The Come Up

This interview features Brian Volk-Weiss, CEO at The Nacelle Company. We discuss why betting big on standup specials got him Netflix's first streamer deal, how Iowa taught him about empathy in content production, bombing on stage and the genius of comedians, producing The Movies That Made Us, toy shopping as therapy, and why he'll retire when his first feature film is greenlit.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I'm shocked any of this worked. So much of what we built was theoretical for so long. And the fact that there's almost no greater feeling than watching the moment a theory becomes a fact. We were making stand-up specials at scale, 20 to 30 a year for years spending millions and millions of dollars. We didn't know if it would work or not, probably until year seven. We started this plan in '08, and I didn't know it would work for sure until 2014.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Brian Volk-Weiss, the founder and CEO of The Nacelle Company. Brian grew up in Queens with an early love for the Star Wars in 1989 Batman films. But upon realizing these worlds weren't based on reality, but instead imagined through the magic of Hollywood, Brian fell in love with filmmaking. So after college in Iowa, he moved to LA to become a production assistant. He then took an early career bet on producing a catalog of stand-up comedy specials, which almost bankrupted him, but the bet paid off big and enabled Brian to found his own production company, which is behind hit titles like The Movies That Made Us on Netflix.

So Brian exudes an incredible love for his work, as well as constant amazement he's got to where he is today, which makes telling his story really fun. Some highlights of our chat include why comedians are geniuses, empathy and content production, doing Netflix first streamer deal, toy shopping as therapy, and why he'll retire when his first feature film is green-lit. All right, let's get to it. Brian, thanks for being on The Come Up Podcast.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Thank you for having me. Very honored.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Let's rewind a bit. And why don't you start with telling us where you grew up and what your household was like?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I grew up in Queens, New York. Was born in the late '70s. It was my mom, my dad and me and that's it.

Chris Erwin:

And early on, when did this love for toys, entertainment, storytelling, when did that really come to be? Was there a glimpse in your pre-teen years or as you were growing up in your house, any inspirations from your parents?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I obviously, I got to get my mom credit because at three years old I could not have bought my own ticket to Star Wars. So I guess I can give her credit for my whole career in that regard. But I'm very lucky. It's the luckiest thing in the world. I saw Star Wars when I was three and I was so young, and by the way, everything I'm about to tell you, I have no memory of whatsoever, but my mom told the story her entire life. So I have it memorized. But basically at three years old, I did not know the word documentary, but basically the way my mom described my reaction to seeing Star Wars, it was as though I thought it was a documentary.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And you have to understand, my mom was one of the first women to get a PhD from St. John. My dad was a lawyer. It was very concerning to them that their son for months, when he was asked, "Hey, what do you want to do when you grow up?" My answer was, "I want to fly an X-wing fighter. I want to join the Rebellion." And I mean, this really freaked my parents out. So my mom bought me this book that I still have, that was about the making of Star Wars, but it's written for five-year-olds. And I opened the book, the Death Star that was supposed to be the size of the moon was only six feet across C-3PO. There was a picture of his helmet off and it's Anthony Daniels.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

From that moment, and by the way, before that I wanted to be a limousine driver, just to show you how young I was. When people would say, "What do you want to do?" "I want to be a limousine driver." And then they'd say, "What do you want to do?" I'd say, "Oh, I want to join the Rebellion." After I saw the book, when they said, "What do you want to do?" I would say, "I want to make movies." And I mean, I've never wanted to do anything else ever. Obviously, now that includes television, but that's what led to it.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. And were you involved, in your pre-teen years or in high school involved in the theater in any capacity where you're writing stories, any of that?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I wasn't involved with the theater. I did one theater thing in college and that was what it was, but I did make little movies all the time. I made five-minute short film. By the way, I do have to say, when it was really hard to do, I mean, forget about shooting on 16 or even 8mm film, the camera I had literally shot on VHS tapes. It must've been three or four feet long. And by the way, that was the easy part. Editing in those days, I mean, you had to buy a machine for 250 bucks when my allowance was $5 a week. I mean, it was not easy to make these films, which by the way, were all garbage. I mean, they were terrible films, but yes, I did a lot of that. I did crappy little films in high school, a lot of them.

Chris Erwin:

I imagine you're casting your neighborhood friends and your peers. And were you getting some feedback of like, "Hey Brian, there's something special here. You're really good at this. You have some good vision. You're telling stories that need to be told, or you see things in a different way." Were you getting any early feedback like that as you're starting to put together your first contents [inaudible 00:06:03]?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I don't want to make you seem like my parents and friends were jerks, because they were not, but I made crappy movies and they were crappy. So nobody could look at them and truthfully say, "Oh, Brian, this is great." I mean, I'll tell you this, I was in show business for at least 10 years before my parents realized, "Oh wow, he might have turned this into a career." They were in denial my entire high school and college time that I would turn this into a career. Like I said, both of them were children of immigrants. They wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist. The whole idea of going to show business with no job, I didn't know anybody when I got here.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So again, their personalities, but I really do think being the offspring of immigrants that had to flee the Holocaust and everything, I chose a very risky career path.

Chris Erwin:

Understood. Like you noted, your parents were looking for the traditional route for you, for stability, for something was familiar for your parents who are immigrants coming to a country that was unfamiliar to them, trying to find things that were stable and known. And you're like, "No, that's not for me. I'm going to give something else a go." So you make a decision that this is the career for you, but when you go to University of Iowa, were these ambitions in your sites? Were you planning to go into the entertainment business then? What was your focus on for your study?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Again, I never wavered for a billionth of a second from this being my career choice ever since I realized that Star Wars was fake. So it was always the plan. Like I said, not only were my parents highly educated, all of my grandparents were also, my grandfather was a doctor. My other grandfather was a dentist. And even the women, which traditionally, 100 years ago were not going to schools and becoming doctors and lawyers and stuff, they were also very ambitious, very hard working. So if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have even gone to college. I would have gone straight to LA at 18.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Because of that, it never occurred to me until I was out of college, long out of college that I could have skipped college. But I did know when I chose where I went to school, it was irrelevant to my career. So that gave me a lot of freedom not to go to NYU, not to go to UCLA. I decided it was more important to me to have an experience that I could carry with me throughout my career, which I got to tell you, I think that was in retrospect one of the better decisions I've ever made for myself, because whenever I'm trying to look at things, should I green-light this or should I green-light that or whatever? I have a million friends in the Midwest. And a lot of people that I know, the majority of their friends are in LA or New York.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I get this point, I was in Minneapolis this weekend, this past weekend, was like eight or nine people that I know there. So that's who I think of when I'm making creative decisions, especially in the editing bay, by the way.

Chris Erwin:

In a way, are you saying that you can empathize with a broader audience mix than maybe those that have lived and grown up in LA, or the LA consumer is all they know where you're like, "No, I've traveled from east to west, in the Midwest. I've been in parts of the country where others have not. And I understand what they care about, what they don't care about, how they communicate with one another."

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Absolutely. I mean, 100%. And just to use a non-show business example, if I only had LA and New York friends, I would have a point of view of Trump that I do not have because of my Midwest friends. I still hate the guy's guts, no offense to anyone who likes them. And I respect your opinion if you like Trump. And I think I get that because I have friends in the Midwest, because I have friends that I've known for 30 years almost that like Trump. And I understand why they like Trump. I don't agree with it. I think it's terrible, but I understand why they do.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So when I see Trump, I look at him from a point of view of, again, I truly think the guy might one day be responsible for the literal actual apocalypse. But I do know that I look at him differently from almost everybody I know in LA and New York. And that is because I have friends in the Midwest that voted for him and I understand why they did. And I know they're not racist. I know they're not antisemitic. It's that point of view that when I'm in an editing pay, I can think about what they care about, what they value, and not just LA and New York and Miami.

Chris Erwin:

I think that's very well said. And it's something that I feel that is an important value to me too. Look, I'm from the tri-state area. I grew up in Jersey, schooled in Boston, and then I worked in finance in New York. And then I did go to grad school in Chicago, but then I was in LA for 10 years and now I'm in San Diego. But I feel that my time in Chicago for a couple of years, as well as the fact that my brother's wife is from Ohio, and I have friends from Ohio.

Chris Erwin:

And sitting down with parents of my friends who have run steel mills in these manufacturing plants for over 40 years, and when I just talk politics with them, the notion of empathy is to understand their story is very different than what I hear from my coastal friends and my coastal peers. And not making this a political conversation of picking one side or the other, but just context and empathy, not only in the world is critical for political decisions for economic, but in telling story and reaching different audiences and understanding what they care about and thinking about what the marketing campaign is going to be is really, really critical. So I like how you've touched on that.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

You just said I think is, first of all, it's pretty much my favorite word. Second of all, I think if our country has lost anything as everybody says we have, it's context. It's a sense of context. Many times people I work with, trying to be nice, trying to be funny, whatever, kiss my ass a little, I don't know. But they'll write a script or something and they'll name something after me. And it's usually like a ship or a character, spaceship, boat, whatever. And it'll be like the USS Volk-Weiss.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And I'll always say, "First of all, thank you. That's very kind. Second of all, that's not me. I don't like that kind of shit. Please change the name. And if you change it, please change it to the USS context." Because that's how powerful I think that word is because anything is nothing if you don't take into account its surroundings. And that's why I liked that word so much. And that's why, again, going back to your question, because I feel like I'm rambling, but that's why I went to Iowa. It gives me a sense of context I knew I wouldn't have if I had gone to school in LA or New York.

Chris Erwin:

So going back to your decision for you, Iowa, was there also in addition to context, something else that you received from that school or that experience that maybe was unexpected, but a delight you've brought with you for the rest of your life?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I learned a lot from the school. I mean, just the experience of getting somewhere at 18 and leaving at 22. Just that experience is a great thing, but one of the things I learned because I learned a lot, but the thing that had a lot of value to me to this day is if you go to a school in LA or New York for the most part, again like UCLA or USC or in NYU, you're getting filtered in with lots of other people with the same beliefs. Another way to say it is, if I had gone to NYU, I would have been surrounded by people just like me who had made lots of student films.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

At Iowa, I mean, two of my best friends from Iowa, they were from farms. And by the way, that's another thing I learned, when you think of farm, you think of like, "Hey, there's a barn and a house and maybe 30 cows and a couple of pigs." These people were from... I was this New York guy. My mom had a PhD. My dad was a lawyer. These people from farms, they probably made 10 times what my parents made for a living. But you don't think that way when you hear farm.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So just needing people who are the children of farmers, the first person in five generations to go to college and they're sitting next to me in the same class on the same first day of college, I took that, it's not destined that just because you make stupid films when you're in high school that everybody else around you doing that is going to end up in the same place. You can come from a farm. You can come from... One of my best friends, his parents owned a roofing company.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

The other thing that was great about Iowa was, Iowa City was very different than Iowa. So the minute you were five miles outside of Iowa City, you might as well have been in Nebraska or Oklahoma. But Iowa City had a lot in common with New York compared to the rest of the state. So just all of that knowledge and experience is just wonderful.

Chris Erwin:

Very well said. I think there're some themes that we can come back to there, but in moving your story forward, after Iowa, you move immediately to LA and you become a PA on Castaway.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Eventually. That wasn't my first job. My first job, I always like to say this was a independent film called Going Back to Cali. It was a all white producers, but it was literally an African American copy of Swingers as my first job. I booked it six days after I got to LA. Every night, the producers would watch Swingers and the director. And then the next day we would basically redo the same scene with an entirely African American cast. That was my first job. I think six or seven months after I got here, I got here July, and about four months or five months later, I got Castaway.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. When you made that first move, and you got this first job, this call it African American copy of Swingers, did LA still feel right to you. Were you're like, "Yes, this is it. I'm excited?" Or were you like, "Actually, this is a little bit different than I thought and I'm questioning somethings."

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I'm not going to talk about LA because I hate LA the day I got here and I hate it now. But if you're asking me about show business, it was exactly what I thought it would be. If anything, it was more exciting, more fun, more awesome than I had even hoped it would be. I look back on those days, I know this might be a weird thing to say, but I only PA'ed for about a year, I was only an assistant for about a year and a half. And I'm sure if I could speak to 22 or 23-year-old Brian, they would tell me I'm smoking crack, but I wish I had PA'ed a little longer. I wish I had been an assistant a little longer because, especially a PA, I really enjoyed it. Like I really, really enjoyed it.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I always joke, and if there's anything I've learned about myself over the years is as I've gotten older, a lot of times when I make the same joke over and over again, I'm not joking and I'll probably do it, but we'll see if I do it with this one, but I've always joked, "Maybe when I retire, I'll go back to PA-ing." I really enjoyed.

Chris Erwin:

What was it about it that you loved so much?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

There were two things about it. One of which I was aware of at the time, one of which I'm sure is now me looking backwards, but at the time, what I loved was it was such a tiny job. I was usually making 75 bucks a day, but you had such an important role. I'll never forget my first PA on a real job, it was a big car commercial. I'll never forget, at the end of the day... The whole day I got people, coffee, I did all those, "Menial jobs," which I actually enjoyed quite a bit.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

But at the end of the day, I'll never forget the producer handed me all the cans of film because it was filmed back then and said, "Take these to photo cam to get developed." And I was just like, "No problem." And he goes, "Never forget, every penny we spent from paper clips to producer salaries is in these cans." And I never forgot that. And that was what was so exciting. I'm 22 years old, I don't know a thing about anything, and yet, I have the most important job bringing these cans somewhere for an hour. Bringing an actress coffee may seem menial, but she needs the coffee. It's very hard to be an actor.

Chris Erwin:

You're delivering coffee, but you're seeing an actress preparing for when she's going to be performing. What's her headspace, what is your routine before, what is the hair and makeup and everything's happening in advance of her going on set. So you're seeing the full experience. That absorption so early on is so valuable.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So valuable. And also, a lot of fun. I mean, a lot of fun. And then in retrospect, looking backwards, the other thing I liked about it is, it was so simple. My job now, I mean, we're planning stuff for 2024. Almost everything we do now, if not everything we do now is connected to other things. So we're not just putting out a TV show, we're putting out a TV show, a book and a podcast. When you're a PA, they say, "Yo, go to Walmart, buy a hammer." You go to Walmart, you buy a hammer, you go back, they say, "Thank you." And then they tell you to do something else. And it's just very A to B, A to B, A to B. And I miss that.

Chris Erwin:

I hear that. It reminds me of a story. There is this very famous IP lawyer that had a very complicated job, dealt with complicated legal cases. And on the weekends to relax and decompress all he wanted, like you said, Brian, was the simplest task and actions. So he got himself a bulldozer in his backyard and he would just move mounds of dirt. A mound of dirt from one corner of the yard to the other, do that for four hours on a Saturday, that's how he cleared his brain.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I get that. You wouldn't even believe. I might go buy a bulldozer now. I totally get it. That's brilliant.

Chris Erwin:

And I hear you. Look, as an owner of a smaller business than yours, just the weight of the responsibility, taking care of your team, taking care of your clients, making sure that you have payroll, you're planning years ahead. I hear you. So what are the simple things that you do to keep your sanity?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Honestly, buy toys, collect. It's like going to church or temple or whatever. It's so peaceful to me to walk around a vintage toy store and just see what they have and buy some things, bring them home and put them in my collection. People have every right to say I'm hoarding. I get it. I mean, the volume in which I'm buying toys, I know it's ridiculous, but it gives me tremendous joy just exploring vintage toy stores, even antique stores. It really gives me a lot of peace. Even if I don't buy anything, just seeing the way the world was, seeing little bits of history. You'll see an ashtray from [Bell and Root 00:21:59], knowing that it'll eventually become Halliburton. Just seeing that in a store, an antique store like that gives me a lot of peace.

Chris Erwin:

When you go shopping or looking at vintage toys and vintage items, do you like to do that alone? Do you do that with certain peers that are also aficionados?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

My favorite way to do it is alone. Well, that's not true. The only exception to that is my wife, because my wife is just like me. If we go to an antique store, she doesn't want to talk until we're walking out. So I don't talk to her. She don't talk to me. We just shop and explore. But most people they want to talk and everything and I'm very focused. I'm really focused on what I'm looking at. The exception to the rule, even though it's not helpful to my relaxing is of course with my kids, it's the opposite of what my wife and I do, but I love my kids like any father does, but they're just so fucking funny that it's worth the distraction being with them because of how funny they are.

Chris Erwin:

Going back to your career trajectory, so after being a PA and then you're on Castaway, you break into, I think, BKEG talent management. And there you start managing comedians and then you start producing stand-up comedy specials. And it kind of kicks off this incredible run that you have there and then through New Wave Entertainment, which I think acquired BKEG in 2003. So I'm curious, right now with the creator economy where every major social and incoming platform and all the major streamers, they realize that the talent, the creators, they bring the audience and thereby the audience then brings the money and the revenue. When you started working with talent early on, what were some of your key learnings? How did you gravitate towards them? And then why did you start working with comedians in particular?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I started working with comedians completely randomly. It was all random. I'd only been in a comedy club once in my life before I went to BKEG. I was interning at a tiny company that on the floor that his office was at, there was a communal copy room and all the assistants to all the producers and other people in the floor would get to know each other because you would be in the copy room copying stuff together and you'd have to wait while people were using the machine. All I knew was this guy I knew was leaving his job. He needed to replace himself. He was making 50 bucks cash a day under the table. That's all I knew about the job.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I knew that I was broke. I had saved up about three grand during college. I had burnt through the three grand. I was about to start waiting tables on the weekend. I was still PA-ing, even though I was an intern five days a week, I had still been PA-ing on the weekends, but I still was burning through my money. So I met with his boss and I just needed the 50 bucks a day cash so I didn't become a waiter again because I waited tables in college and I got the job, and about a week into the job, I understood what a... I didn't even know what a manager was when I took the job. It was a tiny management company.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I basically was like, "I can't think of a worse job than being a manager." So I basically gave my two weeks notice. The owner of the company, a guy named Barry, Barry basically said, "What do you want to do for a living?" And I was like, "I want to produce movies." And he was like, "Well, as a manager, you can do that." And he started walking me through how you do that. So I stuck with it. Then I started managing and that's exactly what happened. I mean the first movie I ever got on into a movie theater was through a client. The first show I ever sold on television was through a client. And the entire foundation of our company is from that process.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

To answer your other question, I understood talent very quickly. It was very easy to understand. They're not like the rest of us. And as a manager or somebody who becomes a manager or is thinking of becoming a manager, you have to make peace with that or not do the job. Because if you're a manager for any other profession, you just say the obvious thing and you tell your client what to do. So if I was managing engineers and I had the client working at Boeing, and my client was like, "I'm mad at my boss. I'm not going to work today." I'd be like, "Well, you work for Boeing. You got to go to work or you're going to be fired." It doesn't matter what you think of your boss.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

When an actor, you can't say that nor should you, because I cannot tell you this enough, I had clients I talked to every day. I would go on vacations with them. I would go to movies with them on the weekends. These were people I talked to seven days a week, 18 hours a day, that kind of stuff. And I would still be on set with them and we're just hanging out like friends, and then the second [inaudible 00:27:11] comes over and is like, "Hey, so and so, you're up." And they would go and start doing a scene. And I'm like looking at them like they're levitating or flying or can split at, it never wore off on me how amazing it is that people can become other people.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I know this sounds insane. I've been doing this for 23 years and I'm still amazed that actors can act, but I made peace with that on day one. And for me at the time, because pretty much all my clients were stand-up comedians, they're complicated people, but you have to be complicated to become a stand-up comedian. You also have to be a genius. There is no stand-up comedian I've ever met that can sell 100 tickets or more that wasn't a genius. So when they say they're not getting out of bed for any reason, you have to engage with them, find out the reason and then work with the studio or the network or the producers or the director to get them simpatico. And I enjoyed that because I respected how hard it was to do what they did.

Chris Erwin:

Hey listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it everybody, let's get back to the interview.

Chris Erwin:

I'm hearing two things from you, Brian, that I think are really interesting. One, which speaks to the longevity of your career and why I believe there's so much more ahead is because it really feels like, just from talking the last 30 minutes, how much you love what you do. When you were describing Star Wars and your early impressions of Batman and making movies as a teenager and in high school. And then even just describing back then working with talent, watching them instantly transform on set and that wow factor for you. And then you still have that same feeling today, it's that you're captivated by entertainment in Hollywood. And that even if you despise LA, you love the entertainment industry, you love show business. And I don't think that star is ever going to fade. It feels like it's just going to get brighter for you.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I say this, this could sound like a metaphor. This could sound like I'm trying to be humble, I don't know. But I'm telling you, I mean this, the way I tell you the sky is blue. When I tell you, I cannot believe any of this is happening to this day, I mean it. I absolutely made it. I'm shocked any of this worked. Absolutely shocked. So much of what we've built was theoretical for so long. And the fact that there's almost no greater feeling not connected to family, there's almost no greater feeling than watching the moment a theory becomes a fact. And we were making stand-up specials at scale, 20 to 30 a year for years, spending millions and millions of dollars. 99.90 cents of every dollar that came in for five or six years, we spent that money on making stand-up specials. We didn't know if it would work or not, probably until year seven. We started this plan in '08 and I didn't know it would work for sure until 2014.

Chris Erwin:

Well, that speaks to an interesting point that we were talking about before this recording. What was the catalyst that caused you to keep reinvesting in these comedy specials? Why were you putting 99.90 cents of every dollar that you brought in back into this growing body of work?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Well, there's two answers to that question. The first answer is the long-term answer, which is I knew the day I got here, again, I was 22 years old, but I'd been thinking about this since I was five. I wanted to build a studio. That was always my goal. I always wanted to build a studio and I had read about how all the other studios had been built. I knew Disney was built on Donald and Mickey and all of that. I knew Warner brothers was built on this Mack Sennett Library. And that was the key word, library. So I knew I had to build a library. And if I wanted to build a studio, I knew I needed a library. I didn't know how to build a library.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

A bunch of lucky things happened. The first lucky thing was, like I said, as a manager, you make a stand-up special for your clients once or twice a year. So one day I get a call from an agent, a guy named Mike Berkowitz, and at the time I was a manager. I had all my clients and I was managing full-time. And then 98% of my job was managing, 2% was producing. And I got a call from Mike, and Mike asked me if I would ever produce a stand-up special for a non-client. And I was really offended. And if I'm being honest with you, I was kind of rude to him. It was Michael Ian Black's agent, and I said to him, I'm like, "Dude, why are you calling me about producing a special? I'm not good enough to manage him. Why can't I manage him?"

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And I was really annoyed about it. The next day in the shower, I suddenly remembered my job was to make money. And as long as it was legal, it didn't really matter how I made the money. So I called Mike back and I apologized. And luckily he forgave me, which if you knew Mike, this doesn't happen very often. No offense, Mike, but it's true. You would agree with me, if you ever hear it. But that being said, we did Michael Ian black special and word got out to the community that we were making specials for non-clients. So that was the first thing that happened.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

The second thing that happened was in 2006, I read a book called The Long Tail. And the reason that anytime I talk about the long tail, I always mention what year I read it, 2006 was a very important year, not because of what happened, but because of what would happen. The book correctly predicted the rise of YouTube, iPhones, streaming, everything, AVOD, Asphalt, everything. So I took the biggest risk of my entire life and I bet everything that that book would be right.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Because the truth of the matter is one of my clients blew up. I mean, I started working with this guy when he could sell 400 tickets and three years later he was selling 15 to 25,000 tickets a night. He was making a million dollars a show. And I could have taken that money and put it in the bank, invested it, and I'd probably have more money now than I do if I had done that. But the other thing is, in addition to wanting to go to studio since I was a little kid, it was always very important to me to leave something behind. I didn't want to die and not have contributed something, anything, but something to the world.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And basically, I bet everything that the book would be right. And I'll be completely honest with you, when I made the decision, I basically said to myself, "This is it." If the book's right, I'll be able to achieve my dream. If the book is wrong, I'll have to quit or get fired and either become an agent at a big agency or go back to school and become a lawyer or something. I knew I was making a bet it all bet. By good Lord, the grace of God, that book could not have been more accurate and correct in what it predicted.

Chris Erwin:

Well, because I think when you read that in '06, Brian, and then your investment in this stand-up comedy special library from '08 through the next 6 to 10 plus years, that also led to growing credibility for you to start going into unscripted and scripted work and TV series and film projects. And then eventually you being able to launch your own production company and studio in a cell in 2017.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

That's exactly right. I mean, it killed a million birds with one stone. One of the most important birds that literally changed the course of my life, the company's trajectory, everything was, I do not know anybody in my entire life that did a deal with Netflix before me. My first deal with Netflix was in March of 2009. I swear to you, you're going to think I'm joking. I am not joking. I signed the contract. The contract said, all over the contract, streaming, streaming, streaming, s-bot s-bot, s-bot. I hadn't a clue what that meant. Not an iota of a fucking clue, but the deal was for so much money I didn't want to risk losing it. So I just signed it.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And that deal did two things. First of all, it brought in the money that allowed me to keep growing the company because that deal was for the rights to specials I had already made, had already aired elsewhere, like Comedy Central or Showtime, and these rights had reverted. And that's the deal I had done with Netflix. We didn't even have Netflix in my house. When I signed that contract, I hadn't even seen Netflix yet.

Chris Erwin:

It was a DVD company. I think necklace was founded around what? '98, '99. And then 8 to 10 years in, probably exactly in the timeframe you're describing of '09, there was this slow transition to streaming. But I don't even know if it happened at that date yet. They were probably just going to put that into contracts and planning for the future.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

It had happened. But first of all, nobody really understood it. But second of all, the first person I ever met at Netflix, this woman named Lisa Nishimura. When I met with Lisa, they were in the middle of their biggest crisis. Up until this very second, they were going through, I forgot what it was called, like Flixster or Flicker. They were dividing their DVD business from their streaming business, which nobody understood because nobody knew what streaming was. So it was this whole like, "What?" But the reason I bring this up is that deal I did with Netflix in 2009 got me in the door with them before almost anybody.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And because of that, I met this guy named Devin Griffin, and Devin at a very unique job where Devin, he was the guy that whenever we had the rights to a special ending at Comedy Central or something, or we had a special that we shot without a buyer, and again, I feel like that's worth mentioning. To this day, other people I'm friends with who own production companies will say, even though they know our plan worked, they will still say to me, "It is insane that you were making stand-up specials with no buyers at scale." Almost everybody I know would try it once or twice and then quit.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Part of how I got through it and survived the risk was we did it at scale. You can't make one or two at a time. You have to make 5 to 10 at a time, which means instead of spending 300 grand, you're spending 5 to 10 million. So when I tell you, we bet it all, I mean, we fucking bet it all. But the reason I bring this up is we were doing this at a time when no one else was. So even though we were tiny, Netflix had no choice but to work with us because we were the only independent company that had a stand-up comedy library.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I knew this Devin Griffin guy, who's now a very good friend of mine for a lot of reasons, by the way. He's the smartest person I know, but you also changed the course of my life. He was transferred after a couple of years from stand-up comedy acquisitions to unscripted. And he was the guy who was like, "What do you got?" I had been trying to sell this show, which eventually was called The Toys That Made Us for seven years. I never could sell it because a lot of people don't understand this, but producers are tight cast just like actors.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I couldn't sell it because I was always the stand-up comedy guy and executives and buyers were always like, "Why is the stand-up comedy guy trying to sell me a show about toys?" But because I knew Devin, because I was friends with Devin. Devin had been to my house. And Devin had seen my toy collection. And he also knew me, he knew he could trust, take my word. So if I told him I could do X and he knew I was a, "Expert," in toys, he green-lit Toys That Made Us and had changed everything for the company, overnight.

Chris Erwin:

And when you say why it changed things for the company overnight, was it because of the money that was coming in from that deal? Was it the prominence of that, how popular became on Netflix? And then what came thereafter, which is The Movies That Made Us, what was that transformation?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

It changed a lot of things for a lot of different reasons. The first thing it did was, I mean, it was our first hit. I mean, we had never made anything that resonated in pop culture ever. So just by having a hit, not only do you get phone calls returned faster, but it's easier to sell shows once you have a hit. So that's the first thing it changed. The second thing it changed was it gave the company an identity for the first time other than stand-up comedy. The third thing it did, and I think a lot of people might even say this is the most important thing it did, Toys That Made Us was the first show we ever sold that was about a passion that I had. Every other show before that, and we probably had over a dozen shows on the air before Toys That Made Us, not a single one of those shows got a second season.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

If you go on IMDb or Amazon, they're all like three stars to five stars. What I learned, and you might be like, "It's really pathetic, Brian, you had to learn this the hard way." But before Toys That Made Us, I would do research on what the buyers want and then develop shows based on that research. And then I would make those shows to pay the bills. What Toys That Made Us show me was, I don't know if I cared about the show and was passionate about the topic, call me crazy, but we'd probably do a better job. So after Toys That Made Us came out, we haven't done anything that we're not passionate about. And knock on wood, not a single show that we've made since Toys That Made Us has not gotten at least a second season. That's what we learned.

Chris Erwin:

I love that. So then the natural follow up question is, with that new intention, let's create programming that stems from what we love as individuals, what we love as a team, what we're passionate about. Beyond just instilling that in your own mental framework, how did you instill that amongst your team? How did you change your development process to do that?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Well, I mean, it was pretty easy because, a, almost everybody that works at the company is some degree of a geek. And by the way, I have to say, I'm very proud of this. The few people that have joined us that are not geeks, well, guess what they are usually six months later? We hired this awesome executive from Discovery, this poor girl. Oh my god, I mean, she didn't have a toy to her name the day she joined us. I mean, I think she has a shelf of toys now. And I guarantee you, she'll have probably five shelves of toys by the end of 2022. But anyway, I just love that.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

But anyway, so we just shifted into what we loved. I mean, it was such an obvious move, but I missed it. So basically after Toys That Made Us came out, and we were getting incoming phone calls for the first time ever, I was like, "You know how we all love this geek. Let's just do that." And that's not all we do, but it really became what we became known for. And it's funny, the exception to this of course, is Down to Earth with Zac Efron, that's not a pop culture show, but it was the same premise where I love Zac. I love that he was so excited about the environment and food and it was just very easy for us to get passionate about that, because I mean, who's not passionate about food and the environment.

Chris Erwin:

And I think like a powerful thing, this is a theme from a lot of the other entrepreneurs and leaders I talk to, it's just focus. And if you're trusting your gut, you're focusing on a more narrow lane. It also impacts who you recruit. Recruiting team members that are like, "Look, we want to find people who are nerds like at us, that deeply love things." If I was recruiting to be hired by your company, Brian, I'd be like, "Yeah, that's the type of team I want to work for." Where you're hiring me for my taste and what I love and you're going to help make that come to life and we could sell shows like that to Netflix and the other streamers, I'm going to be pumped to join you then probably some of the other studios.

Chris Erwin:

And it focuses the conversations around the table, and it focuses as a leader for, you can probably really push your team and say, "Do you really care about this topic? Do you really love it? Give me more. I sense that you're leaving something on the table here and you got to dig deeper." That's powerful.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

That's exactly right. We just do what we're passionate about, and don't get me wrong, we're not idiots. If I don't think I can sell it or I don't think the public will want to watch it, we're not going to do it. This is the other thing I always like to say, Sam Raimi had this great quote in 2000 when he was directing Spider-Man. I never ever forget this. It's like a real rule for us. He said, he goes, this is before the movie came out. He said, "I'm making Spider-Man. I not making Sam Raimi Spider-Man." And I am very passionate about what we make, but I never forget that we are making a product to be shared. And I don't want to make something that people won't like or be excited about.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And by the way, sometimes we try and sometimes we fail, but we got a lot of criticism on a show we made once. I'll tell you the whole story. We put out a show last year on Amazon called A Toy Store Near You. And the first season, every episode, it takes place in toy stores all over the world. The first season, every episode was like 25% about the toys, 75% about how the stores were staying in business during COVID. It was a pretty deep dark show. We put it out. We think we've made a great show. We're all happy. We're all excited. And the feedback, I mean, it was 80% negative. And of the 80% negative, everybody was basically saying some version of this, "My life sucks. I'm depressed. Every news story I see is bad. When I watch TV, I don't want to be reminded about COVID. I want to forget about COVID."

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So we were in production on season two, and I think a lot of directors may have been like, "Fuck you. This is our show." I was horrified that I had misjudged the public so badly. And if you watch season two, season two is the opposite. It's 75% toys, 25% COVID. Season three is 99.9% toys, 0.1% COVID. And we're in post right now on season four, we literally just reshot something last week because you can see someone in the background wearing a mask. So we do listen and we do take all that stuff very serious with the public things.

Chris Erwin:

Well, look, I think that speaks to one of the earlier themes of our conversation, Brian, which was context and empathy. I think it's why Ted Lasso performed so well during COVID. People just wanted to escape. They wanted to smile, feel good content. And that was exactly that. And just speaking from personal experience, 9/11 happened. Recently, there was a lot of amazing documentaries on the 20-year anniversary. On Netflix, on the other streamers, I started watching the one on Netflix. Being from the tri-state area, really hits close to home. And I was like, "Look, being in COVID feeling isolated, the whole world going through tough times. I just can't see content like this right now. This is not what I'm looking for."

Chris Erwin:

Not saying that, that content's not valuable and that I want to come back and visit it, but that wasn't the right moment in time. Hearing you say that, Brian, I think it's like constant balance of staying true to you of telling the stories that are important to you. What you think the world should here, but also, what do people want to hear right now and I want to cater to that as well, which also drives longevity for your business. And it reminds me, we had Alison Eakle on the podcast, I think a couple months ago, she's the head of development at Shondaland.

Chris Erwin:

And she always says, "When I'm creating a show, I think of what's the movie poster. What's the marketing going to be?" Just as the ideas are coming together. And that just caused you to think, what is the audience reaction going to be? I went to business school at Kellogg, the way that they teach leadership and business management is through the marketing lens, marketing as a management philosophy. And marketing is all about understanding the customer mindset. So I really like how you captured that there.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Thank you. And by the way, my best friend in college, Jamie Jackson, he went to business school. All I did for four years was make fun of him for that. "Oh, how was business today? What kind of business did you talk about?" By the way, I went to communications and I was cutting 16mm film together and taping it together with scotch tape, something that would've 0.0 value the day I graduated. Guess what I should have studied in college in retrospect?

Chris Erwin:

Well, at the least, you can hire people on your team that can now do this.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Thank God.

Chris Erwin:

This has been such a fun conversation because we'll bring up different questions and then Brian, you just go off on these amazing stories and vignettes which have been awesome. But we did gloss over the point about your belief that the top comedians are really geniuses.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I didn't say to top comedians. I very deliberately said anyone who can sell 100 tickets, which is nothing. I mean, that is nothing. Any comedian that gets to the point where you have 100 people in a market paying money to see them, that is a low bar, but anyone who gets to that point is a genius. It's not just the top comics. It includes them, but you cannot get to a point where 100 people are hiring babysitters and paying for two drinks unless you're a genius.

Chris Erwin:

Thank you for the clarification that further even reemphasizes my point.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I didn't mean to jump on you, but it's important to me to say that because so hard is that job that I just want to make it very clear, long before you're selling out arenas, you need to be a genius.

Chris Erwin:

I have not followed comedians for my entire life, but I can admit that over the past, call it three to five years, I've really followed Bill Burr very closely. And I'm actually going to see him in Long Beach tomorrow night. And then also through some advisory work that we've done with Team Coco and Conan O'Brien's digital team, starting to pay more attention to what Conan does and his podcast and his interviews. And I think what is so unique about comedians, yes, whether they're they're the top or they're just starting to build their careers, their ability to observe human behavior and society and have really interesting commentary, I think is unparalleled.

Chris Erwin:

And in a writing class that I take with my brother, great writers just observe. And through great observation, they can make very interesting literary points and stories. And I look at the comedians today where I just watched the recent Dave Chappelle's special in Netflix. And despite the controversy that has driven, his ability to observe and see things that others do not, and then talk about it in ways that others do not, I think that's very valuable for society and something that's treasured. And I look at them, Brian, with awe and I'm like, "How do they see that?" So that's something I wanted to highlight.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Like I said, I talk to comedians every day. I already talked to Tom Papa this morning. I was talking to Steve Burn two days ago. I talk to comedians every day. I was with Jim Gaffigan in Minneapolis on Saturday. I have never gotten over who they are and what they do. They're geniuses, but I'll tell you something, everything you said is right. There's nothing I'm disagreeing with, but I'll tell you something on top of that, that I think is also true, maybe. Yes, you need to be a genius. Yes, you need to observe. But you also need to understand how the public perceives you. So what works for Bill Burr wouldn't work for Chappelle. What Chappelle does wouldn't work for Bill Burr. They had to find not only who they were, but who the audience thought they were.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And I'll tell you how I learned this lesson. So like I told you earlier, I used to represent this guy that went from selling 400 tickets to 15,000 tickets very quickly. I mean, over the course of three years, that's how big he jumped. And I was with him four to seven nights a week in the clubs, at the shows, everything. I had his act memorized. And I mean memorized, not just the words, I had the intonations up and down. I had his act. One day, we had a mutual friend who was preparing to be on, I believe Conan, might have been Kimmel, but doesn't matter. And he was practicing his set at this place called the Gower Gulch, which is a karaoke bar that had a, every Wednesday night, they had a open mic night.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

The crowd was very light and it was late. And they were waiting for people to come in. But Jay, our friend, didn't want to go up because the crowd wasn't big enough yet and he didn't want to do his test in front of six people. So my client says to me, "Hey, you know my act, why don't you go up and do my act." And I'm like, "Sure. Oh my god, I can't even believe you're letting me do this." That is such a no-no in the comedy community. Even though I'm not a comedian, you do not do someone's act. You don't do it. And I cannot stress this enough, this night I'm talking about, he was one of the biggest comedians of all time.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So this was not a small person asking me to do this. He was a stadium act at that point. So I go up, cocky, whatever. And I'm like, dude, it didn't work for me. I knew every single word of his act. I knew every pause. I knew when to go up, when to go down on the pronunciation. To say, I bombed, this was a set that could make 15,000 people laugh simultaneously. And by the way, not just every single time, he could do 80 shows in a row with that exact same 20 minutes, and never not get a standing ovation. I did it once, I gave up. I was like, "All right, thank you." I didn't even finish the 20 minutes.

Chris Erwin:

Couldn't even get to the end there.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Like, "Thank you. Tip your waitstaff." So I always think that's very important to say that it's not just about the genius, it's not just about the material. There are comedians I know who are geniuses that have great material that have been doing it, I kid you not, for 30 plus years that still have not figured out what the audience wants them to be and who they want to be. And they've been doing it for 30 years. They still can't sell 100 tickets.

Chris Erwin:

I Really like that. And I just have to ask in closing, Brian, how did it feel for you to bomb? Because I imagine, Bill Burr talks about this all the time on his Monday Morning Podcast, you have to get your reps in. You have to know what it's like to go to bomb because you have to try. And only through failure will you learn what your relationship is with the audience, when you feel comfortable, what your style is. So for you going up there, where you thought you had the best jokes in the world, what did that feel like?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Well, I did have the best jokes in the world because I didn't write them. The guy who could sell arenas did. I mean, I was laughing my head off. I mean, I never wanted to be on stage. I never wanted to be a comedian. I didn't give a shit. I mean, it was like a really funny experiment, but, and this I only learned a day, a week, a month later, but it did give me that experience because think about it, there's no flight instructor in history teaching people how to fly planes that did not already know how to fly planes.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So think about how weird it is to be a manager that only represents comedians and you've never been on stage telling a joke. So it wasn't early in my career, it was probably barely halfway through the management part of my career, but to have that knowledge, and I've used it the rest of my life, yes, was very valuable.

Chris Erwin:

Brilliant. Love that. All right. So let's talk about what's the future of Nacelle Company? This business is now around four years old, founded in January 2017, you were just highlighting before the break, some incredible traction that you have. What are you thinking about in terms of what's next? And I think you've recently read a book, again, the second time in your career that's really inspired some big future moves. Tell us about that.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So the future for our company is there's two things we're basically doing right now. And if I had to guess, this would be the two things we're doing for the rest of the time. The first thing is we're taking knowledge we have and experience and revenue from an existing business and applying it to bigger and better things. So the example I can give you is we started making stand-up specials on spec, meaning we didn't have a buyer lined up, and then we sold them or licensed them. We didn't sell them, we licensed them, which is, for those that don't know, that's a temporary rental of our title.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So we did that with stand-up comedy. We've been doing that now for about 15 years. Now what we're doing, and the first attempt at this was Down to Earth with Zac Efron, we are doing with series what we used to do with stand-up specials, but we're right now only it in unscripted series. So we have a show coming out in two weeks on History Channel called The Center Seat, which is 10 episodes, only about Star Trek. We own that show. We have a book coming out the same day and a podcast coming out the same day. And after a certain amount of time, History Channel will not have access to that show and the rights will revert back to us just like we did with stand-up comedy.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So that's what we're doing now. And this is obviously much more expensive making series on spec than making stand-up specials. I mean, every at-bat is seven figures. Whereas in comedy, I would say 70% of our at-bats are under seven figures, 30% are above seven figures. With series, it's all above seven figures. And we're doing that right now. A Toy Store Near You, same thing, we own that show. In the future, we're going to go from doing one or two a year, God willing, to doing 10 to 20 series a year, combined with, we will then get into scripted and we'll start doing the same thing in scripted. So spending 5 million an episode on spec just like Sony, just like Lionsgate.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And then after that, and maybe simultaneously, we will be doing the same thing with movies. The moment where if I had to guess the beginning of my retirement will start is the point where we green-light our first say a hundred million dollar movie. The minute that happens, I will probably be retired, probably about five years after that event. So that's the first answer. The second answer is I'm a big believer and a lot of this comes back to Walt and Roy Disney, I'm a big believer in the flywheel method, which since you went to Kellogg, you know what I mean, but I only learned about this in my early 40s where we are launching departments to service other departments.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So that allows us to put out, like I said, we're going to put out a show on History Channel in two weeks, but we're also getting revenue from the podcast. We're also getting revenue from the book, yada, yada, yada. So two answers, answer one, just keep doing what we're doing, but do it bigger and better. Answer number two, create more departments to monetize what we're already doing. And I just want to say for the record, monetizing sounds like some big fancy word. I mean, to say that we're all having the time of our lives, launching a publishing arm not knowing a thing about publishing, that kind of shit it's a lot of fun, but I've been through that cycle now a lot.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

When we launched our stand-up arm, we didn't know what we were doing. When we launched our record arm, which now to say, it's the number one producer of stand-up comedy, audio is a tremendous understatement. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. I mean, I never have any fear about not knowing what I'm doing, for better or worse. The book you refer to, I just read it probably about less than six months ago, really boring title, it's called Liftoff. But it's a great book about the first 10 and years of SpaceX. But it's funny, the reason I find that book so valuable is the exact opposite of The Long Tail. With The Long Tail, it showed me a possible path forward.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

With Liftoff, again, I cannot stress this enough. I did not go to business school. So almost everything we're doing is just me trusting my gut and praying to God it works. What Liftoff showed me was a lot of what we're doing is the right thing to do. And what a lot of people don't understand about SpaceX, and I'll be honest with you. I didn't understand this either until I read the book. I mean, what Elon Musk started with SpaceX conservatively was the 15th time a rich person tried to build a space launching company. Every single person and company that tried before him failed.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And a lot of the reasons why he succeeded, we were already doing, but I didn't know if it was right or not. And his book showed me, some of the things that we were doing, which were extremely unusual, and even I was questioning, is this smarter, stupid? His book showed me it was the right path. I mean, the example I like to give is, we develop almost all of our internal capabilities. We try to do things outside of the company as little as possible. I have a tendency to have a vendor, and then either hire the vendor or buy the company that was providing the service because I like to have everything under one roof. Elon Musk, in the book, it tells a great story where they needed these special kind of pumps, they're called turbo pumps to mix the fuels to get the rocket out of the atmosphere.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

There's two companies on the planet, one of which is American that make turbo pumps for everybody. NASA, Boeing, JPL, everybody. Because Elon Musk was the new kid on the block, he was getting them slowly and they were coming and they still needed work and then SpaceX's engineers had to actually finish working on them. Musk eventually said, "Fuck it. We're just going to start making our own turbo pumps." That led to a lot of things. First of all, they didn't have supply problems anymore with the vendor. Second of all, they were able to make them at 30% the cost of the other company. Fourth of all, guess what SpaceX now sells to other space companies? Turbo pumps.

Chris Erwin:

They've become a supplier themselves.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Yeah. And that's what Amazon did with their cloud service. So I have long been a believer in having as many capabilities under our roof as possible. And for those that don't run a business, that's very risky and expensive. Every time your payroll goes up, it's risky. But my theory has always been, if it's all unified under one roof, we will make more money because everybody's talking to everybody all the time.

Chris Erwin:

Totally agree. This reminds me of a conversation that we were having with a direct-to-consumer retailer this year. And the challenge was their board and investors are thinking about, "Okay, we have this growth vision, but if we want to minimize the amount of capital that we're putting to work up front, how can we outsource some of these capabilities so that if things don't work, we're not on the hook versus this massive investment in fixed costs?" And I was like, "I hear that. I totally get that. But the challenge is you're not creating internal capabilities in intelligence and commitment to your internal teams that this is where you really want to go in the future. And so the quality of your effort, the quality of this business initiative is going to be inferior and will not necessarily outperform who you're trying to beat in the marketplace if it's just all outsourced from day one." So I think what you described is very on point.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Absolutely. And by the way, I'll give you a great example, every company out there in theory that owns an amusement park, in theory, has their own version of the imagineers. That is not true. The Imagineering Department at Disney is over 2000 people, highly paid, highly skilled. There's a guy in the Imagineering Department, all he does for a living, I guarantee he gets paid six figures. All he does is designed better fake rock technology. There is an imagineer, all she does is create better realistic looking leaves from foam. That is all she does 52 weeks a year minus vacation time.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

But my point is, no other amusement park has that capability. And I think Disney might make more than every single amusement park on the planet combined. I could be wrong, but even if I'm wrong, I'm probably not wrong by that much. And I completely agree with you, anytime I hear a company is divesting and blah, blah, blah. I'm always like this is either the beginning or the end, or they will reverse that decision when the next CEO comes to fix the mistake you've made by trying to have a better quarter. Because that's the problem these companies make when they do that, all they care about is beating the same quarter the prior year. That is a recipe for failure.

Chris Erwin:

I agree. I think the other key variable here that makes SpaceX, that makes Disney perform, and then also the future for you, Brian with Nacelle, is you have to have a leader which then flows down to the team really believe in this business initiative. If it's like, "Hey, we're kind of into this. We were going to outsource some of this stuff, but we're going to bring it in house." But if you're not bringing the passion, the focus to your team every day after that massive investment in fixed costs, it's not going to work. And that really comes from the top.

Chris Erwin:

And from this conversation, Brian, I can feel that from you as a leader of your business and as a visionary for the industry that you're in. And I hear you, we just hired another person in our team that's replacing a couple contractors that we used to have supporting us. That scares me. I got more mouths to feed. That's more of a commitment for me to do business development, but I know in my gut it's the right move if I want this company to grow. So we are simpatico on that level.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

You went to Kellogg, I didn't. So take to put a grain a salt, but I believe you're right.

Chris Erwin:

So Brian, before going into rapid fire, I just want to give some kudos to you. I have really only gotten to know you through this interview and a little bit of prep before. And it feels like to me that you are really fulfilling your destiny as a creator and storyteller, which I put the different interviews of people that I have on the podcast together. And I just had Doug Bernstein, from House of Highlights. And that's a new social media native sports brand. Doug was all about sports since age three. And I told him at the end of the show, I was like, "You are fulfilling your destiny now running House of Highlights, and who knows where this is going to go."

Chris Erwin:

And Brian, I now look at you and telling me that your earliest memories and your reaction of Star Wars and Batman, building this company, being a crap creator when you're in high school, despite your family and friends feedback, but trusting your gut the entire way. And then going out on your own, after an amazing 16-year career with BKEG and New Wave. It really honestly feels to me, Brian, that you are just getting started on what you're doing. And I have a gut sense that even though you say that, five years after you have this a hundred million dollar green-light for your first feature, I think that's going to come to you a lot sooner than you expect and I actually don't think that you fully understand where your business is going to be in the content landscape in 10 years from now. It's been a delight to get to know you and I wish you really the best going forward.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

You're very kind, man. I hope you're right. My wife would agree with you, but like I said, it's all surreal. I'm shocked we've even gotten this far. And I really, really, really mean that.

Chris Erwin:

Rapid fire, six questions. The rules are that the answers will be one sentence or maybe just one to two words. Do you understand the rules?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Great. I understand the rules.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, here we go. Proudest life moment.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

My third born coming home and my wife and first two kids all being in bed together with our third kid.

Chris Erwin:

I love it. What do you want to do less of in 2022?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Driving and flying?

Chris Erwin:

What do you want to do more of?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Making toys. We're making toys now, and I want to make more toys.

Chris Erwin:

What one thing drives your success?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Utterly fearless. When it comes to failure, I know failure will come and I'm not afraid of it. And when it does come, I still get out of bed in the morning and fight.

Chris Erwin:

Advice from media execs going into 2022.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Do not be afraid of failure.

Chris Erwin:

Any future startup ambitions that you think are maybe outside the confines of your current company?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Buy a one screen movie theater and just play my favorite movies. And it would probably have a pizzeria connected to it.

Chris Erwin:

With pizzeria. I just have to ask, what would be three movies that would be part of that rotation?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Star Wars: A New Hope, '89, Batman, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Last question. This is an easy one. How can people get contact with you?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Instagram and Facebook, it's my name. It's not some wacky weird thing. That's it. Brian Volk-Weiss at Instagram or whatever.

Chris Erwin:

All right, that's it, Brian. Thanks for being on the show.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Thank you. Dude, this was awesome, man.

Chris Erwin:

Thanks for the time. Much appreciated. Later.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Thank you. Hope to see you soon.

Chris Erwin:

Super fun conversation with Brian, and a funny timing, the day after we recorded that, I actually went and saw Bill Burr, stand-up in Long Beach. And I believe that Brian has worked with Bill in the past. It was a phenomenal experience and a highly recommend that if Bill Burr is coming to a sit in near you guys, go check him out. Definitely worth it.

Chris Erwin:

All right. Lastly, our team was in New York last week. We hosted an event for investors and founders in the media and commerce industries. It was awesome. Had a great time. We're going to do another one in the first quarter of 2022. This one will be on the West Coast though in LA and likely going to have a livestream commerce theme. I know we've been talking about this for a couple years now, but now is the time to do it. Those things are opening up. So stay tuned for that. All right, everybody. Thanks again for listening.

Chris Erwin:

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you could follow us on Twitter, @tcupod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Doug Bernstein is the GM at Bleacher Report's House of Highlights. We discuss what he learned from launching his own fantasy sports website, predicting the future of sports fandoms, how he convinced Turner and Bleacher Report to buy House of Highlights, why he’s inspired by Faze Clan and 100 Thieves, and fulfilling his destiny as a sports media savant. 

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Doug Bernstein:

Very early on in House of Highlights' lifespan, I became a really big fan of the account. I think we had about 500,000 followers. At this point, we would have these quarterly board meetings, and I ran through this deck, which outlined our pivot to social, and on the last slide, I had something that I really did not want to be a throw away, but I kind of was like, there's a good chance this is going to be a throw away, was like was this pitch to acquire House of Highlights. Luckily enough, the people in that room, again, didn't dismiss it. They were like, "Okay, make it happen."

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Doug Bernstein, the GM of House of Highlights, which is part of Bleacher Report. Doug grew up in Long Island and actually predicted a sports media career in third grade. In just middle school, he was making his own football cards. And while in college, accidentally ended up running the school paper and public access TV channel where he cut his teeth learning how to sell ads, be on camera and inspire a team. Then Doug got his real digital education when he went to AOL to run sports and news blogs. There, he realized that the next fandoms would be powered by user generated content and social media. So, he made the jump to Bleacher Report.

Chris Erwin:

At Bleacher, he ended up leading the acquisition of House of Highlights and now runs one of today's most exciting sports media brands. Some highlights of our chat include what he learned from responding to 400 blogger emails per day, how he convinced Turner to double down on digital, why he is inspired by FaZe Clan and 100 Thieves and fulfilling his destiny as a sports media savant. Alright, let's get into it. Doug, thanks for being on The Come Up podcast.

Doug Bernstein:

My pleasure, very excited to be here.

Chris Erwin:

Let's zoom back a bit and let's talk about where you grew up and what your household and parents were like. So I think you mentioned you grew up in Long Island, is that right?

Doug Bernstein:

That is correct. So I grew up in a town called Garden City, which is a suburb of New York City. It was me, my brother who's three or four years younger than myself and my mom and dad. And we just grew up in a really, really big sports household. A lot of my earliest memories are in and around sports. My dad loves to tell a funny story like when I was one, he was supposed to watch me and he got stuck on the WFAN call radio. My mom came home, I had a wet diaper crying, screaming, and he was still online to talk about the Yankees. I grew up playing a lot of soccer, watching a lot of basketball, playing soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. And then really just became infatuated with the Giants, the New York Giants, at a very, very young age.

Chris Erwin:

I was actually going to ask, what were the teams of your household? Who did you guys root for?

Doug Bernstein:

I am a very big and loyal diehard New York Giants fan. My brother has been more Jets but also somewhat of a colors guy. Like if they had good colors, he'd go in that direction. And my dad has always ... We've never had a set team, but I've always been a really, really big Giants fan to the point that I think it scared my parents when I was younger. I remember when I was in the third grade, the Giants had a loss and I put a note under my door. I went upstairs, put a note under my door and was like, "I'm not coming out until the start of next season. Knock on my door, put rice crispy cereal at the door, I'll eat it, but I'm going to stay in my room until the start of next season."

Chris Erwin:

How long did that last for?

Doug Bernstein:

I think it lasted until the next morning. I think my parents gave me a full Sunday, we're not going to bother him, and then Monday, "You got to go to school." We went to a lot of St. John's basketball games growing up, and that was a really formative experience. I loved going to those games with my dad and with my brother and being part of that atmosphere.

Chris Erwin:

What did you like about the live experience?

Doug Bernstein:

It was just everything. It was so cool to be able to watch the games, but also I think what I really gravitated towards was the people and the connections that were being made. So, every year, there'd always be the same older couple that would sit right in front of us, the same people that would sit behind us, next to us, and kind of those friendships and that comradery. I even remember when you're in kindergarten, first grade, these people you see them and then you see them again all the way through middle school. It's a really unique experience to have that. I grew up in a very non-religious household, so we rarely went to church, we rarely went to temple.

Chris Erwin:

The sports arena was your temple?

Doug Bernstein:

Exactly. So sports was that place where you congregated. I always remember when I'd go to church, there'd be that moment where you take people's hands and say peace be with you. And I would always feel like when I was at a game, it was the heightened version of that where you're clapping, people going crazy and having that feeling. So, I love being able to go to games. I think that was really, really formative for myself.

Chris Erwin:

You're going to games with your family I imagine through your early years and in middle school, was there a feeling like I'm probably going to end up in sports in my career in some way? When was that early glimpse?

Doug Bernstein:

I remember in second grade I would have to write journal entries, and I would write these five-page journal entries every Monday about the Giants recap. And then every Wednesday would be this three-page recap on the St John's game. And the teacher was like, "Why are you writing such long things about these sports when you're supposed to write about what you ate for breakfast and what you did with your friends?" So I remember that very distinctly standing out. I remember very distinctly in third grade, and my mom saved it, we were supposed to write about what it was we wanted to do when we were older, when we had a real career, and I wrote be a professional soccer player or work for ESPN. So I really was not good enough to be a professional soccer player but did end up working for ESPN.

Doug Bernstein:

And I was really lucky that I have parents that fostered it where we went to Bristol when I was in fourth grade and visited the ESPN campus. All of our vacations, we went to watch Duke in North Carolina. I don't know how my mom tolerated all this. We went to watch like US soccer in San Diego. A lot of our vacations as a kid were geared towards going to these sporting events.

Chris Erwin:

Oh wow.

Doug Bernstein:

It was really fun. I didn't really have a great context for work because my grandfather had started a company, my dad worked for that company, my uncles had worked for it. So there was always this, "Oh, that's the path is we worked for this family business."

Chris Erwin:

Was it sports-related at all?

Doug Bernstein:

No, no. I like to say they make like widgets. They may start off making fuses for TV, they make computer components, just a lot of little electrical equipment type stuff. So it was the furthest thing from my interest area. But as I got older, I was lucky enough to break into sports and not have to pursue that.

Chris Erwin:

I think you had also mentioned too, did you, at an early age, have to create your own basketball cards and fantasy football mag? So you had some sports entrepreneurship in you at an early age too?

Doug Bernstein:

I'm definitely putting my sports nerd hat very heavily right now. I was going through all our old boxes of cards, when cards was having a big resurgence of late, and I stumbled across a Kobe that should've been worth 40,000 but the edges were dented, that was heartbreaking. But I also stumbled across all these cards that I would make. Tim Duncan, Randolph Childress, Samaki Walker, all of these guys, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, I would made ... They didn't make college basketball cards, so I would make their card. I'd have an index, I'd get the magazine. I'd print up a little ... Like cut out the picture, find all their stats, write the stats on the back, give them a little bio. When I didn't have the pictures, I would draw. I liked to do a lot of art as a kid, so I would do that. I'd make little fantasy magazines and things of that nature which were always really fun.

Chris Erwin:

Were these just for you or were you selling these to your friends?

Doug Bernstein:

I'd sell them to my brother basically.

Chris Erwin:

Keep it in the family.

Doug Bernstein:

Right. Me and my brother would constantly be collecting basketball cards, trading them. And then we would build little teams that my dad or my dad's friends would then judge. So we did a lot of that. We played backyard basketball. In my mind, what I mean is like, "Okay, we're playing backyard basketball, but we need to make a league out of this." I was making jerseys in the fifth grade for all my buddies to play in this not official backyard basketball league. So I've kind of always had that in me.

Chris Erwin:

I didn't realize that you had such a creative bent to you as well. Very interesting to hear this. I look at you as the data, analytics and strategy mind behind House of Highlights and a lot of the work that Bleacher Report is doing, but hearing you, that you're making jerseys, making sports cards and like drawing characters and all that, it's incredible.

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, it's funny. If you were to talk to any of my high school teachers or my wife, I think they would think it's comical that I started in the data and analytics side because I think I got a two on AP stats and got like a five or four on AP art. So I think they very like, "Wait, what? That doesn't really jive." But yeah, I think what has helped me a little bit with the data and analytics side is being able to interpret it more creatively and be able to have ... I always wanted to be more on the editorial side, whether that's a writer or a talent, but I couldn't write that well, I wasn't that great of a talent, I was a terrible talent. And then what I always had was I always had ideas, so I figured, "Hey, if I can't do that, let me at least come up with ideas." And then nobody wanted to listen to me, so I was like, "All right, well, got to have it rooted in something." That's how the numbers came about.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Well, look, I think you got to test some of your editorial and talent muscles when you were in Pomona for college. So I think you made a decision that you wanted to pursue this sports media career. So you went and did media studies at Pomona, and you went from the East Coast to the West Coast to do that. Tell me about when you were at undergrad, what type of work were you doing? What type of work were you doing outside the classroom, and how was that inspiring your future sports career?

Doug Bernstein:

I was a media studies major at a small liberal arts school in California, which is really, really fun and enjoyable, but it's not giving you the most preparation for a post-graduate life. If you want to dissect 1970s cinema, you're in great shape, but there's only so many jobs where you're going to be able to do that after college. For me, I enjoyed school, and I think Pomona was a great college to be able to study media, play some sports, but I think I really found what it was that I loved once I was able to start doing things outside of the classroom. My first experience with that was I was on a soccer team, a teammate came up to me after practice one day and said, "Hey, do you want to work for the school paper?" I said, "Oh man, I'd absolutely love that. I'd been thinking about sports writing and stuff like that for a while, that'd be great."

Doug Bernstein:

So he was like, "Okay, meet me under the campus bookstore, we'll get going." And I meet him under the campus bookstore, and I'm all ready to meet the team or whatever, meet my editor. And he's like, "Hey, here are the keys. This is the office, the whole staff quit. This thing is yours." So, that was a real baptism by fire, inheriting a college newspaper. I think it was like $5,000 in debt, which at that time, $5,000 in debt felt like $500,000. And then being able to lay out a vision for what I wanted the paper to be, build a staff, execute against it, do some sports writing, like-

Chris Erwin:

I have to ask, in that moment, did you get more excited where like, okay, there's a little bit of shock value here, I'm going to have to build this from scratch, but I'm going to make it in my own vision. And I know what that looks like, and I'm going to recruit people that are excited by this and all the above or was it like, I'm not sure if I actually want to take this on?

Doug Bernstein:

No, I was way more excited. I was like, this is way better. I wasn't very enamored with the traditional school papers, like a lot of the stuff that they were covering. So, we ended up pivoting and doing a lot more music and movie reviews, a lot more things outside of the school.

Chris Erwin:

It's like Bill Simmons and The Ringer, it's integrating sports and pop culture.

Doug Bernstein:

Exactly. I was in school in 'O3/'04 when I started doing this. I think our first cover was the ultimate movie bad-ass was a 64-bracket ultimate movie bad-ass thing. So that was really, really fun and that was it exactly. It was like, man, I get to see out the vision or the creative that I would like for this to be and that was really, really exciting. And the ability to not just do the creative side but also really, really beneficial that I also had to do the business side. So I had to sell ads, go to the local pizza store, go to the local laundromat.

Chris Erwin:

Oh, so you were door-knocking? Like you had to drive revenue for the business as well and help pay off the debts?

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, we had to make phone calls. We had to get ad sales, had to like pick up checks and like get a chicken parm at the same time. So yeah, definitely had to do like all of that and it was fun because it was an independent college paper. It wasn't like supported by the school itself. So it was like ... You really had like a P&L that you had to drive for and it was a great experience for a 20-year-old to be able to do that.

Chris Erwin:

Did you get college credit? That sounds like the best way to learn how to build like a sports media organization.

Doug Bernstein:

I did. I ended up getting school credit. So I think the second half of my junior and senior year, the second half of my junior year and my senior year, a lot of my credits were coming from like independent work. So I think I got credit from doing the school paper. I believe I got ... We had a public access college [inaudible 00:13:57] channel that had long been dormant, so I started to be like oh man, what's this? This looks pretty fun. I had a friend who's a faculty advisor, like the world's nicest man. He was 80-something years old. He worked at the theology school adjacent to where we were and so, I was like, "Oh, is there anything I can do for the school television channel?" He's like, "Yeah, just run tapes back and forth, upload like a thumb drive and make a PowerPoint of like what's happening this week, who's speaking." And I was like, "Oh, that's great."

Doug Bernstein:

And then when I went to meet him one time, they had an abandoned TV studio and I was like, "Wait, you have a TV studio here?" And he was like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Nobody uses it?" And he was like, "No, nobody's used it in years." And I was like, "If me and my buddies come and clean it out, can we use it?" And he was like, "Go for it." So me and my buddies spent a Saturday and Sunday cleaning the whole thing out. It was like a three-camera studio, had like a switcher in the other room and we cleaned the whole thing out and every Sunday, for the remainder of the year, we filmed. Two of my buddies did a politics show and then me and one other buddy did a sports talk show.

Chris Erwin:

Wait, how did you learn how to use the studio? Of like using the switcher and like the multi-cam operation, who taught you that?

Doug Bernstein:

This guy, the guy who had been like this really, really kind man to go out of like empathy on us and would come like Sundays after church and would help us learn how to film and learn how to do the switchers and I would go home and then whatever Mac editing software I had at the time and edit together really pretty crudely but it was decent enough. Again, it was just a really, really fun learning experience to be able to have done that and then was able to do that and then get credit for internships that I was able do to during school as well.

Chris Erwin:

I also had to ask, I think you had previously mentioned that you had some, I think, leadership pillars or philosophies that you had printed in the office at the school paper and I think you still have a copy of this or you still use these pillars today. What is that?

Doug Bernstein:

It's like actually like ... I mean I don't mean to take time to get it but it's like 10 feet from me, I do have the little five-page write up of like the guiding principles for that school paper that are very applicable 15 years later to overseeing House of Highlights and I think as part of those leadership principles, a lot was about like laying out a very clear and concise vision, allowing everybody to really understand their roles but also kind of like this mantra that I've had and that I've kind of liked a lot was you don't have to like each other but you always got to root for each other. And when you think about that, with any team or any organization, sometimes there's an expectation that oh, we all have to be friends, we all have to love each other and it's like, that's not really the case. I think the best case scenario is that you're all swimming in the same direction. Somebody's failure is your failure and somebody's success is your success.

Doug Bernstein:

I'm a big believer that like negativity is contagious and positivity is contagious and when you set the framework that what you have to do at the core is root for each other, so when we're like, any person that we interview with, the last thing I tell them is like this is our guiding principle for when you join our team is like you're not going to like everybody, we don't always get along with our coworkers but you really, really, genuinely do have to be rooting and pulling for them and that's been something that I think has worked pretty well for us and myself today, I think.

Chris Erwin:

Doug, you are so speaking my leadership language. I use the word positivity often and I agree and a similar value for us is we have always strived for excellence and that might require having difficult conversations with clients or with team members. I've learned, as a leader, that if you always introduce a shared objective, which is, look, we're working to do excellent work or to create something amazing, so I'm going to give you some candid feedback for how you can be better, for how we can be better, then it always lands differently. So, I really like how you think about it and I also like whenever you're recruiting someone to your team that you're making that expectation very clear upfront and it also kind of ... It has like a good sports vibe to it as well.

Doug Bernstein:

Right, exactly.

Chris Erwin:

So, let's talk about all this incredible college experience and then your early career starts and I think the first job you land at, if I'm right, is at the NFL in around 2007.

Doug Bernstein:

That's correct. So yeah, I had done an internship at the Tennis Channel in Santa Monica, which was really a great introductory experience, just all the internship stuff, logging tapes, doing research, learning to use Excel spreadsheets, all that stuff. Did another internship at NFL Films which, again, was a little bit more of the same. Again, a little bit more baptism by fire. I remember I went on my first shoot. I didn't know if I wanted to be in programming or production. I went on a production shoot. They said, "We have a shitty job for you." I said, like, "All right, I'm down. Let's do it." First big internship opportunity, they said, "There's dog shit in the backyard. Can you go pick it up?" And I was like oh, okay. Maybe being a TA is not for me.

