How Gary Vee Thinks about NFTs | My First Million #209 with Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk

What's super awesome is that when you're putting the wins on the board, nobody even gives... nobody wants to touch it. They're like, "Keep going, keep going." Nobody wants to talk to me.

Sam Parr

that was pretty that was intense 45 minutes

Shaan Puri

Dude, sometimes you have high hopes for a guest, and on this podcast, I've been disappointed. Today was not that day, my friend. I love that! I had a great time, honestly.

Sam Parr

We didn't even get to... we got to like 20% of the stuff I wanted to ask him about. So, we had Gary Vaynerchuk on the pod today. It was phenomenal! Whenever I leave... I've hung out with Gary maybe three or four times—maybe three times. Whenever I leave his presence, I do feel better. A lot of people, and I'll admit I was one of those people years ago, would say, "Oh, this guy is just some loud guy who's selling nonsense." But he's totally the real deal. We talked about it, but I went to a dinner with him one time, and he talked the entire time. Most people would be like, "Dude, what the hell? That was so rude!" But when I left, I was like, "I just want to continue listening to him. I want him to keep telling stories." I love his point of view. He's entertaining. That guy is intense, and I love it.

Shaan Puri

He does what we try to do. He's been doing it for a long time, which is **business entertainment**. It's the entertainment side of business where he, you know, goes to a garage sale, makes content about buying things for a quarter, and flipping them for $28 on eBay. He shows how that stacks up and how you can go from, like, $42 to $14,000 in a year if you just did this. Obviously, he doesn't need to do that anymore. He's got this agency with, you know, 100 employees. He's got a bunch of stuff going on as far as his own business goes. But I like that he's been able to do what I think the world needs more of: **business entertainment**. Because, like, why did I grow up wanting to be a basketball player? Because the NBA was so goddamn entertaining! When you have entertainment, it creates inspiration and aspiration, which ends up creating more founders in the world.

Sam Parr

yeah he was amazing man and I what do you mean

Shaan Puri

to talk about

Sam Parr

Whenever I'm off with him, or whenever I'm with him off the air, by the way, he's exactly the same. So there's no show here. Alright, we started off and got right into it. In the first 30 seconds, I asked him, "So, I've been tracking this for a long time. When I was managing my business, I was trying to manage cash flow and understand how hard to push it." I made a document from Gary Vaynerchuk about VaynerMedia. They grew to 1,200 employees. I tracked the revenue and revenue per head over 100 interviews. I basically found where he said a clip like, "Oh, we have this many employees," and I asked him about it. So, I asked him how he managed cash flow. Then we got into a really interesting discussion about NFTs. A lot of people talk about them. I'm not like an NFT guy; Sean, you are. This was the one time I've ever had a conversation where it interested me beyond just academic.

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, he does a good job of making it, I don't know, like tangible and insightful. He avoids making the big mistake, which is NFTs. Let me tell you what it stands for and how it works under the hood. It's like, "No, no, no, I don't care how the engine works. I want to get in the car and go somewhere." So, where does this let me go? I think he did a pretty good job of that. We talked about NFTs and some of the lessons learned, you know, going from what he saw in the dot-com boom because he was kind of early in the game, right, in 2000. He was there for Twitter, Facebook, and Uber. He invested in Twitter but missed out on Uber, even though Garrett was one of his best friends. So, how did he take that learning, and what is he doing now with it today? How does he take those learnings and apply them now? We talked about that for a bit. It was a good episode. He was, I don't know, a super nice guy and wants to come back on. I think we should have him on again for sure.

Sam Parr

I take a lot from it. It makes me feel happy that sometimes, a lot of times, people tweet at us and say, "I wanna run through a wall after that episode," or "I wanna go and accomplish something." I feel that way right now after listening to that episode. I felt like I was a part of it, more so as a fan, more so as a participant. I thought it was wonderful.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you know, it's when people say, "I'm always late to work because when I'm driving and listening to MFM, I gotta pull over and write shit down." Right? Like, I can't let this idea go; I gotta write this down. That's when we do it well. Sometimes we don't always hit that, but I think we did it well on this one. So, alright, there's that. That's the episode. Gary V, enjoy!

Gary Vaynerchuk

same

Shaan Puri

Alright, are you weird or are you normal? And they're like, "We're a little bit of both." And they came out and did it, and it worked out well.

Sam Parr

I'm just using an iphone

Gary Vaynerchuk

get the fuck out of here

Shaan Puri

well sam's in

Gary Vaynerchuk

the attic now so sam you're looking are you really

Sam Parr

I'm in new york this is just an iphone

Gary Vaynerchuk

oh but with the blurred out why does it look so good the lighting so

Shaan Puri

He got this app that basically uses your iPhone as like a DSLR, which is really cool. Awesome!

Sam Parr

it's what's nice

Shaan Puri

to see

Gary Vaynerchuk

you guys I hope you're well

Sam Parr

it's called camo I'll give them a shout it's called camo I think I paid $49 for it

Gary Vaynerchuk

it's awesome man hope everyone's well

Sam Parr

So, we have a lot to get into. I'm pumped you're here! Can I ask something that I've always wondered about? How many people work at VaynerMedia right now?

Gary Vaynerchuk

Somewhere between probably 105, 013, and 100, they... I'm sorry, VaynerX. So, VaynerMedia is the biggest company, yeah? Vayner, right? Because we have Gallery, we have... yep.

Sam Parr

So, I was looking... I did some research based on a ton of interviews. I was going through the headcount of how fast you grew, and I believe around year number 3 to 4, did you grow from like 30 people to 125 people?

Gary Vaynerchuk

Yes, because in September of 2011, I kind of made the decision to go full-time with Vayner. No longer what I would call full-time with Wine Library; it became secondary to Vayner. I made that switch, and then the lighter fluid kind of went on. Dude, how...

