Ep. 1 Casey Adams: Building Relationships Through Podcasting

Casey Adams  [00:00:00]:

3 bullet points of what I learned in my fundraising process. Number 1 is momentum is everything. Like getting the first check in the door is the most challenging aspect, especially if you are a founder like I was myself. And having that faith and commitment to a product is obviously the most important thing. Because if you don't believe in it, if you truly don't believe in the product, why would you ever expect an investor to? And I don't think that's the typical narrative, right? People usually believe in the product if they're going to raise money for it. But having that commitment of, I will do everything in my power to make this successful. And I will die on my sword for this. Like you have to have that mentality. And you know, for some having a startup or 90, 95% of startups fail, that's the sad truth. But having the founder mentality of just going all in, I think is very important. I do agree. At the end of the day, it comes down to execution. You need to execute no matter what. You've got to have that mentality of there's no way that I'm not going to make this

Andres Sanchez  [00:01:07]:

happen. Welcome to the episode 1 of the Virtual Ventures podcast. I'm your host, Andres Sanchez. Today we're extremely lucky to have Casey Adams on the show for our inaugural episode. Casey Adams is the co-founder of Media Kits and host of the Casey Adams Show. Casey, how you doing? I'm doing phenomenal. I'm excited to be here for episode 1. Thanks so much for having me, Andres. Yeah, for sure. Very cool to have you as that kind of guest for episode 1, you were an inspiration. I've been watching your content for a really long time. You've been in the podcast space for so long. So pretty surreal to have you as the first guest on the episode.

Casey Adams  [00:01:43]:

