On this week's show, we welcome Earl Cole, winner of Survivor: Fiji, but more importantly, the CEO and co-founder of The SMART Tire company. His startup is working with NASA to commercialize metal tire technology first developed to provide future Mars rovers with nearly indestructible wheels for tackling the toughest terrain, and Cole tells us all about how his background as a serial entrepreneur, and the first unanimous Sole Survivor, helped him navigate NASA's bureaucratic network.
On this week's show, we welcome Earl Cole, winner of Survivor: Fiji, but more importantly, the CEO and co-founder of The SMART Tire company. His startup is working with NASA to commercialize metal tire technology first developed to provide future Mars rovers with nearly indestructible wheels for tackling the toughest terrain, and Cole tells us all about how his background as a serial entrepreneur, and the first unanimous Sole Survivor, helped him navigate NASA's bureaucratic network.
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Darrell Etherington 0:00
Hello, and welcome to found I'm Darrell Etherington, and I'm joined by my co host and sometime conspirator, Jordan Crook, we are conspiring to bring you this show. It's brand new show from TechCrunch. Well, I mean, this is the third episode, it's still brand new. And it's all about startup founders, we interview a different one every week about their experience, building a company, from nothing, taking it to, well, actually not like a global name or anything. Everyone we're talking to is still in the process of building which is what makes it so interesting. How have you felt about the show so far,
Jordan Crook 0:34
I've just really enjoyed getting like kind of the real story and the nitty gritty behind some of this stuff. We talked to a founder about like, the worst news she ever got, and she was happened to be on the side of a mountain. And you know, like, you get, like this amazing detail that puts you, you know, in their shoes a little bit, and I've just really enjoyed it. I guess
Darrell Etherington 0:53
the expression is kind of trite, you know, the pulling back the curtain thing, but we get we do get the real behind the scenes, the real real that the founders and companies don't typically put in their press releases to Jordan's point, like people really open up to us. And we've been thrilled to hear the story so far. And we're excited about this one, too.
This week's guest is Earl Cole, who is the founder of the smart tire company, a company that has maybe the most accurate name of any startup in history, because they're literally building smart tires using Space Age flexible materials. I say space age, like literally because they're they're working with NASA. So it's actually material that was designed for use in space. Jordan, what was your favorite part about this episode?
Jordan Crook 1:50
Hmm. It's gonna be a real mystery to most people. Actually. The funny thing is, I'm a huge survivor fan. It happens to be that Earl won a season of survivor and I believe him. Yeah, well, people don't. The superfans know that many seasons were shot in Fiji. But yeah, first season, I wanted to talk to him so much about survivor and it just so happens that the company he's building and the way he thinks about it, and this like new space, age material that he's using, was equally as interesting. And if you know anything about me, and how I feel about survivor, the fact that anything in the world could be equally as interesting as talking to a winner about winning survivor. That just shows how fucking cool this this company is. And how cool IRL is.
Darrell Etherington 2:35
Yeah, for sure. It was like, I mean, I mean, I was already primed to like the spacecraft because that's like, you know, my whole thing, but I actually really liked the survivor stuff, too, which came up and Jordan Jordan was reluctant to bring it up at first, because I think she thought that I was gonna somehow Punisher I liked that. It was great. And it really did. It was amazing how reflective it was of Earl's experience as a founder.
Jordan Crook 3:01
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of lessons that you can The cool thing about survivor, if I could just go off for a moment. No, I'm just kidding. But it is, it is a reflection of life. It is a reflection of how you handle emotional situations with other people around you. And Earl did an interesting job of kind of like applying it back to everything he's learned being the leader of a company as well. So
Darrell Etherington 3:24
Alright, so now you're very excited to listen to episode. Let's go ahead and do that. Take it away, myself. And Jordan, as well, please enjoy our conversation with Earl.
Earl, thanks so much. Let's talk about smart tires. Let's talk about bike tires and space technology. Where did this come from?
Earl Cole 3:52
It catches a lot of people are like, wait a minute, you're working with NASA? Hasn't been my background at all. Yeah, it was it was interesting. how I got involved with this. You know, I've always been a big fan of NASA and science in general. But I got invited through I forgot, I think LinkedIn or something and they were looking for entrepreneurs for this new program that NASA was sponsoring. And it was like, the first time doing this startup studio thing. And I say, Oh, you know, I mean, you know, check it out, you know, apply and you know, I got in they said hey, do you know someone else I said, I have a friend, you know that have another business with and they got him involved. And you know, when you're part of this program, they show you these different technologies and NASA has innovated and a lot of crazy stuff. The one thing that stood out for me and my co founder was a tire is like this looks pretty interesting. We told him that that's what we wanted to work on. And you kind of compete against these other entrepreneurs and everything but we were assigned that particular technology and we were so glad and you know you just kind of go from there and you work with the inventors and you have your ideas, you put together a strategic plan, you know, all these different things, we go through the program, you know, all these programs, as some young entrepreneurs, seasoned entrepreneurs, mentors is all these different things on there. So it really wasn't about the actual program. For us. It was really that this to the technology and the inventors, we got to know them really well. And we put together this whole commercialization plan, and we ended up winning the whole competition, our company, and from there, we just, you know, started working with NASA and our ideas and developing the technology and getting this whole thing ready for this year. This was last year, by the way. And so getting everything to introduce it to the world this year, and we decided on a bike tire would be the easiest to market. You know, that's our, you know, as I say, our, our beated product for an investments in you know, so yeah, so that's how we ended up getting here. Tires aren't sexy, but I say, we are going to make tires sexy now. Okay, we're going to be, you know, a new startup tire company, because everybody's like tires, like like Goodyear.
