American fashion designer
POPULARITY
2 episodes with Marc Ecko
2 episodes with Marc Ecko
2 episodes with Marc Ecko
2 episodes with Marc Ecko
6 episodes with Marc Ecko
2 episodes with Marc Ecko
2 episodes with Marc Ecko
3 episodes with Marc Ecko
[Episode 38] This month, barSILENCE is behind the decks for a mixtape-style episode, spinning tracks from games that showcase hip-hop's undeniable influence on gaming history. Hip-hop and video games are two cultural powerhouses that have inspired each other for decades. This episode celebrates that intersection of beats and bits, from classic 16-bit grooves to hip-hop artists stepping in as composers. Whether it's the funk-infused rhythms of Ristar, the street-art style of Marc Ecko's Getting Up, or the raw energy and fisticuffs of Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, hip-hop's presence in gaming is bold, loud, and unforgettable. Grab your controller, drop the needle, and press start on the ultimate hip-hop video game music mixtape! Tracklisting: 00:01:00 - Intro and The Intersection of Hip Hop & Video Games 00:09:44 - Battle with the Giant Robot (Alternate) (Bebe's Kids) [Paul Wilkinson] 00:10:44 - Haunted House (Alternate) (Bebe's Kids) [Paul Wilkinson] 00:11:59 - Title Screen (Rap Jam) [Michel Winogradoff] 00:13:59 - Halftime (NBA Live 95) [Traz Damji, Brian Shaw] 00:16:02 - Title (NBA Showdown) [Traz Damji] 00:18:20 - Unknown (NBA Showdown) [Traz Damji] 00:19:37 - Formation Lap, Ready... Go!! (Ristar) [Tomoko Sasaki, Naofumi Hataya, Masafumi Ogata] 00:21:09 - Base Point (Racing Lagoon) [Noriko Matsueda, Takahito Eguchi] 00:23:56 - Work Your Body (1080° Snowboarding) [Kenta Nagata] 00:25:48 - Boxing - Results (Wii Sports) [Kazumi Totaka] 00:26:26 - Hip De Hop (Shenmue) [Yuzo Koshiro] 00:29:56 - snob (Crackin' DJ) [Hiro] 00:31:37 - Man, This Sucks (Goemon's Great Adventure) [Goemon Production Committee] 00:32:57 - Catch a Bad One (Instrumental) (Marc Eckō's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure) [Del tha Funky Homosapien] 00:35:18 - Strange Flower (Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked) [Masafumi Takada] 00:36:43 - A Vision (Togainu no Chi: True Blood) [Elephant Music] 00:39:02 - BGM 9 (Street Hoops) [Unknown] 00:41:51 - Dark Ages 2 (Norse by Norsewest: Return of the Lost Vikings) [Glenn Stafford] 00:44:26 - Track 5 (Tony Hawk's Motion) [Unknown] 00:48:31 - Still Free Crew! (Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure Soundtrack) [RJD2 & The RZA] 00:50:05 - Interface Loop (Cel Damage) [Egg Plant Productions] 00:52:19 - See Toast Te Ya (The Sims 2 University) [Joe Neckbone (prod. by Da Riffs)] 00:55:16 - Get Up (Menu) (NBA Street Vol. 2) [Jeff Mair] 00:59:04 - Streetball 3 (NBA 2K2) [Da Beatminerz] 01:02:36 - The Educators (NBA Street) [Jason Ross] 01:08:14 - Dynanism (NBA Street) [Jason Ross] 01:10:41 - Work Flow (NBA Street 2) [Just Blaze] 01:12:31 - Act the Fool (NEO: The World Ends with You) [Takeharu Ishimoto] 01:15:12 - Beat 6 Test 1 (Afro Samurai 2: Revenge Of Kuma) [The RZA] 01:17:16 - Outro & Final Track 01:19:56 - Vengeance (Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style) [The RZA] barSILENCE is a monthly podcast crafted to celebrate and explore the best video game music in the world! You're here because you enjoy the same thing that I do, and I am grateful for that. If you want to become a member of the Legion of VGM, consider subscribing to the show on Patreon! As a thank you for subscribing, you can access all 20 episodes of the Bonus Beats podcast! Click here to learn more! If you want to consider a one-time donation check out the Ko-Fi! Shout-outs to two fantastic friends of the show and members of the Legion of VGM: Shujin Academy VGM Club: The creatively themed episodes of this video game music podcast are the brainchild of the venerable Professor Tom. Please listen to and follow this excellent VGM Podcast! SuperPod Saga: This fantastic video game variety podcast hosted by Aaron, is a show on a mission to discuss every video game topic ever! Give it a listen and follow for weekly episodes! Additional thanks for this episode go out to: Fine Time: Dre was an absolutely mega part of helping me get the early drafts of this mixtape together. Go listen to Fine Time for a great time to say thanks! Serious A: Parisian DJ Serious A's stellar VGM mixes on 8Beats Radio inspired this episode. Merci! Check out her original music and her funk, house, and hip-hop DJ mixes—and spread the love! Connect with the show! Patreon - /barSILENCE Ko-Fi - @barsilencevgm BlueSky - @barsilencevgm.bsky.social Instagram - @barSILENCE Threads - @barSILENCE More ways to listen: Listen on the website - barsilence.com SuperPod Network - Video Game Podcast Network 8Beats Radio - 24/7 VGM Music & Mixes Terra Player App - VGM & Gaming Podcasts & More YouTube - Monthly Videos
This week Dr. Syintist, Chump Slap, and Poppascotch watched a video game movie about a hidden gem called Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. It was good. Come hear us talk about it!
Complex is a digital media survivor. It has lived many lives, including as a magazine, a dot-com, an ad network, Go90 (RIP) provider, YouTube showrunner, events organizer, hot sauce merchant, neglected BuzzFeed brand, and now in its latest iteration as a commerce engine. Complex President Moksha Fitzgibbons joins the show to discuss his return to Complex, where he was an integral part of the founding team going back to its Marc Ecko days, and how the youth culture brand is betting on combining its reach and engagement with the live shopping platform of NTWRK, which bought Complex for $108 million in February. Moksha discusses how the brand plans to focus increasingly on driving commerce and far less on selling advertising. Plus: Brian and Troy discuss the news industry's current meltdown at the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House.Watch us on YouTubeTroy Young's People vs Algorithms newsletterBrian Morrissey's The Rebooting newsletterAlex Schleifer's Human ComputerFollow Alex, Brian and Troy on Twitter
Growing up in the ‘80s in New Jersey, Marc Ecko loved hip hop, graffiti art, and painting t-shirts for friends. His passion soon bloomed into a full-on business: ECKO UNLTD, a streetwear brand known for its iconic rhino logo. By the 1990's, the brand had become a cultural force, but not without its share of bad deals, daunting debt, and a close brush with bankruptcy. Eager to keep innovating, Marc launched COMPLEX, a media company hyper-focused on “convergence” culture: hip hop, fashion, sports and pop culture. Within a decade, COMPLEX had weathered the financial crisis, and emerged profitable. After being bought–and sold–by Buzzfeed, it was purchased by a video shopping company for over $100 million, and ECKO UNLTD just celebrated its 30th anniversary. This episode was researched and produced by Katherine Sypher with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our audio engineers were Gilly Moon and Kwesi Lee.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
On our new weekly lightning round mini ep with with Bradley Carbone, we're diving into a bunch of stories too hot for the free feed and fucking around with your wife becoming a Sneeze girl, wheelchair accessibility, Vlone rims, Wheelchair Jimmy, walking again, peace in the Middle East, only eating Carbone for the rest of your life, socializing at clout chasing brand activations, scrubbing your Google results, streetwear art, Ronnie Feig, Marc Ecko, shrinking a foot and much more. For more Throwing Fits, check us out on Patreon: www.patreon.com/throwingfits.
0:00 intro 0:33 Fit checks 07:15 Denzale makes an appearance 08:05 Albert sparring 9:44 Reddit is diffferent 12:41 Sunday from Khalids perspective 16:21 Rhuigi x Coyotes event 30:44 Rethinking the term swag? 31:44 Luka Sabbat x BMW 34:00 Albert thinks rap is the worst profession 36:20 Successful brand owner OR rap star? 37:14 Marc Ecko founded Complex and sold it for 300 million 42:19 Sharing our dreams with each other 45:53 Designers creative directing for sports teams 57:58 Favorite Jordan silhouette 01:00:00 lil uzi HATES Cool Kicks LA #rhuigi #rhude #arizonacoyotes #podcast
On this week's episode of IDEA GENERATION, designer, artist, and entrepreneur Marc Ecko takes us on a journey from his days as a young airbrush artist in New Jersey, to launching a $500 million brand in Ecko Unlimited, to creating the culture-defining Complex Magazine, to becoming a best-selling author and philanthropist. And it all started with one idea.
Since a kid, Aaron Levant has developed a skill for finding unique opportunities hidden in plain sight. At the age of 19, he began in his parents living room what would later become Agenda -- one of the most sought after trade shows within the estimated $185 billion streetwear industry. He would later go on to co-create ComplexCon with Marc Ecko and is now co-founder of NTWRK a live digital shopping network with unique products from artists and brands ranging from Billie Eilish to Murakami to Chips-Ahoy, Knorr, Reebok, and Pharrel Williams to name a few. In this episode, Aaron shares his insights on becoming a better leader, going against the cultural grain, and the power of misunderstood markets.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Se desideri supportarci: ko-fi.com/edvideogiochiNuovo episodio della rubrica dove ti consigliamo alcuni giochi per una Console o Home Computer specifico. Si tratta di giochi spesso di nicchia o comunque non tanto famosi, così speriamo di trovare qualcuno tra di voi che scopre qualcosa di nuovo! Se hai alcuni giochi particolari che vuoi citare, mandaci un vocale su anchor.fm oppure entra nel gruppo ufficiale su t.me/EnciclopediaDeiVideogiochi I giochi di oggi sono: - Marc Ecko's Getting Up - Phantom Dust - Voodoo Vince - Beyond Good and Evil - Shadow of Memories - Onimusha Warlords grazie a Tevio per la sigla finale in pieno stile Floppy Disk! Tutti gli episodi dell'Enciclopedia dei Videogiochi sono disponibili qui: https://rebrand.ly/EdV_ARCHIVIO
Jayson and Kandis Gaignard join us to discuss their personal, professional, and family challenges and successes. Stay tuned for more in this episode, as they emphasize the importance of maintaining strong marital practices through meaningful conversation with your partner and establishing a work-life balance. Key takeaways to listen for The power of innovation to build your base from small beginnings Advantages of balancing work and family life with your spouse How to hold a meaningful conversation with your partner Why it is essential to foster the right people around you Habits to keep your partners feel nurtured Powerful tips for embracing your present moment, validation, and small wins Resources mentioned in this episode The 4-Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss | Hardcover and Kindle The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss | Hardcover and Kindle The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss | Kindle Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl | Paperback About Jayson and Kandis Gaignard A veteran entrepreneur, Jayson Gaignard is the founder of a top-rated business podcast on iTunes and runs one of the world's most exclusive events for entrepreneurs. His wife, Kandis Marie Gaignard, is an entrepreneur, a baker, a blogger, and also a co-founder of MMT Community. His invite-only event brings together brilliant minds like multiple NYT Best Selling Author Tim Ferriss, fashion titan Marc Ecko, biohacker Dave Asprey, and many more. His work has been featured in influential publications like Forbes, LifeHacker, and Business Insider. Connect with Jayson and Kandis Instagram: @jaysongaignard | @tinyedenfarms | @kandyittybitty Connect with Us To learn more about us, visit our website at www.18summers.com or email us at info@18summers.com. To get a copy of our book “The Family Board Meeting,” click here. Subscribe to 18 Summers Podcast and leave a rating and written review! Social Media Channels Facebook Group: 18 Summers LinkedIn: Jimmy Sheils Instagram: @18summerstribe
On April 18, 2006, Marc Ecko won marketing. The case study might be old, but the lessons are gold!
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
I have a quote for today's discussion on personal branding. It is “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you're than you!” This quote is from Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss was right. There is no one you-er than you. And each person that you encounter has their own unique strengths and perspectives. You can call it their personal brand. Today we're going to explore what a brand is and why you should care about your own personal brand. If you are thinking, “Jen I have no idea what you're talking about,” no worries. My guest today, Athena Golianis, and I will also share the steps you can take to find your own personal brand. I'm going to give you a spoiler alert on why this topic is important. Your brand is important because it's the perception that people have of you. It's the story they tell themselves in their heads about you. And while I'm not saying that we should be overly concerned about the opinions of others, we should be cognizant of the story we're contributing to because it can impact whether we get the new job, the promotion, the opportunity to lead the project, whatever. Remember, "You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not." This quote is from Marc Ecko, a fashion designer, and entrepreneur. Enjoy this episode and take action today to build and reinforce your personal brand! Here's more about Athena: Athena Golianis: CEO, Creator PINKK LLC and President, Founder of AGW Idea Group, Inc. She has worked on venerable blue-chip brands like Arthur Andersen, Sears, Kraft Foods, Wal-Mart Sam's Club, Hillshire Farms, Sara Lee, Midas, Alberto Culver haircare brands, (Unilever) Beltone, the City of Chicago in addition to name a few for many formative years. In 2005 she became a dedicated entrepreneur and opened her own agency AGW Idea Group and has successfully run her marketing consulting and branding agency for over 15 years and continues to do so. She has launched start-ups and helped to grow and rebrand others like VENeffect, BreatheAmerica, Precision HealthCare, Citadel Healthcare, Kiva Recovery, Diamond Bank (now Wintrust) amongst others. At this time as she is also taking her understanding of building brands to create PINKK and using her experience and knowledge to empower, inspire, coach, mentor, and provide resources for women with this brand experience and platform. Resources: Brave Women at Work: https://www.bravewomenatwork.com/ Brave Women at Work Freebie: https://www.bravewomenatwork.com/freebie Join the free Brave Women at Work Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bravewomenatwork Athena Golianis - PINKK - https://pinkknow.com/ Flying by the Seat of Their Skirts Book: https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Seats-Their-Skirts-Inspiring/dp/1944027386 Start Withy Why Book by Simon Sinek: https://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire-Everyone/dp/1591846447/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Start+with+Why&qid=1635623977&qsid=132-4956091-0978944&s=books&sr=1-1&sres=1591846447%2C6020628833%2C1074149793%2C0143111728%2CB00DGZKQM8%2C1736117904%2C0991081420%2C0735211299%2C1949759229%2C1416622632%2C1984820389%2C0066620996%2CB08JJRZ3Y4%2C0615895778%2C1250007550%2C1984878107&srpt=ABIS_BOOK CliftonStrengths Assessment: https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx Myers-Briggs Assessment: https://www.mbtionline.com/?utm_source=MBF&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=online
I have a quote for today's discussion on personal branding. It is “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you're than you!” This quote is from Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss was right. There is no one you-er than you. And each person that you encounter has their own unique strengths and perspectives. You can call it their personal brand. Today we're going to explore what a brand is and why you should care about your own personal brand. If you are thinking, “Jen I have no idea what you're talking about,” no worries. My guest today, Athena Golianis, and I will also share the steps you can take to find your own personal brand. I'm going to give you a spoiler alert on why this topic is important. Your brand is important because it's the perception that people have of you. It's the story they tell themselves in their heads about you. And while I'm not saying that we should be overly concerned about the opinions of others, we should be cognizant of the story we're contributing to because it can impact whether we get the new job, the promotion, the opportunity to lead the project, whatever. Remember, "You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not." This quote is from Marc Ecko, a fashion designer, and entrepreneur. Enjoy this episode and take action today to build and reinforce your personal brand! Here's more about Athena: Athena Golianis: CEO, Creator PINKK LLC and President, Founder of AGW Idea Group, Inc. She has worked on venerable blue-chip brands like Arthur Andersen, Sears, Kraft Foods, Wal-Mart Sam's Club, Hillshire Farms, Sara Lee, Midas, Alberto Culver haircare brands, (Unilever) Beltone, the City of Chicago in addition to name a few for many formative years. In 2005 she became a dedicated entrepreneur and opened her own agency AGW Idea Group and has successfully run her marketing consulting and branding agency for over 15 years and continues to do so. She has launched start-ups and helped to grow and rebrand others like VENeffect, BreatheAmerica, Precision HealthCare, Citadel Healthcare, Kiva Recovery, Diamond Bank (now Wintrust) amongst others. At this time as she is also taking her understanding of building brands to create PINKK and using her experience and knowledge to empower, inspire, coach, mentor, and provide resources for women with this brand experience and platform. Resources: Brave Women at Work: https://www.bravewomenatwork.com/ Brave Women at Work Freebie: https://www.bravewomenatwork.com/freebie Join the free Brave Women at Work Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bravewomenatwork Athena Golianis - PINKK - https://pinkknow.com/ Flying by the Seat of Their Skirts Book: https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Seats-Their-Skirts-Inspiring/dp/1944027386 Start Withy Why Book by Simon Sinek: https://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire-Everyone/dp/1591846447/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Start+with+Why&qid=1635623977&qsid=132-4956091-0978944&s=books&sr=1-1&sres=1591846447%2C6020628833%2C1074149793%2C0143111728%2CB00DGZKQM8%2C1736117904%2C0991081420%2C0735211299%2C1949759229%2C1416622632%2C1984820389%2C0066620996%2CB08JJRZ3Y4%2C0615895778%2C1250007550%2C1984878107&srpt=ABIS_BOOK CliftonStrengths Assessment: https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx Myers-Briggs Assessment: https://www.mbtionline.com/?utm_source=MBF&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=online
Jurandir Filho, Felipe Mesquita, Load, Evandro de Freitas e Bruno Carvalho batem um papo sobre dois em mais uma edição do 2-Pak: "PaRappa the Rapper" e "Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure". Por que não existe hip-hop pra criança? Por que alguém pixa? Qual a diferença entre pixar e fazer grafite?
