Marketing for the now marketing for the now marketing for the now 10 minutes, 12 remarkable guests for two hours, answering a singular important question: are you ready gary? What do you think welcome everybody to marketing for the now gary you had some pretty big news dropped this week. I did lots of stuff going on in nft. Land uh seems like big news for many projects, all the time, so uh fun, stuff, christy wow. Thank you, but um i'm fired up about today.

Excellent! Well, we've got one question for today: you can see it right there. How do you create a sustain and entrepreneurial culture and we're lucky to have first up the queen of clubhouse swan sit. Swan has had an incredible career with senior transformation roles with brands like nike revlon, estee, lauder and she's. Now advising her three and a half million followers on clubhouse in consulting companies and leaders of tomorrow welcome swan, hey guys, thanks for having me swan um.

Let's just go right into the question uh, because this go so fast, they're only 10 minutes. You know you know: you've had the luxury of being in big organizations right. You've had the luxury, especially in your last year, and a half of what you've been able to build for your personal brand with through the explosion of clubhouse and the evolution of that, which brings you much closer closer to the entrepreneurial spirit. We together me as an executive at vaynermedia, and you always had a great relationship in the different companies you were in.

We never got to go all the way there and work together, but you've been around entrepreneurs and around corporations more than most, which is why i thought you were a tremendous person to start this show with so in its lamest terms or in its most complex undertone. How do how do leaders create and sustain an entrepreneurial culture? I have this barbell approach because, as you know, i worked at companies like nike and estee lauder, but i co-founded an energy drink called annie with some tick-tockers, so i've got this barbell approach and even being in corporate digital transformation is all entrepreneurship. So one of the first things i always think about is in entrepreneurship. People always say fail fast and fail cheap.

But if you fail in corporate you get fired right. So as a leader, your job is to take a hit for your team. If you want your people to fail, you can't punish them when they take those calculated risks. So it doesn't matter if you were there or if you even knew about it, when your team gets a hit, you take it for them.

You take responsibility publicly. You coach privately because leadership's not a reward. It's a responsibility right, so i think that's the first step, if you really want people to innovate and push you've got to make it safe for them to do so. I think that's right talk to me about your gut feeling on how many leaders in corporate environments are great at taking the bullet for their team and then having a meeting and kind of going into like okay.

I took that bullet for you, but like we, this up, like you know, is it you know this. Is this one woman's subjective call, but are we you know i'm gon na actually think of my number two but like out of every ten executives in these big companies? You know how many people, really you think, go there, one or two yeah and that's terrible right, but to be fair, the corporate ladder is not designed to reward that right and i'm apathetic for taking the bullet right. It's like you have a mortgage. You have a family, you take that book bullet.

It might be the day where your boss decides you're gone, and so it's not conducive to that exactly so it has to go all the way to the top. If the ceo says we want innovation, it has to ladder all the way down, but you can't blame people for playing the game that they're a part of right and it's structured to not reward that yeah. It's funny. I genuinely would argue that the 100 thing i focus on at vaynerx is to eliminate fear, because then it creates the environment.

To give what we're talking about a prayer talk to me about the flip side, you were a young hot start executive. Coming up the ranks. You know it's probably likely that there's more people listening and watching that are in the structure of having a boss or manager. What are some clever thoughts, some emotional intelligence strategies, some nuances, that one can do in empowering their boss to do that, for them like what? If you're the junior person, what can you do to maybe make a little impact on that? If it's not coming from above you, if anything, when you have a cool idea, you have to do the work of analyzing all facets of it.

The idea might be cool, but have you thought of the downsides? So sometimes i find the bright eye. Bushy tail comes in with a great idea and hasn't thought through not only the execution and the budget and the process needed, but the potential downsides. So i found when i've done this for team members have come to me and laid out the plan. Not only is this a great idea, but here's all the pan plan b plan c that will happen.

Here's the worst downside that we could do, but here's the big upside it's a calculated risk at that point and far less scary. So that's huge in managing up right and so then, not only if you have an impact within a company. If you can also show financial results but also show how you develop leadership in the industry, how you become a case study how you do things differently? That's another halo around that. So you got to sell it in just like any other idea and then and then outside of, because you went right to the source, the elimination of fear.

I think it's i mean i'm i'll, be honest with the injury. I'm sorry i want to like shut down the rest of the episode. I actually think swan nailed it, but but that's heady stuff, that's that's you know. That's the actual answer, comma.

Give me some more micro answers. What what else have you seen? Um observed firsthand or through um observation of others. That also lends itself to entrepreneurial cultures and and actually ask you something else in our four minutes. Let me pick that.

Why do you think an entrepreneurial culture matters it lets people do their best work too often in corporate, when we have too strong of a culture or two to define a processes. People fall in and you lose the edges where innovation and drive come from right. People come in, they check in they phone it in and they go home, but the entrepreneurial culture, and it doesn't mean every single last person has to have that. But if you have say 30 of your company with that mindset, you start pushing the edges and with the landscape changing every day.

