Transcription
What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James. I'm here with Jack and Josh. We are out in New York City with an absolutely incredible guest. Before I introduce him and what he does, you've broken a record being on this show. Do you know what that is?
What is that?
You are the youngest millionaire in School of Hard Knocks history.
Oh, really?
John Emma right here made his first millionaire at what age?
16.
So, I think before that it was Neil Patel. Do you know Neil Patel?
Yes. He's a marketer. I think he was like 18 or something.
He was 17 years old.
So you [snorts] sold two tech companies before you were 16.
I sold two tech companies before I was 16. Yeah.
What in the world got into you that young? You broke I think you know you broke down your first computer when you were like 7 years old. Give us the backstory, man. How did you even make that happen?
Yeah. So my parents bought our first household computer when I was seven. And I remember seeing it and I was so infatuated by it. Just like called to me. Never seen a machine that had so many outputs where you could paint on it, program, type, etc. And so the first thing I did was when they put it together is I waited until they went to their bedroom and I got a screwdriver and took the whole thing apart. Now, when they came out of their bedroom, they were pretty pissed off about it. They're just like, "We just bought this a couple thousand dollar machine. You better put it back together." Knowing that they assumed that I wouldn't. And so hours passed by, they left and they came back and it was put together. Until my dad pushed the button and turned it on. It worked. And they're kind of scratched your head moment like how did you do that? And so um my dad reached out to one of his friends that worked at IBM and basically you know got on a call with him and said hey you know John took apart this computer put back together. He's like you should take him to the store called Fry Electronics. Fry Electronics is closed down now but it was like the Disneyland for nerds. They sold every single computer part you could possibly imagine. So, I remember walking into that store and I was just so blown away with all the parts from a motherboard to a memory, etc. And so, my dad's friend had essentially created this list of computer parts cuz he wanted to see if I could build one from scratch. And so, we ended up going home and my dad was like, "Hey, you should try to put this together." And then I did. And that's when my parents knew that there was something there. And then, so fast forward from like 7 to 13, I taught myself how to like self-code. I could hack. I could do all sorts of things with technology. And I was just a very ambitious and just curious kid. And so I decided to start these two tech companies. One was a rendering company um to solve rendering issues at the time. And the other one was a game company called Revenge of the Nerds because I was picked on and so I wanted to kick the bullies. And so it was sort of the same concept of Angry Birds if you're familiar with that. Yeah. But basically nerds versus bullies. And yeah, that both of those ended up getting acquired and that's what really just accelerated my life and like my story to where I am today.
You were a teenager. How did you get people to even take you seriously like from a business standpoint? Because I look at it as I mean we're in our early 20s. I know that you're in your How old are you now?
I'm in my 30s.
How old are you?
I don't ever really say my age.
Okay. You don't have to. [laughter] We don't have to at all by the deeds. But but but but you know often times what happens is you know you're you're a younger person and somebody from a business standpoint they may not necessarily take you seriously. Did that ever have an effect on you or
Yeah. I mean it did. It did. I mean so when I started those first two companies it's probably worth mentioning that you know you say this now no one cares but 99.9% of my friends were online. I actually didn't know who they were. So I had friends that were early employees at Google and so forth. They didn't even know how old I was or anything like that. We just used to work on projects with each other. This is before like GitHub and things of that nature. And so we would team up and you know build companies, work on projects, etc. And so what happened is there was these forums that people would post what we're doing. And it just so happens that people saw that that worked at these large corporations and reached out to me, but they had no idea how old I was. And so, you know, the first person that reached out to me, I got on the phone with them and this is before I had like bass in my voice and she's like, "Can you put whoever owns this company on the phone?" I'm like, "Yeah, this is him. Are you sure?" And so, we had a conversation. She's like, you know, want to talk to your parents? Got my parents on the phone with us. And she's like, you know, we want to acquire you. And the second time, that's the kind of the same way that it happened. And
So, did you have any business partners with the companies or
No, it was really what I was really good at was assembling people. I was I was naturally just a leader and I was really good at like spotting talent of like who's good at what like from a design perspective, from a program perspective, etc. And people have just like were really passionate about me because I was so selfless.
But I think it's important context to give that you didn't come from a very wealthy family.
Oh, no. I mean, we grew up poor. My parents were originally from Nigeria. They migrated over to the United States, you know. Um, they actually slept in the car for a few years before they could save up to get an apartment and so forth. My brothers and sisters and I at one point used to all share the same room. So we didn't come from we did the whole food stamp thing and so forth. And so in many ways I actually like that I came from that sort of beginning because it always keeps me humble. Um, because especially when you're in a sit in a situation like that, the only way forward is like when when your back is against the world, the only way is forward. And we had all the constraints going against us. We didn't have any money. We were poor. My brother and I, we don't necessarily look the same, but people thought we were twins because we always wore the same clothes because we couldn't afford to really buy each other's separate clothes or, you know, my parents. So,
But but I have to ask, right, when you're 16 years old, your companies get acquired, you make, you know, you become a millionaire, you split the money with the family or what do you what what did you do with the money with with when when it hit?
Yeah. So, you know, it kind of goes back to the selfish thing. I've never been motivated by money. It's always opportunity. I knew at a young age that I wanted to change the world and I was going to do it in multiple ways because I was so passionate about technology. And so I did have a team that worked with that I worked on, sorry, worked with to build these companies. And so everything was mutually split. I didn't have to do that because I own 100% of the company for both of them. And they were sort of just doing this as side project because again, they like my personality. I would help them out with stuff, etc. But when that happened, I decided to split it equally with all of them each time.
I just think it's fascinating how most kids your age are probably playing Sims and creating characters, but you're playing Sims in real life and being like, you know, you're really good at that. I'm going to have you do this. And I think it's fascinating how you're able to do that at such a young age. So during this time, you're at school, is that correct?
So, did you end up going to college or what what kind of happened after the initial sale of these two companies?
Yeah. So, it was during my time at high school, but I was kind of going through this identity crisis because I was really good at sports for the most part, but during those days, being a nerd was not cool, my friend. People would roast you. On top of that, I was really skinny and they had like the best of the world jokes. They would call me ET and just all sort of different things. And so,
What did you play? What'd you play in high school?
Soccer, football, track. Gosh, I I was like state champion at track as well for high jump and all stuff. So, I was an athlete, you know, it's just in my DNA.
