Netflix | Interview With Netflix Co-Founder, Marc Randolph | The Process of Starting a Successful Business, Introducing Your Product to the Market + Join Tebow At Clay Clark’s June 5-6 Business Conference

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 2)
When we started Netflix everybody had the same reaction which was oh, it’s just a matter of hours Before everyone is downloading Movies over the internet we were in deep trouble at Netflix and we had losses of about 50 million dollars

(Speaker 34)
Mark Randolph is an American tech entrepreneur the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix with a career panning is always facing

(Speaker 2)
You have no idea what’s gonna happen and so it’s this ability to job and they wanted to see which of us wouldn’t take no for an answer that was you that was me and that has been a profound lesson that is something that I’ve carried with me my whole life. That is something that I teach my kids, that I teach other entrepreneurs I work with. In the business context, that no doesn’t mean no.

(Speaker 5)
You know, what I’m going to do here, Mark, is I’m going to ask you a question. I’m not going to take no for an answer. I’ve been inspired. Here we go. You started the US version of Mac user magazine, I believe in 1984. Yeah, did you go from Cherry Lane to Mac user? Or why did you go from that?

(Speaker 2)
Well, that was it was good. That was the guitar player, Mac guitar magazine got that I had all this circulation experience that I had taken a magazine, a specialty magazine and launched it and made it successful. And I learned how to do circulation and I found and I eventually I got bought people this I’ll be honest with you I got fired from Cherry Lane. So I’m pain in the ass. I was always pushing. I was always trying things

(Speaker 2)
I was getting frustrated. I couldn’t get everyone’s excited about this mail order vision or about this circulation and so I met this entrepreneur who was going to start a Macintosh magazine and he invited me to join the team as a circulation director. And that was Mac user. And that was a wild ride. And that was a wonderful life experience too, because that entrepreneur was a guy named Peter Godfrey who’s a serial entrepreneur and

(Speaker 2)
Watching him relax a little bit and Recognize that you don’t know what’s gonna happen. And so you have to put yourself into a position to be prepared For almost and make decisions was a tremendously formative thing for me. Seeing how a real entrepreneur thinks, what they do, what they don’t do, how they parse the problem, what questions they ask. We sold Mac User Magazine to Ziff Davis about a year later and this time he said, ìMark,

(Speaker 2)
get us into the mail order business. Letís start a computer mail order business. And that was Mac Warehouse. And that one I did, I led that effort. And that was also a crazy wild ride. You’re picking up a pattern here is that, you know, the first half of my career, I was a junk mail guy.

(Speaker 1)
How old were you when you finally left the junk mail order industry?

(Speaker 17)
30.

(Speaker 2)
30. But my only part, when I transitioned, you know, I left Macuser, I went to, got moved to California to turn around a mail order company there, which we did. We sold it to a company back east and now I was in Carmel, California and there was not quite ready to go back to the ice and snow and began casting around for a job in California and found a big software company called Borland International and

(Speaker 2)
Managed to talk them into hiring someone to do direct marketing for them, which was not done at all in the computer business and I ran direct response marketing for them for about five years after that and really kind of introduced direct selling to the software business. That was the transition because one thing to put yourself in a position where I can do this for a long time?

(Speaker 5)
He shares with you the importance of never taking no for an answer.

(Speaker 2)
I was still using my direct marketing skills. I was also learning the software business, learning the technology world. About five years into my tenure, they moved me over to run a division of the company as a general manager. That was the turning point.

(Speaker 2)
Now I had P&L, I had programmers working for me, I had marketing people, sales people. So that was the point where Mark Randolph’s transition from being a junk mail king to being a Silicon Valley entrepreneur finally took root.

(Speaker 5)
I would classify, I’ve been doing a lot of Google search and a lot of reading about you, I’d also classify you as a beautiful man. I don’t know if that helps you at all. I would just, I would say Mark Randolph, beautiful man and

(Speaker 1)
Silicon Valley. I think you need to put the beautiful man part first and then you know.

(Speaker 2)
Just to be clear, I assume you’re speaking about my character rather than my appearance because

(Speaker 1)
the beautiful man doesn’t necessarily apply to how I look. You look here, listen here my friend, people are gonna pick up a copy of your new book, That Will Never Work, the birth of Netflix and the amazing life of an idea and just for the just to look at you. They’re gonna give you, they’re gonna say you know what I don’t even know what this book’s about. I’m not even sure that will never work is something I’m gonna read but I’m gonna read, but I’m gonna get this cuz I’m gonna try to flip through there and find a picture of this guy. I don’t see him on the cover, but he’s somewhere in there. We have a picture of you inside the book, sir.

(Speaker 31)
Yes, we do.

(Speaker 2)
You’ll find me right there smiling at you from the inside of the book jacket. And yeah, I must say I look pretty good in that photo.

(Speaker 1)
I’ll give you that. Oh yeah, there was no Photoshop done, folks. Very healthy, stretching every day. Now you started Netflix and you teamed up with Reed Hastert when working in the game

(Speaker 15)
of business.

(Speaker 2)
That has been a profound lesson. That is something that I’ve carried with me my whole life. That is something that I teach my kids, that I teach other entrepreneurs to do so. How did you meet Reed initially? I was working in a small software company. Me and two friends started a small software company.

(Speaker 2)
It was pretty geeky. It was doing quality assurance software, but it was small. There was probably a dozen of us all together, myself, my two co-founders, and then nine other employees. We did that for about six months and then this wonderful thing happened. Our little company got acquired by a much bigger software company, which happened to

(Speaker 2)
have been founded and was being run by Reed Hastings. We all went to work for this big company. Eleven of them went to this warren of offices in the basement to be a little business unit for their product. But me, Reid took and made the VP of marketing for his big international company. So I went from being this nice cerebral, heady job as marketing product for a small 12-person startup and boom, international man of mystery,

(Speaker 2)
employees and problems and time zones. The good news is, the bonus is that Reid and I lived in the same town, Santa Cruz, California, and so we began commuting to work together. So I worked for him, we lived in the same town, we carpooled together and over the next six months actually became reasonably good friends. That was important because six months later and this is the business I work with that

(Speaker 2)
in the business context that no doesn’t mean no.

(Speaker 1)
He shares with us the process he went through.

(Speaker 2)
Would have been winter of 1996. Reed’s big company was acquired by an even bigger company. But this time we weren’t moved into a cubbyhole of a warrant of offices. This time Reed and I were both being made redundant, fired. And we were commiserating in our commutes back and forth. And the circumstances of this were different.

(Speaker 2)
These were two public companies merging. And as you know, those can’t happen without government approvals and it takes four to six months. So there’s this weird limbo where they need you to come to work, they keep paying you, you have your office, but you have nothing to do. And I said, I’m going to use this time to start my own company, my next company, you

(Speaker 2)
know, number six. And Reed, he didn’t want to start another company, but he wanted to keep a hand in this startup world. He was going to go to office, back to school, get a higher degree in education, become an educational philanthropist. But he decided that he’d be my angel investor, that I would start and run the company and that all we had to do was come up with an idea.

(Speaker 2)
And that was the genesis for a series of three or four months worth of Reid and I carpooling back and forth to work every day, brainstorming ideas for what this next new venture was going to be.

(Speaker 1)
Now I want to go, I don’t want to steal all the thunder from the book. I don’t want to steal all, because what I want to do folks out there, folks, to see if the market actually wanted Netflix to exist.

(Speaker 2)
We wanted to see whether we could actually mail this to people, but we couldn’t find a DVD, so we went and bought a music CD and mailed it to somebody.

(Speaker 1)
You know I’m a shameless salesperson, you know that’s my character. So if you’re listening right now, you know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna ask our incredible guest, Mark, just enough questions about the book to make you go, come on, just tell us everything. I’m just gonna do just enough. That way you wanna go pick up the new book. That will never work.

(Speaker 1)
So let me ask you, when your friend, Reed,

(Speaker 2)
picked you up to work, In what vehicle would you guys be driving it? The hours in Silicon Valley are pretty long. I think our commute time was 7 o’clock in the morning, maybe 7.30. Both of us drove pretty nondescript cars. Reid drove a gold Avalon, if you can picture that. I had three kids

(Speaker 2)
So I drove an old Volvo. Oh, yeah car seats in the back and Reed’s car was immaculate my car full of half-empty packages of diapers and coke cans and things, you know fast-food wrappers You know, they say cars sometimes reflect the personality and that was pretty true.

