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2 episodes with complex media
2 episodes with complex media
2 episodes with complex media
2 episodes with complex media
Blame it on us still riding on the high of entering into this New Year 2024 or the recent transition to Spring ...whatever it is, somethings got me questioning do I stay or do I go?...in almost every area of my life...so this conversation couldn't have taken place at a more better time! Join in on the conversation as I talk to Cara Sherice, Founder of PrettiPassionate & The PrettiPassionate Marketing Group. This is one you don't want to miss!!! Cara Sherice is the Founder of PrettiPassionate & The PrettiPassionate Marketing Group. She's an Elevation Strategist, media personality, speaker, coach and marketing powerhouse who has offered her expertise over the life of her career to major media outlets such as iHeartRadio, Complex Media, and ESSENCE Magazine where she held the title of Associate Director of Integrated Marketing. Her next level of purpose required her to take her biggest leap in leaving her successful 12+ year career in 2019 to pursue her passion & purpose 100% with her brand PrettiPassionate – a brand strategy, marketing & coaching firm helping aspiring & emerging entrepreneurs, coaches, & speakers tap into their next level. PrettiPassionate is revolutionizing the way women approach personal development & creating purpose-driven marketing with a holistic, accessible, and future-ready solution to the needs of our current culture.
Donnie Kwak, a General Manager at Complex Media, stopped by the pod to discuss sneakerhead culture, ComplexCon, and what it means to be in your highest earning potential years.FUMI IS TOURING HIS STAND-UP HOUR! Come see him live!Chicago - Oct 19thNYC - Nov 11thIrvine, CA - Jan 10th (2024)GET TIX AT WWW.FUMIABE.COM/TOURING SUPPORT THE PODCAST ON PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/CashCutiesPod If you want to give us a one-time donation, hit us both up on VENMO:@TheFumiAbe@SteffieIsme FOLLOW US! https://www.Instagram.com/CashCutiesPod https://www.Instagram.com/TheFumiAbe https://www.Instagram.com/BaikedgudsSubscribe to our YouTube Channel!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
On this episode of The MinorityPlus1 Podcast
Join my free weekly newsletter to get 1 free audience growth tip to scale your online business: https://www.mattgray.xyz/newsletter Join the Founder OS Course to build a proven system for audience growth in 2 hours here: https://www.mattgray.xyz/courses In this one-hour interview, I had the pleasure of having a great conversation with the legend, Rich Antoniello. Rich Antoniello is a Founder and the Former CEO of Complex Networks, a global media company and one of the most influential voices in popular culture today. In 2016, Rich Antoniello oversaw the acquisition of Complex Media by Verizon and Hearst to become Complex Networks. The joint venture, led by Antoniello, develops and distributes original programming for its channels – Complex, First We Feast, Pigeons and Planes and Sole Collector – and through output deals with distributors including Netflix, Facebook, Fuse, MSG, Verizon and more. The company cultivates content that spans across popular culture and reaches the coveted 18-24-year-old male audience, from music to movies, sports to video games and fashion to food. Antoniello joined the company as CEO in 2003 and has transformed Complex from an influential print publication, known for delivering a sharp editorial blend of pop-culture and style trends, into a 360-degree media company reaching millions of hyper-engaged millennials every month. We discuss how to build a business during tough economic times, how he grew Complex Networks as CEO and other actionable advice that will change the trajectory of your founder journey! If you're interested in working together 1:1 join here: https://www.mattgray.xyz/coaching Twitter: https://twitter.com/matt_gray_ Instagram: https://instagram.com/matthgray YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@realmattgray LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgray1
In episode 240 of the Pour Horsemen, we pod solo! TopicsKsea Goes ViralEbony Fit WeekendAngel Reese and Caitlin ClarkComplex Media Power Rankings Joe BuddenCup Noodles Launching Breakfast FlavorJoin our Patreon for more exclusive content https://www.patreon.com/thepourhorsemen Take Advantage of Our Audible Trial Program https://www.audibletrial.com/thepourhorsemen Support Gran Coramino and tell them we sent you! https://grancoramino.com And More Follow The Pour Horsemen on Instagram @thepourhorsemen, and email at thepourhorsemen@gmail.com Subscribe to Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, Google Play, YouTube, iHeartradio, or PocketCast.
Could the power of story-telling help create a better reality? Afterglow is a stunning collection of original short stories in which writers from many different backgrounds envision a radically different climate future. Published in collaboration with Grist, a nonprofit media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions, these stirring tales expand our ability to imagine a better world. Afterglow draws inspiration from a range of cutting-edge literary movements including Afrofuturism, hope-punk, and solar-punk—genres that uplift equitable climate solutions and continued service to one's community, even in the face of despair. The Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, disabled, feminist, and queer voices in this collection imagine intersectional worlds in which no community is left behind. Whether through abundance or adaptation, reform, or a new understanding of survival, these stories offer flickers of hope, even joy, as they provide a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality. Panelists Sheree Renée Thomas is a New York Times bestselling, two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author and editor. A 2023 Octavia E. Butler Award honoree and a 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, she is the author of Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future, a Locus, Ignyte, and World Fantasy Finalist, Marvel's Black Panther: Panther's Rage novel, and she collaborated with Janelle Monáe on “Timebox Altar(ed)” in The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer. She co-edited Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, a NAACP Image Award Nominee, and is the Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Sheree lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, near a mighty river and a pyramid. Justine Norton-Kertson is a genderfluid author of stories and poems as well as a screenwriter, game maker, musician, and community organizer. They're the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Android Press and Solarpunk Magazine. They've been published in magazines such as Utopia Science Fiction and Jupiter Review. Their anthologist debut, Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology, was published in January 2023 from Android Press. And their debut nonfiction book, Solarpunk Witchcraft, is forthcoming from Microcosm Publishing in 2024. They live in rural Oregon with their partner, puppies, cats, goats, bunnies, and beehives. Find them at http://justinenortonkertson.com Andrew Simon is a writer and editor living in Seattle. Simon has been an editorial leader at award-winning media organizations including Grist, Fast Company, ESPN, and Complex Media. He's launched a journalism fellowship, the annual Grist 50 list, and a podcast, among other projects. He currently works on thought leadership and business solutions. He is co-author of the book ‘Racing While Black: How an African-American Stock Car Team Made Its Mark on NASCAR.' Tory Stephens creates opportunities that transform organizations and shift culture. He is a resource generator and community builder for social justice issues, people, and movements. He currently works at Grist Magazine as their climate fiction creative manager and uses storytelling to champion climate justice, and imagine green, clean, and just futures. In another life, he owned a kick-butt streetwear company, and he would have gotten away with eating the last cookie too if it weren't for his three meddling kids. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Its goal is to use the power of storytelling to illuminate the way toward a better world, inspire millions of people to walk that path with us, and show that the time for action is now. Afterglow Third Place Books
NEO420 = Real News + Real Information for WE THE PEOPLEWE THE PEOPLE are at war with the deepstate criminal cabal!!!Turn off your tv, radio, and stop listening to paid professional liars spreading propaganda.***SUPPORT Independent Free Speech Reporting***Thank you for the SUPPORT & SHARING the TRUTH!!!Go to GOD for discernment and wisdom.Know the Truth as the Truth will make you free! (John 8:32)___________________________ The link is here http://neo420.com/talks-podcast/The link to our video channel is here. https://odysee.com/@NEO420TALKS:4The Viral Delusionhttp://www.theviraldelusion.com/_______________________________NEVER FORGET 9 11!!!Rumsfeld admitted $2.3 Trillion missing from Pentagon Sept 10 2001. https://odysee.com/@NEO420TALKS:4/rumsfeld-2.1Trillionunaccountedforb-ccriminalsstoleit:7Planes did NOT bring down the two towers.AE911Truth.orgGeorge Bush Sr was CIA director before being Vice President then President.Towers that fell:-Building 1-Building 2-Building 7 (seldom reported even though BBC reporter reported building down before it happened) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0VFMqiSupport the show
Do you have a debilitating fear of public speaking?How can you overcome that fear?Linda Ingroia is the Founder and Director of HeadStrong Branding. As a brand builder, content creator, editor, and business storytelling coach, she helps her clients communicate clearly, dynamically, and with impact. Her creative partners—award-winning writers, graphic designers, videographers, and web developers—share her commitment to excellence. Together they produce the high-quality presentations and other content that you need to shape your business identity and brand.As Principal and Director of HeadStrong Branding, she is a pitch coach, brand development strategist, and content creator, helping entrepreneurs and companies shape and present their brand marketing stories authentically, vividly, and persuasively. HeadStrong Branding channels your genius and value into a clear, dynamic brand strategy and compelling business story.Linda has worked with a variety of clientele that includes United States Market Access Center (USMAC), TechNordic Advocates, FullyRaw Media, Desidoc, pregnantish, WorkPilots, Complex Media, NYC Department of Sanitation/Zero Waste program, and more. She developed corporate skill sets as an executive editor, managing a million-dollar product line of books and digital products. In our tech-enhanced world, professional communications and public speaking is more important than ever for personal development and business success. As an award-winning, trained public speaking coach and evangelist, she is about helping others get comfortable, even enjoy sharing their expertise and ideas. Linda believes that everyone can make their mark clearly, proudly, and with impact.On this episode, she shares how she developed laryngitis because she feared public speaking so much.Listen as Linda shares:- the social-mission-minded entrepreneur clients that she works with- how to make 'emotional sense' of your technical business- how she overcame a debilitating fear of public speaking- tools that will help you conquer the fear of public speaking- the negative impact on her career when she refused public speaking assignments- tips and strategies on how to get started in public speaking- how to create a compelling story behind your product or service- tips on delivering real value to clients with your product or services- how she helps her entrepreneur clients craft authentic messages- how to bring about transformation when speaking or presenting- using your story to transform lives...and so much more!Connect with Linda:Website: https://www.headstrongbranding.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindaingroia/Twitter: https://twitter.com/lindati1Additional Resources:"How To Build Confidence For Public Speaking" w/ Susanna Lahteela"How To Be A Captivating Public Speaker" w/ Peter George"How To Become A Confident Public Speaker" w/ Mike AckerKindly subscribe to our podcast and leave a rating and a review.Leave a rating and a review:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-overcome-a-debilitating-fear-of-public/id1614151066?i=1000582883820Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/59w9CUx4LaYG9scm0T8U8c
Kevin Luyster is a creative director at Complex Media and a multi-disciplinary collector. His hoard of sneakers, sportswear, toys and trading cards from the 1980's and 90's alchemizes into a thrilling portrait of time in pop culture. In this episode we discuss Seinfeld merch, the golden age of Nike and the rules that he has to keep from going broke. Follow Kevin Luyster on Instagram:@KevonmylevelFollow Running Out Of Space on Instagram:@RunningOutOfSpacePodcast
What's up! It's episode 94 of Payne Points of Wealth and we have a special and very different episode for you today. We have a good friend Rich Antonello, on the podcast. He's the former CEO and founder of Complex Media, a company that recently merged with BuzzFeed. Rich talks about the entrepreneurship journey, how he came from humble beginnings back in Brooklyn, and how that impacted his view of finances. He also talks about the state of the financial services industry in general. It's a great interview, Rich is a really charismatic guy, and he's got a pretty cool take on things. We think you're going like it. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... Rich roots from humble beginnings [1:04] Having the guts to leave the guiled cage [8:36] The psychology of money [15:04] Sold not bought [25:00] What is the 3.0 version of what the market has become? [32:24] The impact of music [42:51] What was it like for Rich growing up in Brooklyn? Rich says it's not just the location, but you have to think about the cultural and familial side. Both of his parents were immigrants. His mom was one of 9 and his dad was one of 8. So literally big families, both Depression kids, and education wasn't big on either side. Then you layer on the neighborhood. It's a beautiful place to live if you want to grow up around neighbors and neighborhoods where it's basically extended family. The trade-off was that you lived a very small life because your exposure was so narrow. There were a lot of cops, a lot of firemen, and union jobs. His dad was a UPS delivery guy. The aperture of what you're knowledgeable about and what you see is limited. There were very few executives and very few financial guys. Rich's exposure to business was trying read a Wall Street Journal which was not something readily available. But he thinks it was a great thing in that he learned foundational values. You couldn't operate within that world in any other way. These were good people, but the view of ambition and even understanding what a floor in a ceiling would be like from a career perspective was just nowhere. And he couldn't Google it back then either. The library had a whole bunch of old biographies. It was great to be able to go read about Rockefeller, but it wasn't exactly what Rich would call inspirational from the standpoint of understanding what a blueprint or a track would be from a realistic perspective for somebody like him. Rich's mind on money Obviously, Rich's financial circumstances have changed drastically from his humble roots in Brooklyn. But how has that changed his perception of money and how is it the same just because of his upbringing? The way we're brought up does color the way that we view our financial situation, financial security, and a lot of the decisions we make around money. Rich explains how his perception has changed entirely but his behaviors have not come all the way along. He's massively aggressive and understands so much more and can see the things, but there's that little voice in the back of his head that always pulls him back from being as aggressive at the edge as he'd like to be. Check out the episode to hear him go deeper on this. Where is finance fundamentals 101 Rich thinks the lack of foundational, honest, educational, finance 101 is unbelievable. People don't like talking about it, but when somebody tries to sell them something they feel more comfortable going to Google than they do talking to somebody. They are looking for it, but nobody is offering that. We should all have had this type of education foundationally. Ideally, it happens at a family level, but most families don't have it to give. Rich says his own father couldn't help him think about the way his life has unfolded. That's not a knock on him, he just had no exposure, education, or the wherewithal to even think about any of those things. Why don't the leading platforms, especially the leading media platforms, provide that baseline level of understanding so that when you do talk about meme stocks and short squeezes you're not getting caught up in the hoopla but you're educated enough to look at that and fundamentally understand? Resources & People Mentioned See if you qualify for a complimentary financial review from the Paynes Connect With Ryan, Bob, and Chris http://PayneCM.com Follow on Twitter Follow on Facebook Follow on LinkedIn Subscribe on YouTube Follow on Instagram Subscribe to Payne Points of Wealth On Apple Podcasts, On Google Podcasts, On Spotify
In episode 16 we get grounded in how a strategist thinks, and their process in creating impactful strategy, with Mark Pollard, CEO Sweathead. A guide to many creative thinkers and long-time strategists, Mark discusses the role of chaos within orderly processes, the purpose of finding personal meaning in your thinking, and the need to balance intellectualism with practicality. Having written a book about it, ‘Strategy is your Words', Mark discusses the purpose of the written expression and the criticality of choosing words carefully when considering their impact within business. In other words, helping people easily get your idea through precise, emotive and concise arguments that persuade without an over-reliance on data and superfluous language. Jo and Mark also venture into slightly darker places; the struggle of creative and existential thinkers in a world lacking empathy and over-reliant on formality. Specifically, how Mark's intention to express the darker parts of his life has helped others connect with and share theirs. And how this has led to new ways of forming impactful strategies. -- To look outside, Mark goes to stand up comedy gigs, and takes long walks around Central Park. The walks are a part of the process of his work, where ideas are generated through connection to physical movement, external stimulus and the thoughts sparked by the podcasts he listens to. Stand up comedy, meanwhile, helps him connect to the darkness. Comedy being one of the rare art forms today (for now, at least) where ideas can be contrary, brutally human and provocative. -- On the show we mentioned: Victor Frankl - https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/0807014273/ref=sr_1_1?crid=28F0ZOJHX2I7Q&keywords=victor+frankl+man%27s+search+for+meaning&qid=1658099691&sprefix=victor+frankl%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1 (Man's Search for Meaning) Psychological analysis of Carl Gustav Jung Psychology Today https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B004LPVXWO?_encoding=UTF8&node=283155&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader (Edward De Bono) writings on lateral thinking -- Mark Pollard runs http://www.sweathead.com/ (Sweathead), a strategy training company with a community of 18,000 strategists and a podcast with over 1.2 million listens. In recent years, he's consulted and trained companies like Wall Street Journal, Twitter, Complex Media, EA Games, The Economist as well as agencies around the world. In 2020, he published his Kickstarter-funded book "https://www.sweathead.com/collections/book/products/strategy-is-your-words (Strategy Is Your Words)". It's a 400-page dive into the minds of strategists and builds around a framework he uses called The Four Points. You can find his Australian accent in New York and http://www.markpollard.net/ (strategy articles on his website). You can find him at http://www.twitter.com/markpollard (@markpollard), in the podcast and Facebook group http://www.sweathead.co/ (Sweathead), and you can read some of his words here: http://www.markpollard.net/how-to-explain-an-idea/ (How To Explain an Idea) and http://www.markpollard.net/how-to-do-account-planning-a-simple-approach/ (How To Do Account Planning). Find more about Mark at www.markpollard.net & follow him on https://www.linkedin.com/in/markpollardstrategist/ (LinkedIn), Instagram, and http://www.twitter.com/markpollard (Twitter). Learn about http://www.sweathead.com (Sweathead). Listen to the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/sweathead-with-mark-pollard/id1370723809?mt=2 (podcast). -- Looking Outside is a podcast dedicated to exploring fresh perspectives of familiar business topics. The show is hosted by its creator, Joanna Lepore, innovator and futurist at Mars Wrigley. Find out more about Jo & Looking Outside at http://www.looking-outside.com/ (www.looking-outside.com). Connect...
