This Startup is being Recorded

E7- Facebook Reaches Out

• Valerie Garrison • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Agenda:

  • Emergency! Email from Facebook/Meta’s legal counsel! Will explain more in meeting!

Takeaways:

  • No one disturb Creative team for the next week, no matter what noises you hear from behind the privacy curtain. 
  • Eric to send everyone the video of John getting stuck in a couch, just for fun
  • Kate to work with Phil to pull Bugsby out into it’s own legal entity
  • Email back Facebook! Drink some alcohol! 
Ben:

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:

Yeah, the recording. Okay. Uh, thanks everyone for coming to this semi emergency meeting. Um, I guess, okay. Actually let me just do the regular recording stuff. So, uh, John obviously couldn't make it because I just called this meeting 10 minutes ago. Um, and he isn't here. Uh, but essentially we need to talk through the email we got from Facebook's legal counsel. Um, but. Anyway. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm uh, I'm Kate chief of staff to John. Um, everyone else go

Thea:

chief creatives are

Kate:

great.

Eric:

Uh, yep. Eric joy Carter, chief product officer.

Matt:

Uh, matt.yachts. That's also my website and I am the CTO here at Metro market. And

Kate:

um, yep. So

Matt:

name, savor that name.

Kate:

Uh, we are a capture marketplace startup. We are changing the face of trade, like everyone, a more comfortable seat at the table. And today we got an email from Facebook's legal counsel, as we all know, they changed their name a couple of months ago to Metta, uh, which, you know, Bald. It was quiet. So we thought everything's fine. But now they have reached out with a request to either purchase the domain or try to find some way to negotiate our name or to Sue us. Yeah, we get to

Matt:

Yeah. Well, can I just say, I think this is a time to celebrate, uh, because. The terms of this are largely in our court. And I would just like to think if they, if they watch these, uh, lawyers you're worth every dime, uh, because this, this is what we've been waiting for folks. Okay. We've got the impossible goal of series a to get that funding. We're supposed to be the top top couch marketplace, a metric, no one, no one measures in each of our four markets. Uh,

Eric:

Okay.

Matt:

And Hey, you know, I just, I just want to open this this time. It's time to celebrate.

Eric:

uh, wait, wait, what, what skin.

Matt:

I mean, it's not, it's not open yet. We have to agree if we're going to celebrate together.

Eric:

Well, this is open, but I will

Thea:

Yeah. I mean the creative team always has a bottle of tequila to celebrate, you know, big successes.

Matt:

Yeah, somebody gifted me this one. Cause they really like Bugsby as soon as it's like, I just gotta be on it. And I S I told them that that's not what bugs me is, but like, it was a nice thought,

Thea:

it's a good gesture.

Matt:

uh,

Thea:

is on a cleanse right now, but

Eric:

oh,

Matt:

Aw.

Eric:

You're skipping some steps though. I feel like I don't understand where you're going, how you're getting to this, solving our metric problem.

Kate:

Yeah.

Matt:

Uh, well, it's very simple. We, we already have a trademark for the use of the term meta market in the space of online couch marketplaces. And that's filed that exists. The trademark office knows it. You can look it up. So for all their bluster, they actually can't move into this space. So they are either going to have to stop having couches in Facebook market. In which case, boom, our top competitor knocked off of the couch, marketplace metrics just like that, or they're going make a deal. And that deal is that they're going to send all of their couch, traffic to us in exchange for the name we need. We own, we don't even need exclusivity for that long. It'll be a blink for them and we just have to get it long enough for the investors to, buy it and buy it.

Thea:

I have to say that I am also very excited. Um, as you all know, creations of new names is my wheelhouse. That's originally what John came here for, you know, The birthing of new creativity is a very exciting time for me. So I'm, I'm excited. Um, you know, I already like broadened my leach guy to like really get down into this process of like creating a new name that a fume is ready to start

Matt:

leech leech guy. Is that like a, a metaphor or some kind of an antiquated term?