(Speaker 1)
When Reid would pick you up at this time, was he wealthy at this point?

(Speaker 5)
Would you classify him as wealthy at this point?

(Speaker 34)
Yes.

(Speaker 2)
You know, Pure Atria, his company, had gone public. That was certainly a nice outcome for him. Then when he sold Pure Atria to Rational, that also was pretty nice. He was in a pretty comfortable spot. But ultimately, the thing we needed to figure out was would anybody do it? And there was no way to do it.

(Speaker 2)
It was incredible enough that he was prepared to be the primary angel investor for whatever crazy idea we could dream up. How much money did it cost to start Netflix and where did you start Netflix? So we spent months carpooling back and forth, throwing around these ridiculous ideas. One of them stuck with us, which was maybe we should try doing video rental by mail. Even crazier, we decided that we would do it with this brand new technology called the

(Speaker 2)
DVD, which at the time we came up with the idea wasn’t even out of test market yet. We tested a bunch of things. For example, we wanted to see whether we could actually mail this to people, but we couldn’t find a DVD, so we went and bought a music CD and mailed it to somebody. But ultimately, the thing we needed to figure out was Would anybody do it and there was no way to know that other than doing it mark?

(Speaker 5)
I thought it was weird bro when I got those things in the mail. I thought Who in the crap is mailing this what am I supposed to do with this? Have these people lost their minds and it was like maybe one out of maybe a hundred people I knew you know, maybe one out of 50 people

(Speaker 4)
I knew it seemed like they would go. Oh, yeah, it’s cool. Hey, I use it

(Speaker 2)
You do there’s a reason that the reason the name of the book is that will never work because you were not the only person Yes, what video rental by mail? There’s a blockbuster in every corner Why would I wait two or three days for something I can run down to the corner to get? Know that other than doing it. He shares with us how we started from the bottom and now he’s here. You’re picking up a pattern here is that you know the first half of my career I was a junk mail guy. Mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. It is mind-blowing. How did you get your first 10 customers your first 10 was it

(Speaker 2)
through the mailers? Yeah, it was a crazy thing. Listen, Reed wrote a check for $2 million. Well, actually, $1.9 million, and then my mom and two other people put in the extra. We had $2 million to start. If you think about what it was like in 1997, you couldn’t just go up and get into Amazon Web Services and grab a website. You had to build everything yourself.

(Speaker 2)
So it took a million dollars, took us six months just to launch a simple website. And when we launched, you know, we had about 900 DVDs. That was the entire catalog there were. And at the time, you know, it was you couldn’t go out and buy a mailing list of DVD owners. There just weren’t any. What we did is we had someone who did something we called black ops.

(Speaker 2)
He would infiltrate the user groups, the Usenet groups, these early social networks of the

(Speaker 33)
web.

(Speaker 2)
He’d find the ones that were dealing with there were the video files Who are into new geeky technologies like laser discs? And he’d talk up things Pretending he was just one of the gang. It’s the movie Hey, you know, I just heard about this company launching that rents DVDs by mail anyone heard about it called Netflix comm and Doing that he spread the word and so that

(Speaker 2)
when we finally launched in April 14th 1998 almost a few days from now it’ll be 20 22 years ago we actually had this flood of shares with us about the sneaky self-promotion they used to grow Netflix and he would infiltrate the user groups, the Usenet people who were curious. Now by flood, I mean about a hundred.

(Speaker 14)
Wow.

(Speaker 2)
Like this was not 160 million subscribers. This was getting a hundred people to actually come to the website in a single day. So it was pretty exciting.

(Speaker 1)
I love the honesty about this. I love this honesty about this. Your story about how you got those early adopters is very similar to the Reddit story. You know, they’re very similar to Reddit. For people out there that are struggling to get there for 10 customers, what advice would

(Speaker 2)
you have for them? Oh, don’t set aspirations beyond your means. You need to figure out how to get one. So get one, and then learn from how you got the first. Now get two more the same way, and learn from what you learned from that.

(Speaker 2)
It’s an incremental process. Even a company that becomes as large, as world-changing as Netflix, started out with nothing. We were in a old bank building with filthy carpets and we sat on beach chairs because we couldn’t afford furniture. I had, I spent months in the wilds of the New Jersey office parks trying to convince DVD manufacturers to put a coupon in the box.

(Speaker 2)
You know, nothing was easy. It was persistence, persistence, persistence, and confidence, confidence, confidence. But that is the situation that every early stage entrepreneur is always facing. You have no idea what’s going to happen. And so it’s this ability to relax a little bit. Groups, these early social networks of the web. And he’d find the ones that were dealing, there were the videophiles,

(Speaker 2)
who were into new geeky technologies like laser discs. And recognize that you don’t know what’s gonna happen, and so you have to put yourself in a position to be prepared For almost anything to put yourself in a position where I can do this for a long time And that that doesn’t necessarily mean business advice It doesn’t mean necessarily layoff and as people that your business can survive for an indefinite period of time

(Speaker 2)
Yeah, it means taking care of yourself so that you aren’t burning yourself out because this may not be a crisis that you need to be able to manage for more than a month. You may have to be able to manage it for a year. And that means maintaining your relationships, maintaining your balance, maintaining your sleep, eating well. I mean, all these simple things which we tend to forget when we get into these high stress situations And and this one I get is you know, I remember back in 2000. Yep when netflix was

(Speaker 2)
Finally cruising it we were gaining, you know, uh customers hand over fist it was so easy to raise money because the dot com was the was the Was it? And then boom in a matter of weeks the bottom falls out and where money was easy now money is impossible to get and wow was that an eye-opener was that a crisis all of a sudden for a company which is spending

(Speaker 2)
money it doesn’t have and it might get any more that’s awful you have to relax and realize that things are not going to happen dramatically quickly we used to you know i do a lot of outdoor a lot of outdoor um things you know i do a lot of climbing i do a lot of skiing a lot of numerous startups and ventures challenge for netflix is how do you build a company in a world of today but remain relevant and meaningful in the future when they’re and he’d talk up things pretending he was just one of the gang okay you know I just heard about this

(Speaker 2)
company launching biking kayaking wilderness things in a lot of outdoor modeling and and there’s this thing that when you have a crisis and someone’s injured they say Stop take a breath the person is

(Speaker 2)
Better suited if you take a minute to evaluate the situation than if you rush in and I feel that’s the best possible advice For what’s happening now?

(Speaker 1)
Now you I want to go back. Um. I want to go back to right before the dot-com Fell apart, you know right before the the dot the dot-com implosion What how long did it take you to get Netflix to a place where you were gaining traction?

(Speaker 5)
You know, how long did that take you from startup to gaining traction?

(Speaker 2)
two and a half years It was brutal. You know, as I mentioned, the books called Battle Never Work, because that’s what everyone told me. Well, damn it, they were right. It didn’t work as we initially envisioned it.

(Speaker 2)
At first, when we launched this thing, it was a la carte service. It was like due dates. It was late fees. It was like going to a video store but by mail. We couldn’t get people to rent from us once. If we did, we couldn’t get them to rent again.

(Speaker 2)
It took us easily a year and a half, almost two years of testing, struggle, trial and error to finally evolve to a business model that actually worked, where we actually could provide a service that someone would pay us for, and they’d pay us more than it cost us to deliver it, and they would stay, and they’d tell their friends. Rents, DVDs, my meal, anyone heard about it? Call netflix.com.

(Speaker 1)
And I attempt to have the co-founder of Netflix diagnose my rash. Woo!

(Speaker 2)
But that wasn’t apparent at the beginning. That took a long, long time. And eventually it looked nothing like we started with. It was no due dates and no late fees. It was subscription. It was this crazy model, which miraculously worked. By the way, that was a crazy model which miraculously worked.

(Speaker 5)
By the way, that was a crazy deal. I remember I saw that. That’s what got me to try it out. It’s like no late fees. How is this company even gonna survive? I might as well try.

(Speaker 5)
I mean, did that no late fees policy bite you in the butt ever? Or is that the key to really opening up the market for you?

