# Why Doing What You Love Will Make You The Most Money - With Darran Garnham

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Gary Vaynerchuk
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvYefKQM7Rw
- **Дата:** 21.09.2022
- **Длительность:** 35:55
- **Просмотры:** 20,676
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/17317

## Описание

Today's episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience is an interview I did with the Founder & CEO of TOIKIDO LTD, Darran Garnham! We discussed Darren's journey into the industry, a history lesson about doing business in a very shady era, how toys are connected to business, how Darran could have been a millionaire at 28, why I know so much about 80's toys, the story of how Darran and I got connected to each other and much more!
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Thanks for watching!
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Check out another series on my channel:
Keynotes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vCDlmhRmBo&list=PLfA33-E9P7FCEF1izpctGGoak841XYzrJ
NFTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwMJ6bScB2s&list=PLfA33-E9P7FAcvsVSFqzSuJhHu3SkW2Ma
Business Meetings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wILI_VV6z4Y&list=PLfA33-E9P7FCTIY62wkqZ-E1cwpc2hxBJ
Gary Vaynerchuk Original Films: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FAvnrOcgy4MvIcCXxoyjuku
Trash Talk: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FDelN4bXFgtJuczC

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

what i'm really trying to get people to understand because that's a much broader audience that's listening right now is how unbelievably real it is to actually do something you like versus actually doing something you don't like i woke up this morning devastated about the jets lost like sir i'm still really actually very upset but like pumped because my first two hours were with andy and i knew we were gonna have operational like just hardcore operational meetings but like pumped on september 12th from 1982 to 1998 i woke up every september 12th monday morning devastated because it was the beginning of a very long seven eight months of school and now i watch people do that every day for the rest of their lives from 22 to 70 50 years of hating it i only had to endure it for 16 years people are doing things they hate for the rest of their lives it's unacceptable this is the garyvee audio experience and today i have the great privilege of having a business partner of mine on the show darren will get into his back story but this will be really fun for the intellectual property collectible um just to give everyone the preview like you know when i went on this befriends journey there was a lot of things i wanted to do strategically a lot of them was around toys and tchotchkes and things of that nature and uh you know fate created a scenario where we got to meet and i became an investor in darren's company and it's been a really fun journey toy keto is a major part of the v friends journey which we'll get into but what i really wanted darren on the show why i asked him i obviously have thousands of investments and different individuals that could be on the show but i tend not to do that too often unless i feel like it actually brings value to the audience and i feel like so many of you are on your journeys of being happy in life which i find darren to be one of the individuals i've come across in my career that is as passionate about the thing he does as i am about what i do which i think is incredibly important excuse me um number two i think that um i think that a lot of you are getting more and more interested in ip development and things of that nature and i think there's a lot to talk about here and toys and collectibles and characters and journeys and having fun and so how are you mate i'm good buddy thanks for having me of course tell everybody a little bit about yourself take the floor for two three minutes and give us the kind of comic book number one or yesterday no worries uh so i've been in ip family ip uh for uh 20 years so i started here in new york working for four kids entertainment on pokemon with al khan back in the day uh and then ran different how did that happen i caught a good question did you get that job what did you do exactly because i think the reason i'm jumping in is of course i want to get to your story but i i'm obsessed with everyone who's listening on the other end and i'm trying to think about the 25 year old 24 year old right now that's gotten affected by nfts or comics or sports cards and actually wants to do this too many of them try to do their own project fail and then take a subtle job where what they don't realize is their biggest opportunity is to join something learn and then eventually get to their own thing so i'm curious of your story how you got to that pokemon job and was pokemon what did you say 21 years so yeah so pokemon already gotten going at that point yeah i mean al had bought it out of japan um so i joined his london office so i got the job i mean it was by default of having to pay the rent so i was working at tesco's the store in london working nights stacking frozen food and that's the walmart of uh of the uk for everybody in europe who everybody's listening so you're working in retail stocking frozen peas this is even you know i couldn't imagine a better setup for what i'm trying to accomplish here so keep going so you're stocking shelves in retail stores peas no different than what i was doing at 24. yeah and then i saw a job application that was looking for a merchandiser for pokemon right and you thought and because you were in retail you understood at least what that potentially meant yeah and so you basically said i'd rather be stocking stores with pokemon figures and cards than peas yeah and i yeah and i i've done a degree which included some accounting so long story short i mean i joined the accounting department i didn't want to be an accountant like at all and i had a great boss there and after about six months he said listen you've got two choices here i'll invest in you to go and do all of your accounting degrees or you can join my sales team because we really enjoy having you in those meetings because your energy was infectious yeah i mean i went in there as the accounting guy but ended up pitching the brand so um so he gave me effectively what was the duff job in that space which was managing what they called central eastern europe so i was real quick because you had a different slang on the other side of the palace duff was bad yeah it

