Episode 296 | Dave Silver Talks The Rise & Fall of REC, The Philly Creative Scene, His Debut Book, plus more

In this episode of the Faces of the Future Podcast, Co-Founder of REC Dave Silver stopped by the studio for an insightful conversation. He discussed building one of the most impactful brands in Philly, battling burnout as a CEO, the Philly creative scene, his debut book, plus more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My God, is that the faces of the future?

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Dave, what's up, man? How you been?

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Uh I'm doing well, brother. I'm doing well. I'm glad to be here. It's good to reconnect. It's been a minute.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Yeah, it's been a minute, man. What have you been up to since like the last time we spoke? It's been a minute since I've seen you.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yeah. What I've been what have I been up to is a uh is a great question. I'm trying to figure that out myself. Uh the last time we've seen each other was probably while rec was still operating, you know, in late 2025, and it's been a solid seven months and six months since we formally closed Rec. So for me, I've been on a big personal journey to find like who am I as an adult in this world without Rec to my name? Because we've been building Rec since I was 19 years old. You know, it's like all I know of Philadelphia, and it's all I know of my adult lifestyle, is to have a business with big ambition and lots of responsibilities. So what I've been up to lately is just understanding what uh what it looks like to be me in 2026. And uh it's just a beautiful journey to have to ask that ask yourself that question uh after such a beautiful journey and transition. Uh, but actually I've been doing a lot of traveling, just uh exploring the world and challenging myself and doing, you know, whether it's hikes, whether it's just seeing new cities, uh seeing new people around the world locally. It's just nice to have the time to be able to do that after a decade plus of just like intense business building. And um also just being able to explore myself creatively. You know, it's it's hard for me over the last decade to dive too deep in my creative ambitions because I had such a large responsibility to run and grow a business that some of those side projects are hard to make room for. And I finally have the capacity to do that. And it feels really weird, and it's also really uh exhilarating and really uh uh full of joy. And so I've been working on creative projects, I've been exploring, and then also just uh building whatever's next for me in the in the business world and doing a lot of creative productions and playing the role of executive producer uh as much as I can for awesome clients locally and nationally. And I'm excited to keep building on that as those opportunities come up.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, I've been seeing you doing like a lot of production, executive production. I've seen the traveling. I'm I'm jealous of some of the places you live in. But in terms of like the production side, has that always been like part of your DNA? Because I've always known you as like the X's and O's guy, the guy who's running the business, operating that type of thing. Has that always been part of your DNA?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, I would say the production is primarily the DNA that I have uh when it comes to creative and even business, like the X's and O's, what people see me as from a rec standpoint. Definitely folks who probably don't know me, they're like, oh, he's the the business guy behind behind keeping everything moving, which I was, but that's not what fulfills me. I don't think that's even what I'm best at. You know, it starts with Will and I as 19-year-olds both being creative producers in our own right. I loved bringing people together for experiences, I loved producing events. And over the years, as you build a business and the complexities and the stressors and the overhead can really suppress a lot of um the creative side of what I what I loved when I was 19. And uh, because you have to do what you got to do to keep the business going. So over over a decade of being the one to steer the ship and make sure that um you know business operations were on point, people didn't get to see the creative producer side of me as much. But that's always been there. It's always been the thing I loved more than anything when it comes to when it came to business building. And like I said, I'm excited to get back into that bag.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

So when you're at 19 and you guys are starting this thing off, I mean, did you ever foresee that you that would be like your path as the person that kind of you had to shy away from going what you're passionate about and dive into like navigating the business to help you grow things, to help it to help the brand go into what it became at that point in time?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Every day was a different adventure. I had no idea how any of it would go. I just always wanted to take one step forward and do the thing that we loved and the thing that we said we would do. And I never knew I would have to become the business guy, though I probably would have assumed it if you would have asked me, you know, like what roles would I take on as the business would build. I'm you know, I'm I'm fit to take on the business X and O's when need be. Uh and you do what you got to do to get your dreams, your goals, the brand, the business to where you need it to go. You can just always hope that at some point the business becomes sustainable enough where you can get into the your bag of the things that bring you joy and you can delegate things to where the stuff you don't want to do, other people will want to do. And that's where you hope to grow the business. And I was blessed to get there for some brief moments in our journey. Majority of the time, I always had to play roles that I didn't think I was best suited for, but needed to do because that's what the business needed, and I was happy to do it while it was happening.

unknown 5:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Was there ever like a little tug and pull like when it came to like, hey, I want to maybe step out and try to do some executive produce, but I know the business needs me here? Like, was there ever like that mindset was like, hey, I want to maybe try this out because there's a big project going on, or I just know I have to do this, so I'm staying in this position because I know I have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

I would say generally no. I knew the role that needed to be played and would play it. And that allowed me to be sometimes a creative producer. I was definitely definitely had my my moments throughout the the journey. Uh it just became the balance changed depending on what season we were in as a business. Like how much do I can only do the business stuff? How much can I get to be a little creative? That that ebbed and flowed over time. And um those caused some really beautiful moments. But when the balance is off, is when you really got to grind and get through. And sometimes that balance is off for so long that you kind of forget those times where you could be creative. And uh, so that happened a lot.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

For sure. And before we get into like the journey of actually you guys growing the business and all that type of things, um, what were you doing prior to that? Like, what's your background? Like, what were you doing before before you and Will founded this this big company in the city? Like, what was Dave Silver running around doing?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, again, we started this journey at 19. It wasn't rec until I maybe was 24, 25. Okay. Uh the journey at 19 was was uh how do I describe this? I was producing events when I was 19, 20, 21. I turned my basement into a concert venue, uh, which would turn into the first LLC of our business by like throwing shows in our basement uh on Temple's campus. Like, so what what was I doing before rec? I was throwing shows, uh, I was uh staffing parties that were happening. And that was my college career, was really making sure that these social, like producing these social experiences, uh, which I turned into a business, which eventually led to throwing a lot of showcases, meeting a lot of musicians, and then launching rec. There's a whole story there, but that was a quick journey. Um otherwise, you know, growing up, you know, Will and I known each other since high school. We were best friends since like 11th grade. So 11th and 12th grade, Dave and Will were shooting videos, uh, both like writing scripts and shooting like music videos for our musician friends, uh, shooting random videos for the school. We were like the the A V guys. So I've always been in that that um that creative lane all through high school. And then once I moved to college, it was those events and those experiences. Um but yeah, that was that was me.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, so it's always been it's always it's always been you from jump, it seems like. I mean, yeah. When you got to college, like how'd you know there was, I guess, I call it like a gap. That's what people needed. Because I I always feel like successful businesses or companies, they feel like a need that the people the people want or the people are missing. And I feel like you guys filled that gap in the city. How'd you know like that was the thing that was gonna kind of take off?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

You know, you don't know it's gonna take off. You you you solve for the problem that you need, and that was us when we were 19. You know, Will and I, our buddy Lionzo, a couple other friends, you know, we had a dream to be full-time creatives. Like we wanted to do our creative passions, and we wanted to find a way to build like an empire around it. You know, we in high school we watch Entourage and we see Vinny Chase and his team, and everyone's picking a character who you want to play, and like, oh, one day we are gonna create that empire ourselves for whatever that is. That was 19-year-old Dave and Will and friends and Leonzo. So we knew it was challenging to create. Let me say that. We knew it was challenging to get access to opportunities for this to feel like it was a real opportunity to be full-time creatives. Leonzo as an artist, like trying to find stages for him to perform, and like what do we do with this content after we've we've made it? Uh, you know, it was really early in social media days when we were doing that. And it just seemed like if we wanted to really have a good chance at being full-time creatives, we either had to leave the city. It's a very normal story that you hear about moving to LA, moving to Miami, moving to New York, uh, because that's where that's where the industry is, that's where the opportunities are. We we knew that narrative as well. We could see that narrative happening from Philadelphia artists leaving. We were we would contemplate if we need to do that too, or maybe we create those opportunities that we're missing. And that was the beginning of us creating uh music showcases and and really taking production into our own hands and and building spaces that we needed. So we never knew it was we didn't have the business model when we started, but we built it around a problem that we had. The business model starts forming when a lot of folks start reaching out and they say, Can we use your space too? When's your next show? We need performance opportunities as well. Can you produce this video for me? Do you know the right person for this? It's like, oh, this is all really just one network. You start realizing that over time. And as you start building partnerships with that network and you now can connect dots, you realize how how much you can help people that are in this community. And that was kind of what was happening very organically as we were doing it for ourselves, and then the community was getting built around the fact that we were solving this problem for ourselves, the other people clearly had. Business model, you know, from 19, there was no business model until 25. For six years, it's just let's solve our own problem. And then as it's as you start realizing, okay, what's my career gonna look like, it's like, how do I start turning this these solutions into a business model? You're just throwing a lot of a lot of things out, and that's what and that's how it starts.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Why do you why do you think um a lot of creatives or artists or even like executives that are in the creative industry think they need to leave? Because like when you look at say the music industry, there's so many people that are high level, whether it's um uh an executive in the music industry or or a high-performing artist, they come from the city of Philadelphia. So why do you feel as though people think they have to leave the city when there's so much here in the city?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