Sam Parr

the hell do you manage that cash flow for a company like that because

Gary Vaynerchuk

I just right I did write the email your shit yeah mhmm

Shaan Puri

and it

Sam Parr

Was... tell me if I'm... I just guesstimated off some interviews around. I'm going to start at year 1 with around 5 people, then 20 people, 30 people, 125 people, 300, 550, 600, and 800. Yeah, is that a ballpark figure?

Gary Vaynerchuk

Yeah, like if you were asking me and I was spitballing, guess who the heck... you know, the first year was like we started in May of 2009. So that first half year, I think it was like 6 or 7. Then it might have been like 20 through all of 2010, and then into 2011, it probably got to like 30. Then that September 2011... look, you'll appreciate this, and you've got this in you. There are certain people who I think are really, really good at top-line revenue driving initiatives. What I think has been the balance of my life, and it's very similar to what happened at Wine Library, is because I'm able to create so much top-line revenue and because I'm playing forever, right? Wine Library is my dad's family business, and Vayner for me is really a forever business. I'm just able to hire a lot, right? And then you just gotta... you know, with retail, it was really easy. I knew how to sell wine. So, with B2B, it took me a little while to calibrate, like, "Oh, heck, they didn't pay us. Wait a minute, why? There was the bill due. Why didn't you pay?" But overall, it's just staying in your stuff, right? I think when you stay in your business and you know what you've got coming in and what is going out... I'm not a CFO-like oriented CEO, but I'm also not a shlemiel. I always have a good sense of like, "Is this... are we gonna be in debt? Am I always playing to like, will this hurt me? Will I be in trouble?" You know, I try to stay within those confines.

Sam Parr

that's it's just crazy I mean did you have a line of credit from the bank

Gary Vaynerchuk

No, we didn't have a line of credit. This is where my dad's a psycho. I was so undereducated because I was such a poor student. *Sorry for this background noise; it will go away in a second.* My dad ran his business with no line of credit, which I love. It's old school immigrant mentality: pay with what you have. But it trained me because that business is even crazier. That business went from $4,000,000 to $25,000,000 in like 30 months—so fast! With inventory and payroll, I got so trained in playing within myself. We didn't have a line of credit for a long time. We definitely got a line of credit probably in 2011 or maybe 2013. But for the first 4 or 5 years, in the pocket you're talking about—which will resonate a lot more with people on the call who are going to go through the 7 to 17 to 77 to 277—it was more about just not spending what you don't have. It was as simple as basic business: "Hey, we just landed this account. They're paying us $480,000 a year. It's Mondelez or Pepsi." You feel like they're going to pay you, and you feel good.

Shaan Puri

it's not

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gonna... you know, and it's like, "Okay, now I got $4.80. I'm gonna hire these 6 people at $40K a piece." I feel good with that. You know, it was very much like back of the napkin. What's funny about it is, and you know this, and I think this is where... you know, when you were on the podcast, we hung out at an outdoor dinner. Every time I come, there's something about just like street business versus... I find myself laughing that mine can be intuitive and back of the napkin. Yet, people that are all about learning and Excel sheets, doing it properly, and using SAP and cloud... you know, they have all the software, but they get messed up. It's because they don't have a good pulse on their actual business. So, they get ahead of themselves and lack patience.

Sam Parr

Yeah, it's just like when you're growing that fast, it seems like you're kind of playing it maybe month by month or maybe quarter by quarter. I mean, I would go to bed at night wondering, "I hope this client doesn't bail. Otherwise, I gotta lay off 20 people."

Gary Vaynerchuk

I think what was happening was we were selling. It's so funny; I was very long-winded. I think I had the answer. When you are selling at a level that people are not accustomed to, like when you're outpacing normality, it just... selling hides everything. You know, when I'm landing clients week after week, you start getting into a place where you're just outpacing vulnerability.

Sam Parr

That's always a question I had, Sean. Do you want to give him an update on... I mean, I jumped right into that because I've always had that question about managing capital?

Shaan Puri

Like sitting on that question for two years or something happened. He didn't say hello. He didn't say what the podcast is about. He's like, "You..."

Gary Vaynerchuk

know what I mean

Shaan Puri

when you scaled how'd you manage cash flow

Gary Vaynerchuk

You know what's funny? I've gotten to know Sam through my podcast and a couple of hangouts. It makes sense to me because I think Sam's really good at what he does. He lived that life, and he knows it super well. He understands the anxiety and the challenges involved. I always say, my favorite people to talk to are those who know. I love talking to people who have lived it, not just read about it. It just makes it so much more fun. It's the same way I feel when I talk about sports. I love sports, but I fully know when I'm talking to an athlete, I don't know.

Shaan Puri

Right, I don't know what that... yeah, I did this thread that went viral on Twitter. It was about Clubhouse, and I was like, you know, this was when Clubhouse was sort of peaking. I said this thing, I was like, "It's kind of unpopular because, you know, why should a startup..." It wasn't my intention, but I said, "Everybody thinks Clubhouse is the next big thing, and I think it's gonna fail. But here's how I think it's gonna play out." I kind of wrote it like an episode of *Silicon Valley*. I wrote it like, "You're the CEO. First, you know, Chris Sacca's texting you, this is happening." I wrote this thing, and it went viral. It ended up getting on CNBC. It has, like, I don't know, tens of millions of impressions, and people were like, "Oh man, you're a good writer." Interesting.

Gary Vaynerchuk

I was

Shaan Puri

I'm not a good writer. I built this thing called Blab that was very similar to Clubhouse. I went through this run and I was getting all this shit. It wasn't anywhere near Clubhouse, but I... yep.

Gary Vaynerchuk

you know

Shaan Puri

their their home was private

Gary Vaynerchuk

I remember

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and so I was like, you know, I went through this exact pain. I'm just literally telling a story I know of myself, and I'm exaggerating a little bit to make it funny. It has nothing to do with writing.

Gary Vaynerchuk

You know what's so crazy about that? I don't know if you can see this. Do you see the goosebumps? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of how I think why I'm a good content producer. I literally stay in my lane. I may say the same shit 87 to 100 different ways, and that's a little bit of my talent. I'm good at incorporating contemporary pop culture, slang, and nuances of the day. But the reason I think it works for me is similar to you. I have so much conviction in my stuff because I'm not guessing out here.

