E15 Bootstrapping Business Growth With Evan Samet

[00:00:00] Evan Samet: You know, start emailing and, you know, LinkedIn messaging them and just, you know, in a nice way, start her email harassing them till they have to get back to you. And 

[00:00:11] Intro: Welcome to Pipelineology, the Business to Business Podcast for agencies, consultants, coaches, and businesses looking to build a pipeline of hot prospects ready to buy their products and services.

Never wonder where your next client is coming from to learn more about our strategies. Services and for resources on building your sales pipeline. Visit Pipelineology dot com now onto the show. 

[00:00:40] Gary Ruplinger: Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of Pipelineology. I’m your host, Gary Ruplinger, and today I am pleased to be joined by the Vice President of Purchasing and Market Analysis at Key Investment Group, Evan Samet.

Evan, welcome to the show. 

[00:00:58] Evan Samet: Hey, Gary, thanks for having me on. I’ve been, looking forward to coming on for quite a bit and having a conversation with you. 

[00:01:03] Gary Ruplinger: Yeah, my pleasure. I am, I’m excited to have you. And, real quick for everyone listening at home, this is another example of prospecting working. Evan actually reached out to me to come, come on this show.

So if you’re ever wondering, Hey, does this outreach stuff actually work? The answer is, it does. Anyway, sorry for that tangent, Evan. So, I’m excited for our conversation today and, for anybody who’s not familiar with you, could you just share a little bit about your background and, a little bit about your story?

[00:01:34] Evan Samet: Sure. So, I started, my first business when I was 19 years old in my college dorm room at Quinnipiac University. just buying, you know, slowly just buying tickets to, you know, different live events throughout the country of bands and comedians that I found entertaining that I thought, you know, other people would find entertaining as well.

And, and just slowly started building up the business. And in 2018, I sold that business to, someone else who was in the industry on a much larger scale. And since 2018, I’ve been working with Key Investment Group who, you know, we do, you know, very similar along the lines to what I did, starting my company and just on a much, much larger scale.

[00:02:22] Gary Ruplinger: Well, that’s cool. What, what was it that kind of got you interested in the, the ticket, live, the ticket event ticketing in the first place? 

[00:02:30] Evan Samet: So, it’s a couple things. So I’d always been in, in love with live music. you know, my favorite memory is when I was 15 years old. My dad from my birthday took me to go see Bon Jovi and me being from New Jersey, Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen are my guys.

And I just, you know, remember being there and it was just. Wild. It was almost one of those things where I got so excited that, you know, everything in a sense became a blur because I was just over the moon and I’d always wanted to, you know, start a business. And I always thought, what’s better than, you know, starting a business than something that you’re incredibly passionate.

I realized with live music and live entertainment that people were buying albums less where you listen to bands. Even Bon Jovi, for example, the 1980s, you know, slippery went Wet. Appetite for Destruction, guns N Roses, those albums would sell 20, 25 million copies and bands could get by on just selling albums.

But nowadays, you know, back in 2013 and even more prevalent today, you know, there are no music album sales. You know, the top album of the year might sell a million copies. That’s probably only if it’s Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga or something along those lines. So, and then I realized that there was, social media was just becoming bigger, you know, people had a fomo, fear of missing out, and if someone wasn’t at a live event, you got nervous, you know, that you were missing out on the biggest thing.

So I thought combining those three things together, you know, I just said, why not? And let’s go for it. And it was, you know, the smartest thing I’ve ever done. 

[00:04:10] Gary Ruplinger: That’s, that’s kind of a, a, a neat way to get into something. So how, how did you kind of take this starting from nothing and kind of build it into the, the business that it became?

[00:04:24] Evan Samet: So, you know, the most simple story is my friends and I were gonna go to go see a, a show at a club, down by us in New Haven, and I was the one who bought the tickets for everyone, and I paid $10 per ticket. And so I spent $80 and you know, we ended up not going, but the show was sold out because we couldn’t go.

And I found someone who was willing to buy eight tickets for $20. And I go, wow, that was a really good return. And it was kind of easy. So I said, you know what let’s, you know, let’s see what I could buy on a, on a larger scale. And, you know, I started buying tickets. You know, I had, at the time, what was in my account was around $6,000.

I think, you know, being 19 a pro, starting a business at 19 is, you know, you might have a little more risk in you than someone who has a family or, you know, really needs to put food on the table. So I decided just to, you know, slowly for surely just start buying tickets. And at that time, you know, I kind of realized that what other people at college were listening to, and it was this band, Swedish House Mafia who was announcing their final four shows in New York.

