FF 013: 'Make Bets And Believe In What You Are Doing' with James Borow @ Shift & Brand Networks

James Borow is Chief Product Officer at Brand Networks which delivers social marketing and advertising to 650 enterprise customers, following their acquisition of Shift where James was CEO and Co-Founder and led the business to being the No 1 marketing software company for social advertisers with clients such as Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. James was named a semi-finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in 2014, and is a thought leader in digital advertising, with articles in Forbes, The New York Times, Bloomberg and Business Insider. James is also an active angel investor, having invested in Kixer, a mobile advertising platform, Gradient X, a mobile DSP (acquired by SingTel) and Conversion Logic, an online advertising attribution platform. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) What were James' entrepreneurial origins and what was his aha moment? 2.) How did James get his first clients and what were the hardest aspects of growing the business? 3.) What was it like working with these tech titans like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin? 4.) Shift obtained $14m in VC funding. How did James meet his investors? How was the fundraising experience for James? What were the surprises and challenging aspects? 5.) Shift was acquired by Brand Networks for $50m but what were James' reasons for selling? Was there any clash between James and his investors when it came to the sale? 6.) What advice would James give to founders contemplating selling their business to larger acquirers? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: James' Fave Book: John Adams by Dave McCullough James' Fave Apps: Snapchat, Business Insider and ProductHunt As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and James on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  What's up everybody and what a fantastic Founders Friday we have in store for you today. You're listening to the 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings and today's episode is courtesy of our dear friend Clark Landry. Thank you so much for introducing us to today's guest. I'm very proud to welcome James Borrow to the 20 Minute VC. James is Chief Product Officer at Brand Networks, which delivers social marketing and advertising to 650 enterprise customers. Following the acquisition of Shift Platform, where James was CEO and co-founder, where he led the business to being the number one marketing software company for social advertisers with clients such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. If that wasn't enough, James was named semi-finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year

• 0:45Harry Stebbings?

  Award in 2014 and he really is a thought leader in the digital advertising industry with articles in Forbes, New York Times, Bloomberg and of course Business Insider. However, James also sits on both sides of the table as he is an active angel investor, having invested in Kixxer, Gradient X, acquired by Singtel and Conversion Logic. But before we delve into today's show, let me stop and tell you about Vidar Law. They are a boutique law firm that is focused on allowing tech startups to grow without interference from any legal aspects and you know what is so great about them? They do fixed fees. They do not want to surprise you with unexpected bills, meaning you can call them up and not

• 1:26Harry Stebbings?

  have to worry about billable hours and know that your bill is not going to be unexpected and will be the same every single month, allowing you to focus on what matters, which is making your company as successful as possible. So you can check them out at www.vidarlaw.com or you can email my personal friend and partner at vidarlaw@[email protected]. However, back to today's show and it is now time to welcome James Borrow, Chief Product Officer at Brand Networks.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 2:10Harry Stebbings?

  James, it's great to have you on Founder's Friday. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely, appreciate you asking me to join.

• 2:17Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I'd first like to say thank you so much to Clark Landry, who's become a dear friend actually since coming on the show. But Clark introduced us to James, so thank you so much, Clark. And I'd like to start off today's episode by saying a huge congratulations to James for the acquisition of Shift by Brown Networks. But before we dive into that acquisition, I'd love to hear where it all started and what your entrepreneurial origins were, James.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So I, um, you know, I went to, uh, went to college in Vanderbilt, uh, in Nashville, Tennessee. And I was gonna be a lawyer originally. Um, I was pretty dead set on that. I was gonna go to law school. And after I graduated Vanderbilt, decided to take off a year, uh, and before getting into law school, just to figure out what kind of law I wanted to practice. And I ended up, uh, getting an opportunity to work for, uh, a company that was founded by the CEO of shopping.com out in, uh, California. And so I moved out to California, uh, just to go work sort of in the internet, whatever that meant.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Uh, and, uh, fell in love with, uh, what sort of the internet represented and in particular what social networks could do. And so the original plan was to spend a year out in California. Uh, I'm now in my ninth year, um, out here. Uh, I, uh, I got really lucky though in the process. Um, I was gonna go to law school at a, that George Washington University, uh, in Washington DC, and I called the dean and I said, "Listen, I really, really liking this internet stuff. Um, but I'm not quite sure, uh, if I really don't want to go to law school." And she said, "Uh, I'll hold your spot as long as you want." Uh, so she ended up giving me five years of deferment, uh, which basically meant that I could do, um, you know,

