Founder's Story - Past President of Playboy and Lion Capital Partner | Ep. 62 with Matthew Nordby

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

Prior to joining Lion Capital, Matthew Nordby served as President of Playboy Enterprises, leading their global licensing business to over $1.5bn in annual revenue. Prior to this, Matthew served as an executive in the technology industry which included building software start-up Greenplum, acquired by EMC in 2010. He launched his career at Sun Microsystems where he held various leadership positions. Matthew received his BA from Auburn University.   For more info on guests and future episodes visit KateHancock.comOur 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

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur and named one of the most influential Filipina in the world, Kate Hancock. Matt, where did you grow up? Yeah, so I grew up in the Midwest in the United States. I grew up in a town called Indianapolis, Indiana, and went to school at Auburn University because unlike most people that went off to various schools on the East Coast, I actually wanted some culture. And so I felt like I had been fortunate enough to travel around the United States. I'd never been to the state of Alabama. So I ended up going to Auburn University, which we affectionately refer to as the Harvard of

Alabama, which is a little bit like being the tallest second grader. Because I went there more for a college experience than I did necessarily academic pursuits at the time. Wow. And how did you end up doing all these things? What was the very first job? What was it? So ironically, you'll get a kick out of it. And when Dan introduced me, it's Local Bounty. And ironically, Local Bounty is a company we were very fortunate. We just opened the New York Stock Exchange the first week of December. And it's an ag tech company. But my first job was when I was 12 years, I think I was 13. So it must have put me right around sixth grade. I got a job at the farm behind my house in Indiana and started learning how to bale hay. And so as we opened the New York Stock Exchange with my CEO and my partner at Local

Bounty, who grew up on a wheat farm, it was sort of fitting that all that experience all those years ago led us to taking an agriculture technology company public, which we did the first week of December. So that was my first job. And then I had a series of jobs in retail and, you know, just I loved working with people. So I got off the farm pretty quickly and realized that bailing A wasn't necessarily my future, but it was a fun story now that I'm in the ag business with the investment in local bounty. Wow. And what was the driving force from all of this? Is that like who motivates you or what motivates you?

Yeah, look, I think life for me, at least I lost my mom very suddenly when I was 21. So I was a senior in college and I was sort of you guys remember sort of being being sort of the end of your university time. You know, you have a lot of big decisions to make. And I was living in Auburn, Alabama, you know, going through my senior year, having a lot of fun. And I got a phone call that my mom had passed away. And I guess there's two ways you can go when you deal with tragedy. One is, you know, you can mope in it and why me and all that good stuff. But for me, I actually look back and I get that question.

And I would say everything I've done since that moment of learning of her untimely passing was really to sort of magnify what I learned from her. And, you know, wanted to take her light and her soul and spread the universe in a positive way. And so for me, that was a motivating factor. And I probably crammed a lot of my career into a short amount of time because I was motivated by the fact I wanted to do good. And I think that that tragic event really accelerated my desire to contribute something, both to my career, but to other people's lives.

I'm sure your mom is watching you right now. What do you think her reaction? Well, I think the playboy turn was unlikely for everyone, but I think she'd be very proud. I hope she'd be very proud. But what I'm most proud of, obviously, is being a father. The two great daughters, I have a five and a seven-year-old daughter, and I know she would have loved to spend time with them and been with them. But to answer your question very bluntly, I think tragedy really has a way of accelerating if you use it in the right way and motivating you.

And I'm sure other people on the clubhouse have had similar experiences. So you have two daughters. I do. And okay, so would you ever tell a story that you're past president of Playboy and tell that story? Oh, Kate, you're going to love this. So my daughter, who is seven, everyone, I live in a town, for those of you on Clubhouse, on the northern tip of Lake Tahoe, an inclined village, Nevada. And a lot of tech entrepreneurs, a lot of well-known people in the tech industry that have been successful buy homes here. And the reason they do is because it's a very quiet town where people keep to themselves. But it's also everyone knows everyone. And so in my daughter's class, I'm known as the president of Playboy. And my daughter has leaned into it. She's told him about spending her first Easter at the Playboy

Mansion back when we owned the mansion. And I have pictures of her at the zoo. And I'm very open. I'm married a European and, you know, she's very smart, feminist, way smarter than me. And I found that by doing that, she's a great example to our daughters. And we just are very open and honest with them. We have coffee table books of Leroy Neiman and some of the great characters he did of Playboy. And we're very open. We want to be honest with our kids. And I have nothing to be ashamed of in that department. Well, I have to say, it's just a beautiful property.

