Pipedream provides the citywide infrastructure to make delivery cheaper, so you can start deciding what you want delivered and whether the fees are worth it. Pipedream's all-electric system allows cities to make deliveries cheaper while reducing the Co2 emissions generated from traditional vehicle deliveries and making cities quieter, safer and reducing traffic. By allowing drivers to deliver more items per hour, Pipedream makes the work of delivery drivers more efficient, without the stress.
Providing better delivery infrastructure in cities, means more opportunities for the people and businesses that call your city home.
Providing better delivery infrastructure in cities, means more opportunities for the people and businesses that call your city home.
Cory McKane 0:37
Hi, I'm Cory McKane, CEO of we strive an all in one platform for personal trainers and gym owners to build and scale their business. I want to welcome you to the why we strive podcast where I interview some of the most incredible founders, investors, professional athletes and more from around the world. We do a deep dive into the who, what, when, where, how and why they strive. Make sure you tune in and subscribe every single week so that you can watch and listen to some incredible people tell absolutely amazing stories on how they got here. Now let's get to this week's episode. Nice.
Drew Bellcock 1:12
Nice you doing bubbly Lacroix
Cory McKane 1:14
did the bubbly
Canon Reeves 1:17
rose on Yeah. It really does. And I
Cory McKane 1:19
actually is way better than Lacroix
Canon Reeves 1:21
for sure as a staunch anti sparkling water. I like it.
Drew Bellcock 1:24
That saints up did folks. All
Cory McKane 1:26
right. Well, welcome. This is the why we show episode one. We spoke the second one today. So but it's Episode One officially no one knows. Oh, yeah. So these two he was working on a robot built this in like 30 minutes. So I'm gonna press guys. I'm really proud of you. Whenever there's gonna be done. We have lights, we have a whole podcast studio that was built in less than a few hours. So proud of you guys. Okay, so I'm here with the Pipe Dream Team. Here. We got your boy, Garrett. We got Drew, we got to get it. All right, can you guys quickly go through what your rules are at the company. And then we're going to cover what the company does. And I'm gonna do a big backtrack.
Garrett Scott 2:01
I strictly have an email job. I answer the company's email. I do a pretty good I take the Zoom meetings. Not much else anymore.
Drew Bellcock 2:09
Yeah, that's true. That's true. I am the CFO. I do everything that's not robots and emails.
Canon Reeves 2:18
I'm the CTO and I do everything. That's robots. So no emails. No,
Drew Bellcock 2:22
that's true. He will not email you back.
Cory McKane 2:25
Do people email you literally like to talk to the CEO or CTO by dream? Like you are just kind of like, yeah, maybe
Canon Reeves 2:32
I get a few from like, suppliers and stuff. But I
Cory McKane 2:36
never reply, like,
Canon Reeves 2:38
Yeah, I do sometimes, but not much. If you ever have another reply
Cory McKane 2:41
from Ken, he has, he has people. If you've ever tried to use your laptop, outside or on the moon, you'll know that it's impossible to see your screen in direct sunlight, and laptops will overheat and shut down surprisingly quickly outside. here in Austin, the team Hudson shader have solved that problem. Sun shader is the sunshade heat shade and privacy shade for your laptop. So you can work efficiently from coffee shops, co working spaces, or with your friends on campus. From the beach to pool, your backyard or balcony, from airports airplanes in Airbnbs. I've got one it is now part of my everyday work here that fits easily into my backpack, sunshade or can also be co branded with your company logo, your brand story for incredible and practical swag to give to your employees, customers and partners. Check them out at Sun shader.com and use code why we strive for 15% off. Let's try this off. So I I met Garrett in Oklahoma City shout out to the OKC boots, the pipe dream crew or the the boots crew. And when I actually had to do my podcast two years ago, it was one of my 13th episode for the new way with Faraj. And it was cool to see you talk about what pipe dream was going to become what you guys were going to do with my dream and then we're in your guy in your in your warehouse. So we will call it where we call it pipe house. Yeah. We're in your pipe house. Almost. It was September of 2020. So we're almost two years later. We're living the dream you guys. Absolutely you guys. Can I say what you guys have done so far let you take over at this point who wants to talk about what pipe dream is and what you guys are building?
Garrett Scott 4:16
Yeah, yeah, we can definitely talk about what it is I think is like the progress we've made. I think we probably way more pessimistic about it.
Cory McKane 4:27
I'm so I'm pretty much on the inside of this point. I like I like real estate here now. Yeah,
Garrett Scott 4:33
I don't think we're I don't think we're gonna be happy until we make a delivery on a real network. I don't know about you guys. But until then I feel like we've done nothing. We like really proud of the team. We've made a lot of progress but like, I don't feel calm or settled.
Drew Bellcock 4:49
Yeah, it's one of those hard things like it's such a binary outcome and it takes years to work up to that so it's just like a little disheartening until it's done.
Cory McKane 4:58
So really quick, let's cover Are the three of you all's daily roles? Like we obviously that CEO and CTO, CEO, COO. So Garrett, what do you do on a daily basis? Besides emails we get like it'll take. Yeah, true. And the candidate,
Garrett Scott 5:12
okay, um, this is probably the hardest transition for me. Because when we started pipe dream, it like, not to use a sports analogy, because it's super annoying. But you're gonna be like, it's gonna be Basketball, basketball was the best for analogies. It's not my Yeah, but I'm the tough thing about startup is like when you're starting, there's no one on the court. So it's just you and you have to sync baskets, and you get really good at syncing baskets. He gets so good at syncing baskets. Yeah, is that's how it feels, right? So you're like, I'm super good at shooting baskets and making them and then you're like, okay, and you bring someone else on, and he comes on, she comes on, and they help you sync baskets, and the two of you sinking baskets, and then you get so good that you're like, alright, we need to bring on a real team, when you bring on like skill players here. And then you bring them on, and you're not on the floor shooting baskets anymore. If you do, you're gonna mess up the flow of everyone else, because you brought on better basketball players. And so then your role is just like be the coach. Right? And it feels like you've gotten in this flow of like words, you're like, the amount of action that you're doing is directly contributing to the success of the company. That's your first couple, like, you know, when it's just the two of you, that's true. And then when you move, you know, to like, the analogy that I use, and sorry, is like, you know, CEOs more of a coach, then you have the GM is like CEO running like tours and operations and everyone else is on the court, you bring your star players who can can sink in threes, you know, in my points. You can't do that in hockey. That's a that's a Hetrick. But it's like, you know, it's tough, because like, my knee jerk is like, Oh, well, like, if we're not doing good, then I need to get out there and shoot, even if we're doing good. I'm like, I'm gonna get out there with some baskets, I'm gonna score. That's what I've been doing this whole time. And it's more of like, sit back and wait for something to go wrong. Make sure the plays are being run, you know, think ahead, you know, what are we going to need during the first quarter? What are we going to need in the second, third quarter. So it's a lot less like direct input in direct output out. It's tough. It's a tough transition. So now most of my thing is like, make sure the team is good, making sure we're heading in the right direction. You know, pick up a couple of big like fundraising, you know, making sure we don't ever money. We probably weren't annoyed. Make sure we don't run out of money, maybe more than I should. But really, that just like, you know, the big picture stuff. Where are we going? Make sure we don't run out of money. And then make sure everyone's set up to be great. Make sure Ken and set up with everything he needs to sync threes make sure Justin set up to do everything that he does well. And that's pretty much it.
Cory McKane 7:48
So speaking of we touched on making sure everything's running correctly. So that will go to true. Because you don't have to step in until something goes wrong, because we're true. Has a record. Yeah, basketball says, I don't know if I can come up with a basketball metaphor for you. He was like an injustice. Like, you know, he's doing whatever you read on a player, so you can just you can start with?
Drew Bellcock 8:10
Yeah, yeah, so my day to day is all over the place depends on like, what we're doing. If we're in an IF Canons in a design, Sprint, it's a lot of like, making sure they have the machines that they need, the parts that they need. There's always something that's like out of stock, and we have to design around it or like buy it from some obscure country. We don't need to get into that. But yeah, a lot of that, and then a lot of helping on the planning side, like where can we put networks that will be profitable during the financial, like, the crossover analysis between like finances and engineering? Like, what what can we achieve? And like, how profitable will that be? And then, working with everyone and making sure like, all the different parts coming together. Garrett does a lot of the like, high level vision stuff, and then I get to do they'll like, making sure all the little details come together. You get to do I get to do it. I am happy to be here. There's no place I would rather
Cory McKane 9:12
like we're gonna do this and she was like, I guess we can do that.
Garrett Scott 9:15
And then he gets to go do it. Yeah, I
Drew Bellcock 9:17
get to go do it. Yeah,
Garrett Scott 9:18
exactly how I wanted to say I drew just a lot of the chores like you don't want your sorry, you don't want like Steph Curry, like making sure you're paying taxes. You know, like you want someone to do all the back office stuff, all the chores that you have to do to keep the business like legal so everyone else can just stay creative. Stay focused on like, driving forward. And this torture does
Drew Bellcock 9:38
pipe dream is completely legal. By the way. He said that kind of weird. I want to clarify like everything's aboveboard, we're not trying not to.
Cory McKane 9:46
And then we have Canada in there who who is the third coming of the founders. So it drew you started right? Back So Kenny came in third Have you heard that better? I don't even know. Anyways, get started. Drew came in pretty quickly, right? Like few months, anything like that? Yeah. Okay. Yes.
