There are some companies that just have it, even if we can’t quite figure out what it is—and Masterclass is one of those companies, despite facing an onslaught of skepticism from the jump. Today on Found, we’re talking to David Rogier, the CEO and founder of MasterClass, a streaming platform where you can learn from the world’s experts on a variety of topics, from baking to screen writing to developing empathy. Before David launched MasterClass, he worked as a VC. Through his connections there received a $500,000 seed round before he even had an idea for a company. That was nearly a decade ago, and today Dom, Becca and David talk about how he’s built the company since.
Today on Found, we’re talking to David Rogier, the CEO and founder of Masterclass, a streaming platform where you can learn from the world’s experts on a variety of topics, from baking to screen writing to developing empathy. Before David launched MasterClass, he worked as a VC. Through his connections there received a $500,000 seed round before he even had an idea for a company. That was nearly a decade ago, and today Dom, Becca and David talk about how he’s built the company since.
They also talked about:
Connect with us:
Becca Szkutak 0:02
Hello and welcome to found TechCrunch his podcast that brings you the stories behind the startups from those that are building them. I'm your host BeBlocky Tech, and I'm joined as always by the lovely
Dom Davis 0:11
Dominic, Midori Davis.
Becca Szkutak 0:13
You Tom, how's it going?
Dom Davis 0:14
I'm good, how are you?
Becca Szkutak 0:15
I'm good. And I wanted to ask you, do you like to like watch video tutorials or like watch things online to like learn about new things.
Dom Davis 0:26
Now one thing I remember from I think I learned this in high school or middle school, oh, I, I feel like I'm a kinesthetic learner. I learned that one term and then I kept running with it. I have to like, do things and touch things. And even in college, I had to rewrite all the notes. I couldn't type notes. I had to write everything down on paper so I could feel the words. No,
Becca Szkutak 0:47
I totally get that when I teach Pilates. I have to like write down what I'm going to teach by hand and that I don't look at it. But if I were to just like do it on my phone, I'm not going to remember
Dom Davis 0:56
it. Yeah, I won't remember at all. Why do you ask? Well,
Becca Szkutak 1:00
I asked because we have a lovely guest today on the show. We're talking with David Rodger the CEO and founder of masterclass which I'm sure some of our listeners are already familiar with. But in case you aren't masterclass is the streaming platform where you can learn from the world's experts on a variety of topics from thinking to screenwriting, to developing empathy through sort of high quality videos, and we had a great conversation with David. It was super fun, and we learned a lot about his thinking about masterclass, we touched on his intention, his intentional ideation and testing process of what format would work for viewers, we talked a little bit about why he thinks of masterclass as a creative first company, as well as his unique approach to hiring because this isn't a traditional tech company or a traditional creative company. It was a lot of fun. So here's our conversation with David.
Hey, David, how's it gone?
David Rogier 1:54
Good. Hi, Becca,
Becca Szkutak 1:56
thanks so much for coming on the show. excited to have you thrilled to be here. I'm sure some of our listeners are familiar with your startup. But I think that's probably the best place to start. Why don't you start by telling us a little about masterclass.
David Rogier 2:07
The idea of masterclass was, can we make it so that everybody in the world can learn from the very best. And so, we offer classes from everybody from Steph Curry to enter Wintour. And that he has to learn things that you can actually apply into your life and also to learn from the very best in the world.
Becca Szkutak 2:29
And it is such an interesting concept for a company and I'm curious, what was the journey like to start masterclass? How did you come up with this idea to begin with,
David Rogier 2:37
it was very hard and long journey. It started, I was working in venture. So I was in investor
Becca Szkutak 2:46
started on the dark side interested.
