Tupac and Me

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[00:01:20] Rolling.

[00:01:50] I've noticed a lot of people think of entrepreneurship like this.

[00:01:53] You get an idea, you raise money like millions of dollars, you quit your job, you build a product

[00:02:01] which you're sure is going to sell to everybody and you sell to everybody and you make a lot of money.

[00:02:08] Or you fail but now you're an entrepreneur and you fail so now you have another idea

[00:02:14] and you raise more money and life is wonderful. So when I was first an entrepreneur,

[00:02:20] I was working a full-time job at HBO and I stayed at that full-time job for 18 months

[00:02:27] after I started my first company. My first company was called Reset and I've talked about it before.

[00:02:32] I won't go into all the details but basically I was one of, Reset was one of five or six companies

[00:02:39] that built websites. This was in the mid 90s built websites and we focused on building

[00:02:45] websites for entertainment companies but I also did the website for americanexpress.com,

[00:02:50] connedison.com which was a utility company so I did boring websites to make that was

[00:02:56] I could charge more money that way but we built a brand by doing fun entertaining websites.

[00:03:03] Eventually though it was so much work and we were starting to hire people. We had like,

[00:03:09] I don't know, 20 employees already and I was still working my full-time job at HBO in part because

[00:03:17] I wasn't motivated as much by money. I still don't even think I'm really that motivated by money.

[00:03:24] I was obsessed with making a TV show for HBO. Again that's a completely other story.

[00:03:30] Perhaps I talked about it a little bit on my podcast with Sheila Nevins who

[00:03:36] worked at HBO. In fact I just remembered, Jay Remindez, I have to write back Sheila Nevins. She

[00:03:41] wrote me and I'm so bad at, so many amazing wonderful people have written me and I'm just

[00:03:49] so bad at returning emails. I really got to get better at it but I've got to write back Sheila

[00:03:53] Nevins. Anyway she was the head of documentaries and reality TV at HBO. She's one more Oscars

[00:04:00] than any other human being on the planet I think because so many documentaries won Oscars

[00:04:04] some documentaries from HBO. Anyway, very creative, somewhat eccentric but genius person and I was

[00:04:14] working on potentially turning my 3 a.m. project into a TV show. She gave me money to film a pilot

[00:04:21] and we filmed the pilot. It was amazing. I did the pilot with another guy who's been on this

[00:04:25] podcast, John Alpert, who's a great documentary filmmaker. In any case, I started doing

[00:04:34] websites and I did it for 18 for other companies and I would work all day at HBO

[00:04:40] and then around like 6 p.m. I would head on over to Reset where we had an office and employees

[00:04:45] and everything. I would head on over to Reset and literally work all night and you could only do

[00:04:49] this when you're young. There's no way I would be able to do this now. Eventually, I quit my job.

[00:04:55] I thought here's what I thought was going to happen. This guy at Loud Records which

[00:05:00] among other artists did the Wu Tang Clan. He told me that oh, the Wu Tang Clan is going to need 18

[00:05:07] different websites and you could charge $30,000 for a website. I figured I did the math that's like

[00:05:13] $600,000 and I figured this is amazing. Now is the time after 18 months of doing both now is the

[00:05:22] time I could fully quit my job and full-time be CEO at Reset. First day on that Reset, I called the guy

[00:05:32] and I said okay we're ready to do the 18 websites for the Wu Tang Clan. I think they wanted a website

[00:05:37] per album, per artist, for everything. Wu Tang Clan was like and it was interesting working

[00:05:44] with them. I remember I met this guy, Power. He doesn't sing for the Wu Tang Clan but he

[00:05:48] kind of was their initial manager. The rumor had it he raised money for the Wu Tang Clan. He produced

[00:05:56] their initial album. He raised money for it through let's call it illicit activities. I met with Power.

[00:06:05] He said you're one of us now and so I really felt like okay, I'm going to do a lot of business

[00:06:09] with them. He wanted that. I used to go down, me and my friend Elon, so in Elon Schwartz back

[00:06:15] in 2014 was I think the third or fourth podcast I ever did. He was a professional poker player.

