What's Working RIGHT NOW In eCommerce, Retail, and Branding

So tickets are finally on sale, huh? You excited for Brand Builder Summit? Yeah.

Wondering if you were about to put a camera in my face. Hell yeah. We, yeah, just looking. Tickets are flying off the shelves. No, it's, it's been great. What I'm excited about is, you know we do the Capitalism conference. Yes. I'm pouring water into a coffee mug. We do the Capitalism conference every. Well, it used to be December, now it's January. Details coming soon with like a bunch of celebrity keynotes and bringing the best in the world. Brand Builder Summit is all practitioners, so it's all people building physical products brands. And so it's a very content heavy event. Like here's what's working on our business right now. So I'm really excited to be doing a different kind of event, but also an event that will attract a different type of person. Cause it's all people who are building real companies. Because as I shift into being an investor, I know the people who show up for that type of event are gonna be highly qualified to possibly be incubated or take my money or bring me on as an investor. And that's like where I make my money. Right? There's no money in events, but there is money in selling companies. And I'm looking to partner with two businesses out of the five or six hundred that will come to this event where we grow together. We bring in some outside investors and some advisors. And that's the shift I'm making because we're launching this fund for physical products brands, which is really, really exciting. We're putting the details together, putting the board of advisors together. So imagine like someone came up to you and, and it was like, this is your new retail broker. This is your new influencer manager. This is the person who's gonna build the systems and process for you. This is the person who's gonna fund the whole thing. Your job is to be the entrepreneur and build the business through these new resources that we just brought to you. That's what I'm doing in my career and everything that we do through like videos like this and through events and through capitalism.com is to bring new lead flow into the private equity group that I'll be partnering with, with the fund that I will be building. And it just feels really good to be operating from that. Like give perspective of let's do a big event together. Not because we need to sell anything, but because it puts the right people in the room for the next thing. In both the people in the room's career, the people on Stage's career for my career. And we can operate from this place of just what's going to move the needle, what's going to bring new value. And if you watched the video of C Money, who's holding the camera and I on the couch of me licking my wounds, realizing we were on the wrong path, you realize that, like, one of the secrets to success that I had up to that point was I didn't have a plan. We just gave and we just gave. And it feels good to be operating from that place again. Of, like, let's just do cool things that are exciting that we do because we want to. I've spent so much of my career doing things in order to get a result or to say something or to prove something, and now I'm just focused on doing things because I want to do them. And I don't know if there'll be a shift in the marketplace, but there's been a shift in my energy as a result of doing that. And I imagine that as a result of doing that, there'll be a shift in the marketplace too. I go through these ebbs and flows in my career where I have big curves up and then I plateau, and then I try and force it and figure it out, and I do this, and then I come down, then I reset, and then I come back up and then I do this. And right now I'm like. I'm like, just on the edge of, like, I've reset and now I'm back in, like, the. I just want to give mode because it feels good. For no other reason than it feels good. So one of those things is the Brand Builder Summit, which is in August. We've already.

So far exceeded my expectations in terms of the number of people who are signed up. Because selling events is hard, and this one has just been really easy. We didn't do a big pre launch for it. We didn't do a whole bunch of buzz for it. I haven't, like, battered my list to death for it. I haven't, for some of you is the first you're hearing about it. We haven't done a whole bunch of Facebook ads. We just decided to put together a great event with amazing practitioners of people who are building great brands, bringing in my advisory board, having it in a place just outside of town, just outside of Texas, where it'll be rejuvenating for everybody who's there. We're gonna do s' mores and campfires, but it'll still be a, like, luxury setting. I'm just Thrilled. Like, it just, it just feels good to be doing stuff you want to do and to see the marketplace respond to it, even if you can make a whole bunch more money doing other things. And it feels good to see the marketplace reward something you feel good about doing. And for the people who are there, it's going to be a phenomenal time. So that's my long question to Yes, I am excited for Brand Builder Summit. C Money. Thank you so much for prompting me with that question.

So it'd be great content if we Shark Tank someone else like Hani.

You know, I've been thinking about that.

So what kind of business would really attract you as an investor?

That's a great question. And we should do a video just about building a type of businesses for investors. And you bring up a great point. I was thinking maybe we should Shark tank a business at Brand Builder Summit. Like, maybe we should carve out time in this schedule to do like a tank pitch. And we bring up my board of advisors and we bring up people to pitch their idea. For example, my buddy Josh, you met him, Josh Pizzoni runs BioTrust, $100 million supplement company. He and I have been talking about investing in and incubating some brands. He's got one in mind that he wants to do an investment. It just got me thinking, like, okay, you're gonna work on that, like that business and bring some capital. But I got this guy who will add this to that business. And I got this guy who had this business. Oh my goodness. How much fun would it be if like we just went up at Brambler Summit, someone had their one million dollar business and I had my board, you know, Josh and some of the other speakers, and we were like, alright, what would we do to this business? We workshop it and then we make an offer that would be cool. So I'm thinking about doing that. I need to line up my advisory board and like get it official first. But beyond that, what attracts investors? Great question. So, number one, there needs to be some sort of unique proposition into the marketplace. Like, look how many spatulas we're selling. Or look how many coasters we're selling. Doesn't bring any new value to the marketplace? Or what do you do that does bring new value to the marketplace? And that could be as simple as a really great brand.

There are brands of coconut oil. Like, this is a silly example, but like Dr. Bronner's has a coconut oil. Is it really all that different than other coconut oil? Maybe, or maybe not. But it falls within a brand that you come to expect from Dr. Bronner's. Right. So as a result, Dr. Bronner's brand, the authority that you give that brand, that's unique value in the marketplace, an audience, a list, Instagram following, Facebook, following, all of that, that's unique value in the marketplace. Obviously some sort of sales history. If you're a brand new concept, not gonna attract investors, you've gotta be approvable sales. Unless there's some other asset that you're leveraging. For example, yesterday I was talking about investing into a new food line, a new food brand. No sales, just concept. But really cool idea. They're partnering with an audience of like 200,000 people and they have an advisor on the board who's been in that industry before. Okay, great. So there's some sort of asset that the money could be allocated for. Right? We have, we have momentum that we can get behind. Whereas some people think that money is going to come from an investor and it's going to be magical and there's going to be new sales that come in. The entrepreneur is running the business, not the investor. The investor can throw gasoline on the fire. The entrepreneur is the fire. And the entrepreneur needs to be bringing that fire in the form of momentum and new value before an investor can do anything.

That's hopefully what we'll be doing at Brambler Summit. That's my way of bringing it back. See how I did that?

Yeah. Good stuff.

August 24th and 25th. Just to make it an official pitch.

Be there, be square.

How do. How do we end this video.

Awkwardly, apparently.

Huh?

Call the action screen. Boom.

Slam powder.