David Rogier 2:50
And I honestly, I didn't love it on the investment side. And I'm not sure how good I was at it. And I went to my boss one day, and I start talking to him about that. And I start to share that with him. And I realized I wanted to start something. He asked me what and I was like, I'm not sure the idea, you know, I'm not sure what, and he did something exceptionally gentle kind. And he seated me without an idea. And that was amazing, right that that was so generous. And I kind of freaked out a little bit. I also, I don't know if this makes any sense. But it actually became a very dark time for me. Because I felt this was a once in a lifetime chance I did not want to mess up. I didn't have a great idea. I don't know if there's a right way to think of a good idea. So much of our life, we have constraints and a path and guard rails and this one I really didn't. And you can't complain about anybody because you aren't getting any empathy. But for somebody like Oh, so you have cash to think of anything you want to do. Oh, do you want a hug? You aren't getting any hugs, right? And so, you know, for probably a year I was going through trying to think of an idea. And I did everything from thinking of the needs I had, I thought about what are trends out there in the world. I started testing things. I tested one idea out that uh, so I am allergic to nuts. And I remember talking to my dad, and he's like, David, how cool would it be if you could like, wave like a magic wand over some food and we would turn red if there are nuts in there. So actually try to build a device that you would stick in the foods way harder to wave one that you would stick in the food and it would turn red if there were nuts, and we actually got it to work about 80% of the time. The problem is is that you would die the other 20% of time. So pretty bad. Yeah. And then somebody gave me a great constraint. She said, choose an idea that even if it fails, you would be proud of it. That was an amazing constraint for me. And I think sometimes having a constraint helps you think of better ideas, and I thought really hard aren't about that. And I was raised in part by my grandmother, who lost everybody in the second world war and the Holocaust. And she instilled in me that education is the only thing that someone can take away from you. And I realized by this one chance, what if I could build something that people can take away from others, and that management in education, and I started posting ads on Craigslist, asked me to talk to people about their education. I started thinking about why I didn't take online classes at the time, sort of thing about things I do take online. This idea kind of came about what if you could build a school, but it's for the rest of your life. And it's taught by the very best in the world. And that was kind of the inception of mastery. I'm
Becca Szkutak 5:45
definitely curious, the VC that you were working with, who did give you the money? What did he think of this idea when you came to him? And were like, Okay, I finally have like this idea. I think I'm gonna run with really
David Rogier 5:54
a question. At first, if I remember, I presented him because I would try like every month to go present him the ideas I'm thinking about, I'm testing and iterating on and I think the masterclass idea was, it was split up among like, two ideas. And he's like, sounds like one idea to me. And then I think he was just like, go do it already.
Dom Davis 6:13
Did you blow like all of your seed money in the experimental phase? Or did you have to like, question, how much money was left? When you came to the idea of masterclass? Very
David Rogier 6:24
good question. I didn't blow all of it. But I probably, it's probably half of it, probably half it, because it was a couple 100,000 bucks. And I was testing ideas. And at that point that I was practicing the film and testing the filming. So like, that's where a lot of the cost went to. So it's probably half of it. But you're right. I mean, like, I mean, to your point on, like, I felt on the clock, right, because that money was gonna run out. Yeah, when
Dom Davis 6:49
did you decide to go back and get more funding once you had an idea. So I
David Rogier 6:54
think the job of like a CEO, the number one job is making sure you never run out of money. That's your number one job. Because everything else, like if you don't do that, everything else stops, right. And then two, I was taught to think of a startup, almost as like a science experiment, and where like, every phase, you're trying to test hypotheses or to reduce risk. So I think for me, when I went back to go raise more money, it was like, Okay, I have this idea. But that's not enough to raise off of what are the things people are gonna think, are the hard parts? Is this guy gonna be able to sign the best folks in the world actually teach? Right? Like, I don't come from entertainment world, like, that's going to be hard for people to believe that I can sign those people to, I'm not going to be able to make things that are actually good, right? The people actually going to want to learn from and then three, are people going to want to buy it. So I said, Okay, with a little money I have left, how do I prove those things out? Signing the top people in the world, the only way is like actually signed them. So I was like, Okay, can I get one or two to say yes, before raising or something. But the other ones, I could prove out more. So for example, if I'm able to make good stuff, I can film test classes. We actually filmed a bunch of test classes. I remember exactly when but one of the ones we did was with my mom and dad, and we like filmed them. And it wasn't like we weren't gonna put us on the site. But it was like, are we able to make something compelling and good, we're yet to actually buy this. I did polls, asking people if they would buy it actually filmed a sample class, put it up for sale under a different brand. And we actually sold that class, but to like, almost test like, hey, was our math right? So I was trying to kind of reduce the risk and proof points out. So I think the time we raised again, we had filmed some test stuff. We had put it up for sale under a different brand. I think we had a couple of directors say yes, but I don't think we had anybody signed yet. So it was still risky, but I was trying to reduce that risk. I'm
Becca Szkutak 8:46
definitely curious what it was like to sign who's now on masterclass, of course, because like you mentioned at the top of the call, you guys have some really known and notable names Anna Wintour, Steph Curry, Serena Williams. What was it like actually reaching out to these people and getting them on board? Was everyone sort of, Oh, I love this idea. Like I'm bored, or did you have to do any education or convincing to kind of get people to sign on?
David Rogier 9:09
I mean, everybody said the idea sucks and isn't going to work. I mean, like everybody, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was everybody told me that isn't gonna work. And so I mean, tons of nose. I couldn't even get into the rooms with the people on their teams. And I called him. I mean, I was cold, emailing, trying to find anybody who knows somebody who might know somebody else to make the intro. And the first one we filmed was with the author James Patterson, and I cold emailed everybody on his team. And then somebody actually responded back to me, and they, like, wanted to hear the pitch. And I pitched him and then I wasn't sure. And then one day on my cell phone, I get a call from a number I don't I don't know. And at the time, I guess you didn't get a lot spam calls to actually answer the phone like now I would never answer a call from a cell phone number you don't know about right. And the guy who's on the phone goes, Hi, this is James. I was like She's a person I'm like, so often, I was so on slick. And he's like I saw your proposal, I talked to my team, the timing works, I actually would love to chat more about it. And in my head, I'm like, is somebody planetary? How me? How do I know? I don't know what James Patterson sounds like, actually, right. Like, I've read, I've read a bunch of books. I know, it sounds like and then it actually was him. And that was the first one we filmed.
