- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01KN7NCFN9MGFNNM0YZH6W5YWM (via Ben Ornstein’s account, imported 2026-08-06)
Transcript
Michael Houck: I was indeed. How’s everybody doing? Michael Houck: We’re rocking and rolling. We’re getting our steps and release. I am Jacob. And you guys gotta gotta get on this man. Come on. James Walker: I’m slacking. Michael Houck: Are you on an incline or? Michael Houck: Yeah, a small little incline going on. James Walker: I love it. We’re good to see you, Michael, Jacob and Ben. Michael Houck: So okay, so purpose of this call is to kick off, we’re really excited, obviously. And also for you to meet Jacob and Ben, they will be handling things from sort of like the two sides of the account. So the content production side and the operational side, respectively. And so, you know, I still am going to be your primary point of contact, anything we sort of need to chat through strategy wise, it’s you and me, Jacob is gonna be producing the content, and then Blake and I will be reviewing it. And then we’ll be getting it over to Ben to get live and for you to review as well. So that’s sort of the process. But we’re really pumped, man. And Jacob’s going to lead the majority of this call from our side. Then Ben will come and talk about the operational side of things. And then I’ll come back at the end for next steps. But I guess first, before we do intros or anything like that, any immediate questions, James, from your side that we should cover? I think we should know. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Nope, nothing immediate. Let’s dive in. Michael Houck: Okay, so Jacob, Ben, maybe let’s start off with intros. Ben Ornstein: Cool. Yeah, Ben, you want to go first? Ben Ornstein: Sure. James, nice to meet. I know we messaged a little bit. I already have your access to LinkedIn, which is awesome. Great to be ahead of that. I’m Houck’s Chief of Staff. As Houck said, I’m handling all things kind of operations. I’ll be scheduling your content and doing a couple of things. Other things as well, which we’ll discuss later. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Great. Jacob Shipley: Cool. Well, Jacob Jacob Shipley, my day job is I lead the social media team at Benzinga, which is a financial media company based out of Detroit. I live in Bentonville, Arkansas, right outside, like 10 minutes down the road from Walmart headquarters. That’s kind of our claim to fame. And then just my personal background on personal branding and content. Built my own LinkedIn following to just shy of 50,000 followers and then converted about 15,000 of that into newsletter subscribers And I’ve been writing for how quick out for the last few years. And so Super passionate about personal branding all things content and so super excited to dive in Through the call. We’re gonna walk through goals voice pillars Essentially, we just want you at the end of the call to have all the confidence in the world that we understand who you are and how you talk and that we’ll be able to deliver that first batch of content. Ben will talk through what the cadence looks like as far as how we deliver and kind of the logistics of it, but then I’ll be handling the actual content production side. So if there’s anything up top you wanted to chat through, otherwise we can kind of dive into the actual meat of the kickoff call. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Sweet, now let’s dive in. Okay, cool. Jacob Shipley: So primary goal, what does it look like, you know, six months, the first six months of 12 working with you looking back on it for you to be like, man, this was a huge success. What does that metric look like for you? James Walker: I mean, frankly, probably just measured in impressions and reactions on LinkedIn, just increasing that like I, you know, as my job, I will be better at my job if I can, you know, share that I was at some conference last week. Which if I was, you know, I don’t want to post about and say, shout out my portfolio company, get them, you know, attention. And I want the, you know, the numbers on that to go from 10 likes to 50 to a hundred, et cetera. Like that’s the number one thing I’ll be, I would measure in terms of like, you know, progress. And then, so that’s just like straight, like if I’m just looking at one KPI, Cool. Jacob Shipley: And then anything secondary from that, anything you’re wanting? James Walker: So that’s, that’s like the KPI that I’m looking at the actual, like why I care about that. Um, well, I will say like that, like knowing that me shouting out a portfolio company reaches more people will alone be valuable because then that portfolio company gets more attention, even if I’m not directly aware of it, like they’re getting it. Uh, I feel like in many, more value. But