Episode 078: Dee Murthy - Menlo Club, Five Four, Young & Reckless, and Living in LA

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What'S going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome to the Rise of the Young podcast today, episode 78. We have my good friend D. Murphy with us here today and I really appreciate you coming on, man.

Cool, man, I'm glad to. Well, you're in my office, so I'm just. I'm glad you came here.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, man. So for everyone listening, we're in LA right now, me and Dee, we met where it was in Washington, D.C. was that the first time?

No, you were in the office once. Young and reckless office. You did Dramas Pod and then we came out to dc Drama I for March for Our Lives. And you guys kind of hung out with us in the evening that night, which is fun.

That was fun.

Yeah.

So for everyone listening, I'll give you a little rundown on Dee. So when it comes to fashion and this whole industry of clothing, he's just been someone that I look to as a dominant pioneer of this whole social media space. Influencer marketing, just combining both channels. But for everyone listening that may not kind of know what you've been up to, who you are, just kind of give them this little one minute rundown just to kind of catch them up to speed before we go into the story.

Cool. So for the last 16 years, I've been operating my first brand called Five Four, which is a men's contemporary brand. And that had then that six years ago morphed into the largest men's subscription service called Menlo Club. And under Menlo Club, we have a bunch of brands, New Republic, Grand Athletic Club and Oscenta. And then subs parallel to that, 10 years ago, nearly 10 years ago, started a brand called Young and Reckless. And then also on the side we have a venture investment arm called Queensbridge Partners that we've been doing for the last six years.

Cool. So I would say before all the fashion and has that always been a passion of yours leading up to starting the businesses or how did that transition happen? When it comes to being passionate about clothes and saying, all right, let me actually start a business around this.

So I definitely was not passionate about clothes. I didn't really have money growing up to buy nice clothes. I was into stuff, but we just didn't, never got into it. And then when I got to college we had to a business plan. So this business was started in college and the business plan could be anything you wanted, but you have to work on it for a full year. And we were at that point coming into a recession, coming off of a recession. So we knew we weren't going to get jobs. So I was like, what's an easy industry? Clothing seems easy. There's a lot of dummies in clothing. So we end up launching a clothing business, writing a business plan in college about it. And because it looked like it was fun and it looked like it was going to be easy and that's really the, the, the kickoff point of how we got into it wasn't truly about passion. My business partner was very much into clothes, but I just, was just interested in the idea of starting something creative.

Yeah, super cool, man. So for everyone listening, where exactly were you from growing up? What was like your hometown that you kind of consider home?

So I grew up in the suburbs of la in the valley. It's called Granada Hills. So it's about from here like 10, 15 miles from the middle of city. But it felt like Arkansas, you know, just because of where you were. We were so shielded from the rest of the city. I lived in la, but I didn't know what LA was going on. And so when I got to college, I went to USC in downtown la. That was like a huge culture shock.

Yeah.

Because I had never seen all that stuff before. Nice cars and people dressed up, people really well traveled and cultured.

Yeah.

And I was like, holy. This is not, this is a complete shock to the way I'm used to living.

So growing up, like did you come to the city at all or what was like your sort of day to day life when it comes to you being in high school, middle school? Like what was that?

I was just like a nerdy suburban kid. I studied and I played sports. Like I didn't, I didn't really have any like weird interest. I literally just wanted to play sports all day.

What was sports?

Basketball, tennis, baseball. I mean Literally seven days a week, dropped off at the park and then got picked up and then study. That was it. It was a pretty like very normal. It's crazy that what my life is today, because my childhood was extremely normal.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Like growing up, it's curious. I'm curious though, when it comes to you having all these business now, doing all these things, when it comes to being an entrepreneur, would you say you got that sort of ambition from your parents or mentors or how did that. I would say influence to have businesses and like kind of be your own boss. How did that come into your life? Was it.

Yeah, so it was super interesting. So in, like when I was in 10th grade, I got into the stock market.

Okay.

So I started following all these companies. And this is 1996.

Yeah.

This is like pre Internet.

Yeah.

And I start looking at all these companies. I look at Apple, I look at IBM, and then all of a sudden there's a company goes public and I'm enamored by it, and it was called ebay. And I was like, damn, this company just went public and it's worth billions of dollars. And I'm like, what is it? What is ebay? What is Prodigy? What is aol? What are all these things? What is the Internet? And so I get so enamored with the idea of, like, these are young guys, like Mark. I saw Mark Cuban start his company and sell it. I watched it happen live on tv. It was an incredible thing. So I started this. I saw this huge boom happening on the first Internet. And I saw these very young, smart people become successful and they started their own business. And that was the first inkling. I was like, oh, anyone can do this. Like, I always assumed you have to be old to make money. And then that Internet explosion opened the doors for young people. I think it opened up in all industries all of a sudden. Oh, you can be a young person. Like these two guys who are just indexing their favorite website started Yahoo and were millionaires the next day, you know, a year later. So things like that, I was witnessing happening on the Internet and on cnbc, and I was like, wow, I got it. You have to start your own business. This is the future.

Yeah.

Of how people are going to create wealth.

So you kind of seeing all this stuff happen, you said, what, 1996. That was.

Yeah.

So when it comes to that transition of you kind of seeing it, but then actually trying to, like, be a player in the space, maybe starting your own company, what was the transition to actually take the Next step to start something.

