The Startup Ideas Pod

Today Greg is joined by Phil Toronto, a Partner at Vayner/RSE. In this episode, Greg and Phil share their biggest cheat codes for saying 'yes' to the right kind of events and why being the person who brings others together is the biggest value add of all. 

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LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:
Production Team:
https://www.bigoceanpodcasting.com
Phil Toronto
https://twitter.com/philtoronto

SHOW NOTES:
0:00 - Intro
5:16 - Say 'no' to networking events
11:06 - Greg says 'yes' to a Tony Robbins event
23:06 - The power of proximity to a big cultural events
27:00 - Be the host






Creators & Guests

Host
GREG ISENBERG
I build internet communities and products for them. CEO: @latecheckoutplz, we're behind companies like @youneedarobot @boringmarketer @dispatchdesign etc.

What is The Startup Ideas Pod?

This is the startup ideas podcast. Hosted by Greg Isenberg (CEO Late Checkout, ex-advisor of Reddit, TikTok etc).

📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free: https://www.gregisenberg.com/

X: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

Free 5 day course on using the ACP method to turn strangers into customers via internet audiences and communities over here https://www.communityempire.co/

Greg: What are you, what are you pouring? I hear you pouring a beverage.

Phil: Uh, I am, I'm pouring the most prestigious and pristine sparkling water that I found in my journey for said product. Uh, it is the Saratoga Springs sparkling water. You know the quality with the blue bottle.

Not financial advice, not an investor.

Greg: course. I'm also drinking some sparkling water. You know about this? ARK?

Phil: I don't know about this. What is this?

Greg: It's like, it's like a soda stream, but way more beautiful looking But I gotta be honest with you. I'm not just drinking sparkling water.

I'm also drinking it with Como's tequila.

Phil: Oh, excuse you. Alright, then fine, I will crack open the bottle of body vodka.

Greg: Okay. It's going to be one of those podcasts.

Phil: If you're gonna start the opening trying to one up me, I'm not not gonna feel threatened and try and

overcompensate.

Greg: Yeah. I'm looking forward to this podcast. This is going to be good. while you pour yourself a drink, I checked your LinkedIn before this and you have

Phil: It could go... A few ways, yeah. My LinkedIn is either the worst thing, um, in the world, or the best prequalifier for who I want to work with, or not.

Greg: Yeah, well, usually I like to introduce people. Your title is insert very important title here at Vayner Fund. What does that

Phil: That's, that is accurate. it's not really important what the title is, uh, in our little fund, I guess. Um, it could be partner, it could be janitor, it could be anything, but whatever it is, it is very important, and I want people to know that. That I am very, very important at VaynerFund, but it's actually just a litmus test because one of my life mottos is don't take life too seriously.

You'll never get out alive. And I think that being the marquee title on my LinkedIn, uh, stresses that. So I, I truly don't take it that seriously. I don't care how important anyone thinks I am, but if you can't take the joke and you scoff at that title, we're probably not going to work well together.

Greg: Exactly, and that's the, the reason I wanted to bring you on is because I think you live a really happy and good life and you don't take things too seriously and you kind of just go with your curiosity and I'm curious just like is that intentional and yeah how do you think about crafting?

Phil: it is. absolutely intentional at this point. Um, I think it was subconscious prior to recent years, I'd say, but now I take a very active role in, I guess, just evaluating, evaluating how happy things make me from a business perspective, but also from a life perspective, because it has been drilled home that, what do you know?

We only have one life. , um, had a minor health incident that wound up not being a big deal at all that I'm aware of because the doctor did, uh, close the loop on that by saying, I guess we'll just call it a medical mystery, which was not very comforting.

But as far as I know, totally fine happened last year, but it really put life in perspective because for a brief moment in time, I genuinely was convinced I was going to die and that reframed so much for me where it's like, Oh, how could you not want to just optimize for being happy every single day of your life?

Because it's the most important thing. And like, you're the one that has to wake up and live in your body every day. So you got to go, you first,

Greg: So I saw, I saw a tick tock video as I was like, I don't know, it was like two in the morning. I know you don't have tick tock and maybe that plays a role into your health, into your happiness. But I was like, I was like trying to fall asleep. It was like two in the morning. I'm like, swipe, swipe, swipe. And I get this video of like, why are dogs always happy? And this is whole tick tock around like, well, you know, for every one day, that is equivalent to one week for a human. So basically, dogs know their own mortality. And they know that, you know, their life is short. So they're just, by definition, like, even if you leave, uh, your apartment to go get, like, the...

