I kind of stopped the interview because
I had to soak that up for a little bit
and he said Tristan I figured out life
sit down I’m going to tell you how to
live your life you have no idea how much
of a comparative advantage that is
relative there anyone else
I hate Wall Street I want to get as far
away from this place literally and
figuratively as possible but you really
have to like entrench it into the
culture of the organization this is the
way it happens right yeah this is real
life
number one allows you to identify things
before anybody else does now Silicon
Valley like literally everything just
moves way slower but I wasn’t gonna be
the best person to do it brand is not
what you say it is it’s what they say it
is he’s the founder and CEO of Walker &
Company brands he started off as a
volunteer at Foursquare and was its
director of business development two
years later he’s been named Debenhams
100 most powerful people list
he’s Tristen Walker and here in his top
10 rules for success first bit of advice
came from Tyler Perry the famous
director kind of movie producer that
sort of thing right you know about two
years ago I had the good fortune to
interview him one on one in three
different cities around the country
where he got to speak about his
entrepreneurial story to a bunch of
small business owners around the country
and Tyler Perry is like ‘hey you know
did his thing he was homeless for a
while right now he’s like the
highest-paid dude in hollywood right
really fascinating story so you know I’m
interviewing them one on one start the
Q&A one woman raises her hand stands up
she says mr. Perry you know we have to
always go through these different trials
and tribulations as entrepreneurs like
what keeps you going right how do you
get back up and just go right he said
the most profound thing that I had ever
heard he said the minute he realized
that the trials that you go through
right and the blessings you receive are
the exact same thing like that freed him
as an entrepreneur right like just think
about that for a second like it I kind
of stopped the interview because I had
to soak that up for a little bit right
like every single kind of trial
tribulation all that stuff that you go
through it’s just a lesson right and
that lesson is just an inherent blessing
right so as entrepreneurs like this
entrepreneur thing is hard right like at
times it’s a
at times it sucks right and I’ve been
very blessed and fortunate to have
really good opportunities but it’s very
very hard right and you don’t want to
stress yourself out unnecessarily and
what that lesson taught me was that I
didn’t have to be as stressed out right
like I’m going to go through these
issues
they’re just lessons let me treat that
as a blessing we’re going to move right
and a lot of folks look at me when I
start this company like Tristan you’re
way more calm than he should be and it’s
like yeah because I fundamentally
understand this lesson that I learned
when I was at Lehman Brothers and
working in finance
there’s a gentleman his name was Bill
lighten and he was a managing director
african-american most senior guy at the
firm and call me in his office one day
and he said Tristan I figured out life
sit down I’m going to tell you how to
live your life like all right tell me
Bill
he said Tristan you want to spend the
first third of your life learning right
the second third of your life earning
and the last third returning right now
here’s a guy he left Yale when he was 20
he started working on Wall Street the
day he turned 40 he quit he could have
been way more successful a quiet way
more wealth but now he’s dedicating his
entire life to philanthropic efforts
right and the reason he kind of ordered
it in that way he said too many people
try and put the returning thing before
the earning thing which prevents them
from scaling their returning efforts
when I think about my career you know I
say I talk about wealth a little bit
facetiously but you know it’s a means to
that very end right so I think you know
I’ve done the learning thing and I
continue to how do I shorten the earning
thing to maximize my ability to return
and give back to the community if I was
going to dedicate the next ten plus
years of my life to anything I wanted to
fundamentally feel like I was the best
person in the world to solve that
problem right when you look at like a
lot of entrepreneurs that either you’re
inspired by certainly for me that this
one thing about him that was that kind
of carried with each one they had this
unique authenticity to the thing that
they were trying to build right and one
thing that you’ll realize if any you
kind of want to become entrepreneurs
like you have no idea how much of a
comparative advantage that it is
relative to anyone else right there are
a lot of entrepreneurs that are
entrepreneurs for the sake of being
entrepreneurs right but once you have
that authenticity you
it’s very very hard to lose right after
I left University I was working on Wall
Street I was an oil trader on Wall
Street for two years hated it it was the
worst experience of my entire life I was