It's a picture perfect everywhere. It's loaded with green grass, even the walls. And Dan and I have to say, we played around by the Grotto and took a lot of picture. Well, I won't review the security footage from that, but okay. Well, that was a charity event. And you know what happened? Richard Branson was there and we didn't ended up not seeing him because we ended up exploring the whole place. There's so many people. But what is that like running Playboy? Yeah, well, it took a team of us. I had a great partnership, including with with Heth himself.

You know, it was it was interesting for those of you who are intellectually curious, but I think every great entrepreneur has to be by definition. It really taught me about a lot of different industries. I had spent the majority of my career in tech and what Playboy thought they were getting when they hired me was someone that could help them take a print magazine and essentially make it a digital first property. But what I ended up spending my time on was building a licensing business for them and really helping take the iconic rabbit head and bringing it to the forefront, opening 3,500 stores in China, for example, and building a brand in Brazil around the spirits and beer space. And so I learned a lot, but probably the biggest thing here for those listening in the U.S., Playboy is viewed as a media company.

It's really an iconic brand. And I sort of liken it to all the various interests in a Berkshire Hathaway where you have multiple businesses that are loosely connected. But I was doing things with hospitality CEOs. I was meeting people in the tech industry. I was hosting world-class entrepreneurs. You mentioned one already. A lot of them don't like to be mentioned, but suffice it to say my Rolodex and my relationships really broadened at Playboy. And I just, I learned to appreciate what Hef stood for as well, which a lot of people, when you ask my question about my daughter, what she'll learn of Hef as she gets older is that he was a very empowering figure in a very decisive time where segregation in the South was happening. And Hef was telling them, we're not going to shut down the New Orleans club. We're going to have African-American singers come in and perform. And Hef was on the forefront of issues like gay marriage. And so I'm very proud of what the company stood for. And for those that take time to really learn it and know it, and again, my wife's a feminist,

so if she didn't believe this to be true, she would have never been excited about her husband being the president at Playboy. But I would just say I learned a lot about the culture and what Hef gave back to society. I think there's a big story there that people miss. Matt, I'm kind of curious, what is your zone of genius? You went from agriculture to beauty to licensing deals in VC.

I mean, what is your zone of genius of all of that? I appreciate you using that word. I'm far from a genius. What I would say is I'm super interested in people and in industries. And so I have a really interesting, I mean, I'll just share agriculture, which is probably the most out, sort of outside the scope

of what I've traditionally worked on. I have a SPAC franchise, and this is back before everybody and their brother and every celebrity had a SPAC. I partnered with Lyndon Lee, who's the founder of Lion Capital and a handful of other executives. And we brought a SPAC to market and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. And I had the good

fortune of meeting a couple of wonderful entrepreneurs in controlled environmental agriculture. And if you look at a macro level, Kate, what's so interesting is a lot of industries have been disrupted and most recently FinTech. And then you're hearing about the metaverse, Web 3.0 and where we're going there. Right. What I would say is agriculture has had very little disruption. You're still buying food from a farm that's got underpaid labor somewhere in Arizona, in some cases in Mexico. And the food safety is a concern. And so I was really interested in the sector. And so I got to know the CEO there and we were fortunate to take them public.

And as I mentioned at the top of this, we opened the New York Stock Exchange for a week in December and Local Bounty now trades under the ticker LOCL on the New York Stock Exchange. Is this the first company that you took public? It's not. It's the second. Yeah. We also took a company called DMS and I was fortunate enough to open the New York Stock Exchange in 2010. I had a startup company called Green Plum, which sold to EMC. And for all of you entrepreneurs that have had the opportunity to go public or to sell to a strategic, the one bummer about selling to a strategic is you don't get to open the stock exchange. So when we sold the business Green Plum, which is a data analytics company, to EMC Corporation, which is now owned by Dell, EMC was kind enough to let us go open the New York Stock Exchange as a result of that 2010 acquisition.

