Milan Kordestani - Building Three Startups Across Music, Technology, and Journalism By The Age of 19

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What is going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Milan Cordestani here with us. Milan is a serial entrepreneur whose most notable startups include Gwynne Records, the Doe, and Dormzy. Before the age of 19, Milan found himself building three startups across music, technology and journalism while attending college full time. Milan attributes his success to his unwavering belief that a collective culture built on innovation, ethics and hard work yields positive results. And he is passionate about sharing those ideas with the world. Before we get started, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend and let's dive into the episode.

All right, what is going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Milan Cortez, Donnie here with us, the founder of Gwen Dormsy and the Doe, which we will get into here in a second. Milan, thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

Yeah. So first off, I wanted to say for everyone listening, me and Milan have been connected on Instagram for over a year now, I would say, and this is our first time actually sitting down and having a conversation. So I've been looking forward to it a lot, man.

I have too. I mean, it's. That's why I love social media, man. It's like you reach out to people, you see, you know what you have in common and. Yeah. Can I. Yeah.

So for everyone that's tuning in, I'd love for you to give them, and also myself some more insights on the companies that you're building right now. I know you have your hands in a couple of different projects, but I'd love for you to tell the people more where about where you spend your time and what you're building at your three companies.

Yeah. So, I mean, everything I work on is really purpose driven. The first project I started working on was Dormsy when I was in college. I started working on this with a co founder of mine, a friend that I went to high school with, her name Sabine. Basically when we were in school we realized really quickly that there was this untapped market of students who both wanted to make money, also wanted experience. And then there's this world of entrepreneurs that want services done for them. And so, you know, we started out as a task based app to meet the needs of college students and have them exchange things. And since then we've pivoted and we've turned it into a marketplace that we're launching really soon. So that's Stormzy. It's a marketplace powered by students. The next thing I built with a co founder of mine is actually my sister is Gwynne Records. And so that started based in just the two of us talking and being like, why? You know, I was just in college for like, you know, the first year of college and I was going to a few parties and I was like, damn, why don't I ever hear the music that I really like to listen to? And for me that was like really powerful lyricism in hip hop music. And so, you know, we kind of just being of the entrepreneur mindset, we're like, yeah, we should find artists that we think do that really well and support them. So that's Squin Records. And then the third thing I work on is the do kind of in tandem with that. But I used to write for the Huffington Post. I started doing that when I was about 16 years old. And I love writing, I've always been doing that. But then in 2019, so about a year ago, basically I wanted to start writing things that were more personal, like things about my life, my personal life, my opinions about certain things, random stories and such. And when I started writing them, I realized there's this world in which like I want to publish a story because I think it could do a lot of good for a lot of people or you know, it would be really relatable for a lot of people. But if I share this, like someone's name is gonna be out there or they'll know it's about this person or you know, whatever it is. And so I was searching for a place to publish anonymously. And you know, beyond WikiLeaks, it didn't exist. And so we decided to build a platform that basically would allow for people to come with their stories to us that they don't feel comfortable sharing otherwise. And yeah, we publish it and we give them an audience.

That's very cool, man. When you, when you were younger. Where did this entrepreneurial drive come from? And when did you, I'd say, start your first company?

Yeah, so I grew up in the Silicon Valley and so that's literally like the mindset there is like this, you build it.

But so.

Particularly my dad, I guess was the entrepreneurial figure for me. He was one of the, he's worked on a lot of different companies and a lot of different startups, but he was there at the early days of Google and so that was a really interesting and amazing thing to watch grow from what it was of being like 12 people to what it is now, going to work with your dad. Days were actually much cooler than most people's, I'd say.

That's incredible.

Yeah, but so that's kind of like what's been, you know, seeing that probably, I'm sure had a huge, huge drive in making me who I am today and what I want to work on. But I don't think I always planned on like being an entrepreneur per se. Like I. What was it like? My sophomore year of high school, I started raising chickens and I thought I was going to like study agriculture and like go into that industry of working in agriculture, but then I quickly started to turn that into its own business of like selling eggs and like, you know, buying and selling and. Yeah, so it just kind of like snowballed.

Right.

It's like as you found, as I found things that like I thought needed to be created in the world, I started doing it.

So I want to talk, talk about sophomore year, high school, raising chickens. That's very abstract versus a lot of things you're doing now. Where did that come from?

Yeah, okay. So basically I always loved animals. So I started when I was like 13 years old raising turtles and like I had, I got a pet turtle and then I quickly started researching about it and realized there's this world of like rare reptiles. And so I started breeding and buying and selling these like turtles. And I started doing that when I was like 14 years old. And that's a whole other tangent I.

