Nick Gross - Find Your Grind & Building A Multi-Dimensional Media Empire

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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 Nick Gross here with us. Nick Gross is an entrepreneur, musician, and founder of the Find you'd Grind education platform. In 2009, Gross launched Strz Enterprises, a record studio and record label. He is the founder of Find you'd Grind, an education platform and the CEO of Big Noise and a record label he founded with John Cohen and John Feldman in 2018. I met Nick Gross about a year ago at an event with drama from Young and Reckless and I ended up going to two of his find your Grind university events, the one being in Phoenix, Arizona as well as Los Angeles, California. And overall, I've learned so much from Nick just by spending time with him at his office with his team and and his story will truly inspire you. So that being said, make sure you check out Nick Gross on Instagram, Give him a Follow Screenshot this podcast, post it on your Instagram story, tag myself, tag Nick and we will repost you. And that being said, enjoy the episode. Here we go. All right, what is going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have the one and only Nick Gross. What's up, Mike? Can I come on?

Absolutely.

So first off, we are here at Gross Labs and we have a lot of stuff going on here. I know. Yesterday I read your entire Billboard article, which I'll make sure to link down below. Yeah, but we met back in October at the end of recident and you've been someone that I've continuously followed on social media and what you have going on and find your grind. I went to the ASU event as well as the USC event, and we'll get to what that is.

Fyg, we had a lot of fun. A lot of fun stuff to talk.

About, but we just wrapped up the Find your Grind podcast that I was on. And for that being said, everyone listening, this is going to be not only an amazing podcast, but I'm very excited to dig more here for it, because I was literally reading that Billboard article to yesterday, and I was like, I learned so much about you, about not only what you have going down here, but just you have your hands on a lot of things right now. It's amazing to see what you've been able to build, and I'm excited to get to it.

Appreciate that, man, very much. Yeah.

So, first things first. Gross Labs, that is obviously the parent company, too. A lot of things that you have going on right now. I'd love to have you give some context into a couple of things that you have working on here at Gross Labs before we get into it.

Yeah, Grosslabs is really my ME media and entertainment company, but it's a holding company that I set up to kind of house all these different projects that we have going on. And I definitely was just like yourself. Inspired by Rob Diarty, what he had going on at Fantasy Factory. Being able to kind of put multiple ventures and business endeavors and passion projects under one roof, you know, and seeing how all those things can kind of tie in and work together was like, the coolest thing ever for me. So that was like, the initial thought behind Gross Labs. I started my first business, was really my band that I had, you know, and we eventually got that band. When I was 18. We had a record deal with Sonny Epic, which was super awesome. So that was kind of my first taste into this, like, entrepreneurial. Let me try and start something and see if something can actually work in the business world, which happened and started my first studio around that same time. We started working with a lot of songwriters and producers in the space through Sony Epic, and got introduced to a lot of people, started my studio, and from there, just different things started to kind of add up over the past eight years. And I was like, I need to find a place just to kind of house the things that are happening. Like, you know, I can't operate all these things out of my studio. So Gross Labs was kind of started, I guess, to be that cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd love to give you some context right now. I obviously, if you follow Nick on Instagram, this content's amazing, but you have finer grind, you have big noise you have the noise nest and all these amazing, amazing projects. But the thing that connected us was the Find your Grind and the find your grind university events. I'd love to give some context into what that is. I know you wrapped up. It was a nine school tour, correct?

Yeah.

And I was a part of two of those events and it was super cool to see what you're doing with Find your Grind. Obviously I was just in the podcast. So what is find your grind?