I spent all $6,000 and bought, bought tickets to, to go do them. Ended up turning that, you know, $6,000 into around $20,000. And you know, from there everything just, you know, took off. And I really then said, okay, you know, let me learn the business. Because I think one thing that I did at the beginning was smart, was I realized.

Not every return was gonna be that big, kind of like buying a stock before earnings and then it goes up 30% and you go, wow, I’m gonna make 30% on every stock I buy. Well, it’s not necessarily, you know, that easy. you know, so I just started, you know, researching the business and buying tickets a couple at a time.

You know, seeing what worked for me, what didn’t work for me. different ways to kind of find out if artists are gonna be trending up in the right direction. Dip my toe into comedy shows, dip my toe into sports, dip my toe into Broadway, and really just start grinding and starting to learn as much about the business as I can because I really had no, you know, no experience in the field whatsoever.

[00:06:41] Gary Ruplinger: You know, I, I love listening to, you know, people’s origin stories and how they got started, and I’ll, I’ll tell you, one of the commonalities that I pretty much hear every time is that. They, they just went out and do something. I, I don’t ever hear anybody tell me that. Well, you know, I, I wanted to do this for a few years, so I, I, I read, you know, I read books and I took webinars and, and I, I didn’t really take any action.

it, it just magically happened. No, ev everybody, everybody tells me no. I just, I just started doing something and built from there. 

[00:07:14] Evan Samet: You know, it’s very interesting you say that too, because I know there’s debate about, you know, going to college and you know, is college and there was a lot I learned about in college, but there was, you know, no ticket selling 1 0 1 or you know, artists, you know, and I’m sure there’s music 1 0 1, but there was no class that would tell me, you know, how to start this up.

There are things that. They advise you when starting a business, but sometimes the best way to do it is just to just go for it, especially. And you know, I have, you know, my family friends who have kids, you know, 18, 19, 20 years old, like, what should I do? You know, I’m not really getting the same education, you know, not being in the classroom per se.

And I say try to start a business on a small scale because you’ll learn so much from just going for it. I learned so much, not just about ticket selling and live entertainment. I learned a lot about overall business just from starting this business and even something you brought up earlier on the podcast when you just talked about me, you know, wanting to come on the show and reach out and tell my story, you know.

Even reaching out to people. If you have a product that you’re trying to sell or a service that you’re trying to sell, you know, start emailing and you know, LinkedIn messaging them and just, you know, in a nice way start email harassing them till they have to get back to you and, you know, that’s something they might not teach you.

But learning this business, I started reaching out to different people, you know, or different websites or you know, just so many different people in the industry and just trying to reach out to them nonstop until they got back to me. 

[00:08:50] Gary Ruplinger: You know, that’s, it’s, it’s totally kind of the opposite of what you’re taught, especially if you kind of go back to your college days.

I know for me, as somebody who kind of did, you know, I was selling sunglasses from my dorm room mm-hmm. for, for a period in college. And, I got warned multiple times from the, university’s IT department that I couldn’t use my. Email address for business purposes. It was, it was totally against the rules to do anything entrepreneurial in college.

I was, apparently, I was there just to pay them and not, you know, I couldn’t make money until I was done and, and left and left school. Like, you know, it was like, this is so backwards thinking and I’m, I don’t know how much things have changed. I mean, this was 20 years ago, but I still feel like a lot of the thinking is that way.

Is that. You know, no, don’t, no, just wait. Don’t do anything. Don’t take action. You’ll, you’ll learn what you need to do. And then all of a sudden you get out in the real world and realize, holy crap, I gotta hustle. I gotta do something. Yeah. 

[00:09:49] Evan Samet: And I get what you’re saying too, because I, I happened to be very fortunate when I was at school and I studied, you know, entrepreneurship and we had an assignment to kind to start a business.

And I said I was, you know, I went to my teachers and much of my professors and I said, you know what, guys? Like, I’m, you know, I, I, I told you because they would help consult me. I’ve been doing this, you know, I don’t really wanna start something new. I think I’m getting good traction here. And they said, you know, in a total, you know, honest way, let me see what you’re selling, if that’s okay with you.

because they’d been advising me and I showed them my sales and, you know, different markets I was trying to get into. And they said, okay, well if you want an A in the class. These are the sales numbers that you should hit to get an A, and here are the profit margins that you should make. And my grade in a class almost became, you know, how well my business did.

And it was very interesting because at that time I thought I was doing so well and I’m gonna go, wow, you know, this is easy. Ended up just kind of coasting, you know, thinking, wow, you know, kind of like my story about picking a stock. You know, you pick one that goes up 30%, they almost go up 30%. It’s not, you know, it’s not this way.

