AJ Vaynerchuk - An Inside Look Into The Vayner Empire

I actually thrive and believe some great magic exists in going into a new industry. Cold Gary and I started an ad agency in 2009. We had a combined zero days of agency experience. You know, Gary ran E commerce and retail in the liquor business and I was a college kid and I think what a skill that I have and he has as well. That really Benefited us in VaynerMedia. Has really benefited us in VaynerSports. Is questioning the status quo. I think a lot of people start a business in an industry after maybe being an employee or working for somebody else or learning about it, and then they kind of take what they learn and treat it as gospel and assume it's correct. I come in into both businesses. I've come into and questioned everything. And of course, 80% of the time I say, why do we do it this way? We do it this way because of X, Y and Z. That makes sense. Let's do it. All right, we'll do that. But the other 20% of the time. Wait, you do it that way? Why? Well, it's how it's always been done. Well, that sounds broken to me. I'm out. We're gonna do it completely different.

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Everybody is familiar with Gary and is familiar with the last name in VaynerMedia, but AJ is very mysterious. So help us understand the odds behind the curtain.

Yeah, I mean, the big thing for me is that Gary And I are 95% the same and then have a 5% difference. And I think it's the foundation as to why we've had such a great partnership. I think, you know, for me, I never had this great desire to be in front of an audience or to get outstage. Gary feeds off it. It's literally his spinach in terms of the Popeyes analogy. And so for me, I think if we were both wired in that same capacity, there probably be a greater friction. I think the fact that we're 11 years apart has helped quite a bit as well. It really created a natural CEO COO dynamic when we started VaynerMedia. And so, you know, I like to really just stay behind the scenes. It's where I'm more comfortable, I'm capable in getting in front of stage. We talked about it, actually, backstage real quick. I've been in a room of 6, 700 people and talked, because that was the VaynerMedia off site or an internal meeting at VaynerMedia. So I've done it. It's just not something I die to do.

Yeah. So, but help us understand what your role has been in building the empire at this point. I know you're heading up Vayner Sports at this point, but in my understanding, you were building VaynerMedia from the beginning.

Yeah. So Gary was really toggling between wine Library and VaynerMedia in the first two years. So I definitely shoulder the majority of the workload in those first two years. Gary was somebody that maybe came in once a week to the office in New York, but otherwise spent his time in New Jersey. So from the first two years, we took it from just Gary and myself to about 25 people. And I was literally wearing every hat, as most people do when they start a company. So I was the lead in terms of client services. I was Our cfo. I was our coo. I was our head of hr, really just managing the team internally and making sure that the work we were putting out was productive.

So Gary has told the story about VaynerMedia, starting with, I think, an $80,000 account.

Something like that.

Like Gillette or something. Yep.

It was a project.

And I'm curious, are they still a client?

Should we talk about.

No, it's not that.

Okay.

I left VaynerMedia 2 1/2 years ago and I really left cold turkey.

So I actually don't know the answer.

As ridiculous as that sounds, it's a true.

I was curious if we should go into the. All of the buzz about Gillette at this point.

Yeah.

Okay.

So blind spot for me.

We won't go there. But I'm just curious. At the beginning, I know you had that like 80,000 ish account and Gary's at Wine library at this point and you're running it and we never hear that story.

Yeah.

Would you tell it?

Yeah. So social media in 2009 from a corporate perspective was the wild, wild west. There was no definition. There was no industry, really. The brands that were embracing it were at the forefront. And so for us, we were really relying on just the practices in which Gary was utilizing social media and applying them to a corporate brand. So that project for Gillette was specifically for a men's hair care line for them. And it was a mix of an event, which we didn't do a lot of. We had a partner agency that was kind of running the event. And so the main goal was really to capture content from this event in Las Vegas and host it on a Facebook page. So we had to build a Facebook tab. So I had to find. I contracted a designer and a developer. We built a very simple tab and basically the app, all it did was captured content and photos from the live event in Vegas. I guess it was a launch of a product for them and displayed it on their Facebook tab.

Then the build out of the Vayner business from there. We kind of hear the story about it being in shared office space at this point.

Yeah. So the first office we had was a spare conference room in a company called Buddy Media. Buddy Media went up and ended up being very successful and sold to Salesforce for nine figures. So we up the last day we were in that office, it was a conference room.

Slightly smaller than this stage.

Wow.

Ended up having eight people in it on our last day with two of them sitting on the ground. And then we moved to a co working space. Down in Tribeca.

Okay, so you go from an $80,000 account to having eight people, then having your own space. What happens in the. In between? There you have one $80,000 account, and then we hear about VaynerMedia being $100 million client services business.

Yeah, there's a massive.

There had to be something that happened in between.

Yeah. I think the big thing was the way it really started at first was community management. So the primary item that VaynerMedia sold to brands was, we will be your voice on Twitter and Facebook. So the National Hockey League was an early client. So if you follow the NHL on Facebook and Twitter, in 2010, that was our team producing all that content. And again in 2010, it was less graphic and video, and it was a little bit more just the engagement with consumers. You know, somebody tweeting the NHL and us responding on behalf of the NHL. So that was a small industry. The retainers were fairly small. And I think what ended up allowing VaynerMedia to explode between years two and three, we went from 25 employees to 150 and went from about 4 million in revenue to about 15 million in revenue in 12 months was the industry caught up. People started buying into social media as a way to actually improve business. And so more companies decided to invest and invest larger budgets. And because we were so early and we had kind of worked through all the kinks, we were right there ready to take on the business.

And was it basically all Twitter and like, public community management is what I'm hearing you say? Yeah, until there was eight people. And then. And at some point you're like, all right, we have something that we're going to scale here.

Yes, content, More content. It was the notion of, we believe that brands should be putting out content on a daily basis. In 2011, that was mainly graphical. You know, eventually that became video as well. So we were churning out enormous volumes of content on behalf of brands and so hiring a ton of copywriters and designers and art directors and creative directors and then account strategists to deliver on behalf of brand 50 to 100 pieces of content a month.

Can you help us understand what your role in overseeing all of this was? Yeah, we obviously know what Gary says, but when. When the company is being scaled at this point, what. What's AJ's role?

It was a little bit of quality control across every sector. So we didn't hire an in house lawyer until we had about 30, 35 employees. So one role I had, because again, it was representing these massive Fortune 500 brands in 2010 and representing their voice to the public. If you made one wrong misstep, it became a headline story on whatever industry vertical that brand was within. So one, I was overseeing all the accounts and all the creative and making sure that whatever we put out was perfect. Had to make sure, because if you're gonna put out something about, you know, General Electric, it needs to be on the money. So there was a quality control element of kind of reviewing and making sure and feeling comfortable with the process we had in place. That was a lot of process at building. And then, as I mentioned with the lawyer, I was on the phone with our legal counsel, our outsourced legal counsel on a daily basis, just making sure that we wouldn't run into. I think it was Katherine Heigl and Duane Reade. Had an incident, you know, five, six years ago, where Katherine Heigl's representation actually sued Duane Reade because they used. Which is a drugstore in New York, like a CVS or a Walgreens. They sued Duane Read because they used a photo of Katherine Heigl leaving a Duane Reade. And they sued them for basically using her endorsement without compensating her. And it was a real thing. So, you know, our team, we always challenge them to be different and creative. I needed to make sure that when we were pushing the envelope that we weren't going to walk into a lawsuit. I was our CFO until 2012, which is crazy, because I didn't even have a CFO. Yeah, I ran the books and managed the books up until we did $25 million in business.

Oh, my.

And then at that point, Gary, I'm really good with numbers, and it's a skill set of mine. And we had an outsourced tax attorney. We had an outsourced bookkeeper. But I literally oversaw every aspect of a CFO responsibility until we were about, like, 100 people. So makes no sense in hindsight.

So you are. You were doing a lot of damage control and firefighting at that point, which is what a lot of entrepreneurs are doing in the early stages. And then at some point, you decide to go start Vayner Sports, and you've been pioneering that. So what does the ground floor look like at that company?

Yeah, honestly, it's been an amazing experience. I started Vaynersports about 2 1/2 years ago. I love getting back to the ground floor. My favorite moments in building VaynerMedia was when we were 15 people, not when we were 800 people. I love the intimacy of the team. I love the intimacy of the relationships with the clients. And it's been really fun for me because when we started VaynerMedia, we started VaynerMedia literally two months before I actually graduated college. So Gary started looking for deals because we knew we were gonna start it in the spring of 09 when I was graduating. And he calls me up one day and I've got about six weeks left of school. School before I graduate. I got finals and all that. He's like, hey.