Doug Bernstein:

And then I did an internship the second semester at ESPN Classic Now, so I felt really prepared for coming out of school and then like most graduates, it's harder to get a job than you would expect. I think it took me about four to six months to finally land something and that was after school. So I spent a lot of time over that final senior year trying to get a job and getting a break into sports is a really, really tough industry. And I remember I met with a friend's father who was like ... I told him I wanted to work in sports and he legitimately laughed in my face. He was like, "Okay, good luck. Have fun. Talk to me when that doesn't pan out." So, I was like, "Oh no, is that true?"

Doug Bernstein:

But was fortunate enough to kind of land at the NFL and was just a great way to get my foot in the door basically. Players get a percent bonus based on number of plays they're in. So, I was responsible for the monotonous job of keying in ... Like you had a picture and you key in who was in that play, like get their number, 89, 78, and then just doing that for every play of an NFL game.

Chris Erwin:

Players get a bonus for the more amount of plays that they're in? You're talking from like a media coverage point of view or just from like playing on the team point of view?

Doug Bernstein:

Like a tight end, right? If you're in a certain percentage of snaps, you'll receive a bonus, like a performance bonus. So the team can't do it and then whatever, agent, player, whatever, their reps aren't going to do it, so they have the league, as a neutral agent, do this. So, I think it's a little-known thing but I don't know if it still exists but at the time, for every NFL game, this is a great job, there's somebody that just goes behind each field goal and takes a picture of the left side of the field, the center and the right side, zooms out, takes one more and then there are people that just key in those players. So the thing about sports is there's always these little jobs that people aren't aware of and that it is just taking whatever chance you can get that helps propel you to that next step because maybe you are in the NFL office, you do see the commissioner. You do get to send emails and experience things. So, it was fun. I was there for a couple of months before bouncing over to ESPN.

Chris Erwin:

At these low-level jobs, were you getting more excited about entering into sports media? Were you getting a little disenchanted a bit or was it no, it's like hey, I like this but I just need to find my path and the role that I'm in is like not it but I'm going to get there? What were you feeling in that moment?

Doug Bernstein:

Well, I'm excited to have a job, right? You're just like very appreciative and grateful for a job. It was, I think, a six-month role, so I was like man, I really got to find something full-time. So it was like that appreciation but also combined with angst of being able to find that full-time role and trying to land in a spot that felt like more ... It was like growing your career, which is kind of what that position at ESPN ended up being.

Chris Erwin:

I think you end up at Versus for a little bit but then you end up at AOL as a product manager at Fleaflicker, right? So, what was that role as a product manager? Because that seems like an evolution of what you had been doing.

Doug Bernstein:

Honestly, I was a customer service rep. A product manager sounds way better but the way I backed into it is kind of funny. I worked at ESPN for a year and basically was cutting games down for replays. If you're ever up at two in the morning watching a college football game, I'd watch it live and then cut it down or I'd re-air SportsCenters, screen SportsCenters for re-airs, like Brazilian and all these other languages, really fun. It was like seven at night to seven in the morning and I always had this window where I would get ratings numbers. So I started to really dive into the analytics of the ratings and was like very, very curious about it just how my brain works. It was like if there's a [inaudible 00:22:37] game, how does that perform? If it's two top-10 teams, how does that perform? If it's close, how does that do? If it's a blowout, how does that do?

Doug Bernstein:

And I started doing this research late at night by myself just to kill time, and I might as well do something with it, so I forward it on to some people within ESPN, like oh wow, this is actually pretty interesting. And they started to share it and started ... I would have interview opportunities within ESPN that were kind of in ratings or research, but I was a very ambitious 22-year-old kid. My wife came up to Bristol in Connecticut, which isn't the world's most exciting place. It wasn't for her. So that's why I bounced over to Versus where I was able to kind of do the ratings and the analytics side, kind of go into TV programming with where I wanted to land and as I was doing the TV programming, I ran into a couple of challenges.

Doug Bernstein:

One, Versus which is now NBC Sports, Hunting and Fishing Network, I'm a Jew that's never hunted or fished, so that wasn't the world's best fit and also just I struggled in the role. Like it was a very ... A role that required a lot of attention to detail, like real minutiae and that was something that I wasn't like the best at, wasn't given that much autonomy, which is probably right for a very, very junior level role and kind of struggled and as I was doing that, I was having a hard time ... They were looking to move to Philadelphia. I'm a New York sports fan. There's no way I'm moving to Philly.

Doug Bernstein:

So I had kind of like this couple of months where they were just kind of unwinding things at that office and wanted to kind of keep my brain really engaged, so I created like the world's worst fantasy website is how I describe it. It had a good name. It was called Keyboard GM and I aggregated fantasy football rankings from different websites. And I went, oh, this is cool. Like maybe, I could do something in digital. I love digital because I was always doing that fantasy football stuff and kind of learning to code a little bit and build like a really janky website.

Doug Bernstein:

I also was doing a sports blog with a couple of buddies from ESPN and this was early mid-aughts sports blogging and really, one of the challenges on the TV side, was if you had an idea, it'd be like three months to get in front of the right person, three months of like sounding it out. Best case scenario, it gets approved. It's like six months of production and then it's on the air and it's like the difference between a 0.1 or a 0.12 and it's like man, that is a tough process. And when I was doing the digital stuff with my buddies, we would just create articles that we wanted to read every day and if they resonated, we'd be like oh, that's awesome. Let's do more of that. If they didn't, we'd scale [inaudible 00:25:11], we'd be like okay, let's not do that again.

Chris Erwin:

This is all on Keyboard GM?

Doug Bernstein:

So, there was Keyboard GM, which was the fantasy football website and I had ... I think it was like sportsblog.net, going way back for you, [inaudible 00:25:21] sportsblog.net and then that was like that was where we just kind of blogged. So there were two separate things that I was doing in the digital space. I was in this period where I was just trying to find something to continue to work in sports. Ideally, wanted to get into digital. My mom sent me this job, it was like a product manager at a fantasy football website, and I was like all right, let's go. It'll be great.

Chris Erwin:

She sent you a newspaper clipping with like a red circle around it?

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, pretty much. It really was a customer service rep job at first and people always like to say they started in the mail room and be like that lot, right? I always like to say I started in the digital mail room because this is like a classic AOL thing where they bought a fantasy football website. They didn't tell any of their existing users. They just transferred them over to this new website. So, I was answering like 400 to 500 emails a day from customers about, "Hey, why are you transferring me? Where's my lineup? Where's my all this?" But it was a really kind of rewarding experience. I learned a lot about how to interact with your audience, your customer, your consumer.

Doug Bernstein:

When you're playing in the world's most detailed fantasy football league where it's like 32-team keeper league with full IDPs, like you really have a level of understanding for your users that kind of is not surface level. Like you get to know users on a one-on-one basis. You get to know who your fans are, how to cater to your super fans, how to understand what really is an issue and what really isn't an issue and work side-by-side and there was a programmer that founded it, a guy named Ori Schwartz, who was really beneficial in that he talked to me about what a roadmap is, which is something that I had no idea before, right? And really coached me up on the way of the digital world in a product and how to think not just of this week or next week but three, six months, a year out and then also taught me a lot, become somewhat thematic over the course of my career is about being a startup within a bigger organization.

Doug Bernstein:

So, Fleaflicker was kind of this very small startup within AOL sports and within this mess of AOL Time Warner ecosystem and then that has played out really similar when like Bleacher Report got acquired and it's like okay, a lot [inaudible 00:27:33] and then when we acquired House of Highlights, I had the same thought. Like I hearkened back to it and was like oh wait, what worked for Ori, this one guy, was like just a lot of autonomy and freedom and not trying to be micromanaging. And when we acquired Omar and House of Highlights, it was that same mindset.

Doug Bernstein:

So, I was able to do that fantasy football side of things for about a year or two and then what happened was, because I had the analytics [inaudible 00:28:00] ratings research background, they said, "Hey, could you start pulling numbers for Fleaflicker, the fantasy football website?" And I said, "Sure, would love to." And then because nobody else was doing that and digital analytics didn't exist at the time, they said, "Hey, can you start doing it for sports?" And I was like, "Absolutely, would love that." And then before you-

Chris Erwin:

I just love how you're so positive and excited about trying new things.

Chris Erwin:

Hey, listeners. This is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview.

Chris Erwin:

How did you create a culture and a mindset where like today, at House of Highlights, you trial so many different revenue streams and products for fans, right? Sports creator competitions, like talent and street wear collaborations to create new merch designs for different leagues and teams and I'm like, where do these ideas come from and how'd you get there and I'm hearing you talk about your entire history and career, you're like oh yeah, I'm going to learn how to run a school newspaper, learn to be a writer. I'm going to learn how to run like a TV studio and be on camera. I'm going to learn analytics. I'm going to start my own digital blog and fantasy blog. Like so now, I get it. And so again, you just jump into this new opportunity in data analytics with a very opened and ambitious kind of point of view. So, okay, I just wanted to note that for the listener. So, now what happens?

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, so I mean I wanted to learn, right? My mom was bugging me about going back to like business school or grad school or whatever it might be, and again, I just loved digital media, like just my own internal self was like why does this happen? Why does this happen? Like what if you did this? Like how do you grow a sports website was of immense interest to me. So at a time, we were living in the city. My office was about five blocks from where I lived and my wife [inaudible 00:30:09] commuted into Queens. So she would have to leave for work at about six o'clock.

Doug Bernstein:

So I would go with her every morning and then I'd be in the office by six o'clock and this is AOL. People aren't strolling in till like 9:30, 10:00. So for three and a half, four hours, I had the office to myself basically and I was responsible for creating a daily report that looked at 40 different properties but it was like AOL cut it up every way, like puppies, kittens, kids, dogs, like you name it, they had it and really was able to understand like that was my [inaudible 00:30:41] essentially, was like come in every day, and I'd study the metrics for home page topic from search topic, from engagement, what articles did well, what articles didn't do well, what writers did well and just every single day or five days a week was responsible for like not just churning out this report but also really starting to like internalize what correlated to the numbers.

Doug Bernstein:

And I spent a lot of time sitting with the editorial team and there was a really incredible editorial team at AOL at the time, guy named Randy Kim, and I just had too many ideas than I knew what to do with and I needed to check myself and learn like okay, well, this is what the writer's thinking about, this is what the editor's thinking about, this is what the editor-in-chief is thinking about, these are all the things that we've done in the past and why your idea doesn't work, this is what the designer thinks about, and I think really learning before doing helped me a lot in that role.

Doug Bernstein:

That was a big thing was there were people that would come in straight out of grad school that were, I'm sure, way smarter than me and way better with numbers but I think one of the things that worked to my benefit was that I had spent an inordinate amount of time listening and learning and gaining the trust of the people that I was going to be working with. So when I gave a recommendation based on numbers, it wasn't just like oh, here's the numbers, right? It was like where here's a number guy, like again, this is like money ball days where like get the number guy out of here. It was like really trying to be deferential, especially at first and I put a big focus on like I would say like not try and be a weatherman breaking into the numbers but trying to be a doctor.

Doug Bernstein:

Not just saying like hey, the temperature was this, it's going to be hotter or colder, like up or down but really trying to be prescriptive in terms of saying like okay, this is the problem. This is what's going on and these are potential solutions for how you can solve it.

Chris Erwin:

I think a theme of your career is making sports more engaging and relatable for younger audiences. So, I think like as you start to look at some of the analytics from these 40 different AOL properties, what were like a couple revelations that you were getting call it in like either the mid-aughts or in around 2008 to 2011 that maybe you were seeing that others weren't? That you leadership was like whoa, Doug, you really get this in a unique way, what was that?

Doug Bernstein:

So a lot initially was focused on search and I think a lot of it was that had traditional newspaper people that thought of things a certain way. So you write one story on one topic at a particular time and what we were starting to see, especially on that search perspective was, the interest wasn't just when the editorial staff dictated it, right? So if we did a mock draft, an NFL mock draft mid-season, like historically, you only did mock drafts like the week before the draft. Like it was like sacrilegious to be able to do a mock draft like anymore than like a week or two out but when I was like, hey, if we could do a mock draft at the mid-point of the current season, I think it would do really well or at like the end of the college football season, we would see that do really, really well. And I was like oh wow, like there's a level of interest and engagement here that's not being met yet. People were interested in it. They were searching for it but there was nothing there for them. That was a big one.

Doug Bernstein:

And then the other big one was just like if a news story broke, for a while I worked really close with the AOL news team. So like if a tornado happened or anything that is newsy, politics, whatever, traditionally, they would just write the one AP-style recap and what we started to do is say like okay, well, let's not just write the recap, let's write like five ... And now these are so commonplace that like it seems silly but at the time, nobody was really doing this, the five things you need to know on this topic, breaking down like who is this person that was at the center of this. Not just having one story of recapping a news event but having like a template of 10 to 20 different stories that depending on like is this a tier one event or a tier three, you'd be like okay, we need five stories on it and these are the five potential stories that you could do.

Chris Erwin:

So like early inspiration for Buzzfeed. You were like one of the first listicles.

Doug Bernstein:

Right, it was. It was like, at the time, Buzzfeed was struggling with SEO and I remember thinking, it was like it's not that hard. They were doing a lot better in a lot of other stuff but yeah, like at that time, like I think some of the stuff at AOL was doing ... And Bleacher Report and Huffington Post were like very early days like digital media optimization, SEO optimization.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. You just brought up Bleacher Report and I think that that's a great segue actually into your transition to the company, which I think happened in 2011. So tell me like what caused the move, what was the impetus and then what was your first role there?

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, so the impetus was two-fold. So partially, was based on my current situation. So I was at AOL and they had shuttered AOL Sports FanHouse, which was their internal AOL sports brand and I was working on everything but sports, doing analytics and that just didn't sit quite well. I was constantly reverting back to thinking about what can I be doing in sports and then on the flip side was over the final couple of months that AOL Sports FanHouse was around, I was responsible for looking at our Comscore reports and I would see in Comscore, our competitors and who was doing what. Every month, I would see Bleacher Report coming up and I would see next month, them coming up and I was like, oh, this is really interesting.

Doug Bernstein:

One of my friends from college went to school with a couple of their founders, so I was familiar with it and yeah, I worked with a guy at AOL Sports who ended up going over there as an editorial lead. He said, "Hey, we're in the market for somebody to do analytics and I think you would be an interesting person for it. Would you be open to it?" And I was like, "Absolutely. This feels perfect."

Chris Erwin:

So, you jump over to Bleacher and I bet you're thinking you're really into sports and digital. It's an early stage company. Because I think Bleacher was started around 2005, if I remember correctly.

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, probably, like yeah, around there, '06, '07, like '05, '06, '07.

Chris Erwin:

Got it.

Doug Bernstein:

Like when it was actually like official, official is probably to be debated but somewhere around there for sure.

Chris Erwin:

So, it was probably like in your mind, like the ability for you to shape the company as well, to get in early?

Doug Bernstein:

I was employee number 40, which at the time, I didn't really contextualize but now, being a little bit older, it's really special to be in on a company at that level. To me, it felt really well-established but again, having a little bit more perspective on it now, I can see how nascent it really was. I remember when I would tell people I work for Bleacher Report early on, I don't think anybody knew what I was talking about. So, that was really great and I was doing the analytics at AOL and had some ability to kind of be a part of decision making but really, it was still from like an arm's length and I think they were being very kind to me. But then, when I went to Bleacher Report, I was kind of shocked, to be honest, that like it was the exact opposite where it was very analytics driven, very much about optimization, very much about giving the fan what they wanted, in particular the younger fan.

Doug Bernstein:

So, Dave Finocchio, who found it, was one of the founders of Bleacher Report and has been just an incredibly brilliant guy, has been really, really instrumental to my career and Rory Brown, who was my first boss at Bleacher Report, my boss and me were really close. Again, another brilliant guy. They both were really critical in establishing a culture that was very much about let's try things, let's look at numbers and let's try to have fun, I guess, in the process and it was just a perfect fit for somebody like myself that had all of these ideas of what I wanted to have covered in sports and those were shared by Rory, Dave and Bleacher Report as a whole and then be able to go off and kind of execute that and grow it and build it and keep growing it and keep building it and like fail a ton, was super, super exciting.

Doug Bernstein:

It was just like an incredibly exciting time to be at Bleacher Report as it was growing from like when I got there, I want to say like sub-10 million uniques to, I think, we reached a point where it's like 40 million uniques and I think when we got there, it's like eight million search visits a month to a point where it had 60 million and to be a part of that growth was really incredible.

Chris Erwin:

And so, for our listeners, what was Bleacher Report when you started?

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, so when I started at Bleacher Report, it was just a sports website with about 100% user generated content. Those were the initial iterations. I think pretty quickly into me coming aboard, we started to have a little bit of an internal team where it wasn't all user-generated. There were people that we staffed to write certain stories. We began to build out a newsletter product which then ultimately became an app but when I think I started, it was just strictly a website that was largely driven by user articles and that was it. That was the main crux of it.

Chris Erwin:

Fast forward to today and Bleacher Report is a multi-platform media brand that's acquiring live rights and has acquired sub-brands like House of Highlights and there's probably other things and you're doing creator competitions and so much more. We'll get to that story but okay, about a year in though, you were then acquired by Turner, which is kind of like you leaving the Turner ship and then kind of like going back through this. When that was announced, were you part of those deal talks at all or you just found out? What did you feel? Were you excited or were you like kind of confused about why is this happening?

Doug Bernstein:

I don't remember if I ... I think I was more excited than not, I think I remember that. And it's funny because I was like at AOL Time Warner and then I left and then I immediately got put back on AOL Time Warner. I think I've been in like four iterations of Time Warner. So I think I was mostly excited, a little bit of trepidation because when you join a bigger media company, you don't know exactly how that's going to unfold, how [inaudible 00:40:47] is going to be and I think pretty quickly was like reassured that it was going to go well. So, there were people, David Levy, Matt Hung, Lenny Daniels, who really believed in Bleacher Report and the vision of Bleacher Report and allowed there to be autonomy for Bleacher Report to just continue to grow.

Doug Bernstein:

So, it was like very similar [inaudible 00:41:08] like everybody was like okay, they acquired it but they just wanted to give it more infrastructure and resources to do what it was already doing. It felt like the same with Bleacher Report. It wasn't like somebody came in and was like, "Okay, now produce a bunch of TV shows." It was just like keep growing the digital presence that you have, like keep connecting with the younger audience and I think within a year, I felt really good about that acquisition.

Chris Erwin:

That mandate of keep growing a digital presence, clearly that's worked well for you because I think when I look at your career profile, you had three promotions in the first four years there. So it seems like your career was really taking off. Like did you feel that you're like hey, I think I've really found my groove here and I feel my career entering into like a new inflection point?

Doug Bernstein:

I think yes and no. Again, I think like it's all happening really quickly and at the time, Bleacher Report was really young. So like I think I started at Bleacher Report, I was like maybe 24 or 25 but the founders and the people running it were like 26 and 27 maybe, I think mostly 26. So there was kind of like this natural cadence, like every year we would grow, every year we would get bigger and we would take on ... The team would grow with it. So, I was kind of along for that ride and everybody was relatively young and inexperienced, so it wasn't like in a more traditional company, your promotion cycles are harder to come by but there, it just felt like okay, this is it.

Doug Bernstein:

I also think the promotion and everything was very rewarding and satisfying and I'm very grateful for it but at the same point, like I think myself and the team was like just really, really dead set on growing it. Like all the other stuff was like a little bit secondary. Can we hit these milestones? Can we unlock further VC investment? Can we get acquired? Even more so than that, like can we build a big audience? Like we always wanted to chase and be as big or better than ESPN. It was always about this case and everything else was kind of just like a byproduct that was happening alongside it and I think that chase was where the majority ... That chase and the audience was really where the majority of the focus was.

Chris Erwin:

That chase though, Bleacher Report really evolves from a sports web, call it like 1.0 brand to like a dominant social media first kind of like multi-media company. And I think there was a big House of Highlights acquisition in 2016. So as part of this chase, was there something happening that led you to be like hey, look at what Omar is doing, like we need to be part of that, we need to own that and were you one of the first identifiers as like hey, we need to make a move here and maybe we should be acquisitive?

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, no, 100%. I mean that's exactly essentially the story. So, I think we were having some early success on social and then I kind of moved into a role of kind of overseeing the larger social org and I think, over the course of the 12 months, we went from kind of like a second and third player in the sports space behind some of the bigger names and then we fast forward a year and we were just so maniacally focused on delivering the best social sports experience that when we picked our heads up in 12 months, we weren't only the best in category among sports accounts, we were like not only the best with digital media, young digital media accounts, we actually were like top two or three on Twitter. We were like over all. It was like Justin Bieber and then us at the time in terms of overall accounts. The same on Facebook, we were one of the top most engaged with accounts on Facebook and then Instagram. We were pretty early on Instagram.

Doug Bernstein:

And we're starting to reach a point where we were a little bit more mature and the business is kind of solidifying itself. We had been around for a couple of years and Instagram was really new and I started to think a lot more about like okay, we've always been a challenger brand. We've always been trying to unseat the established leaders. Who is going to do that for us? As we're so focused ahead, where's the risk and the risk was like somebody catching us from behind and I was really the mindset that Instagram was going to be, and this is like '15 and '16, where it was like still only photos for a while, it just transitioned to video and just like 15 second video. It was like we always went to where the audience was and the audience went from web to social and then inside social, from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram.

Doug Bernstein:

So, like okay, well, we got to figure out Instagram. Very early on in House of Highlights lifespan, I became a really big fan of the account, I think when it had about 500,000 followers, led the acquisition, pitched it when it had 750,000 followers-

Chris Erwin:

So, you pitched it to your internal leadership like we should acquire Omar and this company?

Doug Bernstein:

At this point, we were having ... I think Dave, I think, had transitioned out for a bit. We would have these like quarterly board meetings and I ran through this deck, which outlined our pivot to social, kind of the social monetization business that we're looking to build and the store that we've developed in and around that and on the last slide, I had something that I really did not want to be a throwaway but I kind of was like okay, there's a good chance this is going to be a throwaway, it was like was this pitch to acquire House of Highlights.

Doug Bernstein:

Luckily enough, the people in that room, again, Rory Brown, Matt Hong, Dave Finocchio, this guy named Sam Parnell didn't dismiss it. They were like, "Okay, make it happen." And really gave the green light to go about and do it and if you want to have fun, I would encourage you to try to pitch to an established [inaudible 00:46:40] company's legal, finance and HR departments why you want to acquire an Instagram account, which again, people thought Instagram was just like posting rainbows and things like that, of a kid that, at the time, was 20 years old, yet to graduate college, was taking a decent amount of content that he didn't have ownership of and had no revenue other than selling pocket like watch ads for like 15 minutes. That was definitely a very boring pitch for a lot of people.

Chris Erwin:

So, did you have to go pitch like AOL Time Warner leadership as well? So, like the Bleacher Report team was like, all right, Doug, yeah, go get the higher ups involved and like make it happen?

Doug Bernstein:

I got the green light from Bleacher Report leadership to go and pursue it and then I had to get Bleacher Report finance people onboard and all that but ultimately, I think, Dave and Rory and other people were responsible for getting the deal done. It wasn't the world's biggest deal, so I think they were just like okay, kid, go and do it. We're not sure we really understand it but you seem really passionate about it and you guys have a pretty good track record.

Chris Erwin:

Who reached out to Omar in the beginning? Did you kick off the conversation?

Doug Bernstein:

I reached out to him. I think I sent like an overly generic or vague message that was like hey, big fan of your account. I'm from Bleacher Report. We'd love to talk. I think he thought I would come to like copyright him like out of existence.

Chris Erwin:

This is on Instagram? Like you slid into his DMs?

Doug Bernstein:

No, no, he had an email on House of Highlights. [inaudible 00:48:10] it was like, again, a couple hundred thousand followers, so [inaudible 00:48:13] was like a readily available email address. So I emailed him and he responded like basically like ... I think I still have it, I got to find it. It's like hi, what do you want? And I want to talk about ways in which we could potential partner and we got him on a call like, I think, literally that day or the next day and I think I told this story but it is funny because I call him up, we're having a great conversation for a couple of minutes and like he just knocks me dead in the track. He's like, "I got to hang up. I got to go. [inaudible 00:48:44] just signed free agency," and like hung up on me, and I was like oh my god.

Doug Bernstein:

At first, I was like this is a little rude. Like [inaudible 00:48:51] at Bleacher Report. This kid's like 20 years old. Like he thinks he's like basically applying for like an internship kind of but he wants to do an internship with Miami Dolphins and he hangs up on me and I was like, oh man, this is not great. And then I thought to myself for a second, it's like, that's actually exactly who I want to be working with. Somebody that's like so focused on their audience, so focused on the brand that they're building that they're just going to hang up on like a prospective job opportunity or partnership opportunity and from there, we just got along really well. So, we talked over the intervening months and was able to acquire it on January 1 on that year and the rest is kind of history.

Chris Erwin:

Has that purchase price been disclosed?

Doug Bernstein:

No, and it will not be disclosed.

Chris Erwin:

Don't worry, this is not the podcast where I'm going to force you to say it. That's awesome. All right, so Omar comes in and it's like okay, getting the deal done is part of the battle but then it's actually like executing against the vision and so this, again, is like you're an up and coming executive and so the teams are looking at you like hey, Doug, you just made this deal happen but now like, let's call like reap what you've sown, right? Like what are we going to do here together? And so were you responsible for setting the plan and making this all come to life?

Doug Bernstein:

Yes, I mean I became the general manager of House of Highlights relatively shortly after we acquired it. My first job and the way I looked at it, and I referenced it earlier, was really about playing defense. So, for me, it was about I just want to put Omar, who is like basically a savant when it comes to this stuff, in a position where he is not beholden to anything other than growing this [inaudible 00:50:28]. So, basically I was like a left tackle and I would say like 50% of my job was just to allow him to continue to do exactly what he was doing but with the rights of the NBA and with the [inaudible 00:50:42] process for acquiring the user-generated content. So, obviously, I have an analytics background and knew the platform intimately and the two of us would just be insanely dedicated to growing the account.

Doug Bernstein:

Like nobody was more dedicated than Omar. Like he lived and breathed it and we would be texting every night at like two in the morning, being like do we need to do this, do we need that? What about this post? Trying to find UGC. Really, really didn't even think about monetization of think about anything other than let's grow this audience. That was it. Like everything for the first, I want to say, two years was only about audience and engagement. Like that was the 100% focus.

Chris Erwin:

What did you learn reaching out, acquiring a company, really like a personality and then integrating it to your org and being the leader here and the advocate? What was something that like surprised you and then also something that's like hey, this is how I became better from this experience?

Doug Bernstein:

Ooh, that's a really good question. I think in terms of what surprised me is I had somebody that had been primarily on the analytics and content side and I hadn't really done a lot of the business side of it and I think I had kind of that church and state divide and a little bit of oh, come on, the business side, look at this audience, like you could figure this out. And I think that was one of the things that I really matured on and had to learn how to get better at and was surprised by was just the amount of attention that you have to put into the fundamentals. Myself and Omar flew around the country the first year like going to Seattle, like Oregon and L.A., and all over to pitch the House of Highlights brand and it was that story and being there and really it's like going to the pizza guy and calling [inaudible 00:52:30] chicken parms for the newspaper.

Doug Bernstein:

It's like that where it's like you really got to be part of the sale. You really have to understand how does this business make money? How does it scale? How do we build a support staff? All my jobs previous to the Bleacher Report, whether it's at ESPN Classic Now or AOL Sports FanHouse or Versus, like basically everybody just got let go at a certain point because the audience wasn't there. I really wanted to make sure and I think this is one of the things that was also really key to that experience was not getting too far ahead of yourself.

Doug Bernstein:

People have a real tendency that it's like oh, where do you want to be in five years? And like really hot media digital startups that were like oh, we're going to take over the world, we're going to do this, that and the other, and I remember sitting with Omar and being like, "Dude, the most important thing is that like first and foremost, that we're around. That we don't take that for granted. That we're building a business that's sound and that's sustainable and that could employ people and be successful, not just for the next year or two years but really be successful for the next, hopefully, 20 to 50 years."

Doug Bernstein:

And that was a really, really big part of it was trying to build a foundation for a business that made sense and that wasn't just like trying to chase every trend or trying to spend every potential dollar but really trying to be really disciplined and focused.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, and that could even lead to conflict with the team that you acquired, like with Omar, for example. You're the GM. You have a vision for this. This needs to integrate well into the company. We need to be here for the next 20, 30 years and you have to put your foot down on that, right? And the company was trusting you to make that happen?

Chris Erwin:

I liked your answer. That was definitely very compelling. So, I'm now curious, fast forward to House of Highlights and Bleacher Report today and I think a lot of peers and a lot of companies look at what you guys are doing, Doug, being like this is like this whole test/learn/iterate/improve culture that clearly like you've had in your 15-20 year career. That is something that you definitely deploy as a leader of this like multi-platform sports brand and so I'm curious, what's a quick snapshot for listeners of like here's some of the big recent moves that we've made but I'm also curious to hear like when you talk about really catering to Gen-Z sports culture, what are you not doing that you guys should be? What are you thinking about next that caters to this like the next generation of fandom?

Doug Bernstein:

The way we look at it is like we see ourselves as really being on the front lines of what's resonating with a younger sports audience every day across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. We're posting anywhere from like 10-25 posts and all of those posts serve as like signals to help better inform what our strategy needs to be in the moment but also going forward. We also do a ton of research to just better understand the space and what we've really started to see and I think you've kind of hit on this earlier, at House of Highlights what's kind of this middle ground is this fundamental shift from publishers towards personalities and a big part of the acquisition of House of Highlights was recognizing that shift and trying to find a hybrid and kind of Omar being something that ... And House of Highlights being something that sat in the intersection of like publisher/personality.

Doug Bernstein:

And what we've seen is this shift increasing. So, I was just looking back at like a doc from 2018 where we lay this out where it's like we were really early to social and Instagram. We really want to be early to this shift towards personalities and in particular, the creator space. So we've had a lot of success this past year of starting to create content in partnership with creators. So we've done our live creator competitions. So, we have done dodge ball was our most recent one. It ended up as kind of the number one YouTube global trend, which we were really excited about. We have a Grand Prix coming up we're really excited about. We've also started to do VODs. We did VOD versions of these competitions. So we did a Highlight House Gridiron or football where we [inaudible 00:56:41] into a house and had them compete to determine who's the ultimate football creator. We're doing another one for basketball.

Doug Bernstein:

So, for me, it's really about doubling down on what's working and I think that is where we see is working. I think one of the hallmarks of my career is just kind of like building off of success is part of that [inaudible 00:57:02] process is we've never gotten to a hundred before we've gotten to like one to two to five to 10 to 25, 50 and 100, right? So there's this ramp up and I think that's what we're really seeing is we're really seeing this shift, right? If you look at, I think, 10% of Gen-Z aspires to be a professional athlete today where at 35% aspires to be a creator, 50% follow a creator on social media versus only 35% follow a team, athlete or league. So, fandom has shifted and we're trying to orient ourselves around that shift in fandom and not just kind of go along for the ride but really kind of lead that and we've developed really, really good relationships with creators.

Doug Bernstein:

So, we're not just trying to parachute in now that creator economy is a buzz-y term. A creator likes Supreme Dreams who is now as big a creator as there is, I've known Mark and his family for the last four or five years. Kenny Beecham and Through the Wire, who've become really big and influential in basketball, we have worked with them for three years. So, you really have to put it in ... And Dan Levitt, who I know is on this podcast.

Chris Erwin:

Oh yeah, done a lot of interviews with Dan.

Doug Bernstein:

[crosstalk 00:58:17] personal friend and incredible business man. We've been establishing relationships in this space for a long time.

Chris Erwin:

Well, that's a good point. When you say, Doug, that we've really been investing in relationships with creators, a lot of people ask, well, how do you do that? What does that include? And look, that's a really long conversation but if you were to list out like here's how we approach creators differently, here's like the two to three quick hits, what does that look like for House of Highlights and Bleacher Report?

Doug Bernstein:

It looks like this, so one is live creator competitions on a scale that nobody else is really doing them. I think that is a big, big part of it. I think the second is creator commentary, right? Historically, sports commentary has been driven either by two categories, one is former athletes or two is traditional journalists and what we've seen over time and particularly of late, is a new class really come in and own that and play a major part in that. Now, people seek out creators for their thoughts and their commentary in and around sports and we've worked really well in that. So I think that's kind of the second category. I think those are the competition angle, the commentary, those are kind of the big one and twos of it and then also the incubation.

Doug Bernstein:

We've incubated creators internally. For example, we have a creator on our team named The Broadcast Boys. They went from zero to 2.2 million followers on TikTok and we've helped incubate them to success. We've worked with a creator named [inaudible 00:59:46], another TikToker who's closing on a million who we've helped incubate to success on those platforms and then really give them the opportunity to shine, help them connect to a bigger and broader audience that we have and allow them to kind of tap into opportunities that might not be there historically. So, we just signed a creator named Nasher who's really big in hockey and the opportunity that we present is not just like us leveraging his audience, which is a big part of it, but also him leveraging our rights and him leveraging the ability to appear on linear television.

Doug Bernstein:

So, I think that's kind of how we look at ourselves and the differentiation that we present.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Very well said, Doug. Two final questions for me before we get into rapid fire. One, similar to your mindset back in 2015/2016, which is like hey, Bleacher Report, we're ahead of the pack, so who's coming for us? So, who is that for you right now/who inspires you? Whether it's directly in sports or another modern digital publisher, who is that right now?

Doug Bernstein:

Very enamored and impressed by what FaZe and Thieves have both developed. I think what they've accomplished is really-

Chris Erwin:

FaZe Clan and 100 Thieves?

Doug Bernstein:

Right, FaZe Clan and 100 Thieves. I think what they've developed is really, really remarkable to have ... To build like the modern vision of like the Cowboys or the Yankees is essentially what they're doing, right? I think that is really, really impressive and I'm very ... I have a lot of awe and respect for what they've done and are doing. I also look at individuals, like I take a lot of inspiration from whether it's [inaudible 01:01:24] and kind of these collector creatives I think are really exciting to watch. What Mr. Beast has done. A lot of like what Night Media has done is really interesting whether ... I got young kids who like [inaudible 01:01:36] and [inaudible 01:01:38], how they've kind of gone from these social presences, these individual social media presences to kind of these full on really big media brands. I have a lot of admiration for what they've accomplished.

Doug Bernstein:

And then when I look at the guys that we work with, Through the Wire, Kenny Beecham being a great example; Supreme Dreams, RDC another great example. They've developed cult followings and that's an incredibly hard thing to do is to be able to really build and grow an audience that isn't transitory, that just doesn't go like with the scroll but really believes and loves you and I think those groups have really developed that and if you can build anything like that, that's remarkably impressive and then just on like a really, really small level, like I'm a big US Soccer fan, so there's a podcast called Scuffed that I have a lot of respect for, up and coming. They do really awesome job like hyper targeting a niche and being as good at it as possible.

Doug Bernstein:

There's a Twitter account called [inaudible 01:02:41] and it's just like this one small [inaudible 01:02:44] has the most unique voice and I take so much inspiration from this one person and their very uniqueness of voice and their ability to cut through clutter. I'm really like inspired by that. One of the guys that worked for us, Full Squad Gaming, which has become a really big gaming brand on TikTok, I really consume the space a lot, so there's a lot of things out there that I really enjoy and so, I'm sorry that answer was long winded.

Chris Erwin:

No. I think what stands out is that you're a decision maker and operator and you run a business but you're also a total fan.

Doug Bernstein:

Oh for sure.

Chris Erwin:

And I think by being a fan and immersing yourself in just like the content and the creators and the publishers that you think are doing great work, that inspires you and that makes you better, right?

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, 100%.

Chris Erwin:

All right, one last question before rapid fire. We've talked about the evolution of your leadership philosophy. One thing that surprised me in a very positive way is that you had a leadership philosophy from a very early age, when you were running the school newspaper at Pomona. If you were to capture a big evolution in how your leadership philosophy has changed from then to now, also I think in being honest, where do you see gaps or errors for you to improve as a leader to take your career and your team to like the next level, the next 10 or 20 years of you doing what you're doing?

Doug Bernstein:

In terms of where the leadership over the last 10 or 20 years, this time I'm dating myself, has evolved is just a lot of maturation in terms of like understanding the big picture. So I think when you're younger and you're starting off, you only kind of see things through like your lens and what I've learned over time is everybody is doing their best, sometimes under difficult situations and empathy towards that makes you more productive and the team more productive.

Doug Bernstein:

Instead of being frustrated or jaded or like casting something aside because they're not in agreement with you or they're not moving as quickly, really understanding like everybody has challenges and everybody is trying to do their best and I think that learning kind of takes those points of frustration where you're like quicker to lose your cool, I guess, in a way and resets it and reorients it and it's like okay, let me try again. Let me figure out like where their struggles are, what their challenges are and when you have your own employees, you're also trying to give them that context whether they're frustrated with me, whether they're frustrated with a peer or somebody underneath them, it is ... That sends a perspective I think I really lacked at the earlier stages and that I'm starting to get more of but I think there's a whole world of perspective that I still have to go.

Doug Bernstein:

And I think that's the biggest thing is just like continuing to be open to learning and growing and trying to seek out different and new perspectives. I think that's a really big part of it. Yeah, I think just in terms of [inaudible 01:05:41] to improve moving forward in terms of leadership. I think I've always tried to value people but I think there's a depth of valuing people and their experiences that the last 24 months has really kind of pushed forward, particularly around DE&I, diversity, equity and inclusion, like I think that's really come to the forefront and I think everybody, especially myself included, has work to be done on that front.

Doug Bernstein:

Yeah, I mean I don't know, there's like a laundry list of things that I probably need to work on that [crosstalk 01:06:13]

Chris Erwin:

You're very self-aware and reflective.

Doug Bernstein:

... like hitting deadlines and things like that but I think the big thing is just trying to gain a greater sense of scale and perspective. I think that's a big thing.

Chris Erwin:

Doug, yeah, before we go into the rapid fire, I'm just going to give you some quick kudos. I've gotten to know you, I think I first met you through my colleague, Andrew Cohen, who knows Drew, one of the members of your team, and I think we just first chatted, was it like, six to nine months ago, if I remember correctly? And I remember like that first conversation, I talk to people in the industry all the time and you're like are we going to be on the same page? Do we think the same? Are we going to vibe? And I just remember, I was like, Doug and Drew are just awesome people and I was like, I really like these guys and I get why their business is performing so well because not only do they get it and are they super sharp but they're grounded, they're building a great team and they just have a great ethos.

Chris Erwin:

So then when I was like oh, I'm excited to interview you for this podcast, some people just fall into their careers. They're these just like unique trajectories that there's no expectation, that's unplanned but we were joking about this during the break, it feels like you are completely fulfilling your destiny. Like you were born on this earth as a lover and obsessor of all things sports and community and media and that has been something that started out with your family, with your father in very early years for you and I think that you had a vision for this early on, right? When you were writing in your like third grade journals and you have more than fulfilled, I think, the career expectations that you have had and it's amazing to hear your story and I think honestly, that what I'm hearing is that you're just getting started.

Chris Erwin:

I've interviewed a lot of executives, I advise a lot of them, and there's something I'm hearing in between the lines here, I'm like, there's some big moves that Doug's going to make over the next decade or so. Whether that's with Bleacher Report and House of Highlights or somewhere else, very excited to follow that and I think that also a second note just is like your self-awareness around your leadership from how early on that you've been thinking about it, I think that really sets you up for success. It's inspiring and look, some of these questions I previewed with you in advance and a lot, I didn't and for you to have such thoughtful answers like off the cuff, I'm like that really shows something about your leadership character.

Chris Erwin:

So, kudos on that. I've learned a lot from you during this conversation.

Doug Bernstein:

Oh, appreciate it. It's been a great conversation. Excited for the rapid fire, and I do very genuinely appreciate that, that does mean a tremendous amount.

Chris Erwin:

Very welcome. All right, so here are the rules for the rapid fire segment. Six questions, answers are to be one sentence or maybe just one or two words, quick phrase. Do you understand the rules?

Doug Bernstein:

Yes, I do.

Chris Erwin:

Let's get into it. Doug, proudest life moment?

Doug Bernstein:

Having my children.

Chris Erwin:

What do you want to do less of in 2021?

Doug Bernstein:

Eat just crappy, crappy food.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. What do you want to do more of?

Doug Bernstein:

Spend time with my kids, that's the big one. Continue to be able to play with them more, not just kind of like spend time, like active, engaged time.

Chris Erwin:

What are one to two things that primarily drive your success?

Doug Bernstein:

Curiosity, I think, is a big one.

Chris Erwin:

Advice for media execs going into 2022?

Doug Bernstein:

Value your people above all else.

Chris Erwin:

Any future startup ambitions for you?

Doug Bernstein:

Happy where I'm at right now.

Chris Erwin:

Very safe, quality answer. All right, last one, this is an easy one. How can people get in contact with you?

Doug Bernstein:

Dbernstein, B-E-R-N-S-T-E-I-N, @bleacherreport.com would be the main one. I think I'm also on Twitter as ... Let me see. I think I'm dtbernstein on Twitter.

Chris Erwin:

Oh yeah, got to look up your handle.

Doug Bernstein:

Yup, dtbernstein on Twitter. Those would be the two best ways.

Chris Erwin:

You now know how to get to Doug. You can flood his inbox or his Twitter DMs. Well, Doug, this has been a delight. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Doug Bernstein:

Been a pleasure. Excellent job. It was great speaking with you.

Chris Erwin:

Wow, that was a really fun conversation. I've gotten to know Doug just over the past year, year and a half or so and I knew that he had a pretty lengthy sports media career but I didn't know it went that deep where his earliest memories were literally that of sport and going to games with his family. Pretty amazing. All right, reminder that it really helps us out when you guys share our episodes. So, if you really enjoyed this conversation between me and Doug, share it on LinkedIn, share it on Twitter, anywhere on social media. It helps other people find the show and it allows me and RockWater to keep putting out these podcasts and interviewing these great executives and it also really helps us if you can go and rate the show wherever you listen to it. If you listen on Apple Podcast, go and give us a five-star rating, leave a review. It really helps other people find our work and that would really mean a lot.

Chris Erwin:

So, appreciate the help, everybody and as always, thanks again for listening. If you have any thoughts on the show, any ideas for guests, hit us up at [email protected]. All right, everyone, till next time.

Chris Erwin:

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcast and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter and you can follow us on Twitter @tcupod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck, music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and Branding is by Kevin Zazzali and special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Alison Eakle is the EVP and Head of Creative Development at Shondaland. We discuss how imagining movie posters makes her a better creative exec, being a co-EP on Netflix’s #1 show Bridgerton, why she’s racked up so many recent promotions, and being part of new Hollywood’s most groundbreaking streamer partnerships. 

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Alison Eakle:

I'll never forget there was... The current assistant had put out a job posting. And how this works in Hollywood is you'll see jobs on things called tracking boards or emailed chains, but they always say, "No phone calls, please. Just email your resume." Right? And I was like, "I'm going to call him." And I did. And I just called him and I was like, "Look, I did not come up through the agency feed. I don't have the required experience, but I swear to God the desk I'm on is harder than any agency desk you can imagine. And I'll tell you why if you meet me for like 15 minutes." So we did. We literally met in the middle of the lot at Paramount. He was like, "You know what? I think my boss would like you."

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Alison Eakle, the EVP and Head of Creative Development at Shondaland. Alison grew up on the Jersey shore, actually my same hometown. She loved the arts since an early age, traveling to New York City for auditions as a young teenager, but she was planning to give it all up at Georgetown for career in politics until she had a breakthrough moment in her screenwriting class. Alison went on to get her MFA at UT Austin and then had roles in some of the most exciting production houses in Hollywood, from Paramount Vantage to Columbia Pictures and working for Ellen DeGeneres. Then a serendipitous moment took her to Shondaland where her career has been on fire. Some highlights of our chat include how imagining movie posters makes her a better creative exec, being a co EP and Netflix is number one show bridging that where she's racked up so many recent promotions and being part of new Hollywood's most groundbreaking streamer partnerships. All right, let's get into it. Alison, thanks for being on the podcast.

Alison Eakle:

Thanks for having me, Chris Erwin

Chris Erwin:

Very well, Alison Eakle. We got some history between us.

Alison Eakle:

That's right.

Chris Erwin:

So let's go back a bit. Where did you grow up? What was your household like?

Alison Eakle:

So I grew up in Rumson, New Jersey, which is a bit of a towny suburb, as they say, in the Northern part of the Jersey shore obviously. Well, I grew up the only child of Wall Street parents. Parents who had met kind of working at Wall Street in the '70s at a time that I've heard many incredible stories about. And it's interesting because when I was eight, there was a big stock market crash. And my dad was all for Morgan Stanley and my mom inspired him to start their own company, a financial investment advisory firm called Eakle and Associates. And so it's interesting I haven't really thought about that a lot, but I did watch my dad face what is one of my worst fears, that idea of just suddenly everything kind of pulled out from underneath you and I watched them together kind of build something new.

Chris Erwin:

Did your parents both work for the company?

Alison Eakle:

Oh yeah. My mom was VP, he was president and basically it was just a three person operation. And my dad, he had clients that he would manage their portfolios, but he put out something called the Eakle Report every week and would have to find really creative ways to talk about the stock market, which Godspeed to him because I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. I have no idea how to talk about the stock market. My mom ran all the logistics, taught herself computers at that time and really brought her up to speed fast. And they had that company for a long time until their divorce, which I have no idea what role the company played in that, but they definitely had it for, it was over 10 years, really successful. So that's kind of like what I grew up in. And I was very privileged. I came from a place of a lot of privilege where I went to private school.

Chris Erwin:

RCDS?

Alison Eakle:

RCDS, Rumson Country Day School, big shout outs, still very loyal to that school, that little short brown stone church on the corner.

Chris Erwin:

Are you still involved with the RCDS community? Like I have the friends from school I'm still in touch with, but I'm not giving back or anything like that. Well, maybe I should rethink it.

Alison Eakle:

No, I am not as involved as I want to be. I did have like a strange fantasy that one summer I'd go back or one year I'd go back to my 20s and substitute teach there. I don't know where that came from but-

Chris Erwin:

On the theatrical program?

Alison Eakle:

Yeah, why not? I'll do so. I love a school play. I love that. I love something roughly adapted from children's literature into strange costumes and children sputtering around on a stage, but it was just such a surreal experience because it was so safe, so incredible. I feel like that experience really formed me even from kindergarten on. And it was across the street from Bruce Springsteen's house. So what a quintessential New Jersey experience really?

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. I remember walking down Bruce's driveway on Halloween. He always would give out like the supersize snicker bars.

Alison Eakle:

Yeah. And [inaudible 00:04:44].

Chris Erwin:

It was always like, we got to go to Bruce's house then we'd go to Bon Jovi's house. That was like such a fun thing.

Alison Eakle:

Yeah. That's very dead on. I grew up there riding bikes to the beach, just walking around the neighborhood. They're a very arcade fire of the suburbs kind of existence, but with the modicum of real safety that I so appreciate now and also again realize how lucky I was in a lot of ways.

Chris Erwin:

So I have to ask, your parents are to business, it's just funny to hear that. I just recorded a podcast last week with Naomi Shah, the Founder of Meet Cute, it's a new romcom podcast network. And her parents started a technology business based out of Portland, Oregon. And so it's just funny that now like a week later I'm interviewing you and your parents started a business together as well. There is an entrepreneurship vein in your family. So was there a theme though about your interest in the arts that came from your parents or did that come separately?

Alison Eakle:

That was from really my aunt and uncle. And look, my mom was one of those people who did leave her job when she had me, but continued to have that kind of type A excel at anything she put her mind to it personality. She was somebody who played the organ. We had like a Hammond organ in our living room now that I think about it. She had interest in music and musicals and all of that thing and certainly was very supportive of the arts, but wasn't necessarily kind of ensconced in it. Whereas my aunt had been an actress since the day I was born, my uncle had been an agent at Theatrical Agent in New York, but also run his own company called Cornerstone up until he died. And so for me... And they were much younger than my parents. My mom is like 12 years older than my aunt.

Alison Eakle:

So they were this cool young aunt and uncle really ensconced in show business. They took me to my first Broadway play Les Miserables when I was 10. I felt incredibly like I had a model to look at of like what would a life in that business look like. And I definitely was born with the bug and loved trying to get the solo in school plays or whatever it was. And eventually my parents did let me act as a kid and tried to make a go of it professionally. And I was represented at a now defunct agency called J. Michael Bloom.

Chris Erwin:

What age is that, Alison?

Alison Eakle:

So this is like, by the time I'm actually wrapped I'm 13. So this is like '93, which is a very awkward age to be putting yourself out there. But for whatever reason, I was really into it and loved it and had some close calls. I got to do a callback in a room with James Ivory for Jefferson in Paris, a role that eventually went to Gwyneth Paltrow, which I think the better woman won. They aged it up and gave it to her, I remember, but it was such a cool experience too for a year. My parents were very anti stage parents. They were like, "Look, you clearly have some bit of talent in this and you really want to try it. We'll let you try it. But it's going to be for a small amount of time." It was only like maybe a year and a half, two years and then you really do have to go back and focus on like high school if it doesn't click, if there's not for me. And I only went out, I didn't go out for commercials. So it was sort of-

Chris Erwin:

Did you take time off from school at all for this?

Alison Eakle:

RCDS was really lenient in the sense that if I had to leave at three o'clock for like an audition in the city or to do a reading for an off-Broadway play or whatever it was, I could be flexible, but come close as I may have, I never got the big part that would have necessitated the on-set tutor.

Chris Erwin:

Did you feel at an early age, a clear interest in the arts and that, hey, this is going to be my career, this is where I'm going to be?

Alison Eakle:

I think if you look at my life in general too, and we'll talk about this, it's so funny because that clearly was always had such a strong pull that even when I tried to divert myself to more stable or a prestigious academically kind of bent careers, like politics and things like that, somehow it would just find me again and kind of pull me back to acting, writing, performing, creating, that side of things.

Chris Erwin:

So I think it's good that Gwyneth got the part because you've obviously had very special trajectory at Shondaland, you are exactly where you are meant to be.

Alison Eakle:

That is very reassuring to hear. And I do tell myself that sometimes. And I do get to still read parts at table reads occasionally at Shondaland, which is how I scratched that itch.

Chris Erwin:

So you're acting in your teams, you have some representation, you're going out on auditions, I just got to throw this out there from the RCDS memories, for some reason this is so ingrained in my brain. I remember taking the bus with you I think after school and then going down, I think if I remember correctly, it was a stone driveway, a gray stone driveway. It was a circle. The school bus would go down that and we would drop you off and your house, was it a gray house or a white house?

Alison Eakle:

Yeah. A gray house and white trim. It doesn't exist anymore. It was raised to the ground to build some other crazy mansion, but it was an adorable 1920s house. Four fireplaces when I think about it. Good God.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. One of my earliest memories that is definitely imprinted in my brain and I remember specifically from you, I think you were a year above me.

Alison Eakle:

That's kind. I'm three years older than you. I just loved to hang out with...

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. So that's what I was going to say is that you befriended myself and my twin brother, John, and you're always so kind to us on the bus. So you were very interesting. You just had interesting points of views on things and we picked that up at a pretty early age. Alison Eakle was at the light in my childhood, but it didn't stop there. So after RCDS, I left that school system I think around third grade and I went into the public school system as did some of our other friends. At RFH, I think that's where we were reunited in a Spanish class. You were a senior and I was a freshman, was that Parker's class or Von Handle? Who was that?

Alison Eakle:

Oh, maybe it was Von Handle actually, now that I think about it, but I couldn't remember her name. I just remember she had great hair, like a really perfect... So what did happen was I took French from third grade forward. And then in high school I had done the AP and I was like, I sort of want to start another language when I might have a chance of speaking on a daily basis. And so I started Spanish as a junior, but it was hilarious to be... It was my only experience of being the lone senior in a class full of freshmen. It was such a blast and such a different perspective on things at that point in my life. I was so happy to be in it with you. And it was Adam Sachs too.

Chris Erwin:

It was Adam Sachs. Maybe John Waters was in there.

Alison Eakle:

Yeah. Waters 100%. And we had to make a video. I'll never forget this. We had to make a video project for the class. I forget who else was on my team, but there was like a surfer kid named Ryan. And we stormed at his house and I was just like, I'm 18 years old at this point just making a weird Spanish video with a bunch of freshmen in it, but it was great. I felt like I really loved that experience.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Very on theme again, a little bit older hanging out with the younger kids, we enjoyed it. There's something in the water, I think from like the Rumson Monmouth County area for Hollywood, because it's a bunch of people from the East Coast, but then Adam Sachs is running Team Coco, Conan O'Brien, you Andy Redmond running Tornante under Michael Eisner, you're at Shondaland doing a thing, Matt Warshauer another friend is a writer and-

Alison Eakle:

A really talented writer.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Impressive creator. And then I'm trying to do my thing at RockWater in New Media. So there's a crew of us out here together.

Alison Eakle:

It was probably the biggest surprise to me when I got here is how many people from growing up in New Jersey are out here, both from that experience, the experience we shared, but also somehow or another, we convinced a lot of people to leave New York when we first came out here in the mid 2000s. And we have a really... I always thought it would be kind of my film school crew that would, and there's a lot of them, the Austin Kids out here too, Austin, Texas, but tons of Jersey people.

Chris Erwin:

So after high school, the arts theme continues. You go to Georgetown, did you run a TV station there?

Alison Eakle:

Yeah. Well, it's so funny. I went there, again, trying to do like the sensible thing. I was like, I'm going to be in politics and urban development. And I had a real tracy flick then to me of like, I'm going to be the mayor of the city. And then I got into those classes and was sort of put off by the approach that the other students had to government and the idea that everybody was obviously in this kind of self aggrandized way. And I realized, oh, that's not maybe my jam. I'm not here to prove how much I know about how many congressmen are from which districts or what have you. I really wanted to affect change on a local level. Of course, part of its insane ambition. I don't think anyone decides to go into politics without being a little amped up about that and being like, I think I'm pretty great.

Alison Eakle:

I absolutely had that threat, but I felt so kind of outpaced by my classmates in terms of their ambition and I started to question if it was for me. And then weirdly enough, it was a sophomore class, a screenwriting class I took with a professor named John Glavin. And at that time, he had mentored Jonah Nolan who at that point had made Memento with his brother and suddenly I had, yet again, a model to look at him like, oh, somebody in a class just like this with this man as their professor broke through. Right? Obviously he has incredible talent. And that stuff can't be taught, but it was like suddenly I could at least see a path sort of. That same year, I think my sophomore year Georgetown University Television, the finest closer television channel in the land was starting on campus, and I realized, oh, that seems like fun.

Alison Eakle:

And my first show that I produced and sometimes hosted with Aaron Cocce and Brian Walsh, was it called G Talk Live? And I even forget all that I did. It was sort of a running gun, all hands on deck, but it's like a live call-in show, a talk show, panel show for the campus. And I'll never forget they were like, "Alison, do you want to host a very special episode?" And I said, "Of course, I do." About one of the most pressing topics out there, Dawson's Creek. So that was my big contribution, but I loved it. And I stayed with the television station all three years. And at my senior year, we sponsored like a film festival and the films were incredible. And you think back it was... I looked at a program I'd kept from maybe six years ago when I was moving and it's like, Zal Batmangli, creator of The OA along with Brit Marling, the two of them had made one of the shorts and contention and Mike Cahill and Brit Marling had also collaborated in a way that would pre-stage their collaborations on another earth.

Alison Eakle:

And it was kind of incredible because I look back and I see that drive. I see all of these people who actually were trying to carve out a space at a school maybe not known for people who are going to forge a path in TV and film doing so, but also it was like Mike Birbiglia and Nick Kroll, John Mulaney were all my contemporaries as well. So also seeing a real comedy scene evolve, I feel like again, very lucky and they're at the right time in terms of it was in the zeitgeists of again, getting to look at people really trying to forge that path in a way that I had not seen before.

Chris Erwin:

And then you felt, I think, empowered. It's like, I can do this. Like that screen writing class was a spark for you. It's like, fine, this is what I'm going to pursue. I came here for political science and different reasons, but that's now changed.

Alison Eakle:

Yeah. I'm so glad I decided to try it and listen. And again, at that point I'd let go of the acting thing, even though I would still occasionally act in like one act plays that friends would write or things like that. But I do think the acting informed the love of writing, which in turn, all of that feeds the work that I do now, essentially because I think as a creative executive, I do look at everything through the lens of, okay, I know what it's like to sit and stare at a blank page now with that cursor blinking and understanding kind of how do you generate something from nothing, how do you riff on ideas to try to get through a piece of writer's block, all of that.

Alison Eakle:

But I also approach things in terms of like, when I read a script, I do think to myself, do I want to play that role? Because I know that if I have that instinct of like, oh my God, I wish I want to say these words, I wish I could play that part, you're onto something at that point. That is a really good sign that somebody has created something worth making.

Chris Erwin:

Because you have an acting background, you can empathize with the words on the page and you could have a vision for how the words will manifest.

Alison Eakle:

It's almost like first, it's a different way that informs decision-making, right? Because in terms of creatively, the big question is like, what do you love enough that you would actually spend years of your life working on? And I think, again, that's one thing that goes, I can really appreciate when a piece of writing is going to appeal to an actor. Like in this business too, so much of it is who's going to fill this role, especially in TV so often if you're not going with an already established huge star, you need to find a person who can really become that role. Especially when there's a breakout hit and an actor has really been a part of creating that role with the writer, that follows them for the rest of their life. People always think of them in some ways as that person.

Alison Eakle:

So I do try to think of like, are there iconic roles in this that somebody would really dig into that would get me excited that way? And similarly, actually the writing piece of it comes into mind too, because if I read a pilot or something, but I found something worth pursuing and talking about it, if my head's already like, oh my God, I can see episodes, I know what I'd want to watch and want to see in the show, so that's the writer part of me thinking like, oh my God, if I had to pitch ideas for it, I could, that's really promising. So it's definitely stuff that that background I think does inform the work I do.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. As I'm listening to you, Alison, I'm hearing the passion come out from you. So I think you said you no longer act, but you really enjoy the table reads that you do with the Shondaland team. Do you think that there might be a future where you might see a script and you're inspired to be like, "You know what? I want to go do a one woman show. I'm going to join a small private troop." Is that something that either maybe you're doing now or that's like seated in your brain?

Alison Eakle:

It's something that I still do for friends. Like we'll still do writer's table reads together and things like that. I don't think I would rule out the idea of doing some kind of acting with friends on a project. I don't think it's going to be generated by me. I don't think I'm going to be the one to push it forward, but I think that if an opportunity presented itself, it would be really fun. And I actually love the idea of like voiceover, that idea of doing that kind of work too, because I give real actors steeped in their craft so much credit because the way you make yourself so vulnerable reading at a table read or doing a piece of voiceover where I can kind of hide behind, not be on camera and not be seen, that's more appealing to me now than leaving it all on the stage every night or really exposing myself fully on a show or a film and just emotionally, physically all of these things. I think that stuff's incredibly scary and every time I see actors go for it, I'm just standing out.

Chris Erwin:

Shondaland launched an audio business and maybe scripted audio is in your future. You could do some of that. You just-

Alison Eakle:

I'm going to ask Sandy Bailey if I can audition for some of those pieces. That's right.

Chris Erwin:

All right, cool. I want to flow into your early career, but so after Georgetown, you end up getting your MFA at UT Austin. So from there I think you go to New York for around six months and then you transition to LA if that's right. Tell us quickly, what was that journey from being at UT Austin, one or two key themes from that and then the beginning of your journey in Hollywood thereafter?

Alison Eakle:

I just was interviewed about my time at UT Austin. And I think the thing that's so crazy about it, that was a big takeaway was do not let your program define you because when I got there, it was just an MA screenwriting program. It became an MFA screenwriting program. But I think there was this kind of a mentality sometimes like we were the weird step-kids of like the film program, but also the really prestigious writing, the James Michener program that is for like novelists, poets, playwrights. So it's like a multi-disciplinary incredibly competitive workshop. Two years, they pay you. It was easy sometimes to feel a little less than, but then as time got going and I just fell in love with a couple of professors, I started like working on short films with people. I was a TA. Speaking of hanging out with younger kids and being a TA as a grad student, I can't tell you how many of my former students are also out here killing it and just absolutely running shit.

Alison Eakle:

And it blows my mind that I ever thought I could teach them anything like run indie film divisions of agencies. I really did start to just make my experience what I thought it could be as opposed to just be like, well, I'm just an MFA screen writing student. It was great. It was a great experience. I lived with law students instead. So that kind of exposed me to a whole different way of experiencing UT. They worked hard in the party tag, Chris, I will say that. That was my Austin experience. And I wound up working for Burnt Orange Productions, which is this company that had like a really cool experiment at hand where they were making low budget indie features like one was Elvis and Annabelle, starring a very young Blake Lively and Max Minghella. And that's the one, when I was there, they were making.

Chris Erwin:

So then thereafter, did you have a more specific lane of knowing where you wanted to go and what exactly you were going to do? How does that get you to, I think, was a pretty transformational role, which was at Paramount Vantage.

Alison Eakle:

It's so funny, but I really thought I was going to just be a screenwriter. My best friend, Ashley, who is now a show runner in her own right with her husband, she was finishing film school at Columbia. So the only reason I did that six months stint in New York was because A, growing up in Jersey and looking at New York is like the city. It just felt like I have to live in New York at some point. And so many of my good friends are there, I just want to have that experience. So I thought I might stay, that there might be a way to make it work, but New York is hard and expensive and it's even more so now an impossible place to live. But even in 2006, it's like, I'd worked Monday through Friday as like an assistant in an advertising agency and then Saturdays and Sundays, I would like go to Bronx Science and other schools in the city to teach SAT prep.

Alison Eakle:

So I was truly working seven days a week and still hardly getting by and I didn't even have to pay rent because I was just crashing with my friend. Her boyfriend, now husband, had moved out to LA in kind of October of '06 and we started processing and thinking about it could we really make this trip? I'm like, could I really break my mother's heart and move across the country? And eventually realized that if this is really what we wanted to do was to be screenwriters, it really did feel like we had to be in LA. And so we did it together with her two cats and her two goldfish and a Toyota Corolla.

Chris Erwin:

Two women, two cats, two goldfish, two Corollas.

Alison Eakle:

Yeah. Two of everything. One of the cats shit himself as we were crossing Arkansas. And there was a very uncomfortable gas station interaction with some locals and that cat and trying to get that cat out of the carrier of the car, but look, all worth it. The two fish died immediately when we put them in LA water, a very foreboding omen. New York was just, I knew in some way I wanted to get a chance to have an adventure with Ashley, collaborate with her potentially and we wound up moving out to LA together.

Chris Erwin:

Similar to you, after graduating from school in Boston, I was like, "Yeah, I got to go to New York." That's like what... You're in the tri-state area, big exciting visions. And then the fact that I can go down to the shore and see my family on like an hour train ride or the ferry that had just started to emerge. And I got stuck there for five years in finance. So you only got stuck for six months, I probably took like 10 years off my life doing finance in New York City. But you got out and so you make the move, you get to LA and then you end up at Paramount Vantage and you do a few things before that.

Alison Eakle:

And one really formative job. So basically I get there, I go to a temp agency my show business actors aunt had connected me with and I'm like, "Let me do a typing test. Let me show you I can use Excel." And I got a job that was temp to perm, potentially assisting a woman named Nancy Gallagher, who was an EVP of marketing at Paramount Pictures. And this woman was like close personal friends with Steven Spielberg and Joel Schumacher and Tom Cruise. Like she had done marketing campaigns for movies that had shaped my teen years, like Clueless and Titanic. Like I lost my mind when I realized really the impact she had had. She was also incredibly old-school, did not use a computer at the time. It was a kind of a wild experience. I would be there 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM. I would never leave the desk. I would take dictation. I would read her an email she got. She would dictate an answer back to me and I would type it back to the person.

Chris Erwin:

This is 2007?

Alison Eakle:

Oh yeah, don't worry about it, Chris. But she was incredible. I mean, she was an incredible talent. She just was sort of like had not kind of embraced that part of the job and was just deep in the creative. I mean, again, I got to meet so many impactful, incredible filmmakers, like Calvin Kennedy, we had four movies that we're marketing. It was a real learning curve for the almost two years I did it. And that classic, first Hollywood job, like don't screw up that phone call from Scott Rudin or whatever it is. Like there were those moments consistently. And I was scared out of my wits until I wasn't. And eventually I was just like, I would see the kids in their suits come in from Yale to take my job since I was just a temp and interview and I was like, "No, no, no, no, fuck it. I'm going to keep this job." It almost became like a challenge to myself.

Alison Eakle:

And I think being able to stick it out and succeed there, even though I didn't want to do marketing, and on that desk is where I realized I never have time to write and I'm never making time. And people who really want to be writers, they make time. They get up at 6:00 AM and write for two hours before their desk job. And I was not doing that. So I just realized I think I found out there was a thing called development, which is basically what I loved about writing most was workshops like working with writers, not being the writer and started to try to think about how to make that transition.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Look, I hear this from a lot of people who work at the agencies like pretty early on is that it's really exciting in the beginning, but it's also painful, the work, the stress, a lot of bad bosses, it turns people out and they leave Hollywood. But when you were there, did it feel like you're just getting more excited, but you're like, but I'm not in the role that I want. Like what you just described as like, I want to get into development. So I feel good about the industry, this is hard, but the stars in my eyes, they're still real and they're not going away. Is that right?

Alison Eakle:

Yes. I think I am at some level, again, like a pragmatist. There's always competing parts, right? There's the creative and the pragmatist and the pragmatists was like, you have a job that pays really well in a business that doesn't, you have overtime, you have health insurance, I was just like, keep doing this. And again, I love the challenge of a professor or a boss that's incredibly difficult to impress. So I love that challenge. And I learned a ton because honestly the biggest lesson of marketing is like, don't create something you don't know how to approach an audience with. You need to know who this movie or this show is for and obviously there's always a pleasant surprise when it kind of broadens out past that, but that was really drilled and it's like, what does the poster look like?

Alison Eakle:

Because we would get scripts and movies that we had to market. And we would look at each other what is this about? How did you sell this movie? And I will not name names, but it was incredible to see it from that other end. And that was the boss. She was incredible in teaching me like Alison, as an assistant in Hollywood, your job is to assume no one else is doing their job correctly, which is a terrible place to live for a long time in terms of that is so fear-based. But it is also a way to I learned how to anticipate what could go wrong or how to kind of shore up and idiot proof certain processes in a way that I do things still serves me to today.

