#23 – Great in 30 minutes

Transcript

[00:00:01] All right, welcome to this special edition of the Becoming Great podcast that is called Great Dot com in 30 minutes where we hopefully we’ll be able to give you regardless if you’re new or if you’ve been following us for a while. A good understanding and hopefully some inspiration of what this company is going to be and why we’re doing this. And there are many questions. What is great that com how great that can make money. How’s it going to be different from other organizations?

[00:00:37] Charity and Casino. That sounds kind of like a weird dish. How can those things be combined? And I think the perfect person to answer all these questions are the founder of great Eric Bergman. How are you today, Erik?

[00:00:56] I’m super excited. I mean, this jump be kind of mood is a very good day to be alive.

[00:01:01] Yes. He has been excited all morning. I’m trying to be calm for this intro. What kind of life for me. That’s not going to find out. Erik is excited. All right. So but even though we have excitement, let’s begin from the get go. How did the idea for greater calm come up? How did it bring all of this begin for you?

[00:01:24] Ok, so let’s go back to the kind of beginning of things I’ve been. I started out as a professional poker player in as a teenager and I went from that into starting marketing for poker. That later on turned into what became Catina Media, the previous business that I founded together with my childhood friend, another aimin. And that grew very, very rapidly. And that made a lot of money and is now traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, valued at 300 million euros or so. And during this journey, I learned a lot. I had a lot of fun.

[00:02:05] And every time I reached a point where I wasn’t feeling very good. In general, not really about what I was doing or with my my health. So I was pushing things too hard and the team was pushing things too hard. Was a great team that did great efforts. But I could see what kind of sacrifices it came with. And I realized that I was doing all this for money and for myself. And I started thinking about, OK, how could this be done differently? I got this passion for creating companies and I got this passion for marketing. And I’ve learned a lot about the casino industry. But there was something missing in this. So I asked myself, what if what if this is done for the greater good? How would that look like? And what if this was done in a way where it will be? A very long and wonderful journey to be part of both for me and for anyone in the team, and those kind of questions led on to what became great. So, yeah, I’ll just stop there.

[00:03:11] And why would you even ask those questions? Because to me, I guess if that company was valued at 300 million and I don’t guess I notice I know you made a lot of money for yourself. More money than you will ever need in your life. Why would you even ask those questions?

[00:03:27] Why couldn’t you just live the life you want to live? Enjoy yourself. Have fun. Maybe be on a beach somewhere. Why not do that? Do whatever you want. This is a lot of responsibility.

[00:03:41] Yes. So I started doing that. I made more money than I’m ever gonna need. And at first I was like, yay! Everything I can do, I don’t need to work for a single day again in my life. I’m free to do whatever I want to do. I can travel anywhere, buy anything I want. But that feeling didn’t last. I reached a point like, OK, I wanted to contribute to something, I want to do something else, but I want to do it in a different way.

[00:04:09] I felt guilty of using the money for for something good. And at the same time, I felt I want to create things because building things is what I love doing. So I wanted to combine then the responsibility that I felt of actually making a difference. When I’ve been giving this amazing opportunity to do so with the passion of building things and kind of tie them together in the best way I can come up with. And that’s how this turned out.

[00:04:38] So you mentioned in the beginning that backing Katrina, you didn’t work in a way where you felt emotionally healthy or mentioned healthy and you worked too hard. And we’re going to get back in to what? What kind of your dream workplace does look like. But one thing that really sticks out with great is that 100 percent of the profits will be donated to charity. And how does that actually work? Where did that idea come from?

[00:05:12] During all my business career, I’ve been very focused on making money and making money for for me. And I haven’t found fulfillment in that. I. I don’t. I don’t know why. That’s just haven’t been my journey. And in the past couple of years, I’ve started involving myself in a lot more charity. And I see a lot more meaning in that. And helping other people just makes more sense to me. And I can see how this ties in to my upbringing. Like my family’s very focused on charity and helping others. And as a 13 year old, something I stepped away from, those values started focusing on making money. And now it feels like I’m returning to where I came from. So that’s kind of the foundation of this this idea.