Um, but what I was finding is I was kind of coming to this crossroad where I was really good at tech,
but I played sports because it allowed me to fit in. If you played, you know, if you were really good at sports, you became a jock and everyone just gravitated towards you. Um, but in some ways, I saw my future and I was so passionate with technology. Sports were fun to play, but it didn't really give me that passion where I would get goosebumps when I would see a commercial for Dell and they come out with a new PC. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I got to have it." It wasn't the same thing when I picked up a basketball. And so my late senior year of high school, I decided I'm just going to be a full-blown nerd. I didn't care if I was going to get picked on or people wouldn't accept me. I just felt like it was the way to go. And so I fully embraced it and the rest was history. When I got to college, people had kind of already heard about me because, you know, selling two companies, it made local news. And it was kind of a weird thing. I only went to college to appease my parents.
I was I was I was actually going to ask you. I was like, cuz did you even want to go to college? I mean, you clearly had the skills within you to do well without it.
Yeah, I didn't. I mean, entrepreneurship didn't run in my family. I'm the first person in my entire like family's bloodline that really embraced being an entrepreneurship or sorry, being an entrepreneur, let alone like becoming a millionaire. And so, in my family, success was either being a doctor or a lawyer. So, some sort of, you know, really structured corporate job that you can do well in life. But I was so ambitious and I knew that that wasn't for me. And so I really wanted to go in to this tech thing. So when I arrived in college, you know, I'd say what I learned from college, I actually didn't learn anything in terms of the skills that I knew because I already know that. In fact, a lot of the um classes that I took, the the teachers and professors would ask me to teach some of the classes because everyone was always going to cheat off of me anyway. So they're like, "You might as well just be in front of the class telling them what to do." Um, but what I'd say is college taught me more about myself on like a personal level because it was the first time that I was like away from home by myself and like the responsibility was me to keep myself alive. And so it's kind of an interesting, you know, you've learned, you have sort of diff different experiences in college where you're by yourself, maybe uh you start dating, you get a girl and stuff, you get that heartbreak, all that stuff. Like all those sort of experiences I had during college because I skipped a lot of that when I was um growing up because I was so focused on like tech technology.
John, over you know, after college and throughout your career, you've worked for some impressive companies. Amazon, Twitch, Meta, Snapchat. Could you take us through for each of those companies that you worked with over the course of your that you've worked with over the course of your career, like what are some of the biggest things that that you learned while working there and some of the impact that you were able to have for each of these like massive companies? Like it's it's incredibly impressive resume.
Yeah, Samsung was my first corporate job. I was super excited about it because I just love Samsung devices. And I actually started working there before they had built the Samsung Galaxy phone. So, I got to be a part of that from fruition, seeing it, you know, start from where it was in a little black box to where it is now today. And so, I'd say for Samsung, it was interesting because Samsung is a it's a Korean-based company based in South Korea. And Samsung taught me a lot about like process and discipline. Every single little thing had a process. And so, when you're an entrepreneur, it's not really like that. You just kind of go go and you're trying to get things done. Versus at Samsung, everything had process. And so it kind of changed how I thought about things and it was really nice to start to develop that muscle to where it's like okay let's develop a process for this. How do we scale this? Let's have a process for that etc. Um so I also worked at Take Interactive which is great.
Do you know Strauss Zelnik?
Uh yes. So I've met St. Zelnik maybe once or twice. Very very nice guy. Uh what I also liked about him is like he was he was like the first person that I saw at that level that truly embraced his like health.
He's like a health nut. He's in crazy shape. I'm interviewing him in two hours after this.
Oh, really? Oh, yeah. You're welcome to come if you want.
Okay. Maybe if I have time here, I'll say hell to him. I mean, they're getting ready to prepare for like the most massive launch probably of all time. He's doing [laughter] I already cleared out the schedule. We advance girlfriend ain't going to be seeing me [laughter] very much. Yeah,
that game's going to change everything. But Take Interactive really fostered the creativity inside of me because working for a gaming company that makes games like Grand Theato, NBA 2K games that I grew growing up, you know, it allowed me to be creative and it also allowed me to learn different aspects of the business that I didn't have like really good strength with, which was like marketing and digital and so forth. When I went to Twitch, Twitch was so cool because I was a gamer at core. And in the early days, we only hired people that had a gaming background. So, I was like one of the only few employees. There was a few there that actually had came from like a real corporate job. Most people came from the community where they played like fighting games and so forth. And so because I already had that process-driven knowledge, you know, I'd worked at Take 2 coming to Twitch, it was the true entrepreneurship like uh I guess setting, but then also what made it very challenging at Twitch, it was it was the early days and so YouTube was the dominant platform. And so we were trying to educate all these publishers and developers to use our platform and go live and they didn't understand the notion of going live. And so that sort of taught me a new cell, sorry, a new skill, which is sales. Being able to go to an EA or an Activision and convince them that yes, this is similar to YouTube, but it's not, right? And developing KPIs and metrics and presentations that get them excited and so forth. And so that was really cool. And also on top of that, because everyone that I work with play games and they're gamers and so I felt accepted in that community cuz we just all like the same thing. Um, when I worked at Meta, Meta was an interesting time for me because at that point, and arguably you could probably still say today, it was one of the top tech companies in the world. And I always had self-esteem issues. And so when I worked at Meta, I always felt like I wasn't good enough because a lot of people that I work with had double PhDs. They came from all these like I felt like I went to a good school, but they're coming from Stanford and Harvard and MIT and so forth. And so I just felt like I wasn't at the same level. And so I was always a very ambitious uh person. And so we had these things to where you could basically win employee of the year respectively for your division. And I remember like my first week there, I was talking to someone that had been there for a long time and I said, "I'm going to win that." And they kind of laughed, not in a disrespectful way. They're just like, "John, if I told you how hard that is to win, you have to be perfect on your reviews." And I'm like, "I know." And it took me two years and I won. And so it was validation to me that I could like hang with people that were like had high IQs because I knew that I did but it just was that reassurance that okay you are smart you know and then when I went to Snapchat real
Real quick before we move on I I want to talk about that real quick is you said
amongst people in Harvard Stanford MIT you said look the diploma and your background's cool but I'm going to win it for me
right
where do you think a that drive comes from And then two, how did you end up actually going about and doing that?
Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from past experience. What I found when I've talked to a lot of my successful friends is there's a commonality. There's some sort of trauma that happened where you've like lost a loved one, you know, maybe you were bullied or whatever the case may be, you grew up poor, etc. For me, I had all of those traumas. And so my mom before she passed away when I was in college was my best friend. And she was the first person on this earth that truly saw that I was going to be someone and believed in me. And so when I would kind of get into these like dark times in my head, I would just think about her and all the sacrifices that she made and tell myself that no, you are capable, you are smart, you know, you are, you know, you can do all these things. And so the rest was history. And I would just really keep at it and never give give up and never take no for an answer. And it was challenging. It wasn't easy. I mean, look, when you hire a ton of smart people and you put them all in the same room, it becomes in some ways a, for lack of better words, I know my PR team will. It's almost like a match in a way, right? Because everyone's trying to thump their chest and say, "Hey, I came I come from this place." And based on my knowledge from working at these places, this is how it should done. And the other person's kind of saying the same thing. And so for me, what I realized was it wasn't just about being intellectually smart. It was also about in some ways Game of Thrones, making sure that people liked you. The networking aspect. When I was in college, no one they would kind of tease networking, but they wouldn't tell you how critical it is in terms of you being successful. In some ways, it's like high school. You have to be really good at your job, but then also people have to like you and corral around you and say like, "Hey, we want we believe in what John's saying. Like, we're going to support him." And so there was a lot of that at Meta and then thankfully I won and it really helped skyrocket my career. And then I ended up joining Snapchat. And so I joined Snapchat during the dark days. The stock was under $5. Um, they just had a lot of challenges. Instagram had ate their lunch by copying one of their or duplicating one of the features that were sort of um core to Snapchat. But what I loved about Snapchat is in some ways it had represented me through my entire life. Someone that had to overcome challenges. people didn't believe in. You know, I've had people um copy things that I was doing and then become even more mainstream than I was. And so, I wanted to join a company that was the underdog. And, you know, I worked my I worked on a lot of different projects. I got to oversee various verticals from like fashion to gaming, etc. And during my time there, the stock was under $4 and it rose to about $85.
Awesome. Place. And so it was nice, especially as you know, working at these tech companies, you get stock. So it's kind of nice to reap those benefits. And then I decided, you know what, I want to do my own thing. I really love fashion. I'd always been very, very like just fond of fashion because of my mother and I also love technology. And I was like, how can I like actually merge both of those worlds together? And so what was nice going back to the network thing that I said was I built up this pretty robust network within fashion from working at these tech companies. And so before I started SpreeAI, I flew out to Europe, met with some of the most profound executives in the world. Um, noticed the commonality in terms of what they were saying and you know in terms of like what I would need to build a business or a product that would help serve their business and make it better. So I took all that information and then from there started to assemble in a team like the um like the Avengers, the best of the best from all around the world, but then on top of that I had these really key connections. So I reached out to Carnegie Melon and MIT as well to sort of help us out on the journey. And then honestly it was the rest was history. So that was like the first part is like forming the company. Second is I I always tell my employees or people that I work with, you have to download the industry that you're in. Meaning understand what's going on, how people move, how they dress, how they interact, etc. Now, I knew I was a fashionable guy and fly guy, I might add, but I knew that I was going to have to like take it to the next level. And so, when I first started SpreeAI and we would meet with all these major brands, we would show up like a tech company. You know, we had our Spree AI hoodies, presentation was pretty good, thumping our chest, but it didn't resonate well with them.
Until the day I went to a fashion show. I was sitting front row and I'm like, "Wait a second. We're not showing up in a way that translates to this industry." And so I talked to my team. I said, "We need to present to them like they are at a fashion show. We need to first worry about what we wear." So if I'm meeting with the uh you know, a luxury a luxury designer that um produces a particular garment, I'm going to be wearing that from head to toe because the moment I walk into the building, guess what? This is what they create. So they're going to notice me. Wait, who is that guy that is like handsome and is dressed well before I even open my mouth? The second is the presentation. So beyond being like the traditional tech company with slides, we put on a fashion show. And so if we're demoing our product, we used to fly in models that would literally be in the conference room and show these like luxury houses or these fashion houses our technology. We would play music and you would see these these are the very corporate of corporate people but underneath the table you see their teeth their their feet tapping because of the music and they're really engaged and we would get round of applauses and so forth and that's what really started to build up my profile in fashion but then also on top of that going to events that I knew that were hard to get into. When I first got into fashion and I would talk to some of the adviserss that I knew throughout my career they're like John you'll never go to the Meg Gala. these fashion shows are incredibly hard to get into, etc. And for me, I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna prove you wrong." And so, my second year forming Tree AI, I got invited by Vogue and Anna Wintor to go to the Megal. I was the first fashion, tech, AI CEO ever to be invited and go, and I just went this year again. So,
Are are you a Westside Gun fan
To a certain extent?
I knew you at least knew who Westside Gun was. We're big Westside Gun fans. So he he's he's into like the fashion apparel space and I I I could see I could definitely see it for sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
I want to get into Spree AI. And first of all, what year did you start Spree AI?
Um in 2023.
So three years ago.
Correct.
How much is your company worth today?
$1.5 billion
With a B.
With a B. Like Drake said, B's on the table. [laughter]
So So So I I I want to I want to I want to tie the knot. I want to close the loop on the um on on the corporate side of things for you. Then I want to get all into that. Among all these massive tech giants that you worked at. My kind of one question there was is that were there any founders that you interacted closely with at any point in time that really impressed you and stood out to you? Right? Because I mean Twitch, you've got Justin Khan, obviously Zuckerberg's at Meta, Spiegel at Snapchat. Was there any big founder or executive at one of these companies that you got to kind of work closely with in some capacity? And if so, did you take anything away from them that you've taken into your now billion dollar company?
Guys, we're going to get right back to the episode with John Emma in just a second, but before we do that, I want to talk about one of the things that we discussed with John off camera, which is that one of his [music] superpowers in business was that he was incredibly persistent and he mastered the follow-up. John [music] built a billion-dollar company in the AI space. But it doesn't matter what industry you are in. If you understand how to leverage AI, master [music] sales, and the follow-up in your business, you will always be successful. We at the School of Hard Knocks have partnered up with one of the most prominent [music] brands and business CRM in the entire world called High Level. What High Level does, it doesn't matter what type [music] of company you are running, it automates your entire sales and follow-up process with potential clients, customers, members from [music] your audience. So, if you have a business and you have an announcement that needs to go out to the masses, it automates your text [music] messages. It automates your emails. Every means of communication that you need to get with your potential [music] buyer or previous buyers, it can automate that process for you. Now, here's where it gets even crazier. [music] If you go down right now to the link in the description of this video, you can start a free trial with High Level today and you can automate the follow-up sales process in your business and never leave a single dollar on the table again. With that being said, let's get back to the episode.
Yeah, I mean, I've met a lot of interesting people throughout my career. I met Bill Gates at a young age and um I remember talking to him and he had I think he was like a huge like Coke fan. He had a Coke in his hand and he was telling me he was like um
It's cuz he's friends with Vorn. That's probably why. That's [laughter] probably why.
