May 15, 2025 • 21 mins
Welcome to the Beyond Fulfillment Podcast! In this episode, we sit down with Jesse Kay, entrepreneur, podcast host, and founder of Vyber Media, to uncover top strategies for startup success, audience engagement, and building a thriving business from the ground up.
Jesse shares how launching his podcast at 16 kickstarted his journey in performance marketing, his secrets to landing high-profile interviews (like Mark Cuban and Jack Dorsey), and how he bootstrapped his agency, Vyber Media, while balancing college at Cornell and a stint at Goldman Sachs. Discover proven methods for managing time, overcoming fear, gamifying your business growth, and leveraging mission-driven leadership, even in crisis, as Jesse did with the Make Lemonade Fund during COVID-19.
Timestamps:
02:10 Taking action at 16 & overcoming fear
03:29 Landing major guests
04:52 Founding Vyber Media
07:04 Balancing college, work, and entrepreneurship
12:22 Differentiating strategies for clients
14:26 Gamifying business growth
16:44 Make Lemonade Fund & mission-driven impact
Connect with Jesse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-kay-03a05b135/
Learn more about Vyber Media: https://www.vybermedia.com/
Learn more about Traffic Ninjas: https://join.thetrafficninjas.com/vegas-retreat-bfcm?am_id=ezdc3pl
If you found value, please LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more expert interviews and entrepreneurial advice!
#Entrepreneurship #StartupSuccess #BusinessGrowth #PerformanceMarketing #JesseKay #ViberMedia #BeyondFulfillmentPodcast #Media #Podcasting #Marketing #onlinemarketing #markcuban
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today we sit down with Jesse K.
From launching his firstpodcast at just 16 as a high schooler,
a project that ignited apassion for connection.
Jesse's journey is nothingshort of remarkable.
He'll share how gamifying hisapproach helped him land interviews
with business titans like MarkCuban, Jack Dorsey, and Gary Vaynerchuk.
(00:24):
We'll delve into the evolutionfrom those early podcasting days
to founding Viber Media, hisperformance marketing agency.
Working with massive brands,all while navigating Cornell and
even a stint at Goldman Sachs.
Jesse will reveal his secretsto balancing it all, the advice that
he has for aspiringentrepreneurs on managing risk and
(00:48):
the power of mission drivenwork highlighted by his impactful
Making Lemonade Fund.
Get ready for actionableinsights on staying ahead in business
and the competitive spiritthat fuels his drive to keep achieving
bigger goals.
As always, if you found valuefrom this content, please like and
(01:08):
subscribe.
All right, Jesse K.
Welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
Dave, thanks so much forhaving me.
I'm excited to be here.
Absolutely.
We are excited that you tookthe time.
So let's get right into it.
So, Jesse, how did launching apodcast at just 16 years old shape
your understanding of audienceengagement and ultimately lead you
(01:31):
down the path of performance marketing?
Yeah, it's funny, I literallystarted the podcast initially as
a high school project.
So we were, I was in thisentrepreneurship class.
I didn't even really want tobe in it because I found out you
had to write have to write abusiness plan.
I thought it was just like afun fake class.
And then they're like, youhave to write a business plan for
a year.
And I was like, I'm out.
But they're like too late to drop.
So I was stuck in this class,started it because I realized a bunch
(01:54):
of people in the class hadgreat ideas, nobody knew how to execute
on it.
So I was like, why don't Iinterview people who are successful
and have actually done thething that all these kids want to
talk about?
I learned so many lessons fromthe podcast, which I'm sure we'll
talk about, but how it tiesinto performance marketing was, I
think it's actually a greatexperience on seeing how the qualitative
side of interviewing peopleand chatting with people leads to
(02:16):
quantitative results.
So how did different peoplethat I interviewed become clients?
How did different people thatI interviewed lead to referrals on
stuff?
What was the flow from videoclips to getting listeners and how
long did that take andtracking the data to really make
informed decisions on growingthe podcast, which I've carried forward
eight Nine years later.
Outside of that.
(02:39):
Attention Shopify sellers.
Are you tired of slow sales?
Do you want to skyrocket your revenue?
Well, you'll want to join thisfree masterclass from my friends,
the Traffic Ninjas.
Learn how to optimize yourstore, boost conversions, and dominate
your niche.
Sign up with the link in theshow notes and take your Shopify
(03:01):
business to the next level.
Wow.
Okay.
And just following up on thatbecause you hit on such an important
point is, you know,entrepreneurs so often, you know,
people have these aspirationsand dreams and what holds them back
is, is fear and lack of taking action.
(03:22):
So when you're 16 years oldand you realize that everyone has
these ideas, but they don'tknow how to do it.
And you had that idea for thepodcast and you, you took action
right away and just got itstarted and, you know, kept going
and can't imagine you knewanything about podcasting at that
point.
But, but where did that comefrom, that ability without fear at
(03:43):
such a young age?
Not only did I not know what Iwas doing, but it was definitely
not cool yet.
This is like pre Joe Rogan, pre.
Any of the real podcasts being big.
So, yeah, I mean, I think itwas a couple things.
