Trading Secrets - 70: $100M for D’Amelio brands! Marc D’Amelio reveals the key to massive success through social media, his family Charli, Dixie & Heidi, and happiness as a driving force

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

This week, Jason is joined by social media megastar and father of the appointed first family of TikTok, Marc D’Amelio!    After the wild success on TikTok, Marc, Heidi, Dixie and Charli D’Amelio moved from Connecticut to California and have gone on to have continued to have massive success with a docu-series on Hulu and the launching of D’Amelio brands. Marc gives insight on navigating the world of social media, how the knowledge he gained from his apparel career led to creating D’Amelio brands, why the family signed with UTA, and who he thinks will last longer on Dancing With the Stars. Marc also reveals what filming The D'Amelio Show is really like, how to potentially get your product into an incubator company, and what his key to happiness is. What advice would Marc give to anyone looking to go into social media full-time? What can be expected on season two of The D'Amelio Show? Who was the first person they hired after getting traction on TikTok? What’s next for the D'Amelio's?   Marc reveals all that and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!     Be sure to follow the Trading Secrets Podcast on Instagram & join the Facebook group.   Sponsor: mintmobile.com/secrets to get a new wireless plan for just $15 / month and get the plan shipped to your door for free!   Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr   Produced by Dear Media.   Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today I am joined by a social media megastar and father of the appointed first family of TikTok, Mark D'Amilio, his social media megastar family, Charlie, Dixie, and his wife, Heidi, have a combined social media following of over 365 million and a successful TV show on Hulu. Season 2 is coming out soon and we will talk about it. Mark and Heidi continue to encourage their daughters to use their platforms for good

and to create positive change in the world, all while balancing his professional career as an apparel entrepreneur, advisor in the sports industry, and most recently announcing the formation of D'Amelio Brands, which we're also going to dive into. Today, we are going to dive into the family's rise to fame, their successes and struggles, and all the details on the big time money being generated from the social media empire.

That is the D'Amilio family. Mark, we are so excited to have you today. Thank you for coming on Trang Secrets. Thanks, Jason. Glad to be here. So excited. This is exciting. It's awesome because we talk a lot about business, career navigation, and, of course, social media.

And that's literally now, like, the entirety of your world an empire. And I want to get into a little bit of the numbers, right? So Wall Street Journal, they released an article at the very beginning of the year showing how TikTok stars are outperforming some of the top CEOs in the S&P 500, right? And on the top of the list was Charlie at 17.5 million in 2021. So my question to you is, that was at the end of 2021. We saw that article. But when for you did you say, whoa, there's some real dollars here? We got to start taking. this seriously. We might have to get a real money manager, a real talent manager. What was that moment? Yeah, that was early on. When it was in the thousands of followers, it was like,

okay, this is fun. And then when I got to 50, and then I remember we bought her, we had a cake made for her when she got 100,000 followers on TikTok. And I'm in the apparel business. I'm sure we'll talk about that. But I've been involved with brands and I have a lot of friends that do licensing. So I picked up the phone and called and said, is this a business yet? And early on, we had people, record companies and record executives getting in touch with Charlie directly. And Heidi tells a story that Charlie came and said to Heidi, hey, this guy wants to give me $100 to do dance to his song on TikTok. And I was like, that's not real. Let me do it.

And I talked to him and it happened. So it started off with just these small little deals and has escalated in something massive. Absolutely massive. Now, how much of an impact did you have on kind of building this fun little thing on social media to actually like building a brand and steering the direction? Is that something you've done in your previous lives? Yeah, I think I was definitely instrumental. And first of all, I teach my kids, if we're going to do something and you're committed to it, we're going to do it. Right, unless it's a hobby. If it's a hobby and we're just like, you want to go do something for fun, it's fun. But once we, once Charlie decided that this is something she wanted to do, then I was like, all right, let's, let's get your website up and running, let's get logos, let's create this as a brand. And, but the one thing I did early on is just because I saw so many of the stories about parents and with children that become famous

and how parents usually mess up the navigation of things that they just don't. know. We, I think our first, first thing we hired, first person we hired was a lawyer and the second person was a business manager. Might have been the opposite. Yeah. We, I wanted to have someone who knew this business. Sure. With their eyes on it. That's such a good perspective, too, is because you have business experience. You know your businesses. But I think there's so much to be said about making sure you're lining yourself with experts in industries you're not familiar with, right? Because it can create a world difference. People are going to hear these numbers. They're going to see the 17.5, maybe they've read it before, maybe they haven't. And I think immediately people

think, I want to do that, right? I think even adults are like, my dad will be like, so how do I get into social media? How does this work? And then you, of course, have kids. And it's like the number one aspiring career now. So what advice would you have for anyone out there, a child, a kid, a parent that's dealing with a child who has these aspirations of pursuing social media full-time as a career. It's difficult, and I would say part of Charlie and Dixie's success is their lack of really wanting to be successful. I think there's something that happens where you just kind of, where TikTok created this

environment where you could be in your room and be really authentic and natural. And even to this day, people think we have this huge master plan. and we're getting better at it, but like, we never, we have no posting schedule. We have no, aside for the things that we're contractually obligated to do, it's a free-for-all. Interesting. And on the side of what I would tell parents is embrace it. I mean, I think we early on, maybe because of my background and the fact that I was working with different clothing brands that I had to be on social media, that I just felt it was something that, that if you lay the groundwork and you teach your kids to respect what their platform is, even if it's small and that, these things that you post or negative things that happen or could last forever.

