Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy, where
Speaker 1: we talked to super successful people and self made people
Speaker 1: to find out exactly how they did it, how they
Speaker 1: went from nothing to something. Today, I'm insanely excited to
Speaker 1: talk to one of the most impressive and successful entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: in the world. And it's funny. When we started this
Speaker 1: podcast and we're talking to my heart and we were
Speaker 1: listing out people that, you know, I wanted to talk to.
Speaker 1: The guy in front of me was on that list,
Speaker 1: but I never thought that I would actually be able
Speaker 1: to convince him to slow down for a split second
Speaker 1: and actually talk. But here we are, and we're in
Speaker 1: the room. He's an entrepreneur and investor or father. Uh
Speaker 1: even better, he's a New Yorker. He started and sold
Speaker 1: for companies, with many more in the works, one of
Speaker 1: them being diapers dot com, which she sold for just
Speaker 1: under five and fifty million dollars, and then jet dot com,
Speaker 1: which he sold for three point three billion dollars. And
Speaker 1: those that's real money, that's not crypto, it's like U
Speaker 1: S dollars. He also recently started adventure fund with a
Speaker 1: very very small athlete. This guy some people know him
Speaker 1: named A Rod and if that wasn't enough, he beat
Speaker 1: Jerry Rice in the forty r Dash, which is insane. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to discuss how he makes it all happen,
Speaker 1: the all amazing man in front of me, Mr Mark Lord.
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorites. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode before I get into everything else. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're a New Yorker, you love New York. This is
Speaker 1: your spot right now. We're in Tribeca and you quarantine
Speaker 1: through here. But you're from Staten Island. Staten Island until
Speaker 1: I was ten years old fifth grade and moved to
Speaker 1: New Jersey. So talk to me before we get to
Speaker 1: the companies and and everything else. I want to go
Speaker 1: through about those kind of formative years in Staten Island. Uh,
Speaker 1: and how you think that made an impact on your
Speaker 1: life today, Like, did you think it did it all? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well it's interesting because I think it definitely did. The
Speaker 1: first four years of my life we lived above my grandparents,
Speaker 1: you know, part of their house, like in the top floor,
Speaker 1: and then from four to ten lived in a multi
Speaker 1: family kind of home and it was very modest. Growing up,
Speaker 1: we lived in a predominantly Italian, Irish Catholic neighborhood. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what a Protestant was until I was
Speaker 1: moved to New Jersey. So I was at least in
Speaker 1: sixth grade when I thought everyone was pretty Italian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just thought everyone's Catholic. Everyone's Catholic. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you know, Italian and Irish, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything else. It was incredibly uh diverse. It wasn't diverse
Speaker 1: at all. And you know, I had a thick statin
Speaker 1: on accent. And then we moved to New Jersey and
Speaker 1: was thrown in this like small thirty four kids in
Speaker 1: a class, uh, super diverse, you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there was one other Catholic, you know, in the
Speaker 1: entire class, and it was every nationality, and they made
Speaker 1: fun of my accent. And I was this like just
Speaker 1: assumed to be dumb because I had this like thick,
Speaker 1: you know, stating own accent and it was a jock
Speaker 1: and just you know, it was a very interesting juxtaposition
Speaker 1: to go from that to where I was. And I
Speaker 1: you're kind of forced in a small school, especially diverse,
Speaker 1: to be sort of friends with everyone, and it's not typical,
Speaker 1: I think to grow up and go to a school
Speaker 1: where you're friends with people you never would have been
Speaker 1: friends with if you were in a bigger school and
Speaker 1: just found your crowd. Like if there was a whole
Speaker 1: crowd of like Italians Catholic Italians there, I probably would
Speaker 1: have gravitated toward that. But no, I was like the
Speaker 1: only one. So you're friends with everyone. My two best
Speaker 1: friends are you know, Indian American to this day, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think that really helps shape me a lot
Speaker 1: in terms of like empathy and values and how to
Speaker 1: understand people different viewpoints, the benefits of diversity, appreciating people
Speaker 1: for who they are as opposed to like what they
Speaker 1: look like or where they come from, and things like.
Speaker 1: It was a really cool experience. I didn't really appreciate
Speaker 1: it until many years later, but you know, just it's
Speaker 1: part of your you know, it becomes part of your DNA.
Speaker 1: After a while, I was not into school at all.
Speaker 1: I told my parents, like, the school doesn't give homework,
Speaker 1: and they did and I never did it, and I
Speaker 1: didn't do well. But I did have like just a
Speaker 1: natural gift for math, so that kind of carried me.
Speaker 1: I really haven't completed any fiction books. I haven't completed
Speaker 1: any fiction books yet in my life. So I wasn't
Speaker 1: ever into books growing up in grammar school and high school,
Speaker 1: and then just kind of carried on, you know. I
Speaker 1: start reading, I tried, I get through like the first
Speaker 1: few pages, and I just start thinking, and then I
Speaker 1: closed the book and I just spend time thinking. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't get through more than a few pages. Um.