"You're Burning the Candle on Both Ends Bubba with Miabelle" is a phenomenal episode if we do say so ourselves. This month's episode of The Unfolding: Presented by TheLovelandFoundation Podcast, is one of our best yet. Host, Miriam Starobin, interviews Miabelle from hot97. Miabelle is an incredible human being—a New York City based personality, producer, and writer with a love for music, art, and culture. Her experience has ranged from providing content to community newspapers, and major digital + print publications such as Complex Media, Vibe Magazine, and most importantly HOT 97/WBLS, and more! Miabelle started off as a HOT 97 Intern and worked her way up to the Street Team, Digital Department, and eventually On-Air. Not only does Miabelle have a deep love for the sounds that built Hip Hop and R&B music, her Haitian descent plays a huge role in how she connects with people all over the Tristate area.The Unfolding: Presented by The Loveland Foundation podcast is here to embrace the tough conversations and offer a new healing modality through vulnerability, honesty, and reciprocity. When we unfold we are committing to an exercise in compassion. Unfolding is language turned into behavior, an energetic exchange, through conversation, which supports you walking towards yourself.The Loveland Foundation is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls.Support the show
My special guest says, becoming a father and raising kids is a wonderful challenge, but what happens when we add a complex media like Video Games into the equation?As a lifelong gamer, he has grown up playing these titles and have kept an eye on the industry, but how does a father approach gaming with his kids?What boundaries are appropriate, what titles need to be avoided, is professional gaming a true option for today's youth, how do we navigate the complex web of monetization and reward loops? www.newdadgaming.comhttp://www.yourlotandparcel.org
Today we are having a reunion of Joe Budden and DJ Akademiks. Since the pair came together at Complex Media on a show called 'Everyday Struggle' the world has been fascinated by this duo and their electric chemistry while being on camera. 5 years later, they reunite on Off The Record podcast. They recap their many paths crossing from ending up on the same show (Everyday Struggle) to both eventually bringing a podcast to Spotify. Conversation also gets into why Joe Budden left Spotify and the current state of podcasting and his podcast networking. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/offtherecord-djakademiks/support
Rich Antoniello is the founder and former CEO of Complex Networks, a media and entertainment company for youth culture that reports on popular and emerging trends in style, sneakers, food, music, sports, and pop culture. Complex was originally started as a bi-monthly magazine by fashion designer Marc Eckō. Rich joined forces with Marc several years in and helped transform the company into a multi-media conglomerate of brands which includes First We Feast, ComplexCon, Pigeons & Planes, and Sole Collector.The company was first acquired in 2016 through a joint venture by Verizon and Hearst, and went through a second acquisition in 2021 by Buzzfeed via a SPAC merger valued at around $300 million. Rich served as CEO of Complex for 18 years, starting in 2003 until stepping down last year following the Buzzfeed acquisition.SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsletterFOLLOW TFH ON INSTAGRAM > http://www.instagram.com/thefounderhourFOLLOW TFH ON TWITTER > http://www.twitter.com/thefounderhourINTERESTED IN BECOMING A SPONSOR? EMAIL US > partnerships@thefounderhour.com
MJ's guest today has been named by The New York Times as the “foremost authority on hamburgers,” and “America's biggest burger name,” by Eater LA; he's a well-traveled Emmy Award-winning freelance filmmaker, author, and photographer - George Motz. George shot, produced, edited, and directed his documentary, Hamburger America which was nominated for a James Beard Award and recognized by the US National Archives as an integral part of American food history. In 2016, George authored his first cookbook, “The Great American Burger Book.” He hosted and co-executive produced Travel Channel's Burger Land, based on his book “Hamburger America, a State-by-State Guide to Great Burger Joints.” You can watch George on his show Burger Scholar Sessions on Complex Media's First We Feast, now in its 5th season. In this episode, MJ and George discuss his time at Catholic University, his career in commercial photography and filmmaking. George gives us a history lesson in the origins of the original burger, and talks about some of the best burgers (without playing favorites) in the Midwest and out West, including In-N-Out Burger's Double-Double to the Triple Double. George discusses his documentary Hamburger America, his Motz Burger pop-up, wherein 2 hours he sold over 150 burgers from his burger window slide at his Brooklyn home; his Niche Niche pop up where Jean-Georges stopped by and why he started The Food Film Festival. Grill or pan-fry a burger your way and grab a cold one because this is a juicy one! A huge thank you to George Motz! Follow him on IG at @motzburgerCheck out his website: georgemotz.com Watch his current episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0AH7h9zZ_4 This episode's in-studio wine:Garnier et Fils Chablis 2019Ragtime Rye - New York Straight Rye Whiskey_____________________________________________________________Until next time, cheers to the mavericks, philosophers, deep thinkers, and wine drinkers! Don't forget to subscribe and be sure to give The Black Wine Guy Experience a five-star review on whichever platform you listen to.For insider info from MJ and exclusive content from the show sign up at Blackwineguy.comFollow MJ @blackwineguy Thank you to our sponsor: Taub Family Selections. Taub Family Selections is a dynamic fourth generation, family-owned wine import company with a truly enviable portfolio of fine wines from 11 countries. They are proud to represent an exceptional portfolio of high quality, terroir centric and historic producers from around the world, including Italy and France - where they have an exciting roster of burgeoning vignerons from Burgundy coming your way soon. Learn more at www.taubfamilyselections.comThank you to our sponsor: Independence Wine and Spirits - or IWS. IWS is one of the hot up-and-coming distributors of fine wines and spirits headquartered in New York City. Like Taub Family Selections, IWS is owned by the Taub family, who have re-entered the NY wholesale market, bringing the family back to its roots in distribution where they held court from 1951 – 2004.To learn more about IWS go to: https://independencewine.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What a journey Rich Antoniello CEO of Complex Media has had! Transforming the Complex magazine business into an online powerhouse of the most recognisable content brands online today. Not only is the content great, but Complex is a 360° media business, pumping out content, brand campaigns and products. Their Hot Ones sauce is a case in point, made famous on their massive Hot Ones YouTube show. Complex has acquired a number of brands over the years Pigeons & Planes, Sole Collector and Collider. We get into those acquisitions in this episode, but that's not even their most interesting M&A credential. Rich has raised over $35 million in funding for Complex and been acquired by a joint venture between Hearst and Verizon and has just recently announced that they'll be acquired by Buzzfeed so they can list on the stock market via a SPAC. So much to dive into in this one episode, if you're an agency, brand or media know-it-all then here's some more stuff to know.
Superfan Big Will The Champ calls into hotline to share a video of another famous podcaster saying the TCB catch phrase "Best To You!". Bryan and Krissy debate wether they are being imitated or if "Best To You!" is phrase making it's rounds in the lexicon. Then Bryan recalls a TCB bit that mysteriously made it to Howard Stern Show (Spoiler....clearly Stern is NOT listening to TCB!). Then the gang talk about cults in their many forms. Gyms, diet fads, churches, yoga studios and other ways we get sucked in. Finally, the gang review some of the fitness fads from the 1980's. LINKS:Want a TCB limited edition collectible sticker? Each series sticker is limited and first come, first serve. Click HERE to find out how!Send us show ideas, comments, questions or hate mail by texting us or leaving a voicemail at 1-661-Best-2-Yo (1.661.237.8296)Watch Us on YouTubeTCB Live On Fireside AppAll Sponsor Codes & Links Get A Free DOZEN Tamales From Texas Lone Star Tamales (Use Code TCB at Checkout)Streamlight Lending By SunTrust Bank (Use Code TCB for additional interest savings)BeachBound is beach focused vacation travel planning agency...online!Special Thanks:Special Thanks To Moon Cheese For The Snacks! Use Code TCB For 15% Off Moon Cheese Products...Click HereSpecial Thanks To Project Pollo Our Vegan Burgers!Studio Snacks Provided By Siete Chips! (Try The Fuego Flavor!)Castbox is the TCB publishing partner . Download The App Here!New Episodes on Tuesdays and now Fridays everywhere you listen to podcasts!1-(661)-BEST-2-YO | (1-661-237-8296)
Bryan tells Hoadley about his new favorite Roku Channel...21 Jump Street! Then, McDonalds ice cream machines are under FTC investigation and it begs the question: Does the FTC have anything else to do? Finally, Bryan has a new game "Over-rated, Under-rated or Spot-On"! LINKS:Watch this episode on YoutubeTCBTV-minusSponsorDBSAlliance For Mental Health HelpMagic Spoon (Use Code TCB)MEMPHO Music Fest (Oct 1st-3rd 2021)Subscribe to The Commercial Break Podcast Youtube ChannelNew Episodes on Tuesdays and now Fridays everywhere!Text or leave us a message: 1-(661)-BEST-2-YOU | (1-661-237-8296)FOLLOW US:Instagram: @thecommercialbreak @bryangcomedy @tcbkrissyClubHouse: @bryangreen @tcbkrissyClubHouse: The Commercial Break Club on Clubhouse! (home of live recordings)Twitter: tcbbryanFacebook: The Commercial Break PodcastYouTube: Youtube.com/TheCommercialBreakEmail: info@tcbpodcast.comA Chartable Top 100 Comedy Podcast#1 Trending Comedy Podcast Worldwide! (Chartable)#1 Trending Comedy Podcast U.S.(Chartable)An Apple Top 100 Comedy Podcast Top 1% Downloaded Podcasts, Worldwide (ListenNotes)A Hot 50 Podcast (Podcast Magazine)
Daniel Wooden is a photographer focusing on music and personalities. I first met Daniel in Philly shooting all your favorite parties. Tall as hell, vibrant, loving, either shooting digital or film, it was great to see him always capturing the moment. Like many do, creatives leave Philly to other cities to tune their craft, hone their skills, go beyond and see what else is there to offer outside of our amazing city of brotherly love. Daniel has worked for select clients such as Nike Toronto, Heineken, Mad Decent, Complex Media, and Mass Appeal for their special projects, event recaps and press media. Previously at Little Giant Media. Linking and building, bringing the wood, welcome to the show, Daniel Wooden. Please welcome Daniel Wooden to Wear Many Hats. instagram.com/dannnwooden instagram.com/wearmanyhatswmh instagram.com/rashadrastam rashadrastam.com wearmanyhats.com dahsar.com
As Founder and Chief Executive Officer of uStudio Inc., Jen Grogono leads company vision and strategy for a new generation of media technologies for the enterprise, transforming employee communications and learning experiences with podcasts, on-demand video, and live streaming. In 2006, Grogono co-founded one of the industry's first multi-channel media networks. On Networks (now part of Complex Media), where she pioneered new forms of digital programming, any-screen publishing and distribution, and audience measurement. A cum laude graduate of Boston College, Grogono holds a patent for technology related to digital media distribution and measurement and is a frequent speaker at events such as SXSW and NAB on the intersection of media and technology.Connect with Kate Isicheihttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kateisichei/www.wheretolookcomms.co.uk
Curation plays a major role in defining taste and amplifying talent. How well you're able to curate your brand, and get noticed by playlist curators at major brands and streaming platforms ties directly back to your ability to reach new fans and develop a long lasting fanbase. That's why we're grateful to have a panel of true experts on the topic for this episode including Ebro Darden (Head of Hip-Hop & R&B at Apple Music), Mikey Yi (Content & Artist Relations at Genius), Maurice Peebles (Editor In Chief at Complex Media), and Mika Sunga (Manager of Programming & Curation at Vevo).In this episode we cover:- What is curation and how you can use it to your advantage- Advice from playlist curators on how you can get featured- How to approach curators, the right way- The keys to building a groundswell of community support- The importance of owning your content & music Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
On our new weekly lightning round mini ep with Jonah Weiner, we’re fucking around with Barstool Sports, Complex Media, Jimmy and Larry, Jerry Seinfeld, the United States Department of Defense, Jeff Bezos, gorp, Substack subscribers, Visvim, And Wander, celebrity profiles and much more. For more Throwing Fits, check us out on Patreon: www.patreon.com/throwingfits.
This week's guest is a true creative changemaker. If you're a hip-hop fan, there's a pretty good chance you've seen his work somewhere over the past 30 years. He's your favorite designer's favorite designer. For our monumental 400th episode, meet the one and only Brent Rollins. We have a wide-ranging conversation where Brent goes into some of his current projects and collaborations, and shares a bit about his creative process when starting on something new. Brent also talked about growing up in Los Angeles around the entertainment industry, how he helped co-found Ego Trip, and we have a great discussion around Black design aesthetics and defining success. Brent is someone who has been a huge inspiration to me as a designer and a creator, and having him share his story for this milestone episode is truly awesome.Thank you all for supporting Revision Path!Links Brent Rollins' Website Brent Rollins on Instagram2021 Revision Path Audience SurveyIt's time for our annual audience survey! Tell us what you think about Revision Path, and you could win a $100 Amazon.com gift card! Visit revisionpath.com/survey to give us your feedback. Survey ends on May 31.Sponsored by Brevity & WitBrevity & Wit is a strategy and design firm committed to designing a more inclusive and equitable world.We accomplish this through graphic design, presentations and workshops around I-D-E-A: inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.If you’re curious to learn how to combine a passion for I-D-E-A with design, check us out at brevityandwit.com.Brevity & Wit — creative excellence without the grind.Like this episode? Then subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite shows.Subscribe and leave us a 5-star rating and a review! Thanks so much to all of you who have already rated and reviewed us!Revision Path is brought to you by Lunch, a multidisciplinary creative studio in Atlanta, GA. It is produced by Maurice Cherry and engineered and edited by RJ Basilio.You can also follow Revision Path on Instagram and Twitter. Come chat with us! And thank you for listening!
At the start of 2014, Ade Sanusi created a pioneering platform that celebrated the next generation of creative talents called Art Meets Culture. The platform is a one-of-a-kind experience, designed to celebrate, promote, and develop artists and musicians. Tapping into the importance of social media in the artist community, this unique event allowed music and art enthusiasts to come together and share their experiences, with a specifically tailored social media campaign for each show. With over 22 events curated since 2014, we have now expanded the brand into an art-driven communications platform. The goal is to continue to develop the platform that champions artists and be the absolute best at what they do. In this episode, we discuss... How Ade got to work at Universal Music and Complex Media Why he created Art Meets Culture What all goes into creating and promoting big events What his first event was like compared to his most recent events Some of the biggest mistakes he made in business And so much more! Social Media & Links: Instagram: @artmeetsculture YouTube @devonastimpson devonastimpson.com artbydevona.com
Aaron Levant is the CEO of NTWRK. He's one of the most exciting builders at the intersection of fashion, culture, events, and media. We discuss launching a profitable car magazine at age 9, pitching Marc Ecko on ComplexCon, raising tens of millions for NTWRK from star investors like Jimmy Iovine and LeBron, being "oppositionally defiant", and how he thinks about his career in thirds.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com---EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up. A podast that interviews entrerepreneurs and leaders. Aaron Levant:This is a common theme in my career, which some people say ignorance is bliss, I like to say ignorance is rich. What I mean by that is it's like every single thing I've done I don't know anything about. And when you know too much about something, you become institutionalized with fear. It's because I knew nothing about putting on an event or a trade show, I wasn't scared of it. I just did it, and didn't think about it that much. It just happened, and it was luckily successful. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Aaron Levant, the CEO and founder of NTWRK. Aaron is one of the most exciting builders at the intersection of fashion, culture, events, and media, and he started super early. At just nine years old, Aaron used picture cutouts and a Xerox machine to launch a car mag, and it was profitable. He sold copies to friends at school and advertising to neighbors. Then in his early 20s, Aaron launched a fashion trade show, which he sold to a major exhibition company. There, Aaron had mastered the biggest experiential businesses of the past decade, like when he pitched Marc Ecko on ComplexCon. But Aaron's not just a builder, he's also operationally defiant. He doesn't follow norms and believes that lack of experience is major advantage in launching startups. This mindset fuels Aaron's current business, NTWRK, which powers shopping at the speed of culture. NTWRK is hands down one of the hottest players in content and e-commerce and has attracted backers like Jimmy Iovine, LeBron, Drake, Foot Locker and many more. Now, Aaron's story is remarkable but his character is more impressive. He's unconventional, uplifting, and so grounded. That plus hearing him talk about his future plans for NTWRK and how he thinks about his career in thirds makes for a must-listen. All right, let's get into it. Chris Erwin:Tell me a little bit about growing up in the valley, your household, and what your parents were like. Aaron Levant:Valley here in San Fernando Valley in LA is a nice place to grow up. A little bit of suburbia, very, very close to LA. My parents were amazing people who were very creatively inclined. My dad was in the entertainment business and spent a long time as a writer, television shows, and things like that. So I'd say I grew up in a pretty creative household. My mom actually had a little independent clothing label in the '80s, so I had some adjacency to the apparel business that I properly didn't even realize until years later, but my mom was always involved in that. My parents were very into pop art, into pop culture. My dad's a huge toy collector, he has 50,000 toys. So this affinity for pop culture is something I've been growing up around my whole life. Chris Erwin:Between your father's toy collection and then also being a writer in the entertainment and your mother in commerce, the whole new shoppable entertainment, starting to get where it comes from pretty early for you. When you were growing up, did you think, "oh, yeah, I want to go into Hollywood. I want to be like my dad or I want to do what my mom does." Was that going through your mind at all? Aaron Levant:No, never. I mean, I had no interest in doing anything my dad did. I would say, like most people, probably I wanted to do the opposite of what they did so I never ended... Even though maybe what I'm doing has some connection to the entertainment industry now, I was always going the other way. I would say... I never met him, but my mom's father, my maternal grandfather who I never met, was very entrepreneurial. I felt like I've always had something ingrained in me to be entrepreneurial, which different than what my dad did and being interested in businesses where my dad has no interest in business whatsoever. He almost despises it to a certain extent. So I would say I rebelled against anything my parents did and wanted to do my own thing, for whatever reason. Chris Erwin:What type of businesses was your grandfather building back in the day? Aaron Levant:He was in real estate, which is something I didn't get involved in either. Again, I hear this all by way of my mom and my grandmother, but he was just very entrepreneurial from a young age, always trying stuff, apparently a very, very smart guy. So, I try to think that's where I get some of smarts from, because my dad is just not a business inclined guy. He's all about being creative. Chris Erwin:I think you need both sides of the brain for what you're building right now, so it makes sense. Aaron Levant:Definitely. Chris Erwin:Your entrepreneurial ambitions, my understanding is that they manifested pretty early. I think you put together a car magazine at eight or nine years old, right? And then you were selling that to some of your school friends? Aaron Levant:I still am and was back then interested in cars. Sometime around maybe nine or 10 years old, I had made a car magazine through just, I guess what now be a zine, just cutting up a bunch of other great images of cars from books and going to Kinkos or what was Kinkos now FedEx now, and photocopying it. I went to my next door neighbor who was an Arby's franchisee, and I sold him the back cover advertisement for I don't even remember the price. But I just knew that my magazine wasn't going to be legit unless there was an ad on the back cover. So I guess I tout that as my very first business deal, and then I was selling that magazine at school and at camp. For whatever reason, I just felt like I was always trying to do stuff like that and did various random projects as early on as that all the way till I was 16 when I started doing some form of real business, I guess. Chris Erwin:So it felt like in your pretty early on was that you just wanted to do stuff. You wanted to create, you wanted to try things out. There's just this hustler inside, right? Aaron Levant:Yeah. I'm not even sure where it came, but it just felt natural to me to try to create and try to monetize out those creations. Chris Erwin:I've also heard you describe yourself as you go through your teens years as being, and I think that's persist through today, oppositionally defiant. Is that right? Aaron Levant:Yeah, I think that's an actual word from the DSM, which I think is the book that they use in psychology to define what's wrong with you. It's like the dictionary of mental illnesses. I think my mom pointed that out to me very early, which is I had a tendency to go against authority, for good or bad reason, whether that's kicking the principal in the leg at the first of preschool or doing any number of antics I did through my elementary and short high school years. I always felt the need to go the other direction and go against the grain, against authority. And that was, for some reason, instilled in me, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact I just wasn't interested in being in school or be at camp or being anywhere there was authority figures trying to tell you what to do and how to dictate what you do with your time. It was all very boring and mundane for me. Chris Erwin:Through that resistance earlier on, did that also attract these types of friends and people that you wanted around you? Were you becoming a leader amongst the peer groups saying, "I'm going to do things differently." And people were like, "Yeah, we're going to follow Aaron?" Aaron Levant:I would say, as you know, depends. As I was younger, no, I think most of the kids I was hanging out with were pretty nice and I was the jerk in the group. As I got older, I probably attracted the wrong people, and then I spun out of that when I was 18 years old. But no, I was just always doing wrong for myself, not necessarily with others or for others. Chris Erwin:My understanding is that in 10th grade you get out of high school and then you start interning at GAT. Tell us what was GAT, and why was that interesting to you at the time? Aaron Levant:Probably one of the second or third business adventures was I was really passionate about design and graffiti art and street art all through the '90s when I was a young teen. And being interested in that design and graffiti art and being interested in business, I was trying to figure out how do you make a living out of doing you're passionate about. And then it dawned on me that all graffiti writers were working at GAT, particularly the main place and many other street wear companies doing the T-shirt designs. If you're a great graffiti artist, you're doing topography, it's a great transition into designing t-shirts and make a living for yourselves, so I said, "Okay." I started to develop an affinity to these companies. Aaron Levant:Randomly, a guy I grew up with, Tal Cooperman, introduced me to the owner of that company. Through meeting him a few times, he ended up offering me an internship, and GAT was the definitive late '80s, mid-90s street wear brand in LA. It was such a great opportunity for me not only get close to this company and learn a trade that I was interested in but also be around some of my favorite artists and learn from them and learn a craft which at the time was graphic design for me in the beginning of my career. Chris Erwin:Going back to that moment, were you like, "Yeah, this is the logical progression for how I get into my career."