YouSaid · the spoken record

Brent Montgomery

lines on the record
65
first
2022-08-08
most recent
2022-08-08
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

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  1. “I did something which I don't think many of my friends running similar businesses did, which was I hired a bunch of people with business degrees. I'm on a good day, a street savvy entrepreneur, but I started surrounding myself with guys that went to business schools and put me through SWOT analysis, which I came in in armor because I didn't think it was going to be that kind of SWAT. I started learning about EBITDA and arbitrage and how beautiful those two things could be together and got convinced that we should or could do the first debt finance deal in our space. We don't own the intellectual property, so it was really going off our contracts and our relationships that Barclays led a club deal for us to go do M&A in our own field and gobble up other producers who we rated very highly. So we had a group of companies from 2012 to 2014, we were able to take a business that was one outfit and build it up to four. We brought in a merchant bank who, like Christmas came.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “This could be for any business. You don't want to build a factory unless the orders are there. We now had an incredible amount of volume so we were able to go and build an incredible infrastructure to support that. And even outsource elements of it to our friends or what some people would call our competitors, that's what we did differently to some degree than all of our competitors at the time. We took a lot more risk. We pumped a lot more money into the infrastructure. But that could have obviously gone the other way had we not kept that pipeline going. We'd have an empty warehouse.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “We are considered a work for hire on a lot of those shows. What that means is we're kind of attached to the shows, but we're not necessarily sharing in a lot of the back end participation. And that's proliferated across Scripted now as well with Netflix. All these streamers are global, which means for stuff we invest in that we might put on television, it used to be that pawn stars had to go sell in two hundred territories. It could take years to sell the show internationally. Now with Netflix or Discovery Plus, you turn on that light switch and it's everywhere in the world overnight. We really started to think early and often about how do we use this content for more than just being content, but also investing in the people and the businesses and the brands behind it. We vertically integrate everything we could. So everything got made in-house, all the sound recording, the mixing, the color, everything that you would typically do out of house. We started building the infrastructure and we had the volume.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Lot of people don't want to take risk in any business. I was probably too dumb or didn't have enough dependencies at that time to think that way. We took everything we were making for really the entirety of my first business, always put it back in. One hit wonder was the first thing that made me think, how do I want to take this opportunity with Pawn Stars, which had risen to number one on TV at that time against scripted, unscripted, everything, which was unimaginable, still unimaginable. You're in the incoming business then. You've got to hit. You're not going to get two or three years to have another one. You've got to strike while the iron's hot. So we immediately pumped a ton of money back into developing our own ideas, which means you're footing the entire bill. And then you hopefully go out and sell it. We were very fortunate to take out our next slate and sell the vast bulk of it. And then all of a sudden we had a real business.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Like me worked on shows that were meant to be watched by women, shows like Wife Swap and whatnot to wear and The Bachelor. Seven, eight years later, you started to have shows that guys liked as well, deadliest catch, ice road truckers, pawn stars, American pickers, naked and afraid, survival shows, and other stuff. So now there's a real market. And then, of course, you have stuff that crosses both demographics and goes young old on broadcast as well as streaming.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Not by design, most people who are my age, I'm sure I present mid 20s, but late 40s, wanted to get into dramas, comedies, scripted television, and then around 2000, there was the first big boon of unscripted, often unscripted is a great complimentary purchase for networks or streamers against the much more expensive scripted television. When there are writer strikes or when Netflix or Discovery or HBO or whoever wants to spend millions and millions on scripted, these unscripted shows, which often can rate just as high or higher, are much more affordable and can be turned much quicker. So in a potential strike or an actual strike of writers or actors, et cetera, we can turn these shows in under six months and sometimes even faster. That market was really created in the early 2000s. It first mostly drew female viewers.