So. And I started college in 1998. I was 18 years old. I'm. I'm probably your oldest guest. 37. I started writing a business plan for a website called schoolgossip.com. it was like, it was a high school college, community online. I wrote the business plan, I pitched it to a friend of mine. He came on board, we pitched it to a bunch of people we knew. We raised $250,000 in like a month. Because it was such euphoria to get in on the Internet explosion, we launched a business. I end up hiring. I have a small staff my freshman year of college. And the site at that time had got to 100,000 members, which was nuts for that era of Internet because there wasn't that many people on the Internet at that point. So we were like a serious player in that world. And a lot of those people are my friends now. But we started, I started hiring people. I didn't know what to do, but I just did it. And I think that's what got me into it. And we ultimately failed and I walked away from the business business, but it was just like, oh, anyone can start a business. Anyone can do anything. And I was 18 years old at the time, and the concept of an 18 year old entrepreneur was so novice at that, that era that I was able to get into any room, like, and this is a crazy, this is how crazy the times were. You could go to any website, I'm talking the biggest companies in the world, and the CEO would put their email address.

Yeah.

So you literally, you'd be like, oh, I want to talk to Bill Gates. And his CEO email address would be on the site because no one was emailing each other. So I would just go and just email all these CEOs and people respond to me and they go, I'm gonna be in San Francisco. Can I meet you? He's like, sure, come in my office. And then I come in, I'm like, they're like, what are you, 12? Like, you know, but it got me in the room and that's, that's when I realized that this is the life I want to live.

Yeah. So you said you were 18 and that was school gossip. What was it called?

School gossip.

School gossip time. So that was, you would say, like pre college, you said, going into freshman year.

That was freshman year of college.

So when you say freshman year, you start this thing kind of fails you kind of doing this thing. Was it two business partners, one business.

Partner, two business partners in that business.

I want to talk about that. So when it comes to business partners, obviously any organization it having success is due to the people. What would you say is like the key to finding the right business partners or trusting them or kind of knowing where to go with the certain people you're working with?

I think the first thing that people miss on business partners is you have to be willing and comfortable with spending a lot of time with each other. It's not even as important as are they the right business fit. Like can I spend the rest of my life with you? Because that's what it is. It's you're getting married, it's, it's crazier than marriage. Whoever you go to business with is someone you're going to spend the absolute most amount of time with. So I think when, when I was starting businesses, I wanted to start with people that I could spend a lot of time with and be comfortable with because once you spend that time, that trust starts building and then hopefully partners find their place in an organization because someone has to take the backseat in certain instances. And so it's hard to find people that you can trust to do that because it's not an easy, easy way to operate.

Yeah, it's cool because I think definitely for like I have a lot of young listeners and a lot of the people today where it's like you're saying hiring back in, when you were a freshman in college, now you can go on any website, hire virtual assistants, test with certain people.

Yeah.

So when it comes to the transition of like how you see this Internet thing happen and obviously for everyone listening it's like this whole Internet thing is the wave that I was like born into. Really see that before we were kind of like right in the right beforehand. So for all the young people like listening right now, what's something that you think in this current element is something that you're looking at as like the next wave? Is it social media still or what's your I would say forward looking statement when it comes to is there a different tech side of things or is there a different cryptocurrency? What are some things that you're looking at as something as like the new thing that could be like a big dominant force in the industry.

So I definitely think we're still very early in the social media side of things. So when, when amongst your peers everybody's on and everyone's active. Amongst my peers that's not the case. Most of, most of my friends are very private, do not share any information and that will eventually start changing because I truly think your social media will be your resume in the future. So whatever you, however you portray yourself and will be, how you'll be treated in society and the opportunities you create for yourself. So I think we're still in the early stages of that and I think because of that it's going to change the education system in this country. Because I went to college, I graduated college, I got straight A's my freshman year of college and then I thought it was a waste of time and so I didn't study anymore and I focused on my business. And I think in school today you're not learning any of the skill sets that are required to be successful in today's job market.

I can agree with that. Man. I just graduated high school.

Exactly. Like, you know, if you're a creative person, they don't teach you how to shoot video, edit video, edit pictures. You know, those are the skill sets you're going to need if you want to be a creative person. So I think there's this huge, huge revolution that's going to happen that we're still in the early stages of where the educational system is going to become obsolete if it does not change the way it educates the, the youth because otherwise they're not getting skill sets that are going to help them earn. At the end of the day, it's about earning a living.

Yeah.

And having a good quality of life. And the schools aren't providing that even at college at a top level, unless you're going for a medical degree, a law degree or an engineering degree. I went for business. There's nothing I learned at college that I'm applying. Except there's one thing that college provides you is social skills. You know, it teaches you how to be in an environment and interact with all types of people, even people you don't like. Because if you don't, if you're not put in that position, you never learn that skill. You could force yourself to do it, but most people don't. But I think the real opportunity for the, the younger folks is to be open minded. Because one of the things I think older people struggle with is just a function of your age. You, you become more narrow minded as the older you get. And that's why you see like the chairman of JP Morgan bashing crypto. Because he doesn't understand it. It's not that he doesn't, he's not allergic to making money. He doesn't understand it. So what's the easiest thing to do when you don't understand something is bash it. And I've learned like, you know, it was a joke when seven months ago I was like, I'm going to be a social media influencer. But I see the power in it now and I'm, I kick myself in the, in the head every day that I didn't start this journey, like five years. And I think young people get to grow up on it and showcase. What's the first thing when someone applies for a job? I've hired thousands of people on their Instagram.

I heard you talk about that when you were doing like the live thing on stage. I was in that podcast the other day. And you're like, I check out your social media like before your resume or right after you get hired or something.

