Podcast appearances and mentions of steve raymond

This week, Steve Raymond joins Ian Saunders to discuss key seasonal quarter model updates.

Join Newton One (Steve Target and Mark Singer) and Steve Raymond, Managing Director at DAK, as they discuss the M&A marketplace and planning considerations for business owners interested in selling.  

This week, Ian is joined by Steve Raymond, originator of our Fund Score system, for a discussion on thematic shifts seen in this week's Fund Score Model updates.

The So Fly Crew sit with author and angler Steve Raymond. Steve has been fishing for many years, and writing just as long. And although he isn't able to fish in his older years, he still finds plenty of time to write about fly fishing. The crew listen to some of Steve's best stories from over the years, and get to chat with him about the fishing from his youth.    This episode also features Joe Amaral's Best Fishing Story Ever. 

This week, veteran Steve Raymond joins to discuss the latest trades in the Fund Score Method seasonal models.

Send us a Text Message.Dr Janet Price and Gregg Kaloust are joined for a conversation with Steve Raymond, specialist in elder care and pickleball coach. We talk about oldishness in general, and specifically what Steve calls the Pickleball Paradox: Pickleball as a primary public health intervention, and also a source of potential injury to oldish players. He shares tips for preparation to avoid injury.Steve is an RN with over 25 years in Elder Care, and HIV end of life care. He's also an accomplished martial artist, and one of the kindest people you'll ever meet.Episode art is a photo of (left to right) Steve Raymond, Fran Myer, Dr. Ernie Medina (all mentioned in the podcast)Support the Show.Connect with Janet at https://drjanetprice.comYou can email Gregg at gregg@kannoncom.com Gregg wears Tyrol pickleball shoes, the only company that makes shoes just for pickleball. He has been wearing the same pair of Velocity V model shoes for almost a year, and he plays a lot! Click here to purchase Tyrol Pickleball shoes (note, if you purchase Tyrol pickleball shoes after clicking this link Oldish may receive a commission. Thanks for helping to support our podcast!)Comments, suggestion, requests: oldish@kannoncom.comThanks to Mye Kaloustian for the music.

This week, Steve Raymond joins Ian Saunders to discuss the recent Fund Score Method (FSM) seasonal quarter model trades. The two discuss major themes such as an increased allocations to international equities and a reduction of cash exposure.

Don't miss out on the next WeAreLATech podcast episode, get notified by signing up here http://wearelatech.com/podcastWelcome to WeAreLATech's Los Angeles Tech Community Spotlight!   “Steve Raymond of Prism Labs”     WeAreLATech Podcast is a WeAreTech.fm production.To support our podcast go to http://wearelatech.com/believe To be featured on the podcast go to http://wearelatech.com/feature-your-la-startup/Want to be featured in the WeAreLATech Community? Create your profile here http://wearelatech.com/communityGuest Host,Dave Whelanhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/djwhelan/Guest,Steve Raymonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenpraymond/Personal Spotlight,Brian Swichkow https://www.linkedin.com/in/swichkow/For a calendar of all LA Startup events go to, http://WeAreLATech.comTo further immerse yourself into the LA Tech community go to http://wearelatech.com/vipLinks Mentioned:Prism Labs, https://www.prismlabs.techMusixmatch, https://www.musixmatch.comLimeWire, https://limewire.comDreamworks Animation, https://www.dreamworks.comMeta, https://about.meta.com/immersive-learningPeople Mentioned:Jeffrey Katzenberg, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005076/John Carmack, https://twitter.com/ID_AA_CarmackCredits:Produced and Hosted by Espree Devora, http://espreedevora.comStory Produced, Edited and Mastered by Cory Jennings, https://www.coryjennings.com/Production and Voiceover by Adam Carroll, http://www.ariacreative.ca/Team support by Janice GeronimoMusic by Jay Huffman, https://soundcloud.com/jayhuffmanShort Title: Steve Raymond

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This week, Ian is joined by veteran Steve Raymond to discuss how cash is moving relative to other asset classes in our major technical indicators.

It's Day 3 of America Saves Week and today's theme is: Save for Retirement On this mini-episode Alex & Brit are joined by SAFE's Financial Advisor, Steve Raymond, to talk about long-term savings goals and saving for retirement. Listen and learn, as we discuss the importance of establishing a retirement savings early, strategies for catching up on your retirement goals during the later stages of your career, and understanding the differences between pre-tax and after-tax deductions... Because YOU want to reach your financial wellness goals and making a plan today to Save for Retirement tomorrow just makes Perfect Cents! To check out some of the resources highlighted in this episode visit the links below. To contact the hosts, email us at Podcast@safecu.org  To check out the latest blogs from SAFE Credit Union visit: Beyond Everyday Banking To join SAFE's Financial Educators for an upcoming live workshop visit: SAFE Credit Union Events To learn more about SAFE Credit Union products and services visit: SAFE Credit Union

This week, Steve Raymond joins Will Gibson to discuss the recent Fund Score Method (FSM) model updates.