And I was telling him, I was like, "Hey, you know, I'm in tech, but there's not a lot of people that look like me." He's like, "Well, you should change that." And then he told me, he's like, you know, there's this quote I said, which is be nice to a nerd because chances are you'll work for one. And that stuck with me. I'm like, man, that's kind of so true. I mean, look at today it is. That's what's kind of happened.
Um, but yeah, throughout my career, I would say anyone any company that I've worked at, especially tech, I've had some form of an interaction or relationship with the founder. And it's been great to kind of understand their perspective and how they navigate because they're all very different. Um, and it's been great to kind of take some of the key learnings that they've shared with me to kind of continuously mold my own personality, especially as I've built up Spree AI into what it is today.
So, I think it's very impressive that again you went from at an early age building a couple companies, selling them, going to school, going to work at some of the biggest companies in the world, and then go back into entrepreneurship. What led to that decision?
So I always knew that I was going to be an entrepreneur truthfully and candidly I went into corporate America to appease my parents. Yeah.
Right. Is even after you know exiting to companies and such they really didn't understand it and they're just like that's great but you should still get like a good job because they didn't understand this idea of being an entrepreneur. And you know I was very young and there were places that I did want to work at. A lot of my friends were working at Google and met at all these major tech companies and they would tell me online, "John, you should be here. You could be a part of my team." And so I kind of made it a goal to appease my parents, but then also work at places that would resonate well with me. I'm very fortunate that almost every place that I've worked at, I've never applied for a job. They've always sought me out, which is great.
Um, and yeah, I did that, but I realized in my heart that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. What I loved about corporate America is it teaches you so much about yourself, about the company, um how to launch products. There's also the politics aspect as well.
A lot of corporate minutia,
A lot, my friend. [laughter] A lot. A lot. And so I was able to take all that data, if you will, um and use some of the pros that I got from that, but then also make sure a lot of the cons that I had that they didn't become a part of Spree AI. Early on in my career, especially at Samsung, I had developed so many relationships with people, whether they were VCs to celebrities, etc. And what was kind of nice was from like a diversity perspective, there was not a lot of people that look like me. There's not a lot of black people in tech, etc. And so what I loved about that, because sometimes people look at that as a disadvantage. I looked at that as an advantage because it was very hard for people to forget me. You know, nerdy black guy, knows how to dress, blah blah blah, this and that. And so it was easy for them to keep track of me throughout my career and I was able to leverage that. And so yeah, very fortunate and blessed to have Bob involved. And so what's interesting is like every entrepreneur is different when you think about raising money, right? For me it was much easier even today we've got some of the largest VCs on the planet that want to invest in spree because a lot of it is they're investing in me and my track record. Also we have a very sophisticated team now. Uh we've got strategic partnerships with MIT and Carnegie Melon. So we're the only fashion tech company in the world that has strategic part sorry strategic partnerships with them. They're helping us build products. We hire people from the schools etc. Um and then also in my space being able to partner with organizations like the CFDA they're like a fashion institute and also Vogue is a big deal. And to also be able to say like Anna Wintor, you know, I I have a relationship with her and she supports what I'm doing and so forth goes a long way.
So we we we all want to we all want to gohead. So So [laughter] for for us, we're ready to go. Come on.
Hey, that that's not often that that happens. So [laughter] that's a good thing. So, so, so John, for you, you know, when you were coming up with Spree AI, what was, you know, for most entrepreneurs that build big incredible [snorts] things and what we try to preach to a lot of the entrepreneurs that follow our channel is that a lot of times it's like, hey, if you if you want to be an entrepreneur, but you don't necessarily know yet what to do, you know, find a problem in the marketplace that you feel like you would do a really great job at solving, something that you're extremely passion passionate about, and go all in on it. So, for Spree AI, how did you developer find like the problem that you wanted to solve? like where did you get the inception of the idea of like this is the tech company that I want to build and could you just break down for our audience exactly like everything that you guys do at SPAI for for for everybody watching.
Yeah. So good entrepreneurs, great entrepreneurs solve problems, not create problems. Very very big distinction. There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there that want to do something based on what they're passionate about but it's not an actual problem. And so that's when you run into issues in terms of scaling and becoming a valuable business. And so it's really important, it was really important for myself to really identify problems. So as I mentioned before is taking that trip out to Europe, sitting down with all of these executives who would essentially be my customer and hearing directly from them the pain points they have in their business. And so a lot of things that they shared was, you know, when people buy garments from us, they want to take it back. And the reason being is because most customers don't know their right size. You know, returns are high. Um, we want a product that can basically add personalization in store and online because maybe they don't want to actually physically try on the garment. Sizing becomes a huge issue because if you shop at various brands, you could be a small in this brand, a medium in this brand, etc. Also, if you think about it from a sales associate, when people are shopping online, most people don't know what to buy. So, how can you create that same sort of interaction online that you would get from a store? And so, that's sort of like the inception or birth of pre of spree is creating products that we're essentially B2B SAS company to where brands can leverage our technology in store or online and and integrate it in a way that elevates their business. So, let's say if you're shopping at your favorite brand, what's your favorite brand, by the way?
Um, you know what? New Balance.
New Balance. Okay.
I'm from the DC area. New Balances. Yeah, New Balance actually had a huge comeback years ago.
Influencer marketing.
Yeah, huge huge comeback. So, I got a few pairs of those and we're on the same page, too. Um, so New Balance,
You wear the 93. Yeah, you do. [laughter]
To me, it's the best. It's the most casual. You know what I mean? Like,
You know, I'm actually going to give him some free. You know what I thought about the other day? Cuz you know, like with Porsches, they have like 997s and stuff like that. They should do a version of that for a Porsche do a collab.
Wow. Would go crazy. Crazy.
What's the email to send the invoice to? [laughter]
Um, sorry, but I lost my train of thought.
But I I love what you said. So, when you went to Europe and you met with all these different people in the fashion industry, did you have like the concept of what you wanted to do already built out already, or did you find that through your conversations with people in the industry?
It was a com It was a combination of both. Um, in sort of sense, it's like I love Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs used a lot of intuition. So my intuition told me that there needed to be a product of what I was sort of conceptualizing in my head, but I wanted to be sure. And so I had all these great relationships with all these key exeacts. And so I talked to them. They actually started saying a lot about a lot of things of what I was thinking. And that really validated my thesis. And then from there was really about putting the right team together to build this and then go back to them and say surprise, right? Like this is it.