ABOUT THE GUEST: Dan Englander, CEO of Sales Schema Dan Englander is a New York-based author and entrepreneur. As the first employee and Senior Account Manager, Dan helped launch IdeaRocket, the premier studio for high-quality animated explainer videos. He brought in business and managed productions for Fortune 500s and startups like Venmo. He's the founder of Sales Schema, a site that helps companies win by melding sales and digital marketing. He's the author of "Mastering Account Management" and other business books. In addition, he teaches high-level online courses on B2B sales and marketing. Previously, Dan was Account Coordinator at DXagency, where he increased digital exposure for clients like Monster Cable and Marc Ecko. You can find Dan on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danenglander/ ABOUT THE EPISODE: “Sales is all about relationships” - it's an expression you hear all of the time from experienced salespeople, you know - those who seem to know better. “We need to scale” - it's an expression you hear all of the time from business owners and other interested parties. If a business is growing fast, that's a very good thing and working on making it happen is an awfully smart place to focus. But can the two ideas work together? Intuitively not, which is why it's so intriguing to speak with Dan Englander about what he calls Relationship Sales at Scale. I'll let him articulate the ideas in the episode which he does well. If the concept is intriguing to you, you should definitely check it out!
Interview with BLESShttps://linktr.ee/socultpodcastBless is part of a new wave of Canadian hip-hop artists making noise internationally. He has been previously signed to Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit's Flawless Records, as well as Gang Starr through the late Guru's ILL Kid imprint. He has shared stages with everyone from Eminem, Gang Starr to DMX and Limp Bizkit on the Anger Management Tour. Bless was also featured as a character in the hit video game Def Jam Fight for NY. After forming his own production company Platinumberg Ent., he went on to release Platinumberg The Movement, The Book of Bless and most recently Spoils of War featuring appearances by Vado, Fred the Godson and Statik Selektah. Bless is now gearing up for the release of his new music, as well as relaunching his podcast, The Moment of Truth. CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:• Signed by Fred Durst & toured with Limp Bizkit at age 17.• Bless later became Guru of Gangstarr's protégé and hype-man after signing with his label ILL KID.• Toured extensively playing venues such as HOB in LA and The Fillmore in San Francisco as a featured guest on Guru's tours and festivals such as Marc Ecko's Getting Up Fest alongside Kanye, Nas and Ludacris as a solo artist.• First Canadian artist to be featured in a video game as a playable character (Def Jam Fight For NY) and also had two of his songs featured in the game.• Collaborations with: Rah Digga, Guru, Twista, Fred the Godson, Vado & Statik Selektah.• Worked with Grammy award winning producers such as Cirkut (Weeknd, Katy Perry) and Frank Dukes (Drake, Camilla Cabello).• Hosted and appeared on mixtapes alongside Guru for DJs such as Green Lantern, Clinton Sparks and DJ EFN (Drink Champs).• Podcast: The Moment of Truth featuring guests such as Raekwon, Onyx, Snow and Play N Skillz.https://vimeo.com/289796609
In unserer zweiten „What about…?!“ Folge werfen wir die Spielekonsole an und untersuchen, welche Arten von Graffiti-Spielen es da draußen mittlerweile gibt. Von verpixelten Retrografiken geht es bis in den virtuellen Raum, wo Crow sogar ein bisschen ins Schwitzen kommt. Aber keine Sorge, auch wer (genau wie wir) kein Gaming-Nerd ist und das letzte Mal wirklich in den 90ern vor einer Konsole gesessen hat, kommt auf seine Kosten, denn der Fokus liegt nach wie vor auf der Graffiti-Kunst. Rede und Antwort standen uns dabei der Graffiti Künstler und Animator Diego Bergia, sowie unsere geschätzer Interviewgast Smoe aus Staffel 1. Außerdem konnten wir mit Nolan Cunningham von Infectious Ape, einem der Entwickler des VR-Spieles "KingSpray" sprechen und sind bei unserer Recherche dann auch noch ganz unerwartet auf ein sehr spannendes Kunstprojekt gestoßen, das auf keinen Fall unerwähnt bleiben darf (und obendrein noch für eine nette kleine Verlosung sorgt). Let´s play! Alle Links zur Folge findet ihr auf www.wdl.rocksSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wdlpodcast)
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
On this edition of #UNFILTERED, Jon Harder discusses the hip culture Marc Ecko and Ecko Unlimited created in South River, NJ in the early 2000s and the urban legend on why he left South River, involving a helicopter pad. To watch a clip on South River in Madden: click here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaRyzBpRK5g Facebook: http://facebook.com/hardwayhq Twitter: http://twitter.com/hardwayhq Instagram: http://instagram.com/thehardwayhq http://hardwayhq.com
Christian Baesler is the President of Complex Networks. Christian is a young media savant, who in his 20's had more media experience than most executives have in a lifetime. We discuss his humble German childhood, how he launched Bauer Media's digital business at just 21 years old, being a touring DJ, and Complex's international growth plans for 2021. 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 podcast that interviews, entrepreneurs and leaders. Christian Baesler:I was there first as the student, still at my program. And I basically took the initiative to say, "Well, you say there is no opportunity here, why don't I just build a case study for you?" And so I programmed a website, plugged in the programmatic ads. And at first, I was also creating some of the content myself. There was, like, celebrity news on In Touch's websites. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Christian Baesler, the president of Complex Networks. Christian is a young media savant who in his 20s had more media experience than most executives have in a lifetime. And he's a “get your hands dirty”-type builder. Like when he was tapped to be the head of digital at Bauer Media, right out of college and programmed the company's first website himself. And today Christian runs day to day operations of one of the world's largest digital companies, which includes hot sauces, a sneaker marketplace, live and virtual events, and so much more. And oh yeah, he even finds time to be a performing DJ throughout Europe. So yes, Christian is a rockstar, but as you'll quickly learn is also extremely humble. I'm pumped to tell you his story. All right, let's get into it. So Christian, let's jump back a few years. Let's start with where you grew up in Germany. Christian Baesler:Yeah. Where I grew up in Germany is, even for Germany I would say, not as popular place or as well regarded place, at least back then when I grew up there, it was heart of the GDR, the German democratic Republic or Eastern Germany, that only merged with Western Germany in 1990. And fun fact, I was actually born on the day that the German Wall fell. So November 9, '89. So my mother's always joking that's that one might have caused the other, I don't know which one caused what, but. Chris Erwin:Yeah, the whole like causality correlation thing. Christian Baesler:Probably the Wall falling was the cause for her giving birth that day. But I grew up in that area, that in terms of the economic environment had been very depressed. And for the next 10, 20 years after was integrating into Western Germany, but still there weren't that many of the same opportunities like there was in Western Germany. And in addition to that, I grew up most of the time of my childhood in small villages of like a few 100 people. I think the biggest place I lived in was like 1,000 people and everything was very rural. You had a lot of agriculture around and you would have to go 15, 20 minutes to the next nearest town at least, or to see other friends living out of town. So it felt very small and it wasn't the most progressive place, especially with the businesses that were there. Chris Erwin:And growing up, what was your household like? What did your parents do? Were they in a similar field that you are in now or totally different? Christian Baesler:Again, they grew up both in the GDR where it was mostly working class in general, in the GDR with the kind of jobs that people had especially living in villages. After the GDR became one Germany, my father, who was a plumber, started his own company doing plumbing. And so he was entrepreneurial, which previously in the GDR, you couldn't have your own business. There was no concept of privatizing where post he started his own local company. And so my mother was for the most part, a secretary in his company. Before that's in the GDR times, she was a waitress in restaurants. And I don't think I've said that in other podcasts or interviews before, my father passed away when I was 12 of cancer and so that was definitely a big moments of just unexpected big change and also something that was definitely a very difficult, but also important experience for me looking like now? Chris Erwin:Your memories of your father, is it that he was an entrepreneur and he ran his own plumbing business from what you recollect? Christian Baesler:Yes. Chris Erwin:Interesting. A lot of people think about entrepreneurship in the US or in the modern economy as go raise a bunch of money from Silicon Valley and have a big technology startup, but entrepreneurship takes many different forms; small businesses, blue collar businesses. Growing up in small communities of like a few 100 people, did that make you very curious of, "Hey, what else is out there? What else could I get into?" Or was there a level of comfort, which is, "This feels right. I could live like this with these type of people for the rest of my life." What was an early feeling, or if there's tension in your life? Christian Baesler:It was definitely, there must be more than this village life, which was comfortable and people knew each other around the village. So that was nice that sense of community, which I think is somewhat missing today in life in general, that it was more of a feeling of togetherness rather than everyone for themselves. So that was a plus, but I somewhat got lucky in terms of the time I was born on the exposure had early on in my childhood, because that was all pretty much at the development of the internet was just growing and computers were just growing, the personal computers were growing. Christian Baesler:That plus just overall TV getting bigger really gave me a window into what's out there in the world, which if you just live on the village and you read the local newspapers or some magazines, you have no idea what other lifestyles or what other cultures are outside of that bubble. And so I was quite early fascinated with computers in general, but then more importantly the internet, which was just a huge opportunity to learn about different things that otherwise I wouldn't have any exposure to. And that really showed me that there's more outside of this world I live in that I'd like to learn or immerse myself in. Chris Erwin:I understand that you began programming at a pretty early age, I think in your teens, early teens around 13. But your first exposure to the internet and computers, was it at home where your family purchased a computer for you or there was a shared computer or was it through local library or school? Because what I'm hearing from you is there were simple means growing up, like working class people in the community. So what was that first exposure to internet and technology? Christian Baesler:Yeah. My family as you mentioned, just in general by the nature of the environment and the jobs they had, they weren't wealthy by any means. So it was definitely not something that was readily available. We didn't have any computers at home, so that was not like an environment that I could benefit from, but I did have an uncle in my family that was very much into computers at the time. He assembled his own computers; buying all the parts and assembling all of them themselves. And so that was the first time I truly had an exposure to computers. Christian Baesler:And I was very fascinated by this concept of combining different things that if you plug them in, in the right way, it turns out to be this interactive device that then you can manipulate something on a screen with. That was very fascinating. And I would say the curiosity that I developed in this to begin with was probably within computer games. Just the idea that you can play on a device and again, influence what's happening on the screen was what sparked the initial interest and curiosity and computers then allowed me to create something myself that I can interact with manipulate like the games were previously. Chris Erwin:With the internet, what were you consuming? So games was a big part of that. And then did you start developing your own games as well? Christian Baesler:I started building games at the time, but what I was more fascinated with was programming languages around the internet itself. Early on, I think the first thing I started playing with, there was no big systems like Squarespace, back then you have to do a lot of the things manual yourself. And so early on, I remember being very interested in message boards, which was like this exchange platform for a lot of the communities and subcultures that might be on Reddit or other places today. But back then message boards were huge. And oftentimes message boards also got recorded by us for how to program. Like if you were stuck figuring out how to solve a specific programming problem, you could ask someone in the message board and this kind community would just take the time and help you. Christian Baesler:And so early on, for example, I discovered phpBB, I think it was called. It was like one of those WordPress like message board platforms that someone already built and you can create your own message board. But back then you had to host, you have to have your own hosting space and server and then you could style it. And so I took something that was existing like that and figure out how to do the hosting part and then started to manipulate it. Christian Baesler:And then over time it made me more and more curious to create websites on my own, which ultimately when I was probably 13, I started doing it. I made available as a service for companies and organizations in the local village at first, but then in the area. And so I developed websites for a fee for the local companies as probably the first big income source early on. Chris Erwin:When people think about the success formula, it's the power of curiosity and wonder coupled with serendipity and the right connections, and that you had this curiosity about you and then with your uncle who also had curiosity and access to the hardware and the software and interesting computers and intention to share that, what a powerful combination that puts you on a unique path. Christian Baesler:Absolutely. Chris Erwin:So then what is that transition where, okay, you're in high school, you're working these jobs and then I think there's a transition into interest in journalism before you go to university, tell me about like right before university some of the work that you were doing. Christian Baesler:Yeah. Some of the other work I did outside of the developing the website was I developed an interest in photography as well. And I bought myself, at least for that time, quite a good, I think it was called DLSR camera, which at the time was taking the best photos you could take. Maybe these days, all you need is an iPhone but back then, that's what you needed. So I was really interested in the idea of creating something in general, either websites or things for people to consume, which also could be images like photography and text. And so after playing around with the camera, I ended up also working for companies and for weddings as a photographer at first. And so some people trust- Chris Erwin:How old were you when you're doing wedding photography? Christian Baesler:Probably 15, 16, I would say. And so that made me interested in media, which is basically also creating something that people consume around photos and texts. And there was this local newspaper, which is basically one of those weekly things that you get delivered to your house often times for free and covered by ads, so they can monetize through advertising, but it was like the local newspaper and they had a freelance position at first to basically be a local reporter. I applied for it. And for whatever reason, I don't know why now looking back, my boss there eventually gave me a shot and trusted me to be this local reporter even though I was only 16 at the time. Chris Erwin:So the youngest reporter of the paper, probably? Christian Baesler:Probably, Yeah. I mean, I didn't see anyone else there in my age at the time and I wasn't paying too much attention to who the reporters are previous to me, but I would assume so. And basically with that job, I had to go around to different events and two different things happening in the region and interview people undocumented, both with texts, like articles that I wrote, but also with the photos because the budgets were so small, you basically had to do everything yourself as a local reporter. Christian Baesler:That was a hugely transformative experience for me because outside of just exposing them more to medium previously in my childhood and early teens, I was a very shy person. I wouldn't want to talk to people that I don't know. And it was very difficult for me to make conversations and this job required me. It was part of the job description to get information out of people. And ultimately this further, the desire to find out information with people. Chris Erwin:A theme that we'll get into later is this notion of subtle or soft power, which I believe that you embody. And so I was curious to where those roots are and hearing about your early age shyness, but clearly you wanted to express yourself, but maybe just differently relative to social norms. So that was the internet expressing yourself in gaming, and programming and building websites. And then as you said this desire to create and you're creating these stories and photography at the paper, a very interesting theme that takes you to where you are today, that we'll touch on a bit more. So you're creating and expressing in unique ways and then it's time to apply to college or university. And I believe that you ended up going to Nordakademie in Hamburg. When you went to university, what did you want to get out of it? Christian Baesler:Again, coming from a difficult economic environment where my family didn't have a lot of money even going to the government university wasn't as good of an option because they couldn't support me financially to like pay rent and to have the basic income to go through that school. And so there's one other interesting concepts which might be somewhat unique to Germany and it's called an integrated study where after high school, you apply at a company that is partnering with specific private universities and private for the reason that they basically create specific programs with these companies to give you a bachelor degree, you get a salary and you work half the time at the company. So it's a 10 weeks at the partner school, which in my case was Nordakademie. And then you had two to three months at the company where you're basically a trainee rotating them through different parts of the organization from marketing, to sales, to finance, they pay your tuition and pay your salary. Christian Baesler:And so that to me, as a concept integrated study in general was something that seemed like a solution. Like I could basically get an income and study at the same time. And so I was very focused on finding a place to get an integrated study. And originally I wasn't as singularly focused on media. I applied at Diamler, the car company. I applied at Lufthansa, actually the airline to become a pilot, which was something I was fascinated by early on. So it was different paths that could be going down. Chris Erwin:Wait, let me pause you right there. You said interest in being a pilot, had you flown, where did that interest come from? Christian Baesler:It was maybe another symbol of just going places and the freedom that had represented. And so I was always fascinated just by flying and pilots and airplanes in general. And again, growing up I played quite a lot of, I think it was Microsoft Flight Simulator, which I saw they just brought back as a new version the last month, but that was like one of my favorite games. And so I was fascinated by just the art of flying. And so I was seriously considering becoming an airline pilots at the time, applying at Lufthansa. Chris Erwin:It's Lufthansa and Daimler and you end up at Bauer in their integrated study program. And so how did it feel when you got Bauer? Were you excited? Christian Baesler:The Bauer one was one of the first that I got confirmation from. So the other ones weren't as quick in the process. And so it was the first option that was available, but then also in the moment thinking through what would it mean to go to the different companies that also felt like the most exciting, because it would allow me to do more of the things that I was already doing, meaning it was in the media industry, which again, as a local reporter had already worked in as a photographer and digital media was still nascent, but the concepts to build websites to then express the content on was something that they were very focused on at the time. Christian Baesler:So it felt like the best option based on my passion so far, but also they have like 100 magazines or so in Germany and some of them were my favorite from my childhood time. So I also had this excitement about now being at the company that makes the things that I consumed when I grew up. Chris Erwin:Got it. You were busy during your university years, you were at school and you were working a part-time job, but on a pretty serious rotation program. What else did you do in between then? We're going to get into your career trajectory very soon, which clearly you started early. What were other things that you were into? Christian Baesler:During that time, as you mentioned, it wasn't like a normal study where you have a three months summer break or few courses during the day and otherwise not much to do. So the three and a half years then was probably among the most intense time of my life. Maybe for the last few years career wise were more intense, but just up until then, it was the most intense time because it was classes from 9:00 until 6:00 and it was only a 10 week semester, which we had six big exams and there was no break, you had to then go to the company and work for three more months, different departments. And so there wasn't really that normal student life where you just travel the world or you just have this time to pursue other passion projects. Christian Baesler:But the one other passion project I developed quite early as well, going back to the idea of creating something is music, where I was really fascinated by how music is created and how if arrange sounds in a certain way, it could make people feel