Val Katayev - The Journey of Bootstrapping to Over a Hundred Million

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Val Kadayev. Super excited to have you on the show, Val. You are quite the serial entrepreneur and I've been following you on Twitter for quite some time now. So super excited to dive into your story.

Thanks man. Great to be on.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Again, as I just mentioned, you are quite the serial entrepreneur. You've been at this for quite some time and again I've been following you on Twitter and I know one thing that you talk about is being a bootstrap founder and growing to over 100 million across exits and revenue. And I want to start off by saying, you know, for the people that might not know your story or follow you on Twitter like I do, where do you spend your time today? And then how did you get started in this whole world of business and entrepreneurship?

Yeah, sure. So today I'm spending. So I have a holding company and I have a number of different companies. Most of my either co founded or got really early on as a, with a, let's call it a controlling stake. And so, so that's one thing I have in my portfolio is kind of all these companies and I have amazing CEOs operating all them. So I don't have to spend a lot of my time. But where I spend most of my time today is a company called Jocalio, which is essentially, I'm trying to build a backbone for the independent jewelers, which is a massive, massive market that is very fragmented. But so we're trying to fix that and build a backbone for that industry. So that's where most of my time is spent on today. You know, if you want to go back to how things started. Yeah.

Where did, where did this journey begin? And we'll definitely dive into the new company. But for you know, you've co founded and have operating stakes in so many different businesses. What was your first business and what led you down the path of entrepreneurship?

Yeah, good question. You know, it kind of came, I'll be honest with you, it came a little natural to me. So I started early. My first business. Well actually my first like somewhat of a real business was a content site. I had this like little website for PlayStation today it seems little but back then I had something like 20,000 DAUs a day.

Wow. Daus.

And yeah know, and that's like late 90s was when I started it. I think I was 16 years old or so 17 years old. And I mean that's like when I just got my computer for the first time. I never Had a computer before. I was I believe 16 years old is when I got my computer. So it started from there and then kind of the dot com bubble burst. That website, I didn't know how to generate revenue, lost 90% of its revenue because all, all the kind of like the ad networks lost all the advertisers. So I had to scramble and figure out how to generate revenue. All the traffic that I had was generating nothing. So I learned how to sell ads. And then I realized that those same ads I could, I needed more inventory for one thing. Led to another, I, you know, I kind of start selling those ads on other websites that are bigger than mine. And then like it eventually led me to search advertising, which was an unknown category. This is like before Google was a thing that was my first really successful business that, that where I generated like a real big profit. I did it all out of my parents basement.

Wow.

And yeah, so that's kind of like where that, that like I was lucky enough that that allowed me to invest into my other businesses one after another. So I never had to raise money, you know, and I was lucky to be able to bootstrap each one of my companies.

I think that's such a powerful thing, especially in today's age, right. And also in today's market, right. Like founders that can be scrappy and not have to go raise capital. In my opinion, I think it's such a, it's a powerful thing for founders to go through and you learn to work with less and actually again you, you're scrappy and you have to make it work. And you know, when, when you were getting the game of business, I think nowadays especially with Twitter, right, you see all these companies raising these massive rounds, especially 20, 20, 20 21. What was your idea on venture capital? Because I know you preach so much about bootstrapping your businesses and that's been your journey, but, but getting the game of business, did that, has that even ever crossed your mind? Or has that been an avenue that you wanted to pursue? Or was bootstrapping always your, you know your game from the get go and you've never looked back?

Look, when I started I didn't know what's a VC or raising money means. Like I didn't know any of that stuff. I was, I was a kid, right. So it was never a thought out process. It was, you know, again I started like in the late 90s, early 2000, so VCs weren't like a thing. I mean I knew that were VCS only because once the dot com, like tech companies start showing up on, you know, going public, you kind of start seeing who's backing all those companies. But I, I always thought I was like, hey, that's like, for the big boys. That was, you know, that's not for me. So I never really, really never thought about the, that as a concept for me at least to rely on to, to build my business. And then later on, it's just, you know, as I started every other, every business, yes. I started thinking like, hey, should this be the business that I take, take on some VC money? And every time it was like, hey, like you're used to, you know, operating a certain way. You know, if, unless, unless absolutely necessary. Let's, let's, let's put, let's put my money where my mouth is and put my own, you know, my own capital on the risk, my own capital on the line and, you know, risk it all the way. And so that's kind of like what I've done since so far I haven't had to raise VC money. But, you know, there are, there, I don't want to say, I don't want to speak against it because there are, I think there's some ideas out there that are just too big for any one individual to finance. And even if you're successful, I mean, there are plenty of opportunities out there. There's just no way I have, you know, the deep enough pockets to finance. So I just haven't had the need for that yet.

