February 18, 2025 • 61 mins
Ep. 203 Omar Johnson is the marketing genius who helped turn Beats by Dre from a $20 million startup into a $1.1 billion global icon, ultimately leading to its $3 billion acquisition by Apple. As the former Chief Marketing Officer at Beats by Dre and VP of Marketing at Apple, Omar has crafted some of the most legendary marketing campaigns in sports and music culture, working with icons like LeBron James, Chris Rock, and Eminem.
From his groundbreaking ambush marketing strategies to his work in fusing music, sports, and tech, Omar has reshaped how brands connect with consumers. And now, as the founder of ØPUS Intelligence, he’s continuing to drive change—building world-class brands, championing diversity, and pushing for equity in corporate America.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green money.
Omar Johnson is the marketing genius who helped turn Beats
by Dre from a twenty million dollar startup into a
one point one billion dollar global icon, ultimately leading to
his three billion dollar acquisition by Apple. As the former
chief marketing officer at Beats by j and VP of
(00:23):
Marketing and Apple, Omar has crafted some of the most
legendary marketing campaigns in sports and music culture, working with
icons like Lebron, James, Chris Rock, and eminem. From his
groundbreaking ambush marketing strategies to his work infusing music, sports
and tech, o May has reshaped how brands connect with consumers. Now,
as founder of opens Intelligence, he's continuing to drive change,
(00:45):
building world class brand, championing diversity and pushing for equity
and corporate America. And So I want to start because
you wouldn't notice, but I am. This for me feels
super special because I've been a humongous fan of your
work for a long time and so to you know,
we just celebrated two hundred episodes and I feel like
(01:06):
this interview is what I've been reaching for for two
hundred episodes. Like to be talking to you. It's special
and I'm sure you have some sense of what you
mean to black professionals, black entrepreneurs, black marketers. But I
want to give your flowers. I want to start this
(01:27):
all by giving your flowers. Like this is super special
for me. So I did when I heard when I
saw this in the three like oh oh, Mars coming
on the podcast, Like okay, let me get ready for this,
because I've been thinking about this since we've been doing
this podcast and two hundred episodes in we hit now.
So thank you first, Thank you first of all.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So I'll share my so a couple of things, right,
I've only done one other podcasts. That was my best
friend Paul Rivera when you did his first podcast, like
I want you to go there, cool, I'll do it.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I didn't think about it a lot, and I haven't
done any wow.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So when the team brought it to me, you know, one,
I look at the name, but then I went and
I dug in your channel a little bit, and I
got excited because there's not a lot of this voice
out in the world and anything I can do to
help elevate it vice versus you helped me. I mean
(02:28):
this is where it starts, right, So I truly believe
in platforms and ideas like this because it gets a
different point of view off to the world.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
It needs to happen, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So look, man, when I got my chance, I just ran.
Took the ball and I ran, and I was like
I was running for everybody can imagine, and wherever I
could find opportunities to like give the ball back or
you know what I mean, given a system block like
I'm in.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
So I like the fact that this.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Used to be me in boardrooms and corporations and making
space for us. I'm actually in your business. I mean,
like I'm able to support your business. Like that's different.
So that's why I did it. And like these things
don't I don't, I don't. I really value these things
(03:24):
because you don't get a chance to do it. And
look on the other side of the camera, right your face.
You know, we could talk on East Coast Midwest stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
We ain't got to say much, but we know what
we mean. And I think that's the.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I want more about community thinking that way, right, and
having elevated conversations. Our conversations always get cast in one direction, right,
That's what's on social media, on the on the Instagram,
and so as you know, I mean, I've watched, I
listened to you and Kobe. Kobe's one of my good friends, right,
Kobe Fuller. Kobe's not in that culture thing, right, Covie's living.
(04:02):
He's representing us in a very profound and different business, right, fantastic.
People need to see all the voices, right. And I
think I've always bought him. I've always thought, like I know,
I got my start by seeing as one of my mentors.
His name is Trevor Edwards. He was a president in
(04:24):
Nike when I met him, black like black, like the
Riverside screen, knew every part of the world that matter
when it came to culture and like lead in his
beautiful and big, magnanimous way.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I don't see him, I don't become e.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I mean, like if I don't see him, and when
I see him seem in action, like in the room
with him as the only.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Him in the room. I mean, it's get it.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Think about it, like Nike nineties two thousands, at that
president level, it's a none of us. Yeah, Jordan was
still a flying extension, you know what I mean, Like
it was there was a product and they had black
athletes but not like Peers.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And you know, watching him and became a big part
of like how I thought about the world. I'm like, yo,
if any kid can take something seeing me, hey, I'm down.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
To do it.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Because I didn't spend a lot of time with him,
but he a battery, like the biggest battery. And we're
still very close to the state to invest in my company,
Like we're still very close, but he's a huge battery
for me.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, I would like if you take that even step
for people like we just talked about I'm from the Middlewest.
I'm from Toledo, Ohio, and you just talked about, you know,
seeing people in spaces that you otherwise didn't see us.
When I think about my experience growing up here in Toledo,
I didn't see I saw a black wealth on TV,
(05:59):
but I never saw with my naked eye, like real,
with it's tingent, I can touch these people. I saw
people if you had money growing up where I'm from,
like you drove a Cadillac and you worked at jeep
or you were a pastor at a church, and those
were the people with the manicured lawns. So it wasn't
until I moved to Atlanta that I saw black wealth
people younger than I was. They owned, They had nothing
(06:22):
to do with music, nothing to do with sports, and
they weren't selling drugs, but they owned businesses or franchises
or whatever they did. And so I wonder what you
think about people who come from even further back. Then
you may have your your starting point. We're just not
not further back like economically or whatever, but just exposure wise.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
There's a it's a great question because here's here's what
happened with the executives.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They typically went academic, right, So they went academic. Some
people came from sports and with bits, but mostly you
were an academic and you had to work really hard
to get into the room. Once you got in the room,
you weren't giving a green lights to do media if
you press. So when I got to see you, right,
(07:15):
and even in your decision making, you couldn't really cast bias, right,
you actually the most opposite, right you have, I watching
executives make it harder for black people scared of real
experienced that, right, it's just over the last.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Call it fifteen.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Twenty years where you now have us saying we were
always there's a very dangerous statement we talk about and
what we say sometimes we call it a seat at the
table issue with a seat at the table. The issue
about that idea is one word. It's the smallest word.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Sentence, a wow. So when you say acy at the table, right,
what does that mean? That one one? If I get it,
I'm not letting it go wow? Right?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And I think the last twenty years we started to realize, like, yo,
we're a table, right. Maverickotta said that one we had
dinner and he's like, you know, with a table, like
they have to come to our table. We set up
what happens next. We're the table And I'll never forget
that moment. A random dinner, there's probably one and good food.
(08:35):
There's a lot of great things said, but like that
just stuck with me and said, I never forget it, like.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
We are the table now.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And Atlanta was a great example of you look at
Atlanta meant in the nineties, you look at the where
you could, you know, participate in business and all the
other economies.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You look at what's happening now with black engineers in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So you know, to your point, I think the executives
of the previous generations just didn't have the platforms. They
didn't have the the green light to go do media.
You know, if I was working at Apple, I have
to get permission to do this podcast. It's a big
part of why I'm not working at Apple anymore. Which
(09:14):
I love Apple, by the way. You know, they did
great by me, but it's like, you gotta get permission
for this. I built the business, so I had authority
on ton of me on how I spent my time.
So it's a new era for us and back to
the you know, I've seen a dark side of the
seat at the table. I've watched us take us out.
(09:35):
I've watched us right because you're defending that ac defending
that way. And for me, so much of my career
is like not only how do I go create more tables,
but then empower those tables to grow? Right, So so
much of what I'm building now with Hope, it's intelligence
for me. You know, I'm thinking about all those people
who don't have access to resources and marketing teams and budgets.
(09:59):
I want to marketing scale in a way where anybody
can get access to great marketing thinking.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So so much of it for me.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
As much as it feels like this big swing and
AI and enterprise solutions, I'm still thinking about that guy,
you know what I mean, I'm still thinking about that
person who wants think about your podcast.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
I think about your real estate. I think about your
jazz bar.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Like those are the people that keep me inspired when
I think about what I got to do in this
next chapter in my career, and it is.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
There's this quote you said, find the most important things
that the company is betting on for the future, and
work on those things.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I don't know if you remember saying that, but they're like,
when I saw that line, I'm like, that is number one.
Like only a marketer, I think would come up with
something like that, because I'm like, you think about positioning
all the time, and if you take that out of
the corporation and you think about that sentiment for us
as a people, people trying to make it even in
(11:05):
this current climate, what should we be positioning ourselves for?
If we are trying to create wealth, generational wealth, create businesses,
create businesses at scale, how should we be thinking about position?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
God? Look, I mean I was you know again interest
in learning about you? I was gonna post yesterday on
deep seat right, Like, I'm telling everyone that looks like me,
you now have.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
To start to use this technology. Why old technology.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You have to learn language Python, C plus plus, like
you have to go to school, you have to get
an engineering degree because STEM wasn't huge in our schools.
STEM is a precursor to there's this we're out of
the system of technology. But with these language models and
the interface being what you say and what you type,
(12:03):
it's now bought the technical burden of like knowing way
way down, so we now have the ability two. How
many people have you met in Ohio had a great
business idea but couldn't write a business plan. How many
people you met the great idea they funded, they found
a way to get it done, and couldn't market it effectively.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's what inspires me.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So as I'm teaching you know this marketing operating system
that we're building oks intelligence is it's used by Bissan
and they'll be big brands NBA using it. What gets
me excited is the everyday person who can now get
access to whether it's Omar Johnson's brain or brain like
(12:49):
mind for a fraction of the cost and do it
while they're sleeping, I mean, while I'm sleeping, or do it?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
There's this democratization of the information that these new platforms
give us. So as we start thinking about the future,
you know, my journey has been pretty interesting, right, So
science kid goes to craft, goes to Campos, works with
Coked for a little while, goes to Nike. You know, multiplack. People,
(13:19):
you've done You're like, I mean, Nik you sneakly is like,
you're done, right, But I learned how to storytell. There
go to this startup which people Tomail's crazy. A lot
of people look just like me. It was like, what
are you doing? You go into a seven hundred million
dollar category to go fight for space? We have seven
million dollars sneaker, like two or three sneakers.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
That make seven hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Three things are as big as a whole category. You're
going to fight And so those people look like me.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
You know what I mean? Something I was done stupid,
but that worked out right.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Got to build something from scratch Apple, and then you
get these jobs. You've been tulate VP of marketing Apple,
every fortune one hundred company. Most of them called me
at some point, and you can I did the interviews
just for the information.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I didn't really want to take your job.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I always had a vision of building something that could
democratize what I knew to the masses.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And I learned about technology from Apple.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I learned about it as a function of being on
the board of Qualtrics and seeing both qual Tricks and SAP,
and the moment I learned about how much I could
scale my brain through technology, it was a note brainer
decision for me to go off and build something.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
The magic of.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
What we built is we started off thinking more enterprise
software and SaaS, and then you look at all these
what's happening with AI and what's happened with these large
language models, It's just accelerated. I couldn't find a tech
stack to consistently mimic me. Now I'm a machine that
does it, and it does it in multiple different languages.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Telling anyone that looks like me but also may not
have my education, that may not have the perfect Queen's English,
like these models are a big unlock for them. They've
been a giina luck for me, and I've been pretty successful.
