Brian Bell (00:00.814) Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Ignite podcast. Today we are delighted to have Taylor Offer on the mic. He's the founder and CEO of Atrios, the AI-powered relationship intelligence platform backed by A16Z. We've heard of those guys. That's productizing the warm intro as a new go-to-market primitive. Very interesting for a network like ours at Team Ignite. Thanks for coming on, Taylor.
Taylor Offer (00:23.284) Thanks for having me. Excited to do this.
Brian Bell (00:25.462) Yeah, well, I'd love to start with your origin story. You know, take us through your background.
Taylor Offer (00:30.804) Ooh, born March 21st, 1993 in Los Angeles, California. Do you me to go that far back or? I don't know. Since I was kid, I was always just really interested in businesses. And I was always just curious of like, I remember my first time being very interested in business was like as a probably when I was like five or 10 years old and just seeing that like a water bottle was 25 cents at the grocery store, but $3 at a movie theater. And I was just like, it's the same water bottle.
Brian Bell (00:35.47) Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.
Taylor Offer (01:00.052) How is this value different? And that just always piqued my curiosity. I'm is the value of things? Or a candy bar, how is the value different? So I've always been interested in just like, supply and demand of products and distribution channels and why different channels could sell better or worse. So let's see, always an entrepreneur. I think it's because I thought I was smarter than my grades were in school. So I had to figure out another way to put my creative energy. So started a few different companies in college, worked some jobs. started some other companies doing some things. So yeah, I'm 33 now. Done a lot of different things and had a lot of fun.
Brian Bell (01:38.062) So you started a company while still at university. Maybe you can talk us through that. And then you took a job at LinkedIn.
Taylor Offer (01:45.717) Yeah. So first company I started at university, I joined a fraternity and they made me buy a shirt for like 15 bucks for this event. And I was like, that's crazy. don't want to spend... They forced me to. I was like, I don't want to spend 15 bucks on a shirt for this event. And I started researching what's the cost to make a shirt. And I learned you can make these shirts for a couple bucks with a screen print on it for like a dollar. So for $4, you could sell for 15. because of the distribution channel that the fraternity made the people buy it. So I was like, I went back the next week and I was like, I could just make these shirts for cheaper. Can I, what if I sold it to you guys for 12 bucks or whatever it was and made a margin. So then I did that and my friend was like, great. Did that, started doing it for all the fraternities and sororities around campus. Started doing it. I drove cross-country from Los Angeles to Massachusetts, stopped at every college along the way. Arizona, Arizona state, Texas, Alabama, Auburn, and went door to door. every fraternity and sorority back to the importance of distribution, saying, hey, I'm also in college. I can make your shirts cheaper or whatever. So started printing a lot of t-shirts and printing a lot of cash with this business. It taught me a lot about supply and demand. It taught me a lot about distribution channels and ran that for a few years. Very profitable business. Some of these fraternities or sororities would order hundreds or even up to thousand t-shirts. And when you're making four bucks a unit on a thousand units, you're making four grand profit as a college kid. That's a lot of cash. From there, I was really interested in clothing. I started a sock company. I wanted to build my own brand after that. So I learned that custom is fun. The challenge with custom clothing is there is a million ways to get something wrong and one way to get it right. So I wanted to build a brand and build more of a following and build more than just one order at a time. So started a company called Feet Clothing. At the time, we were just making socks. Once again, trying to figure out the best distribution channel to sell it. We were very early as the App Vine first came out. So I learned all the Viners, Logan Paul, Jake Paul, and then I started taking bachelor's in one building in Hollywood. So I flew into that building. Sorry, I flew to Los Angeles, snuck into the building, saw that I lived there, quit my job in LinkedIn. I was actually doing sales at LinkedIn at the time and moved into this building and became friends with all these Viners. They wear my socks and sell hundreds of thousands of dollars. So that led me to Instagram and influencer marketing. This is in the early days of that.
Taylor Offer (04:07.742) which led me to my next distribution channel, which was Facebook ads and spent millions of dollars on Facebook ads to grow this brand that I ran for 10 years. So that's kind of like my story. And the one big through line here is like, I'm obsessed with finding a distribution channel that enables you to sell a product at a margin that makes sense for your business because of distribution arbitrage.
Brian Bell (04:28.683) Really fascinating. I have in here something about a Justin Bieber burrito hoax. What is that?
Taylor Offer (04:34.548) I'm one of those guys where I'm kind of Forrest Gump in this way, where if you just Google me, you'll see I was connected to a lot of interesting different things. like, mean, there's Justin Bieber burrito hooks where I have some friends who are pretty big YouTubers. It's a channel called Yes Theory. Essentially, they were like, I was hanging out with them one day and they're talking about like some video ideas and I was like, let's... They essentially had a Justin Bieber lookalike and they wanted to create... The concept was we wanted to show how easy it to fake news on the internet and spread fake news. So we came up with this idea to essentially have a fake Justin Bieber lookalike photographed eating a burrito sideways. And then we distributed it back to distribution channels through Reddit and we got picked up steam on Reddit, then went viral on Twitter and Eater and everywhere. even Scooter Braun, his own manager, was posting about it. It wasn't Justin Bieber. So we were kind of showing the power of the internet and the power it is to create. fake news or distribution channels. So that was fun. And if you keep Googling me, like 10 years earlier, I was actually a background dancer in a Justin Bieber music video, which is one of my fun facts. A song with him, a chancel rapper, you'll see me dancing in the background. So yeah, I'm in a lot of weird place. I don't know if you saw the Scoop Bagel thing. That was a thing that people know me as as well, where the guy, California guy went to New York to Scoop Bagel. Done a lot of interesting things. So you could definitely, I was on some reality TV shows. There's a lot of different tangents you could find on me.
Brian Bell (05:56.306) Wow. It was Marta Taylor that meets the eye here. And then a feet sold, actually, right? You had an exit back in 2024. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that venture. And did you really need to start another company? I mean, it seems like it was a pretty good exit, right?