Yeah.

So, you know, again, that's my personal situation. But I love doing it. I love the control of it and I love being able to kind of control my own destiny. And so that's, you know, to some degree, it's a preference as well.

Absolutely. No, I love that perspective there. And yeah, I want to talk about this idea of having a portfolio. As you said at the beginning of this conversation, you have incredible CEOs running these different companies. What was that process going from, you know, working in the business to now working on businesses, finding CEOs to run these organizations. And you know, what have you learned through that process? Because that is A, not easy, but B, you've been doing this for quite some time now, and I would love to dive into that.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Today I have three CEOs who operate three different companies, like, again, bigger parts of my portfolio. And you know, the, the first one, he, he's actually a co founder, although I was CEO of that company first. And, but that was at a time I was actually CEO of three Companies at once.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. So I was. I was a CEO. CEO. So you got to think about this. I went from working from the basement, right. Building a pretty successful business and then starting a company and then spinning off two other companies off of that. And I ended up being CEO of three different companies with three different sets of shareholders, all at the same time. Wow. And at one point, you know, somebody came along and decided, wanted to acquire two of those companies at once because two of them are like music related.

And for those that may not know, I'd love to just quickly recap. What were those three companies when you were CEO of all of them? Were they aligned across different verticals or what were they?

So, yes. So, okay, so the first business I started was the whole paid search advertising business. Right. I never saw that business. I kind of like kept going. And then once I came across my second business, which was essentially promoting premium content such as ringtones. You know, if you ever looked up lyrics and then like came across a ringtone ad, I was probably like, I had a monopoly that in 65 countries and we were in front of a half a billion people every month just pushing ringtone ringtones across all these sites. It was a huge success, very profitable. I mean, we had a. I mean we generated over $10 million in our first year of profit. And I mean, I mean, at first I was doing it alone, and then I kind of merged somebody into my. Into. Into my company and ended up being just the six of us, essentially, or seven of us would have developed developer that we built this whole thing. And so that kind of spawned. So that's kind of like the ringtone music content space, right?

Yeah.

And very quickly, about a year into that, we noticed two trends. So one trend was mobile. We're talking about 2009. We realized that like all these smartphones start popping up and that's a whole different ball game when it comes to advertising. So we launched a mobile advertising network at the time. And this is before, like the iPad existed. Like, I forgot which iPhone came out. But that was like back in the days of probably the first iPhone that came out, probably. And so that was Mobile Fuse. So that Mobile Fuse, I have a co founder in, that's the company that's around today. And that's like, we have like a hundred people. It's probably going to do. You know, it's very successful as a business and has like Fortune 1000 companies as clients. The other business we spun off was I looked at all those music sites that were on our network that comprised of 500 million people every month. I looked at those sites and like the ads we would take were like these little text ads promoting the ringtones. But I looked all everywhere else and what I saw was display advertising space largely taken up by Google. Like and it was just these like ugly text ads in big boxes.

Yeah.

I was like, man, this is not a great experience. Right. So we figured like, hey, what would happen if we take all these sites or at least all the best sites, we legitimize them. Because a lot of lyric sites were at the time not licensed properly or license, frankly speaking. And we said, okay, hey, we're going to make you all this money if you get your content license properly. We're going to take your content now to brands and package it up as one. As one selling.

Right.

