Andy Lederman - The Founder of @Bucketlisters

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What'S going on, everyone? Kasey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have Andy Letterman on the show. He is the founder and CEO of Bucket Listers. Bucket Listers is a brand that provides bucket list destinations all over the world for its community. But as of right now, they just launched a GoFundMe page that raised over a hundred thousand dollars to to send dinners and meals to healthcare workers in New York City during the coronavirus pandemic. So that being said, make sure you take a moment either before or after this episode to learn more about what they're doing because they're providing so much value to the healthcare workers in New York City. And that being said, check out Bucket Listers on Instagram and enjoy the episode.

All right, what's going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have Andy Letterman coming on the show, the CEO and founder of Bucket Listers. Thanks so much for coming on, Andy.

Thank you for having me, Casey. Really appreciate it and great to finally meet you.

I know you as well. So first off, I'd love you to give us some insight into what Bucket Listers is. For those who may not know, but also touch on what you guys are doing now to help out with everything happening with COVID 19.

Yeah, absolutely. So before, before the madness began, we were building something really special. We're the trusted guide to find the best things to do in different cities. And so we're a social first media company, so we're really good at social media. We have 10 million followers on our guides on Instagram and other social platforms. So you live in LA, you can follow LA Bucket List on Instagram, on Facebook, on TikTok, and you'll find great recommendations for the Bucket list worthy things to do in those places. And obviously it's not the best time to be promoting out of home experiences and large public gatherings. So we've obviously had to pivot in a big way. So we've been, you know, writing some incredible at home guides. You could find the best Netflix shows to binge and things like that and the best restaurants to deliver and support through these times. A lot of food delivery type stuff. We also have a gift card marketplace. So we're really trying to get people excited about life after Corona. What's on your post Corona bucket list. And you can go on our website and save on gift cards to businesses that you can use after the economy reopens. And then the most important thing that we're doing is, you know, we have 10 million followers, we have this incredible reach and we that we could in all of our cities. And we thought the best way to do that is to honor our healthcare workers. You know, they're obviously at these Covid hospitals having these horrendous situations, seeing people dying and sick. So we thought at the very least let's send them a good meal. So eight days ago we launched GoFundMe pages in our top six cities to raise funds, pay local restaurants full price, you know, thousand dollar orders and send 100 meals to the local hospitals in those six cities. And I'm very pleased to report that in just eight days we've raised $100,000 to do that. So my entire team is just calling local restaurants and placing these big orders and coordinating with the doctors and nurses and janitors and other staff at the hospitals and just trying to promote some positivity and try to just send a small gesture to the heroes that are fighting on the front lines.

Very cool man. And I want to pivot and just say, because I know bucket listers. I've been following you guys for a while now and it's super cool to see just the community you built. Where did this all start?

Yeah, well, thank you for following. We really, really appreciate that. I actually used to work in finance in my passion project was always creating a community around people sharing what's on their bucket list and helping each other kind of check things off their list as quickly as possible and encouraging each other. And so when Instagram really started to get popular, I created Chicago Bucket List. That's where I was living at the time. And just over the course of a few years while I was a side hustle, just really started understanding the ins and outs of Instagram, really focusing on great made for social content and understanding what types of recommendations people wanted to see. And before you knew it, knew it, in Chicago alone, we had over a million followers. So I knew the model was working, moved to New York. We now have our biggest presence in New York as well as our headquarters. And then LA, San Francisco, and 18 other cities soon followed. So it's been full time for two years. Before that, it was a passion project for a few years.

Love that. What would you say has been the most difficult part of the recent transition where, you know, it's hard to go out right now. Everything's on lockdown. People aren't traveling. How have you guys not only pivoted, but when did you realize that this pivot needed to occur?

Yeah, I mean, it's been very sad and painful. There's no way to, you know, avoid. Avoid that. Starting at the beginning of March, you know, we work with Live Nation and Golden Voice, and we're getting ready to promote all these amazing festivals like Coachella and concerts. And we started seeing our partners. I think south by Southwest was the first to back out. And soon thereafter, it seemed like no one was going to be doing large public gatherings of any sort. So to be completely frank, I mean, our revenue pretty much declined by almost 100%. Our restaurants are closing, so we had to find unique ways to make money. And we had to do some painful decisions at the company like downsizing and pay cuts and things like that, but seems like now is kind of the beginning of something new. I think people are planning for the economy to reopen. We look forward to our partners being back in business and to rebuild as a company as well after the dust settles.

I love that. What would you say, like, what are your thoughts on, like, you know, event business for the rest of 2020? I mean, you guys obviously have some internal connections with different venues and vendors and people that host these events. Where do you.

Yeah.

