Full transcription:
Tracy: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview.
Jessica: Yeah, I'd love to support in any way I can, what you are up to.
Tracy: Thank you. Yeah, I feel the same about you. I'd love to just get an overall, how did you get here? And what are you doing?
Jessica: So I basically moved to the US because I wanted to go to Stanford Business School, mainly because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. So that because I actually had a plan, secretly, I'm like, I don't know, what the hell am I doing? And so I said, Oh, people go to business school when they don't know and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sounds like a great idea.
Tracy: Right?
Jessica: So I'm in America and interestingly enough, I went through a hard depression. Because mainly I found out while and, and by the end of it, that it was because I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And I came to a breaking point where I had no relationship with self. I was just living for an external validation. And the beauty about the crisis is it got me to see a different side of my life, which was Jessica, who had dreams and had passions that needed to come alive, weren't coming alive. And on top of that passion was writing. I just love to write, but I stopped writing, I guess, when I was 14 because nobody tells you that anyways, writing is something that will make you money, that it's important. So just focus on things that make money. So during business school, I said, Why don't I start a blog on the side called Passion Stories. And it will be interviewing people who are passionate about what they do and get me to write again, obviously, I didn't start it because we all say we want to do things, and we don't. So up until graduation, I just talked about it here and there, but never did anything. So when I joined Airbnb, which was then a small startup, I was talking about it to one of my colleagues, and she's like, Oh, I love doing photography on the side. Why don't we do the blog? So then I'm like, sure. Now I can get away with purpose. Because there's something someone else knows about it and is involved. So after I would say you're in an Airbnb, we started going doing these interviews. I remember interviewing a fashion technologist watercolor is a woman with CJ.
Tracy: How did you pick the people that you were going to interview?
Jessica: At the beginning, it was word of mouth? So I would ask people like, Do you know someone who just love what they do? Like? Yes, you have to talk to Allison who left this job in finance to fashion and surprisingly enough or not, people love to share their stories. They were hungry, to be heard. And so that intersection of people wanting to share those stories and other people wanting to hear them, made the blog, actually start picking up and becoming successful. Photography, obviously, is so helpful in doing that. And the more I was working on the blog, the more I started seeing, you know, when you start seeing a trend, and you're like, hey, How come nobody noticed it, but I'm seeing it. And for me, it was how many people had started on the side. Just this simple idea of if you want to pursue your passion full time, just start something small on the side. And I realized that it wasn't very much in the narrative, the narrative career, nobody encouraged me to start on this side. So I said, Okay, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get more people to start on the side through workshops. And the workshop at the beginning was totally like hacking something, go, this was like three-hour thing in my apartment and invite friends. And then it picked up or coming hungry. But nobody was saying anything. They would be like, all right, I commit to doing this and this and this, and then not doing it.
Tracy: They would come to the workshops and participate. And then that was sort of the end of it?
Jessica: Yeah, they would be like, oh, I'm excited. I want to start this blog. I want to paint again, I want to do this homebrewing. Nothing happens. Yep. So I was like, This is not working, you know. And so this is essentially through like iteration, like borrowing a lot. Also what I learned from Airbnb, but like a startup and thinking about at that point, the workshops as a product, and how can I iterate on it, it turned into finally the product that is now their five-week program, is since then we've launched over 400 projects through it. And it's incredible what people can accomplish when you give them accountability. When you give them support when you give them structure. Magic happens. So I finally like when the company became more sustainable, I realized that I can make it to a point where I can pay myself a salary, not a great salary, but something to live with and able to be three other people. I asked Airbnb.
Tracy: That's amazing because it isn't easy to do. How long did it take you to get to that point?
Jessica: A little over a year and a half.
Tracy: And what were some of the things that you learn during that process of iteration that really helped transform the workshops you were offering?
Jessica: I learned that people don't know what they want, which is universal with anything when you start asking people. I mean a lot of people were more ambitious about what They can do then what? Actually, they didn't. So not trusting that people are going to follow up with what they do and just being their mother, to creating a brotherhood that mothers people think people wanted you to ask them every week to show up and see what they accomplished by the beginning. They don't say they want it. And then as soon as they opt you offer, they all over it, and they are actually getting shit done. I also learned that fear is the biggest, biggest, biggest resistance like, there is no other thing like, oh, I'm not good enough. I don't have to have that. It's just fear. So giving people that awareness and tools to deal with that can take them places. And the last thing, the power of having people meet in person, nothing really can replace that personal connection that you make the power of meeting up in person. That's why when we launch an online product, next year, half of it is in person and half of it is online is going to be launched in five cities, where LA, New York, obviously San Francisco, DC, and Chicago. Wonderful. When is it going to launch we're planning on launching the first quarter of next year, you take the online classes, then there will be someone locally who is going to organize the meetups, the weekly meetups to report back on your project. And then the best projects would get to be flown to San Francisco to participate in our big event China where I was fly them and pay for their state to launch their project in San Francisco.
