– [Voiceover] Niall asks, “Ideas
alone can only get you far, but “once you gotten off the ground,
what does an investor need to “see to investment in a startup? – Well I think investors
all act very differently. There some black-and-white
binary investors who are looking for math to add up, right? Here are your sales, here’s your
cost of acquisition your monthly burn just pure financial
decisions and then other investors are betting
on the hypergrowth. You’ve gone from 0 to 50,000
users in two minutes, I predict that you’re going
to go to 5 million users. You’re not making any money but
you’re going to grow faster and you’re going to hit a home run
and I’m okay with the burn and the financial issues ’cause
you’re going to raise more money as you get bigger and bigger
so you’re betting on hard-core financial principles or
you’re betting on the anticipation of hypergrowth. I think one thing to keep in
mind is once you’re off the ground people have
something to judge. So I think a lot of people get
away with getting investors just on ideas which I think
is a vulnerability to the whole ecosystem. But it’s funny I’ve always been
fascinated by companies that are making money and have a year’s
worth of data often times aren’t as sexy as the idea because
investors get romanced in the upside without any practical
data versus well I already know you’ve done for a year and so I
think a lot of youngsters have been crafty in getting
investment before they have a product which I think has led to
a much higher return of failures which I think people need to
become more practical and so I think, just for everybody and
for you, once you have some data be prepared to be grilled a
little bit more because people have something to judge. I think that’s great and
healthy and needs to be more the standard. – [Sam] Cool.
Next video submission.

– [Mark] We got another question
here as well what’s the best attitude to have if
someone mimics your idea? – Great. Tech meetup van. You don’t own this idea. – No.
– Not at all. – What are you the first two
(censored) dudes to– – Yeah, yeah, yeah. – There’s been Taxi (censored)
Confessions, I mean come on. – Yeah course. – Be better. – Yep. Yep. – Get better guests, ask better
questions, execute better, put up better micro-content. Nobody gets to own
these ideas, guys. – We were never worried. People always say to us
what’s to stop the Startup Tram? – You’re not going to win
because of The Startup Van. It’s a shtick. It’s a cool thing that’s
(censored) cool, I like it by the way. But how you interview and who
you get and what you do with that content is. I’m not the first guy to
document my life and do a vlog. I’m not the first guy in social. It’s never the first,
it’s the best. It’s never the
first is the best. – The best. – Yeah, the best.
– The best. Do you know what I mean? And guess what, you and
I don’t get to decide we’re the best. – Yeah, I know.
– They do. Got it? – That’t the thing.
– Yeah, yep. – Since DailyVee came
out people can see,

