Startup Series: The Cool Down
Today’s guests are Dave Finocchio and Anna Robertson, co-founders of The Cool Down.
Since the beginning, media businesses have been in the game of building audience segments and mobilizing those audiences to do something. Most American media has learned how to mobilize audiences on various platforms to click or view ads. To buy stuff. But in the wake of the climate crisis, there are certainly better uses of our time online and purchasing power.
As you’ll see in this episode, some media companies are trying to get people to become local leaders in their communities or make climate conscious purchases. The Cool Down aims to do this and become America's mainstream climate brand. Dave and Anna have extensive digital media credentials that are as strong as they come, and (bonus!) they met via the MCJ member community.
In this conversation, Cody learns more about Dave and Anna’s backgrounds as media leaders, how and why they decided to apply their skills to climate, the gaps in climate communication today, what audiences they are targeting, and how they plan to build a business or otherwise monetize The Cool Down. Since launching earlier this year, Anna and Dave are just at the beginning of figuring out who these climate-motivated audiences are and how they can be mobilized, but they made one thing abundantly clear: their goal is to reach mainstream audiences to have an even bigger impact in the climate fight.
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*You can also reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded on September 7, 2022.
In this episode, we cover:
[3:03] Anna's background at ABC News and Yahoo
[6:26] Dave's media experience and transition to climate
[12:19] Gap in media and climate communications
[16:15] The Cool Down's storytelling strategy
[19:18] Popular climate topics they’re experimenting with
[22:15] Value-based actions that are good for people and the planet
[29:45] Packaging tech innovation into engaging, digestible content
[35:19] Taking local actions that benefit communities
[38:27] Anna and Dave's business model and how they're starting to test it
[48:16] What's next for The Cool Down
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Jason Jacobs (00:01):
Hello everyone, this is Jason Jacobs.
Cody Simms (00:04):
And I'm Cody Simms.
Jason Jacobs (00:05):
And welcome to My Climate Journey. This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (00:15):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions, to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help.
Jason Jacobs (00:26):
We appreciate you tuning in, sharing this episode, and if you feel like it, leaving us a review to help more people find out about us so they can figure out where they fit in addressing the problem of climate change.
Cody Simms (00:40):
Today's guests are Dave Finocchio and Anna Robertson, co-founders of The Cool Down, a content and commerce company that is aiming to become America's mainstream climate brand. Dave and Anna have digital media credentials that are as strong as they come, and they met via the MCJ member community. So I was keen to catch up and hear the latest on what they're building. We talk about their backgrounds as media leaders, how and why they decided to apply their skills to climate, the gaps in climate communication today, what audiences they are targeting, and how they plan to build a business or otherwise monetize The Cool Down. A big takeaway I had is that any good media business is in the game of building audience segments and mobilizing that audience segment to do something. Most of American media has learned how to mobilize that audience segment to click or view ads, but as you'll hear in my discussion with Dave and Anna, there are lots of other mobilizations that a media brand can deliver.
(01:38):
Maybe the goal is to get people to make more climate-conscious purchase decisions for their families, or maybe the goal is to get people to become leaders in their local communities. Anna and Dave are just at the beginning of figuring out who these climate-motivated audiences are and how they can be mobilized. But they made one thing really clear, their goal isn't just to talk to the already converted. Their goal is to reach mainstream American audiences. And I, for one, believe that if they can do that, it can have quite an impact. Dave, Anna, welcome to the show.
David Finocchio (02:10):
Cody, thanks for having us. Excited to be here.
Anna Robertson (02:13):
Thanks, Cody. Great to see you.
Cody Simms (02:14):
It's great to see you both. I am really excited to catch up. I feel like I've had a little bit of an insider track into what you're building. I'm really excited to hear what you've learned now that you've been out in the world with The Cool Down for a little bit. But before we dive into The Cool Down, maybe each of you just take a minute to explain the work you've done in the media world. You both have incredible backgrounds in building audiences and building media, and I think it would be helpful for folks, who care about climate change, to hear that people who have the types of experiences you each do are now dedicating yourselves toward building media for the good of helping people understand what's going on with climate change. Whoever wants to go first, jump in.
David Finocchio (03:01):
Anna, you want to go for it?
Anna Robertson (03:03):
Sure. Cody, you and I know each other well from our days at Yahoo. And just before we begin, I just want to say thanks to the MCJ community for being such an important part of both Dave and I's journey to both meet each other and also to be part of making this decision to kind of leave traditional media industry for devoting ourselves to sort of the climate topic. But my background, I've spent 20 plus years in the media industry.
(03:27):
I was 10 years at ABC News where I was Diane Sawyer's producer for many years, kind of traveling all over the world, going to the war in Iraq and Katrina and tsunami and all different kinds of things as well as at Good Morning America as a senior producer for five years, and then left that world to join Yahoo, where I got my digital MBA, as they call it, and dove into sort of building digital video businesses at Yahoo, ultimately running Yahoo video after six years there, building video programs, doing a lot of interviewing myself and worked with you when you were there on the product side when we hired Katie Couric and lots of big name folks. Ended up having two kids, did some consulting work, went back to Disney, really focused on sort of bringing those digital engagement skills back to the traditional Disney landscape.
(04:12):
Took a role back with the ABC-owned television stations focused on innovation in the local news category and making sure that the next generation cared about local news. For me, a big piece of that was weather, because weather is the number one topic for local news consumers. I worked a lot on weather innovation, collaborating with National Geographic, which is of course a Disney brand as well as with ABC News and the incredible team of meteorologists there to really think about how we could innovate around our weather coverage. I felt that we weren't doing a good enough job of connecting the dots to what was happening between extreme weather and climate change, which is how many people interact and first come to understand what climate change is and how it might affect their local communities.