For those who may not know, Find your grind at its simplest form is a self discovery and career exploration platform. Right. So like my idea around it came from just through my recording studio. You know, it's funny how a lot of things here at Gross Labs tie into music. Like my background is being in drums and through music and so everything in some type of way kind of connects through music. But Find you'd Gyne also came out of music. Right. So I started to bring people kind of in these young kids in these underserved areas around Los Angeles and Orange county to my studio to have these mini days. And I called it the find you're growing foundation. I started a 501C3. We started to do these mini kind of activations at the studio where we bring mentors and producers in to kind of show kids like what's possible in the world of music. These are kids who have never been in front of a music console, recorded a song. Like we'd shoot music videos in the parking lot. Kind of this like eight hour day of just like kind of hitting all these different things, writing lyrics, getting on the mic, you know, showing a song from start to completion, having a producer in there to kind of mentor these kids, and then finishing by taking the song out in the parking lot, blasting it on the fan speakers and like shooting a video, you know, which was like this cool kind of thing. So we started to do more and more activations out of my studio. And really that came from just being like, yo, what do I have around me that like, what do I have access to that I can provide? You know, like I didn't know what we drove past. My wife and I drove past a sign downtown. It was like this big wall and it had graffiti on it. It said plunger grind. Like sprayed. That was the first thing where we're like, shit, I don't know what this like is, but it's something we have to go do something with. Like just when you hear find your grind, it's like you kind of have your own way about it. It's like Shoot. Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna go find my grind, you know, like, how do I do that? What's the step? Like, help me out. So we looked at what we had access to, which was this. This recording studio in LA that I started when I was 21, leased the building out. We started just to have these small activations of like, 12, 15 kids that would come to that. And I was like, man, how do we start to do this across hundreds of careers, right? And just really start to show people what's possible in the world today. Like, people who are starting their own businesses, but also working in industries of the past kind of like 10, 10 years, I would say, to kind of show what the emerging future of works is starting to look like, right? Because half of it, as we know, is knowing what's possible, knowing what's out there, and then actually having the experience and the ability to go have that kind of opportunity, you know, to, like, get into it. So that was like the first start a find your grind. And since then, we've, you know, I started to film hundreds of my friends who are doing those things, starting their own businesses, working in these exciting industries. And we create these kind of videos around. We call them the first 10%. Right? So the first 10% of their journey. How did you get started? What were the important things that really mattered? Right? You see so many amazing, you know, content pieces around people in their kind of last 90% of, like, them doing the thing. But for a kid who has no idea how to even start, like, let's go talk about GarageBand and talk about, like, what they can do to get that GarageBand. Like, how do you get the computer? Like, how do you get started? You know? And, like, that's kind of what we started to interview these people about. I met a guy named Mike Smith, who had been the number one youth speaker in the country at the time and was just wowed by this guy. And he came to me and was like, dude, everything you're doing with your foundation is really what I talk to kids about in schools about, like, finding the grind, helping them find a purpose, helping them find a direction, changing the culture and climate within the school system. Would you want to do something together and go on this tour with me that he had created? He had butts and seats, he had kids. And I was just like, of course. So we started the find your grind Tour back in 2018, was like, the first time we got the bus for seven months and got to actually take the brand out and speak to kids about what this whole concept was about. So really it was find your grind. Started through the studio, turned into a live event thing from the gate. All that content I had been shooting on my friends, we packaged into a first product which was a 90 hour curriculum that we could leave behind at all the schools that we were talking to. You know, it was like a leave behind for teachers and educators. We brought on an actual educator to help us write that curriculum. Had no idea, like, how do I write a curriculum? Yeah.

What I wanted to say too, in the article, it says it's what 2500 schools, over 25,000 students are using or.

A part of your curriculum. Is that correct right now?

What does that mean in terms of like, if someone hears that and where could they get the curriculum, what schools it is in? Because I read that and I was like, I'd love to hear more. So can you give me some context?

It's really. Yeah. And the curriculum is such a, such an educator word, you know, so it's like I like to call the course. Right now It's a free 90 hour course and it's all centered around real life skills for young people.

Right.

It's geared towards middle and high school young adults. And the purpose of it is to explore emerging lifestyles. Lifestyle is a huge conversation we have that we have branded through. Find your grind that we can get into later. But exploring lifestyles, exploring these modern careers, looking through this virtual textbook of content we've packaged inside of it. But then as a third component, really looking at social, emotional, learning, which is this big, you know, buzzword. But it really is like the skills that are kind of needed outside of just the academic stuff. Right. It's like the personal stuff of like being personally fit and equipped to go out into the world as a capable human being outside of having the SAT, perfect score, the degree and all that stuff, you know. So like it kind of blends these real life skills of how to take a loan out on a car, how to, you know, manage your social media so that you're not bullying people because employers will look for that. It's, you know, work life balance, a little bit of that mental wellness side of it too. So it's just blended into one product. So that's really what it is. It's a free, free product right now. It's geared toward, you know, teachers and districts and schools are really where we market that product for. It's not. We this year are launching a individual side of find you'd grind to where a student or a young person can Actually go on themselves and go through this, you know, more personalized journey of find you'd grind. Not necessarily a course led version, so just different iterations happening. But yeah, yeah.

