Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20180113

Hi, everyone. Im jj 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. In 2015, a new set of s. E. C. Guidelines injected even more popularity into this investing model. The founders behind the apparel brand dstld were some of the First Business owners to take a stand and ride down this avenue when they needed some cash. Now with their journey in the rearview 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, two yeah woo when we first met the dstld cofounders, they were venturing into unchartered territory. There were a lot of unknowns. Youre going to have challenges. Despite facing the occasion gn al hurdle and a handful of hiccups, the campaign was a success. It raised 1. 7 million from more than 1700 investors, fueling 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 Base 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 . 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 we 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 offerings. 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. It must have taken a lot of education though. People heard crowd funding and thing kick starter. Im going to give them money and they 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 in the u. S. Consumers have bandwidth for a certain amount of messaging from companies. You have to decide, do i send them an email about these brand new pants or about our equity crowd founding campaign. I think were definitely sensitive to not bombarding customers with these messages and quickly segmenting away people who were only interested in product and had either never clicked through anything that talks about investment or let us know explicitly they were interested in those messages. Of course, ultimately selling shares in your company is very different than selling a tshirt. 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. You need a communications pr, marketing manager. Id say that 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 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 accidently got charged twice. It wasnt dstlds fault, but its certainly not the kind of thing you want associated with a Brand New Campaign like this. We had some technical glitches, km to which to undo t glitches were very complicated. Our partner platform, they had to basically refund investors. 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 still like to invest via this platform. Both founders describe being a pioneer in this kind of fundraising as exciting but at times nerve racking. 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 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. Were building this army of ambassadors that have a real stake in the future of the brand. We had one investor write in. He said, this brand is like a man smoking at a gas station. Its about to blow up. So we liked that. 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. Actor Justin Baldoni was catapulted from obscurity to stardom when he landed a role on the smash hit jane the virgin, but recently its his role at wayfairer entertainment that has everyone businessing. From creating content to negotiating deals, theyve always taken a do it different approach. Despite endless pushback early on, justin pushed through rejection, never wavered on his core beliefs, and now wayfairer has become a force to be reckened with in the industry. Hes on the cws hit show jane the virgin. His social media following adores his every move. Hes got a storybook personal life. And since 20 13, hes been at the helm of wayfarer, a thriving multimedia company. Six years ago, actor Justin Baldoni was living anything but a fairy tale life. My house went into foreclosure. I just wasnt fill filled. I wasnt getting jobs. So at the age of 27, justin quit acting and took a leap of faith, embarking on a lifechanging 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 the team at his digital platform soulpancake 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 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 soulstirring experience at the same time. We wanted to create con tent that was helping celebrate and elevate the human experience, that disruptive inspiration. We knew we had something. We knew that 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 the medicine in the dog food. Its a spoon full of sugar. We want to be in the entertainment business. We want to be giving you exciting stuff, but we also want to crete something thats inherently good for you and good for your soul. But getting bigname clients to feel confident 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 a thousand times. You want to pack up and go. But when youre doing it for the right reasons, you dont. And then this beautiful blessing happen happened. He was offered an audition for the part of rafael on jane the virgin. I hadnt acted in a few years. A month later, i was shooting the pilot. Three months later, we were at the golden globes. He also knew the opportunity could give his startup a muchneeded opportunity. Soon, brands like wells fargo and subaru were knock on wayfarers door. Over the past few years, justin and his growing team have turned wayfarer into a profitable Success Story with a 400 yearoveryear 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 lesson justin wished he had learned years ago, make yourself dispensable. Being dispensable, i think, is crucial. How can i i empower my team to be able to do what i do better . Then whats cool is you can see their strengths grow and their qualities grow. They flourish. Its not about not being involved. Its about saying, 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 kind of support the company in the way that it needs so it can fly without having to make every decision. Wayfarers current decision 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 excess 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. Here we are now with the only show talking about the pitfalls of traditional masculinity. The Mens Grooming brand harrys signed on to support the show right before launch. Sometimes when people say no, thats just an opportunity. Theres a quote about being dry in the ocean and cool in fire. And thats so much about kind of what its like to be an entrepreneur. Its invigorating. 