I really appreciate those kind words. And I mean, as a podcaster for 5 years, looking back on episode 1, it's so cool to be the first guest on your show. I remember when I had, you know, the first guest on my show, you looking back, you don't realize how much of a moment that is of momentum and just getting the show kicked off. So I'm super grateful and honored to be that person for you. Thank you. Thank you. I guess that's a great place to start. Maybe talk about your experience. Why'd you get into podcasting and how was that first episode for you? Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think, you know, for context for everyone listening, I've hosted my show, the Casey Adams show for 5 years. I started the podcast when I was 17, living in Virginia as a sophomore in high school. And back then the podcasting industry and scene was much different. Everyone didn't have a podcast, It was just an emerging industry. And nowadays it's so many people have podcasts. I mean, even for someone like yourself, it's such a growing space where it's such a natural thing for people to do. And it's such a phenomenal way to build content and build a brand and build relationships and so much more. But I had decided to start it was because of 1 core thing. I was 17 years old, coming out of a neck injury where I was almost paralyzed playing football when I was 16, which I'll get into later. And a podcast came to my attention because I read a book by Gary Vaynerchuk, Crushing It. The last chapter was about podcasting. And coming from a small town in Virginia, I didn't have any relationships in the business world. And my idea was, hey, I wanna start a podcast and interview successful entrepreneurs as an outlet to meet people, and hopefully I'll learn something. At first I thought, you know, maybe I just interview friends of mine or people that I've met on social that are my age that are doing cool things. But you know, my real ambition and motivation was to interview very high level performers and people that were world class at what they do. And you know, looking back now over 5 years, I've accomplished that well beyond what I ever thought was imaginable in terms of I've had almost 500 guests on the show from Larry King to Rick Ross to Elon Musk's mom and sister and the founders of Twitch and Netflix and all these great people. And quite frankly, the podcast has now become such an important part of not only my brand, but just my life and my lifestyle in terms of every person I meet nowadays, I find them interesting. Hey, come on the podcast. And of course it's cliche and it's like, Oh, it's just a podcast, a podcast. But no, like my whole differentiating factor was initially like bringing insightful conversations to the, to the youth from a youthful perspective. But nowadays, like I'm a natural curious person that, you know, loves to bring my curiosity and just willingness to learn into each conversation. And I think that, you know, 5 years later of doing it, I've never been more excited and passionate about the shows I'm doing. But to your question, my first interview, it was literally taking a pair of Apple headphones, walking around in circles in my bedroom in Virginia, at my parents' house saying, welcome to the first episode of Rise Beyond. Before I rebranded the Casey Adams show, it was like a 3 minute episode. And I was like, welcome to the show. I want to interview successful entrepreneurs. Like, let's just get this thing started. And there was no hesitation. I just started by executing. And that was the ball of momentum that spiraled into this whole show that now I've been hosting for 5 years. So it's really surreal to now, obviously, as you said, I on the flip side, be your first guest because I know in 4 or 5 years, you'll be looking back and I'm sure getting asked the Same thing. Yeah, that's crazy. And that's an amazing story. And I can really resonate with you on the aspect of curiosity, wanting to have these guests come on the show, not only to fulfill the podcast, but selfishly in the back end, get to sit down with really cool people and learn about what they have going on. So maybe talk a little bit about that. How has the podcast really helped you build that network out over these last 5 years? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, exactly what you said. The podcast has built my network so much over the last 5 years in the sense of really just if you think about the compound effect of, you know, I've interviewed over 400 people and you look at the compound effect of, you know, if you take a portion of those people that I've had on the podcast and then I met in person or I met an event or I had dinner with and the people I've met through them, If you just take those 400 people, and this is in my eyes quite true in terms of how it actually plays out, is for every person you have on the show, you probably meet 1 or 2 people from their world or from their life that maybe you can consider not necessarily a friend, but an acquaintance or someone you know, right? Where if you interview someone in person, then you start following them, you see who they hang out with, you follow them, you start talking to them because their friend was on the show. I can easily acquaint or think back on, like the 400 people that are on my show has led to thousands of relationships with people just through 1 degree of separation through those people and you know to take a step back and really Tell the viewers that's awesome. And I absolutely love that quote as well Your network is your net worth and I think that networking is may be single-handedly 1 of the most important things you should master, especially early in your life, because you're always selling yourself. Everything you do is how you present yourself and getting that big network is extremely important. But you mentioned something about business there. So I'd love to kind of take it from podcast to business. How do you go from podcast to co-founder of a software product? Yeah, so, you know, before starting the podcast, the first company I started, just to give context and a little background for people, and even to dive into how I got into this whole space, which led to Media Kits, was, you know, coming from a small town, Virginia, I was an athlete growing up, played hockey for 10 years, played lacrosse. Then I was playing football in high school. And as I briefly