Tracy: I'm wondering what are your dreams for passion go?
Jessica: My big goal is getting everyone started. Everyone, whatever city you are, whatever age you are.
Tracy: And what are some of the projects that have come out of your workshop series to date that you're incredibly proud of?
Jessica: One of them is called XO Bakes. And it's a project about designing cookies that turned into a business. It started literally with this woman began Oh, I like to design cookies. And I just left my tech job at square to her literally designing cookies, putting them out there getting picked up by the media, all of a sudden having more orders that she can handle obviously paid orders, needing to hire people to work with her and starting Seeing no four orders and then her going from being like oh, I just left a job to now I have a business. I love that because of the idea of like, Oh, I like designing cookies, who's gonna give a shit? And then being like, no this look at what could this do? Just if you start doing it, putting it out there in the world.
Tracy: When you say like designing cookies, what are the cookies look like? What's your angle?
Jessica: So it could be anything from designing your logo of your company and cookies to designing Frida Kahlo cookies, they're just so beautiful. And then that the idea behind it is people want customized gifts, right or something special to use for an event for the Oscars, there was this huge party in LA and they wanted her to design like cookies for the Oscars. And it's something that again, like she doesn't want to build the next big company, she just wants to something that she likes on the side that make rich enough money and why not?
Tracy: One of the things that we've sort of seen as we're talking to people, there's a sense that you need to work in tech, and sort of have a safety net of this tech money in order to live your dreams. Obviously, we don't believe that that's true. But have you seen that myth dispelled and the types of people who are coming through your program?
Jessica: Yeah, I mean, I would say especially people like because we live in San Francisco, there is that other feeling of like, I'm sick of tech, and people just want to be like, yes, it's okay if you are, you know, that positive reinforcement. I think it's the narrative. I go back, I like to talk about there because it's real like the narrative is startup, an app, and it will be bought for billions or you become the next Airbnb and success is that. So it's zero or a billion, which is a very VC mentality. And instead of being like, what if you built a business that made you a million dollars a year? What are you doing, what you'd love for you don't have a lot of employees where you can travel? Thank you. You can call it lifestyle business. I call it living?
Tracy: Have you listened to the second season of Startup?
Jessica: Oh, no, I only watched the first.
Tracy: In that one, they have two women starting a dating business. And I think at the end, they decided that well, maybe we're just a lifestyle business. And there's this almost sense of defeat. But like you're saying, I mean, if you're making a business that sustains you that you're passionate about, Well, isn't that success?
Jessica: Exactly. I think it goes back to that shitty narrative.
Tracy: Right? And I'm sorry because I interrupted you. You're going to talk about some of the other companies that you have helped through Passion Co that were successful that you're excited about?
Jessica: Yeah, there was one guy that is passionate about cats. And he's a software engineer and he's like, I want to do something about cats. So he launched a cat scale like he both and prototype the cat scale. It's called Little Cat Labs. And it's a scale that links to your absolute because 50% of cats are overweight.
Tracy: Really?
Jessica: Yeah, so that's another third project is a basically a brand, a beer brand. It's homebrew. So this arena is awesome. So she built a brand and everything from scratch in one month. Now she wants to, like start selling her beer in stores.
Tracy: How did you build that in just one month?
Jessica: Because she was already toying out with home brewing. And then the program gave her or I'm gonna launch the name, the brand, the website, three flavors, named them, test them. So it just gives you that like, I'm going, you know, versus I'm toying.
Tracy: Okay, so now you're doing a conference called Start? How did that come about?
Jessica: Yes. So it came about, because a lot of people were writing us from different parts in the world and being like, are in a country. I mean, I, I want to launch my passion project, but I can't come to San Francisco, or it's five weeks long, I have travel. So we said two things like one. What if we brought 500 people together, like we already are bringing 30 people together in the program and crazy stuff is happening. Imagine bringing 500 people together over three days, what can happen, we believe that crazy amazing things are gonna happen. So we took our curriculum and condensed it into the weekend, we also brought in amazing speakers that we know just to share their stories of starting. And also there's going to be over 30 workshops that you can take, they will help you get started and the last day you launch. So think about it as a hackathon for your passion. So we're really excited because this is the biggest thing we've done. And we've been really also impressed by the response and how many amazing people want to participate, speak, join large projects.
Tracy: Do they need to come with their passion already figured out?