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. Well, our next guest says that over time, those stress sors wi take a toll on you physically and emotionally and thats not good for you personally or for work. So what can you do to counter those negative effects . Dr. Deepak chopra is the founder of the Chopra Center for well being and a pioneer in the Integrative Medicine and personal transformation. Hes authored more than 85 books, the latest one called healing self, a revolutionary new plan to supper charge your immune system and stay well for life. It is such an honor to talk to you. Thank you for joining us today. Theres so much to talk about in this book about how we can heal ourselves, per the title, but i want to focus on stress right now because i think that is what keeps so much of us back at work. You say that were so used to this lowlevel stress, we dont even recognize its happening. Weve learned to adapt to it. Only 5 of diseaserelated gene mutations are fully pen trant, which means theyre guaranteed the disease. 95 of our genetic activity that leads to disease is influenced by lifestyle. Of that, stress is the most important. 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 of illness. Okay. So lets take the person who they have a lot going on at work. Theres so many things coming at them. They say to you, of course im going to be stressed. This stress powers me. This is what gets me going. Its just a part of going through this part of my job. What do you say to them . 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 oneminute 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, youll feel less stress. If you stop and become a spectator of your thoughts, youll have less stress. If you feel the sensations in your body, 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 reflexes and nerves, constantly being triggered by people and circumstance, youll have less stress. So i use something called the stop formula. S stands for stop. T, take three deep breaths and smile. Can you stop on that for one second. The act of smiling, which you can do easily, right, actually physically changes how you feel. Right. Because when you you are happy, you smile. But when you smile, the brain gets the feedback that you must be happy. So its a feedback loop. So smile. Observe either the sensations 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, to observe yourself without judging yourself. Then the rest will happen spontaneously. You dont have to think positive thoughts, this, that, and the other. Stop, observe yourself, and dont judge yourself. Even ask yourself, if 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 youre wasting your time worrying about things that you have no control over ult maimat. Thank you so much. It was wonderful to talk to you. The book is really wonderful. I urge everyone to read it. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for having me today. I talk much more with dr. Chopra on an upcoming episode of our podcast been there, built that. I was very inspired by our conversation, as i was by his daughter, whom i met while working on a story about 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 into the morning session at unplug meditation. Who comes to these classes . Anyone from a heart surgeon to the head of fonuts, many guy mark whos doing 12 super bowl commercials. Sue see olive schwartz is the owner of unplugged. He 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. 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 . Susie 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, meditation, it turns them off. Right. Thats some hippie dippy stuff. Thats not me. Ive got too much to do. 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. At 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 she worked for vogue and marie claire and doing tv appearances all the time. Her life was hectic. Lets face it, starting a business, even one focused on meditation, is certainly no easier and no less stressful than being a fashion editor. She helps meditation with helping her get through the tough times of launching a company. My husband said thank god you have a Meditation Studio in here. You would be a disaster without it. Natalie bell is one of the teachers. Shes been hired to work with teams at big corporations like deutsche bank, bloomingdales, chipotle. Meditation allows us to refocus. Meditation retrains your brain, our ability to focus, to shift out of negativity, to reduce stress in the body, and we know from that that we have increased productivity. But meditating is not easy for everyone. I tried out one of natalies classes. 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. So we start with a fiveminute practice. We teach maybe no more than 10 minutes with companies. Nancy has experienced all of this. She is the found of faux nuts. A los angeles bakery. She said it helped with dealing from issues throughout the day and bigger pictures, strategic plans. I have been very myopic when im not meditating. Or i get stuck on one thing. I call it going down the slippery slope or going down the rabbit hole. Im just right here. 