Can go on about that.

Like, you know, it was, I was like a 14 year old dealing with like 40 year old guys who were trying to like fill up their like amazing ponds and their homes in like the Hamptons. And I was selling them their turtles from like this guy in like, you know, South San Francisco playing middleman. So that's how I got interested in animals. And then I basically just from that pivoted into chickens after. When did that happen? Oh, so I had a Family friend. I'm originally Iranian. My family is Iranian. But, you know, I had this teacher who used to grow saffron, which is like a really important spice in Iranian food. And so she, her grandmother used to raise this, these herbs. And so she was like, ah, she's too old to do it now. Do you want to do it? And I was like, oh, like I raised turtles, but yeah, I guess I can like, like figure out how to grow plants. And so I started doing that. And then from there I started selling the saffron I was growing because I was, it was like abundant. I was growing a lot. And then from there I was like, dang, like, I should just try to like make this a farm type of thing. But like, I didn't have that much space. I just got a coop and we had a little backyard. And yeah, I started raising chickens.

When it comes to your new project, Dormzy, where did this idea come from? And when it comes to, I know you guys said you're about to launch soon, what are you most excited about on that project?

Yeah, so Dormsy basically started from the fact that like there was, there was a couple different elements here.

Right.

One was that there were all these task based apps that exist. Like TaskRabbit's already out there and they can kind of fulfill that demand. And like, you know, Uber Eats and all of those food delivery services exist, but there wasn't a central app for students. And all of those third party apps actually aren't condoned by most colleges because they don't want outside people coming into the dorms and they can't come into the buildings. They just like meet you outside. And so part of it was the idea that, okay, well, students can go into the building. The student already are trusted, so and they want money and they want to work. So why don't we make, you know, offer them the opportunity to do that? So that's how it started. It was this idea of like safety, convenience and creating a central place for students to get like whatever they need help with. If it's tutoring, if it's food, if it's errand running, whatever's going on. And then, yes, we pivoted to this marketplace in part because everything's moved online now. Yeah, possible to be on campus now, but so I think we're really excited about this ability for students to put whatever they want on the platform because before it was really tied to tasks. And now if you're really good at social media management, you can offer those skills on our site and we'll bring you customers. If you are a sound engineer and you go to UCLA and you know how to mix music really well and there's some artists out there that wants it done really quickly and decently, cheaply, but good quality, you can hire a kid from UCLA or USC to do it for you. So, yeah, we're really excited.

Very cool. So just to reiterate, it's all student to students. So it's like students interacting with each other. Or is it. Outside people can also hire the students.

Outside people can hire the students. But it's all powered by these.

Got it. That's so cool, man.

And the, you know, the other element of it is I don't know if you guys went to college or not, but we were, you know. You guys didn't.

Nope, we did not. We moved right from Virginia to Arizona after I graduated and Karen took a gap year and then we just moved out here together about two years ago.

Yeah, I love it. I was talking with my co founder Sabine about this and we were like, there is this network also of these kids. Because I was this person, right, in high school, like, even before going to school, going to college, where I was like, I was starting to work on things and I had some skills I could have monetized. And it was like, what do we do for the people that don't go to college? Because a lot of the time those kids are like, have even more skills, so they're even more of a hustler. And so we're trying to figure out a way to like, get the vetting process done for that. Because right now our vetting process is, you know, the college admissions, right? Like, if you got into the school, then you know, that's kind of your qualifications. But if you, you know, if you haven't, if you're someone like yourself who is very talented, you know, it's. It's a question of, like, how can we, how can we get these people on the platform as well? So, yeah, figuring it out.

I wanted to bring up something that obviously brought us more connected recently, which is our buddy Daniel Alan Cohen, who's an artist in Los Angeles. You ended up getting this custom periodic table of elements created and it talks about the evolution of the smartphone. And I'll make sure to post a picture and, you know, reference this on the YouTube video. But can you tell me more about. Because I'm just curious myself, why did you want to create such a piece when it comes to the art and the history of the smartphone? Because it's A very interesting and, you know, passion project that I know we spoke about briefly. Yeah.