The mail or something or coffee or gone for two minutes, your dog coming back to you and they're like stoked to see you. It's like, Oh my God, where, where have you been?

which is, which is great. Like everyone go get a dog. Um, what, what concretely did you change in your life after you had this new lease on life?

Phil: I would say it empowered me to say no more and say no more confidently because I just felt confident in saying this doesn't suit me right now and or ever, and that's speaking in generalities, but I think just empowering me to take control where I know I can take control and that's, that's a really beautiful thing.

Greg: Could you give an example of something that you said no to over the last year and something that you said yes to that you might've not five years ago?

Phil: The easiest thing is mostly cutting out networking events, and those have always been somewhat of a bane of my existence because in the field of venture capital, kind of important to schmooze and network and mingle, but it's usually done with a lack of intention that I think is detrimental.

Um, I'll go so far as to say to your mental health, because you're kind of floating around, you're show up to this event. Whether or not you drink doesn't matter, but you're just showing up with no real goal and hopefully meeting people. And then you have folks just like staring at the name tag, if there's a name tag and, oh, you're not important or I don't think you're important or whatever.

And it's just kind of soul crushing. So really looking at how you spend your time and showing up in person as a really powerful thing, in my opinion. So you should only be showing up if you actually want to show up. Um. Because people can tell, and you just lead a happier life,

Greg: yeah, like if you're, if you're trying to make it like in startups or venture, like, do you need to go to networking events because both of us don't really. Both of us don't go to networking events, I think our

Phil: I

Greg: is just like, and correct me if I'm wrong, our vibe is like, we'll just like bring together interesting people and good things happen.

But it's, it's, it's more just like among friends. Like it's never

Phil: yeah.

Greg: yeah. Although we did meet at South by Southwest and, but that was, that was before.

Phil: That's like, we're talking 2010, 2011, that's, who knows.

Greg: Yeah, exactly.

Phil: Shout out to FiveBuy.

Greg: Yeah, thank you.

Phil: Yeah, what did we know?

Greg: Yeah. Knowing now, knowing what we know now, knowing what you know now, Phil, do you need to go to networking events if you want your best shot to win at startups or venture?

Phil: I think you still have to show up places. I think if you are showing up intentionally at certain events that are hyper specific to what you're interested in, um, I think that's great. I think you can pre curate, um, a hat tip to what you're passionate about, what I know you're excellent at, which is community.

I think you can find a sub community or two either on Reddit or on XNow or something. And go to events either online or in person in that circle, kind of to the point that you said, like, we like to only go with friends. Well, usually our friends know interesting people. And one of my favorite things to do is to, to host a small event where it's like, Hey, you show up, bring one person that nobody knows, or you think nobody knows and say that to 10 to 20 people.

And what do you know? You have a 50 person event, but it's really close knit intentional. I brought this person because, and I think that's a much more interesting way to go about it. But if you are trying to get your start and you're trying to break in, trying to narrow in on what you're looking for a bit first, rather than the broad, I want to break into tech, but like what sector do you want to be an engineer?

Do you want to aspirationally be a COO one day? Do you just want to be a CEO or you have ideas, something hone in on what it is and find the sub community. And I think that's a really powerful and interesting way to go about it because you can learn a lot more that way. I think

Greg: Totally. And also like the host is underrated, right? Like if you're the host. If you, if you're the person reaching out to people and being like, Hey, I'm curating this dinner of like DTC founders in New York who have between one and 5 million a year and revenue. even if you're not one of those people. You're trying to be one of those people. Like I feel like it's a pretty good move.

Phil: Yep. And people remember that you. bring people together. And that holds a special place, uh, in people's hearts. And it's, it's really nice to facilitate that. I personally enjoy that feeling quite a bit. And I'd say even to this day, it happened maybe two days ago. The listeners don't know this, but they're going to know now we co hosted an orange wine party in Brooklyn right before the pandemic.

Somebody literally brought it up to me yesterday. That was a plus one. Say how fun it was. And this happened in 2019 and it was pretty low lift from our part. And it was awesome.

Greg: Yeah. We did. However, I full disclosure, we did bring the COVID 19 virus, uh, to America and, and spread it across the world because it was January 2020, I think. And, uh, we did have one member, the DJ, in fact, Tyler Lemco comedian, Tyler Lemco

did

Phil: I like that. We're using names

Greg: Oops. You know, I thought we're having like a, you know, an honest conversation.

