The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion

Episode Date: April 19, 2015

Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Todd Wagner is one of the reasons I started this podcast.  I wished I had recorded the original conversation I had with Todd last year.  Fortunately, he was willing to come on and share so much of his incredible story with us all here on The Learning Leader Show.  Todd is an amazing person.  One of the nicest, most humble people I’ve ever met… You would think that someone who became a billionaire based purely on their own hard work would have an ego… That is not the case with Todd.  He is such a giving person.  I feel very fortunately to now call him a friend. “You’re either going to buy us or you’re going to have to compete with us.” – Todd Wagner negotiating with executives at Yahoo! Welcome to Episode 004 with the CEO of Chideo and former CEO of Broadcast.com, Todd Wagner Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio.  The Learning Leader Show “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” – John Wooden  Some Questions I Ask: What was it like negotiating with Yahoo!? What was it like when you became a billionaire after the sale to Yahoo!? Describe to us what it’s like to work with Mark Cuban Why is the sales process important? Why did you start Chideo? What specific things can people do to get outside of their comfort zone? In This Episode, You Will Learn: The two questions he asks every entrepreneur he meets What it was like to pitch “Chideo” to President Bill Clinton Specifics behind leaping outside of your comfort zone and the importance of it The importance of loyalty to others What it’s like to work with Mark Cuban His original goals when he was growing his business How he and his Broadcast.com team celebrated How he is working on balance in his life (but it’s hard) Much, much more “Mark is a brother to me.” – Todd Wagner describing his relationship with Mark Cuban Continue Learning Go to Chideo Read about Todd in Forbes   Go to: Todd Wagner Foundation You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How to become a master connector with Jayson Gaignard from MasterMind Talks Episode 003: How to take over and set bigger goals with Chris Brogan Episode 003: The incredibly interesting story of Maurice Clarett and how he built a 6 figure income after spending 4 years in prison Episode 009: The Creative Leader’s Guide to making money by thinking outside of the Box with Jason Zook (SurfrApp)   Did you enjoy the podcast? Having the ability to record with Todd was incredibly special to me.  I am very fortunate to have met him and learned so much from him.  I loved this episode.  Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Bio: In 1995, Todd joined fellow Indiana alumnus Mark Cuban to launch AudioNet, which broadcast live sporting events and radio stations over the Internet.  As CEO of AudioNet, Todd grew the company to employ some 300 people and expanded its offerings to include corporate events and business services.  In 1998, the company’s name was changed to Broadcast.com, and under the stewardship of Wagner and Cuban, went public.  The Broadcast.com IPO set an opening-day record, with shares climbing 249% from an offering price of $18 to closing price of $62.75.  In 1999, Broadcast.com was sold to Yahoo! For $5.7 billion.  Wagner continued to lead the business as a division of Yahoo! Until May 2000, when he declined an offer to become Yahoo!’s Chief Operating Officer to focus on other interests. Todd has since created Chideo with the goal of raising hundreds of millions of dollars for charities.  It is an interactive broadcast network featuring exclusive content by celebrities who want to promote their favorite charities or nonprofits.   Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell    

So after we gone public and obviously some successes, we went and visited with them and basically said, look, you guys are either going to have to buy us or compete with us because we are where things are going. It's not going to stay a text internet. This thing is going to turn multimedia. We're an important player in it. We are good partners with each other. What do you think? Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind.

and the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey guys, welcome to The Learning Leader Show. It's Ryan Hawk. Tonight's guest is extremely special to me. It's Todd Wagner. Todd is actually one of the main inspirations behind why I wanted to do this show.

And we get into that tonight. Just to give you a little bit of background on Todd. In 1995, he joined up with fellow Indiana University alum, Mark Cuban and the two successfully launched AudioNet, broadcasting live, sporting events, and radio stations over the internet. Then in 1998, Todd and Mark changed name to Broadcast.com and took the company public. And then 1999, Todd and Mark sold broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. We talk about a number of topics, including the negotiating room with Todd in the room with

the leaders at Yahoo, where he said, you either need to buy us or you're going to have to compete with us. Really, really cool part of our conversation. We talk a lot about what it's like to be Mark Cuban's business partner. I know a lot of people have questions about that. And then he discusses his current venture Chidio and what it was like meeting with President Bill Clinton to pitch him on the idea. Just a lot of great, great material. I can't wait for you guys to hear Todd Wagner.

