In Search Of Excellence - Brian Lee: A Roadmap to Success – Passion, Dedication, Innovation, and the Power of Influencers | E45
Episode Date: January 24, 2023Brian Lee is a rock-star serial entrepreneur and incredibly successful venture capitalist. He is also a great philanthropist dedicated to leaving and impact and giving back to the community.He is a co...-founder and ex-CEO of LegalZoom, a co-founder and ex-CEO of ShoeDazzle, a co-founder and ex-CEO of the Art of Sport, co-founder and current CEO of Arena Club, and co-founder of the incredibly successful venture capital firm, BAM ventures.Brian Lee is also an amazing person, dear friend, and a mentor and I am very grateful for having him on In Search of Excellence!(01:04) – Working with Celebrities (Kobe Bryant and Kim Kardashian)Learning about the power of influencers(08:45) – The Importance of PassionArena club: Passion not only about the mission, but also the serviceThe idea was to digitize the physical and build a community(14:43) – The Entrepreneurial Desire to Fix What is BrokenEntrepreneurs are not happy with the status quo – change themGood preparation is extremely important to be successful (sometimes it doesn’t work, but that’s ok)(17:40) – Extreme Preparation at LegalZoom(54:15) – Advice to Students Who Want to Pursue Venture CapitalToday we have all kinds of venture capitalUse a unique approach if you do not have industry contacts (go to events and meet people, go to LinkedIn, find mutual contacts)Raising capital for LegalZoom (persistence is the key, you are literally begging for money) – you have to be that annoying person(29:06) – What’s the Secret of Work-Life Balance?Working around 100 hours a week, no social life, things are different nowTip for organizing emails(34:20) – The Most Important Elements of SuccessWork and work ethic, being empathetic and understanding people, having a good support networkEveryone has a different path, and every company culture is different(39:43) – Philanthropy and Giving Back to the CommunityBrian’s philanthropic workThe importance of doing good and making an impactResources Mentioned:LegalZoomThe Honest CompanySponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn
Transcript
Discussion (0)
I believe in God. I'm Christian. And I really do believe that everything that we do here is for a
greater purpose. If I could, I would give even more to everything because there's so many causes
that I believe in. There's so many hurt people in this world that need help and assistance
from homeless to cancer patients to whoever that might be.
It's like so many people who are less fortunate than you and I.
And how great would it be if everyone gave back that way?
I think your first sale at LegalZoom was $59.
Will, if I'm not mistaken.
And last year, the company had $575 million in revenue.
Public company worth $2 billion.
You repeated the model of working with celebrities.
You've done it a number of times.
We're going to get into your latest company,
Arena Club, in a few minutes, which is amazing.
But you went from Robert Shapiro to the Kardashians
to Jessica Alba.
Tell us about working with celebrities.
What are the pluses?
What are the minuses?
And do they really add value?
The celebrities you know are much bigger names than I know.
I mean, I know two or three.
When we have been trying to get celebrities at companies, we go through agents.
Now there's three big firms now,
or they're managers, and they always want an oversized piece of a pie for not adding very much value. And usually you want the A-listers, and you're not getting the A-listers, you're
getting the B-listers. The B-listers want to get paid like the A-listers. The C-listers want to
get paid like the B-listers. You've used this model to amazing success more than I think most
people have. So what's it like working with celebrities? Do they really add the value
that people think they add? Yeah, it's a great question. I didn't set out to work with celebrities
as like my career goal. It just kind of happened. And the reason it happened
is because remember I said we wanted Robert Shapiro to work with us to bring credibility
to what we were doing because the internet was still pretty new. But what we realized super early
was that every time he went on to CNN or anytime he went on to some news channel or did an interview
for a magazine, he would mention
LegalZoom. And every time he mentioned LegalZoom, we would get orders, right? We're like, gosh,
you know, we've got this double whammy, right? We've got the credibility angle that he brings,
but then he's also generating a lot of revenue for us by talking to us to the public.
And so I was probably one of the earlier folks to realize the power of influence
and influencer in the early days of the dot-com. And so when I came up with this idea for Shoe
Dazzle with my wife, Mira, we dreamed up the idea in our room one night and we're like, gosh,
it'd be kind of cool to have a shoe of the month club for women. And so we started kind of honing down on the idea,
modeling it out, and then we said,
well, maybe we should get someone to be the face of it
like we did with LegalZoom.