Jordan Crook 6:13
Like, think you've accomplished that? Yeah, because I, as the resident, my job on this podcast, and most things that I do is to not really know what's going on and kind of come in blind. So I'm the Mr. You built around what exactly your product is very effective, so far, can you like what makes your tire so special and sexy?
Earl Cole 6:36
Well, the CEO makes it sexy, I would say,
Jordan Crook 6:43
I don't want to, I want to, I want really badly to say something really sassy back, but I'm not going to carry on. Of course,
Earl Cole 6:57
our particular tyres we are utilizing this new kind of space age material is actually not new. But it's kind of new to the public. It's called shape memory alloy, which is a combination of nickel and titanium and this other derivatives you can add as well. It's called nitinol. But what's special about this particular kind of a metal is you can bend it in any direction, and it goes back to its original shape perfectly like rubber. So, but it doesn't stretch like rubber, like normal things where the bonds are by pulling apart, and actually has this molecular reconstruction rearrangement, which is very, very, you know, high tech sciency stuff. But it makes for just a new kind of material that hasn't been used before I then used it for like FA teens. And there. They were designing it for the Mars rover that's gonna be launching in 2026. But they were you know, considering like, Hey, could we commercialize this? And that's kind of been sitting around. And we were like, Yes, I have an idea. Let's try this. And it, you don't need air doesn't require air pressure. There's various degrees on how you can make this in different formulations. So like I say, it can get really complicated, but just to make it simple. It's basically a lightweight metal, that's elastic. So it can't be punctured. It's actually bulletproof to a that. That's another cool thing. So there's military,
Jordan Crook 8:26
why don't we make everything out?
Earl Cole 8:29
We were thinking that shape memory alloy is going to be the next steel. So big we're thinking this is going to be and so we're just bringing it to kind of test it out with the bicycles and tire. That's one of the biggest applications obviously $250 billion market the global tire industry.
Darrell Etherington 8:44
That's awesome. But is it like, I know NASA has a thing where they're always very excited about like, you know, we want to show the impact we have back here on Earth, right? They're like, Look, people are like, okay, you're spending lots of money, you're going to space, but what have you done for us lately? Right? And so they they have like this aggressive thing where they're like, No, we done tons and all this stuff that we develop usually comes back and goes into stuff here on Earth, right? When you go in are there there's just like a bunch of cool stuff sitting around because they're not thinking that way. They're just like, I don't know, how could you do something with this and they just pick up like,
Earl Cole 9:17
like, come into our museum word for word like that actually. is literally like walking into like, is a double seven with a guy queue with all the stuff around. It's like, like, Wow, look at all this cool stuff. And they're just building it like, what are you gonna do with this? And the tires, they were going to Mars so that you can use that here on Earth.
Jordan Crook 9:41
They should definitely get like a weekly tour going where they bring in like entrepreneurs and they're just like, can you sell this
Darrell Etherington 9:48
program? Sounds like the start of that, right?
Earl Cole 9:51
Yeah, they have programs for all of this. But you know, not everything is you're able to commercialize it, you know, they have a super duper cool stuff. With thermal nuclear this and, and that, and you can't exactly bring that to the consumer. So you got to really think about, like, as an entrepreneur, like what can actually work? What can I use out of this suite of technologies that I think I can actually bring to market with my particular skill set and what I'm thinking could work. And that's how we arrived on the tire. Because a lot of you will know, you know, a lot of your everyday things come from NASA, including baby formula, you know, that was for astronauts, even your camera phone, you know, ellisville didn't they invented was this tiny little camera for your smartphone. So these little things are part of your end the hand vacuum cleaner, like all these different things, people don't realize NASA invented that. And so this is another thing that's gonna, we think is gonna be an everyday material like, oh, wow, cool. All right. So your, your tires, don't ever get flat like, Yeah, well, whose tires get flat, we're hoping that was going to be in 10 years a flat tire, as you know,
Darrell Etherington 10:57
gone, only restores, we'll go for the vintage rubber tires registered.
