[Ambience]
In crowdfunding, money isn't just money.
That's almost always the case with money.
Money is very rarely just money,
at its most evil when it is just money.
And to think about it
as money is to misunderstand what's going on.
It is a way in which somebody, an individual,
gets to participate in and to feel part of something
that matters to her or to him very deeply.
You can't just beg strangers for money to do something
that benefits you and then expect them to give that to you.
It's just not going to happen.
What crowdfunding is, instead,
is it's the cap on a long career
and a long relationship where you've spent years creating work
that resonates with people and that they can't live without.
And then, finally, after you've done this,
and after they love you and after you're a part
of their life, then you go, "hey, guys,
do you want to help me create my greatest work yet?"
Crowdfunding is an engine of creation.
You're building a cohort
of creators who are able to sit down
and say, "this guy got something off the ground, this
guy got something off the ground.
I'm gonna get something off the ground."
Crowdfunding is, perhaps,
the most significant social development
of the last 20 years, and I don't think it's
going to be fully appreciated how substantial a cultural
development this is until 20, 50, 100 years from now.
I think it's only gonna be in retrospect
that people understand how important a shift this was.
It's not about the object that you receive,
it's about you actually making it happen.
It allows this great opportunity where all of a sudden
the products that we see in the world are gonna be
manifested by ourselves.
One of the coolest things by far about the crowdfunding is
that it gave us the opportunity to launch something that we
wouldn't have had before.
Traditionally, I'd go to this business guy
and be like, "hey, business guy. You like our ideas?
We're gonna take off our clothes and run around and act crazy.
And we this magical thing
that stretches and fits every bottle in the world.
Do you want to give us some money for this thing?"
And they'd be like, "no, you guys are crazy."
You get to throw it out there,
and if you get accepted,
then it's like, "oh, we got a company."
"Oh, okay, what are we gonna do now?"
I don't think I'd be as passionate about it
if the community wasn't as involved as they were.
Freaker is a community-based company.
I mean, we started with the community.
Our community is very vocal, and we listen,
'cause you have to. You have to.
And, like, everyone...
everyone is capable of a good idea,
so why not listen to 'em?
We go out and we get feedback from them,
and we've run contests
where people can design their own freaker.
So we did something with threadless, you know,
this community-based initiative to source the best design.
I'm not sure what that is.
I'm not sure.
A screaming witch, maybe.
Mr. pain is the name. Mr. pain.
Pretty incredible to see... to see that many people
submitting their designs and their ideas.
It's always cool to see the feedback you get.
Freaker was kind of my opportunity or chance
to do it for me.
Do what I wanted, not, not have to fight,
not have to compromise with clients.
I mean, that's what freaker is, you know.
It's an uncompromised vision.
It's kind of like my thesis that no one trusted me
in letting me do it until we did it for ourselves.
Crowdfunding is pretty basic and straightforward, I think.
I mean, you essentially say,
"this is a project I want to get funded,"
and it can be anything from a movie to a watch.
And they can literally be anything.
It's very simply you say, "this is the idea,
this is why it's important,
and this is why you should fund it."
In exchange for their financial contributions,
people get stuff or experiences, things that they want,
things that are at different price points.
Maybe there's a $20 reward,
maybe there's a $50 reward, there's a 100.
People can pick.
They had these different points of participation.
What seems to be most successful
is when you have a goal that if you don't reach that goal,
like on kickstarter,
where if you set a goal of $100,000,
and you don't reach that goal,
then no one's credit cards get charged.
You don't get the funding.
All the money goes back to the individuals,
and the project has to be funded a different way or it dies.
And something about that goal just psychologically kicks in.
"I can see that this project I really wanted to get funded
is $15,000 away their goal
and they've only got 24 hours to go.
I'm gonna send them out a tweet, I'm gonna put it on Facebook,
and something about that deadline and that goal
and the chance that it might all disappear and go away
is what drives the entire process.
People are more connected
now than they've ever been in human history.
And that hyper-connectivity
is really the foundational support layer
on which crowdfunding is built on top of.
Right now, everyone has to be on Facebook
and they have to be on Twitter or Instagram
or there are all these different things.
Those will always change.
The important part is that social media
is allowing the dialogue between the artist and their fans.
And they need to take advantage of those
and think of creative ways to do it
to stand out from the crowd.
You think about when you're growing up,
like what do you want to be when you grow up.
And then when you get older, as you get closer to college,
you're like, "oh, I have to be a businessman
or a lawyer, a doctor, or whatever."
Well, everybody tells you, it's like,
"you can't make a living being an artist.
You can't do this, you can't do that."
But any time that I would try something else,
I would always find myself just getting extremely bored
and just, I knew that I wasn't doing the right thing.
And I always found myself coming back to art
and to drawing in some form or fashion.
It's taken me this long to be able to get where I'm at,
but I think that I wouldn't have done it any other way.
Because of my brother, who lives...
He lives all the way across the country, you know,
we used the mighty interwebs to connect through Google hangouts.
And we'll just kind of shoot back and forth
ideas and concepts of everything.
[Russian accent] Dr. Jones, your papers are not in order.
[Normal voice] when I kind of mentioned to my brother
about wanting to design playing cards,
my brother was like, "you should do a deck of cards
that looks like money."
When I hit "go" on the project,
I was like, "okay, yeah, yeah!
Maybe... maybe I'll find a few people
that will be interested in my project,
and maybe I could just kind of squeak by and get
the minimum goal that I could pay for the minimum order
that the United States playing card company
requires when they're printing decks."
And what I was thinking might be, like,
a few people finding my project and supporting it
has turned into, like, several hundred.
And that living thing that's growing in front of me,
that's something that I've never had before.
But at the same time, like, when, you know, when I...
When I get away from the computer,
then the reality sets in for me.
Like, I think about,
"I'm okay with the $7,000.
I did my math for that."
But now in three days,
there's more money, you know,
than I make in, like, a couple of months.
If this is day three, what is it gonna look like
on day 30 or day 40?
It could be...you know, it could be awesome,
but at the same time, I have this fear
like I'm gonna shoot myself in the foot
and not know what to do.
If there's only a rare number
of people who are interested in a particular thing,
in the old days, you know, if you're around
your neighborhood, you'd had it.
You couldn't find a crowd.
But nowadays, you know, the world is your crowd,
and you can post it to everybody.
Before, we needed companies.
We needed a large amount of assets to start up something
with a lot of people.
Now you can do it yourself.
We're already seeing an evolution of crowdfunding
to more and more support going to people that already are
successful as cultural producers in the world,
so people will successfully have produced films
with studio backing, musicians
that have access to record labels.
And so rather than using those mechanisms,
they're turning to crowdfunding.
My parents got me an apple ii computer
when I was in high school,
and that really kind of opened my eyes.
You start playing other people's games
or whatever product that you do.
At a certain point you think,
"hey, I can do this," you know,
or "i can do better."
In October of '83
is when I started interplay.