Chris Erwin:

Hey listeners, this is Chris Irwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work and it also really supports what we do here. All right. That's it everybody, let's get back to the interview. Two points that I think are interesting. Alison, you described as being able to anticipate what could go wrong or sit at corners, we had Chas Lacaillade interviewed on this podcast, he now runs a digital talent management company called BottleRocket, but he said the same exact thing he was at ICM. He's like, "The one takeaway I have from that is you can always anticipate what's going to go wrong in a deal, a conversation, a client meeting," and he found that very valuable.

Chris Erwin:

The second thing I think that you said, Alison, that I really like is how to market and how to approach an audience. So I think today where media has changed, where they used to be fixed supply, if you can get theatrical distribution, you're going to win. If you're going to get on like a TV network, you're going to win. But with the internet, there is so much content out there even if you're like putting up content on Netflix or you're putting up content on YouTube or in some like digital, native way, your content has to stand down. And the marketing campaign that wraps the actual content itself, how you speak and engage and excite your audience, that is where the winners are today. So the fact that you have that lens from your history, I think is really interesting.

Alison Eakle:

You put it better than I ever could, but that all tracks. Yes, that feels right.

Chris Erwin:

So you realize you're not having the amount of time you need for writing, so you've got to change it up. So where do you go?

Alison Eakle:

I saw a job opportunity to assist the director of production and development at Paramount Vantage. What I'll never forget there was the current assistant had put out a job posting and how this works in Hollywood, for anyone who's listening and doesn't know, is you'll see jobs on things called tracking boards or emailed chains basically. But they always say, "No phone calls, please. Do not call me. Just email your resume." Right? And I was like, okay, this job is on the same lot, I'm going to call him. And I did. And he was so incredibly lovely. Colin Conley, he's still in the business, an incredible manager. And I just called him. And I was like, "Look, I did not come up through the agency. I don't have the required experience, but I swear to God, the desk I'm on is harder than any agency desk you can imagine. And I'll tell you why if you meet me for like 15 minutes."

Alison Eakle:

So we did, we literally met in the middle of the lot at Paramount. And he was like, "You know what? I think my boss would like you." And he was leaving to go work at the Sundance Institute, fucking cool as hell. And I tried not to be too intimidated. And I met his boss and loved her. And the only weird thing about that experience was when I did get the job, three weeks into it, most of Paramount Vantage was let go. They were downsizing all indie studios at that point. And I was like, oh my God, I just took a pay cut and a huge risk to take this job and now I'm going to get fired. That was all that went through my head is like, we're all going to get laid off, but I don't know what happened, but for eight months, some of us still hung on.

Alison Eakle:

And I learned so much about future film development from my boss, Rachel. And then we were all let go. Then it really did. The hammer came down in July of 2009. John Lynch left as the head of the studio of Vantage was done. And another colleague of mine who used to be at Vantage got me my next job just assisting a production exec at Sony Pictures, Elizabeth Kentiling, who was incredible. And the experiences were so different because at Vantage, I learned a ton about development, but we never got to make anything because essentially it was like, you already saw the writing on the wall. You knew it was only a matter of time to some extent that you were going to be shut down, which I've never had an experience like that since. It is sort of freeing, because I was just like, well, I'm going to learn and do as much as I can while I'm here.

Alison Eakle:

And then at Sony, it was the opposite where it was like, there was development happening on scripts so I was there, but my boss was making movies. Like I always watched her oversee Social Network and Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and got really a firsthand view of like how that side of things works when stuff is going. So it was incredibly valuable, but the whole time I'm sitting there thinking, okay, I'm still an assistant, I'm 30... How old was I at that point? Probably 31. Again, wasn't acting, wasn't writing, wasn't really an exec. I would go to drinks with other assistants and them not knowing how old I was would be like, "Oh man, if I'm still an assistant at 30, kill me."

Chris Erwin:

It's interesting you're saying this because I was reading an interview that was done with you. Asked like what's the worst advice that you can receive or that you have received? And you said something along the lines like, oh, if you're like an assistant or haven't figured out your career in Hollywood by the time you're 30, it's over. And that's BS. That's not true. And so I think this is clearly where that's coming from.

Alison Eakle:

Oh yeah. And trust me in the moment I was like, maybe it is true. Like I'm not impervious to insecurities. 100% I was like, I've given all this up, I've left my family, I've moved to LA, did I make a terrible choice? Is this right? But there is such a thing where you just got to stick it out and you keep learning and try to keep growing and then the next opportunity will find you. I totally flunked out on my first creative executive interview in the Future World. And I just was like, oh man, this other junior exec at the movie studio got me this opportunity and I just said stupid shit and I blew it. But then a friend of mine from my Paramount Vantage days, a friend who had worked at Comedy Central while we were doing the Comedy Central branded movies and I really loved, was like, "My old boss from Comedy Central is starting a company for Ellen Degenerates, would you ever want to go be the assistant/exec?"

Alison Eakle:

And it was primarily television, both scripted and unscripted, not movies, not the big sexy thing at that time that I was still like, no, no, no, you got to work in movies. But I was like, I fucking love television. I raised myself on television. Let me tell you, I jumped at the chance. And again, I was still answering phones at that point technically, but I was like a coordinating manager. So I got to be in the meetings and watch how it happened and take meetings of my own.

Chris Erwin:

This is A Very Good Production, that's the name of the company?

Alison Eakle:

Yes. That's A Very Good Production.

Chris Erwin:

Okay.

Alison Eakle:

And look, I probably did that classic thing that I think a lot of women do where I didn't think I would feel ready to go from assistant to just exec. That is where I second guessed myself a bit. And so I loved that idea of like a hybrid opportunity, but I also couldn't have learned from anyone better than Lauren Carrao as we were building that company from the ground up with the deal at Warner Brothers.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Wow. So Alison, I want to get into now your rise at Shondaland, a company that you joined back in 2013 and where you're still at today and interesting juxtaposition. So I interview a mix of technology and E-commerce, but also media executives on this podcast. A lot of the technology executives I interview, their career rise starts a lot earlier, right? It's like the difference. But in media, a lot of the people that I've interviewed, it takes a bit longer. You're joining Shondaland I think in your early 30s, but you've had an amazing run over the past almost a decade. So I'm curious, how did you first end up there?

Alison Eakle:

Truly going back to my doomed, but learned a lot moments of Paramount Vantage, it was my boss there, Rachel Eggebeen. She was the first kind of creative executive that Shonda and her longtime creative and producing partner, Betsy Beers, my other boss brought on and into the company when they'd had their deal through ABC. They'd been making Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice and a few other pilots that had knocked on to series. But I believe as Rachel came on board, they were making the Scandal pilot. They had expanded the company and around the time that I was ready to move on from a very good production in terms of trying to get kind of my first either producing credits or full exec job, whatever that next move was going to be for me, I reached out to Rachel and I said, "What do you think I should consider? You're one of my favorite bosses, favorite people, favorite friends, what do you think I should do?"

Alison Eakle:

And she said, "Well, interestingly, Shonda and Betsy are thinking about expanding the work they're doing and hiring another person. And your background in comedy could be incredibly useful and important part of the mix given they're starting to do more of that." When I came on board, they'd already been developing a pilot with Issa Rae, actually for ABC. Ultimately didn't move forward, but was one of my first experiences as an exc. It got to be me and Issa Rae in a room, sitting on the floor, working through a pilot and I will never forget it. And it was incredible. And I loved every second of working with her.

Chris Erwin:

Speaking of Issa Rae, so I joined the whole YouTube revolution in 2013. And I remember we were launching different like digitally native verticals. Issa Rae came in and pitched a show with her creative partner.

Alison Eakle:

Oh, no way.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Early days. And now look at her, she's a phenomenal. You shouldn't make a fuss.

Alison Eakle:

Talk about a rise. I feel silly calling what I've experienced duress in light of Issa. I mean, just and so earned and so deserve. Like with the pilot was called, I Hate LA Dudes. And that was very much my mindset while we were working on it. But I would meet my husband just a few months after we finished up with that and I reversed that decision. No, it was great to kind of come on board. And look, I was, again, nervous, that imposter syndrome thing is hard to shake. I'm like, it's my first executive job, I am a fan of these shows of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal. Scandal season one and like half of season two had aired when I started. And that jump is a big jump in Hollywood when you're first like really not answering the phones anymore. I didn't have an assistant, but I wasn't an assistant.

Alison Eakle:

And I got to develop like my first comedy from the ground up with these writers Petrossian Goldstein that came partly from like an original idea I had just by like being like, fuck, okay, what do I want to see in the world that I don't see? What do I want to watch on TV that's in my life and I don't see reflected? And we came up with this idea of what if your friend was dating someone terrible, just absolutely the worst. You wouldn't want to spend brunch with this person. And then they show up one day early in the dating and they're like, "We're having a baby." And I had pitched this idea of like, that would be the friend groups worst nightmare, but a lot of it would be not so much about that girl who kind of enters the group, but really about you and what you're going through emerging as a group of like 20 somethings into your 30s.

Alison Eakle:

And then when we pitched this idea to these other writers, they had had an idea of what had happened in their friend group, which is one of their really close friends had passed away. And that guy's parents had sort of become the parents of their friend group. And we wound up having this incredible meeting where we realized we could merge these ideas. And it was just one of those first experiences where Betsy and I were in the thick of it and I realized like, oh, this is it, this is what I wanted this to feel like and be like. I love the idea that I can have an idea, writers can make it better and bring their own experience to it and then I get to watch it just evolve.

Alison Eakle:

And it was such a well-received comedy pilot that at the very last minute we did not get to make it, but it was a great first experience in that first year at that company of like, A, I love this, B, I love why I'm working with on these projects and C, maybe I'm not terrible at it. Like that first moment you're like, oh, I should keep doing this. Which I think a lot of people don't talk about because I think you're supposed to pretend that you're just like a girl boss from day one and always had the confidence, but no, I mean, it truly took going through that first experience to be like, okay, I deserve to be in the room.

Chris Erwin:

Amazing. So very early on, everything felt right to you. This is the right team, this is the right role and did you get a sense that it's like, hey, this is a company I can be at for a really long time.

Alison Eakle:

I was like, hey, I hope they'll have me for a long time. Again, like even with the successes, I think there's always a moment where you're just like, what's the next thing I can do? Like I want to continue to earn this spot or earn their respect. And the other thing I just sort of lucked into was that at that same time that we were doing that comedy, we had six other drama projects in development, how it works as you sell ideas in pitches to the networks and then the writers write the scripts and around Christmas time, these networks were just in the network side, they would decide which ones they were actually going to shoot. And the one that they decided to shoot was How To Get Away With Murder. And so then even though my comedy pilot, that experience hadn't borne fruit in terms of being shot, I got to see that show be born and come to life.

Alison Eakle:

The other thing that happened in those first eight months I was there was that Rachel did leave Shondaland to go to another job at Fox 21, which is a studio. And again, I was terrified because the person who brought me in was gone and I was still getting my sea legs, but Betsy and Shonda were incredible. And I learned so much from them. And I got to all of a sudden just not limit myself to being like, hey, I'm the person who's here to do some comedy and I got to experience what it is to develop dramas and realized I loved that too.

Chris Erwin:

You mentioned it... Again I saw on an interview that you had like a handful of promotions within the first four to five years that you were there.

Alison Eakle:

Yes.

Chris Erwin:

So what did you feel that you were doing at the company that started to really stand out and have you get noticed?

Alison Eakle:

I was kind of the only one for a while. I feel like I don't know what I would necessarily pinpoint. I'd be interested to hear Betsy and Shonda say it. I think one of the things was not only did I have the things that I would get excited about and bring to the table, but I think that Shonda's excitement and Betsy's passion are really contagious. Right? I think very early on I realized, okay, they have fucking genius ideas. I can execute that. I can take that. I can run with it. I can get some progress going. I can find the writer. I can work on the vision of the writer. I also loved the fact that we had this incredible community of writers that had come up on all the Shondaland shows. So I think I really just threw myself fully into trying to make projects with them work and support them.

Alison Eakle:

And I think there's also a little bit of magic sometimes when taste and instincts lineup, the rest of it is sort of just to do the work, especially those early days. To this day, even after I've had a kid, which we'll talk about, I've never not worked on weekends, I've never not worked at night. Like even when I'm not working and I'm using air quotes, my brain is constantly going in terms of how to fix issues or how to approach strategically certain projects. And I think that they must have responded to it.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Because I think to you it was clear as it's not just work, this is a passion. It's like part of your essence. It's having like a creative mind wanting to support the creative community. I think like you were saying with Shonda and Betsy, you have this reputation where you could take an idea that they have and really nurture it and build it and make it even more special. So there's this trust that they're bestowing on you, but they really appreciate new ideas that you bring to the table. So then, okay, there's an exciting moment. You're there for around four years, 2017, then there's the big announcement that Shonda is leaving ABC for Netflix and what was reported to be, I think, the range is up to $150 million deal. What was that like? Was that something... Had you been working on that for a while? Was that something that you knew of? Was that something that was just dropped on you? What was that like to receive internally?

Alison Eakle:

I did know a little bit before the announcement came, I just was over the moon excited in terms of it being such a new learning opportunity for me, right? I know Shonda and Betsy had their excellent reasons for making that transition at that time when they did. Strictly speaking from my experience of it, I was just so interested in how different that could be, what restrictions would be lifted when you suddenly don't have to make television for network to fit that 42 minutes of a drama episode to kind of deal with broadcast standards and practices. But also just the idea that I think once we went to Netflix, it probably did also, at least in my opinion, as I spoke to people in the industry, it started to broaden their ideas of the kind of shows we made sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes they'd still come to us and be like, "Here's Grey's Anatomy, but in a funeral home." Like they would still do that too, but there was a lot of people understanding that now we were going to do TV and movies.

Alison Eakle:

We could do comedies. We wanted to do genre. Like I think, especially by the time we were able to announce those first things we were working on kind of a year into the deal, it did make people understand that while they often thought of us in terms of, I will use the quote, sexy soap or serialize procedurals, the ambitions were so much bigger than that. And to get ready because we had a lot of things coming that you would not be able to do on network. And that was really liberating and exciting.

Chris Erwin:

Did everyone feel that same way? Was there anyone internal on the team or within your writer community that was like, "You know what? I want to work on network programming and going to a streamer is not a place I want to be."

Alison Eakle:

If that was happening, it was not something that I was privy to or that people were coming to talk to me about at all. Everybody was like, "I can't believe this. I'm so excited." And we're moving into new offices and all. It was just felt like a real thrum of excitement. And look, I think to this day, there are still writers who appreciate the consistency of a network job, but the whole business has changed. This is a conversation for another time in that residuals are not the same anymore. And there are so few shows like Grey's and Station 19 that can go that many episodes a season. Whereas writer you know you're booked kind of like August to April or whatever it is, I do think some writers probably miss that and will gravitate towards that kind of structure, that storytelling, all of that. But I didn't experience anyone being like, "Ooh, Netflix," at all.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. And maybe look, I think there was a lot of excitement at the moment. Was this announced right after Ryan Murphy's deal? I think he announced like a $300 million deal, was that-

Alison Eakle:

We were the first.

Chris Erwin:

You were the first.

Alison Eakle:

Shondaland was the first. Yeah. That was the first deal for Shondaland was the first of these big star producer deals. And I think Ryan Murphy, Kenya Barris, a few others came in like quick succession, but it was the first big announcement like this.

Chris Erwin:

Clearly it's working, right? So there's the big 2020 hit with Bridgerton. And then recent news, there's a re-up between Atlanta and Netflix are reported or confirmed or reported up to 400 million, but what was it like in that moment when Bridgerton which I think is the number one performing show on Netflix today, when that hit and your team started to get some of the success reporting, what was that feeling like? And were you involved in that show at all?

Alison Eakle:

Oh yeah. So I am a co-EP on the show and moving forward into seasons two, three, and four, I'll be working on it. It honestly was something where I still remember the day that Shonda was like, "There are these romance novels that are absolutely incredible. They would make a great show." I will be the first to admit I was like, "Romance novels, like grocery store paperback romance novels?" The genius that she is she's like, "Just read them. Just read one. Read The Duke and I." Which is the first book and is what season one is based on, the Simon and Daphne's story. And I read it in like one sitting, definitely started blushing about like 80 pages in for sure, but immediately I was like, oh, I get it. I get it. I understand the conceit of how this works for many seasons. I get why there's such a huge under-serviced fandom of this material. And they have not gotten to see some of their favorite stories brought to the screen and shot.

Alison Eakle:

It was so smart because she knew that people would clamor for that. And that audience had just not gotten to see those characters come to life, but also that there would be a broader reach. And also I think that it was such a surreal experience for me. I was incredibly pregnant. It was Christmas time. We had done post-production in COVID entirely from our homes remotely. Every music spotting session would be inimitable, Kris Bowers. Like all of it had been done remotely, all the posts. So it was like being in this kind of strange bubble and just sitting there as the holiday started just wondering how it would be received. And I don't think I could have ever anticipated what a mark on the culture it would have.

Chris Erwin:

I didn't even start thinking about the opportunity to romance space until Sarah Penna, who is one of the co-founders of the Big Frame where I was at right after school. And she had an idea that I think she's still working on with Lisa Berger called Frolic Media focused on, I think it's in a podcast network and digital video programming for female romcom romance enthusiast. And when she started telling me some of the numbers of how big this demo is, I was like hearing the success of Bridgerton, I am not surprised. So a new Netflix deal's announced and here's some exciting things like a focus of film, games, VR, branding, merchandising. There's a larger team from Bridgerton Ball that's coming up in November. So it's really extending your work streams and creating an audience experiences into a lot of new channels. Where is Shondaland today and where is it headed?

Alison Eakle:

The other side of the company that is the digital side, that is the podcast, the website, whatever shape and form this gaming and VR enterprise is going to take to it is incredibly exciting and I think a huge part of how my perspective on my job has shifted. And look, I've gotten to experience people often say like, "How have you been at a company for eight years?" And I was like, "This company is always evolving. The opportunities are always evolving. The work we're doing is always shifting and changing and growing." And it's part of why I was so excited to work with Shonda and Betsy in the beginning because I knew they had these bigger plans, right? World domination through incredible storytelling, very appealing, but I'm just really always trying to think to myself too synergy.

Alison Eakle:

Are there opportunities of things that we're working on that could translate to the podcast space or there could be a great story on the website about it and thinking more actively how do I talk to them about that and tell them about it before it's too far down the pike or vice versa, what are they working on that could be the next great show for Netflix or first documentary came out right before the holidays as well around Thanksgiving, Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker about the life and legacy of Debbie Allen as seen through her kind of like planning and staging this incredible her version of the Nutcracker?

Alison Eakle:

So we have a real hunger to do unscripted, both doc series, lifestyle, reality shows, things like that, the right kind of thing for the right kind of audience, the thing that we think will appeal to our fans and the people who love our material, but also Inventing Ana is going to be out soon, which is Shonda's next show that she created based on the incredible cut article from Jessica Pressler, how Anna Delvey tricked New York's party people about the Soho grifter, who basically found a way to make all the finance bros in New York and all the art people and all the fancy pants people in New York who believed she was a German heiress. An incredible kind of fake it till you make it American dream story from a very slanted interesting perspective.

Alison Eakle:

So I'm really excited for that show to hit and to launch and for people to see that it's a limited. That's like the next big thing on top of the fact that we have announced through Bridgerton season four to really get to service the Bridgerton's children's love stories. We've got a lot of story to tell. And then Shonda's next project is a project based on the life of young Queen Charlotte, who obviously is someone we featured heavily in the Bridgerton series. So that's some of the scripted coming down the line. We do have feature films in development. We have a lot of different genre TV shows that I don't think people would be necessary... Again, always trying to broaden the idea of what people think of as a Shondaland show, which is just incredible unexpected storytelling that has an incredibly human lens. A lot of different things coming down.

Chris Erwin:

All this program is going to be exclusive to Netflix, is that right?

Alison Eakle:

Yes. Exclusively in Netflix.

Chris Erwin:

Looking at the Shondaland website yesterday, and I saw the 2017 partnership with Hearst where you've launched a lifestyle website. You have this January, 2020 audio partnership with iHeart, where I think you're creating companion content to promote some of your series, but also maybe seeding some new IP, which is definitely a theme that we talk a lot about here at RockWater. But these are divisions that are separate from your purview, but you want to collaborate and you want to work together. And I think that'd be an awesome thing to do more of in the future. I'd love to see that.

Alison Eakle:

Oh yeah. It's a top-down mentality the idea of like, no, no, no, you guys, you're not just making content for Netflix and you're not just making content for Hearst to iHeart, this is Shondaland. This is a united family of people figuring out how to tell stories best.

Chris Erwin:

Last question, Alison, before we get to the rapid fire round. So you are a mother of one who is five months old.

Alison Eakle:

Yes.

Chris Erwin:

When you say you work nights, you work weekends, how does that change with a kid at home not just in terms of like time capacity, but also just how you think about your programming and where you want content to go in the world considering that you're raising someone new in it?

Alison Eakle:

That's a great question. I think I'm so in it right now. It's all still so new. I don't know yet the impact it'll have on me. And look, animation both for adults and children is something we've talked about a lot and gotten excited about that kind of programming. I'll be honest, I binge-watched the Babysitters Club with that best friend, Ashley, who we moved out here from New York together. I think there's incredible content for kids. I don't think my brain has fully processed yet how having this child is going to impact my creative work, but I do think it has changed how I work and yes, I just have less time right now because every minute I'm not with him, I inevitably am wondering, am I missing it? Am I missing something? Right? But I also realize there's a lot of time that he sleeps, not in the beginning, but now there is.

Alison Eakle:

And it's interesting how I think I used to be a real... I do get up very early with him and I do do great work in the morning, I feel, but I've really also become that person who eight o'clock hits and I take a minute for myself, but I do think to myself, okay, I have quiet. I have a couple of hours of quiet before I hit the, hey, how am I going to use this time? So I think I've just gotten smarter about time management and realized that like I can be sitting there rocking my baby, playing out, what kind of thoughts or how we might re-break a pilot in my head. I've just gotten a little bit more nimble in terms of how I use the time I have.

Chris Erwin:

I like that. And kind of what you are saying, Alison, reminds me of like the classic high school Adagio. If you have a really busy schedule, like a bunch of high school sports and everything, it just forces you to be more productive to get your work done in the time that you have and you're better. And then second, I think it's this beautiful new moment in your life that's giving you incredible new fulfillment and appreciation for what matters and it's a shock of the system. And I think shocks and changes are good to see things in different ways and that's good for creativity. You've had an amazing rise, who knows where you're going to go?

Alison Eakle:

Who knows?

Chris Erwin:

I'll close this out a quick interjection for me before rapid fire. Alison, known you for a long time, but admittedly have not been in close touch in recent years. So it's been exciting that we can come together I think at a dinner that I threw a couple of years ago, but also through this podcast. And I think just hearing your story, what I love and what feels so special is I'm hearing that there was no fear of trying things, of experimenting, putting yourself out there and following your heart. There was moments where like, look, growing up in Rumson where we were, your parents from Wall Street, I ended up going to Wall Street. Like that's what I was inspired to do. And you, I think you said, "No, there's something else that I want to do and give it a go." And then you went to Georgetown, you thought you were going to go down the political science path, but then you had that amazing class and you went with that. You trusted your gut.

Chris Erwin:

And I think you being able to listen to yourself and set up a very exciting career for you and an ability to do programming that's really a meaningful impact on people's lives and look at the success of Bridgerton and more to come. So it's really fun to see this journey and reflect on it. And I can't wait until we do the second podcast, which is like on this next page.

Alison Eakle:

Well, thank you. And thank you for having me on too. And also right back at you, it's watching an evolution of a career that's not in Hollywood always fascinates me a lot more than even watching the stuff inside the industry. I love everything that you are doing and juggling right now too.

Chris Erwin:

Appreciate that. All right. So rapid fire. Here's the rules. Six questions, short answers. It could be maybe one sentence or maybe just one or two words. Do you understand the rules?

Alison Eakle:

I mean, I'm a wordy mofo, but I will try to keep it to the one sentence or the one word.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, here we go. Proudest life moment.

Alison Eakle:

Navigating the return to work after having my son and not absolutely losing my mind.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. What do you want to do less of in 2021.

Alison Eakle:

Judge people.

Chris Erwin:

What do you want to do more of?

Alison Eakle:

Acts of service. I feel like I got away from that during COVID. Yes, acts of service.

Chris Erwin:

I like that. One to two things drive your success.

Alison Eakle:

As you said, willingness to try things and to experiment. And I think also a willingness to really listen to people and figure out what they want.

Chris Erwin:

What is your advice for media execs going into the back half of this year and into 2022.

Alison Eakle:

Now that I have a kid and less time than ever, I'm all about essentialism. And I think people have to remember that sometimes less is more, less is more. That's what I'll say. See, trying to be shot. Private is the sour word.

Chris Erwin:

Saying less is more and trying to do it in short with fewer words. Got it. Considering your parents entrepreneurship background, any future startup ambitions for you?

Alison Eakle:

I'm just going to say there's a lack of babysitters in Los Angeles, California, just babysitters, not nannies, just babysitters. It just crossed my mind I should start probably an adult babysitters club and definitely thinking about that. So I'm like, there's a market for just people who like to come out Saturday night and let you go to dinner.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. And have a babysitting there.

Alison Eakle:

It has nothing to do with Hollywood, but that's just my side project.

Chris Erwin:

I want to rewind quickly. Tell me a little bit more about you want to do less judging.

Alison Eakle:

I just realized I think kind of being locked away in my home, observing everything through screens, it's allowed some of those instincts to kind of look in a divided country. And so many factors played in the last year and a half. I just realized, I think I'm really hard on myself in a lot of ways and I think I sometimes can be really hard on other people. And I think becoming a mom has made me realize there's a lot of judgment around being a mom and being a working mom and the world does not need more of it. So it's something I'm actively just mindfully trying to be aware of and observe and pull back on.

Chris Erwin:

That's a beautiful note, Alison. Well said. Last rapid fire question. This is an easy one. How can people get in contact with you?

Alison Eakle:

Listen, I am still on Twitter. I definitely rolled back the number of fights I get into on Twitter with strangers, but @alisoneakle, just my name A-L-I-S-O-N E-A-K-L-E. You can DM me. I don't have a ton of DMs. I am a public profile, probably the easiest and most low key way to track me down.

Chris Erwin:

You heard it here. You can slide into Alison's DMs.

Alison Eakle:

That's right kids.

Chris Erwin:

All right. Alison, this was a delight. Thanks for being on the show.

Alison Eakle:

Thank you for having me truly.

Chris Erwin:

That was such a fun chat with Alison. We have so much history and admittedly, there's many years where we didn't talk and we've just started to reconnect more over the past few years and it's been really nice. That was a lot of fun. All right. A reminder everybody, we have a new podcast that's out. It's called The RockWater Roundup, where me and my colleague, Andrew Cohen, we break down media entertainment, E-commerce news in under 15 minutes. So we talk about it all. We talk about the audio wars. We talk about the recent exit of Hello Sunshine for 900 million, sports creator competitions like the Paul-Mayweather fight, live streaming and so much more. You can find it at rounduppodcast.com or on our website wearerockwater.com.

Chris Erwin:

Lastly, we love hearing from everybody. If you have any feedback on guests or on the show, we love hearing from you, shoot us a note at [email protected]. All right, that's it, everybody. Thanks for listening. 

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com\newsletter and you can follow us on Twitter @tcupod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck, music is by Devon Bryant, logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from RockWater Industries.

Naomi Shah is the founder and CEO of Meet Cute. We discuss Naomi's early passion for STEM, being a Goldman Sachs equity trader, leaving VC to be a founder, why a rom-com podcast network solves a problem in the wellbeing market, raising $6M of capital during COVID, and how a non-Hollywood background makes her a better media entrepreneur.

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Naomi Shah:

At the early stages, it was exploratory, "Let's make one of these stories, let's figure out how this process works." I was actually on the investment team at USV when I started working on this idea. I had a really close relationship with the partners at USV, two or three months into building this, they said, "Why don't you come in and pitch us more formally." And that was a crazy experience of being in the same room that I'd sat in for the last two years listening to pitches and being on the other side of the table pitching my old colleague.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Naomi Shah, the founder and CEO of Meet Cute. Naomi grew up in Portland, and one of her earliest memories is not just learning to walk, but specifically walking to the local science museum. So from an early age, Naomi had a love for STEM and actually ended up going to Stanford to study mechanical engineering and human biology. But, her early career took her to Wall Street, first as an equities trader at Goldman Sachs, and then as an investor at Union Square, focusing on the intersection of entertainment and wellbeing. But after hearing hundreds of pitches and learning the power of story to convince her partners to invest, Naomi only decided to flip the script.

Chris Erwin:

She felt a large portion of the wellbeing market was under invested, and so wanted to create a product that mirrored the benefit of tech-powered health solutions, but done differently. And so Meet Cute, the rom-com podcast and modern media company was born. Naomi is one of the youngest founders I've interviewed on the show, and it was a lot of fun getting to know her over the past couple of months. Some highlights of our chat include growing up a tomboy, her love for the "Flubber room", how her family inspired her workplace culture, raising $6 million of startup capital during COVID, and how a non Hollywood background makes her a better media entrepreneur. 

All right. Let's get into it.

Chris Erwin:

Naomi. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Naomi Shah:

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Chris Erwin:

As we always do, let's dive back a little bit. I'm curious to know a little bit more about where you grew up and what your household and parents were like, so tell me about that.

Naomi Shah:

I grew up in Portland, Oregon, loved growing up there. I always say it's like a small little big town. It has all the elements of a big city, but just geographically smaller, fewer people. And I grew up with my mom, my dad and my older brother, Preem. My older brother is two and a half years older than me, I always felt like I was chasing him, following in his footsteps in various ways, and we're still very close.

Chris Erwin:

When you say you always felt like you were following in his footsteps, was it because of like different hobbies he had or sports or friend groups or things he was doing in school? What do you mean by that?

Naomi Shah:

I would say when I was younger, I was pretty tomboyish just like in terms of what he did. So if he wore Pokemon shirts, I wore Pokemon shirts, if he was playing Pokemon, I was doing that. If he was like roughhousing with his friends at the playground, I was doing that, I was always kind of chasing him. I would also say that as I grew up, because we both went to the same high school, I was always Preem's little sister in high school, and so all the teachers knew me as Preem's little sister. So it was just always part of my identity growing up.

Chris Erwin:

And was he excited to have you following him around or was it like, "Ugh, my little sister's here. This is annoying."

Naomi Shah:

No, my brother is somehow is super mature and always took care of me and was totally fine bringing me around. Even to this day, if he's hanging out with his friends, he's always like, "Oh yeah, my sister's in town, she'll come hang out with us."

Chris Erwin:

Jumping forward. But describing yourself as a tomboy growing up, and now you run a rom-com podcast network, a little bit of a funny juxtaposition there.

Naomi Shah:

Absolutely. I think it's hilarious. And even as a tomboy growing up, I loved rom-coms and I identified with a lot of the protagonists in rom-coms because one of my favorite ones growing up, Bend It Like Beckham was about a woman who really loved soccer and her parents wanted her to be the like classic good, perfect girl. And she was like, "Why can't I be that and play soccer?" Same thing with She's The Man. And so I always identified with that type of tension where I knew that I could play soccer, be really good at soccer, and still be a woman. I could really care about science and math and still wear makeup if I wanted to.

Naomi Shah:

And kind of taking away the tension between those two things was something that was really important to me growing up and something that I really appreciate that my mom spent a lot of time on with me. She's like, "Just because you do science fairs and you like swimming and soccer, it doesn't mean you can't care about what you wear and want to look nice and all of these other things that people associate with being feminine." And so I really liked being able to do both of those, and I think that that's a big part of my identity today.

Chris Erwin:

Speaking of your parents, you're just talking about your mom, what were your parents like? So we know that you have an early history and interest in STEM, today you're media and entertainment executive. Is that inspired by your parents at all? What did they do?

Naomi Shah:

My parents ran a company together, it was a software consulting company. And so pretty early on in life, my brother and I were exposed to my parents being leaders. And they would bring work home with them, they would talk about it at dinner, they'd talk about it when we were on family vacations. And so I always saw myself in a role where I was impacting a lot of change in an organization, not really knowing what that meant. More tactically, both my parents went to business school and studied business, so I always imagined that past for myself. It turns out I didn't end up going to business school and I just threw myself into founding. And I feel like I've picked up a lot of the things just by practicing it day to day that I would have learned in business school.

Naomi Shah:

So I kind of felt like I'd stepped off of their path there, but it was inspired by seeing how they ran a company together when they were in their early 20s and early 30s.

Chris Erwin:

Co-owners and co-running this company?

Naomi Shah:

Yeah. Yes. My mom was the president, my dad was the vice president.

Chris Erwin:

You think of things of like, okay, the family income is not diversified. It's not like if one person loses their job or the company goes under, the other one's okay. But it's also like, they work together, spend so much time together. I'm sure a lot of it went swimmingly, but there's probably times and it was difficult and challenging. Did that come into the home front as well?

Naomi Shah:

I can't remember that happening. And I think they did a good job of making sure that they protected us from that. To be completely honest, when I was growing up, all I knew is that my parents ran a company together, I didn't really look into what they were doing, what the company did, all of that. So I felt like I was sheltered from that a bit. I'm sure it did. I'm sure that there was a lot of complexities to running a company and they probably had to work through that, and they spent a lot of time together. But I think that they split up the roles and responsibilities both at home and at work in a way that worked really well for them.

Naomi Shah:

And there was also a lot of flexibility that you get from that, like my mom was there to pick us up from school and if we got sick, she would take care of us. When my mom would travel for work trips, my dad would turn into, we joked he was Mr. Mom and he would make all over meals for us and drop us off to play dates. And so they really shared the load. And I think that that has played into not only like how I see running a company and making sure that people feel ownership over different parts of it, but also how we think about relationships and how work and relationships can be a symbiotic relationship and not in tension with each other.

Chris Erwin:

That's well put. I was going to ask you, does entrepreneurship run in the family? Clearly. And, what are the values of your parents as entrepreneurs that inspired how you run your company, how you find balance, how you empower different relationships on your team? I think the note that you just gave on that is really thoughtful. Now, it's like middle school going into high school, how early does this theme around STEM interest and passion start?

Naomi Shah:

I think it starts probably early, early on in our lives. I could imagine learning to walk and going to a science museum around the same time. In Portland, Oregon, there's a science museum called The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. And I just remember being maybe three or four years old and being in this Flubber room where you could just touch and play around with Flubber, and you're experimenting with how it's made and you're pressing it into different shapes and things like that.

Naomi Shah:

And my brother and my dad would be over in the chemistry and physics labs, and my mom would be in the Flubber room with me and I'd be walking around touching things and being like, "Why does this work this way? And what is this?" And they really encouraged us from a young age to not be scared of asking questions, not feel you're dumb because you don't understand how something works. And I think that they took it upon themselves to make sure that if we showed interest in something, that whatever that thing was, whether it was science or dance or writing, that they would help promote that curiosity in that space.

Naomi Shah:

And so I think that the curiosity piece has probably started way earlier than middle school, but my first foray into STEM and being interested in that happened in sixth grade, I would say when we were all, I remember this very vividly, we were all in the library at my middle school and our science teacher was like, "Everyone needs to do a science project this year. Go on Wikipedia, go on Google, go look for topics that you're curious about." And I was like, "That's an insane thing to ask a group of sixth graders. The world is huge, we're curious about so many things."

Naomi Shah:

And I remember like coming up with a list of topics that I was interested in and I ended up scratching all of them off, because I was like, "I want to do something that relates to my life and people in my life." And so what I ended up working on in sixth grade was a project around air quality and lung health because both my brother and my dad had allergies. And that was really the first time that I was setting up a research question, coming up with hypotheses, figuring out how to go about experimenting around it. And that process was what made me very interested in STEM and the whole discovery process.

Chris Erwin:

I have to admit, there's not many sixth graders who when tasked with a project and they could be like, "Go research any topic that you find interesting," that you take a pause, you caveat the project and say, "How is this going to help other people? How has this maybe going to help my family?" And then air quality comes to mind. So I think that's probably a pretty rare trait.

Naomi Shah:

I think so too. And I can't like take credit for that, I honestly think that like my science teacher in sixth grade probably sat down and helped me a lot with narrowing on topics. I actually think my dad was pretty influential and being like, "If you want to spend hours and hours researching something, you have to make sure you care about it." I'm pretty sure I came home and was like, "I want to build a hovercraft." I think that felt like the most interesting thing to me where I was like, "This is the future of travel. Let me research how to do that." My dad was like, "Awesome, I think that could be a really good project. Is that something that you as a person, as a human are really interested in?"

Naomi Shah:

And so I think I took some time there to think about, "What are things that I would actually want to know the answer to?" And seeing my brother and dad have allergies six months out of the year, I was like, "Why does that happen?" And I started looking up just very basic Google searches around it and found that indoor air quality was one of the top five silent killers. There's so many things that we know about pollution, we know about outdoor pollution, but no one really thinks about the air pollutants in their home. And so I was like, "Wow, no one talks about this. I don't know the first thing about it. I'm pretty curious in terms of, how does this affect my family?"

Naomi Shah:

I make it sound like in the hour that I was given, I figured it out, but I think it was like many conversations later, lots of lists, lots of hypotheses around these questions, and then I probably came to it.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Okay. So it starts at an early age. You're describing an interest in STEM and science dating back to when you can start walking and you can actually visit some of these museums. Sixth grade, this big question for a report. Then you end up going to Stanford, and you actually focus on mechanical engineering and human biology. So at this point, you're going to undergrad, what did you think that your career was going to be?

Naomi Shah:

To be completely honest, because I was so interested in human health and things that impacted human health, I went in thinking that I would be a surgeon. I thought I was going to be pre-med the last couple quarters of high school before I went to Stanford. At Stanford, I started by taking a core classes like math and science that I would need for either an engineering major or if I were to do human biology, those were the classes I would need. So I went through a period of being a little bit confused about what my career was going to be. I can't say that I was like, "This is definitely what I want to dedicate my life to."

Naomi Shah:

And I think that that's pretty common for people in that age to go through a period of, "I'm not really sure what I wanted to do, but I know that whatever I end up doing, I want it to have an impact in some way." So I started out with human biology as my main focus. And then sophomore year, I took my first mechanical engineering class, kind of on a whim. I was excited about Stanford as a great design school, and I was excited about just sitting in on one of the classes there, figuring out what about design and engineering is pulling me into trying a class here. So I took my first class and was fascinated by the whole process of. you start with an idea, you sketch it out, you design it, you build it, you do user testing around it, you interview people, and then you put the final touches on it and you figure out how this could become a product in the world.

Naomi Shah:

And I think that that process to me felt very similar to the science research process that I loved in high school. I also feel like the pace of engineering felt very perfect for my personality where it's like, in academia, I think you'd spend a lot longer answering the same question and you have to be a lot more... you have to like apply for a grant, be patient about how long it takes you to get to the final answer. Whereas in engineering, you learn the process, you understand it, and you constantly apply that process to building. And I really liked that hands-on experience that Stanford offered in the mechanical engineering department.

Chris Erwin:

What I'm hearing though is also, you had a builder mentality early on where you liked the scientific method and process of, have a hypothesis, research, get some data, but also, you don't want to be stuck in the system where you're researching forever, that you wanted to put things out into the world.

Naomi Shah:

Exactly. And I think that that is a really important point, which is that, even in my science research when I was looking at air quality and lung health, when I got to my results and conclusions phase of the project, I think someone who wanted to stay in academia would have said, "Okay, this is great. I'm going to go back into the lab now." For me, what was interesting is, how does this connect into policy? How does this connect into building a product that people can use? So I think that my natural tendency at that point was to say, "What is the connection between research and humans?

Naomi Shah:

And that's where I loved mechanical engineering and in building because you had something physical that people could interact with. And so that's where I realized that, "Okay, I'm interested in the interface between engineering and humans. And so when people ask me, do I regret minoring in human biology? I always say, "No, I loved those lectures. I loved sitting down and learning about human development, psychology, behavioral studies, all of that, because I think that informs a lot of how you build." And tying that to today, building a company, constantly, I feel like I'm going through that process of like, "Here's a question, let's come up with what we think is going to happen. Let's go test it. Let's sit down and look at our results. Now let's see how can we implement those results into the product to make it better for our users."

Naomi Shah:

So I actually think that a lot of the things that I worked on starting in middle school, in college, and after college are all tied in to each other, and the common thread is just that curiosity and in that scientific process of question, hypothesis, results, and then implications, like, how does that tie into something tangible that people can touch?

Chris Erwin:

This is helpful because I went into this interview, Naomi, as I started doing research for it, I was like, "Okay, what's the through line here?" I was like, "Naomi is running a modern day audio media company focused on micro casts rom-com scripted content. Got it." So as I'm doing the research, I'm like, "All right, early STEM focus, mechanical engineering, human biology." I was like, "How does this come together?" But I think you've woven a tale for our listeners that makes a lot of sense. And I will say I've interviewed a lot of people on the show, I don't think anyone has a background like yours.

Chris Erwin:

But now, I think you might be inspiring maybe a whole new breed of people to enter into media entertainment saying, "Well, if Naomi can do it and look at her success now, then we can do it." My guest pedigree might be changing over the next couple of years.

Naomi Shah:

I love that you pointed that out. What I really about Meet Cute and how we've built Meet Cute is that I think we approach the space of media and entertainment through beginner's mindset. And I think that scientists and researchers always have to have a beginner's mindset because you never know what your results are going to be or what the data is going to show. And so, I often feel like media entertainment is one of those spaces that people are like, "Do you have a production background? Do you have an agency background? Do you know people in the industry?"

Naomi Shah:

And I actually think it's a strength to say no to those because you've come up with new solutions, new ways of doing things, you bring a fresh perspective to it. And honestly, I love talking about the different paths that it could take to get into media and entertainment because, to your point, we can inspire new people to join this way of like flipping existing and traditional models in an industry. But two, I think that people who are already in the industry love having conversations with new people because they bring a different perspective to the table, they bring something that hasn't been done before to the table.

Naomi Shah:

And so I love having those types of conversations and being like, "Yeah, I actually have no idea how these deals are done before, but here's an idea. What do you think of this?"

Chris Erwin:

I'd like to point out that you said also about a beginner's mind. It reminds me, I interviewed Matthias Metternich on this podcast, he's the founder and CEO of Art of Sport. And before he did that, he's launched a consumer product and media brand around it., he was at I think a FinTech company, like a B2B FinTech business. He actually also ran a women's bathing suit retailer and manufacturer. And I was like, again, "What's the through line?" He's like, "I like to get into industries with a fresh mind and solve consumer problems." And he's like, "I think it gives me an advantage versus I've been in this vertical for 20 years."

Chris Erwin:

But anyway, Naomi, we could go down a whole tangent on this. Before we get into your early career, going into being an equities trader at Goldman and being an investor at Union Square, I also do want to ask, I saw that, there's a pretty strong through line of volunteerism throughout your history. I saw Camp Kesem, I saw a StreetSquash, and then I saw OMSI, if I'm pronouncing that right. And so I'm just curious, when did this start? And I know Camp Kesem is for kids with parents undergoing cancer treatment. Honestly, I don't know what StreetSquash is. So what are some of the inspiration for these groups that you're involved in?

Naomi Shah:

This is a testament to my parents who have always encouraged us to try and be involved in our community in some way. OMSI is actually the science museum that I used to run around as a kid, and I volunteered there in middle and high school, basically talking about science experiments with the next generation of kids. And so I loved the education aspect of it. I thought that it was a way to give back to the community in a way to be involved in bringing STEM into more people's lives. Because I think that especially there is a stigma around middle and high school, I think a lot of women who could be really interested in STEM stop taking classes around it.

Naomi Shah:

And they either think that it's not for them or they don't see their friends in it, so they stop taking them, and that trickles into the breakdown of how many females are in certain college majors when you get to college. While I didn't think about this all as an eighth grader, now looking back, I can see that that was one of the things I loved most about volunteering at OMSI, is being able to bring an excitement around STEM to people who might not otherwise care about it. Showing people that there were really cool applications in the world by pursuing this stuff was part of OMSI.

Naomi Shah:

Camp Kesem in college was a summer camp that I worked at for a week at the end of the school year, and it was all Stanford counselors. I actually do have a personal relationship to cancer in my family, and so that was an important liaison for me. And it was at the first time that I shared that experience publicly, it was the first time I opened up about it to people that weren't in my closest circles. And I think that that was a really great way to be a leader and like learn how to lead with vulnerability and learn how to lead with transparency and honesty.

Naomi Shah:

And I think I take a lot of the things that I learned from being a counselor at Kesem into the way that I want our team to function at Meet Cute today, or the way that I interacted with my coworkers at USV and Goldman. Something that I always say is like, "Don't check your personality at the door, bring a lot of those experiences into your work." And I think it makes you a stronger colleague, I think it makes you a better teammate, I think it's easier to have discussions and brainstorms when you know a little bit more about your coworkers without oversharing. I think that that's also an important boundary to strike.

Naomi Shah:

So that was Camp Kesem, I loved being a counselor, I loved being outdoors. It was a week of no phones, a week of-

Chris Erwin:

So rare nowadays.

Naomi Shah:

Exactly. I think that those four weeks one every year was the longest I've ever spent off of my phone probably since I got a cell phone in middle school. It's one of the most liberating things when you come back to the real world at the end of the week and your phone is just like for the next 20 minutes, just like blowing up. And you're like, "It's actually so important to get away from your phones, but we just don't do it." And then the last one, you mentioned StreetSquash. Before I moved to San Francisco last year, I lived in New York for three years. And I don't play squash, but StreetSquash is a program that merges squash practice with academic involvement.

Naomi Shah:

It takes place in Harlem, in New York. And it's a primarily a program for kids who are usually first-generation, want to develop skills in a sport and get better in their homework and in academics. And we bring those two things together. And I actually love that because sports have been a part of my life growing up. I loved playing soccer when I was little, I ended up swimming in middle and high school, I skied throughout a lot of my childhood. And I found that having extracurricular activities that took up time meant that I was just more dedicated and learned things like discipline and showing up in teamwork, and those were all things that I think I took into school projects, my internships, my jobs after college.

Naomi Shah:

So I loved the combination of those two. And I started out as an academic tutor at StreetSquash, and then the second two years ended up co-chairing the young leaders committee. So was involved in fundraising, was involved in managing the board, all of that.

Chris Erwin:

Very cool. So now leaping forward a bit. You come out of Stanford, Naomi, and head to Wall Street, you become an equities trader at Goldman. Curious, what got you excited about going into finance? That was a path that I took right out of undergrad as well. What was the thinking?

Naomi Shah:

Yeah. I actually did an internship at Goldman my junior year. They came to campus and talked about how engineers that wanted to work on fast-paced problems could find a spot on the trading floor. Really interesting. And I was thinking about it and I was like, "I love patterns." When I think about science research, when I think about even mechanical engineering, I love looking for patterns in data and learning about why those exist and what we can learn from those patterns. And what was exciting to me about the trading floor is looking for those patterns in the public market, like how does this conflict internationally affect oil prices? Or how does a change in leadership in this government affect jobs? And things like that.

Naomi Shah:

So I think that I was just genuinely curious and I'd never applied it to thinking about the public markets until I started working at Goldman, and I loved the idea of working on projects that involve that data to the point that you were making earlier, applying that to something very directly, applying that to trades and making trades. So I can connect that in my mind to just curiosity and not really caring what the physical product was that I was working on, but instead caring about the process to get to that product. And so I actually loved my internship there. I really was excited about working in New York, about like that fast-paced lifestyle.

Chris Erwin:

You grew up in Portland you lived there your whole life, and then you were West Coast at Stanford, but you had never lived on the East Coast?

Naomi Shah:

Exactly. And I think part of me wanted to have one of those classic New York jobs. I think I was enamored by it. I loved the idea of waking up at... This is going to sound crazy, but I love the idea of waking up at like 5:30, grabbing a coffee and just being on all day. And I thinks that my personality has that intensity to it where I like the grind. And I think that that is part of what Goldman provided. They were like, "Yeah, everyone here is really smart and grinds, and you will be surrounded by people who will push you, will ask you questions. Will say, 'Why did you do that?'" And I really liked that. I thought that was a very important and pivotal part of my first job out of college.

Chris Erwin:

And what that sounds like to me, that's an early 20s love story with New York.

Naomi Shah:

Totally.

Chris Erwin:

I grew up in the tri-state area, Jersey Shore. And so I was super pumped about going into finance, being on Wall Street, being in New York, right out of undergrad, like you, Naomi, being like, "I'm going to work 24/7." To the point where I was walking around like delirious, because it was banking 7:00 AM to 4:00 AM, seven days a week. But it's funny, I'm seeing your eyes light up, which is probably reminiscent of when you were in your early 20s doing it. Now, you write about love stories, maybe you just got a theme for an upcoming Meet Cute show.

Naomi Shah:

We like to say that there's a rom-com every situation, so if there are there billion people in the world, there are nine billion rom-coms, and you can definitely see one happening around finance and the culture there. But yeah, I completely agree with you, I think that there is absolutely a... I wanted to live in New York, I wanted to have a job that pushed me really hard. I loved the culture around grinding. And I think that that was really a part of what made me sign a return offer at Goldman and come back as an equities trader. I really liked how fast paced the markets were. And I felt it played to a lot of my strengths.

Naomi Shah:

I always told people, "I don't think you need to be a finance major to go get a really good job in banking, I think you can be an art history major and apply that to banking. I think you can be an engineer and think of ways to automate and create process around trading." And I think that was what stood out on my resume to Goldman, where it was the scientific process, applying that to trading, how do you ask questions and create processes around answering those questions? And that's really the direction that banks want to go now. But what I've found there is that it didn't hit on the creativity part of what I was excited about.

Naomi Shah:

So I almost felt like a repetition to what I was doing that I liked at first, and then I started thinking, I don't know if this is what I want to do five or 10 years later. And I miss the creativity from building and college, from my mechanical engineering classes that said, "Okay, you have this idea. Now, go create it in the world, create something new that no one has seen before, and do it from scratch." And I missed that. So that's really what caused me to make the jump to venture capital, where I could work with early-stage founders and learn from them and learn that process of building something from scratch.

Naomi Shah:

And so that was what excited me about early-stage venture and about Union Square Ventures when I applied for that job,

Chris Erwin:

I also have to ask you just an inside question about Goldman and macro market trading. I know everyone likes to predict the markets of like, "Oh, there's a big governmental shift over here, some regulatory shift over there. Macro economic prices are soaring, they're falling." I think there's so much noise in the market that is actually very difficult to say, "Oh, because X happened, Y is then going to be the results," because you don't know the big institutional traders making their big market investments at incredible volume. Were you guys actually able to pinpoint specific market activity? I find that to be like so challenging for the retail traders that I talk to.

Naomi Shah:

Well, I definitely think you're right. I think that there is so much volatility and a lot of things can change an outcome of a trade. One of the interesting things is like, you have to be very good at taking risks in that role because you have no idea what the outcome could be. The market could move against you because something happens and you have to be really fast at trading out of that position. But I will say that there are a lot of research projects that you can do to say, "If this trade was executed... " Say for instance like oil prices crashed, "Well, what happened to these three prices when oil prices crashed five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago?"

Naomi Shah:

So you can map out what you think is going to happen, what you predict is going to happen based on historical trade data and figure out patterns in that that create more educated hypotheses about what will happen today. And who knows, there could be so many confounding variables, so that's why you have to put a 95% confidence interval around it and then be okay with that 5% of risk where it's like, if something else happens that isn't part of your model, that'll move the needle on what the outcome of your trade is.

Naomi Shah:

Surprisingly, markets are so cyclical and you can come up with a lot of predictions based on historical trade data. And that's where the pattern recognition comes in.

Chris Erwin:

Very helpful. When you leave Goldman, I think you were there for about a year, did Union Square reach out to you or were you proactively looking for your next one?

Naomi Shah:

I was surprisingly not really aware that venture capital was a career path. And at that point, I think no one I knew was in VC, and so I didn't really understand what a job or a career in VC looked like, but I was looking around at different startups and different companies. And I stumbled upon the USV Blog, which is a dynamic blog that they post about their investments. And so I read back two or three years in their blog, like why did they make an investment in Twitter? Why did they make an investment in Duolingo? Why did they make an investment in SoundCloud and Etsy?

Naomi Shah:

And I was fascinated by, it's a very different risk profile than public markets because you're taking these like eight to 10 year bets on companies at the earliest stage of an idea, you're taking a bet on the idea and the founder. And I love reading why they took that bet, what convinced them to do it. And I felt like it was a really good example of taking some pattern recognition, which I think I had affinity towards and then taking some like creativity and intuition and saying like, "What do we want the world to look like in five years?" So I was reading their blog and then around that time, they actually put out a call for analysts and there was this two year analyst program.

Naomi Shah:

So in that evening that I was starting to read and stuff, I just submitted an application. I literally spent like a few hours on it, and the application was closing soon, so I probably just like made it into the application pool right as it was closing, and talked about what I found interesting about VC. And I think that one of the questions was, here are three companies, talk about whether you think they're overvalued or undervalued. And I obviously used a lot of my training from Goldman to answer that question, but then I applied a separate lens to it, which is like, what as a user do I think this company is doing well? I think I picked Snapchat,

Chris Erwin:

Were you bullish or bearish on Snapchat back then? Because now Snapchat is crushing it, but there were a lot of skepticism over the past.

Naomi Shah:

I was bullish. And I think that was rare. I think everyone else that just Snapchat was bearish at that time. And I pointed to a bunch of things that I thought they were doing really well and setting themselves apart. And maybe we're going through a tough few years, but I thought that they had a long-term view on a lot of things. And so I think that that was a pretty unique perspective. And then I backed it up with a few quantitative and qualitative points.

Chris Erwin:

What I like that I'm hearing from you is I think just going through your background, if you look at like STEM, engineering, biology, it was very defined data sets, very defined research methods and hypothesis creation. But I think then as you were saying, at Goldman, something you were missing was like, what's the creativity? What's the art and the science? And I think going into venture investing, and you're starting to read these theses on their blog, you're like, "Look, there's some market data and information, but the data sets are a lot less defined." And you have to trust your gut and have a different set of judgments.

Chris Erwin:

So it feels like the creativity vein you saw a lane for you that was building off of yet a financial background still got you excited, but this is clearly setting you up for even going deeper once you started Meet Cute, is that right?

Naomi Shah:

Also I'm very impressed with how you articulate things, because these are things that I've just started articulating to myself after years of doing this. And these are the types of things that I love thinking about. So absolutely. I think that venture investing is an art and a science. I think that founding a company is an art and a science. I love using both sides of my brain. I think that I didn't realize early on in my life that you could find a perfect fit that uses both sides of your brain. I love going deep and brainstorming and thinking creatively about things that don't exist. And I call it like my big picture brain.

Naomi Shah:

And then I love going into the details in the operations and saying, how does this actually work tactically? What are the steps we need to follow to get there? And I think both of those exist in venture investing and in founding a company. And at USV, I would do five to 10 coffee meetings with founders every week, and sifting through all of those conversations where every person is so passionate about what they're building was one of the coolest things. And a lot of it is intuition, you go into a founder meeting, which conversations make you lean forward and say, "This is the next big thing. This is what I want to invest in"?

Naomi Shah:

You get that when you feel that and when you find those companies, it's the best feeling in the world. And then it was my job as an analyst at USV to convince the team or one of the partners at USV, why they should spend more time with this company and meeting them. And so part of it was I had to tell a story to my team. And so there was like a storytelling component to venture capital that I think really trickled in. And I've pulled into things that I do at Meet Cute today, which is, we're a storytelling company, we're also a business that reports to investors.

Chris Erwin:

Hey listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guest, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work, and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody, let's get back to the interview.

Chris Erwin:

I'm curious about the exposure to audio, because I was looking at the Union Square portfolio, I know Headgum is an audio network. That investment was made by, I think it was after your time there or in the latter half. So what was the exposure to podcasting and audio and how did the actual like idea of Meet Cute start coming to be? When you were there, I may have read that maybe some partners approached you about it, but elaborate.

Naomi Shah:

Like I said, I was spending a lot of time in the wellbeing category of our portfolio. And what I was excited about was there was an under-invested category within wellbeing in venture capital. And I wanted us to be looking at that category more seriously. And that was, what do people do for fun? So Chris, what do you do for fun when you're like trying to blow off steam?

Chris Erwin:

I like to surf and be in the ocean and in the water.

Naomi Shah:

Okay. That's a great example of it's not prescriptive, no one is telling you, you have to do this. It's not a meditation, it's not healthcare, it's not mental health, but that supports your mental health, that makes you feel good. Similarly, people like reading books, watching movies, scrolling on Netflix, listening to podcasts, listening to music, going to concerts. So I was like, "If we could find a company in the media and entertainment space that felt like a product or technology investment that mirrors in the investments that we've made in product and technology, that'd be pretty cool. That'd be a great coming together of two different categories."

Naomi Shah:

And so I started looking for a company in that space and spent a lot of time on it. And eventually was very excited about short form content, very excited about audio, very excited about a verticalized media company that created a niche for itself in a massive market that could attract many consumers through network effects. And so to be honest, you can do what we're doing in many different mediums, many different genres, but we just had conviction in audio and in romantic comedies. And that's why we started there.

Naomi Shah:

And so I was actually on the investment team at USV when I started working on this idea, I was working really closely with one of the partners, Andy Weissman, who also led the Headgum Investment. And at first it was like an incubation, I was literally working out of the USV office. It was only when I started building a team around it did we spin it out and make it a portfolio company rather than a project within USV.

Chris Erwin:

Seems like you're starting to operate as like an EIR, where you're an investor there, and then you're probably increasingly spending more time here, your passion is here. And so your role is changing at the company.

Naomi Shah:

Yes. And there was like a six-month period where I was just doing two jobs at once. I was looking for investments, and then also spending a ton of time building out the earliest stages of an idea and business model around what ended up being Meet Cute. At that time we were calling it something else. It was a very unique path to founding where I had a really close relationship with the partners at USV. They trusted me, they knew me. And so two or three months into building this, they said, "Why don't you come in and pitch us more formally?"

Naomi Shah:

And that was a crazy experience of being in the same room that I had sat in for the last two years listening to pitches and being on the other side of the table pitching my old colleagues at USV.

Chris Erwin:

Naomi, I have to ask, when you started working on Meet Cute, did you have conviction like, "This is it. I know this is a great idea. I'm going to build this"? Or was it more exploratory, which is like, "I think there's something here, let's see where it goes"?

Naomi Shah:

At the early stages, it was exploratory. It was, "Let's make one of these stories. Let's actually figure out how this process works. Do people like this? Is there a certain time constraint that we can apply to it?" And I think that keeping things flexible in the early stages of a company means that you get to learn from user feedback, you get to learn from listening data and engagement data. And so I like to say that we definitely have conviction in certain things, like we said, we want these stories to be uplifting and positive because there is a gap in that market, but keeping certain things open to feedback and listening data was really important to us too.

Naomi Shah:

So I would say it's definitely, it started out more exploratory, it started out trying to figure out how this works and how we can build it. And a big reason for that is the founding team at Meet Cute, didn't have experience in doing this. And so it was really an experiment to say, "Is this a good idea first? And then now let's fundraise around it and let's build a team around it to execute.

Chris Erwin:

Now, the tables are turned. You're now pitching the partners at Union Square for a company that you want to found, and you're asking them for money. So how does that go down?

Naomi Shah:

The biggest part of that pitch was taking a bet on a new idea where we're essentially bringing Hollywood and a product company together, and taking a bet on me as a former colleague of theirs. I think that there was a lot of comfort in the idea that I was pitching people I knew. So there was that kind of ease in it, but there was a completely new paradigm that I was now on the other side of the table, I was a founder and I was looking for the right fit in terms of like, are they asking me questions? Are they pushing me? And they absolutely did.

Naomi Shah:

They asked me, why are you thinking about it this way? What is the vision of the company? And I loved that. And I think it showed me early on that as a solo founder, you want investors who are going to challenge you and who are going to almost like build alongside you. They're not just going to put the capital in and then step back. And so part of the fundraising process for me was learning to be able to find investors that were really involved in hands-on. And I'd seen at Union Square Ventures, the way that the team did that with other portfolio companies.

Naomi Shah:

And so I was really excited about them being involved in Meet Cute, even though they're not traditional media entertainment investors, we were approaching it from a different way and they were very excited about that. So that was a big part of the pitch. A big part of it is leaving room for experimentation to the point we were just talking about and saying, "I'm okay, not knowing all the answers today, but here's what I think, and here's the things that I want to test. And here's the team that we have around Meet Cute to go execute on that."

Naomi Shah:

And I think that setting it up like that is a really strong way for a seed company to say, "We don't have all the answers, but we're about to go figure it out and work really hard to do that."

Chris Erwin:

I think that's well put. Look, I'm a strategic advisor for companies and I always have to tell the team, "Yes, we're known to be the experts, but we don't have to have all the answers in the moment. It's more about, let's have a point of view, a vision. Let's also stand in our power where we don't know the answers, but let's have a plan for how we can figure that out thoughtfully." And I think that when you take that approach with confidence, it actually instills a lot of confidence in an investor, in a client. So I think that shows great self-awareness, Naomi.

Naomi Shah:

Absolutely. And honestly, these were things that I picked up from getting pitched to a lot, where sometimes I would be in a conversation with a founder where I'd suggest, "Have you thought of this? Or what do you think of this?" And if they hadn't thought of it, but they were willing to engage in conversation around it or say, "I'm not sure, I need to look into that," and have that humility that maybe they don't have all the answers, I was like, "That might be a founder that is really fun to have brainstorms with and discussions with because they're open to learning."

Naomi Shah:

And I actually think that if you have all the answers, then you'd already be a massive success, whereas at the earliest stages of founding, a lot of things are still unproven.

Chris Erwin:

After this pitch, do you get the funding? I think it's a $3 million seed. Does that happen pretty quickly?

Naomi Shah:

Happens pretty quickly. And a big reason is that I raised from people that I knew. Plus, we brought in Advancit Capital, which is Shari Redstone's investment team. I already had a team around Meet Cute of founding team. We already had our head of content and head of development. And so we go right into making a story. We now have capital to start testing this out. And we start bringing in creators around us like writers, producers, voice actors, and just start developing relationships in the field. A lot of this is trial and error.

Naomi Shah:

And so we start saying like, "It doesn't make sense to have a writing team in-house. It does it make sense to go get a studio space or rent studio space. How do we open up a bank account?" And so I had this like ongoing checklist of things. Some of them is super trivial, how do we get an EIN number? All these things that I had never had to do before. And so I just asked a ton of questions of people around me and asked for help when we needed it. And that was what the first few months of starting was like, it was just, this fire comes up, let's put it out, let's try it again.

Naomi Shah:

We don't know the answer to this question, let's go ask an expert in the field and send out a few cold emails. And that was the process of figuring it out.

Chris Erwin:

I think you finalized the funding in January of 2020. So this is just right before COVID is hitting. But at this point, have you released any content?

Naomi Shah:

Our first series came out in December of 2019. So we did put some content out there, and no one knew about us at that point, so we just sent it around to people we knew, friends and family, asked for feedback, posted it on social media. We were just trying to get our earliest beta testers, for lack of better word, to give us feedback.

Chris Erwin:

How was it received?

Naomi Shah:

It was received really well. People really liked the short form. Some people hated it and were like, "This is never going to work." And then it was up to us to take certain feedback with a grain of salt and say, "No, we want to make another one. We think this is going to work." Overall, feedback was very positive, it was really fun to see even not being discoverable in the podcast platforms, yet we were getting some organic lessons from people, sharing us with their friends. Our creators that worked on that story shared as far and wide, like the voice actors, the producers, the developers of that story.

Naomi Shah:

And that was really encouraging to us to see how proud the people who worked on it were and how they wanted to make sure everyone in their networks knew about it too. So pretty quickly we had like a few hundred people listening to the story and qualitatively getting some feedback around what engagement. And listening was like, it encouraged us enough to make the next few in January.

Chris Erwin:

I know that at RockWater for our content, some of the most powerful ambassadors are just our internal team. So after we podcast or publish a writing piece, they help spread the word and then hopefully it catches fire elsewhere. That's how you build initially. I have to ask, one of your themes has building a really diverse set of creatives, and also which then enable very diverse rom comedies, micro cast stories from a values perspective, from geography, from ethnicity, from gender, sexual orientation. Was that part of the mandate from very early on, or is that something that evolved in the beginning of it?

Naomi Shah:

That was something that we made a conscious decision about. So rather than building out an internal team of writers and producers, we thought if we can open a network of people that can participate in Meet Cute and can participate in our creative process, that's going to be a part of our business model to have multiple voices, that diversity and inclusivity piece that we valued as a company, but now it's baked into the way that we create. So I think that at first, it was just we want those voices to be a part of Meet Cute because we think that will create better storytelling, and that was important to us.

Naomi Shah:

And over time we were like, "This is our MO. This is something that we're doing that no one else has. We have the largest network of creatives because we're enabling people from multiple geographies, people from any sexual orientation, people from around the world to participate in our storytelling. And so I would say, it's both a business value and it's a creative value at Meet Cute that we think that the stories that were told from people who might not have a voice in media and entertainment today otherwise, we get to benefit from their storytelling because they care about the stories that they tell.

Naomi Shah:

They share it with their communities, they write stories for communities that might not be represented in pop culture. And that means that those stories are making our platform more diverse and inclusive in a really organic way. And what's important to Meet Cute is that we don't tokenize those communities. We're not saying, "This is a story from the LGBTQ community." No, we want that to be normalized in our feed, and just to be another rom-com, all of these stories are rom-coms. There are multiple ways to love in the world, and we want to be the brand that captures all of those stories.

Chris Erwin:

I really like that. Speaking to another very strategic decision that you made early on was micro casts. This is something that's near and dear to my heart and that of the RockWater team. We launched a micro cast podcast ourselves called the RockWater Roundup over the past few months, where you get your industry news in like 10 to 15 minutes. The reason behind that, we've been evangelizing this to our clients is because the growth of smart speakers expected to be like a 650 million install base over the next few years.

Chris Erwin:

We think it's going to bring audio into the home, more routine-based listening, listening in between your day-to-day moment. So that's probably like shorter time. And then Spotify has their playlist and they're curating for you and they want to have shorter snippets to pull in, we think that there's a lot of tailwinds of like micro cast is an exciting format, but it still hasn't caught on in the broad industry. But you guys made this decision dating back nearly two years. So is that you're going to stick to, or are you also exploring long form? Tell me about that.