So we have one media kit, which is Tone Media, which is the name of the company that we spun off. And Tone Media would represent all these music sites that we would sell. So we sold it to like Pepsis of the world and Pepsi ran a Super bowl commercial with us. So it was like really exciting. We single handedly actually turned the lyrics category, which is the second biggest category of Biggest searched category. I don't know if a lot of people know this. The biggest search category of the sex is lyrics.

Wow.

I think it was at the time. I don't know if that's still the case today. It might still be the case, but that's the biggest category. And it was fully unlicensed. No lyric sites was licensed at the time and the content wasn't licensed. That's why all the owners were like. And Russia, Romania, China, all these places, you can't touch the, those owners. And so we single handedly legitimized that whole space.

Wow.

And today if you go to any lyric site, it is licensed and it's paying royalties to publishers and songwriters. And that's actually. I don't think I ever kind of really said it that way.

That's very well said.

Yeah. And that's, that was, it was a huge deal because like the, the music industry was chasing these sites for like decades. I mean they were trying to, they were trying to shut them down. It was like a whack a mole game.

Yeah.

So anyway, so the Tone Fuse spun off Mobile Fuse and Tone Media and then I sold Tone Fuse and Tone Media all in one shot. And like I stay on, I stayed on with a new owner for a bit and next, you know, I decided to retire. So I went from being a CEO of three companies to zero at all in one shot almost. And yeah, so. And then kind of got, you know, bored after three years of doing that and then launched the current company that I'm running today. But that's kind of how like the thing started. Look, I found these CEOs.

So how did. Yeah, how did you find these CEOs? And you know, coming out of. Just to regroup on this question here, you know, you sell these companies, you take, you've retired, you take time off, you transition into that. Now you're finding qualified CEOs and running this holding company, but also launching this new company. To collio. How do you spend your time now in terms of managing and also building on a new company? Because I think that that skill set learned over the years can be passed on to younger CEOs that may be looking to build a portfolio company or a portfolio of different companies one day. So I would love to hear your perspective on that.

Yeah, look, I don't think there's a magic bullet for this, you know, as an answer. Like for me, those three, you know, the mobile fuse was. I guess I was, I was lucky to have a co founder who was really smart. And I just handed, you know, we decided to switch, you know, from me being a CEO to him taking over. And yeah, he's a really smart guy and has done an amazing job, you know, that growing that company. The fund management business that we have out in San Francisco, I kind of came into that by accident a little bit because when I sold my companies, I needed to invest somewhere and I really wanted to invest my money into marketplace lending. And that just kind of happened that I ended up going into a fund and then the fund was like very new. Really liked the manager. I think he was managing it for about a year at the time and he had like maybe like 9 million under management. So I was like, hey Don, I'll put money in a bunch of money into this, into your, into the funds. But I also want to buy into the business, like a real stake of it. So I want to be a partner in this business. And so that's kind of how that happened. So he was already the CEO, so. And I'm not technically co founder, but. But I'm a, you know, a pretty big partner in the company since then.

And I appreciate the perspective. I think just like understanding that getting involved deals and how things all work in different settings is very interesting, especially in my opinion. So I appreciate the insight there. I would love to talk about your new company. You Know, you talk about empowering independent jewelers through innovation at Jacalio. What does that mean to you and where did you see this opportunity? Because, you know, thinking back and hearing your story in terms of ringtones and being, you know, ad networks, you've seen a lot of things early and you've capitalized on these opportunities in many, many different ways. So what do you see in this, this new market that you're now building in?

Yeah, so what I see is, look, I'm always looking for, I love distribution, right? So when I, when I looked at what I want to do next and I was like, hey, I kind of want to do something that's fragmented, not like corporate America. I've done this like over and over. Maybe not so much ad tech, like, because again, I've done that multiple times now, like advertising related businesses. So I wanted to kind of help the independent, something independent, like, like small businesses. Right. So I came across the jewelry industry and I was like, man, that's a 300 billion dollar industry. Very fragmented. Huge chunk of it is in US. A huge chunk of it in US is independently owned. Now a lot of these stores are not like mom and pops, they're doing half a million dollars in revenue. They're actually doing 5, 10, 20 million, $30 million from each location. So it was fragmented, but it was also kind of like they're big enough where they could afford to do what I need them to do together. So that's where the idea came from. It's like, hey, how, how do we build a distribution channel but also to help and, and elevate that whole network of, or create a network of essentially these stores so that we could help them go up against the majors.