Speaker 1: So I always feel like reading takes time away from thinking,
Speaker 1: and I'm a thinker. I like to think. I don't
Speaker 1: know how people actually read, because it's like you're committee
Speaker 1: to somebody else's words and I don't know how you
Speaker 1: think and invent same time you're reading. Interesting. I just
Speaker 1: never read. Do you get bored easily? I do? Yeah, definitely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely get bored. Yeah, I get what's funny. I get
Speaker 1: bored unless I'm focused on a specific vision, you know,
Speaker 1: like there's something and then I can be like I
Speaker 1: can and be laser focused, but it has to be
Speaker 1: toward a very specific golden like focused on Otherwise. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: Like I don't do TV like stuff like that. It's
Speaker 1: just tough, got it. No TV, No books, just thinking thinking.
Speaker 1: That's why you have that crazy terrace upstairs. You can
Speaker 1: just go out there and you can think and invet,
Speaker 1: that's awesome, that's I do. I wish I knew to
Speaker 1: say that to my parents, like listen, you guys the
Speaker 1: books and then for me, I just I need more
Speaker 1: time to think. Did you know early on that you
Speaker 1: wanted to be an entrepreneur or not work for other people?
Speaker 1: Because you when you graduated school, you went into bank,
Speaker 1: you got a job because that's what you thought you
Speaker 1: were supposed to do. No, I had no choice, really,
Speaker 1: so I did when I was a kid, so four
Speaker 1: years old. Um Grandma used to spend all the time,
Speaker 1: my grandmother and just ask me, what do you want
Speaker 1: to be when you grow up? She's always just to
Speaker 1: say this to me. And I always said, I want
Speaker 1: to be a farmer. Now, you don't want to be
Speaker 1: a farmer, doctor, lawyer? No, I want to be a farmer.
Speaker 1: Why don't want to be a farmer because you grow
Speaker 1: stuff from nothing? Yeah. I just loved as a little
Speaker 1: little kid this idea that from a seed grew something
Speaker 1: and which is basically entrepreneurship. And throughout my entire childhood
Speaker 1: I did every entrepreneurial business you can think of mowing lawns, recycling,
Speaker 1: you know, newspapers, um lemonade, stand baseball cards, like anything
Speaker 1: to sort of make a buck and be entrepreneurial. But
Speaker 1: when I graduated college in ninety three, like I had
Speaker 1: no money, didn't know anything about startups or that didn't
Speaker 1: really wasn't really a thing. Nine I'd like stocks. I
Speaker 1: had followed stocks as a kid, was interested in it,
Speaker 1: and I I was like, okay, I'll go work for a bank.
Speaker 1: It didn't occur to me that it was even an
Speaker 1: option to be an entrepreneur or something. So I went
Speaker 1: into banking, and like each year and banking and I
Speaker 1: started getting more and more anxious, like I don't like
Speaker 1: the culture. It's all about mercenary as I call it,
Speaker 1: you know, just all about making a buck. The values
Speaker 1: weren't great, and I was more mission oriented, as like
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur as a kid, like what's the mission? Like
Speaker 1: what are we gonna go out? And how are we
Speaker 1: going to change the world? And it never it just
Speaker 1: felt wrong. And every year I was doing better and
Speaker 1: better and better in banking, and probably about six and
Speaker 1: a half years into banking, I was chief risk office
Speaker 1: and doing really well, making a half a million bucks
Speaker 1: a year. I just had a kid, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's now or never, Like I need to like go
Speaker 1: do this and be an entrepreneur. So I just went
Speaker 1: in my boss's office and quit and just said I'm
Speaker 1: going to be an entrepreneur. And he laughed at me
Speaker 1: and said, well, you don't just like walk in and
Speaker 1: just say I'm going to be an entrepreneur. Like what's
Speaker 1: the business? I said, I don't know yet. I just
Speaker 1: know I can't figure this out when working eighty hours
Speaker 1: a week for you. I need to like quit, focus,
Speaker 1: put together a bass plan, raise money, think and and
Speaker 1: so he's like, you're crazy, and I'm like maybe he's like, well,
Speaker 1: can I be a first investor because I just have
Speaker 1: a feeling you're gonna make this work. And so you
Speaker 1: put fifty grand in And that was like the start
Speaker 1: of the start of it. And what was that company
Speaker 1: that was called the pit? It was Sports stock Market
Speaker 1: and basically combined my love for sports with stocks. I
Speaker 1: got my two best friends from from grammar school and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, and to quit their jobs to
Speaker 1: go do it together. And it was like the most
Speaker 1: fun time. Learned so much about entrepreneurship. Um learned what
Speaker 1: a CAP table was. We're in the first venture capital meeting. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we're just sort of like saying, here's the business
Speaker 1: and everything of that. And then then I never forget
Speaker 1: the venture investor I think his name was Tom Grant,
Speaker 1: and he said, uh, he said, uh, so can you
Speaker 1: just walk me through the cap table? And we're looking
Speaker 1: at another and anyway, he said, the cap tables I
Speaker 1: don't know kept black. You know, I don't like cap table.