Ended up not doing well on, you know, that project. And they said, you know, you didn’t hit your numbers, you know, you didn’t go, you weren’t going all out as you were. And just kind of having that support behind me, you know, from, from all different avenues, from family, from friends, from professors, you know, it just kind of pushed me to, to be better.

And the other thing that pushed me to be better was that under these people who advised me. Had given me any outside capital. I never got anything from family. I never asked professors, so they were just able in my mind to give me advice, just wanting to see me do well. So, you know, if you give someone a hundred dollars to do something while you wanna see them do well on the back of your mind, you know, you still wanna get that a hundred dollars back.

And obviously I would’ve asked, you know, for more on a larger scale. But once you owe someone a financial debt. Are they advising you to, you know, see your business do better? Are they advising you to see a quick way to get your money back and not having taken any outside capital? I just felt people were advising me just because they wanted to see me do well, because I was a good guy and, you know, not, not taking that, you know, really, you know, held me to kind of figure things out on my own and not really have any bailout options.

[00:12:18] Gary Ruplinger: No, that’s, it’s a lot, a lot of cool points. So kinda maybe transition a little bit here. I know we’re recording this, it, it’s towards the end of 2020, so, pandemic in full swing type of, moment here. how, how has that kind of affected, the, the live event, market? 

[00:12:41] Evan Samet: Well, you know, it’s, it’s a shame because.

The live entertainment market just got killed. And you know from COVID, I know, you know, from February of 2020 to April of 2020, the company where I work at now, key Investment Group, our sales dropped by 98 to 99%. 

[00:13:03] Gary Ruplinger: Oh 

[00:13:03] Evan Samet: my, you know, in a two month period. And, you know, it was nothing that, you know, there was nothing that we could do about it.

You know, it just kind of hit us, you know, upside the head. There it goes. So, you know, there were other avenues of, of live entertainment, virtual shows, drive-in shows, and you know, they kind of had a spark plug a little bit, which was good, but it wasn’t the real thing, you know, it’s just there was no way to replicate a stadium of 20,000 people and the energy and excitement that you got, or if you think about, you know, a football game, the experience of.

Your team scores a touchdown and you know, you high five the person behind you, you spill a little beer on each other. You know, that excitement couldn’t be felt. I felt virtually. So while, you know, different things were working and we were exploring different avenues at that time, we found that what we do at this company and what I’ve, you know, have grown my skills of is, you know, we’re.

Experts on live entertainment, sorry, on concerts, on musicians, on sports teams, on athletes on Broadway, stars, on comedians. Let’s see how we can make money in the full entertainment business, not just the ticketing business. So can we buy different memorabilia? because when people aren’t coming out, you know, they wanna have cool memorabilia at home, that would remind them, sign guitars.

Sign posters, you know, vintage trading cards with pieces of Jersey, you know, cards with, you know, dirt on them. So how can we get into the collectibles and how can we invest in athletes and, and, and an artist right now that we know down the road, you know, will be more popular. And we see this now, you know, we’re filming this, you know, in November.

You know, right around the time where there’s a second shutdown and, you know, indoor gatherings are being, you know, completely slashed. Outdoor gatherings are going, you know, from capacities of at least where I am in Arlington, Virginia, right outside Washington, dc outdoor gatherings are going from 250 to 25 people.

So, you know, you have to find a way as a business owner right now. If your business isn’t, you know, toilet paper or you know, pelotons or you know, or you know, Wayfair, you know how to kind of, if you’re in a service business, you know, kind of reinvent yourself and how can you become experts in your field?

You know, if you own a gym, you’re an expert in workout and training, so do you know the best equipment? Do you know the best workouts that can be done virtually? Is there, you know, manuals that you can send so you know, when you know there is a shutdown or there’s a reluctance to go from zero to a hundred back into full speed, you know, how can your business still make money and how can you be become multidimensional?

[00:16:04] Gary Ruplinger: No, I think that’s, that’s, that’s fa it’s a, it’s a fascinating thing and I’m sure 25 years from now, it’ll be one of those things you study and you look at and say, how did businesses make that transition? How did they stay alive? And they’ll, they’ll tell stories of the ones that, you know, their business essentially was eliminated, like, like the live events industry.

And they’ll, they’ll tell those. Stories, but right now, living through it is, is not nearly as fun as it will be to say, oh yeah. You know, it’ll be a, an interesting curiosity. Whereas for those of us who, who are living through it, it’s a little more challenging than that. 