No, that, that's very cool. And so with that company, how do you think about launching a company, especially in this new, different industry, and understanding this massive opportunity? What's your game plan when launching a company? How do you go about it? Team building, culture, et cetera? How do you as a founder get ready to launch something? Because not only have you done it again, successfully, but I think just understanding your perspective on that, I would learn something from that and I'd love to hear it.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's a good question. Especially like in the jewelry industry, where a lot of people in the industry are used to operating a certain way and the cultures are just like a certain way, we really, we really kind of had to figure out how to bring a new set of sort of rules, but, but like how to do things differently So I really wanted to figure out how to change the paradigm of, of this industry. And like, we had to question everything. Why is something done a certain way? Because when you come into this industry and you hire all these experts who've done this for decades and decades, one problem that comes with that is they want to do a lot of times the same things they're used to doing for the last 30, 20, 30 years. Right.

Y.

And it's very hard sometimes to push back and say, hey, like, but why, like, why it has to be that way? You know, well, that's because it was. That's the way it's done. Well, let's, you know, then you have that conversation about, well, let's, let's untangle that and you know, see if there's a different way to do this. And you know, look, you're not always going to be right because sometimes there isn't a different way to do it. It's just, just for many reasons. But you, you know, half the times you do change things up and you do differently and you know, putting together a culture, I definitely want to always have the right people. Not just the right people actually, but like the positive people around us and around, around the company. Because no matter how good you are and it's like that, like, negative energy always hurts. Like, I know that I get, I get dissuaded whenever some, you know, there's negativity and it just bothers me personally and I don't want that in my company either. So that is definitely something I look at when starting a new company.

Absolutely. I love that. And you know, I, I interviewed the, one of the co founders of Mad Happy Today, which is a clothing brand. And you know, their brand stands for everything about optimism, positivity and like that's their beliefs. And they, you know, they've done some incredible collaborations over the years. And this is just top of mind because I had this conversation this morning, but I would love to hear, you know, some of your core values as a founder when building a team, when looking for, you know, these different CEOs and core values that you are just a huge believer in that have led to your success in your mind.

Yeah, look, one of the things that kind of a common thread, a lot of people that have worked with me is not necessarily for me to look at like Ivy League schools or like the education. Like, I mean, we, don't get me wrong, we have people like that as well, and they're amazing, but I'm not like filtering for that. And you Know, I can tell you that our first developer, my first developer that I worked with my. At the time of the second business already, you know, I literally called him up and we had this conversation. He just went to college. I. I started working with him when he was in high school, and I found him on some, like, on a forum, you know, like, back. Back when forms existed. And I found him on a forum, and he just started freelancing for me. And then he went to college. And like, a few months into school, maybe a year into school, I'm like, dude, you like school? He's like, that's all right. And I'm like, why don't you just come work for me? And he was in Wisconsin. I'm like, hey, come. Come on. You know, let's. I'm gonna, you know, move to New York and, you know, come work with me. He's like, cool, let's do it. And he just quit. So, like, I didn't care. I never cared about the formal education again. I think I started working with him when he was, like, 16, maybe 15, as a freelancer. So it comes down to, like, having people that it's easy to speak with. Like, a lot of you ever get that when you have people on your team that could finish your sentence or already know what you're thinking before you even start, you know, even started saying more than three words, right?

Yeah.

And also, like, just so much easier to work with because you don't have to explain everything and. And detail everything. And that's, like, probably one of the parts where I'm. My weakness is, like, I'm not great at putting it together. Presentations and PowerPoints and documenting everything. That's not me. Like, I'm not, like, that organized. So having people like that around me that kind of get the vibe and understand what we're all trying to build, at least for me personally, saves. Saves a lot of time and kind of works out and, yeah, for the best.