But I do think, I think the one thing I would say to parents is get involved to the extent where you're not, you're not necessarily doing TikTok dances, but you're keeping an eye on it. I think it's important. And so you understand it. But the parents are just like, hey, my kids aren't going to be on social media until this age or that's not that TikTok is for kids. Like it's just or social media in general. I think we've over the last couple of years have proven that any occupation, any career could be amplified by a great social media presence. It's so cool that you have that perspective because I think so many parents out there try to put like a lid on them and control kids. but to just embrace it and see where it goes.

And that's such a good point. Never thought about that. Think about the impact your kids have had on people that are like, you know what? I can be creative in my space or the way I do it, the way I want to do it. And think about what that's created. It's wild. When you talk about getting a business manager, I read one article that said that you guys had moved and signed a deal with UTA for them to be your agents.

So I'm curious when that's a huge decision as to like who you're going to align yourself with. And I do think there's a lot of like business takeaways that are that go into that thought process. So what are some of like the components that went into deciding UTAs for us? So I think, first of all, Charlie was 15. So there was no way we were going to let her come to L.A. by herself. So we were coming as a family. And luckily my during COVID, I had a showroom in New York City. I couldn't get into it anyway.

So I was open to relocate. So that was a little bit of luck. And we found that when we were working with agents and most of them were just like, it was basically a territory grab. They're just like, hey, TikTok's a new thing. This girl is really popular on TikTok. Let's grab her and bring her. No real thought on what they're going to do with her, how they're going to help her career. And what was interesting about UTA is they started to dive into my wife's numbers and my numbers and Dixie's numbers.

And they looked at it. We didn't come to them and say, hey, we have this great idea. Why don't we come and become a Hollywood family? They're the ones that approached us. And they put this whole, we met them in New York City after we were in L.A. And they're the ones that said, hey, we think your family has something. Heidi's growth, although Charlie is exploding, Heidi's growth on Instagram is incredible. Dixie is someone that we think could be big.

and started to ask about what our interests were. And then once we met with them after meeting with other agencies, it was still this day. I mean, I love UTA. I love Jeremy. We hired Greg, who is now the president of our company, was our agent at UTA. We brought them over to us with Jeremy Zimmer's approval. So it's been really cool. That's awesome.

When you signed with UTA, you did like the whole family package. Like you're taking out one of us. You're taking all of us and you're going to help us to develop. But again, that was their idea. I think people get this, like, we're, I love what's happening with my kids, but I'm more of a reluctant, I would never consider myself a celebrity. Just we have some notoriety. And I think that they're the ones that were like, hey, you know what?

You guys could do this as a family. I wasn't like, Charlie, let's, how do I get it? Even to this day, I get it. I kind of am, not embarrassed by it. I am just, I realize that it's a really unique situation. I don't understand why us for a lot of reasons, and I certainly am not going to try to push myself into something. But it's worked out.

I mean, it's funny because Charlie and Dixie, as much as we, Heidi and I say to them, do you guys really still want to hang out with us? We're still going on vacation together, even though they don't live with us anymore. We still have a really cool family dynamic. I think it's a testament to what you said earlier too, that it's not like this was all this premeditated thing.

and they have this posting schedule and I think especially out in LA you see so much of that and it's so refreshing to just see like no this is just who we are and if this is the roller coaster it takes us on we're here for it yeah the only thing I said was you're if you're going out to LA by yourself over my dead body that's that's and daddy's coming and that's it because we know I mean the stories there's so many I mean this town is littered with stories of people young kids that just got taken advantage of or got in the wrong situation. And I don't know that I'll be able to prevent everything, but I think having the stability of Dixie and Charlie being able to reach out to us

and ask us questions, even when we have a huge team. They're always texting my wife or texting me and calling me and asking us stuff. That's awesome. I think there's so many people out there, especially though you've been listening to this, that that's such a dream, like, move to L.A. And stardom and fame and money and all that stuff. When you moved out here, you had some, obviously, misconceptions or conceptions ideas of what could happen. What would you say has been the biggest challenge since you guys did come out to L.A.?

I think the biggest challenge is just surrounding yourself by, first of all, the notion that everyone in L.A. is fake and all that. That's not accurate. I mean, I've met some of my, I've met some of the sweetest, coolest, closest friends I've had. But really, leaving everything behind and all the people you trust that I've spent my entire life with and having, we couldn't bring everybody along with us, we brought a few, but so just navigating and meeting new people and getting that level of trust that you, I've had since elementary school and reconnecting with people for the first time here, that's been a little bit of, but not because of the, that conception that people have about.

about people in L.A. I've had the opposite. I've have so many good friends here now. That's really cool. So that's where you guys are now. It's really interesting to hear all that. That's a misconception out there. But let's talk about where you were. So looked on LinkedIn and you ran a company called Madsell from 2000 to 2007. And you've always been in the clothing industry. Tell us a little bit about what that company was and how you transition that into level four collective? Yeah, I started off in right out of college after in the early 90s as a as a sales rep. And as I would work with companies and talk with different retailers, I would speak with retailers and they'd say, oh, man, I wish we, I wish your company

would do this. And I never owned the company. So in 2000, I started my own brand called Mad Soul out of the basically my house in my apartment in Connecticut and grew that to until 2007. And And then I got back into the, had an opportunity to work with a company called Mitchell and Ness, and I got back on the sales side. So basically, I have a showroom in New York City, or I had a showroom in New York City, and retailers would come into the showroom to see different brands, lines, and we'd present them, and it would act as a sales arm for different clothing companies. Oh, that's pretty cool.

