461: Adrian Grenier’s Evolution from Movie Star to Social-Impact Entrepreneur

0:00Hey Founder fam, before we dive into another incredible conversation, I want to share something really special with you. Whether you're just joining us or you've been following us since the beginning, you've been a critical part of our community working to change entrepreneurial education. I started Founder almost a decade ago with the mission to provide entrepreneurs access to the world's greatest business leaders. Our goal was to break down barriers to entrepreneurial education, and that's taken us on a journey from Founder Magazine to this podcast and beyond. And today marks the next step in that journey, Founder Plus.

0:35I'm proud to introduce you to Founder Plus, which is an all-access pass to each of our online courses and programs and their proven frameworks for success. It puts every strategy we've compiled from world-class instructors at your fingertips while connecting you to a global network of like-minded entrepreneurs. Founder Plus will take your business to the next level for today and tomorrow. So whether you've just joined our family or you've watched us grow from humble beginnings, We're really thrilled to have you join us in this exciting new phase of making the founder brand and this company the world's best entrepreneurial community to launch and grow your business.

1:16So finally, before we get into today's episode, I'm inviting you to come back, check out Founder Plus and go to founder.com forward slash membership. I'm really excited, guys. This is an incredible new evolution of entrepreneurial education and our mission is really to get as many of these founders that we interviewed to teach and also give back on the founder plus platform and really go more in depth with the knowledge and the experiences and the lessons learned that they're sharing all in founder plus so guys please go check it out if you're enjoying these interviews that's it from me i hope you enjoy this episode now let's jump in What you need is thirst.

1:59You need to be a thirsty human who is intent on learning. It's a really fascinating exploration of human potential. Now. The Founder Podcast. Even the greatest entrepreneurs had help. If you want to learn from the most successful founders on the planet, you are in the right place. Branson, Mark Cuban, Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Ariana Huffington, Steve Case, Gary Vee, Sophia Amorosa, Barbara Corcoran, Damon John. Learn from the greatest minds in business today with interviews hosted by Nathan Chan. This is not your average entrepreneur podcast, The Founder Podcast.

2:42Hey, Founder fam. Welcome back to another episode of The Founder Podcast. Now, whilst perhaps best known for his roles across Entourage, The Devil Wears Prada, Clickbait, over the past decade, Adrian Grenier has cemented his place as a social impact investor and activist, as well as a communicator on important and timely environmental issues, and also as a successful entrepreneur. So today we're talking about Adrian's successes in business and investing, but also his failures, moving beyond Hollywood to pursue a better future for the earth and the processes he takes to building eco-focused ventures and businesses.

3:26Please welcome to the Founder Podcast, Adrian Grenier. So the first question I ask everyone that comes on is, how did you get your job, aka how did you find yourself doing the work you're doing today? Oh man, yeah. Well, first of all, I just have to say, count your blessings. I feel so privileged to be doing the work that I'm doing, not only from an investment perspective, but just from a work play, nourishing self-care perspective. I really, over the past couple of years, made a big shift and a big pivot in my life to reorient my life closer to family and nature and community so that, you know, my life wasn't so lopsided, always working and gallivanting and traveling and really depleting myself.

4:26Now, I have a nice balance where as I'm working, I'm replenishing my spirit, my soul, and really feeling very grounded, very at home, at home right in here. So how did I get here? Well, well, long time coming. I spent many years as a punk rebel in New York, playing in bands, making indie films, doing everything that I could to not make money, Like everything in my power to do the opposite of making money. And I was hugely successful in that. Very, very broke and really had a great time just being in the craft, like learning skills and creating art, like being really expressive and viscerally connected to my craft as an artist, filmmaker, musician.

5:29and then eventually I was tired of sleeping with five guys in an apartment and decided I wanted to make some money and I started to find the path of least resistance and that happened to be film and acting was the way I ended up being able to move out of the crash pad so to speak and after in making my way in the film business as an actor, I started making documentaries. So I went back to one of my true passions, which was filmmaking from a storytelling perspective, from a directorial and producer standpoint. And then eventually that moved into a curiosity in the tech space and entrepreneurship.

6:21And I started connecting with founders and started my first couple of investments where we're just, you know, basically getting excited about a dude or a founder and being like, yeah, I want to help and just supporting that way. Then taking a gander myself like, wow, this can't be so hard. Let me do my, you know, let me start a business, Started a couple of businesses, which didn't do very well. And then finally, you know, I found the maturity enough to bring it all into sort of resonance where I can I can now invest. I have a team that are smart enough to like vet businesses so that I don't just invest in anything and everything.

7:08And I can really focus on the big picture, which is mission aligned vision and values. Interesting. A few things I'd love to unpack there. So, man, I used to love Entourage. like me and my buddies like we used to watch it all the time and like dude it was so cool like it's such a cool tv show you used to come on you you have entourage bed sheets i can tell so i'm really like first of all i gotta unpack you said that you've changed your your life and how you live can you talk can you elaborate a little bit more around that around that lifestyle shift? Did you experience burnout or what happened or what caused this shift?

7:57Yeah, I think a lot of times we youngsters, well, as youngsters, as youngsters, we tend to be a little bit myopic and laser focused on one thing, status, finding your place in society and climbing the ranks socially and making money. And they're kind of, they kind of like support each other, right? If you can make some money, you get some status, you get access, you live a better life, you know, maybe you attract some, you know, females and that's really your main goal. And then now that I'm getting older, you know, I've sort of realized that that only gets you so far in life and there's more to life.

8:47And I really wanted to ground into family and take things a little bit slower and be a little bit more just, I wanted to breathe every day. I didn't want to be so fast paced and always on the go without taking time to really take in my life in the world and see how I can be of service. So, you know, like wake up and smell the roses type perspective. But this time I'm actually growing roses instead of just buying them at the corner shop. So I moved my whole life onto land and into nature. it's an interesting um dichotomy though because do you feel like i don't know about you but for me it feels like sometimes like life is so short time's running out you want to make the most you want to go you want to go you want to go how do you balance you know you and and it can be really fun like i can see that you're a true creative and artist and entrepreneurs are the modern day artists right you know founders and modern day artists so it's so much fun to get caught up in creating creating creating and getting caught up how do you balance that this kind of need to not want to miss out or to not want to i guess yeah not not want to lose time yeah i think that's exactly right it's it's what is our relationship to our um mortality you know and either either we're playing a finite game in which we have limited time.

10:32So we got to get it all in and do everything. And by golly, it doesn't matter how we undermine our values and exploit what, as long as we're getting to where we want to, because time is of the essence. And somewhere in the back of our mind, there's that death wish somehow, that fear, that mortality awareness that's driving our decision-making. And I guess what I wanted to do was get out of that game and play the infinite game in which I recognize that the choices I make will inevitably create a future reality in which I get to be born again into and enjoy it. And it may not be this physical lifetime, but like maybe it's incarnate through like my children.

11:24Like what if I have kids and what kind of world am I going to bring them into? And then if they have kids, can I make a better world for them in the far future? So really, I start to play along an infinite timeline. So the choices I'm making aren't so anxious and desperate, but I can really lean into longer term choices, not only for myself, my longevity that may extend beyond because now I'm not burning myself out, but beyond my physical life where I can give to future generations. Yeah, no, that makes sense. So really focusing on being present as well. Hey, FounderFam, I want to talk to you about something super exciting.

12:05We're officially partnered with OmniSend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e-commerce founders. We've been recommending OmniSend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling the seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results. Did you know on average, OmniSend customers make$68 for every$1 they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50 % off your first three months with the code founder50. Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started.

12:45All right, now let's jump back into the show. Yeah. So let's talk about your first business. You mentioned you started a few, so you invested, you invested a few in a few companies. What was your, you know, Lexi, before we talk about the first businesses that you started, what were your first investments and what's been your most successful one? I'm trying to remember what some of the first ones were. I honestly, like many of them, like the ones I remember are the ones that are still around that are successful. um some of the flops i guess is is so well one of the ones i'll just mention because it just keeps coming to mind is uh is uh just just eggs do you know just heard of it yeah right so it used like when it was like a totally different name it's called hampton creek they made mayonnaise and then moved into um eggs that was that's one that sort of stood the test of time um but there were a lot of like small apps like little app things that didn't that just had no legs really ultimately I didn't even understand what apps were they called me app curious I was very I was very interested in oh what is this app thing you know and I wanted to get in and I wanted to like create my own uh you know there's one like called popcorn um uh so so many like just I can't even remember is just like a wild ride of just all these excitable entrepreneurs trying to do this and me me as well and you know we had a lot of learning coming to us what was what has been some of your biggest learnings from those early days in investing in companies are you taking to now i think recognizing my own limitations you know sometimes one's ego might make them think that they're going to be the CEO, the entrepreneur, the financier, the face of the business, the creative executive, all the things.

14:55And I realized early on that I had to know where I fit in, what my lane was, where I was really adding value and where I needed to get out of the way and take the ego out of it and really just build a great company or support a company that has a mature, responsible look at the way they're building or structuring their business. Like hotshot CEOs, you can tell or entrepreneurs, founders, you can tell when they're not going to want to give up any power and they're not going to want to let their baby grow. And a lot of times, you know, people are great at starting businesses, but not necessarily at growing them, you know?

15:49And so do these, do they have the maturity and the self-awareness, the introspection to know when to bring on other people and ask for help. Yeah, you said a lot of your investments in the early days were about the person and the founder, and that was the big driver, probably less around, you know, total addressable market, the thesis, you didn't probably have a thesis. Has that changed now? Or it's more still focused on the founder and you have it yeah oh it's yeah oh yeah it's changed big time i mean we're still focused on the founder you know they're especially startups are founder driven like you really want to know who's creating this business and are they are they in it for the long haul are they in it for the right reasons do they have what it takes to see it through all of the hurdles and challenges especially in the early days of starting a business i i guess i should correct what i was what I said is I was in it more for the ideas and I'm, I was easily swayed by the vision of the founder as a creative person.

16:59When someone tells me a story, like my, my brain lights up and I can imagine it. Yeah. And, and I seduce myself. I I'm almost complicit with the founder and making me believe in the thing versus being more skeptical and poking holes. So another lesson I learned is, You got to learn to poke holes and kill your darlings. And there's a difference between a great idea and a great business. So I still get to dream and imagine, but I have a team now who can vet the business viability of a company, do the analytics, the numbers, the market research, et cetera, so that we know we're going to actually make a return and I can keep dreaming onto the next company as opposed to wasting a lot of time on a big idea that doesn't have legs.

17:58So yeah, now I do. I have that support and that's great. I mean, that was part of my whole learning curve. Bringing in Bob Minuzi, who is my partner, and how she approaches business. She's basically the brains of the operation. She tells me what we're actually going to put money towards versus, you know, what is just a fanciful idea or even better. Sometimes I'll bring an opportunity and she'll say, this is great, but here's another company that's actually more viable in the same space. So you guys started to do Contra Ventures together, right? yeah correct and that's kind of like your venture arm you've also got like an incubator as well where you incubate businesses i'm curious uh how did you meet bar oh how do i meet bar she i think she reached out to me a few years ago because she has a family office where she represents influence, people of influence with a, I guess, a global or like a public presence who, and she wants to help them align their investments with their values, which was, of course, I was perfect for.

19:18And we just got to know each other over the years before we finally realized that we had a lot Common that we actually worked well together. And she helped me formalize my ragtag, arbitrary shoot from the hip investments and make it into a formal business thesis that we could actually raise money against. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying this episode and learning a ton. As you know, in this series, we interview some of the greatest founders of our generation to find out how they did it. However, if you're thinking of starting your own business and you want to hear from some incredible stories from everyday people like you or I who are actually in the trenches, only been building their business for maybe one year or two years, like they're building right now and they're really in the early stages, but they're getting success.

20:12You should come and check out our new podcast from zero to founder hosted by our community manager, Molly Flynn. These are in the trenches stories from our very own successful students that have gone through some of our programs. People just like you who are deep within the process of building their very own successful business. These are the founders of tomorrow. You can find the From Zero to Founder podcast on all platforms. And remember, it's founder without the E. All right, now let's jump in the show. So I have to ask you this, you know, from all your accomplishments and success and then looking at a potential business partner, it would be hard to know who to trust, right?

20:57How do you know like when it comes to kind of potential business partners, opportunities, because you would get so many things thrown your way. How do you kind of sift through, yeah, people that have ulterior motives probably don't have your best interests and they only have their own self-interest. Like how do you know who to trust and how to trust others like when it comes to stuff like that? Yeah, I, you know, I always felt bad for those business people who were so cutthroat, and we're battling out battling it out in boardrooms. Because I feel like there's, there'd be little very little trust.

21:35Because when you're swimming with sharks, and you're a shark, you know, that's just the life you've built. But when you build a business from a different kind of integrity that requires real exchange of the human-to -human connection, you don't have to worry about that as much because you know that you're all playing for different reasons. And that's just, I think, you meet the human before you make the deal. as opposed to a lot of times it's the deal at all costs. And I've always, I've, I've recognized over the years that there's smart money and then there's easy money. And then there's heart centered money, like people who really are aligned with what they mean.

22:33And easy money is often very dangerous money because it always comes to bite you in the ass. It's like anybody that wants to just give you a bunch of money, no strings attached, and they're not asking questions. It may be really convenient, but there's an opportunity cost there, and it usually doesn't work out. That's from my experience. So it takes a period of vetting of a human being, getting to know them really, truly. I got to know over a couple of years before we started working together. So, I mean, she, she was playing the long con if she's actually not legit, which I would be surprised.

23:18And, you know, I might take my hat off to her. She is a con artist ultimately. So you started quite a few businesses, Shift, Lonely Whale, you go to the venture firm and the incubator and Earthspeed Media, one of your newest ventures um what was your first business you said you said you started a couple and you learned some good lessons can you tell us about that and was shift your your first real big one or well i started reckless productions which was my production company and um i'm still operating that uh you know we basically do you know independent films come ago as you know over the years um it's we're not always making films but um it's really a vehicle for me to to produce and direct films so that was i guess my first formal company um one that was my favorite that didn't work out was church key beer i started a beer company and man that was a good time and tell us about that man yeah i had high hopes for that and in fact i remember my agent called me and he's like oh you bastard like you're gonna be a you're gonna be a billionaire from beer not acting like this is everyone loved this company and it was great we actually brought back the flat top can so these are the old cans the way our great grandparents used to drink beer so before they had the pull tab or the like so the cans today if you're if you're watching have the tab that stays on and it pops a little hole before back in the day our grandparents used to have to use a tool kind of like a can opener but it cracks a little triangle in the top of the can.

25:17And so we brought that back and we were making beer in those old school tin cans. So they were like basically oil cans that were tough. You couldn't squeeze them and you had to crack them open. It was, it was awesome. And so we had this old hipster sort of nostalgia and, um, we had a craft beer. It was micro craft, all the things. and you know who would who would have thought that starting a business is hard and and not only that the beverage business not only that the beer beverage business which is a pennies game like you got to sell a lot of this swill to make any money and we were doing a premium product we had like the fanciest cans it was all but all the things and you know people want cheap beer they I mean, that's the bottom line is they want to really – they want to spend six bucks for a 24-pack, not six bucks for a six-pack.

26:18So it just ultimately didn't work. The real fundamental reason why it didn't work was we had some canning problems because we were essentially reinventing the can because the whole of the beverage industry had moved towards standardization around aluminum stay tabs, which is what I just pointed out. And we had to retool and recreate a whole canning line to accommodate this can. And it just was cost prohibitive considering our margins and the beer industry. We were number one in Whole Foods for a while. We were very promising. And then you look at the numbers and party's over. Yeah, interesting.

27:10Why was it so much fun though?

27:15Well, I was really proud of the concept. I was really proud of our premise. And yeah, our slogan was worth the effort. You know, the idea is like, that which you put effort into is, you know, worth it, you know, ultimately, and then you get the reward. and um yeah i mean just i mean look i love i love beer right i love craft beer in particular and we had a great uh triple uh triple treated uh what was it i don't remember um hops a triple hops treated pill uh check style pilsner which was really really tasty we i think i'd lost 10 pounds when that business went under so that's how much fun weight i had gained and and when you're when you're out selling the beer like you you gotta drink it you gotta you gotta be sure to be seen drinking your own product so it was just a good time i was a lot younger and i had a lot more energy so and how was it like you know from all your other success in in other areas uh it was film and and music and all sorts of things like how how was that that failure like did it was it tough to work through or you just kind of kept going because that's your nature you know the biggest the biggest thing the hardest thing to resist it's one thing to fail you know they say fail fast because when you fail fast you learn and then you you adapt yeah but it's those of us that refuse to fail we don't want to fail so we hold on to failure so you're basically like hitting rock bottom and then sliding scraping your face across the stone as you hit rock bottom as opposed to just getting it over with.

29:16So it took us like two years to finally accept that it was over. And so I did not take it well. I did not want to fail. I wanted, it was like, okay, we got to believe in ourselves because we're going to be that one success story that we get to tell the war stories about how we almost failed, but we're going to like resurrect. It's really hard to know when, no, no, no, this is, you're not going to be one of those resurrection stories. It's over. And you could keep pouring money into it and borrowing money and trying to save face, salvage a dream. But you could prolong agony and a huge opportunity cost if you don't know when it's over, when the party's over.

30:01It's like when you go out and you're at a club and the lights come on, you've probably overstayed your welcome. So you got to know when it's over and it's probably not at the very end. Yeah. Are you hesitating to take the next step in your e-commerce journey? Founder Plus has you covered. With proven frameworks tailored to your business needs for fast results, a supportive community of over 30 ,000 like-minded entrepreneurs and weekly live mentorship sessions, Founder Plus is your key to success. Try Founder Plus today for just$1 for seven days and start building your dream business with confidence.

30:41You can visit founder.com forward slash start dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial. Thank you for sharing. So let's talk about Shift. I saw that, did you exit that company or you're not active anymore? or yeah so shift uh my partner i left shift many years ago and uh my partner took it over and he's actually just relaunching it yeah okay got you um and your most recent lonely well foundation and also earth speed media can you tell us about those companies and what you're trying to yeah and always always with like a an element of social good all of your all of your ventures businesses you invest in yeah uh so lonely whale uh i started lonely whale almost seven eight years ago uh whose mission was to bring people closer to the world's ocean um and we found ourselves at the forefront of plastic reduction in uh in the oceans and we started several programs to reduce plastic going into the oceans and bringing awareness around our plastic use.

32:00And that was, you know, I became a UN environment ambassador because of that. And we had, you know, we had a good run. We did a lot of great things. And I'm very proud of the work we've done. We worked with, we had a program called Ocean Heroes Boot Camp, and we hosted kids from around the world and brought them together in sort of a boot camp style conference where they learned about ocean conservation and had games and activities and became advocates for the ocean when they went home. We started a supply chain for ocean plastic, like really behind the scenes, B2B boring stuff, but it really is really effective.

32:40It's still growing. Yeah, just a number of things and yeah, super proud of Lonely Well. Yeah, amazing. And Earthspeed, tell us about that. Yes. Yeah, so Earthspeed is my latest venture. Earthspeed Media, it's a nature-based lifestyle media company. And our mission really is to bring people more into resonance with nature and the earth and not only providing content, which is aspirational, inspirational to bring people closer to to nature but also uh eventually coming into next year hopefully sooner than later we're going to be offering uh retreats and experiences nature courses uh primitive skills different ways that people can actually get out into nature and get their hands dirty interesting and uh what uh compelled you to get back in front of the camera with with earth speed if i if i had to hire someone comparable it would be too expensive i'm free and um i'm curious as well like uh when it comes to the you know the tone of earth speed how do you guys uh plan to kind of differentiate yourself compared to other environmental media?

34:08I wouldn't even look at this as environmental media. I think it's more, it really is lifestyle. It's like sort of, I'm a real fan of a lot of Homestead channels, a lot of DIYers, people who are doing the work and they're learning hard skills and they're taking care of themselves, self-sovereign, independent, saving money, getting healthy, taking care of their family, being responsible citizens. I just really love that community. And, you know, I have a, I have an awareness, I have a platform that sort of spans pop culture and, you know, modern culture. So I thought, well, hey, I could maybe bridge the gap between those two worlds and make something extremely accessible and modern and open, but still nudging towards this modern homestead kind of lifestyle.

35:11Yeah, look, that's a massive movement for sure. Yeah, totally. Yeah, look, that makes sense. So we have to work towards wrapping up. We're going to move to the hot seat round. Ah. Hot seat. So rapid fire questions and answers. Okay. What's your favorite spot to spend time on your farm? Favorite spot to spend time on my farm? Yeah. There is a seat in the garden underneath the palm tree. And I got to say, we do have a palm trees. And that is one great thing about this area is we have a climate that accommodates all sorts of growth. So we have three growing cycles every year. And then we have palm trees and we have fruit trees.

36:06We have banana trees. We have all sorts of great, awesome growth without being in the tropics. and it's just a great little chair that when I'm sweating too much, I just take a, I kick my feet up and sit under the palm tree. Is it ever enough? Is that the question? Is it ever enough?

36:28This it, it, I think we'd have to find out what this it is. I would imagine it is probably enough. Yes, it is enough. When is work fulfilling? Well, you know, as I say, when you find a job that you love, you'll never work a day in your life. So work is fulfilling when you work not with your head or your body, but with your heart. Who is Adrian going to be in 10 years? I will be a father in 10 years. I will hopefully have many children. and yeah, I think I will have finally settled into a community that is really close-knit and tight and we're going to be having big old parties, parties that like 50-year-olds would feel good at.

37:28Last question. if you could have dinner with any entrepreneur dead or alive, who would it be? Oh my God. Michelangelo. Well, he's an artist, but is he a business builder? I figured I thought he must started something, right? He built a lot of things. Yeah. Okay. All right. Michelangelo. That's I'm, I'm sticking with it. All right, done. Awesome. Well, look, thank you so much for your time, Adrian. It was an absolute pleasure. Great to connect. And thank you for being so open, honest, and vulnerable. And congratulations on all your success thus far and looking forward to continuing to follow your journey.