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

was basically the markets that nobody wanted right they weren't sexy right back then nobody wanted to go to poland correct yeah so i traveled poland czech russia ukraine slovenia slovakia i mean and all these beautiful places right which were also you know obviously there's a lot going on in those parts of the world right now but at what year was this twenty two thousand this will be two thousand one right so this is you know the berlin wall you know is only like a decade from falling these countries are still kind of getting their footing correct in a post-communism era yeah and are going towards capitalism and democracy and there was a lot of shady [ __ ] and a lot of exciting [ __ ] it must have been a wild west market it and it was brilliant i mean i can give you must have learned a ton i learned a ton yeah did you almost get killed uh i've got shady yeah i've got some conversations i could give you i don't know if you want to do them here no i think i want at least one i mean just to paint a picture right like obviously i'm from that part of the world and i was paying very close attention to people were doing business there and of course my parents leaving that world were like you don't do business in that part of the world but i was always super curious and like you know there was a lot of mafia a lot of that influence in america it's like you got to do a deal you got it's a corporate thing right you're dealing with corporate [ __ ] in that part of the world you think you're trying to get your pokemon toy into 50 local stores in the eastern bloc and you think you're talking to igor but what's really happening is somebody else controls it and you're and if you get a little too cute and bump out a disney product you might have a problem i'll give you a great example tell me so i was just handy so you think you have a tough this isn't this is easy out here now what darren's about to travel i was in bulgaria and my partner at that time who was looking to be my partner i got in the car and he said you're gonna have to get in the back because in the front of the car were all these lights and flashing and gadgets and i said what are they and he said well that one tells me where the police are and this one tells them where i am because my business partner was blown up last week now i'm saying no i'm now sat in the back of this car [ __ ] your pants absolutely yeah because no one knew where i was they just knew i was in bulgaria right i didn't know where i was in bulgaria but um but yeah he was turning legit he was he had a property business he wanted to get into toys he saw the distribution opportunity in a country that had no real regulation of toy at that time um and actually he went on to crush it he's amazing yeah see andy you don't realize how good you have it dust when you jump back in the car with the camera you're thinking about catching the right shot not getting shot yeah understood so keep going so you get this pokemon gig so i get the pokemon gear you sneak in through accounting people see your enthusiasm you know the brand yep and now you're in the eastern block trying to make stuff like you're trying to in essence get people to carry the product yeah we're selling the tv show onto okay so it was 360. it wasn't just product you're trying to get distribution for the ip as well correct but so you were doing both or just that no there was a great team selling the animation in but sometimes they couldn't sell it in so then it was up to me of how do we get this show in without broadcaster taking it got it so was that being alternative distribution or was that getting people to buy the stuff showing them there was a demand and then getting should i get a show by age here so we also had uh ninja turtles in the portfolio at that time as well yes before it went on to be sold to nickelodeon yes uh in the czech republic we got ninja turtles wouldn't they couldn't take it on air they wouldn't take it so we packaged the toys with a cd with a disc right one episode per toy right so kind of like andy and i are thinking a lot like for example you know this because you're our partner we're thinking about toys with qr codes so people watch the cartoons that was inspired in a lot of ways by what i saw as a kid with he-man my friend robbie turnick big shout out robbie bought he-man toys before they were cartoons and the way we cared about skeletor and he-man was there was little comic books later when i watched the netflix show of toys of our childhood they explained that the reason they had that there was the animation wasn't ready yet but the toys were ready and they were going into toys r us and so like [ __ ] we got to add a comic book because kids aren't going to give a [ __ ] if there's no story you did the same thing turtles are not on tv so to get kids to care you had bulky toys with a big vhs tape so that people could watch the vhs tape fall in love with the turtles and then create the circle and then it went on air the following year of course because we created the hype yeah created demand um so yeah is that a wild experience to work on so that's really where you cut your teeth and learn the game that's where i cut my teeth and how long were you there uh six years and then what

