Founder's Story - Celebrity Collaborations: Ben Weiss on Seizing Opportunities and Building Impactful Connections | S2: E55

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

In this episode of Founder's Story with Daniel Robbins, Daniel sits down with Ben Weiss, the host of Legends and Leaders and founder of FlightX. Ben shares his inspiring journey from a tech enthusiast in Phoenix to a successful entrepreneur collaborating with stars like Lil Durk. He dives into how his passion for entrepreneurship was sparked by Steve Jobs’ biography and how networking at key events helped him secure high-profile opportunities.Ben emphasizes the importance of having a clear vision, taking risks, and always being open to new connections. His story is a testament to the power of saying “yes” and making the most of every opportunity. Listeners will learn valuable lessons on building impactful relationships and achieving success in the competitive world of business.Key Points Discussed:Ben's early inspiration from Steve Jobs and his journey into entrepreneurship.The significance of networking and how attending a billionaire's birthday party led to a major collaboration.Strategies for pitching and securing deals with high-profile artists.The importance of having a clear vision and plan when approaching potential partners.Ben's insights on the evolving creator economy and the future of content creators.Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey everyone, welcome back to Founders Story. Something that I want to know is, how do I work with a celebrity? How do I get a famous artist to say yes to collaborating with me? It's something I've always wanted to do. I have my sights set on a few people, but how do I do it? That's why today we have Ben Weiss, the host of Legends and Leaders and the founder of FlightX. He's worked with incredible people like Lil Durk. He had his sneaker and incredible people working on it too. And he's going to dive into all that

and share the exact secret to success on that. But Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. Excited to be here. So Ben, how did your passion for entrepreneurship begin? What was that spark that you said, you know what, I want to be an entrepreneur? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, since I was young, I was always interested in technology and entrepreneurship. I think it started along two different things. One was that the Steve Jobs book came out by Walter Isaacson. And when that happened, my mom and I were reading that on the porch outside. I used to live in Arizona. I grew up in Phoenix.

And there was just so many fascinating things in there about the type of – it wasn't just about making money. It was just the lifestyle that he wanted. He wanted this opportunity to do something bigger than himself, something to change the world, to make a dent in the universe. And that was like pretty inspirational. It's like, wow, this guy could do that through creating really cool consumer products. And also Daniel, when like the iPod started to come out and it was just this incredibly beautiful device that was just, I mean, it was gorgeous, you know, from the physical hardware standpoint, the software was really seamless. It worked really well. I saw that and I got one and I was like,

wow, this is just incredible. Like I want to build things like this. Like this is just so disruptive. It's a small little thing, you know, but it has all this power. You can have so many songs on this and apps and eventually, et cetera. And it also had a camera. It was everything in one. It was like, wow, like you can build something like this. Like this is what I want to spend my life doing. I want to build impactful consumer products products so that's kind of how it began um and then you know i went to college uh at yu yeshiva university in new york and got a business degree there and after that happened i was like gotta make something happen you you know gotta figure out how i want to go on this path and um you know fortunately i went to this birthday party of this guy moishimana moishimana is a for those who don't

know has become a real estate billionaire and he actually immigrated to the United States and was sleeping on like park benches, like had no money whatsoever and built up a real estate portfolio by investing in Miami pretty early on and also transforming the area. Like if you ever go to Wynwood, Miami, people have heard of the Wynwood walls. You know, there are these beautiful paintings and murals all over that. He said he spent like $2 million a year at a point just painting up the area and making it something that people would want to be in. And he throws this free birthday party every year, to my knowledge, every year to really celebrate what he's done in that area and get people into like Wynwood and Miami. And so a friend at the time was like, Hey, Ben, why don't you come to this birthday party? There's probably

some great connections for you to meet people here. I was like, Okay, you know, let me do that. So you know, I didn't go haven't been to parties really like that at the time. And so I dressed up in a nice suit with a bow tie, you know, like with nice shoes and everything. You know, I didn't know what I was going to expect there, Daniel. So I show up to this party and, you know, it's a fantastic time. And I have a friend, the friend who told me to come there was like, hey, let me get you a VIP. So there's like three different VIP sections. He gets me into them. And I basically spend my time networking and trying to connect with the right

people and figure out, you know, how to how to really get an opportunity in this space. And I had some ideas at the time. I didn't really meet anybody in the first section, tried the second section, didn't really meet anybody. And I was like three hours into this, you know, at this party. And eventually right at the end, when I was about to leave, he's like, you got to come into this last section. So I came in and I met this guy was super connected in hip hop. And through him, we got to Dirk and spent like 15 hours on a pitch deck and so on and so forth and luckily was able to get it done. Wow. I mean, there's so many things to dissect there. Steve Jobs, I mean, talk about not going into it just for money, going into it to change the world.