? Or were you a little bit shocked as, "Oh, I wasn't expecting to go down this path, but... "? Aaron Levant:I don't know if I was thinking in terms of it as a career, I was just so excited. I was such a fan, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:I forget the days when I was legitimately just a fan of things. I was just so excited to be there, and again, it just became a career but I kind of stumbled into it. I was just genuinely happy to be there just to be a fly on the wall and be a fan. And then over a series of years of sticking around there interning, having low level positions, I turned around a few years later and I'd worked my way up to being a partner in the company. And then I was like, "Wow, well, I guess I turned this genuine interest or passion into a job." Chris Erwin:What do you think helped you rise to become partner so quickly? Aaron Levant:I think being willing to do anything, being willing to work for free in the beginning and then almost nothing, minimum wage for years after that. You don't have any baggage, I'm like, "I was this important guy in this company, so I will the trash out, right? I will do literally anything." He's like, "Go drive to Orange County and pick up this sample." I'm like, "Great, I'll great there right now." Whatever I could do. I was waiting for someone to hand me the ball, and I would just run with it. I was so excited. There's a famous Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G line where he's talking about you got to treat every day like you're an intern, like it's your first day on the job, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:I think I genuinely carried that through well beyond the time I was an intern. I think that is what propelled me up, that every time there was an opportunity I raised my hand and ran at it enthusiastically where other people may not have. Chris Erwin:Passion was there and it feels like you were just having fun. You were like, "This is cool. This is where I want to be. I'll work for whatever, but I'm doing this with cool people, and I'm all in." Aaron Levant:At that time, most of my friends were still in high school and then eventually college, and I was well on my way to making my career, doing cool stuff, traveling around the country, so it was exciting. Chris Erwin:Fast forward a bit, and let's talk about the Agenda Show, which was a trade show I think that you were a part of for almost around 15 years. Tell us about what that was and how that came to be. Aaron Levant:Through my job at GAT, the founder of GAT was pretty much my first mentor, and I have a series of mentors in my life that really help shape my career and my life, we would go with Luis to a lot of trade shows with his clothing brand. First it was this big show in Las Vegas called the Magic Show, which is the biggest fashion trade show in the world at the time. It would get over 100,000 attendees. We would go to the show in San Diego called the ASR Show, Action Sports Retail. These were B2B marketplaces in the fashion industry for different segments. We would go out as an attendee, as an exhibitor if you will. We'd buy a booth, and we'd sell our wares to the retailers traveling from all over the world. Aaron Levant:In probably 2001, I had gone to New York to a really small show called To Be Confirmed, which was some guys from London. They had just rented a loft in Soho instead of some huge show at the Javits Center or the Las Vegas Smith Center, they just got a loft and put up some rolling racks and some table and chairs. They had a cool DJ and bar. I said, "This is pretty fucking cool." I looked around, I was thinking, "How hard is this? You rent an empty room and have some people throw ups some rolling racks and you send out a postcard, you invite some buyers and make a cool ambience." I'm like, "I like this." Aaron Levant:That was in the back of my mind. At that time, me and Luis were actually throwing some parties in our warehouse in Downtown LA called Agenda: Art, Music, Beer. It was just something we did as a fun thing to promote our clothing companies. And in 2002, in September, after having a bad experience at the ASR Trade Show, I said to Luis, I said, "Let's turn our Agenda parties into a fashion trade show as a competitor to the BIG Action Sport Show in San Diego." And he said, "Yeah." And in January 2003, a few months later, we rented a Thai restaurant across the street from the BIG Show, invited 30 of our friends. We charged $500 a booth. We weren't really doing it to make money, we just thought we didn't have to pay the other guys $5,000 and we could provide a service to our friends and just do something cool. It just organically just happened. But it was this small little B2B fashion trade show for independent brands that I did when I was 18, 19 years old. Chris Erwin:When you had that bad experience at ASR, you have the conversations and you're like, "All right, we're going to launch the Agenda Trade show," Were you excited, were you nervous, were you scared or was it like, "No, I got this. Of course, we're going to crush this."? What was going through your head? Aaron Levant:This is a common theme in my career, which some people say ignorance is bliss, I like to say ignorance is rich. What I mean by that is it's like every single thing I've done, I don't know anything about. When you know too much about something, you become institutionalized with fear or they say paralysis by analysis, right? Chris Erwin:Yes. Aaron Levant:Because I knew nothing putting on an event or trade show, I wasn't scared of it, and I didn't know to be corky or to be fearful or have any expectation. I just did it and didn't think about it that much. It just happened, and it was luckily successful, but I'm sure it wasn't perfectly executed or anything that way. But I just run into things head first, run into a lot of problems, and don't really do too much research in front end because when you do you seem to scare yourself or psyche yourself out of doing whatever that said thing you're going to do. And I've done that a few times in my career where I don't know anything about it, and I've been successful than sometimes people who do know something about it because they're institutionalized with fear. Chris Erwin:Institutionalized with fear, I really like that. I just wrote down ignorance is rich. I think that's a fantastic phrase. All right, so at Agenda, it seems that you go through a eight to 10 year period of expansion and then realizing, hey, we have to move the venue from San Diego to Long Beach and then into Vegas. You're collaborating but then you're also expanding and some new competition is coming. And there's a lot of details I'll probably skip over here, but along that journey, what are a couple of moments that really stand out to you? Aaron Levant:Three key things. One, I did the business completely independently, first with me and Luis and then later with me and my cousin. I still lived in my parent's house. Any business that people think about now in the world that we operate in, they raise capital, they raise seed money, they raise a Series A, they've got a burn rate. All these businesses have a finite amount of time if they're going to make it or not make it before they basically have to shut down operations or become profitable, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:I didn't have that. I didn't even understand that as a concept, so I just kept going even when it was going good and not going bad. I carried that forward for so many years, so many times we weren't making money because we didn't really have many employees, I lived at home with my parents until I was 23 or something. It allowed us to push past the point where most businesses would have given up and go, "Oh, the margin isn't growing, or revenues aren't growing at the right rate." We had no analysis of the business. It was an overwhelming theme that allowed us to ever keep pushing forward, probably sillily at some points, to get to a point where we got actually really successful to then where we almost had to shut because the competition got so fierce. Aaron Levant:In that moment in 2009 when our business was on the brink of going out of business, I think the defining moment for us was we finally pushed further enough and had this organic growth trajectory over many, many years, almost six years at that point, that I met a guy, Roger Wyett and Paul Gomez from Nike and Hurley, and they offered us an opportunity to stop being the small show across the street from the BIG Show. And this was the big judo business moment for us, which was they said, "Hey, how about you step out of this role you're in as being the parasite... " Or I call it the little sucker fish that swims along on the shark. We're all this little cool thing happening across the street from these big behemoth thing. They said, "Why don't you come with us? You bring Agenda to the US Open of Surfing, which is the biggest action sports consumer event in the world. You should put your trade show in the middle of it, there's a half a million people that will be there." Aaron Levant:That was a big departure for us. We were in the verge of going out of business with this one business model we knew, but we were making money finally. And it was like this jump. It was like we had to take this leap off the cliff, and it was either going to work or we were going to be dead in the water. But we're almost going to be dead in the water anyway. So we made this jump and in one year of doing this our business grew 2,000% and we put ASR out of business, which is the company that been in business for 30-something years before that, owned by Nielsen Business Media. It was a huge company, established, respected company by all means. It was this moment where everything changed in our favor and it was almost unprecedented. Aaron Levant:So I think that was for me the real lesson there is to take those big risks, to do something that literally was going to sink the company or save the company and has inspired me to continue to do things that throughout my career. But without that moment, I wouldn't be sitting here today. I never would have done probably anything I've done after that. Chris Erwin:I think it's a takeaway that I'm definitely hearing, it just goes back to what you said, again, like ignorance is rich, because you weren't looking at the business of saying, "What are the right metrics and all of that?" Where if you were looking at it through lens or had different training up to that point you would have shut it down. But you were building a brand, and you guys were just like, "No, there's something here. There's something here." Sometimes early stage businesses, they just need longevity, like stick around enough because most just shut down within three to five years. But with longevity, other opportunities or other ways of thinking about what you have and how it can work and this duo coming from Nike Hurley and saying, "Hey, guys, here's another approach." And you're like, "That's a great idea, let's do it." And it just happens. Aaron Levant:Yeah, that one moment literally defined everything for me professionally, financially. But if we didn't make that far, we never would have had that chance. Even in that moment it was risky, the best risk I ever take. Chris Erwin:So it continues to grow and then you eventually sell to Reed Exhibitions in 2012. What was the reason for that? Aaron Levant:Up until that point, from 2003 end of 2012, we sold the end of December, the day before Christmas we signed the papers, the businesses was completely built independently, no loans from family, no lines of credit, no investors, no nothing. It was just me and my cousin. We owned 100% of the business. We financed the business. It was starting to get big. We were doing millions and millions of dollars in business, tens of millions and was making real EBITDA, but it was one of those things that it's risky and there's our cashflow that was on the line, right? We had built something that was fairly profitable and weighed the risk of... We had just gotten out of the 2008 financial crisis. We saw a lot of bad stuff happen with that. I lived through seeing what happens during 9/11, right? There's all these things that come in. Aaron Levant:We're on this incredible ride, we're making so much money, and we just did the math and said, "Hey, we can continue to do this on our way and carry the risk and something can happen and we can all the value, or we can extrapolate the value now." And I think we did some quick backing up in that. We figured we'd make more money and a lower tax rate than we could in six years if we sold the businesses today, if we kept operating it, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:And there's lots of unknowns in the next six years. Which I'm actually lucky because the business did down trend in the six years following that. It was a calculated financial risk, and I had a bigger vision for the company than my cousin did. He was very risk adverse, also because we owned it independently and it was all our own money and capital on the line. We were just operating four shows when we sold. I took it, after I sold it, to about 30 shows. He didn't want to go along with those things, so ultimately we sold. He exited the business, and I went with Reed and built a whole portfolio of new products, consumer-facing products, conferences, video products. I had a much bigger vision than what we were doing in this small mom-and-pop shop. So I think it really allowed us to take the financial risk off the table and set us up fairly well, but also allowed me to really chase the bigger vision that I had for the company. Chris Erwin:Speaking of risk appetite, it seems that there's this constant leveling up or laddering up where it's like, 'I'm going to try something, and then have a bigger win and then a bigger win and then next." Aaron Levant:It's called gambling. Chris Erwin:Got it. Aaron Levant:It's not a healthy- Chris Erwin:So yeah, the question is, was your risk appetite growing where you felt like, "Hey, as an entrepreneur, as a business leader, I'm increasingly capable and I want to take bigger bets."? Aaron Levant:Absolutely. In every situation in my career, if I had the opportunity to spend 100 I'd spend 100. My cousin would say, "Spend zero." We end up spending 50. It was a good yin yang balance, right? But at a certain point, when your business is hot and you have that moment, there's a reason they say, "Strike while the iron's hot." Right? Every time we had that, that's when I say, "Let's go. Let's double down. Let's quadruple down." He didn't want to go, and I think I've always been in favor of going. I've lost a lot too, don't get me wrong. I've had plenty of horrible ideas but, true believer, you're not going to get anywhere, you're not going to build anything meaningful, anything big by not doing that fairly often, by putting it on the line and rolling the dice on that. I'm a huge proponent of doing that as much as you can without being completely irresponsible, but you have to be slightly irresponsible. Chris Erwin:And maybe we'll get into this as you describe how you built the NTWRK executive team, but do you like having people around you that actually push you even harder and saying, "Yeah, that's a good idea, but here's even bigger, Aaron." Or do you like people that pull you back and then have debate about what's the best path forward? How do you like to build leadership around you? Aaron Levant:I think you got to mix of both. You've got some really good financial people that are helping me keep an eye on whatever that may be, the margin or the burn rate or things like that to make sure that I'm not completely unchecked and doing completely frivolous things. But, yeah, I mean, I think I love having people around me who are more aggressive, who have bigger goals, who are uninterested in doing small things, especially investors, right? You get that internally from staff, like my partner here Moksha Fitzgibbons who's the president of NTWRK, constantly pushing. I thought I was aggressive, he's more aggressive than I am, constantly pushing the envelope, trying to push us to do bigger, faster, be more aspirational. And then our investors who have done all the billion dollar businesses where they're like, "Yeah, that's cute what you're doing, but this doesn't interest us unless it gets X big." Aaron Levant:I love that kind of challenge because it makes me try to think bigger where what may be relative success to me on a scale of my career, to them is a blip on the radar. It aspires me to want to do bigger or to make a bigger impact and create larger brand awareness and to take that bigger Hail Mary pass if you will. I need those people around me constantly. Chris Erwin:All right, so at Reed, you sell Agenda to them but you continued to run the Agenda Trade Show. But then you're also responsible for... I think you launched 30 different events while you're there, including ComplexCon. I mean, I know you're always a dappler and doing different things, but it seems like you were all in on Agenda and now you've got a lot of different babies and children to take care of. How was that transition? Aaron Levant:Yeah. I mean, look, I had never finished high school, never went to college, getting to Reed was an amazing opportunity for me because I worked inside a publicly-traded company at a very senior level. It was like going to college, really learning to work in a structure. But also to them they're a $7 billion dollar company. It wasn't just interesting to buy this little portfolio for trade shows and sit on it, right? I had bigger aspirations, and we needed to make bigger to move the needle for them at a corporate level, so they encouraged my bold thinking and they had the finances to go after it. Aaron Levant:So we acquired a company called Capsule. We got in a joint venture with Complex on ComplexCon, which is super exciting. I launched a educational conference called the Agenda Emerge, which is like Ted Talks for fashion entrepreneurialism and a media brand around that. So all the above, every single way they could they would encourage me to go bigger, faster, think internationally, and really push my ideas to the brink of where they could go. Chris Erwin:What a great partnership because sometimes joining a bigger corporate, they want to throttle you. Things are more controlled, more measured. But it seems like for the type of leader you are and your ambitions, it was a great partnership that actually propelled you and gave you experience I think that was really setting you up for your next phase, which is taking a digital business which was Complex, which I know did start back in 2003 as a print magazine, but it became a huge digital business and then your role was like, "All right, how do we create an incredible RoL event for it. So talk about how ComplexCon came to be. I'm just curious, what was in that initial pitch? What were you thinking? Aaron Levant:The interesting part about selling my company to Reed is that they own all of the Comicons around the world. They own 500 major events, many of which are consumer facing and they really focus them around passionate fan communities, what they call fandom. So it's like packs for video games, New York Comicon, Star Wars Celebration. I learned about this event format, which is really new to me because I was in B2B, and I said, "I wonder if Agenda could become... " And this is also part of the inspiration for something like the Comicon for sneaker heads. Aaron Levant:But I realized that Agenda been building itself in the industry, we didn't have a consumer affinity. So I struggled to say, "How can Agenda do what Comicon's doing?" This light bulb went on in a conversation I was having with another one of my mentors, which is Marc Ecko the founder of Complex Media. We were at this event in LA, and I just said, "Well, why don't we get together and do ComplexCon." Right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:I said it almost in jest, and he's like, "Yeah, I like that. I like that." Funny standing there with him was Moksha Fitzgibbons who's now the president at NTWRK, and came over and Marc said, "Hey, tell Moksha what you just told me." I told him, they said, "We like that." And they generally encouraged. And then a week later I was in New York. I scrambled for a week, I put together this pitch deck. I got in the room with Rich Antoniello who was the CEO of Complex and Noah who was editor in chief, Marc, and Moksha, and I pitched them this deck. Aaron Levant:It was pretty basic. It just basically took the blueprint of Comic-Con and applied it to the brand of Complex. They all loved it. I was surprised because it was just such a bold, ambitious idea. We worked for two years from that point. That was January of 2015 I pitched them, we signed the contract in November of '15, and we launched in November of '16. The funniest part about that conversation which I'll tell you, which is everyone was around the table very engaged. Moksha was sitting on the coach. At very end of the presentation I thought I'd done a great job but he looks over from this Blackberry and says, "How much money are we going to make?" I go like, "Profit? You guys, Complex?" "Yeah." I said, "I don't think, $1 million." And he goes, "Do we really care about making $1 million?" I was so deflated at that point. I thought it wasn't going to happen because he was the Chief Revenue Officer, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:I was like, "If we don't get his buy-in, this thing's never going to happen." But he actually got on board and was the biggest champion of the thing, and it was an amazing experience. But nothing more than saying, "Hey, let's create the Comic-Con, the fan culture, Superbowl, the world's fair for sneaker and street culture." Chris Erwin:The Agenda was a B2B trade show, this was targeting consumers. Where you anxious about, "Oh, wow, how am I going to drive the same type of traffic and hype and momentum around this event?"? Or was it, "No, I can do this. I'll figure it out, I've done it before."? Aaron Levant:Well, I think that's exactly what I was saying, that's why I didn't just end up doing call it AgendaCon, right? Complex had the consumer reach and the social media reach and the affinity with consumers, and I had the relationship with the brands and the exhibitors and the know-how in event production, so the marriage was beautiful in that sense. It was bringing my offline experience with their online marketing reach and bringing that. Of course, we did a lot more things that neither of us would do, market it ourself almost like a concept promoter, which is new to both of us. But it was the perfect marriage of their audience and our event expertize. That's really why it worked. Chris Erwin:Like you said, when you were at Reed, it was like your MBA. You were like the senior executive of a big public company but you were just doing deals, launching new businesses, and learning a lot about business as you went. This was probably a great change to learn of how can you create an event from a digital business but then really market it through all the paid and earned organic channels. Now thinking about where you in your career, that was probably a great learning experience for you. Aaron Levant:Absolutely, right? There's so many learnings in ComplexCon. I think the number one learning for me was as successful as the event was, the digital groundswell that the event created, call it organic customer acquisition, the earned media, that was so big that that was such an eye-opening experience for me, how much the physical world could influence the digital community so much more effectively than just trying to market to people digitally. That was really my big takeaway and a lot of the inspiration for wanting to leave and come join NTWRK. Chris Erwin:I know at ComplexCon now with $100 ticket prices and incredible curation of products, there are attendees who will spend days waiting in line so that they can get early access to the different product vendors, right? Did you guys see lines out the door in your first year of ComplexCon? Aaron Levant:Yeah, there was thousands of kids lined up around the corner at both sides of the convention center. We had a literal, and I mean this in the most literal sense, a stampede of kids pushing past security, knocking down full-grown security guards, extensions, police officers. People literally almost being trampled to death. It was actually scary. The second year we had people who were stowing away, like when people stow away in a ship. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:We had kids who snuck in days before and were hiding in a broom closet so that they can get early access. The level of pandemonium around ComplexCon year one and two and three was just so insane. It was dangerous. There were actually people injured and it was also so amazing to see. I was almost trampled to death in the crowd were people fighting for Pharell sneakers at the Adidas booth. It was pretty insane the level that people go to but also I understand not only the passion and the fandom, but if you can buy a sneaker for let's say $120 and we sell it for 5,000 the next day, then you might be running full speed as well. Chris Erwin:Yeah. I imagine you seeing that probably flipped a switch inside you being like, "Well, look at this fan energy and the fandom. There has got to different ways that we can build this to be even bigger and then harness it both in online and real world environments." I think that probably leads, I think, in September 2017 you have a conversation with Jimmy Iovine that you're all starting to think through the new NTWRK business plan, so tell me about that moment. Aaron Levant:Jimmy and his son Jamie, who's my partner, had had a previous business in LA called Meltdown, which was a classic comic book stores. Out of this comic book store they were doing a YouTube show that was... call it QVC meets Comic-Con. It actually started to get a little energy and there was an article written in Forbes Magazine saying it was an innovative idea. They had put a little money into it and were trying to launch as a business and had some false starts. But the idea was there. I got interested with Jimmy around this idea that he was working on, which was the Meltdown thing. They said, "What are your thoughts on this?" It was a loose introductory meeting just to talk about this Meltdown concept. Aaron Levant:I saw it and I inherently understood it. I thought it was a great concept, but I had a little bit of a broader vision around what I thought NTWRK could be. We ultimately changed the name of the company and changed the focus to not just be Comic-Con pop culture focused, it will be a broader youth culture, sneakers, street wear, entertainment, gaming, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:This idea of aggregating the most passionate fan audiences into a platform, procuring the most exclusive drops and having the actual talent who created them present it to you on a daily basis, I thought there was huge merit around it. Ultimately, that night I went home, and I wrote a business plan that ultimately ended up being verbatim what we're doing for NTWRK for Meltdown. I was still working at ReedPop at the time. I felt like over the course of the next few months the conversations I had with Jimmy and with Paul Wachter, who's chairman of our board and runs the investment fund, main seed advisors who funded our seed round, I saw one thing clearly. Not only do I think this was a great business idea but I thought for me I'd done a lot of things in my career, and I think ComplexCon was the pinnacle of my career, but I had the opportunity to come and jump on board and work with a group of people who had a bigger creative vision than I had. Aaron Levant:While I was at Reed, I was the crazy, creative one in the room, and in the conversation with Jimmy and these guys I was the one who was thinking small. They're the ones who had the big, crazy, creative vision. I liked that, where it putting me back on my back to level up. They had just sold Beats for three and a half billion or whatever that was, and they really are epitome of people who take passion around creative and brand and push it to that main stream level. I had relative success but not that level, right? I wanted to be in the midst of that type of greatness and learn from that to take my career to the next level. Chris Erwin:So this happens in September 2017 and then you raise seed round. When does that seed round close and when do you start being all in and focus on NTWRK? Aaron Levant:I quit ReedPop in February of 2018 and then worked on refining the business plan on NTWRK for a few months., and then in May of 2018 raised the seed round, and then we launched in beta in October of '18. From May to October built the team, built the kind of MVP product, and just worked on refining what the business was and what the brand was. Chris Erwin:How much did you raise in the seed round. Aaron Levant:15. Chris Erwin:15 million? Aaron Levant:Yeah. Chris Erwin:What type of team did you assembly around you? I think that was different because you're building a digital product, you hadn't done that before, right? Aaron Levant:Yeah, look, there's three things we do at NTWRK that I have almost no experience with, building technology, becoming a media company, and being a retail company in a way, right? I'd been adjacent to a lot of those things. I'd been on the boards of some companies that have done some of those things, but I had never done it. So that's other part of it, it was super exciting for me. Look, we had to hire a whole new team of people who... I prided myself in the event industry, if you want to hire someone, I knew who all the best people were. This was really easy for me. My Rolodex that was really strong. This was like going in unchartered territory so I had to figure out what I was doing and try to find the right people. I think it was a big challenge for me in a good way and challenged me to spend my network, no pun intended, and go out and find new groups of people to talk to. Aaron Levant:I never hire usually recruiters or people like that, I always do it through referrals. So this was a process, it was 24/7 process of trying to find new amazing people who came from other great amazing organizations. Chris Erwin:Who or what most helpful to you during that time? Was it your board, was it Jimmy? As you were being like, "Okay, I need to have a new muscle to hire these new leaders with capabilities that are unfamiliar to me," what was helpful? Aaron Levant:Yeah. I mean, look, everyone was helpful, ultimately just me pounding pavement, picking up the phone, and trying to... Spent a lot of time LinkedIn, just cold hitting people up. Sometimes great people come to you in interesting ways. Our CFO, COO who's still here today, Emerson, came from a referral for Guston who was the original owner of Meltdown, the comic bookstore. You wouldn't think the guy that has comic bookstore's going to find you a CFO, but he actually found us the best guy. Referral and just always going out there and telling everyone you know, whether it's your aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, colleagues what you're looking for and asking who they know and getting people to send you great people is honestly the best way. Aaron Levant:Everyone was helpful, the board, the internal staff, and me just literally going on LinkedIn like a crazy person and finding people who like they're impressive and just dropping them a cold line. And then I'd have to try and explain to them, "Hey, I want you to come to this company that doesn't exist, that I can't tell you a lot about yet, and it doesn't have anyone else working here. Are you interested?" That's always the fun processes, getting people to leave their careers. It isn't like I'm the founder of some billion dollar tech unicorn and this is my second thing, right? There is some selling involved here. Chris Erwin:But I think that you had had an amazing career to date. You had a pretty rockstar board instead of investors, so when most people heard your pitch, where they like, "Yeah, Aaron, this is exciting, I'm in."? If you were to say the biggest trepidation, people who hesitated, what was the number one reason? Aaron Levant:I would say every department but technology has been, I wouldn't say easy, but we could recruit people. Chris Erwin:Okay. Aaron Levant:Technology is by far the hardest thing because if you're an amazing engineer, if you're an amazing CTO, you're an amazing product person, there's nothing but options for you in this world. Everyone has the same pitch, amazing founders with an amazing backstory, who've had success before, amazing board and tons of money in the bank from some of the top VCs and private equity funds. So, in that case, even though we had a lot of those things, we were in no better footing than anyone else. If anything, we were a step backwards. So I feel like that was the hardest thing, and still is. I think we've come over that hump now. We finally recruited an amazing CTO here at NTWRK, which is Marko who previously led engineering at GOAT for the last six years before joining us, which obviously a very impressive business. But that's probably been the thing that took the longest amount of time. Chris Erwin:I just interviewed Christian, the president of Complex, and he said that what's unique about his team is that everyone there is a fan, either they like hip hop, they like street wear culture, they like music. Was there also a through line that you were bringing from like, "Hey, as I've built my career today and for the team that I know that's really going to exceed here, people need to love this intersection of pop culture and commerce entertainment."? Was that important to you? Aaron Levant:It's always been important to me. I would say it's become, depending on the role, some places more important. We need the foremost experts, authorities, thought leaders, test-makers in those field and people who are picking the merchandise, people who are having a consumer front facing role in our business and has an effect on what you see on screen and what our customer are consuming. Sometimes I would, in the past, I think it was an immature part of my leadership style, is that I would dismiss amazing people who could bring such value. They came from greatness, right? Some organizations have a culture of greatness and excellence, and I would dismiss those people because they weren't into what I was into. Aaron Levant:Often in my career until NTWRK I think overlooked some really amazing people that probably could have helped me along the way. So I think that could be a very arrogant thing to dismiss someone if they don't love sneakers. I don't even really love sneakers to be perfectly honest with you. I think it's both, you need a good mix of finding the best people who are the hardest workers, who are the smartest, who are going to challenge you and bring value to the business and finding the people who are going to help you keep on the center of culture, and blend those people together. Chris Erwin:Before moving into some specific work that you're actually doing at NTWRK and some of the partnerships and the launches, what did it feel like to go from a hustler entrepreneur to now a steward of capital? You had raised $15 million in the seed round, it's a big seed. I believe all your other businesses were bootstraps, you weren't representing investors. So what was that shift like for you? Aaron Levant:Everything I'd done until Reed was completely independently financed by me, and I treated those like real scrappy, scrappy, scrappy businesses, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:I was fighting tooth or nail for everything down to what I was paying for an office chair. If someone tried to order a $50 office chair online, I'm like, "You can get it for $38 at Ikea." Those little things, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:My cousin used to call it the million dollar loaf of bread. It's these little things that add up to all of a sudden you've spent a million and you're regretting it. So I was real scrappy in my entrepreneurial days. At Reed, I was scrappy but I definitely learned to be a shepherd of capital in that I was working a publicly-traded company and there's a lot of process there. So I think the two things really set me up well. I understood how to work with large amounts of money at Reed, and I understood how to be a scrappy entrepreneur in my whole previous career. I think I applied both of those things well here. And I went back to trying to be scrappy to the point where even sometimes the board would say, "Aaron, you're being a little too scrappy. You got to spend some money. We gave you all this money, you got to actually buy some Herman Miller chairs." Whatever the analogy is right? It's not all about chairs but I like to use that as the analogy for frivolous spending. Aaron Levant:Look, I feel every day utterly responsible for the investors who gave us money and the LPs for the funds that I need to deliver for them. I put that pressure on myself every day to an extreme extent that I need to return. Like, "Oh, this VCs getting money, whatever, it doesn't work out, one in 10, they'll get their money back." I don't think about it like that, and I hope nobody does who's a CEO. But I feel an absolute personal obligation to deliver minimum tenfold for everybody. Chris Erwin:For the investors who will listen to this, I think they're going to be very happy to hear that sentiment. What also comes out here is that these new investors like Jimmy and Warner Brothers Digital and LeBron also want speed. For a return on capital, it's like "Aaron, yes, being prudent is great, but just move fast. You're on to something and we're betting on you. If you're going to help build this market, and so speed is a major asset." I think that starts to show its face because then you raised pretty quickly after your seed, you then raise a 10 million series A in September of 2019. So that I think that is led by Live Nation and Foot Locker and Drake's also involved. At this point, what are you now building towards, and what are some of the key build highlights that are now setting you up for what we're going to talk about is where NTWRK going in the future? Aaron Levant:What we're really building for is to build the definitive marketplace for youth culture amongst the coolest personalities and pop culture goods, the most sought-after drops and releases across every category that we think is cool, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:And that's a pretty expansive view. I think we aggregating, much like I did at Agenda or ComplexCon, we're finding these passion audiences, we're convincing the most meaningful players in those audiences to create special site specific drops and things for this platform, and now we're just doing in a digital way under much more expansive amount of categories. Aaron Levant:We got the proof of concept in 2018 and '19 and now it's just about now it's just about how do we scale that, how do we get more people on the platform, how do we go from one drop a day to 40 drops a day is what our hope is by the end of next year, 40 unique, specific, custom, exclusive things in one day is a lot, right? Chris Erwin:And to do it over and over again. It's not like you're just building up towards one single day a few months out, it's like this is a daily thing? Aaron Levant:Yeah. And how do we make each one of those not only equal quality, how do we increase the quality over time and how do we take this from a few million people to tens of millions of people, and we become for the overused elevator pitch about our business, the QVC of Gen Z? I think that is exactly what we're trying to do and I don't take objection to that elevator pitch, I actually like it. Chris Erwin:As you think about going from one drop a day to 40 days a day, is there data from the performance of your past drop campaigns of what is selling, what is driving user acquisition that you're using as a data feedback loop and/or is it also a combination of just going gut of like, "This is a cool product, I dig it, we're going to launch with this too."? What is that approach? Aaron Levant:I would say it's 50% gut, 50% data at this point. I think over time it'll become more data. In the beginning it was probably 100% gut because we had no data. Obviously, it's taking learnings from the things that are working, the categories, the personalities. There's a lot of learnings in there around how we scale this business and there's also a lot of surprises, right? I think some of the biggest surprises we learn is just because X celebrity has a big audience, it doesn't mean they sell anything or anyone wants to buy anything from them. There are many personalities that have a much smaller audience, maybe just a few 100,000, that can sell 10X any big celebrity, because they have hyper-engaged audience, an organic audience. Aaron Levant:I think that's been one of the biggest surprises. I think one of our biggest aha moments was in 2018, Ninja was the biggest esport star in the world. He's still a huge star, right? We were like, "Oh my God, if we could just get Ninja to come on NTWRK and sell some stuff," when he was on the Ellen Show and breaking the internet, "we'll get a million downloads in one day, right?" Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:We go, we do this deal with him, we get him on and he's got an exclusive collection for us for holiday and 50 people came. It was nothing, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:New people. It was ridiculously low and it was like, "Wow, it's like sometimes these people that are so big actually don't move culture in a way that you think they do. They're propped up stars for consumption and click-bait but they're not really able to have a meaningful consumer products business." So sometimes you can't just go off the data of how big their social audience is or what their engagement looks like online, things like that, you have to some gut around, do people actually want to buy products from them? I think there's a lot of example of big celebrities who are very much household names but couldn't sell anything. And then there's some people that can create a brand that does billions of dollars, right? Chris Erwin:Wow. Yeah. Aaron Levant:So it's a real hit or miss there and that's really part gut. That almost becomes the more important part. Chris Erwin:It's interesting hearing about that because at my company, RockWater, we are helping different shoppable entertainment companies think about what their go to market launch is. And so we've been reviewing tens of these different live streaming content products. And we're seeing that some of the platforms actually audit the different types of creators or influencers that are onboarding and saying, "Are you a good fit? Are you not a good fit? If we think that you're going to be a premium creator you'll get more customer service resources and we're going to help prop you up." Has your team built any proprietary tech or methods of how you assess the personalities who are going to do a product collaborations with your team? Aaron Levant:I wouldn't say we're assessing them beforehand. We definitely have the post data where we've worked with them. But I would say here's the counterpoint to that even. I'll give you another example, the most successful individual personality on our platform beside Takashi Murakami, is a guy named Ben Baller, who's a celebrity jeweler, podcaster, all around personality. He has a big consumer products business with us. He's been on NTWRK for six months doing multiple things and almost all of them didn't do very well in the beginning. We kept sticking with him against the lack of positive data, right? It wasn't selling through, the audience wasn't engaging. And then eventually we had a breakthrough moment with him. I equate this almost the Agenda thing, you keep pushing forward and we always had a feeling or I had a feeling this guy was working to work and now he's our number two star on the whole platform from a revenue basis. Chris Erwin:What was in your gut that kept you sticking with him, similar to when you were at Agenda? Was it the ignorance is rich, like "No, I believe in this guy, I like him," or was there something else going on? Aaron Levant:Yeah, I believe in him. He was enthusiastic about the partnership, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:Some people, some celebrities they do these things and it's like an obligation. They go, "I got to show up and do this thing and sell this book." They pretend like they're enthusiastic but really they're not. They do the bare minimum. They're like, "oh, I'm obligated to do one social post, I'm going to do just that and then I'm going to take it down." Those people that are going to fight to make their things work. They're going and doing... like GaryVee, great example, that guy is a salesman of salesmen, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:He gets on and he's going to pitch himself like nobody. DJ Khaled, Ben Baller's one of them. They're enthusiastic and they're going to go above and beyond tenfold. And it knew that eventually it would break through, and it did. There were even people inside our own org who tried to kill the partnership, go, "Hey, this guy's not working. We've got all these other products on him, let's put these on the shelf, right?" Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:"Let's not push forward." I'm like, "No, you got to do it." It wasn't anything other than just seeing his level of enthusiasm towards the partnership. I believe that you can bank on that. Chris Erwin:The talent enthusiasm is so key because they have so many opportunities in front of them nowadays of how many different social platforms that they're on, how many different advertisers they can work with, what products can they launch. I remember when I was running Big Frame, the management company under Awesomeness TV, partners would come up to me and ask, "How do I work with your talent? How is this going to be a thriving partnership?" I would always, "You got to sell them on your product and on your vision and not just throw money at them." I would often nix them like, "Hey, if our sales team was pushing too hard," of like this was a big six or seven figure dea where our managers knew that the talent weren't really into it, I'm like, "We shouldn't do this because this is just going to fail and both sides are going to walk away unhappy." Chris Erwin:So I like how you described the enthusiasm is so key. Curious to talk about the future vision for NTWRK and some of the things that you're building towards. I've heard you talk about that you want to festivalize marketing and user acquisition. And I think that there's definitely intent to have many more shopping festivals I think in the new year. Tell us a little bit more about what's your thinking there. Aaron Levant:One of the things that I was obsessed with from day one, even in the original business plan, was looking at things like Alibaba's Singles' Day, which obviously has become since the last three years much more well known thing here in the US, and they made $75 billion this year, I think. They made a week-long event, previous iterations it was a day long event, they made $35 billion. They really took something that was like Black Friday or Cyber Monday here in the US and they made it look like the MTV Music Awards. It was a video first event, it was live stream, and it was crazy, right? And how they entertanmenize shopping, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:I took how you took something like a ComplexCon, something like an Alibaba Singles Day and make a marriage between those two ideas and you launch an online shopping festival. That's really what we're doing with NTWRK. In the coming year we're launching six proprietary shopping festivals, each one around a different audience vertical and two big shopping holidays. These are big ideas for us. We did our first one this year called Transfer in August, which was a design and culture festival in partnership with a creative named Edison Chan from Hong Kong and the artist named Futura 2000, which was an amazing event. We had over two billion media impressions on that event, so we were excited about that. We're launching one just a few weeks here called Beyond the Streets which is an online art fare that's themed around street art and graffiti, which previously was a physical event that now we've brought online. And next year we'll have six. We'll do one called Unboxed in February that's themed around collectables and toys. Aaron Levant:We'll do one in March or April called Off Court which is focused basketball culture. Really about packing two days full of content, meaning dozens or almost 50 to 70 exclusive drops in a two-day period, bringing in the talent who created those drops or musicians, athletes, artists to do panel conversations much like we would at some of my physical conventions or festivals in the past, having live music performances, having a gift shop, having physical takeaways we send the people in the mail beforehand, and really entertainminizing and festivalizing this online shopping experience. It's really about taking hundreds of pieces of content that you can usually absorb over the cause of a month and smashing it into a two-day period and creating sensory overload. We're excited about what that does for the businesses on the go forward and how that draws new customers and how that creates excitement, and also stimulates brands and creators who want to work with us, right? Aaron Levant:If you just called and said, "Hey, you want to do something on a Wednesday because it's Wednesday." They're like, "Ah." You call them and say, "You want to be a part of this festival and all the top brands and creators in the world will be there?" It's much more motivating value proposition. Chris Erwin:Are you building this online experience in tech in-house or you're working with a partner to do it? Aaron Levant:It all lives on networks made of IOS and Android platforms, so it's literally sitting right on top of our day-in and day-out platform. It's not a separate experience. And that's the whole point. The whole purpose of this is to draw people into what we do and to utilize the technology and the proprietary native commerce and video technology we build here. Chris Erwin:You are planning six of those events in 2021. Aaron Levant:Six festivals and two shopping days, which is a one-day festival. For example, 10/10 is NTWRK's birthday, so that our annual celebration where we do a huge promotion. We don't want to be a retail company, I think that's a dead asset class, I think it's a boring idea. I think the number one thing for us to do that is we're creating these moments. We'll do some of the standard retail things like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Back To School, whatever, but how we create our own moments and we create our own annualized trend. What if we stacked all of our festivals in the first quarter, which is usually the lightest quarter for retail, what if we could buck that trend by doing all this exciting stuff. Aaron Levant:So we're creating our own retail holidays and creating our own trajectory of what we do and when we do it. We don't want to prescribe to what Macy's does per se. Chris Erwin:I was going to ask how you gauge success of that. ComplexCon will talk about, "Hey, we drive 20 to 30 million of merchandise sales in Long Beach and we're the number one contributor to that economy." Are the KPIs for you, it's revenue but also how it fuels the rest of the business or ability to attract different artists and personalities to the platform for the new year? Aaron Levant:It's all the above. Obviously revenue is an important KPI. Transfer for example was our highest two days of revenue ever during our last festival. Obviously we intend to beat that coming up in the new year. User acquisition, earned media. We had, like I said, two billion media impressions on that. It's also about how many new brands we attract to the platform, new talents, because then those people could have an ongoing relationship with us. Even things like Google Trends data, if you look at the dates around Transfer, some of our highest searches were NTWRK, right? So all of the things are extremely important KPIs or metrics we're going to track, but we want them all. I think that's a great thing about a festival, it solves for every meaningful thing we want to track in the business, the businesses just accelerates that. Chris Erwin:Let's also talk about another big initiative for the company which was your April 2020 investment in FaZe Clan, one of the world's largest esports and gaming collectives. If I understand this right, it was a $40 million round for FaZe Clan and you guys were the lead investor, is that accurate? Aaron Levant:Yes. Absolutely. Chris Erwin:What's the strategy where NTWRK is defining shoppable entertainment and shopping at the speed of culture, and now you're also making a really big investment in esports and gaming company? What is the goal of that? Aaron Levant:I think it's a pretty simple idea, which is we want to be at the forefront of what's happening in youth culture. I liken FaZe Clan as the leading brand in what is arguably the fastest growing space in media and entertainment, which is gaming lifestyle, esports, right? The numbers are astronomical, so when we think about attracting new audiences that are passionate about something, to me it's esports is the skateboarding of the day, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:This is the thing that captures the hearts and minds of possibly billions of people, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:Not just millions, it's a much bigger totally addressable audience here and why not partner with the top brand and organization and the largest brand and organization in that space. The analogy I like to use is that Netflix brings disruption to video streaming, Spotify to audio streaming, NTWRK is trying to do for merchandise streaming, right? Chris Erwin:Yeah. Aaron Levant:This is the category that doesn't really exist. So what makes those platforms destinations is the proprietary content that they have. It's not that we make an investment in a great organization, but we also secured a deal to control the global consumer products rights for that company. And so right now if you go on NTWRK and you scroll down through our feed in couple days from now, we're dropping an exclusive FaZe Clan Beats by Dre headphone exclusively on NTWRK. So when you think about us bringing together a collaboration like that, first time Beats has ever been in the gaming space. Obviously, Jimmy, our lead investor was the founder of Beats, bringing together with the top gaming organization in the world and you can only buy that product on NTWRK. Same analogy like you can only watch Game of Thrones on HBO or you can only watch House of Cards on Netflix. Proprietary content drives new audience and drives revenue and
Back at you again with another game show! Today we will be guessing the best rapper alive every year since 1985. The "correct" answer will be based off a list that from the Complex Media website. Join Terrell, Tristian, and Perry as they dive into this list! Be sure to also check us out on youtube?