Garrett Scott 10:09
It's tough to say when I first started, you know, this is like a long diligence process so well so
Drew Bellcock 10:13
Garrett Garrett first told me about it in like, I think 2015 15 Okay. Yeah. You're you had like your six inch prototype. Back in college?
Garrett Scott 10:24
I'm pretty sure you did. We may have to take this part out. All right.
Cory McKane 10:31
But basically, Kenny comes in and you're just like, What can I ask you about your background? Because you didn't just like the order someone's hardest. Gotta love robotics. Like you had a poll last company that like was in the robotics space? I mean, you touch on that
Canon Reeves 10:44
a little bit? Yeah, I dropped out of school in 2018 to start a robotics company. Yeah, we were selling like modular robots to school. So we make like kits. And, yeah, I just, I, we ended up exiting to one of the largest competitors in the space in like, 2021. And so I just been there like redesigning our product from the ground up having a ton of fun. And but it was like, starting to weigh on me this like, I'm like, not working on my thing, like my startup, but still working on the tech that I liked. And I found Garrett and drew on Twitter. And I reached out to Drew I was like, Hey, how far along are y'all? And it was on a viral tweet that was getting a ton of hate? Oh, please do? Yeah.
Garrett Scott 11:22
Okay. So um, when we Andrew started it, we like, when we had no money. That's your burning cash. It was just like
Unknown Speaker 11:29
savings spending on like, just parts and stuff like that, or what? Just parts and like living?
Drew Bellcock 11:37
That'll do, that'll do it. Part of our budget.
Garrett Scott 11:42
But yeah, it's just, it was just just my savings were just like any tool that we had, it was like, Oh, we really, we really got to get the cheapest one possible. And then just living expenses we read because we were focused on this, we weren't doing anything else. So we were burning through cash. And then we got a little cash in the door. We were like, okay to make first hire. And we had the rule that the only rule that we really had at the company at the time was, every person we bring on has to be so good, that you look at the company. And that person you're like, that new person doesn't belong. Like there's, there's so much better than everybody else, which made it super hard to hire. And we looked for like, three months, months, months, and a ton of people. And we always have monthly meeting, which is like when we like take a step back and look at okay, how are we doing on objectives? How are we doing on the company? And it was July 3, and Drew said, Look, we have been trying to find something someone better than us for months, and it's like we're literally not making progress. And so we just need to take someone we need to break the rule. And we need to make an offer to this person who is just as good as us but not like so much better. And I was like okay, fine. Like maybe maybe we were wrong, maybe like this is super hard. It's it's really delaying us. And then someone put out a tweet about us. They're like, Oh, this this is what a cool steampunk company and it went super viral. And who was it? Namely blue Navy, whoo, who is receiving tastic. And we use our printers. Yeah, we are using printers who have been downstairs. Yeah, name is great. It is not her fault. But she was like, this is super stupid. Well, she she tweeted like, this is really dumb. Oh, God, which isn't like
Drew Bellcock 13:29
pretty much exactly like
Garrett Scott 13:30
that. Yeah. So she just tweeted, this is really dumb. And then Kenan saw it.
Drew Bellcock 13:34
And he goes, and he was like, typing out a message to agree with her. Right?
Canon Reeves 13:38
I was gonna make fun of them for their CAD model. Yeah, they hadn't, which is, which was fair. To
Cory McKane 13:45
me, of course, but like someone that does understand what
Canon Reeves 13:46
that means. They had a CAD model, and it wasn't like what they had designed that was gonna make fun of it was that there was scenes called inmates that they had shown. I'm trying to like, it's like if Excel short showed the formula. And yes, and so I was gonna be like, Man, someone should show them how to, like, hide that meat. Like, it's hard for me to.
Garrett Scott 14:07
But it was on me, I made that catalog. And it wasn't that I didn't know I just realized that later on. I was like,
Drew Bellcock 14:12
Yeah, whatever. Totally. already out on the internet. No one's
Garrett Scott 14:16
gonna screenshot it and tweet that.
Cory McKane 14:20
Yeah. early stage startup, like got that kind of traction. You're like, Okay, I was gonna find ready for this, yeah. So you find this and you're like, I can do this better. And then you just DM one of these two. And like, that's,
Canon Reeves 14:35
the idea is a brain worm. And that's what I loved about it. Because as I was going through the replies in this tweet, it was a really even mix of people just absolutely hating it with everything inside of them. And people just being like, this is the next big thing. And I think those polarizing ideas are always really interesting stuff is happening. And I just started thinking about a lot I had worked with starship, which is a sidewalk delivery robot company in like 2016. And so I had kind of like been in the space, and I had considered They're doing a similar thing, but above ground with like cable robots in the past. And so, but I just think this is super cool. So I reached out to Drew and I was like, hey, like, you know, what are you guys up to?
Drew Bellcock 15:08
He's being humble when he reached out, I didn't see it, and then he stays up at night. So that was like, at 10 o'clock at night, and then at six in the morning, he sent me a different DM, and it was an entire like video of how we should design our system to be better.
Garrett Scott 15:25
Not just how we should overnight better he designed a new system, complete model completely from the ground up video of like, how it worked and how it was better in like a night and then drew messages me and he goes, nevermind, we found some way to work with the rule. And we should make him an offer whatever he wants. Yeah, I think you said we found a unicorn.
Drew Bellcock 15:45
I did. That was my first message. I was like, I found a unicorn. We're hiring him now. I don't care what you said.
Cory McKane 15:53
Was there a process Robin? Can I go hired? Are you just like build a bunch of shit? And like, let's see what happens kind of thing.
Canon Reeves 15:59
You know, it's hard with a system like this, because I like to make like a, a train track analogy. So if I was going to design a train, like the track is already kind of there. Well, actually, sorry, let me start that over. Explain that completely wrong. Yeah, so like designing around the the pipe dream system is really interesting. Because when you're creating the trains, for example, right, they were able to design both the track and the train. And it's just kind of like ebb and flow, where you can design a track and it's a lot easier for the train to stay seated. And then you can design the train to like work on the track, right? With our system, we were just wanting to we were driving in standard utility pipes. And so the track is kind of set so that it's like, okay, how do you design the train around this to adapt to this environment? And so really, what I started by doing is breaking down, like, how does the robot like, both drive through the pipe, which I don't think is the hardest thing driving through the pipe is pretty easy. It's really like, how do you get cargo in and out of it? How do you take turns? How do you do like, all of these other things that you need to be able
Cory McKane 17:01
to do? Right? Like, going from here to there? It's like doing a bunch of shit. Yeah, it's
Canon Reeves 17:05
like a modular network. And that's really where like, I think my background really came to help. Here's like, I have been designing modular robots. For the last three years I've been I've been through like, three pretty in depth new systems and, and with modular rules. Like when you're creating the Lego like, it's a very simple modular rule, but that modular rule allows you to create really simple things with the bricks but also an entire Deathstar. Right. And so with our system, it needed to be able to function at the low level and be simple, but also, you know, be an infinitely adjustable network that can be installed in the city.
Cory McKane 17:35
And what I love is when he's talking, he was like, looking at and it's like, I love the three of you all's like, like dynamic, it's like, you're the You're like the big brain SEO that like just forgetting over here, like you're doing one task and then you're like, okay, but now I'm gonna close like a million dollars over here and then I'm over here. And then Drew's the guy's like, alright, alright, Gary, let's make sure the million dollars is closed. And we're doing this over here. And then he's just built robots like the permits pretty much you guys are just like, and it works away. We should not work it makes no sense. Like, Garrett, we had a trip to Miami I mean, all three of you there and Garrett shows up with this big pipe and it was delivered. We tell the story about where it was delivered the delivery to the wrong address in Miami.
Garrett Scott 18:16
We had like everything you
Cory McKane 18:18
know, this specific one that you had to go get an Uber and it was on the porch or whatever.
Garrett Scott 18:22
Oh, yeah. So yeah, Uber to the address and then I get there and I go to knock on the door and someone runs over and they go don't knock on that door. You should leave. I was like, I'm just gonna knock like I need to get my package is like no you need to leave right now. And then they ran off like all right,
Cory McKane 18:38
it was still terrible, sketchy neighborhood like South East or southwest of Miami. Like
Garrett Scott 18:43
it wasn't that bad. Like, if he hadn't run himself, I would have stayed and knocked on the
Cory McKane 18:49
door. We've got to have you here.
Garrett Scott 18:53
Getting getting the pipe through the airport I think is the hardest part. That's an art it's always fun.
Cory McKane 18:58
Yeah, they basically they they bring the pipe with them so they can work on it while they're on vacation. Just for like shout. Oh, that's That's right. Okay, but you didn't use it. Take that part out. That was totally incorrect.
Garrett Scott 19:09
I love the idea that we bring a
Cory McKane 19:13
couple days I didn't even think really dedicated of course that's what you had it for.
Unknown Speaker 19:19
I mean, I would if that was feasible, it was necessary.
Drew Bellcock 19:22
Yeah. can and can't sleep without it nearby. Yeah, we
Garrett Scott 19:25
if we go if we go to a party, one of us has our backpack. We always
Drew Bellcock 19:29
it's one of us and it's Garrett and
Canon Reeves 19:30
then it stays at the party when he leaves
Drew Bellcock 19:33
on the airplane.
