Living The Red Life - Disruptive Billion $ Brands

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

In this podcast episode, i delve into the world of disruptive brands, exploring the transformative impact of billion-dollar companies on various industries. Through examples like Liquid Death's unconventional approach to selling water or the paradigm-shifting clash between Netflix and Blockbuster, the narrative unveils the power of innovation and adaptation in driving success. These stories underscore the importance of agility and foresight in navigating turbulent economic landscapes, urging entrepreneurs to seize opportunities and pivot swiftly to meet evolving consumer demands. By dissecting the strategies and philosophies behind these disruptive giants, this episode offers invaluable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to carve their own path in an ever-changing business landscape.CHAPTERS1:33 - The Need for Speed: Staying Ahead in Disruptive Markets2:32 - Uber: A Case Study in Industry Disruption3:51 - Netflix vs. Blockbuster: The Evolution of Entertainment5:46 - Airbnb: Transforming Travel and Hospitality7:58 - Impossible Foods: Redefining the Meat Industry9:53 - Spotify: Revolutionizing the Music Business12:00 - Warby Parker: Changing the Way We Shop for Glasses13:09 - Robinhood: Democratizing Stock Trading14:56 - The Power of Disruptive Brands: Lessons for Entrepreneurs15:59 - Liquid Death and the Art of Branding Innovation16:30 - The Speed of Disruption: How Fast Is Fast Enough?17:24 - Creating a Billion-Dollar Brand: Strategies for SuccessConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

Liquid deaths are water for $3 a can. That's a great example of disruption right there. This is the lessons I want to give you guys from all these billion dollar companies. They've not, you know, invented this scientific new chemical or formula or flown to Mars and got these molecules from the surface of Mars. They've literally took something that has been around for sometimes hundreds of years and they just go, huh, how is this going to look in the next 10 or 20 years? And how do we do it today? Vlogmas has a chance to buy Netflix for 50 around for sometimes hundreds of years and they just go huh how is this going to look in the next 10 or 20 years and how do we do it today blogbusters have a chance to buy netflix for 50 million dollars when it was struggling and they didn't and netflix is worth billions now you have

to realize to create disruptive brands you have to also go fast because they won't stay disruptive for very long right they're disruptive out the gate. And then everyone's like, oh, that was smart. Uber was smart. Let's start Lyft. Netflix was smart. Let's start Amazon Prime. I truly believe this is the key to success through hard times. And the key is... My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. And I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today, we're going to talk about disruption at a billion dollar level. Yes, we're talking about billion dollar companies that are disrupting multi-billion dollar industries. I'm so excited to break down today's lesson for you because every entrepreneur

needs to know what I'm about to say. Why? Because it's going to get harder, guys. It's not going to get easier, okay? The economy is on a downward slope. The last year and a half is way worse economically than the year and a half before. We had a bit of a COVID lockdown bubble that has now ended and everything's getting harder. A lot of industries are down and the only way to adapt when industries are going down, the economy is going down, is to disrupt and innovate, okay, and be creative. That's something that I pride myself on and something that allows me to sleep well at night even when, you know, some businesses are going all the way down to zero. Some of my friends' businesses, people that were

kings or queens of the industry are laying off 60 employees. I found out yesterday a big quote unquote rival of mine or someone similar to what I do. I don't think I have rivals. Let go of 60 employees yesterday. And some of my other friends and big people I know their revenues have halved over the last year. So, you know, this lesson today is so important for everyone because I truly believe this is the key to success through hard times, okay? And it's also the key to having a real company

that can grow really big versus a average company that's very hard to grow, which I think most of us feel, not just yourself. I think we all feel that at times. And the key is disruption, okay? So I'm going to talk about disruptive brands that have, you know, rocked an industry and done very well in the process. Okay. I'm going to go for a few of them and just a minute overview of why they did