This interview features Sarah Penna, Senior Manager of Creator Launch at Patreon. We discuss how a trip to India inspired her media career, being one of the youngest YouTube MCN founders,  her $15 million exit to DreamWorks Animation, how she picks co-founders,  marrying a YouTuber-turned Hollywood filmmaker, founding a female-forward entertainment brand, and what's up next for Patreon. 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. Sarah Penna:We had outgrown the office. We were in the National Lampoon office. It was so janky and eventually we moved the talent team to my dining room table. I would cook dinner for the talent team. We would take talent meetings in my living room, which was just so bizarre and unprofessional but worked. My house was kind of a YouTuber hotel. It was very wholesome and very duct tape and bubble gum feeling. We were just kind of figuring it out. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Sarah Penna, senior manager of Creator Launch at Patreon. So, Sarah was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father was a serial entrepreneur and her mother ran the family construction business. Sarah's first foray into media began while studying abroad in India, when she became the translator for a documentary film crew. So after college, she moved to California and immersed herself in LA's up-and-coming digital media scene, which included working with OG YouTuber Phil DeFranco. Sarah rapidly became a digital expert and started her own digital talent management company in 2010, which eventually became Big Frame and was sold to AwesomenessTV and its parent, DreamWorks Animation. Chris Erwin:Today, Sarah runs a team that helps Patreon develop and launch premium talent partnerships, and also advises Frolic Media, a female-forward entertainment brand she co-founded in 2018. Some highlights of our chat include how we first met during an awkward interview moment with a guitar, when having 10,000 subs made you a Top 100 YouTuber, how she picks co-founders, what it's like to marry a YouTuber turned Hollywood filmmaker, and what's up next for Patreon. Now, I've known Sarah for nearly 10 years. She was actually my gateway drug into all things digital entertainment and where it not for her founding Big Frame, I would not be where I am today, and I am forever grateful to her, which makes me super pumped to share her story. All right, let's get to it. Sarah, thank you for being on The Come Up podcast. Sarah Penna:Thanks for having me. Chris Erwin:We got a little bit of history here. So, we'll see how much of that we can get through in 90 minutes before your next thing. Sarah Penna:Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to pack in. Chris Erwin:As always, let's rewind a bit and let's talk about where you grew up. So, my understanding is that you grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Your family had some land in Wyoming. I think your dad was a bit of an entrepreneur, but tell us about your upbringing. Sarah Penna:Yeah. I had a pretty cool childhood. I grew up in Utah. My parents were total hippies, just big personalities, did not grow up in the predominant faith of Utah. So, it was a little bit of an outlier, and my parents own a construction company together. So, a little bit of foreshadowing into how I worked with my husband at one point, but I grew up with an older sister and a younger brother. We had a menagerie of animals all the time, like goats, and my dad kept bees at one point. We always had two or three dogs and a bunch of cats and an iguana and chinchillas. We just had this kind of crazy Bohemian, bizarre, Jewish, hippie not Mormon family. Sarah Penna:So, my parents owned this construction company and became relatively successful with that but my dad has curse, as I do, which is, always coming up with new ideas and deciding to act upon them. He had a Japanese restaurant and he had a furniture company and he had an emergency preparedness kit company, and I- Chris Erwin:Would he do all of these at the same time as the construction business or would it be like stops and starts and all of that? Sarah Penna:No. My mom held it down. She really was the mastermind behind the construction company. She did all of the office work and made sure ... she really ran the company and then my dad was kind of the face of it. He was out at the job sites and in the early days, was actually doing the building. So, I got to see my mom be in this, talk about a male-dominated industry. She would come home so mad because she would get a piece of mail that ... her name's Paula and they would always address Paul, because they couldn't believe that a woman was running a construction company. So, I got to see this powerful woman running this super successful business in basically a hundred percent male-dominated industry. Chris Erwin:Sarah, I've known you for over 10 years and we worked together intimately for at least three or four of them. I had no idea about your background. I just learned more about you in two minutes. It took a podcast and a 10-year relationship to get here. Sarah Penna:That's totally my bad. Chris Erwin:All good. So, okay. As a kid, when your father dabbled in all these new business adventures, was that really exciting for you guys? Maybe frustrating for your mother, but as kids you're like, "Oh, dad's up to some cool stuff again." Sarah Penna:Yeah, it was fun. I was 15 when he did the Japanese restaurant and I got to work in the restaurant and just, it was cool, and I didn't realize the stress and the financial burden that it was putting on my mom and kind of how frustrating it was for her but I see that now, looking back, and she handled it amazingly. She's an incredible woman. But I'm a very early riser, and as a kid, I would ... my dad is, too. He would get up at four or five in the morning and I would, too. He would just load me up in his construction truck and we'd go get pancakes and go milk the goats and go check on his construction sites. So, I got to see the inner workings of that. Then, I love going to the office and rifling through my mom's office supplies. Chris Erwin:Well, I got some important Post-it notes here, got a yellow legal pad, all the things. Sarah Penna:It was so fun as a kid. You're like, pens and Post-it notes, and the office supply closet was just like this heaven. Chris Erwin:My dad, he ran a psychology business and still does for 40 years and had his own office, and then every year he hosted a conference. One of my favorite things is that he would hire his children, me and my twin brother, and we'd have to lick 500 envelopes and put stamps on them. But we got to use all of these office gear, we thought it was the coolest thing ever. Then, after a few years, we're like, "I think we're getting sick from all of this stamp-licking." Sarah Penna:Yeah, probably. Chris Erwin:But separate story. Sarah Penna:That's really funny. Chris Erwin:So, a question, watching your father's entrepreneurial endeavors and also your mother, too, running the business, did you feel like, "Hey, when I grew up, I'm going to have my own business too." Sarah Penna:Honestly, no. So, I was an incredibly shy child. I was very quiet. My family likes to joke that they thought I was just going to buy a cabin in the woods and just frolic in daisy fields and that would basically be all I could handle. So, to the shock of everybody, of what I wound up doing with my career, so no, I was very directionless. I went to a very intense high school that was a college prep school. There was a lot of pressure to kind of figure out what you wanted to do. Frankly, I just didn't have any passions. I wasn't thinking, "Oh, I want to take over the family business or I want to be an entrepreneur." I didn't even have that language. Sarah Penna:So, in a way, that was great because what I wound up doing didn't exist when I was little. If I had said, "Oh, I want to be a lawyer or an actress or what ... " something that did exist, I don't know that I would've found the path that I did find. My parents never called themselves entrepreneurs. They were just, this is what we do and this is how we do it. Chris Erwin:Very interesting, Sarah. So, I'm going to put the puzzle pieces together here. Let's talk about another formative event growing up. You had also mentioned that you studied abroad in India, where you actually learned to speak fluent Nepalese. So, tell us about this transformative moment for you. Sarah Penna:Like I said, I was a very shy child. In college, I kind of blossomed, but maybe in the wrong ways. I partied a lot and just, again, was quite directionless. I was a literature major, which is just like the lazy ... No, I love being a literature major, but it is a non-major. It doesn't really set you up for business success. Originally, actually, I was going to travel. I was going to study abroad in Italy and I had this moment where I just looked at myself and said, "You need to push yourself right now. This is a moment." My college had an incredible study abroad program in Nepal. Sarah Penna:Long story short, they couldn't do it in Nepal. There were some civil unrest, so they moved it to India. I went to India and I lived in a place that didn't have running water, and I did my laundry for six months in a river. I got perspective that I never would've had. During that time I met up with a documentary film, I will say, crew in quotes, because it was just two white dudes traveling around not knowing what they were doing. They were in this tiny little village that I was staying. I was living in a monastery and because I spoke the language I could just hang out with the locals. It was very funny to them that this tiny, little white girl spoke fluent Nepalese. Chris Erwin:Did you take Nepalese in advance of going to India at all? Sarah Penna:No. Chris Erwin:So, you just picked it up in country. Sarah Penna:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Wow. Sarah Penna:Writing is very hard, but the language itself is very intuitive once you fit the pieces together. So, I would help them. Tourists would come. I lived in this monastery for a couple of weeks. Tourists would come and I would help them translate and negotiate and all this stuff. So, these guys came, they were filming. I was like, "I'll join up with you guys and translate for you and help you get interviews and that kind of stuff." Because if you speak the language, it just opens more doors. So, I wound up traveling with them, and one of them I wound up dating, but that's for another story. He was going to UCLA. I was graduating. He was going to UCLA grad school. Sarah Penna:I was graduating college and I wound up learning about documentary film and originally thought I wanted to go into documentary filmmaking. So, 2006 is when I was in India. Chris Erwin:Got it. Did you have an interest in media and the arts before you met this documentary film crew/attractive young man that you wanted to date? Sarah Penna:No, and I didn't have any connections and I didn't have any ... but, again, I was kind of, not in a disparaging way, but I was kind of an empty vessel, right? I had no idea what I was going to do and this thing really sparked me. I loved holding the camera. I loved seeing the story come together. I moved to Venice with him, and this is way too long of a story, so I'll just make it really short through a series of very wonderful coincidences, which involved me randomly picking a documentary film at the LA Film Festival and contacting the filmmaker. I got an internship at World of Wonder and that kind of started my trajectory in media. Chris Erwin:This was the first time you dated a documentary filmmaker. I look at this as a warm up for Joe. We'll get into that later. Sarah Penna:I only dated creative people, [inaudible 00:11:39]. Chris Erwin:Another podcast for your wild party days at Pitzer College. All right, so that led to your first work experience at World of Wonder. So, tell us about what that company was doing and what your role was there. Sarah Penna:World of Wonder in 2008 was probably the most amazing place to work, I have to say. It was constantly drag queens coming in the office, and parties. It was just a wild time. They were filming the first season of Million Dollar Listing, which I was an intern on. They were filming the first season of Tori and Dean: Inn Love, the Tori Spelling Show, which I was an assistant on. They were filming Porno Valley. They were filming ... I mean, it was just like a wild, wild time, incredible company. I loved it. I also recognized that reality TV wasn't really for me. While I was working there, I also was making short films and uploading them to these two new websites. One of them was called YouTube and one of them was called Current TV. Sarah Penna:Current TV was Al Gore's network based in San Francisco, where you would upload short documentaries and then the ones that got the most votes, they would ultimately put them onto their TV network. So, I had a couple documentaries get bought and put onto the TV network and ... Chris Erwin:Were you doing this independently or as part of World of Wonder? Sarah Penna:No, no, totally separately. Chris Erwin:Got it. Again, I had no idea that you did this. Sarah Penna:Yeah. Now, we're in 2007, the first documentary that got picked up was about me getting my medical marijuana license. Chris Erwin:Okay. Sarah Penna:It was a very new thing at that time, and so I documented the whole journey of what it was like to get a medical marijuana license and I smoked a joint on-screen. When I got hired there, it would play in the rotation, and one time Al Gore came to visit the office and they had the TVs up in the office playing Current, and my documentary came on with me smoking a joint and meeting Al Gore at the same time. It was very embarrassing. Chris Erwin:I'm famous/I'm super embarrassed. What a mix of emotions. Sarah Penna:Yes. Chris Erwin:So, Sarah, I have to ask, you're working at World of Wonder, you're working on these incredible programs that are probably being sold to network TV, right? Not digital outlets and streamers. What was the catalyst that you're like, "I want to put my content on YouTube and Current TV." How'd that come to be? Sarah Penna:I just felt something more compelling about it. It felt more free. It felt like, somebody like me coming from Utah with literally zero connections could make something and have it be put on TV within a couple of weeks. Then, on YouTube, you couldn't monetize at the time. It was very rudimentary. I don't know, I just fell in love with it. Chris Erwin:YouTube was founded in 2004 and then, was it bought by Google in 2006, if I remember correctly? Sarah Penna:I think that's right. Then, 2007 Time magazine made you, the cover and the Person of the Year was you, and it was a mirror. I was like, that to me was a moment where I said, "Okay, this is really a thing and I want to be involved in it." Chris Erwin:I think you start meeting some pretty important early personalities and movers and shakers within digital video. I think you met one of the founders of what eventually became Maker Studios, I think. Was it Danny Diamond or Danny Zappin? Is that the same person? Sarah Penna:That's the same person. His YouTube name was Danny Diamond. Chris Erwin:Got it. So, how'd you meet Danny? Sarah Penna:So, I was working at this very small web series production company which, yes, that was a thing in 2008. So, I got laid off right from Current because the financial crisis hit. They laid everyone off. They sold the network to Al Jazeera. I moved back to LA. I had been up in San Francisco, moved back to LA, started working at this web series production company, got introduced to Danny through some mutual friends. He said, "Look, I just got some money from YouTube and I'm filming this thing for this new channel that we're starting called The Station. Why don't you just come up and see what it's like?" So, I go up there and unbeknownst to me, it was every big YouTuber at the time. It was ShayCarl, and KassemG, and Shane Dawson, and Danny, and Lisa Nova, and everybody- Chris Erwin:OG names. Sarah Penna:Funnily enough, my future husband was supposed to be there, but I don't remember exactly what happened, but he wasn't there. Chris Erwin:Okay. So, you're doing this. Are you thinking to yourself, "Oh my God, I'm having so much fun. This is a crazy world." You're embarking on a very exciting career adventure. You're seeing this change in the media industry. Did you feel that at the time or was it more of, "This is fun. I'm meeting some cool people. Let's see where it goes." Sarah Penna:It was more the former. I really thought to myself, I want to be involved in this in some way, shape or form. I really don't know what this is. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Sarah Penna:Not to say that I'm a genius, but I just had something in my gut that said, you've got to be involved in this somehow. You have to make this happen. Chris Erwin:That instinct proved to be pretty powerful for you in starting Big Frame, which we'll get to in a little bit. So, you meet Phil DeFranco, a prominent OG YouTuber, and I think you become a producer for him and his team, right? Sarah Penna:Yeah. So, he hires me in November of 2009 and I worked for him. We launched a new channel, which was like a gaming channel for him. I did PR for him. I handled brand deals for him. I edited because I still knew how to edit at the time. A skill I'm very sad that I lost. That was just an amazing experience. He had split from Maker TV at that time and so, we were kind of running our own thing. I think Phil, to this day, is one of the most brilliant, genius content creators that's come out of the YouTube space. He's just continually reinvented himself and not, just kept doing what he did and stayed successful. So, that was a masterclass in how to run a successful YouTube channel. Chris Erwin:Got it. Also, through Phil DeFranco, you actually end up meeting your future husband, Joe. So, he actually showed up on time for production or maybe a first day that you guys had. How'd you first connect with him? Sarah Penna:Before Phil hired me, I got invited to a Halloween party at his house and Joe was there, and I had actually very embarrassingly seen Joe's videos before meeting him. I was producing a short film with a prominent YouTuber at that time named Olga Kay and we were just doing some fun. We actually crowdfunded it. We raised a couple thousand dollars and made this thing called Olga Kay's Circus. We wanted Joe in it because he had a lot of subscribers at the time. He had 10,000 subscribers, so he was in the Top 100 YouTubers. Chris Erwin:Oh, my God. Sarah Penna:Can you believe that 10,000 subscribers would get you there at that time? So, we wanted Joe in it and we wound up meeting at this Halloween party and then Phil connected us and match made us a little bit, and we went on our first date in January of 2010. Chris Erwin:Then, how soon were you married or engaged after that? Sarah Penna:So, we went on our first date in January 2010 and then we got engaged in September of the same year, and then we were married the next year. Chris Erwin:First date with Joe, January 2010. Engaged, September 2010. Married, 2011. Interesting timing because you launched your first company, Cloud Media, I think in 2010, and you're sharing production space with Joe. So, you're tripling down on the digital media space. You're literally married to a creator. You're sharing space together and you're founding your own media company. But tell us about what was the origins of Cloud Media. Sarah Penna:Yeah, so I basically, again, I didn't say, "Oh, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to raise money." I didn't have a blueprint for that. I didn't know what I was doing, which I think you'll hear a lot of entrepreneurs say, that's kind of a blessing in a lot of ways. So, I did a very big brand deal for Joe. I was able to negotiate a high six-figure deal for him, and using the percentage that I took as his manager from that, I started what I called the Cloud Media. I bootstrapped that company for a year and a half and just operated it based off of the percentages that I was taking from brand