But I also think that there is a big unlock
for again, we all know that women, that guy who
(15:30):
had a great idea who couldn't get a bank loan.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
You can prompt a business plan today, and.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
You can prompt it be formal. You can prompt to
be super financi like. That's all just a question to ask.
So again, as I think about, you know, my future
and what I'm encouraging every other executive who looks like
me or not to do, a lot of it lives
in the world of AI.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
A lot of it lives.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
In product that we're building so that you can get
access to amazing marketing for not time to cash.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, you mentioned that a post posts yesterday, and actually
that post with biggest than any other posts I've ever had.
And what shocked me about that post was it was
actually a little disconcerting because I was reading the comments
and I'm like, y'all have totally missed what I was
trying to say in this. And I'm not trying to
get into all the deep seak you know whatever. It's
(16:29):
about their privacy, that's not the point. But I'm like,
we are missing the plot here, and so my my
question to you is more so about what are we
also missing about this AI conversation. When we can hear
about an open AI you know, takes one hundred billion
dollars or whatever it takes to build it, but then
(16:50):
you got this Chinese company it doesn't for five million
and probably better arguably arguably you know, depending on who
you ask. But that also tells me that when you
hear like an Isaac Hayes say, you know, we can
build our own social media, but he's up against the
Facebook and the Instagram, he's probably not wrong. But we
are the people who determine whether we find success, and
(17:15):
it's not necessarily how much you will funded, but are
to your point, we are the table and so they
got to come to us. And so that's a lot there.
But can you I'm just throwing those ideas at you and.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I can punch through it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Right. So, I thought your post was spot on informationally,
because what you were talking about is the most important
thing when it comes to AI, the system that we're building.
I believe these elements will become commodities, full stop. I
do believe they will become commodities. Okay, they will become
(17:51):
like cable service providers or cell phone service I do
believe like that's the destiny for those owners.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
But what you tapped on, and it's the thing that
I'm trying to teach every person is it's your.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Opinions that matter. What what makes our marketing operating.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
System special is all the times I've been front Row
and Fashion Week, me being in Brooklyn, me being in accurate,
me being in you know, Broward County, me being in Kallio,
me being in content. That's what makes our AI special.
We all have experiences like that, right, which becomes our
(18:33):
special version of what these machines need to do. So
I love about your comment is you're teaching people that
we are teaching these machines. So I have my We
run our own system, we build our own knowledge basis.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
AT are focused on marketing.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But to your point, people need to understand that, yes,
we want you to use it, but you are training
a model and informations. Privacy is I'll just talk to
a good friend and she's a president over at Signal
and her focus is privacy, and she will tell you
the dangers of just these open platforms where they're trying.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I thought your post was great, so I didn't read
the comments.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I'm not a common trol. So I don't know what
that was good or bad, but I thought it was pointed,
perfect and a good dimension of information people need to know, right,
So get back to what we're doing. We're taking all
of our marketing knowledge over the last twenty five years
(19:34):
for me and some other amazing people.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
We're curative that knowledge.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
We're academically sort of packaging that knowledge into knowledge bases,
and that's what we use to tame these lms and
make them give response that Omark Johnson would give. That's
how we treat the system. That's how we teach the
system to know it's but we also protect that information
because it's it's all we have. It's empowering and it's
(20:02):
also right. We've watched other industries where you know, outsiders
take our intellectual property and then chargers back for it
or do crazy things with it. This is one of
the few opportunities where we can actually go and shape
meaningful corporate data in different places that can be monetizing
(20:27):
very different ways. So again, it's exciting, but I thought
your post like it just hit it and it was
another dimension of information that people need to understand.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So that's what you know. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
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than tech. It's about tapping into the people and resources
that move us forward. As an entrepreneur, connectivity has been
the key to every move I've made. Building businesses like Creatio,
toe House and Black Tech Green Money has been more
than just about creating products. It's about creating spaces where
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(21:05):
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(21:26):
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because connecting changes everything. So there's this concept again. I've
(22:11):
heard you talk about like this lazy marketing and when
you think about how we are taught and marketing of like, okay,
put people into these categories, you know, race, gender, you know,
sexual orientation, and then based on that, this is how
we need to talk to them. And I've heard you
touch on the story that that individual has is probably
(22:33):
more important. So can you talk about how what I'm
gonna let you define better lazy marketing and how we
should actually be thinking about how to tell stories.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, so some of it's lazy and some of it is.
You know, the way traditional marketing is you're eventually end
up buying paid media, which is typically sold by demographics.
So some of it is because of it and and
some of it's I call it lazy. Static demographic pictures
worked when back in the eighties, we lived.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
In our neighborhood. Right, you were in the Midwest.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, you had a TV and sort of Cosby Show,
but your everyday life was that neighborhood. Right, the phone calls,
had the phone with the cord on it. Everything was
very small.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Right. We had TVs, yes, but it didn't feel as close.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It was always in the TV box, right, But our
neighborhood felt very real.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Our corner store felt very real, like in that moment
in time.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Demographics work well because we live in the same neighborhoods.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
We see the same.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Cars dropping by, right, you saw the same wealth from
different plays. Like, we had these pockets of behavior that
were shaped by where we lived in these observable things
like race, income level, address, right, And that's where demographics
were based. When you look at the digital revolution, I
(23:57):
have a kid who is deeply interested in and Latin basketball, ceramics,
loves Tokyo. Like that breaks the demographic rules of a
thirteen year old black kid. But that's the real world
we live in today. So lazy marketing goes thirteen year
(24:19):
old blackett. And you know what every executive, we know,
the complexion of a lot of executives in the corporate world,
says about that thirteen year old black kid, right, And
it's some combination of Trayvon Martin and some young kid
they see on a TV show, which you know how
we typically cats and TV shows.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Right, that's a thirteen year old blacket. It's so fortunate.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Right, my son just got all honors in one of
the toughest schools here in La Again, passport, multiple stamps,
love sashimi demographics tell.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
You remember that story? Right, So that's right?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
When I mean when a lazy marketing So the way
we've trained our system that opus intelligence, and this is
marketing operating system.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
We're a building.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
We've trained it to see behavior. We trained to see
shared interest like sashii and sushi, like ceramics.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
He also loves Greek and Roman mythology, right, which is
why he takes Latin.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So we're we're in Florence a couple of years ago
and we're taking a tour the museum Curiy to ask
a question to the group that nobody had ever gotten, right,
you know, gets it right, youngest kid there, my.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Son, right, that breaks every demographic rule.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
He should not know that much about Greek and Roman mythology,
but he does. And if you just look at the
books that he reads or the social media that he follows,
if you actually take an honest look at him, and
that's the power for a lot of new technology. We
can look at behavior. We can see interest, we can
see passions, we can see affinities. And when you can
(25:57):
see those things, then you can market to them.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
The other you know, the big thing that happens is
people think demographics are a way to get to size.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's not. Interest is a way to get to size. Right.
I remember, give me a funny one. I was on
set one time with Cam Newton and.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Cam Newton in the NFL was Superman physically, I don't know,
you don't get it on camera, tall chisel like it
was what every quarterback would love to be physically use that.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Right, So that one day on spray and water, I
don't right, So what are you doing? So are you
sweating the spraying morning?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I'm sweat already, And I was like, yo, these headphones
we sell.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Them to white women in the Midwest. Yeah, we got
the kid brook, we get to kill a Comton, We
got them are ready.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
But that man, it was she buys three pair because
she's got a few kids that play AU sports, Some
suck some dope and they feel a little bit better
when they have these headphones on because of you. But
it's a little sweat the muscles listening. Now she likes
you too, I might sell a fourth pair, right. It's
(27:28):
when you look at that share interest of I have kids,
I'm paying a lot of money for AAU sports. I
want them to perform, right. They want nikes, I buy nikes.
They want wristbands and sleeves, and I buy them that
buying basket own basketball.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I live it.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Right, So I was like, and I buy midphones, right,
and then I might buy myself a pair.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That's all a function to shared interests. Right.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So again, when we started building this operating system, we
don't have it. Look at black athlete from Atlanta, right,
then you do all the math. You know Cam Newton's story,
you know what happened at Florida. Then then he became
a national champion. And when you right, but like, the
(28:15):
internet tells a very different story about the guy versus
how I saw him, which was his ability to go
get that white lady in the Midwest by Fort Parenthon.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
That's all the functions shared interest.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
So back to your point around being lazy, some of
it is lazy and sala it's just the way things
were done.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
But now we have an ability to look at the
world in a.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Very different lens. So my looking at that lens was
what I used the beats. As you can tell, I
just now have a system that can mimic that thinking
across any category. That's the delta between then and now. Right,
last thing I'll say here is I just said something.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
On a on a keynote this morning that you might
find interest, and it was.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
It was like an AHA moment for me a couple
of weeks ago where I'm talking to our CTO and
you know, he gets pissed off of meal at times.
It's like, oh, you care too much about the tech.
He's like, everybody has the same tech. We all have
longa we all have these things. I'm a plumber.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I just make it work.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
But the real magic is the vision that you have
and your point of view expressed upon the technology. Right,
I'm always kind of bowing down stairs take things like nah,
it's like we have the same tech stack and whenever
I build somebody can use it app and like pull
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
What matters is your opinions, right, What matters.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Is what you think things should be in all your experience,
all the sports stuff and the ads and the music
video placements, all those things are what matter in the
system you're building.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Not the tech stack we use, not the LLL them
we use.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
We have a RAG system, we can use, Claude, Mistro,
Deep Seek, we can use them all.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So that's not the magic.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
The magic is our opinions. What do I tell the
machine to do? And my big aha moment? And I
hope somebody on the other side of this really gets this.
People say, what do you do? What have I done
in the past of my career? A lot of creative,
a lot of marketing, a lot of leadership cool a
(30:12):
good marketer from a bad marketer. The delta is a
function of like how well they give direction to people
on what to do and what not to do. Shoot this,
Shoot that, here's a script director, get this, get that.
That's what a great marketer does is give direction and
(30:37):
curate what people do. It's a very simple word that
encapsulates that whole behavior.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
That is what great marketing and great leaders do. It's prompting.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
We're great at prompting, right, That's what great leaders do.
They prompt There's a bridge. Right, So you look at
these machines. Our system curated prompts right, and curated prompts,
curated to culture, curated too, sports, curated to the things
(31:09):
that we've seen in the past work marketing wise, the
things that we learn as the function of being the table.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Made available to the world.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But it you know, I sat on the outside of
this industry looking in, like, yo, marketing, God, let me
and let me and let me in. Like I'm gonna
fight my way and I'm invest my way and I'm
gonna learn my way in. I've already been there. I'm
an experted prompting and curating out the things that you
don't do and the thing that you do do.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I just have to learn how to do it a
different modality, right.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And I'm saying it's because anybody to sit on the
outside looking at like I don't know what you do?
