Personal Brand vs Corporate Brand

0:00We can talk about personal brand versus corporate brand, which comes from Jason Cohen. So in YPO or EO, they have these executive programs. So I know for YPO, they have this Harvard program you go to. And every year, it's only like they accept 60 to 100 people. It's always sold out every year. But the people you end up meeting because they're so selective with it, they end up being badasses of all these like crazy companies. And when you have YPO International, it's another level. We're talking like they own palaces and like not even 1 billion. And we're talking tens of billions of dollars. Even EO India, for some reason, it's all billionaires.

0:31Anybody that's like, if you're EO, YPO, International, because you're either like super high up or you have no money, basically. In America, it's more kind of distributed, like entrepreneurship's way more accepted, right? But my point of saying this is like these executive programs pay off. But again, it's a very long-term thing. They might know you for a very long time, but because you broke bread together for five to seven days and you did it for two, three years, people will come back to you. No different than you speaking at these things and they come back to you. And you have the program from MIT, right?

0:58Yeah. And what else, what's the other one that you have? Is that it? Yeah, I did the, it was like a three-year program for EO, MIT program. And yeah, there were some incredible people from around the world there. What I will say, I joined that one because 3 % of people that go through that end up becoming billionaires. Like Michael Dell went through that. Oh, I didn't know that. Again, you never, but you would never do those things. Seven days sitting, listening, you can't do that. How long for each seven day? Like hour a day? Every, no, every day you're in class at 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. No, thank you.

1:30Yeah, exactly. You would not do that. But I love learning these things. Yeah, I'll get bored. Yeah, you'll get bored like the first hour. Yeah, and you'll be leaving. So, okay, Jason Cohen tweeted this one. So he said this, keep your personal brand separate from your startup brand. It feels good to mix at first, but it's detrimental in the long run. It's hard to sell a company that's tied to someone's identity and you can't change positions like me at WP Engine or leave. uh wp engine sold though did they sell yeah silver like owns wp engine uh let's but he's very much tied to it not anymore yeah well let's take him out of the equation silver like yeah private equity firm let's use like a like a tony robbins okay when jason cohen started wp engine everyone at least i in my circle knew about it because of him yeah and i think that's helped him grow wp engine but now when you look at wp engine do you ever think jason cohen i still do i don't but that's me that's i don't think most people do i think most people look at wp engine as a stand you're probably right but wp engine had his own brand yes he was very involved and he probably had issues of uh key man right like they're worried with key man risk.

2:53But over time, as it raised some money and grew and added an executive team and it started growing on its own and it wasn't relying on his brand, I think that's changed. Yeah, but I think the sentiment probably agree with it. But the good news is, if you're not looking to sell, then it doesn't matter. Because even with me, I don't think NP Digital would have been as big if I didn't use my personal brand to grow it. and then I started taking my personal brand away, but it's still tied in really heavily. When you have NP in the name, it's very hard to take it away. Well, it was Neil Patel Digital and now it's NP Digital.

3:30So we did to some extent, but it's not perfect. But most of our RFPs and revenue comes from not my personal connections or brand. Yeah, yeah. And I think we'll finish, this year will be the end of year eight for us. So then give it two more years. I think my personal brand will be even less, the company will be less reliant on my personal. Would you say this year was a good year or a bad year or okay year? Compared to last year. The Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend is where systems get stress tested. Traffic surges, inventory moves fast, and every second counts. You need a platform built for the moment.

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4:37This Black Friday, join the thousands of new entrepreneurs hearing for the first time with Shopify. Sign up for your free trial today at shopify.com slash marketing school. That's shopify.com slash marketing school. Go to shopify.com slash marketing school and make this Black Friday one to remember. Are you speaking revenue or profit? Revenue. Okay year. Okay year, okay. Profit depends how you look at it, but probably not our best year. Okay, well, yeah, you were invested in growth. We were reinvested heavily, yeah. And that's how you grow. Yes, and my problem is, and you and I do this in marketing, Eric and I tend to invest when it hurts the most.

5:19So when things are worse, we tend to invest the most because that's when you have the most opportunity, but it hurts us personally the most because we don't have investors. So we're using our own money and we're using more than we feel comfortable to invest in our business. And that's when we hate it, but we know that's the right thing to do. So we push ourselves all the time. That's how you build something big in the longterm. And then when things are good, we tend not to invest as much because everything is too expensive and frothy and we can't invest as much I'm cheap, I'm Taiwanese you're cheap too I'm cheap so speaking of media here did you see Andreessen Horowitz's new media playbook because we're talking about brand no this can be one of our final things here so what do you think their AUM is?

6:13Andreessen Horwitz? Call it 50-ish million dollars, billion I mean? 50-ish billion? 56 billion dollars. Yeah, you're spot on. So their whole thing is they claim they have an ecosystem, right? This is their plan for domination. So they have podcasts, they have newsletters, they have social channels, they have private founder circles, so curated chats, communities. Strong personal brand. Going back to that, I think they're built off their personal brand. Andresen. So Mark Andresen and Ben Horowitz. Yes. More Mark Andresen, but Ben Horowitz is also very strong, too. Very strong. Yeah. Talent community.

6:46So they help operators with executives. They help them hire people, right? Expert networks. So like advisor specialists. So we have a there's some people that we know that are Andresen Horowitz as well. And then investor networks. Right. So they basically say, hey, like, we're not going to just give you money. We're going to have a network to help you do things. And they have this whole new they have all this own media now that helps them drive deal flow as well. And so that allows them to take bets on things such as Cluelly, right? Who knows if that's going to work out, but they just have a lot more shots on goal because they're able to drive so much deal flow.

7:16Now, if, but people don't buy venture firms, right? But like, let's say Andreessen, if Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz were to leave, what do you think would happen? Now or? I think it would be okay. I think it'd be okay too. You want to know why? Because I know they don't show up to a lot of their board meetings. I think they have. Their team does. Yeah. So they have a really. I retire. They have a really good team. And then their whole thing is like, they have fun doing these podcasts and things like that. And like, they already have morning now. And plus those 56 billion assets on their management, your fees are pretty good too.

7:49Yeah. And the reason I say they would be okay is, um, I don't know them personally, but I know the life they live because I lived in a community, uh, where both of them once lived. I don't live in that community anymore and a lot of entrepreneurs ended up living in that community in Vegas but you know like I wouldn't say they're retired they're not grinding it out like they used to I'm not either they're of course way better off than I am but they're much older as well I'm not saying I'll get to where they are either they did the right thing in which if you look at their company now and if they leave the reason I think it will be okay is because they set up a good infrastructure with a good team.

8:36And that's what you want because I don't have$56 billion and their$56 billion is not from one person, it's from many people and pension funds and sovereign wealth funds and endowments. They've set it up where if they get hit by a bus, I don't wish that upon them, I hope they live for a very long time, their business will be okay and still do okay. And I think that's the key. No one would want to give you tens of billions of dollars and have key man risk. and I think they set it up where it can survive without them at this point. Dude,

9:08who do you think is older, Ben Horowitz or Mark Andreessen? Ben Horowitz is older. How old do you think Ben Horowitz is? I think he's like five or six years older than Mark. Yeah, but how old do you think he is? Ben Horowitz? 56, 60? 59. So he's 59 and then Mark Andreessen's 54. I didn't know because Mark Andreessen's the Netscape guy. You know, I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. But they're both quite a bit older. Yeah. So they started Andreessen Horowitz around the time that, roughly at my age. Because they started in 2009. What are you, 40? No, they started at 16. So they're roughly 16 years older.

9:48Oh, got it, got it, got it. It's like me starting a company at 40. Although they had much better prior success than I did. They're both, I would say they're both better entrepreneurs. And by the way, everyone has their own journey too. So everyone can compound in their own way. No, I'm pretty sure they're better entrepreneurs. Everyone has their own career. But you said they started at age what, 16? Them or me? You started at what age? 16. Okay. I don't know what age they started. So Mark Andreessen was really young when Netscape first started. I think he was like very early 20s. And so he must have been tinkering before that too.

10:20Yeah, but they also sold a company to Cisco in between. And we can also say like Russell Brunson likes to talk about the opportunity vehicle. So like he had a nice opportunity vehicle with Netscape. so let's see what was the company that he ended up creating one of them sold to Cisco or something like that right LoudCloud LoudCloud is offered to Enterprise Opsware to 63 no there was another one at the end of that Opsware Hewlett Packard they sold to Hewlett Packard okay so he sold Netscape to AOL for 4.2 billion okay and then And LoudCloud Opsware, which is what you're just talking about, Hewlett-Packard for$1.6 billion.

11:02I didn't know he co-created Mosaic, the precursor to Netscape, while he's still a student at the University of Illinois. So let's call him 18, 19 years old when he started. They're both good operators. I've learned a lot from them, not directly because I don't know them, but I've learned a lot from them by just listening to their stuff online. Yeah, their stuff is good. Anyway, guys, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, view, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.