Phil: open, honest. Yeah. I appreciate the transparency.

Greg: but yeah, I mean, I also randomly get like people. People hit, you know, mentioning that, that, uh, those events and that event. And, uh, it pays dividend both like work wise and just like personal, like some of my happiest moments have been throwing these events. And I feel like people, people listening should just like, don't go to events, throw events.

Phil: Yeah,

Greg: Like to

Phil: totally. I think that's great advice.

Greg: So that's something that you learned, I guess, in your twenties, no networking events be the host. What's, what's something that you're saying yes to more of these

days.

Phil: I think no networking events is too rigid. I think no to, to attending events without intention, I would

say. what's an example of a yes? Um, a few years back, I, I was at a group dinner, curated dinner, great, awesome, on theme with what we're talking about.

Uh, this gentleman, uh, wearing a very wacky blazer, in Talked to him for maybe 10, 15 minutes, and he invited me. And a few weeks to his birthday party. The birthday party was a bit unconventional because it was a three day event and it wasn't hosted in New York City where we met.

He was Going to host a large group of people in Tulsa, Oklahoma and program an entire trip to Tulsa to Show the city because there's a huge entrepreneurial vibe. He was leading the charge on awareness around Tulsa's a hub for business and SMB and Technology and opening folks eyes to a city. They may consider just a flyover situation.

That, in that moment, I said yes. I'd known this guy for 15 minutes and I couldn't think of another time that I would have just a curated view into the inner workings of Tulsa. And I was like, yes, this sounds interesting. Worst comes to worst, I book a flight and leave early if it's terrible. I didn't think it was going to be and it wound up being awesome.

And I met a lot of incredible people that I'm actually super close friends with to this day.

Greg: I actually said yes to something that I wouldn't otherwise say yes to last week. Which is I went to a Tony Robbins event last week,

Phil: Incredible.

Greg: yeah, I mean, I wasn't going to publicly talk about this or even privately talk about it, to be honest, but here we are. so I went as a guest to the Tony Robbins event. It's the business mastery event, which is like more focused on, like, how do you grow your business? I don't know if that makes it any better, but that's, that's what it is. And I was invited to, as a guest from Ali Abdaal, who's like a big YouTuber, and this guy, Joe Gannon, who, uh, helps me with the podcast and a few other social content stuff. So they invited me. They're like, Hey, literally tickets start at 10, 000.

You're going to be sitting courtside, like front row. And Tony Robbins was literally like spitting on me. Like I, I should have brought an umbrella, honestly, in retrospect. And, uh, I gotta say one of the better things that I said yes to in the last 12 months is going to this Tony Robbins thing.

Phil: What, what's driving that?

Greg: Uh, and I want to, I want to preface it with, I always had a lot of mixed feelings about Tony Robbins, um, because. he's like a cult leader in a lot of ways. And like I felt at least before going into this, he's like a bit, taking advantage of people like selling these crazy expensive, uh, seminars and like, maybe people don't have the money and like bringing them into his quote unquote cult.

But Two reasons I went. Number one, I was like probably the greatest salesperson ever. So I just want to like be in the room with like a world class salesperson, number one. And the second thing is, if he is leading a cult, there's like a fine line between a community and a cult.

So I want to understand how he does it.

Fair, right?

That feels

fair.

Yeah. So I, I

gave

Phil: has curated a hell of a community.

Greg: Yes, he has. He has like, say what you want about him. Like objectively he has. So I gave up five days of my life to spend it in West Palm beach. And it was so good for so many reasons.

But number one, he is the greatest salesperson of all time. How he structures his Like the whole seminar and how he like uses music. Like basically what he does is like, like the whole five days. He's using like the same five songs over and over again. And he gets you to like, get up and like shout.

And then like at the point of like peak state. He like comes in and he'll be like, Oh, by the way, you should like totally sign up to another seminar of mine. You're like, so stoked and jazzed.

Um, so there's, yeah, yes, yes, yes. So he, so what he would do, like to give you like a concrete example, you know, let's say we're learning, cause it was a, you know, business mastery, let's say we're learning about, uh, finance and he would be talking about like, Hey, let me go through like Robin's research, which is like one of his Um, companies, and like the P and L from Robin's research.

