– What’s up Gary and team? Hadi Yousef here.
Off of your inspiration, I started vlogging my
startup journey. I’ve been interacting with
online communities like the great Vayner Nation and
just making sure that I’m putting out good content. But aside from patience and
thinking about the long game, what are some things that
someone like me should be doing to grow his audience?
Thanks a lot. – So I think one thing that
stands out for me and then you’ll jump in Jason is
I think more real-life stuff. Like every meetup.
– Sure. – Like Jase, you might remember
this, when I first got, it’s really fun to get your
perspective on this. When I first came
into the ecosystem,– – Yeah. – I was pouring wine at a
Jaiku, Leo Laporte meetup. – Yeah. You were the wine guy.
– Yeah, I was– – You were more
like, who’s that guy? – I was service.
I was the help. – Basically, I mean
I didn’t want to say it but it’s kinda true.
– And so like– – They’re like we
need wine here. – And meanwhile, and meanwhile I had the biggest
business in the room. – For sure. – Everybody else had
business on paper. – Yeah. – I actually had a business but
I was willing to earn my keep in to the ecosystem. That’s the advice I would
give here which is if you’re documenting your journey,
amazing but go to every I mean Israel is such a
hotbed for tech startups and just startups in general. Go to every meetup,
meet every person, be part of the ecosystem. I think you did
that extremely well. – Be everywhere.
– That’s right. – When I started Silicon
Alley Reporter here I wore a Silicon Alley Reporter
shirt every day. I had 20 of them so I was the
brand and I would show up at every party and I’d have
copies of the magazine. You have to be the brand and
you have to be everywhere but a little hack for him might be is
be the most intelligent question under the most important people’s blog posts
or their tweets. In other words,
really take your time. Forget about building your own
content and your own audience, find somebody who’s got an
audience that you would like to acquire and be the most
intelligent person in their ecosystem for a while.
– Love that. – Which is kind of what you did. You’d meet the guy you’d be like
this guy is passionate about wine but I’m here to see Leo
but this guy’s also kind of interesting too, right? And so you can put yourself in
Fred Wilson’s comments on AVC it’s like who are these people writing highly
intelligent comments? – You know what this is
really smart, especially in the Facebook ecosystem where if it’s
actually that, it populates up. – Yeah, they trend it up.
The best comment goes up. But this takes time and you
have to not be thinking about yourself with your comment. That’s the problem I think. People are trying to build a
brand so they think it’s about– – They’re pitching instead of
bringing value to the community of the micro community
within that blog post. – Correct.
– Yep. – What is the topic
we’re talking about– – Yep. – and how do you say
something highly intelligent and further the conversation? – And to you, because you
don’t come from 20 years of experience, 30 years experience
you need to put your lens on it. By the way, there’s a lot of
people reading comments on those blogs that are just like you,
entrepreneurs are trying to make it than us reading it. – We’re not
reading the comments. – So you saying here’s my
perspective from an Israeli led startup that from a
23-year-old’s perspective, you’ll get a lot
of juice from that. You need to own it. There’s way too many people
trying to fake the funk right now that their so genius
business people and they have no experience under
their fingernails. – There’s nothing more, I think,
appealing than somebody who’s a young entrepreneur saying I really don’t
understand how this works. Can somebody explain it to me or
help me because I really would like to be successful? People will come
out and help you. – 100% if you deploy the
humility and don’t fake it. – Yeah, there’s no
reason to fake it. – Well everybody does it.
And by the way, I’ve been there. When you’re not there yet,
you kinda wanna, you want to, I used to say yes and this.
It just was not smart. I should have said please
tell me and this and that. I would have got there faster. – In my meetings, any time a
word comes up that I don’t know, I say, “What does that mean?”
In a business meeting– – I wouldn’t even have meetings
then I’m terrible at vocab. – No but when you have to pitch
and someone’s like oh do you know about this?
And I’m like what is that? And I just say explain
to me what that is. And they’re like oh
it’s an acronym for this. And now I’m like now
I’m getting smarter. – Yeah. 100%.
– Right? – India, let’s more this.
I know we got a call.