• 4:03Speaker 02

  take the entrepreneurial track, um, but really kind of have a lot more appetite for risk than most people because the reality was that I had law school waiting for me. Uh, so that was a huge advantage, uh, and incredibly thankful, uh, that, that they did that for me. Um, and while working...

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Uh, out here, I actually met Clark Landry, who became my co-founder uh in Shift uh and I went to go work with him uh at a company uh called Mines and Machines uh in Santa Monica uh and since then uh have, you know, just been uh completely focused to sort of learning how to start companies uh and eventually went on to co-found Shift uh and you know, that's where we are today.

• 4:49Harry Stebbings?

  And you said there about the safety net of having the university to fall back on if it didn't work out. Would you say safety nets are quite good for entrepreneurs? So would you suggest that people shouldn't leave day jobs and should try and do it on weekends in the early stages? Their passions, may it be?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's it's hard to, you know, there's always cases that work either way, but I think in general, I think, you know, like anything, you just really don't know what sort of these businesses really are until you start doing them. So I think just sort of cutting the cord immediately is really, really tough. Um, you know, I think it's like anything. It's like diving straight into law school. I think probably would have been unwise as well. Um, you know, it was great for me to go get that exposure working for a startup. And so I think likewise, if you want to go ahead and start something, start it. It's incredibly easy to start something. It sounds ridiculous, but it is really easy to start something. Um, so do it in your free time. Uh, and you know, I think, you know, it's really hard to go back and it's uh, it's also just,

• 5:52Speaker 02

  you know, mentally exhausting to go back. Uh, so I think, you know, learn as much as you can about what you're doing and then go back to it if you want to.

• 5:57Harry Stebbings?

  And you say it's really easy to start something. Did you have any technical skills then when you started?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  I did not, no. I uh, so it's really easy to start something if you have friends who have technical skills.

• 6:08Harry Stebbings?

  Uh, small disclaimer at the bottom of the iTunes terms and conditions.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, but no, the reality is even if you, I mean, today, uh, back then it was, I guess, harder. Uh, but today, I mean, there's freelancers all over the place. Everyone, every person you know has a friend who works in tech or can write some basic code. Um, so you know, if there's a will, there's a way. Uh, I was really fortunate though, um, for two reasons. One is I I got to work at a startup that had a bunch of engineers. Obviously, that was great. Uh, and then uh I became really good friends with a bunch of engineers and um, you know, the first company we ever started. This is far before Shift, uh, was actually a company that, um, the original CTO of Shift, uh, myself and my sister started, uh, which was called Girls Guide Two.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Uh, and the name obviously is, sounds ridiculous, but it was basically a, it was basically a BuzzFeed for females before BuzzFeed. And, uh, and it was the first.

• 7:08Harry Stebbings?

  This is revolutionary.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  It was cool. It was, um, it was actually the first Facebook Connect, uh, website pretty much ever. Uh, and so that's part of the reason why we got so involved in the Facebook ecosystem is that, uh, when the Connect platform came out, uh, we built this site and the whole premise of the site was that only females could get in. So we used your Facebook identity, um, as a way to ensure that only females get in, males couldn't. Uh, we adopted the platform a hundred percent, meaning you couldn't use anything other than Facebook, which today is not differentiated at all, but back then was. Uh, and we're really lucky, Facebook, when they featured, uh, the Connect platform, uh, they would feature it with, you know, they would talk about, I think at the time, Dig and Huffbo and CNN Money and Girls Guide Two, uh, and, uh.

