Curating Community for Business and Personal Success with Darren Darnborough

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. And today we'll be breaking down curating community for business and personal success. To draw these value bombs, I brought Darren D 'Ambura into EO Fire Studios. Darren is a British-born actor working in Hollywood. His TV and film work includes hit US shows, MacGyver, Magnum PI, Two Broke Girls, and True Blood. He is also the co-founder and CEO of weaudition.com, the global video chat community for auditions, rehearsals, self-tapes, and advice.

0:37And today, Fran Nation, we'll talk about juggling an acting career with a business career, curating community for business growth and goodwill. We'll talk about the 25 % rule, work-life balance, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Darren and our sponsors. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's franchise funding guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings.

1:11Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com. Darren, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, Fire Nation. I'm so happy to be here again. and it's been amazing watching your journey, JLD. Thank you. And something I believe in that may be controversial, people might disagree with, is that there's no such thing as overnight success. Every time I see an example of what someone considers overnight success, either in the entertainment industry, in business or just in life, always see the work. Always see the work.

1:59And Fire Nation, we're talking about curating community for business and personal success. And Darren, I want to talk about the 10-year evolution of We Audition because, you know, listen, it's been about 10 years since we talked back in August 20th in 2015. And your evolution has been pretty incredible as well. So talk about that with We Audition. Thank you. Yeah. And we're just celebrating our 10-year anniversary, as you say, right yesterday, actually, when were recording this it was a 10 years to the day and when i first spoke to you i just started the business a few months before that it was called something different it was called we rehearse and it was an online platform that allowed actors to find a reader on demand for their auditions and their scenes uh through video chat that was the concept and over the last 10 years we've gone through various iterations and slightly adjusted the platform and the offering in a few different ways and sometimes slightly and sometimes very massively adjusted but what's really interesting is after 10 years when we look back at what we started out and what we became now we've come back to that core concept and all of the fluff and extra things that we tried have sort of fallen by the wayside and it's back to that core concept but we're now called we audition we're thriving we We have nearly 100 ,000 members worldwide.

3:28We are responsible in part for performances that you've seen in Oscar winning films. We do massive events around the world, places like Cannes Film Festival with Sundance. And one of the things I'm most proud of is that we actually are now a very viable source of income for actors in between their on-screen acting work. See, what I love with what you did, Darren, was that you had an area of expertise and you said, what's missing? Like, what do I wish existed? What's a problem that's not currently being solved? And then how can I become the number one solution to that real problem in this world in a growing industry?

4:11And to me, that's what you created with We Audition because just being an entrepreneur, it's tough enough, but you actually had to juggle an acting career and a business. How the heck did you manage? It's interesting you say that, Jay. because it's not as much juggling as you think they feed into each other very well and so in terms of time yes both me and my business partner richard who's also an actor he's our cto as well and our original co-founder who's no longer with the business but was was part of the founding team she was also an actress and one of the first ever youtube stars one of the first people to get a million views on youtube wow and i think when you say juggle and i say it feeds into each other if we weren't doing this as a career firstly we wouldn't know that the need existed number one and if we weren't still doing this as a career we wouldn't understand how the market has adjusted and and the needs adjust and so one of the things that i always stay true to is is myself and my business partner, Richard, we are the core customer.

5:20We are the customer avatar. And you often hear about different businesses start with a customer need. And often that, that business owner is trying to, or the entrepreneur is trying to make money. They're trying to start a thing without really understanding, does that thing need a place in the world? Okay. But when you start as being your core customer, you have a vision to align with the whole way through so no matter what we do whether it's our software or our live events we always start from a place of what do we want what what would be the perfect product for us and i still use my own product to this day and so does richard and every single time we use it we see either ways to improve it or we spot bugs and things that need to be adjusted or improved or fixed or we you know get validation that the idea is good and so i think all those things are very important when you're when you're building a business now in terms of juggling it in a time sense you know it's great to have a business partner and we we're now in a fortunate position where we have a you know we're starting to build a pretty good team so actually when we individually have auditions or we have to be on set we 100 % focus on our acting you know as we should because we're being employed by a film or a tv series to do that and the other one picks up the work and in in between that we get right back on to building the business with the knowledge that we have from working actively in the industry every day now i'm quite certain that one of the reasons you've had such a long-term success, I mean, over 10 years now, is that you've just done a great job curating community.

7:08So talk about that, curating community for business growth and for goodwill. Thank you. I appreciate that because that's one of my skill sets and my superpowers that I've realized. I believe it was in probably a workshop or an entrepreneurial camp that I went to. I think I spoke at one of these entrepreneurial retreats and one of the other speakers had us do an exercise to really define what our personal value was in the world, which is hard sometimes to sort of distill that. and what i came up with for myself was curating community because every single business that i've ever had every career that i've done uh which has been a few different ones whether it be the filmmaking career or the business careers or or even charity work that i do the one thing that i noticed i do in all of those is bring good people together in a specific market or niche or industry or for a core set of values.

