Episode 141
Go live to share your expertise
If you want to empower others to act and not just fill their heads with facts, Crowdcast is a platform that can help you do that. It was founded by Sai Hossain who got the idea in 2013 while at a retreat in Costa Rica.
Laurence and Carlos started using Crowdcast in March 2020 which was the time the platform exploded from 500,000 users per month to 2.5 million.
On this episode, you’ll hear more about how Crowdcast came about, Sai’s personal journey as a founder, and his thoughts about what it takes to build a community as well as a business.
If you want to make a living sharing your knowledge and experience, or you’re curious about growing your business using live video, you’ll definitely get something from this conversation.
Links
Transcript
We've been using Crowdcast now for.
Carlos:Three years just before the pandemic, I think is when we kicked off.
Carlos:March.
Carlos:Four years now.
Carlos:Yeah, 2020 You've been running your platform for what, 10, 11 years now?
Carlos:Is that.
Sai:I would say, yeah, close to eight, nine years at this point.
Sai:Eight, nine years.
Sai:Okay.
Sai:So
Carlos:you might, I think you might have learned something along the way around that.
Carlos:So it would be good to, maybe, it'd be good to hear where did the idea come from and how did it start and, and and what were you doing at the time yourself, professionally and, and this kind of entrepreneurial journey?
Sai:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sai:So, um, all the way back from the beginning, I, I was actually born in a little village in Bangladesh, uh, south aka.
Sai:And, you know, I got the opportunity to come over to the us um, but you know, low income family didn't really have too many access to resources, so I had to just figure out how to make money.
Sai:And early on I just had curiosity of like web development and design, mainly because my older brother was getting into it.
Sai:And so I just kind of learned through him.
Sai:And then, you know, the little did I know people wanted to pay for this stuff.
Sai:And then by the time I was in high school I was like doing client work and things like that.
Sai:Fast forward many years, you know, I'm now in college and.
Sai:Still not really learning much in school, but getting to a lot of debt and decided to drop out and join a Startup.
Sai:Um, that recruited me outta there.
Sai:Um, that Startup was funded by Richard Branson and we ended up getting a lot of press, but they had no idea what they were doing.
Sai:And I learned a lot of what not to do on the job.
Sai:I was their lead designer and that was my first time also programming like in, in like more complex applications.
Sai:and then eventually I moved up to San Francisco and I, I didn't really know what to do and I couldn't really find, I thought I was gonna join a, a company, um, like a big Startup company like Asana or something like that.
Sai:And, in the process I was just kind of dissuaded by the people, meaning that like, it felt like folks were just working on things to make money as opposed to working on things that actually made an impact.
Sai:And so after a year of being in San Francisco, I left, I actually went down to, what I thought was gonna be, you know, a forever trip down to like Central and South America, but.
Sai:one month into my trip in Costa Rica, I ended up in this really small retreat, uh, of about 200 people in the middle of this, uh, permaculture farm.
Sai:I didn't know what the word permaculture was at the time.
Sai:and, it was, I was just astounded by the people that I was surrounded by.
Sai:There were like masters in yoga and meditation and farming and permaculture, regenerative agriculture and things like that.
Sai:And I was just an early twenties tech guy amongst all these people.
Sai:And I'm like, why did I get here?
Sai:Why, what's my role here?
Sai:Um, and then, you know, I realized, wow, they've mastered all these skills, but then none of them actually know, use the internet.
Sai:And I'm one of like two people who know how to build things on the internet.
Sai:And so, you know, I, I left that retreat just wondering like what to do and how, how I can support.
Sai:'cause I was like, wow, these folks.
Sai:Trying to build a reality of future where we're living more in harmony with each other and the earth.
Sai:Whereas the folks in San Francisco that I was talking to about, were just trying to figure out how to make money, how, how to scale things, how whatever it is, just spend an idea and just scale it, you know, pitch it to, to Startup, um, investors.
Sai:Um, but I, I wanted to focus on this other reality more.
Sai:And so I was like, okay, how do I help amplify this?
Sai:And the seed was planted then, and I decided to go back to San Francisco to find something that I could do, um, along this line.
Sai:And a few months later, decided, hey, you know, maybe the best thing I can do is actually help them post gatherings virtually.
Sai:'cause they're, uh, this event was in person, but there's billions of people on the planet.
Sai:How do you reach the whole planet?
Sai:How do you actually level the playing field and give everyone away to sort of gather their communities, host online workshops, give their knowledge, things like that.
Sai:It was more focused on like knowledge sharing, at first.
Sai:and then very soon after that small project of mine ended up posting a pretty massive, uh, 30,000 person conference called the Hack Summit.
Sai:And the person behind that Hack Summit was like a friend of mine slash investor and became our first investor.
Sai:and so that was way back, you know, 2015 when that all got started.
Sai:and then yeah, that many other chapters after that, but that's sort of how it all started was like, how do we actually create a platform that you know, individuals, what we now call creators, you know, have a way to share their knowledge and really amplify the wisdom I think of it as amplifying the wisdom of the planet.
Carlos:I'm curious, uh, about part of this journey.
Carlos:Why I heard anyway was, was coming from a.
Carlos:Place of not much privilege, um, wanting to make money.
Carlos:there was this needing the, seeing the necessity of that, seeing an opportunity with the internet, this kind of very leveling playing field that some people decry and hate.
Carlos:Um, and for others it's been an opportunity to actually opportunity change their lives, then making this move to the US uh, Startup world.
Carlos:And then I heard this thing like I I something around impact, something around purpose and this mindset that you have.
Carlos:And I'm just curious as to whether it was always there, whether you met someone that shifted their, and you were quite young to, to think about life and work from that perspective, rather than purely, okay, let's just join a unicorn Startup.
Sai:I don't think I ever had like a moment where I suddenly wanted to do good or something, you know, run a, build a company that, or positive way.
Sai:Um, I think it's just always been there and you know, it, it's kind of inevitable when you, when you, when you grew up with a, with a particular background where you, like, I've lived in the lowest, it's kind, the most third world places, um, to like inner city us.
Sai:Um, and then seeing like really privileged places like I went to, ended up going to like a really privileged private university here in the us.