There is a lot here in the city, and I'm I'm pretty confident you don't need to permanently leave the city. Um I think as an artist, you need to go other places. It doesn't mean leave a city, but it's all about rooms. It's all about rooms. Who's in those rooms? What opportunities are being talked about in those rooms, and are you in those rooms? Or do you have your network in those rooms who can speak highly of you when you're not in those rooms? Those rooms are in Philadelphia, no doubt. But there's more activity in those other places, and that's probably a fact. Uh every night, how many rooms are there with opportunity flowing for the creative community? I think that's really what it is. That that's like a taste that's like a little bit of industry, like how how much how many industry players are in those towns, how many industry events are happening. That's factually, again, probably happening more out of Philadelphia and in those major cities that we talk about, but it happens in Philadelphia too. You just gotta be putting yourself out there, asking the right questions, not being scared to ask people where things are going, etc.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Right. And so to stay on that point, like Philadelphia, like we're I feel like we're a good hub. Like you have DC below us, New York's right there, traveling back and forth. How does Philadelphia become one of those places with high traffic, high volume, those rooms that are that are have the activity that you're speaking of?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

You know, there's I don't know if there's a s an answer to that. Like Philadelphia is doing a good job and it just might always do a good job of of doing it, and LA and New York might always have more activity. We might never match how much activity. It's just the size of the cities, it's the it's the money in those cities. So there might never be a like, can we catch up to that activity? But the quality of the rooms, you can see our homegrown talent and watching them curate opportunities for those rooms to be bigger and bolder. Um, you know, when you see the roots growing here in the city and they create a couple of events leading up to it and people are coming to the city. I mean, that's how you do it. It's it's it's like homegrown initiatives. Whether it's Tierra Wack having her album release at the African American Museum, and like that's a room if you're in a creative that you should you should want to be in. You want to you should be supporting someone who's doing something like that, but they're also going to continue creating rooms that the our folks should be in because that's where opportunities come. When you're knocking into Tierra's manager, that's a person you want to know. That doesn't happen when you're sitting on your couch. So it's all about, to me, again, activity. It's an act activities happening in the cities. Um, I don't know if we'll ever match the the qual the quantity of the events happening, but I think our city has an opportunity with so many amazing. I brought up Tiara because she's an amazing curator of bringing people together. And there's so many other folks, the wallows of the world, and I can list them all, that are can produce rooms. The brand and pankies of the of the Roots Picnic, these folks that are here located representing Philadelphia, they just keep curating and they're doing it. And I think I think we are growing in a lot of ways. Um, it just has to be more of it. Folks who want to create rooms, which create opportunities. Um, yeah, I think it's happening.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

So so you're 19, you you and all your you and all your buddies, you guys are building this this big event company, you guys are building this brand with shows. So, what age is it when you're like, oh, we need to actually get our own space where people can come in and I guess be with us, um, create with us outside of just the one-off events that you guys are doing around Temple's campus, that type of thing. When does that come in?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, this is post-college now, and we've taken our shows from the the basement to dive bars and venues around the city that are almost all not open anymore. Arts Garage, Voltage Lounge, North Star Bar, Goldilocks Gallery. These were our staple places of events. None of them exist anymore. But we were we took it out into the city Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, every week, four different venues, showcases. We were really uh producing and curating experiences. And at some point, it's like, where are we taking this? Are we trying to compete with like live nation by being event producers? And also it starts getting serious when like we're working full-time jobs out of college and realize like if we're ever gonna do something, we gotta go all in. So that's where the rubber started meeting the road, where you know, we're 20 between 22 and 24, where it's like we keep we're doing these shows, but we don't know what the end is to all of this. And we also need to start figuring out what business should we be in that's gonna allow us to produce revenue so we can leave our jobs and do this thing for real. So there was like that collision course happening around that 23, 24, 25-year-old Will and Dave. You know, we're kind of both on the same course, finishing college, doing this. Will and I were collaborating with Broad Street Music Group as well, throwing those shows, and also having full-time jobs, which I'd always advise when you're a startup entrepreneur, because it takes a while to produce revenue, even more to produce profit, and it costs a lot. And the worst thing you want to do is try to build something really special with no resources. So I'd always advise on having income coming in. So more power to a full-time job. People sometimes are like embarrassed that they have a full-time job when they're trying to be an aspiring, creative entrepreneur. It's like, no, get your money and invest it in your in your passion and uh with a clear plan. So um that was kind of the collision course. Us trying to leave our full-time jobs, us realizing that events are only gonna go so far. What's the business model that's gonna set us up that we where we can jump out of the jobs, give ourselves a little bit of time, and know that we'll start producing some revenue.

unknown 18:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Was that was that like nerve-wracking at all? Knowing that you're gonna leave your nine to five, something that's secure, you went to school for whatever it may be, and now we're just jumping in, we're starting our own business from the ground up, and we want to just go, like you said, full throttle at give it 100%. Like, what was that, I guess, decision like? All right, this is the time we need to do it, as opposed to all, we're just gonna see where it goes and stay in this job, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

It's one of the most critical and heart-wrenching decisions that you make on the journey is like, when do I make the leap? I think we all ask ourselves that, when can I make the leap? Will left the job before me, and I remember there was some pressure like a couple months after Will left. He's like, When are you leaving? I was like, dude, you I didn't tell you to leave, you kind of went. It was like a little warning. Yeah. And um, I remember we had a couple of con we were living together after after school, like building the business in our basement in South Philly, and uh I remember us having some hard conversations about that timeline. Eventually, it was only like probably three to six months after I got laid off for my full-time job. It was a really big moment for me. I worked for like a larger company, they were going public, they were kind of like cutting their lower end employees. I was at the very bottom of the totem pole because I was trying to build a side business. Right. I didn't want no corporate job, but I had one, it was great. And I got laid off. And I'll never forget the day that one, just getting laid off. I'm like, oh shit. Like, it's not something I'm I'm used to. And that was just a that was just an interesting feeling to get laid off from the only full-time job I ever had. And then I go outside and I sit on a bench, I'm at 16th in Cherry in Center City, and I call my mom and I'm like, hey mom, just letting you know I got laid off. And yeah, she's she's doing the typical mom thing, oh, you know, you'll find something new, all good. Um I'm like, you know what? I'm not gonna find something new. I think this is the time. I think this is when I I pursue this thing I've been building since I was 19 and and really try to go all at go all in on it. And I think talk about me being nervous, my mom was way more nervous than I was, uh, but she's always supported me as you know for every decision that I've made. And that's been a main reason why I've been able to do it, is from that kind of support. And uh yeah, I remember sitting on that bench just like feeling really good about that, even though I didn't know exactly what our business model was for rec. Like we weren't ready for it, that's why we didn't do it yet. But sometimes you're never really fully ready for it, and you do need to make that leap. And I will say, I made that leap because I had a both Will and I had a little bit of runway. It's like, cool, we're leaving our jobs, we saved a little bit, we have a little bit of time. I think I saved for maybe like six months to figure it out. You know, it ended up taking us like three years to figure it out, and that caused a lot of challenges back to the starving entrepreneur. I that I that I say try to stay away from. I became that, even though I had the full-time job and it gave me enough to get to the six months. Both Will and I really became that prototypical, like they're grinding and they don't they're not making any money, but you but we were creating a brand at that time. Like that's where Rex started to become bigger in the community, was when Will and I both left the job. We were making no money, but we were grinding to be producing activity. We were we were doing bigger shows, booking bigger artists, creating more media. And that's when I think you you asked, when does space come into play? While we're just producing this activity. Will's like living in the warehouse that the studio's in. Um, like with I'm living with four dudes in like a small little apartment, eating pasta for with no butter because we only had boxes of pasta for dinner. Very typical story of a starving, starving entrepreneur. But I remember Will calling me one day. You know, we're 24 ish, really grinding, not not bringing in any dough yet. Uh hey Dave, like what do you think about space? He's like, he's you know, the actual call was Dave, and I say this in other interviews, it's like, Dave, are you ready to make are you ready to be a millionaire? Regis filming, like why's calling me right now? And he's like, space. Because we've been renting space, we've been booking studio space, we've been needing studio space for making music and making videos and things. And he's like, space could be our business model. And that was the beginning of our ninth in Dolphin space. He kind of located a room in the building that we've been renting for music studio sessions. And I come over and check it out, and it's like the small little warehouse room, and that small little warehouse room over five years carried the the blood and sweat of building rec. Uh, going from that one little room on the fourth floor to pretty much running the whole fourth floor and proving that that model could be what we turned it into at Ninth and Market.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Definitely. And before we get into the evolution of that, talk about the that period, that three-year period. You know, I feel like entrepreneurs, you know, social media is big enough. People want to skip those steps. People kind of want to go from just launching to, oh, we're making Rev, whatever it may be. Talk about how important it is to almost go through that stage because you're learning, you're figuring out what works, what doesn't work, you're the grit that comes into it. What was that like full experience like?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