what I also want to get out of it is investors in my network saying, Hey, this is awesome. I want to be introduced to that company’s looks like you know, they did it there. They’re rocking and rolling. You know, please connect me with Stephanie at nlpad or whatever the case is. So investors in the network’s most important thing deal flow is also appealing. I guess it’s funny, I’m thinking more of like investors sending deals, or investors for my deals than founders sending me stuff. That’s also good too. I just have more maybe an image that the founders who are DMing on LinkedIn are of a lower quality than the kind we already organically get just via Tim mostly or just Draper Associates generally. So I’m not super interested in direct founder deal flow. I mean, it’s great. I’m never going to say no to it. You know, just I’ll never say no to getting it. I’m assuming that’s lower quality. But I think that the, from LinkedIn anyway, what I would hope would be higher quality are investors that I otherwise wouldn’t be in the orbit of saying, hey, you know, that’s great. I want to talk to your company or I want to send you a company. But so deal flow generally both, you know, us getting it and me sending our portfolio companies out to other investors as like my primary, not my primary audience necessarily, what I would like to get out of it. Jacob Shipley: Cool. Okay. And so that’s, you mentioned right there, primary audience. If you had to drill down on one, maybe two buckets, I mean, if you want to go three, that’s fine too, but, uh, types of people that you really want your content to appeal to, who would that be? So investors would be one, I assume. James Walker: Yeah. Investors, um, current, let’s say either young VCs or honestly current students. I think where I can add a lot of value is explaining things simply. If someone wants to talk about the forefront of AI agents and models and harnesses, I’m not your guy. We’re sector agnostic. There’s just smarter people who can write about that. But where I think I have a skill that would actually be of value and could connect to an audience is saying, hey, here’s the 80-20 principle. In terms of things you gotta know. It’s cause I did law school, I did business school, like I’ve seen it all and I remember most of it, but not all of it. And so like, I can say, hey, here’s what you, like, you know, people say a lot of stuff about a term sheet. Here’s what you should actually care about and why they should care about it. And that, the audience for that, like, you know, I don’t think like a 10 year VC really, they might find it interesting, but they’re not getting a ton of value out of it. Whereas, you know, a current college kid or even a current MBA student might go, okay, like actual words from the mouth of someone who’s doing it and is explaining it, that is super valuable and actionable. And I can have confidence in not sounding like an idiot, like no dumb questions, basically. People pretend like, oh, seed stage, precede, seed it. I’ll tell you why I think those, like what those mean to me. And so you can actually go out in the world and, you know, have a little bit of confidence and ask interesting questions because you’re not scared of seeming dumb. You can get the basics. There would be, again, like, you know, current students and young, you know, first or second year VCs, I think. At least I’m thinking that’s like something that I can be very good at. Jacob Shipley: Yeah, I love that. That’s, that’s really good. And I don’t, I could be wrong just because I’m not looking for it. But that strikes me as a unique niche that I don’t see a ton of people stepping into. James Walker: Yeah, and that’s and that’s kind of where I’m trying Like I think that’s what will take me there. I mean, I like teaching generally I like explaining complicated things simply because I need to understand it in order to do my job I’m talking to companies that are all over the map like semiconductors and satellites and I don’t know anything particularly about these I just got to understand the basics and I and like if I if I ever find a new job tomorrow and I was saying, hey, what makes me special? It’s not that I’m like the smartest about any particular thing, but I have seen, I don’t know, I’ve done like 500 actual deals with Tim, because I have the legal background. And so I’ve been a deal mill of sorts on that way. And like, that I think is unique. And so as I’m writing to folks, and what I would want to communicate to them is say, hey, maybe know a little bit about VC, you’re on the outside looking Here’s what I think is like some of the the main takeaways from my perspective. That would be valuable Cool. Jacob Shipley: I love that Okay, so investors one category young VCS current students one category Would you put