- I remember one of the things I established early on.
If we lose an account, nobody gets fired.
- [Audience Member] At dinner two years ago,
you asked me a question, and the question was
are you building this company to buy, to build it
and hold it, or to build it and sell it?
- I remember.
- [Audience Member] And now I want to get it
to the next level to get it to $150,000,000 for an exit.
- Okay.
- [Audience Member] I'm trying to figure out
what our next move is.
- I need more context to understand.
I think building all these companies here is actually,
to build a $100,000,000 agency you have
to be in the HR business.
- [Audience Member] Sure.
- Like just so everybody, you want to get to the punchline?
I spend all my time in HR.
That's the answer, we sell people.
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
- And I don't understand how you don't understand.
You know how we make fun of, Rachel probably covered it
in some way, but I'm not sure if she went there.
When we scrutinize in the BC community companies
that are very good at CAC, but suck at LTV, they lose.
You could acquire customers all day long,
but if you need to hold onto them for four months
to make it pay off and they drop off after 2.5 months,
you're out of business, and then when the price
of Instagram and Facebook ads go out
and your CAC is going up, you're really in deep shit,
yet we don't talk about LTV.
Maribel, how many years you been at Vayner?
- [Maribel] Five.
- I mean, these are real.
When I got into the business, people, this is super funny
'cause now I'm thinking I forgot lots of people came
to give me advice, and I, you know, I'm a nice guy
so I was cordial, but in my brain I'm like motherfucker.
(laughing)
My business is gonna be bigger than yours in 36 months
and I don't even know what I'm doing yet.
So your advice is cool, but like, everyone's like
your people are gonna stay for 18 to 24 months.
I'm like, no, no, your people are gonna stay
for 18 to 24 months.
My people are gonna stay for five, 10, or 15 years
'cause I actually give a fuck about them.
The only way you can build a $100,000,000 business is,
the reason the New York Jets are in big trouble right now
is their offensive line has no cohesion
because they don't ever play together at any level.
Agencies are like offensive lines, they need cohesion.
You know how fast you can go when everybody feels safe
and knows what everybody else is good at?
Yet people are fearful that they're gonna lose, you know.
I remember one of the things I established early on.
If we lose an account, nobody gets fired
'cause I remember knowing that I had to establish that.
Shit like that, all the stuff that nobody's talking about.
People are like, people are always,
it's very fascinating to me.
I'm an enigma, I do unusual things.
I talk about my unusual things, but everybody wants
to focus on the other stuff 'cause the stuff I do is hard.
People.