My experience was hard. Uh I don't regret any part of that experience. It made me who I who I am. It made us made us the company that we were. Uh it was when you look back on it, it's like the best times. There's no rules. There was really no, there wasn't really any like salary to have to fight about. It was just like, yeah, we're all gonna do this and we're down to do it for free because we understand what the vision is. Those are some really amazing times. They were the hardest, they weren't the hardest times. I had a lot harder times, but they were they were challenging times. And it makes you who you are. More importantly, it allows you to get through the bigger things later on. Because you start experiencing some pretty high pressure moments when the when the business is really humming. And the moments in the warehouse that were really stressful, and we really worked so hard for so little allowed me to have the the mindset to deal with the harder problems later on, much more calmly, and just with that experience. It's not good to never experience challenge and struggle, and then you're like in the big leagues and you get it for the first time, it will break you. Right. And I think I built up enough getting punched in the stomach, having some really hard days. Um felt like nothing could break me.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

That makes sense. That makes sense. And and I and I and I and I applaud that because like someone that's as myself, someone trying to build something as well, and then I hear stories like that, it's kind of it's encouraging because it's like, yo, you have someone who built like one of the biggest brands in the city, and they went through same of the same struggles, similar struggles when it comes to trying to build something. It's like it's possible. So I mean, I credit you guys for for making it through that.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

You're in a lot nicer space than we had when we were in our our studio space. This is this is I wish we could have had a quality production like this. Um so you're already on your way. It's just about plotting, it's about plotting it out, right? And not being scared to take the risks that require to get to the next move.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah. So when you start with one room and then scale to the whole floor, how does that work? What is that like? What are those conversations like? How do you know when you want to do it? Because you said like starting off, you're not really making revenue like that, but how do you know when to scale as an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Speaking specifically about the warehouse, we started with one or two rooms. And I'm trying to remember the first room. Yeah, it was like a pre-built studio room, I believe. Forgetting the order of the rooms we were in. But all I'll say is when we realized how to create a revenue stream, I wouldn't say a business model yet, but we were able to create a revenue stream from having space. Then it was okay, before we do anything else, let's get the revenue stream in a place where it can be enough so we can grow the business. So whether that was initially just, all right, we have a studio space, so let's sell hourly studio time. But what happened, and we might have done that uh for a little bit, and maybe that helped us kind of pay the rent or something like that. But when we realized that we could create the membership that we had, so we have people come into the space, they're coming often to the space, they seem to find value in the space. The membership allowed us to have predictable revenue from a certain amount of uh clients, customers. So in the one room, we had 16 members paying whatever it was, 50 bucks a month. Okay, well, that's allowing us to pay our rent and have $100 more a month. So let's do that for three months and use that $300 to put a down payment on the second room. And let's try to get that 16 members to 30 members. Small steps, small goals. Now we have 40 members paying $50 a month. We're making $2,000 a month in membership fees. That allows us to get that fourth room, and we can invest in the resources in that fourth room. Let's get 40 to 100. That's slow scale, that's methodical. It's understanding I have a revenue stream. Let me not try to do a million things right now. I have I've I've been throwing stuff at the wall, and finally, a revenue stream has stuck. That is the membership. Cool. We see that we can get 15 people, $50 a month in order for us to grow our space, invest in more tools. So let's kind of get that down. Why will we why would we be valuable to from to get from 15 to 50 members? We need to just tell people why we are valuable to do it, why it's a good rate, why you should trust it. And that little pocket is a great activity to do to understand how you want to scale, how big you should go. So that was just the warehouse scale, and I'll leave it at that. Um the question about just scaling in general is a very sensitive topic to me. Um for a lot of different reasons. My ambition to scale our business ultimately led us to fail and have to close our business. Um I say that with a lot of asterisk, but I'll just for now I'll say like my ambition and our ambition to scale the business was end up ended up being uh a big fall. Because when you're focused on scale, scaling is a distraction from your general business model. It's a good distraction. Because when you're thinking about scale, you're not thinking about the main thing, you're thinking about that thing over there, which is fine if the if the main thing is running well without your full attention. When I, as a younger entrepreneur, and it was coming coming out of the pandemic, this is where it started happening because I became impatient. I was I was not patient with the timeline because of COVID. I'm like, I want to grow. We've always wanted to get from Philadelphia to cities all around the world. And I didn't take enough time to be able to be honest about how secure our foundation of a business was before I started looking over here. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs make that mistake where it becomes flashy over here, and the main thing you really you should really get this down, this main, whatever that main revenue stream is, whatever that main business model is, you need to be able to poke it from like every direction to make sure it's not gonna break when you take your eye off of it. And that's a hard lesson I learned. I would like to think I knew it already, uh, but I I really got dazzled with what was happening over here. And I think a lot of us get distracted by shiny objects.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

So when you think about scale, I I would I would not hesitate, but I would be slow about it and check your ego at the door when it comes to scale. Like, why are you scaling? You know, 25-year-old Dave wanted the headlines that we were the biggest business in in the city, in the region, in the country, wanted to build the biggest business in the world. Yes, for impact, but I also like the ego-desired headlines. And after going through that full experience, I can I can say that and be okay with with that. Uh because we all get lost in, you know, I was perception. I want I want to be seen that I am building the biggest business. And I don't care how I get there, I'm just gonna race to get there because I see others are are getting there as well. That was um it's not a it's it's a I can say it's a mistake that was made. Um and it's it's great to make mistakes as an entrepreneur. That's how you grow. And that's how I feel like I've grown now. Like someone says the words, the word scale to me now, and I get a little queasy because it's like, I don't scale. I I want simple, I want sustainable, um, I want joy. And scale sometimes does not bring that, at least for a little while. And for me, I was and for me now, I'm I'm I'm no longer willing to like push that off, right? Because we want to scale, you really got to lock in, you gotta grind, you lose, you have to sacrifice opportunities, which I recommend everyone do at some point in their journey. I think I did that already, and I might do it again in the future, but for right now, I'm not willing to sacrifice those things. And I want to live a life of of simplicity and and uh and I when I say simplicity, it doesn't mean necessarily to live a simple life, but I don't want to add complex things to my life. That's what I mean. So I want to travel and I want to see the world. I want to do great production work and add great value, but I don't want to create all these systems that make my life stressful, which often have to happen to scale. Definitely a business of like brick and mortar. Yeah, but it's different scale in different ways. Technology companies and AI, you can do things so fast without all that, and that's great. Go for it and do it. Um, it's just a different perspective.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Right. And you you touched on the pandemic and seeing how that kind of like sped up your course, or in your mind, you want to kind of like get to the scaling options. So, what was it about that that made you kind of like trigger that emotion that I need to get here?

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Well, the goal was always to get there. Um and we raised money on a timeline on how quick we would get there. You know, so once you bring investors into the into the picture, you're now not just doing it for you and and your best friend that started the business and and all the homies that helped get you there. You have people's money that you're now responsible for. And so when we raised in 2019 to open up Racket Ninth and Market, we raised on a timeline. Like we're gonna be in X amount of cities and at X amount of time. And the pandemic just threw that all off immediately. We were three months open ninth and market. We went through all the fundraising, all the construction, all the trials and tribulations to open up a beautiful facility in center city, and then a ton of momentum after opening, achieved all the goals and more that we were hoping for, and then the pandemic comes and shuts us down for a year and a half. And I'll save you all the stories inside of the pandemic, but coming out of the pandemic, it's like yes, I all the investors would understand that the pandemic happened, so like maybe we're moving our scale plan two years later. But I just never really I just didn't really accept that. I came out of the pandemic, I'm like, look, we still open this thing, we survived the pandemic now. Let's let's see what our opportunities are to grow this thing. Three months before the pandemic was our only sample size, and it wasn't enough of a sample size to really and truly do the scale thing. And I personally just lied to myself that it was enough. And just because we survived the pandemic, it was enough to show that we can just go scale and we'll solve the problems along the way.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