Yeah, I might interview. I'm interviewing someone today at 2:30 for a digital product position. You're in digital product. That means you must have a good eye, you must have good taste. I'm gonna go straight to your Instagram and see what it looks like. Because if it looks like shit, then you're probably not meant to be in a creative position. You know, like, designers need to have a curated, well, vibe to your, you know, that's, that's your story. That's, that's what you represent. Yeah, exactly. And so your resume at the end of the day is a piece of paper that says this is where I was during these times in my life. Doesn't necessarily mean your experience or what skills you've actually learned. And I think there's such this. It's an amazing time to be a young person because you ultimately dictate your destiny before the system dictated your destiny. So it's, it's awesome as long as you put the work in. And there's no, like, you're 18, there's no doors that are close to you. When 30 years ago, if you're 18, you're like, hey, you're 18, get out of my office. You know, so things have changed.

So for you growing up, when you say you're looking at college and looking back, it's like you really apply things you learn there. Besides social, in a sense, when you were kind of going there, what was your intent with going to college? Obviously going for the business degree, but you growing up and you saying the modern education system, obviously things were different back then. So was that always a must for you? Was college like.

Yeah, there was no choice. There was no choice. It was like, if I didn't go to college then I have to earn a living and get kicked out of my house. Right. So I wanted, I went to usc, very expensive private school that my parents paid for. So they paid for my dorm, they paid for my education. So at the end of the day it was also a bit of a vacation. For four years I went to football games and got drunk. Like that's what you do in college. So I met, I met lifelong friends. I built an incredible network. The social skills I developed in college are, I can't, I could wouldn't have gotten them anywhere else. So I appreciate that. But from an educational standpoint, like I was taking oceanography, what, why is that useful to me? Why do I care? The topography of an ocean. There's no impact on my life. And it's nice to know these things, but it doesn't have help me make a living in the world. And I think when you spend Today college cost $200,000, you want to go to private school for four years, you have to get skills that earn you the highest income. Not. Oh, I had a wonderful time exploring my inner self in art history. No, I'm sorry, at $200,000 I can't explore my inner self. You just can't. It's a bad investment. And I think that's where I think there's such an opportunity for young people. Go and build your experience, your educational experience. But the challenge is, is you're motivated, you're, you're aggressive. At 18, you're out there meeting and you're trying to figure out how you want to build your, build your empire. But other most 18 year old kids aren't there. They're sitting at home watching, you know, a squirrel go in circles, you know. Yeah, YouTube. Right. So it's like the college gives you that extra push. So I agree that there's a, there's a place for it. I just don't think it's a place for everybody.

Okay, totally. So in regards to social media. Right. And I want to talk kind of how the transition of retail, E commerce, that's something you guys talked about and that's super interesting to me to kind of see that transition.

Yeah.

So how is that sort of played a toll in like when you first started to now and how did you really adjust And I would say adapt to the environment of retail, to E commerce.

So I think the biggest lesson we learned is you can't have an ego when you're an entrepreneur because things change quickly. So when we started, the way you got into stores was you went to trade shows, you sat at a trade show. Booth, you like dance around like a clown and a buyer would come by, look at your clothes. If they liked it, they place an order. Look at that. You would then ship six to nine months from that date. Then all of a sudden the Internet comes and people are just buying stuff online directly from brands. So we were, we had two challenges. One was the worst retail recession since the depression in 2008. So that's, that was the we, our business finally took off in 2007 and then six months later the world fell apart. So when that happens, you're like, how do I adapt? And so what we saw was such a devastating thing at retail that we realized it was never going to come back. In previous recessions, everything came back. This recession, it didn't come back, it changed. And the Internet was the reason why because it now gave specifically our customer, which are guys, an excuse not to go shopping anymore. So we had opened up retail stores. We were in three of the best malls in Southern California in 2009-2012. And there was, there were never, there was no guys in the mall. Yeah, they discovered the Internet or they discovered, you know, guilt group or they discovered all these different ways to get clothes and they stopped shopping. And if you didn't kind of communicate them, communicate with them through those routes, you couldn't get ahold of them. And then the bigger challenge became getting a hold of our audience completely changed. So my core audience is 25 to 35 year old guys. In the past, where was a 25 to 35 year old guy? They were at ESPN, they watched these television shows, they read Maxim magazine, GQ. They don't do any of those things anymore. They don't watch sports, they don't read magazines. It's impossible to get a hold of them. And that's really what changed our business. We were like, we got to talk to them directly. We have to come up with a model that resonates with them. So we started in wholesale, then we went to retail and then we launched a website and then finally we launched subscription. That really took our business to the next level.

Okay, so with subscription, what sort of. Because that's interesting to me. And something that is building a subscription base, obviously that's the best passive income with a company. So when it comes to the subscription model of the companies that you work for, how do you set that up from the beginning when it comes to the value add, is it the packaging? And I would say to keep it simple, just what was the transition from just the e commerce store to saying alright, let's actually make this subscription based. So then people get this once a month or however it is. Yeah.

The simple answer to that question is guys did not enjoy the shopping experience. So we wanted to come up with something that solves that problem. So we came up with an idea where all you had to do was fill out nine questions, put your credit card, and you never have to shop again. We curated your package every month. You didn't have to worry about size, you didn't have to worry about style. We did all the work for you and we were at a price that was affordable to all guys.

Yeah. And that's from Menlo Club. Greg, for listening.

