Spent $1.5m On One Sperm Race and It Went Viral | Eric Zhu - E715
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
32 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 17 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Who is Eric Zhu and what crazy venture did he create?
Uh I used to run a data company and then now I race sperm. Sperm race.
Like if this fails, then I have no backpath. And there's a lot of like decisions where I made where it's like it's just incredibly irrational, where it doesn't fucking make sense. And like why the wh why am I actually doing this? How can you take a risk and gamble on like 10% risk on this like 10% chance that if you are able to successfully make it through that, the upside 100x?
Hey, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. I actually see some of your content out there as well. Appreciate
you for having me.
Yeah, I know, right. Uh well, there's so much to cover all the way from, you know, uh a fellow fan of the T V show Silicon Valley, you know, all the companies you started building from high school all the way to sperm racing, uh and the viral clips that have come out from there. Um, so a lot to cover, but could you introduce yourself?
Yeah, my name is Eric. Uh I used to run a data company and then now I raise sperm.
Yeah. Sure and sweet. I love that. Um, and so I'm just kind of curious a little bit, which is you know, you grew up in SF and um what's interesting is that your first enterprise that you started building was actually when you were in high school and taking founder calls uh from the bathroom. Could you share a little bit more about what was that?
Yes, so actually I grew up in Indiana. So it was like kinda middle of nowhere. You know, it was like s sort of like this cornfield, right? Yeah. Um where where there's like really nothing there. Um I don't know if you've seen it or heard of Indiana before, but basically, yeah, it's like the middle of the US. So I actually grew up there. Um and yeah, I went to high school and then I got kicked out of high school sophomore year. I mean, it was totally my fault, but like yeah, I kick I got kicked out of high school sophomore year and then I moved to SF after. So So
why did you get kicked out?
Basically, when when I was building the company, um, a lot of my customers, they took calls from nine to five. Um, and so that was pretty much a time when I was at school. Yeah. So I I I basically spent uh nine, so five so I spent like five to six hours a day in the high school bathroom. Yeah. And we were raising money, we were talking to customers. You know, it I I also like convinced my counselor. See, like this is why I got like kicked out, was like I I convinced my counselor that I processed. Issues. So like I had this like pink pass to go to the bathroom. Um, saying that like my prostate was like bad. And then there's also like I was buying hall passes from drug dealers. Yeah. Yeah. So like uh I kind of realized like drug dealers were always out of class, right?
So like I was like, shit, like what the fuck do they do? And it was like uh because they they bought hall passes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I ended up buying hall passes from drug dealers to get out of class, and then um and the the the kind of end for it was like basically, you know, we were taking calls. And then the principal walked in and then the same week the drug dealer got caught so that he wasn't selling drugs and selling me whole passes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and then I ended up getting banned from using the restroom during school hours. Yeah. Yeah. So like from using the restroom, my teacher had to call the principal and the principal like sent school security to escort me down. Oh. Oh. Um so it was just like a crazy like back and forth and stuff like that.
And then I eventually got like kicked out. So I I think it was like totally my fault, but uh it was fucking lit though. Yeah.
Yeah, I know, I can imagine. Um, so I'm just kind of curious because there you were. Why did you want to say, I want to build something in high school rather than study math?
I I I I think, you know, it it was c sh pretty much just like uh I I met the right people at the right time during quarantine. Right. So like during quarantine, uh San Francisco was kind of like a Discord server. So I ended up meeting a lot of these uh famous tech people that that are famous now that that weren't famous before.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Eric Zhu and what crazy venture did he create?
0:00–3:51
2
How did Eric build his first data startup from a high‑school bathroom?
3:51–7:52
3
Why did Eric get kicked out of high school and how did he keep raising money?
7:52–11:34
4
What was the original data‑company idea and how did it target private‑equity tools?
11:34–15:09
5
How did a billionaire’s challenge turn into a $1.5 million live sperm‑racing event?
15:09–19:08
6
What technical hurdles did the team face when filming and measuring sperm speed?
19:08–24:12
7
How does Aviato combine software roll‑ups, e‑commerce brands, and AI agents?
24:12–27:43
8
What are Eric’s key lessons on hiring, risk‑taking, and building a visionary company?
27:43–32:46
Speakers
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