YouSaid · the spoken record

John Fio

lines on the record: 89
first: 2023-01-10
most recent: 2023-01-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Made good on the promise. We all went to Mexico. We had the best weekend of our lives. 18 strangers were immediate best friends in like 10 minutes. It was the best thing ever the Bermudaists shout out. You inviting me on stage. We don't know each other. You had no idea, but you giving me a spot on that stage at your conference and just taking a chance on me. Like I can literally say that moment inside, that really changed me. And I would say I've had a few moments with Gabe like this. I think when another person openly opens their arms and sort of lets you into their secret thoughts and house, when they let you in in that way, I think that's super, super rare. And I think that that would be the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you. Besides, you know, parents.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Up and literally let me stay on their couch for a month, which is the only reason why I was able to survive for a year and a half to find gravity blanket at the first success. Again, dudes who are just down for the cause, who is just like, you know what? This kid's trying. I'm going to open up my house to them and they literally just let me stay in their house for a month.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The next day I was in his home. And that really, really, I bet he barely remembers a word, a moment that we had together, but just being let into his world and him trusting that I could handle that, him being in the position that he was and letting literally a kid off the street. When I look back on that, I'm like, whoa, that is crazy. That was unbelievably nice and special. And then at the same time after that, how I sort of existed for about a year and a half was I basically made a deal through a fake website that I made that described if I could stay on your couch for more than a month, you'd win a prize when I made it that we would all go on vacation together. And I think it was like 18 dudes who were friends of friends signed.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kindest thing anyone's ever done to me, I would say is moments where someone blindly took a leap of faith and trusted me and sort of opened up their world to me. And I would say there's two defining moments that really stand out for me. I would say scooter taking a chance on a kid that walked up to him on the street and said, hire me.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Product? He's cool. I want to hang out with him. I was in LA the other day and I had lunch next to him. There was not a bone in my body that would let me go up to him and be like, dude, can I get a picture? Because he was not the thing. He did the honorable thing of making himself smaller to a larger thing he believed, which is the art. And when someone makes that humble decision, I trust them and I treat them like a real person. And if he's sitting there crafting these archetypal things of what he's going to do to make himself stand out as a personality, this and this and this, I don't trust him. You might get my attention for a year, but I'm not messing with that guy on a 10-year timeline. Until he comes out with a generational defining hit, and the second he's capable of doing that, he's going to realize that the other shit doesn't matter at all.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“60 new names that come up every year where you're like, oh my God. And then they're gone. Like, what is that guy doing? Was that really worth it? Was that the game that he wanted to play? Was that the game he should have played? Or should he try to do something a little different, a little bigger? All these artists that ride these fame waves, they all crash until they come out with a hit again. So if they lose sight of that, it really doesn't matter what the personality game is they're playing. If they make a hit, they're back on top. So does it really matter what games? I think like Frank Ocean and Adele do this really well. They go into a hole for 10 years and then they just emerge. They drop literally generational defining music and then they disappear. It's like, wow, that dude is a light maker. That dude is making magic. And he's not the”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think they're mostly fools' errands that have very quick feedback loops. You're kind of breaking rule number one. Don't turn yourself into the product. You can't craft yourself. You can submit to something and serve that, but you can't craft yourself. Being in the Hollywood world, it was a lot of these conversations where it was like the product should be a blanket. When I would try to manage my artist, it was like, I don't want to make you the product. This is weird. I don't want to tell you how to do certain things. That's a weird thing. Like you are becoming the product. And that's a super, super dangerous thing. And what you're talking about with these things, like you're trying to craft yourself. And that is essentially what celebrities do. And just really pay attention to celebrity. How many people go on these crazy runs where they are the thing for like a year? There's 50.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like the exact same person, which is a contrarian view that I have, which I design and create for, is that we are all the exact same. Everyone is the exact same. We're all playing the same game. We're all trying to find love. We're all trying to eat, and we're all trying to survive. And when those incentives are at the core of our daily life, everyone plays very, very Everyone is doing the exact same thing. If you're focusing on these differences, you're splitting hairs that are just meaningless. And if you start to create, you try to work every day around the core assumption that we are way, way, way, way, way more similar, if not almost entirely identical than different. In my opinion, you're going to have a lot more success.