Naomi Shah:

Yeah. We really like, exactly to your point that these stories can fit in in your day, anywhere. Within our 15-minute stories, we have three-minute chapters. So on the way to a meeting or when you're waiting for your Uber or whatever it is, you can throw in a story and throw in a chapter and get a little escape from your day. And that to us was really exciting, because there are a lot of books out there that could be eight or nine hours, but it's just a bigger time commitment. And so we wanted to create a slightly new product and a new use case.

Naomi Shah:

And we're finding that people are consuming these throughout the day in the mornings when they're getting ready for work. Even though rom-coms traditionally are like your evening, Friday and Saturday entertainment, now we're pulling them into new parts of people's day because they're so accessible and they're so short that you can fit them in anywhere. And so to us, it was exciting that we could create new listening behavior around this genre.

Chris Erwin:

I like that. I like to read Modern Love from The New York Times. Like you said, Naomi, I typically read that maybe at night, on the weekends, it helps me relax, go to sleep with just like a good feel. But I was listening to one of your episodes, like a cruise episode because it reminded me I had lost love on a cruise line dating back 15 years. And I was like, "Oh, I got to check this out." And I just liked the feeling that it left me with. So I liked that you could start inserting this feeling like earlier in the day or midday, a little bit different.

Naomi Shah:

Exactly. Like you have a stressful meeting, you want 15 minutes of optimism, or hope, or human connection, we want Meet Cute to be the go-to place for that. And to your point, there is a lack of optimistic stories. If you think about Ted Lasso, I don't know if you've seen that?

Chris Erwin:

Oh, I love Ted Lasso. I just started watching the new season, it just came out.

Naomi Shah:

Yes. The second episode I think dropped yesterday, but I'm obsessed with it, and everyone that I've talked to is obsessed with it. And it's because there isn't that much content out there that isn't darker or anxiety ridden or doom-scrolling related. And I think people are craving that, especially after the last year, it was such a hard year. There were so many negative news cycles. You were scared about a lot of things in the world, and people want an escape. People want a consistent feeling of hope in their lives.

Naomi Shah:

And so you can get that through a Disney movie, you can get that through Ted Lasso. How do you get that around human connection and love? We think that there is a place in the world for that, and that's what we were hoping to build at Meet Cute.

Chris Erwin:

Naomi, before we wrap up with the Rapid Fire round at the end, I just want to hear, look, you launched a business right before COVID. COVID hits, you're a new young founder, incredible challenges, but clearly you guys are doing something right, because fast forward into the end of 2020, and you raise another six million. That I think is from Lerer Hippeau, Newark Venture Partners. And then it's off to the races. So tell me quickly, where is Meet Cute headed from here? What's the grand vision?

Naomi Shah:

Meet Cute vision for the company is to become the official source of romantic comedies. We want to be one of the largest entertainment brands on the order of magnitude of Disney and Pixar, and create universes that people fall in love with, characters that you want to wear on your sweatshirt and your tote bag. And honestly, be a best friend to people in the entertainment world because of the stories that we're telling. And so the core of that is being an incredible storytelling company, enabling creatives to do their work best, and building a verticalized media business that focuses on optimism, and hope, and human connection.

Naomi Shah:

So five years from now, we're still working on our audio stories, we can adapt some of those into other formats, into TV, film, books, live shows. We're selling merch for some of our biggest theories. We have a community of people that cares about the show and wants to listen to every series that comes out. I could go on and on. There's so many possibilities for what you can do, but at the core bit, it's become one of the greatest entertainment brands that's long lasting, that stays relevant and fresh, no matter how society evolves and pop culture evolves, we want to be at the apex of that.

Chris Erwin:

And right now, you're focused on building audience and you're not yet monetizing, is that right?

Naomi Shah:

We're focused on audience and community. That's correct.

Chris Erwin:

I get that you are preparing for the long term, the vision for five years, but we're in something that we talk about, we're in the middle of the audio wars, and you see incredible capital flows. Amazon buying Wondery, Amazon buying Art19. You see the exclusive rights deals for Call Her Daddy with Spotify, and also with SmartLess. You see SiriusXM buying Stitcher, and so much more. Is there a world where you must be thinking about, you may have already gotten inbounds for Meet Cute as an acquisition target? What do you think about that?

Naomi Shah:

Yeah, there is a ton of movement. There's new headlines every day in the podcast world, in the world of acquisitions. A lot of people are looking for exclusive content. I see Meet Cute as a large entertainment brand. And so working really hard to not get distracted in the meantime as we're building that and just focus on telling amazing stories and building our community, I think it does take putting blinders on. And our work is set out for us, and that's something that we're excited about in the next few years.

Chris Erwin:

Before the Rapid Fire, I just want to give you some kudos, Naomi. Going into this interview, I think I was telling you before, you're one of the youngest people that we've brought on in terms of your experience, your experience before actually starting a company, but I think it's been so rewarding for me to hear about coming from such a different background from so many other media and entertainment professionals that have interviewed that it's been very refreshing. And I think that you make a really great case for why a background like yours is so powerful and it's so relevant and could be a really strategic asset for you.

Chris Erwin:

That's great to hear for additional investment that might come your way, additional team members that you want to recruit, but I really think that your story could also start to recruit new founders into the media and entertainment ecosystem, which would be such a beautiful thing. I think overall, Hollywood, traditional and digital new Hollywood needs some rethinking, some new brains and muscles to add to the mix. And I think that you're really paving the way for it. And I think that how thoughtful you are for how you are building and how that's inspired by some of like your home grown roots and your parents is a really beautiful thing. So I think you're set up for some really great success. And I want to acknowledge that

Naomi Shah:

Thank you so much. That means so much coming from you. I think that like new founders in any space, rethinking things, flipping the status quo, building from scratch, I love seeing that kind of movement in an industry, especially one that has been around for so long and things are done a certain way. And so I'm very excited to be building in a space that we can rethink a lot of the existing assumptions. And I know the whole Meet Cute team is excited about that. So I appreciate you acknowledging that. And I think that more people should jump into feels that they might not have experiencing, but have good ideas around.

Chris Erwin:

All right. Now we're in the Rapid Fire round, six questions. The rules are that you can answer as short as possible. So it could be just one sentence, it could maybe even just be one or two words. Do you understand the rules, Naomi?

Naomi Shah:

I understand the rules.

Chris Erwin:

Proudest life moment?

Naomi Shah:

Meeting President Obama.

Chris Erwin:

Oh, wow. Okay. What do you want to do less of in 2021?

Naomi Shah:

Being a slave to Google Calendar?

Chris Erwin:

What do you want to do more of?

Naomi Shah:

Spending time on big picture vision for Meet Cute.

Chris Erwin:

Not setting up EIN numbers anymore? That mini-stuff.

Naomi Shah:

Not setting up the EIN numbers. That's right.

Chris Erwin:

What one to two things drive your success?

Naomi Shah:

Caring about community and the people around me.

Chris Erwin:

Advice for media execs going into the second part of 2021, and then into 2022?

Naomi Shah:

Have conviction even when things are really rocky, like a global pandemic, and don't overthink things.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Keep it simple, is a core value for us too. Any future startup ambitions?

Naomi Shah:

I like blinders, so I'm focused on Meet Cute right now. I think Meet Cute has a lot of potential in terms of new products and offshoots from Meet Cute. And so I'm excited to explore that more.

Chris Erwin:

Before I ask you the last one, I have to go back. What were the circumstances for meeting Obama?

Naomi Shah:

Honestly, that was the first thing that popped into my head. I think that the things that I'm proudest about are the science research that led me to meeting President Obama. It was just something I spent seven years working on it, and that was an example of hard work pays off. We got to visit the Oval Office and I have a really funny photo with him where I have like a Lego trophy and it fell on the floor, and all that. So that was the circumstance.

Chris Erwin:

I love that. Very cool. All right. Last one, this is easy. How can people get in contact with you?

Naomi Shah:

Any social media. I'm on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, DM me, follow Meet Cute. Love Responding to DMs and happy to chat.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Naomi, this has been a delight. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Naomi Shah:

Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome for me as well.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. It's amazing how much Naomi has accomplished so early on in her career, yet she's so down to earth. That was such a fun chat. Really enjoyed it. All right. In closing, reminder that one, we love to hear from all of our listeners. So shoot us a note. If you have any guest's ideas, any feedback for the show, you can reach us at [email protected]. And also that we have a new podcast that's out, it's called the RockWater Roundup, where me and my colleague, Andrew Cohen, we break down must-know media news and under 15 minutes.

Chris Erwin:

So whether it's sports creator competitions, livestream commerce, the audio wars, we cover it. So go check it out at rounduppodcast.com. All right, that's it, everybody. Thanks for listening.

Chris Erwin:

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. 

You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you can follow us on Twitter @tcupod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck, music is by Devon Bryant, logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Dan Levitt is the founder and CEO of Long Haul Management. We discuss how Dan paid rent while making only $6,000 a year out of college (many side hustles), beating me in an office rap battle, Disney's big miss in digital music, executive producing one of YouTube's premium original series, and what it's like to represent some of the biggest sports and gamer personalities on the Internet.

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Dan Levitt:

I chose the safer Disney route. Again, I needed to pay the bills. But I made a promise to myself. Every day, I saw someone else doing what I wanted to do. They were the AbsolutePunks of the world. Or there were other people who turned the music blog into an A&R career, or leveraged it in other ways.

I'm good at seeing gaps in the marketplace and where could you go in it. I made a promise. The next time I see it, I'm fucking going for it.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Dan Levitt, the founder and CEO of Long Haul Management. Dan grew up in Boston with an early love for music and yet-to-be-discovered bands. So, after wrapping a few acts in high school and interning at Philly radio stations during college, he kicked off his career by moving to LA with absolutely no job prospects.

But after a few A&R gigs at Columbia Records and Disney, Dan was early to see how digital and YouTube were going to transform the music industry. So, he left traditional media and kicked off his digital career, joining one of the early YouTube multichannel networks, company called Big Frame.

We actually worked together there. And in less than nine months, I actually had to lay him off. Dan struck out on his own, positioned himself as the YouTube guy for the music industry and started his own talent shop, Long Haul Management.

Some highlights of our chat include how Dan paid rent while making only $6,000 a year when he first moved to LA ... You'll crack up at some of his many side hustles ... when he beat me in an office rap battle, executive producing one of YouTube's premium original series, and what it's like to represent some of the biggest sports and gamer personalities on the internet. 

All right, let's get to it. Dan, thanks for being and the podcast.

Dan Levitt:

Thanks for having me.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. I believe that you're a fellow East Coaster like myself. So tell me, where did you grow up?

Dan Levitt:

Sure, I'm from a nice suburb of Boston, Newton, Massachusetts. Literally voted safest city in America back when I was younger. So, nice Jewish suburb of Boston.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. It's funny. I went to underground at Tufts in Medford/Somerville. I think, while I was there, it was rated one of the most dangerous mafia-driven neighborhoods in the Northeast, or all of the US. So, quite the opposite of you. What was your household like? What were your family and parents doing?

Dan Levitt:

So, one, my parents are both from South Africa. They moved to the US in, I think, '77. My dad went to school for engineering, and then got a job in Boston, and then eventually started his own software business that really had a bunch of ups and downs. Mostly ups, and then fortunately sold to IBM right before the big bubble burst there. So, the timing was fortunate.

Dan Levitt:

And then my mom was artist. So, had all kinds of different things she would do in the art space, be it theater, be it actual prints and displays and stuff.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, very cool. It's funny. I've known you for about a decade and I had no idea your parents were from South Africa. Look, you're an entrepreneur. You've built out an incredible talent management firm. We're going to get to that in a bit. But you have entrepreneurial roots in your family.

Dan Levitt:

It's interesting now. I remember my dad would come back ... I think maybe at the height, he had 50, 60 people. Maybe more. I remember growing up, he'd come back from work and we'd be watching a Celtics game. It was the most exciting game ever, especially, they were really good back then.

Dan Levitt:

And he would fall asleep, and I'd be like, "How in the world can you possibly fall asleep during this game?" And now, I'm like, "Yep, I get it." Yeah, I could totally get how you could be so wiped out the day that, no matter what is on TV, you're just out.

Dan Levitt:

I mean, what was really interesting is, my parents went through a kind of messy divorce. We don't need to get into that but that's a whole fun story. But what's interesting is, when they separated, he stayed with a friend for a bit. And he went from sleeping in the basement of a friend's house to selling his business to IBM in a year.

Dan Levitt:

There were a lot of times that people told him, because the business had some challenges over the years, there were a lot of people that told him that he should declare bankruptcy with the business. But he stayed with it. And eventually, it worked out for him. I'm sure, hopefully, some of the resiliency I have, learned from him.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. Awesome. I have to ask. Being from Boston, a lot of media professionals from Boston have a pretty strong Boston identity. I think of Dave Portnoy in Barstool Sports, and Bill Simmons from The Ringer. Do you think of yourself like that, or your total West Coast transplant now?

Dan Levitt:

It's not just specific to Boston, but especially in the Northeast, there's a certain intensity and, I think, an edge that you can have, where in Boston, in traffic, if someone cuts you off, you scream at each other. And that's just acceptable and that's how you vent, right?

Dan Levitt:

In LA, it's much different than that. I'm in LA now. On the West Coast, people are more scared of confrontation. If you scream at someone, that's a really big deal. I think there's just a certain firm mentality that you have where it's pretty hard to bother me or get under my skin.

Dan Levitt:

I have thick skin. I do think part of that is just growing up in a culture where people are so up front with that. I also think, to a certain extent, growing up in cold climate where the weather is pretty brutal, and you just have to plow through it, does give some sort of mental toughness.

Chris Erwin:

I think that's totally right. I think there's this saying. I hope I'm not butchering it. But it's, "In New York, when people are saying, 'Fuck you,' they're saying, 'Good morning.' In the West Coast, when they say, 'Good morning,' they're saying, 'Fuck you.'"

Dan Levitt:

Yeah. I mean, but it's more so ... I remember in one of my first PA jobs in LA, I had a disagreement with another PA about the way things should be done. And then later on, I was brought into the office by my supervisor and they're like, "Dan, you were screaming at them. Why?"

Dan Levitt:

And I was like, "I wasn't screaming at them. I was telling them something they didn't want to hear in a certain tone. If I was screaming at them, they would know. Everybody would know." So, that was really the first ... I just moved to LA and I was like, "Shit, I got to really be cognizant of how I talk to people out here. They're going to think I'm a fucking lunatic," which, to a certain extent, is true. But maybe I need to slow play that a bit. Keep my response-

Chris Erwin:

It's part of your je ne sais quoi, as they say. Nothing-

Dan Levitt:

Yeah. I mean, you know me really well. But for people who just meet me, I can be a lot.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, so let's actually talk about how you got to where you are today. I think, trying to get a sense of, was there a glimpse in your early days of you entering entertainment, becoming a talent manager? I think about things that you had mentioned that you were looking at unsigned bands in high school in the '90s. Tell me about that.

Dan Levitt:

My skillset is, I'm really good at seeing patterns and seeing where things are going, right? Before they get there. So, I think that's what I'm best at, be it entertainment or trends. I've done okay in the stock market, investing and stuff. So, specific to your question, yeah.

Dan Levitt:

My first real strong passion was music. I heard Green Day and it changed my life. And I was like, "This is it." And then I definitely have the personality type where if I'm into something, I'm all the way fucking in. So, if I like Green Day, okay, I need ever record they've ever had.

Dan Levitt:

So, I started, the mid '90s or so, music was starting to shift to digital, right? So, you used to discover bands on the radio, and then around that time, there started to be primitive websites. Around when Napster first came out, there started to be people who would put MP3s online, right?

Dan Levitt:

So, now here are these blogs that are hosting MP3s. So, they would be posting bands that would be signed to record labels. And I would like these bands. I'd find then, I'd like them, and then they'd get big a year later. It was like, "Oh, I'm pretty good at knowing which bands are going to be big later."

Dan Levitt:

And then, one site in particular started focusing on unsigned bands, and I said, "Oh, these unsigned bands are pretty good. I think they're going to make it." And then they would get signed and they would make it. So, I saw, "Hey, I'm pretty good at ... "

Dan Levitt:

And I started learning more about the industry. And at that point, originally, my job was to, "Hey, I wanted to work as a music direct on the radio helping find the songs." And then I realized, "Hey, actually the best way I can help musicians is to work at a record label." So then, it was my dream to be an A&R guy to sign a band and help them break.

Chris Erwin:

And any genre focus? What types of music were you listening to? Was it Green Day punk? Stuff like that?

Dan Levitt:

More like the new metal, like the Korn. I know you're obviously a huge Limp Bizkit fan. That kind of stuff.

Chris Erwin:

Three Dollar Bill, Y'all

Dan Levitt:

Sure, exactly, right? Around that time was the Linkin Parks of the world and that kind of stuff. That was really the scene that I was into. I still had an appreciation for more pop music and stuff like that. But really, the rock, I would say, is the genre that I was into and certainly having a great moment then.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, so then there were a few sites. And I remember trying to email people, and bands, and managers, and see what I could do. But I was just a kid in high school. Again, this is, I'm downloading songs over a dial-up modem.

Chris Erwin:

DSL.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, exactly. This was not how easy it was today. That was the dream. But I didn't know anyone at entertainment. There was no path to it. I was like, "Could I start my own record label and fund it?" But that seemed so far from being feasible.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, were you reaching out to any of these bands direct, or was it, you're just thinking about what you want to do after college?

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, I had a buddy from summer camp who was, at the same time ... This is the late '90s. He started interning at record labels in New York and started getting a bit of traction. So, we were talking about, "Hey, maybe we should start our own label." And there were one or two bands that we approached. They didn't really respond. It didn't go anywhere.

Chris Erwin:

Oh, I would've loved to have been a fly on the wall to hear the pitch of you pitching a band in high school to sign with you.

Dan Levitt:

I forget what the value proposition was, but that band didn't really go anywhere. They probably should've given us a shot.

Chris Erwin:

You're doing this in high school, and then you end up going to Temple University in Philly. Does the dream start to take form there? What happens?

Dan Levitt:

No. I wanted to be a bit more conservative. And I was like, "Hey, I know I want to get into entertainment. I know I want to be on the business side. What's interesting to me is the intersection of art and commerce. But these jobs are going to be really hard to get. So, as a background, why don't I get a business degree, just to give me some kind of stability and baseline of knowledge?"

Dan Levitt:

So, I went to school at Temple. There's all kinds of story. My dorm room burnt down freshman year. Just the craziest shit happened.

Chris Erwin:

Wait, did you cause that or was it somebody else?

Dan Levitt:

No, no. Well, it's a point of contention. My roommate was lighting candles for some reason at 10:00 in the morning. But the fire marshal said it was electrical outlet. It's a whole thing. But anyways, went to Temple. Actually, before I left, I interned at a radio station in Boston. Then I interned at radio stations in Philly because that was really the only ...

Dan Levitt:

There weren't record labels in Boston, at least that I was aware of, in Philly. So, I just interned at radio in hope that I could make my way up there. But then I saw, man, the radio jobs ... I mean, and this was back then. I could only imagine now. Radio's not glamorous at all. It's really bare bones. The budgets are next to nothing. No one leaves these jobs. The jobs didn't pay great.

Dan Levitt:

So, I realized, "Hey, I thought I wanted to do radio, but this is not for me." And then that was more like, "Okay, I want to work for a record label." That was the dream. Be an A&R guy.

Chris Erwin:

In graduating Temple, which I think is around 2004, do you go immediately ... Do you have a job lined up? Like you're going to a record label. You're pumped going to the big city?

Dan Levitt:

I don't know why. I wasn't really actively hustling for a gig. I guess I assumed, "Oh, the college sets up some interviews and stuff." Nothing. So, a couple of my buddies went there. Temple has a really good film program, so most of my friends actually weren't on the business program. They were more on the film side.

Dan Levitt:

So, a couple of my buddies were moving out to LA to get started in their careers. So, I knew the music industry at that time was really New York or LA. And the last winter in Boston, the high was like eight degrees. I'm not one to complain about the cold, but I was too fucking cold.

Dan Levitt:

So, I was like, "Do I move to New York with no gig where it's crazy expensive and the weather's brutal, or maybe I should I try LA and see what it's like over there." So, I moved here without any job, and hoping that I'd figure it out.

Chris Erwin:

So, you're showing up without a lot of savings. No clear job prospects. Moving with a couple friends but don't really know anyone on the West Coast. So, there's a timeline here where it's like, "Hey, I got to figure something out probably in the next couple months," right?

Dan Levitt:

Totally. Maybe a couple grand. Thankfully, at least rent back then was a lot less than it is now. I think me and my buddies got a house in Glendale ... well, maybe Eagle Rock area or Glassell Park for maybe $1,000 between us three. It was pretty inexpensive. I had some cost but I had a little bit of room to work with there.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, so you show up with maybe a couple suitcases. You're in LA. What's your mentality? Are you pumped? Are you excited? Are you also scared? And then what do you start doing to sow your roots?

Dan Levitt:

Really, it was just like, "Okay, I have a business degree. Surely, I can get an entry-level job somewhere doing marketing." And just nothing. Barely interviews. Fucking nothing. So, I was just like, "All right, let me just ... " Couple of my buddies started PAing, so I did some PA gigs.

Dan Levitt:

But even in those gigs, you really have to hustle. You have to networks. And the gig ends and then you've got to get another job. And then that one ends. You got to get another job. I didn't really want to jump from job to job. There's late-night shoots. It would mess up my sleep schedule.

Dan Levitt:

I was a much different person. I was a lot lazier. I didn't think things would come to me. I just thought it would be easier.

Chris Erwin:

It's funny to hear you say that, because who you are now, who I have seen you evolve from since the Big Frame days in 2013, right? When you left. You are such a go-getter. Eye on the ball. Laser focus. Massive hustler. So, I guess this was an important experience for you to train that muscle and change your mentality.

Dan Levitt:

For some background, I am not a type ... Now, I'm probably type A, but I promise you, I was not type A. For context, I don't know what my GPA was in high school. Maybe a 2.3. It was not good at all. At all. I was a bad student. For context, in second grade, I already wasn't doing homework just I couldn't be bothered to do it. I could do it.

Dan Levitt:

I could pass everything and do it well. For some reason, it wasn't interesting to me. Probably wasn't until after I left Big Frame when I really had to figure stuff out for my own. But I had to really flip that switch and become that person. There's some people who just born type A. That's been a constant evolution for me.

Chris Erwin:

But your first job, you do get an A&R job at Columbia Records, which is part of Sony Music, I think in March 2005. How did that come to be and what was that experience like?

Dan Levitt:

Oh, this is a great story about how this ends. The buddy I mentioned earlier who was interning at record labels, he was able to move up. I think he was actually probably the youngest A&R guy in Sony history, at least at the time. He helped get John Legend signed and Coheed and Cambria. So, after John-

Chris Erwin:

Favorite band, Coheed and Cambria. Jersey band in the metalcore punk-ish type scene. Love them.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, I think that was one of the first things he got signed. And then after he helped get John Legend signed, who they had passed on maybe five or six times, then they started, "Oh, maybe we should listen to him." He got promoted. At the time, the music industry was really going through an interesting transition. This is 2005.

Dan Levitt:

So, this is after the height of the boy band and rock. CD sales are declining now, relative to all-time highs. What was happening was, you were seeing a lot of executive turnover. So, a lot of execs who got these amazing lucrative deals in the good old days were getting or not renewed. So, there was a lot of turnover.

Dan Levitt:

So, what happened was, at that time, most of the A&R people for Columbia Records were in New York. But they needed someone lower level in LA to go see shows for them, especially at that point, the live shows. Especially in rock and other genres is a big part of a band's success.

Dan Levitt:

They didn't really have anyone lower and my buddy knew that I was still hustling. I'm working retail at that point. I'm working at The Vitamin Shoppe just to pay the bills, right? Because I didn't want the hustle of the random PA gigs. Keep in mind, I'm still applying for marketing jobs at a Nestle's and other more consumer products.

Dan Levitt:

I'm applying at entertainment too, but everyone is entry ... And this is even worse now. An entry-level job, they want you to have experience. I didn't have any work experience. I had a couple internships. So, I'm just working retail. My buddy is basically able to get me a job working for Columbia Records, but part-time, right?

Dan Levitt:

So, I'm basically working at The Vitamin Shoppe during the day, and then at night, going out and doing A&R for Columbia Records, albeit, in a part-time capacity. And I'm just fucking praying that no one I know from the music world comes into the store.

Dan Levitt:

So, it's really a one foot in, one foot out. And I'm basically just trying to do what I can to find the next great act for them to sign. So, that I can get recognized, and that I can do this full-time, and quit the soul-sucking day job.

Chris Erwin:

How much were you making as an A&R exec at this point?

Dan Levitt:

I might have been making maybe $125 a week. I think it was definitely between six and seven grand a year. So, not by any means enough to pay the bills, but not terrible, especially back then as a side. Keep in mind, if you look at it from an hourly perspective, I'm not really doing much. Maybe I go to one or two shows a night.

Dan Levitt:

By the way, I'm on the guest list for shows. I can walk into The Viper Room and the people there know me. I can just go in. So, I'm seeing amazing shows. I'm meeting people in the industry. I'm meeting managers. Meanwhile, anyone I meet, I'm trying to see if I can work with them.

Dan Levitt:

I'm applying for job after job. Entry-level manager assistant, $24,000. I'm applying. At that point, I have Columbia Records on my resume, and still barely getting bites. Even then, for whatever reason, I wasn't getting the gigs. It was a really, really tough time.

Dan Levitt:

It's worth noting, this was before the tech started. This was before SoundCloud. This is before some of the first music startups. So, there really wasn't much opportunity to get a gig somewhere. I interviewed at some of the music marketing companies like Streetwise.

Dan Levitt:

And this is building street teams and digital street teams. I wanted to do all that shit. I had some experience and still couldn't get in. Columbia Records. So one, it's kind of laughable now, but I discovered Arctic Monkeys extremely early. They only had three songs online. No one had heard of them in the US. No sales. Nothing.

Dan Levitt:

So, I have a bunch of buddies that I would send songs to. This is when The Strokes are first hitting, right? I find them on one of the music blogs that I like. These songs are ... I'm into them but I don't love it. I send it to a bunch of buddies and universally, everyone of them were like, "This is the best thing you've ever sent."

Dan Levitt:

And I was like, "Really? Wow." So then, I pitched them to Columbia Records and they're, "Oh, this is cool. It's this cool indie rock thing. But it's three guys in the UK. There's no sales. There's no history. It'd be really hard for us to fly them back and forth. But thanks for bringing it up."

Dan Levitt:

I didn't really know that I had to keep following up. "Hey, there's starting to be some noise." I didn't know. No one taught me how to do A&R or how to pitch, had to follow up. Again, it's not like I'm going into an office. I'm just remote because I still had the day gig.

Dan Levitt:

So, anyways, eventually there were Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen, a few things that I pitched that ended up hitting eventually. And then it got to the point where Sony Music was having a weekend where they were bringing in ever Sony Music employee to New York to do this whole song and dance about their roster.

Dan Levitt:

So, I basically request vacation time from my dad gig to go to New York. Again, Columbia Records is paying me $125 a week, but they're flying me to New York and put me up in a fancy hotel.

Chris Erwin:

It's like half your salary.

Dan Levitt:

Oh, no, by far, they spent way more on this. I mean, anyways, it was a weekend in Greenwich, Connecticut with the A&R team. So, I get called into the head A&R's office on the Friday. He's like, "Hey, Dan, I have some great news for you. Thanks for everything you've done. We're going to make you full-time. We're just waiting to hear from accounting on how much that's going to be. We'll get back to you."

Dan Levitt:

And I'm like, "This is what I've been fucking working my whole life for." And then right afterwards, we get on the bus to go to Greenwich, Connecticut. And Columbia had just brought on Steve Lillywhite, the producer who produced all the big U2 records, Dave Matthews. Albums I fucking grew up on. I'm shooting the shit with him now.

Dan Levitt:

We go to the head of the label's house, and there's all these Korn, and Rage Against the Machine, and all these albums that were so meaningful to me. All the plaques. It was a weekend where I felt like I was one of them now. My whole life, I've been trying to get in, and now I'm finally in. Still today one of the best weekends of my life.

Dan Levitt:

And then I fly back and it's Monday. And I'm back in the day job. And I'm just waiting for the phone call. I'm just waiting for the phone call about how much more money it's going to be. I'm so fucking ready. I get the call. "Hey, Dan, we have some bad news. We're not going to have room for you anymore. Sorry, but thanks for everything you've done."

Chris Erwin:

Wow. Just fast like that? Almost no emotion? Just, boom.

Dan Levitt:

No, no, to his credit, he was really apologetic. But I was fucking shellshocked because the call I got where I thought, "Okay, this is the phone call. I'm about to quit. I'm about to quit day job," was just the carpet ripped out from under me.

Dan Levitt:

I had the day job but at least I was grinding at night, hoping to get somewhere. Now, that was taken from me. And now I'm like, "Fuck, I'm about to be 25 with a business degree, working retail. This is not how I thought shit was going to go."

Dan Levitt:

So, it ends up being revealed later on, it wasn't clear at that time, but basically, Columbia Records was bringing on Rick Rubin and he wanted his own people. But it was just a gut shot at the time.

Chris Erwin:

So, Dan, you get into a few side hustle. And I think one of them culminates in you doing chat room marketing for cream cheese. But tell us a couple highlights here because I think some of these side hustles, like swap meets, is still involved in your life today.

Dan Levitt:

It's always fun for me, trying to figure out new ways to make money. It's a lot easier now with the internet and stuff. It wasn't back then. I was a big focus group slut. I would do anything. Promote anything. So, I would get really good at filling out focus group surveys.

Dan Levitt:

I knew how they wanted you to answer, and so I would do ... For example, I've been paid to eat tofu. I've been paid to eat gum. I've been paid to eat McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. I got paid to play a Xbox Kinect before it came out. I've been paid to look at marketing materials.

Dan Levitt:

I've been paid to play with phones, and gadgets, and look at Cirque du Soleil. All kinds of stuff. Especially in LA, I'm sure this is the case in maybe a lot of big cities, but there's a lot of companies that do focus groups both in person. And I was just a maniac.

Dan Levitt:

There were a few Twitter accounts that popped up from those. It's like, "Hey, if you're this and you're this, fill it out." So, I would just ... whatever I could to try to get in.

Chris Erwin:

And this was paying the bills for you, so this was important.

Dan Levitt:

I think one year, I made maybe eight grand doing it. My first couple years in LA, I might have made only $20, $30 grand, so it was pretty significant. There was a store in LA that, on Sundays, would sell clothes, some vintage, some new, for a dollar.

Dan Levitt:

I would go and I'd buy most of the men's stuff. I'd list it on eBay. Basically, anything I sold it for was profit. I ended up getting fired from The Vitamin Shoppe. That's not really an interesting story. There was a company doing ... This would be summer 2008. They were doing experimental digital marketing.

Dan Levitt:

So, they were basically going into chat rooms essentially spamming message points. But then also, you had to have one-on-one conversations with people where you'd have to work in talking points, which was really fucking hard. Especially, how do you work cream cheese into a conversation organically? But I got fucking really good at it.

Dan Levitt:

So, within two days, I got so good at it that, by the end of the first week, I was promoted to the night shift manager. So, you would drop the campaign talking points into the chat. But really, it was all about these one-on-one conversations because basically, this agency would take those conversations, chop them up, make them clean, and then share it with the brand, and, "Hey, look, we're doing this subtle marketing for you."

Chris Erwin:

What was one of the lines that was something that you custom crafted that you were known for?

Dan Levitt:

This is really interesting psychology. What everyone else would do was, they would try to hit up a million people to try to find one, and try to work it in. They would brute force it. I took the opposite approach. I was like, "I'm going to ask other people online about themselves, and then just as conversations go, they'll flip it. And they'll ask me about myself."

Dan Levitt:

And then I'm like, "Oh, yeah." Put one of the common ... "Oh, what do you do for work?" I'm not going to say the brand's name but it's a city where I went to school. But it's like, "Hey," we couldn't say, "I work at." We had to say, "I work with X cream cheese company." "Oh, really? I love cream cheese. Cool."

Dan Levitt:

And then it's like, "Oh, what do you use it on?" "Oh, I can use it for cheesecakes or stuff like that." Or there's another site that's harder to use but you could actually see people's images. Think Myspace era. It wasn't Myspace but similar.

Dan Levitt:

So, I would identify people that I thought, based on physical attributes, might be interested in cream cheese. And I'd just message them and chat with them. But man, that was one of the funnest jobs I ever had, more so because, as a guy, it's not so bad. You're mostly talking to girls. As a girl on the internet trying to talk to guys about cream cheese, the kind of shit that they would hear was just-

Chris Erwin:

Probably a dark rabbit that we will not go down. So, Dan, then you head to A&R at Disney around September 2008. How did that come to be?

Dan Levitt:

My roommate used to do HR for Disney, right? So, keep in mind, at that point actually, I'd left the cream cheese job. And I'm working in a movie theater. I'm making $8.50 an hour. I got my side hustles. So, I see a job posting for A&R coordinator.

Dan Levitt:

I ping my roommate and I'm like, "Hey, do you know the recruiter for this gig?" And he did. It was someone he used to work closely with. So, I was able to customize my resume and it went directly to the recruiter from a friendly ... I remember the weekend I saw the job, I was in Chicago for a wedding.

Dan Levitt:

And I remember holding back my friend for an hour, so I could tweak it before we went and got pizza. I applied on a Friday. And then I got back and basically, I think that day, the recruiter called. I had a phone interview. And basically, the next Friday, I had a gig.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. That moved very fast in contrast to your other stuff.

Dan Levitt:

Unheard of for Disney. And the salary was in the mid-40s. Again, I had a Columbia Records gig, but it paid next to nothing. And now, I have an A&R job at Disney with a real fucking salary and amazing benefits, and it happened so quick. And I had been out here for five years grinding. Just grinding.

Chris Erwin:

Did you feel you had made it at that point, like, "I've made it. I'm here"?

Dan Levitt:

It wasn't that I made it. It was that I made it out of retail because to this day, I ... There's absolutely nothing wrong with working retail, I did it forever, but I don't want to do it again. I don't want to interact with the public. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how fast it happened. And just like that, my whole world changed.

Dan Levitt:

I was so appreciative and so thankful to have a gig that provided some stability that was in a industry that I wanted. You meet someone, you tell them you work for Disney, it changes the perception of you, right? And certainly for me, who'd been trying to get a real industry gig, it was fun to ... I knew that I had the chops, and it was finally someone recognizing it.

Chris Erwin:

Hey, listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you could give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview.

Chris Erwin:

After this, you end up going to, call it, the YouTube revolution of Big Frame. So, I'm just curious, while you're at Disney, was there anything about emerging media, digitally native artists that you were focused on during those four years? Trying to sense a through line here.

Dan Levitt:

After I left the Columbia Records gig or got let go, I saw these people who had these music blogs that were starting to go with their own reputations as tastemakers. So, I thought, "Oh, maybe I should do that for myself. Maybe instead of working for a record label and being a tastemaker, maybe I should do that on my own, with my blog or something."

Dan Levitt:

But I didn't really have the technical prowess to do the blog stuff. It seems like, "Oh, it should've been easy." Blogs and stuff were not easy back then. So actually, I started doing online video. I bought an HD camera. This must've been very early YouTube days.

Dan Levitt:

But I actually, with a buddy, recorded some HD music industry podcasts where we talked about music industry news and stuff. But I think I would post it on YouTube, but sadly and stupidly, because YouTube didn't monetize then, I put it on Revver where they did monetize. R-E-V-V-E-R was sort of a YouTube competitor at the time that did monetize.

Dan Levitt:

And I was like, "Oh, I want to make money doing this," so even though there's more audience on YouTube, I put it there. And nothing happened that I didn't ... It was hard relying on my buddy, who was great to schedule this. I didn't stick with it. So, I didn't stick with it. But I was doing it semi-consistently.

Dan Levitt:

But then when I got the Disney job, I asked if I could continue doing it, and they were like, "No, you're doing A&R for us. You obviously can't be talking about acts that aren't signed to Disney." So, I put that on the side and then I saw the early podcast boom.

Dan Levitt:

Again, I'm listening to Bill Simmons. I'm listening to Carolla. Saw the podcast thing happening. So, while I'm at Disney, especially I'm a couple year in, it was a decent job but my department is pretty strict. I wasn't given the freedom that you would think an A&R guy would have. It was a lot more administrative.

Dan Levitt:

It was a glorified assistant, right? It wasn't an A&R role. They truly did not care about my opinion for acts in my estimation, especially the label side. I worked for the publishing side. I tried to get in with the label guys and it didn't really work.

Dan Levitt:

A couple years in, I'm starting to think, "Okay, I got to get out of here." This was great, but I'm like, "I'm going to be a 30-year-old A&R guy who's never got anything signed. And if lose this gig ... " And again, this is the industry especially 2008, 2009, 2010, sales are going way down.

Dan Levitt:

This is when streaming is just starting. So, I'm trying to meet whoever I can, right? So actually, this is when SoundCloud first starts. I was up for a gig there. I had some friends record some messages recommending me. I had a great relationship of amazing songwriters and artists that I was an advocate for, that hadn't really made it or were just starting to.

Dan Levitt:

I tried to get at SongKit and all these things that were starting. I actually tried to get a job at Spotify. I'm actually one of the first 500 people in the US to have a Spotify account. I had an account for two years before it launched.

Chris Erwin:

I think what I'm hearing is that you've also applied to every single music company, I think, in the world by this point.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, but especially the good ones, right? I loved what SoundCloud was doing. Really at the time, they were so innovative. And they were solving their big problem, which was hosting audio. The role that I wanted was helping artists get on the platform and figure stuff out.

Dan Levitt:

So, around that time, again, I always believed in YouTube. I was doing it for myself. And then obviously Justin Bieber broke. And I'm looking on YouTube and I'm seeing these kids who are doing mid-tempo acoustic ballads, because that's all they can do, because that's what you do when you start.

Dan Levitt:

But they were doing covers and building an audience. And I was like, "The originals aren't that good. And I know all these amazing songwriters and producers that right now getting cuts in a major label system, because it's a fixed game, because the heads of the A&R start separate publishing divisions. And those people get the singles."

Dan Levitt:

So, I was like, "What if I actually brought some artist development into this YouTuber space where these people have done the hardest part. They've built an audience," right? There was one day on Twitter, the YouTube Creators account on Twitter posted that they were having an event at ... This is before the YouTube Space ... at YouTube's offices where they were talking about what makes a video successful on YouTube. I said, "That'll probably be good for me to know."

Dan Levitt:

I went and Sarah from Big Frame, who we both know well, was on the panel. She was talking about how she started a business and she was managing YouTubers. I was surprised that this was a thing, that there was enough of a business for there to be managers.

Dan Levitt:

Not only that, really smart ... Sarah is really impressive. I was like, "Wow, this is wild. I had no idea this kind of scene was happening." And then someone else actually asked about music. "What should the labels do?" And she was like, "Oh, the labels have no idea what they're doing at all."

Dan Levitt:

And then I went up to Sarah afterwards. I was, "Oh, I work for Disney Music." She's like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." I was like, "Oh, no, you have no idea how right you are." Actually, for an anecdote about how truly out of touch, in my experience, they were ...

Dan Levitt:

So again, through my relationships, I was one of the first 500 in the US to have Spotify. The Spotify had their agreement. They had a few test accounts for people in the industry to get to try it. I had one. I went to the head ... maybe the number two at Disney Music.

Dan Levitt:

And I was like, "Hey, I got this cool thing, Spotify. Have you seen it? Have you tried it? Do you want an account?" He was like, "Oh yeah, I'm not worried about that. I don't need one." It was so clear to me this was the future and they couldn't be bothered.

Dan Levitt:

Even, again, I'm still kind of green, right? But I saw that, hey, by the way, when they did the Spotify deal, Universal was distributing Disney, right? Universal got equity. Warner got Equity. Sony got equity. Disney didn't get equity but Universal leveraged the market share for distributing Disney for equity in Spotify. And I asked them, "Why did you do that?" I'm a fucking coordinator and you don't have-

Chris Erwin:

You're seeing where the industry is headed. And the vision at the top of Disney, or particularly for the Disney Music division, they just don't get it. So, you're like, "They're not going to get it." At your level, you're not going to be able to influence them.

Chris Erwin:

So, you're saying, again, "I got to make a move. I got to get out of here. The future is changing and I want to be a part of it."

Dan Levitt:

I think the big thing was, I saw what happened in podcasts. I didn't have to but I chose the safer Disney route, right? Because I needed a gig. I needed to pay the bills. But I made a promise to myself. Every day, I saw someone else doing what I wanted to do. They were the AbsolutePunks of the world, or there were other people who turned the music blog into an A&R career, or leveraged it in other ways with all these podcasts blowing up. **

Dan Levitt:

And I promised myself, I was like, "I'm good at seeing gaps in the marketplace and where could you go in it. I made a promise. The next time I see it, I'm fucking going for it."

Chris Erwin:

I love that.

Dan Levitt:

That's why, when I met Sarah and I saw ... I was like, "This YouTube thing is fucking next. No one in the music industry realizes it. Let me get in. At worst ... " After that conversation with Sarah ... The follow-up week, we had lunch somewhere.

Dan Levitt:

And after that conversation, I was like, "Sarah, hire me." She was like, "I can't now but we're doing raise soon. Let's stay in touch." Then afterwards, I was like, "This is fucking it. I fucking know it. I need to get in here no matter what." So, I started being very aggressive.

Chris Erwin:

This is probably, thinking in a Big Frame timeline, the company was founded in, I think, the second half of 2011. And they officially raised funding from the Google Original Channels program and a seed round, I think, in early 2012. And you come in the second half of 2012. But yeah, Sarah's talking about they had to get funding lined up. I jointed Big Frame, I think, in July of 2012.

Dan Levitt:

But at this point, after I had lunch with Sarah, I'm like, "Okay, this is it. I need to get into this space," right? So, at the time, there were three companies, right? There was Maker, there was Big Frame, and Full Swing. Those were the three big ones, right?

Dan Levitt:

When I stepped back, I looked. At the time, Maker was far bigger and the hot company at that point, right? The one that had the most buzz. The one that had the most resources and stuff. So, I decide that I want to ... Sarah's great but let me see if I could get a job at Maker.

Dan Levitt:

I have a meeting with whoever's running their music dept. And this guy, he was cool. He was okay but did not have the level of sophistication or music knowledge that I had, right? And I think, especially, it's worth considering, at this point, the space is so new, there's no one with Sony and Disney A&R. The level of traditional level of music in the space at all. But I decide I'm going to go for it.

Dan Levitt:

I meet with him. It's a decent interview. And then I decide I really want to go out of my way to show them that I want this, right? So, at the time, Maker had 100 employees. So, the next day, I send over 100 Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the Maker office with a note, "Let's make sweet music together."

Chris Erwin:

How did that touch work out for you?

Dan Levitt:

I got a second interview. Literally, people in Maker are Tweeting about it, right? And I thought, "Look, at worst, it'll be memorable and maybe they'll think about me in the future. And at best, if I get the gig, everyone's going to like me from day one, because I'm the doughnut guy."

Dan Levitt:

Again, I'm real fucking desperate to get out of Disney at this point. I see the writing on the way, especially, one thing to mention is that at this time, we're talking 2012, the publishing division had merged with the record labels. And essentially, the head of one of the record labels was now the new music group boss.

Dan Levitt:

I was at Sony after the Sony BMG merger and I saw people getting picked off one by one. And I saw the same thing happening at publishing. I said, "This was a merger, the record side won, and the publishing people are going to go one by one." As soon as I saw the first domino fall, I was fucking on it. So, I definitely feel like there's an ax going over my head slowly descending.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, so the timeline is compressing. You got to make moves. Okay, so after Disney, do you then apply to Big Frame? What happens next?

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, eventually, I end up ... I apply to Big Frame. I meet you.

Chris Erwin:

You said that you sent a video as part of your application, right?

Dan Levitt:

Right. Right. There was a job. I think, after Google acquired Next New NOW, they had a strategist role that I applied for that I didn't get. But I knew that, if you looked at my resume, you would see traditional media. I really wanted them to understand that I got digital culture.

Dan Levitt:

So, I made a video in addition to my resume, a fun video that played on the memes or the trends on YouTube at the time. The video was like, "Hey, I'm a big fan of YouTube. It's not just people doing the cinnamon challenge," and then it cut to me doing that, "or getting hurt," Then to me getting hit by 20 dodge balls from different angles.

Chris Erwin:

I actually think I vaguely start to remember this now.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah.

Chris Erwin:

Oh my God.

Dan Levitt:

I just knew that, especially having applied for so many gigs at traditional companies and not getting my resume seen, I wanted to make sure that in the future when I applied for a job, I was being extra. I was really going out of my way to show that I was serious about it. And also, especially with digital, that I got it the culture. That I got the space.

Dan Levitt:

That I'm not some stuffy guy. I really wanted to show that I was a believer in the space and to differentiate myself. Sarah actually told me after I was hired that the video did ease some of her concerns that it was going to be a more stealthy music guy, because especially at that time, the music industry and the MCNs, it was really contentious, right?

Dan Levitt:

It was Sony and some of the publishers having seen Myspace grow, and build, and get a huge valuation. It was very much a new emerging trend the music industry sees as a threat. And that dates back to sheet music but that's a separate tangent.

Chris Erwin:

Well, and to be clear, at least from my vantage point, I don't think there was any worry that you were going to be a traditional stuffy music guy, because I remember, I think, this is me and Jason Ziemianski were working on building out the different content verticals for Big Frame.

Dan Levitt:

Which was so smart to do.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, so smart. So, we had Wonderly. We had Forefront. We also had a music vertical. We had an LGBTQ vertical and maybe one or two more. So yeah, we're thinking about music. I remember I'm in the back room. This is when we were on the Sunset Boulevard office, the old National Lampoon building.

Chris Erwin:

I mean, you come in for an interview and there was a window between the back room and the front. Jason pointing at you and he's like, "That's who you're going to interview. That's Dan." I remember looking at you and I had never seen anyone that looked like you. You were in a shiny silver suit. So, one thing that I thought-

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, the shiny suits. The famous shiny suit.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. One, I thought it was weird because I was like, "Okay, this is digital video. People were a bit more casual. Jeans and T-shirts. He's in a suit. That's kind of weird. But then second, it wasn't just a normal suit. It was just something I'd never seen before."

Chris Erwin:

And I was like, "All right, this guy's a character." And from where I came from, I was just like ... I'm from traditional East Coast finance. So, I was started to discount you in my head, but also realizing I'm biased. I'm like, "Maybe this is the people that we want. I've never encountered someone like this but maybe this is the thinking and the pedigree that we want."

Chris Erwin:

So, then I remember sitting with you on the couches in the front. And you're mile-a-minute telling me your story and I'm drinking from a fire hose. I remember peppering you with questions. I don't even know what they were. But fast forward, we end up liking you and we hire you.

Chris Erwin:

All right, we hire you at Big Frame and this is in October 2012. What do you remember from those early days? What are you working on?

Dan Levitt:

I just remember being so excited, man. Sarah and you guys believing in me especially. Again, I'm pretty good at knowing where things were going. And just you guys just, "Hey, great. Music is the big thing on YouTube. Dan, figure it out. Figure out the opportunity."

Dan Levitt:

The belief in me was so amazing. Also, I'm coming from working at four years at Disney where, at least with my direct supervisors, I didn't feel like I was being treated as an adult. Everything was micromanaged. I was essentially chained to my desk.

Dan Levitt:

And moving into a role where it just felt like anything was possible. I remember getting there and there was really next to no musicians signed at all, right? I think you guys hadn't signed them because you didn't know what to do with them. There were a handful.

Dan Levitt:

And then I was like, "Hey, I have this idea for a music show." I knew that I would need to get a good song out of each of the talent that we'd had. So, I was like, "Hey, I know all these amazing songwriters and producers who know YouTube is next or I'm telling them. They're excited that I'm making this leap."

Dan Levitt:

And they're like, "Hey, YouTube's a thing. What should we do?" So, I just remember Sarah and I and you talking about this show idea. And then a week later, we had money from YouTube to do it. So, it was the biggest mind fuck because my entire career, I heard, "No." Literally, my 20s was hearing the word no.

Dan Levitt:

And literally, I can honestly say in the first month at Big Frame, I did more than in my 10 years at traditional. It was that quick. And I've really only heard, for the most part, heard, "Yes," ever since. But you can do so much more in the space. There aren't the same gatekeepers at Disney. If you try something new and it doesn't work, you lose your job.

Chris Erwin:

This flip a switch where you're like, "Okay, within the first month at Big Frame, I'm hearing, 'Yes,' and money is behind it"? So, do you start thinking, "Oh, if I'm a go-getter, there's a lot more I can do here"?

Dan Levitt:

I don't know that it was even that cognizant. It was more that I didn't really know which direction to go in. So, I was like, "Okay, there's a lack of artist development." One, that show ended up taking a lot more time.

Chris Erwin:

And you did that with Dave Days, right?

Dan Levitt:

Yeah.

Chris Erwin:

Called, the Writing Room.

Dan Levitt:

It's still up on YouTube, I think. It was great and we were all really happy with the songs and the shows, and got into artist development. And then while I was there, I realized, "Hey, before I go out and start signing people, I need to understand how YouTube works, especially in music where SEO is so important," because at the time, it was very much cover songs.

Dan Levitt:

And some of the biggest creators on the platform were doing cover songs, right? So, I needed to know how SEO worked. There was someone who was working at YouTube who reverse engineered the algorithm, and had done all this A/B testing to figure out how to grow channels.

Dan Levitt:

It was on the audience-development side, and that was MatPat. He had his channel, which maybe, I think, was a couple hundred thousand subscribers. But I didn't care. No one really cared much or paid much mind about his own channel.

Dan Levitt:

But he and I very quickly hit it off, because at that time, a lot of the managers, more so than other MCNs ... And the reason why I went with Big Frame, because I did get offers from all three, was, you guys wanted to be more high touch with a smaller roster, right?

Dan Levitt:

So, at that time, you guys actually were having some of the top talent on the platform sit down with MatPat, or just Mat at that time, who would basically tell them, "Hey, here's what you should be doing," and they wouldn't listen to him. But he was doing those one by one.

Chris Erwin:

And just to be clear, Matthew Patrick, who's now a huge YouTuber that Dan manages, he was an employee at Big Frame early days.

Dan Levitt:

He was a co-worker. Now he has maybe just under or close to 30 million across 4 channels, and is just one of the top channels on the platform, especially who's been able to do it for a decade. And has, probably, one of the most challenging formats where every video takes at least 100 or 200 hours in terms of scripting and post.

Dan Levitt:

It shouldn't work, but through pure determination and really thoughtful approach, it has worked. Anyways, he's working there. And quickly, we hit it off because, instead of just dropping the talent and him saying the same things over to talent that don't listen, I was like, "Hey, tell me. Do a knowledge transfer to me. I want to know this stuff, so that I can tell all my clients and be respectful of his time, and also learn.

Dan Levitt:

"I'm curious for myself. I want to know, how does SEO work and what are things I can do to grow my clients, so that we're providing value. And then once I know that, cool, let me go out and let me try sign some of the best and brightest."

Dan Levitt:

I thought that it would take me a while before I permeated, at least the music scene, on YouTube. By two or three months, based off of the work I was doing with one or two artists, I guess I should've went, "They all know each other. They would all collab. They all talk to each other."

Dan Levitt:

So, in a very short amount of time, I created a great name for myself as someone who's ... especially at that time, with the exception of Big Frame, it was scale, scale, scale. Just sign channels, get them into CMS, Comscore, Comscore. That was not Big Frame's approach.

Dan Levitt:

So, Big Frame really had a great reputation and I wanted to help further perpetuate that. So, not only was I helping people grow their channels, but I was setting them up with songwriters and producers, helping them figure out the different revenue streams.

Dan Levitt:

One of the challenges at that time was, the contracts that we had were more, at that time, standard MCN deals that only participated in ad revenue. And for most creators, that's fine, right? Because the ancillary revenues, the merch touring, and brand deals, and stuff were't there, or they were just starting.

Dan Levitt:

On the music side, especially then when it was confrontational with the publishers, the ad revenue is shared. So, the CPMs and the ad revenue was a lot lower take-home for the artist, and in turn, Big Frame. However, they were making significantly more and a lot more on downloads and streaming.

Dan Levitt:

So, I noticed, "Hey, I'm giving you advice and I'm helping you grow your channel. But we're only participating in, essentially, the least profitable revenue stream." So, I recognized, "Hey, at least in music, if we're going to be ... " And probably more broadly because we saw at time peak, and some other platforms come up that weren't YouTube.

Dan Levitt:

Some of the talent was trying to do stuff on their own and sort of getting exploited. And I realized, and I went to Sarah and you and said, "Hey, we might want to think about having our contracts be more robust and 360 if we're going to have this more boutique roster."

Chris Erwin:

Oh, I remember those conversations where we had, I think, a very short, minimal contract. Only participated in AdSense off of YouTube. Then a lot of push from the team saying, "Hey, we're doing all this work. We're impacting the 360 business of this talent. One, the company needs to get paid for it."

Chris Erwin:

And also, because you guys were thinking about, as talent managers, "How do you participate? What's your incentive?" Look, contracts is a whole separate thing, because I remember then the contract became like 12 pages. And then people were saying, "This is crazy. You got to make it simpler. No one's going to sign." But that's another tangent.

Chris Erwin:

Anyway, okay, you identify this. We start to rejigger the business. And yeah, you start building out our music vertical.

Dan Levitt:

It was going really well. I mean, we were getting the best talent. We just weren't monetizing the way that we wanted yet. And I was waiting on these management contracts to come in, so that we could get that ... Again, that process took longer. We were basically building ...

Dan Levitt:

We would've had all the best ones, right? Some of them had deals that they signed before that were, "Hey, as soon as this term ends, I'm going to join."

Chris Erwin:

So, I think this speaks to some mutual challenges, right? And frustration where we're trying to sort out the contracts. We're trying to sort out the business model. We're realizing at Big Frame, the music vertical is not directly making a lot of money relative to the cost that we're putting into it.

Chris Erwin:

Also, this is a point where I think there is some headwinds facing the MCN industry. We were having some challenges raising the needed capital and floating working capital. So, we had to make some changes. There was a discussion around, "Okay, probably going to have to shut down the music vertical, and we're going to have to let Dan go."

Chris Erwin:

This is something you and I talk about for the past 10 years. I remember being in the room when that conversation happens, because it was between me, and you, and Jason, I believe.

Dan Levitt:

I was really the first person let go. It was a growth stage. And then I was probably the first casualty, right? And to your credit, I was not surprised, because maybe a month or so before, you were like, "Hey, Dan, have you actually looked at some of the numbers in terms of what we're paying you and what you're bringing in?"

Dan Levitt:

Again, that seems blatantly obvious that I should've been but I wasn't. I came from a role that was very administrative and I kept doing what I knew. It wasn't clear to me that, "Oh, I'm actually responsible for ... I should be ... for my own P&L within this larger entity."

Chris Erwin:

In reflecting on that moment, and I don't actually think I've ever shared this before, but I think there's some realizations where, one, I think I was learning a lot about the digital entertainment industry, right? I had a very traditional background MBA. And there was a lot that I ...

Chris Erwin:

I knew about business and I knew that revenue had to be more than cost to get the profit. But I think I didn't understand the nuances of how this industry worked, of how you recruit talent, how you invest in a team, and figuring out the right business model. And I think listening to our talent managers, like yourself, could've been something I did with more focus and intent.

Chris Erwin:

But I think it was a mutual value exchange. We're all learning and I think this helped set up a lot of talent managers for success of thinking about running a sustainable business. Thinking about top line versus bottom line. And I know that there was some conversations where, yeah, I was giving clinics to you and some of the other members of the team like, "Let's sketch out some numbers and see what works here.

Chris Erwin:

"And it's not working. How do we get there?" And I feel that you've taken that to your new business, which has obviously been paid off in spades for you.

Dan Levitt:

I think me and the other talent managers there, we kind of went in wide-eyed where we knew the opportunity, and we knew where we saw things were going. But I don't think any of us had run this kind of a business like that or thought through that kind of stuff.

Dan Levitt:

It's just like you're trying to build the plane while you fly it. The other thing is, you obviously know this and you hear some of the stories from me and other, it's really hard dealing with talent. It's really hard dealing with talent. Especially then, one thing that I don't hear discussed as much, and I think for someone like me, who worked with traditional talent for a while, the digital talent's different, right?

Dan Levitt:

So, for me, working in music as an A&R guy, if I meet an artist or a musician, at least back then, they've heard, "No," a million times, right? And they understand the value of a team. On the YouTuber side, especially back then, especially early on, but it's still the same now, especially with the new breed of creators who are really fucking savvy, a lot of them don't understand the value of a team.

Dan Levitt:

They've hit a time when everyone's catering to them, especially the OG YouTubers who got in when you could just have deceptive thumbnails and stuff. They were not as receptive to advice that, potentially, they should've been. So, in addition to figure out how to make a business model of this thing as it's emerging, and especially, music is a lot harder in brand deals than beauty and other verticals, it was challenging.

Dan Levitt:

And it's compounded by, the job in working with talent is essentially to keep the unaccountable accountable.

Chris Erwin:

Look, I feel for you guys because I think you're working really hard dating over the past decade to figure out the business models that work for this new talent. And I think that's still happening together. And different from traditional managers, this feeling of you're always on.

Chris Erwin:

So, the internet doesn't shut off. It's 24/7. And you could be dealing with a brand deal that goes awry on a different timezone. And you're getting up at 4:00 AM. Or there's a YouTube channel take down that's impacting a brand deal, or a video that's meaningful to talent. And that happens at midnight, you got to be on it with a plan, a solution, and a call into the platform. That's unique.

Chris Erwin:

And look, that's a separate podcast to talk about all those stories. I think the collective Big Frame managers will write a book. But I will the challenge that you guys face in managing digital talent. For me, having run the talent organization and overseeing the talent managers, that's also hard because at the top, we tried to bear the burden of that stress, and give you guys the tools, and empower you.

Chris Erwin:

You guys demanded a lot because your talent demanded a lot. And it was admittedly hard. But I think it was a beautiful journey to go through together and we learned a lot.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, I can't believe it was only eight months. I was only there eight months, which is surprising. But man, in that eight months, the professional development that I had was so far beyond. I remember saying to Steve Raymond, who was the CEO of Big Frame at the time, I remember telling him, "I'll never work for a big company again if I can avoid it."

Dan Levitt:

I like the startup culture. I like the fact that we're making it up, and we get to try new things, and make mistakes and do stuff. So far, I haven't had to.

Chris Erwin:

Before we go on and we talk about your transition to Long Haul, I think we'd be remiss if we just didn't tell one story about the upstairs rap battle. This still gets me to this day because you ended up as the winner. It pains me to this day. So, tell the listeners a quick context for our rap battle.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, I don't know the origin of it. I think there might have been two. I don't know. I don't remember how it started but I think we were just ... We throw friendly jabs back and forth. And somehow, it cultivated in, "Hey, we're going to do a rap battle."

Dan Levitt:

I remember spending half the day writing out my stuff. I just remember the whole team was there and they were filming it. We got to find a video of it somewhere. But yeah, there was a rap battle and I was victorious. I know I went at you for ...

Dan Levitt:

I remember one line. You had a Ford that was giving you a bunch of challenges because all you could afford is a piece-of-shit Ford. That line really, while not being the most creative, really hit with the audience.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. I think, in rap battles, you just get a sense, because like you said, everyone was watching. They were filming. Crowd's reacting. And if you track the energy, you just know who's winning. And I remember at the end with that line, the crowd just was like ...

Chris Erwin:

It just felt like, "All right, Dan has one this." I think we were kind of even throughout throwing these different jabs. I remember working on my script for a couple weeks. I was frustrated because I was like, "That line is ... That's not a special one. He just said Ford and afford in the same sentence." But it didn't matter. It was over. So, look, massive credit for you.

Dan Levitt:

You're going against a music industry professional. There were no ghostwriters but it's to be expected. So, if Chaz or anybody else wants to come for the throne, they know where I'm at.

Chris Erwin:

So, Dan, okay, after this let-go moment, what are you thinking about? What's next for you?

Dan Levitt:

When I took the gig, I knew it was going to be a roller coaster. I knew it was riskier, right? But again, I felt, "At worse, if it doesn't work out, at least I will presumably have positioned myself in the music industry as the YouTube guy. And because I know YouTube is going to be a big thing, I should be okay. I'll figure something out."

Dan Levitt:

And that's exactly what happened where, as soon as I let go, I hit up all my people. In that eight months, people did start to notice. Some people. I was very fortunate that, within the first month, I got two gigs doing consulting for two different startups that wanted to work with digital creators, particularly musicians, that actually paid more for a lot less work. So, I sailed up for the first time.

Dan Levitt:

Now, it's like, "Okay. Now, I'm actually making more money than I was at Big Frame and I have way more free time. So, what could I be doing?" And then around that time is when MatPat crossed a million subscribers. We hadn't talked in a while but there was that mutual respect, right? He's noticed that I was doing more for talent and being thoughtful.

Chris Erwin:

You weren't working with MatPat right after Big Frame. It took a bit.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah, yeah, it took a bit. I had the other gigs, and then he hit me up. It was like, "Hey, can you help me do my first MCN deal?" And I said, "Sure," and I helped him negotiate one. And I said, "Hey, is anyone bringing you brand deals? Your channel is pretty big at this point."

Dan Levitt:

He's like, "No." I was like, "I've never really sold any." I think we did a handful at Big Frame, but again, in music, it was really tough. And I was like, "Well, let me try." One of the companies I was consulting for had an office in WeWork. So, despite all the WeWork craziness, I'll always indebted to them.

Dan Levitt:

So, at that WeWork office, I met someone who worked for an agency that got their start in radio buys, and then were doing podcasts, and was just starting to do YouTube. So, I gave them advice. I was like, "Hey, don't look at subscriber number. Look at average video views." So, there was some trust built.

Dan Levitt:

And I said, "Hey, my buddy has a channel. Let's do a test with him." So, I negotiated a rate that I thought was fair, that Mat and I were really happy with. That video went up on a Thursday night, and Friday morning, I get a call from that person. "Hey, Dan, we have three brands that want to book three videos each with Mat." And I was like, "Great."

Dan Levitt:

So, I negotiated the percentage with Mat. And then it was like, "Whoa, I just booked basically 10 videos for him. I'm making a pretty nice commission going back and forth." I was like, "This is great but it's weird. Why are these only direct response companies? Why aren't the video game publishers sponsoring him?"

Dan Levitt:

So, I went to Mat and I said, "Hey, let's make this official. I think there's something here. Let me start reaching out to video game publishers and trying to build those relationships." So, he's like, "Cool, let's do it." Again, the money that I had just booked him in a very short amount of time was extremely meaningful because he was just getting ad revenue.

Dan Levitt:

But the amounts we were bringing from these brand deals were a multiple of that, based on a per-video basis.

Chris Erwin:

And you're seeing that the commissions that you're earning are probably multiples of what you were getting Big Frame salary.

Dan Levitt:

Oh yeah, so then I started doing cold outreach to video game publishers. And I start building deeper relationships at YouTube. There was a deal for Mat and I to go to Texas, and ride around in real Wold War II tanks because they were recording the sound of the tanks for the game.

Dan Levitt:

I looked at the deals and I was like, "The video game publishers are sponsoring these really flashy ... " Like DevinSuperTramp is a YouTuber who's doing parkour and very cinematic stuff. He was getting all the video game deals and he didn't necessarily have a gaming audience.

Dan Levitt:

But his content looked amazing. It still looks amazing. It was very flashy. He would do Assassin's Creed doing parkour. So, I went to Mat and I said, "Your content's amazing. Your content's really smart and clever. We need a cool-shit format.

Dan Levitt:

So, while we were in Texas, we basically filmed a teaser for, essentially, a Myth Busters for gaming, right? Where, "Hey, you've played the game but what would it be like in real life?" Which is on brand for Mat. So, we filmed it. We filmed this teaser for it.

Dan Levitt:

We took that teaser, and I started sending it out to publishers and anyone that I knew. Actually, at Playlist, I met a guy who had the biggest agency for being brand deals at the time, probably still. And I was like, "Hey, I rep this great channel. You've never worked with them. Let's fix that. What do you have coming up?"

Dan Levitt:

He's like, "Oh, I have this new game coming out but we just committed all our budget to it." So, I went to Mat and I said, "Hey, you're going to cover this game anyways, right?" He's like, "Yeah." I said, "How about this, let's do this video for free for them. You're going to do it anyways. I want them to see how much better your stuff performs than all the stuff they're paying for.

Dan Levitt:

"And then they'll come back and they'll be in the regular. You'll be in the rotation for them." So, we did exactly that. We gave them a free video. It got over two million views. I've probably done, with zero exaggeration, at least 500 deals with that agency across my roster. Probably more. And certainly, for Mat, we're super close with those guys and we've done a ton of deals with them.

Chris Erwin:

Speaks to the long game, right? Do right by people. You're not looking at, "Oh, I'm forgoing revenue for this one deal that we're going to create a video for free." You're thinking about the next 5 to 10 years, and all the other talent that you want to sign, and you want to service. And it pays off in spades.

Dan Levitt:

I should've probably been thinking about all the other talent that I wanted to sign. But it was more so, at the moment, I was like, "Hey, Mat's amazing. This is going well. Let's see how far we can take this, right?" So, that same company actually was the one who convinced Ubisoft to have us do our first pilot of that format where Mat trained with real LA SWAT on how to do a hostage rescue.

Dan Levitt:

So, we made our normal margin and got to do this amazing Myth Buster-style video. And it was a departure for that. Because his content's more voiceover, I recognized, "Hey, you need to be on camera. You need to be more of a face. There'd be a lot more opportunities if you're more visually there." So, we ended up doing that.

Dan Levitt:

It was hugely successful. It put him eyes of personality more so than just a voiceover. And we used that one and another pilot we did through a different Google initiative to sell that as a series to Google. So now, again, I'm still kind of green in my business. I've been doing it.

Dan Levitt:

It's just me. Again, I was never more than a PA and now, I basically am an EP of a series for YouTube with my biggest client. And I basically have to make sure we're executing his creative vision properly because this is a huge opportunity for him. He has to still run his channel as normal.