Sai:and yeah, just got to see many different layers of society and inevitably just wanna improve the planet, you know?
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:Um, there was like a parallel because a spiritual journey find that was happening where I was just realizing, just asking some big questions around, what is reality and, you know, why are we here?
Sai:And, and that's always kind of been there through through college.
Sai:But once I went to San Francisco, I just had this space.
Sai:I was just like a single early twenties guy who was making enough money from contract work, uh, to just have a lot of free time.
Sai:So I ended up just researching a lot of things and, you know, getting into, starting to get into meditation and things like that.
Sai:So, um, eventually that inner, you could say progression started to question the outer systems that I was living around, right?
Sai:So being in San Francisco and seeing like the frameworks that was being built and being like, huh.
Sai:So the idea is just to like scale the thing infinitely, okay?
Sai:And we are living in an economy that's based off of this infinite concept of just continue to grow, but we're in a finite planet.
Sai:So, you know, just all those things were contradictory, right?
Sai:So it, it inevitably, inevitably led to this, you know, conclusion.
Sai:Like, okay, we gotta build things in a more sustainable way.
Sai:This is way before Happy Startup School.
Sai:This is way before, you know, zebras unite and, and things like that.
Sai:So I.
Sai:there wasn't like a term for this kind of stuff.
Carlos:Mm.
Sai:Uh, so I did see other folks in the industry started to question and create proper frameworks around this.
Sai:I was like, okay, cool.
Sai:That's, that's what we know.
Sai:That's what we wanna do.
Sai:Right.
Sai:So, but yeah, I don't think there was a specific moment where like, I wanted to start to consciously, you know, do this as more kind of slow, slow progression as some more examples.
Carlos:Well it's really, I find that really interesting because it sounds like from an early age you were just questioning, so how does this all work?
Carlos:What is this, what is this all about?
Carlos:They're quite, you know, I feel that there are many people who can want drift through life.
Carlos:Not even questioning, uh, why we were living the way we're living and, and what does that mean?
Carlos:Um, but it sounds like it was something that, I hear the term seeker used a lot in these, these spaces.
Carlos:Like, okay, just.
Carlos:Seeking the truth, you know, what is the truth around this?
Carlos:And not believing necessarily what's been given to them.
Laurence:Challenging the status quo or the, the norms.
Laurence:It seems like, I wonder if you, coming from Bangladesh was a part of that.
Laurence:Do you think that you just looked at it differently because you had fresh eyes?
Laurence:I don't know.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:I mean, I was definitely labeled as a seeker when I was in college.
Sai:Um, you know, just with people that I would meet.
Sai:Um, mm-Hmm.
Sai:But you know, the fact that I was from Bangladesh, actually, you know, it, it is interesting, it actually made me run away for a while from this concept of like spirituality.
Sai:'cause it's a very, it's, it's a Muslim country and, you know, my parents are, you know, pretty like traditional.
Sai:And before I got to like around eighth grade or seventh grade.
Sai:They were sort of threatening or like, kind of planning, me, planning to send me to like religious high school.
Sai:And so that was part of the big motivation to like get out.
Sai:And that was like, I was like, I need, I can't do that.
Sai:Like, that's not the world I wanna, that's the life I wanna have.
Sai:I wanna see the world.
Sai:And so I was planning to either run away from home, like I was really thinking about like, how do I, how do I get outta here?
Sai:Like, we lived in a, you know, there's like a mountain nearby.
Sai:I was like, maybe I'll go camping.
Sai:And I was like, literally like trying to, you know, model out like what I would do.
Sai:Um, or the option B was like, find a way to like, you know, get into a good high school that's far away.
Sai:So I, I found Path B, um, and I got, I went through a program that selected inner city kids with good grades and helped 'em get into private school.
Sai:Um, and so that was my exit, but because I was partially running away from the religion, I, I started to have a more of an American mindset of like life and reality and, you know, a very science-based way of looking at the world.
Sai:It wasn't until many years later that I started to question like, why are there ghosts and what, what, what, what's this energy stuff that people talk about and what's these chakras?
Sai:And you know, there's all these like systems that, you know, I just, what hear about, um, like what are, what are mediums?
Sai:And eventually I, I heard about this guy named Edgar Casey.
Sai:Um, he was like a famous channel in the US early 19 hundreds.
Sai:And he did this thing where he'd literally like lie down in a couch and meditate.
Sai:Um, he was a doctor, but when he was meditating, he would start to speak and share with people how to like, heal themselves with different diseases and ailments and things like that.
Sai:And I was like, huh.
Sai:He has volumes and volumes of books that he's written.
Sai:Um, so I'm like, he exists, you know, like just the fact someone like that exists was like blowing my mind.
Sai:so then that sort of started to trigger more of this like questioning of like, maybe there's a better way to approach.
Sai:Consciousness In reality, that's a healthier balance.
Sai:And I've come back and I wouldn't say I'm, I'm Muslim per se, but I do see the deeper parts of the, the Islamic religion that's beautiful.
Sai:Um, that comes from a good place.
Sai:and those same parts are in many other, um, spiritual practices.
Sai:but yeah, the act of like pushing away from something actually allows you to like eventually reapproach it from like a different angle.
Sai:So that did help,
Carlos:Uh, I'm curious about this, um, path a, path B kind of way of framing it.
Carlos:and I'm, I was hearing, and maybe it was conditioned from a conversation I've heard earlier today, this idea of path a being quite specific.
Carlos:Dare I say, maybe claustrophobic constraining.
Carlos:Well-trodden, you know, you could see yourself, your life being already laid out before you.
Carlos:I, I, I, I come from a religious Catholic religion in this case, but, you know, there's a, there is a certain set of rules and the path and the journey that has been set out before you because of how the religion has been sort of framed.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:So I'm not, I was wondering if that was similar case for
Laurence:you, and also there's the professional expectations that might have been put upon you too.
Laurence:Yeah.
Laurence:In terms of Oh yeah, exactly.
Laurence:This is, this is the trajectory we expect for you, given what other people do.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:You know, as soon as you see a path where it is just a hallway that there's no exits, right.
Sai:You're, it feels very demoralizing.
Sai:Right.
Sai:Like we, we are creatures of wanting to explore.