Bourbon and hamburgers... two great tastes that taste great together! Dan chats and drinks with George Motz, the author of “Hamburger America” and “The Great American Hamburger Book.” George is the resident burger scholar on "The Burger Show" on Complex Media’s "First We Feast." Did we mention that he knows a thing or two about burgers? Right! Also on the show, the founder and whiskey maker at Kentucky's Rabbit Hole Distillery, Kaveh Zamanian, who is also into burgers, but not as much as he's into whiskey. And on this episode, we're getting way into Kaveh's whiskey. You're gonna wanna bust out the rocks glasses and napkins for this juicy episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Join hosts Anastasia and Ashley and guest Reg Thomas riff about what it's like touring in a pandemic, as well as his immigrant background. Plus the ladies discuss impeachment, Sex and the City, and NASA. About The Guest Reg Thomas is no stranger to funny. Once it was clear that Reg wasn't going to be tall it was time to get funny. Some of his earlier inspirations include Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and his Haitian immigrant parents. Reg's comedic talents have been commissioned by media companies such as BuzzFeed, Complex Media and Atlantic Records over the years. Whether touring with Amanda Seales (HBO Special “I Be Knowin'”) or Chris Redd (Saturday Night Live), Reg is always writing. Without a doubt he is having the time of his life making sold out audiences in theaters and clubs across the country laugh. When he's not on the road you can find Reg on stage at a comedy club and working on his comedy brand and show; Productively Stoned. Productively Stoned is a 420 friendly comedy show that Reg produces, books and co-hosts. Since 2014, Productively Stoned has been hosting pop-up shows from New York to Los Angeles with stops in Washington D.C. and Denver, Colorado. Productively Stoned connects amazing comedians with a young and diverse audience. Month over month 150+ RSVP to Productively Stoned. Reg has a sponsorship deal for Productively Stoned with a cannabis company; THC Design. Credits include;
Clarke Wolfe is an actress, an entertainment host, and a producer originally from Atlanta, Georgia. She was last seen in the horror comedy "Satanic Panic" with Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell. This Christmas, Clarke stars opposite genre icon Barbara Crampton in the segment "A Christmas Miracle" featured in the holiday horror anthology "Deathcember."Clarke began her theatre career as a small child and hasn't stopped since, having appeared on stages in New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. She most recently produced and co-starred in SLASHED! The Musical, an original horror-comedy musical, that had its world premiere at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. After quickly selling out its initial run, SLASHED! was nominated for Best Musical and the Encore! Producer's Award.In addition to stage credits that include leading roles in classics like "Barefoot In The Park", "Oleanna," and "Macbeth," Clarke has been seen on screens big and small, leading short films "Where Are You?," "The Drawing," and the upcoming satirical comedy "Poltergays!". She is currently a student at Lesly Kahn and Company.A popular correspondent for DC Comics, IMDb, Nerdist, Syfy, and many more, Clarke Wolfe has become one of the most prominent female voices within the geek culture space. Most recently for over 400 episodes, Clarke was a regular cast member on the DC Universe chat show "DC Daily."A well-known figure in the horror community, Clarke was the creator, showrunner, and host of "Collider Nightmares," a video discussion show for Complex Media that welcomed guests including Academy Award winners Guillermo del Toro, Geena Davis, and Gore Verbinski. Her thoughts and analysis on the controversial genre have been read by millions online and she has brought her love of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy to events around the world including San Diego Comic Con, SXSW, Paley Fest, New York Comic Con, and LA Comic Con.Clarke Wolfe's pop culture knowledge has been lauded throughout the digital space. A fan of entertainment across the board, Clarke has interviewed and shared the stage with many world-renowned cultural icons and in 2015, she was named Editor-In-Chief of the beloved brand Amy Poehler's Smart Girls for the Legendary Digital Network.She has also made a name for herself in the online trivia world. In 2016 Clarke was voted "Rookie of the Year" of Skybound Entertainment's eSports trivia league the Movie Trivia Schmoedown. Just a short time later, she and Rachel Cushing would team up and become two-time champions known to fans around the world as "The Shirewolves."Clarke currently splits her time between Atlanta, GA and Los Angeles, CA. Her hobbies include golf, karaoke, and wine tasting. She also enjoys reading and is a member of two book clubs - one focusing on horror literature and one focusing on comics.
Hot sauce—and truffles for that matter—are having an especially big moment right now. Thanks in part to the popularity of internet hits like Complex Media and First We Feast’s “Hot Ones,” the condiment has gained popularity in fashion, music and streetwear communities alike. Nick Ajluni and Nick Guillen, co-founders of TRUFF, took note of this and determined that the category was ripe for disruption. Having built a community surrounding the Instagram page @sauce, Ajluni and Guillen decided to launch a hot sauce as a testament to the page, that sauce was TRUFF. Today, TRUFF announces its expansion into a new category. Find out more about their approach to this new product, the story behind the brand, and what other CPG brands can learn from media companies.
Chas Lacaillade is the founder and CEO of Bottle Rocket Management. Chas took a big bet on the digital video revolution, and now builds businesses for some of the most exciting creative talent from New Hollywood. We discuss why he left a prestigious talent agency to sell water pumps, Louisiana roadtrips, and how he converted a $5,000 bank loan into a multi-million dollar business. Full episode transcript is below. Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPTChris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Chas Lacaillade:I had my Jerry Maguire moment where I called all my clients and said, "Am I your manager? Am I your manager? And if so, this is my new endeavor, I'm going out on my own." It was terrifying. I took out a $5,000 loan from Chase Bank to live, and there was no interest for the first 18 months. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Chas Lacaillade. Chas took a big bet on the digital video revolution, and now he builds businesses for some of the most exciting creative talent from New Hollywood. Yet Chas's career has a lot of twists and turns, and includes a lot of early disillusionment to be honest, like when he left a prestigious Hollywood talent agency to sell water pumps. But Chas's ambition eventually pays off. A Louisiana road-trip inspires a new career and soon after he turns a $5,000 bank loan into a multi-million dollar business. So Chas is a close friend of mine, and he's known for telling you like it is. It makes for fun listening. All right, let's get into it. Chris Erwin:Quick heads up, that my interview with Chas was recorded back in December and prior to COVID. Chas, welcome to the podcast. Chas Lacaillade:Great being here. Chris Erwin:Before we go through your entire entertainment story which is an impressive one, let's talk about some of your early days. Where did you grow up? Chas Lacaillade:I grew up in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood in Chicago which is very picturesque, very walkable. I attended schools in the neighborhood. All my friends lived in the neighborhood and it was great. I just had a really magical childhood, to be honest. I walked through Lincoln Park to my school, on winter days I'd walk through this enchanting, snow-covered park back home from school, and I'd have lots of time to review what I'd experienced that day, and what was going on in my life, and what I wanted to do. And I think that meditative time was really helpful for me in getting in tune with my thoughts because your teenage years are so frantic, and there's so much insecurity. You know, it took me about 40 minutes to get home probably, or between 30 and 40 minutes to walk home from school, and so- Chris Erwin:"Up hill both ways-" Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... as my father used to say. He was also from Chicago- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... which was considered a pretty flat neighborhood overall. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, and dodging crossfire from enemy combatants. And so, just walking home gave me some contemplative time, it was very therapeutic, that probably a lot of kids don't get. Chris Erwin:So in these meditative moments, were you thinking about your future career and that you were planning to start something, or was it more of like the whimsical child fantasies and fun back in the day? Chas Lacaillade:Well, I was a big reader as a child, so I read a lot of fiction and nonfiction, and I consumed a lot of biographies from basically, the age I could start reading. And biographies on a really wide range of people. So I remember when I was 12, reading Muhammad Ali's biography, and then Ayatollah Khomeini's biography. Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:Just a real span of people because I was interested in a lot of different points of view, and the more I became exposed to what was out there and the different ways to obtain leadership, and fame, and infamy, and repute, and accomplishment, the more I became fascinated with what was possible if you just created a path for yourself. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Chas Lacaillade:And so, a lot of my thoughts were dedicated just to reviewing what these people who really impressed me, how they got to where they did. And how I could chart a path for myself that would employ my personal interests, that could hopefully some day lead to me being successful and known. Chris Erwin:Through many of our conversations over the years, there's a strong sense that you are highly ambitious, and that you really strive to overcome challenge. And I know that you often share with me, different biographical stories from magazines, something that you're reading in Esquire or GQ, or we will compare notes about Shackleton's journey to the Arctic. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Yeah. Chris Erwin:And I think these stories really resonate with you. I see this as a precursor to starting Bottle Rocket dating back 15, 20 years. Was there entrepreneurs in your family, your mother and father, siblings? Chas Lacaillade:Touching on what you were saying about these people that I've always been very impressed by, fortunately my parents exposed me to a lot of different ways of life. And I remember visiting William Randolph Hearst's mansion and just being so blown away by the scope of what this guy built, and how he lived, and his lifestyle, and the indoor pool and the outdoor pool. And all the art and architecture that he had imported from around the world, and how he'd customized this lifestyle. And so, I was so thrilled by that ambiance and the glamor of it. You know, how could I not be curious about how he provided this, and how he made this possible for himself? And so that lead me to familiarize myself with his accomplishments. And so once you know who somebody is and how they did it, and in this case he was very entrepreneurial, right? He created a newspaper empire and there's little he wouldn't do in order to achieve success. Chas Lacaillade:And so exposure to things like his mansion, or The Breakers in Rhode Island, and Providence, Rhode Island. I would go tour the Vanderbilt's mansions with my family in Rhode Island too. So just, I got exposure to these really impressive families. And my parents, my mother and father, would tell me how Cornelius Vanderbilt made his fortune, how he created a shipping empire. Or how Randolph Hearst created a newspaper empire. Chris Erwin:It's essentially made these stories accessible to you. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:They grounded them in saying, "These are normal people-" Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... "just like you and I, and so this is attainable if you have the spirit, and the intent, and drive to make it happen." Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:Is that like what you're processing of these stories and exposure? Chas Lacaillade:That's how I internalized it. It was also just like, "This is a pretty fascinating place. It's basically a museum, it's also a house. And it's indicative of a lifestyle that is pretty much bygone." And different people are going to take that in differently, but the way I interpreted the whole experience on all those occasions was like, "This is what's out there. If they did it, you can do it." Chris Erwin:I like that. Instead of looking at it and saying, "Oh, I can never achieve that," and then there's pangs of jealousy and frustration, it's, "Wow, if I hold myself big, there's incredible opportunity in front of me." Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:So let's fast forward. You find yourself in LA in 2006, and you're starting as an agent trainee at ICM Partners. So, what lead to the decision to join entertainment, overseeing and representing talent? Did you perceive it as, "This is the way to pursue your big ambitions"? Or, "Hey, this is just a key building block in learning, and I have a structured trajectory that I'm planning"? What was that thought process? Chas Lacaillade:Well, I'd always been really enamored with the world of entertainment, and Hollywood, music, they are areas that have fascinated me from a very young age. Consumed movies, and television, and music at a very high volume ever since I could remember, because I had an older brother and sister who could turn me on to different artists, and actors, and directors, and writers. So I felt like that was the path for me, and so basically I started my career out in an advertising agency in New York. Basically, I felt like I was spending a lot of time and effort at making a distraction and an impediment to what people really wanted, which was the TV show or the movie. I didn't want to make the advertisement before the movie, or the advertisement between blocks in the television show, I wanted to make the show or the movie. Chris Erwin:And just clarify for the listener, did you say that you worked in an ad agency in New York prior to ICM in LA? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. So my first job was at an ad agency that was called Euro Rscg, it's now known as Havas. It's like a worldwide advertising conglomerate. Then I worked on the Volvo and Charles Schwab accounts. I produced Volvo's first Super Bowl commercial, featuring Richard Branson. And I took a DVD of that and I sent it to the mail room basically, at ICM, and I got an interview and it worked out. Chris Erwin:And so you were at this precursor to Havas, for under a year? Chas Lacaillade:I was there for two years. Chris Erwin:So then you go to ICM- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... likely stars in your eyes, saying, "I don't want to just be the advertisement or the media spot, I want to help actually create the content." Chas Lacaillade:Oh yeah. You know, at ICM they wrapped Woody Allen, and Dr. Seuss estate, all these really luminaries like Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, really famous directors and screenwriters. And was I so impressed by the luminaries that were represented at ICM, and I thought, "This would be a great place for me to gain experience and learn the ropes of the entertainment business." And it was. Chris Erwin:So the experience was what you expected? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. You know, obviously you get a dose of reality. When you're young you don't know how hard it's going to be, and all the humbling moments that lie in store for you, and you want success much more quickly than it's likely to happen. And impatience can sometimes just frustrate how you're enjoying and processing things because you want more money, or you want more respect, or you want to be acknowledged, and truthfully, you're just another assistant, or you're just another guy fetching coffee. And you want to be seen as more than that, but until you prove yourself, you're not more than that. You are a means to an end. Chris Erwin:Something that is interesting about the agencies is that they attract ego, and I think it's something that they want. They want people coming in with confidence, with great ambition, yet at the same time there's a clear culture of, when you're there, you're in training mode, you have an incredible amount to learn. So you have to put that ego aside and say, "It's time to be a sponge." It's time to absorb from all these people that have been working for a lot longer than you have, so that you can then learn to be like, start to paint your own way. It seems like there's a unique duality there. Chas Lacaillade:I had a lot of ego and a lot of ambition, and I was humbled very quickly and- Chris Erwin:What was one of those humbling moments that you remember? Chas Lacaillade:I remember I had this really tyrannical boss, and there's no way I would've been able to accomplish what I did, subsequent to working at ICM, without his mentorship, but he used to tell me, "I'm your mentor and I'm your tormentor." Chris Erwin:That's funny. Chas Lacaillade:And he definitely did not go easy on the tormenting part. He'd tell me to do many things simultaneously, to the point where it was untenable. Like, he'd tell me to call a list of people, while composing letters to different clients, while scheduling his next lunch or his next dinner, and all of this stuff he would command me to do at that moment. At that moment. Which is physically impossible, but he didn't have any patience for any other alternative. And he also expected me to "be his brain." So he would be in the middle of conversations, he'd often have lapses of memory and he would snap his finger right before he began a sentence, which he was unsure if he could finish because he didn't know if he could remember the information. Chris Erwin:So, snapping his fingers is like an audio cue [crosstalk 00:11:12]? Chas Lacaillade:He'd snap at me hundreds of times throughout the day. Chris Erwin:No. Chas Lacaillade:So there's your first example of being humbled. He'd be on the phone with a client or a buyer at some studio and he would be embarking on this story, and he would snap at me and I would have to know what the next word in the sentence would be. Chris Erwin:You're expected to anticipate? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. And so he taught me anticipation. He made it crystal clear that if I couldn't anticipate his needs, then there's really no place for me working for him or at the company. You know, really top-tier client services anticipating what the talent is going to need, how the situation's going to present itself, how to navigate really difficult landscapes. And so, yes, it was self-serving for him because I was basically there to make him look good, but at the end of the day if you're a talent representative, you are there to make your talent look good. And so it was great training for that. Chris Erwin:I've heard a lot of the trainees and agents, sometimes they come from a place of fear about assuming the worst, so you always have to prevent or be in defensive mode. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:But I think the best agents, and this is also good business practice for anyone is, you can also assume the best, and be opportunistic and say, "What's around the corner? What are people not thinking about? What are people not wary of that can be incredibly exciting for my talent? Can be incredibly exciting for my business?" As well as, "What is a major threat? What is a risk?" And I think, again, having that duality's important versus those that just solely come at it from a place of fear. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Exactly. And those are the people that succeed and rise most quickly, are the people who don't adhere to just status quo, and there's very few of those people in any industry. I remember being at a meeting and somebody saying, "You know which client at William Morris generates the most revenue?" And everybody thought it was Quentin Tarantino or Bruce Willis, and the person who posed the question said, "Emeril Lagasse." And he said, "This chef was unknown to most of the world five years ago, become a complete juggernaut, and has got all these lines of revenue. And the person who discovered him from William Morris and who's been helping forge opportunities for him, they're booking more revenue for him than anybody else." Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:And that was an eye-opening moment for me, and that's something I really took close note of. And I thought to myself, "How can I go outside the confines of what everybody else is doing, and forge a path that will allow me to ascend higher?" I only had scant knowledge of him until that moment, and then of course first thing I did after that meeting was look him up. And then, "Who is my Emeril Lagasse? What is the avenue that's being unexplored right now?" And of course you're in a peer group that's incredibly ambitious, and incredibly intent on being successful, and oftentimes not generous with their expertise of information because any information that you get that is valuable, that diminishes their position and their value. And you're as valuable as what you know in that business. Chris Erwin:When you are entering markets where there is massive awareness about the opportunity, or where everyone is talking about it, there is less head room to grow into. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:I think there's less profit and revenue to be created. And so it's time to be contrarian. It's also time to say, "You know, what is maybe not popular?" Or, "What is a risky bet, but that I'm going to take with the right amount of risk profile and I'm going to go forth?" And I think it's people and leaders that have that mindset, they usually have the biggest winnings. Chas Lacaillade:Right. But then, a lot of Hollywood's very traditional. The irony is that it's where all this cutting-edge entertainment and expression is generated, but at the same time the leadership and the hierarchy doesn't always encourage asymmetric thinking. And so, in fact, most people are incredibly defensive and incredibly insecure, and are adverse to taking risks. So, the only way you're going to be successful is by taking risk, and the least likely way to be acknowledged is by being different, so it's a struggle. Chris Erwin:You were at ICM Partners for a few years and then you left, what was the reason for leaving ICM? Chas Lacaillade:You know, I basically got a point there where, the WGA strike of 2008 was really tough, and that stagnated wages and it slowed everything down in the entertainment industry, in terms of opportunity and promotions. And you get to a certain point where you're like, "What am I doing to do with my life? I don't want to be just another person walking the halls here, slowly inching my way forward." And the culture at that time, it was just like, "Everybody, do what they're told." You know, that's pervasive culture, regardless of where you are. After four years of grinding and playing by the rules that had been laid out, it felt like it was time to just explore a different way of life. Chris Erwin:So, explore a different way of life? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:So that seems to capture maybe a lot of things that happened over the next few years? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Yeah. So I'd always been very environmentally conscious, and really interested in sustainability and renewable energy, and I thought, "Maybe I'm not attaining the success I had always envisioned for myself at this stage in my life." Chris Erwin:Going back to the earlier part of our conversations where you're visiting the Hearst Castle- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... and learning about the Vanderbilts, and saying, "Wow, there's all this potential." Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:So you take a moment after a few years into our career, and you realize, "I don't have the success that I want." How did that feel? Chas Lacaillade:At that time I was 30 years old and I feel like if you're sane, you start to question yourself. I'm still a confident person, I'm still a very driven person, but I was beginning to wonder if my confidence and my drive were going to necessarily yield an impressive outcome, or any sort of meaningful outcome. Like, maybe I was just going to be just another guy locked into a 9:00 to 5:00 subsistence life? And maybe I wasn't as impressive and driven as I thought I was? Chris Erwin:Did that scare you? Chas Lacaillade:Oh, yeah. Definitely. That's a very unique kind of terror because it's not fleeting. It's not momentary. It's ongoing, doesn't leave you even when you sleep. It's with you when you're awake. It's with you when you're asleep. It changes your demeanor. It changes your outlook. It changes how people see you because you're questioning your very essence. You don't know if you're capable or, at that point, I didn't know if I was capable of doing what I always thought I was capable of. And so basically, at the same time I wasn't going to stop. You know, the only way forward was to push on. Chris Erwin:I think what you're getting on that's interesting is that, your planned trajectory and your fast rise had become part of your identity, that's how you knew yourself. And all of a sudden you're saying, "There could almost be a paradigm shift in my life. And if this is not my identity, then who am I-" Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... "what's my purpose?" Chas Lacaillade:You know, I was used to being identified as keen, and hardworking, and talented, and then I had to look at myself in the mirror and say, "Well, if I'm those things, then why am I 30 years old and have a few hundred bucks in the bank?" Because people with those characteristic generally have a little bit more to show for them. And so I figured, okay, I'm running into a bit of a wall here, in my life and in my career, I need to do something where I can hopefully apply my drive and get something more out of it. And so, basically I got a job at a renewable energy company- Chris Erwin:Change industry's entirely. Chas Lacaillade:Change industry's entirely. And all these friends and family who'd seen you really work hard at something, in my case was in Hollywood, they say, "Good. Great." You know, "Happy for you," but you detect a little bit of doubt in their voice and you can't help but be unsettled by that. And you're 30 years old, I was 30 and I was like, "Oh my god. I'm basically starting from the bottom." Chris Erwin:Yeah. And I think that could also be a downward spiral where you think that there's doubt in your peer's voice about you, or their thoughts about you, but is that reality or is that just your perception and you're whipping yourself? Chas Lacaillade:I think it was reality, I think people were skeptical. But I would also say that, as you get older you realize that everybody's insecure about themselves, and so that could also be their lack of belief that they could do it. And so when they hear that you're going to switch fields, and you're going to do something completely different, in some cases what they're thinking is, "Well, I can never do that, so how's he going to do it?" Or, "I don't know anybody who's done that, how's he going to do it?" And what you need to take faith in is that, look, if you're determined and you have a game plan, it doesn't matter if they don't know anybody who's done it or if they can't do it, you can do it. Everything is doable. If there's a problem, there's a solution, so that's the way I approach things. Chas Lacaillade:And I got a job at a renewable energy company based out of Orange County, it was in Costa Mesa, and I had to commute from West LA to Costa Mesa five days a week. Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:I mean, my office was essentially a garage in Costa Mesa, I mean, it was dark. Chris Erwin:So you show up- Chas Lacaillade:Literally and figuratively. And my peers were nothing like ... I wasn't interacting with these entertainment luminaries who are ... Tom Cruise wasn't on the phone. It was just basically old guys who were selling water pumps to plumbing warehouses, so talk about a total shift in gears. And my job was head of national sales, so when I wasn't in the office I was meeting with different plumbing supply warehouses and distributors throughout the nation, and getting them to carry our product, which I did very well. I increased the distribution and footprint of the product dramatically, like over 10 times. And I drove sales for this company, and I established a reputation with a group of people that I never thought I would know. Chas Lacaillade:And I say that I could not of started Bottle Rocket without my time working at ICM for that really hard boss, and I also couldn't have started Bottle Rocket had I not been head of sales for this company selling a product. It's a lot easier to sell a glamorous movie star to a studio that already wants to work with her, than it is to sell another water pump to a plumbing warehouse that has to carry it on the shelf. Chris Erwin:Did you believe that you learned these sales skills from any of your peers or the leadership at this company, or did you just have to figure it out on the go? Chas Lacaillade:You have to be open to your environment. You have to pick up cues. You have to see what people respond to. You have to read and listen to people who are experts in the field. So, there's a lot of sales manuals I read, and techniques I tried to pick and employ. Chris Erwin:Any sales seminars, weekend seminars, courses? Chas Lacaillade:No, I didn't do those so much, but obviously YouTube videos. And sales is so much about people and your relationship to people, and luckily I had developed an ability to really relate to a broad array of people, and broad range of people. And if you lead with sincerity and humor, generally, then at least you can open up somebody's receptivity to whatever message you want to convey. Chris Erwin:And the fact that you were looking at YouTube videos back then, it's just interesting to think about where you then went next. Chas Lacaillade:Right, isn't that funny. Yeah. Chris Erwin:Because you ended up at Fullscreen, but did you go right to Fullscreen, a multi-channel network, after selling water pumps, or was there another stop in between? Chas Lacaillade:Basically, I'd been working at this restaurant in West Hollywood all the while, just to pick up extra revenue. So I was definitely hustling, hustling hard to made ends meet. Chris Erwin:So you're full-time and part-time work in this period? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. I had an epiphany when I was on a sales trip to Louisiana, and I was driving around the Bayou of Louisiana with this manufacturer's rep who was my conduit in Louisiana, distributing the pumps, and he said, "What did you used to do before you were selling pumps?" And I told him about my career at ICM. And he said, "Hold on. You and I are driving around Louisiana in 95 degree heat, trying to sell friggen water pumps, and you used to talk to movie stars and screen writers? What the hell is your problem?" He's like, "I would give up everything to start at the company that you left." He's like, "If you can leave this and go back to that ... And if you don't love this, which nobody does ..." Chas Lacaillade:He's like, "This is a means to the end. I put food on the table for my family, myself. I've got a daughter and this is how I pay for my life. You don't have any of those commitments. You're not married. You're single. You're young enough to go back to it." He's like, "If you love it like it sounds like you do, go back." This guy's name was Dustin [Ubray 00:23:08], shout out to Dustin Ubray. Chris Erwin:Thanks, Dustin Ubray, for pointing Chas on his new path. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, and- Chris Erwin:So you hear this- Chas Lacaillade:And I'm like- Chris Erwin:... and what goes through your head? Chas Lacaillade:And I'm realizing like, you know what? I'm always going to care a lot about the environment and sustainability, but the real truth is, this is not the life I envisioned or that I want. And I was open to it and I gave it a go, but I don't see this unfolding in a way that's going to make me happy. And it's always important to explore things and really give them a sincere look, but if it doesn't feel right, you cannot be reluctant to pull the ripcord. And a lot of people are scared of starting over, and so much of success boils down to your ability to start from scratch and just persist. Chris Erwin:So in that moment, did you feel any regret where you were like, "Oh my god, I made this big change in my career and it seems that it was off to the wayside, and now I've got to get back on track"? Or did you interpret it as, "Wow, this was a really special moment, I learned a lot, and now I'm going to go back into entertainment, find a new opportunity space, but I'm further energized to do it"? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:What were you feeling? Chas Lacaillade:Well at that point, so now I'm 32, and I'm like, "Okay, the sand's going through the hourglass on me, and I'm going to do another pivot to I don't know where. I don't know who's going to hire me." And I've got some explaining to do next time I sit down at an interview because I've got some accomplishments under my belt, but they're two wildly different and divergent fields. So people are going to be curious, some people are going to be skeptical, and I'm going to have to prove myself in the room and I'm going to really have to prove myself ... if somebody gives me a chance, I'm going to really have to bust my arse for them to have faith that they made the right decision. Chris Erwin:But you had confidence that you were going to be able to do that? Chas Lacaillade:I had confidence I was going to be able to do it, but back to what we were discussing with people not wanting to take risks, HR departments are not known for being open-minded. They want to look at that resume and they want to see identifiable qualities that will give them insurance if they make a hire that doesn't work out. And so, I didn't have this, and so what I depended on was getting in the room. It was like, if I get in the room, I've got a strong chance at getting the job, but just getting in the room is tough. Chris Erwin:How did you get in the room for Fullscreen? Chas Lacaillade:I had a- Chris Erwin:Did you pick them or did they pick you? Chas Lacaillade:I had a really close friend from ICM who was best friends with the head of production at Fullscreen, and Fullscreen was a startup, and they had- Chris Erwin:Yeah, what was Fullscreen, for our audience? Chas Lacaillade:Fullscreen was a multi-channel network known as an MCN, which is basically, Fullscreen's raison d'etre was "we are going to collect a broad range of YouTube channels, and sell advertising against those YouTube channels." That's a really broad overview of what they did. And so the money that Fullscreen made was, the revenue source, was advertising on YouTube. Chris Erwin:Got it. Chas Lacaillade:That's how they made money. They had a few dozen employees. They had some venture capital investment from Peter [inaudible 00:25:59]. So yeah, a good friend of mine knew they had production there, had a production. Put my resume in the mix for a role, I went in to interview, they needed somebody just to work with these YouTuber's. I had a background in entertainment and I really, really emphasized that. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Chas Lacaillade:And my background was legitimate, and it was quality, and I had worked with a lot of people, and I had good references. Chris Erwin:So you had ICM on your resume- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... that's instant pedigree in entertainment. Chas Lacaillade:I had references, and if they wanted to call anybody, that a lot of people liked me or were fond of me, and my work ethic was there. So at that point, a lot of people from the traditional entertainment world didn't respect YouTube, and didn't see it as a viable commercial avenue. Chris Erwin:And why do you think that was? Chas Lacaillade:They basically regarded it as a distraction, as not a competitor to TV, and radio, and film. And just for very low cost entertainment that people didn't pay for. Chris Erwin:Yeah. One of the things that I heard myself, because I was also part of the multi-channel network eco system where I first started, big frame, a wish like Fullscreen had, venture capital backing, and then also had funding from a Google originals channel program, from Google itself, and then on to AwesomenessTV. And from a lot of traditional Hollywood they would say, "These digitally native creators, they're not used to hearing the word, no. They just had this unique moment in time where they started publishing videos on YouTube or a social channel, and then they got famous." And it felt very strongly that unless you were in the annals of these MCNs, or working with these next-gen talent, you don't understand the amount of hard work, the amount of time and the commitment to the audiences that they created for themself, and the brands that they created for themself. So, I hear you on that. Chris Erwin:Chas, you're at Fullscreen and this is the job that you had right before founding Bottle Rocket, and remind me what was your role while you were at Fullscreen? Chas Lacaillade:I was the head of talent sales. Chris Erwin:Was this a division that you actually founded at the company? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. So basically what happened at Fullscreen was, I was hired to be a "talent manager," and we had a sales department and division at Fullscreen. You know, I was talking to the talent, I was working with these YouTubers. This is early, this is 2013. They would get offers to promote products for 5,000 or 2,500 bucks, and the big YouTuber's case like $10,000, and I said, "You know, I've got experience in talent representation, let me secure and negotiate these opportunities for you." So I close a deal for a talent to promote a product, and sales caught wind of what I was doing, the sales department, and they said, "Listen, it's not your role to do any sort of sales activity here at Fullscreen. We are the division and the department that's dedicated to that. And the threshold for any deals that our talent participates in is $50,000. If it's not $50,000 or above, it's not worth Fullscreen's time. You know, if it's less than 50K, we pass on it." Chris Erwin:So, they're telling you to stay in your lane- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... and here's your lane by the way, what this looks like, and let us do our thing? Chas Lacaillade:And if it's less than 50K, decline. And I said, "Well, there's a lot of money between $1 and $50,000, we're leaving a lot of money on the table, and that's really important for our clients, that's how they pay their bills." And they said, "Listen, if it gets to 50K, hand it over to us and we'll take care of it." Kind of a pat on the head. And I found that incredibly shortsighted, and I was not deterred for a nanosecond. And I- Chris Erwin:Yeah, let's focus on that for a second. So, not deterred. So, other people might hear that feedback, get really frustrated, but then just say, "Okay, I've been told to stay in my lane, this is what I'm going to do." But you did not react like that. Was it potentially a catalyst for you? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. No, it absolutely was. So I'm like, "I know how to do this. I see the opportunity here. These people are really creative, they have really large audiences. They've got a really special unique relationship with that audience, and this is something that nobody's doing, so I'm going to do it." And I went up to the business affairs office. I was on the second floor and I said, "Please make me a two-page template that I can repeat and just swap out names, and print out information." They made a two-page deal template for me, and I proceeded to create my own world basically, and owned a division, an army of one, where I would source a deal, secure and negotiate the deal, and close it, and invoice for it, and Fullscreen's 10% would just go to Fullscreen's accounting department. And the sale division didn't like that, but I was providing a service to all the talent that was in the network, that became undeniable. Chris Erwin:Now you're running around as a team of one- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... was this exciting for you, while also- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, absolutely. Chris Erwin:I mean, it must have been awkward at the same time because then within the same walls of the building, there's people frustrated with your behavior, yet you're like, "Wow, I just found this goldmine and I'm going after them." Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, I didn't care about them. You know, they weren't my friends and I wasn't impressed by them professionally. I didn't think that they were good at their jobs. I didn't think they knew their product. To be an effective salesperson you have to know our product, and none of these people watched YouTube, none of them had relationships with the YouTubers that they were tasked with selling. Chris Erwin:Got it. Chas Lacaillade:To work in this space, you have to be able to pick up the phone and call the talent and say, "I've got this opportunity for you, is this exciting to you? How would you integrate this product into your content?" And you have to have a conversation with them. And if you don't any sort of rapport with that talent, then good luck. And so, I had developed a rapport with this talent. I knew how advertising worked. I could speak that language very fluidly, given my experience at the ad agency in Manhattan. I also knew how to deal with talent via my experience at ICM. I knew sales, via my experience at the renewable energy company. Chris Erwin:It's like all this is coming together. Chas Lacaillade:So all these three really separate experiences unified in this really elegant tapestry, that set me apart, made me unique from my peers at Fullscreen, and allowed me to really confidently stake out my claim, and so that's what I did. At this point I'm 32 years old. Had I been 25, I might've been a little bit more intimidated. But because I knew what I was doing, I had a very clear vision for the future and how I was going to use my skillset to drive value and create value for the company, I was able to rebuff all the feeble pleas and objections that were being posed by my peers who were threatened. Chris Erwin:Did this moment feel like a very unique inflection point where all my past career experience, my capabilities, my learnings, my mindset, it's like, "This is happening now in my early 30s." Going back to that identity of "the world is my oyster." Right? Chas Lacaillade:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chris Erwin:It's like what you were thinking when you were in high school in your early days. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:And did you feel like in this moment it's like, "This is it"? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. So it did feel like that, and I felt like, "Look, the money's not big now, but everything has to start from somewhere." And also, I was synthesizing all of those biographies I'd read of Sam Walton starting out Walmart with just a Five and Dime store here, or then he built to three "Five and Dime stores in Arkansas and Memphis, and these outposts that were in these rinky-dink towns, but no one else was building there. And what I felt was, I'm building stores where no one else is, and I'm going to get customers that no one else is going to get. And by the time that everybody wakes up, I'm going to have more stores than anyone else. And so I moved very quickly and I thought, "Look, I don't know where this is going to go, but this is something that's valuable, and interesting, and engaging, and I'm developing a reputation internally as somebody who's got a clear point of view." And people are attracted to and drawn to someone with a point of view and an idea on how to create value. Chris Erwin:It's clear that you are no longer at Fullscreen. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:You now are at a company that you founded, Bottle Rocket Management. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:When did you found Bottle Rocket? Chas Lacaillade:So AT&T bought Fullscreen in 2015, and at that point Fullscreen was not intent on being in the talent representation business and I was. And I had my Jerry Maguire moment where I called all my clients and said, "Am I your manager? Am I your manager? And if so, this is my new endeavor, I'm going out on my own." Chris Erwin:Was that scary to do that? Chas Lacaillade:It was terrifying. I took out a $5,000 loan from Chase Bank, and there was no interest for the first 18 months. Chris Erwin:And what was that loan for? Chas Lacaillade:To live. So- Chris Erwin:Pay rent, food- Chas Lacaillade:Pay rent, my rent was $1,200 a month, so I figured I could get by for a quarter, three months- Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:... if I just had one meal a day, didn't do anything on the weekend, no bars or entertainment, or movies. Basically, ate one meal a day, and paid my internet bill, and paid my rent, I could get by for three months. Chris Erwin:So this is extreme focus. Chas Lacaillade:Yep. Chris Erwin:Your job during these three months is, I got basic financing in place and now I'm going to build a company, and it's going to win. And you have your horse blinders on? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:What happens over those three months? Chas Lacaillade:And so, I was able to pay the $5,000 back within 45 days- Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:... and had no debt, and I'd closed enough deals that I knew I was going to make enough money to live in that year, in 2015. So, Bottle Rocket started March 1st, 2015 and all the clients I represented at Fullscreen formally, decided that they wanted to line up with me and I built a business. So from a one-bedroom apartment in Venice, I just sat there and called people all day. Chris Erwin:You knew 45 days in, you had something? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. Chris Erwin:You look at your business now, the business that you have from a revenue point of view, and volume point of view, is a lot larger than a lot of other next-gen management companies. What was that next inflection point where you're like, "Okay, I don't just have something here, I have something really special"? Chas Lacaillade:I think it's when I started needing to bring on staff. You know, I'd been doing everything by myself. Chris Erwin:And when was that? Chas Lacaillade:It was 2017, and now we've got a staff of five, including myself. You know, what I'm really thrilled about it how busy everybody is, and how the environment feels really entrepreneurial, really light. I feel like if you have a sense of lightness within the company, and joy, that people are going to put forth discretionary effort, they're going to give you that extra ... whether it's talent, or whether it's the buyer, or whether it's your own colleague, if they know that you're coming from a place of reason and you're a good person, you're just going to get more out of everything and everybody. Now, there's a lot of challenging encounters, there's times when points of view collide and you still have to be firm, and you have to have faith that your position is legitimate. And perhaps somebody wants something from you or from your client that is unreasonable, that's where the challenge is. How do I create customer delight and value for this person, whilst still maintaining my position? Chris Erwin:As you think about how you energize in your business, and you continually refine your leadership and your management philosophy, how do you do that? Is it through reading? Do you have like a mastermind's group? How do you come into your business every day and push yourself to be better for your clients? Chas Lacaillade:Personally for myself, you've got to nurse your mind with new points of view, and you've got to read, and you've got to stay current. Personally, I read the Wall Street Journal, which is not exactly cutting-edge technique. Chris Erwin:While on the bike at the Bay Club? Chas Lacaillade:Yep. Yep, I read the Wall Street Journal every day. One of my professors at USC Business School said, "If you want to be smarter, read The Wall Street Journal every day." Very simple piece of advice and I took it to heart, and I feel like it's very helpful. You know, basically I want to get information from places that aren't the internet. You're definitely a more well-rounded individual if you're not just sighting whatever was on Apple News that day. So I read the newspaper every day. I read fiction and nonfiction. You've got to keep your vocabulary relevant and sharp, and your mind dynamic, and reading different pieces of information and literature, it helps you do that. Because so much of being interesting to others, is being interested in what other people are doing and how the world's working. And so, if I'm interesting to my peers and people that I want to do business with, then that's already a head start in the right direction. And so, that's how I keep it fresh. Chris Erwin:You raise a good point because if you're just reading the same industry pubs that everyone's reading, which it's good to be current, but if you're just in Variety, and Hollywood Reporter, and Tubefilter all day, you're not giving your mind space to breathe. And so when you say, "Mind, body, spirits," so it's out of being an avid reader, how do you also energize your body and your spirit? Chas Lacaillade:You know, sometimes I surf, as you know. I play soccer at a rec sports league. I play basketball with some friends occasionally. I'm very active, it's just important to me to be out there moving. And the spirit and the body are very closely linked, so I feel like if I'm running or playing a sport, then my spirit is being nourished. Chris Erwin:I'm not sure if you're going to enjoy me sharing this story, but yes, Chas and I, we have skied together many times at Sundance and Park City. We've also surfed many times here in LA. And I will say, I think the last time that we went and surfed at Malibu at Second Point, Chas was really excited to get in the water, he hadn't been in in a bit. As we're walking to the beach, I just look at his surfboard and I'm like, "Okay, there's normally three fins on a surfboard, but I only see two on yours, Chas. What's going on?" You're like, "Yeah, it's immaterial, don't worry about it." I'm like, "Okay," thinking you need three fins, but all good. Then we get to the beach and Chas says, he's like, "This wetsuit is so uncomfortable, it's so tight in all these weird places. What's going on here?" I'm like, "Is this a new wetsuit? You've had it before, right?" He's like, "Yeah. No, it's the same one, but this is just weird." Chris Erwin:I thought to myself and I was like, "All right, I remember a similar conversation the last time we surfed." And then I look over at Chas, right before I say it, Chas says it, he goes, "I think this wetsuit's on backwards." And so the suit was on backwards, but what I loved was that instead of Chas being like, "Oh, I'm going to go walk back to the car and change it," or, "I have to go get another fin," you were just like, "I'm getting in the water. I'm fine. You know, I don't care what people think, let's go," and we went right into it. And I think that was a great reflection of how you approach life- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... and business, and friendships. You're just like, "I'm doing what I'm doing, and I'm happy with it-" Chas Lacaillade:The wetsuit- Chris Erwin:... "and I don't care what anyone else thinks." Chas Lacaillade:The wetsuit being on backwards is not going to change the waves. Chris Erwin:Yeah, exactly. Chas Lacaillade:The board's there, the wave's there, I'm here. All the necessary elements for me surfing are present, so ... I was in the water and some dude's like, "Your wetsuit's on backwards." I was like, "I'm clear on that. I know that." I think I spaced out in the moment, I think I was caught up in conversation. Hadn't had my caffeine dose and idiotically put my wetsuit on backwards, but then I was just like, "Ah, you know what?