And you're going through it and you're like, see if I, you know, if I do these strategies, I can increase leads. And if I do this he'll like put like, uh, Katy Perry's, um, what's that song.

Phil: Firework?

Greg: Yeah, He would be like, it's your company.

And like fireworks comes on and it's like, raise your hand if this is your company and like, you're stoked that this is happening to you. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then at the end of it, he like makes an ask and be like, Hey, by the way, like buy my thing. Um, so that's just one example. He's an incredible salesperson.

He understands the power of state. and uh, I liked it. I thought it was very

Phil: I also, not to put words in your mouth, but as you were telling that story, I was thinking, Around and I, I don't know if this is going to be the next episode of theirs or anything, but I know you've been very hot on the concept of multi preneur and I would say that is a peak example of multi preneurship where he is essentially not a personal holding company, but he has a holding company of sorts and every

piece fits in and I see why that probably resonates with you.

He's A multipreneur that curates in a rabid community. Seems like a Greg Eisenberg cup of tea, first and foremost.

Greg: Yeah, I, I didn't, I actually didn't realize the multipreneur bit until, until going. So first of all, the guy's nearly a billionaire. Didn't know that. He co owns 110 companies.

Phil: That's wild.

Greg: it's wild, absolutely wild. And the, you know, the way it was structured was like the event, like it was at Palm beach convention center.

So there's like the stage in the convention center. And then as you're walking in, there's like different booths, but the booths are his companies. Right. It's like his accounting firm, his legal firm. so he doesn't accept advertisers and sponsors to his events, which is like totally like multi preneur creator led sort of entrepreneur vibe is to like obviously sell your own stuff.

Phil: That, that seems like the, the dream, the multipreneurship dream.

Greg: he's definitely doing it. Um, and he's got a lot of subtle ways that he's able to sell people and other kind of like, Interesting thing that I didn't know is if you're going to a Tony Robbins event, like bring, uh, a Canada goose jacket because he sets the heat. Like I literally walked by the thermostat.

It's 60 degrees. He sets he sets it to be really cold. And the reason he does that is he wants people to like get up and move so that they get like the energy flowing. And it's like a Tony Robbins thing, apparently.

Greg: the interesting thing is while the, while the event was happening. Alex Hermosi. Who's like a popular, like he's really popular. Do you know, you know him now?

Phil: Nope.

Greg: I'm not surprised you don't know him, so Alex Ramos wrote a book called a hundred million dollar offers.

It's like how to craft an irresistible offer. He's like big on YouTube.

Phil: I also keep in mind, I asked Steph Curry to his face what he did for a living because I just didn't know and I didn't, I don't really follow the NBA and this is years ago, but especially if I don't know somebody that's the worst litmus test. I don't realize who anybody is.

Greg: totally. What did Steph Curry say? By the way,

Phil: He said he played ball for the Warriors. And then we moved on.

Greg: you know, who co owns the warriors,

Phil: Tony Robbins.

Greg: Tony, Anthony Robbins.

Phil: Ah!

Greg: Yeah.

Phil: I didn't expect the middle name to get in there, but...

Greg: No, I think it's, it's Tony. I don't know if his middle name is Anthony. No, it's, it's, it's Anthony Robbins is a co owner of his 110 companies is, uh,

is definitely, yeah, as well. So all roads lead back to Tony Robbins.

Alex Hermosi, guy went from like zero to millions of subscribers in the last 18 months, he went on, he got, he got on Twitter like 18 months ago and like now he's tweeting and getting thousands of likes within the first hour.

He also threw, while the Tony Robbins event was happening, he threw a launch event for his new book called Hundred Million Dollar Leads. And he had more than 500, 000 people in the live stream at the event. Yeah, which is

Phil: That's wild.

Greg: completely wild. And anyone who's interested in like crafting offers or you and our lead, like, how do you like get leads?

Like you should watch it just cause like the same reason I went to Tony Robbins, like learn how to be the best salesperson of all time, Alex Hermosi. Same sort of thing. And the interesting thing about Alex Hermosi and Tony Robbins... is the stage for Alex Hermosi when he was doing his live webinar was the exact same stage that Tony Robbins has where in the back you have all these like zoom people watching and it's all these Like kind of Brady Bunch style.

You got, you got to check it out. So while I was at the

Phil: I will.

