It Doesn't Take Money To Make Money: Brandon Leibel (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Brandon Leibel’s talk titled “It Doesn’t Take Money To Make Money” at TEDxSDSU conference.

In this TEDx talk, Brandon Leibel, SoundCloud’s co-founder, debunked the myth that financial resources are essential for business success, emphasizing the value of resourcefulness. He recounted his journey from graduating with significant student debt to rejecting a conventional job path to pursue an entrepreneurial venture in beach towels with his friends. Despite initial skepticism from their families and facing financial challenges, they embraced creativity and determination to build their business.

Leibel highlighted their grassroots approach to marketing, like personally growing their social media presence and learning skills like website development. A significant breakthrough came when they cleverly utilized a chance encounter with a reporter to gain media exposure, boosting their brand. Their journey on Instagram from 1,000 to 10,000 followers, and eventually securing a deal on Shark Tank, underscored the power of hard work and strategic thinking. Ultimately, Leibel’s story illustrates that passion, innovation, and persistence, rather than money, are the true drivers of entrepreneurial success.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The Power of Resourcefulness

Raise your hand if you’ve heard the saying that it takes money to make money. Yep, that’s what I thought. I’m here today to prove that in 2018, this thing is complete bullshit. A lot of bullshit. I believe that not having money to start a business could potentially be the greatest thing for your business. It’ll take you places you’ve never been, and it’ll force you to do things that you’ve never even imagined.

A lot of people think that us being on Shark Tank, raising money, getting a deal with Robert Herjavec is why we became successful. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is, in the three years leading up to Shark Tank, that is what actually made us successful.

It’s the things in those three years that money cannot buy. The drive, the determination, and the passion. When I was a student at SDSU, I thought the complete opposite. I thought you needed money, a rich dad, a rich mom, a rich grandparent to lend you money in order to start a business. I didn’t think that there was any possible way to do it without it.

The Beginning of a Journey

I was about to graduate with $30,000 of student debt. “How the hell can I possibly start a business?” So, I took the traditional route. Got a safe job at a big insurance company in San Diego, in a cubicle. It sucked.

After 11 months, the millennial in me decided that this is not going to last, and this is not acceptable. So, I came together with my two best friends and co-founders, Steven and Bruno, and we decided that we need to get out of here and bring the world something they really, really need. Better beach towels.

This was our billion-dollar idea. So, we quit the next day, we’re out. We call our parents, tell them what we did, and they’re so happy. They’re like, “Good for you guys, you guys are the best, go for it.” I’m just kidding.

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Facing Reality

They thought we were complete morons, and they were very confused on how we were going to pay for this. They knew we were broke, but we didn’t care. We went out to celebrate. We were so high on life, we were so excited for this next chapter.

But the next day, reality struck. When we woke up, we realized that our parents are probably right. We don’t have any money. “How are we going to pay for this?” But that’s where the magic started. Instead of focusing on the fact that we didn’t have money, we took it as an opportunity to channel our inner creativity and resourcefulness. But resourcefulness doesn’t pay rent. I wish it could.

Embracing Challenges

So, we decided to move into a two-bedroom apartment. Bruno is going to sleep in the loft on the floor. We’re going to cook beans and rice every day, cash out our 401Ks that had nothing in it. We’re going to sell everything in our apartment. We’re going to take out five credit cards each. Me and Steven are going to become Uber drivers to pay the bills. Bruno is going to cash out his Apple stock to pay for our first batch of towels. Boom. We have a company.

We know that social media is where we have to be in order to build a millennial-driven brand. There was no other way. And none of us knew anything about social media.

Building a Brand

I don’t think Snapchat was even around at this point. So, we didn’t have money to pay someone to teach us, no marketing agency, no expert. We had to do it ourselves. So, we decided to walk the beaches of San Diego for three months every single day, approach every single person on the sand, have them take out their cell phones and add us on Instagram on the spot.

We did this for six hours a day for three months. And we got our first thousand followers with this approach. We realized that money can buy followers, it can buy likes, it can even buy comments on your pictures, but it can’t buy a first impression. And this strategy is what built the bedrock and foundation of our brand.

So, now we have a few followers, we have some momentum, we have product, but we don’t have a website. And none of us know anything about building a website. I don’t think I even had a computer at this time.

So, Bruno became our in-house website developer. He was the cheapest person we could find. He cost zero dollars. So, he locked himself in the loft for three weeks and literally taught himself how to build a website through YouTube videos, calling his friends and family who were experts, utilizing the internet, utilizing resources, reading blogs, doing whatever it took.