Going especially right now, April 14, when things are still, you know, not settling down in the near future?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's, you know, I'm no expert, I'm no medical expert. I don't know exactly how this is all gonna play out. But as a business, the fortunate thing is that we have partners in every category of experiences. And so it might not be that in 2020, there's music festivals or large concerts, but there certainly will be six person sailboat charters and helicopter tours and restaurants will be able to open in some capacity. So as a team, we're really thinking about how can we help our Partners rebound as quickly and as strongly as possible as soon as things reopen. And we're crafting products to do that. You know, we do more than just Instagram posts. We have our website, bucket listers.com and email newsletters that go out in each of our cities. And so we're really just trying to be there for our partners and say, hey, as soon as we have an ETA on you reopening, you can't reopen quietly. You know, you really need the extra support and the Bucket Listers platform of millions of followers behind that. And we'll make everyone really excited about getting back to normal, getting back to our partners, businesses.

Yeah. First off, I want to say also congrats on raising $100,000 in seven days with that. If people are listening right now, I know we touched on it, but I'd love for you to expand more on when you guys decided to launch that campaign and how you guys plan on continuing to not only raise money, but to contribute during this crisis.

Yeah. So, you know, it's really all hands on deck. You know, my entire team is incredible. And they've really found purpose in this new initiative that we're doing so all day, every day, just like we would pitch partners on working with Bucket Listers, we're using that same infrastructure to DM every influencer celebrity, press everyone we know, and tell them about our efforts. And because it's very clear that the more eyeballs that see our initiative, the more funds that we can raise and ultimately the more heroes that we can feed. So we are running this not for profit initiative just like we would our business with a lot of, you know, we have a CRM and we have hundreds of DMs going out each day to different influencers and celebrities. We want to get involved. The reception has been insane. It's been amazing. We have people like Laverne Cox, who joined me on a Instagram liveathon yesterday. She's been a tremendous supporter of the cause. We're just trying to accept everyone into our initiatives so that we can ultimately feed more heroes. And my team is just working around the clock to do that. Emailing everyone we know, getting the word out, also posting content. It's weird to think about us crafting an Instagram caption and equating it to equating likes to funds raised, but that's kind of what it is. So the more heartwarming of stories that we can tell about the doctors and the nurses at the COVID hospitals and say, these are the heroes we're feeding, the more we can connect with people on that emotional level, the more successful our campaign will be. And again, the more heroes we can feed.

I'm curious, you know, if people are out there that, you know, maybe they have an audience or there's a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show, how can a company pivot to, you know, utilize their audience or their reach to then provide value to a cause like this? What was the strategy and what do you recommend for other business owners when it comes to if they want to, you know, do their part to be a part of the community?

Yeah.

Well, first off, I've been so inspired and moved by other entrepreneurs out there who are doing much more incredible work than I and my team. And so I just found inspiration. A lot of the things like Jose Andre is doing, there's just so much kindness and amazing work that's being done, and it just reminds us that people are inherently so good. But any entrepreneurs or influencers that are watching this Bucket listers, would personally love to have you involved in our campaign. We've had Kevin Bacon and Juliana Rancic and so many different celebrities sharing our content, spreading the word about what we're doing. But if I can help anyone start their own special cause at this time, I would love to personally contribute, but they could start their own GoFundMe with the same concept. We would love to see more people doing this, even if it's just one meal to a hospital. I think I'm seeing restaurants. A lot of our restaurants partners step up in really big ways. It's been really special setting up employee relief funds and giving you the option to sponsor a meal for a healthcare worker. When you check out on grubhub, my friends in Chicago at Happy Camper, Josh Iachelli is one of the owners. He's been doing some incredible work raising funds for his employees. You can actually go on GrubHub in Chicago and send a Smirnoff ice to your friend in a concealed pizza box so you can ice your friends from home. And all the proceeds go to his employees. So just the creative things I'm seeing some people do for good in this time is just so inspiring. And, you know, anything I could do to support other people's causes, you can always reach out to bucket listers. And we're here to spread the word on those types of things.

I love that, man. I wanted to take a step back, too. I know that a while back I was. I saw that you guys did some sort of partnership with Facebook Watch. Is that Correct. Yeah, it was great. Can you touch on that? Because I know we can. I want to. Like, we just spoke about coronavirus and COVID 19, but I believe just the brand you've built with Bucket Listers and everything you guys have built up to this point is just not only inspiring, but it shows what's possible with the right team and the right content. And you guys have done such a great job at that. So I'd love for you to touch on the Facebook Watch partnership there and how that went.