(04:52):
So I did a lot of work there overseeing a special for Hulu, an hour-long documentary called Climate of Hope, where we told the story of climate change through the eyes of the trusted meteorologist, many of whom were kind of climate deniers for a certain period of time, and then saw what was happening in their local communities and got onboard. Got involved a lot in climate coverage and that role as well as data journalism and other things. But ultimately, as I kind of got more involved in climate topics and my own life and spent a lot of time in my community getting involved in climate topics, really just felt this kind of spiritual pull to really do what I could with my time and talents as a storyteller and a communicator to help with this issue.
(05:29):
I was living in LA at that time. I had two small kids evacuated in the middle of the night from wildfires, couldn't send my kids to school in the morning because the air quality was so poor. And I just saw the effects happening in my own life, and I felt that there was around me, not enough people, who really were opening their eyes to kind of what was going on.
Cody Simms (05:47):
I hate having to chime in and say, been there done that with that. It's awful. It's insane how many of us have experienced it firsthand.
Anna Robertson (05:55):
Exactly. I think obviously more and more over the last year are feeling the same way. And so, I just started kind of inquiring and I talked to you, Cody. I called you up. I joined My Climate Journey community on Slack. I started just saying, "Who can I meet? What can I do? Put me to work, put me in the game here." And that's kind of where Dave comes in. Everybody said, "You got to meet Dave Finocchio. He's got the same kind of philosophy, same idea." So I'll tee it up for Dave. But that led us to meet and start talking about this company, which we'll talk about today.
Cody Simms (06:23):
Awesome. Thanks, Anna. Dave, let's hear it.
David Finocchio (06:26):
Very good. I got into the digital media game back in 2005. I started a sports media company called Bleacher Report right when I graduated from college and caught an era of digital media at a very interesting time when Google News started. And really there was a rise in sort of newsletters for the first time and then mobile apps happened. Facebook and other social platforms started to figure out that by incorporating third party content, people spent way, way more time on their platforms than they were spending otherwise. We were able to build a really, today Bleacher Report, for years has been the second largest sports website in the United States, and I think it still has the most reach on social platforms, if any, sports media property. It was a big success and we sold the business to Turner Broadcasting years ago. But the impetus for Bleacher Report and why I decided to do it back when I had no idea what I was doing, I had an observation that the sports content landscape was really fragmented.
(07:29):
I was an economics major in college and so I'd sort of looked at things this way, that there were significant sort of supply and demand inefficiencies around certain topics. And if you were a fan of maybe the New York Yankees, you didn't really have a problem following your team, but if you were a fan of maybe the Texas A&M football team at the time, you probably did. What we realized was that there was information about those teams, about those topics that were scattered sort of all over the digital landscape at the time in blogs and in different local newspapers and national sites. But it was really a lot of work for sort of an average fan who wasn't going to spend hours and hours a day scouring to get relevant news and entertainment about their teams.
Cody Simms (08:15):
I'm a diehard Kansas Jayhawk basketball fan.
David Finocchio (08:18):
You're one of those.
Cody Simms (08:19):
When Bleacher Report came out, it was amazing to be able to aggregate everything in one place.
David Finocchio (08:24):
Thank you. Just from a business side, I really like these models, media companies that do a great job aggregating, curating, and then also creating original content around the topics that people really care the most about. But we fundamentally tried to create experiences at a national level and then at a topic level. And a topic could be an event or a team in that case or a player or a shoe brand that was just as good and as engaging as it possibly could be for them. And we just had candidly massive success doing that. I have a similar story to you guys, fellow Californians. I now live in Bend, Oregon, but I grew up in the Bay Area and previously lived in San Francisco for many years, started experiencing wildfire and smoke seasons in 2014. By the time, it sort of became very apparent that this was something that was going to be a regular occurrence and wasn't a one off, and that climate change was here and the game was on.
(09:22):
I know others realized that long before, but that really hit me probably six or seven years ago. I started consuming a lot of climate content. I started listening to Jason's podcast and other podcasts. I just, after a while, couldn't help but sort of looking at the climate communication space through more of a Bleacher Report lens where we really focused on finding great information and then really fundamentally packaging that information in ways where it was as relatable to as many people as possible based on what their interests were. There's a lot of conversation in the climate space about meeting people where they are. I think we all get that they're sort of not one size fits all. Here's how you tell people what to feel and think about climate. But in our opinion, climate is relevant to just about everybody. I mean, it's really relevant to everyone, but oftentimes, the way to reach them is going to be through climate adjacent interests.
(10:19):
There's been a lot of talk about this on your podcast and others over the years, but about getting people interested in climate without necessarily always needing to talk about climate. We think that there are lots of positive momentum categories right now on the product side. You have categories like electric vehicles that have sort of been a little bit stuck in early adopter mode that seem to be sort of rapidly accelerating to more of the early majority part of the population, that's a much larger group of people. We really think that information and content and communities that can sort of serve as guides and help people to figure out sort of like, "We get the world is changing and then maybe I need to be a part of it in some way." Maybe people don't realize the extent to which it's changing yet, but we think that one of the ways that we can really help people is by making that relevant to them based on what their interests are.
(11:12):
And then the other thing I'll say about Bleacher Report, we really invested a lot in data and really understanding at a topic level and at a demographic level, what people were looking for and what they cared about. We think that there's a huge opportunity in the climate space at an interest level, at a demographic level, to do a lot of the dirty work and not just the messaging, but understand the categories where you really can get traction. So that's sort of the beginning of our journey, which is doing a great job learning about audiences.