Yeah. And it's it's one of the smartest things that entrepreneurs can do is instead of just blindly building something like actually go talk and hear the pain points of the market. When we first started Hard Knocks, we grew our channel to a couple hundred thousand followers. We're at 23 million today, but around the like the couple hundred thousand, we thought that because we had an audience of interviewing business owners and it was super motivational that we should launch a uh a a canvas art store with motivational canvas art. And it was terrible. We we completely failed at that aspect of launching a a product for this business. But then we waited a little bit, let our audience accumulate, got to a couple million, and then eventually um you know, we were just like, "Hey, I think they're I think people like following us because it's a way to connect us with the the the millionaires and billionaires we interview." And so we interviewed probably like 500 to a,000 members of our audience trying to figure out, hey, what would you want in a product like this? and we built like uh one of our first successful businesses off this product that does multiple millions of dollars a year today. But it's it's literally from the concept that you just talked about with why and why I believe that spree is probably extremely successful today.
No, you're exactly right. Two things that I'd emphasize that you said is one, you guys launched a product or and it failed the first time. Being an entrepreneur, you're going to have a lot of L's, but then also you'll have those W's and it's really important to learn from those L's and make the next ones into W's. That's just the nature of this business. And then second is like understanding your audience. For the most part, the customer is always right. And so like look, I have a very talented team, sophisticated team at Spai, people that come from Netflix and Google and Microsoft and so forth. And they bring like that knowledge that they've had at those corporate companies and through their life. But most importantly, listening to the customer is what has always made us stand out and I'm a firm believer is what's going to make us ultra successful.
So, I wanted to ask because a commonality that I get asking a ton of tech entrepreneurs, you know, everybody talks about AI as being the best industry to get into in today's world. And commonly like a follow-up that I'll ask people is like, what is that specific industry or sector that people should be attaching AI to? And often times a lot of people say healthcare is a very common one. Healthcare is extremely outdated in terms of the application of AI throughout a lot of the health care system and the technology that's being used. Some people say restaurant business and whatnot. But fashion is one that I haven't heard a lot of people touch on. That's why I feel like you kind of went [snorts] into this space that's, you know, been relatively untapped. Do you still feel that way that fashion is relatively pretty far behind in terms of like the the actual application of AI? I mean, obviously you have a very unique business and whatnot, but would you still say when you think about the fashion landscape as a whole that there's a lot of opportunity for disruption from attaching AI to that industry?
Yeah, I mean, I would even go so broad and just say fashion and tech have not really gotten along for the longest. And a large part of that is when you think about fashion, when you buy these garments, especially luxury garments, they sort of applaud themselves on the process that takes time. So they'll say, you know, that leather jacket you had, it took 90 hours to make and it was made by the seaside while someone was eating a loaf of bread and this and that and so forth. And as a consumer, you appreciate that. You're like, "Dang, someone put in a lot of work." And so what tech tends to do when it comes in the industry is [snorts] it helps accelerate things. And so the problem with that is a lot of tech companies will build tech products first and then try to go into an industry and say, "Hey, you should use our product." And to a certain capacity that works. I wanted to do the reverse effect. First, I wanted to show up and let them know, I respect fashion. I love fashion. Fashion is art. Let me understand your business and I can show you how to make things better. Right? So, I don't want to take away anything. It's not going to be, yes, to a certain extent it's going to be disruptive, but not in this disruptive way where it's like someone loses their job or anything like that. It's where someone can actually use this as a part of their job to help your business grow.
Yeah. I think one of my favorite things about this podcast going back a little bit ago was actually about the fact of you had to change what you and your company wore when you went to events. And where that what that reminded me of is we interviewed a gentleman named Richard Harp Harpin in England and it's a home service company and it's pretty much just like imagine like home insurance they'll come fix your your leaky repairs stuff like that on like a monthly retainer >> and he said he's based in UK and when they're expanding to the US like we are
just not finding success in the US market. And he had an adviser come to him and he's like, "It's because Americans want to buy from Americans."
"You've got to speak the language of that given demographic or that market that you're necessarily speaking to." And I feel like for you, you do that exact same thing just within the fashion market of, "Hey, if people want to align with, you know, a fashion market and a brand that like, we look, uh, the same." And so for you, I'm kind of just curious, when you got started with your company, how did you go about getting those initial customers? And at what point did you realize this could be a billion-dollar idea?
Yeah, it's a great question. Well, for starters, a lot of the relationships that I have, as you know, you know, as mentioned, I know we were talking before this, life is about skill, luck, and timing. Skill are the things that you acquire throughout your life, and you should never stop learning. The luck is just meeting the right person at the right time. Often times, a lot of people that I've met have been through networking events or maybe a coffee shop, whatever the case may be, and we just became friends. And then timing, it has to be the right time.
And so when I went to Europe, I already knew a lot of people in fashion and I had a great reputation from some of the past jobs that I'd worked with them at or, you know, we sort of collaborated on projects and that type of thing. And so I kind of told him, "Hey, let me take all this information you shared. Let me build some sort of MVP and I just want you to test it right, free of charge, to see if it basically provides you value." Now, if you look at sort of the early products, especially to come out of tech, they all use that same strategy. Netflix, Uber, etc. When they first launched, they used to give it away for free because you want someone to get stuck with your product, that stickiness, and that's what I wanted to create.
Now, with fashion, it's a little bit different because what makes fashion what it is beyond the art, it's the brand. A lot of these luxury brands, and like we service luxury, leisure, fash fashion, but I'm just talking specifically about luxury brands, and this kind of applies to even all brands, is what makes fashion what it is is the brand. When you put on a luxury brand like this Ralph Lauren, some people feel like it makes them feel like they're part of a certain community category. Some people naturally their pinky starts to go up, right? Because they feel a certain way, right? And so they master that. And so the reason why I bring that up is they don't like to take risk because remember, fashion is built all about brand and marketing. And so if they have a bad experience with this new tech company, it could affect their brand. And so I knew that part of this was going to be developing tools that they could essentially test our product offline.
When we first launched, you know, we wanted everyone to try our product. "Hey, just launch it on a garment on your website." But I realized that wasn't going to really work out well in the space. And so we created essentially sandbox tools to where these partners can try our technology offline, test it with their employees, staff, their focal testing groups to get that and build that sort of reassurance and confidence before they go live. And then the second half of that is that relationship. Fashion is traditional. So when I tell you I'm meeting with a brand, I'm actually flying out to Europe to meet them in person. Virtual conferences don't work well in my opinion until you have that business established. Meaning, you've been working with each other for a while. You understand, you've got to go out there. They've got to know who John is. Not just on a professional level, but also on a personal level as well.
