Startups: Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia | 2013

Gary vaynerchuk is back uh hot on the heels of his last book crushing it uh the vanue economy is his latest book what's going on Gary you know I'm just happy to be back in the studio well not the studio because the Tron 3000 broke or whatever happened but I'm happy to be back on the show uh you know it it's widely considered that I am the single greatest guest of your program yes 125 episodes in True you want a twisty yes and so you know I'm just ready to win again I heard MO kman wanted to be the uh the guest of the year and I decided I'm not gonna allow that to happen so I appreciate you having me back on absolutely I love the confidence early on in the game set the tone and uh I think Mo's going to be a little crushed um oh he's gonna be so devastated he'll be he absolutely would devastate more let me say one thing about the Jason nation that I know yes um that I do a lot of stuff a lot I'm very lucky I do a lot of real TV a lot of podcasts I'm willing to do it all how we got five PR people you know 17 no I'm just kidding I mean you know if you can pump out good content things will happen right I will tell you that this Show's appearance uh a year and a half ago is still a thing I get I see in my Twitter stream I get emails about you know there were plenty of people that bought the thank you economy wrote me letters like got the new book by the way first found out about you on Jason's show so Jas you have a little bit of an audience here yeah and a great audience and uh they I think what they connected with in that episode was you were featured for 45 minutes an hour and a half we just kept going and going I don't think anybody ever interviewed you for that long usually it's like you're on they're like eat dirt and we're out we done boom but it's a different thing when you sit down I also said get off the [ __ ] train which has taken on a life of its own absolutely that is I really missed a merchandise opportunity there I think we could have sold some serious t-shirts I somebody made some really nice ones um let me thank our sponsor trada is a crowdsource payperclick Marketplace making online advertising easy for startups and entrepreneurs tra has more than 1,000 paid search experts who create the keywords and a copy uh for advertisers using tra you know about this because you've bought sem before and it's a great company I met when I was in Boulder and if you're a paid search expert and you want to use your skills on the you know on the DL the down low uh you can go visit the TR website and work there maybe even moonight use the promotional code twist and get five get a $500 rebate if you spend three months in the TR Marketplace and meet their minimum monthly budget requirements whatever that is uh but thank you to at trada and everybody say uh on Twitter for making Independent Media like this possible uh so it's been a year the first book did tremendous New York Times bestseller yep I just found out this also is a New York Times bestseller wow when did this come out this came out 10 days ago um and uh it's going to be number two on a New York Times bestseller list I'm going to kill that [ __ ] Susie Orman um uh but you know that's how that is you know she saves people money Oprah just pumped the [ __ ] out of her so you know I get Jason she gets Oprah so we only have so much of a shot yeah well that's true so what's the basic premise I mean you don't write these things lightly I know you have like an 18,000 book deal with somebody you this is a good chance to break the news because I know enough people watch this is done with Harper business my last book deal my 10 book deal was signed with Harper Studio that dissolved when the guy who created it left so this was a separate book deal I actually have no more books that I have to write ah uh I wrote this 18 months after crush it I don't expect to write another book for a while um mainly because I think you have to you know I don't want to just pump them out for the sake of pumping them out right um now listen tomorrow I might wake up and you know maybe I'll come up with some amazing idea tonight and want to but I kind of feel like I need a little bit of a break this book feels really good to me I feel like I've matured dramatically since I wrote crush it um I start a company with my brother AJ called Vayner media so we've done a lot of Consulting in Corporate America for you know PepsiCo and Green Mountain Coffee and Campbells and the NHL big companies I understand the entrepreneur thing I understand the small business thing but I've learned a lot about corporate this talks about what is really the ROI of giving a crap like is the world really changing like it is my firm belief that the world is changing um if you have to care about the end user in a world that we all know we live in which is based on Word of Mouth and social equity and so I dig into this pretty deeply and it's really funny I actually came up with the title of this book giving an interview about crushit hey Wanda crushit uh was doing extremely well everybody was stunned it did well you know all the other social media books in 2008 did not do well right mine sold extremely well mainly because you bought a crapload of copies so I appreciate that yes I always do that um and I in one interview said they finally they were pushing they were kind of it was like a Washington Post you okay Tyler's okay um I they were like pushing they're like come on why did your book sell and I was trying to figure out and after the interview they told me they thought I bought all my copies right they dug into it they tried to like expose me I didn't know what was going on they were pushing they're like why' your book do so well and finally I said well the thank you economy and it's stuck I think that I paid forward so much for my community at the time 800 episodes of Wine Library TV you know how much replying I do on Twitter answering my email you know give give give that when I came and I asked for something and it was only 20 bucks it was an easy ask I almost call this book guilt marketing right it's almost it's sort of like Evernote where people feel so good about the product the CEO told us on the show they just pay and the number one reason they give is because they want to support the product it's like how I feel about you I walked in here and just gave you a hundred bucks absolutely we'll spend it later um so the the concept that social media is

changing everything let's unpack that a little bit the word social media is broken right because the word media is screwing with everybody's head everybody thinks that's push right media's been the same way for a hundred years print radio push television push you know banner ads push Billboards push email Services push push push we are in the business of creating content and we push the living crap out of it we are now living through the first place where it's pull it's the difference between what we're doing right now which is creating and pushing content compared to that skill set of working the room after we're done I'm going to go over there and hang out with these awesome people that decided to come and hang and the skill set to work the room and meet people and shake their hands is the skill set that I think businesses need whether you're Ford or apple or Pepsi social context is going to matter everybody in our world says content is King in my opinion if content is King context is God right and the word context is about to explode in mattering to this room to the viewers to this universe and so it's why you build the product it's how you behave