So, I mean, like I said, I come from the Silicon Valley, and so my introduction to cell phones is probably younger than most kids. But, like, when I was. Dang, how old was I? It was like sixth grade, like, middle school, like, 11, 12 years old. @ that time, the first. Sorry, I'm looking at the periodic table. But, like, the. Yeah, it was. Okay, so it was Google. So at the time, basically what happened was I remember my dad coming home and being like, check out this new phone. Like, Android has just been created, or Google has just done their first attempt at making this phone. And, yeah, so that was like my first taste into it. And I think maybe prior to that, I had, like, iPhones that existed, or there was like, the first or second iPhone, and Android was just trying to, like, to compete with them. And so I basically, from that age, it was like, you know, it was the first, like, piece of tech I owned beyond, like, a computer that I shared and had access to. So it was just like a love and fascination for phone tech. So from there, you know, it was just every new piece of tech that would come out for phones. Like, I would study and be like, this is why this is interesting. This is really cool. And, you know, the evolution was amazing. And I kept almost every phone that I've ever had, and so I had them all sitting in a box and was like, I need to do something with this. Otherwise it's just like sitting in a box and it's.

You know.

And so, yeah, when I saw the, you know, Daniel Cohen. Daniel.

Yeah. Yeah.

So when I saw him in the periodic table through you, it was. That was kind of when I realized, like, oh, this could be a really interesting way to display this.

Yeah.

Table instead of. I had originally pictured a timeline, but it would have been too, like, literally linear, like too many phones. So, yeah, that's basically an appreciation for phone tech and wanting to display it.

Well, totally. I love that you spoke about the Silicon Valley in a nutshell. How was it growing up there, especially being around tech? And you said your dad being an early member of Google, just what did you learn from your father? But also just being in Silicon Valley because you have such a unique perspective on the world coming from that environment.

Yeah. Wow, that's a big question. There's a lot, I think, from the startup mentality that you learn there is like, fail fast.

You know.

Almost everyone I've met there has been. And everyone who has a success story has, like, 12 failure stories. Prior to that, even with Google, it was like my dad was working at Netscape and all these other startups that had existed at the time. At the time, they were trying to make photo recognizing people's faces and images. Technology now exists for that, but back then it didn't. So the startup fails. It's crazy things like that. But so the idea of failing fast and learning quickly and iterating and building up the skill set through working, that's definitely something I took with me. You know, this idea that, you know, if you don't. If something is out there, that. And there's a need for it, build it. Like, build. If you have that problem and you have that need, someone else probably does too.

Yeah, I love that. How has the last seven months of 2020 changed your business? Because I'm sure you spoke on Jordan's Y, how you had to pivot there. How has this whole pandemic allowed you to refocus and change whether that's business plans or just how you live your life?

Yeah. So basically for the DOE and Dormsy, we were always remote teams because I was in college and so the teams were built entirely with the mindset of, like, look, we're all over the place and talent is all over the world. So just find people that are really talented and passionate about what you're doing and it doesn't matter where they work. Even then, the tools existed. There was Zoom, there was Slack, Google Drive. That's kind of the three pillars of everything you need. So we built those teams remotely. So honestly, right now, it hasn't affected us that much for those two. But as a product for Dormsy, it was part of the decision in wanting to make that pivot.

Yeah.

You know, for the record label and music, it's been a really challenging time for music, honestly, because it's really hard to shoot music videos now. And even getting artists into the studio to record is a challenge and sometimes breaking rules to do that. So, you know, it's had its moments.

What have you learned from a music perspective? Just music business. You have your hands in tech, you have your hands in music. There's a lot of different, like I said, perspectives that you have. But regarding the music business, how has owning a record label been and what have you learned from that?

Yeah, so it's unlike any other industry. Honestly, working with artists, I think is definitely one of, like, the most challenging things ever in general. But honestly, you can say that about, like, even in tech, working with designers, you know, the artists are artists and it's hard to work with them. But from the music industry, it's going through a really interesting time right now.

Right.

Like the world existed of music sales where it was at its peak, where they were selling cassettes, records, CDs, that was the best time. And then, you know, Limewire and all of these streaming services come in where you can illegally download music and it wrecks it. And then itunes and Apple comes in and fixes it for a minute and we can sell music digitally. Now streaming comes and now that's kind of like the middle ground we're in right now where it's. It's not the best time for. For up and coming artists. You know, it's okay for. If you're a massive artist, you're generally always okay. But for up and coming artists, it's kind of a challenge. But you know, it's been a lot to learn. Right. Like there's this world of playlisting that's really interesting now that didn't used to exist.

And.

Yeah, it's kind of just rolling with the punches. It's kind of like any other startup, you know, it's like you have to just roll with it.

So you guys like, you guys sign artists, correct?