• 7:55Harry Stebbings?

  Prestigious company.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, uh, it was definitely kind of, it was a funny experience, but I think it's a good example of just, we had a little idea, we had an engineer, um, and we had a clever angle and we put it together. Um, and I think not doing that, uh, really would have changed things. I think just the amount we learned about the Facebook ecosystem, the Facebook APIs, just from building that really led us to where we got with Shift.

• 8:20Harry Stebbings?

  And you grew Shift to a powerhouse of the industry in a, really a short number of years. How did you go about attaining your first clients then? I mean, it's often the hardest step, getting the first clients.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we were, uh, making a lot of phone calls. Um, you know, at the time we had, uh, we didn't have any funding, um, we had, um, you know, basically a beta product. Uh, and the kind of interesting thing about how Shift got started, you know, ended up becoming a social ads business, uh, but originally there weren't even social ads yet. So what we were doing is we built. Uh, ad technology to go inside Facebook applications. So when you're playing games on Facebook, we were actually serving ads there because you couldn't programmatically serve ads directly on Facebook yet. And so we were calling brands like Microsoft and uh, you know, original clients like Jamba Juice,

• 9:14Speaker 02

  companies like that, saying, listen, we can go ahead and help you advertise within this Facebook ecosystem in a programmatic way. Uh, the alternative is, you know, no targeting, things like that. Uh, man, we had to really explain to them why they should advertise on social. You know, kind of fast forward to today, you know, it's kind of funny how, how little convincing you have to do about why advertising on Facebook makes sense. Uh, but back then, we, we not only had to convince them to work with us, but we had to convince them to move budget from other places to social. Uh, so I think when you're entering in a new market, you know, the hardest aspects of our, of it is the fact that it's a new market.

• 9:51Harry Stebbings?

  And so it's tough to have to educate clients on your, your offering, uh, and the value of your offering. So you, you did it through saying that it will increase their value proposition to their users, was it? How, how did you sell it to them?

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, the early days, um, you know, really was about reaching just a whole new audience. Um, you know, that was sort of, I would say, kind of day one of where the, the value proposition was. Um, you know, as things evolved, uh, and, you know, even where they sit today as part of brand networks, uh, the value proposition is that it's one marketing platform for you to manage all of your paid owned and earned and have all your stakeholders work together and advertise across every single social network. Uh, so it's evolved dramatically from where it was, uh, on day one, but I think, you know, on day one, you know, we were trying to make it, uh, as simple as possible for people to understand. And again, this is, you know, five, six years ago, you know, the, the marketing teams at Microsoft,

• 10:50Speaker 02

  you know, were still kind of confused about why the hell they should advertise on this Facebook thing. You know, it was a bunch of college kids. Um, so definitely interesting experience, but, uh, you know, we, we got to the point where we had a lot of advertisers, we actually, before really even had a, a company formed. It was the kind of a classic cliche startup story, had like checks in a shoebox under my bed. Um, so it was, uh, I, I see like movies and like TV shows, uh, talking about startups. It kind of makes me cringe just because it, it strikes home, uh, pretty closely.

• 11:23Harry Stebbings?

  And you you mentioned there obviously Facebook and and then Twitter were also marketing platform partners with Shift and LinkedIn certified marketing partners. So what was it like working with these tech titans? I mean, we often hear about their kind of uh company culture being very slow to move and adapt. Did you find that when you worked with them?