Thea:

Uh, no medical eaches. Um, I, you know, yes. Okay. It's part of my creative process. You know, you have to like give new blood into, you know, into the piece. And so, you know, it's very. Uh, unmedical to just like cut yourself and bleed on

Matt:

Oh, yeah.

Thea:

helps, like act like helps be part of that process in a really safe, natural way. So anyway, enough about the creative team, but in my own personal process, I'm just saying that we are ready right now.

Kate:

I mean, there are so many things that we're not ready for it, you know, like our name is on so much. It's on the, on the offices, it's on our, our packaging materials. It's on the website on all of our technology. It's like,

Eric:

W we've already been pushed down to page seven on Google results, uh, in the past two months, since, since they announced the name change.

Matt:

for meta. Yeah,

Eric:

yeah, so I feel like we need to make a decision one way or the other. It's really already starting to impact some of our other metrics. So.

Thea:

Eric. I think that's just another point that like we need to for search engine optimization, come up with a new word, a new feeling, something.

Matt:

this is pretty cut and dry. Like I hope we're all on the same page. Like weekly. S say yes to Facebook with the stipulation that they pay us a great deal of money. And, uh, they give us all of their couch, marketplace traffic for the next, you know, uh, months. And, uh, and yeah, we get to pick a new name. We get to rebrand all the stuff with Metta market on it is just stuff and it's stuff that's going to become worth something someday, because it's going to be the name that we used for.

Thea:

Yes. Oh, didn't even think about the vintage appeal. I mean, that is so great. We can get our intern to take all of our merch and start and get up. So it looks historic

Matt:

District.

Thea:

we can, then we can sell it on eBay. I mean, is a opportunity for us.

Eric:

uh, I dunno. I feel like I'm feeling Matt coffee. I'm I'm, I'm glad you're excited, but you're acting like. Mark Zuckerberg character in the social network when he got the cease and desist letter, like he didn't take it seriously and, and look what happened. And

Matt:

He's the head of a social network that controls the lives of billions on earth.

Eric:

but he lost a friend

Kate:

That's what you're worried about.

Matt:

I would hate to see that happen to any of us, but I feel like we're at least close to being on the same page. Right, Kate. Well, what are your thoughts on.

Kate:

I just, I just, wait, I remember picking the name Metro market, you know, When John and, and I had met for the first time and he told me that's what the name was. I mean, he could have thought of it ahead of time, but I like to think that was the origin of the name. And I was part of it. And I feel like if we change our name, it just won't be like, I helped

Matt:

Well think about it this way. Okay. Um, if we change our name, w I want to go ahead and say, when we change our name, that will be the first step into becoming the new. Big market changing. I mean, we have a goal, right? As a company we want to, we want to change trade

Kate:

be in for.

Matt:

and we're going to do that with this name change. We're essentially taking the L the larval, the pupil name of Metta market, and we are the butterfly that's going to come out of that cocoon with series a. With full backing of investors with the ability to open up in a dozen markets in a year, it's going to be completely wild.

Thea:

This is the right time too. I mean, we've been around, uh, you know, if you count from the initial idea for 5.2 years, and

Kate:

What we've been, how are you? Calculating 5.2

Thea:

I mean, if you're counting the first point that John talked about couches,

Kate:

Okay. So you think the beginning of Metta mark is when he ended his, his sort of abstinence of couches

Thea:

Yeah, got the first time after his long period of not actually sitting on furniture to try to figure out the next, the next, you know,

Kate:

idea. Yeah.

Thea:

It was like when he first allowed himself to sit on a couch, but I mean, that's the birth of Metta market,

Matt:

Did I ever tell you guys the story of when John stopped sitting on frame?

Kate:

no,

Matt:

Oh, I don't, I don't know if you knew him

Kate:

didn't know you were there.