Becca Szkutak 10:19
That's amazing. So I'm definitely curious, because of course, all of those names are on now. Was there like a time where you felt like a switch where people all of a sudden started answering your calls and emails? Or like, yeah, when did that change to people wanting to sign on? Yeah.
David Rogier 10:34
So first was impossible, you have to get people who really want to do it and believe in it, and want to take that risk, then it probably changed probably after like, the first five, after the first five we had launched. Because if you think about it, if you're one of our instructors before, this is before launching, it's think about what are the risks you have, like, am I going to look bad on it is my brand going to be destroyed is the classes going to be things I don't want to be a part of, or the other instructors are not going to want to be a part of those, right a part of that school. And so I think after five, we made sure that we started with the best in the world, and like you start with the top right, and you really stay strict to that, so that then people feel comfortable and safe. And they start to trust you. We also one of the big innovations we had was how we filmed our classes, you know, most online classes at that time, were just like a webcam on the back of a classroom, just put in the web. And I think that's part of the reason why people don't like taking online classes. And we said, hey, what if we film it to look like a movie, and at the production levels of feature film, and all of a sudden, that not only has the effect of like, it's more interesting, right? The amount of effort and work we're putting into that class would be really maximize how and how good it is. But also, if I'm gonna structure be like, I know, I'm going to be okay with how I look on the screen, how I'm shown. And that that also helped. So I think probably, I feel first five, and then now I mean, we've seen notice, probably nine out of 10 instructors. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow. How
Dom Davis 11:58
did you? Do the instructors get paid to do this?
David Rogier 12:01
Instructors are paid to do it. But I mean, nobody is doing it because of the money. Because like when I that was thing, like early on, I didn't know like, I was like, how much are these gonna have to pay him? Because I only had a couple $100,000. Right. Like, I can't pay him. You know, if you pay a lot, you're you're done very quickly. And then when I saw it was interesting, I was like, yeah, those opportunities are more money. I mean, anyone can do American Express add in a tremendous amount of money. This was something where it was about them wanting to do it. Now, sometimes the act that we were going to pay show them especially early on that this thing that we are investing in, and we really care about, but like the amount of time and effort they spent on this is not worth how much they would get paid. Yeah,
Dom Davis 12:40
cuz I definitely wanted to talk to you about advertising, because it seems at least on the master class side, all the instructors, it seems like when they get this opportunity to do it, it kind of solidifies them as an expert in the field. And I'm thinking that because
David Rogier 12:53
that's so cool to hear you say DOM because in the beginning that wasn't like that. And that was our aspirational goal. So So one
Dom Davis 13:00
of the journalists I follow when I saw she did one I was like, Oh, I guess she's like, really about this life. So I wanted to talk to you about advertising and how you went about marketing this to get more or kind of like to solidify your own reputation. You
David Rogier 13:13
don't really asking like in terms of two instructors on the consumer brand side,
Dom Davis 13:18
kind of both, because I guess you know, the audience perceives this as these are experts. And also I guess when people do it, they're like, I'm, you know, top of my game, how did you go about marketing and advertising to I guess both sides of it all?