Yeah. And so that was. Our label manager came from running Skrillex's label. And our musical director is currently Lady Gaga's musical director, used to be Michael Jackson's. And when we met the two of them, the key thing they told us was like, all right, we're down to be a part of this project. We want to make purpose driven hip hop music, but we cannot screw over artists because that's what every record label ever has done.

Absolutely.

And it's the worst thing for us as an independent label because it makes it so hard to sign artists even when it's already hard to sign artists as an independent label.

So the middle ground there. Cause I know, I mean I'm not in the music business but you know, you hear all the time like artists that signed to a label and they get screwed. So what have you guys created? Whether that's the process or something, if you want to dive into it to make that artists have an upper hand as well. Because I think that's super important, especially for anyone that's looking to potentially become an artist. Yeah.

So for us, so for artists right now it's really important to own your own masters. That means you own your. Basically means you own your own music. For a record label, that's really hard thing to give up because if you don't own the music that you're paying to create. It's like you don't own your own product. But for us, we still think it's important for artists to own their masters and we license it from them for 15 years. So eventually the artist gets to their their art back. That's one thing we do. The other is all of our deals are 50 50. So traditionally a lot of labels will take like they take 90% of the profit and an artist takes 10%. We recoup what we put into it and then beyond that whatever's profit we.

Should take 50, 50 with the artist.

So things like that. All of our artists get like a mental health monthly stipend that are assigned to us. So mental and just health in general. Right. Like if they have a gym membership, if they're seeing a therapist, a nutritionist, whatever it is, you know, it's really hard being an artist and it takes a toll on the person. So we offer that to all of our artists. Non recoupable.

That's very cool. How often are you guys signing people?

That's a great question. We would love to be signing more artists than we currently do. We have signed two artists and we are working on some other projects with some other artists that aren't technically signed to the label. They're kind of like one off deals. Like whether it's an EP or a single or a one album. But you know, it's really hard to find artists that want align with your mission and then two want to sign with an independent label if they're not. Because the thing is, if an artist is doing really well on their own in today's world, you're just gonna stay independent or you're gonna wait for. You're gonna stay independent for as long as you can and wait for Sony or Columbia or someone to come and offer you a really massive check. And if you're already a really big enough artist, you'll get to own your own masters. But that's been like the biggest bargaining chip.

Right.

It's like for us, you know, we sign artists but it's really a partnership between us and that artist.

Yeah.

Not just us taking ownership of them. Like a lot of.

That'S super cool. Regarding just building a tech product, I know with Dormz and I want to ask you is just when you're looking at tech and building a product, what are some of the key things that you do before launch? Because I think that's something that I look, you know, I'm always looking to figure out how tech is built the right way. Because I'm launching this product in the podcasting world that I know that I told you about and I'd love to hear from your end, like, what should you look out for? What do you need to make sure you do before you launch so that you can launch successfully? Yeah.

So here's the most interesting thing about launch. When you're working on a product to launch, you are the only person and people in your circle, you're the only people that actually care about your product going into it. And so it's, you know, there's two sides of it. One side of it is just make, you know, the MVP and get that out as fast as possible to test. MVP being most minimal viable product. You know, make, get it done as quickly as possible and get it out. The flip side of it, which I tend to decide on, is make it as perfect as possible, make sure you love it and then go for a lunch. Because when you're working on something, no one's sitting around waiting for it necessarily. And so you're gonna need to go and try to bring in this audience to whatever you build. So you want to make sure you've done it really well. I think a lot of the times, myself and my co founders, we end up thinking, alright, we're gonna set this date and this is our launch day and we need to get the product done by then. But then you end up like coming up against that date and you're like, I need another week.

Yeah.

You know, like you can, you should do that. So, yeah, it's, it's being really comfortable with what you're, what product you're actually putting out there and then everything else that's ancillary, like the marketing and the social media and all that, it can always be pushed back slightly. Focus on the product is generally my stance.

I love that. So I want to touch on college. When you were in college, what was that experience like for you as someone that, you know, has their hands in different products and you're at this school and you're building your company, just I personally didn't go to college and I think it's a great perspective for a lot of young people because I'm not against college in any sense. I just didn't decided not to go. And for someone that went to not only prestigious school, but was building something while they were there, I'd love for you to touch on that experience. When it comes to managing your time and just, you know, going through that process when you have A lot of things on your plate.