[00:06:20] So Elon and I on the weekends we would go up to Harlem, 140 A Street in St. Nick. There was this

[00:06:25] park and we would play chess all day. And that's right in the middle of Harlem if you don't know

[00:06:30] the geography of Harlem. And so Power from the Wu Tang Clan wanted to or he was the manager.

[00:06:38] He wanted to go with me. They were all into chess. Their album was called The Mystery of

[00:06:43] Chess Boxing. I've played chess with the Jizzah. He's pretty good. And anyway, so I did a lot of

[00:06:50] stuff for the Wu Tang Clan. Then I did the website for the Source Magazine. So the Source

[00:06:55] Magazine was the premier magazine for all things hip hop. It was started by two Jewish guys.

[00:07:06] What was the guy's name? Jonathan. We call him Shekhi. I forget if his name was

[00:07:13] Shekman or Shekler. And Dave Mate. I forget again, I'm forgetting all the names. But Ed Young.

[00:07:23] So the Jewish guys didn't know it really had to run a magazine, but Ed Young kind of took over

[00:07:28] to run it. And Ed and I became very good friends. He eventually became CEO of another company

[00:07:34] I was involved in. And I remember, we should get Ed Young on this podcast. I remember one

[00:07:40] time Ed Young retired. So he sold his shares of the Source. I think it was about $2 million. Forgive me

[00:07:47] if I'm out of line here or if I'm wrong. And then I remember, I could be wrong on the details

[00:07:54] again. This is back in 1996 or 97. Ed tracked down through his family history who, so Ed's

[00:08:04] an African American. He tracked down where his ancestors were slaves like the exact house

[00:08:10] or plantation in Virginia. And he bought the house and lived in it. I remember visiting him there and

[00:08:16] so on. But anyway, we did the Source magazine. We did Bad Boy Records. So on another episode,

[00:08:23] perhaps I could tell stories about Diddy. So Diddy obviously owned Bad Boy Records.

[00:08:30] They were famous for not only all of Diddy's music, but even more so for notorious BIG's music.

[00:08:38] And we did a lot of stuff for them. We did Loud Records, Death Row Records, Intrascope,

[00:08:45] Jive Records, and on and on all these sort of rap record labels. And I have stories about all of them.

[00:08:51] But this particular story is about none of those record labels. So after two, so

[00:08:59] of course, if you don't know the story, Tupac Shakur was killed. I think they just caught

[00:09:06] and put in jail. His, the guy who killed him 20 or 30 years later. But Tupac Shakur was shot and killed.

[00:09:14] And he was this amazing rapper. You've heard a lot of his songs. And he had a new album coming out.

[00:09:20] And his mom wanted to release kind of his album plus a greatest hits. And so

[00:09:26] his mom talked to her manager, the manager talked to a guy I knew who talked to me and

[00:09:31] said, you want to do Tupac Shakur's greatest hits album. His mom's producing it plus his manager.

[00:09:38] And I said, of course, and it was going to be a $90,000 deal. Now

[00:09:46] for an entrepreneur, so I was an entrepreneur, but I didn't have any money. So my first business,

[00:09:52] I didn't even know anything about raising money like venture capital. What's it like?

[00:09:56] Why would I sell a piece of this company? And in a service business, we would make websites for

[00:10:04] people. So in a service business, if you get more business, you hire people. And if you

[00:10:10] lose business, you get rid of people. Now, of course, I never wanted to get rid of people

[00:10:14] and knock on wood, or not knock on wood, but fortunately, we never had to get rid of

[00:10:18] people. We were every month was bigger than the month before, but you don't know that in

[00:10:23] advance. So I was always the beginning of each month, the clock started again, we had no recurring

[00:10:30] clients really. So it was one off like, oh, if HBO had a new show come out, I would do the

[00:10:37] website. If Wu Tang Clan had another album, I would do another website. But there was no like,

[00:10:43] hey, we'll charge you $50,000 a month just to maintain all your websites that we didn't

[00:10:49] really have any deals like that. So we were a bad model for a service business. So every month,

[00:10:55] I had to kind of, I was much better at sales than I thought I would be. I mean, I was originally

[00:11:02] a computer programmer, but it turned out I was so passionate about the internet. Like,

[00:11:08] a lot of people didn't think the internet was going to be here to stay. Part of my job

[00:11:12] was convincing people you need a website and you need to do business on your website.