David Rogier 13:31
Yeah. Okay. So I think one is the choice of the instructors and always saying it's like the best of the best, right? There's so many times when you have an incentive to drop that bar, right. And almost anything you do right on brand, but like just you have to not drop it right. Second thing was we try to make the ads not seem like ads. So like our ads, like our main ad is actually what we call it is a trailer, right? And the people we have work on it, or movie trailer folks. And so the idea was like, how do you not make it seem like an infomercial and you make it seem like something it's just awe inspiring, and really special and can change how you work or how you think or how you do any craft, I think that had a big impact on it. And then I also think, you know, a lot of it especially on the instructor side, it is a small world. And so how we treat them is really important and so like it was important for us early on, but this isn't like a one and done type deal. This is a long term partnership. And we want to do right by you and so trying to make that class as best as possible. You know, making sure they get to approve any big thing in the class. It's them decides what's in the class, how it comes across the marketing like that answer
Becca Szkutak 14:43
so it's curious how you guys think about structuring these different classes because I know some things like James Patterson watching a video of him talking about his practices for writing definitely feels like something that can be captured in a video without you're kind of sitting down watching movie taking notes, whereas Say Steph Curry or Serena Williams talking about the sports that they play, those kinds of things are sometimes better learn in doing or someone showing you in person as you're trying it yourself. And so I'm curious because you have such a broad span of different types of talent who do these videos? How do you think about making everybody's talent fit into this format? Because some definitely learn better than others. Yeah,
David Rogier 15:21
I mean, Steph Curry, you can't have him sit in a chair and just talk about it. Right? Like, you're going to miss a lot of it. So like, for Steph Curry, we went to like his practice court that he plays on. And he breaks down the drills he does, how he shoots, and he brings in other people that he has worked with right in there on it. And then the parts of that share are almost like we haven't breakdown game footage, right? And explain what's happening on it. There's some people who would I mean, always love. I mean, it's, I'm able to watch that for like, I want to train with stuff, like, of course, but like stuff can't do that at scale. Right. And so the idea is like, this is a way for him to share it with tons of people at scale, that otherwise you would not have access to it. And what we also learned is, I don't know, have you ever been to like a question, insert, talk by somebody? And like, people are anxious to ask a question, or are hesitant to raise their hand and talk about it? Or ask the question, in part because there there isn't gonna be a good question. And is the person going to think it's a good question. Part we found is like, by not being live as people feel more safe to be able to think about it and really reflect on it. Then the times when we do have a live component or live zoom with the instructors, then people feel more comfortable to ask a question, because they're like, I was able to really think about it and prep about
Becca Szkutak 16:40
it. And think about when you guys did launch masterclass to consumers, what was growth? Like, since thanks, I know you guys were founded a number of years ago at this point, you weren't founded like last year. So how was number?
David Rogier 16:52
Eight years ago? Eight years ago, eight and a half? I think now eight and a half.
Becca Szkutak 16:57
So what was it like launching? What did you hear from consumers? And how have you guys thought about growth since then?
David Rogier 17:03
Yeah. The day we launched, this is like my own stuff, I assume the world's gonna want to hear about this, right? It's been the thing I've been working on for years. So obviously, people are gonna wanna hear about it. And we're gonna get tons of press, and it'd be huge sales day, I remember some person or team gave me a backup phone charger, because like, your phone's gonna be off the hook ringing. So I came in with like, a lot of heavy flow. So hydrogen expectations. And the first day, I pray remember, we sold like 100 ish classes, and you're like, I am screwed. I am screwed. I went home. And like I actually cried because I was like, I convinced three of the biggest people in the world to do this. I've been working on this for two years, the off the ground, and 100 people signed up, like, I'm dead. And I remember I called my mom and dad and they told me to, to fake it until I make it and at the PRs. Like, I mean, like, I didn't know what else. And I went back to the office next day, and I walk in and somebody in our marketing team has a big smile on his face. And I said, Hey, what's going on? He's like, this business is going to be huge. And I was like, what? And he's like, if I look at the CAC, some spending on marketing, I can scale this very quick, very fast, and you're like, wait, what? And then day two, sales are pretty good day three, and you're like, also, okay, if this is just the baseline, you're going to climb up every day, like okay, so probably like, day one, I thought we were screwed on day two, I knew it's gonna be a big business.
Dom Davis 18:29
What do you think attracted so many people to like, want to, I guess, use masterclass? Like what is it about masterclass that people are like, really into?
David Rogier 18:37
I think people want to learn. I think that's inherent trait, too. I think people actually love to learn. I think school often beats that out of us. So, I mean, okay, let me ask you, I still have dreams that I'm late to a fight and exam or one credit on one credit short of a class to either view, like have bad dreams about school.
Dom Davis 19:01
Yeah, yeah. The trauma from middle school, is their high school sometimes,
David Rogier 19:05
yes. Like PTSD. I mean, like it there is trauma there. Right. I think lots of people share that. And so if you can build a school that people want to go to, and doesn't have that, then I think that taps into some very core needs of everybody. So what does it look like when you say, hey, one, like tests and quizzes that gets in the way, sometimes we want to learn right? To is like, you know, for the first 18 years of your life, you are required by law to keep your butt in the seat. So like, what if you bake a school where like, it's your choice, and things are so good that you want to stay there and watch it? I mean, how many of us have sat in a lecture class and you're like, This thing could be done in three minutes. Right? And so like, that's our bar. So we are to test every class, right? And I remember in our first class with James Patterson, he starts the class with Hi, I'm Stephen King. And I was like, James, I don't think that's funny. He's like, it's funny. I don't think so. We test it, we test every class, and everything in it. And when you include that joke, people watch more. And you're like, James, right? Right. And so like, we are like trying to make it to a science right of was going to engage more. And I also think, I mean, how cool is it that you can learn from like the best in the world? That's fine. That's just, I think, just awesome. Sure.
Becca Szkutak 20:22
And now we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back in a second.