That's awesome. I appreciate you sharing that. And I want to pivot and talk about something that has led to this conversation, which is personal brand. I've been following you on Twitter. I've read all your threads, and you put out some awesome content just around everything. Entrepreneurship, building businesses, your experience as an operator, as someone that has, you know, was the CEO of three different companies, has this awesome portfolio, currently launching a new company. How have you found time and why have you found time to build a personal brand and to just put out the content that you do, especially on Twitter, which is where I Mainly follow you?

Yeah, good question. You know, I was always under the radar. Stayed away from kind of putting out, like, content or anything like that. It kind of happened also by accident. You know, a lot. Like, a lot of things in my. My life, I just kind of roll with the flow. I think I've shared it before. Like, I met Sam Par, and he kind of blurred something out on his podcast. Kind of made a whole segment about me, and without checking with me, which is a joke we. We keep talking about. So that's kind of like the first time. And then he. He kept telling me, like, dude, you got to tell your story. You got to love your stories. You got to share them, right? And a lot of people could really use that knowledge to. And you would help a lot of people. So. And I didn't really take it seriously at first. And, you know, one. One. One day, I was like, hey, let me try this thing. And he's like, write a threat. You know, I did it. I just took off and kind of. And I just. Just started. I just kept going with that. You know, I was like, all right, let me just keep rolling with this thing. And look, I don't. I don't know. Like, I don't. It was really. It's really hard to find time to do this, and it was find. Find time to start in the beginning as well. So it's. You know, I don't. I don't. I didn't have an agenda, to be honest with you.

Yeah.

And a lot of, like, I even get those dms, like, hey, man, like, you must be full of it, because who has the time to write up their stories when you have all this money? Like, I got stupid stuff like that, right? Yeah. And. And it's true. Like, I don't really have an agenda. I'm just out there. I don't have, like. Like, collecting leads. I mean, it helps once in a while. Like, you know. You know, you'll write a story about your fund management business, and all of a sudden, like, my. The company gets a bunch of investors reaching out to the company, and my CEO, the CEO of that company is like, dude, we just got like, 25 leads, you know, from that thread you wrote. And that wasn't. You know, that's not necessarily the. The focal point of. Of why I do this, but it happens once in a while. You know, a lot of the stories that I sold, the businesses, that doesn't give me anything in terms of business. But, yeah, look, I mean, I just want to put out value there. I Am in a situation where I'm blessed to be where I am, and I don't really need much else. I'm doing this for fun. It's like a fun game. And if I could share my knowledge and people could learn from my mistakes or from my successes, then, you know, I did something good, I think. But that's really the only motivation that's very great. And dude, thank you. So thank you for following my content.

Of course. No, absolutely. Your content's so great. And speaking of, you know, the content itself, but more so, the. What led you to creating that content is the successes and the different stories. And I want to talk about, you know, the acquisitions in your life and how. How they've changed your mentality in terms of being from an operator to then working inside of a company, whether that's from a financial perspective or just from an operating perspective. Like how. How did an acquisition change your life, your mentality on business and your workflow? And what did you learn from your first acquisition?

So I only had one acquisition process that ended up selling two businesses, two companies at once. Okay. So again, separate team, separate shareholders on those two companies, but I sold them all to one company all in one shot. All right? So I really never went through more than one. Well, I. I went through a process before that, before, after that, that. For another business that they didn't finalize, didn't. Didn't close out. But I only sold. Sold once. And what I've learned is, you know, when you're running your own business, especially smaller, with a smaller team, the. It's very different compared to coming into an established business where, you know, especially usually those are bigger companies. And, like, when I got acquired, it was by a bigger company. And, you know, they helped me.

They.

They asked me to stay on as a CEO of the advertising division. And, you know, it was very different for me. You know, there's. There's a bit more politics involved, people, a lot more teams, a lot more people, and you kind of have different teams working on different things, and you're trying to find your. Your strength and put together the right team for you that will. Will get certain objectives met, but, you know, to meet certain objectives. And so things are very different when you're working in a kind of core corporate America. Even if it's not like a huge corporation, it's still. It's not the same as, you know, 20, 30 people, you know, versus 200 people. Organizations can be very different.

