This is definitely the one I'm most nervous to have done in my career of entrepreneurship conferences at Cornell. But you're a tough interview to get, but I'm excited because I'm here with Erica and it's been really fun over the last six years to watch you and Becky build this company that is probably one of the fastest growing companies now in the parenting space. And we'll get into that in a minute. But perhaps also Cornelian, graduated in 2004. Maybe we'll just kind of go back to the beginning of Good Inside and maybe you could tell us a little bit about how this all began, the origin story of Good Inside.
Sure. Well, I graduated Cornell in '04 like Scott said. I went to work for a couple years at the NYU Child Study Center in New York. And then I got my PhD in clinical psychology at Colombia where I met Becky, also known as Dr. Becky today. I joke that I lost the doctor along the way, but she has maintained it. And we became fast friends and I actually said to my mom many years ago that if I ever started something, I wanted to start it with Becky. But we went on to have similar experiences. I worked in most of the public hospitals in New York. She started a private practice and during COVID, she really saw that parents had such a need. They probably had a need for a long time, but COVID highlighted how much parents were desperate for resources and now they were spending a lot more time with their kids because they weren't going to school. And so she actually reached out to Scott because she was getting some traction on Instagram and she was like, I think I could turn this into a business. Scott responded with a Calendly link which really offended her and he wasn't available for 3 weeks and it was like on a Sunday at 4:00 and she thought that was really inconvenient. So she emailed me asking, you know, I really want to talk to Scott and whatever. I need a faster appointment. So, we started talking. I was like, 'What are you up to? What are you doing?' I had never been on Instagram, so I didn't really see any of the ideas she was sharing. But immediately, it was obvious that we wanted to do this together. We both still remember exactly where we were during that phone conversation. I think we both related so much to how desperate parents were to the fact that there really wasn't an approach to parenting that resonated with our generation. The generation before was very focused on rewards and punishments and sticker charts and wasn't emphasizing the relationship between the parent and child. And so we felt like there was really an opportunity there to reinvent the narrative around parenting and develop all the resources and community support parents deserved.
And so maybe fast forward just for a minute to today. The business of Good Inside, like what are the products you have in market? How big is the team? Kind of what does Good Inside look like as a company?
Today we are 65 people and growing. We have over 10,000 square feet which always shocks me. We have an app essentially that drives most of the company's revenue. That app has all the resources you could imagine: long-form content, short form content, an AI chatbot that we've trained in our approach to parenting, a community platform where you can chat with other parents all over the world, and we've trained coaches in our approach to parenting as well. And so, they're constantly in our community hosting small groups or larger groups to talk on various different topics. We now have over 110,000 paying members for that app. We also have a book that Becky put out a couple years ago now that has sold millions of copies worldwide. It has been translated into so many different languages. Actually, something that really shocks me is that the book has sold 500,000 copies in China alone. And it really goes to show that the parenting approach just doesn't resonate with American culture but is really cross-cultural or there's this need to rethink about parenting globally.
And so maybe just on that I know Good Inside is grounded on a framework of sorts that in some ways defies and you mentioned the sticker charts and things like that, but what is so unique about the good inside approach when parents discover it? Like what changes first in a parent's approach to being a parent?
Yeah, I think that's a great question. I just want to finish your other question for a second.
You're in charge. So like
Yes. No, because I spoke a little bit about the app and the book, but I really think when we zoom out a little bit and think about Good Inside, we have used the Disney model before and I think that's a helpful one to use where we think of IP very much at the center of that model. So ideas and theories around parenting, but that those can be expressed in a lot of different ways. So they're expressed in this app, they're expressed in an adult book. We've put out a series of children's books. We have the number one podcast in the parenting space. So again, this IP can take on many different forms. And I think in the future, we'll think about physical product and other ways that our IP around parenting is expressed. And I have to say like as a side note, as you've built out your product and engineering team over the years, you know, I've on a few occasions spoken to some of the candidates as you're trying to close them just to help. And you know it's interesting that there's for some reason like a stigma around parenting as a business that eludes me in the sense that if you think about it, parenting is one of the largest TAMs in the world, right? It's a massive market, there's high willingness to pay.