the victim of bad culture and knew I
wanted to be creative a great one and
when I was growing up I realized I had
one goal in life right and that was to
get as wealthy as possible as quickly as
possible and I realized that there are
three ways that you’re honest about I’m
very real about that there are three
ways to do it the first was to be an
actor an athlete that didn’t work out
for me at all
the second way was the work on Wall
Street hated it and I said damn I’ve
already exhausted two of the three the
last one was entrepreneurship and the
day I came to that realization I said
you know I hate Wall Street I wanna get
as far away from this place literally
and figuratively as possible there’s a
school called Stanford I think it’s well
known for entrepreneurship I didn’t
really know what that meant let me apply
and fortunately I got in and it wasn’t
until literally I got out in August of
2000 or 2008 that I saw other 24 year
olds not only making millions of dollars
but fundamentally changing the world and
I knew I wanted to be a part of that and
kind of the rest is history at that
point so how does the how do I ensure at
least as a company kind of grows and
scales that the vision is kind of passed
on for kind of new employees that’s
right so it also starts with like values
we have for the organization right so we
say here are things that we all agree
are important right we got to be
inspired by our employees we’ve got to
have respect for each other we got to
have the courage to do daring things
right we got a practice good judgment
like wellness is an important thing in
loyalty right now a lot of people always
talk about like all these values that
our companies and they feel fluffy and
all that stuff right but you really have
to like entrench it into the culture of
the organization you know that’s how we
recruit right so you know when we
actually recruit a candidate we will
kind of base our judgment on that
candidate based on those values right
every single new employee that comes in
they’re gonna have to learn those values
like that’s just like one of the very
many types of ways that we do it but you
have to put it in the processes of how
the organization operates the
the hardest job that I have a CEO is
blending or finding the right balance
between like empathy and and realism I
guess what I mean by that is you know I
have a few or a bunch of employees who
work me who haven’t been at startups
this early you know don’t necessarily
kind of understand things break all the
time and that sort of thing but you have
to be empathetic about it because you
don’t want them to give up but you have
to kind of offer a harsh dose of realism
like this is the way it happens right
yeah this is real life so that’s
something that I’ve never had to really
balance before because I was just
playing business yeah right now I’m
playing with folks livelihood right
their children’s health insurance right
yeah um you know I have to think about
things that I would have never thought
so this is the hardest job I’ve ever had
in my entire life right what’s the most
rewarding and one thing that I tell a
lot of folks who come to me and ask me
these questions right like how do I know
which company I want to work for or you
know how do I know what startup to
create I just tell them like look at
their phones right and you’d be amazed
by even on that like first page of your
phone the types of things that you use
that other people do not and you start
to get a very clear picture about like
what’s your most passionate about and
what you have a view on that other
people do not right and the reason why
that’s so important is because number
one allows you to identify things before
anybody else does which allows you to be
introduced to those companies at times
when no one else is trying to compete
for those same roles right and I’ve been
very very lucky to be able to find those
things as a result of that so you know
think about things you already use and
the things that actually make your life
better do you feel like growing up in
projects gave you a certain edge as an
entrepreneur others don’t have yeah yeah
especially in Silicon Valley I feel like
folks just don’t have as much hustle as
I kind of was raised with you know when
I moved out there for the first time it
just felt like everything was moving way
slower right and I think you know the
way that I articulated once I got the
Business School someone told me this
that really stuck with me for a long
time
you said Tristan while a lot of your
classmates are willing to ask why five
times you’re always willing to ask
six times right and that hustle was
really kind of ingrained in me from the
very beginning
so now Silicon Valley like literally
everything just moves way slower and I
don’t know what it is but I think it was
an important part of like Who I am now
as an entrepreneur for sure how did you
get to how did you come to Walker and
company and the bevels planning product
yeah so when I left
Foursquare I joined in recent Horowitz
as an entrepreneur it’s there you know
been Haaretz at the time said comes to