[Dramatic music plays]
When you first start a company,
there's what you have to do,
and then as you become successful,
you get to do what you want to do.
I had always wanted to do something
in the post-apocalyptic genre.
We created a game,
and it was called "wasteland."
And we released it in late '88,
early '89, I believe,
and it went on to big critical success.
Got a big cult following.
We didn't place morality on you,
we actually created these morally gray situations
for you to figure out what the right thing was,
and you actually felt bad
about some of the things you did in the game.
And that was rather unique at the time.
Clearly, we knew we had scratched the surface
of something very interesting.
I immediately wanted to do a sequel to "wasteland."
I badgered electronic arts over and over and over again.
I got nowhere.
Then I was with interplay
all the way up until 2002.
I left the company that I had founded,
and then I was a man without a post-apocalyptic license.
And so, finally,
I was able to work a deal to get the rights to "wasteland" back.
I was gonna be able to do a "wasteland" sequel
a decade later.
I went to the publishers,
and I remember I'd go in with the pitch
and say, "okay, it doesn't get better than this."
I travel around the world.
Everywhere I go, every press tour,
I don't care whether I'm in China, Singapore, France,
Germany, they're always asking about a "wasteland."
That would be my pitch going in.
I never even got to a point where they'd say, "how much?"
I got no traction
for another decade, which blew my mind.
There was fans that wanted it,
there was guys like me that wanted to make it,
but there was people in between.
There were retailers and there were gatekeepers
that wouldn't allow that transaction to happen.
Lo and behold, here comes crowdfunding.
The minute I really started to focus on crowdfunding,
I immediately saw the power of what it could be and the ability
to remove the gatekeeper and put me in direct connection.
And the first thing I did, though,
was to set up forums to talk to the users, right away...
the first thing I did.
What would "wasteland" be?
Are my ideas in synch...
what people still want? Guess what.
They did want that old-school role-playing experience
that I was dying to make.
And we were asking for more money
than just about anybody had asked for before,
but I had no choice, because I couldn't
make a game for less money and meet what they wanted.
You know, I just couldn't do it.
You know, you can go and you can spend money,
you know, dead money on things, right, like,
possessions that sit in your house, or something like that.
Or you can put your money into a living,
breathing project that's going to benefit a lot of people
that's a shared endeavor,
shared by thousands of people, right...
and be a part of that.
I find that much, much more satisfying.
You know, if it's something I'd loved since childhood,
I kind of feel I want to participate as much as possible.
I want to be involved as much as possible.
To be, you know,
the much younger person playing the game
and just marveling that it exists,
you know, in the case of say, "wasteland."
And then to be coming back to the table now as an adult
and saying, "oh, wow, I'm really contributing to this game."
That's pretty...That's pretty cool. There's no...
there's just no way around that. That's amazing.
I was nervous as hell, and, you know,
I remember the next morning,
we sort of all got up at, like, 6:00 A.M.
And, you know, it was like that commercial
where, like, you know, the people are excited
because the meter's spinning with all the money.
So it's going, it's going, and going.
And I'm telling people all day,
"don't...don't text me, don't call me, I don't want to"...
I was too nervous.
And, of course, my phone's like "$100,000, $200,000."
You know, they're sending me these messages.
And I thought, okay, it's gonna drop off the second day.
You know, I'm not...I just don't know what's gonna happen.
And so we start off the next morning,
we're still going strong.
And I had a guy call me.
He was a major fan.
He says, "hey, if you come up short,
I'll fund you the rest of the money."
And that was a moment,
you know, 'cause I thought,
"we're gonna make it."
I grew up in brookville, Pennsylvania,
surrounded by the country and amish.
My whole concept, I think, was growing up in a small town,
never really had to introduce myself to anyone
or have a first conversation
'cause I knew everyone from the beginning,
and it was just like, "there are my friends 'cause
I've known 'em since kindergarten."
So my whole thought was like, go out into the world
and just see what it throws at me.
I looked at the map and I was in north Carolina.
And I saw Wilmington, and I was like, "Wilmington.
That sounds familiar. Maybe someone said it before."
I was like, "it's near the beach."
I was like, "that sounds awesome."
So with my 50 bucks,
drove down to Wilmington.
Go into a coffee shop,
and Lauren, who now works with me,
was the first person that I met in Wilmington,
so I opened the door.
And this little cute barista girl is just like, "hey!"
And just like yells out from behind the counter.
I'm like, "oh!" I'm like, "oh,
this is a cool start to a town."
So and ended out becoming my roommate,
and at the same time, Justin had just shot a video
for Alisha, who is our office mom now.
Where she was doing this crowdfunding thing.
And I was just like, you know, "what are you talking about,
crowdfunding thing?" She, like, showed me it.
And I was like, "what?
What do you mean?" You just... you just do this thing?
You have an idea, you put it out there,
and then if people like it, they give you money.
And she was like, "yeah." I was like, "that is awesome."
So us four, we were like, "how are we gonna do this?
How are we gonna bring it all together."
It was this concept of we have
this manufactured thing that we know how to do,
but we don't have the money for the yarns,
we don't have the money to do the first run of production.
We really want everyone to have one of these things.
We think it's really awesome,
and now it was like, "let's make this thing
and see if they think it's awesome."
Well, we're gonna freak the world,
starting with America,
by launching a line of 30 freaker designs.
It's gonna be amazing.
It's gonna blow your mind. [Blows whistle]
Art is the work of a human being,
doing something probably for the first time,
something that might not work, something generous.
Something that touches some people,
but not other people.
And we go down that list of what art is.
It turns out that's what we're paying for.
That's what we care about.
That if all we're buying is a Walmart quality commodity,
just give me the cheap one, the close one.
Bottled water? Cheap and close.
I want bottled water to be the same every time,
but I will not pay extra for it.
If I'm gonna pay extra for something,
if I'm gonna spread the word,
if I'm gonna talk about it,
it better be real, and it better be personal.
There's so much stuff that I try to put in these things
that I think that a lot of people will miss.
But that's okay, that's the way it goes.
Especially with, like this.
This joker has Benjamin Franklin
flying a kite with the key on it.
And that was kind of when he was trying
to figure out how electricity worked.
And the three of diamonds on the kite,
it's what called a card reveal.
It's just kind of like a cool thing that magicians use
inside of their acts or their tricks.
Where they have, like, "oh, here, pick a card, any card."
And then they can then
make you think that you're picking a card,
but they really know exactly what card you're picking.
And they can do their whole trick,
and at the end of the trick, you hold up their card,
and they'll go, "oh, did you have the three of diamonds?"
And you're like, "i did have the three of diamonds."
And then they'll pull out the joker,
and then your three of diamonds
will be printed on the kite of the joker,
and you're like... "What?!"
And so that's kind of like what the card reveal is.
These numbers here, this is a plate I.D. And a serial number.
And these numbers were used on real money for the government
to kind of keep track where the bill was printed
or what number the bill was.