with your customers even if you have millions of customers like apple you see Steve Jobs writing these 1 a. m. emails and the guy's obviously busy he's got but he can't help himself and he was a recluse he was he would never respond publicly and then something happened in the last two or three years where even Steve Jobs would write to people the blunt honest I don't know if you saw that email where he said what have you contributed to the world why are you being so nasty and criticizing my products and I was like Wow Steve Jobs is actually engaging listen customers I think first and foremost especially people in our space and we all know so much I mean anybody that's even watching this show is so far ahead I I'd love for them to wrap their head around that the fact you're watching this show means that you clearly do know where the world's going at some level in a way that so many other people don't I do believe our space is ridiculously cynical I I'm shocked how cynical our society is in general you know as a guy who's got good guy DNA and has an amazing mother and raised him you know I I'm shocked how many people just don't believe you can be good by the way I'm not good because I'm such a great guy I'm good because I firmly believe that that's how you're going to have to do business I'm here to sell stuff I'm here to make business happen I want to buy the New York Jets I'm not Mother Teresa I have no interest in rock climbing and drinking tea and all kumbai Ying I want to build businesses I think being good is going to be a substantial backbone of that was that drinking tea and going rock having a dig at Kevin absolutely not is one of my best friends of course and uh it's a dig at San Francisco in general and I don't really mean it I love SF but there is this thing that I just want to make sure listen I'm a little bit disgusted with myself Jace I talk a lot about Huggy feeling like it shocks me that I am this person at 35 you know because I'm the kid that ripped up flowers rang the doorbell and sold it back I'm Raw right I but now you're realizing being the nice guy and the thank you is what's going to get you to the next level well here's the thing right I ow I grew up in a family business we lived on the thank you economy I lived to deliver a case of wine to somebody if they had a bad experience or took care of them but what happened it's like this if somebody tripped in your parking lot as you went out to your beautifully colored mobile tonight and a lady trips and you help her up and we all Left Right how many people in the world know that you're a good guy two you and her right if somebody trips at the Macy's day parade and you save her and you pick her up before Snoopy crushes her ass you're a national hero right in my opinion what's happened to business because of the transparency and the ecosystem of the Twitter's and the Facebooks and now the Tumblers and koras and on and on of the world so much of what we do in business is played out in public and the return on investment of being a good guy and a good company has dramatically more value it's just the way it is now listen and let me say it here right now because I know where you're going everything I write about in this book and everything I believe in the way I'm executing my businesses whether it's Vayner Media or wine library or my personal brand is going to get ruined in 5 years why because it's going to be like email do you remember the first time you got email yeah it was important it was you were pumped you were like holy [ __ ] I'm not paying for a stamp fee on this is incredible no phone call Fee you couldn't you got mail and you would like start dancing like Santa came over right now what do you guys feel about email you hate it right so you say people are going to be so nice they good to their customers even the airlines are going to treat us with respect and love and tenderness that it's going to be commoditized here's my concern that companies are going to do it as a tactic right it comes natural to me to engage right you know the reason I did well on Twitter is I was interested in semise more than Twitter right I searched and I gave feedback I always think a business is best when it's a service above what they're actually doing right my concern is that as companies figure out what I'm talking about out here and realize people really do win when they start engaging and caring and answering and not putting their head in the sand right and creating context I think it's going to become a commodity I do I think it's G to become free shipping in 1998 when I did free shipping at wine library. com it was one of the big it's listen to this we were a $4 million business at the time we're a $60 million business now it was the biggest day of business we've ever had still to this day free Shipp

free shipping it was the first time I ever did it 98 people were buying wine that day like it had the Cure in side they were going nuts one guy bought 20 Cases left a note and said I'm buying this wine for my daughter's wedding I called him living in the thank you economy back then not realizing it right I called him to thank him I said hey Jim thank you so much I mean it's incredible you know when's your daughter's wedding maybe you know maybe we can send some champagne or something he goes oh no no Gary my daughter is 12 I go said what he goes yes she's 12 but this is such a sick deal that I'm going to put this in a seller and it's amazing now everybody who's watching this is so entitled so primed out right that they won't even buy anything unless they have free shipping and so what I'm saying is that we don't realize how quickly we become cultured to good stuff as companies start getting nice to us where wait till you think we're you want to know where I really think this goes yes I think you Jason wakes up in four years tweets out I'm taking a run because now you're a little bit older and you want to lose 15 pounds okay I do okay so now you're like I'm taking a run I believe that the next day at your home six different pairs of sneakers four headbands and a wristband and maybe an iPad little Min well not Apple they'll never go there but here's the bottom line you will have stuff every person sitting here and every person watching this right now in 12 years will be sick of free ship being sent to them mark it down I actually am a little sick of that right now I have to be honest when you get well you're a superstar no but it is any and you rock pink shirts can we zo on the pink shirt I mean the pink shirt is just tremendous I think it need you to respect it needs a little respect I agree and I by the way I got the the Tesla is colored after your book why do you think I did it that color um it is happening already though brands have figured out with some of these tools um what's the one Tyler that does your score Cloud clout like this Cloud um score yeah they seem to have figured out who the influencers are with this Cloud score and I thought it was a really dumb idea when I first heard it and now I think it's brilliant because the you know now understanding corporate they don't want to really do the homework it's so much more fun to look at clout and be like oh great an 84 send them some [ __ ] exactly and so now I'm a 73 or a 76 or something and they keep sending stuff and then his movie tickets and it's this and then Ford's agency is calling me every day to try to get me to take a survey I don't want right so you're right it's already it's that's the future it's going to get annoying these brands are going to want to do too much and here's why I want everybody to understand I'm not here to Rah R and this is why it's going to happen here's why I think I don't think people understand