Chris Erwin:

Dan, before we get into the rapid fire to wrap this up, tell us, who is Long Haul Management today and where are you guys headed future vision?

Dan Levitt:

At this point, we represent a lot of the top creators at the intersection of gaming, and sports, and lifestyle, sneaker culture, streetwear, right? These are guys who are playing NBA 2K, playing Madden, and then Fortnite, and whatever the hot game is of the day. But they're also doing IRL basketball, or sports, or challenges.

Dan Levitt:

And interested in commerce, be it sneaker culture, streetwear. Our job is to help people who've built a big following turn it into a diversified media business. So, obviously they're making ad revenue, but what else? So, a lot of our time is spent doing transactional one-off brand deals more and more.

Dan Levitt:

We try to make those more longer more meaningful partnerships. That's been something we've had a lot of success with recently. Getting hosting opportunities for our clients, voiceover work, helping them build out merch and product lines, and figuring out ways for ... The ad revenue and the brand deals are great, but what else?

Dan Levitt:

And figuring out which ones. There's a lot of people who go and they just launch things. We try to be really specific about, "Hey ... " Every question starts with, what's the value proposition for the audience, right? So, if we don't have that figured out, we don't do it.

Chris Erwin:

All right, and just one final question before getting into the rapid fire. You brought this up when we were prepping for the interview. But I think this is a good learning of the audience of doing things on your own terms. Give that quick spiel.

Dan Levitt:

I went off on my own. I've had my own management company since 2013. It's not the biggest. We haven't scaled. Still a really small team that does just a ton of volume. And especially this past year, I'm one of the handful of few independent gaming managers.

Dan Levitt:

For years, I've had a diverse roster of creators. So, the past year, I've had at least a dozen or so companies want to acquire or hire me. And I've run it really conservatively. In my experience, most partnerships that I've done on the business side, if you get a quarter of what's promised, that's a win.

Dan Levitt:

So, I'm always really skeptical of any partnership. And also, I've done things a bit untraditionally. My first hire is my wife now. We were dating before. I needed someone. She wanted to move in. And my sister works for me. People joke about the meme of a family business but for me it is.

Dan Levitt:

And it's been great. It's not without its challenges. But I want to work with people that I really like and trust. Now, there's people that we've hired on that aren't directly connected to me that way. But I've seen a lot of people get into partnerships that they weren't happy with. And it's really hard to get out of.

Dan Levitt:

So, for me personally, I work a lot, I work hard, but I make a fantastic living doing what I want on my own terms. If I have a talent that's being really problematic, I can drop them and I don't have to answer to anyone. I have the scale. Also, I've been doing this so fucking long, you're not going to surprise me, hopefully, right?

Dan Levitt:

I came from the music business, right? I've seen some shady shit. So, there's all kinds of times where, "Hey, this company wants to get into partnership with me." I tell my clients, "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to come in. I'm going to push back on these things. This company's probably going to go to you and say that I'm blowing the deal for you and say that I'm mismanaging you."

Dan Levitt:

And when they do, they show their cards that they're untrustworthy and that you probably shouldn't be doing business with them. That shit happened two weeks ago. Hopefully, I have enough experience where you're not going to slip one past me. But more so, I make enough money now. I want to work with people that I fuck with that are cool.

Dan Levitt:

We talk about a P&L. My business is really profitable and really lean. I don't have to stress about it. I don't do projections. I don't have a number that I have to hit. I probably should've scaled this, especially for our five years ago when gaming wasn't as competitive.

Dan Levitt:

But I've done it on my own speed and it's worked for me. When COVID hit and everything paused, I was fine. I wasn't worried. We've gone through similar stuff with the apocalypse and stuff. Things will dry up for a little bit but we'll be fine. I didn't cut anyone's salary. We were good. I don't need to be a billionaire to be happy.

Chris Erwin:

You have what you want and you have what you need.

Dan Levitt:

Yeah. I mean, I need a couple more bodies to handle the grind. The other thing, I have my first kid in a couple months. I want to be able to step back a little bit. So, I need a bigger team for that. I don't want to be executing brand deal when I'm 70, right?

Dan Levitt:

But I've never raised any money. The whole company is me. I've been fortunate that there's a few things I did in the past that have really been lucrative for me, and have enabled me to use that money to fuel the staffing and the growth. But it's a lean profitable shop and that's fine.

Dan Levitt:

I don't need to make $20 million a year. But if someone wants to pay me that, to be explicitly clear, I will sell for that amount.

Chris Erwin:

Based on how your business is growing, maybe it will get there. All right, I'm going to close it out with this. I want to give you some kudo, Dan, because I remember when Jason and I were making the decision that we were going to part ways with you back at Big Frame, right?

Chris Erwin:

This is May 2013. I remember just we were asking ourselves, "God, he's got this fire, this energy, this love for the music industry and music creators. But these things that are fundamentals of the business, they just seem to not be clicking." And we kept thinking, "Is he going to get there? Is he not going to get there?"

Chris Erwin:

I think, at the moment, it was like, "Okay, we just have to part ways." Watching you over the past decade, Dan, the business owner and the operator that you have become, how much trust that you have created with doing incredible deals for your brand partners, recruiting talent to your roster, putting a lot of money in their pocket, as well as into your pocket as well, it's been a beautiful thing to observe.

Chris Erwin:

And I've learned an incredible amount from you. It's very touching because we were in the early days of this whole digital video game. And it was very unclear where we were going to come out. And I think that you've come out totally on top. It's beautiful. You inspire me. So, I give you so many accolades and kudos. Job well done.

Dan Levitt:

Thanks, man. I appreciate that. I do. But also, even though I've had a fair amount of success, there's times where I doubt myself too, like, "Fuck, I was one of the first managers in gaming. If I would've dialed this thing up to 11, years ago, I would've had ... "

Dan Levitt:

I saw the twist thing happening and I chose, "Hey, I'm going to stay in my YouTube lane." I could have chosen to be like, "Hey, this is an opportunity. I need to play in that space. Let me grow. Let me maybe not be so conservative and be a bit more aggressive."

Dan Levitt:

Even though I've had success, there's still times where I'm like, "Hey, I could've done more." But I found, at least in my career, there's always going to someone who has a bigger business especially in this space. There's always going to someone who has the hot talent of the day and that's fine.

Dan Levitt:

I don't need to rep everyone. And I'm happy just having my own shop. There's a lot of other managers in the press, beating their chest every time they do a brand deal. That's not me. I'm old school. The talent should get the glory. But I obviously appreciate the kudos from you.

Dan Levitt:

But I think, for people out there who have a business or are thinking of doing it. You don't need to have the biggest business to be happy. Honestly, the people that I know that are that insanely driven are not happy people. But I think there's a lot to be said about ...

Dan Levitt:

Look, I work really hard. I fight like a motherfucker for my talent. But at the end of the day, I still see my family and I'm able to help run the business for our future and our clients' future.

Chris Erwin:

So, Dan, rapid fire. Here are the rules. I'm going to ask you six questions. These are short answers. No more than a sentence. Even a couple words is great. Do you understand the rules?

Dan Levitt:

Yes.

Chris Erwin:

Great. So, let's power through these. Proudest life moment?

Dan Levitt:

That would probably be the Game Lab premier with MatPat.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. What do you want to do less of for the rest of 2021?

Dan Levitt:

Review contracts.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. What do you want to do more of?

Dan Levitt:

See my friends. Play basketball.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. What one to two things, think of descriptor words, drive your success?

Dan Levitt:

Tenacity. Never working for retail again.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Last three. Key advice for media execs going into the new year?

Dan Levitt:

Follow through is everything. A lot of people take meetings. It's fun to take meetings. What's not fun is actually doing the next steps and the follow-up emails. That's part of why I've done well is I do those.

Chris Erwin:

I like that. Well said. Any future startup ambitions?

Dan Levitt:

There's stuff I want to do.

Chris Erwin:

Can you tease an idea?

Dan Levitt:

No.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. We'll save that for the next podcast. Dan, here's an easy one. How can people get in contact with you?

Dan Levitt:

I'm on the Twitter @danlevitt or they can hit me up on LinkedIn. If they email me, I might not get to it for a bit. But [email protected]. If you make through the filter, I will read it.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Dan, this was a real delight. Definitely blast from the past. Thanks for being on the show.

Dan Levitt:

Chris, I listen to every one of these. I'm so excited. I mean, I'm a bit hurt that Chaz was asked first, but I'm happy that we got to do this.

Chris Erwin:

Well, you know what? Look at Chaz as, I wanted to warm up before the real big gun came in, which was you.

Dan Levitt:

Exactly. Yeah, he's the opener for sure.

Chris Erwin:

All right, til next time.

Dan Levitt:

Thanks, buddy. Later.

Chris Erwin:

The interview was just so much fun. Dan was one of the first people I ever met in digital. And it was just such a delight to go down memory lane with him. The memories of interviewing him, his shiny suits, all of our office shenanigans. And just seeing his digital career blossom, it really puts a big smile on my face.

Chris Erwin:

All right, lastly, we have a new podcast. It's called the RockWater Roundup. We break down industry news in under 15 minutes. So, me and my colleague, Andrew Cohen, we talk about many topics, like the explosion in kids' screen time, and new kids' business models, the rise of the audio wars, creator competitions, like the Paul, Mayweather fight, and so much more. Go check it out at rounduppodcast.com. All right, that's it, everybody. Thanks for listening.

Chris Erwin:

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend.

You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you could follow us on Twitter @TCUpod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. Special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Damian Pelliccione is the co-founder and CEO of Revry. We discuss saying no to his family cheese business, being an early expert in live video for car shows, launching the 1st Queer streamer network from his living room, how a delayed mortgage and the launch of QueerX festival almost bankrupt the company, the power of grassroots marketing during SF Pride, how diversity inclusion starts with ownership, and changing the narrative for the Queer community.

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Damian Pelliccione:

Cut to November, around Thanksgiving of 2015. I was playing a new Apple TV. You install it on your TV and you search for apps of apps that are of interest to you. I searched lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer. Nothing came up. I was like, ding. The light bulb went off. This is it. We're going to create the first LGBT streaming network. I had Alia, LaShawn, and Chris in my living. I said, "I have this idea. What do you guys think?" They were like, "Yeah, let's do it. We're all in."

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Damian Pelliccione, the co-founder and CEO of Revry. Damian was born in Canada, and since a young age had a passion for the creative arts. So he passed on taking over his family's large cheese and food distribution business, and moved to New York City to study acting and production. But after the tragic events of 9/11, Damian decided to move to LA and became an early mover and shaker in digital video. He did it all, from early web streaming and YouTube production, to producing live streams at car shows, and even running his own digital workshops.

Chris Erwin:

In 2015, Damian was sitting in his living room with three friends, frustrated by the fact that there wasn't any queer streamer apps on platforms like Apple TV or Amazon Prime, so he decided to change that and soon after launched the first 24/7 queer streamer network, Revry TV.

Chris Erwin:

Damian and I get into a lot of different things during our chat. Some highlights include how a delayed mortgage and the launch of the QueerX festival almost cost Damian the company, the wild success of grassroots marketing at San Francisco Pride, why Damian was such a standout at one of my executive dinners in LA, and changing the narrative for the queer community.

Chris Erwin:

All right, I'm pumped that we get to publish this episode during Pride month. Let's get to it.

Chris Erwin:

Damian, thanks for being on the podcast.

Damian Pelliccione:

Thanks so much, Chris, for having me. It's exciting to be here.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Let's rewind a bit. Why don't you tell me about where you grew up and what your household was like.

Damian Pelliccione:

Yeah, so I grew up actually in Canada. I'm from Toronto, a suburb of Toronto actually called Unionville, which is a small town, colonial, turn of the century, Victorian home that I grew up that was built in the later 1800s. It was a wonderful place to grow up because it was extremely multicultural. There was definitely not one of anything in terms of race and culture. Ironically enough, even though my family is extremely Italian, my father was actually born in Italy and immigrated at six years old to escape World War II. He was the youngest of six. Both my nonna and nonno, which is Italian for grandmother and grandfather-

Chris Erwin:

Oh, I'm Italian as well.

Damian Pelliccione:

Really?

Chris Erwin:

My mother was born in Italy, in Trieste, on what used to be the Yugoslavian border. I know nonna and pop pop. That's my grandparents.

Damian Pelliccione:

Parli Italiano?

Chris Erwin:

No. My mom spoke Italian growing up, and spoke it with my grandmother, but never taught the children. To this day, we always give my mom crap about that.

Damian Pelliccione:

[inaudible 00:03:33]. This is where my talking with my hands, that is completely my Italian [crosstalk 00:03:39].

Chris Erwin:

It's all coming together now.

Damian Pelliccione:

All coming together, yeah. My family, my dad, was from [inaudible 00:03:46], which is in the [inaudible 00:03:49] province of Abruzzo. Unfortunately it was ravaged by a massive earthquake in the early 2000s. Since recovered, but we still have family there. I have cousins actually there. My dad... cross section of Damian is my dad was the entrepreneur in the family. Him and my uncle started the family business, which is huge in Canada. We're, I think in the top five biggest Italian cheese distributors to Canada.

Chris Erwin:

Wow.

Damian Pelliccione:

They obviously distribute to the United States as well. They built that from scratch, my dad and my uncle, and now all my cousins run the company. I had no interest in selling cheese.

Chris Erwin:

Was the opportunity was available to you and you were just like, "Ah, pass"?

Damian Pelliccione:

Of course. In a big Italian family, the opportunity was given to me and my sister. Both of us past. My sister, Kelly, was definitely going into a different sector than sales and cheese distribution. It's ironic, because I'm in distribution, but I'm more on the film and TV side of distribution, not the food side of distribution. Definitely was very inspired by my father, who was a tremendous salesman, and an entrepreneur who ran his own businesses and obviously started the big family business with my uncle.

Damian Pelliccione:

Then, ironically enough, my mother is also Italian, but she is third generation. Her and her parents were born in Canada. Her grandparents were born in Italy, a different part of Italy, too. Calabria, which is the heel of Italy, just across from Sicily. It's a little bit different in terms of Italian traditions between the two families, but obviously my mom and my dad are wonderful people. My mother was a politician. She was chairman of the Catholic school board. So was my father, actually, before my mother was. She ran the race relations committee in our city where we grew up. You can see, my mother was a politician, and my father, the entrepreneur, and out comes Damian.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, I was going to say, I was like, it makes total sense because I think about, you're the ultimate showmen. You have incredible charisma. I remember that from when we first met at one of our executive dinners. Then the entrepreneurial bend, now I know where that comes from. Yeah, totally get it now.

Damian Pelliccione:

One of the biggest things, you know Toronto. Most of my family lives in Woodbridge, or Vaughan, which is extremely Italian, predominantly Italian. My mother and my father were very much, this is instilled in me and my sister growing up, about being respectful and understanding and learning about all races, religions, and cultures and walks of life. They chose Unionville, which is a part of town where it was very eclectic. I had friends from all over the world, whose families were immigrants from all over the world. I had so many different cultural upbringings. My parents even made me and my sister, even though I was raised Catholic... I'm not very practicing myself. I consider myself Agnostic, but made us go to all the different: Hindu, Jewish, Islam, all the different sects to see what that religion could provide.

Chris Erwin:

Would you actually go to their places of worship?

Damian Pelliccione:

Yeah. I went once or twice to multiple places of worship my mother would take me and my sister to because she wanted us to experience everybody. I think that is where, at least for me, it was instilled at a very young age, were authenticity, diversity, and inclusion, before it was even a thing. This is the late 80s, early 90s. I'm 40 years old now. That was always a part of my upbringing. I think it's ironic where you have a mother politician, father, entrepreneur, and very inclusive family in terms of how we were raised and outcomes Damian and Revry.

Chris Erwin:

Your mother was super ahead of the times giving you exposure to these different religions and different cultures early on. I get that. I see that as a seed for what you're doing for the overall queer community, trying to drive awareness and inclusion and change the message around queer culture. I think that's brilliant.

Chris Erwin:

I think that you are involved in the dramatic arts and the school for film and TV at an early age as well. Was this something that came out in your teen years, or before then? When did that start to be?

Damian Pelliccione:

I was a scene stealer before I was even five years old. I think my performance started at family functions where I have some cousins, and we're all born the same year. I would direct and create the family productions. The kids would get together and we would put on some kind of a show, where it was a musical number, a comedy, or whatever. We would perform for the whole family in the living room. I did this growing up, I think until the time I was 10 or 12 years old. We made that a fun family activity. Of course that led me into being an actor, and I started with community theater, just like anyone else does in Unionville or Markham, Ontario, where I'm from.

Damian Pelliccione:

From there, I auditioned for the Arts York program, which is part of Unionville High School. Unionville High School ironically enough had this arts program that was to take kids from all over the region, so not just by town, but other surrounding townships who specialize in music or dance, or visual arts, or drama. I was accepted to the drama program and had the most amazing inspirational teachers. These folks are still family members of mine. They inspired me in so many ways to stay in the arts and stay in drama. My passion when I was a teenager and into my early 20s was to be an actor. That's what led me to New York City. I got into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and graduated from that program in 2001.

Damian Pelliccione:

Then 9/11 happened, and I had already booked a gig in Los Angeles. I was going to do this actor showcase for agents and managers and casting directors. I had a really good friend, one of my good friends from high school, is Hayden Christiansen, who is, as you know, Darth Vader. Hayden, like, come to LA, you should come to LA. I came to LA. Did the showcase, stayed on his couch I think for one or two nights and at a hotel and with other friends. Before the end of the week, I had been booked. I had been booked on a short. Got a commercial agent, got a theatrical agent.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, interjection. Along this journey, was your family supportive, or were they increasingly questioning, like, Damian, we have ae family cheese business, why are you not involved? Everyone else is here, what are you doing?

Damian Pelliccione:

No, they've been supportive the whole way through of my career. I am very lucky and blessed. They've been supportive of me, as a queer man, and they also have been supportive of Chris and I, my partner. They've been extremely supportive of my career. They knew, I think, what they were getting into at an early age, that this was pathway, was to be in entertainment. They helped my entire journey, both financially... I was very lucky, and I'm blessed that I had that opportunity. And even my immigration to the United States, because remember, I'm not an American citizen. I am now. I only became an American citizen three years ago now. They have been extremely supportive of my career the entire time, and supporting me early on and when I was in college, obviously financially, and then also with my move to Los Angeles. And then from there, I did what every other actor does. I waited tables for probably almost 10 years.

Chris Erwin:

You're at Hayden Christiansen's, on his couch, and then all of a sudden you start getting booked. You get an agent, so you're like, okay, this is happening for me. My career is taking off, right?

Damian Pelliccione:

Here's what's funny. After I finished school in New York, which is a two year program at ADA, I made a deal with my parents. I had been accepted to Concordia University in Montreal for philosophy, which ironically enough I had failed in high school. I'm like this is kind of funny that they accepted me for philosophy. I packed up my apartment in New York. This is, again, a month after 9/11. The decision was if I don't book an agent or manager or things don't start to feel like they're going to pick up in Los Angeles, then I'll go to Montreal, and I'll tell the movers to take my stuff to Montreal, or take my stuff to Los Angeles.

Damian Pelliccione:

I got lucky. They took my stuff to Los Angeles, and that was October of 2001. It was a crazy time to be in Hollywood. It was an exciting time to be 20 years old and moving to LA, and just hitting the ground running. I think one of the biggest things is that I've always had commitment to everything that I do, good or bad. I think that that has been my greatest life lesson. It was an exciting time. It was back when there was still pilot season, and you test for pilots. I tested for a bunch of pilots, and back when the casting process wasn't about your Instagram influence or your Facebook, or your YouTube. It was well before all those times. It was the old school... I think I even still have my black and white, 8 x 10 head shots that they had from that era. It was an exciting time.

Damian Pelliccione:

Look, when you're 20 years old, and I was also coming out at the time as gay and queer, it was a great place to be for me, both professionally and socially.

Chris Erwin:

In terms of pursuing your career, where do you start to hone in, which is like okay, of all the different types of acting or genre or projects that I can do, where were you starting to lean into more?

Damian Pelliccione:

Like I was saying, my early 20s was all about acting. I auditioned for a bunch of things, worked with agencies. My biggest booking to date was the Gilmore Girls. I actually had one pretty big scene with Alexis Bledel, and a character whose name was Lance. It was season five. I still have... well people and friends and family who watch it on Netflix, marathon watch it. They're like, "Oh my God." They'll screenshot it with their phone and send me a text. I still get residual checks from that show, because it's such a legacy project, right? It was wonderful to do that. I had done a bunch of independent. I had done a bunch of commercials. I had a pretty decent resume as an actor, but then the writer's strike happened in 2009, and it changed.

Damian Pelliccione:

That's when there was a dramatic shift. My roommate at the time, Deanna Nicole Baxter, who is a true inspiration of mine, had started to create a web series. This is 2006. Remember for context, YouTube launched in 2005, 2006.

Chris Erwin:

Is this like lonelygirl around that time, too?

Damian Pelliccione:

Before.

Chris Erwin:

Before, wow.

Damian Pelliccione:

This is [inaudible 00:13:44] 88, which won the first daytime technical Emmy for best broadband drama. I saw Deanna do it, and I was completely inspired by her commitment for work and the team that she had. I was like, oh, she can do it, I can do it. I'm always inspired by other people. I surrounded myself with amazing like-minded friends who I still have today, who have always been supportive. We've always supported each other's work along the way. This is my chosen family, as we say in the gay community. It's also, we need to inspire each other to push ourselves to do more. Deanna was one of those, and still today, is a big inspiration for how I lead. Seeing her win the first ever Emmy, was, hey, if she can do it, I'm going to do it. I created a web series vehicle for myself, called Homolebrity.

Chris Erwin:

Wait, hold on. Wait, hold on. Homolebrity?

Damian Pelliccione:

Homolebrity, yeah. It's not a very PC name for today, but the idea was to play off the reality boom at the time, and queer celebrity and the reality boom. I remember I was pitching it to Logo, which had just launched as well in 2007 in hopes that we'd get our own TV deal. Bright eyes, big hopes. The whole thing was, regardless of it just going to the web, we did it. We did another one. We did a superhero fantasy show called [inaudible 00:15:04]. We just, I kept producing and producing and producing, and eventually I wasn't putting myself in it, because people are like, "Oh, you're a great producer."

Chris Erwin:

Were you self distributing, or were you distributing through third-parties?

Damian Pelliccione:

Oh yeah. No, we were self distributing, just like everybody else. You would call it, I guess user generated content, but we were doing it on a bigger scale and a lot more scripted. It was a really exciting time, and I just got really good at producing. Here's where the transition happened, and I transitioned out of being an actor and being a producer. I produced for other people, and more projects.

Damian Pelliccione:

I started our own little production company. I remember my first office, which is right at 5th and Spring, because I had a loft in downtown. This is now, cut to 2007-2008. I had a couple of friends. One was an editor and a shooter. The other one was a producer as well. We had this office that was 150 square feet, one room, [inaudible 00:15:58], and three desks. We were like, we're going to be a production company. We just started producing stuff. We produced things for broadband TV and we produced things for YouTube. Some of them we got paid for, and some of them we didn't. We produced Illeana Douglas with Easy to Assemble. I think it was her second or third season. It was a lot of folks who were, they saw and recognized our skillset for user generated content and specifically the web. That was our first office.

Chris Erwin:

You transitioned from an actor to a producer. Then you're having more and more projects. Some you're getting paid for. Where do you think this is headed? In this moment when you're like, I'm on my way to be a film producer.

Damian Pelliccione:

That was literally what I was thinking. I'm like, I'm on my way to be a film producer, and I love the journey, and I love production. Even just now, I produced something in house for us last week and every time I get to be on set it reminds me about my passion for even just being a producer and how much fun it is. Then afterwards, we did this for awhile and produced a whole bunch of work, a lot of editorial content, broadband TV, when broadband had been around different areas and different cities.

Damian Pelliccione:

You could bid for different stories or pitch them stories, very much like a newsroom. That was really exciting. We did a bunch of different op ed pieces and exciting pieces. We even, I remember covering the... this is so funny. I was covering Prop 8 in the 2008 elections, the proposition for equality marriage. There was this big rally in downtown Los Angeles, and it was a lot of Yes on 8, and for context, Yes on 8 was you're anti gay marriage. No on 8 was you're pro gay marriage. I was at a Yes on 8 rally, and I thought I was undercover. I was with my friend, Logan, who produced a show called The Yellow Mic. I was interviewing people and asking them questions about why are you voting yes, and tell us your theories, and collecting the other side of the story, which is really interesting.

Damian Pelliccione:

Then all of a sudden, the police are like, "We're going to put up blockades in the No on 8 people." They stopped the intersection and there was Yes on 8, No on 8 people across the aisle yelling and screaming and holding up their signage and marching. All of a sudden, Sacha Baren Cohen shows up. He did a film where he was the gay character. He shows up. No one knows who he is, and we were the only who had cameras. I'm like, "Oh my God, that's Sacha Baren Cohen." We got him doing it. We were the only ones with cameras. I remember the next morning we sold it to the news and TMZ. That was my foray into being a paparazzi, which was kind of exciting. It ran on, I think KTLA even and TMZ the next day.

Chris Erwin:

Oh wow. Where does this lead you, Damian? You're being opportunistic. What's the next major step as you're working your way to eventually be the founder of Revry?

Damian Pelliccione:

The next step was I worked at Dogma Studios, [inaudible 00:18:41] who was my CEO there saw something in me. Started producing a lot of great content, did stuff with Taylor Dane, Taylor [inaudible 00:18:48] who has since passed, and some great comedians. Dogma, of course, happened during the recession in 2009. I only got to be there for a year, and Scott cut our department. But Scott's like, "Hey, we have this great space. Do something with it." The next thing that I created was with Deanna, which was web TV workshop, which was literally, we're like, hey, what do people do in a recession? They go back to learning new skills. We created our own, tried to produce content for the web with an Emmy award winning actress, writer, director, Deanna Nicole Baxter, and Damian Pelliccione, entrepreneur and web producer as well.

Chris Erwin:

Was it an early master class, like you sold these as tutorial videos?

Damian Pelliccione:

Not even videos. We did videos a year later, but we were doing it brick and mortar, where on Tuesday nights every week, or Tuesday/Thursday nights, and we had [inaudible 00:19:36] speak and then [inaudible 00:19:38] speak. [inaudible 00:19:38] we had speakers... like lonelygirl from [inaudible 00:19:41]. Everybody, they all come and speak in the class and we would have different topics ranging from production, all the way to the distribution and understanding the technology and YouTube. It was an eight week course. We were packed. We were full. We did that for a year, and then we created an online version, which now you can still on [inaudible 00:19:58], which was shot, I think in 2000, oh my God, '10 or '11. They still use it on their website. Yeah, it was an exciting time, and that took us into technology.

Damian Pelliccione:

From there, just to bridge the gap to Revry, Deanna and I were approached an Israeli casting startup called Audish, which was a self casting website, because now we're going into the world of not having to do self casting, which is now the norm, and shooting yourself and making sure it's all final. I was head of business development and user experience. Deanna was head of sales and marketing.

Chris Erwin:

Is this the first time that you're working for somebody else, or a startup? Because before it's like these are your own projects.

Damian Pelliccione:

Yeah, Dogma was, they were more of a post house, and I worked for them. They were established. They were not a startup, but yes, this was the first time working for a startup. It was Audish. It was super fun. We'd work at the founder's house in West Hollywood in the Hills, and we were this small team. We just loved it. Then from there we got approached by another startup, which was kind of doing something similar, another Israeli casting startup called eTribez which still exists. Then from there, I got approached by Chevy and Cadillac to do auto shows, both domestic and abroad. In the auto shows I was doing, I was product present. They put me on stage on what those rotating stages to talk about the cars.

Chris Erwin:

How did they find you? How did Chevy and Cadillac say, "We think Damian's going to be a great showman to sell our cars?" How does that come to be?

Damian Pelliccione:

I had a friend who worked for the agency, and the agency saw some of my work and said, "Hey do you want to do this?" I'm like, "Hell yeah, I get to travel the country." It was good pay. Then through that work, I suggested, "Hey, you know what you should do? Put a camera up connected to your GM website." Then all of a sudden it became this whole big thing about streaming these presentations. I was the first one to suggest this. This is 2013. You got 250,000 people coming through the Chicago Auto Show or the Detroit Auto Show. Put a camera in front of it and show the rest of the world what's happening here. That was huge. Then from there, they sent me to Geneva. They're like, "Oh, can you go do this for Cadillac in Geneva?" I'm like, "Sure, yeah. Why not? I've never been to Switzerland." I did it for a year. It was really exciting. GM is super, super corporate. I'll leave it at that.

Damian Pelliccione:

Then I found myself back in startup. The startup that I ended up leaving GM and Cadillac for was a German streaming company called Make.TV. I promise, this is the last one before I get to Revry. I'm giving you my entire resume right now.

Chris Erwin:

No, it's a great story.

Damian Pelliccione:

Make.TV, which has since been acquired by LTM group, I was head of VD for North America. Then someone got pregnant in Germany and they get a four year option. They gave me Globe. During my time there, I created a partnership with YouTube Space LA in New York. I actually trained creators at Space LA and Space New York on how to use this proved technology. It was a proven vendor of YouTube on how to stream live, and using multi cam and all that great stuff. I really got my feet wet with SaaS, and SaaS tech ed. I knew everybody in the YouTube market, all the influencers, all the execs, all the players, all the Space people in New York and LA, even in Space Dubai and Space Japan. It was really cool. They sent me all over the world. I went to Dubai for [inaudible 00:23:08]. I went to Singapore for broadcast Asia. Of course I was always at IBC in Amsterdam. I always at NAB here in Vegas. I went to all the entertainment tech shows and met everybody, and really understood the technology in a way and where it was going.

Damian Pelliccione:

I did that with Make.TV up until 2016, so almost three years, two and a half years.

Chris Erwin:

Were you developing a relationship as, okay, Damian is one of the preeminent digital producers, also with a specialty in live streaming as well? That was the brand you were creating for yourself.

Damian Pelliccione:

And understanding the technology, first and foremost. Going to all these technical trade shows, you're in front of all the new SaaS tech players, which used to when you went to NAB, a small section of one of the convention room floors. Now it's multiple floors, because it's all software. It's no longer hardware. Software and SaaS obviously in streaming is so huge. We were very OG SaaS tech streaming technology. Definitely carved a space for my knowledge. I just love this stuff. It was combining my love of technology and producing and content and entertainment into distribution and understanding really the ins and outs of how technology effectuates the consumer experience, and how that was my vision of how that would shift. Of course all of the things I thought of back then are all now definitely coming true today, or are already at fruition.

Chris Erwin:

Hey, listeners. This is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work, and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it everybody. Let's get back to the interview.

Chris Erwin:

Damian, I think next up is that you found Revry with three other co-founders. Tell me about that.

Damian Pelliccione:

Ironically enough, I was in Germany prepping for IBC in Amsterdam. I only speak a few words in German, and there's nothing to watch. There's not that much English content on TV that was in my hotel room. I watched the Apple broadcast every September, and then even when it was... before I'd even watch it every September when they had the new product launches with Steve Jobs, who's a hero of mine.

Damian Pelliccione:

I saw the announcement of the Apple TV, and specifically TV OS, the new operating system. I was like, wow, this is going to be huge. This is going to change TV. I see something here. I want to build something. I was inspired to do something. Of course, I didn't know what right away, right? It hadn't dawned on me.

Damian Pelliccione:

Cut to November, around Thanksgiving of 2015. When Chris, my partner, broke his iPhone, the glass on the iPhone. You used to go to the Apple store and they'd fix it there for you. Apple Care. I was playing a new Apple TV, and Alia, who is now my co-founder and our COO, she had gotten it in October when it came out. She's like, "It's super cool. You should get it. You should get it."

Damian Pelliccione:

I bought it, and you install it on your TV at home, and you search for apps, just like when you get an iPhone that's blank, of apps that are of interest to you. I searched lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer. Nothing came up. I was like, ding. The light bulb went off. I was like, this is it. We're going to create the first LGBTQ streaming network. I had Alia, LaShawn and Chris in my living. I said, "I have this idea. What do you guys think?" They were like, "Yeah, let's do it. We're all in."

Chris Erwin:

That just sounds so easy, because many people will say, "Oh yeah, I was recruiting them and they had different jobs, and someone just had a baby. They have financial obligations." But you guys, you're sitting in a room. You tell them the idea, and they're like, "Yeah, let's do it."

Damian Pelliccione:

I think everyone, besides... I'm just an entrepreneur who's crazy and has all the ideas. One of out of ten works. This is the one that's worked the biggest, in the biggest way. Alia wanted to be in entertainment. She was an attorney, went to law school with Chris. Her background is more small business and startup and employment law. I think she was over working at the firm she was at.

Damian Pelliccione:

LaShawn, besides being an Army veteran, woman of color like Alia, she is a graduate of the American Film Institute for editorial. She knows all the editorial, and she's our Chief Product Officer, is amazing at what she does in terms of spinning up channels. She was working on a freelance project, editing a film at the time. She was ready for the next big challenge.

Damian Pelliccione:

Chris, who was I think the most interesting story, he was the attorney for Shark Tank, and even worked on People's Choice awards. That was his biggest legal job. Prior to that he was at Original Productions doing a lot of the reality TV production contractions. When you're on a studio like that, it's not necessarily the most exciting thing. Depending on who your bosses were at the time... that's all I'm going to say about that. They're not necessarily the nicest people to work for. He was ready for a change. He's like, "This wasn't what I thought it was going to be."

Damian Pelliccione:

It's also difficult when I'm the one that's all over the place doing a whole bunch of different jobs. I'm like, "Let's quit both of our jobs, make no money for five years, and start this startup." Chris will tell you, it's the greatest decision he's ever made his entire life, the same with Alia and LaShawn. What we have built and what we have accomplished in five years consumer basing, this June, when we first started marketing our product at San Francisco Pride in 2016, drove ourselves up to SF, because gay capital of the world. Bigger Pride than Los Angeles, of course. We had a lot of friends up there that were going, so we're like why not? It's going to be a fun weekend. Self printed pink tshirts with a horrible old Revry logo on it. Giant postcard size fliers. I don't know why we thought that was a good idea. We hit the streets handing out the fliers.

Chris Erwin:

What were you promoting?

Damian Pelliccione:

Download our app, download our app, download our app. Just download our app and watch some great content. For those who you know, San Francisco, everyone parties in Delores Park on the Saturday before the Sunday of the parade. We were just walking through Delores Park handing out fliers with these hideous pink tshirts, fuchsia tshirts on with the Revry logo, old school Revry logo. People are like, "Oh, what street marketing team do you work for?" I'm like, "No, that's the CBO, that's the CPO, that's the COO. I'm the CEO." They're like, "What?" They're like, "You must really believe in what you do." I'm like, "No, we totally do." We were positing it on the porta potty stalls. We were trying to stick them up to walls and on posts.

Damian Pelliccione:

By the end of the weekend, we ended up getting booked on Oakland News. Two days later, San Francisco News. Bay Area News.

Chris Erwin:

What was the reception as you were telling people in the streets in Delores Park about Revry? Did they immediately get it? Were they confused?

Damian Pelliccione:

They got it, and they downloaded it, and they were watching stuff. They were subscribing. Again, this is the easiest sell, because it's queer capital of the world and San Francisco, tech capital of the world. They totally were in it to win it. I think they were just more astounded by our commitment, and that we're doing it in a very nontraditional, grassroots way.

Damian Pelliccione:

By the end of that weekend, had a friend of a friend of a friend who introduced us to Mac World. He was queer. He was a writer for Mac World. He's like, "I got to do a story on you." He did the interview that weekend. It didn't come out until about a month later, but once it was published, it was instantaneous downloads that rippled into 10 different languages and 100 different media publications, because Mac World is such a major player that we were the first LGBTQ TV OS app ever created for Apple TV.

Damian Pelliccione:

Even today, I will say we are bound to be featured again on IOS this next month in June. Everyone at Apple are big fans of Revry, and they keep featuring us, which I'm very happy about. I said it in this interview. If Tim Cook is listening, my ultimate dream is to have lunch with him in Cupertino at the Spaceship. I would fly up there in a heartbeat if he said yes. We'll see. You never know. Dream. Dream big.

Chris Erwin:

I think that's something I've seen in tracking your business over the last couple years since I first met you at that dinner, was that your resilience, persistence, and passion just always pays off. You've gotten a lot of nose in raising money and pitching partnerships, but then you call me three, six months later, and you're like, "I ended up getting that partnership. Yeah, we just got a check. Yeah, we just closed that round." Feels like the Tim Cook lunch in Cupertino is coming up. I'm excited to get that call from you.

Damian Pelliccione:

You'll be the first one to know, for sure.

Chris Erwin:

You mentioned that you launched QueerX in 2016. I want to hear about that, and then there's a pretty crazy moment in 2018 when you were running out of money. You had to do some unique financing structures to figure it out. Tell us about that.

Damian Pelliccione:

We're crazy. We launched two things at the same time. The former name of it was Out Web Fest. Then we rebranded to QueerX in 2019. We launched our own festival, kind of playing off the LGBT film festival circuit, but more focused on the short form side. Digital content, shorts, music videos, things that are typically not as publicized as feature films in the LGBTQ film festival consumer markets.

Damian Pelliccione:

We wanted to carve out that space and really highlight these new up and coming emerging voices. The big caveat to this was this is a great way to connect, create, an experiential event, create community, and also find content for Revry. At the end of the day, this is how we even seeded our application at the early stages, because folks were excited not to play in the festival. I would say about 50-60% were also excited to license us their content. It became a tool to curate content for our platform.

Damian Pelliccione:

Cut to 2018, an investor didn't write a check when we thought they were going to. That was going to be a thing that was going to float the festival. I was two weeks out from the festival, freaking out trying to figure out how to raise $10,000. I ended up getting a creative mortgage. I say that because it was a hard money loan, and not that it has interest... not terrible. I think at the time it was only 6%, but definitely-

Chris Erwin:

That's pretty good for hard money.

Damian Pelliccione:

Yeah, definitely on the high end, but because my credit wasn't the greatest, because when you start a business your finances drop a little bit. You're not making as much money. You're taking a pay cut. That was the only available loan to me, but I was able to close it quick enough to be able to float what we needed for the festival. I remember how stressful that was and tears and joy when it did all come through. That's I think the testament to our resilience. That's just one story. There's multiple stories on how... not to get too down in the weeds, but how anytime we were close, and this is any startup has this problem, running out of money or close to the end of your burn or your runway, and you're like, "Oh shit, when is the next check going to come in? Is that investor really going to come through the door and cross the line? Are we going to get the revenue we need?" These are the stressors of your first five years.

Damian Pelliccione:

Then eventually as time goes on and you sustain, you get... this becomes less and less of an issue. I can count at least two or three moments in time with Revry where I thought we were going to go bankrupt, or we weren't going to be able to pay our payroll, or whatever. There is always some saving grace, whether it was my home and our mortgage, that first time, or an investor that just came out of nowhere that then we would be able to get a check from to be able to sustain the difference in what we weren't making up in our burn for revenue. That's been kind of our mode, that and staying lean and really understanding how to run a business and scale a business with not a lot of money. We are four minorities. We represent veteran, LGBTQ, Latina, African American women, immigrant. I do consider myself non-binary.

Chris Erwin:

Just to be clear, these are the four co-founders of Revry. I think it's the most diverse founding team that I've ever worked with or been exposed to.

Damian Pelliccione:

That's our superhero strength. Because we represent so many different cultural, racial, sexual identities, gender identities and backgrounds, I think is a testament to our resilience, our skillset, and our ability to move at a really fast pace. We even got knocked in the beginning from being four co-founders. They're like, "It's never going to work. Someone's going to drop out. Something's not going to happen," whatever. It's like being in a rock band, I always say. It's like if you can get past your first few years, you probably can sustain.

Damian Pelliccione:

Alia, LaShawn, Chris, and I are very close. We even have founders night out once a month, just social time for the four of us. We support each other in every possible way of our business. I am saying, I proved all the nay sayers wrong that no, you can have four co-founders. You can diversity and inclusion. We believe that diversity and inclusion starts, authentic leadership starts from ownership. That's why we're four equal co-founders. No one owns any more equity than the next person. We leave from that pillar when I'm talking to a tech partner or a vendor, when I'm talking to a content creator, filmmaker, or distribution company. When we're talking to, even advertisers, like Lexus or [inaudible 00:35:53] who we work with, the main pillar and mission with our company is true reflection, authenticity, and diversity, and inclusion within our community.

Damian Pelliccione:

Because the great thing about being LGBTQ or queer, we like to add queer. We're adopting unapologetically queer, is that you're not one race. You're not one gender. You're not one sexual orientation. You're not one cultural background. You're not one language. Queer exists all over the world. This is a really exciting moment for us, and the rest of the world, and the entertainment business to be embracing what we're doing with Revry in such a big way where we've got some pretty big wins coming down the pipeline which we'll have announcements for in Pride month in June.

Chris Erwin:

Which leads to the next question of what is next for Revry? Now that you've been doing this, I think you said, for the past five years that you've now been officially consumer facing, right, with the product in the market, tell us how many different apps, how much programming do you have? Let's fast forward three to five years out. Where are you headed?

Damian Pelliccione:

Yeah, so right now Revry is available in over 280 million households and devices. That is our reach. This is our sweat equity over the last three years, and really understanding the market and the differential between... we call ourselves a trihybrid of fast, free, ad supported streaming TV, AVOD, ad video on demand, and SVOD, subscription video on demand. We started as a subscription video on demand platform when SVOD was not as big of a thing as it was today, and building that subscription audience. That was hard. Now today, it's super competitive and competing Disney+, Hulu, and Amazon, and Apple TV Plus, and all the ones that have way deeper pockets than I do. I think where we saw a major opportunity, which was in 2017, we started with Pluto TV, a fast channel. Revry was the first LGBTQ network on Pluto TV. Then a year later we launched on Xumo TV in 2018. We crushed it and we brought in advertisers like Lexus. They were the first advertiser. They actually unbounded us six months after we launched.

Damian Pelliccione:

So, launched in 2016. January 2017 I receive an email from our info at Revry.TV email from this agency that represents Lexus and asked if we did advertising. Of course we get that, we're like, "Yes, we do." You figure it out, because you don't want to say no to that opportunity. Luckily we have the Pluto TV channel to be able to figure that out on, which launched the next quarter. It was great, and they've increased their spend year over year and we're a major partner of Lexus, specifically in the LGBTQ space. We're very honored to have worked with them for so long now since 2017, but we saw just based on that one advertiser and that one channel, the opportunity for having free, linear TV.

Damian Pelliccione:

Today it's the cable killer. It's fast. It's going to overtake the market. I believe that the new cable networks are the smart TV manufacturers. The Samsung, the Vizios, the LGs, the Sonys even now are getting into this space. These are the ones that will lead the charge and why you won't need a subscription pairage package to your teleco broadcaster like Comcast or AT&T, and what Comcast bought Xumo, and why AT&T is mostly likely going to go into facet as well, to catch up to the market.

Damian Pelliccione:

Cut to day, we're on 35 fast platforms, more than half of which we are the exclusive and/or only LGBTQ provider. We are also on SVOD platforms, like Xfinity. We're about to launch on a few other big ones coming down the pipe this summer. Our distribution footprint is so massive, and it's not just US. We just launched May 12th with Samsung UK. We launched in a territory in March, which I can't talk about, because we're still in beta for that. We're launching with Australia this week. Actually in just a few days we launch TV across Australia. Next month we're launching in another Latin American territory. Then later on in North America, and hopefully Canada.

Damian Pelliccione:

It's just been this rolling explosion of opportunity with big partners like TV and Samsung and Vizio, and really embracing what we're doing in the content and how we're distributing. I think the next phase, to answer the question of the business, outside of continuing to spin up channels and build more connections for our networks so now we're not just one network, we have multiple networks... we have our North American English feed, our global English feed, our USA English feed, but we also have Revry News, the first ever LGBTQ 24/7 news network. We have OML under our Revry, which stands for Oe More Lesbian, the first ever queer women acts lesbian network, which has exploded. Revry LatinaX, the first LGBTQ Spanish language network.

Damian Pelliccione:

Then we have a few more announcements coming up later this year for specialty channels of language specific channels, because, again, we exist as people, LGBT people everywhere, and we're massive underserved in the market other than the few things you can watch on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, or whatever territory that you live in, or on YouTube. There's no global network like Revry for our community until now.

Damian Pelliccione:

Really, for us, it's taking over all those global markets and tapping into... even outside of just English speaking markets, the community in Brasil, the community in Mexico, the community in India, the community all over Europe, and very soon the community in Africa. That's exciting to me. What's more exciting from a social impact standpoint is we don't have a barrier to entry. Yes, we still have our subscription product. We call it Revry Premium. That's upgrade from our... just like Peacock, right? The idea there is that if you want greater access and no ads, you pay the subscription price. You don't need to register to our site. You can just go on and start watching. Download the app and start watching anywhere on any device.

Damian Pelliccione:

The social impact site is like no matter your socioeconomic background, or where you are in the world, you can access Revry content. You as a trans person in Saudi Arabia, as a lesbian in Russia, as a gay man in South Africa can watch great, free content that is ad supported to see your story, to see yourself reflected.

Damian Pelliccione:

We've had letters from all over the world. The letter was after the Mac World article. That was from a gay man in Saudi Arabia who wrote me a message on LinkedIn of all places, from an anonymous profile saying, "I'm a queer man from Saudi Arabia. I read your Mac World article. I didn't know really what gay meant. I'm closeted, and I now see that there are other people out there like me. Thank you for doing what you're doing. I love this film, so and so." That was powerful. That's not the first. I have that framed, by the way. That message is framed and sits next to my desk, a reminder for why I do what I do every morning. When you're creating something way bigger than yourself, it gives you so much more purpose and drive than any other job you could ever have. That, I equate to our success.

Damian Pelliccione:

The other opportunity that I had where I saw the impact that Revry is having as a platform was when I was in India in June of 2019. I went to Mumbai to speak at the queer film festival, KASHISH. At the opening night ceremony, they had all the guest speakers come in and just say hello and give a little insight into what their talk would be later on in the week. All these queer female filmmakers surrounded me at the after party. We had this one title called The Other Love Story by this great filmmaker, [inaudible 00:42:50] in London, about this lesbian relationship in Bangalore. It was a scripted show. We branded it as a Revry original distributed in 2017 and '18, and it exploded, like these numbers from India, which we never expected. Again, testament to massively underserved market, but big opportunity. No one's tapping that.

Damian Pelliccione:

These queer women were so excited to meet Revry, a representative from Revry, let alone the CEO. I was like, "Oh my God. I'm so excited to meet you, too. Tell me what your project is. Can I license something?" That's where my mind goes in distribution, licensing and acquisition. This one girl's like, "No, no, no. Damian, I want to show you something." She pulls out her phone and shows me her Tinder. I'm like, "Why are you showing me your Tinder?" She funnels for lesbian, right? All the images in the grid were images were from The Other Love Story, our acquisition original from that territory.

Damian Pelliccione:

For context, we're celebrating 50 years of Stonewall right now in the United States, but for context, they only have their stonewall moment in 2018 where they decriminalized being LGBTQ. This is a year later that I'm in that territory. For fear of discretion, for their friends, their families, their jobs, or their places that they live or worship, that's how they identify themselves. Queer women specifically, and I started crying. I took this girl to dinner. I woke up Alia, LaShawn, and Chris in the west and was like, "Hey you have to, have to hear this story. This is huge. Everyone was crying."

Damian Pelliccione:

Even when I tell this story, I still get a little emotional, but it shows the power of the impact that media and a platform like Revry can have for the greater good of our community on a global scale. I've been quoted saying this story and the Saudi Arabia story multiple times in the past, but I will continue to quote it on all the interviews that I do, because that is the impact that we're having. That is the most exciting and biggest reward that I can receive as a founder.

Chris Erwin:

Beautifully put. Look, before we move on to the rapid fire, Damian, in terms of reward, what are the exit opportunities as you think about Revry? Where does this go? Do you just continually raise funding, or is there an exit that you're targeting in the next two to three years? I know the common answer is heads down building, we have a lot more to do, but what are you really thinking there, you and the three other founders?

Damian Pelliccione:

Heads down building, we have a lot more to do for sure. A lot more that we want to do and where I'd like to take this company, and where the founders, collectively, Alia, LaShawn, Chris, and I would like to take this company. We always knew from inception that this was not an idea business. We were an acquisition. When you look at the consolidation that's happening right now, MGM being bought by Amazon, Disney buying Discovery, I don't think that my thesis of acquisition is going to have very much longer before we're sucked up into a bigger machine. I wouldn't hate that, to be honest. I don't think any of the founders... I think we're all excited for that opportunity once it presents itself with the right partner.

Damian Pelliccione:

Right now, what am I doing? We're raising our next round. Series day is next. We'll see where the future takes us, but there's other conversations happening in the background. I think we're a really hot ticket item. We are the market leader, clearly, hands down the market leader for LGBTQ end streaming. We would be a great acquisition for any of the major studios at this point. And for the right price, not just the right pice, the right upside, but more or less being able to be capitalized in a way with the powers of a bigger studio and keep running the business the way we want to, which is to focus now more into the original side of content, and to create our whole slate of content and market and distribute that. I think that is a big value proposition.

Damian Pelliccione:

When you look at the stuff that we're coming out with this Pride season, I'm very proud of our slate of originals and content and shows and specials that we are about to announce just in a few days.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Last thing before I move on to rapid fire, Damian. I want to give you and the team some kudos. I remember, I threw an executive event nearby when our office was in Culver City. I think this is in the summer 2019. I did not know you, nor Revry before this. I think one of the guests that was commenting was like, "Oh, I want to bring this guy, Damian. He's electrifying. Can I add him to the guest list?" I was like, "Sure. Let's see." I remember, I think there was three or four long tables. You ended up sitting directly across from me. I just remember from the moment that we sat down, you not only lit up the space between us, but the entire table. I had such a good time talking to you. I got so excited by your vision and your gumption and your energy. That kicked off us working together on a few different fronts.

Chris Erwin:

I remember, and I was like, this is just a show that existed for this couple hours together, or does this persist? As I have continuously gotten to know you and the team better, and going to your office for an offsite and meeting the other members of your team, like you said, I had hesitation. I'm like, four co-founders? How does that work? But you guys have something very special in what you're building in your product, very special between the four co-founders, and your mission is fantastic. I know without a doubt that you guys are going to be coming out in a very, very special place. Keep on doing what you're doing. It's been amazing to track your journey, and it's fun getting to know you.

Damian Pelliccione:

We love you, Chris. You've always been a big cheerleader since we've met, and we appreciate your support.

Chris Erwin:

Cool. With that, we're going to move into the rapid fire round. Six questions. The rules are as follows. The answers are to be very brief, at most one to two sentences, but could also be one or two words. Do you understand the rules?

Damian Pelliccione:

Yes.

Chris Erwin:

Great. Let's dive in. Proudest life moment?

Damian Pelliccione:

Mumbai, India.

Chris Erwin:

What do you want to do less of in 2021?

Damian Pelliccione:

Work. No, I'm kidding.

Chris Erwin:

That's totally fair.

Damian Pelliccione:

What do I want to do less of? I want to eat less.

Chris Erwin:

You want to eat less, okay. What do you want to do more of?

Damian Pelliccione:

Exercise.

Chris Erwin:

What one to two things drive your success?

Damian Pelliccione:

Passion, innovation, love.

Chris Erwin:

Final three. What advice do you give media execs going into the end of 2021?

Damian Pelliccione:

Fail fast, fail big, and learn.

Chris Erwin:

Any future startup ambitions?

Damian Pelliccione:

Cannabis.

Chris Erwin:

Huh. Okay, I have to ask, what are you thinking on the cannabis front?

Damian Pelliccione:

Don't know yet. I have a passion for it, too. I think there's a frontier and a gold rush. I think there's so many healing qualities to it and so many unlocked potential and scientific research on what this plant can do. I wanted to be a part of that in some way. It hasn't revealed itself exactly, like what sector of cannabis, but I just know that I definitely want to... if I were to start another startup, it would definitely be in the cannabis sector.

Chris Erwin:

That'll be a good reason to have you on the show a second time, about your new venture.

Damian Pelliccione:

Yeah, there you go.

Chris Erwin:

Last one, very easy. How can people get in contact with you?

Damian Pelliccione:

Easy. You can go to our website, Revry.TV. You can also find me on Instagram, Damian, D-A-M-I-A-N media, M-E-D-I-A, or Revry TV, R-E-V-R-Y T-V.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. All right, Damian. Thanks for being on the show. This was a delight.

Damian Pelliccione:

Thank you so much for having me, Chris. Always a pleasure to talk to you.

Chris Erwin:

I got to say, I just love spending time with Damian. He is so positive. He is so effusive. He always brings a smile to my face. That interview was a real delight. All right, before wrapping up, we have an exciting announcement. Rock Water has launched our second podcast. It's called the Rock Water Roundup. In under 15 minutes, me and my colleague, Andrew Cohen, breakdown recent media and commerce news. We already have, I think around seven or eight episodes up, and we cover topics like live stream commerce and whatnot's $40 million capital raise, the growth of creator competition series, including the recent Logan Paul and Floyd Mayweather fight, the rapid growth of the resale market, including Etsy's $1.6 billion acquisition of Depop, and so much more.

Chris Erwin:

You can get it wherever you listen to your podcast: Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, you name it. And you can also go to Rounduppodcast.com. We're getting some really good feedback on the short, what we like to call micro cast format. Would love to have you check it out. All right, that's it everybody. Thanks for listening.

Chris Erwin:

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of Rock Water Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. If you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. You can follow us on Twitter at TCU Pod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck, music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. Special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Matthias Matternich is the co-founder and CEO of Art of Sport. We discuss growing up as the son of a German ambassador, starting his first company at 14, when Brexit devalued his investment capital, selling women's smimwear, pitching Kobe Bryant, his 500 mile trek in the Alps, and redefining body and skincare for athletes. 

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up. A podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Matthias Metternich:

I remember Brian and I thinking, well, who represents the kind of tenacity, and focus, and mental and physical commitment to being the best version of yourself possible. Done so successfully that they've transcended their sport. And it really took us almost no time to say, well, that's Kobe Bryant. And we asked ourselves, "Do we think we could get him involved?" And our path took us to his door.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Matthias Metternich, the co-founder and CEO of Art of Sport. Matthias was born in Germany. And because his father was an ambassador, he had lived in nearly 10 different countries by his teens. And he began coding at age seven, and began pursuing it seriously a couple of years later while living in Mongolia, as it helped him pass the time during the harsh winters. Soon after Matthias' entrepreneurial streak kicked off. He started his first company at 14, and since then started over five businesses, ranging from women's swimwear and enterprise software to his current company, Art of Sport, where he's redefining body and skincare products for athletes.

Chris Erwin:

So this interview is a bit on the long side and covers more topics than most. It's because Matthias' intellect and passion is far reaching. We discuss why he's not a good video game developer. How the founder of MySpace became his mentor during undergrad, how Brexit devalued one of his companies, and what it was like to recruit basketball legend Kobe Bryant as a co-founder. All right, let's get into it. 

Let's rewind a bit. You had told me that you originally grew up in Germany. Tell me about that and your household.

Matthias Metternich:

I grew up in Germany until about the age of eight months. So it wasn't my whole life. It was a very short moment. I was born there and then my dad was in the foreign service. So every three years we would get posted somewhere else. And so, from the age of eight months onward until really, I mean, even to this point, I've been moving around the world every two to three years. So we moved to the Soviet Union and I lived in Leningrad, then we moved to Los Angeles, then we moved to Mongolia, then we moved to the Middle East. And so there's been a lot of transition in my life. So that was a very interesting experience, that was quite formative for me.

Matthias Metternich:

But went back to Germany for high school for about two or three years for boarding school. And then I continue to... I went back for college for a very brief period, and then always go back whenever I have time to see friends and family, but I'm a bit of a nomad.

Chris Erwin:

What was your father doing in the foreign service?

Matthias Metternich:

My dad was an ambassador. He represented the German government in different countries. So that meant that he would often be the man in charge to present German interests, build relationships politically, economically, drive through cultural agendas. And it was an interesting time because that was really... His formative years in the service were deep within the cold war era. So there was a lot of really exciting espionage, nuclear proliferation, all kinds of stuff like that is what I grew up with. And I do remember it was even a period where if your listeners remember their history, there was an east and west Germany for about 40 years.

Matthias Metternich:

And so east Germany had embassies in countries that west Germany didn't. But when the wall fell and east and west Germany came back together, my dad was responsible for actually going to these places in these countries that west Germany didn't have a political presence and taking over those embassies. So I remember a lot of the places I lived was right next to the "access of evil" types of Eastern Soviet bloc embassies, like North Korea and whatnot. And if I kicked the ball over the fence in the wrong way, there would be a military procession where they'd pass the soccer ball back to us.

Chris Erwin:

What a unique childhood. Now, did that peak your interest, and did you think about going into government or the foreign service?

Matthias Metternich:

So my family has been in the political arena for several hundred years, and there's a lot of tradition there that I think my father [inaudible 00:04:25] spouse. But I think he was actually quite remarkably aware of how the role was changing in a more and more connected world. And what does a public servant, government figure head do in a foreign country where now you have video conferencing, you're on a jet, you're there in a couple hours. So there's diminishing opportunities over time as we become more and more connected. And because of his role, he was also always interfacing with and exposing me to really remarkable walks of life, business people who are sometimes coming to China for the first time, like large industrialists, well-known household names who would be coming and stopping through the house and having dinner with us.

Matthias Metternich:

And you'd hear their stories about this global world that was changing and forming. And in that context of the diplomats role diminishing over time or sunsetting a little bit on golden era of what that diplomat would do. And I don't want to take anything away from those folks doing that. It's still a very important part of the civil society and political arena. But with that sunsetting and this coming online of this connected industrial world, for me as a kid, I saw very clearly the writing on the wall that committing my time to something that was sunsetting versus something I was actually passionate about, which was shaping the planet or trying to shape the planet in some way, that's where my future was.

Chris Erwin:

And so speaking to that theme, which I think also relates to the compression and changing of information cycles and dynamics, you mentioned that at a pretty early age you had bought your first computer or connected to the internet and you were coding very young?

Matthias Metternich:

Yes.

Chris Erwin:

When did that first happen? Did that start in Mongolia or another country?

Matthias Metternich:

It started in Los Angeles. My parents bought it, and I was about seven but really I appropriated it fully when I was nine. And we moved to Mongolia, and Mongolia as a really pretty horrible.... Really beautiful country, but it has a very harsh winter, which can last upwards of six months. And so when you're in a place like that, there's only so much your parents are willing to entertain you. I found a lot of entertainment from the computer, and folks in the embassy who knew their way around this. And there was one guy in particular who was a bit of a hacker gadgets guy. And so, he gave me a running start at it, but I taught myself how to code because I wanted to make games for myself. I had exhausted the two games that I had.

Matthias Metternich:

And that took me on a journey into figuring out how to connect to the internet, talking to people all over the world at a time when very few adults knew how to do this. I felt incredibly empowered. And then I had the tools to come up with ideas and articulate those using code and using design. And I realized very quickly that my video games were pretty shitty because I was actually not a very good storyteller, but I was good at some of the code. And that's where I started to lose myself in the world of storytelling, and design, and empathy, and understanding what connects with people and why people get inspired or sad or happy or excited. And I tried to weave that into my games.

Matthias Metternich:

So in a way it was a little bit of a workshop for me. I was a craftsman honing my own craft at my own pace with the world's information, gradually coming online and being available online for me to learn from other people. It was a really powerful period for me.

Chris Erwin:

This reminds me of another interview that we did on the show with Christian Baesler, who is the president of Complex Networks. He was born, I think, in the late '80s in Germany. So there must be something in the water there, because he also began coding at a very young age himself, or his uncle had bought him a computer. I think he was born within a month of the Berlin Wall coming down. And he was in a small town, and he felt the need that through his computer he can express himself through coding, developing games, and also through the internet, connecting with people that were outside of his community, craving that need for connection and new information and exposure.

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah. Very similar stories.

Chris Erwin:

After this, you then go and you do your undergrad, and that's at... Did you say UCLA?

Matthias Metternich:

Yes, that's right.

Chris Erwin:

You do your undergrad at UCLA. And what's going through your mind while you're there in terms of fast forward, you clearly have a very impressive entrepreneurial career, which leads to founding Art of Sport a few years back. Was this in your mindset when you were going through undergrad as well?

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah. So I started my first company when I was about 14 years old, and it was out of necessity. It was really not necessarily... I mean, I always had an entrepreneurial bent. I was intrigued by money, but it wasn't a means to an end for me. But the idea of having something that someone wanted and being able to charge for it, was an interesting idea to me. And I remember, I mean, my first businesses were trying to sell my video games, and then it was actually building out a bigger video game library, where back in the day, it was fairly easy to just copy CD ROMs and sell those. And that was illegal obviously. But buying a video game for $35 and then selling a piecemeal for $5 a pop to a 100 kids was pretty lucrative.

Matthias Metternich:

It then snowballed into my first formal business, where I refurbished and sold computers in bulk to schools and to small businesses. And I would have ongoing service contracts where I would keep them updated, and fix those computers. And it was a really, actually pretty easy job for a kid in high school. And the pocket money was really good.

Chris Erwin:

Wait, so I have to pause there. So did you have a team that was helping you to do this or was it all by yourself?

Matthias Metternich:

It was all by myself. I didn't have a driver's license. So I would have to ask older friend in high school if they could drive the computers around in bands and stuff like that to get places. But I never employed anybody. It was just myself. And then I was part of the Computer Lab Society and whatnot. And there were folks there that were just excited to help. And I also was on the basketball team. So I sold these computers to the schools I was playing against. And so, sometimes I'll try to put the computers on the team basketball bus and transport them that way. But no, it was a great to work. It was a great way to learn. And then that's snowballed into one day walking down to my local staples and I needed business cards.

Matthias Metternich:

I realized I needed to have some way for people to call me. And so my parents were kind enough to have set up a dedicated line in my room. And so I went down to staples and had these business cards printed, and I didn't have that much money. And there was this offer, I think, for small businesses for 10,000 business cards or whatever for $100. It was a special or something like that. But you had to let them put the staples logo on the back of the card. And it was essentially their version of us know co-marketing that day. And I took it because it was the cheaper route. But then when I started putting those through mailboxes and small businesses to help them build websites and stuff, people thought I worked for staples and they actually called me back. They called me back probably at a higher rate than if I didn't have the staples logo on the card.

Chris Erwin:

That logo gave you legitimacy.

Matthias Metternich:

Gave me a legitimacy. And because I was doing so much of this remotely, they very rarely... Fortunately puberty hit me when I was about 14. So I had a voice that occasionally cracked, but sounded a little older, and they had no idea who they were working with. So I then started building websites. And by the time I got to college long way of telling you... Long story here, but by the time I got to college, I had a few businesses under my belt that I was running. I felt it was the most empowering and exhilarating experience. I had done lots of mixed media things, where I tried to make music, and produce music, and made websites, and build computers, and tried build apps.

Matthias Metternich:

And so, for me, it was very strange to think of studying something to go within into a function, into a single domain, or expertise, or functional expertise, or focus, when I was already relatively fluent. I'll be amateurish across all these different buckets that I felt were... When you paired my experience back to how that manifested within academia, those were all separate degrees and people were studying those things separately. So, I fell out of water. I felt weird about what I was doing in college. I felt like a complete fish out of water also just culturally. It was tough for me to connect with kids who had probably mostly grown up in the same town or same city, and were going to college in their same city. And I started another company while I was in college. So to answer your question, yeah, the intention was always to build businesses, but never just to build businesses. It was because I loved the process of making things and seeing opportunities, and asking myself questions about where the world was going, and then try and articulate those.

Chris Erwin:

Wow! So when you say that you had fluency in a lot of different, call it the capacities and how you build a business and how you run a business, and that you felt that those were modularized when you were in undergrad and that's not how you looked at it. What did you perceive as those core competencies that you had already figured out by your undergrad years?

Matthias Metternich:

I don't want to overstate it. I mean, I still knew nothing about very much of anything, and probably still don't know anything about anything.

Chris Erwin:

Beginner's mind is a good place to be.

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah, absolutely. But look, this was still a time in an era where somebody who could use Photoshop fluently and design something leaks ahead of entire digital agencies that were just starting to become proficient in digital stuff. I mean, this was 2004. And so, I don't want to overstate my skills, but by that point I was fluent in Excel, and basic financial modeling, building up PnL, and managing that, and forecasting and that sort of stuff, pretty rudimentary arithmetic. I was fluent in designing things, both physical and not structural design, but physical media billboards, or postcards, or whatever else. I was packaging and so on.

Matthias Metternich:

I was pretty fluent in designing digital products, whether those were app style products or just informational websites. I've had experience copywriting and telling stories that I thought could lead to consumers clicking on things, and seeing things. So I had some proximity to search and search optimization. I was fluent a little bit in having talked to people who were open to putting some money into my projects, which at the time I wasn't really familiar with institutional capital, institutional investors, or even angel investors, but I understood what that-

Chris Erwin:

You had bootstrapped everything yourself to dig, right?

Matthias Metternich:

... totally. Yeah. Bootstrapped, but also with the luxury of safety net for my parents. I wasn't paying rent. So, it was the best time to be trying things, because I still was fed at the end of the day. And so, when I looked at college, it was a case of saying, okay. Well, there's, there's an accounting degree, there's an economics degree, there's a bit poly-psy, which I felt like I had from home. There's the design school. Okay. That seems pretty limited. And where does that lead from a career perspective? And then none of those things had really tentacles that led out of the institution into the real world.

Matthias Metternich:

So all these kids were studying this thing within this echo chamber and then going to a job fair. And I just thought that seems so backwards. You'd want to accelerate your craft and accelerate your learning into something actually relevant in the real world. Those things shouldn't be distinct, where there's a learning center and then there's the real world. Those things are probably the same space. And there's no reason why you can't learn on the job.

Chris Erwin:

And speaking of reaching your tentacles out into the real world, is this around the same time when you sneak into, I think a speaking event of the founder of MySpace, Brett Brewer?

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah, it was. It was actually my... I want to say it was my sophomore year. And UCLA business school, these are young executives or corporate leaders coming back to get their MBAs. And here is this 19 year old kid who's loitering around their departments and walking into the buildings, and just walking into different classes. And there was a business plan competition for its students. I think the best business plan was going to get $10,000 or something like that. And I went around asking different MBA students if they'd be willing to let me join their team, because I personally couldn't really apply myself to this. I wasn't a bit in the business school. So I could be part of a team, but I couldn't be leading it. And two guys were kind enough to take me on.