[00:11:16] Then I have to come up with all the ideas for their business. Here's what you need to do on your

[00:11:20] website. So as an example, JP Morgan and the bank, they didn't have a website. I met with them and

[00:11:29] they said, are you sure we need a website? And I had to say like, well, one day you might,

[00:11:35] customers might be able to see their accounts and how much money is in their accounts on

[00:11:41] your website. And plus it's good marketing for new customers. And I had to give them a whole

[00:11:45] set of ideas. And just like I mentioned earlier, I have to call back Sheila and Evans,

[00:11:51] JP Morgan will call me and say, yes, we want to hire you. And I would never call them back.

[00:11:57] I just was always bad at calling people back. It is a fatal weakness for me. I don't know how

[00:12:04] I've survived. I don't know how I've been able to build the network that I have within

[00:12:10] complete inability at calling people back. And I beg people, please just email me. Let's have

[00:12:14] conversations with email me because I can't talk to people on the phone. I don't know why it's like

[00:12:20] this phobia, but that said, I just remembered another person I have to call back by Thursday.

[00:12:30] So that said, I never called JP Morgan back, but that was when I was still

[00:12:35] had my full-time job at HBO. So I wasn't as worried about making payroll because we had

[00:12:40] enough clients to make payroll and I was in charge of HBO's website. And so I would always assign my

[00:12:45] own company projects from HBO. So I always knew I would make payroll from HBO. But once I left HBO

[00:12:52] to work full-time for my own company and run my own company, be CEO of my own company,

[00:12:59] I had to make sure I sold enough websites to companies to make payroll. And if I didn't,

[00:13:06] if I couldn't make payroll, I would have to both fire people and try to find the money,

[00:13:12] like borrow money from my parents or something, or they didn't have any money. So I had to

[00:13:17] or dig into my own savings, which I didn't have any matter at a 401k from HBO with nothing in it.

[00:13:23] But I have to figure out how to pay people. So I figured, okay, if we get this Tupac Shakur deal,

[00:13:28] I've got payroll probably for two months at least. This is great. And so the meeting gets set up.

[00:13:36] My friend who worked at Loud Records at the time, he was going to meet me there.

[00:13:40] And one thing you should know about the music industry is that for anybody who's ever had even

[00:13:47] five seconds exposure to working with the music industry, you know what I'm talking about.

[00:13:52] It is the most insane, unreliable just BS industry you could possibly imagine.

[00:14:01] I would say just about every record label I did business with had some connection to

[00:14:09] either crime or organized crime. And all this thing was between crime as just being bad people,

[00:14:15] and organized crime is exactly what it means, organized crime. So I could write a whole

[00:14:21] book of stories just about doing websites for the music industry. It probably wouldn't be that

[00:14:25] interesting, but there's lots of stories. So anyway, this is not necessarily a bad story,

[00:14:31] except I show up at this meeting and my friend from Loud Records who had been the intermediary,

[00:14:39] that I needed him because he was the person who introduced me to the Tupac Shakur's manager

[00:14:45] and Tupac Shakur's mom. He would be kind of the intermediary here. And of course I would

[00:14:52] give him a cut if I got the deal. I think I was giving like 10 or 15% cuts to people who were

[00:14:57] intermediaries for me at that point. But anyway, he never shows up and this guy, this manager

[00:15:03] doesn't even know why I'm there. That's what I mean when I say the music industry is

[00:15:07] unreliable. Why didn't this guy show up? And why didn't this guy, the manager,

[00:15:12] even really know I was there? Now, I had spoken to him, but he was like,

[00:15:16] remind me again, like what we're talking about. And I said, okay, from what I understand,

[00:15:22] Tupac Shakur's mom wants to do a new album for Tupac Shakur. Not only will I make the website,