8:17It's always about my ability to spot good people, bring them together, connect them so that they can help or be a value to each other and, and curate that value. And I said, I use the word curation because just knowing the people doesn't work and just putting the people in a place doesn't work. You, you have to curate it like an art gallery or like anything, you know, a box of chocolates where flavors and types complement each other and you can bring people together to expand their value within within each other's worlds um and so i'm really proud of that because what i've noticed with the business that i run now but also any business that your listeners have you can apply this concept to because if you create a community around your cause or your business you are able to instill a set of values or advise towards a set of group initiatives and values that your community will then propagate in the world in your name and so it does a couple of things it keeps your your customers aligned with your values and your brand and it has them think about your brand in a business sense and in a personal sense or in a doing good sense you are sending those values out into the world and helping people be coherent around that set of values.

9:44I love how you just talked about curating like an art gallery or a box of chocolates. I mean, to me, Fire Nation, that's such a good visual. That's such a good analogy, something to really bite into, to think about when you're doing that for yourself. And we have a lot more to talk about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. I know firsthand, it's easy to get hung up on all the things that need to happen in order to bring an idea to market like a great website without knowing how to code. How are you supposed to build a beautiful platform that attracts people to your brand? Well, at Wix.com, you can build a business-ready site in minutes with the help of an AI site builder.

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12:02That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to download your free franchise funding guide today. Darren, we're back and I want to dive into some details of how to run the perfect event for our brand. I mean, we have people in our audience that are entrepreneurs, they're building community, they're building a following and audience and they're thinking about maybe doing an event. And I know you have something called the 25 % rule. So tell us more. I've run a lot of events in my time. I started out actually, uh, early on in my career as a nightclub promoter and I would host events in London, celebrity nightclubs for different reasons.

12:40And what I found is I could bring together a good group of people in the entertainment industry space. Again, I've done, I've used those skills to help charities. I've done events for every business I've started. And I think it's a great way to market a business. But a lot of people, in my opinion, get events wrong because they try and run an event from the standpoint of what they need for their business. And you really need to look at it from a point of what does the attendee need to get from your event? And then everything else will fall into place. One of the simplest rules I have and where I see people go wrong is what I call my 25 % rule.

13:21So when you are curating a guest list, if you're having an event, and this could be anything from a big launch party to a simple seminar or a panel or even a cocktail party at your house, right? Think of any event, a conference, whatever. I break it down into this 25 % rule of who you should invite. Most people try and invite a hundred percent of what they consider the right people. And I'm using right in inverted commas. If you are a financial conference, or I'll just use my own example. If you're an actor's website, the right people would be your target customers. They are actors. So if you invite a hundred percent of actors, it's not going to be a bad party, but if you break it down into my 25 % rule, I invite 25 % of the right people.

14:10That's your target market in this instance. Then you want to invite 25 % of what I call the cool people. Now, cool has different meanings depending on what you're thinking about. It could be influencers. They're the cool people of the moment. Cool people could be the journalists in your industry because they're going to help you get credibility, right? Whatever you decide. So it doesn't necessarily have to be your customer it has to be people that can somehow bring credibility or coolness to your thing then you want to get 25 of what i call the good looking people and again i'm not being just aesthetic here but it could be if you're running a party for a modeling company then yeah you want to make sure there's 25 good looking people there because that's what you're selling right but if you're running a halloween party for your for your financial company the 25 good looking people in that context are the people you know are going to dress up they're going to have the best costumes out there like heidi klum's halloween party you know they will go all out if you're running a black tie dinner the good looking people are the ones that you know are going to come impeccably dressed they're going to make the place look good okay and then the last 25 people go through your network and invite 25 % of fun people.

15:32These are the people that will be first to the dance floor. If there's a DJ, these are the people that when they walk up to the bar, they look to the next person, how are you doing? I'm having a great day. How about you? Because no matter what, let's say you're in a cocktail party of plastic surgeons and everybody is exhausted from a week of work. They're all of a certain Asian demographic. If you insert your 25 % fun people in there, they will come away from that going what a great party that was really good fun and they won't know why but what they will get is something different to what they expected which is an event with all of their colleagues that they already know and everybody's exhausted so remember this this uh structure it's 25 of the right people 25 of the cool people 25 of the good looking people 25 of They're fun people.

16:24And that can literally be your, your fun cousin that always has a blast at parties. Trust me, insert them into a place that's different from, from what they are usually at. They'll have a blast and someone will meet them and be like, well, that person was really interesting. I didn't expect to meet that person there. And that's their takeaway from that event. Now that sounds like some parties that I want to attend fire nation slash events. So, I mean, I like how Darren's going with this. You're going to make it just a different experience, It's not just the same old thing. Now, listen, we can go to events seven days a week and we can party our faces off and do X, Y, or Z.

17:00But at the end of the day, you actually believe in the importance of work-life balance. Tell us more. I really do. And it's something I've been a lot better at in my later years and I'm more focused on now because I understand the impact of it on our health and our mental wellbeing. You know, if we talk about burnout and what that means to certain people, it's never good anyone that is working themselves into the ground no matter whether your version of that is putting too many hours in or neglecting relationships neglecting family i strongly believe that any business or any career especially an acting career i see that happening a lot as people put everything into their acting career and they have no life experiences outside of that and what that doesn't do is inform them as an actor it doesn't help them play real human characters I know a lot of your audience are business people.

17:53So the way that translates into business is if you're burnt out, if you are exhausting yourself, you're not good. You're just not going to be good to anyone, to your customers, to your vendors, to your colleagues. You're not going to, you're going to be cranky. if your health declines then you're you're not going to be able to do the job that you're being paid to do or that your customers expect from you so i think just focusing on that and the ways that i do that is i take very specific time every day to do the things that i think are important for my health and well-being whether it be uh stretching in the morning going to the gym reading something motivational every morning i do that whether it's a couple of pages from a young pueblo uh book on meditations or if it's a chapter from a business book that i find inspiring just taking that moment to to put something good into my brain listening to podcasts like yours that i get inspired from uh and you know also taking time to relax and just have fun at moments during the week and one of the things I think that entrepreneurs often forget, and I definitely see it in the acting world.

19:06If you are an actor or an entrepreneur, your life is going to be full of ups and downs, 100 % guarantee. You're going to have a financial rollercoaster. You are going to experience success and failures. You are going to go, you know, have hardships or instances in your life, which you find challenging. On the flip side, you have a flexible schedule. You have a financial roller coaster, which means sometimes you're really, really up and you can celebrate wildly and sometimes you have to be a bit more cautious. What I think about that in terms of work-life balance is make sure you take the advantageous moments of that as well.

19:49If you are going to have to work weekends regularly because your business or your career demands it, then make sure that one Wednesday afternoon when you feel like going and getting a massage, you do that because you can. Because someone with a normal nine to five can't do that and you have that ability. But you're going to take the hits on the other side. When your nine to five friends are hanging out at the weekend, you might be burning the midnight oil, getting a proposal ready or dealing with a client. So make sure you take those moments in between that you can enjoy. and remember why you're in this game and take the benefits.

20:27Darren, we've talked about a lot of stuff today. Curating community, running an event that's meaningful, that's going to be different and unique, work-life balance. If you could just leave Fire Nation with one key takeaway, what would that be? My key takeaway, given that it's our 10-year anniversary, is stay in the game. Just keep going and keep putting effort into something you believe in. if you are getting signs from your community and signs from your customers and signs from your own mental well-being that the path you're on is correct don't stop because there's been moments in the last 10 years of our business where we were we were going to sell it we were going to shut it down we were going to give it up and i'm so glad we didn't i'm so glad we pushed through it uh and so you're you're experiencing any challenges right now don't be silly about it if it's if it's really not working know when to throw in the towel but in the instance what i remember when we were about to throw in the towel for our business um i put the word out to 50 companies to see if they were interested in buying it and i said we'll do that and if not then we'll close it down and after i got seven replies and a couple of very deliberate conversations and then an offer to buy it at an amount which was way beyond what we expected i said to my partner you know what i don't think we're done i think we've got we've got there's something untapped in this we don't realize do you want to do six more months but six months of hard graft like we have to go all in and make this work.

22:11And wow, did that change things. So stay in the game, keep positive and know when you've got a good thing. And I can tell you, Fire Nation, having done this for 13 years with Entrepreneurs on Fire, I've experienced the same thing. I mean, of course, there's going to be times that you think, you know, is it time to sell? Is it time to look for an acquisition? You know, we've tested different waters. Is it time to potentially just walk away? But it's staying in the game. There's so much to be said for that. And I'm actually having a conversation with a company right now, which will be crazy if it happens and the only reason i'm having this conversation is because i've stayed in the game and that's it you just never know what that new day is going to bring 100 because you're one of the the originals in this game as well thank you out of all the podcasts i listened to and i'm inspired by now you set the tone for them i mean it's thank you the fact is is you were the one of the first people out there doing this and consistently doing it every day So congratulations on your success as well.

23:09It's been amazing to watch. Well, listen, brother, I received that. Thank you for the kind words. It's been a great 10 years for both of us. And let's not make it so long for next time. Maybe, you know, only let five years pass before our next conversation and we can make that happen for sure. Well, maybe you should join us at our 10-year anniversary party in Cannes, John. Oh, I mean, listen, I love France. I really do love France. Darren, where can Fire Nation connect with you? I'm on the socials. So Instagram at Darren D 'Armbara or at We Audition. They're the two good places to follow what we're up to.

23:43Love that. Because Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with DD and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Darren, D-A-R-R-E-N in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Darren, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Darren for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment.

24:24I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guide that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's Franchise Funding Guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings.

25:01visit franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com.