Speaker 1: What's a cap table? And they were like, maybe you
Speaker 1: guys should come back, should come back when you know
Speaker 1: what a cap table is. So that was that was
Speaker 1: pretty funny. So you know, everyone starts from the bottom,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no you just just learn. You get
Speaker 1: thrown in, throw yourself in and learn, you know, trial
Speaker 1: and error. How much did you end up raising for
Speaker 1: that business? Ultimately five million? It was only angels, no institution.
Speaker 1: We couldn't get any institutional because we didn't know what
Speaker 1: a cat table was. So so friends, people you knew
Speaker 1: it was like it was yeah, it was basically my
Speaker 1: boss at Santua Bank, but the first fifty and instead
Speaker 1: go talk to these two people and then every two
Speaker 1: people we talked to. We said, okay, were the interested
Speaker 1: or not int do you know two people? And it
Speaker 1: was literally like this tree we had built and we
Speaker 1: talked to like a hundred and twenty angel investors and
Speaker 1: we got had a good hit, right. We had that
Speaker 1: sixty people to invest on average what is that like
Speaker 1: eight tho each? So it was like just clawn, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to raise that five million UM. But then the
Speaker 1: market crashed. This is this is on the nastack in
Speaker 1: two thousand just got destroyed. Forget about. We couldn't raise
Speaker 1: venture before. We're definitely we're going to raise venture after UM.
Speaker 1: And we were nine months in and we're the business
Speaker 1: was doing well, was getting some action and fortunately the Tops,
Speaker 1: the baseball card of Zuoka gun manufacturer, came in and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we like what you guys are doing and
Speaker 1: we'll give you a five point seven million for it.
Speaker 1: And we're like, we'll take it because there was literally
Speaker 1: the market was destroyed and even our investors were like, wait,
Speaker 1: you're gonna make money in this market, yeah, take it.
Speaker 1: So everyone back, pay everyone back and uh. And then
Speaker 1: worked in side tops and that's where we got the
Speaker 1: idea for diapers dot Com had that idea come about.
Speaker 1: I was basically, I mean I had a baby at
Speaker 1: the time, so paying me ask going out for diapers
Speaker 1: all the time. But the way it came together was
Speaker 1: I was literally in Google. They used to be able
Speaker 1: to like search to figure out how many times have
Speaker 1: searched term was searched in Google, and they remember typing
Speaker 1: the word diapers into the search engine and it said
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand times it was searched in a month.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, search two hundred thousand times. Nobody's buying
Speaker 1: diapers online. That's interesting. People want to buy them. They're
Speaker 1: not online. I certainly want to buy them online. And
Speaker 1: the baby that's pain in the ask, going to like
Speaker 1: diapers every every few weeks. So I thought, well, let
Speaker 1: me see Amazon. I mean, no, Amazon, they sell diapers,
Speaker 1: but they're like three times it's expended, Like nobody's buying
Speaker 1: diapers online. Why, Oh, they're a lost leader. You know,
Speaker 1: Walmart and Target they saw m at a loss. So
Speaker 1: now if you want to ship them there big and
Speaker 1: bulky and shipping everything. So everyone's like the scars and
Speaker 1: like you can't make money. I was like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: why they were lost leader in the store. I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about retail. I was like, Okay, they're a
Speaker 1: lost leader because it drives traffic and it drives moms
Speaker 1: to the store. Because yeah, interesting, so it's a lost leader.
Speaker 1: So why couldn't you be a lost leader online? Well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose a lot more money. Yeah, but there's
Speaker 1: a much longer tail of products I can sell mom
Speaker 1: because there's unlimited shelves based online. And that was sort
Speaker 1: of like the breakthrough. It's like, Okay, we're gonna sell dipers,
Speaker 1: We're gonna bring people in and we're gonna sell them
Speaker 1: everything else, and we're gonna lose money. The problem was
Speaker 1: the manufacturers wouldn't sell us diapers direct because they thought
Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna work. So what do we do. We
Speaker 1: had to go to Costco b J's and buy the
Speaker 1: dipers in the wholesale club. So we literally go into
Speaker 1: sell the diapers for let's say forty dollars a box.
Speaker 1: Then we go into Costco and buying for forty box
Speaker 1: and pay ten dollars to ship them. And we were
Speaker 1: funding this ourselves, so it's like, you do know, Mark,
Speaker 1: you're selling a dollar for ninety cents and I said, no,
Speaker 1: actually selling a dollar for eighty cents, but that's okay.
Speaker 1: But but yes, the plan is we're gonna sell these
Speaker 1: dollars for eighty cents and then when we get enough
Speaker 1: people shopping and we're gonna then sell them stuff that
Speaker 1: we actually make real money on. And it was painful
Speaker 1: in the beginning because we're literally like having to go
Speaker 1: to b J's and buy these diapers, and we stopped
Speaker 1: buying them. Yeah, but we buy them the day that
Speaker 1: they were sold because it was But then it got
Speaker 1: to the point where we're selling like truckloads of diapers.