Yeah, well, I appreciate the kind words. That was just such an incredible partnership. We got to work directly with Facebook. Facebook was launching Will Smith's Bucket List and we had a direct line to them having done previous things, and they thought we were a perfect partner to actually pay to promote content on their own platform. Which is funny because we were promoting it as a media partner and saying, hey, swipe up to go watch Will Smith's new Bucket List episode on Facebook. They could have just taken that spot on the feed they wanted. It's very funny. But it was so great to work with them. And obviously we've built our business off the backbone of the Facebook Instagram infrastructure. So it's so cool to see all these social first media companies, not just my own, really, just create something from social media and then turn it into a media company that competes with the likes of the traditional guys. It's just an amazing opportunity right now in the digital space for small people, you know, what individuals, just to start full blown media companies. I think anyone can do it. And if I can help in any way, you know, feel free to reach out.

I love that, man. Where did the passion for these, you know, like, I feel like everyone growing up, let's say they hear like, what's your bucket list? What cities you want to go to or, you know, top, top places you want to travel to. Where did this passion for travel, this whole bucket list concept come from, like, at an early age?

Yeah. So I actually came up with the initial idea in college. I just found the most rewarding times in my life when I was encouraging friends to run marathons or go skydiving or book a spontaneous trip. There's no better feeling than when you do that with a friend. And I thought, how can I just make my life's work around doing that for people I don't know and just spreading that type of positivity and inspiration to explore and book adventures and things like that. And so while I have been a lifelong entrepreneur, it was more of a passion without A real clear business model for quite a while. And then when Instagram came around, I said, you know, let's create the account. This is a, this is still a passion. And then brand started reaching out and I said, and, you know, that's when I really realized that we had something we could promote a restaurant or an event and it would sell out or, you know, it would drive tons of business. So it's ROI positive for our partners and it's just a win win for everyone. So as we got more traction, built a team and expanded to now 22 cities. And so, you know, we're definitely, we were having a lot more fun before Corona, but now we're, we're finding purpose in the other things we're doing. And we're just so excited to get through this together with everyone and bounce back and have the same amount of fun and exploration and adventure that we were on target to do before this.

Are you guys doing anything on TikTok right now?

Yeah. So I would say about a month before Corona, we started experimenting with TikTok. So we launched our New York Bucket List channel. Within a few weeks, we grew 200,000 followers. So we were really onto something. We just found a lot of success in similar content to what we post on Instagram, but beautiful rooftops, hidden doors that open up into speakeasies. Those types of content just worked so well on TikTok. And so we were riding a wave before this, and now we're not doing too much. I mean, we're really focused on the Meals for Heroes, but excited to return to it. I'm sure you interview a lot of people who are just blowing up on TikTok and doing creative. It's a fun time.

I'm sure that's crazy. You talk about the trap doors. Because I was in Hong Kong like eight months ago and I'm literally going to post a TikTok after this interview. You give me an idea where we went to this speakeasy where it's like you grab the, the soda inside the fridge and it opens the door to this secret tunnel. Those are so epic.

It's, it's so perfect for TikTok.

I mean, now that you think about that, very cool. What do you, what's your thoughts on like, the future of social and with brands and influencers? Because obviously, like, I look at TikTok, I've been working closely with their whole team for like eight months where it's like, there's such an organic reach and platform over there where it's, you know, Instagram, it's pulling it back. It's harder to grow where you can have a viral TikTok and grow 100,000 followers. Right.

So.

So what's your thoughts as someone that understands brand, you understand social. What's your thoughts on the future or the current situation of that?

Yeah, I mean, I think as a media company, and I would consider, like, you a media company or even individuals, you just gotta test them all. Wherever you're having the most luck is where you have to shift your focus. So that's always been our philosophy and always will be. So the fact that something is overtaking Instagram never scares us. We view that as an opportunity, but, you know, you gotta test on all of them and then, like I said, just be an opportunist. When we were growing 200,000 followers in a few weeks on TikTok, we shifted our whole content team to really focus on that, given the stagnant growth on Instagram and the fewer opportunities. So, you know, I love TikTok. I think it's fun to get lost on there for hours, and we're still figuring out and experimenting, but it's all about just an allocation of your time and priorities across the platforms. And like I said, if you're having success in one, you strike wily irons hot and you got to ride that wave.