deals that I was doing for influencers and YouTubers, whatever we called them at the time. Sarah Penna:My difference was I would start out by not doing contracts with them. We would just have a understanding, which is very common with management companies. Most managers don't have contracts, right? That's more for agents and Maker and Fullscreen at the time were insisting on contract, and Machinima. I was like, "Hey, you don't have to sign a contract with me. Let me just show you what I can do. This is my fee, and if you like it, then you can officially sign onboard and we can go from there." So, that worked really well for me. So, I started signing. I think by the time that we re-founded the company as Big Frame, I had about 30 clients. Chris Erwin:I remember, that was one of the things that attracted me to Big Frame. This is definitely the reputation in the space, is that you had built, Sarah, one of the most premium networks of YouTube creators that existed. Really high quality YouTubers that worked together, that worked with you, and there was really good camaraderie and trust and rapport amongst everybody, and it felt very special and different. So, it's clear that was based on these initial values of, I'm going to do good work and prove myself to you, and that's how we're going to develop a business relationship. Until I came in and then I was like, "Sarah, we need contracts." Sarah Penna:A big influence on those ... those are, me as a person, my core values. But DeStorm, who was my second client outside of Joe, who I just cold called and was living in New York, he really sort of guided me in how he wanted to be treated, how he felt business should be done. He really helped collaborate with me on some of those foundational core values that we carried throughout the duration of Big Frame really. Chris Erwin:So, speaking of that, you're literally learning from one of your clients. Were there any other mentors in the space as you're figuring ... this is the early days. We still say we're in the Wild West of the creator economy, that was the real Wild West of YouTube. So, probably, very few people to learn from. Did you have anyone that you would call on a regular basis and say, "Hey, let's just share notes." Sarah Penna:No, I didn't. Unfortunately, I think the space became quickly competitive. I would say at the beginning there was a little more collaboration between, let's say, like Danny and George Strompolos and myself. We would go up to YouTube and talk to them together as a group and what our needs were and share creator feedback. I think once money started pouring into the space we got a little more siloed, which is understandable, but no, I didn't. I was really out there in the woods like, "Okay, this is what we're doing now." Not really knowing what that was. Just saying, "Okay, this is how we're doing it. This is how our contracts are going to look." Chris Erwin:How old were you at this point? Sarah Penna:I was 26. Chris Erwin:So young. So, then, I think, well, as part of that dynamic, as the space got more competitive, George is launching Fullscreen, Danny is launching Maker, more venture capitals moving to the space. The Google Original Channels program launches, $200 million dedicated fund to help creators produce higher quality content for YouTube, which will then attract more advertisers and more revenue. So, I think at this point is when you eventually connect with Steve Raymond, the co-founder of Big Frame, which got its origins from Cloud Media, right? Sarah Penna:Exactly, through a mutual friend. I was on the hunt for a CEO. I recognized my limitations. I did want to raise money. I didn't know what that entailed. Frankly, I needed more of a grownup. I think my skillsets were really great on the creator side and the brand deal side but as the industry started growing up, I very quickly recognized I need someone who has a skillset that I just don't have. So, I met Steve and we hit it off, and we had a couple meetings, and he just jumped right on in. We decided to re-found the company. None of us liked the name because people thought it was like cloud computing and, which is fair, and it just made sense to start fresh. It also gave us an opportunity to have contracts with people and just structure it in a way that would allow us to raise money. So, yeah. Chris Erwin:Hey, listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview. I have to ask, I started the advisory firm five years ago that I have now. I started that with a co-founder and then quickly realized, "Hey, I have a certain vision and I'm going to build this in my unique way." So, restarted the advisory firm with me as the solo owner. Chris Erwin:I've realized bringing someone else into the mix that really gets the vision that I feel comfortable sharing this with is difficult for me. I just know my personality, and founder issues are always like the hardest things in any startup. How did you feel in terms of bringing Steve on? Did you feel comfortable? When you met him, you're like, "Hey, this guy gets it. We have shared values and sensibility." Were you able to develop a sense of trust with him pretty quickly or did that take a decent amount of time? Sarah Penna:I trusted him very quickly. Although, I sometimes felt like that scene in The Little Mermaid where she's like, closes her eyes and signs her voice away, I was like, "Am I doing that?" I definitely had that moment where I was like, "Am I letting somebody in I don't ... ?" We had three meetings before. I was like, "Here's a third of my company." We had another co-founder, that's it. We don't need to [inaudible 00:25:56] but basically, here's half of my company. I definitely had people who were like, "Don't think you should have done that." But to me, the value of Steve and the ability ... I did trust him. The main thing for him was, he was very clear that he didn't want to disrupt what I was doing. He was very impressed with the business that I had built on my own and he didn't want me to feel like he was coming in to change that. Sarah Penna:He invested some of his own money and valued the contracts that ... I was like, I don't have that money to invest, but he was like, we should value the money that's in the bank for Cloud Media and the value of the contracts or the agreements that you have with the talent. So, I was like, "Okay, that's really fair." He made it easy. That, for me, was important. I don't like complicated things. I don't like long dragged out negotiations, and I was ready to just get to work. So, he was someone who was like, "I know how to do this. I have the connections. I don't want to disrupt your work." He's a good guy, I could just tell, and we made it work. Chris Erwin:I love that. I know Steve very well. He was my boss for three or four years and learned an incredible amount from him. But I think you're right, Sarah, the thing that stands out about Steve was just a good guy, good moral compass, and he doesn't let great get in the way of good enough. He'll just say, "This is good. This is thoughtful. We've talked this through. Let's move forward." But like you said, he's very fair in how he wanted to value the company. I didn't know that, but it's totally on brand for him. So, curious, I joined in the summer of 2012, I was ... Sarah Penna:Oh, boy, what a summer that was. Chris Erwin:So, I went to business school after being a Wall Street banker for a few years. Then, I was in school in Chicago and I worked while I was there for Pritzker Capital, which was an early investor in the YouTube MCN ecosystem. They had invested in Big Frame. They invested in Awesomeness. We eventually joined forces, and that is how I met Steve first. I was talking to Rishi, Rishi or Matt McCall and they're like, "Yeah, when you fly out to LA for these meetings, we invested in this company called Big Frame. You should check them out." I was like, "I don't even understand this company's business model, but digital video that feels like the future. I'll take a meeting." Chris Erwin:I remember meeting Steve and we had lunch on the Promenade, and then I came in for my first interview. I walked into the office, this is on Sunset Boulevard in the old National Lampoon building. I walked in and I walked into a ... it feels like we were just working out of someone's semi-living/work space. I was like, is this a company? Is this like what West Coast work is like? Because I had grown up working on the East Coast. I walked into the back room and in the back room there's this little circular table. Steve's there. Grant Gibson's there. Jason [Szymanski 00:28:39] is there. Then, you're at your back desk. Chris Erwin:So, you're supposed to be part of this interview, your head's down on your computer. They're like, "Oh, that's Sarah over there." I looked over and I'm like, "Oh, I guess this is what founders do in digital media. They're just heads down in their computers. Maybe I'll eventually talk to her over time." That was my first introduction to Big Frame. So, I just say all of this as I was like, this is like a precursor to just wildness that ensued thereafter. We had just gotten the Google Original Channels funding, raised some venture funding on top of that, and then it was like, build these five different content verticals. I'm curious to hear from you, there are so many memories from back in the day, but as you think about some of the war stories from the trenches, what are some things that stand out? Sarah Penna:Oh, my God. Well, your interview definitely. Also, you failed to mention that we had two absolutely crazy wiener dogs running around the office as well. Yeah. I think we had outgrown the office. We were in the National Lampoon office. It was so janky and we ... eventually, we're on three different floors. We moved sales to an office down Sunset. We were sandwiched between a strip club and a Trader Joe's. Then, Joe and I were renting a house off of Sunset, like walking distance, and eventually, we moved the talent team to my dining room table. Joe at that time was putting two YouTube videos a week out on his MysteryGuitarMan channel, and he would stay up all night and then he would sleep until 2:00 PM and he'd come downstairs. Sarah Penna:It was like, Lisa, Byron, Megan, Rachel were at our dining room table, and Joe was rolling out of bed as one of our talent but also my husband. I would cook dinner for the talent team at my house. We would take talent meetings in my living room, which was just so bizarre and unprofessional, but worked. We would also throw these wild game nights, board game nights, so Settlers of Catan was very popular at that time. We would have 40 YouTubers in our house playing Settlers of Catan with multiple games going on. My house was like a YouTuber hotel. We had a guest bedroom. Jenna Marbles came and stayed. Lena came and stayed with us. DeStorm. It was very wholesome and very duct tape and bubble gum feeling. We were just kind of figuring it out. Chris Erwin:I remember that. I remember Steve explaining, "Oh, we're having a reorg." The reorg was like, "Okay, we're moving the talent team to Sarah's house across the street." Then, production goes upstairs into a semi-new office that we got. For us, at that size, that was like a big deal. Sarah Penna:It was. Yeah. Oh, man, when we moved to our Lindblade offices, was that like heaven on earth to have an actual office, but that was later. Another funny memory I had was when Max first started. He had come from a place where he was doing really, really big deals. I handed him off a brand deal opportunity for $1,500 and he went in the bathroom, which by the way was right next to everybody's desk and splashed cold water on his face. We had moved him from New York to LA and he was just like, "What am I doing?" Ultimately, Max, obviously, was an absolute rockstar and built out that sales team to just be very profitable and doing really well. Sarah Penna:But that first deal was $1,500, and that was just par for the course at that time. It was shocking to people coming from the outside and then once it clicked, it really clicked and you're like, "Okay, I get what we're doing here." But there was just a lot of duct tape and bubble gum. Chris Erwin:I think Max is going to be an interview on this podcast coming up. I have interviewed Dan Levitt. When I think of Dan, we talk about when I first interviewed him and I think he showed up in some shiny suit and Jason Szymanski in the back office is pointing. He's like, "Chris, we're launching a music vertical and we have a new interview candidate coming in." I would just look out the window and I would be like, "These characters." I was like, "I've never worked with any characters like this before." I come from Wall Street, so it's was like everyone's in a suit and tie. I see people coming in shiny suits and I'm just like, "I think this is the new world I'm in. I'm just going to roll with it." Chris Erwin:So, it was such a rollercoaster of fun. So, then exciting things are happening and eventually, we move into this big new office, I think on Lindblade in Culver City. We're closer to Maker. We're closer to Fullscreen. Then, we run a process to sell the company. I'm just curious to hear from you, Sarah. Bringing Steve on was probably like, that was a big decision for you, but then hiring an investment bank that's going to run a sales process, we're going to have new ownership and potential leadership. What was it like for you to make that decision? Sarah Penna:That was really hard. I just wanted to keep the party going. Like many young entrepreneurs, I think I tied my identity completely to this company. And my husband was in the next office, he was a client. We went home, we would talk about brand deals over dinner. My entire identity was Big Frame. All of my friends were in some way, shape or form involved in this company. My family would tease me when I'd go home for Christmas. They're like, "Are all of your friends under contract?" I was like, "Yeah, kind of." Chris Erwin:Maybe a nice way to go through life. Sarah Penna:Yeah. I mean, we know where we stand with each other. No, but I just, I was so immersed that the idea of losing control was hard. I think I also felt my limitations as a founder and that's hard to come up against when you're kind of, I don't want to say that I was arrogant, but I was really confident and I felt really good about how I was running things and running the company. Then, we got to a point where my limitations and our limitations became evident and that's hard. It was hard and it was also exciting because it is, under most circumstances, it's a great thing. I also just had never been through anything like that, so I let a lot of anxiety get to me. Sarah Penna:I let it completely consume me. I'll be totally transparent. I would cry on the bathroom floor, like, what am I doing? There was a lot of doubt. I think that was probably the biggest strain on Steve and I's relationship, is how to go about this and how to present in the room. That was a big source of stress for us. Who's going to present? Is it me? I've been out there kind of the face of the company. I've been doing all the panels, and the VidCons, and the press, and the creator. Or is it Steve, who is the CEO who, frankly, should be doing it? Chris Erwin:That was unclear. We brought in an executive coach to help us figure that out. Sarah Penna:We did. Ultimately, like many of these things, it just came about through relationships and less about going and pitching, and the relationship that I had kind of built and cultivated, and changing landscape. There were a lot of factors, but that was very stressful. Then, in New Year's Eve of 2013, while we were in the middle of this process, I found out I was pregnant. Chris Erwin:Just to pile it on. Sarah Penna:Just for fun. Thought that would be a great thing to add on to the plate at the time. It's so funny because I think back a lot to the moment where I told Steve that I was pregnant, I was hysterical. I couldn't even tell him. I was crying so hard. He was like, in a very nice way, "I don't understand why you're so upset. This is a good thing." I was like, "What?" I thought he was going to be so mad and that this was going to ruin everything. I tell that story only to say, I think that our culture makes young women feel like ... and I had a lot of people tell me, then opened up to me over the years, that they felt like they can't have kids because of ... that moment of, "Oh, my gosh, I have to now disclose this thing." Sarah Penna:Even if it's illegal to not move forward with something because someone's pregnant, you can still find other ways. So, I thought I had completely ruined everything and that was ... I'm very sad about that looking back, but Steve really was like, "This is awesome. I'm so happy for you. Don't even think about it. Nobody's going to bat an eye." That was true. I wound up giving a keynote at VidCon eight months pregnant and we sold the company, but that was very stressful. Also, I couldn't drink. It was a lot. We were celebrating and I was like, "You know what? I'm having a glass of champagne because I'm ... You all have been drinking through this very stressful process and I haven't." Chris Erwin:More like being pregnant was also a launching pad for you to launch the mom's vertical at Awesomeness- Sarah Penna:Yes. Chris Erwin:... which came thereafter but, yeah, just to add some context on some of the notes here. I remember in the MCN days, there was the early Awesomeness launch in 2011 and then it was sold to DreamWorks, I think, in 2012, and everyone got really excited. But then, the YouTube MCN winter hit and there was a lack of capital flowing into the space. People were saying like, "Are these businesses real? Are they viable? Are they just going to get consolidated into traditional media?" It was harder to raise capital, and there was a lot of doubt in the ecosystem. Then, in 2013, I think in the second half of the year, Disney bought Maker for $500 million. Then, we made a decision, we're like, "There's a moment in time here, let's hire an investment banker." Shout out to Brian Stengel. Sarah Penna:Yay, Brian. Chris Erwin:We kicked off a process in the second half of 2013 and sold in April of 2014 to AwesomenessTV. Look, I was very intimately involved in that process with you and Steve. I saw how hard it was on you guys. You guys were just carrying an incredible burden. I think something, too, like a theme of your career, Sarah, where you have this passion for overlooked communities. I think you getting into the digital fears, there's a way to service these new creator voices in an exciting way with new business models and new distribution models. I bet there was some fear of ... A lot of this business was your friends and your friends actually had equity in the company. Chris Erwin:You had given equity out to a lot of creators when you launched Cloud Media and Big Frame. What if all that was going to change with this new ownership? I think that was probably a moment that you were concerned about. I don't know if we'll ever make all these details public, but the sales process, I just remember like one week it would be super exciting. We're flying to New York for this big meeting with a traditional publisher. Conversations are going really well and then they completely flat lined and go nowhere. Then, the next week, it's like really exciting, but eventually got to a great result. Sarah Penna:At three in the morning, while we were all still at the Big Frame offices collapsed on the floor. Yes. Chris Erwin:We end up selling to AwesomenessTV. I think that was a very exciting experience for all of us. I think Awesomeness was, in a way, they were the Goldman Sachs of the YouTuber economy back then. They built an incredible team and network, and I think we all really learned a lot from Brian Robbins and Joe Davola. Just amazing creative visionaries. You also launched a mom's vertical while you're there with Snooki and JWoww, you do the corporate thing for, I think, two to three years then it's okay, what are you going to do next? I think that you start seeing another underserved community, which is the romance community, and you think about launching a company