#02 – Dom Einhorn

So Dom, could you give us a brief introduction about who you are as a person?

Sure. My name is Dom einhorn I'm calling in from France. I am a digital media entrepreneur, lived in the US for 25 years. But originally, I'm half French, half German. I decided to come back to France 18 to launch unicorn, which is today probably the largest incubator and accelerate our startups in a rural setting. Right, right.

And could you kind of give a brief summary of how you kind of begin this whole journey? So where did you start off before you made it to this huge point in your life?

Well, I started the very humbling experience, a start, you couldn't have fallen any lower. You know, going back to 1993, when actually left France moved to the US, with the idea of launching a digital media startup at a time where nobody knew what that actually meant. At the time were the predominant search engine, there was one called Yahoo. Way ahead of Google, which wasn't actually even a search engine, it was a human curated directory of internet links. And from there on, had many ups and downs, more failures than successes. But fortunately, the successes made up for the failures, right? Very early on, we focused on digital acquisition of new customers, which we still do today, primarily on the marketing side. But I was an entrepreneur for the large majority of my professional career until about 678 years ago, when I kind of turned the table and started wearing the angel investor hat a little bit more. And the friction that we uncovered in the marketplace, which a lot of people are aware of, but few seem to do something about is that there is a huge gap between startup entrepreneurs and investors. I call it the expectation gap, where typically startup entrepreneurs broadcast on FM but investors listen to AM. So they don't understand. They don't understand each other. And part of what we do on a day to day basis is trying to resolve that gap. And, you know, build a bridge for the two to understand each other. Which is challenging, but we've proven that on a one off basis, we can succeed. And now we intend to do that at scale.

So did some of your struggles as an entrepreneur sort of help you with this understanding of the misunderstandings between startup entrepreneurs and investors?

I would say unequivocally yes. So, you know, case in point, when I started the first I'm actually pitched in investor, I was very excited and little scared at the same time, because it was a group of investors that came out of nowhere and showed interest in what we had built. And I was again, broadcasting on FM they were listening today. Um, so I was giving him my terminology. My Ling was a startup entrepreneur, they looked at me like I came from Mars. And then they started talking, and they asked me what so what are you raising precede seed series, a type of financing. And I was like, What are these guys talking about? Right? Eventually, deal actually did happen, strangely enough. But you know, we were, there were there were many misunderstandings leading to that deal. I would say today, very little has changed. If I compare, if I listened into a pitch from 25 years ago into tech scene, versus today, I still see a lot of these friction points where the two parties just don't understand each other, and the two need to understand each other. Because ultimately, what we're building here is an ecosystem very much like an Uber or an Airbnb. Take the case of Uber, for example, if you have if you have only riders and drivers, it's not going to work. If you only have drivers and no riders is not going to work. In our ecosystem, if you have only investors and no deals, while there's nothing to invest in. If you have yields, no investors, you cannot get them financed. So you're actually building a holistic ecosystem where did the two needs to be balanced out otherwise, it just doesn't work?

That's a really interesting way of looking at it and what kind of drove in this passion that you had of creating this sort of network of entrepreneurs and investors that can sort of understand each other.

I think at the very onset at a very early age, I became and I'm talking grow I was growing up in France. So I worked as a voracious reader at the age of four or five, right, fortunately, had a grandmother was kind of my mentor. And I remember when I knew how to read, but it was very, very young

constituents, or what do you read a lot of.

So today, it's dramatically different from what I read back then. But they're at a fairly early age. The US pronunciation is Jules Verne, is really down in French, I read probably by the age of seven or eight, I had read every single book he had written, I was fascinated by this visionary writer who basically devised a submarine way before anybody else to rocket to the moon way before anybody else for those of you have read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or the voyage to the center of the universe, etc, etc. Basically, I was very young, when I realized that everything was possible if you set your mind to it, right? So I think that gave me the vision of an entrepreneur, it basically told me that, look, if you actually work hard enough, you're disciplined enough if the if the right ideas, you can make him, you know, come to fruition. And that's what we're looking to do as an entrepreneur. Today, because I'm a lot busier today than at 50 than I was when I was five years old. I think my reading has somewhat been condensed it because it's so difficult just to keep up with our own industry. Right? I voraciously read whenever I can. I multitask, just to keep up with my reading, right? I'm not reading while I'm talking to you, by the way. But typically, if I'm on a conference, this is what I would do, right? I would like chime in every once in a while, while the same time catching up on my reading. And it's purely revolves around what it is we're trying to achieve as a team, which is to actually help other entrepreneurs succeed, which is extremely exciting. Because if I look back at all of the issues that I faced, as a startup entrepreneur, through through my ventures, I wish I would have had a person like me more mature older, that could actually help me overcome some of those obstacles. And, you know, this is kind of like my dream come true. Today, I can actually be that person. And along with my team, lend a helping hand to struggling entrepreneurs, which are very much like struggling artists, right? It's very easy to identify some of the challenges that are facing Be it, the challenge of raising money, acquiring new customers, building a brand and defending that brand, you name it, right? All of those items require dedicated skill sets dedicated resources in order to make them work and ultimately make them flourish.