My name is Bryan AKA MindofBun,
I’m on the app Musical.ly and I have a following of
over 600,000 people. Not only that but I’m one of
four Musical.ly reps that live in New York City. So my question is
I don’t know what to do next. I feel like I’m
stuck in a plateau. I don’t know what to do next. I love making these videos,
not only on Musical.ly but I’m also pushing
everybody to YouTube, too. I ask this question because
I have friends who have less followers than me who have
managers and people who I know that have millions of fans who
don’t even have managers or they don’t even know what to do. So, what should I do
next with this following? Do I go out there and look
for companies or brand deals or should I link up with the
manager or what should I do? I put my business email out
there and I’m not always getting emails every day or something. I am patient, I do wait but
lately I just trying to figure out a way to get a source of
income from this because, again, I do love doing this, I love
doing this but at the end of the day I still have my mom
harassing me saying A, are you gonna get
a job or this and that? And yeah, so Gary
what should I do? – Jason, it’s fun to have
you here with this question. Good job by you guys curating
because again we lived through early bloggers getting famous–
– Sure. – then Twitter was really
the first preview to this– – Sure. – where both of us were lucky
enough to be one of those 100, 150 people that
everybody was following. – Sure. – What kind of advice do you
give to, I’m paying a lot of attention to the
Musical.ly stars. – Sure.
– This is the youngest generation of stars
we’ve ever seen. You’re making a joke of
VaynerMedia being young,– – I know. – We’re talking about 9,
10, 11, 12-year-old stars. – Yeah. – Like it’s, it’s Nickelodeon
up in Musical.ly right out. What’s your advice for this? – Well, I mean what
is the goal here? Does the person want to be, do they actually
have any raw talent? Are they actually a musician? Are they actually a singer or
are they just kind of becoming popular for doing– – Do you think that’s possibly
becoming just talent in itself? – That’s a good question. – Like you said that and
I’m debating it myself. – Right. Do you
actually have a skill? So what I think is adding skills to your repertoire like
that can only help you. So if learn an instrument,
if you actually learn to sing then you can kind of
take it to the next level. So when you saw Justin Bieber
on YouTube it was like, “Yeah, he’s a YouTube star but
he actually had core talent.” – No, he was a real talent.
– He was a real talent. Then you look at
somebody like King Bach. – Yes.
– On Vine,– – Yes. – he was the number
one guy for a while. Probably still is.
He actually is funny. – He’s a real comedian.
– He’s a real comedian. – Actor.
– Actor. – Yes.
– He’s a comedic actor. – Yes. – So I think adding skills when
you’re a young person is one thing that this
generation got backwards. – That’s a good point. – They go get the
fame and it’s great. You can hit that lightning in
a bottle but get that skill you can, it can never be
taken away from you. – Yeah, I think networking. I think just even asking this question like, for example,
I’m interested. I’m spending more time in
Musical.ly so let’s get this kid into my office, I want to
meet him for 20 minutes. And you just need to do
that over and over, right? – Yeah. – How many people have been able
to get to you and met for 15 or 30 minutes just by pounding you on social and email
through the last decade? Give me a rough estimate of
numbers because I know– – Over a thousand.
– That’s it. – Over a thousand,
it takes time. – You, right and some people
they email you one time and you gave them 15 minutes and some
people have emailed you 37,000 times and you’ve
never talked to them. – Exactly.
– That’s the punchline. – I look at the quality like I look for people with
skill but that’s me. – But you know this, it’s a
subjective moment in time. – Sure. – Like at that moment
it felt like, right? – Yeah.
– I mean it’s a crap shoot. – Yeah but you know what? It’s a numbers game, if you,
one of the things is I had, I have a portfolio company that
raised money from seven people and they’re like we can’t raise any more money,
it’s not working. I’m like well, how’d
you get the first seven? They’re like well, we
met with a ton of people. I said how many
people did you meet? They said 15. I was like so you can raise
money from 50% of the people you meet with and now you met with
another five, you didn’t get an investor so you’re quitting?
– Soft. – So soft.
– Soft! – You got to do at least 50
meetings and what you do is you take notes after every meeting
and you ask people candidly why did you pass on investing? The way you can help me,
I understand you’re passing, can you just tell me the truth? – Interesting. – Be candid with me
and tell me why I suck. – I love that.
– Or tell me what I need to work on.
You know what? People will do it if you give
them permission to speak freely. – Love it. India,
let’s move it forward. By the way, I’m serious,
I want to meet the kid. Make it happen. – [Jason] Hey-o!
– Manu.

