The Jordan Harbinger Show - 605: Aaron Levant | NTWRK Shopping with Culture's Creators

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

Aaron Levant is the founder and CEO of NTWRK, the curated livestream shopping company some have called "QVC for the YouTube Generation." What We Discuss with Aaron Levant: What drew Aaron to graffiti art counterculture in his rebellious youth, and how he pivoted this interest into wildly successful streetwear entrepreneurship. What society loses when it underestimates the intelligence and educational capacity of people -- like Aaron -- who struggle with dyslexia, and why we need to support their development rather than shame them toward failure. How Aaron fell into the trade show game by making a stand to defy The Man and accidentally starting a viable business. How having an archnemesis in his industry to duke it out with feeds Aaron's competitive spirit and motivates his drive to push harder. "Ignorance is rich": The chaos theory by which Aaron decides where to put his investment dollars. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/605 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Build for Tomorrow with Jason Feifer is a podcast about the crazy, curious things from history that shaped us, and how we can shape the future. Each episode is deeply researched, fast-paced, funny, and aims to answer big questions about ourselves. Check it out here or wherever you listen to fine podcasts! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. And he was running this huge company at the time. And he says, well, I'm going to this other trade show in Germany next week. He's like, why don't, you know, I call you in a month or something. And I go, I lied. I never been anywhere my whole life. I never think I've been to Germany before. And I said, well, I'm going to be there, right?

I go, you know, I want to seem like a big shot. Like, I'm going to be at the industry event you're going to be at. And he's like, oh, really? He's like, well, I guess I'll meet you there. So then I made an appointment with him. Then try to get a passport, book my ticket, flew to Germany, just have a 30-minute meeting with this guy because I so badly wanted to give him my concept. And then he basically, what I call he son to me. Hey, Sonny, like, nice to meet you, but like, thanks, but no thanks.

And then I was like, oh, okay. And then I'm like, I guess, I guess it's on. And then it was like competition, right? Ultimately, I ended up taking their company down, you know, less than eight years later to the ground. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills are the world's most fascinating people. Every episode, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional legendary Hollywood director, Russian spy, or war correspondent, you get the idea.

Each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it, we now have episode starter packs. These are collections of your favorite episodes organized by popular topics to help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start to get started or to help somebody else get started.

I always appreciate that, of course. Today on the show, my buddy Aaron Levant, he took a very unconventional path to entrepreneurship. Starting off as, is frankly a lost cause and ended up creating the largest streetware convention in history. It's called ComplexCon. If you're in the apparel industry or anywhere near it, you've absolutely heard of this. He now runs the network app. This is QVC for the YouTube generation. It sells one thing per day.

And most stores sell hundreds of things, or even more, thousands of things every day. This app sells one thing per day, and it's a huge deal. I found out about it because it's trending on Twitter regularly in like the number one or number two spot because they're selling some shoe that you can't get anywhere else. It's really something else. Investors include LeBron James, Drake, so this is really kind of a big deal. I usually don't tell entrepreneur or business stories on this show, but this one had a bit of a unique angle, and Aaron is a fun and very open storyteller.

So I thought I'd give it a shot. Let me know what you think. My only fashion claim to fame, of course, is that Kay Swiss did a sneaker with me last year, and it sold out in just a couple of days. And my theory is not that they were popular. I think they just didn't make that many because they probably thought, who's going to want a Jordan Harbinger's shoe? So they were only available for a few weeks, unfortunately.

But if you got them, congratulations. You have a limited edition Jordan Harbinger's. shoe. How did I get on this topic? Anyway, if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, it's because of my network, and I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on our show, they already subscribe to the course and the newsletter. So come join us. You'll be in smart company. Now, here's Aaron Levant. So ComplexCon was the biggest event in streetwear and the whole scene. You started it. And I take it you had years of experience.

and the industry slowly worked your way up the corporate ladder, right? I know that's not the case. How did it start? Complexcom was a really fun, amazing project, and it kind of was an evolution of something I'd been doing for the last 10 or so years before that, which is I had started when I was 19 years old, an independent streetwear trade show company called Agenda, very, very organically, like very small in the back of a Thai restaurant in 2003 when I was

19, right? And over the course of the next decade, that had evolved to become the biggest streetway. where sneaker action sports trade show in the world, like a B-to-B event. And in 2012, in December, I sold that company to read exhibitions or read Pop, which was the group inside of read exhibitions, was the biggest trade show and convention company

in the world at the time. And they owned New York Comic-Con. They owned over 500 different events, and many of them were focused on my core fan communities. And over the next couple of years, I can have this earnout where I stayed on and ran the company after I sold it. And I learned a lot about the fan convention business, specifically in New York Comic-Con,

and the guys who worked with who bought the company for me started New York Comic-Con. You know, I saw an evolution happening in the industry where B-to-B was dying, retail was dying, but, you know, direct-to-consumer was this, you know, huge growing portion of the market, and these fan communities were bubbling, social media. So around that time, I hooked up with one of my mentors and idols, Mark Echo, who if you're a kid growing up and you like entrepreneurialism and graffiti, Mark Echo is your Michael Jordan. And I got to talking with him and he started Complex Media, which is obviously this huge digital

media brand and used to be a magazine. And, you know, I just said to him sometime in 2015 in January, I said, why don't we do Complex Khan, which is this thinking of combining this expertise I had in physical events and brands and bringing people together in a marketplace and his huge consumer reach and their consumer-facing brand. I said, let's match it together and take the learnings that I had from the New York. Comic-Con team and let's create Comic-Con of sneaker culture. And that idea was met with enthusiasm and we basically worked for the next two years to make that idea of reality. And we launched

in November of 2016. And it was a joint venture between my company and his. And the rest was history. It was the very quickly overnight, the biggest exactly what we described, we set out to do, create Comic-Con for sneaker culture and street culture. I kind of want to go back to your childhood because you mentioned graffiti and I'm guessing, I mean, usually kids who are into graffiti are also into other things that don't really align well with like getting great grades, going to a good car. I mean, not always, but there's usually something else going on, right? Yeah, I think what you're pointing to is a general defiant nature, right, that you find in, you know, communities, skateboarding, graffiti, you know, just generally being a rebel, being a vandal,

it's a counterculture, right? And I was drawn to that at a young age for whatever reason. I was an outlet for, you know, I was semi-artistic. I had learning disabilities. I didn't do well in school. I think my mom calls that I'm oppositional defiant, which means I, you know, have a tendency to go against any authority figure in my life. She told the story that I walked into kindergarten in the first day and the principal, asked me a question and I, you know, kicked him in the leg, right?

