We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP270: Jesse Itzler - NBA Owner, Entrepreneur, Best Selling Author (Business Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. On today's show, we bring back a crowd favorite and personal mentor to Stig and myself, Mr. Jesse Itzler. For people not familiar with Jesse, he's a New York Times bestselling author, the founder of Markey Jet, which he later sold to Warren Buffett. He's the founder of Zico Coconut Water. He won an Emmy Award when he was in his 20s, and today he's part owner of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. Turn up the volume, find a good spot to take notes, and get ready because Jesse, always comes with a lot of knowledge. So let's get started. You are listening to The Investors Podcast, where we study the financial markets and read the books

Starting point is 00:00:42 that influence self-made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. Hey everyone, welcome to the Investors podcast. I'm your host, Press, and Pish, as always, I'm accompanied by my co-host, Stig Broderson. And like we said, in the intro, we have the one and only Jesse Itzler here with us. Jesse, welcome back to the show. So pumped to have you. Oh, I'm so glad to be here. When I got the call to come back on, I lit up. I was like, let's go. Asap, I marked ASAP. And we did. We turned it around quick. We're recording on Halloween Day here. I just saw a post on your Twitter feed that blew my mind when I saw it. It was you crossing the finish line at a race. And this is, I believe this is the Hennepin 100. Is that correct?

Starting point is 00:01:35 Yes. So you got to do 100 miles by yourself within 30 hours. Is this how this played out? Yeah. It's a 100-mile-er in pretty much flat, very little elevation in Illinois. And what happened was I ran a race called The Last Man Standing, which is a different format than that. It's a 4.2 mile loop.

Starting point is 00:02:00 You have an hour to complete the loop. And if you finish it and say 50 minutes, you have a 10-minute rest. because they line you up at the top of every hour, and they keep repeating that until one person's the last man standing. So the race could go on for days. And I did that race in Maine, and I was the oldest man standing. I came in fifth.

Starting point is 00:02:20 I was the oldest man standing in fifth place, but I did about 80-something hours and 80-something miles and 20-something hours, but I really wanted to get to 100. But the course was really challenging, super hilly, and I timed out. I didn't make it one of the loop, the last loop within it. an hour. So when I got back, I googled the first day I got back, I said, when's the next 100 mile race? 28 days later, I was at the starting line in Hennepin. Yeah, so that's how I ended up in Illinois. And you did the 4-100. I did, yeah. So for someone hearing that, Jesse,

Starting point is 00:02:53 and who are not familiar with your brand of We Do Hard Things that you have with your wife, Sarah, they might be asked themselves why. You are certainly in a position where you can just do what you want to do? Well, for me, I think in this particular case, I think it was threefold. I think one is like, I try not to negotiate with my goals. I try not to be like, well, that's okay. That was acceptable. That's, you know, that's not really what I wanted to get. And it would have been easy to say I did good enough. And I felt like I left it all out there. But I also felt like that's not what I wanted on my resume. I wanted a hundred-mile again. So, so that's, that's one. Two is, quite honestly, I felt like I had a lot of fitness built up from training, and I didn't think I could invest that much time again in a year or two to try it again.

Starting point is 00:03:46 So I said, let's go, you know, the quicker you put something on your calendar and you don't start to talk yourself out of it, the better the chance you're going to do it. So for me, it's like ready firing, let's go, sign up. Now I have accountability. I'm committed. but if I start negotiating with myself, well, maybe I'm tired, maybe I'm not healed. Same with business. Maybe I don't know enough. Maybe I don't have enough experience.

Starting point is 00:04:12 Maybe it's not the right time. Eight people will launch that product. Competitors will appear. Eight different people will try to sell that customer. So I'm always like, get an idea, get momentum. If you get an idea, right, it comes into your head. You do a little research. You decide if you're going to do it.

Starting point is 00:04:32 You commit to it. You plan, you make a plan, you execute, you train or you execute that plan, start to execute the plan. You go through a period of self-doubt, and that's the weed out period where I don't know if I'm good enough, maybe everyone's better than me, I'm not ready for this.

