What It Takes to Build a Skyscraper Business with Gary Vaynerchuck

0:00If you've been feeling stuck in your business and wondering if you're the reason it's not growing faster, I have something for you. I'm hosting a free, no-pitch, live class called Three Money Beliefs That Made Me Millions. And I'm sharing the exact mindset shifts that helped me go from million-dollar years to million-dollar months. This isn't fluff. It is a surprising strategy that changed everything for me, and I want to share it with you. Like I said, no pitch, no fluff, just you and me talking about how we shift our beliefs around money to make you millions. Save your seat now at jasminestar.com forward slash millions.

0:32I can't wait to see you there. I was always perpetually unqualified, unfunded, and unconnected. And yet, when I had an idea, and I believed I wouldn't be given an idea if I didn't have the capacity to succeed, which is why I look across and I tell you the very thing today. Have you ever wanted to get an inside look at a growing business? Have you ever wanted to be on the ground level and saw how the sausage was made? Have you ever wanted to be and get an insight on a business that, for all intents and purposes, has no reason to succeed, and yet it will? you've come to the right place. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where today we are putting you on the ground level of the thing that we are building.

1:10You wanna know what? I'm gonna correct myself. In my notes, hand to heaven, it says ground level of the skyscraper. And do you wanna know what I did? I didn't use the word skyscraper because I got a little caught up. I was like, no, don't say you're building a skyscraper because what if you don't? And I'm like, don't say that because your words have power. So I'm gonna keep rolling with this and say, you are gonna be on the ground level floor of the skyscraper we are building. So how can I be so sure? Even on the inside when there's that little quiver of doubt. Well, one thing I know about skyscrapers is the taller the skyscraper, the deeper the foundation has to be.

1:45Okay, I'm gonna say that again. The taller the skyscraper, the deeper the foundation has to be. I can look back at the last two years, two and a half years, and it has been 100 % foundational work. There is nothing shiny on the outside. It doesn't look tall. And for all intents and purposes, it looks and feels like I'm digging a hole. And we are. But we're digging a hole that we're going to fill as the foundation. And so one of the things that I get nervous being so sure about the thing that I'm building is my assurance has less to do with my ability to foresee my future and a lot to do with if I just looked at the past and the past leaves clues.

2:26So as a brief recap, in 2007, I said I wanted to become a photographer and I didn't own a camera. In the next 12 months, I built a$100 ,000 business and two years after that became one of the top photographers in the world. My husband and business partner and I, we were being flown to most beautiful locations everywhere you can imagine and working with the most luxurious clients. We were shooting for magazines and we were being flown in to document somebody's best day of their life. And so in that short time frame, I realized that I could say something that doesn't make sense. 2007, I wanted to become a photographer and I didn't own a camera.

3:05And two or three short years later, have multiple six-figure revenue streams being flown around the world, being able to travel with my camera and a passport, and that became a dream come true. For all intents and purposes, it shouldn't have succeeded. And then in 2010, I, at the time, was creating content for photographers and other photography companies started asking me if I could create content for them. I was creating content for their blogs and their websites and I thought to myself, okay, this is great. I'm getting paid to write content that I would be writing anyway to help educate other photographers.

3:38So I had a revenue stream from photography. I had a revenue stream from content creation. And then about two or three years into doing that, I started realizing I actually think that I don't wanna trade my hours for dollars anymore. So I'm gonna focus on the content that I'm creating. So I went to those companies and I said, you know, I think my time has come. I'm not going to be creating content for others. I'm just going to be creating for myself. And then they asked me, would you ever consider consulting? And at the time, I didn't even know what consulting was. Consulting is basically getting paid to teach other people what it is you do.

4:06And they go and deploy against, they go and do the work. And I was like, you want to pay me to tell your marketing and brand teams what to do? And they said, yes. And I said, okay. So I got paid by teaching their team on how to do the work. So I did that another few years. And so I went from a consultant in 2012 and in 2015, I debuted my very first digital course. I had no background creating a digital course. I didn't even know what I was doing. I just said, I'm going to record content and I'm going to put it out on the internet. And in 10 months later, we had built out a seven figure revenue stream.