So it was my second time there, and the thrill was just as exciting. Yeah, so what is that like, preparing a company to go public? Honestly, the most important thing is the management team. It's all about, you know, it's sometimes I'm shy about associating with the private equity label that you often get. I always joke with people that I had a real job, much like all the entrepreneurs listening in before I went down the finance route. And I say that half jokingly because it's really hard to build a business. And if you can find a great management team, as we believe we did, and for example, Local Bounty, you know, the character of those people really matters and the drive and their ability to deliver against their numbers really matters,

particularly in the public market. So I would say character and integrity are the first two characteristics. And then the know-how of it. They use a term that really registers with me. It's sort of a GE term. It's called servant leadership, right? And it's the whole idea of the org chart being upside down. I learned this when I was at Sun Microsystems as well. The org chart's upside down. So every board I'm on, I always start and end the meeting by saying, I work for you. I need to know what you need from the board. And there needs to be an ask, because to me, that's the competence of a good management team, is having some good ask and putting their board to work for them versus just viewing them as reporting to a board well one of my ultimate dream is to IPO one company

so definitely going to call you once it happened it's going to be from my home country Philippines so you're going to have a call from me once I'm putting it together. But this is amazing. Dan, do you have a question for Matt? I mean, Matt, what a story. I mean, transitioning among different industries. And I'm really curious, how have you continued? And you talked about your Rolodex. And I think a lot of people here were on this app, which is a big networking piece among relationships. What advice do you give to people or what's worked for you in terms of not only just building

relationships, but also maintaining those relationships as you go? Yeah. Thanks for asking that question. And as some of you will note, today's my first day on Clubhouse. So I sort of have a love-hate relationship with social media and that I love to be helpful to people. But at the same time, I'm also fairly private. Hence why I live in Incline Village versus LA or New York and some of the cities I've lived in Hong Kong prior to this. So what I would say is I'm actually very open to people who send me emails or reach out on platforms such as LinkedIn

that actually have an ask that is more is more helpful to them than it is. They want to sell me something. I'm sure we all get these LinkedIn very cold. You know, hey, you've got to hear about my service. Oh, here's my automatic scheduler, which, by the way, is my pet peeve. We're like, find a time when I'm open and we'll get together kind of thing. It's like, yeah. So, so from my perspective, if there's some sincerity and some authenticity, Dan, I think it's really, you know, you know, democratizing how to get ahold of people. I think that's fine. I think that's good to do. I'm not as active on, on, you know, Twitter or on Instagram or Facebook or Clubhouse, but I do keep an active LinkedIn profile and I usually accept people I know or that I can be helpful to. Well, I'm curious with that. How would you want someone to approach you? I think this is interesting that I'm sure a lot of people out there, you know, they want to go

like you're saying, pitch an investor or VC or talk about their, you know, we've heard different things like, you know, why don't pitch right away, maybe build some relationship. How would somebody like yourself like it to be approached by somebody, you know, through a social channel or an email? Yeah, again, I think it's less about the forum. I'm fine getting LinkedIn. I try and keep up on my messages. I ignored it a bit during my Playboy tenure because you can imagine some of the messages I got on LinkedIn, which is not exactly the right platform to get those messages. But in all kidding aside, I think as long as the ask, the ask is more important than the platform to me. If you send me an email and you say, hey, I want to get together because what I have to talk about is important versus calling and asking for advice, mentorship. Nine times out of 10, I'm going to want to try and help. And so what I would say to you is that I think it's really the sincerity in

which you approach people. And it's not this, hey, I've got this widget or this product or this software to sell you kind of mentality. And I also, Dan, you know, it's not lost on me that I'm a son of a band teacher from, you know, in the middle of America. And I've been fortunate to live out what most would call the American dream and have a lot of different industry experiences. And it feels like every five or 10 years being able to reinvent myself into a new industry or into a new network of people.