Greg: while I was at the Tony Robbins event, I was like, Hey guys, did you, did you see, uh, the Alex Hermosi event yesterday? Um, and, and they were like, yeah. And I was like, doesn't it look like the Tony Robbins set? And one of the people I was with said, Oh, Hermosi is like one of the biggest Tony Robbins followers. And he specifically crafted his Uh, stage and vibe to be like a Tony Robbins event, which leads me to my thesis that Alex Ramosi is the modern day Tony Robbins for young people.

Phil: I like to just show up where there's a large cultural event happening not necessarily going to the event itself because A, that gets wildly expensive and B, You just don't have to. I mean, case in point, we met at South by Southwest The only time I've ever had a badge to South by Southwest is when, for some reason, they let me do a panel or speak.

I've never gotten one on my own, but I've gone, what, eight times at this point? You go, because it's the largest group gathering of people that you likely want to know, or, or... Are relevant to either your goals or interests or something showing up at a large cultural event and all the ancillary things that happen around it is a huge unlock because Serendipity lends itself very well, uh, to these situations, and you wind up leaving with a bunch of either new friends or contacts, goals, and it...

is actually wildly productive, where I thought that previously, it's, you're just showing up to party. You don't have to party, you just have to be there.

And then another point to the whole just show up where things are happening. Other people are more prone and open to meeting and engaging. So if you. There's always something to be done for me and probably you in LA. There's always like some sort of business deal or something we can accomplish if we visit there, but the pretense of it being a major cultural event, I think people are more apt to meet with you or get that coffee.

Whereas like, if you just show up randomly January 21st for. No other reason. Hey, I'm in L. A. No, sorry, I'm busy. There's, there's, there's stuff going on, whatever. But if you, you're there and other people are there for an event, and everyone's already in that mode, you're more likely to be able to sit down with folks you aspirationally wanted to sit down with, or needed to book time with, or something.

There's just, um, the, the receptors are a bit more open, I find. So it's, it's a good hack.

Greg: But isn't, isn't the counter to that? Like I have a friend who lives in Austin and I actually went to South by Southwest.

And when I texted him, he was like, dude, like you wait, you know, South by Southwest is so busy. Like meet me at this dinner.

Uh, you know, and I spoke to him for like 15 minutes. He's like, why don't you come to Austin when like, it's not South by Southwest. I feel like going to an event. a big event, you can kind of get like quick hits of people. But like, if you really want to spend time with them, I don't know if it happens during the big events.

What do you think?

Phil: Oh, no, I, I fully agree with that. I think to, to deepen or advance a relationship in a meaningful way, like whether that's friendship, business, whatever, it's really, it's really tough to do in that setting. But I think for the initial contact and making an inroad, I guess, it's perfect.

It's the quick hit, like, it's great. Like you, See if it's even interesting for the other person, for you. And then you can take it from there because then you necessarily don't have to be in person, you could hop on a zoom, FaceTime them. You have the open line of communication to text or send a message or send an email and you just have the context of that quick hit and meeting in person.

But I think is, is more important than anything. Cause you're never going to forget. The initial feeling of meeting somebody or the initial like 15 minutes that you spent with somebody and as long as that went well, the door is open and it's kind of yours to mess up from there. Definitely agree with you that it's really tough to go deep and like build something super meaningful in that context, but it opens up way more doors,

Greg: I was chatting with someone this morning who was like, who was telling me having a place. Like a secondary home, in a cool, interesting place as a destination to throw events. she was saying that that's like probably one of the most valuable investments that you can make like, what was it?

Michael Rubin, you saw he threw the white party. Uh, that was crazy. know you know what that event was. Tell people. What that event was who Michael Rubin is and why that that was the event of the year.

Phil: Michael Rubin is a wildly successful businessman that has catapulted in popularity in the past. few years, despite him being a wildly successful businessman for decades now, uh, I'd say, um, he's done an absolutely incredible job of tapping into culture as a whole and making sure that he is top of mind culturally hanging out with the most interesting rappers, up and coming rappers, musicians.

television stars surrounding himself with key people and seemingly doing it in an authentic way. where he has established this, this white party that he does in July, uh, every year now as the, the event of the year, for the most part, it's the who's who of relevant folks held at his house, in the Hamptons.