Know you do actually understand the way I works. You
just have to work it. Structuring your prompts a different way.
But all that direction and curation things that we know,
we can swag, instink, all these things that we say
are the things that AI.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Needs to make magical results for people.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
So as a giant unlocked for us if we just
shift how we perceive ourselves.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yeah, because at the end of the day, like that's.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
As as I learned more and I'm a forever learner,
like I'm always trying to learn. I'm always trying to
take in more information. The more you learn, the more
you start to realize, like kind of do we've been
doing this? You know, it's just a different way to
do it.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, you said something a minute ago about you know
that solopreneur that you know, small business owner that they
can use these tools that you're building. It aligns with
a quote I saw you said, we want to see
the first solopreneur billionaire have a marketing department powered by
the same solopreneur. And you got me thinking about you know,
I'm gonna give you one of these asking for a
(32:49):
friend questions have a small small businesses, but there's a
lot of people who listen to this podcast and run
small businesses and are trying to figure out how to scale.
Maybe don't know how to scale because you know, I
think about even barbers like that. I don't know a
black owned Boicks or Supercuts, but like they figured out
how to scale barbershops and we have not figured that out.
(33:11):
Or a coffee shop owner, a coffee house owner like
I am, or a jazz club owner like I am.
I have one, and in these challenges we think about
how do we get from one to several? Like I'll
give you my example, like I'm like I have toll
Houses is a private social club. It's twenty five thousand
square feet, five bars, five lounges of coffee house, cigar lounge,
jazz club. All of that's here coworking space. And my
(33:35):
goal originally was to build the Soho house for places
that will never get a Soho house like Toledo, Cleveland, Detroit,
you know, Indianapol like places like that that are not
going to get a so whole house because I believe
that there's a community of people who want that esthetic,
that sentiment, that feeling you get, but won't get it.
(33:58):
And so my child, though, and people like me, is
how do you go from something that is super It's
hard to scale, you know, business. It's not like a
technology where I can just put it online and people
can use it. And so again there's a lot because
I'm I'm like, I'm talking to Omar right now, so
I'm trying to get like all the things in and
(34:19):
this limited amount of time. The question is, how do
you how do you think about small business owners learning
from what Omar has learned from the biggest companies in
the world.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, so the first answer is obvious, right.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
A lot of the way we've built OBUs Intelligence is
to take Omar Johnson a few really smart executives and
package it in a way where.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
It's more accessible to small companies. That that is.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
What I'm most passionate about, right, and building this marketing
operating system and being able to launch something that today
works at a PhD level and tomorrow work at a
much higher level. Like I'm fabergaset. Like, just the chance
that we get to think about marketing in that way
where I'm not looking for a big client or I'm
looking for the perfect retainer, like I want everyone in it, right,
(35:14):
and that's the way the system works.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
So we have an answer, whether it's starting with an.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Editorial feed and then eventually moving into you know, a
full ability to.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Have your own instance. And we've I've always believed it
about I mean marketing.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
People hate when I say this, but I do believe
about seventy five percent of what we tend to spend
on marketing is waste. There's a lot of wasted time,
a lot of wasted effort, and efficient communication knowledge doesn't
get the right place at the right time.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
There's a lot of operational friction with the creative industry.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So I want a flattenet and in flattening, I get
to bring prices down for great marketing and access to
great marketing.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
One is opus intelligence is meant to solve that. And
whether you're a big business.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Or small business, we are, you know, launching an ability
for you as a business to go and register and
tell us you're interested. And as we start to launch
from our product, we will bring you into product.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So it's intelligence.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Anybody following this please jump on the website, join our
waiting list, and might just be ready right because of
the idea is that we want to start to deliver
great marketing service and ideas not as a function of
paying us by hours, but as a stream.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
And a feed. Right, that's happening.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
So I'd say for everyone go to those intelligence, turn
our wait list and get started. To answer your question
from another perspective, look, I think when where I tend
to watch black and brown businesses fail, it's not in marketing.
It tends to be operations. And how do you build
(36:55):
scaleable operations? Then something that everything on the internet about
operations is at your fingertipts.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
How so whole house operates, is that your fingertip to
this pot.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I am going and finding those things today, right, and
I'm using those as like templates. I've done this before,
so I can't accuse anybody of doing it well. But
like you have this opinion, you have this belief that
I got to start from scratch. I got to get
it out the mud. I gotta go fig whether you
(37:34):
ask somebody who's done it before, you ask one of
these models.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
You don't got to get it out the mud.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
You know what I mean? The information is out there
if you learn to ask boys. So one I tell
any you know diverse business when they're growing, is like
one just asked to get mentors, get the information asked
the question.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
You don't have to get it out the mud if
you so.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And that's I think it also inverts the question because
people tend to think.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
It starts with marketing. Marketing is important, but you got
to have a strong operations model. None of us really
struggle to be creative. We come up.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
We had to be creative and how you got what
you got, like you have to be creative. You have
to get creative to get from Atlanta. Back then, you
had to be creative to do it. So I don't
worry about you being creative, it's how do you operate
the business? And then how do you market that operation?
And I think that's it's it's it sounds like staying
the same thing, but as a nuance to it, right, Well,
(38:35):
if you're marketing yourself, that's one thing, but if you're
marketing operation, it's slightly different.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
That's like marketing a product. So it's something again.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I try and tell a lot of entrepreneurs to focus
on and we're going to be a part of that ecosystem.
So when I think about these solopreneur billionaires, I'm thinking
about the athlete that has one hundred thousand follows.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
You sell one hundred thousand or something. You're doing Okay, okay,
you do.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
It, okay, and how do you get him to understand
Here's why I have authority.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Here's the categories people are buying. Right. These are this
is analysis we give free to a lot of athletes.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So a lot of athletes calls can just give it
to them and we teach them like about their audience
and what they can sell and what they buy and
what they say, what they feel, what they do, so
sentiment behavior. We turn these things back around for athletes
so they know what to sell.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Right. I watched you all the time. When the athletes
call us, they're.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Like, oh, yeah, I have this big audience, and you
know I want to sell I want to make Louis Baiton.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
They don't buy Lee Baton, they buy Mark Jacobs. They
buy I mean, I'm giving one example, right, I'm sure
the people by Baton.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
But like most of the athletes audiences.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Right, you come out of Toledo Aqua, even a Brooklyn
right is all right by stopping in different places.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
So we make that very transparent to the athlete.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
And once the athlete has that information, whether it's a
new product they're building or an endorsement they're taking they're
now more informed and how to make it work for
them and how to build their brand. So again, so
much of opus intelligence is our job is to, like democras,
have this information, so you as an athlete know how, where, why,
(40:36):
who and what you can sell. Ye. Once you know that,
you think about doctor Dre Right, I'm sure there's a
lot of things people thought he could sell. But there's
this quote that shouldn't really be a quote, but jim
just kept saying and he kept he was like, you know,
f sneakers, Let's do speakers, right, And what he was
(40:56):
saying was everybody's going after the artists with sneakers, right.
Jay Z just had a Chris Fitti, hada sneakers. Somebody
came to Dre for sneakers and Jimmy's like, nah, like yeah,
you're popular. He never says, He's like, I don't know
if you're athletic. It's like, I know you're popular. What
I know you set trends. But let me tell you
something that everybody respects.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And just doesn't buy enough of because no one's selling
it to them. It's headphones and speakers.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And heppos were getting smaller at the time, like Hypp engineers.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Right, we had an excuse for big ones. Right, What
was our excuse? We were trying to bring you the
music the way the artists intended it, right, That was
our storyline. Now there's a line we never sat in public.
But I'll say it to you right now, which is
the bigger they are, the better you can see it?
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Jimmy's you know, being a meeting and saying I want
you to be able to see the logo from across
the street.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
These things you know it sized? Right?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Was the combination of it right? And then again back
to Oaks Intelligence. I've taken a lot of those opinions
from the Jimmy's, from Dre, from Trevor Nike. Those are
what have informed the way that Opus Intelligence works. Right,
Jimmy Ivan was obsessed. He's obsessed with the news like
he obsessed with the news, right. And I used to
(42:21):
feel like the news with him was like whack a mole,
meaning he was reading news earlier and more pervasively than
even me as the CMO. He just he read more
news than I did, and he always knew more than
I did. I've trained for a part of our product
to do that, right. So it's like you go, you know,
(42:42):
toll house. While on toll House. There's stuff in news,
there's stuff in social media, but we can look at
it every forty five minutes and tell you what's happening. Right,
We've trained our system to do that. That's based on
Jimmy Ivan. I don't think that way. I think the
very different ways modalities of marketing. I do, yeah, but
(43:02):
I use that experience from Jimmy Ivan to then create
a marketing operating system.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Last question, I want to be conscious of your time.
There's a shift.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I'm good on time, fam so well, and Jack and
Adrian I'm okay, So we're good.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
I appreciate that. So when Omar goes from Corporate America
and goes to build his own startup, you know, opus
like there's a mental shift. I imagine you have to
make like I'm not just inside of an ecosystem anymore,
I'm building one. And what is Can you describe that
(43:41):
shift for me? And how you've you know, transitioned to founder?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Now? Yeah, I mean, bro, it's painful.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So there's a good Jewish friend, there's a good Black
friend and they say same thing, which is like business
is hard, right, yesterday I was looking at some of
your socials getting ready for this and just out of
blue had to deal with an employee that was like
(44:13):
struggling with something. It's those things, right, It's all those things.
So you think when you leave these companies, I'm gonna
spend my time being a great marketer. I'm gonna spend
my time doing great marketing. You know, you're gonna spend
your managing people right, and if you're lucky and if
you're good at that, you'll be able to spend some
(44:34):
time doing what you did in the past. So again
I think I part of I look, I think any
entrepreneur you got to be a little naive because you
actually know how hard it is. You're kind of like man,
you make a lot of money your apple, so you
(44:55):
gotta be a little off, you know, to true really
leave all the infrastructure benefits, HR team, finance team, all
the other functions you have around you. But if you
make that leap and you understand that your job is
(45:16):
leading people down a path to a destination, that's half
the story.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
If you can become good at that and then find.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
A way to do your magic right and like the
magic for where we are today is.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Ten years ago there wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
System that could effectively mimic Onmar Johnson. So I had
to give you a piece of Omar Johnson. Omar Johnson's
point of view audiences is where we started. That's what
Opus was on my first race capital. It was a
clear point of view on shared interests in audiences and
how do you create earned media like it was a
very clear linear point of view and what I thought
(45:58):
was the most important and marketing.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Understanding the consumer.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Right now we revolve to a system that mimics how
Lamar Johnson goes from problem category, audience to idea, and
that wasn't possible ten years ago. So that's what inspires
me right about right now and this moment is we
(46:27):
can build machines that mimic the way we think, and
then that machine can speak multiple languages and be up
twenty four seven.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
So there's an unprecedented scale we get with.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Learning how to tame these lems and make them mimic
our behavior. So I think the biggest you know, we say,
what's the difference. There are a lot of differences. I
think there's the myth of what it means to start
a business, which is all feels fly and you call
yourself founder and your little email to add like all
those things feel cool, But the reality is between raising money,
(47:02):
managing money, managing people, managing frictions and tensions. And I
used to say people either you know, fighting and sleeping together.