Yeah, that's Menlo Club whole. And then you know, in that in those 12 months, you get shoes, you get activewear. So if you're a, if you're a working professional guy, you never have to shop.

Yeah.

And if you want more clothes, you have that option too. But the simple way is that guys did not enjoy the experience. They didn't know what they want. They wanted cool product and they were sensitive to price. Like you can't charge. Not everyone can afford supreme or Gucci or whatever. You know, that's a very small audience of people.

Totally. So with it's once a month. Correct. For everyone listening. And Menlo Club worst. Like if they want to learn more.

About that, is it menloclub.com menlo club.com and then we have if you want to use like this super big discount if you use my name. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, it's cool because I know that Sonny, he sent me some stuff, the box and I was like, when I got it, I was like, damn. Like, this is clean. Like if it coming to me once a month, that's like, yeah, that's the way I'm sort of transitioning now. You know, even going to a mall, it's like you just don't want to be there. You know, it's like rather show up at your doorstep, you know?

Exactly. Because the way I looked at it, the way we're really messaging is, it is. If you're in our demo, there are so many better things you could be doing with your time.

Yeah, right.

Like starting your business, traveling the world. All things that I enjoy. That I did.

Yeah.

I would want my customer to enjoy those things too. Are you going to seriously waste three hours looking for clothes? Now that I think about it, it's such a waste of time. There's so many things you could be doing better. And if you were also, we've been around 16 years. We know. We know what you need in your closet. So it's not like we just woke up today and decided to make clothes.

Yeah. So I want to talk about, in regards to the different companies you have, obviously you and John are business partners. That's how we kind of met in this whole social media world. How did that sort of come to fruition? Young and reckless getting involved with that. And just the entire experience of partnering with Drama, in a sense.

Yeah. So when over 10 years ago, his manager at the time introduced me to Drama and said, hey, Drama wants to collect $400 a month from a brand to wear it on Robin Big and Fantasy Factory. And I said, no. I'm like, I've never heard of Robin Big. I've never heard of Fantasy Factory. I've never heard of Drama. Pass. So we. A year goes by, and they're like, hey, he really wants to launch a brand. I'm like, who? The guy that wanted the $400. And so finally I ended up meeting him, and I was like, damn, this kid's really smart. And he was, I think 20 or 21 at the time. I was like, he's really sharp. And they had this platform, and so they were telling me that at the time, it was the highest rated show for men on MTV and one of the top rated shows on cable for men. So finally, I get sick one day, and I end up watching the first season of Fantasy Factory. And I was like, oh, my God, this is 10 episodes of commercials. Yeah, it's just Rob pushing every one of his businesses. So I go back to Drama, and I'm like, hey, let's give this thing a shot. So they film an episode. They give me the episode six minutes before it airs. I go walk it into every big retailer I knew, which is pretty much all of them. I show them the episode. Every single retailer ordered it. So we were able to do millions of dollars on day one, which is, like, unheard of. Yes. Literally, day one, millions of dollars. Extremely profitable because there was zero marketing costs. And we shipped it. It was August of 2009, and day one brand just exploded.

That's insane.

And then at that point, the show was so hot, we didn't have to do anything. We literally just made clothes. I literally was like, hey, Drama, wear this on this episode. I called a retailer on episode four in October. He's wearing this. Do you want to buy this? Cool. They'd buy a hundred thousand units. And it was just. And because it was also. It was the end of Big retail. So like them. So Pacsun today has like 300 some odd stores that 1200 then.

Yeah. That's insane.

Every retailer I sold had a thousand stores. So we were in 10,000 stores selling T shirts and hoodies and they were selling a full price. And people, it was, it was bananas.

Yeah.

So that was the start of that brand. And then obviously it has evolved tremendously from that. But that was the catalyst that started the whole thing.

It started 2009, you said.

Yeah.

So with that, when it comes to you and drama sort of partnering, was it sort of like he knew that you had the connections of the retail space and that's sort of how it kind of came to fruition.

Yeah, exactly. So he was looking, it worked out. So he was looking for someone that had the relationships in with the big retailers and he was looking for a big partner. He went to dc, he went to Volcom, he went to those guys and they were like, no. Why? Because they're stubborn and they, they, they didn't understand it. We even offered MTV a piece of the business. They passed. They're like, you guys aren't going to do any real business. And I was in a position where my business was at that time in the toilet. So I was like, I need a Hail Mary.

Yeah.

And I'm like, all right, let's give this thing a shot.

Yeah.

And it just exploded.

So sick. So how involved are you with young and reckless today?

I'm still very involved, so been a big part of hiring the whole team, training them, very involved in more strategic stuff. So product direction, marketing ideas, things of that. All the retailers we still work with are very close to me, so I still spend a lot of time with them just understanding trends and stuff. But we have an incredible team now that can kind of handle day to day stuff. I'm a lot more high level now. Before 18 months ago, two years ago, I literally approved every single style, every single order, every single thing we made. Now I have a great team. I don't have to do that.

Okay, I'm curious. So when it comes to all these different things that you're a part of, what's sort of your daily routine of going to this office, going to this place, handling certain objectives, like what's your day to day activity? And I would say just plan when you get up in the morning.