Now, startup entrepreneurs is a very broad group, when you first started this business, did you niche down at the start to a specific type of group, like entrepreneurs in Europe probably have a different experience? I'm assuming than the ones here in America or any other area? So was your niche more Europe? Or could you elaborate on? It's

a good question? Yeah. So early on. Certainly I was a generalist, not a specialist, because the internet was in its infancy. And very early on in nine, I'm talking about 1994. What we were doing in our initial accompany digital marketing space, we were actually calling on businesses selling them websites, in a time where people said, website, what is that? Right. All I've heard I've heard of this internet thing is nothing but a fat. In fact, in 1993 1994, few people call it the internet. They call it the information superhighway. That's what it was called. Right? It became the internet around 1995 1996 when Marc Andreessen and Netscape 1.0 developed the first browser, right internet browser. Now fast forward 2728 years, it's changed dramatically today, you have no choice but to be a specialist. You're no one being a generalist gets you nowhere, right? Because what's happened as a result of this dramatic explosion of content in particular, is that a niche market is defined by a million people, or more, right? So I'm taking the crazy example. But let's say you're interested in fly fishing in Montana, out of all things, you will find a million people who are interested in that topic, and you can quickly and easily target them, either using Facebook ads, Google ads, or you name it. Right. And that's a niche market. A large market is now defined by 100 million people or more. And I think we still have barely scratched that surface because over the next eight tene months, we will be onboarding, the great digital divide, the 2 billion people who are still disconnected around the world will be coming online. So imagine off the internet as this massive brain, right? The cloud, consisting of millions and billions of brains. And we're just going to be adding within a period of 18 months and additional two brains to the cloud, to turn it into a mega brain. These people, right now in remote locations in Africa, South America, Asia, Southeast Asia, etc, etc, will be contributing through this thing we call the Internet that will start producing content, right? It's not like a bunch of couch sitting TV viewers, right? They're interacting with this medium, and actually adding value through that medium by creating all sorts of content that we can't even imagine yet, at a time, where other technologies are becoming ubiquitous, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, that are quickly merging with 5g and artificial intelligence and becoming one technology. So imagine the leaps, as a humankind that we will make, once these still relatively disconnected brains will actually join that big cloud that we call the Internet. Right?

And a lot of these disconnected brains, I'm assuming that these are generally tech startups, or are there other types of businesses as well that you work with?

We we specialize going back to your first initial question, we only work with technology startups, in very defined fields, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, FinTech, financial technologies, health tech, educational technologies, digital media, etc. So anything that closely touches a tech, so for example, we may take agriculture, we wouldn't take an agricultural deal. However, if it's an agri tech, if it's an enhanced agricultural deal that uses technology is a leverage to do something that hasn't been done before or to make agriculture more efficient. We may be interested, right, but it that it needs to have tech technology in its DNA.

Okay, and another thing, a question that's been going through my head a lot is how do you actually interact with these other businesses? Do you act more as a consultant more as a coach, more of as you know, an angel investor, I'm trying to think of, you know, the dynamics of this relationship that you have with your clients.

It's, it's pretty much all of the above. Because when you do invest, whether it's cash or other resources, you have to at one point in time, make a decision that is half intellectual, half emotional. You have to decide, does this make sense intellectually, for me to take part in this venture? And I am I emotionally ready to invest my emotions into this venture? Right? And then you have to some ground rules that I live by some very simple ones. Because you have to work with either a startup founder who may be a solo entrepreneur at the beginning, that's not sustainable if you're intended to build a scale up a large business, because once you're scaling up clear, you need to build a team, because by definitions, unlike technology, humans are not scalable, right. But some of the ground rules that we said is like the first question I asked myself when I meet either a team or an individual is what I go fishing with that person. Sounds crazy. But basically, what I mean, it's a test, whatever it is what I go on a vacation with that person for a week and be secluded in a resort, and, you know, we're going to be writing because you're joined at the hip when you once you're in. So better to ask yourself that question early on and make a decision as to whether or not you can actually live with that decision further down the road, you get along, and is that getting along sustainable over a long period of time, knowing that the startup assuming the startup survives, that you will be working with until there is an exit some sort of a merger or an acquisition or going go to public markets strategy, you will be tied at the hip for five to seven years on average. Right? So it's a fundamental question that you need to ask yourself, either as an angel investor as a consultant who is engaging with the company, and you may get paid by either cash or stock in that company. Sometimes you get a hybrid remuneration between between the two. But don't miss don't underestimate the emotional requirements, right? To participate in this venture is aside from anything financial.

