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.

– Hey Gary, Matt LaMarsh
here in Atlanta, Georgia. I hope you’re doin’ well. Had a quick question
about self-awareness. Do you think it’s more
about maturity and wisdom or is it something that
you’re just built with? Thanks so much
for takin’ the time. Have a great day. – That’s a good question. – So I’ve been talking a
lot about self-awareness. I’d love for you
to take the floor first. Maybe you haven’t had as much time to
ponder this world. What’s your take
on self-awareness? Do you feel like you have it? Do you feel like it grew? For example, I believe
it is the ultimate power. Once you have that, boy
can you start navigating. I’m struggling ’cause
so many people have really caught
attention to this and are asking me
to help them figure out how to gain more of
it and I’m like Jesus. There are certain places
where your skill set stops. Mine stops at how am
I gonna, I don’t know. Boy do I know the people
that I know that have it are winning and not
just financially or (mumbles). They’re just in a happy place because of that self-awareness. What is your thought
on self-awareness? – Yeah, I think it’s a
skill like any other. – So you do think it’s
something that can be it’s own. – Sure, I mean people
might have natural capacity for it from how they were raised like any other skill. – In the world? – Some people are
good at basketball and some people
have to work very hard to be good at basketball. – Do you think
one caps out though? In a basketball analogy,
Dunk is a nice looking athlete but he’s never going
to be an NBA player. He has a ceiling of
his basketball skills, do you think people
have a ceiling to their self-awareness? – I don’t know if
people have a ceiling, but I think
self-awareness is a skill, a practicable, learnable skill and I think one
of the big things about self-awareness
is we don’t really know how we’re being perceived. We think we know
how we’re being perceived and sometimes we act in a way, when we act all pompous
because we want to appear stronger, we really appear weak. – That’s right. Which is a common
one by the way. – Yeah right and so
I think the big thing about learning to be
self aware is being open to the feedback from
people who love you and care about you who
are wiling to say to you “When you said that,
you looked and sounded “like an ass.” – Yeah, it’s funny– – And to be open
to that kind of harsh but from a good place
critique is the only way to learn how you come across. – It’s funny you said that. I think the closest
I’ve ever gotten to answer this is that
and then, actually putting that inner circle
in a safe place to tell you the truth. – Exactly right. – Because those
same people are scared, they love you. – And if you’re defensive
the whole time– – Game over. – Then you are not
learning self-awareness. – I would tell you that
my reading of comments over the last decade on social, and taking each
with a grain of salt. Your biggest fans,
you can only let your ego go so far and you’re aware
that some people troll for the sake
of getting reactions from the community and
things of that nature but the net, the millions
in a net composite score has definitely been,
I would always say that listening has
done a lot more for me even though I love to
talk and always talk. That consumption
pattern has been a very big deal for me. – So there’s
a wonderful story– – Please.
– about listening. – Okay. – The problem when
people say you need to be a better listener is
we’re human beings and we need to communicate
and communication is two ways,
listening and speaking. So but everybody’s
like “You’ve got to be “a better listener” but
here’s the best understanding I have of that. So Nelson Mandela
is universally regarded as a great leader
which is important because different people
are viewed differently in different nations
but Nelson Mandela universally regarded as
a great leader, right? He was actually
the son of a tribal chief and he was asked
in an interview once “How did you learn
to be a great leader?” And he tells the story
of how he would go to tribal meetings
with his father and he remembers two
things; they always sat in a circle and
his father was always the last to speak. And in terms of
leadership and listening, I think the idea
of be a better listener is actually half the advice. I think the advice is practice being the last to speak. You see this all
the time in meetings where everybody
will sit around a room, the senior guy will be like “Alright here’s the
problem, here’s what I think “we should do
but I’m really interested “in what your thoughts are,”
– Yes. – “Let’s go around the
room” but it’s too late. You’ve influenced them. – You’ve created the footprint. – And people bend and
mold as opposed to saying “Here’s the problem,
I’m interested “in what you have to say”
without saying anything and not even, and having
the, and here’s the, this takes practice. Not even getting a
hint whether you agree or disagree, if anything
you ask questions to learn more,
you get the benefit of hearing everybody’s opinion, everybody gets to feel heard and then you get
to render your opinion. – So I would tell you,
and this is for people that are running businesses, that is a micro
example of the way, and I think
makes a ton of sense. I would tell you
Andy, you obviously direct report to me,
you run our team, I think people would be stunned by how little you talk at all. Like the level of,
right, like the level of micro management I put on, like my version
of that is actually letting people do their thing and watching it from,
speaking last. I guess my punchline
is by the time I get into the meeting
where we’re like “Here’s the problem”,
the amount of listening that has been done
because I’ve created such a white canvas
for the leaders to do their thing and
I can watch it and contextualize
what they’re doing, is the macro version
because once you’re in that meeting room,
that’s basically the final pitch of
what’s been going on over that period of time. – Okay. – Yeah, that’s interesting,
it’s interesting. I believe in that quite a bit.