So I'm glad that you brought that up. And also saying yes to the meeting. I know so many people that will, they won't do something. They'll say no because they're like, oh, well, what's in it for me, right? Like, what am I going to get out of this? Or it doesn't fit into my day today. Not understanding that if you want to make it happen

like you did, you got to go out want to make it happen like you did, you've got to go out there and make it happen. And you've got to say, yes, you've got to put yourself in the right people, which means it might be uncomfortable. It might make you feel uncomfortable. So you did that. So what's next? So you did this pitch deck, you pitched him. And then how did you really get this to move to the next level? Yeah. So I totally totally agree you've got to put yourself out there and be willing to to take risks and i even with like meetings and stuff like i i always am pretty open to taking maybe 10 minutes 15 minutes talking to somebody because you

never know what could come of that so with this case in particular you know so i meet this guy he's well connected in hip-hop and actually the way he looked at the time was he was wearing shorts in a hoodie and i met this billionaire's birthday party. So I was a little bit like, I don't know if this guy really fits in here. What's going on? A little different. But I was like, OK, I'll give him a shot. And so we got the meeting with Dirk. I mean, it took some time.

But I identified Dirk as somebody who would be a great potential fit because he had a great audience, like 14 million people following him on Instagram at the time, a million likes a post. And he was poised to have potentially the number one album in hip Instagram at the time, a million likes a post. And he was poised to have potentially the number one album in hip hop at the time. And it actually did become the number one album, his next album after that. So I thought this was a good opportunity. So we had to work through a couple of different people. We get this meeting and, you know, I give it my all. Like I'm just this young guy, right. And trying to make something happen in this space. And you got this

artist here who's, you know, worth millions and become very successful. And so just really told him like, hey, this is what the opportunity is. If you're not going to get a brand deal from a major footwear brand, you know, you're not going to be able to monetize in this space. And it potentially could be one of the most lucrative categories for you. And we can bring you that type of quality that you know and love from other products out there. We can bring that to this, you know, and we can also do it different. We can make you stand out and be innovative. Like you're going to embrace nft technology we're going to give you a digital version um at the time as well and he i think he bought into that concept and saw the passion that i had and that the team had for wanting to do this with him and not everyone sees that all the time

when you're pitching them so his team basically is like okay give us a contract so unfortunately i have some family that are attorneys so they helped me out with that and, give us a contract. So, you know, fortunately I have some family that are attorneys, so they helped me out with that. And we got him a contract, you know, pretty quickly. But it took some time, took a little bit, couple of weeks after till we got him on it and signed. And it was significant, you know, to be able to get an opportunity like that. I think, you know, part of it was the timing of it, that everybody was interested in doing something in the NFT space at the time and he didn't have a project yet. And then also the fact that he understood it, you know, sometimes people pitch others on ideas and they don't fully understand the target audience. And he understood, hey, I like shoes. I am in the space. I enjoy it. Let me actually

make something that's my own, even if I don't fully understand the NFT components overall. And so we got that together. And one of the biggest promotional opportunities for it was the Full Send podcast. I had the opportunity to be on the Full Send podcast with him and then put it together, help with that. And which had around 4 million views, um, that podcast. And that's a lot of wonders for us and help put that together through a friend of mine, Casey, who happened to know one of the managers behind the scenes and called him up. And he just met this, you know, one of them like three days before, and we connected it all. And then we're on a yacht in Miami shooting this podcast. So a lot of great opportunities came from it. I mean, if I'm going to shoot a podcast, I want to be on a yacht in Miami.