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't look inwards. Look outwards. Serve something bigger than yourself. Do not try to make yourself happy. Try to make someone else happy. And paradoxically, that is what's going to make you the happiest. You're not going to find love by figuring out what love language you are and who's going to give you that love language. It's like, no, you find that by making a choice to love someone every single day. I've spent the last five years or so as I'm getting to this point in my life spending tons and tons of time finding people like yourself who I really, really admire, who in my mind have it all. They have the family. They have the wife. They have success and they're on this path that doesn't look like it's going to end. And they all say very, very similar things. Every 75 year old billionaire that has their family together just sounds.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I won't be able to convince you. We both will just know. It will just be so obvious. And to me, that is identity. These things that people try to put themselves into, to me it's so much pent-up energy in the wrong direction.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think these archetypal frameworks are interesting to create. I don't think that they're interesting to try to put on yourself. I think this idea of self and identity and self-love is similar to practicing schizophrenia. It is not real. It is not healthy and it does not help you become who you become. You become who you become through movement and motion and following a set of beliefs that put you in motion, you don't get to become great by saying, I'm great. I identify as great. That's not for me to decide. All of this shit that I'm saying, we'll look back on this in 20, 30 years and it'll be super clear if I am actually a creator or if I just was a fanboy.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are they an idiot or are they the smartest person I've ever met in my life? Are they lying to me or is this the truest thing I've ever heard in my fucking life? This idea of polar opposites on an archetypal sense that sort of just zooms you in, I think you can say the same thing about Mickey Mouse. You can say the same thing about these characters that transcend time and space forever. Superman, there's total paradox in him. That's the thing that you can't look away from. He's this scared dude that turns into this guy that's trying to figure out who he is and where his place in the world in while his place in the world is to be the one that saves it. That paradox that he's constantly torn by is the thing that gets your attention.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Speaking a language that they sort of understand. One of the first dudes that I met that was one of my idols. Went up to him and was like super scared, oh my god, how do you know? How'd you do this? How'd you do this? And he just giggled literally threw his head back and laughed and then looked at me and goes, look, kid, you got it. And you'll either figure it out or you won't. And then threw his head back and laughed again. And I was like, oh my God, that was the scariest shit I've ever heard in my life. They just have this sort of paradoxical energy of nothing matters. And because nothing matters and nothing can hurt you except for death, we're going to do everything perfectly. But I think that would probably be the through line of the similarities that I feel with these types of people is this overwhelming sense of paradox. They exist on total polar opposites where you're constantly asking yourself, are they genius or are they insane?”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've always said I don't care what I do or what it is that I do, I care that I am operating in the stratosphere. And if you look at the people in the stratosphere that make it to that crazy universal truth level, they all act in very, very similar ways. And they all sort of have this really similar energy. And it's really fun meeting them because it's like very lonely to exist on this path in this way. It's very hard to like be around people and rub them the right way and still be yourself. And I guess to go back to your other questions, what do you look for? Look for this feeling of just I can finally say what's in my brain. I can finally have a conversation with them. And you feel like you tapped into this box that's so much bigger than you, this fractal version of what you've been trying to do your whole life.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Brings that out in people. And again, same thing. When did Bob Marley record those tracks? If you told me yesterday, I believe it. If you told me 100 years ago, I believe it. There's this transcendent magic that happens. That type of framework is how I try to make decisions when I'm designing my beanbag.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I got simple, simple test. Listen to her albums. It's crazy. If you actually listen to her music, it's really hard not to like lose yourself and kind of tear up and have the like out of body experience. Very simple question. When was her music recorded? Was it recorded yesterday or 70 years ago? It was recorded a half a century ago. It sounds like a new thing that came out yesterday. You show me a Beatles record. I know that that was recorded in the 1960s. You know who else is like this? Bob Morley. I think Bob Morley is one of the best artists of all time ever because what he did, he embodied love. His music is literally like sunshine and love. There is not a place on earth where you can play a Bob Marley song and people get sad. Everyone's just like, you know what? I love you, man. It's just...”