I think, number one, my dad'san entrepreneur, so I grew up seeing
him and I wanted to eventuallydo that, where I was like, I want
to control the destiny ofwhere my life takes me and the work
(04:06):
stuff, and there's only oneway to do it, which is by actually
doing.
And then the second thing was,I don't know where it came from,
but I looked at it like game.
So rather than fearingrejection, fearing failure, feeling
that, fearing that nobody wasgoing to listen, which a lot of people
didn't for the first year anda half, two years, honestly, if you're
talking about before yourecorded, like, it took a long time
before it became a big show inmy head, but I honestly gamified
(04:29):
it.
Like, I was like, oh my God,if I have the opportunity to talk
to a Mark Cuban or a JackDorsey, I'm just going to take a
million shots until I do that,and I'm going to do whatever I can
to get to that result and, andmake it happen.
So I just gamified it in myhead and looked at the long term
vision of I get to meet peoplethat I'd never meet outside of that.
And then everything else kindof rode the coattails of that.
(04:50):
And you know, you mentionedsome of these big names that you've
interviewed.
Jack Dorsey, Mark Cuban, youinterviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, you
know, as a kid just startingout, how did you get big names like
that to come on your show?
An insane amount of cold emails.
I think I literally sent 300cold emails a day, every day for
(05:11):
six months when I was startingthe show off.
And the only thing that gaveme the motivation to keep doing it
at the beginning was actuallya no.
Mark Cuban replied back to oneof my early emails and was like,
sorry, I don't have time, but gock.
And I was like, oh, my God, ifMark Cuban responds, like, anybody
would respond.
So then did cold emails, didfollow ups, the Jack Dorsey one.
I literally.
He was doing like a Twitterlive, I think it was called Periscope
(05:33):
was the branding they had atthe time.
They sat in it for an hour andspammed it with like A hi, I'm 16.
Will you come on my podcastfor five minutes?
And eventually he said yes.
And I was like, oh, my God,great news.
But then at the end I'm like,oh, no.
Like, how do I like?
He said yes, but that doesn'tmean anything.
How do I actually get him on?
So I'm like calling Twitterheadquarters and calling Stripe.
I'm like, your CEO said he'dcome on my podcast, and eventually
(05:56):
I was literally going to flyto San Francisco for a five minute
interview with him.
And then I got an email fromhis chief of staff, who's like, hey,
Jack's actually in New Yorknext week for a board meeting.
Do you want 45 minutes with him?
And then 45 minutes with our CMO?
And I ended up interviewingboth of them, and that's how that
one came out, which was crazy.
Wow.
Incredible.
(06:16):
Okay, now, Jesse, what was thepivotal moment that made you decide
to found Viber Media at such ayoung age?
I think the biggest one, like,it was a relatively natural progression
from the podcast.
So started the podcast, builtan audience there.
As I had the podcast, I did internships.
So my senior year of highschool, I did an internship in sports
(06:39):
marketing for a company calledSteiner Sports, which is a big, like,
collectibles and marketing company.
I worked and helped thefounder with some of his marketing
using what I had done from the podcast.
And then I started getting acouple clients.
Like, a couple of my earlypodcast guests turned into clients,
pro athletes, differentbrands, that type of stuff, and it
(06:59):
slowly just picked up from there.
I did the internship senioryear of high school, took on a couple
of clients my freshman year of college.
That grew sophomore, junior,senior year of college.
And it was kind of just Anatural progression of the podcast,
helping people with theirsocial media, social media to other
marketing, marketing toperformance marketing.
That's kind of where we sit today.
Okay, and so why did you, whydid you choose specifically to help
(07:23):
like eight and nine figurebrands, you know, achieve like this,
this high margin digital growth?
I think it was the right placein the ecosystem, I thought, for
the work we were doing becausea lot of this stuff was, hey, how
can we optimize and findefficiency of already proven strong
businesses that haveadditional list opportunities?
(07:44):
So how can we, how can weimplement email traffic, sms, affiliate
stuff, stuff that can lifttheir brand?
And it's very easy to tellwhat's driving growth because they
already have a good baselinebusiness and we can a lot of times
add fuel to the fire andthey're fun businesses to work with.
Like we work with a big mix ofbrands anywhere in that kind of eight
(08:05):
to nine figure range.
But it's fun because we canget in the weeds, get super dirty
with all the data, and thensee relatively significant incremental
growth relatively quickly.
Okay.
All right.
And so you mentioned as youwere growing the business, you know,
taking on clients during yourtime at college, so specifically
(08:28):
with managing time, I mean,how did you continue to grow this,
this agency while, while goingto school full time at Cornell?
It was really hard.
I probably wasn't the greateststudent in history, but it was hard.
Like I was trying to balancegraduating from Cornell and staying
(08:48):
on pace.
I was doing an internship overthe summer, did a full time thing
after that while running theagency, and it was just sacrifice.
Like I would have to stayaccountable on my calendar of like,
all right, this is time tohang out with my friends, this is
time to go to class, this istime to do work.
But it was essentially a fulltime job on top of being a full time
student.
So it wasn't easy by anymeans, but it was a priority for
(09:10):
me and I love it.