I mean, you think about, it's wild, the transition of that to the things that you do now. With Level 4 Collective, what do you guys, like, if someone looked into the company, how would you summarize exactly what you guys do today. I would say if you look at what an attorney does, there's in-house attorneys and there's attorneys that you, that work outside, we're basically the same thing for sales. So a company like Nike might have an internal sales force. My company represents smaller brands and brings them to retail. So we have the show room, so a store like lids would come in. And a lot of people thought I owned a retail store, because when Dixie, Charlie, and even Addison would come to my office in New York.

It looked like basically a display on a retail store. And I said, is Mark on a store? Where's his store? The internet was doing investigating. Absolutely. And so when you started in Mads, although I love the story. You started out of your like a part, like the small house. How much money did you put into the company?

Oh, I just put, I probably put, you know, $1,000. Okay. And it was, it was a struggle. I kind of, I definitely bit off more than I could chew. and thought being an entrepreneur was a lot easier than it was. But it was a tough battle to learn. But it was a great education. I think all those things I learned from design to import, export, invoicing, making, you

know, cash flow, all those things that I actually didn't have to really didn't have to work through when I was working for, even as an independent rep, I was working for another company. This was sink or swim was all me. Yeah, and it's cool how a lot of those things you were doing then play into the entrepreneurial moves you could make now in a whole different world. What would you say was the number one lesson you've learned in your entrepreneurial worlds before all of the social media fame? It's kind of the lesson we talked about earlier. It's entrepreneurs sometimes because they're so focused on being successful, they do. they take on a lot of the responsibility themselves.

Yeah. And I think that sometimes you have to go out and get help. And I'll give you a perfect example. Like instead of hiring a graphic designer, I probably spent hundreds of hours learning Illustrator. And this is before you can go on YouTube and really get a good tutorial. So it was just like. Yeah.

You're just grinding and trying to figure out. And there is more access to talent now back then. you had the yellow pages. You really couldn't find... Just cold calling for a design. But I found myself, whether it was accounting or, you know, and I was limited with how much money I had to hire people, but there is an opportunity cost for you to learn and do it yourself as opposed to just, hey, I'm not an expert, let me hire this guy, let me hire

that guy or barter or something that at least connect with people. definitely what I did, what we did with the girls. As we started to see some success, we looked at bringing a team around us as opposed to me saying, oh, yeah, no, I used to sell T-shirts, so now I know how to run Hollywood. It's like, it's just, so. Did that thought cross your mind at all? Like, maybe I can manage. I know a business, I can negotiate, I could represent. I think to a fault, I probably stay back more than I should. Yeah. Because I so don't want to create a mistake for my kids that and they're like oh here's another dad who knows nothing about Hollywood getting button his nose into something and screwing it up but you know but there's

sometimes like I think now that I've have almost three years of experience I'm not an expert by any means but I definitely could interject and feel comfortable that yeah what I have to say it comes from a point of view that I think will be helpful I love that outsource find the right people because It could save you a lot of time and money. I wrote a book called The Restart Roadmap, which is all about changing your direction, making pivots, and kind of leading the life you want versus the way life is leading you.

I look at the pivot you guys made. I mean, wild and astronomical. What was your plan, or what was, you know, you guys were going to be empty nesters? Like, what was the next step looking like for you and your wife before all this craziness happened? Yeah, I mean, we were, we were definitely heavily involved with the kids growing as they were growing up and we were

this foursome that did a lot of things together and then as Charlie entered high school with Dixie we started to hang out less as the story across this country that when kids get to high school they start to distance themselves from their parents of course still an incredible relationship and we were starting to go back to the days when we first met we lived in New York city and we had this great relationship and it changes still great but changes when you have kids and then we started going back to that a little bit starting to starting to hang out with with friends and and socializing in our own circles i think as soon as you have kids you start to socialize with parents who are your kids friends parents yep of course so now we went back to like hey we really

like, you know, Paul and Tina, and there were good friends. And so it was that. And then we're just contemplating between whether to stay in Connecticut or move to a warmer climate, but quite frankly, California was not on the list just from we didn't really have anything, any reason to come out here. And I read somewhere that you guys were actually planning to consider retiring. It was that, is that true? Yeah. I mean, I don't think I could never see myself fully retired, but I can see myself balancing some sort of entrepreneurial business while living in a place where I'm not nine to five going in an office. I think that's more retirement than actually retiring and playing golf every day. Yeah. Well, from being an empty nester

to considering taking it back, now having millions of hours yourself, and then a reality television show, the D'Amelio show. The second season premieres here September 28th. What a wild, wild turn of events. When you think about what reality TV could have been versus what it has been, what has been the biggest takeaway? So the biggest takeaway from me was that I thought it was going to be more like you wake up in the morning and a camera's going to be in your face.