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Boston, a lot of ways because I don't think I really have any titles for these guys. My conversations with them is what are you the most excited about? What are you the best in the world at? How do we do that over and over and over again and build systems where that shit works? Those moments are where the magic comes from. If I gave them a script and said, I want you to do this, this, and this, and this, and this is going to be your role and you are this and that, it gets squandered.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Myself, I think about this in terms of a lot of it comes down to hiring a team. If you meet everyone on my team, they all have very similar energies and they're all incredibly talented in very, very similar ways. I said it to Brent the other day where I was like, if I can have a conversation with them and I don't see a sparkle in their eye when I talk about how Sade is at a thousand year artist and why doing X, Y, and Z on a supply chain saved the company $200 million and how amazing is that if their light isn't beaming on both of those conversations, they are not for me. And I can't tell you that is an inhuman conversation that I have to trust my gut that they have this unique soul. And I want to take those bets over and over and over again. And I want to find those people and I want to enable those people. And I want to create a thing for those people to thrive in. Whereas the conversation I have all the time with my employees, I actually think I'm a really bad.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Unexplainable. And that's why I think it is super interesting. You know, you know. I actually think that this is something that we've convinced ourselves on a larger scale to convince ourselves not to believe in that. When you see something magic, you know. You're taught to say, no, no, no, find the thing. Give me the rules. And it's like, no, man. Have you ever felt this before? You haven't? Is he making something new? Is he saying shit that's making you feel something that you've never felt before? If that's the case, then he's probably going to be able to do that with a lot of people on earth. Does he feel like every other Ivy League founder that's doing this because they found a spot on a whiteboard that met at the crosshairs of market opportunity? That sure feels safe. That doesn't feel like fucking magic. I think a lot about this. I don't think about this stuff in terms of”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The scariest realization I've ever had in my entire life. I didn't sleep the entire night. I remember pacing around my room, writing on chalkboards and literally on my wall being like, I have to find something that the world has never seen before. And I need to make something in a way that they've never experienced. And if you don't have that, you don't have anything. That's really, really, really scary. When gravity blanket happened, that was the first time I had something that the world really had never seen before or experienced in that way. And it was just so obvious.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was like, what? And then I left there and was like, why isn't any of this stuff working? Because I don't believe in it. I'm trying to be the master puppeteer to pull one over on the market, but the market is super real. I remember I didn't sleep for like two nights when I had this realization where I realized why Beaver was who he was and why Scooter had built what he had built. And the reason why was that because it was such an anomaly of magic coming together that they had something that no one else in the entire world had.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, this is not manufactured. This is real. I was like, this kid is the most charismatic, talented kid. And I'm witnessing it. And he felt like a different presence. And it was like, oh, oh, this is not fake. This is true magic. What this kid does no one can do. No one can do what he can do in the way that he does it, the intensity and the competitiveness all while being wrapped up in this energy where I immediately felt like I knew him forever and we were best friends. Guarantee you if he walked past you on the street today, you'd have no idea who I was. But like in that moment, I felt like I knew him forever. And it was very clear that magic was real. What Scooter always say is you have to believe. Again, my cynicism at that point in my life, you know, I was an asshole 19 year old. I was like, oh, this is just marketing. And he's like, no, you have to believe.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of my jobs was to go find new artists. I tried to find a few new artists. I was managing an artist at that point. I found another artist and I would bring them into the office and I'd be like, let's do this. Let's sign this guy. And it would be like, no. And I'd be like, wait, why? You have the machine. Just put it through the machine. I had met Bieber at that point. I was there for like a couple weeks before I actually met him. One of my jobs was to throw scooter, a barbecue every Sunday where he would have this nice little fun thing where gathering and business and fun and play and all this. That was when I first met Bieber and he walked in and came up to me, never met before, came up to me, dot me up, was like, bro, instantly I was like, yo, are we best friends? We just ran to the beer punk table and we started playing beer punk together and this crazy immediate connection with him. And I was like, oh my God.