Sai:Right.
Sai:And so, um, and grow.
Sai:Right.
Sai:So you don't see any growth there.
Sai:Right.
Sai:If you know what's gonna happen.
Sai:so yeah, I think, I think all of us are, are sort of geared towards taking the route, you know, whether we pursued or not, but wanting to take the route of expanding ourselves in some way.
Sai:You know, like putting ourselves in a situation that, you know, allows us to explore new things.
Sai:I think that's very human, you know, core to the human experience.
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Well this is interesting 'cause um, that's a, a very empowering, energizing way of expressing that and it's full of uncertainty.
Carlos:And there's this aspect, and we had this conversation earlier today on a, on our sister community, like hearted leaders where we're talking about this idea of uncertainty and our relationship to uncertainty.
Carlos:And one person said actually coming from a place or living in a place that was just seemed always constant, no change.
Carlos:They felt much more drawn to uncertainty.
Carlos:They were more wanting more uncertainty in their lives.
Carlos:And then others who also fear uncertainty.
Carlos:And there's something around a very clear path and a, and a safety, a perceived safety in the, in that path that pushes them away from uncertainty.
Sai:Yeah, I think all of us have this or want to find this healthy balance of those two, right?
Sai:Where there's safety and, you know, uncertainty.
Sai:Um, any extreme of either is gonna be not that great, right?
Sai:If you, if you just have complete safety, you're gonna get bored.
Sai:Like folks have, like you mentioned, um, and then they'll want the other.
Sai:But when you have complete chaos, right, and uncertainty, it's very, very stressful.
Sai:'cause it, it could just feel like you're like free falling and there's no support anywhere, right?
Sai:So, um, you know, when you, when you look at like, you know, children who are growing up and development theory around, like attachment styles for example, um, you know, a lot of it, um, a lot of the healthiest people, um, typically have like a solid parent or parents who are giving them that safety, right?
Sai:But allowing them to kind of still venture out knowing that that safety is there, right?
Sai:So that's, that creates the ideal like secure attachment style.
Sai:Um, but when you have an extreme of one or the other, right, then you get more chaotic and attachment styles and things like that, like that show themselves in relationships and all the ways that we interact with people, right?
Sai:So I think we all need some level of balance there.
Sai:Um, given that I'm from a culture that's very family oriented, like I have something like 60 cousins or something that all live nearby, you know, in, in Jersey, and it, it's hard to keep track.
Sai:And in the village, you know, it was hundreds of people, you know, like I went back many years later, um, and I, and I really felt this fabric of community that was holding everyone, you know?
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:I was like, wow, this is really cool.
Sai:I didn't really, really appreciate it until I went back.
Sai:and that fabric, you know, that that gives you a level of comfort and safety, right.
Sai:Um, in the same way that maybe one or two parents might.
Sai:Uh, and that allows you to then venture off, I think we all need that balance, right?
Sai:You need, you need a little bit of both.
Sai:If that foundational safety isn't there, then you know, it's really hard to operate it.
Sai:It can be really scary.
Carlos:I, I think that's, I found that really helpful and illuminating.
Carlos:In terms of, you talk about the foundation of security and at one level I heard this idea of community, family, this kind of like near physical structure aspect to it.
Carlos:And then there's an internal sense of security that I'm, I heard you talk about coming from being brought up in an environment where you are allowed to venture, but you knew there was always a safe place to go back to.
Carlos:And how that, it sounds like helps with a sense of resilience when you're facing uncertainty to know that you can go into the venture, but there's always somewhere safe you can go back to or there's an inner resilience that you can cultivate.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:And I, and I think folks who haven't had that familial safety, they'll go through their own process to eventually develop it on their own.
Sai:Right.
Sai:Um, but it's a harder path.
Sai:so in way I feel really lucky in the the, in the fact that like, you know, I'm actually, if I had to pick between like living in the US.
Sai:Where there's like this fractured nuclear family structure, um, versus like living what's considered the third world, but in this really supportive environment, you know, um, I would always pick what I already experienced, you know?
Sai:Um, like for example, I didn't technically really have, I don't have many memories of my dad till around age five 'cause he was always working in the US right?
Sai:So most of my childhood was, the first five years was uncles and grandparents and aunts and things like that, you know?
Sai:Um, that never really affected me in, in terms of like feeling the, the safety, right?
Sai:So, that's just gonna be I think a core component of, being able to like adventure out and like, take risks and, and, you know, take, you know, Startup risks or personal risks, whatever that is.
Sai:you need that bouncing off board.
Carlos:And yeah.
Carlos:You talk about kind of these, the Startup risks, um, and this, entrepreneurial journey that people can go on or can choose to go on or not, depending on their, I think their resilience or their tolerance to uncertainty.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:for you, it sounds like you were quite open to adventure and you are quite, you are willing to take, you know, to follow a, an untrodden path.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:I think part of it is what I mentioned around familial safety, enabling that.
Sai:A second degree of that is I'm the youngest of five, so most of my older siblings had to deal with like more logistical things around the family, like getting jobs earlier than I have and just kind of, let me just kind of protected me in a way.
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:Like from all the drama of the family.
Sai:There's so many things I didn't even know about until I was like, much older.
Sai:I was like, wait, we, we, like, there was like kidnappings of like different members in like the village.
Sai:Like it was wild, wild stuff, you know?
Sai:Um, you know, but they, they just kind of protected me and, you know, I appreciate them for that.
Sai:But, and also like now, now I'm like trying to play catch up, trying to understand like what all the things.
Sai:Um, but I think the third is just like myself and everyone's has their own, um, energetic qualities, personality qualities, right?
Sai:you know, I am a Sagittarius and that, that's known for like, wanting to explore and, and you know, and, and just constantly like see a lot of things.
Sai:Uh, but whatever you wanna define it, whatever reason.
Sai:I think, yeah, there's that personal quality that everyone has.
Sai:You know, some folks that really love the consistency just in regardless of their familiar structure, you know, lineage.
Sai:That's just what they like.
Sai:And some folks really like adventure, you know, other folks are somewhere in the middle, right?
Sai:So, um, yeah, I thinks a bit of,
Laurence:like you asking about purpose earlier on.