happen I don't think people understand how much a brand is willing to spend to get to you guys they're willing to spend an ungodly amount of money to get to you now where are they spending it they're spending it to through platforms that keep a big chunk of the change right now these traditional platforms not very efficient not efficient neelon CEO in this book I write about the neelson CEO came out and said well our numbers are probably about 8% off if the CEO of neel's is willing to come out and say it's 8% off first of all what's the real number 25 right second of all holy crap imagine in our world coming out imagine us coming out and saying well we're billing you 8% off or our traffic is 8% off or this I mean it's ludicrous and it's on billions of dollars and here's the other thing the it's 2011 like Billboards really do I really need to be paying 1995 prices for Billboards you're telling me that the people in this room people watching are actually looking at Billboards I don't know about you Jason I'm scared shitless to drive look at your fellow drivers they're not looking at Billboards the [ __ ] road they're texting so I mean so I need to be paying 1994 and really 1998 TV commercial how many people in this little crowd here DVR shows raise your hand and how many of you fast forward the commercials how many people well how many people don't fast forward the commercials nice supports Mo yeah most wored about the advertisers actually technically Jason that is not a great idea you know we have a lot of sponsors who are very important to this show if there's a way I mean seriously though look at that you saw it right and I'm sure people at home hopefully raised your hand it's fun I mean I mean why are we paying prices in a reality that is no more and so what companies are starting to do BU why because it's all a circle jerk no it's a circle jerk people want to make it easy brand managers of these big companies want to just buy TV because they want to sit at home and see the commercial that they paid for and be like hey I made a commercial they want to see their billboard do you know that they Billboards by Executives homes do you know billboard companies run Billboards by Executives homes so the CEO and the COO when they drive on the way to work be like there's my billboard my good I mean it's such a Tyler can you get on Billboard and Brentwood did you hear what um Groupon did with living social they puts the building across the street six stories tall right across their FY Fu billboard by the way the whole group on Living Social battle is so fun they need to go into a steel cage raw I love it butw Jason here's the bottom line it's all a system right I mean it's a system that makes sense it's the way they've always done it it's easy here's what you do ifig if you want to be a CMO at a major cpg company you play it safe correct you run a commercial right if it does well you're a champion if it doesn't you spend the next year analyzing why it didn't do well I mean it's really quite ludicrous it's super non-entrepreneurial and it's living in a time that doesn't exist anymore so what's going to happen is younger blood is coming in disruption is happening people are getting put out of business see you Blockbuster see you borders it's going to continue and what's going to happen is people going to start looking at their business and they're going to say wait a minute if we want to get to the end user and we're paying on average $287 and the data is not right why don't we just give the $287 to Jason cuz he just said that he's a runner [ __ ] it let's give them three pairs of sneakers and then maybe he'll bu the fourth and fifth and sixth and you're creating context right yeah and listen do I think it's I hope people don't misunderstood this is just on product giveaway right let me give you an example the thank you economy at Wine Library we had a customer who just dropped 20 G's on wine very short in from Chicago I told Kristen at Wine Library I want you to know who this person is we found him on Twitter we put him into our CRM system we started following him we noticed that he started tweeting about Jay Cutler consistently I love you Jay Cutler don't be mad at Jay Cutler if Jay Cutler really didn't get hurt we would have won we would have been the Super Bowl marry me Jay cut this guy loves J Cutler I call Kristen I'm like Kristen I want you to go to eBay I want you to buy a J Cutler Jersey and I want you to send him notes saying thank you for becoming a Wine Library customer that was huge for him he told us that he's not shopping with any other wine shop because we hit his emotional Center we didn't give him free shipping to Wine Library a wine rack or free glasses in the context of our world we went all the way left field and we touched the emotional Center if a company send something nice to your for your children for your daughter right oh yeah that hits you in a they got you got they got me you who did that Skip Hop did that and that's it they sent me two boxes every single product and they sent two of each I came home to my wife yep I'm the greatest guy ever yeah the Skip Hop diaper you have the Skip Hop stuff I my wife is in full control she's the CEO of M how old is your daughter 21 months 15 months yeah I mean how has that change your life as an entrepreneur we could have that discussion too yeah I mean it's a it's the biggest shift in my life I mean you know family is what you live for I mean it's interesting you know I'm going to go politically incorrect on you because that's you know I'm UNF kind of character the first n months I was like oh man I'm a piece of [ __ ] I'm a bad guy like why am I not like changing my life as soon as she started interacting things changed I think I don't know if that's a dude thing I've heard that you know once she started saying like when she rolled into my room a couple months ago after we hung out all day Sunday which is how my life's changed right the reason I don't answer every email anymore is because I used to sit on my ass on a Sunday on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and answer 900 emails and be proud of myself that I caught up spend a little time with Lizzy cuz she could stay up later and we'd go now I spend that time with me we spent a whole hardcore Sunday together it was ton of fun Lizzie went out and did some stuff the next morning I'm getting ready for work she runs into my room she looks me dead in the face and she's talking early very early which I'm not sure where she's getting that from but I have an idea she looks at me and she goes Daddy I'm back and that was it and I was like like the way she delivered it and I'm like wow now I understand why I'm not going to work as hard do as many things I need to be around this kind of stuff so it's a love that is difficult to understand yeah and it's uh it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me well put let's go let me say a couple more things about t if you don't mind absolutely because I'm very concerned you have a very educated viewership absolutely and I want them to understand what I'm obsessed with is I truly

