Founder Energy
An Inherent Bummer pitch deck.
I’m going to meet up with some neighbors this afternoon at a local beer spot. Neighbors I have been in a “beer club” with for going on two years now.
The deal is we have a rotation and one of us buys a 6-pack and delivers it to each member’s doorstep at 5pm every Friday. We all live in walking range and it’s nice to see a cold beer on your porch when you get home from work. I usually drink mine while I make a martini.
The problem with the beer club is that I’ve never met any of them — well, I have met the one who invited me. Life is busy and there is a text thread we share, but we don’t know each other, so the club part kinda doesn’t make sense.
That all changes tonight. We will have our meet up and I can see who has been delivering these really insanely strong dinner-skipping IPA beers to my door (the boys seem to like ‘em craft brewed and intense).
I look forward to the opening statements from everyone: “So, what do you do?”
Operating my niche corner of an already counter culture website and brand called Inherent Bummer from my garage is the joy of my professional life. But explaining it to the general population is funny. Their eyebrows raise, followed by a “hmm” and then they take a sip of beer, confused about how I could live in their nice neighborhood writing about surfing.
“So it’s not a print magazine?”
And then three or four sentences later after I tell them that I went surfing today, “So how do you make money. Like with Inherent Bummer?”
Such is socializing at midlife.
Don’t you see? I’m cool!
I could tell them how one time I threw the Cluster premiere party at The Ace In Downtown LA and Anthony Kiedis came and sat next to my parents while Stella Maxwell, his girlfriend at the time attended separately with her friends and the two ran into each other at the bar. “What are you doing here!” They could have carpooled!
This is where I will go into my spiel to the guys about the long play. About founder energy. About how I was born to do this. How surf commentary is important. How wave pools suck but surfing is awesome. How I am a surf culture vulture and brands and people want to align themselves with me and our brand and it’s only a matter of time before I collaborate with Adidas and move to Montecito to start my memoirs. It all started in an attic. Then I moved to a garage that was full of mosquitos…we were on our way.
I read an article this week about a new “manager” named Max Stein who specializes in representing niche “creatives” in the Substack and partnership space. People with a following but whose skillsets don’t exactly fit into a traditional box. [Me raising my hand].
My resume (I mean CV, sorry) includes some pretty sweet things. I mean, imagine the day-in-the-life doc:
VO: Travis Ferré is an indie media founder, father and surfer, who manages to find himself in the tube while still making it to pick up his daughter on time (well, he was close), take her to swim lessons, get her to sleep and hug his pregnant wife before sipping a cold beer with his neighbors he’s never met.
The camera crews would film me surfing. A boiling frenzy resembling a seagull churning his arms to get out of the way of an orca. Desperate. Hurried. I need my waves in a hurry!
Today it was big, consistent and walled and all the things I usually love. I had to duck dive a lot and pick the eyes out of it to find a corner but I did manage to get in and out of two barrels — one right in front of my best friend who was caught inside (yes!). A ridiculous feat for a guy who operates a Substack that’s about to sellout and go triple platinum with his new agent Max Stein. It’s time we take this lifestyle to the world, Max. Call me.—Travis Ferré
PS: Do craft breweries make martinis or do I need to bring my own?
Above photo: [Man holding a mug of beer] by Weegee