How Chip & Joanna Gaines Define Success

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1:33There's no safe like SimpliSafe. From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like, we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

1:59How do you grow without losing what made you special in the first place? That's something a lot of business owners ask me, and they're right to worry about it. Growth can be confusing. It can create clutter. It can take you away from what motivated and guided you. And that is what I am talking about today with two of the most loved people and entrepreneurs in America, Chip and Joanna Gaines, who have spent a lot of time thinking about this question for themselves. Joe and I were just looking back in these two decades going, what is it about this experience that we want more of and that we wanna go and press into?

2:39What of this experience would we might have done differently had we been able to have a crystal ball? That, of course, is Chip. Because here's the thing. If you know who Chip and Joanna Gaines are, then what do you think of? The answer is probably home, renovations, design, lifestyle, because Chip and Joanna Gaines became famous for their TV show, Fixer Upper, then built out a massive collection of successful businesses in that space. A retail epicenter in Waco that attracts roughly one million visitors a year, a magazine, a cable TV network, a hotel venture, a lot of home and design products, all operating under the name Magnolia.

3:19And now they are also launching a slate of new TV shows on Macs that includes a roller skating competition show called Roller Jam, a game show where humans compete in mazes against actual hamsters, which is called Human vs. Hamster, and a talent competition series for people who deferred their dreams of stardom called Second Chance Stage. And maybe you're thinking, like I did, okay, those all sound fun. And personally, I can confirm that humans versus hamsters is indeed very fun, especially if you're watching with your kids. But also, what does that have to do with anything that Chip and Joanna Gaines have done before?

3:55And what does that say about how they're approaching the growth of their business? And how do they manage that question of what does healthy growth even look and what's the point of it all? And that is the thing that I wanted to talk with them about because I know that this is a question that they ask themselves. I first interviewed Chip a number of years ago, and then we stayed in touch. He's just a really generous, delightful guy. And he had told me that this growth that they are on is something that they think really deeply about. They want to make sure that they understand what's the purpose of it all and what does it all mean?

4:35And does it all tie together in a way that makes sense for them? And so as this slate of shows came out on Max, which felt pretty different from everything else that they're doing, I thought, what a great time to have a conversation about how they're thinking about this exact question. How do you grow without losing the thing that made you special in the first place? And I'm gonna give you just a little teaser of the answer. And it's this phrase from Joanna. The whole point of it for us as a company is, How do we make space for meaningful moments? How do we make space for meaningful moments? You will come to understand exactly how meaningful that question is, and even more importantly, how meaningful it is to identify something like that for yourself.

5:24And that is what we're talking about today on Problem Solvers, coming up right after the break. All right, we're back. Today I'm talking with Chip and Joanna Gaines of Magnolia Network. and starting this fall on Max, the show's Roller Jam, Second Chance Stage, and Human versus Hamster, which they have executive produced. So let's just jump into it. When I started the conversation, I repeated to Chip and Joanna basically what I told you in the intro to this podcast, which is it's so important to find that through line in your work and to understand the internal logic of why something is the right opportunity for you or isn't.

6:02And with this moment in which they're doing something that feels a little different, I thought it would be so helpful to hear from two people who are so incredibly thoughtful about their business and their brand and their relationship to their audience to articulate how they have been thinking about it and making sense of it so that they recognize the right opportunities ahead. And Chip was the first to answer. I love this question. and do not feel like you're stepping on anybody's toes because we love to be challenged. We love devil's advocate perspective, not that's one, but just even if it were, we've become very aware that for us, this is just Joe and I speaking and some entrepreneurs may agree with this.

6:45And I do say, I'm funny because as I start a point, I already start building the counter argument to a point. I'm not an easy guy to talk to because sometimes I'm moving in two directions. I've picked up on that from our previous conversations, but I appreciate it. Simultaneously. Yeah, exactly. But my original point is this. We love teams. And when we do things, we like for people to be around the room that are questioning our thoughts, questioning our intentions. Is this right for Magnolia? Is this right for Chip and Joanna? We like people who even are in the room going, hey, we actually agree with you, but here's some counter argument or thought.

7:23But then I pivot that reality to the idea that group think and groups sometimes can be completely paralyzing. And sometimes somebody's just got to step out and say, this is what we're doing. And here's what we're doing and why. And everybody rallied behind one position. And so I'm feeling I see both of these points. But two things come to mind as you were building that thought. it. And Joe and I are very adamant that what got us here was risky, was challenging, was impossible, was miraculous, was beautiful. Lightning in a bottle has been used on Joe and I's behalf so many times that it now has become a cliche and it makes you want to puke in response to someone saying that because you're like, it wasn't quite one, two idiots walking around, stumbling around in a rainstorm and then this thing happened.

8:15And it was a little bit of thought, a little bit of strategery and all the things that are the positives of potentially what occurred here. But we don't disagree with that sentiment that what we loved was it was risky. We were way ahead of our skis. The whole idea about faking it till you make it, we were both inundated with those ideas. And as you make it through that, making it till or faking it till you make it stage, and then all of a sudden you've made it. then it's a bit disorienting because you're then forced with the reality. Are we still faking it or have now we in fact made it? Which phase are we in?

8:53Then I think Joe and I just after 10 years looking back in the rearview mirror, 10 years of the fixer upper universe. And then there were 10 years that preceded that 10 years. So Ned, it's 20 years. And so Joe and I were just looking back in these two decades going, what is it about this experience that we want more of and that we want to go and press into? What of this experience would we might have done differently had we been able to have a crystal ball or walk backwards if you could and reenact it? And so I don't know why the analogy, this will decipher where we are generationally between ourselves, Jason.

9:28There was a famous country and Western singer that you probably have not heard of. He's a very small, very, very quaint star in the country genre named Garth Brooks. Heard of him. Heard of him. He said, I've heard him. And said, said Brooks when I was, I don't even know, a young man in my 20s decided to go out and do something that was radical and really risky and changed the way his audience might perceive him. And he created a counter personality. I'm probably butchering this and I haven't prepared this speech at all, but what is coming to me here on the fly. And he went out and did it. And the only reason I remember this so vividly is my last name is Gaines.

10:10And somehow he picked the name Chris Gaines to become this kind of counter personality and went and created a record and did a record on a totally different under a totally different synonym or whatever the term is. And a stage name pseudonym. I'm always so close. It's close. It's close to synonym. Yeah. Yeah, most people just let me go with it. But thank you for the correction. You're welcome. The pseudonym. But it was such a risk that he took. And I remember reading about why he did it. And his point was just, I feel like I've done it all. I feel like I've sold out stadiums. I've done all this incredible stuff in my lane.

10:49And what got me here was taking all these drastic risks. And I wanted to take another risk. And even if it didn't work out, which in that particular case, probably he would argue, hey, he missed it in some way or it didn't work just from a commercial sense, but maybe it was something great for his soul. Maybe it did work because it worked for him, even if it didn't, in fact, work for the audience. And Joe and I just have been wrestling through kind of philosophical things like that. And then that led us to this place. Do we want to continue to create this incredible content as it relates to the genre that we're completely familiar with, that we're almost experts in, dare I say.

11:27That's a little knock on wood because it's debatable. But the idea is, and we just, we wanted to make a drastic pivot. And so we talked to David Zasloff, we talked to Casey Bloys, all of our super bosses in the Warner Brothers Discovery ecosystem. And these two specifically, and several others were like, you guys go for it, man. We've got this pool of money. You guys are able to do whatever you want to do as it relates to Magnolia Network. Spend it however you feel comfortable Well, if you want to pivot and then the idea became really clear that we then exactly to your point about having so many options, we had a thousand options up on a wall and at least temporarily it became a bit paralyzing.

12:06But if we started narrowing these thousand options down to what ended up being the four that we selected, we kept laughing because the four units that we ended up landing on have really no clear through line. It's not really obvious what connects the four of them, except for that Alison Page said this beautifully. We were on a little media tour and a panel in New York here this past week. And Alison Page, as I was looking to her and somebody asked her kind of a similar questions, man, one might say these four shows have nothing in common. And she said, you know what? The one thing it does have in common is authenticity and joy.

12:43And that's what Chip and Joe have always been about. And again, we didn't prepare this. I didn't know she was going to say it. And we both were like, wow, that just felt beautiful. And the idea that these four shows about Joe and I in regards to our authenticity and the fact that we want people, we've coined these this time together as watch together. And one of the things that we appreciate most about our career is just that lots of families come up and say, man, my grandma's on one side of the couch, the couple and then a couple of kids or grandkids, you know, on the opposite side of the couch.

13:16It just feels a little bit like the old days where we would all come together and consume the same content at the same time. And we wanted to create an environment to where you could really do that. You could sit around a couch or you could sit around a space and all engage in the content at the same time and bring everybody together, force everybody to have that moment together in time, if you will. And so all that to say, even though it is very true that these four shows are drastically different. I'm not sure there's an obvious fit from a Rubik's Cube standpoint. The thing that we love about the through line that does, in fact, precede all four of these shows, which kind of came together through the process of it.