That makes sense. Yeah. And then when it comes to the investor part, like what's it like trying to raise money? Like going around to like different people to I guess entrust you with their money and also build your business at the same time. Because you said it's a lot of complex things. I feel like that's complex in itself before you even get to all right, here's what we're gonna do with your money. How do you get the funding as an entrepreneur from people on the outside?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Um fundraising is a raising money is a full-time job. And you don't know that until you're in it. And it's another distraction, good distraction, but it takes you away from running your business. I didn't realize how much time it would take, and I've never done it before. And I didn't even know what to put in a deck, I didn't know how to talk about return on investment, I didn't know how to structure the deal, equity and notes, and all the different words that I was not familiar with. So I came into it with a lot of naivety on what does it mean to raise money? And I learned along the way. As everything else in this business, I just had to learn along the way. I had no background other than event production to grow this business. And it's probably one of the hardest tasks that I had to take on. One of the hardest responsibilities was the fundraising part. It just comes with a ton of rejection. No matter how good you are or how great your product is, it's gonna come with rejection. And for Rec being such a unique idea to a random investor, it took even more rejection than probably your average pitch of a, hey, I have a product and this is what I'm trying to create. We had this space and this community with an idea to grow it further. And it was still early on in like resource the resource sharing economy, and even in the creator economy, people didn't understand what it meant to like share resources, definitely in the creative world. And to just summarize the investment journey, um, it was a hundred no's before the first yes. Um, and it's not really exaggeratory, it's like that's real. And primarily it was because I didn't have the right structure of what I was offering. When we first went out to raise funds, raise investment funds, I was asked, I was giving people a pitch deck, and the way in which I was going to return them money for their investment was wrong. It wasn't the right strategy for what we were building. And I just didn't know that. I got advice from one person, I put it in the deck, I'm like, cool. I didn't have Claude to ask, you know, what's the best way to do this? I can't even imagine trying to build rec with Claude. Yeah, that'd be a whole different thing. Incredible and save a lot of money and time. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Uh I didn't even think about that. Yeah, Claude, Claude and Chat GP, all that hadn't even been out yet.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Not even close. Not even close. Spent 15 years with this business without any of that. Yeah, um, which is crazy. Um hundred no's to get the first yes, and then yeah, the hundred no's were really because of the of what I was really offering as the deal. And that's just things I had to learn. It's something you have to learn when you're looking to raise funds is what's the best return on investment that makes sense? Is it uh I can throw out terms that people may or may not know, but like distributed cash flow versus a liquidity event. Like, do you want to just be giving your investors profits every month or every year? Or do your investors want you to save those profits to reinvest in the business to get to a big event where you buy or sell your business out? You know, those different ways to pitch what's gonna happen. So I had to learn that in the warfare of raising funds. And I eventually had one investor who was really, he was really interested in in just like Will and I as like investing in us. Um we had a long history and I and I really trusted him. He was a successful entrepreneur in his own right. And he said, if you change your investment model to this, I will invest that. I was like, oh shit, okay, I'll do that because I'm not getting any traction over here, and I kind of like what you're saying better than the other thing. So you just you're just you gotta be educated when it comes to raising investment funds. You need to educate yourself on what's best for you, what is the best offering. And you know, after we got the first yes after a hundred no's you start building momentum and still got plenty of no's after that. You know, I fundraised like three or four separate times, and I've heard no five hundred times just in the investment world. Um, but investment took me totally away from the business. It's a part of like a soul-sucking activity that uh removed when I when I talk about I was suppressed creatively and why I'm so excited to be creative now. The investment part was definitely one of the most soul-sucking experiences. Really? Um, just because you're consistently pitching, researching, pitching, rejected. It's hard to be like creative and positive, you're just getting rejected four or five times a day. I had meetings lined up, investment meetings, probably 12 or 12 investment meetings in one day, 30-minute investment, pitching the same thing over and over and over again, just to either on the live Zoom call or over email just to be rejected. Like my full days were for pitching and to be rejected.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I can only imagine what that does like the e we talked about ego before, like what that does with someone's ego, especially like you said, the creative aspect of now you're stepping away from the thing that you've built just to you said the scale, the scale thing you're not really focused on what drives you on a day-to-day basis. I mean, how does that affect you as a founder, just as a as someone who is in charge of running a business? Like, does that make you not want to come to work every day? Does that make you think about like this really one I continue to do? Like, does it make you want to alter your position within the organization? Like, what was going through your mind during that time?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

You know, I'm a determined motherfucker. Yeah, you know, that's one of my best character qualities of growing this business. I'm very determined. Uh, whatever I'm like tasked to do and like responsible for doing, like, I'm ready to put in that work. And I was also very excited about what we were building. I really believed in it. I loved our team, and I was willing to go to war for like whatever was necessary to go to build this business. I was willing to get rejected as much as I needed to, and I was willing to get burnt out as much as I needed to. And um, you know, I wouldn't advise all of that, uh, but I don't regret any of it. Right. And um it's tough. It's uh leads to a lot of burnout. Uh it's hard to have a lot of energy, you know, post-work when you have days like that and weeks like that. Um, so I gotta have good people around you. You know, I was really grateful I had Ryan who like I lived with during the investment time, and he was such a great partner. It was me, Will, and Ryan really like running ship while things were really picking up at ninth in market. And just like living with Ryan to be able to like, it's weird because like you would think there's like that's not a good place to balance. Like, all right, y'all are you all just like got rejected all day and then you went home and like we're in the same kitchen together. Yeah, but there was something about our dynamic that really worked for us. We were just really good, just good partners. Um and we're willing to say the hard things and we're willing to be like, yo, like let's just play some FIFA and like not deal with this right now. Yeah. Um so it's about the people around you to get you through it. If you're doing it on a solo journey, it's really tough. I don't even have experience on doing it as a solo journey, but I can't can't imagine.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

But once you're passionate about it, you're willing to do those things. You got to believe in it. You gotta really see that it's worth it. A lot of people are like on the edge if like they think it's worth it. Yeah. And um yeah, that's something I think about a lot. Like, what does it mean for something to be worth it, to be able to do, to be able to go through that? Everyone says, like, if it's all it's worth it for you. It's like, all right, well, how am I measuring that?

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

I mean, how did you measure it when it came to that? Was it just like the relationships you build? Like Kanye said the dynamic that you talked about of just going home, you guys can kick it on Fife after having a long, like bad day. Like, what what was that?

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah. You know, the at the highest of levels to understand like this is worth doing is because you're aligned on the vision, like the biggest, biggest, scariest version of the vision. You're like, hell yeah. Like I can see that, I can see it both being a good business, I can see it being a great social impact business, I can see lives being changed, and I can be the one to knock a lot of those doors down and create that opportunity. I was really fired up about that. And I wanted to be that person uh to create all of those things. Um when I reflect on like are things worth it, I think it's important to be fully bought into that long-term vision. But you can't just only have that and then just like be on the track for that the whole time. Because it that takes too long to get there, and there's too many pivots and failures along the way. So you need to be able to create These milestones in your own journey. Like I like to think of six month milestones. And that's where I can decide, or at least I can evaluate if this is worth it. Because to wait till the end to figure out if it's worth it is very dangerous. Because often you'll get there and you'll realize it wasn't. It wasn't what you thought it would be. But to just evaluate on like a however you it could be a daily, weekly, six months, a year, where you're like, okay, let me pick my head up for a second and let me understand how far I'm progressing. Am I reaching my goals? Do I enjoy this process? And a lot of us don't want to have that conversation with ourselves because of ego. And because, hey, we said we were gonna do something, so I don't care how hard it is, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do it until I I get there, which is good. It's not great. I think great is the ability to pick your head up along the journey and just make sure that you're still that same person. For me, it would have been good to pick my head, I didn't really pick my head up through the journey. Um I had beautiful moments and I loved our journey. Um so there's just to say that, but um, that's how you to me how you figure out if it's worth it. It's like you pick your head up along the way, where am I? And you might pick your head up and be like, I'm not in a good spot. That doesn't mean quit and and change, but that's a good uh that's a good data point for when you do it again six months later. Right. It's like how many times am I gonna pick my head up and this not be worth it?

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Yeah. So so I'm thinking because like you guys had such a big like impact within the city, the community that you built, you know how you say you just like you weren't really picking your head up? Did you feel that impact that you were making as opposed to just like you're just doing making sure you got the task done every single day?

SPEAKER_00 45:52

When you're a burnout, you don't feel those things. And it did I didn't realize that until I could reflect on it. But some of our biggest impactful moments felt like nothing, which is not a good place to be. We do this to feel, you know, and I remember countless experiences through our warehouse days where I was so proud where of like other people and myself, but like just to be able to look and be like, wow, we build a platform, this person's shining on this platform. Like I watched that person grow through that and look at them do their thing. Or a big brand would come in and be like, look at the connections happening because we've been able to foster a big brand into our community. Lives are going to change from this. I could feel it, I could visualize it, I saw it afterwards, I cared to look to see like how it went. But as things got harder and more complex, the big moments continued to happen and the feelings of those moments depleted for sure. Uh and I realized that definitely after the fact. But um, I think I wrote it in my book, which was like burnout feels like success that feels nothing. Yeah, something like that. Where it's like success is happening and you feel nothing. And that happened for us when we landed our really large investor in 2022-ish, and we were popping champagne bottles with our team, like 20 of us champagne bottles, like we're we're gonna do it. We finally did it. And I remember like not really feeling anything.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

It's an interesting place to be in. Yeah, I can't imagine that. Like, especially like just hearing like the journey that you took that you've had from 19 to just that say 2022 when you got that big time investment, you're like, we're about to expand, we're about to go to a new city, all of that, not to feel anything. Yeah, can imagine that being in a place like that. Because it's like almost like everything you work for, but you don't even feel you don't even feel that at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Yeah, and you know, you don't know it, you don't notice it. And that's again, ego sometimes will will win a battle of like ego versus presence, like definitely was not present in those moments because I was just so determined. I had my head down and I was just going through the ringer to make it happen. And so like I enjoyed those moments as a memory. Yeah. And I loved being with my people when those things were happening because those moments did mean something, it meant it meant runway, it meant growth, it meant opportunity. Um but the work to get there can really can really burn you out.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Yeah. How did you because a big part of of Rec and a big part of like what made you guys who you were was not just the head guys was like you, um Ryan, Will, it's also the staff. Like, how do you how did you how do you guys source and pick the people that make the company go the way it does? Because like that was a big part of why I liked going there. It's because like seeing you guys, then also just seeing like the staff like Scarlet, all of them. Like, how do you guys choose who's right for a team building a company?