Cory McKane 19:36
Okay, so I know this story, but you tell the story of why you chose the name pipe dream and I know Garrett tells the story all the time, but I want to only hear the story on Oh
Garrett Scott 19:43
yeah, so actually, I don't know if you guys know this, but the original name was important too,
Cory McKane 19:47
but I don't remember why. I didn't know.
Garrett Scott 19:51
When I put the project name is like when we started looking. I started looking at underground okay, I was like okay, okay, I gotta put something in my notes for like what the project is called inside called For a tube, I think it was the only like, reverse shipping lane. That sounded cool. Okay. Like Amazon tube is already taken care, it was really well done. And so I called the board tube. I think it's a river. I don't remember I looked it up, I think. So then it was like, Okay, what do we need and like an actual name. And what I was looking at is like, okay, there's going to be a lot of media attention around this. And a lot of it's going to be negative, about like, this feels impossible. Yeah. And so what are they going to write about? They're going to call it a pipe dream. So my thought is like, take the one obvious, great headline, which is a great headline, and call it something else people would be like, this is a pipe. It was great. And like, but if it's our name, then like, I wanted people to know that it wasn't hubris, yeah, that what we were trying to do, like, wasn't overconfidence, it wasn't that we thought we were like, individually great. Or, like anything special about us, we're trying something that is crazy. And probably not going to work. Yeah, and just owning that right up top and taking the headline away. That was like, it was pretty easy to like, that's the
Cory McKane 21:03
name. It's so awesome. And when I realized, I think we want to miss this, I'm gonna have a little commercial thing you have what you guys are doing on the video, but I'll have drew speak this time, but you drew, can you describe what pipe dream does and take as long as you need.
Drew Bellcock 21:18
I dream is the world's first hyper logistics company. So we deliver things from A to B within the city. And we do that autonomously, cheaply, and in a very scalable way. So right now, things are delivered around cities, in cars with human drivers, and they have to be batched. And as traffic to our roads, all these negative things, you know, that makes cities hard to live in. And at the same time, you have consumers wanting to consume things more quickly and more frequently. And we just don't have a way to facilitate that. So pipe dream really enables you to order one thing and get it efficiently and cheaply. And also scale into the future where physical things can move around as quickly as information moves around.
Cory McKane 22:10
Boom, there we go. And so with your with your target market, like I'm gonna say two different types of target markets, and then I'm gonna say whether it is used to be that or if it's going to be that in the future, whatever. So we have the b2c side delivered into a home. And we have like an Amazon like an Air Force base that has like, so much shit going on. They need things from point A to point to point B, point C, point D. Or which one of those is your target market? Or is there another one I'm missing? And then has it always been that way?
Drew Bellcock 22:37
You asked me if we want to work with the Air Force or with Amazon? Yes. Yeah. I guess both.
Cory McKane 22:44
What I'm saying I'm saying Air Force and Amazon type vibe of like, a giant area, or like b2c?
Garrett Scott 22:49
Yeah, so So definitely, um, you know, we think about it a lot is the network. So the network needs to solve, you know, when you're designing a network, you need the first implementation implementation of the network to solve a real problem. But you also need it to, like, cover enough area that you can grow it, right. So you want like every node that you add on the network, to be
Cory McKane 23:15
like, you don't wanna build this giant thing, and then have it be like four blocks, and then you can see,
Garrett Scott 23:19
you're not going to build a fifth, if you built four nodes on an aircraft carrier, if this node doesn't really build, bring anyone value, but if you build 10 nodes around the city, well, now the 11th node is providing like, not incremental value, but exponential value. And so you have a good network effect by adding to that network.
Cory McKane 23:37
I'm in a base not like a, like a, like a ship. Oh, yeah.
Garrett Scott 23:42
About like hospitals. Yeah, and like private land. And that's cool. Like, I think there is a good model there are similar i for something bigger, you know,
Cory McKane 23:50
you're gonna go through like definite, like action. So we got up to actual cities, like the maybe you don't call it b2c, but like, whatever you want to call that, like being a city, I guess. Yeah.
Garrett Scott 24:00
Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm just as you know, b2c is, you know, the, the, the internet lines are in the ocean, you know, they facilitate eventually going to the customer. And they make that possible, even though they're not directly going to the customer.
Cory McKane 24:15
Okay. And then can it can you describe the pipe itself? Like, what are the dimensions? How is it gonna function? How is it gonna, like, let's say it was going from this side of the room to that side of the room? Like, how is it gonna get there, basically?
Canon Reeves 24:25
Yeah, I think maybe a better way to explain it, like across the city, just like on a straight shot, right? Yeah. Yeah. So the pipe we use is 18 inch HDPE pipe. So this is just like standard utility pipe that you'd use like for like a watermain or something. Lots of utility companies in a city that know how to install that. Along like, in addition to the pipe, we have a Rails and so a real segment is what allows us to interface with things like a warehouse or like a distribution center. Because the robot like when it's in the pipe, great It's like the fastest, cheapest way to travel underground. But it's not a great way to get things in and out of the system. And so it has this rail that the robot transitions onto. And so yeah, that's pretty much it, like it drives in a pipe, like you'd expect. And then it drives onto this little rail and it controls its angle as it's going through the pipes that didn't get onto the rail. And then once it's on the rail, it can take turns, it can go to loading stations, all that kind of stuff.
Cory McKane 25:20
And one thing I want to make very clear because I knew Garrett first and then for for two years until about like, like it's meter and a half. Until three months ago, I did not know how you guys were using the tunnels. I thought this entire time you were utilizing current like giant, especially giant circles underground, and you're just like, on top just doing this. So y'all are actually building your own tunnels, like 18 inches wide or whatever. And that's like people do that all the time. It's not that crazy, right? Correct. Okay. Yep, missing. I literally did not know that. And then go is someone what are you three on Miami? We're like, Yeah, we're just like building our own whatever. And I was like, What do you mean, I thought you were literally like, especially we're alligators are in movies. And it's like, you guys are just like going to go into alligators. So because that I always thought this is gonna be a trillion dollar company. But the moment I met you, I was like, truly in our company. And I think it's gonna be I don't really care, we say. And I always thought you had to utilize actual current tunnels. So when I heard that you could just like put a fucking tunnel like you put tunnel down here if you wanted to. That's when I was like, Oh, shit, this can literally be anywhere in the world. Like, it's so cool. So Drew, can you describe how like you I'm not gonna I don't know if I can say which cities are in or what you're going to be doing. But like, let's say that you want to get into the city of Austin, which I'm going to keep like getting all my ties and intros and everything. So you want to get the city of Austin? Like, how do you negotiate that partnership? And let's say they say yes, like, where do you start? Just pick like, right Sixth Street, we're doing this thing like, what do you do?
Drew Bellcock 26:49
Yeah, that's, that's a really hard part. Because like, anytime you have existing network, and you add on to it, you're adding more value. But when when you're picking out the place to put the first network, you're not sure if you're gonna have that value, you need to make sure like, people live nearby, but there's also stuff nearby and that the people that live there want the stuff that's there. It's something we're still working on. You know, that's, we have our biz dev guy, Justin works on that primarily and just like trying to get datasets from existing delivery people. So that's a really hard part. But basically, we can put pipes pretty much anywhere with a few limitations. Like it's technically possible. Yeah. And cities are pretty open to it.
Cory McKane 27:34
Okay, so back to the pod. We have the cameras die, unfortunately. So y'all have moved to Austin now. So why the move from OKC to Austin? Everyone's like, that's crazy. Why would they do that? I
Drew Bellcock 27:47
heard they have good podcasts here.
Cory McKane 27:49
They do have a good partner and great podcast. Yeah. So why did you guys choose Austin specifically?
Drew Bellcock 27:54
Are you looking at me? Yeah. So we had this really over the top spreadsheet where we analyzed like, the top 20 startup cities in the US, we
Cory McKane 28:04
have that spreadsheet. So yeah, we put that up and put that Oh,
Drew Bellcock 28:07
absolutely. Throw that on the screen for you. Yeah. Mike. Yeah. So then, yeah, so then it said, like LA or something. And we were like,
Garrett Scott 28:16
said, with the top three, which were to close, like there was human error that separated the top three. So the top three were LA, Miami and Austin. Yeah. Did you guys make this or it was just like a no, we got like 20 factors and they were all weighted, which is weighted is where the human error came from. It was like, are we alive? Yeah, I used to like timezone being able to hire industry that already exists for us specifically interested in tech coach to raise money. Yeah,
Cory McKane 28:46
I think I think every single thing about Austin, for tech wise, especially is better than Miami and La minus the humidity or, you know, I'm sad to say humidity, so that's my degree. If anyone asked me it's like, what's wrong with Austin? I'm like, literally nothing. And I hate it because it makes me want to stay and I hate humidity so much. I got to my car to drive over here. My forehead has dropped all over this little sweat and I'm just like, I fucking hate this bro.
Garrett Scott 29:13
I will say Miami was top. Miami from your ability to get people out there, like quality of life. Cheap living. The ability to raise capital of the Miami was going to be better. It is too nice. I think it's too hard to build stuff in a nice city. Miami is so nice. It's so nice to live there.
Cory McKane 29:37
We're always in good condition.
Drew Bellcock 29:39
How much were
Garrett Scott 29:40
Hollywood, Hollywood, Florida. I would live in Hollywood, Florida. And he's so happy and I've never gotten good work done and you go into a we work in Miami and it is dead. Yeah. And there's one to two dudes and they're working on music and fts. Like three o'clock hits and everyone's out and that's fine. And I think that's a great vibe. Balance of work life, we're gonna do it. And if you're like, trying to build a good company, that's probably the best place to do it, you'll be really happy if you're trying to build a very, very tough company.