I kind of landed an account earlier than planned and they kind of need it now. Like we're going to have to basically just juggle. And so I basically spent the last six weeks of my college education finishing college, but also launching that Gillette project.

So the early days were just always a passion for me. And it's been fun because now, I guess When I started VaynerSports, I was about 29. I got to look at what 22 year old version of me did, the mistakes he made and just apply the knowledge and honestly skip a few steps. It's almost like jumping into a video game you've played before and you've beaten before, where you play the first 10 levels in that game in 15 minutes because you just know every move. You know every move to get you there faster.

Did you take a team with you or were you starting it anew?

Started completely from scratch, completely different industry. And I needed. I actually needed certified NFL agents to start VaynerSports. And so in order to represent an NFL player, you need to actually be a certified NFL agent.

Oh.

And so obviously none of our 800 employees of VaynerMedia were certified NFL agents. So I actually started with brand new business partners that had an existing small sports agency and took it over that way.

All right, so let's go there because you obviously learned some lessons at VaynerMedia that you're bringing over into Vayners. But you also need to go spearhead bringing on a new team and a new industry. So how do you tackle that, the new industry?

So I'm actually a big believer and this is going to be, I think, counterintuitive to what most people would think. I actually thrive and believe some great magic exists in going into a new industry. Cold. Gary and I started an ad agency in 2009. We had a combined zero days of agency experience. You know, Gary ran E commerce and retail in the liquor business and I was a college kid and I think what a skill that I have and he has as well. That really benefited us in VaynerMedia. Has really benefited us in Vayner Sports is questioning the status quo. I think a lot of people start a business in an industry after maybe being an employee or working for somebody else or learning about it, and then they kind of take what they learn and treat it as gospel and assume it's correct. I come in into both businesses, I've come into questioned everything. And of course, 80% of the time I say, why do we do it this way? We do it this way because of X, Y and Z. That makes sense. Let's do it. All right, we'll do that. But the other 20% of time. Wait, you do it that way? Why? Well, it's how it's always been done. Well, that sounds broken to me.

I'm out.

We're gonna do it completely different. So I love going into a business I've never been involved with. Of course, there's disadvantages to that. I'm not naive to that. VaynerMedia, definitely. We had a client in, I guess, year two that looked at Gary, and I was like, listen, you guys are phenomenal and I love working with you. Can you just get somebody that knows how to build a presentation? Like, we would miss on the easy things. And I'm sure I've missed on the easy things, but I believe I'd rather miss on the easy things for a year or two and then fix it than miss on the hard differentiating things. Because I just accepted the status quo and the norm.

So would you explain the process of building the team on that ground floor? Yeah, that's scary for 90% of the people in the room. Like, build something. You got something great. Now what the heck do I do? Maybe I should bring on some other people. And that's scary for a lot of entrepreneurs who have got some sort of momentum to start making that pivot beyond like two or three people or some outsourcers. Yeah, it sounds like you just go right into it. And it's a bit of a different business. Cause you're selling people's time, essentially. But when you're pioneering at 29 a new business after you scaled one, what's the process of going out and building that team?

So what's interesting is I did it two very different ways. VaynerMedia started predominantly with my friends from high school and college.

Yeah, that always works out right. So the big takeaway is just hire your friends from high school and college.

So I did that with VaynerMedia. And honestly, that was just because they were people that I knew were smart and that I could trust. And because social media was so the wild, wild west, and because Gary was at the forefront of it, we could afford to hire people without a certain skill set. In the early days, because we were figuring it out. With VaynerSports, it was the opposite. Like I mentioned, we needed somebody with a certified license in order to do that business. So the business frankly and transparently started with some serendipity. We actually met our two first certified agents because they represented a Jet player and Gary and I are Jet fans. And it's just this serendipitous event that happened on Twitter and we met in person. And what I would say is the most important approach I took in starting vaynersports with the team building side, to answer your question that I would do and recommend in every way was I took my time. We I probably spent in total 10 to 15 hours of interviewing the same two people over a course of six months and asking around, researching like I was fortunate I had the luxury of not having to start right away. My actual plan when I left VaynerMedia was to take time off. So I had the leverage. I wasn't dying to get into the business. I thought I was gonna take a year off. So I spent an inordinate amount of time making sure that I liked and believed in and wanted to be in business with the people that I started vaynersports with and then really kind of took the same approach with hiring this team. VaynerSports is a much smaller business as an industry than VaynerMedia was. And then a lot of industries are. So we've built out the team to about eight people now, and each and every person has been this long, elongated process of bringing them onto the team. And I always tell people up front, you know, if somebody reaches out to me and they're interested in joining vaynersports and maybe I'm interested in them joining, I always tell them the first time we meet, like, hey, we're good. Like, I'm intrigued by you. But you should also know that I'm in zero rush and this may take six months, this may take two years. We actually just hired somebody that I've known for about two and have talked to about vayner Sports for about two years. And so it's that willingness and that patience to build slowly because if you don't know these people prior, you want to take your time and make sure the chemistry is there, there.

Do you know the revenue model going in when you're starting a business or do you figure it out.

VaynerMedia was figuring it out. Vayner Sports was known going in only because of my own personal familiarity with the world of sports. And then also it is a cousin of VaynerMedia. It's a service based business where you have clients and you have staff. And so a little bit of a mix.

So Gary has publicly at VaynerMedia, he just says we don't make much money. Right. Because you're scaling so fast, you're rolling so much in, you're trying new things, you're doing acquisitions, you're launching new media companies, building new teams. So doesn't that freak you out ever to be leaving it all on the line when there's 800 people working at the company?

Well, the good thing is, yes, we don't make much money as a percentage. Right, the good. But when you scale and you get into, you know, nine figures, even if you're operating in, even if you're operating in single digit profit margins, you're still bringing home millions of dollars every year. So.

But it wasn't that way at the beginning. I mean, when you're at 25 to 100 people, that's not the case.

Yeah, well, in the early, early days, our profit margins were definitely better. Our best year was probably our second year where our profit margin was closer to like 30, 30%.

Okay.

And that was just because we were small and we landed a big piece of business in Q4. But we never, we never.

We never allowed ourselves to be in a lot of. We did. This is actually really, I think, a major point. There was a few things that we did that never made me nervous for that point. One, we never over invested. We never, like, we always, I told you in the back room, we've been in like 10 office spaces. That's because we never wanted to sign a lease so big that if we didn't reach the headcount, we'd be deep shit. Right? So we moved a ton and we just said to ourselves, listen, if we get an office space for 50 people and we outgrow it in six months, like, even though we sign a four year lease, we'll figure it out. That'll be a small problem because if we grew in six months, we're killing it, right? So that was one way that we always avoided an issue. And sure, it created a lot of extra work for me and a lot of headaches of man. I'm carrying like five leases and I need to sublease them out. But it was also a strong signal that we Were doing really well.

So there's this. There's this theme that has emerged while you're talking, and it started yesterday. And I'm trying to find the correlation here where I feel like Most entrepreneurs spend 40 to 60% of their nights freaking out. Like, what if this happens? What if this happens? Am I alone in this? Or do I. Do other people have this? Like.

Okay, how many of you, like, less than.

More than 25% of the night. Of the night, you're going, oh, if this happened, you're calcutting this.

Okay, A little bit more than half the room.

And I don't hear you saying that. And going to 200 million at 1 company and now starting another one and putting it all on the line.

I got two massive reasons. One, I'm extremely fortunate and privileged. And I'm just gonna be very honest. Like, I grew up in a situation where my family was middle class, upper middle class. I didn't have any college debt. Like, that's super lucky. It has nothing to do with my own capabilities, Right? I had a brother who's 11 years older who is a stud, right? Just, like, call a spade a spade. Like, I have. There's nobody in the world I have more confidence in than my brother to go and grow a business. So I had this mentor, best friend, and business partner. That was already proven. He already worked with my father and helped my father take his business from 3 to 60 million. I'm 22. Like, of course I'm gonna ride that horse. I'm not worried about that.

So just the sheer fortune I have in terms of growing up in a great situation, having a great business partner and family and mentor. Like, I just always. I don't know any different. I'm very lucky.

Okay, so there is.

But the second part that's paired with that, another massive reason I don't stress the risk or the concern.

Is I ran into something at age 19 that completely changed my perspective on life. I got diagnosed with something called Crohn's disease. And when you have an illness that does not have a cure and when you go to the er. I went to the ER Talk about a struggle and a story. When vaynermedia, I guess this is 2013, we were.

