23: Should I go to college or start a company? (UCLA Anderson Venture Accelerator Edition)
Build With Rob
Rob Dyrdek
5.0 • 636 Ratings
🗓️ 18 October 2021
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rob didn’t go to college. In fact, he dropped out of high school and became a professional skateboarder. While his journey to entrepreneurship is a unique one, so is yours. The simple fact is, the more knowledge you have, the less mistakes you make, and the clearer your path to success. While there is no substitute for experience, education can bridge gaps and accelerate proactive learnings. Without formal schooling, it’s on you to educate yourself in all facets of business -- seek out answers, ask the right questions, and learn what you don’t know as fast as possible. No matter your level of education when you begin your first company, it’s still going to be trial by fire to some extent.
And joining us on this episode from deep within the burning fires of entrepreneurship are two very impressive founders from the UCLA Anderson Venture Accelerator Program:
Jeff Gum is a former Navy SEAL who drew inspiration for his company, Sunga Life, from his travels to Brazil and military workout gear. He’s currently on track to top $1million in swimwear sales in 2021. https://www.sungalife.com/
Tori Brodsky is a nutritionist by education who takes hydration very seriously, especially when you drink alcohol. She created DrinkLyte, which delivers medical grade hydration in two delicious flavors, one for the end of the night and one for the next morning, to stave off those nasty hangovers. https://drinklyte.co/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Build with Rob. I am Rob Deerdeck, founder and CEO of the Deerdeck machine, a one-of-a-kind venture creation studio where we systematically fuse art, science, and magic to manufacture amazing companies. |
| 0:17.0 | On this show, we love to talk about all things venture creation, all things, entrepreneurialism. |
| 0:25.7 | A lot of times we will have guests that are our founders and partners, our do-or-dire partners that we're building companies with. |
| 0:34.1 | We will also have people that come on the show and ask different questions about their venture, |
| 0:40.0 | their business, their idea, sometimes questions about their life because it's what I love to do. |
| 0:46.2 | I love just sharing the knowledge that I've created and my insight when I look at an opportunity |
| 0:53.1 | or a potential business. I love just picking it apart |
| 0:56.3 | and talking it with different entrepreneurs. It's just something I really, really enjoy. And |
| 1:00.2 | today's episode is a special version of that. You know, rather than just taking submissions |
| 1:06.5 | from the website and then inviting people onto the show. Today we actually invited some of the |
| 1:12.5 | entrepreneurs in the UCLA Anderson School of Business Venture Accelerator program to come on |
| 1:19.9 | and share their business concepts with me and let me sort of give my advice on some things I think |
| 1:27.3 | maybe they should think about maybe help them |
| 1:29.5 | with some of the challenges that they're in the middle of and you know UCLA is as an incredible |
| 1:36.3 | entrepreneurship program it's it's literally the very best I think in all of college you know |
| 1:41.4 | I think Anderson is just just first class top notch and even this venture |
| 1:47.2 | accelerator that they have is truly one of a kind and proven to be extremely successful and |
| 1:54.4 | helpful to young entrepreneurs. Beyond giving them resources and sort of the knowledge share and a place to sort of build |
| 2:02.9 | their companies, an actual physical place to build their companies in the early stage. |
| 2:09.2 | You know, they really give them mentorship and access to people like myself. |
| 2:14.6 | One of my good friends, Rod Kurtz, is actually an entrepreneur in residence with |
| 2:19.2 | them, and he's constantly helping them evolve their pitches and the story for their brands |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Rob Dyrdek, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Rob Dyrdek and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.