Cody Simms (11:45):
I'm really curious to hear, obviously want to dive in today to talk about how you're applying what you've learned via The Cool Down. But before we do that, maybe help us understand why this gap exists in media today that created an opportunity for you to go fill. You've got, from a climate communications perspective, obviously the gold standard of understanding where people's heads are is the Yale Climate Opinion Maps and sort of the Yale program on climate change communication. I mean, the numbers there are like 70% of Americans believe global warming is happening. It's not a controversial topic anymore, or at least it doesn't seem to be. Why hasn't it? Anna, you said you did a lot of work trying to understand sort of local weather stations and how they're reporting on climate change. So whether we're talking about local weather reporting, whether we're talking about online digital media, whether we're talking about what I see when I sit down and turn on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon at night, why aren't we seeing more content about climate change in general and what are the reasons for that?
Anna Robertson (12:55):
I mean, I think there's a couple of things going on. I think number one, climate change communication has essentially failed in certain ways to reach people outside of the bubble. I think a lot of the folks who are reading climate content, engaging in climate content, are people who are already converted, who already understand that there's a problem. It's been over indexed in doom and gloom and in a lot of really overwhelming information for people at a time when folks are having to deal with so much and think through so many challenges. And if something just feels impossible to solve, I think it's just really hard for people to get engaged and not really practical for the way they live their lives. I mean, even if you look at the sustainability product space or the e-commerce space, a lot of these things are just not the way that people live.
(13:42):
Part of that is because some of the infrastructure hasn't caught up. There's still challenges with EVs and things like that, but part of it is just that a lot of it is just not in touch with how people are living their lives. It's not very video focused. What we did is we spent time studying and meeting with all of the experts who have studied this communication issue, Tony Leiserowitz at the Yale School Potential Energy Coalition, The Regenerates. We spent time kind of meeting with all of those folks and we actually developed a bespoke style guide for our team to really think about how we're communicating these topics, how we're making them more accessible, how we're thinking about covering them. Because part of what we found when we both joined My Climate Journey community was that there's an incredible amount of innovation and excitement and enthusiasm happening, and we are sitting in the midst of this incredible transition in our society, the likes of which we've never seen before.
(14:34):
I don't think people are connected with the opportunity that that represents as much as they are with the challenge because we are in the middle of the awkward phase of understanding the difficulty of that. We are kind of over indexing a little bit on exposing people to the innovators, to the hope, to ways that people can take action while also not being Pollyanna about it. We need people to understand, and I think extreme weather is a very effective way to do that because you're seeing it right in front of you. But until now, I just think that there's a number of reasons we haven't connected the dots between extreme weather.
(15:08):
It's been overwhelmingly negative and as we kind of give people signals that there is some hope there, that there are some things that can be done and it's not too late, and we give them practical ways that they can be a part of that, whatever that looks like for them. We're not an organization that's going to tell them what to do, but we're going to give them a huge menu of options and we're going to bring new voices into this conversation that represent a much more mainstream approach. So it's not just liberals, it's not just eco people, it's everybody because it's going to have to be everybody. The exciting thing is that we are in the middle of that and we're seeing those glimmers of a much, much wider group of people engaging in this issue.
Cody Simms (15:46):
And what's working so far? I mean just looking at whether it's your website or your social platforms, seems like you've done a little bit of inspirational posts. You've done a little bit of popular science type of posts and tech optimism posts. You've done some humor. You also share bad news, too. You've kind of talked about a lot of different pathways for people to understand it. I'm curious what you're seeing traction on so far in terms of audience engagement.
David Finocchio (16:15):
Just to talk a little bit about our strategy, we are essentially trying to, in blunt terms, we're trying to test as many things as possible without spending a ton of money to do the testing. We've already learned, for example, when we launched six weeks ago, so we're only six weeks into this, we had nature sort of pegged as something that we would hold up as more of a staple to sort of help people start their day with some nature content and remind them of what an amazing planet we all live on. For the most part, that content didn't perform super well, and so we have not done as much of it. It's just an example of we're in the early stages of putting stuff out there and then you do more of what works and more of what doesn't. I think tying the last question back to this one, I think one of the reasons climate's been challenging, I think, for a lot of people to wrap their heads around is they tend to feel a couple steps removed.
(17:08):
Obviously, either from either not experiencing the effects the same way that we have in California, or maybe they are, but they're not sort of connecting the dots yet and they feel like they really can't do anything to contribute or they sort of don't know what to do. One area where we're having pretty consistent success is around helping sometimes moms and sometimes broader audiences get access to services or other ways of, I'll just sort of wrap a blanket around it and say, being less wasteful. We've had a lot of success surfacing companies that make it really easy to donate certain types of products and then are able to explain where those products are actually going. And sometimes people get paid to donate the product, sometimes they don't. There are more services that are making it sort of easier for normal people who aren't going to go above and beyond to do something.
(18:01):
I think that's an area we then look at and say, "There's clear demand for this. Is this something that we would then spin out and turn into a more premium offering on our end?" That's kind of how we look at our business where I'm a sports guy, so I'll use a sports analogy, but if there's sort of a category and climate that proves to be big enough and popular enough and maybe has a strong enough sort of business potential, we would likely sort of make it its own thing where we can really invest in having front facing talents specifically for that category. Maybe having a newsletter for that category, maybe really focusing on partnerships for that category.
