Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20180107

Sponsored by American Express open helping you get business done. Hi, everyone, im j. J. Ramberg. Welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your growing business. Some have called equity crowd funding revolutionary for many startups and Midsize Companies looking to raise capital. And in 2015, a new set of s. E. C. Guidelines injected even more popularity into these investing model. The founders behind at pairle brand dstld were some of the First Business own others to take a chance and ride down this new avenue when they needed some cash. Now, with their journey in the rear view mirror, they recently gave me their take on the experience, and how they bravely navigated through the unexpected bumps in the road. It was a game changer. As part of the 2012 jobs act, suddenly companies were able to offer equity to the general public, not just accredited investors. And the l. A. Based fashion brand dstld jumped at the chance. Three hold on. Two yeah when we first met the dstld cofounders mark lynn and cory epstein they were venturing into uncharted territory. There were a lot of unknowns. Youre going to have challenges. Despite facing the occasional hurdle and a handful of hiccups, dstlds campaign was a success. It raised 1. 7 million from more than 1700 investors. Fuelling Significant Growth for the company. Before the campaign, they had reached a total of 3 million in revenue. They had a Customer Base of 21,000 people, and a staff of eight. A year after the offering, lifetime sales had tripled, the customer ways more than doubled, and the number of employees had grown to 14. You were one of the First Companies to do this. Was it more work than you thought . Less work than you thought . It was a lot of work. When people ask you is it an easier way to raise capital than any other traditional source, its definitely not easier. Its just different. They believe one of the reasons it worked for them is that they already had a passionate base of customers. So, they had a builtin audience to go to with the offering. It was really just a matter of engaging our Customer Base. That was really where the majority of the financing came from. Very loyal customers that used our traditional marketing channels to let them know what were doing. And give them the opportunity to invest. If youre not public facing, it probably doesnt make as much sense to do Online Public offering. Second, they understand consumer marketing. Theyd already figured out a way to let people know about their fashion line. Now, they had to use those same skills to explain equity crowd funding. Must have taken a lot of education. People heard crowd funding and they think kickstarter, im going to give them money and theyre going to give me a tshirt. We had to craft the story with the right level of sophistication in order to inform and educate about something thats never been done before. Consumers have band width for a certain amount of messaging from companies. So you had to decide, do i send them an email about these brand new pants, or do i send them an email about our equity crowd Funding Campaign . Yeah, i think we were definitely sensitive to not bombarding customers with these messages and segmenting the way people who were only interested in product, and had, you know, either never clicked through anything that talks about investment, or let us know explicitly that they werent interested in those messages. But of course ultimately selling shares in your company is very different than selling a tshirt. And cory and mark knew they had to hire key people with relevant experience so they didnt stretch their existing team too thin. You need a strong finance and Accounting Team throughout the year. And leading up to the raise. And you need kind of a Communications Pr Marketing manager. And i say thats kind of the baseline to do a raise like this. Not to mention, they needed to ensure they had enough money to dedicate to raising money. Youre looking at like 200,000 as like the minimum to launch. While the campaign was successful in the end, it was not without its issues along the way. There was a Payment Processing system error, and some investors accidentally got charged twice. It wasnt dstlds fault, but it is certainly not the kind of thing you want associated with a brandnew Campaign Like this. We had some technical glitches, which, to undo those glitches, were very complicated partner platform, and they had to basically refund investors. Oh, that feels like a knife in your heart, right . This is it. This is like launching a product and have something go wrong and that could be the death of it. We had to then go back hat in hand and say, now would you would you like to wire us would you still like to invest via this platform . Both founders describe being a pioneer in this kind of fundraising as exciting. But at times nerveracking. If you were to start a new company tomorrow, which would you do . Im a huge fan of this model. For me its a no brainer. I would definitely go this route. We believe that this capital is probably more patient, and more willing to be aligned with the goals and values of