Welcome to the third episode of Humans in the Loop.

First things first, please go ahead and listen, subscribe and review the podcast on Spotify, Apple, Castbox, Youtube, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Summary

This episode features Tara Fung, co-founder of CO:CREATE - a digital platform for tattooing.

Tara raised $25m in seed funding from A16z at the height of the NFT hype with a technical vision for how to scale that ecosystem, but ultimately ran into hard times as the market for NFTs collapsed.

What followed was a journey into the unknown, seeking ways to successfully pivot the company into something they could build and scale.

Tattoos aren’t necessarily the first thing that spring to mind when you think of vc-backed businesses, but Tara’s own experience of getting tattooed served as a point of inspiration for CO:CREATE, coupled with a willingness to explore beyond the typical playbooks.

Key topics

• Facing uncertainty as a Founder

• Supportive investors

• Pivoting your company

• Being sober about the nature of the startup game

• Trust online

Chapters

00:00 The Evolution of CO:CREATE

12:57 Navigating the Fundraising Landscape

19:04 Navigating Investor Relationships and Pivots

23:48 Motivation and Purpose in Entrepreneurship

30:00 Finding Clarity in Direction and Focus

32:16 Breaking the Playbook: A New Approach to Entrepreneurship

34:23 The Future of Trust in a Distrustful World

38:17 Navigating Attention and Discovery in the Digital Age

42:12 Ethics and Technology: Balancing Business with Societal Impact

43:00 Exploring Trust, Ethics, and Technology

45:29 Empowering Artists in the Tattoo Industry

Transcript (tidied up by AI)

Seb Agertoft:
Welcome back to Humans in the Loop. Today I’m speaking with Tara Fung, founder and CEO of CO:CREATE, a digital platform for tattoo artists. Tara originally started with a Web3/NFT vision and raised a $25M seed from investors including A16Z. As the market and tech evolved, she and co-founder Sep Kamvar navigated headwinds and pivoted. Tara writes openly about the founder journey and thinks deeply about topics like the future of trust online.

Without further ado, this is Tara Fung.

Origins of CO:CREATE & Early Pivot

Seb:
Tell us about the origins of the company—what you’re building now is different from what you set out to build.

Tara:
Yes, it definitely is. So I started CO:CREATE in 2022. Web3 and NFTs were still in their heyday. And I was really excited about the opportunity to enable some of these creative communities that were being born online to set the right incentive structures for growth. So initially raised with a white paper that was based on a protocol that would design these structures that allow NFTs communities really to scale. And very quickly, what we found is that the idea was immature, which happens when you’re raising very early. And also the environment changed and the legal surroundings changed a lot. And so we had to pivot. We had to figure out, okay, what is it that we’re doing that makes sense in another area? Where should we be focused? What should we be looking at? And that’s really how CO:CREATE as it is today came to be, which now we are a global home for tattoo artists and their clients. And we’re trying to make that entire experience of finding your artists, booking in with an artist, and also for the artists managing all of their clients and their bookings really streamlined and seamless. And it’s crazy to me that we are where we are. I would have never thought, I would have never set out intentionally to build a tattoo company, but I also couldn’t be happier that we are where we are. It’s been such a rewarding experience and I’ve loved getting to meet these artists along the way and build something hopefully with and for them.

Fundraising in the NFT Boom

Seb:
Take me back to 2022—raising money with a white paper while NFTs were blowing up. What was that like?