[00:16:44] Evan Samet: Yeah, and I, and I think one thing too that I, you know, I wish.

You know, that we could have done a little differently is, you know, sometimes, you know, they say, you know, sometimes people are at their best when their backs are against the wall, and that is completely true for certain people. But at other times, sometimes when you come or coming up with a business out of necessity because your first business has gone down, sometimes you’re not thinking as irrational as you would be.

You know when things are going well. So even if you don’t think your business needs a backup plan today. Right now is a perfect conscious start thinking of other alternative ways that you can make money. So if there is, you know, ever a hit to your current business, you know, while you know, you can pivot to these other businesses and they’re well thought out, and when everyone else is thinking of a way to pivot, you know, you’ve already thought of a way and you’re in a sense ahead of your competition and you thought, which with a much clearer mind.

[00:17:44] Gary Ruplinger: I think that’s a, that’s a really smart thing. So what, what would you say has kind of been maybe your number one or maybe your top three takeaways and, and pivots that you’ve, you’ve had to do, with, with your current role? 

[00:17:59] Evan Samet: Huh. So, you know, the first thing that I learned in, you know, in, in doing this was.

You know, if the opportunity is not there, don’t force it. So, you know, what we tried to do is we said, you know, again, at the beginning, like I explained, you know, we’re a ticket company and you know, so we started saying, okay, well, you know, if tickets to live entertainment sell tickets to virtual shows and to drive in shows, you know, they’ll be just as good.

But you know, we knew that the experience wasn’t the same, so why would the tickets mark up for as much? So, you know, we tried to force so much. You know, into saying we’re tickets, we’re tickets, we’re tickets that, you know, we shouldn’t have been buying tickets and expecting the same result, which I think, you know, was, was our mistake.

The second thing I took, I took away was when things are going well, don’t just keep rotting the rollercoaster. So, you know, everything for us was going so perfectly that I never truly sat back. Thought about, sorry. I never truly sat back and analyzed the business. My best three months in my role and our overall company’s best three months were December, 2020, sorry, December, 2019.

January, 2020. February, 2020. And we were just going, you know, just straight diagonal up. But you know, we could have been doing better. There could have been different avenues or shows. I started buying, you know, tickets to events that only had 5% upside. You know, I could have deployed that capital elsewhere.

So one thing I learned is, you know, always be analyzing your business even when you’re making money, because you could be making more money. If you, you know, maybe shift out of a business that’s making a little bit of money and double down on what your, you know, true gold moneymaker is. And I think the third thing I’ve learned is, hmm, I don’t wanna sound pessimistic here, but never take anything for granted.

You know, and always keep working as if your business is going to get taken away from you. I’ve experienced firsthand my business getting purely, you know, swept under the rug. So when you’re having your successes, celebrate them. You know, if you’re having your failures at a certain time, you know, learn from those two, you know, you know, just kind of soak in the moment and always keep pushing ahead because you’ll never know, you know, when you know something could happen.

And. It could get taken away. I know, you know, today in the news, and this is obviously like on a much larger scale, but that, you know, Amazon announced that they were gonna, you know, start selling prescription medicine and you could start getting your prescriptions from a Amazon, you know, how would CVS and Walgreens ever have assumed that, you know, Amazon will get into the prescription medication business?

And there have been times in the live entertainment business where, you know, a Amazon has, you know, kind of came in and said they’re gonna start getting into the business. And, you know, Amazon should scare everyone. And you know, here are these things where, you know, you start getting nervous, where, you know, just take everything, you know, take, don’t take anything for granted and, you know, be happy and celebrate your successes and you know, because you just never know when it can get taken away from you.

[00:21:29] Gary Ruplinger: No, I think that’s marked as always, be ready for, you know, am Amazon to decide that they wanna come, you know, take over your business. because if, if there’s margin in a business, we know that they’ll, they’ll, they love, they love it. They want to come in and, and own it. exactly. And no, I, I, I saw those headlines earlier too, and yeah, I, I didn’t actually check and see how, CVS and, Walgreens stock has, Has performed today, but I’d imagine, people are, people are getting out pulling outta those quickly. 

[00:22:03] Evan Samet: Yeah. And you know, and as we said, and you know, they obviously have huge departments, but the same way CVS, you know, you, you viewed them as a medicine company and then, you know, you walk into a CVS, you could pick up your prescriptions and, you know.