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 unplug to head space and calm apps. The key is just gives it a shot. A lot of busy people like oprah, ariana huffing ton, deepak chopra, the president of american airlines. Theyre all making the time to do it. The reason why is it changes your life. When we come back, why you should be thinking about automating your marketing and sales. And do you suffer from analysis paralysis . Do not panic. What path to take when you are froze especially 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 we help all types of businesses with money, tools and knowhow to get business done. American express open. Paralyzed to make decisions. So what was a time you were paralyzed to make a decision and what did you do to find the solution . Daniel, thats an incredible question. Were always, as entrepreneurs, paralyzed to make decisions. The toughest for me are hiring and firing decisions. That might be something that you are uncertain whether to hire or somebody who might have outgrown their role even though at one point they fit. When im paralyzed, the first thing i do is get out a pen and pad and mark down every single pro and con you can think of. Also, as entrepreneurs and as people in general, were so lucky there are so many options available to us. Most off we dont think of them. I tend to write down every option of how i can hire, or in some cases, fire this person and whats the best way of going about it. We now have the top tips you need to help grow your business. Lets introduce our panel and get their advice. Octane ai, a platform that helps stores increase ecommerce profits with messenger marketing. And Jonathan Lipton has started a number of companies, or helped start them, and is now the cofounder of a private digital platform for investors and philanthropists. Ben, you are responsible for the messages come to me when i abandon my cart encouraging me to buy things at ecommerce stores. Nice job. Youre very welcome. You have gotten me to buy a lot of stuff. Good job. Tell us a tip you have for a growing company. So my tip is on automate your marketing and sales. One of the most important things about growing a business is scaling. We talk about it all the time. 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 that help. Let me give an example. If youre trying to sell to more, you need to score and figure out who the leads are. You need to categorize them. Most entrepreneurs do that manually. There are tools like hub spot or sales force that help to automate that process. If you can hack it up just a little bit, you can scale your business a lot more. Another example, if people are manning your carts or email, you can automate the emails, the messages using different tools. Tools like firebase and xapier can be your best friend if you figure out ways to collect data. You can do all sorts of things that one human couldnt do before. The beauty is it frees up your time to do other things like test, right . So now you have all of these things automated. You have an abandoned cart, you can test different messages on other people because youre not spending time finding those people. Exactly. Great. Jonathan . Its very complimentary to what ben just said, which is get out and listen. Start interacting with people. And we live in a very Digital World where everything is automated. Thats great. Thats the way of the future. At the end of the day, entrepreneurs are listening. Take one meeting with everyone. With anyone who comes up. Because great ideas come from the most unusual random plates. How forth right are you about your ideas . You have helped start a number of companies in the Financial Services world. It was a big idea. Do you tell people about these ideas . I do. It helps hone your message. When people give feedback thats honest. You have to out from the emails and social media to really get in front of people. You will be surprised how forth coming they are. Ideas come from everywhere. Be very diligent with your time. Dont overpromise. Meet people that dont necessarily obviously advance your cause. Meet them because you want to meet them, you want your opinions, and pay it forward a bit. Got it. Great. Thank you both so much. This weeks yourbizselfie comes from David Lambert who owns eye que optical in richmond, virginia. His father practiced optometry for 50 years. He partners with a nonprofit for lower income patients. Take a selfie of you in your business and send it to us at yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Or tweet it . Thank you so much for joining us today. We would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or comments, just want to say hi, email us at yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Please go to our website, openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted all the segments from todays show plus a lot more. And we have even more for you on all of our digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, im j. J. Ramberg. Remember, we make your business our business. So thats the idea. What do you think . I dont like it. Oh. Nuh uh. Yeah. Ahhhhh. Mmmm. Oh. Yeah. Ah. Agh. Ddd. No. Hmmm. Uh. Huh. Yeah. Uh. Huh. In business, there are a lot of ways to say no. Thank you so much. Thank you. So were doing it. Yes. Start saying yes to your companys best ideas. We help all types of businesses with money, tools and knowhow to get business done. American express open. Morning glory, america. Im hugh hewitt. This saturday morning im diving into the russia investigation. Thats right. Plural. There are two of them. Russia one is run by special Counsel Robert Mueller and russia two which needs and deserves a Second Special counsel which mostly concerns the conduct of a few members of the senior level of the fbi and the department of justice during campaign 2016 and which triggered a demand for special second counsel by senators graham and grassley last week. Ill be joined by andre