And he finally, one day, comes downstairs, hadn’t shaved in a few weeks, and he presents this website to me and Steven.

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Learning and Growing

And it was complete shit. I think even he would admit that. The pictures were blurry, the product descriptions had typos, the layout was horrible. So, me and Steven were ecstatic, because we had a website.

So, we have a website, what do we do now? We have a thousand followers, and we know that we have to grow our followers, because eventually these people are going to turn into money, they’re eventually going to turn into sales. But we knew that walking the beach every single day was just not sustainable, it’s not possible, it’s not going to work, it’s not going to happen fast enough. We’ve got to figure something else out.

So, we became social media experts ourselves. Back to YouTube we go. We watch every video on social media marketing, strategies, hacks, how to reach out to people, when to post, what to post, how to post, what to hashtag. We did it all.

We literally watched every single video. We would stay up for nights, direct messaging thousands and thousands of people on Instagram, telling them about our company. Shameless promotion. We didn’t care.

Milestone Achievements

Because in that month, we went from 1,000 to 10,000 followers on Instagram. And we did it for zero dollars. So, now we have 10,000 followers, feeling better. We’ve probably made three sales on our website, probably from our moms, and we’re still broke.

But we know that there’s something here, there’s something with getting people’s attention, getting eyeballs, getting followers, getting impressions, getting them to read about us, to learn about us, understand why we’re doing what we’re doing. So, the idea of a PR agency comes up. But we can’t afford one, they’re freaking expensive. So, we decided to reinvent what a PR agency means in a digital world.

Becoming Our Own PR Agency

YouTube. What else do we need? We learned how to become our own PR agency through the tools that are out there that are accessible to everybody. We learned who to contact, what subject lines to use, when to email them, when they’re back on vacation, who their boss is, who their boss’s boss is, how to reach out to them.

And before you know it, we’re featured in over 100 blogs, a bunch of magazines, newspapers, podcasts, influencers. We even get picked up by the Huffington Post at some point, and I don’t think we even had more than $100 of sales. I guarantee you that a PR agency wouldn’t have gotten us one-third of that press. They couldn’t match the level of urgency and passion and just desperation that we had at that point.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities

We were sick of eating rice and beans. So, where do we go now? We’re featured in press, we’re still driving Uber, trying to pay the bills, we’re still hacking Instagram, reaching out to people. And one day, I’m sitting in my office, which is our kitchen, and I get an alert from Uber that someone needs a ride.

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And I’m like, “Yeah, I need to make some money,” accept the ride. Someone around the corner, I go pick them up. It’s a young couple, a guy and a girl. The girl gets in my car, the guy gets in the back. We start small-talking as usual, I try to sell them a towel, they don’t want it.

But they’re like, “Alright, this guy’s doing something, he’s got a company.” And then I find out that she is a reporter for Channel 6, and I’m like, “Hell yeah. Jackpot.” She’s not leaving this car until she gives me her phone number. So, I take a few wrong turns, miss the exit, finally get to their destination. I’ve built enough rapport at this time where she just hands me her business card. She says, “Email me.”

I email her the next night. The following week, she’s in our apartment with a full camera crew. The following night, we’re on Channel 6. And that night, we make eight sales online. And then we went out for tacos. In my opinion, money cannot buy these experiences. It cannot buy the resources that are out there that are free for all of us. When you don’t have money, you’re forced to take matters into your own hands and make every single opportunity yours.

Seizing Opportunities

That Uber experience is an example of how you can seize any single moment and make it an opportunity. I normally wouldn’t have spoken to her. I would’ve just been driving along, just playing music, trying to get there, get back, stressed out. But because we were desperate, we had to do it ourselves. It forces you to do things that you’d never ordinarily do.

So, let’s fast forward to today. We have 540,000 followers on Instagram. We got a deal on Shark Tank with Robert Herjavec. We have done millions of dollars in sales, in revenue, not profit. And we’ve donated $50,000 to various non-profits, which we’re really happy about. And we don’t know what the future holds, because brands come and go every day. But what we do know is that the ideas and the strategies and the hustle and the blood, sweat, and tears that got us to where we are now will never stop.

And that’s something that money cannot buy. So, the next time that someone tells you it takes money to make money, tell them that your lack of money is going to finance your resourcefulness and make you successful.

Thank you.

It Doesn’t Take Money To Make Money: Brandon Leibel (Transcript)