nine months with us to figure out what
you want to do I spent all nine months
there and I spent the first seven months
there wasting their time right just
chasing things that I wasn’t uniquely
qualified to do they were ambitious but
I wasn’t going to be the best person to
do it I said if I’m going to dedicate
the next twenty plus years of my life to
anything I wanted to fundamentally feel
like I was the best person in the world
to solve said problem yeah and it hit me
seven months later and then would always
from the kind of Peter teal school of
thought he’d always encouraged me to
think of the one thing that you believe
that few people in the world believe and
I had two the first really pertaining
the culture right I had this fundamental
belief that all global cultures led by
American culture which is led by black
culture in the u.s. if you think about
food and music and dance etc and a big
frustration of mine is my living in the
earliest adopting of region in the world
and it’s knowing very little about the
earliest adopting culture that discord
makes zero sense to me and in the second
view of the world that I had pertain to
health and beauty consumer packaged
goods companies I think they’re all
doomed for all types of business model
and structural reasons but you know I
always talk about my experience of going
to these retailers going to some shelf
that has some dirty outdated packaging
that hasn’t been updated for decades
right and it’s a second-class citizen
experience that this community shouldn’t
have right and you loop in Latino and
Asian folks as well you know we’re the
majority the country in twenty thirty
years let alone the majority of the
world and we still have the second-class
citizen experience so I felt that there
was an amazing opportunity to put those
two views of the world together to build
a very special health and beauty
products company focused uniquely under
needs of people of color and leverage
everything that I’ve learned in Silicon
Valley to really reimagine the build-out
of
kind of next-generation consumer
packaged goods company I got some advice
a couple years ago from a marketing
executive and then stuck with me for a
long time and this kind of relates to
personal brand or you know your company
or whatever you said Tristan brand is
not what you say it is it’s what they
say it is right and the minute you
realize that you start to really
understand the importance of the thing
that you’re trying to build right you
know when it comes to like personal
brand like him whether it be a Twitter
Facebook all that stuff like I’m pretty
ridiculous if you’re following me on all
these services like I apologize because
I’m pretty I’m pretty heavy on every
single one of them but it’s only because
I care so much about you know my own
personal story and no one else should be
telling my story right and the thing
that a lot of folks really don’t get
about brand is that sometimes it’s okay
for people to be a jerk if you’re
consistently a jerk that’s cool right if
you’re consistently nice that’s cool
where the problems happen is when you
kind of break from that consistency
right so as long as you understand that
like brand is what you like what other
people say it is that allows you to kind
of manage your own your own right and
like that has stuck with me for a really
really long time and I think as
benefitted not only just me but my
company and every company that I kind of
create from here on I’d love to drill
down on that and I think that’s really
interesting especially we’ve got a room
full of lots of young people who
probably have a primordial brand at this
point right at what age should people
start thinking about their brand is this
something you know when you’re a little
kid you start thinking about this is it
when you get in the professional world
at what point and how do you really
start crafting it well I mean it’s
become different for me right because I
mean things like Twitter didn’t exist
ten years ago right you know now your
brand is public right everyone’s talking
about it
you know might think that people aren’t
talking about you but they probably are
right like they’re haters everywhere
right you know people will care enough
about other people to be able to like
try and bring them down right so as long
as yeah and maybe that’s an inherent
cynicism right about everyone but I
believe it to be true so now we’re in a
world where kind of your life is public
you better take control of it before
someone else does right so you know as
early as you have the ability to control
your own personal brand publicly online
I think you should be doing it thank you
so much for watching I made this video
because Mike P asked me to so if there’s
a famous entrepreneur that you aren’t
going to profile next leave in the
comments below and I’ll see what I can
do I’d also love to know which of
Tristan Walker’s top ten rules hit you
the hardest meant the most to you
leave it in the comments and I’ll join
the discussion thank you so much for
watching you can you to believe and I’ll
see you soon
