• July Breakfast Club Sign Up

• Eight Sleep

• Andrew Yeung Interview

Sign Up for July’s Breakfast Club! (Only Breakfast Club Meetup of the Summer)

Ariel Purnsrian and I (Morgan Barrett) are teaming up with Breakfast Club OG and one of the savviest young VC’s out there, Jack McClelland, to celebrate tech, summer, breakfast, and New York.

If you enjoy no longer being Vitamin D deficient and can string a coherent sentence together before noon (or not!) come hang with us in SoHo. Click the button below:

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Breakfast Club Member Spotlight: Andrew Yeung

Andrew Yeung – he’s everywhere and elusive. He’s reimagined what tech networking looks like in a post covid world. If you haven’t attended one of his 1,000 person mixers, you’ve at least seen him on twitter or have heard of him.

He’s never charged for his events – his goal has been only to create memorable experiences for New York’s tech leaders.

After spending the day with Andrew, walking around Los Angeles right before LA Tech Week, I get the feeling that he’s at an inflection point in his life. He’s always looking to brainstorm and collaborate with partners, investors and builders who have similar goals – if that’s you, shoot him a message.

[2:30pm, picking Andrew up at LAX Terminal 7]

So, I don’t want to make it into too big of a deal that I picked you up at LAX but I also want you to know that it’s a special honor. And I wanted to say that I’m grateful for your support and I owe you big time for helping me get the nyc tech breakfast club off the ground.

I appreciate it and this is a cool welcome to LA. I was here 10 years ago for a summer camp at UCLA. I remember going to In-N-Out and having frozen yogurt for the first time. Is Pinkberry still a thing?

Well I thought I’d take you to Erewhon and then get some tacos

[3pm, Erewhon in Venice, I convince Andrew to get the $20 Hailey Bieber Skin (no skin included) smoothie, we walk towards the beach]

I’m not sure Erewhon existed last time I was in LA. Or maybe it did, but I definitely didn’t have $100 to spend on groceries or smoothie made by Justin Bieber’s sister

It’s his wife and I don’t think she makes it herself

I’m not big on pop culture stuff. Surprised he’s married.

What do you think founders can learn from Erewhon?

Yeah, so my impression of Erewhon – it smelled really nice and everyone was very attractive and interesting. Well organized. I almost bought a $30 bottle of water.

Biggest takeaway was that if you make something absurd, people will buy it just because it’s absurd. Like this shake, yeah the Hailey Bieber smoothie. If you have a good product already and then you do something absurd, people will buy it because it’s absurd. Some may say it’s a branding thing, but I didn’t even know who Hailey was.

I think our headspace, where we are thinking about wacky ideas, pushing the boundaries, and testing things to learn all these consumer insights that you normally wouldn’t touch, is a good space to be in.

You’ve resisted monetizing your events

Yeah, I’ll get sponsors to cover expenses. Name tags aren’t cheap.

I’ll pay volunteers sometimes. Or pay for a DJ. I can’t keep any revenue myself because of my visa. I just can’t be paid for any work outside of Google.

I didn’t think of the visa restrictions. What would you do if you got deported? Where would you host your deportation party?

I’d probably drop like $100k on the most epic party ever.

How do you feel about renting out Ellis Island?

I would do just a really epic goodbye. Rent out Sony Hall again, and spend all of my money on the billboards in Times Square

Regarding LA Tech Week, what are you excited about?

I don’t know if I told you, but I booked this trip initially because I was bored or maybe burnt out in New York City. And I have a free place to stay here. Maybe I’ll go to tech week. But now I’ve RSVP’d to 25 events. So my calendar is fucked. I will go to the A16Z party tomorrow. I’m looking forward to Stevie and Ian Karr’s dinner.

And I need to figure out how to do this and not spend $200 on Uber a day.

[Crossing to the shady side of the street]

I can’t tell if it’s warm or cold in LA.

You can see someone with a down jacket standing next to someone in shorts and a tank top and both are dressed appropriately

I definitely want to buy some clothes. I packed light. I was at this rave last night and everyone is on drugs and has a cool outfit and I’m sober. People were wearing capes. I might get a cape.

It’s important to have a uniform in tech. Steve Jobs had the Izzy Miyake black turtle neck and jeans. You can just dress like a wizard.

At the really big tech events, I get inundated by people trying to tell me about their startup and it’s a bit draining. I need a disguise. A friend suggested I wear a shirt that says SECURITY

How did you meet Cliff Lerner (Founder of Saturday) and become a champion of the app?

He went to my Williamsburg rooftop event and cold emailed me four times. I didn’t know who he was so I didn’t respond. Then his friend Dave Perry, volunteered at my event and then introduced me. And then Cliff wanted to sponsor an event but didn’t care about the outcome – just said here’s however much money you want.

I get now that he did that to build a relationship. Then I used the app and was like this is perfect. This is literally perfect. Yeah. I then reached out to him after and asked to be a part of that and the rest is history. We work really well together.

Cliff is incredibly accomplished and smart – but still so humble, taking my advice. Coming from an Asian culture where you don’t ever see that.

He doesn’t just listen to everyone’s advice, so I think it’s a testament to your insight. He’s not just going around respecting everyone’s advice.