Going from 20 to 50 million in rev, going from 200 to 400 employees to the ER five different times in 12 months, and then ended up, because of that, having intestinal surgery that put me in the hospital for two weeks. You just gain this appreciation for life as opposed to anything else. So that blend of Good fortune and the disease that I carry and continue to fight, mixed with never overextending myself, is why I don't think I ever have that fear.

Wow. Yeah. Remember that yesterday, talked to two people who almost lost their lives.

It's. It's a blessing and a curse.

I asked them the question of, did that increase or decrease your risk tolerance? Because some people would say, I'm out. Like, I'm just gonna go take it easy. But both of them were like, no. You realize that if all of this crumbles, it doesn't matter, Correct? Who cares?

Yeah.

No one but me. So let's just.

As long as you're not jeopardizing others. Right. Like, I know as long as I'm taking care of my family and I'm not putting other people's ability to take care of their family at risk, I feel good.

Yeah. That's amazing, A.J. okay, so.

You said you knew the revenue model going into VaynerSports.

Yes.

If that doesn't go the way that you want, do you have any emotional reaction to that, or would you just change the model?

Well, you're talking about if the revenue model.

Yeah. You have a thesis going into the new business.

Change. Like, can't. Like, don't really care how success comes. Don't really. Not romantic about how it should be done. Change.

Okay, so.

So Gary and I had that conversation about a week ago because one crazy thing about. So Vayner Sports is not profitable. Right. Two and a half years in, we're not profitable. And so I'm not freaking out, though, because I knew that going in. I talked to a lot of people. It's kind of like a venture capital model where most sports agencies take seven to 10 years to hit profitability. And I'm primarily funding the entire operation now. Gary and I are partners in it, but I primarily lead the funding because I'm active day to day with it. And so I knew that coming in, I knew it's pretty bad business, frankly. Like, I'm more so doing this out of passion than I am the financial rewards of it. If I was really focused on the financial rewards, I would have never left the media company.

But then again, we're also just. I'm just very competitive. I'm probably a year and a half away from profitability, which would have me three to six years earlier than what is typical. But I'm still frustrated. VaynerMedia was profitable before it even started. Right. We had that $80,000 project. This has been a new experience for me, and so constantly thinking about, okay, yes, this is the revenue model, but how do we innovate to create additional revenue streams?

So.

Where I'm curious here is you had a revenue model that you're willing to punt and change at any point. So entering this business, dollar signs weren't the clear indication of that this was a good business to go into. You see, seven to 10 years before profitability, your previous business was profitable day one. So there's nothing in the marketplace that suggests this would be a good idea for you to spend the next seven to 10 years.

That's exactly right.

So what was the indication that this is where you want to passion?

Just, you know, the, the willingness to.

Take this on stemmed from. I grew up a die hard sports fan. Like die hard. Unfortunately for me, jets and Knicks were my two primary team.

So it's been a. I can relate.

It's been a tough 20 years. Yeah, I love Cleveland sports. We're right, you know, although you got LeBron and so you got it better than I do. Detroit sports are better. At least football and basketball, although they won, the Pistons won too. It stinks being a Knicks and jets fan. And to miss out on the Yankees portion. I'm not a Yankees fan, so I didn't get that. I just grew up a die hard sports fan. And you know, my two biggest passions in the world are sports and business building. And Vayner sports is a complete combination of those two things. So it was just right from the perspective of I was looking for a new challenge. I was fortunate enough to do well in my first endeavor and I had the perspective again. The Crohn's disease really gave me perspective on like, where do I want to be financially in life? You think about when you have something like that occur, whether it's a near death experience or a terminal illness that you're able to recover from, or you know, for me, lesser extent, incurable disease that I just have to manage. You think about everything and it just, it literally I just thought about like, how much money do I want to make? Like how much am I then even beyond that, like how much am I financially driven? Like, how much does that change my happiness? How much is like how much money do I need to be happy, so to speak. Right. And so all those factors made the sports industry and athlete presentation make sense for me.

Would you tell me what types of conclusions you came to when you were questioning all of life?

So this is going to be, this could come off, off putting, but it's just really the truth. The biggest Question I had when it came to like a career was, okay, how much money do I really want? And like, not what you would tell people. And not the article that says you only need $75,000 to be happy in life. Right. How much do you. A.J. you don't have to, like, you don't have to prove this to anybody else. Like, where are you? And so the COO and the CFO and me literally did a deep dive into my financial spending. I actually called my accountant, I went through all my amex, all my bank account statements, and I did a complete review of what I had spent the last two years because I considered myself to be really happy from a lifestyle perspective at that point. And so what I was pleased with was from my financial success with VaynerMedia, I wasn't nearly spending at the rate that I could, so to speak. Like, I could have easily been spending more in a lot of different categories, but I didn't need to. I was happy with where I was at. And so when I was 15, 16, 17, 18, I thought I wanted to co own the jets with my brother. And so I thought I wanted to make a billion dollars. But at, at age 25, 26, 27, I said, okay, that's actually not what I want. I don't want to do what it takes to get to that type of income. But I'm happy with where I'm at now. I live in a great house, you know, I don't really worry about when I go out to eat, what's on the menu and how much it costs. So I did a complete evaluation of that and I said, okay, I'll just be really honest with myself. I need to make a million dollars a year to live this lifestyle, and that's a lot of money. And I'm not like, I truly like to live exactly the way I want to live. I need to make a million dollars a year. And so I had a head start. I had more than that in the bank. So, you know, Vaynersport, I haven't taken a salary in two and a half years. Vaynersports is not profitable probably for at least another 18, 24 months. So I mapped against that. I said, all right, A.J. you literally have like, I basically gave myself a decade to create a new job that would earn a seven figure income.

And you're just willing to risk that if you will.

Yeah, yeah. I also believe that if in year seven, VaynerSports does not have that three year road to get me to a million dollars a year, that I would just stop doing Vayner Sports and then do something that I was not as passionate about to get there and probably have to re. And then I would reevaluate it maybe five years later.

Wow, that's really interesting. That's a completely different mindset than I think most entrepreneurs have going into something because they want to have every year be better than the previous year.

It's been fascinating, less from the financial perspective, but more from the competitive instinct. It's been a really interesting experience just to evaluate and looking at red on the P and L after experiencing Vayner Media, which was green, green, green, green, hockey stick. This is not a hockey stick company. And so it's been an interesting experience that way.

When you say interesting.

What does interesting mean to you?

Not negative, because I knew what I was signing up for. I understand what the industry is. But when you spend years 22 to 29 of your life growing a business from scratch to nine figures and then you spend years 29 to 32. I'll be 32 shortly in your life, not profitable. It's just. It's just. I mean, interesting is the right word, but frankly, it's just. You're used to such unbelievable success, and now, even though vaynersports have been very successful financially, it hasn't. And it's just. It's just something that I constantly think about and evaluate. And again, it's not a negative experience because I understand the game and the landscape, but it's just a different experience. It's not what I did the first go around. Yeah, different business.

Would you help us understand?

Does. Does Your confidence in VaynerSports come from the fact that Gary has a following? Is it from just your own confidence in yourself? Does it come from connections that you have? What gives you the confidence to just enter?

It's a mix of all those things. But I honestly think the biggest source of my confidence is just my. In the confidence in myself to. I think I'm an unbelievable problem solver that I think that's my greatest strength. Literally. I was actually in a meeting the other day with a gentleman named Trevor Moad, who is a sports psychologist that works with some of the greatest athletes in the world. Russell Wilson's a big client of his and he talked about the most. Most successful athletes are people that are neutral thinkers. And he explained what neutral thinking was. And as he was talking, I realized. And it's a little bit egotistical, but I said to myself, like, oh, my God, that's me. And nobody's Ever articulated it to me that way. If there's a massive problem that happens, I never get emotionally too down. I kind of just take it in, I absorb it, I digest it and I say, okay, how are we going to fix it? Or how are we going to absorb it? Or is there nothing to do? And I just have to accept it and move on and find something better. So my confidence is really that I truly understand how to solve problems. I have a ability to identify problems before they actually are problems. And so my confidence is I don't think there's an industry in the entire world I couldn't jump into that didn't require a severe amount of education. Like, I can't become a doctor. I can't, you know, I'm not a dentist. But if there's a business that, you know, without a specific, very scientifical background needed, I just can figure it out. You know, I was, you know, my brother talks about it a lot. Like, I learned business through garage sailing and yard sales. And like if everything went to shit, I know I could probably make a million dollars selling junk. I truly believe that. You know, I, I used to spend hours as a kid just researching new industries on ebay. And you know, Gary talks about, and I joke with him a lot. And Gary has a show called Trash Talk where he goes garage sale and he talks about mug life. I was the one that discovered mug life because I was sick of going to these thrift shops that had a million mugs and not understanding how to make money off of them. So then I just spent like 15 hours researching mugs. I can walk into any thrift store in the world right now and make a few hundred bucks on mugs. It's just the truth. And so whether it's that or I was building websites, you know, I was a computer science minor in college. I taught myself Photoshop and CSS and things of that nature. I was just making websites on the side and then putting Google adsense on them and banner ads and affiliates and making thousands of dollars a month as a college kid part time. Like, I know how to make money. And I think that. And I had enough experiences both small and large that just came give me that underlying confidence.