(18:40):
A lot of the exercises in figuring out which audience coalitions are sort of big enough and hold together well enough where it's really worth doing a deep dive and building something more premium for them versus saying, for example, there are probably a lot of fly fisher people who are being impacted by climate change right now. I don't know if that'll be a big enough audience coalition or interest group to say, "Hey, this is worth building a business around." It's sort of our job to distill out what are the topics here that are the ones that we can lean into, and how do we then speak to those people in a way where they want to participate in a community around it?
Anna Robertson (19:18):
Can I just add? I just had a couple things, Cody, just real quick. I think we're seeing, in addition to the practical things people can do that also are just very mainstream like sneakers, where can you send your sneakers so they don't get wasted? That did great for us. Sunscreen and razors and things like that. But we are also seeing, we've got a flagship series called Here on Earth, which is focused on good news every week and has a great soundtrack. Every week, we deliver every Wednesday just three positive headlines about what's happening out there. That's something, it's just a brand promise. We're going to give you that dopamine hit every week and people love it. We also are seeing really interesting signs, I think on a lot of our web content, around innovation and things like community solar, which people don't really know about or understand, but that's doing well. Old coal plants that are being converted to be the infrastructure for renewables or to be leveraged towards a cleaner future.
(20:13):
Things like that are just really interesting to see that people are hungry, they're really hungry for these kinds of tech innovations for solutions. And so, exciting to see some of those hypotheses play out in terms of exposing people to more positive stories as well as just kind of connecting them to the things that are happening behind the scenes that might not be told in mainstream media all the time.
Cody Simms (20:36):
Super fascinating from both of you. I want to lean into each of those. I heard two very broad categories of stuff that seems to be, again, early days but seems to be resonating. One is around things I can do differently in my life and the other is around tech innovations that are out there, that I didn't know about, that can make me feel optimistic. Is that accurate?
David Finocchio (21:00):
I would bet that those will probably be two of the winners, and I don't know if we'll end up with a portfolio of 10 winners or 20 winners or five winners, but there's definite demand for sort those two buckets. No doubt.
Cody Simms (21:13):
I want to ask a question on that first bucket, which is, "Things I can do differently in my life." I think the conventional wisdom in people who work in climate is that asking people to change their behavior or make sacrifice doesn't work. "You're going to take away my hamburgers. You're going to take away my car and make me drive an EV."
Anna Robertson (21:36):
That's why we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're not asking people to sacrifice. This is no longer about sacrifice. These are actually about changes that are better for your health, that are often better for your pocketbook, that are better for your families and your kids. And that's the message we got to get across here because if it feels like it's a sacrifice, people are not going to do it. In fact, they're not going to do things that inconvenience them or that take them out of their habits or way to do things. I think we see this in our day-to-day lives just as we start implementing these things as people can save money on their electric bills by making certain swaps or as people can find real value in switching out a stove that might be better for their kids' health instead of putting gas stoves out there.
(22:15):
I think our approach is very much a values-based approach to communication. It is showing the value of that action as well as potentially even a reward. There is nothing better than finding a product or an offering that is sustainable and that is good for the planet and makes you feel good as a person, but works just as well, if not better, than the product that you were using before. That's sort of the goal and we're getting there. We're getting closer. There's a lot of frustration still. Like EVs is a good category where we still hear a lot of frustration because there's so many challenges with charging infrastructure, there's challenges with accessibility to EVs, and all of that.
(22:52):
But in so many of these categories, you see this, Cody, because you have so many of these sort of going throughout the MCJ community, but there's great solutions out there. It's just that these are very small companies that may not have the reach that we have to get them in front of people. We could rattle off a whole list of everything from electric lawnmowers to clean beauty products to clothes we love, to furniture. We do this as a team and then we also just share all of those with the group and it's really exciting to see people's eyes open when they are exposed to that approach.
David Finocchio (23:22):
I think one of the things that we'll test over time, and one of the things that we're cautiously optimistic about is when somebody does take an action that's in their best interest because they're saving money or because there's a health benefit of doing it, we all started our own climate journeys at some point and our belief is that, just by getting someone to take some sort of action greatly increases the odds that they do become more conscious and that they will take subsequent actions. So part of what the community we're trying to build is about, we'll see what different people's entry points are, but if we can then have them signed up for something or following something or they're continuing to walk down the path that we're on, that they will start to just be more cognizant of the bigger picture and then hopefully, they themselves will be an evangelist for sort of the thing that they did and talk to more friends about it and you just sort of get more snowball effect.
Cody Simms (24:16):
I'm hearing from both of you both a proliferation in the number of solutions that are exciting to talk about and that people want to hear about, but also some early data that shows that the cultural interest in this isn't just amongst early adopters and people who are already opted into be climate focused. Maybe I'm making a leap here, but maybe I'll rephrase that as a question. Do you have data that the audience is more broad and more general and not just sort of climate insiders who want to hear about these solutions?
Anna Robertson (24:48):
Well, I think just from a data standpoint, I mean there's a new study out this week from Nature, I don't know if you saw this one, but basically talking about how 80% to 90% of Americans underestimate the support for major climate change policies. They think that people don't support them, but most people do. The Yale data we talked about earlier is the same thing. Most people want and believe, they want action. They understand that there's problems happening, but only a third of those people are talking about these things with their family and friends. I think our audience is obviously very nascent. We're still building what that looks like, but I definitely think there's way more people. There's a huge broad swath of people who are interested in that. That's our hypothesis certainly.
