- YouTube, what's up?
So, so grateful that you clicked
and you're about to watch a new YouTube video,
but before you do, 212-931-5731.
That is my texting community platform.
I'm doing a lot of one on one engagement in there,
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And now, to the video you've been wanting to watch.
The reason everybody should make a TikTok video
is not because you have a product selling to 80 year olds
and there's 12 year olds on the platform.
Or that you want to,
really the real reason is to get your kids super upset.
(crowd laughing)
- Yeah my daughter reacted.
- Yeah.
But the real reason is.
You've got your perspective.
I just wanna be happy.
(upbeat music)
So how much are you,
how much are you addicted to accountability?
- 100%.
- Yeah.
- Everything in my life is my fault.
It's self-awareness.
- I really believe that we have to make accountability cool,
and that like I'm starting to believe,
and I'm throwing it out there,
I'm starting to believe that if we make accountability cool
in the same way that we view being politically woke,
in the same way in entrepreneurship
that we view the grind,
in the same way that we view watches,
in the same way that we view activism and giving back.
You know all these things that I just mentioned,
a decade ago, not cool.
It just wasn't.
Everything I just mentioned, 10 years ago,
15 years ago, not in the consciousness.
Accountability leads to
maybe you're miffed at your mom, right,
maybe I've helped you through my content
to say actually it's your mom who's your problem,
but then when you take that
and actually put it on a shelf and say yes,
but it's my accountability to accept it or not.
Then when you deploy empathy
and say, "Yeah, but her mom did that to her,"
all of a sudden you don't resent your mom,
even though you've had the epiphany
of like, "Fuck, that's the problem,"
and you take it on you,
which then allows you to get light,
it's fun to not resent your mom anymore
'cause who wants to really?
And then you start chipping away
at accountability, like you just changed the framework.
It's acknowledging it.
You have to know it's in the room,
but it goes to not blaming that
because that becomes the crutch
and the excuse, you have full control.
I believe if we make accountability super cool,
it will lead to enormous amounts of happiness.
(relaxing hip hop instrumental)
Hey guys, just did a podcast,
start to this day.
Jason and I were talking,
and we really hit on something
which is let's make accountability cool.
I'm starting to realize accountability
actually leads to so much of my happiness
that I think I'm gonna start beating that drum,
similar to empathy and other things.
I think you're gonna see a lot more accountability talk,
which is gonna be uncomfortable because people hate it,
but I think there's really something there,
and I'm gonna try to navigate those waters.
(relaxing hip hop instrumental)
What are you a VSCO girl?
- Sorry?
- You're like a VSCO girl.
Do you know the VSCO girl,
14 year old teenage girls
have fully taken over the
white on white Air Force Ones?
You don't know about this?
- Now I do.
(laughing)
- You're gonna have to really change up your sneaker game.
- We getting that on camera?
All he does is shit on me on camera.
- It's true.
No, I just, that was not shitting on you,
that's me trying to help you.
- I mean these are classics.
So what, I gotta rock the off colors?
- It's not Rick Ross anymore,
it's VSCO girls.
Community, good morning.
As I look at Madison Square Garden
and the Empire State Building,
I'm gonna leave you with a tidbit.
Judge the judger.
Always think about who's giving you the advice
or the feedback.
(phone ringing)
Hey guys, sorry to interrupt your video,
I'm just giving you this call from my number
to let you know that you have to join
my text community, 212-931-5731.
Hit me up with a text.
(coughing)
The context is I've been phlegmy.
I'm about to speak here at SAP.
It's a live on the Internet as we speak.
I legitimately have no idea
what the fuck we're about to talk about,
but I'm being fireside chatted,
which is always my favorite
because I just answer the questions.
Oh, and best commute ever.
SAP happens to be in the same building as us
so we just had to go down the elevator
to go back up the elevator.
We're on the 25th floor,
this is the 48th?
- [Man Off Camera] 48.
- 48, geez.
Good save, good save, good save.
- Get out of here.
- The little video you did on making a decision.
- Yes.
- I shared that with my daughter.
- You're very sweet.
- She's 16.
- Yes.
- It wow'd her, it made a difference for her
'cause she's so timid about what she wants to do,
where she wants to go in life.
- Yes.
- And she doesn't have the bold.
- I get it.
- You inspire her.
- Thank you for saying that.
Thanks for sharing.
I'm so good with words,
but there will never be words that I can put to
being on the receiving end of that sentence.
It's just.
- Yeah I mean its just like, I don't know.