believe that context matters so darn much I think it matters when you know your community right care about them like I look at this small crowd and I've talked to some of them today on Twitter like or yesterday it matters I know who they are I hate this concept of we become less of you know like you hear this from all the old school peeps like oh society's so screwed up now you don't communicate with each other you're out of your mind you you're not using the product I'm communicating more than ever I have context on much of this crowd that I never could have without the twitters and the Facebooks and tumblers of the world right and so I'm Blown Away by people's lack of understanding that if somebody says your product's awesome and you wink at them that acknowledgement means something think about this think about when somebody's giving you a head nod what's a head nod it's such a half-ass thing right like a head nod is not like some unbel I'm not talking about [ __ ] hugging I'm talking about a head nod I'm talking about you're walking in the office you know you're kind of like a zar in this establishment I'm sure that you know these guys are working their ass off 19 hours and you walk by and you give them a little head nod the [ __ ] that's huge they're pump Jason [ __ ] acknowledged my you know a head nod it matters a wink an LOL a thank you these things that you're doing in the trenches matter the radio business has a billion- dooll business based on DriveTime radio that Mom is driving to the supermarket and if you R run a tide or a Dove commercial during drive time when she goes into the supermarket she's going to buy your product right that's the thesis that's the concept and I believe in Impressions I mean I do believe in that I believe in branding here's thing though so what happens when you actually do something nice in the trenches for example Harris Casino group client of ours during CES we monitored every conversation for 24 hours I had West Coast sent out some of my guys people stayed up at 3 o'clock in the morning at Vayner you know it's hardcore like in here it's dungeon style right we're entrepreneurs no doubt so spoiler room somebody tweets out during CES does anybody know where I can see the Junior Olympic hockey game one of my guys sees it calls Caesar's Casino sports book says do you have this they said yes they said can you reserve a table for this guy yes they tweeted him he goes he has a good time the next morning we see this tweet from this customer checking out of the win checking into Caesars that is Roi awesome and so I'm just stunned at people and by the way we are going to be living through the great bubble of social media of the next three years people are going to lose their shirts it's going to be a bubble and people are going to be down on social media in the next 36 months cuz they there's a lot of hype there's clowns like me running around screaming this is the best [ __ ] ever so it's going to go through a bubble pop it's going to be a 99 to 2001 thing the internet was hot as [ __ ] right then 99 to 2001 the stock market collapsed right because there was a lot of things done wrong 95% of the stuff that I see on social today is done wrong because it's push it has no emotion it has no good intent and everybody's treating it like it's a traditional media platform which it's not everybody's trying to give a presentation during a cocktail party okay so everybody's struggling with it people are going to struggle they're going to spend a lot of money and nothing Good's going to happen and this reminds me so much of 99 to 2001 this remind and people are going to make decisions like the here's my favorite Blockbuster a bunch of 80-year-old white dudes sat in the boardroom and said hey dick do you know this uh Netflix thing no hey Johnny you see this thing no Paul no anybody even hear of this Netflix thing no [ __ ] it eight years later you're at a business Blockbuster and so Innovation matters if Innovation didn't matter if social change didn't matter IBM would be dominating our world right or Microsoft would have never let Google happen Google Facebook happen Facebook would have never let Twitter happen and on and on and so I'm just very concerned that people think that their demo is not in Social I hate that my well Gary my customers aren't in Social they're older everybody's [ __ ] grandma is on Facebook absolutely I mean come on that ship is sailed like please don't give me [ __ ] excuses cuz you don't want to put in the work what it is about right I mean you go to one of his companies and they know they're supposed to be doing it but they will they're just like I am what thei what's the ROI oh they want to quantify and I always say well what the [ __ ] is the ROI of your mother like I don't know what the I don't have data to show you the ROI of Tamara vaynerchuk but I can sit firmly here and tell you that it's everything it's the whole [ __ ] game because without the way my mom raised me I'd be a clown and so I don't understand how people don't understand the emotional impact of business it's not just black and white plus by the way traditional your black and white data sucks it's horseshit Arbitron the major [ __ ] radio company in the bottom of their website says the data from Arbitron is the opinion of Arbitron it's not even data it's not even [ __ ] data do you know that ne's sends little questioners to people that have the box and asks them to fill out the shows they watch you guys know that right I mean they're lying they're making it up yeah I think I watch PBS I was watching Nova and then Meet the Press and some other educ the whole thing is really interesting it's a whole circle jerk right and uh it's going to collapse disruption is coming and the companies that out care and actually when did not caring about your end user become not a real job or something that didn't have Roi yeah it's all going Small Town rules Jason every your grandparents our Collective grandparents are much more POS to be successful in 2015 than we are because we're entitled we're soft we want everything to be scalable everybody in our world that's super smart wants everything to be scalable and scripts and data and all this everybody in traditional right they just want you know they want it to be the way they want it and old school and I think it's something very much in the middle it needs to be about human interaction and you can scale caring with social and it's interesting you mention scaling because go to webinar set up webinars r with that that's a pretty good segue wasn't it that's amazing go ahead do your thing yeah so uh thank you to go to uh webinar for uh letting us set up webinars it's so awkward to do a commercial in the middle of the social thing but I actually used uh go to webinar uh to have 70 people on the phone for the launch conference for all the exhibitors I said everybody get on the phone all the companies and we'll do a Q& A session it worked brilliantly and this is actually I think the future of media I get to pick who's the sponsor of the show and I only picked the products that I actually use sure like go to a webinar 30 days free use the promotion code twist it's like three easy steps it works it's like go to meeting but you can use like a thousand people on it and I really do appreciate them I always say thank you to them you guys say thank you too on Twitter just say thank you at goto weinar for sponsoring this weekend startups and that little thank you let me tell you something I started doing that on This Week in Tech I don't know two years ago with Leo and I said hey you know everybody who's listening go thank Go Daddy and go thank sh space and thank these guys and the