-" Chris Erwin:Maybe it's a reflection- Chas Lacaillade:... "It's not going to slow me down." Chris Erwin:You're so in the moment and you're so present, you didn't even know your wetsuit was on backwards. You know, so maybe that's a good thing, maybe more people need to have that happen to them. All right, so before we get into our rapid fire round, last question on Bottle Rocket. What are some of your 2020 goals for Bottle Rocket and the team? What do you look forward to? Chas Lacaillade:I want to develop relationships with new buyers that we haven't worked with previously, that's really important to me. You've got to keep exploring opportunity with the marketplace and developing new relationships. And then, definitely signing new talent that's exciting and dynamic, and that's going to raise and elevate the perception of Bottle Rocket. And hopefully growing the Bottle Rocket team, so that I continue to have peers that inspire me and feel energized to come to work. Chris Erwin:When we talk about new talent, because we were talking a bit before this, you're not just a digital talent management company, you're next-gen. To prove that point out, you've signed traditional talent, you've signed also writers, you've diversified across your entertainment roster. Which I think is great and it's interesting to see how when you have that diversity of talent, they can work and collaborate with one another- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... which really fuels your own internal business. But are there any certain types of talent that you are specifically seeking out in the new year? Chas Lacaillade:What I want to identify and what I'd love to represent, are people with really unique points of view and unique skillsets. YouTube, there's a lot of derivative content on YouTube, and herd mentality is pervasive in all forms and genres of entertainment and media. But when you really strike gold is when you've got that person who galvanizes an audience because of who they are and how they see the world, and how they interact with the world. The Will Smith's of the world, ELiza Koshy, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah. And so you want to find that person or people who have a magnetism about them that's undeniable. Chris Erwin:Well, we wish you a very prosperous 2020. Chas Lacaillade:Thank you. Thank you. Chris Erwin:So, we'll go into the closing rapid fire questions, how's that sound? Chas Lacaillade:Great. Chris Erwin:All right. So these can be just quick, two to three sentence answers. If you want to be even more brief, we're open to that. Looking back on your career, what would you say your single proudest moment and accomplishment is to date? Chas Lacaillade:The day I started Bottle Rocket Management, March 1st, 2015. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do less and more of in 2020? Let's start with less. Chas Lacaillade:Worry. Worry, there's no form of progress when you're contemplating what's going to go wrong, or whatever may happen will adversely affect you. You've just got to believe. Chris Erwin:Rapid fire follow-up to that, what do you worry about the most? Chas Lacaillade:Delivering for my clients and my team. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do more of in 2020? Chas Lacaillade:Well, I definitely want my team to feel inspired and really excited to be at Bottle Rocket. And I want them to have personal wins, so that they feel like it's not just a company where they work for me, it's where they work for themselves and they're developing their own reputations. Chris Erwin:Entrepreneurial advice. What one to two personal characteristics do you think have primarily driven your success? Chas Lacaillade:Say, persistence. Persistence is definitely the main identifiable characteristic that's helped me. And humility, just accepting that you're going to have to prove yourself and people aren't going to hand you the biggest, juiciest opportunities off the bat. And so, you have to be humble and prove yourself. Chris Erwin:We talk about persistence a lot, where there's ebbs and flows in the business cycles and your own individual business, and with your team, but if you just are always showing up everyday, there are going to be these incredible moments for you to take advantage of. But if you're not showing up, it's not going to happen. Last few questions here. How do you best take advantage of things you can't control? Chas Lacaillade:I think you've just got to be clear. You've just got to figure out what your position is and how you see things. Articulate that to whomever is necessary, and be open-minded. Chris Erwin:Okay, last two. Quick shot advice for media professionals going into 2020? Chas Lacaillade:Try to schedule as many meetings with people that you're curious about, and want to meet and want to know, and sit down with them wherever they are, and make yourself available. Chris Erwin:Last question. How can people get in contact with you, Chas, the CEO and founder of Bottle Rocket Management? Chas Lacaillade:My email address is chas@bottlerocketmanagement.com, spelled out. Chris Erwin:We'll also include that in the show notes. Chas Lacaillade:Excellent. Chris Erwin:Well, this has been a delight, Chas. Great to have you in today. Chas Lacaillade:Thank you. Chris Erwin:See you around at the next surf sess. Chas Lacaillade:Right on. Chris Erwin:Wow, I really enjoyed that conversation with Chas. Like I said in the beginning, he is a total straight shooter and tells you like it is, and that really came across. I don't know if you guys felt this, but when he started talking about founding Bottle Rocket and leaving Fullscreen, in the room you could see and you could feel his energy just ramping. It was exciting. I thought that was a pretty special moment in our conversation. The excitement of an entrepreneur. So a few quick things on your radar, our next podcast will feature Christian Baesler, the President of Complex Media. He is a young media savant, with a very impressive career track record. Fun facts about Christian, he was born east of the Berlin Wall, and in the same week that the week came down. Pretty incredible. And when he was right out of college at a big international media company, he was tasked with overseeing a digital division, and they needed a digital website network to be built, Christian just built it himself. Impressive stuff. Chris Erwin:Second thing on your radar, listeners, is that our company RockWater, will be hosting a live stream media and selling conference in 2021. Likely in the first quarter in March, we don't know exactly what it's going to look like yet, but we will bring together great speakers, good programming, and we're looking for people who want to get involved. So if you're interested, you can email us at TCUpod@wearerockwater.com. Stay tuned for that. All right, that's it. Thanks all 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 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 Sean Diep from the RockWater team.
Once upon a time in USA, a YouTube web series was created by Christopher Schonberger and produced by First We Feast and Complex Media. Its basic premise involves celebrities being interviewed by host Sean Evans over a platter of increasingly spicy chicken wings. Nobody ever imagined that one day it would become the popular web series known only as Hot Ones. But how did Hot Ones become such a popular web series? Why did it become a web series? Is it true that Sean has had his head kissed and licked by celebrities? Does he eat tacos in a weird way? Is it true that Sean has lost appetite for wings? Does his little brother really help in the research before the interviews? Did his father really help him build up his tolerance for spice? It's time for me to answer all these questions and more since this is ASMR Aaron back at it again... This Story is Available in Amazon and Itunes Also. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/asmraaron/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/asmraaron/support
All the President's Minutes is a podcast where conversations about movies, journalism, politics and history meet. Each show we use the seminal and increasingly prescient 1976 film All The President's Men as a portal, to engage with the themes and the warnings of the film resonating since its release. For minute 94, I join actor, entertainment host, producer, podcaster and movie nerd, Clarke Wolfe. Clarke and I have a sprawling conversation through pop culture, experiencing COVID-19 in different US states and go long on the fact that denial does not mean something didn't happen. ------------------ About Clarke Wolfe ------------------ Clarke Wolfe is an actress, an entertainment host, and a producer originally from Atlanta, Georgia. She was last seen in the horror-comedy SATANIC PANIC with Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell. This Christmas, Clarke stars opposite genre icon, Barbara Crampton, in the segment "A Christmas Miracle" featured in the holiday horror anthology DEATHCEMBER. Clarke began her theatre career as a small child and hasn't stopped since, having appeared on stages in New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. She most recently produced and co-starred in SLASHED! The Musical, an original horror-comedy musical, that had its world premiere at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. After quickly selling out its initial run, SLASHED! was nominated for Best Musical and the Encore! Producer's Award. In addition to stage credits that include leading roles in classics like BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, OLEANNA, and MACBETH, Clarke has been seen on screens big and small, leading short films WHERE ARE YOU?, THE DRAWING, and the upcoming satirical comedy POLTERGAYS!. She is currently a student at Lesly Kahn and Company. A popular correspondent for DC Comics, IMDb, Nerdist, Syfy, and many more, Clarke Wolfe has become one of the most prominent female voices within the geek culture space. Most recently for over 400 episodes, Clarke was a regular cast member on the DC Universe chat show DC DAILY. A well-known figure in the horror community, Clarke was the creator, showrunner, and host of COLLIDER NIGHTMARES, a video discussion show for Complex Media that welcomed guests including Academy Award winners Guillermo del Toro, Geena Davis, and Gore Verbinski. Her thoughts and analysis on the controversial genre have been read by millions online, and she has brought her love of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy to events around the world including San Diego Comic-Con, SXSW, Paley Fest, New York Comic Con, and LA Comic-Con. Clarke Wolfe's pop culture knowledge has been lauded throughout the digital space. A fan of entertainment across the board, Clarke has interviewed and shared the stage with many world-renowned cultural icons, and in 2015, she was named Editor-In-Chief of the beloved brand Amy Poehler's Smart Girls for the Legendary Digital Network. She has also made a name for herself in the online trivia world. In 2016 Clarke was voted "Rookie of the Year" of Skybound Entertainment's eSports trivia league the Movie Trivia Schmoedown. Just a short time later, she and Rachel Cushing would team up and become two-time champions known to fans around the world as "The Shirewolves." Clarke currently splits her time between Atlanta, GA and Los Angeles, CA. Her hobbies include golf, karaoke, and wine tasting. She also enjoys reading and is a member of two book clubs — one focusing on horror literature and one focusing on comics. *Twitter:* *@clarkewolfe* ( https://twitter.com/clarkewolfe ) *Website:* https://www.clarkewolfe.com/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/one-heat-minute-productions/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Eli Ash loves things that most people hate: spreadsheets, organization, planning, and budgeting. As Head of Production at Mustache Agency, she is tasked with the tremendous responsibility of juggling multiple projects and managing various production and post teams daily. Eli came into my world when I was hired to produce a commercial for Secrets Resort & Spa in the Dominican Republic last summer. Long time listeners of the pod will hopefully remember me yapping about it. It was one of the funnest jobs I’ve ever gotten to produce. With deep roots in the advertising and commercial world, she has produced a variety of projects throughout her career. She’s worked with companies like Complex Media, Vice, Warner Brothers Records, Nike, The Nobel Peace Prize, OXFAM and Crisis Action. She’s worked all over the world for networks such as NBC, A&E, BBC, MTV, The Travel Channel, The Food Network, Discovery Science and Sesame Workshop. She has produced Music Videos for a variety of artists from G-Eazy, Halsey, Young the Giant, A$AP Ferg and Ceelo Green. She’s worked with brands such as Nike, Dove, S'well, Clinique and Honda. She’s very impressive. It’s no wonder that since this recording a few months ago, she started a new position in a similar role at Netflix. This week, Eli dives deep into the transition from the freelance hustle to going in house at Mustache, how an agency functions, and the changes the advertising industry is facing. Tune in and tell me all about it! Beijos, Caca
NATASHA MARTINEZ INTERVIEW : (01:10) Miss California USA 2015 (03:05) The importance of Family/Support (06:41) The competitive side of Pageantry (10:02) Experience as a Laker Girl (17:58) Working as a Television Host (22:01) Hosting & Interviewing at Complex Media (26:06) Hosting at American Latino TV (31:26) Staying busy w/ work during Quarantine (34:37) The inspiration of Liz Hernandez (39:35) The inspiration of Jennifer Lopez - More Info @ RandomlyRonnieJr.com | RandomlyRonnieJr.ME --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/randomly-ronnie-jr/support
When it comes to influential media companies, Complex Media is right at the top of that list and it's time to meet the man who started it all, Rich Antoniello, CEO and Founder of Complex. I got the inside story of how Complex did things the right way and morphed from their humble beginnings into the powerhouse they are today.
Frank William Miller Junior, creative director and marketing designer, has always wanted to get a job in the kitchen of his favorite restaurants. Not because he has an interest in the culinary arts but instead so he could learn how to perfect his favorite dish and then move on to his next creative outlet. Growing up as a military kid created an impermanence that removed his fear of taking risks which included a stint working at Blockbuster video. In addition to his experience at Hot 97, Rockstar Games and Complex Media, Frank shares how he has focused on helping artists share their authentic narratives. Episode References:3 stories Frank would want to hear:Yoshitaka Amano - https://www.yoshitakaamano.com/Yoko Kanno - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Kanno J Dilla - http://www.j-dilla.com/Follow and learn more about Frank at: http://www.FWMJ.com
Pat MacFie founded WeAreManaaki just before NZ went into lockdown March 20 this year. Manaaki is a support network of business experts, uplifting the mana of small businesses by helping them navigate Covid-19. And empowering us all to come out stronger. Pat is a creative leader and expert in enterprise level marketing, digital and content strategy for global brands. He has built and led high performing global creative teams and has partnered with several premium global brands. Pat was also a partner of SLAMXHYPE which sold to Complex Media in the mid 2010's. Follow Pat: https://www.instagram.com/wearemanaaki/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmacfie/
What's the secret to staying on the pulse of the community? How can brands effectively adapt to the trends of their consumers, and how does that affect their strategies moving forward? This week, we've got Sean Evans and Rich Antoniello of Complex Media on the podcast to talk about how Complex has differentiated their content to stand out from the crowd. They discuss a number of topics including the early days of the hit show "Hot Ones", what separates Complex from other media outlets in the digital space and how they look at audience trends.
This is part two of the interview with the very accomplished Natasha Martinez. She was Miss California USA 2015, is a TV host, anchor, and has worked on prestigious networks such as E! News, Complex Media, K-ABC, and so much more. We talked to her about some of her struggles has a female in her career and also how she has maintained a healthy mental health despite the negative social media world. She gave us tips and tricks on how to block out negativity and toxic people. Hope you enjoy! Go check us out on Instagram @unfinished.podcast and Be sure to follow her instagram: @natashalexis_
In today's (two-part) episode we interviewed the very accomplished Natasha Martinez. She was Miss California USA 2015, is a TV host, anchor, and has worked on prestigious networks such as E! News, Complex Media, K-ABC, and so much more. We talked to her about the early barriers she faced in her career, what got her into the entertainment and news industry, motivation, how she was able to grow into the person she is today, and advice she has for self-confidence and self-care. Remember to listen to part two that will be coming very soon! Have a nice day:) Be sure to follow her instagram: @natashalexis_
Marc Fernandez is the owner and CEO of Collider Media. Prior to acquiring Collider, Marc worked for Sam Houser at Rockstar Games as the Director of Content for the Midnight Club and the GTA Franchise. He then moved to Complex Media to help Marc Ecko launch his iconic Getting Up game as well as executive producing the Hot Ones and Sneaker Shopping shows. Sadly, Marc considers Episode III his favorite Star Wars film and roots for the Miami Dolphins.
“My music is HOT! Why don't brands want to work with me?” “Where can I find people who work for brands?” “What does being authentic mean?” — Are you trying to work with brands but not having any luck? Well then listen up! In episode 7 of the “unsigned podcast,” we talk with the Associate Director of Brand Partnerships at Complex, Joe Cappuccilli. In our chat with Joe, he talks about his early struggles trying to make it to NYC to work in music and how he overcame those obstacles by eventually landing a gig at Cornerstone (TheFader). Since then, Joe has gone on to work at Complex Media as part of the brand partnerships team. Joe helps handle finding the right talent, both big and small, for the right brand campaign. Joe has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world like Pepsi, Puma, and Powerade. P.S. - Are you an artist or manager interested in growing your music career? If so, click HERE to schedule a 20 minute 1:1 call with our team to see if you're a good fit for our new program!
On this week’s post-mortem, we’re talking about 4 real life Fight Clubs and one copycat crime inspired by the film. As an honorable mention, we had to cite a cage-fighting ring that came out of a Dallas high school. Special thanks to Complex Media, Inc. for their sleuth work on our sources! Feel free to break the first rule by subscribing, rating & reviewing us. It really helps us out!
Nik Sharma was Director of DTC at Hint water, the fastest-growing non-alcoholic beverage brand. Within 1 year of Nik joining, Hint was named one of 'IAB's 250 Direct Brands To Watch for 2018', an award given to the fastest-growing DTC brands. Nik also led DTC ecommerce at VaynerMedia, and worked with brands to build audiences, such as Complex Media, Bustle Media Group, Refinery29, and others. In this episode, he shares step-by-step an online ad strategy that helped Hint Water become a $100M business, along with tips and tricks, mistakes to avoid, and examples that will help you apply this strategy to your ecommerce business too.
We look back at our recent trip to Chicago to attend Complexcon, a two-day convention hosted by Complex Media featuring the works of the latest and greatest from notable streetwear brands, artists, and more. We recap our favorite booths, what we missed out on, our favorite shoes on foot, and "best releases." This episode is also the debut of our newest segment, Friday Flex.Make sure to follow us on Instagram @shoepodcast and check us out online at shoepodcast.com. Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
Andrew Medal chats with Rich Antoniello about how Complex Media is redefining the culture by sparking conversation through hip hop, sneakers, tech, news and sports, and how all of that resulted in selling the company for over $250M.
Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal
The following should not be construed as legal advice — just good advice. On this week's episode, Mr. Michael Golland, Senior Counsel at Complex Media, sat down with Staff Writer, Jeanine Botwe to drop some gems, as part of our continued effort to facilitate exposure to careers within Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. After graduating from The George Washington University in 1989 with a degree in Finance, Michael moved to San Diego where he began his career as an analyst for commercial real estate investors and eventually became an investor himself. In 1994, Michael earned his JD from Whittier Law School in Los Angeles and began his career as a business attorney. For the first seven years of his career as an attorney, Michael handled transactional and dispute resolution matters for his clients. In this capacity, Michael would form and advise entities on matters related to the operation of their business such as employment issues, commercial leasing, asset acquisition and sale, intellectual property protection, general business strategy and represent his clients in litigation. Michael began his career as an entertainment attorney in the music business where he represented artists and composers in both the entertainment and gaming industries. Eventually, Michael began to represent other players in entertainment, media and licensing such as actors, writers, directors and producers. Michael has acted as production counsel for many feature films (including feature length documentaries) as well as scripted and unscripted television and new media productions. In 2016, Michael relocated to New York to begin his career as in-house counsel for Complex Networks, a leading digital publisher where he oversees all of the company’s content production and distribution as well as events such as ComplexCon. IP of the Week: Geico Hump Day Commercial Our theme song is Roller Blades by Otis McDonald. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review! Website: www.fordhamiplj.org Twitter: @FordhamIPLJ Instagram: @Fordhamiplj Facebook: www.facebook.com/FordhamIPLJ Patreon: www.patreon.com/fordhamiplj
This weekend some 60,000 sneakerheads, hip hop aficionados, jocks, gamers, design nerds and foodies will descend on Long Beach, California, for the fourth annual ComplexCon. The consumer-facing pop culture bonanza is the physical expression of media brand Complex, which CEO Rich Antoniello has been driving for the past 17 years. Rich — who is outspoken on just about any topic you can throw at him — joins us today for a wide-ranging conversation covering everything from media’s pivot to revenue diversification (after it’s failed pivot to video) and how Complex’s joint acquisition by Hearst and Verizon in 2016 has been playing out for the brand. We talk about why he’s bullish on over-the-top streaming platforms and how his own background as an agency and print guy left him perfectly unprepared to be a modern media CEO.