there. So, what's that quick story? Sarah Penna:While I was running the mom's vertical, which as you said, I think my big passion in life is finding underserved communities and overlooked communities and creating content around them. I felt at that time that the content that was out there for moms was just not great and it was a huge market. So, Brian had brought on a woman named Lisa Berger who comes from E! and has had a very long traditional media career. He brought her on to do the Go90 programming and the YouTube programming for the Awestruck, which is the mom's vertical. We hit it off and we have a great time together running this crazy thing, and we wind up optioning a romance novel and turning it into a series for Go90. Sarah Penna:Very, very, very long story short, we crashed Go90 because of how popular it was, despite everyone telling us it wasn't going to work. I'm a huge reader and I love romance. I was looking out at the landscape and saying, "You know what? I think romance is going to have a moment, like what Marvel did for geek culture, where now it's cool to be a geek." I think we're at this point, this is 2017. Trump is in office. Women are pissed off. We're sick of all of the stuff that we're like being disparaged. We're sick of all of the female characters in popular shows being killed off or assaulted or whatever. We just want happily ever afters. Everyone's disparaging this romance community as just sad cat ladies, single cat ladies eating bonbons. Sarah Penna:I was like, "We're going to go prove them wrong. Fuck this." Similar to the early days of YouTube, where I saw these influencers have a chip on their shoulder where, "Oh, you just think I am a single dude making videos in my mom's basement." There was a similar misconception about the romance novel fandom. The romance novel fandom is actually incredibly educated, diverse, not just in who they are, but where they live and their socioeconomic status. They're incredibly feminist and they know that it's fun and cheesy. They know that there's a wink and a nod. We set out to create a space to celebrate that, not make fun of it, not disparage it. Sarah Penna:It's a fascinating culture, a fascinating community. I was not part of it in the sense of participating in the fandom, but I've been a long time romance novel reader and I was in the closet about it because I was embarrassed. So, we banished the term guilty pleasure because we don't want anyone to feel guilty about reading romance. So, we set out and we created a digital platform and a newsletter, and then started optioning novels to turn into movies and TV shows. We got a first look deal with CBS. We have a deal with Audible and we have a deal with iHeartRadio. Our daily podcast is going to launch in February. So, really set out to just create a space where people who actually know and love romance are creating the content. Chris Erwin:I love that, Sarah. It's also very interesting, when you came to me and I was like, "Sarah, what are you thinking about? What's up next?" You told me about the romance community. I did a double take and I paused because I'm like, "Wait, this is such a huge community." I think in traditional media, think of all the rom-com movies, but nothing in digital. I'm like, "Yeah, this is totally overlooked. Why is no one else talking about this? This is huge." I think it's very interesting how you characterize it as ... yeah, often when I say, even to this day, "I'm going to watch a rom-com." I'm embarrassed as just an older male saying that, but why? Why do we say it's a guilty pleasure? Chris Erwin:Why is there any guilt about a really fun love story? When love is one of the number one drivers of happiness and a common theme that all of us talk about around the dinner table and with our friends. Sarah Penna:Why is being a horror fan, seeing people get murdered, why is that not looked down upon, but seeing people be happy is? Very interesting. Chris Erwin:Very interesting points about the romance community. So, you are at Patreon now. Are you still co-running Frolic? What is happening with Frolic Media? Sarah Penna:Yeah. So, Lisa has taken over and is helming Frolic. I continue to be a strategic advisor and obviously, care very deeply about the future of where that company goes, and cheerleading and championing them from the position that I am in now. Chris Erwin:I think it's a very exciting space. We interviewed Naomi Shah, the founder of Meet Cute on this podcast as well, which does these, call it like rom-com microcast. I started listening to those over the past six months and I absolutely love them. Bite-sized nuggets of just rom-com joy in audio form. So, I believe in it. Pay attention to RockWater's 2021 predictions about underserved communities because I think this could be ... potentially, we will publish this likely in the end of January. It could be a good cover note that you're sending to any potential investors or partners for you. Sarah Penna:Absolutely. Thank you. Chris Erwin:Believe in the thesis. Okay. So, before talking about Patreon, I just want to talk about another concurrent journey within your family in the media space, which is your husband, Joe. He's been a creator for over a decade. I think in the past few years, he was digital native on YouTube doing incredible stop motion biography, but always wanted to cross over. I think he's realized some incredible success recently. Why don't you tell us about that? Sarah Penna:Joe is just, I obviously am biased, but he has an incredible creative mind. He's good at everything he does, which is so annoying, but I love him for it. He is good at languages, and art, and music, and math, and all of that really combined and you can see that reflected in the fun, playful nature of MysteryGuitarMan. But like you said, ultimately, he really wanted to direct movies. When he first started down the journey, there was a trend of these influencer-helmed, one to two million dollar movies that would be VOD and make back their money. You'd put the how many subscribers that YouTuber had and how much we were going to sell it for, and set download on iTunes, and that was where his agency and his management team was kind of pushing him to. Sarah Penna:He said, "You know what? That's not really the path that I'm going to take," and wrote a movie called Arctic, which is a mostly silent movie helmed by a 50-something-year old Danish actor named Mads Mikkelsen. So, quite the opposite of an influencer-helmed comedy. Joe willed that movie into existence. There was every hurdle against him. He had to start from the bottom. His YouTube channel didn't help him because he wasn't doing an extension of MysteryGuitarMan. He didn't want to be in front of the camera and he did it, and that movie got into Cannes. We went to Cannes, and it premiered and got a 10-minute standing ovation. Chris Erwin:Whoa, I did not know that. A 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes? Sarah Penna:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Good for you guys. Sarah Penna:So, that was just ... walking that famous red carpet, and for me, it was wonderful because I ... He had finally gotten traditional management. I was no longer managing him. So, I actually got to go to Cannes just as his wife, as his plus one. I was not worrying about logistics and getting him to his interviews on time. I still was but I wasn't [crosstalk 00:47:45]. Chris Erwin:It takes a village to get Joe to an interview on time. Sarah Penna:Truly, especially in a foreign country. That's a whole other story. So, that was just a really incredible moment to see and he, off the heels of that, they announced at Cannes his next movie, which was called Stowaway, which had Anna Kendrick and Toni Collette, and Daniel Dae Kim, and Shamier Anderson in it. It premiered on Netflix last year. Now, he is working on so many new projects and so, hopefully we'll be shooting another one this year. He's loving it. He's very good at it. He has the personality to be a director. Very in control of his set, he's very calm, creative, collaborative and it's just very, very cool to see. You know what? He went through the grieving process of letting go of that YouTube channel and he's out on the other side and making things happen. Chris Erwin:That's awesome. I remember when we heard that news, there was a lot of text threads amongst the Big Frame community. I remember texting with Byron and with Max, and with Steve about, "Look, how awesome is this about Joe? Have you heard?" We know that he'd been working so hard and he was just such an incredible creator from day one. So, we're pumped for him and it feels like this is just the beginning for what he's going to do. Right? Sarah Penna:It really feels like he's on the trajectory, for sure. Chris Erwin:Yeah. So, look, you and Joe, as this media power couple continue to evolve. Speaking of the most recent step in your evolution, as we work to the final segment of this interview, Sarah, you guys moved to Santa Barbara, I think during the COVID pandemic. Then, you recently, someone that we've known mutually for a while, Avi Gandhi, you started talking to him at Patreon and saw an opportunity to join the creator team over there, which is your latest creator adventure. So, tell us about what excited you about moving to Santa Barbara and your new role at Patreon, and what you're doing over there. Sarah Penna:Yeah. So, I wanted to move to Santa Barbara for 10 years and it never was feasible or realistic, and I, like many people during the pandemic, had a very hard year. Living in LA just became very challenging. Jonah, my son, our son is, when the pandemic started was five, and now he's seven. We just felt if we were going to do it, it was now or never because he started having his best friends and it just becomes harder as they get older. So, we just pulled the ripcord and we did it with no plan, no idea if it was going to work out and it has been just an absolute dream come true. We love it up here and was fortunate enough to be able to join this incredible company, Patreon. Sarah Penna:I joined in November and like many things in my career, it just felt so right that I couldn't pass it up. A big driving factor was, obviously, it's very hard to leave my start-up and to leave Frolic. I did it in the best way I could, but for me, going to a place that really shares my values in that creator space, I started seeing the creator economy and the interest in it heating up in a way that I haven't seen in a long time. Similar to when I met Danny all those years ago, and I was like, "I need to be a part of this." I felt that the train was leaving the station without me and I wanted to get back into the creator space. Sarah Penna:I took a lot of time looking at what is the right company for me, for my values, and for what I want to do. Patreon is kind of a unicorn, a unicorn in the sense that it's valued at a unicorn status, but also a unicorn, for me, because it hit this very narrow target of what I was looking for. Chris Erwin:Just remind me, how long has Patreon been around for? Because I remember Patreon, early days of when I started Big Frame in 2012. Is that right? Sarah Penna:Yeah, eight years. Chris Erwin:So, now at Patreon, what team are you running there and what are you focused on for 2022? Sarah Penna:I live on the creator partnerships team and I run a team called Launch. We are responsible for giving creators white glove experience for launching their Patreon pages. We have teams that are going out and sourcing those creators. Once they come to us, they are pretty excited about the platform and we help them figure out what tiers are best for them, what banner image is going to look good, and really help them drive towards their launch date. These are creators that range in all kinds of sizes and all kinds of ... I'm talking to someone who makes leather, like leather wallets and leather goods, and we're talking to big YouTube creators and celebrities, and we're talking to everybody in between. Sarah Penna:It's just a really exciting time to be at a company like Patreon that's been in the creator space for so long, is helmed by a creator, and is going to continue to be a real player in the creator economy as it goes forward. Chris Erwin:It seems that there's incredible traction for your business where I think there was a recent announcement. The team is currently 400, but you're doubling the company to 800 people this year. Is that right? Sarah Penna:Yes, that's what they say. Chris Erwin:Well, look, I think the market tailwinds are definitely behind them. I think, yeah, it's a really exciting evolution. We've written about this extensively at RockWater. YouTube created these new business models for creators, where they can publish content online and then participate in ad revenue through YouTube's AdSense program. Then, the chance to distribute content to other social platforms and participate in ad revenue there and then doing talent deals, brand integrations, and getting paid off platform. Then now, I think there's this incredible movement with all these creators, the audiences that they bring, the fandoms that they generate, the engagement that they generate on these platforms, they're the real moneymakers. Chris Erwin:So, how do you give them more tools though, to also not only build these platform businesses, but their own businesses? So, Patreon doing that, allowing them to have direct relationships with their fans, get access to contact information, monetize in different ways behind a paywall, different types of subscription content, whether it's video or audio, whatever else. I think what you guys are doing is a beautiful thing. We need more companies thinking like you. So, I think that you guys are really well set up for success, and I'm excited, Sarah, for the different communities of creators that you guys can represent, that have a need, that don't have the tools from other platforms that are overlooked right now yet, again, going back to what you do best. Sarah Penna:Thank you. I absolutely agree with all of that. I have said for years, as some people, not many, but a lot of people in the creator space, you need to own your audience. Renting your audience is not sustainable. You need to build community. You need to not just be on a conveyor belt of content, You really need, as a creator in this space, the tools are there for you to build a sustainable business and to not be tied to the whims of platforms and algorithms. There's a big conversation about creator burnout. Patreon is positioned to help creators solve some of these big issues, big and, by the way, nuanced issues. It's not just, oh, these platforms are bad and we are good at all. Sarah Penna:These platforms are great and you need to build up audiences on your podcast and on your social. If you are able to have ... I'm a really big a fan of Seth Godin's 1,000 true fans idea. If you can build out 1,000 true fans who are on your Patreon, you might be covering your rent. You might be covering your rent plus plus, and you might be making a really good living. That's what we want. We want to empower creators and we're really set up to do that. It's just an exciting time to join the company. Chris Erwin:Before we wrap this up with the closing rapid fire round, Sarah, I just got to give you some big kudos here. You legitimately changed my life. I'm trying not to become emotional here. I look back on my past career over the past 10 years and everything that I've done, being able to found RockWater is a function of you, starting Cloud Media and Big Frame, and then taking a chance on me. I had a very different background than someone that you had ever typically hired before. I'm sure that you needed some convincing from the rest of your leadership team. Chris Erwin:But what I have learned with you, the pedigree that I've gained and the experience has not only been so personally transformational, all these new relationships that I've built, women that I've dated and just incredible friendships and all of the above, it's really set up an exciting career for me. Something that I wake up to, excited to do every day. I see a lot of incredible potential going forward. It's a function of you taking a chance on me and getting early into the digital video MCN days. So, I am very, very thankful. I think there's many people that have very similar sentiments to what I just shared. Chris Erwin:So, I'm probably speaking on behalf of many. So, big kudos to you, and particularly to call out, I don't come from a creative background. When I came in and was very systematic and operational, I wanted to scale the business, it took me a while. But seeing how you ran the creative team, how you nurtured the culture, when you brought in Rachel and Megan Corbett, and Lisa Filipelli, and Byron, and people that I spent a lot of time with and really learned an incredible amount from, it really all stems from you. So, Sarah, you have been an incredible person in my life. You did incredible things for all the talent at Big Frame. Chris Erwin:You are now doing the game again, with Frolic and with Patreon, and I wish you the best. As you know, anytime that you need anything, sometimes we don't talk for six months or a year, but when we do, we pick up very, very quickly. I am a massive supporter of everything that you do. So, call me whenever you have a need. Sarah Penna:Thank you. Now I'm crying. Thank you so much, Chris. That means a lot to me. Chris Erwin:Very well-deserved. Okay. So, now, let's move into closing rapid fire. Six questions. The rules are, you can answer in one sentence or in one to two words. Do you understand the rules? Sarah Penna:Yes. Chris Erwin:Okay. Here we go. Proudest life moment? Sarah Penna:Having my son Jonah. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do less of in 2022? Sarah Penna:Less complicated. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do more of? Sarah Penna:More space in my schedule. Chris Erwin:I like that. Advice for media execs going into 2022? Sarah Penna:Don't believe all of the hype and just keep your eye on the ball. Chris Erwin:Any future start-up ambitions, Miss Entrepreneur? Sarah Penna:God, I hope not. No, not as of right now. I am very happy not running a company right now. Chris Erwin:Not necessarily off the table. That's basically what you're saying. Sarah Penna:It's never off the table with me. Chris Erwin:Last one. This is an easy one. How can people get in contact with you? Sarah Penna:Sarah@patreon.com. Chris Erwin:Very easy. All right, Sarah, this was a true delight. Thanks for being on the podcast. Sarah Penna:Thank you so much, Chris. This was so much fun for me, too. Chris Erwin:Wow. That interview with Sarah just flew by. I felt like there were so many more things that we could have discussed. We'll have to do another podcast together. Yeah, I admit I got a little teary-eyed at the end there just going down memory lane with her. She was really formative in my career and, yeah, that really hit me at the end. I was not expecting that. All right. So, a few quick things. Our Livestream Commerce executive dinner is coming up. The date is now March 10th. We are 98% close to confirming that with our sponsor. But if you're interested in attending, shoot us a note. You can reach us at hello@wearerockwater.com. Chris Erwin:Also, we are hiring. We're looking for interns, undergrad and MBA level, and also a full-time analyst. We are growing all things creator economy and we need help. If you're interested, you can apply at jobs@wearerockwater.com. Lastly, we love to hear from our listeners. If you have any feedback on the show, any ideas for guests, just reach out to us. We're at tcupod@wearerockwater.com. All right, that's it, everybody. Thanks for listening. The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of Rockwater Industries. Chris Erwin:Please rate and review this show on Apple podcast and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. If you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter and you could follow us on Twitter @TCUpod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. Special thanks to Alex Zirin and Eric Kenigsberg from the RockWater team. 