sponsors were more interested in the thank you on Twitter or equally interested as they were for the ad on the show but let's understand why people who are watching this right now would go and do that you've clearly given them enough that they feel like they want to you paid forward you didn't come out of left field you put out a lot of content that doesn't cost them anything right you've been in the scene a long time so it's not only skill set but it's actually engagement in the audience and everybody's got different levels listen Jason you know this better than anybody because you were around the first day I started did Wine Library TV when I had zero brand equity in Tech right you know you were there so you watched what happened with me there's a million people that have come and gone the reason I've been relevant is because I've just given as much as this is a case study of my life and you haven't stopped I mean I think that's something that people forget you had done it consistently for years now I mean how many of these episodes have you done now so I retired from Wine Library TV at South by during my keynote I stopped at episode 1,000 right because I wanted to continue to innovate I launched something called daily grape ah this is the new iPhone app and it's still on the site too and the Android's coming but I feel like I was meeting with a lot of startups I do a lot of Angel Investing we've invested in some things together and I keep yelling at them right they come in they're like okay Gary here's what we are we're like Kora meets Instagram with a little goala and a and a shade of path and I'm like I don't give a [ __ ] you know like they and they're like and we're going to be on Tech Crunch you know and is going to write about us and Chris Saka and McClure are investing in us and I was like what does any of this mean social proof you know what I mean I was like what problem are you solving and do you give a [ __ ] about your customer then all of a sudden I kept saying what problem you solving one day I'm driving and I'm taping wine liary TV and I'm like what problem am I solving with this I'm like entertainment has value I get it but there's a lot of content out there so what I realize is wine scares people right people watch my show because nobody knows anything about wine it's hard it's difficult there's a lot everybody in Wine's a douchebag and so I decided that there a lot of bags in there there's so now when you watch a show mobile or on the site you can add a wine to your wish list it goes into the app right and now people are walking around with their wish list so you're watching the show you're like oh that sounds good you hit one button it's on your phone and now you know you go on a date you want to act cool you know you want to know something or if you're just shopping and you're into wine I've just made my content useful I think useful entertainment is a very interesting Evolution to where things are going you know you made a very nice compliment to me cuz I know you've been pivoting heavily into video you said I got to give you credit you were on the video thing early very early I think that I'm evolving into something that's going to really matter it's useful content it's actually getting into people's the flow of their daily lives solving some problem Mobile's the game right I mean Mobile's the game so that's that I used Cabana which I know did presented at launch and they won best design amazing product so I'm happy with that um it's interesting a lot of people have been stunned what a non-native app can like with cabana so that's been a fun study but most of all it's shorter you know my show was like 35 minutes and I know I'm fun and all but you know it's a lot of Comm exhausting it's exhausting so now it's seven five six all right snackable you know while you're in the car texting instead of watching the show you know the road instead of looking at a [ __ ] billboard you can watch Daily grape um and you know and um and it's just much more useful I mean I already I'm only six episodes in yesterday I get an email from a guy watched the reasing episode added to the wish list went to a restaurant me and my girlfriend said do you have this the guy said not exactly that but close and we loved it because it tasted like you described that's me scratching my happy itch of like okay good I'm executing on the thesis if I enjoy dessert wine and Port more than I enjoy regular wine does that make me like girly that I like the sweet wines they make me like less of a man like listen I mean listen what what's like a man's wine to drink because I like the dessert L hug fan of desert I love the ports I love that stuff the listen clearly you're not worried about that look at the shirt you're wearing right that's true we you know I rock all the time so you're not worried about being girl you know who you are you're Brooklyn abely by the way can we talk about the Knicks I'm [ __ ] pissed what you don't like the trade no I love the trade but I'd like to make the playoffs I mean we're starting to get to Danger Zone we need a big man we need Tyson CH next year not going to be a problem this is what happens if we didn't make the trade we'd be one or two games 500 now we make the trade we're one or two games below 500 me you and Fred Wilson got into a big Twitter discussion that night I was I think we were on the same page I like the trade here's the thing you should drink Banu you should go try a Banu b a n Yul LS y UL LS uh it is a late Harvest ganache it is in my opinion better than Port though I love Portugal it's a fourth of the price I know you like that on do and it's just tremendous wine and it's nerdy geeky and uh I highly recommend banel for you all right there you have it um you guys have any questions there in the audience I see everybody's list listening to be scared don't be scared anybody from Mahalo staff can have a question it's allowed to Tyler do something Tyler oh Joyce hi go ahead hi Joyce if it's thank you economy why not give the book away free ah it's a very good question so the question is Jesus Christ Joyce if it's the thank you economy why not give away the book for free the thank you economy isn't called the free economy you know so that's the first reason um and by the way and I said it early on in this and it's super important for me to context this I'm a businessman right like I'm excited that I put out real hardcore you know I like that I'm a businessman that build like Tony Shay Jason freed I like to buy these books or support them because they've gone out and actually built businesses and I nothing against Malcolm Gladwell and other people like that but I really do enjoy the thought of like buying business books from people that have gone in and executed in the trenches instead of people that have taught at universities right I mean I think that's interesting um for me I'm a businessman I feel like it's a super value for 13 or 14 bucks for what I'm doing in there um and the thank you economy the word thank you represents I almost call this manners marketing it just talks about a tact of how to handle yourself in a transparent Word of Mouth cocktail party business World it doesn't talk about I wasn't there a book like that free didn't somebody do that Chris Anderson right Chris Anderson yeah mean this isn't about free content at all this has nothing to do with that would be a big reason why I wouldn't give it away for free um it just talks about holy crap you kind of got to become better and you've got to more importantly than be nice it's