it. And then I want you to think about how you can apply those lessons into your business. Okay. So number one, we all know it. Uber. Uber is a great example of a disruptive industry. Most people thought it was crazy when it started. It started small in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and then it expanded out. And if you've not watched the TV show, they've got like a documentary kind of, or show. It's really good. And it's really, I think, great for an entrepreneur to see the challenges that every billion dollar brand goes through. I think most entrepreneurs, we don to see the challenges that every billion dollar brand goes through. I think most entrepreneurs, we don't think the billion dollar companies go through

the challenges we do, but no, every billion dollar brand, most of them start like us as entrepreneurs, right? And Uber did a very good job of taking an industry that had been around for decades worldwide, right? The taxi industry is a worldwide industry. It's been around for decades, even centuries. I mean, if you imagine 200 years ago, you probably could get a car, you know, a horse, a horse drawn carriage is a taxi, right? Or, you know, borrow someone's horse, that's a taxi. and Uber came along and did that. And they really empowered normal people to have these kind of new businesses or side hustles. They use modern technology. And now Elon Musk is disrupting that industry again. He's starting to create self-driving Ubers basically with his Tesla cars. In some states on the West Coast,

you can already get in self-driving Ubers. And in Vegas, he just released like this underground passage around central Vegas under all the big hotels, which are like basically like mini private trams. And they're just a bunch of self-driving Tesla cars. So that's a great example of disruption right there. Next one I want to talk about is Netflix versus Blockbuster. Blockbuster had the chance to buy Netflix for $50 million when it was struggling and they didn't. And then they went bankrupt and Netflix is worth billions now. Great example of not understanding the times, being an old giant, as I call them, that eventually dies.

Whereas Netflix literally saw, OK, everyone loves entertainment, right? And everyone loves to watch movies. And if you go back 15 years or so, movies weren't accessible on demand like they are now, right? Movies were only accessible, you know, through the few channels you had. I grew up with five TV channels. I still remember as a child. And then eventually we got something called Freeview in the UK where we had 30 channels and we would go to Blockbuster and rent some movies. So Netflix really hit the right place and time for the internet and understanding this massive addressable market size for consumers wanting to watch movies. And they were right place, right time. Obviously, they have more competition now, Amazon Prime,

and pretty much every TV station or production firm now has a streaming version because people don't, you know, it's almost disrupted again, right? Because we went from five channels to being mailed DVDs from Netflix, which I used to do. And now we're at a phase where everything's streamed. People don't even have TV subscriptions. Like I don't have a TV subscription anymore. I don't think maybe I do. I don't know. And I don't watch it even if I do pay for it. And then, you know,

in five, 10 years, everyone's going to just be on YouTube and Netflix, right? They're not even going to be on, you know, the next generation generation kids these days none of them are going to have uh you know actual cable tv they're just going to stream everything right and it'll probably be through vr too so an industry that's constantly disrupting and again the idea of me going through these lessons uber netflix is how can you take an industry and just pivot to the right or left? That's prime examples of what they did. Airbnb, another great example. Airbnb, and two common denominators, if you think about it, Uber and Airbnb,

they work so well as they also empower the consumer, the worldwide population to make money as a side hustle. So it's not only a technology disruption, it's a disruption in how people can subsidize their living costs, which are constantly going up, right? So if you look at Airbnb, it allows people to rent out their houses, it allows real estate investors, and even private equity to create new revenue streams from the typical long-term rentals or student or business rentals. And it allows us travelers, people that travel or entrepreneurs, for example, to, you know, if we don't want to be in a hotel and we want to have a kitchen or we want to bring a big family,

