Nelly Performance Leverage

Jesse Pujji tells a story about how he got Nelly to perform at his 40th birthday party by building a relationship instead of paying full price.

"I turned 40 in May and wanted to do something ridiculous for my party. I thought about getting Nelly since he's from my hometown. We went through normal channels first - they wanted $300,000 as a starting price, probably half a million all-in. I was sad for a few months, then the entrepreneur in me thought there must be another way.

I got connected to Nelly's people through local contacts in St. Louis. I met with them and found out Nelly was working on two ecommerce businesses. I started helping their team with free advice - Shopify apps, contractors, getting things going. When they learned about my Aux business and how I charge PE firms $200-300,000 for consulting, they asked how they could help me.

I mentioned my dream of having Nelly at my birthday party. They arranged a meeting since Nelly needed to meet me first. We met at this Soho wannabe club in St. Louis. He was super nice, really friendly. But there was a scheduling conflict - he had to be in Napa the night before and Vegas the day after.

I suggested flying him private both ways. They came back saying 'okay, but it has to be a G4 or better.' I got some brokers to compete and for $60,000 got him round trip on a G4 - Napa to St. Louis to Vegas.

He ended up doing a 45-minute set even though there was no contract. His manager told me later he was hyped seeing all these Indian people who knew his music. My brother and I were on stage rapping 'E.I.' with him. It was a top three life moment."