Okay. And then I didn't realize, I guess I probably should have thought that there was more structure in it. Okay. But it's a really good depiction of, what happens every day. They look at our, they don't come to us with ideas. They look at our schedule and what's going on. And then they say, hey, we want to follow, we want to follow this. And they, they film it. And then we come back and we talk about it. So it's, it's more real than I thought

it would be. And I think we're, they consider this our show more of a docu-series than a reality show. But it is, it is, it is unscripted reality. But that aspect of, although it's a lot of work, there's in a week's period of time, maybe I'm on camera a couple of hours where I thought it would have been... Like 24-7 in your days. Mark and Heidi, what's going on? You're trying to take a shower.

Get that out of it. I mean, two rumors that you're broken. The people in L.A. are great in these reality TV shows. I like that you said it's like a true depiction of like what actually happened. I mean, that's another... I think the people think things are like stage and stuff like that, so that's good to know.

Is there anything at all you could tease about season two for us? Anything you could give us a heads up or why we should watch? I think that you see growth in us. I think the first season, although it was a true depiction, it was during COVID. It was very, it was a little bit dark, but I think those were stories that I'm very proud of my girls that they had to tell. Because you said earlier, this is, you know, this is the life that everyone asked for.

All these kids want to be in this position, but be careful. what you wish for. And you could be extremely appreciative, know that you're super blessed to be in the situation, but also know that it's not easy all the time. And it is stressful. And having millions of eyes on you is very stressful, especially dealing with being home so much during COVID. The second season we get out of the house more, you get to see a little bit more of what our family is like in happier times. There's still ups and downs and controversy. But I think it's, it's a, season two, I would say, is a lot lighter than season one. Okay.

And you get to know, it's a little, you get to know more sides of us. I'm excited for that. I'm excited for that. One thing I got to ask you, especially being a business finance podcast, is a father of two daughters who have had extreme financial success. Like, from a parental standpoint, how do you, like, manage that so that the money doesn't get away? And how do you, like, parent? I just imagine if I was, if I was that age with that kind of money, I don't know if at 33, I'd still be around. So, like, what do you?

what do you do to like just keep everyone like down earth and humble when those type of dollars are rolling in you know i think although we we came from you know i had a good career and we were we were well off yeah before this i think that if there there's not really anything i have to worry about like charlie will come to me sometimes because dad i spend a lot on amazon i'm like what's a lot charlie and i'm like give me numbers stand you're okay don't worry about it so they don't they They haven't been very extravagant. They spend money on a nice, on a house, and Charlie doesn't even own a car that, like, she doesn't drive.

Dixie has a car, but there's no, there's no Lamborghinis in the horizon. It's, we're just, they're just enjoying it. So I don't, and then any kind of big purchase or anything, we have, we have financial, we have a, we have a, we have a financial manager, but it's actually a whole firm in, in New York that we've been with for a while. And now we're starting to talk about as we build the brand, put a little financial team out here to kind of make sure we're on top of everything. But I'm knock on wood, I'm very, very happy that they haven't.

And I think it adds a testament to my wife. My wife is, I wouldn't say frugal, but she definitely will make sure that, yeah, she's good that way. Checks and balances down to earth, good parenting. It's all good stuff. You talked about your wife, you talked about Charlie. I heard that Charlie said in an interview, your wife grew up as a competitive dancer and that you did break dancing. Can you confirm or deny? Are you a break dancer? Can we see a little move out here?

I can't. I just can't. He's like, I'll know. No, I will. There is an actual video of me doing something recently. It was we were dance battling. I think it was me and one of these gamer kids versus Charlie. And so if you search it, you can find it. Heidi was definitely a dancer growing up, and I, yeah, I did dance a little bit. But I don't know that any of that, maybe genetically it kind of worked through to get to Charlie, but it's not like we would, like she saw me doing stuff on with Dixie's bicycle, like Dixie was a competitive bicycle racer. Like I grew up doing that, BMX, so that's where she definitely saw me do it and we would go ride together. I love it.

Well, I'm going to hold you to this break dancing thing one of these times. But for the competitive dancing for Heidi, exciting news. I got to see my better half win a mirror ball and dancing with the stars. You're going to be sitting there cheering on your better half. Heidi is on this season of Dancing with the Stars. I like to bet. I like to gamble a little bit. Give me some like Vegas odds.

Is she a favorite? Is she an underdog? What can we expect? So she's also in with Charlie. And I think a lot of people are going to think that because Charlie has a dance background, my wife is committed. Like, she's, when she puts her mind to something, so Heidi's definitely going to give Charlie a run for her money. Absolutely.