And I think um, the emotional side is definitely not the first thing that people We'll think about they think more of the logical money transactional system. But why is the emotional side so important?

I think what you say is absolutely true. I think first of all, the reason why it's primarily a financial decision is because we tend to lead in with my rationalizing everything that we do in life, right? So we will look at brass tacks does this make money does is, am I going to lose my mind and this deal, and we're going to break even I'm going to make any money, right? And then, because it's kind of like, you know, the trade off between opportunity and fear, at that level, right, I want to make sure that I'm not losing my money. Or if I'm losing it, I need to know that I can live with that loss. But then, let's assume you get involved and you invest, it never stops there, right. Because if you're an investor, if you're just a passive investor, it may stop. But that only happens on rare occasions, the right angel investor brings more than money to the venture, he will bring his Rolodex of contacts, he will become, in the ideal scenario, a spokesperson for the company, by default, a brand ambassador, look, this is a deal I get involved in, I get involved in you should check them out, at the very least. Or if you help that investor solve a problem, in the ideal case, he loves your product or service, you solved one of his pain points he decided to invest. Now you get full buy in, because now he's completely convinced that what you did for him actually works. And it will become a mouthpiece, you know, preaching your product or service to everybody else. So at that point in time, that person becomes a lot more invested in your project emotionally and tied to the hip. And you should never understand and never miss them. Never underestimate that and the value that that provides. Because ultimately, you can only pitch so many people. But if you do, right by the people you're working with, you will actually create a wave, a network effect of people will just come to you by way of osmosis with doing the right thing for the right people.

And this network effect, it took a while to hit this point, correct?

I think we all have our network. So think of it our own individual networks. I think you could look at something like your Facebook profile, your LinkedIn profile, your circle of influence, we all have that, right. In my case, yes, I took took me 25 years to actually build it. And a lot again, here, a lot of people underestimate the value that that represents. And if you actually look at other investors that have huge networks, you should, if you're looking to raise money for your startup, no matter what your startup is, you should really look at that at the value that provides more so than the money. Because if you actually have a marketable product or service, do you really care whether you raise money from an investor, or whether you actually sell your product or service to the right people. In the second scenario on the ladder, you have no dilution, you keep all of your equity, it's always better to sell your product or service with your margin than to go out and raise money and dilute yourself and give away a piece of your company. That's the bottom line.

Because a lot of these bigger businesses, they tend to try and do something more like intrapreneurship. I think I've heard of that before you build a business within the business itself. And what do you think of that system? Because that's sort of a way of taking a piece of a company or bringing it in or building a new piece of a company. Do you have any problems with that?

I think what you're seeing today are a lot of large companies that in an attempt to act like like a startup and become leaner. It's a very smart move, actually, they because if you take a comment large company, like Procter and Gamble in the US, right, large conglomerate with 10s, of 1000s of products, cetera, et cetera. Once you become that large, you tend to move slow, slower or not at all. And that's dangerous for any company. You don't want to be in that in that situation ever. So what you see a lot of companies do is either break up the large monster into small businesses that are easier to manage, and where they actually act independently from each other. And the sum of all these parts forms the whole, right? So you have a lot of this startup spirit that's being injected into those companies because they understand that if they don't do that, There will be the next Google there will be the next Facebook, there will be the next Twitter, Uber, Airbnb, et cetera, that will take them over in their in their field. And that's the biggest fear of being disrupted. The same way. Netflix disrupted blockbuster for those of you old enough, were listening. Alright, what I, I was in the US during the block that blockbuster years and the actual terminology that we use wasn't blockbuster, but it was blocked with an F in there. Because you will get bent over, you know, by not returning your rental, and you'd pay ultimately more. I remember returning one tape at one point in time, and I had late charges and it cost me$45. When the tape was worth the videotape was worth 15. Right. So that created a lot of backlash with the consumers. Netflix at one point in time was pitching blockbuster for investment. And blockbuster laughed him out the door. And five years later, Netflix ate their lunch. Right? So that's a perfect scenario of a company. That was the incumbent. And that basically thought, Look, we're so big, we're too big to fail. We're so strong, nobody can disrupt us. And that's been proven wrong over and over and over. So today, most of these large businesses are very much aware that if they don't iterate if they don't act like a startup in some, in some fashion, the days accounted.