Starting point is 00:04:49 And for me, I'm very familiar with that point. And that's where I keep going, where most people drop out. And then you get momentum. Something happens where you have a good run, you get a sale, whatever it is, You build off that momentum until you become a believer, and then you keep going until you hit the goal.

Starting point is 00:05:07 It's the same process for everything. And you always go through that period of doubt, and when you're aware of it, and you're like, oh, there you are. What took you so long to get here? I knew you were going to show up. When you're familiar with it, you can then go past. But that's a big weed out thing for me. But anyway, that's how I found myself at the starting line,

Starting point is 00:05:28 and the difference between the 100 miler and Hennepin and the last man standing in Maine, I really wholeheartedly believe that I belong there and that it was done. So like for me, that was already, I already had the metal around my neck. I knew I could do it. I said to myself,

Starting point is 00:05:48 for 30 days, the 28 days leading up, you got this, I can do this. And then I said to fill in the blanks. And that's been a theme in my life. It's like, you know, I'm a big, person and believer in visualization, but I'm a bigger believer in saying it out loud. It's one thing to believe something, but it's another thing to actually say it and make it real. You know, my friend Chad Wright, who's a Navy SEAL, always talks to me about the power of the spoken

Starting point is 00:06:14 word. But I was saying it out loud the whole time, like, you know, there's no doubt in my mind I can do this. And it reminded me of when I was starting out in business, when I would walk into my office at 23 years old with my partner, we'd say to each other, we're millionaires. We're We're millionaires, man. They just haven't paid us yet. We would say it all the time. And meanwhile, I was living on my friend's couch. I was literally sleeping on a couch.

Starting point is 00:06:37 And I would come in and be like, we're millionaires. They just haven't paid us yet. And that was like our mantra. It's fascinating that you bring this up because in a conversation that we had a couple years ago, you had just lightly touched on this idea. And what it reminds me of is this book, Think and Grow Rich. and in that book they talk about how important mindset is and how important it is to push. And Tony Robbins is big on this stuff where you're actually taking ideas, you're saying them

Starting point is 00:07:07 out verbally, and then you're pushing them into your subconscious. When you start to say it, you start to believe it, and then you just start to do things that I don't even know that people can fully account for that are working towards the realization of what they keep telling themselves. So it's fascinating for me to hear somebody like yourself who's a compliment. so much talk about this idea with respect to the race, but it sounds like you've been doing this for years. Well, it's not a new theory.

Starting point is 00:07:35 This has been proven century over century over century. And for me, you know, think and grow rich, absolutely, but I'm a much bigger believer in say it and grow rich. And you know, you can think it, but you always get negative thoughts in your head. And I like using something like a hundred mile run as an example of that correlates. to everything because it's hard. You're going to go through periods of darkness. You're going to go through doubt.

Starting point is 00:08:02 It's no different than the journey of an entrepreneur in the sense of the emotions and the doubt and the struggle and the chances of success, you know, and so many things can go wrong, all those things. And when you think, you're always going to have thoughts of this stinks. This is really hard. Again, I'm thinking back to my business. This is really hard. There's so much competition.

Starting point is 00:08:26 I don't know. You're always going to have those thoughts. When you counterpunch them and you reframe it into words like, I got this, I'm strong, et cetera, and you say it out loud, you give it power. So thinking, you know, you're going to get bombarded with thought, but you control the power of the spoken word and what you actually say. I'll give you an example. When I got to mile 80 in this 100-mile race, I was running with my first. friend, Chad, right? And he turned, he could sense that I was slowing down significantly. And we're 80 miles in. We're 20 something hours in. And he says to me, Jess, he stops. He says, I want you to say,

Starting point is 00:09:06 I'll tell you something about me that you never knew. I'm like, what's that, Chad? He goes, I never get tired. And like, it's raining. It's dark. And I know he's tired. I know he's exhausted. He goes, I want you to say it. And I couldn't say it because I was exhausted. No, Chad, Chad, That's funny, man. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. No, no.

