This Is What Entrepreneurship Really Looks Like | Kass and Mike Lazerow

0:00Vayner Nation, how are you? Very excited about this episode. Basically, as a lot of you know, seven or ten episodes a year where I'm like, hey, buy this book. We've already done a telethon with these characters. Cass and Mike Lazaro are here. Shoveling Shit is now out. Yes, that is the name of the book. A love story about the entrepreneur's messy path to success. Yesterday, on my Instagram feed, I saw pictures of them in Central Park slinging books. And I was very excited. It actually looked like a stage photo shoot because I saw the boys were there. But nonetheless, my cast, this community of mine that's listening to the podcast has a pretty good sense of how close our relationship is.

0:42A lot of them have tuned in to the content on the launch of this book. I think the fun part actually in this podcast is how's it going? You know, shoveling shit, talks about the dirty work and all that, like the grind. The grind of selling a book, you guys have been really grinding it. What has been surprising? What has been disappointing? What has been humbling? What has been interesting? There's so many people listening right now that aspire to have a book be successful. Just like yourselves, have been successful in many other things. Go into this new journey, you learn new things. Let's spend five minutes up front on the macro of a book launch in a post-mortem of the launch.

1:28When did the book come out? Book's coming out June 3rd. oh shit it's still not out oh fuck my brain broke okay so scrap that whole thing meaning don't edit don't scrap it but scrap that setup because i got confused what are you feeling right now as you're incredibly close are we planning on launching this now or do you want me to launch it like what do you for you okay fine so uh you know but we're fucking close at this point it's same shit um you can see i like breaking the fourth wall um what are you feeling right now like what what what's your read i think well first of all you pushed us to tell us that this was going to be a grind like you told me it was going to be a grind yep i love grinds i know you do i i really do i think it it it like connects to that like athlete in me that just wants to like practice, practice, practice and, you know, take the reps and, and do them.

2:27Ask me what my favorite thing that I've accomplished in my life is. What is it? Beating Nate Schroeder in tennis twice when he was beating me five to one in a set to six. Twice, Nate. Nate. Yeah. Twice. It's so great. There's nothing better in life than to come down from five, one or five love to win a set. It feels like everything. Yes. Yes. And I know that about you. Yeah. And I told you that's what this was going to be. Yes, and it is. And I don't think I was surprised by it, but I do think that selling a book is very hard. It's very hard to do. No one tells you about the selling. The easy part was writing it.

3:08Correct. And it was fun coming up with a name. Yeah, so we did this the way we do any company. We went all in. Yes, you did. And full transparency, we sold about 10 ,000 copies, which we're told is good. We think it's not enough and we're going to continue to work. We were sitting around this weekend and we said, why aren't we selling this to the real people who need it? And if you are doing a company and you're not willing to go to your local park and ask for the purchase, you don't believe in your company. So we grabbed a table, made a sign, went to our park. It was not staged. Who made the sign?

3:48Because I analyzed the sign. I did. I made the sign. Quickly. Quickly on Vista. Go Vista. I mean, listen, perfect is not what it's about. By the way, I didn't say I analyzed it poorly. Yeah. And Cass was like, she was laughing, but I was sitting there like, you know, get your free books, get your free advice. Yeah. People would come up and they're like, who are you? Oh, we've only had about$10 billion of exits. And they're like, wait, what the fuck? But here's the crazy part. It was fun. I loved it. We, like Mike and I, there was nobody else, carried a 40-pound table into Central Park, like 100 yards.

4:22Like, that's not. That's shoveling shit. It's shoveling shit. Yeah. And so what we've done is we've said yes to everything. We, you know, podcast events. The humble brag of living 100 yards from Central Park I thought was the best part of that little moment. Keep going. It just happens to be our local park, but it doesn't matter what your park is. Like, if your park is in, like, Cleveland, go to your park. We happen to have 18 million people come through our park. Yeah. And we basically have just worked. And we've, you know, we created a V2 Mom, which is Vision, Value, Methods, Obstacles, which we talk about in the book.

4:55And we said, we want to be a bestseller. How are we going to be a bestseller? We got to put in the work. So it's for us, it's speaking, getting on stages, it's podcasts. And most importantly, it's asking people for the purchase. That. A lot of people don't ask people to buy whatever the product is. Number one, number one. Yeah. Text every person. Text every single person. Andrew Anderson to Zarli Zuckaus. And what's incredible, you're talking about disappointments. There are people who we made, one who we made$80 million. $80. $80 million fucking dollars. Yep. I talk about this all the time. That just said no.