And what I'm synthesizing from that is that you've got, you've got, you know, that you can make money if, if the world crumbles. Right. And so you want the lifestyle of building the business.

Yes.

That you're building.

Yes.

And so you're willing to, to, to make that the focus. Knowing That I can always make money.

Yeah. I feel like I have the best safety net in the world, the confidence in myself to. I will never have a problem putting food on the table. Yeah.

And that's so important to hit because I know the conversation has come up multiple times up to this event, through my conversations with you through DMs, I get on Instagram, through conversations we have in Facebook groups of either not knowing how to scale the business that you've got, or. Or just when you're really honest, you're not all that jazzed about the business that you're in and just letting that be the cash flow that allows you to build the thing that you want to scale. That's the formula. You don't have to scale the thing you don't like. And I was just having a conversation this morning with somebody who was like, I'm killing it here. And now I'm going into, like this because I feel like I have to. No, you don't. You can use that as your cash flow to say, I'm good. Now I'm going to do the thing. Whether it's the, like, what you essentially building is a lifestyle business that you're scaling, not lifestyle and cash flow, but the thing that makes you happy.

Yeah.

Is that. Is that.

Am I getting you? Yeah, you are. And I would say that I always knew that VaynerMedia, at least when I got involved, was a means to an end in the sense that Gary and I knew that it was an area that we could do well and build a great team and build a great company. But it was never my plan to spend the next 40 years of my career in the ad agency business. So almost I almost treated VaynerMedia like another four or eight years of schooling. I never liked school. I was good at school.

My biggest problem was that my brother was such a disaster of a student that my mom didn't want that to be replicated. So she kind of forced me to be good. And it came naturally to me. So I was. But I almost looked at VaynerMedia and building VaynerMedia as four more years of school or eight more years of school, like a means to an end. If I. If I put my head down and do something that I'm not passionate about, ideally it'll allow me to have the platform to focus on my passion, and that's what happened.

Would you talk a little about how you discovered, like, what you were passionate about enough to start a business around? Because we hear, and this is my experience, when Talking about, like, people talking about following your passion and all this, I really kind of resented that because my first thought is, like, all right, well, like, you can't monetize that shit. Sure. So I'm curious how you like, okay, this is what I like to do. Let's build a business around this.

Yeah. I think.

You know, one thing that helped me was that the notion of a sports agency is a fairly public and known thing. Thing in the sense that, you know, Jerry Maguire was a big movie back in the day. Right. And a lot of people have seen that movie, and that's an indication of it.

For me, a major aspect of getting to VaynerSports was actually allowing myself to have the room to breathe and think and not think about it. So When I left VaynerMedia, I gave Gary about a year's heads up. I said, a year before I actually left is when he knew I was leaving. And so I wanted to make sure. I put everything into place to make sure he wasn't hired, dry hired my replacement, billed out and offloaded all my responsibilities. And I always said that I was always a planner. I always knew what I wanted to do next. And I said the most important thing to me when I left VaynerMedia was to not have a plan as to what was next. So when I left VaynerMedia in May of 16. Yeah, May of 16, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And that was with.

Why was that important?

Because I feel as if my personality was always someone to have that plan. Like, you know, when you're running a business that goes from two to 800 people in seven years, you always have a plan. You're always on top of your shit. You always know what's next. You're thinking. You know when you said people spend their time laying their head at night and worrying? I wasn't worrying, but I was. I was playing chess. I was like, all right, we just launched this new vertical. What does that vertical look like 12 months from now? What are the headaches I'm going to endure? How am I going to fix it before they even happen? So that's just my personality. I always have a plan. And so I said to myself, you know what? You've afforded yourself the opportunity to not have a plan for once. You can leave vaynermedia and your mortgage will still get paid and you'll still be able to afford debt. You know what I mean? So I said, you know what? This is a luxury that I've never experienced in life. I Don't have any kids yet. I don't have any responsibility except to my wife and my dog. Like just take that opportunity and grasp it. So When I left VaynerMedia in May of 16, I didn't know what was next. And it was, to answer your question, I thought that that may allow me to actually figure out what I wanted to do because I was financially secure and I didn't purposely plan for what was next. And what was cool about it was my original plan was to take 12 months off, but I pretty much figured out what I wanted to do next two to three months in and cut it short.

But you still didn't like have the plan, did you, going into it? I mean you knew what the model is going to be, but you're figuring it out on the fly there too.

Yeah, yeah. Purposely. Right. Because I think the fresh eyes is our X factor and our differentiator. So the way I really, you know, found the passion business, so to speak, is as I mentioned, there's some public information that these businesses do exist. I think there was probably an underlying sense of comfort for me that VaynerSports is a cousin of VaynerMedia in the sense that it's a client services business, although it's not Fortune 500, it's individuals. And I just had such an extreme familiarity with football. As a die hard football fan, how.

Do you go and persuade people to buy into VaynerSports when you are starting in an industry that you have no experience in?

So when you say people, you mean the athletes?

Yes.

How do I convince a client in that way? Yeah, trial and er.

Are the athletes clients?

They're hiring you to go out and get sponsorship deals.

We represent football players in one of two ways, or excuse me, two different ways. First and foremost, we actually are their contract advisor. So we negotiate with the NFL team on their behalf for their football contract. And then secondly, we also do the marketing, brand building endorsements, which is obviously I borrowed from my VaynerMedia experience. So to answer your question, in terms of how do we convince a college football player or an existing pro football player to join Vayner Sports, A series of trial and error, you know, trying, just learning. And I'm a big believer in getting reps and seeing what works and what doesn't work. Trying a million different things and looking for those patterns of success.

I would say the overall ethos of what we tell somebody and why to select us is that we're different. I think the agency landscape is there's just so much Overlap and similarity. It's almost impossible to differentiate from one agency to another. And my whole mindset is we're just taking a different approach. And the biggest piece of that is I think for the most part, the contract side is commoditized. There's a lot of people that are able to negotiate with an NFL team and do a good job. And in my opinion, even though I don't have the track record of negotiating with an NFL team for a player contract as lengthy as some of my competition, I've negotiated against Chase bank and General Electric, and those companies are much bigger and more sophisticated than an NFL team. So I'm not worried about that side. And then really speaking to doing more for the player and brand building off the field and in the NFL in particular, the average career is very short. So we really sell and walk the walk of planning for life after football while you're in the league.

And again, when you've got clients, you've got momentum. It's obviously a lot easier to use it as track record. But the first few clients, yeah, they need to take a leap, take a leap. And so what's your approach when trying to bring them on in terms of your early days?

Yeah, I would say the biggest thing that an athlete is attracted to is confidence. So just going in there and being myself and really talking about the positives and not focusing on one thing, I will not do. And I know a lot of my competition doesn't. It's just the nature of the business and it's just the nature of the industry. I don't do any negative recruiting. I'll never walk in and say, who else is recruiting you? Oh, those guys, they stink. Like, not a fan of that, Not a believer in that. I know it works, which is devastating, but that's life. But really, just talk about what I could do for them. I think a lot of times athletes are used to agencies coming and telling them, here's what we did for everybody else and we can do it for you too. We go in a little bit more personalized and say, truly with your interests and your background and your skill set, here's what we can do for you. And have tangible, non cookie cutter examples of what we can do for them.

What would happen if you represented a member of the New England Patriots?