• 11:44Speaker 02

  No, not at all. I mean, I think, you know, we were fortunate in that um for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram. Pretty much every single social network ever launched, we've been a launch partner with them. And the great thing about that has been twofold. One is, you know, they're creating these new ecosystems, uh, you know, along with us. So in a lot of ways, we feel like we're having a really big impact and helping them figure out where this all goes. Uh, and the other thing is we've been in social for, you know, relatively speaking, a long time, um, as long as a lot of these people have. Uh, and so a lot of ways, we feel like they're our peers and we've sort of grown up with them in this space. And so it's been, it's been really fun.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  We've seen a lot of people kind of grow to really interesting positions at these companies. Um, the partners themselves just couldn't have been more supportive to us over the years. And, you know, unlike kind of traditional big companies, these guys move really fast, you know, when they decide they want to do something, they do it. Uh, and they they tend to be pretty successful in doing it. So it's been fascinating just working with them.

• 12:51Harry Stebbings?

  And as Shift scaled, how did you deal with the scaling process of kind of increasing hires and increasing budgets? Was it tough for you to adjust to?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was uh, it was definitely a process. Um, I had just some phenomenal advisors, uh, and uh, and co, you know, employees, uh, along the way, um, you know, we had. You know, in the early days, and I think this is still a healthy way to think about it, but I was, you know, I was almost scared of, uh, scared of spending money and I was scared of growing headcount. Um, and, you know, I had a, an advisor who was a president of ours for a period of time, a guy named Stefano Kim, uh, who's a great operator, um, one of the best operators I've ever met, uh, sat me down and explained to me that, uh, that you need to invest to grow and, uh, you need to make bets, uh, if you really kind of believe

• 13:43Speaker 02

  in what you're doing. And it was a hugely kind of important perspective for me to gain. Um, you know, at the time I was like 26 and you just, you didn't want to, you didn't want to burn for the sake of burn. And, and I think that's still a healthy way to think, but at the same time, there are times where you do need to burn if you want to, uh, invest in things that make sense for you in the long term. Uh, so it was definitely an interesting uh, transition to go through, uh, and still kind of, I think, takes a healthy balance. You can't sort of buy your own BS and, and chase the shiny object, uh, and you can't go ahead and, and think there's always going to be funding, but if there's something you believe in, you have to make the bet on it.

• 14:19Harry Stebbings?

  So would you say that it's very important for young startup founders and employees to have a mentor to guide them through the process?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, without a doubt. I, I, I have a ton of really just incredible advisors, um, you know, and friends, not to mention an incredible co-founder in Clark. Um, but there's absolutely no reason to reinvent the wheel on a lot of this stuff. And, you know, everyone's smart, you know, in terms of them, their own ability to learn these things, but you're going to waste a couple of years trying to learn it. And so, you know, I would not be, uh, I would not be shy in asking questions. There's no ego in this at all in terms of yourself. Like the, the ego should be around making the company successful and making sure that your employees and investors do well. Um, so I

• 15:08Speaker 02

  think, you know, finding advisors, um, finding great co-founders, um, not being short sighted with things like equity, uh, you know, I think those are all key things to it that, uh, I would just, you know, I couldn't encourage people more to, to really think about.

• 15:23Harry Stebbings?

  And would you say that when When you say short-sighted about equity, do you mean being too possessive over it?

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that so many people start, you know, especially in the early days, they start sort of chasing the shiny object, thinking about what their equity could represent. And equity is obviously incredibly important, but I think that you want people to feel like they're owners in the company. And you want even advisors to have the skin in the game. And so I just think, you know, if you want people to if you want people to have a similar perspective to you do, as you do, then I think you really kind of have to help everyone be incentivized to do that. And for us, it was, it was great. You know, we, we had a lot of people who were really, really focused on helping us because they, they had a piece of the company. And, you know, I've seen other people who end up having

• 16:11Speaker 02

  a hundred percent of a company, but, um, you know, don't really surround themselves with bright people and uh, and a hundred percent of nothing isn't really worth the bust at all.

• 16:20Harry Stebbings?

