20VC: HitRecord's Joseph Gordon-Levitt on How Show Business Prepared Him For Life As An Entrepreneur, What Founders Should Look For Most In Their Investor Base & Why The Current Ad Model of Social Is Harming The World's Creative Spirit
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the Founder @ HitRecord, the startup that allows you to be creative, together, encouraging less self-promotion and more collaboration, so you can create things you couldn't have made on your own. To date, Joe has raised funding from some personal favourites of mine in the form of Alex @ Javelin, Masterclass Founder David Rogier, Twitch Founder Kevin Lin and CrossLink Capital just to name a few. Alongside his role with HitRecord, Joe is also an A-List Hollywood Actor and filmmaker starring in some of my favourite films of all time including The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, 10 Things I Hate About You and many many more.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Joseph made his way into the world of technology and startups with the founding of HitRecord? How did much of Joe's early acting career inform much of the HitRecord product today?
2.) Having had such success in the acting world, what caused Joe to really push forward with HitRecord? Question from David @ Masterclass: who has been Joe's biggest mentors in his transition to tech? What have been his biggest takeaways from them? How does Joe balance both being an actor and entrepreneur at the same time? What are the challenges?
3.) Why did Joe decide now was the time to raise VC funds for HitRecord this late into the company life? How does Joe approach the element of investor selection? What specific value add did Joe want to see in his potential investor? How did the pitch process go? How does it compare to presenting for a role in the acting world? What was Joe's biggest lesson about what successful technology pitches do?
4.) When Joe thinks about the HitRecord community, what has surprised him the most with the growth of the community? Why have they purposefully decide to never spend on user acquisition or traffic? What is the strategy behind this? What is Joe's biggest advice to individuals wanting to scale their community and the essentials?
5.) How does Joe assess both the content and social media landscape today? Why is the creative spirit of the world being killed by the current ad model of social platforms? How does Joe think this can be countered and where does HitRecord fit into this evolving landscape?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Joe’s Fave Book: Letters To A Young Poet
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Joe on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back for Founders Friday here on the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, |
| 0:03.4 | and I answer all questions and comments personally on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs. |
| 0:08.7 | It would be great to see you there. |
| 0:10.1 | But to the episode today, and my word, this is a really special one for me. |
| 0:13.4 | To say I've been a big, big fan of the incredible work of this guest for many, many years |
| 0:17.3 | as an understatement. And so this is really one of the highlights of my entire four-year journey doing 20 VC having the chance to do this episode. So with that, I'm thrilled |
| 0:24.6 | to welcome, Joseph Gordon Levitt, founder at HitRecord, the startup that allows you to be creative |
| 0:29.3 | together, encouraging less self-promotion and more collaboration. So you can create things you couldn't |
| 0:34.2 | have made on your own. To date, Joe's raised funding from some of my personal favourites in the form of Alex at Javelin, |
| 0:39.7 | Masterclass founder David Rogier, Twitch founder Kevin Lin, and Crosslink Capital, just to name a few. |
| 0:44.7 | Alongside his role with Hit Record, Joe's also an A-List Hollywood actor and filmmaker, |
| 0:48.5 | starring in some of my personal favourites of all time, including The Dark Night Rises, Inception, |
| 0:53.4 | 10 Things I Hate About You, and many, many more. |
| 0:55.9 | I'd also want to say a huge thank you to David at Masterclass, Kevin at Twitch, and Alex at Javelin, |
| 1:00.2 | for some fantastic questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. |
| 1:04.4 | But before we dive into our episode today, look at the world's tech leaders and high-growth |
| 1:08.4 | startup CEOs, and do you ever wonder how in the world |
| 1:11.0 | do they have that kind of inexhaustible energy to do what they do? The answer will surprise you. |
| 1:15.5 | The latest trend with top tech leaders is sleep optimization. The first step, the pod by eight |
| 1:20.5 | sleep. The ultimate sleep machine. The pod is the first and only high-tech bed designed to help |
| 1:25.2 | you achieve peak mind and body performance, the pod dynamically |
| 1:28.6 | adjusts the temperature on each side of the bed so you're comfortable all night. Plus, if you're a |
... |
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