Tony Hawk was age 9 when his older brother gave him a blue fiberglass skateboard, chipped and scratched from years of use. The first time Tony stepped on it and rolled down an alley behind the family’s house in San Diego, there was no epiphany, no revelation … no foreshadowing whatsoever that he would go on to become the most famous skateboarder of all time. He reached the end driveway, looked back at his brother and shouted, “How do I turn?” Eventually, of course, Tony learned to do more than merely turn. Practicing at the now-defunct Oasis Skatepark, the undersized prodigy soon began to attract attention by performing maneuvers well beyond his years. At age 12 he was winning amateur contests throughout California, at 14 he turned pro, and at 16 he was widely regarded as the best competitive skateboarder in the world. By the time he was 25, he’d competed in 103 pro contests, winning 73 of them and placing second in 19—a record that will almost certainly never be matched. He was crowned vertical skating’s world champion 12 years in a row. As a 17-year old high school senior, Tony’s annual income surpassed that of his teachers, mostly as a result of royalties from his primary sponsor, Powell Peralta skateboards. He was able to buy his first home before he graduated. Through the late ‘80s, he traveled the world, skating demos and contests. Then, in 1991, the sport of skateboarding died a quiet but sudden death. Tony’s income shrank drastically; times were so lean that he survived on a $5-a-day Taco Bell allowance. But while many of his peers moved on to other, more traditional pursuits, Tony never gave up on the sport he loved. The next few years flew by in a blur of financial uncertainty. Confident that skating would rebound, Tony refinanced his first house and with a friend launched his own skateboard company, Birdhouse Projects. The first few years were rough: Birdhouse wasn’t making money, and Tony’s future was sketchy. But, almost as abruptly as it died, skating’s popularity surged skyward, and the Hawk became the Phoenix. Birdhouse grew into one of the biggest and best-known skate companies in the world, and Tony signed a wide range of endorsement deals. In 1998, he and his family started a children’s skate clothing company called Hawk Clothing. A year later, skating rocketed to unprecedented heights, from which it has yet to descend. Tony’s career came with it; in fact, he provided much of the fuel. In 1999, Tony teamed up with Activision to create the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game franchise. The Tony Hawk video game series became one of the most popular game franchises in history (and has now surpassed $1.4 billion in sales). His life would never be the same. In a stroke of good timing, at the X Games that year, Tony also became the first skateboarder to ever land a 900, a maneuver that had eluded (and occasionally hobbled) him for 10 years . It was one of skating’s most gripping moments, playing out in front of a collection of his peers and fans, and on national TV. That exposure, along with his successful video game, helped establish Tony’s mainstream celebrity Soon after the 1999 X Games, Tony retired from competition, although he continues to put on demos and exhibitions all over the world. His Boom Boom HuckJam Tour featured some of the top skateboarders, BMXers and freestyle motocross riders in a giant tour that played in large arenas and theme parks across the country. Tony’s action sports exhibitions and shows continue to pack venues worldwide. Tony has won numerous awards, including Make-A-Wish’s Favorite Male Athlete, Teen Choice Awards’ Choice Male Athlete and Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Awards’ Favorite Male Athlete, beating out such sports icons as Shaquille O’Neal, Tiger Woods, and Kobe Bryant. From video games to skateboards to online media to clothing to world tours, Tony has dominated the Action Sports market with his laid-back style. He is the most recognized Action Sports figure in the world and, according to some marketing surveys, one of the most recognizable athlete of any kind in the United States. Today, his business skills have helped create a Tony Hawk brand that includes a billion-dollar video game franchise, successful businesses such as Birdhouse Skateboards, Hawk Clothing, and the Tony Hawk Signature Series sporting goods and toys. Tony regularly appears on television and in films, as well as on Sirius XM radio. His autobiography, HAWK—Occupation: Skateboarder was a New York Times bestseller and is currently available in paperback. In 2010, Wiley Publishing released How Did I Get Here? The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO. During 2012, in partnership with Google, Inc. Tony’s film production company, 900 Films, launched RIDE Channel on YouTube, the world’s most popular video site, and has now teamed with Complex Media to take it to the next level with TheRideChannel.com. Tony is a role model for fans of all ages. His Tony Hawk Foundation has given away over $5.2 million to 556 skatepark projects throughout the United States. Tony’s foundation helps finance public skateparks in low-income areas in all 50 states, providing a safe place to skate, and helping to build the self-confidence of youths from Marathon, Florida to Sitka, Alaska. Skateparks that received financial assistance from the Tony Hawk Foundation currently serve over 4.8 million kids annually. Follow Tony & All the Things Website: http://www.tonyhawk.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tonyhawk Instagram: https://instagram.com/tonyhawk Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tonyhawk Birdhouse Skateboards 900 Films YouTube: TheRideChannel.com Tony Hawk Foundation ====================== Request to Join the FREE Meredith Atwood Community & Coaching https://meredith-atwood-coaching.mn.co/ ====================== Buy Meredith’s Books: The Year of No Nonsense https://amzn.to/3su5qWp Triathlon for the Every Woman: https://amzn.to/3nOkjiH ======================= Follow Meredith Atwood & The Podcast on Social: Web: http://www.swimbikemom.com Instagram: http://instagram.com/swimbikemom ======================= Want to Connect? Email: same24hourspodcast@gmail.com ======================= Credits: Host & Production: Meredith Atwood Intro: Carl Stover Music Copyright 2017-2020, 2021 All Rights Reserved, Meredith Atwood, LLC
FUTURO, presented by Driven Society in Partnership with NYLFF and Google's Hispanic Network HOLA featured a one-day conference featuring conversations from top thought-leaders, executives, and influencers in the digital space. Enjoy This keynote presentation featuring Actor Allen Maldonado (Black-ish, The Last O.G) moderated by Natasha Martinez of Complex Media. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/drivensocietypodcast/support
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OBI-WAN KE-NOPE-Y: It was made known that Lucasfilm has put its anthology series, subtitled A Star Wars Story, on hold after the lower box office of The Last Jedi and, most recently, Solo. While the cause hasn't been confirmed, there are a few factors to look at, one of which could be the box office performance of these films. Another, more sinister, reason has to do with the cultural backlash to Rogue One, The Last Jedi, and Solo. A segment on the internet is convinced that Lucasfilm has a political agenda it wants to push and it's using the Star Wars series to do so. These dissenters have responded in a few interesting ways: some have banded together and made an official decree to "destroy" Lucasfilm, others have started a crowdfunding/social media campaign in order to remake The Last Jedi. Either way, it's a complicated issue that Andrew and D. Bethel try to find the knots of. WORKS CITED/REFERENCED: Bacon, Thomas. "Solo: A Star Wars Story Can Beat the Hate." ScreenRant, 09 Apr. 2018. Verhoeven, Beatric. "Alt-Right: We 'Rigged' Last Jedi Low Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score." The Wrap, 21 Dec. 2017. Weintraub, Steve. "Exclusive: Future 'A Star Wars Story' Spinoffs on Hold at Lucasfilm." Collider, Complex Media, 20 Jun. 2018. INFO: Visit our website at forallintents.net and leave your thoughts as comments on the page for this episode. Join our Facebook page E-mail: Andrew - andrew@forallintents.net, D. Bethel - dbethel@forallintents.net Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Subscribe to and review the show on the iTunes store. For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap. FEATURED MUSIC: -"District Four" by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)* -"Disco Medusae" by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)* *Tracks are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Jamarlin talks to Detavio Samuels, president of Interactive One, the largest independent digital media platform focused on urban culture. Samuels leads a $30M digital media business that in 2017 acquired Bossip, Madamenoire, and HiphopWired. They discuss Richelieu Dennis' acquisition of Essence, Facebook's recent fumbles, and whether Complex Media is a culture vulture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is season three's premiere, featuring one of Not 97's strongest roster of artists ever. With Ian Servantes at the table—Highsnobiety's current Social Media Editor, a former writer for Complex Media, and an illustrious freelance—we discuss a wide range of sounds coming from London to Toronto, Illinois, Japan, and more. The season kicks off heavy with "Everglade," an enchanting new delivery from Collard, a young londoner with a knee-weakening falsetto. We introduce Floyd Fuji, an exciting new solo project from Philly's Kyle Thornton, and discuss his unique brand of futuristic funk. Midwesterner Mowgli floats through intricate flows on the sinister single "Dance With The Devil." And we break down Adult Mom's "Full Screen," a playful, pointed track about porn, gender norms, and much more. 01 "Everglade" by Collard02 "Sour Candy" by Melt 03 "4AM" by Tobi 04 "Drama" by Floyd Fuji05 "Dance With The Devil" by Mowgli 06 "Full Screen" by Adult Mom 07 "Know Ya" by Drelli ft Moise 08 "Run" by Dansu Playlist available: soundcloud.com/not97/sets/not97-season-3-episode-1 © NOT 97. All music ℗ & © their rights holders, used by NOT 97 with explicit permission.
Joe Budden, Complex, and Independent Media --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/frank-faucette/support
"I think that the best design is design you don't notice most of the time, so I have no problem just putting up a beautiful photo if it's a beautiful photo." Marissa McClain, Sr. Designer/Brand Specialist for the Boston Red Sox joined this episode to discuss her passion for fine art & photography, and how it led to a gig with the Red Sox. We discuss her past as a student photographer for the Michigan Wolverines and an intern at Complex Media; as well as how she ended up shooting the Boston Red Sox 2013 World Series win which led to an art-loving, non-sports-liking kid to end up working full-time for one of baseball's historic teams. Marissa touches on why she pushes herself and her creative team to make things with intent, why we should let photography do its job sometimes and go easy on the textures and filters, and how design principles are the same no matter the discipline (i.e. motion, graphic design, etc.) We also discuss the fear of being a "jack of all trades, master of none" and how having an inherent curiously is good for creativity. Marissa touches on how the Red Sox incorporate motion, GIFs and animation into their social media, as well as their strategies for Instagram stories and when to balance very produced work with raw, candid images. Lastly, Marissa discusses her "34 x 34" project for Big Papi's retirement and her creative friendship with NFL tight end and The Imagination Agency owner, Martellus Bennett. Mentions Include: Red Sox Creative Services Marissa McClain Twitter Marissa McClain Instagram Complex Media Four Pins MLC Connect Episode 24: Chin Wang T-shaped skills, IDEO Episode 62: Michelle Cruz, NY Red Bulls Font Review Journal 34 x 34 Big Papi Martellus Bennett, The Imagination Agency "A Whole New Mind" book Refinery29 My next guest is tentative right now but hoping to interview Tom Bookwalter, designer of the Kansas State "powercat" logo. Sign up for the weekly email newsletter for updates, discounts on future products and exclusive content for subscribers. You can also show your support for the podcast by joining the community and keeping it sponsor-free. Did you enjoy this episode? Then please rate and/or write a review of the show on iTunes. Also, be sure to follow show host, @TAdamMartin and @MakersofSport on twitter and Dribbble.
Episode four of NOT 97 proved to be the most wide-reaching installment of season one thus far. Select songs this week span from starry-eyed Finnish dream-pop outfit Pole Siblings to London's Dayo Bello, a mesmerizing 19-year-old crooner. DC's Swan Lingo offers his modern take on New Wave and Melbourne's Kaiit delivers powerful and necessary self-loving bars. Alexa Shouneyia—a writer and social media editor for Complex Media— joined the show to share music from two young New York up-and-comers: alt-pop wunderkind Ben Alessi and street smart spitter Rah-C. Tracklist: 01 "It Might Grow" by Pole Siblings 02 "You Deserve This" by Men I Trust 03 "Only" by Ben Alessi 04 "Mine" by Dayo Bello 05 "Heartbroken Shogun" by Dolphin 06 "What Did You Learn" by Swan Lingo 07 "NY Freestyle" by Rah-C 08 "Natural Woman" by Kaiit Playlist available: soundcloud.com/not97/sets/not97-season-one-episode-four Art by Laura Lorraine Burke © NOT 97. All music ℗ & © their rights holders, used by NOT 97 with explicit permission.
Marc is a creative entrepreneur who’s probably best known as the founder of the apparel brand Ecko, which began in his parents’ garage and eventually grew into the largest brand in streetwear with a global footprint and over $1 billion in revenue. He’s also the author of Untitled: Selling Yourself Without Selling Out - the book we discuss in this episode - the creator of a video game called “Getting Up” and the founder of Complex Media. Today on the podcast, * Some super-actionable tactics for promoting your work - one that I really love is Marc’s concept of a “swag bomb,” which is a package that you deliver to someone to get their attention- for example when he’d send some Ecko gear to rappers. * Why the biggest barrier to success is - for most people - a self-imposed one: fear. Specifically, the fear of public or peer ridicule. * The power of humble beginnings. There’s this idea that you have to have best-in-class tools from the jump in order to get your start and frankly, that’s complete bs. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.chasejarvis.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world's largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts -- Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.
This episode, the Squad has an incredible conversation with Jinx, editorial producer of Complex Media and on-air anchor of Complex News! This one is long and worth it, folks. Topics include the brief return of the Ye Watch; Jinx's professional development at Complex; Super Bowl 51: the Falcons' loss and some of the Patriots' protest; (the end of) Dipset; the GRAMMYs; and an intervention with OG Randy's "Chappelle's Show" problem. Follow Jinx on Twitter and Instagram! Check his work with Complex News on YouTube! Follow the PSA podcast on Twitter and Instagram! Follow Robbie Digital on Twitter and Instagram; Bones on Twitter and Instagram; Saul Goodman on Twitter and Instagram; and OG Randy on Twitter and Instagram!
In this episode, we took advantage of the new world-wide federal holiday to watch the sci-fi action blockbuster Independence Day (the good one from 1996). How effective are nuclear weapons against 15 mile wide spaceships? Are aliens keeping tabs on Earth’s nuclear stockpiles? How did Jeff Goldblum write a computer virus that works on alien technology? Tim and Joel answer these questions and more. Before Elvis left the building, we recommend reading -Michael Rogin, Independence Day, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Enola Gay, (British Film Institute, 1998) http://www.worldcat.org/title/independence-day-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-enola-gay/oclc/39547508 -James Harris, “The Oral History of the President’s Speech in ‘Independence Day,’” Complex Media, June 23, 2016, http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/06/presidents-speech-in-independence-day-oral-history -Kim Zetter, Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World’s First Digital Weapon (Crown publishers, 2014) Also check out the sources below to learn more (you can also access these links on our SoundCloud page): -Robert Kennedy, “A Rocket Scientist’s Reaction to Independence Day,” The Ultimax Group White Paper, 1996 http://www.ultimax.com/whitepapers/1996_3.html -Kelly Fonda, ““You Want to Blow Up the White House?”: An Oral History of the Film Independence Day, We Minored in Film, April 28, 2015, https://weminoredinfilm.com/2015/04/28/you-want-to-blow-up-the-white-house-an-oral-history-of-the-film-independence-day/ -Janet Burns, “16 Earth-Shattering Facts About ‘Independence Day,’” MentalFloss, July 3, 2016, http://mentalfloss.com/article/76231/16-earth-shattering-facts-about-independence-day -Joe Skrebels, “Independence Day Director Roland Emmerich Mocks Marvel Movies,” IGN, June 28, 2016, http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/20/independence-day-director-roland-emmerich-mocks-marvel-movies -ID4 Deleted Scenes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rf3eB5bFe4 -U.S. Air Force Capt. Robert Salas - UFO's Are Real, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjbhq4P_sZI -Eric Julien, The Iron Skeptic, http://www.theironskeptic.com/articles/julien/julien.htm -Kim Zetter, “An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World’s First Digital Weapon,” Wired, November 3, 2014, https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/ -Andrew Futter, “The Dangers of Using Cyberattacks to Counter Nuclear Threats,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2016, https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2016_07/Features/The-Dangers-of-Using-Cyberattacks-to-Counter-Nuclear-Threats -“'Independence Day' Producer Finally Explains Infamously Inept Hacking Scene,” Yahoo Movies, December 8, 2014, https://www.yahoo.com/movies/independence-day-producer-explains-hacking-scene-104676447332.html -Jakob Nielson, “Excessive Interoperability in Independence Day,” NN Group, December 18, 2006, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/independence-day-interoperability/ -Russ Wellen, “Alienating Aliens: Do Nukes Make Them Go Ballistic?,” HuffingtonPost, May 25, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-wellen/alienating-aliens-do-nuke_b_414394.html -Atomic Bomb Test – Survival Towns, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr76hNngqts -Teapot Apple 2 Nuclear Test, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztJXZjIp8OA We aim to have at least one new episode every month. Let us know what you think about the podcast and any ideas you may have about future episodes and guests by reaching out at on Twitter @NuclearPodcast, GooglePlay, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Stitcher Radio, Facebook, SuperCriticalPodcast@gmail.com, and YouTube. Thanks to bensound.com for some of the background music used in this episode. Enjoy!
Kenny Mac is the tastemakers' tastemaker. A connoisseur of cool, Kenny has spent the majority of his career creating organic and effective relationships between influencers and brands. Whether a producing a swanky party in NYC for Moet-Hennessy, or rebranding one of the world's largest conferences, Kenny's expertise has been sought after by some of the most influential brands and individuals on the planet. On Innovation Crush, Kenny explains the power of influence, the importance of family, and walks us through Behind the Hustle, his platform - partnered with Complex Media - for educating professionals on unique opportunities for personal success. Feat. guest host, Tanya Bershadsky www.twitter.com/behindthehustle www.creativecontraband.com
Welcome to episode #377 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Marc Ecko is one of the most fascinating people that I have ever met. I was asked to interview him live and onstage in Toronto earlier this year. I knew that he was the creative and fashion genius behind Eck? Unltd. (which has become a billion dollar fashion and lifestyle company). I also knew that his marketing antics have been well documented (remember the tagging of Air Force One?). I figured that I was going to meet an older gentleman in their late fifties (like a Tommy Hilfiger or Kenneth Cole type of persona). It turns out that Ecko and I are almost the exact same age (I need to start working harder!). Ecko is still semi-actively involved in the multiple fashion brands that he created (Eckored, Marc Ecko Cut & Sew and Zoo York), but spends the bulk of his current time working on Complex Media. As if that's not enough, he is one of the most generous philanthropists out there, and recently released a stunning business book called, Unlabel - Selling You Without Selling Out. He is, simply put, an amazing individual who is very real, practical and friendly. Enjoy our conversation... Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #377 - Host: Mitch Joel. Running time: 46:46. Please send in questions, comments, suggestions - mitch@twistimage.com. Hello from Beautiful Montreal. Subscribe over at iTunes. Please visit and leave comments on the Blog - Six Pixels of Separation. Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook. or you can connect on LinkedIn. ...or on twitter. Six Pixels of Separation the book is now available. CTRL ALT Delete is now available too! In conversation with Marc Ecko. Unlabel. Complex Media. Ecko Unltd. Follow Marc on Twitter. This week's music: David Usher 'St. Lawrence River'. Get David's song for free here: Artists For Amnesty. Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #377 - Host: Mitch Joel. Tags: advertising podcast blog blogging brand business book business podcast complex complex media david usher ecko ecko red ecko unltd itunes kenneth cole marc ecko marc ecko cut and sew marketing podcast podcast podcasting tommy hilfiger unlabel zoo york
Rod and Karen are joined by Lanae McLevan of The Complex Media to discuss being a CEO, the art world, Photo-shop for the ugly, redesigning the chicken nugget, the AVN awards, dumb robber, Ashley Judd, Gucci Mane, Sheen's show in NY, "try-on" fees, Toddler rasslin', cigarette beating, weekend at Amy's and sword on the in-laws. Intro: Graffiti - Digable Planets Outro: Dwyck - Gangstarr Twitter: @rodimusprime @SayDatAgain @theComplexMedia Email: theblackguywhotips@gmail.com Blog: www.theblackguywhotips.com Voice Mail: 704-557-0186 Guest website: http://thecomplexmedia.com/blog/ Sponsor: www.shadowdogproductions.com Follow them on Twitter: @ShadowDogProd
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