I don't care if you're, not even e-commerce, but this last year has taught us that digital is the future, whether it's external consumer internal to the company and if you don't have at least 30 percent of your people with an entrepreneurial mindset. You just do the same thing over and over. So that's why it's important and the thing about entrepreneurship that i've seen now that i'm in a baby startup is people are more individual in a smaller company than they are in big ones, and you have to foster that so one of the things i've done and I've seen other people since do since i started giving this advice a few years ago. Is i manage people individually based on their personalities and strengths, for all my direct reports? It is a lot more work right.

Of course, we have leadership. Styles, you have one. I have one and that's a blanket one, but when it comes to direct reports i use myers-briggs. Now we can debate which framework works or it doesn't.

It doesn't matter, use a framework, but you manage the person the way they do their best work and you get the best out of them. You get their loyalty, you get. That is it's remarkably historically correct right. If you look at business for sports, it has been very obvious that any head coach or any ceo she or he has always always been more productive and consistently productive.

When they're reverse engineering, the human yeah, i and i think for me, you know people that have that much empathy that are capable of that. What you have to watch out for is a lack of candor. That was my my evolution going into this next chapter of my career is so, i feel so strong, because i've been building up my kind candor capability. I think, when you're that empathetic that you're actually willing to reverse engineer the person you can at times struggle with candor it's a it's a it's a common trait, because you're leading with optimism and positivity and what's really fascinating about lack of candor.

Is it actually leads back to fear because people don't know where they sit and that's where we started this final thoughts, you got 60 seconds. What else should people think about with entrepreneurial uh cultures, whether it's an entrepreneurial venture or a corporate venture? If you're able to do this understanding that humans have different motivations and incentives is really important, so i can't change a corporate incentive bonus structure, but i was able to do his car about 10 and i let the employee choose how they want to receive that. Last 10, which was under my control right 50 corporate - maybe 30, 40 team. 10.

What you want! Do you want more money? Do you want more vacation days? Do you want a mentoring relationship? Do you want time for a side project that little 10 of choice lets that person stand up and say you see me? I get rewarded in the way i want, and if that works god, if you could roll out across a company, how would people be seen and actually work to their potential, because it's what they're interested in swan? Thank you so much keep crushing. Thank you good to see you. Next up, we've got lauren milan, an award-winning marketer entrepreneur, investor advisor and board member over her 15-year career lauren has advised and invested in over 40 startups that have generated over a billion dollars in revenue. Today, lauren is now the ceo of digital, undivided, a leading non-profit that leverages data programming and advocacy to catalyze economic growth and create pathways for black and latinx women.

Entrepreneurs welcome lauren, thank you for having me andrea, hi gary. How are you i'm well lauren, but i don't know if you know this, the met gala was the other night i mean you're, bringing i i'm impressed. You are absolutely i mean i'm like loving it here. I feel like i got to do a war wardrobe change anyway.

Lauren, let's just get right into it. You know from your perspective, you've had a lot of you know different uh angles and perspectives with the startups you've seen you've seen startups mature you're, a woman of the world. So you know that there's a lot going on in corporations and i'm sure have plenty of executive friends and things that nature talk to me about your perspective on this question. How does one create and more importantly, sustain right, because i think it's easy to create when it's small, maybe from your startup, investing what does? What is the reality of the sustaining part once the company starts getting big? You know, i think, it's a great question, but i am going to go back very quickly to the outfit choice, because i think that we all have to show up, because we have to show up feeling confident and feeling like we're on our a game right.

So this is your brand. This is my brand um, but this is also, but this is also how i have to show up in order to have that excitement for the work that i do every day, because it's not easy work to do. Um. As i know you, you know well right, there's the market, you know i'm sorry to interrupt, it's it.

It's such a great point. That's why i just want to jump in i'm sorry, but to your point, we're both doing the same thing, even though it may show up to everybody visually different. I agree with you that self-awareness game is massive good for you. Thank you um, but i was inspired by being able to come on and chat with you and uh and andrea always brings her a game in the fashion department.

So i figured yes, but when we're talking about you know entrepreneurial spirit, entrepreneurial mindset, i think what is so important is to be unapologetically yourself in so many ways. I think that what often crushes entrepreneurial spirit is feeling as though the outside world is going to reject our idea. Call it silly won't see us um and so half of the battle i do think is making sure that you show up dressed in whatever makes you feel like a rock star, so that, regardless of the feedback that you get your spirit, your entrepreneurial spirit, your innovative Spirit which normally hopefully comes from deep curiosity that nothing can deter you from that, because if you show up feeling like i belong idea is great, then you you walk away from that room. If you don't get the response that you wanted saying: oh okay, you just don't get it, but it doesn't feel like a personal attack on who you are, and i see so many people who are bright like insanely, bright and insanely inquisitive.

