Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss whether to build your personal brand or your company's brand. They cover key-man risk, why Jason Cohen sold WP Engine for $1.3 billion partly because of his personal brand, and how Andreessen Horowitz uses media to drive deal flow.
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And we could talk about personal brand versus corporate brand, which comes from Jason Cohen. So in YPO or EO, they have these executive programs. So I know for YPO, they have this Harvard program you go to, and every year it's only like they accept 60 to 100 people. It's always sold out every year. But the people you end up meeting, because they're so selective with it, they end up being badasses of all these like crazy companies. And when you have YPO International, it's another level. We're talking like they own palaces and like Not even $1 billion, we're talking tens of billions of dollars.
Even EO India, for some reason, it's all billionaires, right?
Anybody that's like, if you're EO, YPO International, because you're either like super high up or you have no money basically. In America, it's more kind of distributed, like entrepreneurship's way more accepted, right? But my point of saying this is like these executive programs pay off, but it's again, it's a very long-term thing. They might know you for a very long time, but because you broke bread together for 5 to 7 days and you did it for 2, 3 years, People will come back to you, no different than you speaking at these things and they come back to you.
And you have the program from MIT, right?
Yeah.
And what else? What's the other one that you have? Is that it?
Yeah, I did the— it was like a 3-year program for EO, MIT program. And yeah, there were some incredible people from around the world there. What I will say, I joined that one because 3% of people that go through that end up becoming billionaires. Like Michael Dell went through that.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Again, you never— but you would never do those things. 7 days sitting, listening. You can't do that.
How long for each 7 days?
Like hour a day? Every, every, no, every day you're in class at 8:00 AM until 10:00 PM.
No, thank you.
Yeah, exactly. You would not do that.
Yeah.
But like, I love learning these things, you know? So like—
Yeah, I'll get bored.
Yeah, you'll get bored like the first hour. Yeah. And you'll be leaving.
So, okay.
Jason Cohen tweeted this one. So he said this. Keep your personal brand separate from your startup brand. It feels good to mix at first, but it's detrimental in the long run. It's hard to sell a company that's tied to someone's identity, and you can't change positions like me at WP Engine or leave.
Uh, WP Engine sold though.
Did they sell?
Yeah, Silver Lake owns WP Engine. Uh, let's—
but he's very much tied to it.
Not anymore. Yeah.
Well, let, let's take him out of the equation.
Silver Lake. Yeah. Private equity firm.
Let, let's use like a, like a Tony Robbins. But okay.
When Jason Cohen started WP Engine, everyone, at least I in my circle, knew about it because of him.
Yeah.
And I think that's helped him grow WP Engine. But now when you look at WP Engine, do you ever think Jason Cohen?
I still do.
I don't.
But that's me. That's, that's, I'm, I'm one person. I don't think most people do.
I think most people look at WP Engine as a standalone.
You're probably right.
But WP Engine had its own brand. Yes, he was very involved and he probably had issues of key man, right? Like their word with key man risk. But over time as it raised some money and grew and added an executive team and it started growing on its own and wasn't reliant on his brand, I think that's changed.
Yeah, but I think the sentiment, probably agree with it. But the good news is, if you're not looking to sell long-term, then it doesn't matter. Yeah.
Because even with me, I don't think NP Digital would've been as big if I didn't use my personal brand to grow it. And then I used, I started taking my personal brand away, but it's still tied in really heavily.
When you have NP in the name, it's very hard to take it away.
Well, it was Neil Patel Digital and now it's NP Digital. So we did to some extent, but it's not perfect. But most of our RFPs and revenue comes from not my personal connections or brand.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think we'll finish, this year will be the end of year 8 for us. So then give it 2 more years, I think my personal brand will be even less, the company will be less reliant on my personal brand.
Would you say this year was a good year or a bad year or okay year?
Compared to what?
Last year.
Are you speaking revenue or profit?
Revenue.
Okay year.
Okay year, okay.
Profit depends how you look at it, but probably not our best year.
Okay, well, I mean, yeah, you were investing in growth.
We reinvested it heavily.
Yeah, and that's how you grow.
Yes.
So.
And my problem is, is, and you and I do this in marketing, Eric and I tend to invest when it hurts the most. So when things are worse, we tend to invest the most because that's when you have the most opportunity, but it hurts us personally the most because we don't have investors. So we're using our own money And we're using more than we feel comfortable to invest in our business.
Yep.
And that's when we hate it, but we know that's the right thing to do. So we push ourselves all the time.
That's how you build something big in the long term.
And then when things are good, we tend not to invest as much.
Yep.
Because everything is too expensive and frothy and we can't invest as much.
I'm cheap. I'm Taiwanese. You're cheap too.