So it didn't feel like workand it was just properly putting
time in the calendar andmaking sure I was staying on top
of it.
Okay, and another great pointtoo, right.
So often, you know,entrepreneurs that, that do really
well, it's like they, like yousaid, right, they love what they
do, so it doesn't feel like work.
(09:31):
So, you know, how, what advicewould you give to someone that's,
that's looking to find thatand then still trying to balance
the reality of, you know,paying the bills, so to speak, and
while they're, while they'regrowing their business.
Yeah, of course I Think it'sa, it's a question I get asked a
bunch because I did like I didthe business while I was in college.
(09:53):
I took a job after college andthen I chose to leave the job to
do the business full time.
And I think the answer isdifferent for everybody.
Like, I think number one,hopefully the business has grown
to the point where it's nearor surpassed what you're making from
your W2 job, where that makesit a no brainer.
Because if you're able to growthe business to that point in the
limited amount of time youhave, obviously that becomes a no
(10:16):
brainer to take the jump on.
And then I think the otherside of it's, what's your risk tolerance?
Like, do you have other peoplethat rely on you?
Is it just you?
How confident are you thatthis thing is going to work?
Is traction picking up?
Do you have long term agreements?
Like, one thing that wasimportant for me was going to some
of the larger clients that wehave prior to me leaving and confirming,
(10:37):
like, hey, we're going to signa longer term deal here because I
need to have security before Ijump with long term existing clients
that know the performance.
And that's how I kind ofhedged against it.
And also the business hadgrown to a point where I felt very
safe doing it.
But then also I was young anddon't have anybody else relying on
me at the moment.
So it became an easier thing.
And I think that question'sdifferent for everybody.
(10:58):
But I think the key ones are,is there growing traction?
It based off of the timeyou're spending on it today, are
you confident that as youspend more time on this business,
it'll continue to grow?
And then number three, what'syour worst case scenario and can
you live with that?
Okay.
All right.
And so you mentioned the jobyou took right out of college and
(11:18):
that was with Goldman Sachs.
So what was that experiencelike after already, you know, building
this, this growing agency andthen doing it all through college
and then getting the W2 jobright out of school.
What was that like for you?
Yeah, I mean, it was a great experience.
Like I loved my time at Goldman.
Some of my best friends stillwork there.
(11:39):
I learned a ton.
Like the original thinking onworking there was I wanted to see
the inner workings of a greatbusiness and how they operate and
learn more tactical stufffinancially on top of what I thought
I knew from a business perspective.
So I loved my time there.
That place is awesome.
And really the key thing in myhead on when it became the right
(12:01):
Time to leave was I was, Iwasn't really sleeping because I
was in the office at Goldmanfive days a week and then working
on the existing business sortof nights and weekends.
And it eventually became agame of all right, the business is
growing a lot and in fiveyears do I see myself wanting to
work at Goldman or wanting tobuild my own business?
For me, the answer was the latter.
(12:22):
And once I knew that thebusiness had grown to a point that
I felt safe with it and had anopportunity to keep growing this
thing, it kind of became a no brainer.
So that's when I decided to leave.
But it, I've been a far morepeaceful guy, still probably more
chaotic than I was there.
But over the last.
I left about a year ago andjust being able to wake up and go
to sleep working on my ownstuff has been a nice process.
(12:45):
Okay, and how do you stayahead of the curve and continue to
develop these, theseinnovative youth focused strategies
in, in the ever evolvinglandscape of digital marketing?
Yeah, I think like I wastalking to somebody this morning
on every time you think you'refinally up to pace or ahead on digital
(13:06):
marketing strategy, at thispoint you're behind again.
Just because at the pace oftechnology evolving and at the pace
of new features coming out,there's just so much and the only
feedback that I give and wetalk about is test everything.
Like just try and be in theweeds and play around with all.
There's so many amazing toolsthat are making marketers lives easier,
(13:32):
revenue officers lives easier,and business owners life's easier
and more efficient that justgetting in the weeds and playing
with these tools and figuringout how they could be useful for
their business.
Not only should it beinteresting and cool, but it should
save a ton of time.
So I try and play with one ortwo new tools a day just to see what
it's doing and how it can help.
And then we're trying todeploy a new tool a month to use
(13:54):
in the broader ecosystem.
Okay, I love that.
All right, and what are someof the differences that you've noticed
in driving growth for therange of clients you've had?
Like taking professionalathletes versus, you know, Fortune
1000 CEOs.
Yeah, I think number one isyou gotta know your client and know
(14:17):
what their priorities are.
So even if you take twoclients identical size, it's very
rare that we see that the endgoal is the same.
Like obviously everyone wantsto make more money more efficiently,
but how do you get there?
And what is the real thingholding that brand back that we can
help with.
So I think number one istrying to understand from the person
(14:39):
you're working with seat, whatare their goals, what are their indicators
they're benchmarking off of.
And then really, I think themore fun side is some of the smaller
brands or individuals that wework with.
We can do stuff quick.
Like, we can get an answer onit today and get it live tomorrow,
while some of the biggerorganizations, it takes time, of
course.
I mean, I worked at Goldman.
(15:00):
I understand how that thingworks of there's processes and bureaucracy
and approvals and boards.