Speaker 1: So me and Vinnie, we're going Vinnie barras co founder
Speaker 1: and best friend, you know, we go to we go
Speaker 1: to uh b J's, and we have a deal. If
Speaker 1: we leave them some diapers, they will pack them on
Speaker 1: the eight and wheeler in the back because they have
Speaker 1: the equipment and stuff. I'm like, okay, great, we'll leave
Speaker 1: you diapers. That's a great deal. Okay, we still have
Speaker 1: to pay money and stand online and go through and
Speaker 1: it's like ridiculous, right, and have all the things and everything,
Speaker 1: like with the cashier. Yeah, with the cashier, we couldn't
Speaker 1: like do it like you know, like through like why
Speaker 1: or anything heavy. You're a diaper broker. Yeah, basically a
Speaker 1: diaper broker. And literally two years into it, Proctan Gamba
Speaker 1: Chamilli Clark still not selling us diapers and we're like,
Speaker 1: we're selling thirty million dollars of diapers. You we can't
Speaker 1: keep doing this. We're like clearing out wholesale clubs, like,
Speaker 1: we gotta figure this out. We gotta figure this out.
Speaker 1: How many people work for you at that time still
Speaker 1: really lean, like Vinnie and I were doing everything. It
Speaker 1: was probably like you know, diapers a year, probably like
Speaker 1: six people crazy crazy and buying them from the thing
Speaker 1: and shipping them, going to like UPS stores and just
Speaker 1: like putting all these boxes in yeah basically yeah, but
Speaker 1: putting the labels. I would be out on the front
Speaker 1: law on these boxes and you just put the labels
Speaker 1: on it and put it on the truck and bring
Speaker 1: it to FedEx and UPS and Silt the website who
Speaker 1: bought the platform for you, Um yeah, we had got build. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just designed it personally. You guys just said this,
Speaker 1: we design it, no firm. We designed the logo you know,
Speaker 1: and this kind of stuff. Yeah, we did everything, and
Speaker 1: they beginning and but we couldn't keep this up. We're
Speaker 1: burning a lot of money. Now we're burning a serious
Speaker 1: amount of money. We basically took it, funded ourselves to
Speaker 1: the first eleven million that was That was the first
Speaker 1: two years, the eleven millions, and parked kemal Clock still
Speaker 1: wouldn't sell us the diapers, and it seemed like there
Speaker 1: was not even close to selling us. So we came
Speaker 1: up with the city like, oh, we got what were
Speaker 1: we gonna do? What you can do? Okay, we need
Speaker 1: a reason for them to sell us. We need a reason.
Speaker 1: And we're like, you know what, what if we took
Speaker 1: all the diapers from BJ and left nothing for their customers?
Speaker 1: Don't they have to don't they need diapers? Like yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're not gonna load the truck. All right, Well
Speaker 1: let's let's go for it. So we went into Pj's
Speaker 1: and we talked to the man. You said, hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: you know this deal, it's off. We need them all.
Speaker 1: We're taking them all. And he's like, no, you can't
Speaker 1: take them all, Like, well, there's nothing We're gonna buy
Speaker 1: all the diapers, right this is anybody could come in
Speaker 1: and buy the dipers. You can't stop something from buying them, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're right, we can't, but we're not loading the truck,
Speaker 1: so good luck, Like, oh, ship, we can load his truck.
Speaker 1: A team real and mean Vinney were like boxes and
Speaker 1: like it was just a war of wills, like who
Speaker 1: can last longer? You know, We're we cleared them out.
Speaker 1: Customers are coming and complaining, right, and but we're like
Speaker 1: loading the truck and these diapers Like man, dude, I
Speaker 1: don't know how how long can we keep loading the
Speaker 1: truck And like I don't know, I think you're gonna break. Man.
Speaker 1: They have no diapers to their customers. They're gonna have
Speaker 1: to like call Procton Gamble. We're like, listen, you can
Speaker 1: solve this pain. Just call Proctor and Gamble Kimberly Clarke
Speaker 1: and tell them to sell us diapers. Then you're good.
Speaker 1: You off the hook. And like, after like a few
Speaker 1: times to do this, they did, like we broke them.
Speaker 1: We were like sweat and we're like pounds. So like, dude,
Speaker 1: I don't know how long we can do this for,
Speaker 1: you know, but they broke first. They called procting a game.
Speaker 1: We're procting. We're called us and said, Hey, one of
Speaker 1: our big customers UM asked us to sell you direct
Speaker 1: or a good client, and we're gonna do it. We
Speaker 1: don't believe in it, nothing's changing how we feel about
Speaker 1: your business, but we will sell you direct. And that's
Speaker 1: how we kind of like, you know, got direct and
Speaker 1: then we raised venture at eleven run rate, and then
Speaker 1: we took it to thirty six and then ninety and
Speaker 1: then yeah, two and it was like and he started
Speaker 1: started hiring back office people to run it, and then
Speaker 1: we started hiring people to run it and everything. But
Speaker 1: the first eleven million was like just a few employees,
Speaker 1: Like it was like probably anything we're doing everything we
Speaker 1: do in the accounting, marketing, web design, customer care. It
Speaker 1: was diapers, wipes, and then we added formula at that
Speaker 1: time and that was pretty much it. Yeah, how much
Speaker 1: until it did you end up raising before before you exited?