There's no other place, maybe a yacht in Monaco, but I mean, a yacht in Miami sounds incredible. It seems to me like you're really good at seeing opportunities and then going for those opportunities, but also being able to get other people to buy into your vision, which I think is what Steve Jobs did so well is, you know, he's the visionary of which it sounds like you are too, you're the visionary, and you're getting people to buy into your vision. And it sounds like you're very passionate about this. So what do you see as being next? What are you doing next? I don't know if you can talk about any projects, maybe touch on your podcast as well. Sure.

Yeah. So, I mean, just to kind of talk about the point you just mentioned, like having a vision, I think is so important. You have to have a clear direction. Not everybody has a vision and it takes some time to figure out what direction you want to go in. But I think there's an element of respect and it's much easier to convince people to do something

if you have a really all-encompassing plan and then they can see the vision that you have. So I think it's a really important aspect. But it's got to be clear how to execute that vision. You need to have steps in order to get to that point and make it clear to them. This is not just a pie in the sky type of idea. This is something that can be real. And I think that that's what he related to there. In terms of what's next. So right now I've been hosting a podcast that has some similarities to what you do. It's called Legends and Leaders because those are the two categories of people we want to interview. You know, people that have done something legendary

or a current leader or previous leader. And we've had on some great guests like Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank and Miss Universe from America last year, or Vinola, the person who invented Shazam. But the goal is to break down the steps in people's journeys. Because I think that a lot of times

you see interviews of people and they're like at a certain point and they've achieved a lot and you kind of see them when they're at that point. And then they share a little bit before, a little bit after. But like the steps, I think, how did you get educated in this area? How did you go and scale this? What did it take to get the financing for it?

I think those steps are super important the future for content creators and physical apparel products. And so that's something that we're going to we're working on actively getting into. I think there's a lot of exciting potential. So the last few months I've been practicing how to learn Spanish because it is really a passion of mine. I've been using Rosetta Stone. Why? Because it immerses you in the language without having translation. So you can really learn to speak, listen, and think in that language. It starts naturally with words, then phrases, and soon you're forming sentences designed for long-term retention, which has always been my issue. They

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use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. Our audience gets a special offer of $1,000 off Vanta at vanta.com slash founders. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash founders for $1,000 off. Now back to the show. Ben, I mean, this whole creator's economy thing is just, as we know, it's just continuing to be bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, so many companies that I know, they don't even do

regular social media ads anymore or traditional advertising right they're using user generated content uh they're doing now tick tock shop amazon live like all these things it's really becoming uh the creator's economy is like the backbone of a lot of marketing and a lot of abilities but there's also a piece where i don't see a lot of times where creators do something that is successful without them selling somebody else's products right or somebody else's brand so how do you see that going you see creators just continuing to sell other people's items or are they gonna make their own items and if so how can a creator be successful if they're building their own brand yeah i think it's a good point um daniel i think that content creators are going to get the same opportunities that athletes have currently i mean

they've got just as much reach as these athletes they've just as much influence and arguably they have more influence in certain areas because they're the ones posting content and interacting with their audiences every single day. Athletes, a lot of their fame is a derivative of the performance that they have. You know, you perform well in a basketball game, you gain a certain amount of following, just like we just saw over the Olympics with guys like Noah Lyles, you know, gain an incredible following after his performances with racing. And that's great and all, and they can interact with their audience. But a lot of these content creators, their job is to grow an audience every single day. So I think that that's just a bit different.

And I think that the athlete-level opportunities will be provided to this type of talent class to have their own products, to have products that really embody what their brand is about. And there are some that are building their own brands, but I think that's just going to go and really become a much bigger portion of these people's revenue and not just focus as much on ads because they've got the audiences and now there needs to be somebody that really offers to them the opportunity that also puts them on the same pedestal that athletes are with that type of quality of product with the opportunities to scale globally like athletes have and really the entire supply chain that's the same if not even better for these types of people so when

that happens i think that's when this creator economy will become really a whole different place. And it will also inspire a new generation to go after their dreams and the opportunities that they want, because they'll be able to be in the products of the people that they admire and they love. And right now, you know, it's not like everybody looks up to be, you know, to be an athlete and it's really shifted a lot. Last number I saw, it's like 50% of the youth wants to be content creators. You know, they want to go after that type of

