asked if you were to build a
company in 2016 today from scratch what would you pick. Erase all your followers all the
companies that you have built up to this date. You said you would
choose something like Nike. So my question is at the
beginning stages of your company what would you do for
your three next moves. What were your top three
first moves be to help grow your company and keep in
mind you only have $3000. What would those three steps be? – Guys can’t get more specific? – Ads, an expo at a
convention center, inventory, what would it be? Let me know, can’t wait to hear
your answer and thank you for including my question
and today’s show. – What is the name?
– [India] Joey. – Joey, great question. The truth Joey and everybody who
is watching and so many of you are emailing me and please
by the way this is a good opportunity, Staphon, can you
put a little video pop-up you’ll do a little
editing for this one. Actually put a
picture I don’t make you. #AskGaryVee the search engine. If you have business questions, my new search engine
is unbelievable. All my questions all of my
answers transcribed all there in the search engine. So many questions about this and
the truth is Joey you clearly ask for yourself there so many
things you could be doing for your apparel business I guess
is why you referenced Nike. First of all, I said if you’re
in apparel the number one thing I would do it would try to get
Instagram influencers to wear your product at zero cost all
the way up to $1, $3, $50, $100. I think influencers
are grossly underpriced. I think the game is about
exposure and conversion and I think that too many people
don’t really understand how to run a business.
Make a lot of bad mistakes. As a matter of fact, I’m super
pumped that “Shark Tank” is now doing this “After
The Tank” TV show. I don’t know if any of
you have watched it. But Lizzie loves it. They’re showing people going
out of business because they grow too fast.
They don’t understand. There’s a real
cadence of growing. It’s like anything in life. You can’t get too
ahead of yourself. You can’t go too slow. You know it’s funny, a lot of
people when they start digging into my content realize
that I’m a real contradiction. That I believe in very
opposite points of view. And I think my answer
to your question is it’s a mix of 100 different things. I couldn’t give you, I’m not
going to give you what you want from this question which is
these three tactical things. I only give very black-and-white
tactical advice when I actually have hours to sit down and look
at your business and actually understand what
I’m talking about. I don’t want to look like an
idiot or have egg on my face so then I thought about
religious points of view. For you, you need to
get that shirt and you need to get
as much exposure. The same way you hacked your
way on to this show asking a question now you got exposure. I saw you put your little
Snapchat logo down there in the corner. Some people snapped it,
following you now. You’re looking for exposure. I think it’s a grind. For apparel
businesses are very hard. You need distribution,
you need awareness to me what I would
do is a lot of listening. I would tell you very honest
answer, Joey, if I were you as young as you look and
you look great, nice and young, super fit dude. Oh India likes it.
(laughter) What India said yeah.
What? – What do you want me to say?
No, you look horrible? – [Gary] No, no. – [India] Yes he’s fit.
– Yes, that’s exactly right. That’s right.
He is a fit man. Right, Garrett?
– Yeah. – [Gary] Yeah super fit.
– [India] Garrett agrees too. – Yeah, exactly.
Wasn’t a boy-girl thing. Just is he fit? I think that one of the things
that scares the living piss out of me is that a young dude like
you and so many young dudes and dudettes like you everybody’s
just jumping in and running a business. You know what I would tell
you to do, actually know what? I’m going there.
Screw it. You know what I’m
going to tell you to do? Shut your business down and go work for an apparel
company for three years. Go email every CEO of an apparel
company that’s doing over $5 million dollars a year in
revenue that you respect. All of them. Sit down grab a nice shake right, kale, nice kale shake and map every single CEO
in the world that has a $5 million a year or higher
revenue apparel business. Then to go to LinkedIn and
Twitter and email and tweet all of them. And ask all of them for you
to be there chief of staff, right-hand man and to work
side-by-side with that person for the next 18 months. That’s what I would do. Stake versus sizzle. There’s no tactic that
I’m going to tell you on The #AskGaryVee Show that’s gonna
set you up for success and to be very frank with you and I don’t
want to hurt your feelings Joey and I have a lot of respect for
you and is hurting everyone’s collective feelings my intuition
is somebody building a really big business in the apparel
space is not going to rely on one their tactics being
asking a business guru for advice tactically. So, I would take that 3000 bucks
and save it so that you can live with 17 roommates while you work
for Carol Thompson and her $9 million a year apparel
business and watch it up close and personal. India do it one more time
and I don’t do this for humble bragging. I think it’s important because a
lot of you know India and she’s been our eco-system, one more
time, four years in Vayner? – Almost four years. – India, three weeks in my
inbox, say it one more time different than you thought.
– Totally. – India learned more, it’s only
three weeks but just different. Just different. And you can’t buy that. India sat here and all god
damn shows with you guys. India’s written a ton of stuff. Has probably consumed way
more of my voice than she would ever want to. Yet in a 10 day period
being in my inbox, being close to the sun, she gained more context. I wouldn’t say learned
but holy crap, what? Yes. And that’s why so many of you
are jumping to run a business and I’m a natural
good businessman. A lot of you don’t
have as much natural entrepreneurial
DNA as I do. I think you need to learn from
the hip and I think the biggest mistake is you’d rather go get
and this is a different piece of advice for a lot of the
college kids that I’ve reached through
that one video. You’d rather go get that
job at $63,000 at the Gap and be number 17,000 even though your ambition
is to run your own fashion brand versus making no money teaming
up with 19 roommates living that ghetto lifestyle but being the
right-hand person but remember if want to start your own
fashion brand isn’t it much better to be very close to a
person that’s got a $3 to $5 million a year business
because that’s going to be your first step. Even if you’re at
the right hand of the CEO of Nike or Adidas or Under Armour or Coach that’s not the company
that you’re going to build. You’re going to learn
Corporate America skills. I’m just completely pissed
with the lack of, (sigh) it’s a lack of patience. It’s much cooler to say your
founder of the company, “Hey bro, what you do?” “Oh, I have my own brand. “I’m an entrepreneur.
I’m crushing it.” And Joey I’m not picking on you. This is a general statement. “I got my own business.”
That’s sexy. “I’m an entrepreneur.”
That’s a rockstar. That’s cool right now. Not as cool as “Hey
bro, what are you up to?” “Oh, I’m the Junior assistant
for Rikki Thompson for her underwear brand.” What? You went to
college for that? But I’m telling you right now
the person with the humility and the patience to the second
scenario is going to win every time.
99 out of 100 times. It’s just what’s
going to happen. I’m glad I got to say that.
I’m glad I came out. It is true.
It is super true. And when shit hits the fan and
it will and people can’t raise money and it’s not that easy. 3000 bucks is not a lot of
money to start a business. Too much dreaming right now.