So if you had to put a buck on Charlie or Heidi going further, you're going on Heidi? Oh, absolutely. There you go. You heard it here. Mark has got his money on Heidi. That's a good husband right there. And what's interesting, I'll tell you, just from my vantage point seeing in Caitlin being on the show, it is hard work. I mean, they're in there grinding hours and hours, and she's come back with all these blisters, and she's just like, die.

got a chiropractor there every night. I mean, it was like, I couldn't believe how intense the show was. So buckle up. You'll be given some foot rubs. Thank you. I'm ready for it. I'm excited. And I think it's going to be great for Charlie also because she, I mean, dance was such a big part of her life. And with all that has been going on, she just hasn't been focusing on dance. So this is a cool way for her to get back into it. And hopefully she catches the bug again and falls back in love with dance. I love it. I'm sure she will. I will say it was like my fiance she was a dancer her whole life. And I don't know I've ever seen her smile the way she was smiling on that dance floor.

So I hope that's the same they enjoy it. But I want to get back to business just a little bit here, D'Melio Brands. I think it's genius what you guys have done. Some of the partners you've had, the way that you've raised capital. Tell us a little bit about D'Melia Brands and why you guys started. We, I mean, we started for a simple reason of that we realized in this business that we're going to have to endorse other companies. which we love. And we have some incredible partners. And there's some things we just won't be able to do on our own, whether it's a technology company or things that. But there are things we can do

on our own. And with my background and my ability that my sourcing knowledge and my branding knowledge, we decided to create basically an incubator company for brands. And we partnered with a bunch of different really great investors. We put a valuation out there based on where we think we are going to go with this thing at $100 million. And we raised, we could have raised a lot more, but we held it at five and actually just extended to, so we sold 6% of it, we raised a lot of money. And that's going right into creating these brands. And I think the important thing is what we don't want to do is just be another celebrity

family that is creating things and products that other people don't need. So we're definitely going to be mindful of everything. from, if it doesn't have a purpose or it doesn't fill a void of something that's not already filled, I really don't want to be involved in it because we don't just want to clutter the planet with more products and things like that. So we're looking at whether it's a sustainable merch company that actually does things the right way and works with other influencers to, you know, a bunch of different products and categories. But again, both Dixie and Charlie are are very committed to making sure that we're not just having another product category.

Interesting. So value that at about 100 million, you raised, you said 6 million, raised 6 million. And it's going to be brands that will be owned by the investing group, but will serve multiple niche. It's not just Charlie and Dixie's, like a brand under their name that they're pushing. It'll be an array of different products and consumer package goods. And it could be a cool, we didn't, obviously, the drivers in our family are Dixie and Charlie. But if there's something that we can get behind, whether it's a household product or a dog product or dog brand that we could speak to because we have four dogs and dog people, that could be something really cool.

I love that. That is really cool. If someone does have a product and they're like, I think they would like it, but they are a small startup, how could they possibly get into? an incubator like this. Yeah, that's, you know, that's a really good point because a lot of times what I've heard is people say, oh, well, you know, this XYZ celebrity is just the, they're, why are they doing that? But we can partner with, whether it's our investment fund that we, that we partner with, with small companies or something like this, we would love to, to partner with up-and-coming brands or people that have patents, trademarks, things like that, that we could

take their technology and share it with our platform and grow something cool together. Yeah. Awesome. Well, there you go, guys. DM Mark. Maybe you'll get in there. The last question I got for it before we get your trading secret, which we'll need to know, is just you've already generated, you had success before this all happened. You're at a whole different level of success with your family. You have a docu series. You'll have Demilio brands. What is the, if you put like a vision board together, like what's next? Like what? I mean, it seems like you guys can conquer the world at this point. I'm curious what's next when you're at the dinner table thinking about five, ten years from now with you guys. I mean, we constantly talk about

setting up goals around happiness. And it's never something that, like, it's never about how much money we could stockpile or what we can, it's always about like what makes, what makes each of us tick and are we following the path to me and it sounds like really like that's something I'd be saying in a podcast but it really is like I sit there and I'm when when either of my daughters gets in a rut I'm like I mean you got to you got to look within and find out what you're all about and then then we can do things this the all the success is just a vehicle to to do good in the world and to and and to hopefully create happiness within yours within yourself and that's what we always have these checks all the time it's a little bit less now because we're all deep into it but

early on it was like is this something you guys really want to do is this something that we're opening up this pandora's box so is this something that so that's kind of where we're where each of us talk about where but I don't see it about how I want to have a I want us to have a billion dollar company I want to do this it's never gets like that Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think that's really cool. At Alliance, and I've talked about this at lengths on this podcast. So for my listeners, if you heard it before and you're saying I'm redundant, I don't care. Rob Deardick when he came on, that's a lot about what he talked about. And his trading secret is he has a whole entire Excel file. He's been filling out for seven years on what he does within the day. And it's very like, did I drink today? How many drinks today? Did I work out? Was I filming? And he figured out like the algorithm to his, and it's just happiness. He's just figured out what level of happiness creates or what things he does creates the best output of happiness. And so like one thing he did was he recognized when he's filming, he's drinking more, he's away from his wife and kids, and as a result of that, his happiness is lower. So then he put a system in place where he's only filming 4% of the year.