Hey guys, welcome again to the Learning Leader Show. It's Ryan Hawk. I am here with a very, very special guest. One of the inspirations for this entire podcast is Todd Wagner. and Todd has been gracious enough to give us some time to come and tell his story and to share what he's currently doing. So Todd, welcome. Thank you, Ryan.

I really appreciate you coming on. So obviously, most people listening probably already have an idea of what you've done, but for the few people that don't, Todd has done accomplished a lot in his life. And I'd like for you to tell the story, maybe getting started right before broadcast.com, and then we'll talk about what you're doing currently with Chidio as well. Sure, that sounds great. Yeah. So I grew up in Indiana, went to college at Indiana University.

That's where I met Mark Cuban, who ended up obviously being my business partner and still is today. And then I went off to law school in Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, moved to Dallas to be a lawyer, practiced law for about seven years and said, I've got to do something else with my life. This is not the path that I see me doing for the next, you know, 30 years. And that was the beginnings of the company that obviously became broadcast.com that I started with Mark, that I was the CEO of. So it's interesting because I've talked to a lot of attorneys. And I'm curious as to why being in that profession led you to say, you know what, I'm going to, I'm not going to do this anymore. I need to be essentially an entrepreneur and start my own thing. You know, I think everybody's different and every lawyer is different.

But what I know about lawyers by and large is they're pretty driven people. they're typically pretty bright. And I think at some point they find that it's not the challenge that they wanted it to be. Now, folks that are litigators, I think by and large, they tend to love it. But those that are business lawyers, I think sometimes feel a bit stifled. And my story was, you know, I'd been a business major in college. So I always had pictured myself being on the business side of things. And what I discovered as a lawyer was that I, just to be honest with you, Ryan, that I didn't enjoy.

my interactions with the lawyers as much as I did with the business people. So I would find myself gravitating towards the entrepreneurs that I was representing and wanting to hang out with them and have drinks with them and pick their brain about business more than I wanted to hang out with the lawyers and argue over where commas went and war clauses should be in a document. And so it was just, you know, everybody has their own journey in life. But for me, it was I made junior partner. I accomplished what I had set out to do and I just knew that I was a bit of a round peg and a square hole and all that good stuff and it just wasn't going to be a fit for me forever and I needed to find out what it would be like to be in the business world. So it's

1995 and you and a fellow Indiana alum, Mark Cuban, decide to start something on your own. And how talk to me about the genesis of what at that point was AudioNet. How did you and Mark What made you make this decision from what backgrounds and were you guys friends prior to this? Just curious about that point when you guys decided to make this company in 1995. Yeah, you know, Mark, obviously to this day is like a, you know, like a brother to me. I mean, he had already started a company in the early 80s called Micro Solutions. And it was back in the day when they were called Local Area Networks. And he had figured out how to hook computers together to make them talk to each other.

and he had sold that business to CompuServe for, I don't know, I think around $6 million. And he had taken his piece and was trading stocks and living the life out in Santa Monica. And I saw him when he had come back to Dallas. I was meeting with anybody and everybody that would take a meeting with me to say, look, I want to get on the business side. I don't know how to do it. I need some help. I either get in venture capital or private equity or investment banking.

and you know how it is in life. Nobody really wants to give you that chance because they looked at my resume and it said lawyer. And I said, you know what, though? I was a business major. I studied finance and accounting. That's where my heart is. You know, I'm a CPA. I've done all these other things.

But Mark said, you know what, Todd, if you find something interesting, I would do it with you. And those were really important words to me because Mark had already been a successful entrepreneur even then. Obviously, we now, you know, now he's a household name. But it meant a lot to me. And so I went to him. We had this idea with another guy who stayed in the company not very long to broadcast sports over a wireless network. And this was 1994. And Mark said, you ought to investigate this wired network that's coming called the internet and see if it's a possibility. So we started, you know, I started looking

into it. And up until then, of course, you would never been able to listen, let alone watch to something in real time over your computer. You had to download it to your hard drive and then play it back. But the bandwidth and the modem speeds, which were then 14.4, had just become fast enough that they could digitize speech so that you could listen to it in real time. So that was literally 1995. Mark and I basically with, you know, one computer in his upstairs bedroom became audio net. And, you know, I always laugh about it because, you know, yeah, hopefully today Mark and I are well thought of and I hope are seen as a bit of visionary entrepreneurs in our own ways. But, you know, we didn't even realize or think back in those days.