founders as another bucket or not? Part of is like founders. James Walker: Hey, don’t be afraid Like, here’s as a VC what I want us, what will make, make me know whether we’re a match. You know, VC and investing is like dating. You know, it’s not you, it’s me. You know, If you’re trying to raise $100 million, we don't write $100 million checks. So you can be the best company in the world, it’s not a fit for us. And so I spent a lot of time explaining that to young entrepreneurs as being like, hey, tailor to your audience, and here’s what, you know, will help you establish whether VC is the right one. So yeah, I’d say, you know, founders as well. But, yeah, you know, I’m saying like, not like, I’m not gonna write like a treatise white paper on AI. I just, I don’t have that skill set. It’s more of like, all right, if you know a little bit about AI, and you want to get into it, here’s what I would say. Jacob Shipley: Yeah, okay, perfect. As far Let’s stay on the audience button for a second. That’s super helpful. The founders or the YoungVC’s current student side. As far as the investor side, what do you want them to come to you for? What do you want them to think of you to be top of mind when they think of blank? James Walker: Yeah. In terms of what to send me or what to read me for. What do you want them to expect from you? Jacob Shipley: And then, yeah, I do think it’s interesting to think about the flip side of that. Yeah, when they reach out with a deal, what kind of content from you would solicit that? James Walker: I would want them to, investors to read me for a sense of what is the market. Lawyers say that all the time, like, hey, this term’s market, that term’s not market. Like a sanity check in terms of what people are doing, what I am seeing in terms in terms of deals and deal structure out there. So yeah, I think that would be valuable. And that’s sort of like a simplistic, that fits in with the keeping it simple approach. Like, you know, okay, what are we doing safes when you’re raising a $2 million round or larger? Or does that become a price ground at that point? I just say like, hey, here’s what I’m seeing out there. Here’s what I think is valuable. And then I would also expect investors to know that maybe I’m highlighting a portfolio company I’m excited about and why, and I’m giving a three-paragraph summary of why this company’s awesome and why we’re proud to be a part of them, and then they can say, okay, I read that, now I understand what that company’s doing, why Trader’s excited about it, I’ll keep my eye on it. And then every once in a while, I like to do a, hey, here’s what I want to see, please send it to me if you find it. And I say right now my my thing for a year now and I’m still working on is I want AI to talk to animals. Like that is I want a real life Dr. Doolittle. It I know we can do it. And I will worry about the market later. Like just like, let me see it happen. We invested in colossal bioscience five years ago. And now they’re bringing back the wooly mammoth. And this is a similar like what want to see when you were five. Like, I wanted dinosaurs to come back and then I want to be able to talk to my dog. So, you know, we’re getting one of those. So yeah, every once in a while, like a, hey, here’s what, please send me this stuff. If you’re seeing it, this is what we’re looking for. Jacob Shipley: As far as content topics, like, so for some people I’ll say like, what are your content pillars? And they’ll be like, they will say something super niche of, you know, very specific blockchain application for XYZ. But it sounds like you’re a little bit more interested in being like broader across the board. And I love the 80-20 principle of kind of here’s what you need to know on XYZ. Are there more areas that you feel like you do want to dive deeper into? James Walker: Like sectors? Because so when I think about myself as I mean, I do play in a but I’m more like an operational principle in terms of I do every single deal we do at Draper, I touch as a, you know, the half lawyer on the team. And so I think a lot of my topics would be like structural pieces. So, hey, you know, again, like term sheet, like literal terms, or thinking about how to approach valuing your company as you’re going out into the market. You know, people talk about multiples. Does multiples actually mean anything? No. Things like that in terms of sectors, you know, I’d say like, it’s gonna be sports. Yeah, I’ve led a few sports investments and I’m always looking at that. So that’s, I’ve got sort of thoughts there that might, you know, apply to the sector. Yeah, a lot of it would be more company specific though. It’d be like, hey, here’s, you know, if we’re, if we’re, in patents, you know, here’s what I think AI applies to patents, but I don’t