Not Boring, every mention

Not Boring (with Packy McCormick) - Extended Cut · Acquired Dec 3, 2021 · 100 mentions

• ▶ 1:14 Ben Gilbert Not Boring.
• ▶ 1:22 Ben Gilbert Not Boring is the number one substack newsletter on business.
• ▶ 1:40 Ben Gilbert Not Boring is only a year and a half old.
• ▶ 1:43 Ben Gilbert The Not Boring story isn't just impressive because of its explosive growth.
• ▶ 2:26 David Rosenthal That's a good buzzword bingo in there with not boring piece titles over the, I want to say years, but it hasn't been, it feels like years.
• ▶ 2:34 Ben Gilbert I had two more, I cut them, it turned into just like a long series of not boring titles.
• ▶ 7:11 Ben Gilbert Well, before we dive into history and facts, we should say this show is not investment advice, though David and I are both investors in multiple not boring entities.
• ▶ 7:40 David Rosenthal The first place I went when I was like, all right, I would start researching, build the script here for the not boring story.
• ▶ 7:50 David Rosenthal And, um, it, uh, it lists, you are listed there as the quote unquote founder of not boring.
• ▶ 8:26 Packy McCormick And then if you mix that in with not boring capital, like the whole thing gets very confusing.
• ▶ 8:38 David Rosenthal You are definitely the founder of the not boring empire.
• ▶ 10:04 David Rosenthal Like, you know, is there anything, like, any, any little glimmers of the future not boring empire that were popping up when you were growing up?
• ▶ 10:58 Packy McCormick So that was probably the earliest version of Not Boring.
• ▶ 12:24 Ben Gilbert Well, and, and, and I think that comes through and not boring.
• ▶ 12:56 Packy McCormick I mean, you know, if there are people who've read every or close to every not boring, thank you.
• ▶ 13:01 Packy McCormick I think it takes a work ethic to read all of the not borings.
• ▶ 15:58 Packy McCormick And so now I think, you know, when I get things wrong and not boring, I blare it from the rooftops and probably comes back to that, that moment.
• ▶ 16:49 David Rosenthal So maybe, I mean, I'm maybe reaching for threads here, but like, it's funny that story, uh, kind of, I mean, that's kind of what you happened to not boring, right?
• ▶ 22:09 David Rosenthal And astute readers of not boring will know, and, and trollers of your LinkedIn profile will note that you do not have an MBA.
• ▶ 30:54 Packy McCormick And they're obviously very different, but I'm not a designer as everybody who reads Not Boring knows.
• ▶ 36:00 Ben Gilbert So I'm assembling sort of the, the, the cornucopia or the puzzle pieces that, that would become not boring eventually.
• ▶ 36:51 Packy McCormick I'd say the last kind of turning point and the last kind of thing that contributed to Not Boring was we deeply overexpanded our supply because we had been given advice by people on the board and others who said, you're pretty much like…
• ▶ 39:43 Ben Gilbert To foreshadow, I think at one point early on, you described Not Boring as if, uh, Bill Simmons and Ben Thompson had a baby, and so clearly this is where the sort of Ben Thompson side comes from.
• ▶ 39:54 David Rosenthal There's a quote from your first, uh, your first newsletter post, which was not called Not Boring, uh, that says, uh, uh, it was about this course that you're taking, this writing course.
• ▶ 42:03 Ben Gilbert Ok, so, when you did leave, I, and I, I think many people, uh, know some of your history here, you didn't start Not Boring as we know it today right away.
• ▶ 42:19 Ben Gilbert With the Not Boring Club, this social in-person experiment, but also a different email newsletter.
• ▶ 42:49 David Rosenthal And they're all still on the Not Boring Substack.
• ▶ 44:20 Packy McCormick and I think it all comes from the same spot is, you know, the name not boring comes from, which is I had dinner with my mom and her business partner one night in New York while I was still at breather and her business partner asked me what…
• ▶ 45:47 Packy McCormick I mean, today, what not boring club would have been is really a Dow probably with physical locations.
• ▶ 45:58 David Rosenthal So did you, did you pitch any VCs or investors about investing in not boring club as it was coming together at the end of 2019?
• ▶ 46:07 Packy McCormick So I had a few early conversations with friendly VCs that I knew from, uh, from not boring.
• ▶ 46:21 David Rosenthal If any of these people had actually invested in not boring, like, wow.
• ▶ 47:38 Packy McCormick And so, you know, I was trying to start that boring club in the middle of this COVID thing.
• ▶ 50:46 Ben Gilbert I, I, this is the not boring episode, not the acquired episode, but I I've had a few conversations recently with people who have grown, um, a brand, a personal brand very quickly online.
• ▶ 53:57 Packy McCormick And I was, you know, when I tried to bring not boring club online, I was sitting there, I had trivia nights that I like spent all day writing trivia questions and making slides and seven people showed up.
• ▶ 54:16 Packy McCormick And so, you know, I decided to kind of just let Not Boring Club, the digital version, uh, fall by the wayside.
• ▶ 54:48 Packy McCormick And she's like, well, I like the name, not boring club.