It's so cool just to see the synergies and hyper-successful people like yourself. Three hours ago, we were in here with a Canadian billionaire sitting right here. His name was uh Ronan Herreri. No, no, Ronan.
Ronan Harrari. Harrari. He is the founder of Spin Master. So he created Bakugan, Paw Patrol. He talked about the exact same concept of going out to Japan to meet with the people. They they want to see you in person. And and you have to have that mindset, I feel like, as an entrepreneur. And you've obviously adapted it of like, "You got to book that flight. You got you got to go out there and do it." It may not seem like the most, especially for people, you know, obviously in your case, it's a little bit different, but especially for people that are starting out, even though it's like, "Man, the funds don't look too good. I don't know if I should book it." Man, what if it doesn't? It's like, "No, no, it has to work." You know what I mean? You got...
Yeah, it's got to.
Yeah.
It's got to. I mean, you see this especially with, you know, I also live in LA as well. People that want to become actors, they'll literally fly out to LA with maybe minimal things and say, "I'm just going to make this work because this is where I need to be." Yeah.
And similar being an entrepreneur, whether you're an actor to doing technology, whatever, it also involves risk. It's a very risky business. It can be greatly rewarding and it can be not. But you have to learn to take those risks. I think with corporate America, people that come from corporate America, the challenge is it kind of provides this safety net. These companies have been doing well for so long and so all you have to do is do your job well. For the most part, you're safe. With entrepreneurship, every single day is a battle. And so you have to be, as my nephew would say, locked in all the time, right?
100%. I I want to go back to the the second kind of question I feel like he was asking. I feel like we keep on cutting you off because there's just so many questions to to ask. But so Spree, the company, essentially what it is, is obviously we know that it solves the problems of chargebacks within the fashion industry.
Your user is the consumer, correct? Or like, are you selling directly to consumer or directly to like the big fashion brand?
So the brands. So we're a B2B2C company. So the way it works is brands can work with us to integrate our technology, like I was saying, online and in-store. And so they can basically pick different features. We have, we have a visualization tool. So let's say James is shopping at, um, I don't know, nike.com and he wants to buy a shirt. There would be a try-on button, and then James can see himself in a photorealistic way of that garment before he buys it. Or let's say James doesn't know his size. We can predict with a 99% accuracy what your size is.
And there's all these other features that we have that are in basically in the works right now that we're going to ship. It's so it's so effective because the reason why people, you know, do like retail over online shopping is for the sake of they want to try it on. Correct. And this is that's what solves the bottleneck essentially.
Yeah. And I think the key thing for us is what I challenge my team to do is, and any entrepreneur can relate to this, is we're creating pro sorry, we're creating, um, products for fashion houses. And so what I constantly do, even, you know, as I leave here, is I'll go into a store and even if I'm not buying anything, I sort of observe the process. Okay. When I first walk in, there's a sales associate that comes up to me and greets me. His or her job is to try to educate me about their products that they're selling in hopes to converting me to a sale. I also have to try on the product. I'm going to go into a fitting room. I've got to see what I look like. I've got to know my size. And so, I'm mapping that in my head saying, "Okay, how can I basically train our AI models to create the same experience online?"
Right? When James is going to a store, there's an AI stylist that comes to you, and it has all this data on you, and it knows the type of things that you wear, and it's giving you selections from there, right? Visualization. I talked about try-ons, sizing, and so forth. So, we're constantly building products to replicate that experience.
Are are you able to share who are some of your biggest clients right now?
Yeah. So, a lot of our partners are in sandbox, but what I can say is we're working with the biggest of the biggest fashion companies in the entire world.
And what are those sales cycles like? If you can explain, like, is it a long sales process? Like, is it months at a time or?
Yeah, it is. I mean, I think in the early days, any entrepreneur will probably relate to this, as I mentioned, is, you know, I'm not ashamed to say it, and my PR team can get mad, it's fine, is we have to give away our product for free, right, for a certain amount of time to get people stuck on it. Um, and but then from there, it's similar to any SAS model, right?
Where they're paying us a fee every month depending on traffic and demand and the feature set, and yeah, the rest is history.
John, it seems like when even back when you were 16 years old and then even now with Spree, you've been able to attract tremendous talent to come and work with you. Uh, and that you you even mentioned that you feel like you have a really good keen eye for, um, bringing talent onto your team and that you attribute that a lot to building relationships and and networking with people and building a really strong network. I mean, you've gotten people to come work with you that you said who have worked at Netflix and Google and Microsoft. And so, you know, for other entrepreneurs out there who are wanting to build a world-class team, like, how would you advise them on, you know, attracting talent to come and work with them and build their empire being like, "Hey, I have this this company that I'm building. I want to get it here." Almost vision casting in a way. Like, how did you get all these uh great people to come and work with you?
Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I'm a little bit of a unicorn, uh, test subject, if you will. I couldn't think of the right word, but I think in general, there's a few things. One, when you're starting out, you need to lay the foundation of your company. You got to have a website, some sort of social media presence, etc. Because think about it, if I was going to come up to any of you today and I say, "Hey, I have this company." The first thing you're going to do is go on the internet and go look it up because human beings want to know, is this legit or not, right? Second is the founder itself and how you carry yourself. So, a lot of people don't know this, is I am an introvert to the max. When I become CEO John, or I'm here, I'm an extrovert. Now, when I leave, that battery is gonna be on f, you know, but it's going to fill back up regardless. And so it's like, I realized that in this modern digital age, the founder is forefront. They are doing a lot of the marketing. And so I had to carry myself differently. I'm in the fashion space, and so the things that I post on social media need to reflect that, just like if you were in the animal space and so forth. Because that's the second thing people are going to look up, is how do you carry yourself and so forth? The third thing is the conversation you have with these people. There are a lot of people right now on the market that need jobs, and I'm certain that they have the right skill set. But many few people will have the passion that you need for your startup. And that's really important. You're going to make a lot of mistakes when you hire people that are good, but they're not passionate about it. And I actually would go so far to say, hire people that are more passionate about what you're doing and less about the skill, because passionate people will learn the skill. It's not the other way around, right? And so I think for me, that was kind of the learning curve because...
working at Meta and Snap and and so forth, you naturally, it's easier to attract talent at those places because they have a name.