And we thought Kim Kardashian.
And it's really because my wife, Mira,
she's much more into pop culture than I am.
I honestly don't know that many celebrities I don't follow them
or anything my wife is definitely
Mira's more into pop culture and
I remember it was
episode 2 season
1 where
Mira says we should talk to Kim
and we had met Kim
at one of a couple of Bob's
dinners because Bob used to work with Kim's dad.
And so we met her a couple times at his house, and I thought she was lovely.
And she was just starting her career.
Before Keeping Up, she was a stylist, or she was still a stylist, actually, at the time.
But Mira, my wife, said, she's going to be huge.
I'm like, Kim?
Kim's going to be huge? And Mira was like, yeah, she's going to be huge. I'm like, Kim? Kim's going to be huge?
And Mira was like, yeah, she's going to be huge.
Like, she's got it.
And so we sat down with Kim, and we explained the idea to her,
and she loved it.
She was so passionate about fashion,
and she'd be perfect for this.
And so she said yes.
And so that was SheDazzle.
We started it.
She brought a lot of attention to it.
And this is before Kim even became the Kim that we know today.
She is the most lovely person to work with.
She is one of the hardest working, most loyal people I've ever worked with.
And not a lot of people get that from just seeing her on TV or this or that. But man, if I worked as much as she did or as hard as she did and as focused as she did,
I'd be a lot more successful today than I am.
You're very successful.
You're ridiculously successful.
She's amazing.
And Kris Jenner is amazing.
They were really a joy to work with.
And she went from zero to tens of millions of dollars in revenue very, very quickly.
And $100 million the second year in revenue.
And I remember I was sitting in your office right before that was happening.
He said, Randy, sit down.
I said, I'm sitting.
He said, well, sit down more.
And he told me what the numbers were going to be.
It's unbelievable.
He sold that to JustFab.
That's right, to Textile.
Nothing else to Just Fab. That's right, to Textile. They're an awesome good name. And let's talk about Kobe Bryant and the art of sport and your relationship with him.
What was it like working with Kobe?
And then let's talk about his very untimely and very unfortunate death right as you were launching a company for which he was a partner.
Yeah.
I love Kobe.
I really do, and I miss him.
He, yeah, it was, I don't even have words, really.
But we decided to incubate a company called Art of Sport,
which is a men's kind of deodorant and potions and lotions
company I call it, right? So body washes and lotions and shampoos and so forth.
And so he was going to, you know, be the lead person for it. And a week before we
launched to retail, he passed away. And it's something that we just honestly it was almost
impossible to recover from but I mean Art of Sport is still around and it's
still sold at Target and some other places and it's a great product and
great brand but I think it would have been so different with Kobe Bryant you
know at the helm of it it was just uh it was very very unfortunate of course one of my partners died
in 9-11 as you know some akamai partners and it really i was no longer there but it really
hurt the company big time uh it's the genius total genius of the company cto had invented the
algorithms that you know were serving and our content we reinvented the way to serve content over the internet. And the company
recovered. They rallied around him. How important is it
on our search of excellence to overcome our challenges and keep
plodding through even though when things are dismal, even as
terrible as someone dying?
You just have to. And there's no other way to explain it, but you just have to and there's no other way to explain it but you just
have to keep fighting and and seeing it through earlier in the conversation i talked about
follow-through about completion about being determined to to see something to the finish
line and that's the case with any business really no matter what comes your way, you want to see it through.
And so even with Art of Sport, we scrambled, started partnering with a bunch of other great athletes, some amazing athletes. James Harden. James Harden and Juju Smith-Schuster,
Ryan Sheckler. Ryan Sheckler, I met this summer. Amazing guy.
Right? Isn't he great?
Amazing. He's going to be a guest on my podcast oh perfect yeah um
yeah so i mean we had a great group but it's you know there's nothing against any of these
these fantastic partners but you know kobe was kobe right and um brought a lot of excitement
to what we're doing and so again unfortunate extremely, I can't even describe it, but it was painful.
You have an amazing ability to partner with icons that most people would die to work with.
Derek Jeter is your latest partner, an amazing company.
I'm lucky to be an investor in that company.
Let's talk about your new company, Arena Club. And how important is it in search of excellence to have passion to be successful at what we're doing?
It's a great question.
I think you definitely need to be passionate about what you're doing to get the full effort.