You know begin to shrink because they feel as though the outside world doesn't appreciate the perspective that they bring to the table, so i always say: go ahead, i'm sorry! No! No! Just like. However, you need to harness that harness that feeling, because i think that i've seen so many people get super excited to share something and they get one rejection and it takes away every other, yes, that they might have seen or heard over over the years lauren. In a world where school structure gives people validation every 90 days in a world where people are worried about how many followers they have or comments, i mean you're talking, i mean your entire manifesto right. There is a singular game of the self-esteem versus insecurity framework.

How does you know a lot of people are listening? You drilled that i think about this a lot, because i talk about these things. How does one who didn't have the luxury? I have so many family members, cousins, uncles, my family world, the people. I know the best best friends who didn't have the luxury that i had, which is. I can do everything you just said, because my mother instilled massive levels of self-confidence in me, how does one go from being a person that grew up in a framework of insecurity? Now, in their adulthood in a professional environment turn that gear on you know, that's a great one and i think for me i'll answer it for myself personally quickly and then i'll give some something that i think can be helpful to everyone who's tuning in uh.

Whenever people ask me this question to lauren milan, my answer is always i went through that ugly duckling phase. I mean i had this this stage of my childhood, where i had braids braces a size, 9 and 10 shoe. I was super skinny. I was everything but cool butt, hip um and i wanted to fit in in so many ways, and i think that you know growing up um learning to kind of reject what could be bullying or any of these other things can very much turn into our superpowers.

As adults, i actually just posted about this recently, it's like whoa, i mean the amount of kids that made fun of me and called me one name after the other, you know was tough um, whether that was twiggy or even you know, being being called other names From folks being questioned about my my my blackness um, those are all the things that i went through my adolescence with, and i think, if you can go through a tough childhood and learn to pull those experiences into how they can be applicable in your adulthood. You garner strength from that. You garner confidence from that. Now, not everyone has that experience in their childhood.

So for those people who who do not have that reality, because that was a tough reality, i don't really wish it on anyone either. But i do think that for those of us that that want to kind of sit here and go - oh whoa me there are times where we can look back and say, but that made me but surviving. That means that, as an adult, i can shrug other things off my shoulders or other biases or stereotypes. Is that be? But but i, when i hear that talk to me about the in you know, so that's the external kid world.

What was going on in your four walls? Mom dad grandma grandpa, older sibling. Something was giving you the strength to navigate through that and then because i did the same thing turn that into the ultimate. I mean super power like who was giving you that foundation internally. Absolutely my family um, particularly my mother, yes, but in particular my mother and my father, who are both you know for for their families.

First generation, you know major success story in their own right. My mom was a model first black model to do a lot of big campaigns before there was ever a diversity conversation. My dad one of the first blacks on wall street back in the day, so much so that he had to start on the west coast. Out of san francisco, because he couldn't make it to the real wall street until later right, so they broke barriers in their own ways, and i watched them do that unapologetically my entire life, but i also um had parents that, instilled in me that i was going To often be the only in the room and there are a lot of people, i think that you know looked at me and said: oh, you know you grew up privileged well, maybe in part, but it's also because my parents made a conscious choice.

I was an only child. I got all of their resources poured into me, but the result was also that i was often the only in the room. So even now that we're having these diversity, entrepreneurial inclusion, equity conversations, i've almost always been the only in the room. My entire life, so i'm very comfortable in situations and instances that i think the outside world thinks or expects um me or any other woman of color in in this day and age to be uncomfortable in and it's actually where i thrive instead, and so i think That throws a lot of people for the okie doke if you will, but i think it's also part that entrepreneurial spirit which is like i'm here, and you might be surprised that i'm here but the conversation the meeting will go on so to synthesize the entrepreneurial spirit From your standpoint, framework around confidence within one's own reality is found.

Is the foundational stealing concrete that one can build on top of? I think so. I think so, and i also think that for those people who don't have that experience in their lives, that you learn to do the things that are scary to you and you begin to almost compete with yourself. I think so. Much of the entrepreneurial spirit is self-competition and self-reliance, and everyone has to do something different to tap into that with my team at digital, undivided, i stretch them every single day and i can tell you you know the first time i stretched them on a huge project On a tight timeline, they were like.

We can't do it, we can't do it, we can't do it. I said we're going to remove camp from the vocabulary and we're going to learn to move things around and make it happen. And yes, it was a stressful week or two, but once we got past that all of a sudden i look back and i have a different team immediately. I have an incrementally different team that now knows that they are capable of doing what two weeks ago.

They thought they couldn't do and not only do they think they can do it. They saw tangibly that they could do it and then, in addition to that, they saw that the outside world valued and appreciated what we were able to do and create together. That kind of you know confidence that kind of self-awareness that comes from, in my opinion, the accomplishment of achievement in itself, and so i think, there's a lot that people want to do that. We need a lot of people in life that go.