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Staff's the best part. Yeah, it was the reason why it truly, truly, truly kept me going. Um, it was a bit of the staff and it was a bit of like the member growth. Yeah, it really kept me growing through the harder times. And I don't like to think that we picked them. I really think that they picked us. Um, you know, and in the way, in the funny way the world works that brings us to each other. Um, I think they understood the vision and took chose to spend their time with us. We weren't offering the biggest compensation packages uh or maybe the best benefits, uh, but we all understood the impact. And folks that understood the impact, I think we it was like a like a gravitational pool to each other. And I think that's how it was. And you know, the only time you ever choose someone is when you're going through interview processes and you're choosing between candidates. But like honestly, like we had some great team members come from that, but like the heart and soul of building rec did not come through that. It came through folks who were like down with it and were there. Yeah, I didn't wasn't choosing anything. I was like, Oh, you're here, and I fuck with you, and like we we can do this, and like it's it was the gift and the curse because folks would come to to be down to build a vision, and I would I loved their energy and passion and their creativity, and it made it so fun and and so worth it, but like I don't know what your job is, um, and you're about to create your own job, which is awesome, yeah. Until like you start the company with like 15 full-time jobs, and you don't even know if you need one, you don't know what you need, but you got 15 people, and so it was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful journey. Um, I'll keep saying it because I just want to be clear that like I don't regret having all those people. Um it was it was what got me through it as a business person. Uh, next time, or as advice, know what you need, right? Know what you're capable of, like what takes what you're best at, and what you don't like to do, and what does the business need to produce its impact and revenue? Um, I never knew what that the bare minimum was, which is crazy because as 2024 and 2025 came around and everything was bottom of this roller coaster, we went from like 30 employees down to like four, and we were still operating the exact same business, which is crazy. And we're actually doing a little probably more with four people, four full-time people instead of 30 full-time people, which is just a think about how much of a difference in salary that is, yeah, and how much money you're not spending. Um and those are things that you you learn through trial and error. But if I were building again, I would be like, all right, let me just like do this myself for as long as I can until I'm like, okay, I need I need more time for myself. These are the things I want to take off my plate. Let me circle that, and that maybe is an employee or it's a contractor. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

So I have two questions off of that. So when it comes to like when you're building a business um as an owner, entrepreneur, whatever it may be, how do you know when it's when it's time to, I guess, start putting whether it's yourself on salary, whether it's the people that you're hiring on salary? Like, how do you make that decision? Like you said, maybe you would if you do it again, you would do it as long as you could, like with a smaller squad as opposed to just you know ramping up so fast. Like, how do you make that decision of all right now it's time for me to get some compensation off of this or us to bring on two or three people to give them a full-time role? Like, how does that decision is made?

SPEAKER_00 53:01

It it's like two things, right? It's like, what do you need? Like as you as the entrepreneur, it's like, yo, I need to get paid. And then it's like, how much money are you making? You know, it's the balance between the two. You can't make you can't take home what you're not making. Right. So that's a that's not an option. Uh, and if you're making enough, then it's about what does the business need and what do I need? And that's how the beginning of of the an easy thought experiment of of how you get there. Um you think about runway. You know, how much cash do you have now, and how long is that gonna last you with the fixed overhead that you're agreeing to? And fixed overhead is just the money I'm spending every month, pretty much no matter what. It's like it's not a variable, it's not gonna go up or down, it's gonna be this specific amount every month. And salary can be that as long as you're not hiring and fire and you know, if you want to build a core team and have these five people, it's like, okay, now I need a cash flow to understand like every month we're out 10 grand for payroll. Well, how much money do you have right now? And how long are you want to project that out to be? So there's a whole activity there in cash flow management to figure out is this the right time? But it's about how much money you're making. Is revenue coming in? Is it predictable? If it's not predictable, how much are you willing to gamble that it's gonna keep coming in? The the the best goal is to find predictable revenue. That's why membership was great. It's a great way to start growing our business because it's like cool. We have 15 members. Yeah, we might lose a couple, but we also might gain a couple, and that's you know, we'll grow like this, and you can start. That's how you start really projecting to build the business. It's like cool. In three months we'll be able to invest in this because we'll be at this level. Right. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

That makes sense. And then the you guys had like a duality to the to the company as well, too. And it came to like the membership side and you have the agency side where you're doing doing a whole bunch of stuff like in the city for yourselves, whatever it may be. Like, how did you, I guess, the cypher decide like what was more important to the company as a whole?

SPEAKER_00 55:03

That's a really hard question. Um, and it was a question internally that really moved the business in different ways. The membership was why we did the business. It's the impact we were making, it's why we built the space, it's what we came from, it's the problem we were solving. Um the agency came about because there was business interest and from companies around the city that were interested in like, what are these guys doing? These guys are throwing parties, we want a party. These guys are producing videos, we want a video. Um and while the membership was predictable, the agency was always just like, oh, if someone hits us up, then we'll do it. Great. There's there's a bag for doing this, great. I didn't even know that was coming. Um, that's typical agency business, unless you can get yourself on some good retainers, which we can talk about. Um the agency slowly and steadily became the revenue, the majority revenue generator of the business. And for a while that was cool. It was like, great, let the let the agency help us keep investing in the business. That way, our membership product can keep getting better. And when we grow the company, the membership can keep getting better, and the agency can maybe some at some point float away. We don't need the revenue anymore. That was always like our hope. At some point, the agency became so dominant that it was you couldn't help but prioritize it. Definitely, as bills piled up and salaries piled up, it's like we need to focus on revenue generation. You know, we're not at a point where we can't. And when can we focus on what? Just depends on cash flow and what our goals are. And we put our business in a place that we needed more cash with all the investments we would be making and our plans that we had. It was like we need the agency to really produce. And um, that also was a part of what started burning me out because I was our lead revenue generator for our agency. I was trying to raise funds for our expansion. I'm trying to keep up with how much revenue we're bringing in from the agency, trying to help operate this whole business. Each one of those things is a full-time job. Right. So that's it became a challenge. I can only imagine.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

I mean, if you're running around doing all that, it's like I feel like if you're getting pulled in so many different directions, it's hard to give 100% to something and give it, I guess, the full potential it could potentially get if you were only focused on that one thing. Yep. Did you ever have those conversations? Like, yo, I need to focus on this, and someone else maybe need to do this so we can grow the way we did. Like, how do those conversations go internally?

SPEAKER_00 57:53

My big sighs before these questions. They're good questions because they're very uh sensitive to my journey. Yeah. Focus was the thing we always said but could never do. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We were very young. Yeah. We still are young, but just like we were really young building this business, and it was so easy to want to do everything. You know, we wanted to be this to everyone. We wanted to be hot content, hot events, build a business structure with the membership, realizing the agency was needed. Oh, and now this. Oh, and now that. And it's always something new. And your ability to hey, nothing new. We're not adding anything new. We've discovered what it is, let's do it. Battle left and right. That was a battle, that was a daily battle with new ideas coming to the table, new initiatives that were being brought to us from outsiders. Hey, you should collab with this event. Oh, a random collaborator in the city now is doing a huge thing and they want to bring us in. Oh, how could we refuse? And how do you refuse when you're trying to be in the community and you're trying to do this? So it's it was so much outside noise that came from within uh and externally, and we had a tough time balancing that. Uh, Will and I's relationship was around that. You know, Will is the visionary of our business, always coming with ideas, a big guy in the community who wanted to help as many communities as possible, and we would bring it back, like, hey guys, we want to help all these communities. It's like, yeah, but like we're trying to do something here, and like I want to help them too, but like we're if we don't focus here, like we could run into some problems, and like we're trying to scale, and like this isn't helping the scale of it. Uh, so him and I would always be jabbing in a way good partners do because we're coming at it from two different perspectives, and we would often land in the middle of it, which would be the best thing for our business.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

Um, sometimes we would not land in the middle of it, and he'd be upset that I was straight and narrow, and then I'd be upset that we that I that I did that opportunity, and now we're distracted. And it was a consistent back and forth, yeah, which uh was a beauty of the journey and also a really big hardship.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