Taylor Offer (06:13.67) I don't think anyone... I I'm an entrepreneur by blood. I love building. It's fires me up. So at the time, after Feet actually, I thought I wanted to not build and I got a flip phone and I went full Zen, walking my dog on the beach, getting a flip phone, just hanging out. I was bored and not that happy. I love building. And so Feet was an amazing journey. Ran it for 10 years, skilled really well, learned a lot of lessons. very, very fun. But I realized I am happiest when I am building and working towards something. And the idea for Atrius was something that I was doing on the side and just obsessed with this idea of what the future of sales could look like. And it was one of those things that either I was going to obsess over all day and not create a business around it, or I could obsess over all day and have a business around it.
Brian Bell (07:07.745) Yeah, and what was the genesis of that idea? you're sitting on the beach, taking long walks on the beach, tell us about kind of that to actually starting this company.
Taylor Offer (07:20.404) Well, the idea for HRS actually came like while I was running my last company, Feet Clothing. So when I was running Feet, became, was, Feet grew very quickly, very fast, my last company. And I was Forbes 330 back in 2018 when it was really like still meant something. I know people have their own opinions about it now, but I was speaking to all these conferences. Yeah, it's like Forbes, like 3000 under 30 or whatever you want to say. It sucks because the list actually used to a lot of merit to it, I think. But obviously it's become a meme now.
Brian Bell (07:36.129) Yeah, there's like 3 million 30 under 30s now, it feels like. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (07:49.653) That being said, I was speaking at all these conferences. We were doing tens of millions of dollars in revenue with my company when I was in my 20s. All my friends had companies that were doing between tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. And I am someone who talks to everyone, just connects everyone. So whenever I'd find a SaaS vendor or a logistics partner, or whoever marketing agency that I liked, I would introduce them to all my friends and be like, this vendor is really good and I'm using them. You guys should all talk to them. And then I would instantly...
Brian Bell (07:49.964) Yeah.
Taylor Offer (08:19.304) bring them these amazing customers. And my friends were happy because they're like, this is a great service. Thank you. The service provider would tell me like, a lot of these service providers became companies that were worth like hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, like really valuable companies. And they would tell me like, we have a 50 person sales team and our top 10 customers came from you. And I'd be like, yeah, sick. Like my friends are happy too. Everyone's happy. Yay. And then some of these vendors or SaaS companies started being like, no, no, like we want to pay you to do more of this. And I was like, that's weird. Why would I get paid for this? I'm making my friend happy. I'm making you happy. I'm building social capital. I'm good. You don't need to get paid. like, no, no. We really want to incentivize you. And they started talking to me about how they wanted to incentivize me and how much value I was creating. And I was like, oh shit. This is a lot of value I'm creating for these companies. So they started incentivizing me. I was making well over six figures a year just in referral agreements and introductions to the point that I was like, this is really cool. There's people like me who are always looking out at their friends making intros. There's actually a lot of value to this that companies want to reward these people to do more of. And that was kind of the genesis of intros. Even when I was running Feat, I was making more than a lot of people's salary on the side from doing this. And it was really awesome. And I was like, that's so interesting. But people that know this world exists. So I want to build a platform around that with Atrios that essentially enables anybody to be what we call a tastemaker, like I was doing. where if you like a product or service or you want to share something with your friends, you can get compensated very well for sharing that product or service with your friends.
Brian Bell (09:54.318) Yeah, I mean, it sounds like an affiliate program. How does it differ from just your standard? Like, here's a link to sign up for this product or service I really like and I get paid a 10 % for it.
Taylor Offer (10:04.21) Yeah. So we call it a tastemaker relationship manager. So that's where we're building a tastemaker relationship management system. It's like a TRM if you want to call it for short. So the idea here is every company has tastemakers that are dormant. So it's either a lot of their... It could be their investors, it could be their customers, it could be friends of employees. These people want to actually share your business people. They just don't have a good way to do it. So we help companies activate what we call tastemakers. And then there's all these what we call tastemakers. who are already... It's not an affiliate in a way of like, share this link and blast it to everyone. It's hey, share what you actually like and what you're doing. And we work with a lot of tastemakers who their opinion matters. It happens to me all the time. I'm sure it happens to you. Someone will text you, which bank should I use? Who should I use for HR? I'm setting up XYZ. Who should I use? We work with these tastemakers who are already in the conversations and already sharing these products. We're getting them rewarded for it.
Brian Bell (11:02.285) How's it going so far?
Taylor Offer (11:05.652) We are about a year in. We have about 10 employees. We raised a little over $4 million in our last round. We did the speedrun program. It's been really fun. mean, to build a product from scratch is... My last company I ran was an e-commerce company. And I thought I was decently technical because I was good at navigating Shopify. I didn't realize how much more goes into building a product from scratch and how grateful I was for Shopify and how amazing of a tech solution that was for me. So yeah, it's been really fun. I've learned a lot. Like I'm coding now, I'm pushing PRs, which is cool to see. I've learned a ton. We are working with a lot of companies and it's really cool to see a lot of the companies we work with and a lot of the big names that a lot of people listen to the show will recognize like Rowe or Deal or Numeral, Pilot, some of these companies. It's really been awesome to realize how much value we could add to them because we are really helping them. fill a lot of their top of funnel and get meetings with customers or people who are turning into customers. And it's really interesting to see the full circle for me is I started my career at LinkedIn as an SDR, making 100 cold calls a day. I know how hard it is to get one meeting. There'd be many days where I would spend the whole day making 100 cold calls and I wouldn't get one meeting with one qualified lead. There'd be weeks where I wouldn't get a good meeting. getting a meeting is so valuable. To the external world, who's not in sales, they don't understand how valuable a meeting is to a company. So it's really cool to be able to provide this value to companies of qualified meetings and then that turn into customers. And then also compensate people for something that they know was so valuable that they can be compensated for. So it's been a really fun journey.
