- On this episode I go in The Startup Van.
(upbeat hip hop music)
- [Gary] You ask questions,
and I answer them.
This is the #AskGaryVee show.
- Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk
this is episode 192 of the #AskGaryVee show.
Live from Dublin.
Dublin, Ireland and The Startup Van.
DRock, we made it to The Startup Van.
Gentlemen why don't you tell everybody who you guys are
what The Startup Van is and let's get into that show.
- Yeah of course.
Well, we started The Startup Van.
- First tell them who you are.
- I'm Graham, this is Mark and we founded
The Startup Van last July.
- You don't think Mark was capable of introducing himself?
- I'm Mark, this is Graham.
- The whole argument who goes first.
- Go ahead.
- Basically if you want to look up GaryVee or you want to
look up Richard Branson there's thousands of videos but there's
these great entrepreneurs in early stage startups that their
videos are shit.
You look up a video and it's bad quality,
bad sound, exterior noise.
- All the kind of stuff that I loved doing for Wine Library TV,
shit production that would drive DRock crazy.
But you guys wanted to create an environment this cool van that
you could do high-quality videos for them.
As a business, as a production company where you would charge
them or as a platform to get exposure and build our brand?
- Well we said we'd never ever, ever charge the startups.
'Cause it isn't fair.
- But you'll charge other people because you're bringing them
value and that's going to bring exposure.
- Exactly.
- And imagine if you ever had this Spotify founders or
Elon Musk or Zucks as original thing all you need is one lotto
ticket and then you build a real business.
- Exactly. - See I figured out.
- Yeah. Exactly.
- Not even two minutes.
- That's the quickest ever.
- Guys, I'm a business (censored) genius.
DRock when are they going to understand?
- We thought we got it but that's a record.
- How many have you done?
- About 250.
- Yeah.
- Wow. Good for you.
Wait a minute, when did you start this?
- Last July.
- What, you do one every day?
- We do volume so we do like 90 in one night.
- So we started at Web Summit.
We did about a hundred videos.
- I see. Got it.
You just sit here and have people come in and
you bang them out. - Exactly.
- How long are they?
- 'Bout two, three minutes.
Get in-- - It's a pitch?
- No, we didn't just want a pitch.
No one's and 30, 40, 50 pitches.
- Right, a story, a this, a that.
- And then we kinda throw 10 quick fire questions at them.
- So people have to learn when they listen as well.
- Now you guys hustled your way on to--
- Sorry DRock. So sorry DRock.
- I appreciate the hustle.
DRock, I like to make jokes about quality of content and
things of that nature but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was
affected when I took my little one hundredth of a second.
I always get hacked.
There's 1 million people trying to hack me right now to do
something in Helsinki and a million people trying to hack me,
a 1 million?
There's tens if not hundreds of people trying to hack me to do
something in Amsterdam, in Mexico and now that my
GaryVaynerchuk.com, link that up (bell dings), my tour is posted
people are trying to figure out ways to get to me.
When I look for a second, and that's what it was,
I said this looks cool.
This looks good.
And it was enough for me to say let's do it.
- It worked, great.
That's what we wanted to ask you when is
a hustle become annoying?
- It all depends on the person.
I'm very good.
Most of people don't piss me off enough but some people the
second time you ask they're mad.
There's a lot of my contemporaries, some of these
big names that we all know that I know get super pissed,
super pissed.
- DRock's been super patient.
Crazy level of patience.
- Alright let's go.
There's big arguments going on outside.
So let's get right into the questions.
Vayner Nation we're going to go rushed here, we're an alley,
people look like they want to fight we're going to wrap it up.
Tell them five minutes, five minutes
let's make it ten, let's go. Boom.
- A question that I had-- - You guys get to play
the India role. This is a big responsibility.
- Yeah, Irish India's.
- Irish India's, alright. - Let's do it. Let's go.
Question number one.
Are these your personal questions?
- Some yes. - Cool.
- So the first on is when you had to that conversation with
your dad that you were moving with your own thing,
how did that conversation go?
- This is a good question.
The truth is this is probably stunning
information for everybody.
We never really fully had the talk.