both us as founders, and our incredible team. Now that you have 1700 new people who are owners in this company, have you mobilized them to be 1700 marketers for you . Yeah, i think thats exactly how we think about it. Is that were building this army of ambassadors that have a real stake in the future of the brand. We had a one investor write in, he said, this brand is like a man smoking athe a gas station. Its about to blow up. So its no surprise that as cory and mark looked forward at the capital they need to continue to grow their company, they decided going back to the crowd for round two is the only way to go. After Justin Baldoni was catapulted from obscurity to stardom when he landed a part on the hit jane the environmenten but recently its his role as entrepreneur at wayfarer entertainment that has everyone buzzing. From content veriation to negotiating business deals, justin and his team have taken a do it differently approach, despite endless pushback early on justin learned how to push through all the rejection, he never wavered on his core belief and now wayfarer has become a force to be reckoned with in the industry. Hes on the hit show jane the virgin, his social media following adores his every move. Hes got a storybook personal life. And since 2013, hes been at the helm of wayfarer. A thriving multimedia company. But six years ago, actor Justin Baldoni was living anything but a fairy tale life. My house went into foreclosure. I just wasnt fulfilled. I wasnt getting jobs. So at the age of 27, justin quit acting, and took a leap of faith. Embarking on a life changing journey. He hit the road for a year, stepping behind the camera to create a documentary series called my last days. He hoped that by sharing the courageous stories of the terminally ill, he could inspire people to live life fully. I want everyone to know, you dont have to find out youre dying to start living. Everybody thought it was crazy. Like whos going to ever watch a show about people who are dying. And we told these stories for nothing. For no money. Justin convinced actor rainn wilson and his team at soul pancake to partner on the project. They were like, we love this. We dont think people will watch it but we want to make it but the millions of views proved everybody wrong. It ended up becoming one of the most watched documentary series online ever. I believed that we were vastly underestimating our audience and that really everybody is hungry for meaningful content. So after my last days went crazy viral, we decided to start wayfarer. Through his storytelling journey, justin discovered his entrepreneurial calling. To build a goto company for brands and networks who craved commercially viable, highly entertaining content, that offered a soul stirring experience at the same time. We wanted to create content that was elevating the human experience. We knew we had something. We knew we were able to tell stories in a way that other people werent. And we believed that what we brought was kind of our unique Value Proposition to the industry. Its something he and his team like to call choccoli. We call it chocolate covered broccoli. Its a medicine in the dog food. Its a spoonful of sugar. We want to give you really cool, interesting stuff. We also want to create something thats inherently good for you and good for your soul. But getting big name clients to feel confident in wayfarers mission proved to be a big challenge early on. We went and knocked on every door. People were just like, oh, yeah, you guys are good people. Were never going to buy anything that theyre selling. You get told no 1,000 times you want to pack up and go. But when youre doing it for the right reasons, you dont. And then, this beautiful blessing happened. He was offered an audition for the part of rafael on jane the virgin. I went in. I hadnt acted in a few years and a month later i was shooting the pilot. Three months later we were at the golden globes. He knew the opportunity could give his startup some much needed credibility. Soon brands like wells fargo, ford and subaru were knocking on wayfarers door. Over the past few years, justin and his growing stream turned wayfarer into a profitable success story. With a 400 year over year revenue increase. But balancing a booming business, a thriving career in front of the camera, and a treasured family life, has proven to be a challenge. A lessen justin wished he learned years ago make yourself dispensable. How can i empower my team to be able to do what i do better . And then whats cool is you can see their strengths grow and their qualities grow and they flourish. Its about saying like, well, let me teach you how to fish so you can feed yourself so we can actually scale and grow. His unique take on negotiating contracts is something that wayfarers clients have come to value greatly. We talk about well how can our first offer be what it would be if we were to negotiate for three weeks . Because time is everything. Time is our most valuable asset, right . So why are we spending so much time negotiating like a point here or a credit here . Like lets stop doing that crap. My biggest mistakes were when i let my ego get in the way. Justin