create context I think I'm just obsessed with that word I'm fascinated by watching it you know the fact that I can look through the crowd and see Wanda because we engage on Twitter and I don't really know what you know I don't by old school standards I don't really know her but I can tell you right now the way I feel about her by seeing her through the crowd is definitely different than somebody I've never met before and it's been based on the social engagement we've had on these platforms tonight we're going to hang a little bit longer I've got a ton of stuff in the morning I'm going to go back to my hotel room hopefully pretty quickly I'm going to lay in my bed I'm going to continue to engage with my community because I think that scales for me and more importantly me and Lady Gaga and the beibs we don't scale we're people right companies do Nike and Campbell and Ford have no excuse they can hire their asses off to find people that will go in there and vet tell their story their Brand Story and actually give a crap answer questions what who what are the what job titled is the problem that is no job titled these big companies for them like oh you don't make it you have the problem is there's no neel's report saying that a Facebook follower is worth a147 right I thank you to I mean you know say it again I mean I think you know I hallelujah it's coming it's by the way it's coming CL and clout has started the process neelon will buy clout it'll be clout nielson's and everybody's going to in Corporate America is going to be like okay great now we can now we havean for the people with the low Cloud score though they nothing that's the funny part I want the I actually think that's where the action is ah because if you're Jason you're get you're used to getting tons of free [ __ ] yeah it don't mean anything to me right Pammy Thompson in Arkansas if she gets some free Doritos she's [ __ ] her pants that's true the mommy everybody's business plan has mommy bloggers I'm going to get to Mommy bloggers all right an hour two yeah let's do that for next year that's a whole racket those mommy blog they shaking people down mom if you're a mommy blogger you better start policing the other mommy bloggers because the brand shaking people down the mommy blogger thing is like you're right it's like gust it's like [ __ ] Tony Soprano out there they they're going to get their free [ __ ] in one way or the other you're it's diluted the whole thing I mean the whole thing I'm talking to these Brands they're so going off of that because they're just they're taking everything they're whing everything and more importantly mommy bloggers when you take [ __ ] you better be transparent when you're writing about it because your community is going to find out you're going to get exposed and you're not going to have a community what do you think this company my likes did you see that the other day they came out where they you do a tweet and it's an ad it's sort of like what's the company here in ad thing they sell what do you think of that how's that fit into all this I I've never listen as somebody who has close to a million followers I've had all the offers it's kind of hard to walk away from like 30 G's for a tweet 5gs from a tweet right I mean it's not so easy do it for uh charity you know I charity is a whole another clutch I talk about it in this by the way and this is something I'm massively passionate about oh look who's calling um something massively Kevin let's maybe he maybe he heard the rock climbing thing um I think that uh I think that you tweet out if you tweet out how are you doing hold on a second I'm putting you live on the air with Gary hold on a second Kevin say hell say hello everybody say hello all right we can't hear you if you tweet out that if you follow if I get a hundred followers I'm going to donate $100 to Japan you're a [ __ ] face and so can please everybody in the Twitter world the Jason Nation you guys are passionate you guys are loud as [ __ ] please do me a favor the next time somebody tweets out if I get 50 more followers we'll donate 50 bucks to the Japan relief or you know 100 bucks to the New Zealand earthquakes Foundation or the Red Cross the next time you see it please personally email me at Gary Vayner media. com with the link so I can piss on those people I hate that yes just give the [ __ ] $100 give $100 [ __ ] yes it's so like you know I feel like that all bleeds into the same stuff every person in this room and definitely every person watching right now their [ __ ] Radars are phenomenal we know what's going on we know that you just want a 100 more followers and you know we know we're not that stupid I'm just I'm sickened by B player marketers thinking they're so smart it's just tactics and it's short sight and it's hooking up instead of marrying I want my companies to get their customers to put a ring on it not to just hook up for T night I like it uh any other question thought give be say a little something okay yeah go ahead Josh get in here yeah I was what's your advice to people have a personal brand like a celebrity or something and they are have too many followers to really engage personally I don't believe that so like so here's my thing and I don't know if you guys could hear on the could they catch it on the video they he that I'll repeat it the question is what if you're a celebrity or personal brand you have too many followers to engage oneon-one right I don't here's my two thoughts first of all I think effort is grossly underestimated effort is something that I don't think we're putting enough chips on because as somebody who literally tried to engage with every single engagement as things started happening in my life I remember last year in January my sister had a baby it's a big deal super exciting I was kind of off the grid for two or three days and a couple tweets popped up saying Gary ve you changed you know you used to respond to every one of my tweets you haven't responded to my last two tweets before I could even go in there because I was still sitting in the hospital responding to people you know before I could even go in there my community jumped in and said no no I just got a tweet I just got an email I think that there's no excuse to not try I can't wrap my head around if you have a community why you wouldn't spend an hour a day responding and that rep playing for example I just did a Pierce

Morgan show it's coming up you did I did wow how was that it was cool yeah you know in there I kind of called him out I he was kind of talking I go Pierce look at you he was asking me about this I said Pierce look at you you're a big star and he was really funny he was like say it again I was like okay you're a big star and I go but and this was a great moment I hope they don't edit out I'm like but you don't care about any people watching your show the only people you're tweeting with is CEST and Oprah and all the other celebrities and you think you're so cool how about the actual real people the bottom line is this I don't think there's a number too big if 14,000 people tweet at you and you respond to 300 that means a whole lot to those 300 and you systematically fight against the tide you can't necessarily win and get to everybody but that effort is being seen by the world go right now tonight and look at like 500 or 50 or 100 internet celebrities or real celebrities and look at their timeline I will guarantee you that 99% of them are pushing out [ __ ] and retweeting which is another thing we did the whole Japan thing here's another one