I'm cheap.
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No.
So, okay, this can be one of our final things here. But so what do you think their AUM is?
Andreessen Horowitz?
Uh-huh.
Call it $50-ish million, billion, I mean, $50-ish billion, somewhere around there.
$56 billion, yeah, you're spot on. So their whole thing is like they claim they have an ecosystem, right? This is their plan for domination. So they have podcasts, they have newsletters, they have social channels, they have private founder circles, so curated chats, community events, Strong personal brand.
Going back to that, I think they're built off their personal brand.
So Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.
Yes.
More Marc Andreessen, but Ben Horowitz is also very strong too. Very strong. Yeah. Talent community. So they help operators with executives, they help them hire people, right? Expert networks. So like advisor specialists. So we have a, there's some people that we know that are Andreessen Horowitz as well. And then investor networks, right? So they basically say, hey, like we're not going to just give you money, We're gonna have a network to help you do things. And they have this whole new, they have all this own media now that helps them drive deal flow as well. And so that allows them to take bets on things such as Cluely, right? Who knows if that's gonna work out, but they just have a lot more shots on goal because they're able to drive so much deal flow. Now, if, but people don't buy venture firms, right? But like, let's say Andreessen, if Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz were to leave, what do you think would happen?
Now or?
Now.
I think it would be okay.
I think it'd be okay too.
You want to know why? Because I know they don't show up to a lot of their board meetings.
I think they have—
Their team does.
Yeah. So they have a really—
They semi-retire.
They have a really good team. And then their whole thing is like, they have fun doing these podcasts and things like that. And like they already have more than enough. And plus with $56 billion assets under management, your fees are pretty good too.
So.
Yeah.
And the reason I say they would be okay is I don't know them personally, but I know the life they live because I lived in a community where both of them once lived. I don't live in that community anymore. And a lot of entrepreneurs ended up living in that community in Vegas. But I wouldn't say they're retired. They're not grinding it out like they used to. I'm not either. They're of course way better off than I am, but they're much older as well. I'm not saying I'll get to where they are either. They did the right thing in which if you look at their company now and if they leave, the reason I think it will be okay is because they set up a good infrastructure with a good team. And that's what you want because I don't have $56 billion and their $56 billion is not from one person, it's from many people and pension funds and sovereign wealth funds and endowments. They've set it up where if they get hit by a bus, I don't wish that upon them. I hope they live for a very long time. Their business will be okay and still do okay. And I think that's the key. No one would want to give you tens of billions of dollars and have key man risk. And I think they've set it up where it can survive without them at this point.
Dude, the, who do you think's older, Ben Horowitz or Marc Andreessen?
Ben Horowitz is older.
How old do you think Ben Horowitz is?
I think he's like 5 or 6 years older than Marc.
Yeah, but how old do you think he is?
Ben Horowitz? 56, 60?
59. So he's 59 and then Marc Andreessen's 54. I didn't know, because Marc Andreessen's the Netscape guy. I didn't know that.
Yeah, but they're both quite a bit older.
Yeah.
They started Andreessen Horowitz around the time that Roughly at my age, because they started in 2009.
I just looked it up. What are you, 40?
No, they started at 16, so they're roughly 16 years old.
Oh, got it, got it, got it.
It's like me starting a company at 40, although they had much better prior success than I did. They're both, I would say they're both better entrepreneurs.
And by the way, everyone has their own journey too, so everyone can compound in their own way.
No, I'm pretty sure they're better entrepreneurs.
Everyone has their own journey. But you said they started at age 16. Age what, 16?
Them or me?
You started at what age?
16.
Okay.
I don't know what age they started.
So Marc Andreessen was really young when Netscape first started. I think he was like very early 20s. And so he must have been tinkering before that too.
Yeah, but they also sold the company to Cisco in between.
And we could also say like Russell Brunson likes to talk about the opportunity vehicle. So like he had a nice opportunity vehicle with Netscape, so.
Uh, let's see, what was the company that he ended up creating? One of them sold to Cisco or something like that, right? Uh, LoudCloud. LoudCloud is offered enterprise. Opsware to 63. No, there was another one at the end of that. Uh, Opsware, Hewlett-Packard. They sold to Hewlett-Packard.
Okay. So he sold Netscape to AOL for $4.2 billion. Okay. And then LoudCloud Opsware, which is what you're just talking about, Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. Yeah. So, and then he, I didn't know he co-created Mosaic, the precursor to Netscape while he was still a student at the University of Illinois. So let's call him 18, 19 years old when he started. Yeah.
Yeah. They're both good operators. I've learned a lot from them, not directly because I don't know them, but I've learned a lot from them by just listening to their stuff online.
Yeah. Their stuff is good. Anyway, guys, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.