So that's the key differenceswe've realized.
But it's really fun because ona lot of this digital marketing stuff
or performance marketing, wecan, we can attribute it to an actual
data piece.
So as we're driving results,we can see it in lifetime and kind
(15:20):
of like how a gamifiedpodcast, I can gamify this because
it could just get tied back toa number and I want to beat last
year's number from whoeverworking with and we can show them
that those results live.
So that's kind of thedifferences and how we look at it.
Okay.
And following up on that.
So you've mentioned, you know,you gamify things.
You've mentioned that severaltimes in this interview.
(15:41):
And you know, that's astrategy that I've, I've read from,
from numerous people in oflike almost a hack in terms of being
productive or sticking tobeing consistent on a particular
area.
Like, where does that come from?
Your.
Your way of gamifying whatyou're working on?
I think I'm, I'm competitiveat heart.
(16:03):
Number one, like, I hate losing.
And I think by gamifying it,it turns it into a competition for
me.
Like, I'm benchmarking againstlast year's data or last month's
data or last week's data.
And it's pretty b.
Like, it's either like, we'reon track or we're off track and you
kind are stuck to the numbers.
And on top of that, it makesit a little more fun than like, hey,
(16:25):
we're just driving for theseresults and here's what we're going
for.
Like, if I look at it like asports game or any type of activity,
on top of that, it becomes fun.
And then number two, I thinkit really just keeps me focused.
Like, I can be insanely add ifI don't stay on top of things.
And I think keeping itgamified to one core metric.
(16:47):
So, like, let's beat X keepsme Grounded to what the actual KPI
we're going off of is, becauseotherwise you can get caught up in
a million shiny objects.
But if you lose track of thecore objective or the core KPI we're
going off of, none of itreally matters.
So by gamifying it, it's like,let's go win at that one thing.
And if we're winning at thatone thing, we could do everything
(17:08):
else on top of it.
All right, and so how doesyour passion for sports and then
your goal of ultimately owninga team, you know, influence your
competitive spirit and drivein the business?
Yeah, that one's been a one onthe list for as long as I can remember.
But I like, again, I don'tthink any of that comes to fruition
(17:32):
if I don't crush it inbusiness first and do stuff that
is helpful in society.
But it's been a fun goal tohave as a thing to chase.
And then it comes back to thesame thing of, like, it's a game.
Like, for me, like, I trulylook at this as, like, I'm trying
to unpeg the different pegs onthe thing to get to the next goal.
(17:53):
So I look at it as, like,that's the broad four to your vision.
What are the pieces that needto go into that thing to make it
a reality?
And I sure hope that I'm veryearly in the journey, but that's
kind of how I look at it.
Okay, and what inspired you tolaunch the make and lemonade fund
during COVID 19?
And what impact did that haveon your.
(18:15):
Your perspective as an entrepreneur?
Yeah, that was a fun one.
And so, honestly, so uniquefrom anything else I've done in my
career to date.
So the Making Lemonade Fundwas, I guess it was five years now,
but basically, March of 2020,world shuts down.
I get sent home from college.
Most of my buddies get senthome from college.
And I was talking to a friend,and we were like, people our age
(18:38):
want to do something, but wehave no idea what to do, how to do
it.
There's no sense of community.
Everybody's home quarantined.
What do we do?
So we decided to create thisthing called the Making Lemonade
Fund.
And essentially, it was a waynot only to raise money online and
support three awesomenonprofits that were involved in
(18:58):
the COVID relief efforts, buton top of that, build community for
people our age who had lostthat they're no longer going to high
school class, or they were nolonger in college.
And we brought together fouror five Hundred young people.
Anyone from, let's say, Idon't know, 13, 14 years old in high
school or 15 years old, allthe way up to 30 year olds that wanted
to support this mission.
(19:19):
We had weekly or nightly meetings.
Literally every night at 9pmfor 80 days straight, seven days
a week, we had these meetings.
We ended up raising rightaround $125,000, if not more in a
month and a half for Covid Relief.
And it just gave me a lessonon it.
Like nobody was getting paid,nobody was making money from it.
It was literally just becauseof the vision that people had and
(19:40):
the mission of we want to makean impact during this time.
So it taught me two things.
Number one, I think it's sucha great opportunity to attach philanthropy
to any business initiative anddo good while you're running a business.
But on top of that, itillustrated to me how important visualizing
the mission of what you'reworking on is for your team.
Because if everyone is drivenby that mission, nothing else really
(20:04):
matters.
So it was just a goodindicator of, like, lead with mission.
First try and do things thatpeople can all get around and get
excited about no matter howmuch they're getting paid and everything
else kind of falls into place.
But it was a great, great effort.
And literally some of thosepeople are my best friends.
I'm going to a wedding thiscoming week for somebody that I met
through Making Lemonade Fund,which is insane.
(20:24):
Yeah.
Wow.
That.
No, that's a great lesson interms of what, what a mission can
do to galvanize a team and,and direct everyone towards a common
goal, more so than just, youknow, anything financial.
So totally 100.
It was such a good experience.
Okay.
All right.