I want to interact with new
and more positive minded people using the power of social media and how would
I go about doing that? Thank you so much,
I love your show. Hope I can hear
what you have to say. – This is great. What was his name? – [Dunk] Randy.
– Randy. I heard it. Randy, we’re gonna do an
experiment here and DRock by the way I know Other Tyler. Other Tyler! Get in here. There is a flaw. Staphon doesn’t edit anymore
but you what, get Staphon too! Staphon! By the way Staphon’s
new haircut is legit. – [Dunk] I love it. – Staphon looks way better. You do too. Everybody’s
upgrading their hair game. You look good man. I’m proud of you.
(laughter) Even though you’re not
editing anymore I’m making this statement because you made
the flaw you’ve made the flaw even and you love the
think you’re perfect, DRock. Other Tyler
you’ve made the flaw. The amount of times of on this
show that I’ve said link that shit up and then we
don’t is unacceptable. You’re done with it so you can
go back to your thing though you might get called back in. If I’m asking for
something to be linked up, it’s gotta be linked up.
Alright? So cool, that’s it. So like right now when
I link up what’s his name again? – [India] Randy. – Randy, I’m
gonna link up Randy. We’re gonna link his Twitter
account in YouTube and Facebook and I know some people
different and copy, I get it. We’ll also flash his handles. We’re gonna flash his handles
here at least his Twitter and here’s what’s gonna happen. Anybody who’s been watching the
show for 100 to 200 episodes is a positive and
like-minded person. We got the
community for you, Randy. Instead of giving
something philosophical I’m gonna give you
something practical. Vayner Nation if you think
you’re an awesome person and you have big ideas and you love
networking, I want you to reach out to Randy and I don’t
mean just tweet him and be like “Hey.” I mean reach out to him give
your number, email like connect Randy of the 500 people that are
gonna do it, 17 is gonna be a real thing and
there you go, man. 17 like-minded,
positive people for you. – [India] Yay!

“part of the music industry. “For somebody who is
starting out, where do I start?” – Oh man that’s
a good question. I think it’s a little more
easier for you, Omar, than it was for me.
– 100%. There’s a thing called
the fucking internet. – Yeah. The internet is key. Really for me we had to sit the
Fugees literally had to sit through 7,000 A/Rs. Saying this shit
ain’t gonna work. Like rappers playing guitars
and women singing and rapping? No, no, no that’s too much. So with the internet you can
actually build your own audience. – And you were going through
that process, I’m trying to think back what that was
happening ’91, two and three before four and five?
93, 94 when it happened? – Man, it was
going like ’93, ’94. Do you know how weird it is
1993 a group shows up with an acoustic guitar and we
tell them that we hip hop. We from the ‘hood. And then you have one girl and
Clef grabs his and another kids a rocker and I start playing
guitar and Lauren starts to sing John Lennon “Imagine”
then I going to a freestyle. Can you imagine somebody
who is A&Ring that time? – They didn’t know.
– Do you know what I mean? The beautiful thing about the
internet right here is that you get to create your world. And if your music or
whatever you’re doing is really original, it’s going to find its key
audience because through the internet we’ve learned
it’s a big universe, right? You got your crowd. – I completely agree with him
and I say this all the time. The best way to sell is
for people to come to you. The fact that there are things
now like Musically and Snapchat and Instagram and all the other
platforms we know, the fact you can actually produce music,
put it on Soundcloud and actually serendipitously walk
into shit because somebody heard it or shared it and
changed your world. And that’s just incredible. People didn’t have
that opportunity. There are so many, how many Fugees,
how many this is, I’m dying to ask
you this question: How many very
talented musicians do you think did not get
discovered in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s because there was
just only some many A/R people, they maybe live in Memphis,
they maybe lived in Haiti, they lived in Belarus? In your opinion do you believe
that if you were great it would have just happened or do you
think in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s a generation that we
don’t grow up any more there were actually real big-time
talents that never got their opportunity ’cause they just
didn’t have the being in the right place at the right time? – Yeah but you know what’s
funny about what you said, right, is you see
the music of the 50s, the 40s, the 60s, the 70s was a different thing because people wasn’t worried
about show business. – Right. People was more
worried about– – The music.
– the music. – You see so this is how we
know of the Loneliest Monk. This is how we could go
back to Muddy Waters. – Mhmmm. (Wyclef singing) – It wasn’t really about,
because think about it now. Whenever we, this generation,
want inspiration as a producer and we go out, I’m in the
studio with Avicci. – Okay.