Because it's always a grind, right?
It's always a grind, right? It's always a grind. So if you're not
passionate about something, you're never going to put in your entire body and soul into it unless
you are. And so even with LegalZoom, with ShoeDazzle, with The Honest Company,
I was very passionate about the missions of those businesses, right? So the mission of bringing affordable legal services to the world,
the mission of having women feel beautiful about themselves,
basically for $39 a month and getting a new pair of shoes every month,
it made everyone happy.
With the Honest Company helping to build or to create a non-toxic world.
I mean, what's more important than that, right?
So I was extremely passionate about all the missions of those businesses.
But this is the first time with Arena Club that I'm passionate about not only the mission, but the actual offering and the service.
And it's only because I've been collecting trading cards,
baseball cards mainly, since I was a kid.
So I remember I was seven years old at the time
and my dad took me to my first Dodger game.
And I just fell in love with the game and being at the stadium.
And Steve Garvey was our first baseman at the time.
And I went and bought his card at the card shop.
I rode my bike to the local card shop, and I bought a Steve Garvey card,
and I held on to it all these years.
I still have it.
And I started collecting cards then, and I never stopped.
Most of my friends stopped.
Most of my friends stopped.
Yeah, so most do.
They stop in junior high school or high school or whatever.
I collected in high school, college, law school, young adult, old adult.
I just love it.
I just love collecting my heroes.
And it's a category in the industry that I thought was pretty ripe for some innovation.
Because there hasn't really been that much innovation in the space for a while.
And so the idea that we had was to digitize the physical.
I mean, how many guys do you know that collected cards
and those cards are sitting in a shoebox in their closet or their parents' closets or basements or whatever it is.
Everybody.
A lot, right?
And so I always felt like, gosh, it'd be so great to bring all those out and to digitize them all and then put them on blockchain.
And you could display all your cards at Arena Club online and those are your cards and authenticated, that you can buy, sell, and trade with each other.
And that's the genesis of Arena Club.
It's really kind of, we call it bringing the card show to life.
And so my happiest days are spent at the card shows and card shops, going with Davis, my son, who you know.
And I just love it um i just love it i just love it i love the the
wheeling and dealing and the the action of the card shows and for anyone who's ever been a card
show you know it's like you walk around with your little zion case and it's like i'll trade these
two cards and 50 bucks for that card and there's just a lot of excitement um and no one's ever
brought that online.
I think we're one of the first platforms that allow for trading even.
And we're trying to build this community
where people can really follow each other
and like each other's cards and so forth
and trade with each other
and have a lot of fun doing it.
So that's the idea of Arena Club.
Some of the inspiration was because you
sent in a card to
another grading company, we don't have to mention which one,
who
the way the grading cards
work is if you have a 10, they're manually
graded by people sitting in a room, they measure
the center
of the card, the borders, the picture,
the quality, the colors, everything.
A 10 card, Michael Jordan, I think you told me this, and correct me if I'm wrong, rookie card.
If it's a 10, it could be $250,000.
If it's a 9, it could be $50,000, $25,000.
8 is way less.
That's right.
You had a great card.
You know your cards well.
You send it in.
It gets graded.
It takes three to six months.
You pay a fee, and it came back, I think, at an 8. And you said, this is easily a nine, maybe a 10. You can appeal the grade. It comes
back in a plastic sleeve that's sealed with a grade on it so you can't change it. And so you
said, okay, well, this is not an eight. This is a nine. You send it in. It's an appeal. You pay
another fee, a more expensive fee.
It takes three to six months and maybe even a year because they're way backed up.
This is a huge business.
There was a company in the space last year that sold for $800 million.
Right.
One of your competitors, but you're going to kick their ass once you get going.
And then you started saying, okay, well, that's not fair.
I'm going to do some more research.
I'm going to see how they grade these cards.
And you are very resourceful by going to LinkedIn and finding employees who used to work at these companies and say, how does this process happen? heard that the former employees told you, well, we sit in a room, we use microscopes, we
grade the carpets. We don't have a manager who tells us what to do, but some days they come in
and they say no more nines. And you took something that was a problem and you fixed it. How important is it not to accept the status quo on something like this?
And how much of a motivation is it to be an entrepreneur by looking at things? Not only
you have the passion, but you're trying to fix something that's broken.