Well, what if, you know, gee, at some point we'll be able to do video. So the name of the company was AudioNet. You know, then fast forward two years later. And all of a sudden, video streaming was possible, right? We had blown through talk. It became now you could do music and video was possible. So we had, of course, gotten a lot of attention because we were the first to stream audio and video. We had become the real leaders.

We had 500 radio stations up on the internet and 100 television stations. So we went public. We used the IPO as a branding opportunity for us. So we literally changed our name from AudioNet to Broadcast.com the day that we went public. And so then our name became broadcast.com to obviously more fully encompass what we did. You know, crazy story, of course, largest one-day gain in the history of Wall street at that point. You know, cover the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times. You know, we had a multi-billion dollar market cap. And it's a very interesting moment. I am blessed to have experienced

that people experience in all walks of life, be you, you know, an athlete who gets all of a sudden to play in the Super Bowl or a baseball player who's in the World Series or a movie star who all of a sudden their movie is getting rave reviews and they're getting nominated for an Academy Award. all of a sudden you know your life has now officially changed. And that's the day I knew my life had officially changed. Let's talk about that day. I'm so curious to hear, you know, what's going through your mind? And just real life, as far as money in your pocket, how does that work or how did it work

at that moment when you guys go public? I think it opened at, what, $18 and closed at $62.75, right? And so it climbed 249%. Talked me about how did that truly affect? affect you from both, you know, like I said, the moment to say we've, we've really made it to actually the dollars in your pocket. Well, you know, we had been, what I always tell people, you know, I've been the quote, classic entrepreneur because I'd put all my money into this company. So everything I had saved from those years as a lawyer, I had even taken out a line

of credit. So I literally had a negative net worth. And so to go from a guy, you know, struggling to pay his rent in a one-bedroom apartment that, you know, you couldn't afford to buy fish to put in it. Where we had landed was a roller coaster ride that's really hard to describe. It is a moment that you can't believe has happened. And so, yeah, you go from that to now, you know, we have a net worth. Mark and I in those early days, obviously it went up from there, I'm happy to say. But our net worths were literally in the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars overnight. It's a really interesting time because you're excited, of course, You're beyond thrilled.

You know, we went to a bar down in Wall Street called Harries, and every time they said broadcast.com, like Lou Dobbs or any of those people, we had to do a shot. We definitely celebrated. But then you also realize, wow, there is a huge responsibility now. We have shareholders. We are a public company. I'm the CEO of that company.

This is the real deal. I mean, it's, again, to draw any parallels I can in other walks of life, right? It's what you've trained for, if you will, your whole life, but now you're there. And you know that this is my chance, right? This is where I've got to deliver the goods, and we've got to do everything we can to be successful. I believe it was a year later. So you won't public in 98, and then a year later in 99, Yahoo purchases you guys for $5.7 billion. Is that right?

Yeah, that's correct. So what happened in that one year span from you guys going public and then to Yahoo saying, But here's $5.7 billion to purchase your company. You know, it was kind of similar to the market we're in now. Google is today. They were the dominant player. They had approaching maybe $100 billion market cap. They were kind of the kings of the text world, certainly search and everything that existed then.