Laurence:and Lana, who's one of the coaches, a collaborator in our program, she's not on this call, but she's, um, she ran a session the other day for our community about our deeper purpose and how often we can't really, we don't give credit for like where our sort of purposes come from and the work we do.
Laurence:And I just wonder whether you've tied your, essentially the community of creators, the work you do now to this bedrock of community that you had when you were younger, even if you weren't even aware of it.
Laurence:Like both me and Carlos have realized we were both born into community and didn't really look at it as a link to what we do today.
Laurence:But I don't think not everyone has had that and therefore not everyone has tried to create it.
Laurence:'cause they, they wouldn't know where to start.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:You know, I, so, coming from community, um, a fam more familial community.
Sai:There was like a natural tendency to create community everywhere.
Sai:I, I went, like, for example, in high school, I ended up becoming like the head of house, which is like Mm-Hmm.
Sai:In the sporting school structure.
Sai:It's almost like Hogwarts.
Sai:You've got houses and, and things like that.
Sai:So, um, my senior year, like I was the person managing about 30, 30 kids, um, in our house.
Sai:And then in, you know, once I went to San Francisco, I was part of a, a few co-living situations, eventually becoming another type of header house of like a 22 person co-living situation in, in San Francisco.
Sai:Um, and then, you know, just over and over I just found myself, whether it's digital or physical, like creating community, like being like a weaver of community.
Sai:Um, and so by the time I started Crowdcast, it did feel like a natural extension.
Sai:By that point I was starting to get aware of the fact that like, okay, I think I like this, I like we community.
Sai:And I, and I, I was starting to see how that was related to like just, you know, my path.
Sai:Um, but at the time, Crowdcast, I didn't think of it as like a community building tool, you know, I thought it more as like, as a, you know, as I mentioned earlier, like a tool to help amplify people's knowledge, you know, um, the idea of community was more of a secondary thought, but in the process of the many years we've been
Sai:around, well within about three years, I would say the idea really solidified that, oh, actually events are just facilitating this bigger thing around community.
Sai:Um, and particularly, you know, a lot of the customers we're working with were like creators and patron creators particularly.
Sai:'cause we have a deep integration with them.
Sai:Um, and they're all trying to just build community, you know?
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:Um, so that became more clear a few years into the business and then it started to connect the dots again.
Sai:Okay.
Sai:I guess I've always been doing this.
Sai:Um, so it, it, it, you got the founder product fit there going on.
Sai:Um, but there's still more to do in terms of the, the Crowdcast platform and product before we truly, I would say, actualize this concept of community.
Sai:you know, we, I can't share too much, but you know, we're, we're making steps to really, you know, go beyond events, you know, and there's, there's a lot of things to do around, thinking about the bigger picture, the deeper problem that people are trying to solve.
Sai:so, which is really twofold.
Sai:It's yes community, but it's typically community and service, service of like some sort of an economic benefit to survive in this capitalistic environment.
Sai:So typically there's some revenue model involved, and so we're trying to find that right balance of like, you know, how do you actually just help people both make a living from what they're doing, um, and also build community.
Sai:And typically the building community leads to making a living.
Carlos:on that.
Carlos:Making a living tip.
Carlos:Then, it's a common trope that nine out of 10 startups fail.
Carlos:Um, it's a very, uh, uncertain path.
Carlos:A lot of the time it's because you are building stuff that people don't want.
Carlos:Uh, and there's all these different strategies of how to minimize the risk of building something.
Carlos:I'd love to hear your journey of this, and how, you know, it, it sounded like, you spotted a need, but I'm not sure if how much of the need was perceived by the customer.
Carlos:So, you know, if you are in a group of healers or you know, practitioners in, in Costa Rica, maybe they love the idea of doing their work, but maybe hadn't thought about, I'm not sure, and this is the question I have hadn't thought about how they could amplify that using technology.
Carlos:It sounded like it was an idea.
Carlos:You thought, oh, I could, you could share.
Carlos:Were you selling that idea to them or had you seen people who asked you about that?
Carlos:How could we do this more effectively?
Sai:Yeah, I, I was mainly just seeing them try other tools and Yeah.
Sai:And, and, and struggling.
Sai:Right.
Sai:So, um, at the time, zoom wasn't really even that popular back, back in 2015.
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:Um, it primarily, I, I guess I was seeing people use like Google Hangouts a lot, um, and free tools, like guilty streaming.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Like, like maybe YouTube streaming maybe.
Sai:I think that was around back then.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Yeah, yeah.
Sai:It was.
Sai:Um, and just not getting the value from, from those tools.
Sai:And, typically the other path was to go down the webinar route, which is more enterprisey software that a lot of creators either couldn't afford or just couldn't navigate, or just too complicate, uh, too complicated.
Sai:so that's initially what kind of drove like, oh, here's a solution that takes the best of both worlds.
Sai:You know, something that's easy to use, kind of like a social media platform, uh, kind of like Google Hangouts, but.
Sai:It's designed for businesses and creators who are actually, you know, trying to like, collect email addresses and registration and these analytics, and ideally has payments built in and things like that, right?
Sai:So, yeah, so it was less about, you know, um, just having an idea that I thought would be helpful, but more about just actually seeing full struggle.
Sai:Um, I mean, it was literally one of those, like lightning moments.
Sai:One night I was in bed and my mind was thinking about, like, for some reason the Google Hangouts api, I was just like, huh, I wonder if I could, it's like thinking about the APIs.
Sai:And I was like, I wonder if I do this thing.
Sai:And I, I, I, I, I had an idea.
Sai:I'm like, oh, I can maybe just leverage Google Hangouts to piggy, like piggyback off of their tech to build this first version, you know?
Sai:And so that's what I did.
Sai:The first version of Crowdcast was more like, I.
Sai:You click a button on Crowdcast page and it opens up a Google Hangouts for the hosts, and then it streams, whatever you're doing in the Google Hangouts, it stream that video back into the Crowdcast, all your attendees would see a YouTube live stream, um, and the Google Hangout that you're in.
Sai:Um, and you, and it's still almost the same interface.
Sai:Like there's still chat and q and a, all that stuff.
Sai:But, but, um, you know, the host would still be in two, they, they'd be both in the Google Hangout and also in Crowdcast.