I think that's most of the time. I think for most entrepreneurs, it's usually about experiencing something or consuming something and thinking, I could do it better.
Or it'd be great if it was done this way or that way, as opposed to the current way.
I think that's mostly everyone that has started something or built something, at least innovative.
It's one thing to say, I'm going to be an entrepreneur.
I'm just going to completely copy that company.
That's a little bit different.
I'm saying anyone who's innovating and creating something new or looking to create something
better than the status quo.
And so very similar to what you described with Arena Club, yeah, I was kind of
fed up with what was out there, right, from the marketplaces that exist or the grading companies
that exist and so forth. And I just thought I could do it better with more transparency,
with more ease, with seamless transactions, all on blockchain. And so I just thought I'm
going to go do this, right? And I hope people like it. And so that was the, I'm going to go do this.
I hope people like it.
And so that was the idea, even for LegalZoom.
The idea for LegalZoom really came about because some of these law firms charge a lot of money
for some very simple legal procedures.
They're forms.
Yeah, they're forms that you file.
Why should it cost $2,000 to form a corporation?
Or $3,000 even in today's inflationary world?
And so a lot of ideas come about like that.
And even with Jessica Alba in The Honest Company,
I remember what she told me.
She said, why do all eco diapers have to be brown?
Why can't we make them cute?
Is what she said. And with really fun patterns. And it struck a chord with her. have to be brown. Why can't we make them cute?
Is what she said.
And with really fun patterns.
And it struck a chord with her.
I was like, you're right.
They should be.
And we could do that.
So it's like a lot of times entrepreneurs come up with these ideas
because they're not happy with the status quo.
And they want to innovate and make something better.
Let's talk about one of my favorite topics. Pre, preparation. And not only preparation, extreme preparation. I'm talking
about the kind of preparation where you're not spending 15 minutes for a meeting or two hours
preparing or five hours, 20 hours, 40 hours. How important has preparation been to your success? How important is it to success in
general? And can you give us examples of things that you did where you prepared 20 hours or 30
or 40 for a single meeting? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I remember when we were starting LegalZoom,
one of our earlier meetings for a potential partnership was with H&R Block, the accounting firm.
And we thought it would be such a great idea if LegalZoom partnered with H&R Block and we could be in all their physical locations to offer our services.
And so I must have prepped, gosh, an easy 20, 30 hours for this meeting.
We flew out to Kansas City, where they're based, and we had a great meeting with them.
And I remember what the guy told me.
He says, you're more prepared than anyone I've ever met, right?
Because we knew everything about their business, like stuff that he didn't even know, right?
And we're just kind of telling him this is how it should work, and this is the idea, and so forth.
Now, we never got a partnership with H&R Block.
We never got it done.
They said no.
But I do remember leaving that meeting being like, we were prepared.
And so sometimes being prepared is always important, but sometimes it doesn't work, but it's okay.
You put in the work, you put in the effort, and we left with a very strong,
I'm sure we left and they had a very strong
positive opinion of us.
Because it's all perspective too, right?
It's how are you perceived, right?
And I think we kind of put a flag on the ground
and said, listen, this is who we are, right?
And we are prepared and we will outwork you.
One of the things we have in common
is we've had multiple careers.
We've been lawyers.
Yeah.
Unhappy lawyers.
We've been entrepreneurs,
still are,
surely entrepreneurs.
And we're venture capitalists as well.
Yeah.
So you've had an incredible transition
to having your very successful venture firm,
BAM Ventures, Brian Amira.
I know so many students who are in my internship program. You've been a speaker there every summer.
You ask people what they want to do. I'd be a venture capitalist. There's a couple of ways
that I know. Graduate Princeton or Harvard with triple degrees in computational
science and degrees, I don't even know what they mean. Get lucky and be the eighth employee of
LinkedIn or Google or somewhere like that. Or to have enough money where you say,
I'm a venture capitalist now. What's your advice to all the students who want to become venture capitalists, who don't want to be an employee and have never managed anything before, never met payroll, never balanced the budget, but they want to become a venture capitalist and they don't realize it's not all that sexy. That seven or eight out of our 10 companies will go to zero.
What's your advice to everyone who wants to do it?
It's so interesting because there are a lot of students
and young folks who want to be venture capitalists.
And it's interesting because I would say historically,
it's been a very closed kind of society.
Very closed.