[00:06:05] It comes from doing it that value to other people. And at the same time, I’m very fortunate to be in a position where I don’t need any more money.

[00:06:15] I’m certain that I won’t be happier if I had another hundred hundreds of millions more in a bank account. That’s not going to make me happier, is it? Makes me it makes complete sense to focus on giving all that away so I could take this responsibility and the passion I have for building things that I can combine them into something that’s just very, very good for the world.

[00:06:37] But how can someone actually know that? Because that sounds very great. And at the same time, my prejudice on people in the casino industry is, well, it’s not a prejudice. It just doesn’t go well with philanthropy and charity. Yeah, right. That’s not what I think of when someone wants to create a charity product. So how can I know that the money will actually be given away? How can I know that this isn’t just just for the shows and that somehow the money will still end up? Yeah. Would you where would someone else work for it?

[00:07:15] For various reasons. So at the moment, I own everything that great is doing. And at this very day, if we made money we’re not, I would be able to keep it for myself. Theoretically, however, for two reasons. Over the longer term, that will not be possible. First one is being that everyone in the team, everyone working with this works with this because it will give away 100 percent of the profits. So if we weren’t doing that, I think everyone would leave this company and I would be left alone. But it’s still theoretically possible. And secondly, once this is up in the air and we’ve been going longer on this journey, my intention is to put this in a foundation which is basically kind of a company that no one owns. So like the Nobel comedy that day does the Nobel Prize. That’s a foundation that gives it away. No one really owns it. And it’s a way of making sure that whatever happens here is just donated to the better cause and can’t be given to an owner. So I will actually not even own this. There will be another entity owning this. It will be impossible for me to take any money out of it.

[00:08:25] And for someone that is and doesn’t know exactly what a foundation is. Couldn’t that be manipulated somehow or couldn’t there be loopholes in it? What is a foundation?

[00:08:37] Theoretically, yes. It can be manipulated somehow. I could take a very high salary and it could be done somehow. But a foundation is basically a company that no one owns and where there needs to be a board of directors that are taking care of that. And since there is no one who owns it, it can’t be payments going to an owner, which is the usual way a company pays out salaries while most salaries, revenues, profits. So it’s a bit hard to explain, and especially if you’re going to keep this in 30 minutes, but it’s more or less impossible. Mm hmm.

[00:09:14] All right. So how will this company actually make money there?

[00:09:19] Where will the. Where was the money? That would be donated come from?

[00:09:24] So I come from the gambling marketing space. I’ve been doing mainly marketing for casino and for sports betting. This is what I know. I’m passionate about this. And at the same time, I don’t feel that it’s the best product in the world. But I know this. And I think that I can make a big impact and change how this industry works. So what we’re going to do is creating sites. What one Web site, for that matter, comparing and testing all of these barriers to start with casinos in in the US. Comparing those and say this is where you will get the best customer support. This is where you will get the Fosters withdrawals. This is where you will get the best offers and opportunities. And for you as a player then can come and compare this and see what is it that matters the most to you. And we will then earn commissions based on that. So if you start playing in one of the casinos, we recommend you will. We will get a commission based on that. So we get paid for each player that we generate.

[00:10:30] I see, so.

[00:10:35] Isn’t. Don’t you think there’s some issue, though, that people are losing money to casinos and great would benefit from that to give away? Is that justified?

[00:10:47] Would you say just.

[00:10:50] And though I would say that there is definitely an issue with that. I think that it’s it’s a moral gray zone. And at the same time, I think that with pretty much everything that’s good, there is a bad side to it. If you take a highway and there are thousands of cars going on it everywhere and every day, then it’s a good thing that the highway is there. But because of the highway, people will die. Animals will not be able to cross. There’s a lot of things that is bad for the environment. So even with a highway, there are downsides. And I think the same thing goes for for that we’re trying to combine to see, you know, with with charity, which doesn’t really make sense.