And for me, you know, yes, I have a name in tech, but still, it's a risk. We're the underdogs. And in some ways, you're going to be fighting against these major companies because they like to pivot and say, "We're going to do this, too." Right? And so I had those personal conversations with a lot of people that I was trying to recruit and really giving them not just the sales pitch, but them understanding how I think and what I think that we can do together. And, you know, my management style, you know, when you work for corporate America for a long time, you have your designated role and responsibilities of things that you're doing, and a lot of people don't like to be confined to a box, is what I found. And so I wanted to make sure that when I was recruiting people, to let them know is, "I'm reaching out to you because I believe in you, and I know that you're the expert of your core role. I'm going to set the vision, but how we get there for your role is up to you, being hands-off." And people really like like that. It allows them to grow. They're going to make mistakes, but they feel like they truly are a part of something versus like, it's no discredit to corporate companies, but when you're a high achiever, there's still only so much you can do before you're bleeding into someone else's role that has that. And then it creates conflict versus a startup, I can say, "Hey, you own all of this. Do it in your own way." And so they like that.
As as the visionary, what what is the angle with Spree AI?
Like, like, like are, and I'm curious to get your take on this, as the entrepreneur, are you a guy that sets the five, 10-year kind of goal? Or or I want to get your thought process on that.
Yeah. So I do. I mean, especially when you have investors, you're looking to get investment, they're always going to look for like that five, 10-year plus goals. I think when you have a team, the advice I give entrepreneurs is it's fine to tease them about that, but focus on the now and execution because that five to 10-year goal can become a distraction.
Yeah. Especially when you have very talented people that believe that they can do it all, they start to visualize, "Okay, yeah, I'll do this today, and then tomorrow I'm going to work on the three-year goal," and so forth. So for my team, I'm really focused on the now. But when we talk about the five to 10 year of Spree, you know, I don't necessarily say this a lot, but what we're doing today is not what we're going to do tomorrow. We started off in fashion, but we'll probably dabble in other industries that we can essentially duplicate our technology that will help those industries, um, create more things that are personalized or just make them more successful. Right? I also believe that Spree AI can IPO one day. Now, look, if someone for the right price and the right opportunity, because I'm all about my employees and not me, I want everyone to walk away from this one day to say, "This changed my life for the better." And in order to do that, we've got to get,
you know, we basically have to have really aggressive goals, but most importantly, we have to execute. And so if someone for the right platform is going to acquire us, we would look into it. But I fundamentally believe that this company can be around for decades and will evolve and will do like what most tech companies do, which is allow our employees to experiment on new projects that turn into something. A lot of Google's products that they created came from an employee on their after hours. "Hey, you know, I want to experiment with Gmail," and now look, Gmail has billions of people that use it. And the list goes on and on and on. And so I want to kind of foster that sort of in that sort of environment at Spree. And I I love that you talk about, you know, obviously you've touched on just asking him about acquiring and finding the right talent, but, you know, we talked about it earlier that the same people that got you to a million aren't going to get you to 100 million and eventually a billion.
Yeah. And that's one of the toughest things about being an entrepreneur is you're going to be the good guy and also you're going to be the bad guy as well.
How do you be the bad guy without feeling like one? You know what I mean? Have you learned how to do that yet or?
It's tough. It's like I,
you know, core values at Spree, you know, it's something that I took from Snap as well, which is kind, smart, creative, and moving fast, aka speed. That is the DNA for everyone that we hire. And naturally, I'm a nice guy. And I know everyone says nice guys finish last. That's probably true with dating, you know, but that's another podcast for another day.
But, uh, but on the business side of things, you start to, you know, you have that emotion for employees. This is their livelihood. They're putting their livelihood in your hands. And so when you have to let someone go or part ways and so forth, I feel all that, but I have to do what's right for the business. Now, to answer your question, how do you not feel like the bad guy is when you're letting someone go? The packages that you're putting together show how much you care about that person. So even though you're parting ways, you may give them severance of a few months or six months, whatever.
Um, some bonus pay, etc. to show that you appreciated them. But it's best for the company. And my advice to every founder out there is don't wait. Because I've in some cases, even at some of the previous startups that I had and companies I've worked for, I waited even though I knew that that person was not a good fit because I gave them the benefit of the doubt. And nine times out of 10, from my experience, it it never works out. You should just part ways.
I I I feel like a personal philosophy of mine is you can tell someone's going to be a great fit at the company within the first two weeks of them working there. Totally. Yeah. And like some people are set in their ways and sometimes you can't teach an old dog new tricks, my friend.
It's true. And not just I'm not talking about age, just in general.
Yeah. In general. Yeah.
I I know you you've spoken a lot about your parents and how they've had a a big impact on you and your and pretty much how you've even shaped your career early on. Is there any lessons or principles that you learned from your parents that you apply in your business world today?
Yeah, the first thing is never give up. When my parents first came to America, they could barely speak English. They were dirt poor. They were outsiders, and they were living in Texas, which at that time where we were living was not a diverse place, but they never gave up. They were applying for jobs, going door-to-door, saying, "Hey, I want to work." And people gave them a chance. And for me, it's the same way is, you know, I was mentioning this to you. It's like when people look at social media, social media for the most part, we design it, we curate it in a way that is all about milestones and accolades, but no one's seeing the bad parts that are going on, you know, or the challenges. And so, it's just really important for me to, when I'm getting those nos sometimes, to understand that there will be yeses that come, right? The second is having a good support system. Being an entrepreneur is not for the weak. There's this famous quote that says like, "Yeah, as an entrepreneur, I slept like a baby. Every single day, I would wake myself up and cry and put myself back up to sleep." That is very true.
It's challenging. You learn so much. You know, you can come from like a coding background for myself, but then you're also dealing with HR and legal and, you know, people are suing you and things of that nature. And so, you have to develop tough skin, but also have a good support system. And I'm not just talking about family and friends. It's also the people that you work with because naturally, as much as we want to say it about this whole concept of work-life balance, is in many ways, you know, the people that work with you become your family, or they become part of your sports team, like we say at Spree. And it's really important that they're there also to support you in the early days because it's so hard. You know, one of the things that used to be my pet peeve, and I'm sure maybe you guys have experienced this, is you have, you know, there's other podcasts that are out there, and people may send you examples of other people's work to say, "Oh my gosh, they just launched something just like yours." So, the question you have to ask yourself is, why are they sending you that? Because they're projecting their life and what you're doing onto you. It's not necessarily to uplift you. And so, I've learned to kind of tune out that noise and really only focus on people that truly are going to motivate me and make me feel good every day.
I love that. And I wanted to just touch on real quick because you brought up right there the concept of work-life balance. Does your business brain ever turn off?
Never. Anyone that knows me, true story, knows that they could probably email me or text me any part of the day and I'm on. They compare me to AI, or I guess my new name is John Claw because, you know, how...
