David Rogier cold-called and emailed his way to getting James Patterson and other major figures to teach his classes with no track record. He focused on what mattered to them—giving back, protecting their brand—not money. Early wins with Stanford's Bill Gutentag and director Jay Roach became proof that made the next asks easier.
How did you successfully recruit those first few famous and busy people to teach classes when you did not already have the reputation for them to trust you? And it was just the very beginning.
I mean, cold calls and cold, cold emails. One of the first was. James Patterson, who's, like, the bestselling author in the country. I sent lots of cold emails and notes. I mean, lots and lots of them. And. And then one. One day, I'm walking in Santa Mon. Santa Monica, and I get a call on my cell phone. It's from his phone number. I don't rec. I don't rec. I don't recognize. Which is like. But I answered it. I don't know why I answered it now. I wouldn't probably, right? And he's like, hi, this is James Patterson. And I was so unsmooth. I was like, the author. And he's like, yeah, I'm like, I'm really surprised to hear from you. And James, like, well, I'm a surprising guy. And I was like, okay, well, now he's funny, right? And he's like, I saw your I proposal. The timing works. I would love to. I would love to teach. And you're like, oh. And in my head, I'm like, wait, how do I know if this is really James Parson? Like. Like, it's a friend playing a prank. What is it? And then, you know, we met. We met him. We spent time with him and. But it was cold. It was cold calls and cold emails for the most part. I think one of the things that we. We try to do was think, okay, what is it that these folks care a lot about? Well, these folks, you know, it's not. It's not. It's not about. It's not about money. They can do an American Express commercial and earn much. It's like there's somebody in their life that taught them that had a big impact on them that they want to give back. Okay, well, that's one thing. Two is they're going to care a lot that it's good. I mean, they're putting their names on it. It's going to be out in the world. They want to be screwed. Okay, how can I show that? I don't come from film background, but there are other folks I can work with. So, for example, Bill Gutentag, who's a professor at Stanford, who does some film classes, I talked to him, and we went to him asking for advice, and he's like, I'm willing to shoot a few. And you're like, wait, really? Because if you're willing to do that, there's going to be a much easier process. Jay Roach is a director who did the same thing. And so by attaching some of these folks, it was a sign that they could trust was going to be high. It was going to, it was going to be something. It was good. They, they could, they were able to be proud of it.
That's terrific. How many cold emails, just out of curiosity, did you have to send, do you think, before you got your first bite?
Oh, I mean, probably in the, in the, in the hundreds. And I think one thing I learned was lots of people are going to tell you that your idea is impossible. Those same people, after the idea works, are going to tell you, I always told you it was a great idea. But the important part is when somebody says impossible. I used to get discouraged about it, to be honest, and like, sad about it a little bit because, like, you're trying any signal or sign that your idea is going to work. And so anybody who says something bad about it, like, it hurts, I was looking at that completely wrong. When somebody says an idea is impossible, chase that idea. Because what any startup, if it's your idea or you're going to join somebody else's, you have to believe in the impossible. You have to believe in something that the rest of the world thinks cannot be done, otherwise they would do it or they think it's just a bad idea. So you're by, you have, you have to get okay with that. And now you can look at that once it's impossible, like, oh, if they think it's impossible, that might mean it's opportunity. There actually.
