Ilana
Appearances
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
It is incredible, massive impact. But Tom, will you take us back in time to Tom who was a teen? Maybe your mom kind of believed that you will not be as successful. Tom, take us there for a second.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
When I read Lisa's book, Radical Confidence, who is your wife, for those who don't know, it literally seemed like it's, almost like within a few days or a day or something. Like you literally are supposed to move out. You're supposed to quit. And instead, you're starting Quest. And in fact, you believe in it so much that you're willing to risk your house, if I'm reading this correctly.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
What switched? Can you go back and why Quest? Can you share that a little bit, Tom?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Tom Bilyeu, co-founder of the billion-dollar company Quest Nutrition. You also started Impact Theory, a media company that helps others realize their full potential, build massive thought leadership. I mean, you have, what, 4 million YouTube subscribers, 500 million content views.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Can you share why Quest?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
I love how you explain the team, because I think this is so hard to find. Teams that are from different backgrounds, they all bring a different mix, but they're all passionate about something. It's not easy to find at all. And I love that it's based on a personal thing, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Because I think one of the hardest thing and tell me what you noticed in the Tom, but is that in entrepreneurship, there's a lot of what we call the near death experiences. It gets really hard. And I think having that really strong why really, really helps stop. Did you run into that?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
between wanting to do something big and actually growing to Inc., you know, second fastest growing company, I told you, I have so much respect because I felt we are growing really fast and you are just like at a whole different level. How do you do that? How do you get started? Because again, it's, there've been other bars before. Yes, they were disgusting, but how do you get in front of people?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
And I think a lot of it is what you stated, but it would be great to hear a little more.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
That is a mic drop here that I need to also sink in a little bit. And I think that is just so fundamental because there is something about a best product, but there's also a best known product. But what you're saying is sometimes you need to think about what you're actually selling. And in your case, it's not necessarily the game. It's not necessarily the bar. It's the community.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
that will advocate for it because that's going to create a real snowball versus trying to acquire one in one, right? That's what's going to make it successful, which is so interesting. As a CEO, as a founder, What makes you so determined? And again, I'm sure a lot of it is experimentation, but there's a lot of noises and there's a team that says that this is not the right way.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
What helps you with decision-making? Because I feel like that's a hard one sometimes.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
How do you cope with fear, Tom? Because that sounds scary. That is a decision that costs more. Now you need to raise more capital. Like, I don't know, whatever, maybe you didn't. But I'm just saying that is a scary decision. How do you cope with the fear?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Yeah, there's a saying, there's no traffic jam at the extra mile, right? And I think you say it really well. Don't ask what's the minimum I need to do, but ask what's the maximum I need to bear, right? And it's just so exact. So you decide to sell Quest, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
So you're starting a media production company with Lisa. Yeah, and again, you're not retiring on an island. Why, first of all?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Well, I agree with all of it. And I have kids and I don't necessarily think for me personally, it's enough. Every single person can decide what's right for them. And I think it's really important to bring not just the paycheck, but the life that you want with it. And I think you actually say there's no amount of success that you can stand in it forever.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
And I actually just talked about it literally two hours ago with the ex-president of Starbucks, right? You could theoretically, you know, ticked a lot of boxes of success and it's just not enough, not for certain people. Again, waking up every single day with this mission. Talk a little bit about this mission. Why is it fueling you so much?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
And to me, that is so strong because sometimes we look at people like you and we say, oh, it's all been easy. Their path to success has been all pink and roses. And it looks like it's almost like a born thing. You have to be born an incredible leader. And that's the only people that are successful. And I think one of the...