Jordan Crook 11:02
Wait, so can I ask a question then. So when you saw this and decided, Okay, like, I can do something with this, I can make this cool, like indestructible tire, there had to be like something that you identified as like the rub, so to speak, right? Like, what was the? What was the problem that we know what the problem in the market was right? That you could create this thing that lasts a lifetime? And so ultimately, no matter how much it costs, it's going to be cheaper than replacing your tires every year? So was there a challenge in front of you in terms of how to commercialize it? Or like, what is it expensive? Like, what what was the big kind of hurdle for you as an entrepreneur saying, I'm going to commercialize,
Earl Cole 11:43
well, the biggest hurdle was working with NASA. So it's not like very easy, because
Jordan Crook 11:50
they throw them right under the bus.
Earl Cole 11:52
Well, they're a government entity, and there's a lot of bureaucracy and all of that. So they're very slow moving Titanic. And you know, the startup business is fast and very nimble, you're moving around, you're you're pivoting, you're iterating, you're doing all that NASA is like, you need a signature, we're going to need three weeks for that, or one signature, like, wow. And so things can change a lot in those three weeks. And so you just got to get used to the rhythm of working with something so big like NASA, but keep your eyes on the prize, like, okay, we know that we're working on something big. And we just got to put everything legally in place. And, and all of these things. And we we the challenges, obviously, like I said, is working with NASA, but you know, the price, educating the consumers. And so we figured out how much this actually would cost, and then how I can be scaled, how you can decrease cost. I mean, there's a lot of different things, we're doing that all science and engineering stuff that that's what we're working on for the rest of this year. That's why we're not going to market now into next year, a lot of r&d, we have to do, we're getting partners in place that are experts in their field. That's why we have a partnership with spin micromobility because we're going to electric scooter tire than ebikes. And also felt bicycles, which is one of the top performance brands in the world. So we're going to get all this data and analytics from these partners so that when we're ready to go to market, we have customers already in place, we have the infrastructure already in place. We just hit the ground rolling and be
Jordan Crook 13:25
Oh,
Darrell Etherington 13:28
yeah, but I mean, we've worked with NASA and I that that rings true to us, right? Like, and we're not trying to get them to sign over technology rights or anything like that. Like we're just like, Hey, can we get a speaker? agency?
Earl Cole 13:44
maybe six months for that.
Darrell Etherington 13:46
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And but have you found during the course of working them has that changed at all because they talk a lot about public private partnerships and trying to like, work with startups and work with smaller companies. And you know, they they work with SpaceX all the time now. And SpaceX is not like permissions. They don't love asking for permission. They like doing things and then you know, asking for forgiveness later, right. So like, have you seen their, their their attitude change? Are they improving at all? Are they getting better at working with young nimble companies?
Earl Cole 14:18
I think they are. I think we probably caught them off guard a little bit with our quick success and kind of like, overnight, like, all of a sudden, like all this news and media and all these things are happening. I think you're on better go. But you know, every NASA What do you call the entity play? There's different ones? No, there's JPL. There's Langley. There's all I didn't even know there was one in Ohio. So it was like, oh, there's one in Ohio. And that's where that's pretty much the epicenter of the tire industry is Ohio. That's where Goodyear was more and that's where Cooper tires he is Bridgestone they all have, you know, these plants in Ohio. So there's all just made sense. You know, with a Thanks. So NASA has definitely all for trying to help startups and help people, you know, try to commercialize their technologies, it's just going to be a slow process to figure out the best way for them to do that. And I think when that startup program was their way, like, okay, we're going to try some different things, as opposed to just letting our technology be available to large companies with, you know, millions of dollars that where they can do like, try some everyday people see if they can do some cool entrepreneurs now, maybe. So
Darrell Etherington 15:31
it makes a lot of sense, because then you get like, you get hunger, right? You get like an appetite for it, as opposed to if you're just working with Lockheed or whatever, like, those guys are happy to buy up a bunch of technologies or just say like, Yeah, well, we'll put a waiver on that one, and then just put it on a shelf in a warehouse and never worry about it for 50 years. Because what why not right, like, so you want these young companies were like, no, let's make this happen. Let's make this happen now. And maybe let's apply it in a way that you never thought of, because you were thinking like, defense primarily or whatever. Right? So
Earl Cole 16:02
yeah, that's perfectly Yeah, that's exactly what's been going on for decades.
Jordan Crook 16:08
I can't stop thinking about a material that you could like, hit it with a hammer, and it would just come like that actually freaks me out so much.
Earl Cole 16:18
Is crazier than that it is, you know, there's different variations of this material where you can heat it and cool it. And it does these weird little things, where they're saying you don't even need handles on doors, like there's a locking mechanism, that it's pretty, pretty crazy.
Darrell Etherington 16:35
Like, so can you can you like, set how quick it is to bounce back? like that kind of stuff? Right?