Starting point is 00:09:27 Say it. I said, all right, Chad. I never get tired. He goes, no, I want you to say it again. I said, all right, I never get tired. He said, no, no, stop and say it so everybody can hear it. So I said, Chad, you know what's amazing about you and I? We never get tired.

Starting point is 00:09:43 Let's go. And we took off. I flippin love it. We took off. And then every six minutes, he would say to me, brother, I'm not tired. phenomenon. And it became this like running joke that every 10, 15 minutes we would say this. And I started to believe it. It started to be like, I don't know, man. I don't get tired, Chad. We were laughing and it changed the whole complexion of where we are, where we were in the journey.

Starting point is 00:10:11 And you know, you can say it's corny. Oh, that, well, you know, but I'm telling you, man, time and time again, when this has appeared in my life, when I was single and I was looking for the girl, when I was, whatever, I would talk myself into this space. You know, like people would ask me when I graduated, what are you going to do, you know, when you graduate, whatever, and I say, well, I'm going to get a record deal. I quit. What do you mean you quit? Jesse, I thought you were going to go get a record deal.

Starting point is 00:10:40 Oh, I was, but it was too hard. I quit. Like, it wasn't just the psyching me up and talk and become, it was like part of reality. Fascinating. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You've got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo Fjord,

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Starting point is 00:14:54 That's Shopify.com slash WSB. All right. Back to the show. Hey, so the last time we talked to you, you were just about to turn 50. And your present to yourself was that you wanted to master 50 new skills and spend one week learning from the best in that field throughout the year. How did that go? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:18 So I'm still in the process of it because it's taken a little, I've made the list and I'm starting to check it off. I've done a bunch of them. I haven't done all 50. I realized that to maximize it, I couldn't, with a family of four, I couldn't do 50 things, become good at them in just a year period, you know? So I've extended it, but I am doing it. I just had a memory coach.

Starting point is 00:15:38 I had the four-time USA memory coach at my house three days ago for an immersion class with me and my wife on memory. So I'm still chipping away at the list, which was fascinating, by the way. But even bigger than that, I wanted to be able to apply it to the areas of my life that are most practical. So for me, that's names, you know, going into a room. I speak a lot. People come up to me, conferences, et cetera, meetings.

Starting point is 00:16:06 So I've always struggled with that. So that was something that we spent a lot of time on, and I definitely improved the ability to do that. Anything that I go into, you're probably the same way, and I think most people should think this way. You have to go into it with a high standard. If I'm writing a book, and I don't need to sound arrogant, I'm just want to give the listeners and yourself

Starting point is 00:16:26 a little bit at 51 of what the process in my head is now versus maybe when I was 21. You kid around, well, maybe you're the best in the world at it. I always want to go into something with an Olympic type kind of standard. If I'm writing a book, my approach isn't like, I want to write a book and publish a book. It's like, I want to write a masterpiece. If I'm giving a speech on a scale of one to 10 scores a 9.2 in the speech and I'm a 9.1, what did I do wrong? The level has to be, the standard has to be high. So, you know, we kid about it. Oh, well, maybe you're trying to be the best in the world. But the reality is, I want high standards.

Starting point is 00:17:04 If I would approach the last man standing and said, well, I'm just going to enter this race and see what happens. I would have never have came in fifth. There were 115 amazing runners. I was the oldest. You know, you got to go into it with a standard of I'm going to try to win this thing. It's all about mindset and it's all about telling yourself, I am this. Like you were saying, saying it out loud, I am this. I am good at memorizing people's names when I meet them.

Starting point is 00:17:31 It's just flipping powerful. It is, but it's also about what's your standard? What is acceptable to you? I mean, do you want to have a podcast or do you want to dominate the charts? Do you want to get guests? Do you want to get rock star guests? Do you want your content to be fillers for 30 or 60 minutes? Or you want your content to be life-changing, earth-shattering material?