Tara:
It was definitely chaotic in the good sense of the word. Things moved really quickly. And so because I feel like timing is everything. Timing is everything is fundraising. Timing is everything as an entrepreneur. The business that you’re building, it has to be at the right time. If it’s the right idea in the wrong time, it’s the wrong idea. And so in the case of the fundraise, I came together with Sep Kamvar, who is a brilliant technologist and mathematician. And we designed this white paper together that was really a protocol again for how to grow and develop these creative communities and to enable them to keep their character and their intention as they scale. And this is actually something that I think about a lot because I’m currently writing a post on how do you keep the soul of something as it scales? Because it seems as though scale is the opposite of character. It requires conformity and systems and sameness, but the things that we love are unique and different and human. And so this is a concept and a topic that I’ve cared about deeply for a long time. And when it came to the fundraise, it was right place, right time, right idea, right investors. Think, the lead investor, Chris Dixon at A16Z crypto, he just believed in the vision. And he believed in the idea and there was no thought that this was fully baked, right? And that’s also one of the reasons why I wanted to raise the amount that I was able to raise was to give the space and time to grow, to develop, to figure out what would work. And in fact, I had a really honest assessment of it early on because raising 25 million as a seed round, as your first capital round is not the traditional path, both because it’s typically not possible. It’s not available. But also there’s a concept that you should only raise for the next, call it 18 to 24 months, and you should prove out the milestones. It’ll minimize dilution, but it also just creates the pressure and the environment that you need in order to focus and succeed. And I think that there’s a lot of truth in that. I also think that there’s a different path that’s possible when presented. And the path that was possible here was to raise a lot of money and then have the time to figure things out. And that’s what we did. And I’m really happy that we did it, because I would have never ended up here had I not had that time and space to explore.

Why the Pivot Happened

Seb:
It sounds like you intended to figure things out along the way. Why the pivot? When did that become clear?

Tara:
So I mean in 2022, if we just put ourselves back in that time period, NFTs and really PFPs, so those 10,000 collection NFTs were all the rage. Bored apes were six figures, punks were six to seven figures, depending on the rarity. I mean, it was just a really unique time and it’s hard for us to put ourselves back in that mindset because it sounds insane now. But the thought process then was, these are going to be the most impactful consumer brands of the future. And they’re going to need a way to go from 10,000 to 10 million to 100 million. They’re going to need a way to reach people, to engage people, and to actually do what made the 10,000 so special, which is these PFP projects. They brought in 10,000 individuals. Okay, typically it wasn’t 10,000 because some people had more than one. A lot of people did. But they brought in this group of individuals that really cared and that felt ownership and that felt that they had voice and say in something that mattered. And that is a powerful idea. And so when we presented this approach and when I pitched like, Hey, there’s this approach to scale this and to scale it with the right incentives that keeps what’s so special. I think that really resonated. But then when we set out to do it, we hit a few roadblocks. One, the tech itself was immature. Blockchain technology has developed a lot since then. If you just think back in that time, gas fees or the cost of a transaction was incredibly high. Most of these projects were on a blockchain that cost a lot to do a single transaction, Ethereum, the layer one. And so transaction fees were very high. Also, the legal or regulatory environment became increasingly aggressive against anything that touched a blockchain. And then thirdly, and probably most importantly, even if we could have overcome the tech and legal struggles, it was, we just found that there wasn’t interest in what we were doing among the projects that we were trying to serve. They needed something different. They needed something bespoke. The protocol itself was not flexible enough and specific enough at the same time. And so it became clear, call it six to nine months in, okay, this isn’t working. So then what, where do we go from here? And I remember one of my advisors who’s also the co-author of the white paper, Sepp Kamvar one of the first things he ever asked me when we met was, what makes your heart sing? And I thought that was such an interesting question for someone who’s like a mathematician and is very technical to be like, what makes your heart sing? And for me, I’ve always wanted to do something that matters, not because it makes a shit ton of money, but because it actually improves people’s lives and makes their experience better. And so I think the way that we came to the pivot was in line with that. So we actually created a little micro group in the company. It was what, four people. And it was myself, the COO and general counsel, a designer and one engineer. And we said, we’re going to come up with concepts that we will stage gate and test. And they’ll only get further resources of our time and effort and also money to test it based on how they proceed and how they prove out. And so we looked at several different ideas. We looked at musician fan communities, right? Because this idea of fandom and incentivizing your fans and creating the right design to really encourage these fans to support artists was something that felt very aligned with where we started out. We also looked at nonprofit giving. And during that same time, I got a tattoo. And the tattoo artist was someone who ended up spending the session telling me about the world of tattoos and how tattoo artists have these incredible skills, but they struggle with so many aspects of being really a sole business owner, an entrepreneur. And they just want to be artists, but they’re forced into all of these other things. And as a client getting the tattoo, the experience was horrendous. It happened over emails. I was supposed to bring cash. I was like, I haven’t had cash in years. What do you mean? I don’t even know where to get this much cash. And so it was just the entire experience was confusing, convoluted, and friction-filled. And so I brought it to this micro group, this little SWAT team we had, and I was like, well, let’s explore tattoos. I don’t know anything about this world, but I’m really curious. And so that curiosity set off a ton of research, a ton of conversations, because one of the things that I feel very strongly about is you have to understand and have empathy and experience with any area in order to build for it. Otherwise, it’s just arrogance. Arrogance combined with ignorance is like a death knell. And so I spent a lot of time exploring the space. And then incrementally moving forward to, well, let’s build this as a reference application. Let’s show what’s possible with the protocol we designed. And eventually it became clear, and I’m happy to get into more details of how that came about, became clear this isn’t a reference application. This isn’t an example of what is possible. This is the timing here. This is the opportunity we want to pursue. And we want to pursue it fully, and that means we’re all in. Because if we do this halfway, we’re not going to do it well and we’re going to fail. And there was a point where the decision became really clear. Leading up to it, that was probably the most stressful time. But actually, once I made the decision, I felt such peace about pivoting the entire company to now be a tattoo platform and serving tattoo artists and clients of those artists.