Dan Levitt is the founder and CEO of Long Haul Management. We discuss how Dan paid rent while making only $6,000 a year out of college (many side hustles), beating me in an office rap battle, Disney's big miss in digital music, executive producing one of YouTube's premium original series, and what it's like to represent some of the biggest sports and gamer personalities on the Internet.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com---Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Dan Levitt:I chose the safer Disney route. Again, I needed to pay the bills. But I made a promise to myself. Every day, I saw someone else doing what I wanted to do. They were the AbsolutePunks of the world. Or there were other people who turned the music blog into an A&R career, or leveraged it in other ways.I'm good at seeing gaps in the marketplace and where could you go in it. I made a promise. The next time I see it, I'm fucking going for it. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Dan Levitt, the founder and CEO of Long Haul Management. Dan grew up in Boston with an early love for music and yet-to-be-discovered bands. So, after wrapping a few acts in high school and interning at Philly radio stations during college, he kicked off his career by moving to LA with absolutely no job prospects.But after a few A&R gigs at Columbia Records and Disney, Dan was early to see how digital and YouTube were going to transform the music industry. So, he left traditional media and kicked off his digital career, joining one of the early YouTube multichannel networks, company called Big Frame.We actually worked together there. And in less than nine months, I actually had to lay him off. Dan struck out on his own, positioned himself as the YouTube guy for the music industry and started his own talent shop, Long Haul Management.Some highlights of our chat include how Dan paid rent while making only $6,000 a year when he first moved to LA ... You'll crack up at some of his many side hustles ... when he beat me in an office rap battle, executive producing one of YouTube's premium original series, and what it's like to represent some of the biggest sports and gamer personalities on the internet. All right, let's get to it. Dan, thanks for being and the podcast. Dan Levitt:Thanks for having me. Chris Erwin:Awesome. I believe that you're a fellow East Coaster like myself. So tell me, where did you grow up? Dan Levitt:Sure, I'm from a nice suburb of Boston, Newton, Massachusetts. Literally voted safest city in America back when I was younger. So, nice Jewish suburb of Boston. Chris Erwin:Got it. It's funny. I went to underground at Tufts in Medford/Somerville. I think, while I was there, it was rated one of the most dangerous mafia-driven neighborhoods in the Northeast, or all of the US. So, quite the opposite of you. What was your household like? What were your family and parents doing? Dan Levitt:So, one, my parents are both from South Africa. They moved to the US in, I think, '77. My dad went to school for engineering, and then got a job in Boston, and then eventually started his own software business that really had a bunch of ups and downs. Mostly ups, and then fortunately sold to IBM right before the big bubble burst there. So, the timing was fortunate. Dan Levitt:And then my mom was artist. So, had all kinds of different things she would do in the art space, be it theater, be it actual prints and displays and stuff. Chris Erwin:Okay, very cool. It's funny. I've known you for about a decade and I had no idea your parents were from South Africa. Look, you're an entrepreneur. You've built out an incredible talent management firm. We're going to get to that in a bit. But you have entrepreneurial roots in your family. Dan Levitt:It's interesting now. I remember my dad would come back ... I think maybe at the height, he had 50, 60 people. Maybe more. I remember growing up, he'd come back from work and we'd be watching a Celtics game. It was the most exciting game ever, especially, they were really good back then. Dan Levitt:And he would fall asleep, and I'd be like, "How in the world can you possibly fall asleep during this game?" And now, I'm like, "Yep, I get it." Yeah, I could totally get how you could be so wiped out the day that, no matter what is on TV, you're just out. Dan Levitt:I mean, what was really interesting is, my parents went through a kind of messy divorce. We don't need to get into that but that's a whole fun story. But what's interesting is, when they separated, he stayed with a friend for a bit. And he went from sleeping in the basement of a friend's house to selling his business to IBM in a year. Dan Levitt:There were a lot of times that people told him, because the business had some challenges over the years, there were a lot of people that told him that he should declare bankruptcy with the business. But he stayed with it. And eventually, it worked out for him. I'm sure, hopefully, some of the resiliency I have, learned from him. Chris Erwin:Wow. Awesome. I have to ask. Being from Boston, a lot of media professionals from Boston have a pretty strong Boston identity. I think of Dave Portnoy in Barstool Sports, and Bill Simmons from The Ringer. Do you think of yourself like that, or your total West Coast transplant now? Dan Levitt:It's not just specific to Boston, but especially in the Northeast, there's a certain intensity and, I think, an edge that you can have, where in Boston, in traffic, if someone cuts you off, you scream at each other. And that's just acceptable and that's how you vent, right? Dan Levitt:In LA, it's much different than that. I'm in LA now. On the West Coast, people are more scared of confrontation. If you scream at someone, that's a really big deal. I think there's just a certain firm mentality that you have where it's pretty hard to bother me or get under my skin. Dan Levitt:I have thick skin. I do think part of that is just growing up in a culture where people are so up front with that. I also think, to a certain extent, growing up in cold climate where the weather is pretty brutal, and you just have to plow through it, does give some sort of mental toughness. Chris Erwin:I think that's totally right. I think there's this saying. I hope I'm not butchering it. But it's, "In New York, when people are saying, 'Fuck you,' they're saying, 'Good morning.' In the West Coast, when they say, 'Good morning,' they're saying, 'Fuck you.'" Dan Levitt:Yeah. I mean, but it's more so ... I remember in one of my first PA jobs in LA, I had a disagreement with another PA about the way things should be done. And then later on, I was brought into the office by my supervisor and they're like, "Dan, you were screaming at them. Why?" Dan Levitt:And I was like, "I wasn't screaming at them. I was telling them something they didn't want to hear in a certain tone. If I was screaming at them, they would know. Everybody would know." So, that was really the first ... I just moved to LA and I was like, "Shit, I got to really be cognizant of how I talk to people out here. They're going to think I'm a fucking lunatic," which, to a certain extent, is true. But maybe I need to slow play that a bit. Keep my response- Chris Erwin:It's part of your je ne sais quoi, as they say. Nothing- Dan Levitt:Yeah. I mean, you know me really well. But for people who just meet me, I can be a lot. Chris Erwin:Yeah, so let's actually talk about how you got to where you are today. I think, trying to get a sense of, was there a glimpse in your early days of you entering entertainment, becoming a talent manager? I think about things that you had mentioned that you were looking at unsigned bands in high school in the '90s. Tell me about that. Dan Levitt:My skillset is, I'm really good at seeing patterns and seeing where things are going, right? Before they get there. So, I think that's what I'm best at, be it entertainment or trends. I've done okay in the stock market, investing and stuff. So, specific to your question, yeah. Dan Levitt:My first real strong passion was music. I heard Green Day and it changed my life. And I was like, "This is it." And then I definitely have the personality type where if I'm into something, I'm all the way fucking in. So, if I like Green Day, okay, I need ever record they've ever had. Dan Levitt:So, I started, the mid '90s or so, music was starting to shift to digital, right? So, you used to discover bands on the radio, and then around that time, there started to be primitive websites. Around when Napster first came out, there started to be people who would put MP3s online, right? Dan Levitt:So, now here are these blogs that are hosting MP3s. So, they would be posting bands that would be signed to record labels. And I would like these bands. I'd find then, I'd like them, and then they'd get big a year later. It was like, "Oh, I'm pretty good at knowing which bands are going to be big later." Dan Levitt:And then, one site in particular started focusing on unsigned bands, and I said, "Oh, these unsigned bands are pretty good. I think they're going to make it." And then they would get signed and they would make it. So, I saw, "Hey, I'm pretty good at ... " Dan Levitt:And I started learning more about the industry. And at that point, originally, my job was to, "Hey, I wanted to work as a music direct on the radio helping find the songs." And then I realized, "Hey, actually the best way I can help musicians is to work at a record label." So then, it was my dream to be an A&R guy to sign a band and help them break. Chris Erwin:And any genre focus? What types of music were you listening to? Was it Green Day punk? Stuff like that? Dan Levitt:More like the new metal, like the Korn. I know you're obviously a huge Limp Bizkit fan. That kind of stuff. Chris Erwin:Three Dollar Bill, Y'all Dan Levitt:Sure, exactly, right? Around that time was the Linkin Parks of the world and that kind of stuff. That was really the scene that I was into. I still had an appreciation for more pop music and stuff like that. But really, the rock, I would say, is the genre that I was into and certainly having a great moment then. Dan Levitt:Yeah, so then there were a few sites. And I remember trying to email people, and bands, and managers, and see what I could do. But I was just a kid in high school. Again, this is, I'm downloading songs over a dial-up modem. Chris Erwin:DSL. Dan Levitt:Yeah, exactly. This was not how easy it was today. That was the dream. But I didn't know anyone at entertainment. There was no path to it. I was like, "Could I start my own record label and fund it?" But that seemed so far from being feasible. Chris Erwin:Yeah, were you reaching out to any of these bands direct, or was it, you're just thinking about what you want to do after college? Dan Levitt:Yeah, I had a buddy from summer camp who was, at the same time ... This is the late '90s. He started interning at record labels in New York and started getting a bit of traction. So, we were talking about, "Hey, maybe we should start our own label." And there were one or two bands that we approached. They didn't really respond. It didn't go anywhere. Chris Erwin:Oh, I would've loved to have been a fly on the wall to hear the pitch of you pitching a band in high school to sign with you. Dan Levitt:I forget what the value proposition was, but that band didn't really go anywhere. They probably should've given us a shot. Chris Erwin:You're doing this in high school, and then you end up going to Temple University in Philly. Does the dream start to take form there? What happens? Dan Levitt:No. I wanted to be a bit more conservative. And I was like, "Hey, I know I want to get into entertainment. I know I want to be on the business side. What's interesting to me is the intersection of art and commerce. But these jobs are going to be really hard to get. So, as a background, why don't I get a business degree, just to give me some kind of stability and baseline of knowledge?" Dan Levitt:So, I went to school at Temple. There's all kinds of story. My dorm room burnt down freshman year. Just the craziest shit happened. Chris Erwin:Wait, did you cause that or was it somebody else? Dan Levitt:No, no. Well, it's a point of contention. My roommate was lighting candles for some reason at 10:00 in the morning. But the fire marshal said it was electrical outlet. It's a whole thing. But anyways, went to Temple. Actually, before I left, I interned at a radio station in Boston. Then I interned at radio stations in Philly because that was really the only ... Dan Levitt:There weren't record labels in Boston, at least that I was aware of, in Philly. So, I just interned at radio in hope that I could make my way up there. But then I saw, man, the radio jobs ... I mean, and this was back then. I could only imagine now. Radio's not glamorous at all. It's really bare bones. The budgets are next to nothing. No one leaves these jobs. The jobs didn't pay great. Dan Levitt:So, I realized, "Hey, I thought I wanted to do radio, but this is not for me." And then that was more like, "Okay, I want to work for a record label." That was the dream. Be an A&R guy. Chris Erwin:In graduating Temple, which I think is around 2004, do you go immediately ... Do you have a job lined up? Like you're going to a record label. You're pumped going to the big city? Dan Levitt:I don't know why. I wasn't really actively hustling for a gig. I guess I assumed, "Oh, the college sets up some interviews and stuff." Nothing. So, a couple of my buddies went there. Temple has a really good film program, so most of my friends actually weren't on the business program. They were more on the film side. Dan Levitt:So, a couple of my buddies were moving out to LA to get started in their careers. So, I knew the music industry at that time was really New York or LA. And the last winter in Boston, the high was like eight degrees. I'm not one to complain about the cold, but I was too fucking cold. Dan Levitt:So, I was like, "Do I move to New York with no gig where it's crazy expensive and the weather's brutal, or maybe I should I try LA and see what it's like over there." So, I moved here without any job, and hoping that I'd figure it out. Chris Erwin:So, you're showing up without a lot of savings. No clear job prospects. Moving with a couple friends but don't really know anyone on the West Coast. So, there's a timeline here where it's like, "Hey, I got to figure something out probably in the next couple months," right? Dan Levitt:Totally. Maybe a couple grand. Thankfully, at least rent back then was a lot less than it is now. I think me and my buddies got a house in Glendale ... well, maybe Eagle Rock area or Glassell Park for maybe $1,000 between us three. It was pretty inexpensive. I had some cost but I had a little bit of room to work with there. Chris Erwin:Yeah, so you show up with maybe a couple suitcases. You're in LA. What's your mentality? Are you pumped? Are you excited? Are you also scared? And then what do you start doing to sow your roots? Dan Levitt:Really, it was just like, "Okay, I have a business degree. Surely, I can get an entry-level job somewhere doing marketing." And just nothing. Barely interviews. Fucking nothing. So, I was just like, "All right, let me just ... " Couple of my buddies started PAing, so I did some PA gigs. Dan Levitt:But even in those gigs, you really have to hustle. You have to networks. And the gig ends and then you've got to get another job. And then that one ends. You got to get another job. I didn't really want to jump from job to job. There's late-night shoots. It would mess up my sleep schedule. Dan Levitt:I was a much different person. I was a lot lazier. I didn't think things would come to me. I just thought it would be easier. Chris Erwin:It's funny to hear you say that, because who you are now, who I have seen you evolve from since the Big Frame days in 2013, right? When you left. You are such a go-getter. Eye on the ball. Laser focus. Massive hustler. So, I guess this was an important experience for you to train that muscle and change your mentality. Dan Levitt:For some background, I am not a type ... Now, I'm probably type A, but I promise you, I was not type A. For context, I don't know what my GPA was in high school. Maybe a 2.3. It was not good at all. At all. I was a bad student. For context, in second grade, I already wasn't doing homework just I couldn't be bothered to do it. I could do it. Dan Levitt:I could pass everything and do it well. For some reason, it wasn't interesting to me. Probably wasn't until after I left Big Frame when I really had to figure stuff out for my own. But I had to really flip that switch and become that person. There's some people who just born type A. That's been a constant evolution for me. Chris Erwin:But your first job, you do get an A&R job at Columbia Records, which is part of Sony Music, I think in March 2005. How did that come to be and what was that experience like? Dan Levitt:Oh, this is a great story about how this ends. The buddy I mentioned earlier who was interning at record labels, he was able to move up. I think he was actually probably the youngest A&R guy in Sony history, at least at the time. He helped get John Legend signed and Coheed and Cambria. So, after John- Chris Erwin:Favorite band, Coheed and Cambria. Jersey band in the metalcore punk-ish type scene. Love them. Dan Levitt:Yeah, I think that was one of the first things he got signed. And then after he helped get John Legend signed, who they had passed on maybe five or six times, then they started, "Oh, maybe we should listen to him." He got promoted. At the time, the music industry was really going through an interesting transition. This is 2005. Dan Levitt:So, this is after the height of the boy band and rock. CD sales are declining now, relative to all-time highs. What was happening was, you were seeing a lot of executive turnover. So, a lot of execs who got these amazing lucrative deals in the good old days were getting or not renewed. So, there was a lot of turnover. Dan Levitt:So, what happened was, at that time, most of the A&R people for Columbia Records were in New York. But they needed someone lower level in LA to go see shows for them, especially at that point, the live shows. Especially in rock and other genres is a big part of a band's success. Dan Levitt:They didn't really have anyone lower and my buddy knew that I was still hustling. I'm working retail at that point. I'm working at The Vitamin Shoppe just to pay the bills, right? Because I didn't want the hustle of the random PA gigs. Keep in mind, I'm still applying for marketing jobs at a Nestle's and other more consumer products. Dan Levitt:I'm applying at entertainment too, but everyone is entry ... And this is even worse now. An entry-level job, they want you to have experience. I didn't have any work experience. I had a couple internships. So, I'm just working retail. My buddy is basically able to get me a job working for Columbia Records, but part-time, right? Dan Levitt:So, I'm basically working at The Vitamin Shoppe during the day, and then at night, going out and doing A&R for Columbia Records, albeit, in a part-time capacity. And I'm just fucking praying that no one I know from the music world comes into the store. Dan Levitt:So, it's really a one foot in, one foot out. And I'm basically just trying to do what I can to find the next great act for them to sign. So, that I can get recognized, and that I can do this full-time, and quit the soul-sucking day job. Chris Erwin:How much were you making as an A&R exec at this point? Dan Levitt:I might have been making maybe $125 a week. I think it was definitely between six and seven grand a year. So, not by any means enough to pay the bills, but not terrible, especially back then as a side. Keep in mind, if you look at it from an hourly perspective, I'm not really doing much. Maybe I go to one or two shows a night. Dan Levitt:By the way, I'm on the guest list for shows. I can walk into The Viper Room and the people there know me. I can just go in. So, I'm seeing amazing shows. I'm meeting people in the industry. I'm meeting managers. Meanwhile, anyone I meet, I'm trying to see if I can work with them. Dan Levitt:I'm applying for job after job. Entry-level manager assistant, $24,000. I'm applying. At that point, I have Columbia Records on my resume, and still barely getting bites. Even then, for whatever reason, I wasn't getting the gigs. It was a really, really tough time. Dan Levitt:It's worth noting, this was before the tech started. This was before SoundCloud. This is before some of the first music startups. So, there really wasn't much opportunity to get a gig somewhere. I interviewed at some of the music marketing companies like Streetwise. Dan Levitt:And this is building street teams and digital street teams. I wanted to do all that shit. I had some experience and still couldn't get in. Columbia Records. So one, it's kind of laughable now, but I discovered Arctic Monkeys extremely early. They only had three songs online. No one had heard of them in the US. No sales. Nothing. Dan Levitt:So, I have a bunch of buddies that I would send songs to. This is when The Strokes are first hitting, right? I find them on one of the music blogs that I like. These songs are ... I'm into them but I don't love it. I send it to a bunch of buddies and universally, everyone of them were like, "This is the best thing you've ever sent." Dan Levitt:And I was like, "Really? Wow." So then, I pitched them to