Totally. No, I totally get it, because I know we were jamming up before this, like my, my company that just got acquired, we were a team of eight, nine. And now the, the company of our nation that we're working at is just over like 300. So it's like completely different. And it's that, that learning process is, has been real for me, which has been very cool. But when it comes to the, not only the personal brand, but, you know, you, you had this story, you, you talk to these different entrepreneurs in terms of the content you put out, and it's inspiring.

What.

And I know you didn't have like an exact end goal for content. It came into your life just by accident. What do you recommend for either founders starting out or experienced founders when finding time to create content? And why have you continued to do it? Right? When it comes to the impact, that's one thing, but, like, what fuels you from a content creation aspect? Because I've had lots of different creators on the show, but I think for every business owner that's creating content, they always have a different core reason as to why in terms of the value and what they're getting out of it. So I'd love to hear that perspective from you.

Yeah, what drives me on the content side is, like I said, like, you know, just putting out the value there. You know, the. Where do I get inspiration for a lot of the content? It's. Look, it's work.

Yeah.

You know, I, you know, I definitely have some people helping me with kind of the research of the content and. But I'm very involved in the content itself, writing and editing. You know, sometimes I'll, I'll spend time just making sure that, hey, is this what I want to put out there? You know, because I'm trying to stay away from like, anything too controversial. You know, sometimes that happens. But also, but I also, I'm always looking for educational. Right. Whether it's educational based on my past or educational because I learned something from somewhere else and I'm like, hey, let me put this framework together and, and kind of like some, some of my mentalities that I, I use to build my businesses. So that's what I want to stand for. I know for some other people, like, it's, it's a, it's a valuable tool. Like, I spoke, spoke to Alex Harmozi. You know, for him, it's a great tool for lead generation because he's looking to acquire businesses all the time for, for his, for his company. And you know, and he's obviously blown up. So, so, so I know it's a very powerful tool. I'M probably just kind of scratching the surface on it. But if I were to tell anybody something, like, look, I don't. For me, it kind of worked from the start. You know, I put out something and it just took off. If it didn't take off, my first thread didn't take off, I probably wouldn't be kept. Keep putting time into it because, you know, I'm the person that tests something. Let's see how it goes and then look at the results and maybe I'll test it again. If I really feel like there might be. I've done something wrong. Let me like, let me iterate something. But if, if, if my first story went completely on deaf ears.

Right.

I'm not in the business of creating content.

Yep.

I probably would have said, okay, this is probably not like, there's probably no interest in this. Right. And you know, I wouldn't be so, so focused on it now. If you're in a business of content, or your business could use content to generate leads and that's like an important engine for your self or for your business, then you got to stay on it and you got to keep going. Just for me, it wasn't the case.

Right.

So, like, if I failed my first try or my second try, I probably would have walked in because I have a lot of other things to do, you know, because this is not working.

I find that so ironic because, you know, like, the typical content path is like, things usually don't work at the beginning. And it's so funny because you know the type of person where you're. If it wouldn't have worked, you probably wouldn't have done it. Therefore it, it worked like a charm and you had something very impactful. I, I think that's so great.

And, and so I think I had, I think in the first, I don't know how, how old my Twitter account is probably. I don't know if it's eight years old or something, but whatever, like whatever number of years I've had Twitter, I think I had thousand followers all those years. And then the first. And that's just from being around. And then that first thread that I posted got me like 12 or 20,000, I think, like close to 20,000 followers.

Oh my God.

First thread. So, yeah, so it did all right. And so I decided to keep going.

That's so great. I love to hear that when it comes to your experience as an entrepreneur and looking back, you know, you got into this world of business at a very young age from these different from the gaming side of things. What advice would you give to yourself if you were restarting today? Bootstrapping. Don't have money. You know, this is your specialty. You've done it since the get. You're betting on yourself, yourself for young entrepreneurs that are starting a business in 2023, especially with, you know, what's happening in the market. And, you know, bootstrapping is a phenomenal thing to do right now, especially with everything that's again, trans changing in the VC landscape. What advice would you give to yourself and then advice to young entrepreneurs? And that could be the same thing. Who knows?