mentioned earlier, I got injured playing football in my sophomore year, which led to me being in a neck brace for 6 months, almost paralyzed. And through this journey of depression and not sure what I wanted to do with my life and having this newfound time, I immersed myself in business and entrepreneurship. I, and it really all started by accident to the point where I started following these different figures online, like Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, all these different guys. And I just went down this rabbit hole of learning about social media marketing, digital advertising, influencer marketing, everything you name it in terms of just like immersing myself and learning as much as I can at a young age because I had this chunk of time now that I was dedicating towards sports or that I was getting dedicated towards sports that I now couldn't. And the first company I started was a social media agency doing Facebook advertising for local businesses in my area. But through doing that, you obviously learn about influencer marketing and you know, I'm building content and put in building a personal brand and you're, I'm learning about that myself where how the idea for media kits started and came about and also just materialized through the podcast was 1 of my best friends and co-founders of Media Kits. His name's Kieran O'Brien. We initially met, he was 1 of the first people that I met during this journey of business. And we met as friends. He was in Virginia. I was in Virginia. He was in DC. I was in Richmond. And we became friends just online initially. And after years of knowing each other In 2018, 1 of our good friends, Jeff, JR Garage, who I met through Kieran, he was a social media creator in the automotive space. And at the time, this is 2018, this is really a year after I was starting my podcast, just to give context to everyone. He came to us because he knew we were in the social media marketing space And he said, Hey guys, Ferrari reached out to me to do a brand deal, right? They want to, they want to pay me to create content for them. They asked for a media kit. Can you guys make me 1? I've heard of it and it's like a digital resume for my, all my social profiles, but you know, I don't have 1. So we're like, sure, we'll, we'll make it for you. So we look it up. We ended up making him a media kit on Canva or Photoshop. And it took us like an hour or 2. We get the photos, we're screenshotting his analytics on social media. We're trying to make them look pretty. He sends it to Ferrari, does his little pitch, he gets the deal. So like, cool. And then 3 weeks later, he comes back to us and was like, Hey guys, Hens Oil reached out to me, big oil company. They want to do a deal with me as well. Can you go back and update my media kit and send it back to me? Because everything's outdated. All the numbers are wrong. I've changed my profile picture. I've had a couple of viral videos. Can you update all this?" We're like, sure, update it and he gets the deal. And that's really when we asked ourselves and the idea for Media Kits came about, which was why isn't there a way for creators to create a media kit that never gets outdated, that utilizes real-time data and analytics that you can share with through a link to a brand. And on the flip side, why isn't there a way for brands to view trusted and verified creator data so that, you know, they're not being lied to by these creators in terms of their engagement, they're following all the data and numbers that have to do with influencer marketing. And this reminds you, this is 2018, you know, 5 years ago. And yes, the space was already huge, but over the last 5 years, it's only grown more and more exponentially. So that was in 2018. And I think there's a lesson here that I want to share, which is we didn't execute on the idea at the time. I was literally, we were just in the process of moving across the country from Virginia to Arizona, which Kieran and I and a couple of friends we moved together and he had his own company. I was doing my own thing, started my podcast. We had this idea and we didn't actually get on it. So we shelved it. And at the time we didn't necessarily think on it to come back to, but it was just something we talked about. Oh, that's a cool idea. It's a cool idea. We didn't have any tech experience. Like we don't come from tech backgrounds, none of that. And then fast forward 2 years, 2020 now COVID's come, like COVID was happening. We're stuck in our apartments, lockdowns, all this stuff. The emergence of TikTok really started blowing up, which like late 2019 into 2020. And I was early on Tik Tok, like, wow, like this is a whole new animal of a platform that's just minting creators overnight, it seems. And that's really when we just regrouped and we're like, Hey, no one's done this media kits opportunity like we believe it should be done. The industry is so ripe for disruption. The creator economy is growing year over year. Let's go do this thing. We were both living together in Arizona. We moved out 2 years ago. We're living on our own now and we're much more equipped. And I also think to segment on the podcast, I've done hundreds of interviews now with VCs, entrepreneurs, a lot of big names that the idea of fundraising and raising capital for a startup in a tech environment, that all became not easier, but I had the network and the experience to then go pitch this to qualified people in my network from warm investors and warm intros. So for the first 6 months, we bootstrapped the company, which we were just getting the designs ready and just really seeing what the product would come to, getting market feedback, doing some testing, uh, and just getting feedback on the tool, most importantly. And then after 6 months of doing that, that's when we decided early 2021 to really not only go all in, but to go raise capital for it. But that was really the transition from, I don't like to say transition, but how media kits came about, you know, the podcast was such a foundational element to that, which, you know, when we were ideating on it, having the opportunity to share what our goal and objective was with media kits, like it turned out to be, and I'll, I'll pause here, but from a fundraising perspective, which we'll get to, a lot of the initial fundraising came through preexisting podcast guests unintentionally, right? It's like these