So I'm also married with a young baby, so my schedule is insane. So I wake up at six in the morning. I work pretty much on my phone from 6 to 7. Baby wakes up I then at 8:30 in the morning, head to work. And that really, in the first hour, is really spending time with my coo, an investor who we just catch up on all kind of operational stuff and then the kind of the day starts. So I really try to spend my time. So if I look pulled up my calendar, there's a meeting every 30 minutes somewhere in the company that I'm supposed to be at. I'm not able to attend all those meetings. So I prioritize what is kind of needed at that moment. It's not possible for me to be at every single meeting and every single thing. On top of that, I'm doing things like podcasts and creating content and stuff like that. So it's increasing. It's really important. I'm as efficient as possible.

Yeah.

And we don't waste too much time doing things that I don't deem as a priority. So the priorities change, though, weekly. So if it's like, oh, we have too much inventory in something, then I spend my time figuring out how to monetize it. If it's, hey, we don't have enough ads for something, then I'll spend my time on that. So it all depends on what's pressing at that moment. The priorities are constantly changing.

Cool. So with digital advertising, Facebook ads, is that a primary focus for you guys and all the businesses you have when it comes to an advertising standpoint?

So in 2013 is when we started doing Facebook ads, they were very, very cheap. And we. Our business exploded because the cost of acquiring a customer was very, very low. Today, that has changed. And I was just explaining this to someone the other day. In February of 2017, we were spending. That was the last big month of our spend. We were spending over $1 million a month on Facebook. Last month, we spent 50 grand.

Oh, wow. Big change.

Yeah, big drop.

Yeah.

That's a 95% decrease in spend. So we're not ones to keep spending if the results aren't there. So the results haven't been there in the last year primarily because of competition. Everyone else has caught up on the way we advertised. So we have to adopt and we have to change. But Facebook was the driver of how we got here. But it's not gonna be the reason why we get somewhere in the future. It's just, unfortunately, it's saturated. There probably needs to be new ad products. We'll have to see how they. How they evolve Instagram, how they involve WhatsApp. Like, those are places, those like the next frontier of ads that we, we Definitely need to figure out before we can kind of scale, but Facebook for us is kind of dead.

Okay, that's interesting.

Yeah.

So I want to talk about. You said. Talking about your schedule. You're saying content podcasts like this. That's like. You fit that in between when you need to.

Yeah.

So with you. I know we talked about this before we started it. It's like this whole social media wave. What would you say you're doing to kind of build your brand? And when did that transition happen? Because obviously, it's like, you aren't. You weren't invested into the social when it first popped off in a sense that you were talking about. Yeah. So when was the transition of, like, all right, let me start putting out content, doing the vlogs, and doing everything that revolves around this whole niche now.

Yeah. So when I. When. When we realized Facebook was kind of over, I started experimenting with a ton of different things. So we were doing television ads, we were doing podcast ads, doing YouTube influencers. We were doing everything. The problem was nothing scales. So at the size of business we are, we need stuff that can really move the needle. Like, you know, we need stuff that can take us to several hundred million dollars in business, and there wasn't anything out there. So then I start thinking, okay, can we go get bigger sponsorships, bigger celebrity? And we did. We did, we did. We did a deal with Chris Paul. We did a deal with some other big folks, but at the end of the day, this isn't their business. This isn't their primary focus. They can only do so much. Our partnership with Chris Paul is unbelievable. He did everything we asked of him to do, but it's still not enough. What we need to move our. Like, we're trying to compete with J. Crew and Gap. So in order to play that game, how do I reach more people? And. And drama came to me. This was about eight months ago. And he's like, you know, you can't be behind the, you know, wizard of Oz style anymore. Like, nobody. Yeah, it doesn't work anymore. You need to. Customers want to know who's behind these business. They want transparency. And he's like, you've never showed your face. You never did any of this. Stu off.

Eight months ago.

Eight months ago. He's like, you need to. You need to get out there. And I was like, damn, he's right. Because I started thinking about newer businesses. Like, everyone knew who the CEO of Uber was, or Glossier or Warby Parker or whatever. Casper, name a thousand brands. And I was like, Nobody knows who started Menlo Club. No one knows Drama's partner in Young and Reckless. They don't know that stuff. So that's when I realized I was like, crap, I should have been doing this. So I said, let's give it a shot. And bear in mind, eight months ago, I did not know what I was doing. I just said, I'm gonna try everything. And so started vlogging, started podcasting, started focusing time on Instagram, creating content, hired a videographer. All those things started happening in the last, like, really the last four months. Because what I started realizing, the little content I was putting out, people were connecting with it, and I'm sure you know it. Like, people just connect, and they know your life, they know your story, and they're excited about it, and they want to see your progression. And I was like, damn, this is really, really working. The real. The real touching, the tipping point for me, where I was like, I got to go all in, was in April. I was at Coachella. I was outside the Revolve party. It was three in the morning. This phone was not working. I could not get an Uber, and we were about two miles. Two, three miles from our place. But phone wasn't working, so the map wasn't telling me exactly. My brother and I are standing out there, and I'm like, oh, man, this is rough. Some. An Uber drives by, and he goes, hey, are you d. I'm like, yeah. And so I thought it was a friend. Turns, pulls over, and he goes, you need a ride? I'm like, yeah. Should I call the app? He's like, I got you. And I hop in. And I'm like, yeah, this is our address. He's like, cool. And I'm like. And I didn't say anything. I was just like, this is weird. And I needed a ride. And he goes, oh, I follow your vlog. I love it. You're trying to be a dj, huh? I used to be a dj and then hits it off, and he drops me off the next day. Like, he dropped me off, and I was like, oh, my God, it's working. Yeah, like, people are actually paying attention to what we're doing. So that was, like, the first sign to me that I was like, okay, this is. This is the. This is the future. The key to it is, as you know, is how do you scale it? Because I think my story is interesting. It's. It's sharing a very unique perspective. So a lot of them really successful people who do podcasts are very far removed from the trenches.

