Magic Minds

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine James talks with Tara Viswanathan, the CEO, and Founder of Rupa Health, whose goal is to make functional medicine more accessible, affordable, & available to patients everywhere. They talk about the outward appearance of everything you want in a start-up, how struggles have still persisted throughout the life of the company, as well as finding a proper work/life balance.  Tara Viswanathan https://RupaHealth.com Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show: 424-272-6640   "The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author   About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

https://bit.ly/Dive_further_BelowtheLine  Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show: 424-272-6640   "The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author   Instagram account mentioned in this episode: https://instagram.com/tiltquarters   James shares a story of his pursuit of another one of his passions in music, and how a recent track he created perfectly exemplifies the type of failure you want to invite into your life. He then dissects the differences between controlled and terminal failure, and discusses how his aversion to failure while in the role of CEO actually proved to be a detriment to the cause.   About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

https://bit.ly/Dive_further_BelowtheLine "The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author James is joined by fellow former Airbnb Execs Larry Rachitski and Marc Mccabe for this #deepdive on the impending and highly anticipated Airbnb IPO.  The conversation begins with Lenny, Marc and James sharing their respective journeys that led them to joining the Airbnb team, and the factors that played into that decision. They continue to dissect what each believes are challenges Airbnb faces heading into the IPO, as well as what they believe to be it's strongest leverage points, and ultimately how both play into their forecasts for the company. They close the show deciding how much of a hypothetical $100,000 cash surplus they would invest into the travel juggernaut. Lenny https://twitter.com/lennysan  Marc https://twitter.com/mccabe About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Books: On Writing Well - https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548 Writing Down the Bones - https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Down-Bones-Freeing-Writer/dp/1590302613 Draft #4 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18194765-draft-no-4 Top Posts: How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users - https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-the-biggest-consumer-apps-got How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business - https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-kickstart-and-scale-a-marketplace My favorite product management templates - https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/my-favorite-templates-issue-37 What is good retention - https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/what-is-good-retention-issue-29 Today's episode is with Lenny Rachitsky. It is a #DeepDive episode on creating a successful newsletter — in a world where newsletters are becoming more mainstream, more lucrative, and more appealing to the expert at the top of their field themselves vs the journalist on the side-lines. On a high level, Lenny is making more with his newsletter, a year and a half in (and only about six months into introducing a paid version of the letter) than he was making from his salary at Airbnb. Yes, six months into introducing a paid version he is making more than he did as a product leader at Airbnb. He is a brilliant product and growth thinker, and he writes one of the most insightful newsletters in the startup ecosystem. It is a great episode on the "Below The Line" version of what it took to get the newsletter to this point, but also what it's like putting out insightful content every single week. We cover everything from the strategy of starting free and then turning it into a paid newsletter over time, to the deliberation before he started the newsletter, to the skill sets that he thought would be really critical for a newsletter (and which skill sets *actually* ended up being critical for a successful newsletter). We cover all of that and more with Lenny. About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with British poet, author, and Zen master Henry Shukman. Henry is able to touch on so many different topics with a brilliant articulation that one would expect from a poet. We cover many different topics in our conversation today — everything from the “single experience” concept that he talks about in his memoir, “One Blade of Grass”, which is a phenomenal read, the phases of creativity, and an in-depth conversation on his decades-long battle with low-grade depression — sometimes high grade and sometimes just in the background — covering all of his different methods of self-medication before finally finding something that worked to help him overcome it. We touched on each of these things and more in today's episode. I'm excited for you to hear it. About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He’s been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is with one of the more profound thinkers, writers, and speakers in human history. It's with Alan Watts. I've said in previous episodes that I think he'll be known as one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century in a few decades, and when we look back, he is in many ways a translator. He came here from England, originally coming here as an Episcopalian priest, but he eventually left the ministry to start teaching a nonpartisan version of philosophy, mythology, and spirituality — introducing the West to Eastern philosophy, from a Western lens. Hence the adjective, “translator”. And it all centers around a topic that we covered today, which is “Who are we?”