Reconciling VC Money with the Tattoo Market

Seb:
You raised from top-tier VCs, but tattoos aren’t a typical VC space. How do you hold that tension alongside your views on scale and character?

Tara:
I tend to think a lot about what is the sequencing of things that need to happen, what needs to happen for a second, third, and when do I actually need to address a problem? When does something become a problem worth focusing on? So one of the things that you’re bringing up is tattoos. That’s not a market that has seen a lot of investment because the TAM, one, I think there’s two reasons for it. Actually three. One, most investors don’t have a lot of tattoos, if any. So they have zero experience with this market. And as much as we wish that we had empathy and understanding for all of these different things that don’t touch us, ultimately, we know and appreciate the things that we’ve experienced directly. And so a lot of investors don’t have tattoos. Two, investors are looking at patterns. And they’re like, who else has been successful in a big exit in a certain industry? There are not those examples within tattoos. And so that’s another blow against it. And then three, if you actually just look at the total addressable market, the TAM, it’s not massive. In the US, it’s hard to get this data, but it’s estimated that it’s probably a $2 $3 billion market within the US. Maybe it’s 5 to 10 globally. It’s growing at a CAGR of probably 8 to 10%. It’s hard to say, but if you look at the penetration of it, it’s that close to 40 % of adult Americans have tattoos. And that number rises to more than 50 % if you’re a woman under 40. And in fact, women are more likely to have tattoos than men. And the prevalence of tattoos is increasing across every age demographic and every education slice as well. And so I think that’s also part of the opportunity is that it’s been under invested, undervalued, under resourced. Ultimately, if we’re to be successful, we’re going to have to grow the total addressable market. And we’re seeing that we’re doing that. We find that around half of the clients that come through CO:CREATE, they say it will be their first tattoo, which I think is fascinating because I think there’s all of this latent demand out there that has found the process confusing, convoluted, and just friction filled. And if something’s hard, people don’t do it. And so I feel like we can address that to some degree. But I also think that eventually there’s going to be an opportunity presented to us. Do we go deep, vertical, or do we go wide, broad? Ultimately, some of the examples that my investors have looked at and said, hey, this is a path for you if you were to go wide is there are a lot of creative artists out there that sell bespoke services that are delivered in real time in person. There’s limited infrastructure out there that’s actually built for them and that they feel passionate about. If you’re able to expand the TAM and go beyond tattoo artists to other verticals, that could be really interesting. And then if you even just look within the tattoo vertical beyond supporting the actual payments that are going towards tattoos, there’s a lot of analogous products and services, whether that’s aftercare, whether that’s inks, needles, machines, so supplies for artists. But those are financial products for the artists themselves. I think there’s ample room to grow if we do what we are setting out to do, which is build the global home for tattoo artists and their clients. And we do that well. Once we have attention and trust, I think we can go in a lot of different directions. But going back to the sequencing of the problems, ultimately, if we don’t do this first thing well, none of it matters.

Telling Investors About the Pivot

Seb:
Walk me into the room when you first told investors about the new model. How did it go?

