I think that once the video games exploded
in terms of popularity,
that's when I realized that I had become a brand,
like my name was a brand
and so, for me, I just realized at the time,
oh, I have this voice and people are listening
and I could do something good with it.
For both myself and Tony Hawk,
it's more the access that you get once you get to
an elevated cultural level, you know?
And for me, I have just always been an entrepreneur.
(uplifting rock music)
How did you manage to turn your brand
into a video game empire?
-Well, it wasn't the plan.
It was more that I was excited to work on a video game
and so when I had the opportunity
to work with Activision on our first game,
which became Tony Hawk's Pro Skater,
I dove right in.
I really worked on it, almost as much as the developers
in terms of beta testing and communicating
and getting all the resources together.
And so, for that it was just more something
that was a passion project.
I didn't really, I didn't think it was going to
explode as a blockbuster video game.
Skateboarding wasn't popular enough to warrant that,
and so at the time I just thought,
oh, I'm just going to make something
that skaters would like to play.
- Is there anything about skateboarders
that makes you good for investing in start-ups?
Well, I think just inherently being a skateboarder
you have to deal with so much failure
and being able to navigate that and accept it,
but also to persevere and push through,
I feel like that is definitely the key
to our successes in other places.
We call it the NBD,
the never been done, right?
And Tony Hawk has invented hundreds of trick, right?
And the whole idea is it's not really real
until somebody does it.
And what that gives the skater mentality
is ultimately you're always looking at what's next
and what's the progression and what that is.
So I think it gives people like me and him
the ability to kind of see opportunity and white space
through a different lens because we're always
looking at the world in this sort of progressive,
innovative way from being skateboarders.
What's next for the franchise?
Do you think we'll see any virtual reality games?
You know, it's tricky because,
especially with skateboarding,
if you get it too first-person,
people can't really deal with that
and they get motion sickness .
(laughs)
- I think it's still a little bit too early, right?
Where I really love it the most is in architecture, right?
Where you get to live inside the design that you're
actually going to build,
which I think has significant value.
- I just explored doing a VR 3D project
with some of the skaters on my team.
So that's actually live action
and that was interesting to come from that
perspective where you're going to see all angles
and people can look all around
and so you don't have to necessarily point the camera.
So it was interesting for me.
That was a learning experience for sure.
- What are you doing these days?
Why are you investing in so many start-ups?
- For me, I started my first company
when I was 18 years old.
And I sort of had this unusual experience
by starting so many different types of brands
and then becoming a professional skateboarder
then becoming a TV celebrity
and ultimately the experience of fully understanding
how to build, operationalize a business
and what owned, earned, and paid me,
it can actually do to accelerate that business,
is putting all of those pieces together into a system,
is what the Dyrdek machine is.
That's ultimately about creating
and accelerating start-ups.
- [Katie] So you have a new show coming
to NBC called Funded,
and what's that going to be about?
- It's a business show about capitalism,
but ultimately since it's created around a fund,
the television show is built to accelerate
the investments of the fund.
- [Katie] What are you looking for in a start-up?
- The stuff that really it's more stuff
that interests me more personally,
it's not like I'm just sitting there looking up
investment strategies.
It's more of a gut feeling for me of,
oh yeah, that is really interesting,
or that feels like something that I would
participate in.
- Sometimes I'll invest in industries that I want to learn.
And right now I just am really into understanding
just customer acquisition and churn of selling
direct-to-consumer mattresses.
I just still think there's a huge opportunity
in that space.
I'm a venture studio.
My passion is building.
I like coming up with the idea of putting the pieces
together and launching it and go,
but in order to fully understand opportunities,
a lot of times it's better to invest
in a bunch of different businesses
to see the trials and tribulations of them starting up,
to learn by the time you go and build one,
you have a much clearer path
of what it's going to take to be successful.