So it's just interesting that some of the most successful people out there with the biggest dollars and values and net worth, that's not what they're chasing. they're actually chasing the core of happiness, which will drive those other things. Then I've got to ask one last question is, what truly makes you happy? Like when you look at your thing, like your everything in life they have going on, like what is the key to your happiness? It's, I think I'm not different than most parents out there. I'm very committed to our family. And I've always, although I definitely look about this.

things to make myself happy, but I'm, I say to Charlie and Dixie all the time. Like, if you guys are happy, I'm happy. And it's true. Like, oh, they can turn my world into a tailspin if all a sudden their world isn't going right. And maybe that'll, as they get older and they get, they have their own kids, it'll change. But from the time they were born till right now, my happiness is based off my family's happiness. Oh, that is awesome. I love it. And if you are ever questioning that happiness watching dancing with the stars? Because there are some hot guys out there like Gleb that might be dancing. You just give me a call.

I'll tell you how to deal with them. You're going to get a call from here, I promise you. They're all great guys. All right, we've got to wrap with your trading secret. A lesson someone can't learn in a classroom, a textbook or Google, on either financial management, career management, just managing life. What would your trading secret be, Mark? Ask for help.

I think you'd be surprised on, especially a person in my age, how many times young people come to me and ask me for something. And I really, like, that's, we're talking about what makes me happy aside from my family, like being able to help someone else. And that, and I didn't do that a lot. I kind of was like, I got it, I got it. And Dixie's a lot like that. But I would say, you know, and maybe you might not get the help, but if someone comes to me

and they get to me somehow, I'm not saying I could take every person out there, but I'm more than willing to help. and I think a lot of people feel like that. I love it. Great advice, and that's awesome that you live by it and you're also willing to give it back. That's awesome. All right, we got season two coming up, September 28th.

We got Heidi and Charlie. They're going to be dancing with the stars. If people want more, you, Mark, where can they find you? All my social media is, and I'm trying to figure out what my social media is all about. But I love doing stuff like this. For a guy trying to figure it out, you're killing it. So just all my socials are at Mark Demilio, M-A-R-C-D-M-A-R-C-D-Milio.

Love it. Awesome. Well, Mark, Mark, thank you so much. for joining us. Thanks, I appreciate this. This is awesome, man. It's great. Ding, ding, ding.

We are closing in the bell with the one and only, the Curious Canadian on the Mark Demilio podcast. Perfect timing because we got Dancing with the Stars coming out. We have Hulu, season two with the D'Amilio's coming out. A lot of action. And I know, I know whether he'll admit it or not that David is the biggest D'Milio fan in the planet. And before I even knew what a D'Melia was,

David knew the whole background of each and every one of the family. David welcome to the closing bell thank you for having me excited for this episode uh yeah huge demilio guy since charlie was coming up in the tictox streets and i know we were supposed to have hidey on i think way back uh in the spring so finally we got one of them we landed one of them Heidi and charlie are doing dancing with the stars dixie's hot in the streets with a new haircut just blazing headlines looking great uh always dating rumors with noah beck I'm all over it, but the D'emilios are here. We got them on the Trading Secrets Podcast, and it was great to have Mark on.

You know what? Chicks in the office, if you guys need a third co-host, David Ardoin, is the pop culture stud. He could be on there. David, it wouldn't be our closing recap segment if we didn't throw a couple chirps out. It sounds like you got a frog in your throat and you got a hit by a bus. What the fuck's going on? You hung over there. You're tired over there.

Is life okay? I'm in a Minnesota hotel. It's eight in the morning. I'm on a five game losing streak. I was up watching video to about 3 a.m. Had a couple, got I had a couple bourbons trying to figure out the, figure out life and how we're going to score some goals.

But I'm excited to be here. So don't, you know, don't take the, the grogness away from my excitement for this episode or just, you know, trying to figure out how to win some hockey games.

All right. We're going to get into the Dameleos. I want to know on a five game losing streak. People in life are losing all the time that listen to this. Not a hockey game, but whatever they feel like they're losing in. What is the biggest thing, the number one thing you're going to do to get out of it?

That's a great question. I try and it's okay to have emotions, but I try not to get emotional. Try not to feel like the world's, you know, walls are caving in and the world's ending. At the end of the day, you just got to fix it and you got to research and you got to, you know, have a plan and a plan of action and try and get better every day. So instead of making excuses and saying like it's about mindset, it's really about execution and having a plan. and fixing things and identifying problems and having a plan of action and just, I don't know, a big energy guy,

especially earlier in the year. Got to stay positive and make those around you believe. I like it. That's a great answer. Okay, the Emilio episode, what questions you got? What are you thinking? Yeah, so let's get right into the think of the business thing.

First off, you know, I just think the scope, you said 365 million followers on all their social media platforms and the family. You're in the influencer game, obviously. Can you put that into perspective? 35 million followers as a family, just how big of a wagon this family is? Honestly, David, it's really, it's hard to comprehend it, right? And here's why it's hard to comprehend it.