Like I'm being extreme, right, but it's always somewhere in
that spectrum, you know what I mean, Like, it's never
just harmonious and that's the work. So you know, the again,
(47:23):
like the big unlock we also have with some of
these new systems. My system especially is I get to
spend more time in the people issues because the machine
is doing the marketing that I would do.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, we have to monitor.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
And course correct, but that's a fraction of our time
compared to doing the work and having equality control of
course correct. So it's been a pretty huge paradigm shift.
But I'm excited about it because I'm able to do
all the people things and building a culture and team
and codifying it and have this product that does the
marketing with for me for my customers.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah. Paul Graham, who is the founder of why Combinator,
had this quote and said, like, do things that don't scale,
and he was particularly talking about how Airbnb when they launched,
they would legit go to every Airbnb host and take
pictures of their place and ask why they joined, all
these things, stuff that they couldn't do when they got,
(48:19):
you know, fifty thousand houses on the platform. That's how
you get to fifty thousand houses on the platform. It's
by doing those things. And you had talked often about
you know, marketing is won in the trenches. And there
is something you said a few minutes ago, like you know,
marketing is no longer like just these static images. And
I think about you know our Instagram, Like Instagram was
(48:42):
just static images and that worked for a while. But
you were doing like at Apple and Beats in these
places like these productions like you talked about, you know,
these NFL players and like you know, you've got these
productions that you do like before marketers at Not Nike
and at Not, Like we've got to have our feeds
(49:03):
full every day and that one piece of content is great,
but it may work once a month, once every week
or whatever. How do we keep up and not fall
behind out of the conversation?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Look man for me, and again this is module number one.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
I don't the same intelligence on your customer.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
You have people that follow you on social media today, how.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Much do you know about them?
Speaker 2 (49:36):
How much you know about them above and beyond age race,
how many followers they have?
Speaker 3 (49:43):
You have to start there.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Start with the audience you do have across LinkedIn, you
have Instagram, you have access to the Black Child.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
A green mind like.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
You have these audiences around you. You have to go
and understand not only again, demographics don't matter as much.
What are their other interests? What are other sites they follow?
Are other people they follow? Because once you understand that,
you understand what they're interested in, You understand the behavior,
You understand where they spend their time in. Your job
(50:19):
is to make sure things that you're doing reflect what
they're interested in. Right, There's probably a portion of people
that follow you academically that also like to make craft cocktails.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
You can bring that to life tomorrow. You got the
space for you got five bars. You're don me right, that's.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Kobe Fuller loves crab cocktails, clarified milk, all crazy, Like
I can't even pronounce half the stuff he makes and
the things we drink when while together.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
You don't know that, right, but you had them on
your podcast.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
So I was going back to understand art of great
marketing is always the same thing, understanding your audience and
have tools by which you can do that.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
You know what I mean, Like, you've got to start.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
You've got to start making sure that you really have
a clear perspective on your audience and their babe. Again,
a big part of how we program this intelligence. And
then once you start there, marketing makes itself. And again
there was a day before beats and had big TV
budgets with the music video placements.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
You have a venue, what are you allowing in your
venue besides who page you? Obviously you can't get too
crazy with it because people.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
But like what are smart ways to bring different audiences
inside your space?
Speaker 3 (51:41):
They get a chance to experience it.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
If you see this note of people who care about
craft cocktails, maybe a certain craft cocktails that day, the
people selling craft cocktails get the attention and distributors.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
You see how we just walk down on the path
based on one.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Person that you know and you've had to spend half
an hour with you on your podcast, and there's probably
other people like him right in your audience. So start there,
and I encourage everyone to do this right start there
and then do the things they're interested. There's the best
form of market you can ever do. It's what Beats
(52:17):
did very early. Obviously we're to take advantage of Dre,
but we also knew so many people who love music.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Also love sports.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
The majority of beats biggest moments or sports moments, not
music moments.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
People don't get that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Like the issue with music is once it was a
Doctor Dre headphone, it wasn't going to be a jay
Z headphone.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
It wasn't going to be a you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Like they were very much like this is my thing,
and jay Z had his own thing. So it's not
a bad thing. But with athletes who play as a team,
I take a payer in the locker room, every other
player wants them. Nobody when that's the bronze headphone, well
that's you know, I mean, they were like I want
that too.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
Most of our big moments were in sports versus. We
had a lot of cool music stuff too.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
But if I don't know my audience, I walk into
the category like a robot and go, oh, it's music
recording studios for all, Like you do the same robotic
stuff which gets you nowhere, Well.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Got me somewhere.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Was no, he's adjacent interests and these other things that
the audience was excited about, and then marketing to those
fashion So it wasn't people like it's culture.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
It's not culture. You can call it culture.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
I just knew the adjacent interest I knew the things
above and beyond music.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
And doctor dre. What's that cloud of other things they
care about?
Speaker 1 (53:43):
You're giving me so much right now?
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (53:47):
This is this is, this is what marketing is. It's
not you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
We make it into this big academic process and as
part of it that is so let me not say
that it's not. However, all the great marketing and look
I learned marketing from so many greats, and a lot
of them look like me.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
A lot of them didn't look like me.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
But if you listen to the stories, they're always the same.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
It's a functional.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Listening and understanding what people care about and how do
you put those things together, and then sort of prompt
to your point, whether it's a social media person or.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
A writer or a friend.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
Or somebody who's making because again, notice what I said,
then this is about media and spending.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
A lot of money. It's about knowing, putting it all together, having.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Someone help you get it out there, whether it's again
earned media.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
You stand on a corner flip and a sign.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
As long as that sign says the right thing based
on the people are driving by, you don't get some traction.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
And it doesn't cost a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Now I'm not saying tomorrow, go make toe house sign flippers.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I'm not saying them homework. I'm not saying to do it.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
From my point is, if you do it, what's the
intersection with the people that make enough to afford a
membership at your place and like Craft Cocktails. See don't
know like like Craft Cocktails don't get the Solo House.
Well maybe you know about Solo House, right, So that's
another sh You might say they follow Solo House, they
live in Toledo. Your marketing plan rights itself. Yeah, you
(55:28):
got to know that customer are those adjacent interest?
Speaker 3 (55:31):
Right?
Speaker 2 (55:31):
So again, what I'm sharing with you is the architecture
of Opus intelligence. It's also the architecture of how Omar
Johnson thinks and what's going to be successful in marketing
over the last few decades. Right, It's this point of
view and that's what we've taught these models to do.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
You know, I am going to do this last one
because you've been super gracious, so I will make this.
This will be the last one. And so I think
a lot about black owned businesses that are trying to scale,
want to scale, not just you know, our health and
wellness plant. I it's easy to put us out front
when we're building something that's specifically for black people, black hair, texture, whatever,
black skin, you know, but there are some of us
(56:09):
who are building for a population people who may not
look like us. So if you look at toll Houses social,
you won't see me on any photos. Because I recognize
that that could be rightly or wrong with this is
how I think about it. That could be like off
putting to people like, Okay, that's the black thing, that's
the black club, and I don't want to be the
black club. I want to be the club that this
(56:29):
mission is designed, big club exactly. So, how you've been
leaning into culture centric marketing, not black centric, but culture
centric marketing. What can we learn from that about still
how to show up authentically leaning into that And because
(56:51):
again that's we are the table to your earlier point,
how do we learn from those concepts and not become
the black thing. Not that being wrong, but no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
No, it's the.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
We sometimes get insecure when we have this conversation. Nothing
we do do we want to limited to one group
of people black, white, Hispanic. You want it to be
as big as possible. So you're asking a scale and
growth watch. I noticed sensitivity around that. I obviously live
(57:31):
parts of it, right. I think your instincts are right
with your space. To your point, space is magical in
its own, doesn't need you, right, space needs to be magical.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
On its own.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
If I'm you, I'm also thinking about how do I
see back to be shared interests, how do I bring
other people in? Right? So, look, I don't know too
many people who look like me who drink bourbon.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
I just don't. There's a bourbon nite, you see them going,
there's a bourbon night. You think again, back to these behaviors.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
You think about other behaviors where people need a space
to be, and you look at them not only for
the interest, but also maybe additional demographics. So when you
have those images and recaps of that thing, it paints
a really broad picture of what your space can be
and what it can do. Yeah, all said, it does
(58:30):
not stop you from one version of that being, you know,
a night of spoken word, a night of you know,
whether it's counter protests.
Speaker 3 (58:43):
Or whatever it may be, doesn't stop you from doing that.
Speaker 2 (58:46):
But that's a page in the book at your building,
and I think you can build a.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
Quite broad and colorful book.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Again, once you understand your audiences and you understand the behavior,
you understand what they feel, what they say, what they do,
which is what system trying to.
Speaker 3 (59:00):
Teach every day.
Speaker 2 (59:02):
But once you know that, it opens you up to
kind of take an advantage of those things and not
being a one trick point, right, what tends to happen
with businesses? To your point that we run and we own,
we're very familiar with how to get our people in're
very familiar with what they want. So back to like
not being a lazy marketer, Yeah right, you know what
(59:23):
I'm saying, Like a lazy marketersert.
Speaker 3 (59:25):
And I know what they care about. That's lazy. You
always have a lazy result.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
But if you truly care about an expansive business, you're
tapping into multiple different audiences and you're tapping into into
the into their passions and what they care about. So
that's again a lot of what I aspire scale for
the world. You actually understand only what they look like
and what they care about, but then what to do
with market today?
Speaker 1 (59:52):
Love it elbus, Intel dot co is early access. You
could sign up right now for early access. When can
people like get in.
Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Next?
Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Call it next forty five days. We're rolling products out
as the United stings go. We're rolling products out right now.
We have a lot of big corporations in so they
kind of hold they kind of sucking up all the bandwidth.
Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
The next couple of months we will start to bring
in smaller businesses.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
So Opensintelligence dot com Part one two. There's a sign
up page and we're starting to take names. So it's
in the next quarter we'll start to reach out and
bring people in sequentially. But right now we've been focused
on so you know, we've got some big leagues and
some big names who are using our software, so we're
(01:00:39):
spending a lot of time with them before we.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Start spending time with smaller businesses.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
The good news is the bigs actually subjetized the smalls, right,
So you want us do an issue, you want us
working with the big multi billion dollar multinationals, because you
know the toll houses and the smaller organization's been from, you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Know the work they do with us.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Black Tech Green Money is the production of Blavity Afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast Networking Night Hire Media.
It's produced by Morgan Debaun and me Well Lucas, with
the digital production support by k McDonald, Sarah Ergan and
Jada McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis and Lovebeach.
Learn more about my guessing other technives us an innovators
at afrotech dot com. Video version this episode will drop
(01:01:25):
to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube. So'll tap in
join your Black Tech Green Money shit us to somebody
go get your money. Be similar
I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green money.