Yeah, look, it's, it's tough, right? There's so much more competition these days, but at the same time there's so many more opportunities. So, you know, a lot of times you got to think about it like, yeah, like, you know, you started it when there were. There was less competition, you know, 20 years ago. But at the same time, the opportunities were also very few. There were a lot less tech companies, there was a lot less audience, a lot less tools. There's a lot less information. There was nobody to talk to. So it's like, you know, there's a, there's a. I feel like there's a wash, right? And today the opportunity, if you could come across the right opportunity, the ceiling is so much higher, meaning you could reach so much more, you could generate so much more. You can generate so much value and reach so many more people today. If I was, and I'm always the way I always look at things, hey, where can I bring value to kind of arbitrage my time a little bit, but learn at the same time. And, you know, if I have certain things that I understand how to do, start there, right? Work on those, whether it's one or two clients, whether it's on your uncle or whoever, like, just think about, like, what people always ask you to help with, whether it's your friends, your uncles or your whatever. And that kind of should give you direction, what you're good at, plus what you like, like to do. Because it's hard to do something when you're like, you're not liking it. So. So I would focus in that direction first. And if you could apply that to something that is very scalable, you know, today you look at like TikTok and Reels on Instagram or, or YouTube shorts, whatever, like, just from content perspective, you know, I would focus on that just because there's just a vast amount of, you know, audiences and resources available that you could, you could unlock and, you know, put things together. Like, I always look for distribution also. Right. So if I could find a bunch of distribution, whether it's through influencers and maybe if you're good at creating brands or kind of creating interesting content on your own. I was never good at creating content.

Right.

So I would actually like to aggregate other people's content, whether it's other websites or whatever. Like I was not that great at actually creating my own audience. I was good at aggregating other people's audiences and then I would monetize them. So it's not for. Everybody's a little different. But yeah, I mean, obviously there's again, there's just a huge, vast potential on places like TikTok today that I think we still haven't seen all of what, what's gonna be done there.

Totally. No, I, it's, I feel like it's, I've been in the social landscape for six years now, like putting out content and everything and it just feels like every year it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and you're just like, I've realized, wow, like this is not only a long term play, but it's something that's just taking over in such a unique way right now over the last couple of years with shorts and all the short form content blitz that I would say is going on. But you know, a couple more questions.

In this show, right? Like, just perfect example. I think this show is part of a network, right?

Yeah, it is Blue Wire podcast network.

Blue Wire. So I, I actually spoke to the CEO and founder of Blue Wire, Kevin. Kevin, yeah. Cool guy. A really great smart guy. And that is the perfect example. Like he took a bunch of influencers, right. A bunch of podcasts. I think they're heavily into sports.

Yeah, it's like 95% sports and then, yeah, small business.

I mean that's a perfect example. Like what I would, what I would personally do if I wasn't like the content I was, I would aggregate everybody else is great about creating content. Like, you know, like Casey and you know, what we're doing sports, get them together into one network. Get, you know, get them packaged up because it's much easier to sell to brands. It's easier to create. Right. Like, so that's a perfect example how I view, like the, the, how I view new opportunities and how I would put things together. So for me it was, it was really cool. Kevin actually reached out and that's awesome. I think he saw one of my threads as well on Twitter. Love to hear that. I never heard of Blue Wire.

Okay.

Before.

Yeah. Blue buyers. I mean, you hit it right on the nail. Right. It's like the aggregation, what they've done in sports, and then, you know, for them, it's like testing out different shows in business and these different segments of aggregation. I think it's very smart. And Kevin, he's. He's been incredible to work with, so.

So actually, I'm not gonna take too much time with this, but actually, I just remembered what. How I connected with him. I was in Vegas. I was staying at the Win.

Yep.

And I was there at an expo, and I kept passing by something called Blue Wires, like a little studio. And I was like, what the hell is Blue Wire? Right. Never heard of it. Whatever. And just, I came back, I think probably two days later after I came back from Vegas, I saw Kevin follow me, and he. I think he had the check mark, and I must. I must have noticed it. And it said, founder, Blue Wire. Like, whoa, what a coincidence. Like, the guy. And I don't know what the hell. Blue Wire. So we connected, and I learned that it's actually this whole, like, network. They just happened to have a space and at the Win.

