The #1 Thing That Separates Successful Entrepreneurs From The Rest

Shaan Puri

Ari emanuel is the guy who runs runs wme which is what the show

Sam Parr

who's the

Shaan Puri

The show *Entourage* based the character Ari Gold off of Ari Emanuel. He's like a hotshot agent or whatever.

Sam Parr

I've heard Ari Emanuel, in a couple of articles, they say that's what he does. He'll call someone every single day until he gets what he wants.

Shaan Puri

And I think that's a... I've been picking this up as a thing. Like when... yeah, I'll give you an example of... you actually do this. When we were like, "Alright, we're gonna make our own podcast studio," it's like, "Yeah, cool idea!" and everybody kind of nods. Then, okay, what's one level better than that? Somebody's like, "Oh, you know, I'll take charge of it. I'll come up with a plan." That person usually goes around asking what the budget should be. They kind of push the ball forward, nudge it forward with their toe. Then somebody else is like, "Okay, I'm gonna get this done, and I'm gonna get this done in 2 weeks," which seems like aggressive, right? You go from no studio to a fully functioning podcast studio.

Sam Parr

no I'm like let's go to the studio

Shaan Puri

like okay what are you doing right now and I was like I'm on the phone with you and you're like cool what are you gonna do like right after this you ready to go I'll pick I'll pick you up and I was like what I guess I could find a babysitter for my child and like I guess I could and so we and then all of a sudden an hour later I'm in the car with you we're driving to fucking ikea and you walk in and you're like hey ikea guy we need like an awesome studio couch and he's like okay and you're like here's $500 in cash where do I spend this like to get the couch and they were like what the fuck is going on it's a different level of intensity and sure enough by like the next day we had those 2 red couches that were like you're like I need a couch you had a vision you're like I need a couch yeah that's gonna pop in the thumbnail of a youtube video and and so like I want it to look like this and then we had it and then you're like cool you know our accounting person is gonna paint the room today and then like you know this next person's gonna do this and like all of a sudden like the world just bent to your will and I'll have another I'll give you another example me and my buddy sully we invest in this company and I put 50 k in he put sully put like a 100 k in and so we were like alright great now a couple months go by and we're like dude these guys like are they what are they doing and so we like check-in with them and like 9 months later and we're like hey what's the latest and they were kind of like you know doing their thing but they they weren't they didn't have like a clear plan and they wanted to raise money so they were like asking us for intros and we were like cool send us your deck and they sent us the deck it sucked and we were like hey guys this deck kinda sucks like I don't wanna make intros like let's work on your deck and they're like oh thank you we'd love some help so we get on a call and we get on a call before we get on the call okay well that was like they're like let's do a call you're what times are free for you next week so he goes I'm free in like 45 minutes can you get to like can you get to a computer by then and they're like yeah in the 45 minutes between then he sent 3 emails with like slide 1 this sucks slide 3 what is this picture this is stupid slide 5 present it this way slide 9 and he just had it like before the meeting he'd done the meeting then we get into the meeting and he's like alright guys I sent you guys a bunch of stuff like let's open up powerpoint right now and just fix it and they were fixing it and he's like okay cool there's like these three things that are missing like alright let's do a call like in 4 hours with the deck fixed with those three things that we're missing and let's do this call every morning and every afternoon we're gonna do 2 calls a day for the next 5 days or until this deck is amazing and these guys are just like what and I was also like who

Sam Parr

are they what what's the what's the result of that

Shaan Puri

Well, they've gone on to raise... Honestly, the result of that was, I think by day four, they were just sort of like, "I hate you," or "We disagree," or "This is just too much for us." They kind of backed off and were just like... Because by the end of that, we were like, "Not only does your deck need to change, your business strategy needs to change." The deck can only tell a great business story, but you don't actually have a great business story, so we need to fix that too. And, you know, our delivery wasn't the softest. I don't think they loved the calls at first. It was like, "Wow, this is really constructive feedback." By the end, I think they were just beaten down and like...

Sam Parr

Never. Dan was... Dan was Dan Porter, a guy who took it to a level 12. Is that what you're saying? Now, how he pushed...

Shaan Puri

It’s hard for me to share the stories of Ari doing it. He told me the story of Richard Branson doing it, and then he had stories of himself doing it. We were asking about *The Milk Road*; he reads *The Milk Road* every morning. So we were like, "Alright, you know, what would you do about this and this and this? How did you do that in the early days of your latest project?" I should introduce that. After the WME thing, he started this new company called Overtime, which I don't know if you've heard of.

Sam Parr

Which is like "taken over the world," but I don't even entirely know what it is. Their social handles are all over the place.