I have an idea, but who let you try to actually execute on it? Who's allowed you to actually go implement it, whether you fail or succeed. Does it matter, but do we actually give people the ability, the chops, the latitude and the platform to even try to gain entrepreneurial spirit or perspective, and i think we have to allow people to try and we also have to allow people to fail, because i think I think it's when they fail. You can also work backwards to say, okay, but why did i fail? And in that moment yeah it becomes the data point the context when you're writing it might feel huge. But then you realize how you can solve for that failure, and often when you go back and you look at how do you create a solution around where you failed? It's actually a lot easier than when you're in it.

In that moment thinking. Oh, my gosh. This can't be happening to me. I think we have to allow people that opportunity to stretch and grow if we want to foster an entrepreneurial mindset and in closing i'll say, the entrepreneurial mindset is about being able to work within highly matrixed environments.

It's also about having a certain level of autonomy to not just do, but to take something from start to finish, and we can't expect people to do things that they don't get an opportunity to try to do in the first place. I totally agree lauren. Thank you. So much for the knowledge.

Thank you for having me bye-bye thanks, lauren gary next we welcome tech, founder and venture capitalist alexis, ohanian alexis wrote bestseller without their permission and co-founded reddit in 2020, alexis founded 776, a new software-enabled venture firm, focused on people, culture and community. Welcome alexis, thank you for having me what's up gary, i'm good brother, you, you get your slice of pizza. I see you coming out of the clubs and uh yeah dude you'll you'll appreciate this. I brought a crypto punk to the met, i'm the same guy.

The ceo said nfts would never be in the met because there's no artistic value, it's entirely commercial, and i it's it's weird dude. We see this play out over and over and over again where institutions really have a hard time dealing with change, especially when it's bottom up, especially when it's from the internet - and i don't know how you could be sitting here in 2021, though, and still sleep on This and yet most people they're in their rem, state, they're, so asleep, it's why we've always had a connection. It's why we have good things happen for us professionally, because much like your much better half on our field like she does. We do our thing and likes sports; it just plays out it's regardless of what the establishments and institutions say.

At the end of the day, the well-executed entrepreneurial executions always win, speaking of which i have a really interesting question. First, thanks for being on - and i know, a lot of people are happy you're on um reddit right, one of the most iconic important uh. You know winners of the web 2 era, one of the most important foundational uh structures in our society around community, which both you and i have been incredibly passionate about for a long time. Everyone.

What a lot of people don't know is that reddit once sold and went into a big organization right, and so you know i don't. I actually don't know how how how close you were to it when the sale happened, but i don't know okay, good good. So tell me about this: you and your co-founder. You know you create this incredibly strong entrepreneurial company.

You sell it to an organization, a bigger company, conde ness. It needs to live within there and then it comes out of there and is now in its current state that people know it. I don't think anybody can speak to this better. There's three steps in there.

The first and the third step are incredibly entrepreneurially structured, yeah and the middle one is corporate structured. So when you hear that, what's the learning for everybody of like what what happens - that's pro or con, when you do lose an entrepreneurial framework, i mean dude look. I was 22 years old uh. I had been working on reddit for 18 months and i'd struck up a conversation with a guy.

I kind of asked who eventually was like hey man. You want to come work here. Uh and 10 million dollars was a crazy amount of value for 16 17 months worth of work and at the time like, like my mom, had gotten sick. I had a lot of reasons to want to get rid of that existential dread and just make that phone call literally.

The best phone call ever make in my life was telling her we sold it's done. Money's in the bank like this was life-changing money more than my parents made their entire working lives like for for a year and a half of work. It was crazy, but i did not have someone telling me hey alexis if it's going this well, you should just raise funding at that point. We would raise 70 000 and i was so naive.

We didn't, i didn't. I had never hired an employee before had never thought through any of the obvious stuff of business. Now, and you know i stayed a con and asked for three a little over three years. I left in 2010 and you know it was comfortable and it was helpful.

Certainly during the recession and everything else to know that i had a job and i didn't have to worry about our revenue numbers that much you didn't have to like. It wasn't a pressing need. Wasn't that existential dread of being a founder ceo again, but when i came back in 2014 - and it was you know the company, in almost i mean only a few million dollars in revenue. This is all public.

It was a tough, tough place, yeah and, and a lot of the work was then re-educating brands. I mean i spent most of my time on planes right, i mean i remember, coming to you, yeah like it's back, it's gon na take time, but we believe in this we have an amazing team. We're gon na turn this around and um, and that was where i really learned how to be an entrepreneur. Um one of the early hires there was uh caitlyn holloway, who was our first vp of people and culture there.

She now she's a founding partner of 776 and then lizzie garvin, who was chief of staff of the firm and also with me here at 776., and we got in the trenches and had to do a lot of work to reset culture to grow. Like literally double every year in head count to rebuild the relationship with brands, get them to feel safe. Advertising on the platform, like the team, did amazing work and i saw firsthand what it took to grow a scale, a rapid organization, rapidly growing organization, and i feel like that's where i really look it's where i got on my gray hairs and that's where your hair, Your ears look really good. This is the best haircut i've seen you.