[00:15:29] but I will do what's called an enhanced CD. So music wasn't, nobody listened to music online,

[00:15:36] then that didn't exist. There was something called CDs. You would burn the music onto a

[00:15:43] CD disc and people had CD players and you would put the CD disc into the player

[00:15:50] and it would play music. Now, you could also put the CD into a computer. Computers had CD drives

[00:15:57] and in addition to websites, my company also made what's called enhanced CDs. So there would be

[00:16:02] a game like on the Wu Tang CD, if you put it in a CD drive, there will be a game with the

[00:16:08] Wu Tang Clan and or a game with Tupac Shakur. So I said, we make it and I had with me, I would show

[00:16:16] him some enhanced CDs and I also would show him the ideas. I would meet him and show him all

[00:16:20] our websites for different record labels and musicians and also my websites for HBO and

[00:16:26] Warner Brothers. I did the website for the Matrix movies and the screen movies for Merrimax

[00:16:31] and all sorts of fun websites. We made really beautiful websites and I was proud of them

[00:16:37] and the enhanced CDs, I didn't know much about that side of our business but we did those and

[00:16:44] apparently we did a good job. So here's the problem.

[00:16:52] Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so

[00:16:56] much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at

[00:17:02] Altature at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

[00:17:32] If your child is struggling in school, then IXL is right for your family. IXL is an online learning

[00:17:50] program for kids that covers math, language arts, science and social studies. Backed by research,

[00:17:55] kids using IXL are scoring higher on tests. It's no wonder it's used in 95% of the top 100

[00:18:00] school districts in the U.S. Plus, a month of IXL costs less than an hour of tutoring.

[00:18:04] Get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when you sign up today at IXL.com slash 20.

[00:18:10] Visit IXL.com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

[00:18:18] Here's the problem. I show up for the meeting and I explain finally why I'm there and who

[00:18:25] I am. The guy is like, great. Show me your stuff. Here's my computer. He moves out of the way and

[00:18:33] lets me sit down in his chair. I am horrified or I should say I am terrified because at that time

[00:18:44] there were basically three kinds of computers. You could have a computer that was based on

[00:18:49] the IBM PC. I don't even know if, I guess Dell existed, but all those Dell-like computers and Compact

[00:19:00] and all these other computer companies, they make computers that were based on the original IBM

[00:19:05] PC and they use the Windows operating system. Or you could have a Macintosh or you could have a

[00:19:12] more exotic kind of machine like a Unix machine, but those were only popular in academia.

[00:19:21] At Reset we had only Macintoshes because Macintoshes were great for design and at HBO we only used

[00:19:28] Macintoshes and when I was a grad student and I worked a little bit as a programmer after grad

[00:19:34] school, I only used Unix machines. So I was only familiar. In my entire life I had only

[00:19:40] ever used Unix machines and Macintoshes. I had never once touched a Windows based machine and so I

[00:19:49] had no idea how to use a Windows machine and I had zero concept and so I was really hoping

[00:19:57] the guy from Loud Records, the intermediary would be there because he knew how to use

[00:20:02] a Windows machine just in case I needed to use it. Now of course I learned a lesson from

[00:20:07] this but I'll get to those lessons later. So I'm sitting down and I'm just sitting there and I have

[00:20:12] no idea where to put, I don't even know how to turn on the computer and so I finally said listen

[00:20:21] do you have a Macintosh? And he's like no this is my only computer it's a you know it's a PC

[00:20:27] and I said well to be honest I don't even know how to turn it on. I've never used

[00:20:34] a Windows based machine and he like put his hand on his forehead like he was like he had a headache

[00:20:42] or something. He's like what? And I said if you had a Macintosh no problem but I've never used

[00:20:49] a Windows machine and he's like you're coming here so he said this to me he said you're

[00:20:56] coming here to pitch me just give you $90,000 to do a website and a hand CD and you can't turn on

[00:21:05] the fucking computer. That's what he said I'm sorry for the language. And I said well I'm good with

[00:21:12] computers I've just I've you I went into my old year went to grad school for computer science

[00:21:18] I've used computers all my life and were as long as they've existed but I only have used