something just by nature of how it's arranged. And so pretty early on, I, again, thanks to the internet, found out what the tools are, which at the time already were software based. It wasn't that you had to have this big physical hardware environments. So I was quite early on playing around with different softwares for music creation and went deeper and deeper into that. Chris Erwin:And did you also perform as a DJ as well? Christian Baesler:Not in that time during my studies, but afterwards where I did both on the music production side, teach myself how to create my own music, but then I also learned how to be a DJ, which has different meanings. There's like the DJ that's basically just has a playlist of prearranged things like at weddings or other things. They have their purpose and that's definitely one component, but for me it was more the how do I create this experience that shows people music that they've never heard before and it sounds like a two hour long song or track rather than a clear difference actually three to five minutes? And so then I ended up performing multiple times in Germany, which I still did pre-COVID. So I'm still doing it now, if we wouldn't be in the current situation. Chris Erwin:Another unique form of expression. And I've never seen you perform and I know that your SoundCloud handle maybe as a current mystery, I wonder onstage when you perform, is it a more subdued presence and you let the music speak for itself or do you look at that? Is there a unique release there or maybe you enter a form that's unique to your professional leadership or character? Christian Baesler:It's definitely highly therapeutic I would say, because it's a different way of expression and also communication with the audience. And again, that the music I play is not like what you would hear in charts. It's for the most part electronic music, mostly techno music which for people that aren't familiar with, it might sound like jazz sounds. For people that don't understand or don't like jazz, it's just like this random sounds that are just being played. But for the audience that does appreciate it and know it, it's this very reflective experience. Christian Baesler:And for me, I get more instant gratification and joy out of doing this for 90 minutes and seeing the audience react to the music I'm making than doubling revenues or having some other usual measurement of success that feels more indirect. Like you see numbers in spreadsheets, but you don't really know what it means what's happening on the other side. And this is a much more direct feedback loop that is much more rewarding. Chris Erwin:And to be specific, your identity, your behavior on stage, would you say it's very different from your day-to-day life or is it similar? Christian Baesler:I would say it's similar. It's very reserved. With the techno music as a category, the DJ is in the backgrounds like the audience is not even meant to realize that there is a person there doing things, which is very different to when you go to festivals and they're all on big stages and have all these big lights. So that's kind of the opposite of what the electronic music culture or the underground electronic music culture would be about. So I'm basically the shaman in the background playing music for people to be in trance. That's kind of the goal of that experience. Chris Erwin:You're like that master of ceremonies pulling the puppet strings, little do they know that Christian or your DJ name is making that all happen? That's a cool thing. Christian Baesler:The best example would be just like it's a form of meditation where you can influence the behaviors of a big group of people just by playing certain sounds and everything happens in a synchronized way, which is incredibly fascinating that's possible with music as a human species, you can just align everyone through these quite simple ways. Chris Erwin:A unique form of leadership in a way. So let's transition now as you go from university and integrated study into full-time at Bauer. So I think this happens around 2008, there's some like various roles in the company. What's your transition into full-time? What does that look like? Christian Baesler:It was actually 2012 into full-time. So 2008, I started integrated study that went until 2012. And so that study started 2008. I was 18 turning 19. So right after high school, straight into this college integrated study program. And so when I finished in 2012, I was 22 turning 23. Normally you stay within that company for two years after. That's kind of part of the deal, which is great for the student because you have a guaranteed job. And it's great for the company because they get someone at an entry level rate, relatively speaking, that already knows the company for the last three years of having worked there. So it's a great mutual partnership. But usually you're supposed to stay in that location, which for me, was in Germany. I was in Hamburg, which is where the company is headquartered. And so there was kind of a role carved out for me in a certain team or division and everything is kind of pre-planned. Christian Baesler:As part of the integrated study, so during those first three, four years, there were two opportunities to go abroad. One was to study a semester abroad, which I ended up doing at Boston University. And then there was the opportunity to work abroad for one of those practical semesters. And I ended up going to the US office of Bauer Media, the company I was working with. And when I got there during the study part of the three, four years. First of all, I was very fascinated by the US studying at BU and the overall energy and culture and approach here seemed very different to everything I grew up. Christian Baesler:And so it felt very different in a positive way. And then working at the office in New York for Bauer right after, the energy in the office was also totally different. Everyone was much more focused, much more passionate to just do the best work. And more importantly, for my role there specifically, and again, I was still like a 20, 21 year old student at the time, the big opportunity I saw coming here was that there wasn't really a digital business yet that was already built out. There were print magazines and actually at the time, Bauer was the biggest magazine publisher selling at newsstands in the US. So like supermarket checkouts, at airports, all the usual places where you would buy a physical magazine. And so they were the biggest magazine publisher at the time with multiple magazines. The most well-known ones are probably In Touch Weekly, Life & Style Weekly, Woman's World and First for Women. Christian Baesler:And it wasn't like an oversight that they didn't have a digital strategy or the digital business yet, it was by the nature of their print business model. Traditionally, all the media companies in the US, the magazine media companies in the US are build on discounting subscriptions to lock you in for a period of time as an audience and then they monetize it through advertising. So it's basically getting scale in subscriptions, which often a loss leader to then make money through ads. So when all these other companies expanded to digital in the early 2000s, they followed the same model for the online business which is giving away content for free, which is basically giving away subscriptions or discounting subscriptions and then monetizing the reach through ads. Christian Baesler:And so Bauer made the majority of its revenues through actually selling a single magazine to the reader. They didn't discount any subscriptions. The ads was a small part of the business. And so that made them very profitable and very successful, but it didn't really lend itself to just be scaled online because people just weren't used to paying for that kind of content online. Chris Erwin:And a totally new muscle to flex in terms of trying to try a new business model, hire the right team against that new mandate, manage it. So enter Christian, right? Christian Baesler:Yeah. I got there, again, as a student at first in 2011, it was. And so again, that was kind of the context that were the successful print magazines that make most of their revenue through consumers. And there was no way to make revenue through consumers as easily online. And the usual business model is to get most audience possible and directly to a sales team, sell ads into it, which the company wasn't set up for to do both in terms of the people and the kind of focus that was there, but also it might've disrupted the print business more rapidly if we would have pursued a different approach online. And so the timing there, again, was very unique and very much in my favor, which are really like two things. Christian Baesler:One, there was not the emergence of more standardized technologies like WordPress for example, and other systems that were already pre-built were more readily available. You didn't have to completely invent everything from scratch. And the other big opportunity at the time that was developing was programmatic advertising, which means you don't need an expensive sales team to have human conversations with potential clients and convinced him that they should not spend this money with you which in our position at the time, we were one of the smallest in terms of online reach and probably not as differentiated to some of our competitors. Christian Baesler:So it was a lot of upfront risk to spend all this money on the team that might then sell something where with programmatic advertising, every page impression that we generates has a certain amount of ads on them. And they automatically monetize through Google or other partners without question. And so it became very predictable. If we have more traffic, we can make more money without having an upfront risk of hiring a team to sell that space. Chris Erwin:What I want to understand is when you come in, you rise to transform this company into digital and to lead an innovation of their business model. And you are tapped to do this at a pretty young age. So when you are tapped to lead this initiative, some interesting things happen. One, I believe that you probably to really diverged from your peers in a meaningful way that are the same age and two, you get your hands dirty and in the weeds more than I think, I've heard about a lot of other executives, you're building their digital websites and their tech stack yourself, not hiring another team yourself. So first talk about when you were tapped to lead this, what did that feel like? Were you excited? Were you scared? Was it like, "No, of course I'm going to do this." What was in your head? Christian Baesler:It sounded surreal at first. And just again, the context at the US company was what I described and so I was there first as a student still on my program and I basically took the initiative to say, "Well, you say there is no opportunity here, why don't I just build a case study for you?" And so I programmed a website, plugged in the programmatic ads. And at first, I was also creating some of the contents myself for the website to be published there. Chris Erwin:You were writing what type of content? Christian Baesler:There was celebrity news on In Touch's websites. After the first few ones, we ended up hiring some freelancers and relied on some additional support. But yes, in the beginning it was basically, let me show you that there's potential opportunity here while I was still a student there. And I was there for three months, and in that three months I could showcase that there's a probable business. We basically build the website and monetize it, and it was profitable just within that trial period of the time I was there as an assignment. Christian Baesler:At the end of that assignment, when I received the job offer to go back full-time to the US business and join at the time director of new media. And I was still like 21, 22-year-old student in university and I still had one more year to go, I still had to finish my school. And so that was hugely flattering and surprising to be getting that level of trust and also that kind of offer even before I graduated and it was actually frustrating and I still had to basically finish my school for another year before I could take that opportunity. Christian Baesler:So I did go back to Germany and finish the degree and ended up moving to the US in 2012 for this job. And at first I was very scared and concerned I would say, because there were two differences I would say that I was facing to anyone else coming into this role. One was just, I was highly inexperienced in a traditional sense because I never managed people before and I never had one singular boss before I rotated through the whole company but I wasn't part of a traditional team. So now, having to lead a department or in this case it was just me in the beginning but the agreement or the goal was to build it up. It felt very scary because I hadn't done it before and I didn't see it before. Chris Erwin:That's a lot of responsibility at a young age. You're already going through a lot of change when you graduate university, and now this is adding in... It's a lot of change that happens in your career in your 20s is now happening to you all at 21. Christian Baesler:Totally. And also in a different country. While I just had spent six months in the US to study semester here and to work for the company here, it was still now being in a different country with a different culture in a leadership position at relatively young age. And so that was definitely a period of me not feeling sure or confident if I'm ready for this, if I can accomplish the goals that are set or if I'm able to meet the expectations. But in terms of how I felt just about being given the opportunity, it was very, again, flattering. Christian Baesler:But also, just I was very positively surprised to receive that level of trust that someone took a chance on me so early on in my career, which I would say is a constant theme that goes back to people back then trusting me to build their websites, later to work for the local newspaper at a relatively early age. And so having people that trusted me, was probably the single most important way for me to progress with these opportunities. Chris Erwin:Well, and putting in the work to be rewarded with that trust. But also just again the serendipity, Bauer a traditional media business that could really be empowered by transforming to digital and with your background and skills it was like right place, right time. Christian Baesler:Also, it's right place, right time but also I think in general when I talk to other friends about it, it's making sure that you are available for opportunities. You put yourself out there and you put in the hard work, but then when they arise that you go for them. It was definitely a difficult decision for me to say, "Okay. I'm not going to move by myself to the US and take this role and go into this uncertainty." And actually at the time, Bauer in Germany was against me going to the US even though the US part of the company wanted to hire me because they said, "We're educating for the German market and we have this path set out for you here," which was a more traditional progression. Christian Baesler:It was like, "You're going to be this junior project manager on this thing over here." And so that was ultimately decided against, as in they didn't want me to go to the US. And so I basically advocated and lobbied and showed what the potential benefit is or the risks of me not going for a few months to ultimately convince them otherwise. If I would've given up at the time, I would probably not be here where I am today. Chris Erwin:As we like to say, you stood in your power. You had a point of view and you put your foot down and said, "There's a major opportunity in the US, it's where I want to be and I'm going to make this a mutual win." And I like how you said, availability for opportunities. When people talk about success, there's luck that comes into it but it's increasing the likelihood of luck. I'm reading a book called, The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. And he talks about setting up your life, your finances, your health, so that when that opportunity comes along you can pounce and you are in a situation where you very much could and could very much make the case. Look, there is a lot more that we could talk about with Bauer. I know we're probably going to rush through the next five to six years there but I want to make sure we have time to talk about Complex, because there's a lot there too. Christian Baesler:Of course. Chris Erwin:A big question that I have is, I look at your next years at Bauer; you're navigating profitability in unprofitable times and you look a lot of digital peers in the US. And I was part of this world, the MCNs and all the digital studios that emerge out of Google original channels program, a lot of companies that did not succeed. And then you end up running two businesses at once, a UK media business and a digital business. I'm curious, high level, how did your leadership evolve during that period of coming in as a newbie leader at 21, 22, to the type of leader you were at the end of this incredible experience? And we'll save another podcast again, to the details there. Christian Baesler:I would say it evolved from not being sure what it means to be a manager and how to lead people, let alone different culture. When I first started to having to figure out how to do a lot in the weeds with other people in the US part, to then hiring a more senior team that then I was working with on a much higher level being less in the weeds. So in the end of my US time, we actually separated out the digital business into its own company called Bauer Xcel Media with standalone content creation technology, everything you can imagine having in a traditional visual media company. And so we had C-level executives, we had vice presidents, senior presidents for different functions. Christian Baesler:And so I transitioned from being the person that creates the content or writes the website to managing senior people at all times really, were older than I was. And so figuring out how to motivate and mentor people in their day-to-day work with me having had less work experience, was definitely one challenge. And it was the startup nature I would say in the US, when I ended up going to the UK as well. Where Bauer is the largest magazine company and Europe's largest radio company, it was kind of the opposite situation. There were already hundreds of brands and hundreds of people across all those brands that worked on digital, and I joined to oversee the digital business. And so I inherited an existing business with existing practices and that was mostly I would say big learning on change management, how do I build partnerships throughout the organization of other functions that don't report into me? How do I get alignments as I think about restructuring and making large scale changes of how we work and who was in certain roles? Chris Erwin:This is interesting. So let me ask you specifically, mentoring people and hiring people that are older than you in senior roles that you're the ultimate leader, what worked well for you to be able to do that? Christian Baesler:There were two parts, there's making sure I convinced people to join the company I was with from other jobs that were companies maybe they were more established to what we're trying to build. And so at that part, I was worried about what was the vision and can I show enough confidence and enough support to make them feel like they can truly build something here. So that was really the big opportunity to co-create or co-build something, but then in turns out actually working with them is finding the right people and then letting them do their work without interfere. So I was seeing myself more as a mediator or almost like the role of a therapist, of making sure they have the tools to work towards achieving their goals without me necessarily telling them what to do in there functions. Chris Erwin:I like that a lot. One of the greatest lessons that I learned was from the old founder and CEO of Big Frame, Steve Raymond, who said, "Hire great people and get out of the way and empower them." Beautiful, simple words and it works. Christian Baesler:Absolutely. And I think that's also what makes people feel like they're trusted and they have the freedom to truly make an impact. Chris Erwin:So Christian, we just took a break. We were talking about change management at Bauer and one of your proudest moments, why don't you tell us about that moment there? Christian Baesler:So looking back throughout my career the proudest moment I had is, at first in the US we were able to separate the digital business that I was tasked with creating into its own division, into its own company. The overall company is called Bauer Media Group, it's one of the largest media companies in the world, a couple of billion in revenue and more than 10,000 staff and one in a thousand radio, TV and magazine brands. It actually might be the biggest magazine company globally in terms of circulation. And so it's a huge organization. Christian Baesler:And so in the US when I was busy, at first the only person doing a digital business in the end we were roughly 50 to 60 people just for the US digital business and spun it off into its own company. The inspiration for me for that was the innovator's dilemma book which is basically, why do big companies that are successful in one industry fail when they're not seeing kind of the innovations around the corner and where things are going? And I thought that in general with print media and specifically at Bauer that was on the horizon and really the only way to solve for it is to create a separate company that in the context of the new market is big relatively speaking, because at Bauer the problem was always printed, so profitable and it's so big, why do we care so much about the small digital dollars? We don't want to cannibalize ourselves. Christian Baesler:And realizing that it's inevitable that digital would be bigger than prints and if we don't cannibalize ourselves our competitors will cannibalize us. And so ultimately, I got them to spin off in a separate company in the US at first called Bauer Xcel Media, which I then became the president of. And because we have been profitable every year since the beginning and scaled other 50 people and we're still highly profitable, which as you mentioned at this time was unusual with a lot of venture-backed companies raising hundreds of millions. I ultimately convinced the ownership, it's a family owned company in the fourth generation, to roll out that model globally. Chris Erwin:How did you convince them? Was it you just call up the family owner, the patriarch, and say, "I want to do some change?" Was it scheduled big board meeting? What was that process? Christian Baesler:I only really learned about what board meetings are after joining Complex now, because back then in a family owned business the board is the owner and so in this case is one person that owns more than 90% of the company. And so we would have monthly or quarterly check-ins with her and some of the other management team she has, just talking about business progress. And at the time they were super fascinated that we were able to build such a profitable