Running the best restaurant in the U.S. & Selling Tock to Squarespace for $400M – Nick Kokonas of Alinea | E1262

Featured

00:00 Nick Kokonas, CEO at Tock & Co-Owner of Alinea Restaurant Group
00:54 How Nick got into restaurants & met his co-founder Grant Achatz
09:30 Nick’s Angel investments
10:50 Ourcrowd – Check out the deal of the week at https://ourcrowd.com/twist
12:14 What OpenTable got wrong
18:05 Tock’s ticketing innovation
23:20 Benefits of having pre-paid reservations
25:00 Pipe – Start trading for free for 12 months at https://pipe.com/twist
26:40 Dynamic pricing in restaurants
28:55 Nick critiques Jason’s techniques to get a reservation
35:32 Why some Maître d’s hate Tock
38:22 Drata – Get 15% off SOC 2 and other audit at https://drata.com/twist
39:41 Digital checkouts at restaurant tables
44:50 Why tipping should be eliminated & what obstacles stand in the way
50:54 Will high-end restaurants keep doing delivery?
56:16 Hospitality labor supply
1:00:27 Inflation
1:02:42 How Alinea is handling vaccinations & employee health
1:07:18 Alinea’s signature desert
1:12:10 Nick’s core lessons as an entrepreneur
1:20:45 Mock meats

Check out Tock: https://www.exploretock.com

FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis
FOLLOW Nick: https://twitter.com/nickkokonas

Nick Kokonas of Tock & Alinea, flipping the low-margin restaurant model | E1262

How Squarespace Grew to 3.79 Million Subscribers with CEO Anthony Casalena

Crazy stories from scaling, marketing tactics that worked, the future of the platform and more with CEO Anthony Casalena https://bit.ly/twiste1291

China’s reinvigorated crypto ban, plus a bunch of audience questions

A nice Friday news show to close out the week, thanks for listening https://bit.ly/twiste1290

News! China bans crypto transactions (again), Zillow & iBuyers impacting Real Estate + Ask Jason | E1290

Turning Satellite Data into Actionable Info – Orbital Insight’s Kevin O’Brien | E1286

Governments, corporations and hedge funds alike all use Orbital Insight’s tech to make sense of what’s happening on the ground (supply chain, predicting sales, travel & more). Chat with CEO Kevin O’Brien here >>> https://bit.ly/twiste1286

Growth Tech Stock Talk | E1281

Beth Kindig & Knox Ridley from the I/O Fund are some of the best growth stock investors these past few years (they even publish their audited returns). Certainly will learn a thing or two in this episode.

Listen to the episode https://bit.ly/twiste1281

Growth stocks, Inflation impacts, SPACs & more with Beth Kindig & Knox Ridley from I/O Fund | E1281

From Entourage to Investor, a conversation with Adrian Grenier | E1277

Chatted with Adrian about investing, his nonprofit lonelywhale.org, and acting. Plus, did a FounderU segment on product-market fit (want more of that sing up at https://founder.university)

Adrian Grenier: launching a new fund + FounderU: balancing product vision & customer feedback | E1277

Why This Entrepreneur Bought a Bored Ape | E1275

Is this Beanie Babies 2.0, or is there actually some thing more behind these collectable NFTs? Listen and decide for yourself.

Bored Ape Madness with The Infatuation’s Andrew Steinthal + Breaking into VC with Nicole DeTommaso | E1275

Why Housing is Messed Up and One Way to Fix It | E1274

Chatted with Blokable CEO Aaron Holm. Blokable is a vertically integrated housing developer. They build modular units in a factory and then assemble them quickly onsite. In so many American cities there is a housing crisis, Aaron explains some of the reasons why and potential solutions.

Also cover Elizabeth Holmes going to trial.

https://bit.ly/twiste1274

Elizabeth Holmes Theranos fraud trial kickoff + Blokable’s Aaron Holm: how to scale housing | E1274

A Crash Course in How Decentralized Crypto Projects Actually Work (not just the speculation) | E1273

00:00 Jason intros the show
01:50 CCP closes foreign IPO loophole
16:07 The 4 ways the CCP is reigning in big tech
18:44 Roneil Rumburg, Founder and CEO of Audius
27:24 Why NFTs & Crypto matter for music
38:20 How token-based fundraising works
47:44 Why Crypto isn’t as transparent as people think
57:13 The Foundation that controls $450M in tokens
1:07:34 Royal, 3lau’s new company

Check out Audius: https://www.audius.co

FOLLOW Roneil: https://twitter.com/roneilr
FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

CCP closes foreign IPO loophole + Audius’ Roneil Rumburg: decentralized project crash course | E1273

HeadSpin accused of $80M fraud, housing startup irks NIMBYs + Not Boring’s Packy McCormick | E1272

00:00 Jason intros the show
02:06 SEC & DOJ charge SaaS startup Headspin
09:08 Vanta – Get get $1,000 off automating your SOC 2 https://vanta.com/twist
10:39 Digging into HeadSpin
17:35 Fractional home ownership startup Pacaso’s business model
22:45 Indochino – Get $50 off any purchase of $399 or more by using code TWIST at checkout https://indochino.com
24:14 Why neighbors hate Pacaso
33:10 Marketerhire – Get $500 off your first hire at https://MarketerHire.com/TWIST
34:41 Packy McCormick of Not Boring
36:14 Breather and battling Adam Neumann
52:11 How Not Boring makes money
59:12 Packy’s Investing
1:03:17 Are NFTs a grift?

Check out Not Boring: https://www.notboring.co

FOLLOW Packy: https://twitter.com/packym
FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

HeadSpin accused of $80M fraud, housing startup irks NIMBYs + Not Boring’s Packy McCormick | E1272

OnlyFans changes course (again), Circle removing commercial paper from USDC reserves, breaking down Warby Parker’s S-1 | E1271

News show! We cover, OnlyFans being back to business as usual (1:31), the stablecoin Circle cleaning up commercial paper from their USDC reserves (16:49), and does a break down of Warby Parker’s S-1 as the company prepare to go public via direct listing (30:30).

Rapid Fire News: OnlyFans reverses course, Circle to clean up USDC reserves, Warby Parker S-1 | E1271