– Right. And were sitting in
winter in Stockholm. It’s dark, right? – Yep. – We’re sitting there and
we’re talking about chords and progressions. What’s the reference? We go back to freaking
Ray Charles “Georgia.” – Mhmmm. – At the end of the day, I just
think that we have to understand that the idea of the Fugees was musicality. It wasn’t like oh man we about
to do something to get put on so people know who we were.
– Right. – Man, if you listen to the
first Fugees album it’s called “Blunted on Reality”. The whole album starts out with
a poem where the Ku Klux Klan is trying to come and invade this
generation and we talk about we are not going for that.
– Allow that. – Yeah. If you trying to be in the music
business this is not the first message that you
want to put out. I think that the key to
everything whether if it’s art, whether if it’s think of like a Picasso when you
look at that piece. Or of think of Basquiat when
you look at a piece or just the Miles Davis “Bitches Brew” no
one thinking about so the idea is we have to think
1,000 years from now. Is this conversation
going to be relevant? And I really think that’s
my key with this generation. And that’s the only thing
that I tell them. I’m like, “Yo, you’re spitting out hits. Every second.” Every second on Musically my
daughter is singing a new song. Right?
– Yep. – And the new one is
(signing in broken Japanese) and then she puts me on Musically and
she like, “Come on, Dad.” (laughter) “No Dad. You’re doing it
wrong, come back again.” – Yep. Third take. – Third take and what
I notice is like 70 songs, songs are playing and I say,
“Angelina, who’s this artists?” – She’s like, “I don’t know.” – She don’t know but
she knows the song. I think if we can push more
musicality to your point because there are a lot of bad
ass artists out there. They’re on the internet,
you know what I mean? We just got a
focus on musicality. – Don’t you think these platforms give musicality
a better chance? Because back to your point you
brought musicality and the human being that was thinking business
is like, “Who wants this black guy playing and the girl sings?” Right.
– That’s right. – That’s what stopped musicality
and now the open platforms I actually think give
musicality a real opportunity. – Yeah, sexy black guy. – Respect.
– Yeah. – Respect. Alright, India,
let’s move this. – [India] Next one’s
from Alexander.

“I’m coming to
New York for a month “in the fall purely to network. “Where would you go to network “if you were New York novice?” – Do you know what
I did with this guy? I retweeted this and said VaynerNation
help this dude out. – [India] Oh really. – Yeah. – [India] It didn’t even
show up on the thing. – No? – No. – Interesting, weird. It doesn’t even say
that you did it. – Let me just make sure it’s him or it’s not somebody else. Yeah I did this. – That’s so weird. – Why wouldn’t you know that? – I don’t know. – That’s funny because he would
have normally known that. – I thought it was. – Because I retweeted him. Maybe that’s why? – Wouldn’t it show up in retweets then? – Yeah but it’s weird. Well David. You know. I think that. I think that you know. You can do it a lot of ways and the way you’re doing is probably the right
way which is when you reach out to somebody
in the market like I did I actually
want to do something funny and say hey. Pass it on. And some people
reached out to you. And the other thing is you just you know use
your social graph and use information right there’s a lot of
places to network. I think Meetup.com is still an old school. web 2.0 site that you can find
some stuff out about. So that’s that’s a scoop. Nothing you know. I don’t have a really great. I don’t think
it’s a great question. – [India] Really? – I think you were you did the right
thing by asking me because I could’ve been
in the mood to answer it but in the way
my brain is today. I don’t you know. Use people, use information I mean
people are information now. You know. I’m interested in that. You know. Back to Yelp. I actually. Ha. See you did it again India. One of the reasons I was down
on anonymous review sites was I was like this social
media things going to happen. And I can just
go to Twitter search and put in restaurant or put in restaurant names. And use people’s opinions
that are doing it publicly. So I still think people
is a great way to go. And get down people rabbit holes
all day long right. You see somebody. You know you ask
somebody on Twitter, they retweet it like I did. Or somebody else
replies, people. I think another
cool thing is Tastemakers like the fifty best
chefs in New York. Or the fifty coffee
houses in New York that have Twitter accounts. So I think Google with Twitter’s interesting. Top fifty coffee shops
in New York City. Search, boom. You get a list. This is if you really