Cory McKane 30:11
And that's something I like visiting there. I just could never build a company there was just way too much going on. For sure. So I want to touch on really quick your Your Side Project, which is now become a, I don't know if it touched on the actual revenue, but like, it's becoming like it's paying the rent here at this new warehouse. And again, in this video, I'm gonna have a little highlight video of what the warehouse looks like, or the pipe house. What is your thing you created? Kinda like for funsies? Yeah, that is now paying the rent for this building.
Garrett Scott 30:45
I think it's paying.
Drew Bellcock 30:46
It's up. Yeah, it's not paying for all of it. This close. It's pretty cool.
Unknown Speaker 30:50
This month. Oh, well, yeah. So it's,
Cory McKane 30:54
this thing is paying the rent for this giant, like, complex. So what what is it? Tell us about it, we
Garrett Scott 30:59
can tell, we can tell the quick story. I'm gonna need four hours. Oh, well, I could do it. Um, so I'm trying to figure out where to start. The we have this theory super early on pre canon is that if you're going to build a really, really tough company, you're going to bring on founder types. Canon, Justin, Mac, even even Thomas wasn't started a startup, but like, definitely a founder type. Founder types build. And everyone here knows how to ship a SASS company. We could all probably ship a SASS company tonight. And it's like, why are we not using that if we can all build something in literally a night and ship it? Shouldn't we use that one? Because it's really good content. I think it's good media. Like it's fun. And it's like something fun to do.
Cory McKane 31:52
Alright, so we are once again at camera difficulties. And we're back. It's an early show you guys.
Drew Bellcock 31:59
Camera opportunities.
Cory McKane 32:00
Camera. Episode One. Yeah. camera turns off. It's a pretty gorgeous backdrop. We don't even care. We're having fun. So what is the relationship for the three of you guys? Man? I kind of already said what it was. But like, what is it? Like? Relationships like any dating when you're married? Yeah.
Drew Bellcock 32:23
It's funny, because how are we supposed to answer that? What's
Cory McKane 32:25
the dynamic? Like, do you guys hang out outside of work? Or? You guys work? We work all the time. We can. Literally works until like eight in the morning. So what day today? What time what time? Do you wake up?
Canon Reeves 32:40
Like living through your toll? It's not enough time. That's why I'm in like a design sprint. Right now I've done that for the past like three days in a row. Because like, we're like pumping out a new robot. And like when I get like going on a new robot, I cannot sleep until I'm done. And like, it's true.
Garrett Scott 32:54
The thing is, like when he gets when you get a lot of sleep, that you were not happy. Right here is like the happy to have Yeah, yeah. Well,
Cory McKane 33:04
I wish I could do that. But like, there's times where I literally like last night, I was so excited for this. Oh could like four times I got up at like 530 or six. And I was like went to the gym. I don't care. But like, I had to take a nap afterwards. Cuz I know I have to interact with people. And I don't know how you're doing it right now. But like, I cannot hop on Zoom calls. If I'm tired. I'm just like, exhausted. I'm like, Oh, okay. Like if you don't show up, please just don't show up. I think so. I don't know how you do this on three hours of sleep, man. It's crazy. Yeah, I
Canon Reeves 33:30
mean, this is like, I don't even know. I don't know if this counts is like talking to people. I talked to them like 24/7. That's true. That's fair. That's all good answer the relationship one. Yeah, I think we've got some interesting takes. Yeah. So like, the relationship usually because I'm gonna walk through a day, right? Garrett calls one of us, okay. And he's like, okay, hear me out. And he's actually like, literally, he throws in a metaphor, usually a sportsman but just trying some new things. We had a baking one today. So gear calls, and pitches this like crazy way to take something that usually we think as like, there was just a way to do it. Yeah, gear is like, the way his brain works is he just like, can't just say, oh, that's just the way you do it. He's like, how do we take this and like, make it better, right? For example, we now have a podcast studio in our office, because that is a way for us to like in the lead to several different things like and like, it's really fun to have GERD on the team, because he's just this person who's constantly looking at what we're doing and saying, like, what's the crazy thing? Most of them don't pan out, but the ones that do.
Garrett Scott 34:39
It's true, and like, this isn't very nice thing you're saying? Like it like I do get that it gets annoying. Um, and I think it's like, you know, I think the nice thing about being the coach is you can try some experimental stuff, you know, which is good, like you need to be experimental. But it is like, I do think that sometimes it gets pretty frustrating when it's Like, Oh my gosh, we're just trying to get this thing done. And like, we don't need to rethink how to do something right now we just need to get it done.
Cory McKane 35:06
Well, that was building the wall, we were just like, oh, so basically, we had to, we had two hours to build that. But at this point, because we had to go, we put this up here, we do get a nail gun, all this other stuff. And then I have two hours, and then I knew it was gonna get done somehow. But like Gary's downstairs, like, just chatting up telling a joke. And he's like, helping someone. These are all these things. And then my house is gonna get done in like, two hours. And like, 30 minutes go by, I was like, Hey, Gary, we got like, an hour and a half, like, what's going on? And then this fucking walls up here. For with time. So obviously, they're all like, I'm like, I know, he's like, doing his thing. Well, like, how is this gonna happen? And then literally, like, he just, it's done. So it's like,
Garrett Scott 35:44
in fairness, you hadn't gotten in when?
Cory McKane 35:49
Somebody asked, What was funny about your so I think you and I have the exact same like idea, like, series in our head. But like, I don't have co founders to tell them to. So I have three days to think them through myself and be like, maybe that won't make sense. Whereas you just go like, like, what do you think about this? Yeah. So and then they can go like, yes or no, right away.
Garrett Scott 36:08
It was brutal honesty. They worked with brutal honesty. That's what makes it great. I think like, that is what's great about like, I'm the only one talking last year energy. Um, but here my current podcast because like, I feel comfortable telling you guys, like, oh, let's try this. Because I know if it's either not productive, or like not helpful, or a bad idea, y'all will just like, be brutally honest. And then if I if I conviction, y'all are gonna be behind me. 100% Anyway, so there's joy says drew will be like, I don't think that's a good idea. But if you want to do it, I will back you up. 100%. And that is like the best thing about our relationships, which I feel like we do 90% of the time, we do really well. As long as we're all like rearrested is that like brutal honesty, and also, like, I'm gonna back you up, no matter like, if you're high conviction. And I think that's something that we've all been learning lately is like, when someone's conviction should probably go with it. Everyone's like, pretty smart. And someone's gonna push through someone saying, that's a bad idea. It's probably it's usually the right idea.
Canon Reeves 37:16
I have this like, internal metric of give a shit. Yeah. And like, the decision defaults to the person who has the most give a shit. And if it's like, pretty close together, it's the same, but like, I think it's like a thing in life, right? It's like, the reason why we're all like, working so hard towards this thing is like, our level of give a shit is just so high, it is not about the money, it is not about any kind of credibility, or like, whatever it is, like, we just truly care about doing this. And that manifests itself down like all these little ways and like our day to day operations,
Cory McKane 37:41
it really cool. I mean, it's, it's, I'm so proud to be all his friends. And I love that I love that, like, we have this studio now that we can like, kind of like I will be here every day like that we can like share this, like what this little thing, because I've wanted to work with you guys somehow, some way for the last like several years now. And now it's like we're doing a thing together. So it's like, so cool that to see you guys every day. Like just like, oh, like, like Canada's dusters designing something and care. It's like carrying wood somewhere in juice. Like, yeah, put that down. To be a part of that. It's such a cool experience. Like see, and I obviously everyone loves you guys in our community. And then you guys have naysayers, too,
Canon Reeves 38:21
is that you're excited? Now. That's something you've been wanting to this for a few years. We're excited
Garrett Scott 38:25
to work with you on something. I appreciate
Cory McKane 38:26
that. I'm excited. Yeah, this is this is awesome. Yeah, it's gonna be cool, guys. Okay, so you tell the world these guys? Well,
Garrett Scott 38:36
one, I think it is the brutal honesty. Like, I know, I can throw something at them and they're just gonna be honest about how they feel about it. That's huge. That's such a huge unlock. For someone who's really like I, I, I like to be creative. And like, if if people aren't pushing back against stuff, then I feel like I can't take as many shots. Right? I'd have to be like, Okay, well, I need to be the one that is focused. And I do appreciate that. Like, you guys are really good about like being really honest, and also really honest with feedback like, Drew today. You're like, Hey, we're gonna build a fake wall. We got a lot to do. Is that the best use of your time? I did just true did say you didn't know how quick it was gonna be. But
Cory McKane 39:18
quoted at 30 minutes took about an hour. Minus all the prep time.