Very closed. And it was like the old days of the early Silicon Valley venture firms and so forth.
And it was all kind of who you knew, where you went to college, and what the hookups were, right?
Like the network.
But I think it's grown since then. It's matured a lot since then. And you're seeing all sorts of venture
capital firms today, right? I mean, there's so much capital out there and there's so many firms
that are focused on different niches and these niches are large, right? I mean, I've met all female founder firms to companies that only invest in diverse founders to consumer specific, to platform specific of find your niche, whatever interests you.
But at the same time, I'm a big believer in experience and real work experience, because
I think that makes you a better investor.
Because I've worked with investors, truth be told, I've worked with investors who have
never had a job outside of investing. And everything's theory. It's like, well, in theory, this is what the numbers should be,
and this is what your margin profile should be, and this is what you should be doing.
But they've never done it. I tend to like working with investors who have been there,
done that, and could actually provide real you know, to what I'm doing. And so I tend to kind of
lean towards that, um, as opposed to, you know, I call them lifers, lifer VCs.
Let's talk about access to capital. We, we know tons of people. I get emails, I get DMs from,
I mean, I wake up every day, there's 30 emails, I'm on some list,
hey, I got this fund, I got this funding. But so many people want to know, not only kids in college,
but young professionals, I have people, I'm sure you do too, they're 40 years old,
they want to raise money. One entrepreneur we have, Julie Roth, Novak now. She's a friend from college.
She started her first company.
She was 46 years old, party slate.
But people want to know how do they meet venture capitalists, right?
How do they break through?
I've had people just come and knock on the door
and sit until I walk out of the door.
What do they do to actually get a meeting?
And if someone flew an airplane over BAM headquarters
and says, BAM Ventures, will you please be with me?
Would you take that meeting
or do you think they're absolute lunatics?
I would probably take that meeting.
So would I.
Yeah, I would take that meeting.
It shows a lot.
You're investing in yourself.
You're creative.
And one of the things I like
telling people, do what no one else has done before. So you don't have to call,
hey, is Brian Lee there? Yeah. Good luck. Brian is going to sit down with you. But
how do they get the meeting? Most of the meetings, truthfully, are people we know
who recommend or refer someone. It's very rare that we will return just completely cold email, right?
Because we get so many of them.
But at some point, like you, Robert Shapiro took that meeting.
So you're a first-time entrepreneur.
People will take our calls today because of our resumes and some of the success we have.
But hey, I mean, at some point, you know, you got to break through.
Yeah, no, it's true.
It's true.
But I would say that there were a lot less cold calls when I made that call than whether
they are today.
I mean, it's a great question.
How do you break through?
I don't know.
You just have to figure out a unique approach if you don't know anyone. But here's the thing.
You could be resourceful, and you could go to events, and you could go to angel events,
and you could go to tech events or whatever it is and meet people. And if you meet people,
you could always ask,
does anyone here know someone from BAM Ventures? It's not that hard. We know a lot of people,
right? Especially in this city, right? And so do you, Randy. So if I was an entrepreneur and I was
determined to meet someone from BAM Ventures, you would figure it out, right? You would go on
LinkedIn, see who's connected to me, ask for a warm intro, go meet some other
people within your network or even outside your network and ask for a warm intro. The cold emails
are tough because there's so many. It's almost impossible, but there's no way I'm going through
a thousand emails a day looking for gold nuggets. That's not going to happen.
And that's how many you get.
And so you can't do it.
But in terms of raising capital, that's, I guess, the real back end of your question.
It's really hard.
There's no getting around it.
It's hard, especially if it's your first gig okay it's like if you're if you started legal zoom and and grew a nice business it's a lot easier to raise capital for shoot house right um and for the
honest company or whatever it is but it's that initial start like where do you get that capital
and at legal zoom it was really, it was just begging.
That's what it was.
It was literally begging.
And we asked friends, we asked family.
It got to the point where my uncles and aunts wouldn't invite me over anymore because I was asking for more money.
I remember when we started LegalZoom, a friend of ours, he said, what's the minimum investment?
At that time, we were like, it's $10,000.
He's like, oh, okay, I don't have $10,000.
So then it's like a month passes and we still haven't raised enough.
And we called him back and we're like, hey, do you still want to invest?
He's like, well, I don't have the $10,000.
We're like, well, how's $5,000?
He's like, well, I only have $500.