want to come to New York for a month and
network, right? Then you look at the list. And then you find
them on Twitter and then you ask them. Hey, Mort’s Coffee Shop, are you great
place for networking? You’re going to
get seven of them of the fifty that reply. Three of them going to
offer you free coffee and introduce you
to the owner like. Life is about grabbing it. If you go on the offense, funny things happen. You know if you take
the time to do what I just said tactically. That’s inevitable of those fifty on Twitter seven will reply
with free coffee. Three will do something cool. I like grabbing life. Yeah like you know
what I mean like. I really think so much of
this comes down to that. Like are you on the offense or are you on the defense? Right like oh I’ll just
go to New York and ask a couple of friends and go to one Trip Advisor
site you know what I mean. Or you can put in
the work in a world, this is why Twitter
is so special. It’s so special. Please do me a
favor VaynerNation. Tonight for an hour, an hour, it’s a lot of time tweet at 25 people that you’d love to have
a conversation with. And don’t go Mark Cuban and Daymond John’s and Zucks. Go with like the account for your four
favorite restaurants. In your local town. And just say, Sallows I love your stuff. I’m telling you right now. Come back to this thread
on Facebook and YouTube. I will show you enormous
things that happen because of it. People that eat
for free for weeks. People are going to
meet people for weeks. People are going to meet
a local entrepreneur who built a 37-year
restaurant chain that they may
learn something from. Everybody gets impractical with grabbing life. I’m going to get Mark Cuban. One of you out of a million are going to get
Mark Cuban for a coffee. But if you hit up your
favorite pet shop. India hit up your art
museums where you paint. You know like hit them up like. I really believe in that. I really do. Or like if you really
are into museums like go find a museum account. And then hit up. And Google this. It’s Google. But it’s like you know. Google the director
of the museum. They inevitably have
412 nerd followers. And then you hit them up and you’re pumped. But I’m here Saturday let’s have a conversation. Go to Napa. You can go. And like get a list
off of SFDaily.com or you can get that same list then go to Twitter
tweet at the winery and tweet at the owner and wine maker of the winery and have a totally different
experience for no cost except the hour of actually
putting in the work. The dude. The dude, and listen all
you are doing this and there’s some serendipity, but the dude that DM’d me today Alexander Waslewski from Poland. He took it at bat and by the way tons of you do. And a lot of times I
don’t do it all the time. It’s serendipity. But today. Alexander
Waslewski in Warsaw, Poland is getting a signed book
coming to his house. Just keep fucking swinging. You know what I mean the math is the math. Like just keep swinging. – [India] It’s true.
– I know. I live it. (inaudible)

office even though I have a meeting I
feel guilty about leaving my team in the office I’m scared of my team thinks that
the bosses are explained how to find it always taking a long break at lunch and
have ice PCR results like if you’re playing around and having a coffee with
this person and networking that person was sitting courtside Knicks game and
you aren’t working but you bring somebody to make a ten million dollar
deal it’s called mother fuckin result in a funny thing squashes all the boss
doesn’t do anything results so you know how to deal with it
it’s you know it’s it’s first you know it’s funny it’s first wrapping you know
I grew up in a world that my dad taught me and I executing the first ten years
of my career that was predicated on being at the store meant you were
bringing value and like and so I get it actually get that question hardcore I
barely ever left one library in the first ten years of my career I was in
the same goddamn place like every day Monday through Saturday every single day
for like 10 years from 9 I was super flex cable you know it was so I get it and you know
what it was a mistake I shouldn’t take more trips to wine country I should have
not got more done doors and done b2b and 1,200 cases that
a pop took corporations in New Jersey I shoulda got out and about and so you
know if you’re kind of boss that goes to off-site and then thinking and parties
at night and your business goes down well then people feel like you didn’t
deliver and so you get away with anything if you drive results I don’t
think anybody have any more questions me being around are not being around
because of the results and so that’s it i mean you know the score is the score
you know you know it doesn’t matter how you get there cheating doing the wrong things the