Shaan Puri

They're huge on social media. Basically, it started with basketball, but now they have football and other things. What they did was create a media company. Instead of following the traditional model—like ESPN being a TV channel, Bleacher Report and others being websites, and some newsletters—these guys said, "No, we're just going to be an Instagram account." We're going to become the biggest Instagram account for basketball culture. What does that mean? It's like crazy dunks and high school prospects. That's really where they found their foothold. They were like, "Okay, forget the NBA; hoops culture is really interesting. Who's the next LeBron?" It turns out there was this kid, Zion Williamson, who was this tank-looking guy in South Carolina that people had heard of. He's got a cool name, Zion, and the guy's built like a freaking Crunch Bar.

Sam Parr

right and

Shaan Puri

Then he can fly. He's like, you know, he's like a flying bus. And so, a Crunch Bar... yeah, like a double Crunch Bar. I would have thought.

Sam Parr

I would've thought like thicker than a snicker but alright we're gonna go

Shaan Puri

Crunch bar... I'm not perfect, okay? So, they started, and they were like, "Okay." They put up a video of this guy, and it immediately went viral. He's like, "Okay, cool. People want to know about Zion." ESPN? They're not sending a reporter down to Greenville, South Carolina, to cover this guy's high school game against West Bishop Baptist. It's like, but we can do that. So, he basically... and he said this thing when I was talking to him. He's a very calm guy, but he had that level 12 intensity. I could tell because he goes, "I decided I was gonna do this, and then I just applied my will against it." I was like, only somebody who knows they're a force of nature would even say something like that. He wasn't pitching me; he wasn't selling me. I was just trying to figure out how the heck did you build this into a household name in such a short period of time? I've seen so many people tell me...

Sam Parr

and how do they make money do you know

Shaan Puri

They have a couple of different ways. So, they think they have, you know, probably like sponsors or whatever. But they now have their own basketball league. So, he's like, he basically created his own version of, like, instead of the NCAA's, it's like, "You can come play in the Overtime League." Right now, he's living in Atlanta where they're doing the season. And I told him, I was like, "Dude, you look like a high school science teacher."

Sam Parr

Well, yeah. So, if you guys look up Dan Porter, when I hung out with him, he was dressed cool and he looked like the cool guy. But he looked more... he is more similar to Malcolm Gladwell than he was a basketball fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's more of a Gladwell than an ex, that's for sure.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you would never think this is the guy that's stealing, you know, street culture and hoops culture at the grassroots level. But he is. He really is.

Sam Parr

like maybe he would have launched a poetry league over a basketball league

Shaan Puri

And I asked him, I was like, "That's not a song." I was like, "No, actually, I love football." And he was like, "Yeah, you know..." So he told me about the approach that he took. He said, "I was at WME, and we heard these stats which were basically like the NFL was really worried because they're like kids choose their favorite team and league at like age 10 or 12. Then that's like who they're a fan of for life. It's like, 'That's my team' or 'That's my player,' and then they're a fan of them for decades." He continued, "Then we asked, 'How do you decide? Is it because of the city you're from or whatever?' And they're like, 'No, Madden. Whoever's the most fun to play in Madden or like whoever's colors I like.'" He said, "Oh shit." The NFL was also like, "Oh shit." The local sports owners were like, "Oh shit," because if every kid in Philadelphia isn't growing up an Eagles fan, if they just like Michael Vick because he's fast in the game of Madden, then that's a fan we just didn't get. They're not going to buy tickets, jerseys, or come to the games. This is not going to work; the model will break at that.

Shaan Puri

And then also, TV networks were like, "Yeah, kids aren't watching TV, so we gotta figure something else out." What are they doing? They're playing video games, they're on social media, they're on Instagram, they're on TikTok. So his theory was, "Oh, okay, we need to build the sports media brand on those networks." Then we just have to find the thing that clicked. What clicked for them was these young, up-and-coming basketball players. He came up with the craziest ideas. He said, "Alright, we need the clips. We need those clips faster than anybody else." So they came up with a crazy idea: they would find photographers through social media. They would say, "Hey, who lives in South Carolina? We need a photographer." The number one Zion clip submitter to them was a guy who was like a plumber on weekdays. He would go to the games, and the number two clip submitter was a student at Zion's school who had broken his leg. Because he was in a wheelchair, they put him courtside every game instead of up in the bleachers. He had the best spot, and he was submitting these amazing clips on his iPhone. That's what was going viral right away. Then ESPN or whatever would hit them up and say, "Hey, can we license your videos? We'll pay you for this license. It'll be like Getty Images." He was like, "Fuck me, dude, I don't wanna build Getty." He said, "How about this, ESPN? You can have it for free, you just have to tag us and put our watermark on it." They were like, "Idiot, done!" So then they ended up promoting the shit out of Overtime. Overtime was everywhere because of that. It was seen as incredible because it was on ESPN all the time.