Yeah, that's. It's really interesting when I talk about college, I didn't love college, but I was far enough into it where I was like, all right, I just gotta finish at this point. What's interesting about it was I went into it loving the idea. I was like, I'm going to college, I'm going to learn a lot. I'm going to work on a lot. And what I was most excited about was meeting people like myself. I figured I would be in this environment where I would get to meet a bunch of really cool entrepreneurs or a bunch of cool people working on these amazing projects for the world. And to my surprise, it ended up just being a lot of people that wanted to party really hard and then, like, show up hungover to class. And I was not that person. And so, you know, that was my biggest struggle with college. But what was amazing on the flip side of it was it really was an opportunity to, like, have a lot of time. If you don't party and you, like, you know, are focused on school stuff, you'll find that you actually have a lot of free time to be able to work on these things. Like, for me, I was able to start three startups in the time that I was in college because, like, I. It's just you have time and you do have resources and the school offers you help. And if you do want to be an entrepreneur, most schools have some sort of, like, you know, incubator type scenario going on where they want to fund students to do that. So, you know, from that standpoint, it's great, but. And from the standpoint of meeting people, but, you know, it was. That was my biggest issue with that, was that, like, it was really not the. The most conducive to meeting a lot of entrepreneurs at the time. But, you know, with dorms, you were hoping to build entrepreneurs in college.

I love that. And I know at the beginning of this episode, you talked about just having purpose in every project you pursue. Where does that purpose come from? And what would you tell entrepreneurs that are starting new companies? Why should they incorporate purpose into their mission?

Yeah. So for me, purpose is kind of like what gets you out of bed every day. It's like, if you, you know, it's one thing to believe in your product and be really excited about it, but purpose is one of those things that's like, if, you know you're doing good for the world and you're doing good for other people, and, you know, it not only motivates you to do it, but you're like proud of the work you do that even if it fails, which inevitably it does for entrepreneurs at some point, like you will encounter some failure that at least it was in the pursuit of something that was like, you know, you felt good about.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's probably the biggest reason for me building from purpose, you know, it's what drives me.

I love that. When did you start putting out content on social media and started to build a brand on there? Because I know you, that's where we connected. And obviously you talked about the value of making connections on social media. When did that come about in your life?

So, okay, I think I was when Instagram first started. That was my first like experience with social media because I was not allowed to have Facebook as a kid. And so when Instagram came out it was like, ah, it's something new. No one's really on it yet. Do that. And so I started posting really random content back then of like, mostly just pictures of myself. And then I kind of just like lingered on and doing that for a long time. It was, you know, just post pictures of yourself with like punny captions and, you know, just post for your friends. And then only about like two, three years ago, I started thinking about it and realizing like, wow, like this is, you know, this is a lot of the time the first thing someone sees about you before you talk to them or they meet you or whatever it is, you know, it's the new, like it's the new Google in that sense.

Right.

You used to Google people, now you look up their Instagram.

Yeah.

So, you know, from that standpoint I was like, alright, I don't want someone to just see like these images of me. I want to see, I want them to see like what I'm working on, what I care about, what I'm passionate about. And so that was when I started to focus more attention on my social media and being like, alright, you know, the content I want to create and put out there needs to be something that when people come and see it, they kind of get an understanding of like what I care about and what I'm into beyond just what I look like.

No, absolutely. That's what's up. I have one more question before we wrap up Milan, and that is, what advice do you have for young entrepreneurs starting their first company? Because you've done this very well across multiple startups and you have a great perspective coming from Silicon Valley and having key mentors in your life. So yeah, what would be Your advice to a young entrepreneur starting their first company today?

Yeah, my. My advice would be to start like. I think a lot of times you get bogged down in the details of like. Like, I don't have. I don't have access to funding or I don't have the network to do what I want to do, or I don't. I don't. I'm not technical or I don't have product skills. Whatever it is, when you make the commitment in your mind to just like, all right, I'm going to do it and I'm going to figure it out. However it is, then you start seeing the traction. Everything else kind of like falls into place when you start doing that. And again, there will be failure and there will be pivoting, which is every startup. But just starting, like Nike says, just do it. You just have to do it.

Love that. I love that. Where is the best place for everyone listening to follow you with all the different projects you have going on?

Yeah, probably Instagram, sometimes on Twitter.

Yeah, perfect. I'll make sure to link that down below. And that being said, my man, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on today, everyone. I'll make sure to link down his Instagram and Twitter below, so you can go check that out. And that being said, my man, thanks again.

Thank you for having me, man. Appreciate it. Talk soon.

Monarch 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.

Oh, my God.

Go, go, go.

Monarch Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

Plus.