David Rogier 20:30
One interesting thing we see is that, what people want to learn how they want to learn changes over time. So in the beginning, we launched with single classes. And that was added in, like, that's one thing, we had only had a few rights, we launched single classes, we saw that landed very well consumers, because they're like, Hey, I'm an actor, I won't take an acting class, right? Like I want to write, um, take a writing class that always sort of see a shift was that people started much more to think of themselves as multi hyphenate. Like, hey, I'm an actor, who also loves to dance, who also loves to play chess. And we changed our model to have an option that you could like, take one class if you want to, or you could pay to take everything that worked really well. In the pandemic, it shifted again, all of a sudden, people are like, I have a lot of time, and I have a new hobby. Right. So what they wanted was like, give me an eight hour 12 week class, or whatever it is on gardening, and I want to go really deep into that. And so those things then worked, and we change evolved. Now, people are like, eight hours, I'll have eight hours to spend, there's no way I'm gonna sit down for eight hours and do stuff. And I might have some passions and hobbies. But like, the world is changing, and I need to learn how to adapt to it or upskill myself, so like, now much more the things people want to learn about are things around professional growth, right? And how could like skills, so I'm at work to a lot more on the personal wellness side, right, on sleep on the relationship side, and then three a lot on like science and tech. And so one of the things I love most is just like seeing how that changes. And then our job is to constantly evolve.
Dom Davis 22:06
Yeah, I was actually I just got the idea of I wonder how much of the trends that you see are also tied to like the rise and like hustle economy, or having multiple side gigs, the gig economy, and then now like everyone's back to work back in the office, and now you have like people who are working, you know, I guess there was like a new trend over employed where people are working multiple jobs, they want to upskill they want to like pivot. So I wonder like, if you tie everything back to that?
David Rogier 22:29
Yeah, no. 100% We did a class with Chris Foss, who was the lead FBI hostage negotiator, right on how to go cheat that class did great. We did a class with Esther Terrell, upstairs, a leading psychologist, and it was about how the relate how your relationships in your personal life affect them at work. And I think one of her hypotheses, which I think is really right is the level of instability, uncertainty in the world is more than it's been in a long time. And that puts a lot of pressure not only on us, but then also we seek help from our loved ones on it, right? And it changes how we engage interact there. And then we have a class that's going to come soon, we have a class coming up with Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart does in his class is teaching you how to use different parts of comedy to actually achieve what you want in life in actually work in sales and how to lead right? So it's much more how do you apply these skills into your life?
Becca Szkutak 23:37
And you've mentioned a couple of things here that well, more consumer focus are based on people's professional lives. And I do want to ask you about how you think about enterprise with a product like this, like, of course, I am not going to know who's the person to learn from for founder driven sales of a startup, but I'm sure there are people people look up to and people emulate in that space. And have you guys gone into that area at all, like enterprise contracts of more like almost upskilling training, just through the corporate customer.
David Rogier 24:07
Yeah, that was a total surprise to us. We got approached by some large companies that their employees were using us to help do their job training. And that wasn't like a use case that we had thought much about. And so over the last year or two, we have started to invest in there. And that's done exceptionally well. And it's the same content and classes. And then there's things now that we filmed that just for that, for example, one class that we've done is with Ken Scott on radical candor. And that's something like it started in the workplace, but you can do it at home too, and your relationship, and we have seen huge impact from it. And I think what's happened in the workplace is one, there's been a regression in soft skills in the pandemic being home, we actually got worse at empathy, influence, and so what firms are trying to see is like that is so important to actually retrain employees on, because that's also one of the last things that AI can actually like, affect. Right. So we're seeing that, number one. Number two is a feeling that the lessons and how to lead that are out there are from a different era, and that the world has dramatically changed over the last couple years, and how you lead has to change too. And then I think then three is the bar on training has just gone up. I mean, how we think internally is, even though this isn't a it's not a competitor to us, we have to compete against tension in time that people are spending on Instagram, or on Snapchat. And so like the bar, the quality of that content is just risen. And I think that has led to us being where companies look for for their employee training. And I think at last count, over half of the Fortune 100 are now our customers.
Dom Davis 25:56
And we've spoken a lot about what masterclass does for other people, but I would love to talk about how you run the company and your leadership style. And so how many employees do you have right now?
David Rogier 26:06
We have about 300, full time, and at any given time, probably 150 that are on the contract side are working on one of our classes, you know, on set,
Dom Davis 26:16
and how would you describe your leadership style?
