Ep 172: Feelings Check-In on Community Building and getting back to our roots

[00:00] The Feelings Check-In is a podcast for people who love to listen to two women overshare about the challenges of building a business, navigating careers in tech, and trying to have a personal life. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No. No. [00:20] Just boy stuff. [00:22] Hi. Hey. You're in New York. It's so fun. I'm in New York. I'm staying in the financial district, which is not... [00:27] the best district the worst district maybe the worst district uh me and a lot of [00:33] British tourists and suits. [00:36] in what is very seemingly overcast because there's no light that reaches down to the street it's not it's not overcast at all you being like it's so overcast today i'm like it's literally not a cloud in the sky and it's completely blue it's like gorgeous out i'm like you got to get out of there i actually have never [00:51] - I realized that that's the problem with the financial district. Like I thought it was the people and it's the light. [00:57] It's the light. Totally. It's the light. [00:59] Because it's so, it's actually quite a convenient neighborhood. [01:03] Nothing's open at night or the weekends, but like, yeah, you know, it's right here. It's right there But it's such a blessing to be in New York. It's so it's such a beautiful time of year So I love any excuse to come to New York in September October November November is pushing it but September one of the reasons you were staying in the financial district though is because hotel costs were a [01:24] insanity. [01:26] Yeah. [01:27] Rapid inflation. I don't know. Someone's got to get Joe Biden on the phone. The hotel prices in New York City are spiraling out of control.

[01:35] They're illegal. The hotels aren't getting any nicer. I'm paying twice as much and I'm staying at [01:39] The same hotel. [01:40] I did hear a thank piece from a general manager of a really nice hotel the other day who said, [01:46] like everybody's getting upset at us for the rising hotel costs and [01:51] his pushback was everything's gotten more expensive for us food labor all of these things so they're not their margins haven't gotten like increasingly better it's that like the cost of everything is higher and so they have to increase the price of the hotel night which made me feel better about the whole thing because i was like this is a racket [02:08] what's going on they're just price gouging yeah i thought it was like a price gouging thing and maybe it is a little bit but i do think it's also [02:15] that there's rapid inflation on all of the costs of their goods which is i [02:20] I don't know why I never thought about that before, but here we are. Here we are. We have a hotel apologist on our hands. I don't know that I can quite get on board, but I appreciate the counterpoint. So today's a feelings check-in and it's going to be a really meta feelings check-in because it's going to be a feelings check-in about the feelings check-in. We did a live pod recording last night in New York City. It was so fun. And we're just going to talk a little bit

[02:50] And... [02:51] A little retrospective on three years of building Boys Club. We're almost exactly three years out from our first ever event. We had coffee yesterday in the hotel of Eleven Howard, [03:03] really serendipitously, that's where you stayed when we did our first event. And there's like a little lounge area on the second floor, their lobby. And it's where we like sent the first emails about Boys Club and sent the first telegram invite after the first event we did. And it was really like, I don't know, there's a nostalgia to it that was accidental, but sort of felt appropriate after the first event. [03:27] doing after last night and looking back a little bit. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that and where we feel we've strayed from the Lord, where we feel like we have succeeded. [03:39] Hey, Natasha. So a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help you along the way. If you're ready to check out [04:08] to trade crypto, go to kraken.com backslash boys club. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to US customers through Payward Interactive Inc. As I was preparing for last night, I was like just doing some reminiscing on that first event. And I feel like we asked the crowd last night,

[04:29] First of all, it was our first live recording. So I do want people to know that that's a big milestone. [04:33] for us to do the first one. [04:36] It was huge, huge, which I want to celebrate for a moment. But last night, [04:41] asked the room how many people were at that first event because everyone's tomorrow will ask that and most of the time there'll be a couple people who raise their hand they'll be like yeah I was at the first one [04:50] and there was one [04:51] person who was at the first event. [04:54] And... [04:55] I was reminded in that moment of [04:59] We've been on this journey for three years, but other people have not. They have come in to Experience Boys Club at other parts along the way. [05:08] And maybe people are just listening to this podcast. I've never come to an event. Maybe people just read the newsletter. It's hard to know. [05:16] where and at what point people have met Boys Club or this podcast. And so I felt like maybe it'd be useful to just talk about that first... [05:24] moment of why we of when we started it. I love that. [05:27] Okay, so much like last night, which was basically just like, [05:31] We were curious about this thing around health tech and reproductive health tech and what's going on in that industry and what different projects and things that people are working on in that space. Decentralized science as well. It was just like a little cluster of stuff that we were like, this is really interesting. [05:47] We have no idea what's happening in that world and [05:50] We want to learn about it together. I would also add that curiosity coming from, I know that some way, somehow this is going to affect and impact my life. And I want to be educated and engaged in that thing.