Omar Johnson is the marketing genius who helped turn Beats
by Dre from a twenty million dollar startup into a
one point one billion dollar global icon, ultimately leading to
his three billion dollar acquisition by Apple. As the former
chief marketing officer at Beats by j and VP of
(00:23):
Marketing and Apple, Omar has crafted some of the most
legendary marketing campaigns in sports and music culture, working with
icons like Lebron, James, Chris Rock, and eminem. From his
groundbreaking ambush marketing strategies to his work infusing music, sports
and tech, o May has reshaped how brands connect with consumers. Now,
as founder of opens Intelligence, he's continuing to drive change,
(00:45):
building world class brand, championing diversity and pushing for equity
and corporate America. And So I want to start because
you wouldn't notice, but I am. This for me feels
super special because I've been a humongous fan of your
work for a long time and so to you know,
we just celebrated two hundred episodes and I feel like
(01:06):
this interview is what I've been reaching for for two
hundred episodes. Like to be talking to you. It's special
and I'm sure you have some sense of what you
mean to black professionals, black entrepreneurs, black marketers. But I
want to give your flowers. I want to start this
(01:27):
all by giving your flowers. Like this is super special
for me. So I did when I heard when I
saw this in the three like oh oh, Mars coming
on the podcast, Like okay, let me get ready for this,
because I've been thinking about this since we've been doing
this podcast and two hundred episodes in we hit now.
So thank you first, Thank you first of all.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So I'll share my so a couple of things, right,
I've only done one other podcasts. That was my best
friend Paul Rivera when you did his first podcast, like
I want you to go there, cool, I'll do it.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I didn't think about it a lot, and I haven't
done any wow.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So when the team brought it to me, you know, one,
I look at the name, but then I went and
I dug in your channel a little bit, and I
got excited because there's not a lot of this voice
out in the world and anything I can do to
help elevate it vice versus you helped me. I mean
(02:28):
this is where it starts, right, So I truly believe
in platforms and ideas like this because it gets a
different point of view off to the world.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
It needs to happen, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So look, man, when I got my chance, I just ran.
Took the ball and I ran, and I was like
I was running for everybody can imagine, and wherever I
could find opportunities to like give the ball back or
you know what I mean, given a system block like
I'm in.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
So I like the fact that this.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Used to be me in boardrooms and corporations and making
space for us. I'm actually in your business. I mean,
like I'm able to support your business. Like that's different.
So that's why I did it. And like these things
don't I don't, I don't. I really value these things
(03:24):
because you don't get a chance to do it. And
look on the other side of the camera, right your face.
You know, we could talk on East Coast Midwest stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
We ain't got to say much, but we know what
we mean. And I think that's the.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I want more about community thinking that way, right, and
having elevated conversations. Our conversations always get cast in one direction, right,
That's what's on social media, on the on the Instagram,
and so as you know, I mean, I've watched, I
listened to you and Kobe. Kobe's one of my good friends, right,
Kobe Fuller. Kobe's not in that culture thing, right, Covie's living.
(04:02):
He's representing us in a very profound and different business, right, fantastic.
People need to see all the voices, right. And I
think I've always bought him. I've always thought, like I know,
I got my start by seeing as one of my mentors.
His name is Trevor Edwards. He was a president in
(04:24):
Nike when I met him, black like black, like the
Riverside screen, knew every part of the world that matter
when it came to culture and like lead in his
beautiful and big, magnanimous way.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I don't see him, I don't become e.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I mean, like if I don't see him, and when
I see him seem in action, like in the room
with him as the only.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Him in the room. I mean, it's get it.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Think about it, like Nike nineties two thousands, at that
president level, it's a none of us. Yeah, Jordan was
still a flying extension, you know what I mean, Like
it was there was a product and they had black
athletes but not like Peers.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And you know, watching him and became a big part
of like how I thought about the world. I'm like, yo,
if any kid can take something seeing me, hey, I'm down.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
To do it.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Because I didn't spend a lot of time with him,
but he a battery, like the biggest battery. And we're
still very close to the state to invest in my company,
Like we're still very close, but he's a huge battery
for me.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, I would like if you take that even step
for people like we just talked about I'm from the Middlewest.
I'm from Toledo, Ohio, and you just talked about, you know,
seeing people in spaces that you otherwise didn't see us.
When I think about my experience growing up here in Toledo,
I didn't see I saw a black wealth on TV,
(05:59):
but I never saw with my naked eye, like real,
with it's tingent, I can touch these people. I saw
people if you had money growing up where I'm from,
like you drove a Cadillac and you worked at jeep
or you were a pastor at a church, and those
were the people with the manicured lawns. So it wasn't
until I moved to Atlanta that I saw black wealth
people younger than I was. They owned, They had nothing
(06:22):
to do with music, nothing to do with sports, and
they weren't selling drugs, but they owned businesses or franchises
or whatever they did. And so I wonder what you
think about people who come from even further back. Then
you may have your your starting point. We're just not
not further back like economically or whatever, but just exposure wise.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
There's a it's a great question because here's here's what
happened with the executives.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They typically went academic, right, So they went academic. Some
people came from sports and with bits, but mostly you
were an academic and you had to work really hard
to get into the room. Once you got in the room,
you weren't giving a green lights to do media if
you press. So when I got to see you, right,
(07:15):
and even in your decision making, you couldn't really cast bias, right,
you actually the most opposite, right you have, I watching
executives make it harder for black people scared of real
experienced that, right, it's just over the last.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Call it fifteen.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Twenty years where you now have us saying we were
always there's a very dangerous statement we talk about and
what we say sometimes we call it a seat at the
table issue with a seat at the table. The issue
about that idea is one word. It's the smallest word.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Sentence, a wow. So when you say acy at the table, right,
what does that mean? That one one? If I get it,
I'm not letting it go wow? Right?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And I think the last twenty years we started to realize, like, yo,
we're a table, right. Maverickotta said that one we had
dinner and he's like, you know, with a table, like
they have to come to our table. We set up
what happens next. We're the table And I'll never forget
that moment. A random dinner, there's probably one and good food.
(08:35):
There's a lot of great things said, but like that
just stuck with me and said, I never forget it, like.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
We are the table now.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And Atlanta was a great example of you look at
Atlanta meant in the nineties, you look at the where
you could, you know, participate in business and all the
other economies.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You look at what's happening now with black engineers in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So you know, to your point, I think the executives
of the previous generations just didn't have the platforms. They
didn't have the the green light to go do media.
You know, if I was working at Apple, I have
to get permission to do this podcast. It's a big
part of why I'm not working at Apple anymore. Which
(09:14):
I love Apple, by the way. You know, they did
great by me, but it's like, you gotta get permission
for this. I built the business, so I had authority
on ton of me on how I spent my time.
So it's a new era for us and back to
the you know, I've seen a dark side of the
seat at the table. I've watched us take us out.
(09:35):
I've watched us right because you're defending that ac defending
that way. And for me, so much of my career
is like not only how do I go create more tables,
but then empower those tables to grow? Right, So so
much of what I'm building now with Hope, it's intelligence
for me. You know, I'm thinking about all those people
who don't have access to resources and marketing teams and budgets.
(09:59):
I want to marketing scale in a way where anybody
can get access to great marketing thinking.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So so much of it for me.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
As much as it feels like this big swing and
AI and enterprise solutions, I'm still thinking about that guy,
you know what I mean, I'm still thinking about that
person who wants think about your podcast.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
I think about your real estate. I think about your
jazz bar.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Like those are the people that keep me inspired when
I think about what I got to do in this
next chapter in my career, and it is.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
There's this quote you said, find the most important things
that the company is betting on for the future, and
work on those things.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I don't know if you remember saying that, but they're like,
when I saw that line, I'm like, that is number one.
Like only a marketer, I think would come up with
something like that, because I'm like, you think about positioning
all the time, and if you take that out of
the corporation and you think about that sentiment for us
as a people, people trying to make it even in
(11:05):
this current climate, what should we be positioning ourselves for?
If we are trying to create wealth, generational wealth, create businesses,
create businesses at scale, how should we be thinking about position?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
God? Look, I mean I was you know again interest
in learning about you? I was gonna post yesterday on
deep seat right, Like, I'm telling everyone that looks like me,
you now have.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
To start to use this technology. Why old technology.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You have to learn language Python, C plus plus, like
you have to go to school, you have to get
an engineering degree because STEM wasn't huge in our schools.
STEM is a precursor to there's this we're out of
the system of technology. But with these language models and
the interface being what you say and what you type,
(12:03):
it's now bought the technical burden of like knowing way
way down, so we now have the ability two. How
many people have you met in Ohio had a great
business idea but couldn't write a business plan. How many
people you met the great idea they funded, they found
a way to get it done, and couldn't market it effectively.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's what inspires me.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So as I'm teaching you know this marketing operating system
that we're building oks intelligence is it's used by Bissan
and they'll be big brands NBA using it. What gets
me excited is the everyday person who can now get
access to whether it's Omar Johnson's brain or brain like
(12:49):
mind for a fraction of the cost and do it
while they're sleeping, I mean, while I'm sleeping, or do it?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
There's this democratization of the information that these new platforms
give us. So as we start thinking about the future,
you know, my journey has been pretty interesting, right, So
science kid goes to craft, goes to Campos, works with
Coked for a little while, goes to Nike. You know, multiplack. People,
(13:19):
you've done You're like, I mean, Nik you sneakly is like,
you're done, right, But I learned how to storytell. There
go to this startup which people Tomail's crazy. A lot
of people look just like me. It was like, what
are you doing? You go into a seven hundred million
dollar category to go fight for space? We have seven
million dollars sneaker, like two or three sneakers.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
That make seven hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Three things are as big as a whole category. You're
going to fight And so those people look like me.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
You know what I mean? Something I was done stupid,
but that worked out right.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Got to build something from scratch Apple, and then you
get these jobs. You've been tulate VP of marketing Apple,
every fortune one hundred company. Most of them called me
at some point, and you can I did the interviews
just for the information.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
I didn't really want to take your job.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I always had a vision of building something that could
democratize what I knew to the masses.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And I learned about technology from Apple.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I learned about it as a function of being on
the board of Qualtrics and seeing both qual Tricks and SAP,
and the moment I learned about how much I could
scale my brain through technology, it was a note brainer
decision for me to go off and build something.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
The magic of.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
What we built is we started off thinking more enterprise
software and SaaS, and then you look at all these
what's happening with AI and what's happened with these large
language models, It's just accelerated. I couldn't find a tech
stack to consistently mimic me. Now I'm a machine that
does it, and it does it in multiple different languages.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
So I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Telling anyone that looks like me but also may not
have my education, that may not have the perfect Queen's English,
like these models are a big unlock for them. They've
been a giina luck for me, and I've been pretty successful.
But I also think that there is a big unlock
for again, we all know that women, that guy who
(15:30):
had a great idea who couldn't get a bank loan.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
You can prompt a business plan today, and.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
You can prompt it be formal. You can prompt to
be super financi like. That's all just a question to ask.
So again, as I think about, you know, my future
and what I'm encouraging every other executive who looks like
me or not to do, a lot of it lives
in the world of AI.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
A lot of it lives.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
In product that we're building so that you can get
access to amazing marketing for not time to cash.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, you mentioned that a post posts yesterday, and actually
that post with biggest than any other posts I've ever had.