Sai:Right.
Sai:So that was the first six months before I had, you know, any engineers to help me rebuild that.
Carlos:Why I'm hearing there is on one hand is the benefit of some kind of technical understanding.
Carlos:You know, the knowledge of how something works and an appreciation that isn't about the technology, it's about making some kind of task easier.
Carlos:I know that some technologists.
Carlos:Just get sucked into the, let's make this amazing tech and let's build it from the ground up and let's do all of these things and forget what is it that you're trying to help people do, and how do you make that easier?
Carlos:And then on the flip side, maybe just looking too much about all these opportunities to do this or that, is it actually doable?
Carlos:Is there, is the infrastructure, is there actually a way to make this vision work given the the current level of technology?
Carlos:And so that, that balance feel felt very important there, or being able to understand because in a sense we, we call it the minimal lovable product you were able to build.
Carlos:Right?
Carlos:Yeah, I've heard that.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:To build something that people really appreciated and enjoyed and wasn't all bells and whistles.
Carlos:It wasn't the full
Laurence:I'm curious whether, did you come up with any principle you talked about, I mean, it's obviously an easy to use tool, but was that part of the kind of core.
Laurence:Driving force or was that something that came later in terms of making decisions about the product and what were, what was in what was out?
Sai:Yeah, so, um, there wasn't like an official like peer the principles that we, we operate by.
Sai:It's more that I was already a designer and I was already an engineer and I just wanted to solve a problem, you know, and I saw ways to do it that no one else was doing it 'cause they weren't able to connect different levels of the problem.
Sai:and you know, especially the first version that was just me.
Sai:You know, like there was so many things that I did that was just weird to do at the time that no one was doing.
Sai:'cause it just didn't know, like, why would you do it that way if you didn't know that things could connect?
Sai:Um, like for example, I would let you create an event without even logging in.
Sai:Like you just said, the main call to action on the homepage was.
Sai:Create an event, you can actually fill out the whole form of the event.
Sai:Event, and as soon as you try to actually create it, then it asks you to sign up.
Sai:Right?
Sai:So things like that was actually pretty intuitive, innovative for, I think still is.
Sai:I haven't really seen too many examples of that.
Sai:Or I would do things like, why couldn't you just like, share the question for marketing?
Sai:You know, like, what, if you could just, all the questions that get answered, why, why, why don't, why don't you just make it a way to share those questions, right?
Sai:And maybe those can be searched on Google and, and be discovered, right?
Sai:So, um, I did a thing where you could actually type in a question that was answered in a Crowdcast event, uh, and, and it would show up on Google, you know, and so people would know, were now getting organic searches in traffic just by answering questions in their, in their Comcast event, right?
Sai:So, but yeah, the idea was like, how, how can we just solve the core issue around helping them get more registrations, helping them get people into the event really, really quickly.
Sai:or another example is like, I'm pretty sure we're the first ones to ever do something like, you know, when you enter like just a registration process to make it simpler.
Sai:why, why are, why even use a password?
Sai:Like why not just like send what's now called the magic link, you know?
Sai:or, you know, why are you creating different accounts or like temporary accounts for different events you're joining?
Sai:Why can't you just have one that allows you to join all these events?
Sai:Right?
Sai:So all those things didn't exist before.
Sai:I hadn't seen it at least, you know, and there's many examples of that.
Sai:So, um, yeah, I just really wanted to go about it, you know, in terms of like, how do you just make things super simple and easy?
Sai:And having the advantage of the technical and the develop and design background just supported that initial thing, you know?
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:It's definitely easier if it's one person, but it's not sustainable, right?
Sai:It's obviously not scalable.
Sai:Um, so now we're trying to figure out how do we make this in a more process that's more scalable, but still trying to keep the original concept of like, these things really, really simply solve the core problem.
Sai:Um, and now we're even going deeper, right?
Sai:How do we solve the deeper problem here?
Sai:So part of what we've done in the most recent iteration of Crowdcast is sort of architected things to be able to go deeper.
Sai:Um, 'cause we were held back by the bad tech choices I made.
Sai:I wouldn't say bad, but tech has changed a lot since I started Crowdcast.
Sai:And so technical debt, I think I call that.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:And it was one of the most toughest things like we've ever done, is to just rebuild the whole architecture.
Sai:Um, and it's like building two houses and slowly moving people from one house to the other is a very difficult thing to do.
Sai:It's a
Laurence:very knowing nod from Carlos there.
Sai:Yeah, yeah.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:And a lot of it's, it can be a depth, you know, for a lot of companies to try to do a full rebuild.
Sai:So, um, now I can say like, okay, we're, we're, we're mostly past that.
Sai:We're still here, which is great.
Sai:Um, but now it also means that we can finally do some of these deeper problems that we wanna get to, um, around community building and going beyond events, um, and things like that.
Carlos:I think for me, an important part of this as well is, um, whether it's technical knowledge, you are a professional with insight within a particular industry or a particular profession, there's having that insight and then connecting it to a customer and a easy, and a very clear problem to be solved.
Carlos:And I think that's part of this entrepreneurial aspect.
Carlos:It isn't just, oh, I, I know lots of stuff and I'm, you know, I can really dive into the problem.
Carlos:I know, know the technical aspects of things well.
Carlos:It's like how do we communicate that to the people who wanna serve?
Carlos:How do we make, take that information and use it and package it in a way, or build it in a way that someone can say, oh yeah, I know how to do this.
Carlos:I can use it.
Carlos:Whether that's a coach, whether that's a consultant, whether that's someone's technical, whether that's someone who's learning someone, someone's trying to teach someone else to play the piano.
Carlos:If you can find an an innovative way for them to access that information and knowledge so that they can go faster with their journey, then it sounds like this is where we can create value as opposed to, oh, I've got the really clever idea, but Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:It takes a long while for people to get on board and use it.
Carlos:Mm.
Carlos:And and make an impact with it.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:And I, I, I definitely get pulled in that direction all the time and I have like, clever ideas that don't really solve real problems there.
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:And, and you know, I think we all get pulled 'cause there are really cool things that, you know, that, that just, just show up.