(25:28):
We're definitely seeing early signals also by creating an environment that is more representative of mainstream America like we have creators we're working with who are not just Liberal, who are Republican, who are hunters, who are beauty people who come from all different aspects, but they all have a connection point via whatever their interest topic is or whatever their politics may be, and they're all welcome in this conversation. I was just listening to some research recently that showed that while there's been an incredible amount of growth among progressives towards climate issues, there has not been enough growth with regard to conservatives, and that's where the room is. That's where the margin is for growth in this category. We've got to get people of all different backgrounds engaged in this topic if we want to protect our future.
Cody Simms (26:14):
We're going to take a short break right now so our partner, Yin, can share more about the MCJ membership option.
Yin Lu (26:21):
Hey, folks. Yin here, a partner at MCJ Collective. Want to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019, has since then grown to 2000 members globally. Each week, we're inspired by people who join with differing backgrounds and perspectives. And while those perspectives are different, what we all share in common is a deep curiosity to learn and bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change. Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams have met, nonprofits have been established, a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly Women in Climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops, and more.
(27:10):
Whether you've been in climate for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and click on the members tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms (27:23):
All right, back to the show.
(27:25):
Jason recorded a recent MCJ, My Climate Journey pod episode with Benji Backer.
Anna Robertson (27:31):
Who works with us too, he's a contributor to The Cool Down.
Cody Simms (27:34):
Who runs the American Conservation Coalition, which is a right-of-center Environmental Oregon. The point he makes is talking to people about going out and going fishing on the weekends or whatever, going hunting or going hiking on the weekends. These are things that all Americans want to do regardless of how you identify. And yet, the climate movement somehow got lumped into the environmental movement, which somehow got lumped into we're going to halt progress on everything and halt commercial progress on things, I should say. And somehow, it created this diametric opposition. I would counter that also a lot of that has to do with the amount of oil and gas money going into funding conservative politics. You can't escape politics, I think, when you get into these things. But just from a pure life perspective and hitting people emotionally, it sounds like that's what you're trying to overcome is how do we get back into the hearts and minds of people.
Anna Robertson (28:26):
And how do we normalize it? Benji did a great piece for us about the five swaps he's made in his life as a conservative, and they're not unlike other people's swaps. I mean, he's more conscious about what food he's eating and he's thinking about how much waste he's producing and all of those kinds of things. And so, part of our strategy is normalizing the conversation so that we're all talking about it. Because we all know that one of the biggest solutions on this issue is just talking about it and bringing some unexpected messengers into the conversation who maybe haven't spoken about it or haven't been engaged. Because there's a lot of people who are doing great work, whether they be celebrities, athletes, musicians, who are actually investing in these companies, who are changing the way their tours are operated but maybe aren't speaking out about it yet.
(29:08):
And so, we want to invite them to this conversation because guess what? This is the future. This is where the future is heading. We want to encourage more and more people to get on the bandwagon early and be a part of it so that they can benefit from it and we can all benefit from it.
Cody Simms (29:23):
The big tent is where it's at. I agree with you on that. I'm curious, the second big category of stuff that you said early on is working is highlighting tech innovation. Also, conventional wisdom says, "Man, people don't want to read about science or tech," for the most part. And you seem to also be, to some extent, seeing that be a myth that is maybe ripe to be broken also.
David Finocchio (29:45):
They might not. I mean there are a lot of people that don't want to, when you're talking about mainstream audiences, read about anything these days. But we've found that for tech solutions, video is, and there's specific types of video formats, but we're having a lot of success with various social first video formats that actually show people what the innovation is and what it's doing. They're usually set to cool music and they move pretty quickly. They just sort of paint a picture of the future and people like cool futuristic stuff. And when you can see it, it sort of makes all the difference. It's just a great example of how you package it. When I say package information, sometimes writing it in a long form text article is not going to get through to a huge portion of Americans, but if they can see something in sort of a sexy video, it hits differently.
Anna Robertson (30:35):
I'd say also that the other category that we're excited about is sort of people who have seen a problem in their community or in their life and who have set out to solve it. Modeling that kind of behavior has been really interesting. Whether that's like the dad and his son in Seattle who decided to create a recycling company that could recycle hard to recycle things. Whether that's the mom who created a clean beauty line that made clean glitter because she wanted her kids to have non-toxic beauty products. Whether that is my friend Shilla Kim-Parker who started thrilling because she realized that there are more secondhand stores in this country than McDonald's or Starbucks combined, and many of those companies missed the e-commerce revolution and that bringing those folks online could help us to cut down on fashion waste, which is such a huge problem as well as lift up local businesses.
(31:25):
Those stories I think really resonate and hopefully, they inspire people to know that they don't have to quit their job and do something like that. If they want to, that's awesome because there's so much room for that. But also just anything. Anything you can do in your own life becomes this ripple effect where, as Dave was saying, it snowballs and it becomes one thing after another, after another, and gradually, that's how we believe there's going to be major difference made.
Cody Simms (31:49):
I mean we've seen that in our little bubble of the climate tech world, which is, figure out how to apply your skills toward climate from a business perspective. You don't have to be a climatologist to work in this problem. If you're great at business operations, go do business operations at a climate tech company, as an example. And I'm hearing you say, "Wow, let's extrapolate that even more toward what are the things you're passionate about, you care about, just in your daily life and how do you personally take climate action and then model that for others?" Audiences are interested in reading, hearing, seeing examples of that happening around the country and around the world.