You know, parents will pay what it takes to solve their children's problems. And yet there's also very little competition, you know, in some ways. And do you feel like, I mean what has it been like to try to build the team and to hire, you know, with people not sometimes understanding the scope of the opportunity?
Yeah, I think that has been extremely challenging and yet a bit of a competitive advantage too because like you mentioned there isn't a lot of competition in the space and when there is, people have done workshops, you can certainly take a workshop on certain parenting topics but no one has invested in the technology and I feel like that has also really helped us. How do we build a product that a parent can actually use in their life? Right? They are typically on the go, they're on a pickup line or the car ride back home from work. We're really trying to build something that fits into a parent's life and doesn't feel like these hour-long Zoom classes, which don't feel as realistic in today's world.
So, so let me go back to my earlier question. I'm going to phrase it actually a different way. There's a saying in consumer products that you can actually tell from a breakthrough consumer product, you can tell if someone is using it from across the room. And the concept is for example when Snapchat first came out, you could actually tell people were using it just by the way they were holding their phone and like doing selfies or whatever. TikTok, you could tell when someone was doing a dance in front of their phone with a friend, like you knew what product they were using. Uber, if you see someone standing in the street holding a phone looking impatient, you know that they're waiting for their Uber. So these are like iconic consumer products. If I see a parent in action who has Good Inside as an application, what does that look like?
That's a really good question. It's funny. I don't think it looks like something, but it sounds like something. I think very much now when I go to the playgrounds, at least in our neighborhood, you hear parents talking Good Inside or talking Dr. Becky, right? There's a few phrases like, 'You're a good kid having a hard time.' or maybe the kid will say it, I'm a good kid having a hard time or point at another kid who's having a tantrum and say he's a good kid having a hard time. So, I think there's a lot of language that you'll hear. You'll also hear parents really being able to validate their children but also set boundaries, right? So, there's a language, there's a lexicon which I think you know when someone is interacting with Good Inside.
So, let's talk about some of the challenges over the years. You know, I think that a theme of the conversations we've had today is that an earlier founder that I interviewed was talking about kind of like, oh yeah, there were like four or five years where we weren't making any money, but then it's like this middle period is often times skipped over, you know, and people put a bow on it. But you had obviously had years of building a brand and pushing Good Inside to be more than just a single influencer sharing content on Instagram. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the types of challenges you face in terms of operating, HR practice like hiring people, obviously brand building being the curator of the brand to some extent like what are some of the challenges as you look back over the last 5 years.
Yeah. You know it's interesting right from the beginning we were profitable which feels very lucky. So, we were making money and while I think that that's lucky and that has gone on for the last 5 years and we did raise money and frankly we've made so much money that we haven't had to spend that money and so I actually think it's tricky because then you don't have to do as much as you probably should be doing, right? You don't have to take risk. You don't have to grow in certain ways that you eventually have to do. So I think right now we're actually at an interesting point where we remain profitable and yet to grow at the same rate that we have for 5 years, we're gonna have to do some things that are out of the box, take some risk, make some huge investments, and some acquisitions to really grow in the way we want to grow for the next 5 years. Obviously, we had Dr. Becky for a long time, right? So we have this one content creator and it's her face even though we're trying to build a bigger brand under Good Inside and really become the trusted brand in parenting. And I think to do that we have to consider other faces right people that sound and look different than Becky and have different areas of expertise as well. So I think we've done a good job of owning the kids space. So between maybe 2 and 9, 2 and 10. But I think in the next coming years we have to think about you don't become a parent when your child turns two, right? There's definitely a long road before that. And so I really want to develop the baby space and that's people who have very different expertise, right? Lactation, infant sleep, postpartum issues. So looking for those content creators is really our next journey and also going older into the teen and tween space, right? A lot of our customers who joined us 5 years ago, their kids are getting older and they're dealing with different challenges and really feeling like we need the next group of content creators to support parents through that journey.
And as you operate leading a team of 60 plus people and doing the things you do every day now, are there any of those things that five or so years ago you would have been like h like I don't even know if I can do that and now it's like it's Tuesday.
