[00:04] to National Shovel Day live from Hudson Yards. We're in Vayner Media's office. We couldn't be more psyched that you're here. I wasn't here for the start of Christmas or Mother's Day or Father's Day, but you are here for the start of a [00:19] national holiday. And I want to welcome my co-host Gary Vee and the most very nice of you, Cass Lazero. Welcome. Am I the co-host and she's the beautiful she's the co-host? I just want to make sure. I was gonna say that you're a [00:34] here. Wait, are we are you actually trying to make this an official um like a way to do this every year. I think that if we could do it, it would be great because it's all about shoveling [ __ ] It's all about being an [00:49] not? I love that. I love that. I love Are you changing some stuff up here? it's not going to work. Not going to work. That's fine. We don't need We don't need We'll just get me and Cass. We don't need Mike. We We know how to [01:01] sell books here. If we show Mike, we might they might refund books. Everybody on my socials, how are you? Go to garyve.com/join. I think Dustin will garyve.com/join. I think Dustin will have that up shortly. Um and uh I'm it's [01:14] an honor to be here to kick off this ridiculous show. It's gonna be amazing. Well, of course. I I'm happy to This is incredibly apppropo for me to be hosting let's talk about it. Let's go right there. Tell everybody. So, what year was [01:28] it? It was a long time ago. We're all very young. 2009. 2009. Yep. And you go and talk to Mike. You knock on our door. You come up. Actually, Mike came to the conversation. Yep. I went there first. [01:42] but he didn't ask you then, did you? Did he? No. No. I think we met jabbing. He wasn't doing the Yeah, I was jabbing. I didn't go for the right hook yet. Um, we met. It was when I met Mike. It was one [01:56] joining for my world. Everybody, here's what I'm doing. I am here promoting a book and it's not mine. This is unprecedented. This is the first time a book coming out and you know I'm going to love this title. Shoveling [ __ ] [02:11] right? And it is an absolute love story to the best entrepreneurs I've ever met in my life. Um, and I met them a long time but you can see on the screen, Cassandike, cassenmike. If you're [02:26] watching me on my social, please come over, please come over right now to uh garyve.com/join. That will send you to the official National Shovel Day um live [02:39] stream on YouTube right now. I want you all up in here. I can't see the chat That's their chat. That's their chat. But can we see that on that screen? We control of that and get us to their chat? Cuz I want to see some of the [02:53] it, too. Uh oh, see, I see comments. There we go. You'll get that over in a second. I know Dustin's like, "Reverse. You're almost there." Top right. Up. Boom. Click that. And we are now in the game. Look at that. See, now you can say [03:06] game. Look at that. See, now you can say hi to Michelle and Miles. Miles. Miles. The offspring. Sammy went here. David. Uh, look. D. Look at all these people love it. Look at this. Look at this. to the text. Everybody, if you just came [03:20] from the text to this URL, put Gary sent me on YouTube right now. We're about to tell an incredible story. And most of all, I have good news for all of you. really, you're going to buy three because you're going to buy one for you [03:32] and you're probably going to buy two for like the entrepreneurs. And if you're really smart, uh, the lazes here have followed the Gary 19 20078 Crush It Blueprint, the bundle that became a standard in the book [03:47] world. I'm excited about this. We got bundles, we got books, we got the at Veayner. This is all insensual. There's a lot going on. A lot going on. We've got three hours. We got to take it easy and kick it over. No, I have 5:30 [03:59] up front. Then I'm coming back multiple times. So stamp. Yes, I'm wearing the gratitude gorilla 555 t-shirt that'll be dropped soon on whatnot. I'm going to be yourself. But I don't know if you know this. I can do this for eight hours. I [04:12] don't we start at the top before we go into our story? I want to start with shoveling [ __ ] why you wrote it, but weave that into first your actual careers because a lot of Gary fans are coming in first and I want them to [04:27] understand. I don't know if I've ever written the forward to a book. I think I might have bullshitted one a few years ago, but like this was real for me. This is real for me. The reason I'm promoting it as if it's one of my own books is [04:41] because Mike and Cass are family to me. Truly, honestly. And I think a lot of people that know me know I really do get close with people and like my team will tell you like it's more human. This is a different level than that. My parents [04:54] adore these people. Like they write Misha's butt. It's like this is real family