And so all I would say is, I think the sincerity in which you approach people matters. And I'm very tuned in to wanting to help people because I was helped along the way by a series of mentors and others. Which is my next question. Who's your favorite mentor? Who's the mentor of all audience here, but Scott McNeely founded a company called Sun Microsystems, and he's the original pioneer of Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs looked up to him and Bill Gates lamented him. Scott had the professional courage to take Bill Gates to Washington, D.C. and call him a monopolist when that was an unpopular thing to do. And Scott led the charge for the government on the antitrust case against Microsoft. The irony of all that now is Satya Nadelli, who's the CEO of Microsoft, was a mentee of Scott McNeely's. And Eric Schmidt, who many of you know,

was a mentee and an employee of Sun Microsystems. And so sort of answering your question bluntly, I've had a lot of people help me. Scott McNeely is one of them. There's another gentleman who I worked with, a playboy by the name of Scott Flanders, is the CEO, a playboy, my partner. But before that, we're in Columbia House. And he was very helpful as well. And every every day I meet somebody, I try and learn something from them. Maybe that's selfish of me, but I always try and learn things. And when I see something I like, I don't view it being stealing. I just try and, you know, sort of take up the best of or the greatest hits of some of these people that I've had the pleasure of working around. I'm wondering, Matt, what was the most challenging experience you've had to overcome while running all of this? Yeah, I would say Playboy, there were plenty of challenges. I'll back up. In my

tech career, I left Sun Microsystems. I was 35, I assume I was 25, running a $300 million business for Sun. Scott McNeely, who has a home here in town, who was the CEO of Sun at the time said, what were you thinking? And he jokes to everybody that he had no other options, which is why he had to promote a 25 year old to run that business for him. But I left Sun, which was a Fortune 200 company at the time. And I was making great money. And I had everything more than I'd ever dreamed of in my career, just being a young Midwest kid. And, you know, what I'll tell you is, is that that experience was super humbling going to Green Plum, where they didn't have a website. Nobody knew anything about the company. I was taking meetings with very low level people just to get in the door and eating Chinese food in the basement with some database administrator where I was used to meeting with

C-level executives having some of my business cards. So that was humbling, but that was actually a really important moment for me because I would have slept the floors and run the company at the same time because that's what a startup is. And I'm sure many of your entrepreneurs can relate to that. And then lastly, at Playboy, I came into a business that really needed to transform how it viewed itself. And so taking a legacy media business and turning it into a brand management company had a lot of cultural challenges. And so that was a very difficult balance. I'm thinking if Playboy is still alive at this current environment, what do you think is that? What does that look like?

You're talking about Playboy, the brand? Well, look, I had the good fortune of talking to their current CEO and their public company. So you guys can get out and take a look at them. They're on the NASDAQ under the ticker PLBY. I have no financial interest in the company at all, but I thought I'd just share that for those of you interested in learning about it. Look, I think Playboy as a business is doing all the right things.

So they've moved the magazine, which was published 12 times a year when I was there. They've moved that back and really created more of a digital content experience. But most importantly, they're leaning into things that you and I were talking about at the beginning of this. They're leaning into things such as NFTs. They built a platform called Centerfold, which I think the market's going to hear more about, which is exciting. And most importantly, the licensing business, which I'm super thrilled to share with you, is thriving. Not only is it thriving, but they've bought a couple of businesses that gives them new distribution. They bought a lingerie business in Australia.

And I think they're doing all the right things. I think being under the eyes of the public market is difficult. But Playboy has held up well. And I think it's an iconic brand that will continue to do well in the market. Wow. Matt, how do you want to be remembered? I want to be remembered as a good husband and a good dad. That's all that matters to me. There you go, Dan. That was amazing, Dan. And Matt, where can they find you? Or I'm not sure that's LinkedIn. Is that the best way for people to... I know that's boring and that makes me sound like I'm 72 instead of 42.

But that's exactly where I spend time. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I like to... I'm fairly private on social channels and don't use it for self-promotion purposes. Occasionally, I'll send a tweet out from a friend that's got something going that they want to retweet on or something.

But I'm not very active on anything but LinkedIn. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. that they want to retweet on or something, but I'm not very active on anything but LinkedIn.