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I put my finger on two people. I was like, okay, 20 year careers, I think it's probably going to be Beaver. I think it's probably going to be Kanye. So literally every night I went out and tried to meet their teams. I was emailing them nonstop. And then one night I literally ran into Scooter, who was Justin's manager. And I was like, yeah, come on, dude. Answer my email. And we had a very fun conversation. He was like, I love this. This is going to be a great story. It's literally what he's saying. He goes, this is going to be a great story someday. I'll give you a job if you can get to LA tomorrow or whatever. And I was like, deal. I dropped out of school, went to LA, and then I was just driving, scooter, and Bieber and Usher around and like cooking them burgers and everything. And immediately got sucked into this crazy vortex of a global presence. I kind of had this idea that I was stepping into the manufacturing machine of pop.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sounds a little bit random, but it wasn't as random as it sounds. I was a jazz drummer my entire life. I went to NYU on a jazz scholarship. I was playing music. I was a musician. And then when I figured out there was a bigger world out there in New York City, I was like, okay, who's doing this? Who's making the music that's going to last forever? Clearly wasn't the 10 people that I was playing with at the basement of smalls. Love jazz clubs in New York, but people have moved on.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get that deal flow. So it's like, how do you position your strengths in a way? And yeah, I think personality and I think how you make someone feel is an incredibly unique attribute that everyone has. And if you can figure out how to inject that into the company, it's going to make your company way more valuable. And I don't think it's something that people have the choice to. I've been running away from this. I don't want to be famous. I actively do not want to be famous. If I create something big enough, will I be forced to be a part of that narrative? Yes. But do I want to be? I'm trying to make moon pals. I want everyone in the world to know what moon pals are. I don't care whether or not they know who I am. I think having a couple hundred thousand followers on Twitter is pretty powerful. That's not fame. That's a nice edge. That's a nice tool that can get you into some pretty interesting places that can give you a really”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Shareholder value. It's so obvious when someone starts a podcast because they think it's going to help them build their audience. It's just so obvious. You're one of the only podcasts I listen to. Why? Because you're the best interviewer ever. You have a very, very unique ability to interview and make me feel incredibly comfortable to explore these things in my head and ask these very, very poignant questions that's super rare from an interviewer, which is why you have one of the best podcasts out there. If you tried to teach me how to do that, you couldn't do that. But because you can do that, I would say, holy shit, well, Drupal down on that. That will give you, because no one else can do this, this will give you an advantage on being everyone's best friend that's the best person asking questions to the most interesting people. And oh, by the way, I want to meet X, Y, and Z. Now you're in that top 150 range that I was talking about.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think this is where we're heading to a really interesting time where it's like the things that are going to be valuable are the things that you can't really teach or copy. And that's just going to be like, how do you teach someone how to be someone's good best friend that's entertaining? I don't know, can you? I would say if you are an intelligent, personable, funny, charismatic person, that is an unbelievably unique asset that is more and more rare in the world that we are headed in. And you better figure out how to insert yourself into the organism of the company that you're building because that can be a very valuable force multiplier to get you attention in very unique ways that did not really exist. But I would say caution, because if you let that get out of whack, you're going to get killed. I think it's a very, very delicate balance. And I also think it's going to be really obvious when people are doing this with the intention of coming up with a formula of how to maximize.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everyone on my team can run basically the entire company. They are expert generalists. I have the most talented people because I've set up this environment that enables this new form of execution around this really light malleable, quick, lean organism. And that's selecting an entirely different type of talent. And I think that's going to be the most valuable thing going forward are people that understand that the person who stays the closest to the consumer is going to capture the most value and how you do that is going to be creating things that people really love and how you create things that people really love is you have to make these really magical experiences that have a personality a thing a experience a world a rule A belief system, a myth, and the existence of all of those things is going to be character IP.