[00:11:33] But someone will do this anyway. Someone will create the casino marketing and they will not give away anything from profits. Likely. I don’t know that, but likely. And if we create this, then I believe that we can have an impact on how the environment and the gambling industry looks like. So the easiest thing for me, if I wanted to go into this and I wanted to be a hero, then it would be not a casino, because I wouldn’t have to answer hard questions like this if I did something that was just purely good. But I. In my heart, I believe that this is the best thing I can do, where I can create the biggest impact. And I feel a responsibility of doing it in an industry where I can see how I’ve been harming it and harvesting money just for my own good before. And if I can go into this industry, take responsible ability for making it an industry that takes more responsibility and is more generous than it’s greedy, then that’s what I want to do.

[00:12:37] Mm hmm. So you’re talking about the benefit of being in an otherwise greedy industry and then be very generous. So how would it then benefit our ability to make money that we actually give away 100 percent of the profits?

[00:12:56] What upsides do you see for disorganisation, an organization that don’t give away profit would have?

[00:13:03] That’s a good question. So this goes a bit technical and complicated, but I’ll try and explain it in a simple and short way.

[00:13:12] So one of the main things about creating a website like this that does comparisons is that it will generate traffic from search engines. So if you Google for casino with best customer support, the one that comes on top, this, the most likely that you will visit and Google to a large extent looks at how many links, how many people have written about the specific Web sites when they determine the ranking of it. So if a lot of people has written about our Web site and link to our Web site, it’s much more likely that we will come on top than anyone else.

[00:13:48] So one upside by giving all all the profits away is that I believe that a lot of people are more likely to link to us and help us to reach these positions, that newspapers are excited that we’re donating money, podcasts wants to do interview with us and all of these kind of things where that would not happen if we kept the profits for ourselves in the same extent. So I can just compare this with the Web sites that I’ve been running in the past and already now, even though Great is barely live. Yet we have gotten stronger links and stronger articles written about us to date than I’ve ever managed to get on on any of the other projects I’ve worked with. It’s kind of proof that it’s already working. And I believe that’s thanks to this intention of giving everything away.

[00:14:40] That makes a lot of sense. So it’s a big comparative advantage compared to other casinos that you are able to get links and articles that other casinos just cannot get. How different this business model is.

[00:14:53] Yeah, exactly. So the more publicity we get, the higher rankings we will get, the more traffic we will get, the more money we will get, the more we can give away. And hopefully it will lead to even more publicity and it will start over. And that’s just one of the main benefits from it.

[00:15:08] So positive feedback loop. How big do you think that great. Could actually become?

[00:15:17] So in the short term, we want to do this for justice. You know, in the long term, it’s possible that we want to do this for anything that can be compared online or where else. And Google and Amazon are companies that are only like 20 years old. My vision of this is that this is something I will do for the rest of my life or for these the next 50 years. And I’m hoping to build something where everyone want to be involved with us for 50 years. And I’m comparing with where Google and Amazon is within 20 years, and I’m not saying we would ever reach there in 10 years. But in a 50 year perspective, there are a lot of things that can happen. So my vision is extremely big without putting a specific number on it.

[00:16:01] Mm hmm.

[00:16:04] I like that.

[00:16:05] And you mentioned 50 years now, and I think this is a good time to tie back into what we talked about in the beginning about the well-being of juΝe Understaffed that is working on this project, because what would you say and how do you say an organization needs to be and how does it need to feel like for someone to even want to be involved for this long? How how did you need to feel to be involved and how do employees have to feel to be involved?

[00:16:40] So let’s start with looking at why I see this 15 years as an important aspect of this, because I think that one of the biggest mistakes that I’ve done in my life is rushing things like if I can only get there by them, then I will be happy. But once I did, that was more OK. I got there by then and then it was done. What it’s like, what’s going to happen after that? So I sacrificed my health.

[00:17:06] I sacrificed a lot of my relationships to get to a certain point very quickly. And then I was just drained of energy and couldn’t do anything else.