Earl Cole 16:42
Yeah, there's different things, we, the way we're using this material, we're using it to the point where it has these super elastic properties. So that's like a bouncy type of thing. So if you made a basketball out of this material, it would bounce like bouncing metal mesh. Yeah, it's not heavy, like iron, like think lightweight, like, you know, aluminum, no type of thing. So that's why, you know, again, if it's perfect for bicycle, you know, carbon fiber, aluminum parts, like all these lightweight metals, so but imagine a super strong metal that's still lightweight and flexible. I No one's ever seen anything like that before. It's a lot of cool applications for this, you know, sports and you know, he can go across the board. You know, our main focus right now is tires,
Jordan Crook 17:27
I know that you're thinking much bigger. And like if you were forced right now, at this very moment, as I am forceful, to tell us what step two would be like, what is the second application? Could you like, at least hint it,
Earl Cole 17:40
Matt, reveal that right now, actually,
Darrell Etherington 17:43
the board, I don't have to think defense will be the next application because there's just so there's so much money there, we may have such guaranteed money, but there's
Earl Cole 17:52
some cool stuff you can do with this for sure. And some and some funding issue we'll be able to do with this type of thing. Like I said, we're really thinking it's gonna be like the next steel. And it's not gonna be just us, I think, eventually, there's gonna be other people trying this in different ways. So, and no way we are trying to take full ownership of the entire category of this material. We're just kind of like, introducing it being one of the people to introduce it to the world.
Jordan Crook 18:18
Do you think that that's your defensibility? Like that you are you feel like, to some extent, kind of first because like you said, like it you're not going to stop other people from coming and playing and this this kind of material? And like, how much land Can you grab early on? Or like what is the kind of defensibility that you're building into this business?
Earl Cole 18:41
for us is one of the largest which is tires, so we're fine.
Darrell Etherington 18:45
And you have patents too, right? Yeah, right. Yeah,
Earl Cole 18:47
it's three different patents for this. We're fine with a $250 billion market, but for us, it's really about we want to do something big, you know, this world changing. You know, yes, we can talk about the money and I like sure that that's great. But you know, I've learned in my experience in life and as entrepreneur if you're just chasing the money, it's just going to be just hard for you. You got to chase the chase the solution you know, keep looking at certain problems and just try to find a solution for it you know, then that's what motivates me like, how can I solve this? What's the next thing I can do for this? How can I solve that like I like that?
Darrell Etherington 19:22
Yeah, and with this it's like it's so world changing like he'll literally change the makeup of everything you see right because of how prevalent tires are like if you think I don't know what preceded rubber tires, I don't even know wood
Earl Cole 19:37
backing wheel
Jordan Crook 19:38
well that's why reinvent the wheel is a thing right? Like we're talking about like first came fire and then came tools and then came the wheel and I was like those are the three biggies.
Earl Cole 19:48
Yeah, it's it's one of mankind's or humankind's greatest inventions ever is the wheel. And we're not going to reinvent the wheel. I don't think we can. You know, that's why our tagline is to reimagine the wheel, because a circle, you know, squares now there'll be better than a circle. You don't need a circle to make a wheel, you know, until we started doing some type of electromagnetic type of wheels.
Darrell Etherington 20:15
Yeah, if it becomes a square, like mid use, that could be super useful, actually.
Earl Cole 20:23
Why don't you do a square?
Jordan Crook 20:25
I mean, talk about annoying your friends right there. Yeah, square, we'll
Earl Cole 20:28
check out these tires.
Jordan Crook 20:32
You guys are building my business for me. Thank you.
Darrell Etherington 20:37
You talk a bit about, you mentioned a few times, you know, your entrepreneurial history. So can you tell us a bit about that? And kind of like, how, how did you get to this, like, you mentioned that you want to change the world? Right? So what kind of what's your experience been like with entrepreneurship? And why have you wanted to pursue that overall, again,
Earl Cole 20:52
you know, I think we can we can all say that aren't that entrepreneurs, you know, you kind of always been that way, I just didn't know what it was called knowing kid, whether you're selling this or lemonade stands, or whatever it might be, you know, I did all of those things when I was young, like, Oh, I mean, I'll make this for my friends. And I'll sell them for 25 cents, I used to do that, you know, they're these little added an apple to E computer way. And I figured out how to make little cartoon characters using the little dots. And I would do like Garfield and Scooby Doo. And you'd put it in your notebook, and I would sell them to my friends put their name on it customized for 25 cents, I used to do that. That was my first little tip into entrepreneurship. And obviously, it kind of grew from there. And I did things in college. And you know, I was always just doing stuff here and there, you know, but at the same time, you know, I think I got, you know, everything got to get pushed even harder, because my first job out of college was with Disney. So I worked, you know, in the movie, business, and TV, and so all these larger than life characters, and all these, all this creativity. So, you know, entrepreneurship is basically to me, it's just a creative way of thinking, a new way of thinking against the norm, you know, seeing things that other people might not see, or connecting dots to people might not connect. So that's kind of what it is. And then, of course, having the, the business intuitiveness to you know, move forward with that. So I had a company, you know, discipline and music before I've done something and social media sports, one thing I had was pretty good idea was an advertising. And this was before Instagram and Facebook, were doing it. So you know how now they have these Instagram like shoppable tags was my dad, I created that first, back in 2000. And like, six, you know, we had a full on thing. But this is when you learn like you need capital, e patents, the money for the patents, you need all these different things. And I remember, you know, and and another thing, too, any new entrepreneurs out there, not all money is good money. You know, we took money from somebody to kind of stalled the company's growth, where they had too much control, and it kind of ruined the idea. And believe me, it burned me up when I saw years later, that Facebook started doing this and Instagram started doing this, like,
Jordan Crook 23:25
oh, that hurts. That's the kind of rage when you feel actually hot in your body. You guys know what I'm talking about? When you're like, Oh, yeah, I actually like sweating. Because I'm so angry right now like that. That's that vibe, always wanted.