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's where the world is going to be going a little bit more, and it's going to be fairly obvious. I truly believe IP in the way that I'm describing it and who figures this equation out is actually a trillion dollar opportunity. It is going to be the magic makers over the next 10, 15 years. It's not going to be the coders, in my opinion, or at least in this slice. I am less interested in winning the lottery. To me, that's a lot of what this short-term deliver value to shareholders, this and that. And I want to actively avoid playing the lottery because everyone that plays the lottery goes fucking crazy and loses it. And it's not good for anyone. And I think those mechanics are going to become less interesting to investors. And it's going to be a little bit more clear that playing on a longer timeline, attracting this new form of talent that is incredibly unique.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because it was the best game I've ever played growing up, and I fell in love with the Pikachu card without anyone ever telling me anything about it. And there are hundreds of millions of kids that agree with me. So this whole idea of, oh my God, there's value here. That got out of the bag. I think people are still dramatically underestimating where that value exists, how to capture it, and how to build on it. I think the way that people are building these consumer companies and the things that they're building around is still, they're not hitting the nail on the head. And if you do hit the nail on the head and you're able to operate on not a 10-year venture bet, but you're saying, hey, I'm going to make things that are going to last forever that is not only going to compound on your balance sheet while you're alive, but your kids and your kids kids are going to be getting a royalty check forever from this. Do you want to sign up for that? That starts to be interesting.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think they have. And I think when I was talking about this five years ago, no one really believed me. Now it's becoming a lot more clear, especially where we're at in the world of technology. Nothing is really being invented. So the thing that you invent is myth and character and experience. People are figuring out that this is an incredibly valuable layer to invest in. I still think people are dramatically underestimating it. All this stuff would happen with NFTs and blockchain. The capital went and chased these infrastructure plays. And it's like, okay, cool. Show me the thing that the five-year-old sees and loves. Oh my God, Bored Ape went crazy and billions of dollars have traded. Amazing. That's cool for three months. If the Charizard card no longer trades at $300,000 and goes to zero, I don't give a shit.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Capital will come into play at some point. But I think right now, my biggest competitive advantage is that MoonPals will sell forever. There was always going to be someone, a kid, that picks that thing up, hugs it, and says, mommy, I want one. That will not ever change. It will never go away. The story of, hey, there are magical creatures that live on the moon that are going to watch over you and protect you. I'm pretty sure that one's not ever getting old. I can let this magic moment that I believe I've created exist in its true form. And I don't have to taint it and I don't have to grow it and I don't have to artificially inflate it. And I can let it live pure and truly until the right moment comes along where it's like, hey, let's go make an Oscar winning movie.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Characters and stories that I'm building out. And I've set myself up to follow this path in a very unique way. I had no investors, no board, no anything. They're all bootstrap companies. We can do whatever we want whenever we want. I think to go make a movie or go do the next big thing of a game.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm selling a lot of stuff to animals right now, learning a lot about the toy business. We're doing Comic-Cons, we're doing pop-ups. Maybe I make a movie. Maybe I make a game. Maybe I make a soft drink. There's a bunch of different ways that I can go and scale this story. I went into monk mode the last six months. I just wrote a script that I love that really tells this story about how important it is to do a lot of what I was just trying to explain here of follow your heart. Don't listen to the voices in your head that are constantly telling you all these things, hey kids, it's okay. Follow your heart getting back to this idea of doing the right thing, the right true thing and leading with love and getting back to this super deep core universal truth. And I think that's something that's like really, really missing in the world of children's stories right now. I have four other worlds that I'm”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're really loving it. It took me like two or three years, hundreds of different sketches to find this little cute alien that I kind of created. It's a new product no one's ever really used before. And it comes with a children's book that I wrote. People are really loving the story. I think when you ask, where does this go, my favorite answer is it never stops. It goes anywhere and everywhere. This is such a universal truth with delivers on such a great promise with people that use it calls all the time with people being like, my kid throws every new toy ever, but the moon pal stays. When you have something that is hinting at something that's so true that people are kids, which is one of the best tests of all time, you want to do a good test, throw your product at kids because they do not know how to lie. And they will tell you if they think it's interesting or not. And this one's passing the.