Columbia Records and they're, "Oh, this is cool. It's this cool indie rock thing. But it's three guys in the UK. There's no sales. There's no history. It'd be really hard for us to fly them back and forth. But thanks for bringing it up." Dan Levitt:I didn't really know that I had to keep following up. "Hey, there's starting to be some noise." I didn't know. No one taught me how to do A&R or how to pitch, had to follow up. Again, it's not like I'm going into an office. I'm just remote because I still had the day gig. Dan Levitt:So, anyways, eventually there were Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen, a few things that I pitched that ended up hitting eventually. And then it got to the point where Sony Music was having a weekend where they were bringing in ever Sony Music employee to New York to do this whole song and dance about their roster. Dan Levitt:So, I basically request vacation time from my dad gig to go to New York. Again, Columbia Records is paying me $125 a week, but they're flying me to New York and put me up in a fancy hotel. Chris Erwin:It's like half your salary. Dan Levitt:Oh, no, by far, they spent way more on this. I mean, anyways, it was a weekend in Greenwich, Connecticut with the A&R team. So, I get called into the head A&R's office on the Friday. He's like, "Hey, Dan, I have some great news for you. Thanks for everything you've done. We're going to make you full-time. We're just waiting to hear from accounting on how much that's going to be. We'll get back to you." Dan Levitt:And I'm like, "This is what I've been fucking working my whole life for." And then right afterwards, we get on the bus to go to Greenwich, Connecticut. And Columbia had just brought on Steve Lillywhite, the producer who produced all the big U2 records, Dave Matthews. Albums I fucking grew up on. I'm shooting the shit with him now. Dan Levitt:We go to the head of the label's house, and there's all these Korn, and Rage Against the Machine, and all these albums that were so meaningful to me. All the plaques. It was a weekend where I felt like I was one of them now. My whole life, I've been trying to get in, and now I'm finally in. Still today one of the best weekends of my life. Dan Levitt:And then I fly back and it's Monday. And I'm back in the day job. And I'm just waiting for the phone call. I'm just waiting for the phone call about how much more money it's going to be. I'm so fucking ready. I get the call. "Hey, Dan, we have some bad news. We're not going to have room for you anymore. Sorry, but thanks for everything you've done." Chris Erwin:Wow. Just fast like that? Almost no emotion? Just, boom. Dan Levitt:No, no, to his credit, he was really apologetic. But I was fucking shellshocked because the call I got where I thought, "Okay, this is the phone call. I'm about to quit. I'm about to quit day job," was just the carpet ripped out from under me. Dan Levitt:I had the day job but at least I was grinding at night, hoping to get somewhere. Now, that was taken from me. And now I'm like, "Fuck, I'm about to be 25 with a business degree, working retail. This is not how I thought shit was going to go." Dan Levitt:So, it ends up being revealed later on, it wasn't clear at that time, but basically, Columbia Records was bringing on Rick Rubin and he wanted his own people. But it was just a gut shot at the time. Chris Erwin:So, Dan, you get into a few side hustle. And I think one of them culminates in you doing chat room marketing for cream cheese. But tell us a couple highlights here because I think some of these side hustles, like swap meets, is still involved in your life today. Dan Levitt:It's always fun for me, trying to figure out new ways to make money. It's a lot easier now with the internet and stuff. It wasn't back then. I was a big focus group slut. I would do anything. Promote anything. So, I would get really good at filling out focus group surveys. Dan Levitt:I knew how they wanted you to answer, and so I would do ... For example, I've been paid to eat tofu. I've been paid to eat gum. I've been paid to eat McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. I got paid to play a Xbox Kinect before it came out. I've been paid to look at marketing materials. Dan Levitt:I've been paid to play with phones, and gadgets, and look at Cirque du Soleil. All kinds of stuff. Especially in LA, I'm sure this is the case in maybe a lot of big cities, but there's a lot of companies that do focus groups both in person. And I was just a maniac. Dan Levitt:There were a few Twitter accounts that popped up from those. It's like, "Hey, if you're this and you're this, fill it out." So, I would just ... whatever I could to try to get in. Chris Erwin:And this was paying the bills for you, so this was important. Dan Levitt:I think one year, I made maybe eight grand doing it. My first couple years in LA, I might have made only $20, $30 grand, so it was pretty significant. There was a store in LA that, on Sundays, would sell clothes, some vintage, some new, for a dollar. Dan Levitt:I would go and I'd buy most of the men's stuff. I'd list it on eBay. Basically, anything I sold it for was profit. I ended up getting fired from The Vitamin Shoppe. That's not really an interesting story. There was a company doing ... This would be summer 2008. They were doing experimental digital marketing. Dan Levitt:So, they were basically going into chat rooms essentially spamming message points. But then also, you had to have one-on-one conversations with people where you'd have to work in talking points, which was really fucking hard. Especially, how do you work cream cheese into a conversation organically? But I got fucking really good at it. Dan Levitt:So, within two days, I got so good at it that, by the end of the first week, I was promoted to the night shift manager. So, you would drop the campaign talking points into the chat. But really, it was all about these one-on-one conversations because basically, this agency would take those conversations, chop them up, make them clean, and then share it with the brand, and, "Hey, look, we're doing this subtle marketing for you." Chris Erwin:What was one of the lines that was something that you custom crafted that you were known for? Dan Levitt:This is really interesting psychology. What everyone else would do was, they would try to hit up a million people to try to find one, and try to work it in. They would brute force it. I took the opposite approach. I was like, "I'm going to ask other people online about themselves, and then just as conversations go, they'll flip it. And they'll ask me about myself." Dan Levitt:And then I'm like, "Oh, yeah." Put one of the common ... "Oh, what do you do for work?" I'm not going to say the brand's name but it's a city where I went to school. But it's like, "Hey," we couldn't say, "I work at." We had to say, "I work with X cream cheese company." "Oh, really? I love cream cheese. Cool." Dan Levitt:And then it's like, "Oh, what do you use it on?" "Oh, I can use it for cheesecakes or stuff like that." Or there's another site that's harder to use but you could actually see people's images. Think Myspace era. It wasn't Myspace but similar. Dan Levitt:So, I would identify people that I thought, based on physical attributes, might be interested in cream cheese. And I'd just message them and chat with them. But man, that was one of the funnest jobs I ever had, more so because, as a guy, it's not so bad. You're mostly talking to girls. As a girl on the internet trying to talk to guys about cream cheese, the kind of shit that they would hear was just- Chris Erwin:Probably a dark rabbit that we will not go down. So, Dan, then you head to A&R at Disney around September 2008. How did that come to be? Dan Levitt:My roommate used to do HR for Disney, right? So, keep in mind, at that point actually, I'd left the cream cheese job. And I'm working in a movie theater. I'm making $8.50 an hour. I got my side hustles. So, I see a job posting for A&R coordinator. Dan Levitt:I ping my roommate and I'm like, "Hey, do you know the recruiter for this gig?" And he did. It was someone he used to work closely with. So, I was able to customize my resume and it went directly to the recruiter from a friendly ... I remember the weekend I saw the job, I was in Chicago for a wedding. Dan Levitt:And I remember holding back my friend for an hour, so I could tweak it before we went and got pizza. I applied on a Friday. And then I got back and basically, I think that day, the recruiter called. I had a phone interview. And basically, the next Friday, I had a gig. Chris Erwin:Wow. That moved very fast in contrast to your other stuff. Dan Levitt:Unheard of for Disney. And the salary was in the mid-40s. Again, I had a Columbia Records gig, but it paid next to nothing. And now, I have an A&R job at Disney with a real fucking salary and amazing benefits, and it happened so quick. And I had been out here for five years grinding. Just grinding. Chris Erwin:Did you feel you had made it at that point, like, "I've made it. I'm here"? Dan Levitt:It wasn't that I made it. It was that I made it out of retail because to this day, I ... There's absolutely nothing wrong with working retail, I did it forever, but I don't want to do it again. I don't want to interact with the public. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how fast it happened. And just like that, my whole world changed. Dan Levitt:I was so appreciative and so thankful to have a gig that provided some stability that was in a industry that I wanted. You meet someone, you tell them you work for Disney, it changes the perception of you, right? And certainly for me, who'd been trying to get a real industry gig, it was fun to ... I knew that I had the chops, and it was finally someone recognizing it. Chris Erwin:Hey, listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you could give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview. Chris Erwin:After this, you end up going to, call it, the YouTube revolution of Big Frame. So, I'm just curious, while you're at Disney, was there anything about emerging media, digitally native artists that you were focused on during those four years? Trying to sense a through line here. Dan Levitt:After I left the Columbia Records gig or got let go, I saw these people who had these music blogs that were starting to go with their own reputations as tastemakers. So, I thought, "Oh, maybe I should do that for myself. Maybe instead of working for a record label and being a tastemaker, maybe I should do that on my own, with my blog or something." Dan Levitt:But I didn't really have the technical prowess to do the blog stuff. It seems like, "Oh, it should've been easy." Blogs and stuff were not easy back then. So actually, I started doing online video. I bought an HD camera. This must've been very early YouTube days. Dan Levitt:But I actually, with a buddy, recorded some HD music industry podcasts where we talked about music industry news and stuff. But I think I would post it on YouTube, but sadly and stupidly, because YouTube didn't monetize then, I put it on Revver where they did monetize. R-E-V-V-E-R was sort of a YouTube competitor at the time that did monetize. Dan Levitt:And I was like, "Oh, I want to make money doing this," so even though there's more audience on YouTube, I put it there. And nothing happened that I didn't ... It was hard relying on my buddy, who was great to schedule this. I didn't stick with it. So, I didn't stick with it. But I was doing it semi-consistently. Dan Levitt:But then when I got the Disney job, I asked if I could continue doing it, and they were like, "No, you're doing A&R for us. You obviously can't be talking about acts that aren't signed to Disney." So, I put that on the side and then I saw the early podcast boom. Dan Levitt:Again, I'm listening to Bill Simmons. I'm listening to Carolla. Saw the podcast thing happening. So, while I'm at Disney, especially I'm a couple year in, it was a decent job but my department is pretty strict. I wasn't given the freedom that you would think an A&R guy would have. It was a lot more administrative. Dan Levitt:It was a glorified assistant, right? It wasn't an A&R role. They truly did not care about my opinion for acts in my estimation, especially the label side. I worked for the publishing side. I tried to get in with the label guys and it didn't really work. Dan Levitt:A couple years in, I'm starting to think, "Okay, I got to get out of here." This was great, but I'm like, "I'm going to be a 30-year-old A&R guy who's never got anything signed. And if lose this gig ... " And again, this is the industry especially 2008, 2009, 2010, sales are going way down. Dan Levitt:This is when streaming is just starting. So, I'm trying to meet whoever I can, right? So actually, this is when SoundCloud first starts. I was up for a gig there. I had some friends record some messages recommending me. I had a great relationship of amazing songwriters and artists that I was an advocate for, that hadn't really made it or were just starting to. Dan Levitt:I tried to get at SongKit and all these things that were starting. I actually tried to get a job at Spotify. I'm actually one of the first 500 people in the US to have a Spotify account. I had an account for two years before it launched. Chris Erwin:I think what I'm hearing is that you've also applied to every single music company, I think, in the world by this point. Dan Levitt:Yeah, but especially the good ones, right? I loved what SoundCloud was doing. Really at the time, they were so innovative. And they were solving their big problem, which was hosting audio. The role that I wanted was helping artists get on the platform and figure stuff out. Dan Levitt:So, around that time, again, I always believed in YouTube. I was doing it for myself. And then obviously Justin Bieber broke. And I'm looking on YouTube and I'm seeing these kids who are doing mid-tempo acoustic ballads, because that's all they can do, because that's what you do when you start. Dan Levitt:But they were doing covers and building an audience. And I was like, "The originals aren't that good. And I know all these amazing songwriters and producers that right now getting cuts in a major label system, because it's a fixed game, because the heads of the A&R start separate publishing divisions. And those people get the singles." Dan Levitt:So, I was like, "What if I actually brought some artist development into this YouTuber space where these people have done the hardest part. They've built an audience," right? There was one day on Twitter, the YouTube Creators account on Twitter posted that they were having an event at ... This is before the YouTube Space ... at YouTube's offices where they were talking about what makes a video successful on YouTube. I said, "That'll probably be good for me to know." Dan Levitt:I went and Sarah from Big Frame, who we both know well, was on the panel. She was talking about how she started a business and she was managing YouTubers. I was surprised that this was a thing, that there was enough of a business for there to be managers. Dan Levitt:Not only that, really smart ... Sarah is really impressive. I was like, "Wow, this is wild. I had no idea this kind of scene was happening." And then someone else actually asked about music. "What should the labels do?" And she was like, "Oh, the labels have no idea what they're doing at all." Dan Levitt:And then I went up to Sarah afterwards. I was, "Oh, I work for Disney Music." She's like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." I was like, "Oh, no, you have no idea how right you are." Actually, for an anecdote about how truly out of touch, in my experience, they were ... Dan Levitt:So again, through my relationships, I was one of the first 500 in the US to have Spotify. The Spotify had their agreement. They had a few test accounts for people in the industry to get to try it. I had one. I went to the head ... maybe the number two at Disney Music. Dan Levitt:And I was like, "Hey, I got this cool thing, Spotify. Have you seen it? Have you tried it? Do you want an account?" He was like, "Oh yeah, I'm not worried about that. I don't need one." It was so clear to me this was the future and they couldn't be bothered. Dan Levitt:Even, again, I'm still kind of green, right? But I saw that, hey, by the way, when they did the Spotify deal, Universal was distributing Disney, right? Universal got equity. Warner got Equity. Sony got equity. Disney didn't get equity but Universal leveraged the market share for distributing Disney for equity in Spotify. And I asked them, "Why did you do that?" I'm a fucking coordinator and you don't have- Chris Erwin:You're seeing where the industry is headed. And the vision at the top of Disney, or particularly for the Disney Music division, they just don't get it. So, you're like, "They're not going to get it." At your level, you're not going to be able to influence them. Chris Erwin:So, you're saying, again, "I got to make a move. I got to get out of here. The future is changing and I want to be a part of it." Dan Levitt:I think the big thing was, I saw what happened in podcasts. I didn't have to but I chose the safer Disney route, right? Because I needed a gig. I needed to pay the bills. But I made a promise to myself. Every day, I saw someone else doing what I wanted to do. They were the AbsolutePunks of the world, or there were other people who turned the music blog into an A&R career, or leveraged it in other ways with all these podcasts blowing up. ** Dan Levitt:And I promised myself, I was like, "I'm good at seeing gaps in the marketplace and where could you go in it. I made a promise. The next time I see it, I'm fucking going for it." Chris Erwin:I love that. Dan Levitt:That's why, when I met Sarah and I saw ... I was like, "This YouTube thing is fucking next. No one in the music industry realizes it. Let me get in. At worst ... " After that conversation with Sarah ... The follow-up week, we had lunch somewhere. Dan Levitt:And after that conversation, I was like, "Sarah, hire me." She was like, "I can't now but we're doing raise soon. Let's stay in touch." Then afterwards, I was like, "This is fucking it. I fucking know it. I need to get in here no matter what." So, I started being very aggressive. Chris Erwin:This is probably, thinking in a Big Frame timeline, the company was founded in, I think, the second half of 2011. And they officially raised funding from the Google Original Channels program and a seed round, I think, in early 2012. And you come in the second half of 2012. But yeah, Sarah's talking about they had to get funding lined up. I jointed Big Frame, I think, in July of 2012. Dan Levitt:But at this point, after I had lunch with Sarah, I'm like, "Okay, this is it. I need to get into this space," right? So, at the time, there were three companies, right? There was Maker, there was Big Frame, and Full Swing. Those were the three big ones, right? Dan Levitt:When I stepped back, I looked. At the time, Maker was far bigger and the hot company at that point, right? The one that had the most buzz. The one that had the most resources and stuff. So, I decide that I want to ... Sarah's great but let me see if I could get a job at Maker. Dan Levitt:I have a meeting with whoever's running their music dept. And this guy, he was cool. He was okay but did not have the level of sophistication or music knowledge that I had, right? And I think, especially, it's worth considering, at this point, the space is so new, there's no one with Sony and Disney A&R. The level of traditional level of music in the space at all. But I decide I'm going to go for it. Dan Levitt:I meet with him. It's a decent interview. And then I decide I really want to go out of my way to show them that I want this, right? So, at the time, Maker had 100 employees. So, the next day, I send over 100 Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the Maker office with a note, "Let's make sweet music together." Chris Erwin:How did that touch work out for you? Dan Levitt:I got a second interview. Literally, people in Maker are Tweeting about it, right? And I thought, "Look, at worst, it'll be memorable and maybe they'll think about me in the future. And at best, if I get the gig, everyone's going to like me from day one, because I'm the doughnut guy." Dan Levitt:Again, I'm real fucking desperate to get out of Disney at this point. I see the writing on the way, especially, one thing to mention is that at this time, we're talking 2012, the publishing division had merged with the record labels. And essentially, the head of one of the record labels was now the new music group boss. Dan Levitt:I was at Sony after the Sony BMG merger and I saw people getting picked off one by one. And I saw the same thing happening at publishing. I said, "This was a merger, the record side won, and the publishing people are going to go one by one." As soon as I saw the first domino fall, I was fucking on it. So, I definitely feel like there's an ax going over my head slowly descending. Chris Erwin:Yeah, so the timeline is compressing. You got to make moves. Okay, so after Disney, do you then apply to Big Frame? What happens next? Dan Levitt:Yeah, eventually, I end up ... I apply to Big Frame. I meet you. Chris Erwin:You said that you sent a video as part of your application, right? Dan Levitt:Right. Right. There was a job. I think, after Google acquired Next New NOW, they had a strategist role that I