Like, you know, between all my socials, I think I have a million and a half following. Between all Caitlin's socials, she probably has around 3 million plus. And I think about all the things that have happened and that we've been able to, like, create from having amazing, you know, just fan-based listeners, et cetera. And it's just, I can't comprehend that, right? They have literally 400 times the following that KB and I have. Like, like, like, Caitlin this past week,

geez or why didn't fucking target? Like, what can this family not have access to? Well, it's like we talk about the reach of Bachelor Nation and how, like, big it is and how well, known and followed. Do you think that DeMelio family has more social media followers than all of the people associated with Bachelination combined in the history of Bachelor Nation? Probably. I mean, not to do the math, but the one thing they have that's different is most people in Bachelor Nation, if you take the following and you did combine them all, there's so much overlap, right? When one of

these girls has 200 million humans, right? In the United States, there's 300 some million people in the population in Canada it's like what around 30 million they have the whole population following and I think the biggest thing I want to talk about this business aspect especially us as we age we're so disconnected I was talking I was just with Tyler Cameron working on a project we are sick way to make us feel all really great about our what our winter bodies coming into the we Tyler and I were talking about the fact that like when he goes to like a big high school football game in Florida or anything like that. And his dad was even talking about too. Like no one in the area has a clue to who he is. But if he goes to like a

college football game, it's like an absolute swarming. And so it's so interesting that this family has such a stronghold on the entire Gen Z market. Like the future of their business is so massive because they have the Gen Z audience on lock. And it was so interesting to hear like UTA, the talent agency that they're with, really give them the only pitch to like sell the family. It's like everyone was so hyper-focused on Charlie, but you have this family with all these skills

and obviously their followings to sell them on that, which is how they got the Hulu show and also, you know, to talk about the Demilio brands. Like they are a brand and I think UTA saw that and Mark talked a lot about it and was very educated on it. My main question is voice of the viewer that I didn't know the definition. And we haven't had one of these in a while. So it's nice to get dumbed down again.

He talked about Demilio Brands being an incubator company for brands. Can you define what an incubator company is and how it kind of functions? Yeah. So an incubator is just like a collaborative program for startups. So what they do is that any company that's in the stage of infancy, they will help with advising with legal, with getting seed funding, they'll do, they'll even provide workspace. They don't provide capital, but they provide like all the things the startup you need. And the big thing with an incubator is they're focused a lot on innovation. So when I went to Israel for my MBA, we went to a bunch

of different incubators because tech incubators are huge there. Like in Israel, famous, famous and very monumental tech companies have been created like the Wayzap. That's from Israel. There is something called the Iron Dome. The Iron Dome is technology that when Gaza was shooting missiles into Israel, they created a detonator that would release a rocket, find the GPS coordinates of the rocket coming in, and the rocket would hit the rocket coming from Gaza and detonate it so the rocket didn't, of course, kill civilians. So they're huge on technology. And America actually adopted that. And so when I was there for my MBA, we spent a lot of time in these incubators. And it's fascinating. It's just like if you have idea or skill set, they'll help you get off the ground and running. Now, there's

something people should know about. It's called an accelerator program. So incubators and accelerators, completely different. Accelerator programs are very focused, like hyper-focused on growth. They want you to get your product up, scaled, and blow up. So, think about like I think about Caitlin's wine that would be like an accelerator program would have had more interest like it's a wine we can grow it we can scale it and give you the money we'll get you into stores something like a ways app is the definition of incubator like you need so much attorney work and workspace and innovation and advisors and technology and rules and regulation that would be better in an incubator space okay that makes sense now if you're

they said they had a $100 million evaluation. They already sold 6% of it. And that, you know, so they lost 6% of the Demilio brand. And that goes into creating the brands. They said that if they don't want to create something that or that doesn't have a purpose or fill a void, then they won't, they won't create it. So here's my question to you.

What are they selling to sell this 6%? Because they don't have products. They said they're an incubator company for brands. So are they just selling the, their reach? Are they selling their family name? What are they selling to be a part of DeMilio brands to people who want to invest in them? I think a lot of brands when you're valued, you're valued on your historical performance, what you've already done, and then you are valued on your future forecasts based on what you can do

with your reach and opportunity. And I think that what they must have done has had a lot of success with this social tourist merch. They must have sold a shit ton of merch. I know that they've partnered with other brands in the past. And so like Dunkin' Donuts, they must have had a lot of historical success with that. And then additionally, I think the biggest thing that they have, which is something we've talked about already, is they have the ability to create the future version of what already exists in future older generations. For example, established brands by celebrities, like let's name a few.

Obviously, you have Jordans, right? Jordans took over. You have, this is another example that's out there, the George Forming Grill, right? I'm sure you're saying Kylie Skin. So they already have these big celebrity brands that are worth millions and millions and hundreds of millions of valuations. If they can start to create products for the next generation to take over, the valuation opportunity is huge. And it's all based on future forecast. And that's why companies will create these valuations and put this type of money in.

But there is a lot of like skeptics out there would be like valuation like this is definitely more of an art than a science. Like there are different people that would come in with the valuation who can come up with different numbers. Yeah. So that makes sense. It's not like a hard fact number proved by like you said. science. It's more of like a creative vision that makes the valuation. So I would invest in Demilio brands 100%. They ain't going anywhere. One thing that I wanted to talk about numbers-wise, you talked a little bit about how do you rein in your young daughter's finances in terms

of watching their spend and making sure that they're still responsible. Charlie brought home $17.5 million last year. Dixie, $10 million. Charlie's the the second most followed person on all of TikTok was number one for two years. I'm just really impressed that they seem responsible, but put yourselves in Mark's shoes. How would your approach be with your daughters in that sense of like money management and like, you know, they're earning their own money and getting them to, you know, be responsible or make sense of it? My approach would be identical to what like a professional athlete goes through.