This is a real legit haircut. I got a real haircut thanks. My sister everyone thinks it's for the met my sister's getting married this weekend and i didn't want to distract with the maine. So samson, knowing you grew up in that same year, as i did a lot of our friends, companies got real, you know different, but they did raise capital.

They got big yeah kevin kevin. Did it right? I'm friends with kevin rose now kevin you're, right, you're, raising money; yeah talk to me about what you've seen from the outside of a lot of our friends companies that went from three four people in a y combinator, a small company to 5 000 employees. In all your travels with all these people back to the theme of the show, where do where do those founders struggle? Where what's the common thing where they go, you know they always say this thing. Man we've lost some of our speed, our entrepreneur they wake up.

I mean vayner, i'm you know me, i'm really in my and like vayner at 1800 vaynerx at 18, 1500, wherever we are 1800 whatever the number is right now can't be what it was when it was me and aj in a conference room right. What what? What do you see as the themes or the anecdotes to when they feel they've lost their entrepreneurial spirit? You know so something that stuck with me that caitlyn told me early in the red. This is now like 2015.. She said: look.

This company is going to double every year in headcount and every year that it doubles the culture totally changes so be prepared for a totally new company and need to do a reset in order to maintain the stuff that got you there in the first place. Yeah and so part of it is as a ceo trying, your best to stay on top of, and this comes down to values. This sounds like cheesy stuff that my 21 year old self would roll my eyes at. But values are the things that, if you, if you do them intentionally and you you really develop a culture around them, they help the thousandth person make a decision as if the founder were in the room and it's never going to be more good.

But it's the best thing: you can do it's religion, yeah. If you want everybody to understand that speed or kindness or break things or whatever you put on the like, if you pound that into the soul scale, i agree and and and then it is hard right as organizations grow, you just invariably get bureaucracy and all this Other stuff, but i think where software is going to redefine organizations going forward now is, is a byproduct of covid and sort of decentralized work. Okay, we have a chance, i'm working with founders now who they're starting their company in the last year. They've started it as a remote first company because of code and even as they flex back into office, their dna is around asynchronous work.

It's around sort of execution focused work because there's no chance to have gossip around the water cooler if the org started in a digital first way. Well, the gossip, the gossip can go to slack for sure, but the there is a the the idle culture of being in an office doesn't exist. Now that has the upside, the upside is it's a you get a chance to be more relentlessly focused on execution. The downside is, you, don't have as much of that natural kind of culture, yeah and so now the work is.

How do we build? I think this new generation of company is now going to look for more creative ways to create that that sort of that culture, the the the serendipity of the office, even as they come back now that their dna is formed in in execution right. Async like why bother having a meeting if i can just record a loom video - and you can watch me at 2x speed whenever you want. I can't i think it's like that shift. We just have to do new work now to build culture internally.

I hate that we've run out of time. I'm gon na have to i'm gon na already run out of time yeah. These are faster. I'm gon na i'm gon na i'm gon na i'm gon na hit you up and we're gon na do a real podcast.

You and i we need to, but i have to ask you something - is that the first edition first appearance of deadpool is that a new mutants comic over there. You are very, very, very, very good hold on you mean this yeah dude. I've got that's hilarious. I've got like five of those in my vault.

We need to talk comics. I love you buddy. Thank you soon. Thank you alexis and thank you gary.

This is the awesome love. You love you too. Next up, we welcome shelly haas cmo of ulta beauty, sh prior to basketball, hi shelly. How are you, how are you, we've got ryan harwood.

That's going to be joining us today, too, just a little bit more about shelley, though first prior to her role as joining as cmo of ulta beauty. Shelley spent her career in consumer packaged goods uh with companies, including procter gamble and pepsico three things that shelley would bring with her on a desert, island, spf lotion, smokehouse almonds and, of course, lip gloss today. Shelley will be joined by our very own ryan harwood. Ceo of gallery media group welcome to you both thanks, andrea, hey, ryan, hey shelly, how's, it going mario good, incredible introduction, but, more importantly, an incredible human.

So it's so good to see you really good to see you too thanks for having me yeah so being the cmo of the largest beauty retailer in the u.s, with 1300 stores across 50 states. It's no easy feat! Yet you're delivering record results right now, with q2 sales of almost 2 billion, which is crazy. Tell me a little bit about your mantra. What what you? What got you here won't get you there and how your entrepreneurial mindset has led to your success at ulta.

I think if you asked any of the leaders on my team what my what my biggest go-to mantra is they'd say what got you here won't get you there. It started when i, when i started with the company almost seven years ago. I i came in to change things. I mean that's, why i was hired, so i was like okay.

How am i going to do this because it was pretty clear early on that people were really comfortable in their success, because the the the company was already doing really well um, but things were going to change, and so i just i latched on to that early On you know, so it's that old book that was written about career and what got you here won't get you there in your career. But i just thought it was really good for us to latch on to that. As a as a mantra for the team and and it's been a mantra ever since - and i'm just i'm so glad because we've created now a culture of people that think that way, you know they're always looking toward the future, always thinking around the corner. No matter you know if we deliver a two billion dollar quarter, that's way above expectations.