Yeah, and I I'm curious because like I said, having such a close like friendship, like how does that I guess affect the business? Like when you got I know there's a healthy when you're partners, you have that healthy conversation. You guys had the rapport before being friends, and you could have like open, honest conversations, but like as things start to grow as as things maybe try to take a turn for I'm not gonna say the worst, but like go down, slow down a little bit. Like, how does that affect the dynamic outside and inside?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

I'll say this. Will and I have been best friends since 11th grade, because I'm like 17. Even through all of this, our friendship has really never been tested, which is such a blessing to say. You know, I've been frustrated with him, he's been frustrated with me. We might have put ourselves at distance in how much we're gonna communicate, but there was never a question of like is our friendship like the foundation of our relationship, which I loved. But that's hard for business partners, and it's hard for business partners, mainly, in my opinion, around accountability, because it's really hard to be stern when when people aren't at being accountable, when there's only what can I do? It's my friend, right? You know, and we're partners. So there's only so much you can do when you're in when business with a friend. If you're not in business with a friend and something's going down, there's some real easy things you can do. It makes decisions a lot easier. It's like, oh, I got a couple of choices here and I'm willing to make any of them. With a friend, it's like I'm not willing to make any of these choices, even though like I probably should make one of these choices, like, I'm not willing to do any of those things. I don't want to quit. I don't want to fire, I don't want to leave. I don't, you know, definitely over whatever we're talking about. Um the accountability part is probably the hardest part when when you're in such a good friendship and trying to do business. It's all great when it's great, and when it's not, it's compounding.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Right. That makes sense. That makes sense. I was just curious because that dynamic is like it's so strong. It's like if you see will, you see day, you see day, you see will. So like I was always curious about like how those conversations you guys come to like a middle ground and you guys execute at a high level. Like, how does that go? What's the conversation? That's that's that's good to hear when it comes to that. Um, as things 2022 comes, you guys get that the big investment. You guys, expansions come in Miami, all that type of stuff. Like, I know you say you didn't really feel as as as per personally, but as a business, like what were the conversations like from the staff and stuff, like, all right, we're about to be out of here now. What's that feeling like when you're at the highest of the highs? And then you know everything that happened after that, whether the news stories, whatever it may be, and then things slowly start going down. Like, what is that feeling like? What's the conversations happening with internally between like you and the staff and all of that?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:59

So when it's all happening and you're reaching your highest highs, you know, I I remember like I remember a lot of moments I when I was living with Ryan, I'd stare out outside of our our big window. We lived in Chinatown, and I would stare out my big window that like looked at the skyline and be like, damn, we're really about to like take on a lot. It's all happening. We're about to take on a lot of these things. And there's gonna be real impact to be had on all of our lives, like individually as a staff, the creators that we loved, like we knew we'd be able to put them in the right places, and all of the things that are about to happen. Wow. Some really deep reflections on that. Um both came with a lot of nerves, with a lot of pride, um, a lot of feelings. It was it's hard to explain because the the that moment of like it's all happening came after a really long period of uncertainty. It's like, oh, this is gonna happen, and then like SpongeBob mean like 18 months later, right? It's like it's gonna happen. And that was the process of raising funds and uh and raising the money we needed for our expansion, uh, specifically with the celebrity investor, was like 18 months longer than I thought it was gonna be. And you know, it's okay for things to go like three months longer than you thought it would be. All good things take time. But after a while, it was like, I don't know if this is gonna happen. And like we're talking about it every day and we're planning for it every day. People are talking about leaving to a new city and changing their lifestyle, and like it gets exhausting when like it's not happening, and then you start feeling like it's never gonna happen. And then it does happen, and you're like, all right, it's happening, but it's actually not happening like right the second, like it happens, a big moment happens. You raise funds, it happens, but now it's like it's gonna take a while now to like get us there. Now there's a lot, now we start, and a lot can happen from like we're gonna start to like it's happening, and it's actually now changed our lives. And that high point of like it's happening was just like all right, we gotta get started now. It wasn't like uh you know, we popped the champagne, but after that, it was just like no, now we gotta, it's like we got a lot of responsibility now.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

Real work begins, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

And a lot can happen between now and then, and it's proven that it could. It's not just time to celebrate. Yeah, um, it's time to be proud to that you achieved this milestone, but you know, until the work is really done and and and the writings on the wall, you don't know. So yeah, the highs are are great because you have achieved the thing you said you would, but you know, for us it took took a long time just to get to that point. And again, everyone was probably feeling the way I was feeling, right? I talk about chick the champagne and not really feeling anything inside. Like, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm sure other people had similar feelings of like it's about time, or like, I don't yeah, cool, but like if this is the same type of timeline gonna happen again, who knows? So definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:59

I mean, was Before like expanding to a new city, was there ever ex um conversations about like maybe opening up a new spot within the city, like in different locations in the city, or was it always we want to just get to another city first?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

Yeah, the the the plan was always to just uh expand to new cities. Okay. Yeah. We wanted to be able to impact as many creators as we could. Yeah. And we thought we could do that by having uh new cities, uh the building built in new cities.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

Yeah, for sure. Um so so the timeline would continue to go on, all this all the unforeseen circumstances happen, whether it's like the news stuff with the celebrities, when it comes to like the business as a whole. So as you guys are starting to, we talked about scaling up, as you guys are starting to scale down, like we talked about how you've built this DNA, you had friends that helped you from the beginning. What are those like conversations like when you're telling people, all right, things aren't coming in the way we thought they were once we may have to like let you go, or we're gonna have to downsize a little bit. I know they're tough, but like how we talked about tough moments that happened when you were building from the warehouse. And I feel like this is an even tougher moment where you see your highs to the highs. Now you're seeing some moments where it's like we didn't see this coming to, but we have to have these conversations. What is that feeling like? What are those conversations like?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:09

Those are the hardest days. Yeah. Yeah, the days and the timeline that you're pointing out right now are the hardest days. And we're the days that ultimately led to us closing. Um because those were the days that I kind of lost my soul in in terms of like passion for what we're trying to build. The passion left the building because of the continuous nature of things not happening the way they should have. Another thing, another thing. And it's not some of the hard conversations are not me laying people off, though I've had tremendously hard conversations in that regard when you realize that this business is not going to survive if it stays the way it is. And it's unfortunate, and I take all the blame for it. But the matter of fact is I can't like lay myself off. Yeah. And this is where we're at. Yeah. There's not another way about this, or I'll just shut the whole thing down right now. Um, and no one wants to do that either. So it's those are those are really hard times, and there's never a right way to do it, you know. And you always wish things could go differently, but you learn so much in those days more than anything. Uh, and as things are going down, like it's not a secret. Yeah. And nobody likes to be around um when you're not winning and when you're not reaching your goals over and over again. And that became something that was happening as the series of events kept on occurring, where like, oh, the Miami project is really stalling, investor relations are really ugly. Dave's been in Florida and like not here, which is not what this business is. And that's culture in an organization. So we had that, we had a pocket where just things were not going the way as planned, and it was not a secret that this was not working. And then you have these hard conversations where you have to have these layoffs, and the people that remain are like, This is we can we know what's going on, like writing's on the wall, and it just becomes this big formula for uh not positive things. And um, I just kind of lived in that state, you know, for a little while. And our timeline takes us to like the Miami project not working, and like I'm like, all right, I gotta go back to Philadelphia and like write the ship. Too much is on the line personally for the business. Like, we need to go get this thing right. And we did, which is to me another huge milestone in my life. The fact that I left Miami, had to put up the white flag that that expansion was not gonna happen. All right, let's let's sat let's like saddle down here. Let's go, we had to go from our 30 employees to six, and we're gonna make this thing work and then recalibrate. Right. And we did that in 2024. I'm really proud that we were able to steer a ship that seemed like it was going straight into the wall, into like, okay, you know what? We there's something here. There's something here. After a while, you know, with six people doing a job of what 30 people were doing is extremely tiring. And uh when you look back after a year and reflect on like, wow, I just worked so hard to just like steer it back. The issue at that point was like, I have no juice left. And not only don't I have no juice left, like the responsibilities that we're stuck with from a failed expansion, loan debt, commitments, uh equity commitments, you're like, there's nothing I can do to shake these things. And our business was not built to hold these things uh without the expansion. And I just worked so hard for a year to turn this thing around, and like I don't see where something's gonna happen different. I don't see where anything different is gonna happen with the resources that we have. And then you have so many options at that point, but the main thing is how much energy do you have to want to solve that problem? Yeah, for me, I ran out of the energy. I just worked too hard to not really understand what was gonna happen. So many commitments that I just didn't I didn't love anymore. And I'm like, I don't have any energy or passion to want to solve this anymore. And that's the writing's on the wall at that point. Yeah. And the biggest lesson there is a I think personally, I think for a lot of people, they hit that point where the writing is on the wall, they don't have the energy or the passion, but they stay. They stay because they're comfortable. Even with all that negativity, they're comfortable. It's because of it's what they know, they know that routine. They stay because they're scared, they don't know what's on the other side, they don't know who they are, they don't know what's gonna happen. And people stay for the rest of their lives. And I was recognizing it that that was not that I was doing that for I was I was about to do that, but I recognized that this is a point where I could just keep doing this. I could. I couldn't, I didn't have the energy for it. And I felt like it was a not a waste of my life, but it was it was, you know, time is all we got. Yeah, got one life, and I want to live it the way that I felt when I was 19. Yeah, with creative energy, we can do it all. I could do anything I set my mind to. And unfortunately, at the end of our journey, like I didn't think any of those, I couldn't, I couldn't bring myself to think like that anymore. And I needed to find a way to get back to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