to me. Real [ __ ] family to me. No [ __ ] If I've done anything good in your life that's brought you value, don't even buy a [ __ ] V friend. Buy [05:07] especially if you're like a real entrepreneur, you guys have like these I want to get into those in a minute, but this really [ __ ] matters to me. They really matter to me. And most of all, I know they wrote a real book because [05:21] these people built real businesses. They support real businesses. They're some of the smartest people I know. You know, Cass is the brains and the looks and Mike's just around and it's [ __ ] perfect. So, say I'm barely around. [05:36] First of all, thank you for that intro, Gary. So, um, yeah, I would highly that against fans of Gary Vee. That's how you're going to get all your sales. Uh, team, we got to make sure we have that. So, yeah. So, Mike and I have [05:49] worked together. You ready for this? 28 years. 28 years together. 25 of those married. And there's no one else I'd rather run a company with than Mike. Ching says, "Damn, Gary, that was low." You don't understand, Mike. I'm a Jersey [06:03] boy. The more you insult your buddy, it actually means the more you love them. actually means the more you love them. Dustin like that's a Jersey boy thing. Like the more you insult your buddies, the more you actually This is bro code. [06:15] girl math and there's a lot of trends on that. Let me teach you what bro code is. Like if you really [ __ ] with your buddies, if you really [ __ ] with them like my best friends in the world, all we do is [ __ ] on each other 247. [06:29] I love it. I love Vivy's watching. Isn't she some Oh no, they don't school today. River school. I I don't know why they The more you pay, the less these kids go enjoy today. You don't have school Friday either, Vivy. You just got out of [06:42] [ __ ] They don't [ __ ] go to school. No, they Monday and Friday off. Yeah, family, everybody. Buy shoveling [ __ ] Buy them all. Buy every copy on Amazon All right. So, we started off with golf.com. We did that starting in what, [06:58] 1998. I had this idea the internet. Yeah. That 1.0. Web point web 1.0. I like to track their game online. Now, you're saying golfers, not goths. No. goth a little bit cuz golf is stored like yesterday. Rory career grand slam [07:15] that. Not goth like you know golfers. Golfers. People who play golf like the crazy. Wait. Big news. Let's clap it up. Tim Pulse pre-ordered. Okay. SGC Barbarian bought excited to read. Real quick. Do not buy a copy yet if you're [07:29] packages. Yeah. Yeah. There's big packages coming up. Big packages. All right. So, wow. Okay. We laughing at Are we No, bit. Go, go, go. This is like, by the way, this reminds me of you. You're the [07:45] biggest bro at this table right now. You guys don't know Cass. She's the biggest joking. For all the people that know Cass, I promise you, she's the biggest will I will take on either of these two. All right. So started that company, [08:00] wanted to help golfers. Then we sold that to Time Warner. And then in 2007, the day our daughter Vivian was born, we actually started Buddy Media. And that's where the story starts with you two. Um, we ran that company for less than five [08:15] years, sold it to Salesforce for 745 million. Say it slow. 745 million. And we have And it wasn't an allcash deal if I remember since I was on the cap table. Yes. Yeah. And that stock exploded as well. Big time. [08:30] And you know the story that we had other offers that were over a billion. I'm aware. Yes. So that's it. We're the real deal. Yes, you are. We shoveled a lot of [ __ ] So started companies, but we've done what all entrepreneurs do. They [08:44] start investing. We've supported over a hundred. We've done a lot of deals with Gary. Love the pickle ball team. Empathy Wines Friends. I just swept the floor. Please. That's amazing. And we love [08:59] said, how do we write our love story, but also our love story to all these cheat codes that we have for the last 30 years. And we don't believe in just cheat codes. You got to add hard work and you know, resilience, but these [09:14] cheat codes of how to focus an organization, how to raise money, how to hire, how go to the official stream over here. 50 cheat codes we've put in this book. And what today is about some of our favorite entrepreneurs, including [09:27] Mike Cesari of Liquid Death. We're going to stack more cheat codes on top. Yeah. And who made the book? We both did. No, I know. But who wrote the book? Easy. No, no, I know. Okay. Cass, you go first because I trust you more. What [09:43] percentage in this book is you and what is Mike? I'm say I'm going to say the That's why do you think I went to you first? I've collected these cheat codes over the last 30 years. I had them written down in my notes app. Okay, [09:56] these are the same things we say to every entrepreneur