[06:04] And that being... [06:07] I think the heart of some of it. Totally, totally. And so... [06:11] there was like this little stuff and decentralized science and I'm seeing our friend Camille posting about it all the time and I'm like, what is she talking about? What has she gotten into? What's this little world that she's gone like a full rabbit hole around? What's going on? And she's going to all these meetups. And so [06:26] Anyway, that's what we did last night. No sponsor, no nothing. We were just like, we want to get in a room and learn together and do that publicly, which is what we've... [06:34] we have trained ourselves to do on this podcast, which is just be willing to be totally dumb in front of a lot of people and ask the dumb questions. [06:41] And that's what we've learned to do on this podcast as well, really, because we know and think there might be other people who have those same questions as well. So we're like the sacrificial lamb. We're willing. We're willing and able. We're willing and able to be dumb in front of everyone for the sake of the one person in the room who might have the same question and might not understand. So anyway, that was what we were doing last night. And that was very much the... [07:03] the motivation for the first event as well, which we did in, um, [07:06] November [07:07] 2021 [07:09] In Chinatown. [07:10] So close to where we were last night. And [07:14] Boys Club was nothing. We were just like we're curious about [07:18] what's happening in [07:19] Krypton on Web 3 [07:21] And... [07:22] we, to your point, like knew that there was going to be some impact on our lives or our careers or the things that we were interested in and wanted to like try and start to make sense of that and start to make sense of the new technology in the context of our lives and the things that we're interested in. And so we're like, let's

[07:38] just get [07:39] a bunch of people in the room together and bring some smart [07:41] women in to talk about what the work that they're doing in this space. And that was the first event, no sponsor, no nothing, no really hopes of anything other than like just wanted to [07:52] learn together about what was happening and hope that by bringing really smart people in to talk about what they're doing [07:57] that could help catalyze the curiosity in people who are there to [08:01] continue learning on their own and to come and hang out and what was our telegram group at the time to talk about it and so I don't know it felt like a full circle moment for us. [08:09] It really did. And I think when we first started Boys Club and we had that first event, [08:14] We had both been working on startups previously, not at that current time, but that we had been really trying to [08:23] get product market fit, to get people to care about it, to [08:27] find like this special sauce and the thing that you're working on and the thing that you care about every day. And that moment in Chinatown three years ago in September, it was so amazing. [08:38] it was like visceral how different that felt and how much it was so clear that there was some thing special that was happening and that there was some product market fit that had no product and we were like okay there's something here and that was really motivating and felt really special and i think [08:59] It's been interesting to reflect on the past few years and how much things have evolved and changed.

[09:07] that heartbeat and i had this moment of this conversation last night and i think one of the things that felt really special about last night we laughed and you were like my cup is so full like it was so [09:15] nourishing and nice to be in a room with all those people. And one of the conversations I had was this woman who works at Coinbase and [09:22] She was like, yeah, I got into crypto a few years ago. I didn't go to your first event, but I had seen it, like, on my timeline. And was like, oh, wow, these, like, are my people. And then she was like, yeah. And then, like, I had a baby. And there was a crypto winter. And she was like, I just kind of, like. [09:37] tuned out of all of it and coasted and was just like, I don't know what this, I don't know, like not engaged in like crypto as an industry or as a community. And she was like, now like, I'm back in and I'm excited about my work. And I'm feeling really energized and enthusiastic. And I've popped my head back up and looked around. And she was like, and I was like, wow, boys club is [09:58] still here and like they've been [10:00] "They're thriving and that's crazy." And she was like, "Just because of [10:05] the cycles of this industry and the volatility of it or whatever. It wasn't anything specific about boys club. It was more just like when you look around the room, a lot of, [10:12] the communities or a lot of the projects like don't exist. And there's a lot of grapestones, a lot of grapestones. And [10:19] she was like, it's so interesting. Like, I'm so curious, like what's that been like and how have you guys [10:24] you know, how's that felt like being doing that work when [10:29] the industry is basically in a bad spot. And I responded and this is really true. I was like, yeah, it's crazy. Like it was, it's been really hard, but