Like you have a potential potential, maybe not guarantee, but a potential short term shelf life. And so the way you have to manage this money is you have to manage this money on the assumption that this all goes away. And so if they're making 17, 20 million a year, you have to work with an advisor that is setting them up. So by the age of 35, let's say, or 30, they can retire with a lifestyle of earning at least 500K a year with the funds that they have. Now, I said a lot there does that make sense what i just said yeah it does and just hearing you say that it just put a way in my brain that i would never have thought of to be honest and it's so smart and you know other than just saying oh you're 17 and a half like you can spend five this year you can

spend two like i'm going to put you on allowance like it's none of those you're setting them up for future success so they could have like recurring income regardless of the successes and if they get more successful you can change that recurring income year every year but that's definitely the way to look at it. That makes a lot of sense. It's the right. It's kind of the Rob Grinkowski model, right? Like, I will not spend $1 from the NFL. All of that money is going to go into investments. And my endorsement money is what I'll spend. That's the thought process. And I think anyone out there, like obviously take a few zeros away, right? I don't know how many people out there making $17.5 million listening to this podcast, right? But the same thought process goes. Like,

if you are having good earnings today, what are you doing today? What are you doing right? now to make sure that you're not immediately cash outflowing that success. You're either reinvesting into something new or you're putting it away for the rainy years that you're not having as much success. That is massive. That is so important. And I just have so much respect for them. Like one of the hardest things I can only imagine as parents is how you go about like allowing your your sons and daughters using social media like i don't know a lot of parents like restrict them and don't uh don't allow them to use certain apps and to just have them able to use social media and thrive on it and like he said just be attentive be aware be involved in that process rather than

take it away from them uh i just think with where the world's going that's it's just you're ridding them of some opportunity i love it now let's wrap with this david we know what's coming up, season two, but we also know what's coming up this week, Dancing with the Stars. Yes. We got Heidi with Artem, and you got Charlie, who's Charlie with? Charlie's with Mark. Two-time winner.

Let's make them bet right here, right now. Me versus shoot. I want Heidi and Artem knowing that Artem was Caitlin's previous partner. I want a lunch on it. Are you willing to take Charlie? Yes, 100%. Ride and die in that corner. All right.

So you and I are going at it, toe to toe. I'll ask you guys out there, what did you think of this episode? Who do you think goes farther? Heidi or Charlie? In the comments, you let us know, David and I have lunch on the line. And I also have to give a shout out to the reviews. You guys think we just say leave a review and do nothing with it. We actually had one of our reviewers just win Yankees tickets.

So make sure when you put a review out there, throw in your Instagram handle, because we have things to give away, and we will reach out to you. So thank you for all those reviews. I'm going with Heidi. She is my go-to. I believe in Artem. He just got married.

He's focused. Cap Polota, who left a review, just won Yankees tickets. And that's all I got, David. You got anything else? Yeah, one last thing on Dancing with the Stars. First off, Charlie going to crush it. Second off, it's not on ABC.

It's the first time that they're switching over to the streaming platform. I believe it's on Disney Plus. if I'm not mistaken, how do you think that's going to go for them? Viewership-wise. Business-wise, let's talk about it real quick. Netflix has less subscribers than Disney Plus now. So I think Disney Plus is obviously doing a lot to be successful. You're seeing Dancing with the Stars has put in more PR dollars

and they've ever put in marketing dollars to convert people to Disney Plus. The biggest question is going to be, will the natural viewing audience change? Because the natural viewing audience for Dancing with the Stars is much older than The Bachelor. Will those people be willing to go through the app process?

That's the big question mark. And if they're not willing to do that, can they capture enough of the Gen Zers to do it so that it doesn't impact the show? We'll find out. I talked to Alan. He was just here for breakfast the other day and it was interesting to get his take on it.

he thinks there's no way that ABC and Disney haven't, like, had this figured out before the transition. I think there's still a little risk in it. And the big question, too, is like, when you go and answer with the stars, you don't really get followers. You just don't. Like, grocery store Joe got like 10,000 followers. So I wonder if the dichotomy of the demographic changing also changes the Instagram success. We'll have Bachelor data analyze all that and we'll come back to you guys with numbers. Got to be such a big ad for that. to add Charlie now that they're going to more of a streaming service, like bringing any of her audience over to the streaming service, there's got to be some strategy there. I wonder what she's

getting paid to be on that show if it's different than what, you know, someone like a KB or someone was getting because she's a big, big, big fish to get on that show. She's a big fish. We'll have to dig into that. My guess is those contracts are all the same. And they all get paid pretty well. But to your point, you know, Charlie and I hear big deal. So more to come. Maybe they get 2x we'll have to see thank you for tuning into another episode of trading secrets guys big news bachelor in paradise is premiering and with bachelor in paradise premiering we have the king of bachelor in paradise coming on next week grocery store joe get ready get locked up go follow us on trading secrets podcast page

Just to make sure it's the right page, we have about 130,000 followers right now. And make sure to give us five stars on Apple reviews. And we will see you next Monday. Hopefully this was another episode you could not afford to miss. Making that money, money, money, bring on me. Making that money, money, living that dream. Making that money, money, money. Rain on me.

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