Yeah.

So if Oprah does a podcast, when was the last time Oprah struggled? 25 years ago, 30 years ago. I'm, I'm, I'm in the trenches still. I'm still building a business, building brands, creating new brands. So it's an interesting perspective for someone that's been in the industry and sharing their, their, their war stories.

Yeah.

So I think that's where the opportunity is. And, you know, now I'm going to learn if I can scale it or not.

Yeah, totally. So what's been like your, I would say the most passionate thing, is it doing the group chat is the vlog? Is it just the Instagram? Where do you spend most of your time?

The podcast we do three times a week. I think that reaches the most people because it's something, it's digestible for all type. You don't have to be into anything particular. It's.

What is it if people don't know?

It's called, it's called group chat. It's with my partner Drama from Young and Reckless. And the idea is that it's a, it's if you're familiar with Bloomberg or cnbc, you know, talking about stocks and stuff like that. If Bloomberg met. It's a hip hop. Bloomberg is what I call it. Like, how come. So your, your, your most successful entrepreneurs and take to the tech and fashion space are in their 30s. What are their, what are they into? They're into rap music, they're into finance, they're into crypto, they're into Coachella, Art Basel, all those things. When I turn on Bloomberg, I don't see anything but stock. Stocks, stocks, finance, finance. I care about Tekashi 6. 9. I care about bitcoin, I care about finance, I care about Trump's tariffs because that affects my business. I care about all those things. But I also have fun. And that's where, like, where else can you hear about Tekashi6.9's fake beat up and Trump's tariffs? You just can't. And there's this huge void of smart, entertaining integration. Yeah. Content. And that's where I think this next generation of content is gonna get smarter. And I think that that's where we can really thrive.

That's so dope. And I literally watch every episode. So with that, what was the sort of starting point for that? Because I know you guys started it a couple months ago.

We started in like December.

Okay. Yeah. So like seven months ago.

Yeah.

What's been like the most, I would say biggest breakthrough for that? Was it quick to get an audience, was it? No, slow and steady.

I was just looking at our first episode. The drama has, like, the analytics on his computer. I was like, how many episodes did our first podcast get downloaded? He goes, 56.

Yeah.

I was like, 56. Why did we even continue? And now we get thousands of downloads an episode. And it's. It's crazy because. What. One thing I Learned from a YouTuber early on is the secret to content is consistency.

Totally.

And I didn't. I didn't. It didn't dawn on me because I just figured it has to be amazing or has to be famous people. And then people turn me on to different YouTubers, and I was like, wait, this guy's just in his apartment?

Yeah.

By the way, that sucks. Talking about, like, his day, and he gets a million views. And I was like, what's the secret here? He's like, I know I can rely on him for content five days a week.

Yep.

I was like, great point. It's like, if, you know, it becomes a TV show. Yes. It's a TV show. And I think that reliability of content is so powerful for people. And it's the same thing. The content I consume. I know that it's going to be available.

Yeah.

These days of the week. So I'm excited when it is.

Yeah. So question. So where do you think you spend most of your time ingesting content? Like, do you watch people's vlogs? Do you see, spend time, I would say, consuming other people's content? Or are you more focused on, obviously, creating your own? But where's the balance for you?

You'd say, unfortunately, I don't get enough time to consume content. Like, I have, like, all these things. I subscribe and follow and whatever. But, like, you know, I think what's funny is, as you get older, it's. You're gonna find really something funny. So when I was younger, I used to read Economist, Business Week, Wall Street Journal. I'd watch only the news. I wanted to know everything. When I come home at night, I want to watch or consume the dumbest thing possible. I don't want anything serious. Like, I watch, like, Bad Moms three nights a week. You know, Like, I just want, like, mindless entertainment. And so that doesn't necessarily help my content strategy, but I'm just burnt and stressed from work that I just need a. You know.

Yeah.

Like, I watch Breakfast Club. Like, that's, like, something I truly enjoy that. I watched Leo Cohen on Breakfast Club yesterday on tv. And, you know, it's like, I can't watch smart Content because I'm just mentally exhausted, drained.

So when it comes to this entire process of doing everything these last 20 years, how long?

16.

16 years. How has having a kid impacted the entire operation?

It's impacted it a lot, mainly in being even more time efficient because he goes to sleep at 7pm, he wakes up at 7am, I leave at 8:30. I have an hour and a half window a day to spend time with him. And if I don't show up by 6:30, I don't get to see him go to sleep. And that sucks. That's a bummer. So being time efficient is number 1 2. It actually is a big source of motivation for me to provide him the best life possible. And I never thought about things like that before. I was. Everyone's like, oh, a kid changes you. I'm like, yeah, I don't know, does it? And then. But mentally your priorities shift instantly. And it's about providing for someone else. It's not about you anymore. You literally become completely unselfish the moment you have a child. At least that's how I became. And so for me, now I'm thinking about my future and I used to think I'm gonna work crazy for the rest of my life and I don't want to anymore because I want to have time with my child. Like I want to be able to coach his team or if you whatever he's interested in, be a part of his life. And so working at this pace I'm working at today is not sustainable to have both. So at some point something has to give. Either I just decide that I'm okay with this level of lifestyle and moderate level of success, or I see an exit in my business.