  And then before we discuss the acquisition, Schiff did obtain funding to the tune of fourteen million dollars. Um, I think my very trustworthy TechCrunch sources told me. Always trust TechCrunch. Uh, but how did you meet your investors?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we've, um, a couple of ways, you know, again, another example of where having, uh, you know, phenomenal co-founders or advisors comes into play is investing, um, especially having, uh, Clark, uh, as my co-founder and, uh, as the, the chairman of Schiff. Uh, you know, we had just, uh, you know, an unbelievable amount of, uh, contacts through Clark. Um, so that was great. Uh, and, you know, he's also a very large angel investor. He's in about sixty different deals. So there's a lot of people that he has.

• 17:08Harry Stebbings?

  His syndicates is huge now.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's pretty amazing. So he has a lot of, uh, a lot of great contacts there that we got in front of. And then, you know, people, uh, you know, because we had all these great advisors, you were always getting introduced to people. So a lot of it was very. Um, organic, you know, we weren't, um, you were fortunate not to have to be cold calling a lot of these investors. Um, a lot of them are real conversations about, you know, the business we're building and do they want to be a part of it. Uh, I think overall, you know, it was actually just a really enjoyable process. It's definitely a difficult process. There's no doubt about that. But even when you get a bunch of no's, you meet just some brilliant people and it really keeps you, uh, you know, you never learn more about your business than going out and try to raise money. Uh, the amount of questions you get

• 17:55Speaker 02

  and the level of thoughtfulness, uh, that people put into when they're potentially putting in someone else's money, uh, is pretty, uh, is pretty humbling. And so it was a really good, good, but, uh, but challenging process.

• 18:09Harry Stebbings?

  What was the most challenging?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Um, I think the most challenging thing, especially in the early days, uh, was the initial hump was trying to get everyone excited about social. Um, there were questions about what this thing really would be. Um, you know, the other one is that, uh, you know, we had made a decision again early to, to really focus our engineering resources on LA. Uh, and at the time you had people sort of having somewhat of a, the sort of Silicon Valley bias. Uh, you know, fast forward to today, I think that's a non-issue with people like, you know, Mark Suster and Upfront Ventures and Snapchat in LA. Uh, but that was definitely a challenge. Um, and then I think also, you know, we really wanted

• 18:55Speaker 02

  to build, uh, you know, our company, you know, although we were in ad tech, you know, our core value prop was around, uh, in many ways, collaboration and data. So getting all the people, the stakeholders, uh, and networks together, uh, in one platform. And I think, you know, again, today as things have moved to programmatic, that thesis was definitely correct. But, uh, in the early days, you know, people wanted you to build sort of a, uh, Just sort of another version of a DSP and we really had to make sure that we found investors who believed in our vision as opposed to the vision that everyone else wanted us to have. So, you know, I think those are kind of things where you get asked a lot of great questions. We also have to make sure you stick to what you believe in because you do in a lot of ways

• 19:37Speaker 02

  get married to these investors and you want to make sure that you uh you want to wake up next to them about the good and bad days.

• 19:44Harry Stebbings?

  Would that be your biggest piece of advice to founders maybe entering a funding round? To really approach them with caution because they will be yours for a while.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I also wouldn't raise money for the sake of raising money. Um, you know, when I say, you know, don't be short sighted with equity, uh, you know, with co-founders and investors, I agree with that. I also think don't be short sighted with it in terms of uh uh raising money. Uh, you know, I wouldn't, I I've definitely learned, you know, if you're a first time entrepreneur, do your research about preferences, understand the impacts of these rounds, understand that there's going to be bad times and that these investors are going to be there for both the good and bad ones. Uh, so I just think, you know, take it really seriously. It's fun to get the TechCrunch article, but in a lot of ways it doesn't really matter. Um, it's like cool to show your friends at home, but it it almost has no impact on your business. Um, so I would just really go into it with very open eyes.

• 20:38Harry Stebbings?