Matt:

Oh yeah, we were, we had been part of, uh, some video startup that he had acquired. Um, it was frankly based on like the, um, the popularity of, um, I just seen and, and other people who were like live logging themselves all the time and, uh, you know, it's, it's almost similar to how we do here. Um, you know, John wanted a live stream was running all the. But, uh, he, uh, he had a really big meeting and then had a bad day, uh, and was kind of going on a rant about, um, a competitor that. And, uh, and during that time, the couch that he was sitting on collapsed, uh, under his weight, it was, you know, like a street find and it was not, hadn't been really looked over, uh, and, uh, in, uh, swallowed him up. He couldn't get out for like five minutes and, uh, the audience at home of course was losing it. And, uh, man

Kate:

That's

Matt:

probably shouldn't have shared that story, but it's yeah.

Thea:

I remember that though. I mean, that was, that was a big teal. I included it in my burlesque review of popular means that

Matt:

Oh, wow. Yeah, he was, he had the hell out of him for that, for

Eric:

got a link, got a link. I got link, got a link to the video out late later,

Matt:

yeah. Yeah. It's for later it's relater and, uh, John, John, if you're catching this, sorry, but like, I don't know. It's just, it's true. It's something.

Kate:

I mean, this explains so much like Eric, why we have that strict no street couch policy in our terms of use and the couch selling experience.

Eric:

And we have, you know, the extra Springs and all the couches we have, uh, brought through the warehouse. I mean, I never really understood, but now it's see, this is the thing is everything about Metta market is so personal and, you know, I just want to be careful. We're getting a lot, we're getting a lot

Matt:

I mean, we're getting, we're getting everything.

Eric:

I just want to be careful what we're giving up.

Kate:

But, okay, so let's say that we do this. Yes. I agree. We'd be higher than Facebook slash Meadows traffic, but we still have a couple other competitors. How are we going to is this can be

Matt:

Oh, it's.

Kate:

to help that

Matt:

It's no problem. I mean, Facebook marketplace is number one and if they are pumping that traffic in our direction, even for a very brief period of time, the number two and number three, have nothing close to that. And we're already close to the top in most of our markets. So yeah, it's, it's a power law thing. We just swap them completely.

Thea:

It's like a king maker move, you know, where you basically, you know, go partner with somebody else so that you both can win, you know, whoever your second competitor is. And oftentimes a kingmaker moves, you know, it comes from monopoly. It's usually your chance at winning dies. And in some ways, Metta market is theoretical death that we must have to join together and achieve greatness.

Kate:

Oh, no, we're not going to have a funeral. Are we Thea?

Thea:

No, no, it's not, it's not really the, the vibe I'm going for with this rebrand. You know, it's more like a Phoenix rebirth. I mean, I was thinking like, Uh, the as TAC end of year ceremony, that happens every once, every 52 years, where they shut out all of the fire in lights and they entire area, uh, you know, for a day. And then. At the top of their altar, they do a human sacrifice and start the fire in the chest, uh, from the still beating heart. And then use that to light all the fires. You know, like that's kind of the vibe that I see this kind of rebrand, Dez.

Eric:

well, what it is is, is Bugsby going to be the Phoenix, like what happens to Bugsby

Thea:

That's a great question.

Matt:

mean, I think bugs is be fine, right? Bugsby is, has his own name and look, and he's only tied to men market because we have exclusive rights to.

Eric:

Oh, that's true. Okay. We have a trademark as well.

Thea:

independent every single day. So,

Kate:

okay. I don't believe that.

Thea:

be respected at his own entity, you know, as something separate from Metamora.

Kate:

I mean, honestly, if we're going to have to pull in the lawyers to like deal with this trademark transfer, like we might as well just pull bugs out into his own legal entity at this point.

Matt:

Wow. I'm surprised to hear you say that.

Thea:

Yeah.