4:41So we had a revenue stream from photography. We had a revenue stream from photography education. We had a revenue stream from content and we had a revenue stream from a digital course. and I had created and launched multiple digital courses, making a ton of mistakes along the way. And the one thing we heard from people again and again was they wanted continuity. And so instead of a course, they asked us to create a membership. I said, no, I don't want to create a membership. I don't know how to create a membership. And yet we created a membership. This is at 2017. And the thing we heard once we were on the inside of the membership is that people wanted to take their marketing content that they were learning and putting it out on the largest social platforms like TikTok, like Instagram, like Facebook.

5:21And I thought to myself, in order for us to do that, we have to integrate with all of these social platforms. But in order to integrate, we needed our own tech stack. So I don't know a single line of code. I don't even know how to attract talent. And yet we found a way to hire a CTO to build our own tech stack. And we became a bonafide SaaS company in 2021. And so much so that I started getting a lot of experience and other SaaS founders started asking me to speak into their businesses. And I thought to myself, I think I've learned a few things when it comes to marketing, branding, and technology.

5:54And it put me in this random, beautiful, amazing sweet spot so that in 2023, my husband and I began a holding company. I didn't even know what a holding company was until 2023. I had this vision that I was gonna, I kept on saying like this octopus, like this thing, like this big company above, and then we were gonna have businesses underneath that. And it was in January of 2023 where somebody looked across from me and said, oh, that's called a holdco. And so the common theme when I look back at my career is that I had no idea what I was doing. I was always perpetually unqualified, unfunded and unconnected.

6:28And yet when I had an idea and I believed I wouldn't be given an idea if I didn't have the capacity to succeed, which is why I look across and I tell you the very thing today. You would not be given the idea if it wasn't in you to already succeed. So the common theme was being wildly unqualified and then also in parallel was another common theme of figuring out and finding a way to make it a success. So when people ask, Jasmine, are you really building a skyscraper? And I'm like, well, right now I'm building a foundation to build a very big skyscraper. Other people say I'm digging myself a hole and I just say, well, wait to see the thing that we're building.

7:04So when I look back at the thing that we've built, I feel two really big things. I feel very humbled. I am a first generation Latina. I'm a first generation college grad. I am a female founder, which is a very rare thing. Only 4 % of business owners in the United States will ever cross seven figures. 4%. To be part of that 4%, but even more specifically, to be a female founder of color, that is less than 0.5%. So I feel very humbled that on the back of bootstrapping and on the back of doing everything wrong a thousand times over, we were able to cross that mark. I also find a deep sense of pride.

7:42not for the things that we've built, but the fact that we didn't quit. And I'm actually going to change it from we to I. My husband is my co-founder and business partner, and he never wanted to quit. I did a lot of times, like definitely times crying on the bathroom floor, trying to figure out like, what am I doing? Like, why did I sign up for this madness? Like, could I not have chosen a different path, crying those tears on the bathroom floor, 2020, 2021, trying to figure it all out. I wanted to quit. And I'm really happy that I didn't. It hasn't been easy, but it has been the most gratifying thing I have ever done in my life.

8:23I also want to say that we are in the baby stages of our holding company. I will tell you a thousand times before I am doing it wrong. I just want to be very clear. This video is not to watch somebody do it right. It is to watch me do it wrong and figure out how to get back up and share those mistakes with you so that you don't make them. Today, I'm going to be sharing the ups and downs that have happened from a recent conversation that I had with Gary Vaynerchuk. I joined an executive group coaching program in 2024. In part of that program, I had the opportunity to talk with Gary. And the question that I asked for Gary was, Gary, well, actually, how would I not share the question?

9:00How about I cut away to that video right about now? Five or six years ago, it was a highlight. I was so excited. and still to this day remain excited. And one of the things that I told you was how I was building Social Curator. And one of the things that you had said at the time was something along the lines of, oh, we thought about building that too. And I told you, oh, I'm so glad you didn't build it. I don't want to be in the game of Gary Vaynerchuk. And then you said something that was a classic Gary Juke, which was abundance, abundance. I hope you have competitors because it makes you better.