every single week. Okay, so I would do a Listen, I'm dyslexic. I did a horrible first draft. Okay, all the chapters gave them the scaffold b I I write in bullet points [10:11] and then Mike does what he does best, which is write over it. Yeah, it wasn't an easy process. Um, let's just say pass, can you answer my question? What? 50% 50%. Really? Yes. And I think he wrote 50%. Mike, what do you think? [10:24] We're in it together. That I know. I know. It was hard. There's no such thing as true 50/50. You're right. And a lot of the conversations went like this. I don't here's Wait a minute. Are you political [10:37] correct on like live streams? Dude, I don't think I did enough. Like, so you did 63 Mike 37. I don't ever like him winning. I know that, but I'm trying. Look, we want to be transparent here. The the transparent part is I wrote [10:50] every single outline, bullet point, and I had every story. Mike did not have stories and I wrote it all down. Okay, that's it. Then I would say my shitty paragraphs and anyone who knows who's dyslexic, you can't do anything. Can't [11:06] do my team knows that if you write me an email longer than three words, I'm out and call a fiveminute meeting. I can't even do it. So Mike then went back in and then who edited a lot? I edited a lot. Okay. So, sounds like you did most. [11:18] No, no, no, no, Mike. No, no, no, no. He's Mike. He's giving me a straight answer. The people want to know. So, I wrote most of the chapters after she wrote most of the chapters after she outlined it. Showed her what I wrote and [11:30] she would typically say, "I don't like it." I said, "Okay, sounds like you guys, that's exactly right, by the way. You don't like it, but I need more than anything for me." Well, I mean, that's [11:42] school. I like people who are very clear in their editing. So, let's just say we fought for the first chapter and then it got easier. I think that's the truth. That is the truth. We um our marriage survived the writing of it and I think [11:55] better because when we work together, I do more sales and the we were in the same lane. This was not easy. Cass runs the company. So, we don't work together. You heard it. You guys, you guys are doing more content. [12:09] Yes. Right. Everybody, all my peeps follow Cass. Cass and Mike, how much are people asking you to like talk about like how to make a family business work? A ton. Yeah. I mean, it's such a I mean, you really [12:23] It's a little bit weird because I know you actually you guys are like once you get this out there like 745 is a real number. Like people's like Braden's eyes came out of his head. The com like you guys have a real exit. You have real [12:37] investments. Liquid like like liquid death and others. you're really in it and like like this is gonna be really fun for me to watch over the next 10 years because you have really something to stand on similar how I came out the [12:49] gate. I talked about business and marketing because I'd done it. Yeah. Like by the time I was starting to be Gary Vee I but I lived it and then years. I think it's really cool and I would say this like if you really are [13:03] business and definitely if you're thinking husband wife team but it goes deeper than that like because it because how they've pulled it off works in every dynamic even cousins and grandpa grand you know grandson um it's a big factor [13:17] any co-founder relationship you're not sleeping with your co-founder you wake up and you text them before you go to bed you're texting them every single thing and so it's a tough relationship right co-founder relationships And so [13:30] what we wanted to do in the book is just be very honest not only about the life? How do you build a business without losing your soul? Not easy. There's no balance. But some of our cheat codes there around how we did date [13:44] going. Anthony fam, thank you for buying the book. Um, and thank you to Matthew Elephant who bought our first package at the Oh, he did. He Wait, what happened? But I want to know about Can we tell like honestly because I believe at some [13:59] before we even talk about the book which you will have time for. I want to talk about this part. Okay. What are the packages gang? If you're an OG, you know, fan of me, you know, I love a good book package. We got book packages. How [14:13] many different ones do we have? We have five. Okay. We have five packages. I'm going to start at the top. The best one. Is that okay? No. I like the buildup. buy one book, which some of you have. Thank you. so much. You get about [14:26] Thank you. so much. You get about $350 worth of free [ __ ] This is Founders Farm membership, right? This is the advanced chapters. This is We have an interview. Seth Myers. People need to go to shovelingshit.com/shovel. [14:38] see the packages. Yes. So, everyone's on. Okay. What did you