Kate:

Well, I mean, honestly, Our trademark lawyer is one of my favorite people. So if I'm going to have to spend some time with him, I could spend a little extra, you know,

Matt:

okay. I mean, it's, it's just that last time we brought this up, there was a lot of concern about, I mean, for one thing that, that bugs me is, uh, a cartoon creation that is. Manifested by human beings, making art and is not actually like bugs me. Doesn't exist anywhere in the real world. And doesn't have any decision-making capability.

Kate:

you know, how about to save this discussion? Matt, I will forward you the couple of email threads that the, and I have had going back and forth, slack conversations, the loom videos. Um, I have a couple of meeting recordings. Um, unfortunately the evening in the bar, I don't think we can really share in any way, unless were you recording that?

Thea:

Uh, yes, I do have the buyer security camera. I get that wherever I go, just to protect my image. Sometimes I like to review tapes and just make sure that all of my interactions are representing my core brand.

Kate:

okay. Well, Matt point is, I'll send those to you. Um, it is very clear that the things you have stated are not incorrect, but that feels confident she birthed. Cartoon from her flesh. So

Eric:

um, just got a text from, from John it's. It's just, uh, of a parking lot. Um, and.

Kate:

I know what that means.

Eric:

I, yeah. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't think about this before, but are we sure that Romero hasn't been compromised? Like, are we sure that this is a real offer? Like what if we opened up our API APIs? What if we opened up our API to Facebook, we initiate this deal. We're like, send us the traffic and

Matt:

Romero you mean human? The, the guy that was planted inside Facebook market.

Eric:

Yeah.

Thea:

I, I think I've had a couple of interactions with Romero. It's not impossible. Right. But seems like at least from our interactions that he completely unaware of who he was spying for in the first place.

Matt:

well, and these, like, we all saw the Facebook email that came from meters lawyers. Uh, Ramiro can have access to that kind of decision making power. I mean, they were just sent into work in the marketplace.

Thea:

Listen, I, Eric, I've totally get your stress about this because you know, Victor did hire the best of the best and, you know, we have been fooled before. I mean, this. The blow back on. Some of this has been pretty devastating. So, I mean, I think everything is possible with Romero. I

Eric:

I, I wouldn't be so worried if, if, if it wasn't John who had sent the picture, if, if, if it would just my idea, if it was just my idea, I would, I would, I would put it away. I would put it in a box and I would be excited about this deal, but John's instincts.

Matt:

I mean, what do we think this guy can really do? If let's say that after he went dark inside the marketplace, where he was supposed to be spying on us about how couches are doing, he. It took an upward path. Right? He got, he got some promotions. I started working his way up the ladder, but he's, he's been in the dark this whole time. Like no contact, no, no nothing. So do we really think he would, he would make a sideways jump from tech, into legal.

Kate:

wait, what does he look like?

Thea:

Um, yeah, he has like sh kind of like curly black hair. has like a little bit of a mustache going on. He might've changed his facial hair.

Matt:

right.

Thea:

piercing brown eyes. I kind of just like, see into your core essence, you know, um,

Kate:

Is he kind of tall, broad shoulders size, eight feet, uh, kind of medium.

Thea:

Yeah, I would say that he, um, that, that exactly describes him.

Kate:

he, he goes by row now. He's uh, he's one of my roommates.

Thea:

Whoa,

Eric:

Oh,

Kate:

realized this, I've heard him talk a little bit about V this, this interesting person V who helped him get his job. And I mean, I knew he worked at, um, some sort of big tech company, but he's like super hush hush about it, but, um,

Eric:

Oh my

Matt:

Oh, that's a

Kate:

he got, yeah.

Eric:

a relief. No, it's not a relief.

Thea:

You don't understand that the kind of killers Victor employed for this task. I

Kate:

Killer.

Eric:

Yeah.

Kate:

It's duck safe. What does he kill?

Eric:

I don't, I don't know what's going on, but I thought, I thought you were just ordering a couch from us every week, Kate to test,

Kate:

Well, I mean, I don't have to order it. I take it home.