We kinda had to talk three years later believe it or not.
- Really?
- Really, which is contradiction to so many things that
I've said to so many of you.
Communicate this that and the other thing.
It was kind of a weird way that we got into it.
Uh oh.
- [Policeman] Two minutes.
- [All] Ok.
- Two minutes we're fine.
- Why don't we stop it here and move it?
Let's move it. Let's move it. We're fine.
- Yeah. Cool. Cool.
- No reason to fight.
- No, were going ghetto.
Yeah, I like ghetto.
- So is it on to me now?
What did you just ask there?
- No, I'll finish it.
I'll finish it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So that was interesting.
We innuendoed to it.
My dad knew what was going on but I was
straddling both things. The book came out,
Crush It!, there was a lot going on.
My dad wanted to get more involved in the business and
there's no such thing as two cooks in the kitchen.
If I give one to his advice, even this.
Are you the two guys?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It's not easy. - [Mark and Graham] No.
- You guys are different dudes.
You got different perspectives.
You can be the best of friends, best intentions,
love each other, everything.
VaynerMedia, I'm the CEO.
AJ is a COO.
I am one, he is two.
I was one running Wine Library but it was causing friction
between my dad and I thought it was an opportunity for me to try
other things and an opportunity for my dad to be a one again.
With my management team Brandon, Bobby, Justin, all those guys
Brandt at the time.
So it felt right and it worked.
My dad was happier.
My dad's an old school guy.
I over communicated with my dad but some things like family
dynamics are tough but it was great.
I don't know what episode that it is with my dad.
- Sasha's cool.
- We're the best.
And we love each other.
And we love each other a lot.
Maybe we could have had an official conversation,
we didn't. That's the truth.
- Sometimes it's easier that way.
- I don't recommend it.
It was far from my preference.
It was learned behavior over a 15 year period of time of
how we work together.
It was right for our, that's why I'm so scared to give
advice all the time.
Every situation's different.
Work-life balance, parenting, family business.
I give you my stories so I tell the truth here now people are
like Gary over communicated but there he didn't.
Trying to give the truth but that's what happened.
- [Mark] We got another question here as well what's the best
attitude to have if someone mimics your idea?
- Great.
Tech meetup van.
You don't own this idea.
- No. - Not at all.
- What are you the first two (censored) dudes to--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- There's been Taxi (censored) Confessions, I mean come on.
- Yeah course.
- Be better.
- Yep. Yep.
- Get better guests, ask better questions, execute better,
put up better micro-content.
Nobody gets to own these ideas, guys.
- We were never worried.
People always say to us what's to stop the Startup Tram?
- You're not going to win because of The Startup Van.
It's a shtick.
It's a cool thing that's (censored) cool,
I like it by the way.
But how you interview and who you get and what you do with
that content is.
I'm not the first guy to document my life and do a vlog.
I'm not the first guy in social.
It's never the first, it's the best.
It's never the first is the best.
- The best.
- Yeah, the best. - The best.
Do you know what I mean?
And guess what, you and I don't get to decide
we're the best.
- Yeah, I know. - They do. Got it?
- That't the thing. - Yeah, yep.
- Since DailyVee came out people can see,
and you said that's why you did it,
people can see how hard you work.
- Yes.
- Who's worth ethic do you respect because
that's high praise coming from you?
- My parents. - Your parents?
- My parents worked their faces off.
My mom never and have a nanny, we didn't have
a babysitter ever.
She had three kids.
My mom did everything for us.
She regrets raising, I'm not even capable doing my laundry.
I'm a slob.
My mom picked up everything after me.
Things that she liked to joke about.
That's what she wanted to do.
She did all the work, no vacations.
We took no vacations.
Guys I took three, three vacations in my life.
We worked all the time.
My dad worked every minute.
My parents it's learned behavior by watching them
and probably my own DNA.
I respect my parents' work ethic and I respect all the
single moms and single dads out there.
You know life is complicated. Been thinking a lot about as I'm
starting to build momentum as somebody who's advice is being
taken seriously that I'm trying to be very careful because I'm
starting feel a bigger sense of responsibility.
- Yeah.