Like, I just, I always had this need to just rebel for whatever reason. And then graffiti was this outlet for me to be creative and whether you're in class and drawing and not paying attention to eventually, you know, vandalizing walls in your local City, it's something that I was drawn to, and it then had parallels to, you know, music and had parallels to skateboarding, to design. You know, ultimately, that's what led me to a career, you know, wanting to work was I saw graffiti writers that I looked up to getting jobs as graphic designers, creating clothing brands, you know, even someone like Mark Echo who I mentioned earlier. You know, he was a graffiti writer turned T-shirt Airbrusher turned, you know, the first billion-dollar

streetware label, right? And that all came out of a passion for graffiti and street art. You know, this is in a pre-Shepard Ferry, pre-Banksie world that, you know, some of these people were drawn to this. So how is school for you, aside from kicking the principal in the leg? It seems like a pretty auspicious start. Yeah, you know, I struggled really hard because I'm dyslexic and, you know, just reading and writing for me and my motor skills just weren't there. And I think that's commonly misconstrued with not being intelligent. And I have a lot of opinions on, you know, the structure of our school and how it hasn't evolved. And, you know, there's a lot of, I think, smart, really creative people who get left behind in the system. And because they don't do whatever

around their SATs and you know, you don't test well, you know, the common conception is, at least in a school perspective, you're not smart, that you don't get into a good college and, you know, that your life is doomed if you don't perform well in these, in these preconceived notions. And I think I'm a poster child for being that that's not true, right? I absolutely failed in all my school. I did so poorly and at such terrifying experiences in fourth grade, I literally took, I couldn't go back to school because kids were laughing at me every day. They do those roundabout reading in the room where every kid would read a paragraph and you go table to table, right? And I stood up and I was stuttering and couldn't read and kids were laughing at me and I was literally, you know, laughed off

of campus, right? Like, it was an embarrassing experience for me. And for a long time, I thought that, you know, I was never going to amount to much because the system that was created in public school and private school in America leads you to believe if you can't do well at their notion of reading, writing, and arithmetic or history, then you're not smart, which is just not true. Right. And I struggled from elementary school to the beginning of high school, both behaviorally and then kind of academically, and I got kicked out of school the second week of 10th grade, and I never really finished high school,

and I never went to college. And I think my parents probably also believed in that notion because we've been conditioned to believe that, that I wasn't going to succeed economically, right? What do they think now? I mean, obviously they're proud of you now, but are they like what happened, or are they like, oh, this whole time

you were just the square peg that everyone was trying to cram through the round hole. I think my parents generally believed in me, and I think most parents want to believe in their children, but there were some times where they were really worried, right, when I was getting in trouble, when I was getting kicked out of school, when I was constantly being called in,

you know, they were being called by the principals in my school saying Aaron is a huge problem here, right? He's not only a problem for himself and succeeding, he's causing distracting and causing problems for other kids. And, you know, when I started getting arrested, a huge problem, and there was a period after I kicked out of high school when, you know, like I was going down,

meeting with streetwear brands, doing creative stuff, doing art. You know, one of their friends saw me walking on the street in downtown and called them and said, you know, I saw Aaron downtown. Is he buying drugs? You know, like, they thought I was really going down this bad path. I think they were legitimately worried to the point where, like, I think they even considered having an intervention with me and, like, having me taken away to like one of those, like, you know, boarding schools in the middle of Utah where you live in the wilderness, right?

Like, and I actually did something like that at one point. But luckily, they saw over time that I found a passion, but there was a turning point for me when, you know, I was channeling my energy in the wrong way, and ultimately, when I found a business that I was interested and I shifted pretty quickly sometime around 16, 17, to really changing my energy from negative to a positive thing, right? But until that point, I think they were probably healthily scared. Yeah, I mean, look, the idea that a neighbor or a friend of your family would call the cops, or your parents anyway, because they think you're buying drugs, but really you just had a job? And that part hadn't occurred to them? Was it because you had a job?

at work or going to work? I was downtown interning for this company. It was kind of where I got my start, but it was at the very early days for like a graffiti-based t-shirt company in L.A., which is ultimately like how I got my foot in the door and kind of cheering my life around. But like downtown L.A. is a cool place now with the Soho House. In 1998, 1999, it was a dangerous place that you wouldn't go to unless you were like buying raw materials from a factory or buying crack or something, right? So, you know, it's changed a lot. So, you know, they didn't know what I was doing, right? But there's probably healthy concern based on my behavior and where I was and my age. To be fair, downtown L.A. is still pretty rough. Like, even around Soho House, I stayed there a couple months ago,

you walk outside and you're like, there's a metal foundry on this road? Why? This is L.A. And then you keep walking and there's like burned out stuff or abandoned stuff. And when you look around from the balcony of Soho House, there's a lot of like auto body parts manufacturing or like repair shops. I mean, it looks like it's straight out of Grand Theft Auto. And then there's like the boutique stores on one street that's not right there. But that stuff was, it was all that back then. There's a stark contrast now. I mean, this is a relatively new thing in the last two to three years, like the gentrification of downtown LA, which similar to what happened in Williamsburg or whatever is now happening in downtown. But we're in that part where like there's still the rough thing

and then the brand new shiny thing like intersecting down there, which is an interesting thing to watch. It is interesting. I think it's funny and tragic and speaks a lot about how you grew up where your family friend said, I think he's, Aaron might be buying drugs when it's like, he could have a job and they're like, please, he's probably buying drugs. Don't be ridiculous. He's definitely buying drugs. Yeah. Dislexia, do you think that has helped you in your career somehow because you've had to learn how to work around it, right? I don't know if it's helped me, but I think I generally avoid all the kind of like, I avoid emailing people. I avoid most written communication. I try to do stuff verbally, you know, face to face. So I think it's helped me in being more outgoing because I had

to communicate with people in a more direct way. And some people are just scared to pick up the phone, right, and call people. They think it's very salesy, right? So like, I never was good at like, you know, the written language. So I just pick up the phone. I just show up places and start talking to people. So I think by osmosis, I just started to like be really good at communication, verbal and, you know, in person communications. I think that really led me to be more outgoing, even though I'm generally an introvert shy person, but I think, you know, when people met me, they're like, who's this, you know, 16 or 19-year-old kid

who's, like, out here trying to sell me on this idea. Like, I'm actually, like, intrigued with this guy. Like, it's almost so, like, comical that he showed up here to try to, like, talk to me about this business idea. Like, I'm intrigued by him, and they wanted to work with me. They thought it was cute or endearing, right?