say about Seth Myers? So, Seth Myers did an interview of us. That's live. You can get that if you buy one book. The most important thing for the one book. You want to [14:50] you're not interrupting. We're jamming. You're jam. We're if we're going to keep track of interrupting, I'm in deep [ __ ] Let's call it jamming. Let's call it jamming. So, we threw everything that we use to launch businesses. So, the [15:05] budgets, how we focus companies, how we do strategic planning into the entrepreneur toolkit, you get that with one purchase. So, if you're launching a business, this is everything that we use to launch our business. Hi, Eddie. [15:18] That's a no-brainer. So, with that, I'll turn it back to K. Okay. So then we go to the digin package which is awesome. So you buy 20 books, right? You get everything we just talked about. Then you get our field guide which is like on [15:32] the ground cheat codes. You get a master class. We put together a master class. That's all everything if you want to see visually how we did everything. But here's the big stuff that I love. You get one hour. You get four weeks of one [15:46] hour office hours. Get the [ __ ] out of here. Yeah. You get in, you come in. founders therapy. Oh, there's 20 of them. No wonder. So, it's like founders therapy. Okay. You come in. It's been great. We've actually had Crystal in. [16:00] We've had Seth in a lot. These are two of our big founding KK Alexandra. If you shovelingship.com/shovel, the details of everything Cass is breaking down quickly right now are there for you. And then you also get a 30 minute private Zoom [16:15] with us which is key because we've actually helped people either secure funding or think through business models shift pivot their business model. So interrupt. Michael D said Gary has no attention span. Incorrect Michael. I'm [16:28] entertaining and bring as much value in a short period of time as possible. Intentions span. Thank you. Okay. Okay. You do right. You guys know this. I actually am epic with it. It's just that I'm willing to interrupt and [ __ ] [16:42] everybody's flow up if it's not efficient. Look at Ryan Holtz here. We he gave great advice to his We love kids. We love giving advice to kids. Buy the packages. Let us meet with [16:55] your kids. Put them on the right. Okay. L is like slinging like babysitting L is like slinging like babysitting here. L so much. These will babysit. Now's the time. Send us a picture of someone holding up the book. That'd be [17:07] great. Great. So, the next package is called the New York Stock Exchange package. So, buy 40 books, you get everything we talked about. Hold on. Hold on. I I really I'm really do I really do [17:19] apologize. I got a little bit weirded out on digging package. I looked at it wrong. I thought the last package cost $4,000. No, that's the value you get. Say one more time for $600 with access to you. One more time. How much? Four [17:32] and a half hours. You guys are [ __ ] idiots. I have nothing else to say. I'm out. That's [ __ ] stupid. Four and a half hours for 600 bucks. Four hours of group office hours. Four hours group office hours. Office hours. He's [17:45] leaving. He's leaving. Cass, that's Why didn't I review the packages? Well, I been shown them. So, they're cheap. They should buy them. They should have. I prioritize. I apologize. All right. Keep going. Okay. So, let's go to the office. [18:01] Guys, I'm not I'm that like my audience knows I'm not here for treating this like we are. You know what's really cheap? The 300 buck package. Yes, that's the big one. Okay, that's where I gave you my most love. [18:14] Not the office, not the co. So, the New York Stock Exchange package. Come on June 2nd to the New York Stock Exchange. If you buy this package, 40 bucks. Okay, you get a ticket to this incredible [ __ ] up future packages. People gonna [18:29] be like, "Wait, I don't like mine. This package is 40 bucks. Mine would be like 900 2007 one, right? We're starting we're Yeah, but my 2009 one was like I worked at my dad's liquor store. You guys sold [18:44] unbelievable amount of [ __ ] proper investments. You got to deliver value. I this one, the New York Stock Exchange ticket one, this is like $8,000 worth of [18:56] everything purple before and a ticket to the big every large New York City entrepreneur Yeah. is invited to this. huge. It is the room to be in on the Monday of New York Tech Week at the New [19:10] there. By the way, I forgot there's And they uh But I might be there. Yes. All right. So, the next package 150 bucks. Okay. 150 bucks. You get a Cassinike lunch. So, everything from before you [19:22] get to go to the How long's the lunch? Okay. 10 hours. No, it's not 10 hours. I'm just trying to [ __ ] with you. It's not 10 hours. Is that okay? 10 hours. 