David Finocchio (32:28):
It just gives people confidence, I think, as well, especially in parts of the country where taking action in your community might be a little bit more of a standout move than in West Coast communities. But I think the more you see other people doing it, it's the same thing that goes back to if you have somebody in your neighborhood that has solar panels, you are so much more likely to get solar panels yourself. A lot of us just need that sort of sense of normalization and it's like, "I'm not being a weirdo here. I'm doing something that a lot of other people are doing. This is the future. I'm not really going out on a limb. I'm not a crazy person who's buying into liberal internet stuff." But I think a lot of people in parts of the country need to be a part of a community to sort of feel like there are a lot of people that have their back and they're doing the right thing.
Anna Robertson (33:13):
For example, in my own local community, I have gotten involved in our school, so we instituted a food composting system in the lunch room at our school, which has 550 kids and we're redirecting thousands of pounds of waste every day. And now, the kids go home and they talk about it with their parents and the parents are signing up for composting. And then somebody calls me and says, "Hey, should we get a rain barrel at school?" Or, "Hey, we have sandwiches for this art fest, why don't we wrap them in paper instead of plastic?" And then it just starts to be like people calling me on the phone saying, "How do I recycle my old clothes? And what about sneakers?" And so, we did a sneaker drive, we've got sneakers and we raised money for our PTO. That is how this all works because people too often trivialize the individual action because it can't be up to individuals to solve this problem.
(33:56):
And I totally get that, but it is what then leads downstream to somebody changing a career, somebody making a vote, somebody investing, all of the big things that are going to change. And anytime we've had to do something hard in human history, we've needed the public to be supportive of it and to understand and to impact the sentiment that is driving how politicians act, how corporations package their products, what they make. We feel like this is just a really, really important component to the climate solution that has not adequately been resourced or addressed to this point and we're hoping to do our part to solve that.
Cody Simms (34:33):
Interesting. The notion of making it all about your family, all about your community, all about your school, all about your religious organization, and how do you get people to think about how you can take actions that are positive for the people who engage in that community, in that place, with you, does feel like an angle that's maybe underleveraged today. And an interesting way to try to approach the notion of, "We all can contribute to this." There is systemic change that needs to happen, but there's also, by getting individuals to care about it, is how you ultimately get enough populace to care about it, to push the systemic change to happen. That's what I'm hearing from you as a theory of change. I don't know if I'm putting words in your mouth.
Anna Robertson (35:19):
I think that's right. I mean Dave and I both are students of history. I was a history major in college and Dave is a huge history buff, so we're always trading history stories and I think there's really interesting examples in history of how some of the most challenging times have led to some of the biggest innovations and outcomes and how important it is that the public be onboard. I don't know, Dave, if you want to add here, but this is kind of one of our passion points and probably underpins a lot of our personal beliefs as we came together as partners to create this company that I do think is pretty interesting to inform kind of where we are right now in this moment.
David Finocchio (35:52):
I could tell lots of long history stories here, but I'll resist the temptation.
Cody Simms (35:58):
I was also an undergraduate history major.
David Finocchio (36:00):
There we go.
Cody Simms (36:01):
So we could nerd out if you want to, but I don't know if the audience wants to hear it all.
David Finocchio (36:05):
I don't know they're going to hear it either. But it has been very challenging in this country historically. It's not that there isn't some precedent, but without popular support to sort of do hard things, whether it's been to support other countries in wars, go to war ourself, Civil Rights issues, it's been very difficult when a majority of people are either on the other side or that a majority of people just don't fundamentally care that much. We believe that we're in a race, for as many people sort of brains to come on around this one as possible, but also come on in a way where they feel like they are part of a movement that is positive and hopeful and that we are all working towards something together that can ultimately lead to a brighter future, even a good positive, solid future for our kids and grandkids.
(36:54):
I think people just need to feel like they're connected to it for a reason versus just feeling like, "I could do all this individual stuff but I'm being told it doesn't really matter and every time I tune in to read a CNN article or a Guardian article, I'm pretty much just being told we're screwed, so kind of what's the point? And so I'm going to turn my brain off." That's not getting us anywhere and it's also not telling the full story at all, in my opinion.
Cody Simms (37:24):
So you had this aha, you two have come together on, "This is how we can push change to happen," and in the meantime, shine a light on people who are innovating, shine a light on companies who are innovating, get more people to realize that there is the ability to use your own talents to do something amazing and maybe that inspires some people to act. Maybe it just inspires some people to care. In the meantime, you're doing it as a business. You're building a media company. You both have been around the media space long enough to know there're multiple ways to monetize a media business. But at the end of the day, if you're a business, you do have to make money as a business, whether it's subscription, whether it's ad revenue, whether it's being a production company. I've seen in your materials early on, it seems like you're focusing on the commerce angle of commerce and content? Maybe help us understand what you view ultimately the business model of The Cool Down evolving to look like and how you're starting to test that.
David Finocchio (38:27):
I would just say for starters, our conviction is that the most important thing you could do in this space is build up a large audience that's actually engaged and participating in communities. And I think without doing that, the outcomes here are fairly limited. But I think if you can do that, then there are all sorts of potential options that open up. I'm not saying that this company's going to be Facebook, actually don't want it to be Facebook, but there are examples of businesses that spent a long time building up audience before they sort of over indexed on revenue. That said, Anna and I sort of have a shared vision that there's especially a whole new generation of young millennials and people who are Gen Z that are far more discerning about the stories behind the brands that they are spending their money with and that they're ultimately sort of choosing to wrap.
(39:20):
We think that that dynamic will accelerate over time as there's certain things that there are people who might not want to but they still spend their money through Amazon because it's convenience factors. We think over time, it'll be more convenient to do a lot of things, that there are more and more people that are going to want to spend their money with products and with companies that have done things that aren't terrible for the earth. I see a world where potentially commerce gets a bit more fragmented than it is today because I have a hard time reconciling how all consumers sort of continue to get behind one behemoth that does sell a lot of stuff that's made in China and is sort of thrown in junkyards and it's going to be tough for them to sort, I think, address very legitimate concerns that a lot of people are going to have.