Earl Cole 23:38
But you know, it was a lesson to learn, you know, and, and it's totally fine. I just use that, you know, onto my next company and onto that, you know, you just always keep thinking and growing and learning. You know, it's not I don't think most people don't knock it out the park on their first idea. You know, there's always like, Oh, you don't hear about the seven failures they have before they finally got to this one that does work. And they had to really learn entrepreneurship school, I'll say all your other tries. And so that's kind of where I am. Now. I don't think I could work this level with NASA. You know, 15 years ago, it took all the lessons that I had to go through.
Darrell Etherington 24:16
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Jordan Crook 25:13
Okay, so it's probably one that you've been asked many times, but I'm gonna make it more long winded. So like, when you're on survivor like, and you win, like, I know, you will work. So Facebook now, like a lot of the winners have gone on to be like, pretty successful with things because I think, obviously, they're the type of people who have insane people skills and determination. But then also you end up doing things on survivor that sometimes like, are not great for your overall like trust with people, right? Like, they see you as capable of doing things that are not trustworthy. So just curious, like, how much being on survivor and having won it and having like, kind of the double edged sword of what that is, like, affects affected your career after the fact.
Earl Cole 25:58
Well, after I won survivor, I pretty much retired from working. I just, you know, my thing was, I just wanted to get more experiences, you know, I had been working for, you know, 1015 years, whatever. And so I just traveled a lot. So I traveled the world, you know, once, you know, over 40 different countries, and, you know, just just have fun, you know, just learning and experiencing life. I would say that when I started getting back into entrepreneurship and doing things, it definitely helps with getting a meeting. Right. Yeah. And, and that, and that's what's cool about it. But then it makes me think like, that was so unfair A long time ago and hard, how hard it was to get meetings with people. And another reason why we're doing a crowd equity raise, which we'll get to that later. Yeah, I do want to talk about doing these type of things. Because I remember how unfair things were when I was trying to pursue certain jobs, certain companies, you know, and I just wanted me to be more fair, and people have equal access to things. So with a survivor, yes, that definitely helped me it doesn't make me a better entrepreneur doesn't make me do anything. But it could help as a selling point to Yeah, maybe it's a hook or
Darrell Etherington 27:13
needs a hook. Right?
Earl Cole 27:14
Yeah. Cuz survivors hard, you know, you when survivors like, oh, that shows he hasn't tenacity, how you some resilience, okay, that works for being an entrepreneur or being a CEO, you got to have those kinds of skills, and you're a people person. Another thing is great for me in a CEO.
Jordan Crook 27:30
I almost think that that part of it is so much more impressive, I realized that I haven't done it, so I can't speak. And I know that most people who play say that the hardest part is actually trying to control your emotions, when you're in so much physical kind of agony, like when it's raining and really cold, or you're really hungry, like trying to keep your emotions in check when you're in that state. But I actually find it so much more impressive that the winners were able to gain people's respect while also right. Well, they're chances will also like by like, you're literally like taking someone out of their dream and getting them to give you yours, which is like an insane amount of people skills and insane amount of like, like, how did you do that. And it's even more interesting from the fact that they're all different people. So you don't use the same formula on every single one of them. Like, each person needs something different from you. So being able to look at a group of nine people and say, like, here's exactly what you need from me. And giving that to them in order to get their respect while you ruin their day is like an insane thing.
Earl Cole 28:39
You definitely understand the mechanics of the show on how that works. But somebody might vote you out because they don't like your glasses. It could be like, you just never know. So I would I always tell people like, sure is great at one. And everybody deserves some respect, and you know, some credibility for winning, but every season is different. Everybody's experienced on there is different. And you just never know, what's going to happen, like 50% of winning is luck. It's literally luck.
Jordan Crook 29:13
That's part of why I love love the show so much is because unlike a lot of reality shows, I feel like they don't do a lot of bending over backwards to make the person who deserves to win. When there are many, many, many seasons of survivor, where the person who really like earned it the most just didn't, couldn't get it over the finish line. And then I think what you're saying actually applies a lot to entrepreneurial ism as well. Because like at the end of the day, you can do all the work and do it right and and sometimes rarely you can even do it without making mistakes or making fatal mistakes and it still won't work out. I mean, the pandemic is a great example of that, right like how many businesses like one Probably making a lot of missteps and got a huge boost all of a sudden out of nowhere because the world won't remote. And then conversely, companies that were doing great and absolutely killing it in the world we lived in a year ago, just fell off the earth because this random fluke, massive thing happened.