• ▶ 54:50 Packy McCormick Like maybe you should just like apply that to the newsletter and just go all in on, on the not boring thing.
• ▶ 1:00:07 Packy McCormick And so that was the other kind of thing that kept me from, from going to the subscription model is like, I just don't know if companies will be able to pay for not boring.
• ▶ 1:05:07 Packy McCormick Uh, and so finally I had made like 10,000 dollars and Pooja let me buy an iPad.
• ▶ 1:12:55 Packy McCormick When I talk to founders for Not Boring Capital now, a lot of their favorite pieces actually end up being some of the sponsored posts, because I get behind the scenes access into some of these really fast growing, successful startups, and…
• ▶ 1:14:38 David Rosenthal I want to pause for a second the, in the, the sort of like action movie story of the not boring story.
• ▶ 1:15:13 David Rosenthal Like, it just wouldn't be possible to have a solo corporation, like, not boring, to do, be doing what you do.
• ▶ 1:17:30 Packy McCormick So that's a cost, but you know, these, these platforms have been hugely helpful in making that boring what it is and, and are low cost on the other side that the point you're talking about, uh, journalistic integrity.
• ▶ 1:18:08 Packy McCormick I don't know what the incentives are for traditional tech journalists, and they're not certainly all this bad, but I think a lot of the reason that Not Boring works is because there's so much snark about tech out there for all of these…
• ▶ 1:34:28 Ben Gilbert Uh, you also sent out a tweet in February that you wanted not boring to make one million dollars this year, which as David has in the notes, uh, sounds effing crazy.
• ▶ 1:34:51 Ben Gilbert Were you already contemplating Not Boring Capital?
• ▶ 1:34:56 Packy McCormick So I probably, I mean, like I'd been thinking a little bit about Not Boring Capital, uh, and so that was there, but really was talking about just purely making a million dollars off of the newsletter.
• ▶ 1:36:26 Packy McCormick And the other thing is, I guess there is like a tiny buffer between just like me saying like, I'm going to make a million dollar salary this year and saying like, not boring, we'll make a million dollars.
• ▶ 1:39:31 Ben Gilbert Well, I know numbers-wise, there are people who listen to Acquired who aren't, um, subscribed to NotBoring, but I don't, in my head, I'm like, who are those people?
• ▶ 1:40:07 Ben Gilbert Oh my God, go, go, go subscribe.
• ▶ 1:40:11 Packy McCormick NotBoring.co.
• ▶ 1:40:38 Packy McCormick And so like, I, I can tell you for a fact that without, you know, again, we'll go to the Tencent episode, but without the Tencent episode on, uh, uh, on acquired, there wouldn't probably be that not boring two-parter on Tencent.
• ▶ 1:48:09 Packy McCormick Like, I, those are people that I really want to read, not boring, and I want to keep me accountable.
• ▶ 1:50:24 David Rosenthal Um, back to not boring itself.
• ▶ 1:51:10 David Rosenthal Not boring can be something a lot more.
• ▶ 1:51:16 Packy McCormick This is, I guess, one of the hypocritical things about not boring maybe is that, you know, I analyze everybody else's strategy and plans and all these things, and there really isn't one for not boring.
• ▶ 1:51:28 Packy McCormick Like would I love not boring to be a big and lasting thing that builds actual products and like does, you know, things that, that kind of outlive me
• ▶ 1:51:46 Packy McCormick I think so far, I think maybe the good thing about not boring has been that, you know, I'm fully focused on the content and making sure that's as good as possible.
• ▶ 1:52:17 Packy McCormick I do think I need to put, you know, a bit of a structure in place, whether that's formal or informal around not boring so that I can have some time to focus on other opportunities, you know, either as they arrive or God forbid proactively.
• ▶ 1:53:12 Packy McCormick Like, how do I figure out how to build, you know, whether it's a DAO or some like kind of loose structure around this where other people can go off and like kind of tap into the not boring
• ▶ 1:53:26 Packy McCormick Obviously not boring capital.
• ▶ 1:53:56 David Rosenthal I think it's worth spending a little bit of time on not buying capital, um, which is obviously not what other other is not web three other than you are able to invest in web three projects via it.
• ▶ 1:54:58 Packy McCormick I mean, I think certainly not buying capital is a step in that direction.
• ▶ 1:56:08 Packy McCormick And so I think like that is really like a huge benefit of being able to have both not boring capital and not boring the newsletter.
• ▶ 1:56:08 Packy McCormick And so I think like that is really like a huge benefit of being able to have both not boring capital and not boring the newsletter.
• ▶ 1:57:49 Packy McCormick And so I think the next iteration of not boring, whatever, like we kind of add on top here,
• ▶ 2:00:40 Packy McCormick And my job is, you know, as it is with not boring to look for like what can go really, really right here.
• ▶ 2:01:11 David Rosenthal Well, I think you're, um, I would argue, I mean, I'm sort of doing very similar things with, with kindergarten ventures with, with Nat as, as what you're doing with Not Born Capital, but, um, so I'm arguing my own book here to a certain…
• ▶ 2:01:26 David Rosenthal I would argue you're selling yourself short with not boring capital.