There's, like, an element of it's so ballsy and brazen that it's like, okay, normally I wouldn't want to take this meeting, but I want to meet the literal, like, child who's trying to sell me on flying over to this Thai restaurant and buying a booth or whatever at his pretend event and then it's like dot, dot, dot, biggest event in the world for the scene. I don't know if you've ever seen this interview with Steve Jobs

where he talks about when he was, I think, nine years old or something he called up the founder of Hewlett-Packard. He got his number in the phone book, and he asked him if he could buy some parts from him. And the guy, I think, whatever his name was, Hewlett or Packard, you know, thought it was so cute. he invited Steve over to factory. He gave him the parts and then he offered him an internship there.

And Steve talks about like most people just don't have the balls to ask, right? Like just to pick up the phone and just ask people things, right? Naively, everyone's scared in this like Instagram culture of showing your success. No one is like really willing to put themselves out there, right? Because they're so fearful of failing. So I think there's something in a pre-social media era that, you know, was really valuable to just like being somewhat vulnerable, right? In business and trying things. Yeah, you're right. There's something also about the brazenness or the gall of the audacity of these moves. I remember when I was a kid, my mom always tells the story. I don't remember it really,

but I wanted a stereo. So I called every stereo store in town to get prices. And some stores wouldn't give me prices because they want you to go in, right? And I remember this one store saying, we can't give you prices. It's against the law. And I was like, that's weird because other stores are giving me prices. And I called back and I kept asking the guy wouldn't give me prices. And I said, other stores are giving me prices and he goes, well, they're breaking the law. And so I called the FBI and I asked if it was against the law for them to give me prices. And this FBI agent in the Detroit office was like, do your parents know that you're calling the FBI? And I was like, no, but I try to get, I called ABC Warehouse and they wouldn't tell me the price of the stereo. So they called my parents

later and they were like, your son called the FBI to ask about stereo pricing and we're all getting a good laugh about it. But we just thought you should know that your son called the FBI. So my mom's like mortified and he's like, okay, don't call the FBI anymore. We'll just take you to the stereo store. But that other guy, yeah, he was lying, so we're not going to buy from him. I love that. It's like a ridiculous thing that you do

when you're wired in whatever way that you're wired or that Steve Jobs or whatever. I'm not trying to claim that I'm wired the same way as Steve Jobs. Don't get me wrong. But it's just one of those things that you do when you probably are predestined to not have a real job and start a business like you or me. Absolutely.

Which is kind of where we were headed. Why trade shows, though? It seems random, kind of unsexy, right? A lot of entrepreneurs, they start with something sexy. Like, they're designing the clothes. They're not trying to figure out event logistics and sell booths, right? They're trying to spray paint stuff. I have no idea why, and I'll just kind of tell you how I got there, and it was not planned.

It was one of those things I fell into. I heard this guy speak, Jeff Curl, was like the founder of Stant Sox and Skull Can. He's really smart guy. And he's like, I love Stance. Yeah, he's like, pick a business. I heard of speak more recently, not back then. And he was like, you know, he's like, people complain their business has a margin. He's like, look, he's like, you as the entrepreneur get to pick a business that has big margins.

And he's like, you can navigate to what success looks like. And I didn't even realize without knowing it, I navigated into a really great industry. And I was exactly what you said. I was a graphic designer who was designing streetwear T-shirts. Then I had my own brand. And that was kind of like my path in the industry and having my own brand and working at a brand, we were going to a lot of trade shows. And through going to a lot of trade shows, costs us a lot of money. We're independent company.

So this is when like that necessity thing Or like I found something who's broken. I said, oh, these guys charge us $5,000 to attend their show. It was a little brandy. They don't care about us and they shove us in the corner. So by being a disgruntled customer, I then traveled to New York and I saw this one show that just rented out a loft in Soho and they charged less money and you didn't have to build a big booth

and just had a rack and it was about the product. And I said, oh, and I looked around and I said, what did these guys do? They rented a room and sublet it to people and let them bring their own rolling rack. And this is a really simple business. I'm like, I could do this. So then I saw this big show that was happening in California for 35 years called the Action Sports Retailer Show, ASR, big huge, owned by Nielsen Business Media.

They were, you know, they're a big company, been around for decades. And I said, why don't I just set up a show across the street from them and charge my friends $500, opposed to $5,000? And it wasn't about making a business. It was about we didn't want to pay the man, right? Yeah. We don't want to pay a bunch of money and then be sidelines. So I said, okay.

So I called up my friends. And I said, hey, guys, I'm going to rent this restaurant across the street. you just come over. I'm just going to charge you what it costs me to do the thing, basically. And everyone's like, okay, and I got 30 brands to show up to the first one. And by no means was it meant to be a business, but I discovered from the first one, I turned a little profit, not even intentionally. It's one of the few businesses where you get paid before you provide the good of the service, and it has a 70% gross margin. And I just kind of stumbled into it. And I said, okay, and I did it again. First, I charged 500, then I charged 700. First, I had 30 brands, and I had 50 brands.

And I just started to go. And then I turned around. I said, wait, I've been going at this clothing business for a few years. I'm not really getting anywhere. And I said, why don't I just go do this? And I just shifted my energy away in like 2004. And the thing just kind of continued to build organically over the next years and like became a real business. But by no means is I liked trade shows. Was I interested in trade shows? I just kind of fell into it out of something I was passionate about. And then I kind of became passionate that events could channel my creativity because I got to work with a lot of creatives. And over the next 10 years, it just became the biggest thing in the world in that category. And I didn't know anything about the industry, and I somehow beat the incumbent through pure naiveness and just

continued persistency. There is a lot of hustle in some of the stories that you tell. I watch some of your presentations and I listened to some other or read some other interviews that you had in magazines. There's a story where you fly to Germany to take a meeting. I'd love to hear about that, because that's what I'm talking about when I see these brazen, audacious young people or not so young people who are just like, I'm going to take action in this way that's a little bit unprecedented, and it doesn't have to be over the top,

like expensive or involved or over-commit you to something that's going to have to mortgage your house twice. But who the hell flies to Germany to take a meeting with somebody who lives like, I don't know, probably 10 miles away from them? It just makes no sense. Yeah, this is how naive I was.

So I started this trade show, and again, under the context, I wasn't trying to make money. I just wanted to find a place for my brand and my friend's brands to exhibit where we felt like we were important and not shoved in the corner, right? We're just another number. So he did it two times and it was going well. But like, I didn't want to make this a business. So I saw the big show, Action Sports Retail. And I just picked up the phone and I called the head

of it. I was like 20 years old maybe at the time, still 19. And I said, hey man, I said, I'm the guy that did the little show across the street from me. I said, can I rent space from you? I said, this is quite a hassle renting a building and doing stuff. I said, why don't I just rent a lot of space for me to discount and me and my friends could have like our own section? Basically, I was going to give the business away. I didn't even know what I was doing. And the guy goes, he was a little bit like, thought it was crazy that I called him. And he was running this huge company at the time.