And we're like, we, how's $5,000? He's like, well, I only have $500. And we're like, we'll take it.
I promise.
We took a $500 investment.
I mean, it gets to that point, right?
But you'll do whatever it takes.
You do whatever it takes to hustle and grind it out
and just raise whatever capital you can from anyone you can, right,
that believes in you you and be persistent,
be that annoying person. Seriously, be that annoying person because you only have one shot
at it, right? At this idea or whatever you're starting and you want to raise capital and you
want to go try it. So yeah, you just got to figure out a way to raise the capital.
I think work ethic is one of the most important ingredients of our success.
You and I have had a lot of
very personal discussions
about work,
family, balance,
emails.
I remember a conversation
we had at lunch
a year
and a half ago.
We were sitting there and we're both bitching about how many
meetings we had a day. I think I had six and I was aggravated. I was anxious. And you showed
me your calendar. You had 10. You're a great dad. You go to all your kids' games. I recently learned
at dinner last time we had dinner a few months ago that you
don't work nights. And I was just blown out of my chair. And it changed my life by the way,
because after that day, and I, yeah, I've got Sandy, I've got jump investors. I have
a real estate company. I'm working on my podcast. I have my book I'm working on called Extreme
Preparation. And I told you this, I've worked at midnight every night for six days a week,
working Saturdays and Sunday mornings. It got to the point where it's too much. And I'm a good dad.
I'm home for dinner every night. And when Madison and I go to bed, I go down to my office. But at some point, it's too much.
You've done a great job on work-life balance.
So how do you do it?
What's the secret?
And how on earth are you not working on weekends?
I don't get it.
Yeah.
Well, we'll put it this way.
It wasn't always like that.
When I started my first two companies, actually, it was not work-life balance.
It was basically work.
And again, no one's going to just hand you success.
No one's going to ring your doorbell and, here's a bucket of success.
It doesn't happen that way.
You've got to work.
And it is about work ethic.
And I don't know anyone who worked harder than us.
Literally, I don't know anyone. I mean,
we were working 90, 100-hour weeks easy on legals. And we never took vacations.
We lost all our friends because we had no social lives. We were eating ramen because we couldn't
afford anything else. And peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. sandwiches literally that was our story um i remember like going to a movie was like oh can we afford that this is my movie tickets like five
bucks we're like i don't know if we can afford that um and that was legal zoom and and it's only
because i i put in that type of work effort that i could enjoy the life I have today where I actually don't work weekends and I don't work at
night and I don't want to. I'd rather spend time with my kids than I'd rather spend time with my
family and my friends, right? And I'm not saying that anything I work on now is going to be less
successful. I don't think that's the case. I think as you get more experienced or
older, I think you just learn how to deal with things
better too. And you learn how to manage your time better. And on top
of that, you know how to raise capital to hire the right team as well.
Because when I was younger, we didn't have capital and so it was
us. Everything was us. But when I was younger, we didn't have capital, and so it was us. Everything was us.
But now I've got superior teams that I can bring on and I can rely on and say, okay,
this has to get done. It'll get done. And so it's a little different now.
But we're talking, I get 50 emails at night. I try to clear them out. I'm
lucky if I go below 30 in my inbox. I leave the ones that require work and some are long-term
emails. That's my to-do list somewhat. But I get anxious when I wake up with 70 new emails.
And I stop looking at emails after our call,
after our dinner from 8 o'clock at night.
Yeah.
But it doesn't make you anxious to wake up to 150 emails?
No.
It doesn't.
I'm used to it.
One thing that I'm really good at now
is putting things in a spam.
I've gotten really good at it.
So here's a couple of tricks that I do.
Yeah, teach me.
Number one, I'm really fast at putting in the spam and spam followers because the junk mail just gets too much.
Number two, I don't have business cards and I don't give out my email address to anyone random.
Right. I don't give out my email address to anyone random. Or else you're never going to
get out of that hole.
Because then you're just going to get emails
from a bunch of people that you've met for
two seconds, five minutes, or whatever.
And then number three,
I'm really good
at putting things
into, I call the folder
the to-do folder. And anything
that I can't respond to within a few seconds, I put in the to-do folder. And anything that I can't respond to within
a few seconds, I put in the to-do folder.
So anything I can respond to quickly, I'll respond
to, and then put everything in the to-do
folder, and then give myself
an hour or two during the day to do the to-do
folder.