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah. You know, I was watching your trash talk video on the way here. So if you people haven't seen it, go to his YouTube. It's a fun series, actually. I was watching, and I was like, "I bet this hits." I couldn't see because I was driving, so I'm listening to it, and I'm like, "God, this is good content." I was like, "I bet this video hits." And of course, the views were pretty high on it, if you ask me.

Gary Vaynerchuk

for me and youtube I'm sorry to interrupt it's by far my best show it's my best content

Shaan Puri

immediately I was like I'm hooked

Gary Vaynerchuk

And do you know why I made it? No, because I listen to my audience. I read my comments; I read my stuff. What was super awesome was I started getting a lot of emails from people saying, "Yo, you're awesome! I love you!" But like, this whole thing of, "Yeah, you put a $25,000 check into Twitter," they're like, "That doesn't work for me. I don't have $25,000." I'm like, "You know, cool. Let me go even further back in my origin story." What did I do when I did this? I went garage sailing on Saturday and sold that stuff at baseball card shows or other flea markets on Sunday.

Shaan Puri

right wait wait like by

Sam Parr

The way it's more fun. So, I just sold $35,100 worth of old computers, and I got more joy having that $35,100 in my Venmo than I did with $20,000,000 in my bank.

Gary Vaynerchuk

This brother is everything that I believe. I believe the reason I like stuff is that it's easier. I'm in it for the game. I'm just like you. There’s no comparison to how I feel when I... In my last episode, I don't know if that's what you're watching, I found a bunch of manga. That's who.

Shaan Puri

I was watching right

Gary Vaynerchuk

So, for **$270**, I bought what ends up being about **$64,100** in eBay post fees sales. It's crazy because it's like the thrill of the hunt; it was more.

Shaan Puri

Fun! Even before that, right? So, I watched my drive home from the bank to get to home. I didn't get to that part yet, but I saw that was the title. Some people are like, "Oh, that's cool! You buy something at $2.70 and sell it for $6,000." The part that I was blown away by was that you went to 20 garage sales in a day. I was just thinking to myself two things: He made the most... kind of like this channel, this show is basically the most approachable version of entrepreneurship. Yes, we do these segments on the show that people love, called "Billy of the Week," which is like a billionaire that we profile. But sometimes, we'll do the "Hillbilly of the Week," which is someone who owns 22 vending machines, and we break down how much money they make.

Gary Vaynerchuk

that's fucking so smart

Shaan Puri

Another one we do is called the **Blue Collar Side Hustle**. It's like, here's something you don't need to be a genius for. Because sometimes I go off on my crypto stuff and I'll be like, "Oh yeah, this is the future." But then sometimes it's like, "Hey, you know what you should do? Go door to door."

Gary Vaynerchuk

you're the same

Shaan Puri

pest control leads

Gary Vaynerchuk

You know, people love this. I love Billy. That's so **fucking smart**, by the way. That's what I'm living right now. I can't function because I literally looked at my calendar today and I saw I have this podcast. Obviously, you guys have done a great job, and I'm fired up about it. But literally, in the back of my brain, I'm like, "Man, I hope they got caught up or something." Because if I get back that 45 minutes, I can go more on OpenSea and do a little more research. I'm so enthralled right now in NFT life that I'm like, every meeting, I'm cutting 5 minutes short. But meanwhile, equally, the only other thing that's got me juiced is garage sale education because I know it can help people, and I love it. It's the same game.

Sam Parr

do you know do you know american pickers

Gary Vaynerchuk

I know that show yes

Sam Parr

so I used to work on that show I used to work for mike wolf the main guy in that show

Gary Vaynerchuk

is that the guy who is that the taller guy or the chubby guy

Sam Parr

The tall guy... and the way it worked is he would go from garage sale to garage sale. Not garage sale, *Barnes* [likely referring to Barnes & Noble or a similar store]. He would buy stuff and we would buy like some cheap stuff, like something we could sell in the store for $50. Then we would buy some... like an old motorcycle that doesn't work but it's art that we could sell for $2,000. All these people would come in from all over the country to the store that I helped run. We would probably sell $5,000 worth of items, but we would sell probably $30 a day of t-shirts and...

Gary Vaynerchuk

a grand

Sam Parr

This freaking business crushed it! But Sean, do you want to talk about some NFT stuff? Because I know that excites both of you. It excites me too.

Shaan Puri

are you

Gary Vaynerchuk

trying to get into it sam are you like digging in a little

Sam Parr

No, I am into it. Sean told me what it was like a year ago, and he bought some really cool Kobe stuff. I thought it was badass. But Sean's really into it; I think he's got a ticker behind him that you could see.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, no, this is just, you know, my own little motivational quote. I motivate myself with it every day or whatever. But I do have this programmed up where it can tell me the price of whatever, you know, Ethereum or, you know, whether it's some old coin. In this case, I met the founder of Nifty Gateway, and I was like, "Dude, first, his story is hilarious." I don't know if you've met them, but it's two twins.

Gary Vaynerchuk

oh the tyler

Shaan Puri

The, no, so they got... it's two twins that built Nifty Gateway. They got hired by the two twins in Gemini.

Gary Vaynerchuk

fucking amazing

Shaan Puri

And so, this was pretty early in the wave of NFTs starting to get hotter and hotter. What they did, which was smart, was they said, "Look, NFTs have value because they're scarce." But the problem is, anyone can print an NFT tomorrow, which is like the fun, but also there's an abundance of scarce objects now, right?

Gary Vaynerchuk

Yeah, supply and demand. There's such an incredibly fascinating supply and demand game going on.