So I'm curious, speaking of just careers or care, you were 17, got a record deal at 17, correct?

Yeah.

How did that go? When did you get into music? Why did you get into music? How did that early process in your life start?

Mom, mom and dad got me a drum kid when I was like five. You know, good parents. I had amazing parents. I had like, just like yourself, right?

Like I had.

I was blessed with parents who cared about like bringing me into things, like allowing me to explore things and all that stuff, which was huge. So I started looking at, you know, moved into drums when I was five or six and yeah, started my first band when I was 12, you know, and like, was just like, this is what I want to do. I was a nice hockey player like yourself, you know, and like up to 13 I got burnt out. And along that path I was also playing drums and doing all this stuff in school. Like I was playing all the performances, 8th grade plays and all that stuff, like digging my teeth into it. And so I started a band when I was 13 called Stool Pigeon. That was the first name of the band. Stool Pigeon was the first name of the band. And so. So we literally just became that band. Like, I threw everything, like all my energy I had. It wasn't in school. It was into this, like it was into music, it was into the band. Because I was good at drums, I was naturally good. Like I knew what my talent was really early on, which I think was important to tap into. I think that led to a lot of like, purpose and well being and just all that stuff to find that, you know, and have an identity. Like that was my identity in high school. I was like, oh, like Nick, he's the guy in the band that plays the drums. But that was huge for me. To fuel my drive and to fuel all that stuff that we talk about, it's like, start that band. And all throughout high school, freshman year, senior year, it was like, yeah, bus kids up to the Roxy, you know, on a Tuesday night we'd rent charter buses out for like three big charter buses to put all of our friends on and come up to the Roxy and we start to sell out these little shows around Orange county in la, and we're lucky enough to have a show on MTV come into our town. At the time when all this buzz was happening for us called MTV with Moon beach, that they featured our. Myself and the band on as characters. And so that TV show led to kind of this national exposure, which was the first kind of soft scripted reality show in its kind, which was cool.

What was that transition meaning, like, how did you guys get picked up? Was just the buzz was big enough where you guys were already well known in the area. And then you guys just. The Sherby stuff you. Or how did that go?

It's a combination of all of it like that. The producers and MTV saw that there was enough of a buzz and excitement amongst the community that we lived in, you know, that they were, like, trying to cast and all that stuff, that we actually became such an important part of that character role, you know, because all the kids were coming to what we were doing, which was cool. So, like, yeah, that show in combination, it's like, I look at it like opportunity preparation equals up to that opportunity of, like, luck, right? Opportunity, preparation adding up to that lucky moment, you know. And so, yeah, it was senior year, two weeks before I started at usc, got accepted to usc. Parents wanted me to go to college, and I had to make that decision, be like, okay, shoot. Like, this entrepreneurial vision of creating this band, got the record deal with Sonny Epic, had a show on MTV and was playing TRL at 17. It was awesome. It was like a really cool high school experience. To be like a senior in a high school and have like, MTV following you around and watching.

What was that like in terms of, like, you know, you're going to high school, obviously, like, that's just people listening. Maybe they're in high school right now. You know, we're speaking to a younger demographic right now. Looking back on high school journey, like, moving into. You're about to go to usc. Like, were you thinking about color or were you bought in all in on your vision? What was that in terms of the mental process? Like, what were you aiming towards? Were you thinking about college? Were you debating it or going to school?

What was mentally all in? You know, mentally all in on what I was focused on, what I knew my path needed to be, what I was talented at, what I. What that was. That was the energy that was fueling me, right? School and academic stuff. I was never a good test taker. I never understood, like, that manufactured way of thinking from a young age. Thankfully, you know, like, I think we all now, hopefully people listening. It's like, life isn't. School is very linear, you know, And I feel like we. We need more systems that cultivate the organic approach to what life really is. Once you get outside of those doors, you know, and which is hence why we're building, find your grind and some of these other solutions that hopefully start to tackle that. But for me, it was all in. Yeah, it was like, I'm. I'm gonna do it. Mom was pissed. She threw my drum kit in the pool. Yeah. Drum kit in the pool. No way. Oh, yeah. It was like a. You know, it was like kind of. Kind of the thing, but I think it's. Yeah, you have to be right. It's like when you get that first taste and you see those things starting to add up and working, it's like you got to go all in for sure, you know, so.