And he says, well, I'm going to this other trade show in Germany next week. He's like, why don't, you know, I call you in a month or something. And I go, I lied. I've never been anywhere my whole life. I never think I've been to Germany before. And I said, well, I'm going to be there, right? I go, you know, I want to seem like a big shot. Like, I'm going to be at the industry event you're going to be at.

And he's like, oh, really? He's like, well, I guess I'll meet you there. So then I made an appointment with him, then try to get a passport, book my ticket, flew to Germany, just have a 30-minute meeting with this guy because I so badly wanted to give him my concept. And then he basically, what I call he son to me. He just basically like, hey, Sonny, like, nice to meet you, but like, thanks, but no thanks. And then I was like, oh, okay. And then I'm like, I guess it's on.

And then it was like competition, right? But I so badly wanted to like make a business with this guy or make him feel like I was on the level and he just dismissed me. I didn't realize at the time, but ultimately I ended up taking their company down less than eight years later to the ground. But there's a mindset thing here too, right? Because if you get sunned, as you say it, right, someone's like, oh, look, sunny boy, this is not for you. You can't do this. Like, why are you wasting my time? Cute that you're out here. Most people go, oh, man, I'm too

young. I don't have the clout. I'm going to get laughed out of the room. And you were like, no, I'm going to, now I have to choke you out. Like, I have to. to take you down. I'm going to figure this out. You are going down. A lot of people don't think that way. A lot of people would be maybe sad, maybe disappointed, maybe even angry, but very few people then turn around and get focused and then like dismantle that entire business in

front of that guy. Yeah, I don't know what motivated me, but I felt maybe some of that oppositional defiance I felt in high school or was like, oh, okay, cool. He's like, well, let's go. And it was fun. I enjoy competition. I'm a generally competitive person. I like having an adversary on the dartboard.

Like, people talk about their why a lot. Some people have this kind of, like, you know, very esoteric mission. They want to save the world. And actually, I want to do good stuff for the world, too. But I think in business, in a for-profit business, like, you've got to have a Pepsi to your Coke, right? You've got to have someone you're slugging it out with every day. It kind of gives you purpose to get up every day and work hard.

Because if you're just competing against yourself, that's good. And I've heard, you know, Apple talk about, like they don't think about what, you know, Dell is doing or whatever Samsung is doing. And I understand that perspective. but I like having someone to duke it out with. I think it makes you sharper. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Aaron Levant.

We'll be right back. Thanks so much for listening to this show. Y'all know I really appreciate it. Of course, those who support our sponsors, I really appreciate that too. That's what keeps the lights on around here. If you want to see them all in one place, all the codes, all the deals,

go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please do consider supporting those who support us. We also have worksheets for every episode that we make for you. if you want some of the drills or exercises or key takeaways from this episode of the show, go to the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. We'll have it linked right up in there. And now back to Aaron Levant on the Jordan Harbinger show.

Yeah, there is benefit to having a rival. I was talking with this guy on the show, Simon Sinek. I don't know if you know him. He talks about one of my favorites. Oh, okay. Yeah, so he was on the show. He talks a lot about finding your why, but he also mentioned the same thing about having a worthy rival.

not someone you hate or think is despicable or that you are looking down on in some way, but somebody who's, like, healthy that you respect, maybe you even like them, and you're just looking at them and you're going, you know, like Puma and Adidas or something like that, right? Like, I don't know the whole business story there, but I think those were just kind of like one, they split off. I don't know how much animosity there was. Oh, okay.

So they probably had some awkward Thanksgiving, but it wasn't like one guy's knifing the other guy's car tires or something like that, right? Or was it that bad? I don't know. It got bad. At first, it wasn't animosity for me. I just wanted to continue to push forward. And then they started to get nasty and try to call the city and pull my permits.

And it got really, really, they got kind of gangster on me, right? Like they were like, oh, they're like, not only do we not want to work with you, they're like, we're going to squeeze you out. And then I kind of was like, okay. And I just kept the pedal of the metal. But like, you know, I was watching. They were reporting you to the city to like shut down your events. Yeah.

Like I was so young. I didn't know I needed like these special event permits or these fire department, like safety code permits. And I just was like holding these events. And they would like call the firemen. marshal and be like tattle on, like basically drop a dime on me. And like the fire marshal showed up. He's like, hey, kid, like I was two minutes from opening the doors in my second event. And the fire marshal was like, can I see your special event permit? And I was like, what's a special

event permit? And luckily the guy was so nice. He's like, he's like, I'm not going to shut this kid down. He's like, I'll walk you down to the city hall right now and I'll expedite one for you. He was so nice, but like they literally were trying to shut down my business. And around that time, I had watched some type of documentary interview with the guy that founded Home Depot. I don't if you know this guy's story. Not really. This guy was really competitive. And basically in the beginning of Home Depot, when they moved to a new city, when they

open up their big super center, they'd send a black reef to the owner of the local hardware store. Dang. They were like, we're here to kill you. And I was like, got inspired by that guy. And I was like, you know, I'm like, it's on. I'm like, let's do this, you know? So it was like six years of heated competition, you know, blow for blow.

And then in 2009, they just called it quits. They shut the company down. And I started in 2003. So, you know, it was on. One of the things it seems like you do a lot is ask for forgiveness and not for permission, right? That's an example of it, right? Like, what's a special event permit? Maybe that was a little bit more naivete versus like, I'm just going to do it.

And let's see if the fire marshal even shows up. That's a little bit. You just did it out of like sheer ignorance, I guess you would say. But you did go from like basically a juvenile delinquent to a CEO in a few years, right? It's kind of the opposite of an overnight success story. like most businesses actually are pretty slow going. I'm wondering what you think are the limits of that, though, because a lot of people go, yeah, I'm going to ask for forgiveness and not permission,

but that only works until it doesn't. And then it's like, oh, you're, you did something really bad and now you're screwed. I don't want to advise anyone to do anything illegal. But under the context of what's legal, I think that no one is going to hand you anything. If you're sitting around waiting for someone to recognize your good work or recognize all the good you've been doing or the innovation, it's not going to happen.

And if you're waiting for someone to go and tell you, hand it to you, it's not going to happen. So you've got to go out and take it, right, for lack of a better example. And that's where that model comes from, ask for forgiveness and not for permission. And a lot of times, you know, first I did it out of pure naivete

to a subject matter, and then I realized that works. And, you know, even in my corporate adult life, you know, I practiced this at scale. And I'll see you an example around ComplexCon. We were doing ComplexCon. At that time, I'd sold my company.