(Speaker 2)
It was the key to opening up the marketplace, but it did bite us in the butt later for a different reason. But initially, that was the key because the reason that everyone said that will never work because there’s a blockbuster in every corner is because they said, ìWhy are we going to wait two days for a movie when there’s a blockbuster in the corner?î But once we had no due dates and no late fees, weíd ship you your three DVDs

(Speaker 2)
and youíd put them on top of your television set and you could leave them there for a week, a month, a year, we didnít care. But what it meant was now when you wanted a movie, it was instantaneous. Youíd walk over and grab it from your TV. We were now faster than Blockbuster and that was what turned it around. And then when we added in the subscriptions, again my junk mail king being brought to the fore again, my circulation experience, that combination of the two was fantastic.

(Speaker 2)
And that was the point where we kind of stopped being a startup because we had finally figured out the repeatable scalable business model, but the reason that it did us

(Speaker 32)
Get ready to enter the drive time show

(Speaker 2)
Later Was that because it was confusing as you said because you what no due dates no late fees We gave people their first month free. And in a subscription business, that’s fine. You pay, you know, 30 or 40 dollars up front to acquire the customer, and then you make it back two dollars a month over four or five years.

(Speaker 2)
It’s a great model. But what it means is that if you’re wildly successful, if orders are flooding in, you’re going, this is fantastic, but oh my gosh, this is, every new customer is costing me $40. And they only get, next month, they only get $2 from them.

(Speaker 2)
So you can go broke being successful. And then the dot-com bubble explodes.

(Speaker 1)
When was that?

(Speaker 5)
When did the dot-com bubble explode, approximately? I’m we did not come up a little bit of a proxy and a look at

(Speaker 17)
her specific dates

(Speaker 2)
summer two thousand

(Speaker 5)
and now we’ve got the dot com explosion and then you also have this fight against blockbuster how are you is like a chuck norris movie where chuck is is fighting it’s like eighteen ninjas and somehow he dodges bullets and he’s got the whole

(Speaker 15)
talk to me

(Speaker 2)
how are you able to the truck notice ofris of this? How are you rolling over onto his back and exposing his throat after whimpering abjectly for a while? We were, we were of course, you know, struggling against blockbuster, but we were still nothing to them. You know, listen, in the summer of 2000, I think we were on track to do $5 million in revenue, but we were in the hole for about $50 million by that point. Blockbuster was a $6 billion company. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top, teaching you the system. 60,000 employees in 9,000 stores.

(Speaker 2)
So we were insignificant. What happened is after the dot-com bubble collapsed and we had all this expense of all these new customers going broke being successful, we go, we can’t sustain this. And then, aha, we’ll sell ourselves to Blockbuster. And that was the plan. But of course, we were nothing to them.

(Speaker 2)
We were a gnat. And so we couldn’t get them to return our calls, no less have a meeting. And it took about a month or so of us trying everywhere we could to get a message to them. They finally agreed to meet us at their headquarters in Dallas.

(Speaker 5)
Did you meet Wayne?

(Speaker 31)
Wayne Huizenga?

(Speaker 2)
I did not. He had he had sold by then and it was now John Antioco who was running it. But so he was out of the picture. I did not meet him But it was quite a meeting. I mean because we were pumped we go. This is our out

(Speaker 13)
Problems go away or at least they’re gonna be someone else’s problem. You’re fired up. Yeah

(Speaker 30)
Yeah, so we make the pitch we go. All right, we’ll run the online part of the business, which we know

(Speaker 2)
You’ll run the stores, which you know, weíll find all those synergies, which people are always talking about, and voila, everyone is happy.î It was going great, getting the nods, good questions, and then came the big question, ìHow much are we going to pay for you?î we had talked about this on the plane and we Decided well, we’re 50 million dollars in the hole so 50 million dollars and There’s this long pause. Oh and then’m not sure, but I think they were all struggling not to laugh at us at the hubris

(Speaker 2)
that this little company, $50 million in debt in the middle of the dotcom crisis, would have the balls to ask for, pardon me, ask for that much money. And it was pretty quickly after that. But you know, it was a key moment for us and for me. Because flying there, I had seen this as the out as the deus ex machina, you know, the hand from God that

(Speaker 2)
would come down and instantly. Oh, yeah, you were fired up. But on the way home, I was going, Oh, no. Now, there’s no way out. There’s, there’s no easy fix. There’s no magic bullet. There’s no way around. The only way we’re going to do this is head on. As my dad used to say, the sometimes the only way out is through and not only through but through Blockbuster. Wow, there is nothing that focuses your mind so much as realizing you’re going to have

(Speaker 2)
to take down a $6 billion corporation in order to survive.

(Speaker 1)
I don’t want to devalue the value of a megapoint because if you print if you print out too much currency you devalue it but that right there my friend anybody who can beat blockbuster with a 50 million dollar in the whole business going against a multiple I’m a dive so if you see my wife and kids please tell them hi it’s C&Z up on your radio and now three one, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the top. Billion dollar business, you sir,

(Speaker 4)
get your second mega point.

(Speaker 2)
Oh, thank you, I treasure this moment.

(Speaker 5)
Well, I guarantee you’re not gonna be on another show

(Speaker 1)
that’s gonna give you another mega point,

(Speaker 14)
I can tell you that. No, that’s right.

(Speaker 1)
They are hard to come by, I’ve realized that already. Now, my understanding is you also sat down with Jeff Bezos. Is that hoo-ha? Is that hearsay? Did you actually sit down with Jeff Bezos about acquiring Netflix or no?

(Speaker 2)
No, that is true. That’s quite a bit earlier in our checkered past because that actually took place in the summer of 1998, probably less than three months after launching. That was a really interesting meeting because I hate to keep hammering this, but everyone said that will never work. And then, all of a sudden, we get the call from Jeff Bezos, the pioneer of e-commerce.

(Speaker 2)
Back then, Amazon was only selling books, so it was still just a bookstore. But still, he had managed to pull off an IPO. So this was the guy, and if he saw something in this, well then maybe we were on the right track. And it was pretty clear, he had made it clear that he wasn’t just going to be the bookstore, he was going to be the everything store.

(Speaker 2)
And we were pretty sure the next category was going to be music and movies. And so it was pretty obvious he wanted to have us up to Seattle to talk about a possible acquisition. And it was kind of amazing because Reid and I flew up to Seattle and we’re following the directions to get to the headquarters and we’re wandering through this really sketchy neighborhood.

(Speaker 2)
I mean there’s people shooting up in the doorways and there’s broken glass.

(Speaker 5)
Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Thrive Nation on today’s show we have an incredible guest. He just happens to be…

(Speaker 2)
…glass and litter and there it is this old warehousey building which is Amazon and inside it’s just as bad. I mean people at desks are crammed in the corners and under stairs. There’s four people to an office. All the desks are made out of old doors on wooden posts, like the kind where you have the keyhole filled in with a little round piece of wood. Oh, wow. But anyway, we sit down with Jeff Bezos and it was really fantastic because he

(Speaker 2)
was already in this real business. I mean, he had real volume and you could see as we were talking that he was getting so jazzed up talking about the early days of Amazon, you know, we were sharing these stories about what our names were prior to launch because you always have a beta name while you’re you have to pay people before you come up with your real name you know something

(Speaker 2)
to be on the check something to take the lease under and at Netflix our beta name was kibble like the dog food and at Amazon the beta name was Cadabra, which Jeff thought evoked magic, but his lawyer said, ìNo, it sounds like cadaver.î So that one got nixed. I think Amazon was a better improvement, but it was really fun. What was happening is he said, eventually his CFO walked us out and said, if something happens, it’s probably going to be in the low seven figures.

(Speaker 5)
The founder of a little company by the name of Netflix, Mark Randolph, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir?

(Speaker 15)
Okay.

(Speaker 2)
Well, I hate fun, so it’s going to be missing, which, um, or no, yeah, low eight figures rather, which we go, okay, that means very low figures. It means probably it’s going to be a 15 million, $16 million offer. And at the time for someone who owned a third of the company and had been working on it for less than a year, that would have been a great outcome. But Reed and I felt we were just getting started.

(Speaker 2)
We’d spent six months building a website, figuring out how to ship DVDs. I’d made these deals with the DVD manufacturers. We were right on the verge of something we believed. And it was too soon to sell. So in many ways, this trip up to Seattle was less a sale, but it was more of a commitment

(Speaker 2)
ceremony and we said, we’re not ready to hand someone else the keys.

(Speaker 5)
In this journey, you’ve met so many great people throughout your career. Jim Rohn, the best-selling author, says you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Tim Ferriss says a similar quote. Proverbs says a similar concept of he who surrounds himself with the wise does well essentially and the person who surrounds himself by fools doesn’t do well.