So from the wrecking deal, what was next in terms of, like, right now we're sitting in gross labs. You have so much things going on from an entrepreneurial perspective. Investing into different companies and being part of brands. This all started out. The band. What was the progress leading to this? Meaning, like, did you start a couple businesses? Like, what was the first couple of steps you took after getting that record? Dealing, be on TV?

Yeah, it was banned. When I was 23, I started a really small tech fund. I was like, you know, I want to start investing into other brands. Not necessarily investing, but I wanted to be a part of more than just what I was a part of. Right. I wanted to, like, spread my, you know, DNA into other areas to kind of see. And that really came from me working with a couple artists that I had signed to a really small label that I started super early on. And I was like, how can I provide more value for these people other than, like, putting up their records and shooting some music videos and all that stuff, like, how can I really help this person grow? So that idea of, like, attaching myself to more things, you know, that essentially creating more of a playground for people that I'm working with to, like, build their brands was. Was, you know, a thought process I had from a young age, probably when I was 22, 23, but still started to be a part of little companies here and there, things that friends were starting that could help. And, God, from there it was. I tore down my small little studio. I started to build a bigger studio called the Noise Nest right now that we just launched this year, which was really exciting. I gotta come by sometime today, I think. Yeah, you gotta see it.

So the Noise Nest, you guys officially launched October.

Yeah, that was three months ago.

So what. In terms of what that is, what's the plan there? Is it just. People record every single day? I know you guys have those events there as well. Like what is Noise Dance?

Yeah, I look at the studio man, as like our coffee shop. You know, like a coffee shop brings like curates community, you know, and brings people together. It's like that's exactly what music has done for me and brought me more opportunities, was having this hub and having this place to like really have people come to and want to stay at, want to create, want to be a part of stuff. Like that was the first studio we had down there. We have two studios just for reference, we have two buildings side by side. The first building we had was our first studio that we've had for the past 10 years. The noise Nest, which is our brand new studio, is literally the building right next door. So it was awesome to kind of have those two buildings now. But it was, yeah, it was like our coffee shop, man. It was just like. That's the. Yeah, I guess to answer your question, you know, that's what it is. It's. Yeah, it's like right now it's a studio business, so it's a recording studio. So labels and managers and publishers come to us to actually use the space. But what's so cool to have that now is all of our artists that are assigned to our label, which is called Big Noise. Big Noise, you know, gets to funnel all of our talent through that studio and really incubate songs, you know, which is important.

Yeah. How active when it comes, like the label itself, obviously you have a lot of things happening when it comes to the label perspective, signing talent. How active are you in that?

Yeah, I'd say I'm, I'd say I'm pretty active. Like I, my. I learned early on from starting my first label, like made so many mistakes, man. Like would go, I had three or four people that were signed. I was taking like young girl, a young girl that was signing my label to pop 40 top radio. Spending way too much money on things that I shouldn't have. Just made a lot of like early mistakes and didn't really have anyone next to me helping me make those informed decisions. And so when I came out with this idea to do another label, it was, let's really start to bring the right people around me to help inform the decisions that we're doing. And it's like I don't want to be the only guy making every decision.

Right.

Like, I really put my trust into the people that I bring on here to like help inform the things that we do. Like I have a 23 year old girl that runs our publishing division right now. And Livia, who I'm just like, dude, if you have writers and producers that you're passionate about, like, you're the one in the studios 24 hours a day in the rooms, know what's clicking, know what's working, like, you bring it to me, and if you're willing to lay out, like, lay out on the train tracks for that, we'll sign it. But if you're not, like, don't bring it in here, you know, and we've signed five things within 12 months that she brought in, you know, that I had no clue who these people were. But it's like, I really want. I believe it's important to us empower people in their roles and in their divisions to do what they're supposed to do, you know, not like, hover over people all the time.

It's super cool. I've been in the office a couple times. You know, it's like the culture you have here is just like, I fall. I've fell in love with it. Just people. Every time I meet someone new, you know, you build a culture that I just. I love being here. Super dope. And not only building culture, but when it comes to, like, building a team and like, where you spend your time, like, how do you manage your time? Right. I come in here. You guys. Guys have so much stuff going on. And like I said from the start, I'm gonna make sure to link the Billboard article. Yeah, yeah. It gives a lot of context into what's going down here.

Yeah.

And if someone reads it after this, they'll kind of get a sense of that as well. But how do you manage your time on a daily basis here in the office?