Pat from Smart Passive
Income, quick question, when you get a new idea, when a new idea pops into your head, how
do you, do you have a validation process before
actually taking action on that idea to make sure
it’s worth it or not? Do you have a vetting process,
does your team help you? I’m curious because a
lot of us entrepreneurs, we have a ton of ideas, how do you know which ones are going to work or not. And to follow it up,
do you have an example? – That’s a great, great, great, great, great, great, great question. I’ve two processes. One is completely emotional, the other one is completely rational. There have been ideas,
a la, the #AskGaryVee Show where literally in one shot, though it’s perculated a little bit, in one moment I go, I execute against
the idea and I let the results speak for themselves
and I can stop it. For everytime I look like
a hero, where I make the first episode of Wine Library TV
or #AskGaryVee and I say we’re gonna look back at
this and this was right. There’s seven other things
that I have done like that which are floating
in the internets, and I’m gonna be, we’re gonna look
back at this and be like merr. My first picture from Flickr,
my first picture for Flickr. – [India] I have it somewhere. – Do you have it somewhere? My first picture from Flickr I drew out gourmetlibrary.com. Drew it and I said one day
this will be one of the most iconic pictures in my
life or something like that. And it was because at
that time I thought I was gonna launch gourmetlibrary.com
and I knew that I was gonna build $100 million gourmet business. What happened was I
started Wine Library TV two months later as well
and that became the thing and I never got around to
really doing gourmet library. So, I think I got that intuitive part. The other part is like Wine Library TV, since February, since
really like March or April of 2005 I knew that I
wanted to do a Youtube show. That it was gonna be
big, but it took me until February ’06 to start Wine Library TV. I knew that I wanted
to do an ecommerce site in ’94 but I really didn’t launch it until ’96 but really run it until ’98. I know that I’m going
to buy a brand one day. Puma, Snickers, you know
Pabst Blue Ribbon but I’m perculating and learning for
10 years before that moment. So, I’ve both, but Pat
really the answer is it’s very internal, I don’t go
to my dad or to Brittany and be like hey Britt what do you think. Like, I don’t give a shit
what Brittany thinks. Now that is either a strength
or a weakness, sorry Brit. That’s either a strength
or a weakness but I want to give you the truth which
is I go very internal, I feel it with myself, I
care, you know what’s funny? I don’t care what Brittany
says as my consultant or teammate, I care what
Brittany does as a consumer. I respect the market over
my friends, my family, the people I respect and even myself. And so I think the way to find out what the market’s gonna feel and do is by giving them a chance to react to it. So, I let the things that
I feel the most bubble up and then I execute against those things and then I let the chips
fall where they may. – [India] I found it.
– You found the picture? – The caption is so
funny, one day everyone will know why this pic is so amazing. – Oh my God, see this
is so cool because look, I mean obviously you’re
gonna put the subs on, the so is very similar to show. – Yeah. – That’s unbelievable, one
day, December 30, 2005, oh my God, this is
literally, what’s today? – [India and man] The 16th. – This is literally,
literally a decade ago. Like, two weeks short of a decade ago. There’s a picture of the
pasta I ate while I drew out gourmetlibrary.com
and one day everyone will know why this pic is so amazing. And I’m gonna tell you why
this pic is so amazing, though I didn’t execute on
gourmet library ten years ago, and big shout out to
Eric Caster and John Kay who were there with me that day. Even though I didn’t, this
date was the two week period, this was the height of the
holidays, this date represents the day that I knew that
I wasn’t gonna be in the wine business the rest of my life. This picture really
represents the transformation into what all of you have known me to become over the last ten years. – The dirty bowl is so significant though. – I told you that one day everyone would understand why this pic is so. – I even bookmarked it
cause we were eating. – Cause it’s so amazing, that’s cool. – [India] That is cool. – I’m a little bit emotional about that.

– Hey Todd. – You say ideas are crap,
(beatboxing) execution is the game. – Oh, he’s rapping. – Honestly, to most of us,
they’re one and the same. – I said, you’ve had six or
seven in your big career. Tell me last time you were
pumped about your biggest idea. Thanks, man. – That was well-done. – [India] Yeah, that was good. – That is the way to get on the show, get India’s creative juices going. We need a little bit more
creative video questions. This is a good starting point. We need that. Let’s do a call to arms
to the Vayner Nation, better video questions, let’s step it up. Jesus. What’s his name? Adam? – [India] Todd.
– Todd. (laughter) – Todd, great job, first of all. The last idea I’ve been
really excited about, that’s a really good question. I’m really excited about my current ideas of big opportunities
in the business world, so they’re not very specific, but I’m in love with my thesis of e-sports and virtual
reality in a 10-year window. And so I just have to make sure I don’t get too far ahead of it, but I’m very, very, very excited about that. I think I was very right about how much brands and businesses were gonna spend on social networks. I don’t think people saw,
four or five years ago, the money allocation that’s getting poured into making videos and
pictures for these platforms. That was exciting to me,
it’s been the backbone of, that was the strategy and then the execution was VaynerMedia, that’s when it works,
when you have both, right? Like, you can work your
ass off if you’re wrong. If I’m like, “okay, guys,
VHS tapes are coming back.” And if I start building a
company and hiring people that are 58 years old that know how to make VHS
tape, like, if I’m wrong, all our hustle is for naught. So you have to have both. I would say that, I would say the other
thing that I can point to is the #AskGaryVee Show. I don’t know if you heard about it, but we’re in it right now. It’s very meta. I knew that I was good
at answering questions, I could feel at conferences
that people would be like, “holy crap, that last 15
minutes, that was the bomb.” They were impressed by
my quickness in my craft. It was a way to show everybody that I know what I’m talking about. You know, people were stunned, I was with somebody yesterday. People don’t realize that
I don’t know the questions. Like, you pick them. Yes, I will send you, – You do. – like, the first one we
did today, like, I sent you. Like, I’m looking, I’m watching you guys, ’cause I care about you
guys and I’m sending stuff, but I would say, out of
a week, 25 questions, I’m sending you two? – [India] Two, probably. – So when people find that out, they’re fascinated by it. So I thought this format
would work for me, I thought it would elevate my leadership around marketing and
technology thought leadership, and it has. Him and his bro. And many, and many (Gary laughs) and many, many, many, many more of you. And so that idea was percolating,
we did it ad hoc one day, and it worked. – Here we are.