business with no investment upfront and relatively little resources. And so they were really curious how we did it and why we were succeeding. And the business grew even more and was even more profitable after we spun off to be a separate business. Ultimately, it led to a conversation of, why are we not doing this in every country? Chris Erwin:When you have management saying, "Why are we not doing more of this?" That's a great place for you to be. Christian Baesler:Exactly. And ultimately, they rolled out Bauer Xcel Media as a concept of separating the digital business from the traditional magazine or radio business in every other major markets. And ultimately, the goal was to have one global platform. So one content management system, one ad tech stack, all the things you would imagine having locally and that's what enabled me then to also take on the UK business operationally to basically do the same business expansion there. Chris Erwin:Last question on Bauer, Christian, did you say that you came up with the name Xcel Media, the digital unit? Christian Baesler:Yes. Chris Erwin:What was the inspiration for that? And was that a proud moment to say, "This is my name, my stamp on the company." Christian Baesler:It was definitely the proudest moment and I think they still even use it now, every company and every country now that does digital is still called Bauer Xcel Media. So it's kind of my legacy now within the company that they're still adopting my name and the logo we created and everything. The name, it's difficult to find a good name in general and it doesn't always have to be super prescriptive of what it is that you're making, best example the Apple that sells computers. The name I think is completely arbitrary just to make sure it's not something negative. Christian Baesler:Traditionally, any kind of digital team within the company was called 'New Media,' which was my title actually. Director of New Media, which what does that mean in the context of everything or 'Digital Media,' which eventually everything will be digital at some point. And so we wanted to find something that wasn't so limiting in what it could mean or it would be out of date a few years later. And Excel just as a name, like the spreadsheet software, just thinking of doing something better and that's more progressive than what we've done so far was the inspiration. I think we just decided to leave out the E like the software, it's spelled X-C-E-L just to make it sound a bit more fancy. But that was the goal to find something lasting that sounds more inspiring. Chris Erwin:Yet another creative fingerprint from Christian that touches audiences, people in society in a unique way. All right. So speaking of interesting names, we now transition to the Complex part of the story. So you're at Bauer for about 10 years, a decade, maybe you're on the path to be the CEO, but something causes you to rethink where you want to be. And I'm curious, were you seeking out change or did change come to you or a mix of both? Christian Baesler:Actually, the change I was seeking at the time after 10 years at Bauer was a break and time to reflect. My plan was to take at least a year off and do a world trip in a way that I think was only possible at that time and maybe still now, meaning I didn't want to plan anything upfront. If I wanted to stay a certain place I like it, I might stay longer or not. Where I feel like you can take a vacation or even a sabbatical you're still at work, you're still thinking about work, you're still checking emails. Christian Baesler:And so I truly wanted to be completely disconnected from everything and if I hate it, then I can stop after two months and if not I would go longer and so that was my goal. And after 10 years in Bauer and the end of it living between London and New York, which was fun but also very tiring as we would fly every week or every two weeks between the two cities; I slept like four hours a night, I felt like I needed a break. So I resigned actually my roles at Bauer for that reason. So I wasn't actually planning to work again right after this. Chris Erwin:How much time was there? Did you get a reprieve? Did you get a vacation? What was the gap before you went to Complex? Christian Baesler:Probably a month I would say. Chris Erwin:A month, okay. Christian Baesler:Not what I had hoped for. Chris Erwin:I was thinking about this notion of sabbatical or time off recently. And I think it is one of the healthiest things that you can do, but I also feel that young up and comers feel well, "I'm going to get out of my groove. I got relationships, people like my work," and they don't want to change that. But I actually think spaces' transformative. So what was the special moment? Was it a conversation with Rich that made you change this whole big plan that you had been formulating for a while? Christian Baesler:Exactly. So Rich and I reached the founder and CEO of Complex, we've known each other since I think 2014. We met at a Digiday conference that we were both speaking at and we stayed in touch, maybe every three months or so we would have breakfast or lunch just to talk about what's happening in industry and what we're seeing in our businesses. I've always enjoyed my conversations with Rich. I was always very impressed by what Complex was doing and how fast it was growing. Christian Baesler:And so I would just meet him on ongoing basis, including when I just had resigned my role at Bauer and basically mentioned to him that I left or I'm actually leaving. After a six months' notice, I had to serve out which is a very European thing that even after you give notice you still have to work for at least three if not six more months, but I already had resigned but I was still there for six months. And I told him I planned to do a world trip and from that moment on he basically pitched me into join Complex instead. And so the one month was basically the compromise to still have some time off in between. Chris Erwin:So it's Rich's fault, he blew up this once in a lifetime chance for an amazing vacay. What did he tell you or show you that caused you to just totally change your thinking and come on board? Christian Baesler:Two things, the ability to focus on fewer brands and go deeper. At Bauer in the US we had 15 brands, in the UK when I was still in UK business it was more than 100 brands. So you never really focused on a brand in the role that I had there, it was always systems and processes and people and so it was very abstract, where this was truly a brand business. Christian Baesler:And then the second part which was the most exciting for me as well, it's just the diversity of the business in terms of the business models. Everything I had done previously was traditional digital media of building websites and optimizing the monetization of those websites for the most part, where at Complex it was also a huge TV, video business, a huge events business, a huge actual commerce business not just affiliate. So I also felt like I would learn a lot and get a lot of experience in areas of media and entertainment that I hadn't had exposure to previously. Chris Erwin:So Rich recruits you, what is your mandate on day one? "All right Christian, you like our vision, here's what we need you to do." What was that? Christian Baesler:I would say my main mandate was to optimize the operations of the company, that the company had been through a lot of growth previously and was acquired in 2016 by Verizon and by Hearst. And so I joined two years later. And so now it reached this point of maturity as an organization in terms of much bigger staff now and many more goals and so my role was created to help create focus and reorganize what we do and how we do it, but also to continue to scale it to the next stage of growth. Chris Erwin:I'm thinking back to your 21-year-old moment being tapped as the director of a department at Bauer. You were scared then. You were excited about the responsibility but natural anxiety. Now you're entering an exciting, well-lauded company in digital media and entertainment at a very senior level. What were your feelings at that point? Christian Baesler:I think at the beginning it was also a question of to some degree anxiety, because there were two unknowns or two uncertainties. One, at Bauer I was there for 10 years and even if I switched between countries or switched between roles I already had established myself, people internally knew me and I already had trust of the people around me. When I went to the UK, people already knew I did something successful in the US office so there was an established relationship or awareness, where here I felt like I was the new person coming in and I had to prove myself all over again. Christian Baesler:So that was definitely a big unknown or a big source of anxiety in the beginning of, can I do it again? Can I prove myself again? And then the second part was just around as I mentioned it, I was very excited about the opportunity because of the expansion to other areas of media entertainment that I hadn't done previously but now it was also my job to work in those areas not having had done them previously in such a way. And so there was also the question of, how quickly can I get up to speed to make sure we're doing better as a business as a whole, including those areas. Chris Erwin:How did you prove yourself? How did you gain trust with this new team right off the bat? What was your immediate approach? Christian Baesler:And with that it was very helpful to just have been at the UK part of Bauer which was established team, established company, everything was already there and I was brought on to optimize it in the UK. It was an incredible learning experience in my most recent role prior to apply here. And so the big learning was, to build trust first and to truly understand what's working and not working is to take the time. Christian Baesler:So the first three months of joining, I would not make any changes. I would not introduce anything new unless it was obvious or easy just so there's time to build relationships and to basically go on the listening tour and hear from everyone throughout the company what's working, what's not working and through basically creating a list of opportunities and issues I would get buy-in from each of the established people throughout the company to then collaborate on solving all the various issues or optimizing all the various opportunities. Chris Erwin:I love that. You're a big new executive, people might expect you're going to come in and mandate all this big change, new culture, the best leaders don't do that. There's an existing culture. There's a lot of smart, great people, listen to them, process that and then you start to add your flair to the business over time. So you joined Complex, this is back in 2018, this is two to three years ago? Christian Baesler:Right. Chris Erwin:Now, you know our team and I write about and I tweet about, why I think Complex is so special, that you guys have built this very impressive, diverse business across media, ads sales, commerce, E-learning events, virtual events, the gamut and which I'll let you talk about. I want to hear, why do you think Complex is so special? Talk about the business of what it is and why it is so unique to its peers and just in the overall media market place. Christian Baesler:I think the three reasons or answers why we are so successful or why we are different to some of our peers, the first one is just; which is the biggest one is, passion for the things that we're covering and creating. We don't cover certain contents or create certain content because it's popular in Google or Facebook right now and we think there's a revenue opportunity, if we were to cover it. All the things that we're creating which historically was mostly in the hip hop and sneakers and streetwear space, we've been pants off from the beginning when they were all still niches and subcultures early in 2001, 2002 when the company was started. And so it's that deep passion that leads to authenticity, like are people actually care about what we're creating which then resonates differently with the audience. Christian Baesler:And so we have benefited as a company from those content categories now being as big as they are with hip hop being the biggest music category and sneakers and streetwear is the biggest in fashion. And we expanded to other verticals since then, but it's really finding people that are truly passionate about the content that you're creating. From a business model perspective, I would say the second big difference is that we think about everything in a 360 connected way. We don't create a product that's a website and then separately we think, "There might be some revenue in events, let's create a completely different event just so we have an event." Everything is connected. Christian Baesler:And so one good comparison I could give is Marc Ecko, who's the co-founder of Complex together with Rich who was also a fashion designer, he compared it to us not trying to be like another print magazine at the time like The Source or XXL [inaudible 00:50:27] or from a TV perspective not like MTV but a youth cultured Disney. Disney, meaning like they think about each of their shows and movies as IP that then translates to all these different revenue streams across events and commerce rather than afterthought and that's really how we're approaching a lot of our businesses. Christian Baesler:And then the third one which I would say is helping us especially in these times today and I was very impressed by as well when I was talking to Rich before joining, it's just the responsibility from a financial perspective that the business has had and has been taken for for years now. We, as the company now, didn't raise a crazy amount of money like some of our peers did, which made us much more focused on running a sustainable business from the beginning. And so with that, we've been running a business that's been profitable for years now which allowed us to be much more dynamic and much more flexible in how we make decisions. Chris Erwin:I think to that last point because you probably won't say it yourself Christian due to your humility, but from personal experience in digital media and modern media there is a lot of founders that are great visionaries, have an idea of where they want to build to but don't know how to build sustainably towards that end. And you exhibited in your career from early days of wanting to build and create, having the lean resources that you had access to, it's like you had your uncle's computer hardware do what you can with that. Then going into Bauer and learning how to do that at a company, I feel like this was ingrained to you not only very early on in your childhood but also in your early career. Chris Erwin:And I think that you are a special leader that a lot of other companies lack that don't bring this discipline nor this focus. And it speaks to another sentiment which is at a lot of media companies studios, is usually a complimentary leadership, like a great business mind and a great visionary. And I think that you and Rich can serve as both, but you're optimizing the day-to-day being in the weeds with the team and also having incredible passion yourself for these brands and where you want this business to go. It feels like a very exciting setup for where Complex can go next. But I don't like to overly editorialize in these interviews, but I do want to call that out for the listeners because I think it's special and worth hearing. Christian Baesler:Totally. Thank you so much. I very much appreciate the kind words. Chris Erwin:Of course. Christian Baesler:I think the overall theme is definitely resourcefulness of just trying to figure out how to make things from very little, where in my case growing up that was just the environment I came from as I mentioned. But also as a company, I think if you have too much funding available it leads you down wrong decisions more easily and you don't realize that you made wrong decisions until you run out of money, so that's a very dangerous path. I do think there is still value in raising money if you have highly scalable business models, let's say if you have subscriptions with a proven cost per acquisition and other things. But for where media is today, it's not as beneficial as people thought it would be five or 10 years ago. Chris Erwin:So with all of those nice things being said, let's talk about something that you and I have chatted in coffee shops before and with Rich, that you feel a lack of industry recognition by your peers, by the press, Complex doesn't get the attention or the notoriety that it deserves. Why don't you expand on that a little bit. Christian Baesler:In general, there's still I would say in the traditional B2B world but also just in a general consumer perspective of people that might not be of our audience and non awareness of either who we are in general or how big we are and how diversified we are, all the things we're doing as a business. But just I think the most simple fact would just be that we, based on Comscore which is the standard measurement for digital media in the US, reached to most 18 to 34 year old males in the US more than any other media company and more than double to Vice and still most people know Vice or think of Vice as the biggest youth culture brand. Christian Baesler:And I give them a lot of credit for having done great marketing and they raised a lot of money for being able to do so over the years. But there's also another prejudice which is, the things that we do and the things that we cover like sneakers or hip hop both as a music as well as culture are niche. Meaning there are small, passion groups of small audiences. But actually, hip hop by far now is the biggest music category in the US and sneakers are a huge growing business, that's the fastest and biggest in fashion now. Christian Baesler:And so those industries are now mass and today's youth, meaning 13 to 40 probably, are incredibly passionate about them. So we're dealing with kind of a prejudice or to some degree ignorance about the markets with those things being perceived as niche, as well as our role in that overall market that we've been working through for the last few years of changing that awareness holistically. Chris Erwin:That sense about the prejudice of being niche focused and I think you've also talked about even the stigma around streetwear culture and hip hop can impact you. I never thought about that before, but it's interesting to think about. All right. So at Complex, you guys have a lot of different brands, a lot of different businesses. Let's talk about some of your favorite children, which I don't know if you often do but we've learned your passions in this interview. What do you kind of love the most working on there, some of the content that you have? Christian Baesler:I think the most obvious one to mention now that maybe most of the listeners know as well is Hot Ones; our interview show where celebrities eat chicken wings while they get interviewed and those chicken wings gets spicier and spicier. And so it's highly entertaining to watch but also to work with the team on and it's been an amazing experience to help them diversify their business beyond advertising into hot sauce, into a game show, into a board game. So that has been an incredible experience. Christian Baesler:But then we also have shows like sneaker shopping, where we have a host go into sneaker stores, interview celebrities in context of sneakers that we diversified into education programs, basically learning how to get into the sneaker industry as a student. But also, up and coming shows like Full Size Run which is a weekly show where we interview celebrities, talk to celebrities as a talk show talking about the sneakers of the week that were released. That's kind of the show that's on the next level coming up. Chris Erwin:And what's the name of that again, Christian? Christian Baesler:Full Size Run. Chris Erwin:Full Size Run. Got it. Christian Baesler:And so that's on the more entertainment side, we also have programming that's more investigative, more serious news journalism with our biggest show there called Complex World which looks at different issues throughout the country, especially in the upcoming election cycle. So it's a balance between the entertainment part of it that's more fun and more casual, to the more serious journalism as well. Chris Erwin:And what you talked about, which I want to make clear for the listeners is you talked about E-learning classes for how to launch streetwear products and businesses. And I think a very cool new theme that Complex has spearheaded in our industry is, we're not just hip hop, streetwear culture and news and reporting, we are expertise in understanding of this space. And that allows you to expand your business in many different ways and to sell that expertise to other businesses, advertiser clients or even youth who are in undergrad programs at Parsons or FIT for example, and to make them better entrepreneurs in your verticals, that is just an awesome thing. Christian Baesler:Absolutely. Chris Erwin:All that being said Christian, you love DJing music. So is it Pigeons and Planes? What's one of the brands that you do a lot but what for you that really resonates with your heart? Christian Baesler:I think Pigeons and Planes resonates because of my passion with music because the focus of Pigeons and Planes is to give emerging artists a platform before they are big enough to be covered by the more traditional music publications or even by Complex and that to me is the most important part of the ecosystem. Everyone that has great talent has the same struggle in the beginning which is, how do I get awareness for what I'm doing? And having a brand within our portfolio does just that, not just through social media and articles, but we do events where we bring emerging artists onto the stage in different cities, has been a big passion of mine for sure to work with. Chris Erwin:All right. So a couple more questions on Complex and then we're going to get into the rapid fire and we'll close this out, how's that sound good? Christian Baesler:It sounds good. Chris Erwin:I don't think I've fully exhausted Christian yet, but maybe getting close in this marathon. Where do you want complex to be in 2021 that you're not right now? Christian Baesler:The main goal that we still have ahead of us that got somehow paused this year is internationalization or globalization. Right now, we are the biggest youth culture company or collection of brands in the US. And what's quite unique right now is that the passion points and the topics that we are the experts on here, are also the biggest in many other markets internationally. So again, hip hop music as a culture and sneakers and streetwear, but there isn't a b
Marc Ecko says "You too are a brand, whether you know it or not, or like it or not." In Brew 9, the Brewers talk about the importance of Branding yourself. We all are unique and need to make sure your clients know why they should do business with you and not the other dealer up the road. They give tips and ideas on how to do so and how to make it fun. As always, we have #FreshNews #CarGuyConfessionSession, #BuyersTips, #JumpBox and your #ToGoCup. We are Brewin' Solutions and all you gotta do is Get You Some!