Brian Bell (12:53.261) Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting, right? Because you're kind of monetizing what people are already kind of doing, right? And it's interesting that you had this background where you were making a six figure side income doing this exact thing that you're trying to productize now, which is really fascinating. Yeah, and I can relate. I started my career, SDR, cold calling. My job out of Wall Street was real estate in Hawaii. And was like, all right, here's the phone. You know, and just like, pounding calls, man. Just pounding calls trying to like get a meeting. lease a building or just, yeah. So I can totally relate. Versus like...
Taylor Offer (13:31.892) At least you were selling real estate in Hawaii. Try selling like a derivative of a SaaS product that already exists in the market.
Brian Bell (13:38.53) Yeah, one of 10 of the same things. It's a new CRM for you. It's an AI-powered agentic CRM. Yes, yes. Now it's different. That's pretty amazing. And it's quite telling that you're able to get these logos to use this right away. I these are really big, successful companies. How are you able to make it?
Taylor Offer (13:41.35) Exactly. Yeah, exactly. AI. It's an AI one. Just tack on AI. Now it's different.
Brian Bell (14:04.493) What is that wedge? mean, I know distribution has always been really important since you were a kid, it sounds like, right? But how are you able to get into these logos so fast? That's really impressive as a young startup.
Taylor Offer (14:17.812) I mean, I think it's if you could really identify a pain point and a challenge that companies are going through. And we're doing something that's really unique and different, right? So like, we are not selling another derivative of an AI product that they can get anywhere else that they're going to ignore us, right? Like we are providing value and it's really interesting to see how the sales world has changed even in the past 10 years. So 10 years ago, if you were a fast growing SaaS company or tech company, the way you would get meetings, was humans. So you would invest most of that money into human capital. You would hire sales managers and SDRs, which I was. That was my first after school. All these SaaS companies would hire a pit of sales people. You know the game.
Brian Bell (15:01.143) Yeah, boiler room style, like rows of desks, just making cold calls.
Taylor Offer (15:06.036) rows of bros selling SaaS like straight up and that was like that was a go-to-market motion right and all this capital went into that what we've seen in the past like a couple years is AI has made it so easy to spam at scale so those channels that used to work cold calling cold emailing are just fully flooded so the interesting state that we're in right now for companies is like there's all these companies that have amazing products
Brian Bell (15:07.831) Bros, bros.
Taylor Offer (15:34.537) They just can't get through the noise to reach their customer. So it's a really interesting time where we're slotting in and saying like, hey, we could get you that meeting with the customer, which is extremely valuable. And a lot of these companies we work with like great product teams, great engineering teams and great sales teams. Once they get on the call, the deficiency is the lack of top of funnel in the first meeting. So I think it's like, if you're building something companies need, and that's kind of my advice to entrepreneurs is like, build something companies really need. And if you could do that, like, I don't even look at it as sales. To me, it's partnerships. I'm like, hey, here's a value we could add. Here's what's going to cost. Do these puzzle pieces fit? I've never felt like I've sold anyone because I'm just like, look, we can get you what you need if you need top of funnel and meetings and to reach your customers, which most companies need. So yeah, I think it's...
Brian Bell (16:21.197) Yeah, absolutely. So how does it work? Let's imagine I'm a seed or series A startup listening to this and I'm like, yeah, I need some meetings. What does it cost to get started? What's the onboarding process look like? How do I do this?
Taylor Offer (16:36.19) Yeah. So the first thing we're going do with you is we would define what your ICP is. And that's really important for us. And it's really interesting. think companies often don't know their ICP that well, or their sales numbers that well, or their CAC or their a lot of things. So we kind of help work with them to fully understand those numbers. I come from an e-commerce background and the e-commerce companies are successful or not because that is the most important thing. CAC, LTV, AOV, ICP, those numbers are...
Brian Bell (16:56.865) They live and die by that. You have to know it. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (17:06.516) The most important thing for me by far. It's interesting to see a lot of companies that we work with who are murky with that. And it drives me crazy because I'm like, this is so important. So we'll work with the companies and really define ICP. So it's almost like consulting in that way. Like, hey, we're going to help you figure out your ICP, figure out what your cash should be, what your cost per qualified lead should be, and what your ACV is, and what percent of deals you close, so what you could pay for a qualified meeting. We'll walk through these numbers with them. From there, we'll figure out what we call qualification questions. And this is the most important piece. unlimited meetings. have thousands of tastemakers now on our platform who can reach millions of people. anyone you want to reach, we can reach. But we need to define who is qualified for you. So we are only sending you qualified meetings on your 80s calendars because we don't want to waste anyone's time. So for some companies, we will decide that qualification questions look something like anyone who's raised over $100K who is US based, who has this number of employees. anyone who has this much cash in bank, anyone who has X or Y, anyone that has this many salespeople or this many whatever. So we're going to define qualifications of what makes someone black or white qualified. And there's a lot of value that we could bring companies there. A lot of companies don't know what their qualification precarious very well. We've worked with so many companies now that we have a good benchmarks for qualification questions. So step one, what is qualified black and white? From there, we'll help identify how many of those people our taste makers have access to. And usually it's hundreds or thousands of these potential customers for them. So from there, we'll have their AEs connect their calendars. So AE or founder of whoever's doing sales, we essentially will be able to put meetings directly on their calendars. We will decide a price for meeting that makes sense. So usually it's a couple hundred to a couple thousand bucks, depending on the company and kind of working back from ACV and conversion rate. And once we define all those, we'll share that with all of our taste makers who know all these people and will surface to our taste maker, Hey, taste maker. Here's company X. Here's what they do. Here's the 47 people in your network they want to talk to. Here's the value they can add to them. If you think this could be interesting to your friend, you reach out to them and share, this company is interesting for X, and these reasons. Here's how I can help you. Do you want to chat with them? They'll send that. If their friend wants to chat, they'll book a time. Meeting happens. Company pays. Everyone's happy.
Brian Bell (19:26.711) So easy as that. basically it's really interesting because you're basically enabling people who have connections to monetize those connections and relationships. can choose who these taste makers can choose who to intro and why. It's not just like they're going to introduce anybody who asks, right? They're going to kind of take a look at the offer and really think about, will this really land with that person? And do I really think it's valuable, right? That's really cool. Yeah, it's like this network marketplace. We should probably do this for Team McKnight, right? Like we have 16,000 people on Team McKnight, like onboard everybody, and they can taste make away, you know?