10 hours. Three hours. Whatever. We got nothing going on. I don't eat lunch, so [19:34] for that one. You know that's right. Wait, really? I thought for sure this is Wait, really? I thought for sure this is protein. Protein prote? [19:47] running? It's three. Gratitude [ __ ] Gratitude gorilla shirts dropping 555 soon. Right there. All right. All right. So, now we're going to get to the biggest chefette. Biggest package. Okay, ready? Chef. Okay. [20:00] over $9,000 of value. you mean $9,000 value? Mike, you came up with the [20:13] numbers. What is it? It is priceless. Thank you, Mike. So, $9,000 is cheap. This dinners with me is not $9,000. It is. The [ __ ] are you talking about? This [20:25] for $112,000. What do you mean? $9,000. one that we went to? Oh, yeah. There was that. I bought it back cuz I didn't want to do $1,000. I bought it for cuz I didn't want to do the dinner. [20:41] Three dinner three. There's only one of these, right? There's There's one. me just save time. This one should sell right now. If you buy 300 books, there's eight seats at the table with us. So, there's there's is a table at Flyfish [20:56] Club. Yep. At your club. I know a lot of you have been trying to like get in. If you buy 300 books, which I guess is like it'll be on Shoveling [ __ ] What if What might be a race going on right now. Eight of them. There's eight. We're [21:10] watching. We're turning it off. Eight seats. Eight seats. I'm sorry. Okay. That'll be I thought one person could bring seven. No, there's eight packets. Oh, so I'm gonna hang out with eight of these characters at once. I'm [21:24] kidding. I can't wait, actually. That's fun. Some of them will be from our All right, good. So, that one is the 300 book package. You get all the stuff, the New York City. You get the You get the Zoom. You get the lunch with you guys. [21:38] And you get the dinner with me. Yeah. Not the Zoom. Zoom with that. Not the You put X's there. No, Mike did that. Yep. I did that. Sorry. Mike did [21:50] Yeah, we're People want to know if they can buy shovels. Can they buy shovels? Um Oh, man. We got to send out buy books and we'll give you whatever you want. Seriously, bought a package. KG wink. I'm just having fun. I'm not trying to [22:04] be here for three hours. I apologize. So, let me You're right. It is a weakness. Before Gary leaves. Yes. For the first time. He's going to be in and talk to other entrepreneurs with him here. So, we've asked him to leave. Um, [22:19] what is money on the table? What is your most important cheat code that you conference room and were starting on your own that you want to give to everyone as an entrepreneurial cheat code? Yes. You know, it's funny like [22:33] it's it's really really interesting. This is like a wild thing to say, but I've been running the family business for for 12 years before the day I walked know if it's you're always learning new things. I mean only five years ago I [22:49] realized that cander was my kryptonite. Yeah. Like who would think because Gary Vee on stage cander advice to you like what you guys like advice to friends? Cander. Cander. So I think you're always learning something. [23:02] Um what would I say is my favorite thing I've learned? I mean that's my favorite a lot of things I believed the day I walked into your conference room have become more Here's a good one. Let me tell you what I walked into your [23:16] conference room believing then the era that we all grew up in the explosion of web.2 to and all the money that was made and all the fundraising y that I lost and then I got back right. I came into your office with in 2009 believing in [23:32] hard work, tenacity, kindness, practicality. Don't borrow money, make money. That's a big one. That one I money. That's a big one. That one I definitely lost in in 2010, 11, 12 kind [23:47] fund. There was a lot going on with me and I decided to build an agency. Mike knows this. Mike's got the best Vayner story of all time. I always say that in the first two years of Vayner, I didn't really want to do Vayner. It was kind of [24:01] like AJ was running it. Mike is the only human that knows this story. Now I'm and Mike are crossing the street in New York. I'm like, "Mike, you should buy York. I'm like, "Mike, you should buy Vayner in my in Buddy Media because like [24:13] it's not why I was doing it. I was doing it to learn Fortune 500." Yeah. So, couple things I would say the biggest thing I've learned is for not a million bucks. I believe I wanted I was willing to get out. Um, [24:30] couple things. One, I think, and I love that your the book's called Shoveling [ __ ] I think one of the things that I've learned, it's reinforced is back to basics. Yeah. You know, like just like [ __ ] run a [24:44] P&L, make good decisions. Like, you know, c you know how much I care about culture. Yes, we're aligned on that. Culture is huge. It's all people. If nothing else, all people. I got another one. [24:57] Too many people put process on a pedestal, not the outcome. project management because I love them and we need them and there's value in it. But too many project managers that have [25:11] companies I'm on the board of or involved, they care about the process. Like everyone's got to bring a pencil to the meeting. Who gives a [ __ ] Yeah. Like so I think another thing that I've really really am passionate about [25:26] is focus on what [ __ ] matters. 