And we had frankly become kind of the leaders in multimedia and audio and video over the internet. And so they had been an investor of ours when we were. we were still a private company. So after we'd gone public and obviously some successes, we went and visited with them and basically said, look, you guys are either going to have to buy us or compete with us because we are where things are going. It's not going to stay a text internet. This thing is going to turn multimedia. We're an important player in it. We are good partners with each other. What do you think? And they were open to that. And it was in the era when AOL had bought Netscape and, you know, some other companies, GeoCities have been purchased for

high dollar amounts because, you know, as crazy as it was, and it was crazy, make no mistake, you know, a lot of these companies were just a bit ahead of their time and played catch-up later, right? To me, GeoCities was an earlier version of Facebook, you know, a company called SimpleNet that we bought was an earlier version of YouTube. The ideas were already there. sometimes you have to wait for the marketplace to catch up. And so they bought us. And it was Tim Kugel and Jeff Mallet at the time we ran Yahoo. And probably the most disappointing thing to me was, and a life lesson I think I learned, even though Mark and I had arguably been the ones to really help build it, they didn't put us on their employment agreements. They kind of decided they knew what was

best and sprinkled the assets around Yahoo. And I don't want to say dismantled, but certainly didn't do it the way we would have done it. Well, six months later, of course, Mark bought the Mavericks, and everybody knows the rest of that story. And I stayed about another six months after that, and they offered me the C-O-O job of Yahoo, which I turned down to just kind of start the next chapter of my life. And you watched, you know, sometimes what went wrong in that acquisition that, you know, breaks my heart a little bit even to this day. But it's the way business works. And, you know, staying on top of the mountain is a very hard thing to do. And Yahoo had some great opportunities.

Some of them, unfortunately, they squandered. They're still obviously a company that's got a good-sized market cap to this day. You know, we've seen others like Google and Facebook and Apple and Amazon, you know, kind of take up the gauntlet and, if you will, pass them by. What made you turn down the C-O job at Yahoo when offered? You know, it was a couple of things. One, I wasn't ready to move to California. I also had complete liquidity at that moment. And if I took that job, I would be putting all my shares back at risk as an insider.

And I wouldn't be, if you will, the CEO of the company. All of those reasons for different parts of it were enough for me to say, you know what? I'm okay with seeing what the next chapter of my life is going to look like. Although, again, you have to remember in those days, it would be like being offered to be C.O. of Google. today, right? It was a big thing, but I just felt like I wanted to see what was next and not do that. So if they would have offered you the CEO job, would you have taken it? I might have. Wow. How would your life have been different today if that, if you would have taken that job? I do not know. I know the one, the first thing I would have done is gone to Mark and

say, Mark, please be a part of this in any capacity. That would have been the first thing I would have done. Could you have done that being the owner of the Mavericks as well? I don't know. But I, but I would have at least begged him to be on the board or be involved or something like that. Because let's face it, to this day, mine and Mark's relationship is so good. And I obviously respect him so much that I would have, that would have probably been my first phone call. And then from there, who knows. What's it like, you know, a lot of people probably ask you about Mark a lot. So I didn't want to make this all about that. But he is, you know, he's a close business partner and you

guys have did this together. And I know you're actually an owner of the Mavericks as well. But what's it like working together with him? What's it like for the people that have to work for him as well because just from watching him on TV and seeing him, first of all, I love watching him on TV and I love listening to him on other podcasts. He seems like a guy that it can be very demanding yet always is striving for excellence and is not afraid to say exactly what he thinks, which I think people just love that transparency. What I love about Mark, obviously I've known him for more years than I want to remember because I knew him even since college. Yeah. And the best way to describe Mark is, you know, he owned the

bar in college. And I don't even know if he was 21 at the time, but he was such an entrepreneur, right? I mean, how many 21-year-olds own something? You know, we're just out drinking and, you know, trying to get through class. But that was Mark. I mean, he's just got a different bent to him that I personally admire now. Is Mark tough? Is he stubborn? Of course. You know, Mark, Mark is very aggressive. But part of why Mark and I have, have, I believe, and I think he would say the same thing, click through the years is we, we are very similar. in the ways that matter for business. We both want to win more than you can possibly imagine. We both hate to lose more than you can possibly imagine. And we don't mind working around the

clock. And, you know, Mark, and I will steal this from Mark, Mark, Mark calls, you know, businesses like sports, but it's 24 by 7, 365 days a year. There's no, there's no halftime, you know, there's no offseason in business. And so it is a very demanding way to make a if you are in theory at the, you know, towards the top of that heap and trying to stay there. And so, you know, Mark has not changed a bit. He's the same guy always has been. It's just that now he's more famous. So when he says things or does things, people go, oh, he's outrageous.