Sai:Um, but yeah, I think you just, yeah, keeping that north star is always gonna be important.
Sai:You know, have you, things like blockchain for example, like, you know, that's some of the biggest problems.
Sai:Like okay, really cool tech.
Sai:Um, but exactly what are the use cases that actually make the sense the most sense to you to use?
Sai:Right.
Laurence:No, I was just gonna ask whether you saw yourself more as a designer, because I think the designers or the designer's mindset more as being more customer focused versus maybe a developer engineer who's more kind of, let's say a little bit geeky about the tools and the, the nuts and bolts behind it.
Laurence:Yeah.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:I usually say I'm like a designer first, engineer second, and
Laurence:mm.
Sai:Only because, you know, tech is always changing.
Sai:You can always teach yourself the newest tech, you know, the newest programming languages, and they're all just Krenn being created to solve a problem, right?
Sai:So, I learned JavaScript to create better interfaces.
Sai:You know, I learned that database engineering to create a product, you know?
Sai:Um, and then, you know, some folks, their mind is just so designed to think about the technical pieces and innovating on those things.
Sai:and that's great.
Sai:I'll leave it to them to figure out like, how do you optimize a database or how do you, create systems that are like decentralized, you know, databases, right?
Sai:Like that, that, but even those people, you could argue like their initial spark is a problem, right.
Sai:That supports some other, some other bigger mission.
Sai:So I do think everyone on some level is actually a designer at the deepest level.
Sai:But you might, they might express themselves as like
Laurence:mm-Hmm.
Sai:The technical type of person who wants to solve a technical problem, but you need to have this designer sense still to, to go there.
Sai:They may not have visual aesthetic designer.
Sai:That's the specific thing, right?
Sai:Mm-Hmm.
Sai:That's actually, I still don't know how to search for that.
Sai:Like, I have no idea how to interview for good visual aesthetics.
Sai:'cause it's a lot of, it's just intuitive and you get a feel for it.
Carlos:I think one way I'd look at this is in terms of like the design, the mindset and the problems you're solving.
Carlos:An aspect is just how many people have those problems.
Carlos:And while, um, you have very technical people who can go really deep, they are solving problems, but it's just their customer base is very different.
Carlos:It's a much more niche level.
Carlos:And it doesn't mean they're creating less value, it's just they're creating it at someone who can make a distributed database.
Carlos:For instance, their customers are the people who use databases with lots and lots of data and who are then maybe applying it to a broader market.
Carlos:So it's, um, yeah, playing where you feel best fit.
Carlos:And I think there's something here around, knowing who your customer is.
Sai:yeah.
Sai:But you know, I think, I think it's also just being aware of the potential impact, right?
Sai:Like, um, like I, you know, like for example, some of the folks who are developing.
Sai:IPFS, which is called Interplanetary File System, which is one of the main database systems in blockchain.
Sai:Um, you know, their, their customers are very small.
Sai:Like it's just a couple of companies that use their tech, but their impact could be massive.
Sai:I mean, you're talking about billions of people storing data across different planets in the future, right?
Sai:So I think, I think that's really what motivates most developers.
Sai:Like I, I think they don't really think about, I have x number of customers that this is gonna solve, or they think about how many potential humans, right, this can affect systemic impact
Carlos:versus on the ground
Sai:sometimes,
Carlos:um, I would love to dive into some questions that have come from people.
Carlos:so kind of had, we have the story of Crowdcast, we have the story of your journey and it's how think about things in terms of.
Carlos:You are, um, building a company and, um, providing value.
Carlos:Um, so this whole aspect of part of is leading to this idea of using live experience to, to share your expertise.
Carlos:And there are very many ways to do that these days.
Carlos:Um, one question that came up was from Marianne who's in part of our community, and she was asking about the pros and cons of broadcasting on Crowdcast versus where people are at.
Carlos:And she was thinking about places like Instagram, places like LinkedIn live, these other places where there's an audience already.
Carlos:why choose Crowdcast is, is I think a question.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:I think it depends primarily on what stage you're at, right?
Sai:So, um, everyone who's.
Sai:Sort of building an audience or building a business, typically first goes through the audience building phase, right?
Sai:So that audience is typically on social media platforms, like that's kind of the main place to get discoverability.
Sai:Um, so yeah, you should be streaming to LinkedIn and YouTube and maybe Instagram and, you know, and, and building an audience there.
Sai:but at some point you wanna monetize that audience.
Sai:And monetize could simply mean collect email addresses and start to own the relationship between you and the, the, uh, the audience member.
Sai:and all these platforms are just third parties that are kind of being that, you know, middleman, right?
Sai:So, whether you're ready to charge or not, you still wanna at some point own the relationship, right?
Sai:So that's when you'd wanna start to either do Crowdcast events or do it in parallel where that Crowdcast event is streaming still to LinkedIn.
Sai:and then later, you know, you might just do, you might even higher level of monetization, right?
Sai:So now you're maybe charging for an event or maybe it's like a members only event.
Sai:Or maybe, you know, it's, you have, um, content on a membership platform that you wanna give for free, right?
Sai:But you wanna make sure you collect everyone's email addresses, right?
Sai:So I think it really just, yeah, depends on one, what stage you're at.
Sai:And then two, what's the intent of this event?
Sai:You know, if the event is just for awareness as opposed to, collecting and, and leads for, for example, um, then you might just wanna stream straight to the social media platforms.
Sai:But when you're a little bit past that stage, um, everyone at some point gets to that point where they wanna start to collect email address and, and, and go a little higher.
Carlos:I find sometimes these, this idea, these kind of strategies, become or are more remembered when they're maybe connected to a story or, or someone owns someone else's experiences.
Carlos:I'm, I'm just curious from your experience of working with various creators on your platforms platform, is there a, an example of how someone has taken, gone on this journey of maybe starting off on a social media platform and then moving to Crowdcast and, and who they were, what kind of industry they're in, what kind of work they were doing?
Sai:Yeah, um, I mean, you can almost use almost any creator that we have on the platform or even like a small business.
Sai:But let's take maybe Tara McMullen as an example.
Sai:Like she's a, now she's got a team, but you know, she's like a solopreneur, um, person who's like teaching other people how to build their businesses, um, and greater audiences.