I had to soak that up for a little bit
and he said Tristan I figured out life
sit down I’m going to tell you how to
live your life you have no idea how much
of a comparative advantage that is
relative there anyone else
I hate Wall Street I want to get as far
away from this place literally and
figuratively as possible but you really
have to like entrench it into the
culture of the organization this is the
way it happens right yeah this is real
life
number one allows you to identify things
before anybody else does now Silicon
Valley like literally everything just
moves way slower but I wasn’t gonna be
the best person to do it brand is not
what you say it is it’s what they say it
is he’s the founder and CEO of Walker &
Company brands he started off as a
volunteer at Foursquare and was its
director of business development two
years later he’s been named Debenhams
100 most powerful people list
he’s Tristen Walker and here in his top
10 rules for success first bit of advice
came from Tyler Perry the famous
director kind of movie producer that
sort of thing right you know about two
years ago I had the good fortune to
interview him one on one in three
different cities around the country
where he got to speak about his
entrepreneurial story to a bunch of
small business owners around the country
and Tyler Perry is like ‘hey you know
did his thing he was homeless for a
while right now he’s like the
highest-paid dude in hollywood right
really fascinating story so you know I’m
interviewing them one on one start the
Q&A one woman raises her hand stands up
she says mr. Perry you know we have to
always go through these different trials
and tribulations as entrepreneurs like
what keeps you going right how do you
get back up and just go right he said
the most profound thing that I had ever
heard he said the minute he realized
that the trials that you go through
right and the blessings you receive are
the exact same thing like that freed him
as an entrepreneur right like just think
about that for a second like it I kind
of stopped the interview because I had
to soak that up for a little bit right
like every single kind of trial
tribulation all that stuff that you go
through it’s just a lesson right and
that lesson is just an inherent blessing
right so as entrepreneurs like this
entrepreneur thing is hard right like at
times it’s a
at times it sucks right and I’ve been
very blessed and fortunate to have
really good opportunities but it’s very
very hard right and you don’t want to
stress yourself out unnecessarily and
what that lesson taught me was that I
didn’t have to be as stressed out right
like I’m going to go through these
issues
they’re just lessons let me treat that
as a blessing we’re going to move right
and a lot of folks look at me when I
start this company like Tristan you’re
way more calm than he should be and it’s
like yeah because I fundamentally
understand this lesson that I learned
when I was at Lehman Brothers and
working in finance
there’s a gentleman his name was Bill
lighten and he was a managing director
african-american most senior guy at the
firm and call me in his office one day
and he said Tristan I figured out life
sit down I’m going to tell you how to
live your life like all right tell me
Bill
he said Tristan you want to spend the
first third of your life learning right
the second third of your life earning
and the last third returning right now
here’s a guy he left Yale when he was 20
he started working on Wall Street the
day he turned 40 he quit he could have
been way more successful a quiet way
more wealth but now he’s dedicating his
entire life to philanthropic efforts
right and the reason he kind of ordered
it in that way he said too many people
try and put the returning thing before
the earning thing which prevents them
from scaling their returning efforts
when I think about my career you know I
say I talk about wealth a little bit
facetiously but you know it’s a means to
that very end right so I think you know
I’ve done the learning thing and I
continue to how do I shorten the earning
thing to maximize my ability to return
and give back to the community if I was
going to dedicate the next ten plus
years of my life to anything I wanted to
fundamentally feel like I was the best
person in the world to solve that
problem right when you look at like a
lot of entrepreneurs that either you’re
inspired by certainly for me that this
one thing about him that was that kind
of carried with each one they had this
unique authenticity to the thing that
they were trying to build right and one
thing that you’ll realize if any you
kind of want to become entrepreneurs
like you have no idea how much of a
comparative advantage that it is
relative to anyone else right there are
a lot of entrepreneurs that are
entrepreneurs for the sake of being
entrepreneurs right but once you have
that authenticity you
it’s very very hard to lose right after
I left University I was working on Wall
Street I was an oil trader on Wall
Street for two years hated it it was the
worst experience of my entire life I was
the victim of bad culture and knew I