Yeah, um, speaking of that blockbuster, I actually did a project on that it was quite interesting, because the thing that really went wrong with them is that they were hiring a lot of higher ups that were that were working more in things like retail. So it was causing a lot of issues because they needed to digitize,

and they refused to digitize. Most importantly, they in to a large extent. Obviously, at one point in time, they were the only kid on the block, no pun intended, where no one could really compete against them. And people would just put up with the friction points, such as paying for extravagant late fees, and bad customer service, lack of choice, even to get on with the average blockbuster cuts, I think he could carry 15,000 titles in a store, when Netflix, Netflix had hundreds of 1000s. So keep in mind that initially, Netflix disrupted blockbuster, using almost the same delivery method, the US mail service versus actually you go into the story from beginning up, but it was a physical delivery, for those of you are old enough, right? Because it goes very, very fast. Way before the ability of instantly downloading your movie or streaming it. Right. So what that proves is that it's not necessarily the technology that disrupted blockbuster, but more so to customer service. Because prior to the ability of streaming a movie or show, Netflix demonstrated the ad using a brick and mortar system of actually having you order three DVDs in the mail and returning to you know, you actually could disrupt blockbuster, which they did very, very successfully way before to start streaming movies.

And speaking of that situation, did you ever find any other businesses that you were working with specifically, like, I think we've talked a lot about, you know, your general experiences with businesses, but like, more of a one on one thing? Like, what specific scenarios have you seen where a big business or a business you've been working with has made an issue and you've kind of fixed it before they ended up similar to Blockbuster?

It's a very interesting question, because you actually have an entire cottage industry of businesses trying to do that. Right. It's, and sometimes it works. Sometimes it fails. So for example, you have a lot of startups today that are focusing on a problem that they see a big company being affected by and trying to build that solution with ultimately the intent of selling the company to them as that solution. Right. It's a little risky venture, in my opinion, because what happens is that usually the entrepreneurs that set themselves out to do that tend to underestimate the fact that most of these big companies are trying to do the same thing concurrently internally, right? Don't Don't assume that they are not aware of those problems because they're deeply aware of those problems. Can you sell your concept to them if it solves a critical pain point? Absolutely under the condition that number one You can demonstrate today that the problem can be solved at which point in time they'll pay an exorbitant fee just to get rid of the problem rather than trying to re engineer it internally, right. But it all depends on market timing as well. You may be behind, you may say, today, I'm going to build this, and the company has already been working on it for six months, 12 months, two years before you even get started. And by the time you bring it to market, they may have already solved a problem and, you know, internally, or purchase another startup that was ahead of the game.

Yes. And that must be a stressful thing for entrepreneurs, because with tech, you kind of have to get out things before other people do. Or you're gonna have to do your own type of twist on it. And did you ever have entrepreneurs that are more like crazy hustlers, they were just trying to rush things out, and you had to slow them down at times,

you definitely do have that. That definitely exists. And I've had more of the opposite kind of the entrepreneurs that don't understand the value of hustle, okay, or underestimate the value of Hustler, which is a critical component critical ingredient to start up entrepreneurs success. So the easiest way to say it is that look, I'd rather invest in a deal. That is an okay idea, but we're great and crazy execution. Then the best idea since sliced bread with poor execution, the former will always outperform the ladder. And you have to have an element of hustle inside your organization. If it's not you, if you're an engineer, and you're not a hustler, find a hustler to work with you. You need to have a complementary team. If you're a pure Hustler, find an engineer. Right? You have to understand that great teams are not teams of generalists to teams of specialists. When you're building a team, you're building a puzzle. Let's say that puzzle has 100 pieces. The last person I need on that on that board is another me I have no room to place that piece. I'm already there. On the right hand side of a gaping hole, that gaping hole, maybe marketing, maybe finance, maybe sales, and sales on hospital obviously go hand in hand, right? I need to fill in that blank in order to build my puzzle. And that's what you have to do on a day to day basis as a startup entrepreneur.

Again, you know, that's a really seasoned outlook, because I think most people would prefer to hire new people. They're a lot like themselves, because they'll think they'll do the job just as well. Or

big mistake, right? Because the last person that did you need on your team is someone who taps you back and say, good job, you need to be constantly challenged. And so for example, at unicorn, we're roughly 30 people right now, from 18 different nationalities, and actually more women than men, which is almost unheard off in the tech scene. Right? And no one told us that we needed to have that right. We have Argentinians, we got Brits, we got Vietnamese, we got French, we got Australians, Americans, etc, etc. Right on our team. I think we're all looking at this loosely term, this loosely use defined term called diversity. The last thing we need to be told is what diversity should look like. If you're building your right team, if you're doing the right thing, if you're looking for the best talent, you will discover for yourself that while your internal team may be strong, there's always someone smarter on the outside. A lot of companies are finding that out, right? Could be the kid in Cameroon, it could be another kid in Indonesia, a girl in Mongolia, you name it, right? I'm just making this up. But that's exactly how it works. Right? So what we're trying to do, what the politicians are trying to do is say, Oh, you have to be a good boy, you have to behave a certain way and trying to dictate, okay, you need to have this ratio of men versus women and cetera, et cetera. Well, that just doesn't work. Right? It is anything that's imposed on us, number one, we're not going to respect we're human beings, right? But actually, if you're playing the cards, right, if you iterate, if you're a true entrepreneur, you will discover that is exactly what will happen without anybody having to tell you to do so. That's exactly what we discovered internally, right? If you want to have a great team, by definition, you're going to have a nice ratio of men versus women. And they're going to be coming from all over the place. Right? Once we colonize Mars, I'll probably bring in two or three Martians as well. And that's, that's, that's just the lay of the land. That's how it works.