Yeah, love that, man. With just. I want to pivot back to the GoFundMe because I have a couple more questions before we wrap up just with the GoFundMe. And when you guys raise this money, walk me through the process. I know you touched on it earlier, but you said every $1,000 raised pays for X amount of meals. Can you kind of break that down? Because I want to make sure people listening take the time to go check out what you guys have going on, because it's a very not only important thing you're doing, but it's impactful, which I want the people to go check out.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's roughly 100 heroes per order. So we've gotten several hundred emails from hospitals requesting a meal, saying how much they appreciate our community stepping up and doing this. And if they say there's about 50 or 60 doctors or nurses, we'll say, all right, we'll send you 100. Make sure you clean or make sure you feed the cleaning staff and everyone there. So that's typically around $1,000. We always tip the delivery driver 100 bucks because those are essential workers that deserve, you know, all of our support as well. So if, you know We've also sent up to 250 meals. So it's just kind of a baseline that we try to feed 100 heroes, spend $1,000 full price at a local restaurant. Who needs it? Because, I mean, that's such a sad part of this reality as well is, you know, there's some statistics that say that 30% of restaurants may face permanent closures after this. So imagine reopening the world and all of your favorite spots are gone. I mean, it's just. It's just really sad. There's so many people out of work. So we're trying to support as many restaurants as possible and obviously feed as many heroes as possible. So in la, we've actually raised more funds than we have found hospitals. So if anyone is watching this, they can email sendamealucketlisters.com with a request for a meal for you and your team and we would be happy to get those to you. We actually teamed up with our friends at Overheard and so they're our partner on our LA fundraiser and the team there is just amazing. They've really helped us surpass our expectations and donations.

Very cool. What would be your advice to. You know, I think there's a lot of, especially young people where they tapped into social media. They're trying to build a media company or, you know, put out content for a specific niche. What's your advice for growth nowadays if people are looking to capitalize on social just to build a brand overall?

Yeah, I think it's just, you know, consistent, quality content on all of the platforms. I mean, I think LinkedIn is so underused. I mean, there's not much to compete with there. So whenever we have special updates, I think it's just important to recognize, you know, take the same piece of content, make sure you put it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. I see. I saw that you're crushing on Snapchat, but I haven't used it in a while. Is that still going well for you?

Oh, yes. It's funny because I got Verified on Snapchat recently. That was like the huge catalyst that brought so much organic traffic that my buddy JP helped hook it up. And it was one of those things that I didn't use Snapchat before that. Really too much besides personal use and that positioning of Verified and what it does on the platform, it just brought so much organic views. So, yeah, I've definitely been just testing there and tapping into that for sure.

Exactly. So, I mean, you just gotta just post consistently on all of the Platforms and whichever one's working, go all in, you know. And I think obviously the easiest platform to do that right now is TikTok. I think you should just be testing so much content on there at all times. I mean I know very few people ironically that are testing consistently on TikTok who aren't having these pops.

Yeah.

So it really is a really exciting time to get on TikTok. I don't care who you are, I don't care if you even are a content creator. Just start testing stuff on TikTok and have some fun with it. And that's kind of where it's at right now.

It's so interesting. There's this product called Popple, I don't know if you've heard of it. So they, it's so funny. So they put out, it was like their fourth TikTok video. I follow them and I know the people that started it. They got 70 million views on their four TikTok and they were like a brand new company that started this. It's something where you attach it to a phone and it pops up your social media link or your contact card sort of vibe. But they had thousands of orders just from a simple TikTok that took 12 seconds to film and just showcasing the product and how it worked. And it was a very just early stage company that was just getting their products developed that sold out instantly through that. So it's fascinating to see the power of that.

So cool. And my buddy Michael Koenigs who works at abc, he bought this suitcase that roll it like it comes a scooter wheels out of it. There's somehow like a hidden scooter. He wrote it around the airport. He travels a lot for covering things on ABC and his TikTok videos, I think they got like 15 million views. And it's like he obviously should be getting paid by that, by that company. But it's a great time for products to your point. Especially if it's got that virality to it to start posting content on TikTok for sure.

Very cool, man. Well Andy, before we wrap up, I just wanna, I wanna allow you to tell the people where can they best find out more about bucket listers and stay up to date with everything you have going on with the GoFundMe and the raising money. Because I wanna make sure that my community taps into that so that, that everyone can do their part to be a value during this crisis.

I really appreciate that and I appreciate the platform. We're just trying to spread the word as much as possible. Like we've said, you can go to Bucket Listers on Instagram and our link in bio will actually have a directory of all six GoFundMe pages. So we're in New York, Chicago, Louisiana, San Francisco, Houston and Philadelphia. We're raising funds in all of those cities to support the local restaurants there, place large orders and send meals to the healthcare heroes who have appreciated the small gesture more than we expected. You know, they just, you know, go outside and clap at 7pm if that's a thing that's happening in your city, you know, now's the time to lead with kindness. And it's just been amazing to see people step up. And if you want to get involved with our fundraising efforts, you can reach out to sendemealucketlisters.com that same email is where you can request a meal if you're one of the heroes on the front lines. And we look forward to feeding as many as possible.

Love it. Well, everyone listening, make sure you go follow Bucket Listers on Instagram. Check out the GoFundMe in their link in bio. And that being said, Andy, thank you so much for coming on ac.

You're the man. I really appreciate it. It's great meeting you. Foreign.

Legacy of Monsters An Apple Original Series the world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me. The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise. Monarch Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

Plus.