Garrett Scott 39:24
Yeah, I'd say our all store true but faster than I appreciate that. Someone was like, Hey, we should not build a wall. I don't know what building a wall means. But that is not a good use of time. But the things I like working with Drew is Drew is a sustainer. And he's really good at juggling a lot of balls. I am not I'm good at taking one ball and throwing it as high as I can. I'm gonna throw it really high. I mean, you got like four other balls where you're like, Well, yeah, and so like anytime that like we make a big leap. I know I can make a big leap and then drew is going raise us up to that level, and make sure that we stay there. And cannons do big anyone who does a big leap, we're gonna make sure that like that is there. And it's like tough in a startup because usually there's a bunch of founder types and it's like, you do a big leap, and then you go back down, you're like, Okay, why is no one like paying attention to our finances or like paying the taxes or now I've kind of pay the taxes and like, you take me like a week to pay the taxes. And I don't know how long it takes you to pay the taxes, because he never mentioned it. And he just hits done nice. And he does that across everything. I really, I really liked that. I think it's great. And you're also good at like, yeah, ask asking that question. And then if you disagree with something, and you're like, Hey, I'm gonna back you up on that anyways. And then if he was right, you don't say I told you so. Or even bring it back up? I really appreciate that. Thanks, man. Yeah, you've never brought it back up when you've been right. Except for one time. Oh, boy.
Cory McKane 40:58
Well, I mean, it might have happened today. But you ended up being right, because the wall looked really cool. And you built it. So if you don't give them opportunities to be wrong.
Garrett Scott 41:06
This is the same website, like super quick, put together. What I like working about a candidate is like I've never met someone who will work as hard or harder than me at something. And that like ever. Yeah. I'm, like Kenan, like legitimately inspires me, like you, you inspire. I've never met someone who inspires me to work harder than you do. And you think so clearly, and you communicate so well. I really appreciate that. I mean, we've all woken up to 1015 minute long videos. Multiple times.
Cory McKane 41:43
Well, even the walls are crying.
Garrett Scott 41:47
But you're an inventor, and you focus more than any other creative I've ever met to the point that you are frustrated when we're doing anything else. Emotionally frustrated. Is that fair?
Canon Reeves 41:59
Yeah. Right. And like, the way I like to describe it as like, why I think we work so well is like, so one, both Gareth Andrew, were engineers, all three of us are engineers, mechanical. So like, what does a kind of a common like playing around the tech
Cory McKane 42:13
speak to each other? Like? Yeah, like, like, if I was on the team? I'd be like, Yeah, sure.
Canon Reeves 42:19
Yeah. Well, it's nice too. Because whichever independent like string, so like, Garrett is a builder who can sell or actually is a seller who can build is probably a better way to put it like he is able to sell, he's able to sell it like the vision the idea. Well, it's like it like he took this thing that is like, objectively kind of a crazy concept until you start to put the nuts to bolts. And like he did that he's sold this and he's like, like the best at selling it. But he also understands building well enough to be great to work with. Drew is a great operator and a great builder. So he can understand he helps on the engineering, he does all of our, like PCBs and stuff. Like he just doesn't on the site, but also operates and like, I like to think of myself as a builder who can also sell and my last startup, I did a lot of sales. And that really changed the way design things. I don't know if I've ever made a significant change to the robot without being led by like some kind of business decision.
Cory McKane 43:05
Oh, especially as you can, you can think of it as in like, okay, a person is gonna want to have to pay for this, or like a company or a city versus like, I'm just gonna make it kind of thing.
Garrett Scott 43:14
Yeah. And it's also like, the tough thing of a pipe dream is it's the constraints. If we wanted to build an underground system, from an engineering standpoint, we'd have to coolest Oh, I'd be done, it'd be completely done. It'd be sick. And there's other companies who have done that. The tough thing is like, you make some sacrifices, it's kind of like, when you look at the iPhone, and you're like, there's giant circuit boards everywhere. And it's like the first version of the iPhone, and it runs. And there's like, but it's like, circuit board here, circuit board here, circuit board here, just we're plugged into an LCD display with like, all this stuff everywhere. That's not the hard part. The hard part isn't making it work. It's miniaturizing it into a little package that you can also produce for like 300 bucks. Yeah. And that's the tough thing about pipe dream. Yeah.
Canon Reeves 43:57
It's interesting, too, because what makes my job hard is not ever designing a robot like like, we can turn out a new robot in a week and a half, two weeks of like, from like idea to like a prototype. And then maybe like another two weeks of building and testing, right? The hardest thing is to balance all of the parameters in the system and the way they interlock and like to explain a little bit more detailed. If you change the number of packages, you want to drop off in an hour, at an input station at a node. It changes like a good third of the system. And that's actually what I'm going through right now. And that's why I've been awake for the past few days designing is because like, we were doing more math on the business side about like how many things like how many packages, we go through a single node and this kind of first network and we realized that like, we were over optimizing, we had designed a system that had too high of throughput, and we could scale that back and make some better decisions elsewhere. And it's crazy how you just change one tiny like Jenga block and the rest of the tower just becomes this new thing. It's so cool. It's insane, but it's like that's what makes it take so long,
Garrett Scott 44:56
maddeningly frustrating, because like we are all big Like, if you have an idea for a SaaS business that that says business should be shipped, like probably the next morning. It's not shipped. Within a week, you shot too high on your features like it should be simpler. And so it's like not being able to get something in the customers hands in like two days is really frustrating. Also, it's like the biggest challenge of my life. I don't know about y'all. I'm having
Cory McKane 45:23
to wait like years and years to like, get like, from idea to like, Well, I think it's already been years since my saying like, 10 more years. I'm saying like, it's been years. Yeah.
Drew Bellcock 45:36
Yeah, I think the frustrating part, too, is like, the stuff that we can control is the technology. And that's like, unfortunately, the easy side of the business. No, not at all. to downplay it. It's not always the easier side as a business owner. Sure. It's figuring out how to get cities to say yes. Where you're going to put the portals, you know, what's going to be around that? Who's gonna pay for it?
Canon Reeves 45:59
How does it scale? How does that happen?
Garrett Scott 46:00
Which is like, every time you make a sacrifice on how it scales that sacrifices, you heard something? Technology, and yeah, it's all it is. Because it's a protocol, which is like, great. And once we get the protocol, right, it's gonna be sick. Yeah. But we're gonna get right, because if we get it wrong, yeah, someone else is just gonna, you know, fork the protocol and crush it, they're gonna find the weak point, and we're not gonna be able to
Cory McKane 46:22
what a great transition Garrett, my next question is, how cool is it that you guys have such a difficult thing to build? That maybe you will have competitors, but like, it's, you're not gonna have a lot of competitors. Like, you're not going to have like, 50 people or like, we're also going to do this shit. Like, Okay, have fun. Like, it took me a long time to get here. So, where are you guys at with the competitive landscape? And like, how does that work with you guys?
Canon Reeves 46:46
I'm not holding back.
Garrett Scott 46:49
So we have competitors. Yeah, like,
Canon Reeves 46:51
we off. Can I name magway? Just talking about like, the different philosophies.
Garrett Scott 46:58
Cool. Alright, so they won't.
Canon Reeves 47:00
Oh, alright, so So biggest, like kind of established competitors, probably magway mag was a company in the UK that's in a meter sized tunnel that they're building custom. And I like to think of magway as like the inverse engineering approach that we've taken, basically what they've done instead of like, so we use standard utility pipes. We make the test we make like our lives harder to make a robot that works in that. Yeah, so their approach. And
Garrett Scott 47:23
the reason just to clarify the reason we want to make our lives harder as you want to. The goal is to reduce your cargo size to pipe diameter ratio, so that it scales like limiter to scale is how expensive it is to put in the pipe.
Cory McKane 47:35
Like you're taking more time and effort now so that in the future, you're not like oh, shit, we should have done.
Canon Reeves 47:43
So they have a large tunnel. And but like another really big difference is they have this like linear motor that runs to the track. So they basically take all of the complexity, so there's no motor on the robot, the robot just really passive. It's all on the track. And so it's like, we take this approach of like, take all complexity out of the infrastructure and put it into the robot. And he's kind of components that we can iterate. And they took the opposite approach of like, put it exclusively to the infrastructure. And it's really like the way I think an engineer would go about it. And I it would be a lot more fun.
Drew Bellcock 48:14
It was way cooler. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I have
Canon Reeves 48:17
no doubt that that system will work. But like, I have no doubt that we will be at deliveries faster, because we are like obsessive about how do we ever deliver I have like, decided not to cut my hair until we do a delivery. And like, it's so stupid, right? But it's like, like, literally we wake up thinking about how do we get to that first delivery? How do we get to that first paying customer, and it changes the way we design every single part of our system. And like, we're not here to just like, have fun engineering, like we're here to build a product, we're gonna build a machine that like fucking delivers things. So it's like, it's not about the tech for us. And I think it gives us a really strong competitive edge when it comes to this underground landscape
Cory McKane 48:53
is obsessed. Yeah, yeah.
Garrett Scott 48:55
I'd also say like the other side. Oh, good. So we have like other underground competitors. But we also have like other modalities. And I think like, the future of hyper logistics or like autonomous delivery, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. No one's gonna doubt that it's going to be inherently multimodal, right? Like there's going to be drones and places satellite robots, places underground and places self driving cars and places trains and places. There's not gonna be just underground. Yeah, just like the rest of Logistics is like some stuff comes on a train. So I'm gonna I'm going to truck a lot of it comes on
Drew Bellcock 49:30
airplanes,
Garrett Scott 49:31
airplanes. Oh, we stopped recording. Oh, we got just the recording. So but like our thing is like, how do we build a system that eats as much of the pie as possible? Um, because I don't want to we don't wanna get stuck with
Cory McKane 49:44
like the entire world's delivery like we know
Garrett Scott 49:47
we don't get stuck with a small piece of pie. Oh, solution?
Cory McKane 49:49
We restart things. I space for
Canon Reeves 49:52
a second to back. I've got a bounce to Okay, cool.