Yeah, it's like, it's like the dream, right, to be. Have a flexible schedule. But it also comes with so many different responsibilities. Right. And like, my time is really simply. I write stuff down, you know, I look at. I literally write every single thing that I'm doing. Whether that's, you know, my label, whether that's find you'd grind, whether it's this animation thing we're launching this year. Like, I just write it down. I have a list of to do's in terms of importance of like, okay, what needs to happen first, what needs to happen last. I make sure that I never miss a meeting. We schedule things every week super diligently of like, okay, when certain departments are having their meetings and there's just a structure, man. It's just like, I think even from early on, like, With Tool Pigeon, my first band, I had a notebook and just wrote things down. And like, I really believe in that manifestation of if you can think it, write it down and just obsess yourself with it in that sense, like those things start to happen, which a lot of those things did for me early on just from like believing in it and just willing it to happen, you know, and like putting yourself in a situation. So I don't know in terms of my time, it's just I get up early, I try and give myself the most time that I can. I hate waking up early. Right. I think we all do.

I see you hit the gym early.

Yeah, I think we all do. But it's like, yeah, I give myself the most time to be the most productive and then keep that productivity happening through awareness and just, you know, keeping it all organized.

Super cool.

Yeah.

So how was it? I know you recently had a kid. How has that affected work life balance?

Yeah, it does. You know, it's like, it's amazing.

And congrats on that.

Thanks, bro. I appreciate that. Yeah, his name's Landon, a little boy. But yeah, I just, we, we. Thankfully my wife has a mother that's been very helpful. You know what I mean? We have pieces that really help. And so, yeah, I try. Now my rule is 7pm I'm trying to cut it off, right? 7pm I cut it off. It's family time. It's at home. It's like spending that time with them and in the morning too, like after a gym session early on, like, I'll just spend like an hour just being with them. But thankfully we have, you know, some, some help around. But it's awesome, dude, I'm loving it.

Very cool. So speaking to young people and I know that just with find you'd gotten everything you have going on here, where do you see a lot of young people having challenges? Meaning if they're deciding to go to college, they don't know what they want to do and they're lost in life.

Right.

There's a lot of, especially where I'm from, a lot of young people looking to make that next step into their career, they're lost, you know, they don't want to go to college. Or maybe they're in college right now and they're like, okay, where is this getting me? I still don't know what I want to do. Right. Yeah. Two older brothers, a lot of their friends, they went to college and got a degree and now they're working at somewhere completely irrelevant to the degree they got I know at find you'd grind, you guys are helping solve that problem. But what advice do you give to someone who's 18, about to potentially go to college, that's looking to make that decision?

What advice do you have for someone? Like, it's such a good. Yeah, it's such a good question. I think it does really come down to self awareness, right. What we talk about a lot, but it is self awareness. And I think there's a lot of pieces too that come into play with the being self aware. You know, with find you'd grind, we kind of come up with this triangle that's like right now, young people are having to guess on the job, right. First, like, you pick a job when you're 13, 14, which is crazy. You can't even drive the car. Yeah. You pick a thing and you start to gain the strengths, right. Based upon what that job is. Once you're in it, hopefully you've gotten a job and then you hope that you enjoy the lifestyle. Right. And so most people end up hating the lifestyle, but the job was because they just gassed on the money or they were pressured into doing the thing or whatever it was. It didn't have that self awareness to know what was going to fulfill them, essentially. So what we're trying to do is kind of flip that whole triangle around and be like, start the conversation with lifestyle, right? So we kind of categorize these different buckets of are you an entrepreneur? Are you a creator? Are you a healer, humanitarian? Do you like helping people? You know, are you going to. Or you want to go travel the world and go, you know, kind of live through your work by traveling and experiencing things and then looking at what strengths you already do have internally, Right. Which is that self awareness piece of like, don't just start, you know.

Yeah.

Trying to get more strengths through something. It's like look at what you already have and then looking at the careers last that kind of fall underneath those lifestyle and strengths buckets. So we kind of just flipped the conversation around, which I think is super unique and cool. But yeah. Yeah, I don't know, man. I think it's just being present and trying to become as self aware as possible.

Very cool. Early on, did you have any mentors that really helped guide you along your journey from a young age?