Tara:
Our fundraise was different or atypical in a lot of ways. One was the size of the round and the stage of the company, but the other was the concentration. Another leading VC wanted to co-lead the round and A16Z and Chris, and I think I appreciate it. He was like, no, want to take 80 % of the round and in doing so, A16Z, the resort and support that they provide resources and support they provide to their portfolio companies is incredible. I think they invest because of their size they invest so much in the support personnel not just the investors. And so he’s like and look it’s in your best interest to do this for these reasons. And so the great thing about that, I think there are pros and cons. The pro is I effectively have one investor that I really need their buy-in and support or that I really want to have their buy-in and support because of the concentration of their investment. The downside is there are fewer voices in the room. And I think if an investor doesn’t have enough of a stake, why are they going to give you a lot of time and support? It’s just not enough skin in the game for them. But when it came to going to A16Z and saying, hey, this is the direction we’re thinking, they actually were incredibly supportive. I chose to take investment from a very founder friendly firm, who gives a lot of trust to their founders and they don’t pull punches either. I mean, I’ve had really candid conversations with Chris when he’s disagreed with me. He’s made that abundantly clear and actually I really appreciate that because there isn’t time to mess around, right? Ultimately, when you’re raising money and you’ve got burn every month, you are on a timeline, you are on a countdown. And you need to make sure that before the clock strikes midnight, you end up somewhere that matters and that’s meaningful and that is able to hopefully provide a return on their investment. But even beyond that is able to do something that lasts. And so I think the conversation itself was had over months. It wasn’t a one time thing. And ultimately it was very tied to our vision of what we were trying to create in the beginning at the core. And so it was very easy.

Long-Term Vision vs. Short-Term Clock

Seb:
How do you balance long-term vision in frontier tech with the short-term countdown?

Tara:
You know, I felt a lot more of the pressure to figure things out really fast and to succeed and not to fail early on, right after starting CO:CREATE. And it’s not that I’m “OK with failure” now. I’m the person who always got straight A’s because I like the pat on the back. But it’s that I have accepted the game that I’m playing and I’m very sober about it. And I am also very transparent about this with my team because I think ultimately the biggest pressure that I felt was I didn’t want to let down our team and I didn’t want to let down our clients and our artists. But when you accept VC funding, you’re playing a blockbuster game. It’s go big or go home. 90 plus percent of startups fail. Those are the odds that we’re up against. And that means that the opportunity to win is that much more exciting and also crazy. Like to be in the top 1%, the top 10%, it’s really hard because in order to get funding, you’re already in a top percentile. So this is a percentile of a percentile. There was something… A16Z have a founder summit every year and they bring in incredible speakers. And two years ago they brought in Tom Brady, which I’m a Carolina Panthers girl, so don’t really love Tom Brady. That being said, he was so, what he shared on stage honestly has stayed with me this entire time because he talked about his mindset as an athlete and a competitor. And one of the questions presented to him was, you are down six points, two minutes left in the game. You’ve got one drive to go. How are you approaching that mentally? And he’s like, I’m not approaching it with the fear of failure. I’m thinking about, my God, what are they going to say tomorrow in the newspapers when they’re like, they did it again. They came back. And he’s like, I’m excited about the opportunity to excel and exceed. And I don’t know how true that is. I think that that fear of failure probably creeps in. But his record is pretty unmatched. And that really stuck with me. And so I try to focus on that. I try to focus on, I know what game we’re playing. I tell our team I know what game we’re playing. I’m very sober about we, the most likely outcome is we’re going to fail. But holy shit, if we succeed, we could do something really meaningful. So let’s focus on that and let’s point our North Star there and go for it. I think it’s, if it doesn’t work out. It’s still going to really suck. It’s not that it’s going to make it easier, but I think the hopefully that just being by being more accepting of of the situation makes it so that it’s easier to focus on the things that actually matter and trying to build something that’s meaningful versus being so focused on, man, what if this goes wrong?

Motivation: Why Do It?

Seb:
With the odds stacked against founders, why do it? What motivates you?