[10:39] what has been the key motivator for me and she was asking like more also about like metrics like have you seen [10:45] did you see like a huge drop off? Like whatever. And I was like, the thing that's been most motivating is like, [10:50] Outside of the volatility of the industry, there's [10:53] been this core community that like always has been around and like that's always been the heartbeat of boys club and like the audience of it or the growth of the media channels or all of that stuff like those have been like the harder questions of when the industry is not growing how do you grow those channels but [11:08] the like true community and Harpy remained and felt like the foundation of Boys Club even beyond [11:15] the [11:15] bear market or the crypto window or whatever. And, [11:19] I just hadn't thought about that in a while. Yeah. And I think it was really grounding to think about how what's so special about Boys Club is the people and that it's genuinely true. [11:30] connection and... [11:32] that [11:33] was really present to me last night. Yeah. [11:36] we love our partners and we love all of the things that we do with them, but it was just about being together. Yeah. It wasn't about a marketing moment. It wasn't about like promotion of something. It was just about like learning together. And yeah. And I think, yeah, I have thoughts around what that means for us. [11:53] moving forward and things like that. But I'm curious if that lands for you. Totally. When I'm thinking about like, okay, there was like a cup filling moment that I felt last night that... [12:01] was... [12:03] Also felt like. [12:04] very close to why we started boys club and close to like i think the brand ideals that we want that i personally want to like

[12:12] build into was around, we talk about crypto and there's a lot of people who work in crypto who are in the crypto industry. [12:19] who are part of the voice club and the voice club community and [12:22] That's. [12:22] incredible that's where we came from where and I think we'll always be a part of but I think I [12:29] What I was present to last night was... [12:31] I actually think what binds the voice club community together [12:35] is just a... [12:37] It's just a curiosity about the world around you. [12:40] that is baked in tech and technology. But it's kind of this desire to learn and to always keep learning even as an adult. And that curiosity manifested through relationship with other people. And so like learning, sure, listening to us and talking about decentralized science, but also learning from one another, like, last night, [12:58] One of the most interesting conversations I had was this woman who was new to a Boyzco event. She was brought by someone else, which is something that we love when people do. And she works in urban planning... [13:09] And she's got her degree in urban planning. And so I was like, what do you think about self-driving cars? And she was like, well, I actually think that public transportation is more. And we got in this whole conversation about public transportation versus self-driving cars and planning for the future of cities. And it just was so interesting and so nice to have a conversation like that. [13:28] That's the beauty of Boys Club. And as I'm thinking about this next year and [13:33] even just like the next couple years of my life, like how to design for [13:37] being able to like [13:39] use that muscle around being curious about other stuff and...

[13:43] and getting people in a room to kind of talk about it. And in a way that's like, [13:46] very voice club, very accessible [13:49] any dumb questions allowed, very friendly, very warm, very feelings first, never ever making anyone feel stupid in any room that we're in. And also I would add like a chic environment. [13:59] Like, I don't want to go to someone's office. We get asked that all the time. Like, come host an event in an office. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. [14:05] I want to go somewhere chic. I want to have a nice glass of natural wine. I want to eat some pizza on sourdough. [14:10] crust and i want some florals and like that's what i desire and [14:18] So yeah, I think to... [14:21] be transparent about, like it's, it's, [14:25] was amazing last night. I think there's a few things that were top of mind for me that felt important for us to think about as a business. And I think, um, [14:35] One is that [14:37] we... [14:39] are in a position now in the business where we have some [14:42] room to do things that don't make money. [14:45] very little room, exceptionally low room, but we have some. And last night, [14:50] was a felt like this is a good way to spend our money like this is and i don't know if it's even going to be possible because we called in some favors for that and so that's like a question in my mind i would love to do that every single month and [15:04] Maybe we bring in partners that it's so contextual and it makes so much sense and like that works, but [15:11] That's a question. I don't know if we can do that every month.