Yeah, because you know, when you impose things, you create requirements, and you're not filling in necessities a lot of times

100%. Right.

How did you so was reading really the main way you found out all of these different concepts or was it also the experience as well? That you have?

I think, more I, my experience was first theoretical, first and foremost, coming by way of reading. And very practical because I had a very strong mentor in my life, my maternal grandmother, who was extremely strong World War Two resistant, had, you know, lived through horrendous war losing most all of our siblings, you know, eight out of 11 siblings. And, you know, that marked me very at a very, very early time in my, in my formative years, because my parents were working, and she was always around me telling him what not to do, what to do, how discipline, they need to be how I should never give up doing this, and this and that. And that, for me, was an amazing gift growing up as a child.

So other entrepreneurs, in many ways, is it best? Is it in the best interest for you to tell your story in order to connect more with them emotionally? Or would you always come at them from a more logical perspective first? Or would you go with showing your credibility more like, I'm trying to understand how you would draw and an entrepreneur that's been hustling that's kind of in their own mental trance? Because I sort of know a few entrepreneurs, and they kind of are always in this state where they're always lost in their own mission? How do you kind of pull them out of that kind of world that they're in?

I think the easiest, excellent question. By the way, the easiest way to handle this situation, is not by trying to figure out who you should be. Don't act, but try to be authentic, find your inner voice, and define it, whatever that inner voice may be. Because every time you try to deviate from your core, from your true core, you're going to fail, because it's just not sustainable. And we're all different. Right? So first of all, ask yourself, at the deepest inner level, who am I? Why am I here? What do I want to do with my life? Try to encapsulate that, try to take a third party view of yourself imagining an out of body experience, you actually see yourself in your chair or on your desk, asking yourself that question, but you see yourself as a third party, another person looking at you. What does that? What does that third party see? How would they define you? What is your DNA? Right, mate, take some time, because a lot of people were too busy doing all sorts of things. We never ask ourselves that question. It took me years to find that out, right. But once you really know who you are at the deepest core, write it down. And then basically build your own life mantra, I know who I am right now, which basically will make you feel extremely secure versus insecure, because you're not trying to be someone else. You're not trying to act, you are yourself. And once you get to that point, you will see how the barriers will break down. How quickly because that personal integrity, that humility, will transcend every obstacle you've ever met in your life, you will break through to people a lot easier, whoever they may be an investor, a media person, the person, an older person, that you're helping across the street, etcetera, etcetera. Because again, you're not playing a game, you are who you are. And that reverberates to everybody around you. And now people want to be associated with that, because people are looking for sincerity. People are looking for uniqueness. And we're all unique as individuals. So you have to clearly define that and get that across to the people you want to engage with.

And how do you think entrepreneurs conveys sincerity? Because from the looks of it, a lot of entrepreneurs have problems being themselves, do you think you have to work more as almost a coach or a life coach in a way to help them with their other issues? And then you bring them to the entrepreneurship world? Because that's very difficult.

Yeah, I think what you said is 100%, right? So in most cases, entrepreneurs try to act, but it's a loser's game, because if you're trying to act in front of an astute investor, he's going to read right through you sooner rather than later. It's going to be like a house of you building a house of cards that's not defensible. Right? So what you're seeing very often from young entrepreneurs is that it will come in and just say make a crazy statement like we're breaking into $100 billion industry and over the next three years, we intend to grab a 5% market share I billion out of thin out of thin air, right? You're, you're done with any investor, right? Because you're not authentic. You don't show you actually it's disrespectful because you actually believe that that investor will eat what you just delivered to him, which will never happen,

like right assaulting their intelligence.

That's exactly what's happening. And that happens every single day. I mean, look, I get, on LinkedIn alone, between 50 and 80 pitches on average a day. And I can tell you right now, 60 to 70% of them are exactly like that. hit delete, before I even look any further. done. over with, right. So again, once going back to what we discussed earlier, once you've actually figured out who you are and who you want to be and how you want to impact this world, encapsulate that in a mantra, right, and then work on your hook points. Now it's time now that you know who you truly are your authentic self, how you communicate that to others. So they actually will work with you knowing that they're right, the person who actually reads your mantra, because it's your true self is perfectly aligned with you. If they agree to work with you, you don't have to play any games anymore.

Right.