wanted to be creative a great one and
when I was growing up I realized I had
one goal in life right and that was to
get as wealthy as possible as quickly as
possible and I realized that there are
three ways that you’re honest about I’m
very real about that there are three
ways to do it the first was to be an
actor an athlete that didn’t work out
for me at all
the second way was the work on Wall
Street hated it and I said damn I’ve
already exhausted two of the three the
last one was entrepreneurship and the
day I came to that realization I said
you know I hate Wall Street I wanna get
as far away from this place literally
and figuratively as possible there’s a
school called Stanford I think it’s well
known for entrepreneurship I didn’t
really know what that meant let me apply
and fortunately I got in and it wasn’t
until literally I got out in August of
2000 or 2008 that I saw other 24 year
olds not only making millions of dollars
but fundamentally changing the world and
I knew I wanted to be a part of that and
kind of the rest is history at that
point so how does the how do I ensure at
least as a company kind of grows and
scales that the vision is kind of passed
on for kind of new employees that’s
right so it also starts with like values
we have for the organization right so we
say here are things that we all agree
are important right we got to be
inspired by our employees we’ve got to
have respect for each other we got to
have the courage to do daring things
right we got a practice good judgment
like wellness is an important thing in
loyalty right now a lot of people always
talk about like all these values that
our companies and they feel fluffy and
all that stuff right but you really have
to like entrench it into the culture of
the organization you know that’s how we
recruit right so you know when we
actually recruit a candidate we will
kind of base our judgment on that
candidate based on those values right
every single new employee that comes in
they’re gonna have to learn those values
like that’s just like one of the very
many types of ways that we do it but you
have to put it in the processes of how
the organization operates the
the hardest job that I have a CEO is
blending or finding the right balance
between like empathy and and realism I
guess what I mean by that is you know I
have a few or a bunch of employees who
work me who haven’t been at startups
this early you know don’t necessarily
kind of understand things break all the
time and that sort of thing but you have
to be empathetic about it because you
don’t want them to give up but you have
to kind of offer a harsh dose of realism
like this is the way it happens right
yeah this is real life so that’s
something that I’ve never had to really
balance before because I was just
playing business yeah right now I’m
playing with folks livelihood right
their children’s health insurance right
yeah um you know I have to think about
things that I would have never thought
so this is the hardest job I’ve ever had
in my entire life right what’s the most
rewarding and one thing that I tell a
lot of folks who come to me and ask me
these questions right like how do I know
which company I want to work for or you
know how do I know what startup to
create I just tell them like look at
their phones right and you’d be amazed
by even on that like first page of your
phone the types of things that you use
that other people do not and you start
to get a very clear picture about like
what’s your most passionate about and
what you have a view on that other
people do not right and the reason why
that’s so important is because number
one allows you to identify things before
anybody else does which allows you to be
introduced to those companies at times
when no one else is trying to compete
for those same roles right and I’ve been
very very lucky to be able to find those
things as a result of that so you know
think about things you already use and
the things that actually make your life
better do you feel like growing up in
projects gave you a certain edge as an
entrepreneur others don’t have yeah yeah
especially in Silicon Valley I feel like
folks just don’t have as much hustle as
I kind of was raised with you know when
I moved out there for the first time it
just felt like everything was moving way
slower right and I think you know the
way that I articulated once I got the
Business School someone told me this
that really stuck with me for a long
time
you said Tristan while a lot of your
classmates are willing to ask why five
times you’re always willing to ask
six times right and that hustle was
really kind of ingrained in me from the
very beginning
so now Silicon Valley like literally
everything just moves way slower and I
don’t know what it is but I think it was
an important part of like Who I am now
as an entrepreneur for sure how did you
get to how did you come to Walker and
company and the bevels planning product
yeah so when I left
Foursquare I joined in recent Horowitz
as an entrepreneur it’s there you know
been Haaretz at the time said comes to
nine months with us to figure out what