Jessica: So there's two tracks. So there are people who already know their passion and have started dabbling on their passion project. It's going to be a good platform for them to launch it and potentially win a parametric award. And there are people who don't know. So they're going to go on to track which is the Find your Passion track, which is we're going to give them a workshop specifically that we've been teaching for two years on how to find your passion, they're going to commit to one step towards their passion over the weekend and also launch it on Sunday. And what is the lunch look like? So for the people who are finding their passion, we're dividing people into tribes. So within their tribe, they would be able to show what they did. You know, it could be even like if they painted the mural with the muralist that we're having, or they like, took their first baking class or homebrewing class, or if they wrote the first entry of their blog, anything that was a small step, share it with their tribe on Sunday. And if it's something physical, they can exhibit it. And the people who have a more serious passion project that they came in, they going to go on stage and pitch it. So they're going to take classes on Saturday, they are more how to pitch your project. How do you do your marketing classes, business fundamentals that a lot of people need for their passion project, and they get the chance to win the passion project award. So there will be a jury that will decide six winners.
Tracy: Sounds like such a fantastic weekend. And unlike a lot of other conferences, where you're just sort of sitting back and listening to other people tell you about things, you actually get to go and do it yourself and have that accountability you were mentioning before that's so important to people.
Jessica: And we're not gonna have chairs, the conference or the bring your own chair or pillow to sit on.
Tracy: What's the idea behind that?
Jessica: You want you to express your creativity, even from the way you want to sit? We don't want you to sit in chairs. Go crazy. How do you want to sit? Right chairs, separate people? You know, what if we brought a couch with you and shared it with other people?
Tracy: I love that idea. Back when I was looking at some of the work that you're doing on the website, you had the quote about people who are dying, that they say they wish they had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expect of me. How does that help guide your mission?
Jessica: It helps us remind people of the urgency, right like because you can always put off what you want to do over there is like hundreds of thousands of excuses, right? It could even be Oh, I'm having a hard time with my partner. I'm not gonna do what I love. Even drama is a way of putting off your life. And so reminding people that as much as it's suck, you're gonna die. What are you waiting for?
Tracy: Yes, do it now.
Jessica: Now, now, doing doing doing because doing gets you out of the fear. That's the only way you can rationalize fear. The only way to like get out of it is movement.
Tracy: Is there something in your life recently that you've felt fear around and that you took steps forward to get over?
Jessica: I did have a medical issue and thankfully, I had surgery, and sometimes doing better things are fine. But that was a wake-up call. And so it was a wake-up call that despite the fact that I'm doing the passion ko and I love what I do, I realized also that I wasn't doing like so many things that I want to do like I have always wanted to go to Bali and I kept putting it outright and writing my book. And since I had this thing I booked all December, I'm going to Bali.
Tracy: Good for you.
Jessica: Right? It was things like that, like that changed. I also decided that I want to be in a relationship that when I go on dates, I'm telling, like guys, you know, date and we're like being like, let's play games and being afraid. And if you're not interested in a relationship, thank you.
Tracy: That's very courageous.
Jessica: Thank you.
Tracy: One of our first episodes was with David Kelley, who founded IDEO. And we were asking him, you know, how he applies some of the strategies that he helped create to his own life. And what was interesting, as he was talking about when he got cancer, you know, he made these deals with God about what he was going to do if his life was saved. And what was interesting was, even though he's schooled in all of these strategies, and he had this life-altering moment, he still kind of wasn't 100%, following the protocol. And we thought that was really interesting just shows how difficult it is for people to really stay on track to do the things that they want to do. There's so many roadblocks in the way.
Jessica: Absolutely. Yeah. That's such a nice story. Thank you for sharing.
Tracy Yeah. For the audience that's listening and they're thinking, yes, I want to take action, I want to do all of these things. And maybe right now, they can't participate in your workshops, because they don't live here. Or maybe they won't live in the five places where you're going to launch next year. If you could tell them three things that they could do right now that would help them have success and taking action with their passion. What would this be?
Jessica: Number one, I would say you can't do it alone, really, like find someone, it doesn't have to be a friend, right? It could be like someone that shares a similar interest in you, and be like, hey, what if we held each other accountable, or come to fashion code, workshop, or the conference, but anyways, community is important. So definitely find someone Don't think like, just trust that you're going to do it on your own. I would say the second thing is set the smallest goal possible, right? Even if it's saying by next week, I want to find a name for my blog check. By the week after I want to write a paragraph for my first blog post. Because once you start getting into action, you're switching your mindset. So you're getting into a place of possibility.
Tracy: With the conference, are you planning to have any community-building aspects that come out of that? will people be able to stay in touch or do anything beyond the conference itself?
Jessica: Yes, so obviously, there's going to be a Facebook group for the way we're designing the tribe as you're connected with. We live in the same city, so you can then have subsequent meetups afterward.
Tracy: Well, thank you so much. This has been really insightful. I'm excited for all the great work that you're doing. And I think that the conference sounds amazing, as well as the workshops.
Jessica: Yeah. People want to come to the conference stock conference. That's cool. Let's see. Oh, go get your ticket.