really would, I wouldn’t have like a running thing like blockchain or longevity that I at least not yet, maybe talking to animals, if I could get enough companies to actually fill that, you know, a animal tech generally, maybe we’ll put animal tech for now. That’s something I want to explore actually, as a niche and that can mean stuff for pets, you know, hacking, there’s coming into talk to it’s gonna hack dog noses and turn those into like, you know, computer sensors, basically. So you can just put animal tech for now as a potential one. Jacob Shipley: Awesome. I’m curious, the sports is something obviously that has a pretty broad appeal across, you know, a lot of different types of people. What what specifically like in that realm is something that you’re touching day to day? James Walker: Um, it’s fun. I mean, like I could write about sports just generally all the time. I don’t know how much of it is startup adjacent. So I don’t know how valuable, I don’t wanna like go off message in terms of like, I have thoughts on that stuff, like how Netflix broadcasts their game, you know, for the MLB opening thing. And, you know, I think people would find interesting. It’s just not really, like it’s not, I don’t think it would lead to deal flow, right? So I don’t know. Michael Houck: I mean, it’s one thing to keep in mind there, you know, as you’re talking about this stuff, I’m thinking about, um, sure. I’m Christian. Um, he does a lot of this like broader cultural commentary as well. And I’m sort of, I don’t know how much has helped with like, you know, investor relationships and sharing deal flow, but I actually would imagine that if you already have the credibility, like you do as a, as an investor, adding more to the conversation on LinkedIn and on X as well in both places, you’d be able to sort of have those types of more friendly, sort of softer opening type conversations with these other, if your goal is like VC relationships, that is a way to do it. That is a way to play that game. So I don’t necessarily think we should shy away from it. James Walker: No, good. Okay. And that’s more, and that’s fun too. So I’m happy to do it. I try to, Weave it in a little bit with the post I wrote a week or so ago about Utah. I’ve been traveling a bunch, and I have a three-year-old, and I always get him a sports shirt from wherever I go, because it’s fun for me. I was able to weave it in there more organically. Yeah, I think that would work. I think it would also help if I’m posting enough about real stuff. Michael Houck: If I post once a month, and it’s like Netflix It’s got to be a small percentage of the post but I do think it humanizes you a bit and sort of Specifically with what your goal is. I do think it can fit if we do it, right? James Walker: So it’s funny on that note. I I’m excited. I’m trying to think if there’s a way I could weave the World Cup into Startups because we don’t have a startup from all 48 countries. I don’t think I know I don’t but like there’s guys to be some angle there in terms of, you know, like pumps for the World Cup. Here’s a French startup, you know, that like, you know, we’re investors in crypto or whatever. And, you know, something like that. I think that there is, there’s maybe an angle there while we’re while we’re talking about it. I love that. Yeah, this is the 94 World Cup mascot, by the way. It’s running. Jacob Shipley: Are you a pretty big soccer fan? James Walker: All of the sports. I have four brothers, so I grew up. But World Cup is my favorite, so that’s gonna be a fun one. Jacob Shipley: Very cool. Okay, cool. I’m curious, I wanna double click on the more personal side. I think sports is super interesting, broader appeal. Some of those like softer intros I think are interesting. What other topics are just like, you said you could talk about sports all day. Are there any other things like that could be work-related, investor-related, could not be? James Walker: Animals, let’s talk about animals today. Well, my old blog was, well, blog is used very generously, sportsandanimals.com, which I still have the URL for. I birdwatch a little bit, because I liked Pokemon growing up, and birdwatching is just Pokemon. I tell you all the birds around here. I care about endangered species, things like that. So I can weave an animal reference into a lot of things. History, I can weave a history lesson in a lot of things, listen to history podcasts. I like a good joke that is obscure, but if you get it, you love it. So to the extent I have a voice, it’s like, honestly, like Daniel Tosh when he was, he’s still around, but when he was like, he would be so funny because he would do like five layers of jokes. And if you still got the fifth joke, you thought it was the funniest thing in the world, but like less and less and less and less of the audience were, laughing but like there’s a very there’s an appeal in that and then so like if I’m thinking tone wise uh it’s a little it’s sometimes a little too cute obviously for like businessy stuff but that is like this kind of obscure joke that really lands if you get it um I don’t know history lends itself to that you know it makes some touch point oh is is classic man cost point oh is classic his stand-up was classic just, you know, highbrow, lowbrow stuff. Like, you know, it was like a poop joke, but it was like the cleverest poop joke you ever heard in your life. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Right, exactly. Jacob Shipley: I remember, I don’t remember what years that show was on, but I was, I don’t know, probably a high school maybe, but I remember, yeah, being at like, at school, telling each other the jokes we had heard over the past week, and just like, I mean, like some of that, yeah, some of that stuff was just like, this is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. You know, and like, the ability to appeal to such a broad range of people was like, yeah, the needle he could thread was so, so cool. James Walker: Yeah, that guy. And then I also grew up on Chicago Show and then David Tell. Yeah, he was the man. Jacob Shipley: Yeah. So I’m curious on that, like, are you still into stand up comedy? James Walker: I mean, yeah, just I mean, just generally as a fan. I can’t say I watch life too much of anymore, but I, you know, I like my standup comedy is like browsing Twitter now sometimes, you know, good, good, good jokes there that surface, but just, you know, talk about the tone. It’s like that, like, yeah, being able to like hit that niche reference that really, like, I would rather, maybe this is the wrong way to look at it. If I’m talking to people, I’d rather make one or two people in the room lose it and have all 10 people smile, like, ha, you know, like that’s been, I’ve found that more appealing, but I don’t know if we can go that meta on things, just that’s kind of how I approach writing. And like, to be honest, I, you know, I haven’t written on it in like two years and I would only write like an article a year or so, but sportsanimals.com like does have some of my own writing that, you know, where I’m trying to be like, I mean, I was very niche just by the nature of it, It was really just a repository for me, like, hey, you know, I want to write, what did I write? Like, oh, if all, if every, every, there’s 16 NFL teams that have an animal team name, like the Chugga Bears, Atlanta Falcons. Okay, what species? You know, there’s lots of bears, there’s lots of Falcons. It’s all I could, did the work, you know. It is obviously very niche, you know, just fun to write about, but like that story has been what I’ve been decent at. Jacob Shipley: I love that. Okay, very cool. So, I feel like I’m getting a good sense of your voice, but anything else you wanna make sure I have a really good understanding on of how you, sometimes it’s easier to just start with the negative, of how do you not talk? What’s something you wouldn’t say? James Walker: I have, I guess as I get older, I get more comfortable with it. I’ve always shied away from LinkedIn just from the 10 things I learned today. Finger emoji pointing down. I don’t talk like that, drives me nuts. Again, because I was a lawyer, well, I still am a lawyer, but I used to be a real lawyer. Like you’re told to be like seeing not her, basically. And you know, it’s the opposite of no press is bad press. As your lawyer, like you don’t want any press. You just want to like do your job, you know, not get in trouble. So emojis, I just don’t think I will ever be good at those or want those. Maybe, I don’t know, like, it’s not like But I just don’t think that that’s my style. I’m more dry in that way. But yeah, so that is a big no. I get to be the lead that catches people. So I’m not against that. I just historically the lead, the first sentence or whatever too that I see on LinkedIn, that is anathema to me. That’s not something I wanna do. Unless I, maybe there’s a way I feel like, oh, works for me. But so much of what I hate is like, not, not my jam. That’s the biggest thing. But the rest, like, you know, it’s not, you know, I’m not trying to be like, super edgy or any, like, you know, in real life conversation, I’m fairly edgy or whatever. But like, I, you know, online, I don’t think that’s helpful, or really what I want to be, necessarily. But yeah, the big, the big, the biggest stone is the, the weak and pointy things, et cetera. Yeah, click baity is a good one. I don’t wanna be click baity, like I’m trying to be, you know, I want people to read what I write, maybe it’ll make them laugh or be, God, that was a reference I wasn’t expecting. I