you want to do I spent all nine months
there and I spent the first seven months
there wasting their time right just
chasing things that I wasn’t uniquely
qualified to do they were ambitious but
I wasn’t going to be the best person to
do it I said if I’m going to dedicate
the next twenty plus years of my life to
anything I wanted to fundamentally feel
like I was the best person in the world
to solve said problem yeah and it hit me
seven months later and then would always
from the kind of Peter teal school of
thought he’d always encouraged me to
think of the one thing that you believe
that few people in the world believe and
I had two the first really pertaining
the culture right I had this fundamental
belief that all global cultures led by
American culture which is led by black
culture in the u.s. if you think about
food and music and dance etc and a big
frustration of mine is my living in the
earliest adopting of region in the world
and it’s knowing very little about the
earliest adopting culture that discord
makes zero sense to me and in the second
view of the world that I had pertain to
health and beauty consumer packaged
goods companies I think they’re all
doomed for all types of business model
and structural reasons but you know I
always talk about my experience of going
to these retailers going to some shelf
that has some dirty outdated packaging
that hasn’t been updated for decades
right and it’s a second-class citizen
experience that this community shouldn’t
have right and you loop in Latino and
Asian folks as well you know we’re the
majority the country in twenty thirty
years let alone the majority of the
world and we still have the second-class
citizen experience so I felt that there
was an amazing opportunity to put those
two views of the world together to build
a very special health and beauty
products company focused uniquely under
needs of people of color and leverage
everything that I’ve learned in Silicon
Valley to really reimagine the build-out
of
kind of next-generation consumer
packaged goods company I got some advice
a couple years ago from a marketing
executive and then stuck with me for a
long time and this kind of relates to
personal brand or you know your company
or whatever you said Tristan brand is
not what you say it is it’s what they
say it is right and the minute you
realize that you start to really
understand the importance of the thing
that you’re trying to build right you
know when it comes to like personal
brand like him whether it be a Twitter
Facebook all that stuff like I’m pretty
ridiculous if you’re following me on all
these services like I apologize because
I’m pretty I’m pretty heavy on every
single one of them but it’s only because
I care so much about you know my own
personal story and no one else should be
telling my story right and the thing
that a lot of folks really don’t get
about brand is that sometimes it’s okay
for people to be a jerk if you’re
consistently a jerk that’s cool right if
you’re consistently nice that’s cool
where the problems happen is when you
kind of break from that consistency
right so as long as you understand that
like brand is what you like what other
people say it is that allows you to kind
of manage your own your own right and
like that has stuck with me for a really
really long time and I think as
benefitted not only just me but my
company and every company that I kind of
create from here on I’d love to drill
down on that and I think that’s really
interesting especially we’ve got a room
full of lots of young people who
probably have a primordial brand at this
point right at what age should people
start thinking about their brand is this
something you know when you’re a little
kid you start thinking about this is it
when you get in the professional world
at what point and how do you really
start crafting it well I mean it’s
become different for me right because I
mean things like Twitter didn’t exist
ten years ago right you know now your
brand is public right everyone’s talking
about it
you know might think that people aren’t
talking about you but they probably are
right like they’re haters everywhere
right you know people will care enough
about other people to be able to like
try and bring them down right so as long
as yeah and maybe that’s an inherent
cynicism right about everyone but I
believe it to be true so now we’re in a
world where kind of your life is public
you better take control of it before
someone else does right so you know as
early as you have the ability to control
your own personal brand publicly online
I think you should be doing it thank you
so much for watching I made this video
because Mike P asked me to so if there’s
a famous entrepreneur that you aren’t
going to profile next leave in the
comments below and I’ll see what I can
do I’d also love to know which of
Tristan Walker’s top ten rules hit you
the hardest meant the most to you
leave it in the comments and I’ll join
the discussion thank you so much for
watching you can you to believe and I’ll
see you soon
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