9:34And I never forgot that piece of advice. And when I look back at that experience, the one question I didn't ask was, well, why didn't you build it? But that's not my question today. Because shame on me for not asking that question then. But presently, when I look at what you have built, and I didn't even know the word holding company existed until 2023. And in my mind, I had this idea of something that I wanted to build. And then I'm now realizing that that is the very thing that you have built. And so knowing what you know now, would you have built the holding company? And if so, if you can go back, what would you do differently?

10:12Great question. Yes, I would definitely build it. I'm very good at being wide open and changing my mind in micros, but holding to a strategy in macro. I knew that I wanted to build the best marketing communications company in the world that was global and that I was open to it being a series of companies or a company. I was never going to be overly romantic about social media. We started this in 09. It's 24 or 15 years. I would have said in 15 years, if no one's doing social, then we're doing whatever that thing is. And I continue to do that. So I wasn't romantic about what services we did, how many companies were in the entity, if it was one or a hundred.

10:53More importantly, I was romantic about being always current. What's unique about my career is from 2006 to today, there's not a lot of people who have 18 years of on the record publicly following the flows of innovation around attention and communication at the same level that I do. And that's really humbling and good. What would you differently? I would have probably hired more people with more experience from the industry earlier. So romantic of staying clean with my own intuitive ideas. I demonized people from the outside that did it the old way. And it probably wasted some time on simple things that I could have done by having people around.

11:36I mean, this is my biggest issue still to this day. I would have fired faster on people I knew weren't capable. It's a real disease of mine, Jazz. I have such a bleeding heart. It's just not good for business. And it's not good for them. Because it leads to nepotism and resentment. It never ends up good anyway. I fired them eventually anyway. Stations that I had with Andrea when I was asking, how did you court her to come into Boehner? And I think that early on, like now looking at what Boehner is, it is a formidable force in the industry. But at the time, when I look at myself and I know that I want to hire people with experience, but they have optionality.

12:14What was like a key factor? Could you go back and say, identify the pattern? I think you'll be able to convince people to do it. How did I do it? By being okay with all the people that didn't see it. In the same way I did it when I was a boy. every girl that I thought was cute didn't want to be with me in my mind I was like they're going to be really sad one day you know are they so I think you need to take the same approach with this business you're going to identify someone and you want Ricky Thompson and he's going to say no and then literally you're like cool next who should I be talking to who should I be aligning to not in regards to building a holding company that looks like being your ex anybody with the idea of folding companies.

12:55Because what I want to do is I'm not the best at coming up with new ideas, but I'm really good at spotting patterns and then identifying for my strengths and building from there. So when you look at people who've successfully built holding companies out inside or outside of your industry, who is the formidable leader, somebody who's creating content? Who is the person that I can learn from? That's an interesting question. Private equity firms, talent agencies, CAA, UTA, WME, Dig into those two worlds, private equity and talent representation. If you were building VNRX again and you had nothing, what would you be doing differently or the same that you did?

13:30You look back at yourself and you're like, damn, that was pretty incredible. Or even when I had nothing, I could have leveraged it in a different way. It was today, it's pretty easy for me to answer. I'd still want to build the same thing, which is in several years, I want this to be this huge conglomerate. What I would do is I would have different services, right? I would be focusing on AI right now, focus on things that are of the moment that people don't have figured out that I could build on top of. When we were meeting in Vive and we had lunch and you and Mona graciously hosted us, you had said something that I am still trying to wrap my mind around.

14:03And I was just like, what you essentially said was, are you going to pick up what I'm putting down? And you talked about acquiring a company like Cracker Jacks or Snapple and taking it from a$40 million company that was once like a big deal and then you turn it into a$400 million company based on the principles of people who are actually getting what it is that you're trying to inculcate the current team with. So there's like, it felt like you're drawing a clear line in the sand of people who get it and then those who don't and the people who get it are going to go on to this next iteration. And to me, I felt like, are you building a holding company specifically for that?