Earlier we were talking about chapters of your life, right? And I think every chapter, you go through a different problem. And you can’t solve these problems by yourself. So you normally need a mentor or a guide. It changes every three, four years. Cliff is my mentor and influenced my life in all these different ways. So, he’s helped accelerate my career in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

No SF Tech Week this year?

I’m not a big San Francisco fan. There’s nothing to do there. It’s not a relaxing place to be. It was raining last year, it’s hard to get around, lots of hills. Man I hate hills. And the people. I feel like people in New York are just more interesting.

Also, it was tech crunch not tech week so maybe that made a difference. But everyone there was like really serious.

I saw Nikita [Bier] walking downtown the other day – have you run into him in New York yet?

Not yet

Can you give the backstory about your relationship or interaction with Nikita?

I learned a lot about going viral. Nikita Started Gas. Well before that he built a company called TBH. It’s the exact same anonymous teen polling app. Facebook bought TBH. And I just don’t like that.

Don’t like what?

I don’t like when people find cheat codes for life. It just feels lazy and there’s no real value being built. Which really annoyed me. I don’t like when people find ways to manipulate teens. Yeah I think I was in a bad mood when someone tweeted that it’s going to get acquired. I’m like fuck that. No, it’s not.

And then a friend of Nikita texted that the deal was signed and Discord was announcing the acquisition tomorrow.

At that point I decided to just leave it up and endure.

[Ordering Tacos at Teddy’s Red Tacos]

Yeah could we get 10 birria tacos, no cheese, with a side of consommé

That sounds like a lot of tacos

Nah, they’re kind of small. Okay finish the Nikita Story

Today the apps dead, so the part I got wrong was that no one was going to buy it. Right after he announced the deal, Nikita retweeted me. His friend, Nicole, made a cake with my tweet on it.

Sam Parr and Sahil Bloom both texted me later saying I fucked up.

I got a few thousand followers from it. Made some friends off it. Some guys were like great job at making it funny.

Nikita texted me after and says “that’s a fair take” and “thanks for making this moment so perfect”

What do you think of the tacos? Have you had birria tacos before?

A lot better than New York, wow, never had them crispy like this. Wow.

Is there anyone you look up to?

I admire Nick Gray a lot

The two-hour cocktail guy

Yeah, he’s friends with everyone and really good at his job. He knows everyone and really good at introducing people to each other – much better than I am. His parties are a lot more thoughtful. A lot of people when they get big they focus only on the most important people and narrow down their network. Not so with Nick. He helps almost everyone. He responds to everyone.

Yeah, very intrigued by Nick. He’s multiple time founder, with successful exits, always bootstrapped. And he even self-published his book. The guy doesn’t like angel investing either. Which is surprising given he has so many entrepreneurial friends.

 He’s sold a shit ton copies

Do you think about your progression in different phases? Like phase 1 you get to New York, you don’t know anyone and you’re cold dm’ing a 100 people....

So I think the first phase was I was in Canada, working a job I didn’t really love and was not very good at. I didn't know how to network. I was awkward. I didn't know how to present. I didn't know any of that shit. I didn't know any of that stuff. And then the first thing I got really good at was people. I knew that because I convinced Facebook to hire me and get my visa.

And then I started getting really good at cold DM’ing people and building relationships with people. And that's how I built my network in New York.

Then the next one after that, the next phase was, sort of seeing the light on how you can build a business. I don't think it's that hard to build a million-dollar ARR business. I've seen so many people do it and I've seen the playbook and I feel like I'm pretty sure the events could be a million dollar business in the first year. If I monetize them.

You can quit your job today and build a thriving business. And there's so many ways to do that. I feel like so many people don't know that. Yeah. And there's so many cheat codes in life.

But you just said –

Yeah I know earlier I said I hate cheat codes. But in some regards, I love them because like you know, I love getting access to things – I have free hotels around the world, like that stuff.

Why events? Where does your mission come from?

Yeah, so I grew up in Asia, I spent 20 years in Asia, three different countries. And I didn't have many friends as an only child, so I was just very lonely.

I didn’t know you were an only child, I’m an only child.

You're an only child, we’re both community people. So as an only child, you get really good at building any relationships, because you have none. Yeah, you don't really have that unconditional love from anyone else. Other than your parents. And like maybe, you know, sisters and stuff like that.

Yeah, after your parents are gone it’s just you. It’s mission critical to create your own family

You put it a lot better than me. Yeah, you got to find your people. Because no one can be alone. I don’t have to be in a room. I like creating a room for people to be together because I don’t have to be the center of attention.

[Andrew takes wet wipe out his pocket to clean up after tacos]

I’m shocked by how prepared you are

I just realized I had this – the plane gave it to me

Erewhon. Sushi, the smoothie, now these tacos, holy fuck, one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. I’m coming back here. I don’t know when. But, I’m coming back here

If you weren’t doing events what would you be doing?

I’d be making content. I used to make YouTube videos as a kid, I loved it. I used to make really shitty parkour videos in Taiwan. I could jump high. I could dunk a dodgeball. I was obsessed with sports. Volleyball, track, and martial arts.

END

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