13:55I'm not sure that we really knew these four shows were the four shows that were going to make it through the gauntlet. But as the gauntlet became clearer and clearer, these four shows clearly popped out. And it was a really fun process. It was really fun. And it challenged Joe and I in a really tangible way back to my original point, which I think is going to pay dividends for she and I both, even if for some reason these don't become commercial successes. Obviously, we hope they will and we want them to. We don't even want to speak over the alternative option. But if they do not work for whatever reason, the experience itself was worth the process.

14:32And Joe and I are just really thankful that we had that time and had that opportunity to experiment with this and really in fairness. And we've felt this about a lot of the stuff we've done. Even if it doesn't work, we love it. And we are very proud of it. Where the sword that we refuse to die on is the one that somebody kind of forces us to do something we don't really feel wonderful about. And we put it out there because it's quote unquote what they want or what we're supposed to do. And then we regret it later because we knew all along it really wasn't about us. And it really wasn't about things that we cared about.

15:05where these shows are about us and about what we care about. And so in that vein, even if they don't work, it's a sword that we'd gladly die on if it comes to that. But I also think just with the network side, I think the beauty in that we get to decide the content is that balance of we'll still have that lifestyle, the food, the design, the home, the stuff that we are so passionate about because it's the work we do here. And then getting to see other storytellers do that same thing in their own unique way. This was more of when we think about Magnolia, whether it's the magazine, our shop at the silos, the network, the whole point of it for us as a company is how do we make space for meaningful moments?

15:45So whether you're watching someone cook on a cooking show or you're sitting together with your family watching a funny or a really sweet, sentimental competition show, it's the idea of how do we bring people together for these meaningful moments? So it's that balance that we're really playing with of just these smaller curated shows and then these bigger, brighter, louder, fun shows. And I think that's really who we are. I think at the end of the day, I don't own a hamster. But what I do know is I'm married to the funniest guy I know. So, of course, we're doing human versus hamster. That show really spoke to me, Jason.

16:18I will admit, just to be super clear, three, that was the one that was the chip. It was so random and amazing. Oh, yeah. I've seen that one to continue to move through the gauntlet, whether anybody agreed or not. So I was definitely in a bit of a lone wolf scenario as it relates to that. But you watch. Well, I will have just some extra data points here. First of all, you guys don't own a hamster. I do own a hamster. Her name is Candy. That's for short. Cantaloupe, full name. And so I happen to have a great opportunity here to showcase Human vs. Hamster to my five-year-old who was up at two in the morning vomiting this past, so he is laying down on the couch downstairs right now, and so I walked down there with Human vs.

17:02Hamster, and I showed it to him for a few minutes, and I just want you, so this is in his addled state here. That is a thumbs up. That is a full thumbs up, and no, it really delighted him, and it is. It's so weird, but also unexpected, but like, Joanna, that thing that you just said there, to me is the key to the question that you have this phrase, how do we make space for meaningful moments? And you have defined that in one way for a while. And then this is another way to explore what a meaningful moment is. That I wonder, and I say it almost as a theory for you to respond to, but that feels like the logic to me.

17:47It reminds me in a way of, I was once talking to the CEO of a baking mix company, and they were going through a major change in their product line. And he said to me, look, like, we're in trouble if we think of ourselves as just making baking mixes. But if we think of ourselves as bringing joy to people with sweet baked goods, then that opens up all sorts of opportunities. And it's about that mission statement that you craft for yourself, because once you have it, then you, like your challenge is actually to start pushing the boundaries of what you think that mission encompasses. Chip, you had, you talked about playing it safe, not wanting to play it safe, right?

18:29Like you could easily say, how do we make space for meaningful moments? But then you only define a small kind of meaningful moment that you're going to live in. But growth is actually taking very seriously the language that you put there. How do we make space for meaningful moments? What else are meaningful moments? I would say going downstairs with like my five-year-old who's recovering from a stomach bug and watching Hamster vs. Humans with him for a few minutes is a meaningful moment. It's not, it's maybe not the kind of ones that you were creating before, but it is exactly what that mission is.

18:59When we evaluated, like when we step back and we go to the silos and we see who's coming to the silos, it's every age. Like it just blows our mind that it's a girl's group of friends. It's a grandma, a grandpa. It's grandkids. It's family. And then when we hear about the people who used to watch Fixer, it's family. It's every age. And Chip and I, with our five kids, family is obviously our biggest priority. And to what Chip was saying, we just saw this place where, oh, we can make hopefully some content and an impact in that space where you can get everybody from every age together to feel this emotion, whether that's with second chance stage and you get to see people re unearthing their dream that they've left in the past.

19:47but now they're bringing that back to life and you get to experience that emotion with them and root for them so that as they, as you see them play that out, or it's laughing when it's giggling over the craziness of human versus hamster or roller jam where it's just delight. It's watching people do something that most people can't do. Um, and cheering on your favorite team. It's just this idea that you get to feel these emotions together. Um, and I think in just the world we live in that when I think about feeling every morning, I'm like, I want to feel today because you can get really stuck in your schedule.

20:22You can get stuck in just the rhythm of your busyness. And for me, it's like, how do I feel? How do I experience life to the fullest and emotions tapping into that emotion? That's that's that core memory stuff for us. It's if you're together with the people you love and you're watching something and you're all experiencing the same emotion, there's something really special and meaningful about that. Love that answer. Let me ask you guys this. I want to go back to this idea that Chip had introduced about the risk-taking and not doing something just because, Chip, the phrase you used was because it's what they want.

20:58What it reminded me of is one of my favorite articles of all time, which was published in Harvard Business Review. The headline was, why do big companies stop innovating? And the answer that it offered was like, big companies start with an innovation and that gives them a toehold in the market. And then over time, as they grow, they just start to shift more and more and eventually all of their resources away from innovation and towards efficiency. Just doing the exact same thing over and over again, just faster, better, and cheaper. And doing that can work for a while until it doesn't because somebody else comes along and eats your lunch.

21:34And so you need to be constantly pushing yourself, but it's really hard. Now, in a company like that becomes really hard because all the people become incentivized to just do the same thing over and over again, right? If everyone's incentive. So you're but you're describing something different, the two of you. You're describing wanting to be in a room with and I suppose building a team with people who are going to push back. You're also describing wanting to be really mindful of not doing something just because it's what they want, which is to say like something that probably by the numbers is going to have a better chance of success.

22:08but rather something that feels more intellectually and creatively satisfying. And so my question is, how do you push yourselves to do that? Have you found a way of thinking, some systems, some something that is able to keep you going past where you have already established success clearly is? I feel like that's innately who Chip is. Like he, I think, refuses to get stuck in a thing. or I, that's like my, my comfort is let's do this for the rest of our lives and not pivot ever where I feel the safest. But as you think of that thought, that reality, to filter it through Jason's question and what brings you comfort to do what feels uncomfortable?

22:52Because I have you as a partner who says, Joe, life is just one big experiment. Okay. Hold on. Pause again. Pause again, forget the me part of it because you have to agree to it. You know what I mean? How do you as a person that doesn't feel comfortable doing that naturally, how do you get to those places that I'm going to do this thing that makes me feel uncomfortable? The first thing that comes to mind is this idea of skydiving, which I've never done. But the idea that my whole life with every decision I've ever made, sometimes I equate it to, I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a mountain and I have to jump.

23:26And then I jump when I say yes. And I that yes. And then that moving forward is such an amazing feeling. Most of my life, that fear kept me back. So I never felt the exhilaration of I don't know what's next. I didn't want to I wanted to know I was safely planted on the ground. And I think the more and more I exercise that muscle that I would say I didn't exercise for the first half of my life. Now I'm like that feeling is it's not addictive in a way where I'm just always going to say yes to stuff, but it's that I want to feel that more than I feel comfort and safe on the ground. And so I think with that, when I hear Chip say, you know, let's experiment, that means there could be a failure, there could be a win, but there's something that's freeing about let's experiment.

24:15And so I think my mindset now is like, how are we evolving? How are we creating out of curiosity rather than just creating? Because for us, it's like, how are we keeping our eyes open, but also like our feelers out? Because I feel like most of what we built has been pretty instinctive. It's been more gut. Like, how do we feel about this? And no matter how big this business gets for us, that's really core to who we are. How do we feel? Even though it makes sense to say yes to this, if we're not feeling it, we're still going to say no. Same with all of these decisions that we made, even with these shows.

24:50We both felt like this is fun. This could be joy. This could be delight. Let's experiment. So I feel like I've had a really great coach. God knows where I'd be if I wouldn't have met him. I'd be stuck somewhere in a corner. Oh, you'd probably be with your best life. It would be a safe, simple life, but it might be your best life. It's predictable for sure, but this is more fun. But this is very interesting. And Chip, I appreciate you pushing her there. You made my job easy. But also, like, Joanna, don't sell yourself short here. And I say this to you, but I also say it to everybody who relates to what you just said.

25:23Because what I was thinking about when you were talking about chip pushing you, I love that phrase, life is an experiment, it is. But also, you made a decision to trust a person who thought totally differently than you. and that by itself is a kind of risk-taking, isn't it? That's a really good point. That's why I keep messing with her because I've really, when I was younger, we've been married for 20 plus years now. So in our early marriage, I thought I was right and she was wrong and I was an optimist. She was a bit of a pessimist that she would refer to as a realist because she was insecure to say she was a pessimist.