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, moon pals are weighted stuffed animals that hug you. They're five pounds, their arms wrap around you, mostly for children to help them sleep and feel better at night, but just an incredible little toy turns out everyone really loves. To take it a little step further, where again, the progression of my creating consumer brands and consumer experiences, this was the one where I finally was in a position financially to build the chops to a point where, okay, I can actually take a swing with this. So I was like, all right, what's the deepest, most interesting paintbrush I could use for this product that I think is really amazing. So I didn't want to do just teddy bears that were weighted. I wanted to create this whole world. And so moon pals are this idea, the story is magical creatures that live on the moon. They watch over Earth and they sort of are in charge of being everyone's guardian angels while they sleep at night to make sure that they're coming down and giving kids hugs and dreams to keep the world a peaceful, loving place.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The scary part is that if I do, it's a lie because it's not possible, and that it has to happen, I'm only going to know this when I'm 65 or 70, if I was actually capable of operating on that level. And again, that's what the world wants. That's what the world is built for. That's what stabilizes things. That's where truth exists and thrives and grows. You don't have that, you just have these, you get on the Forbes magazine for a second and then you're in jail.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's only a few of them that really did it both and figured out how to take that soul and put it into a machine that is going to last a lot longer and actually exist in the physical world. Whereas you take someone like Nicole Tesla or Leonardo da Vinci or someone like that, in my opinion, that's artistry and ideas. And again, unbelievably valuable, but I think the holy grail is who's a little bit more like that. The Marcus Aurelius type of thing where he's a philosopher. I read his book and shit and be like he was leading an army. He conquered shit. He did both. And I think that you have to hold yourself to that standard to do both all the time. Those are the two inseparable muscles that I try to hone in focus on. I think I've gotten decent at it. I want to know right now if I'm one of the greats.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No one knew who that guy was. You could start to see it happening right now with Bernard Arnault. Literally, no one knew that dude's name. Now he's one of the richest, not like, he didn't make a billion dollars. One of the top two richest people on earth. And now people are talking about him. If he tried to go make the conversation about him first, he would have never gotten anywhere. He would have gotten somewhere pretty quick and then he would have fallen off the cliff. But he has built an unbelievably complex, compounding art machine that just gets bigger and bigger and better and better over time. It's unbelievable to watch. And I think you can definitely say that about Disney. You can obviously say that about Steve Jobs. You can say this about a lot of different people in different ways. But again,”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is probably one of the best examples of it. It's like this yin and yang in someone, and I've described it in myself as wanting to be a warlord and an artist and never knowing which one I am. And now I'm realizing that the 40-year goal is to be both at the same time. How do I not compromise my creative artistry while still knowing how to scale and build infrastructure and manage capital? And I think when you look at the best of them, they've figured out how to do both of that pretty incredibly very balanced. And what's funny is that that doesn't happen overnight. When you think about when everyone started to know Jeff Bezos' name, he was already the third richest person.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Believe the truth. And they can be swayed to believe lies. But I have a deep belief that on a long enough timeline, those lies fall and the truth prevails. And if you build a company, a thing, or you live your life in that way, you will win on a long enough timeline. And I've seen it in my own professional career. People who have deviated from the truth around me, they fall. And I might not be as big as them or I might not have as much as tension of them, but shit. They got that attention on lies and that shit crumbles. And it's sweet for a little bit, but like I think, again, that is the temptation that you can't break the idea that you are in service of something bigger. And if you aren't the consumer will know and you will not survive. I think that's really beautiful. I think that's the humbling truth for me actually makes”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This real hierarchy of truth and value, and you submit to that, now you can be trusted. And don't get it wrong. Consumers, people are unbelievably smart, unbelievably smart. You cannot trick them. You just can't trick them. In the D2C world, it's really funny. It's like me, you and Gable always talk about, and Gabe said it on your podcast about how he's like, it's funny that when I hire people that want to build games, it's very clear that everyone hates games. Very similar in my world. We're like 98% of people that I talk to that are selling a product, they kind of have this hint and hitch nudge nudge. I'm pulling one over on everyone and I'm like, guess what? You're not. They know it. You can pull the wig over yourself. You're not ever going to be able to trick the consumer. You're not ever going to be able to buy or spend your way into getting them to believe a thing.