  And then we now have to talk a bit about the acquisition. It is obviously a an important moment for the for the uh Shift Platforms kind of evolution. So fifty million to Brown Networks, an amazing achievement and again, congratulations. But what were your reasons for selling? I mean, was there any conflict in your mind?

• 20:59Speaker 02

  No, you know, I think, you know, we had, uh, we'd been approached by the Brown Networks team, uh, and as we learned more about them, uh, it became just a really, really.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't wanna say obvious, but it made a lot of sense for a couple of reasons. Um, you know, one is, you know, the way that they've performed over the years has been pretty impressive. They raised, you know, one round of funding. It was a sixty-eight million dollar round. They're backed by AEA investors, which is, you know, a six billion dollar private equity fund. Um, you know, in our space, you know, they've, they've just done a phenomenal job on that front. They've also built just some incredible clients as well. And the other thing that I love about it is that they had actually focused a lot on the content side. Um, so that's sort of the organic side of social, where we had really been incredibly strong on the paid side.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  And the opportunity to join forces and really create this truly holistic platform uh, has always been our goal. And so, uh, it made it just, uh, it made it really exciting from a pure product standpoint, which is where kind of a lot of the times like where my kind of perspective lies. Um, you know, the other part is the team is just awesome. Um, you know, the, the president over there, a guy named Paul Falzoni, has become a great friend and a great mentor. Uh, they have phenomenal engineering team, uh, and, you know, they have offices across the world. So when we started thinking about what we could build together, uh, it made it, uh, really, really exciting. And, you know, I think as our investors learned about, you know, what, you know, Brand Networks Plus Shift could mean for this space, um, you know, in becoming, you know,

• 22:38Speaker 02

  pretty much the largest independent player, uh, they all got really excited as well. So, uh, definitely no clash. You know, our investors have been great. Um, you know, we have, you know, a couple of funds in particular like Lear Ventures and Rincon Venture Partners. Just, you know, some of the best VCs slash just people I know. Uh, and so, you know, once we explained to them, you know, why we thought this made sense and, uh, why this is a good thing for everyone, uh, besides just the financial impact of it. Uh, you know, I think everyone was pretty excited about it.

• 23:11Harry Stebbings?

  And then now you were acquired obviously then by Brand Networks. And how has then your role changed since being acquired? And what advice would you give to founders who are contemplating being acquired by a much larger organization?

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'm now the, the chief product officer of the company. And so, uh, that's obviously a transition going from CEO to just focusing on product. Um, you know, I think there's a, uh-

• 23:38Speaker 02

  It's, you know, I think it's one of those things where you have to understand that, you know, uh, when being acquired, you obviously, there's a level of, uh, a level of control that you once had that obviously goes away just by nature of no longer being completely in control. Uh, and I think, you know, that's something that as long as you have, uh, phenomenal partners in it, it makes it a good thing. And, and we've been lucky in that the Brad Network team has just been great. Uh, you know, if they, if they ended up being bad guys, then, you know, I think I'd probably have a different perspective on it, but, uh, it's really been for me a good opportunity to really focus on product, uh, and to kind of help, you know, there's

• 24:20Speaker 02

  all these things we always want to do over the years, but I unfortunately, you know, when you're running a company, you basically spend about five percent of your time actually focusing on the things that you would deem important and about 95% of the time working on things like fundraising and HR and hiring and all the things that, you know, kind of the business of doing business. So it's been a great opportunity for me to really focus and to, to do the things I want to do on the product side.

• 24:46Harry Stebbings?

  And we always hear though, that great founders should focus. What tips would you give then for founders out there in terms of focusing on all the kind of items you just mentioned fundraising, HR hiring and not getting trapped by the kind of mundanity of everyday organization?

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, hire well. Um, I think that's the key. So I, I was able to be a much, much better CEO as I surrounded myself with better people.

• 25:12Harry Stebbings?