Matthias Metternich:

And basically then I worked with them to come up with a business plan and design the deck, and do the financials, and do it all with them. And during one of the mentor classes, Brett Brewer was speaking. I'd snuck in to attend this. Again, I'm never really allowed to be present in these spaces as an undergrad. And Brett Brewer was standing on stage and he was being interviewed, and he went to UCLA as an undergrad. And the moderator said, "Tell us about your college experience." And he said, "I snuck into the business school as an undergrad. I met somebody who was talking on stage and that person was able to help me enter into the internet space as I was running a company from my dorm room." And of course that spoke to me perfectly, because that was me.

Matthias Metternich:

And I felt almost like he was talking to me and inviting me to come talk to him, which I did afterwards. And I walked up to him and I told him this, and he was incredibly gracious. And I bumped into him since a few times and I never let him forget it. But he was my first real person that had built internet companies, built successful internet companies, embodied in a person, and was willing to talk about the inner workings of the tech industry. And at a time when very few people were trying to be tech entrepreneurs. Now every day there's a new startup. But then it was really hard to get an understanding of, how do I enter this space? Who are the players? What are the rules of the game? How does it actually work?

Matthias Metternich:

And at least what he did was, he looked at my business plan and I showed him the products, and he saw talent and he made introductions. And he made some introductions to some very interesting people who have become tech Titans and were tech Titans then, and have continued to be tech Titans now. But that was one of the most formative moments for me, where it was really a validation of, okay, someone great things that I can play ball. And I felt like I had been basically recruited onto a team. I wasn't a starter, but I had at least made it into the NBA. And the question was like, what do I do with this?

Chris Erwin:

My next question is, so you graduate from UCLA. And in terms of your next step, was it directly inspired or related to your relationship with Brett or something else?

Matthias Metternich:

I wouldn't say it was directly inspired. What I was doing in college, my company was essentially a creative digital agency. But I only did that so that it could cash flow into my real passion, which was to incubate our own products. And I did that because I didn't really want to be dependent on outside capital and raising capital. And I wanted to actually have good bread and butter work coming in, people getting paid, and then use whatever leftover cash to come up with our own products that we owned entirely and can scale maybe into an internet company. And that was the real business model. And in a way, because of my proximity or at least my exposure to Brett and his way of thinking, and then all these other folks. I don't want to overstate the relationship at the time, but definitely he was an inspiring figure locally. I continued to build this agency with an aim to try and launch new products.

Matthias Metternich:

And right at the time I was graduating, there was an opportune time for me to exit the agency and sell it to my partners. But also I had heard of a couple of agencies in London that were really remarkable working with really big clients, and were the ideas of the digital arena. These think tanks that were also creative. They knew about marketing, but they were also about creating valuable products and services. And these were bigger agencies. And I hadn't really realized there were big agencies doing this. And so I decided to move to London and joined those firms, and then start firms like that with them. And so that gave me exposure to a ton of global brands and really big brands and exciting big projects that I would have never ever done in my small studio. But I was serving global clients very quickly at a young age, working on some very challenging and complicated platforms and services and products across insurance, across consumer goods, across whatever it was. And so I had some really remarkable opportunities in that context.

Chris Erwin:

I think that your agency/incubator was called Popsicle Vision.

Matthias Metternich:

That's right.

Chris Erwin:

And so did you end up selling it to a London-based incubator?

Matthias Metternich:

No, I didn't. I sold it to my local partners in California, and then I moved to London to join this firm.

Chris Erwin:

You move to London, you kick off this journey. Is this your first career moment where you're actually working for someone else?

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah.

Chris Erwin:

It's not a business that you had founded?

Matthias Metternich:

Yes. That was the first time working for someone else. And I had the opportunity to sit down with the partners of this firm, and they had no idea what to do with me. And I had no idea what I was going to do there. And credit to them they said, "Well, why don't you just hop a board and see what happens? And you can help us with the business and help us think about building the business because we're also stuck serving all these clients. Maybe you can pull out to [inaudible 00:21:24] and help us understand what services we're offering, what should we should be doing more of, whether it's intellectual property that we could maybe build out." And I was thinking very much from Silicon valley startups, building tech companies, building products and services. And these guys didn't really have proximity to that in London.

Matthias Metternich:

I was put in a role that was very fluid and they gave me a lot of runway to do whatever I wanted. To the extent that one day I got a call, and I could barely understand. It was a very thick accent. And I hung up a few times, and they kept calling back, until they finally said, "Hey, we're a publicly listed $10 plus billion telecoms company based in Istanbul. And we'd like to fly you out to Istanbul." And I looked over at one of the partners and I said, "I think I'm going to go down in Istanbul and talk to these guys. I have no idea who they are, what they want, but it sounds fun." And I got on a plane and I went down there. And sure enough, it was the biggest company in Turkey, 90 million plus subscribers.

Matthias Metternich:

It's Turkcell, it's the largest telco company down there, huge offices, beautiful offices, huge budgets, massive projects, total desire to transform their organization, build all these new products and services, and no real domestic talents, no real Turkey based agencies, able to pull any of this stuff off. And so there I was feeling like a kid in a candy shop, and also feeling really comfortable in that environment, having lived in all these different countries, where I basically called the partners back in London and I said, "I'd like to build the agency here. We'll share the business. And I'll drive business back into London. I'll use the portfolio and we'll see where it takes us." That was a chapter that moved me from London to Istanbul.

Chris Erwin:

So I have to ask Matthias, if I'm following your timeline right, you're right out of undergrad call in your early 20s, maybe mid 20s max?

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah.

Chris Erwin:

I assume that in the London office, looking around the different cubicles, you have people that are right out of undergrad analysts, junior level, and you're getting calls from major executives in Turkey that are then flying you out. So it feels like your role is more like that of a partner. Is that what it felt like to you and did that felt natural?

Matthias Metternich:

100%. Totally felt national. It wasn't pretentious on my part. It was just that I also wasn't... In some cases I was noticing these junior staffers or mid-level staffers were vastly more proficient in the one skill they'd been honing for years. So I wasn't going to compete with them. And also I didn't want to compete with them because I wasn't wanting to work within that silo. And I didn't see myself progressing from a junior level person to a mid-level person, to a senior level person within that function. And then maybe get into graduate into the executive suite that never really made sense for me, because I was perfectly proficient by that point to speak relatively fluently with partners about some of the actual business challenges and some of the business logic, and what we should be going after or not going after.

Matthias Metternich:

And so, when you're in that growth mindset of making things and creating things that isn't limited by the bread and butter of what you already do, then you'd just by definition, get to live at a more fluid state. And by the way, it wasn't just me being exceptional or anything like that. Consultants have the same privilege. There are a lot of second or third year analysts out of college who work at McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group who have exactly the same experience. Because that's what they do. They get to parachute into an organization and work with the senior leadership on what the future should look like. So it was unique to me, but I was doing it within a function that wasn't necessarily the big four cost and consulting or McKinsey type places.

Chris Erwin:

I think you assumed this consultant advisory role for around five years after undergrad, before you returned to the US. Is it true that you bounced around to a few different companies? And I'm probably pronouncing this wrong, but Poke MEA and a global partner at Aqua.

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah. AKQA.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. AKQA.

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah. So these are two of the sort of leading digital transformation agencies. And I worked with clients across the gamut of industries. But when I was sort of tired of doing that because we sold the agency to publicists and then AKQA had been sold to WPP, I wanted to go back to building products cause that's what I was doing, advising clients, that's what I was helping them think about. So I wanted to go back to building my own company. So I started an enterprise software company that was backed by a bunch of venture capital funds in London, and spent three years building that. And that was an enterprise software business in the FinTech and marketing automation space.

Chris Erwin:

And what was the name of that company? Was that Believe.in?

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah, that's Believe.in.

Chris Erwin:

I look at what you're doing now at Art of Sport, which is you're disrupting the body and skincare industry. And there's also a major intersection of media around the talent network that you're building out, very different from enterprise software. So was your heart in this product that you had created back then or, hey, you perceived opportunity, you had a unique set of skills. There was a moment in time.? Or was it something that you were generally very passionate and interested in as well?

Matthias Metternich:

I can be very quick to fall in love with opportunities that don't exist in the white space. And so because I think the world of having built different things in the fluid nature of digital businesses and products and servicing all these different clients, and some might have been banks, or insurance companies, or race teams, or Skype, or [inaudible 00:26:37], seeing all these different types of companies, I think you come away with an appreciation for different types of businesses, at least a fidelity of understanding what the rules of the game are within those different verticals.

Matthias Metternich:

So when you see, hey, I can bring this design thinking, or this distribution differentiation, or this ability to scale to something that hasn't been done before, I tend to fall madly in love with those. So I love B2B businesses, I love B2C businesses. But with Art of Sport, it was a very clear white space to go after, creating the first sports brand to define application what you put on your skin every day. And so I took inspiration from Nike, and Nike did that for decades with what you wear. Gatorade did that for decades with what you drink and defined what that should look like. And really built a team that was focused on the athlete and creating real cultural residence, but no one had ever done it in the skincare space.

Matthias Metternich:

And I felt that was a huge opportunity having played sports my whole life, and knowing the category, knowing very well that consumer who chooses a brand tends to stick with that brand for decades. And that to me, was a very powerful opportunity to not just define what the Nike of skincare should look like, but also have that proximity to a consumer who applies this to their skin every day for the rest of their lives.

Chris Erwin:

And before we go deeper into art of sport, actually want to go back to when I think it was the early days when you were actually really interested in the intersection of culture and commerce. You had founded, I think a digitally native brand called COCODUNE back in 2014. What's the story behind that? Because I felt like that kicked off your artist sport journey in a way.

Matthias Metternich:

It did. I mean, it transitioned me back to the United States and I saw an opportunity where I want him to get in on the e-commerce game. And what I liked about e-commerce compared to software was, I liked the idea of a physical asset. And I liked understanding the balance sheet from the perspective of future earnings and lifetime value of consumers to individual one-off orders, where you're selling a product, and you're making it for X and you're selling it for Y, and you have the potential to scale that business off of that model. And so I was very intrigued by the fundamentals of e-commerce. I was very intrigued by what I was seeing in the social media space. And I was interested about every product having its own set of variables that expresses what I call the physics of that opportunity.

Matthias Metternich:

So certain products weigh a certain amount, certain products you can sell for a certain amount, because there's ambiguity about the actual cost of making them. Certain products are hard to shop for in the real world, therefore they're more suited to online. Certain products haven't seen a lot of innovation. So there's a lot of really interesting questions to be asked about a category. And I honed in on what I thought was a very interesting one, which was swimwear for women. And it sounds crazy. And I certainly had a lot of people in my world who thought I was crazy going from all the things I was doing before to bikini's. But there was something really interesting in the fact that, okay, this is a product that weighs almost nothing. It's a product that sold for 350, sometimes, dollars. It costs about between six and $10 to make.

Matthias Metternich:

And paradoxically, the less fabric there is the more expensive these products are. There were all these friction points that I saw, plus all of these variables within swimwear that I thought, "Hey, this might lend itself very well to be commerce, especially if we can predict the integrate, especially if we can create a really seamless experience for the consumer trying this product on at home, free shipping and free returns. Maybe we send them a several sizes so that they can find their size without friction, and they could send back what they don't like, because there's that lower weight." And so therefore the shipping rates aren't going to necessarily be arbitrarily that much higher or lower, depending on if we send them actually more inventory, we can always bill them retroactively. In some cases.

Chris Erwin:

That's like the Warby Parker model in a bit.

Matthias Metternich:

Exactly like the Warby Parker model, except with eyewear you choose one model and you stick with that. You don't really explore things. But with fashion, you might go with the polka dot one, you might want the black top, and you might also want the striped one, and you might want this color, and so on. So there was a lot of opportunity for cross and lateral selling. We also were making silhouettes that were sometimes very fashioned bourbon. And then sometimes we were making them a little bit more sporty. And people who are swimming or going on holiday, in some cases, were buying four or five, six, seven, eight, nine pairs of swimwear, and then those fade, and then you buy them again for the next season.

Matthias Metternich:

And so, there was a very rationalized construct behind why I did this. And one thing that I had learned from that business that was so interesting was, one, people buying things online and what triggers them. But two, we had a, surprisingly, very successful offline business through wholesale. And I remembered we had these two young women who were hosting a pop-up in Nantucket of all places. And they have this tiny little store, and they asked if we could send some product. We sent product, and the next day it was gone, sold out. And then we sold more and it sold out. We sold more, it sold out. And we were doing tens of thousands of dollars for this one, tiny little pop-up in Nantucket.

Matthias Metternich:

And I remember thinking to myself, this is actually putting some burden on our inventories, it's annoying actually. I mean, it's great that we're getting this revenue, but we're trying to build an e-commerce business. And I remember ignoring the wholesale business. And I remember thinking to myself, the offline business is not what I want to be building because I was buying into this mantra that it was all about pixels and not bricks. And have everything centralized in the warehouse, low cost of operations, warehouse vertically integrated and ship it. Have those DTC metrics really prove out because you can scale it into a unicorn.

Matthias Metternich:

And I was never delusional enough to think that I was going to be as big as Warby Parker, but I did remember hearing that Victoria secret had a $500 million swimsuit business, and they were discontinuing swimwear. And I thought to myself, there's a big of an opportunity to get something like this to 100 or 200 million revenue, except I can't get distracted by wholesale. And so I remember as we started to try and rationalize the business and figure this business out, we neglected the wholesale business. We also found that the cost of acquisition was creeping up because social channels are really saturated and becoming more and more saturated. And so we ended up leaving that business where we were selling it for... We sold it for parts. We had different types of attributes and assets that were interesting to a different parties in different ways.

Matthias Metternich:

And that's how we moved off of that business. And it was also an interesting time not to get too lost in the weeds here, but I raised a bunch of capital from fashion and tech investors in London because I had been in London and I was operating out of California. And my capital was partly held up in pounds, in British pounds, Sterling. And when Brexit happened, the pound massively devalued against the dollar. Part of the reason we ended up selling it for parts is because we were in a position where an enormous amount of our runway basically disappeared overnight with the de-valuing of the British pound when Brexit happened.

Chris Erwin:

It's one of those things that you can never anticipate.

Matthias Metternich:

Never anticipate.

Chris Erwin:

It's like you're building a startup. You know you're going to have many headwinds. And this is, as they say, the unknown unknowns.

Matthias Metternich:

I've always said this, everything that could possibly go wrong doesn't help describe enough how many things can go wrong when you're building a startup. And that was one of them where I just was thinking to myself, "This just can't be possible. How are we going to position where the future of the business is dependent on currency exchange?" That's insane.

Chris Erwin:

So I'm curious, because looking back when you were growing up, Matthias, you had bootstrapped companies that were cashflow positive, recurring revenues through these amazing service contracts with the schools that you had structured in your teen years, which is very impressive. Then you go into raising capital from other investors for enterprise software at Believe.in, and then for COCODUNE. And then you have... These aren't material exits for you they're challenges. And so does this start to dissuade you from, "Hey, the next company I built, I'm going to do differently?" What was going through your head?

Matthias Metternich:

That's a great question. Because I think that that's really fundamental to, I think, of a lot of entrepreneurs journey is when they think about the venture capital versus self-funding and profitability. And I had this conversation just last night with someone, where... I mean, look, it depends partially on your risk profile and what you're in the game for. I'm motivated by money. No question. I mean, we all are in some ways. But I'm also motivated to make something of my time and I want to make sure that I'm doing stuff that's exciting to me. And as much as I can. And the idea of spending 15 years building a cashflow positive business slowly, but surely it doesn't necessarily appeal to me.

Matthias Metternich:

I mean, I like the idea, but that's slow going. That's a lot of risk that you're taking on yourself. And this is the really, the big point of discussion me, is if you look back historically... And I like to think of myself as somebody who studies this a little bit and you look back to the 17th century, 16th century around businesses, most of these were family run, small operations that had a really tough time getting loans, really tough time having any liquidity whatsoever, really tough time being able to fund inventory.

Matthias Metternich:

And so we've migrated over hundreds of years to a place where access to capital is not only available in the form of these really great debt instruments, but we're also talking about a new frontier in asset class, which is called venture capital. And venture capital provides capital to entrepreneurs with ideas at stages of their development, where they have no idea how it's going to shake out. And it's right at the beginning. And not only that, the capital's available at prices that are very, very effective and accommodating for entrepreneurs to own. Most of their intellectual property that in into itself is an enormous privilege, that we live in an era where theoretically, you could raise a million dollars or more for 20% of your business. And there you are with 80% of your business and a million dollars, and hopefully a good plan to go and execute this, but you have the whole world ahead of you to go after.

Matthias Metternich:

And depending on the type of business, it might be 5 million, it might be 100 million, it might be a billion dollars. But we are in this very unique period in our world, in our lives, where we get to articulate ideas, we get to get funding for them, and we get to own meaningful stakes in those endeavors. And typically, you get to do that with relatively limited downside of personal risk in the way of liability. And that, to me, fundamentally from just a historical perspective, the time that we live in a generational perspective is one of the greatest, most remarkable things that I'm privileged to experience in this era. And so, to that end, it's a case of all... I mean, excuse my French, and you might have to bleep this out, but why wouldn't I fuck with that? Why wouldn't I go after that? Even if the risks are such that you lose everything at least on paper. You fail the endeavor. Okay, fine. Get up again and try it again.

Chris Erwin:

I'll poke one part of that, because this has come up something that I think about for myself and also from some of my peers is, Matthias, the argument that you just made in terms of the financial opportunity, the risk profile and ownership is very compelling. A potential counterpoint though, is that if you're doing, say, a 15 year cashflow business versus a venture funded business, the pressure from investors, the feeling of a bit of lack of control, and that you have to grind, and this word hustle, which is increasingly going out of fashion, could be very unappealing to entrepreneurs that are like, "Look, I want to work hard, but the classic venture hustle maybe is not and I don't want to burn out early."

Matthias Metternich:

100%.

Chris Erwin:

There's certain operators, maybe like you who have more grit resilience, and are actually better at finding the balance with a venture business.

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah. I think those are valid points. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. And I think you have to ask yourself, who am I, and what do I want? I think that if you're going to take venture capital, then you can't delude yourself to think that you can somehow not play the game. You're entering into a contract that is just like any pro athlete. The expectation is that, "Okay. If I'm going to go sign for the NFL and play for a franchise team, or the NBA, or MLB, then I'm expected to put my life into this thing," because it's an opportunity. That's an enormous privilege. But it also in the case of the startup world, the upside could potentially be enormous.

Matthias Metternich:

And so from that perspective, I think it's a mindset. And I think it's really about asking oneself, "Am I that person," or does that just really sound cool and sound fun? Because you'll very quickly realize that, "Hey, if you're not willing to put that time in and willing to orchestrate or structure your life to prioritize that as the number one, because you've entered into this contract, then maybe you shouldn't play in the professional sports," at least if venture is... We're calling professional sports for this analogy sake. I 100% here you. Look, I think amongst entrepreneurs and most of my friends are entrepreneurs and they're venture backed, and many of them are also self-funded, there's always that discussion.

Matthias Metternich:

And I think some of them that are funding it themselves can really stand there and point to having built something slowly, being able to control their own destiny, being able to pay themselves what they want to pay. And they've gone through that ringer in the wars in ways that venture capital folks or venture funded people might not have gone through. And I think a lot of venture-funded startup entrepreneurs look at people who own their whole businesses and are, let's say cashflowing positively with massive admiration, because they know what tip to get there. But the stresses within venture capital are very different, and turning something from zero value into 100 plus million valuation in three or four years is also extraordinary.

Matthias Metternich:

From my perspective, it's all good. But still it's a privilege and it's an opportunity, and it's a flexibility that the entrepreneur, the operator has never had historically. All of those instruments that are available to us, all come with different conditions, different expectations. And I think one thing that I think entrepreneurs also get wrong is they point often at venture funded businesses and look at those boards. And they say, "By definition, the pressures are going to be crazy. Expectations are going to be out of saying, everyone's going to expect to make a shit load of money really quickly. I don't want to do that." But that is a trope.

Matthias Metternich:

Because I've only had experiences where my board is aligned, where my investors understand the business we're in, they understand the challenges, they understand not exerting too much pressure onto something and doing something that's super inorganic or unhealthy. And so, I think it's on the entrepreneur and on the partners to all find alignment and understand the physics of the game that they're in. And that alignment will create solid expectations and solid foundations for running something that is hot pressure cooker, but it's within reason and it's within rationale.

Chris Erwin:

In a way to sum it up, I think it's important to know thyself. Know who you are and also know the people around you that you're getting into business with. Hey, listeners. This is Chris Erwin, your host of the Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work. And it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview. So look, speaking of sports analogies, I think this is a great transition point to talk about the founding of Art of Sport. After COCODUNE, you ended up founding Art of Sport. How did that come to be?

Matthias Metternich:

Well, it came to be because I was coming out of that pressure cooker, and I was looking for my next one. But I also was looking to roll my experience, building products into something where I would avoid the same pitfalls. I'd be able to do certain things a little bit better. And really, it was just a matter of time before landing on a big idea that I saw real passion for and excitement for. Only this one, Art of Sport, was one that was very, very deep to my heart. I was introduced to Brian Lee, who's my co-founder in Art of Sport. And he's had an incredible career and someone I really look up to. He founded LegalZoom in his 20s. The defacto online legal platform in the country, is just remarkable.

Chris Erwin:

The trademark for RockWater I think was done through LegalZoom.

Matthias Metternich:

Very good. And then he went on to found on his company with Jessica Alba, which was the first player probably since Pampers to go into the children's baby early family stage arena with products that were better for you, made more natural, under the banner of trying to create a safe, happy world for children and young families. And it was a very exciting trajectory that he, took going from a D to C to an omni-channel brand. And I think north of a billion valuation. And so Brian and I have over the years, shared a number of venture capital investors who've invested in our businesses respectively. And there was a lot of good connective tissue there that facilitated our meeting and facilitated, our both as entrepreneurs, just rolling our sleeves up and starting to share notes on what we've learned in the past and what we want to do in the future.

Matthias Metternich:

And we landed on the very early innings of a rough idea around Artist of Sport when Brian visited Target and saw a bunch of copper tones sport sunscreens on the end of the aisle, and just, I think, probably being in the Headspace of having looked at brands and looked at formulas and wondering what makes a good formula [inaudible 00:44:54]. I think he asked himself, "Well, why is this sport formula? What makes it sport?" When he shared that idea with me, we walked the aisles together. We looked at the sunscreen aisle, and then we walked over to the deodorant aisle, and then we walked into the body wash aisle, and then we walked into all the other aisles of application and products and formulas. And we saw sport being used by a number of these legacy brands. And we asked ourselves, well, do we think of Coppertone or [inaudible 00:45:21] when we think of a sports brand?

Matthias Metternich:

Do we think of a sports brand when you see Axe sport blast or Old Spice, [inaudible 00:45:30], probably not. You really think of the Nike's, the Addidases, the Gatorades, the Powerades, brands that were born on the field with the athlete, and developed by athletes and made for athletes, and that's your north star. And everyone in the organization is serving that one unique mission. And we thought to ourselves, no one has touched the application. Nike, and Adidas, and Puma, and Under Armour, and you name it, they've touched what we wear, [inaudible 00:45:57]. We've got the Gatorades of this world and the Powerades, and the body armors, and the Vegas, and the RX Stars and whatever it is, and power bars that touch nutrition, and you put in your body. How is it possible that no one's touched what you put on your skin?

Matthias Metternich:

And we intuitively knew that that was a huge market. And we intuitively also knew that application spans a lot of different types of categories and a lot of different types of products, and then there's a lot of really interesting connective tissue into that athletic world through sunscreen. But there's also interesting applications in pain and recovery, showering when you've been taking multiple showers in a week or a day, even because you work out so much and dry skin. The way you smell, the way you feel in your skin, feeling confident, feeling fresh, feeling ready to go challenge the day. We knew in our bones that there was something very big here if it could be executed correctly, and that was the Genesis of Arts of Sports family.

Chris Erwin:

And it's interesting to hear you describe the story. So personally as a surfer, I look at different types of skincare and sunscreen. I would go down to the aisle like the CVS, and I would look at, okay, Neutrogena skincare and the Neutrogena sport, and then other brands are regular and then sport. And then I would look at the ingredients on the back and then be like, wait a minute, literally the exact same ingredients, it's just branded differently. And I've found that very frustrating and also very confusing. What am I missing here? And then I think about, I use right guard deodorants. The one that I ended up using is Right Guard Surf. Now, is there anything related to surf? Not at all. It's just the branding that I like, but it does resonate with me.

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah. Well, I remember when we were exploring the idea, we happened, I think quite serendipitously, to meet the guy who at Gillette, was the guy who created Gillette sport. And he was describing that he had no budget for any innovation. And there was nothing that was new about the product. It was the same product. And he had to figure out a path to creating something meaningful. So he slapped sport on the label. And I think it three X the business, and he was chuckling at that. And I was, on the one hand amused by it, and the other one, I was completely agas, that this is a proxy for that entire arena where sports been used as a marketing device, less as an actual purpose, and mission, and focus, and design with intention, and the same way that these other sports brands that we love have devoted all their resources to doing this.

Matthias Metternich:

And so, when we started the business, we knew we needed to be as authentic to the process and deliberate the process as Adi Dassler, who was literally cobbling shoes together for Jesse Owens at the Olympics, and Phil Knight at the University of Oregon, with people on the track and field. And we knew we needed to have deep proximity to the athletic community and have them deeply involved in our business. And I remember Brian and I thinking, well, who represents the kind of tenacity, and focus, and mental, and physical commitment to being the best version of yourself possible in the sports space, that has done so successfully that they've transcended their sports? And it really took us almost no time to say, "Well, that's Kobe Bryant."

Matthias Metternich:

And we asked ourselves, well, what would that look like if we got him involved? Do we think we could get him involved? And our paths took us to his door and we presented what we had, which was very rough at the time.

Chris Erwin:

How did you actually get to Kobe, did you go through his management or an agency?

Matthias Metternich:

Brian, had some, I think distant connective tissue there. They'd come across each other, of course, over the years. Brian's been an entrepreneur in LA for 25 plus years. So, he's made a name for himself. He has a great reputation. He's got the Midas touch. And so doors open whenever Brian wants to talk to folks. But we also had really one of Brian's old friends and somebody who was deeply involved with LegalZoom as well later in the business, was a guy named Jeff Stibel. And Jeff Stibel founded the Bryant Stibel fund when Kobe retired. And it was essentially one of his investment arms. And so we went to Jeff and we spoke to Jeff about the opportunity, and Jeff facilitated a conversation. And we went down to Newport and that's how we ended up sharing the idea with Kobe.

Chris Erwin:

What was his reaction in the room? Did he immediately get it, or did it take a few sessions to explain how big this could be?

Matthias Metternich:

I mean, he just had this incredible beaming, natural charisma, incredibly handsome, charismatic, sharp, fun person, and walked into the meeting room and instantly commands the space he's in, and sat down. And I had a bunch of samples from my factories that I'd been working with for several months on early iterations, new fragrances, and oils, information about the ingredients and why things were being constructed. We'd been working with some scientists that were some of the leading skincare scientists in the world to really cement the innovation and cement the formula standards around athletes. We have tested some of these with young athletes. So we had a body of work. It was really not a sketch on a napkin, hoping that he'd see the vision. We showed him the vision and we showed him our focus on how we would execute it.

Matthias Metternich:

And he sat there very quietly. You could tell he was very absorbed in the information. Instantly grabbed all the samples and played with them, and smelled them, and looked at them from all different angles. And then the first thing he said was, "How does this not exist yet?" That was a relief.

Chris Erwin:

It's exactly what you'd want to hear.

Matthias Metternich:

That's exactly what you want. That's exactly what you want. But it was almost like this is too obvious. Am I missing something here? This is so obvious that maybe it's not even an idea. Or is it such a big idea that it's... It's so obvious that it's such a big idea. And fortunately for us, I think he had gone through the experience of building Body Armor. And Body Armor massively successful competitor in the drinks space, going after Gatorade, $6 billion business.

Matthias Metternich:

And he always had lots of proximity to that in the early stages, was an investor in the business. And they had, I think, just sold part of it for a billion plus to Coca-Cola. I mean, the timing was quite fortuitous, in that, you have to remember Kobe helped build the Nike brand, so what you wear, for 20 plus years. He was involved with them in China and everywhere else. Then he was involved in a beverage player and what you put in your body. And so it was only natural for him to see that sequence, and say, "Hey, I think I have a role to play in defining what applications look like."

Chris Erwin:

Did he challenged you in any areas where he said, "Hey, this about the product design, the packaging, the ingredients, the perfume," anything like that, where he had a pretty strong differing opinion from the start?

Matthias Metternich:

Immediately. So one of the areas that is always an interesting talking point is how do you design a sports brand that doesn't just appeal to gym rats and hardcore athletes? How do you build one that transcends time? How do you build one that connects with all walks of life? How do you build a culturally resonant brand in the same way that Nike has done it, or Adidas has done it, because these are brands that people are wearing. Nine times out of 10 they're not going for a run. Nine times out of 10, they're wearing it because they connect with the lifestyle. They like the brand, they like the vibe, they like the aesthetics, and they feel it represents them and their values. And it's cool. And so you have to have a very careful balance between those two things. And one of the areas that he was very adamant on and wanting to speak about in detail was, how do you stay resolutely focused on performance?

Matthias Metternich:

How do you stay resolutely committed to the athlete, and how do you not get too caught up in trends? And how do you not get too caught up with what Adidas is doing with all of its fashion labs, the stuff that takes it out of the lane of sport, versus Nike that remains deeply wedded to sport constantly and stays focused on that and still manages to create a cultural halo around it? So we were operating, I think, at quite a high level when it came to just general strategy and brands. That was an area he had a lot of passion for. And then he wanted to go away with the products and use those products a lot and pass them around to his network of athletes so that he could gather his own data rather than just assume that our data was accurate.

Chris Erwin:

And it feels like everything that we read about and that we talk about with our clients is, when you look at the chance to partner up with talent, that could have not only just incredible insights into unique product or unique audience, but the exposure, the audience that they can bring, their brand awareness. But if you solely rely on the latter of that relationship, you're not getting the full force of everything they could bring to that company, that startup, that idea, that vision. And so it seems that you approach this with Kobe from the start thinking in a much broader way. Does this conversation happen... Because I think the company was founded around 2018 when you first had your seed. When was the Kobe conversation?

Matthias Metternich:

The conversation with Kobe was in 2018, and we launched the business in 2019.

Chris Erwin:

Fast forwarding a bit here, but him being a key integral thought partner to the business and an ambassador, and then the unfortunate circumstances and Kobe's passing in early 2020, how did you manage around that? What was the direct impact of the business?

Matthias Metternich:

Obviously an enormous loss. And I think we were just shellshocked for months, and just trying to process the information was hard enough. We didn't rush to just define the business, and define the impact on the business, and define what it would do to our bottom line, and these sorts of things. I think we were pretty deliberate. Not even deliberate knowingly, but just really prioritizing the loss of a partner and a friend, and someone we respected deeply. So that's where our hearts were for a long time. And then when we started to come up for air, what we saw were athletes rushing to us. We saw the community come to us. We didn't see people running away. And we saw people wanting to support us more, then we saw that the permanence, let's say of his legacy, was even deeper in a way that is unfortunate when you see brilliant people, brilliant minds, brilliant artists, brilliant athletes pass away in their prime, they pass away too prematurely.

Matthias Metternich:

And so, the outpouring of love and support that we saw was enormous. We were a couple of weeks away from launching the biggest partnership of its kind with Target nationally in the skincare space. It was a huge, huge partnership. We'd spent over a year, quietly and carefully crafting. And Kobe and I were going to do a media tour to promote the brands. And, of course, the first folks that we ended up calling to let them know what had transpired and what we were going to be doing, and how things were going to continue to work was with Target. And Target were very supportive.

Matthias Metternich:

They were very keen to make sure that we didn't actually heavily promote the brand when we launched, because we were all cautious of not wanting to be commercializing the passing of one of our founders, which was a pro and a con, because we were doing the right thing and we all felt very good about it. But it was also launching a new brand at that scale nationally and not being able to talk about it was a scary idea, because that's the moment you really want to be talking about it.

Matthias Metternich:

And then we rolled from that into peak lockdown with COVID, which was also incredibly challenging for everyone. And so, a really tough time to launch a consumer brand offline, especially for us. That was one of the sort of unfortunate sequences of events that had the potential to put a really dark cloud over the organization, a really dark cloud over the team. But we came together as a team and just like in sports, you have to overcome some pretty devastating losses. And I think we really banded together to try and continue on with our mission, and things were looking very bright now. That was a testing time for everyone.

Chris Erwin:

So it raises the question in that moment where you had this outpouring of love and support for the passing of one of your co-founders. Did that also cause you to think about the business and say, "Wow, look at all these different relationships, personalities, potential partners that we can maybe think differently about how we're building off of this magnetism and this energy that Kobe had created around his whole life. And there's a way to actually take that energy and propel it forward in thinking about your talent network differently?"

Matthias Metternich:

Yeah. I think what we did was, when we started the business, we started with Kobe and we had seven other athletes. So we had a round table of athletes that we felt represented a cross section of America. We did that very purposely and intentionally because we believe sport is one of the great equalizers in this world. It's one of the great ways for everyone to access it and participate. It's inclusive by design and it's diverse by design. And so, there's something really special in that. So when we brought seven of the athletes around the table, we chose people from different sports, different ages, different ethnicities, different genders. And we gave them all platforms to participate in communicating what our brand represents, and why their followers should care. So my point is this, we were always believing that the brand and the story was never going to be told by one athlete alone.

Matthias Metternich:

It was going to be told by, and was going to incorporate lots of different perspectives. So our storytelling was as it was before. And to an extent, because we looked at Kobe as our business partner, only as our business partner, rather than an endorser of our deodorant sticks, we captured the mantras, we captured the guidance that he's given us over the years, we captured that north star, we codify that mission and that purpose even more. We've retained, I think, the spirit of why we started this and why we're doing things. So that became a stronger, more concentrated focus in the business and storyline. And we continued to believe that the story should be told by athletes of all different walks of life and stages of career.

Matthias Metternich:

And so I wouldn't say there was a big transition in how we approached our storytelling or our media, but I will say that the legacy of Kobe is an important one for us to keep alive. We will find ways to continue to do that tastefully and respectfully in a way that continues to champion the fact that he did have his finger on this business. He helped design this business and he helped carry this business from its infancy into being sort of 15,000 plus retail locations. So that's an important thing for me personally, but also for the organization at large.

Chris Erwin:

And speaking of your talent network, I have to give you kudos, because I think you're reaching into both traditional and alternative sports, including Ryan Sheckler from skateboarding and Sage Erickson of surfing. So these are two sports that I grew up with that are near and dear to my heart. But I wonder with your talent relationships, what are their obligations to the brand? And as you think about building story around them, what is the media strategy that is included there?

Matthias Metternich:

Great question. I think that's always shifting. It's always changing, because, one, there's always a cultural calendar. One sport is more active than another and has these moments of glory, and others are maybe dormant until the next season. So there's a constant evolving cultural calendar. These athletes individually are doing all different things, both in and outside of their sport. So we try to understand the diverse nature of their minds and the diverse nature of their interests and try to play into those. I'll give you some examples. Juju, for instance, has an incredible following on YouTube that he's honed by playing Fortnight. And he does that with other social influencers, and with Drake, and with Travis Scott. And so he has this identity that has made him larger than life early in his career to the point where he's one of the most recognizable football players in the league, even though he's only in his second year. That requires its own consideration when it comes to architecting a media program around him that takes advantage of him and incorporates them in a way that he's passionate about already.

Matthias Metternich:

With Ken Roczen, for instance, Ken produces a ton of amazing content of himself out in the track and training. He also went through a profound recovery, where he almost lost his arm and back, and the sport. He's competing for a title as we speak. And he was involved in the pain cream, he was involved in helping influence that product, and recovery for him was a very big theme. And also the nature of his sport is one where they had just moved from outdoor mud tracks and whatnot to stadium races that were bringing 80,000 plus people into a single location where they could go to concession stands and get a drink, and then sit down, and watch this crazy sport unfold inside the stadium, which has led to enormous growth within that particular sport.

Matthias Metternich:

And it actually is drawing a very young consumer, 14, 15, which happens to be right squarely in the bullseye of some of the communication that we're doing as these young men and women are choosing products that they care about that they'll stick with for years, hopefully. So that requires its own media strategy. And what we've learned is that because that sport is less dominant when it comes to global and national sponsors compared to say the NBA, there are lots of pockets of media opportunity within that sport that we can afford. Whereas we can't necessarily afford all the things that the largest brands in the world are buying when it comes to basketball and football.

Matthias Metternich:

So how that particular sport and community gets activated is also partially informed by the cost of playing in that sport. And so we've seen all of these really interesting arbitragable unique contexts, and we try to sculpt programs, both around the individuals who are ambassadors within those sports and what is important to them, and how to really leverage that and get them excited. But then also play it into the unusual and interesting dynamics each of those sports, whether it's big, popular sports, or the more endemics action sports.

Chris Erwin:

Matthias, while we're nearing the end of our time here, right before we get into the rapid fire questions. As we talk about unique personality and talent in sport, I think there's also a member of your family, that was an inspiration for you, who is also an Olympic athlete. Tell us about him.

Matthias Metternich:

Yes. That's very nice of you to bring up, and you're right. He deserves his fair shine. My brother, Alex. He was born mentally handicapped, unfortunately. And he did not, I think at birth, get oxygen fast enough. And so I grew up with a brother who needed to find his place and come into his own in a world that was more challenging, I think, than it is now for someone with mental handicaps. And one area that he found a lot of passion from and fulfillment from was participating in the special Olympics, which he did throughout his life, in both swimming and track and field. I recall just the sheer number of the metals and trophies he'd bring home. Of course, I didn't have any of those. So I probably didn't recognize the effort and enormous commitment it took because I was probably jealous and in my juvenile state.

Matthias Metternich:

But I think he exposed me to, not just the world of sport, but the world that sport can mean to people of all walks of life, and in particular, that handicapped community that doesn't necessarily always get to stand center stage and be part of the national dialogue. I think in some respects, that's probably why sport to me is such an important vehicle for the messages we want to see in a modern society around equality and inclusivity and diversity, and especially in a time in an era that is so fractured. And hopefully, we're coming out of that a little bit. But that is so deserving of social context and social realities for so many different people. I think sport allows me to exercise that language in a way that is inspiring and fun for people who engage with our brands. So yes, thank you for mentioning the Olympian within the Medtronic household. I don't think he'd referred to himself as that, but it's high time that we start doing that.

Chris Erwin:

I like how you ended the note, in thinking about how sports can create a great platform and channel and a way to amplify voices of different sports personalities that, like your brother, maybe didn't get their share previously. All right. So closing note on Art of Sport. I think about lots of rumors about different digitally native vertical brands. I think of a way I think of Allbirds. I think of Warby Parker and even Anesco, that are thinking about IPO-ing this year, as the IPO markets have really exploded. And thinking about the future of Art of Sport, where are you headed?

Matthias Metternich:

We continue year on year to be the fastest growing skincare brand in the country. We've only recently, as of last year, started going offline. We started as a digitally native brand. We launched, as I mentioned, the largest partnership of its kind with Target, which was a huge launch for us, huge learning curve. As of two months ago, we launched into a further, call it 14,000 locations around the country. And our vision was always to be available to athletes wherever they are, wherever they play, and wherever they perform, and wherever they live, we want to be the brands that they can rely on, and find, and shop, and use. And so it's always been part of our channel strategy to be on the channel.

Matthias Metternich:

Brands that we're seeing considering going public. Some of them are pure digital players. Some of them are pure digital players that have some retail exposure through owned retail ecosystems, i.e., their own popups or their own stores away, and Allbirds are examples of those. And then some are brands that are digitally first, but have also leveraged large scale, big box retailers like Target, which is your honest company example. So they're not all the same. And I think what that tells us is that every product has its own physics. It has its own potential. And each of these companies has to maximize the opportunity that best plays to the physics and the laws of the categories that they're in. And these businesses have found channels where they can show consistent growth, they can show ongoing product proliferation. They've created great retail moments, whether those are owned retail experiences or through third parties.

Matthias Metternich:

And they're feeling very bullish about the future and going public. On a personal note I think it's always inspiring to see that. I applauded them for going that route. I think that there are a lot of... And probably this will exhaust our time, but there's a lot of subtext behind a lot of these decisions that can paint a more complicated picture of what's going on. And I think it would be remiss of me to not just mention the fact, of course, that markets are hot, interest rates are low, investor interest is high. People are flush with cash after a year of being at home. And so, these are also moves that are opportunistic, and they should be. I mean, that's business, Moving into lanes and moments in time that are the best opportunities or moments in time to make those adjustments to your organization.

Matthias Metternich:

So, I think there's a lot there that's interesting from a timing perspective. It's very educational. I don't know how those will shake out for those organizations. But it is certainly one of the great liquidity events and liquidity moments for the operators involved. I think there's been a lot more pressure on profitability. We've seen a lot of DTC brands go bust over the last two years. And so, the emphasis for many of these organizations I think has been to get to more sensible businesses. So hopefully, when they do go public, the economics will follow and it won't be a black mark against other digitally native brands. But from my perspective for Art of Sport, we have a huge trajectory ahead. We're just getting started. Three years ago we didn't exist. And now we're in 15,000 plus stores.

Matthias Metternich:

I see that growing, I see our product family growing, I see our relationship with athletes growing. And we've constructed a global brand with Art of Sport. Because sport is a global story. So we could, and we've seen a lot of gravitational pull to Europe. We've seen a lot of Asia ask us for our products, and the sky's the limit. So my goal personally is to continue to be aware of what constitutes building a smart business, what constitutes smart opportunities given the times we live in. And to the points that we talked about earlier, make sure that I'm aligned with my board, and setting clear expectations that are not introducing severely inorganic or unrealizable business objectives. And if I can do those things well, then we can continue to grow at an aggressive clip and pursue these opportunities without embedding the firm and pursuing an all or nothing strategy. So that's a long answer to your question, but there's a lot to it. So it's worth unpacking. Because I think about it all the time.

Chris Erwin:

Well, it's okay. The next section is very, very short answer. So we will offset it. Before diving into that, a closing note, I always reflect on these conversations. And I think about what I've heard from our guests. And what I've heard from you, Matthias, is two things stand out. One, it is clear that... I believe you are a polymath. That you have an understanding about a wide variety of topics, particularly as it relates to business, but also beyond. And I think that gives you skills and ability, as well as also a network to build great companies and achieve many great things. But I think something that I've also heard that's in between all of that, and I don't know what the right term is for this, but that you have incredible passion for a lot of different areas.

Chris Erwin:

As you, I think said earlier, it's not necessarily about just financial profit and motivation, but that you are generally intrigued and interested in challenges to the customer white space in business markets, and wanting to build something special to solve problems for your different constituents. And I think that that really sets you up as a very genuine and sincere entrepreneur, that then allows you to rally incredible people around you, like Ryan Lee and Kobe Bryant, some of the biggest names that anyone would ever want to have around their founding team in starting a new business. So big kudos on that front.

Matthias Metternich:

Wow! That's incredibly generous. That's incredibly generous of you. Thank you very much. I mean, that's very touching. I'd like to think that those are principles I live by. And my goal is to be a student for life and to do things that transcend just the short term gains. And we're all on this planet for a relatively short amount of time. And if we don't think about those things, then I think things will go sideways for us and we might not be on this planet for as long a time as we otherwise could be. But I know who I'll reach out to when I need an author for my obituary. I'm looking forward to having you commit to that soon, but thank you very much. That's very kind of you.

Chris Erwin:

Very welcome. All right. So moving into the rapid fire. Six final questions. And the rules are as follows, very short answer. It could be one sentence or maybe just one to two words. Do you understand the rules?

Matthias Metternich:

Yes.

Chris Erwin:

Great. First one, proudest life moment?

Matthias Metternich:

I have to get back to you on that. Nothing stands out.

Chris Erwin:

We'll circle back.

Matthias Metternich:

Okay.

Chris Erwin:

Second question. What do you want to do less of in 2020?

Matthias Metternich:

I want to do less worrying.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. And what do you want to do more of?

Matthias Metternich:

I want to do more creating.

Chris Erwin:

What one to two things drive your success?

Matthias Metternich:

Perseverance and self-loathing.

Chris Erwin:

That's a new one. I haven't heard that before. Next, advice for direct to consumer exact going into the second half of this year.

Matthias Metternich:

Keep an eye on your budgets.

Chris Erwin:

I actually want to go back to self-loathing. I need to have you expand on that a little bit. What do you mean?

Matthias Metternich:

I'd like to think I'm a critical examiner of things. But by default, that means you also critically examine yourself. And so, I think I like to think of myself as an empath as well. Somebody who cares deeply and processes things around me. But that also translates to critically examining my deficiencies when things aren't going brilliantly. I put a lot of pressure on myself to try and get better, and haven't yet gotten great at being myself in the process.

Chris Erwin:

Well, I like the spirit of kindness. Because what I just heard is extreme self-awareness, which is a very positive thing. A little bit of a better spin than self-loathing.

Matthias Metternich:

Okay. I'll adapt to that.

Chris Erwin:

But it makes for a good podcast interview. All right. Last few here. Any future startup ambitions?

Matthias Metternich:

Yes.

Chris Erwin:

Let's go back to proudest life moment.

Matthias Metternich:

It's an odd one. I remember hiking a 500 mile trail through the outs and blowing out my knee in the process, about two thirds of the way through. And getting to Paris, looking homeless. And buying a little cheap razor that I shaved off my beard off of in the train station toilet, and then taking the train south to see my parents. And I was sitting and I anted up and bought a $50 ticket to sit in first class. And I think I remember just seeing a reflection of myself in the window with a clean shaven face and a fresh set of clothes, and having just gone through the nightmare of that track. And thinking, "Hey, it's crazy, just a few hours ago, I was on the top of this mountain, and now here I am doing something completely different and feeling like a million bucks." And I think it was just an affirmation of how much one can do in one's life and how much I was trying to do with my time.

Chris Erwin:

I love that story. I think you've just seated our second podcast. We'll have to spend most of the time talking about that. As a fellow outdoorsman, I've gone into back country. I've been snowboarding for about 30 years, but got into back country split boarding over the last couple.

Matthias Metternich:

Wow!

Chris Erwin:

And surmounting mountains with your own energy, and force, and mental fortitude, and then figuring out how to come down. Traveling the world, surfing new brakes, which can be really scary. Those are incredible life moments [crosstalk 01:16:54].

Matthias Metternich:

It's incredible moments. Actually, if it's of any interest to you, I started to look Indonesia a little bit more. [inaudible 01:17:02] understood philosopher, but he deliberately moved himself into essentially isolation in this beautiful mountain town in Switzerland. And by being surrounded by these mountains and going out into nature and summiting these things, came to the conclusion that happiness really was only accomplishable if you set yourself these obstacles, and that really resonated with me when I heard his views on how to achieve happiness.

Chris Erwin:

Happiness through obstacles. I dig it. All right. Last easy question. Matthias, how can people get in contact with you?

Matthias Metternich:

The fastest way to get in contact with me is buying a deodorant stick and then contacting customer service with some constructive feedback. And I'll probably be the first person there to take your feedback so we can get better for you.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. All right. Well, Matthias, this was a delight. Thanks for being on our show.

Matthias Metternich:

Thank you for the time. Brilliant questions.

Chris Erwin:

Man, hearing that story about his outdoor journey and then coming back on the train and shaving in the train station, I love that stuff. I might have to think about doing a separate podcast about outdoor adventures, but I digress. Anyway, we love to hear from our listeners. We're always looking for ideas for different guests. Actually, I interviewed Matthias based on an inbound from one of his marketing executives to our email. So if you have any ideas for guests, you can reach us at [email protected]. Always looking for feedback for how we can do better and give you guys more ear delight. All right, that's it. Thanks for listening.

Chris Erwin:

The come up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin. And is a production of RockWater industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple podcasts. And remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward the Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter, and you can follow us on Twitter at @TCUpod. 

The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck, music is by Devon Bryant, logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Kevin Jones is the founder and CEO of Blue Wire. We discuss getting fired over a 49ers Tweet, when it makes sense to be a bad Facebook employee, why 500 Startups first turned him down, his groundbreaking new WynnBet partnership, and why Kevin wants to be the Ted Turner of this generation.

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up. A podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Kevin Jones:

What once was a prestigious job at a radio station is now not. They don't develop young talent and it really came to a head for me in San Francisco. They have not developed young personalities the last 10 to 15 years, everyone there who has a show is in their 50s or above. A year in, I realized there's no chance of ever getting a show here. The culture is so backwards.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Kevin Jones, the founder and CEO of Blue Wire. Kevin grew up in Virginia, about 30 minutes outside D.C. in a family that lived and breathed sports. From a very early age, Kevin was known for having a very distinct point of view about the teams that he followed and cared about and became a regular caller into radio stations at just 15 years old. Naturally after undergrad, Kevin goes into sports media and builds a large Twitter and podcast following. But Kevin kept butting heads with ownership, as he felt that young talent who are defining the future of sports media coverage are not listened to nor supported. He decided to do something about it and launch Blue Wire. One of the most exciting modern sports media companies up today.

Kevin has an insane amount of stories. A few we'll get into include getting fired over a tweet about the 49ers. When it makes sense to be a bad Facebook employee, why 500 Startups first turned him down, his groundbreaking new WynnBet partnership, and why Kevin wants to be the Ted Turner of this generation. 

All right, let's get into it. Kevin, tell me where you grew up.

Kevin Jones:

Chris, I grew up in Chantilly, Virginia, about 30 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. and then 10 minutes from Dallas airport. I was lucky to grow up in a diverse area, Northern Virginia, heavily populated with just diversity. Honestly, I went to college in North Carolina, at East Carolina, where it was really all white people and black people. And now looking back, growing up in Northern Virginia, it was a really eclectic place to grow up, close to the government, lots of just different types of people. So super fortunate to grow up in Chantilly. Chantilly Charger, that's that's my high school. So shout out to the Chargers.

Chris Erwin:

How many people were in your town? Was it a few thousand or bigger than that?

Kevin Jones:

40,000. It's a nice little suburb for sure. My high school had 3,500 kids graduating class of like, 800, 900 kids. It's a healthy suburb, Fairfax County, huge school district in Northern Virginia. It's a nice place to grow up for sure.

Chris Erwin:

Is that considered part of Appalachia?

Kevin Jones:

No. We're basically D.C. It's the suburbs of D.C.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. What was your household like in terms of where you grew up?

Kevin Jones:

I would say sports was very center to my life. My parents would put the Washington Post sports section in front of my breakfast every morning, where I read Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, before they became TV hosts. Watching what was then the Redskins and the Wizards and the Baltimore Orioles before the Nationals arrived. Caps was never a big thing till Ovechkin came, but they were always around. And then there was D.C. United winning.

Chris Erwin:

You said Caps. You have to excuse my limited sports knowledge, who are the Caps?

Kevin Jones:

Washington Capitals. We name our teams, Caps, Wizz, Nets. We keep it short. I think that's because like CIA, DEA. I think we're used to just abbreviating everything, being close to the government. All the parents jobs are like, not mine specifically, but friends growing up were in the government. I was a news junkie as a little kid in a bizarre way. My parents, our daycare provider, I had a separate room upstairs. I would bring video tapes of the Masters. I would rewash games of the Redskin season, NFL films. I did their yearly yearbook. The sports obsession was really real as a young kid. I loved information. I loved new information, having information, sharing information with adults about sports. And so I always knew I would end up in sports.

Kevin Jones:

It always felt I was operating at a high level, consuming that information, sharing that information, whether it was newspapers with friends, et cetera.

Chris Erwin:

You said your parents were also really into sports. Did you guys watch a lot of games together?

Kevin Jones:

Yeah. I would say for sure. Redskins was number one in my house. My dad grew up in a nearby town, went to the Superbowl, the first one the Redskins one in 83 in Pasadena, flew himself out there as a young man. The Redskins won three super bowls in the 80, and that culture was really instilled in kids my age. Redskins fandom, even though it's really tailed off, the organization's poorly run by Dan Snyder now. That was the highlight from September to January, every Sunday, making feast and watching the game, analyzing the game, thinking about the game afterwards. I felt like I was recording a podcast with my dad and my friends all the time, looking back on it. But I think baseball was huge for me. Cal Ripken was a big figure and then I played basketball. It was probably my best sport. So always had the Wizards on too.

Chris Erwin:

It seems that was the next logical question, is like, did you participate in these sports as well? Or did you more enjoy observing the commentary, the stories around it?

Kevin Jones:

Wasn't the most athletic, was definitely one of the most passionate. Anyone listening, I compare myself on the basketball court to maybe a Joakim Noah, clapping a lot, I'm talking a lot of crap. Definitely not the most athletic, getting a lot of rebounds, definitely tall. I was shy, I didn't try out for the team. I didn't want to get cut. I played in the youth league. We had a really competitive youth league. My team won the championship. I won the MVP. I regret looking back now as a 30 year old, should have probably tried out for the high school team. I was the captain of the stands, we treated our stands like it was Duke, we have the fingers in front. We were trying to be the Cameron crazies. We called ourselves the Purple Platoon. Our high school had the colors purple.

Kevin Jones:

I really actually leaned into that. I became the student government association president, really got the buy in from the community and it was a tough place to play, Chantilly for basketball and really wanted to own that. I play softball and I'm still competitive, but now getting that competitive outlet through my business, Blue Wire.

Chris Erwin:

I like how you said captain of the stands. I haven't heard that before. And then that's a logical segue, grassroots, man of the people going into student government president. I see it.

Kevin Jones:

100%, One by one, getting people to buy in. This is how serious I took it in high school. I would stand in the middle of the stands, not the front where all the seniors would be in the front. I would make sure the sophomores and freshmen were cheering as loud as they could. I always took this onus of being the group's leader for sure.

Chris Erwin:

You're like a hype man, right? Before a comic comes out on stage. Every CEO is a hype man for the company and team and mission.

Kevin Jones:

100%. I compare Blue Wire to, it's 1995 and I'm a rapper in New York on the streets handing out CDs. I'm definitely that hype man.

Chris Erwin:

That's awesome. You had also mentioned that in your teenage years, I think your radio personality started to come out. You were calling into radio stations to talk about sports. Right?

Kevin Jones:

Definitely. The sports junkies gave me a little bit of a platform as I was just starting to get my feet, high school summers home from college. I was writing some articles, at the time RG3 was getting big. They would let me call in even for 10 minutes at a time here, instead of just the typical, all right, let's go to Kevin and Chantilly. It was like, all right, coming up next, we've got Kevin Jones, up and coming blogger, D.C. young guy, follow this guy. Some of it was late at night. I think that's when I realized, wait a second, people are listening to what I have to say. I'm saying some different things. Then I started naturally gravitating. Okay. How can I start building my own voice within media? I think this is possible.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. So you were becoming a known personality. You were not just a one-time caller.

Kevin Jones:

I would say I turned that into a job at my first role at WUSA9, they had heard of me. I had a few thousand Twitter followers, mingling with the radio host on Twitter. This was 2010. Twitter was very nascent and young, but it was gravitating towards that platform. Wait a second, the radio show doesn't end. I can actually message the host right now, directly, we're texting. And so that kind of phenomenon, I really leaned into Twitter and WUSA9, who was a CBS connect affiliate at the time in D.C. I became the high school sports producer there. They were like, all right, we see you, Kevin, you're making noise. Here's a way in the door. We need you Friday and Saturday nights to work at the station. These high school coaches are going to be calling in or texting, here's the scores. Here are some of the stats. People are going to be feeding random video clips in, you got to help us put this together.

Kevin Jones:

That was my first getting thrown into the fire. I knew I wanted to be talking to the Redskins. I knew I wanted to be talking about other things, but I got my foot in the door and I started working fall 2011, high school nights. Then I started coming in Sundays as well. Hey, can I watch the Redskins games here? Would you guys mind? Do you guys mind if I write an article about the Redskins? That was a part time role that eventually turned into a full time role. They were like, Kevin's making too much noise, we have to add him to the team.

Chris Erwin:

And as you got more involved in the actual, the business side of it, where you're being hired by radio stations and networks, was that increasingly exciting to you? Or were you seeing a dark side, where like, wait a minute, this is not what I expected?

Kevin Jones:

No, it was not what I expected. My journey is about this realization that being the sports guy is going away of going to Syracuse, moving out to Wyoming and getting all these reps, that's going away. Now, you build your own audience on Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube, and then you can present it to brands yourself. What has happened, Chris, is pretty obvious. The world used to be a bunch of newspapers, 20 or so radio stations in town and a hundred cable channels. Now the world is 33 million YouTube channels, a million podcasts. Choice is now available. And what once was a prestigious job at a radio station is now not. What I ran into Chris, is they don't develop young talent. It really came to a head for me in San Francisco, my last stop in traditional media. KNBR is a legendary station at San Francisco. 680 AM, they've been around since the 60s.

Kevin Jones:

They were one of the first ones to really lean into sports radio as a genre. They developed great personalities, but they have not developed young personalities the last 10 to 15 years. Everyone there who has a show is in their 50s or above. I got in the door there to revamp their website and call into these shows as I had in the past, with the goal of one day, getting my own show. A year in, I realized there's no chance of ever getting a show here. The culture is so backwards. They're valuing people's voices and ratings that they deliver on radio and don't care about social media profiles. Don't care about none of that. The way radio is thinking about the future was not the 33 million YouTube channel, 1 million podcast model. It was, more big bad KNBR people are going to listen him no matter what.

Kevin Jones:

Tom Tolbert has been in town for 20 years, everyone listens. And so I realized, wait a second, Radio is about to hit an iceberg. They have no talent here, and people are going to literally leave the platform, leave the dial. The technology is all changing. There's a lack of innovation in radio, because everyone's a fat cat. Hey, it's not broken. We're all making a lot of money, but it's clearly not the future. And so that was my big aha moment. I'm never getting a radio show in San Francisco. This is my dream job. I'm in this big market way cross from D.C. I've made it technically. And then I was like, wait a second. I have not made it at all. I want to have a radio show, grow. There's no opportunities to really grow within those stations.

Chris Erwin:

We're going to get to talking about how that's the impetus for the founding of Blue Wire, but we're going to rewind back a bit, Kevin. I think that you have this, after undergrad, I call it the post undergrad bounce, where you're bouncing around to different teams and radio stations and sports media companies after you graduate from East Carolina in 2011. So I'm curious to hear during that journey, you go before San Francisco, you're in D.C. area, you're in Cleveland. Tell me a little bit about that story, right? As you come out of undergrad, you have the special moment in conversation with your dad where he tells you to go to Cleveland.

Kevin Jones:

My dad was one of the inspirations behind Blue Wire. Obviously got me into sports. He got very sick, actually right after I graduated from college in 2011. He had cirrhosis of the liver. He was a long time alcoholic and needed a liver transplant. Like the movie John Q. I was like, should I go? I need to do something. It's a really helpless feeling when a family member you know needs an organ transplant or really dying right in front of you. That was going on. While I was at the TV station in D.C. what I was talking about, I got my foot in the door, my dad was sick. I would drive up to Baltimore at night and sleep in his hospital room actually, at Johns Hopkins and then drive the next morning to Washington D.C. I was living still in Chantilly. My mom's house. My parents were separated at the time, but back and forth all three.

Kevin Jones:

Looking back on it, it was a really challenging time. My dad actually did get the liver transplant and then unfortunately actually started developing a really bad drinking problem again, after the transplant. It's so tough to watch that happen. He was on his death bed really and I got this job offer from Cleveland. I was a little torn, because I wanted to be there for his final few months, but he really encouraged me to go. I went, he passed away a month after I took the job in Cleveland, it was really tough. I drove back and got to his room where he was at. He had one of my articles up from the Browns on his iPhone.

Chris Erwin:

Wow.

Kevin Jones:

It's crazy. My dad had a little bit of money, I ended up never using it to go to Europe, never using it to go on vacations, buy cars. I use it to fund Blue Wire eventually years later. Crazy story, man. And then he died and I jumped right back into the Cleveland Browns where this was a huge role for me, because I was on the radio everyday representing the team. I couldn't actually say everything I wanted to. I had to be a good steward for the team as a 25 year old. It was amazing role and very challenging, I think personally, now looking back seven years later, like, wow, I was going through quite a bit losing my pops and thrust into this first really big job. I think it's only made me stronger. You do have connections with certain people who've lost their parents.

Kevin Jones:

There's a bond you have with a lot of folks who have been through a lot. I think when you lose a parent, it's definitely probably the most devastating thing you can go through if you have a good relationship with the parents. For me I feel I can go through anything now, if we're late on a deadline or the investor's mad at me, it's like, hey, I've been through a lot more than that this.

Chris Erwin:

I'm curious, was your father very supportive of you entering sports media since an early age? And then so the second question is, with him passing, did you feel that that energy support, that there was a void there afterwards?

Kevin Jones:

He was supportive for sure. He was more of a realist actually. I think if he was alive, he would think Blue Wire is too risky and I shouldn't be doing this. It's a catch 22 here. His death gave me more opportunity in maybe believing on myself. When you have the parent here, they sometimes talk you out of doing things that are risky. I think as weird as it sounds, I wish he was here to see all this, but it might not be if he was here. Everything happens for a reason, I would trade Blue Wire to have him back. But I think he'd definitely encouraged me to pursue my passions. He was a mechanic who rose up and became this manager of a bunch of mechanics where he was at. Blue collar dad who was definitely in my corner.

Kevin Jones:

And then I really took the anguish of losing him and saying, hey, I'm going to found a startup. What the hell not? Everyone says, this is the hardest thing you can do in your life. I feel I've been through so much. I can do this. And that's where I lean on in my story of, hey, it was dark, but I tried to turn that into light.

Chris Erwin:

It's amazing to hear you say, you would trade Blue Wire in a heartbeat to have your dad back, yet your dad's passing actually created space for Blue Wire to exist, what an interesting dichotomy.

Kevin Jones:

Yeah, I know it's not a apples to apples thing here, like, he would be here cheering me on. It probably wouldn't be as weird as that is to say.

Chris Erwin:

That's amazing. But I do think that you express that your mother was more of a risk taker, because she was actually an entrepreneur. Right?

Kevin Jones:

My mom, Bonnie, was a recruiter for her whole career and eventually got tired with a boss, on top of just treating people terribly, bad breath in your face. It's just like this whole combination, I don't want to be around this person at all. My mom in high school went out on her own and started Bonnie Jones Associates. She took her recruiting clients. So she recruited for law firms, different government agencies around D.C. and stepped out on her own. I don't know how much of her own money she invested, but still operating today, still thriving today, strong, yearly six figure business that has supported her and my family for a long time, of her just being an outsource recruiting department for a lot of different places.

Chris Erwin:

Is she very supportive of Blue Wire? Let's like, hey Kevin, this is your destiny, go forth?

Kevin Jones:

Oh yeah. She was like, I knew you were going to do something. It was hard to figure out what exactly that was going to be as a kid. You were an eight year old at a dinner party for two hours talking with the adults. And they were coming back to you, trying to learn more, it was just strange. I want to call myself an old soul, but it's a little limiting I think in that context. But I think she knew I was destined for more once I became the student government president, was on stage at the high school all time. I've wanted this, for sure. I was scared of business man. I never knew I was going to be a startup. I thought I was going to become a big media personality, be on TV, write magazine stories. I was scared of numbers. I was scared of math.

Kevin Jones:

In college, I knew right away I was communication major. I was like, I actually don't want to be a sales person. That seems like a bad life. So complete role reversal when you're selling something you believe in. And it's a media company, it makes a lot of sense now. Shout out to my mom, she'll definitely listen to this. This is the longest answer I've ever given about her. She's definitely my support system. She's a solopreneur. She's has a couple of collaborators, but I can go to her for mom's stuff, not the entrepreneur stuff of having a 30 person team team now like we do.

Chris Erwin:

This is actually a good segue then into, you were talking about your experience at KNBR. The frustration there that you're never going to have your own necessarily radio or TV show you were saying. And so you felt like you have to build something different, but what you just said, Kevin was, you thought you were going to be a sports broadcast or a media personality, not necessarily a company builder. When did that thinking in your brain change?

Kevin Jones:

Actually got fired from KNBR. It was my doing, I was creating this atmosphere. I was creating the best content at the station, my opinion, non radio, which was, I got our website up to 2.5 million monthly uniques. I inherited something like 200,000. I completely rebuilt their entire website, had a great content strategy role. It was making $50,000 a year. I was covering both the Warriors, 49ers and Giants as a part of this content strategy and was really running myself ragged for nothing, basically. They were taking profits from the website and not giving me any. They were selling all these segments on the website that I basically built. I was like, this is complete bullshit. I would like to be paid 80 to 85,000, a normal livable, barely livable wage for a journalist in San Francisco.

Chris Erwin:

What were you actually making at the time?

Kevin Jones:

$50,000. I took the role from Cleveland to come here, because I really thought it could be my big break and that I could meet the right people in the building and shake the right hands and get a radio show. And I realized, it ain't like that at all. I needed support from my family to even make it in San Francisco on that salary. It was becoming so untenable. I completely rebuilt their website. I was developing a crazy relationship with the 49ers. I was breaking news. Jed York, the owner did not like me and my coverage. He pays the bills at KNBR. They have a big partnership where he pays the station a lot of money for the 49ers coverage. There's a lot of money exchanging hands for different things there. But essentially 49ers did not like my coverage. They're in bed with KNBR.

Kevin Jones:

This happened to be a tweet I sent that a training camp where a player got hurt in the ambulance came on the field. I tweeted out a picture of the ambulance on the field. There was also fans there that day, tweeting pictures of this. They said, no media is ever allowed to take pictures when anything like this happens. In hindsight, it was bad a player was hurt. But I posted it. I was like, this isn't China. Literally you have fans in the stand posting the same content. You're saying that journalists here can't do this. Call my bosses, do whatever. And they did. And they all threw a fit. They're basically like KJ. We don't want a report in this role, we want a robot to just be the post-contact, don't ask hard questions at the press conferences, don't have a personality.

Kevin Jones:

I was like, all right, cool. We're done. This is great. I tended to say, I got fired. It could be, I quit. But I say that to be like, they fired me. They're fucking dummies.

