I was excited to have Troy Carter on the podcast.  He is the founder of Atom Factory, and the conversation was inspiring to say the least.

Troy and I talked about hip-hop, entrepreneurship, life, failure, success and finding passion around your work.  Troy used to work with Bigee Smalls and Puff Daddy back in the day and we started talking about the paralelles of technology entrepreneurs and hip hop music artists.  And the conversation turned into so much more afterwards.  

A great quote from Troy: "In life in general, there are no guarantees.  Failures are a part of life.  As cliche as it may sound, the way I look at it as there are no rewards without taking risks.  We take a risk every time we step out the door, every single day.  Life is full of risks and failures, but at the same time life is full of triumphs and hapiness."  

In this episode I talk with Willie Geist, co-host of the TODAY Show and Morning Joe, and a multiple time NY Times best-selling author.  Willie is an old friend from Vanderbilt and I enjoyed interviewing at his office in NYC a few weeks ago.

Willie chats about his book Good Talk, Dad:  The Birds and The Bees…and Other Versions We Forgot to Have  that he co-authored with his father Bill Geist.  Good Talk, Dad became a NY times best-seller, without having any orders pre-sold through Amazon. This is a big deal, because the bulk of book orders in this modern day come from pre-ordering on Amazon’s website.  Willie details why and his Dad wrote the book together, and how they marketed it to their audiences around Father's Day. 

Additionally, we dive into various chapters of the book. This includes reminiscing about the famed Big Sky Basketball Tournament @ Vanderbilt University that we both played in back in college. And a funny chapter he wrote about taking his daughter to a Harvard/Columbia football game. 

Willie also talks about how what it’s like crossing over to other shows like Andy Cohen’s Bravo Show, Joel McHale’s The Soup, and working with The Olympics with Brian Williams and Michelle Beadle. Andy Cohen and other friends were instrumental in helping to market “Good Talk. Dad,” helping it reach best-seller status.

Buy Willie and Bill Geist’s book “Good Talk, Dad”: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Talk-Dad-Conversations-Forgot-ebook/dp/B00EXTVSMI

Follow Willie Geist on Twitter: https://twitter.com/williegeist

Watch Willie on the Today Show: http://www.today.com/

Lance Ulanoff is Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large at Mashable.  He joined the Stories From the Influencer Economy, to detail his work as a journalist, and discuss how the journalism industry is evolving in the era of social media.

We also discussed how journalists can build their personal brands on platforms like Twitter & Vine.  Lance has covered Apple since his days writing PC Mag, through the current job at Mashable.  He also has makes regular appearances to talk tech and products on shows like Fox News, the Today Show, and Good Morning America. 

I had Lance on the show to discuss: 

Follow Lance on Vine: 

What you’ll get out from this episode (Show notes):

This episode is supported by https://www.trumaker.com

Justin Jackson joins the Influencer Economy for Episode #25.  Justin a product manager by day, and does a million other things in his spare time. He details how he hosts his Product People podcast, works his day job as a product manager, and finds time to blog and write his email newsletter. Justin talks at length about the important of "shipping" your ideas and building products.  So often people focus on big ideas, and Justin talks how the virtues in building smaller ideas, that can turn into bigger ones.  This episode also dives into how to interview and reach important people as well as how building side projects can help re-define your career.

Product People:  A podcast focused on great products and the people who make them  http://productpeople.tv

Justin's website:  http://justinjackson.ca

Justin on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/mijustin

Caleb Bacon is an network TV writer and host of the popular podcast Man School.  He's a jack of all trades in the modern media world.  He currently writes for the TBS comedy Sullivan and Son, while also hosting the weekly Man School Podcast.  Man School is a show where he interviews men about their exciting or difficult experiences.  He often interviews guys about major moments in their lives that shaped them as a person.

On this week's Influencer Economy, Caleb details what it's like writing on Sullivan and Son, and how he started writing for TV Shows.  He details his creative process for not only TV, but how he broke into the podcasting world. We talked at length about his creative ambitions, and how to become successful in Hollywood.  The show also goes deep into the pitfalls of working in entertainment, living in Los Angeles, and Caleb's sobriety.