Um, the, the video that was cut up this year from this. white party, essentially looked like a Hollywood trailer for the most part. Like it was wild. Um, I was super jealous that Gary got to go, and has gotten to go to everyone. Still don't have that plus one, but that's okay. Um, that's, that's on me for not being relevant enough, but but another point to Michael Rubin and his strategy. It's not just him kind of swagger jacking. Well, that's a terrible term. It's not just him trying to commandeer culture and inauthentically just post selfies with famous people. Like sure. He posts that, but he did, uh, have a pretty interesting soundbite where somebody's like, well, what do you, what do you get out of speaking to Quavo or another rapper or something?

Like what's, what's, what's the point? Are you just. He's trying to be relevant. He's like, well, no, they have really interesting techniques for how they've either marketed their own music or products that they've sold. And it gives him a different perspective to accomplish business challenges that he has his own nose in his own business by.

Speaking to these musicians, musicians, because they've obviously been successful in their own right. And it's just a thought exercise for him where maybe he can add some value from a business perspective to them and they provide insights that he normally wouldn't have. So he's really, really intentional and smart around curating that.

Greg: Michael Rubin just just to be clear He's the founder of fanatics which brings in billions in revenue They own the licenses to like the NBA NHL stuff like that. I'm looking at some of the guests the guests were Kim Kardashian, Jack Harlow, Travis Scott, Laurie Harvey, Justin Bieber. I guess like I look at that and I'm like. Yes, obviously, he's a incredible businessman and has done really well for himself. But like Gary, for example, like has like in my mind, at least like he's on the same level ish. And like, why isn't Gary throwing the white party?

Right? Why, why, It must have been his one of his main, his main goal, like to throw an event like this. Right. a and, and B, and that goes, this goes back to like my earlier point, which might not relate to a lot of people, but like having the second home as the destination, super valuable.

Like, I think I'm looking at pictures of his place. It's like pretty, pretty insane.

Phil: Oh, it's epic. Yeah, but it goes back to what we started speaking about almost at the beginning, where it's be the host.

And listen to how we're speaking about it right now, like it's, it obviously makes an impact. We have not gone, we haven't been invited, but now it's maybe this aspirational thing. And we see that he is this beacon that brings together really relevant people.

That's really interesting. And we're talking about that. So that, that in and of itself, I think is pretty important. And then I know you mentioned, like, maybe it's not attainable or accessible for folks to own this own the second home as the destination, but. Yeah. we can even walk it back quite a bit is host and have a destination.

Greg: Yeah.

Phil: You don't have to own it. I mean, and just

to

Greg: mean, when we hosted our party in. In Brooklyn and Williamsburg, we got a free space, right. At

Phil: Shout out to Gerties.

Greg: Curtiz that's right. And they basically were like, so picture this listeners. Because anyone could basically throw their own version of a white party. That's, that's my come to Jesus moment right now. So

Phil: agree with you, yeah. I love where this is going. Yes.

Greg: basically I started having coffee at this coffee shop, met the owner.

He basically was telling me, yeah, I've got this amazing space downstairs. I wish someone would use it. And I was like, well,

Phil: Hmm.

Greg: me and Phil might, you know, could use it. And then he was like, yeah, well you can. You know, he's a brunch place and a coffee place, right? Like they, they close early. And he was like, if you give me a percentage, was that how it worked?

I don't even remember. I think we give him like a percentage of. He was operating the bar and we gave him a percentage of the

Phil: Yeah. Yeah,

Greg: which is totally cool for us. We got to use this great space and he made money because he wasn't using the space. Uh, actually he was stoked. And I remember him and he was like, Oh, come back anytime.

Like he was so, so excited. In fact, when COVID hit, he was like, Oh, I wish we, you know, during like peak COVID, he was like, yeah, they're an event. I was like, dude, like, I don't know. But, um, The . The point is, the point is like, you don't need to own the place. you, you need to own the mission, and you need to own like the idea of the event and then, you know, you could knock on some doors, get the space, and then the space could be an attractive, Gertie's maybe isn't that place, but like, you know, or maybe it is

Phil: for, for what, what our goal was. Yeah, it was, it was perfect, You can, and you can do varying scales of this. I mean, when, when I thought about what it meant to throw an event, maybe years ago, it's like, oh, it's so expensive. Like you need sponsors, you know, everything you need to do open bar, you need to do this, like overthinking it.

You don't need to do any of those things. Yes, you can. Yes, you can build it up to that. I'm pretty sure that the white party didn't have a cash bar, sure, but you just, you need to host, have the space, and whatever you negotiate from there is great. People are just very excited to go to something like that it doesn't matter that they're gonna have to pay for drinks.