Chris Erwin:

There was intense energy around the separation.

Kevin Jones:

Yeah. I was throwing myself out there, basically you'd be like, this is just such bullshit. You're underpaying me. I'm going to be taking a lot of chances and risk here, because I'm going to be a journalist. What you hired me to do. I'm not going to be a robot. I used them as chip on my shoulders without question. Jeremiah Crowe, the boss who fired me there, Justin Hawk, those people will never go away in my mind, even though it was not going to work out with me there. They didn't understand my talent and couldn't harness that energy of like, this is something special. Total flame out. And so got really confident that I could get any job. I almost took a role with the Brooklyn Nets. Almost took a role with TMZ Sports, almost took a role with the SB Nation. It was interviewing for months.

Kevin Jones:

Took a role at Facebook. I was like, you know what? I hate sports right now. I hate the industry. I'm not going to make 50K anywhere else, anymore. I have to start valuing myself. Facebook was finally making six figures. I was a content strategist on the help team, help content. You log in, there's some advertising help center. How to make an ad on Facebook. I would write different types of content for that. It was obviously completely boring. I was still tweeting about the 49ers and podcasting all the time about them. I was like, I don't need KNBR anymore. I have 15,000 Twitter followers. I can just feed them. I was growing that, and got the idea for Blue Wire, really sitting at Facebook being like, this is not the longterm for me. This is what I want to be making or more money.

Kevin Jones:

I was surrounded by smart people at Facebook. I was like, wow, man, not terrible bosses here. I do like the people, they're thoughtful. There's good people that exist. I did like the organization. Sports media is chaotic. Everyone's running with their hair on fire. Facebook obviously is a machine. They assign you tasks. 3396, it's do 21 days from now. Please send a progress update to Tanya, on how everything's going. It's like, holy shit, they have scaled the whole organization. Every task is being filed. Facebook awoke me to, hey, I can't build a Facebook, but I could build something around podcasting, is what I landed on.

Chris Erwin:

It seems like, you can bring some organization to a scaled media business better than where it's at. It seems like there's some low-hanging fruit to make it better.

Kevin Jones:

Exactly. Listeners were leaving radio, and now I gained the confidence by being inside of Facebook. I can run an organization confidently, because Chris, before this, I never sat at a desk, the eight years before Blue Wire and Facebook, I was at the scene talking to players every day. I'd never really, I'd been in some community relations meetings at the Browns, but I'd never done that nine to five thing ever before Blue Wire. I think that's the crazy part about this.

Chris Erwin:

Did you have a podcast at this point? Had you launched your own podcast yet?

Kevin Jones:

I actually brought it from Cleveland to San Francisco, and KNBR was like, we don't care about it. It can be your pet project. We don't know what to do with it. We don't know how to monetize it. And I was like, okay. I just continued to record. Eventually I found my footing in San Francisco. I became the 49ers guy. I went to Warriors games. I went to Giant stuff and I participated. People came to my Twitter, our website, for my thoughts on the 49ers. They were two in 14. They didn't have a lot of attention at the time. A lot of the 49ers reporters are the same. I say that in a good way. They're good guys. But they just report the facts of the day, that was giving opinions and different, hey, this is what they should do in 2020, a few years down the road, it was just different coverage.

Kevin Jones:

So kept podcasting two times a week on the 49ers. It was called the Kevin Jones podcast at that time. Post game would do a show and then mid-week would do a show, roughly half an hour, sometimes at our guests. I tweeted and I treated my tweets as articles. I would take 10, 15 minutes to carefully craft the tweet and would tweet two to three times a day of what would have been blog posts, here's my opinion on Rubin Foster. Here's my opinion on John Lynch. Those were getting a lot of engagement. I just looked around the rest of the internet, man, I was like, there was a Warriors guy named Sam. There was a Raiders girl named Fallon. They're doing the same thing I'm doing right now. They're not on a team, we should band together.

Chris Erwin:

When you left Facebook, did you know that you are going to start this company or did that just come together?

Kevin Jones:

We were going at Facebook. I founded it before Facebook, there's this legal loopholes. I technically founded it before I got to Facebook. So they don't know any of my IP. I was working on it at Facebook and I started telling coworkers about it, at Facebook. I was a contractor there luckily, not a full timer. Facebook has a lot of contractors, on an eight month contract, so I could have other projects and openly talk about it. It's so cool there, looking back, I had some people take, I was creating content. I signed my first big deal ever. I was negotiating in a room at Facebook and I saw some random person take a picture of you signing that paperwork. I posted it. I was actually the first six months. I took a second job at Salesforce after this ran out, the contract at Facebook. Not many people know this.

Kevin Jones:

I was contracting up until I got into 500 Startups to keep paying the bills, because I made no money in radio. Now I put $17,000 of my own money in Blue Wire. I barely had enough to pay rent every month.

Chris Erwin:

Geez.

Kevin Jones:

And so yeah, floating by on the skin of my teeth here just a couple years ago, the Facebook thing ended in December of 2018. I luckily got a new contract position at Salesforce, which was fully remote and I didn't have to go into the office, which was a game changer for me. I was barely making it by, I was not a good contractor. I was abusing Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff could, can hammer it and yell at me now, I did not work 40 hours a week. They can come back and sue me, I guess. I was definitely building my startup while I was working in tech as a contractor. I actually really recommend that model for people founding a company.

Chris Erwin:

So you knew that Blue Wire was a future for you, but you were just saying, I don't have enough cashflow coming in yet. I'm going to subsidize using contractor jobs, but I'll get there. And then summer 2019, you get into a batch of 25 at 500 Startups. Kevin, I just want to commend you because I really liked the notion of you're burning the candle at both ends a bit, but you are taking this contract to work, to fund the beginning of Blue Wire. Knowing that there's some things that you needed to prove out in the model, make sure you had product market fit, build out your content portfolio, get some maybe advertising partners in the door. Knowing that that's probably going to give you a little bit more focus and clarity of what you want to build and what's working, and then also get into the incubators or to raise funding and have more leverage over that process.

Chris Erwin:

I think that's smart where sometimes people have an idea, but they just want to raise money, but don't want to prove it out. But I think you went after it in a really smart way.

Kevin Jones:

Bootstrapping to me was exciting. I'm a ready, fire, aim type of person. I don't like aiming all day. I thought if I was going to plan this thing for months and months and months, I would never do it. I think that was big. And then Chris, the point of contracting, the tough thing about podcasting the business model is, ad revenue comes in 90 days after a campaign usually. I had to give people my own money at the start of this. We really like to pay our podcasters after that month of content, we've kept it that way as our business model. First of all, we didn't close an ad deal, because we didn't have any content at the beginning of this, we didn't close our first ad deal till February or something.

Kevin Jones:

There was 17K, my own money to pay some of the podcasters. There's a little to come on the team. And then almost just to pay them a little bit monthly at the start of this, like, hey, I promise more is coming. I really didn't know if it was, but basically I was going to take a shot that we could figure it out.

Chris Erwin:

Hey listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down. If you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating, whenever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work. It also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it everybody, let's get back to the interview. So were you scared? You said you were making $50,000 a year in San Francisco. It goes up to maybe barely six figures at Facebook, but still seems you're living by the skin of your teeth. That's an expensive city. And now you're fronting 17,000 to podcast partners saying this might work, but that money could also totally go away.

Kevin Jones:

I think my mom was terrified. We'll have to get the real truth from her now that there's success. I think she thought I was a little crazy that I shouldn't be doubling down on sports media, that I should actually be moving home to Virginia, going to work at Deloitte or something. That my background as a writer is going to be received really well. People are like Blue Wire man, looks cool. Congrats. I think people are just a little like, okay, Jay's is going to try something, I guess. It was risky because I didn't have the full support of everyone around me. Publicly I did, but I could tell, they weren't asking me questions about this thing. They were just like, oh cool. Let me know how it goes and not like, holy shit, Blue Wire, no one saw my vision.

Kevin Jones:

I ran an article about Entercom at the time, they rebrand it to Odyssey, right? As I was founding the company invested a bunch into Cadence13. I kept seeing that company name. Beyond, I knew Barstool and Ringer. Everyone knew those two at the time, but cadence 13 was the company for me. I was like, they're making this happen. They're making content. They have advertisers. They have investors. And to me, when people were doubting me, I was like, there's other people doing this. There's a few others ahead of me. I'm not the first person to launch a podcast company.

Chris Erwin:

I remember that, Spotify had bought Gimlet and then Spotify had bought the Ringer. And then Entercom was being acquisitive as well. They bought Cadence13, and then I think also Pineapple Street as well, another podcast studio. You're looking at these and saying, hey, they're building content and they're up for sale. Maybe this is validating for Blue Wire.

Kevin Jones:

The first legitimizing thing that happened for us was, we were founded before Spotify bought Ringer. We had this vision before that happened. Hashtag Sports is a popular newsletter that came out. They had a headline that said, two peas in a pot. And it had picture of Bill Simmons and it was talking all about Blue Wire. These two podcasting companies. We had gotten a lot of coverage from an awful announcing article. And then we started getting just looped into headlines with the Ringer and Barstool. All of a sudden it just started happening and people were like, wait a second. What is this Blue Wire thing? More creators, I just started signing more creators. I started showing the press like, hey, we're making moves here. And then all of a sudden, yeah, 500 Startups, man, really changed the game for us.

Kevin Jones:

This is how green I am. I didn't know Y Combinator or 500 Startups was a few months before I applied. I had no idea that those types of things even existed. I was Googling angel investing. I read Jason Calacanis's book as a self-taught way to try and figure out which angel investors to approach. I met this dude, Jarie Bolander and shout out to him. He'll definitely listen. He got me connected to Clayton Brian, one of the investors at 500 Startups, who had always been interested in sports and media, and they ended up taking a shot on me. They grill you for a couple of interviews. I thought they weren't going to say yes, 500 Startups, because they were basically like, how does this become a billion dollar company? I was like, it's not, it's not going to become a billion dollar company. They were like, okay, we don't want to invest in you.

Kevin Jones:

I was like, you're making a huge mistake. We're going to be one of the biggest brands on the internet, but just because we're not going to be a billion dollar company, doesn't mean this is a bad investment. I was learning the whole BC model, live on the fly there. I'm so green to it. Now I obviously know a little bit more, but they saw my passion, me fight back in that meeting. I was like, I would love to exit this thing for a couple of hundred million dollars. I can show you the path to that. I don't want to build technology and stuff. I want to be this content studio. Are you okay with that? We got on the same page. 500 Startups makes a bunch of investments, so they were like, this makes sense. It's podcasting, it's hot. Spotify is getting into it. Let's do it.

Kevin Jones:

And walked in day one, still working at Salesforce. It was now down the street from 500 Startups. I was going back and forth during the day. My mentor Taz was like, this is crazy. You got to pull the plug here. Eventually that contract ended in July and I was then full time at 500 Startups every day. Looking back, I would say a top three experience of my entire life. I have lifelong friends from it. I have, a couple of other entrepreneurs are now invested in the company. Shout out to Andrew Beatty, threw a really big check in. I learned so much, man. I learned, I can't even think about it, man. I'm getting like Russell Crowe - all these numbers in my head, how to stand up a business, everything it takes, how to deal with investors, how to deal with rejection, how to position your business.

Kevin Jones:

Marvin Liao was a really good mentor of mine. Ahmed Bedier. Taz Patel, all my mentors, there are Asian, Indian, black. 500 Startups fits my ethos, as I mentioned, the beginning of this from Northern Virginia is a really eclectic place. My best friend Namibil Amadeia. I felt at home at 500 Startups. I do feel like an outsider. I have my whole life, even though I'm a white guy, as weird as that has sounded. 500 Startups has that outsider mentality in San Francisco, they have more investment money in Southeast Asia. They have more women entrepreneurs than most venture funds. It was really exciting to be there, man, before this whole diverse movement became this talking point, 500 Startups was living and breathing, and to be a part of it, and to get knowledge from Marvin and Clayton and Taz and all these people, just looking back on it, it's a melting pot there and I've grabbed so much. I'm at a loss for words right now, man, reflecting on how much 500 Startups was able to change my mentality as a business owner.

Chris Erwin:

That's incredible. I do think about though, I was going to ask if you felt odd man out, because maybe you were the only media business in probably a batch of startups, that was primarily tech enabled or tech oriented.

Kevin Jones:

Yeah. Definitely. Like, you don't have SAS? I felt most people didn't give my start up attention, they're like, there's no $20 billion chance for Blue Wire, make sure they're not getting full attention. From some of the people, yes. But because I had sports and I came with a user base, I had 200K users by this time, May, this is monthly, 200K downloads by May of 2018. I had the biggest user base in the program by far. A lot of them were early nascent startups. What they liked about me was that, he's got deals with Harry's Razors at this point, and he's got hundreds of thousands of people listening, monthly. There was early signs. They like the branding. We've always had good look and feel on our website. So I checked enough boxes for them. Feeling like the outsider, because I didn't know anything.

Kevin Jones:

A lot of these were second, third time founders had already sold their business. They easily got into 500 Startups. They have a quick idea and a quick business plan. I did feel I don't know anything about cap tables. I don't know anything about MRRs. I'm Googling things late at night. I'm creating a glossary of flashcards for myself. My dad was sick. I was constantly hustling back and forth places. I'm like almost, I can't relax. I think that has to do with my upbringing, some of that trauma I've been through, man, but I channeled that into learning all of the time.

Chris Erwin:

You're saying that you feel like you always have to be doing something, you don't sit still.

Kevin Jones:

In a good way, man. I definitely read for leisure as well. I read for fun, but I think that stimulation is so important. It has been a part of the whole journey of Blue Wire. Hustle is our main core word of everything we do.

Chris Erwin:

I just want to also acknowledge that I was not aware of this, but with 500 Startups that the diversity of the different mentors and founders that you had access to, plus I think that their investor base includes Southeast Asia and some other international regions. That's great to hear, because you hear about like, I'm at an incubator in Silicon Valley or in SF, is it just a bunch of rich white guys?

Kevin Jones:

I don't want to be that guy. Someone texted me, you're this VC guy. Like, no, no, Dot Capital who's our lead investor is a micro VC who has a small fund. This whole Andreas Halvorsen staying in Tiger Global, is the big thing right now. I think it's cool. I don't want to shit on startups to do that, but I'm not a silver spoon guy. I'm not. I feel I've been encountered out radio stations, other people, and this ethos abandoned together. The diversity thing is so big. Our three core words of Blue Wire are hustle, innovation and diversity. We've done that the whole time. We've remained true. That's what feels great about our journey. Baron Davis is an investor. Prakash Janakiraman is an investor. These are self-made entrepreneurs or athletes. This is not pension funds investing in this company.

Chris Erwin:

Kevin, looking back, a wild run since the summer 2019, I think that you raise around 150,000 from 500 Startups, and then February 2020, seed round of 1.2 million. December of 2020, five million from Dot Capital and some other investors. And then most recently in February 3.5 million from Wynn. I'm curious to hear, where is Blue Wire right now? And where are you headed?

Kevin Jones:

The journey for us has been audio centric. We've been one of the best at sports audio, outside of ESPN, Ringer, Barstool, who else is playing, Blue Wire as been a solid player in audio the last couple of years. Where are we heading? Doubling down on audio and then of course adding video and live rights. Now that we have a stage at the Wynn, by the way they invested in us, because we bootstrapped, shout out to Craig Billings, the CFO who negotiated the deal with us. He initially discovered us and liked our story and our hustle. He's an entrepreneur himself who sold his company to the Wynn. We're just identifying with people like that. And the Wynn, we feel we made it. We feel like we made it onto a stage. And now we can now talk to the world and host events, conferences, post our fans for Premier League Palooza and the NBA Summer League.

Kevin Jones:

We're going to be doubling down on the WNBA and the Las Vegas Aces. We're going to be hiring lots of women creators, full time, out of Las Vegas to really double down on our brand. Live Rights will be a part of this. I don't know if it's dodgeball. I don't know if it's celebrity golf. I don't know if it's us creating the real world or a game show, but you will be seeing Blue Wire video content and our storytelling as well, man. We've had some great talks with UTA and some famous filmmakers in Hollywood of how do we make podcasts in conjunction with filmmakers for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Paramount Plus. That's the journey, man. It's been an audio, getting people on the team, helping them set up their podcast. Wait a second, we can be more than this.

Kevin Jones:

We're doing so much, reflecting on this with you makes, we haven't even talked about our partnership with Snapchat. It's pretty insane. I don't want to sell the company anytime soon, man, because I think media is changing so much. There's rumors floating about us all the time, but we've raised nine million. The wind gives us the stage and we're having success for sure. We're doing some cool things.

Chris Erwin:

What I heard from you that is interesting is, increasingly I'm hearing from media companies, it started out as podcasts networks or audio first. They're now saying, no, we're not just audio. We create content for whatever vertical we're in or whatever underrepresented voices. We started with audio. We built out incredible talent network, and now we're moving into video. Now we're moving into live. Now we're moving into whatever else. And so I think this is the first time I've heard from you that, the intent to have live rights and to expand into video in a meaningful way. But it makes sense, because audio is just a medium for you, right? Just one channel, but you're an omni-channel business.

Kevin Jones:

We believe in audio so much. I don't think that's ever going to go away. I do think that's going to be the core pillar of the business for the next 10 years. That being said, entertainment, when people sit down at eight o'clock at night, most times now listen to a podcast. It is trying to figure out what they're going to watch. And so we want to be a part of people's morning, their afternoon and their night. And as we evolve as a company, we're going to have to create video content and be a part of people's night. We're going to need video content during the day, of course, social, excited to talk about do or launching their podcasts. There's a ton of video involved in that. My mentor Taner said it best, audio is the thin wedge to build a media company. It is easier to produce it's readily available. It's disruptable right now.

Kevin Jones:

And then from that audio, you build video, merge licensing and anything you want here. American Prodigy is probably our best example of what we can show here, of like, hey, we launched this podcast. It's a documentary series, season one on Freddy Adu. Season two on Ken Griffey Jr. I believe American Prodigy can become not only a Netflix series, a video game, as weird as that is to sound. Once we get enough characters, reliving Freddy Adu's life, reliving Ken Griffey Jr's life, as AI, the glasses become such a thing. Could it become a theme? Right? Could American Prodigy at Nike become a fit? I believe in these brands, we're building. We have the rumor coming out that's going to be all about sports mystery and kind of, they start as audio brands and they become a lot more. That's the future for Blue Wire. And I believe others are already utilizing this playbook. And this is the future of media.

Chris Erwin:

These American Prodigy, these are originals, that are produced and financed by your team, right? These are not just network programs. Correct?

Kevin Jones:

Yeah. We have our podcast network where we sign licensing deals with existing podcasters. A lot of those we bring home and cut them long term deals and share IP ownership. And then yes, we have original programming. This year we'll produce 10 different stories, Chris. And that's my bet, man. I'm not the only one to bet this. Hernan Lopez bet this at Wondery. I read an early thing on what advice he would give young podcast founders. He said, go find your Dirty John. Go make franchises. He made this franchise called Dirty John. It was a story in conjunction with the LA Times and it blew up. It's a true story. It became a hit show on Bravo. It's now syndicated on Netflix. There's now season two's and books and other things coming out from it.

Kevin Jones:

I think American prodigy, maybe not on that scale yet is our first foray for our Dirty John at Blue Wire. We are focused on our originals becoming like that. How do we make stranger things? We are getting into fiction. We're going to have a baseball comedy next year that's based on a true story, that's like the Office, on some baseball players from the 90s who are real people. I can tease a bunch of different things now, man, but building a catalog, almost a sports Hulu or Netflix is actually realistic over the next three to five years of how much volume of evergreen stories we believe we're going to have. Some of them are going to be duds without question. Netflix and Hulu produce content all the time that flops. We're living in that reality. But we're trying to stand up as many franchise brands as possible.

Kevin Jones:

We can lean on talent like Grant Wall and other things that TV shows, they bring in stars. Podcasting, same thing. You can bring in a star reporter and marry him or her to a story. I think what Grant Wall did with Freddy Adu opened up our whole eyes. We are creating a factory, Chris, of how do we make this faster. Holy shit, we've discovered gold here, with American Prodigy. Coslight just came in for an awesome partnership, for season two, so we can make money on the advertising side. And then the downstream side of this after audio.

Chris Erwin:

Makes a lot of sense. I have to go back to one of the pillars where you said, a value of Blue Wire is innovation. Thinking about the audio format, you're starting to see the emergence of live audio, look at Locker Room sale to Spotify, and the recent, I think the billion dollar valuation for Clubhouse, supposedly they're shopping for another round at a four billion plus valuation. Then there's also the emergence of Microcast enabled by smart speakers, right? 10 to 15 minutes in short audio. When you think about innovation and audio and you buying live rights, is live audio increasingly important to you? Are you experimenting there?

Kevin Jones:

Yeah, definitely. We have a partnership with Locker Room. 40 of our podcasters are publishing there. I think we were mentioned in the Vulture article as being a part of their growth spike before they sold the company. Shout out to Howard, amazing founder. He saw this before everyone, this Clubhouse, this technology to build this. I do think that becomes a feature everywhere. I don't know if there's going to be a platform winner there. It feels like Twitter has the best advantage, at least for sports and entertainment where we're playing, because people's followings are huge. Instagram live has existed like this thing, people audio because there's Zoom fatigue. I do think this is going to be a feature in discord feature. Spotify can get Bill Simmons and Joe Rogan in the same room, that's powerful. They can get Barack Obama and Prince Harry in the same room.

Kevin Jones:

Everyone's going to have radio capabilities, man. It's crazy. Tech players just became radio broadcasters with this innovation, I think is the exciting thing that's going to happen. We get to pick, I think we should bundle and try and cut deals, but I think it's going to be a free platform. I hope they don't throw commercials into this. You can obviously see that happening in Clubhouse. I think it's going to be so annoying, but I think you're going to see advertisers get in 15, 20, 30, second commercial. We're going to go to break really quickly. How are we going to make money doing this if everyone's going to spend hours there? It makes sense for these rooms to start being branded. Interesting, Apple has a big announcement coming up. I can't say anything about it. It's going to rock the podcasting industry without question. That's all I can say. The innovation is not stopping man.

Kevin Jones:

So for us, gosh, it's becoming so crowded everywhere. We really do want to bundle and figure out, okay, who is our live radio partner? We feel like Blue Wires powers, we can bring 150 treaters at one time somewhere, but we just did a Locker Room in a really powerful way. Our Warriors post game show there is getting 300 call-ins a night. It's replacing radio. Fans are venting, it's giving fans a voice, which they hadn't had in podcasting before. I think for sports, it makes so much sense. For Twitter, Twitter is so late to the game. They should be slapping themselves in the face. What are they waiting for rolling spaces out? They've been so slow in product development.

Chris Erwin:

They've been notorious in slow product development. But I think what you're getting at Kevin, is that, you're creating the content, you're building the audience, you're building the IP, the talent network. And then you're going to use the proliferation of all these new creative monetization tools that are emerging, all these different ways to distribute your content and your talents voices. And that's where your win is. It sounds like with Apple, I know there's been a lot of rumors of, are they going to launch a new subscription product? I think that they are and that's going to be the new announcement. I don't think that's been public yet, but that's my-

Kevin Jones:

That's a good guess. And I'd say Patreon, the recent fundraising round, Cameo, the recent fundraising round. I think there's eventually this decade. I cannot predict linear growth for creator economy. There's got to be burn out at some point from people being on their phone for 12 hours, years, and years and years and years. However, the next five years, this doesn't look like it's going to slow down. It looks like more people coming out of college, are going to look to become creators or join Blue Wires, figure out how they can grow their brand. And now, the number one profession in the country is a YouTuber. I do think there's going to be more Patreons, more Cameos.

Chris Erwin:

I think it's important to emphasize this note, with all these new creator tools. I think burnout is a real problem, but you have to find sustainability and balance, because I saw this when I was running Big Frame, it's just to be on 20 different channels on YouTube, on Snapchat and Twitter. Thinking about monetization and keeping up with the Joneses, what are your peers doing? It's a brutal lifestyle and it's not going to last long. And so we cover this-

Kevin Jones:

Someday AI is going to sort information better for us at some point, is the hope here. People are going to log into their computers and the important stuff, the content they actually want to see. Someone's going to solve information diet, is my prediction. I hope it's a new startup and not a current one. And no one does. I'm post Blue Wire. That's what really excites me, is information diet. I feel overwhelmed when I log into the internet in a terrifying, but... There's another notification. I try to mute them too. This has got to calm down at some point, in my opinion. People now are in control of their own content like they've never been before, and have gone crazy a little bit, the 80s, 90s, you just watched MTV or whatever, and had to entertain yourself a little bit.

Kevin Jones:

And now the addiction is just so real, the content that I want to acknowledge it. I still want to serve fans. I don't think people are like, oh my gosh, they're ruining their life listening to a Yankees podcast, but it's just the whole thing together is like, geez, people can't sleep at night and have more anxiety. I think Instagram to me and the pressure to be cool is way more of a problem than content. There's way more things on the internet. You group in content as everything to be honest. So that's the difficult part. What I love about audio and why it's a pillar of our brand is, you don't need your eyes for it. I'm a big believer in audio and you can be listening to our podcasts, climbing a mountain. You can be washing dishes, typically on Instagram, you're just so lost in it. You can get lost in something else with audio. And so, yes, I don't think audio is ever creating out either. I do believe in audio longterm.

Chris Erwin:

We're move on to the rapid fire momentarily. I think a good beat to end on is, so with Blue Wire you mentioned, right, there's all this MNA activity and capital flowing into the sports media space. I'm sure that people, companies have been circling of, how do we gobble up Blue Wire? What are you thinking about what you want to do with the company? Is this something that you can do for the next decade, decade plus? Look, you're clearly working really hard. Your team's working hard. You've made some really big new hires lately. Is an exit in the near future so that you can take some time off and go onto the next thing? Where's your head at?

Kevin Jones:

My head at, is building Blue Wire for a long, long time. I would love for this to be a brand forever. I would love to be a part of it forever, but that's likely just knowing my personality, not feasible. And just reading about other founders. To me, can we build Blue Wire into an investment capital firm as well? The things that I'm excited about, can we just make this more of a conglomerate instead of me going off and chasing and doing the next thing? That's my goal. Man, this is a crazy vision, but I love the food truck industry so much. What Blue Wire did what we did for content creators, for food trucks, for organizations. We got more jobs out there. We were helping people expand their brands, more mobily. The information that I think, could Blue Wire just be this whole thing?

Kevin Jones:

I think so, man. I truly believe that people are going to continue to buy into the people we're hiring. How we can tie some of these crazy visions together. I know I'm giving you some random thoughts right now, but I would like to keep driving this business. Does that mean one day we partner with someone else, maybe, it's far fetched as I recall as a public company, but with SPACs and everything, with mergers happening, who knows? I feel I like not having a boss right now besides my investors. For me, unless I really believe in the vision and the price is right, Blue Wire is not for sale. I'm tempted to have a yacht and nice toys, but I know those things have never been my way of life. I know for me, I'll be working well into my 50s, 60s, 70s. I'm not looking to retire ever.

Chris Erwin:

I think it seems for you, you have a very strong point of view of what you're building and what you want to build towards. What types of partners that you want. And so I wonder, similar to the Barstool, Dave Portnoy model, where TCG came in and said, hey, you're the creative visionary, we're just going to give you the admin and the infrastructure to build smarter and better. But the brand is yours. Dave maintained a lot of equity in the company. And then even after the sale to Penn National Gaming, Dave is still like, he is the visual front and the audio front to that brand. Is that similar track for you of finding the right partner that can put a lot of money in your pocket, but still rallies behind your values as well?

Kevin Jones:

Yeah, of course. That's on the table, I would say. I compare Dave Portnoy to a Howard Stern type. He's more than that for sure. But he's our version of the shock jock today on the internet and he's done an amazing job. This is no discredit to him. Hopefully he can become more our version of Ted Turner of this generation. He obviously had a crazy bad ending. His sale in AOL and all the disaster that was, but he bootstrapped his dad's business into this crazy conglomerate and reading his story was really inspiring to me. I don't think I'm the front man as Dave is, he can actually move the stock market based on one of his tweets. I operating the business. I would say maybe similar to how Erika Nardini, but she's almost become a front person too. I think there's a need for me to become way more of a front person as Blue Wire grows, but truly-

Chris Erwin:

It's in your DNA.

Kevin Jones:

Yeah. Totally. Totally. I want to be more on stage. I've been so ingrained and we're so small, I hire basically everyone on the team, we're now out to 30 people. You can start to see the platform being built where I can step on stage as well and be the front person, but I do admire Ted Turner. He wasn't really on stage. He had quotes all the time. He was in the press, he was making noise. He was eccentric. Don't want to be just like him, but that vibe. TBS, they launched things at 7:35, they were different with the programming. He founded Cartoon Network, CNN, all these things that were like, now it seems like, Oda, why don't we do that? It feels there's some Oda things out there, the sports narrative content I'm producing, trying to find those, wait a second, why isn't our competition doing this? We're going to do that.

Chris Erwin:

I look at Turner today, part of Warner Media, but I love their portfolio, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights, Team Coco and Conan O'Brien, amazing audio podcast network. They're close friends of the RockWater family. I like that reference. Look, before we go on to rapid fire, I want to give you some kudos, Kevin. I was listening to a podcast with the partners of TCG, Mike Kerns and Jesse Jacobs. I think it's Mike that said, that they really invest in the accidental businesses. They're talking about the luxury watch brand Hodinkee or Barstool Sports or Food52. Companies that were not, in the beginning were just creating content to service their fans, coming up with the voice. And then all of a sudden just stumbled into, hey, there's a way to make sustainable revenues here and deliver some returns to investors, but that was never the intent.

Chris Erwin:

It feels like for you, and today where there's so many businesses that just like, I have an idea, maybe I'm from a totally different industry. I want to raise money and off to the races, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think there's something special and different about hearing your story that we just went through for the past hour. And your love for sports, your love for media, wanting to empower voices and how building a company around that, what a beautiful thing and more power to you.

Kevin Jones:

I know, man, it's really making me appreciate this whole thing more. I got to be nicer to my teammates, got to be as hard. We're really doing some cool things. Thank you so much, man. It does feel authentic. That's the word we really use in-house as well, to add to hustle, innovation and diversity, is Blue Wires authentic. We work with authentic people. Anyone who comes to us, is like, hey, what should my podcast be about? Actually I don't want to work with them. We're like, you should know, we want to work with you. You're the star. And that's been our ethos, man. The accidental business feels exactly correct. It feels like a great title for a book if someone hasn't already stolen that. I didn't want to do this at the beginning. I wanted to just launch some content, stick it back to the people who fired me at the beginning of this and say, hey, I'm not done yet.

Kevin Jones:

But then it was like, oh shit, I just created a magnet. And now all these people are coming, flying towards this. It's wild. I think corporate America has downside as well. Just like people working at Hulu or the NFL. It's not that great of experience. They're not really loving all the bureaucracy, all these mergers happening don't, Casey Reed on our team had great memories at Hulu too. But I think we connected at the interview, where we're like corporate America doesn't get it. They don't get it. They're too big to get it. Even though they're doing great things, they're producing all the big stuff, because they're in that spot. The startup disruption is just a more attractive lifestyle to wake up and work on that every day, than just show up to corporate.

Chris Erwin:

All right, Kevin, we're now moving to the rapid fire round. We have six questions. The rules are as follows, short, pithy responses, can just be one to two words or maybe just a sentence or two max. Do you understand the rules?

Kevin Jones:

Keep me in check. I'm a rule breaker. So if I'm breaking the rules, please yell out.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, we'll do, First one, proudest life moment.

Kevin Jones:

I got to say this, the Wynn investment, man. And just seeing the pictures coming from this. I think to date it is closing the deal. I definitely shed a tear when I posted that, I was like, this is really nuts. We're sharing with the world that we're going to now have a home base inside of a pretty famous casino, man. That right there was pretty, pretty nuts.

Chris Erwin:

What do you want to do less of in 2021?

Kevin Jones:

Smoke marijuana. It's definitely been a stress reliever for me, especially at home on Zoom meetings. You don't want to be doing this all the time.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. What do you want to do more of in 2021?

Kevin Jones:

Lift weights.

Chris Erwin:

What, one to two things drive your success?

Kevin Jones:

Dedication, authenticity, risk taking.

Chris Erwin:

Advise for media and audio execs going into the second half of 2021?

Kevin Jones:

Invest in audio now. You're going to be super late to the game if you don't and call me, if you're not invested in, whatever size company you are, you are a media company, no matter who you are. By the way, you need an audio channel as well. I do see Blue Wire getting way worse sidetrack. Here I go breaking the rules, entertainment. We're going to be getting into more than sports of course. Sports and audio pillars, but then we have a handful of comedy podcasts now.

Chris Erwin:

So invest in audio. Don't miss the boat.

Kevin Jones:

Invest in audio.

Chris Erwin:

Last two. Any future startup ambitions or side projects?

Kevin Jones:

Information diet, food trucks. Those are two huge passions of mine that I feel like can really be disrupted.

Chris Erwin:

Very easy one. How can people get in contact with you?

Kevin Jones:

Email. [email protected], but emails really slowed down. We used to all the incoming bluewirepods.com messages went to my email, but it started becoming 45 a day or something. I miss it. My emails used to be so much crazier. So shoot me an email. It's wild having a team in. I'm not going to lie. Like I told you, never done a nine to five before this. Now I have a whole team of people around.

Chris Erwin:

It's funny, most people say that they want less email. And you are saying as a CEO of a fast growing startup, you want more email.

Kevin Jones:

More. I want more, like Mark Cuban, I want it all there. I'm trying to consolidate information. Any external information coming in, no LinkedIn, no Twitter, DMs, email. Get into to my email.

Chris Erwin:

Well, Kevin, what a fun high energy conversation. Thanks for being on the show.

Kevin Jones:

Chris, man, you're doing amazing stuff. RockWater the content you're creating, I think is super interesting. Not a lot of people are doing it. Thank you for creating this content and having interviews like this.

Chris Erwin:

My pleasure. Kudos to Kevin who really tells it like it is, whether it's talking about getting fired or about his frustrations with past ownership, he does not hold back and puts it all out on the table, made for a fun interview. All right. On a separate note, we have a new podcast that's coming out from RockWater. It's almost ready, should be launching in the next two to three weeks. We're just dealing with some technical issues with Apple, but soon as it's ready, we'll let you know. If you subscribe to our newsletter, you can go to our website to do that. You'll be the first to hear when it drops. And as you know, we love to hear from our listeners. We learn a lot from your feedback and you guys also have great guest recommendations. Ping us anytime, you can email us at [email protected] or on Twitter at TCUpod. All right. That's it all. Thanks for listening.

Chris Erwin:

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple podcasts, and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/ newsletter. And you can follow us on Twitter at TCUpod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Chris Ovitz is the Co-Founder and President of OK Play. We discuss growing up in a Hollywood family, building technology-enabled media companies, life revelations during an Alabama roadtrip, "humble magnetism", launching a venture fund with the co-founder of Twitter, YouTube as a babysitter, and why the future of play is putting kids at the center of story and creation.

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

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Listen to our weekly executive insights on Media x Commerce news: Mondays at 2pm PT on Clubhouse via @chriserwin

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. 

Chris Ovitz:

There's so much guilt in general for parents, and then there's all this judgment around screen time. And I think that we forget in our little bubbles, the whole no screens thing is a privilege, that YouTube is a babysitter is real, and it's a problem.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Chris Ovitz, the co-founder and President of OK Play. Chris grew up in LA. And like so many others, his first love was film. So he went to a Hollywood studio, but soon after, Chris became enamored with the intersection of entertainment and technology. Over the past decade, Chris has founded a handful of different companies. And most recently, him and his team are building OK Play where they're reimagining screen time for kids, and putting kids at the center of story and creation. We get into a lot of things in this episode, but a few highlights include what it's like growing up in a deeply connected Hollywood family, some life revelations during an Alabama road trip, his humble approach to building teams, and most recently, helping to launch a venture fund with Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter. All right, this episode was a lot of fun. And Chris weaves in some pretty wild stories from his early career. Let's get into it.

Chris Erwin:

Let's dive back in time a little bit. Why don't you tell me about where you grew up and your childhood a little bit?

Chris Ovitz:

I grew up in LA. My mom and dad are both from LA. They went to UCLA. They met there. Pretty normal childhood in LA, as normal as it can be growing up in LA, lots of after school sports and just hanging out with friends, skateboarding and roller hockey and football and all sorts of stuff like that, lots of video games and film in my family. And it was a pretty traditional childhood.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, you are a skater as well. I was a skater growing up, I played some soccer and tennis. And then when I started hurting my ankle skateboarding, my coaches were like, "All right, that's it. Enough for you."

Chris Ovitz:

You were probably a much better skater than I was. I never actually got good at it. But I loved it. Yeah, I definitely spent a lot more time playing, baseball was my sport. So I played a lot of baseball growing up.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, cool. You mentioned that you were passionate for gaming and for film. Were there any games that you liked the most?

Chris Ovitz:

So I was about 15 when PlayStation 1 came out so I think that was probably the core part of my childhood gaming love and I would say Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil. Earlier than that, I played really Super Bomberman and Mario Kart on the SNES, lots of Street Fighter, things like that.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, I remember Street Fighter 2 with like Ken and Ryu and Hadouken and all that. I was like, that was a real favorite for me. Yeah, I also like being Zangief, the Russian wrestler, whatever.

Chris Ovitz:

Funny story, I always played as Ken Masters. And that was the name on my fake ID in high school, so yeah.

Chris Erwin:

Your father was in the entertainment industry. I don't know if your mother was in the entertainment industry as well. But was there any kind of like inspiration for you of the path that you want to go down as you were thinking about going to school, before you went to Brown and UCLA?

Chris Ovitz:

So yeah, my father was in entertainment. He started a company called Creative Artists Agency, which was one of the biggest agencies around and so it was amazing to watch and to be around. And I always thought that that was kind of the path for me. But as I got older in high school, and he had left CAA to do other stuff, he kind of left me with this big question mark on what I wanted to do. And I was like, I didn't really know what my passions were.

Chris Ovitz:

And so it started me on my journey. And my journey from about 18 through my late 20s was kind of a bit all over the place, but I wouldn't be who I am today without it. And my father was incredibly talented pioneer and many things in entertainment. And had I been a little more mature at 18, I think I would have realized that he was probably right, and it was best for me. So I ended up, I was fortunate enough to be accepted to Brown University. That's where he wanted me to go. I always wanted to go to UCLA because it was what I knew. Brown was amazing. I have incredible friends there. I learned a lot there. But I ended up transferring back to UCLA. I told myself that was where I wanted to go, but if I'm being honest, it was probably because I wanted to see about a girl.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, did you transfer like your sophomore junior year? When did you go over?

Chris Ovitz:

I transferred my sophomore year. So I did a year, Brown my freshman year, and then started at UCLA my sophomore year.

Chris Erwin:

And was UCLA what you had hoped it was going to be? Were you pumped to be there?

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah, it was amazing. UCLA is a great school. I had a blast. I was a history major. I just loved learning about different cultures and I studied a lot of Roman, ancient Rome and medieval history that I found that fascinating.

Chris Erwin:

When we were talking earlier, you said that there was some poor decisions were a pattern of your youth. So, I mean, do you bucket in like going to Brown and then going to UCLA as part of that or are you referencing something else? I'm very curious there.

Chris Ovitz:

For decisions, I say that a bit jokingly. But I think what I mean by that is Brown is an incredible school, and everyone would kill to be able to go there. And had I stayed there, I think it would have been amazing. But look, I was motivated by girls at that age, instead of being motivated by a passion for what I wanted to do with my life. So I think that's kind of what I did, whether it was transferring to UCLA because I had a girlfriend there at the time that I had met on winter break from Brown. I would make decisions like that, without thinking too far ahead. And I think as I got older, that's not happening. You start to think through each decision with a little more thought for the future.

Chris Erwin:

Well look, if there's any point in your life when you're going to be a little bit impulsive, doing that in your teens and early 20s, that's a good thing. Get that out of your system, and I would also say that having a little bit of impulse ability, or whatever the right word is, as you get older, versus not having to be so calculated all the time based on societal pressures, that's okay. Okay, so you transfer to UCLA, you graduate, and then how do you kick off your career? What type of work do you start getting into?

Chris Ovitz:

So again, it comes back to this really not knowing what my path was yet, not knowing what I wanted to do. I knew I loved film. The entertainment industry was in my DNA. And I knew that I wanted to be a part of it in some way, at least at that point in my life. And so I actually applied to film school. I didn't tell anyone in my family. I applied to the theater, film and television program at UCLA. I decided I was only going to tell them if I got in. I ended up getting in and had an idea that I thought I wanted to be a director. And after about a year in film school, I realized I didn't want to be a struggling artist. So I dropped out and I wanted the income. I wanted to get to work. Unfortunately, at the time, I also had suffered a really bad herniated disc and had to take some time to get a pretty significant back surgery to correct that and rehab it. And at that point, I decided to take a job. It was pretty awesome. I got the opportunity to be one of the first employees as an assistant at Paramount Vantage working for a guy named John Lesher, and that was my first real job out of college. It was an incredible experience.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. And what was Paramount Vantage?

Chris Ovitz:

Backing up a second, John Lesher was an agent at Endeavor at the time before it was WME, and he represented clients like Scorsese and Judd Apatow and Alejandro Inarritu and all these amazing filmmakers. And he was asked to go over and run Paramount Classics, which was Paramount's independent film arm, and he was asked to rebrand it and basically start their new art house film division. I got to see him build it from the ground up. And I got to see him go through the process of building the brand, picking the brand, naming it, designing it. And there I got to really learn how important a talented team was. He had gone out and just picked the best in the industry. And then I got to watch as all these projects came together that went on to be some Academy Award winning films and really well highly, highly acclaimed films. While I was there, we were developing No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, all these really exciting films. But mostly, I drove the golf cart around for the most part.

Chris Erwin:

What a great experience I feel like right out of undergrad, and it seems that you also have some really great stories from working there about Kanye West and Judd Apatow and a few others. So please do share.

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah, I mean and the Kanye one's probably less interesting, but just funny. I remember him coming in for a meeting, I had to pick him in his entourage up in the golf cart and make multiple trips. And he told me he was hungry. And he asked what was on the menu, and so I had to go get him the menu from the commissary and he said he was really in the mood for grilled salmon. And so I got him some grilled salmon and brought it into the meeting and my boss was like, "What are you doing?" I was like, "Kanye wanted some food. Here it is.", and he shoo-ed me out of the office. And then the Judd Apatow story, backing up a bit. Jonah Hill was actually, before he was Jonah Hill, when he was Jonah Feldstein was in my student film at UCLA because I knew him from growing up in LA.

Chris Ovitz:

And Judd Apatow had come in to pitch his latest project. And I had read the script because that was one of the perks of working there. I got to be on the weekend read team and give my opinion on the scripts that they were reading. And I told Judd, and Judd had no idea who I was. I was just a kid driving a golf cart. And I said, "You need to make Jonah Hill the lead in this project." And so I'd like to think that I'm responsible for Jonah ending up in Superbad, which is probably not true. But it was funny because I was the only one, it turned out Vantage at the time, that thought we should make that movie. And so my boss John was like, "Well, if you like it so much, go and write a letter to the heads of the studio on why we should buy this film." And I did. And I was like, "This is the greatest thing ever."

Chris Erwin:

Hold on a second, you wrote a letter to the head of the studio for why they should buy the film Superbad.

Chris Ovitz:

Exactly, yes.

Chris Erwin:

Okay, what did you say in that letter?

Chris Ovitz:

I just explained why I thought it was going to be a hit. It was a very genuine, authentic letter from a nobody assistant at Paramount Vantage. But my boss respected my opinion. And he sent it to Brad Grey, who knew me and Brad was the CEO at the time. He was just a fabulous, fabulous guy, unfortunately passed away a few years ago. And they appreciated it. But they passed and it actually ended up being Warner Bros.' biggest hit that next summer. So that's my little claim to fame and moment I'm most proud of in my first job.

Chris Erwin:

That's an amazing story. I love coming of age movies, and Superbad is definitely very high on the list.

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah, I was obsessed. It was so well written, so funny. Seth Rogen, he was coming up, but he wasn't established at that point. It was a really fun read. And I was really happy to see that Jonah got cast in that part. Again, I'm pretty sure that was because of me.

Chris Erwin:

So that's an amazing experience. But I think you realized that entertainment wasn't for you. And you kind of changed your career trajectory a little bit. So what happens next after that?

Chris Ovitz:

So I think I wanted to do something that was a little more meaningful. Traditional entertainment was fine. I love stories. I think one of the reasons I started thinking about moving away, I didn't like the behavior and entertainment. There was just a lot of yelling, a lot of disrespect. It's one of the last industries where there's a true apprenticeship, which I do like about it. But everyone was kind of becoming bad Xerox copies of the bosses they had before them, and just picking up bad habits. And so there were all these things that were accepted that I didn't like, like yelling at your employees.

Chris Ovitz:

And so that got me starting to think about what was next. And I was fortunate enough to get hired to run business development at a early virtual world company. And this was really interesting to me, because I always loved building communities and connecting people. And this opportunity played into that in a big way, because you would, this is by the way, in about late 2005, early 2006. And we built this virtual world where you could go to virtual host virtual parties and screenings and shows, and so I was producing virtual concerts with artists like Maroon 5 and the Pussycat Dolls, Kenna. We'd set up virtual storefronts. And this is all before things like Oculus. So it was, way ahead of its time, and a lot of fun. But ultimately, it ended up being like World of Warcraft with nothing to do. It didn't really work out. But it was fun, because we were doing things like I don't know if you saw what Fortnite did with Travis Scott and other artists, these big virtual concerts.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, Marshmallow and all that taking off.

Chris Ovitz:

Exactly. But we were doing stuff like that in 2006 at a much, much smaller scale.

Chris Erwin:

You mentioned how you got the job, there's a unique story behind that, right?

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah, so my father was quite influential, obviously. And he knew my boss at Paramount. He'd call me. He's like, "Hey, I got to borrow my son for the day." And I was like, "Sure." And so I go and fly up with my father to a couple meetings in San Francisco. My father liked to invest in tech. And he knew that I had a strong opinion about games and tech and digital media. And so he wanted me to sit in on a couple of these meetings and give my opinion. And as we're arriving at this meeting at this particular company, which at the time, it was called Doppelganger, we later changed our name to vSide, rocking small startup, only about 20 people, everyone's in the room, and they're about to make this big presentation to my father. And he's like, "I want you to observe, and then give me your opinion after Do not talk." And so of course, I talked the whole time, like, "You need to do this. I can introduce you to this person. I can help with that." I walked out of the meeting with a job offer, which was awesome. And so ultimately, my dad was happy, but he looked mortified the entire meeting.

Chris Erwin:

Were you intentional that you wanted to speak? Was that like acting out against your father? Or did it just naturally come up?

Chris Ovitz:

No, that was just because I can never keep my mouth shut.

Chris Erwin:

So then, right after that, we're going down this journey where you become a serial entrepreneur, I think in a few years, which we'll get to, I think a major stepping stone to that was that you went to go work at Adly, which was founded by Sean Rad, who became the founder of Tinder. So what was Adly, and what were you doing there?

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah, so Adly was one of the first companies to monetize the social streams for influencers, so getting Kim Kardashian to tweet on behalf of a brand. And they were pretty much the pioneer in that space. And so I knew I wanted to work in tech, but I didn't want to be in SF. The city unfortunately just wasn't for me. And I really liked my life in LA. And I was probably onto something because everyone seems to want to move down here now from up there or to Miami it seems now as of last week. Like you said, I met Sean through Dana Settle from Greycroft, who was a friend and she suggested that we think about working together, and we hit it off. And Sean's brilliant, and I was inspired by him. He's a young entrepreneur built with big, big ideas.

Chris Ovitz:

Obviously, I was right, in seeing something and then he moved and went on to start Tinder. But unfortunately, when we were at Adly, Facebook and Twitter weren't too excited about us monetizing their social feeds. It was ahead of its time a little bit as well. We got blocked. And that's kind of when everyone saw the writing on the wall. So after just about 10 months, that's when I departed and was lucky enough to meet my current co-founder and my co-founder of Viddy in JJ. He took a chance on me and invited me to co-found Viddy with him. And that's where my journey really gained some traction.

Chris Erwin:

I remember the days of when the large social platforms and tech incumbents were blocking their peers. So yeah, at Big Frame, we have built like a programmatic marketplace where our different influencer and talent clients could promote one another. YouTube shut off access to their API very quickly once they figured out what we were doing. So I definitely get the challenges there.

Chris Erwin:

So after this stint in Adly, but it seems like you had made the transition from like a pure play entertainment studio industry, now going into kind of like tech that's like tech talent, intersection with media as well and social. And were you feeling at this point like, "Yes, this is the path that I want to be on, that this feels much more right than where I was before this"?

Chris Ovitz:

Definitely. I realized that I think at that point, I realized I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I watched guys like Sean, and I was like, there's no reason I can't do this. I love creating things from scratch. I had some unfair advantages built in in the network that I had acquired and had built. I realized pretty early on that I was really good at surrounding myself with people much smarter than me, much more talented than me. And I realized that talent was everything.

Chris Ovitz:

I use my network to almost be an agent for the businesses that I was building or involved in. And I was able to do that at Viddy in a big way. I saw that we had something. I saw that we had a product that had market fit. It worked. JJ is one of the best product designers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. And he built a beautiful Instagram for video type product at just the right time, when everyone was craving that, when investors were craving that type of product. We met in the end of 2010. And then basically January 2011, we were starting to work on it and then we launched in April of 2011. And that's literally when Flip Cam, if you remember those handheld camcorders, they shut down in April, and we launched in April. And so it was kind of like with the death of Flip Cam was the rise of Viddy and the social mobile video wars, by the way, like our biggest competitor was Socialcam, which was started by the Justin TV guys, which ultimately became Twitch. And it was just an all out like bloodbath between us and Socialcam seeing who could grow the fastest, wild ride, wild west, extremely interesting time to be in the video space.

Chris Erwin:

So being a first time entrepreneur, what kind of caught you off guard or by surprise in that first experience, in going through those motions?

Chris Ovitz:

Once you're a founder, it's a very lonely, lonely job. And so just dealing with the emotions of the roller coaster that it is, like video ultimately was only two and a half years of my life, but it felt like 10, and so the ups and the downs. And then I think realizing how quickly you can grow something by leveraging the power of your network. We went from zero to 50 million users in a year, granted a lot of that growth came off the back of Facebook and Open Graph. Us in social can have the benefit of that. But we were the first video app to have access to Open Graph. And that was because of a relationship that we had, just shows the power of relationships and how you can use those relationships to grow things.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. You mentioned that when you were at Adly, and you saw, you observed Sean, you're like, "Oh, Sean is founding these companies.", you felt empowered that you could do the same. And you felt that you had this powerful network, you had good energy to bring to the table and a certain skill set, but also awareness of what skills he didn't have. Being at Viddy, did you observe skills that you're like, "Hey, for my serial entrepreneur career to continuously progress, here's something that I really want to work on."?

Chris Ovitz:

You know, it's funny. Things that I really want to work on, I think what Viddy taught me was actually to focus on my strengths and not my weaknesses. So many people say you should, I just read a quote about Tom Brady, sorry to change the subject. But talking about how he's achieved the level of success that he has. One of his big tenets is focus on your weaknesses. And I used to do that too much. And so I think at Viddy, working with the team there, I realized that everyone was so good at what they did. If I was focusing on my weaknesses, there was always somebody that was going to do it better, be able to do that better. And so I spent my time focusing on my strengths. And that's when I think good things really started to happen. That was probably my biggest learning at Viddy.

Chris Erwin:

I agree with that very much, Chris. It's a lot easier to go from good to great versus going from bad to good. And as a leader, I think strong self awareness is really critical in saying, "Okay, here's where I'm good, here's where I'm not." But your job is to build a team, to resource a team, to build towards the bigger vision that the company has. And I have learned that there's a lot less friction, you can move a lot faster. And also just build a team where people are more complimentary and happy coming to work every day with that mindset, going from good to great.

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah, no, I absolutely agree.

Chris Erwin:

So Viddy though, you do end up selling to Fullscreen, is that right?

Chris Ovitz:

We did, yeah. So we were acquired by Fullscreen. In full transparency, I left before the acquisition because it was quite a roller coaster ride, and I was ready to move on and to figure out what's next. But we had built a relationship with George, the CEO and founder of Fullscreen early on. He was a friend, and we were always trying to find ways to partner together. So when things got tough at Viddy, it was just a natural home for the company. They had SVOD ambitions, and we had one of the most talented product and engineering teams around with expertise in video. So it was a no brainer. And as I said, I wanted to move on to what was next and I was pretty burnt out from that roller coaster. And at one point, we were the number one app in 49 countries. And then one day we weren't. And so I was just ready. I was ready for what was next. But it was great. Look, JJ went on to be the Chief Product Officer of Fullscreen. And Ken, our CTO went on to run their engineering team. But unfortunately, actually I'm working with them again today, which is really, really awesome. But we can come back to that.

Chris Erwin:

I think Fullscreen leveraged your technology to launch a streaming service, I think three to four years back. I remember that because I think there was like a lot of different Fullscreen talent clients are on it. And I think they also were licensing Friends and maybe Seinfeld. It was an interesting juxtaposition of content. But I think everyone's been learning what users actually want and don't want over the past half decade. All right, so after that, you do end up starting another company called Workpop, but you did a brief stint at Scopely. What was that pathway like? I think you said you were scratching this gamer itch that maybe you had but led quickly to something else, curious to the journey there.

Chris Ovitz:

Look, I always had the gamer itch and I'm always going to have the gamer itch. I love games and anything related to games. And the Scopely thing was interesting because I had promised myself since I was burnt out, I was going to take some time to recharge. But I was having lunch with a friend of mine who was at Scopely. And he was telling me how great it was. And they were going after all these big licenses. And frankly, it just sounded fun. And he was like, "Why don't you come join us?" At the time, they were still small, 50 or 60 people. And they had just come off this big hit for them, Mini Golf Madness, which I had kind of fun playing. And I also knew Walter Driver pretty well from back in the day. And I knew Eytan as well. They're the founders. And I figured that it would be a really fun place to go and join until I decided what was next.

Chris Ovitz:

Unfortunately, in a twist of fate, unfortunately for them, not for me, but they've done fine since anyways, but they roomed me and my co-founder from Workpop together on a company off site. He was the new VP of Product that they had hired out of Zynga. He used to run the With Friends platform there, and we hit it off and he's still one of my best friends. And we basically decided that night that we would eventually leave and start something together, we just didn't realize how soon it would be.

Chris Erwin:

This is like one of the first nights with a company at an off site, and you meet a new colleague, and you decide then and there like, "We're going to start a company together." That's pretty fast.

Chris Ovitz:

Basically, we hit it off, and we're like, "We need to do something." And I just had no idea that it would be that quickly.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Why do you think you guys vibe so well? What was special about him?

Chris Ovitz:

We had really complementary skill sets. He's extremely talented product executive and entrepreneur. He actually just launched his company yesterday called Mojo, which is a sports app for kids and actually to make coaches better and improve the youth sports experience, which I'm actually really excited about. And he's super talented. And yeah, we just knew it. Do you ever meet someone and you're like, you know you're going to be good friends and you know you're going to work well together? That's what it was like. And so we had fun working together at Scopely and we worked on some really fun products together. And then ultimately we decided to go into enterprise software.

Chris Erwin:

Hey, listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you, if you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guest, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work. And it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it everybody. Let's get back to the interview.

Chris Erwin:

In under a year, you end up founding what's called Workpop. What was Workpop?

Chris Ovitz:

Back then, mobile job search was almost non existent. And so we wanted to build a better hiring experience for essential workers. So back then, most of the hiring platforms were really focused on building for the employer, and not the job seeker. And so we decided we wanted to build a better experience. And it was a great idea, started with great intentions. I went into that space because I wanted to prove that I could do something that was completely outside of media and entertainment. I wanted to show people that I can build a real company.

Chris Ovitz:

And I did that. But along the journey, which took me to places like selling door to door in places like Birmingham, Alabama, nothing wrong with Birmingham, Alabama, but I realized that wasn't where I wanted to be. And I realized that I needed to be passionate about the space. And I thought I could build anything and be excited about it as long as it was my team. I was super excited about the team, really enjoyed who I was working with. But at the end of the day, these companies take on a life of their own, and you need to be in a space that you truly, truly love.

Chris Ovitz:

And so that was probably my big learning with Workpop. Further, we went down the stack. It started as job seeking, and then it became hiring software. And we're building HR software. And then we were like smack in the middle of the HR tech space. And that's when I realized it wasn't for me. We were building a product for small and medium businesses, and it's just a really tough grind selling into that segment.

Chris Erwin:

You mentioned that you went to Birmingham, Alabama for a sales trip when you were at Workpop. What's that story?

Chris Ovitz:

Look, this is where I realized that I needed to get out of the enterprise software business. My partner and I were on a plane, and we were flying to Birmingham, and the only thing we were excited about was going to be the food we were going to eat in the south. We both looked to each other and kind of had this moment where it's like, "Do we really?". We were both media guys. He came from the game world, and we both kind of ended up in this space, because we had a good idea. And we landed in Birmingham, and we were staying in a motel and we were there to sell a Papa John's franchisee. And we're going in and we met with the HR team was run by this very nice, but like 80 year old woman, and really didn't understand how technology worked. And so we found ourselves selling to a lot of those customers, and it was draining. And when we both looked, we were like, "Where are we? What are we doing right now?" And I think that was the moment. Again, I don't want to take anything away from Birmingham, Alabama. But it just wasn't where I wanted to be in my life. If I was going on sales trips, I wanted to be in New York or Chicago or San Francisco or places like that.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. When you landed and you were doing these sales meetings in person, did you guys feel like immediately out of place? What was going on there?

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah, we definitely felt out of place. And it just felt like we could never do enough. I mean, we were running the business but we were also selling the product. We didn't have some huge sales force. And so it just took a lot to gain even an inch. We felt like we were running miles to get those small wins. And so whether we are in Birmingham, Alabama, or Orlando, Florida, it was just all over the country selling software. It just wasn't what I was into.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Well, Chris, I want to go back to something that you said where when you founded Workpop, you wanted to prove that you could build something that's not in media entertainment. So it's interesting, because you start in the core of the media entertainment industry, you're working at Paramount Vantage for a very seasoned studio executive and talent agent. And then you do start working in and then founding some companies that are at the intersection of tech and media. So the sentiment that you wanted to prove that you could do something different, was that for you or was it for someone else?

Chris Ovitz:

I think when you have a successful father, at the end of the day, you have a bar that's set for you. And so you're always trying to live up to that bar. And everyone always has preconceived notions of how you're going to be or expectations of you. And I think everyone expected me to do something in media entertainment, expected me to use my network to bring influencers into something right or do something influencer related, and I didn't want to do that. And I needed to scratch that itch. And I'm glad I did it. And it taught me a lot and led me to where I am today.

Chris Erwin:

So what happens with Workpop? Do you stay there through a sale to another company or you depart before the acquisition? What happens?

Chris Ovitz:

At Workpop, about five years in, one of our investors Cornerstone was interested in acquiring the company and the team. There was a natural fit, and they had an SMB product that they wanted to expand on and it was a perfect fit. And so I stayed on through the acquisition, but I knew that I wasn't going to stay and run technology partnerships. A big public enterprise software learning management system company, that wasn't in my future, it wasn't for me, incredible company, really a big fan of the Cornerstone team. And Adam Miller, he's a great advisor to us. But if I was being honest with myself, it wasn't where I was going to continue my career. So I took some time off. I was a new father, a relatively new father. My son was about three at the time, and really started thinking about what I wanted to do next.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, it's interesting to hear you talk about your realization moment there that hey, this is not where I want to be like in terms of your career and work. In an interview with Chas Lacaillade, who's the founder of Bottle Rocket Management, an influencer management company, on our podcast, he was on a road trip in Louisiana in the Bayou. He was selling water pumps. He was in LA. And then he was working for a water pump company out of Orange County. He was on this sales trip and realized there in a conversation with his coworker Buddy in the car, like, "Hey, I need to get back to LA. This is not the right industry for me." So you guys definitely have parallels in your story there.

Chris Ovitz:

Definitely a wake up call for me.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, all right. So after Workpop, you then launch OK Play, which is the company that you're at right now. So what's the story of how OK Play came to be?

Chris Ovitz:

I mean look, it sounds cliche, but I wanted to create something for my son. I was a relatively new father. Son's three years old at the time. I was watching one day while he was a preschool, I was watching Won't You Be My Neighbor, which is the Mr. Rogers documentary. And I became incredibly inspired. This was a man that knew how to reach children, how to talk to them in a way that they felt heard and understood. He didn't treat them like little kids. He treated them like real people, just smaller people. And I thought that was fascinating. And the way he used the television to reach a very, very large audience was very similar to the way that the mobile devices are ever present and not going anywhere.

Chris Ovitz:

And so in the way that I learned how powerful community was in Viddy, I thought that we could do something similar with the mobile devices and kids today. So I think that there's so much guilt in general for parents, and then there's all this judgment and guilt around screen time. And I think that we forget in our little bubbles in our world is that the whole no screens thing is a privilege. And the YouTube as a babysitter is real, and it's a problem. And I think at the end of the day, balance is key. And I think that there's no reason we can't reimagine screen time. These devices aren't going anywhere. And so I wanted to create something. My partners wanted to create something that was screen time that wasn't leaned back, that really puts kids at the center of the story and the creation.

Chris Erwin:

I like how you just phrase that, where I think a lot of people look at kids' content consumption as a problem that plagues the U.S. and all these other countries. But how do you put kids in the driver's seat of that content, that story to make it productive and helpful? I really like how you position that. So you have this vision. And so then how does this start? Where do you begin building and with who?

Chris Ovitz:

So I immediately called JJ, who was my co-founder of Viddy. And he was at Headspace at the time consulting for them, actually. And I was like, "You got to watch this documentary." He did. He was like, "Oh my God, this is awesome. I totally see what you mean. Let's start thinking about what this could look like." We reached out to our former CTO, Ken Chung, who's one of our co-founders, and he was running a big engineering team at Snap. So he was in charge of the camera team there, very talented engineer. He was at Fullscreen as well. And he's a new father. And so he got super excited about the potential.

Chris Ovitz:

And then we just kept building from there one by one, reaching out to people in our network that were extremely talented, that had young kids that could get excited about this. And so it really went from that is how the idea started to when we brought a gentleman named Travis Chen in, who's an interactive play designer. And he was the Chief Game Designer at Scopely, which is where I met him, super talented guy. And he was the one that really brought the play into the mix, and how we really started thinking about learning through play as the mechanism for which we were going to achieve our goals.

Chris Ovitz:

And so he joined. He was the Creative Director for Games and Interactive at Bad Robot, which is JJ Abrams' company. And then before he joined us, he was at Snap running all their AR innovation stuff. And so he was just the perfect person to come in and really help us think about how we can make the phone almost like a cardboard box. So when you see a cardboard box, you see a cardboard box. When a kid sees a cardboard box, they see a rocket ship, a castle, whatever. And so we wanted to take that philosophy and apply it to the content we were creating in the phone. So I think our OK Play, the vision is about really making it kid led, but parent involved. That's when kids really learn the most. So you can go on a treasure hunt with your child, you can do a fire rescue, you can run a candy factory and the kid is at the center of these stories, and they're creating them and then they're creating a piece of content that they can share with their family members.

Chris Erwin:

And is it intended for co-consumption, where it's both the parent and the child consuming and participating in the experience at the same time?

Chris Ovitz:

Absolutely. So it's all about this staring versus sharing, right? We want to get away from the mind numbing, like kid in zombie mode, create truly interactive content that is active and engaging and parents are included. I think this comes back to, so our other co-founder, who's our chief scientist, Colleen Russo Johnson. She's our child development expert and kids media expert. She did all this research on kids absorbing more when the parents are involved. So she did a bunch of research on Daniel Tiger, just the spiritual successor to Mr. Rogers. And I discovered her in an article in The Atlantic, in which she was quoted, it was the article is about ChuChu TV, which is basically like the Cocomelon of India. And she was talking about this study that she did, that kids learn the social and emotional concepts, learning concepts in Daniel Tiger much more quickly, and they absorb much more when the parent is actually watching it with them and engaging with them while they're watching it, than when they're just staring at it alone.

Chris Ovitz:

And so we took a lot of that and built what you see in OK Play today. And because of that article, we reached out to her, she started advising us and the and we're like, "You're perfect. You need to come join us and build this." And she was like, "This is my life's work in an app. This is awesome." And yeah, we just kind of built an all star team and just went after it.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, this makes me think of have you heard of Nike Adventure Club?

Chris Ovitz:

I have not, actually.

Chris Erwin:

I think we wrote about this, maybe now almost like a year and a half ago. But essentially, Nike came up with like a subscription club for their shoes that brings both parents and kids together. So kids can go into the app with their parents and say, "Oh, I like these shoes. I like the story behind them.", learn about them, learn about their environmental impact when they are discarded. And then you sign up for the shoe. And then I think you can get replacements like once every six months or 12 months. And then along with the shoe also comes games and experiences and things you could do it like the local playground or at home. And it's this really cool idea that feels very similar to what you're describing.

Chris Erwin:

It seems like the timing for what you're building is just perfect. Also, I think back to the FTC settlement with YouTube, I think like a year and a half ago, where there's now going to be limited monetization for a lot of the kids content channels. And particularly with all the extremist content and the political backlash and what's happened over the past six months, I think there's a very strong desire for safer content destinations just overall, but particularly for our youth. So have you sensed that, that there's kind of this unique momentum and tailwind that you have in the market right now?

Chris Ovitz:

Definitely, there is. But I think it's very difficult for kids app developers and kid content creators. I think the privacy laws aren't making it any easier. They're only getting stricter, and they're a gray area and they're a moving target, which makes it tough. And the lawmakers aren't technologists. And so in some cases, the laws don't make any sense and just really don't apply. That said, children's privacy is, there's nothing more important, and we have to protect our kids online. But I would say it's getting very, very difficult to create this content because of the privacy laws. So you got to be, when you're thinking about making this content, you got to abide by a strict set of rules, you got to make sure you're not having outbound links that are triggering browsers, you got to gate everything. Social interaction can be a big no, no, but there's ways to do it creatively that are safe for the child. It's definitely the wild west right now, a little bit.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. So it feels like you'd have to staff up that department and that need differently than say, what Complex or BuzzFeed would have to staff their digital and production and user experience team. So what does that mean for you guys? Do you have a bigger legal team? Or how do you incorporate that into your workflow?