I did virtually. I obsessed myself with Travis Barker and like watching drums, you know, because that's like. And like a couple other people, Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters and some of these other drummers that I also looked up to that surprisingly Also came from Laguna Beach. Like, Travis was a trash man. Laguna. Taylor Hawkins grew up in Laguna. So, yeah, I just obsessed myself with watching these videos and putting myself in the same situations. I was, like, obsessed with becoming, like, playing in that TRL window, which was an MTV show back in the day, which is a big deal. So just watch that video over and over again. And, like, we suddenly got to be able to play in that window through the MTV show we had. So, like, I think it was. And I got to take a couple of lessons with him, which was super cool, but didn't really have a ton of, like, mentors necessarily. You know? Like, it was awesome to see the, like, what my dad had built for himself. Like, I think. I think a big piece of it is just knowing what's possible and knowing what's out there. Like, watching my father build something from, like, nothing to such a successful company on his own. Like, I watched that progress, you know, and I was like, dude, if my dad can do it, like, why can't I do it? Like, opportunities are open and endless, you know, Like. But whereas if you grew up in a situation that's like, oh, my God, like, this just negativity all around, you get succumbed by that, you know? So, yeah, I think it was just a combination of, like, you know, my mentorship came through family, you know, looking at drummers that I looked up to.

Yeah.

And, yeah, you know, it was. I didn't have someone, like, next to me every day, you know, but, like, yeah, I just. Dude, I was just. Just relentless, you know?

Yeah. So speaking of just content, social media, you did the podcast Find your grind podcast number one. When did you guys start that and why? Because I obviously know this is a. When it comes to the medium of content and the voice of find your grind and everything you're doing, you start the podcast. So what was the purpose for that and where do you plan on taking that?

Yeah, Find your grind podcast was really to start creating more content for Find your Grind that helped fuel the brand, helped fuel the conversation and the ethos around, like, what we're trying to say with it, you know, which is we're trying to help people discover who they are, where they're going, and how they're gonna get there. And we're doing that through live events. We're doing that through the products we're creating. And so really, it was to just start to create more content and have conversations with people that are actually doing it and get their stories of, like, how they started, what their journey was like. To share that with other people, you know, so really it was a mixed play of just trying to like, build more content for the brand. So start to get more stories, right, and start to have like having more of these type of conversations in the classroom. Because what's cool is that we have a product now that lives within schools. So any content piece that we film, like, we can pull, you know, the best moments from these podcasts to insert those teachable moments into our product, Right? So if like Casey Evans comes onto the podcast and talks about finance, right. And drops some amazing knowledge about that, we can chop that section up and be like, yo, this is going be to our finance part of section A. It's going to live in classrooms in front of, you know, x amount of thousands of kids that are coming from the product, you know, so like just figuring out how to maximize more content, but then using that to be resourceful to like, teach young people about these important things, you know? Very cool.

So I know in 2020, with find your Grind, the whole festival, you guys are doing like 16 tour, like 16 city tour, right?

You guys, that was the idea. Yeah, it's going to be 10. 10 to 15. Okay, maybe 10.

16'S aggressive, but yeah, gotcha.

Yeah.

Because I know last year they just obviously when I was a part of them and saw that, like, I just. The experience was epic. When it comes to the brands you guys are working with, with the talent, right? Little tech up Bicardi, so many different people that are part of these festivals. You know, when it comes to that itself, I'm sure that's you, right? You're on the road, you're bouncing all over the place. That is a fuel in itself. Fuel for the falling. You're grinding brand, right? How did that idea come about to do like a tour?

Trying to create more energy, you know, I think I've never seen something like that.

When I saw that, I was like, dude, I love having events, right?

Yeah.

When I came to your guys event the next weekend just to see the level of like what you guys are doing, I was like, it's great.