• ▶ 2:04:24 David Rosenthal Not boring.
• ▶ 2:08:36 David Rosenthal Okay, so the, I think before we move on from Not Boring Capital as sort of this, you know, next phase, maybe it's the final additional phase of Not Boring, maybe there's more phases to come in the future.
• ▶ 2:08:36 David Rosenthal Okay, so the, I think before we move on from Not Boring Capital as sort of this, you know, next phase, maybe it's the final additional phase of Not Boring, maybe there's more phases to come in the future.
• ▶ 2:08:48 David Rosenthal Um, we talked about Substack, Twitter, etc., you know, the platforms enabling Not Boring, the media company.
• ▶ 2:08:57 David Rosenthal AngelList enables not pouring capital enables kindergarten capital.
• ▶ 2:10:29 Packy McCormick If there was no Janet Angelist, this not boring capital would not, a hundred percent would not be a thing.
• ▶ 2:10:53 Ben Gilbert For Not Boring Capital, Packy doesn't need to have associates that are pounding the pavement out in the community meeting with entrepreneurs because he has a digital way to do that called Not Boring the Newsletter, and that way he gets…
• ▶ 2:10:53 Ben Gilbert For Not Boring Capital, Packy doesn't need to have associates that are pounding the pavement out in the community meeting with entrepreneurs because he has a digital way to do that called Not Boring the Newsletter, and that way he gets…
• ▶ 2:11:51 Packy McCormick Even if I couldn't build software, having these software tools is the only reason that not boring is this.
• ▶ 2:13:47 Packy McCormick So AngelList model would never work if I could, if I only paid them 25,000 dollars a year to do what they're doing for Not Boring.
• ▶ 2:14:41 Packy McCormick Like, I mean, I have LPs for the fund, but if I get hit by a bus, like not boring is just done.
• ▶ 2:15:17 Packy McCormick So I think that is like the obvious one and the, the, the one that, you know, I don't have a solution to because I've said on the other side that if I have other people writing, maybe people don't want to come to Napori to read X, Y, and Z…
• ▶ 2:16:00 Packy McCormick Uh, and like I said, like, I have zero time to think about building other businesses around Not Boring, and so the sponsorship model is, like, phenomenal, and, you know, it works really, really well.
• ▶ 2:16:47 David Rosenthal I'd definitely pimp some not boring sneakers.
• ▶ 2:16:49 Packy McCormick All right, we'll, we'll do some not boring sneakers that, that we can do.
• ▶ 2:17:15 Packy McCormick I think it's all about expectations and the expectation with not boring is that it's mainly about the content and then other things that like plug in very cleanly to that content.
• ▶ 2:19:21 Ben Gilbert It's to kind of go that morning brew route where you're like, actually, there is a brand voice and a format here, and if we can hire correctly for people that can do the not boring thing, kind of like they did for the, I mean, that's a,…
• ▶ 2:20:37 Packy McCormick Like I'm not solely alone here, but I also can't be like, all right, Dan and Pooja, you write the next not boring while I think about building this organization.
• ▶ 2:23:36 Packy McCormick You know, on, on the content side, other than just being kind of obsessed with the idea of constitution dial, why I was like, all right, I can either write a normal, not boring piece, or I could like kind of go gonzo on this and like…
• ▶ 2:23:49 Packy McCormick And so like, I think where this ends up losing its steam is that people don't think that they can get a glimpse into the near future from reading not boring and a glimpse into the near future that's explained in an approachable and not…
• ▶ 2:25:20 Packy McCormick And so, you know, if that keeps happening, then I'm in really good shape, but you know, it could also slow down and like not boring as I still, I think like
• ▶ 2:25:38 Packy McCormick But like those two years are going to be a really interesting time and not boring where I'm like, all right, everybody's just like, here's another piece talking about why we should hang on and not lose hope.
• ▶ 2:32:10 Ben Gilbert So you, you, you've got this concept of the not boring flywheel, um, which I wanna say any, it's, you can draw, it's kind of like you can make an Excel spreadsheet say anything.
• ▶ 2:32:28 Ben Gilbert And so, you know, uh, before actually naming the powers, you've got the, the, the not boring flywheel here that has audience at the core,
• ▶ 2:35:56 Packy McCormick You know, nobody gives a shit that, like, I write Not Boring, and so that's why I'm, like, I kind of bristle at the audience, like, size being the thing, because if somebody comes in and they're introduced cold to me, and someone's like,…
• ▶ 2:36:14 Packy McCormick Uh, I think, like, the divide is, you know, did the person actually read Not Boring before and, like, really get value out of something that I've written or not,
• ▶ 2:37:57 David Rosenthal If you're already, if you're already a not boring fan,
• ▶ 2:38:01 David Rosenthal Like people like me read not boring.
• ▶ 2:38:33 Packy McCormick But I do think on the founder side, that's really the binary is do you read not boring or not?
• ▶ 2:38:42 David Rosenthal Seven powers for not boring?