Chris Ovitz:

Incredible lawyers, we all are just very aware of what's going on as far as privacy is concerned. There are specific certifications you can go out and get such as kidSAFE to let parents know that your app is safe for children. You just have to be on top of it and pay attention.

Chris Erwin:

So it seems like a fun part of this too just in the product development, like do you go out and you work with parents and kids to get an idea of like, "Hey, what would get you excited? We want to do some alpha testing." I mean, clearly the founding, the executive team that you guys have brought, brings a lot of personal experience, like you guys are all parents. How do you get inspired and get in the mindset of these children to design something that's really special for them?

Chris Ovitz:

So several ways. So we do a lot of play testing. We have a really vibrant community of parents and kids that will test things with. Another thing is we have to remember how to be kids. Kids are experts at play, right? We are not, somehow as an adult, you forget that. And so I think being a parent makes it a lot easier. I'm always building Lego or something like that with my son. I found myself as we've started this company, I'm watching children's cartoons and consuming all the content there is online and finding my favorite shows to draw inspiration from and then look, I'm probably the person that is contributing creatively least to what you see in the app, and I rely on our very talented creative team that lives and breathes this stuff to build these experiences and do this programming for children

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Within the app, is there a certain game or experience that's your favorite right now?

Chris Ovitz:

Right now, yeah. My favorite is probably Fire Rescue. So you take a picture of your face as a child, and it puts them in the story. And this little character that we have Twiggle, who's the cutest thing on earth in my opinion, invites you on this journey to go be brave with them to basically go to an emergency call. And you end up having to get there and get a couple of characters out of the tree. And they ask you to take pictures of your face and all these different emotions. And it's got really awesome music in it and it's fun. You literally created your own mini show, you can then share with your family members. And so my son loves it. And it's fun to play with it.

Chris Erwin:

Cool. So there's a storyline but you take a photo of like a selfie. And then that goes into one of the characters in the game.

Chris Ovitz:

Yes, it puts yourself into the story. It's like an interactive story and you're literally putting yourself in it. And then what happens is, is you'll draw the firetruck. You'll draw the skylines, you'll draw the tree, and then it puts it all together into this interactive story. And you get to then watch it. So it's like you're literally creating, it's almost like you're creating the storyboards for the show. And then we magically put it together and the kid feels like they've just created this really awesome interactive story.

Chris Erwin:

The character's name is Twinkle, the cutest character on Earth as you said, right?

Chris Ovitz:

Yeah.

Chris Erwin:

And this is called Fire Rescue?

Chris Ovitz:

Fire Rescue, yeah. So if you go into the OK Play app, it will be one of the first stories you see. Twiggle is one of our main characters, almost like our guide, and they take you through this adventure. And they do it. We also have Twiggle's Treasure Hunt. And so you go on a pirate adventure to find treasure and you draw the sea monster and you find out the sea monster isn't actually mean. It's actually trying to help you and a lot of really awesome morals in the story. And it all comes from a place of social emotional learning. It's designed by all of our Ph.D.s and advisors that are awesome.

Chris Erwin:

Oh wow, any of this content, is it licensed from a third party or is this all incubated in house?

Chris Ovitz:

It's all done in house. So we have an incredibly talented creative team. We're doing all of our animations, all of our own production, all of our own voiceover stuff.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. Do you ever get involved in any of the voiceovers or any of the brainstorming or anything like that?

Chris Ovitz:

Thankfully, no. I am not a fan of being on camera, on audio, anything. So hopefully I do you justice today.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Have you already raised seed funding for this or was this just funded by the founders?

Chris Ovitz:

We did raise seed funding. So we have incredible investors. We've actually raised, we closed our series A over the summer. We've raised $11 million to date. Investors like Obvious Ventures, Forerunner, Lego Ventures, which is Lego's investment arm, Collab+Sesame, which is Sesame Workshop's fund with Collaborative Fund, Dreamers, which is Will Smith's fund. We have a ton of incredible investors.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. As I think about fundraising, and then you also talking about the documentary about Mr. Rogers, I think about the impassioned plea that he makes to Congress to have funding, I think for PBS and for his program. It's such a beautiful segment in that film. The gentleman who is running the forum is like sold within five to 10 minutes, and Mr. Rogers gets the funding that he needs. So I don't know if that became part of your pitch or you harnessed that energy as you were raising this first round of funding, but I love that anecdote.

Chris Ovitz:

Absolutely. We love it too. And look, that was a picture of him and a quote from him. It was the first slide of our deck and that hooks everyone. It's very hard to root against a group of people that want to build something as meaningful as Mr. Rogers did. I'm by no means saying we're going to be the next Mr. Rogers but we would definitely try as hard as we can every day to live by his philosophies and build as much of that into our app as we can.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. So where does OK Play go next? What are you building towards in 2021?

Chris Ovitz:

It comes back to this staring versus sharing thing. I think we want to get away from this mind numbing, staring kid zombie mode type of content. And we want to build something that's truly interactive. We're building this new media format in which kids are really the star of what they're creating, and lets them create these adventures that they can then share with their family and friends. And it's all rooted in social emotional learning, and teaches kindness and curiosity and empathy and skills that they need to translate into the real world.

Chris Ovitz:

And I think now more than ever, it's super important. You have so many children at home, that they can't go to birthday parties, that can't interact with other kids, I talk to so many of my friends that have young kids that when this pandemic started, they were just at the age where they were about to start preschool. And so they interact mostly with adults, and then they'll see another small person, another child, and it's almost like they don't even know what to do, they don't have those skills yet. And so they've been deprived of this social interaction. And so if there's anything we can do to help with these skills, I think we're doing a good job. And so that's what I would love to see us accomplish this year is really reaching more families, and just helping parents and helping parents know that it's okay to take a moment, that just because their child is playing for 15 minutes on an app, it's not the end of the world. Not all content is created equal, and I think balance is key. And it's really, really important that parents give themselves a break.

Chris Erwin:

Cool. All right, so I have that now, to go back a little bit more personally about you. I think this is like at least the third company that you've found in your career. And you have expressed that in certain previous companies that you realized burnout and you knew when you had to kind of change things up. And I know that your wife Ara is also an entrepreneur, has her own business. You're building OK Play. You're also an investor, which we'll talk about a little bit and you have a young son. So do you feel like that you are stretched in the Ovitz household?

Chris Ovitz:

Yes. Look, a two entrepreneur household is very tough. I have one child, I don't know how people with multiple do it. You definitely make sacrifices, and my wife and I are not going to sacrifice our son for work. We're just not. So we do our best. I think it's made us much, much more efficient human beings. You just have to, there's no time for the nonsense. And so you just have to be really, really good planners. She's brilliant. I'm very lucky to share a household with an entrepreneur that awesome.

Chris Erwin:

I like that balanced mindset. I think that's absolutely critical. And more entrepreneurs need to assume that. So okay, we're about to get to the rapid fire. But before we do, Chris, why don't you tell us about, it seems that you do some investing on the side. You've done angel investing in your past but I think that there's a new fund that you're a part of. So what is that all about?

Chris Ovitz:

About 10 years ago, I was fortunate enough to interview at Twitter, and I met Biz Stone. And he's one of the co-founders and I kept in touch with him. We became friends, he ended up advising a couple of my companies. He was on the board of one of them. And he always said that if he ever formalized his angel investing, which by the way, he has one of the most incredible angel portfolios in history, from Slack to Square to Pinterest to BeyondMe, all of these unicorns. And I think that's because of the way he connects with entrepreneurs and how genuine and authentic he is.

Chris Ovitz:

But anyways, he said if he was ever going to formalize his portfolio into a VC fund, then I would be one of his first phone calls. He held true to that, and invited me to help him build his first investment fund. It's a $200 million fund. We invest in early stage companies that build the future of health, work, wealth, and play. And it's a lot of fun. I get to see incredible entrepreneurs and see how I can help them. I love connecting the dots. I believe that I'm good at connecting the dots that other people don't always see. And I love putting people together, and as I said, building community. And so I like to think of us as more of an investment group as opposed to a fund and just investing in great people.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Chris, I have to say that we've kind of gotten to know one another through the preparation for this podcast and our conversation right now. Something that stands out to me is that it seems that you have this incredible magnetism to you. Because the people that you attract around you too, whether it's launching a new investment fund or creating the founding teams for companies or recruiting someone from an article that you read, you clearly have a very, very special skill of being able to do that. What defines your magnetism? What is it about you that brings people towards your orbit?

Chris Ovitz:

It's a good question. I've never really thought about it like that and I appreciate you saying that. I think authenticity and just being comfortable with who I am. And that's what people get when they see me. There's nothing, I'm not positioning, trying to be something I'm not. A lot of people are threatened by people smarter than them. I want to be around as many amazingly talented people as I can get my hands on. And I think it's about building real trust and giving people the attention they deserve. And so it really just comes down to being genuine and being a good friend. And I think that builds trust with people. And then, so when you reach out to them, you're able to make things happen, because there's trust. Trust is everything.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, I think that's really beautifully said. So cool. All right, so now we're on to the rapid fire round. So Chris, the rules are as follows. I'm going to ask you six questions. The answers are intended to be brief, one to two sentences, could even just be one to two words. Do you understand the rules?

Chris Ovitz:

I understand the rules.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome, all right. First one, proudest life moment.

Chris Ovitz:

Becoming a father.

Chris Erwin:

Great. What do you want to do less of in 2021?

Chris Ovitz:

Sitting in front of a computer.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. And what do you want to do more of?

Chris Ovitz:

Seeing friends in real life.

Chris Erwin:

I think many people would say the exact same right now. What one to two things drive your success?

Chris Ovitz:

Success is relative. But assuming someone thinks I'm successful, then it would be wanting to set the best example I can for my son.

Chris Erwin:

Very nice. All right, last handful of questions here. Advice for media executives going into 2021.

Chris Ovitz:

Dust off those social skills.

Chris Erwin:

What do you mean by that?

Chris Ovitz:

I mean, we're spending so much time on Zoom and in front of a computer that I think people may have forgotten how to interact with each other in the real world.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, hopefully you haven't lost your magnetism ability.

Chris Ovitz:

I hope not.

Chris Erwin:

It's your key asset. All right, last couple here. Any future startup ambitions?

Chris Ovitz:

Always. I have an idea deck, some worse than others, but they're probably more of my future.

Chris Erwin:

Where do you keep your ideas?

Chris Ovitz:

Probably shouldn't tell people this but in my head.

Chris Erwin:

That way people can't access them, right?

Chris Ovitz:

Very true. But hey, if the idea is something that someone can cannibalize that easily, then it's not a great idea.

Chris Erwin:

Agreed. All right, last one Chris, this is an easy one. How can people get in contact with you?

Chris Ovitz:

They can feel free to email me [email protected].

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. I really appreciate you being on the podcast today, Chris. This is a lot of fun.

Chris Ovitz:

Hey, Chris. I appreciate you inviting me on and yeah, I hope people enjoy it.

Chris Erwin:

Hey, listeners, before you go, one final reminder. We love hearing from all of you. So if you have any thoughts on the show, any ideas for guests or any feedback at all, please email us. You can reach us at [email protected]. All right, that's it everybody. Thanks for listening.

Chris Erwin:

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you can follow us on Twitter @tcupod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.

Aditi Dash is a Partner at CircleUp and invests in consumer brands like Beyond Meat, nutpods, and Black Medicine. We discuss emigrating from India at age 8, being told to "not sit at the table" while working at Morgan Stanley, taking the advice to "get out of the building" during a surprise FDA visit at La Colombe Coffee, and why hormone health and the convergence of Media x Consumer excite her as an investor.

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Listen to our weekly executive insights on Media x Commerce news: Mondays at 2pm PT on Clubhouse via @chriserwin

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: [email protected]

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Aditi Dash:

The FDA showed up at the plant that I was running, and I'd had almost a meltdown, and I was freaking out and was given the advice to, "Hey, you just need to leave. You need to trust that the production manager and the warehouse manager have everything under control, and that the processes that you've put in place by this point are going to work."

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Aditi Dash, a partner at CircleUp. CircleUp is a consumer investor in companies like Beyond Meat, nutpods, Rebel, Black Medicine and more. Aditi was born in India and came to the US with her family at the age of eight. They spent time in Boulder, Colorado, then she went to the East Coast. After undergrad, she joined Morgan Stanley as an investment banker, and in her first week received the shocking advice of, "Never sit at the table."

After a couple of years in banking, she went to the buy-side and was a consumer investor at Stripes Group. But while there, she felt disingenuous sitting across the table from founders, realizing that she wanted more operating experience so that she could give better advice. So she went to business school at Harvard, and shortly thereafter joined La Colombe, a coffee manufacturer. She has some pretty crazy stories from there, like when the FDA gave one of her plants a surprise visit, almost caused her a personal meltdown until her team told her to just get out of the building and trust the processes that she's built.

Afterwards, Aditi went back to the buy-side and joined CircleUp as a partner. So at the end of our interview, we talk about what investment themes get her excited for 2021, like hormone health as purchase criteria and the convergence of media and direct-to-consumer brands. We also talk about why so many people don't get the basics of business and why Clubhouse is so exhausting. All right. This was a super fun interview with Aditi, I'm pumped to tell you her story, let's get into it. Tell me a little bit about where you grew up. What was your household like?

Aditi Dash:

Sure. So I grew up in a few different places. I'll start all the way at the beginning. I was born in this town called Dhanbad. It's in India, it's in Eastern India, and it is the coal mining capital of the country. Think West Virginia coal mines, a lot of the coal in India comes from this town, and that is what this town is known for. So I was born there at my grandmother's house, on my maternal grandmother's house, and lived there for a little bit, and then my family moved to Calcutta, which is now known as Kolkata. And that is the first real memory I have of a household.

Aditi Dash:

I lived in an apartment, two bedroom apartment with my parents. I have a younger brother. It was as far as I can remember full of joy and fun. We were middle class in India, and we were from a small town in a big city. So I guess the reason I'm saying that is that it felt like even just being in Kolkata was a big move for me and my family.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Totally. How old were you when you came over to the US?

Aditi Dash:

I was eight years old when I came to the US. And we moved to Milpitas in California, which is in the Bay Area. And it's like a tech hub today, it's in the center of Silicon Valley. And my dad was brought here in order to work in the tech industry.

Chris Erwin:

Was your father working in the technology industry back in India?

Aditi Dash:

Exactly. He was working in the tech industry back in India. I guess it's the reverse of outsourcing, but the-

Chris Erwin:

Insourcing.

Aditi Dash:

They insourced him and then three months later my mom and my brother joined him in California. Again, we had this great apartment in Milpitas. It was a two bedroom apartment that I recently went back to the complex and realized how tiny it was. But it was big in my eyes and my dad worked at Sun Microsystems, my mom was stay-at-home. I had a lot of fun, interesting memories from that point, but it was very community-driven. In that apartment complex, my parents got to know all the other Indians, and we hung out almost every single day if not every week, and it just was a really strong Indian community within that apartment and some of my parents best friends to this day are from there. They still see them on a weekly basis, which is kind of crazy.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. My mother was born in Italy, and then she migrated to the US. And I think they first landed in Erie, Pennsylvania when she was four years old. And a key part of that was that there was a lot of other local Italian community nearby to help to ease the transition and the logistics, and then just to feel that there was a support network. So did you actually move with whether other family members or other people from your Indian community back in India, when you made this move at age eight?

Aditi Dash:

No. It was a new community here. I think my dad may have had some friends that he was working with in India that also moved here at the same time, but for me it was a completely new thing.

Chris Erwin:

Do you remember being really excited or were you scared? What was going through your mind?

Aditi Dash:

Yes. I was really excited. I had a shirt that I would wear all the time that said baseball on it. I couldn't wait to move here. Just the things that were super exciting once I got here were like carpet. We didn't really have carpet in India, and so it was just I remember being fascinated by it, and volunteering to clean it whenever I could.

Chris Erwin:

That's a rare thing for a kid at that age, wanting to do chores like clean the carpet.

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. It felt like an adventure, but I'm sure that my parents telling me something along the lines of "Hey, this is going to be fun," had something to do with that.

Chris Erwin:

And so I know that you then end up at Brown, but in that interim period, what were you getting into a groove in? Were there certain sports or like now you're a consumer investor, were there any glimpses into your current career back then in your childhood?

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. A few things. So at the age of 12, we moved to Boulder, Colorado. And so in Colorado, in Boulder is where I really had my formative years, my rebellious years, my years to just figure out who I was. And weirdly enough, Boulder today is a hub for consumer products and for consumer products businesses, especially in the world of food and beverage. And I think that part of the reason that it became a hub is encompassed in some of the glimpses that I saw back then of this desire to live a healthier life, people even back then were very focused on natural ingredients, knowing where products came from, local, and then health and wellness, like running, yoga, skiing, physical activity. There was just a big focus on continuous improvement at least for the body and soul, that I just think that it impacted me in ways that maybe I didn't get, and attracted me to the world of natural foods, natural products, natural living and just consumer in general.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. It's funny, there's this like big westward migration from India to California, and then it's Boulder, Colorado, and then it's-

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. It's off to Rhode Island and Brown.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. And when you went to Brown, what was in your eyes then of what you wanted to do with your life?

Aditi Dash:

I filled out all my applications that I wanted to be a biomedical engineer, but I had a few different things that I wanted to do. I was interested in potentially doing something more political. I was working at the senator's office in Colorado, when I worked there. I was interested in potentially becoming a doctor, which is what I had always thought I'd want to do. I was really into writing as well, and I'd written my essay to apply to Brown about hamburgers and hot dogs and moving to America. So I wanted to do a little bit of something in writing. But I ended up starting as a engineering major, and I finished as an engineering major, and I studied economics as well.

Chris Erwin:

Aditi, before we move on from Brown, I just saw that on your LinkedIn that you founded I think a tutor network called BearPaw Tutors. What was that?

Aditi Dash:

Yes. Two of my best friends from engineering lab and I founded this company called BearPaw Tutors. And it was really fun. But basically, it was a business that would hire tutors from Brown and pay them $1 more than they could make tutoring Brown students, and then go out in the community starting with private schools, and find parents that were looking for SAT tutors for their kids and charge them less than they would have to pay Kaplan. Our costs were really low, because at the time, I think Brown students could make $8 an hour tutoring, and so we'd pay them $10 an hour. And then the parents were paying us like $30 an hour for the tutoring. And so we'd make a pretty good margin on that relationship, and our kind of angle was that we would allow parents to book online, pay online and leave a review online. So it was early in just doing all this online tutoring, and it was local and it was profitable, and it was really, really, really fun.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. That's a pretty good spread for a business that kicks off in college, so kudos.

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. And so my friend Matt, who was the CEO and it was his idea, and he now works at Square. And my friend Tito, who was helping with just kind of building out the basic tech side of things is now an air miner.

Chris Erwin:

What's an air miner?

Aditi Dash:

An air miner, his vision is to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into carbon-based products.

Chris Erwin:

Is that kind of like carbon capture in a way?

Aditi Dash:

Yeah, exactly. Carbon capture.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Cool. So after Brown, you go to investment banking at Morgan Stanley in New York City, and I think you start in the TMT group and then you go over to healthcare. But I'm curious, why did you want to go to banking in New York?

Aditi Dash:

I didn't know much about business or finance, but I had so much fun doing this BearPaw Tutors thing, that I was trying to figure out what I should do. And the advice I was given was, "You got to go into banking or consulting, if you like business." And so I started applying to all the consulting and banking firms and was lucky to get an internship at Morgan Stanley. And honestly, I didn't know what I was doing. I did not know what LevFin was, I didn't know what high yield bonds were. I felt like I just walked into this crazy finance party, and I was like, "This is great. I can do this." It was a blast. I had a great time.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. Yeah. You're definitely not learning like LevFin and LBO models when you're an undergrad. You're learning like trade theory and very abstract concepts. Very different. So you're there, and is the experience what you expected? I think you were there for maybe two to three years.

Aditi Dash:

The experience was not what I expected. I expected cubicles, but I was placed on a trading floor because that's where the leveraged finance TMT team was, so TVs everywhere, rows and rows of desks and no privacy whatsoever. So not just for me, but for anybody. Incredible learning experience. Whether I liked it or not, I was on like all the calls with important clients, because they were happening right next to me. I sat next to my boss, and I got a lot of responsibilities, I got yelled at. And at some point, and it was just, it was wild in that way. And then I also didn't expect the market to crash and people to lose their shit, because to me it was the first job, and I didn't realize how historical the Lehman bankruptcy was when I first started the gig. So I didn't realize the impact that it was having on individuals across the US. I didn't internalize that.

Chris Erwin:

It's interesting you say that, because I was also in banking from 2005 to 2010, pre-business school. So I was there during the whole debt crisis and market downturn. And I remember we were working on these really big landmark transactions, our buyers couldn't get the debt to complete them. So the markets fell through, and it was devastating. But I don't think I realized like not until hindsight, because I was kind of in my mid 20s. I don't think I fully acknowledged how severe the situation it was and how difficult it was for so many people. I was just concerned about myself and being like, "Oh, my comp is impacted." And I was like, well, in retrospect, so many people are losing their jobs, these venerable institutions are going away, like this is a really big deal. Do you feel that you felt what was actually happening in that moment or not?

Aditi Dash:

No. I was too young to feel it, and I don't think I quite got it. And I just hadn't seen enough, and maybe I still haven't seen enough of how the world works.

Chris Erwin:

Totally. So you mentioned, Aditi, in another chat we had that there was a piece of advice that you got about sitting at the table from an associate. Why don't you talk about that?

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. So I think this is on one of my first days at Morgan Stanley like post-training, and one of the associates told me, "Never sit at the table." And that was the first thing that he said to me, because we had our start date on a Monday and every Monday started with a Monday morning meeting. And so I showed up and I was told, "Hey, never sit at the table." And as I look back on that, I didn't think it was a huge deal. I was like, "Okay, I'll sit on the sides." But as I think back to that moment, and I think about every individual that has gotten into a job like that, and the first thing they hear is, "Never sit at the table," I get a little bit upset to be honest, because I don't think that's necessarily the message that we want to be sending to people that are starting new jobs.

Aditi Dash:

I think that we don't have to say, "Hey, sit at the table and say something," it's important to convey respect and know what you know and know what you don't know, but I don't think that just having a consistent never sit at the table messaging leads to confidence or people speaking up. I think you have to break out of that in order to be successful.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. I think you also said it sets you up for second guessing yourself. And in life where you can second guess yourself everywhere, but you need confidence. And that if you feel that you have researched the topic, have spoken with credible advisors about something, that's like you have to go forth and trust yourself. Just hearing this story, there's a few layers to it, where it's almost like, "Hey, one, we don't want to hear from you. Don't sit at the table, your voice doesn't matter." But two, also like, "Maybe we don't want you to hear everything that we're saying as well." What a terrible message for someone that's just entering the workforce?

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. I think it goes both ways. And I think that it's also part of the culture of banking, or it was back then.

Chris Erwin:

I think you transition from TMT and then into healthcare, but then you make a transition to become part of the growth investment team at Morgan Stanley, and you move west to San Francisco. I think you went to Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. So what was that move about?

Aditi Dash:

So at the end of three years of banking, most people have to decide if they're going to stay in banking or leave banking. And for me, I liked banking but I had this feeling in the back of my mind that maybe there's something that I could like more. And so I told the banking team, I was in the healthcare group at the time, that I would be leaving. And so they were gracious enough to help make introductions, and it's a whole process where the analyst then starts being able to have time to go on interviews and interviewed at some funds, and tried to find a good gig.

Aditi Dash:

And then this was an inbound opportunity. It came in through somebody I knew at Morgan Stanley, who said, "Hey, I know you're looking to move to the buy-side, and we're rebuilding our team. It used to be called Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, now it's going to be called Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. We're rebuilding our team, and we need our first associate to join." And so I had wanted to move to California for a little bit. I had lived here as a child, and I had gotten in my head that I didn't like California. But I wanted to just test it out and see if that was actually true or not.

Aditi Dash:

So I interviewed for the job and thought, "Hey, this is a great way to learn investing." And my future boss gave me this advice that, "Hey, don't change more than two things at once," which I still try to do today. So he said, "If you're changing job and changing city, try not to change company. Or if you're changing company and job, try not to change city, because it's really, really hard to change more than two things at once." And that made a lot of sense to me. So I said, "Yeah. I'm going from banking to investing, and I'm moving cities, it would be good, it makes sense to stay at Morgan Stanley." So I was lucky enough to get that gig and moved out to the Bay Area to work for some incredible people on the investing side.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. I think clearly, this is the beginning of your buy-side career, because shortly after this, you then go to the Stripes Group, which is back east, which was a buy-side fund focused on tech, consumer and healthcare. And there's probably a point where I assume that at Morgan Stanley kind of you're young associate, learning just how to prepare things for an investment committee, learning from the partners, understanding what the lens is for making the right investments. And then at Stripes Group, it starts to probably be like founder and relationship building and potentially even some deal sourcing. When you go to Stripes, why did you make that move, and how did your role change there?

Aditi Dash:

I made the move for I would say 75% personal reasons and 25% professional. So I was dating somebody, and this person who is my husband today, lived in New York.

Chris Erwin:

So it was a good move, it worked out.

Aditi Dash:

It was a good move so far. Yes. But I thought to myself, "I'm willing to move all the way across the country for a job, and this could be a much bigger impact on my life than any job that I have. So if this feels real, I should be willing to move to the other side of the country to kind of see this through." And he already had a New York gig lined up, so he could move out to California. And he hated California, still kind of does, I think.

Chris Erwin:

Why did he hate California?

Aditi Dash:

I don't know. I think that he's very much a East Coaster, so he likes the weather, he doesn't like the taxes. We could get into it. So I told my boss, I was like, "Hey, look. This could be the real thing, so I have to go back to New York to be closer to him." That's why I ended up just putting fillers out and had a recruiting firm contact me about a role at an up and coming fund called Stripes Group. And at the time, I think it was Fund II that they had raised, and my job changed a lot in that it became much more sourcing-based and diligence whenever I wasn't sourcing and bigger deals. So Expansion Capital was doing smaller investments at the time, and Stripes was doing slightly bigger investments.

Chris Erwin:

And what types of deals were you particularly sourcing?

Aditi Dash:

Mostly in tech, SAS, consumer and media.

Chris Erwin:

Was that scary for you? To say like in your younger career, it's kind of like you have a boss to tell you what to do, you go do some analysis, you come back to them. And if you do it with high quality work and you're organized, it's a good look. But now it's like, hey, there's not necessarily a playbook here that I know, you kind of got to figure it out for yourself, how to build these relationships. How did you approach it?

Aditi Dash:

I don't think it was scary. I think that it was overwhelming and draining at times. I still feel this way. I feel like I have to be on my A game. It's all about building a relationship, connecting with the people. Totally different skill set, trying to be helpful without draining your own time. So I think I kind of approached it as like, hey, I had interest areas that I was covering, so I was looking at some healthcare companies back then and that was a big interest area, so I just made it a point to get to know everybody at the companies that I was trying to target.

Aditi Dash:

I went to all the healthcare events, I got to know healthcare investors, I got to know hospital people, and just started just representing Stripes at these events, and just going to conferences, going down to Baltimore, to DC, to New Orleans, and just kind of pounding the pavement for lack of a better word. And then making sure I brought that back to the team and kind of said, "Hey, if these are good companies, we should be looking at them, we should be looking into them," and kept iterating things that I was interested in, things I wanted to do. I think it's as much about external sourcing and external relationships, as it is about internal relationships, and that's a skill that I think is important to keep building continuously.

Chris Erwin:

And we'll get into this question a little bit more when we talk about CircleUp, but what do you think your personal investor brand that you're building back then, what were you trying to be known for that was different from, call it associates or principals that were at other funds relative to you?

Aditi Dash:

I was trying to be known for one, being thoughtful in my approach and outreach. Two was making connections between people who might be able to help each other or people who might like to know each other. Three as the person that can identify some interesting trends. And so I love being the person that said, "Oh, XYZ reminds me of this, and nobody else has kind of made that connection before." So making unique connections, which I think help people remember me and remember some of the ideas that I have. So connecting sometimes totally disparate things is something that I'd like to be known for. And then back then the other thing was just, I was doing a lot of brand building for Stripes, too. So kind of being known as one of the people that was at Stripes at the time. So if you thought of Stripes, you thought of me.

Chris Erwin:

I have to ask in terms of identifying trends, hearing what you're saying, a lot of my friends who are current venture capitalists or investors, and particularly when they were younger, like coming right out of business school, everyone thought that those were the most glamorous jobs and most in demand. And they were in very high demand and short supply. But those peers, I've never seen anyone work as hard as them. It's like they had to be everywhere. They were getting up early, they were preparing for investment committee meetings, they were constantly on panels, attending different webinars and conferences. And I was like, "When do you guys sleep? This feels exhausting and wanting to be always available to founders or texting with them or emailing them. This always on mentality." And I don't know if a lot of people see that part of it. It's a very, very difficult role.

Aditi Dash:

I think you have to have fun while doing it, otherwise it gets draining. Work from home helps.

Chris Erwin:

But it's clear that you wanted something different or something more after Stripes, and you end up going to business school.

Aditi Dash:

I felt as myself really disingenuous when I was telling a founder, "Hey, I think you should do this." I don't think every investor needs this, which is operating experience or just some experience and having done a startup. I just was having a really hard time saying with a straight face, "Hey, one of the things that I recommend is X for your SAS business, or Y for your consumer brand, or Z." I felt like that's what I needed to get really good at if I was going to be an investor, actually giving advice that is helpful and actionable to founders when they need it.

Aditi Dash:

And so I told my boss, I said, "Hey, I don't think I can quite get there yet." And asked if he would write a recommendation letter for me to business school. And not just him but a few other people at Stripes as well. So I applied to HBS and Stanford, because I wanted to take a break from the investing side, explore a few different industries, hopefully make a move over to the operating side, and just get a little bit more experience before I started telling other people what to do.

Chris Erwin:

So then you head to HBS in 2014, and what is that first set of operating experience that you start to get while you're there?

Aditi Dash:

There were a couple of things. One was starting a small company and a product management class, so just kind of thinking about that. Another was an internship at Blue Apron, which was the last investment that I completed during my time at Stripes. And three was an entrepreneurship course that I took where we were building a startup idea for the healthcare space. And so just like testing these in real life and in test environments.

Chris Erwin:

So what did you feel that you learned from that operating experience that was revelatory to you?

Aditi Dash:

I felt like a lot of people don't get the basics, and that a lot of running a company comes down to some pretty basic things, and along the lines of, do you make more money than you spend, over can you buy something for $20 and sell it for $40? And are you giving the person who's buying your product what they actually want or need? And I just felt like a big disconnect between the investing world and the people who were actually like working in the Blue Apron warehouse, or the Blue Apron fulfillment center. And so I felt like some of those basic questions that a company was trying to solve at the high level, I thought different people couldn't answer them along the company ladder.

Aditi Dash:

I think that was eye-opening in that, I realized that operating experience isn't necessarily about learning these complicated things that nobody else understands. I realized that operating experience is more about simplifying the mumbo jumbo and the finance terms and the legal ease into basic business principles that really lead somebody to think about, "Hey, is this a good thing for the community, the country, the customer?"

Chris Erwin:

That's actually a really good point, thinking about how you take the focus of profitability and a sustainable business and good unit economics, translate that to a clear message, but then having that message permeate the ranks. Everyone thinks through every single decision with that lens. I remember, when I joined Big Frame right out of grad school, we had a part-time CFO come in, and his name is Steve Hendry. When he kicked off his work with our team, he said, "I'm empowering everyone on this team, from the CEO down to the support analysts, the producers, the editors. Think like an owner. Think about what business decisions make sense." Now, that was easy for him to do because we were a 25 person team and he could say that in a room. But for a really big company, how do you get that message to everybody? And did you learn any techniques while you were getting these internships of how to do that?

Aditi Dash:

I actually think it's very basic. I think it comes down to overcommunicating and oversimplifying. I don't think business and finance is and should be complicated. I think that it's important to go out of your way to not say ROAS, like talk about, "Hey, we're spending this much money on marketing, and it needs to generate more sales." So I think it comes down to simplicity and just consistency and overcommunication, but I don't think it's rocket science. I think anyone can do it. And I think I have to get better at it. It's weird, I feel like it's almost easier to overcomplicate something than to simplify it. But I was going to ask you, why did you decide to leave the world of investment banking?

Chris Erwin:

In my last year and a half that I was there, I was working with a lot of early stage technology and media startups. And we were helping a company, Ingrooves actually, with a capital raise that was based out of San Francisco. I loved working with that team, the founder was Robb McDaniels, shout out to him. I loved working with that team, I loved their energy. They were building something that was disruptive. But it was still early, and they were just grinding it out. And I was like, "Oh, I love this energy. This feels fun. I want to do this."

Chris Erwin:

In banking, I had just been as an advisor and operating outside the company, and I wanted to see the guts from the inside. And then I was also attracted to the West Coast. I was like a Jersey Shore kid for my entire life, so I wanted to switch up the terrain a bit too, that's why I did it.

Aditi Dash:

That's cool.

Chris Erwin:

Closing out that last point. I think you're right, that things can be a lot simpler. And I just heard this on the Shaughnessy podcast, I think he was interviewing a coach at Berkeley, if I remember correctly. And the coach referenced fence posting, where it's that notion of you put the fence post in so you make the point, you communicate something clearly, and then three feet down the line, you put another fence post in. And you just keep repeating the same message until it's drilled into everyone's brains. Can you just be as simple as that? I love that analogy.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. So you're at HBS for a couple years, and then you're getting this operate experience, and then you decide to transition to La Colombe, a coffee manufacturer afterwards. Was that still part of the same vein of like, "I just want deeper operate experience. This feels right," or was there something else you were thinking about?

Aditi Dash:

I had gotten interested in the coffee industry when I was at Stripes, and we'd started looking at a number of companies in the space. And I also was fascinated By the coffee supply chain. And so I took a class on just international trade relations and started diving into the coffee supply chain and wrote an interesting paper on it, and started just putting out into the HBS Universe that I really want to work in coffee like, "This seems really cool. I love the product. I think it's a really interesting area." And the Universe presented an opportunity to do so while I was at HBS. So I did this independent study with La Colombe and with Chobani, on potential ways for Chobani and La Colombe to partner with two friends at HBS.

Aditi Dash:

And Diana, Elizabeth and I worked on this project to help think about ways that Chobani and La Colombe could partner to create new retail concepts. And so just like a consulting project, where we didn't get paid but we got credit for doing the work. And through that process, I got to know the La Colombe team. And then the other thing is just before the project started, my husband was living in Philly, and he was attending Wharton, and I asked him to go to the Wharton career fair. And I heard that the La Colombe team was going to be there. And I asked him to give them my contact information and get theirs so that I could talk to them about a potential opportunity.

Chris Erwin:

So you're recruiting to Colombe via like a Wharton career fair?

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. So I said, "Hey, can you please go? And then just drop my name and then get their card so I can email them, so they know who I am." And then that happened right before this project started. So it all kind of came together at the same time. And then I ended up applying for a full-time role, and because of the project they'd already gotten to know me. And so I received an offer in July about two and a half months after graduating from HBS and accepted the offer to start at La Colombe working for the COO. Initially working for the COO, working on some new products, figuring out margins and demand planning. And then I transitioned to working for the CEO on new products innovation, and overseeing the pilot production facility.

Chris Erwin:

How big was the team when you joined?

Aditi Dash:

It was probably in the office close to 20 people when I joined, and it grew over the two years I was there because they doubled down on CPG distribution. So they created cans, and we were selling them in places like Whole Foods and Walmart and brought on a big sales team to support that. That happened around the time I was joining/right afterwards.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. You mentioned in our pre-chat that I think a big thing for you there was that you were learning how to launch new product. But you are making these pretty big directional decisions for the company with not a lot of necessarily data and insights. Talk about that.

Aditi Dash:

So my job was to just take any idea from any part of the company and try to bring it to life working with the team. And a lot of the ideas came from the CEO and founders mind. I mean, he was the kind of guy where he had gotten to where he was by trusting his gut and his gut instincts. And so some of the products he wanted to create didn't even exist yet, and it would just be impossible to get data or market insights on those products. Like there's nowhere I could look to figure out, "Hey, would this kind of product make sense in any way? Would Nitro juice make sense?" We were working on Nitro coffee, but he said, "The world needs Nitro juice." So there's just no way to search for Nitro juice. But you can actually create it and see if it sells, and go from there, which is what we did.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Was there any other type of analysis like trying to extrapolate insights from other tangential product launches to kind of fill some of the early data gaps, anything like that?

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. We used a lot of data from existing product launches just to see hey, like a new can in our store sells this much, and we can kind of think about that. We looked at other products and adjacent or similar categories. At the time, we didn't even have a lot of Nielsen or IRI data, so we took what we could get from wherever. I think now the company probably pays for a lot more data than we did back then.

Chris Erwin:

You did launch this, remind me, this Nitro product.

Aditi Dash:

Yes. We launched a Nitro juice, Nitro lemon and Nitro orange juice that we created in the pilot production facility and went through like hundreds of suppliers and thousands of tests and iterations, and started selling it in the cafes and people like at least in the cafes, were obsessed with it.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. In terms of getting that initial data upon launch, were you doing just kind of focus groups and surveys or just using the initial sales data? How were you getting that need in information?

Aditi Dash:

We'd do a little bit of testing and sampling in store. The cool thing about having just a physical space and working out of a cafe all day, is that you have instant access to customers all the time all day. And so we were leveraging those customers to test out new products. And that was like the easiest thing to do. And I think that was really, really great, and I recommend a lot of the brands I talk to today to find a channel or path where they can test that in. So some days, it would literally be, hey, like making the product, and then having the baristas taste it later on.

Aditi Dash:

I actually ended up leveraging the baristas a lot as well, just because they were part of the company, so we could use them to test different products and they would be able to fill out surveys or be required to fill out surveys, but they were also kind of consumers because of their day-to-day lives and their interaction with consumers help them understand people a lot more. So I think leveraging the baristas was one unique source of at least limited data. And then we would basically test online where the marketing team would post something and see how much engagement it got. And that would inform sometimes product names, sometimes product directions.

Aditi Dash:

We had the Instagram followers vote on the next flavor. Whatever you could to leverage existing customers in different channels, was important to testing out and gathering early data. And then once we got the process approved for making the juice by the FDA process authority, then we started making just a handful of cans and selling it, adding it to things like cocktails. So it just became part of, "Hey, let's just do this every single day to see how people are responding."

Chris Erwin:

And in this role, were you managing a team or was your role kind of spread across different groups?

Aditi Dash:

I had a team that I was managing. It was made up of R&D, pilot production facility, and employees that worked at the plant.

Chris Erwin:

Was this the first time that you'd actually managed a team, or did you have that responsibility before?

Aditi Dash:

This was the first time I had managed a team, and I don't know, it might even be the last because investors don't really manage teams. The way that the investor role works, it's not about managing massive teams. But it was a really fun and unique experience.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. What did you like most about managing the team?

Aditi Dash:

I like the feeling of being part of a crew, a squad. I like the feeling that, "Hey, if we put our heads together, we could get something done." I like feeling important as a team to the organization. I think it's harder to do that as an individual than it is a team. And I liked being able to see the progress that different types of people were making, where my success was related to small successes of others that you could really see happening. And that was just, it's just a good feeling.

Chris Erwin:

Well, having other people to celebrate with when there's wins and there's a successful product launch. But also if things go bad, being able to commiserate with others is a nice thing, part of that whole crew dynamic. What did you find to be the hardest thing about managing a team?

Aditi Dash:

Convincing people that I was on their side, negotiating things like offers and raises, being the middle woman between the CEO, and people who were actually working on the production floor making the product. And so, the vision is so big and it's so amazing, and it's so exciting, but translating it into the day-to-day of like, "Hey, you need to dump these beans into the tin consistently every single day in order to make that vision come true," I think that bridging that gap of vision with execution was challenging. Definitely rewarding, but definitely challenging.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. What do you think was your tactic to convince people and get buy-in on what you wanted?

Aditi Dash:

I tried to do a couple of things, and who knows how well it worked and how much people saw it as like, "Hey, you're pushing me," as opposed to, "You're encouraging me."? But the things that I tried to do, were giving people a glimpse into where the product was going early on, so setting like a product mission as well as that fit into the company mission. And messaging that early on saying, "Hey, this is what we're trying to do." Asking for input from people who were supposed to be giving input early on and saying, "Hey, at X date, I stop taking input just because I have to keep moving forward," setting a stop date for that.

Aditi Dash:

Just consistent updates on how things were going, figuring out what data points to track, so you could show performance improving, whether it was like pounds of beans processed per day, or number of cans made or number of gallons of concentrate created, figuring out those data points and writing it on a whiteboard in the production floor, so people saw it and saw the trend. I think those things were helpful.

Chris Erwin:

I agree. I think when teams know what they're working towards, what's the bigger mission, whether it's these really small menial tasks or big tasks, it's all in support of what the whole team is working towards. And when there's transparency and understanding, I think that's a very powerful motivator. I also believe, yeah, and empowering people. Some of the greatest advice I got from my old CEO at Big Frame was, "Hire great people and get out of their way." And I love that. And holding people big.

Chris Erwin:

Like if you went through the rigmarole to hire great people, then you have to trust them, and know that they're capable of great work. And I think that trust is a key thing that I constantly learn every day with my team, being able to let go. All right. We just came back from a quick break, and Aditi, you were mentioning that you have some war stories from the trenches at La Colombe. Why don't you tell me about those?

Aditi Dash:

There's a couple of stories that I think stick in my mind as to the highs and lows of La Colombe. One is where the FDA showed up at the plant that I was running. And I personally had almost a meltdown, because the FDA was there to check on the plant and talk to the production manager. And I actually was freaking out and was given the advice to, "Hey, you just need to leave. You need to trust that the production manager and the warehouse manager have everything under control, and that the processes that you've put in place by this point are going to work. So the best thing that you can do is actually leave. They don't want to talk to you, they want to talk to the person who is actually the production and warehouse manager, like actually working on the floor."

Aditi Dash:

So I let them in, talked to them briefly and just backed away, which was the best thing I could have done and ended up being a really positive review of the plant. They were very impressed with some of the changes we'd made, and ended up being a really positive thing, but helped me realize, "Hey, sometimes you just need to back away and do what needs to get done."

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. And did you say this was a routine check or a surprise check?

Aditi Dash:

Surprise. It was a surprise check.

Chris Erwin:

What were you concerned about going through your head of like, why you were afraid?

Aditi Dash:

Well, the first thing that I was afraid of was that I wore the wrong thing, because I was worried that food production facilities have specific rules on wearing lab coats inside and hairnets, and I was worried that, "Oh my God. I wore the wrong outfit on FDA day." The second thing I was worried about was that we had turned this plant around. It didn't use to be a production plant, it was just like a warehouse. And so doing food production plant and a warehouse/storage facility, you just have to follow a lot of new rules to make sure everything is in compliance. And so I was worried that we missed something or skipped something. And then I was just worried about the team. I was like, "How are they going to be able to take the FDA through what they need to know," and it was all unnecessary worries.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. Going back to that theme of just like trusting the work that you've done that you did it right, and trusting the team like the team's got it.

Aditi Dash:

Yeah, exactly. The team's got it. The other thing that sticks out is when I think we needed a water heater, we needed hot water for something. We were trying to figure out where to get a hot water, and the folks that we were talking to stuck it out or just quoting really high prices. And this was just needed to heat incoming water from the existing water line, and it wasn't going to be interacting with the water in a negative way. It was just needed to heat the actual water through the pipes. And the quotes that we were getting were so high so it just didn't make sense for the plant. So me and the engineering manager just went to Home Depot, and he bought a water heater for the home to jerry-rig the system until we could get a proper heater installed in place.

Chris Erwin:

You were deep in the operational weeds, like figuring this out, going to Home Depot, getting the right parts. That's awesome.

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. Sometimes I was doing that. And the Home Depot there had this incredible sandwich place outside, right outside Home Depot, like a food truck. And it was just the best sandwich in Philly.

Chris Erwin:

Do you remember? Was it like a Philly cheesesteak type sandwich or what was it?

Aditi Dash:

No. It was like, you could get different meats sauteed on the grill, just like a street meat kind of cart on a sandwich. So kind of like a Philly cheesesteak, but you could also get like the whole piece of meat with peppers sauteed on it.

Chris Erwin:

What an added bonus. Yeah.

Aditi Dash:

Yeah.

Chris Erwin:

We're about to get to your role at CircleUp, but do you miss getting in the weeds like that with the team and figuring out those really micro ops problems?

Aditi Dash:

Oh my God, yeah. I do miss it a lot of times. Sometimes I walk into a warehouse or I walk into a Costco and that smell of just being in a warehouse or it's like sight of the racks just brings me back to having to go to a facility every single day.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. I just watched a video on YouTube of just people really don't understand how the infrastructure of our world works. And I think this was a big theme that came out of the power grid shut down in Texas of like, "Do you know what a water pump is? Do you know what a sump system is? Do you know how electricity actually gets to your home from the grid?" These are a lot of things like, we're all connected on Zoom and we're on Clubhouse, we take a lot of things for granted. And I think that, that knowledge not only just from a survival perspective but just awareness, is really, really important.

Aditi Dash:

I don't think people know a lot of those basic things, and it's really sad. And I feel like, I learned a lot of those basic things by not only being in the weeds operationally, but also just by being around people whose job it was to work with their hands to fix things, to build things, to create things. We don't really do that. Most people that I know in my life are on their computers all day, and our hands are not used to actually make, do or create anything other than spreadsheets or PowerPoints.

Chris Erwin:

I mean, look a very real thing for a lot of the consumer companies that you invest in were their manufacturing product. And if they have something that's impacted on their supply chain or their manufacturing line, that can shut a company down for days. Loss of revenue, major issues, and you need to have expertise to know how to do it, versus living in spreadsheets and numbers. So cool. All right. So let's talk about CircleUp. I think you were at La Colombe for a couple of years, and then you go to CircleUp in 2018. What was the impetus for that transition, and how did you meet the CircleUp team?

Aditi Dash:

I met the CircleUp team through somebody I used to work with at La Colombe. So a friend from La Colombe, actually the same guy that I had my husband track down at the Wharton career fair. He introduced me to the CircleUp team after he left La Colombe. And so he introduced me to this team at CircleUp who was a new team for the company, and they were responsible for investing a relatively new fund, $125 million venture fund. And he had gotten to know them just through his work in the consumer space and knew that they were hiring for somebody at the partner level, somebody who had some experience on the operation side and on the investing side. And so that's how the connection was made.

Aditi Dash:

The first conversation was with a woman named Allison who's no longer at CircleUp, but she was also somebody who had worked in investing, got an operating role and then joined CircleUp. So kind of walked me through her path and her process of joining. And she was just like, it was very clear that she was really sharp and excited to be at CircleUp. And I got excited about the opportunity, then flew out to San Francisco to meet the rest of the team. They interviewed me and ended up making me an offer that I decided to take. So it was traditional in a lot of ways, but network-based in some ways. And I think what just excited me about the role was the ability to go back to investing.

Aditi Dash:

I thought I was going to be in operation side for 10 or 20 years, but I felt like I had a crash course at La Colombe and at Blue Apron. And like I told you, I realized that I didn't need to learn some magical operating secret in order to understand the basics of operation. So I felt like I was ready to go back to the investing side, I missed talking to tons of companies and tons of brands. I missed feeling like I was out of the loop on new trends. And so I was really excited to come back to a world where I got to go back to building relationships, making investments, making money. And so that kind of led to me joining CircleUp.

Aditi Dash:

Between La Colombe and CircleUp, I tried to start a company actually. I tried to start two companies and both of them were really, really tough. So one was a company that I was working with my friend from HBS on. It was called Be As One Foods. And what we wanted to do was create foods for your insides and outsides, similar to a company like Gold or even something like MUD\WTR. We were planning to launch products that had superfoods, adaptogens in powder form that you could use for your insides and outsides. And my friend, Ana lived in Peru, I was in the US, and so we were going to launch this company together, and realized that it's really, really, really hard to be in a long distance relationship with a co-founder. And so we decided to just stop doing Be As One Foods.

Aditi Dash:

And then the other one that I was trying to start was a company called Dollar Fresh, which I met with several investors on but ended up not pursuing it and joining CircleUp instead. But Dollar Fresh was a concept that was all about getting fresh foods for $1. So imagine like the dollar store version of Sweetgreen, and having very, very simple small portion foods for $1, $3 and $5 flat price points and making the margin work. So I hired a chef, I got the menu done, I scattered a bunch of locations to open up a restaurant. But what convinced me not to do it full-time was actually working at a restaurant on the weekends. And for a while I was at La Colombe, I started working at the salad place on the weekends as a volunteer, and just helping out this one woman salad shop owner in a location that I thought would be really exciting for this business. And it just was way harder than I realized.

Chris Erwin:

And maybe not as glamorous as you were expecting.

Aditi Dash:

Not glamorous at all. I mean, I wasn't expecting glamor, but I also wasn't expecting feeling like physical defeat either. And I think that if you own a restaurant, you start a restaurant, there is a lot that goes into physically and emotionally creating this place that other people are eating, that just felt very draining for where I was at that point in my life.

Chris Erwin:

It's like an instant feedback loop where you can see, are customers liking the food that you're putting on the table, but also you're seeing very quickly do the financials make sense at the end of the day?

Aditi Dash:

They usually don't. The financials usually don't make sense for a restaurant.

Chris Erwin:

So it seems that you were scratching an entrepreneurial itch that's there. Do you think that itch has been satiated?

Aditi Dash:

I think that it's been satiated for now. I can't say it's been satiated forever. There are many, many ideas that I have all the time about interesting things to do. I don't think that's going to go away. I just think that right now I'm adding a lot more value to my life and my community as an investor. And my goal is to help other entrepreneurs for now.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. Okay. So let's talk about that, and your role at CircleUp. What do you feel that your mandate is there, and what's your personal focus?

Aditi Dash:

Find and invest in high growth consumer companies. And my focus personally is to look for different spikes in different areas that I find interesting, and build relationships with those companies as early as possible. I'd love to be the first person that somebody asked for advice when they're building a startup that could become a big startup. But I have to balance that with like managing my time accurately. So I try to put out, like just for myself a list of areas that I want to focus on for the year and for the quarter. And that helps me narrow down, "Hey, where do I want to focus my time?" And then the rest of it is kind of like inbound, and I have my list of priority companies and list of priority entrepreneurs that I'm just trying to build relationships with.

Chris Erwin:

And actually, we're going to talk about your 2021 predictions, which I think are like your key themes of investing for the year. But before that, curious, how do you think that your personal investor brand has changed from when you were at Stripes and when you were at Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital? How has that evolved as you've become more senior?

Aditi Dash:

I think the biggest change has been a focus more on innovation and new things, and then the second part is trying to be more of the person that is giving advice from a place of, "Hey, I have done investing for a little bit, I have done operating for a little bit, I can give suggestions, as opposed to back then it was much more sourcing for the sake of sourcing rather than building relationships with founders and helping them get an understanding of different problem areas or getting advice.

Chris Erwin:

Got it. What channels do you think are most effective for you to build your brand, where there's just proliferation, where you can be on Clubhouse, you can be on podcasts like this, you can be writing newsletters or on Medium? What do you think is most effective for you?

Aditi Dash:

It depends on the day. For community events, it seems like LinkedIn is really good. Clubhouse seems to be getting better, but I'm very drained at the end of every Clubhouse that I've done. So I'm trying to find new energy levels to do that more and do a show and things like that. I think Twitter is really like it works really well. I've met companies on Twitter, I've met founders of service providers. I was looking for a company that is bringing tech to the world of PR, and I just put it out there on Twitter and met this amazing company out of Boston that is creating a marketplace for people who are looking for PR. So just very strong, I think space to build a brand and to do brand and company discovery.

Chris Erwin:

I have to ask, why do you find Clubhouse exhausting?

Aditi Dash:

I think Clubhouse feels a little bit like LinkedIn, where it's something that feels like I have to be there because everyone else is there and I have to post there, but it's not something that is a place that I can use like Twitter to have like a two-way conversation. So I think Clubhouse kind of feels like a one-way conversation which can feel exhausting to me because I get energized off of that interaction that I have on something like Twitter. I haven't quite found that on Clubhouse. It feels like when people speak to each other at least in the bigger rooms, it's like panel-type questions.

Aditi Dash:

It's not as informal as it seems like it was when it first started. Now, it seems very structured, it feels like going to a conference. Like when we used to go to conferences back in the day, I remember feeling at the end of the day, just drained from like, "Oh my gosh, I don't want to hear another lecture, and I don't want to walk by another booth." That same feeling is happening to me at Clubhouse. I'm like, "I don't want to listen to another room." I think that when it initially started and it was more informal, and you could just jump in and out and talk to people and it felt more like a two-way conversation, that was cool.

Chris Erwin:

I like that. I think like know thyself. I think there's some people that can do this like one-way broadcast talking to hundreds, thousands, millions of people, get really energized by that. But there's also people that it's like that interaction, even if like there's a one-on-one that's three hours versus a 30-minute panel talk, that people are energized by that experience. And I think I relate to that, because I'd much rather have this kind of intimate conversation with you Aditi that, yes, other people can listen in on. But admittedly like, look, my firm we write about all things audio and podcasting all the time. It's one of our specialty areas.

Chris Erwin:

But admittedly, I haven't spent a lot of time in Clubhouse because I very much believe in focus. I'm focused on podcasting. I'm developing another one, and I like Linkedin and I also post on Twitter. And something else right now, while we're still refining our content brand and identity, it feels too much. And then I feel like it's our content brand then is diluted. But I very much agree, I like the interaction. I think it's very fun and very rewarding.

Aditi Dash:

Do you ever worry that you're missing the Clubhouse? Not the boat, but the opportunity to be early in building a brand? Because I have heard that people who were early to Twitter or early to Instagram, and now even early to Clubhouse, are the ones that are like they already have hundreds of thousands of followers just because they were first. And it's going to be hard for the next person to do that.

Chris Erwin:

It's a fair question. But I also think about, "Well, then why don't I have a micro cast yet? Why don't I have X yet? Why don't I have Y yet?" So Clubhouse seems like it's probably a priority relative to the rest, but there's so many different channels that I've just not chosen to go into yet. And so the hardest thing for me that I stand by is I'm saying no to it. I just got other things in the business that I'm focused on that are more important, and that's that.

Aditi Dash:

Are they more revenue driving?

Chris Erwin:

Yep. It's revenue driving and there are some marketing things that we're also working on as well. And team building, like I think people are everything, and so we're working on building our team right now and empowering the right people. And that takes my time and focus too. Let's talk a little bit about some of your investing themes, Aditi. So this was I think on one of your first 2021 predictions that I'd love to learn more about, hormone health as purchase criteria. And I think that there was some terminology I was unfamiliar with, but like ensuring that products don't disrupt your endocrine system. Can you talk a little bit more about what that means?

Aditi Dash:

In the world of personal care products and food, there is a drive towards just products that aren't disrupting your hormone system. So like your endocrine system is basically your hormone system. And if it gets messed with, your hormones can lead to a lot of issues related to hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism. Disclaimer, I'm not a doctor, I don't understand exactly the diseases that come with it, but there has been some data showing that certain chemicals that we surround our lives with, disrupt our endocrine system. And when our endocrine system is disrupted, it can lead to all sorts of issues, especially related to like fertility, hair loss, skin issues, lots of different things.

Aditi Dash:

So for people who are just becoming pregnant or new moms, they make a big point, and doctors say this too, to avoid certain personal care products that can disrupt your body's natural system. And there are a lot of different things that people are trying to avoid. So in the world of personal care, I think the EU bans 1400 ingredients that cannot be used in personal care, and I think the US bans under 10. And so there are a lot of products in the US that are not banned by the EU and have some data associated with some sort of disruption or issue on your health. Maybe not statistically significant, maybe not done in mass studies over time, but there's some links that have come up. So shoppers are starting to avoid more and more of these chemicals. But there's no umbrella term for it.

Aditi Dash:

So like, what are you going to go and shop for when you're trying to have products that are healthy and natural? And the words clean, the word natural, those have lost their meaning as some companies have jumped on the bandwagon with, "Hey, we're clean," but clean doesn't really mean anything. I think that people are just going to think more about hormone health. I've seen some companies that allow you to do testing on the hormone side. I have a friend who is a Gen Z and runs a Gen Z marketing and insight agency who I was talking to, and she was saying that many of her friends, if they feel bad or if there's an issue, they end up getting their hormone levels tested. It's becoming a more common test to figure out what could be causing any kind of issues that somebody might be having. So I think that there's going to be something where hormone health is just going to be really important as a purchase criteria for Gen Z.

Chris Erwin:

That's helpful. Yeah, something that totally was not on my radar. But something that was on my radar that I think that has probably attracted us to, I think we just got to know one another maybe a few months ago, but I think that you look at like the intersection of media and commerce, and a lot of like brands making moves into media. And so you talked about, I saw a prediction about creator platforms will add brands. And I thought this was a really cool one like Patreon or OnlyFans. And I know Vice just went to OnlyFans, and then Rebecca Minkoff just did something on OnlyFans as well for New York Fashion Week. She had like 1500 pieces of collateral that she wanted to give her most engaged fans access to and kind of stir up her Fashion Week moment. I really like that.

Chris Erwin:

And then two, I like how you said that there's going to be like the next major show that you love, that you're going to watch will be made by brands. And I think that's a really cool one. We've seen a lot of brands start to launch different kinds of media companies, I think of Glossier launching Into The Gloss, Casper launching their Woolly publication, even the Casper Sleep Channel. So I think this is like, it's just started to happen but there's going to be a lot more of it. Any additional insights that you want to add to that?

Aditi Dash:

First, a couple of shout outs. There are brands that are doing this that I'm super excited about. There's a brand called Fly By Jing, that has incredible Asian-inspired sauces and condiments that's launching via OnlyFans. And there is a brand called Mid-Day Squares, which is filming every single thing they do every single day, and putting out consistent content. And they have an aim to be a media company in addition to a chocolate company. So I'm super excited to see some of this happening.

Aditi Dash:

And then in terms of additional insight, I just think that our physical and digital worlds are merging, and people's money is going to start going to both physical and digital goods in a combined way. So I'm really excited to see that happening. On the other side of it is spending on digital goods, which is happening already. And then digital companies working in physical goods. I just think it's all going to come together.

Chris Erwin:

I'm going to add in one of our predictions too that is, I think we've seen a lot of commerce brands acquire or invest in media brands. You saw Hasbro do this with eOne. But I think you're going to start seeing kind of the reverse like MeatEater, a churning investment, they started as a media brand, just bought First Lite over the past year and a half. And then they also bought FWF, and there was another kind of game calling company they just bought too. I think that reverse trend is going to happen more and more. Something to think about for your investing criteria.

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. And for our acquirers and exit.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah, exactly. And then I think another one you talked about was I think you said we're going to see more, I'm probably not pronouncing this right, but is it Ibotta?

Aditi Dash:

Yeah. I think, technically, it's Ibotta, but this is an app that you can use to get discounts on food and beverage products at places like Walmart. So you open up the app, and it gives you discounts and cashback for buying certain things. So basically a coupon app. And I think that all of these coupon apps that exist today, like Ibotta, which is a big company today, and is doing some interesting couponing initiatives for in-store, places like Walmart benefit from it. I just think they're all built for shopping in-store.

Aditi Dash:

But as we have more and more ghost grocery stores, and we have more of the online shopping, we have more Instacart, I think that couponing has to evolve to meet the needs of consumers. So how are digital brands thinking about coupons? The most creative thing I've seen recently is just, "Hey, we're having a sale." But that's not the same as a coupon. And I think that DTC brands really need to think about their couponing strategy. I don't know if you've seen the Bed Bath and Beyond classic 20% off coupons that come in the mail?

Chris Erwin:

Oh, yeah.

Aditi Dash:

I'm trying to find out what's the digital version of that? Who's going to create that iconic coupon that drives you to a brand more than just like a sale?

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. I like that. I think thinking about coupons and discounting is not a way to dilute the brand, but are actually helpful, like part of the top of funnel drawing new consumers and audience in. We just conducted a consumer survey, and we were looking at some of the research coming out of China and the live stream commerce there. The reasons that people like live stream commerce in China is there's access to unique and sometimes exclusive product, but also access to discounts, through things like, just whether it's VAYA just has a certain curation, and she's going to be able to offer 20% off. Or if there's team purchase and gamification, which is like, "Hey, I can get 10 of my friends to buy this," and the more people that come in, it's the bigger discount. That's really driving I think, a lot of the purchase frequency. I think that's an insight that's spot-on.

Aditi Dash:

So maybe it'll actually be linked to live commerce, this world of digital coupons.

Chris Erwin:

I agree.

Aditi Dash:

How long do you think it'll take before the US gets live commerce?

Chris Erwin:

It's funny, Aditi, just I guess we're dating the recording. Well, we just published a prediction about that this morning. And I think the main gap that we're seeing is there's lack of access to sellable product inventory. Which is very different, where in China, you have like over 100,000 brands and retailers that are involved, and we are at a fraction of that. And so I think you're going to see over the next, call it 18 months, digitally native DTC brands, as well as boutique retailers that just need a different sales channel enter the market and put product in the hands of creators.

Chris Erwin:

And then I think the major brands like think of the products coming from P&G and Unilever and some of those, are going to start entering the market by the end of '22 and 2023. And with access to that product, that'll close the product gap, that will then close the authenticity gap where creators can get behind products that they love and care about, because there's more options for alignment. And that will help close what we perceive is like this $150 billion revenue difference between our markets.

Aditi Dash:

Super interesting. Because it seems like there's enough people here that are okay with talking on camera about products that they love, so I don't quite get why it hasn't happened sooner.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. In China, a lot of the live streamers, they can go on to these marketplaces that are on Taobao or T-mall or Pinduoduo and Red. And they can get matched up with product instantly. We don't have that in the US. We have some rudimentary version of that on Amazon Live, but not on the other platforms that have been raising capital. I think it's likely a work in process for the pop shops of the world, the tuck shop, the newness and all of that. But there's a lot of work to be done there. So before we get into the rapid fire to close this out, two more questions for you on CircleUp. One is, any other key themes or things that you're thinking about?

Aditi Dash:

One of the themes that I'm thinking about is I'm looking for products that make your life easier, and anything that fits the bill is interesting to me, because I think that's been a big driver of quick purchase, quick adoption. So I want to meet founders who are thinking about the world in that way. And then I'm also looking for companies that help just adjust to the new normal of being in the home from a food and beverage standpoint.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. Last question before rapid fire. Talking about inspiration and fears, something that you brought up was "Don't be weak." What does that mean to you?

Aditi Dash:

Don't be weak means that it's really important to have a spine and a backbone, and it's important to have confidence and trust in what you know, whilst being aware of what you don't know. So it kind of goes back to that phrase that we were talking about, "Don't sit at the table," but to me, "Don't be weak," is the opposite of that phrase, which is when you have something to say and you can back it up, go sit at the table. And so that's how I think about "Don't be weak."

Chris Erwin:

Cool. I really like that. A closing note before rapid fire is I want to give you some personal kudos. I was listening to I think, a webinar about fundraising. And people were asking like Aditi, what do you look for in pitches or investor presentations? And you said something along the lines of like, "I look for personality, and I look for imperfections. I don't want it to be overly polished." And what I think that really signals about you, which is what I've learned from getting to know you over the past few months is that you're a very genuine and sincere person. And I think you're also very realistic.

Chris Erwin:

I think that's a special thing for an investor, and it's something that made me want to sit down and talk to you for the last hour and a half. So I think that really comes across in our conversations, and I think that as you're building your personal brand, is something that's a real differentiator for you at CircleUp. That likely resonates with a lot of the founders that you talk to. So kudos on that.

Aditi Dash:

Well, thank you. It means a lot.

Chris Erwin:

Very welcome. All right. Are you ready for the rapid fire round?

Aditi Dash:

Yes. I've been waiting my whole life for this.

Chris Erwin:

All right. So the rules are, these are going to be six questions, short responses. They can be maybe one or two sentences or maybe just a couple words. Do you understand the rules?

Aditi Dash:

I understand the rules.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. All right. First one, proudest life moment.

Aditi Dash:

Giving birth.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. What do you want to do less of in 2021?

Aditi Dash:

I would say Zoom.

Chris Erwin:

What do you want to do more of in 2021?

Aditi Dash:

Time with founders.

Chris Erwin:

What one to two things do you believe drive your success?

Aditi Dash:

The ability to get back up after feeling like crap when something happens, like just being able to brush off and keep going onwards.

Chris Erwin:

Onward, I say that all the time. Advice for media and consumer execs going into 2021.

Aditi Dash:

The landscape is changing quickly, so stay on top of creators and brands because they're going to come out of nowhere with some very interesting pieces of content, and you don't want to get hit out of nowhere.

Chris Erwin:

To add on to that, I think I was reading something in the 2PM newsletter. And I saw that if you're a brand or media exec, it's about your thinking about what you're adapting to the strategies every week. Everything's changing constantly. I like that. All right, last couple of questions here. Future startup ambitions. Are there any?

Aditi Dash:

No specific ones, but I hope so.

Chris Erwin:

I think you got something in you. It's going to come out. All right. Lastly, an easy one. How can people get in contact with you?

Aditi Dash:

Email? [email protected].

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. All right, Aditi. This was an absolute delight. Thanks for being on our podcast.

Aditi Dash:

Of course. Thank you.

Chris Erwin:

All right. I have to give Aditi some kudos here. She really stuck to the rules on the rapid fire round, so props. But additionally, Aditi has officially inspired me to be on Clubhouse. So every Monday at 10:30AM West Coast time, so that's PT, our company RockWater will host a room called What We're Reading, where we break down all the recent news in media and commerce, particularly as it relates to live streaming audio and food and sports media but much more. And this used to be only an internal meeting that we had on Mondays but we're now going to open it up to the public. And we think this will be fun because we think that there are some other thinkers and readers out there that can contribute to our conversation, so we're looking forward to that.

Chris Erwin:

So quick reminder, that's going to be every Monday at 10:30AM Pacific Time, and you could find us on Clubhouse. You can look for the RockWater Club and we will host the room called What We're Reading. Reminder that if you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected]. All right. That's it all. Thanks for listening.

The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe whenever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you could follow us on Twitter @TCUpod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck, music is by Devon Bryant, logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.