(Speaker 5)
So I just want to know, what are some really big friendships that you’ve made along this journey? Who’s kind of like your top five that you spend the most time with or some great people you’ve got a chance to meet along the way that maybe you talk about in the book, maybe you don’t, but I think our listeners would be curious.

(Speaker 2)
You’re going to hear all this my friend, what does it feel like to be the guy that— That’s interesting. I’ve been incredibly lucky and I’ve had a chance to work with three unbelievably good entrepreneurs and what’s been valuable about that— first of all, it was lucky that I happened to end up in the same room with these three people at various points in my career. People often want to, now it’s become this glorified thing to be an entrepreneur.

(Speaker 2)
They think it’s all doing pitch decks and parties and being on Shark Tank or being rich or famous or something like that. And they take courses in it and you can’t learn it that way. You learn it by watching someone doing it. And even better, you learn it by doing it yourself.

(Speaker 2)
And it was so great having these years with these people so I could see how they made decisions. And frankly, those are the things that have stuck with me for my whole career. You know, one was a guy named Peter Godfrey, who was the person who pushed me

(Speaker 2)
into starting Mac Warehouse, and who was there giving me advice, criticizing me, helping me, and seeing him run his companies at the same time. Another person was Philippe me advice, criticizing me, helping me and seeing him run his companies at the same time. Another person was Philippe Kahn, who was the founder of Borland, the big software company

(Speaker 2)
where I did the direct marketing work. Of course, the third person is Reed Hastings. What an unbelievable privilege to have a chance to work alongside of him for seven years. But now, I collect people and I have a lot of people that I know think the way I do, that I can bounce ideas off of, that think differently.

(Speaker 1)
I’m sure people know you as the guy who co-founded Netflix. What does it feel like?

(Speaker 4)
Does it feel really awesome, kind of awesome on a scale of 1 to 10?

(Speaker 23)
How awesome does it feel?

(Speaker 13)
Oh no, it’s pretty awesome.

(Speaker 2)
I do. And it’s, that’s one of the things, that’s a huge asset for someone who’s my age, who can fall back on this big network of people that I can run my thoughts past.

(Speaker 1)
You, during the peak of this Netflix craziness, you mentioned, I say the craziness, the crazy growth of Netflix during this whole Netflix epic growth, during the struggle, during that. You mentioned during a crisis, you know, you have to be mindful of your sleep. You know, you got to make sure you’re sustainable.

(Speaker 1)
You got to make sure you’re in it for the long haul. So what did your schedule look like while building Netflix?

(Speaker 5)
I mean, what time did you wake up every day and how did you start the first four hours of every day?

(Speaker 2)
I’m gonna answer it someone obliquely, which is my style as you probably picked up here is that I’ve always been about balance. I mean forever

(Speaker 29)
You know in college

(Speaker 2)
About balance, but especially once I became an entrepreneur, I vowed really early on that I was not going to be one of these guys who’s on his sixth startup, but also on his sixth wife. And so I’ve always carved the time out for the things that I felt were really important in my life. And just to give you an example, at Netflix, and even before Netflix, every Tuesday, without fail,

(Speaker 13)
I mean without fail, at 5 p.m. I would leave the office.

(Speaker 2)
And I’d meet my wife, who had a sitter, and we’d have a date night. And for years we did this. And at first it’s tricky, but you gotta be firm. You know, big crisis, great, we’re gonna wrap it up by receiving movies a different way. One of the big failures people have is they fall in love with their ideas. Your idea is wrong. You don’t know how or why yet, but until you put something, and

(Speaker 2)
it’s not just the founding Netflix part. I think in general, I’m kind of the luckiest guy you’re going to, you’re going to meet. I mean, I have to talk to you. Okay, on the way to the car. But a really interesting happens, of course, is that if you do this consistently, eventually they stop asking. They realize you’re serious. But the better thing is, you know, culture is what you do, not what you say.

(Speaker 2)
And people realize this balance thing is for real. But I’ve always been like that. So what it means sometimes when you’re in the thick of it starting a company is that you get up early and you work a couple hours before the family gets up. But then you shut the damn lid and be there while your kids are up and getting ready for school. At Netflix, I would come home and I’d be home

(Speaker 2)
from six to 8.30 so I could have dinner, help put my kids to bed, and then I go back to the office at 8.30 and work until midnight. You can’t do that forever, but the things that are important, in my opinion, have to carve out those blocks of time because they won’t magically appear. You can’t say, ìI’m going to get out and get surfing if some time happens to appear. You’ve got to go, I’m going to block out three hours on Thursday afternoon

(Speaker 2)
and get the hell out of here. Every time we interview. Because otherwise, it’ll never happen.

(Speaker 5)
Every time we interview great guys like you, we hear of the importance of time blocking. It is just so, so important. And I want to respect your time. So we’re moving into the lightning round because I know you’ve blocked out about an hour here So I’m we’re going into the lightning round lightning round

(Speaker 5)
Netflix you grew it you’d navigated the company through the initial public offering Most people would think that once you’ve been through hell and back to take something public You might want to stick around for a while and enjoy the afterglow hand, I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life. The Netflix thing is just amazing to me because when you start a company, you have no clue

(Speaker 2)
that it’s ever going to be anything like a Netflix.

(Speaker 1)
You decided that you wanted to leave Netflix, I believe, in 2002.

(Speaker 15)
What prompted the move?

(Speaker 2)
I’m fortunate that I figured out what I love doing and I figured out what I’m good at. It’s the same thing in both, which is that I love early stage companies. I just love that problem solving, sitting around the table with super smart people solving interesting problems. And so yes, Netflix was successful. We had money.

(Speaker 2)
We could hire amazing people and I still love the company, but I realized that the things that I love doing were not happening as frequently there. That success is really about doing what you want. What I wanted to do was do early stage stuff. In great terms, gradually and safely, I did leave the company and now I’m back to doing the thing that I

(Speaker 2)
love which is working with early-stage entrepreneurs and helping them hopefully have some of the same success I’ve had. I know the listeners can pick up a copy of your book, That Will Never Work, The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea, but is there a specific website you want the listeners to go to if they want to learn more about you and all the things you’re up to these days. Sure. The best place to find the holding ground is my website, which is markrandolph.com. That’s Mark spelled with a C and Randolph spelled with a PH.

(Speaker 2)
But there you can find links to all of my usual, my writing, my video stuff, places

(Speaker 1)
I’m going to be, and also links to the social media where I do Pontificate more frequently this question. It’s not meant to be paint you into a corner question. It’s just I want to ask you this Well, you know mark. I have a rule here at the Thrivetime show whenever we interview the co-founder of Netflix We always give you one free mega point When you finally because you worked so hard you delayed gratification I know you didn’t do it for the money, but once you recognized that in the great checklist of life that money would no longer be a problem, at least for the short term or midterm or whatever, once

(Speaker 2)
you had finally made some money, how did that feel? It’s nice, I guess. I grew up in a fairly affluent community. One of the best things about that is pretty early in your life, you separate happiness from money. You recognize they are not the same thing.

(Speaker 2)
One does not lead to the other. I knew a lot of super rich people who were super miserable. I treat them always as two separate axes. Is it better to be rich than poor? Certainly. You don’t need to worry about your kid’s education or being able to afford to go to

(Speaker 2)
a doctor. But is it going to make you happy?

(Speaker 16)
No.

(Speaker 2)
That, you have to look other places.

(Speaker 1)
Final two questions for you. What are a few daily habits or a daily habit that you believe has allowed you to achieve

(Speaker 5)
super success by most people’s standards

(Speaker 2)
I’m very focused. I Start every day saying what do I want to accomplish today? I Start every week by saying what I want to accomplish this week every quarter. I do the same thing You don’t accomplish the things you you don’t make priorities and make goals. I stick to that. That includes taking a lot of time off.

(Speaker 2)
It’s not like I’m constantly working. I just don’t wander through life. That’s that’s the sound of a mega point kind of loud there. That’s one free mega point. So there you go, sir Get one mega point there. It’s better than a cookout gumbo. Yeah I’ll save them up. I want to want to have as many mega points as I fairly directed Even when I direct myself to say you’re gonna spend three days now not thinking about anything except having enjoying yourself That’s a big one for me. Hmm, and I am I’m pretty balanced I mean, I really do get out and run or bike or surf or climb

(Speaker 2)
pretty much every day Now chief, this is the tough question. This is the one where you you might want to boom ready This is what you’re thinking right now Going back to the music. We’re going back. I’m never I’m a former DJ I’m a former disc jockey and I have to know give me a few of your favorite artists, or maybe a favorite song. Just give me kind of the soundtrack of all things Mark Randolph.

(Speaker 2)
So I’ll usually hit up Alexa to play some Steely Dan for me, and let’s let her pick and choose from that catalog. I just find that really fascinating. You know, my musical tastes were largely driven by the 80s as you picked up. So I do still love that music.

(Speaker 2)
Luckily though, my kids have brought me into kicking and screaming, and now I’m really kind of a hip hop guy too, which is a little embarrassing to admit.

(Speaker 5)
Do you have any hip hop artist or any hip hop song that’s kind of your jam right now, or maybe one of your jams?

(Speaker 2)
No, I’m a retro. I’m Biggie. I’m behind the times by about ten years, but it’s okay.

(Speaker 1)
You are impressive folks. Google search just for a blasty blast. Google search Mark Randolph. M-A-R-C Randolph. It’s eye candy folks. I assume that’s the objective here. No they’re really really valuable in the afterlife. You just have to talk to the guy upstairs. So now you. It’s eye candy. Google search the guy. And then, by the way, folks, seriously, this book, that will never work. Man, does that speak to the heart of entrepreneurs. So folks, if you’re out there today and you’re saying, I’m quarantined. Listen, I’m going to do my,

(Speaker 1)
this is my high pressure sales pitch. Mark’s not going to do this. I’m going to do it. One, you say, well, I don’t have the time to read a book. Well, right now, folks, that’s not a great excuse. That’s not really the move. You’re quarantined. And you know you want to educate the mind. Two, folks, when you read a book,

(Speaker 1)
what you feed your mind changes the way you operate. It changes your actions. It’s so important.

(Speaker 2)
And third, there are great stories in this book mark. Would you agree? There are great stories in the book. I Do I was just really trying to paint a picture of what it really feels like to start a company It’s not glorifying it. It’s not painting me. Hopefully as I’m not painting me as being a hero or a genius It it it is what it really is like the really fun parts, but they’re really disappointing parts keeping your family together while you’re going through these things. But fundamentally, there are some good stories in there.

(Speaker 1)
Mark, thank you so much for joining us today on the Thrive Time Show. I really do appreciate it. And on behalf of our half a million listeners, we hope that we have done you justice with our questions.

(Speaker 2)
This has been great, really fun. And listen, I’m gonna hold on to those mega points very carefully, because I know that they’re like Bitcoin. They’re going to appreciate.

(Speaker 5)
Yeah, no, it’s really it’s hard to explain to like your family and friends. You know, I got an audio mega point. I go, can I see it? No, you can’t see it, but it is important. It’s hard to explain it to people to trade it. When you started Netflix, people don’t realize or don’t probably even remember, uh, that you were originally competing with folks like Blockbuster. And I want to go back to the very, very beginning.

(Speaker 5)
And they just kind of work our way. Trade my cow for an extra one. Oh, maybe some magic beans.

(Speaker 1)
Nice. Mark Randolph. Thank you so much, my friend.

(Speaker 28)
My pleasure.

(Speaker 11)
Play my honor, my honor to be on your show. And thank you for all you do.

(Speaker 8)
I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

(Speaker 27)
You know what I mean?

(Speaker 11)
People rave about what they learned from you. So congratulations. Sean, guess what’s happening on June 5th and 6th

(Speaker 5)
right here in Tulsa, Russia. We are probably gonna have an amazing business conference here at Tulsa, Russia. Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is gonna be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show World Headquarters June 5th and 6th. He’s a very successful football player obviously a Heisman Award winner but he’s also a very successful

(Speaker 5)
entrepreneur. Now when you work with real clients Sean, real clients you really work with to help them grow their companies, do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done? Every day.

(Speaker 1)
How often is not having enough time

(Speaker 5)
a problem for business owners? All the time. It’s like maybe 90% of the issues as people are trying to grow their company. Well, Tim Tebow is going to come join us here at the in-person Thrive Time Show two-day interactive

(Speaker 5)
business workshop. And he’s going gonna teach us time management and his approach to personal self-discipline and getting things done. Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here, also at the two-day interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be, oh there it is, we’re gonna be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people,

(Speaker 5)
accounting, social media advertising, search through. How did you, you’ve had a lot of success now, but how did you originally start? I mean, you’re born on April 29th, 1950. Optimization. Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most? Is it generating leads? Is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have by default before they come to one of our workshops? Well, I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners

(Speaker 5)
and being able to manage their time is the first thing. Once they get that under control, then generally the numbers, you know, being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area. And we teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay, you love to hammer on time management.

(Speaker 5)
It’s my favorite part of the conference. Now I’m gonna pull this up real quick here because we’re gonna go through it. If you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here. OK. All right. The two day interactive workshop. This is my 20th year hosting workshops. So I’m telling you, folks, we’re in rare form here.

(Speaker 5)
So one is the the idea of establishing your revenue goals. I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals. Would you agree or am I off my rocker? No, that’s totally a very important point we do with every one of our new clients that come on board is we have to Establish the revenue goals and generally speaking we have a vague idea But not an exact idea that can be engineered down into like the daily goals for sales And that’s that’s a really big one now next is the break-even numbers

(Speaker 5)
Oh, yeah, what kind of sales do you have to do to do to even break even? Yeah, third is how many hours per week do you wanna work? What is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur? Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce? What makes your company unique

(Speaker 5)
from all the different businesses? What was your life like growing up? Or where did you grow up?

(Speaker 2)
So I grew up in New York, not in the city, but not in the country. I grew up in Westchester County, which is kind of neither nor. Suburban town.

(Speaker 5)
This is in a world of brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial brown cows, the analogy of brown cows. How can you be the purple cow that stands out? How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil? Box number five, branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand?

(Speaker 5)
Box number six, marketing. Your three-legged marketing stool. What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed? Because if you don’t have any leads, your business will bleed. If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads.

(Speaker 5)
Sean, how often do business owners by default tell you they have a hard time generating leads? It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle. And many times they may be creating leads, but just through word of mouth. So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems and then they need to create more leads, but they’ve never had to do it. So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads? Something we hammer on at the conference a lot. Box number seven, box number seven,

(Speaker 5)
create a sales conversion system. Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system. Sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, pre-written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one sheets, the big screens

(Speaker 5)
that you see inside the business. Whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you got to have sales systems in place. We help you with that. Box number eight, what does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized. We’re gonna teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization.

(Speaker 5)
Box number 10, we’re gonna teach you how to manage people.

(Speaker 2)
I had nothing to do. And you know, I was fortunate, and then I kind of grew up in a risk-taking family,

(Speaker 5)
where real people on the planet Earth. This just in, we’re gonna teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training,

(Speaker 5)
and retaining great people. Box number 13, accounting, this just in. We have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re gonna cover all the accounting things you need to know and step 14, finally,

(Speaker 5)
what is the point of even achieving success? We’re gonna go over the, what is the point of even achieving success? How to design a life that you’re excited about. How to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun, and where you’re gonna spend your focused time.

(Speaker 5)
We’re gonna go through that, all this and more. Now the workshop, Sean, it’s June 5-day interactive workshop. The tickets, we always do it. It’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford. Sean, why do we let people name their price? Why do we have scholarship tickets available if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission ticket? Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it.

(Speaker 5)
You could be at a startup phase or you could be way along in your business, but we wanna make it accessible for everybody. I think it actually goes back, too, to a story of your dad. And like, it goes all the way back to how you’ve always done this as a business coach, trying to make sure that, you know,

(Speaker 5)
you’re just, your average people out there

(Speaker 26)
have access to the things that work.

(Speaker 5)
Now, 7 a.m. to 5, Sean, why don’t we go from 7 to 5 both days? a day, 20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 hours a day, Sean, of back-to-back workshops? We do a 30-minute teaching session, we do a 15-minute question and answer session, and then we take a break.

(Speaker 5)
30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of question and answer,

(Speaker 15)
then we take a break.

(Speaker 2)
When I would go off and do something crazy, I would not be reprimanded, but I’d be greeted with enthusiasm and curiosity. I mean, just to give you an example, like at one time I decided I wanted to learn how to repel.

(Speaker 5)
Take a break. Why do we do that format, Sean? That format is so that we can keep people engaged and not just sitting there listening, but also getting involved. We really encourage people to ask questions,

(Speaker 5)
and that’s really where the juiciness of the conference comes out, is you can put your personal situation and your questions on the board and Clay will tee off and give you direct advice. Even without being in our coaching program, you can get direct coaching from Clay. It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoyed a lot.

(Speaker 5)
Sean, final 60 seconds pop quiz here. What date is the conference? June 5th and 6th, 2025. Question number two, who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference there, Sean? Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in-person two-day interactive

(Speaker 5)
business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford? That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford. Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards? P-M-U-R-T-C-I-R-E.

(Speaker 26)
Ooh, that took a long time.

(Speaker 5)
I’ll have to listen to this signature. All right, again, that’s Sean Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, inviting you to come join us at the in-person Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive workshop, June 5th and 6th right here in Tulsa, Russia Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sean, I really am I’m excited to have this event I’m excited

(Speaker 5)
to see you at the event June 5th and 6th right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tim Tebow baby

(Speaker 1)
it’s Tebow time. Oh yeah. Tulsa, Russia.

(Speaker 11)
Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay Clark! Clay is the greatest.

(Speaker 2)
The idea out there and see it collide with the real world, you won’t know what direction to go. Nobody would rent DVDs by mail. But with over 40 years of being an entrepreneur, I’ve learned. You know where you descend down a rope down a cliff?

(Speaker 15)
Yeah.

(Speaker 2)
So I got a book and read up on it and found a book.

(Speaker 17)
I met his goats today, I met his dogs, I met his chickens, I saw his compound.

(Speaker 24)
He’s like the greatest guy.

(Speaker 25)
I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs.

(Speaker 24)
So this guy’s like the greatest marketer

(Speaker 17)
you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing.

(Speaker 10)
Oh my God! What’s up? is marketing. Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather, and man people are so excited as they come in. Conference is kicked off, this house is packed, we’ve got Aaron Andrus with ShopRooms up there, we’ve got Steve Ehrington with Total Winding Concepts up there. We’re talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do the provenance.

(Speaker 10)
So exciting. People are going crazy. Guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two.

(Speaker 13)
Follow me. Woo! Woo! Woo!

(Speaker 10)
I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two. It is gonna be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store.

(Speaker 13)
Woo! Woo! Woo!

(Speaker 2)
Woo! Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into a big tree in my yard and went to a 20-foot tall limb and was repelling off this limb. I remember when I told, nervously told my parents what I was doing, expecting that I’d

(Speaker 10)
be going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand

(Speaker 10)
how to come up top in Google.

(Speaker 23)
It’s doable, it’s possible.

(Speaker 13)
Now we’re in the middle of a break,

(Speaker 10)
and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them. Bathroom break and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time. Right behind me we’ve got Bob with his grill gun melting an ice sculpture.

(Speaker 10)
It is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that

(Speaker 4)
we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have. I heard about it on the podcast. Started listening to the podcast, became a fan, and then figured out about the workshop. I own an insurance and financial services agency and I was hoping to learn from the workshop systems and processes. I’m big on systems and processes and always learning better ways to run a business more efficiently. The atmosphere is second to none. It’s a high energy, really cool atmosphere to be around. Contagious, I would say.

(Speaker 2)
Grounded or something, it was the opposite. You know, it was, oh, that sounds incredible.

(Speaker 4)
Show us. And I would lead him out to the tree. Something every entrepreneur, I think, would appreciate and love. I’d say humorous, high energy, and full of substance, which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars maybe are high on motivation and making you feel good,

(Speaker 4)
but don’t have a lot of substance that you can take back and implement the following Monday Monday where his does. Man there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m gonna say like I came to this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really the importance of a group interview. I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes and that saving my time

(Speaker 4)
on that part is valuable. It was that and then the sales scripting that have been two major things just so far. Man, I think they’re missing out on expert advice from somebody who’s been there, done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons.

(Speaker 4)
That’s what I’m always looking for, is somebody that I can learn from, that’s ahead of where I am. And I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business.

(Speaker 8)
Hi, this is Charles and Amber Kolaw. We’re the owners of Kolaw Fitness. We heard about Clay Clark through Paul Hood, our CPA. We’ve worked with Clay Clark for the last two years. Clay Clark has helped us take our three locations in three different states and create checklists, workflows, task lists, time blocks for every employee.

(Speaker 8)
He’s helped us with creating systems and audits

(Speaker 6)
for every department, quantitative scorecards for each department.

(Speaker 2)
And it was like that for almost anything. You know, when I decided I wanted to earn money that and had a crazy idea about selling something door-to-door give it a shot and so I kind of grew up used to reposition so that everybody

(Speaker 6)
has a number it’s been able to give us a lot of time freedom and financial freedom and peace of mind to know that everything’s running efficiently and he’s been helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google and pretty much every area of the business.

(Speaker 8)
He’s been very, very helpful.

(Speaker 22)
We would describe the experience of working with Clay as very energetic.

(Speaker 12)
He’s full of energy. He’s very encouraging, very motivating, but also accountable. So he keeps us in the loop. He’s a great leader. He’s a of energy. He’s very encouraging, very motivating, but also accountable. So he keeps us accountable and we love that

(Speaker 12)
accountability. It keeps our drive in the right direction so we’re not chasing things that aren’t worth spending our time on. He’s a great coach. He helps push

(Speaker 6)
us on certain areas, helps coaches in certain areas. You know, we’re all emotional creatures and we go up and down and he actually will tell us kind of where we’re at, how we can get from there, and even like emotionally,

(Speaker 8)
like when we’re stressed about something, he’ll have a story to relate to and really helps us in

(Speaker 12)
every area of our business. It’s been very, very helpful. I think Clay’s ability to have a whole team behind him that help him with all of his clients, all his coaching clients, is that it allows Clay to do what he’s really good at, and that’s working one-on-one with the client and coaching them, and then he can have his amazing staff

(Speaker 7)
come in and help you accomplish all these goals that you’re setting.

(Speaker 6)
And of course he has all these resources, whether it’s videographers or whether it’s web developers, that they can quickly jump on your project, knock things off.

(Speaker 2)
He’s risk-taking and comfortable with risk-taking. And for some reason was just attracted to doing things that he can quickly give you the right coaching.

(Speaker 6)
He’s just got a whole team of people that whatever area you’re lacking in, in your own company, he’s got resources from like video, web design, search engine guys who are just knowledgeable in that. Even though he knows a lot of that stuff, he’s got these capable lieutenants that are ready to just take off and help you get that stuff done.

(Speaker 8)
More stuff gets done on a weekly basis than you would on like probably most…

(Speaker 21)
Individual.

(Speaker 8)
Yeah, than an individual or some other company. We’ve worked with several companies before. Not as many things get done on a weekly basis. It’s been very helpful. Well, the conferences for me, I’m a slow learner, so I have to learn like over and over again, hear things over and over again.

(Speaker 8)
I’ve been to like, I think, eight different conferences, and each time you come, I learn a few new components. Some things are repetitive, but a lot of the stuff just resettles and I get a little bit more depth into each component. So I mean, I’ve been to eight of them. They’re all super entertaining.

(Speaker 8)
He’s very funny, very encouraging. You get to kind of self-reflect a lot, a lot of the stuff is really polarizing, you do a personal inventory of yourself and you’ll think like, hey I’ve really got to work on this, really got to work on that. So every time you come I still get a lot of value out of it.

(Speaker 12)
And as much as every conference is the same, it’s totally different. So, I think we’ll hear stories we haven’t heard before, he’ll have entertainment, or he’ll have speakers he didn’t have before. And you, like you said, you just always catch a different part of the material

(Speaker 7)
that maybe you didn’t catch before,

(Speaker 12)
it’s worded differently.