But I came up with an idea
to help my backers be a more kind of like
have a tangible part of the cards themselves.
And what I did was I created this pledge tier
where you could pledge for this award,
and you could customize these numbers,
the plate I.D. And the serial number.
I didn't know how it would go over very well in the beginning,
but when it clicked with people,
and people figured out what they were,
some people started getting these plate I.D.S,
and like, "hey, I want to represent my birthday,
I want to represent the day that I met my wife."
And these numbers are gonna be on every card that I print.
People send in stuff, and they're like, "make this,
make this, make this!"
And, you know, we take the ideas
and mesh it all up.
We have little sheets.
We get people requesting all the time of different designs,
so we'll send them this sheet, and they can draw it out.
It's tiny squares.
I go in, I fill them in.
There's not much detail, but once it's knit,
it's a lot tighter and it looks a lot cleaner,
where now, you can kind of see the edges and stuff of it.
This one is an upside down heart,
which turns into a butt,
and then it's pooping out little tiny hearts,
which I thought was really funny,
and we're gonna call this one "love stinks."
So that's how it works.
You know, I probably spend, oh,
like to to three nights a week up here.
Right now, I'm just staying overnight 'cause
things aren't totally rolling,
like, super strong in the money world, so,
you know, I'm trying to cut back.
They're here during the day working,
and the only time that I can just, you know,
be trying out things in different colors
and not getting in the way of everybody
is in the middle of the night.
We're basically what you call a hosiery mill.
Manufacture socks.
Athletic socks, dress socks,
men's, woman's, children's socks.
Knit and sew, and that's really it.
Just make socks, the whole company.
Normally, here, we do any kind of socks.
And now we're doing freaker.
Zach is basically doing the samples,
doing matching colors, I would say.
He'll come up with his own designs.
All kinds of designs, really, just...
For example this, and all kinds of things.
We're good to go.
Good to give it a little run.
So make sure everything's set up good.
Sometimes you just push it a little too soon,
and, you know, it ends up getting messed up.
So it's always good to check everything, you know,
twice...or three times.
Or three times.
So there's been quite a few nights like that,
where it's just been
thinking of coming up here for a day, and then all of
a sudden, it's three or four days later.
And in here, there's no windows,
so you're like, by the time you get out,
it feels like a time zone of, like, two weeks when
you're here for three or four days.
So I was like, "oh!"
You know, it's cool.
It's a neat-looking place. It's beautiful.
It kind of makes this weird hum sound when you're here,
and it's really dry 'cause of all the cotton,
and my pee always smells
funny the next day, no matter what.
Just one of the perks of being in here for 24 hours
straight, so... I feel comfy here.
The, you know, the first few times,
I felt a little like this is weird.
I walk out, and I, you know, like twilight zone.
But now, like, I get back here,
and I'm like, it's like, "zzz!" And I'm like, "oh, yeah!"
It's like, a giant, like, swarm of bees in your ear for,
you know, 24 hours straight.
You don't think you'd miss that, but you do somehow.
But it's a lovely place.
Basically,
I was looking at it with Zach being a potential customer,
coming to me and telling me that he wants to
raise money online.
In a sense, that tells me that he don't have the money
to get this product off the ground,
to even get it started.
Made me a little bit skeptical,
"do I want to do business with this guy who, obviously,
doesn't have money to pay for a product
or to get a product started?"
Raw materials,
product development...
everything...it takes money.
And I just thought it was a bad idea,
I didn't think it would work.
I was really surprised.
I was watching it on the Internet,
where he stood with how much money,
his target, where it was going.
And every day, we'd look at it, and be like,
"he's not gonna make it, he's not gonna make it."
And then all of a sudden, it just boom, boom, boom,
and he had what he needed.
And he was ready to start his product.
But I was pretty relieved
that my customer would have a little bit of money
to pay for a product, I guess.
So I would have never thought that he would have been able
to accumulate funds like that to get a product off the ground.
But when you see somebody's passion in a product,
and they got their heart in it to do something,
that gives you a little bit more support
that I think this guy's gonna make it.
But, financially,
I don't know if he would have made it without them for sure.
So...
We have gone from running one machine for him once in a while
to four machines running for him five days a week.
So his volume had really grown, to our surprise.
When we first did the program with him, I thought,
"if we can keep two machines
busy running this thing, it will be a decent product."
And he's exceeded that now.
So very surprising. [Chuckles]
And he's just a great guy.
Not many people out there like that anymore.
[Pen scratching]
I've been waiting 20 years for this moment.
I've been trying to get this game, "wasteland 2,"
into production since... [Chuckles]
The early '90s.
And, finally, I'm here.
So now I'm in production.
We'll need to double up the staff of this company
within the next 12 months
to be able to make a game of this size.
One of the first things we're doing is doing the concept art
for the character design.
What do they look like,
what are they wearing,
and how are they re-using things in a post-apocalyptic world?
That will be new for me. I've never managed a process
that's sort of almost like a spectator sport environment.
Everything in the past has been sort of we'd hole ourselves up
and at the end, we'd pop a finished product out the door,
and hope everybody loved it.
This is much different, where we'll end up
showing people things every step of the way
to vet our ideas and get as much
input that we can before we ship the product.
Well, right now, we're working on wrapping up
what we call the vision document.
And so far, everyone has funded the product
just on the hope and dreams of what it might be.
And now it's time for us to show them what it is
we're really thinking about in great amounts of detail.
So the vision doc really kind of outlines
all of the high-level points that we feel is really important
for the product to represent.
And this will be kind of our first test.
You know, we're gonna put this document out to all the backers,
and they're gonna be able to respond back to us.
And we're hoping that they read it top to bottom
and give us the thumbs up, "yeah, that's what we want."
But only time will tell.
Because of the very public nature of this process...
I think that a failure of this product
would mean that people would not want to hear from me again
on my next project.
If I screw up delivering this game, and it isn't good,
it's probably the last thing I'll get to work on.
I don't think crowdfunding gives you a second shot.
It's a bit of an all-or-nothing for me.
And if I don't deliver what I said,
it's probably pretty much it for me.
When I look at, like, projects that I have backed,
it's like looking through a gallery of hopes and dreams.
Like, some of them have finished and some of them haven't.
And some of them are old and dusty,
but they're still, like, "coming soon,"
but they're not really coming soon,
and you know it and they know it,
and they just fall off the earth.
It's interesting to go through your backer history
and just kind of look at those projects
that didn't go anywhere, they just disappeared.
On kickstarter, a lot of times, you see these people,
they ask for all this money to do something,
and then, like, they never send you your reward.
Those people are screwing themselves.
Those people are kicking their fans in the fucking teeth.
The average project that fails
probably falls into a couple categories.
One was that there was making a thing
that they thought would be super easy.
"We'll just go to China, and we'll just make this thing."
Then there's projects that maybe the person
gets a day job and they just can't pursue any more.
You know, it takes up a little more time than they thought,
and you can burn through money faster than you think.