Eric:

I know, that's why I that's. I thought that's why I thought it was a test, but somebody's been ordering a couch to your address every week for the last 16 weeks.

Kate:

Oh my God.

Matt:

well that that's not necessarily Romero. It could be anyone or it could be. You remember the bug where we made every couch purchases, subscription made us a ton of money, but it lost us a lot of face.

Kate:

Yeah, that was

Matt:

So this, this could be any of your roommates.

Eric:

There

Kate:

don't think it is. No, I don't.

Thea:

Kate, how many, how many roommates do you have?

Kate:

Four to seven.

Matt:

Yeah,

Kate:

I

Matt:

D is duct counted in there.

Kate:

no duck shares a room with me. And I only count people who have their own rooms. I just, I just feel like I RO is so nice and so helpful.

Matt:

this is, this is a great, so now. Kate, this is easy you, or, I mean, if we need to go up the chain, John can just talk to Roe and find out what's going on. And if there is something that they're up to ask them to stand down, cause we're all cool with Facebook marketplace. And as soon as this deal goes through, Does anyone know, like, does Romero have like a, code phrase that we could use?

Thea:

I was just actually about to say that Victor gave this to me before he disappeared. Um, he told me if anything went wrong to say a Rugola.

Matt:

Okay.

Kate:

what will that do?

Matt:

common. Yeah.

Eric:

yeah.

Thea:

I I think it's a standdown phrase. Um, I've, I've never gotten, I mean, you know, it's only by happenstance that I knew Romero our plant in Facebook. You know, I just

Eric:

Yeah.

Thea:

walking by Victor's desk that day, um, and saw his face. So, you know, I don't, I don't know the kind of training they received. I would just try to say a rubella to him.

Eric:

can we, can we text it to them? Okay. Can, okay. Can you text him a rugala?

Matt:

was that a, is that a good

Eric:

that work that

Matt:

almost, I feel like we want to see his reaction. Like if, cause if it's, if it's not.

Eric:

That's true.

Thea:

you

Kate:

I can just, yeah, let me FaceTime him. I'll be right back. I'll read.

Matt:

Okay.

Eric:

Oh man.

Matt:

This is complicated. You know, I,

Eric:

Yeah. I'm sorry. Uh, I just, this is this, it felt too good to be true. And I'm, I just want to be sure. Okay.

Matt:

I mean, this is why I try not to engage in corporate espionage. You know, you never know when the stuff is going to blow back.

Eric:

it's surprisingly hard

Matt:

Yeah, well, you just, you need to make sure that the people who are doing the espionage are loyal, you know, they need to be bought in. And that's why it needs to be people at the highest levels. You know, no offense, but like a guy you found in a McDonald's parking lot. That's,

Thea:

Okay.

Matt:

he's.

Thea:

All right, Matt, listen, if you had met Victor, if you had been around in his presence, you would understand why we gave him this much power. I mean, he amazing. He was, he was part of this company so much part of the life blood of this company.

Matt:

but why then? Why did he go, you know, this company?

Eric:

Hey,

Thea:

So many things would be different. Okay. I could find him.

Eric:

screaming in this room.

Kate:

right. Um,

Matt:

Kate what's up.

Kate:

Good news. Um, apparently. I made an a rugala salad the first week that, uh, row moved in and he interpreted that as a reason to stand down. Um, and he's been basically doing nothing at his job for the last 14 weeks. Um, and so has

Matt:

Nice.

Kate:

not impacted this at all. Um, and shockingly not being fired, but all is good for us.

Matt:

Yeah. I mean, Facebook's a big organization. Oh yeah. Good.

Thea:

the offer is real. Then can we go back to celebrating?

Kate:

I mean, he doesn't know because he hasn't checked his email in two months, but I think this means the offer is real.

Matt:

Does anybody have a bottle opener? I don't, I don't keep one at work and I don't remember any of the tricks for getting the cork out other than like, he's like sliced the thing that seems really dated.