[00:21:23] Apple Macintoshes and Unix machines and he's like yeah but the whole world uses PCs nobody even uses

[00:21:32] those other computers and it's true at the time nobody really used Macintoshes. In New York City

[00:21:38] HBO and Philip Morris the cigarette company were the only ones known to use Macintoshes for

[00:21:45] the whole company and of course design companies smaller companies Macintoshes and web companies

[00:21:51] like my company Reset we use Macintoshes but I didn't know how to use a PC a Windows based machine I

[00:21:59] couldn't turn it on and if I turned it on I wouldn't be able to find out where you know I probably would

[00:22:04] have to download a web browser for him and and I wouldn't even know how to find the web browser

[00:22:09] if he added on his computer I just didn't know anything and then I'd have to you know

[00:22:13] show my websites from that. So and by the way I didn't know how to if I put a CD into his

[00:22:20] CD drive whichever computer had then I wouldn't have known how to find the CD the the the enhanced

[00:22:28] CD the software on his computer so I was just completely incompetent and he kept repeating

[00:22:35] you gotta be sorry for the language you gotta be fucking kidding me you are the computer guy

[00:22:42] you're the website guy and you can't use a computer and I'm like no I can use a computer

[00:22:48] I just I'm sorry I don't know how to use a PC I've never used a PC so well he's like well this is

[00:22:56] just a joke like we're there's no way we're gonna hire you I don't even know why you came down to

[00:23:01] talk to me and he's like I'm busy go and and that's again that's the music industry for you but

[00:23:09] he then sat down on his computer he wouldn't look at me there was no goodbye

[00:23:13] I just stood up and I said okay well thanks he didn't look at me he didn't say anything

[00:23:21] and maybe I stood there for one or two seconds but he was focused on whatever on it was on the

[00:23:26] screen and I walked out and then everybody at my office at Reset's office you know our our 20

[00:23:33] employees give or take they knew I was you know visiting with Tupac Shakur's manager and this

[00:23:40] was going to be an exciting project to do all Tupac Shakur's websites and his new websites and

[00:23:47] you know people knew that also this is how I was making payroll I was pretty transparent about that

[00:23:53] so I get back to my office and everybody's surrounding me and saying well how did it go

[00:24:01] and I said it went awesome it went great and people were like phew that's so good and I said yeah

[00:24:10] there's just some details to iron out but don't worry we'll figure it all out and this is going

[00:24:16] to be a great project for us so yes I lied but here's the thing I didn't want to tell people

[00:24:24] how it actually went because A I was ashamed of myself that the meeting the meeting was one

[00:24:30] of the worst meetings I had ever had I have had worse meetings by the way but that was one of

[00:24:34] the worst and of course I didn't get the job and there was no chance I was going to get the job

[00:24:40] and uh and I was ashamed and I also was scared that I wasn't going to make payroll that

[00:24:47] month and I didn't want people to if you're the CEO okay yes you want to be honest with your

[00:24:55] employees and you want to be transparent but you don't really want to be scared in front of your

[00:25:00] employees because once you're the captain of the ship and if the ship's going to sink

[00:25:07] then there's going to be a mutiny and and you're not going to be the captain anymore

[00:25:12] and lots of bad things can happen so I wanted to exhibit confidence I wanted I didn't want people to be

[00:25:20] nervous that they weren't going to get paid that month uh I was I knew I would figure it out one way

[00:25:26] the other although to be honest I was scared to death I always imagined I always imagined I wanted

[00:25:33] to create an environment where my employees at the end of the day could call their parents

[00:25:40] and their parents would say how was your day today and they would say it was it was the best day ever

[00:25:47] I learned so much I had I have so much fun at this job I'm doing exactly what I love

[00:25:53] so I wanted to create that kind of culture in that kind of environment and only as a last resort

[00:25:58] would I admit that there was a problem now I did talk to people about you know like banks

[00:26:06] about maybe borrowing money to make payroll but that wasn't really working out because I didn't

[00:26:11] have any recurring contracts that I could borrow off of and that's how you typically borrow money