And then, oftentimes, there's the projects
that a lot of people wanted to do it,
and then all of a sudden, it kind of crumbled,
and there was one guy who couldn't do everything.
The guys that I work with at my office,
and also my friends, they look at my project,
and they're like, "oh, you've raised $100,000.
Ooh, you're rich now.
What are you gonna do, buy a car, you know,"
and all this kind of stuff.
"What are you gonna do with all that cash?"
And I'm like, "I'm gonna have to spend all that cash
to pay for all this stuff."
I mean, even these poker chips.
Even these poker chips. This is like the fifth...
the fifth iteration of these poker chips,
and I still, I'm not quite satisfied.
Oh, it's like, you can't make the words go this specific way
just because the manufacturing process.
It's like, those are, like, the things that drive me crazy,
that I didn't know about before
when it looks good on my computer screen,
but when it's an actual poker chip, it just may not work.
In the beginning, I may have only been asking for,
like, $7,000,
and I was thinking on, like, the small scale.
But as it just...as it grew,
and the momentum built,
you know, $7,000 became $50,000,
and then $50,000 became $100,000.
It only means that there's more and more people
that there's a chance of me letting down
and not delivering the quality of stuff
that I promised in the very beginning...and that I think
that everybody got attached with and got behind.
I've even seen other projects that are like, you know,
we need this much money to do this.
And then they get that, and then they get even more
and then even more, and then when it's over,
something happens or something is out of their control.
And then they're like, "well, we're out of money."
I guess we basically put ourselves out there
with the crowdfunding thing.
You know, I guess we launched a new product
that hasn't been out there before.
And already getting some pretty big publicity from it.
And with that, ended out attracting a bigger company
that just posted something of a new product
that they have that looks strangely like ours.
For us, this just comes far too early in the game,
for a big company to be knocking us off.
It's like, with the patent on the freaker that we have,
it's just their attorneys
are gonna know what we don't have the
money to actually do anything.
So we can send them a letter
and say, "hey, please stop making this,"
but they're gonna say...
You know, do something about it, basically.
Also, another side of this business world
that isn't too exciting to go down.
I guess when you're thinking about what you need money-wise,
that just doesn't sit on your head.
You don't think, okay,
and we're gonna need $100,000 to protect ourselves
from this big company that's basically known
for knocking off good ideas
and getting it produced cheaply in China
and then bringing it over and selling it,
and undercutting everyone.
There's, obviously, like a million things that we
would need to spend money on before something like this.
To throw money at this, it doesn't get us any further.
And this will definitely just take...
The energy off of moving forward
and put it into keeping us where we're at,
to have to focus on something that's so, you know,
mind-weighing of suing somebody or a company,
and lawyers talking and saying things that we don't understand.
So it will be like,
"they explained it, but I don't really know
what they meant by all those fun words."
So we're basically just in a position of...
...just unknowing and confusion right now
of what to do.
You got to learn your own lessons, I guess.
There's so much more to it
than just, "oh, I'll just design some cards,"
and then it's done.
And that's something that I learned during the process.
There's the maintaining and maintenance
of the community that you're trying to build
so that your project can be successful.
And that was something that I knew about a little bit,
but my eyes weren't really open to how huge
and how important that aspect of it was.
The thing is when you do a kickstarter campaign
and you're like, "guys, give me money,
and in two years, I will create something cool,"
you're creating a relationship that's built on trust.
And if you do anything, however minor,
that pokes away at that trust,
you suddenly start looking like a scam artist,
and people will despise you.
You know, crowdfunding is gonna have
all these weird things that are gonna get worked out.
It's gonna be so different in 10 years, how people do it,
and what's appropriate.
How many updates do I send to a thousand people
that just gave me money?
Is one a week, one a day?
What's my obligation?
After I'm done, how many do I have to send?
It's kind of cool watching everybody figure this out.
I think in the beginning,
I used the updates as kind of a crutch.
I was so worried and stressed out
that either my supporters weren't gonna be pleased,
I was gonna show something, and they were like,
"wait, wait, what is this change?!
What is this change?!" I mean, they're the ones
that are spending their money for what I'm creating.
And so I want them to be a part of that creative process.
So I want to be able to listen to their comments,
listen to their concerns, listen to their ideas,
and try to incorporate those ideas into what I'm doing.
At the end of the day, you're always reporting to somebody.
You know, whether it's a publisher or now to our fans.
To the fans, what we've seen so far
is we'll put out an update,
we'll tell them what we're doing, we'll show 'em some
screen shots, we'll make a video,
and we'll get their feedback instantly.
You know, it's not all unicorns and rainbows, right?
They don't love all the things that we're doing,
but at least when I'm having a conversation
with them about something they don't like,
it is about the quality of the product.
And that's all we want to focus on.
I don't need to be right all the time.
I don't mind us putting stuff out and them not liking it,
as long as the conversation is about what they want to see
and how they can help us to shape the game.
There's a lot of times where I feel like there's nothing
that I can do.
There's always gonna be people be upset
or not get what they want, and they're gonna be mad,
they're gonna call you a jerk, and a thief,
and that you're trying to steal money from them
or you're trying to charge them way too much for something.
But in the end, like, if you don't like my project,
you don't have to back it.
People complain at the drop of a hat.
People generally are nice, but a lot of them suck.
You're supposed to trust a crowdfunding project,
you're supposed to trust a dude with your money,
and the people who suck are going to immediately
jump on that guy and accuse him of scamming.
Accuse him of faking some stuff.
And that's gonna happen over and over again.
It's something that a lot of these guys have to deal with.
One of the great things about crowdfunding
is you don't need everyone to support you.
If 50% of people love you and 50% of the people hate you,
that's fine, you know?
It's as far as the revenue stream is concerned,
being hated is exactly the same as just being ignored.
It doesn't make things worse.
It's only the people who love you that matter.
And so if it costs you
three people to hate you for every person who loves you,
that's worth it if you just another
person loving you and will support you.
So having a bad reputation on the line is not dis-positive.
It doesn't mean that you will fail.
Just so long as the flip side of that is
that you have some people who think you're great.
It's like this weird push and pull
of I'm driving away from work, I'm driving back to work,
when I should be working back at home.
Every day that goes by, it keeps feeling
more and more foreign to me because it's like...
I'm driving away from what I'm supposed to be doing...
back in my house, designing cards.
In a few days, the project is gonna be over,
and people are already asking me, "what's next?
What cards are you gonna design next?"
I don't know how long they're gonna keep asking.
They're asking now.
I mean, in six months,
are they gonna keep asking me?
'Cause they'll probably forget about me.
Now is the time.
Now is the time for me to seize that opportunity.
This morning, uh...
We're all talking about the company that was copying us,
and knocking off the freaker.
And we didn't know what do to about it.
I mean, it's been a weight for us,
so we didn't know whether to take it
and let it be known to our crowd.
Okay, we really didn't know what to do,
but then at the end of the talk this morning,
we were like, "okay," like, "let's do it.