recently checked his ego at the door when he made the decision to step down as the daytoday leader of the company. I know there are better people for that. Allowing myself to support the company in the way that it needs so it can fly without having to make every decision. Wayfarers current project in the spotlight is a dinner conversation series called man enough. Justin hopes it will help redefine traditional masculinity we start to tackle all these cool things like marriage, and infidelity, and porn, and fatherhood, and the gender pay gap. Nobody would give us money to do it. So, i said lets do it ourselves. Basically leveraged and risked the entire company, took all of our success cash and we funded the show ourselves. The timing couldnt have been more perfect for this concept. Soon, wayfarer was able to turn the tables on the industry. At the exact same time we funded the show, made the show, weinstein happened. So here we are with the only show talking about the pitfalls of traditional masculinity. The Mens Grooming brand harry signed on to foster man enough right before the show launched. Sometimes when people say no, thats just an opportunity. Theres a quote about being dry in the ocean, and cool in the fire. And thats so much about kind of what its like to be an entrepreneur. It at work, something happens to all of us that makes us feel stressed. And we may think, hey, a little stress is okay. We put in long hours, were dealing with new challenges, tight deadlines, and stress comes with that, right . Well, our next guest says that over time, those stresses will take a toll on you physically and emotionally, and that is not good for you personally, or for work. So what you can do to counter those negative effects . Dr. Deepak chopra is the cofounder of the Chopra Center for wellbeing. Hes the founder of the chopra foundation. And a pioneer in the Integrative Medicine and personal transformation. Hes authored more than 85 books. The latest one is called the healing self a revolutionary new plan to supercharge your immune system and stay well for life. It is such an honor to get to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us today. Theres so much to talk about in this book about how we can heal ourselves. But i want to focus on stress right now, because i think that is what keeps so much of us back at work, and you say that were so used to this low level stress we dont even recognize its happening, because were learned to adapt to it. Only 5 of disease related mean mutations are guaranteed the disease. 95 of our genetic activity that leads to disease is influenced by stress. And of that stress is the most important. But good sleep, movement, exercise, breathing, stress management, good nutrition, and being in touch with nature will guarantee, in a way, that youll have less inflammation, which is the predominant factor in 90 or more. Lets take the person who, they have a lot going on at work. Right . There are so many things coming at them, and they say to you, of course im going to be stressed. This stress powers me. This is what gets me going. Right . Its just its a part of going through this part of my job. What do you say to this . You are misusing your imagination. Instead of using your imagination for stress, use it for creativity. Take a few breaks. Even if you take a one minute breathing break, where you count your breath, in breath four seconds, out breath six seconds or to the count of five and you do it for one minute, you feel less stressed. If you stop and become a spectator of your thoughts you have less stress. If you feel the sensations, youll have less stress. If you think of someone you love, youll have less stress. If you do anything that stops what is happening, and stop being a bundle of conditioned reflex and nerves, constantly being triggered by people and circumstance, youll have less stress. So i use something called the s. T. O. P. Formula. It stands for stop, three, take three deep breaths and smile, it changes how you feel can you stop on that for one second. The act of smiling, which you can do, easily, right . Now you werent smiling, now youre smiling, actually physically changes how you feel . Right. Because when you are happy you smile. But when you smile your brain gets the feedback that you must be happy. So its a feedback loop. So smile. So smile. Observe either the sensation in your body, or your thoughts, and then proceed with awareness, compassion, instead of reacting, observe your reaction to react. Thats it. Its the highest intelligence is to observe yourself without judging yourself. And then the rest will happen spontaneously. You dont have to think positive thoughts, this idea that just stop, observe yourself, and dont judge yourself. And even ask, this deal didnt happen today, or whenever, how is it going to change my life . If you reflect on that a little bit, youll see, most of the time youll waste your time worrying about things that you have no control over ultimately. Thank you so much. It was wonderful to talk to you. The book is really wonderful. And i urge everyone to read it. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for having me. I talk much more with dr. Chopra on an upcoming episode of our podcast. I was very inspired by our conversation, as i was by his daughter whom i met while working on a story about meditati meditation. I originally got interested in meditation because so many successful Business People i knew had started a meditation practice and they swore by the benefits, both for life and for work. So i met up with a woman who started an entire company around meditation to learn more. Its 9 30 on a friday morning in los angeles, and people are streaming in to the morning session at unplugged meditation. Who comes to these classes . Anyone from a heart surgeon, to the head of a Small Business that makes doughnuts. This guy mark who runs, is doing twelve super bowl commercials. Suze Yalof Schwartz is the owner of unplugged. She started the company in 2014 after her motherinlaw suggested that she should start meditating herself. I was flying back and forth between new york and los angeles, and i was very stressed. And she said to me, you should try this little exercise. In three minutes i shifted from stress to calm, and i thought, why is everybody not doing this . Suze conjured up the idea for unplugged when she couldnt find a place to meditate that felt right. A studio geared toward someone like her. High energy, busy, and efficient. Oftentimes when people hear mindfulness, med tags, it turns them off. Right. Thats sort of some hippy dipty stuff, thats not me, ive got too much stuff to do. Right. But you dont have to put these labels on it. What youre talking about is simply calming down. Right. I think heres the deal. We are plugged in all the time. We we have a lot of things coming on us. Were stressed. What you need to do is shift in that moment of stress. And thats meditation or whatever you want to label it. In her previous life, chefs a new york fashion editor working for magazines like vogue and marie claire and doing tv appearances all the time. Her life was hectic. But lets face it. Starting a business, even if its one that focuses on meditation, is certainly no easier and no less stressful than being a fashion editor. Suze credits meditation with helping her get through all the tough times of launching a company. Well, my husband always says thank god you have a Meditation Studio in here because you would be a disaster without it. This is one of the teachers. Shes been hired to work with teams like merrill lynch, chipotle, Deutsche Bank and bloomingdales. In business, there are too many distractions. With distractions come negative thinking. It allows us to refocus. Science has shown us that meditation retrains your brain. It retrains your ability to focus, to shift out of negativity, to reduce stress in the body and we know from that, that we have increased productivity. Meditating is not easy for everyone. I tried out one of natalies classes. I think thats hard. Yeah. I definitely feel calmer. I have to admit, i find your class really hard. I suspect for somebody new like me, its good to start in small chunks. Absolutely. We start with a fiveminute practice. We teach maybe no more than ten minutes with companies. Nancy truman has experienced all of this. Shes the founder of a Los Angelesbased bakery. She says meditation helped her with everything from dealing with small issues throughout the day to coming up with Bigger Picture strategic plans for her company. I become very myopic when not meditating or i get really stuck on one thing. I call it going down the slippery slope or down the rabbit hole. Everything else gets blocked out. Im right here. But when i meditate, it helps me to open it up, i see everything and im able to strategize, take all the elements in and then proceed. But like with so many other things that we know are good for us, like exercise and eating well, Getting Started and staying on track with meditation can be hard. There are a lot of options, from classes at studios like unplugged to apps like head space and calm. The key is just giving it a shot. There are a lot of very busy people, oprah, ariana huffington, deepak chopra, the president of american airlines. Theyre all making the time to do it. The reason why, it changes your life. When we come back, why you should be thinking about automating your market and sales, and do you suffer from analysis paralysis. Do not panic. What paths to take when you are frozen with indecision. Thank you so much. Thank you so were a go . Yes we got a yes what does that mean for purchasing . Purchase. Lets do this. Got it. Book the flights hai si si ya ya ya what does that mean for us . We can get stuff. Whats it mean for shipping . Ship the goods. Youre a go you got the green light. That means go oh, yeah. Start saying yes to your companys best ideas. Were gonna hit our launch date scream thank you goodbye let us help with money and knowhow, so you can get business done. American express open. As entrepreneurs, were paralyzed to make decisions, so what was the time you were paralyzed to make a decision and what do you do to find the solution . Daniel, thats an incredible question. Were always, as entrepreneurs, paralyzed to make decisions. What the toughest ones for me are hiring and