This is a really great episode.  Caleb was forthcoming about how he built his writing and podcast careers, while also opening up about his creative process. We explore why we both podcast, and the ups and downs of working in Hollywood.

Subscribe on iTunes:   https://bitly.com/InflTune  Find us on SoundCloud:  https://soundcloud.com/the-influencer-economy

Support for this episode comes from Trumaker, a new menswear brand that combines ruggedly refined original designs with a modern approach to made-to-measure clothing. Call for a 30 minute fitting: http://www.trumaker.com

 Connect:

Man School Podcast:  http://manschoolshow.com

Caleb Bacon on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CalebEatsBacon

Man School Podcast on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ManSchoolShow

Ryan on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ryanjwill

Caleb Bacon is an network TV writer and host of the popular podcast Man School.  He's a jack of all trades in the modern media world.  He currently writes for the TBS comedy Sullivan and Son, while also hosting the weekly Man School Podcast.  Man School is a show where he interviews men about their exciting or difficult experiences.  He often interviews guys about major moments in their lives that shaped them as a person.

On this week's Influencer Economy, Caleb details what it's like writing on Sullivan and Son, and how he started writing for TV Shows.  He details his creative process for not only TV, but how he broke into the podcasting world. We talked at length about his creative ambitions, and how to become successful in Hollywood.  The show also goes deep into the pitfalls of working in entertainment, living in Los Angeles, and Caleb's sobriety.

This is a really great episode.  Caleb was forthcoming about how he built his writing and podcast careers, while also opening up about his creative process. We explore why we both podcast, and the ups and downs of working in Hollywood.

Subscribe on iTunes:   https://bitly.com/InflTune  Find us on SoundCloud:  https://soundcloud.com/the-influencer-economy

Support for this episode comes from Trumaker, a new menswear brand that combines ruggedly refined original designs with a modern approach to made-to-measure clothing. Call for a 30 minute fitting: http://www.trumaker.com

 Connect:

Man School Podcast:  http://manschoolshow.com

Caleb Bacon on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CalebEatsBacon

Man School Podcast on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ManSchoolShow

Ryan on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ryanjwill

This episode is presented by Trumaker.com.

Ryan Ford is the EVP Chief Creative officer, at Cashmere Agency. Cashmere is a lifestyle agency based in Los Angeles that focuses on multicultural millennials and building out communication strategies that can speak to people authentically wherever they’re at online.  Their sister company is Stampede Management, and their client list that they advise and manage include Snoop Dog, Riff Raff, Far East Movement and more.  

There are a lot of great stories and nuggets from this talk with Ryan.  He and I grew-up in Des Moines, IA back in the day. We catch up about our freestyle rap days,the melting pot of our high school, and how that shapes us today.

Ryan Ford also details how Cashmere, and specifically artists like Snoop Dogg bridge the gap between hip-hop communities and Silicon Valley's tech companies.  Snoop Dogg was the first celebrity on Instagram and their company helps Silicon Valley understand how to communicate with millienials and diverse communities online.  Ryan’s company thinks a lot about MMXLII, which is the year 2042 when minorities in America will make-up the majority.  Ryan also explains Snoop Dogg's crowdfunding campaign to provide football equipment to inner-city youth in Iowa.  There's a lot of great stuff in here.  The article about Snoop helping Des Moines football:  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/des-moines/2014/10/22/snoop-dogg-campaign-youth-football-reaches-target/17745215/

This episode is presented by Trumaker.com.

Ryan Ford is the EVP Chief Creative officer, at Cashmere Agency. Cashmere is a lifestyle agency based in Los Angeles that focuses on multicultural millennials and building out communication strategies that can speak to people authentically wherever they’re at online.  Their sister company is Stampede Management, and their client list that they advise and manage include Snoop Dog, Riff Raff, Far East Movement and more.  

There are a lot of great stories and nuggets from this talk with Ryan.  He and I grew-up in Des Moines, IA back in the day. We catch up about our freestyle rap days,the melting pot of our high school, and how that shapes us today.