Let's just, like, put it out there."
So Lauren posted it.
We're like, "all right, let's go get some lunch
and get out of here."
Just got back from that,
and Lauren goes upstairs, and she gets on her computer,
and she was like, "whoa, guys! You got to check this out!"
So there was hundreds of posts
on their Facebook and Twitter of just support for us
and going to them, being like, "why are you doing this?
What's wrong with you?"
There's this one guy that posted a picture
of our American flag freaker on his arm,
and he had his middle finger up, and it was pretty cute.
It's gone on four hours of just them going nuts on it.
People are writing us, being like, "they won't let me post
anything more on their Facebook."
You know, "they've kicked me off of their Twitter," or whatever.
And we're just like, "wow, that's crazy!"
[Keyboard clacking]
And it's so fresh that this is happening,
so, like, we're not used to having such a large group
supporting us.
I mean, months ago, we didn't have anybody with us.
It was just us, and now the feeling
of having this group behind us that wants to support us
that much and it means that much to them,
what we're doing,
that they would do that, it was just,
it was a feeling that...
I don't know, I've never had before,
and it...
It was just, um...
It's like it's cool.
It's beautiful to have that kind of support from, you know,
people we don't even know.
You know, strangers to us.
And just this beginning and now here we are. Yeah.
About a week ago...
I kind of tried to think about,
"oh, it's gonna be so awesome,
it's gonna be so great when the project's over,
and it's successful, and I'll be able to look back and say,
see what I had accomplished."
And I should be celebrating, I should be happy, right?
But I'm not.
I don't want to watch it.
I don't want to sit there and watch it
because I don't want it to be over.
And, you know, I think about,
is this...is it that little 15 minutes of fame?
I don't want that to be it.
It's gonna go beyond me just working for my boss
and creating a picture for him.
You know, as an artist, I've always tried to find, like,
what my art is, what kind of style is mine,
what do I...what am I gonna contribute,
you know, to this world as an artist.
And...
I've found that art.
I've found that style.
I've found that one thing.
I've found what I was supposed to create.
It's a first time in my entire life
that I feel that my art
is actually going to mean something.
Every ounce of my being is just saying, "don't let go of it.
Don't...
don't let go of that grasp that you have.
You've got to keep it. You've got to keep it."
"Keep working. Keep working.
Plan for the next thing." I don't want...
I don't want that to be over.
It's not that I don't want the project to be over.
I don't want that change in me that's has happened to be over.
Because, you know, for once, I feel...
I feel that I'm working for something.
I feel hope in my life because of my art.
So I don't want to just go back to the way things were
and just kind of lead this miserable existence.
I want...
I want it to mean something.
And I don't want for that meaning in my life to be over
just because the clock has ticked to zero on the project.
[Clock ticking]
Now that this project is over...
I think about am I going to be able to repeat this.
Am I going to be able to repeat this,
this phenomenon that happened in my life?
This may be my only one chance.
We certainly have no lack of pressure.
We've been in this constant communication with the fans,
what they want, and what they want to see.
And so we finally just put
the...kind of the first video out of actual game play.
I'm not used to showing something
this early on, and so, you know, it's always kind
of scary because you don't want
people to interpret that as the final.
So on one hand, you're excited that they like it,
on the other hand, it's not done.
And there's a million loose ends between now and the end.
It used to be that you'd get it to 100%
or 95%, and then you'd show it,
'cause that means you were kind of getting close.
Now, we get it to 80%, 70%,
and then we solicit the feedback.
And that's been a big educational process for us.
And so we've been going back and forth in this sort of dance
with the public.
I always say you can never compete with the crowd.
Like, no matter how smart my 10 or 20 guys are,
we're not as smart as 10,000 as they're looking at stuff.
It's a completely kind of different paradigm
for making games.
There's a paradigm shift going on in innovation.
It's the largest paradigm shift since the industrial revolution.
And what the paradigm shift is, is that innovation
is increasingly getting viable for users,
either as single individuals or collaborating with others.
We don't have any idea
what the limits are to what crowds can do.
It's inconceivable
that a crowd could produce a high-quality encyclopedia.
It's inconceivable because our brains don't work that way.
And one of the lessons to learn
is that we should not be making these assumptions.
We're gonna be wrong over and over and over again.
And this is one of the great glories of the time,
is that we're wrong because we're able to do things
we didn't know that we could do as a crowd.
You guys are so beautiful.
Dinner's coming. All right.
[Vocalizing]
All right, here you go, guys. Here you go.
Here you go, Pete.
[Vocalizing]
Okay, mama!
I've got some pretty cool news.
Yeah?
Abc's "shark tank" contacted us today.
- Mm-hmm. - And they want us to come on
and present freaker U.S.A. Awesome.
- Yeah. - National TV.
- Freaker U.S.A.
I'll be like, "yo, y'all. Yo, y'all, look."
I actually haven't watched it before,
and when they contacted me early today, I, like,
went through and watched, like, the first whole season.
So "shark tank" is basically a live investment thing.
So there's like these five people
that have made a bunch of money.
You go on, "here's my idea," and they go,
"it is cool" or "it is dumb." Yeah.
And "I'll give you that money" or "i won't give you that money,
"and "I'll make fun of you" or "i won't make fun of you
on national television."
So there's a lot of pressure behind it of, like,
how are you gonna make me look?
You gonna make me look silly,
or are you gonna make me look smart?
- Yeah. - You gonna, you know, so...
A little nervous, for sure. Yeah.
It sounds like a great opportunity, actually.
Uh, yes, it is a great opportunity.
It's, I think they get around
7 million viewers. Oh, wow!
Yeah. so...
I feel the intimidation right there.
You know, your grandpa will expect you
to wear a suit and tie. Oh, a suit and tie, yeah.
I'll probably have a suit and tie on.
I'll make him proud.
[Both laugh]
I promise I won't take off my pants.
How about that? That's good. That's good.
When Jackson did the first project
and was finished with that,
I think that gave him just enough of the bug
to keep going and keep going, which is great, because,
you know, it provides our family more income.
But at the same time,
it's the same cycle of work with him going to work during the day
and then coming home again
and working late, late into the night...
and me not getting any help with the girls.
So a project ends after 40 days,
or whatever the time is that you allow for it to be happening.
But then another project will start.
And we just continue this over and over again.
And I don't know how long
I can do that here by myself.
I didn't sign up to be a single mom,
but that's what I'm doing right now.
Now that I'm a few weeks into the project
and kind of like the excitement and the energy of the beginning
of doing something new has worn off,
a lot of times I find myself having to pause
and re-evaluate myself and check myself and kind of get back to
the original reason why I wanted to do this in the first place...
the love that I have for engraving and currency
and that type of art, because, you know, after the 30th card
and it's like 2:00 in the morning,
and I'm sitting there, and my eyes are
about to pop out of my head 'cause
I'm just sitting there looking at the screen,
and I'll just sit there with my pen in my hand,
and I'll just sit there and zone.