I was technically an employee of a big, huge publicly traded $7 billion company. We wanted to really do this deal with this huge celebrity, I won't name. But to do the deal with him, we had to give him some percentage points of ComplexCon. So Complexcon is this big contractual joint venture between Verizon Media and Relics, a huge public-a-traded company. And even though it looks cool to consumers, two big publicly traded conglomerates owned it. So to give somebody equity in an event, you would need to go and talk to the lawyers, right? And I had my experience talking to the lawyers for a while that they never get anything done.

No, it's going to be slow. So I went and I said, this is in the best interest of the business. And I said, here's an opportunity for us to change the trajectory of our business. So I went and I gave that guy equity and I signed the contract. I never talked to any lawyers on any side. And I said, you know what? I said, if they find out about this, they're going to fire me, right? Absolutely.

Like, it was definitely cause to fire me. And I said, but when they see the result that I'm going to drive, they're going to be so happy. The first event went off, and it was hugely successful, and the CEO of the company, high five, you know, everyone's high fiving all around. And then at the end, I said, hey, guys, by the way, I had to give this guy some equity to do this. And they're like, oh, that's great. What a wonderful thing. But if I would have told them on the upfront, it never would have happened.

And it's like those moments where you just need to have the follow through to just say, like, you need to just make shit happen. And like going through the system and waiting for all the, you know, the checks and balances and all the decision makers and stakeholders sometimes is not the right way to do it. And you got to just, you know, you got to make a calculated decision when to just pull the trigger.

And there's an example of I did it and it worked great, but I was risking something, right? Yeah. And I would have asked for forgiveness. I would say, please don't fire me, right? But luckily I didn't have to. I mean, first of all,

you definitely got lucky that the event went off without a hitch, but I wonder how much you thought about the downside. Was it like, okay, and if it doesn't work, so he's got 10% equity, but the event was not profitable. So he really doesn't get anything. So no harm, no foul, or will you just like, screw it? I'm just going to give them the equity because it's going to pop off.

I thought about what the downside was, probably not as so calculated. I just knew in my heart it was the right thing to do, and I was acting in the best interest of the company, whether they realize it or not. And sometimes when you get involved with big companies, they don't even know what's in their best interest, right? And you have to be an entrepreneur and residence inside a big company if you ever work with one to get things done because most people operate under the confines of the system. You know, they ask for the hall pass, you know.

from the teacher. It's like, no, just go, right? And you know, you risk getting your wrist slap. People find reasons to say no. Yeah. And they don't embrace new ideas very often. So you got to just do it. And then they always, when you're successful, of course, everyone wants to be your best friend. But, you know, they don't know how to get there. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good point. How quickly did you go from, let's say, like, broke and hustling for every dollar and hoping ends meet in making this work in a business to looking at your bank account in disbelief, the good kind of disbelief, I mean.

It's an interesting, like when I was running that trade show company agenda, you know, I was living at my parents' house until I was like 24, right? And most people would have moved out at 18 or wherever I know that's changed this day and age, but 10, 15 years ago, that was maybe a different story. And I didn't raise money for the company.

I didn't have this, like, what VC-backed entrepreneurs consider their burn rate. And, you know, they have like a point, Like the business just ends, right? Because I just did it independently. I didn't pay myself a salary. I lived at my parents' house and I just spent no money.

I just could keep going and going for a long time. So there was five, six years. I've made nothing, right? And most people just would have given up. They'd be like, this is not successful business because I was able to push through that. Then when money started coming in, it was dramatic. I almost look at like Amazon. Like they lost money for all this time and then all of a sudden they made a huge profit, right?

There was like this dramatic shift. So I'm trying to remember the year, but it was probably about 2007. in 2008, we went for making no money to like all of a sudden like, you know, I went and deposited like a multi-hundred thousand dollar check in the bank and like it was at the same bank where my parents banked at and like, you know, they had a relation to my parents. And like, again, same thing. They like, the banker called my mother and said, hey, Aaron just deposited a cashier's check for a quarter million dollars in the bank.

Like, is he selling drugs? And that's what I was like, all right, I got someone's attention. And then from there on, it was pretty good. But, like, you know, it's just like all of a sudden I'm making like minimum wage, working for myself. And then it was like, boom, all of a sudden I'm putting like millions of dollars in the bank. So it was a weird moment. But it just took a long time to get there.

And that was when I got that phone call, it was like, okay, now, you know, I did something right, I guess. There's also a mindset thing there, too, because I think a lot of people, if their family friend calls and tells their parents that you're probably buying drugs in downtown L.A., and then the banker calls and says he's probably laundering money or for a drug cartel or whatever they thought you were doing with the $250. 50 grand. You know, a lot of people would be like, you know, all these people that don't have faith in me, maybe they're right, but you were just like, good, I want you to feel like surprised because

that's what I'm here for, right? There's a part of you that's like, good, I got your attention. You're looking at things in a different way than I think a lot of people would. Yeah, there's a competitive nature to all of it. And there's, I guess maybe I felt like I have something to prove due to how often I was doubted in my life and career for a long time. That totally makes sense. That totally makes sense. It's kind of like, I don't know about you, but there are times, and I can't believe I'm admitting this, but even now where I'll think, I'll do something in this business and I'll go, take that fourth grade teacher, like, you know, I'm thinking like Mrs. Perrin, you thought that I wasn't going to be able to do anything with my life. And I'm killing it, and you're probably been dead for 20 years, but still, you know, whatever. I win this round. You know, I do think about that occasionally. I got to find Mr. Mizell, my middle school principal. I'm sure he would be quite shocked. Yeah, probably. He'd be like, that's the kid that kicked me in the leg.

Now he can buy the whole building and turn it into an art installation. That's not what I saw coming. I know that you're not driven by money. You've said that a few times, but you're driven by the thrill of the hunt. I think that's, do you think that's probably one of the reasons that you're successful because you're not obsessed with all the little line items on the P&L and all that stuff? I understand the business and the money side out of it through necessity. It wasn't where I started.

I always started from a place of passion. and I've made a decent amount of money, but then I'm not the kind of person to spend it, right? You know, I don't have a Rolex watch. I don't have a Ferrari. You know, I mean, like those things that the conventional things you would get with money. So, you know, the thing that drives me is definitely not the result of the money. I think it's the process of getting there.

And I like having it for security, but I've never been like, I want to do this so I can make a million dollars, right? Like it just never was part of my thought process. And I think often a lot of people who do it for money, whatever it may be, if their first thing that they set out as their mission and going to our friend Simon Seneca, right, like the why, if their why is, I'm going to make a billion dollars, then usually those people fail. And there's nothing really behind that idea. And I don't know if I had that Simon Seneca approach strategically, but kind of organically, like I did stuff because I liked art and graffiti and it kind of stumbled into all these things.