And what shocked me about that post was it was
actually a little disconcerting because I was reading the comments
and I'm like, y'all have totally missed what I was
trying to say in this. And I'm not trying to
get into all the deep seak you know whatever. It's
(16:29):
about their privacy, that's not the point. But I'm like,
we are missing the plot here, and so my my
question to you is more so about what are we
also missing about this AI conversation. When we can hear
about an open AI you know, takes one hundred billion
dollars or whatever it takes to build it, but then
(16:50):
you got this Chinese company it doesn't for five million
and probably better arguably arguably you know, depending on who
you ask. But that also tells me that when you
hear like an Isaac Hayes say, you know, we can
build our own social media, but he's up against the
Facebook and the Instagram, he's probably not wrong. But we
are the people who determine whether we find success, and
(17:15):
it's not necessarily how much you will funded, but are
to your point, we are the table and so they
got to come to us. And so that's a lot there.
But can you I'm just throwing those ideas at you and.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I can punch through it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Right. So, I thought your post was spot on informationally,
because what you were talking about is the most important
thing when it comes to AI, the system that we're building.
I believe these elements will become commodities, full stop. I
do believe they will become commodities. Okay, they will become
(17:51):
like cable service providers or cell phone service I do
believe like that's the destiny for those owners.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
But what you tapped on, and it's the thing that
I'm trying to teach every person is it's your.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Opinions that matter. What what makes our marketing operating.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
System special is all the times I've been front Row
and Fashion Week, me being in Brooklyn, me being in accurate,
me being in you know, Broward County, me being in Kallio,
me being in content. That's what makes our AI special.
We all have experiences like that, right, which becomes our
(18:33):
special version of what these machines need to do. So
I love about your comment is you're teaching people that
we are teaching these machines. So I have my We
run our own system, we build our own knowledge basis.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
AT are focused on marketing.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But to your point, people need to understand that, yes,
we want you to use it, but you are training
a model and informations. Privacy is I'll just talk to
a good friend and she's a president over at Signal
and her focus is privacy, and she will tell you
the dangers of just these open platforms where they're trying.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I thought your post was great, so I didn't read
the comments.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I'm not a common trol. So I don't know what
that was good or bad, but I thought it was pointed,
perfect and a good dimension of information people need to know, right,
So get back to what we're doing. We're taking all
of our marketing knowledge over the last twenty five years
(19:34):
for me and some other amazing people.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
We're curative that knowledge.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
We're academically sort of packaging that knowledge into knowledge bases,
and that's what we use to tame these lms and
make them give response that Omark Johnson would give. That's
how we treat the system. That's how we teach the
system to know it's but we also protect that information
because it's it's all we have. It's empowering and it's
(20:02):
also right. We've watched other industries where you know, outsiders
take our intellectual property and then chargers back for it
or do crazy things with it. This is one of
the few opportunities where we can actually go and shape
meaningful corporate data in different places that can be monetizing
(20:27):
very different ways. So again, it's exciting, but I thought
your post like it just hit it and it was
another dimension of information that people need to understand.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So that's what you know. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Through AT and t's Dreaming Black platform. Connectivity is more
than tech. It's about tapping into the people and resources
that move us forward. As an entrepreneur, connectivity has been
the key to every move I've made. Building businesses like Creatio,
toe House and Black Tech Green Money has been more
than just about creating products. It's about creating spaces where
black entrepreneurs can thrive, connect and push forward together. Dreaming
(21:05):
in Black for me means seeing the gaps and access
and opportunity and filling them with innovation, community, and ownership.
Whether it's helping small businesses find the financial expertise they
need or developing tech to empower creatives. I believe our
dreams are the blueprint for the next generation of change makers.
This Black History Month, AT and T is celebrating those
who dare the dream and have paid the way for
(21:26):
the next wave of change makers. On February twenty eighth,
had to at ATT on Instagram to see how they're
powering meaningful connections in the community. Music artists and entrepreneur
Larry June and entrepreneur Esther Wallace of Player Society share
game on their journeys and why representation in business matters. Oh,
and AT and T just changed the game for one
small business owner, dropping ten thousand dollars a Samsung S
(21:48):
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because connecting changes everything. So there's this concept again. I've
(22:11):
heard you talk about like this lazy marketing and when
you think about how we are taught and marketing of like, okay,
put people into these categories, you know, race, gender, you know,
sexual orientation, and then based on that, this is how
we need to talk to them. And I've heard you
touch on the story that that individual has is probably
(22:33):
more important. So can you talk about how what I'm
gonna let you define better lazy marketing and how we
should actually be thinking about how to tell stories.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, so some of it's lazy and some of it is.
You know, the way traditional marketing is you're eventually end
up buying paid media, which is typically sold by demographics.
So some of it is because of it and and
some of it's I call it lazy. Static demographic pictures
worked when back in the eighties, we lived.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
In our neighborhood. Right, you were in the Midwest.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, you had a TV and sort of Cosby Show,
but your everyday life was that neighborhood. Right, the phone calls,
had the phone with the cord on it. Everything was
very small.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Right. We had TVs, yes, but it didn't feel as close.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It was always in the TV box, right, But our
neighborhood felt very real.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Our corner store felt very real, like in that moment
in time.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Demographics work well because we live in the same neighborhoods.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
We see the same.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Cars dropping by, right, you saw the same wealth from
different plays. Like, we had these pockets of behavior that
were shaped by where we lived in these observable things
like race, income level, address, right, And that's where demographics
were based. When you look at the digital revolution, I
(23:57):
have a kid who is deeply interested in and Latin basketball, ceramics,
loves Tokyo. Like that breaks the demographic rules of a
thirteen year old black kid. But that's the real world
we live in today. So lazy marketing goes thirteen year
(24:19):
old blackett. And you know what every executive, we know,
the complexion of a lot of executives in the corporate world,
says about that thirteen year old black kid, right, And
it's some combination of Trayvon Martin and some young kid
they see on a TV show, which you know how
we typically cats and TV shows.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Right, that's a thirteen year old blacket. It's so fortunate.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Right, my son just got all honors in one of
the toughest schools here in La Again, passport, multiple stamps,
love sashimi demographics tell.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
You remember that story? Right, So that's right?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
When I mean when a lazy marketing So the way
we've trained our system that opus intelligence, and this is
marketing operating system.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
We're a building.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
We've trained it to see behavior. We trained to see
shared interest like sashii and sushi, like ceramics.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
He also loves Greek and Roman mythology, right, which is
why he takes Latin.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So we're we're in Florence a couple of years ago
and we're taking a tour the museum Curiy to ask
a question to the group that nobody had ever gotten, right,
you know, gets it right, youngest kid there, my.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Son, right, that breaks every demographic rule.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
He should not know that much about Greek and Roman mythology,
but he does. And if you just look at the
books that he reads or the social media that he follows,
if you actually take an honest look at him, and
that's the power for a lot of new technology. We
can look at behavior. We can see interest, we can
see passions, we can see affinities. And when you can
(25:57):
see those things, then you can market to them.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
The other you know, the big thing that happens is
people think demographics are a way to get to size.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's not. Interest is a way to get to size. Right.
I remember, give me a funny one. I was on
set one time with Cam Newton and.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Cam Newton in the NFL was Superman physically, I don't know,
you don't get it on camera, tall chisel like it
was what every quarterback would love to be physically use that.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Right, So that one day on spray and water, I
don't right, So what are you doing? So are you
sweating the spraying morning?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I'm sweat already, And I was like, yo, these headphones
we sell.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Them to white women in the Midwest. Yeah, we got
the kid brook, we get to kill a Comton, We
got them are ready.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
But that man, it was she buys three pair because
she's got a few kids that play AU sports, Some
suck some dope and they feel a little bit better
when they have these headphones on because of you. But
it's a little sweat the muscles listening. Now she likes
you too, I might sell a fourth pair, right. It's
(27:28):
when you look at that share interest of I have kids,
I'm paying a lot of money for AAU sports. I
want them to perform, right. They want nikes, I buy nikes.
They want wristbands and sleeves, and I buy them that
buying basket own basketball.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I live it.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Right, So I was like, and I buy midphones, right,
and then I might buy myself a pair.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That's all a function to shared interests. Right.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So again, when we started building this operating system, we
don't have it. Look at black athlete from Atlanta, right,
then you do all the math. You know Cam Newton's story,
you know what happened at Florida. Then then he became
a national champion. And when you right, but like, the
(28:15):
internet tells a very different story about the guy versus
how I saw him, which was his ability to go
get that white lady in the Midwest by Fort Parenthon.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
That's all the functions shared interest.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
So back to your point around being lazy, some of
it is lazy and sala it's just the way things
were done.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
But now we have an ability to look at the
world in a.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Very different lens. So my looking at that lens was
what I used the beats. As you can tell, I
just now have a system that can mimic that thinking
across any category. That's the delta between then and now. Right,
last thing I'll say here is I just said something.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
On a on a keynote this morning that you might
find interest, and it was.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
It was like an AHA moment for me a couple
of weeks ago where I'm talking to our CTO and
you know, he gets pissed off of meal at times.
It's like, oh, you care too much about the tech.
He's like, everybody has the same tech. We all have
longa we all have these things. I'm a plumber.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I just make it work.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
But the real magic is the vision that you have
and your point of view expressed upon the technology. Right,
I'm always kind of bowing down stairs take things like nah,
it's like we have the same tech stack and whenever
I build somebody can use it app and like pull
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
What matters is your opinions, right, What matters.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Is what you think things should be in all your experience,
all the sports stuff and the ads and the music
video placements, all those things are what matter in the
system you're building.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Not the tech stack we use, not the LLL them
we use.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
We have a RAG system, we can use, Claude, Mistro,
Deep Seek, we can use them all.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So that's not the magic.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
The magic is our opinions. What do I tell the
machine to do? And my big aha moment? And I
hope somebody on the other side of this really gets this.
People say, what do you do? What have I done
in the past of my career? A lot of creative,
a lot of marketing, a lot of leadership cool a
(30:12):
good marketer from a bad marketer. The delta is a
function of like how well they give direction to people
on what to do and what not to do. Shoot this,
Shoot that, here's a script director, get this, get that.
That's what a great marketer does is give direction and
(30:37):
curate what people do. It's a very simple word that
encapsulates that whole behavior.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
That is what great marketing and great leaders do. It's prompting.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
We're great at prompting, right, That's what great leaders do.
They prompt There's a bridge. Right, So you look at
these machines. Our system curated prompts right, and curated prompts,
curated to culture, curated too, sports, curated to the things
(31:09):
that we've seen in the past work marketing wise, the
things that we learn as the function of being the table.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Made available to the world.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But it you know, I sat on the outside of
this industry looking in, like, yo, marketing, God, let me
and let me and let me in. Like I'm gonna
fight my way and I'm invest my way and I'm
gonna learn my way in. I've already been there. I'm
an experted prompting and curating out the things that you
don't do and the thing that you do do.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I just have to learn how to do it a
different modality, right.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And I'm saying it's because anybody to sit on the
outside looking at like I don't know what you do?