Shaan Puri

What Nifty started doing was they were kind of like, "Look, what we'll do is we'll be like Christie's. We'll curate, so we'll find the best artists on Instagram and we'll bring them on." They've been building up this following for 10 years, just doing free art for the love of the game on Instagram. Now that there's a way to monetize that audience and monetize that art, they can bring it over here. So, I bought this Kobe piece, you know, the "Forever Mom." I don't know if you've seen it, but basically, I was telling Sam on the podcast, "Yeah, I just bought this thing for $800." He goes through the cycle everybody goes through, which is, "You bought a file? Like, why are you buying JPEGs? What's that gonna do? You spent $800 on this?" I was like, "Yeah, actually, I bought five." He was like, "You bought five copies of the same thing?" And you know, those sell for $10,000 to $25,000 now. So that was my first flip, basically my version of the digital garage sale.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Right, that's why I'm so addicted. I think I'm addicted to the digital garage sale.

Shaan Puri

And so, give us your simplified version of the thesis. Some people kind of love this stuff; they're in the weeds. Some people just sit there and eye roll. The truth is, there's something really exciting going on, and there's also a bunch of stuff that's going to go away in a few years. It'll all get started another month. So, give us your take.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Yeah, I've been... you know, I'll just give you the micro thing on that. I think 98% of the current projects go to zero.

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

like I think it's very it's it to me it's the most similar thing to web internet stocks 99 2000 that I remember I remember being there I really like I was me young so I wasn't as experienced and didn't have as many pattern recognitions and reps but I had a lot of the good ingredients right and I remember sitting there and saying man a lot of these businesses make no sense like just no sense I'm like how could they be worth this much money they're losing so much money and I didn't understand wall street so I wasn't sure but when the affirmation of march april 2000 came along and most things got smoked out it kind of was a monumental moment for me because the only stock that I bought was amazon and and and because I really thought it was like a real business even though I was losing money I was losing money in a different way than other things it had an actual business like back to the house and I started like revenue mattered like the other ones didn't have fucking revenue right you know like no customer gave a fuck and I'm always like does the customer care so what do I think overall I think people are grossly underestimating nfts I think right now people think of them as collectible and art and flip game and for a lot of us that have that american picker garage sale sports cards for me like and there's a ton of people that love that like that's that's why half of wall street that's where they go like there's a lot of those people and that's amazing and that's big that's a big industry like over the next 15 years big collecting flipping you know you've got an entire generation of kids that go on fortnite and madden and 2 k and buy digital assets to flex so that's gonna fucking play out but I think that's just the nuance of nfts I think people misunderstand the utility nature of spark contracts I believe in the next 15 years that that nobody writes a book with a publisher they do it through an nft infrastructure I believe that in 15 years nobody launches a record label by having a record a record by having a record label give them the bag they're gonna get it from crowdfunding by selling nfts and giving a percentage of royalties I believe that there's not a single sporting event or concert in 10 years that the ticket is not an nft because there's no incentive for that organization and that artist or people to launch it as anything but an nft because a qr code or a piece of paper means nothing but the nft if luka doncic drops a 100 points in that game that becomes a forever collectible there's a $1,000,000,000,000 fucking dollars worth of of ticket stubs that have sold over the last 25 years on ebay you know that all goes to royalties to the person that so what's really fascinating to me I'll give you a weird one if you own a home that is wildly unique and is a $25,000,000 home on a beach or some something wild right you nft that fucking home right now put into the smart contract that you get 1% of every transaction of this home in perpetuity and the first person that's gonna buy it from you is gonna be fine with that they don't give a fuck because these things are long leads right you buy it you sit on it for 13 15 years so like there's so much that nft blockchain realities are gonna bring that I think people are underestimating it

Sam Parr

you wanna you wanna yeah go ahead sean

Gary Vaynerchuk

I'll tell

Shaan Puri

him this idea we

Sam Parr

have think alike

Gary Vaynerchuk

I love it

Shaan Puri

A few months ago, we were shooting the breeze before an episode. We don't tell each other what we're going to talk about. It's like, "Yo, I'm bringing..."

Gary Vaynerchuk

3 I'm

Shaan Puri

Bringing three pieces of heat, you're going to react to it. I gotta know my stuff. You have to be able to react, and that’s what people like. People like to...

Gary Vaynerchuk

react good that's a cool idea know it's like fuck that

Shaan Puri

The worst part of a podcast is, "Hey, do you know this?" Yes? Okay, well let me explain it because I'm not actually asking you, motherfucker. I'm asking the audience, right? I'm trying to present this here. So, one of the ideas that I brought up was that I noticed Michael Jordan's house had been sitting on the market. His house in Chicago has the 23 emblem on the gate. It's got a basketball court inside; it's got everything. And it's been sitting on the market for years. The price has been dropping. I think... I don't know what it started at. I think something like $20,000,000, and then it went down to $15,000,000, then $14,000,000. So I came out of the bottle and I was like, "Dude, I think we could buy Michael Jordan's house for $10,000,000."

Gary Vaynerchuk

wow

Shaan Puri

And I was like, you know, we could kind of do this in a way that normally someone would approach it. Alright, do I have that kind of "F you" money to go buy Michael Jordan's house without my wife killing me? Or do I go, you know, raise a fund through a few back-alley conversations at dinners with some rich folks? I said, or we could just get this podcast and crowdfund $10,000,000. Yep, as soon as we could, we could basically do fractional ownership either through an NFT or on Raleigh Road or whatever. I was like, "Let's buy Michael Jordan's house!" This idea went a little viral in our world. In my head, you listen to every episode religiously. It hits your phone, and you say, "Cancel, clear my calendar, I need to go listen to this." I know you probably didn't, but that was an idea we had a few months ago. So, how would that play out in the NFT world? Walk us through that.

Gary Vaynerchuk

You guys, and now it sounds like it went viral. That's exactly what should happen. I think you can't imagine, and I'm a man who tends to... I don't love that many ideas.