Earl Cole 30:18
You're exactly right. That's how survivor works. And that's how it applies to the real world. You know, timing means everything. You know, you can call it luck, or whatever. Like, you know, a lot of companies are born on the pandemic. So Mike had the same idea two years before that, and they just couldn't get it going. And then somebody's like, oh, wow, they're so great. Here's his unicorn. But they weren't the first to do it. It's just timing. And that's how it works on survivor time. You just never know, sometimes you're like, one second away from winning a challenge on whether you go home or not. And it's not even your fault. It's somebody else's fault. But then you're going home, just because you're so nice, and you're good. So I don't want to go to the end with you like, What a nasty little concept. You're such a great person, and you're so smart and wonderful. We had to get rid of you. Because you're
Jordan Crook 31:06
Yeah, totally are the people who get too aggressive. They're like, Oh, I want to determine my fate. And in the first, you know, to tribals, they're trying to dictate who goes home because they're trying to control their game. And people are like, No, no, you rose to leadership too soon, right? Like, you have to find it right with like eight people left somehow and then maintain it sounds
Earl Cole 31:26
very complicated. I mean, the biggest asset to have on survivor is yes to social skills, but you know, emotional intelligence. And that's how it works. In business, on any leadership position, you have to really understand different people in the dynamics and adaptation to how everybody communicates differently. You know, some people say like, their love language, like, everybody's different. So you have to feed people different ways, and push and pull in different ways to really navigate through the game. And obviously, that's a skill set for people that win, but some people coast all the way through today. And you never know.
Jordan Crook 32:03
I think self awareness too, right? Like, I mean, that's another entrepreneurial skill, where like, people don't you feel like really grounded in who you are. But you don't say, Okay, well, this person is totally different from me. And the way they might perceive that will come off this way, or that way, like some people just like are so true to who they are, that they don't realize that 50% of the population is put off by that, like, you have to adapt and be aware of the fact that like, while this person might see that as confidence, this person might see this as arrogance, or while this person might see this is like vulnerability that works in my favor. This person might see it as weakness, and it's hard to tell the difference. And it's hard to be like that introspective on yourself, which I feel like applies in many ways to entrepreneurial ism as well.
Darrell Etherington 32:48
Well, I am management and like, as Jordan saying this, I'm like, this is Jordan, just explaining to me here managerial style, like in detail. But it's, it's good, though. I mean, I yeah, I think I've definitely can think of many instances where like, you know, if you had a bad manager or something like that, what it came down to was, they were like, hey, it's my way or the highway, basically, you know, and like they didn't, they didn't realize they needed to adapt to different people. And then it always works that way. It's always a exchange. It's never like, this way and down right, then.
Earl Cole 33:25
Yeah, a lot. We have a hard time with adapting who they are, and in different situations, and like she said, You know how you proceed, you got to understand, like, you have to have this kind of true self awareness on who you are, and how people might be looking at you. It's almost like politics. You know, it's very political, you know, it's a lot of give and take, in a lot of different ways. And it's a very difficult game. And I was working in to plan and I was glad I was, you know, I was in my early 30s, when I was on there. And so it was helpful that I had some experience, I can only imagine being like 21 being on there, because you still emotional about things and you're driven different reasons. When you're that young, we don't have that calmness, that kind of comes with age and experience. And so that's why I think the majority of people that do win are a little bit older, because they get it, you know,
Jordan Crook 34:22
yeah, I completely agree. I think there's also a reason why there are certain people that like there are people who have played many times like Ozzy who have never won because he didn't it felt like he never really learned that like fishing and being good at challenges does not a survivor maker win, or a survivor winner make like you can't, you have to learn from your experiences, you know what I mean? And you have to like adapt all the time. But anyway, sorry, I could do this with you Like literally forever. Like we could spend a lifetime doing this but I'll show
Earl Cole 34:55
have conversations with this. It follows me everywhere. But now okay with it, you know, it's just the show has been on season 41.
