Hey friends,
Back again with another edition of The Founder Newsletter - this is Episode 17. If you’re new here, my goal is to give you a quick synopsis of what got me thinking from this week’s episode of The Founder Podcast in 5 minutes or less.
No idea what The Founder is? Read this.
Mission control:
Learn -> Founder favorite resources
Free money -> Discount codes
And who am I?
I’m Kallaway - a future founder trying to get some answers before I jump in the ball pit myself.
Let’s get it.
This Week’s Episode (Ep 17) 🧑🦰
Guest -> Kevin Gould, Founder and CEO of Kombo Ventures; Co-Founder of Insert Name Here, Glamnetic, Wakeheart
Mission -> Kombo Ventures operates as a hybrid between a talent management firm, an IP and brand incubation studio, and a digital agency. In addition, Kombo Ventures actively invests in early-to-mid stage startups.
Discount -> Use code “Kallaway” for 15% off all Insert Name Here, Glamnetic and Wakeheart products
Episode available on -> Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Website
In this episode we talk with Kevin about…
🧑🎤 The ins and outs of the entertainment industry
💰 How influencers think about monetizing their brands and how much money they actually make
🔨 The importance of brand and community building
⚙️ How Kevin manages three startups with a $60M+ revenue run rate
🔮 How Kevin looks at angel investing and the biggest deals he’s missed
Summary 🔍
What is Kombo Ventures and how did Kevin get started?
Kevin always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur, but when he graduated from college in 2007, he didn’t know exactly where to look.
With his sights set on the entertainment industry, he beelined for LA and found himself working at William Morris Endeavor (WME), one of the biggest talent agencies in the world. He started in the mailroom and ultimately worked as an assistant to several agents, building an unparalleled rolodex of Hollywood connections.
In addition to the entertainment space, he had a strong interest in technology and spent his weekends flying to Silicon Valley to take meetings with founders, VCs and angel investors.
Overtime, he realized there was a glaring gap between the talent and personalities in the entertainment industry and the tech companies that wanted to partner with that talent to promote their startups. He ultimately left WME to capitalize on that market opportunity and provided business development and strategy for early to late stage startups on how to interface with the entertainment industry.
That was an early version of the company he runs today, Kombo Ventures.
Today at Kombo, Kevin and his team have broadened their focus beyond just entertainment strategy. First, they operate as a brand studio, launching and scaling 3 beauty brands with influencer co-founders. Those brands include Glamnetic, the world’s leading magnetic liner and lash company, Wakeheart a fragrance, scent and personal care brand and Insert Name Here, a hair extension and wig company.
In addition to the brand studio, they also run a talent management arm, representing some of the biggest YouTubers in the world.
On the other side of Kombo, Kevin runs a venture arm that has invested in 13 companies including Draft Kings, Clutter, Whistle, Step and Ten Thousand.
Kevin’s Startup Manifesto 📜
What’s a Startup Manifesto?
At the end of every episode, I ask all of my founder guests the same question:
If you had to write a Startup Manifesto with 5 of the most important key lessons or pitfalls to avoid when starting out, what would they be?
Here’s what Kevin had to say:
Make sure you’re really in it for the right reasons because building a startup is a grind. Make sure going into it you really want to build a business, and you’re not just doing it because it’s sort of been this glorified thing to do. You also need to be mentally prepared to go into a startup - it requires a really strong mental willpower given all the ups and downs you’ll face.
In the beginning of the business, no task is too small. You need to be willing to do anything and everything the brand needs. Nothing is below you as a founder.
Have an extreme focus and attention to detail on the business. Brands can get really distracted by all the different ways they could expand the business and they often end up getting stretched too thin and not executing well on their core offering.
Cash flow is king and queen. As a founder, you should be hyper involved on the finance side and really understand it. Cash flow is the lifeblood of the business.
Have a hyper-obsession over your customer and the customer experience.
What Got Me Thinking From the Episode 🤔
After reflecting on my conversation with Kevin, here’s something that really got my wheels spinning:
Pick a lane, hustle then double down 🤯
This conversation with Kevin was my favorite on the podcast thus far.
As I think about the path he’s taken and the structure he has built for Kombo Ventures (across brands, people and investments), I find it analogous to what I’d like to do in my own life and business.
His ability to find a competitive differentiator, or personal moat as Erik Torenberg likes to call it, and then double down, is a playbook many should try to replicate.
Coming out of college, Kevin knew that he wanted to be in the entertainment industry. He liked the way it worked and its growth potential for the next decade+. He didn’t have a job or a plan, but he knew that is where he wanted to be long-term.
Rather than get a job in consulting/banking and then wait and see what his crossover point might look like in 2-3 years (like so many of us do), he decided that from day one he was going to try to break into entertainment.
He alluded to the fact that the first couple years in LA were a grind, where he struggled to find his footing and worked across several different jobs here and there. Eventually, he found his way to William Morris, a bluechip in the entertainment space.
I can’t overstate the power in this approach enough. When you have an idea of the industry you want to be in, regardless of if you don’t know the exact path, get in it as soon as you can. From personal experience and hearing stories from others, the longer you wait and the more you build a non-transferrable skillset or deep industry expertise elsewhere, the harder it will be to transfer in at an equivalent level.
You might be able to switch to the industry you want to end up in, but you’ll likely have to start towards the bottom of the totem pole.
Kevin did what few do and bet on himself. He knew he’d eventually figure it out and those formative years spent at WME were critical in building his personal brand and network.
The other thing that really inspired me about his story was that he didn’t stop at entertainment. He also had a passion for technology and spent his weekends flying to Silicon Valley to take meetings with founders, investors and anyone else who would talk to him.
Through these conversations he saw a gap in that startups really wanted to access the top talent in entertainment but didn’t know how to make it happen.
Kevin saw that as an opportunity and immediately doubled down. He became the portal into the entertainment world and was rewarded in a couple of key ways:
He was able to provide a differentiated value set that the startups didn’t currently have access to
He was able to justify a seat at the table as an angel investor in these companies because of that differentiated value
He was able to judge which companies to invest in better than the average investor because he was working with so many of these companies already. He had an inside look into the mechanics of the business given his daily involvement
This was a winning combination and so he doubled down. Everything he made from his consulting business (advising startups on getting into the entertainment industry), he put into angel investments in the companies he was working with.
This also gave him more data for pattern matching. Where the typical investor at his experience level maybe only worked at 1-2 companies and saw a few deals (if any), Kevin was pseudo-working at 3-5 companies at once and seeing a lot more deal flow.
This made it easier to identify which companies were the real deal and which were a pass.
The strategy of picking a lane (the liaison to the entertainment space), hustling (starting his own consulting business and working with these startups), and then doubling down (investing in the companies he worked with) is incredibly powerful.
After doing this for a while, Kevin decided he wanted more deep operating experience so he partnered with three different sets of influencers to build three beauty brands. One of the companies that he spent a lot of time consulting for was in the beauty space so he had the unique industry knowledge and perspective for how to build those businesses.
If you want to support Kevin and any of his companies, promo code “Kallaway” gets you 15% off at glamnetic.com, innhair.com, wakeheart.com.
Wrapping it Up 📕
I hope you found this interesting and inspiring! If so and you want to help support my journey to bring The Founder to millions of people across the world, here’s a couple things that would be really valuable to me and the show:
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Till next time ✌️
Kallaway
Want more? Check out other companies we’ve featured on the show!
— 💍 11. The Clear Cut | Olivia Landau and Kyle Simon
— 🥘 7. Kettle & Fire | Justin Mares
— 🕵️ 6. Alpha | Nis Frome