Yeah. So when when it ultimately came down to make the decision, was it obviously it has to just co-founders or whatever it be? Is it like a joint conversation that you have to have? Or like how does that go? Because I've never talked to someone like where it's like you have these investors, like, is there still things that you may potentially have to not oh, but like things you have to still live up to in contracts that you have? Like, how does that work when you decide to close down like a business, that type of thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

Very complex. Yeah, and it uh it's all dependent on your own situation. Um I'll say on the joint decision thing, I brought it to Will that I essentially didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel for what we were getting after. And me and Will had different roles, so it was easier for me to see it because I was in the back end a little bit more. So it wouldn't have been Will's nature to bring it up to me, um, the way that I understood the business model. So I brought it to Will halfway through 25, and I'm like, hey man, I'm burnt. And Will you know just became a father? Yeah, it's like man, I'm burnt, and like you deserve to be an incredible father like you are. Like I I don't know if this is like a good time to be solving this problem anymore, man. And it's like all he was being a new father, so like even more responsibilities I needed to take on because like I I needed to give him his space as he should. I'm like, I don't know if I could do that, man. Like I already taken on a lot. And I'm like, I'll show you the numbers, but like I don't see it. I don't see how we're able to run this business and and and and have the obligation of a second city without the second city. Right. And um after a couple of weeks, he wasn't so quick to be like, yes, which I appreciate. You know, he he he still had the passion, which I appreciated. Um, but after I'm like, all right, you look at it, you you tell me what you think. And he came back, he's like, no, you're right. Like, I don't know how this is gonna go. And so, you know, I was pretty impatient. I'm like, I'm ready to be done right now. And he's like, Hold, hold on. He's like, let's like one, see if there's a way to let's see how we can end this the right way. And he helped me be patient on how I was gonna end it. And so that's why it took until December. Um, because we were hoping that we could find some strategic partners where it didn't have to be so dramatic and rec could go on. Um, but ultimately it just it wasn't it wasn't feasible. Right. I was just we were personally too tied up into the company, and I was not really ready to, you know, there was some opportunities like cool, rec will continue, but Dave, you'll be an employee of Rec. Like, uh bro, I'm burnt. Yeah, it's not worth the time for me. Like I it has to it has to be another way. And I don't like to be selfish about it because we built such an impactful business that impacts so many people, but at some point in my life I have to prioritize myself and put myself in a place to enjoy myself. And it was really that was probably the hardest part about it. I'm like, am I being selfish by just not willing to keep doing these hard things just to keep the brand alive? I'm like, man, I'm I'm trying to be alive, you know, like um, you know, and I don't know, you know, let's find a way to end it where it can be as positive as possible and um you know, communicate to everybody so there's no surprises, make sure we we clean up all of our obligations. And that's why that those six months and then December was was when we had like our farewell dinner, and that was a beautiful moment for us. And um, and yeah, that was it.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:20

Yeah, I mean that's honorable at the end of the day, though, like knowing that one for yourself, knowing that all right, you're burnt out, you you don't know if you're gonna because I like you say you see a lot of people push themselves to the limits where it's like you're stressing too much into the hospital, whatever it may be, you're not there, whatever it is. And then even having that conversation, I feel like it's honorable to have that word to know like I'm burnt out, I'm not even able to give it the the all the passion I was before. I feel like there's nothing wrong with it. Like you stepped into the arena, you did what you could, and then at the end of the day, sometimes you just gotta pivot. There's nothing wrong with that at all. And then when it comes to that conversation you have with the community, like the members, because you know, that that's that's kind of the post, that was the post of the business. Like, what was what was like the responses you got when it came to I know you put a letter out um in a publication as well. What was what was the thoughts behind that and like the responses that you got received?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:05

You know, it was really it was overwhelmingly positive, even though it was really emotional. You know, everyone, no one wanted Rec to close, that specifically folks that were touched by Rec and uh felt the value of Rec. Like, why this is it was their third home. And so there's a lot of like, why or how, like, how you know, can we do this ourselves? And and um, and that was really emotional to see the people who I knew it would impact. I'm like, uh, you know, this photographer, that musician who I always see in our space, and like, you know, I let me reach out to them personally and just be like, yo, like, you know, give them a heads up. Um, because it was personal, right? You know, um, but it was overwhelmingly positive of just like thank you, and like a moment that they changed their life from what Rec was doing. It was it was really nice. And our and our farewell dinner we had, it was just like a couple of, you know, a couple dozen like close friends and family that have been there through the journey and we've watched them grow. And it felt that felt while it could have been like a really sad moment, it wasn't sad, it was it was uh celebratory. Yeah uh you know, the last night in the space and us having dinner together. Um, and I and I didn't feel I never I didn't feel that good since the day that we cut the ribbon on our grand opening of the space. And it's funny, like the two most important feelings I had while growing the business specifically at Ninth and Market was the day we opened and the day we closed.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:37

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

Yeah, and they were both positive feelings, yeah. Feelings of of impact and of um of camaraderie and community, and um like we did this, or we're gonna like it's like we're gonna go do this. And it was it was really that we did this. But when we when we when we when we cut the ribbon, we did that. Yeah, and it was like we did this, we worked our ass off to get to this point, and at our farewell dinner, we were saying farewell because we just did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:03

Yeah, and people don't realize like I always say because like social media has this like facade of like you're supposed to be millionaires by this age or this age, it's like people don't realize how young 19 is to launch something, or even being in your mid-20s and and taking taking on investors or getting your first space that's your own, your money to whatever it may be. That's a that's a that's an accomplishment in itself, and it's way harder than people realize it is to make it happen. So, I mean, the impact you guys made is gonna last for a long time, if not forever, when it comes to creative space at least, or even in the city. So I I was happy to be a part of Rec for the time that I was a part of it, and all the stuff that we've done as well, too. Um what I'm interested um about when it comes to that, like after the closures, like the headspace that you wound up in after. I know we talked about like pre-production, about like what you've been up to, you've been traveling, things of that nature. How long did it get take you to get to that point of like, all right, something I put my past and my life into for over a decade is now that chapter is closed. What's that that space in between before you start trying to travel? You realize this is what I needed to get my mind back to the place that where it was when I first started.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:09

Yeah. So as I realized the timeline, it took a while to realize when what the exact timeline would be where like this would be done, and I can move on. And when I started realizing it, I said, the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get out of here. Let me give myself a month to not be in this business, to get away from the city, let my mind wander, challenge myself, be curious, and start dabbling in the creative desires that I know I have, which has always been reading and writing and music and hiking. Like, let me go and do the things I know I love outside of the city and just allow myself to wander. I knew I needed a formula of that. And so I we closed wreck three like three days before Christmas, and three days after Christmas, I took a flight to Spain and I was gone for 30 days. Um, so it wasn't this in-between time of like closing wreck and like should I go travel? It was like closed wreck, left. And I think that was the best thing I could have done because it immediately allowed me to put my phone down, don't care about what the comments are saying. I made all the communications I needed to make, don't need to be reminiscent on nothing or engaging with anything. Like, let me just be with myself and let my ask, let me ask myself some hard questions about what I've learned in this experience, what I've loved about this experience. Um let me remind myself of the highs in this experience, let me remind myself of the lows of this experience, and let's start understanding who Dave is and not Dave at Wreck, because that's what my identity really became. So, this question of like who am I without rec as an adult is a question that was fair to ask because that's all I knew.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:07

And um, you know, I like to think that I had a good pulse of who I was. I don't think I'm anyone different than I was before, but it's nice to just like know who I am as just Dave. And that was kind of the question that I was looking to figure out. Like, I'm like, all right, I'm very goal-oriented. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna travel for a month. What's my goal when I'm when I'm done the month? Is it like I'll have a new business idea, I'll know exactly what my plan is, I'll know who I am. And I went through this like really transformative 30 days of traveling and hiking and experiencing and creating. And at the very end of it, I just remember like looking out. I was in Costa Rica at the very end, and I'm like, I figured it out. I figured out the thing I wanted to happen at the very end of this, I've achieved it. And what it was was that I didn't have the answer to that question. And I was comfortable and confident that I didn't have the answer to that question. Before I left, I was not confident in that question. By the end of it, it was like, you know what, I don't have the answer of what's next and who am I now or any of this. And that's awesome. Because that means I can be open to any opportunities. It means I can go anywhere, it means I can learn something new, I can challenge myself in different ways, and not just be like, nope, this is my new identity. I'm picking something and that's what I'm gonna go after. And that's the world I'm in now. You know, at some point it's good to narrow in and identify something in a career path and identify, you know, but there's also nothing wrong with having that open space of curiosity and being um and being courageous to to go in different areas and try different things. And that's the kind of the world I'm I'm playing in now. Because anytime I ever wanted to do any side quest while building wreck, like I would immediately feel guilty and I would I would break it down. Like if I'm not working on this business, I would always feel guilty. Even when I would I would travel, I would do, you know, I got my hiking in while I was building wreck, I'd always take a yearly hiking trip. But even on those trips, like I needed to make it about rec of my takeaway. Like I'd be hiking through the woods, like what's our what's our target audience? Well, you know, what's our five-year plan? That way I can come back with some answers. I was never just able to like think without it. And I was so happy I gave myself that space.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:28