“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-

and we’re about to perform at MedLife Stadium with the marching band. My question to you is, if you have a great idea for a business or a product, what’s the next step you should take? – Well, I think, great question. – He followed up, too. – Yes, there was a little
bit of that yesterday, he followed up, I said yeah we got you, ’cause we already had you, and then everybody was
like, oh is that how you get on the show, and all this stuff. So anyway, I think it’s very simple. The next step is to go and do it. You and all your band-mates,
all of you got good ideas. Everybody here’s got a good idea. This dude’s got a good idea, she’s got a great idea,
she’s got a great idea. Everybody, everybody’s got ideas. What you do next is you make it happen. Maybe you quit band and
you go make it happen. Maybe you go ask money
from your Uncle Milton and that’s how you make it happen. Maybe you find a partner
that can build your app, you go to meetups, you’ve
got to make it happen. I don’t know if that’s money,
that’s time, that’s a partner that can actually build out what you need, but the answer always, youngster,
is go and make it happen. The ideas, the thoughts, are nice. I always say, ideas are
shit, execution’s the game. I say that on purpose. I’m actually gonna use this
video as a clarification. Staphon, cut this out
because I’m gonna need it ’cause everybody gets mad at
me, and they’re not wrong. You’ve got to have, a
great idea’s a great idea. It’s just, there’s so many of those. There’s so many great ideas, there’s way less great executions. The 7,000 greatest ideas of all time, never saw the day of light. They just haven’t. Because execution’s
hard, and that’s the key. And so, yes, ideas are amazing, and I’m sure your idea is wonderful. But I equally believe that
everybody’s ideas are wonderful. There’s a lot of great
ideas that are wonderful. I’ve seen a hell of a
lot more people execute very below-average ideas
to build amazing lives. There’s unlimited
multi-million dollar companies, people have made millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of
dollars, had tremendous success in business on
executing an average idea. Know what’s an average idea? A social and digital agency. That’s a below-average idea. It worked. Like, it’s good, it allows AJ
to have Tyler as an employee. So I think that’s the
key to that question. – [Voiceover] Mike asks, “What have you

– Good to see you, my man. – Cheers.
– [John] Cheers. – My name is John Henry. I’m a serial entrepreneur now
just coming off of my first exit and now I’m running an accelerator. So, it kind of puts me in an odd position cause my first company,
my success is predicated on how well I executed
– [Gary] Yes. – And now I was predicated on how well my companies get to execute by the way shout out to Shawn I went to Vayner/RSE last week – Awesome
– [John] got to stop by. – Great. – But can you give me some
advice on what to focus on with my companies to make sure that they go out there and kill it. – Yeah, listen, I really
struggled with this transition from being the entreprenaur
at Wine Library to investing after I made the
first three good investments Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, where I was really just
trying to make money and I was like these
are the best companies. When I then started investing
for real which is interesting