Speaker 1: That's it? That's it crazy. And you just use that
Speaker 1: for pure expansion, just for hiring and build hiring marketing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you sold him what year was sold in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven? And did the buyer come to you or
Speaker 1: was it something that you were thinking about, Hey, it's
Speaker 1: time to turn to South two is an eleven. It
Speaker 1: was not like a great time. No, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: great time. And uh so Amazon bought us. We actually
Speaker 1: had an offer from someone else for a hundred million more,
Speaker 1: but we took the Amazon offer because Amazon was being pretty.
Speaker 1: They've been pretty tough. They cut the price at diapers.
Speaker 1: They were paying to burn a lot of money to
Speaker 1: put a den in our business, and they were they
Speaker 1: were pretty. They were pretty tough. I'll just leave it
Speaker 1: a tough tough But the other are acquire that offered
Speaker 1: a hundred million more. There was this one clause in
Speaker 1: the sort of agreement that said, um, as long as
Speaker 1: there's no adverse changing your business between like signing this
Speaker 1: and then like actually closing, we're good. Everything else we're good,
Speaker 1: and we're like, but no adverse change, Like do you
Speaker 1: realize Amazon is gonna kick our ass? You realize that, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's okay, don't worry about that, Like, no, you're worried
Speaker 1: about it. It's clause here that says everything else is great.
Speaker 1: Just take out this one clause. We're done. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: take the clause out, and so like talk to the
Speaker 1: board of directors and said, hey, like I don't think
Speaker 1: they get it, Like there's this clause here and we
Speaker 1: don't understand what they're trying to get at, like like
Speaker 1: they're gonna kill us. And so like that's a good point.
Speaker 1: You know, five is not bad. It's not bad. So
Speaker 1: we sold the Amazon And I always always talked about this.
Speaker 1: Is like people say, oh, man, this is your first
Speaker 1: big exit, Like you made a ton of money, Like
Speaker 1: you never need to work again. You guys must have
Speaker 1: been so excited. We're literally depressed, Like Manny and I
Speaker 1: were just like after after the close, we're like do
Speaker 1: we get a beer and go celebrate? You want to?
Speaker 1: Now me? Now, let's just let's just call it a day.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like it's literally it was the most
Speaker 1: depressing day because we sold out. So you aren't building anymore, right,
Speaker 1: we don't build anymore. And I always talk about this.
Speaker 1: It's like the difference between selling your company and selling out.
Speaker 1: Selling is okay? Selling out, it's not. It's like you
Speaker 1: have a mission, uh, you know what you stand for,
Speaker 1: a set of values. You have a vision of what
Speaker 1: you want to become. And if you can sell the
Speaker 1: company and that stays intact, they needn't sell out. It's
Speaker 1: actually you're accelerating. You know, you have more capital, you
Speaker 1: have more resources, you you can go after it with
Speaker 1: the help of the acquiring company, which is what happened
Speaker 1: with Walmart. We didn't sell out. We we sold it, sure,
Speaker 1: but we were still you know, the vision of like
Speaker 1: creating you know, a formidable competitor Amazon that was still alive.
Speaker 1: And well when we sold the Amazon, we're sort of
Speaker 1: like pushed in a corner. Guys, just keep doing your thing,
Speaker 1: like doing our thing, but you own us and you
Speaker 1: also have a diaper business, and what do you mean
Speaker 1: do our thing? Aren't we gonna like join forces and
Speaker 1: let's go you know together. And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: just keep doing anything. Over the side. It was very
Speaker 1: like you out. Yeah, I was like just watch it
Speaker 1: like it was just terrible competing with the owner and
Speaker 1: it was just very very not fun um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So I always talked about that as being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we sold out, but most people would then like, go
Speaker 1: to the beach, right, Well, I wasn't going to the beach.
Speaker 1: So how did you get the idea to build your
Speaker 1: second company? To build jet dot com? Okay, that was
Speaker 1: the fourth but yeah, but the second big one, right,
Speaker 1: second big um just inside Amazon for you know, two
Speaker 1: and a half years, continue to build Vipers dot com
Speaker 1: and we hit a bunch of other sites like wag
Speaker 1: dot com and soap dot com, these other websites and things,
Speaker 1: and uh, it just felt like we had learned so
Speaker 1: much and still felt like there was a knee for
Speaker 1: a formidable number two competitor. The market was growing fast.
Speaker 1: It was so big e commerce and it was growing,
Speaker 1: and I felt like we can you know, I use
Speaker 1: this acronym VCP vision capital people, and I think that's
Speaker 1: all it takes to create an incredible business. And we
Speaker 1: had the vision UM. We thought we could get access
Speaker 1: to capital just giving our track record, and we thought
Speaker 1: we could hire the best people in e commerce in
Speaker 1: the world, again given the track record. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to pass up the opportunity because you're primed
Speaker 1: and ready to get primed and ready to go. And
Speaker 1: that's what we did. We raised a ton of money
Speaker 1: up front, so yeah, just I mean just the pitch deck.