Marc Ecko says "You too are a brand, whether you know it or not, or like it or not." In Brew 9, the Brewers talk about the importance of Branding yourself. We all are unique and need to make sure your clients know why they should do business with you and not the other dealer up the road. They give tips and ideas on how to do so and how to make it fun. As always, we have #FreshNews #CarGuyConfessionSession, #BuyersTips, #JumpBox and your #ToGoCup. We are Brewin' Solutions and all you gotta do is Get You Some!
This is the third episode featuring Marc Ecko and his book Unlabel and this time it's all about imagination which is the last chapter or point if you will. Imagination should be categorised into 3 things: Vision for the future, Loyalty of Nostalgia and the last one is the Delta of Now. The delta of now refers to knowing where you are right now because you need to know where you are at this point of time to be able to look in the future and or imagine the future. The loyalty to nostalgia is a small burden for a lot of industries. The best description would be this “We are doing it this way because we always have done it this way” (and it worked / is working) for example, as I am understanding it. If you are able to “fix” those two you are able to envision the future. In the end there is a little summary of this summary….kind of. - This episode of the Self Development with Tactics / SDWT podcast is all about “Unlabel by Marc Ecko [Book Summary & PDF]” an article by the paulminors.com website. - https://paulminors.com/blog/unlabel-by-marc-ecko-book-summary-pdf/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Ecko - I as always hope that you get a lot out of that! - Love you ➠Thank you for being with me! If you liked this episode of your daily self development kick please subscribe and like. Stay tuned for upcoming self development videos aaaaand comment down below or hit me up on the social media platform you like the most. Wish you the best, health wealth and happiness ❤️ Who I am? I am Christopher Walch a 18 year old graphic design student from austria, really interested in marketing self Development and having success in every aspect of life❤️However I am not only interested in having the best for me! I want you to be at your peak as well. Giving value to the people out here is what I want and what I am able to do here! Thank you. Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/walchchristopher Self Development with Tactics'/Christopher Walch's Podcast: https://www.anchor.fm/selfdevelopment_wt/ Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SelfTactics Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Selfdevelopment-With-Tactics Self Development with Tactics on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/we-selfdevelopment Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6ms9lq2XRrgdy0rOrMYVUQ Self Development With Tactics/Christopher Walch on Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Christopher-Walch-SDWT-Podcast LOVE YOU ALL!! ❤️
This is the second episode featuring Marc Ecko's Unlabel. And this one is about keeping your promises, doing, being a human and knowledge. The thing is, making promises you can't deliver on is not a good idea. It's the case for person to person connections but also brand or company to consumer connections. Which already says something…we are all humans, when you are having a business you'll probably have something to do with other human beings. But most often just being charismatic won't be enough. You also have to know stuff. - This episode of the Self Development with Tactics / SDWT podcast is all about “Unlabel by Marc Ecko [Book Summary & PDF]” an article by the paulminors.com website. - https://paulminors.com/blog/unlabel-by-marc-ecko-book-summary-pdf/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Ecko - I as always hope that you get a lot out of that! - Love you ➠Thank you for being with me! If you liked this episode of your daily self development kick please subscribe and like. Stay tuned for upcoming self development videos aaaaand comment down below or hit me up on the social media platform you like the most. Wish you the best, health wealth and happiness ❤️ Who I am? I am Christopher Walch a 18 year old graphic design student from austria, really interested in marketing self Development and having success in every aspect of life❤️However I am not only interested in having the best for me! I want you to be at your peak as well. Giving value to the people out here is what I want and what I am able to do here! Thank you. Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/walchchristopher Self Development with Tactics'/Christopher Walch's Podcast: https://www.anchor.fm/selfdevelopment_wt/ Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SelfTactics Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Selfdevelopment-With-Tactics Self Development with Tactics on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/we-selfdevelopment Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6ms9lq2XRrgdy0rOrMYVUQ Self Development With Tactics/Christopher Walch on Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Christopher-Walch-SDWT-Podcast LOVE YOU ALL!! ❤️
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.
Why is being authentic so important? Because people notice bullsh*t Marc Ecko the founder of complex and his book Unlabel this is what today's episode is all about. At first we are talking about Marc Ecko himself, what he did and what he is doing right now in terms of business and whatnot. Then we are talking about the summary of his books which was about brand, authenticity and the Self as he calls it. So already pretty interesting! - This episode of the Self Development with Tactics / SDWT podcast is all about “Unlabel by Marc Ecko [Book Summary & PDF]” an article by the paulminors.com website. But we are also going through an wikipedia.com article. - https://paulminors.com/blog/unlabel-by-marc-ecko-book-summary-pdf/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Ecko - I as always hope that you get a lot out of that! - Love you ➠Thank you for being with me! If you liked this episode of your daily self development kick please subscribe and like. Stay tuned for upcoming self development videos aaaaand comment down below or hit me up on the social media platform you like the most. Wish you the best, health wealth and happiness ❤️ Who I am? I am Christopher Walch a 18 year old graphic design student from austria, really interested in marketing self Development and having success in every aspect of life❤️However I am not only interested in having the best for me! I want you to be at your peak as well. Giving value to the people out here is what I want and what I am able to do here! Thank you. Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/walchchristopher Self Development with Tactics'/Christopher Walch's Podcast: https://www.anchor.fm/selfdevelopment_wt/ Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SelfTactics Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Selfdevelopment-With-Tactics Self Development with Tactics on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/we-selfdevelopment Self Development with Tactics/Christopher Walch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6ms9lq2XRrgdy0rOrMYVUQ Self Development With Tactics/Christopher Walch on Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Christopher-Walch-SDWT-Podcast LOVE YOU ALL!! ❤️
This week our contents are under pressure after Marc Ecko gives us a wedgie.
Through the late 80s and early 90s, graffiti goddess Claudia “Claw Money” Gold was leaving her signature, a paw with three claws, all over New York City and you can still find her iconic tags all around the Lower East Side. After making her mark with graffiti, she became the fashion editor at Swindle Magazine and then broke out as a fashion designer in 2002, launching her own signature clothing line that later led to Claw Money collaborations with Calvin Klein, Marc Ecko, Rag & Bone, and Nike. Her gear has a huge celebrity following, including one-name-wonders like MIA, Kanye, and Rihanna. She’s an outlaw and a trendsetter and in this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she lets us into her secret world of spray paint.
#4.25.19 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Joe Biden launches #2020 bid warning the ‘soul’ of America is at stake; We'll talk with one of the organizers of the She the People presidential forum; Bernie Sanders claims he marched with Dr. King; FL GOP continue assault on voting rights; More racists get their due; Roland calls out Franklin Graham + @XQAmerica's #SITWFest with Russlyn Ali, Marc Ecko, Dr. Carolyn Williams and the mother of Pharrell Williams,
Axel and Kaden debate the normalcy of ASMR videos, what the hell happened to Marc Ecko, and the best XXL Freshman class.
Today I’m pumped to share the unusual story behind how Marc Ecko turned his love of street art into a billion dollar clothing company. You see, like most artists, he got the “itch” early on, but he abandoned his craft for a much more stable career move – pharmacy school. He didn’t last long though, […]
Ayanna (@the_aya_brand) and Delaila (@missdelailac) got to catch up with Fatou Barry founder of PR Girl Manifesto and the digital mastermind behind other brands including Base Butter D'usse, Rocawear, Marc Ecko, & Combs Enterprise. She chats with us about her first official year as an entrepreneur and what that has entailed as well as learning to set boundaries and being realistic with what she can take on. Fatou's #ObessedWith are women who are being super transparent and open about their truths. She mentions Cheyenne (@AdamantlyAdler)who is very open about her anxiety and depression. We close the episode getting to know a little more about Fatou and some of her favorite people, places and things. Tune in to today's episode to get your fix and manifest the powers to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be. Follow, Comment, Like and Share via our social channels @noncorporategirl. Have something to share, a topic you want us to weigh on, someone you want to shout out? We love hearing from you so feel free to send us a note to noncorporategirls@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/non-corporate-girls/support
Complex is a media platform and an online community that publishes the best, most diverse and most relevant voices in pop culture. It was co-founded by Rich Antoniello and Marc Ecko in 2002. Complex Networks’ stable of brands, now owned 50/50 by Verizon and Hearst, generate over 810 million videos views a month and have a combined social following of more than 194 million users. Their millennial-driven authentic voice strives to defy the stale conversations of the past, and shift the world’s attention to the movements within convergence culture. They were born in American Pop Culture – a business built on telling the stories of subcultures and communities, and have now reshaped who the faces of mainstream are. On the show, Rich Antoniello and I discuss media trends, how to build an online community, how to monetize your network, some of the darkest challenges facing an entrepreneur, where the long-tail opportunity in sports is, the sneakerhead boom during the launch of the Air Jordan’s, and why he thinks Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete of all-time. Suiting Up is a show that explores the psychology, playbook of tools, and strategies of the most influential people in sports, entrepreneurship, and entertainment.
How To Work In Fashion Interviewing fashion professionals every week to hear how they got into the world of fashion and how they made it to where they are today. Listen on iTunes and Soundcloud. Episode 003- This episodes guest is fashion designer Kala Wilburn. Kala has had a very interesting journey in fashion that required a lot of faith and determination. After pushing her way through to nyc, she began her career in street and urban wear designing everything from shoes to knitwear for brands like Roc-a-wear and Marc Ecko. In this episode Kala shares how she: - Was able to volunteer for New York Fashion Week after getting denied. - Became the US knitwear designer for Marc Ecko. - Turned the tragedy of losing her brother into an organization fighting violence. Social Media: Instagram - @Howtoworkinfashion | @DonyaleWalton | #HowToWorkInFashion Mentioned in this episode: Kala’s Instagram- @kalasantrese Kala’s Clothing line - @fannielucille | fannielucille.com For more information on Vehicle City Fashion Week - @vehiclecityfashionweek Wanna talk business? HowToWorkInFashion@gmail.com
Fuse Green and I met up at Pratt University out in Brooklyn to talk about his journey as an artist, the difference between an art director and a creative director, album covers, working with Spike Lee, Jay Z, Marc Ecko, identity and street culture. Show Notes: https://www.newyorksaid.com/fuse-green/
On this episode of the Thrivetime Show Clay Clark will be going over some notable quotables by Marc Ecko, an American fashion designer, entrepreneur, and artist. He is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of fashion company Ecko Unlimited.
Jeff and Yaya talk about how encouraged they are by the women that are stepping out against despicable men in positions of power. They invite Bryan the Professor to the discussion. Jeff talks about the struggle of performing a voiceover gig while stuck in traffic. Yaya's Beastmode moment is assisted by Marc Ecko. Jeff's Joint is a beautiful ode to all of the Superwomen out there. And, both Jeff and the Professor jump down Yaya's throat for being naïve about a truck jingle.
A veteran entrepreneur, Jayson Gaignard is the founder of a top rated business podcast on iTunes, and runs one of the world's most exclusive events for entrepreneurs, Mastermind Talks. His invite-only event brings together brilliant minds like multiple NYT Best Selling Author Tim Ferriss, fashion titan Marc Ecko, biohacker Dave Asprey, and many more... His work has been featured by influential publications like Forbes, Life Hacker, and Business Insider.
A veteran entrepreneur, Jayson Gaignard is the founder of a top rated business podcast on iTunes, and runs one of the world's most exclusive events for entrepreneurs, Mastermind Talks. His invite-only event brings together brilliant minds like multiple NYT Best Selling Author Tim Ferriss, fashion titan Marc Ecko, biohacker Dave Asprey, and many more... His work has been featured by influential publications like Forbes, Life Hacker, and Business Insider.