I don't even want to talk about it. It's the genuine truth. We had one client within these last couple years that was in college, coming into the pros and he was on the workout circuit. And Bill Belichick actually Privately worked him out, watched film with him, did drills with him. And so I remember for the three weeks, this was about three weeks before the NFL draft, I'm just sitting there, I'm like, please don't draft him. I really don't want to have. I'll be just very honest. It's, it's a very rare instance where I don't have a plan when it comes to that question. I'm literally an ostrich with my head in the sand and just trying to just pretend it's not going to happen. It'll eventually happen and I'll be a neutral thinker and I'll digest it. Wow. My client just became a New England patriot. What now? But for now, I'm just ignoring it. I'm in denial.

Okay, well, aj, what's your play? I mean, you know, what you need in order to, to maintain your lifestyle. And you thought that you wanted to be the co owner of the New York Jets. I think it's very self aware of you to be like, actually, maybe that's not my dream. So what's your play in all this?

Honestly, my play is to maintain the now. I'm very fortunate. I love my life. I have a great ability to focus on things that I'm passionate about. I love the work that I do. None of it, I would say. I don't think it's true. Let me phrase it, it's probably true. I don't know if I'm capable of obtaining this truth of never feeling like any part of my job is work. But I'm at a place where I feel like only 20% of my job feels like work and the other 80% feels like play, so to speak. I think it's a really, really good balance. I really enjoy it. As opposed to VaynerMedia, which is probably the other way, kind of flipping that percentages. So my play is to maintain what I've got. I'm not. I don't worry about finances. I love the current lifestyle that I have. I love the ability and the flexibility of being a sports agent where I see my daughter a ton. I get to spend a ton of time with my wife and my friends. So my play is honestly to maintain what I got going on for as long as I can.

You mentioned that it was not that way at VaynerMedia. What was different?

VaynerMedia felt more like work, felt more like school, which I never liked, than play, so to speak.

Because you were all on the numbers, because you didn't like the business, because why?

Yeah, a multitude of things. One, I don't think one of the few areas where Gary and I differ. For example, I'm not a huge.

When you have 800 employees. Like, I liked the more intimate aspects of a business. One thing that I took massive pride in, which is, again, I took massive pride in, was when we were about 200 employees, I actually knew every single person's name and something about them. I took a lot of pride in that. Once we got to like 250 and above, I lost that ability. I'll never forget. I walked into an elevator. We were about 500 people, and there was three other people in the elevator, and we were all going up to VaynerMedia's floor. And I looked at the other three people, and I didn't know if those three people worked for me were my vendor or my client. I hated that feeling. So I think a big part of the VaynerMedia side of things was just managing that many clients and that many people and wearing that many hats was not something I wanted. The schedule was a lot less flexible. It was much more of an office job. Being in the office, being with the clients. Monday through Friday, get in around 8am, leave around 6 or 7pm towards the end, obviously, the hours in the early days were much more extreme than that. Whereas with vaynersports, I work from home a bunch. I go into the office once or twice a week. I travel a lot more. So those are a few of the big differences.

Your brother has been very complimentary of your parents and how they raised him.

Yeah.

And now you have. You have a son or a daughter.

I have a daughter, yeah.

And two. Right?

Almost two.

Yeah.

And then I have a second one on the way.

Congratulations. Thank you. I'm curious what lessons you'll attempt to instill in them that you're parents.

That's a great question. I love that. I'll take a few from both sides. So one thing that my dad really drove home and it was also just the way he carried himself, was just the notion of hard work and work ethic, no matter the circumstance.

Truth and honesty. My dad is a handshake guy. You know, he. The cliche, old school, like, you don't need a contract with my dad. If, like, I truly don't need a contract with my dad. You know what I mean? Or I don't think anybody really needs. If you shake my dad's hand and looks you dead in the eye, that's the deal. Of course, you need to put everything in paper this day. And age, but that type of mentality as the underlying. And then for my mom, the one thing my mom has really done, and Gary talks about it a lot and I experienced, my sister, my brother and I all experienced a lot. And I'm seeing it even more now that I have a child of my own. And I love this about my mom is just the sheer amount of self confidence my mom injects into her children is unbelievable. Like, it's just. It's almost laughable. My wife, so it's funny because my wife really helped me really understand this. Like even just driving, we're heading up to Massachusetts, See my in laws, I call my mom, she just. Good morning, beautiful. Like the most explosive. Like she's like, I'm so happy you called me. You're the most important thing. My mom is just obnoxiously over the top with praise and self confidence injection to her kids. So all her kids just carry this massive self confidence. I truly think it stems from that. And that's something I really want to pass on to my children. I think it's just so awesome.

And that is not how I expect you to answer that question. So now I'm synthesizing. Yeah, I'm processing that. What. How will that play out in you raising a daughter?

In what way?

So that, like that over the top confidence. Yeah, I mean that. That empowered you to go do what you do. Yeah, but how does that play. Play out? Like how we.

It doesn't matter what my daughter wants to do with her life. I think that's a life skill.

So for you, it's like encouraging and empowering whatever she wants to do.

And I think there's a very. I think there's a very fine line to cover too. And I'm actually a believer in these two contradictions, so to speak. I'm all about massive confidence, but I'm also completely against the notion of letting your kid beat you in one on one basketball. So it's like this funny thing, right, where I didn't beat gary in basketball one on one until I was 17 years old and he was 28. Literally, like my mom, my mom, where I disagree with my mom, my mom would be like, gary, let him win. Like, I would cry. And not only would I lose, like, I don't think I scored a point on him until I was like 13. Like if I was 11, it was like 11 nothing. Okay, next 11 nothing. Next 11 nothing. Like, no, because what. I think that does it. I don't want to. I don't want to. Create a false sense of entitlement or a false sense of success. So I'm a believer in like telling them how much I love. Like, I will tell my daughter Vivian how much I love her and how special I think she is. But like, if she. I think she likes golf, just randomly, like when we go out golfing, I won't let her beat me until she beats me. She might. If she ever beats me. Like, that's up to her. So it's that balance of those two things. A little bit contradictory, but injecting the love and the self confidence, I think is a life skill. It doesn't matter what she decides to do with her life.

If VaynerSports doesn't go the way that you want, will you still have that level of self confidence?

Yeah. Yeah. I think obviously I will be disappointed in myself.

But I don't think my self confidence will dip because I've had too many other things, Even independent of VaynerMedia where I've been successful. So.

And then honestly, if I'm being very honest, like, vayner Sports isn't gonna fail. I've seen enough, like, we're good.

How do you know that?

Just too much of a maybe just natural feel. Too many indicators where, you know, I just know from outside sources of other people in the industry, like, where we are. Like, the fact that we project to be profitable in four years is a massive indicator of success where the average is 7 to 10.

Can you ask me, like, what data point do you look at a year ago where you're like, okay, this is going to work out.

We had four players drafted in the NFL Draft last year only in year two of our agency. And we had one player in particular go top 50 and invite was invited into the green room. That doesn't happen like I had. And I've had enough because also as I've grown vaynersports, I've interviewed a lot of agents to potentially hire. So the interview process is also selfishly beneficial for. For me, I asked them about their experiences. Oh, when you were at that agency, what did it look like? What was your role? So I've just learned a ton about where my competition was when they were in the early days. And we're ahead of the curve in that regard.

Yeah. So it's looking at the momentum of the clients that you already have, knowing and being able to project that in the future. It's interesting because it's not dollar signs. I mean, it might be in terms of like run rate or burn rate at this point, seeing the numbers improve. But a year ago, we have a.

Few instances where, you know, we have five clients of ours that are entering free agency this spring. And when they enter free agency, they get new contracts and that's where we get paid. So even that too, like, I know we have these five clients, one in particular is going to get paid very, very, very well due to his own performance. And then the following year we have a marquee free agent. The following year we have a marquee free agent. Like, there's also moments in time in the industry where, you know, revenue is going to come. And so I also have that ability to kind of see where things are going as well.

Gosh, this is so much fun.

I love it too.

It's so much fun to be able to play business with that mindset. And that observation is interesting to me because I think.

In kind of the startup entrepreneurial world, or like.

The Internet entrepreneur world, it is all stress. And people act like they're having a good time and they're not really having a good time.

Yeah.

And when I hear you talk about just building the business that you want to build in the first place, it's all fun.

Yeah.

And then, and then the revenue model just allows you to sustain the thing that you enjoy doing anyway.

By the way, building VaynerMedia was massively stressful.

Okay, let's talk about that.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's in the sense that I truly think the reason I'm able to build VaynerSports in a stress free capacity was because I was able to build that safety pad the first time.

That's good to know.

Yeah. I don't think I could have built a stress free business the first time.

But it was still always profitable. So what was stressful? Since it was always profitable?