And Jesse, if people want toget in touch and learn more about
Viber Media and what, whatyour, your, your marketing agency
(20:49):
does, what's the best waypeople that can reach out to you?
They can do a couple things.
You can go to viber media.comso V Y B R M E D I A dot com.
You can find me on any socialmedia channel you'd look at.
Just look up Jesse, K J S S Elast name K A Y.
And anyone from the show, ifyou have questions, you're more than
welcome to email me justjesse@vibermedia.com all right.
(21:12):
And we'll link all that in the show.
Notes for everyone.
All right.
Well, Jesse, thank you so muchfor taking the time to be here and
sharing all this valuablewisdom from your journey with our
audience.
We greatly appreciate it.
Of course.
Thanks.
For having me, Dave.
All right.
And that's all the time wehave for now.
We will see you next time.
Today we sit down with Jesse K.
From launching his firstpodcast at just 16 as a high schooler,
a project that ignited apassion for connection.
Jesse's journey is nothingshort of remarkable.
He'll share how gamifying hisapproach helped him land interviews
with business titans like MarkCuban, Jack Dorsey, and Gary Vaynerchuk.
(00:24):
We'll delve into the evolutionfrom those early podcasting days
to founding Viber Media, hisperformance marketing agency.
Working with massive brands,all while navigating Cornell and
even a stint at Goldman Sachs.
Jesse will reveal his secretsto balancing it all, the advice that
he has for aspiringentrepreneurs on managing risk and
(00:48):
the power of mission drivenwork highlighted by his impactful
Making Lemonade Fund.
Get ready for actionableinsights on staying ahead in business
and the competitive spiritthat fuels his drive to keep achieving
bigger goals.
As always, if you found valuefrom this content, please like and
(01:08):
subscribe.
All right, Jesse K.
Welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
Dave, thanks so much forhaving me.
I'm excited to be here.
Absolutely.
We are excited that you tookthe time.
So let's get right into it.
So, Jesse, how did launching apodcast at just 16 years old shape
your understanding of audienceengagement and ultimately lead you
(01:31):
down the path of performance marketing?
Yeah, it's funny, I literallystarted the podcast initially as
a high school project.
So we were, I was in thisentrepreneurship class.
I didn't even really want tobe in it because I found out you
had to write have to write abusiness plan.
I thought it was just like afun fake class.
And then they're like, youhave to write a business plan for
a year.
And I was like, I'm out.
But they're like too late to drop.
So I was stuck in this class,started it because I realized a bunch
(01:54):
of people in the class hadgreat ideas, nobody knew how to execute
on it.
So I was like, why don't Iinterview people who are successful
and have actually done thething that all these kids want to
talk about?
I learned so many lessons fromthe podcast, which I'm sure we'll
talk about, but how it tiesinto performance marketing was, I
think it's actually a greatexperience on seeing how the qualitative
side of interviewing peopleand chatting with people leads to
(02:16):
quantitative results.
So how did different peoplethat I interviewed become clients?
How did different people thatI interviewed lead to referrals on
stuff?
What was the flow from videoclips to getting listeners and how
long did that take andtracking the data to really make
informed decisions on growingthe podcast, which I've carried forward
eight Nine years later.
Outside of that.
(02:39):
Attention Shopify sellers.
Are you tired of slow sales?
Do you want to skyrocket your revenue?
Well, you'll want to join thisfree masterclass from my friends,
the Traffic Ninjas.
Learn how to optimize yourstore, boost conversions, and dominate
your niche.
Sign up with the link in theshow notes and take your Shopify
(03:01):
business to the next level.
Wow.
Okay.
And just following up on thatbecause you hit on such an important
point is, you know,entrepreneurs so often, you know,
people have these aspirationsand dreams and what holds them back
is, is fear and lack of taking action.
(03:22):
So when you're 16 years oldand you realize that everyone has
these ideas, but they don'tknow how to do it.
And you had that idea for thepodcast and you, you took action
right away and just got itstarted and, you know, kept going
and can't imagine you knewanything about podcasting at that
point.
But, but where did that comefrom, that ability without fear at
(03:43):
such a young age?
Not only did I not know what Iwas doing, but it was definitely
not cool yet.
This is like pre Joe Rogan, pre.
Any of the real podcasts being big.
So, yeah, I mean, I think itwas a couple things.
I think, number one, my dad'san entrepreneur, so I grew up seeing
him and I wanted to eventuallydo that, where I was like, I want
to control the destiny ofwhere my life takes me and the work
(04:06):
stuff, and there's only oneway to do it, which is by actually
doing.
And then the second thing was,I don't know where it came from,
but I looked at it like game.
So rather than fearingrejection, fearing failure, feeling
that, fearing that nobody wasgoing to listen, which a lot of people
didn't for the first year anda half, two years, honestly, if you're
talking about before yourecorded, like, it took a long time
before it became a big show inmy head, but I honestly gamified
(04:29):
it.
Like, I was like, oh my God,if I have the opportunity to talk
to a Mark Cuban or a JackDorsey, I'm just going to take a
million shots until I do that,and I'm going to do whatever I can
to get to that result and, andmake it happen.