And it's like, no, that's just Mark. You know, I have no issue with it. You know, but that's because, you know, we have a really special kind of bomb. We still own five companies together, even to this day, Ryan. I mean, you know, we own a production company, a movie theater chain. You know, I'm the other big investor in Access TV. I mean, we're still, you know, close. And I know that he's got my back and he knows I've got his. And that's a really powerful thing. We may be a bit different in public. But, you know, again, to me, we're similar in the ways that matter. I think he's a brilliant guy. And, you know, yeah, so what. People sometimes don't like what he says, but he says what he thinks. And, you know, I admire that. I wish I could do more of that. I think we all kind of wish we could do more than. I. I think we all kind of wish we could do more than. I. I, I, I, I I love that about, you know, watch whether, like I said, watch them on TV or as the owner and criticizing officials. It's so funny to see.

But I got a question since, so you go from straight from being an attorney to then working on this business with Mark. And when you hear the stories of entrepreneurs, a lot of times they fail and they fail multiple times. Has there been times in your life or in your career when you failed and had to learn from that and bounce back? Or was this like, hey, this is my one go out of it and there wasn't really much failure. or was there along the way? You know, I obviously have been lucky. You know, I call it lightning in a bottle, which is what Mark and I caught. And so, yes, the very first venture that I did turned out to be Broadcast.com.

And yes, it was highly successful. And, yes, many entrepreneurs do multiple things, fail and learn and then get there. You know, I got lucky. I don't ever deny that. I always say big success comes from a four-way intersection of luck and time. timing and hard work and smarts, but you've got to have all four. And we certainly had some luck and timing came our way. And so, you know, it happened that way. I would like to think that all the training I had before then and all the schooling and jobs and business opportunities

I had seen helped prepare me for what lie ahead. And I was lucky enough to be with a guy who, as we talked about earlier, already been a success and had already been an entrepreneur. And And I learned from that. Hopefully I brought some, you know, some toys to the party as well. And it turned into something unique. I mean, but look, everything any of us touched, there's always going to be failures. There's always going to be things that don't go the way they should. And that to me is why you always learn to make left turns, right turns, and never be afraid to say, you know what?

I made a mistake, but I'm going to go fix it. So I want to transition to what you're currently doing now. And this is how I, you know, originally met you just for the people. I wrote about this too. That's posts online. But you started a company called Chittio stands for charity and video, and I'll let you describe it. Yeah, so Chidio really has been a bit of kind of a labor of love because it's a mix of all the things that I've done in my career because it's, of course, got a heavy technology component. It's got a heavy philanthropy component because I've had my own foundation now for almost 15 years focusing on at-risk kids.

And it's also got a bit of a media and celebrity side to it. So at its core, we are trying to build a charity broadcast network. And in today's world, in this kind of OTT over-the-top world where, you know, that doesn't mean what it used to mean, it is building something that intertwines entertainment and cause in what we hope is a unique way, so that we, as you well know, have lots of what we call ambassadors, which, of course, are famous athletes and musicians and entertainers, and that ranges from President Clinton to Condoleza Rice to Pitbull to Ann Hathaway. It's an eclectic group.

We're literally doing a chance to meet Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence on the red carpet of an upcoming movie here in a few weeks. And the idea is to try to entertain people, but yet raise money for cause. So just like PBS might do it, where you can donate for certain kinds of programming, we have a very, very small percentage of the programming that you might make a contribution to watch. But the vast majority of it would be just like a network, just like a television network. You would watch a commercial or see some kind of branding. And by watching that, you're helping contribute to it.

And so we syndicate the content out. We have relationships with Sinclair Broadcasting and other folks to create awareness for the content and for the campaigns. And the idea is basically to leverage all of this so that we can raise money for these causes that these ambassadors or celebrities are passionate about. Yeah, it's incredible. And I remember, you know, you're going through, and this is for the people listening. Todd pitched this himself, did the pitch to it was at that night was my brother AJ and Jordy Nelson was there with another teammate named Rob. Brad Jones. And I think they all those guys realize just how down to earth you really are and how much you truly, truly care about this. Because quite frankly, you don't have to really do anything right now.