David Rogier 26:19
It's really good question in three different ways. One, I don't care. Like if I win or who was right answer, it's like, I want us to win. And so I think that is like I'm trying to find what the best answer is, and the right answer is, but that can come from anybody. And that's often means that's not my idea, right to is to really lead with a deep curiosity. I think our company attracts those types of folks, because like that's tied to what our mission is. But I think that from that breeds a sense of like, I'm more, I'm more humble, because like, I don't know all the answers, like I want to figure out, but also leads to actually getting the best answer. And then I think three is trying to be like as transparent and honest as possible. I think lots of hearts of our culture, encourage you to not do that a lot of the time. But I think that actually hurts you in the long run. And
Becca Szkutak 27:20
I wanted to ask a little bit about hiring too, especially because what you mentioned a little bit earlier about how you guys film these not to be like a traditional classroom type experience. But like a movie, you film them, as if it's sort of a feature film, someone's gonna go see at a theater, and of course, your tech company or a venture backed tech company, but you're also doing this movie side. It's very content heavy, like how do you think about hiring because you do have such an interesting internal structure? Yeah,
David Rogier 27:47
I mean, we are a creep ative company. And so I think there's times you can figure that on the role, right, and what what you need in a role, but I think there's times also where sorry, I don't believe in consensus interviewing. So what I mean by that is, like, a lot of companies that I've worked for him has to is like, anytime you want to hire somebody interview somebody, there's gonna be a slate of people that you're gonna interview them. And like, you're basically seeing if every is going to be a thumbs up or a thumbs down the person and you hire the person who already has a thumbs up, that to me, gets rid of the people that are often might be amazing at what they do, but might not have like the full skill set. And what I mean by this is like, like, what it misses out on is the intensity of that belief in that person. So if everybody's a 10 out of 10 on somebody's like, great, that's like an easy hire. But when you want to get as like, there's somebody who you interview who might not be good on, let's say on the process side, but is really good on the creative ideas side, if you're going to try to like get a ton of time from everybody who's interviewing them, you're not going to employ that person, you're gonna get somebody instead who's like a five on on all those dimensions, because every little checker buddies box, but like so if the person for us isn't good on the process, but there's really going to think the ideas, let's find a role for that person that really is going to play into that person's strengths. And the same thing on the vice versa, right? They're really good at process, but they're like, Hey, I am very risk averse, right? Like, you're not going to have them work on this. You're on the brand new stuff. But you're having worked on the stuff that really is important to you, but it has to go right. Does that answer your question? Becca?
Becca Szkutak 29:11
No, definitely. Okay. I think we just have time for one last question here. And something I do want to ask you about, which I kind of alluded to a bit earlier is masterclasses obviously a great approach to so many different things and so many different topics and areas and things to learn. But it isn't necessarily going to be the right approach for every sector on the planet everything you could possibly learn as well as on the flip side speaking for myself personally, like I can't watch something and learn from it. I have to be doing it with my hands I have to be with someone hands on. That is just like how I learned hearing and seeing I just I wish I could learn that way. It would make things quite a lot easier, but it's just not necessarily how I approach things. So I'm thinking like how do you guys think about scale from here? You mentioned you guys have evolved the company based on what people want, which makes a lot of sense, but where can masterclass go from here when there are about so many opportunities But also, this isn't a product and a solution for everyone.
David Rogier 30:03
Yeah. Can I ask you Becca? Like, how did you find school? I bet there's probably bunch of it that you find very frustrating to you. There's probably some instructors that landed with you. Yep. I'd love to hear how you solve that in your life. Definitely
Becca Szkutak 30:16
a mix. I mean, some classes, you've really got a lot out of other things you felt you're really teaching yourself on the side? So I mean, yeah, it definitely depends on who is in charge? Yeah,
David Rogier 30:25
no, I think it's really true. Like, I'm not quite the same as you. But like, I can't hear things and actually retain them, like, I have to watch it or actually engage in it to do it. So how we think about it is you have to address those things. So, for example, in our classes, there's ones that are project based, right? So like, yes, is there something to watch to help set up the project? Yes, but actually, most of the classwork is you're going to go and work on something, you're then going to share, you're going to put it back in the class and everybody's reactions and thoughts to it. So we try to address that. But I think in the future, to your point, it's like one is, you know, we only have 200 classes, which like, there's still lots more things for us to go and explore. But I also think some of the things we're working on are expanding how you can learn so like to your point. So on the artificial intelligence side, you're gonna see a lot of things on the interaction side, imagine how neat would be that you could submit a piece of work and get notes and thoughts back on it and certain point of view, for the people who engage more, imagine if it's not just like, you can actually engage more right and ask questions and engage. And so I think that's going to be a big area and push the enterprise offering gonna be a big area and the consumer offering. I mean, there's so many more things actually teach us in those things that we need to learn are constantly changing. So we are working on all those are we
Dom Davis 31:42
okay, so I have two questions. Now. We're gonna grab I promise, but Okay, would you ever use like, those deep fake API's to do a masterclass
David Rogier 31:52
on like somebody who is like, somebody who is not alive anymore? Or
Dom Davis 31:56
I guess anyone like whatever you feel comfortable with? Would you do it? Yeah,
David Rogier 32:00
we have talked about it a lot. I think, if we did it, I think it'd be somebody who was dead. And somebody who's dead for like a while. But that like, imagine if you could learn from Abraham Lincoln, or Shakespeare, right? Like, how awesome would that be? But you have to do it in a way that isn't creepy. Right? Is authentic to them, right? As much as you can. So like, you know, if we're just like, I'd want to work with a bunch of scholars who are experts on that person and try to do it. And then we'd have to, honestly, we'd have to test it out and try it more because I've seen some, and they are creepy. And like, that doesn't work. But like there is in my head, I can picture something where like, it'd be awesome to do that. So it's something that we are thinking about, but I haven't made the call yet.