people in my network that I know that I like, that I trust, and vice versa. Having the opportunity to share that opportunity with them to get involved was something that I always believed in as a 17 year old young entrepreneur of like, Hey, I want to go build this network. I want to go leverage this, not only leverage this podcast, but build this podcast to a point where it creates business opportunity and opportunities for me to be involved with great people. And that led to having, you know, 37 strategic angel investors that a lot of them were on the podcast or have now been on the podcast through those relationships. That's amazing. And it's crazy to think that when you shelved it, it sounded like such a great idea and you were able to still come back and nobody had kind of dove into this space. And I know you said that you did the fundraising. I would love to learn a little bit about that process. Selfishly, I love venture capital. I love businesses getting funding, growing. I think innovation is super important. So I'd love to kind of hear how that experience was. I know you said a lot of the guests, I mean, a lot of the people came from being guests on your show. I'd love to hear maybe some challenges or some highlights from that experience, going from Casey Adams company co-founder to, all right, now I have a lot more people on this team, a lot more people relying on me to kind of go through and produce a great product. I by no means am I a, you know, an expert at raising capital, right? Like I, I raise capital for, for 1 venture, we raised just over a million dollars, 1.25 million, but you know, quite frankly, in 2021, it was such a different environment than it is today, where I know for people that are looking to raise capital now, I'm sure it's a lot tougher. And you know, people are looking at things with a different eye and not to say that the timing was right, because there's always good and there's always bad times. But look, reflecting now on the time we did raise capital was a very optimistic period of time that I'm grateful for. And I think the timing was right in terms of our approach. But yeah, I mean, my experience with raising capital was quite the learning experience. And I was grateful to have had mentors that truthfully, they shepherded me through the process. 1 of them in particular that I always love giving a shout out to is Aristotle Loomis. He's a great friend, a mentor of mine that's built and sold many, many incredible companies. And we literally couldn't have done it without him in terms of his commitment to making sure we see the steps in front of us and understand the investment vehicles, safe notes, convertible debt, just equity, whatever it may be in terms of the fundraising process. And our first investor was also a mentor of mine, David Meltzer, who is just such an incredible mentor, friend, and partner in that context. Where I think if I was to break it down in terms of like 3 bullet points of what I learned in my fundraising process, number 1 is momentum is everything. Like getting the first check in the door is the most challenging aspect, especially if you are a founder like I was myself, that's never raised venture capital, that's never had an exit that was just saying, Hey, I have this idea. I want to go raise a million or millions of dollars for this thing, or maybe it's more, maybe it's less. And having that faith and commitment to a product is obviously the most important thing because if you don't believe in it, if you truly don't believe in the product, why would you ever expect an investor to, and I don't think that's the typical narrative, right? People usually believe in the product if they're going to raise money for it, but having that commitment of, you know, I will do everything in my power to make this successful and I will die on my sword for this. Like you have to have that mentality and you know, for, for some having a startup or 90, 95% of startups fail. That's the, that's the sad truth. But having the founder mentality of just going all in, I think is very important. And then, but so back to my point there, number 1, getting momentum, right? It's an, it's all a numbers game. You have to focus on getting momentum to get that first check on the door. Because once you do getting intros from that investor and having them helping you set up meetings and asking for referrals, like that's where the momentum can really start to build. And you know, Once you do that, you really just have to commit to the process because at the end of the day, it is a process. It took us from, I'm trying to remember, February 2021 to May to close our round completely, or maybe even longer, right? Like 5, 6 months is a typical fundraising process, but it's different for everyone in terms of more experienced or less experienced like I was myself at the time. But that process of raising capital, we ended up with 37 different angel investors. And some of them were like the Wiz Khalifa and his team to the founders of Fuck Jerry, to David Meltzer, to 1 of the former GPs of Andreessen Horowitz, all these incredible people that I've met over the years, mentors like Dan Fleishman, who's a credible mentor investor of mine. And just having them a part of it amplified the mission so much. Because at the end of the day, then this is also what I learned. You can have all the investors in the world, but yes, they can help and be helpful and provide contacts and provide guidance. And it's so incredibly valuable. But at the end of the day, you and your team have to execute, right? If They're not there to make the product work. They're not there to make the closed deals for you. Can they provide some opportunities and connect with people to help recruiting, et cetera? Yes, and we had so many people that helped with different parts of the business in terms of just their willingness to help as advisors also. But at the end of the day, you could have all the best investors, but you have to obsess over product, customers, user experience, and really making something great. Right? Like Jeff Bezos has a quote that I saw something that he said recently, or that he said for decades that I saw a video recently that just showed these clips and moments of Jeff Bezos. And I might butcher a little bit of him saying like customer obsession is everything. And there was this little 60 second video of him saying that from