like I use Airbnb all the time because I'll fly seven staff into an event and get them a big house and they have a bunch of fun and it's cheaper and it's more space and they can cook and meal prep and it's great, right? So Airbnb, another great example. Number four that I want to go through, Liquid Death, right? So I'm actually a friend with someone that runs the holding company that acquired Liquid Death and they have a fascinating story. You know, I think Liquid Death are an amazing example of making something fun with a brand. OK, because if any of you out there and I meet a lot of entrepreneurs that believe that it's hard to make something fun, it's hard to make something interesting. It's hard to sell your product and make it fun. But I'm like, yo, Liquid Death sell water for $3 a can. Okay. Water for $3 a can. And they called it Liquid Death and they infiltrated an

entire population and niche that had never been infiltrated, festivals, rock bands, right? So they did an amazing job of being able to diversify and hit this population that hadn't been served with water, right? So just a gap in the market. It's so obvious when you think about it, but no one had done it for decades and decades, and they'd done an amazing job.

And now obviously they conquered water and they're starting to expand into flavored water and energy drinks and that sort of thing, right? So Liquid Dep, another amazing example for every entrepreneur, for all of you to be like, why did I not think of that? Why am I sat here trying to sell my product

the old fashioned way, the boring way, lacking creativity. And then there's a billion dollar water company out there that popped up overnight, basically, that just made their can look like a rock concert. And now they've sold billions of dollars of water. Like to me, it's like, boom, mind blown, right? How do I do that for my companies? That's a common question I ask myself, I ask my team, and you should be asking yourselves, okay? Next one is impossible foods. Whether you love or hate them,

impossible foods disrupted another industry. They took vegetarian, vegan, they took meat-based products, and they really conquered that goal that lots of companies have tried over the years, which was to make meat products vegetarian or vegan but that actually tastes like meat okay and there's you know back when i was a kid my parents were vegetarian so there was a company in the uk called quorn um that tried to do the same but you know they did okay did pretty well in the uk but never really took off whereas impossible i think they

crushed it they crushed the marketing they built a, a community. They're in pretty much every restaurant if you go and look at them. And I don't actually love the products. I think people should eat meat as long as it's good quality meat because there's a lot of health benefits and the protein and stuff's way better. But it's done its job, right? As a disruptive brand, it's literally disrupted an industry where lots of people had attempted to never really taken off. It's the first one that I would say has done it really successfully. And, you know, they've done a good job. Like I sat with people and said, hey, try these two items and people can't really tell. So, yeah, Impossible Foods, great example, great branding, great at building a community around it of raving fans. And then infiltrating mass market, like I

said, you go into every restaurant and you have burgers and then the option is impossible burger. Whereas when I was growing up, the option was like a bean burger or a vegetable burger. Now it's impossible, right? So to me, that's like a great sign of that mass appeal and mass market adoption, which is what we should all be seeking, okay? Next one, Spotify, right? Music, another big industry, massive, obviously multi, multi, multi billion dollar industry that has gone through these technology shifts, right? I remember the little cassettes

and then you went to CDs, then you went to MP3s and I remember plugging in that little MP3 to your computer and downloading all the tracks and transferring it. And then the ipod came along disrupted it again and then it got into just like netflix versus blockbuster it got into this position where everything's gone online now no physical stuff no manual transfer no dvds no cds all right that's all dead now the you know the the generation of kids now laugh that we ever had, I'm not that old, right? But they laugh that we had these physical things to do stuff, right? And you had to go to the store and buy a CD. But they've been able to adjust with technology and did an amazing job of

looking at an industry that was very controlled by licenses, controlled by a few billion dollar entertainment companies and go, how do we appeal to the mass market? How do we appeal to the little guy? Just like Uber and Airbnb did, how do we appeal to the little guy, right? Because that little guy is the billions of people on the planet, right? So how do we appeal to those little guys? How do we make music accessible and not controlled by a couple of industry entertainment giants? And obviously they crushed it. I went through their own share of battles, if you've not looked at their history to do so. But yeah, I mean, it's a great example of disruption and understanding technology curves and something that's done very, very well and still does well to this day. Okay, so now last couple, Warby Parker. It's probably not as well known as most of the other ones I've told you about,

but they revolutionize, and I've used them as an example in ads in how people buy glasses online. I really love how they do their branding, how they do their marketing. Again, another older industry where you'd have to go in and get eye tests, try stuff on. They have this great system where you can try multiple pairs of glasses and pick your favorite and it's easy. It's done at home.