5:30Did not buy a book. Yeah. Said that we don't have a budget for books. Mike, you're getting really loud. No, no, he's right. I will never forget that. I'll never forget you beating Nate. I'll never forget me beating Cass in pickleball. And I'll never forget the people who didn't buy books. He's never beaten me in pickleball. Who we did stuff for. And I'm not transactional. You know that. We give, give, give, give. But when I ask and someone says, no, we don't have budget. To something so frivolous. So easy. And then you have to say, wait, you don't have personal budget for that? That part. So that's the biggest disappointment.

6:01You know who your friends, write a book and you'll know all your friends. In a real way. In a real way. In a real way. And also you'll know, this is the icky part, you'll know who's rooting for you. Yeah. That's the icky part. By the way, icky, yes. I mean, I think, look, I think we're very close in real life, which as you both know, my friend group is quite small. Like it's predominantly family and employees. Yeah. Because employees are family to me. You know, like you guys know that I'm pretty happy. Yeah. And the reason I'm happy is I also take note. I've got some crazy ones on that as well.

6:37I told you that was gonna happen. I reopened a round that was closed for someone that they made that kind of money on. Like it was three months later. So you know how impossible that is. And they bought zero books. But I'm happy because I don't have expectations. Like I'm not icked out by it. I feel bad, honestly. You know what's so weird? I'm so confident. I actually feel bad for people that do that to me because I'm like, that's a mistake. You know what's funny? It might not be because I'm such an idiot that I still would probably show up for people that heavily disappointed me because I don't really factor people's actions into my actions.

7:17Yeah, I mean, we talk about this a lot with our generosity, right? I asked someone the other day, you know, if you're successful, I said this to this one person, do you stop giving back at a certain point? Because we don't. Yeah. And he goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you do. A certain point, you just don't look behind you. And I just couldn't get over that because my actions will never change. Yeah, same. So a lot of people here will buy, a lot of people who listen will buy books. There's a very specific reason all these PR people hit me up every day because the sales come from the podcast. For the ones that are listening, break down the different people that should buy this book.

8:00who are who's the demo that you think that's listening on the other side are aspiring entrepreneur active entrepreneur um executive you know kid hustler um 60 year old pondering next chapter all the above this way that way here's how these people should think about it so yes yes and yes this is 30 years in the making it's every mistake we made every painful loss every lesson, there are 50 cheat codes that we picked up the hard way. Not only about the business, but about life. Not only about how to build a business, how do you build a life that matters? What's the purpose of being successful if you're miserable?

8:38And so if you're an entrepreneur and you don't read this, you're negligent. It gives you every cheat code from how to structure your calendar to how to focus an organization, how to hire well. If you know aspiring entrepreneurs, a lot of people graduating, buy it for them. If you're in customer service, you're about to lose your job from AI, buy the book now. Because whether you want to be an entrepreneur or not, you're out of work. If you're a salesperson, you're probably going to have to do your own thing at some point. If you're a junior coder, buy this book because it'll help you get up and running.

9:13I also think if you're about to buy a company, right? We see a lot of entrepreneurs by acquisition, right? This is the book. This is how you do it. We speak to a lot of kids. You speak to a lot of kids. This is the book to buy.

9:29What's not worked that you thought would work selling this book? So we were hopeful that social media would move books. It's created an incredible community. It's not where you sell books. For us, we started at zero. We have built a network which for the first month reached a million people last month. We look at that. We thought it was going to drive books. We look at that as just building the relationship. We should have known because we have your book all over the place. Have you made a direct call to action piece of content that you've run media against? Yes. Yes. And so what are you seeing there?

10:07Not conversion to sales, but definitely conversion to followers. So we're at the point right now where we have two weeks and we're starting a blitz, which will include many more ads that we think puts our best ads forward. So everything we do, we're learning from, we have a whole data capability, not just CRM, but who's visited the websites, who's following us, all that stuff. and frankly we don't think social these days is for selling you know until you have such a close relationship with these people which we're starting to feel sure we're starting to feel personal relationships like you have felt with people who have supported us who bought books who want to get our attention you know what's interesting is there have been people who've gone so overboard in supporting us just to get our help of course which we probably would have helped anyways and we're walking at us with probably a hundred great friends who we didn't meet and we like people who show up to our founder's farm which is our community that we talk to like every other week who are awesome and they're like we can't wait for this book to come out we're going to do everything we can to push it that has been really lovely book tour book tour um we've done two book parties we've got another one will you when it comes out are you trying to avoid that.

