#AskGaryVee Episode 163: Starting a Restaurant, Self-Evaluation, and Mobile Credit Services

“What are your thoughts on the future “of mobile credit services?” – Yeah, I think that um, (laughs) this is, I mean, there’s a
vine out there by the way of me like on the toilet, I
don’t know if people know this. But this is starting to
feel like a really bad idea. I think that, I think the
wallet will be eliminated and that we will all pay
with our mobile devices, maybe with our fingerprints,
but the wallet is antiquated, it’s like a magazine, it’s
like carving in the caves. And I think over the next 10 years technology will be really in a place where we can go full throttle
on electronic payments. Obviously there’s the Blockchain and all that world with bitcoin. There’s also the fact
of my historic behavior. Four years ago, maybe five, I invested in Venmo, maybe six. So I’ve been on this kick for a while, I’m big believer, and
I think with Apple Pay you’re seeing more behavior around this and I’m extremely bullish,
so if you’re playing in a space that is like, you
make portraits for wallets or you make wallets, that’s something to be concerned about
over the next decade, and even on the flip
side, if you can support an ecosystem where people
don’t carry wallets, so like, what’s the chatchka
that needs to be made, in a world where your phone
is really your payment thing, so like, what’s the official Beats by Dre license carrier with the
phone 36 months from now that like is the hot shit that
everybody’s got on the ‘Gram or whatever anybody’s paying
attention to in 36 months, that’s where I’d be using this wave as an entrepreneurial venture opportunity. – Oh yeah, we gotta respect
Mike in this scenario.

“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-

– [Voiceover] Shawn asks, “I was
asked to fill out a self-evaluation, “but I think these are just a waste of time “and don’t help that much. “What do you think?” – I think it depends on
who’s on the receiving end of the self-evaluation. There are things that
I’ve done in my career where I’ve asked employees to do things and never then read it, and that was obviously a waste of time. (laughs) Right? And that’s not fun for me to admit, but things that I learned
as a kid at Wine Library and the truth is even at VaynerMedia there’s been things that I’ve done. A lot of my employees
now know, let’s do it on a call for two minutes
instead of emailing me ’cause that’s not how I roll. If somebody’s on the other
end listening to that feedback and actually does something
with that feedback, the self-evaluation is tremendous. I think you’re barking up
the right tree, though, is I don’t think that’s happening
in 99% of organizations. mainly ’cause the intent
isn’t there to give a crap enough about the employee, and
so my cynical point of view of how businesses are
treating their employees leads me to, you’re probably right. Now, if you’re there because you believe, I’d like to think that India feels good about doing it at VaynerMedia with me on my team, so then it’s valuable. But I think it comes down to more about how much you believe in the organization, more so than the tactic that is deployed in a self-evaluation. I also think people are full
of crap in self-evaluations, like you’re always gonna give yourself, if it’s 50-50 if you’re
like am I good or great? Great! Am I lazy or just solid? I’m solid! So like everybody’s always leaning to their best benefit, it’s human nature. – [India] Really, you think everybody is? – No, I think that’s a good point India, I do think some people are
stunningly hard on themselves. But yes, I think, you know, first of all it’s a good opportunity,
I never think anything’s a hundred percent, the
hell’s a hundred percent? Nothing. But yes, I do think the far majority, and 94%, which allows me to say everybody.

“in the world we live in now,
how would you go about it?” – Well I think Maple, a
startup I invested in, Mike I’m not counting,
is doing it, which is, it’s a restaurant in New York City that doesn’t have a
place to actually go in. So it realizes that by
percentage if you play the math, especially in New York City if
I was to open it in New York, your economics are so much
better being a delivery company than actually having the
overhead of the restaurant. This is something I think
about a lot with Wine Library, which is a bricks and clicks organization. We have a lot of overhead to
run the store versus the dotcom and that’s how much energy
you wanna put against it, so I’d probably launch a restaurant that was very unique in
the way that it served patrons locally in a physical
restaurant environment, maybe open on Saturday’s only, and then the rest was delivery. Something clever, something
that gave it pizazz based on when I was open, and then, and then the delivery
would be the backbone and the infrastructure,
in a New York environment. Somewhere else, I’d probably go for, I’d find an amazing chef and go for, like, porridge, it’s what
I brought up the other day. I’d try to win on
something that other people aren’t doing a bunch of, like, obviously tacos and premium burgers, I still don’t think
there’s a hot dog winner. You know, it feels like there’s somebody that can win the
shake-shack hotdog game, so. – [Voiceover] Chris asks, “is
it more effective to market

“your humble self or a
caricature of yourself “in today’s service-based tech industry?” – Chris, the best thing
to do, this is a good time to answer this question. The best way to do anything
is to be the truth. So sometimes I’m humble, and
sometimes I’m egotistical, and sometimes I’m ridiculous. And this would be one of those times. I think your honest self
is always the right answer. If you’re trying to play to
what the market likes right now, you’re gonna always have to change, right? Right now entrepreneurship is cool. By the way, when the tech bubble bursts, when, God forbid, and I haven’t
been able to send my love to a lot of my business
associates that live in the Paris area, obviously
grew up in the wine business, know a lot of people in that town, and so God forbid when that, when, not if, when that happens in the
US and the market pops, entrepreneurship’s not gonna be hot. Practical, paying your
bills is gonna get hot. We’ve had a great 10 year run
here that everybody’s kinda living in right now,
and all you youngsters haven’t really tasted the alternative, you haven’t tasted the stock
market splitting in half, jobs not being available,
you not getting recruited by everybody, your
homies from school saying come start a business with me. Practicality is really
on the horizon, I see it. Oh, there you are practicality! It’s coming, and when it comes it’s going to be an
interesting market change. This show, hopefully I’m
doing it when it happens. Well, hopefully I’m not, hopefully it doesn’t
happen for awhile, but. I think you have to be you,
because I was entrepreneur when it wasn’t sexy, I’m entrepreneur now, and I promise you, and I’ll
play this clip 22 years from now I will be entrepreneur
when it’s not sexy again. (India mumbles)