by Maxwell Murray

I Am Starting A New Show...

I went to the library yesterday and picked up the book  - What It Takes by Stephen Schwarzman. Stephen is the Founder and President of Blackstone - one of the worlds largest private equity firms. You just can’t talk to people like this… But you can read their books and hopefully pull at least 1 thing from them. ------ This is a side note: I read Shut Up & Listen by Tilman Fertitta yesterday. Tilman is the owner of the Houston Rockets… It was such a fantastic book and you can tell he is a billionaire because he literally didn’t waste one word in the book. It was just 5 chapters of direct, straight forward business advice. ------- This week, I have been playing defense. My cash is tied up in inventory that hasn’t arrived yet so I have no money for ads. I got my first set of refunds and returns due to sizing issues… And last week was my worst sales week since the launch. So I went to the library to reset and find an idea… Every obstacle you encounter is a challenge that can make you even better. When sitting on High Inventory, Low Cash: How can I effectively move product? To drive more online sales with sizing concerns: How can I give enough information for people to buy with certainty? Finally - When you have to slow down the ads and are fully reliant on organic social: How can you drive even more traffic to your page & site?   When I got to the library I wrote out all my main 3 problems and 5 solutions that are going to solve them. I then put 3 books in front of me: The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman What it Takes by Stephen Schwarzman   The Infinite Game taught me that it is more important to stay alive than to win a fight that has no definite ending. Essentially - slow down & make sure you can keep playing The Startup of You reminded me about getting rejected from that job at a vc firm in Chicago… Key - Become undeniable by building your own lead gen engine and audience. Afterwards - I opened What it Takes by Stephen Schwarzman I flipped through a few pages and found this gem…. He wrote “People in a tough spot will focus on their own problems when the answer may lie in solving others.” I had been flirting with the concept of introducing a second show since last week. I invited a bunch of entrepreneurs to my photoshoot to try to execute this and even filmed pieces of it over the weekend but I didn’t have any real footing or concept yet. My brand has never been about selling dress shirts and has always been about building a platform supporting and showcasing others…. I realized - if I want to sell my own products - why don’t I collaborate with other people and help them sell theirs. This led me to my second show… Obviously - I have Game of Power: my podcast. Which is a long form conversation that I absolutely love because I can contact people that I want to learn from and have an excuse to ask questions for over a hour. But I wanted something more short form, snackable, collaborative, and discovery based. It brought me back to my sunday nights back on IG Live… So with that being said - my new show is: ‘Power Players’ a 60 second product pitch directed at new customers that don’t know about your business. Shark Tank is geared towards investors: would you invest? I want this show to be - would you buy this? It is funny because I did something similar back when I was running FITS… The problem was - I was obligated to sell the products on my marketplace. Now, I have less skin in the game and no constraints on who can join the show. This should be pretty fun! If any of you know startup founders that have built a physical product, please send me their info, I would love to get them on the show!