It's crazy. Yeah. I remember our show at Boulder in Colorado was like, oh, we sold out at 10,000 tickets. And it was going to be this stoked. And then the school was like, oh, we can allow a little bit more. And then it was 12,000 the next hour. And then it was like we maxed out at 18,000 kids that show. And it was just like, whoa. Like, this is a really. The festivals. The idea was to really Prove the concept out. The first year, we have a. Through my music company, we have a live events division that built the whole thing out. So we produce it. We kind of. We do all the talent acquisition. We do kind of everything in house for that festival, which is cool. We didn't go source like Live Nation or anything. People that kind of build it out. So we got to control a lot of it. And, you know, we got to have Amazon come on board this year. TikTok all kinds of really cool, relevant brands, which was shocking to me, to be honest, to have those people kind of commit to that on the first year level. But, yeah, the idea, once again, was to create more of a marketing opportunity, more of an energy and a hype and awareness around find your grind and what it is, you know, and the first year was really to get it off the ground and to show that we could, like, create these and do them and that's cool. Would allow us to do them and that people would actually show up and kind of getting that proof of concept out. A lot of it. This year, I want to turn more into the educational side. A lot of kids were, like, just hyped on the music because all the talent and stuff. So it's like, how do you start to weave, like, that conversation around really helping people on their path and making sure they're aware of the decisions they're making in college and spending their time wisely? And we got a lot of that done this year of, like, those type of conversations happening. But this year I worked. It's in 2020. I want to blend more of that educational piece of find your grind into the festivals, you know, now that we have them up and running. But it's definitely a great. It's energy, man. Like, when you see it, people are like, whoa, what is this? What's going on? Find your grind. This is cool, right? There's a piece about being relevant not only to young people, but to older people as well, who are just like, relevancy is key to especially. And that's what I feel like Find you'd gun does a really good job of is like being relevant in time of creating a product that feels relevant to the content, how we shoot it, how we make it feels cool. It feels like vice. It feels like a, you know, cool thing. But kids are like, okay, I can get with this. You know, like, this is a cool brand. I think the festivals help us keep that relevancy and keep us in front of the audience that we're trying to help.

I would say Would you agree? Like an ideal individual, age wise, that's like listening to this content and becoming a product of this. But when it comes to just.

Yeah, it's all good. Yeah, we're in rickety office.

I wanted to say, just regarding just everything you're doing here, moving into 2020 from a team perspective, like I said earlier, the podcast, you've got some amazing teams. If someone's listening right now, they're starting a company, maybe they have a small team. What advice would you give to someone to build team culture? Because every time, like I said, I come here, there's little fun things going on. It's always a great energy, a good vibe, and obviously you guys are making things happen. At the end of the day. What makes a good team with good leadership?

Such a good question, man. I think what makes a good team is obviously having people that are like, capable in their roles, knowing what they're supposed to be doing and focusing on that, not allowing people to go too wide in certain areas. You know, there are a lot of people that I feel like in a flexible type of environment here where there's a lot, a lot of different pieces and a lot of excitement, a lot of cool things happening. It's like, you know, I learned that a lot of teams that I had earlier on for certain businesses didn't work because the people I was associated with, like, didn't have the right intentions. And so I think you naturally learn that over time as you get a little bit older and you start to do more things, you know, and make those mistakes, which was key, you know, because now I feel like we feel finally have right teams in place for certain things to actually happen, which took like 10 years, you know what I mean? Like a long time. Right? Like, so. And it, for me, it's about the energy. I want to be around people that like, constantly have good energy, have good vibes. So much of it really is about energy, you know, in your intentions of why you're creating something, like why you're doing something. Like our why for Plunger Grind is like, we started our why before our left. Like, we didn't go out to be like, oh, I want to go create this, like, product. This, like, rose water product. I love rose water. Smells delicious. You know what I mean? Like, like why? You know, it's like, it's kind of like, I think it's important to find the right energies with people to kind of have your why. Because the energy will fuel the ideas and the success. Very cool.

Very cool. So a couple more Questions? Dream interview on the podcast. Who's someone that y' all want to have on that you haven't had on yet?

Oh, man. Man. Dream interviews. Okay. I'll put. I mean, Travis Barker would be great. Thankfully, we've gotten closer over the past year with draft, so I think we can make that happen. Yeah, for sure. I don't know if I could do the interview. I'll probably just be like, that'd be a cool one. Shoot. You know, I know this is. I'd love to have Barack Obama on. You know, Oprah would be fine. You know, like, that would have been wild if we had over on the podcast. She's so deep, man.

She's so deep.

Listening to her podcast, and I'm just like, dude, this woman is like, I want to go massage her feet and just sit next to her and just be a part of her room. Anything, Anything. So, yeah, maybe those. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So going back, you're 18 years old, and you have all these lessons that you've learned throughout your journey. What advice do you give to the young Negroes?