- Those were the actual words, right?
Is that where you were going?
I know what you guys were thinking.
- Yeah exactly.
- [Man Off Camera] You were articulated,
but you said you could not articulate.
- Exactly.
- This is a very meta event.
Thank you for saying that.
It's fun, it's really fun,
and what's really fun about what you just said
is actually my process.
By me reading so many direct messages
from 16 year old girls, from 21 year old guys,
it's how I even knew to go there.
- Mm there you go, see?
- So it's really very fun to go through the process
of being an anthropologist, strategist, listener,
to becoming a prolific speaker,
and how it just kind of works.
- Allyusorg asked a question,
"Can you provide some insight for startups,
"trying to acquire users with no marketing budget?"
And Gary, this is a big issue,
a lot of people are just starting up,
just starting their business,
I have family coming with me.
My niece and nephew just starting a fitness business.
"Ramon, we don't have a lot of money,"
any tips you can give them,
zero money or little money,
how they can start?
- Yes.
I think about two core things in my macro thesis
of underpriced attention.
Which ads are actually underpriced
for what they return
in business results, not reporting results,
and which platforms are giving us free organic reach,
that over time may lead to awareness.
Right now the two greatest platforms in the world
for organic reach at scale,
are TikTok and LinkedIn.
Now TikTok skews extremely young,
so if you're selling to 54 year old CIOs,
TikTok is not necessarily gonna be the place to go,
but if you're starting a fitness app,
TikTok is an incredible place to go.
It's really ironic you know,
we're sitting in a moment in time,
and I have not seen this in the last decade,
where one mature platform
and one extremely young, emerging platform
are the current state of organic reach at scale.
So that's the answer to that question,
but there's other things.
There's sales DNA.
I think every single person
starting a business that has no money,
needs to take out their cellphone,
go into their address book,
and literally text every person there
whether it's their mom, or somebody they talked to once.
- Who you know already.
- Correct, and this is the nuance."Do you know anybody,"
not will you buy my product,
"Do you know anybody who might be interested in my x?"
I think you'll get two or three answers,
and I think people are scared to ask,
and when you have no money,
you only have the ability to ask.
- Yeah, for sure I like it.
Well, hey your thoughts on social media
and digital advertising overall,
if big guys and gals jump into it,
are costs gonna be different?
Is it gonna be harder for smaller businesses?
What do we need to understand
about more and more companies
shifting than what you're saying?
Shifting their ad dollar to digital.
How does that affect other businesses,
and what should we know about it?
- Well this is why I keep yelling
at the Davids of the world,
when Goliath comes and spends money on a platform
that is completely supply and demand
of how much money's in it,
and there's an actual marketplace,
not a floor of cost of inventory,
that is what people need to think about.
Like the reason to be early,
is no different than to be early in real estate.
We're sitting here in Hudson Yards,
we were here four years ago as a tenant.
That was a better price per square foot than it is now,
because this is all built out.
- Got in early.
That's right.
So, that's how I think about the end consumer's awareness.
Organic reach on Facebook six years ago
when I was screaming
at the top of my lungs was remarkably low,
and that really helps small businesses
as larger businesses come in and start spending ad money,
the cost of getting into the stream goes up.
It's like everything else.
Super Bowl used to cost a lot less
when a lot less people watched it.
This is just supply and demand,
it's always supply and demand,
and yeah this is why the LinkedIn and TikTok
conversation is so important
because when you don't have the luxury of big media dollars,
you have to look for those angles,
or even when you have some media dollars,
you have to look at things like Instagram swipe ups,
or heavily targeted YouTube pre-roll,
to understand where there is scale to move your business,
but in underpriced net cost
on the actual attention consumption.
Not the potential reach, but the actual reach.
- No for sure,
and I did my first TikTok video by the way
just a few weeks ago.
- I'm very proud of you.
- It sucked, but I did it.
- And how'd it go?
- It was okay, I just wanted to test it out and try it out.
Everybody's doing a TikTok video.
- By the way real quick, just to bring value.
The reason that everybody should make a TikTok video
is not because you have a product
selling to 80 year olds
and there's 12 year olds on the platform,
really the real reason
is to get your kids super upset,
- My daughter reacted.
- Yeah, but the real reason
is when you create for the platform,
you may find a nuance there that you learn
that three years later matters for your business
in storytelling on a platform that does age up
and uses that nuance.
I think that I did well on Instagram and Snapchat
and now TikTok because
I pot committed to Vine seven years ago,
and picked up on the nuances
that I now still use creatively.