Taylor Offer (20:10.356) There's a lot of, we found a really interesting way for community leaders to share products they like with their communities and get compensated tens of thousands of dollars for sharing products they love and helping their community, right? So yeah, there's definitely, we should do some stuff.
Brian Bell (20:25.526) Wow.
Brian Bell (20:30.477) Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, brainstorm offline. But why speed run? mean, you're an exited founder, right? You could have gone to any accelerator and not done an accelerator at all. What was it about speed run that attracted you?
Taylor Offer (20:45.364) Speedrun is so amazing. Like I can't even use words to describe how amazing it was because it's underselling how good it is. So yes, I looked at a lot of different accelerators. I looked at self-funding this company. I looked at just going straight to raising from a more traditional fund as a seed round. And a couple of reasons why I on Speedrun. Like number one, they have a 30 person or maybe even more now operating team dedicated to your success. So there are full-time recruiters, there are full-time BD people. I hired out of my first 10 employees, I think seven of them came from the speedrun talent network where they have, I think, five full-time recruiters finding the most amazing talent ever messaging you, here's a hundred people who's interesting. I'd say I want to talk to this person, this person, this person. They introduced me. I hired them. the most amazing talent. like number one, like to build your core team, which we have such an amazing core team, like speedrun is instrumental. This has not been possible without them. So access to talent, amazing. BD side, so there's someone in Macy on the BD team who runs that team. You can just tell me, here's who I need to get in contact with and she helps you pretty good with their strategy and she knows almost everyone. She'll get you in contact with them. So you could just be like, hey, I want to talk to these seven people. And she's like, cool, gotcha. That value is so huge, especially when you're starting a company and want to talk to different companies and learn. And then lastly, on the partners and on the investment and fundraising side, They are so good at prepping you. So my last company, we didn't raise... We raised a small friends and family round for feet. And then we didn't raise again until we were at $10 million in revenue. So we really... I would consider it more or less bootstrapped, the way we scale that company. And we didn't play the traditional venture game. And building a company more or less bootstrapped or friends and family and angel versus traditional venture is a very different game. It's a very different mindset. It's like I ran feet for 10 years. needing to be profitable day over day and needing to be like profit to pay my employees. And that's a very different mindset versus like raising a lot of money and being comfortable with burn and going through the fundraising rounds. like, I built feet for profit. And now with like the investor world, it's like you're building, you actually get some runway and you have a burn and you're able to like build for benchmarks to raise more rams to build more. It's a very different mindset, which is good because like I still come from like my very
Taylor Offer (23:10.472) day-over-day profitable. That wasn't great to me for so many years. But to navigate the VC world from a founder who's only built bootstrap profitable companies, very different mindset shifts. So the A16Z team was so good at teaching me. They really want to teach you. They really care. And that was the biggest thing I saw from before the program and during the program. They really care and they want you to win. So the amount I've learned is like I call it an MBA for any startup. But you get paid to do it. It was... It was the best program.
Brian Bell (23:41.318) Yeah, that's like, yeah, exactly. Instead of spending whatever it is for an MBA now, 200k in two years of your time, they give you a million dollars in education. That's what I tell a lot of people, because I have an MBA and I get people reaching out, I try to get an MBA. I'm like, probably not. Probably go start a startup. I try to talk people out of it, but I feel like they dig in their heels tomorrow, try to talk them out of it. But I feel like MBAs are really good for people who don't really know what they want to build.
Taylor Offer (23:49.684) Better deal.
Taylor Offer (23:59.189) Hehehe.
Brian Bell (24:10.605) They're just like, I'm just a type A person who wants to succeed, but I don't really know how I want to succeed. I just want to succeed, right? MBA. There's a lot of that. So what are you excited about over the next year? What are you guys working on? What's coming out?
Taylor Offer (24:19.57) Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of paths. There's a lot of way to get to where you want to get to.
Taylor Offer (24:29.812) I think we're doing a lot of, mean, continue to grow what we're doing. I mean, what we're doing is working and to scale. So excited to continue to grow the team and continue to grow this into different verticals. We really started with verticals that I knew well, e-commerce, startup world. this is a universal concept that applies to anyone that is doing, is selling anything, right? Like we have a big vision to change the future of sales. Like sales, Sales has become a bad word and it makes me sad. Sales has become gross. People don't call themselves SDRs anymore. They call themselves GTM because the sales development rep, they're ashamed to have that title. And sales went from something, when you look all the way back, sales was in the earliest days of trade and commerce was like you're creating something of value to someone that someone is trading you something for. Both sides are very mutually benefiting. And think especially in the past 100 years, the past 20, 30, 40 years, sales has turned into something pushy, selling. Almost like you imagine, when you think of sales, you imagine the guy in the whole Wall Street being like, buy this shit, buy this shit. Yes, I fucked this person over by making them buy this shit. And that pisses me off. It sucks. It sucks that we've got here. And I think there's a better way to do sales. And don't think sales...
Brian Bell (25:45.037) You
Taylor Offer (25:53.961) To me, capitalism is cool. Like sales is cool. Like you're creating something of value that is helping someone. So I think...
Brian Bell (26:00.258) Yeah, you're learning about somebody's problem and saying, I might have a solution that's going to work for you to solve that problem. And if it doesn't work, we're going to go back and try to put some stuff on the roadmap to make that solution kind of fit your problem. That's sort of the translation. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (26:13.894) Exactly. It's gotten away from that and people have been like, you know, I'm excited to bring that ethos back to sales. So yeah, that's a lot of what we're building for and what gets me excited.
Brian Bell (26:26.837) Yeah. And what was the thinking, know, obviously speed run is in Silicon Valley and you have, you San Francisco attracts a lot of startups, but you've kind of chosen to set up shop in, I think Brooklyn in New York City area. Maybe you could walk us through, it just because you have ties there and you want to stay on the East coast or is there something about the energy there and building this particular startup?