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Series, an occupational series, and it took off in ways that we could have never imagined. But it was because these guys actually knew a ton of history around stuff where generally you go into a pawn shop and it's what can somebody measure? Is it silver, gold? Is it electronics that you can turn on and off? You can hire somebody for minimum wage to do that stuff and protect with cameras and surveillance. But if you want to trade in Picasso's, you're not going to find too many Rick Harrison. So we were very fortunate to find those guys. If you remember what was happening at the end of 08, the top of 09, it was the beginning of hard times and had a lot of people thinking about what would I do if all my money went away in the bank? Do I have stuff in my attic, my closet that I could go and maybe there's a gym upstairs? Life is about timing. Investing is about timing and certainly getting stuff right on television is about timing. We got very fortunate the history channel bought that show when they did.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Pawn Stars was one that on paper made no sense the American or even the international understanding of pawn shops where criminals would go to hawk their stuff, but that's very well protected usually from happening. What we're best at our core skill set of unscripted TV, it's finding big characters in an unscripted television when you cast a character, they're not only the author because whatever comes out of their mouth is the story, but they're also the on-camera actors, the on-camera talent. It's the most important thing is who you cast to be in these shows. So when we found the Harrisons and Rick specifically, we found folks that were authentic to a business. There was a lot of built-in family. I'll call it everything from love, but mostly animosity to a lot of ribbing that just made for a good what we would call an oxygen.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Don't sound real, but I was on a bachelor party. And when you deal in unscripted reality TV, You're always looking around you for ideas. I was smart enough to hire what we call a production assistant, but we weren't producing anything. We were on a bachelor party. I figured we would need somebody to get us around and get us Advil in the morning. We literally drove by a pawn shop and that made my curious mind go, has anything ever been done here? We did what we do, which is call the networks and Have you been pitched this? What do you think? What would you like? And we got a lot of the same feedback, probably not for us, a little too dark, a little too dingy”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Manifested itself first into shooting weddings at Bop Mitzvah's, which wasn't what I set out to do, and then renting out my equipment to other people. But then finally, I started making television shows in my 20s for other people, which then eventually led to me starting my own business and being able to sell my own TV show ideas.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Went to college, started studying business, went through 209 and 210 accounting, wanted to put a knife through my eyes. I did sales some through college. I can still tell you quite a bit about Cutco knives. If you've ever done direct sales, knives to housewives in the Cutco world, you get told no a lot more than you get told yes, and that was good training for television where you get told no a lot more than you get told yes. Then serendipitously ended up working for a local radio station and then graduated to television. And I really love storytelling. So coming out of college with the journalism degree meant I was always curious and I think curiosity is critical to anybody who wants to invest. Once I figured out that there was an actual business where you could tell creative stories and make some money doing it and have your own business, I thought, wow, this is for me.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Fireballs. I had no competitors. I would buy them, I think, for a nickel. I could sell them up to a quarter, maybe even more if somebody felt like it was their time to have one. That was the first one I was able to use that revenue and reinsert it with Big League Chew, I think, was the next one.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Came out somewhat organically without me knowing at the time. I didn't have a lot of money and I wanted a lot of stuff and I found out that that required money. So I started buying stuff at our version of Walmart. I figured I could sell it for more at school, buy it wholesale, sell it retail. I wouldn't say it was a thriving business, but that led to then a lawn mowing business and a baseball card business, things that were more above board, although the IRS may still be owed some on either of those businesses.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Talent and intellectual property across production, marketing, merchandising, and events. It's partnering with leading investors and a few investment examples along the way. Please enjoy my conversation with Brent Montgomery. Brent, great to see you”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “My guest on today's show is Brent Montgomery, the CEO of Wheelhouse Group, a family office where he creates entertainment content and a venture capital fund that invests in businesses to amplify brands around talent. Brent is a media producer and operator whose first hit was Pawn Stars at his first production company, left field pictures. He later oversaw a host of reality television hits, including HDV's fixer upper, Netflix's Queer Eye, A&E's Duck Dynasty, and Bravo's The Real Housewives of New Jersey while running ITV America after he sold Left Field to ITV. Our conversation covers Brent's childhood entrepreneurial efforts, creation of pawn stars, vertically integrating and expanding Left Fields business, and its sale to ITV. We turn to the flywheel behind Wheelhouse.”

    2022-08-08 · Capital Allocators · Brent Montgomery – The Disney Flywheel at Wheelhouse (Capital Allocators, EP.265) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source