[00:17:15] So it’s this is something I did. And I think it’s common that other entrepreneurs and people think of this as their lives as well. If I can only get this done, this will happen. So I better get there quickly. And I rarely think that what we expect to be by the end of that corridor is what’s actually going to make us happy. So instead of ask myself, how can I do the maximum amount of good for the world during my life and I don’t need a specific milestone after three years, it’s important where it is in 50. And to be able to do something in 50 years, the most important thing is health. If I’m not healthy is the team is not healthy, then it’s not going to be a 50 year project. During my time in Catina. For a couple of years, I had a bottle of whiskey next to my bed and I had to drink every night because otherwise I wouldn’t fall asleep because my mind was going in a hundred miles an hour. That’s just not a good place to be. It’s quite obvious that that’s not going to last for 15 years. So it starts with our then how can we be healthy and how can we enjoy this? So health needs to be a main thing. It needs to be important with flexibility and trust and all the other things that kind of ties into health and enjoying the process. So at the end of the day, it’s just good business. I think that the best way to build a business is to aim for what’s the best part in 50 years to get there.

[00:18:41] Health will be a very important part, and that also ties in to giving the team and myself full flexibility of making our own decisions. Having trust that everyone does what they’re supposed to do and not necessarily having someone in the office 8 to 5, but is doing it their way. Full transparency like not keeping secrets, showing everyone where the money is donated, but also showing everyone how much salary does everyone earn and trust that people will deal with that in a good way. I don’t have the answer to this, and I think it’s a bit of a crazy idea, but I want to come up with a way of letting teams set their own salaries. We are doing this to a tiny bit of extend right now, but to full extent I think that is possible. I don’t know how, but I think that anyone who is in charge of their salary will be able to do this. And I think that everyone needs to be able to work from wherever they want. Not being tied to one place, work remotely all over the planet. And there are tons of other things within this that ties into that 50 year vision that I think if you take these boxes, people are having fun. They feel meaning there is a purpose of being there. Then I believe that it’s much more likely that people will stay on than in any other organization. At least that I’m get involved.

[00:19:55] All right.

[00:19:56] And I like to their thinking, what boxes do I need to pick to make people want to stay for a long time? And I think the most important person is you, because you cannot while you can be replaced, but hopefully you won’t be replaced.

[00:20:12] And you dropped a couple of things there. Flexibility. What how are you thinking about flexibility? Which way is it flexible to work? Great. That is not common in maybe your old organization.

[00:20:26] So flexibility to me means a lot of things. One of them is that it means that you can work from anywhere because that’s like. Where you are is like the main flexibility. The other thing is that you will be in control of your own time.

[00:20:40] You’re not going to work eight to five, five days a week. I believe that some people work best at night. Some people work best a day. Some people work best if they push really hard for two days a week. Some people work best if there were less work for seven days a week. And I want to trust in people that they are doing this in the way that it makes sense. And I think that maybe you get a kid and you want to work less for a while. I want to I think in an environment that lets you work on 20 percent for a while is very healthy and being able to scale up and down as life goes. Maybe you’re having a side project because I really want people to have side projects. I think that’s a very good thing. Maybe that’s doing really, really well for a while. You want to focus on that, but you don’t want to give up on your your ambition and greed. So you tell us that. Okay, guys, I need to I want to get down a bit an hour so I can focus on this. Then I want to be able to give that to people.

[00:21:34] Aren’t you afraid that you will lose and pre-Easter? Imagine if you allow someone to explore a side project and members. Maybe that becomes more important for them than great would. Then you would lose that employee.

[00:21:46] Yeah, I’m afraid of that. But I think that it goes like have you heard the expression that love is like a butterfly? If you hold it to lose, it flies away. But if you’re holding to hard, you’re gonna crush it. And I don’t believe in therefore hold it to lose. It’s gonna fly away. I think that if if the butterfly loves you and you’re doing enough good things for the butterfly, it’s gonna stay. But if you if you’re holding it too tight, you’re gonna crush it. And I think that people will run their businesses either way. And I’d much rather be open and supportive about it than having people doing it on the side and then leaving or not daring to tell or whatever it is. I want people to enjoy their processes. And it also. Encourages us as an organization to tick all boxes that makes people want to stay. So they want to stay for a much longer time. I want to see great more as a as a football club than as a company in that sense. You can be a member of a football club her entire life and maybe you’re really engaged for a while. You’re less engaged for another while. Then you’re really engaged again. But you never really stop being passionate about the club. So I think that’s that’s a way of looking at it. That makes sense to me.