Speaker 1: I think we raised fifty five million with the pitch
Speaker 1: deck UM and we're able to hire an incredible team
Speaker 1: and then we followed it up with another quickly five
Speaker 1: million pre launch. So we had a lot of money
Speaker 1: and uh and made a great team. And I always
Speaker 1: feel like with businesses, if you hired an incredible team
Speaker 1: and you're in the right size market at the right time,
Speaker 1: you're never gonna lose because there will always be a
Speaker 1: strategic that's interested in that right Like, you know, because
Speaker 1: if if there's a lot of big companies like, wow,
Speaker 1: we need to be in this space, it's the right time.
Speaker 1: It's massive, Okay, we can't do it ourselves. What's the
Speaker 1: best team in the world. Oh, look at jet dot Com.
Speaker 1: They've got the best e commerce team in the world.
Speaker 1: Why because they have all this capital, they hire the
Speaker 1: best people and so it's it's as I always felt
Speaker 1: it was defensible. Some people are against like don't waste
Speaker 1: too much money early, you can burn it in the
Speaker 1: wrong ways and things like that. I've never been like
Speaker 1: a fan of that strategy. I would always say, like,
Speaker 1: raise as much money as you can, as early as
Speaker 1: you can, and hire the best team in your industry.
Speaker 1: If it's a big enough market to support, it's got
Speaker 1: to be a big enough market, the biggest tam it's
Speaker 1: gonna be the right time. But if you literally hire
Speaker 1: the best people. That's what we did with Archer, the
Speaker 1: flying car company that I invested in two years ago.
Speaker 1: Two founders came in, sat on the couch right upstairs
Speaker 1: and said, we have this vision for this flying car.
Speaker 1: It's basically a drone that carries passengers and it's safer,
Speaker 1: a faster, cheaper, all this stuff, big vision. And I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the v I get it. It's the right time.
Speaker 1: It's massive market, massive tam and well, the two founders
Speaker 1: are great, their second time founders. They had a great exit,
Speaker 1: loved them, had all the values and traits that I admire,
Speaker 1: and I think it would be really successful. It's about capital.
Speaker 1: So we need to hire a great engineering team, the
Speaker 1: best in the world. And what they told me was, Mark,
Speaker 1: we need five million. Now we're going We'll go out
Speaker 1: and hire we know where they are, will pull the
Speaker 1: best people from the best companies in the world, will
Speaker 1: have the best engineering team, and then we need to
Speaker 1: raise fifty million to build the very best um flying car.
Speaker 1: And then once we had that, then we should be
Speaker 1: able to go out and raise a billion. And this
Speaker 1: was two years ago, and I said Okay, I totally
Speaker 1: get it. I'm gonna put five million in here. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna help you hire this great, best in the class team,
Speaker 1: and then I'll kick off the fifty million dollar round
Speaker 1: and help you raise fifty and then you're on your own.
Speaker 1: And played out exactly that five million. Hired the very
Speaker 1: best team in the world. Raise fifty because we had
Speaker 1: the best team in the world. Now we're building the
Speaker 1: best aircraft in the world because we have the best
Speaker 1: team and all the learnings from everyone else before us.
Speaker 1: And they spacked and raised a billion, all within two years,
Speaker 1: and now it's at three point seven billion dollar market
Speaker 1: cap company. And it started with a big vision and
Speaker 1: capital in this mentality of like, we're gonna hire the
Speaker 1: very best. I don't mean just good people, I mean
Speaker 1: the very best in the world. And if they didn't
Speaker 1: raise that billion dollars, there's plenty of companies out there
Speaker 1: would say, wait, you only put million this company. You've
Speaker 1: got this incredible state of you are playing in the
Speaker 1: very best team in the world. Yeah, so how do
Speaker 1: you find the best people in the world. I get
Speaker 1: hiring problems all the time, right, there's lots of how
Speaker 1: do I even know that the person in front of
Speaker 1: me is the best. You're just looking at competitors who
Speaker 1: already through the process, and so you're just coming in
Speaker 1: and poaching. Certainly, there's the best people tend to work
Speaker 1: at the best companies, so in the space. So so
Speaker 1: that's I think that's one Existing companies are to disadvantage
Speaker 1: in some ways because they can offer the upside you
Speaker 1: can at the startup. So I think there's there's a
Speaker 1: reason for people to leave, which is always great. Um,
Speaker 1: but also I've just I've also hone my resume reading
Speaker 1: skills tremendously over the years. I used to get burned
Speaker 1: all the time early so many things I just didn't
Speaker 1: understand about, like what things to look for in a resume.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people that like look at
Speaker 1: a resume and see, like I'm looking to hire a CFO. Okay,
Speaker 1: this person is a CFO and there's this company, and
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, great, I'll interview them, and you talk
Speaker 1: to them like, oh, I really like this person, and
Speaker 1: in an hour interview like yeah, let's let's hire them
Speaker 1: because I like them. And you didn't really study the resume.
