Blake Smith

We didn't know any better.

And so we did a price round and then everything else to that was a convertible note.

10% interest rate and no discount.

They're capped notes.

I think that we found a template and we read some articles talking about why discounts aren't necessarily that necessary.

like a thousand dollars.

So we found ourselves, we tried affiliates, like affiliate sales.

We actually started trying to sell clothing at the beginning.

We did affiliates.

We did drop shipping where we established partnerships with all these retailers and then they would ship the clothing.

Um, and that was the worst.

Like affiliates is shoveling nickels.

Uh, I'd say drop shipping is shoveling nickels and you have to deal with shipping problems.

Um,

And so we actually tested, it was last May, I found myself with a glass of bourbon at 11 o'clock at night looking at a three-month-long, $100,000 test that had failed.

And I was like, fuck, we have three months.

With a drop shipper.

Oh.

And I knew within 24 hours of it launching that it failed.

And so I had three months of runway and essentially no business model.