It doesn't matter what got you here won't get you there. So so that's been really important because you know, as i was really growing, the team and really pushing people and bringing in new great talent and kind of you know really reshaping what this looked like, that that was really the cornerstone of you know now how we Think absolutely you know it's funny. If you create an atmosphere and culture that eliminates fear and encourages ideas from everywhere, because employees aren't fearful to contribute freely, then it fosters that entrepreneurial spirit totally it's that idea of like just go for it like everybody here, should want to go for it and if You're just hanging out, it's probably not going to be it's not going to be the place for you, so yeah, it's just it's just a different mindset all about the mindset, so you know when you are looking to hire to get people with that mindset, or at Least people you can mold into that mindset. Are there? Are there any unique qualities you look for or or screen against? Specifically, i mean the first one.

You know alexis just touched on this and he kind of said like it might sound cheesy, because if you know you, you said this to your 21 year old self they'd be like oh, my god, but values is like the first thing, because i i think that You shouldn't hire people just like you, except in the area of values, because the idea of having like people who are really authentic, who care about team who care about culture who care about the values of the company? And it's going to be like a number one. Priority it that's like has to be their deal breaker if it's not there. If you do, and a lot of that is a gut feel i mean you can try to like scream for that and ask questions for that. But it's tough, you, you get a gut feel about people, and you know you said good human being i mean you got it like good human beings that are like no drama like has to be, then, on top of that, like the idea of being innovative and Creative, but more than that kind of like if you're a change agent.

It's about the how you know, especially when it comes to doing it in a values-based way and really getting an understanding for how those people wire. I always call it like wire and organization, because it's tough to wire an organization, especially when you're doing new stuff, so the ability to do that um and create that change is, is what i look for in leaders when i bring them in or when i grow Them up um throughout our marketing organization. Totally i have a fun one here. How would you handle integrating a former marketer into your team if they had been frozen in time for 50 years and now they're coming back into society and they're joining your team, but they were a former marketer? How would you integrate them? First of all, i feel like this is a good seed of an idea for a netflix show if you feel like that, like i feel like that could be a really a really interesting thing.

I don't know, i i think it you know you have to be on the forefront of culture, and so, if you're gone for 50 years holy crap, so we just talked about reddit, i would say, get get on every social media platform and devour it get in. Get into reddit get into tic tac, like you got to just devour everything, that's going on there and talk to kids yeah. You know i mean talk to the teenagers talk to the 20-somethings. You know i have two of them uh who are 21 and 19 and they're always like mom.

You need to do this, you need to do that and they they just they just know. So you know if you're frozen in time, come back and talk to kids. Totally you know what's funny when i was growing up it used to be the older people used to influence change in decisions. You looked up to people that were older than you i feel like now.

In this generation, the younger people influence the older people more than it used to be 100. It's like reverse mentoring. I mean i have a lot of the experience and wisdom and ability to you know lead the organization, but i don't have all that. So we got we got to bring those two pieces together to make to make the magic.

How do you think consumers, attitudes towards beauty and makeup have changed during the pandemic? This has been a super interesting time in beauty, because beauty is really emotional and really um meaningful, but over the last year and a half it's become way. More of that, you know the idea of self-care and and that tie to beauty where people were at home and feeling lost and anxious um the self-care routines and not just with skin care. But that was a big part of it, but even with makeup with hair care like that whole self-care thing just accelerated even more, and so that's a really interesting space for us. You know now now people are um coming out of the pandemic ish and feeling like they want to feel new again.

So then they're looking at beauty, you know in a different way. It has a different meaning. Now that people are trying to get to like this balance of fomo and what we call fogo fear of going out fear of missing out fear of going out fine line. So you know it's really fun, to see people engaging in new ways and getting excited about beauty in new ways, because of what's happened over the last year and a half totally pretty wild yeah.

I mean i remember you when we were having a conversation off the cuff. You were telling me a little bit about ulta's c, beautiful today, platform that you launched like three weeks within lockdown. How did both speed and flexibility and and listening to your consumer consumers contribute to that campaign's success? Yeah i mean that goes back to the entrepreneurial mindset. 100.

I mean first of all, i look back and i'm like. Thank god. We worked so hard to get our a team together, both uh in and our ulta beauty team, as well as on our agency side, because if we wouldn't have had that, i don't know the whole thing probably would have imploded. But because we had that and because we had done so much work on our brand purpose platform, we're a purpose-driven brand and the idea of being able to use the power of beauty to bring out the possibilities in every person is our true north.

And that gave us the ability, then to say: okay, we hadn't planned a new campaign until september, but like stuff's going down right now and people need, you know something to lift them up, and this idea that we could really be the light in people's. You know, darkness and anxiety led us to the idea that you know beauty's all around us and we were gon na see beautiful today and do it together. So we just busted a move within three weeks and um used. You know ugc because we can shoot anything, and that was awesome because it just led to a completely different mindset.

We used that platform throughout the year and put out new content all year long and we did it in different ways whether it was ugc or remote shoots it just you know, i always say like don't forget the lessons of 2020 because it taught us a lot About being entrepreneurial and breaking things like you can move that fast, you don't need a brief, like all the things that you and i have talked about before speed is the game speed of ideation speed of execution. It is the game these days um. I saw all the news about ulta beauty at target that partnership. It was super cool to see that i'm so curious.

How did that come to be? How did that partnership allow all to be more accessible to consumers, strengthen the brand all of it? Yeah it's a it's. I just i'm so excited about the partnership we just launched a few weeks ago. We have 100 stores 100 store in stores. Now it really started from the idea that we're an innovative company target is an innovative company.

We are also two brands that have a lot in common when it comes to the consumer and when it comes to the ethos of the brands, and so the idea of bringing the best of target omni omni-channel retail 30 million people through the doors every week target Runs and the beauty, prowess and expertise and perception of all the beauty together to make this, like retail powerhouse, is really where it where it started, and i just like speaking of speed, i mean this is like we just we just announced this last. I think it was november and - and we just launched like a brand new retail environment, uh new.com experience like breaking the paradigm. I mean we, we really moved and i'm just i'm really proud of the experience that we're creating in the store it's very ulta beauty. But it's also very target.

It's really intimate cool like i'm just so excited about what we have in front of us andre. Can i do a quick speed round with with shelly really quickly? Do i we're already a minute over? You know what we're gon na do. We're gon na have a show just with you guys. Okay, we have so much to talk about.

I know it's so true all right. Thank you guys enough awesome. Thank you good to see you. Our next host is zach nadler, ceo of vayner speakers and we're so excited to have haley rosen.

The ceo of just women's sports join us coming from a professional career in soccer. Haley has now changed the game for women's sports coverage. Just women's sports is a digital. First, consumer media platform providing 7 million passionate fans with in-depth coverage of women's sports, and it's been growing 300 year over year.

Welcome to you both awesome thanks, andrea haley. It's great to see you thanks for joining us today, yeah thanks for having me and thanks for that intro. That was great well, since ryan cut our time a little short i'm going to try and uh jump right in um, but before we go into that, tell me before we dive into the theme just give us a quick 30 seconds on just women's sports yeah. Just women sports is exactly what the name says.

We covered joss women's sports and um, it's kind of touched on in the intro, but the whole idea is you know. Four percent of sports coverage is dedicated to women's sports, but that doesn't match what's happening in the space. Attendance is uh, viewership is up, general interest is up, participation is up, and so there's this huge sort of unmet opportunity to really cover women's sports and that's what we're doing. That's incredible.

You guys are killing it right now and obviously andrea mentioned it. Your background. You played d1 soccer at stanford you're, a professional soccer player with today's theme around culture. I'm curious, you know what similarities have you seen from.

You know, working in a team as a culture and then creating a company and building the culture around that yeah. I think this is really an area where sports and you know, work really really overlap, and i think there's two things that i think are just hold true for both one is, you know knowing you know what you're doing, knowing your mission, knowing your purpose when you're On a team, usually you know you want to win the league. You want to win the national championship right. The goals are really really clear, so making the goals really really clear for the company, where you're heading where you want to go and in what time frame.

I think that is just really critical and i've seen that really drive culture both on a team and in the workforce, and then second, is you know empathy when you're on a team. You can't help, but just empathize and feel for your teammates right, like you're, on the line, doing fitness and someone's struggling like you're, giving them a push or maybe someone's pushing you or you know, you're shouting in the locker room like you bond and you get to Know these people and who they are inside and out, and i think that does matter and that's you know it's tough as you scale, but i think just generally leading with empathy and you know treating everyone as people that have their own. You know hopes and dreams and needs, but want to function as a team like that. For me, like is just very clear as day just in sports and in work.

That's great well, you're, certainly speaking, our language. Empathy is in our dna here at all the vayner companies, and another thing that we have in common, i think, is the passion that comes from our founder right. Gary is very passionate about the work that we do and i think you're super passionate about women's sports and i'm curious in the world of culture. How do you kind of build a culture around that passion so that all your employees, the entire company, feels that same way? You know zach, i.

This is like a really good question. Um, i don't know, but it's the only thing that we've done, because i like i love it like my heart, is on my sleeve. We are fighting for this day in and day out. We believe in the mission with every fiber of our being, and i think that we attract people that feel that too, that they they see it on our instagram or they see it in our podcast or hear it in our podcast.

They see it in the way we talk like they, they get it. They feel that thing that we're feeling too, and it just has built from there - and i think you know, as we scale and as we grow like we want to keep attracting those people, and we want to sign them up to be on our team and keep Growing that passion - because you know for us like we're - you know we're 15 people right now and we want to compete with media organizations that are hundreds of people right and to do that. We're gon na have to have heart and hustle and passion, and i think we have that in spades and for us it's just to keep pushing on that. That's awesome and i mean this kind of goes alexis touched on us a little bit about companies today.