Okay, good. I mean I think, I on
the other hand do think that all skills have a max out. At some level,
your hard wiring limits– – So you can’t continue to grow ’til the day you die? – No, I think that’s the
black and white version of that. I think that
you can continue to make incremental steps
but I think that there are people– – Oh, so there’s
a diminishing return. That’s interesting.
– I believe that because I believe some
people are just delirious in this chase that
they’re gonna be at this upside of any skill– – That’s interesting. – and people lose
practicality at some level. – And the question is
is where is everybody? You know, if here is the max out where the diminishing returns. – That’s right. – The question is is… – Do you stop here? – Does anybody even get here? – And which is why
I’m always very careful to not play too
much to the negative because I don’t want
somebody to stop here but in the same token,
in a world where there’s a lot of
voices and everybody can do everything,
we need to level some level of practicality.
– Oh that’s good, I like that. Yeah, that’s interesting.
– Oh thank you.

“18 hours a day? “In episode 215, you said that
putting in the time does not “mean you will be successful. “I’m confused,
should I give up?” – Ethan? Ethan, it works both ways. Here’s my point about hard work,
it’s a great opportunity to great way to be in this spot
as we move to the next office. Hard work really matters but
let’s talk about it both ways. Yes, in episode 215 or
wherever I said it that if you put in 18 hours a day and
you don’t have talent you will not get results. If you put in nine hours a day
and you’re loaded with talent in whatever you’re doing
you’ll get results. It’s this cross-section of
work ethic and talent. They both matter. People get so mad when
I talk about talent. We had a hold Krewella episode
where it was like that whole debate and in the comments a
bunch of you losers, yep, losers were like, “No, you can make it
happen if you work hard enough.” That is just not true. Stand up everybody in the
comment section if you worked very hard for three, four, five,
six, seven years at something and you didn’t get the greatest
results of all time and have a white picket fence
and hit the Hall of Fame. It happens every day. But talent is not something that
you, watching this right now, can go home and say I’m going to
muster up more talent in art, in business, in sports. You can’t do that. But work ethic you can. And so I push work ethic because
I believe it’s a variable and I believe it’s far
more controllable. I do believe that you can cut
out leisure, change your mindset and put in the work. I do not believe the
automatically can become an unbelievably millionaire status
world-class in what you do. Do I think you can become
a better editor if you do it bunch?
Sure do. Do you think I better at
tennis if you play it a lot? Yes, I do. Do I think that means that
you could be on the tour? No, I do not. – [India] Next question.

– [Voiceover] Tom asks,
“How’d you girls get hooked “up with Jake Udell?” How big of an influence
has it had on your career?” – High school.
– Yep. I graduated with Jake Udell. Jake was in my science,
what was it? Which science class?
Was it biology? All I know is I got a D. Got a D. (laughter) And Jake you were
actually if you want to talk about your music career. You were pursuing
being an artist. – I was an awful rapper.
Like the worst. DJ Khaled and DJ Drama
actually posted my mix tape. – Why didn’t you just
put in the 10,000 hours? – I did. I did.
– And become– – So here’s the thing
I gave up on my 10,000 hours as a musician– – Because you
didn’t have the talent. – Okay, I’ll admit that.