Know you do actually understand the way I works. You
just have to work it. Structuring your prompts a different way.
But all that direction and curation things that we know,
we can swag, instink, all these things that we say
are the things that AI.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Needs to make magical results for people.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
So as a giant unlocked for us if we just
shift how we perceive ourselves.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Yeah, because at the end of the day, like that's.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
As as I learned more and I'm a forever learner,
like I'm always trying to learn. I'm always trying to
take in more information. The more you learn, the more
you start to realize, like kind of do we've been
doing this? You know, it's just a different way to
do it.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, you said something a minute ago about you know
that solopreneur that you know, small business owner that they
can use these tools that you're building. It aligns with
a quote I saw you said, we want to see
the first solopreneur billionaire have a marketing department powered by
the same solopreneur. And you got me thinking about you know,
I'm gonna give you one of these asking for a
(32:49):
friend questions have a small small businesses, but there's a
lot of people who listen to this podcast and run
small businesses and are trying to figure out how to scale.
Maybe don't know how to scale because you know, I
think about even barbers like that. I don't know a
black owned Boicks or Supercuts, but like they figured out
how to scale barbershops and we have not figured that out.
(33:11):
Or a coffee shop owner, a coffee house owner like
I am, or a jazz club owner like I am.
I have one, and in these challenges we think about
how do we get from one to several? Like I'll
give you my example, like I'm like I have toll
Houses is a private social club. It's twenty five thousand
square feet, five bars, five lounges of coffee house, cigar lounge,
jazz club. All of that's here coworking space. And my
(33:35):
goal originally was to build the Soho house for places
that will never get a Soho house like Toledo, Cleveland, Detroit,
you know, Indianapol like places like that that are not
going to get a so whole house because I believe
that there's a community of people who want that esthetic,
that sentiment, that feeling you get, but won't get it.
(33:58):
And so my child, though, and people like me, is
how do you go from something that is super It's
hard to scale, you know, business. It's not like a
technology where I can just put it online and people
can use it. And so again there's a lot because
I'm I'm like, I'm talking to Omar right now, so
I'm trying to get like all the things in and
(34:19):
this limited amount of time. The question is, how do
you how do you think about small business owners learning
from what Omar has learned from the biggest companies in
the world.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, so the first answer is obvious, right.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
A lot of the way we've built OBUs Intelligence is
to take Omar Johnson a few really smart executives and
package it in a way where.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
It's more accessible to small companies. That that is.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
What I'm most passionate about, right, and building this marketing
operating system and being able to launch something that today
works at a PhD level and tomorrow work at a
much higher level. Like I'm fabergaset. Like, just the chance
that we get to think about marketing in that way
where I'm not looking for a big client or I'm
looking for the perfect retainer, like I want everyone in it, right,
(35:14):
and that's the way the system works.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
So we have an answer, whether it's starting with an.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Editorial feed and then eventually moving into you know, a
full ability to.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Have your own instance. And we've I've always believed it
about I mean marketing.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
People hate when I say this, but I do believe
about seventy five percent of what we tend to spend
on marketing is waste. There's a lot of wasted time,
a lot of wasted effort, and efficient communication knowledge doesn't
get the right place at the right time.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
There's a lot of operational friction with the creative industry.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So I want a flattenet and in flattening, I get
to bring prices down for great marketing and access to
great marketing.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
One is opus intelligence is meant to solve that. And
whether you're a big business.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Or small business, we are, you know, launching an ability
for you as a business to go and register and
tell us you're interested. And as we start to launch
from our product, we will bring you into product.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So it's intelligence.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Anybody following this please jump on the website, join our
waiting list, and might just be ready right because of
the idea is that we want to start to deliver
great marketing service and ideas not as a function of
paying us by hours, but as a stream.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
And a feed. Right, that's happening.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
So I'd say for everyone go to those intelligence, turn
our wait list and get started. To answer your question
from another perspective, look, I think when where I tend
to watch black and brown businesses fail, it's not in marketing.
It tends to be operations. And how do you build
(36:55):
scaleable operations? Then something that everything on the internet about
operations is at your fingertipts.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
How so whole house operates, is that your fingertip to
this pot.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I am going and finding those things today, right, and
I'm using those as like templates. I've done this before,
so I can't accuse anybody of doing it well. But
like you have this opinion, you have this belief that
I got to start from scratch. I got to get
it out the mud. I gotta go fig whether you
(37:34):
ask somebody who's done it before, you ask one of
these models.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
You don't got to get it out the mud.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
You know what I mean? The information is out there
if you learn to ask boys. So one I tell
any you know diverse business when they're growing, is like
one just asked to get mentors, get the information asked
the question.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
You don't have to get it out the mud if
you so.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And that's I think it also inverts the question because
people tend to think.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
It starts with marketing. Marketing is important, but you got
to have a strong operations model. None of us really
struggle to be creative. We come up.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
We had to be creative and how you got what
you got, like you have to be creative. You have
to get creative to get from Atlanta. Back then, you
had to be creative to do it. So I don't
worry about you being creative, it's how do you operate
the business? And then how do you market that operation?
And I think that's it's it's it sounds like staying
the same thing, but as a nuance to it, right, Well,
(38:35):
if you're marketing yourself, that's one thing, but if you're
marketing operation, it's slightly different.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
That's like marketing a product. So it's something again.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I try and tell a lot of entrepreneurs to focus
on and we're going to be a part of that ecosystem.
So when I think about these solopreneur billionaires, I'm thinking
about the athlete that has one hundred thousand follows.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
You sell one hundred thousand or something. You're doing Okay, okay,
you do.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
It, okay, and how do you get him to understand
Here's why I have authority.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Here's the categories people are buying. Right. These are this
is analysis we give free to a lot of athletes.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
So a lot of athletes calls can just give it
to them and we teach them like about their audience
and what they can sell and what they buy and
what they say, what they feel, what they do, so
sentiment behavior. We turn these things back around for athletes
so they know what to sell.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Right. I watched you all the time. When the athletes
call us, they're.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Like, oh, yeah, I have this big audience, and you
know I want to sell I want to make Louis Baiton.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
They don't buy Lee Baton, they buy Mark Jacobs. They
buy I mean, I'm giving one example, right, I'm sure
the people by Baton.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
But like most of the athletes audiences.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Right, you come out of Toledo Aqua, even a Brooklyn
right is all right by stopping in different places.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
So we make that very transparent to the athlete.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
And once the athlete has that information, whether it's a
new product they're building or an endorsement they're taking they're
now more informed and how to make it work for
them and how to build their brand. So again, so
much of opus intelligence is our job is to, like democras,
have this information, so you as an athlete know how, where, why,
(40:36):
who and what you can sell. Ye. Once you know that,
you think about doctor Dre Right, I'm sure there's a
lot of things people thought he could sell. But there's
this quote that shouldn't really be a quote, but jim
just kept saying and he kept he was like, you know,
f sneakers, Let's do speakers, right, And what he was
(40:56):
saying was everybody's going after the artists with sneakers, right.
Jay Z just had a Chris Fitti, hada sneakers. Somebody
came to Dre for sneakers and Jimmy's like, nah, like yeah,
you're popular. He never says, He's like, I don't know
if you're athletic. It's like, I know you're popular. What
I know you set trends. But let me tell you
something that everybody respects.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And just doesn't buy enough of because no one's selling
it to them. It's headphones and speakers.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And heppos were getting smaller at the time, like Hypp engineers.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Right, we had an excuse for big ones. Right, What
was our excuse? We were trying to bring you the
music the way the artists intended it, right, That was
our storyline. Now there's a line we never sat in public.
But I'll say it to you right now, which is
the bigger they are, the better you can see it?
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Jimmy's you know, being a meeting and saying I want
you to be able to see the logo from across
the street.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
These things you know it sized? Right?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Was the combination of it right? And then again back
to Oaks Intelligence. I've taken a lot of those opinions
from the Jimmy's, from Dre, from Trevor Nike. Those are
what have informed the way that Opus Intelligence works. Right,
Jimmy Ivan was obsessed. He's obsessed with the news like
he obsessed with the news, right. And I used to
(42:21):
feel like the news with him was like whack a mole,
meaning he was reading news earlier and more pervasively than
even me as the CMO. He just he read more
news than I did, and he always knew more than
I did. I've trained for a part of our product
to do that, right. So it's like you go, you know,
(42:42):
toll house. While on toll House. There's stuff in news,
there's stuff in social media, but we can look at
it every forty five minutes and tell you what's happening. Right,
We've trained our system to do that. That's based on
Jimmy Ivan. I don't think that way. I think the
very different ways modalities of marketing. I do, yeah, but
(43:02):
I use that experience from Jimmy Ivan to then create
a marketing operating system.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Last question, I want to be conscious of your time.
There's a shift.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I'm good on time, fam so well, and Jack and
Adrian I'm okay, So we're good.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
I appreciate that. So when Omar goes from Corporate America
and goes to build his own startup, you know, opus
like there's a mental shift. I imagine you have to
make like I'm not just inside of an ecosystem anymore,
I'm building one. And what is Can you describe that
(43:41):
shift for me? And how you've you know, transitioned to founder?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Now? Yeah, I mean, bro, it's painful.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So there's a good Jewish friend, there's a good Black
friend and they say same thing, which is like business
is hard, right, yesterday I was looking at some of
your socials getting ready for this and just out of
blue had to deal with an employee that was like
(44:13):
struggling with something. It's those things, right, It's all those things.
So you think when you leave these companies, I'm gonna
spend my time being a great marketer. I'm gonna spend
my time doing great marketing. You know, you're gonna spend
your managing people right, and if you're lucky and if
you're good at that, you'll be able to spend some
(44:34):
time doing what you did in the past. So again
I think I part of I look, I think any
entrepreneur you got to be a little naive because you
actually know how hard it is. You're kind of like man,
you make a lot of money your apple, so you
(44:55):
gotta be a little off, you know, to true really
leave all the infrastructure benefits, HR team, finance team, all
the other functions you have around you. But if you
make that leap and you understand that your job is
(45:16):
leading people down a path to a destination, that's half
the story.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
If you can become good at that and then find.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
A way to do your magic right and like the
magic for where we are today is.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Ten years ago there wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
System that could effectively mimic Onmar Johnson. So I had
to give you a piece of Omar Johnson. Omar Johnson's
point of view audiences is where we started. That's what
Opus was on my first race capital. It was a
clear point of view on shared interests in audiences and
how do you create earned media like it was a
very clear linear point of view and what I thought
(45:58):
was the most important and marketing.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Understanding the consumer.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Right now we revolve to a system that mimics how
Lamar Johnson goes from problem category, audience to idea, and
that wasn't possible ten years ago. So that's what inspires
me right about right now and this moment is we
(46:27):
can build machines that mimic the way we think, and
then that machine can speak multiple languages and be up
twenty four seven.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
So there's an unprecedented scale we get with.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Learning how to tame these lems and make them mimic
our behavior. So I think the biggest you know, we say,
what's the difference. There are a lot of differences. I
think there's the myth of what it means to start
a business, which is all feels fly and you call
yourself founder and your little email to add like all
those things feel cool, But the reality is between raising money,
(47:02):
managing money, managing people, managing frictions and tensions. And I
used to say people either you know, fighting and sleeping together.