moral compass matters but if you’re able to do things on the up and up then the
scores the square ATF is it a beautiful interruption here consumers day a good
thing or should it be seeing us because

“to improve women’s underwear. “I’m scratching my own itch, but
know nobody in the business. “Advice?” – So India, you and I
worked on this one today we saw this tweet, I sent it to you, you went to go reach out to her. She deleted it, what did she say? – [India] She said oh
yeah, I just deleted it, but I’ll put it back up right
now if you’re gonna pick it. – (Gary laughs) I love it. Mike, this is starting to
get good, look at that. – [Mike] Yeah I know, thoracic extension. – Um, one more, we’ll just bend this out. Rupa, I think that this answer is actually the answer to your question, which is, you don’t know me,
hey Rupa, you don’t know me! You don’t know me, and you tweeted at me, and here I am responding to
you and giving you feedback, in the same way that you can go and map all 700 executives in the industry and hit them up on Twitter and say hello, I’d like to talk to you
about my business idea, and literally three of them will say yes, two of them will cancel on you, and one out of the 700 people, and if you think about three
to five minutes per engagement, three minutes to write the engagement and kinda to check it, and
then maybe four to 10 hours of research of who those
700 executives are, that you need for marketing or production or the retail world, right? Like, as you’ve tried to, (laughs) this is so, this is the most, this is way up there with
ridiculous things that I’ve done. I’m so sorry to the Vayner Nation. I don’t know what I decided, I
don’t know how this happened. Anyway, I think that um, I like take my workout serious too. So, I think you have
to go and reach out to, and so I’m telling you
that you’re gonna get to one person, maybe two, by spending 80, 90 hours of time, which scares
way too many of you off. The problem is, what’s the alternative? The problem is, what is the alternative? When you’re at the bottom
and you’ve got nothing, you’ve gotta scrap, it’s like me and Mike when we first, now I can use this, now I’m gonna start using this gym. When we first started here 16 months ago Mike told me to do this,
this, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it! That’s how at the bottom physically I was, and then we just
systematically did things. That whole thing when I
was like this is good, literally 60 days ago I
couldn’t do crap with that because we hadn’t worked
on that flexibility. So, anyway, what you have to do is you have to find the 700 people and you have to go and get them. And I would use Twitter,
LinkedIn is a place you could use as well, the problem is so many people spam on LinkedIn you get so much more upside on Twitter especially if you don’t
just like spam them with the first move, you know,
jab jab and right hooking. Woops, I use the wrong, anyway! So that’s it, put in the work. Put in the work! – [India] Shawn, I was asked to fill out-

“Structure a 2015 resume to
stand out and sell yourself? “Would you make a video?” – So I’m not a big fan of resumes. I think, interestingly
enough, if you’re required to use a resume to create your
opportunity, you’ve lost. I think 2016 resume is networking. I think a way better way to get a job is to create relationships. I would start tweeting
at 10 to 20 taste-makers, influencers, important
executives within the industry. You want to get a job in
PR, I would follow 40 to 70 major PR executives, top three
PR executives at Edelman, Hunter PR, those kind of
things, Weber Shandwick. I would follow what they
would say, I would interact with them, I would request
for a five minute coffee, one in every 60 of the would say yes. Networking is the new resume. If you’re relying on a piece
of paper or a cheeky video to break through, that means
that you have no leverage before you’ve walked into the room. Leverage when you walk into the room on the interview is the key. Being hired before you walk in is the key, and I think there’s a huge
opportunity to do that. There’s an unbelievable
phenomenon going on on Twitter, which is that you can
literally get to anybody, and there’s some percentage of chance that they’ll actually
want to engage with you. So the 2016 resume is the networking, fooled you Staphon, is the networking that you do before you
walk into the building. Yeah, Ty Guy likes that.

at Collision 2016 in New Orleans. I’ve never been to an event like this, so I’m not really sure
what to prepare for, how to prepare for it. I was wondering, what would
you do if you were in my shoes, if you were going to not
necessarily look for money, but more looking to make contacts? I’d appreciate any information, any insights you might
have on the situation. Thanks, Gary.