So I just gamified it in myhead and looked at the long term
vision of I get to meet peoplethat I'd never meet outside of that.
And then everything else kindof rode the coattails of that.
(04:50):
And you know, you mentionedsome of these big names that you've
interviewed.
Jack Dorsey, Mark Cuban, youinterviewed Gary Vaynerchuk, you
know, as a kid just startingout, how did you get big names like
that to come on your show?
An insane amount of cold emails.
I think I literally sent 300cold emails a day, every day for
(05:11):
six months when I was startingthe show off.
And the only thing that gaveme the motivation to keep doing it
at the beginning was actuallya no.
Mark Cuban replied back to oneof my early emails and was like,
sorry, I don't have time, but gock.
And I was like, oh, my God, ifMark Cuban responds, like, anybody
would respond.
So then did cold emails, didfollow ups, the Jack Dorsey one.
I literally.
He was doing like a Twitterlive, I think it was called Periscope
(05:33):
was the branding they had atthe time.
They sat in it for an hour andspammed it with like A hi, I'm 16.
Will you come on my podcastfor five minutes?
And eventually he said yes.
And I was like, oh, my God,great news.
But then at the end I'm like,oh, no.
Like, how do I like?
He said yes, but that doesn'tmean anything.
How do I actually get him on?
So I'm like calling Twitterheadquarters and calling Stripe.
I'm like, your CEO said he'dcome on my podcast, and eventually
(05:56):
I was literally going to flyto San Francisco for a five minute
interview with him.
And then I got an email fromhis chief of staff, who's like, hey,
Jack's actually in New Yorknext week for a board meeting.
Do you want 45 minutes with him?
And then 45 minutes with our CMO?
And I ended up interviewingboth of them, and that's how that
one came out, which was crazy.
Wow.
Incredible.
(06:16):
Okay, now, Jesse, what was thepivotal moment that made you decide
to found Viber Media at such ayoung age?
I think the biggest one, like,it was a relatively natural progression
from the podcast.
So started the podcast, builtan audience there.
As I had the podcast, I did internships.
So my senior year of highschool, I did an internship in sports
(06:39):
marketing for a company calledSteiner Sports, which is a big, like,
collectibles and marketing company.
I worked and helped thefounder with some of his marketing
using what I had done from the podcast.
And then I started getting acouple clients.
Like, a couple of my earlypodcast guests turned into clients,
pro athletes, differentbrands, that type of stuff, and it
(06:59):
slowly just picked up from there.
I did the internship senioryear of high school, took on a couple
of clients my freshman year of college.
That grew sophomore, junior,senior year of college.
And it was kind of just Anatural progression of the podcast,
helping people with theirsocial media, social media to other
marketing, marketing toperformance marketing.
That's kind of where we sit today.
Okay, and so why did you, whydid you choose specifically to help
(07:23):
like eight and nine figurebrands, you know, achieve like this,
this high margin digital growth?
I think it was the right placein the ecosystem, I thought, for
the work we were doing becausea lot of this stuff was, hey, how
can we optimize and findefficiency of already proven strong
businesses that haveadditional list opportunities?
(07:44):
So how can we, how can weimplement email traffic, sms, affiliate
stuff, stuff that can lifttheir brand?
And it's very easy to tellwhat's driving growth because they
already have a good baselinebusiness and we can a lot of times
add fuel to the fire andthey're fun businesses to work with.
Like we work with a big mix ofbrands anywhere in that kind of eight
(08:05):
to nine figure range.
But it's fun because we canget in the weeds, get super dirty
with all the data, and thensee relatively significant incremental
growth relatively quickly.
Okay.
All right.
And so you mentioned as youwere growing the business, you know,
taking on clients during yourtime at college, so specifically
(08:28):
with managing time, I mean,how did you continue to grow this,
this agency while, while goingto school full time at Cornell?
It was really hard.
I probably wasn't the greateststudent in history, but it was hard.
Like I was trying to balancegraduating from Cornell and staying
(08:48):
on pace.
I was doing an internship overthe summer, did a full time thing
after that while running theagency, and it was just sacrifice.
Like I would have to stayaccountable on my calendar of like,
all right, this is time tohang out with my friends, this is
time to go to class, this istime to do work.
But it was essentially a fulltime job on top of being a full time
student.
So it wasn't easy by anymeans, but it was a priority for
(09:10):
me and I love it.
So it didn't feel like workand it was just properly putting
time in the calendar andmaking sure I was staying on top
of it.
Okay, and another great pointtoo, right.
So often, you know,entrepreneurs that, that do really
well, it's like they, like yousaid, right, they love what they
do, so it doesn't feel like work.
(09:31):
So, you know, how, what advicewould you give to someone that's,
that's looking to find thatand then still trying to balance
the reality of, you know,paying the bills, so to speak, and
while they're, while they'regrowing their business.
Yeah, of course I Think it'sa, it's a question I get asked a
bunch because I did like I didthe business while I was in college.
(09:53):
I took a job after college andthen I chose to leave the job to
do the business full time.
And I think the answer isdifferent for everybody.
Like, I think number one,hopefully the business has grown
to the point where it's nearor surpassed what you're making from
your W2 job, where that makesit a no brainer.