Yeah, with an exit. When it comes to just the companies you've built, what do you think is exiting a company? What's this process for everyone listening? When do you think an exit is capable to take place with the companies you're in? Just for the people listening? I think a lot of young people, they'll hear that word and they don't really grasp it or understand it. So I'd love for you to explain that a little bit for everyone.

So an exit is the selling of your business. The, the simplest way to explain it is you can sell your business when someone's willing to pay for it. Yeah, that's the best advice someone gave me. I asked him, this is a few years ago, like, when should I sell my business? I'm like, is someone knocking on your door to buy it? I'M like, no. Then I'm like, then you can't sell your business. And so. So really, it's about. There's a price that people will pay for anything, and then there's a price people will sell at anything. And you just have to find that middle ground where you're happy and the buyer's happy and you'll actually get to sell your business. So often sellers are delusional because we think our company's worth a lot more and buyers are looking for a good deal. And so in our case, when the stars are aligned, those things will happen. We're not there yet today, but I've never had an exit in of our brands yet. So we've kind of financed our business through profits, but at some point we will. And, you know, hopefully it'll be. It'll be fruitful.

Yeah.

Because it's obviously a lot of work, and I hope we can monetize it at some point.

Yes. So for everyone listening, how many brands are you a part of to kind.

Of give the listings? Six.

Six? Yeah. What would you say? Where do you spend? Do you have one where you spend your most time or have the most passion for or how does that look?

You know, it's funny. So Menlo Club is the biggest thing we have, which is our subscription business. And it is a very disruptive, revolutionary concept, and it's doing amazing things, but it's very hard, very complex, and there's a lot of staff. There's almost 150 people. Young and Reckless is a smaller business, very profitable and a lot of fun because you can do whatever you want. It's young and reckless. Yeah, right. There's no rules, and it's a traditional wholesale business with a traditional E commerce business. So it's a lot easier to run. So Young and Reckless is actually really fun to run and be a part of. Menlo Club is the billion dollar opportunity, but it's hard and it's draining. And HR is. The daily issue is like interviewing people, people quitting, interviewing people, getting rid of people. That's the whole day. And it's, you know, there's. There's a. Everyone wants to start this, like the biggest, greatest thing, be the billion dollar business. But in reality, quality of life is so important when you get older that doing a business that's profitable and fun is worth way more to you as a person. And that's where I realized that by doing two businesses, one is fun and a lot easier, and the other one is like, gut wrenching, stressful on a Daily basis.

I feel like the combination of both kind of help you stay balanced. You'd say.

Yeah. So like when I'm having, you know, a bad day, I'll go scroll around the younger eclipse side because I know they're going to be talking about some new dance or a meme or something that makes me laugh. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Literally that.

So.

So it's fun. But I don't know, I just. I value the idea of running a small or mid side business very profitably and enjoying your life.

Yeah.

People don't realize that because trying to like be the next Uber is. Your life's over. Yeah, it just is. It's just. It's not easy and. And maybe that's what you get off on is like just changing the world. I'm not at that point in my life anymore. I. Quality of life is so much more important to me. I want to have fun, I want to relax. I want to spend time with my family, like friends, things like that, and go back to traveling. I used to travel like crazy for fun. I can't anymore cuz I work.

So just for everyone listening, traveling, I think that's a passion of mine. All my boys here, we all love traveling. What's been some of the coolest places that you've been to that you'd say have been like perspective changing in a sense.

So my biggest advice to young people is travel everywhere you can. I mean, I've traveled when I was poor and I've traveled when I had money. Yeah, I've had equally as much fun both times. And I've pretty much gone everywhere I've ever wanted to go. And every time the thing that I enjoy most. So I'm not a tourist guy, like, oh, you got to see the Duomo in Milan. Like, I don't really care because I think I'm just not at that interest. I think when I have a. When I take my child, we'll. We'll go see history and learn. What I was more inclined to do in these cities is sit at a cafe, sit outside, observe the people, meet the waiter. Hey, waiter, where are you going tonight? All right, we'll come with you. Like that. Those are the stories and memories that I have that have actually had the biggest impact on my life. I have friends all over the world. Like, you know, he was just saying he ran into someone in Australia that I know and like, I can go to any city in the world and I probably know somebody and I met them there or partying with them. And I think a Lot of traveling is just about experiencing the people. And I think people get caught up in like, I have to see this. There's a great buzzfeed article of like, this is what it looks like. And then when you're actually there, this is what it is, is the reality. Reality versus Instagram. And the reality is, is you're gonna go out to like to Reykjavich and see the Blue Lagoon, and you're gonna waste three hours in a bus ride. Three hours in freezing cold, and you're gonna spend 15 minutes in the Blue Lagoon. Take your Instagram and you'll be like, damn, I just wasted a whole day for a 15 minute picture. But, you know, if that's what you're interested in, that's fine. But I think just being a part of a scene or that's why I think like a music festival is such a great thing because you experience the local people. But yeah, I mean, I'm all about traveling. I would just find an excuse to go somewhere.

Okay, cool. So what did you say you started traveling? Like when it comes to, like very recently or. No, like going all out.

If I had $400 in three days, I would find a 300 flight to Paris and figure it out. Yeah. Like, that's so like I've. I. You know my favorite places right now, right. To travel to our Mykonos. I just think that's the best city in the world right now.

Never been there.

Yeah, I mean, just, it has everything that you could want in a vacation town. And I think it's just incredible place, incredible energy and things. You know, in Europe, things change based on like, what's hot, what's not. That's like the place to be right now. But I just think I've been Southeast Asia, Asia, South America a ton, all over Europe and India, things like that. And I think, you know, every single. I never, I always have a very positive attitude. I've never had a bad trip either. So there's not, there's nothing I've been to where I was like, oh, this sucked.