“I just watched episode 96 &
you went off on IP. “I’m an IP lawyer starting out. “What is the future
and where does IP fit?” – Uh, (laughs).
– [India] Sorry! – That’s a great question. (sighs) Listen, IP is real, by the way, I believe in pendulums, pendulums, right? So, I’m very down in IP. I think entrepreneurs
should not be spending that much time on it. But, I actually think
12, 15, 20, 30 years, 40 years from now, as I
think more entrepreneurs of this generation don’t think about it, that it will become a white space. And there’ll be an opportunity
to make a lot of money in it because it’s still law, right? Ya know what, I think IP and patents fall into the category of building the biggest building in town by tearing everybody else’s building. I met this guy, he was
so proud of himself. He’s like, “I fucking
got all these patents, “and one day somebody’s gonna do something “and I’m gonna get him.” I’m like, “Fuck you!” And he was like, so taken
aback because we were introduced by good friends. I was so pissed. I hate that. Now, IP, like ya know, I think it’s important. If you draw Mickey Mouse,
you don’t want other people, like I get it. I think there’s a place for it. But also, the supply and
demand of amazing creative or ideas or whatever else
can be categorized in IP, is in a very different place
too, because everything can see the day of light now, right? You don’t have to work
at a Disney or a Fox, or a media company, or like
be an amazing scientist and working at GE. Kickstarter has created
every, it’s just that we’re living in this incredible,
it’s not the place that even intuitively
feels like the right place to play in right now,
because the supply and demand alternatives of the
marketplace dictate a behavior to me that’s all the different. Now, with that being said,
back to being an IP lawyer, I think what you should figure out, where all your upside professionally is can you become a taste
maker, a forward thinker? Can you figure out, and I
know I’m asking you now, can you figure out a
version of becoming the IP lawyer 2.0, like
what’s the future of IP? Question of the day! Uh,

“Do you distinguish between
‘idea people’ and ‘doers’? “Is there value in someone
with great ideas “who needs others to execute?” – Ya know, I think that,
one of the things that I’ve pounded home in a hundred episodes here is how much pride I have
in being a practitioner. How much I am, how much
I respect practicality. Like, how much ideas are shit, and execution’s the game, that’s
one of my favorite quotes. Right? So, but it’s interesting. This question, as it rolled
off of India’s tongue, made me realize, ya know,
truth is there is value in it. Ya know what? Here’s a good way to put it. One of the reasons I think
I pound ideas are shit and execution’s the
game, is because I think the majority of people that
spend a lot of time watching me, aren’t at a place where they can afford the luxury of ideas. Silent pause for profoundness. Let me explain. Ideas are great. Ideas are, ya know, you can really overt, I like being a contradiction
of ideas are the game, right? Ideas are a seed. But so many people don’t have the luxury of being able to afford the
ability to have those ideas. For a long time, I
didn’t have the luxury of building a company that
had great video people who could come with me and
tape my garage sale show, and now I do and I can’t
wait, I’m so pumped. We have to find a town sale, that’s where all the action is. Anyway, so, I think there is a
place for idea people, India and VaynerNation, I think it is a, it’s a (chuckles), Ranger
people are excited. I think that you have to have
the luxury of those people. I think, the reason I’m
hedging here is I’m scared so many of you are like, “See? “He said idea people,
and I’m an idea person.” Ya know, ya can’t be, you’ve
gotta be in the right setting to get the right value of
ideas, which is a huge company that could afford R&D,
research and development, ya know, that kinda thing. You just got really
lucky that your partner is so Goddamn practical that he or she respects your
idea skills and wants them. But it is a really rare situation
for ideas to be valuable in its execution form,
especially for the far majority of the VaynerNation. (light bass-heavy music)
– [Nicole] Albi asks,

“Gary, how can I prevent angel investors “interested in investing in my enterprise “from potentially stealing our IP?” – Christopher, this is
a really interesting Monday morning show. Christopher, this is also a shit question. Ideas are shit, execution’s the game. People walk around going, “Gary, please sign this NDA
before I pitch you my idea as an angel investor.” Let me reenact it. India, I’ll get to that later, let me just catch up on my email. “Hey, Gary, I’m a really big fan and you’re the best guy I’ve ever met. Anyway, listen I’ve
got this big time idea. But before I pitch it to you, please see the following attachment and sign the NDA because I
just can’t let you see it. I don’t want it stolen.” Great, delete. Out of (bleep) business. If you literally think
in 2015 that your idea is so profound that
nobody’s ever thought of it, that when I sit with you and I pitch I go, you’re a dope, but
I’m gonna take this idea and give it to somebody else, you are lost in the
reality of the marketplace. Again, if that is where
your mindset is at, I just don’t see that as a winning mindset for 2015 and beyond. The days of patent or idea IP, every idea has been thought about. There is nobody who has come
up with a big time idea. I’m telling you, every idea
has been thought about. All of them, every one of them. People executing, or having the pieces in
place to be able to execute, or the right time in their career, the right resources financially, energy, skills, opportunities, those are the variables. Not the ideas.