Now everything is aligned, you're telling the person exactly who you are, what drives you, right? Why you started that business, what impact and legacy you want to leave on that world. And you feel it emotionally, right? That will translate much more so than anything else that you could possibly make up. And that will bring the right people into your circle into your network.

Right? And thing is, you said sincerely, I think you know, sincerely may be the biggest one, because how I see it is a lot of these entrepreneurs know that they're not in a good position. And they feel like they need to play themselves up in a way in order to get your attention. Because at the end of the day, if you're an investor, and you're a guy that gives money, people already know, you're all the way up here. So they feel like they need to bring themselves up here, when in reality, they need to develop trust, because that's really what's unique.

There's nothing more sincere you could tell a potential investor or potential partner or even a potential client than being humble enough to recognize your shortcomings. Right, because that's what actually creates buy in, tell them what you're strong at, tell them what you're weak at. Because in most cases, that investor has resources, aside from money, we can actually fill in the blanks. So rather than saying, Look, we're good at everything, which is an immediate turn off, you know, tell them look, this is exactly where we are today. Let's look at the facts. were excellent. And this, we're doing so so on this and right now we suck at that. Right? And the investor may come back to you. He said, Well, first of all, thank you very much for being brutally honest, I might be able to help you with where your where your weaknesses, you know, I know this and this and this person. And if you didn't do that, you would have never gotten that tip.

And you know, it's so contradictory now that I really think about it. Because if your business is doing so well, why are you even talking to an investor in the first place?

If you could validate the fact that you're gonna grab 5% market share and$100 billion industry you're done. Go to the bank to write your blank check. If you've proven it, don't talk to an investor, you're already done. Right? That's take that to the bank. But we all know, you know, you're lying. So it's not sustainable.

So we kind of talked about this insecurity part of it, but what about the uniqueness now? So what what type of uniqueness do you actually look for in an entrepreneur? Because I think, you know, uniqueness is really general, and I can't really seem to hit on what specifically is needed for that. In your eyes,

I think I think you could probably define the DNA of an entrepreneur as someone who is not afraid to fail. Okay. Beyond that, someone who realizes that failure is a stepping stone to success. And that's demonstrated by science. In my own life. In my early days, it was mentioned to you earlier, when we used to sell websites to businesses in 1994, I had the rule of 36 over one. And that rule meant that I had to call 36 People actually physically speak to them before I would sell one website. But if you drill down deeper, what that means is I had to go through 35 failures before having one success. But the motivation behind it once you actually realize the math, you want to go as quickly as possible through to failures to get to that success. So I wanted to die on more and more and more. And ultimately what happened I would make more and more sales, because I would basically eliminate the people who want to work Why would not want to work with me. So you have to not only, not be afraid of, afraid to fail, you actually have to embrace failure, knowing that it is the painful way that will lead you ultimately to success. One of the famous quote was Thomas Edison won the media, asked him, "How did you succeed where so many others have failed with the light bulb?" His answer was, "I finally ran out of things that did not work." Again, what that means is that look, I failed 1000s of times, eventually, I ran out of things I could possibly fail on that I had no choice but to succeed. Similar quotes, I'm going to misquote him right now, Michael Jordan, when he said, "Look the majority of the shots that I took in my career were failures I missed. yet, people look at me as the best basketball player ever." In baseball, your batting average, man, you're missing a lot more than you're hitting. Right? And the bay Bruce of the world and what not the best batters ever. I'm not a baseball specialist. But you know, if you're bad to above point, point three, zero, you're one of the top, you know, batters in the world. So you're failing seven times out of 10. Yet your success. But most people, the number one trade of an entrepreneur is zero fear of failure. And beyond that, the ability to embrace failure, because he knows, I need to iterate, I need to fail as quickly as possible, because those are the cheapest failures, right? The worst thing you want to do is fail consistently, and not realize you're failing, because you can't pivot. Right. And today, especially in the tech industry, we have so many tools that will quickly tell us whether we are on the right track or not. Let's say we're selling a product or service, the e commerce website. It's all driven by metrics. And we want to buy traffic, be it by way of Facebook ads, Google ads, Twitter, you name it, whatever the source is, we can we can instantly track conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, etc. If you're just buying blindly traffic from multiple sources, and you're not tracking the conversion rate, it's like driving a car or the ice covered. Right? You're gonna crash. But if you doing it right, and you measure everything, you can quickly iterate what doesn't work tune it out, that was a mini failure, you recognize that instantly and you shut it off? If you let it run, it's going to burn a hole in your pocket. Right? That's, that's what we're talking about here is quickly iterating. I'm not saying that failure is a great thing. I'm just saying. I'm just saying the failure, failure is a necessary stepping stone that will lead to success. As long as you realize it is a failure, you can isolate it and get rid of it.