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

really I mean that I love execution I think a lot of people can execute a b and c idea and do great but to say I love an idea is rare and that's why I think I've done really well like I really bet when I love something and it's worked for me and I've lost sometimes because the executor couldn't do it yobongo was my favorite investment it was a precursor to tinder in a lot of ways caleb and the team there just couldn't get it there they didn't execute which is okay but but when I tell you I love the idea of buying michael jordan's house so much because I know that you can literally arbitrage it in perpetuity like I you guys are people that can garner attention and promote so it's worth so much more to you than somebody else I could see the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem renting out the basketball court game like like you can run a real business now now back to my big? About unique property I think this is gonna change the real estate industry the fact that you could put you guys are young dudes you put a 2% royalty in perpetuity on that home you sell it to the next person for 9,000,000 let alone 12,000,000 right let's just play you guys are locked your great grandchildren great great great grandchildren are like our fucking great great great grandfathers were fucking geniuses we just got a fucking $800,000 check-in the mail or 80,000 whatever it ends up being I do think in the next 5 years there will be a to what nft blockchain smart contracts mean and I think it will trickle into real estate people will buy unique properties and I think they're gonna make incredible in perpetuity monies that maybe they themselves won't get the crazy because you know how often their houses turn per se but man listen if you're listening to this right now listen I've got a real good sense to who listens to this because you guys got a lot of fans you are either there or you are spying to be there from a professional standpoint

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

For the people that are listening right now who've been fortunate, we're sitting in this weird moment because of crypto and NFTs. There are some people that have really come into some real money by making a very smart play. If you're sitting with some money, you know these are the things you're thinking about: What can I do that is fun for me but also leaves a legacy for my generational wealth? I want to do things that are still good. The house is perfect, right? Because it'll be fun for you for 16, 2, or 9 weeks a year, but you're also creating something that's an asset. Let me say it one more time: in perpetuity.

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

Like, once it goes on there and gets NFTed, it's NFTed, right? It is a contract. Like, there's the ABA team. Do you know the story about the ABA team from Saint Louis? No NBA? Yeah, yeah, no. Sam, this is epic. They merged the leagues. The Saint Louis team is out, and the owners were like, "Fuck you, we're not signing the deal." So what they did was... I don't know what the finite details were, but they needed them to sign off to make the merger happen. They told them that their franchise doesn't advance because we're folding. So they fight, they fight, they fight because they really love basketball. They're like New York, like "Schmalta" guys who bought like TV rights. At the end, they go, "Okay, well, if that's the case, we have to be treated financially as the, at the time, 26th, or 22nd, or 24th NBA franchise. And in perpetuity, we get the economic split for that." So we're out of the league, but economically, then we get it. And so, as the league...

Sam Parr

they they I mean I think they made like $1,000,000,000 or something it was 2

Gary Vaynerchuk

I think 2

Sam Parr

brothers right

Gary Vaynerchuk

that's right that's exactly

Sam Parr

what it was brothers I think they like made like 100 of millions

Gary Vaynerchuk

100 of 1,000,000. When that was like a different number over those seventies, eighties, and nineties, I do think they got bought out. Like, the grandkids got bought out by the NBA before the last big deal. But, like, wow.

Shaan Puri

unbelievable do you

Sam Parr

go ahead sean

Shaan Puri

I was just going to say, you were talking about NFTs. Another NFT use case that I like when discussing it with you, versus like we've had a bunch of crypto heads on here, mhmm, you know, super geniuses like Balaji and others. One challenge is if our audience is a guy who owns his own marketing agency in Saint Louis, he's sort of like, "Okay..."

Gary Vaynerchuk

yeah what does this mean

Shaan Puri

yeah like I don't want the how I want the what what does this mean and what does it mean for me

Gary Vaynerchuk

To me, exactly. When I talk about NFTs, I think about the fashion industry. I think about why somebody owns a Rolex. I think about social media. You know how everyone says social media is full of shit? Like, everyone takes photos and fakes it. You know what's going to be a much better social identity? What tokens do you have in your wallet publicly?

Shaan Puri

yes dude I was thinking about

Gary Vaynerchuk

This yesterday, I read on both of you. If I looked at your token, just look at my e-wallet. Yeah, like my public wallet is going to represent me. It's not only going to be about what I believe in, like CryptoPunks and my VeeFriends collection, but it's also going to include all my Jets tickets. And I'll give you a good one. I haven't mentioned Dave Matthews publicly in my entire life, but if somebody went into my wallet and this was going on for 30 years, I'm like, every day on Twitter, I'd probably get, "Gary, you went to Dave Matthews on New Year's '99 at Madison Square Garden." I'm like, "Oh yeah, my friend Tokyo Joe loved me." It's a truth indicator. And by the way, one last thing. This is what really confuses people. I'm going to give you such a clear picture that I think will help people. Every one of you has an aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, friend, or grandma. When you go into their house, they collect marbles, little miniature elephants, or magnets. Every state they go to, they pick up a matchbox. Humans are inherently hoarding assets, and we use them for ourselves because we like it. We get caught up in the nostalgia and the story, and we use it to flex. Yep, flexing a painting or your Winnie the Pooh collection that's epic in your house is kind of hard, except for the people that come through. The blockchain is going to accelerate at a scale.

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

The way I thought that it would accelerate communication with social, and that's why I think people are underestimating it. The first internet collected the information. The second internet created the framework for communication. Now, this third thing, this Web 3 NFT thing, it's going to capture the consumerization of assets, and the stakes are **fucking high**.

Sam Parr

and with your deal the the new the the gary what what was it called v friends

Gary Vaynerchuk

v friends

Sam Parr

Do you offer a conference a year? Are you going to do that forever, or is there a timeline on that?

Gary Vaynerchuk

What I wanted to say is, this is pretty interesting because I've done it in a couple of shows, but with you guys, it's different. So, I don't know if you...

Shaan Puri

Wanna host it at Michael Jordan's house? Because we'll let you do it, my friend. We can help you host it at Michael Jordan's house.