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A guy. They want to worship a guy that is sacrificing himself for something bigger. And he is showing the world that it's possible to commit himself to something bigger than yourself, which I think is a very human struggle. It's a daily quest to find the ways in which to get outside of yourself and help someone else. For whatever reason, a lot of people are fearful of that. They don't want to do it and they're scared and it's vulnerability and whatever. But when you do, you just automatically feel better. You don't feel necessarily more powerful, which can be unbelievably addicting and intoxicating, but you definitely feel better. Again, there's a very real reason why our heart, brain, and soul acts that way. And I think that when you tap into that and you understand that there is”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they throw you out. Trump got there really, really quick. Unbelievably effectively. And then he's gone. Maybe that's powers at B, maybe that's the audience. Maybe that's people just got sick of him. My critique on someone that doesn't get that formula right is like, remind me of the bigger thing. With Trump, it felt like he was for Trump. It didn't really feel like he was ready to rebuild America and put heart and soul back into this country and unify us. It was like, no, no, I'm going to win. And you can see in his tweets search query of how many times he says me or I or something, which, by the way, is a leading indicator of serious depression and suicide. If you started saying I and me, it is the highest leading indicator that you're about to fall into depression. You put yourself first, you go to hell. It's just a law that I think exists where if you can use that as a guide of like it keeps everyone in check. No one wants to worship.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You get crucified. It's like a very cause and effect formula for human psychology. You see the scapegoat thing, you see this story over and over and over again of the crowd turns against the hero and basically crucifies them. You see this. It's the oldest story of all time. You can really, really see that play out. Again, do these little tests around the world. Do you think more people know Elon Musk or the word Tesla? There is a line where he's crossing where it's becoming Elon. That's dangerous. Now you are the thing. Look at what happened to Trump. If you break that order, you go quick. You can create insane momentum and you become this crazy, passionate leader. But if you aren't doing it for something bigger than yourself, you get sniffed out and you just get crushed. The audience is like, they don't try.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is a hierarchy and a formula that you spiritually have to stay within or you get crucified. My way of describing that is you need an idea, something bigger than yourself. And then you need to be the shepherd of that idea. And then the way that you spread that message needs to have a product. And then that product goes to an audience. So this is a very real hierarchy in my mind where it makes a lot of sense where if you start to mess those things up, it either becomes extremely less valuable or it blows up. The cardinal sin where you can get really, really far, really, really fast is if you turn yourself into the product, which then makes you the idea. And when you become your product and idea,”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This new layer of expert generalized magic makers that can move into these different realms really, really quick and capitalize off of moments really, really quick and then retain that value underneath a compounding story that is essentially a brand. But that, again, is very, very, very different than what we just saw in the last 20 years. That crazy famous Disney flywheel. I think everyone's going to have to do that. And I think they're going to be able to. And I think you're going to be able to compete with Disney pretty quickly and pretty easily. You're not going to need hundreds of billions of dollars to go compete with them. I think you can compete with them with a couple hundred million. And that's starts to get into a crazy landscape where essentially the layer of value and the skill and the timeline and the understanding that you are operating on.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When all this stuff gets really, really cheap and it moves, I think the next Disney and the next Pixar is probably like seven people. I don't think it's thousands of people. And then the speed changes, the cost changes, the profit changes, all of these things shift in the way that you can.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thing that delivers value to the customer that is not just a product. It has to be a belief system. It has to have rules. It has to have personality. It has to have a different world. It has to have an aesthetic. It has to have taste. And then on top of that, it has to actually give something to the consumer that is magical. And if you can get, I think the winners of the next 10, 20, 30 years in consumer are going to be the brands that figure out how to operate on each one of those because now you can't because it's easier. It's cheaper. You can move quick. If you told someone 30 years ago that you were going to be able to start a billion dollar business with five people running a Shopify site, no one would believe you. And now you can. If you said that you could create a Grammy award-winning album with a microphone in your living room, no one would believe you, but now you can. I think where we're headed with all this AI stuff.”
2023-01-10 · Invest Like the Best · John Fio - Creating Magic for Consumers - [Invest Like the Best, EP.311] · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source