  Okay.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Um, and I think that's, you know, depending on the size of the company, um, you know, we brought in a CFO, a woman named Andrea Green, um, a couple of years ago, who just totally changed the company, uh, in terms of helping us understand, you know, really how the business was performing and, and the decisions we had to make. You know, I think that's a hire that people often, uh, put off because they may know someone who kind of understands finance. Yeah, I would invest early on that side. Um, and then I think, uh, if you're a product focused, uh, CEO, still hire a head of product. Um, our VP of product has been phenomenal over the years and he's really been able to help me. You know, I think again, you just have to find, be honest with yourself, find the places

• 25:54Speaker 02

  you're not good and tell someone, you know, tell your co-founder or tell your board and get them on board with helping you find someone who can fill the gaps.

• 26:02Harry Stebbings?

  And then if it's okay with you, we're gonna dive into a quickfire round now.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 26:07Harry Stebbings?

  So your favourite newsletter or blog?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Uh Stratfor, it's a geopolitics blog, it's uh it's pretty fascinating.

• 26:16Harry Stebbings?

  Your favourite book and why?

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Uh John Adams by David McCullough, uh sort of love the overall history of the US, uh anything sort of uh founder related.

• 26:29Harry Stebbings?

  And then your must-have phone apps.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Must-have phone apps, uh Snapchat, um.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Business Insider, I read way too much, uh I know it's it's uh I shouldn't.

• 26:44Harry Stebbings?

  We found Business Insider here, don't worry.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, um and then. Yeah, I would say, yeah, so Snapchat for sure, Business Insider, um and then uh Product Hunt.

• 26:57Harry Stebbings?

  Product Hunt, we love, absolutely love Product Hunt, cause we were on Product Hunt actually, uh.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Oh, nice.

• 27:03Harry Stebbings?

  A while ago, uh and it's done amazing things for us, so huge thank you to Product Hunt, shout out right there. Um and and then hard times as a founder, yeah, do you tell the team and potentially worry them or do you try and deal with it yourself as a founder?

• 27:18Speaker 02

  You definitely tell them, uh you know, transparency is the key, I just, you know, and the reality is, is that especially for these types of companies, you want people to know. It it's like a heading into a storm, you want everyone to know what they're facing so they can brace for it and you want to make sure that the ones that uh. That wanna be there, there, so I I wouldn't be scared to tell the truth about anything.

• 27:38Harry Stebbings?

  And then finally, the next five years for you and for Shift Incorporated and Brown Networks.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Uh I think, you know, the goal is to continue building out the brand networks platform to be the largest. Uh marketing platform a- across social, you know, we just added uh as launch partners, uh Instagram and Pinterest. Um we're gonna be rolling out a ton of cool stuff over the next quarter. Uh we're fortunate to have, you know, almost a hundred engineers on staff, um building stuff, so we're moving really fast. And um you know, for me, I just wanna keep on building great products and building great companies.

• 28:15Harry Stebbings?

  Fantastic, well, James, it's been an absolute pleasure and a great fun having you on the show today, thank you so much for coming on.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Absolutely, man. I really appreciate you inviting me to join.

• 28:25Harry Stebbings?

  What an incredible episode that was with James and again, thank you so much to Clark Landry for making that happen. And as always, all the items and resources mentioned in today's show can be found on the blog at www.the20minetc.com. Before we leave the episode today, you must check out www.vedarlaw.com, the startup-friendly law firm where the partners have decades of experience. You are not going to get junior associates and best of all, if you're a startup, it's the worst thing to get an expensive legal fee out of the blue. With Vedar Law, that does not happen. All you need to do is to agree to a structured fee where you have the partners at the end of the phone for a fixed monthly price, meaning you will never have that unexpected legal cost.

• 29:09Harry Stebbings?

  Peace of mind and securing the legal foundations of your business is a must. So head over to www.vedarlaw.com or email C W E R N E R at vedarlaw.com. Thank you so much as always for your continued support and we look so forward to seeing you in the next episode.