That's fine. If you don't have a sponsor, don't want to cover the cost people's drinks or the venue or whatever, that's fine. Like there, there isn't this expectation or anything. I think you just need to go that mile and host.

Greg: no one's going to remember like the cash bar, like that's not what people remember of from the event. Right. They're good. They

Phil: And if they do, then there were probably was something else wrong with the event.

Greg: Yeah, totally. If, if people are coming to the event, cause they're getting free, free wine or free, whatever free food, like, I don't know if they're there for the mission

Phil: That's the most commodity of commodities is the, the free food and drink. It's like, well, our event has free food and drink. And it's like,

Greg: yeah,

Phil: so do the other 10 that I probably found on Groupon. So like,

thoughts?

Greg: yeah, I'm just thinking to myself, like, man, I should be throwing some more events. Um, I am throwing, I am going to be throwing some multi printer events,

I want to say that you know, IRL is just underrated, like IRL events are underrated, especially like post COVID People are excited to go to events. And so there is an opportunity right now for people, the chance of your event working in 2023 is higher than the chance of your event working in 2019.

Phil: And it all is rooted in, in what you mentioned, like the, the purpose, the mission. Why are you holding this event? What's the theme? As long as you keep that top of mind and organize it accordingly and curate the right people that you think fit the bill for the room that would get value on any side of it.

it's great.

Greg: Before we, uh, head out, give me one or two stories of some of the best events you went to and why they were so, so good.

Phil: One of the best events that I've been to , was thrown by my friend Dan, who I actually met on that Tulsa trip that I mentioned.

Um, the pinnacle rule was you cannot talk about work

or what you do.

And that, in and of itself, was... Powerful and I think freeing at the same time because I think a crutch that people tend to use for better or for worse is just the first question out of your mouth.

What do you do?

It's like, that's, that's a pretty loaded question. And usually the context means like, what do you do for work? But it could be anything, but eliminating that I think is really key.

Greg: especially in a place like New York, do I don't I don't even need to explain that. And I guess like, that's, you know, bringing it all back, like insert very important title here at Vayner Fund. That's why you're like, okay, real people will, will get it. And you know, maybe that's like the best way to do it.

Like, To get like really interesting people attracted to

Phil: Maybe.

Greg: So some takeaways I have from this one, be the host, to be like Dan and create something that's unique and interesting and unlike everything else out there, uh, three, you don't need to go to the event like you don't need to go to the Super Bowl, but there's something that magical happens at some of these bigger events where it's like, go to the side event.

Don't go to the main event.

And then I think it's just taking stock and what, and what you're saying yes to and what you're saying no to and, and being okay intention. Yeah. Setting attention. That's really, that's very Tony Robbins of you.

Phil: Hmm.

Hmm.

Greg: And then last but not least, in terms of multi preneurship and sales. prowess, like go, go watch Tony Robbins and listen to him just as like, you don't have to listen to what he's saying, but just like in the fact that like understanding his techniques for talking and selling is just, and creating events is mind blowing and, and same with the Alex Ramosi event, like go watch that, listen to that.

And it's no matter what you're doing, like it will help you become a better salesperson and, and life is sales. So, it's a good skill to know.

Phil Toronto, one of my, one of my closest friends. It's an honor to have you here and jam on, on this sort of stuff. you're light on social media, chances are the way you're going to learn more about Phil Toronto is if you like this episode and you want more Phil Toronto, We'll bring them back. So by we, I mean, I, um, so the best, the best place to find Phil Toronto, besides his, his handles is this podcast and

Phil: I would say it's where it happens.

Greg: exactly. And my YouTube has now changed to add Greg Eisenberg.

So, cause I'm now throwing up other YouTube stuff. So they'll tell the people to subscribe to me on YouTube.

Phil: Subscribe to Greg Eisenberg on YouTube, please. If he brought you any value whatsoever, stop what you're doing. Don't necessarily pause the video because we want the view count. But please, subscribe. Do yourself a favor. Do Greg a favor. Do me a

favor.

Greg: There's no ads on this podcast. There's no ads on my newsletter. So check out, check out the YouTube, subscribe on all the podcasts, Spotify, or Apple, whatever you use. And, and, uh, my newsletter as well. Laycheckout. substack. com and Phil Toronto, you know where to find him.

Thanks for hanging out. It's been a pleasure. Cheers, man.