It was very stressful. One day we had 35 new employees start in one day. It was like January 4, 2014 or something like that. Right. And we made a bunch of hires in December, landed a bunch of clients in December. And we say, you know what, we're have all the new staff start the first day we come back in January, as opposed to them starting four days before Christmas. That was a stressful day. Right. You're taking a company from 120 or 150 employees to 185 employees like that. You got all these personalities and when you're at the top, you're managing every HR aspect. Like, yes, you have hr, but the way Gary and I, like Gary and I pride ourselves on our Ability to manage people and think it's a success point for us. So there's that. Or when your biggest client is unhappy with the work that you guys are doing. Like, one, and we talked about it before. One other reason I was never stressed about VaynerMedia creating a headache financially for us or for, you know, letting go of people was a big thing Gary and I focused on was never having one client be too big a piece of our business. Like, the diversification of revenue was huge for us. So there was never a time, ever, when I was at VaynerMedia where if one client fired us, we were in deep shit ever. Not even our biggest client. And that was because we had enough clients and we spread it out enough, and we never got too reliant on a single source of income.

So if the day happens that Vayner Sports gets big and successful and stressful, what do you do?

I'll leave.

Yeah.

Yeah, I will. I don't think it'll get there because one of the nature of the business. Two.

I know what happened with VaynerMedia, and I'm ahead of it, so to speak. And I'm building the. I'm laying the foundation to prevent that from happening, because I don't want that to happen. But if I screw up and it ends up happening, I'll leave. I'll leave it in great. I'll leave it in great shape, and I'll make sure it's. You know, I won't. I won't screw over the people that work for me or the clients, but I'll build my exit plan.

And then would.

Theoretically, would the plan be then the same cycle of, like, I don't know.

I'm gonna figure it out.

Take 12 months off and find out what I'm excited about.

My intuition would be that would be the same plan. Yeah, take some time off and figure it out. The four months that I took off after VaynerMedia were some of the best months of my life. I loved it. I'm so glad I did it.

We will take questions from the audience. So if you want to grab one of the mics, feel free to do so. So would you help us understand a little bit about the. As you're projecting out the business, the overall revenue model that gives you the confidence that seven to 10 years or that in two years or so you'll be profitable? Is there, like, negotiations with the brands and with the agencies? I don't think the clients are paying you retainers. It's like a cut. So that's like a large.

Yeah. Our clients. Clients pay us a percentage of their football contract as well as a percentage of all marketing that we bring in.

It's performance.

Yeah.

So it would make sense then why it's such a long cycle about why it doesn't. You're betting on that athlete, first of all, staying with you, being good, being healthy. Yeah. Getting an audience, which is something that. That is a core competence of the business. But you're betting on a lot of factors going right before it's really profitable.

That's correct. Yeah. The biggest aspect of revenue, at least right now, will be the, you know, 3% that we charge on the contract that that player signs with an NFL team. And that's what I'm able to predict because I know when their contract is up.

It makes sense now.

Yeah. And then betting on myself and ourselves to keep their business from great service.

Yeah. All right, let's go here. There's been a lot of mention as far as following your passions and trying to find a way to monetize that.

What would.

What advice would you give to someone that finds that their passions change? You know, like every two years, three years, you know, you get really passionate about something, you get your fill, and then you move on to something.

Yeah, that's a great.

I want to echo that too, because I. So with you, I don't have, like, a thing I can do all day. Right. Like, I have experiences that I like, which is where I start with, like, my best experiences. But I share in this question what.

I would say practically, if I were in that situation, where I had that situation.

Identify a business around that passion that is low on burn rate and can be accelerated quickly to profitability. So that. And then also plan for that eventual exit. You know, I would build a business that can be passive income off that. Right. Where if I spent two years focused on this thing, the second I stop, it can still bring in revenue. That would be the type of business, and I would make sure that my exposure was low. And then really, if it's every two years, 10 years later, you should be in a place where you have five different businesses that are bringing in income and then hopefully provide some fond memories for you too, when you once liked that thing. All right, thanks. My name is Pablo. Appreciate this opportunity. Oh, man. So I hear a lot of, like, parallels in your story and where I'm at specifically.

You know, I grew up with an empire builder dad, and I thought that's who I wanted to be. And I've reached my limitations and realized I don't think I'm an empire builder, I'm a business developer, relationship builder. So I've had to employ a lot of self awareness in that regard. I've left comfortable situations that I'm doing well in order to find really my passion. And I'm kind of in that same spot spot of trying to get some distance from it to evaluate really what I want. And my question is what I struggle the most is in, in being the line between being self aware and feeling like a quitter. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I was wondering if you have any insight into that, like how, how you processed. Yeah. You know, leaving VaynerMedia. Pablo, do you think you're a quit? No, I don't think I'm a quitter. I mean honestly, that's what it is like my perspective. I think it's a really great question and I probably won. I don't remember the specific moment, but I'm sure one I've thought of myself. And I think if you have the ability, the level of self awareness to take us another step up and just ask yourself the simple question, am I, am I wired to be a quitter? Yes or no. And important if you, by the way, if you're a quitter, like acknowledge it. Right. And deal with it. But if you truly don't think you're a quitter, then I wouldn't let any micro event that may on the surface to maybe the outside appear to be quitting to affect you.

Great answer.

So you just gotta be super, super honest with yourself. I'm not a quitter, so I can't really give great advice to somebody who is. But I don't. If somebody's a quitter, there's probably something that they endure to get to that place and I have empathy for that. So I don't judge quitters and I understand why quitter may seem to be a negative term and I also associate it that same way, but with what you just discussed. Like you answered it pretty quickly. I believe you. So that's how I would look at it. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Great advice, Ryan.

I love the socks.

By the way.

A.J. you talked about being a thinker and a planner.

How much of vaynersports is speculation? And how young can you talk to athletes, you know, projecting them into your future?

Yeah, yeah. What's your name by the way? Ernie. Ernie. It's a lot of speculation. I think.

You know, when it comes to evaluating our business, you have to have a lot of trust that in the macro it's going to work out. There's a lot of guys that you maybe believed in fully. You've got to spend. I mean, there have been players that I've recruited that I spent a chunk of time with and kept in touch with over the phone and over text and over Instagram. I thought they were, you know, not to say that they're bad people now because they didn't sign with VaynerSports, but I thought they were great people. And when they told me that they were signing with VaynerSports, I believed them. And, you know, I thought, that's the type of character and that's the type of person we're looking for, is going to end up being successful. And then the 24th hour, they sign with another agency and they won't even call me back. But again, they're 20. They're 21. And you don't know what circumstances they've been through or what caused them to make that decision. So there's an enormous amount of speculation. There's a lot of trust you need to put into people that maybe you've only spent five hours with, ten hours with. Right. And so it's a very interesting process. Even on the team side, teams, when they draft a player, spend even more time probably than I did with a player, and they miss. It's an art. It's not a science. So a lot of speculation, but I think it's also part of what makes it fun. It's not an exact science, AJ There's.

A lot less speculation that goes into, like, a client services business over at VaynerMedia. So was there a point at which you have one client and it goes, well, you start to ramp up. Is there something that happened that really allowed the company to scale?

I don't think there was an exact instance.

Is it incremental one?

Yeah, it's definitely. I think it is incremental. I think the other thing, honestly, with VaynerMedia was that we were at the forefront. We were blazing the trail, and my brother was the microphone for that. So that pairing of having a personal brand lead an industry forward and then actually having a company that also did that and actually practiced what Gary preached, we delivered unbelievable results. So to have the megaphone, the sizzle, and the stakes, so to speak, is what really pushed VaynerMedia forward.

Cool. Hey, AJ, my name is Luke.

Just. I'm a big fan of your brother, but I always want to know about you, so I'm super stoked you're here. Thank you. Quick question. What Is your thesis. I know Gary is on the whole eating shit versus, like, lifestyle. Right.

You're saying, hey, I like my lifestyle. A million dollars a year.

Yeah.

And I had money saved.

Yeah.

And so, you know, 10 million saved. I'm gonna spend a million a year even though I'm not making money. Yep.

I'm gonna get there.

Or not.

Yep, exactly.

That's pretty, pretty massive to do. As opposed to, like, let's. I can roll it back and. Yeah. Just kind of get your opinion on that.

Yeah, I think, I think it's situation. Situational. Right. I would say that my brother would say in some capacity, I'm eating shit right now. Right. Like, what guy that built a. Like, you should see the Airbnb. I'm staying in Mobile, Alabama tonight.

Right.

I'm going to something called the Senior bowl.