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

happened uh and then i went on to run a licensing agency um so we took on third party ip um so we represented 20th century fox we represented sony we represented hit entertainment and what were your jobs you would get this ip and your job was to find partners to manufacture against that ip to license it out right licensing sure that could mean give me an example of one of the you're naming the companies that owned it for everybody listing at home in that business all these 20th century fox give me like a for instance we represented so we represented the simpsons stop right there yeah the simpsons and you were doing this for what region uh i was doing it for the scandinavia and i'm still in central eastern europe at this point right so you have you joined this agency where for scandinavia and centra and the europe thing so kind of like the you know the eastern europe scandinavia thing and you now have simpsons and it is your job for example uh for everybody who's old enough to remember these they don't do it most people don't do this anymore these have been some of my favorite licensing deals uh car fresheners right yep people used to put those in their cars which i'm sure they still do but i'm not paying attention you would say for instance let me go find a car freshener partner and they'll pay me to put a bart simpson car freshener instead of a pine cone right correct or toys or hats or cereal or anything absolutely small give me the funniest one you can think of that you put together during that era just to get people's juices going wow okay um it's andy pay attention it's going to be going through your work but you may have to do like one of these andy i'm going to take you back to i mean russia uh if that's okay i take candy back to russia every [ __ ] day in a meeting so i so ice age i say generally yes ice age marmot right in the little thing yep 20th century fox huge in russia a huge brand right it's cold there they're like the cold thing it makes sense so i did and this will be another good so i did a director retail directory so this is now going into the biggest retailer in russia which was called uh it was called x5 x5 the [ __ ] are they using western nashville okay go ahead i was getting excited to show my russian knowledge give me x5 okay x5 so x5 and then we did it vayner x5 andy you he's working he is working which i appreciate i guess you could listen to this later go ahead um so we did a deal with x5 and they came to us with i think 50 products that they wanted to put the ice age brand onto meaning they're exclusives correct right this is yeah they have scales this is their manufacturing yeah right and then i had to go back to 20th century fox and say these guys in russia want to put scratch i think was the name of the on their toilet paper in every store in russia and they said and they yeah i think we did it i mean you the russians can wipe their asses with our character fair enough i get it but some how long do you do that uh so i did that for four and a half years and then sorry to i'm sorry if everybody's listening be like what's going on is what always going on unlike all your other favorite podcasters who do this for a living and spend all [ __ ] week prepping for one interview that they do for four hours and cut down to 33 minutes i have 17 more [ __ ] meetings after this so i'm trying to get some [ __ ] and i apologize go ahead aaron yeah so next i joined uh startup because i love you you've done the corporate thing at that point yeah actually i yeah we'll come on to that but i joined a startup called uh minecandy okay so they had a brand called moshi monsters yep um and i joined to do everything commercial for them that's fine away from the game itself yes so in the world at that time for web games there were two i remember moshi monsters and club yeah and disney bought club penguin and then moshi was there their rival so again my job was to find partners for that but what was the most fun deal you did there oh pez dispensers yeah or the mcdonald's happy meal in north america massive 33 million happy meals in three weeks massive yeah it's huge for that brand it gary that was the time we had uh index and excel who are two big vc yeah of course i know them both so i would join the board meetings and they didn't really care they were like oh god there's the toy guy right they were more into the tech [ __ ] and this is exactly right yep but suddenly we had a guy called bill rhodey join the board so he set up mtv outside of north america more of a consumer guy correct got it and when i said we've done this um he lost his [ __ ] mind he did yeah and he said to everyone do you know how much that's worth you know in march yeah of course um so i stayed there right through the growth of that company from nine of us to 220. um yeah did that have an exit or did it missed its window disney came in and they said no and they missed it so this is why this is a fun