Starting point is 00:17:54 What's the standard that we approach our craft? What's the standard that you're going as a parent? What's your standard as an author? And, you know, for a lot of people, it's okay to say, like, there's a million books published a year. It's okay to be like, you know, and that's fine if that's your standard. But for me, I have a short window on earth, man. Okay? I have from now until whenever I'm 51, so I've lived a tremendous, almost, you know, probably half, if not more than my life.

Starting point is 00:18:25 And the older years of my life are going to be different, my late 80s, 90s or whatever. I can't do the stuff I just, am not going to be. running the Hennepin 100, I don't think, when I'm 87 years old. I'm seeing the 85 year old, 80 year olds in the race. That window is so short. So all I really care about is maximizing from where I am today until the end of the ride. And part of that journey has to be about my standards, because if they're low, then that's not going to be a super fruitful path. if they're high, you know, and then that could be a really fruitful chapter of my life. All right, Jesse, so let's shift gears here. We know we have a lot of listeners who are also big sports fans.

Starting point is 00:19:10 I know that once you bought ownership of the Atlanta Hawks, one of the things you were really looking forward to was having a relationship to the players. But I also know that while it has been great for you to have that, it has not been what you valued the most. Could you please talk to us about that? Yes, you know what's really interesting, and I just discovered it recently. You know, I thought it would be getting to know the players or learning about the nuances of professional sports, you know, ownership,

Starting point is 00:19:42 or being in the war room during the draft, and those things are all really exciting. But what I've found that I've enjoyed the most outside of the time with my partners in the deal is I've been taking straight as going to sound nuts. But I've been taking strangers that I've met at conferences, at speeches, through events, to sit with me at the game. And people that would never have had the opportunity to sit courtside. And I love it. I love the impact that it's had, like, you know, the letters that I've been getting.

Starting point is 00:20:14 Not all the time, not every game, but to be able to entertain friends, family, and strangers in that environment with the access that I have has been really fun, man. And like I never even thought of anything like that. I thought like the most fun part has been the people that I can take, again, friends, family, and new friends. And to let them experience the game through the lens of almost an owner, you know, through the court side seats and the other stuff. It's been amazing. So I was going to ask this question a little bit later, but I think it totally relates to what you just said. And I had the pleasure to hang out with you and your wife for a weekend when we did the 20-29 event.

Starting point is 00:20:55 And I would argue, you know, I'm not saying this to toot your horn or your wife's horn, but I would argue that you and your wife's superpowers that you guys are the most authentic people I've ever met. And the reason I bring this up is because I think it just has such an influence on the way you do business, on the way you interact with people. So my question is, how does a person harness the power of being authentic? How do they become authentic? And why is this so important when you're dealing in business or however a person would want to apply it?

Starting point is 00:21:28 Well, I don't think it lasts long term anything without authenticity. I think, you know, you can get results quickly, but I think long term people just, there's a warmth. People gravitate towards, you know, if you're quirky, be quirky. There's going to be people, a lot of people that gravitate towards that. If you're an introvert, you know, don't, it's hard to like get out of that, you know, and just it's okay to be who you are. And so I've always kind of, you know, it's always worked out for me to just kind of be what I was, you know, and I'm not, not mega smart. I was never the smartest in the room. I was with the guys that started, you know, big mass of companies and unbelievable of numbers and balance sheet. And that was never my thing. And I never tried to play that position. I'm a big believer that you play the position. Not everyone can play shortstop. You play the position that you, that you play in best and that's that. So that's always been important to me. I don't know. first of all, it's a really big compliment, so I do really appreciate that. I think there's a gratitude.