. In my entrepreneurial and creative career, few people have impacted me as much as his thinking and writing. I'm really excited for today's episode. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Links referenced in this episode: + Get your free Endel subscription: https://code.endel.io/?code=BELOWTHELINE + Forbes Magic Mind Article: www.forbes.com/sites/chasefeiger/2020/08/24/how-this-entrepreneur-moved-from-software-to-create-silicon-valleys-new-morning-elixir-magic-mind + The Multi-path Career (essay by James Beshara): https://jjbeshara.com/2020/05/25/the-multi-path-career/ + The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win by Steve Blank: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507 + The Holocaust of Attachment: https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Attachment-Swami-Parthasarathy/dp/9381094195 I have a different type of episode for you today. Today's episode is with Chase Feiger, who's a contributing writer at Forbes. He is a founder himself; he's built multiple companies, and he is also an investor of a handful of really brilliant startups as well. After he wrote a Forbes piece on me and Magic Mind last month, he asked if he could flip the tables and interview me for the podcast as a follow up to the article. At first, I was not a fan because the whole point of the podcast is for me to glean insights from other people, and then share them with you all. But there was a practical reason that it made sense to me — and that is to share more about what it has been like beneath the surface on starting another company when I told my wife three years ago, “never let me ever start anything again”... and to share what has changed in those three years. Chase is very kind, super smart, and he's a great interviewer — It's what makes him a great writer at Forbes. It was interesting to have the microscope turned on to me for the episode. I hope it's not too boring, and I hope this slight departure from typical programming is somewhat interesting for you. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Get your free Endel subscription: https://code.endel.io/?code=BELOWTHELINE Joseph’s Podcast Series: https://anchor.fm/joseph-emmett Today's episode is with a friend of mine, Joseph Emmett, who is just an interesting cat. He is someone that I chat with once a week. Every Thursday, we jump on a video call or phone call, and it's one of the most enjoyable calls of the week — One that has nothing to do with tactics of business but more about a holistic perspective and philosophy from which I try to make decisions. I don't think I've ever met anyone quite like him. I had him on the podcast about a year ago and people loved that episode so much that I invited him back to the podcast. Today, we talk about the worldview he adopted at around age 19, called Vedanta or Advaita Vedanta. It's a very interesting one when it comes to Eastern philosophies, as it sits as the bedrock of just about every other Eastern philosophy (from Hinduism to later Buddhism to later still, Zen Buddhism). We also talk about his love of surfing, and how it metaphorically relates to his life and work. We talk about so many different things that cover all kinds of touchstones that I think a lot about but rarely ever get a chance to talk about in a business setting. If the first episode resonated with listeners, I think this one might even more so. You can hear more about this 5000-year-old worldview from Joseph on a limited podcast series that he just released this week at my suggestion in conjunction with this podcast, called “Yoga for Your Intellect” (https://anchor.fm/joseph-emmett). Just go into your podcast app and search for it for more. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Get your free Endel subscription: https://code.endel.io/?code=BELOWTHELINE Today's episode is with Andrew Dudum. He’s a co-founder of Hims & Hers; one of the fastest growing companies in history. They are two and a half years in and are valued north of a billion dollars. I saw their first million in sales within five weeks of launch. One of the fastest growing companies that I've ever come across, and though it seems like an overnight success... as the cliche goes, it's overnight, 10 years in the making. Andrew has started north of 10 different businesses (!) and has a whole lot of wisdom to share in this episode. We chat about the launch of Hims & Hers (and how crazy that time was) but also talk about the lowest moments that he's experienced as a founder. We also talk about the concept of “exposure therapy” and how that applies to being a founder. We also chat about the healthcare system that we currently live within and what it could look like if it was designed around the consumer. We talk about all these things and much more. Enjoy this episode with this brilliant, thoughtful maker. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Get your free Endel subscription: https://code.endel.io/?code=BELOWTHELINE Today's episode is with Ravi Patel, a consummate multi-hyphenate creator, people... He’s a writer, director, actor, and entrepreneur among other things. From starting businesses to his brand new project on HBO max called “Ravi Patel's Pursuit of Happiness”, we cover what he’s learned through it all. We talk about his struggles and even the challenges that he’s dealing with today; literally, today as we chatted. We cover all kinds of things from simplifying life, to being useful to others, to the transactional nature of friendships, to the pursuit of mental fitness, and of course, his project that he just launched. I just finished watching two of the episodes and it is a phenomenal show. Each episode takes place in a different city around the world with someone that he knows and loves. It's a really heartwarming, insightful, and hilarious show. One of the better shows I've seen in the last year or two. It's really that good. So check it out. It's on HBO Max, the new streaming app from dem homies at HBO. So without further ado, let's get into it with Ravi Patel. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC..