In short
The GaryVee Audio Experience: Essential Tips for Growing Your Side Hustle | Q&A at University of Western Ontario
Episode Overview In this episode, Gary Vaynerchuk shares practical advice and insights from a recent Q&A session with students at the University of Western Ontario. He discusses the essentials of entrepreneurship, the importance of empathy in leadership, and strategies for young entrepreneurs to effectively grow their side hustles.
Key Concepts Discussed
Setting Goals
- Focus Beyond the Goal Amount: Gary emphasizes that while large financial goals (e.g., donating $1.5 million) are important, they should not dictate decisions. Concentrating on the process and the steps to achieve those goals is crucial.
Building a Podcast and Business
- Leverage Your Network: To grow a podcast, it's important to interview many guests (e.g., 100 people) and share clips across various social media platforms.
- Persistence: Expect a lot of rejection (99% no responses) when reaching out to potential guests or customers.
Leadership and Co-Founder Dynamics
- Empathy in Leadership: Gary emphasizes that understanding your team's perspectives can prevent burnout and miscommunication.
- Kind Candor: Encouraging open but compassionate communication with co-founders is essential, especially during times of change or uncertainty.
- Balancing Roles: Founders must often manage differing priorities and perspectives, making it important to both listen to feedback and remain assertive about necessary changes.
Digital Marketing Insights
- The Future of Marketing: Gary predicts that live social shopping will gain traction, blending entertainment with e-commerce.
- Utilization of Platforms: Emphasizes the importance of organic content, especially on platforms like LinkedIn, to determine what resonates with audiences before scaling efforts.
Entrepreneurship Advice
- Risk Tolerance: Young entrepreneurs should engage in high-risk, high-reward activities while they can afford to take risks, ideally around areas they are passionate about.
- Importance of Authenticity: In a world increasingly influenced by technology and AI, staying authentic and true to oneself is vital for connection and trust.
- Practical Steps: For those unsure of their next steps, Gary advises to start with what they enjoy and focus on building that passion into a business.
Questions from Students
- Navigating Distractions from Social Media: Gary acknowledges the challenge of balancing social media consumption with passion projects, stressing the importance of personal discipline.
- Building Trust in Low-Trust Environments: Gary encourages persistent outreach and targeted communication to establish credibility and connect with potential clients in traditionally low-trust industries.
Conclusion Gary concludes by reinforcing the idea that entrepreneurship is a journey filled with trials, failures, and moments of self-discovery. The importance of community, empathy, and authenticity is reiterated as essential components for success in business.
Notable Quotes
- "You are more likely to achieve your goals if you focus on the process, not the end number."
- "Empathy is a superpower."
- "The best advice is to figure out what you love and pursue that."
This episode is packed with actionable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing a mix of hard work, authenticity, and the courage to take risks in pursuit of one's passions.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Gary V Audio Experience. I'm Mike from Team Gary V. In this episode, we're sharing a recent Q &A session that Gary did at the University of Western Ontario. He answers some of the students' questions regarding business, entrepreneurship, and much more. I hope you all enjoy. Just some of your name and we'll rock and roll. My name is Molina. I'm 15 years old. Amazing. My question is, I recently started a business and a podcast. Yes. And I want to know how I can grow that and I can leverage that to help me reach my goal, which is to donate$1.5 million to SickKids Hospital.
0:38And I want to leverage using my podcast and my business. I want to know how I can make that money so I can donate. So why 1.5? Because I just feel like that would be, that's just a base number for me. If I could do more, it's even better. The reason I ask that question is I think you should take that number out of the equation, even based on your answer, meaning 1.5 is remarkable and unbelievable. Three million, unbelievable. But so is 10 ,000. And I think when I think about goals and I'm using your question to make sure I bring value to everybody, one of the great mistakes people make, and that doesn't mean have big goals and big numbers, like there's a lot of smarts to having goals.
1:19But sometimes when people's goal becomes the energy, they start to make wrong decisions. you are more likely to donate 1.5 million dollars by focusing on everything but the 1.5 number so and let me tell you this as far as the podcast how can you do it what's the business love I do video editing. Love. And I post on LinkedIn and try to get people to reach out to have my services. For my podcast, I interview professionals and I ask them what their advice is to young leaders who watch fun stuff. How many podcasts have you done? I've only recorded my first episode last week. Amazing. So basically, I think the way you will do this to pull it off is you need to interview dozens, probably 100 is gonna be my guess.
2:13based on your goal, 100 people, and when you put up the podcast, I'm sure you know this because you're growing up in this era, you need to make sure that you clip the best clips from the podcast and post them all organically on the seven social networks that matter. And so to pull that off, you basically have to spend as many hours as you can DMing as many prominent people that have audiences as you can and be prepared for 99 % to be no and build off of that. I'm gonna make you a deal. I will do your 55th podcast if you can get to 54. Okay. You're welcome.
3:00We're going back and forth? Yeah, we're going back and forth. Back and forth, beautiful. Let's go there. Hi, Gary, thanks for coming here. I'm a founder, part of the Accelerator program. Pleasure. I'm loving every experience, great to hear you speak. Thank you, man, what's your name? Hamza. Yeah, I read your book from the library a couple weeks ago and one thing you mentioned that you stand out that compares you to different entrepreneurs is adjusting at halftime. Yes. You're the halftime coach. Yes. Perfect halftime coach. I'm not romantic. Like, I don't care what my plan was. If the consumer, as I'm going through it, doesn't like it, I have to adjust.
3:36And I do that every day. And so, you know, as a founder, I'm putting my ears to the ground. I'm speaking to a lot of customers and try to sell what I need to do, but I have a co-founder and I want to know, like, from your experience, how do you take the information that you're getting onto the ground and communicating it in a way that's inspiring to your team so that they don't get burned out from the constant changes? You said in your book your assistant has, like, a funny term for a word that's super, super important. So just curious how you drag your team during that process along with it. Empathy.
4:09Empathy is a superpower. Like, I understand that I may be driven or have more natural energy than the people around me. I've never, from the day that I started operating, thought that my employees should work as hard as me. I think one of the great mistakes that founders and leaders get caught up in is thinking that their employees should work as hard or harder than them. If you want them to work as hard as you, give them half the business. You know, so I think in a co-founder situation, that's a little bit different. You know, are you talking about the rest of the company or are you talking about your actual co-founder?
4:42My actual co-founder. Yeah, that one is hard. Have you guys divided and conquered the business? He does the product and engineering and I do the sales. So I'm speaking to the customers all the time. Got it. And so you're coming home and you're like, hey, you got to make these changes. By reminding him that if you don't make the changes customer wants, you guys are going to go out of fucking business. Correct.
5:09And then you just get a sense of how he's reacting. Usually in this scenario, if you think he's epic, but it's too much and you're smart, and you're like, fuck, I need seven more features that's not feasible with him and the two person team, where you wanna get into a place is how do you add more resources to the team? Right, do you raise more capital? Do you borrow? You know, like, and then sometimes you have to make a tough decision. The amount of sales-driven co-founders that have had to force out their technical co-founder and the amount of technical co-founders who were capable, but their sales focus leader wasn't able to sell.
5:46That's a very common game in co-founders. It's a great partnership when it's right. I would just recommend kind candor. I think kind candor is something that took me a long time. Believe it or not, I'm super candorous on stage. I just did it. Yay. But in real life, if I like you, it was hard for me to tell you the truth. because I'm overly positive, optimistic, and I eat shit, I do it for a living, and I put it on my back, I'm that guy. It allowed me to build resentment, and it made me sloppy and firing. And so I think kind candor, because a lot of people use candor, radical candor was a term for a while.
6:22I think people use candor a lot of times to weaponize politics and just being a dick. And I think kind candor is a different game. It's like, yo, how long have you guys been together? 14 months. Right, you're like, listen, and we've been on this journey hard for the last year plus. I get that I'm asking for these things. Maybe you wanna come with me so you can see what I'm seeing because it's not gonna matter if they don't want it. You just gotta try honey, vinegar, optimism, fear. Like you've gotta be like a fucking Swiss army knife, right? Like people, too many people just have a screwdriver and they try using a screwdriver.
6:54You need 78 moves to make it happen. And then sometimes you have to look in the mirror and be like is this actually the right partnership? Thank you. You're welcome.
7:06Thank you. Pleasure. Founding a health startup currently. Awesome. And one of our big focuses is going to be digital marketing. Yes. You talk a lot about it. I like guys like Russell Bunsen. Yes. So what the next thing is going to be and staying ahead of the game. What do you think is going to be that next thing that comes for digital marketing that will reinvent the... Live social shopping. Now, what's cool about live social shopping, obviously you sell wine or trading cards or T-shirts, easy. It's QVC, it's Home Shopping Network. It's whatever you had here in Canada. I'm sure you had some version.
7:44If you're selling a SaaS business, if you're selling a service business, it would seem counterintuitive. But I do think that live streaming in that environment is going to work quite a bit. Other than that, usually my answer to your question is I don't know. I don't really know what's next. my skills over the last 20 years has been to act fast when I see it. Like I know that way too many people don't market on LinkedIn enough. That's why I made a big point of it in this book that everybody has. I know that YouTube Shorts is really good because people don't realize that YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world.
8:18Right? So I know that Google AdWords is in trouble because AI is coming and people are using ChatGPT and Perplexity instead of going to Google and if you're not using Google, you're not gonna see Google Ads. So people that are 100 % reliant on Google AdWords are very vulnerable right now over the next five years. Not tomorrow, but five. So I know influencer marketing is still grossly underpriced or overpriced depending on how smart you are and how you deploy it. Some people are a great deal, some people are a ripoff. It's not just following count. There's a lot of art and science underneath these tactics.
8:52What's the health startup? We're a platform that allows health service providers to connect with consumers from within their own home? You should live on LinkedIn. Live. The way, if you read the book or if you see my current content, what I'm trying to get all of you to understand is organic content first, if it does well, then media. The last chapter pre-iOS 14.5 update was A-B testing variants with media, $50,$100,$500, get what works, then pour lighter fluid on it. Today's world is organic social to see what actually pops, then convert it to performance. If you live on LinkedIn and make content that you think will bring value to the people that you're targeting and that thus brings awareness to what you do, if you see something pop off, your first post might get 13 views, might get seven.
9:41But when you get that one that gets 400 or 5 ,000 or 20 ,000, if you convert it into a free trial or a seminar, you need to really, really spend a lot of time on LinkedIn because for free, right? No media spend, just organic, that is where your customer is. you got it brother
10:02my man hi Gary my name is Francesco first of all I just want to say thanks for coming out and having your time today I'm pumped to be here I love your idea of the jab jab book yes well what I wanted to ask you do you have any advice to not do with the media got a couple unsuccessful ventures and I'm not necessarily sure what kind of value to provide but what that kind of thing you know will be well are you in the midst so I wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. And it was basically the precursor to the purple book here. Wrote it 10 years ago when I could see that people didn't understand how to do social media marketing.
10:35I explained that at the time in 2013, to be honest, even now, too many people, every post is a sales pitch. We don't want that. And so the concept was give value, give value, give value, and then you can ask. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Obviously when I was selling wine for my dad's store, I was educating people about wine, educating people about wine, educating people online, and then I might sell a different kind of, I would ask for the sale. Are you in the midst, I heard the failed things, are you in the midst of an actual business right now? So right now I'm at the point in which I've kind of realized that you have to give value for a long period of time before you can actually pay.
11:13I feel like that's why I've had different opportunities still in the past. I just want some advice on how to get back into it, how to start out, I don't necessarily know what that is going to be. to the consumer or to a human being to team up with? Well, I think first you have to decide what the fuck you're selling, right? So if you decide to sell a stunt tan lotion, you might provide value in the terms of how to do things at home to protect your skin, right? You might be educating people. You take what you're doing and then you're giving them value. When Rick was in the apparel business doing cool hoodies and shirts of that, that nature, they could have done a lot of content of like tips to do when you go out.
11:56You know, best advice of nightlife in a market. Like, I think people have to think like a publisher and a news outlet and a provider of value and then go in. So, I don't, it depends on what you're gonna sell. I think if you don't know, like what your business is gonna be. Yeah, so more so my question was kind of just like getting into if you've got any advice. Like if someone wants to be in the game, doesn't necessarily know like where to kind of start and what to do. I just want to define the game. Are you trying to join a startup or are you trying to start a company? In the sense of the game as an entrepreneurship and wants to be someone who, like you said, I've done all these cool things, but just also provide yourself with that freedom.
12:34No shit, but real quick. Like, you're really not answering the question. Do you want to start a company again? Or have you in the past? Or are you trying to figure out how to join an early company? No, I think some of that, I want to start a company. Okay. The whole idea that jacked up, I want to be a... Forget about the tactic. If you want to start a company, before you figure out how to do your marketing, you have to figure out what the fuck you're selling.
13:03Are you, are you saying, like, let's, I'm sorry I'm stuck on this one, but I'm really fucking locked in right now. So, so take me back one. What's the last thing you fucked up? Okay. So, me and my buddy, we used to kind of do social media marketing for different businesses. or feature different products on the social media page, had a couple of tens of thousands of followers, but it kind of trailed off into the end because we realized that we weren't necessarily providing enough value for the consumer for the clients that we were doing with for it to be a sustainable business. Correct. We kind of ended things off, took a step back, and now I'm at the point where I'm assessing different opportunities.
13:40I kind of want to... Now I understand. I think... No, no worries, man. We had to work to fucking get here. How old are you? I'm 20. Perfect. For everybody under 30, raise your hands. I thought you were going to raise your hands. One more time, hi. This is disproportionately my favorite piece of advice. I know that it is not commonly thought of, but I cannot wait till I'm in heaven looking down when the world fully agrees with me on this one. From 20 to 30, the only things you should be doing is ridiculously high risk, high reward activities based on shit you fucking like.
14:27I'm telling you. Because this is the age where you guys can get together and have six of you in a fucking studio and eat dog shit food and be fine. If Rick fucking ate dog shit food, he'd be out of commission for two fucking days shitting his pants. Right? I'm telling you, you gotta look at the OGs. We know, we fucking lived it. So the answer to your question is, what do you like? What is your favorite shit on earth? Like that is what the business you should start. Not where you think the money is, not what you heard, not what you saw. Like what are you most into? Music, sports, nightlife, fashion, whatever it is, that's what you should do because if you love it so much, you're gonna have the energy to actually put in the 18 hours a day that is actually fucking required to actually build something.
15:17Thank you so much. You got it, man.
15:24Got it, man. I was happy to do it. Hey, Gary. My name is Sam. Sam, of course. Happy to be here. So I'm just wondering, do you preach balance at a young age? One minute of their time. Yeah, I mean, look, here's the fun thing about balance. Who gets to define it? Like when you ask me about balance, do I preach it? Yes. My balance for 17 years was working 19 hours a day and I loved it. I have a funny feeling that's not balanced by most people's point of view. You know, so of course, but you have to realize you have to define balance for yourself. Work-life balance, balance, who gets to be the judge?
16:02So what do you consider balance? I guess doing what you love and if you love what you're doing, then you can do it for as long as you want. Correct, so like the reason entrepreneurs more often than others, are workaholics, is you don't think it's working. I would punch myself in the face 5 ,000 times right now if I had to go to a fucking class on this campus. I don't want to do that. Right? But for a lot of people here, they can't wait, and that's awesome. But not for me. But working? Like, working this morning from 7 a.m. to 2.30, driving to the airport, on the phone working, getting on the plane and having an hour meeting with JT, who I can see his face right now to plan our entire reorg for next year was the best hour of the fucking week.
16:53Landing, working, quickly calling my son, catching up with my friend, meeting my new friend, and then standing here and working to bring value to now go back in the plane, work the whole flight, land, work, and then get home and hang out with my kids. All that work is better than any fucking thing else I could do. I don't wanna fucking go skiing. I don't wanna fucking play video games. I don't wanna fucking golf. I don't wanna watch a fucking movie. I don't wanna do, I wanna fucking work because I love it. So for me, the balance is good. There's people that work 40 hours a week, nine to five. They live for being on the softball team or going home and watching a movie and they can't wait for the weekend and they love a fucking national holiday.
17:39And I don't think they're balanced. I think they fucking hate 40 hours of their week. That. Gotcha.
17:53And by the way, brother, I love that question because that whole little rant, that's entrepreneurship. Right, my man? Right? That doesn't mean, and people get it twisted. That doesn't mean like, don't be healthy and fucking die at 47, who gives a fuck? Like, fuck money. I'm gonna say slow if you get confused by what I say. Fuck money. Of course you need it. You need a roof over your head. The game. Would you rather do it than anything else? And then, by the way, I understand passions for other things. You can call me this Sunday at 1 p.m. and tell me that the internet has been banned. So is alcohol.
18:31So is the blockchain. You can't do intellectual property companies anymore. Entrepreneurship is banned in North America. and I would literally pick up the phone and say, I'll call you three hours from now. The Jets are fucking playing. I understand passions and doing other things. But like balance, what's balance? Every family's got their own balance. Every person's got their own balance. And so we get into these ideologies without really defining it. It's like parenting. I have lots of passions about modern parenting, but I would never tell another man or woman how to raise their child. That's how I think about balance.
19:07I have thoughts on balance, I just share that. But I do not have the audacity or the delusion to tell you what balance is.
19:22Hi Gary, thank you so much for coming and being so real with us. Of course. My name is Sima, I'm 21, and I was wondering, you talk so much about social media being such a powerful tool of our generation, but for so many of us, I think in this room, it's such a big distraction and it distracts us from our passion projects. And I know when students have asked you in the past, you said, don't like Instagram, delete it. But a lot of times that value that we get from social media, it's difficult to give up. So do you think a healthy relationship with social media is possible? Of course. And if so, how do you foster that healthy relationship where it's not consuming it all your time?
20:01By not judging yourself on your consumption patterns. You just said to me, I'm distracted from my passion, but I'm getting value from this. So then it's like alcohol. Alcohol out of balance is bad, bad, bad, bad. Within balance, nice glass of wine with a nice meal, pretty epic.
20:26So I think what's happened now is we are paralyzed by analyzing every fucking thing. Let me tell you about something funny about the 80s in America. Long before you were born, slightly down there, America, 1980s. Do you know that at 10 p.m. every night in America, that on the television, this pre-internet, so the TV was life, there would be like a commercial that would pop up that said, it's 10 p.m., do you know where your kids are? You remember that? Any Americans, anybody know what I'm talking about? Parents had so little clue what the fuck us kids were doing, that the television had to remind them that we might not even be fucking home right now.
21:09We now live in a world that we want to analyze everything. Of course I think that people can have a healthy relationship. Unlimited people do. We over-fixate on the ones that don't. It's an indication to where the world is right now. Do you know how many wonderful acts of kindness and graciousness and respect happened in the world in the last 24 hours? a lot more than despicable. Yet, all we do is pay attention to the despicable ones. We are over fixated on the wrong thing. If you get value from it, then you should use it. Of course, you're gonna spend some time on it. But if you're not getting to your passion projects, that's not social media's fault.
21:52That's your fault. That's called discipline. That's called you're talking out of your fucking ass and your actions don't match it. I come up with all sorts of bullshit excuses to why I don't eat as well as my fiance wants, but they're fucking excuses. Nobody fucking made me eat those bullshit M &Ms on the plane. That. You're capable. Everything that's happening right now is the world is trying to tell you that you're not capable. Fucking, do you kids have this phenomenon too? There are 20-year-old kids in here who have an app on their phone right now that their parents are tracking and know where you are.
22:30Most of you actually have that shit on your phone. You should delete it right now. That's fucked up. You're a fucking grown-up.
22:51My man.
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22:59Similar to Jim Thorpe winning Olympic gold after having the shooter stolen, I'm at an disadvantage as an Anishinaabe entrepreneur. How do I accelerate and expand my network to convey that I want to help others succeed regardless of where they're from or their strengths and their flaws? Content. How much are you making? None. You should make some, brother. I can stop. because it wasn't getting traction, you got negativity, all that stuff. I was getting traction. Yeah. And my family? Yeah. I get it. Listen, I'm at a place in my life now where I have such a high profile that there's a lot of things I can't do or don't do and so I couldn't be more empathetic.
23:47Listen, I said something here that really I'm telling you and I know it seems crazy but I'm gonna say it slow. Even just your presence, I could be like, this guy's a messenger. I feel like, you know, because I'm someone who so desperately wants to tell shit, like that lovely young lady, like she's so capable. Like I don't believe that you kids are entitled or don't get it or all, like I don't believe any of it but I believe that you're starting to believe it. I'm telling you right now, my man, this avatar thing is real. If you're getting threats on your family, I genuinely believe that many of the kids here are gonna have a virtual person represent themselves in the world to protect their privacy or the issues we're talking about.
24:31Please do me a favor and spend 25 hours researching virtual influencers. Get educated. The way you can support what's in your heart is by communicating. If you can't do it visually because there's things that come along with it that are too scary and I'm pumped, like myself, that you choose family over mission, Many great men and women have lost heart on that. But this virtual thing's real, look into it. I love you bro. Yep.
25:07That's a good sign, love you guys back. Hi, how are you? Good. I'm so happy to be here, you can't imagine. So as the question going on, I think it's more time to fight up maybe based on your explanation a little bit because I see no almost no about 30 so I'm 32. I'm an international student, PhD student coming here and here I get familiar with entrepreneurship. I started my PhD in health science but now going to entrepreneurship a little bit more different things, integrating everything so it's hard for me first is I think it's too late. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. You're 32. Yeah. You're a fucking kid.
25:57You are. I get it. You're looking at like little kids around you. But you do know 32 is very young, yes? Yes. Okay. So don't, don't, listen. You're here. You should enjoy it. You should absorb this youthful energy. In fact, you should be 32 acting 22 because of what you're surrounded by. That's not a disadvantage. There's plenty of people that are 57 that are making a good decision today and starting their journey. Take it from somebody who's about to be 49. I feel 22, you should feel 22. Nice, good, great. Good. Now I'm a good scenario. Yes. So I'm starting in, so creating content, I'm starting in a startup.
26:44Yes. I started a website just recently to start creating content and gathering general audience for myself. Good. And the general thing is about integration of AI in health sciences. So I'm a physiotherapist also, I work with patients. Good. So there's lots of things that you can do in this content. Good. But in your advice on social media and you're mentioning that AI is getting there, so we have virtual AI coming up. so everything is being more challenging. Of course. And how we can be more attentive, so maintain our authenticity and stand out in the years coming, especially with the AI and it's gonna be much easier, much harder for us to be more authentic?
27:29I don't think so. I actually think authenticity doesn't change with the challenges of technology. On a human level, if you wanna be authentic, you're authentic. I get that it gets harder. I'll give you an example. You might have been super authentic in high school and then you came here and you want to fit in and that first couple months you've got to navigate and maybe you're not fully yourself because you're trying to get the sense of what's going on. Makes sense. It's the normal flight of going to university. But the reality is some of the kids in this room, maybe when you came as an older student, they just were authentic.
28:04They were comfortable, like fuck it. Whoever's gonna be my friend's gonna be my friend on my shit, I'm gonna stand on my business of who I am. So to me, authenticity is not gonna be hard with AI. We will consume AI, things that are technology, but for a human to be able to stand out on their authenticity, charisma is a very powerful trait. Knowledge is a very powerful trait. The ability to be funny and humor, powerful. So there's a lot of ways to stand out in your authenticity. The thing that nobody does, brother, is they don't do it. Do you know why I'm on this stage? Because I posted 700 ,000 fucking times and I didn't give a fuck what anybody thought.
28:47And if I got one like, I'd be fine. And if I got a thousand, I'd be fine. The mass insecurity problem of the judgment of other people is literally stopping people from having an enjoyable life. That.
29:06My man. Thank you. Hi, what's up sir? My name is Arie. I'm 19. I've been looking up to you for like my entire life. Fuck man, I am old. I'm my big friend, Steve Fokin's still in. Thank you my guy, thank you my guy. I've been looking up to you forever. I have a simple question for you. How do you know when a side project can become your main gig? You don't. This entire summer I've spent my time working on. You don't. You don't? You don't. I mean you do if your side gig explodes and everybody's buying your shit, it's kind of like, oh fuck. But like, do you know how many people, bro, jumped off three months before it was gonna happen?
29:46And do you know how many people hung on to some shit eight years too long? You don't. You know like, there's just, all of us again who've been in the game, we know this. Timing is everything. It's real. But do you know? You don't. What you know is your situation. why I why others that I admire win is our tolerance of pain tolerance please so how do you know you can take that down can I just explain the situation real quick this entire summer I spent my time working on how to build an AI real estate agent and I used my dad's real estate license I used my friends as connections and I just used my friends like open AI credits and like we just built something together.
30:34I did eight visas. Now I don't know if that's enough to just pursue it as a main gig or like... What's holding you back? Eight sounds good. I thought you were gonna say zero. Eight's amazing. Right? Well, school's holding me back. Quit. My parents are here saying you have to stay. I don't want to. So quit. So you should just pull the trigger? Yeah, quit school. Oh my God.
31:06I mean, look at, you inspired, those four dudes are leaving right now, they're quitting school right the fuck now, let's fucking go, boys.
31:18Entrepreneurship is not taught in a classroom, with all due respect.
31:25I assume you're worried about what your parents are gonna think. Yeah, that's my only worry. About because you love them or because you're on the payroll? Not because I love them and they expect this from me. Like they came to Canada for me so now. I get it. So then do what I did. I did that. I ate shit, played video games, played CeeLo, played Spades and got the fuck out.
31:46If you're a real entrepreneur, this is the, how many more years you got? I have four more years. Great. This is the best four years of your life. This is the last fucking vacation of your life. Go enjoy the shit out of it. just get by and get whatever fucking grades this place needs you to get and fucking go.
32:10Hi Gary. My man. My name's Teddy. Teddy. This is like the highlight of my year. Thank you bro. Thanks for coming. So I'm applying to Y Combinator for next summer. Paul Graham Life. And they stress like on the application you need to know if you have a product versus like an application of a technology. Like you can't just do like, oh, computer vision, it's gonna be refined. So what's the point when you know you have a product? That's a really good question. At this point, you know, it's been a long time since I've been visiting YC. I was there, I mean, it's crazy to be here because I look at all of you the way I looked at Alexis at Reddit who was just sitting in a room like this at YC or all the crazy shit.
32:50I'm so grateful for the memories I have of my journey. the answer is I'm not sure how they define it. Right? And look, I think again, what they're probably telling you there is like, lightweight theory isn't gonna get you in this fucking thing. So just, I would just say taking it further, taking it further to where us people can use it has always been my common sense answer to that. Thanks so much. Got you.
33:18My man. Hi, I'm Sid. Sid. I'm working in a company right now and I have a very specific question. How do you build sales in a low trust environment? I'm working on something in tax and it's traditionally a very low trust environment. Companies don't want to work with these B2B. I'm just starting out. I barely have sales. No sales. I have a product. I've applied to YC. I've applied to these places. I've got a lot of interest because it's a very interesting industry to be working in. I'm working in renewable energy tax credits. So I've got a lot of interest but I'm struggling with sales because they want to work with people who are established and I'm not established.
33:50I can establish myself without getting saved. I know the game. How many people have you asked? About 30 calls till now and I've had the same problem every time. And how many people are in the addressable market? How many more people can you sell this to? We're targeting people with 10 to 100 million dollars in revenues. That's 200 ,000 people in the US. Great. Sounds like you have to call 199 ,970 more people.
34:18you know like it's fun to see like who gets it clearly people get their fucking name on the building that's the right answer 30 like leave right now and go call 70 before you go to sleep thank you Thank you.
34:43Crew, I want to make sure it's not like going everywhere. Like when you have a sales problem, but you know this gentleman's lucky, he knows who he's going after and he know, like he answered a bunch, like I'm optimistic for him because he knows he's got a 200 ,000 person, you know, businesses addressable market. He's gone to 30. He literally actually has to DM email, send a message on LinkedIn or make content that he targets to the employees of those 200 ,000 addressable people on LinkedIn. Like, he only needs one yes. You know that, right? You know like your loser friend who never has a girlfriend or boyfriend, but then finally they get one and they're in the game?
35:21That.
35:28The answer always, whether it's business or you're going out tonight, is just ask the next person.
35:38Hi Gary. My name is Ian. I'm 18. Thank you for coming out tonight. We all love having you here. Thank you Ian. You said that you were blessed with the gift of entrepreneurship. Yes. I started some shit that fucking failed. Good. How do I know that if that's just part of my journey or if I just don't have the same gift? Have you had any successes? I've learned a lot. Look, you're in the best spot bro. At 18, I don't know. I'm not fucking Nostradamus, but you need to go and try three or four more things. And real, the most, there was a lot of things I'm happy that I got to say today because I'm very improv-y in the way I roll.
36:15This whole thing about do high-risk shit until you're 30, I promise you, it's big. It's big, big. Especially if you do it around things you really love. Right? Like really love. Snowboarding or the city of Paris. I'm being serious. It could be literally anything. The answer is you're gonna have to try some more. You know, but this goes back to the new game. Like by the time I was 18, I had like 747 businesses. Like 39 of them did well. It's all I thought about. It's why I got such bad grades. I was very purebred. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who are far more successful than me that didn't go crazy in their youth the way I did and started it around now and found their way.
36:55I think you just gotta try two or three or four more. And then if you wake up 24 years old and you remember this talk and nothing has happened for the last six years, maybe that's when you need to latch on to a purebred entrepreneur because your DNA might be a number 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 because you love the entrepreneur thing but you just might need to be the 12th employee in a great company not the 10 ,000th one day. Make sense? Yeah, gotcha. My man, you're looking sharp. You came correct. Fucking sharp, bro. Is it cool if I don't have a purpose? Yeah. You brought a suit. Good for you.
37:30Yeah, man, you look great. Sorry, I'm kind of on my nerves right now. No worries, man. What's your name? Arjun. Arjun. You're like the most famous person I've ever talked to.
37:43But I'm going to be honest. When I was in line, I didn't really have any questions. But then as you started talking to other people, the one kind of just developed. It was where... Do you think social media will ever max out? Yes. I see. How long have you been able to take? I think the glasses you're wearing right now in seven or eight years might take it out. Like, you know, because when we go, the phone was conducive to being our primary device to allow social to be quite effective. I think when glasses come, and I don't know if you saw Zuckerberg's keynote, I was actually in it, so I've actually previewed the new glasses.
38:21That's some different shit. And even though I wore them and saw my Instagram and things of that nature, you can start developing how other things will emerge because the whole context of VR and AR will change. The phone, just like the television, just like the radio, just like the printing press, will have a run and then it will start to decline. Right now social is remarkably effective because of the format of the distribution. As our distribution of information and entertainment changes, new form factors may come alive. So yeah, of course it will max out. The reason I wrote this book, Day Trading Attention, is it's not maxed out right now and no matter what a person's hopes and dreams are here, professionally, socially, globally, family-wise, it is stunning how a free platform, social media is free.
39:12Free. When you post, it's free. When you buy a full-page ad in the newspaper here, it's not free. When you go try to buy a commercial on the BBC, not free. When you try to get a sign inside the stadium, not free. Nothing's free. Direct mail, not free. Social media is free and the way it's written now with the TikTokification, one post can get to everyone. It can change your life. One LinkedIn post can get you four customers and it can change your life. I'm just flabbergasted that people are not going all in on this free thing and that's why I wrote it and so right now it's the most underpriced lever to make good shit happen.
39:54It's amazing. I'll start with one more question. Do you think you'll ever, how far away do you think you are from buying the Jets? I don't know, like this private equity thing really fucked me up. They made a new rule in the NFL that private equity firms can buy into teams, so it's gonna skyrocket the values. So I keep fucking, like it's this fucking never ending chase. I keep getting bigger and it's working, but the fucking value keeps outpacing me. But this goes back to what I wanted to tell you all. It is my dream to buy my favorite football team. I've had it since I was literally in fourth grade.
40:28I believe I will, but I promise you I will not be disappointed if I don't. Chasing it is more fun than getting it. Yeah. Gotcha.
40:42Hey Gary, thanks for being here. My name is Anton. Anton. So you touched on platform businesses, software businesses in 2005 to 2008. How just optimistic and rich these businesses and the people behind these businesses were. Yes. What do you think, kind of you talk about now you get the good and the bad, the fact that you have the greed. What lessons can we take, can we learn from that time in software and what can we take in forward? It's a great question, brother. I think what you can learn is that when few see something, it's always gonna attract the right kind of people. It's really cool you asked that question.
41:17The people that are innovating right now in virtual influencers and AI characters and in live shopping have a different gear than the person that's just starting another social media agency or another AI bot. You know, AI's got a lot of that element. But the new emerging things that are just on the verge of tipping off, not 10 years from now. For example, I just talked about glasses. Seems like a lot of you raised your hands. You got a sense of me. I'm not talking a lot about VR and AR. You guys know that if you follow me. I'm watching it every day. But I will talk about it when it's ready. I've been watching virtual influencers.
41:56If anybody here has family or has lived or spent time or pays attention to Japan, this shit's been going down in Japan for a minute, right? I see some of the people shaking their head. So live shopping, I'm sure at this point, some of you have seen the viral video of the lady in Japan just whipping fucking handbags and making$8 million in a fucking day. Eight million in a day. So I'm always watching, but I wait for timing. We talked about timing earlier. What you can learn from 2005 to 2008 social media was that was the best talent because that was the thing that was about to tip. Right, thank you so much, Gary.
42:35Got you.
42:43I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Catch up with him. Some great questions, great tips. Thank you so much for sharing with us. I was going to look at this over here. I think we're going to hand out to Gary. This has been a really great event for us and the opportunity to have Gary with us is amazing. Let's go. Number five. Let's go. That's awesome. That's awesome.
43:10He took the time to come over and sign it knowing number five was maybe a special number. Very special number. If you, just if anyone's curious about the number five because I think I think the number one most impressive job on earth is the parent that builds you and I really back to balance we talked about it we talked a lot about entrepreneurship I will tell you the people I most admire are parents that build children so number five is very special to me but it's not something silly if you go to my Instagram Gary VEE it's one of my pinned Instagram post up there that says why I want to buy the Jets.
43:50I tell you the story of why five matters to me. If you're especially affected by how well your mom or dad parented you, I highly recommend you watch it. Thanks everyone for listening to today's episode. Be sure to check back tomorrow for another episode of the Gary Vee Audio Experience.
From the publisher
In this episode, I'm excited to share some real, no-nonsense advice I gave to students at the University of Western Ontario. We dive into what it really takes to achieve big goals, why empathy is critical for leadership, and the importance of focusing on what truly matters. I talk about the power of kind candor when you're building a team and share why being authentic—especially in a digital-first world—is essential.
For the young entrepreneurs out there, I give my best tips on balancing risk and reward, managing co-founder relationships, and making social media work for you, not against you. I also touch on my own journey, sharing insights on how I’ve stayed motivated and grounded while pursuing my dreams. If you’re looking to grow, learn, and find practical advice you can use right now, this episode is for you. Let's get into it!