So the learnings of making video
in that way and that form
becomes skillsets that you may deploy
when maybe LinkedIn evolves its video product,
and has some of those nuances.
- So I helped piece together
some of the question list that they just made.
One of the ones that
I have totally had an interest in
that he wasn't able to get to,
at the Democratic debate,
one of the largest conversation pieces
was breaking up the major.
- Yes, yes.
- Google, Facebook, all those.
Given that you advocate the use of them
for marketing, branding, the whole thing,
what's your view on some of the.
- I'm kind of unemotional if they get broken up.
I'll have to look at the capabilities of the platforms.
You know what's amazing about being 100% consumer centric,
if you told me the Internet has to be shut down right now,
I'd be happy to do
direct mail, newspaper, radio, and television ads.
So my thoughts are, I don't know.
From a marketing standpoint, I really don't care.
I'm just prepared to adjust to the reality.
Instagram's organic reach drop
is a far bigger concern for me
than if it got broken up, separated from Facebook.
That's political conversation that's pandering
to the macro conversation of the demonization of technology,
that's gonna play out however it plays out,
and whether these companies get broken up or not,
is not really something that even comes to my mind.
I'm a day trader
of day to day, underpriced marketing attention,
and if those platforms aren't able
to achieve the best deal,
then I'll find the thing that is.
- And just because they broken up,
doesn't necessarily mean
that you're not gonna be able
to leverage it for what you want to use it for.
- Yeah, if they said that Facebook
can't have any data to target people,
then it becomes television.
(relaxing hip hop instrumental)
Please.
- Question number one, many entrepreneur
think about social media like T.V.
- Yes.
And make all communication not nice, very boring.
- Yes, yes.
- What do you think about it?
- I think you know what you're talking about.
(laughter)
I think most people are putting out content
in a traditional way
and don't respect the platform they are distributing on.
Those videos were made for television.
This is a different medium,
and we have to make content
that fits the medium that we're distributing in,
and most people don't think about context,
they think about production value on content,
and that is the enormous mistake
on the far majority of people
that are producing content
both individuals and the biggest companies in the world.
From Carol to Coca-Cola, it is the mistake.
The elevation of production value of the content
and the disrespect for the context
of the platform it's distributing it on.
- Okay, many practitioner
and Itali and entrepreneur
are very concerned about the handling of haters.
- Haters, yes.
- And you have some advice
is better to.
- I have an answer.
- Delete it?
- No.
- Answer?
- Yes.
- Or do nothing?
- Answer one percent of the time 'cause you're busy.
(laughter)
ignore 99 percent of the time,
zero percent of the time delete.
- Never delete?
- Never delete.
- Okay, okay.
- Because deleting it, gives it more power.
- Okay.
- More importantly, let me leave everybody with this.
Zero of your haters will be by the bed when you die.
(laughter)
Zero of the haters will be at your Christmas dinner.
We lose loved ones.
We lose to death loved ones.
We mourn them for an hour, a day, a week,
and then we move on with our lives.
We remember them, we hold them dear,
but your parents, your children, God forbid,
your best friends,
your mourn them for a week if you're deeply in love,
and then you remember them forever.
To live your life based on a stranger
who you won't even know anything about
is a very bad idea.
It has less to do about the hater,
it has to do with person's own insecurity.
(relaxing hip hop instrumental)
How are you?
- Hi, I'm Roy.
The question is, what fields you need
to have who don't have agency experience
to come and work here?
- I don't like agency people.
(laughter)
That's actually a weird true answer, Roy.
We are about to hit a chapter right now
where we really need especially actually in all functions,
but for strategy and creative,
I need less agency people
because we're building a model that's upside down,
and all I want at Vayner,
besides kindness as a macro
in the micro of the actual work,
is ideas and making,
and you don't have to have worked at an agency
to be talented enough for ideas,
or have the humility to be good at making.
So this a really exciting chapter for us because
A, we're very very much focused
as an organization to create an
enormous push of diversity and inclusion
with a new organization
that it's just ultimately I decided
all the things I was doing for the last three years
in empowering executives, wasn't getting done,
so I just decided to become a dictator of it.
That's why this is happening,
that's why many other things are happening,
it's why Erica was hired, like we're doing it.
At the same token, it's when we need to hire people
that don't need to have agency experience thus,
we're not at the mercy
of the agencies industries lack of it.
So it's good fucking timing, Roy.
(laughs)
- [Roy] Thanks for that.
(relaxing hip hop instrumental)