Yeah.

You can make the best of any situation.

I have one thing I want to touch on before we wrap up this podcast is the whole the running club or the running things you're doing on Instagram. That's super interesting to me. And I know that you're kind of building this cult, like following.

Yeah.

So I'd love for you to touch on that because I think it's super cool to see which doing in there.

So nearly 10 years ago, I was Extremely stressed out. I got dumped by my now wife, and I was just kind of, like, bummed out on life. And I was like, I need to get out of this rut. I gotta figure it out. And I was flying back from India from a trip that I took with my best friend. And I was reading Esquire magazine. And I flipped, flipping through the pages, and I saw Miami south beach triathlon. I was like, huh, this is interesting. And I just signed up for it. I wasn't a runner, wasn't a biker, wasn't a swimmer. And it was. It was 412 weeks away. So I literally got back the next day, started running, biking, swimming, just like that next day. And I put my mind to it, and I did the triathlon. Out of the triathlon, I got into running. Running became my meditation. So when I got. When I would get home at night, you can do a lot of things. You could drink, you can party, you can do all these things. And I was like. I was already doing all those other things. I was like, those aren't good for you. I was like, I need to find something that I'm addicted to that's good for me. And it became running. So I used to just run. And then when. You're gonna experience this a lot later in life, but for some reason, when men turn 30 years old, they all go through a rut. Just subconsciously, I think it's like that you have expectations of what your life should be at 30. And so I noticed all my friends are, like, going through this rut at age 30. And I told them, you start running. So I got all these guys into running. Fast forward. A year ago, a guy walks into my office and goes, would you ever do a run club? I was like, nah, sure. I'm like, if you'll run it, like, I'll come up and I'll come and run. But if you'll, like, organize it. So we started showing up at Alfred's Coffee on Melrose Place in West Hollywood every Saturday. And it started with, like, four people, then it was eight people. And then we had. It was holidays, and it slowed down. And then we started doing these run challenges where we challenged people, particularly our customers, to run 75 miles in a month. And I would give them $75 of store credit, and I would give cash to a grand prize winner. So in January, over a thousand people did it. So it started picking up momentum. And then the run club all of a sudden became this thing. So now, like, 40 people show up. I started running in Scottsdale And San Diego and wherever I go, people hit me up like, do you want to go for a run? And I started. What I realized was it's way bigger than running. So all, you know, as a young person, they're always looking for people to talk to about their business, their life, personal, get advice, get introductions. And I always, I use the Run Club as like a place. Hey, I don't have that much free time, but if you come running with me, I'll give you my undivided attention. And that's what happened. So the Run Club has now become this incredible community of people that are not only friends, people that are doing business together. Like, I've gotten two deals out of the Run Club, which is insane. I'm licensing Young and Reckless in Germany and Grand AC in Europe through Run Club, which is crazy. And so there's other people that have gotten jobs or deals or whatever from the. From coming and running with us. So yes, running is a physical activity, but it's. The community is far bigger than that.

So for everyone that's listening, that maybe in la, where should they find out more information about that?

Yeah. So you can follow grand ac, Grand AC or just follow me at D. Murthy. And every Saturday we run either in West Hollywood or Santa Monica.

Cool.

It's an. And it's incredible group of people.

Like, I see it all the time. Like how many people you said like.

Like literally 40 people will show up and then it's a, it's just an awesome energy and it's, it's something good. It's positive. It's like I don't, like, I don't want to be hosting like alcohol driven events for the rest of my life.

Yeah. Super cool, man. Yeah. To kind of wrap up this podcast, I kind of want to hear your perspectives, kind of one sort of thing. If you were to kind of see this current job, say generation people like me, these younger 18 year olds that are living in this social media space, what's something that if you were to kind of look back and if you were 18 in this generation, what was something that you would tell yourself kind of looking back, seeing the trends that are happening now?

I think like I said before, I think one is have an open mind. And because you never know where you're gonna end up, the other thing is focus, which is something I'm not good at. So for me, giving that advice is really strange. But I've noticed when you're great at one thing, it changes your universe. And all of us are trying to do too much. Even my wife the other day, she was like, you're vlogging, you're podcasting, you're running. Just do one thing. She's like, if the podcast is doing the best focus on the podcast, why are you trying to do too much? And she's absolutely right. Because think about it. If you. The best people, the people that we all idolize are great at one thing, not great at everything, the all the other things will fall into place if you're great at one thing. So I think it's just focus.

I love it, man. Well, everyone listening. Thank you so much, Dee, for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

I kind of want to wrap it up just to say, like, what's the best place for people to connect with you, to kind of get involved with everything you have going on?

I think Instagram.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm good at responding to people on Instagram.

What's your thoughts on that? Because I asked Lindsay palace yesterday, and she was like, twitter. And I was like, I never touched Twitter. Is Instagram your core?

Yeah. I think for us older folks, Twitter was big. So I love Twitter to consume. I find that there's a lot of anger on Twitter, so I try to avoid that negative energy. So Instagram's a great place.

Well, perfect. So everyone listening. I know there's a lot of information we talked over today, but I'll make sure to put it his Instagram websites, everything regarding more information about what you have going on in the description. And other than that, thank you everyone for tuning in to the Rise of the Young podcast. And thanks, Dean, for coming on.

Thank you.

Yep.

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