(Speaker 8)
And it’s really cool, because some people that you’ve seen like a year ago at a conference,

(Speaker 2)
were not clearly laid out for me. You’re a wild man. Your friends call you mark wild man Randolph No, no, my wildness is restrained. I guess they when they now they’re you know

(Speaker 8)
Being showcased as a success story and you get to see their website You get to see how their stats and all their metrics have improved in the revenue improved. So it’s really cool to see people that just a year ago, that of course we’ve been here two years, that just came that I met is now being successful. It’s really encouraging to see other people you know accomplish that stuff. So McClay has helped us optimize our website and helped with really topping the right search engines that we need to make sure

(Speaker 8)
that we are very very competitive with all of our other competitors. He’s done, basically he outlines exactly what you need to be accomplishing and he creates tasks that we have to accomplish and his team has to accomplish. And I would say over the last two years, we’ve totally ramped our website. We’re topping Google in every one of our markets. We’re just doing just I would say just doing really really good I feel very very confident in all of our future locations and making sure that we’re in front of the ideal and likely buyer it’s very encouraging it’s

(Speaker 8)
important to me that to know when I’m working with clay you know I’ve been in business for a while and met with him even when I already had three three businesses in three different states and to know that what I share with him is staying private he’s not sending that out to anybody else to know that I’m old when he’s working with me he’s only working with one other I know other gems that are a direct competition with me it’s very encouraging to have something

(Speaker 8)
you can trust and rely on that he isn’t going to like somehow tell your trade secrets or give information away just really awesome that he isn’t going to like somehow tell your trade secrets or give information away.

(Speaker 20)
Just really awesome that he’s a trustworthy guy, really cares about you as a client.

(Speaker 2)
For us, it’s been a complete mind freedom because Clay has helped us create a lot of different documents. Seeing me in crazy idea mode, maybe their eyes, you know, get wide. But yeah, you wouldn’t quite notice that I’m quite as the same way from getting me on the streets.

(Speaker 8)
In one sheets for every department, put quantitative scorecards to each department. For us, it’s been very encouraging. It gives us peace. As an entrepreneur, it’s stressful. You go to bed at night, you’re worried, did we cover this, did we cover that? He helps extract everything out of your brain, everything from your business, put it into

(Speaker 8)
document creation, put it into checklists and workflows for every person in each department, and make sure that everything’s getting done every week, every month, and funnel that all into KPIs or key performance indicators, as you can see, on a weekly basis to make sure you’re moving the needle in the right area of your company. So, very encouraging and give you a complete mind, freedom, and peace to know that that stuff’s created

(Speaker 8)
so you’re easy to duplicate and scale your company.

(Speaker 7)
Right, and then we can spend time doing what we’re really good at and just trust the system.

(Speaker 8)
I honestly believe everybody needs a coach. I think we’re all inherently lazy and selfish and carnal. I truly believe that humans are humans. If’d rather, if we’re standing, we’d rather sit. If we’re sitting, we’d rather lay down. And if we’re laying down, we’d rather be asleep. So to have somebody that challenges you, have real active candor and be honest with you on every aspect of your company is really, really encouraging to me because I want to know, I want to work on what we’re weak at, I want to see any areas that we’re

(Speaker 8)
not doing well in and see his perspective from a third party. Because you can look at your own business and just see the good. It’s good to have somebody who’s done this with hundreds of companies. You know, really look at your company, reflect on your company, and see like little chinks

(Speaker 1)
in the armor to make sure you cover that up so your competition can’t get to you. You know, at the age of 23, I understand that you landed your first job at Cherry Lane Music Company in New York, and that you were put in charge of this company’s small mail order

(Speaker 4)
operation.

(Speaker 8)
And that you’re successful overall in the big picture. Yes, I would recommend Clay Clark because he is a great friend, great encourager. To me, he’s been a wonderful friend. He’s also, you can tell he cares. And he also, he has this wealth of knowledge. He’s worked with so many different companies

(Speaker 8)
and different businesses. He could take a concept that he’s used before in the past with somebody in a totally different industry and see how it would work perfectly for you in whatever niche market you’re in or whatever type of service you’re providing and so his brain is just a wealth of knowledge and just to have

(Speaker 8)
that type of perspective on you know as a part of your team and your own company is huge super valuable so I would definitely encourage people to use him but one thing is you got to be coachable you got to be wanting to get feedback you got to be wanting to really grow your company you got to want to put that extra 10 hours a week to working on your business and not just in your business. And so yes I would recommend it to anybody who’s wanting to

(Speaker 8)
grow their company and provide great systems, checklists, workflows, great encouragement and have accountability.

(Speaker 1)
Hi I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them and I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden so I was willing to listen. In my career I’ve sold a little over eight hundred million dollars in real estate. So honestly I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes and then I met Clay and my perception of

(Speaker 1)
what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. How did you land this

(Speaker 2)
job? Yeah it was a strange one. I you know I heard a friend of mine told me there is this.

(Speaker 1)
After doing $800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. We’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man there’s not much more I need to know but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from

(Speaker 1)
somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us. And it’s just been an incredible experience.

(Speaker 1)
I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry.

(Speaker 1)
He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn.

(Speaker 2)
Person looking for someone to be his assistant. And I go, whatever, you know, this sounds fun. But what this job was, was actually an amazing job. I guess now it has a fair amount of value.

(Speaker 1)
I’ve learned from the experts in my industry, but the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing. And Clay really brings that perspective for me.

(Speaker 1)
It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten

(Speaker 1)
in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like

(Speaker 1)
they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town.

(Speaker 1)
And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people they let their ego Get in the way of Listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs I would just really encourage you if you’re thinking about working with clay every idea is bad

(Speaker 2)
We just don’t know why they’re bad yet The important thing is how clever can you be to come up with a quick and cheap way to test it? One of the things I’d say is maybe successful is this complete comfort. Fancy title, it’s called Chief of Staff. But basically what it means is you follow the CEO.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads.

(Speaker 1)
Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing.

(Speaker 1)
I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not gonna regret it, because we sure haven’t.

(Speaker 7)
My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full time. I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what what do I want to do. My

(Speaker 7)
degree and my background is in education. But after being a mom and staying home and all of that I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder so real estate and home building go

(Speaker 2)
hand in hand and we just roll the company around with a clipboard and anytime he tells someone can you get me those numbers by Wednesday you You write down, make sure he gets them, the numbers by Wednesday. Then you follow up to make sure he gets them, the numbers.

(Speaker 7)
I love people. I love working with people. I love the building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing, I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be.

(Speaker 7)
So I reached out to Clay at that time, and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us.

(Speaker 7)
We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today building a business having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing.

(Speaker 7)
Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen.

(Speaker 6)
I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way.

(Speaker 2)
By Wednesday. And what you do is you sit in this person’s office on their couch like you’re a host on the Johnny.

(Speaker 6)
I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean I went to medical school. I can figure this out.

(Speaker 6)
But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 investment. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan.

(Speaker 6)
He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us

(Speaker 6)
on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the

(Speaker 2)
pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own

(Speaker 11)
Revolution Health and Wellness Class. Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do. I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects, you know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you.

(Speaker 2)
A guest on the Johnny Carson Show and you listen.

(Speaker 19)
And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s Johnny.

(Speaker 2)
His phone calls, his meetings, and doing this you

(Speaker 11)
So congratulations.

(Speaker 9)
And we went from expecting maybe $250,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. Hi, I’m Kelsey with K&D’s Woodfinishing. I’m a business owner at 23. So I’ve been working this K&E’s company for about five years now. I started working with Thrive not too long ago. And we went from expecting maybe $250,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. That’s what we’re going to hit or exceed.

(Speaker 9)
So we’re pretty excited about that. It’s been pretty much just listening to what they have to say. Their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help and the just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly and like such good insight the resources they have for specific business questions it’s all been really

(Speaker 9)
incredible it’s been a great experience So I’d recommend it to anybody.

(Speaker 8)
What I’ve seen from Clay and his group at Thrive is they’ll give you a simple system. And it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around. They’re the ones that people can work with

(Speaker 18)
on a day-to-day basis.

(Speaker 3)
Hi there, my name is Stephanie Pipkin. I am 24 years old and I own Black River Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid-June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach Luke from Thrive Time.

(Speaker 3)
It has been…

(Speaker 2)
See what a CEO does all day, how he treats people, how he treats different vendors, people

(Speaker 3)
who are… Insane, to say the least. I started working with them in mid-February of this year, so we’re about four months in of working together and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet So I check my notes here So in four months my leads have tripled

(Speaker 3)
I was getting probably like two leads a week now. I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week I have doubled my number of employees. I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments today

(Speaker 3)
as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. And hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month, if that, and everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work. You know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses.

(Speaker 3)
I have amazing employees now, and I get cleaning houses, cleaning businesses. I have amazing employees now and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of group interviews and interviewing every single week. It’s just been great and I don’t waste as much time on low quality candidates anymore. And your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. Luke’s like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice,

(Speaker 3)
but also stern when he needs to be when I’m being lazy and not doing the things that I

(Speaker 2)
need to do. I’m not doing the things that I need to do. I’m not doing the things that I need to do. I’m not doing the things that I need to do. I’m not doing the things I noticed at the company was that they had this nascent male order.

(Speaker 3)
I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them. So that’s just great. Worth every penny. I mean, I pay him a million dollars a month if I can and maybe someday I’ll be able to. But I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky.

(Speaker 3)
They think I’m just, you know, things just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know, perseverance and, you know, working till you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner you understand that. But it’s having these systems in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have all this stuff in the background happening and I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team working really hard to make sure that I’m a success. And I can tell that they are just so excited every single week when I’m having all these

(Speaker 3)
wins and things like that. They’re so excited for me. So it just it’s the best thing ever and I would suggest to anybody to work with them. So sorry for the long-winded reply but I just had so much to say and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are. But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me and I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching.

(Speaker 11)
My saying is if it’s important to you, hire a coach.

(Speaker 2)
And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they division and the person who was running it left and I decided I wanted that job.

(Speaker 11)
And of course, you know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach, you know what I mean? And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger than me, they push harder, they’re trained. And as my rich dad always said, amateurs don’t have a coach,

(Speaker 11)
but professionals always have coaches. So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. My rich dad was one of those persons. I wanted to learn how to play Monopoly in real life. So he was my coach.

(Speaker 2)
He said, fine, he slotted me right right in and I got to set the expectations here that Mail order department basically meant this is a company that published songbooks Oh, wow, like, you know, like the Beatles for auto harp or Led Zeppelin for tuba you know the sheet music and in the back of every songbook was a little blurb that said, for a list of more great Cherry Lane songbooks, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to P.O.

(Speaker 2)
Bach so and so. And so my job in the was making a business fool of myself by trying and testing things that have absolutely no obvious reason why they should work. Mail order department was taking these self-addressed stamped envelopes, Xeroxing the copy of the list of more great Terry Link song books and mail it back to them. And then if an order came in, I’d go to the warehouse, grab the book and ship it out. And for some crazy reason, I found that job fascinating. And I experimented and I tried, maybe I’ll do color list of great songbooks, the pictures, let’s do a catalog, let’s do, and it got more and

(Speaker 2)
more and more involved and taught myself the mail order business.

(Speaker 1)
The mail order business, a lot of people don’t maybe have context for this time in American history because this was what year was this?

(Speaker 2)
Wow, this would have been 1981 to 1984.

(Speaker 5)
Okay, now I have a question for you. This is old school jam time now, old school jams. 1981 here, we have the police, every little thing she does is magic. You’ve got Jessie’s Girl, Rick Springfield, you’ve got Journey, I mean you’ve got some hot, hot music, you’ve got Jessie’s Girl, Rick Springfield, you’ve got Journey, you’ve got some hot, hot

(Speaker 5)
music, you’ve got Phil Collins in the air tonight, the drum solo.

(Speaker 1)
What was your favorite jam from that era?

(Speaker 2)
Oh my gosh, that, I’ve got to say, oh wow, that’s a tough one.

(Speaker 5)
Take me back. I want to know what was your jam? You have all the time you want. You co-founded Netflix, so you’ve got all the time you want here.

(Speaker 2)
I want that f***ing Megapoint. I’ll tell you what, I’ll come up with something later and it’ll pop into my mind. Oh, gosh. I’ve got to trigger the fingers. But listen, I’ve got to tell you a weird story about this. a magazine, a sheet music magazine called Guitar. And then sometimes, holy mackerel, he’d do. It was a ridiculous idea, but when we tested it, people loved it.

(Speaker 17)
The Netflix DVD service has changed the world.

(Speaker 2)
Ladies and gentlemen, on the Practicing Musician. And there was lots of people to do editorial, lots of people to do the art, but no one did the circulation, you know, the subscriptions. And they basically said, okay, Randolph, you do this. And so all of a sudden I got to figure out magazine circulation.

(Speaker 2)
But that’s not the story. The story is that the one of the editors, there’s two editors, both music guys to the core. And as you can probably imagine, the editor of a music magazine is sent albums to review. So these guys got every single album released.

(Speaker 1)
Oh, that’s got to be a sweet job. That’s probably why it’s hard for you to name a specific song.

(Speaker 5)
I mean, you had albums everywhere.

(Speaker 2)
So I did. These two guys did. And one of them was a total music guy. And he kept them all and his house was just wall to wall bookshelves with thousands of albums. The other guy was I could care less and he would sell them and he would sell them to

(Speaker 2)
me for a dollar an album. And so I have the most, I had the most incredible collection of 1981 music. It was like a snapshot in time. So anyway, that’s my crazy story, which I’ve never told before on a podcast or anyone. So there you go.

(Speaker 5)
Well, I’m gonna see if you can, I’m gonna go off the reservation here and to see if we can have a little bit of a therapy

(Speaker 17)
from Mark Randolph.

(Speaker 1)
This true story. The company that I started out of my dorm room in college was a company called DJ Connection. I sold it, I’m no longer involved in it, but it grew to be the nation’s largest wedding entertainment company. So I would get all those records, you know, 1978. Today’s show I interview the co-founder of Netflix, Mark Rudolph. You have all the time you want. You co co-founded Netflix so you’ve got all the time Sugar Hill Gang I got the Michael Jackson thriller I got all the CDs back in the day and I had no no exaggeration

(Speaker 1)
probably 20,000 albums maybe 20,000 I mean CDs or vinyls or whatever and we had a flood that flooded my house like an epic flood like a like Noah it was crazy I thought about you know trying to build the ark and I lost all of it. And I’m sure you’ve had a moment, I remember waking up in the middle of the night, and I’m going, sounds like we’re in the ocean.

(Speaker 1)
And so I walk downstairs in the basement, I mean, at this point it’s up to waist level, and everything’s floating around, craziness. What’s maybe a really bad moment in your life and how did you get over it? I’m curious about how, because I think adversity is a big part of being an entrepreneur.

(Speaker 1)
And if I could go down to the bottom for a moment, I’d love to hear you share a story where it just didn’t work out that awesome and how you recovered from it.

(Speaker 2)
Oh, okay, here’s a good one. And listen, since we’re still talking about the early years of Mark Mandel, I won’t tell about our Netflix layoff or we can later because that was a pretty traumatic moment for me I’m gonna go back actually even before this Cherry Lane thing when I was in college Yeah, and I was a senior and I was applying for jobs and for some ridiculous reason decided I wanted to work in advertising but of course, you know, I would not as a writer or creative I wanted to be an account guy and

(Speaker 2)
Those are impossible jobs to get for an undergrad undergrad especially an undergrad with a liberal arts degree like I had but there was an agency which had a few slots available and I decided to apply but I think a thousand people applied and I made the first cut and I had you know so it’s 400 of us and they had everyone down to come on here I want

(Speaker 1)
that mega point on today’s show he shares with us the challenges of starting a successful

(Speaker 2)
company that is the situation that every early stage entrepreneur of a career day thing at the agency and they interviewed people and they made a second cut now we were down to about 50 and these 50 people spent the whole day at the agency and they cut it down to four and we spent one more day and I go, oh, this is gonna be awesome. And at the end of the day, they brought me in and said, I’m sorry, but you’re not going to get the job.

(Speaker 2)
And it was a profound disappointment because I had had my heart set in this. I, of course, knew I was gonna get it Yep, and I went back to college totally

(Speaker 16)
crestfallen

(Speaker 2)
Okay, but because about Didn’t take long and I kind of began thinking wait a minute What what do those other guys have that I didn’t have? What was I missing? And I go, I’m gonna ask. And I wrote a letter to every single person I’d interviewed with, not just that last day, but the previous other two days as well.

(Speaker 2)
And I said, what could I do differently? What could I learn? What experience would help me if I came back next year and applied for this job again? And they called and they said, why don’t you come on back in?

(Speaker 2)
And I went back down to New York City and they brought me up to the building and they offered me the job.

(Speaker 15)
Sweet.

(Speaker 2)
And here’s the kicker. It turns out that of the four of us who were the finalists, they hadn’t offered any of us the job because this was an account job at the interface between the client and the creative. This was a you got to turn a no into a job at the interface between the client and the creative. This was a you got to turn a no into a

(Speaker 2)
yes type of job.

 

Transcribed with Cockatoo