An interview with Bryon Colby (@bcolby6), SVP of Digital Commerce at Cornerstone Brands. Cornerstone Brands is a billion-dollar omni-channel retailer comprised of multiple leading home and apparel brands including Frontgate, Ballard Designs, Garnet Hill, Chasing Fireflies, Grandin Road, Improvements, and TravelSmith. Cornerstone is a business unit of HSN, Inc. We spoke with Bryon about his background, where digital commerce sits in the Cornerstone organization structure, how Cornerstone benefits from it's catalog heritage, the challenges and opportunities of customized products, and the future of personalization. Bryon mentioned a custom product configurator for furniture on Ballard Designs, which can be found here. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 104 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, October 11th 2017. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature - Google Automated Transcription of the show: Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 104 being recorded on Wednesday October 11th 2017 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot & Bryon: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners, in this week's episode where excited Futura guess that we have literally been trying to get on the show for over a year due to scheduling conflicts between the three of us that has been hard to do but today the stars have finally aligned and we are very excited to Welcome to the Jason Scott show, Bryon Colby SVP of digital Commerce at Cornerstone brands welcome brand. [1:09] Where are you located in the world today in the home base of Cincinnati Ohio. Like being over usually on the road like you guys but I see your point stars align. Jason: [1:23] And just to be clear Brian it hasn't taken a year because you've been doing a lot of other shows right you've been saving yourself for us. Scot & Bryon: [1:29] Whatever makes you feel good then go for a Jason. Cook and I'm excited to see if I understand you have a Tesla now so we are in the Tesla owners the electric vehicle club together at this point. Loving it you know can't say enough good things about it I actually thought that was going to be at your giveaway 400 shall I was hoping to get a guest on that one but it was like Tesla's free to your listeners, yeah we we tried that and we ended up with some stickers that Jason printed on his LaserJet they're so close but we were quite able to get it to that level. Jason: [2:09] It is a premium LaserJet though. Scot & Bryon: [2:11] Is premium gas to color so it's pretty exciting. Jason: [2:18] I feel like you guys have have a lot in common you both had the fancy cars and you both spell your first names unconventionally. Scot & Bryon: [2:26] Yes it's one of those things that makes you very Google Bowl which is a double edged sword. [2:32] I love you find that bread. So far 3 other people that spell it my you know my way you know one guy at the local. Movie theater that selling a popcorn was amazed to see his name tags felt the same way and he's the one there actually is a Facebook group for you know Brian's that's valid Bryon and this guy was it when it started. I don't know. If you ever need. You ever meet anyone else, I have met a couple other people there's a lot of Scott wings with two T's so there's that and then there's the hero of a popular novel, it is at his got Scotland 20 sets and wrestling. Yeah I run into like two or three every five years or so so so kind of price solar distribution I did I don't know if we have a Facebook group or not I might have to explore the Cradle. We left a check there about 5 of us on itself but that was a couple years ago is that Super Active like you guys just guy talk about. I'll leave it at that. Jason: [3:48] And I think there's one other important piece of business we have to get out of the way before we we jump into Cornerstone big movie trailer came out this week. Scot & Bryon: [3:59] Yeah yep the know some some people are keeping themselves spoiler-free so I have nothing to talk about it but I, where I draw the line is I try not to read rumor sites or anything like that but I do watch the trailers and this trailer was awesome. I'm very excited for the Last Jedi, tickets are purchased 7 p.m. showing December 14th through the Wingo Clan is locked and loaded for Last Jedi. Jason: [4:23] That's awesome. Scot & Bryon: [4:24] Scotty tractor your dress up you and your family for it. We don't we usually say that for Halloween and we're usually a bunch of Star Wars characters for Halloween but we're not cause players just never not not my scene but I'm more of a collector toys that canister. Jason: [4:44] It's been interesting that there was some controversy coming up to the trailer about whether the director was excited or not about it but I feel like all the reviews of the trailer I've read even from people that are not like huge Star Wars fans are like it's one of the best. Made trailers of all times. Scot & Bryon: [5:02] Yeah it's a misunderstanding so it's Ryan Johnson and he he was just kind of tweeting that if you want to stay spoiler-free don't watch the trailer and then a lot of people misread that to say, the trailer is not good or something so I don't know so then later he was like all caps watch the trailer people it's great I'm excited up moving. Jason: [5:20] Heck yeah that was an odd thing to have had thought he said so that I'm glad you were able to clarify Force awesome, well with that Brian let's jump into the topic of the day we want to talk a little bit about about your business and what you're doing now but before we get to that it's always nice to hear about how you got there and what you're you're sort of digital background is. Scot & Bryon: [5:46] Sure you know just thinking through it's been amazing and I've been involved so I guess any Commerce incident of 1996, where are you know it's part of the great team that we actually helped build some of the initial pay for Content sites football number Publishers including USA Today times-mirror the Usos, Associated Press this is where they had don't you know the publisher that don't websites had no idea how to monetize it and we're looking to monetize some of their archives they're all content people coming in search for so we had that. Company was called in Fanatics had you know had a technology Riri, purpose from our consumer consumer product that was out there in the marketplace and turned around handle the customer service the billing, you know all this is way back when in about 1996-1997 for these customers, since then you know what has really held the number of different you know a hats in the space but all focused on transactions including are running a digital marketing Consulting Group. I'm heading out by you know you asked operations of an SMS Commerce startup which was fascinating just about, it's Wednesday in the year about 2000-2001 so just slightly ahead of its time being able to buy things via SMS was also a managing director at fry and another you know, kind of Legacy in e-commerce space. [7:17] Fantastic also group of e-commerce if we're all veterans right now that we had our own not digital eCommerce platform and we helped run some of the online businesses and Technology, multiple retailers across some. Different categories including Ann Taylor a good diver craft PC Richards and many others so you know after that for a while and actually said okay looking to jump over, to the. Pure retail side so you know the strong desire to actually own the project from start to finish so when I joined Marc Ecko. I was an apparel company and then of Last Stand and currently as he said at Cornerstone brands. Jason: [8:08] Awesome and the fried that always brings a smile to my heart that I think there's still a few fry sites living in the world then it's obviously been defunct for quite a while. Scot & Bryon: [8:21] Yep yeah they got you know purchase by Microcenter and of course mikroskop purchase so there still are some out there and it is that's all you go to you know shop.org you got any other conferences, it's one of those amazing get-togethers cuz you see people that you know of work with way you know way back when I just are now you know leaves and heads at all, under the different colors are other e-commerce companies out there. Jason: [8:47] Yeah so let's talk about Cornerstone Cornerstone might not be a familiar name to some listeners because it's a, it's a house of Brands and then it has a familiar parents so can you tell us a little bit about about a Cornerstone and who you are. Scot & Bryon: [9:04] Sure Cornerstone wasn't even familiar to me when I joined the head corner, Cornerstone brands it's a billion-dollar plus retailer it's comprised of a portfolio of different aspirational home and apparel brands that include Frankie Ballard Designs, Garnet Hill Grandin Road and improvements in overtime with awesome different companies with divested different companies we have a strong catalog heritage, that's our background but now we're at a point where over 70% of our overall demands is transacted via digital channels with an opening up some new retail store. So you know where as a whole it's again most people won't know Cornerstone but the brands very well-thought-of Rhymes doing very well. Well parent company is hsni which of course the other Division if they own besides Cornerstone is HSN which is more 2 Legacy broadcast. You know broadcast Commerce company that has course has also evolved into a strong digital Anthony. Jason: [10:16] Very cool and one of the things that I was interested me about Cornerstone is the. [10:23] Sort of portfolio is is interesting Lee diverse not so much in terms of. The offering a consumers although that's the first two but act like I think some of the Brand's don't have stores do I have it right into their pure digital some of the brands, have stores, some of the brand sell products that aren't super convenient to ship until I I sort of think about the whole portfolio and I go man there's a lot of unique. Different business cases for each of the brands is do I have that right or is it all pretty much the same thing. Scot & Bryon: [10:59] No you're totally right on The Mark with it and it's to the point where it's at extended differentiation extends to the products or the the product photography. How to get out of quality or of the paper that the catalogs are printed on. People are usually amazing like oh yeah you know I never even knew that Ballard Designs in front they were quote related, what part of the same as the wall you know part of the model is and we really we do have a hybrid model here so I we share a digital platform, fat and other back and operation such as call center and supply chain areas where we would really get operational leverage but then. The majority of all the customer-facing aspects such as creative product pricing merchandising. That's all at the Brand level and the strategies for those are really formed at the Brand level so we may have some may say stores are the best, way for us to connect with our customers others may go with a different private label credit card and all of that ensures that you know, really strong Believers and keeping a unique DNA of each brand so while we are for a portfolio, we want to gain leverage everywhere we really focus on not wanting to lose what makes each brand special and their connection to the customer cuz what we normally hear when people come in and saying hey you know what we could save x amount. I may be consolidating, you know all the photos shot so you know all the models of the photo shots into one area and it's really ghetto people resisted overtime and you know it's actually been the right call is what we're learning. [12:36] So I can practice walk us to how your piece works so let's see you have a front gate Ballard at cetera, you guys can operate as an agency that supports what they're doing or do you do help them with strategy and they have their own groups so so let's just use something kind of practical that that everyone doesn't e-commerce like like, I see my Google AdWords do you have a group that kind of like centralized does that say for the various brands or do they do it themselves and you guys, I had an evil strategy for the. [13:08] It's really the latter each brand does have right now just for this specific example and it changes of course what you're talking about but for something like sem each brand has their own marketing department. Then their own people on the ground in a managing their ass Leon campaign. Where are the cross brand leverage and where my team myself and my team's role will come into play is one in Short helping to ensure, at all the brands are using the best technology. More info or let's say I see I'm dead management as well as you know making sure we're leveraging our relationships with our third-party Partners so okay this interests you know again where Billion Dollar Plus, company, I'm as a whole but if it was each individual they're going out there as a snow still larger but smaller entities so a lot of that is managed from a central location. As well as helmets Europe what you mentioned helping a form what maybe some of our strategy should be in the space, like okay you know it's part of letting you know the shifter increase mobile spend helping to highlight the importance of that and digging into the data so a lot of that is a partnership, other aspects of you know my team's role here that are shared services where R you know request. LeBron saying hey this is a project we need to do for our business. On the other hand it could come from a side you know my team and I resent the corporate level to say hey this may be a good strategy for the entity as a whole. [14:45] Around where things are really pushed off down at the partnership model where the give and take on both sides. My specific role is again heading up the digital Commerce at the corporate level so it impacts you know what the overall digital strategy should be, as well as a day-to-day operations and management, digital platform and technology that is shared among the brands as well as you know what the team here driving learnings and leverage across the portfolio but if it's touching that and you deserve like I said before. Back in from the brand side so you know an overtime this model has evolved and you know we've looked at all the different, ways you can actually do this that there you know some organizations that say you know everything should be centralized some saves everything should be at the brands. We again it's a hybrid model is how we trying to tend to operate some things we didn't my team will get more involved in other times it's where the brands about it. Jason: [15:48] Interesting you had mentioned that a lot of the the brand on the cornerstone portfolio had started as catalog doors and I wanted to touch on that for a minute cuz I think that's super interesting. Personalized was handled Walmart earnings report this week and Mark Lori mentioned something that I hadn't thought about before but he's like. Hey we've all been shipping products to Consumers homes for a hundred plus years that's not really the the new thing in that the e-commerce bring for the party. What e-commerce really changing the party is the the front end merchandising a product that essentially you know the whole delivery thing, it's something I've been doing for a long time and that you know cataloguers in particular have been doing and the new thing we've all had to learn how to do is use digital to merchandise products in so it like. Is that true at Cornerstone that you inherited. Good Supply chains and and facilities for shipping and that sort of thing because of your catalog Heritage or weather like a lot of. [16:54] Sort of traditional methods that had to be had to be dramatically changed to accommodate your e-commerce growth. Scot & Bryon: [17:02] Wiz. Cataloguers one of the inmates things I think would see know when I took on the role that I quickly saw was an advantage was that the wreck Market in skill set. Cuz it's a very different business in terms of prospecting customers and reaching out the customers and it maybe from Hyder having bread, and mortar stores or whether you're just starting a secure play without that direct marketing background so, you know a lot of our operations with always been selling direct the customers and ship into them there from the supply chain from a customer call center, that's always been in place I mean right now we have a small retail store for friends and that you know I'm like a lot of other companies, that was kind of a you know later stage move that we move that we went forward with so you know and have some of this goes back to. You know what you at you know your man crush Andy Dunn marriage a sin in terms of you know you're quoted him a number of times that a lot of these think eCommerce pure plays and I'm a big fan of eventually hit a wall. Because of stacking up with you in the fact of customer acquisition at the right price. Just so you know you you actually start to say okay we have to get other channels to go after customers but it starts are going to retail in the everyone now it's time to go in the catalogs and the thing is kind of hard work really well, you know you need that direct marketing skill set but the good part is once you actually have it. [18:34] Working friends and now I'm really excited because I feel that a lot of digital channels are starting to catch up I mean you look at what Facebook is now offering what Google's offering me know and I've got in a little trouble, in the news recently just buy, how well you're able to Target in or if you're from Russia that you can actually buy specific keywords now on it and do respect of look-alike mod, look like modeling but now with you know you could have specially take what we've been doing for catalogs for a while and go out there and do it digitally. And the other part with catalogs is that fascinates me is you think okay on the filming of, you know you guys also we go at that we check our mailbox every day but there really isn't too much in it now and catalogs get a lot of the attention so. You know digital you. People have also asked well as digital going to kill catalogs and all that but the goal is actually to do a martyr sentence. Like okay Mel books a lot smarter and integrated with digital and that's what was doing so that's why all the back you know when you say a lot of the back office activities, you know we of course need to Reno and want to improve on it in terms of speed of delivery in terms of customer interactions but that's been there since day one. Jason: [19:58] For sure so first of all tell me that wouldn't be a great selling book is the kgb's guide to Facebook marketing. [20:07] She like we should write that right now the. [20:12] Like so is it true like that you you have catalogs it like that are continuing to be good performers and that you've you've sort of evolved them to to fit better in the digital world that they're still a significant acquisition channel for you. Scot & Bryon: [20:25] Yes they are you know that Nicole is always you whenever you you know if your mailing a lot of catalogs it's a. Numbers game where are you know a high percentage of them are not going to generate sales the ones that hit well generate you know you know I do a lot of sales so it's over time figuring out more and more. How to reduce the number of mountains that you do or else reduce unproductive maling. The Golan is to take some of those Savings reinvested in digital and with digital actually you know have different contact points for the customer. That is you know right now baby they real catalogs work well they do or the challenge of course is that they tend to be expensive. They tend to be some things that are out of your control you know what would a long-term you have cost of paper you have postage and all that, it's you know why won't you know what the start while I was saying you over 70% of our transactions happen digitally you know Catalina. Catalog for major marketing channel for us. Jason: [21:29] It and it's interesting because you see it going both ways there there you know famous traditional cataloguers that has kind of gotten out of the catalog so you know I'm I obviously think it like a Sears or. Victoria's Secret and I think even come in your face Crate & Barrel me over Tire their catalog at one point but then at the same time you see a lot of. Companies including digital native Brands adopting. Catalogs as a marketing channel and so it you almost have wonder if some of those Legacy cataloguers missed the boat by turning them off when you know maybe there was just a way to to evolve them. [22:08] I'd be. Scot & Bryon: [22:09] And we started when you started keeping track of it where you know where the 90-day. Exactly you had some major companies such as Victoria's Secret they were out of catalog. Other companies saying we reinvent you know we're investing in and doing more so there really you don't normally you say okay there's a herd mentality one way this is where it's you know the really isn't, people argue no finding their own past but Summer Valley more summer mailing a lot less. Jason: [22:35] And Scott do I have it right isn't Amazon even doing some catalogs and some categories. Scot & Bryon: [22:42] Yeah yeah I've seen them experiment usually do a holiday catalog now which is kind of highlighting some offerings that are good gifts. Jason: [22:49] Yep in Bryan I be curious the so when you talk about. [22:55] Digitally infusing the catalogs I think of sort of two things. Obviously in a digital let us know our audience a lot better and Target are audio so I better so I can imagine using digital to you no have a higher hit rate and get more of those printed catalogs in the hands of the right people and fewer. In the hands of the wrong people but I also would be curious about sort of Prince. Two digital interactions like either their features you built into the print catalogs now to make it. Easier for someone to to make the jump from the printed page to the the product detail page or or is that not important. Scot & Bryon: [23:36] But it's definitely important I mean we've you know over the past couple years we've tried out a lot of things you know we've done some basic you know, when I call you now. Barcodes what not you know when you have the codes in there that okay those were going to be the next stop where you can actually just Decor scan it and have the reader and instantly go to the website. We've also had different experiments in this some of these were great learning where you could pick your phone hold it over the catalog and actually the product reviews with Sprint. You can see the product reviews or if we had a couch in Ocala lots of limited space so let's save your show the couch and two colors you can hold your phone up to that page and it instantly scan and the other couches you could get, so it's done that you know and we'll try some other experiments. [24:29] I