Speaker 1: You didn't do due diligence. You sort of just just
Speaker 1: saw that there's a CFO and you like them, and
Speaker 1: I call it honey you get honeypotted. You know, you
Speaker 1: just like like the person because they're like you. You think, okay,
Speaker 1: this is a great person to get a beer with
Speaker 1: and stuff. But they're not a superstar. Most people aren't.
Speaker 1: If you say superstar, if you define it as top
Speaker 1: ten percent, only one in ten people of superstars. So
Speaker 1: how do you find the one intent? Every time? I
Speaker 1: think on the resume, if you are really um focused
Speaker 1: on only accepting a certain type of resume to interview,
Speaker 1: much less chance that you get you get burned or
Speaker 1: get honeypotted. And like, I've now pretty good track record
Speaker 1: if a resume qualifies a superstar, and then I bring
Speaker 1: them in and I'll interview them for values and traits,
Speaker 1: like what are the traits to be sure it's a
Speaker 1: good cultural fit. But I don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: whether or not the superstar. A lot of times it's
Speaker 1: not even people that actually have the exact experience. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to sacrifice the experience. But I've never sacrifice
Speaker 1: the superstar resume, and superstar resu may there's a few
Speaker 1: qualities that jump out UM. The most important of which
Speaker 1: is um, did they show a demonstrable level of success
Speaker 1: in every job that they're in, which may seem like yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, of course they no. No, like look at
Speaker 1: the company. Understand how many years are there and how
Speaker 1: many years like the top people and the companies would
Speaker 1: get promoted like their Procter and Gamble and they're there
Speaker 1: for five years. Well, I know when you get in
Speaker 1: Proctor Gamble early, you should get promoted every two years.
Speaker 1: So if you don't have at least two promotions, that's
Speaker 1: the yellow flag. But if you're a Proctor Gum of
Speaker 1: five years and you have two promotions, great, now you're
Speaker 1: leave in Procer and Gamble. And this is the most
Speaker 1: important part. When you leave a job, superstars see step
Speaker 1: changes in level in camp, in company step change. You
Speaker 1: don't see a step change out. So so somebody's like
Speaker 1: you know, the starff and their career and their associate,
Speaker 1: their senior associate, their manager, and then they leave and
Speaker 1: you're like wow, director, like that was a nice step up.
Speaker 1: It's a better company. And then they go director and
Speaker 1: then two years later senior directing like, oh I know
Speaker 1: that company two years of director to seniorrector. That's they
Speaker 1: must really like this person senior director and then there
Speaker 1: for two years and there four years, five years while
Speaker 1: they like state that companies a while, these big moves
Speaker 1: and their senior director and I'm like, okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: moving a lesson's VP boom VP s v P. Like wow,
Speaker 1: this person in you know, college twelve years has gone
Speaker 1: from graduate to s v P at a good company.
Speaker 1: I know that s v P and that company that
Speaker 1: that's gonna be one of the youngest. People like that,
Speaker 1: that's a superstar. And I can short resumes to people
Speaker 1: and they'll say, you know, I totally get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's a superstar. Okay, then just don't settle, like
Speaker 1: wait until you see a resume that has and scream
Speaker 1: superstar and then bring them in. Most people doesn't work
Speaker 1: like that. How many companies are you invested in right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Vision Capital people, there's probably six companies of which m
Speaker 1: CO founders so really involved, two of which that's your day.
Speaker 1: You're working on those companies all day today. I'm watching
Speaker 1: those companies, are working on the Timberwolves. I'm working on
Speaker 1: congrats on that. By the way, thank you crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where do you think e commerce goes from? Here? We're
Speaker 1: post covid, We're out of it, we're post post right,
Speaker 1: it's vaccinated. Covid showed us a lot about what people
Speaker 1: can do from the home, from their computers. People are
Speaker 1: trying to bring physical products to the Internet more than
Speaker 1: ever before. Right, No one wants to go to stores,
Speaker 1: but they kind of do, Like what do you what
Speaker 1: do you think we are in? From the guy that
Speaker 1: a lot of people think predicted the future anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's two with the early stages right now
Speaker 1: of what I think will be two big mega trends
Speaker 1: in retail. One is social commerce and the other's conversational commerce.
Speaker 1: UM social commerce. We just announced that we just arod
Speaker 1: and I just invested in a company called now with
Speaker 1: UM the connect connects brands to inf answers. I think
Speaker 1: there's a really big future on people buying products off
Speaker 1: social media platform So I think that that's that's a
Speaker 1: that's a megatrend, that's early stages, and the other one
Speaker 1: is a conversational commerce. I think people will be using
Speaker 1: text and voice to basically converse things that they want
Speaker 1: to buy with someone who knows them as well as
Speaker 1: their best friend, who has the knowledge of the most
Speaker 1: uh knowledgeable person in the showroom floor of a specialty retailer. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think search engines in twenty years are going
Speaker 1: to be something people will laugh about, like the cassette tape,
Speaker 1: Like so you needed to like go to a search engine.