And I've been passionate about it along the way. But maybe I missed your question. No, that's always good. Whenever anybody misses the question, it's always better they answer the question that they want to answer because it's always a better answer anyway. Yeah. I know that you are focused on culture, energy, and ideas, not budget line items, whatever. Is there a point at which you, I mean, you know it out of necessity, as you mentioned,

but do you normally try to hire for that or do you do a lot of that yourself? Are you going, look, hire a C-O-O, I can't be in the weeds on this. I'm not good at this. I'm going to outsource it. Or do you just kind of ignore it? Obviously, that's not what you're doing. No, I've always been really pro finding someone that's the right brain or left brain. You know, like if I'm taking creative, I always find someone even early on in my trade show business, my cousin.

I hired him in year two because he knew how to use Excel and QuickBooks and I didn't, right? Like, there's always that person and those people are super valuable. And in this business network that I'm in now, I've got lots of people who are really operationally minded, financially minded. And I've learned that stuff over the years. I just know it's not my strength. and my strength is in being creative, being aggressive, and combining those two things. But, like, you know, you have to have those people.

And I think every great creatively led business or entrepreneur, whether they're up front or you see them or they're the unsung hero behind the scenes, that is super, super important that you recruit those people, that you value those people, because otherwise the ideas will never scale. And I think to all those people's credit, they're the ones who kept me from going off the cliff

and meaning like I would have, in numerous occasions, spent us off the cliff, chasing some wild creative idea in every business I've ever done. And they go, hold on, right? So if I say spend 100, they say spend zero and we'll spend 50, and it keeps that even keel, right? And often I can be accused rightfully so of wanting to go over the cliff creatively. I am also like that. And my wife, who runs this business with me will be like, we agreed on a budget. This is twice the budget. And I'm like, but it's so awesome. And she goes, what if we spend the budget now, measure the results, which is like the same thing to do, right? And then continue.

And then I'm like, but I want to do the big thing. And she's like, I know you. And I feel like a child, but I'm like, because you know she's right and you know that your operations people are right. But there's just a part of what you want to do that's just like, I just want to hit the gas, man. I want to hit the gas and go. Yeah. Knowing that moment, though, you know, and that's sometimes where the headbutting comes is like, there's that moment that you have as the entrepreneur where you're like, okay.

okay, these guys did a good job. We got here, made the business profitable. Like, there is a point you need to go back in and reinvest. Yeah. And that's sometimes where the headbutton comes in and having whatever the nose or the feeling to know when that moment is and when's the point to put your foot down and go, no, we're really going for it here. And, like, you know, that was complex con.

That was certain things. Like, we're going to go and, like, you know, put our money where our mouth is and take a big moonshot. And it's a risk. And, like, that's the art of businesses knowing when to do that and not listening to those people. But you've got to listen to them 80% of the time. Yeah.

Now, that's a good rule. I like that. I know you invest in a lot of different things, but they all seem to be in different spaces. You've got hot sauce, you've got events, you've got experiential stuff. That hot sauce truff is really good, by the way. I'm going to link it in the show notes. I'm happy you like it. Dude, I've been hammering it down. I've got the three different varieties. My wife's like, you put that on everything. I'm like, it's so good. The whole house likes it. So it's, for those of you who are not sure what we're talking about, it's truffle oil hot sauce. Is that the simplest way to explain it? It's black truffle hot sauce. Yeah.

Yeah, it's delicious. And it's not overpowering. A lot of people, like, you've got to be careful with truffle oil, right? Or black truffle because it can overpower all the other flavors. And this is a, it's a good mix. I'm really digging it. But you've got, you know, you've got hot sauce. You've got clothing, you know, all these different investments. Do you research the space or do you just kind of trust people to bring you good ideas and you go, well, I trust Jordan. So I'm going to go with this idea because the rest of it looks good. Or are you like really getting in the weeds? The rhyme or the reason on how and why I've invested in things is a complete chaos theory, and there was no thought behind it.

I would say now, 20 years into my career, I start to have a little bit of an idea of what's a good investment and what's not. I would say the majority of the investments I've made are the ones that were not, and there's been a few shining objects have been good. So I almost have, you know, the track record of a venture capital firm that expects 90% failure rate. But I didn't know I was doing angel investing or venture capital. I didn't know what investing was about.

I didn't understand evaluation. I understand anything. I would just kind of meet people along my way, and I happen to be in a creative industry where, hey, I was doing the clothing trade show, and I was working with this brand called Primitive, which is owned by the skater, Paul Rodriguez, and he's very successful, pro skater

at a very successful brand. And him and his team came to you. They said, we're starting a beer company. And they said, it would be the first action sports beer company. I'm not even a fan of beer. And he said, well, you talk to the guys. Are you interested in putting in money? And this guy, Josh, shows up in my office

with a bottle of beer. It looked like he made it in his house. I don't know what good beer. I took a sip of it and he's like, you want to invest. And I'm like, I didn't ask him the valuation. I didn't understand it. I didn't know anything about preferred stock, common side. I didn't know anything.

And I said, sure. And I like, put some money in, right? And next thing, you know, three years later, they sell the company to Miller Coors for like a hundred plus million dollars, right? Like, you know, like, it was totally random. I just liked the guys. It seemed like a nominal risk at the time. And I just kind of did it.

So I was like, okay. And I'm like, oh, this investing thing is fun. I'm like, I should do more of this. Yeah. And, you know, another guy. I'm friends with John Bouchemmy, who's like a high-end sneaker designer, you know, comes to me. I'm having dinner with him. And I told him I really was passionate about hot sauce.

And I was trying to start a hot sauce company. And he's like, oh, he's like my CEO and his son are trying to start a hot sauce company. And introduced me to these two kids who had an idea to do a hot sauce company. I was trying to do it. They had time and no money. I had money and no time. And these guys had no experience. And I just kind of like these guys.

And I was like, all right, well, sure I'll put money into this thing. And we all worked on it together. And next thing, you know, we've got the number one hots house. company and Whole Foods nationwide, right? I would say pure stupidity or naiveness has fallen me into these investments. I didn't get them. You're scumping your way into these things, man. Totally.

Yeah. And like, now I'm like, and with everything in my career, I really believe that ignorant, if people say ignorance is bliss, I believe that ignorance is rich because if I try to go back into a trade show company, I know way too much about it now. And I try to, I overanalyze it, like paralysis by analysis, right? So if I looked at these guys and was like, well, you don't know anything about food, you don't know anything about hot sauce. You don't anything about direct-to-consumer.