Like I'm being extreme, right, but it's always somewhere in
that spectrum, you know what I mean, Like, it's never
just harmonious and that's the work. So you know, the again,
(47:23):
like the big unlock we also have with some of
these new systems. My system especially is I get to
spend more time in the people issues because the machine
is doing the marketing that I would do.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, we have to monitor.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
And course correct, but that's a fraction of our time
compared to doing the work and having equality control of
course correct. So it's been a pretty huge paradigm shift.
But I'm excited about it because I'm able to do
all the people things and building a culture and team
and codifying it and have this product that does the
marketing with for me for my customers.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah. Paul Graham, who is the founder of why Combinator,
had this quote and said, like, do things that don't scale,
and he was particularly talking about how Airbnb when they launched,
they would legit go to every Airbnb host and take
pictures of their place and ask why they joined, all
these things, stuff that they couldn't do when they got,
(48:19):
you know, fifty thousand houses on the platform. That's how
you get to fifty thousand houses on the platform. It's
by doing those things. And you had talked often about
you know, marketing is won in the trenches. And there
is something you said a few minutes ago, like you know,
marketing is no longer like just these static images. And
I think about you know our Instagram, Like Instagram was
(48:42):
just static images and that worked for a while. But
you were doing like at Apple and Beats in these
places like these productions like you talked about, you know,
these NFL players and like you know, you've got these
productions that you do like before marketers at Not Nike
and at Not, Like we've got to have our feeds
(49:03):
full every day and that one piece of content is great,
but it may work once a month, once every week
or whatever. How do we keep up and not fall
behind out of the conversation?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Look man for me, and again this is module number one.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
I don't the same intelligence on your customer.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
You have people that follow you on social media today, how.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Much do you know about them?
Speaker 2 (49:36):
How much you know about them above and beyond age race,
how many followers they have?
Speaker 3 (49:43):
You have to start there.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Start with the audience you do have across LinkedIn, you
have Instagram, you have access to the Black Child.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
A green mind like.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
You have these audiences around you. You have to go
and understand not only again, demographics don't matter as much.
What are their other interests? What are other sites they follow?
Are other people they follow? Because once you understand that,
you understand what they're interested in, You understand the behavior,
You understand where they spend their time in. Your job
(50:19):
is to make sure things that you're doing reflect what
they're interested in. Right, There's probably a portion of people
that follow you academically that also like to make craft cocktails.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
You can bring that to life tomorrow. You got the
space for you got five bars. You're don me right, that's.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Kobe Fuller loves crab cocktails, clarified milk, all crazy, Like
I can't even pronounce half the stuff he makes and
the things we drink when while together.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
You don't know that, right, but you had them on
your podcast.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
So I was going back to understand art of great
marketing is always the same thing, understanding your audience and
have tools by which you can do that.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
You know what I mean, Like, you've got to start.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
You've got to start making sure that you really have
a clear perspective on your audience and their babe. Again,
a big part of how we program this intelligence. And
then once you start there, marketing makes itself. And again
there was a day before beats and had big TV
budgets with the music video placements.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
You have a venue, what are you allowing in your
venue besides who page you? Obviously you can't get too
crazy with it because people.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
But like what are smart ways to bring different audiences
inside your space?
Speaker 3 (51:41):
They get a chance to experience it.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
If you see this note of people who care about
craft cocktails, maybe a certain craft cocktails that day, the
people selling craft cocktails get the attention and distributors.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
You see how we just walk down on the path
based on one.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Person that you know and you've had to spend half
an hour with you on your podcast, and there's probably
other people like him right in your audience. So start there,
and I encourage everyone to do this right start there
and then do the things they're interested. There's the best
form of market you can ever do. It's what Beats
(52:17):
did very early. Obviously we're to take advantage of Dre,
but we also knew so many people who love music.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Also love sports.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
The majority of beats biggest moments or sports moments, not
music moments.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
People don't get that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Like the issue with music is once it was a
Doctor Dre headphone, it wasn't going to be a jay
Z headphone.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
It wasn't going to be a you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Like they were very much like this is my thing,
and jay Z had his own thing. So it's not
a bad thing. But with athletes who play as a team,
I take a payer in the locker room, every other
player wants them. Nobody when that's the bronze headphone, well
that's you know, I mean, they were like I want
that too.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
Most of our big moments were in sports versus. We
had a lot of cool music stuff too.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
But if I don't know my audience, I walk into
the category like a robot and go, oh, it's music
recording studios for all, Like you do the same robotic
stuff which gets you nowhere, Well.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
Got me somewhere.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Was no, he's adjacent interests and these other things that
the audience was excited about, and then marketing to those
fashion So it wasn't people like it's culture.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
It's not culture. You can call it culture.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
I just knew the adjacent interest I knew the things
above and beyond music.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
And doctor dre. What's that cloud of other things they
care about?
Speaker 1 (53:43):
You're giving me so much right now?
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (53:47):
This is this is, this is what marketing is. It's
not you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
We make it into this big academic process and as
part of it that is so let me not say
that it's not. However, all the great marketing and look
I learned marketing from so many greats, and a lot
of them look like me.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
A lot of them didn't look like me.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
But if you listen to the stories, they're always the same.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
It's a functional.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Listening and understanding what people care about and how do
you put those things together, and then sort of prompt
to your point, whether it's a social media person or.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
A writer or a friend.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
Or somebody who's making because again, notice what I said,
then this is about media and spending.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
A lot of money. It's about knowing, putting it all together, having.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Someone help you get it out there, whether it's again
earned media.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
You stand on a corner flip and a sign.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
As long as that sign says the right thing based
on the people are driving by, you don't get some traction.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
And it doesn't cost a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Now I'm not saying tomorrow, go make toe house sign flippers.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I'm not saying them homework. I'm not saying to do it.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
From my point is, if you do it, what's the
intersection with the people that make enough to afford a
membership at your place and like Craft Cocktails. See don't
know like like Craft Cocktails don't get the Solo House.
Well maybe you know about Solo House, right, So that's
another sh You might say they follow Solo House, they
live in Toledo. Your marketing plan rights itself. Yeah, you
(55:28):
got to know that customer are those adjacent interest?
Speaker 3 (55:31):
Right?
Speaker 2 (55:31):
So again, what I'm sharing with you is the architecture
of Opus intelligence. It's also the architecture of how Omar
Johnson thinks and what's going to be successful in marketing
over the last few decades. Right, It's this point of
view and that's what we've taught these models to do.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
You know, I am going to do this last one
because you've been super gracious, so I will make this.
This will be the last one. And so I think
a lot about black owned businesses that are trying to scale,
want to scale, not just you know, our health and
wellness plant. I it's easy to put us out front
when we're building something that's specifically for black people, black hair, texture, whatever,
black skin, you know, but there are some of us
(56:09):
who are building for a population people who may not
look like us. So if you look at toll Houses social,
you won't see me on any photos. Because I recognize
that that could be rightly or wrong with this is
how I think about it. That could be like off
putting to people like, Okay, that's the black thing, that's
the black club, and I don't want to be the
black club. I want to be the club that this
(56:29):
mission is designed, big club exactly. So, how you've been
leaning into culture centric marketing, not black centric, but culture
centric marketing. What can we learn from that about still
how to show up authentically leaning into that And because
(56:51):
again that's we are the table to your earlier point,
how do we learn from those concepts and not become
the black thing. Not that being wrong, but no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
No, it's the.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
We sometimes get insecure when we have this conversation. Nothing
we do do we want to limited to one group
of people black, white, Hispanic. You want it to be
as big as possible. So you're asking a scale and
growth watch. I noticed sensitivity around that. I obviously live
(57:31):
parts of it, right. I think your instincts are right
with your space. To your point, space is magical in
its own, doesn't need you, right, space needs to be magical.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
On its own.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
If I'm you, I'm also thinking about how do I
see back to be shared interests, how do I bring
other people in? Right? So, look, I don't know too
many people who look like me who drink bourbon.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
I just don't. There's a bourbon nite, you see them going,
there's a bourbon night. You think again, back to these behaviors.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
You think about other behaviors where people need a space
to be, and you look at them not only for
the interest, but also maybe additional demographics. So when you
have those images and recaps of that thing, it paints
a really broad picture of what your space can be
and what it can do. Yeah, all said, it does
(58:30):
not stop you from one version of that being, you know,
a night of spoken word, a night of you know,
whether it's counter protests.
Speaker 3 (58:43):
Or whatever it may be, doesn't stop you from doing that.
Speaker 2 (58:46):
But that's a page in the book at your building,
and I think you can build a.
Speaker 3 (58:50):
Quite broad and colorful book.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Again, once you understand your audiences and you understand the behavior,
you understand what they feel, what they say, what they do,
which is what system trying to.
Speaker 3 (59:00):
Teach every day.
Speaker 2 (59:02):
But once you know that, it opens you up to
kind of take an advantage of those things and not
being a one trick point, right, what tends to happen
with businesses? To your point that we run and we own,
we're very familiar with how to get our people in're
very familiar with what they want. So back to like
not being a lazy marketer, Yeah right, you know what
(59:23):
I'm saying, Like a lazy marketersert.
Speaker 3 (59:25):
And I know what they care about. That's lazy. You
always have a lazy result.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
But if you truly care about an expansive business, you're
tapping into multiple different audiences and you're tapping into into
the into their passions and what they care about. So
that's again a lot of what I aspire scale for
the world. You actually understand only what they look like
and what they care about, but then what to do
with market today?
Speaker 1 (59:52):
Love it elbus, Intel dot co is early access. You
could sign up right now for early access. When can
people like get in.
Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Next?
Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Call it next forty five days. We're rolling products out
as the United stings go. We're rolling products out right now.
We have a lot of big corporations in so they
kind of hold they kind of sucking up all the bandwidth.
Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
The next couple of months we will start to bring
in smaller businesses.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
So Opensintelligence dot com Part one two. There's a sign
up page and we're starting to take names. So it's
in the next quarter we'll start to reach out and
bring people in sequentially. But right now we've been focused
on so you know, we've got some big leagues and
some big names who are using our software, so we're
(01:00:39):
spending a lot of time with them before we.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Start spending time with smaller businesses.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
The good news is the bigs actually subjetized the smalls, right,
So you want us do an issue, you want us
working with the big multi billion dollar multinationals, because you
know the toll houses and the smaller organization's been from, you.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Know the work they do with us.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Black Tech Green Money is the production of Blavity Afro
Tech on the Black Effect podcast Networking Night Hire Media.
It's produced by Morgan Debaun and me Well Lucas, with
the digital production support by k McDonald, Sarah Ergan and
Jada McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis and Lovebeach.
Learn more about my guessing other technives us an innovators
at afrotech dot com. Video version this episode will drop
(01:01:25):
to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube. So'll tap in
join your Black Tech Green Money shit us to somebody
go get your money. Be similar
Host
Will Lucas
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