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Why are you trying to touch that 11, 15-year-old to become their best version?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
quotes that you have that just hit me like a brick I think you're kind of at some point you say something along the line like I needed to admit that I'm actually average I don't know exactly how you say that but that to me was hitting home because I think this is what listeners need to hear everybody can do this now the only question is how hard are you going to try when are you going to give up what are you willing to do for success talk to us a little bit what changed for you
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Wow. That is incredible. Well, I have two kids to donate, so. We'll take it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
That's incredible. Do you think there's something that you went through in your childhood or after that builds you to who you are today?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
I will make sure my kids listen to that. But Tom, if you go back in time, I don't know, maybe right after film school, when you're kind of in that phase of anxiety, maybe even depression, I know a lot of our listeners are very driven, but some of them just don't know what's next for them or how to take themselves to a next level or how to really become their full potential.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
What would be one advice that you would want to hear back in the days that you wish you knew?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
When I was vice president, theoretically ticked some boxes of success. And I thought that I was coachable. I thought that I knew it all. It's kind of that ego that you're talking about, right? That confidence that you think you have, you think you know it all. And actually that's the most dangerous area because you're not listening to learn, you're listening to argue.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
And you're listening to prove to someone else that they're wrong and you know better. How do you wake somebody up from that? Because again, I wish somebody woke me up a decade ago, but I don't know if I was even receptive to listening. How do you wake somebody up?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
That is so strong, Tom. Anything else that you want to share with our audience that they can help you?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Tom, thank you so much for all the nuggets and all the inspiration. And I was really looking forward to it because I was binging your stuff. But thank you so much for sharing all of it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Thank you. We sort of made the list. So I'm proud fastest growing company.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Okay. Okay.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Thank you, Tom. We are, we are. And we're changing lives, just like you guys. So I think we share that passion, which is important. But thank you for all the inspiration, Tom.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Because again, it's uncomfortable as heck and fear can be numbing. It will be numbing. But then again, you go to film school, which is basically, I want to say 180 degrees from where you ended up, but actually you are coming back towards that. But share a little bit, you go to film school, what happened there?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
seeing you suddenly that motivated and hustling to make this way, what made you fall off that horse?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
Tom Bilyeu, co-founder of the billion-dollar company Quest Nutrition. FYI, my kids and their friends are huge fans, so I'm so excited, and they're gonna love this episode. You also started Impact Theory, a media company that helps others realize their full potential, build massive thought leadership. I mean, you have, what, 4 million YouTube subscribers, 500 million content views.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
And I absolutely love what you just said about the quality of a questions will dictate the level of success that you have, but you need to remember to listen to the data, not the drama that comes with it, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
And I think one of the things that you say is don't limit yourself to where you are now, which I think is also really important because the lens that we see life in is right now, but it's hard to really connect the dots. After this conversation, horrific experience after film school. You somehow joined kind of at the bottom of a startup, right? Tell me a little bit about what that experience was.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand
And I think it was a pretty toxic environment as well.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
Did you realize that what you're creating will go so viral or was it an experiment and feels more like you created your own luck to some extent?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
You also co-founded Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. You've been on boards of TripAdvisor and Palantir and co-founded many ventures recently we'll talk about. But you come from a family of entrepreneurs. So take us back in time to Spencer, like the kid. How did you grow up and how did that shape you?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
I definitely want to go there. I want to go into two things that I think are fascinating for our listeners, because first of all, there's this notion, at least in the Silicon Valley world, get out as fast as you can, get out scrappy, et cetera. But when you get out very scrappy, there needs to be a little bit more baking in order to get to the millions that you've seen.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So first of all, how do you balance between the MVP or the minimal viable product versus going with something that is good enough for it to really go viral?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
Got it. So now you are literally jumping on the wagon of mobile, which I think is something really, really interesting, because as we know, some companies completely missed the boat. First of all, how did you realize that you need to be mobile first? And you changed everything. You changed Zillow completely to be mobile.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like you're basically relentless on understanding your audience avatar. You understand that they're not going to be on desktop. They will be roaming around. They will be driving. And you're relentless on trying to understand what do they need when they are driving around. They are looking for homes. And together with being very attentive to what's coming.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So it sounds like it's that... constantly being relentless about what is really needed versus what I'm building.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
You did allude a little bit to the 2008 crisis. How did you maneuver that?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
First of all, you as a company or as an individual, there is a little bit that you get a little more creative when things are hard, right? So you have to figure things out and that creates more efficiencies.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
And we saw it, we'll go into the pandemic later, but we saw it in the pandemic, how much innovation actually happened in the pandemic because it kind of accelerated a lot of the things that people didn't necessarily adopt until they had to.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