That helps it all. That's how I do it.
Tell us, what are the
three to five most important
elements of success?
Wow.
I would say it's definitely work and work ethic.
That's definitely number one, I would say.
Number two is,
I actually think it's being empathetic and understanding people.
So not just your team,
but especially your consumer
and your investors
and just understanding where everyone is coming from.
I think that's really important.
Number three, I would say have a good support network.
Whether it be people who are mentors
or people who just kind of support and help you,
I think that's really important too. So I think those three combined will lead to a lot of success. I've
asked this question to hundreds of people. Empathy has never been on any list. And I wanted to ask
you, I love the answer, but I also want to ask you about your own personality. And I'm going to embarrass you.
But you're generally known as one of the nicest guys ever.
And you're one of the unique people who no one will ever say anything bad about
and only say nice things about.
Brian is a great guy.
And that's a rare skill, by the way.
I mean, I don't.
We've all rubbed people.
Well, not you.
But the rest of us have rubbed people the wrong way. You say something that don't, we've all rubbed people. Well, not you, but the rest of us have
rubbed people the wrong way. You say something that comes out wrong. Sometimes you're angry.
You say something I've never heard you ever act that way. And every time your name comes up,
I love Brian. He's the greatest. How much do you think, I know you're gonna have to get out of
your humble zone for a minute, but how much of that likability has contributed to your opportunities and some of the success you have?
And what's your advice to others who need to work on that and how should they work on it?
Gosh, I never really thought about it that way.
But I guess it's better to be liked than disliked.
That's number one.
But I think I do get a lot of opportunities because people like me or I like them, and I tend to just get along with almost everyone.
It's really hard for me not to like someone, right?
Or not be able to work with someone.
It's a lot, right?
Because I tend to like everyone I work with
and like everyone who works with me,
my friends and so forth.
It's just, I don't know.
I like to get along with people.
I'm not a very confrontational person.
Right?
That's one thing.
I don't like to sit and argue about things.
Right?
I'll just kind of acquiesce most of the time and just like, oh, okay.
I smile, shake hands, and go my merry way.
And then when I'm at home, I'm like, I can't believe that person thinks that way.
No, the hassle.
It's not like that. But it's just, I don't like to have,
I'm not really a fighter, I don't think, in that sense.
But in terms of others, it's like, look,
there's all types of ways to gain success.
And oftentimes, it is that person that is disliked or people don't like working with or whatever it is.
And it's like everyone has a different path.
And no path is the correct path. And so I would say if you're that person who is more the a-hole and builds companies with an iron fist and everyone hates working for, but it works, hey, more power to you.
Honestly, more power to you.
You're building an amazing business, I'm sure, or whatever it is.
But it's the same with company cultures, too.
Every company culture is different and unique.
And some cultures are places where, like, gosh, do I really want to work there?
But it works.
Look, no one has ever said, I probably shouldn't say this on your podcast,
but like Disney. Disney is a tough place to work.
It's a grind, right?
It's definitely the happiest place on earth
at the park, but not in the office, right?
It's like, it's pretty cutthroat,
but it works, right?
I mean, one of the greatest media companies
in the history of the world, right?
It's a tough culture in that sense,
at least in my view, right?
And then you've got Zappos,
which is like a party all the time.
People are just like, happiness.
All I want to do is deliver happiness.
Let's smoke
together and drink together
and party together and build a big business.
It works.
If something's
working, I would say don't change
it. If it's
working for you, being an asshole or whatever it is, and you're successful, more power to would say don't change it. If it's working for you, that being an asshole
or whatever it is, and you're successful,
more power to you. Don't change.
You don't have to become Mr. Empathy.
You really don't.
But if something's not working,
maybe you should think about, okay, what can I do
better? But if it's working, don't change it.
Zappos is one of the most unique and
greatest corporate cultures in the history
of the company.
I had the pleasure of meeting and then getting to know Tony Hsieh, who, as you know, passed
away very unfortunately a couple of years ago.
And he invited me out with my team and my interns.
So we all went in one of our portfolio companies.