And that's where the best college seniors in football go for an all star game of sorts and practices and the whole NFL is there. And for a guy with a net worth in the eight figures to be staying in an Airbnb 20 minutes outside of mobile, that, like, it's just not where somebody with that kind of net worth would stay. So I'm kind of doing both. In my opinion, to go into a business that will not be profitable. Like the whole put your head down each day to make it work is something I'm comfortable in. And I think I'm just doing a different level or version of that right now. So I believe in that overall. But at the same token.

I have had success in my life and there are certain things that I prefer to take care of myself with and enjoy that success. I don't think you should be ashamed of success. And in my mind, the reason to make money is to take care of your family and put food on the table and put a roof over the head. And then the other way I look at money is to have experience and to buy time. Like, I will spend extra on a direct flight as opposed to a connecting flight so I can get an extra hour with my daughter. Right. So I think kind of plays together. Okay, one quick question. Do you put out any content like Gary, or would you.

Whether it's podcast, videos, stuff like that.

I put out very little content.

A little bit. You know, even speaking here today and doing this is a little bit of a change in that regard. But never at the level he does it. But yeah, I'm dabbling a little bit. Awesome.

Thank you.

Hello. Speaking of content, I was watching and.

Listening to one of your hour long podcasts with Matt Wilson from mid 2018.

You mentioned something about hiring 24 people and how it took hundreds and hundreds.

And hundreds of interviews to even hire those 24 people.

I'm in this stage of hiring a lot, and it's been difficult to get.

The right people on my team.

So I'm interested in your approach and.

If that's what you're doing with Vayner Sports right now. Yeah, great question.

Great question. I would say. How many people do you have on your team now?

17.

17 people. How many of those 17 people do you allow to interview other people?

None.

That's the answer. So one thing that we did was we built a great core of about 25 people after about two years at VaynerMedia, and we really relied on those 25 people to help scale. So I met and Gary met everybody before we hired them. But, you know, we had 25 people. Like, everybody had to interview people. I don't care if they were 22. You know, if I thought they were really good at what they were doing and they understood what we were looking for, I thought they could be a good judge, a character. The other thing is, hiring is a art. Like, I do not believe. You know, I'm sure there are people that spend their time on this and have done the research and can maybe hire at a better rate than me. But I'm also a believer that you just hire to the best of your ability. You evaluate and you adjust. So the biggest thing I would say, is of the 17 people you currently employ, try to let go of the brains a bit. Get as many of. And I'm not saying you have to give it to all 17 people like we did, but I can imagine, you know, employ at least five people that you believe in personally and have them scale your hiring ability. If you're. If it's just you, you're gonna really struggle because you got other things to do.

I agree. Thank you so much.

You got it.

Hi, A.J. thank you for being here. My name is Cardell Brown, and you can't see it from here, but I am wearing a New England Patriots lanyard, so don't hold that against me. Right.

I'll try, but.

But here's the deal.

Where are you from?

I'm from here in the Dallas Metroplex area.

Did you grow up in New England?

No, I didn't. I'm a New Orleans guy. That's where I grew up.

All right, stand on my questions.

I'm just curious.

But. So my son is finishing his college career. He's training for his pro day right now.

Oh, wow.

So here's. It's really, really hard as a father to connect with a sports agent that you trust. All right. Because there's a lot of underlying things that you see and that you don't see.

Absolutely.

Do you have a published list of agents in your organization that someone could look at?

I don't have a published list, but if. If you shoot me an email, just ajaynersports.com I have a few people in mind. Like, I'm a big believer that you can have friends in that industry. It's funny, there's many agents and you kind of reference it. There's a lot of agents who are like, fuck everybody else. I don't want any friends. They're all my enemy. They're all my competition. I don't subscribe to that philosophy. I think there's enough people to work with. Like, we can't work with every NFL player. It's not possible. So there's definitely a few people that I've met along the way that I believe in. They do great work and maybe could be a fit. So if you just shoot me an email, I'm happy to make some introductions. Okay, thank you. You got it.

How do you view competition, AJ.

First, I respect it.

I think something that bothers the crap out of me is when people poo poo the competition and say, oh, they stink. Well, if they stink, why do they just sign these five unbelievable players? And we didn't. Right. And so, A, first and foremost, I respect the competition. B, like I said, we can't represent every NFL player at VaynerMedia. We work with Pepsi. We can't work with Coke. So, like, I'm open minded. And I also think life is long. Like, an agent who is my competition right now may end up being a partner of mine five years from now. So you just never know. I'm not a big fan of burning bridges. I'm always a fan of being the bigger person, so. And then the last thing I would say is, I don't. While I respect my competition, I don't spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about what they're doing.

Yeah, because you're building the thing you want.

Exactly.

So it's a really good feeling to be able to be like, this is what I want my life to look like. And you can do your thing and you don't threaten me because I'm not going to compromise my life.

Exactly.

So I'm not going to change my sales according to what you're doing.

Thanks so much for coming out. And born and raised in Miami. I'm a Dolphins fan.

Okay. So just got to put that out there. That's fine.

We both hate the Patriots.

We have that in common. That's true.

Fuck those guys.

My biggest thing is you're entering a new industry and coming from a fresh perspective that is super established. It's got its rules.

Yeah.

You have that media background. How can you. Or how are you planning to disrupt that. That industry? Or is it just a passion play where you're coming in and trying to.

Just do the same old thing? I'm definitely going to disrupt it. I love disrupting. You know, the thing that comes most top of mind, I can't really speak to, but in general, and this sounds silly, but one of the biggest ways that we're disrupting it is actually by caring about every single. Like treating every single client that we work with as a human being as opposed to a line item. And I get it. And by the way, I think the athletes deserve a lot of the blame for this culture that's been created because the athletes, for the most part, not every one of them, but a lot of them treat the agent as not even a line item, but as an afterthought. So there's this bad relationship between the two where athletes fire agents all the time for the silliest shit and agents don't pick up the the phone for a client that maybe didn't make an NFL roster. Our mindset are probably the big. The single biggest source of disruption is that when we have a client jump onto VaynerSports, I'm truly in my mind making the mental commitment to say, if they commit to me, I'm committing to them. And every time and for as long as that's the truth, they're my client, whether they're on an NFL roster or not. A good example of that is a guy named Walter. Walter Powell played wide receiver for the Jets. He's actually, incidentally, the reason that our partners all got together at VaynerSports. He was a client of our partners. He played for the jets, then he played for the Bills, and now he's out of the league. And so VaynerSports has not made a commission on Walter for two years. But I still spend. I pick up every phone call, answer every text, and go much more and above. Beyond that, I'm very proud of Walter. His company was actually just on the front page of TechCrunch yesterday. He launched a startup called Politiscope, which is a nonpartisan analysis of political news to basically educate the masses on politics. And so for a former NFL player to launch a political startup, he needs people around him to get to that place. And so I'm an advisor to that company. I helped Walt flesh out the entire idea. I helped him build out the product. I introduced him to the developer that build the product. I helped him put together his investment deck. I went to investor meetings. This is all after he hadn't been earning us an income that entire time. So I think the single biggest source of disruption is genuine commitment to the players and the people that we decide to work with.

That's an awesome answer, but it's also really shitty that the other agencies are that bad. Right.

But again, I was. I don't blame. No, I don't blame the agencies because the way I've had some of my clients treat us makes me understand why the agencies treat the players that way. It's. It's a. It's a mutual disrespect that causes that underlying culture. One of those had to come first, though, right? What's that?

One of those things had to happen first.

They probably happen simultaneously. I mean, it's. It's. It's an unfortunate culture that exists. Exists within the ecosystem. And for us, we've experienced the downside and rather than emotionally get connected to that negativity and deciding that that's how it is and fuck those guys, we just look at them as individual instances. You know, if there's five players that have disrespected vaynersports and have, you know, either fired us or have not been great to work with, there's 20 others that have been great. And I like to look at the positive in the majority.

Thank you.

Got it.

Aj, would you comment on what you talking about? The political startup?

Yeah.

And how.

I was processing was it's really common now to see this trend of people who have a following starting businesses that you wouldn't expect them to be in. What kind of trends do you see coming in that area over the next couple of years? Like we were talking about? Was it Ice Cube?

Yes, Ice Cube with the Big three.

Yeah.

Basketball league.

Yeah. So there's all kinds of just people you wouldn't expect to be entrepreneurs starting new trends. So I'm just curious what you.