mean, I’m gonna get something out of it. That’s really it. Yeah, like a nice obscure, like I can do niche references. You know, that’s something I can naturally weave into what I’m writing, it’ll make me feel better about putting it out there. It’s like, it’s like some, whatever. I’m doing my job by saying, hey, this company is using AI to help patent attorneys search feasibility studies. And then, you know, whatever, that’s just my job. If there’s something interesting I can add to it, you know, yeah, I’ll just feel better about hitting send. So, you know, not strictly required. It’s not always going to work that way. Jacob Shipley: Yeah, okay. When you sound like those obscure references, so like, like thinking in categories, like sports would be one, history would be one, any other animals, like those are all kind of interesting. James Walker: Yeah, history, animals, geography, politics, I mean, maybe just like a, yeah, just like a reference to something that’s maybe like, almost like a fun fact, but like has some relevance and or humor to the thing being discussed. It’s kind of hard to talk about like, on an island, you know, I’m more when I see it when I see it. So I wouldn’t force it. I think also to do is just like, Okay, did I, I want people to learn something. Maybe not learn something new, but you know, get information from not just have it be blah, blah, blah. But like, okay, I actually like, okay, I read that. Now I know what this company’s doing. You know, I know what they’re doing. This person was saying thanks. There’s like a nice little anecdote they worked in here. Like again, the Utah thing was, I mean, those people were awesome. Like I, I didn’t have time to get my kid a shirt. I mentioned the shirt size to someone and they were like, oh, they work for the school, like, oh, we’ll bring you one at the event tomorrow. And they brought me five. It has like five Utah shirts in different sizes so we can grow into them. And I was like, incredibly touched, worth a shout out, you know, and like that’s, I’m not like teaching anything, but like that was, to me, that was a perfect thing to share. It’s like, hey, you know, some people remember that story, you know, just because it’s simple, but you know, it’s got some nice fit to it. It’s reflective of like the business practices in Utah that make them good people to work with. Jacob Shipley: Cool. One of the posts that we do in that kind of first batch or at the latest second batch that we try to like deliver to our clients is that origin story sounds a little too like ominous or formal, but that idea of like, you’re going to be posting more and putting yourself out there. People should know who they’re hearing from James Walker: So I would love, just I mean a few minutes I guess if you want to like chat you’re like what’s your story how do you get into VC you said you were quote-unquote real lawyer back in the day well just what is your kind of background look like that’s led you to where you are oh yeah absolutely let’s see so first I would kind of phrase it half-jokingly as like I’m coming out of stealth because that’s a thing that you know companies do I was billed and then they when they’re ready to ship they And you know, I’ve been marinating for almost six years now as a VC with being like, all right, it’s time for me to just get out there and have a voice now that I’m finally over my imposter syndrome a little bit. My background from the Bay Area, from Silicon Valley, went to law school because I wanted to, I’m just talking freely here, I don’t know what’s good for the, post or not, but I went to law school because I couldn’t think of anything better to do. Honestly, I wanted to go to a better grad, a good grad school. And I went to Santa Barbara undergrad, good school, but I was like, yeah, I want to get something fancier on my resume. So I went to Duke for law school, a decent reader. So I was like, you just go to law school because you have nothing better to do. You don’t have a better idea of where to go with your life. Graduated that, came back and worked for a law firm in the Bay Area, Lake Milwaukee, So basically just big law, like training, did that for three years. Went to business school because I just did not want to do that anymore. I was like, I’m bugging over this. No, thank you. All my partners are on their second or third wives and none of them have hair and everyone just seems miserable. And that’s like, if you’re successful at this job, not for me. I didn’t have the patience to try and like go in-house as a lawyer somewhere else and then maybe lateral away from the law. I was just like, the law is useful, but it’s it’s not what I want to have be my bread and butter. It’s like a skill set I wanted to learn, but it’s not what I want to go and work on every day. So