[15:14] financially as a business, but it feels like, [15:19] when I'm reflecting on things that [15:21] have felt sort of missing. [15:24] within Boys Club. [15:25] it's been the community stuff. Like, I feel like we've strayed from that a little bit as a, [15:32] brand expression in the world, not in like the day-to-day discord or the values of what we bring to all these various crypto side events or the content, but [15:44] having [15:45] community as a priority like a priority to bring people together we've i feel like [15:51] that's not shown up recently for us. And I just felt the like urgency of that last night where I was talking to a [16:00] the woman who works at Happier, who is great. And she was like, wow, everybody's like really nice. Like everybody in this room is like really nice to each other and like to us. And [16:10] that [16:11] is so means she's a woman who runs the event space [16:15] Yes, exactly. And that means so much to me. Like that is so [16:20] nice to be like, oh, we've the community around boys club is like kind and kind to each other and kind to people who are working the event and like she's also like super cool and like whatever. And she was like, and to each other, like a lot of people are here, like connecting with each other, like don't know each other at all, like that are new to New York or new to this industry or trying to make friends and they're like chatting with each other. And I [16:43] that's,

[16:44] what's [16:45] I want to do. That's what I want to do with my life. I love to bring people together. I love for people to become friends and meet each other. And like, I believe that. [16:54] can happen online, but like when it happens in person, it's, it's foundational. It's like cement something. And so I want to do that more and I want to figure out how we do that as a business, but it does feel challenging when, um, [17:06] There's just some real like [17:07] realities around the way that I want to do it and what that means for [17:12] the business financially and it's not like a huge thing it's just like something to figure out i guess yeah i think also what was one learning or just one thing i became present to last night also was like community building is about consistency and it's about showing up and i guess like holding space for people to show up together in a rhythm [17:34] and that [17:37] we have been a little bit out of that rhythm [17:39] In New York, at least. [17:40] And we have not been exercising that muscle of bringing people together and people don't have that in their mind. [17:47] like a New York hub [17:49] in the way [17:51] that they used to when we first started certainly was there. And so I'm excited to [17:56] Bring it back. [17:57] And we have to figure out how we're going to do that. [18:01] how... [18:02] It doesn't. [18:03] make any money and that's okay. I don't want it to make money. Yeah. But [18:07] We... [18:09] Also, we're bootstrapped and don't have very much money, so can't spend a ton of money on it. So there's just a balance on how we do that in a way that...

[18:17] isn't a drain on the business. [18:20] But also recognizing just like how important I think it is to us personally and also... [18:23] It's just like something that we both want to do. So. [18:26] But yeah, there's consistency that's required. [18:29] for people to have that in their mind of what to expect from Warscob. [18:32] yeah and that was the other thing that i was present to like i got three or four texts this morning from [18:38] people in the community and friends who were like, wait, [18:41] You did a live pod? Like, how did I miss that? I'm so sad I didn't come. And I feel like I was like, well, we did not do a good job marketing this. The room was full and it felt great, but there's a lot of people that missed it somehow. And I think that comes back to your point of like consistency and expectation that Boys Club is doing consistently. [18:58] Consistent stuff in the city that's community first that's people can show up to and they're in a rhythm of like, oh, yeah, we're gonna go to the boys school thing this month or whatever. And I have some feelings around where I'm just like, oh, I don't know how we could have marketed it differently. I don't know where and how we should have. [19:14] shown up [19:15] online around it or like how there's a better way to [19:21] make sure that people are informed about what's happening with boys club. I feel like we're doing so much that things can get lost and, and, [19:27] That is a bummer. That kind of feels like a problem that I don't know how to solve exactly. And I think it comes back down to... [19:35] If you do it every month, people have the expectation. Yeah, I think so too. Tuned in on it. But that was interesting. [19:40] That was an interesting learning, I think, from last night. [19:43] It's time for a more open, inclusive, and transparent financial system. A system that serves nearly everyone, everywhere, all the time. That's why we love today's sponsor, Kraken. Kraken is a crypto platform that provides a super simple on-ramp to the world of crypto with a 24-7 support team. Crypto transcends physical and imaginary borders. No matter where you are, you can send funds easily and quickly to almost any part of the world. Plus, forget about waiting times and waiting lines. You can send, receive, and trade crypto anywhere near instantly.

[20:13] crypto can be at kraken.com backslash boys club not investment advice crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to u.s customers through payward interactive inc no third-party transfers available [20:26] So that is what we're thinking about. Thanks to everyone who listens every week. It means everything and it's so wonderful. And it's been such an honor to be on this journey with all of you. And that's it. That's that.