That's great.
But honestly, I noticed that commonality with a lot of very wealthy and a lot of very successful people I've worked with is they're running billion-dollar companies, but I could email them and they would respond in like 20 minutes. Do you think though, because this is something that I've tried to get extremely intentional about, you know, especially like in our case, right, like our parents are, you know, in their in their 60s and whatnot, and I like I try and train myself and I always try and tell myself like, you know, you need to be intentional about the quality time that you're spending with them, right? Is that something that you try and do, or is it like you do, but it's just like the the business part kind of just takes over your thought, man? Cuz like, man, I I know that all three of us can say and I know that I know that you're wired the exact same way that it's just like you can't ever stop it from just thinking about, you know, the stuff that's going on, you know.
Yeah. Quality time is important. Like, look, the people that we love and cherish today are not going to be here forever, right? And I learned that kind of the hard way with losing my mom. And so the opportunities that I get to spend with people, I do try. However, they know that this brain is never going to turn off.
Never on standby.
So I'm there, but I might not always be there.
For sure.
At least I can say that I pulled up.
Um, John, I wanted to touch on this one piece of, you know, you said that you went went to Snap when it was kind of at a dark time, and it's kind of like, you know, one of the most famous things in I guess the social media tech landscape was when Instagram launched Stories. Uh, and so that to me is an example of like an entrepreneur building a company. Like I know Snap was also was very big at the time, but it's kind of like you're getting punched in the face a little bit. How have you dealt with, uh, whether it be at Spree or just anytime in your career, those kind of punches in the face that I feel like entrepreneurs have to take every day? Uh, like more so, I mean, especially I feel like in your industry, it's it's the most competitive when it comes to these...
Right hands that come across the face and knock people out. Uh, of just like, man, like business is almost like war, and it's kind of just like having to navigate that. How have you been able to handle that? Cuz I know that there's a lot of tech founders that watch this podcast that are just like, man, like I can't even keep up, especially with the AI stuff.
I think it's a great question. Competitors, competition, I actually embrace that. I would even go so far and say if that didn't exist, being a human being would be boring. That's what brings out the best in us. I think as an entrepreneur, you should stay focused on the task at B. And there may be moments where you'll have to pivot based on your business or the, you know, the market or whatever the case may be, but you should always keep an eye on your competitors. There's always going to be things that you can learn from. So, yeah, my employees or even myself, we're always doing research because we're not the only one in the space that is building similar technologies. Our strategy is the only one in the space, but there are other companies that have similar products. And so it's really important that we're learning in terms of what they're doing and say, "Okay, yeah, they've done their this way. We can make it better that way," and not being afraid to embrace it. I think often times when I talk to entrepreneurs, they get fearful. And I understand that, we're human. When you're like, you've been working on this thing for years, and then some major tech company's like, "Bam, we're about to launch this." At the end of the day, a lot of big corporations are good at what they do with their core products, but they also experiment with a lot of stuff. Meaning that it's understaffed. Startups, what makes them stand out and be successful is being hyper-focused on that one thing that they want to do well, right? And so if you have the right team, the right motivation, and you become delusional about yourself in terms of being obsessed that you are the best, your company's the best, you'll win. I think like that's just my mo, and that's how I carry carry myself as well. So,
one of the things that we touched on in our interviews and we talked about it a bit earlier was, uh, this idea of faith. And I asked you if you believed in God. Um, would love for you to kind of talk a little bit about, uh, you know, your journey with faith and and Christianity and whatnot, and if if you want to shed any light on that as well.
Yeah, I mean, I think if I look at the world at a macro level, everyone believes in something to a certain extent. That's how we get motivated. You could believe in your family, friends. I grew up believing in God, and a lot of it stemmed from where I was raised by my parents, especially my mom, and also specific experiences that I went through where I felt like God was the only being that had my back. And so religion is not something that I would force on anyone, not let alone, like, at my company, but it is at the foundation of who I am as a person. And so the days that get tough for me where I feel down is, yeah, I call to God. "God, it's me again. It's rough out here, but I need your support." But I also know that it's a two-way street. It's not just me calling on God. It's also I have to put in that work, too.
And so, it just keeps me humble. And I've been through a lot in my life. And, you know, one of the things that I always tell people, I was just giving a speech, um, to my employees during our all-hands, is we need to really focus on being kind to people. What we sort of fail to realize as human beings is when we're going to work and we're working on things, sometimes emotions come out, and there's arguments, and sometimes people can take it to the next level. You've got to take a step back and remember that everyone is going through something. Even all you guys on this couch, whether you share it or not, you need to be mindful of that, you know, and there's so much going on in the world. And so I want to make sure that for myself, it starts at the top down at any company. I am setting the culture and the example. And so I want people to look at me as someone that's not just smart, knows how to execute this and that, but also is kind, right, and has a foundation. And whatever you believe in, I respect that. But for me, I believe in G.O.D.
Yes, sir.
That that was a bar, by the way.
And you believe in Jesus as well?
Absolutely.
I love that, man.
Well, we we like to end these podcasts off with two questions for our guest. I'll start, and then Jack will end us off. John, you've had an incredible career, still early on in your 30s, man. Congratulations. Um, if me and you died tomorrow, if we collectively passed away tomorrow, and you could leave one last message with the younger generation that's tuned in right now, what would that be?
I would say, "Aspire to inspire before you expire." Many of us have naturally god-given talent or just talent, but we lack the awareness to share it with others and teach them. I knew what I wanted to do when I was seven. And a lot of people, what I found, don't discover what they want to do even while they're in college. And so it was really important for me that I had all this knowledge with technology that I would instill it with people like my brother who knew nothing about technology. I taught him how to build computers and basic level coding and so forth. And now I spend a lot of my time speaking at schools to entrepreneurs, etc., educating them and motivating them from a different perspective.
And John, for you, the career and life that you've led so far, for you, how do you want to be remembered?
I would answer it two ways. In one way, I don't want to be remembered. I want my impact in technology to be so good that people focus on the technology and less than me. Like, for example, the Kleenex. Do you know who created that? But it's still a powerful product, right? And so in some ways, I want that. But then yes, on like, I think when you want to be remembered selfishly, it's a little bit of ego, right? And for me, I think what's really important is when people think about me as someone that changed how people shop forever, that built technology that was scalable, but he did it in a way that was different from like most tech companies where like there was a lot more character and personality into it and caring too. And not to say that they don't care, but this is the John Emma way. Also with my... I love it. John, this was an incredible conversation, man. We We appreciate you being here.
Thank you so much for having me here.
100%, my man.
You guys are the best.
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