dream and ambition. They want to be a YouTuber, a Twitch streamer, etc. So we need to give them the opportunities to dream and believe that and what better way to prepare and other things in that category. How do you feel about college? So, you know, if I could be a creator and maybe I don't need to go to college or I can get a job, I don't need to go to college or I can get a job I don't need to go to college or maybe I do need to go to college there's a lot of back and forth dialogue around this I'm curious on on your perspectives at being the age that you are and the experiences that you're having so how do you see this should somebody go and be a creator maybe try entrepreneurship maybe the both or go to school? What are your

opinion on this? Yeah, it's a good point. That's a good question. I think the college right now, it really just depends on who the person is. Some people maybe aren't cut out for college, and there's nothing wrong with that. You can go on any path and become successful. I really, truly believe that that's possible. But college is something that I went through. I learned a lot from being in college because I thought that the discipline and you learn a certain regimen that is like a work-life balance for you later on. I think that those things are helpful. You do get exposed to interesting ideas. I was fortunate to have New York City as the campus that I was on. So there's so many opportunities in New York City if you want to take advantage of it.

For example, because I was in New York, I went to this talk at Cornell Tech and they had the president of Microsoft at the time. And this was when they were trying to deal with AI and how to make AI not biased on certain things. And so I just walked up to him and gave him some advice on that. And then later, Microsoft wound up putting something out that had some similarities to what we discussed. And at the time, he told me he's like, that was a good idea. That is an interesting angle. So you never know what can come of it. And I got to learn a lot from him and from other people in the area. So there are certain opportunities that can arise. I think that you've got to be mindful of the expenses that come with college. But statistics show that 50% wind up earning like 50% more if

you have a college degree versus not if you do go into that field. But if somebody is an entrepreneur, I think it's a nice fallback. You know, it's something that I've got a college degree. It can be reputable for raising money from funds. They see, hey, you went to this college. They know a certain kind of product comes out of that college. So there are other benefits, even if you're an entrepreneur and you're not using it for a job that can come from that. Wow. I could say one thing about you is that you are a go getter. Like you have no problem going up to somebody and talking to them. Like who would have gone up

to the president of Microsoft at that time and given them advice when they're in college? I think a lot of people would have imposter syndrome or just don't think that they should even do that and how's that gonna be? But I can tell that that is not something that impacts you negatively like you go up there you make it happen that's super inspiring and so i hope a lot of people see this and i hope they're also inspired if people want to get in touch with you

they want to find out more because i know you have tons more things coming up on the pipeline how can they do so yeah um they could reach out to me on linkedin or any other social media instagram twitter or x um any of those would be good um but i think just like daniel you know Yeah, they could reach out to me on LinkedIn or any other social media, Instagram, Twitter, or X. Any of those would be good. But I think just like Daniel, it's important that you go and you try to go after what you want in life. And what's really the worst that could happen if I didn't go talk to the president of Microsoft

and I would have gained nothing, no other potential knowledge from that. And even if I shared with him an idea and he didn't like the idea, you know, okay, so that's that. Maybe he doesn't remember me. I mean, there's nothing really to lose. So, you know, if you have nothing to lose, then might as well talk to him, right? Hey, I like that. If you got nothing to lose, there's been some times where I'm regretful in life. Like, man, I should have talked to that person. Like I was right there. Then I had times where I did talk to somebody. I said the dumbest stuff ever, but times where i did talk to somebody i said the dumbest stuff ever but at least i did talk to them so at least i could say i talked to this person because

if i didn't i'd be more regretful i think you're more regretful when you don't do something than when you make a mistake and you do something so you know take that to heart but i appreciate you ben always great having you love Love the show, podcast. Thank you for also having me on as a guest. And, man, you got to come back because I can't wait to see what you're working on next. I know you got some stealth projects, something in the works that you're working on. So I'd love to follow up with that as well and see you again here on Founders Story. Thanks for having me on.

I love what you're doing. I think it's great for entrepreneurs and others to learn from people's stories. And I think you do a nice job hosting. So thanks for this.