And when there's nothing else
that I want to do less than draw cards,
I just have to think to myself,
"there is a reason why I'm doing this.
There is are reason why I am juggling a full-time job
and doing this at home."
And the reason is because this is going
to allow me to create a life for myself and my family,
that is gonna completely change our lives from now on...
for the rest of our lives.
Maybe... maybe in a month from now,
I won't have to have two jobs.
And it's that love and passion for what I'm doing, the art,
coupled with the idea that all this hard work,
all these sleepless, you know, nights,
and me staying up late and being away from my family,
those things, those factors coming together
could equal me changing my life
and me creating something new for my family.
And it's those kind of thoughts that when I sit there
and zone out that I have to bring back
into the forefront of my mind,
and those are the things that keep me going,
and those are the things that keep me up late at night.
[Insects chirping]
All right.
Well, "shark tank" found out about us through our
crowdfunding campaign that we did.
"Shark tank" is basically like a live investment show,
so there's these five self-made
million-, billionaires on, and you pitch them your idea.
And you say you can be a part of my company
for this much money,
and I'll give you this much percent of it.
So you're, like, going on, risking,
giving up part of your company, but also with the possibility
of getting a bunch of money, too.
I am excited about it.
The possibilities are pretty big.
Roughly, like, 7 million people watch it,
but I'm still nervous about...
Getting nervous on national television.
And not being able to say words, if I get out there,
and they're like, "so, tell us about your company."
And I'm like, "uh, blah, blah, blah," like,
can't think at all 'cause the cameras are pointing at me,
and, you know, everything
I know has suddenly disappeared into a place in my head
where I can't find it.
So that's pretty nervousing, 'cause if somebody gets
that vibe, they zone in on it, and then they're,
you know, they're sweating and they just...
Try to draw it out of them even more.
So the name of the show is pretty fitting..."shark tank."
But, hopefully, hopefully, I just get out there
and feel my vibe and feel their vibe
and just have a good time with it, you know?
But there's seven people that are in the company now.
And at the same time,
you know, the community that we've built,
now it feels like those eyes are on it,
and also, you know, the hope of us succeeding.
So I know...
If we don't succeed, I feel like it would...
It would probably make...lose a lot of hope
for a lot of people.
I...i have this list that I work from that...
Is just a list of all the cards that I have to do,
and I Mark off which cards that I've got done.
I pretty much have to do one card a day
to be on schedule.
And at this point...
I'm already probably five cards behind.
And even at work, we've started doing crunch hours.
It's just another term for overtime.
And I'm working 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.
So that's 12 hours out of my day
that I'm not even drawing any cards.
And the only time I get to start working on them
is when I would usually want to go to bed.
And I can't even see the light
at the end of the tunnel with that.
It's...
It just seems impossible to me right now.
[Sighs]
Oh!
So "shark tank's" the show...
I guess it's reality television, you know.
But it's like, basically, you have some venture capitalists,
and you go pitch your business idea, but it's all theatrical,
because it's all made for television.
And so you pitch your idea,
and they decide to invest in you.
And this all happens in 10 minutes.
It's, you know, it's very theatrical.
They tear you part, it's the shark tank,
they have teeth, there's blood.
Probably everyone's thinking the same thing I am, you know,
we don't want to lose control.
You know, it's like, what you give up,
what you sacrifice for...
For success, and what is success?
You know, or are we already successful?
I would say yes, but, you know, there's always more road ahead.
You know, and I feel like...
I feel like I don't know if we're gonna lose control.
On one hand, it would be irresponsible
not to take the opportunity, business-wise.
What we've been offered this amazing opportunity to,
you know, go on national prime time TV...
where we can build our audience,
we can build our community.
On the other hand, we have everything
that we've been avoiding with it thus far.
Would it be trading any kind of ideals?
I don't know, but I have no control
over it at this point, so I just hope for the best.
[Siren wailing]
Oh, well! [Clears throat]
First off, you guys are looking beautiful.
- Thank you. - My name is Zach.
I invented this thing called a freaker,
and I'm here today looking for a $200,000 investment
in exchange for a 10% equity in my company freaker U.S.A.
[Ceiling fan droning]
[Cellphone ringing]
Okay.
How did they treat you?
They treat you good?
Were they mean? Okay.
You didn't cry, did you?
Well, that's something.
He sounded good. He sounded like...
You know, he sounded like he had a good time.
You know, he went out there to be entertaining,
and he feels good about it.
He feels like he gave them a show,
which is good, which is what we were looking for.
We wanted to be memorable.
I think he feels good, though.
I think we all kind of feel the same way,
and we're glad we don't have to deal with that,
that responsibility.
We don't have a...
The company doesn't have a parent,
and we're all still orphans.
I don't want to do that again.
I don't want to go through...
I don't want to...
I just don't want to lose control of that to people
that we fought against so hard not to work for.
Yeah, Lauren... Lauren's a nervous wreck.
Yeah, she's a complete nervous wreck.
You should probably call her.
Yeah, we were staying up all night, but...Yeah.
Hey. so I got wink there on the web site.
Yeah, right there.
Are you ready?
"In the end, it was clear that Zach crain
could care less if he got a deal on 'shark tank' or not.
He ended up getting something far more valuable...
at least to him...and he still has the freedom and control
to do it the best way that he knows how to do.
No doubt that he will continue to promote
the freaker U.S.A. brand in the only way that he can."
[Children laughing]
When he's really busy
and I'm with the babies all by myself,
I think...
"Truly, this isn't gonna be forever."
But then with kids,
you turn around, and they're already grown, you know.
And so in this time that he's working,
it seems like it's a little time,
but in a kid's life, it's a really, like,
they don't have very much childhood.
And so when you say, "I'll just be working on this in...
for about a year, we're gonna struggle through this," and for
a little baby, a year is just like...
that's a lot of little time to miss.
What I'm seeing more and more every day
as I go through this is that why can't I make my job
and my art the same thing.
You know, the logical thing to do would be,
"well, if you don't have all this time,
then you can't do this stuff, well, then
just don't do a second project."
But to me, that would be
the worst thing that I could ever do.
Is my job that important to me?
No, I can find another job if I have to.
But is this project that important to me?
Absolutely it's that important to me.
My daughter Claire, she knows what I do.
She's learning from that.
I can't teach her to give those things up.
And I wouldn't want her to give those things up in the future.
I can't work!
[Laughing] aah!
People who take responsibility often get it.
That is shifting our posture to the point where human beings,
where whatever they do, can say, "i made this."
"Here, I made this. What do you think?"
And when we own that question,
we are doing a different kind of work
than when you say, "i was just doing my job."
Prior to the kickstarter,
we used to do development work for other people.
We weren't sort of in control of our own destiny.
And I had to lay off a lot of people.
That's the worst thing, I think,
an employer could ever do in their life
is to have to lay off perfectly good people.
My job is I got to keep everybody employed and working.