Yeah, it's beautiful. I usually, I'll go out to the Win, like, every month or two, just depends on schedule. And, like, they have that beautiful studio. As a. As a podcaster, part of the network, you can pop out there whenever, and it's been a great place to not only bring guests, but, you know, it's. You saw the studio, they partnered with.

The Win on it.

They invested a lot of money into the production side of things there. So I'm super glad you. You saw it. Right. And. And they've used that. Right. Like, for this network of. Of aggregating shows. It's like such a value add for these shows that are part of the network for podcasters like myself that are looking to go to a beautiful spot to record. So, yeah, very perspective, for sure.

And obviously makes a lot of sense with gambling, especially nowadays with sports and gambling.

Absolutely. Well, a couple more questions before we wrap up, Val. Just looking into the future, 2023 and beyond. What excites you right now and what opportunities do you see in the market? Right. Like, you saw so many things early in life, of course, the buzz around AI, everyone's hearing it and seeing it, but what excites you nowadays? And then what are you excited about within your own portfolio of companies?

Look, I'm usually not the guy to fall or go after, like, buzzy things.

Right.

Like, to me, Web3 was kind of like a little too buzzy, to be honest with you. And I never really focused on that too much. I mean, there's been great applications, don't get me wrong, but I think it just kind of, a lot of applications or businesses were kind of being forced and just to put a Web3 moniker on, you know, just to be in that bucket.

Right? Yeah.

So I hate to talk about it, but this whole AI thing, you know, the AI stuff is just, it is the one. Like I could get behind that. Right. I think it's just way more than just buzz. And the reason I'm saying that is not because I keep seeing it everywhere, on Twitter or content or social media, whatever. I'm seeing how it's penetrating my businesses. And it's not just penetrating from the perspective of, hey, Val, the founder, CEO is pushing anything down on the teams to use. I'm seeing the teams kind of, and not just like the teams that report to me, but even lower down are bringing that and say, hey, we could use like ChatGPT for this and we could do, you know, we could use AI for this. So it's kind of taking, Taking off in a way I've never seen before in any of my businesses before. Nobody came to me talking like, hey, can we tokenize and put this on a, on a blockchain?

Right?

Like, nobody's done that in any of our businesses. I mean, we kind of. It's always something that we would chat, you know, me, my co founder, maybe, maybe my C level suite. Like we would talk about, hey, like, you know, should we be looking at crypto or should we do anything with the blockchain? But again, it was like very top down, very high level. I've never seen anything like the, like AI penetrating from all sides of the business and across all teams. So I think we're just starting to see the beginning of it. It's actually pretty exciting. And again, I can't believe I'm like getting behind something that is buzzy.

It's a great perspective. Yeah, it's the bottom up, right? It's like you're not forcing this down everyone's throat. It's. It's coming to you and you're seeing the impact of it. So you can't ignore it.

Yeah, exactly. So I, I can't ignore it. And I can't. I have to say that's gonna, that is the, it's gonna shape the, you know, shape the industries and our industry or any industry. And for, for, for years to come.

I, I totally agree and that's very, very cool perspective, hearing that in terms of how the team's approach and how you've seen it. So with that being said, Val, I want to leave it open for you at the end to not only say thank you for coming on the show today, but where is the best place that the people listening or watching can stay connected with you, learn more about your businesses and of course, you know, follow you on Twitter to get all the value that you put out on social.

Yeah, I started actually putting out, putting out videos on TikTok and Instagram. We'll probably push it out to YouTube shorts as well. So. So if you want to catch my video content, go to TikTok or Instagram. I'm there. You know, I write all my stuff, obviously, on Twitter, so that is the kind of like where you find the threads and kind of the longer formats. So you'll find me on any of those platforms.

Awesome. And I'll make sure to link all that down below, Val. And with that being said, I just want to say thank you again for coming on the show today. Really appreciate everything you do and all the value that you put out and your story is quite impactful. So I appreciate it so much. Thanks, man.

I appreciate it.

Casey, of course.