Starting point is 00:22:27 I think, you know, I'm a giver, Preston. That's what makes me feel the best. And I just feel like I feel good in that role. So that's always a lane that I've been in. And then I think to answer your question specifically, it comes down a value. It's like as entrepreneurs, I know we have a lot of business folks listening and this and that, you know, you wake up and the number one question you can ask, yourself is, you know, how can I provide value today? Right. So how can I provide value to my

Starting point is 00:22:57 customers? How can I provide value to my employees, to the culture here, to my family? And if you always have that in the back of your head, that's always kind of your driver. It's always going to work out for you. Usually, usually, nothing's always. And, you know, so you ask yourself, like, how do I provide value? And how can I be a better husband? Listen, it's a challenge. You don't always get it right. There's days where you, but in general, if you're coming from a place like that, that's a really good start. Let me just say one last thing. You know, as I get older, how old you, Preston? I'm 38. As you turn older, and I'm talking like you cross the 50 mark. So all of a sudden, in 29 years, you're going to be 80. That's for me. That's where I'm at. Almost 28 years, I'm going to be

Starting point is 00:23:43 80 years old. Super scary. You start to think, at least I do, start to think about like, well, what's your Mark, how do you take these traits? How do you take the energies that you put into being an entrepreneur? Thirty years of getting up early, working late, going to meetings, laughing at jokes that aren't funny, coming up with ideas, packaging, going on sales calls, I mean, dealing with competition, lawsuits, everything you've been through. How do you take all that energy, which is exhausting? What if I channeled all that energy into something cause-related? Like if I took all the energy that I've used as an entrepreneur and all the relationships and skills and network and resources that I have now. And I've pushed that into something that would be legacy, something that

Starting point is 00:24:29 would be cause related, something that could have a big impact on the world. Wouldn't that be an amazing thing? Could probably make some real change. And so you get a fundamental shift as you get over. And when you talk about authenticity and likability and warm, and all these kind of qualities that you're talking about. That's where I am in my life. It's like I'm a capitalist. I want to make money. Of course, I'm a giver like I just said.

Starting point is 00:24:57 But I want to channel those qualities that you just talked about and try to make a bigger impact. And it's weird if 51 years old to pivot into that lane, you know, but I don't think it's ever too late to change the course of where you want to be, to follow what could be a purpose or what you like to do or what you're going to do or what calling us. What I'm really saying in a long-winded way is I appreciate the compliment and that gives me energy to try to do something even bigger, you know, than what I'm at today. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and

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Starting point is 00:29:05 Now I have a lot of virtual mentors that don't even know that they're a mentor to me. I follow them on social media. But there was a guy named Harvey Diamond. I've mentioned his name in the past, who wrote a book called Fit for Life and then Fit for Life A New Beginning. And I read that book when I was running my first marathon looking for an edge in energy. And that really had a big impact on me. It's about energy, living a vibrant life, everything we all want.

Starting point is 00:29:31 And about eight years ago, I Cole called him, the author. I was like, I wonder what Harvey Diamond is doing now. The guy sold 15 million copies of the book. And we became really close friends. he became my Tuesday with Mori kind of. I started to speak to him, you know, almost weekly. And he had probably the biggest impact in my life because I would credit almost all of my success to my energy, my energy level. And when I say success, I'm not talking about financial. I'm talking about the run I just did, my family, being present, how I feel, being able to talk to you, you know,

Starting point is 00:30:07 with clarity and incredible passion. All of that comes from how Harvey taught me how to really maximize that energy level. You know, and you mentioned Tony Robbins. Tony's been a friend and a fan of Harvey's for years as of many people that live that kind of life. So he's probably had the biggest impact on me. Because if you have $50 billion and own everything in the world and don't have to care about anything, you've got farms and money and planes and this and that, but you wake up and you got a sore throat and every time you swallow your throat hurts, none of that matters.

Starting point is 00:30:43 All you care about is getting rid of the sore throat. And he's allowed me to avoid that feeling for a very long time. So, Jesse, talk to us about business. What is one of the biggest mistakes you think people make in general in business? What's that common thing that when you're, could you do a lot of mentoring with people and you hear common themes? What's the big mistake that people are making? I think in this younger generation, it's being impatient and not recognizing that it takes a long time to build a brand in this country.