Tara:
I was never the kid who had a lemonade stand at five years old because I love making money. And I was like, I’m going to figure out how to build it. That just wasn’t me. I was the kid who was reading Nancy Drew novels and writing stories and wanted… So I remember I went up to my mom when I was 11 and I started crying. Was like, mom, I have to start studying French right now because apparently at the age of 12, your brain starts processing languages differently and I will never be as fluent as I would be if I start learning it now. Like I was just a weird kid. And I just wanted to figure out how the world works. And what I love about entrepreneurship is that it is the vehicle by which I’m able to explore the world. And particularly in the CEO seat, it allows you to shape the team around you to focus on the things that you do best. And so when I think about what motivates me, a lot of it is about learning, it’s about discovery, it’s about hopefully doing something that improves the lives for other people. And I don’t say that because I’m some, you know, Mother Teresa. I don’t think that I am. I’m incredibly pragmatic. But I say it because… I actually feel it. I’m like, have this one life to live. Who cares if you die a billionaire? Who is that benefiting? And so I often get asked the question about legacy. Actually don’t think I’m selfish or selfless enough to care about legacy because when you’re dead, you’re… And so I neither want people to remember me when I’m gone because I’m so egotistical, nor am I so selfless to be like, have to leave this legacy that lives beyond and that people are always thinking, wow, I owe this so much to, like, I just don’t feel that way. But I do feel that I can do something that matters now. I love hearing the stories of the artists and the clients that we support and that we enable them to come together or for the artists to focus on their art or for the client to find that right artist that brings their tattoo to life, which is often a form of healing. It’s a form of personal autonomy. That’s the stuff that gives me energy. And so I just focus on that every day. And that’s also going back to the question of when the, when the burn rate, you know, every month the money is going down and you’re getting closer to that clock striking midnight. I think back on the stories of the people that we’ve impacted and those will live on no matter if Co-Create does or not. And that makes me feel awesome. And that makes me feel like no matter what, this was worth it.

Tough Days & Coping

Seb:
What helps you manage the tough days in a boom-bust, fast-changing space?

Tara:
One is a great team, right? Because of the money we raise, I’ve been able to be very intentional and selective with the team that we hire. And we manage the team. If someone’s not working out, I’m a big proponent of we aren’t a family. We’re an elite sports team. Like, that’s the analogy that I want to use. And so it could be that you don’t make the cut. And that’s fine. And we will treat you respectfully before, during, and after your time at Co-Create. And so I have a great team that helps during the hard times. I have an incredible spouse. My husband is so supportive and provides a lot of perspective as well. I think the hardest days professionally have been the ones where I felt as a leader, didn’t know the direction we were supposed to go. And that just made me feel a guilt that I’m not doing my job and everyone’s looking to me and I don’t have the answer and I don’t know how to get it. Those are the hardest days and they happen, especially when you’re doing something early in emergent tech and it’s pivoting and all of this and the world is changing. And so those days are just rough. What I’ve found most helpful is going back to mission, going back to vision. Going back to purpose and then trying to just re-anchor yourself there. And also trying to correctly frame where we’re at as a company, what stage we’re in. I had an exec coach once who told me when we were in this exploration stage early on, really still focused on the Web3 protocol. And I was like, it just doesn’t seem like it’s working. I don’t know how to direct the team. I don’t know what to focus on. I’m not sure what the next step is. She’s like, what if you reframe this from being, this is the linear step forward and this is our next linear step to the stage we’re at as one of exploration and learning. And ultimately we’re creating hypotheses and we’re trying to validate or invalidate those. And that’s the job, not the linear progression. And that, so I think reframing helps a lot as well, but it’s a multitude of things and it’s definitely not always easy.

Current Phase & Clarity

Seb:
Where are you now—what phase is the company in?

Tara:
We are in the most definitive and directional place that we’ve ever been. And honestly, that gives me a lot of peace and solace. I like this place much better than the out in the wilderness. Like you can turn any direction and go for it and anyone could work. So where we are now is we know who we’re building for. We know why we’re building. We know what their problems are. We know what we want to accomplish and we think that the technology is going to continue to evolve and impact how we can accomplish that and what is possible. But there’s a lot of clarity. There’s a lot of clarity. It’s been fascinating because with this clarity, I’ve noticed that the chatter, almost like the frenetic energy has started to decline. Like I see it in our Slack channels. A lot of them are quieter. Because everyone just kind of knows what they’re working on and what they’re doing. And also that has to do with the specific project that we’re working on right now is more of a longer term project. And so there’s just a lot of focus there. But at first I was like, man, is this bad? Like we’re starting to see less back and forth and interaction. And I think maybe we’ll find out it is bad, but right now my assessment of it is. It’s actually people just know what they’re working on and they know what they’re doing and they know who to go to and how to do it. And there are just fewer clarifying questions or fire drills that pop up that actually don’t serve much of a purpose other than distraction.