11:30It's hard. I don't know if it This goes back to, the reason I'm bringing it up is Go ahead. The name shit has been a problem on the book tour. There's stores in parts of the country that don't want to have you. Yes, and that's been an issue. Which we love. Every time we get rejected. We love that. We want a product people love or hate. People who love the cover. And we can't get Amazon ready for this to allow us to do ads through social because of the name. They won't allow us to do ads. But you could buy a gun on Amazon. That's the crazy part. So like there's been really fucked up shit. You could buy any sex toy you want on Amazon.

12:09Yeah, I mean, listen, you're talking to somebody who's been fighting the cursing reality for 20 years. It's one of the great silly things in our society. What was it we wanted to do in college? But wait, wait, wait. What's the, don't name the college. There was a very prominent entrepreneurship program. Like Tabson? where it probably is Babson where they were very interested because this is their textbook. Thanks Gary. You're welcome. And the only reason they didn't kind of incorporate it into their curriculum was because of the name. And I said listen if your students can't like deal with shit and just saying that they have no chance as an entrepreneur.

12:50Crazy. Crazy shit. Crazy shit. And the guy had one of our really good friends who is a big supporter of Babson. I don't know if he's on a board. Is he on the board there? Maybe. But he had like 500 to 1 ,000 books lined up for us. And then he gets to the top guy on the board who's just like, no, we can't have anything that would say something like that. I'm like, what? Which says more about institutions today than anything. Yeah. Of course. And we love Babson. I mean, it's the single best entrepreneurship. But we're, you know, screw that, right? I'm not saying it's Babson. Yeah, no, no one's saying it's Babson.

13:25Yeah, we love Babson. And no one's saying that entrepreneurship is like sports and you really actually have to do it versus reading about it. No one is saying that. No one is. It's not a book that we could have done at any time but now. We needed time to basically say, okay, here's all of the data. I wish we did it earlier. What are you talking about? Maybe a few years earlier, but we had to experience. We didn't have any bandwidth to do it earlier because you know what the drill is. Of course. Especially the kids at your age right now. Bigger kids, bigger problems. 100%. and you also were decompressing from 30 years of running on a hamster wheel yeah like you guys were allowed to like go into that chapter of your career plus it also happened during covid there were so many things going on do you know what i think our biggest regret is not keeping up our community right after buddy media like we we just went silent on social basically not listening to you yeah we had dinner right after we sold and you said listen i love your writing i was doing a lot You need to keep doing it.

14:24And we were just tired and, you know, you can do anything. You just can't do everything. And that's one thing that fell off. Minus you. Yeah, but I think, you know, I think the other thing is that, like, I'm sure this book and this adventure for you guys has been really eye-opening, especially the way I see you guys connect with people on stage. Like, I'm sure it's not lost on you two, especially knowing that your youngest is going to college in the fall. you have so many more chapters in front of you. Yes. In a way that like knowing you so well where I don't have predictions. Like I don't know if you'll start another massive company or continue to just do the investing heavy handed being involved private equity type stuff.

15:06But like you may go all the way to one extreme all the way to the other extreme and you'll probably do that multiple times. Like do I think you have three years in front of you six years from now where you're more checked out than you've ever been? I'm like, yeah, that would make sense because that would mean for the last six years you've been doing this and other stuff. And then do I think after those three years you're like, wait a minute. I think, and in general, the reason I'm probably saying this is I want people on the podcast to hear me out on this. I don't understand this concept that humans think everything is absolute and you can't just adjust.

15:43Like I remember my sister really wanting, I could feel it through every phone call interaction. Even though my mom put being a stay-at-home mom on such a pedestal that my sister was propagandized by it. And she could not wait to do it. She was in retail, then she was a great teacher. Now she started her family. And she was excited for it and living that life. But after about five or six years, I could just see it on her face. and I said to her, I was like, just like in a kind of like shaking moment of like on the phone with her, I was at the airport, I remember this moment so well, I was like, sis, you're allowed to change your fucking mind.

16:26Exactly. Like I get that you've been told and you decided for yourself for 40 years that like, or 30 years, whatever it was at the time, like you're gonna be this stay at home mom just like mom, like you're allowed and watching her go through the process of being a real estate agent and now doing that and now balancing both, she's a dramatically happier person there you go and like you're allowed back to shoveling shit like everybody's like your business sucks right now and you hate it like you're allowed to shut it down or sell it yeah and we i mean a big part of this book is it's miserable and suffering and going through it is difficult and it's awesome it's like parenting yes it's being able to hold those two things and parenting golf it's like you have one good shot it keeps you like golf and i think inside these companies for a lot of people we find our purpose right and we had lost our purpose in many ways speak for yourself i had you know i was painting you know this i was painting i was a little lost and it took me to say this is what i don't want to hear from you you got him you fucking enabled it you got him this his own little apartment the house he was painting on the floor but what happened was i realized that this is what we do and it's why kind of i found my purpose the passion yes i get up i would get up in the morning when i was painting i'm like i'm the worst like i used to love painting but hobbies are things that we should you suck but you love that let's send gary one of the one of the pictures if you want one of my fucking paintings have a painting but it's oh i get i mean i don't beat myself up i woke up this morning at 5 40 i I was in Nashville yesterday just to play 6 a.m.