Starting point is 00:31:16 I think there's a big Insta, get it done quick, without that patience and understanding that the runway could be five to eight years, people get frustrated like, why aren't I rich, why this happened yet, and back away from it. I think people misunderstand passion. They think that they, well, I'm so passionate about my widget or my pen or whatever is I'm selling. and you have to be, but the passion has to be around the process. There has to be a passion for the obstacles that come and that's what you signed up for as an entrepreneur. I think people don't obsess anymore on quality, you know, and I think without having a really high quality product, you can have all the marketing and sizzle in the world, but long term, the product is to be good and people want to share it with other people and talk about it, friend to friend. So I think, you know,

Starting point is 00:32:06 people shortcut product and quality to get out there super fast or when you get to a point in the journey where you've had your prototype or your product, that's the time to ask yourself, how could I make this 20 times better? When the book manuscript is done, that's when you ask yourself, how do I make it five to 10 times better? Well, it's done. They accepted it. No, no, no. How can I make it better? And that's a big mistake, you know, so it's almost like, again, we talked about it earlier. What's your standard? Do you have an Olympic standard for your product and for your organization. So I think that's something that I see a lot. You know, the standards are too low, you know, and just a combination of all those things. But there's

Starting point is 00:32:47 some fascinating entrepreneurs, Preston. I've seen some amazing gifted people come out with ideas that I thought would never work and become uber successful. I've seen people go into the supplement space where it's so crowded and do $40 million a year. And I scratched my head like, wow, How did that happen? I'm an old school guy, man. I think if they zap me onto the planet today with all the technology, I probably would have struggled. But back then when I had to be really resourceful, and you still do.

Starting point is 00:33:17 But there was no social media and you couldn't market like that. And there was no real sophisticated way to get leads. It forced you to be like really resourceful. And that was a good year for me. Jesse, I want to give you the opportunity to tell the audience some of the stuff that you have going on. I know you've got another 29-29-29 Everest events coming on. Tell people a little bit about that. Tell people where they can learn more about you. Best place to get me is at Jesse Edsler. My name on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, or jessieitzler.com. But I do have a, yeah, I mean, you participated in 29 and 29 where we rent a mountain. You hike up the mountain, take the gondola down, and you repeat that until you call it. the equivalent of Everest. It's grown since you've done it, Preston. We now bring in world-class

Starting point is 00:34:05 speakers for a three-night event. We have added another location, so we have one in Vermont, one in Sun Valley, and one in Utah, and all five of our events have sold out. So we just went on sale recently for 2020. What I love about that event is, you know, it's, first of all, it's memorable. You only get 52 weekends a year, so it's something special. It's different. But it's hard. It's hard. It's hard. Odd of lessons. The last one took me 29 hours. It's hard, but it's doable. My wife did it. You know, it's a hike and it's low impact. You know, you don't have to be a world-class athlete to experience a world-class endurance event. So it's opened it up to mom's dad's CEOs to go out there and hike up a mountain, but it's long,

Starting point is 00:34:56 and it tests you. So that's something that I spend a lot of time on now. and hope that you can join us again for another one, Preston. I would love to. I don't have to chase you up that mountain. We can have some fun. That event, what made it for me were the people that were there. A special breed of person comes out to that event and was just a great, awesome. Some of the conversations I had climbing up that mountain.

Starting point is 00:35:21 It was incredible. Well, it draws that crowd because it's not a race. There's no winner. It's one of the few things where no one is, we don't even announce a win. There's nothing to do with it. It's people that sign up for that want to learn about themselves and make themselves proud and feel like they left a badass, regardless of how many, even if they don't get Everest, they're going to leave with a cape around their neck because they're going to say,

Starting point is 00:35:46 I cannot believe how hard that was and how far I pushed myself. And for a lot of people on paper say, this is such an easy challenge on paper. You walk up a mountain, take the gondola down. okay, the average marathon is like four hours and there's like a 99% finish rate. Our average finishers 30 hours with a 65% finish rate. It's like seven times the time to complete a marathon to complete this. It's not easy. And that takes a lot of patience and a lot of will.