Ryan Ford also details how Cashmere, and specifically artists like Snoop Dogg bridge the gap between hip-hop communities and Silicon Valley's tech companies.  Snoop Dogg was the first celebrity on Instagram and their company helps Silicon Valley understand how to communicate with millienials and diverse communities online.  Ryan’s company thinks a lot about MMXLII, which is the year 2042 when minorities in America will make-up the majority.  Ryan also explains Snoop Dogg's crowdfunding campaign to provide football equipment to inner-city youth in Iowa.  There's a lot of great stuff in here.  The article about Snoop helping Des Moines football:  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/des-moines/2014/10/22/snoop-dogg-campaign-youth-football-reaches-target/17745215/

Brian Koppelman joins The Influencer Economy as this week's guest.  Brian is the co-writer of films such as Rounders and Ocean's Thirteen, as well as the co-director of the Emmy Award winning "30 for 30," film on Jimmy Connors This is What They Want. Ryan met Brian on a trip to NYC, and they spoke in Brian's New York office.

He's also a prolific podcast host and hosts a show called The Moment, a weekly podcast that is part of the Grantland network.  Brian is interested in the way people accomplish remarkable things and how they process the big moments in their lives.  That is the thesis of the show.

http://www.influencereconomy.com

He was invited on the show to talk about his creative process around filmmaking, and his embracing of social media in the digital age.  As a creator, he has launched many big ideas online, and is a defining member of The Influencer Economy. 

Brian also created the extremely popular "Six Second Screenwriting Tips" on Vine.  The Vine series came out of questions received from Twitter.  He created one Vine every day (for 300 days), and one Vine has over 20 million loops.  The videos were focused on the idea of “giving yourself permission to create.” 

Brian is an avid podcast listener and"loves the intimacy of the conversations ." He talks about how Marc Maron's WTF inspired him to get into podcasting. Brian also details how he connected Bill Simmons and Dave Jacoby of Grantland, and how The Moment podcast came to be. 

He is currently working on a series for Showtime and shooting the pilot in the beginning of next year.  The show title: Billions, the setting is the financial industry in New York.  He is collaborating with his long time writing/directing partner David Levien and Andrew Ross Sorkin. 

Quotes:

•   “I’ve never calculated one part of my work. I’ve always just led with what fascinates me.  That’s why having the conversations is easy too. That’s what led to every movie… All this came from only being obsessed with chasing down my passions and being unrelenting with the desire to be able to tell my children that I fought to live the creative life I wanted to live and that they could do the same.” 

•   “I want all the things that I say to be things that I believe and have some value.”

•   “I actually don’t think that there is such a thing as remarkable people; people are the result of the actions that they take and then how they process the feedback from those actions.”   

•   "A blocked artist is probably a bad wife or husband.”   

Connect:

•   Brian on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/briankoppelman

•   Brian on Vine:  https://vine.co/briankoppelman

•   Brian's website:  http://briankoppelman.com

•   At the end of the show, he suggests that you watch his film Solitary Man: http://www.solitarymanmovie.com

Bernie Su: Creating The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Bernie Su chatted with Ryan about writing, filmmaking and entrepreneurship. Bernie details the journey of adapting Pride and Prejudice, and creating The Lizzie Bennet Diaries for the online world.   Bernie and Hank Green of the Vlog Brothers are the creators of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and Bernie shares the story of how they adapted Jane Austin's famous book, for the modern digital day. His interactive series went onto win a PrimeTime Emmy and was the first ever YouTube Channel to receive such an amazing distinction.

http://www.influencereconomy.com/

He also explains what it was like launching their extremely successful Kickstarter campaign for the DVD distribution, and the follow-up online series:  Emma Approved. Bernie and his team at Pemberly Digital currently working with PBS Digital on Frankenstein MD, a modern adaptation of Frankenstein for the digital age.

Ryan asked Bernie to be on the show to talk about building properties like Lizzie Bennet on multiple platforms and taking risks as a creator. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries started as a web series, then became a DVD, and is currently a book “The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet.” Bernie shares his refreshing perspective that is guided by the philosophy: "If you want to win big, you have to bet big."