Gary Vaynerchuk

My guy, listen. For the hardest core consumers of my content, VeeFriends made so much sense. The amount of times I referenced Walt Disney and Vince McMahon in character creation is significant. I'm building VaynerX to buy nostalgic intellectual property (IP). I'm going to refurbish storytelling, Saturday morning cartoons, and all the stuff behind me in my office, right? Like wrestling, Thundercats, and Transformers. I’m just so affected by pop culture my whole life. I wanted to buy animal crackers from Mondelez and turn them into Madagascar. I've been in this place forever. As a matter of fact, you know what? VeeFriends is two years old. I was going to launch a toy line called Workplace Warriors, which were little desk toys.

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

With what basically became these characters, I see NFTs. I've been kind of flirting with them in the winter. I had my crazy eureka moment—like, "No, no, no, this is the fucking moment!" I bought Ethereum a long time ago. Aaron Battalion, shout out to the former CTO of LivingSocial, got me into it in 2015 or 2016. I've been watching, but I wait until the consumer, the normal stuff, the marketing agency St. Louis moment—not the hardcore infrastructure nerd stuff. That's just not my jam. So I thought, "Fuck man, I'm going to build the next Pokémon, Harry Potter, Transformers." But 99.9% of the world is not going to believe me. So let me launch this program and show people that you can do a lot more than just have pictures on it.

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

So, to your point, Sam, the answer is it's a 3-year contract. Veefriends Series 1 says you get a conference ticket to VeeCon 2022, 2023, and 2024. I'll figure things out after the fact, but I knew that this would have such inherent value that people would lock in for that. Basically, what I was trying to do was "trick"—this is the word I would use—my hardest core advocates by giving them an asset. I knew Veefriends, the original thing I just launched, is kind of like the original Disney sells. You know those things that sell for like a trillion? They were like the hand-drawn Snow White in the forties. If I pull off what I think I can pull off—stuffed animals, toys, trading cards, movies, video games—over the next 40 years, this original NFT has real potential. I wanted to create a thing that wouldn't make my biggest, earliest supporters trade it. You look at Bored Ape, you look at Meebus, you look at these epic projects that are killing it right now; people are trading. I wanted people to be locked in so that by the time the 3 years are over, they're like, "Wait a minute, I'm never selling this," because I wanted them to benefit the most.

Shaan Puri

And the data backs this up. So right now, if I go on CryptoSlam—if you guys don't know this, CryptoSlam.io is an easy little aggregator of NFT projects—I think you guys are like number 8. Okay, so you're number 8.

Gary Vaynerchuk

in the last 24 hours do

Shaan Puri

you 24 yeah sorry it's a 24 hour rolling scoreboard but you can

Gary Vaynerchuk

do top you you could do up top it's got all the stuff

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so we can do like, let's say, 30 days. Alright, so in the last 30 days, you're number 12 with about $12,000,000 in sales volume or transaction volume. The funny thing is, if you go through all the other ones—CryptoPunks, MeBits, all these—they have somewhere between 1,000 or tens of thousands of transactions. You know, the top one, Axie Infinity, has a quarter million buyers that are doing these transactions. Veefriends is like an outlier; it's like 300 people with 580 transactions. What that tells me is that there is a small group of hardcore people who are not looking to flip this rapidly for a quick buck because they believe in you. They believe in the utility value of the conference. So, I like that because it's different, and you're pushing it more.

Gary Vaynerchuk

I think I've been very aggressive at this. I'm like, "Do not bet against me! I'm gonna fucking build transformers." You know, like, I think a lot of people are holding now. The conference is gonna be epic, and I'm gonna come through. But I think they're betting on my propaganda right now.

Shaan Puri

and I'm gonna

Gary Vaynerchuk

come through

Shaan Puri

It's like Bitcoin. The people who got in during the early days were anarchists and crypto nerds. Yes, it's like they needed the first people to buy in for one reason, and then the second group, you know, the speculators.

Gary Vaynerchuk

you got it

Shaan Puri

And then it's like once everybody's got the damn thing, we all speculated on it. Now we can just use it as a medium of exchange. So, similarly...

Gary Vaynerchuk

Interesting about NFTs, more so than Bitcoin today. Obviously, things will evolve; it's just functional. Yeah, like V V Vicon makes it function. They're about to get very functional.

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

like the the functionality is gonna be extraordinary

Shaan Puri

Right, and so I like VeeFriends. I think VeeFriends is cool. I told my guy before this podcast, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to talk to Gary today. You know, let's pick up a VeeFriend. Go get me one off the floor there."

Gary Vaynerchuk

I appreciate it and he's

Shaan Puri

like cool the floor price is like getting a $17 now

Gary Vaynerchuk

I was like oh okay woah alright alright let's we don't like gary that much I was like I don't know

Shaan Puri

I was like, "I'm gonna do it," but that is not what I expected. I was like, "That's interesting." That really kind of opened my eyes. In fact, the last few days you've been seeing... So, I want to bring back one thing you talked about, which is your wallet. It's going to be a new type of profile. It's going to be a new place to flex. It's going to be a new place to learn about somebody.

Gary Vaynerchuk

In a real way, the only reason I'm in is that, right? And then I think utility is going...

Shaan Puri

the other way you can filter your face you can do many things to get non verifiable there

Gary Vaynerchuk

You know, it's really interesting—the argument of us controlling our narrative. Everyone's become the PR agent of themselves versus the black and white public data of what we buy. Now, don't forget, for everyone who's scared and loves privacy, you don't have to share your wallet. My argument is, I was there for MySpace in 2004 when everyone was saying, "People are gonna get raped at the mall and kidnapped." I was like, "Nah, I think it's gonna go this way," and now it is. Right? Everyone's in. I think that's what's gonna happen with NFTs. You've got the hardcore people that I get on Zoom with, like just shopping, and they've got literally like voice deactivators and screen savers. I don't know who they are. Every day, the masses are coming, and they're in the public wallet—the rainbow wallet, the .eth world. I think that's where it's going.

Sam Parr

You’ve been talking about buying brands and putting them through Vayner for, I mean, you’re in like year 3 or 4 of the company. You’ve been saying that whole spiel for a long time. First of all, you haven’t done it yet. When are you going to do it? Second of all, I think that putting them through the NFT thing is significantly better than the old model that I bet you’re planning on doing, like little... you know, we could put them through VaynerMedia.