18:07basketball. It's my hobby. I suck. I had a really bad day today. I was like two for 18 from the field. Sound like the Celtics. And it was, but you know, hobbies are, you're right. Hobbies are things for a lot of people that you love that you're not as good at. To your point though, why I love entrepreneurship for a lot of us, it's minimally half hobby. Yeah. Yes. that's why it's so great you know for us i know i can speak for the three of us like we really like it like we really like it see i like i like like i like i said from the beginning i like the grind i like having a purpose every day i like it's not that i'm sitting there going oh i have to fill my day with something you know because i can i you know mother's day i spent by myself alone with my dogs i guess i wasn't alone with that's what you wanted that's what i wanted good for you Silence.

19:02And I was out of town. Well, I would have asked for it anyways. But the purpose, the getting up. Oh, he only got a fish show? No, he was playing golf. I was with Cole, his 21st birthday. Okay, okay. He's playing golf. I was right. Yeah, well, your son. Right? Yeah. Correct. Don't sandbag him here to the audience. I appreciate that here. Nice reference. Here's one of the few people who will actually call Cass out. No, no, no. I'm just trying to support you. Thank you. When you said golf, I was pissed. No, don't mean - And then when you said coal, I was like, oh, good job. Yeah, no, we set up a trip, Mike and I, for - My sister did the same thing.

19:40She was like, this is what I want for Mother's Day. I love that everyone's like, oh, I want to be around my kids on Mother's Day. Are you kidding me? It does seem - Are you kidding me? You know what is funny? I wonder, I actually believe that there's a valid point that Mother's Day should be when moms - Don't. Like, don't hang out with anybody. There's no reason to be around the children. There's already a movement around Valentine's Day called Galentine's. It's like, screw the husbands. Just the women go and have fun together, right? Oh, I love everything about that. Why don't they do Mother's Day like that?

20:12Well, first of all, it's all made up holidays. Let's just go right there. Yeah, and by the way, speaking for the fathers, nobody gives a fuck about Father's Day compared to Mother's Day. Like, if you want an indication of where we are in society, like, dads, like, somebody throws like some underwear at them at like nine in the morning like dad and that's like and they're like dad go do some shit like it's like and we're fine with it yeah we're like whatever and a tie like you gotta remember ties i used to give my dad ties back back to the book um you've it's it's obviously on the precipice of being released but people have read it at this point yes you know because now it's actually exists yes what's the biggest compliment you've gotten from someone who's read it and what i mean by that is what did they call out that neither of you saw because i think the best and coolest part about writing a book is when you get feedback on it you've been in it for so long and you think you know everything about it and then somebody you admire or respect gives you some flowers on a piece of it you're like oh fuck i didn't even like what has that happened yet i know mine but you go first you go first.

21:22I'm trying to think of mine. That was, there was a mom who came to the, you know, one of our meetings, we do these zooms with the founders farm and she started crying. And she said, for the first time in my life, I have given myself grace to realize that it's okay to work hard and slack a little as a mom because she felt that she was an awful mom yeah and not performing at her best at her company it's an event events company and the book helped her realize there is no balance she needs to be you know kind to herself and just realize that she We prioritize family and work. She can't do everything perfectly.

22:12Every day is a grind. And it was that imbalanced life that we captured that has given a lot of people a mirror to say, what I am doing is okay. And I'm building a life that I'll be able to sit back maybe later and enjoy some of the spoils. But my kids will be okay. And the company will be okay. In fact, one of the most profound moments of my career happened on a speaking tour in Asia where I had like a VIP event after and it turned into me having to hang with like 20, 30 very successful people, so it was really fun. Young. And this young woman said, we got into deep philosophical shit and this young woman, kind of like jam sessions, and this young woman said something that I will never forget to the day I die.