14:34Or would you just not start focusing on that acquisition? And does the team know that culturally? The team knows people like James and Andrea and other senior leaders that my goal with VaynerX is to build a holding company that is the best marketing company in the world, then anoint an active CEO and stay on as chairman, and then go build either a private equity firm or a holding company of brands and build that company and then take the best players from VaynerX over to the owned and operated businesses, from services to owned. And that's been very open in the organization? Yes. It's actually probably been very inspiring to the best players because they are like self-selecting.

15:16Like, I'm going to be the best and I'm going to go over to Snapple or Reebok when Gary buys it. That's one of the reasons. I do believe the 1 % of 1 % here are probably here because of that. How are you identifying your 1 %? I'm in the trenches every day. I'm in freaking... I live this life. That's why I'm in the trenches. It's almost like my Navy SEAL. This is an army, but I'm going to need my Navy SEALs when I go. And I'm not willing to guess. It's crazy because when I hear that, if I was working there, I would self-select and be like, it's boot camp. So I wonder if that is part of the culture because you know how you build, like you build, you attract more with honey.

15:57And so I was like, you come from this honey, but then there's also like there's this really sharp edge to what it is that you're doing. And the balance of the two as a leader has been really inspiring. And so I wasn't sure how transparent you were with your team being like, oh, we're a honeycomb, but make no mistake. Honey empire. You've heard it. You know, it's built here. But within the empire, what you're saying is also as a leader is this honeycomb is not going to be the honeycomb that is the next thing that I built. To your point, this is just a proxy to the bigger empire. This is like step one, but it's the operating system that gets me to step two.

16:34And you've been transparent with everybody in the organization saying that, and you're unafraid to say those types of things. Jazz, even crazier, I've literally said things like, if I ever, God forbid, sell VaynerX, because that's clearly, as you can tell, not the plan. The next day, I'm going to be speaking to all of you with the inquirer, and I'm going to tell you, it's going to be great, and I'm here for the next three years, and we're going to kill it. and Sally is the first person I've ever met that's just like me and we got this. Literally none of you should believe this. And I'm telling you all this right now, the next day you should all quit.

17:13I'm very real with people on it. It's so empowering for me to see and it's really invigorating because I want to be that transparent with my team. And so I don't want to have myself a false narrative and I see you do it and it's positive and it's successful. And then you have somebody who's literally creeping on the call being like truth, facts, giving you an amen. That's exactly the culture. This has been so, so, so helpful. Are there any other rooms that you would recommend that I be in or people I should be talking to? You're going to be in Miami for the vibe thing coming up? Do you know about this?

17:44No, I'll be in LA for VCon and then in New Mexico for the in-person event. But if you're adding something in Miami, just say less. I think we are. I think we're doing a ribbon cutting in September or October of the Miami office for VaynerX that I think vibe is going to be a part of it. That's at least what I heard this morning. So if it's not on your radar yet, then maybe they're adding it as an extra value, which is amazing. But that setting is going to allow me to have more time to yap than VCon. And I was going to say, I'll give some time between now and then and give you more along the way.

18:15That's above and beyond. It's not even expected. I went to VCon the very first one. And so I'm happy that it's in my neck of the woods. I can't wait to be rooting for you at a distance. And anytime I can be in your orbit. Thank you. So thank you. This has been amazing. You guys have a great day. Okay, so to keep things as simple as possible, I will share with you the three main takeaways that we took, and then I'll give you an update on each of them. Like I said, I'm putting you on the ground floor. Like you all might not be interested, but I'm creating this to document. I am documenting this so that two months from now, two years from now, or 20 years from now, I look at this and I say, I'm so glad you didn't quit.