Taylor Offer (26:49.14) Yeah, so I think that what really attracted me about New York is when you're about sales, you're talking about commerce, like people are just like, there's an energy of interaction in New York where people are meeting up, they're doing things. I know SF has a lot of great startups and SF is like, if I wasn't living in New York, I would be living in SF. To me, the value of New York is just how much serendipity happens here and how many... I go to an event almost every single night and people want to meet people. They want to connect. They want to talk fast. They want to hustle. They want to make deals. They want to introduce. They want to be in the mix. And to tap into that energy and this ecosystem has been really awesome. also think New York has a really underrated tech scene. And I am bullish on the New York tech scene. Obviously SF is SF and SF is the clear leader. I'm not saying anyway New York is anywhere at the level of in terms of company value or in terms of scale of SF. But there's some like, there's some cracked hustlers in New York who are building fucking awesome startups here. So I'm pretty bullish on this ecosystem.
Brian Bell (27:47.0) Yeah, it's definitely becoming the other startup hub. It's definitely coming into its own over the last 10 years, I'd say. Yeah. Probably in the world, actually. Probably in the whole world, I'd say, at this point.
Taylor Offer (27:55.903) The clear number two, and I think five or 10 years ago, it wasn't. Yeah, I would say I would definitely agree with that. Most likely. For startups though, mean, there's a lot. mean, if you look at even the companies by value in New York, think New York startups by value would potentially, I don't know well enough, but I would bet on New York. And it's interesting, like even like five years ago, like if you ask what the number two startup place, like it's obvious SF is still the number one cleared away winner. But five years ago, SF was still the number one cleared away winner. But there was some talk like AI definitely brought SF back.
Brian Bell (28:05.365) Right. You could put London in there maybe, but London would probably be third, you know. Yeah.
Brian Bell (28:16.563) I think it's number two market in the world. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (28:31.388) in many ways because there's the whole SF is dead narrative and which it really did. And in terms of clear number two, like there was a chat about Miami, there's a chat about Austin, like it wasn't clear that it was New York. there's. Yeah. So yeah.
Brian Bell (28:34.027) Right, the resurgence of AI just really brought it back to, yeah.
Brian Bell (28:45.185) Not even close though. Yeah, not even close. And just in terms of like startups founded, venture dollars raised, exits. I think it's New York is number two, So you're hosting some sort of championship with a four foot trophy. What is this about?
Taylor Offer (29:01.498) yeah, we host a lot of fun events. Make it fun. That's most important thing. So a couple of events we've thrown in the past month, we threw a Padel Tournament. I called it the Founders Open. And we invited all the founders in New York that I know that most are, know, Series A to IPO companies who are the casemakers on our platform. But what's more fun than doing a Padel Tournament than getting a four foot trophy that someone could take home as a winner. So we've made it fun. Same thing during tech week. We hosted a basketball tournament. it's just like a douchey way to say paddle. Like it's the indoor sport. And then I, all my friends say, Padel, and I kept saying paddle and they'd make fun of me. I started saying paddle, Padel. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I, there's like all the Pierce in New York that's like, it's not paddle, it's Padel. And so you eventually you just say like, I'm like, all right, sure. It's Padel. And now I say Padel. I realized.
Brian Bell (29:31.457) What's a pedale? What is that? What is that word? Okay.
Brian Bell (29:40.939) you It's a bougie. Yeah, bougie way to say battle. OK, got it. That's so funny.
Brian Bell (29:53.138) boy. the
Taylor Offer (29:59.357) outside of this bubble of my Cadell players, how ridiculous it sounds. But another event we did, we did a basketball tournament during Tech Week. But once again, make it fun. Do it awesome. I got a Rolex. It cost $4,500 because we had budget from the sponsor. So I bought a $4,500 Rolex. And I told everyone at the end of the tournament, we're going to line everyone up in a free throw line. So we had like 100 people lined up at the free throw line. If you make your free throw, you go to the back of the line. If you miss, you're out.
Brian Bell (30:00.141) Aw man.
Brian Bell (30:03.787) Yeah.
Brian Bell (30:15.732) wow.
Taylor Offer (30:29.146) last person standing gets the watch. So we had this really fun high pressure free throws. The winner, I think he made like seven or eight in a row. And he got a Rolex.
Brian Bell (30:31.343) that's cool.
Brian Bell (30:34.957) wow.
Brian Bell (30:41.331) wow. Amazing. Yeah, I remember growing down on some basketball when we met during your speedrun demo day week. Yeah, we kind of, I might be there actually at the end of August. So we'll definitely have to. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (30:53.94) We should throw another free throw competition for a watch. How's your free throws? You you can make seven in a row under pressure?
Brian Bell (31:00.247) Probably, probably. I'm a little out of practice. Mike Kelly's has been hurting, so I've been kind of staying off it for the last three weeks. I'm getting old, man. I'm getting into my late 40s now. It's like just it's not.
Taylor Offer (31:02.322) Without the press
Taylor Offer (31:12.54) Yeah, I don't know. Kobe made a couple free throws after sharing his Achilles, so I don't want to hear an excuse.
Brian Bell (31:18.957) So what are you excited about in the long run? What does long term success look like for you guys?
Taylor Offer (31:20.997) Okay.