Andres Sanchez  [00:17:40]:

the earliest days of Amazon to him now of just really just saying that over and over and over and over again. And I think, you know, that is something that I always think about and place priority on in any venture that I start now and into the future, because I think that is not only the most important aspect of a business, but really what creates value. Yeah. And I think a lot of that is so important. And I hope people who are on the fence or just starting businesses are taking notes because that's such good advice and good feedback. And I do agree. At the end of the day, it comes down to execution. You need to execute no matter what. You've got to have that mentality of there's no way that I'm not going to make this happen. And you mentioned mentors a lot. I'm somebody who really believes in mentors. I really think that you can gain so much value. Talk a little bit on mentors you've had, not even specifically, just maybe experiences that you've gotten through mentors and maybe how important you think that is for people early in career, early in their life, or even later. Just I would love to hear kind of your feedback on that. Yeah. You know, I think mentors

Casey Adams  [00:18:41]:

in life are extremely important, but my perspective over the years has shifted so much meaning. And I take this approach to everything in life. Like you can learn what to do or what not to do from literally every person you come in contact with, right? Like anyone you meet can be a mentor to you in some fashion, right? And as I just mentioned of, hey, I shouldn't do that and this is why. And thank you for showing me that. To someone helping you in understanding the fundraising process from the entity structure that you have on a cap table for your business, right? So to take a step back, like I, at 16 years old, I was so curious about having a mentor. And it took me a while to not only just understand what that means, but through experience, I quickly learned like, oh, it wasn't what I expected. Meaning, you know, you're going to have people that you, that you come across in your, on your journey. Maybe, maybe not that are truly the handheld, like the mentors that will spend hours on the phone with you. That will call you at any time of the day that you can call on, you can call and ask any question to, and share your most vulnerable dark moments in business or in life, And those are people you obviously need to keep close. But again, I believe in seasons in life, right? Mentors come and go, meaning yes, well, they may be always be in your life, but the intensity of a mentor-mentee relationship, in my opinion, is best when it is hyper-focused on a mission. When I talk about Aristotle in this context, and if he hears this or whatever it may be, during that journey of fundraising and through acquisition, he was someone that we were calling and talking to every single day and now post that, it's not the same anymore. And that's okay because it's not that it's not his advice and mentorship isn't needed, but it's just different contexts and it's all situational, right? And building a valuable group of peers that you can rely on and call to get feedback and advice from is, you know, it's your mastermind in your circle of influence that can create those opportunities. But you know, just to not go on a crazy tangent about this, like mentors have been so super important in my life. And I always know that it's gonna come a day where, and I'm 22 now, we're both relatively young, wherein when I'm 50 years old, 30 years old, like always having those people that are older than you, decades older than you, that can just give you an insight to how they've lived life, I believe is so important. And to truly listen to them and their perspective, because the same way where, if a 10 year old came up to you, Andres, or myself, and was like, hey, like, how should I, how should I drive a car? Right? Like, you could probably give them lots of great experience through just having license and driving over the years. And they're 8 years old, 10 years old, and have no clue any of the directions on the road and all the traffic lights, turn signals, et cetera, where that's how I think about life of like for them. And as we once thought about certain aspects of things, like you're just so not in tune with the experience of doing it. Right. And I think in business as, as 2 young entrepreneurs here, you know, having those people that are in their thirties, forties, fifties, or sixties, seventies, eighties, whatever it may be, that can just give you that wisdom of decades and decades of experience of doing something at a high level. If you aspire to have, you know, mentors that are at, are at that high level, which I believe we all do is so valuable the same way that, you know, the advice that you or I would give to an 8 year old about driving in terms of just the context of what to avoid and what not to do that they could write down on a piece of paper or understand maybe later in life. It's all super valuable. I really couldn't agree with you more on that. And something I like to tell people when it comes to mentorships is you need to be very intentional about picking individuals who you think are going to help you grow. A lot of people are either on the spectrum of no, like I don't want any mentorship. And some people are just looking to take any mentorship

Andres Sanchez  [00:22:37]:

and going for somebody because of their name or their status. That doesn't always bring you the best overall mentor. It's about being very intentional, looking for people that fit what you're looking for. So I couldn't agree with you more on the mentorship part. And I think it's so important for just long-term growth because they've people have been around the block. They've seen things happen. They are the people who are going to Ring the warning bells or tell you hey, this is a really big opportunity So I think that's super important and I know that we are kind of coming to the end here So I'd love to kind of give you a moment Is there anything you want to shout out here at the end bring up kind of before we wrap up? Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, for everyone, for anyone out there, when it comes to like my journey and, you know, a couple of things I've learned, a couple, I would say 1 of the 3 elements that I believe that is just so crucial to not only a phenomenal

Casey Adams  [00:23:29]:

life, but longevity of happiness. I consider myself 1 of the most happy people ever in terms of my simple understanding of the world and my constant, I should say, like seeking of gratitude, meaning I met a lot of successful people And you quickly realize that, which I've realized over the years, right? We all have goals. We all have things we wanna strive for financially, emotionally, relationship wise, whatever it may be. And I have always been, and I've been a believer in just this obsession with the journey where so many people get obsessed with the end result. You compare yourself to people on social media and sometimes it's a good thing because you get to see what's possible and people can inspire you of course. But fully committing to the journey of the business of life, you know, Like again, like 1 of the quotes that I love is, you know, life's a marathon, not a sprint. And I say that because I ran my first marathon in terms of a running context in December last year. And just the mentality of running a marathon really, it gave me so much perspective on why people say that quote, meaning like you have to conserve energy and be intentional and just trust the process. And, you know, of course it's great to be intense at times, but if you're too intense on mile 2, like you're going to kill yourself. And by the time you get to mile 24, you're going to be regretting, you're going to be regretting your actions that you took. And I think that's the same way in business. I guess intensity is the key ingredient to moving fast, but thinking, how can I be smarter in certain situations? How can I learn from certain situations and to live in gratitude and just really be appreciative of the journey I believe is super, super important? So with that being said, in terms of how people can follow me and things I am doing nowadays, of course, the podcast, as we talked about a lot, the Casey Adams show, you can find it on all platforms. Outside of that, if you're a creator or someone that's looking to showcase your data in a new way, definitely check out mediakits.com. And then for podcasters, I know this is like an early stage and I know we talked about this before Andres, but I'm launching this new AI podcasting tool called ListenerFM, which automates the post-production process for podcasters.

Andres Sanchez  [00:25:31]:

So yeah, it's super exciting and just really excited about the opportunity in that space. That's awesome. And I'm really excited about Listener. If you guys are listening and you're starting a podcast, you should definitely check that out. Casey, thank you so much for being the first episode of the show. I really appreciated this conversation. And I know that this is a relationship that's gonna be lasting long past this episode. So again, thank you so much for coming on. Of course, thank you so much for having me.