– [Gary] That’s real nice. Jarek, really legit American
flag waving so beautifully in the background. I did notice the Giants t-shirt, so I’m a little bit pissed with Jarek now. Lewis any thoughts on that? I think you wanted to establish your name in the marketing and business world. I assume you started
going to a lot of events for the first time through
the last half decade? How did you approach it? – I remember when I was
broke, on my sister’s couch, I took a Greyhound to one
of my first events in 2008. It was in New York. It was like a sports
film festival in Philly. I took a Greyhound,
and I had a suit jacket and a carry-on case. I remember I had a hostel
room that I got for like $17. Because I knew the value. I met a guy named Ben
Sterner, who I think you know who works out of here. He was like, “You’ve got
to come to this event. “You’re gonna meet a
lot of powerful people “that’s gonna help your business, “your relationships, your brand.” So I was like I gotta get there. I rented a hostel for $17 the first night. I walk in, late at night and there’s throw-up all over the ground. There’s throw-up all over the
floor, all over the bathroom, and 20 snoring, European guys in the room. But I knew the value right
when I got to this event how important it was to connect with influencers and powerful individuals. And I stayed up all night with people and just built a relationship with them. It wasn’t about being at the event it was figuring out where people
were going after the event. And getting in with their friends and then creating friendships with people. I never talked about
business or asked for advice. I just said, “What’s
going on in your life?” Like how can we be buddy-buddy? And, let’s do thumb-wrestling
wars, whatever, like I did with you in 2009 or something. It’s like let’s have fun
as opposed to talking about the thing you don’t want
to talk about right now. – You know to me, Jarek, I think
it’s a really good question and I think that’s right. I think at some level, if
you’re not meeting people, you’re not hitting on your KPI. I think Lewis speaks to
patience in a relationship, I think it really matters. Trying to throw around your business card or pitch your business, is
completely the opposite move. – Not to cut you off,
but to set an example, I’ve been essentially jabbing
for six years with you. – That’s right. – I never asked for anything. – I bought a shit-load of these books. – But I’ve never asked for anything except for
– [Gary] This book. – [Lewis] The blurb on the back. Which you know. – Which is a big deal because I don’t like giving them out. – And also hey, can I come on the show. And, you bought some books, yes. – Which is my own advice, right? I talk about that a lot which
is cash in all those chips when you’ve got your signature moment. Like you need this to do well. It’s another watershed
moment in your career. – Before, what was that guy’s name again? – Jarek. – For Jarek, I would not
ask anyone for support or help right now. I would just say how can I give
that person a relationship. – Listening to Lewis’ narrative, Jarek, I think one of the
biggest things that people make mistakes for, is
they go for short-term nickels and dimes instead
of long-term dollars. So, if you find, the more
important the person you encounter in New Orleans, the more you
should not ask for anything. Too many times, the amount
of people that roll up on me, I have no idea who they are,
and they want $100,000 from me because they’re gonna
help me buy the Jets. It’s pretty intense, there’s no context. It’s not the right move. Again, back to his story. Go sleep with 20 snoring
throw-up dudes for $17 if you’ve got a practical
financial problem. Have the humility to go
sleep on your sister’s couch, if you have a financial problem. If your financial problem
needs to be solved by you going to the most important people on first impact and asking for $25,000, you’ve put yourself in a bad position. So I think what you need to do
is put yourself in a position where you put no pressure on yourself to close at this event,
but build at this event. – And look at the long-term. Think of relationships for
five years down the line. – Hundred percent, India? – Last one from Adam.

“What’s the best way to start a business “in a space that you’re unfamiliar with, “but see massive opportunity in?” – Become educated. You know this is a great question. I’m glad you asked that. It was a question that was asked a lot of me in 2006, 7, 8, 9 that I haven’t heard while. Maybe because India is doing the picking. And so you know. I think that if you see a huge opportunity if you think eSports is
going to be a huge space like I believe. Well then maybe go intern for an eSports company, maybe get a job at an eSports company. Maybe you read absolutely everything about it. That was one of my few chapters in life. This whole Web 2.0 thing back to Flickr. I read everything on Tech Crunch. I read people’s tweets. It was one time when I actually consumed because I needed to get educated. And then once I found I had the base, then I rolled back to where I normally go. You put in the work. You know if you see a space. You become massively educated. You network in it tremendously. I believe in online video in 2006, I went to three Meetups. In the video 2.0 or the video. What was it called? Yeah Web 2.0 Video Meetup Group. DRock you have been so proud
I went to these damn things. People talking about bullshit cameras and lighting (beep) that it’s
the content (beep). It was really. You like that? It was an interesting time for me where I was soaking up information. If you see an opportunity, go soak up the information. Go become a practitioner. Go work in a company in it. Go to all the events around it. Read about it go to conferences and listen about it. Listen to the podcast like learn. – Learn mother (bleep). – Learn about it. I like that you getting feisty here. Learn about it and then you can do. But you know, if you believe in something you have to become educated in it. And then become a practitioner in it. And then execute in it. And then adjust to the realities of it.