I mean, you don't have to do this. And I know you've put a lot of your own money into Chidio to try to make sure that it goes well. And it just came from a really true space we could all feel when you were describing why you were so passionate about this company. Again, another, another inspiring moment, which I think is the theme of this conversation. But you mentioned President Bill Clinton. I'm curious about the process of going to meet with him and pitch him and having him say yes to Chidio. We had talked to his chief of staff. They had said, we raised it with the president, and he's interested enough in taking a meeting with you.

So they, of course, gave us all the helpful hints of what to do and what not to do. And, of course, I ignored all of them. And they told us to, you know, not go in and show him a sense. and the pitch deck, just talked to him, and of course, we ignored him and went in and did the sizzle and showed him the pitch deck. And the president about maybe halfway through it, he kind of lifted up his eyes and he looks at me and he goes, I'm in. And I said, wow, well, thank you, Mr. President. And then he looks up again, he goes, what can I do to help? And I said, anything you do is going to help. I said, but I think you see Mr. President. I mean, the whole idea of this is to take

fundraising out to the masses. The problem with fundraising in our country is it's inefficient. Many times it only raises 30 or 40 cents on the dollar after you pay for, you know, the food and the catering and the entertainment and the band, et cetera, et cetera. And it's not allowing things to get out to the other 99.99% of the country who can't buy the $10,000 table and do the meeting greet. And he said, how big do you think this can be, Todd? And I said, Mr. President, I have no idea. but I know that we're going to give it a really good try. And that was the beginnings. And literally that day, and I think his staff just kind of looked like,

I can't believe he just said yes in the room, but he did. And that was the beginnings of having them on the platform. We had this similar experience with Condoleezza Rice, who I sat with, and she basically told me the story of how, as you may know, she's a concert pianist. And she had taught herself a song to play, because she thought it would be great for the fundraiser. And so she did all of this, put all this time in,

and played the song and the event went on. And she told me at the end of the day, the event netted $14,000. And I think it was those moments that people that have actually raised money and understand what I'm talking about go, wow, so you've got this system that we plug into. You have this network of celebrities.

You have this affiliate network of broadcast television stations and radio stations that you work with, you're able to also leverage relationships with online companies to get the word out. You take care of everything, and 80% of every dollar goes to their charity. They're like, okay, I'm in. And that's really the point, right?

We want to make it turnkey. We want to be kind of their media or digital agency, and then leverage all the other famous people on the platform to help each other, right? Because if we had an offline event, right, a bunch of guys in the NFL might help show up at the other guys event. Well, we do the same thing in the digital world, right? We ask them to tweet or post or whatever. And the idea is to leverage that network, not only the things we can bring, but also the ambassadors to help get word out.

And for people to realize, hey, if I put in $10, maybe I get to get a private VIP tour of a Packers facility, or I get to go backstage, or I get to do whatever it might. be, but I also know I'm helping a good cause. So now I know where my money's going. You know, I know what I'm about. And I'm also, maybe I'm going to get to experience a once in a lifetime thing as well. So you look back at what you started with audio net slash broadcast.com. And everyone's saying, what do you mean, you know, stream video or listen on the internet? That seems like so obvious. It's just so happens that you guys were the ones to do it first. This to me feels very, very similar that maybe five or 10 years or less from now people are saying, well, yeah, why wouldn't we be leveraging the networks online digitally from all these people to create networks like Chidio? So have you found competitors in this space, although it feels weird to say competitors because it's for such a great cause.

If you found other competitors that are trying to do the same thing that you guys are, or are you the primary one in this space? There are, you know, and I agree with you, it's hard to call anyone a competitor because the money is helping 501C3s. There are a couple that, I call it a bit of a Venn diagram, who overlap very slightly, but we are the only ones that are trying to build a charity broadcast network. So, in other words, content that might be unique, you know, the ability to syndicate it out, as I said earlier, to these traditional broadcast networks and online ways. So layering all those pieces together and raising money from brands and consumers, along with all the other methodiles, to get the money raised is all unique. Now, the experiences part, there are a couple of folks that do that as well.

And I think all, again, like we said earlier, it's all wonderful. But my view is try to build a virtual shopping mall or stadium so that then the different products that I sell within this virtual shopping mall or stadium might do better, which is, you know, the concept of why stores are in a mall as opposed to a strip center is foot traffic. And so by building a broadcast network with lots of different kinds of we hope entertaining content, you get more foot traffic. And if you get more foot traffic, you can sell more stuff. And that's really the way I think about it.