18:51So I asked Gary, if you would do it over again, would you and what changes would you make? And he said that he would have hired people with more experience. And in the last few months, I am really thrilled with the people who've joined our team. When I am on a leadership call, I will tell you that the thing I feel the most proud is like our managers, our directors are saying how thankful they are to work with the people who we're working with. They have said things, and I wrote this down in a recent meeting. They had said, they just get it done when they're talking about the team. They just get it done.

19:22These are the leaders on our team talking about the team saying they just get it done. They figure it out. They don't come to us and ask how. They come to us with options and say, I've thought it how. What advice do you have based on here? It's a totally different vibe when you're working with somebody who has experience. And they had said things like, I just trust them. I trust that they're going to make the best decision with the information that they have. And so my biggest takeaway talking with Gary months ago, I think it was like eight or nine months ago now that I had that conversation to the people that were hiring.

19:54The vast difference when you come in with experience is really different. So the existing experience has put context into how they show up on our team. So they come in already with a skillset. Now we just have to make sure that they're a culture fit. And one of the things that we realized is that the people are hiring with experience. It's like they're doing the job of three people. They have been managers of other teams and they're here saying, okay, I know what it's like to see it from a 360. Let me just jump in and let me get my hands dirty, but let me also dream. So Gary calls it being in the clouds and in the dirt.

20:25The people who are hiring with experience, they're in the clouds, and they're also having the humility to be in the dirt, which I think is so, so incredible. Number two, a quote from Gary Vaynerchuk. He said, I'm holding my mind in macros while moving in the micros. So big picture focus, small details, keeping the main thing, the main thing. So he is taking big attention to his big vision and taking a lot of little tests. So before this conversation with Gary, I used to dread tests, like test to me where I need to have an outcome. So I'm going to plan it and I'm going to prep it. And then I overthought it.

21:03Like nobody has ever planned or prepped a test like your girl. And it became so heavy. It came so laborious and it took so much time. if you have tests in your business that are taking you so much time let me tell you a better way do it scrappy do it quick the faster you get results is the faster you get to make the changes that you need to move your business forward so now after that conversation with Gary when he's just like keep your head in the macros and your actions in the micros it was all of a sudden like a flip switch like test test now test fast we have to say that we're okay to have the guts to say this test doesn't have to work.

21:40In fact, the more tests that we do, it ultimately gets us closer to the end answer. Every test is a lesson. Now, what we do with those lessons is now use those lessons to point us closer to the big vision. So the macro is keeping us in line because of our micro. So these tiny tests are pointing us to ultimately the direction we want to go. So let's get into an example of this micro macro teaching. Okay. So the macro idea for the whole company is to own or partner with or have companies that share the same ideal client. So as we are investing and growing and partnering with other companies, we want to make sure that we are all focused on serving the same person.

22:24Because what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be using my personal brand as leverage to build these other businesses. So if I'm investing and partnering and sitting as an advisor for these companies where I can share content, where I can share information, and it's a general float to everybody in the hold co, that's the big vision. Another thing that we want to do is we want to create synergies between the companies in our portfolio. So if, for instance, I have the opportunity to work with a company that's really looking to build community, I can connect them with a partnership that I have with MemberUp.

22:57And so what I want to do is to make sure that the people we're serving are, yes, similar and beneficial, use my personal brand as float in endorsements in addition to sharing what it is I know, but also create synergy between the founders of those companies. That's the macro. The macro has been laid out. Now, the micro is carefully selecting advisory roles for the companies that I'm pairing up with. I am very, very, very thankful to have opportunities to sit as an advisor for a company. It is an honor that I don't take lightly and it's not something that I say yes to. We have very high specific criteria around the companies that I'm partnering with in addition to the companies that I sit as an advisor role.

23:38So we had to first set parameters. What am I okay with? What am I not okay with? What is our goals? What are our ambitions? What is our growth path? What is our timeline? and even to be considered as somebody that I can partner with or sit as advisor, all of the parameters have to be met. That became a very hard and fast rule. And the goal here with this is, does it point to the macro? Does any relationship, partnership, or me sitting as an advisor, does it point to the macro? If it doesn't, then as difficult as it might be, I'm going to close it because not all opportunities are created equal.