Because if you're able to growthe business to that point in the
limited amount of time youhave, obviously that becomes a no
(10:16):
brainer to take the jump on.
And then I think the otherside of it's, what's your risk tolerance?
Like, do you have other peoplethat rely on you?
Is it just you?
How confident are you thatthis thing is going to work?
Is traction picking up?
Do you have long term agreements?
Like, one thing that wasimportant for me was going to some
of the larger clients that wehave prior to me leaving and confirming,
(10:37):
like, hey, we're going to signa longer term deal here because I
need to have security before Ijump with long term existing clients
that know the performance.
And that's how I kind ofhedged against it.
And also the business hadgrown to a point where I felt very
safe doing it.
But then also I was young anddon't have anybody else relying on
me at the moment.
So it became an easier thing.
And I think that question'sdifferent for everybody.
(10:58):
But I think the key ones are,is there growing traction?
It based off of the timeyou're spending on it today, are
you confident that as youspend more time on this business,
it'll continue to grow?
And then number three, what'syour worst case scenario and can
you live with that?
Okay.
All right.
And so you mentioned the jobyou took right out of college and
(11:18):
that was with Goldman Sachs.
So what was that experiencelike after already, you know, building
this, this growing agency andthen doing it all through college
and then getting the W2 jobright out of school.
What was that like for you?
Yeah, I mean, it was a great experience.
Like I loved my time at Goldman.
Some of my best friends stillwork there.
(11:39):
I learned a ton.
Like the original thinking onworking there was I wanted to see
the inner workings of a greatbusiness and how they operate and
learn more tactical stufffinancially on top of what I thought
I knew from a business perspective.
So I loved my time there.
That place is awesome.
And really the key thing in myhead on when it became the right
(12:01):
Time to leave was I was, Iwasn't really sleeping because I
was in the office at Goldmanfive days a week and then working
on the existing business sortof nights and weekends.
And it eventually became agame of all right, the business is
growing a lot and in fiveyears do I see myself wanting to
work at Goldman or wanting tobuild my own business?
For me, the answer was the latter.
(12:22):
And once I knew that thebusiness had grown to a point that
I felt safe with it and had anopportunity to keep growing this
thing, it kind of became a no brainer.
So that's when I decided to leave.
But it, I've been a far morepeaceful guy, still probably more
chaotic than I was there.
But over the last.
I left about a year ago andjust being able to wake up and go
to sleep working on my ownstuff has been a nice process.
(12:45):
Okay, and how do you stayahead of the curve and continue to
develop these, theseinnovative youth focused strategies
in, in the ever evolvinglandscape of digital marketing?
Yeah, I think like I wastalking to somebody this morning
on every time you think you'refinally up to pace or ahead on digital
(13:06):
marketing strategy, at thispoint you're behind again.
Just because at the pace oftechnology evolving and at the pace
of new features coming out,there's just so much and the only
feedback that I give and wetalk about is test everything.
Like just try and be in theweeds and play around with all.
There's so many amazing toolsthat are making marketers lives easier,
(13:32):
revenue officers lives easier,and business owners life's easier
and more efficient that justgetting in the weeds and playing
with these tools and figuringout how they could be useful for
their business.
Not only should it beinteresting and cool, but it should
save a ton of time.
So I try and play with one ortwo new tools a day just to see what
it's doing and how it can help.
And then we're trying todeploy a new tool a month to use
(13:54):
in the broader ecosystem.
Okay, I love that.
All right, and what are someof the differences that you've noticed
in driving growth for therange of clients you've had?
Like taking professionalathletes versus, you know, Fortune
1000 CEOs.
Yeah, I think number one isyou gotta know your client and know
(14:17):
what their priorities are.
So even if you take twoclients identical size, it's very
rare that we see that the endgoal is the same.
Like obviously everyone wantsto make more money more efficiently,
but how do you get there?
And what is the real thingholding that brand back that we can
help with.
So I think number one istrying to understand from the person
(14:39):
you're working with seat, whatare their goals, what are their indicators
they're benchmarking off of.
And then really, I think themore fun side is some of the smaller
brands or individuals that wework with.
We can do stuff quick.
Like, we can get an answer onit today and get it live tomorrow,
while some of the biggerorganizations, it takes time, of
course.
I mean, I worked at Goldman.
(15:00):
I understand how that thingworks of there's processes and bureaucracy
and approvals and boards.
So that's the key differenceswe've realized.
But it's really fun because ona lot of this digital marketing stuff
or performance marketing, wecan, we can attribute it to an actual
data piece.
So as we're driving results,we can see it in lifetime and kind
(15:20):
of like how a gamifiedpodcast, I can gamify this because
it could just get tied back toa number and I want to beat last
year's number from whoeverworking with and we can show them
that those results live.
So that's kind of thedifferences and how we look at it.
Okay.
And following up on that.
So you've mentioned, you know,you gamify things.
You've mentioned that severaltimes in this interview.
(15:41):
And you know, that's astrategy that I've, I've read from,
from numerous people in oflike almost a hack in terms of being
productive or sticking tobeing consistent on a particular
area.
Like, where does that come from?