And obviously the trend, growing trend of shopping online and returning clothing and items, they just really hit that growth curve, but did it for something that wasn't as common to be done, right? So it's kind of common to buy a t-shirt and return it now, but they really hit that growth curve, but did it for something that wasn't as common to be done, right? So it's kind of common to buy a t-shirt and return it now, but they really hit it in that industry that hadn't done a good job of it and became very disruptive. And I would just say the last one, which again plays to the little guy, came a bit of a disaster in the end, but Robin Hood, right? They did a great job of allowing the little guy to play in the stock market, make it easy, make it accessible, make it friendly.

Obviously, they crushed it, had a rise to fame and then a giant collapse. But Robinhood did a great job. Again, another good, there's a movie documentary about it and did an amazing job of looking at an industry not serving a certain population. Liquid Death found an industry not serving a certain population. Liquid Death found an industry not serving a certain population. Robinhood did the same. They made it, you know, made trading friendly, accessible, fun and simple. And sometimes that's all it takes. This is the lessons I want to give you guys from all these billion dollar companies. They've not, you know, invented this scientific new chemical or formula or flown to Mars and got these molecules from the surface of

Mars. They've literally took something that has been around for sometimes hundreds of years, most of which these have been around for decades. And they just go, huh, how is this going to look in the next 10 or 20 years? And how do we do it today? Right. And that's pretty much all they've done. Or they've looked at a popular industry and go is there a niche within this industry not currently served at a big level okay two distinctive factors with all of them um you know another distinctive factor with all of them is they've raised money pretty much so most entrepreneurs i was talking about this the other day to a successful entrepreneur most of us entrepreneurs are against

raising money. We think it's bad. We want to be self-funded. We don't want debt. We don't want partners. Whereas you realize to go from like 10 to 100 million, there's not many companies that have done that without raising money. Don't get me wrong. They're awesome. But most of these billion dollar companies bring in private equity and raise money to get there faster. Not because they want to just go faster, but they also realize something that you should realize that if you don't go fast, someone else will see what you're doing and then copy, copy, copy, copy. So you kind of like when you develop this new product or this new idea or this new niche, you got to understand it's like a head start of a marathon, right? Like imagine everyone's lined up to start the race for the marathon

and the gun goes off, but it doesn't make a sound. So no one's paying attention except for like one person. And then like he starts running, right? And everyone else is just stood there talking, getting warmed up. And then like eventually they all realize, hey, this guy's gone. Like the race started and the sound just didn't go off. So then they all start running behind and you have to take advantage of that head start, right? But if you start having pauses and don't run fast enough, then you're going to lose that. And then boom, now you're in the middle of the pack and you lost your chance to win. So you have to realize to create disruptive brands, you have to also go fast because they won't stay disruptive for very long, right? They're disruptive out the gate.

And then everyone's like, oh, that was smart. Uber was smart. Let's start Lyft. Netflix was smart. Let's start Amazon Prime. Spotify was smart. Let's start Apple Music, right? Liquid Death was smart.

Let's start some funky other water companies, you know? Airbnb was smart. Let's start some funky other water companies, you know. Airbnb was smart. Let's start VRBO, right? So you've really got to understand that someone's always going to be coming for you. And if you do get lucky enough in life of business to create a big break like these companies, go all in, blow it up, explode it,

and then maybe sell some shares because people will be on your heels, right? That's the race to a billion. And I hope you enjoyed today's lessons on creating disruptive brands and some examples and looking at places in the market, market gaps that you can use to grow faster. That's another episode in the wrap, and I will see you guys very soon. Keep living the red light.