And so the interesting thing is that only 8% of money is raised online, which tells me that We've got a ways to go to get people to understand that there's other ways to raise money besides a charity golf tournament or, you know, an offline event, which, again, are all wonderful things. We are just trying to give a new complementary, I hope, revenue stream to what happens. So the bulk of your time you'd say is spent on Chidio? I would say probably 80% of my, you know, business life is currently in Chidio because, you know, startups, whatever the vein of what they are, I view them as like little delicate children.

And they are very needy in their early stages, right? They need a lot of attention. Something bad can happen to them if you don't pay attention. And so they deserve and need a lot of time. Then as they get further along, you know, they are able to, you know, crawl and then walk and eventually run. But that is a process. and obviously I've lived it a few times with our companies.

And so I know that it still needs a lot of that attention. And I hope over time, as it gets a bit more known, and I hope over time a bit more mainstream, and we kind of know what some of the steps to the dance are, that, yeah, it'll be slightly less of my time. But I'm the CEO of this company. It's the first time I've taken a CEO title for over a decade. Wow.

You seem like a very comfortable guy in all settings that I've seen you, talk to you here and then in person. You just feel more at ease now or are there any specific times where you say I need to leap outside of my comfort zone or are you not really comfortable but you just have the appearance of that. I'm very curious about that. You know, I try to always push myself to something that may make me, quote, uncomfortable or in a setting that may make me uncomfortable because I think that's how you grow.

It's just that now I've been doing it for so long that that even that doesn't be uncomfortable, right? I've met enough people. You know, I've had those aha moments, you know, when I first met George Clooney, or I first met Governor Schwarzenegger, or I first met Bono. You know, you can barely speak. But I've just now met enough folks for a long enough time. And I've been around the block enough that, no, I don't get super uncomfortable in almost any setting anymore. And I never forget, you know, I grew up in Gary, Indiana. I grew up, you know, a kid that wasn't sure what was going to come in my life and where it was going to go. And so I just, you know, I've, I've been exposed to a lot of folks and a lot of situations through the years that give me, I guess,

a great deal of comfort no matter who it is that's in the room with me. You know, I remember I grew up, when I grew up in Gary, all my, all my friends were steel mill workers and steel mill workers' kids. And unbelievably, if you will, blue collar and kind of rough area, frankly, a world where very few people went to college. And if you did, it was maybe a community college or you went to trade school. And so I've seen a bit of the range of what life can be. So yeah, I'm typically pretty comfortable in most settings. Like I said, I've noticed that. And I thought that's a, it's a great quality, you know, especially in all the meetings you have, I would imagine. One more question about goals. Are you, have you been a goal-oriented person in your life?

Is this something that you currently practice, you know, the science and the art of writing goals down and looking back to make sure you achieve them? Or do you just kind of go about your day-to-day business? I'm curious about that. I'm fortunately. I'm one of those who write them down. Do you? I do.

Me too. And, you know, for me, and you probably feel the same way. I think when you write things down, they tend to happen more often. Absolutely. I mean, that's a scientific fact, actually. It's, you know, it's self-accountability. And, you know, I remember writing down the goal of that I, and this sounds awful, but it was what I wrote down, that I wanted to be my own boss, that I wanted to make enough money to not

have to work anymore if I didn't want to. And the number that I put next to it was $5 million. And I had, you know, studied why I thought that was the right amount. And it sounds a little silly, but it was a goal that I had written down. And I also wrote down that I wanted to do it within, you know, a five to six year period. And obviously it all came to pass. And it was, you know, the number was a bit higher, but the time frame and everything else was the same, and it was just something that did happen, and I did write it down. And so, no, I'm a believer in that. And I write things down, you know, almost every year about, okay, what's my goal going to be this year?

And to your earlier question, sometimes that goal may be different in the sense of more balance, more time doing other things, more time doing this or that. So the goals may change. They may not be as obviously as monetary-based anymore or being your own boss kind of things anymore. But I'm always trying to set goals of things that I think, you know, would be good in my life to try to do. What are they currently? You know, probably right now, their most balance. Balance is probably my number one goal as far as on the professional side.