Starting point is 00:36:21 It strengthens that muscle that we talked about, that resilience muscle, you know, that like even though this is really long and you can't there's no shortcuts you're fully exposed on the mountain if you finish it you feel like wow I could finish anything and that's the kind of feeling that I think never goes away well Jesse thank you so much for making time I know that you got a lot of things going on and you always make time for us and I cannot thank you enough thank you so much and Jesse you are truly a giver not only did you find time to speak to than me today, but you also recently found time to speak to Robert Leonard on episode 12 on on millennial investing. And I highly encourage everyone to listen to that episode. And not surprisingly,

Starting point is 00:37:08 we call it building your life resume, which is really what we think that you're all about, Jesse. Of course, I'll make sure to link to the episode in the show notes, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that we already are looking forward to inviting you back on our show. And thank you, Thank you so much, Jesse, for coming on the show today. It is absolutely my pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. Okay, guys. So before we let you go, Preston, I would like to play a short segment of our new show, Silicon Valley by the Amassas Podcast Network.

Starting point is 00:37:43 And in this episode, our host, Sean Flynn speaks to Patrick Lee, founder of Rotten Tomatoes. While you're mentoring these startups, what is some typical advice that you give them or that you find? yourself most frequently given them. I would say the number one thing I tell startups is to focus. And this is based on my own experience. The ones, the companies where we are really focused, my design firm, which is the second company and Ron Tomatoes, things just worked. And everything was just easier. And our design firm actually before we got focused, we've originally started, we weren't just web design. We were actually 3D design and print design. And we weren't just entertainment industry. We were like everything. And it was just a mess. And it was super hard and

Starting point is 00:38:31 cold calling. And people just don't know what you are, what you're doing. And once we said, you know what, we're only web design. We're only entertainment industry. Everything got easier. And actually we never needed to cold call again after that because people would just refer like new clients to us. The ones where we weren't focused, which is actually all the company's post-Rond Tomatoes, it just didn't work. Like when we were trying to do too many features, too many products, it's just harder. And so one thing I tell people when they're just starting out is one feature or product for one category, for one market. So like Rod Tomatoes was reviews or movies in English for the English market. A lot of times what happens with entrepreneurs

Starting point is 00:39:20 that I've seen is entrepreneurs by nature believe they can do anything, but as a result of it, they try to do everything. In my opinion, doing everything in the beginning is wrong. And the examples I love to bring up are Amazon, yeah, they do everything now, but they were just selling books in the beginning. Facebook was just at Harvard. Google was just really simple search. and a lot of folks, they look at what companies are doing now and they try to like match them. And one of the things you see so often in people's PowerPoints, especially if they're first-time entrepreneurs, is they'll have that like little grid where on one side it's like, here's us and here's our competitors.

Starting point is 00:40:02 And on the other side, it's features. And be like, hey, this competitor has two features. This one has these three features. This one has these three features. And look at us. We have like all the way across dots all the way across all 10 features. We have everything. And I'm like, really?

Starting point is 00:40:17 You know, you're two people with almost no funding. And you're trying to out-feature these huge companies, billions of dollars, you know, been around much longer, have raised tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, and you're going to out-feature them. All right. So if you would like to listen to the rest of the interview with Rotten Tomatoes founder Patrick Lee,

Starting point is 00:40:37 or listen to Sean's other episodes with successful entrepreneurs, including founder, Melanie Perkins of the billion dollar company, Canma. Make sure to check out the link in the show notes. Or even better, search for the Ammasters Podcast Network on iTunes, Spotify, and subscribe to a new show, Silicon Valley. But guys, that was all that Preston and I had for this week's episode of The Amherstas podcast. We see each other again next week.

Starting point is 00:41:06 Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses or forums, go to the Investorses Podcast. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

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