And it was a life-changing experience to see a company run this way. Delivering Happiness,
I believe his name was book. And I recommend every single person read that book because it really is
the culture there is amazing. Everybody's happy. They have no turnover there. The customer service
reps who are on the phone, you're not on quota system and you have the ability to send
a customer flowers yeah and you have a budget you can just make people happy just walking through the
the company and the way he built it and hearing the story was life-changing for everybody so
i agree corporate culture is key let's we're going to end it on philanthropy and giving back
so you're incredibly generous. You've done extremely
well financially. You're known for helping people. You're empathetic to a lot of causes.
Gave to the Imagine Ball this year. You always do every year. I'm grateful. Fighting homelessness
in Los Angeles. I've sat at, had the pleasure of sitting at one of your tables.
I felt like a big, important person
because you had me sitting right next to you
with all the important people.
And you gave, I think, $50,000 that night
to brain cancer research for UCLA.
How important is giving back to our community
in search of excellence?
I think it's incredibly important.
It's incredibly important to give back
because, look, I believe in God.
I'm Christian, and I really do believe
that everything that we do here is for a greater purpose.
And you definitely want to leave making that impact as opposed to going to the grave with not making a difference.
I want to make an impact.
And it's like if I could, I would give even more to everything because there's so many causes that I believe in. There's so many hurt people in this world that need help and assistance from
homeless to cancer patients, to whoever that might be.
It's like so many people who are less fortunate than you and I.
Right.
And how great would it be if everyone gave back that way?
Right. I mean, I look at people like Bezos and Gates and some of these icons,
and I just really admire how philanthropic they really are.
Of course, they can afford to be too, but it's amazing.
It truly is.
It's amazing how much impact they've had on society and how much good they're doing for the
world as well. You know, it took a lot to get there, right? And I'm not saying they're like,
you know, the perfect, you know, people getting to where they are, but at the same time, they're doing some great good for all of us.
And it's like, I look at that,
and it's a roadmap for myself.
I definitely want to help as much as I can
in a lot of different areas.
So I think it's incredibly important.
I like sharing with my guests
how I know some of my guests.
And I don't know if you remember how we met or not, but we actually met through a nonprofit.
I remember this.
I had started an event called the Justice Ball for Bed Zed Legal Services.
It grew into a huge event, nonprofit legal firm in Los Angeles.
Ran it for 10 years.
It was my idea.
I had a great team. They were responsible for its success,
not me. Part of success is hiring the right team. And then I took some years off. I wanted to create
another one. I was focusing on kids with cancer or homeless or foster care because my grandmother
recently passed away, was raised in foster care and had this incredible life.
And as a way to give back to her, I chose homelessness.
And I interviewed executive directors of these nonprofits.
I just called them with my phone book and said,
what charities are doing this?
And there was one homeless charity.
I don't even remember the name.
LAYN. LAYN. this and there was one uh homeless charity i don't even remember the name layn layn and um i invited the executive director to my office and um if you're an executive executive director at a
charity and someone's calling you with a very strong interest in donating money who's raised
10 million dollars for another charity they probably should be running to your office,
sprinting to your office, and don't stop and go.
And this guy had such a hard time coming.
He wouldn't come, and I had to push him.
I'm like, what the?
What's going on here?
And we had a meeting, and he canceled at the last minute.
Do you remember why?
Do you remember why? Do you remember why?
Yeah, I do.
Because his cat, Muffy, had died.
No, the cat, Muffy, had not died.
The cat, Muffy, wasn't feeling well.
Yeah.
The cat, Muffy, wasn't feeling well, which is just a crazy story.
So I looked and see who's on the board.
And there's your name.
I said, you know what?
I heard of Brian.
I heard what you had done.
I was an entrepreneur.
I think it's important to meet like-minded people.
I'd read about you.
I said, you know what?
I'm going to call Brian Lee.
I'm going to bitch.
I'm trying to give some fucking money to this charity.
And the guy won't come by my office and meet with me.
And that's how we became friends.
Yeah, that's true.
And thank you for giving to the charity.
What's that?
And thank you for giving.
I remember going to the charity and I remember buying a...
You bought a few auction items, yeah.
I did.
Indianapolis 500 race where you get to do the racetrack
and go and please escort to the stadium.
Yeah.
Are there any questions before we end that you wish I had asked you that I didn't ask
you?
No, I don't think so.
I mean, you went pretty deep.
Can't think of anything.
Brian, I'm grateful for you being here. I'm grateful for your
friendship. You've been a role model to me, a mentor to me and to so many other people.
Thank you very much for your time today. And thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me, Randy. It was fun.
It was awesome.