99% of [ __ ] [ __ ] doesn't matter like focus on people which is culture which is vision which is value I think what you did to [25:38] on the right stuff in the beginning there was just two things that you did remember you were focusing on bringing in revenue because that's how you had to get out of a product office yep and hiring the people to service the clients [25:51] that was it it and it was simple like you knew what you had to do in a lot of ways 2500 people later hundreds and hundreds hundreds and hundreds of feel like last year I spent a lot of time I would say last year and not only [26:04] was I not the chairman of Vayner X. I would say I was the COO of Vayner Media out of it like I'm going back to Gary Vee and V friends is like eating up every energy I have. But like I also [26:19] which is there's different seasons in the journey. Yeah. As an entrepreneur sometimes you're the chairman. Sometimes you're the boss and sometimes you're the junior employee. And I think when you're in that mindset, you'll service yourself [26:34] like because well, because as soon as you become living in your ivory tower in your fancy office and you've lost the dirt, this is why I love your book so you're dead. Well, I will say we've worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs [26:47] worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and we know Gary very well and you are the best entrepreneur we know because you don't rely on fundraising. We're not good enough to go out and just do it. We've raised hundred million dollars a [27:00] buddy meeting there. You focus on building the business first and then if you need financing to make a move, it's there. And not having that safety net of financing has been incredible to watch. And to see you build this business [27:14] without giving away the equity, doing it your way with empathy, compassion, you know, promoting from within. I look around this room and Dustin's been here for seven years. Yeah. I've seen him go from, you know, not knowing a lot to he [27:30] got all this set up, right? And so you mentor people, you hire well, you mentor people, you hire well, you promote from within, you fire fast. And I can't think of another entrepreneur that Marcus runs international. Marcus [27:43] lives in London and runs Vayner International. Marcus was nine when you had he was in the conference room. He was in the conference room sneaking out and running back in like a like like a [ __ ] hedgehog. Yeah. No. And to do [27:57] what Gary has done without raising money, you know, you see what he does on socials that there is no more genuine person. You can't do this by accident. Thank you, brother. And so, it's just proud for us coming back here. My pride [28:10] for you guys supporting this book is one of the great joys. I I am desperate for this book to get to as many people as possible. I can't wait to have dinner with people. I'm going to be back soon. Um, and you got a whole show. That's why [28:25] I was yapping so much. Please leave so Yeah, exactly. Or talk even at all. But we're not going to be able to talk to people if he's here the whole time. All right. Well, so one thing before we get our next guest on, we had [28:37] before we get our next guest on, we had a party pack that someone just bought. Okay. You knew this would happen, but this is all good for you guys. Social, I'm leaving. You need to continue watching this at [28:49] garyve.comjoin. Everybody go over there now. Love you. Okay. So, do we know Claire? Do we know who bought the party pack? Yes. Melissa, what' you say? Melissa Chang. Melissa. Thank you so much. This is huge. So, she's gonna come [29:05] to the party on We are partying. Get your dance shoes on. Get ready. I don't know if Do Are we really dancing? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, apparently we're dancing. I'm dancing. You're dancing with Michelle. No, you're not dancing. [29:17] right. So, now we'd like to get with Michelle. Yes, you can dance with Michelle. Now, we're gonna bring in Erica. And um I'd like to bring her in. So, if we can do that, we got put our earphones on so we could hear everyone. [29:32] Yeah. This is awesome. I don't know. Erica, do you want to pull up that? And for us and bring her in? If Mike can do us and bring her in? If Mike can do that. There she is. Hi, Erica. [29:48] Good. Welcome to National Shovel Day. Recite your here.