Sai:So, you know, starting on, I think she used YouTube primarily and maybe.
Sai:Twitter, I mean, uh, Instagram, um, building an audience there first, right?
Sai:And then also opening up a newsletter, like completely not no video, just content, right?
Sai:And, and educational content.
Sai:Um, building an audience, building a community around her, and then eventually being like, okay, now we're gonna do live events and doing a live show and podcast where she would interview people.
Sai:and those people would then be a part of our membership community eventually, right?
Sai:I forget which platform she was using for that, but, um, yeah, those things all kinda layer later, right?
Sai:So, uh, and that's the tricky thing is like, I don't, yeah, for a lot of people, I don't recommend Crowdcast, you know, sometimes I'll just get onto calls with friends who are in that same world as, as a creator and I'm, and that's not my, my recommendation then I first start with like,
Sai:just getting consistent about the content you're posting, you know, um, and building an audience and then maybe opening up a newsletter, right?
Sai:So yeah, there's, there's many steps to.
Sai:Two things.
Sai:And, um, live events isn't for everyone.
Sai:You know, especially if you have a, a more of a local community, you wanna start local first and then expand out later.
Sai:Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's not a tool for everyone and it depends on what stage of the journey you're at.
Carlos:It sounds like one of the key aspects for here around Crowdcast is whether the term monetization, but in terms of the creator getting value from this experience as much as possible, as well as the, as the audience.
Carlos:And so whether that's growing their email list, creating more connections with the people who watch their stuff or actually charging for the content, and, and there's a, for a content creator, it seemed quite seamless.
Carlos:With Crowdcast, you can easily add, um, sort of paywall to any events if you wanted to without too much effort.
Sai:yeah, yeah.
Sai:Um, and, and one other thing to mention there is that, you know.
Sai:Attention is like the hardest thing to get from people.
Sai:Um, and so, these days, um, being able to host an event where you have a few people alive is such a big win.
Sai:You know, that, that it has secondary, tertiary like effects.
Sai:So I would say depends on who you are and what your, what your use case is.
Sai:But in some cases it actually makes sense to start doing events as early as possible in your journey as a way to start actually build the community.
Sai:Whereas other folks I might recommend start building an audience that's asynchronous content based and then do events to kind of build that up.
Sai:But yeah, really depends on the type of creator you are.
Carlos:Uh, just a little thing to add on from my experience of doing live events on platforms, say like LinkedIn, uh, or Instagram or here on Crowdcast with LinkedIn, I'm, I have, I go through a series of steps.
Carlos:I use another platform that then links into LinkedIn as opposed to pressing a button and you're suddenly live.
Carlos:So that's why I find Crowdcast easy from that perspective of getting set up.
Carlos:And, and, but like you said, you, you bring the audience here rather than broadcast to an existing audience until you've built a following.
Carlos:And then something like, whether it's, uh, Instagram or, or Facebook Live, you are there with the phone and, and, and it's, it's, the experience for me is slightly different and it feels, it feels a bit more
Laurence:transient.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Transient and ad hoc as opposed to something like this.
Carlos:You, this is more designed and curated as a, as an approach from my experience.
Carlos:So, for anyone listening who are curious about that difference,
Sai:yeah, it's kind of like people are walking by you and you're on the, on the street, you know, on Instagram.
Sai:They're just hoping to grab their attention, you know, like midway through.
Sai:Um, which, yeah, I just don't, it's just not like a sustainable model in my opinion.
Sai:It's not really the world I wanna build where people are kind of like trying to get attention by, they're just kinda walking by, I think with Twitch, you know, it's like you're kind of feeding off of tips and other sort of, activities that are more entertainment based.
Sai:Uh, and again, I think that's also not healthy and sustainable.
Sai:So we don't have any like, tips here in Grand County.
Sai:We might enable it more for transactions that makes sense, but not like, you know, uh, more this transient kind of walk, walk past me on the sidewalk.
Sai:Kind of a, a framework.
Sai:And I think people are starting to realize that like, there, there's a lot of burnout on these platforms and, and business models are shifting to be more sustainable.
Sai:So I think the world's kind of catching up to that, these ideas.
Laurence:Yeah.
Laurence:And it's easy to get distracted to as a viewer, you know, or a consumer that you're just, oh, shiny new thing, new post.
Laurence:You know?
Laurence:It's just constant feed of information.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:I think the key things for me here is being more intentional about why you're creating content, being more focused about the content that you're, cray and the depth to it, because I think that adds to the value rather than it just snacks that people can just take off.
Carlos:What can, what depth can you add to it that brings people in?
Carlos:Quick question here.
Carlos:Uh, again, it's related to what we were saying before, but yes, you are on Crowdcast.
Carlos:Your, your, your broadcasting.
Carlos:You've had the following maybe on LinkedIn and you've got your newsletter.
Carlos:is there, do you have any advice on building your following through Crowdcast or is it something more that you, you go out and you bring people to Crowdcast rather than find them on Crowdcast?
Sai:Yeah, right now, I mean, we just rolled out Discover, um, more like formally on this new version of Crowdcast.
Sai:So now you could start to get some level of just discoverability natively on that platform.
Sai:But it's very early days, so I would say don't rely on that right now.
Sai:Um, definitely still considered as like the tool to bring people into.
Sai:Um, and your marketing would still happen elsewhere, whether it's through email marketing platforms or your own website or.
Sai:Social media platforms.
Sai:Um, but yeah, hopefully in the future if, if, you know, we make the right moves, um, there's a, there's enough of a density you could say here in Crowdcast that people are finding and discovering their events, um, you know, just natively on the platform as well.
Carlos:Uh, and then just to briefly, um, Annette was asking about any current hosts in the audience, uh, who'd love to hear.
Carlos:She'd love to hear from you, what you do in your events.
Carlos:I'm not sure if there are any, but myself and Lawrence, which are the examples, I would say, and we are doing everything, I would say that s has just talked about you.
Carlos:It's, it's Crowdcast for us is not necessarily, or we thought it was, and this is really understood better now talking to s thought it was a way of building an audience, but actually my personal approach to it, it's an such an easy way to get live and have a conversation and interact with an audience.