Dom Davis 32:48
And my last question, you probably get asked this all the time. If you could teach a master class, what would it be? Okay, I don't think
David Rogier 32:54
I'm anywhere close to that level, but probably something on on the learning process and how you learn and how to teach how to do that. Is area I would love to be an expert in like, I still stick around more to learn. Can I ask both you if you could take a master class from anybody in the world? Who would be it'd be dead or alive? Oh,
Dom Davis 33:15
I would love to talk to James Baldwin. I don't know. That's kind of just a writer. And all the fun.
David Rogier 33:21
Awesome. That'd be amazing. be incredible.
Dom Davis 33:24
No, maybe yeah,
Becca Szkutak 33:25
I'd probably say John McPhee. If I were to pick. Oh, I love his writing style. But I'm gonna flip it back to you. We really do need to wrap this up. But what is your favorite master class you guys have so far? That's
David Rogier 33:36
like asking me like pick like with friends. I like the most or something. I don't know. Like, it changed all the time. Because, like taking new ones, but some of the ones we launched one a little while ago from Noam Chomsky, on how the press can can shape how you think about things. That is really interesting, fascinating. We just launched one run entrepreneurship that is with Whitney Wolfe herd, the CEO of Bumble. That's awesome. And another one I really like the Kevin Hart one isn't out yet. But it's awesome. Cool. Yeah.
Becca Szkutak 34:08
Well, great. Well, we'll have to look into it when it comes out. But thanks so much for coming on the show today. David, this has been great. Thanks.
So that was our conversation with David Dom, what did you think
Dom Davis 34:22
I cannot stop thinking about the fact that we need to see the cold email template he used. Oh my god, James Patterson and Serena Williams.
Becca Szkutak 34:31
I know that's such a good point. Because talking about cold emailing, like, obviously, like we get cold emails all the time from startups, VCs, PR firms, and like, some are like, oh, yeah, I want to interact with us and others are just like, Oh my God, why on earth would you send this to me? So I'm like, he obviously did a template that worked to get some of these names. So like, you're right. No, I'm gonna keep thinking about that.
Dom Davis 34:53
How did he find them? How did he find Serena? I'm like, How did you find her? Was it through like PR like How to Do I need to know that clearly, like, we need that template that was my first thought, what were your thoughts?
Becca Szkutak 35:06
I definitely can see why watching these videos would be like enjoyable, especially if it's on an area that you're interested in or someone that you would like to follow anyway. But the model of it's interesting to me because I feel like I would want to use this on like a one off. And I guess that you can like go on and pay per video, but I just don't know how often I would use it personally, if it's just like, oh, one person I liked came up with a video on there. I went and watched it. And then what? Yeah, like, I don't know if I would be like, Oh, time to find more. Because like, I don't generally just like sit like, I love documentaries, but like long form interviews with people or I mean, these aren't all long form interviews by any means. But that kind of a format. I don't know. It's just like not necessarily for me personally,
Dom Davis 35:48
I need to know who these masterclass loyalists are that are doing this all the time, because it seems someone is using it all the time. Yeah, I wonder if it is tied to how people really do want to upskill and how they download new programs. And you know, there's a lot of tech stuff out there as well that people use to upskill. So I imagine that maybe this is we should have asked maybe more about the demographic breakdown in terms of who is the consumer? Like, is it someone living in New York working in white collar job? I don't know, JP or something? Or is it somewhere in like, Middle America? Or like, who is the customer? Because I think that that could also help us figure out who is constantly continuously using the product? For
Becca Szkutak 36:34
sure. No, that's a great point. Because like, you mentioned stuff with upskilling. Or also he talked about like the enterprise potential here. Like there are totally use cases for this absolutely have like the thought of like really high quality videos where you can like learn from the best of the best on like a specific topic. But like some of them, like I don't know, like I love to cook, but like, I don't know if I would watch one that had a chef in it talking about cooking or their journey. Like even though I like that space. I don't know if I would watch that. But I could see totally if it's like, oh, I'm trying to get a job in X fields. Well, why don't I learn a little bit more about how to do it from like, the person who's known for it and stuff like that, like before a job interview or like something like that? Like there's so many use cases for it.