Gary Vaynerchuk

machine yep

Sam Parr

machine

Gary Vaynerchuk

you you've got it

Sam Parr

I mean, I would much rather buy an old, like a nineties brand and do this because I'm looking at who the biggest brands are in crypto. I mean, it's sports... it's sports companies.

Shaan Puri

yeah

Sam Parr

I mean, I think you can do it. Brands are going to be better. When are you finally going to execute on that and pull the trigger? You've been talking about it for a long time. I'm excited to see it happen.

Gary Vaynerchuk

I want jerry well it's like no like dude why

Sam Parr

Do you need **fucking** 1,500 employees still? Like, you built that machine; it's badass. Do the other thing now.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Yeah, you'll appreciate it. I think that's an incredibly strong observation from the outside. I just know how... you know what? It's a version of golden handcuffs. Instead of selling your company, you have to be stuck, or you have a big salary. I just know I'm so close to it actually being a "Death Star" versus, like, yeah, it's a better badass machine than anybody else has got. I feel that, like, truly I do. I'm like, I got a better machine than the other 500 people I admire that I think have this down. But it's like... it's so close to being two times better and four times better. The way I scratched my itch was with Resi, the restaurant app, which I had a major exit with, and Empathy Wines, which I was creating. And now, VeeFriends... the VeeFriends thing is really messing with me because I'm like, you know, oh, by the way, Sid, you'll appreciate this. I had one executed four years ago, signed, and they pulled out late and kind of had a clause in there that allowed them to. I feel good about this publicly. I have Animal Crackers bought. I mentioned it slightly quickly when I was talking. I had it, and I had the master plan. It was a cookie brand. I was gonna make it healthier to be on trend, but what I was really gonna do was turn it into an animated film and build up, like, make the lion like "Larry the Lion." It was kind of VeeFriends. Now listen, ultimately, I think I'm gonna place a micro... I'm young enough at 45, have the leverage, have the infrastructure, that I think I'm gonna do a whole bunch of everything right. I think I can build a studio like Pixar with VeeFriends at the forefront and do other stuff. I think I can buy Champion when it gets cold again and refurbish it in 13 years because I like both of those things, and I'm gonna.

Shaan Puri

try to

Gary Vaynerchuk

get them both

Sam Parr

how much could you have bought animal crackers for

Gary Vaynerchuk

48 I think the deal was at at the time

Sam Parr

no shit

Gary Vaynerchuk

yeah

Sam Parr

what was the revenue

Gary Vaynerchuk

I hate making up shit I genuinely don't remember I remember the number pretty pretty nearly do you

Sam Parr

remember around the multiple

Gary Vaynerchuk

it was like nothing

Shaan Puri

it was like fucking nothing valuing the ip not the core business at that stage

Gary Vaynerchuk

They were just... it was dead. They were like, "We need..." They didn't care. We were going to use it as a proxy to teach them how to do it with their... it was set up.

Sam Parr

well you did it with nila wafers I mean

Gary Vaynerchuk

From a marketing standpoint, we crushed it there. You know, I really scratched my itch with K-Swiss. K-Swiss was **finished**, **dead**, **done**.

Sam Parr

what happened to them something happened recently

Gary Vaynerchuk

right the rebounding to a chinese apparel company

Shaan Puri

that's right

Gary Vaynerchuk

K-Swiss was at the forefront of that leverage. We *fucking exploded*. Not only did we sell a *fuckload* of Gary Vee sneakers, but the residual effect on the brand was very real. That was the closest I've come to testing my machine. The only difference was it was a fake test because I was so involved with it in the face. My plan is not to be that. As a matter of fact, the best part of VeeFriends for me is that Gary Vee has been the catalyst for all the things I'm passionate about, like work ethic and patience. I'm so pumped that over the next three years, I'll be able to go a little bit more into the backdrop and let these characters take over for me as I build that IP. So, I'm looking forward to that.

Shaan Puri

Well, that's what I was going to ask you. When I was watching this garage sale video, I was like, "This is great content, but man, he actually had to go to 20 garage sales." I'm sure there's some fun to it, but also you've graduated past that stage in your life, and...

Gary Vaynerchuk

That's the biggest thing that pisses me off about my bougie fucking friends. They're like, "Gary, what the fuck are you doing?" I'm like, "Fuck you! You go play golf and go on a yacht. I'm in a fucking garage sale. I'm not telling you what to do."

Shaan Puri

Like, you know, even besides that, I know I've done this podcast now for only, I don't know, 18 months, right? So we're new to the game, something like that. There are a lot of benefits to building up this personal brand. It's like, boom! I want to raise a fund, I raise a fund. I launch a course, I sell out. Yeah, you know, you can make a lot of money when you build a personal brand. You build trust with an audience by giving them, giving them, giving them... like, yep, like you say. And then you sort of have your ass covered later. The part I thought was interesting is, man, he's been on this, you know, quote-unquote treadmill of creating content. You know, you're in your car, you're in your Uber going somewhere, you got a phone to talk, you got a cameraman with you, and you gotta put out a sound bite for Instagram reels because that's the new hot thing or whatever. So, like, are you... I guess this is more of a personal question. Sam wanted to know how the hell did you manage the cash flow question. This is mine: as I see myself doing this content thing for a long time, but I don't want to work as hard as you in terms of creating that much content. Do you do it because it's fun? Do you feel like you're on a treadmill when you're creating this much content, this much Gary Vee?

Gary Vaynerchuk

The answer is, I only do what I like. As a matter of fact, I'm not hitting all my team and my quotas right now with my content these last two weeks because I can't stop being on Crypto Slam, OpenSea, and Discord. You'd be stunned how much I could shut it down or triple down. I understand the benefits of it and the leverage. I always did. I always thought the community and brand were very underestimated in the last ten years. I just feel like people are just getting around to, "Oh shit, this is like the actual game." But I really enjoy it. I really do. I also did it a little bit differently. I slowly did it by myself for seven years, but then I really built out an infrastructure of a team. Right? Like, I'm just living and everyone's recording, and then we're post-producing at scale.