applied for that I didn't get. But I knew that, if you looked at my resume, you would see traditional media. I really wanted them to understand that I got digital culture. Dan Levitt:So, I made a video in addition to my resume, a fun video that played on the memes or the trends on YouTube at the time. The video was like, "Hey, I'm a big fan of YouTube. It's not just people doing the cinnamon challenge," and then it cut to me doing that, "or getting hurt," Then to me getting hit by 20 dodge balls from different angles. Chris Erwin:I actually think I vaguely start to remember this now. Dan Levitt:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Oh my God. Dan Levitt:I just knew that, especially having applied for so many gigs at traditional companies and not getting my resume seen, I wanted to make sure that in the future when I applied for a job, I was being extra. I was really going out of my way to show that I was serious about it. And also, especially with digital, that I got it the culture. That I got the space. Dan Levitt:That I'm not some stuffy guy. I really wanted to show that I was a believer in the space and to differentiate myself. Sarah actually told me after I was hired that the video did ease some of her concerns that it was going to be a more stealthy music guy, because especially at that time, the music industry and the MCNs, it was really contentious, right? Dan Levitt:It was Sony and some of the publishers having seen Myspace grow, and build, and get a huge valuation. It was very much a new emerging trend the music industry sees as a threat. And that dates back to sheet music but that's a separate tangent. Chris Erwin:Well, and to be clear, at least from my vantage point, I don't think there was any worry that you were going to be a traditional stuffy music guy, because I remember, I think, this is me and Jason Ziemianski were working on building out the different content verticals for Big Frame. Dan Levitt:Which was so smart to do. Chris Erwin:Yeah, so smart. So, we had Wonderly. We had Forefront. We also had a music vertical. We had an LGBTQ vertical and maybe one or two more. So yeah, we're thinking about music. I remember I'm in the back room. This is when we were on the Sunset Boulevard office, the old National Lampoon building. Chris Erwin:I mean, you come in for an interview and there was a window between the back room and the front. Jason pointing at you and he's like, "That's who you're going to interview. That's Dan." I remember looking at you and I had never seen anyone that looked like you. You were in a shiny silver suit. So, one thing that I thought- Dan Levitt:Yeah, the shiny suits. The famous shiny suit. Chris Erwin:Yeah. One, I thought it was weird because I was like, "Okay, this is digital video. People were a bit more casual. Jeans and T-shirts. He's in a suit. That's kind of weird. But then second, it wasn't just a normal suit. It was just something I'd never seen before." Chris Erwin:And I was like, "All right, this guy's a character." And from where I came from, I was just like ... I'm from traditional East Coast finance. So, I was started to discount you in my head, but also realizing I'm biased. I'm like, "Maybe this is the people that we want. I've never encountered someone like this but maybe this is the thinking and the pedigree that we want." Chris Erwin:So, then I remember sitting with you on the couches in the front. And you're mile-a-minute telling me your story and I'm drinking from a fire hose. I remember peppering you with questions. I don't even know what they were. But fast forward, we end up liking you and we hire you. Chris Erwin:All right, we hire you at Big Frame and this is in October 2012. What do you remember from those early days? What are you working on? Dan Levitt:I just remember being so excited, man. Sarah and you guys believing in me especially. Again, I'm pretty good at knowing where things were going. And just you guys just, "Hey, great. Music is the big thing on YouTube. Dan, figure it out. Figure out the opportunity." Dan Levitt:The belief in me was so amazing. Also, I'm coming from working at four years at Disney where, at least with my direct supervisors, I didn't feel like I was being treated as an adult. Everything was micromanaged. I was essentially chained to my desk. Dan Levitt:And moving into a role where it just felt like anything was possible. I remember getting there and there was really next to no musicians signed at all, right? I think you guys hadn't signed them because you didn't know what to do with them. There were a handful. Dan Levitt:And then I was like, "Hey, I have this idea for a music show." I knew that I would need to get a good song out of each of the talent that we'd had. So, I was like, "Hey, I know all these amazing songwriters and producers who know YouTube is next or I'm telling them. They're excited that I'm making this leap." Dan Levitt:And they're like, "Hey, YouTube's a thing. What should we do?" So, I just remember Sarah and I and you talking about this show idea. And then a week later, we had money from YouTube to do it. So, it was the biggest mind fuck because my entire career, I heard, "No." Literally, my 20s was hearing the word no. Dan Levitt:And literally, I can honestly say in the first month at Big Frame, I did more than in my 10 years at traditional. It was that quick. And I've really only heard, for the most part, heard, "Yes," ever since. But you can do so much more in the space. There aren't the same gatekeepers at Disney. If you try something new and it doesn't work, you lose your job. Chris Erwin:This flip a switch where you're like, "Okay, within the first month at Big Frame, I'm hearing, 'Yes,' and money is behind it"? So, do you start thinking, "Oh, if I'm a go-getter, there's a lot more I can do here"? Dan Levitt:I don't know that it was even that cognizant. It was more that I didn't really know which direction to go in. So, I was like, "Okay, there's a lack of artist development." One, that show ended up taking a lot more time. Chris Erwin:And you did that with Dave Days, right? Dan Levitt:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Called, the Writing Room. Dan Levitt:It's still up on YouTube, I think. It was great and we were all really happy with the songs and the shows, and got into artist development. And then while I was there, I realized, "Hey, before I go out and start signing people, I need to understand how YouTube works, especially in music where SEO is so important," because at the time, it was very much cover songs. Dan Levitt:And some of the biggest creators on the platform were doing cover songs, right? So, I needed to know how SEO worked. There was someone who was working at YouTube who reverse engineered the algorithm, and had done all this A/B testing to figure out how to grow channels. Dan Levitt:It was on the audience-development side, and that was MatPat. He had his channel, which maybe, I think, was a couple hundred thousand subscribers. But I didn't care. No one really cared much or paid much mind about his own channel. Dan Levitt:But he and I very quickly hit it off, because at that time, a lot of the managers, more so than other MCNs ... And the reason why I went with Big Frame, because I did get offers from all three, was, you guys wanted to be more high touch with a smaller roster, right? Dan Levitt:So, at that time, you guys actually were having some of the top talent on the platform sit down with MatPat, or just Mat at that time, who would basically tell them, "Hey, here's what you should be doing," and they wouldn't listen to him. But he was doing those one by one. Chris Erwin:And just to be clear, Matthew Patrick, who's now a huge YouTuber that Dan manages, he was an employee at Big Frame early days. Dan Levitt:He was a co-worker. Now he has maybe just under or close to 30 million across 4 channels, and is just one of the top channels on the platform, especially who's been able to do it for a decade. And has, probably, one of the most challenging formats where every video takes at least 100 or 200 hours in terms of scripting and post. Dan Levitt:It shouldn't work, but through pure determination and really thoughtful approach, it has worked. Anyways, he's working there. And quickly, we hit it off because, instead of just dropping the talent and him saying the same things over to talent that don't listen, I was like, "Hey, tell me. Do a knowledge transfer to me. I want to know this stuff, so that I can tell all my clients and be respectful of his time, and also learn. Dan Levitt:"I'm curious for myself. I want to know, how does SEO work and what are things I can do to grow my clients, so that we're providing value. And then once I know that, cool, let me go out and let me try sign some of the best and brightest." Dan Levitt:I thought that it would take me a while before I permeated, at least the music scene, on YouTube. By two or three months, based off of the work I was doing with one or two artists, I guess I should've went, "They all know each other. They would all collab. They all talk to each other." Dan Levitt:So, in a very short amount of time, I created a great name for myself as someone who's ... especially at that time, with the exception of Big Frame, it was scale, scale, scale. Just sign channels, get them into CMS, Comscore, Comscore. That was not Big Frame's approach. Dan Levitt:So, Big Frame really had a great reputation and I wanted to help further perpetuate that. So, not only was I helping people grow their channels, but I was setting them up with songwriters and producers, helping them figure out the different revenue streams. Dan Levitt:One of the challenges at that time was, the contracts that we had were more, at that time, standard MCN deals that only participated in ad revenue. And for most creators, that's fine, right? Because the ancillary revenues, the merch touring, and brand deals, and stuff were't there, or they were just starting. Dan Levitt:On the music side, especially then when it was confrontational with the publishers, the ad revenue is shared. So, the CPMs and the ad revenue was a lot lower take-home for the artist, and in turn, Big Frame. However, they were making significantly more and a lot more on downloads and streaming. Dan Levitt:So, I noticed, "Hey, I'm giving you advice and I'm helping you grow your channel. But we're only participating in, essentially, the least profitable revenue stream." So, I recognized, "Hey, at least in music, if we're going to be ... " And probably more broadly because we saw at time peak, and some other platforms come up that weren't YouTube. Dan Levitt:Some of the talent was trying to do stuff on their own and sort of getting exploited. And I realized, and I went to Sarah and you and said, "Hey, we might want to think about having our contracts be more robust and 360 if we're going to have this more boutique roster." Chris Erwin:Oh, I remember those conversations where we had, I think, a very short, minimal contract. Only participated in AdSense off of YouTube. Then a lot of push from the team saying, "Hey, we're doing all this work. We're impacting the 360 business of this talent. One, the company needs to get paid for it." Chris Erwin:And also, because you guys were thinking about, as talent managers, "How do you participate? What's your incentive?" Look, contracts is a whole separate thing, because I remember then the contract became like 12 pages. And then people were saying, "This is crazy. You got to make it simpler. No one's going to sign." But that's another tangent. Chris Erwin:Anyway, okay, you identify this. We start to rejigger the business. And yeah, you start building out our music vertical. Dan Levitt:It was going really well. I mean, we were getting the best talent. We just weren't monetizing the way that we wanted yet. And I was waiting on these management contracts to come in, so that we could get that ... Again, that process took longer. We were basically building ... Dan Levitt:We would've had all the best ones, right? Some of them had deals that they signed before that were, "Hey, as soon as this term ends, I'm going to join." Chris Erwin:So, I think this speaks to some mutual challenges, right? And frustration where we're trying to sort out the contracts. We're trying to sort out the business model. We're realizing at Big Frame, the music vertical is not directly making a lot of money relative to the cost that we're putting into it. Chris Erwin:Also, this is a point where I think there is some headwinds facing the MCN industry. We were having some challenges raising the needed capital and floating working capital. So, we had to make some changes. There was a discussion around, "Okay, probably going to have to shut down the music vertical, and we're going to have to let Dan go." Chris Erwin:This is something you and I talk about for the past 10 years. I remember being in the room when that conversation happens, because it was between me, and you, and Jason, I believe. Dan Levitt:I was really the first person let go. It was a growth stage. And then I was probably the first casualty, right? And to your credit, I was not surprised, because maybe a month or so before, you were like, "Hey, Dan, have you actually looked at some of the numbers in terms of what we're paying you and what you're bringing in?" Dan Levitt:Again, that seems blatantly obvious that I should've been but I wasn't. I came from a role that was very administrative and I kept doing what I knew. It wasn't clear to me that, "Oh, I'm actually responsible for ... I should be ... for my own P&L within this larger entity." Chris Erwin:In reflecting on that moment, and I don't actually think I've ever shared this before, but I think there's some realizations where, one, I think I was learning a lot about the digital entertainment industry, right? I had a very traditional background MBA. And there was a lot that I ... Chris Erwin:I knew about business and I knew that revenue had to be more than cost to get the profit. But I think I didn't understand the nuances of how this industry worked, of how you recruit talent, how you invest in a team, and figuring out the right business model. And I think listening to our talent managers, like yourself, could've been something I did with more focus and intent. Chris Erwin:But I think it was a mutual value exchange. We're all learning and I think this helped set up a lot of talent managers for success of thinking about running a sustainable business. Thinking about top line versus bottom line. And I know that there was some conversations where, yeah, I was giving clinics to you and some of the other members of the team like, "Let's sketch out some numbers and see what works here. Chris Erwin:"And it's not working. How do we get there?" And I feel that you've taken that to your new business, which has obviously been paid off in spades for you. Dan Levitt:I think me and the other talent managers there, we kind of went in wide-eyed where we knew the opportunity, and we knew where we saw things were going. But I don't think any of us had run this kind of a business like that or thought through that kind of stuff. Dan Levitt:It's just like you're trying to build the plane while you fly it. The other thing is, you obviously know this and you hear some of the stories from me and other, it's really hard dealing with talent. It's really hard dealing with talent. Especially then, one thing that I don't hear discussed as much, and I think for someone like me, who worked with traditional talent for a while, the digital talent's different, right? Dan Levitt:So, for me, working in music as an A&R guy, if I meet an artist or a musician, at least back then, they've heard, "No," a million times, right? And they understand the value of a team. On the YouTuber side, especially back then, especially early on, but it's still the same now, especially with the new breed of creators who are really fucking savvy, a lot of them don't understand the value of a team. Dan Levitt:They've hit a time when everyone's catering to them, especially the OG YouTubers who got in when you could just have deceptive thumbnails and stuff. They were not as receptive to advice that, potentially, they should've been. So, in addition to figure out how to make a business model of this thing as it's emerging, and especially, music is a lot harder in brand deals than beauty and other verticals, it was challenging. Dan Levitt:And it's compounded by, the job in working with talent is essentially to keep the unaccountable accountable. Chris Erwin:Look, I feel for you guys because I think you're working really hard dating over the past decade to figure out the business models that work for this new talent. And I think that's still happening together. And different from traditional managers, this feeling of you're always on. Chris Erwin:So, the internet doesn't shut off. It's 24/7. And you could be dealing with a brand deal that goes awry on a different timezone. And you're getting up at 4:00 AM. Or there's a YouTube channel take down that's impacting a brand deal, or a video that's meaningful to talent. And that happens at midnight, you got to be on it with a plan, a solution, and a call into the platform. That's unique. Chris Erwin:And look, that's a separate podcast to talk about all those stories. I think the collective Big Frame managers will write a book. But I will the challenge that you guys face in managing digital talent. For me, having run the talent organization and overseeing the talent managers, that's also hard because at the top, we tried to bear the burden of that stress, and give you guys the tools, and empower you. Chris Erwin:You guys demanded a lot because your talent demanded a lot. And it was admittedly hard. But I think it was a beautiful journey to go through together and we learned a lot. Dan Levitt:Yeah, I can't believe it was only eight months. I was only there eight months, which is surprising. But man, in that eight months, the professional development that I had was so far beyond. I remember saying to Steve Raymond, who was the CEO of Big Frame at the time, I remember telling him, "I'll never work for a big company again if I can avoid it." Dan Levitt:I like the startup culture. I like the fact that we're making it up, and we get to try new things, and make mistakes and do stuff. So far, I haven't had to. Chris Erwin:Before we go on and we talk about your transition to Long Haul, I think we'd be remiss if we just didn't tell one story about the upstairs rap battle. This still gets me to this day because you ended up as the winner. It pains me to this day. So, tell the listeners a quick context for our rap battle. Dan Levitt:Yeah, I don't know the origin of it. I think there might have been two. I don't know. I don't remember how it started but I think we were just ... We throw friendly jabs back and forth. And somehow, it cultivated in, "Hey, we're going to do a rap battle." Dan Levitt:I remember spending half the day writing out my stuff. I just remember the whole team was there and they were filming it. We got to find a video of it somewhere. But yeah, there was a rap battle and I was victorious. I know I went at you for ... Dan Levitt:I remember one line. You had a Ford that was giving you a bunch of challenges because all you could afford is a piece-of-shit Ford. That line really, while not being the most creative, really hit with the audience. Chris Erwin:Yeah. I think, in rap battles, you just get a sense, because like you said, everyone was watching. They were filming. Crowd's reacting. And if you track the energy, you just know who's winning. And I remember at the end with that line, the crowd just was like ... Chris Erwin:It just felt like, "All right, Dan has one this." I think we were kind of even throughout throwing these different jabs. I remember working on my script for a couple weeks. I was frustrated because I was like, "That line is ... That's not a special one. He just said Ford and afford in the same sentence." But it didn't matter. It was over. So, look, massive credit for you. Dan Levitt:You're going against a music industry professional. There were no ghostwriters but it's to be expected. So, if Chaz or anybody else wants to come for the throne, they know where I'm at. Chris Erwin:So, Dan, okay, after this let-go moment, what are you thinking about? What's next for you? Dan Levitt:When I took the gig, I knew it was going to be a roller coaster. I knew it was riskier, right? But again, I felt, "At worse, if it doesn't work out, at least I will presumably have positioned myself in the music industry as the YouTube guy. And because I know YouTube is going to be a big thing, I should be okay. I'll figure something out." Dan Levitt:And that's exactly what happened where, as soon as I let go, I hit up all my people. In that eight months, people did start to notice. Some people. I was very fortunate that, within the first month, I got two gigs doing consulting for two different startups that wanted to work with digital creators, particularly musicians, that actually paid more for a lot less work. So, I sailed up for the first time. Dan Levitt:Now, it's like, "Okay. Now, I'm actually making more money than I was at Big Frame and I have way more free time. So, what could I be doing?" And then around that time is when MatPat crossed a million subscribers. We hadn't talked in a while but there was that mutual respect, right? He's noticed that I was doing more for talent and being thoughtful. Chris