Cory McKane 49:54
I'll see you guys later. Okay, that's to leave you guys back in.
Garrett Scott 49:58
Yeah, that's one hobby. It's hockey,
Cory McKane 50:01
hockey, Canada scored four goals the other night, I can
Garrett Scott 50:04
has the most goals in his league
Cory McKane 50:06
leading support for these two games. And he just started playing this year.
Garrett Scott 50:11
Wayne Gretzky of robot
Drew Bellcock 50:14
needs more hockey analogies up in here.
Cory McKane 50:15
Nice. We're back. So Ken had to step away. But really quickly, Garrett, I want you to touch on your side projects that you've done. You have several we'll try and keep it short. But why don't we start with one of them? What was the like? The little database is like an old school computer screen. What was that one again? The Elliot dad with Dow Jones? Oh, Dow Jones. Yeah. What was that? Yeah, that was like you built that that blew up really quickly to what was that?
Garrett Scott 50:44
Yeah. And then I had my kid like, a few days later. So I had to kind of like, put on the backburner. Um, yeah, that was just a just, it was a Saturday, I wanted to do anything. And like Dow discovery, I do think I think Dallas have kind of got, they kind of got swept up in the NFT crypto with the, and they just got so
what, what's a good word for it? They got everyone called something a doubt. And what they really meant was a group chat.
daos have the opportunity to really, I mean, they're basically just protocols right there, you know, in the same way that like, Uber is almost a protocol, you know, I can sign up, I get approved. And I can start taking rights that said, like, permissions nearly permissionless it's not quiet. But it's pretty permissionless. And we can do that for a lot of stuff. Um, you know, this, the idea of permissionless work, is, is gonna, when people figure out how to do it, it's going to be transformative, that people be able to be like, Okay, what skills do I have? How do I go into companies and do those skills for them without having to ask someone to do it and then I don't believe a lot of that's going to be on the blockchain, there's really no reason for it to be on the blockchain, we operate protocols perfectly fine. Most of the internet runs, runs on protocols. And, you know, there's there's some people managing them and everything works well. And like a lot of the problems aren't blockchain related. A lot of the problems with Dows are, you know, how do you set up the game, so that everyone's incentivized to do the right thing? How do you drive? You know, if I make a logo for something? This is I don't think anyone would use a doubt for this. But like, I make art for someone. There was a bounty for that art, how do I know in like, an easy, easy way that like, if I make art that is sufficiently good, I'm gonna get paid for it? Right? That's tough. It's those type problems that need to be solved right now. And like the blockchain is like, you know, 456 you know, a lot of low level four or five, you know what I'm saying? Like level four, level five level fix six type problem, where it's like, oh, now that we have all these rules set up and everything's working and everything's permissionless let's make it decentralized. Sure. This nice like this tokenize it but it needs to be working first, like is so far away from that. But the idea of Dow Jones is like, okay, let's find a way to write down on their, you know, how they're doing in that or how permissionless is it? Let's centralize the bounties so that if I'm in really it was, the idea was even, even far away from the centralizing bounties. It is a frontier right now. And people are definitely interested. And the idea is, like, right now, this is the time where we need a Product Hunt, where it's just like, Oh, I'm gonna be I like writing, you know, scripts, or I like music, and I'm just gonna, I just want to watch and see how some of this stuff develops. So and there's no way to like, catch what's new. And say, I want to watch this thing as it develops. And that was Dow Jones before was, you know, I'm an engineer, I can do CAD. Is there any like dowels that are for CAD design, if there is a kind of watch it when is he only develops and I don't really want to do it now. But when I am ready to do it, when it is mature enough that I can hop in and use my skills to get sufficient amount of value back. I want to be ready. And that was Doug Jones. Dow Jones ended up being a lot more editorial and so our rule for and we can talk about pipe drops. But our rule for labs is if we're going to drop something we need to be able to automate 95% of the work and this is
Cory McKane 54:30
through pipe dream. This is through like a resistor, you
Garrett Scott 54:32
know what we're talking about? Like like it's not for me personally, it's like everything's through pipe dream. You need to either automate it in two weeks and if not, then you need to get it out or shut it down. So I gave it to a founder who I don't think is ready to like talk about owning it, but we just gave it to her and I think she's gonna do a really great job. She got it did it naturally and the products built the software is built someone just needs to run editorial. Yeah. Which is When you're not able to do
Cory McKane 55:01
Yeah, dude do it shit at the speed of bandwidth, so we have our other thing. And I started to discount drew over there, his 100 Over there. So I will do what we'll do one more Garrett thing and we'll get back to the group. But you also have fractal, which I'm a huge fan of. And I'm pumped to say the prompt. I'm proud to say that I was part of contributed some of the questions and being a part of the original like, like Southwire group,
Garrett Scott 55:25
so directly to camera, Cory, the huge understatement, Cory notice that the questions were getting worse. So Cory sent me they were a list of like, 20 questions that he had come up with himself unprompted. And that's just Cory. Cory is such a good operator, that if you are not operating well at your thing, he's going to operate for you. And he has the operational bandwidth to do it. It's crazy. Cory is one of the best operators that have ever met. Appreciate. True is one of the core core is the other book, but like you what you do you do so well.
Cory McKane 55:59
I appreciate it. But fractal is, it's such a cool thing. And it came at such a good time. And now it's making enough money that it's paying the rent for this entire pipe like double. It's paying double the rent for this pipe house. So you told me a thing where you don't like to pay company funding towards like a physical asset that like you have a long term liability on? Yeah. So you're literally you are actually paying your rent with factual revenue, which is crazy to me.
Garrett Scott 56:32
More or less. I just not directly but like, yeah, the deficit between the off because we were working on my garage, which is free?
Unknown Speaker 56:39
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Everyone has a free pass through a pretty long run.
Garrett Scott 56:45
Cost me a good amount of electricity running all the power tools. Yeah. But it was free. And then like, you know, we needed an office, we were slowed down by the lack of an office. So we definitely needed an office. Yeah. But the nice thing is like, yeah, the fact of revenue for the better was that this wasn't a goal. Like if I can talk about labs, so we have timeframe. Yeah. Which pipe dreams goal is to make 32nd delivery times possible this decade. That's it. Full focus. Labs is is another part in labs has, like a few reasons that we decided to do labs. One is we bring in a lot of founder types. Yeah,
Cory McKane 57:24
so many cool people are in here. Yeah. It's
Garrett Scott 57:26
like Kenan was a founder Justin exFAT exited for a billion dollars to Uber. What was that?
Cory McKane 57:34
Like? Literally are like, yeah,
Drew Bellcock 57:36
it was I think it was like 1.2. But was it?
Cory McKane 57:41
Was it his company or
Garrett Scott 57:42
Yeah, drizzly?
Drew Bellcock 57:44
Just Justin are Justin. Yeah, he founded drizzle he co founded just
Cory McKane 57:48
exited for 1.2 billion was he like the, like, the sole founder of like, they're like,
Drew Bellcock 57:52
he's a co founder. Yeah, he's a co founder.
Cory McKane 57:54
So he doesn't he was he? I mean, he's so he doesn't need to, basically, like, No, I was like, that's a huge guy.
Garrett Scott 58:03
We are so blessed. I mean, like, yeah, Justin's amazing.
Drew Bellcock 58:06
Yeah, he's here because he wants to be I was gonna say, I was like, he actually had another great startup. Like,
Cory McKane 58:13
he was just in here earlier to working next to cannabis today. Walking around, said Justin. Oh, yes, time.
Garrett Scott 58:22
Works out of Boston.
Cory McKane 58:23
Oh, God. Oh, gosh. Okay, gotcha. I was like, I think I just walked around with one point. I'm like, Hey, can you pick that up? For me? It's like, what? 2 billion exit? Okay, that's crazy. Wow. Okay. Good to know. Sorry.
Drew Bellcock 58:33
Keep going. Yeah.
Garrett Scott 58:36
So decree is, Thomas hasn't found anything yet. But he's like total family. Thomas is insane. One of the most talented people. Great guy. Great guy too. Great. Yeah. So everyone here is like a Fender type. And it's like, we're working on something really hard with like, really long ship times. And as a founder, that's sucks. Yeah. And so like, why? If it costs us so little bandwidth to ship other stuff? Why wouldn't we? We're just wasting talent, if we're not. And so the idea is, okay, so labs, you need to everything you drop needs to have significant value, it needs to be able to be built within a weekend or a night. So go from not existing to existing either in a night or weekend. And then continuous maintenance on it. You need to have it completely outside of our core bandwidth in two weeks, or you need to shut it down or give it away. There's just like, it gives us like a low and then like, we haven't had the extra bandwidth to do that a lot. Yeah, I mean, really, you know, I would do we have some really we have some really solid ideas. I wanted to say we don't have any we've written it. Do we have some killer ones? That in some, like we have, like, four software products that like one button we just put in, it's launched, and it's like ready to go and they're sick. We just don't have the bandwidth to like, do that too. Yeah, we will. We will. We're super fun. US. Um, but the idea with a lot is like, yeah, it's like we can generate. You know, one is just like getting good shipping something as a founder is just so beautiful and software so great. And and just like it makes you feel so much better. And that's where I got with facto. is I just had to ship something. Yeah. And so it's also like, the core thing about businesses you want to like execute on your mission and not run out of money, and not having money coming in it just like for me, I hate it. I don't
Drew Bellcock 1:00:32
like it. It bothered him every day.