Do you think as humans, being too narrow, having like a strict like blueprint causes us to forget to like live?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:37

I would generally I'd say no. I think it's great to have a blueprint. I I think that's how empires are built. I think that's how people become successful in a lot of different ways. There's people successful without it, but there's also some really successful people with it. Um I think it's important that we take a moment to know about ourselves outside of that focus because then it comes so all-consuming, and then we get lost when things are on troubled waters with that focus. So it's good to know yourself outside of it. I I like to think I had that understanding, which made my transition a little easier. Um, but yeah, I don't want my message in general to be like, oh, you shouldn't have a specific focus because you're not this or you're not that. Like I had that specific focus, went all in on it, and we bec we were successful for it. Um and now I'm in a different place where I'm like, I don't want that specific focus because I want to explore the world and all its possibilities, right? Which is great. And and it's I don't know if it's sustainable or not. Like I don't want to be like in La La Land, like I'm just like bouncing around and I'm just doing this and I'm doing that, because it's hard to live a sustainable life and and raise a family like that. Right. I'm uh I don't have that right now, and um you know, it's just me. Uh and I can live this lifestyle in the season. Uh, but it might be different in the next season. I might lock in and I might pick this this this path and let me, you know, I've explored, I've done it all, I I know myself more, there's more confidence here. Now we're gonna lock in and go on this thing, and we're going we're gonna go on a five-year journey locking in here. But I'm gonna now pick my head up along the way. You know, I'm now gonna give myself these boundaries that I've learned before. You know, you just pick up all that experience of what burnt you out before and you make sure you apply it now that you're refocused. That makes sense. Yeah, so I'll get there at some point.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:28

So when it came when it comes to comes to your book that you just published, um Life's a Hike, um one, like when did you know you wanted to write a book? And like what was your like what was the mission behind writing the book? What was your message that you wanted to put out to the world once you published this?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:46

So I love writing. Uh it was one of my creative um desires all through from 19 till now. Again, I was writing scripts when we were in high school. I journal multiple times a day, consistently for years. Um and I knew that writing was going to be a part of my month and my my future. I wanted writing to be a part of my future, and I knew that I should challenge myself that when I took my month journey, that I wanted to set some creative goals. You know, that's just like how I am. People will be like, dude, every time like take the month off. Don't have goals, just go enjoy. And that's great advice. I just don't work like that all the way. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go take this month, I'm gonna have this like question at the end, hopefully answered. And I wanna write fiction, nonfiction, one publication, and I want to do music. That was like that's my bucket list for this trip creatively. And so now I have some new goals, and like I wrote the letter to thank Philadelphia while I was on this trip. All right, cross off the publication. Um, all right, I want to write fiction, I want to write nonfiction. It wasn't a book, it's just I wanted to write Fiction that I wanted to write nonfiction. I knew I wanted to communicate the lessons that I've learned in this journey. I wanted to find a way to extort that information from my brain and put it in a way that people could get it. I didn't know how that was going to be. And when I started my hike, the Camino de Santiago to start this trip, I'm by myself for 70 miles over 70 days. I'm sorry, 70 miles over seven days hiking this trail in northern Spain. And I'm I'm my only company.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:35

And I'm out listening to music. I'm just out in the woods. And I start talking to myself and my video camera. And what's on my mind is all the things I've learned and all the stories that I've that I've experienced. And I would hike to a new city seven days in a row. And I'd get home to that city. I'm like, cool, let's fire up the laptop. I got nothing else to do. We're gonna write everything we just talked about. And that turned into the book. And so that was me checking off the nonfictional writing, was the writing when I got back, and it was from all the things I was talking about on the trail. And that was my goal of it was achieving my goal of getting the value of things I've learned out to people that I think could could find value in it. And that was that was what the book is.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:20

That's good, that's good. And how was your um I saw you had a couple events for the launch? Like how was how was that?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:24

It was it's been an amazing um experience self-publishing a book, you know. Um, I never considered myself an author, uh, but I wrote a book. So now I guess I am an author. And I set goals for the book where I didn't want to make it a big deal. I just wanted to publish something and I wanted to share that value with whoever would be receiving it. But I wasn't like, let's go get on the bestseller's list, let's go plan these events, let's go create content. I was like, let's just get it published, let's go do a creative thing, let's get it published, let's share value. So my goals for the book were not high. Um, and when I told some friends about like what my goals were for the book, they kind of called me out. They're like, bro, like you could sell more than that. Like you could have an event. You could be, why are you not doing that? Like you're being humble about this book, like you're not really, you're just like, let's go do something, do it, do it. And they challenged me to do a little, think a little bigger about it. And I appreciated that pushback, and that inspired me having an event, having some strategy on how I was going to launch the book. We were able to get the book from I didn't maybe sell one or two copies to like number five bestseller on the solo travel guide on Amazon. I was like, what the heck is going on? It's so random that this is happening. Um, that I'm really proud of. And again, it was from my friends pushing me. It's great having people around you that to encourage you to to to to go harder and do the things you know you can achieve. And yeah, it was just so nice because the gathering for my book event was with the was with my community. When I returned from this trip, I've shut rec down. I returned from this trip. And it's like, who is my community now? I knew my community at Rec. It was the Rec community.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:08

But who is it now when I don't have that much to offer? Like, who's still in the room that what that loves me for me and that would be there to support me? And that the room at my event was very intimate, was just so filling for me. I'm like, these are my people. Yeah, these are my people. So it's been really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:24

That's good, man. I feel like that's a great feeling. Like when things maybe not go out the way you planned or you hoped, whether it be with the business or just life, relationships, you see who's still in your corner, that's always a good feeling to see who's there. Absolutely. So um I wanna I want to ask you this. Um, if you could, before we sign off, if you could tell a young entrepreneur that's maybe trying to do something similar to what you've done, or just trying to go on a new entrepreneurial journey in the business world, what's one piece of advice I guess you would give them?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:50

I think I've given a lot if you just read, listen through this, there's been a lot of what I would say. Um read my book. That's what the advice I think is. That's a good one. That's a good one, just read the book. Read the book. Um trying to think on the one the one thing of a lot of things swirling through. The people you do it with. Thinking about if it's worth it or not. You know, the phrase of you know, keep going is a phrase I have like written all over my room, and like it's always like a plaque in my mind just keep going. Like it's gonna be really hard. But if you just take another step forward, you'll you'll get ultimately get to your destination if you keep moving forward. And I think that's true. Um, just at what cost? Something to think about. I'd say the advice I give a young entrepreneur that I realized that I took myself by just doing it, and I think it's really valuable, is you need to you need to put yourself in the rooms, right? The rooms we talked about in the beginning. You need to put yourself in those rooms, and you need to not have your hand out in those rooms. You need to be serving in those rooms. You need to be adding value to those rooms. You want to build your reputation as a solid person that uh is willing to help with with no ask in return. Build your personal brand and network around being a solid person that isn't just trying to be transactional and is trying to take. But be a value of your community, go into those rooms, be a part of the community, and see how you can serve. And at a later time, you'll have an ask, and it will be a much positive, much more positive experience uh to make that ask after you spent years of serving.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:02

That's a good way to end it. Um tell everybody where they can find you on socials, where they can buy your book. Um I'm gonna share this out with all our community that we have so we can come support you the best way we can. Um where can we find you on socials? Where can everybody buy your book at?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:13

Cool. On socials, it's just my name, mainly like an Instagram. If you want to see the weird things I do on TikTok, it's just my name, Dave Silver, with uh two underscores. Uh, I was able to launch my first personal website, Dave Silvercreative.com. And that's kind of my new business as I'm having a holding business for any work I do, is like this DS DS Creative brand that I have for now. It's just where I do like my production work. Um, so all things, if you my book is available there. It's on Amazon if you just life's a hike, Dave Silver, but on my website, Dave Silvercreative.com, and trying to just create more community over on Instagram with the at Dave Silver underscore underscore.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:55

Well, we got founder, author, producer, creator of every title you want to give him, a man of many talents. Dave Silver pulled up to the show today. I appreciate you stopping by, my man. Yeah, it's a great conversation. Learned a lot. I'm sure our listeners will love it. Um that's all I got for this episode of the Face of the Future podcast. It's your boy Mills. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:11

Thank you, brother. Yes. It is.