Sachin and Adam
00:26:04 · Sachin
[00:26:04] S1: Yeah. I've never thought about it that way, but, like, for me, one of my first ever motivations was Humans of New York and, like, at least spiritual connection to that kind of content. But I think what... Maybe what got me across the line is like, I've always known that that stuff like fills my soul and it's like the funnest thing to do and like getting paid to that... To do that actually feels like a joke. Like it doesn't feel like that should be real, but I think the secondary thing is like me and you are like quite ambitious and probably quite analytical to most people and have like a lot of rigor in the way we operate our lives. And I think we're both very conscious about the finite nature of of our lives and what we do with it and, like, the impact we can put on. Right? And I thought that media aspect was always like, hey. That's media. That's not business. But now thinking about this, that media as a channel for the... For this greater business we wanna build, and it's a way where we can do what we love by having those conversations, by interviewing people, by producing things, by being creative, but also the rigor of building a fucking big company, which is what we want to do. Like, we don't want to sit around and not do something they can't get above a $100,000,000, and I think that's what's exciting. Like, we do have these creative conversations, but, like, you know, in the first week of this company, like, we have more structured processes than most startups that have been around for, like, six months. And that's just because this is how we wanna build this company.
00:27:26 · Adam, Sachin
[00:27:26] S0: I think there was always an inevitability inevitability in our lives. So we needed to, at a point in time, be putting all of our effort and soul into something that could be really fucking big. And I think we've always had that desire, and maybe it's waned over time because of some insecurity or seeing how hard it is, but we always like... We needed a moment to do this, to give it a shot. And I think when you can have that moment to build something really big but it's really soulful at the same time, like you're really truly aligned with what you're doing, like you love it, then that's like pretty special. [00:27:58] S1: Yeah. And look, we're not... We don't think it's all gonna be rosy. Right? Like, you know, we've drastically cut how much we're getting paid. We've just moved back home with our parents, which is [00:28:09] S0: I'm a 25 year old living with his mom who eats my Muscle Chef meals to save time. Last week, I didn't... I don't think I went out at all. Yeah. Like, I don't... I've cut out alcohol almost completely from my diet. A big change. Tad's got any dates. Yeah. There's not really much happening in my life except for running and working.
00:28:09 · Adam, Sachin
[00:28:09] S0: I'm a 25 year old living with his mom who eats my Muscle Chef meals to save time. Last week, I didn't... I don't think I went out at all. Yeah. Like, I don't... I've cut out alcohol almost completely from my diet. A big change. Tad's got any dates. Yeah. There's not really much happening in my life except for running and working. [00:28:30] S1: Yeah. And somehow even with that sacrifice, it still feels right. But we're also Completely. We're aware that we've taken on money, which also comes with its own responsibilities and, you know, it's it's this balance between this rigor and having this big vision of what we want to do, and also loving doing it. And I think that's a balance that will constantly come out out of whack and something that we'll we'll keep reflecting on. I think let's, let's finish off this first one by giving a quick rundown of like what we're actually doing. Yeah. Do you wanna go? Yeah. So I think I think there's two parts, and we'll keep it super high level for now. But the first part is building APAC's tech media company. And what we mean by that is that we've got the Sachin and Adam show right now, but that's just one brand under the Kindling umbrella. And so Kindling is focused on APAC and India more broadly for now, And and a lot of this stuff is is evolving as we go. But we wanna partner with and create the best tech media in the world. And so that includes podcasts, includes newsletters, it includes TikToks, it includes any way in which someone can consume content. We wanna be there producing tech media content.
00:29:42 · Adam
[00:29:42] S0: Yeah. And I think that we're in a moment in time where media media is having an increasing moment. It is easier than ever to reach so many people on so many different platforms using AI and editing tools to create more content than ever. And there's still a lot of niches to be discovered. I think in The US, like, is heavily penetrated in so many different sectors, but there's still so many stories in Asia Pacific, particularly, to talk about tech, the entrepreneurs of that world, and to share stories that inspire people, but also educate people. And that's the sort of first thing. But then the second thing is that what we've realized from media, you're not just getting eyeballs, but you're getting information. You're getting data and insights. And with all of that, you can create some really, really brilliant things. And we won't go into too much depth with this stuff because a lot of these are sort of ideas in our mind that are gonna change over time. But we've been really, really passionate about the ed tech space. We've been really, really passionate about sort of customer intelligence platforms and how you can organize the world of data in startups. And media can be the best way to start in any of those things because you get distribution, but you're sort of... Over time, you can create the information and data that you need to build education, to build data products.
00:30:59 · Sachin
[00:30:59] S1: Yeah. So think Logan Paul launching Prime and think of MrBeast launching his chocolate brand. Right? That model is here to stay. Like, I think a lot of great companies, not just consumer companies, will be built distribution first. And this kind of... A lot of this comes down from the insight I had at Airtree where I met so many founders with Brilliant products. So many founders with Brilliant products, but they just hadn't figured out their distribution strategy. They hadn't figured out their go to market. And so we're almost building a company which, you know, will get to cash flow positive in its own right, but it will be distribution first from all these different media channels. And another big bet that we're taking is that in the future, your parasocial relationship with your creator will grow. Your average person that's 18 years old will feel way more connection with the creator that they spend their most time with, that... Whose podcast they listen to, whose YouTube they listen to, than any traditional media platform. And I think this deserves a whole episode in its own right. And there's been
00:31:54 · Adam, Sachin
[00:31:54] S0: this obvious trend about the creator economy, more people building independent media platforms. Like, we used to have, like, five radio channels and five TV channels, and now you have a million different options. But I still feel like we're only just, like, hitting the sort of tip of the iceberg with a lot of that, and there's still gonna be so much change. And I think right now, we're really seeing a lot of of war between traditional media versus creator led independent media. [00:32:16] S1: And the other kind of big backdrop is... Of this is like as all of these AI tools accelerate, the ease in which you can develop software becomes a lot easier. And so what starts to matter more is that parasocial relationship, that distribution that you can get through being, you know, in media. And, you know, there's other people doing this, like Colossus is thinking about things in a similar way. Eric Torenberg with Turpentine, we're just starting and we're actually like... We feel so lucky that... And it is luck. Like, we didn't intentionally decide to, like, do this right now. Like, we kind of weaved our way into doing it, and we've really found what what we want to build and how this can be a big company. But we're just at the beginning. Like, the top people in America only just starting to talk about this. Yep. And so we think that, like, the sky's the limit Yeah.