#109 with Jonathon Barkl - The Founder of AirGarage Jams Out on Ideas

**Shaan Puri** (0:18)
So we got a guest with us today, Jonathan Barkl, as he says, rhymes with Sparkle.
And he's the founder and CEO of AirGarage, which is a company I heard of because I invested in my friend Ryan Hoover's fund called Weekend Fund, and Weekend Fund invested in you. And he sends out these amazing updates. Like, I don't know if you get the updates, but he sends out these like amazing investor updates.
And he talks about some of the companies he's excited about, and he was excited about you guys. And so that's what I first heard of you. We've never met, but you sent me a list of ideas. And I said, okay, that's the ticket of entry to this podcast is a lot of people reach out saying, hey, I'd love to come talk about my startup. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't know if that's what people want to hear necessarily.
What you did was smarter, which was you said, hey, I got a bunch of ideas. You know, I can't resist that. And of course, we will also, you know, talk a little bit about AirGarage as well. So welcome. How was my intro? Was that on point?

**Jonathon Barkl** (1:09)
Yeah, that was awesome. That was everything that I could have hoped for and more. And I'm glad that my list of ideas was a good enough ticket to get me on. Cause I mean, the reason I love and listen to this podcast all the time is because it's something that I do constantly is think about startup ideas and just think about ways that things could be better in the world. And like you and Sam are obviously doing that constantly. And so this podcast is perfect because one of the unfortunate truths about being a startup founder is like, you always want to be thinking about new ideas, but then once you kind of have a semblance of product market fit, you just can't think about new ideas all the time. You need to do one thing day in and day out and like focus. And so then like my release is listening to this podcast and like thinking about new ideas on like walks through San Francisco as I'm like trying to unwind at the end of the day.

**Shaan Puri** (1:51)
Yeah, for sure. That's exactly it. It's sort of, it's meant to be an escape.
You might learn something, but it's meant to just be, you know, shoot the shit and kind of get that part of your brain going and exercise it. And for some people like you, who need to be super focused on your idea, it's like, cool, I worked that muscle out and it's like tired. It doesn't have this like pent up, you know, idea juice that's just waiting there. And on the other side, for people who don't have an idea, it's like, oh, it changes, hopefully it changes the way they see the world where they just see opportunity everywhere. They see different pain points that could be solved or different business models that are interesting that they might be able to adapt, that sort of thing.
So I'm looking at your list right now because it's got a whole bunch of interesting things on it. One that I just actually mentioned on a previous podcast I recorded is that stands out because it's a pain point I'm having, which is lemonade.com for general commercial liability insurance. So are you having the same problem as me, which is that it's kind of a pain to get insurance for your business?

**Jonathon Barkl** (2:45)
Yeah, it's a huge pain. I mean, it's totally fragmented. Like I just don't even want to deal with it half the time. And like we're, we just signed a new lease on an office and the office like landlord wants to know, hey, what's your commercial general liability insurance? And what's your like workers' comp insurance? And I'm like, you know, these are things that we definitely have, but like the process of even getting you a certificate of insurance to prove that we have these things and adding you as an additional insured is this huge pain for me. And like as a founder, those are those are the things that drain my energy, like just working on insurance paperwork, talking to like bureaucratic agents at insurance companies.
And I mean, when we moved into our house in San Francisco, it was the first time I had like a house off college campus or out of my parents' house, right?
And it was this beautiful experience of like, I thought that it was going to be this awful process to get renter's insurance. And I was dreading it for weeks. And then I found Lemonade, went through their app in like five minutes. They gave me a quote I signed up. And it's like, why is that same thing not being applied to the business space? It totally, totally is a huge market.