[00:26:16] I didn't know anything about business let's put it that way I knew about the web I knew how to

[00:26:20] make a website I knew how to program I turned out to be much better at sales than I thought of

[00:26:27] I thought I was although not good enough to dig myself out of the hole I did with

[00:26:32] Tupac Shakur's manager so I had some skills at business and I was pretty good at managing

[00:26:38] employees and keeping calm in the face of adversity and so on and I was very good oddly at

[00:26:47] making partnerships you know anything sales related I was good at plus I knew how to get things done

[00:26:53] so I could get a website test it and deliver it on time and manage the people

[00:27:00] and the projects who were doing that but so I came back and I said it went it went awesome

[00:27:06] and then of course I called this guy from Nottingham and I'm like where the heck were you I

[00:27:14] completely died in there and he said ah don't worry that that guy's crazy don't worry about it

[00:27:19] and we'll find we'll find stuff for you and of course he didn't find anything for me

[00:27:25] I did get more jobs that month one way or the other I forget exactly which ones but clearly I made

[00:27:31] payroll I was growing but I knew it's really difficult to be in a service business because

[00:27:38] you have to constantly please a few people it's not like I had a thousand clients I would have

[00:27:44] like maybe you know five to ten companies at any given point that I was making websites for and

[00:27:49] as we grew got bigger and bigger we had more than that but at that time maybe I had five or six go

[00:27:55] to clients so I think I think I probably got more money from Con Edison that that month and that's

[00:28:02] how I was able to make payroll also I had even though they weren't considered recurring I was always

[00:28:08] getting new jobs from HBO and from the source magazine from interscope records and so on

[00:28:38] and

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[00:29:23] I excel dot com slash 20 visit I excel dot com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out

[00:29:28] there at the best price here is the point one is bad things are going to happen all the time

[00:29:38] that are unexpected I could have I obviously could have prepared better for that meeting I

[00:29:42] could have brought someone with me who knew how to use a pc or I could have learned how to use

[00:29:46] a windows based machine you know my goal then was to try to reach out to one new client or two new

[00:29:54] clients a day and so you know I should have realized though as part of the sales process I shouldn't

[00:30:00] go to a meeting by myself I should always take with me someone who is good at follow-up and knows

[00:30:05] how to use a pc and again I should have learned how to use a pc and b I shouldn't have relied

[00:30:13] on someone who I knew was unreliable to be at that meeting that's happened to me quite a bit also

[00:30:18] where I rely on the unreliable you learn you learn sometimes the hard way very valuable lessons so

[00:30:26] as I've mentioned on other podcasts you are the average of the five people you spend time with

[00:30:31] and if you're spend time with even in a business context people who are largely unreliable then

[00:30:37] you're going to have an unreliable business you will be an unreliable businessman yourself

[00:30:40] and so I was unreliable because I was hanging out with people who are unreliable fortunately I had

[00:30:46] enough people who are reliable as well that I survived as a business and went on and we got

[00:30:52] bigger and bigger until we sold the company which is completely another story so the other

[00:30:59] thing is you can either be pitiful or you could be powerful and I didn't want to go back to the

[00:31:10] office and be pitiful it wasn't my it's not it's not my employees responsibility to make me feel

[00:31:17] better when I'm feeling miserable and if I'm pitiful then they're going to look for new

[00:31:22] jobs and they're going to feel pitiful about their own lives when they were still working

[00:31:26] on jobs for me I needed them to have confidence to be happy they were with a growing company which

[00:31:31] we were that was no lie and and I wanted them they also worked on all the boring jobs because

[00:31:39] they knew I was getting lots of cool exciting jobs like oh the matrix movie or two packs of her

[00:31:44] chaker or Wu Tang clan or whatever so they knew I was getting a lot of creative projects as well

[00:31:51] so they that kept them incentivized to work for the boring projects like con Edison or American Express

[00:31:59] so I wanted them to feel like I was out there pounding the pavement for them to so they could

[00:32:05] do artistic exciting projects which we were known in New York City at least as being the company

[00:32:11] that did the most exciting project so that's how I was able to attract really great employees