Garrett Scott 1:00:34
To hate it. It's the worst. That's not how businesses define and be. It's like jumping out of a plane and people being like, where's your parachute? And you're like, I don't know, if
Drew Bellcock 1:00:42
I want to build anything. You're just like, we were talking to some people that had parachutes? A little bit.
Garrett Scott 1:00:53
Yeah. And so with factual, what happened is me and Drew had a board meeting. It was just me and during the board meeting, just the two board members, so it was a pretty we agreed on most of it.
Drew Bellcock 1:01:01
We agreed on all of it. Five minutes, five
Garrett Scott 1:01:05
minute board meetings, we had some extra time, we were just hanging out. I was like, Okay, let's, what's the biggest arbitrage opportunity right now. And it was right when rule came out. I was like, I like, we feel like Wordle is more of a shift in game culture than it is. Like, yeah, like, we have been so inundated with game ads on mobile phones that treated us like idiots. And we're just trying to engagement farm and get us like watching as many as possible that we were lost without like a good game that like treated us like intellectuals was brutal. And had like a nice social component that wasn't like, oh, login sign up, and you're trapped in like our social ecosystem. Just growth hacked to death. So what it was like this nice. Like, it was a new type of game format that people really resonated with. So we said, Okay, what is like Wordle? But better, like, what are the things we could do off? Wordle? I think we had my, I think my favorite that we came up with was like, we're asking like, Okay, what Wordle but for blank who's really done once there was a wordle, but for illness where you see gave you an Alyssia because the sickle sickle.
Cory McKane 1:02:23
That's pretty good. Yeah, we had like the little like, logo.
Garrett Scott 1:02:26
Exactly. Yeah. And we had this weekend ingredients. It was like all that's like, very, very similar. But it wasn't like that bonus factor. It's just like, a different category. But with trivia, we're like, oh, trivia adds another element. Because you're not only you're learning a new thing every day. It's not. I'm learning like words. It's words every single day, and you're just learning the same thing. But with trivia, you have a different category. You're learning something new every day. And you have a reason to share with friends. Because like, if you lose, you're learning something, right? Yeah. Um, and so we had the idea, we kind of broke down like what it was and then that night was the first season of marvelous Mrs. Maisel are the first two episodes. So two episodes to burn was like, Okay, I'm just going to build it. Well, I watched the first two episodes of Marvel's may will. We built it. Say that again? What was the show, Mrs. Mabel,
Drew Bellcock 1:03:13
you'll see marvelousness say it again. It's fantastic. You can see the name of the show.
Garrett Scott 1:03:19
It's marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's a lot of answers. It's
Cory McKane 1:03:23
actually the password for everything in bibrave.
Garrett Scott 1:03:26
Great show. Um, so I just like it was like two hours. And so we I built the first version. And then the next day came and helped me with improvements, Drew, play, tested it, sent it some some friends. Got some feedback. And like a week later,
Cory McKane 1:03:44
did I get it? I don't know if I got it that early. Yeah. They were probably a
Garrett Scott 1:03:48
part of your week play test, because then I watched it on tick tock, and
Cory McKane 1:03:52
cameras died again. We're back. So how much is factual doing a month right now?
Garrett Scott 1:03:58
Right now? In June it did. 22k.
Cory McKane 1:04:02
That's insane. That's it? Is that after you've paid people or before?
Garrett Scott 1:04:06
That's before? What we did, um, was the idea is like, you got to automate it. Right? So we have two partners. One is a really great data company called Open Access, which they solved the problem of like, where do you get good clean data from? And that's the hardest part about factual is like, trying to get that data. It's so
Cory McKane 1:04:25
hard as you realize, how hard is it top five movies? People are like, Okay, well, even I would be like,
Drew Bellcock 1:04:31
people argue about that. And you can't do it all the time. Yeah, you
Cory McKane 1:04:33
can't be like, favorite colors. So like, it's all
Garrett Scott 1:04:36
like borderline death threats. Right? Like, he was like the right data. And it was like people were furious.
Cory McKane 1:04:41
And also, when you just Google it, it's hard because it like it'll pop up and I'm like, is that the first
Garrett Scott 1:04:45
results are just flat. They're always wrong. So open access, we've stopped going to Google and we just go straight to open access. And we say, here's the data. And here's the source. Like this is the source we got from and it's like a great source. Yeah. And they do a great job with that. So we pay them a percentage. And then we also pay this ads guy who tried to buy facto, but we told him just like, Okay, here's a percentage, and you'd use as much as you can out of the ads as possible without like killing. Like we had this like we have this player ship rate, like if the ads get too big it kills players just go crazy. Yeah, he went crazy and like the ads do really well. I was really surprised I wasn't expecting the ads to do so well. Yeah. But yeah, we just we, I hadn't thought about it in like a couple of weeks. And it just runs. And that's crazy. Sick, it is really tough. So I mean, like, going forward, now that we have a little more bandwidth, we'll we'll drop, you know, labs 234. And we'll follow the same model. And then some will just be for fun. Some of them are just cool. They're not going to generate revenue, but we like them.
Cory McKane 1:05:50
So so back to me, we can talk about this for days we have, there's so many cool, like projects y'all are doing is working on but back to pipe dream to kind of like close out the conversation a little bit. So where are you guys gonna be in the next three months? And then we'll do the next year. And then we'll do five years. So we'll start with three months,
Drew Bellcock 1:06:05
okay, three months, we will have pipes in the ground somewhere. We will have pipes in the ground somewhere, and we will be getting ready to make actual deliveries for actual customers.
Cory McKane 1:06:17
What's so cool. And so customers? Is it like you're gonna have like, a four block radius of people getting packages into their house, or is it gonna be like an earlier stage? Like, like, what does it look like that
Drew Bellcock 1:06:26
needs to be decided? Okay, very cool.
Garrett Scott 1:06:30
I have an option that we could execute and would be done in like, a few weeks.
Drew Bellcock 1:06:35
Yeah, maybe like six weeks, depending on. You just
Garrett Scott 1:06:39
want depending on supply chain or supply chain and scheduling works. We could be done in two
Drew Bellcock 1:06:44
weeks. Sure. Yeah. Well, yeah, probably. Probably. We'll figure it out until we figure it out.
Garrett Scott 1:06:51
So we could do that in a city. We have the permits. We have everything to do that. In the the right now we're like, Okay, is there a better pilot to do? That's, that's what we're focusing on right now.
Drew Bellcock 1:07:03
Yeah, yeah. I think the hard part
Cory McKane 1:07:05
is really cool to show by what do you say?
Garrett Scott 1:07:08
We were just making sure we're doing the right pilot. Yeah.
Drew Bellcock 1:07:11
Right. The hard part for us is like, we don't get a lot of shots at this. We can't AB test this really like maybe one time truly an A and a B, you can't. There will not be a C if b goes wrong. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a very expensive project. It's worth it like the return on investment is it's an absolutely insane. It's like five years conservatively, if we get it in the right market, we get the technology, right, we have the right partners, but like making sure that happens is so critical. And like the success of pipe dream.
Garrett Scott 1:07:43
And that's us saying it like we're saying, like, ship it and find out like this is software we would have been shipped shipped one day later, at most. It's true. It's just like, Yeah, this this is just a lot more intensive, which is fine, but but it also sucks.
Drew Bellcock 1:07:59
Yeah, I think I think that's kind of the fun part, though. Like, that's what I really enjoy is like, not everybody can do this, like, like, not everybody can do software. But a lot of people can do software, it's more accessible, it's easier to do, there's a lot more ways to gather data, there's ways to market it, like you can go directly to consumers now, with hardware with infrastructure with providing a physical service, that's just so challenging to do you know,
Cory McKane 1:08:26
what the competitors is, like, it's not easy for someone to compete with you. Like it's not it's it takes a while to get to that point. And kind of kind of with that, so like when you guys are out here raising money and like doing your presentation like what is the what is the kind of like the vibe that you bring into investor meetings? Like, we're gonna be this trillion dollar company or we're gonna change logistics or both those like what are you guys like preaching basically, when you're doing these pitches?
Garrett Scott 1:08:51
It's you know, are there there's like two things one is like, this is our vision, what we call hyper logistics. It's like this next era of logistics. I think that is what we hold true and it is it is true
Drew Bellcock 1:09:03
that's going to it will happen whether or not we do it, if we die tomorrow, it's going to happen it might not happen 10 years from now 15 years from now as
Garrett Scott 1:09:12
fast as possible. And that's the thing that is 100% true. And I Oh total belief I have huge so much conviction in that I know that to be true we have done all the diligence to know and so that's what we're going for it was like there's a giant pot of gold there there's so much like environmental good like hybrid Logistics is going to change commerce for the better in every single way. If what what site what piece of underground is that? I don't know what piece of that is ours. I don't know when the goal is like we're gonna stay intellectually honest and go after hyper logistics and make it happen as fast as possible. And if that means that we have to invalidate every single thing we've ever done and change on a dime and do something that is going to work we're going to do it yeah, I am fine to stand in the standard the town square and look like a fool if it means a month down the road. We're going to be in the correct position. And this is what I tell people is like, like this, we're going after a once in a lifetime opportunity, we're gonna give it the best shot we have, and we're gonna stay intellectually honest and go at you stay obsessive about that, and give us the best chance to be in a position to capitalize on that market. That's right, tell me when like, we have all the plans for a year, we have all the plans for six months, we know exactly what we're going to do, we're going to try to do that in the end of the day. Um, we're going to give us the best shot to be in a position to capture that market. And if that means Yeah, you know, we actually technically could run a drone company better. Yeah, with Jews expertise, like we've done a drone project before. Well, I
Cory McKane 1:10:41
have a drone, and I have a drone interview lined up in a few months, and I have drew on the podcast so that he can ask all the questions.