You know, one guy was a Uber driver and a tech recruiter, and the other guy was a busboy at Katsuya. Those are the two kids that are the two most genius co-CEO CEOs of any CPG company in the space right now. But if I looked at them on paper, they would have been a no. But it's like, I just got a feeling. I like these guys. I will put my money and my energy behind these two guys out of nothing other than I like them. No conventional wisdom would lead you there. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Aaron Levant.

back. And now for the conclusion of our episode with Aaron Levant. No conventional wisdom, but by unconventional wisdom, it does make sense because nobody, and I'm sure you won't take this personally, nobody would have gone, oh, Aaron Levant, we got to buy stock in that guy, the guy walking around downtown L.A., who we think is buying drugs, like, where do I sign up to be in that guy, in business with him? You know, and you probably see some of the same things you see in yourself where you're like, these people just need a chance. The idea's good. They're hard workers in these other spaces and that's really what it takes a lot of the time. Like there's something going on subconsciously

that you're calculating, right? Yeah. And I would say for sure, and I don't have any data right now to show you on a spreadsheet, but I've made 10 or 15 investments in startup companies. And I would say the ones I've made by far, you know, the crazy returns on have been the ones led by first time entrepreneurs in that space who on paper would have had no experience. And the ones where like, I thought I was getting smarter. I'm like, oh, this guy is a badass. He came from this company, he was a VP at this and that, he's got this amazing business plan and this board and all these other fancy investors, I lost all my money. For sure. So it's really tricky. So there's no rhyme or reason other than I find people and I like them. And I've won more than I've lost

on paper, but the total dollars-wise, but the amount of investments I've lost on is for sure more just per investment. I've lost more. And it's usually from the experienced operators. So be wary of those people that know what they're doing. Right. Yeah, exactly. Be wary of the people that that seem like they know what they're doing because maybe they, like you said, they know too much. With you, they go, oh my God, we have to get our food vendors down. It's like you focused on the food vendors, the experience sucked. Nobody's buying tickets for the next event or something along those lines. Yeah. I know you invested in pressed juicerry. I love that place. I always wonder, my wife asked this. She goes, if when you're an investor in something, do you just get free stuff at every

location? Like, do you get a card that's like, I gave this company a million dollars, give me some free juice? You know what? I think one time they sent me some juice, but other than that, No, and I'm sure if I asked for a discount or some stuff, but I'm never that person that asked. I'm like, I think the other day I bought a bottle of truff at Whole Foods because I didn't want to hit up Nick and Nick and ask for another bottle and be annoying. So, you know, I'm very introverted. So, you know, most people are like a shamelessly ask for free things and I've never been that person. I think one time St. Archer gave me some free beer, you know, but like I just never, I'm sure you could, but no, I'm not that guy. We diverge on that. I am shamelessly like,

hey, oh, you're buying ads on the show? Do we get product? They're like you've never had this product. that everyone has on there. You've never had to Basco. You've never had this before. You've never had Diet Coke before. And I'm like, look, if you're going to buy ads on the show, I need to try the product. They're like, it's available nationwide. And I'm like, cool, here's my address. You'll be a good yin to my yang then, because you'll seriously will ask for things. Yeah. And I'll just hide behind my assistant. Like, look, just send it to them, just send it to them, see what happens, see what shakes out. It's a diamond company. You know what a diamond looks like, right? Yeah, here's, here's my address. You've said that you should make yourself

uncomfortable if you get too comfortable in business. I'm curious why. Like you hear that a lot from entrepreneurs. You hear that a lot from business owners. I feel you on that, but I think a lot of folks are like, what's wrong with just comfortably making a ton of money? I don't understand. I would say it's when you get comfortable is when you stop making a lot of money. I'm not saying you're going to lose the money you have when you stop innovating and making money go forward. You know, and if you're familiar with like Amazon's annual shareholder letter, he talks about day one, right? And he's like day two is stasis. As soon as you move in the second phase, you stop treating it like you're a startup, you die.

That's literally the message that Jeff Bezos has been sending to investors since his first year as a public company. And I didn't know that until much later in my career and I embodied that spirit. But as I learn and I look around, I really believe in that because you have to feel like you have something to prove and you have to try so hard and keep going and grinding. And the second you're like, oh, second you go, I made it. That's when you die, right? That's when everyone goes and eat your lunch.

And like after the first complex con, which seemingly was the most accomplished I'd ever done in my professional career in 15 years, I felt miserable, not because the event was not successful, because I was so focused on what I had done wrong. As masochistic as that sounds, I think that's important. Do you know who David Cho is? Yeah, yeah, I do. He's the artist. Yeah, so I saw him speak probably 10 years ago at some event in downtown LA, and he shows up to the event, and he's a guy that made $500 million because he painted Facebook's office and he traded them. They were going to pay him like $8,000 or he traded him for 1% of Facebook style. and ended up being worth half a billion.

And he talks about that experience. And he's like, he said, as soon as he got that money and he started becoming a really successful painter and everything was going well, he said his creativity just fell off a cliff. And this is a guy that's worth half a billion dollars. He moved back into his parents' garage in a futon. And he talks about this. And he said, as soon as he did that and he started to make himself feel uncomfortable again, his creativity and his career shot back up.

And it was like he literally forced himself as someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars to just go and live in his parents' garage as an adult without air conditioning. And I was like, that's fucking amazing, right? Because that is the spirit. You have to challenge yourself in that way. And I know it sounds really weird, but like, I truly believe that's the case.

Yeah, it's like, hey, man, if you really want to be uncomfortable, I'll hold that $500 million for you. He definitely didn't get rid of the $500 million, but he got rid of whatever his comforts were at that time. Yeah, sure, his like penthouse in Manhattan or whatever, multiple at that point. In closing here, look, how come you haven't lost all your money?

A lot of people who succeed early or in your position with no quote-unquote business experience early on, they go broke. They go great. All right, now I'm unstoppable. Next thing. Ah, crap. I'm broke now. It's gone.

We hear that all the time. We hear that all the time. You meet people like that all the time. Look, games not over yet. I could still lose it all. So for sure. Don't count me out on that list because I'm a big gambler. I would definitely put me on the list of people that are liable to lose all their money.

betting on some crazy business, right? And I get more emboldened over time as I've been successful at multiple things. You feel some level of invincibility. There's a certain ego, whether you realize or not, that you think you can keep winning. And, you know, the odds are that you're not going to win, right? So for sure, I've lost a ton of my wealth. I'm still doing fine, but I've definitely, you know, continued to make money and lose money in various different things. I also have lived a pretty inconspicuous lifestyle, meaning, you know, I know a lot of guys in like the streetwear and skate industry, have these companies that made $100 million. And I know one company that spent $600,000 in bar tabs in one year, meaning going out

to clubs buying alcohol, they thought, you know, they were embodying the lifestyle of what the consumers thought they were doing, the buying Ferraris, whatever, you know, people blow it up their nose or they do whatever. Like, you know, there's a lot of people who have just spent it on just living that rapper lifestyle and having an entourage and things like that. Like, I'll never be that guy. If I lose it all, I'm going to lose it continuing to trying to push new business ideas forward, and I'll feel good if I lose it like that.