Jordan Crook 35:04
I know well, and it is a reflection of life, like, in so many ways, like survivor is a is a game of life, you know? Like if
Darrell Etherington 35:12
Yeah, there's a reason it resonates So, yeah, you know, it sounds like a lot of this carries over I do want to talk about your relationship with investors and how you you chose to go with refunds on this one, which is like we're seeing it come up quite a bit now with startups, is there going to refund or and during the crowd crowdsource equity model, right. But it's still relatively new. So and you mentioned, you know, having, having learned the lesson early on it, like, oh, there's bad money, right, which is another lesson we hear a lot from, from entrepreneurs, right? So how did you think about it with this time around, and what what kind of like experiences in your past led to your decisions around how you were going to fundraise this company,
Earl Cole 35:52
you know, I actually run a nonprofit, as well as for a rare bone disease actually having kids. So that's a whole nother long story that added to my perspective, and how I view the world. So dealing with something to where you're giving, and not getting anything back is kind of how I am as a person, like, just be kind, just be nice, just to be nice, you don't need anything in return, just put the good karma out there. You know, so doing something like this with a crowdfunder. My reasoning for you know, and my co founder agree, like, you know, I wanted to give just the everyday person a chance to invest, because you people invest, but it gets complicated, you know, you're the regular, you know, guy or, or mom with three kids and you go to work, you didn't know how to you can invest in Amazon, or Facebook, you know, you don't know anybody who works at a hedge fund or in the stock market or anything like that. So you never have that access. To get wealth, you hear about people like Oh, he invested in Bitcoin early, and they got this, but you don't have time for all that. So if you make it simple, where somebody can put in, like, he just put in 100 bucks, and you're part of something big in all of these messages from people saying, like, you know, thank you for doing something like this, we think this is a great idea, you know, because everybody relates to tires, because people have cars, bikes, all that stuff. So, you know, and you think, like this next big thing, you know, that's really cool. And it's related to NASA, you know, there's so you know, enthusiastic to even put in 100 bucks, like, and that's, by seem small, but some people, that's a lot to some people, they're like, they're taking a chance. And so we wanted that we wanted an equal playing field where every the average joke and invest in our company. And so that's why we started off like that, like, anybody can be a part of our company, let's do this together. This is truly something we're trying to do that change the world.
Darrell Etherington 37:52
Right? Yeah. I mean, you do hear those stories, even like, with Facebook, there's some crazy apocryphal ones, I think they're all mostly true, but like, you know, the guy who did the like, mural, right, and it was like, Oh, we can't pay you will pay equity.
Earl Cole 38:11
Millions.
For Yeah, and what's cool, you know, very cool,
Darrell Etherington 38:17
but also not accessible to everyone.
Earl Cole 38:20
not accessible to everyone. So, you know, hey, I would hope that we reach that kind of status, we're a multi billion dollar company. And, you know, all those people's hard working people who put in 100 bucks, 200 bucks here and there, can just watch it grow and get something big, and they can tell their kids like, see, hey, this is how you invest is how you can build wealth. And another way, besides just putting your money in a bank, and, you know, these little tiny increments, you know, for next 30 years, like, here's the other way you can do it. So I love that that's why I was really drawn to doing it this way. Now, mind you, we're going to have to do the bigger money from eventually, like, you know, I'm always like, with VC sometimes. really tricky.
Jordan Crook 39:03
So when you do go and look for institutional money, like why it feels a little bit like the hype that you've built, and the momentum that you have, and the fact that this is kind of, in a way frontier technology as well, to get a lot of excitement stirred up in the VC community, like what is it that you're looking for, as someone who is kind of like, burned by a VC before? What is it that you're like looking for?
Earl Cole 39:28
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, of course, not all VCs are the same, you know, I know that. I'm just now more cautious on what I look at and, you know, the due diligence and everything, you know, all the paperwork, everything in terms, you know, even in more detail, you know, and having the money to actually have attorneys to look at a lot of that stuff, you know, because when you're starting out lots of you don't have any money to anything, you know, you have to wear many hats and, and all on all those things. So, you know, look for the institutional money. You know, like I say, They are already lining up. But it goes, you know, we think it is something pretty revolutionary, you know, we're trying to do and disruptive and even though those terms get thrown around a lot disruption and revolutionary, but we do really think this might be something and I think NASA agrees. Pretty well known, right?
Jordan Crook 40:19
Big deal.
Unknown Speaker 40:21
Big deal.
Jordan Crook 40:22
We're dealing a survivor win or even
Earl Cole 40:25
actually, the being a survivor was a bigger deal than NASA.
Jordan Crook 40:28
Okay. I actually personally agree with that. I think they're getting shouted out of the room, but I agree.
Earl Cole 40:35
So what can you open a coconut in six seconds?
Jordan Crook 40:39
What's the last time you started a fire in a rainstorm? NASA?
Earl Cole 40:43
Yeah, they've never done that. So what rockets up there and going, what does that mean? You know? I can catch fish in three minutes.
Darrell Etherington 40:54
Yeah. Yeah, that Mars rover can't catch any fish.
Earl Cole 41:01
catch a fish?
Jordan Crook 41:02
Yeah. Why don't you get someone's boat in a good way? Mars?
Earl Cole 41:08
Useless on an island.
Jordan Crook 41:11
shitting on NASA.
Darrell Etherington 41:17
We appreciate your service. No, but yeah, so if you have a minor or you already in that place, where you're like, well, maybe we should start taking meetings are you? Are you focused in and you're like, no, we're gonna do we're going to focus on our crowdfunding thing. We set that up. Now we know what we want? Or like, what's your thought process for next steps for that?
Earl Cole 41:35
Yeah. I mean, we put a whole strategy in place. We're still the beginning stages of our crowdfunding. We're happy how it's been going. And we're doing
Darrell Etherington 41:43
good. So far. I got it. I'm looking at.