[00:23:02] Yeah, that makes sense. And also, this is a remote organization, so that ties in to the flexibility. Is this flexibility why you have chosen for this organization to be remote or do you have other reasons for it?

[00:23:18] I mean, that’s a big part of it. But it’s also like it’s it’s a lot easier to find people if you have the world to look than if you have one place. So to me, I think that the future is going remotely. I think that people will just move around more. Ten years from now than we did today. And we’re moving around a lot more today than we did 10 years ago.

[00:23:37] So to me, with a 50 year perspective, the only thing that I think is for certain is that it will not look like it does today.

[00:23:47] And if it’s a very remote and very flexible situation, then it’s a lot more likely, at least to me, that it will be able to work in the same way.

[00:23:58] I mean, to me, this is crucial from my lust to be in this project, the flexibility so that I won’t feel stuck. I won’t feel like I lose my freedom.

[00:24:08] I won’t feel any resentment because I have to do something physical like a choice. I really like that. We’ve got a couple of minutes left and I have one more question that I’ve prepared. And afterwards, I think we can talk freely for a couple of minutes about whatever we feel like. And that is we’re talking about giving money away. What charity? So we’re talking where will this money go?

[00:24:37] So one one of the biggest challenges with charity, I believe, is that people don’t trust charities. I didn’t used to trust charities because all in you read in the newspapers, is that like. Yeah, but the CEO makes this much money or this it goes into this black hole and it’s really hard to see the hard evidence. What’s actually happening? And I went into this with that experience and I started really reading up on this and learning a lot more about it, and I found out that, yeah, there are organizations that doesn’t do everything 100 percent all the time. But it’s also whenever they mess up, it becomes something that’s put in the news. If they don’t mess up and they do something good, there is no need for the newspapers to write about it. So the picture that I had in my head was very tainted of how media works, that it only showed the fuck ups. They never showed the good things about organizations. But I also learned that some organizations are a lot more efficient than others and show their data a lot more, and it’s not because the others are bad. It’s because these are really, really good. So for example, givewell dot org is a Web site that ranks the most transparent and the most efficient organizations out there.

[00:25:51] And what the course is they are that they’re working with and where you can make the biggest impact per per dollar. And this is in general with extreme poverty. You can change someone’s life a lot more of their own $1 a day than if they own a thousand dollars a day, because one extra dollar will make a bigger impact. And it’s kind of that simple. So we’ll focus on where we make the biggest impact with each dollar. And it will be various causes. Extreme poverty is one of them. Enviromental thing is another thing and maybe even a I and more complex things. But basically focusing on the accusation that can show and have been showing for a long time that they are very, very efficient. Not just 100 percent of the money goes to the cause, but actually they’re making a much, much bigger difference with each dollar. Because if if I’m having in an organization that gives away money to very rich people, then 100 percent of my money can go to very rich people. I’m going to make a difference. But if I have an organization where 50 percent of the people go to the very poor and I spend 50 percent of the money finding the very poor, I’m gonna do a much bigger difference.

[00:27:03] So I find these organizations I’m cutting you off a little bit because we’re running out of time if we want to keep this in 30 minutes. Maybe you’re listening to this and you think this is a really horrible, horrible idea. We would love to hear from you. You can e-mail us to podcast becoming great. I’ve come to know the Holocaust as a great, great platform. Maybe you think this is a really great idea. You feel like I want to know more. I want to help out somehow. I want to get in touch. What could someone if somebody wants to help out to maybe work with this project? What is the first thing they could do?

[00:27:34] Well, the same thing. Their e-mail us did podcast that great dot com, because right now there isn’t that many things that we can benefit from help with. We’re a small team and we’re doing everything that we kind of can and need to do. But the future, we’re going to be a much bigger organization and we’ll have much easier to take on how to just reach out and sign up to our newsletter.

[00:27:56] Yeah, that’s a very good point. All right. You have something you want to say before we wrap this up. I’m just impressed the chapter in 30 minutes. I’m usually a big talker. So great job hosting. Thank you. All right. This was fun. See you next time. Cheers.