23:04She said that growing up, she really resented her mom because her mom was one of the five biggest judges in the Philippines or Singapore, I don't recall. And she said, she turned 20 and she had this moment of clarity where she realized, yes, my mom missed recitals and stuff of that nature. She's like, but oh fuck. look, I'm in university with all these girls, and I just realized something. My mom showed me how to live. She didn't tell me how to live. And I was hanging out with all these girls that had moms at home who told them what to do, but didn't show them what to do. And it crushed me to my core because what people don't tell each other enough is kids, you have three, I have two, kids are all different.

24:01And they're all gonna get different things. You know, me and my sister are pretty close in age. The way my sister and I view our childhood, what our parents did, is different. Yeah. It's different. Different perspectives. It's different perspectives. And so whether you over-coddle, under-coddle, whether you stayed at home or went to work, you know, like, the reality is you don't know how your kid's gonna perceive it. You might be doing a disservice in the thing that you think is servicing them. And it's a really interesting game. So, you know, I was gonna, my example was gonna be about this other woman who came up to me.

24:38And again, she was just very emotional about, you know, I just really feel like I'm gonna fuck my kids up. Like I'm going to fuck them up. And I said, well, it's not necessarily gonna be because you're working. You know, I said, you got a whole long list of things that can come before working. In fact, there's a lot of parents who save their kids by working. because if they were around too much all that neurotic horse shit that they have would have went on them even more helicoptering i mean that's serious i'm too yeah i think us not being around early would have been a good thing but what she said is you said your kids are okay now and i said what was interesting is in the last five years i've really realized both mike and i've realized that you can say whatever you want to kids but it's going to go in and out of their ear but if you show them, right, you actually show them how to live, how to show up for people, how to have a work ethic, how to have values and morals and do the right thing, that will stay with them.

25:36And so she said to me, you know, I listened to you on stage and you said, your kids are all right. And all of a sudden I felt like everything was worth it, what I was doing. And specifically, like my kids know that working hard is a virtue. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, it's also something that writing the book, we have to take stock of our life. And I haven't talked about this really anywhere. Oh, here we go. But, you know, right before my bar mitzvah, my dad ran into some massive financial issues. Oh, where? And he made it clear that he didn't want to live. And I didn't understand it at the time.

26:21Of course not. Right? because you're young. And it's a relationship that I basically wrote off. We have a relationship, but we really don't. You've met my stepfather, my mom, you haven't met my dad, right? That's right. And there's a reason. Writing the book made me realize how difficult companies are on mental health, especially if you run into major financial issues. And then those financial issues start of impacting your personal relationships. Of course. And I would just encourage everyone who have severed relationships or relationships that aren't great to give a little mercy, which I didn't do.

27:01But part of writing the book, I realized that, oh man, I learned what I know about mental health from that example, right? Exactly. And I need to kind of forgive him before anything, which has been a process that I figured out in the book. You know, it's really powerful what you just shared, Mike. It makes me think about the thing that I wish more people could get to, which is your dad and so many people today are so worried about what people think about them. Oh, yeah. The reason so many people jump out windows when they lose their money in Wall Street is they're not capable of going backwards.

27:45And the shame. That part. but where the shame comes from worrying about what people think about them having to go backwards. You know, I think about this a lot. I think about this a lot because I've always really almost romanticized going backwards, which is super sick. I mean it. I talk a lot in my content about liking the Rocky where he goes back to, like. The basics. there's just something this is just why i adore my mom so much there's something in me that like you know if i text you guys i'm like hey just want you to know about some personal manners like i have to sell my apartment like like like i don't view that as like like i'm not scared of people being like oh you're a loser this and that and i i feel like definitely when your dad went through that nobody nobody had the capacity to go backwards and i will say that most people right now could that have a much better life if they could live within their financial means, but they're not willing to sell their home and downsizing their home.

28:52They're not willing to take the BMW and bring it back. They're keeping up with the Joneses, yeah. I believe the keeping up with the Joneses thing is the great pandemic of our society. I really believe that. Agreed. And it's why I never share any content ever in my career, never have, that speaks to anything bougie. You know, I don't show the things that my hard work has afforded me because I don't think it brings any value. I do not believe it is aspirational to show someone a private plane or an incredible vacation or diamonds. I believe it's actually hurting people. You know, I think that that is right.

29:36And there are a lot of people who are showing it and living in their parents' basement and creating this environment where, like, it just looks like everyone's crushing it, but you pull back the curtain. Or the parent's basement is not that extreme. They're doing it by maximizing credit cards. Well, there you go. By living way above their means. You know, it's like, it's not, you know, the reason I'm double clicking on that is I want people to understand, especially ones that are doing it right now, like, you know, that intense story Mike shared, that's really on the edges of like how bad it can get.