Taylor Offer (31:30.164) I it's really, mean, back to the thesis, the future of sales, like changing the narrative and being the number one distribution channel. I saw this very clearly in e-commerce. So when I started my e-commerce company in 2015, we did a lot of influencer stuff. And it was funny because Facebook would always email me ad credits. And they'd be like, here's $20,000 in ad credits you should advertise on Facebook. And I would ignore them because I would be like, why would I put an ad on Facebook to my friends? Like, that makes no sense. And then eventually we put some ads on Facebook and we saw a good return on ad spend. Then we put a little more money in and we put a little more money in. Before we knew it, we were spending millions of dollars a month on Facebook ads. And that was where 95 % of our acquisition budget went to. And there's a lot of these companies that popped up that were like, they essentially like, they were companies that were vehicles to just put money to Facebook ads because they all just grew off the ads. I saw what happened when you could be the best distribution channel for products or services. You could take the full margin and you could scale huge. So what we're doing now with our companies is it reminds me of the early days of the Facebook ads. At first companies are like, what is this? I don't really know what this is. Then they start spending with us and they're like, shit, this is a better return than we're getting anywhere and this is our best distribution channel. Let's spend some more. Let's spend some more. And now we have companies spending like committing to annual contracts of six and seven figures who are spending like six figures a month with us. And it's like, they're like, yeah, we're going to put all of our money here because this is the best place to get a return. Like this is the best way to get meetings. It's better than putting money on a billboard and praying you get a meeting. It's better than spending it on human capital and making cold calls that don't convert to any meetings. It's a better ROI than dinners or LinkedIn ads or any these other channels are doing. So what I get really excited about is like, continue to serve our customers and be the best distribution channel and continue to get more and more those dollars from inefficient spend that they're spending on and getting an efficient good return on this ad.
Brian Bell (33:36.076) Yeah, yeah, I love that. What what would you say about the phrase marketing ruins everything? Right. Because it seems to me, you know, marketing like a lot of people would say that, right? Like you're going to ruin kind of the goodwill that's generated from intros. Because marketing is going to come in and you're going to saturate the market with intros. everybody's going be like, is this like a paid intro? Come on,
Taylor Offer (33:53.748) I mean.
Taylor Offer (34:01.013) think it's, I obviously thought about this a lot. it's kind of self-reinforcing in a way. So like, if you are somebody who does shitty intros and is not being thoughtful with it, what's gonna happen? And let's just put the situation out. I introduce you to a founder and I say, Brian, I got a great founder for you. You should talk to him. And he's not a good founder and you're not interested. And...
Brian Bell (34:04.47) Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (34:28.248) next day or week or whatever. like, Brian, you got to stop what you're doing and talk to this founder. And these are total duds you're getting. Eventually, there's two things that happen. Number one.
Brian Bell (34:35.821) Eventually, I'm just going to probably ignore your founders are sending my way. Yeah, totally.
Taylor Offer (34:39.578) Exactly. So it's really cool with what we're building is like, we are lucky to have this built into a model where it's like, if you're recommending things that are not good, then you are going to lose the nodes in your network you're recommending to and you're not going to be valuable. So you are actually extremely incentivized to be thoughtful with your recommendations. And this is kind of like the counter to marketing rooms, everything. This is actually like self-built in checks and balances to make sure you're recommending good things.
Brian Bell (34:57.538) Mm.
Brian Bell (35:07.937) Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's a really good point. Well, let's wrap up with some rapid fire questions. Yeah, this is actually my favorite. What's something you believed with total conviction five or 10 years ago that you'd argue against now?
Taylor Offer (35:13.982) fun.
Taylor Offer (35:27.476) shit I realize I'm not doing rapid fire right now I'm thinking too much what is something I believe with total conviction I'll probably come up with a better answer later but I guess when I was in my 20s
Taylor Offer (35:40.885) I think I believe that things were possible based off just like skill or talent and not hard work. And now I've kind of realized that like to bring anything of value to fruition, yes, skill and talent are really valuable, but it takes hard work. Like I thought you could just be so talented that you could just, you know, do the thing. yeah, I think I believed hard work was not as big of a part of the equation as it is.
Brian Bell (36:06.797) Yeah, I love that. What's a popular idea in B2B SaaS or go-to-market right now that you think is quietly wrong and nobody you respect is willing to say out loud?
Taylor Offer (36:18.182) everything straight up. The model of hiring a human who doesn't know somebody and has no relationship with them, has no idea what they want to try to harass them into getting on a call to try to sell them and be incentivized to sell them a product or service that they have no idea what this person actually needs is fucking ridiculous. And it's crazy that we've gotten to this point that this is normal. way to do sales of like someone who doesn't know someone who has no idea what they want, or desire. And this person is extremely incentivized to get this person to buy something. So they're probably not going to be true or honest with the really trying to do like the whole system's fucked. it's like the Empire is not wearing any clothes. Like how can no one see this? So like the whole concept of sales and the way B2B and SaaS and go to market works is it's a fucked up system.
Brian Bell (37:10.603) That's so well said, so well said. What advice do people constantly give founders that you think is actively wrong?
Taylor Offer (37:19.732) that they should do it. I think people try to be encouraging when someone's starting a company and say, yeah, it's a good idea. You should do it. yeah, I would totally support you. I think that's really smart. No, that's horrible. It's really bad advice because you're telling someone, especially if you don't actually believe it's true. And think people sometimes try to be too nice. Almost every founder I talk to, I tell them not to do it. That is my thing. It's almost like part of me giving them a test. I'm like, that's a bad idea. You shouldn't do it. Because if they...
Brian Bell (37:50.479) This is probably the hardest part of being a VC actually is having friends pitch you really bad ideas that they're not suited to do that are very small opportunities that no VC will say yes to. And I just have to like tell them their baby is ugly. And it's the hardest thing to do as a friend because as a VC, I'll kind of I'll say something nice and stay in touch. Here's what I want to see. And here's a little feedback and like get in touch when you hit these milestones kind of thing. But like with a friend, you're like, dude, this is a terrible idea.
Taylor Offer (38:06.397) And it's hard to do it.
Taylor Offer (38:19.86) Horrible idea, yeah. And I think it's hard to not come off as an asshole when you say that. But that's the most important thing to say. So I usually caveat it where I say that really aggressively, exactly how I would, not holding back or filtering, because I think it's what is the most valuable thing to hear, whether they want to hear it or not, whether they think I'm an asshole or not. And then after, I will say, the reason I'm saying that is if this stops you, based off what I'm saying with my opinion,
Brian Bell (38:21.313) You
Brian Bell (38:27.096) Yeah.
