Sachin and Adam
00:01:44 · Adam, Sachin
[00:01:44] S0: tech media company. And what we're doing here today is that this is our sort of building public esque podcast episode. By the time you see this, we might have changed the name, but we wanna give you a no holds bar expose into what it's actually like building a company. And we wanna do things differently. We wanna genuinely build in Public. You're gonna hear everything about how we fundraise for this, how we almost didn't do this, how we quit our jobs. Yeah. What we're actually doing, and literally everything behind the scenes. And also the day to day [00:02:14] S1: of running a company. Like, we're gonna be spending some time in New York, so hopefully we'll take you behind the scenes with some founders there. But the reason we're doing this is we want to create a journal, a diary, a real, like, raw look on what it's like to do this because we went and searched for the content, we couldn't really find it. I think the closest analogy is maybe Stephen Bartlett's, Behind the Diary or the Gimlet podcast. Yeah. Startup podcast. But I think that this is gonna be the insights that you've never heard before, and we're also just gonna have conversations. Like, this is gonna be like a weekly meeting between me and Adam where we discuss what we're doing as well. And I [00:02:47] S0: think if we're starting any company, we'd sort of wanna do this because we like being open. We like sharing. It's fun. But a big part of what we're doing is starting a media company. And so we can actually do this as, like, a big part of what we're doing.
00:02:47 · Adam, Sachin
[00:02:47] S0: think if we're starting any company, we'd sort of wanna do this because we like being open. We like sharing. It's fun. But a big part of what we're doing is starting a media company. And so we can actually do this as, like, a big part of what we're doing. [00:02:59] S1: Yeah. It's kind of meta where we get to reflect whilst producing content out of it at the same time, which is not something a lot of, business owners get to do. But I think we should wind it back to how we got started with Kindling, how we raise money, and what it actually is, and how we're standing here right now. How far do you wanna go back? I think we go back [00:03:17] S0: to the start. Go back to the very start. [00:03:20] S1: Yeah. So a few of you have heard this story before, but we'll rehash a little bit. Adam and I actually met on exchange in Utrecht in The Netherlands, and we were struggling to find housing. So we ended up living together, went to the same university, and without really knowing each other that well, we moved in together. Yeah. And I think, like, after we moved in
00:03:20 · Sachin, Adam
[00:03:20] S1: Yeah. So a few of you have heard this story before, but we'll rehash a little bit. Adam and I actually met on exchange in Utrecht in The Netherlands, and we were struggling to find housing. So we ended up living together, went to the same university, and without really knowing each other that well, we moved in together. Yeah. And I think, like, after we moved in [00:03:40] S0: three weeks later, we were just joined by the hit. It was like everything that we did, we could do it together. Everything we wanted to discuss, we could discuss together. Like, we're going to the gym, we're going to parties. We're doing well at school. Like, we topped a bunch of subjects on exchange. We're making the same friends. When we were hungover, we were talking about business ideas and stuff. We're just sort of doing everything. And after three weeks, we're joined by the hip, and then you have six months overseas. And six months overseas is like three years in real life. Yeah. And I think you go do all this traveling together, a
00:03:40 · Adam, Sachin
[00:03:40] S0: three weeks later, we were just joined by the hit. It was like everything that we did, we could do it together. Everything we wanted to discuss, we could discuss together. Like, we're going to the gym, we're going to parties. We're doing well at school. Like, we topped a bunch of subjects on exchange. We're making the same friends. When we were hungover, we were talking about business ideas and stuff. We're just sort of doing everything. And after three weeks, we're joined by the hip, and then you have six months overseas. And six months overseas is like three years in real life. Yeah. And I think you go do all this traveling together, a [00:04:11] S1: lot of partying together, and we were both 19 or 20 at that time. I think this was the first time in my life that I had actually really connected with someone on, like, I don't wanna say a spiritual level, but it's like when a lot of your interests align. Like, we both like startups. We both like gym. We both like working out. And I think now, like, that's a very common archetype. But back then, there wasn't that many people in that archetype that were meditating, listening to Tim Ferriss. It's a bit of a meme now, but, like, back then, that felt like something kind of new to me.
00:04:11 · Sachin, Adam
[00:04:11] S1: lot of partying together, and we were both 19 or 20 at that time. I think this was the first time in my life that I had actually really connected with someone on, like, I don't wanna say a spiritual level, but it's like when a lot of your interests align. Like, we both like startups. We both like gym. We both like working out. And I think now, like, that's a very common archetype. But back then, there wasn't that many people in that archetype that were meditating, listening to Tim Ferriss. It's a bit of a meme now, but, like, back then, that felt like something kind of new to me. [00:04:39] S0: But I feel like that's still a service level understanding of it. Like, I think what we had together was depth. Like, we could go very, very deep with each other and have this relationship where there was no holding back. Like, we just told each other everything, discussed everything in a way that, like, I've never seen friends do or, like, even relationships do. Sort of weird. [00:04:59] S1: So, like, on that, we did, like... I remember... You... Do you remember we did that vlog? We did, like... We were trying to produce content about our exchange experience. We never actually published it. Adam cringes at that vlog. [00:05:08] S0: Every time I go back to see, like, something Sachin and I, like, started or filmed, like, a few years ago, I actually start to, like, almost vomit. Me? Maybe that's a good thing because it means that, like, as you progress over the years, you're, like, improving and you're becoming as cringe, but, like, we did some cringe thing.
00:05:08 · Adam, Sachin
[00:05:08] S0: Every time I go back to see, like, something Sachin and I, like, started or filmed, like, a few years ago, I actually start to, like, almost vomit. Me? Maybe that's a good thing because it means that, like, as you progress over the years, you're, like, improving and you're becoming as cringe, but, like, we did some cringe thing. [00:05:21] S1: It was very lifestyle esque. So we we came back to Sydney. We started a podcast, and the reason we started that is we're extremely bored in economics history lecturer. We decided to, hey. Let's just go record our exchange experience. And funnily enough today, I think it's been almost five years since that first episode. Someone messaged me saying that they watched it, and then now they're gonna go to Utrecht on exchange. Yeah. [00:05:44] S0: Yeah. So the beginning of it was like, it was very natural. We're just talking to people we found interesting. And it's like, weren't marketing. We weren't trying to do anything with it. It was like, we just had lots of conversations. We love to learn. So we had on political activists. We had on bodybuilders. We had of... Had on positive psychology experts. We had on Trump supporters. We had very listening people. We just had chats with them, and it was, it was quite fun and interesting, but it started to change over time.