(40:08):
So what we're trying to work towards is figuring out the best way to create, whether it's a hub or a very broad marketplace that makes it really easy for people to personalize sort of what they care about around commerce. But ultimately, if you want to live a more sustainable lifestyle or you and your family want to live a more sustainable lifestyle, there should be a much easier way to do that in one place than there is today. Whether we do that by always surfacing sort of direct products to consumers or making it easier for them to sort of use us as a portal to get to more niche marketplaces that do a great job with certain categories, I think we'll figure that out over time if we do our job and we're able to build up real audience and community. I think we'll learn a lot of lessons along the way about what types of commerce we should be prioritizing.
(40:58):
There are millions and millions of people all over the world right now, for example, that live in the northern hemisphere, that are going to have to figure out how to cool their homes between now and next summer. 95% of people in the UK don't have any sort of air conditioning. We're especially looking at categories where there's sort of an immediate need where people really have a real problem to solve. And then I think we'll probably try to branch out from there. But I think sometimes with businesses, if you can solve a problem for somebody and it's a problem for a lot of people, you might just be able to figure out the business along the way.
Cody Simms (41:32):
I'm hearing a little bit of, "Hey, we want to give you advice, help you find stuff that solves the problem you have, and then also introduce you, in the future, to the ability to either purchase that thing or even browse a library of different solutions or maybe even introduce you to other providers who are selling those things." Some people will say you can't shop yourself out of climate change, but what I believe, and I think I'm hearing this from you, is the theory of change is that you're going to create a mass media brand that is informing people, inspiring people, showing people that there are different ways of doing things and you have to be able to support yourselves financially to do that.
(42:12):
And so, you will offer the ability to buy products that are ethically made, better for the earth, better for climate as part of that. And you believe that enough people are going to be buyers of those things and that you can build a funnel for people to buy those things through you, that it'll support your ability to continue to communicate through media channels out to audiences. Am I hearing that correctly?
Anna Robertson (42:35):
I think people are not going to stop buying things and we are in the middle of this enormous transition to so many new products and offerings that go well beyond what currently now is marketed on eco sites and we think there's a huge opportunity there. What we are aiming to do, we're not creating a media company or a content company. We are creating what we hope will be the first mainstream climate brand and the largest and broadest sustainable marketplace, however that may look. As Dave said, it may look like more fragmented. There are amazing brands, there are amazing founders, there are amazing companies, and everything from electric lawnmowers and heat pumps to beauty products and fashion and all of that stuff and everything in between.
(43:17):
We are leaning into the commerce side as an adjacency to the content because they're very connected with the belief that we are creating a for-profit business. And we did do that intentionally and we feel like there is a difference in terms of the intentionality and the vibe of a for-profit business versus a nonprofit. We're setting our sites on this transition that we're in the middle of and building that ecosystem across content and commerce.
David Finocchio (43:44):
We live in a capitalist consumerist society and we are going to spend a lot of our energy promoting circular economies in ways that people can do more with less and save. But the reality is, as Anna said, people are going to continue to buy things. And in some cases, we want them to buy things, but we just want them to buy better things. I mentioned this notion before of, we see certain categories transitioning from early adopter, which is a largely sort of eco to this early majority that's coming that's a much larger group of people, and just the way you talk to that much larger group of people is going to be really different. They're not going to do as much research on their own, they're not going to take as much initiative. They sometimes might want three or four options instead of 10 options.
(44:33):
That's our bet. Our bet is that, that early majority is coming and that we, with our content, can sort of help them along the way and that in the process, we start to accelerate the adoption of products that are fundamentally less polluting than what most of us have used for most of our lives. We're under no illusion to, we as a company alone, even if we're wildly successful, we'll just be one small piece of this, but I think it's a piece that's needed.
Cody Simms (45:00):
I think there are a lot of businesses that people try to put into boxes. People try to put in MCJ into a box. Are you a podcast or are you a community or are you a venture fund or what are you? I think when it comes to climate, all of us who are working in this space, we're trying to activate so many people to lean in and care and we have to sustain ourselves while we do it that the spirit of being mission driven, experimenting in different ways of reaching audiences, and experimenting in different ways of building a sustainable model that allows you to do it that just doesn't rely on philanthropy, is a valuable thing and it has to happen. I think it's awesome that you all are trying to experiment with different ways of both growing audience and building a business around it.
David Finocchio (45:41):
When I left Bleacher Report, it was almost a 200 million a year, mostly advertising business. I know a lot about that business model. I think in this case, right now the category is not big enough to sort of create a big business just selling advertising. Advertising's not as attractive as it used to be, but also I think it's kind of our number one job to build trust with our audience. I think we should spend the next, if we can continue to get over hurdles and have success and have investors who are interested in supporting us, we should continue to invest in building that trust. I'm not sure that being sort of ad supported and promoting certain products that maybe aren't the products that our staff and our product recommendation team thinks are the best products is, I'm not sure that's the right way to build a business here. Never to say never. Maybe someday the very best products want to spend money with us and there's alignment, but I think in the near term, advertising's not the best fit for this type of business.
Cody Simms (46:41):
I'm going to put on my clearly hat that shows my age at this point, and I almost think back to the early days of the internet when companies like CNET and Wired came out. Those are advertising-supported businesses, but they were editorially trying to drive you to sort these new things that you could get that were tech products, that had this early mainstream, to use your phrase, early mainstream appeal to them and actually ended up creating pretty good directories of those products that became go-to places for people to do their research and learn.