Carlos:Be able to record and preserve and use that information later as opposed to some other platforms.
Carlos:YouTube Live just, I get lost.
Carlos:I dunno how to get people registered and invited to that LinkedIn Live is this whole number of other steps that you need to get to, to make that happen?
Carlos:Actually, I dunno if you've
Laurence:got a final question.
Laurence:'cause it's, it makes me laugh on every email from when we do crowd cast, we always put follow the same link for the, the replay.
Laurence:Um, and almost every day we get an email saying anywhere I can find the recording, but any tips for communicating to people that it's the same link without putting it in red and uppercase?
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:There's not any other platform that does that as far as I know.
Sai:Or the new behavior gets everything.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:It's, it's confus like, oh, this, I didn't expect that.
Sai:You know?
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:And I think that is that perception.
Carlos:Maybe it's that thing of like, oh, this is where it's live and YouTube is where it's recorded.
Carlos:There's, it's like a.
Carlos:Cognitive, um, yeah, speed bump for some, but yeah, I think everything that you said s now makes, makes it much more clear as to why Crowdcast is what it, what it's for really.
Carlos:And it is really, I think for this much more intimate, um, interaction with an audience rather than just broadcast, um, on, on much of these larger in platforms, which I don't, I feel I get lost in them personally.
Carlos:It feels a bit more complicated.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Yeah.
Sai:Cool.
Sai:And all those platforms currently are mainly one way, right?
Sai:Like you're mainly just talking to the audience.
Sai:Um, but I think the magic of what's now possible on the internet is two way, right?
Sai:Like being able to have a TV show that scales to the whole planet or something like that.
Sai:But anyone in the audience can just raise their hand and walk onto the stage.
Sai:Like that was never possible before, right?
Sai:And so that's the direction we're going.
Sai:Um, you know, if, uh, hopefully one day we have like a hundred thousand people or a million people watching, you know, um, some conversation in, in the audience, they can just walk up and and ask their question, right?
Sai:So, uh, uh, that's the intention is a planetary scale, you know, um, gathering platform.
Laurence:But too is having, having met you now, it makes sense that it feels like it's got your personality woven through it.
Laurence:You know, in terms of just the community aspect, the simplicity, the just the care I guess you just don't get with some of the bigger platforms, they felt a lot more, less, less human put it that way.
Laurence:This feels a lot more human as a tool, which is why we're drawn to early.
Sai:I appreciate it.
Sai:Yeah, I think, I think like attracts like, right?
Sai:So it's cool like that you guys just organically showed up, um, as well as like zebras unite organically showing up and some other folks, like, it's cool to see.
Sai:Um, so hopefully we're, we can continue doing this level of, uh, care.
Sai:And, and that shines through our, like, language and marketing and, you know, the product.
Sai:So appreciate that, you know, that reflection.
Carlos:Well, we're, we're definitely banging the drum.
Carlos:Um, and really appreciate what you've built and how it's helped us as well, particularly through that period.
Carlos:Three years ago, getting through Covid.
Carlos:This was
Laurence:kind of godsend.
Carlos:before we close any final words side, you, you wanna share anything that's, uh, becoming more clear or something you'd like to say to, to close off before we finish?
Sai:No, I mean, it, it's, you know, it's always great to have these conversations to get a better sense of how we can be shaping the feature of Crowdcast.
Sai:and really thinking about it as a tool for meeting you at all levels of that journey, you know?
Sai:'cause right now I'm like, we, yeah.
Sai:If you're at this point in the journey, then it makes the most sense.
Sai:But ideally we can say, Hey, regardless of what stage you're at, like you can use this tool to grow your audience, build your community, share knowledge, make a living, right?
Sai:Um, so I just appreciate these conversations.
Sai:and yeah, you know, folks are wondering, you know, if, if they themselves can, whether it's crowd or not, just like get on that route, that road of getting more in control of their personal freedom, doing the things that they love doing, the things that they, that they care about.
Sai:You know, I definitely would encourage them to just try it, you know, and try out, you know, what would it feel like to start, you know, sharing the content that you're really excited about, you know, and eventually, you know, um, building a community around that and eventually maybe building a business around
Sai:that, you know, because I really do feel that the, the, the way that we're doing business and economies, it's going through a major transition right now and.
Sai:This is the time where we're sort of reevaluating, like why we're working, period.
Sai:Like what is, why do we work?
Sai:You know?
Sai:Um, and how can we shape things differently?
Sai:So, um, the opportunity, the ability to finally like actually make a living following your passions, I think is now more true than I ever was.
Sai:So do you encourage everyone who's watching who hasn't taken that step to, to take it knowing that, you know, ive already seen so many people, like thousands of people successfully to make that transition.
Laurence:Well just echo what Cy said, really.
Laurence:I think it's that I feel real alignment and values in terms of both you and your approach and the way you built the company and the tool.
Laurence:It feels like.
Laurence:Yeah, it's no wonder we kind of found each other.
Laurence:'cause there's, uh, you questioning the, the sort of system you're in in San Francisco, it feels like the kind of questions we were asking ourselves 10 years ago about startups and Silicon Valley and that whole model and how that doesn't work for everyone and certainly doesn't work for the planet.
Laurence:So,
Laurence:It's reassuring to know there's like minds out there, especially in the tech world that are challenging that.
Laurence:And yeah, bringing this spiritual, more holistic view of life and work and business to it, not just following the, the sort of easy route.
Carlos:thank you again, Cy.
Carlos:Really appreciate, um, you spending some time with us and sharing your story and also just giving us some more insight about what it means to, to do stuff or to share our expe, uh, expertise, uh, live and, and how that can benefit not only us as uh, creators, but also to be able to reach more people.
Carlos:And I think that's my takeaway is, um, we talk about in the Happy Startup School Effortless impact.
Carlos:This is such a simple way to amplify the impact of your knowledge and your experience to be able to share that with many more people wherever you may be.
Carlos:Uh, and so I'm really grateful for your words, wisdom and the tools you have created.
Laurence:This is normally a bit where Carl says, gonna post a link to your, you know, project, your business, your idea.
Laurence:Yeah.
Carlos:You can work it out this time around.
Carlos:Okay.
Carlos:That's great.