really think we've reached a point where you don't need the coach people saying okay you have this physical catalog then here's what you need to do to get online or here's what you need to do if your phone people are at a point where they're doing it anyway. So in terms of actively trying to dry them online with kind of said hey you know what we're not trying to drive consumer behavior when I ride in that way. [24:54] Michael O'Brien listener the show in any kind of heard us, talk a lot about the Amazon impact out there and, what is the best way to defend yourself from that is to make your own products you haven't heard it yet but the episode before this one was a deep dive on private label which is a strategy that that everyone's really employing a lot of people feel like even Amazon Whole Foods acquisition was driven by a desire to have a deeper private label offering and grocery so you guys are in an interesting position if I understand it correctly I think, bus your brands of Lee the manufacturer and the brand the seller of the brand it is is that correct. [25:35] That's correct but the majority of what we sell all proprietary Goods. No we do still at the big differentiate or I personally believe this in that you know it. It gives us now more permission to generate brand Authority and connect with our customers so it also allows us to do a lot more with either you know product customization because it's all under our control, so it's something you know that we've been firm Believers in and I personally believe it that you know the worst thing you could do is become commoditized. So I'm doing our proprietary product and then I'm looking forward to listening to your next you know that the cell before this when it comes out but is, one of the ways that okay if you're looking to compete against Amazon or any of you know any of the other you know larger big boys out there think it's key, so these brands have been around since the catalog era has if you guys done explicit things with digital to kind of, accelerate that Loop because some of the newer generations of Brands like a Casper of bonobos Indochina you're one of the nice things about being born digital is you get that real kind of customer feedback very quickly because there's more of a, put it out quick and get feedback Rose I can imagine the catalog world you know what let's say 15 years ago it would be more of a you know, some of the product to do testing put it in the catalog and then probably takes 12 to 18 months to get any feedback is that something that you guys have felt in your brands that that your. [27:10] You're able to close at Loop faster and innovate faster I mean that it's a great that you know part of the challenge always are catalogs is the lead time. Involved, actually got things in there so one of the things of course is scaling back okay the knock knock the number about the types of promotions you put in catalogs cuz you talk about being responsive to, the market needs and business needs a little tough you're putting an offer in a book that you know may go out okay 3 months from now that's going to be off. Doesn't mean it's not done so that's one thing where you can you know we're gaining more flexibility on mine as well as in the product reviews and then you know that. From Prague reviews from product feedback from customers even though I may be in the book we're taking that and wearing you know where it integrating work or messaging on the side about the Prada. So you know we still have again at Heritage we're okay it's still going out there ahead of time but we already know part of it is gaining learning from what some of the digital natives are doing and you know it's family. [28:15] Yeah, see it flipping where, and I bet now you could probably you know let's see you have a catalog coming out next spring you're probably planning that one you do a bunch of digital quick things to test that out now and then you know maybe take the winners and put them in the catalog that is that is that kind of inverted with with the evolution of e-commerce. It's definitely something that we're exploring and yes it is I mean that's where it's great we're okay you could still. You could still have the print medium that has that lead time but you're able to accept feedback before it goes in there and it's involved in some of the older models, that had a catalogs get put together and you know what needs to be in them it's really I mean. That and I really trick it's the shift you know for merchandising as handsome as a whole. I know that's come up you know I'm different episode and you know the kind of merchant you know the merchandising Prince roll that that's a ball, now become much more data-driven and you know you use much more real-time feedback and all that are aspects that we. Jason: [29:22] Interesting and you had mentioned that some of the products that you guys make our our customizer personalized for the individual consumer do I have that right. Scot & Bryon: [29:32] Yeah yeah we've been we've been doing it for a number of years and we you know of the past couple years has really been expanding it you know, because the point earlier about okay if you're going to differentiate one how to differentiate it from Amazon but I know also how to fit the needs of the consumers, in the consumers really enjoy you know have a lot of trust in Our Brands and in and enjoy them but they also like, feeling that heavy I have the ability to make it my own Stafford's ample at Ballard Designs which has, very strong ties to the I'm designer Community with built-in house configurator and this configurator and you know you reviews, be able to build it where you can have a chair and maybe put the seat collar now you feel that you know you could configure on some, found my chairs at the 12 different configurations now heads this color. Alexis color of the you know the chair front and back the welts the seat skirt the chick I'm kick plate you can have all of that customized to it so one of the things we learned as hell you know. [30:41] People are fat enough fascinated by using a stool or actually able to also expand the use of it in our store so that every Ballard store in their Design Services Center the configurator gets a lot of play You & Me now this is cat time, really taking it to the nth degree cuz of course knowing one thing by the way you learned at least I learned from this as I can make some really ugly chairs so not everything, you know how to volunteer to have me come in and do it and waited the three of us have a competition one of these days and it tool who can make the worst looking one but you know we also take a step back and we do a lot even just the basics of product monogramming. Across all of our all of our Brands we ask you know we do it all in-house there are really strong. Personalization Center within our DC and we also been expanded to it they stores that within some of the Ballard stores. Now you could also in-store monogramming. You could buy a tote there and then go and instantly get it monogrammed with what you want and we were able to turn around like with the recent Star of course hurricane, you know the first I hate you stand we went in and within 24 hours I mean two teams here that a fantastic job, wrabel to create customized totes saying okay this is you know it towed for Texas program purchase the toad x amount goes to, helping a local areas that were in pack, and you know what that was from a combination of having that monogram and personalization capabilities as well as a team that's always thinking okay how can we pick up products to the next level. Jason: [32:17] That's very cool that we talked several times on the show about that that person was a ship being one of the good ways to to combat Amazon in particular you know it's probably not a perfect note forever but but certainly like. You know that. Customizing the product before you ship it to a customer negates a lot of the advantages that Amazon has with the the huge number of fulfillment centers that don't have personalization capabilities. Scot & Bryon: [32:45] Yep and it's also I mean customers you know you still want to get it there as quickly as possible. Johnny Maddox fan of a custom shower at least this week maybe I'll change in another 2 weeks they're not expecting it to be delivered in 2 hours. Jason: [33:00] Yep. Scot & Bryon: [33:01] Because they recognize what goes into it and they're all so you know there's different price flexibility you have with that. So you know I know and I'm sure it's going to shift over time I was joking before that there will be no hiding expectations. Dodge customization is Major strategy for us. Jason: [33:19] Cut in migraines customer expectations rarely ever get lower they do it's not for a good reason. The the other great thing about precise product though is you probably don't accept returns on that right there turn right it's probably zero. Scot & Bryon: [33:35] Exactly I mean they're always circumstances but no matter what your name is for mothers out there almost customized products the return rate drops tremendously on it whether you allow it or not. Jason: [33:48] Sure I totally get that and I mean. But I do feel like people sometimes underestimate what a big part of the economic equation returns are in most e-commerce businesses so even when you just. Dramatically curtail returns that that is a huge economic impact on you know if and when a company can get your profitable in e-commerce oh I certainly like that. That Trend overall I wanted this sort of flip. The personalization question for a second though with most people we talked about personalization we're not so much talking about, personalizing the actual product we're talking about personalizing the user experience of shopping for the products and we talked a little bit about that in the discussion, but where where do you guys sit in the whole spectrum of personalization are you doing some interesting things is it soda on your road map. [34:45] You think it's worth it. Scot & Bryon: [34:46] Yeah actually doing doing personalization for a while and you know we, we've been doing it in and what always fascinates me about is that if a company is doing it really correctly a lot of times, individual doesn't you know why they don't realize it it just hard to tell personalization unless you know what I do in my spare time if you have enough five different browsers open keep on hitting different categories On fight to doing different things and see if the sites about, what your behaviors are but we you know it, different brands of the brands we have you know on the website you go to the home so you can go to the homepage and after a couple visits it actually, call Paige Cadet personalized that we break it up into dista sites broken up into different if you know whether you called Widgets or different components, where Venice is you know some of this is basic wear if you're coming from you know a Colder Weather climate, we're going to show you different products but then that also could extend into what content you see at the ideally if you doing this right where we're also shooting, if you want to extend that until k then the kind of messages and personalization of people get on the back end if they're calling in to the call center. Or if they are also you know what day I'm outbound marketing materials that they got. So we've been doing a lot of that you know the way I usually say it is we've gone a lot better. [36:18] Personalizing the individual The Experience excuse me at that point in time for that individual in one channel, where we see the evolution of that is okay then recognizing them on their mobile phone and doing the same as I said when I called to the call center they should have that same experience. Part of it is you know that challenge with personalization enough spoken to a lot of others about it is actually. One prioritizing what you want to do but then also had a scallop. You know it does require more creative resources they have to make an investment in it and it and you know it. [36:58] It's rare you do personalization in something that you know your metrics just jump off in your the man jumps up it's a lot of singles and doubles. So you need to do a lot of them and they're you know and just hit a lot of the users to send you know in jail personalized ways and air companies out there, you know do a great job Zulily does a strong job with it where are you know, babe I forgot the exact number about how many you know personalized home pages of personalized emails get created every day and I do feel that again it is also the interact with the end-user customers going to start it's going to become table Stakes. Companies are going to expect that personalization it's just that I think it kind of got over height. You know really hasn't lived up to its potential yet but you know well of course we haven't spoken about it you know AI machine learning I think that's going to lead to really be the next. One of the next Generations of what e-commerce is and I'll be around personalization. Jason: [37:57] Yeah it certainly I mean a basic premise is that that machine learning is the way you can you can you can scale personalization particularly when you even get into a I doing content creation. Scot & Bryon: [38:12] It's at if that's true point. Jason: [38:14] It it's interesting like the. [38:17] Because personalization is such a big word like they're such a broad spectrum right like you could say hey we did a personalization on our site. And in that could mean you set up a data Lake and collected way more information about all your customers than you ever had before and produced you know thousands of a torn to pieces of content in are giving everyone a bespoke experience or I can also say. You know you added the words welcome Brian to the homepage right like. [38:43] And so it's it's it's hard when people talk about having done a project at you and what was the ROI like there's not. [38:49] It's not a binary thing like I didn't have ratings and reviews and now I do or you know I didn't have 360-degree Prada quotations and now I do, and you can you know it turn it on and measure the effectiveness. Personalization is it in my mind is a spectrum minute it's therefore much harder to measure the the ROI of personalization overall although. You can sometimes do it for individual tactics. Scot & Bryon: [39:16] Right exactly knows individual tactics and normally do singles and doubles and you know I've written a number of round tables with all the retailers on personalization, you know it always fascinated me because you'll read whether it's our star Gardner you know any of the you know anyone that's doing their annual summations you know. Top areas that people wanted want to develop in the future next year we're going to spend money and personalization is usually up there but then when you get them, with the retailers you know on the ground sit around the table and you ask a question okay on a scale of 1 to 10 where is your company, you know on that where you view where on the road map of personalization I've never had anyone say higher than A3. Jason: [40:03] Yeah. Scot & Bryon: [40:04] And I'm sure you see that all the time when you're with clients that one it's a definition but there's just a lot of dish in there but it hasn't really taken flight yet. Jason: [40:16] Yeah and I guess I would also even say that there are people that have like achieved a meaningful amount of personalization and it increasingly. Personalization just for personalization sake doesn't automatically win right and so the fact that you communicated uniquely with me. In and of itself isn't compelling it's if the communication with me made the communication more relevant to me. Then it's compelling right and sometimes the most relevant communication is exactly the same for a million consumers and when it is. [40:53] That that's perfectly fine but the the fact that like. [40:59] You said that a million different emails if it does it's something that's different in those emails doesn't make them. Resonate better with the audience is kind of a wasted effort and with you know sometimes we see people doing personalization as sort of a checkbox exercise where there you know. They're hell-bent on doing some personalization so they do something and you know they they can claim that it's more personalized but they haven't necessarily you know solve the problem for their customer. Scot & Bryon: [41:27] I know tire and part of it is then tearing at personalization in an ongoing way and that's why you know the person could sue the email goes to the landing page and it could be personalized to them but then when they're throughout the rest of this site may not be. And that's where the whole experience you know it's not Barren you know maybe I'm older optimistic on it I think it we are going to get there. [41:50] Again that's going to be in next week for. Jason: [41:52] Yep I'll tell you one that drives me nuts and I'll pick on a company that's probably generally well-known for personalization that are, our friends at Adobe right so so that you know they do personalized retargeting advertising like like a lot of B2B companies and and you know so there I'm sure there's a marketing person there that would say hey we have a really effective personalized advertising campaign. [42:13] And. So I get personalized ads on YouTube from Adobe and on the one hand that's pretty impressive but on the other hand most of those add show up when my two-year-old son is watching a.m. Like some kind of cartoon video on YouTube and. You go hey you know what they yes they personalized that that has something unique for me in it but they completely missed the contacts like why are they buying an ad trying to sell me Adobe marketing cloud in the middle of content design for 2 year olds. Scot & Bryon: [42:46] And that's by that's good trivia it's tough. Jason: [42:50] Yeah yeah I'm bi I'm not making fun of it because that was it you know any easy easy solved but I just I feel like that the state we're in right now is it still early days and getting all this stuff right. I do want to go back I'm neglected one question we are talking about the personalization of products and you mention the the the configurator that use a ballad for the chairs, did you have to build something unique that you guys use or were you able to buy some sort of off-the-shelf. Configuration package and then adapt it to your your products. Scot & Bryon: [43:23] We we we looked at a number or item number of either off-the-shelf products are working with a third-party to build it and I've done some of this again earlier Mike we can figure Raiders and one of learning, back then was the toughest part about building a configurator is an ongoing support. As products change read so you know your systems change how you actually keep keep it running so based on that when we looked you know for the Ballard Designs one we decided to actually build it ourselves. Cuz you wanted specific ties and sir are back in systems who wanted a specific URI for it and for ongoing maintenance. That was to know something for you third parties for but that was a team here to felt. [44:11] Cool one of the I saw one of your exact speak at a conference and they're talking about, kind of you know omni-channel in and store experiences and the digital native, Brands as you mentioned her are kind of catching on to this and the latest kind of catchphrases o + O which is online and offline and I feel like you guys have had stores for a while but if I call you're doing a lot more of these pop-up experiences, tallest Tuscan of the little bit of history of of the stores monster Brands and then some of the things that you're experimenting with around other, online offline interactions. Some reason retail footprint a small one though for a number of years that actually no predated my company but the majority of them. In all honesty we're not good and the customer experiences that some of them were, outlet stores which are fine but they were they look like outlet stores with you no products dumped all over the place and again they didn't really capture the essence of the brands and it wasn't any one person's doing it's just wives. You know a part of the business that most people did not pay attention to so a couple years ago though, when from doing surveys and talking to a customer's we start to experiment and Ballard Designs is one of the first this it wasn't a pop up but with a new design you know a new store concept. Focused on Design Services and you know one of the stories that. [45:43] You know which is accurate that the present in the Ballard Designs frequently tells is that when we would go and you know we met with a lot of that people that design stores and they're well all I called Design Services that should be in the back corner of the store. You know what I go through out of the line of sight and you know the people at Ballard this is and this is why again that. You know the individual bran were the people that helped design the store cuz they are closest to the customer and they understood that it wasn't necessarily a corporate initiative to know that Design Services of watching porn. African what makes us different so they put that in the middle of the store and you know since then, and what we also want to look at his okay when we open the store what happens to the business overall and we're seeing in the surrounding you know msas are digital business also takes a little less. Pics of Bomb Pop, so you know Ballard that's open some stores in Roosevelt Field mall New York King of Prussia Mall Tysons Corner and we brought on you know some additional I people inside to actually run the retail business operations and, Hickenbottom doing a great job now. pain in front gate also by the way which it worth now testing it was Frankie just open the store and in Plano Texas brand new design concept cuz, Macatawa green our point of view of a beer at the Rack business and cataloger to grow you know Furniture businesses at the, now that I've grown Frankie Ballard improvements grandinroad without allowing people or giving people the opportunity to feel and touch it. [47:18] And we Sunday our experiments and all that where it really isn't the same it's good of being there in the store that this seemed like the next and it was the next logical step. Garnet Hill what you were referring to his they did a great mobile Boutique. Today is kind of retrofitted a container and drove it around in South Street Seaport New York as well as about the Exeter New Hampshire and opened up the container and it was a mini on a store, it would help educate people to what the brand wise you know we, so when the container that we had over $5,000 to it we have local celebrity chefs we have book signings so we can Max an experiment doesn't mean we necessarily going to do it again but we also tried different you know Frontgate had different pop-up stores, it's a lot of issues learning. And we