– Jake has this swag. – See here’s the thing, I made
a pivot and said okay– – Because you were smart. Because not everybody
can do anything if they put in 10,000 hours. – I actually believe, I believe
that if you put in the 10,000 hours it can happen. I’m not saying you can be
performing at the Grammys but you can it’s possible
to have a hit record. I believe that can happen. – Okay. Anything can happen. But it doesn’t
consistently happen. To me that’s the
point which is like– – That’s what’s so fascinating
about what Malcolm said though. Malcolm said he couldn’t find
people that have put in the 10,000 hours that
hadn’t made it. Of course ’cause their stores
weren’t known because he was trying to find them and
he couldn’t find them. – How many hours did
you put into rapping? – Oh my gosh.
– Exactly. – Not 10,000 though,
not even close. – But that’s impossible. If you suck shit at something
and you put 10,000 hours you’re not going to become
one of the greats in it. – Right.
– I was a better marketer. – There’s enormous amounts of
kids, every single kid that tried become a professional
athlete that didn’t become a professional athlete which is
almost everybody put in all the hours from first grade to
senior year and didn’t make it. – 10,000 though? That’s the
thing when you look at that– – I don’t know the math
on what 10,000 hours is. – Did I spent 10,000 hours for
my rap career or was I 10,000 hours in the studio? I was definitely not 10,000
hours in the studio trying to be the best rapper.
– I love Malcolm. Nobody can convince me. If that was true then we should
tell every six-year-old right now to spend every minute of
your time on the number one thing that you want to be and
you will become that and that is absolute bullshit. – I think that’s
absolutely true. – So you think if I take a first
grader right now and say you’re going to become a
world-class surfer– – If he wants to be. – if he or she wants to be than
you’ll think they’ll become a world-class surfer? – That’s so tough. I think they’ll find
their career in surfing. I think that’s a logical great
decision that six-year-old. – And you’re saying that because
you found your career in the music industry whether or not
you were trying manage or not. – The thing is the guy before,
the first question he was asking about– – Nobody wants to be a manager
when they want to be a star. – I do.
– No, now. – Oh yeah.
– When you were 11– – I believed in them more than
I believed in myself so that was the turning point. – Because they had talent.
– Yeah. They’re good. – I think that that’s the point. I really mean that because you
have to understand where I’m coming from and where my energy
is coming from. Right now we are looking to the greatest era
of fake entrepreneurs ever. Every single person that is
under 25 is coming out of school and they’re like,
“I’m an app founder.” I’m sure you talk to these
people everybody’s a fucking entrepreneur and they just think
because they’ve said it and they’re gonna put in the time
and effort that automatically makes them a successful
entrepreneur and that’s the key. Which is you can be anything. Do I believe if I put in 10,000
hours into surfing that I’d be a good surfer?
I sure do. Do I think I could
win the competitions they have in Hawaii? No, I do not. I think there is a secondary
thing that has to happen. Look at the NBA. You mentioned Adele, what
about the 12th man on the Heat. Right? He’s one of the best 300
basketball players in the world but and he’s made it but what
about a person right after that the person in the D-League that’s making tens of
thousands of dollars? That guy is literally one of 500
best basketball players in the world but hasn’t won,
hasn’t made it by the Malcolm categorization. And then you have just millions
of people, there’s millions of people that are trying to make
EDM and hip hop music right this second and so many of them
can’t succeed in the marketplace ’cause the talent is a variable. I really do believe that. I just don’t see how one
doesn’t understand that. There’s so many
people that want it. There are so many people that
put in those hours in so many things and especially in music
and sports which are very high glossy, exciting things to be in
society like I don’t know. I’m fascinated by the talent
conversation because I think it is a dangerous conversation because I was picking
and prodding. The reason I’m in a good mood
as you’re talking a lot more now about self-awareness. I think a lot of kids right
now are getting eighth place trophies and they think they are
good enough and then the world hits them in the face and that’s
what we have so much depression and other things that people
don’t everybody was a “rah-rah.” Everybody wants you can do it. Nobody understands that when
they don’t do it what happens that kid’s psyche.