Buy Listerine, it’s toothbrush, or sorry, toothpaste and shampoo and you know, you can go in and look to spend $5 on a prescription. You know, you just spent $30 on household items. You know, that was kind of their way of, you know, pivoting the business. And now if you don’t, you know, maybe they’re, you know, sales take a hit here, you know, they’re, they’ll still be able to sell other items.

And, you know, especially small businesses who rely. You know, who aren’t able to scale as bigly, as sorry, as large. You know, just keep having other avenues of business in what you’re an expert in. 

[00:22:53] Gary Ruplinger: No, I think that’s smart. because you never, I mean, you never know who’s, I mean, who’s, who’s gunning for you, who’s, who’s coming to take away, you know, your, your primary thing.

What, what else are you gonna do? What, right. It doesn’t matter if it’s COVID or if it’s Amazon or, you know, if it’s Tesla coming for, you know, whoever, you know, there’s, there’s always somebody looking, especially, at least in here in America. It’s like we’re a country of disruptors. And if you’re the old guard.

There’s always somebody looking to, to come for you. I think, I know having worked in automotive at car dealerships, they’re, they’re like the quintessential old guard type of product, you know, type of service where you have to buy your car from a dealership, it’s gonna be a miserable experience. You’d rather have a root canal, but it’s the only way you can do it.

And they, they’ve been surprisingly resilient. Too disruption, but it’s, it’s coming, it’s coming slowly and you’re, but you’re starting to see some of those, those cracks now even in you, you know, what you would assume is an impenetrable, you know, just bureaucracy type of business. But every, everybody’s business is disruptable, I think.

[00:24:05] Evan Samet: Yeah. And I mean, I was just, I was just happened to be reading this book the other day about, you know, about disrupt disruptors and, you know, talked about Gillette. Gillette was the king of razors, you know, for so long. And then, you know, in Cam Doll Shape Club and they said, oh, don’t worry about it.

Don’t worry about it. You know this and I’m sure, you know, some of this car companies kind of felt that way with Carvana. Yeah. You coming in and you know, kind of when you think, you know, when you think you’re just doing well and I’m, you know, I’m sure Gillette and you know, at the time was, you know, still doing well and still having, but they didn’t take time to, you know, sit back and, you know, analyze the business and didn’t take.

Shave Club seriously. And you know, ultimately they paid a price. Now obviously, you know, Gillette’s still doing fine, but I wonder now, you know, they probably say people are, you know, it’d be interesting, you know, to talk about Gillette. You know, people are going out and shaving less because you don’t have to shave every day to go to go, go to work.

You know, people are growing beards, you know, nonstop. You know, does a company like July, you know, get into the beard oil space or, you know. Get into, you know, maybe facial hair grooming, not just, you know, clean shaves. So, you know, it’s every company of every size, no matter what always, you know, should be sitting back and, you know, analyzing their business and analyzing what they’re experts in.

If Gillette, you know, considers themselves experts in facial care, you know what other facial care. Products or missions can they get into? 

[00:25:29] Gary Ruplinger: I think that’s, that’s smart. definitely. This has definitely been a fun, a fun, fascinating conversation. What, what else should I be asking you? What else do you wanna tell people?

[00:25:40] Evan Samet: I mean, I guess you could gimme, the good thing is I’ve been told I could talk all day, so I guess if you, you keep asking them, I’ll just keep answering. 

[00:25:49] Gary Ruplinger: Cool. well I think that’s probably then a, a kind of a good place to kinda wrap this up. if there’s anybody who’s kind of interested in learning more about you, what you guys are up to, where should we point them?

[00:26:02] Evan Samet: I would say the best way to reach out to me is, is on LinkedIn. you can find my first name, Evan, EVAN. Last name Sam, S-A-M-E-T. I’ve been spending a lot of time, more often than ever right now, you know, on LinkedIn just because you know so many people posting different creative. About how they’re operating business, you know, shut down related things that I’ve been actually getting, you know, more inspiration than ever on LinkedIn.

So, you know, that’s the best way to reach me and I would love to, you know, hear, you know, comments or questions or just, you know, reaching out to say hi. 

[00:26:35] Gary Ruplinger: Well, sounds good. We’ll definitely put that in the show notes as well. But everybody check out Evan on, on LinkedIn. Reach out to him, tell him you heard him on the Pipelineology podcast.

And Evan, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you. 

[00:26:48] Evan Samet: Thanks Gary. It really was fun and hope we can talk soon. 

[00:26:52] Gary Ruplinger: Sounds like a plan. 

[00:26:55] Outro: Thanks for listening to the Pipelineology podcast. We hope you enjoyed today’s episode and look forward to seeing you on the next one. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.