Taylor Offer (38:48.808) then you're not put out to do this because I am not going to be the only person who's going to stop you. Like the way that you're successful in this is if you could hear these red blocks and continue to push back. Like that is what will define success for you in this company. I will not be the first person who said probably not the first person who said this to you. I definitely won't be the last person, no matter how successful you are in the startup. Like you're to have people say this to you. So if this stops you here, then it's a good place to stop because this is not for you. If you get my feedback and you say, Hey Taylor, Hey Brian, Thank you for the feedback. understand you don't think this is good idea. You don't see what I see and I'm still doing it. Try to fucking stop me. I'd be like, cool. You know something I don't. Sick. Keep on going. Keep that energy.
Brian Bell (39:29.548) Yeah, yeah, I love that. A lot of the best startups, you know, in reflection that I invest in, it's kind of like it's a unique person at a unique time doing a unique thing in a unique way that will win uniquely if it wins. And it's sort of like, I learned something by talking to you, and you see the world in a way that I hadn't seen it before. And if the world ends up being your vision of it, then it's a big company, right?
Taylor Offer (39:57.278) Yeah.
Brian Bell (39:57.977) But that's kind of being a VC. You're basically trying to find those kind of situations.
Taylor Offer (40:02.546) And who knows what the world's going to turn into? I don't know. You don't know. No one knows. Right. So like I think with everyone and every idea like no matter how I react to it like I have no idea. So if you see something clear and you really believe in it I firmly believe there's a quote I had my wall for a while and it's execution is a measuring stick for how much you believe in your idea. And I think that is relevant especially to startups because it's like if you really believe in it you're going to execute on it. no matter what people say. And I think if you execute on something, you're most likely to be successful. So I think that like, I actually think it's less about the idea and more about how you execute. And then the way to pressure taxes how someone is executing, going to execute an idea is, can I say something that makes you stop executing on it? Because then you're going to stop anyway.
Brian Bell (40:51.148) Yeah. What's something a critic, ex-employee or ex-investor said about you that turned out to be true?
Taylor Offer (40:59.54) that I'm not rational and like, that is true. Like I don't believe there's value in being rational. I think that at times there's things you should definitely be rational about. But I also think like, we're all kids, like we all should be irrational and dream big and think things that most likely aren't possible, but have a 0.001 % of being possible. I will take those odds against myself. So I'm like, I'm in the 0.001. And I totally understand that's not like I've been told that too much of a dreamer, you're too irrational, like you're this is not possible. And I'm like, is it not possible? Or is it like 99.999 % possible? Because if that's the case, I'm like, I believe I can do it. So I think at first when I heard that, like, you're irrational, you're crazy, you're this or that. like, I was like, interesting, like, they don't get me whatever. And now I'm like, interesting, like, they don't get me. That's great. And like, I am that and I'm proud to be that.
Brian Bell (41:53.538) So what are you still trying to prove and to whom?
Taylor Offer (41:58.261) Ooh, now we're getting deep. Now we're accessing the parts where I told you after feet when I had my flip phone and I was walking to the beach and meditating and doing the spiritual work and the therapy. Now we're accessing those areas. What is something I'm trying to prove? I think, and this is pretty personal to me, is I was able to have a lot of success in my last startup just by being talented and quick on my feet and creative. And I think that company could have been a lot more valuable if I worked, if my work ethic, and not saying I didn't work hard, but I don't think I worked on the right things and I think I have the discipline, right? So I think part of me felt very talented, but undisciplined. So what I'm really trying to prove to myself is I can be... I used to think creativity and discipline were not working together. Creativity came from lack of discipline and discipline came from lack of creativity and you couldn't do them both. So what I'm trying to prove myself is there's discipline and creativity and I'm trying to channel the right brain and left brain and prove to myself that I can be extremely creative and extremely disciplined at the same time.
Brian Bell (43:21.774) Love that. What kind of meditation were you doing?
Taylor Offer (43:26.12) Ooh, I mean, I did a lot of yoga, which I know isn't like typical meditation. I was on Headspace for a while. I mean, I've also done a lot of like plant medicine meditations and different ceremonies and retreats. I've done a lot. had an interesting like Jungian therapist and we had like analyzed dreams. I did a lot of dream work. Yeah, I really, spent a couple of years like, I think oftentimes founders or anyone who's very
Brian Bell (43:36.782) Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (43:55.733) driven in their career over indexes on things external and under indexes on looking internal. So I took that time to aggressively as I pursued things externally to aggressively pursue internal and figure out what's going on inside. And I did that's way harder than doing an external.
Brian Bell (44:18.2) Yeah, yeah.
Taylor Offer (44:19.028) the hardest journey. really glad I went through a lot. It's a constant journey. You don't get to wherever, you never get anywhere. It's something you do daily. It's like the farther you go, the more you need to go. But yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a...
Brian Bell (44:30.478) Be there. Yeah. Just be right where you're at. Yeah. I for me, I started meditating in my 20s. Right around the time I moved to New York, actually, this is like 2000, probably about 20, 21 years ago. And I was working on Wall Street and I wasn't happy. And I knew I wanted to meditate. I'd been reading books on meditation and trying to dabble on my own back then. didn't have Headspace or YouTube. And so you just kind of like, I don't read a book and go, OK, I'm going to do that. Count my breaths for. know, 10 minutes or whatever. And I got into meditation in New York and I think I got into it right at the right time. And it probably saved me a lot of bad career choices because I think it made me sort of look inward about how I was feeling about things. And I realized I wasn't happy on Wall Street, right? I was like, this sucks, you know, working, you know, 78 hour, 80 hour weeks, whatever.
Taylor Offer (45:08.148) Mmm.
Brian Bell (45:25.198) I was like, okay, well, what do I like and who am I? And, you know, it took me a long time to figure that out and been meditating now for 20 years off and on all kinds of different practices.
Taylor Offer (45:35.864) And yeah, do you have like a certain type of meditation you go to? Do you do guided, unguided?