- I'm starting to get nervous to be very frank with you.
Here giving advice and tomorrow somebody's spouse
is going to die.
Die.
I had a distant relative it hurts very bad.
He was diagnosed at 65 or 55 as you can tell distant.
Trying just to remember.
65 with cancer and was gone a month.
Gone.
Now that kid, I know the kid met him a couple times.
Met him at some family functions his advice is
different now than it was yesterday.
- It's just perspective.
- There's just all these different variables, right?
Who I respect?
My parents because I know that truth.
Who else do I respect?
Millions of people who work really hard to provide because
life gave them a curveball.
You can do everything right and your wife and kids can go
get killed tomorrow by a truck falling over on them.
- Yeah, yeah. - And so what?
You're gonna go hustle the next day?
You're going to grieve.
You're gonna adjust so I don't know.
I respect anybody who's trying as hard as they can,
trying to live the best life they can,
trying to do the right things
but no question my work ethic only comes from two people and
I think you guys know this about me I don't have any role models.
I don't care Richard Branson and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg
and Albert Einstein and Bill Gates none of these
people inspire me. They just don't.
My parents do and then it flipped into my responsibility
to my friends that worked for me, my brother worked with me,
the DRock's of the world and most importantly what's given me
unbelievable scale is the community.
I get inspired by people wanting to take selfies with me.
I get inspired with two guys who are working their butt off in
Ireland who really really wanted me on the show.
Because it would be good for them to use my name to get other
guests and I like that.
- [Both] Yeah, yeah. - I like that.
Or appreciated my work or a percentage of both that.
Do you know what I mean? - 100% yeah.
- There's a lot of ways to get motivated outside.
I love that I motivate people but I don't think we need the
big names at the top of the heap to be the motivators.
- Yeah, that's we decided as well with start ups.
We're going to look after every startup that we can interview
from somebody who's opened from five days ago
rather than two or three years.
- We got a guy at the end of January who literally came into
van and he had quit his full-time job that day.
- Yeah.
- And you could see the look on his face was fear--
- Sure. - but it was good.
- There is good fear. - And we could sense.
- He knew what he wanted and went out for it which is great.
- That's awesome. - Great to see.
- [DRock] Let's do one more question.
- Just one more question on that, if you owned
The Startup Van and you were to get one guest in, one guest,
who would you get in?
- Mark Zuckerberg. - Mark Zuckerberg?
- The best entrepreneur of this generation.
- Really? - Sure.
That's instant boom.
- Mark, call us.
- That's instant, go get Mark.
Go see what that does for you.
- That's next.
- Well we're over in the States soon enough.
- Good for you. - We're in the States in July.
- You're going to take this?
- Not this. We're going to get one over there.
- How they going to get this?
- It's like Air Force One.
Start Up Van. - I get it.
- So we're going over there in July.
It's going to be pretty cool. - Cool.
- Thanks so much getting in The Startup Van.
- Yeah. - It's been amazing.
- It's been so cool.
- Guys, this is kind of a unique #AskGaryVee.
I'm excited to do this we had the kind of this,
DRock's kind of yelling at us.
Let's keep that part where you yelled at us, DRock.
I don't know when DRock all of a sudden became
the (censored) boss.
(laughter)
We should wrap it up because we need to catch some
flights and I'm heading over to London now.
Just had a great talk in Dublin, really enjoying it.
Really enjoying the evolution of the #AskGaryVee show.
Different flavors.
Obviously we'll get back to our normal track but we had
some guests the other day.
Fun for you guys to join.
Good luck to you on your ventures.
- Great.
- I really kind of did this, very honestly, I liked their hustle
but what I like more is I like you more.
I did this because of knowing their model of interviewing
anybody here's what I'd like to happen I assume you have a
website where people can just apply to be a guest on the van,
right? - Absolutely.
- And that is what? - TheStartupVan.com
- Great. I want all of you that have a startup to go
pound them and I expect them to interview all of you guys
because of the nice gesture I did that I'm passing
on to you guys.
Question of the day.
Word association, I say Ireland you say?
You keep asking questions,
I'll keep answering them.
(fast paced hip hop music)