Speaker 1: You're typing one toaster and you've got ten thousand responses
Speaker 1: and how did you know what's to buy? And you
Speaker 1: had to read reviews and filter and search like that
Speaker 1: seems tiring. It is, it's tiring you. You should be
Speaker 1: able to just say to you in a conversation away, Hey,
Speaker 1: I want to buy a toaster, Oh Ryan, yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: I know. I know what you would ideally want. Here,
Speaker 1: let me give you a couple options, and you're like,
Speaker 1: this one's great, but have one in black? Yeah great, boom,
Speaker 1: I'll take the black one. And then it's just done,
Speaker 1: like there's no you just converse and and and shot.
Speaker 1: That way, you don't need to to this archaic you know,
Speaker 1: search engine and do all this work and scrolling, especially
Speaker 1: on products that are more commoditized, like I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know there'll still be some clothing apparel and things like
Speaker 1: that that you want to browse and discover like discovery.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, most things you don't need discovery,
Speaker 1: you know, you just you just need something for anyone
Speaker 1: who's listening. And I think, um uh, you've been awesome
Speaker 1: and taking a considerable amount of time with me today,
Speaker 1: So this has been great. Um But like as a
Speaker 1: last little piece of advice to people who are you know,
Speaker 1: either out of work now or thinking about quitting their
Speaker 1: job or doing something they don't like right, kind of
Speaker 1: like where you were when you're in the bank, great job,
Speaker 1: it's fine, and you're on that ledge of hey, we
Speaker 1: can go and do something much much better for myself.
Speaker 1: What what what? What if I do you have for
Speaker 1: those people who are just too scared, too nervous. They
Speaker 1: have responsibilities, there's life. It's not going to work out,
Speaker 1: like it's one thing to say yeah, but you never know,
Speaker 1: so just go try it. Yeah. I think I have
Speaker 1: a have a unique advice here, and not everyone shares
Speaker 1: the same way of thinking. My advice is there's no halfway,
Speaker 1: Like you can't dip your toe in, do it on
Speaker 1: nights and weekends and things like that's the chance of
Speaker 1: it working is just so much lower. My thing is
Speaker 1: like jump, like literally put yourself in a position where
Speaker 1: you cannot afford to fail. Some people do the opposite
Speaker 1: and say, well I can't do that because I can't
Speaker 1: afford to fail. Yeah, well, put yourself in the position
Speaker 1: that you can't afford to fail, and you won't like
Speaker 1: you just won't let yourself um, and so it's uh,
Speaker 1: there there are people capable of doing things that they
Speaker 1: don't even know are possible. I'd like to use the
Speaker 1: six gear analogy where I think, you know, you're working
Speaker 1: in a bank. I was killing myself working eight hundred
Speaker 1: hours a week. People lawyers and things, lots of professions
Speaker 1: working really hard. You're in fourth gear, and people like
Speaker 1: fourth gear. No way, man, I'm in sixth gear. I'm like,
Speaker 1: d I can't go any harder? Is you can? You can?
Speaker 1: Your life not on the line. You're not gonna get
Speaker 1: killed if you if if you know, if you get fired,
Speaker 1: you'll find another job. Like you're not in six gear.
Speaker 1: When you actually jump and you quit and you have
Speaker 1: a family and you have to pay bills and you
Speaker 1: quit and you have a certain amount of money before
Speaker 1: it runs out, and you have to make it work,
Speaker 1: you wind up doing things that you didn't know you
Speaker 1: were capable of doing. Like literally, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: if I told you, let me look at you're in
Speaker 1: good shape. But if I told you, like you need
Speaker 1: to like bike across the country in thirty days, you
Speaker 1: might say, no, way, I can't do that. I'm like
Speaker 1: out of shape. That's like, you know, a hundred miles
Speaker 1: a day for thirty straight days. I can't do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: gun to your head, kill you if you don't do
Speaker 1: it suddenly like you do, I'll do it. You know,
Speaker 1: you might be like nearly dead when you get there,
Speaker 1: but you like in your mind you think, no, I
Speaker 1: won't die, I'll figure it out, like I'll somehow someway,
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out. That's kind of what happens with
Speaker 1: with entrepreneurship. When you put yourself in that position. You
Speaker 1: go from I can't I'll figure it out, like I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna die, I'm gonna figure it out. And and
Speaker 1: it's just there's a different thing that comes and takes
Speaker 1: over your body and your mind and enables you to
Speaker 1: focus in a way that just would be impossible if
Speaker 1: you had like one ft in. So many people do
Speaker 1: that like kind of like try it or and they're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know why this is not working, like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm like, we have a full time job. Like you
Speaker 1: gotta quit, you gotta go, you gotta jump. Big Money
Speaker 1: Energy is hosted by me Ryan Sirhands. It's produced by
Speaker 1: Mike Cosparelli and Joe Loresca and executive produced by Lindsay
Speaker 1: By More podcasts like Big Money In or G on
Speaker 1: the iPark Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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