“No Playbook” Approach

Seb:
You wrote that you’re not following a playbook. Why is that important to you?

Tara:
I’m not anti-frameworks, I’m not anti-learning from the past and case studies. I think it’s really important to try to educate yourself and glean learnings from these different things. I think it’s, I’m not trying to follow a playbook and I’m not trying to write one and I think that’s the most honest thing that I can say because it seems like today every founder is expected to also be an influencer and a creator. And I understand why that’s happened and it’s because we have such a distaste and distrust for institutions that we’re now looking to people and people are having to represent brands and we see this everywhere. And so I understand why that happened, but ultimately I’m in the thick of it. I’m learning. I am not an expert. I’m trying to figure this stuff out. If I were such an expert, I would have a billion dollar company in an exit already, right? And even those people who have done that, who’s to say that it was because they were so great? Like Marc Andreessen talks a lot about, it’s often not the best teams that succeed, it’s like the best ideas in spite sometimes and the execution in spite of the team. And by the way, that’s a total bastardization of his comment, but it’s to say that product market fit is often indicative of having the right idea applied at the right problem as opposed to the perfect execution and the perfect background of the people that are doing that execution idea. And so me not trying to follow a playbook or write a playbook is more about, I think the world is changing, so the playbooks that have applied probably don’t. And I want to be honest about where I’m at in this process, which is I’m still trying to find the forest for the trees or however that saying goes. And I want to write from a place of observation, of exploration, of learning, as opposed to from subject matter expertise.

The Future of Trust & Discovery Online

Seb:
You think a lot about trust. What does the future of trust online look like?

Tara:
This is something that I think about a lot and, you know, similar to everyone else, I experienced the world through my own eyes and my own lived experiences. And so I’m definitely biased in that, but I just look at how I get information nowadays where my attention goes and how I validate the credibility of information. And I think it’s so fascinating because it’s shifted so much and it’s continuing to shift. And ultimately, if something can’t be discovered, if you can’t create awareness, then it doesn’t matter how good your product is. And even if you have awareness, but people don’t trust you, it doesn’t matter as well. And so those both attention and trust are something that I think about a lot. And what I’ve observed is that going back to everyone wants to be an influencer and a creator now, because ultimately that’s who we look to for trust. And I think it’s because we do distrust institutions, do distrust brands, we do distrust governments. Any organization that is faceless feels as though it’s unaccountable. And I think it also feels as though ultimately the incentive structure of that organization is probably not aligned with their clients or their stakeholders. And individuals, they feel more accountable. Because they have to get in front of the camera every day and talk to you and speak to you and defend their positions. And I think that there’s something that can be very toxic about that, especially for the creators. But I understand why it exists, which is people want to be able to see the other human and to know that there’s someone real who’s representing what they care about and who they can see themselves in and understand, OK, if they care about this, then I should care about this too. And so that that human connection, whether it’s online through a creator or whether it’s through word of mouth and individual communities. I think that’s where a lot of trust comes from. And attention is fascinating because attention is being driven by algorithms that are often controlled by tech companies, always controlled by tech companies. And now it’s shifting from more of these platforms like social media to these LLMs like ChatGPT. And that shift I think is fascinating, like how discovery is going to change based on how LLM is surfacing data and recommendations. I mean, I do this myself. I needed to buy my mom a new laptop. The laptop my mom needs is very different than the laptop I need. I was like, mom, what are you going to use the laptop for? She was like, email. She’s from the South, hence the accent. And I was like, and she’s like, and I might use Grammarly, but not for their AI stuff because I want to write my own stuff. And I was like, okay, got it, mom. And so I was like, basically you need no RAM. Need no, like you don’t need a lot of processing power, a lot of memory, a lot of, you need an internet connection. That’s what you need. And so I go on ChatGPT and I’m like, I describe the situation. I’m like, this is my mom, this is her age, this is how she plans to use it. This is her price point. Tell me the top two to three and link it to a trusted platform where I can purchase it. I don’t want some random site. I want something that’s well known. And it gave me the links and I never use any, like that was the entirety of my discovery, the entirety of my research, and it filtered it down to three listings. And I’m like, holy smokes. How is that decision being made? And it is going to fundamentally reshape our economies. And I just think that’s fascinating to be building something in this time and trying to figure it out as well. And it’s also a little bit, I guess, anxiety inducing to understand that this power is going to be so centralized into something that we do not understand very well.