– Mhmmm. – I think part of being a
successful young person is you get the opportunity
to make those pivots. You get the opportunity to say,
“Okay I’m in eighth place maybe “I should become a coach. “Maybe I should change
my career progression.” – When you’re getting the
direction that you can still do it, you can still do it when so
few can then you start getting into a place where we’re selling
a bill of goods to the youth that isn’t true and you start
dealing with what I think the mental health issues that
are not being talked about where everybody all of a sudden
after 50 years of prosperity in America thinks that they’re
going to become Adele and LeBron and they don’t and
then they’re baffled. – Do you think that when you
talk about the 10,000 hour rule that the people that are making
it, do you think part of that is the equation is
perseverance though? You should have heard the songs
we wrote back in a day and we still write to this day and I
could have checked out and said, “Hey, I just don’t have talent.” – I don’t think there is a
single person that’s successful that didn’t put
in the hard work. Which is the reverse
of the conversation. I just don’t think that if you
put in the hard work you can necessarily be successful. There’s nobody that’s achieved
what you’ve achieved or what I’ve achieved that got
there by accident and didn’t put in the work. – How many entrepreneurs or
talented people have you met that have put in the level of
work that you’ve put in in to what you do to create all of
this amazing office by the way that haven’t made it
in a significant level? I don’t know any. – First of all, nobody works 18
hours a day like I do but (laughter) the punchline is I know a lot of
kids that have been hustling for the last six or seven years
trying to build and are on the third business and
they’re never going to make it. A lot. Because they’re schlemiels. – They’re what?
– Schlemiels. They don’t have it.
– That’s a Russian word? – It’s probably a Yiddish word if I had really get to
the core of it. They don’t have the skill to be
a business person that can make a business successful. The end. There the kids on “American
Idol” who literally come, think they’re Adele sing
and we all laughed. – The fact that they’re on their
third business a lot of them being schlemiels is that
they’re kinda BS, they’re not– – Let’s go into a
different place. Are you telling me that
talent has no part of the equation of success?
– Oh huge. – Well that’s
what you’re saying. – Huge. – I just want you to
know by definition. I want you watch this–
– To achieve talent. I truly believe that and there
have been some people in our experience that have come around that we maybe met
three, four years ago. – I understand. I think people can break
through and get better. Do you think everybody can? Do you think the majority can?
– No. – But I think everybody
has a unique talent though. It might not be music or
sports but you have to find it. Part of being a successful
20-something is understanding how to maneuver in times of
change and understand that you have to sometimes
pivot to be successful. – And how many of
those 20-year-old are gonna find success? – As many that want to.
– That’s not true. – As many who are studying the
same principles and same values that you have. – Last question before
I get really burning. I feel like I’m going to burn
this table now but I love it. I love it because I love it
because I love, first of all, it’s so funny because on the most
optimistic person I know and I feel like I’m
Debbie Downer here. I do think what’s scaring me and
why I’m talking about it is I think the pendulum swinging
a little bit too much to “Anybody can make it.
Everybody can make it. “Just put in the work.” I believe in that but I think
that maximizes what you have. I think the work will maximize
what you have I just don’t think everybody has it. Especially when
you get into art. When you get into music and
sports and things of that nature I think that is a tough challenge.