Here we are, and things are going great.
We feel extremely fortunate.
But already, I have to start thinking about what's next.
My issue here now is how do I go to people
and say, "hey, we want to do another kickstarter,
but we haven't finished this one yet."
And there's a good business reason,
but how do I get 'em to buy off
on why we need to do that?
So we just finished the production of the new video
for the new project.
It's completely different from the first one.
The first video was, like, really slick and sexy
and had all these really cool shots
and these cool, like, interviews.
But we don't have the time to make another video like that.
And so when I was talking to my brother,
and said, "Taylor, what are we gonna do for this next video?"
And Taylor was like...
Well, okay, so my idea is this.
My idea, you're not gonna like my idea.
I'm not gonna like it?
- Nope, you won't like it. - Okay.
I think it's to do, like,
the interview on a web chat like we're doing right now,
where you're sitting there and I'm sitting here,
and I ask you the questions, and you answer them.
And you just kind of give all the information that you want.
Yeah.
I don't understand. What do you mean?
They already know that we can make a good video.
They already know that you draw great stuff.
All we really have to do is get across new information,
and this is the only way I can think of
to do it in the time line that you have put us on.
And he's asking me all these questions about the new project,
like what's different about it, what's gonna be in it.
And at the end of us chatting,
my brother looks at me and goes...
Well, I've got good news.
And I get this...I get this like, feeling in my stomach,
because my brother always pulls this kind of stuff with me.
And in my head, I'm like, "oh, no. Oh, no."
I recorded the whole thing,
and I think we should use the video from what we just did.
Oh! [laughs]
It was good.
It was really good. I believed you.
You were very Sincere, and I think people will back you.
Hey, old school, come here.
My sources tell me you're starting another project.
That's right, I'm pretty excited about the team
and the concept we put together.
But aren't you still in the middle of "wasteland"?
We are, but the writers and concept artists
have finished their work on "wasteland," and we'd like
to get them going on another project.
Don't you just fire them when they're done?
Well, we like to keep the teams together.
We like to start pre-production early.
It takes months to nail down the design
and fine tuning of a game.
Months? For writing?
Sure, that way when "wasteland 2" finishes,
the scripters can start working
on material that's well polished.
It's the way we did it back in the interplay days.
- Inter-who? - Listen,
I doubt you've even heard of the game anyway.
- Try me. - There's really no point.
- I'm serious, give me a chance. - I just don't think...
Brian, I've done my homework, I've studied truths that are...
okay, fine, it's called "torment."
Never heard of it.
In my opinion, "torment" is the single greatest game
ever made, and it's a work of art.
It's a work of literature.
There was a game that we did back in the interplay days
that has kind of a big cult following behind it.
It's called "planescape: torment."
It was a very different kind of role-playing game.
It was very literary in nature,
and you used your words as weapons.
I'm always amazed that that game was made
in the first place. It astounds me.
So now you go and you try to make that game today,
and you just can't get it done because it's not
your cookie-cutter combat or sports game
or whatever the flavor of the month is.
You know, "guitar hero" or whatever it is.
I mean, those games are fun, that's great.
But not everything fits into that little cookie cutter.
There's a huge, tremendous desire
for these games out there,
but nobody has stepped in and said, "okay, we trust you,
here's the money." Who do you go to?
You go directly to the people that want the game.
It turns the whole model on it's head.
It turns the whole model from we need somebody above us,
we need to convince them to give us the money.
We need to get down on our knees,
to we just go to our fan base and say,
"do you want this?" And if they want it,
they'll give you the money. And if they don't, they won't.
We're kind of pot-committed at this point
to going with the crowdfunding
because it's really the only way.
It's the only way "wasteland" could have ever been made.
I mean, we did pitch it to every publisher on the planet
for 20 years with no chance of getting it made,
and we pitched it to the crowd once,
and they went for it.
We've sort of become the poster child
for the indie development, anti-publisher movement,
and that was...I mean, that's just an accident.
That's not like that was some secret plan or anything.
But if they can believe that we can make something else,
starting right now,
without negatively impacting "wasteland,"
then I think we can get their support.
But without the crowd,
there's really not much of a future
for us and what we're trying to do.
This is my lucky shirt.
I know it looks ridiculous,
but I don't really care.
This is a pretty special shirt to me.
I mean, I've worn this at the birth
of one of my daughters.
I wore this for the first day of the first project,
"federal 52, part I." And I'm wearing it today
because today is the win or lose day for me,
and this is the day we start the "federal 52, part ii."
I can barely... I can barely think straight
because I stayed up all night last night working,
getting everything ready.
I've got...
I've got the video, which it's not as, you know,
it's not as slick as the first one,
but I think it's pretty funny.
I recorded the whole thing!
And I think we should use the video
from right there what we just did!
Oh! [laughs]
I got my pledge tier set up, my pictures, I've got hopefully,
all the typos corrected, because the last project, I had so many
typos, because I'm an idiot.
And all I have to do now, it's 11:52.
Ugh! And all I have to do is push go.
I got to wait till 12:00 because in my last project,
I kind of teased that I gave all my backers
a time that it was gonna start, and I said it was gonna start,
you know, at 12:00 noon on Saturday,
so be there, be ready, because I had some, like,
limited edition stuff, and hopefully,
I have all these backers around the world
that are sitting there clicking refresh, refresh, refresh,
waiting for it to go.
So I just want it to go.
I want to start, 'cause I want to see if this next chapter
in my life is either gonna work out or it's not gonna work out.
I mean, it hasn't even been, like, two minutes,
and I already have more backers than I did, like,
in the first 24 hours of the first project.
Like, 420, 422,
and my phone...
my phone won't even stop.
Won't even stop dinging and people going.
I can't even think straight.
It's like...
They just keep coming. They keep coming.
Like, at this rate, I don't even know, like...
We could get funded in, like, the first hour or so,
compared to the first 24 hours.
This is ridiculous! It's ridiculous!
Oh, hold on one second.
It's my brother.
Yeah? yes, yes.
No, I know. Are you watching this?
No, look at it! Look at it!
Even with that video. I know!
It's just keeps going up.
Shut up, all right, all right.
See ya.
Ha ha ha!
I'm excited,
but I feel like I want to vomit at the same time.
It's only been...
it's only been 18 minutes.
And the project is...I mean,
the project is fully funded.
I mean...
I mean, yeah, that's awesome.
You know, but...
At the same time, I didn't even know what I was going to feel.
I'm the most excited,
but I'm also the most afraid that I've ever been before.
My dreams are now coming, barreling at me,
like, at 100 miles an hour.
And it's my life is about to change.
I mean, it's not about to change,
it's changing now.
It just changed in 18 minutes.
And it's...I mean,
it's hard to realize, like, what...
All that work,
and then you have all these people that are supporting you
and there for you, even though you may not
even know who they are.
I just hope that, you know,
everything that I've done and everything that I do
during the project is enough to merit that sacrifice.