I went to business school, Columbia, graduated in COVID time, like COVID had just started when I graduated, reached out to Tim originally because he, I was thinking if he had dropped portfolio companies that were opening. I knew Tim a little bit from growing up in the area, but like that’s what they tell you in business school is reach out to VCs because they know who just got funding and who’s hiring. And he’s like, look, I got an idea. And I, you know, kicked around being VC, which, which I had with some internships in business school. And I know you don’t want to be a lawyer anymore, but do some legal work for me, you’ll save me legal bills. And you can also invest because everyone here does two jobs. So like, you know, when and said, yes, when I started, I was probably 80% legal, 20% investing. Now I’m 90% investing, 10% legal. And so that’s how I got into this role. And in terms of my origin story, middle of five boys, hence the sports and the animals is just love them going outside. I’ve loved working with startups because these are the best and brightest and bravest among us doing, well, not among us, first responders and crap like that. But you’re around these incredibly smart, engaging, hardworking, passionate people, and I’m obviously a little risk-averse, given the legal background, but you get to vicariously live through people building awesome things and you get to be along for the ride. And it’s also a very collaborative relationship. You know, a lot of times lawyers have this like antagonistic relationship with people because you’re arguing over stuff and there’s negotiations. I still do plenty of that, but you’re negotiating with people that you want to work with hopefully for 10 years as they build a unicorn. And so you always have that in mind and it’s a much more rewarding and like sustainable So that’s why I’ve been doing it for six years now and we’ll love to do it for another six That’s really cool. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: What was it like growing up in the Bay Area? James Walker: Well, it’s funny. I grew up before it was like Facebook came to Menlo Park when I was in high school and we were like, hell yeah, this is awesome. Now we’re like, oh no, I can’t live here anymore. It’s too expensive. So there was a whole like careful what you wish for type deal, but no, growing up in the Bay was cool. Yeah, we all thought we were on the OC, which is an older show. I don’t know if you guys even know the OC, but it was a big deal. Michael Houck: Do, do, do, do. Do, do, do, do. James Walker: That’s right. James Walker: And so like, yeah, obviously it’s not, that’s not Northern California, that’s Southern California, but we all thought we were that. Yeah. Cool. Jacob Shipley: Okay, sweet. I really, that’s super helpful. As we kind of get started, I want to make sure I would give Ben enough time to walk through the onboarding stuff as well as the operation side. So Ben, you want to hit through those notes and if we have any time left, there’s always a couple of things I can hit on. Ben Ornstein: Yeah, sounds good. So I realized I only got your LinkedIn, not your Twitter. So I’ll DM you for those credentials afterwards. James Walker: That’s one thing. Here’s a question on Twitter. Lurker account, God, that I’ve been on for maybe 10 years or something like that. And then, maybe it was like 20 followers, but not really. Or, so should I just start fresh with one for that? Like, I don’t really tweet right, I don’t tweet right now. I just use one to follow and one, and presumably one to be for work. So is it fine to start with one, or should I try and use the other one? Is there some value in it, like, having been around for a while, or does that not really matter? Michael Houck: algorithmic value of having like an older account. James Walker: So it’s up to you. We can go either way. Well, I’ll do the new account. I’ll send that to you. And I don’t have to like worry about like what inappropriate meme accounts I’m following. I don’t want to have to, I don’t have to drop those. That’s my new stand up comedy. So, but I’ll send you the credentials there. Ben Ornstein: Cool. Thank you. So yeah, I’ll, I’ll be handling the content scheduling a rhythm of post per week, and it’ll be sent to you for review. We’ve got a Notion process that’s pretty automated and seamless where you’ll get tagged when there’s content for review in your dedicated Slack channel. And then I’ll also be handling kind of this curated engagement sort of engagement pod. Have they heard about this? I’m not sure. Michael Houck: Yeah, so James, this is optional. This is if you want to opt into it, Basically, Ben and the team will be able to engage with folks who you think are worth engaging. So if you have a list of other VCs who you want to build relationships with, we can just comment on their posts as you, if you want us to do that. James Walker: Got it. Yeah, don’t need to do that right away, but that’s good to know that that’s on the roadmap maybe. Ben Ornstein: 100%. Yeah, that’s always an option we can pick up at any time. So if you happen to see value in that in the future, just let us know. So from my side, yeah, I mean, I’ll be, I’m always around. I try to make myself as available as possible. Michael Houck: That’s the only person who sleeps less than me. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah. Ben Ornstein: I’m not too much of a good debater though. So I wouldn’t be good. But yeah, no, I, I’m always around. So if there’s any questions at all, I’m the person to go through. Than actual content creation, that’ll be all things Jacob. Michael Houck: So really, if anything, I’m always around. Michael Houck: Yeah. So James, I think we’re all good, man. Did you have any other questions that came up that you want to chat through while we have the team on the call here? James Walker: I guess for content, so how much of it is me writing something from scratch? And how much is me looking at something you’ve written and tweaking it? Generally, I may be totally depends. Michael Houck: I mean, look, it’s your account, right? If you want to post your own posts, if you want to post your own thoughts, like fire from the hitman or write it out and batch it yourself, that’s totally fine. But what we will be doing is delivering you drafts that we think are, you know, basically what you’ve told us today that fit that. And so you’ll be able to review those. We’ll share those with you in Slack. We’ll also share sort of like opportunities to comment on things. So we think that, oh, there’s a trending conversation that we think your POV would be interesting to add to. We’ll share that with you, we’ll surface that to you. And if you have a minute to just pick up your phone and record a rambly voice note into Slack, that’s gonna give us what we need. James Walker: Awesome. Great, that sounds good. And then when should I think about getting started? Michael Houck: We will be getting started basically right after this. So Jacob will be getting started first batch ASAP. I would imagine you’ll receive that, you know, probably mid, like Wednesday, Thursday, maybe next week, go start internal review first. So can’t say exact date, but yeah, we’ll be going, we’ll be going off there. And I know we’re just starting with sort of a, a smaller footprint, but as you sort of think we’re nailing the voice and if you want us to take more on, obviously just let me know. And we’ll, we’ll make sure that happens. Awesome. Jacob Shipley: Great. Jacob Shipley: Cool. And then, so yeah, that first batch I’ll deliver, obviously depends on how many posts we’re delivering per week. But I typically, you come from a big family, I’ve got four kids. So I typically, my default is to try to work a little bit ahead for my benefit, but also for your benefit, so you’re never having to scramble a review. So typically, once we get, this first batch is gonna be a little bit different, obviously, because it’ll be deliver and then post pretty quick after. Want to get a couple weeks ahead at least. So that way when I deliver you a batch of posts, you’re not having to make a decision on Friday for a post going out on Monday. You’re making a decision on Friday for a post that’s going out a week or two weeks from Monday, just to give us a little bit of breathing room. The exception there would be Stripe just made it really easy to accept Bitcoin for payments. And I thought Tim would have a really interesting POV on that. So I wrote a post quick, moved it through internal view and moved early. Exceptions to that. If there’s something like how I said, we’re like, we really want your POV on something and deliver fast. But typically, I’ll try to work like that. And then, again, like as input for you, our goal is to make that be as minimal as possible to where dream state would be I deliver something, you give it a thumbs up when we post it. Obviously, early on, I’m going to need a little bit more time for me to be able to be like, hey, I would say this, I wouldn’t say this. The more info you can give me early, the more time it’s going to save us both in the long run. James Walker: Great. All sounds good. Michael Houck: Excited to get rolling. Awesome. Look forward to it. Michael Houck: Love it. All right, James. Let us know if anything comes up, but Ben will reach out for the exponential and we will get rocking rolling from there. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Great. Thanks all. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Awesome. See you. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Thank you.