Last question. – [Voiceover] Chris asks,
“How do you girls stay so

My name is Steven Gold. There’s so many good producers
out there right now getting released on labels, getting
uploads on Sheepy and Proximity all these channels. Getting blog coverage, even
charting on Hype Machine. What separates the artist that
get all this promotion and just get a little bit of royalties
here and the artist that actually get to make
a living off of music? – Anyone who isn’t afraid
to experiment and I always appreciate producers when I hear
them who step outside a certain BPM or even genre. I always love risk-taking
mentality and for me those are the people that I’ll
remember for years and years and just to name a few like
Skrillex, we’re big fans of Skrillex, of course. Everything
that Jack Q does is really cool. Panpour Nerds we’re huge
fans of them. And who else? I would say Discord love what they do as far
as experimentation. – I also think that musicians
who are able to create a song in our EDM world is amazing because
you get so used to the build up, then the drop then the break
down and the build, the drop and it just seemed so contrived
after a while but you get people like Calvin Harris who make real
songs that embody so much more than just the build and the drop
and I think that is incredible. – I think my answers going to be
slightly more in the context of how you guys know that I roll
which is I think what separates is the market decides. This whole notion that there’s
so much great music I think there probably is and I think
some of the great music of all time was never heard because the
market decided it wasn’t great. Meaning who gets to
decide what is great? And I always find
that super fascinating. It is an executive who’s got
an ear like is a Clive Davis through the years? Absolutely not. It’s the end market so a lot of
you email me and say I’ve been doing a daily vlog called
“DailyVee” and a lot of music has been given to DRock for us
and we use a lot of it and we’re getting hundreds of emails now
because they are getting a lot of exposure from people that
are watching the YouTube show and it’s helping them so a lot
of people want their music on the show and everybody writes
the same thing which is, “This is great.
My stuff is great. “Everybody tells it’s great.” And the answer is
I think at some level the market gets to decide. Everybody wants to
think they’re great. I always think about the way
American Idol when it first came out those people in that first
show of every season where they really truly not the people just
trying to get on TV later but those first two or three seasons
where you would just genuinely see somebody who literally
thought they were great. Right? Who literally thought they were
great and in that environment judges got to
decide if they moved on. I think what is so fascinating
about today’s music marketplace and the business marketplaces
with the internet being the true middleman whether you Soundcloud
or blogs pick you up or you put out YouTube stuff or Vimeo or
whatever you do I think what separates the people
that make a living or not is the paying customer. That enough people decide you
are great that it allows you to do it for a living. – I actually think the ones that
do it for hobby versus living it’s quite simply 10,000 hours. And you guys started it was very different than
what it was four or five years later and you
guys continue to get better. – Do you think that Malcolm
Gladwell like put in the work, do you really think
that really think that? For example–
– Yes. I do. – Do you think if I put in
10,000 hours of EDM skills that I could be great at EDM. ‘Cause I can tell
you right now I can’t. – Ok. – I genuinely think
that talent has been stripped out of the equation. – As an artist or as a producer? – Both because I can tell
you right now that is just not in me. – Authenticity has
to be part of it. And that’s not authentic to you. – Well, that’s right.
That’s right. But I do think the 10,000 hour
thing is very fascinating and I do think and I talk about hustle
and hard work a lot. I just am surprised that talent is
starting to get scripted out of the equation. To be a musician like you guys
are, you guys are talented and that’s a thing. – I have to interject here.
– Please. – I don’t think that I, first of
all, I don’t think that I’m up to par with certain
artist that I look up to. When you talk about Adele’s
vocals I don’t think I was born a prodigy. – But you don’t need to be the
number one singer in the world to have success. – But I don’t think I
was born with this– – Do you think you have a better
voice than the average hundred people out there? – No, I don’t.
– Oh, yes. – The reason I say that
is because I think there’s this mentality today where
people think artists on this unobtainable pedestal but if
you go back to the beginning of human civilization everyone was
sitting in a circle banging on some drums and
singing all together. It wasn’t a separate
outsider, entitled group. – I think everybody can sing,
I just don’t think everyone wants to pay everybody
to hear them to sing. – Today, I think it’s different. I think it’s vision, it’s your
voice, it’s your songwriting, it’s how you curate
your music videos. It’s everything. – The issue with your romantic
point of view right now is it’s not being executed in reality. There are hundreds of millions
of people that want to do, there’s tens of millions of
Americans that want to do what you are doing right now. And more interestingly and you
guys know this, you’re in the scene it’s much more what’s
happening in entrepreneurship, it’s what’s
happening in athletics. There are plenty of people that
have put in lots and lots of hours especially if they
come from affluence where their parents have allowed them to
be able to go to every fucking lesson 47,000 times. Sometimes talent has to
be part of the equation. – And hunger too though.
– Sure. – Sometimes people
are given everything. – Sure. The work ethic is
a big variable. Alright before we start getting
really testy here let’s go to

“to do and to avoid when it
comes to personal branding?” – From my standpoint
the thing it’s so funny. I make my parallels, I know you
probably don’t know about this backstory but I was in the wine
business and I came out and made YouTube videos when YouTube
first came out and I talked to people in
Springfield, New Jersey. Not far from East Orange.
– That’s right. – In Springfield, New Jersey
in my office I made videos just like this and I talked
to people about wine. I told people wine tasted like
Whatchamacallit bars or when you open a racquetball case. Stuff that nobody
had ever done before. There was no Wine Spectator or
Food Network that was gonna put on this guy that compared wine the Iron Sheik giving
somebody a Camel Clutch. Nobody was going to put me on. The internet put me on and I think the
personal brand thing is really no different
than musicality a.k.a. real originality a.k.a. actually having
the chops. I think so many of you and it’s
funny, you guys know, my crew knows, I compare
entrepreneurship right now to rap and hip-hop because it’s a genre that is
getting looked upon and all of a sudden its fame and
it all the stuff and you see a lot of
fake entrepreneurs. That’s the same thing as one
hit wonders just following the melodies or the hooks that
work and there’s nothing there. I think the number one thing
to building a brand, a personal brand, the number one to do is to be you 24/7/365 forever never waver regardless. You know, money and
fame doesn’t change you. It exposes you. It’s binary one and zero, be
yourself 24/7/365 and the thing not to do is alter that
in any shape or form? My man? – Facts. Facts, man. In hip hop we call that
you just spit some bars. (laughter) – I’ll take it.
– Bars. – Now I’m good.
I’m good. – Bars. – I’ll take that put
that quote card everywhere. – Bars.
– Alright, let’s move it.

“my work but I’m posting sitting
at a desk on my phone and email. “How can I add
variety in content?” – Well you got to be creative. Funny thing about this is
there’s a crazy thing guys. Crazy thing about creating
content both for social media, both for television,
both for books, both for magazine articles
it’s called talent. There are plenty of people that
can sit at a desk all day and produce amazing content because
they’re funny, they’re clever. They’re imaginative. They are creative by nature. So my answer is talent. James. You’ve got to come
up with an idea. Asking me to give you the
creative pillar is not a good strategy because
I can tell you that you could do it all day long. You can do a whole series on
Snapchat of random websites. Why don’t you just take your
phone while you sit at your desk and in-between important
things go to StumbleUpon click a button, random website
show it on the screen and you audit those websites. You add your two cents. Social commentary to every
website on the internet. You would never have to
leave your desk, ever again. But are you good enough? Are you funny enough? Are you quick-witted enough? One of the most famous videos is
when I cold called somebody and tried to sell them an ad
’cause I was good at it. That’s why it was good content.
I just sat at my desk. I think the answer is too many
people think that you have to rely on amazing scenery or
having a mix, a different day. I think my Snapchat
is all the same shit. It just me in my
face wherever I am. I’m trying to mix it up. I eat a banana here and there
and now I go to weird bathrooms. I’m trying. Have you seen that yet?
– [India] Yeah. – Thank you.
I travel a lot. I think bathroom
culture is fascinating. – [India] (inaudible)
restaurant bathrooms. – [Gary] Well there you go.
So there you go. Why would you
even ask me that? Hold on let’s start
over but you just said– – [India] There’s a difference
between really random creepy bathroom and you
Snapchatting from it and then curating a blog
of interesting bathrooms. – Yeah, super different, India. Anyway my man, James, anything
can be funny anything to be interesting it comes
down to the talent. If you’re one that
needs this visual support. This is a binary question
meaning if you’re not good enough in a mundane similar
situation to create something that’s interesting and
intriguing well then I don’t know you got to get a new job. Something crazy.
I don’t know. You’re stuck. There certain truths you’re gonna
sit at your job and do calls at your desk it sounds
like regardless. So instead of saying that the
defense, make it an offense. It is a mindset. Unless you’re willing to change
your job and travel the world and have all this great scenery
in the background like buck up Charlie, James.
And figure it out. I mean you can take a
whole meme just about, I could do a whole
thing just on Courtney. At the front of our. I could basically make Courtney. I can basically make
anybody famous if I want to. (India laughing) – I mean it is true. I like to think I’m a
little entertaining. Sean.

“letting go of my job. “I don’t like it, but I’ve
been there for so long. “I have loans, two kids to
support, a deep fear of leaving “the security and I’m not sure
what it takes to make it as a “solo-preneur. Any tips on how
to release the fear and “decide whether to
take the risk?” – I’ll go first this time. Punt leisure.
Punt leisure. You can work, I’m going to call you out. If you really mean that you
can live on six hours sleep. So you have 18 hours,
18 God damn hours. I want to know what you’re
doing with your 18 hours. Because you can work your 9-to-5
and that’s fine and you can travel for an hour here
and there, respect, nice little solid commute. Oh you want to be a family man? Mazel Tov, you can spend two
hours with your kids, what are you doing with
those of the five hours? You’re watching
House of fucking Cards. You’re playing Madden. You’re relaxing from
the other intense. Gary already spent 11 hours. Well great then don’t
complain or want more. Respect that by getting rest and
this and that you’re giving up opportunity to go
into a new market. You want the
audacity to have a 1% life. Let’s call it what it is. You want to live as well as
the 1 to 2% in the world. It’s not very complicated
the math is very raw. If you want to have one of the
best lifes in the world and you live on your terms then you have
to pay your dues to get there. And you have to be lucky enough
to figure out that you had talent in the thing you actually
want to do because you work 24 hours a day and if you stink
at golf or you’re not a good content producer or your logos
like the shit I would make then you’re going to lose. So that’s what you gotta do. And Fiverr was built for you. Fiverr was built or those
talented individuals while trying to find– – Was Fiverr built
for everybody? – Yes, yes for talented and
skilled individuals that want to find financial and
professional development. So what you have on Fiverr today
yes you have sellers making your six digit a year
that are top sellers. – Real quick I apologize, I
know you want to say it but like they’re all going. Here’s the punchline. What’s the mechanics are
you guys taking 20% of the transaction?
– That’s correct. – Is at the number?
Yeah, listen. The reason I went there is
because he’s the chief revenue officer is all going to sound… How do you cure cancer?
Fiverr. How do you go to the movies?
Fiverr. Let me save us time here. Here’s why I’m curious at the
scale that you guys are now not five or six year
ago, four years ago. Giving up 20% for that attention
no different than eBay or an Amazon I think is very
minor for the exposure. I think there’s a Fiverr and
things like Fiverr but you guys are at scale that’s why you’re
sitting here and social media combo if you can make that
one plus one equal four there’s something very real there.
Let’s go.

answers that you would, yeah.
(laughs) I’ve been watching
your stuff for a year. I’ll give you a question a lot
of people had was if they’re trying to start a YouTube
channel, in your opinion, how do you break through all of the
stuff that is on there right now. – We’ve talked about it,
you know the answer. Talent is the variable. I really do think
self-awareness, that’s why put it on this cover of this
book, is super important. I spent a lot of time. There were three things I
could’ve started with and I went with wine because I knew I
wasn’t going to be able to leave the wine business right away. I had a business to run so it
was the most integrated thing that I could do. You gotta think about
your subject matter it has to be true to you. All of us have multiple things
that are true to us so I would sit down and first say what
do I actually know. I know how to be a 13-year-old. I know a 13-year-olds
point of view on technology. Then I’ll go to YouTube and see
how many people are winning the 11 to 15-year-old technology
point of view content game. If there is nobody, there’s
somebody for everything almost, but if there’s not that many
people are nobody is really owning it, that’s interesting. Versus I’m also a great
skateboarder, oh crap, there’s 97,000 people
doing skateboarding. So first and foremost, I
would do for the white space. Number two, I do think that
YouTube’s a very difficult game and I do think that whether it’s
Snapchat, though that’s about to become very difficult as
well, I’m going to say it again, musically, or anything
else that pops, I think that using social networks white
space to drive awareness to drive attention matters. And then finally, we gave this
question early on, I do think the blueprint that you did with
Casey or if you’ve got a couple of bucks and can run ads against
people who are skateboard fans on Facebook there is
tactical things that can speed up your process. I do think influencers
are the way to go. I think that Piper, recalling
it all the way back, should absolutely spend all of her if
she loves it spend all her time going to every histogram
account, every YouTuber, every Twitter account and replying and
saying “Can I interview, can I interview?” That’s probably what she’s
doing she’s interviewing so many people and the truth is that
one more ask is one more at-bat. So I would say that. – And something to that, 70% of
the stuff that I’ve done on my YouTube channel is
about other people. Series like creative space TV
or anything it’s all about– – You’re siphoning
people’s audience. – Exactly. And I’m leveraging other
people’s voice– – 100%.