Yeah, I think, honestly, I think it's going to be. It's going to be less and less surprising. I think. I think at least within the world of athletics, there's so much overlap in sports and entrepreneurship in terms of the Mindset and what it takes, the work ethic, the. The competition level. Like, there's just. So. It's such a natural aspect. And so I think the biggest reason why a lot of these football players in particular are unexpected entrepreneurs, so to speak, is because our society has put a helmet on them, both physically and metaphorically and really through fantasy football. And our fandom almost look at football players as.

Almost like.

Checker pieces or chess pieces. Right. And so they don't. We haven't taken the time to get to know these athletes. These athletes haven't had people around them to enable them. But it's getting better. And there's. And there's great. You know, Kobe Bryant's an amazing investor. He's a great example for every young basketball player. LeBron the same way. And so, you know, there's a commercial out right now with two NFL players from the Tennessee Titans. They own a cupcake shop, so. Which is awesome. Awesome. So I just think it's a matter of time. I think these athletes are getting smarter. They're surrounding themselves with better people. And so I honestly, I think the trend is just going to be. We're all going to be less surprised when an athlete launches a political startup or opens up a cupcake shop.

And do you think that is because they have the following, because they have the funding that helps? Because they have the fame?

You know, Walter was not the most famous football player. The two guys out in Tennessee are not the most famous football. Part of it is the funding. Right. As long as they didn't blow their money while playing football, they have some capital to enable a business endeavor. So that's definitely a big part of it. And then I also think it's just the networking capabilities. I won't say it's the fame, but the notoriety of being a football player can get you into a room. And so as long as they take advantage of that networking opportunity, that blend of financial backing that they can bootstrap and the relationships they were able to build while playing definitely helps make that happen.

Your brother has been talking about the economy going to shit for a little bit now. Do you have an opinion on what's gonna happen?

I don't. I haven't dug in.

Do you care?

Of course I care. But we also started VaynerMedia in 2009 during a downturn.

Right. So that's why I asked, do you care because you like, you've.

I know Gary says it's an opportunity for him, and I agree with him. For me, I'll adapt to Whatever's going on.

Okay. I'm curious in. I'm a baseball fan. In the baseball world, you have this weird divergence of you have some insanely rich contracts that happen, but you're seeing more and more contracts get stale. You're seeing more and more players be on the market for a lot longer.

Yeah.

Especially the last two years and not get the contracts that they expected. The case right now is Manny Machado as we're sitting here still holding out and not getting the contract that he want. And I'm curious if I'm kind of waiting for almost like a contract bubble in that sense of the big lucrative contracts not being as lucrative and it kind of spilling down to younger players or being a renegotian. Do you see? And I wonder how the economy will affect that if there is a downturn, how it affects sports. I'm just curious if you have a perspective on that from the sports world.

Yeah, I think on the contract side.

It'S always just going to be a correction. Right. So clearly, like you said, I haven't looked at baseball as closely as I've looked at football. Obviously we don't work in baseball, but I have seen it from the surface as a fan. Clearly there was a few years where guys were getting contracts bigger than they deserved. Right. My perspective is big contracts are still going to get paid to those that deliver the best and it's just going to create a wider gap. But in my opinion, it's a results based business. So the contract should reflect your output. And so I think they're. I think the correction's happening. I think it's. I think it's actually what you said, I think is actually we're in the middle of. In baseball. Right. So. And then as far as the economy in sports, I'll be very honest and I probably should do a better job. I'm not well educated to what happened to football contracts during the last downturn. Probably something on my to do list the second we wrap up is just get a little bit of evaluation.

I'd be very interested to hear what you discovered.

I know that the salary cap is fixed. So my initial reaction is that football contracts should be stable in an economic downturn because there's a salary cap and there's a salary floor. Teams are actually required to spend a certain amount from the bargaining agreement. So my intuition is that contracts will be ineffected, not affected by a downturn. But I'm going to double check.

All right, let's take two more. A.J. thanks for coming. We really appreciate learning more about you. You and Gary both have an insane work ethic. And like you said earlier, you wore a lot of different hats when you first started your business. And so for me, personally, I kind of struggle with, I guess, pushing myself to do things that I don't really like to do. How do you find the motivation to kind of get through that and just kind of get the shit done?

It's two ways. One, it's just you'll get a different level of success based on how much you put in. So it's not a black or white, it's a gray. If there's 10 things you don't want to do and you do three of them, you'll get three levels of success from that. If you do nine, you'll get nine levels. You know what I mean? The other thing I would say is the better way to approach it, and I think the way I approach it is go back to things that you like doing and can benefit from, do those even better, and then take the financial reward and hire somebody to do the shit you don't want to do.

Awesome.

That's how I would attack it.

Appreciate it.

You got it.

Hey, A.J.

Seth Spears.

I'm a Bengals fan, so we don't.

Have to talk football. No, we're good. I like you. You understand the pain.

Yeah, exactly.

Long time.

Many years.

Hopefully we'll turn around this year. Quick question about company culture. What is your philosophy surrounding company culture? How do you hire for that? How do you build and grow that? Yeah, I'm just a big believer in finding people that have a few aspects that they share.

In terms of work ethic, ambition, and then, most importantly, honestly, is kindness. The single biggest thing at VaynerMedia that we would weed out are just bad people, like, mean bad people, because we're too busy, you know, growing and trying to be successful for fighting and disrespecting one another. Like, man, there's no way to get fired faster than being just a bad person. So we really over it. But then on the same token, like, you're not gonna get a job just because you're super duper nice, right? Like, that doesn't keep you from getting fired. We're a results based business. But the number one underlying tone is being respectful to one another, being nice to one another.

So just as a follow up to that, how does that play into the.

Clients that you're taking on?

And do you ever feel the need.

To fire those clients because of how they're dealing with your employees and with.

The team where it's just a bad.

Fit for the culture. Yeah, we haven't had it happen and I think it's a bit self selecting in that regard, but.

If a client was disrespectful to my staff, I would probably let them go. That being said, it's a bit self selecting in the sense that like, for the most part the guys that end up joining VaynerSports are wired a certain way and wouldn't be the type to do that. Or if I misread their character, they probably will fire us before we even get a shot to fire them. Like, it's just not a fit.

Thank you.

You got it.

Side note, Matthew Tremalata, if he can get to the mic in the next 15 seconds. Well, there he comes. But countdown timer's going. A.J. i'm curious. You mentioned that 5%.

There's 5% difference between you and Gary. Where are you different? What's that? Where are you different?

Front of the house versus back of the house. Right. He wants to be like he loves the limelight. Not in a bad way, not an egotistical way, but he thrives off it. I'm much more comfortable behind the scenes and working on my laptop or with a small team.

Do you know what your superpower is like, the thing you do better than solving? Problem solving?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah, I just, I don't know, I'm just incredibly good at it. Like you can throw any problem and I'll pretty quickly come to a good conclusion on how to handle it. And unemotionally and not fearful and not stress like I think it just came from. When you grow a company that fast, there's a million problems a day and you don't have time to dwell on it.

All right, go ahead. Tremolata, thus far I believe you've been explaining your business and your clients as NFL players and as an agency. But I understand that you operate a two pronged business where you integrate brand owners into your business model as far as connecting it to the NFL players.

Yes.

What are you. How are you building out that portion of your business for the brand owners to get them?

Yeah, that's a great question to specify. We work with brands in a capacity to work with our athletes. So it's not necessarily that the brands are our clients. Much more so the football players are our clients. But we're constantly networking and bringing in opportunities to have collaborations between our players and brands. So there's a few different ways we're doing a bunch of networking down at the Superbowl bowl in Atlanta. We've got a meet and greet on Thursday where, you know, entrepreneurs can come meet our players and hopefully create some natural connections there. And then we're throwing a huge super bowl party that Friday night. 1200 people, mix of entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, etc. So that's one kind of tangible example of that.

Do you agree with your brother that he says the super bowl is still the best value in advertising?

Yeah.

Help me understand why.

Because sports are the only thing I don't fast forward through, like, in terms of just the attention. Like the super bowl has our society's attention. And the fun part too is people want to see the commercials. Where else are you watching something where you're excited to see the commercial? I just think the platform and the culture around super bowl commercials delivers the most impact as compared to some other TV spends.

Interesting. You guys enjoy this. This was phenomenal.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Aj, thank you for being here. I so respect what you have done and what you've built. And so even if you don't have the, you don't want to be the face fang. There's people watching and there's people impressed with the fingerprints of everything that you're doing in the world. Thanks for being here. Give it up for A.J. vaynerchuk, everybody.

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