I still want to go into Zillow for a second because you at some point become CEO and you've played a lot of different roles, which I think is also a big part of when you need to be number one, it really helps when you understand you have a very broad look at different things. How did you become CEO, Spencer? What would you say to someone else that wants to get on a fast path?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So you knew from the get-go that you'll take the CEO role?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
How did you feel about the difference between being CEO and all the rest? Because it is different being sort of the buck stops here and most of the decisions need to be channeled, although there's boards and stuff, but still.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
What about when things are really, really hard or scary or you need to lay off? Do you still have the same or does it still weigh on the CEO a little more than others?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
Yeah, I heard that. So you grew it to incredible market size. And then at some point, I think 2019, if I'm not wrong, you decide to leave. First of all, why? And we're going to talk a little bit about all the great things that you're doing now, Spencer.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
And then there's pandemic for you. Yeah, I didn't predict that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
That's incredible adaptability. And if I'm not mistaken, you're also taking outside investors into Picasso.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
Exactly, which is usually closed. So that's very exciting. And I think you're involved with a few other things. What is your mission now? And I want you to tell a little bit about these things, but how do you see your mission now?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
When you look at your dad like that, and he's probably worked really, really hard, did that create that hunger from early age or did that scare you? Like, I don't want to work that hard as crazy as my dad. Like, what did that do as a kid?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
It sounds like you're basically having fun and still creating an impact. That's what I'm hearing, basically.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
And that's brilliant because mentorship at this level of somebody that builds such mega things, it is really remarkable. So I just love that. Based on everything you've done, what would be an advice to yourself or to our listeners that maybe they want more for themselves, maybe they don't exactly know what, but they know that there's more out there.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
They're just not sure what it is, how to get there, how to maximize their potential. What would be some of the advice?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
To me, that is so important because there's also a lot of negativity. There's a lot of naysayers. There's a lot of, I mean, if you want to surround yourself with things that will crush you, that's easy to do. I think it's harder to find the people that will actually lift you, mentor you, tell you the truth when you need to hear the truth, all of that. And that's incredible.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
And I think the curiosity is
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
an incredible tip because you're right people just move on they see something but instead of going deep you want to be obsessed with whatever it is in order to take it to the next level which is amazing to hear spencer this was so inspiring thank you for sharing all your experience been following you for a long time and it's just been so great to hear the story in real life
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
He also co-founded Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So you were an overachiever from a very early age. You showed it in school, student body, president, all of that. Am I right? You were always kind of pushing yourself.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So when you went to college, did you already have in mind that it's going to be entrepreneurship? Because you went to investment banking and that route. Was it by definition? Did you just roll into it? How was it, Spencer?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So you left a very lucrative, well-paying roles, right? In Goldman Sachs and the private equity, very safe in order to parachute into starting Hotwire. So how did that happen? Why did that happen?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
You did allude a little bit to the 2008 crisis. How did you maneuver that?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
Every startup is, but I want to take you through that moment because I think people, they probably can't really understand what you went through, but they can start relating to it because that feels like a disaster. When you run a company and you know that you have some piece in this disaster, how do you wake up? How do you take care of yourself, Spencer?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
Spencer Vascoff, co-founder and CEO of Zillow until 2019, which during your time grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, $10 billion in market capitalization.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
Because I think that scares a lot of people and that's really hard too.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
I think you're right because, Spencer, one of the things that we see all the time is that when people are going through these near-death experiences, they quit. You didn't quit on Hotwire. You continued. But I think there's some areas where you're like, I'm suffocating. So how do you go through this?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So today I have a really great episode for you because this person, I've been following him for a long time, Spencer Vascoff, co-founder and we're CEO of Zillow until 2019, which during your time grew to what, over 4,500 employees, 3 billion in revenue, 10 billion in market capitalization, massive. And I think every single person knows Zillow, which is incredible. My daughter uses Zillow for fun.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
That makes sense. I don't know if that makes it a lot less scary, but maybe a little less lonely.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff: Leading Billion-Dollar Startups Through Crises
So you recover from 9-11, you sell it to Expedia and you spend some time in Expedia. Why then start Zillow? How did that form? And I think there's also some people that also left Zillow. Can you share a little bit of that story?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
And I want to go there for a second with you, Chris, because I think a brand is something or some kind of a balance between what you want to be perceived and authenticity is really confusing, especially when you're talking sometimes to these big brands. You want to sound very serious and official. versus fun and engaging and happy, weird videos.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
How do you make sense out of it as a leader that on one hand, people tell you, you will not be fired if you're an IBM, but you will be fired if you're a startup coming in, right? And you screw up. So how do you balance it? You landed on the fun, authentic side.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
And I want to go there for a second because it started with some kind of movie that you got involved and it took off. But how did that morph into Wistia? It's just such a beautiful story.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