Your.
Your way of gamifying whatyou're working on?
I think I'm, I'm competitiveat heart.
(16:03):
Number one, like, I hate losing.
And I think by gamifying it,it turns it into a competition for
me.
Like, I'm benchmarking againstlast year's data or last month's
data or last week's data.
And it's pretty b.
Like, it's either like, we'reon track or we're off track and you
kind are stuck to the numbers.
And on top of that, it makesit a little more fun than like, hey,
(16:25):
we're just driving for theseresults and here's what we're going
for.
Like, if I look at it like asports game or any type of activity,
on top of that, it becomes fun.
And then number two, I thinkit really just keeps me focused.
Like, I can be insanely add ifI don't stay on top of things.
And I think keeping itgamified to one core metric.
(16:47):
So, like, let's beat X keepsme Grounded to what the actual KPI
we're going off of is, becauseotherwise you can get caught up in
a million shiny objects.
But if you lose track of thecore objective or the core KPI we're
going off of, none of itreally matters.
So by gamifying it, it's like,let's go win at that one thing.
And if we're winning at thatone thing, we could do everything
(17:08):
else on top of it.
All right, and so how doesyour passion for sports and then
your goal of ultimately owninga team, you know, influence your
competitive spirit and drivein the business?
Yeah, that one's been a one onthe list for as long as I can remember.
But I like, again, I don'tthink any of that comes to fruition
(17:32):
if I don't crush it inbusiness first and do stuff that
is helpful in society.
But it's been a fun goal tohave as a thing to chase.
And then it comes back to thesame thing of, like, it's a game.
Like, for me, like, I trulylook at this as, like, I'm trying
to unpeg the different pegs onthe thing to get to the next goal.
(17:53):
So I look at it as, like,that's the broad four to your vision.
What are the pieces that needto go into that thing to make it
a reality?
And I sure hope that I'm veryearly in the journey, but that's
kind of how I look at it.
Okay, and what inspired you tolaunch the make and lemonade fund
during COVID 19?
And what impact did that haveon your.
(18:15):
Your perspective as an entrepreneur?
Yeah, that was a fun one.
And so, honestly, so uniquefrom anything else I've done in my
career to date.
So the Making Lemonade Fundwas, I guess it was five years now,
but basically, March of 2020,world shuts down.
I get sent home from college.
Most of my buddies get senthome from college.
And I was talking to a friend,and we were like, people our age
(18:38):
want to do something, but wehave no idea what to do, how to do
it.
There's no sense of community.
Everybody's home quarantined.
What do we do?
So we decided to create thisthing called the Making Lemonade
Fund.
And essentially, it was a waynot only to raise money online and
support three awesomenonprofits that were involved in
(18:58):
the COVID relief efforts, buton top of that, build community for
people our age who had lostthat they're no longer going to high
school class, or they were nolonger in college.
And we brought together fouror five Hundred young people.
Anyone from, let's say, Idon't know, 13, 14 years old in high
school or 15 years old, allthe way up to 30 year olds that wanted
to support this mission.
(19:19):
We had weekly or nightly meetings.
Literally every night at 9pmfor 80 days straight, seven days
a week, we had these meetings.
We ended up raising rightaround $125,000, if not more in a
month and a half for Covid Relief.
And it just gave me a lessonon it.
Like nobody was getting paid,nobody was making money from it.
It was literally just becauseof the vision that people had and
(19:40):
the mission of we want to makean impact during this time.
So it taught me two things.
Number one, I think it's sucha great opportunity to attach philanthropy
to any business initiative anddo good while you're running a business.
But on top of that, itillustrated to me how important visualizing
the mission of what you'reworking on is for your team.
Because if everyone is drivenby that mission, nothing else really
(20:04):
matters.
So it was just a goodindicator of, like, lead with mission.
First try and do things thatpeople can all get around and get
excited about no matter howmuch they're getting paid and everything
else kind of falls into place.
But it was a great, great effort.
And literally some of thosepeople are my best friends.
I'm going to a wedding thiscoming week for somebody that I met
through Making Lemonade Fund,which is insane.
(20:24):
Yeah.
Wow.
That.
No, that's a great lesson interms of what, what a mission can
do to galvanize a team and,and direct everyone towards a common
goal, more so than just, youknow, anything financial.
So totally 100.
It was such a good experience.
Okay.
All right.
And Jesse, if people want toget in touch and learn more about
Viber Media and what, whatyour, your, your marketing agency
(20:49):
does, what's the best waypeople that can reach out to you?
They can do a couple things.
You can go to viber media.comso V Y B R M E D I A dot com.
You can find me on any socialmedia channel you'd look at.
Just look up Jesse, K J S S Elast name K A Y.
And anyone from the show, ifyou have questions, you're more than
welcome to email me justjesse@vibermedia.com all right.
(21:12):
And we'll link all that in the show.
Notes for everyone.
All right.
Well, Jesse, thank you so muchfor taking the time to be here and
sharing all this valuablewisdom from your journey with our
audience.
We greatly appreciate it.
Of course.
Thanks.
For having me, Dave.
All right.
And that's all the time wehave for now.
We will see you next time.
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