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00]

podcast i mean a funny mood i think it's the jets thing or i've been fresh from like the summer so i feel like a different energy uh this is a good one kids to listen at home a lot of you i've seen it too many times this must hurt you because you came in early enough you probably lost crucial yeah like did you know the offer that disney made yeah okay i was in the room good yeah so just for everybody at home so they can learn because a lot of you are on at a startup right now and you're the seventh employee the 19th employee you're going through the journey economy is a little rough right now so you're trying to figure out your decisions but we're going to make this real life this is real life i want everybody to really understand we're about to say because darren's going to give it to us without over sharing but he's going to give me the math i feel because it's too far removed and he'll be fine darren you came in early yep means you had a lot of shares yep you were in the room so you it's not here say you know exactly what disney offered obviously the people who had the most equity the vcs the founders decided to pass because they could make they thought they could make it bigger correct if they'd said yes you don't even have to say what the disney offer was but if they had said yes to that for you personally you the human being how much money would have that been uh millions of dollars how many millions three seven twenty three seven to eight right yeah how old were you 28. that's all you need to know yeah 28 when you started there right if i'm doing the math of your career yeah this offer came in so i've been like 32-33 and you see how much i'm paying attention so at 30 i mean that is it's was that hard for you to get over knowing somebody else i've always wondered about the 7th to 30th employing companies that were in the rooms it'd be one thing if you were the 50th employee you weren't in the room you're not even sure of the hearsay but like do you feel like you took a couple of beats of pause when you would sleep at night of like man this sucks i wish they said yes yeah absolutely of course i mean but you know what i mean i'm a i'm like you i yeah you're about to everything happens for a reason but did that one hurt right yeah her for a good 12 months after it burnt me yeah completely blind because what happens on the other side is when you say no and then it's still dragging and they lose a little momentum and you know you've lost your window yeah then you decided to get another job i that's right it's [ __ ] tough you go from that where you probably at that point knowing that you're an entrepreneur you must have been thinking i'm going to get this bag a couple things settled like a house or whatever and i was and then you were like i'm going to start my own company and i was traveling so my wife and i we just had our first kit um and i was traveling 22 days of the month if not more right you were exhausted to make it happen right um we've done a movie deal with universal studios we've done a record deal with sony you thought this was the one yeah i thought this was it this is a home run [ __ ] okay so then it kind of that stock goes to zero correct right you had your salary but all that seven and eight's off the table yeah you're now creeping into your mid thirties yep but you decide to take what job i take a corporate job of course you did by the way i want everybody listen you know i always make those andy you know this with my content i used to say this all the time you're all [ __ ] around you're gonna be working at a bank in a couple years because that's what happens when you get burned like that and you have responsibilities what are you going to do you're going to over correct in the other direction and you're going to want to get paid more correct so you instead of the whole i'm going to get paid 200 or 150 or 80 000 or 70 000 but i got stuck you get burned you're like [ __ ] that [ __ ] i'm going to get paid 400 000 300 000 yeah right yeah that's exactly i'm sure what you did yep that's right so i joined everyone i joined nbc universal to to head up europe so let's keep talking about this i apologize because i'm making this selfish for my audience i love it that must have sucked because you went from a massive job that you had where you had a lot of say all to say and it was creative yeah to a corporation that's with all this no disrespect to nbc they're all the same soulless political i i had a boss right suddenly had a boss again who probably wasn't as good at not to razz on the boss but like i'll give you judo it's fine not because it andy knows what it's like but he's not as good as that i'll give you a great example at the boss i had i sat opposite him one day and i said to him what's your dream like what's your ambition in life i was like i was interested and he just shrugged me went no this is it i've reached i got here and i got i went home and i'm like i can't work there i can't be that's not inspiring you're around people yeah but they had some great people there as well i'm sure and what did you learn there i learned there so i quickly weaseled my way into the m a team um to learn let's talk about weaseling sorry but i'll tell you why i don't know if you know this befriends weasel is the witty weasel and i'll tell you why andy you don't even know this is a v friends exclusive so i think and this you definitely know andy and dustin you know this too and even you darren are figuring it out

### Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00) [20:00]

i like to play dumb people don't realize that because they see the confidence in the content but i don't think people understand how thoughtful and how like very specific everything i do is i think they think it's pretty random even and you saw the speed in which i was creating the characters that was my life's work i had always used the word weaseled in as a positive yeah you know people use it sounds bad like i weaseled in and i know that it was the world meant it to be bad i always thought that there was a good version of it which was like the same way i always say god forbid but i mean it god willing i always thought weaseling was actually very much chess and cleverness and if you were like a positive weasel like it means you weren't a weasel you were just i always took negatives and tried to make them positive yeah and you're a weasel it's like slick and you're trying to trick people but notice how you use it in a self-deprecating way right i find you to be very i mean everything you're telling i don't know a lot of these back stories but like you know i find you to be very charming and very likable thank you and so even in the way you communicated as a human being you said i weaseled my way into mna that's you being self-deprecating because you're humble i actually think what you even if you think about going from accounting to the team that you went to i think you're being strategic and thoughtful and so anyway the weasel oh by the way andy what's the rat's name reliable huh funny seems to be very opposite of the way people think about a rat is the least reliable they're the one who [ __ ] you but the reliable rat and the witty weasel like i am so pumped we're documenting all this i would watch all 5 000 hours if i had the time of jim henson and walt disney crafting their journey of 50 years i already know what this is all gonna be so like this is like fun like does the fur literally andy does not know reliable a little bit because i think i've referenced it in some meetings right andy you had a little more sense that i was playing with that right but you definitely didn't know [ __ ] about the witty weasel is weasel is weaseling is actually witty it can be much more positive that's what i want to do with be friends i want to take things that are negative and make them positive the [ __ ] logo of the entire project is a black cat the hints were always there darren amazing i think so i don't even like you know i'm like pumped right now because i like love like you three like even hearing this forget about everybody who's listening but i don't want to give it up so easy either i'm like damn it now they know about witty weasel but like i really thought about this [ __ ] and it was funny my most inner circle was watching me we went hardcore i was just drawing drawing it would seem like very frivolous but it was my i've been thinking about it forever but you you're your level of generosity and with me as well you've opened your book and your team and with listen i'm hugely grateful for that but i think in those corporate jobs what i learned is it's very hard to do that if i'm listening i'm just pushing my next call because i want to hang more go ahead it was very hard to sort of break down those walls because it's almost like the military you're in your pay grade and you're in your rank and that's where you had to stay so i'll give you a working example i was a town hall phenomenal guy that ran international for nbc and during his speech he said they had 51 000 employees and they reckon about 1200 of them were digitally native and i just come off the back of mine candy living in that world yeah so i just emailed him just cold emailed and said look i was in the town hall i'd love to have a coffee love now i worked out i was 17 runs behind the ladder for this guy but he met me and we had a coffee we'd hit it off he put me on his exec research team or something but he found a way to get you in because he's sensed correct yeah so but again my learning from that is i do that with any of my team as well they've got to be part of that journey and just awesome let them be part yeah so then what so i lasted seven months at universal it was quick and uh makes sense i didn't even know that and notice how i set that up and you better not take a corporate job go ahead and uh and then went back to entrepreneurial i met a great guy who made he was uh his company was called thinkway toys and if you turn over any buzz lightyear from the original toy story movie it will say think quite toys they got the license first amazing guy and then they resold it no so i basically ran his global distribution did playmates get involved with um yeah so other toy companies throughout that franchise playmates was teenage mutant ninja turtles in the us they still are still oh yeah darren tell everybody while we're on the record how much i know about this [ __ ] like all this like random stuff from like the 70s 80s 90s ip and toy stuff like let them know

### Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00) [25:00]

that this is not a joke no gary's knowledge in this space is ridiculous and it's like i mean just looking at the toys behind you now and you put your passion for it i mean i love documentaries when the toys that we played like that series that was i i want to go home right now and watch them again but you're one of the few people that i can text or whatsapp and reference something from the raccoons and you'll get it because it'll still be in the memory bank you'll remember the fact that's the other part you need to remember the [ __ ] because i'm into it this goes back to like i i don't know if anyone's paying attention we're having a little fun we're talking a little v friends i want you all to know darren anybody who's in licensing toys you should absolutely reach out to him google and we'll do all that in the body but what i'm really trying to get people to understand because that's a much broader audience that's listening right now is how unbelievably real it is to actually do something you like versus actually doing something you don't like it's the difference of being like how darren and i wake up like i woke up this morning devastated about the jets lost like sir i'm still really actually very upset but like pumped because my first two hours were with andy and i knew we were going to have operational like just hardcore operational meetings but like pumped and like i just know that on september 12th happy birthday justin novello on september 12th from 1982 to 1999 to 1998 which is a very long time i woke up every september 12th monday morning devastated because it was the beginning of a very long seven eight months of school something i hated okay and now i watch people do that every day for the rest of their lives from 22 to 70 50 years of hating it i only had to endure it for 16 years as a child which meant that i didn't do it all day i did it for half a day people are doing things they hate for the rest of their lives it's unacceptable and when you dm me and email me with your stories you don't get it gary this my sibling this my parents died my husband died my wife died like there's real like when people hit me up with some [ __ ] like you don't get it my rent's expensive i'm like you don't [ __ ] get it sometimes people come with real stuff they're like you don't get it both my parents died i'm 19 in a car accident last year i'm taking care of my seven to five and five-year-old sibling gets real hard for me to be like you have to follow your passion that i understand yeah comma i still tell that person this is one of the worst situations on the 8 billion people that live on earth that one can have from a traumatic experience and i still tell you that tell that person with deep empathy and compassion and kind and care of like hey cool for now yeah always bet on optimism for now you have to do that that's right guess what for now i ate [ __ ] also for 20 years for now you know gary we've never spoke i don't know your school and i'm not going to play this to my kids i don't know what you call it over here in the u. s but i was excluded from two schools when i was younger does that mean expelled yeah kicked out yeah because you were [ __ ] at school or you did pranks and were a bad boy i was just easily distracted well cool then i if it was that i would have been expelled from everything i haven't done homework since fifth grade i didn't do homework once for the last seven years of my academic normal career and never studied once for a test never opened a book in high school they just push you through the system they don't give a [ __ ] it's true you're lucky you got expelled i'm proud of the uk schools during that era my american schools could give two shits i did nothing they just didn't want somebody staying back for their record not they cared about my life they give a [ __ ] anyway not to get too much on a tangent talk to us about toy keto before we get out of here yeah there was probably some steps that we missed tell us what toy keto is and kind of the journey you're on and some of the stuff you're thinking about yeah thank you so uh we started toykido in september 20 and really to bring brands to life whether it's our own brands uh that we're developing uh we're developing a few on different people we were taking everything we were just listening to and starting your own company correct right yeah what was what was the thing you did right before it because i think we do need the context to keep going right before you made that jump i mean you're talking about september 2020 covid schmovid like i was living the the guy that i was working with from thinkway toys was a phenomenal human being like entrepreneur privately owned business uh and he decided to start to wrap it up so did he sell it uh no he's not that shut it down it's not that sword pass it on to someone no shut it down just wind it up i had a great run yeah i'm done i don't want to sell it because i don't want somebody to control my legacy sure and relationships i guess so and i don't have any irreparent children or whoever i guess so yeah and did he want you to buy it uh he wanted me to do

### Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00) [30:00]

something for yourself for myself good for him what a guy i know he's the best yeah can i meet him yeah love you please dinner that just made my heart smile he's why he's a very high integrity man it's why our youngest kid is called albert wow we named it we named our youngest after him he's an amazing guy unbelievable so andy i want you to name your child gary boy or girl i'll give you one gary b gary b crane go ahead rolls off the tongue even doesn't like that one all right so yeah so um toyquitto's i mean it was almost born out of necessity but it was the right time i've got 20 years of no you're the right i mean of building other people's brands of and there's very few investments i've made in my career that i felt more excited about you know what mate that was such a wild week do you remember i was down in yeah break it all down for him remind me well i was down in i was there in cornwall with a lousy reception yes and gary and i were chatting about the project that was going to get connected remind me i'm blanking we were connected by uh you know andy yep i do yeah it was actually liam payne holy [ __ ] that's right from there and aj was talking about halloween costumes this was like three weeks after we sold out this is like june 21. i'm like hey i got a couple things to do before i can talk about halloween costumes but then followed by the way gonna keep yeah gonna keep jumping in here to make this interesting remember everybody was listening i always tell you like cool but like you know like the audacity that you darren had this crazy career think about what he's accomplished and he had the humility to reach out a second third fourth time clearly oh by the way because me and andy get pounded everybody in my team dust and we all get hit up because everyone's trying to get to me which i'm humbled by but some people have the way the attack to do it and others don't clearly because i know andy gets a lot of it not only did you reach out two or three times it clearly andy must have been done in a manner that was delicious versus disgusting phone charming calling of course the background display of his office was very similar to yours yeah that's true and then you said i should meet yeah and then we met and i knew right away right i remember that i remember you know it's back to the i remember what i felt i don't remember the meeting but i remember thinking there's something here i used as much of my irish mother's charm as humanly possible in that first meeting i love it yeah that must have been a big deal right that investment mattered yeah because it i mean we're only a year old so i remember you saying to me you're only a year old and you were right and it was a humbling experience to chat to you and get so much time as well like we were i don't know if you remember i was behind a bush because i couldn't get wife wi-fi reception and i came off thinking [ __ ] this guy's gonna be like who is this clown he's calling me from behind the bush but you stand but you stopped with it and we went for it mainly because i actually left thinking that's exactly who i want to work with i'm not interested in a suit and tie if you're like hanging out of a bush doing a meeting with me then i'm already dramatically more interested that's what's fun to be living on the other side of the matrix yeah you know what i mean you just believe in different things like i don't believe in i actually said something today in a meeting the quality is the not the production value it's the message and you know we we want to like at toy keto we love working with founders of businesses getting as close to them so when i started the business there were two of us myself and jeff uh who joined me he's an ex um partner and in another sort of business we worked in together our first deal we got was with the among us team yes monster for all the parents listening you all remember that video game exploded 500 million plus downloads yeah i later learned that when torquido pitched we were up against jack's big company big companies i remember when they got the wrestling ip yeah that was their big breakthrough right absolutely yeah so there's me and jeff versus monsters yeah you know at the end of my pitch to them uh i showed them a comic strip that my 11 year old son freddie had done of the among us characters and i held it up and i said listen if i get the deal we'd love to work with you but regardless can i just show you this because it'll blow his mind in the morning when i tell him that's that level of humanity one look i think people do business with people yeah you know unfortunately i'm running out of time here and i have to run um we may need to do a part two andy because i'm really enjoying this i want to get a little bit deeper but a couple things people do business with people and i'm

### Segment 8 (35:00 - 35:00) [35:00]

sure you can't be a human being with a pulse and not hear why this gentleman is super interesting was for me and why v friends uh works with toy keto uh so feverishly and we have all sorts of monster stuff coming up and you know what andy that's how we're gonna time it we're gonna do a part two because i feel like we have unsettled work here on the podcast done and we'll use that to kind of maybe launch some more information about what we're doing because it's all about to hit ahead here pretty quickly how long are you in town tonight yeah um that's right we can do the we can do this across the pond virtually uh real pleasure thank you buddy thanks for everything love you cheers