Dom Davis 37:18
Yeah, there is. I'm interested to see how it grows and expands from here, because there's also even a lot of opportunity to work or like to partner and do in person stuff. Because maybe like you buy a Gordon Ramsay masterclass, and then a benefit of that is going to one of his restaurants. Oh,
Becca Szkutak 37:34
yeah, like that would be like a totally different pairing, stuff like that. Like, I could totally be into that, oh, you watch this thing. And then we go and put it into practice or like something or we go and see it in person, or you go and try it yourself. I know, this reminds me this is definitely not the same. But like once when I like during peak pandemic, my aunt decided that we should all make risotto over zoom should this like quote unquote, famous recipe. So we all got on Zoom. And she like taught us how to make it. We like watched her make it and then we all made it ourselves. But like, that was fun. Because we all know each other. We're like joking and laughing the whole time. But like stuff that makes it more interactive. I could see like, definitely kind of expanding the audience. Yeah, because she also shipped us the ingredients, which was insane. That's
Dom Davis 38:18
what you know, I was in a French club. And I think that they tried to do cooking lessons once and they shipped us ingredients and stuff. But I think I just took the ingredients that night. Like it's there's two types of people in the world. But no, what we do need to parse though we do need to talk about him quitting his job, and then getting a seat, Chuck.
Becca Szkutak 38:38
I know, I'm like, Good for him. Like, I mean, if someone offered that to me, I'm great. But I totally get why he was talking about how it's weird to talk about how it was like a dark time for him. But like, I would feel the same way, saying like, I remember, my sister had this project in college over the summer, they were supposed to come back in the fall with an idea of a company, they would start. And my sister was like, Well, I feel like I have ideas like that all the time. But now that I have this, like set deadline, it needs to like fit all these criteria. She's like, I can't think of anything. And it's like, I feel like having the money like oh, the money, you could start anything you want. It's too broad. So I get what he was saying if he needed some constraints and boundaries before he could actually think of something
Dom Davis 39:18
I know because he didn't even have like an idea. It would have given me a lot of anxiety, I think yeah, saying I would have been freaked out for sure. Especially
Becca Szkutak 39:26
too, because like companies now like eight years old, so I mean, 500,000 stole ton of money. But like back then like so he started that 2015 took him a while to come up with the idea. We're talking like 10 years ago. 500,000 was even more money then than it is now. That's a lot of money. I know I would love for someone give me 500,000 I could definitely force myself into a corner to think of an idea. I'm not saying it'd be good, but I definitely try.
Dom Davis 39:52
I know I was I suddenly I have ideas. Who wants to give me $500,000 To see if they come true. All right. Oh, but wait, would you actually watch a deep fake? masterclass? I don't know why this is on my mind. But would you do it?
Becca Szkutak 40:07
I don't want I wouldn't watch the good to fake anything Q's totally right though, like the people who have tried to do them so far. He's like, they look really creepy. And I'm sure there is a way to make them less creepy and like, maybe I'd be into it then. But like, he's totally right that like I haven't seen it yet. Like don't know, because it's like I have yet to see an example where I'm like, oh, yeah, that seems worth watching and doesn't disturb me internally in some way.
Dom Davis 40:28
I know. I'm always like, like they were doing what the holograms of like Tupac and stuff. I'm like, put them back put them back.
Becca Szkutak 40:34
Oh, yeah,
Dom Davis 40:35
I'm a little bit I'm good. No, but Okay, so if you had to teach a masterclass what would it be? Oh,
Becca Szkutak 40:41
I would not consider myself an expert and like anything. I've gotten really into like barbecue smoking over the last few years. Maybe I do a masterclass on that like how to how to hack a $200 charcoal smoker from Amazon to create something actually
Dom Davis 40:56
that's okay. Sweet. That might end that's incredibly timely. You know, holiday seasons. Wait a minute, you might be onto something. We gotta get you. What would you do? What would I who? That's rough. I have no idea.
Becca Szkutak 41:11
How to Dress for a conference. Okay. Yes.
Dom Davis 41:13
How to Dress for a conference. That's probably all I got. That's all that's all I got y'all. Wow. Well, I
Becca Szkutak 41:21
would definitely watch that if he filmed it. We
Dom Davis 41:22
should do that. We should reach back out to him and say hey, we have ideas we have 500,000 Please.
Becca Szkutak 41:29
He's gonna be like, Okay. Okay. Found is hosted by myself. TechCrunch Senior Reporter Becca Skuta alongside Senior Reporter Dominic Midori Davis founders produced by Maggie Stamets with editing by kelp. Our Illustrator is Bryce Durbin fans, audience development and social media is managed by Morgan Liddell Alyssa Stringer, and Natalie Kreisman TechCrunch is audio products are managed by Henry pic of it. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai