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Speaker 1: This this Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis. Clay talks

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Speaker 1: with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business.

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Speaker 1: Now here's Clay Trevis. Welcome in Wins and Losses Podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm your fearless host, Clay Travis. I hope you guys

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Speaker 1: have been enjoying the podcast so far. We have got

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Speaker 1: a bevy of them. If this is the first that

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Speaker 1: you have listened to, go back through. It's summer. There's

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Speaker 1: lots of opportunity to kill time. Maybe you're sitting at

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Speaker 1: the beach, maybe airpool needs something good to listen to

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Speaker 1: on a drive while you've got the kids in the back.

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Speaker 1: Hopefully this can be a show that entertained you at

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Speaker 1: least a little bit. And what we're doing here is

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Speaker 1: exploring the wins and losses of a career through the

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Speaker 1: prism of sports, media, politics, and business. And we've got

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Speaker 1: a guy who is pret familiar with a lot of

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Speaker 1: those areas, Dave Finocchio. He's one of the original co

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Speaker 1: founders of Bleacher Report, and we're gonna get into that

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Speaker 1: here momentarily. But first of all, Dave, thanks for coming

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Speaker 1: on with this. H you're here in Nashville, getting ready

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Speaker 1: for a triathlon, right, Yeah, first first triathlon I'm doing

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Speaker 1: with a buddy tomorrow morning, so they'll there will either

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Speaker 1: be a win or a or a loss around that

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Speaker 1: as well. How confident are you on the triathlon? What

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Speaker 1: are you most nervous about? What particular aspect of the swim?

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Speaker 1: For sure? Yeah, I'm pretty I'm pretty solid, like mentally

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Speaker 1: on the bike in the run um, but yeah, if

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Speaker 1: I don't drown, I think I'll be okay. All right.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of people, I'm sure who are listening

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Speaker 1: to us are familiar with what the Bleacher Report does now.

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Speaker 1: But what I bet they're not very familiar with is

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Speaker 1: how Bleacher Report became what it became. So let's go

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Speaker 1: back in time. Uh let's go first into your background.

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Speaker 1: Where are you from? Where'd you grow up? All those things? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a suburb of San Jose, California,

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Speaker 1: so northern California, West coast. Went to high school out there,

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Speaker 1: and uh um, ended up at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

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Speaker 1: I've always been like a huge sports junkie my entire life,

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Speaker 1: Like when and visited that place and the you know,

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Speaker 1: the hairs on my arm stood up, and I just

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Speaker 1: wanted to go to school there so badly, so that

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Speaker 1: I bet you didn't visit the middle of the winter. No,

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Speaker 1: I was one of those like classic trap trips where

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Speaker 1: like had like seventy degree weather in April, m had

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Speaker 1: like the perfect tour guide. It was like it was

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Speaker 1: like all the wrong things lined up right as as Ah.

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Speaker 1: Was that a huge culture shock for you the winter

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Speaker 1: the first year you were there coming from south northern California,

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Speaker 1: the winner was a shock. And also like, um, I'm

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Speaker 1: not Catholic. I didn't grow up going to a Catholic

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Speaker 1: school or anything, So just like that aspect of it,

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Speaker 1: how religious Notre Dame is combined with going like it

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Speaker 1: was the first time I'd spent a lot of time

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Speaker 1: with kids like from small towns in the Midwest, and

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Speaker 1: it was it was great for me because I learned

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Speaker 1: how to relate to all sorts of different people with

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Speaker 1: different backgrounds and stuff that like seemed pretty foreign to me.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, the first year was a super weird experience.

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Speaker 1: Coming from college, I kind of had the same experience.

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Speaker 1: I went away to college in Washington, d C. And

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Speaker 1: I grew up in Nashville, where we're doing this interview now.

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Speaker 1: But it was a huge departure for me to suddenly

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Speaker 1: be on the East Coast and be surrounded by East

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Speaker 1: Coast kids. Uh. There were very few people similar to

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Speaker 1: what I've grown up with in Nashville, and uh it

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Speaker 1: was a total culture shock. But I think it toughened

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Speaker 1: me up because if I had spent my entire life

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Speaker 1: in the South, I came back to law school at Vanderbilt,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I wouldn't have been as tough, you know,

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Speaker 1: just in terms of the way people behave and kind

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Speaker 1: of that East Coast mindset, which I think really kind

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Speaker 1: of suffuses media in general. It definitely made me more

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Speaker 1: prepared for what I ended up doing for a living

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Speaker 1: without even realizing that was happening. And I bet for

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Speaker 1: you on some level, going to Notre Dame was important

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Speaker 1: for what you would end up doing as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I went to ended up going to Chicago after school.

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Speaker 1: I did one of those classic like was dating a

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Speaker 1: girl in college and and kind of followed her there.

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Speaker 1: Um I ended up like when I was when I

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Speaker 1: was finishing up college. Uh, Um, I started thinking about

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Speaker 1: what Bleach report ended up becoming. Um, you know, you're like, so,

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Speaker 1: how let me start stop your ready? How old are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm thirty six. I just you just turned thirty six.

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Speaker 1: So when you're in college, what was your experience like

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Speaker 1: with the internet, Because what I tell people is when

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Speaker 1: I got to college, I've never had an email before.

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Speaker 1: I just turned forty, right, so I'm four years older

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Speaker 1: than you. They gave me an email address. I was like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I I was familiar. It's like I was

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Speaker 1: not familiar with the internet, but we didn't have the

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Speaker 1: internet at home. I didn't relund yet certainly did not

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Speaker 1: revolve around it in any way. And uh, even you know,

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Speaker 1: when you got the email address, you would have to

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Speaker 1: go to the computer lab on campus to get on

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Speaker 1: the internet. And I remember my freshman year you were

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Speaker 1: talking about how you like sports. I was obsessed with

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Speaker 1: sports and for people. I bet you saw this too

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Speaker 1: when you suddenly went to Notre Dame. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what what teams did you grow up a fan of

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Speaker 1: in northern Californiaria teams Giants forty nine or four years

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Speaker 1: like my Big three. So I bet you found that

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Speaker 1: it was a little bit hard to follow those teams

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Speaker 1: when you got into Notre Dame because it was such

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Speaker 1: a regional sports universe. I'm a big SEC football fan

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Speaker 1: and and so I kind of gravitated to the web

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Speaker 1: because I remember the Chattanooga Times Free Press was the

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Speaker 1: first one to get online. But when I started uh

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Speaker 1: in d C, I would intern in the Congressman's office

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Speaker 1: and they would mail the newspaper. And like, I was

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Speaker 1: so starved for local sports news that I would read

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Speaker 1: at day old newspapers to try to keep tabs on

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Speaker 1: what my favorite team was doing. Yeah, and what young

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Speaker 1: people don't remember now because maybe they just missed it was,

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Speaker 1: you know, the alternative sports center, and you maybe had

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Speaker 1: to wait forty minutes, two minutes, right, Um, so that

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Speaker 1: wasn't a great user experience either. Or you would sit

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Speaker 1: and watch the ticker at the bottom of the screen

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Speaker 1: to see score updates, right, I mean, which now seems

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Speaker 1: totally foreign to anybody. But you might have to wait

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Speaker 1: ten minutes between you know, you happen to catch it

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Speaker 1: coming across the bottom and and then you wait and

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Speaker 1: then suddenly it's changed a great deal. So so I

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Speaker 1: got you on that. So like my generation or you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm just four years later than you. But our

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Speaker 1: culture on school like revolved a lot around you know,

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Speaker 1: you've got a desktop computer, a laptop that's sitting in

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Speaker 1: your apartment or your dorm room or whatever, and like

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Speaker 1: everybody's on a O ll Inston Messenger. Yeah, so it's

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Speaker 1: like social life revolved around that versus Facebook. Um. Facebook

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Speaker 1: came out maybe like my junior year of college, but

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a big like our lives didn't revolve around

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Speaker 1: it yet. Uh So there's that. And then I just

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Speaker 1: found like I finished up my majors a little bit

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Speaker 1: early in college. It's cold as hell second semester in

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Speaker 1: my senior year, and I was just like doing what

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Speaker 1: you were doing. I was surfing the web a lot

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Speaker 1: looking for sports content. And that was when I started,

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Speaker 1: like I started to have these observations around one. Um,

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Speaker 1: Like I had this broad observation around I just thought

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Speaker 1: my generation was kind of stuck with like our dad

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Speaker 1: and grandfather's sports websites. I just thought like the voices

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Speaker 1: were old, a lot of the sports writers were older. UM,

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Speaker 1: I bet in retrospect, their content probably didn't perform that well.

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Speaker 1: It was like very wordy like content you wouldn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: share with your friends. It wouldn't start a discussion. So

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Speaker 1: that was one thing. It was like this content is old.

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Speaker 1: It's not like share able snack able. It's not video

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Speaker 1: content the wather is today. And then the other thing

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Speaker 1: is I was in economics major in college and I

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Speaker 1: just kept coming back to this, like this premise that

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Speaker 1: I thought there were pretty big supply and demand and

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Speaker 1: efficiencies around sports content. Like the best example that I

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Speaker 1: can I can think of as UM. You know this

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Speaker 1: is two thousand five. Every outlet in the country, whether

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Speaker 1: national or regional, is still like physically sending a reporter

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Speaker 1: to the Major League Baseball Star Game, like like paying

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Speaker 1: for hotel rooms, flights, and the Major League Baseball Star

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Speaker 1: Game was a huge deal in this country in the

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Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, even the eighties. By two thousand five,

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Speaker 1: it's not something that UM is like a premium event

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Speaker 1: from an interstandpoint, But then you have these other super

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Speaker 1: high interest events like the NFL Draft. Um, you guys

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Speaker 1: did an amazing job with here this year. Uh UM.

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Speaker 1: At certain NBA transaction windows, we just saw NBA free agency,

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Speaker 1: all these things that weren't necessarily TV events. First UM

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Speaker 1: and then certain teams like the Red Sox and the

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Speaker 1: Yankees great coverage. Golden State Warriors at the time couldn't

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Speaker 1: finel it not a lot, right, So it seemed like, Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you just explored these different kind of markets for content,

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Speaker 1: you could find pockets where, um, you could do stuff

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Speaker 1: that would perform really well. So you have that kind

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Speaker 1: of thesis percolating in your mind when you're the same

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Speaker 1: you're an economics touch students, the final semester of your

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Speaker 1: graduate of your college, you moved to Chicago. What happens

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Speaker 1: then you're probably around twenty two years old, Like a

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Speaker 1: lot of twenty two year old's probably a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who are listening to this or either college grads

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Speaker 1: in college soon to be college grads, trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out exactly what their pathway is, what comes next when

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Speaker 1: you graduate. Yeah, so I took UM, I took a

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Speaker 1: finance job, I did finance internships in college, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I kind of kind of had this like feeling in

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Speaker 1: the back of my mind when I was figuring out

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Speaker 1: what I was gonna do that I like, I just

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Speaker 1: didn't like it didn't sit right with me to just

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Speaker 1: do the same thing that everybody else was doing like

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Speaker 1: did these internships and was with all these guys like

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Speaker 1: who grinded out eighty hours a week, and it seemed

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Speaker 1: like their relationships with their wives at home maybe sometimes

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Speaker 1: weren't that good and like the very cliche things that

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Speaker 1: you hear, and I'm just like, I don't want this

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Speaker 1: to be my life. I want to do something that's like,

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Speaker 1: so you're starting to have like a quarter life crisis totally.

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Speaker 1: It just feels like it just didn't sit well with

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Speaker 1: me that I was kind of getting on that type

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Speaker 1: of path and but I did it anyway to start

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Speaker 1: making some cash. But before actually started the job, UM,

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Speaker 1: on like fourth of July of two thousand five, I

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Speaker 1: kind of had a hay, screw it, I want to

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Speaker 1: do this sports thing, like for real, I want to

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Speaker 1: do it. UM. I made a power point presentation the

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Speaker 1: next morning. I sent it to like eight of my

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Speaker 1: friends who I thought kind of had their and African

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Speaker 1: swear and not have they had their had their shipped

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Speaker 1: together at that point. You know, with twenty two you

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Speaker 1: have friends who were smart, but maybe you're not like

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Speaker 1: totally put together at that point. So I sent it

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Speaker 1: to guys who I thought might actually like from college

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Speaker 1: or friends from high school had like high school friends

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Speaker 1: college friends, And the first response I got back was

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Speaker 1: um from my buddy Bryan Goldberg, who ended up being

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Speaker 1: one of my co founders, and he and I made

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Speaker 1: a we'd made a documentary together at the end of

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Speaker 1: high school. I mean we made like an hour long documentary.

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Speaker 1: So it was kind of like, okay, like what was

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Speaker 1: the documentary that we did a trip to Europe with

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Speaker 1: like a group of buddies, and we was like Spider

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Speaker 1: Man Far from Home. Uh, Like I'm sitting around I've

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Speaker 1: seen Spider Man Far from Home three times and the

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Speaker 1: theaters are Yeah, it was more like the drama that

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Speaker 1: was creating it after like long drinking nights and people's

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Speaker 1: where did you go? Like how many guys did you

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Speaker 1: go to Europe with? It was like twelve twelve guys

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Speaker 1: we did. We did London, Amsterdam, Uh, Munich for Lynn,

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Speaker 1: Barcelona something like how long were you gone? A month?

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Speaker 1: Oh that's a phenomenal. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you just had like a handheld camera at the time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We just decided going into it that would be a

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Speaker 1: project that we'd all do. Is like, let's take a

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Speaker 1: bunch of footage and see what happens, and then you

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Speaker 1: do like testimonials like real world style where people yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: totally yeah. And we had great jama like I I

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Speaker 1: stole a buddy's ticket to Wimbledon and then he kicked

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Speaker 1: my ass afterwards the next morning, which is like all

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Speaker 1: on film. So we had like when the last time

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Speaker 1: you watched the film probably like fifteen years ago. So

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Speaker 1: what would happen if the film got out today? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Would it be scandalous for like, Brian's probably better known

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Speaker 1: than than I am in in a media circles these days.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, my guess is it wouldn't be like a

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Speaker 1: perfect thing for him. No, No, it's interesting. Somebody should

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Speaker 1: probably leak it. We're not gonna do it. We did

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Speaker 1: something similar. We weren't on for a month, but I'm

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Speaker 1: four years older than he's, probably around the same time

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Speaker 1: law school. When we finished law school, we went to

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Speaker 1: Europe and we had like a buddy who was like

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Speaker 1: to take can like to take shots of everything. And

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Speaker 1: there's tons of footage right of us. I mean there's

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Speaker 1: probably about twelve guys. Uh. And we went to Spain

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Speaker 1: during spring break. It was during our last year of

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Speaker 1: law school kind of like a great time. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was like our last hurrah. We stayed in Severeo, we

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Speaker 1: stayed in Madrid, um and we had an incredible time.

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Speaker 1: But we all knew that we were about to hit

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Speaker 1: the grind of practicing a lawful time. And so it's

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Speaker 1: like an abrupt stop to suddenly being having a great life. Honestly,

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Speaker 1: because the law school, if you get into a decent

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Speaker 1: law school, your grades don't really matter that much, you know,

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Speaker 1: because they don't want to flunk you out because then

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Speaker 1: you can't get a job. So you're going to graduate

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Speaker 1: and uh, and probably you'll be able to get a

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Speaker 1: pretty good job. And so but we all knew that,

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Speaker 1: like we were going to go from our life is

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Speaker 1: awesome to like hitting a brick wall full speed right now.

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Speaker 1: The positive is you get more money. The negative is

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Speaker 1: you have no fun because you're just you know, you're

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Speaker 1: stuck in the office, grinding away eighty hours a week

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden. So way, I'm sympathetic to that.

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Speaker 1: So you did that, and uh, and he was on

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Speaker 1: the video and everything else, and he was one of

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Speaker 1: your co founders and he says, immediately when you send

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Speaker 1: out this plan for what would become Bleacher Report. I

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Speaker 1: love it. Yeah, Brian, Brian was just in right away,

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Speaker 1: and uh one of the other things I liked about

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Speaker 1: working with him. So he he has a cousin, this

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Speaker 1: guy named Jake Lodwick, who was one of the co

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Speaker 1: founders of College Humor. This is like like when I

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Speaker 1: was in college, college humor for people out there, College

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Speaker 1: humor was massive and and really what they did was

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Speaker 1: they would link all sorts of craziness that would go

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Speaker 1: on college campuses basically totally and they were like Wake

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Speaker 1: Forest grads right who initially started that. If I'm not mistaken, Um,

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Speaker 1: I forget where Ricky and uh that does that se

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Speaker 1: still exist? Still exists? I A c owns it very

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Speaker 1: dillar and they did pretty I mean they did very

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Speaker 1: well with it for years, right, Yeah they didn't they

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Speaker 1: sold it. They all made money. Um. But so basically,

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Speaker 1: like in Brian's family, there was this actual case study

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Speaker 1: of like, holy shit, you have his cousin he started

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Speaker 1: a media companies Like this is because everybody we talked to,

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Speaker 1: like our parents, maybe his parents were a little bit better.

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Speaker 1: Like investors in Silicon Valley. Everybody at the time, Like

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Speaker 1: you tried to make pitches, We tried. We initially did

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Speaker 1: pitches and and the the gist we got back was like, guys,

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Speaker 1: content businesses, um, media companies like this don't work. Even

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Speaker 1: nobody even back in like this would have been two

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Speaker 1: thousand five. This was before media companies got hot there

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Speaker 1: ended up and before they died, right, I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: right now. Therefore saying there's no opportunity in media, that's

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Speaker 1: exactly right. There was. There ended up being because of

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Speaker 1: not to jump ahead, but because of the success of

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Speaker 1: Huffing and Post, because of the successive Bleacher Report, because

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Speaker 1: Facebook started pushing media company content for like a three

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Speaker 1: or four year period buzze feed. For all the people

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Speaker 1: out there who were reading like there, there was an

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Speaker 1: entire incubated period. They were not hot, then they got hot,

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Speaker 1: now they're not hot again. So we we were on

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Speaker 1: the front end of that where we had to beat

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Speaker 1: on like the number of pitches I did, and just

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Speaker 1: like slogged, it was such a good experience learning how

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Speaker 1: to sell ourselves and stuff like that. But uh um yeah, initially,

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Speaker 1: like all the help we could get and having at

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Speaker 1: least a connection point to somebody who'd done it before.

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Speaker 1: For me felt like, okay, you know, great, so you're

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Speaker 1: still working full time while you're trying to pitch this

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Speaker 1: new venture that you have, or I was working. I

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Speaker 1: was working full time while we were just trying to

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Speaker 1: get a website off the ground. So we did so

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Speaker 1: I ended up having uh this finance job for twenty

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Speaker 1: months in Chicago. We got Bleacher Report off the ground

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Speaker 1: by I think like March of two thousand and six

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Speaker 1: was when we first launched a website. And I literally

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Speaker 1: and and Brian too, and Dave the other guy who

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Speaker 1: uh um co founder who came on. Um, I mean

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Speaker 1: I was emailing bloggers like at the time the blogger

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Speaker 1: sphere was a big deal. You had all of these, um,

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Speaker 1: these people who were writing for free. Anyway, Um, you

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Speaker 1: asked about the early beginning to Bleacher Report, UM, I

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Speaker 1: just like I tried as much as possible to sell

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Speaker 1: people on the notion of like, look, we're gonna build

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Speaker 1: a meritocracy for sports writing. We're gonna help you reach

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Speaker 1: way more fans than you could ever reach on your own,

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Speaker 1: which ended up being true times a hundred. Um, we

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Speaker 1: got people in front of millions of of of readers,

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Speaker 1: and uh, and it was like, look, the best stuff

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Speaker 1: will rise to the top and and the other stuff

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Speaker 1: will sink to the bottom. Um. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that didn't end up being the cases like because of

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Speaker 1: because of Google News, because of these different distribution sources

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Speaker 1: that would emerge. UM. Sometimes if we had stories or

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Speaker 1: content that wasn't very good, UM, somebody would pick it

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Speaker 1: out and say, like look at this ship story on

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Speaker 1: bleacher Report, and we got our brand. Um took a

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Speaker 1: lot of body blows for I mean, I I feel

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Speaker 1: like I've spent the last five years kind of working

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Speaker 1: to overcome a lot of the early hits that we took.

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Speaker 1: But I kind of have no regrets because I think

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Speaker 1: I think it was kind of impossible to build our

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Speaker 1: business in that era of media any other way. Be

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Speaker 1: sure to catch live editions of I would kicked the

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Speaker 1: coverage with Glay Travis week days at six am Eastern,

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Speaker 1: three am Pacific. So let's go back. How did you

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Speaker 1: pick the name bleacher Report? Um, Brian came up with

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Speaker 1: the name. We we I hate coming up with names.

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Speaker 1: We did like a name brainstorm on the like. We

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Speaker 1: did literally like hundreds and hundreds of phone calls. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Those first twenty months when we were doing it part time,

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Speaker 1: and one of them like, over a few weeks, all right, guys,

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Speaker 1: we gotta come up with a name. And it was

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Speaker 1: just like this pretty literal take on you know, sports, bleachers, baseball,

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Speaker 1: like Report, Drudge Report. It was. And uh, I never

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Speaker 1: thought it was the best name or the most original name.

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Speaker 1: We actually our first big investors tried really hard to

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Speaker 1: get us to change the name. I think they wanted

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Speaker 1: behind our backs and what did they want you to

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Speaker 1: change it to do? You They just wanted us to

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Speaker 1: hire like a third party firm to come up with

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Speaker 1: another name for us. And uh, because a lot of

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Speaker 1: like bleacher Report, a lot of people get confused at

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Speaker 1: the two rs and are like bleacher Report Bleach. So

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Speaker 1: until it's like any brand, if it's around long enough,

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Speaker 1: it becomes a brand. Uh. But yeah, I don't think

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Speaker 1: it was like the greatest name of all time. So

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Speaker 1: you were talking to Dave Finocchio UM, who is one

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Speaker 1: of the co founders of the Bleacher Report. You said

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Speaker 1: you launched in March of I think when we first

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Speaker 1: had a website up. Uh, I think it was March

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Speaker 1: of two thousand and six. How much money did you

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Speaker 1: raise or what was the cost to get your website

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Speaker 1: upre for almost like initially probably like ten or fifteen

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Speaker 1: grands something like that. Super cheap. We uh the three

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Speaker 1: of us, Brian, Dave and I saved up money a bright.

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Speaker 1: Dave was working for Endeavor in l A. Brian was

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Speaker 1: doing consulting for Deloitte, and I was doing private equity

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Speaker 1: stuff and uh um, I think we all we all

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Speaker 1: saved maybe twenty or thirty grand each. And then once

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Speaker 1: we had that, we quite our jobs, moved back to

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Speaker 1: the Bay Area, opened up like a three hundred square

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Speaker 1: foot window Lists air conditioning Lists office, and like a

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Speaker 1: child psyche like we're we're in like a weird situation.

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Speaker 1: Find the place to be located. I think I think

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Speaker 1: Dave Nemets found it. I just remember moving home and

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Speaker 1: he he'd lined up in office. It was it was

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Speaker 1: the right price, you know, I think remember what you paid,

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Speaker 1: like it was like I think it was like six

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Speaker 1: hundred bucks a month, which in the very at the

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Speaker 1: time was pretty cheap. So you're in the Bay Area

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Speaker 1: at the time, do you where do you move back?

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Speaker 1: Do you move back in with your parents? And I

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Speaker 1: moved back in with my parents like I was, you know,

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Speaker 1: once I was on my own and an apartment in Chicago,

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Speaker 1: living a decent life for which what a lot of

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Speaker 1: people would consider to be on the path to success, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: totally got a great job, you're working in private equity,

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Speaker 1: You're in Chicago, which is the capital of the Midwest.

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Speaker 1: If you're from Notre Dame, you probably had a lot

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Speaker 1: of college friends who were in the area, probably a

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Speaker 1: pretty good social life. And then you just say this

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Speaker 1: is not for me. I'm gonna go start my own

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Speaker 1: internet sports website. Yeah, and all my friends I'm crazy

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Speaker 1: fun of me. Yeah, they all made fun of me

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Speaker 1: behind my back and stuff something in my face, which

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Speaker 1: was was fine too. But yeah, I ended up moving

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Speaker 1: back in with my parents for I think fifteen months

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Speaker 1: something like that into your old bedroom. Uh they had moved.

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Speaker 1: They moved when I was in college, like had had

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Speaker 1: a different setup. Um, so at least there was I

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Speaker 1: didn't have to deal with that shame. Um. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: like grinded through that, I think, you know, and that

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Speaker 1: my girlfriend broke up with me, like in that phase two.

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Speaker 1: So I went like I went from feeling like I

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Speaker 1: had a pretty good like like like I'm you're another

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Speaker 1: in the world Chicago with your own apartment to living

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Speaker 1: in your parents home parents home? Were you in the basement,

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Speaker 1: as the cliche would be close enough, Yeah, and lay

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Speaker 1: in your parents home six hundred seven hundred dollar a

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Speaker 1: month place in San Francisco starting your own sports website. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Initially we were actually um down in like the Menlo

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Speaker 1: Park area, literally two blocks from our high school. I'm like,

430
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,280
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, the the group that ended up

431
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:32,480
Speaker 1: doing this full time. We're three of my high school buddies.

432
00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:33,920
Speaker 1: What high school did you go to? We went to

433
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:36,359
Speaker 1: the school called Menlo Okay, is that a private school?

434
00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:38,560
Speaker 1: It's it's a private school. And you've known the guys

435
00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:41,840
Speaker 1: that you started Bleacher Report with for how long? Uh? Um?

436
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:43,399
Speaker 1: I grew up with Dave, so I've not. I've probably

437
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 1: known him since I was six years old or something.

438
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:48,280
Speaker 1: I've known Brian and Xander the other guy who joined early,

439
00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:51,360
Speaker 1: uh since we were twelve maybe? Okay? So and all

440
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:55,520
Speaker 1: of you huge sports fans growing up? Yeah, I would say, uh, Xander,

441
00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:57,480
Speaker 1: Dave and I are huge sports fans. Brian was a

442
00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:00,520
Speaker 1: sports fan, yeah, but maybe not on the same levels

443
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:03,160
Speaker 1: the other three of us. Okay, So, uh, you guys

444
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:05,520
Speaker 1: are doing what on a day to day basis, like

445
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:08,120
Speaker 1: you on it? You are like you show up, You've

446
00:20:08,119 --> 00:20:10,199
Speaker 1: got this office, you got this website. You remember the

447
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:14,040
Speaker 1: first article or articles that you put up? Yeah? Um,

448
00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:16,439
Speaker 1: in the first year, I think I wrote fifty articles.

449
00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:18,520
Speaker 1: So in the beginning, a lot of it was was

450
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:21,480
Speaker 1: us and other friends I brought onto helpful time. UM,

451
00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:24,040
Speaker 1: some people that I recruited, a couple hundred riders. But

452
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:26,399
Speaker 1: I think I think the first article I wrote was

453
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:30,160
Speaker 1: about how the NBA undervalues defensive players. I think that's

454
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:32,200
Speaker 1: the first article that was ever written for Bleacher Report.

455
00:20:32,280 --> 00:20:34,119
Speaker 1: And what kind of traffic would that do? You remember

456
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:36,240
Speaker 1: what kind of audience that article would have gotten? See

457
00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:39,000
Speaker 1: us what we initially did? So. Um. On the one side,

458
00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:42,040
Speaker 1: so Brian was kind of managing we we we've gotten

459
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:44,159
Speaker 1: a website up, but it was super basic and it

460
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:46,960
Speaker 1: didn't the back end of the website. Like today, you

461
00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:50,720
Speaker 1: can buy off the shelf CMS software where you can

462
00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:53,000
Speaker 1: kind of manage a website. It's not that hard to do.

463
00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:56,480
Speaker 1: Back then, you couldn't really do that. Um. The CMSs

464
00:20:56,480 --> 00:20:58,639
Speaker 1: were extremely limited, so we had to build all of

465
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,040
Speaker 1: our own tech stack, so he for the most part,

466
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,399
Speaker 1: was managing that where it was like, Okay, we're gonna

467
00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:06,359
Speaker 1: raise money and we're gonna launch something that's bigger and

468
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:09,560
Speaker 1: better where we could can scale UM. At that point,

469
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:11,399
Speaker 1: I was focused on raising the money and I was

470
00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:16,200
Speaker 1: focused on UM building an editorial process and an audience.

471
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:18,800
Speaker 1: So I figured out stuff like what you asked, which

472
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, UM, what topics are going to produce

473
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 1: the most traffic? Why when UM everything about essentially marketing continent.

474
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,040
Speaker 1: So initially I figured out, like, jeez, um, every time

475
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: we write a story about the NFL draft, it does

476
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:35,560
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot better than when we write

477
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:38,760
Speaker 1: a baseball story. And then you you start there, and

478
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:41,960
Speaker 1: then it turns out you can get like incredibly sophisticated

479
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 1: about that down to UM. Really, at the time when

480
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:49,439
Speaker 1: Google had more info available than they have today, you

481
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,359
Speaker 1: could look up any keyword on Earth, like NFL draft

482
00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 1: order was one I always talk about where we figured

483
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: out that on the last day of the NFL regular

484
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:58,760
Speaker 1: season there were a couple of million people that would

485
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:01,159
Speaker 1: search for the term NFL draft. You're seasons over and

486
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,199
Speaker 1: you're already thinking like, where are we going to be

487
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:06,080
Speaker 1: able to draft totally. So you're like a Raiders fan

488
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 1: back in that era and you have the first pick

489
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, should we take JaMarcus or who?

490
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:13,600
Speaker 1: Who's gonna include the Hope Springs eternal? Right that notion?

491
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 1: So maybe ESPN starts their NFL draft coverage and earnest

492
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:20,440
Speaker 1: and like February March, leading up to the TV event,

493
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:22,480
Speaker 1: we figured out that, hey, on that last day of

494
00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:24,760
Speaker 1: the season, we need to have the draft package for

495
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:28,040
Speaker 1: every single team because fans want this content now. And

496
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: that's an example of the type of inefficiency I referenced earlier.

497
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: So you and I love this. You basically looked at

498
00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:36,440
Speaker 1: it as a sports fan, but also as an economics

499
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:40,160
Speaker 1: major from Notre Dame at the Internet and said, hey,

500
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 1: we can see that there are tons of people who

501
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 1: are out there looking for something simple like what is

502
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,880
Speaker 1: the draft order, and that audience is not being serviced

503
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: exactly and so early on. And I know about this

504
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:52,920
Speaker 1: because I've been writing on the Internet for a long time,

505
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: and unlike a lot of other writers, I got into

506
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,680
Speaker 1: the data behind what people clicked on at a much

507
00:22:57,680 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 1: earlier age, and a lot of other writers did. I

508
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:01,680
Speaker 1: think you know, because maybe because I was twenty five

509
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:05,920
Speaker 1: years old and I was more um when uh, when

510
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 1: you were at fan House. I happened to hire a

511
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 1: guy who worked in analytics at FanHouse, and I won't

512
00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:13,040
Speaker 1: I won't out him, but I remember him saying, um,

513
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,160
Speaker 1: there were some some well known writers that were at

514
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:17,919
Speaker 1: fan House. I'm sure when he started a lot of

515
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:21,080
Speaker 1: money on newspaper columnists, with the I being that their

516
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 1: audience would follow them online. They spent hundreds of thousands,

517
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: but you were the highest performing writer there by a

518
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,919
Speaker 1: good margin. I remember him either telling me or showing

519
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:32,440
Speaker 1: me something, and that was it kind of made sense.

520
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,119
Speaker 1: Once we went back and looked at your repository of content,

521
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 1: it was all right, this guy knows what he's doing

522
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,159
Speaker 1: relative to these others who are writing about topics that

523
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: are not necessarily connective to what their audience is interested in. Now, yes, no,

524
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: I mean that's a dred percent, right. I mean, uh,

525
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:50,880
Speaker 1: I think to the extent that that I had an

526
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:53,919
Speaker 1: early advantage in writing. It was that I knew what

527
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: people wanted to read, right, And I think a lot

528
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,639
Speaker 1: of writers right what they want to write the right

529
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 1: for their own pure group, which which is a tiny

530
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: little subset of the overall audience, and so you end

531
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,520
Speaker 1: up writing articles that aren't very well read. And so

532
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:10,919
Speaker 1: I was always like, okay, you know, and I think

533
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 1: it works for radio sensibilities too, because I've got to

534
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: talk every day about the three or four most popular

535
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: things that are going on in the world of sports

536
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: or otherwise, and for better or worse, I'm pretty good

537
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: at figuring out what people are going to care about.

538
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: And I'm also naturally there, right, Like I always say,

539
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 1: I have like very middle of the road taste and interest,

540
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 1: and so I think I hit a large swath just

541
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: by nature. Um, but I'm fascinated by you going in.

542
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: So you write these articles and you start to look

543
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: at the data. Initially, it's a pre social media era, right,

544
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: So there's no Facebook, there's no Twitter. When you guys launched,

545
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: Google is the primary driver of your audience or how

546
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: are people finding you? Yeah, so let's say to two

547
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: thousand seven, where we're really focused on this through honestly,

548
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: like through two thousand twelve, two thirteen, everything's kind of

549
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 1: driven off of Google. Facebook didn't really start pushing publisher

550
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: content until so there's this big wave and what we

551
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: did really well? Is we suit you have, um, you

552
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 1: have a team of writers who are creating content and

553
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: it goes on Google Google News, and you have readers

554
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: come back to articles on a website, right, um, most websites.

555
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: Basically those readers might be on the article for thirty

556
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:24,119
Speaker 1: seconds a minute, if it's a really good article, five minutes.

557
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:26,240
Speaker 1: One of the reasons we did so many slide shows

558
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: is people stay on slide shows keep way longer than

559
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: they stay on your average article. So I'm sorry to

560
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 1: everyone who that bothered. But just from the from a

561
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: pure business standpoint, we were always accused of like, oh,

562
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: they're doing it for the page views, and you do

563
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,479
Speaker 1: a little bit, but the numbers just didn't lie. So anyway,

564
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: people say they hate slide shows, but the results actually

565
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: showed you that they will say at least sit there

566
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: and could. Engagement on slide shows is way way higher

567
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: than it is on standard articles unless the article is

568
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 1: is exceptional. It reminds me it's fascinating because when I

569
00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: was at FanHouse you were mentioning UM, people would all

570
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: say that. Just in the early age of when people

571
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:03,479
Speaker 1: it's in emails and stuff, they're like, why are you

572
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: covering breath Farve like and will her won't he retire?

573
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: And the minute that a breat Farve update went in,

574
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,199
Speaker 1: there's like a fire hose right of traffic. Everybody says, oh,

575
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: I don't care about Brett Farve or Tim Tebow or

576
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 1: le Bron James or whatever it is. But I always say,

577
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: it's like the Internet. Data is like you can pull

578
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: back their brain and see what they actually care about

579
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: as opposed to what they say they care about. And

580
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: that's a great example. There's you can listen to a

581
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 1: vocal minority if you want and uh and try to

582
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 1: please those people. And and as we've gotten bigger, we've

583
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: had to do more of that, I think for brand reasons.

584
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: But if you're just trying to focus on surviving and

585
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 1: building a business that's going to be around, then I

586
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 1: think you need to look at data and do and

587
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 1: and balance more with the data is not like suggesting

588
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,959
Speaker 1: you should do is slapping you in the face and saying, hey, like,

589
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 1: if you want to make it to the next level

590
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 1: and for this company to be around in three or

591
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: four years, um do more of this. Um So. But

592
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 1: on Google, the thing we did I think really well

593
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: is opposed to just letting those people bounce in and out.

594
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 1: We said, Okay, this is actually an opportunity to convert

595
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: these people who are essentially passers by readers into loyal users.

596
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: And the first thing we did where I started to

597
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: feel like bleach Report might actually work is we launched

598
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: newsletters for every basically every single big team in the US, UM,

599
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: the college football newsletters, SEC newsletters where the craziest were

600
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 1: We We had UM Bama, l s U, Auburn newsletter

601
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: list that had twenty people on them that in season,

602
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: we're getting open rates of closes, which sign up the

603
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: affinity that people have for their teams. So I mean,

604
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: the the voracious appetite of fans around those particular teams

605
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: in the United States. There's nothing else like it. Right,

606
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: They're the very top of the food chain. Um. But

607
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we had people because of these newsletters,

608
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: which we'd send out three or four times a week. Um,

609
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 1: we'd send out our own content, but we would also

610
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: round up the best content, like we would curate the

611
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 1: best content from around the web so they wouldn't have

612
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: to find it themselves. Again, this is before Facebook, before

613
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: people are really using Twitter, so it was a nice

614
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: service we were offering them and all this, and like,

615
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: we had this loyal audience of a million people, two

616
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 1: million people, three million people in addition to the you know,

617
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: ten million people that were kind of coming and mounting

618
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: out every month. And that was real. All of a sudden,

619
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: people out of positive affinity for our brand, or at

620
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 1: least those people did. And then when UM mobile apps

621
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: happened in a more sophisticated way like the UM the

622
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: App store with Apple, we basically turned those newsletters into

623
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,679
Speaker 1: a real time app product and our app just exploded.

624
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 1: UM and that was That was when I think Bleacher

625
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: Report like was a thing where Fox Sports Radio has

626
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all

627
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and

628
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: within the I Heart Radio app search f s R

629
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: to listen live. Talking to Dave Finocchio, one of the

630
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: co founders of Bleacher Report, all right, I want to

631
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: go back. So you write the first article and you write,

632
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: you said, like fifty articles to begin with. When did

633
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: you start thinking, hey, maybe this business might actually work.

634
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: Was there? Like everybody who ever starts anything new, there

635
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: is the hope and then there's early signs that can

636
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: be success or failure. You have to push through it.

637
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: When did the first of all, how many hours are

638
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: you working with the other guys when you guys first

639
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: start this business because shipload, UM like you guys wuldn't

640
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: come into the office and I mean basically working full time,

641
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: Like what are you doing? I would say it was

642
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: just my life. Yeah, they had there were days where

643
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: I literally would start working, not every day, but um wee,

644
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: I would just start working at seven am and stop

645
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: working at midnight. Just because I don't mean to be

646
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: over dramatic about it, but it's true because I like

647
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: knew that I needed to get sleep. Yeah, I mean

648
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: it was just like because I was we had no

649
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: professional editorial team. I was just literally emailing assignments to

650
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: you know, dozens, if not hundreds of writers at times,

651
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: dealing with correspondence back and forth. And you found those

652
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: writers just by going on the internet and just kind

653
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 1: of jumping around. Initially, Yeah, I recruited, uh. I recruited

654
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: people off of blogs, college newspaper writers. UM. I did

655
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 1: something that uh uh was was probably not great for

656
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: the quality of content UM sports content on on the internet,

657
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: but UM helped us grow so judge, judge away. But

658
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: when Facebook ads came out, which was I want to

659
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 1: say like late two thousand and seven, initially they did,

660
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: they performed really really poorly relative to Google UM. And

661
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: as a result, they were super cheap advertisers were just

662
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: like they were like banner ads on the side of Facebook,

663
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: not in news feed where they are today. UM. But

664
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: because they were cheap and because you could target, I

665
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 1: had teams to fill out in terms of like I

666
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: don't have people covering um, you know, the National Predators

667
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: if they were out like whoever it was, so I

668
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: could target for the first time English majors, journalism majors

669
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: who um had an affinity for the National Predators, and

670
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: I could start building writer leads and I could then

671
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: send you know, if somebody then clicked through and signed

672
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: up and said, yeah, sure, i'll cover this team for you,

673
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: I could then send them an assignment right away and say, okay,

674
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: I'll give you a go. UM, I'm interested in this story.

675
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: Why don't you get this to me by eight pm? On? Where?

676
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: How did you decide what that story would be? National Predators?

677
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: For example, you're trying to find somebody to write about them.

678
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: You're running a Facebook ad. Is it a Google search

679
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: that would give you an idea what people might be

680
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: searching for? Or I would say a combination of data

681
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: and just like I've been a sports junkie in my

682
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: whole life, so it's it's part art, part science. There

683
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: might have been a um, I don't know the predators

684
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: that well, but so uh um, I won't have a

685
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: good like real example, but there might have been some

686
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: sort of recent free agent move, recent trade or whatever

687
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: that you would have been cognizant of totally uh any

688
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: anything along those lines that like fit the mold of

689
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: a type of story I knew that people would be

690
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: interested in, and then I would see if the writer

691
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: was one reliable, accountable uh and then you know if

692
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: they were any good. And I think we we basically

693
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: had all this data right, and we were able to

694
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: um tap into this huge supply of writers who ended

695
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: up signing up and our store and the quality of

696
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 1: the content was really mixed, right, everything from pretty good

697
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: to too shitty. But the way our business worked over

698
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: time is once we were able to raise more money,

699
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 1: and once our audience started to get big enough where

700
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: we could sell advertising, I was able to just over

701
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: time replace the writers who were not up to a

702
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: certain quality with professional people. And it took me about

703
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 1: three years to complete that transition, and it was hard,

704
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: uh and it took the brand years longer to recover

705
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: from it, but it worked. So when do you guys,

706
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: so you're working, you know, sometimes basically all day except

707
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: for sleeping hours, when do you, yeah, when do you

708
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: start thinking, hey, maybe we've got a business year? When

709
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: do you start taking salary? Like, because you know, you

710
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: said you started it with you know, basically you saved

711
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: up twenty or thirty thousand dollars each When does it

712
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: When does it become possible that you can start to

713
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: make money off of the website? So like in in

714
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: late two thousand seven, we raised a million and a

715
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: half dollars and that was like one of the best

716
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: feelings I ever had. When we got that raised. It

717
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: was like, ha, like my friends can't make fun of

718
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: me anymore. This is real. Like you raise a million

719
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: and a half that's like a year and change into

720
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: the existence of the company. Yeah yeah, yeah, so what

721
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: And there's probably people out there listening. I'm I actually

722
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: don't know that much in specific about venture capital. So

723
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: when you sell. I mean a lot of people watch

724
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: Shark Tank and everything else. You raise a million and

725
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: a half dollars. What kind of equity are you selling

726
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: at that point? Yeah, we sold about thirty percent of

727
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: our companies. We sold. We were nobody's you know, it's

728
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: not like we were like, uh, Bill Simmons or somebody like. Um. Yes,

729
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: we sold thirty percent of our company for a million

730
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: and a half bucks was a big, big chunk up front,

731
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: but nobody else would do it. Like, we literally found

732
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 1: one investor. But how did you find that investor? Um

733
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: through that, Like it was a guy that my co founder,

734
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: Brian Um, Brian's dad I think, went to business school with.

735
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: There were these two guys who co founded a company

736
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: called Ariba that had a forty billion dollar market cap

737
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: before like the dot bomb craft, and they happened to

738
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: I think they like they had a falling out with

739
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: the CEO or something and they left the company and

740
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 1: they sold at the right time, and they just made

741
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,959
Speaker 1: an unbelievable amount of and they had tons of mone

742
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: that they just found the seed capital in the Bay

743
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:04,959
Speaker 1: Area to kind of get exactly right. Yeah, yeah, Bay

744
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,479
Speaker 1: Area and Israel, I think are where they primarily make

745
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: their investments. We got hooked up with those guys. But

746
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: to your point, like you asked, you asked when when

747
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna work or between two thousand

748
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: and seven and two thousand and ten, I mean, there

749
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: were some serious ups and downs like it. There were.

750
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: We we hired an initial CEO that those investors kind

751
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 1: of forced on us that didn't work out, and we

752
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,319
Speaker 1: had a hard time kind of figuring out that transition

753
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: of how things were going to go forward. I'm not

754
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: having the right CEO on board, and I like, I

755
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: bought G Matt books, I started, I was taking G

756
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: Matt practice. You thought the company might just yeah, So

757
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: I was. I was totally on the fence. I went

758
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: to bed so many nights, not not thinking, but knowing

759
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna work, you know, you knowing your gut.

760
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: We're like, I'm doing this, but this is not going

761
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: to work. Um. Our audience got stuck at like two

762
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 1: to three million people. We were focused on the wrong things. UM.

763
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 1: And so I was there, like totally in the dumps.

764
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: And uh, the best thing that ever happened to us

765
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 1: was when when we went through like honestly a pretty

766
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: ugly transition kind of away from the person who is

767
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: the CEO. The three of us who were the three

768
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: original founders really pulled together and we kind of divided

769
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: up our responsibilities in a more clear way than we

770
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 1: ever had before, and in like a six month span,

771
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: we took our audience from three million monthly readers to

772
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: ten million UM And that was, honestly, like one of

773
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 1: my favorite memories of all the things we've done was

774
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 1: that six month period. And that would have been what

775
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: years That was like end of two thousand nine through

776
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,359
Speaker 1: the first six months of two thousand and ten, so

777
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 1: like three or four years into the company's life cycle. Yeah,

778
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: And once we I'd say, once we got to the

779
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: um the end of that and we started hiring, we

780
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: that gave us the ability to start hiring more professional

781
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: people who had been there, done that before. Like it

782
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: got us over the hump with investors, with everyone where

783
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: they're like, all right, these guys are real and there's

784
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:04,439
Speaker 1: something here that's working. So you start off with three

785
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 1: employees four eventually, Um, when do you start hiring more

786
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: people after we raised the first round initially point that

787
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 1: initially we just hired software engineers. Yeah, I think we

788
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: hired four um I hired one content person from that round. Uh.

789
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 1: First content person started in like February of two thousand eight.

790
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: The second full time content person was October two thousand

791
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:30,399
Speaker 1: and eight. We didn't really start building out a real

792
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 1: editorial staff until like late like that time period. I

793
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: just reference where we really started to grow is when

794
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: we started actually hire content people. Be sure to catch

795
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,800
Speaker 1: live editions of out Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis

796
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific. We're

797
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: talking to day Finocchio. I'm Clay Travis. This is the

798
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: Wins and Losses podcast. I started out kick in two

799
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, and my idea was, it's now two thousand nineteen.

800
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: You may be listening to this years after this or whenever,

801
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 1: but we're recording. In the summer of I had a

802
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 1: section of the site called the Bullpen about Kick, and

803
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: my idea was, this is gonna be user generated content.

804
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,439
Speaker 1: And my philosophy was at the time, I'm forty now,

805
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 1: but my thought was when I started that website, I'm

806
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,360
Speaker 1: roughly thirty two ish, that there were a lot of

807
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: people who were younger versions of me. Right because when

808
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: I came up, I had to start my own writing online.

809
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: It was hard to find an audience, but I was

810
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: a grinder and I would write, I would work hard.

811
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: What I found is that talent is rare, and that

812
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: talent that works is even rare. Um and grit matters

813
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: a great deal and everything. I think you probably found

814
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: it too, And I just eventually had to stop the

815
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: bullpen because and I'm curious what you found. I had

816
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: this idea that there will be a meritocracy that bubbles

817
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: up of people that want to work hard and want

818
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: to make their name and just want to get read,

819
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: because I did it for years without really making any

820
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: money while I was practicing the law and everything else,

821
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: with the idea being if I'm good, I can build

822
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: an audience and the money will one day follow. And

823
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 1: what I found is people might write one good article

824
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, I expect to get paid now.

825
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, you know I wrote for years without

826
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: making a dollar to prove that I was good enough

827
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:05,800
Speaker 1: to be able to do this. I bet what you found,

828
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 1: because what I kind of admired about the Bleacher Report

829
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: was what you said, the idea that we were going

830
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: to create a meritocracy by people who would write and

831
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: continue to write and do good quality content. Those people

832
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: are rare. I would say that I view UM that

833
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: like that. Part of the initial thesis I think was

834
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,240
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it a like failure is too strong um,

835
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: but I was more idealistic, kind of like you, I

836
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: thought that I thought that the content would end up

837
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: being better than it was and did. I had no

838
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: people will never understand the amount of work that we

839
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: did under the hood to get that user generated content

840
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:44,959
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call it, to the point

841
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: where it actually like we edited all of that content.

842
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: We did crazy photo deals with Getty we um, we

843
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:56,240
Speaker 1: we had all of these uh it's it's boring stuff.

844
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:58,879
Speaker 1: But like the the amount of the amount of infrastructure

845
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: that we had to create to get that content out

846
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 1: was honestly more work than once we started paying people

847
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 1: full time. So I had the same observation. There were

848
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: there were people that we found um through those days

849
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: who did grind away and built a name for themselves

850
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: that are still with us that did really well, like

851
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 1: the Matt Miller's, the Gary Davenports of the world. There

852
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 1: there are others on There are plenty of people who

853
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 1: came through Bleacher Report that have gone on and had

854
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:30,359
Speaker 1: great careers other places too. But yeah, the hit rate

855
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: was much smaller than I initially thought it would be.

856
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:36,319
Speaker 1: And not only was the hit rate smaller, what I

857
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:38,879
Speaker 1: found was I'm spending a lot of time reading other

858
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 1: people's work instead of working on my own. Yeah, well

859
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,240
Speaker 1: for you, yeah at least, And that's why I decided,

860
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,279
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm I'm a far less talented than you

861
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: are from the standpoint of, um, you know, sports analysis.

862
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 1: But I figured out this that you have to choose

863
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: one path or the other. You can't do both, and

864
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:57,720
Speaker 1: so that was the challenge. But then what we found

865
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: was we were getting a lot more attention like you did.

866
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,720
Speaker 1: For sometimes things that would go up that was written

867
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: by you know, quote unquotes called the bullpen, right. The

868
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 1: idea is you're not a starting pitcher, like you're coming

869
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,399
Speaker 1: in and trying to prove yourself. I guess I could

870
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 1: have just as easily called it the minor leagues, right,

871
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: but that seemed a little bit more pejorative. Um. But

872
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: the idea was, find a lot of young writers who

873
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: can do great original content and will continue to work,

874
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 1: and then they can elevate themselves. Either I'll start paying

875
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 1: them and they'll become part of the OutKick, you know,

876
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: regular universe, or I will find them, you know, and

877
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: they'll go get jobs elsewhere because other people are able

878
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: to pay them more. And almost no one was willing

879
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: to do it, and and and people who were willing

880
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:39,760
Speaker 1: to do it at a high quality level, we're almost

881
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: non existent. You named a few, but I bet you know,

882
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: if you were giving a percentage, I mean it's a tiny,

883
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 1: tiny percentage, I would say a lot there. There were

884
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: definitely hundreds of winners that came through that system. A

885
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 1: lot of them ended up being editors or having other

886
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 1: jobs in our organization that weren't writers. Uh. One thing

887
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: I did that that was um, really helpful early on

888
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: was that kind of game of a lot of people

889
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: wouldn't like this in our industry, but I kind of

890
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 1: gamified the writing process where I was like, like, I

891
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: played a ton of Halo in college, and I noticed that, like,

892
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: even when I was so sick and tired of playing

893
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 1: Halo and like I really like shouldn't be playing anymore,

894
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: I would keep going because, um, every time I played

895
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: a game, I would get a certain number of points

896
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:23,439
Speaker 1: which would get me like closer to having a better

897
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:27,959
Speaker 1: status like int do now yeah, exactly exactly, gamify the job,

898
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:30,360
Speaker 1: to encourage people to continue to put in it's exactly right,

899
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: and so UM I built that system for for writing

900
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: for Bleacher Reports. So the more reads you got on

901
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 1: any individual article led to more points, led to you

902
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: getting uh badges, Like if you had an article that

903
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 1: got twenty five thousand reads, that would you know, be

904
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: a really big badge and that would help you get

905
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: up basically a better status on the site. And so

906
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 1: we had a lot of people that got really into

907
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: that and pushed and pushed and pushed, and UM, for

908
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: sure there are a lot of people who at the

909
00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,959
Speaker 1: end of the day, we you know, we didn't offer

910
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: jobs too, didn't offer paid gigs to that were really

911
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:04,440
Speaker 1: upset that put a ton of time into that. I

912
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: it's something that UM, I'm kind of of two minds about.

913
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: One is I feel bad they put in a lot

914
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: of work and for the expectation of getting something. And

915
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 1: on the other hand, I think they kind of knew

916
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:17,479
Speaker 1: what they were getting into. There were never any promises made.

917
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: It was a website where you're writing for free, for

918
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: a chance to build an audience. UM. But there were

919
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:26,720
Speaker 1: hundreds of people that got UM either full time or

920
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,919
Speaker 1: UM or different types of paying jobs through it. Uh So, yeah,

921
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: it was a mixture of experiences for people. So you

922
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,840
Speaker 1: get the one point five million dollars raised, which is

923
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: kind of a big shot in the arm. But then

924
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: you get a CEO that doesn't work out. So you

925
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: have that six month period where you go from three

926
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,760
Speaker 1: million to ten million years. What then happens after two

927
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 1: thou you start thinking like, Okay, this may be a

928
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:52,359
Speaker 1: legitimate business. Do you go raise more money? Like? How

929
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,799
Speaker 1: does that process playouts? We we had raised one other

930
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 1: round UM in two thousand and eight. We had this

931
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: initial burst of growth, raised another six million sucks. So

932
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 1: we were we were growing and how much do you sell?

933
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: So you sell one point five six million, you go,

934
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: what are you selling that for? Then? Like, honestly, about

935
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 1: another thirty percent? So we sold thirty percent. Sixty percent

936
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:13,720
Speaker 1: of the company has gone for seven point five million

937
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: roughly at that point. Uh. Then that's not exactly not

938
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: that's not exactly the math, but a little bit less

939
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:21,720
Speaker 1: not like, let's say about fifty percent of the company

940
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:25,320
Speaker 1: gone at that point UM. We we ended up hiring

941
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: another CEO in the summer of two thousand and ten,

942
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: UM guy named Brian Gray, who had previously run He

943
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 1: had run Yahoo Sports and then more recently had been

944
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: running UM the digital arm of Fox Sports, and Brian

945
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 1: had left Fox was was an executive in residence at

946
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 1: a VC firm in San Francisco. We just gotten to

947
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 1: know him over the years and really liked him, and

948
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 1: he like sports for better or worse. And I don't

949
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: mean this in a demeaning way, UM, but it's a

950
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: little bit of an old boys network. I think it's

951
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: not as bad as it probably used to be. UM,

952
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: but Brian was just a really talented deal maker who

953
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:05,959
Speaker 1: in great CEO but knew everybody and just helped bring credibility.

954
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 1: Like I remember, like Brian's maybe first or second week,

955
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 1: he and I and maybe Dave did a road show

956
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: all over these like New York, d C. Where, maybe Chicago,

957
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 1: wherever else we went, and he immediately introduced us to

958
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: the most senior people at all of these organizations who

959
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:24,359
Speaker 1: maybe weren't taking meetings with us before. And so we

960
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 1: from from that period until when we ended up selling

961
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 1: the company, we were kind of like all about, uh,

962
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: creating legitimacy. From a brand standpoint, I'm scaling advertising sales,

963
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: growing our audience. Um, yeah, when did you start producing

964
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: revenue like that? That was meaningful? Two thousand eleven was

965
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 1: the first year we did five million dollars. Two thousand twelve,

966
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:51,320
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, two thousand, five million two thousand eleven, fourteen,

967
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:53,760
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, the year we sold we did thirty

968
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: seven So how okay? That that's fascinating to me. That

969
00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: is an incredible growth rate five to fourteen to thirty

970
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: seven magic sauce where you think compared to where we

971
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: are now. But but at the time, I mean that's

972
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: at five to thirty seven and two years, it's pretty extraordinary.

973
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:10,720
Speaker 1: What magic what magic sauce did you hit that suddenly

974
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,879
Speaker 1: made your revenue explode? Like what you're five years in

975
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, you're doing five million and then boom,

976
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: suddenly you start hitting in a big time. Yeah. The

977
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: first thing to understand is for for people who are

978
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,879
Speaker 1: listening to this, who who uh um, you know, don't

979
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 1: know that much about the business of online sports media,

980
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 1: which is a lot because they're probably most probably the

981
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: most detailed online sports media discussion that almost has been

982
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, so it's kind of a zero sum

983
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: game in terms of how the size of your audience

984
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: translates to um to advertising dollars. And that's if you

985
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: have something that really matters in a niche like it's

986
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: really important in a certain area of the country, or

987
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 1: it's you know, golf focused and really focus on the

988
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:54,319
Speaker 1: golf industry, you can overcome this. But if you're a

989
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: if you're a general sports site, and this was probably

990
00:45:57,920 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: more true back then than it is now because marketing

991
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: just a little bit more sophisticated now, you kind of

992
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: had to be top five did have one of the

993
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: five largest audiences. So one of the reasons why we

994
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:09,839
Speaker 1: went so gung ho on, we're gonna um, We're gonna

995
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 1: really focus on audience growth and creating articles about all

996
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: these topics that people are searching for, because we felt

997
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: like we got feedback from venture capitalists that if you

998
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: didn't get into that top five subset, guys, your business

999
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: is worthless. So like, all right, we'll deal with quality later,

1000
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: but right now we need to get this. We gotta

1001
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 1: get big now. That was our strategy. Get big now, um.

1002
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 1: And so like we we just jammed and got we

1003
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 1: we built up a skill set doing that that I

1004
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,839
Speaker 1: think was imitated by basically everyone else in media. Um.

1005
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: I think the playbook we created is Um, I think

1006
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 1: pretty it's still work today, Like it's still it's still

1007
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: worse today. Um, it's not as I think, it's not

1008
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: as compelling. It's a more efficient market now than it

1009
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: was then. That's right. There are so many people that

1010
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: have come in and done the same thing that if

1011
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: I were I'm never gonna go do this again. But

1012
00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:58,399
Speaker 1: if I were to go do it again, I think

1013
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: like Brian Goldberg went did the exact same thing in

1014
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: the women's space, and he people gave him a lot

1015
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: of crap for it when he did it, but he

1016
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 1: was just better at it, so he just outmuscled everyone.

1017
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: Which is did it surprise you sometimes that you guys

1018
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: were capable as just four kids who went to a

1019
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: college high school together in the Bay Area starting a

1020
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 1: company could be able to make waves in the internet

1021
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: space in sports like you did. Like did you ever

1022
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 1: go on to like the bigger sites and be like

1023
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: I can't believe these guys, you know, because yes, let's

1024
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:30,439
Speaker 1: use the ESPN as an example, Like, they are still

1025
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: the goliath of the space right usually dot com and

1026
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:36,439
Speaker 1: when you guys are starting out, they have so many

1027
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 1: competitive advantages audience advantages over you. Yet you are using

1028
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: the data in a more sophisticated manner than they are.

1029
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: Or do you think they were maybe crippled by their

1030
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:50,319
Speaker 1: size initially? What gave your business the chance to work? UM?

1031
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,760
Speaker 1: So we formed, uh, we formed a partnership with CBS

1032
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: Sports dot com and maybe two thousand nine where they

1033
00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 1: would link to some of our content and you're basically

1034
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: sharing try effic back and forth. Yeah, yeah, that's that

1035
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: type of arrangement. And I was in Fort Lauderdale where

1036
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: they're based, and and HAT was in a meeting with

1037
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 1: their managing editor and UM and I asked him how

1038
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:14,240
Speaker 1: he picked the stories that they're on the front page

1039
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: the feature that's right, And he said, you know, we

1040
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 1: assigned the stories based on the writer pitching me something

1041
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 1: or or me giving an assignment. I read all the

1042
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: stories that come in and I put the best one

1043
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: on the front page. And I was with my editor

1044
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 1: in chief in the room, and I like, we talked

1045
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 1: about this all the time. It was this epiphany moment

1046
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 1: for us where like ship this like what we're doing

1047
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:35,400
Speaker 1: might work because this guy they are doing entirely intuition

1048
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: based decision makes and you guys are looking at what

1049
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: people are actually reading. This is like this guy was

1050
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:42,799
Speaker 1: a great, great guy, um and I think was really

1051
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:44,760
Speaker 1: good at his job, but he was he was axed

1052
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: paper way of thinking. That's right. It was just it

1053
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 1: was a model that wasn't built for the Internet. It

1054
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: was a model that was built for newspapers, and we

1055
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 1: were a model that was built for the Internet. And

1056
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: it was so the answer your question, we were just

1057
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: playing a different game than anybody else is playing, like

1058
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 1: moneyball for online. Yeah, and I think the this is

1059
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,240
Speaker 1: I don't mean to come for this to come across

1060
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:09,840
Speaker 1: as extraordinarily arrogant. It might, but um, well, this is

1061
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: also something that my co founders and I have talked

1062
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 1: a lot about over the years. There are a lot

1063
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: of smart people in media, no doubt, um, But there

1064
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:20,280
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that also get very entrenched

1065
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: in the way that they do things. There are ways

1066
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: that things are supposed to be done in media, and

1067
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,760
Speaker 1: we just didn't have that background where we weren't schooled

1068
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: to do things in a certain way. And I think

1069
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 1: all of us are smart, but if we'd gone into

1070
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: other industries, we might not have been like the smartest

1071
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: people in our field. But I think in media, um,

1072
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: we had pretty good brain power relatively, and I'm not

1073
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: sure that like there were that many other people who

1074
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,439
Speaker 1: were thinking the same way that we were. So, uh,

1075
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: you go from I think you said five to fourteen

1076
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 1: to thirty seven million? What you get into the top

1077
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 1: five and you scale that up really quickly, and we

1078
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: sold our we sold our company then too, you are

1079
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 1: do you wish you had not sold now? Looking back? No,

1080
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,839
Speaker 1: right time to sell. I think it's for the first

1081
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: So the next year after we sold, Facebook started throwing

1082
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 1: just instant Like I think my traffic went from yeah,

1083
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: I went from reaching million people a month to sixty

1084
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: million people, like really really fast. Like all these things

1085
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 1: we did to build audience, which were so hard and

1086
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: detailed and science oriented. Then Facebook comes online and all

1087
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's like everybody so and I think

1088
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: we were a little better at it than than most were.

1089
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 1: But it was what I would call that was penis

1090
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 1: pump right. Yeah, it totally was total official. It's totally

1091
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 1: not real. But all of a sudden, everybody's page views

1092
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 1: and audiences just exploded because Facebook is just such a

1093
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 1: levia thing. Called it a lot of things that never

1094
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: called it penis pump before, but that totally works great.

1095
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:50,479
Speaker 1: Um uh it was. It was an interesting time where, um,

1096
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: the one the one thing that that kicked my butt

1097
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,320
Speaker 1: a little bit was one business insider sold the ACL

1098
00:50:57,360 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 1: Springer for like four million bucks. We sold for two

1099
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: fifth team. We did really well, we were incredibly lucky. Um,

1100
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: but that was the one thing I was like, shit, Like,

1101
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:06,359
Speaker 1: I think we've built a lot more substance than these

1102
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: guys have no disrespect of their business to get business. Um.

1103
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 1: But then I look at what's happened to some of

1104
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: the other talker sites for instance, Well that's a different

1105
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 1: but like what we could have what could have happened

1106
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:20,880
Speaker 1: is say, um, say we we didn't sell and we

1107
00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 1: get to two thousand, fourteen and VCSCR numbers and they're like, hey, um,

1108
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,839
Speaker 1: we'll write you a hundred million dollar check at like

1109
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 1: a five million dollar valuation, the way you know BuzzFeed

1110
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,839
Speaker 1: box vice. They all did these things. Um. And then

1111
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:40,759
Speaker 1: it turned out a couple of years later that, Um,

1112
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: it was really hard to justify those valuations. It was

1113
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 1: hard for them to scale their revenue fast enough to

1114
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 1: justify those valuations. Facebook did not end up being the

1115
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 1: ecosystem for publishers to build kind of their distributions. Now

1116
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: they just dialed back. They changed, they changed their strategy,

1117
00:51:56,840 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 1: and it hurt all of those businesses. So I'm really

1118
00:52:01,239 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 1: like we made money for everybody. I think our brand

1119
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: ended up with Like Turner did a really good job

1120
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: supporting Bleacher Report. That partnership was really really good. It

1121
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,359
Speaker 1: wasn't always easy, but like it's one of the great

1122
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 1: examples of media acquisition of the last generation. So that's

1123
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: that's cool. Um, But what if we were still out there,

1124
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:21,280
Speaker 1: Like I can't imagine, Like it would have been fifteen

1125
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 1: years grinding away at this thing and like still haven't

1126
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: made any money. And you know, maybe our company has

1127
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:30,359
Speaker 1: valued it a billion dollars, but nobody's willing to buy

1128
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 1: it from more than five hundred like a million. Um,

1129
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 1: that's not a good situation to be in. So I'm

1130
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: so glad that we didn't end up there. Fox Sports

1131
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:41,360
Speaker 1: Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.

1132
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot

1133
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: Com and within the I Heart Radio app search f

1134
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: s R to listen live. So you sell for two

1135
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: dred and fifteen million at the time you sold, how

1136
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: much have you raised? Okay, so when you sell at

1137
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifteen million, I think they're a lot

1138
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:01,919
Speaker 1: of people out there sitting around and they're like, man,

1139
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 1: uh so what happens to founders? Right? So you stayed

1140
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: with the company for a while, Yeah, a lot so. Uh.

1141
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:12,400
Speaker 1: The other two guys were founders that were still involved

1142
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 1: with the business. Um left at that point. Yeah, my

1143
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 1: I had UM. I was running I was probably managing

1144
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the staff at that point. They just

1145
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,840
Speaker 1: had different different roles. Brian left to go start another company.

1146
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,839
Speaker 1: Dave took some time off and then started another company.

1147
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:34,239
Speaker 1: Uh I gosh, Um, I like kind of kept my

1148
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:36,800
Speaker 1: job at the time. I was running like all the

1149
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: kind of content products stuff at the company, and I

1150
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: ended up taking over. Brian Gray left after eight months

1151
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:44,319
Speaker 1: or nine months or something. So I ended up taking

1152
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:48,240
Speaker 1: over the business at that point. UM. Initially when we sold,

1153
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: I was honestly so exhausted that I I told those

1154
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,839
Speaker 1: guys like, I'm not staying Like no. I was just

1155
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: so tired. Um, like what when the sale was complete,

1156
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 1: I remember like leaving my girlfriends apart man and I

1157
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 1: was just like I cried tears of joy walking down

1158
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 1: the hills in San Francisco. I was just so I

1159
00:54:05,239 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: put so much totally. Um, but I hung with it.

1160
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: They basically said, no, you're not doing a year. If

1161
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:14,360
Speaker 1: we're gonna sell this company. If you're gonna buy this company,

1162
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:15,759
Speaker 1: you have to stay for two and a half years.

1163
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,360
Speaker 1: And I was like, guys, I'm not doing that, Like okay,

1164
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:20,359
Speaker 1: we're not gonna buy the company. Like okay, yeah, I'm

1165
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna sack up and do this and uh.

1166
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 1: And after getting through that initial like six to nine

1167
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: month window, which was a little bit rough, I kept

1168
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:30,959
Speaker 1: my head in the game. We continued to perform really well.

1169
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 1: There were some more fun aspects of it that came

1170
00:54:33,719 --> 00:54:37,879
Speaker 1: from being a part of Turner. Uh, getting promoted on TV.

1171
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:39,960
Speaker 1: I gotta you know, you get to know people that

1172
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: are just of a different level. Um. I started to

1173
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 1: learn new things and uh, and I decided to make

1174
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,880
Speaker 1: the most of it. Um and yeah, really invested in

1175
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:50,960
Speaker 1: that partnership. How many employees you may not know the

1176
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: exact number, but roughly how many ploys does Bleacher Report

1177
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: have now a little over five hundred? A little over

1178
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:58,680
Speaker 1: five hundred, So you guys started with three, there's now

1179
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: over five hundred. Um, when you before you sold, what

1180
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:05,399
Speaker 1: was I'm always curious, like, what kind of salaries were

1181
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 1: you guys paying yourself? Were you living? Like how what

1182
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:10,879
Speaker 1: kind of lifestyle would you you're grinding your working all

1183
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:13,400
Speaker 1: those hours. What kind of salaries would you guys have

1184
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: been making by the time you sold. Um, I think

1185
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 1: by the time we sold, we're doing okay because we

1186
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:20,120
Speaker 1: just we just raised twenty million dollars on top of

1187
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 1: so I bet, I bet when we sold, my salary

1188
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: was like probably pretty close to two dollars a year.

1189
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 1: So at that point we're like doing great. But when

1190
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: we but but but yeah, let me pause there. Two,

1191
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people listening right now. Two hundred

1192
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:35,759
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to run a major multimedia company. It's not

1193
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 1: like you guys were just making money hand over fist

1194
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:41,239
Speaker 1: as the as the runners operators and no, I just

1195
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:44,680
Speaker 1: said I and probably a year before that, I bet

1196
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 1: my salary was eighty thousand dollars a year. And for

1197
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: the first couple of for the first year we did it,

1198
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 1: Initially we gave ourselves stipends of four hundred bucks a month,

1199
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:55,399
Speaker 1: and then after one month we realized that we didn't

1200
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 1: have enough money to do it, so we made We

1201
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 1: didn't pay ourselves anything for I think close to a year,

1202
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 1: and then I think our salaries were thirty five thousand

1203
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: dollars a year, and then eventually it got up to eighty.

1204
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,800
Speaker 1: But then when we did when we raised the twenty million,

1205
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:10,960
Speaker 1: I think at that point we were kind of like, hey,

1206
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:13,319
Speaker 1: like we haven't been making much. Yeah, you got like,

1207
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 1: this is San Francisco. It's expensive, Like I'm still gonna

1208
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:19,319
Speaker 1: live in a four hundred square foot studio apartment. But like,

1209
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:24,240
Speaker 1: come on, So if you had not founded the company

1210
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, did that matter to your company's success?

1211
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: You said, the first one point five million you made

1212
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:33,480
Speaker 1: was based on having some connection to Bay Areas success

1213
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:35,440
Speaker 1: in terms of making money. A lot of people out

1214
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: there listening to us right now, they try to decide

1215
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: where am I going to start my company? Where am

1216
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:42,160
Speaker 1: I going to live? Bleacher Report How important was it

1217
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:44,240
Speaker 1: for you guys that you were in the Bay Area

1218
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:46,760
Speaker 1: or do you think you could have been successful anywhere starting?

1219
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:51,000
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a different era now. UM Bleacher

1220
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 1: Report now is two and fifty people in New York.

1221
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:55,319
Speaker 1: New York is our biggest office. San Francisco is that

1222
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:58,319
Speaker 1: because of like advertising to a large extent, almost are

1223
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:00,799
Speaker 1: the biggest part of our content team is in New York.

1224
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 1: And then yeah, the entire advertising, like the whole sales marketing,

1225
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:08,320
Speaker 1: all that giant team UM is on an entire floor

1226
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 1: in in New York. UM. Media businesses almost always end

1227
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: up gravitating into New York as you get big, because

1228
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:18,000
Speaker 1: like you just have to have your sales team. They're

1229
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 1: the way content and sales works today. Uh, they're pretty integrated. UM.

1230
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: It's not like the old days where the separation of

1231
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:28,160
Speaker 1: church and state Chinese wall. So that just doesn't really

1232
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:31,240
Speaker 1: it's hard. It sucks, kind of wish it existed like that,

1233
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 1: but it doesn't. UM. So there are all sorts of

1234
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:36,440
Speaker 1: things you do so that those teams can work effectively

1235
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:39,520
Speaker 1: together with comple example, who may not know it's like, hey,

1236
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: we're gonna do game of you know, the game of

1237
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 1: the game Zones game Zones, which is insanely popular but

1238
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:47,720
Speaker 1: I don't even remember, but you find somebody who wants

1239
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: to sponsor that. Yes, State Farm did it this year.

1240
00:57:50,840 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So, I mean the content is built basically

1241
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 1: with the idea knowing it's already sold. Somebody's gonna pay

1242
00:57:56,720 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 1: millions of dollars to put this thing on. That's right,

1243
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: and it's not necessar fairly like, uh, the Cleveland Browns

1244
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: come to you and they say, hey, we want a

1245
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: good article to be written about this. And by the way,

1246
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 1: I'm Clay Travis. This is the Wins and Losses podcast.

1247
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:10,360
Speaker 1: We're talking with Dave Finocchio, who's one of the co

1248
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: founders of the of Bleacher Report. Uh So, but to

1249
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:17,200
Speaker 1: get people a context on what you mean by content

1250
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:19,840
Speaker 1: and partnership, like, that's kind of the way things work now.

1251
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:22,440
Speaker 1: So when they're pitching Game of I think McDonald's did

1252
00:58:22,440 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: Game of Zones the year before, so State Farm this year,

1253
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:28,240
Speaker 1: you know, they're negotiating an amount of money per episode.

1254
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:32,160
Speaker 1: Uh State Farms getting essentially what's called branded content. Um

1255
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:34,720
Speaker 1: So they actually do some Game of Zones as an

1256
00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 1: animated show. If you're not familiar with it. Um, that's

1257
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 1: kind of like a blend between Game of Thrones and

1258
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 1: in the NBA universe. Um, but they're actually making little

1259
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:46,280
Speaker 1: cartoons that might be like ten second ads that are

1260
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: about State Farm versus about Game of Zones, and those

1261
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: get like crazy distribution through us, and I think it

1262
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: makes State Farm look cool and uh, and there's months

1263
00:58:57,600 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 1: of work that goes into selling a deal like that.

1264
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:02,040
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who are listening to us

1265
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 1: right now and they're like, I'd like to make a

1266
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:08,360
Speaker 1: money in sports media somehow, right, like, either as a

1267
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:12,160
Speaker 1: content person or as a business person. Uh. It evolves

1268
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 1: so quickly. Uh, what advice would you give them? Like,

1269
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 1: pretend that you were twenty one years old and this

1270
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:21,919
Speaker 1: is the last semester where you're killing time. Their names

1271
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 1: campus and you've downloaded this podcast and you're listening and

1272
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:27,080
Speaker 1: they're like, man, I'd like to be the next day, Finocchio,

1273
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 1: What would you tell people out there listening that to

1274
00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:33,120
Speaker 1: you seems like an opportunity And also keeping in mind

1275
00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 1: that things move so quickly, it's hard to forecast where

1276
00:59:35,680 --> 00:59:37,800
Speaker 1: the business is going there. There are a couple of

1277
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 1: ways ago about it. One is the traditional way is

1278
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 1: just scrap and get in the door somewhere like how

1279
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 1: does it matter how much you're gonna get paid. It

1280
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:46,120
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's like how much you get paid the

1281
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: first couple of years or even what you're doing. I

1282
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 1: don't think matters very much. I think people and their

1283
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:53,560
Speaker 1: parents like way over obsessed around like what what job

1284
00:59:53,600 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: and what trajectory are you on? Five? It doesn't matter, Like,

1285
00:59:56,960 --> 00:59:59,240
Speaker 1: go in somewhere, build the work ethic, like learn how

1286
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 1: to um like do politics inside of a bigger company

1287
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 1: or whatever, and just like start investing in yourself and learning.

1288
01:00:07,160 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 1: I think if if that's the case, just like and

1289
01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 1: you want to work in sports, just go somewhere and

1290
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: get started and then learn more and figure out where

1291
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 1: to go next. UM the rule. I always try to

1292
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 1: tell people, especially young people at bleacher Report, because we

1293
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 1: don't people usually don't ascend it bleacher Report the way

1294
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:24,080
Speaker 1: they could in the past. It's a bigger company and

1295
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: there are more people on the depth chart ahead of you.

