legal or some of the operational pieces or some of the support pieces and some of the, the manufacturing or innovation or, uh, warehousing pieces. So, I mean, Like 50 to 90% coverage from some of those. Um, but we can, we could think about it. Maybe a man. No, not Francis. Oh, I'll think of someone. Yeah. Maybe I'll get an intern.
Matt:Okay. It's just, wouldn't be the same if you weren't there and we need you to not be the same. If that makes sense, we
Kate:yeah.
Matt:we need to get on this boat and change as a company and as people.
Kate:And I was, I am so looking forward to getting on a boat, that just sounds like such a cool experience, you know? Um,
Matt:this will be your first boat.
Kate:yeah, yeah,
Matt:awesome.
Calathea:wow. This is your first ever every time being on this.
Kate:Yeah, I mean, there was one time that I went on a canoe with my grandma, but then she fell off and then, uh, the canoe broke, uh, and then we had to swim back to shore. Uh, and that was not great. Uh, but I assume this will be different
Matt:Pet should be.
Calathea:hopefully yeah. Drastically different. Is your, was your grandma? K
Kate:uh, in general, no, from that experience.
Calathea:Okay.
Kate:Anyway. Yeah, I think we've kind of covered all the topics we needed to today. Um, any final notices otherwise I'll make, I'll make sure Eric listens to this.
Calathea:no, I mean, I think we're, I mean, I hate to say it right now, but it seems like, uh, we're at a space where there are already any fires put out at the moment.
Matt:Yeah. Oh, that reminds me. Um, Eric or Eric, when you listened to this, uh, you do need to bring in your smart fridge. We need to replace the camera in it. Also, your nest.
Kate:Those have camera's in it.
Matt:of, yeah, they have cameras in them. It's to tell if their occupants in the house, don't say in front of your nest thermostat that you're bringing it in. So like don't listen to this out loud, uh, because then they will know and they have control of your nest thermostat.
Kate:Gosh,
Matt:had just made me.
Kate:makes sense. Um, okay. Well, then I think we're good. Uh, just a reminder to everyone on paper, don't eat fish. Um, but at home really, you know, do what you want. All right.
Ben:This meeting has ended. To subscribe to this startup is being recorded. Go to the podcast player of your choice and tap a button that likely says subscribe. More content is on Twitter at startup recorded, or shoot us an email with ideas, feedback, or your personal startup horror story. At hello@startuprecorded.com. Kate is played by Valerie Garrison. Valerie is a product manager and regularly plays with the improv troupe letters to chicken online. You can find her on Twitter at thevalgarris eric has played by Barry wright Barry is a product manager at Spotify and a co-founder of Highwire Improv. Find him by his name on LinkedIn, where he holds regular office hours or at highwireimprov.com. Matt is played by Martin Mcguire. Marty is a senior web engineer and improviser in New York city. You can find Marty's comedy code and cats on his website at M M G dot R E.