Garrett Scott 1:10:47
Master's degree in what's
Cory McKane 1:10:50
in drones? Yeah.
Drew Bellcock 1:10:51
Yeah. It actually is. It's it's called a man autonomous systems. But like, yes, it's the fancy word for drones.
Garrett Scott 1:10:59
We had a we had a great like drone technology we built. Yeah, it was sick. But we might be back there. And that makes the most sense. Yeah.
Drew Bellcock 1:11:08
Yeah. I mean, I think the interesting part about pipe dream, for me is like, this company is focused on building an idea and like the way we do that can change, or it can be a lot of things. It doesn't have to be just one thing. Right now, we're focused on underground, because I truly believe that's the best way we're gonna get to hyper logistics this decade. And the best way that we're going to do it in a way that makes it good for cities and good for consumers and good for businesses. But if we find a better way to do that, if we figured out how to teleport things, we'll definitely do that instead. Yeah, you know, we we care about solving this problem, and all of the things that this can unlock for the world. Really, yeah,
Garrett Scott 1:11:47
the commitment we made is that we're in our 20s we have one shot to take a big swing at a new market, years 2020. And we said by 2030, we're gonna give it everything until 2030. Yeah, to go after this one thing, this new market that we think in 2030 is going to be huge. This is our shot. And like, I stay committed to that we'll be here, but do we have money or not? We're not gonna run out of money. I will read about that. Even in the bull market, I was like, Alright, we gotta we gotta act like never raise financing again. And we've got to like, look at every single dollar going out. It's true. We
Drew Bellcock 1:12:21
had two screwdrivers. That means we had two screwdrivers, because we didn't like buy lots of stuff. Oh, gotcha. Okay. We only had to know anything about screwdrivers anymore. Yeah. So if you're, if your CEO carries him around for fun, and then leaves in places, definitely to be pointed to
Cory McKane 1:12:37
that was like some weird nerdy ass metaphor, I suppose to understand. I was like, Well, you got two screwdrivers? Yeah, you don't got a nickel? I'll
Drew Bellcock 1:12:42
tell you why, you know, as they say,
Cory McKane 1:12:44
You know what they say? It's like, you got to screwdriver. You said? No. And I was like, I don't know what
Drew Bellcock 1:12:50
you're gonna do first, folks?
Cory McKane 1:12:50
Well, I don't even know what we're talking about. The two screwdrivers they threw me off. But basically, I just want to ask, if you guys did anything else to say I want to conclude with actually really quick, can you guys say what? push people to get out of this video? Do you want them to contact Pipedrive? You want them to follow your journey on Twitter? Do you want them to like what do you guys want them to do from this video,
Garrett Scott 1:13:11
if you think you can, like help us in any way, we would love to hire you, or find a way to pay you money for some value that
Drew Bellcock 1:13:18
you add? absolutely serious. We're serious. We do that all the time.
Garrett Scott 1:13:23
Yeah, if you have a full time job, and you just want to help us on the side, we will make sure you get the value out of that. Yeah, 100%.
Cory McKane 1:13:29
They do that all day actually not even joking.
Drew Bellcock 1:13:31
Also, like, just try hard things. There's not enough people doing truly new or truly world changing things. There's a lot of people that talk about how the thing that they're interested in or the thing that they're already doing is world changing. But like, it's not true, that people need to take bigger shots, people need to like, just go for it. And if you need support, like, let us know, we'd be happy to try and help if we can, and we'd be happy to help you build a community of people who can like help you do big things. Yeah. And
Garrett Scott 1:14:03
to build on that, because we do talk about this all the time. Like not enough people try hard things in their 20s Like you can fail your entire 20s and be fine. Yeah,
Drew Bellcock 1:14:09
it's recoverable. Super, really recall,
Cory McKane 1:14:12
I started three, turn 30 At the end of the year, so
Drew Bellcock 1:14:16
yeah, you gotta pick it up.
Garrett Scott 1:14:17
You look at the long history and like, I have to acknowledge that we have a lot of advantages that helped make that a soft landing. Um, I if you look at everyone, like I look at my friends, careers, people older than me, like of all types of backgrounds like that is generally true. And so that's a great time to get a shot. But if you're gonna take a big shot, you need to make sure that if you accomplish the thing you're going to accomplish, there is an an doubtedly value add to whatever your market is. Because if you take a shot and you're like, Well, I hope people use it this way. That's not that's not like a big enough shot. They're not a big enough shot like you shouldn't just take a big Not for the sake of taking a big shot, you should know that there's going to be a market for your product if you're able to accomplish XYZ.
Drew Bellcock 1:15:07
And you should, it should be something you care about. Like, honestly, if I didn't believe in pipe dream, I wouldn't be here if I'm here because it's fun, you know, like that, that changes the way you think about everything you need to do something you care about. Yeah.
Cory McKane 1:15:21
And that's what I conclude with saying, I love you guys very much. And Kevin, too, and also the whole team. And I'm proud of you guys and been blessed to be a part of this journey, you guys just be able to see all the little updates be like, oh, yeah, this is going to actually happen if you don't tell anybody like I love. I love being a part of that. I'm blessed to be a part of the community. And I'm blessed to be now sharing a podcast studio with you guys. We're finally doing business together. So
Drew Bellcock 1:15:43
we're blessed to have you here.
Garrett Scott 1:15:44
The whole goal of having pocket studio here to be completely frank, is to maximize your time in the office so that the networking can happen here as you bring people in, and other people come
Cory McKane 1:15:55
bringing in some big awesome, like amazing founders and investors over the next few months. I was like, Hey, I'm bringing some value to the studio, you
Garrett Scott 1:16:05
know, we don't have to go anywhere to network. But this is episode one. Yeah. To conclude, I would love to hear what you want for the future of the podcast. What's your goal? A year from now? Where do you want to be?
Cory McKane 1:16:16
Oh, I mean, I would love to be like the number one entrepreneurs and founders podcast like on the planet hands down? Hell yeah. And I looked at a lot of them, and I definitely, I'm pretty confident like there's not a lot of like, everyone's like, so serious. And it's like, dude, startups are not like their series, but they're not just, they're not that are dicking around we're getting vacations, like we work a shit ton, like, like, yesterday was Sunday, I worked from like 10am until midnight. And I was just like, doing like fun little projects here projects here. And it's like, getting over the podcast, honestly, mostly, but for sure. starb should be fun and it should be exciting. And like I want to have exciting like this. This literally we're laughing we're telling like stories are like talking about the actual things that are going to happen in your company. And I love having these interviews and like talking to people and like just exploring like why you created something and like where you're going to be at so I don't know. I mean, I don't really I don't have like a number set. I don't really care like hopefully the pace at some point. But yeah, it's one of the biggest entrepreneurship and founder inspiring podcasts that I can have. So
Garrett Scott 1:17:15
I will say if you're listening to this subscribe because I've never known Cory to do anything halfway that's the only does it big he only does it right and he's never gonna quit until he accomplishes this goal ever. So if he says he's gonna have the number one entrepreneurial podcast that he eventually well for sure whether that's tomorrow a year from now two years from now get in because it's gonna happen
Cory McKane 1:17:37
I did quit my first podcast so but eventually this became that
Drew Bellcock 1:17:43
never quit starting today. Starting today
Cory McKane 1:17:47
never quit twice. That was just all audio. It was like I can't do this. This is way more fun to be with you guys here that's all we got though. I love you guys and I'm proud of everything you're doing and I don't care if there's like random people on Twitter that are like this is not gonna happen it's like you don't even what are you? What are you?
Drew Bellcock 1:18:05
They might be right.
Cory McKane 1:18:08
I think the wrong the full set on pipe pipe pipe drive pipe. a pipe dream. I'm always surprised I'm gonna say pipe drive the other like the company I used to like it's a good company.
Drew Bellcock 1:18:19
Great company. Great. Let's get them on the podcast before
Cory McKane 1:18:24
Yeah, that's pretty good. It's pretty good. Yeah, we should get them here. This will be fun. I know a lot of people that work there actually. Let's do it. Actually, this we're gonna close it off.
Canon Reeves 1:18:35
Thank you so much for having
Garrett Scott 1:18:37
me the first one.
Cory McKane 1:18:38
Yeah. Let's get it paid.
Drew Bellcock 1:18:41
How are we starting off? Give me Do you have a signer?
Garrett Scott 1:18:44
I don't have one. And that's why we strive Nice.
Drew Bellcock 1:18:47
Oh, that's good. Do that again in the camera. That's why
Garrett Scott 1:18:51
we strive
Cory McKane 1:18:55
I want to thank you for not only tuning in to this why we thrive episode, but for watching all the way until the very end. I put a lot of time and effort into each and every episode to bring you influential and exciting people that tell amazing stories and hopefully you either laugh a little bit or you learn something from each episode. Be sure you head to why we stripe.com to learn more info about the show, check out future episodes, learn about our sponsors. And of course subscribe. That's all I have for you. See you next week. And don't forget no matter what you're going through in life, keep striving
Transcribed by https://otter.ai