Earl Cole 41:45
Yeah, we were doing I mean, we expected to drop off this week, which is kind of, you know, predictable. But yeah, it was on fire. And so we were glad that it was resonating with people our whole story and what we're trying to do, how it's all presented, you know, just, you know, we're thinking, you know, 510 years down the road on what this could possibly be. VCs are in contact with us. So that is there. But we also have, you know, business partners and entities that want to, you know, partner with us or even invest in a company. So we like that route as well. Because that can be very helpful, or what we're trying to do, like I said, we have, you know, felt involved and spent in so we like that we're trying to build more partnerships like that. Because we really do this, right? You know, we want to do it as right as possible. And it's not about you know, how much money we can raise? Or like, it's like, how much brain power and strategy can we raise? How much infrastructure can we build before we even go to market? A lot easier. So that's kind of
Darrell Etherington 42:43
Yeah, with this, it seems like a natural fit for strategic investors, right? Because, you know, it also becomes a customer
Jordan Crook 42:49
fit for someone who might come hungry for an acquisition, like, is that something that you want? Have you been approached? I your face tells me that yes, you have. I'll tell you the listeners that his face said, hell yeah, they're coming in left there. Right. But like, what, how are you thinking about something like that? Because you seem like the kind of person that really wants like, control of it a little bit. But it could also be huge.
Earl Cole 43:17
Yeah, I want to, you know, I want to do my part right now, what should be done, and, you know, I have my vision, my co founder, we have our vision on what we want this to be, and we want to shape it the right way. But the good energy in it, you know, and move forward that way. And I think we put together the right narrative and the right idea and strategy to win, this can be a good thing. I mean, because we mean, what we say we truly want to try to change the tire industry, you know, as far as you know, making more eco friendly, just longer lasting tires, that we truly, truly want to do that, and do all the work behind that. And, you know, however NASA can help power that. So, you know, as that exit comes sooner than expected, we'll take it, you know, I don't mind I still have a, you know, a passion for islands. Maybe not being on the show. And yeah.
Jordan Crook 44:19
You can start a survivor competitor. Can you at least cast me on that? There we go. So please have that deal in place.
Darrell Etherington 44:28
I think we're nearly out of time here. But like, Is there anything else that that you wanted to tell us about? Kind of what what is next for a company? Are you guys hiring up a bunch of people like what are you doing at this stage now that that you've kind of announced it, you got your timelines down? What does the next big news we can expect from you guys?
Earl Cole 44:46
The next big news probably just had to do with fundraising and and money and investments and things like that. But we do have another prototype coming out. It's much better than What we put out there now, because we kind of had to really do some makeshift stuff to make this happen, we were actually trying to time everything with the release with the landing of the Mars perseverance rover. So we were a little bit behind that not our fault, NASA being a little slow
to love your NASA.
So probably just more investment stuff. And then another type of product will be announcement and we will be hiring. You know, at some point, once we have the full fundraise, we'll be looking for, you know, the best and the brightest and, and people that don't normally have access to these kind of opportunities. So we'll definitely be looking for more diversity and, you know, people from different backgrounds and you know, never get these kinds of opportunities. So that's one of our missions as well.
Darrell Etherington 45:48
Nice. Nice. And you mentioned geographically, like Ohio is the Center for the tire and is I actually should know, but where are you guys actually based, like, Where's the company going to be
Earl Cole 45:57
Cleveland, but we're gonna be we're based in Los Angeles, but you're gonna you know, because NASA is in Ohio that we're working with and the inventors are actually in Ohio as well. So because of the manufacturing and infrastructure is there we're going to definitely use that for our next manufacturing hub. But a lot of our technology and other strategic partnerships are here in California Feld is based here spin is based in California. So we have this nice little mix of California tech and innovation mixed with like the industrial stuff of Ohio So tonight we will be on a plane a lot. So I just want people to definitely join our mission if you want our refund or or you can just follow us on social media or just visit our website for more information.
Darrell Etherington 46:47
All right, so now that we've heard Earl burn all his bridges with NASA What do you think Jared? I mean that was definitely one of our looser conversations so far and I really appreciate it they're always willing to be so kind of casual and informal with us.
Jordan Crook 47:06
Yeah, I it was just fun is like felt like sitting at a bar a little bit with a with an old pal and chit chatting. I also feel like it's important for me to give you and our listeners might notice that I will be going on survivor with a recommendation from Earl and so I may have to miss a few episodes. I think airing is about six weeks. So other than that, I mean I perros amazing. I had so much fun talking to him. I hope that our listeners had as much fun kind of listening in on that conversation because it was a blast.
Darrell Etherington 47:39
Found is hosted by myself TechCrunch news editor Darrell Etherington and TechCrunch managing editor Jordan crook we are produced and mixed by a shark Kulkarni and TechCrunch his audio products are managed by Henry pic of it. Our guest this week was Earl Cole, co founder and CEO of the smart tire company and also survivor winner. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and on twitter@twitter.com slash found. You can also email us at found at TechCrunch comm with any feedback. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.