[00:32:16] for relatively little salary so we probably paid the lowest salaries in the industry but

[00:32:23] we had we certainly did the most exciting projects in the industry so so I really always

[00:32:28] reminded myself you're either going to be pitiful or you're going to be powerful and I needed to

[00:32:35] exhibit a powerful presence in as I was building this this company and again it was it was I hear

[00:32:45] it is you know almost 30 years later where I remember or not quite 30 years later some 26 or 27

[00:32:53] years later but this was a big thing that I that I remember because it was so such a devastatingly

[00:33:02] bad meeting and I shouldn't have even come close to having a meeting that that was that bad but I

[00:33:08] was unprepared I counted on I relied on unreliable people I was trying to get big in an industry

[00:33:17] that itself was unreliable I mean if I were to begin to tell you I have to have enough courage

[00:33:24] to tell you so many other stories okay I'll tell you one story where one time I was invited

[00:33:30] to this party I won't mention the record label and it was kind of their annual Christmas party

[00:33:36] and I remember there was another guy from the web industry who was at this party who apparently

[00:33:44] got beaten up so badly at the party had to go to the hospital so that could easily have been any

[00:33:50] me or any of my employees none of us went to that party but that was the sort of thing that

[00:33:55] was like a regular that wasn't even unexpected it wasn't like a surprise that that happened so

[00:34:02] but anyway and also another important lesson was and I didn't really know how to solve this

[00:34:08] lesson at the time but you should really have more than one month of payroll in the bank and

[00:34:14] I very rarely did I needed to be a lot better at sales than I was I was usually pretty good at

[00:34:21] selling once I was in the room with somebody but I had a hard time because of my problem of

[00:34:26] calling people I had a hard time initiating the meeting so I used lots of intermediaries

[00:34:32] and I would pay the intermediaries pretty well and but I needed more intermediaries and that was

[00:34:38] that was very difficult for me to find so this is all just a story I wanted to say about

[00:34:45] entrepreneurship and about my own experience of entrepreneurship I learned some lessons

[00:34:50] from it hopefully listening to this gave you a lesson or two the most important being be prepared for

[00:34:58] a meeting work with reliable people and also the good thing is always exhibit confidence to your

[00:35:05] employees they don't need to know every detail of the business they just need to know you're

[00:35:09] fighting for them and that's important one thing I'm proud of with this company reset

[00:35:14] is that the employees of that company still have to this day we annual reunions where they get

[00:35:21] together their friends they meet each other and so on and I've never worked or been involved in any

[00:35:26] other company like that since then so I'm very proud of that but that's my two-pack

[00:35:32] Shakur story if you like this please subscribe to the podcast tell me on Twitter that you

[00:35:38] like this and I'll tell you more and more insane stories from about entrepreneurship and hopefully

[00:35:44] there'll be lessons from each one because entrepreneurship is very difficult and I feel

[00:35:51] you could be an entrepreneur and an employee of a company you could be an entrepreneur within

[00:35:55] a corporation if you have ideas and you're pitching those ideas with internally

[00:36:00] there's an element of entrepreneurship even being an employee but if you're entrepreneurial or

[00:36:05] would like to be there's it's a very crazy world there's lots of lessons to learn it's very difficult

[00:36:11] I wish I had someone tell me some of these things before when I was an entrepreneur like I wish I

[00:36:17] had had a mentor at that point but I didn't and I'm hoping some of these episodes could be like

[00:36:23] virtual mentorships for the listeners so if you know of someone who should listen to these

[00:36:29] feel free to forward this on and let me know if you like this episode thanks very much

[00:36:34] all right now I'm going to go back and call my parents tell them I have a good day

[00:36:40] exactly all right thank you James that was a great story you're welcome

[00:37:04] and we've heard a lot of theories about why I thought it was an eco move for your words less

[00:37:08] paper it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic must be a tech thing but those

[00:37:16] aren't quite right it's because now you can compare up front prices book a service instantly

[00:37:21] and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us

[00:37:26] so much more than just a list get started at angi.com that's angi or download the app today

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