if you retweet something that was awesomely said about you you're [ __ ] bragging like we need to I'll stop you know I mean it's BR I mean why are we not putting human elements to this stuff right I mean like it's like me saying thought that's what T was for you know so my point is this my point is if you're putting in effort there's value people are feeling that you would go look you go look at my stream right now here's what you're going to see 90% at replies and 10% me pushing out stuff like my book you know what I mean and so I I'm not scared to push you know I don't want to give it away for free I want to sell stuff I want people download my app I'm not letting anybody leave here tonight unless you show me that you have the app on your iPhone you know so I'll get gangster locked but you know I definitely I definitely feel that people are just not caring about the enduser enough because we didn't have to let's call a spade we just lived through the great box era The Big Box store Walmart Costco right these companies didn't have to it was about price it was about convenience social Equity is going to matter it's happening every day and it's just very obvious to me either I'm going to be very right or very wrong and I'm going to bet him myself I think it now that I mean I just when I went to New York for the holidays I got snowed in and the way I got out on Virgin was they were following me on Twitter I direct messages with them I got them on the phone they got me out on an early flight then I was in New York and the guys from the knck said oh you're in town cuz I tweeted every Nick game they said are you coming to the game I said yeah I'm going to get some tickets where they said oh no we got tickets for you already come second row and you're feeling that now because you're a brand in the space I think it trickles down from your mountain right now you're in a different place than a lot of people they look at your follower account you got brand Equity this that and the other thing what I get fascinated about I'm actually not so fascinated about how you get treated and I do and Kevin that actually I actually don't give a [ __ ] about that I'm curious about when it trickles down the mountain and we start treating Sally Arkansas and Timmy Iowa and Peter La is that really going to happen yes because here's why they're spending that money to get those people now they're giving it to newspaper ads Google so if you were running one of the airlines you would just say [ __ ] it no more air no more television commercials let's just hire 100 or let's cut 25% of the commercials now you're getting more interesed listen I love traditional media I by the way I'm glad we got to this point I'm a huge TV guy radio print billboard it doesn't sound like it I'm all in here's my problem I don't like the pricing I don't think the pricing is Rel to yeah I mean listen I bought Billboards for my book instead of $166,000 I paid a th000 how'd you do that I went gangster nice I negotiated I said I'll pay you this and they're like all right I mean you know I mean it's pretty scary what you can get when you start asking right so anyway I think that you have to have a better mix and I think that if you lay and the funniest part is I'm talking about layering human beings on top of Technology if you look at Groupon Google wasn't buying their Tech I don't think anybody here can you know any developer in this building right now could have probably replicated the tech in 48 hours right yeah they weren't buying the mailing list if Google wanted the mailing list one little design changed for two weeks on Google and they could have had that mailing list right they wanted the what the brand no they wanted the salespeople who had the relationships with every little sushi restaurant and Chinese restaurant and liquor store and pilat place the human element of Groupon is dramatically more valuable than you can imagine the biggest social business that's been built I you know I would look at it that way yeah you know maybe I mean during this C curve I I think it is very fascinating by the way I think this is such a big maturity of the internet itself what we're talking about is not social media we're talking about the internet's only 17 years old it's only been 17 years since AOL spammed all our mailboxes right and it's maturing and it's bringing human elements to the table here's a little alert we're humans yes it's How We Roll it's what we do it's who we are and uh I'm just fascinated by this tremendously let me ask you a final question yeah if tomorrow you woke up and all the Gary Vayner Chuck stuff you've done all the books and all the Consulting let's say all that somehow magically wrapped itself up I don't know somebody came in bought all those assets right now clean slate there's absolutely nothing on your punch list the email box is at zero email box zero and you've got you know tons of money in the bank whatever what would you do what on a business you I know you spend time with your family but sure on a professional level do that hard cut and then do something else would you be a talk show host would you want to make a movie would you be an athlete what you know I like selling stuff I'm a retailer right so I probably would do a retail startup but I would tell you this and I've said this to a couple of close friends cuz I think it's so weird and I'm not sure it's like a normal thing to think but I always get very like transparent on your set so even more so than normal um I secretly want to lose everything you i' I've secretly for a while now have been interested in the thought of the internet and alcohol being banned and what would happen because I'm so confident in my chops I want to show everybody that I can go to dead zero and build it all back up so when you painted that picture that excited me huh because I would love to start the happiest I've been during this whole journey hasn't been where I am now which is right now I'm at the height of my popularity and financials from this whole fiveyear run since wine libr TV

started my favorite day was the day I started Wine Library TV because I taped in front of a camera I sat there and I said everybody I know is about the thing I've lost my [ __ ] all my employees are going to be scared about what I'm about to do it was scary but not for me right I knew exactly what was going to happen I hated the articles in ' 07 and 08 when I started blowing up people were like Gary could you believe this happened to you I was like yeah like I knew that I had the chops I knew I was going to work every hour everybody was scared to just look into a camera and talk at that time it was like three shows it was you z and then some rockboom and it was like okay well there are three things to watch on the internet yeah I just what was it you saw Z was Z there here's what happened wine. com was rocking I sat closer than we're sitting right now to my lead developer it's how I learned all this about you he's like check out this guy Anil Dash I'm like [ __ ] that guy check out this guy Jason cocky [ __ ] him you know I like I was like [ __ ] all these guys wax. org I don't give a [ __ ] about these guys I'm better than these guys but then I was like wait a minute these guys are on to something right every day sitting there you know in 2001 when he started he's like why are you going to Yahoo check out Google I'm like this is the dumbest site I've ever seen a blank white page how are these [ __ ] is going to make money I'm glad I wasn't making predictions back then you know I and I