learn that customers definitely in a one it's amazing when you're at the store openings that people that have you know only bought from but they are mine. We actually are in the store it is just a log fast that open and you know you invite some of the top customers in your people discovering the store and just speaking to them about what the brand means to Diamond Phoenix physical location. Jason: [48:31] They call it the show when you said you were traveling a lot is that because you're driving that that container around. Scot & Bryon: [48:37] Exactly. That's fine that's my side stand. Jason: [48:43] Other duties as a. Scot & Bryon: [48:44] My responsibilities exactly so. Jason: [48:50] Impressive impressive. Scot & Bryon: [48:51] Kids dead call at your side hustle that's your side Hustle and I know who to clean a call of course. If I need it cleaned so that we're all set. Jason: [49:01] That's a great time to mention not only if you need it cleaned but if you need it so oil changed mobile one. Scot & Bryon: [49:08] Yeah yeah yeah we we announced a partnership with Exxon today so pretty excited about that. Jason: [49:16] Scot doesn't feel like I follow him but I totally do. Scot & Bryon: [49:20] Thin line between stock and follow their Jason. Jason: [49:24] Yeah yeah but luckily he has a several State buffer to keep him keep him safe. [49:29] Bryon like I know in your role you get pitched a lot from a bunch of different vendors and you got all these different brands that want to, try different things and different business users in each of those things and then like you know Scott and I are at a lot of the industry events hearing about the new things. Help us help us create a little bit like are there any sort of new Trans or up-and-coming practices or technologies that. That you're particularly interested in or excited about. Scot & Bryon: [50:01] I've been seeing a lot more where. [50:07] Companies that can and you know their name and some the specific ones that have traditionally come to the table and said, hey you know we could help you with email on drip campaigns are trigger campaigns or that even we could help you or personalization that becoming a lot more data-driven. Which excites me and now you know using data and you know new, that would say in different ways but really trying to maximize in and they're also Focus now on how they're going to tie into your photo ecosystem which goes fast and that's been the biggest challenge you know that if we had one company that did personalization, an email and one company that made them personalization on the site and they're not talking to each other. It's a fragmented experience but there's a lot more of that overall I mean for the overall where I seen the future and where companies are doing a lot more if that's why I said it before. You know I'm one hand I hate it because you know you said we go to all these different industry advance and now you know you it's rare I guess, Eddie pitched it doesn't mention some kind of machine learning where but I do think it's going to go over that high curves sometime soon but how we intelligently going to recognize, and I promoted and personalized experiences whether it's emotions Smyrna tractions inventory pricing, a lot of companies that are doing that now and it's still in its beginning stages but in that way I space. [51:38] Very interested in and you know just looking around that okay you know. For Cornerstone in for Our Brands what is the right way to do that immediately I don't think we're at a point yet where I would recommend going to go all in on that. That you know would want to definitely test it first then that's what I also love it at the portfolio model here is that you know what we are normal, standard operating procedure is doing a new initiative or finding a new company like you were mentioning earlier its try it on one brand prove it out, and then actually roll it out to others. So I mean that other aspects are augmented reality we really haven't spoken a lot about but you know I mentioned it earlier that's not the same as being in the physical store but you know we launched and try with ad, I've got about a year ago now and the technology finally has reached a point where are you know beyond just Apple adopted it, states where you don't need markers anymore I mean you got to make this as easy as possible and just holding up the phone and it working is great so. That's the one area I guess. The last one if you know I got a whole other our discussion on and this is what I mean we don't have that sell for I'm not even going to pretend to myself that I do it's just. [53:00] I look at it like okay. Five years are even ten years out it's so much and you've spoken about the somewhat about what you mean you know that there's going to be disintermediation in that things are going to be come between our brand message and the customer. We're going to lose some control of that contact and we're going to lose it to you know voice space services such as you know how to sign in Alexa Google Facebook. Yeah you at all so I no mention on an earlier podcast about you know what Scott Galloway talking about the four. They're going to control it it's going to have a fundamental impact on Brad's and. [53:39] Companies that are I think they're going to start to ignore you know partners and vendors as they start to learn to how to solve an address those that was going to be really interested in. Jason: [53:49] Yeah that that certainly is a a big disruption I'd be slightly curious so so we've done a rvr deep dive and I. At a high level. Like I think we feel like we are super interesting in the entertainment industry in the gaming industry but it's certainly overhyped for e-commerce. That you know a r has some really interesting in Store applications and in-home application but almost. Every vendor in the air VR space for Commerce, the demo use case that their nana laying is your products right like it's it's the sort of Home Products and Decor products in in you know products that are customized and require some visualization. Like does it feel like even in your space it's sounding like you're saying it's maybe even still a little earlier and we're just starting to get to the point where it might truly be viable. [54:44] Is that. Scot & Bryon: [54:45] Oh I think that I think the technology and I mean. [54:48] Technology is Rihanna's is there in 2 years ago where I was at you no talking at companies that would provide a our services and I like always easy to use the customer just go to the website and imprint. Page. [55:05] Pay back page for the wall and the phone of that page and then I'll be able to see it and I'm like you talked about friction. Jason: [55:14] We've eliminated the Scotch tape from the process now. Scot & Bryon: [55:17] So exactly from now and that's what it was yet to see steps and size you know and when, we went out with you know partner with a company and launched it and it was just really signed out it was really fascinating to me because we would test it out with users and we're going to our stores and show it to them and what really frustrated people as they kept on, wanted to take their fingers you know when do the pinch move on the product cuz they're like hey I'm trying to get it to fit in the space and it won't fit so I want to grow it and shrink it, the doll notion you can sure you know it's size on purpose to see if they can fit in so you know you were trying manipulated which just didn't work but. [55:59] You know it gets a we found them you know what others are fine and I think you got a lot of you know customer interaction with it but you know and I do we did actually see them more customers to know what he'll conversion rate. You know there's a lot more testing to be done because okay I didn't know those customers were going to convert anyway cuz they were highly engaged so I think that. It's definitely there and you see all the way you know every really every home goods company now is coming out with it that. You know what even I mean house did it you know what I think it's great cuz that is multi again multi products in it I I think that and you know what I agree that VR is going to be you know it. Love Stocker Thrift we have here and everything it's all great but free Commerce application still a heart to you. The ones that I've actually experimented it that would be are a little wild on the road but they are is going to be here I think sooner than people think. Jason: [56:56] Yeah and one thing that has changed since the Deep dive is both Apple and Google have released these very robust. [57:06] Trap eyes in their operating system in so it's a good news bad news thing it actually makes it a lot easier to develop. AR applications in there much cooler cuz the programmer doesn't have to do all the. The heavy lifting they just have to Define their products and stuff like that so I feel like that's what it's going to be a huge enabler for AR the downside is from the time that Apple and Google like released. Stuff in their newest technology it still takes a long time before it's in every consumers hands right so you know. Apple gets most people to upgrade the operating system but it only works on the the phones that are one year older or newer and Google like nobody ever upgrade the operating system and said they're not getting. The Google AR kit until they replace their phone so it if you like we still might be an upgrade cycle or two away from from those. Does kids being Broadway to play but when they are it's going to be much easier and cheaper for developers to add those those kinds of features and I feel like that could really be a. Enabler a lot of this technology for for at least 4 retail applications. Scot & Bryon: [58:14] Yeah I feel the same way me before it was honestly was a novelty. Oh cool you could do it but it was more people could use it it's going to start to grow with your point when the and I just. Okay with the adoption rate of the newer you know phones that it's going to be there but it's just easier to use the friction is much more minimum wage now. Jason: [58:36] Yep and I think we know from almost all experiences that when she get that freaking out it makes a big difference in an adoption so, so hopefully we'll see some interesting stuff there in the future but Brian that is going to be a great place to leave it because it's happening again we've wasted a perfectly good hour of our listeners time, so I really want to thank you for joining us you know it's it's been a long time coming but. Totally worthwhile and we wish you all the best with Cornerstone and look forward to following your success I want to remind listeners that they're always welcome to continue the dialogue on our Facebook page and O'Brien hangs out there all the time so if you have any questions we can cajole him into participating as well, and of course if you love the show we desperately need that 5 star review on iTunes if you hated the show don't don't feel the need to write an interview at all. Scot & Bryon: [59:29] Crack guys thanks so much again I really really really enjoyed it. [59:34] Thanks Brian we really appreciate your patience on scheduling this so what kind of used grit and gutter done and really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to share your digital experience with our listeners. Jason: [59:48] Until next time happy commercing.
Press junket! Curator Michael Darling gives an overview of Takashi Murakami's exhibition "The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg," followed by a conversation with the artist. Marc Ecko explains that access to merch is the highest form of art and Erik asks a question from the audience.
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 week I sit down with the creator of Agenda Trade Show as well as co-creator of ComplexCon Aaron Levant. Aaron was kicked out of high school and sent to boarding schools where he ran away in a taxi and convinced his mom to allow him back home. For the last 14 years, Aaron has shaped the way businesses have competed and showcased their product. Aaron's success has allowed him to partner with mogul Marc Ecko to create a new form of branding and entertainment called ComplexCon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week I sit down with the creator of Agenda Trade Show as well as co-creator of ComplexCon Aaron Levant. Aaron was kicked out of high school and sent to boarding schools where he ran away in a taxi and convinced his mom to allow him back home. For the last 14 years, Aaron has shaped the way businesses have competed and showcased their product. Aaron's success has allowed him to partner with mogul Marc Ecko to create a new form of branding and entertainment called ComplexCon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we are joined by Jayson Gaignard - quite possibly one of the world's best networkers. In 2012, Gaignard began curating dinners in Toronto, Canada with small groups of entrepreneurs that focused on relationship building. The invite-only dinners became MastermindTalks—larger conferences for entrepreneurs geared toward health, wealth, self-improvement, and networking. Despite humble beginnings, Jason has grown mastermind talks into a world-renowned institution in the entrepreneurial space, hosting such greats as Tim Ferriss, James Altucher, A. J. Jacobs, Esther Perel, Dave Asprey, Guy Kawasaki, and Marc Ecko. In fact, Forbes described Gaignard as one of the top networkers to watch in 2015. He's also published a book and produces a podcast on the topic of network building. In this episode, I wanted to learn more about how Jayson has built such strong ties with some of the world's most influential entrepreneurs, and see if we can learn anything from his success. My father always told me that it's not just about what you know, but also whom you know - and if that's true, then both Jayson and his incredible skill set are definitely worth knowing. Throughout the episode, we talk about the power of a network like Jayson's for improving oneself, accomplishing one's goals, and making a lasting impact on the world. Jayson also shares some very practical tips for building your own network and connecting with the people you admire. All in all, I think you'll take a LOT away from Jayson's success story, and his wisdom.
Twitter Smarter Podcast with Madalyn Sklar - The Best Twitter Tips from the Pros
Brian Honigman is the CEO of Honigman Media, a content marketing consultancy that provides strategic counsel regarding content distribution and content production. As a content marketing and social media strategist, Brian is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine, the World Economic Forum and others. Brian has worked with a range of clients from growing startups like Sumall and Amerisleep to established brands like Dell and Marc Ecko. He is a frequent professional speaker at industry conferences and company events about social media, content marketing and related topics having spoken at UNICEF, NYU, HuffPost Live and elsewhere. Today he joins the #TwitterSmarter podcast to talk about Twitter chats. Episode Highlights: Value from Twitter chats comes in two forms: participant and host. Brian shares his thoughts on the best experience for each role. When hosting a Twitter chat, the pre-launch phase is the most critical. Brian offers in-depth insights on topic selection, promotional strategies, and frequency. Brian shares his number one pre-chat hosting tip for ensuring that he is able to fully participate in each chat. Third-party apps can provide convenience, but there are times when native use of social media channels makes more sense. Brian explains when to go native. Tweetables: Avoid being generic by focusing on long-term impact of your chat topic from the beginning. You have to work natively to give the best experience to the people viewing your content. Buffer’s Daily app is like Tinder for content. Links to tools and resources mentioned in this episode: Favorite Chats: Buffer chat — #bufferchat SEMrush chat — #SEMrushchat Best apps for participating in chats: Tweetdeck TweetChat Tchat.io App for scheduling posts as a host: Buffer – scheduling posts Best mobile apps for curating content: Daily – by Buffer Juice – by Juice.li Nuzzel How To Reach Brian:You can reach Brian on Twitter @BrianHonigman, or via his website. Brian’s Twitter chat, #InsiderChat, happens on the last Wednesday of the month at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Click here to stay up-to-day with #InsiderChat. Your Call To Action: Check out Brian’s monthly Twitter chat – #InsiderChat – on the last Wednesday of the month at 1pm ET/10am PT. I’ve participated in it and I can say it’s a great community of people. Be sure to send me a tweet @MadalynSklar and let me know what you think of it. Share The Love: Want an easy “one-click” way to Share The Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to tweet out your love. Thanks for the listen! I appreciate you listening to this podcast, and would be extremely grateful if you would take a moment to rate & review it on iTunes. By doing this, my rankings will increase and more people will be able to benefit from the tips and tools shared in this #TwitterSmarter podcast series. Please also subscribe to this podcast while you’re there. It will ensure you don’t miss an episode! I read every review that comes in, so please know that you have my sincere thanks! Show notes at www.madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter18
Jayson Gaignard is the founder of Mastermind Talks, an annual invite only event for elite entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferriss, Marc Ecko, and many more . Listen to his journey of Mastermind Talks and building ticketscanada to $6million in revenue which then left him a quarter million dollars in debt. For much more click here to read the full post>> http://www.inspiredinsider.com/jayson-gaignard-one-question-inspires/
Jayson Gaignard is the founder of Mastermind Talks which is an annual invite only event for elite entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferriss, Marc Ecko, and many more . He started Mastermind Talks after building up ticketscanada to $6million in revenue. Hear how that business left him a quarter million dollars in debt and much more. For full Video Interview click here>> http://www.inspiredinsider.com/jayson-gaignard-mastermindtalks-interview/
It takes guts and tenacity to grow a successful business and become your personal version of greatness. This week on the School of Greatness podcast we have an entrepreneur who has done this on a remarkable level. He's the creator of one of the most ubiquitous and great looking clothing brands in the world today. He did it all from humble beginnings in New Jersey and now runs a billion dollar business. Welcome to episode 38 with Marc Ecko.
Marc Ecko, founder of Ecko UNLTD, discusses insights on personal branding, finding your voice, and doing work that matters from his new book Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out. The post AC Podcast: Marc Ecko on Unlabel appeared first on Accidental Creative.
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
Joyce welcomes Marc Ecko an entrepreneur, fashion/media mogul, venture capitalist and education reformer. He is the CEO and a founder of ARTISTS & INSTIGATORS, LLC. Marc is also the founder and Chief Creative Officer of Marc Ecko Enterprises, a billion-dollar global fashion and lifestyle company. He will discuss how his company has been selected by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) to run the fashion show at the March 2012 AAPD Leadership Gala in Washington, DC.
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jojoflores (Gotsoul Records) masterfully returns to [MUSIC & WINE Radio] with a mix that reaffirms why he is often referred to as the "Mixtape King." In this week's episode, the Montreal-based DJ/producer flexes his creative muscles with a sublime set dedicated to the work of one of our generation's greatest male R&B artists: Maxwell. Big congrats to Jojo for adding another trophy to his long list of awards, just recently bagging the "Best House DJ Award" at the Marc Ecko 2010 Stylus DJ Awards held in Toronto, Canada. Stay in touch with jojoflores by visiting www.jojoflores.com where you can also download his free iPhone application to stay up to date on the move. And for those in Manila this Saturday, see you at Martinis in the Mandarin Oriental for your weekly soulful house fix! Elian & Ines P.S. Subscribe with iTunes for free to our podcast to receive this and future episodes directly into your iPod, iPhone, or computer in CD quality (click button below) jojoflores at M Cafe in Manila sporting a [MUSIC & WINE Radio] t-shirt
The OFFICIAL music video for the graffiti anthem "Click Clack & Spray" (produced by Deacon the Villain), which can be found not only on the critically acclaimed album "whutduzFMstand4?", but also on the MTV VMA Award winning soundtrack to Marc Ecko's "Getting Up" videogame. With an exclusive introduction by NYC graff legend Chino BYI.
The OFFICIAL music video for the graffiti anthem "Click Clack & Spray" (produced by Deacon the Villain), which can be found not only on the critically acclaimed album "whutduzFMstand4?", but also on the MTV VMA Award winning soundtrack to Marc Ecko's "Getting Up" videogame. With an exclusive introduction by NYC graff legend Chino BYI.
We interview famed developer Howard Scott Warshaw (Yar's Revenge, E.T.), review the "Once Upon Atari" DVD, discuss the fact that Utah passed the "Games-as-Porn Bill", and check out Marc Ecko's Getting Up and Full Auto.
Fashion mogul Marc Ecko continues his video blog on 1UP.com about his newly released game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Check out the latest video blog as he discusses the comparison to Grand Theft Auto, how to spell his name correctly, and the possibility of the next Getting Up.
Fashion mogul Marc Ecko continues his video blog on 1UP.com about his newly released game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Check out the latest video blog as he discusses the comparison to Grand Theft Auto, how to spell his name correctly, and the possibility of the next Getting Up.
Marc Ecko answers more questions from 1UP users, and shows off the goodies that come with the Limited Edition set of his forthcoming video game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.
Marc Ecko answers more questions from 1UP users, and shows off the goodies that come with the Limited Edition set of his forthcoming video game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.
Fashion mogul Marc Ecko talks about his new videogame, Getting Up Contents Under Pressure, and confesses some deep secrets in his first in a series of 1UP video blogs.
Fashion mogul Marc Ecko talks about his new videogame, Getting Up Contents Under Pressure, and confesses some deep secrets in his first in a series of 1UP video blogs.
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