1296
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:27,800
Speaker 1: So I always say to people and they ask me

1297
01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:30,480
Speaker 1: for advice. Is like, if you spend two or three

1298
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 1: years here and you feel like you're learning curve is

1299
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:34,040
Speaker 1: not as steep as it used to be, Like you're

1300
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:36,920
Speaker 1: learning slower than you used to and there isn't another

1301
01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: opportunity for you here where you can keep learning as

1302
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:42,160
Speaker 1: quickly get the hell out of here, go do something else. Um,

1303
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 1: when you're young, you have to invest in yourself and

1304
01:00:44,400 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: just keep learning, learning, learning, if you want to be

1305
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:51,800
Speaker 1: more ambitious and not go hustle for somebody else and

1306
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: like get inside a company. My advice on like, if

1307
01:00:55,120 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 1: you want to start something in the sports space, um one, Um,

1308
01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 1: not to be uh like cheesy, but you kind of

1309
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:03,920
Speaker 1: need to skate to where the puck is headed, not

1310
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: where it is now. You need to have a perspective

1311
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:08,640
Speaker 1: on where the industry is going, and you need to

1312
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:11,360
Speaker 1: make a bet on that. Um, you're not necessarily going

1313
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:14,640
Speaker 1: to be right, but like if you're you're gonna have

1314
01:01:14,680 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 1: the guts to do it, just go go do it.

1315
01:01:16,360 --> 01:01:17,800
Speaker 1: And then you can get a lot of people who

1316
01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:19,960
Speaker 1: do that. The mistake I see them make is they

1317
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: don't understand, um, that that opportunity needs to be big.

1318
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:26,680
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people will get really into these

1319
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 1: things that they care about. You mentioned that earlier. It's

1320
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:30,920
Speaker 1: like the sports editor who's doing something where they're essentially

1321
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:35,160
Speaker 1: writing for their peer group versus understanding the the idea

1322
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:36,920
Speaker 1: you need to chase, has to be something that has

1323
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 1: a chance to have mass appeal. So you've seen that

1324
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 1: on Instagram, right with like the House of Highlights and

1325
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:45,360
Speaker 1: how quickly some of that stuff has grown. It's it's

1326
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 1: just insane, right. Um. Yeah, that was my favorite thing

1327
01:01:48,160 --> 01:01:51,640
Speaker 1: that we ever bought. House of Highlights was just a kid, right,

1328
01:01:51,640 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: I mean, just a young guy who starts uh. Omar

1329
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:57,840
Speaker 1: was a senior at the University of Central Florida, had

1330
01:01:57,880 --> 01:02:01,479
Speaker 1: the coolest voice in sports. Would ever seeing. Um, Doug

1331
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: Bernstein started to get me to look at it and

1332
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 1: we uh uh yeah that was that was a really

1333
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:10,520
Speaker 1: really great acquisition and I think worked out really well

1334
01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:13,560
Speaker 1: for Olmar too. So what's next for you? Um, I'm

1335
01:02:13,600 --> 01:02:16,360
Speaker 1: honestly like like trying to not even think about it

1336
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:19,680
Speaker 1: right now. I've been could you could you never work again?

1337
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: Now if you wanted to? Did you make enough off

1338
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: of Bleacher Report that you could? I mean it's not

1339
01:02:23,680 --> 01:02:26,640
Speaker 1: like you're gonna be like, you know, Jeff Bezos, But

1340
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:29,120
Speaker 1: if you wanted to just spend the next twenty years

1341
01:02:29,160 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 1: of your life kind of like living on a beach

1342
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:33,640
Speaker 1: in Mexico or something, Yeah, yeah, sure, But is that

1343
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 1: something that appeals to you or do you know. Um No,

1344
01:02:36,760 --> 01:02:39,720
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I'm like my attitude is more

1345
01:02:40,240 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 1: like got like I did this for fourteen years. Um.

1346
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:45,600
Speaker 1: Just to put that same filter I just mentioned about learning,

1347
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:48,560
Speaker 1: I kind of felt like my learning curve was flattening out.

1348
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:50,400
Speaker 1: I was kind of getting bored. Still. I had the

1349
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:52,680
Speaker 1: coolest job in the world, right, but um, I was

1350
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:56,480
Speaker 1: less like I was so used to solving tough problems

1351
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 1: and like growing quickly in my job the last year plus,

1352
01:02:59,840 --> 01:03:03,520
Speaker 1: so more like managing HR issues and figuring out how

1353
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 1: to hit revenue numbers and doing P and L trade

1354
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:08,240
Speaker 1: offs and stuff. It was great experience, but um, it

1355
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:09,880
Speaker 1: was not as exciting to me as some of the

1356
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 1: stuff in the past. So I think my plan is

1357
01:03:13,800 --> 01:03:15,840
Speaker 1: get away for a little while and see if I

1358
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:19,040
Speaker 1: have enough energy to do something else that, um that

1359
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:20,920
Speaker 1: I could be really proud of some day something. I

1360
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:22,840
Speaker 1: don't know if I'll ever do something as impactful as

1361
01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:26,360
Speaker 1: Bleacher Report again, but I would love to try. Versus,

1362
01:03:26,920 --> 01:03:29,440
Speaker 1: my fear was if I sat around there for another

1363
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:31,880
Speaker 1: three or four years, then I could just kind of

1364
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:36,040
Speaker 1: be like like, I'm just gonna chill it for the

1365
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:39,040
Speaker 1: rest of time here, and I kind of don't accomplish

1366
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:43,680
Speaker 1: anything else, and I would rather um whether I succeed

1367
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:46,160
Speaker 1: or fail. I'd rather give a go at trying to

1368
01:03:46,160 --> 01:03:48,560
Speaker 1: get inspired to do something else. I know I said

1369
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:50,000
Speaker 1: I might have said last question, but this is the

1370
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: real last question. I feel like nowadays everybody is constantly criticized, right,

1371
01:03:56,880 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: And you guys might have gotten an early version of that.

1372
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:02,360
Speaker 1: It bleacher port where you weren't quote unquote the cool

1373
01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:04,680
Speaker 1: kids on the internet, right, and there were a lot

1374
01:04:04,720 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: of people who took shots at you. Guys. You built

1375
01:04:07,200 --> 01:04:09,960
Speaker 1: a business from nothing, you scaled it up all the

1376
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:12,960
Speaker 1: way to several hundred million dollars to sell it. It's

1377
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:16,520
Speaker 1: now got five hundred employees. I feel like the internet

1378
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:19,440
Speaker 1: is steeped in criticism. What would you tell people who

1379
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 1: are trying to build something about people who are going

1380
01:04:22,640 --> 01:04:25,440
Speaker 1: to take shots at them along the way. What have

1381
01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:29,760
Speaker 1: you learned? Really early on we figured out that one

1382
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 1: responding to critics, there's like literally nothing good that can

1383
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:34,560
Speaker 1: come from it unless it's helping to promote your best

1384
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:36,600
Speaker 1: your like, unless it's in your best interest in a

1385
01:04:36,680 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 1: very direct way. Um, there's there's no point. I always

1386
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:44,000
Speaker 1: believed in the long term value proposition of what we

1387
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:46,120
Speaker 1: were doing. I knew that I wasn't proud as a

1388
01:04:46,160 --> 01:04:48,880
Speaker 1: sports like I have. Um, I'm a content snob in

1389
01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:51,760
Speaker 1: twenty different ways. Like, I knew that the content we

1390
01:04:51,760 --> 01:04:54,520
Speaker 1: were producing at times wasn't content that I was always

1391
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 1: proud of. But I believed in the playbook we were

1392
01:04:56,800 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: running that if we kept doing it and kept like

1393
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:01,040
Speaker 1: building a busines this, that it would get to a

1394
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 1: point where I would be really proud of the content

1395
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:06,360
Speaker 1: and the user experiences and the products. And we did that. Um,

1396
01:05:06,360 --> 01:05:08,720
Speaker 1: I'm really proud that I stuck it through and got

1397
01:05:08,720 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 1: it to the point where I built something that I'm

1398
01:05:10,400 --> 01:05:13,640
Speaker 1: really proud of. Uh. Like, I think you just have

1399
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:15,840
Speaker 1: to believe in yourself and like just play the long term.

1400
01:05:15,880 --> 01:05:19,760
Speaker 1: People are so freaking sensitive these days. You know. It's like, uh, like,

1401
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:22,400
Speaker 1: I'm a big Warriors fan. Um, we've just been through this.

1402
01:05:22,520 --> 01:05:25,040
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant saga. I have a lot of respect for

1403
01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:27,760
Speaker 1: that guy in certain ways, um, and in others with like,

1404
01:05:28,680 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 1: I'm just like can't believe that he cares so much

1405
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 1: about create anonymous social media accounts, to which I'd like,

1406
01:05:35,520 --> 01:05:37,920
Speaker 1: I sort of get it, But at a certain point. Um,

1407
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:41,560
Speaker 1: it's like you have to realize that you have you

1408
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:45,480
Speaker 1: are in a position in life that nine point nine

1409
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:47,880
Speaker 1: nine whatever percent of people are never going to be in,

1410
01:05:48,480 --> 01:05:50,880
Speaker 1: and like it may might make them feel better for

1411
01:05:50,920 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 1: ten seconds to take a shot at you for whatever reason. Um,

1412
01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:58,000
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Like so, I never people said so

1413
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:00,280
Speaker 1: many nasty things about us early on it. I just

1414
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:02,959
Speaker 1: developed thick skin, and I just like, I just don't

1415
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:06,040
Speaker 1: give a shit. Um, I don't in these days, whether

1416
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:10,960
Speaker 1: it's whoever comes after us, Like I'll always be pretty

1417
01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:14,000
Speaker 1: level headed about stuff. Um, And I've had plenty of you.

1418
01:06:14,040 --> 01:06:17,200
Speaker 1: I've had Mark Cuban blow me up or Dave Arty

1419
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:19,480
Speaker 1: or whoever it is, and I just like, I think

1420
01:06:19,480 --> 01:06:22,120
Speaker 1: it's funny, and I've never I just don't care. It's

1421
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:24,560
Speaker 1: like all part of the game. Kind of similar in

1422
01:06:24,600 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 1: that respect. It's been outstanding. Dave Pinocchio, co founder of

1423
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: Bleacher Report. We need to talk again soon. I know

1424
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:32,520
Speaker 1: we're gonna golf this weekend. Looking forward to that. I

1425
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:34,920
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending the time here. Good luck on the triathlon.

1426
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 1: Welcome to Nashville. Thanks great to be here. Uh make

1427
01:06:37,840 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 1: sure you download hope you enjoy them, give me feedback,

1428
01:06:40,240 --> 01:06:41,480
Speaker 1: let us know what you think. This has been the

1429
01:06:41,520 --> 01:06:44,320
Speaker 1: Wins and Losses podcast. I'm Clay Travis, he's Dave Pinocchio.

1430
01:06:44,640 --> 01:06:46,959
Speaker 1: Check out Bleacher Report. We'll be back with you next week.