Earlier than response. So damage control in a sense. Yeah. You know, um, why do you think there is a fear of failure a lot, and many entrepreneurs,

you know, it goes back to our caveman days, right? Where fear is a very powerful element in the human psyche, and it's hard coded in our DNA. When we were cavemen, and there was this crazy wolf behind us it was very hungry is there in Istanbul? Were down by leg getting water? Flight, right? Immediate. That's, it's a reflex, right? You know, to show you the mind games, the tricks the mind and human mind can play in ourselves. Let's assume this. Let's assume we're sitting in a cafe, and all of a sudden you're armed. armed gunmen covered, they come in with a shotgun to hold that shotgun against our heads. Our adrenaline is pumping, we're going to fear for our life, we're going to think we're gonna die. Logical right? Now, they take the hoodie off. And it's the plastic gun, that's your buddy playing a nasty trick on you. And there's not even any bullets. We didn't react differently. What that means is that the human mind sometimes has a hard time differentiating between reality and fiction. If that weren't true, we wouldn't be drawn into movies. Because we know movies are fake. Right? Yet we live what the characters live evermore. So it becomes very vivid, right? Or our dreams, right? How many times do we wake up and say that's just a dream or we some, somehow between reality and fiction. But the thing is, the human mind cannot make the difference sometimes between reality and fiction. We don't know what's real, and what is not.

You know, and what you just said there was a really interesting thing because a lot of entrepreneurs do live in almost a dreamlike state because they're always constantly looking into the future. Sure, maybe seeing their success in the future, and maybe they'll over exaggerate or they look at failures in the future. And they also over exaggerate that, too. How do you help entrepreneurs balance between being realistic and doing the work and responding and reacting to failures, while at the same time looking forward? With a good mindset, but not one that's going too far into the dream world?

Yeah, this is? I mean, this is a very, very interesting question. Because I think the easiest way to answer that is that if you're building a product or service, clearly, you're 100%, right, you have to be a visionary number one, and you're projecting yourself to some point in the future, where you will launch that product, launch that service. So you kind of like have to visualize what that will look like. But I think that the fact the way you anchor yourself into reality is by telling yourself, no matter how far in the future, I'm protecting myself with my product or service, the people who will be using the product or service will use it in their present at that time. Right. So you could do that in hindsight, in fact, and say, Okay, we are here today. Sometime in the past, let's, let's say, I'm going back in the past now versus going into the future, right. But with hindsight, what products are we using today? And who conceived them? And what iterations did they go through in the past, to get to where we are today. So leverage history, what has worked, what has not worked, even though past performance is never indicative of future performance. Let's not forget that we're not just starting as human beings, devising products and services today, it's been going on for centuries, right. But the bottom line is, no matter how much of a visionary you are, the people who will be buying your products or services will buy those products or services in their present. So never lose, lose touch with presence and look at what we have today. And compare it to, you know, the crazy entrepreneurs are crazy that Steve Job calls them, right, who had that vision of devising those products and apply that towards your journey?

And do you ever use other entrepreneurs as examples to the other one? So? Would you ever get an entrepreneur that you've worked with a lot to help another entrepreneur all the time? So you're kind of okay,

yeah, all the time. I mean, this is the, you know, this scarcity, thinking it just isn't working, especially in the tech business anymore, right? Open Source has proven how powerful it can be to including solving diseases like like COVID, right? Think of how, what COVID would have done 50 years ago, right? Think of how quickly we're able to come up with a vaccine. That only was possible because there was massive communication between the brightest scientific minds around the world. Yes, some of us still clustered working for one company versus the other. Right. But even in that case, there were 10s of 1000s of scientists just like working tirelessly, day and night. You know, putting the research on the table for everybody else to use open sourcing their research, open sourcing their findings, right, thanks to the internet. And if we before the end on that, think about how slow this information was moving, how quickly do we attach a document right now video, do a screen share to see exactly what we're working on? Think about the leap in productivity that his that this has produced for mankind.

And what you just mentioned there is really interesting, because I'm thinking now what type of methods of coaching do you actually implement? Is it more one on one or more group coaching, where you bring in somebody and kind of have them work with each other, which one is more effective in your eyes for making the best entrepreneur to represent your business?

I think that 214 So it's definitely group coaching. Where you trying to identify some friction points in a team issues that affect them that are slowing him down in terms of workflow in terms of efficiency, there, you would actually talk to a team, or bring in another team that has actually already resolved that same situation they were in to actually share that experience and how they overcame it. And I think something that's very, very powerful when you're team leader is to identify so you have this force, your team leader, so you're basically orchestrating this forest, and you have on the left hand side, a tree that may be dying, find out why. Right? Find out how you can nurture that tree along. That would be one of your employees to bring it back. Pick up to speed with everything else, because you're building an ecosystem where, you know, everybody's working together, etc, etc. So no employee should be left behind. Unless he really wants out at which point in time, you just gotta let him go because you you can't let cancer miss that metastasize either, right? But what I find works best, which we're doing internally, is just checking in with everybody, you know, give them a fist bump every single day, how's it going? You know, are you struggling with anything? Right? Let me know if you have any problem, boom, boom, boom, do this early in the morning, quick pep talk 3060 seconds, and the entire DNA changes, right? Make sure that you have an open door policy that is any question that they have, they can always come to you. Be open, promote discussions amongst your team members, etc, etc. Make sure they don't get too clustered, move them around a little bit different tables, right? Make them work. Teams are not accustomed to working with each other, make them work with each other, and your productivity will shoot through the roof.