And what I'm hearing also is your growth as a leader, right? From somebody, you know, right from the dorm rooms, basically in college, and suddenly running a 200 people team, et cetera, et cetera, multimillion, right? What do you feel helped you grow as a leader to be able with your money mindset, suddenly dealing with a lot of income and revenue, et cetera, debt sometimes, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Like what helped you grow there?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
What you just said, I had to write it down because that happens a lot in hiring. That happens a lot with different growths in different directions.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Right? But as a leader, how do you balance between, on one hand, you want the chaos, you want the speed, you want the creativity, you want to let your teams get freedom. But on the other hand, you need to drive results and not throw spaghetti on the wall. How do you see it as a leader?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Which I love because that's how you learn, right? That adaptability, that experimentation, you get the feedback really quick instead of, I still remember some of my enterprise companies that I was with, we had the requirements and nine months or 12 months later, something would chip and the requirements probably already changed. So I think that agility is really critical.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Chris, could you share a hard moment? Because again, you're running this big thing for many years now. What was a hard moment that you needed to catch yourself?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Oh, my God. I mean, the roller coaster. How do you even get up in the morning and keep on going? What do you do?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
First of all, you've been around for a while. You had an exit opportunity. You decided to decline, which is insane or not. But tell me what made you decide not to sell?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
From starting in his co-founder's living room, Wistia has since grown into a multi-million dollar business with over 200 employees and millions of customers.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
That's incredible. And I think not only from the business side of you, but having that plan also, you started being very intentional about the life that you want to live together with this business. And can you share a little bit? Because I think that's super interesting.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
And I love that distinction, right? Because I think there's also this myth of, let me just sit on the beach all day and create freedom and success. That doesn't happen. You do need to work hard. But sometimes we say life is in phases. Different things will be important for you in different phases of your life. It just go all in, whatever it is. But-
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
You also had, and I'm just curious where it stands for you. There's always this, do you build the brand of the business? Do you build a personal brand? Where do you see that? Because I think you also shifted a little bit and I think it's super fascinating to me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
And I think it even won an Emmy Award. It was theoretically, it looked like a success, and then you were not able to really take it forward. Am I right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
That's exactly what we're doing. And I think that just so important for listeners to understand. You might be posting from a business page, but that usually going to go crickets unless you pay for it. So if you really want to build your own brand, that's going to take you further, but also is going to paint that more authenticity. If people will relate to you better. And I just love that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
So for those who don't know Wistia enough, why should they use Wistia versus YouTube? I can tell you what we're used to doing, but I'm curious what you say, Chris.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Incredible, Chris. And for us, I mean, we use it for, you know, a lot of the things that you just mentioned, the webinars. For those who don't know, if you embed a video from YouTube on some kind of other platform, you're usually going to get other recommendations and you don't want to send people off your own website, right? So this is how we started was with Stia.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
And from that point on, you know, it became a webinar and so many other things. So I just, I personally love it. Chris, based on everything that you've gone through, what would be an advice to your younger self if you could go back in time?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Ooh, that's really powerful because somehow you have all these experts and the grass always seems greener on the other side. And it's just so easy to be tempted to go in all directions. But eventually nobody really knows except for you. But that's also scary to think about that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Chris, thank you so much for coming to the show, for creating Wistia that we love, and for just sharing this incredible story with our listeners. Thank you so much.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Which always does, by the way, which is interesting because there's these myths that just causes us to think that things will happen faster. But talk to us for a second. So you were a very early adapter and you really understood what is the change that is happening and you knew that you want to jump on this.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
But share a little bit around the pivot that you needed to do, the experimentation that you needed to do in order to find the market fit, which is always just such a hard thing to do because everything looks so green.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Based on everything that you've gone through, what would be an advice to your younger self?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
There's actually a need. You're actually creating medicine versus a vitamin. People actually need it, willing to pay, et cetera, et cetera.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO of Wistia, a video for business, which we're using as well. And from starting in his co-founder's living room, Wistia has since grown into a multi-million dollar business with over 200 employees and millions of customers. But Chris, it wasn't an overnight success. Take us back in time to your college days.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
I love this story. And then you need to go raise capital, right? Which is very, very hard. Can you talk a little bit about it? Because again, I think there's a little bit of a myth. We see all these people raising millions and you're like, okay. And then, you know, just so hard to continue when you get the first few no's.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
That's a good hire, by the way.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO of Wistia, a video for business which we're using as well.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Wistia CEO, Chris Savage: Master the Art of Pivoting, How to Adapt and Grow Against the Odds
As a co-founder, when you start a company, you need to, or even when you just lead a company, you need to make some really hard decisions and you're never going to have all the data you want in order to make the right decision, but you're going to have to make those decisions. You made this big decision in order to basically scale the company. How do you look at scaling the company?