[Ticks]
[Cellphone vibrates]
So I woke up Sunday to a text from Michael,
who does all of our warehouse tagging
and does a lot of the shipping,
and it just said "911" on it, so I was like, "oh!"
Shortly thereafter, I got a text from Alisha.
"Come to the office, now." And I'm like, "oh, okay, oh!"
So we got there and, you know,
the lock was all broken, and obviously crow-barred,
so we got robbed.
And just went in. There was a cop there.
And the computers were all gone.
We just got a new camera for Justin,
and that was stolen,
a lot of the lenses.
So we got robbed on Sunday.
Sunday morning, my wife told me that she had just read online
that they had been robbed,
and lost, I would say, $10,000
worth of computers and cameras.
And for somebody so small,
that's enough to, you know, kind of put you out of business.
So she said, "you know, what can we do?
We have to do something." The following morning
after the robbery, we were all sitting in the office,
and we're like, "okay, we got to figure out a way
to get some money back." As we're talking about it,
Lauren calls us over to her computer, and she's like,
"guys, check this out!" And I'm like, "what?"
And she's like, "gravity records,
just down the street from us,
put up a Facebook event page throwing a benefit concert
to help freaker get their shit back."
My wife told me that I'm gonna put together an event.
I need you to contact whoever you know in these bands
that, you know, might be able to do it
and just call in some favors.
So I started calling and texting,
and she started organizing it all and...
Here we are.
There was this huge, massive event in,
like, an hour from us figuring out about the robbery.
You know, here we are, I'm just like, "oh, we took this big hit,
now this whole community just came together
through this big party,
turned it into this positive event."
And it was awesome.
[Mid-tempo music playing]
Hi, everyone. You're all looking beautiful tonight!
[Cheering]
[Cheers and applause]
Buy some freakers!
It was one of the most moving nights of my life, by far.
11, 10, 9, 8,
7, 6, 5, 4,
3, 2, 1
[cheers and applause]
74,385 backers!
It's been a long haul to get back to this place
of making games the way I want to do it
and, you know, having everybody's support.
What we've done and to get behind us in such a major way
is just...it's thrilling.
And you know, I just can't say I'm fortunate enough times.
You know, for me, this journey has come full circle.
You know, I think back to when I was young.
And now here I am, back to where I started,
back doing what I want to do.
I can't imagine anything more satisfying than this,
considering the kind of a route
that I've had to take to get here.
I hope the people look at what I've done
and see that they can do it.
All of my work, all of the work that I've done
up until this point has led to this.
And it's...
It's unreal for me to think about, you know,
people all across the world,
they may have just been, you know, sitting in
their living room or whatever,
and turned the computer on, and then, "oh, oh!
That's a nice deck of cards."
And then clicked.
And I may not know those people,
and I may never know those people,
and I may never meet those people.
But every individual person that did that
played an enormous role in changing my life.
And...
Like, a little thing that people don't even know,
and they will know when they get the decks,
like, on the inside of the decks, there...
on the inside of the decks is...
It says "for Claire," and "for Scarlet."
And those are my daughters.
Those people absolutely changed the course of my life.
And the course of my daughter's lives,
and my family.
[Laughs]
Tag, you're it!
Look at mine, daddy.
That's awesome! What is that?
Mwah!
Me laying my ideas of my heart out on the table,
that people can come to that.
And, you know, if I can do it, anybody can do it.
[Growling] [Screams]
[Laughs]
[Seagull calling]
Three years ago when I moved out here,
I didn't think that...
I had no idea what was in store for me
coming out to Los Angeles.
I had a blast out here.
I met lots of awesome people,
the people that mean a lot to me now.
And they'll mean a lot to me in 20 years from now.
Obviously, it's sad to think
about leaving something like this.
Everyone at my office was like, "you're moving to Texas?
What are you talking about, you're moving to Texas?
You're gonna melt in Texas."
Yes, I know it's hot in Texas. I don't care.
That's why they invented air conditioners.
You know, I mean, it's just another chapter in my life,
and a chapter in my life with my family and my wife.
And I'm so excited about it,
and I have learned so many things,
and I've picked so many things up that have helped me become
who I am and become the father that I am, the husband.
And I couldn't ask for anything more,
but I get to go home.
You don't have to sit around
and wait for some company to decide that you want it.
You can do it for yourself.
We have built this enormous platform
that's open to everyone.
We have built this moment in time
when people who care can stand up and care.
Let's not blow it. The revolution is here right now.
Look past the old ways of making stuff.
We're building things again.
We're building things in Brooklyn,
we're building things in Japan,
we're building things
everywhere around the world.
We live in a new era.
We live in a brand new world where, all of a sudden,
the technology that is around us
enables us to do the things that we believe in.
You guys look beautiful. I want to hold you.
If I could hug you all right now, I would.
But there's a thing, there's a screen,
you're in the future.
But I love you anyway.
And if you ever see me, I'd love a hug.
[Mid-tempo electronic music plays]
♪ Everybody tells you you got to stay there ♪
♪ 'cause you know in a couple more years ♪
♪ it ain't gonna seem fair ♪
♪ but you know in another year ♪
♪ you worry about the images ♪
♪ but I don't look around ♪
♪ and it's wonderful ♪
♪ 'round and 'round it all ♪
♪ now you think we didn't abide ♪
♪ 'cause everything's exactly like, like we fantasize ♪
♪ everything you do is like the outfit that you look for ♪
♪ you're never gonna find it ♪
♪ we're exclusive ♪
♪ everybody says ♪
♪ don't you want to take ♪
♪ some time away ♪
♪ but everybody ♪
♪ they say it's 'cause of me ♪
♪ I sing to easily ♪
♪ yeah, we're exclusive ♪
♪ everybody says ♪
♪ don't you want to take ♪
♪ some time away ♪
♪ well, everybody ♪
♪ they say it's 'cause of me ♪
♪ I sing too easily ♪
♪ you're gonna stay there ♪
♪ 'cause you know in a couple more years ♪
♪ ain't gonna seem fair ♪
♪ then you know, even this year ♪
♪ people won't fly out for good ♪
♪ 'cause I just see 'em go walk away ♪
♪ but I've been sitting here, and I've been singing ♪
♪ we're exclusive ♪
♪ everybody says ♪
♪ don't you want to take ♪
♪ some time away ♪
♪ well, everybody ♪
♪ they say it's 'cause of me ♪
♪ I sing too easily ♪
♪ yeah, we're exclusive ♪
♪ everybody says ♪
♪ don't you want to take ♪
♪ some time away ♪
♪ well, everybody ♪
♪ they say it's 'cause of me ♪
♪ I sing too easily ♪
♪ when you are right in the middle of it ♪
♪ you don't know what's going on ♪
♪ everybody tells you ♪
♪ that you've got to keep singing the same old song ♪
♪ when you were right in the middle of it ♪
♪ you don't know what's going on ♪
♪ take it like ♪
♪ you don't mind ♪