kept looking and blogging and blogger and I'm like [ __ ] I wish I could write which is so funny about all this because then I would blog and then when I saw YouTube super early on I was like okay this [ __ ] is interesting right and so then Z came and they're like obsessed with Zay every lunch break I'm sitting there trying to sell wine and they're like balling over themselves and finally I hung up one sales call and I was like I could do that and they were like no and then I was like [ __ ] I got to do this so I was like fine so basically they were so obsessed with z and you know what it actually was it was rocket Boom signing a deal with too that tilted me right around that same day with Z like a week later I they said did you hear that rocket Boom signed a deal with too and at this time too was like that was the that was like the iPad and iPhones and like red into one TBO was like I mean I couldn't you know it was it and so I was like holy [ __ ] really and that was it literally I was like okay one I got to prove my developers wrong that I'm better than Z and two if you can sign a deal with too this thing is going places and I sat down I taped that show in February of 06 and I just knew and that was my favorite time so you telling me a day in the world I would like to even add that I wish I could Race All My Equity forget about the money I wish nobody here knew who I was I'd love right now to start from zero go into some like you know how comedians go into like bars in like Tennessee and work on their craft I kind of feel like that startup guy I feel I want to go to like Sri Lanka right now and start business start like verion of group on there and just see if you can get it going I'm just so Jason I'm going to tell you one thing right now I so don't care about stuff or money everybody knows I want to buy the Jets right but I can say it here I'm going to break more news for you I really don't care if I buy the Jets or not I'm obsessed with the process yes the grind I like to see am I as good as you because you sold you know weong I want to see like I see [ __ ] Andrew Mason with group I'm like [ __ ] you know Tony sh I'm like [ __ ] I you know it motivates me I'm hungry but what I know is that I'm not the kind of guy that's going to build those kind of sites I'm the marathon runner I know that everybody's going to wake up in 35 years and be like [ __ ] he got right he was and so that's what I and when I write these books I'm in the business of being right about three years from now in crushit I went Bonkers on Tumblr right yeah I got so many emails in 2009 why do you like tum stupid like post is going to kill Tumblr like all this [ __ ] Tumbl and it's I mean it's the it's number three I mean if you talk to any normal 15 16 and 17 year old in America today they're on Tumblr they're growing by a quarter of a billion page views a week it's one and I'm starting to get emails from people like saying how did you know that why did you think that you're now seeing a lot of bullish stuff on video right y I get a compliment from you in there that means a lot to me cuz you're not a clown you're an Executor you build businesses that was because I did it and making this pivot to mobile and doing a newsletter people are going to be like holy [ __ ] the fremium mobile thing and so you kind of keep trying to show your chops I'm in the business of showing my chops and executing and that's what I'd like to leave as a legacy because Legacy is all I care about uh wow Gary vuk another amazing episode let's hear it for Gary thank you well done and um thanks to uh our sponsors of course trada and uh go to webinar and thanks to Squarespace for hosting uh a my you know Anthony he is one of the best entrepreneurs in the whole game and nobody knows him because he's not a self-promoter not he's not like us no he's just like I'm putting my head down behind the scenes built a business right when everybody was giving away platform for free he's like why here's how I'm going to do it I mean you know that conversation needs to be had I mean look Apple's about to become evil to everybody right like people going to start realizing it's about closed and making money and all this stuff it's going to be a very fascinating space in 24 months I can't wait to come back and talk about those things awesome uh so thank you uh to squar space blah blah blah and uh be careful to watch it yeah oh hey uh before we close what hey what do you think of um Kevin's situation I guess a dig yeah dig and just like got his ass kicked a little bit in the last six months but now he's coming back he's got a new startup supposedly so here's my thought on this what do you think of him as an entrepreneur and like what he's going through so here's my thought on this and you know keev listen call during this interview is a friend of mine I uh I kind of equated a little bit to Wine Library believe it or not and some ways for me like in the wine World everybody's so happy that I got distracted by social and like kind of right because like everybody's like oh like we were going to be it right you know I know Kevin is such an entrepreneur right like I don't want to talk for him but when you start losing passion in something it's not going to be successful and I actually think digg's decline alongside Kevin's passion for it proves his skill more than anything else right you know if you really dissect it and of course I come from a clouded lens he is somebody I feel emotional about but I think it's fascinating to watch like everything I've become less passionate about has not done as well and you know I mean the second I turned off crushit the first time around it's Amazon rank did not do as well and so I think here's a very interesting time for Kevin's career and it's going to be interesting for a lot of us you know second a third a second AE third AE I mean this is all so new right we're all so new we're all new to the game like by the way it's why I think Jeff here's a bomb I think Jeff Bezos is a better entrepreneur than Steve Jobs I think Bezos is better because for me he's continued to innovate so much out of his Circle it's not just Amazon it's not just Kindle it's you know E2 EC it's the services which is by the way soon we're going to have conversations that if Amazon Services go down our econom is in trouble like it's so important and how about Mechanical Turk and how about buying woot and doing the deal how about buying saos cuz they didn't buy him for more shoes they bought him for culture and understanding where this world's going and so you know I think Kevin is jury is still out he did something he did something very special he's one of the faces of the world that we all know my most happy day in 2006 doing wine liary TV is when wine libr TV made the front page a dig I didn't even know what it was what you lived for and I'm very curious about what he's going to do next and he doesn't get credit for rev three which is doing tremendous yeah I think he's a I know him extremely well I've been in a lot of entrepreneurial Jam sessions where people show their chops I have a very good feeling he'll be successful don't forget he was a fast follower to Twitter with pounce right and pounce did a lot of things that Twitter just implemented with media has done right and his big downfall there was a lot of the downfall I see in myself and you probably feel it too when you're a hardcore entrepreneur you try to do too much [ __ ] yeah add gets you it gets you sometimes it gets you all right guys uh we'll see you next time on this startups