I won't feel good if I spend it on frivolous crap. Yeah, well, that's part of it. I think the other trick is as far as I see all these older guys in Hollywood. Not getting divorced is also a really good way to keep a lot of your money. But yeah. So now you run network, which is QVC for the YouTube generation, is how I've heard you explain it. Tell us a little bit about what this is because I saw this trending on Twitter, and I was like, why are all these people on Twitter

upset that they can't buy a pair of Air Force ones or whatever it was? It was like the number one trending thing on Twitter. And I thought, whoever owns this has sold a lot of shoes today. Yeah, I think we had 90,000 people attempting to buy that shoe that day, which is the Jeff staple, Nike SB, Pigeon Dunk last January,

and it crashed our platform because 128 million bots logged on simultaneously to try to get it as well. But yeah, look, post-complexcon, I got introduced to a really prolific entrepreneur named Jimmy Iveen, Apple Music, Beats by Dre, Interscope Records, like one of the great legends in business and creativity. And him and his fund and partners were working on putting together a business that was trying to reinvent QVC from a millennial Gen Z audience.

And I, going back to the idea we were talking earlier, of challenging yourself, make yourself uncomfortable. I'd done events for 15 years. And I was looking at what's the next chapter in my career. So people say when you get offered a ride on a rocket ship, you say yes. So I jumped on board with these guys in beginning of 2018 and started to build out this platform, which really is trying to reinvent what QVC or HSN was to my parents or grandparents' audience, home shopping, television, and bring it to this mobile first live streaming audience.

And in China, live streaming video commerce is a hundred billion dollar plus business. And we think it has the ability to be that in North America. And these are three things I didn't know anything about, e-commerce, content, and building technology. and going back to challenging myself and allowing myself to be naive again, that's really what I was passionate about and we've assembled an amazing team. We've got a hundred people that work here now.

We've got an amazing team of investors and it's been quite a journey the last two years building this new platform that's challenging retail and entertainment. A lot of people might ask, why build a new platform? What about just going live on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook or all three?

It seems like the easiest way to sort of get started, the best thing would be to simply take an audience that you already have, You already have followers there, sell to them on a platform like Instagram. On the other hand, I would worry that Instagram is really crowded and you don't own the audience. You don't have their email addresses, contact info. All you can do is hope the algorithm likes you that day and then sell people stuff, right?

Exactly what you just said is the thesis, which is going through an intermediary. I don't care if it's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat. It's their audience. They own the consumer data. We're renting it from them. and even their whole business model now is preventing you from reaching your organic followers. Like, oh, you have 10,000 people that follow you?

Cool. We'll show your message to about 500,000 of them. You want to reach the rest of the people who want to follow you? Pay us. We can't build a business that has asset value, right? So, you know, why would Spotify start when iTunes exists? There's room for innovation.

Why did Zoom start when Skype and WebEx existed, right? There's room for innovation. There's room for building asset value and having our own relationship with our own customers. And I think it's much harder to do what we're doing. But the prize at the end of the rainbow is dramatically bigger than how many people were big on MySpace. Then you're big on Instagram, and how TikTok goes. There's five more things coming that I don't even know what they are.

You're just chasing someone else's horse. We're making our own thing. And it's more expensive. It's more time consuming. And the rate of failure is much higher. But if we do it, we can be a billion dollar company, right? No questions asked. So this is a pure ideological thing.

and I've seen other people try to be shopping platforms on YouTube on Instagram, and they'll be there, but I argue that we're gonna be bigger. And I think what Spotify did for audio streaming, what Netflix did for video and content streaming, we will do, we wanna be streaming equivalent for shopping. And I think it's that big of a paradigm shift that we're looking to disrupt here in the industry.

Yeah, we'll link to the app and the show notes. Also, you have 100% mindshare of that audience, right? You have, they will open that app and look for what you are selling, versus opening the app and then you're an influencer or a player in that space. And then I come along and I'm like, look, I'm showing more skin than you and I'm younger. So I got all the followers buying stuff from me now. It's like, no, no, no.

And if you build your own thing, if I want to chase you, I'm like, instead of just signing up for an Instagram account or a TikTok account and doing it better or doing it different, I now have to assemble a team, build an app, market the app, get all the vendor. I have to rebuild everything. So you have a moat around you that's much larger that allows you to keep your lead for longer. Yeah, and whatever the next TikTok is, and then I'm not chasing it, right?

We're just going to stand still and do our own thing and not worried about what the rest of the market is. We'll use those tools to speak to consumers for communication, but that's not where we can duck business. You're not under the algorithm, the whims of the algorithm or of big data to really shine on you that day in order for you to survive. And also if you do something around,

those people can just turn you off. Yep. Yeah, we don't like them because one of the guys who was the founder of the company got accused of something yesterday. So we're just going to not show any of their stuff for the next month until that's cleared up. Just turn off your account and then you're dead in the water. Yeah.

Aaron, thank you very much. Super interesting interview. Really good business ideas here. Well, I should say some good business ideas, some really dangerous business ideas that people probably shouldn't follow. But really interesting conversation. Thank you so much.

Awesome. Thank you, man. I enjoyed it. Aaron's up to a whole lot more. He's got a hot sauce brand, which is awesome. It's called Truff. It's the best-selling hot sauce.

at Whole Foods. It's got truffles in it, hence the name. He also does some cannabis events. I mean, this guy is, as you can tell from the interview, and as you can tell from his stories, he's definitely a man of many foci, right? He can't focus is kind of the way that you might explain that. But he does such a good job of channeling his energy enough to get stuff done. It really is kind of the magic combination. This guy was wired to be an entrepreneur. Links to everything he does will be on the website in the show notes. Please use our website links. If you buy anything from guests like their book usually that helps support the show. Worksheets for the episode. Again, those are in the show notes. Transcripts for the episodes, always in the show notes. I'm at

Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. Hit me up on LinkedIn. If you want to hit me up anywhere, I always love to get back to you and chat a little. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems and tiny habits over at our six-minute networking course. That is free. That's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Please dig the well before you get thirsty. That's a way to do it. Most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course in the newsletter. You heard about networking in today's episode and the importance thereof, so I won't beat that to death. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My amazing team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogady, Millie Ocampo, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

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