Tech, Ethics, and Unintended Consequences

Seb:
As creators, are we just feeding LLMs now? Will people still go to original sources?

Tara:
We often sequence tech priorities without fully weighing societal impacts of said things. So for instance, if we think about ChatGPT, I wonder what the investment is into, okay, what are the societal ramifications of the centralization of this information and how everyone’s going to go to this place to find and research and make decisions? How are we approaching that? And how are we thinking about the impacts on the future that I understand why a business mind would say, that’s a decision for the future right now. We need to optimize making this LLM a little bit faster, a little bit better, a little bit more intuitive. And yet eventually you end up being the dog that caught the car. And you’re like, well, I caught the car. Now, where do we go from here? Was in Bermuda recently, Light Flex, and I was on a beach and I looked around and every single person who is facing the ocean, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, was on their phone. I was thinking, I wonder if this is what Steve Jobs intended when he created the iPhone, is that people are going to travel all over the world and be in every sort of social environment. And instead of being there, they’re going to be here. And they’re going to be on their phone in the most unoptimal environment because in the sunshine, it is not easy to see your phone. It would be much better if you were in a basement, you know? So if you’re going to be on the phone, don’t be on a beach in Bermuda. Go to the base. And I just, I think about that often and that’s why I’ve been trying to create more space for myself to think about where we’re going as a company and why we exist and what we are setting out to do and also trying to embed more of the structural commitments so that it’s not just we’re responding to the incentives as they come because I think they end up taking you to a place that most people don’t want to go and don’t want to end up. But it’s hard. It’s definitely not easy to do.

Vision: How CO:CREATE Improves the World

Seb:
If CO:CREATE fulfills its potential, how is the world better?

Tara:
Like to say that we support both artists and clients, but whenever one’s interests are at odds with the other, we choose the artists. We exist for the artists. And ultimately, the future that I hope to enable and to bring to life is that we enable these tattoo artists to truly be artists, to focus on their art, to be able to give that their time and attention versus all of the other requirements and things that are associated with being a business owner, with being your own promoter, with probably managing a shop at some point, because a lot of the ambitious tattoo artists, their career progression as they go from being an independent artist to owning a shop and then having to manage other artists and manage an entire business. And every single decision that furthers their career takes them further away from the art. And I’m excited to break that connection and to allow artists to get back to their art. And on the client side, I have seen and heard firsthand how important tattoos are to an individual’s process, to their healing, to their memory, to being able to assert autonomy over their body when it feels like it’s been taken away from them or over their life. Whether it’s after a cancer diagnosis or after a divorce or even just a fun spontaneous event. And so I know that there are so many people who need this. It’s not a product, it’s an experience. It’s a connection with another human and they aren’t able to get it in a way that is trusted, that is easy, that is seamless. And so I’m excited to be able to bring more great tattoos to life. If we look beyond tattooing, because that is one of the possible futures, ultimately, I think that trusted seamless experiences matter across a lot of different verticals. And our company name is actually Gesso Labs. Our DBA is CO:CREATE. But Gesso, if you’re not familiar with it, it’s the paint that you put on as the first layer before you add color. It’s like this chalk paint on a canvas. And that was a very intentional decision to have that be our company name because ultimately I want to be the thing that you don’t really see. But that enables this beautiful artistry and color and texture and character to emerge. And so that’s a very highfalutin description, but it’s what my hope is and what I get excited about and why I’m investing so much of my time and my life into this.

If you’d like to come on the show, or know of someone who’d be a great guest then please reach out to me: [email protected]