firing decisions. That may be someone youre uncertain whether to hire or someone who has outgrown their role even they fit at one point. When im paralyzed, the very first thing daye is get out a pen and pad and mark down every single pro and con i can think of. As entrepreneurs and people in general, were lucky theres so many options available to us. Most often, we dont think of them. What ill tend to do is right down every option how i can hire or in certain cases fire this person and whats the best way of going about it. We now have the top tips you need to know to help grow your business. Lets introduce our panel. Ben parr is the founder of octane ai, a platform to help stores with messenger marketing. Jonathan lipton started a number of companies or help start them, now is the cofounder or ceo of a private digital platform for investors and philanthropists. Good to see you. Ben, you are responsible for those messages coming to me when i have abandoned my cart. Encouraging me to buy things at ecommerce stores. Nice job. Youre very welcome. Youve gotten me to buy a lot of stuff or people i know to buy a lot of stuff. Whats a tip you have for a growing company. Automate your marketing and sales. One. Most important sales about growing a business is scaling. We talk about it all the time. But you, the entrepreneur, the human, is not a scaleable thing. You have to find ways in which to scale. Theres a lot of tools and a lot of products to help. Let me give an example. If youre trying to sell to more, you need to score and figure out who those leads are and you need to categorize them. Most entrepreneurs do that manually. Theres tools like hub spot or sales force that help to automate the process. If you can hack it up a little bit, you can scale your business a lot more or another example, if people are abandoning carts or email, you can automate the email and messages using different tools. Tools like fire base and tools like zappier can be your best friend when you figure out ways to automate and collect data. You can do all sorts of things that one human could not do before. Also, the beauty of automating is it frees up your time to do other things like test. Now you have everything automated, lets say you have an abandoned cart, you can test different messages on other people because youre not spending time finding those people. Exactly. Great idea. Its interesting. Its very complementary to what ben said. Get out and listen. We have in a Digital World where everything is automated. Thats great and thats the way of the future. As entrepreneurs, we have to be on a listening tour. Take one meeting with everyone. Anyone who comes up. Great ideas come from the most unusual and random places. How forthright are you about your ideas . Youve helped start a number of companies in the Financial Services world. You have your own now. It was a big idea. You tell people about it when youre having these conversations . You know, i do. It helps you to hone your message. Two, it helps to iterate your product when you get feedback thats honest. You have to get out in front of people. Youll be really surprised how people are forthcoming on their ideas and, again, ideas come from everywhere. Be very diligent with your time, dont overpromise. But also meet people that dont necessarily obviously advance your cause. Meet them because you want to meet them, you want their opinions and pay it forward a bit. Got it. Great. Thank you both so much. This weeks your biz selfyes comes from dave lambert who owns iq optical in richmond, virginia. His father practiced optometry for 50 years. He partners with a nonprofit that focuses on lower Income Patients who cant afford glasses. Why dont you pick up your smartphone, take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us or tweet it to biz msnbc. Include your name, the name of your business and the your biz selfie. Thank you for joining us today. Wed love to hear from you. If you have questions or comments, just want to say hi, email us at your business at msnbc. Com. You can go to open forum. Com your business. We posted all of the segments from todays show plus a lot more for you. We have even more for you on all of your digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, im jj ramberg. Remember, we make your business, our business. So thats the idea. What do you think . Hate to play devils advocate but. I kind of feel like its a game changer. I wouldnt go that far. Are you there . Hes probably on mute. Yeah. Gary wont like it. Why . Because hes gary. phone ringing what . Keep going yeah. laughs voice on phone its not millennial enough. There are a lot of ways to say no. Thank you so much. Thank you so were doing it. Yes we got a yes start saying yes to your companys best ideas. Let us help with money and knowhow, so you can get business done. American express open. Good morning and welcome to politics nation. Some burning questions i have today what are the democrats doing on the ground to ensure 2018 midterms election win . In a moment, ill ask dnc chair tom perez just that. Former h. U. D. Secretary and san antonio mayor julian castro, is he running for president . Hell be here to give us