Sam Parr

how many folks are on the team

Gary Vaynerchuk

right now I think there's 22

Sam Parr

and is are you the majority owner of vaynermedia or vaynerx

Gary Vaynerchuk

yes

Sam Parr

So then you're able to kind of... it's not like a VC thing where you're able to use the same resources across all your projects. You don't have to worry about pleasing everyone.

Gary Vaynerchuk

that's right

Sam Parr

or like your fiduciary I mean your fiduciary is to your to yourself and

Gary Vaynerchuk

...to your brother. But yeah, exactly. So, I'm in heavy control. It's a long-term play. I have no board, I'm not publicly traded, to your exact [point]. I can... it's very much just a very large family business.

Sam Parr

yeah you don't have to justify to anyone but you and your bro

Gary Vaynerchuk

And what's cool about that is I don't have to... my bro. Because I've been super real with him and more importantly, you know, I'm delivering. Like, you know this, right? What's super awesome is when you're putting the wins on the board, nobody even gives... nobody wants to touch it. But keep going, keep going. Nobody wants to talk to me, you know?

Sam Parr

Did you... do you pay yourself from the company, or do you just take all your side wins and reinvest most of what would be your salary or income from the brand back into the agency?

Gary Vaynerchuk

Originally, I paid myself very, very little. It was just so much of the percentage of my time. So I've started paying myself probably over the last 4 years, but I'm still like wildly under-compensated in comparison to what I would feel like the god of merit would come down and say. She or he would say, "Yeah, you are way underpaid," because it's kind of all cycling in the same game to your [benefit].

Sam Parr

Sure

Shaan Puri

And do you... Do you look back? Because I think you're excited about Web3. Yes, and you look back at Web2. I know you can quickly tell the story of missing Uber. You know, you're buddies with the guy. You miss Uber. That's a big one.

Gary Vaynerchuk

big one

Shaan Puri

What was... you tell that story, but also just in general, what did you learn from the Web 2 wave that you're like, "Okay, Web 3, I'm better prepared because I've been in a long game?"

Gary Vaynerchuk

I love you for that question because the only thing I've been thinking about for the last 9 months is, like, "Damn, this is the first time I felt like this since '06."

Shaan Puri

right

Gary Vaynerchuk

The thing I learned there was that I was going to meet a lot of people who were technically stronger than me. They would teach me new things and have incredibly fun, young, *fucking on fire* thinkers. Different shit... the world is rescheduling, recalibrating, and I knew that I understood the consumer and the human so well that I would figure out my path within it. I think, like, you know, the thing I learned with... I've told the Uber story ad nauseam. Travis is the only person I thank in *Crush It*, my first book, besides my family. We were incredibly close. What I learned there was that defense always loses. I bought my first apartment in Manhattan. I played so conservatively up until I was 35. I had no money, first of all, because I was building a family business. I just didn't have a lot of liquid cash. I had enough to make the Uber investment, but I passed twice. There were two things I learned from it. One, the full story is that when I was asked to invest in Uber, Garrett and Travis were just the inventors of it, and Ryan Graves was the CEO who was going to run it. I had just failed in putting up a wine social network called Quarked, and it was because it was a distraction to my core. So, I was affected by thinking that if this is their side hustle, it's not really them.

Shaan Puri

totally reasonable by the way totally reasonable like thought and you'll be right 9 out of 10 times

Gary Vaynerchuk

The second one hurts because Travis came back to me. There's this grassy knoll; I have no idea where it is in San Francisco, like a little park. I drove by it like 7 years ago and got the worst feelings of, "I have to go back here every year, once a year for humbleness." What I'll tell you is, I know we're going to be wrapping up, so let me give you the real. This is something I really hope helps a lot of people. I have completely gone the other way. Let me tell you what I mean by that: I am now completely infatuated with investing only based on the person. I would have to hate—that would be the word I use—and I don't like that word. I would have to hate the person's idea to not go. If I think that the jockey is a gangster, it's worked out for me. There's a company called Mick Mac where I just saw Rachel had one meeting with her, and I said, "She's one of us." Right? That's it; she's one of us. She's pivoted 4 times, but the company is a monster now and is well on its way. Between the Uber thing and the Rachel thing, it's kind of how I'm navigating Web 3 right now. I'm really trying to pay attention to: Is this person one of us? Because I think there's something about a human's ability to will their way to success, even if they have to completely change the business model halfway through.

Shaan Puri

I love it

Sam Parr

Well, we... you were supposed to bounce 3 minutes ago. We don't want to go over your time. I... it sounds like... it looks like you're in the Hamptons, and it sounds like someone's preparing dinner right now. Is that right? Listen, is that right?

Gary Vaynerchuk

you got you got you got good intuition oh you're in the kitchen

Sam Parr

you're in the kitchen do you have someone who is vacuuming and cooking dinner

Gary Vaynerchuk

Right now we're setting up infrastructure for the weekend, but listen... let me say this: it's super fun for me to see this show pop from afar. It's a very funny time in society where work ethic and the grind... I'm incredibly excited that we have a balanced conversation, but the energy of entrepreneurship is just such an important variable. So I appreciate what you guys are doing in this space.

Sam Parr

And I'm not gonna... I'll have to ask him if it's cool if I blow up his spot a little bit, but me and Gary had dinner with like 8 or 10 other people about 2 months ago. I went back to this guy's house about a month ago again for another dinner. We're gonna have to tell the story about this guy's house. It was like the craziest house I've ever been to, and...

Shaan Puri

we're gonna

Gary Vaynerchuk

"We have to stop. We're gonna have to tell the story one day." Listen, I'd love to come back if... whatever you guys feel is an appropriate time for recycling a guest, hit me up. I wish you nothing but good, and thank you for having me on.