Anna Robertson (47:14):
That's right. I think any company that is near content or commerce in this day and age has a diversified revenue stream, is flexible and adaptive to how dynamic the space is. I think Dave and I, like our backgrounds in this industry, we've seen a lot. We're storytellers and communicators, but we've also been in this business for a while so we know that there are so many different things that will come into play and we're just ready to stay ahead of the curve and to pivot as needed and to build a company that is built for this moment and this time when we're launching this brand.
Cody Simms (47:48):
What's next for you? You've been live for six weeks, you announced your seed round, which was led by Upfront Ventures, a firm here in Los Angeles that I know well and has done a ton in the Los Angeles Startup community and a ton in the media and tech community. Bill Simmons from The Ringer is an angel in the company. You've obviously got a lot of expertise around the table supporting you, not that you even necessarily need it because you two are absolute ringers yourself in this space, but...
David Finocchio (48:12):
No, you always do.
Cody Simms (48:13):
What are the next things you're working on?
David Finocchio (48:16):
There are a bunch of things that we're working on. So much of, it's not sexy, but sort of the guts of this business or again, just doing a lot of test and learn and figuring out where you have a chance to really break out and make content and create offerings that a lot of people want to be a part of. I think you'll see us continue to do that. Some of the things that will come from that is, we'll likely launch a newsletter or two around tighter subject matters and we'll likely look to start doing more partnerships and to get more exposure with brands. Anna mentioned that there are a lot of really influential people who care deeply about climate and whose brains, sort of like ours, have really come on around this over the past five to seven years or so.
(49:05):
I think something else that we're going to strive to do is whether they're creators or people of outside the creator ecosystem that are more just sort famous, influential people, is to leverage those people and the audiences that they have, especially if they're associated with a certain interest. We need to get more people like that to speak up and to just sort of let it be known that they're concerned, but they're also optimistic and that they're maybe doing things themselves and making investments. We just need sort of concern in climate activism, I think to be more normalized. My background is in the sports space and I think there's a lot of stuff that can happen in the sports space. I think a lot of partnerships in our future and then a lot just a dirty work behind the scenes, figuring out where we're sort of going to place bigger bets over time.
Cody Simms (49:51):
The sports metaphor is interesting, Dave, because you look at what drives culture, at least today in society and its sports and music.
David Finocchio (49:58):
Those are the two. Bill Simmons obviously was kind enough and excited enough about the space to get involved with our company. And we also have two of the guys who founded Bonnaroo and Outside Lands who participated in our rounds. We were very intentional about trying to bring influential connectors from those two worlds in particular and some others into the company so that when we're sort of ready, we think our offering is good enough and we know what we're doing a little bit. We want to leverage those connections and to start to sort of empower a lot of people who care to have content that they know is resonating and shareable. We need more of those people to step up.
Cody Simms (50:38):
What can the community, listening here, do to help? Where do you need people to lean in and support the work you're doing in any way?
Anna Robertson (50:44):
I think first of all, check us out. We are thecooldown.com. We are on Instagram and TikTok at the_cool_down. I want to express gratitude to this community and the community of folks who have welcomed Dave and I as non-climate experts, as novices, and very humbly tried to be a part of these conversations and often show up and we don't know all the answers, but everybody's been really warm and welcoming to us. I would encourage anybody who is working at a company that thinks we can tell their story in effective way, especially companies that are really focused on things that are interesting to mainstream Americans or have really good visuals because everything is about video right now. But even on our website, like we're telling a lot of those stories, whether it's a company profile, whether it is an individual who wants to speak out, we want to invite those folks.
(51:32):
We've had actually a really fun partnership with a guy that is now part of the MCJ community, I believe, who did a road trip with his wife and baby and went 5,500 miles in his Ford Mustang and was really eager to tell that story and caught the whole thing on tape and did a series for us on our website and on our Instagram about that journey to normalize what that's like. Those are the kinds of things like, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm in the MCJ community. I'm anna@thecooldown.com. Happy to hear any ideas from the content side to help to tell the story.
David Finocchio (52:02):
Another thing is just we're always going to be looking for really talented digital media people and digital commerce people who care deeply about climate. If it's you or if it's somebody in your life, please get them in touch with us because we're only going to be as good as the people who are a part of our company, and we've been fortunate early on to bring in some really great folks, but we're going to need a lot more of them over time and please reach out if that makes sense.
Cody Simms (52:29):
Dave, Anna, I so appreciate you both coming on. I so appreciate what you're doing at The Cool Down to try to activate mainstream audiences, to lean in, care more, learn more, and hopefully, as you said earlier, activate their communities around climate and around all of the new ideas that are out there that are helping us all find a more sustainable world. So really appreciate you and thanks for joining us today.
David Finocchio (52:55):
Thanks so much for having us, and thanks for all the work you're doing, and thanks for being a great connector in the space as well. Really appreciate you.
Anna Robertson (53:02):
That's right.
David Finocchio (53:02):
Thank you.
Anna Robertson (53:02):
Thank you.
Jason Jacobs (53:05):
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey Podcast.
Cody Simms (53:08):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity. To do this, we focus on three main pillars, content like this podcast and our weekly newsletter, capital to fund companies that are working to address climate change, and our member community to bring people together as Yin described earlier.
Jason Jacobs (53:30):
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at www.mcjcollective.com. And if you have guest suggestions, feel free to let us know on Twitter, @mcjpod.
Cody Simms (53:45):
Thanks and see you next episode.