You know, on the personal side, you know, everybody has their own journey with faith and all those other things that I won't get into. But, you know, I think balance to me at this point is probably my number one goal. And it's probably one that might be harder for you to achieve than some of the monetary ones that you had, isn't it? I think it is, you know, and again, for all the reasons that we've talked about. I love it. Todd, this is great. I have one more two-part question. Best advice you've received as well as the advice you typically give to somebody who might be someone who's trying to do what you've done.

I'll answer your second question first. And that is when people ask me or they'll say, I want to be an entrepreneur, and I ask them two questions. Because it's always how I know if somebody's really ready to be an entrepreneur. So the first question I ask them is, are you willing to quit your day job? And if they say, no, I don't want to quit it. I want to see how it goes. I want to do it on weekends. I want to do it at night.

You know, I don't want to give up everything because what if it fails? Then I know they're not an entrepreneur. Because entrepreneurs put everything at risk. they know fear of failure is an enormous motivator and keeps you searching for the next opportunity to make your business succeed. And then the second question I ask them is, are you prepared to put in your own money? And if they say, no, I want to raise money from angel investors like you or from venture capitalists or whatever the case, then again, I know they're not entrepreneurs.

Because entrepreneurs are willing to put in their own money because when you're, you have, if you will, let go of the side of the pool, when you have let go, whatever analogy you want, when you can't see the shore anymore, and you're in deep water, that's when you know that you've got to survive. And until you've experienced that, it's never the same. When you can still swim back to the shore, when you can still go to the edge of the pool, whatever analogy you like, it is never as inspiring, it's never as invigorating, it's never as difficult as when you no longer can do that. And you now know, I'm in, and I got to make this work. And so that's the best piece of advice I can give someone. And that doesn't mean, by the way, they're not amazing

people. They're just not entrepreneurs. They're better off to be the number four person in a company, or they're better off to be an employer. I mean, of course, that's what makes the world go around. But if somebody says they want to be an entrepreneur, they have to be prepared, in my opinion, to say yes to both of those things. And then I guess for me, I don't know that I would say best piece of advice or as much as what I had said to me that inspired me and made me want to try to now pass it on to others. You know, when I, we talked earlier about I was from Gary.

And my first job out of law school was with a law firm in Dallas. And I still remember, you know, I'm 23 years old at the time. And, you know, everybody seems like, you know, I can't believe I'm here. how did this happen? This is amazing. You know, you're meeting with a corner office partner, and you just can't believe it. And I still remember this man saying to me, Todd, I don't know you that well yet, but I know where you're from. And just being from Gary, Indiana, and now where you are today is an amazing accomplishment. And you should be hugely proud of yourself for that. And those words really stuck with me. And so I now know that if I can

say something, if appropriate, right, I have to mean it. But if I can give a compliment to a 21-year-old or a 23-year-old and say, man, you are killing it. That is great. What a fantastic idea. That might stick with them. That might motivate them to do something amazing. Because, again, I still remember those words. I still remember the guy who said them to me. It wasn't advice as much as just inspiration. And we forget sometimes, you know, again, think of all the folks on our platform, the power of the words of a professional athlete or a musician or an actor or whatever the case may be cannot be underestimated. And so, of course, it can do damage. I get that, but it can also do an amazing amount of good if done in the right way. That is awesome, man. I absolutely

love it. And I, again, I greatly appreciate you taking the time, obviously in a very busy schedule, to sit back and talk with me here and put it on tape for us to share with people. And like I said, you're a huge inspiration to me and to why I'm even doing this and reaching out to great leaders to learn from. And you're the first one that I thought of when doing this to say, I love and I wish I would have had that conversation on tape. And now we do. And that's really, really cool.

And I'm just so grateful for it. So thank you, Todd. Thanks, Ryan. It was fun. Awesome, man. Let's talk soon. Okay. You got it.

All right. Bye. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Learning Leader Show. I absolutely love doing this show, as I hope you can tell by the passion that I bring to it on a daily basis. If you enjoy this episode, I'd like to ask one thing of you. You could go to ryanhawk.net. It will launch the show in iTunes.

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