And productivity, that's another one. So hustling is important, but productivity as well. How do you make a business maximize their productivity?

Depends what business you're in. Right? Obviously, if you're running a bigger shop, it's going to be a different than if you're running in a an AI venture, right? But I think at the onset, it all goes down to two things It goes comes down to humans, and machines, whether that machine is a bagel maker, or does such a thing, I'm not a bagel specialist, I like to eat them, but I don't know how to make them. Or whether that is a piece of software for technology company, right? AI is a perfect example. A lot of people are afraid of artificial intelligence, and not knowing that actually, as humans are designing this artificial intelligence. And then you've heard most of you have heard of the term runaway AI, where the artificial intelligence gets so powerful that it will run its own course and leave us humans behind. Which in my opinion, is a fallacy. because it assumes wrongly assumes that we will not integrate with artificial intelligence, that's already the case. If you're wearing a pacemaker today, you have artificial intelligence inside your body. We're being augmented by a number of means. And we'll continue to do so. At one point in time, humankind will have to make a decision, how augmented do we want to be? Do we want to remain purely biological beings? Or will we decide to become bionic? And that's a question we have to ask ourselves in next 10 to 15 years. Right? Transhumanism? Yeah, absolutely. So you know, you either embrace it, or you don't. But at the end of the day, if you don't, you will be left behind. That's the bottom line. It's everybody's prerogative, some people will opt out. But there will be the new couch potatoes with much smarter bionic human beings walking around, who have Google built in, have Wikipedia built in. And whatever else has not been this, you know, device today will be built in will be connected to the cloud, we will have direct access to the entire sum of human intelligence, since the very first man walked the earth. Right. I personally would like to see that. I would personally like to live with it, and live through it. But I can completely understand someone opting out and saying, I want no part of this. I just don't want that person to tell me what I should be doing or not.

Now, what are some? I know we're reaching the end of our talk here, but what are some lasting things that you think will be important for entrepreneurs to know?

Yes, it's some good questions. They're really like this. I think that a big mistake that many entrepreneurs are doing is trying to grab a crystal ball and as you mentioned, predict the future, which to a certain extent, we all have to do. We don't have to predict it, but at least we have to anticipate it. But there's also a fallacy in the sense where you don't always have to chase a trend, be a trend chaser in order to build a great startup and build a great business. And Jeff Bezos recently said that at Amazon, they're not trying to chase the next big thing. What they're really working on, is working on things that do not change. The mainstays. People will wake up tomorrow, they're going to be hungry. They want to get food and want to get clothing, they want to get shelter. They like to interact with other humans in a safe manner, in an enjoyable manner. They like to entertain themselves, right? When they're buying a product or service. Ideally, they'd like to have good costs. Customer Service versus bad, right? So think about catering to what's not changing, and identify some friction points, right? Clearly, the experience that we have today with Netflix is quite a bit more pleasant than having returning a movie late a blockbuster and paying $45 for returning in late, which is an insult anyone's intelligence, right? Think about how you can actually build businesses that satisfy people. Because as human beings, we want to live enjoyable lives, we don't like to break our legs. If we do, we'd like to have someone who can help us fix it quickly and efficiently. So if you're working in that space, right now, we're in the biotech space, think along those lines. But I would focus on things that do not change. And that's where sustainability and durability comes in, instead of disrupting yourself, because you project yourself too much in the future. And again, no one has a crystal ball. I don't have one either. So it's very hard to predict something that doesn't happen hasn't happened yet. But it's very easy to predict something that's been happening for sometimes hundreds of years. And they will continue to be here today and that you can build

we know that was a very good answer. And I would like to thank you for just being on this show right now. It was a definitely a privilege. You've taught I think a lot of people around here and also me a lot about what it means to you know, be an entrepreneur, especially in the tech industry. And yeah, thank you. You know, do you have any other final things to say thank

you for the opportunity for those people want to find me LinkedIn is easy. Dom Einhorn. D O M as in Mary. Einhorn, E-I-N-HORN. In fact einhorn in German means unicorn. Hence the name of the incubator. uniqornincubator.com. That's the website with a "Q that's a little play on words and my personal emails want to get a hold of me is dom@uniqornincubator.com.

Thank you, and this is The Jimbo Paris Show.