Brian Bell (45:40.067) I've done them all. Yeah, I've done them all. I've done the Pasana. I've done the 10-day silent. I've done lots of, know, Zen and Insight. My latest one was TM. I did TM for like the last five years, which is really great. I wish I found that 20 years ago. So now I do a combination. I do Insight in the morning, 10 or 15 minutes, you know, just kind of awareness of sensations, things happening.
Taylor Offer (45:44.05) Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (45:52.316) Mmm. Yep.
Taylor Offer (46:03.028) Yeah.
Brian Bell (46:04.096) And then I do another 10 or 15 minutes in the late afternoon for TM. And that's like the right combo for me of like not getting attached to things, but also like really living in the bliss that is existence. Yeah. Yeah, you're there. Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Offer (46:09.533) Awesome.
Taylor Offer (46:17.594) I love it. Yeah. Love it. There's a yeah, I mean, one of the most powerful things I picked up similar to you is the five minutes in the morning of just like kind of the body check in right like feeling your feet on the floor, feeling your breath go in and out. There's also a really good meditation that really changed a lot of how I view that one of the biggest mind changes. I don't know if you ever do any Joe Dispenza, but he has
Brian Bell (46:31.022) Yeah.
Taylor Offer (46:45.524) Joe dispense it on Spotify, it's morning meditation I can send to you after. I think it's like 20 or 30 minutes. And I would do this pretty often in the morning consistently. And the whole concept is like, do not... It's a guided meditation and he'll take you to think about your past self, think about the best version of yourself in the future. And the concept of meditation is like, you can build from today based off a memory of the past or a vision of the future. And this is something I hold in my thought process pretty often of like...
Brian Bell (47:12.3) Mm.
Taylor Offer (47:13.3) this decision I'm making, this thought I have, is it from a memory of the past or is it from a vision of the future? Because the vision of me in the future is like, I am running a very large company and we are making massive change in the world. when you're thinking from that, it's even that small frame into your thoughts in the day changes everything. yeah, highly recommend people. If you haven't explored your mind, it's a pretty cool place.
Brian Bell (47:30.306) Right.
Brian Bell (47:36.025) Well, yeah, and in Buddhist philosophy, that would be like craving and aversion, right? You're kind of like craving this vision of the future, and you have aversion to what happened to you in the past, like things that went wrong or whatever, or vice versa. You're afraid about what might happen, and you're craving what happened to you in the past. And so as you meditate, learn to of short circuit the kind of craving attachment loop.
Taylor Offer (47:42.547) Mmm.
Taylor Offer (47:46.772) Mmm.
Brian Bell (48:01.542) And you know what's funny is I was just reflecting on this and I just had this insight in our conversation. This is why I love doing the podcast is every time I took up a new form of meditation, whether it like Tibetan Lam Rim when I kind of quit Wall Street, the Pasana when I transitioned into kind of like startups and then TM recently five years ago when I transitioned into being a VC. I wonder if that's a coincidence.
Taylor Offer (48:28.008) Mm.
Brian Bell (48:28.27) correlation or there's some sort of like cause and effect of like me taking up a new form of meditation and unlocking a new side of myself.
Taylor Offer (48:38.196) I think there is something there. think there's definitely correlation. Accessing, yeah, mean accessing different identities that you want to play in that moment, right? And like who, what is resonating. I do something very similar consciously with what I do for workouts. So I try to work out every day. I'm very physically active. Oh, sorry, you freeze or can you hear me? Okay, cool. I do something with my workouts where I...
Brian Bell (48:39.404) Yeah, really fascinating.
Brian Bell (48:45.453) Yeah.
Brian Bell (48:56.608) I'm still here.
Taylor Offer (49:01.448) do my workouts based off what I'm trying to accomplish. So if I'm in fundraising mode, I'm doing heavy lifting and HIIT, so I'm really hyped up and amped. If I'm in a mode with work where I want to be more reflective or thoughtful, I will do yoga. Or if I feel stuck and I want to stretch things out a little bit, I'll be doing Pilates. So I try to align my workouts with what I want my mind to feel. I think the mind-body connection is extremely strong.
Brian Bell (49:22.158) Wow.
Taylor Offer (49:28.756) And that's been really cool. So I think there's probably something similar to you and your meditations of aligning your meditations to what your career is either consciously or subconsciously asking of you.
Brian Bell (49:37.742) It's so funny you mentioned that because I work out every day too and I'm I usually do I have a tonal so I'm weight training almost every day. And then recently I just started putting yoga back into my routine like every third day third or fourth day because I was like I need to sort of like stretch out and like be present and not just lift weights you know which which was kind of becoming this. All right I'm just here like doing the same like five day routine. I need to like mix it up or something and yeah that's interesting. Well
Taylor Offer (49:47.828) Mmm.
Taylor Offer (49:55.987) Yeah.
Brian Bell (50:06.572) I could talk to you about all this stuff for another hour, but we both have busy lives. Where can folks who want to find out more find you online?
Taylor Offer (50:14.202) atrios.com. Everyone listen to this. Go online. See if you could be a tastemaker. If you're a company, you come on and you start meeting some customers. If you are a normal person, not a company, go on. See who in your network and what products you can introduce. And if you want to share them, share them and get paid a lot of money for it. So atrios.com. I'm just Taylor Offert, T-A-Y-L-O-R-O-F-F-E-R on LinkedIn, Instagram, Axe. I don't know. Venmo. Anywhere else you want to find me? I'm on all the things. I used to people do that a lot. That was like a sales... Because it's interesting. When I was running my e-commerce company, I was the founder everyone wanted to sell to. We were the hot company, the hot logo that all the SaaS companies wanted. So I've had a lot of different salespeople aggressively approach me in many ways. And there's a point where the Venmo thing to like...
Brian Bell (50:47.206) So I'm missing money on that now.
Taylor Offer (51:12.756) Just my two cents, would love to tell you about this, was going viral as a sales thing. So I had all these people Venmo-ing me two cents all the time. Yeah, it's interesting, some creative sales tactics.
Brian Bell (51:21.614) That's awesome. Right on. Well, thanks so much, Taylor. Really enjoyed the conversation.
Taylor Offer (51:28.853) Cheers.
