Greg Isenberg on the World of Opportunity in Consumer Social

Erik Torenberg (0:00)

Hey, everybody, it's Erik Torenberg, co-founder, partner of Village Global, a network-driven venture firm. And this is Venture Stories, a podcast covering topics relating to tech and business with world-leading experts.

Erik Torenberg (0:22)

Awesome, let me know when you're recording as well.

Greg Isenberg (0:25)

I'm recording.

Erik Torenberg (0:26)

Cool, awesome.

Erik Torenberg (0:27)

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Village Global's Venture Stories. I'm here today with the very special returning guest, Greg Isenberg. Greg, welcome back to the podcast.

Greg Isenberg (0:36)

Thank you, Erik, feels good to be back.

Erik Torenberg (0:39)

So Greg, every year we do a consumer social roundup. We used to do it with Donnie Dinch and Galpert.

Earlier this year we lost Dinch, now we're losing Galpert. Only one can remain.

We're here to do a consumer social roundup. We haven't spoken since Covid. So why don't we start there? How has Covid hit consumer social? What does it mean for the space? Obviously, you started a company in the space years ago, Islands, it was sort of in the nuclear winter, and then consumer social is getting more excited. Presumably, it's been accelerating under Covid. Why don't you talk about your own journey and evolution, and then let's talk about how the space has evolved since.

Greg Isenberg (1:15)

Totally. So, yeah, I mean, 2016, I started a company in the nuclear winter of social.

This is an era when Facebook was going to copy you. Facebook is eating the world, and there was basically such a small amount of venture capital allocated to social. So, people like me and Galpert and Dinch, we're crazy. And just because there was a lack of funding, didn't mean we weren't going to go and start stuff. So, I started a company. I was like slack for college, sold it to WeWork, joined as the head of product strategy at WeWork. And, yeah, now I'm back in the game.

And I'm back in the game primarily, you know, one of the reasons is because I love building internet communities. And, you know, Covid has made consumer social hot again for the first time since 2008, 2009, 2010

Erik Torenberg (2:13)

And you've chosen an interesting structure to how you want to sort of build and work with companies in the space. You could have just started a company, you could have just, you know, been focused as an investor.

How have you sort of chosen your hybrid model? Why don't you discuss the model and then chose how you landed at on it?

Greg Isenberg (2:27)

Yeah, totally. So, you know, 2020 hit, Covid hit, and I looked at it and I said, you know, there's just, you look at, you know, I use the example of Reddit. There's so, you know, so many communities thriving on Reddit. Facebook group says over a billion monthly active users. You know, there's been this shift from broadcast, I want to broadcast everything, to small group, you know, communication.

People want to be with their, like, their homes. They want to be with their people.

And I just believe that there's an opportunity to build, you know, hundreds of multi-million user vertical networks over the next five years. And when I looked at that and I said, like, do I want to start a company, raise venture capital and go build, you know, a social app? I was kind of like, no, I think there's too much opportunity and I want to work on multiple things. I want, you know, the idea for Late Checkout, which is my new company, we do three things. Number one is a product studio that builds internet communities and products that bring people together. So we fund our own ideas, we launch products. Number two, we have an agency where we work with some of the like the leading technology companies, internet communities.

And number three is we have a fund where we acquire internet communities. So that's the structure. And the reason why we're doing is because there's a lot of ground to cover.

Erik Torenberg (3:56)

And let's talk about sort of the white space or let's get into some ideas.

Where are interesting opportunities now that you might want to build, invest in, or just see happen? Some of the ways you described it are sort of the unbundling of Facebook, of Reddit, of LinkedIn. How do you sort of think about the white space and let's get into some of those opportunities?

Greg Isenberg (4:14)

Totally. I mean, broadly speaking, I think what's happening is that all of these companies just got really big. I mean, Facebook is what, a $750 billion company. These products have become extremely bloated. And you and I have talked about LinkedIn before, for example, over the years. It's been years now.