You know being together all virtually. You started this company during the pandemic, so your team of 15 people you're not spending every day together and frankly, you guys don't spend that much time together in person. So how do you navigate creating this, this culture that you've built? Well, everyone is all over the country yeah, it's a really good question. I mean we've only known this way and i think just for us like this sounds maybe cheesy, but setting up like really good operational processes of you know having certain count.

Uh meetings on the calendar like from literally just you know, weekly one-on-ones or monthly one-on-one, just really being diligent around. When do we need to communicate? When do we need to communicate live when you know, when does something need to come off of slack or off of email? It needs to be a phone call um. You know and we're learning as we go, but i think for us it's like the north star is just empathy and teamwork, and so you know something we also say is assume positive intent. So, if you're going back and forth on slack and something's getting crazy, it's like take a breath.

Pick up the phone give that person a call, because you know we're all on the same team. So i think you know it's something we're figuring out, but i think getting our operational processes tight and finding times for virtual happy hours as as much as no one wants to log on to zoom at 5 pm like it does matter, and it makes a difference And you know we'll keep learning and growing as we go. I love that and i think, like the teamwork you've built like your empathy, is right there you said you're wearing it on your sleeve, like it's 100, in the way that you built this whole thing. Have there been challenges that you've seen around that, because i love the idea of positive intent, but obviously things can go wrong, so there been things that you know you would have done differently or things that you look forward to doing differently in the future.

Yes, of course, i love it yeah i mean we've made a ton of mistakes like something we also say, and i'm realizing how many things we say now that we're having this conversation, but is you know we don't have to get it right, the first time, but We have to be the fastest to learn so like we can make mistakes, but we need to learn quickly, and so we have made so many mistakes like internally externally. You know big decisions. Little decisions like probably made two mistakes today, like you know, that's part of it, but for us it's just about learning quickly, and i think you know to go back to sports like something that people say. Is you know next one or next touch like there was a like a thing in soccer, at least when you would turn over the ball, be like go get it back, go make the next one good and i feel, like that's really kind of a culture that I want to bring into you know just women's sports of like all right, maybe that wasn't the right call, but what did we learn and how do we make the next one right and like we just keep pushing on that? I mean just jumping right off of that.

You guys have already built this. This company you're 15 people. I know you're growing and you're competing with behemoths, so as you guys continue to grow, how do you actually plan to keep that culture sustained? Because, obviously, you know the more stretched you get the tougher it gets. So do you have any plans or ideas around how you'll continue to do that? I think having an incredibly clear mission matters so much there's! No, if ands or buts around our mission and where we're going in this vision, 100, i think every single person could recite the things i say over and over and over, but i think we're all bought in and we get it and i think that really really Matters and then, i think also just you know, from the top down from the bottom up.

I keep coming back to empathy like. I just think i and listen i'm early in these days, but from everything i've seen it really for us is it's mission and empathy like a hundred percent treat people like teammates care about each other work hard. You know be accountable to one another and know where you're going. We know where we're going, no doubt and like we just got to push to get there.

That's incredible! Well, you mentioned speed. You mentioned where you're going and i'm excited to see. You guys go there. Um, i appreciate you jumping on with us here thanks for your time, zach.

Thank you so much for having me this was awesome. Thank you, haley and zach. You guys are awesome. Amazing.

Our next host is the one and only wanda pogue vaynermedia's chief strategy officer, and we welcome mark hans, ricker, richer, the svp chief marketing and innovation officer at moen, leading the smart water revolution for over five years previously mark hans was harley davidson's first ever cmo and A fun fact mark hans, taught pygmies in the congo how to sing. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thank you, andrea and hello.

Mark hans, it's so good! I want to see you again. I've seen you i, i think, with that little thing um that little bit of information that andrea just shared, i almost want to go off script completely and have you talk about that, but i'll, try and save everyone um we had the opportunity to meet briefly and And you know had a great chat and i think you shed such great light on the differences between you know being on entrepreneur and entrepreneurialism and entrepreneurialism. I would love to be able to start there. You know and just um.

What is the difference? What is intrapreneurialism yeah? This is a huge passion point for me and, and i think it is an important distinction, because people fall in love with the idea of entrepreneurialism and they, i think, sometimes mis, misunderstand what what you're talking about. They fall in love with companies that are inherently entrepreneurial, which are very rare, uh startups or in creative industries, uh that that are like that and much more often the opportunity is within a company. That's already well established they're they're, a legacy company they've been around for for decades, they've got well-established processes and all kinds of things and people that have been hired to protect those things that have built been built up and, frankly, have built the success of the company Up to that point, so when you're an entrepreneur, you have to work within a legacy company to figure out how to make transformational change while also running the play of the of the company and the success uh drivers that got him to that point. So so people have this dream this fantasy of i'm going to be in this entrepreneurial culture, and it's just going to be wild and crazy.