Steve West and Travis Price welcome guest Steve Raymond, the founder of Farwide Outdoors - the free app that is changing the way we go into the field. They tell some awesome hunting stories including Steve Raymond's first sheep hunt in Wyoming this past year, as well as mule deer hunting, and discuss the Farwide app in detail and what it brings to the outdoor community.

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

Every highway and byway is destiny’s trail and where it leads and what lies ahead is destiny’s secret. Down a dark road speeds a car bearing in it two who are destiny’s children though they don’t know it. To themselves they are two people on their way to a masquerade ball. Steve Raymond and his fiancee Marsha ´ Phillips, heading for an evening of gaiety and laughter but they’re destined to spend a strange and macabre evening in fear for one of the guests at the masquerade is death. . . Duration: 25:00 Broadcast Date: 1946

Episode 10 – Steve Raymond, Tech CEO shares with Jim & Phil his thoughts on sales in his world.  We talk about academia's' reluctance to see sales as an academic topic and we talk how important it is that C level leaders of all walks need to have a strong understanding of the sales process and why.  Steve Raymond is a seasoned Tech executive that has successfully transitioned a number of companies to date.   Follow us online: https://pangea-consulting.com/sales-people-podcast/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-griffin-79bba16/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-shaffalo-0216171a/   Check out our advertising partner Notecast: https://pangea-consulting.com/notecast Or directly:   Apple App Store Link https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1439173564?pt=119040285&ct=prtnrcl_tbest&mt=8 Android Play Store Link https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ex_iq.podcast&referrer=utm_source%3Dprtnrcl_tbest%26utm_medium%3Dlandingpage

Steve Raymond and Ben Jones conduct a brief quarterly review of NDW indicators, models, and assess the curret market environment.

>Steve Raymond and Ben Jones conduct a brief quarterly review of NDW indicators, models, and assess the curret market environment.

Steve Raymond and Eric McArdle review the FSM framework and discuss various methods of implementation.

Steve Raymond and Eric McArdle review the FSM framework and discuss various methods of implementation.

Steve Raymond and Jay Gragnani discuss how interest rates and volatility have effected major markets.

Steve Raymond and Jay Gragnani discuss how interest rates and volatility have effected major markets.

Steve Raymond and Eric McArdle discuss the FSM model evaluation from earlier this week.

Steve Raymond and Eric McArdle discuss the FSM model evaluation from earlier this week.

Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss the FSM Model landscape.

Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss the FSM Model landscape.

Steve Raymond and Ian Saunders discuss the rising US Dollar and the current Group Score landscape.

Steve Raymond and Ian Saunders discuss the rising US Dollar and the current Group Score landscape.

Steve Raymond is the CEO of 8i, a company that enables real human holograms - the ability to create them and distribute them - for augmented, virtual and mixed reality.Prior to 8i, Steve was the founder and CEO of BigFrame, a YouTube media company that was acquired by Dreamworks Animation. Previously, Steve was the VP Product Development and Strategy for Entertainment & Digital at NBCUniversal.8i is Steve’s 5th startup. Each of the previous four have been acquired. In addition to Dreamworks, acquirers have included MTV Networks, Yahoo, and AOL. Steve has a knack for spotting a winner, and he believes 8i will be another.In the second part of my conversation with Steve, we explore the state of the AR market and our position in the hype cycle. He explains why he believes the AR market will be different than 3D TV.Steve goes on to discusses how he spots a company that’s poised to win, and avoid one that’s set to disappoint. We also get into some of the differences and opportunities in China, and give some love to the LA Tech scene.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.

Steve Raymond is the CEO of 8i, a company that enables real human holograms - the ability to create them and distribute them - for augmented, virtual and mixed reality.Prior to 8i, Steve was the founder and CEO of BigFrame, a YouTube media company that was acquired by Dreamworks Animation. Previously, Steve was the VP Product Development and Strategy for Entertainment & Digital at NBCUniversal.8i is Steve’s 5th startup. Each of the previous four have been acquired. In addition to Dreamworks, acquirers have included MTV Networks, Yahoo, and AOL. Steve has a knack for spotting a winner, and he believes 8i will be another.I’ve broken my conversation with Steve into two parts. In this first part, Steve and I talk about the focus and progress of 8i. We touch on the technology of capturing and distributing volumetric video, why it’s hard, and who the early adopters may be.We discuss the search for product market fit and the challenges facing early stage startups in the AR and VR market today. Steve also shares advice on the art of being the CEO of an early stage company.I think you’ll love this one.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.

In this week's podcast, Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss what they are noticing in the market.

In this week's podcast, Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss what they are noticing in the market.

In this week's podcast, Steve Raymond, Tommy Doyle, and Jamie West look at asset class group scores and fixed income

In this week's podcast, Steve Raymond, Tommy Doyle, and Jamie West look at asset class group scores and fixed income

In this week's podcast, Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss the importance of inventory management.

In this week's podcast, Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss the importance of inventory management.

In this week's podcast,Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss an alternative model strategy to track the trend of the market

In this week's podcast,Steve Raymond and Ben Jones discuss an alternative model strategy to track the trend of the market

Sarah Penna is one of our most successful and insightful friends, and her newfound motherhood has provided even more insight. She tells us about the challenges of being acquired by Dreamworks and becoming a mother at the same damn time, and drops some priceless knowledge on the reality of online content and marketing. Sarah KILLS it. Don’t sleep on this episode.   3:25 Jacob and Sarah’s relationship       Philip DeFranco 5:13 Big Frame launched       http://www.bigfra.me/ 9:24 Pioneering a business in YouTubers      “Let me take on the nitty gritty… you focus on creative” 10:19 Partnering with Steve Raymond       Digitour - http://www.thedigitour.com/ 12:55 1st YouTuber lost to shooting       A loss of innocence      http://mashable.com/2016/06/11/christina-grimmie-shot-dead-florida/#EqfmbJquzaqG 16:30 “Hey Guys”       Supercuts      https://youtu.be/wtd5J0QPFCo 20:22 Early days of Current      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_TV  21:24 Managing Snooki and Jwoww’s YouTube accounts       Yung Mommy      https://youtu.be/zp5pW-27tJU 24:09 Big Frame/Working with Steve Rayond  33:51 The challenges of working with talent  36:54 Income and opportunities for YouTubers- then and now  38:21 What is YouTube Red?      https://www.youtube.com/red  43:34 “Ive reached the top and had to stop, and that’s what’s bothering me”  52:34 How Vine changed the world of film making  59:27 Selling a company before 30/Becoming a mom  1:09:04 Shay Carl and Tim Ferriss podcast      http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/06/27/shay-carl/ 1:23:34 What it means to sell a company      Extreme Ownership      https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-ebook/dp/B00VE4Y0Z2 1:38:313 Awestruck- “We like being domestic but we’re not afraid to order takeout”      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalcFcqOC_UdfxQAPHhwOqg 1:53:34 Why to use an influencer in brand marketing?/Evolution of brand marketing 2:00:59 Sarah’s future in new media   IG and Twitter- @sarah_penna Snapchat- mrspenna

Sarah Penna is the Head of Awestruck, a network and lifestyle brand for millennial moms. Sarah started her career at CurrentTV and then made her way into the YouTube space, working early on with Philip DeFranco. In 2011, Sarah founded talent management company Big Frame with Steve Raymond, which was acquired by AwesomenessTV in April 2014 for $15M. In this episode, Sarah talks about Al Gore’s “rockstar” moments at CurrentTV, her first encounter with popular YouTube personalities, and what motivated her to launch Big Frame, one of the first talent management firms for digital influencers. We also hear about Sarah’s journey as an entrepreneur, from picking the right co-founder to dealing with the “trough of sorrow” and ultimately going through diligence to sell the company. Hosts: Jackie Koppell and James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOSTS Jackie Koppell is a digital media consultant and the Founder of Pinnacle, a dinner and event series for leaders and visionaries in the entertainment industry. Prior to Pinnacle, Jackie served as the Head of Talent at AwesomenessTV. She is also the creator and host of the political satire show Newsy News. James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Epidemic Sound, the company reimagining music licensing for the digital age. Epidemic’s library contains tens of thousands of tracks that you can license a la carte or on a subscription basis. Unlike other music licensing companies, Epidemic Sound owns its entire catalogue and makes tracks available via one straightforward license to cover all your needs, worldwide and in perpetuity – no more headaches around usage reporting, performance royalties, or murky rights ownership. It’s better for the artists and better for you, the creator. So whatever your music needs, www.epidemicsound.com has got you covered! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Steve Raymond and Ben Jones - Using Fund Scores to Gain Market Perspectives

Steve Raymond and Ben Jones - Using Fund Scores to Identify Trends

Steve Raymond and Ben Jones - Exploring the Fund Universe

Steve Raymond and Ben Jones - Evaluating Market From Scoring Perspective