Kate:

You could probably ask Cindy the office assistant. She has a lot of things in her Fanny pack

Matt:

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Kate:

anyway. Okay. So we're all on board. We should go forward with this.

Matt:

Yeah, I'm I'm ready. And, uh, you know, obviously whatever the new branding is, think marketing, like y'all are on it. Uh, I fully support you, whatever.

Thea:

Great. I just want to announce to everybody that we will be paused on all other projects for the next week. As we really

Matt:

Oh, yeah.

Thea:

deep into the creation process. Uh, I'm very excited to see

Matt:

Yeah.

Thea:

out of it.

Matt:

And we can. We can, I know we've got a lot of holiday promotions coming up. We can just reuse last year's graphics and, uh, we'll make sure that like all of the promos in the app, uh, the, you know, the assets we've already made them. We, you know, we put in the time, so we'll just use that.

Thea:

Uh, we might not be able to use, um, last year's campaign. It was very time specific.

Kate:

oh yeah. Have you looked at those graphics yet?

Matt:

no, no, I wasn't with the company yet. What? Uh,

Kate:

Yeah. I mean,

Matt:

me check in the.

Kate:

at this point it's 10 days til Christmas. We are extremely late getting these holiday graphics out. Anyway. Maybe we just throw some red and green. What do you think?

Eric:

We can, we can, we can change the site, uh, color. So we got, we've got a

Matt:

oh yeah, these are not

Eric:

yeah, no, I forgot. Totally, totally out of bounds.

Matt:

That's not the correct way to refer to the Corona virus.

Eric:

it is not, um,

Kate:

It was earlier times.

Thea:

I'm sorry. I was still deep in morning for Alan Rickman at the time.

Matt:

I am well, that's understood.

Eric:

Yeah. Uh, yeah, and we'll, uh, adjust our roadmaps. We'll get, uh, some people on figuring out all the places we need to change the names. Uh, we'll remove all of the Metta market, uh, based puns throughout the checkout workflow and come up with new ones after Califia you and your team. Uh, let us know what's going on.

Thea:

Okay. I think I've been very clear about my stance on the puns throughout. So I think,

Eric:

As if I

Thea:

I

Kate:

Okay.

Thea:

you know what, I'll leave it for your boundless creativity,

Eric:

thank you

Thea:

you know, we might choose a name that doesn't have the same rhyming scheme.

Eric:

I look forward to the challenge.

Kate:

okay. And this means we can also sell meat market.com.

Matt:

yeah,

Eric:

Ah,

Kate:

misspelling it. And

Matt:

right. Oh yeah, no, I don't. I've been seeing these emails. People are constantly trying to steal that domain from us and, uh, like sending phishing scams to try and get it out from under our registrar. Uh,

Kate:

Yes.

Matt:

Now we can finally entertain all of those offers because some people were ready to pay.

Kate:

I know. It's shocking what meat market means to different people.

Matt:

It's not that yeah. Makes sense.

Kate:

Yeah. Okay. I think we're good. Um, we'll just, you know, stay in touch. This is a really fast moving thing. I know we're ready for the holidays. get it done

Thea:

Great. Um,

Eric:

good.

Thea:

am going to go and just, we're going to put some privacy curtains over the, all of the marketing team offices, uh, for the next week. And please don't come in no matter what noises you hear.

Kate:

deal. I think that's enough. A good enough way to end our.

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 health tech product manager and regularly plays with the improv troupe letters to chicken online. You can find her on Twitter at the vulgaris. Eric has played by Barry. Right. Barry is a product manager at Spotify and a co-founder of high-wire improv. Find him by his name on LinkedIn, where he holds regular office hours or@highwireimprov.com. Matt is played by Martin Maguire. 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. Califia is played by Robin Stegman. Robin is a digital campaign manager for ocean Conservancy and is a comedian mostly found at Highwire improv. You can find her on all the social medias. And she does mean all at our steaky. Thank you for listening.