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The James Altucher Show

Tupac and Me

The James Altucher Show

James Altucher

Education, Business

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode Description:James shares a personal story from his early days as an entrepreneur, focusing on a critical lesson learned during a business pitch involving Tupac Shakur's posthumous album. Initially detailing the misconceptions about entrepreneurship, he narrates his journey from working at HBO while simultaneously running his first company, Reset, which specialized in creating websites, notably in the entertainment sector. A significant opportunity arose with Tupac Shakur's manager and mother planning to release a new album and greatest hits collection, which promised Reset a $90,000 deal. However, due to James's unfamiliarity with Windows-based PCs, the pitch meeting with the manager went disastrously wrong, leading to the loss of the project. Despite this setback, he lied to his employees about the meeting's outcome to maintain morale. This experience taught him the importance of preparation, reliability, and displaying confidence as a leader. He concludes by reflecting on the broader challenges of entrepreneurship and the idea that entrepreneurial skills are valuable both as a business owner and within a larger organization.Episode Summary:00:00 The Entrepreneurial Journey Begins: Lessons from Tupac Shakur00:20 The Reality of Entrepreneurship: Myths vs. Facts01:01 Launching My First Company: The Early Days of Reset01:57 The Hustle: Balancing HBO and Reset03:44 The Wu-Tang Clan Project: A Turning Point05:45 Expanding the Portfolio: From Hip-Hop to Corporate Websites07:51 The Tupac Shakur Project: A Meeting to Remember25:51 Lessons Learned: The Importance of Preparation and Reliability30:58 Reflecting on Entrepreneurship: Growth, Challenges, and Mentorship31:46 Closing Thoughts and Encouragement for Future Entrepreneurs ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on social media:YouTubeTwitterFacebookLinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altager show. rolling.

0:20.0

So I'm going to talk about Tupac Shakur and what happened with me relating to Tupac Shakur in my first business.

0:30.5

This was a critical lesson for me for business.

0:34.0

First off, being an entrepreneur is, as you know, very hard.

0:39.3

There is no easy route.

0:41.0

People say, oh, I have an idea. Here's how a lot of people, I've noticed this. This is not a criticism

0:46.3

if you think like this, but I've noticed a lot of people think of entrepreneurship like this. You get an idea, you raise money like millions of dollars, you quit your job, you build a product,

0:59.1

which you're sure is going to sell to everybody and you sell to everybody and you make a lot of money or you

1:06.6

fail but now you're an entrepreneur and you fail so now you have another idea and

1:11.5

you raise more money and life is wonderful.

1:14.8

So when I was first at entrepreneur, I was working a full-time job at HBO and I stayed at

1:21.8

that full-time job for 18 months after I started my first company.

1:26.3

My first company was called Reset and I've talked about it before, I won't go into all the details,

1:31.2

but basically I was one basically, I was one of,

1:34.2

reset was one of five or six companies

1:36.7

that built websites, this was in the mid 90s,

1:40.3

built websites, and we focused on building websites for entertainment companies

1:44.3

but I also did the website for American Express.com con Edison.com which was a

1:49.2

utility company so I did so I did boring websites to make that was I could charge more money that way, but I we built a brand by doing fun

1:59.2

Entertaining websites

2:00.9

Eventually though it was so much work and we were starting to hire people.

2:06.4

We had like, I don't know, 20 employees already and I was still working my full-time job at

...

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