– for me and I promote it. – And by the way, I haven’t
looked enough but I’m going to make some assumptions
here, everybody does that. It’s you have to be good at it. What you clearly have
done is you brought value. When I put stuff out I really do
it, it’s because somebody sings a book review of
mine and kills it. Somebody that has
to bring value. If you’ve got a big audience, everybody’s trying
to get to you. Everybody’s trying to siphon
your fans and link bait you. It’s can you bring value to
that community and that person. – You know it’s funny,
that’s how she started. She started interviewing models,
Instagram– – My whole platform has been
not competing, collaborating. – Yeah, it’s huge.
– Of course. When you’re starting from the
bottom you absolutely either need money, you need an absolute
unbelievable skill set of talent or you need to siphon awareness
from other places but too many people want, too many people hit
up people like hey you have a million followers on twitter
can you give me a shout out? No. – What kind of value
are you offering them? – 100%. And really not even structuring,
not even the email saying what can I do for you for you to do
this for me, it’s just doing it. You didn’t text Casey and
say hey I’m going to do this for you. You did it. – And I had 4,000 people who
really cared about me because I built that relationship with
my YouTube audience for years. at the end of the video I was
like let’s Tweet this to Casey to get it to him people
were stoked about it. – Jace Norman, the Nickelodeon
star, did the same thing to me. All of a sudden got on
a plane I had 7000 tweets the Norman maniacs or whatever
they call themselves. All right, your question. – Okay, my question is when did
you decide to build and why your

“with employees that slack
off, but are super talented? “Keep or fire?” – Mmmm. I deal with them the same way I deal with any kind of employee. Super hard worker, but maybe
slightly under-talented. In between on both fronts. Every situation in life,
let alone employees, only can be solved when
you believe there’s issues, and you have the luxury
and the responsibility. And let me say that one more time, when you have the luxury
and the responsibility of being the judge and the jury. The pressure and the onus is on you. I truly, truly, truly believe
that if there’s an employee at Vayner Media, and
there are some, plenty, no, not plenty, that’s not fair, there are some that are highly talented and are under-performing,
that it’s my fault. We haven’t created the infrastructure for allowing them to shine. Their bosses are not clicking with them, and so that’s not motivating them. We haven’t asked the right questions of the kind of interests they have. We serendipitously, you
know, the serendipity of what accounts they’ve been on. Tim how many different
accounts have you been on in your career? – Oh gosh, at least twelve. – And of those twelve, I would assume that some are more exciting than others? – Oh yeah, definitely. – Yeah, and that’s just real, right? There’s so much serendipity,
different bosses that you get, people move around, team
mates, things of that nature. And so, you know, I think
the way I deal with it is communication. You know, I have a full slate today, it’s the last kind of in-the-office day, I have a lot of meetings
I’m trying to get in. 10, five, 10, 10, five,
10 minute meetings. And a lot of the conversation
will be around that. And so I think it’s communication. You know, it’s like, hey, Rick, you know I think you’ve got
talent oozing out of your eyes, you’re clearly not
delivering on the hustle, which is an important variable here. What am I doing wrong? What is Vayner doing wrong? Instead of saying, Rick,
you’re lazy, you suck. You have to put the onus on you. When you’re a leader, when you’re a CEO, when you’re the organization, it’s on you. You’re creating the rules of the game. If you don’t like how
it’s played, change it.