Advice, you know, to stay patient. Key is. Is a big one. I feel like, you know, I rushed into a lot of things earlier on just to, like, want to be a part of all this stuff and to kind of, like, prove to people some stuff, you know, I don't know what. Like, just that attitude. You're here to be talking about it, like, do. Don't just do something to prove that. Like, everyone's out there doing shit to prove something to someone else, you know? But, like, I think there definitely was a lot of that. I think patience is a huge one, you know, like, just seeing how long things actually do take to, like, manifest and happen. And, like, of course it's. And to enjoy the process more, you know, even today, I'm still kind of, like, I do focus so much on the end goal of, like, where I want to be, which is important, of a business owner and of someone creating things. But I feel like living in the process more is important to enjoy the little things along the way. My kids definitely have helping with that.

Totally.

You know, it's like, it's the journey, it's not the destination. I feel like it's the big takeaway that I would say to me as a young person, you know, like, enjoy the journey. It's. It's not necessarily always about the destination because you think about it, like, what happens during the destination. It's like, you get there, and then it's like, it's over. Like, cool, you did it. Then what? You're gonna want to create another journey, you know what I mean? Like, so I just didn't have my. I had really wrapped around that concept early on. So.

Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So last question. Just everything you have going now, the stories, the lessons, the people just moving into 2020. I know we're starting this new decade, this new year. What should people look out for coming from Nick Gross and everything you have going on here at Gross Labs, man. Or should they get excited about it? They get a lot of things rolling out.

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I mean like, I think I'll start with find you'd grind. Find your grind. This year we're doing more festivals, more stuff in high schools if we're excited about not only college but really looking at, you know, we've talked about. Okay, well what is find your grind for individuals? What is that process of like self guided, on demand? I can pick up on your grind at any point. To learn more about myself and learn more about my trajectory, my path. I'm going to do it on my terms, my time. There's no teacher like the app and find you'd grind is the guide. Right. That is that kind of new purpose based learning that I think is so important right now that we're gearing up for, for a launch in June, which is really exciting, but also looking at like, I don't want to give too much away, but where are people at right now? Our target with this is 1618. That's like our core target with this product. But where. Where a lot of those kids living right now they're living in consoles and gaming, in Xboxes and all these different areas within gaming. So it's like how do we create a product that can integrate within consoles, the gaming consoles, right? To really kind of start that. What if you want to find your grind for 20 minutes in between a Fortnite session through your console and start to open up chat rooms and different. We're talking about opening up more network opportunities and communication, community opportunities to find you're going to really connect with other people who are in similar situations or in similar lifestyles. And there's a lot of cool stuff there that we're teasing, you know, so like in building tours. But yeah, we got a rad esports team here called Team Rogue. So more of that stuff, you know. Yeah, we just like acquired a Call of Duty franchise in London which is super cool, man. There's a lot of that stuff. I'm drumming a lot. So I'M starting a new project right now with. With Travis Mills, which is exciting. So a new band thing that I'm looking at getting into. Travis is super cool guy has all kinds of exciting stuff happening on MTV shows. He's got a show on Beats 1 on Apple. He's also. He's crushing it. Yeah, man, I don't know.

I think a lot of stuff, you.

Know, my kid will be 1 years old in 3 months by the end of this year.

Wow.

But, yeah, I don't know, I think in terms of Gross Labs, man, like, the outcome was just to continue to, like, bring in more, you know, assets and things that help grow the base of the company, you know, like, we acquired this. This awesome urban label this year called Commission, which brought in like 8 or 9 different artists. Lil Dicky, Main Tokyo, all kinds of stuff. There's a Dicky record coming out this year. We're dropping two Main Tokyo records. There's a lot of stuff coming out on that end. So, yeah, it's just about doing smart things, you know, like finding more ways to, like, grow the opportunities here for the people we work with. Right. We work with entrepreneurs, we work with artists. We're developing our own businesses. We're also investing in other businesses. So it's like, how do we create smart things here? Like bring in smart things here to help those people and those clients and those artists that we work with, you know, it's really the idea.

I love it.

Yeah.

That being said, Nick, thank you so much for coming. Where's the best place to provide to us? Social media. Stay tuned for what you have going.

Yeah, it's just Nick Gross. N I C K H E R O S S is most of my social channels. GrossLabs.com if you're interested in Find your grind, which you should be if you're listening to right now, it's just findyourgrind.com a lot of stuff happening there. And yeah, I'll make sure to link everything below.

Yes, everyone makes sure you go follow Nick. Definitely check out the Billboard article that I've been referencing at the end of the day, so check that out on the below. Check out Find the Grind. And like I said, thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you guys later.

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