I don't know if it ever feels like Tuesday. I didn't know I could do any of it. You know, I was a psychologist. I was working part-time. I think I was mostly supporting your career, moving across the country to San Francisco. I just never knew I really would have the chance or have the opportunity to start something. So, you know, I think it's very hard to think down the line, 5 years from now. I think you just take the first step. You take each day as it comes, each challenge. I think what Lauren said is so true. I'm never the smartest in the room, but I always have the most grit. And I think that that's true. If you're really willing to work hard, things tend to click. They might take some time.
I love that. It's a theme of all the interviews I think we've ever done at this conference. And I think also you know a lot of folks in this room are experts in a particular domain or they might be students in a particular domain and they have some degree of kind of either angst or impatience or curiosity combined with initiative and they're probably asking themselves like but can I be an entrepreneur? Like do I know how to do HR and hire people? Can I go and raise money? Can I sit down with VCs and convince them that I can build the business despite just having a PhD in this one thing?
We knew nothing. We knew nothing about all those things, but we were willing to work really hard.
Yeah. And I think that a number of folks have also said today like they felt they knew nothing also, you know, and maybe that's the theme is that you don't have to know much. You just have to jump in.
Yeah. And I think even along the way, we've often felt like, oh, if we hire this person, they'll have all the answers and it'll be that much easier. But that really is never the case. I mean, people add tremendous value, don't get me wrong, and they're amazing thought partners, but no one has all the answers. And so, you might as well take a risk on yourself and just work really hard. And so a question because a lot of folks in here are going to then start hiring some folks to round out their gaps. And I think another you know Marissa who spoke earlier talked about how you know you sometimes you're tempted to hire the people that have your strengths because you understand them but in some ways you should be hiring the people that have strengths completely different from yours and offset yours. Maybe just, you know, not necessarily the names, but like any people that you would say were, you know, either lessons learned from a bad hire or lessons learned from a hire that surprised you on the upside.
It's a good question. Well, I think I can talk a little bit about just the partnership with Becky and I maybe, you know, we are incredibly different people and like Lauren said, but have tremendous respect and love for one another. She is fast-moving. A bulldozer will break anything but loves to run fast. And I tend to be more process-oriented, more detail-oriented, kind of like us.
Yeah, you break a lot. But I think that kind of admiration for someone else and seeing how their strengths have an enormous impact on what you're building, your team, your culture, and on you as an individual, how much more you can get done with someone who brings those other qualities to the table, who's kind of the yin to your yang. I find that incredibly important and I think that's true of any hires I work very closely with. I look for people whose strengths are my weaknesses, right? Because that makes me that much more productive and I hope I can have that impact on them. And then in terms of strengthening that co-founder relationship, any sort of because you're also both psychologists so it must be interesting when you sit down with each other trying to improve each other, you know, what does that look like?
Yeah. You know, I think we are both so dedicated to self-growth, to our relationship. We both have done years of therapy, so I hope we know ourselves pretty well. And yet, there are very intense moments between us. But again, I think we both know so well that we are so much better together than we are as individuals.
On a scale of 1 to 10 as an interviewer, am I like five or above at this point? Sorry. Okay. So, in venture capital, so talk to us a little bit about it's interesting to raise money and then not touch it for years. What is and we and that's another theme that's come up throughout the conversations today is kind of the benefits and costs of venture capital what it kind of does to the business in terms of thinking bigger or feeling constrained to some degree or accountable to people you know any perspectives for folks who are you know thinking should I raise money for my company or not and how they should think about it.
Yeah, I definitely am not an expert here. So, but I can share from myself. I think we were going to take a big risk and hire a lot of people, right? I was going to hire a very large engineering team and that was going to be very costly. And maybe if someone was a little bit more of a risk-taker or had an easier time sleeping at night, they might say, 'Listen, we have the cash flow. We don't have to go raise money.' Now, I think for Becky and I, we both really wanted to sleep well and not feel anxious about hiring people and then potentially having to let them go if the business wasn't growing in the way we thought it would. So, for us, it was really a security cushion. It gave us some added confidence and it worked and it has always. Although, again, I think there's something about having six months of runway that is very motivating and I want to try to induce that in myself and my team now as opposed to feel like we have too much time.
Do you remember what our life was like when I had six months of runway left?
