Isaac Mashman: It's so great to have you on the show today. I've been looking forward to our conversation. To start, please share a bit about your background and the journey that led you to launch Mashman Ventures.

Isaac: That's a big question. Where do you want me to start? Let's start from the beginning. What inspired you to go through that entrepreneurial journey?

100% I'll skip over some of the background and history. I'm from Jacksonville, Florida, raised in a single parent household. I saw my mom working a lot of jobs that she was overqualified for, raised in large part by my grandparents too.

Going to school, I was an excellent student. I'm not one of those entrepreneurs that can say I was a bad student and was straight A's, top of the class. I excelled in any assignment that I was given.

Heading into my senior year of high school, I realized - what was I going to go to college for? Get a marketing degree, work for some company? I had those entrepreneurial tendencies previously, but I didn't really know that was something I could turn into an entire business and make a living off of.

My mom, and to the dismay of everybody around me - my counselors, my family - they're like what are you doing? What are you doing? Why aren't you going to college? Because I was literally one test away from a full scholarship. But I decided to leave that aspiration and pursue business instead.

I got involved with the industry of network marketing. I did three different companies, four different times. I went from that into wanting to do social media management and the stereotypical kind of work a lot of people are doing online. I went and tried my hand at dropshipping and 25 other businesses, not 25 literally, but at least six.

In 2019 when I was living in California, I started to network with a lot of musicians and talent out there. Leading into 2022 when I went back to California, I decided to launch a record label and I was managing artists and musical talent. But then what happened in 2020? The pandemic.

We had a concert that I was going to fly out to Indiana to attend - one of my artists was performing, it was pretty much sold out. He canvased his city and handed out a bunch of tickets. But we decided to end it and call it off because at that point we weren't sure if COVID was going to kill everybody or if it was just like the common cold. We didn't want to take any chances.

Thinking about the optics of that, we decided to call it off. And by doing so, the artist I was managing at the time lost a lot of that passion and lost a lot of that care towards music. At that point, I figured - do I really want to be in the music industry?

The only way people make money in the music industry a lot of times is by screwing another person over or going at scale. If you think about getting paid by streams, you have to get paid at scale. A million streams might pay you a couple thousand dollars, but the pathway from one stream to a million streams is very long. In order to make any money from that, you would have to scale it up to a very large degree or have somebody pushing and propelling you forward. But if that's your sole stream of income, it's not really a profitable business.

Aside from that, how would the artists make money? And how would I as the manager make money, outside of maybe doing tours? But if it's COVID, you can't tour. So there was no plan there because we didn't even get to that point of thinking about the business model and going really in depth.

Rather than being the Scooter Braun character, I kind of left that idea behind. I haven't spoken to the artist in a while, but I wanted to pivot this and go into detail. I haven't talked about this really in a lot of detail many times before.

But I saw a lot of people working with businesses, but not the business owner. That's what I'm getting at. And so I knew I didn't want to go back and do that kind of social media work for a company, or trying to help you with your social media or manage it. I hate that done for you kind of thing.

But I saw that there was this blue ocean market, and a lot of people wanted to build out their own personal brands online. I became that go-to person in my friend group - everybody would come to me and say Isaac, I need your help with this. Can you help me with X, Y, and Z? What could I do to make my profile better? How can I gain my following?

After enough people approached me, and seeing that a lot of these big influencers at the time - think about Gary Vee or Ty Lopez - they built out their personal brand to a very high level. I figured, man, I've already done something right with my own personal brand. Why don't I apply that to other people and turn this into a business?

And hence, Mashman Ventures was born in April of 2020. Over the past four years, it's been a wild ride with plenty of pivots, plenty of successes, plenty of downfalls. And I'm glad to be sharing a little bit more of that story with you today.

AJ: What an amazing origin story already at such a young age. Very inspiring. Let's go back to the early days of Mashman Media. What were some pivotal early moments or struggles you recall from those critical first few years of getting the business off the ground?

Isaac: Well, thinking about that pivot, it wasn't really a big deal to me because I've already made so many changes in the past. But to the person listening to this, they might be thinking man, if I'm making a jump for my career or jumping into a new business, it's scary.

It is scary, especially the first couple of times. You have to come to terms with the sacrifice of time that you've already put into something. And that's an aspect that I really haven't even thought about until now, where I had to say Isaac, I know that I devoted the past six months or the past three months to trying to build this up, but big deal, leave it in the past.

Appreciate that all the work you've done in the past has contributed to what you know today, to where you can now. After the first couple brands I was working on building, I knew what I needed to do to build out a new company brand, to get online, to build out the social media, to build out a following.

I also knew that by leveraging my personal brand, I could start really directing traffic and building this as something I could take pride in. Thinking back to that initial time, it was scary because I didn't even know what the company was going to be defined as when I launched Mashman Ventures. Without even defining it as a public relations firm, which is what it is today, the first six months it was undefined.

I was saying it was a multi-purpose company - might as well be a paper towel, you can use it for 25 uses. But six months in, I was seeking out solutions. Your brain is going to be programmed to say all right, I see a pathway forward.

I saw that there is this industry known as PR, public relations. It was much more broad than just marketing and branding and social media - it encompasses all of that. And I said man, I think this is a public relations firm. I work with people to build out their reputations, to build out their personal brands, to build out the quality of their name to where their name means something.

Once I had that definition, I was able to start really positioning it as a PR firm. Because once you have the knowledge of what it is, you're able to position it and do things methodically to make it appear as such. Then you're able to fill in the gaps as you go.

I think a big part and a big learning lesson from this is you won't have all the answers to start with. There are things and moments even within the past year where I've had to fill in the gaps again and I've had to make pivots and changes.

Isaac: Could you discuss a specific strategy or mindset shift that significantly impacted your business's success?

Let's talk about the most recent pivot. In the past, there was a three-fold business model. We had the public relations retainer where we'd work with somebody over a period of time to build out the personal brand, but the backbone of that was consulting. It was measured off of time.

Then we had the consulting model where people could pay us for individual a la carte consultations. And we had the training platform.

But I realized that, and there were some issues in the past that came up with the business that really set us back - it was a come to Jesus moment a couple different times, just how brutal business can be and also how you need to be able to protect your business and protect yourself.

Specifically talking about this pivot, I saw that a lot of the clients we would go through and do consultations with - a consultation with us is going to be intense. We're going to give you homework, there's going to be things you need to do to fulfill your end of the deal and what you're committing to when working with us.

A lot of times I would do a consultation, it would be two and a half hours, back to back - Alright, do this, this, this, that, that, and the other. It would be recorded, they'd have access to it, they'd be able to go through it. But it would still require a lot of work. That's the downside of with you versus done for you - with done for you, you're able to control a lot of that without relying on the client.

But with done with you, you're walking with them and guiding them. And think about the consulting industry - the management consulting industry is worth over $11 billion. Individual companies are making $11-13 billion just from consultations and consulting clients. The overall industry of consulting is worth $300 billion.

The largest public relations firm is only worth $1 billion. So I saw these things and I was like, why don't I have the best of both worlds? But I wanted to eliminate the problem of if we were doing a consultation, we needed to get another one on the books for two weeks from now or next month, and you didn't fulfill what you needed to do. Then I would have to change the overall topic of what we needed to discuss and cover.

So I decided to eliminate that retainer and move 100% into the consulting realm, with the training platform in addition to that. That was after seeing a problem, and I was able to find the solution. But even then, that required that leap of faith, which as we discussed a minute ago was necessary to even change the business or go from business to business. But even more so, to make a change inside of the business, because it's something that you're not getting rid of, but it's growing and evolving.

A lot of times, I mean thinking about working out, it creates pain. In hindsight, what adjustments or decisions proved to be most beneficial for your business's growth? What is the biggest change that provided the benefit?

I would say that pivot, because I was over-complicating the process. And I really came to appreciate the idea of consolidation. A lot of times, we try to complicate things. We think, oh, we need to add, we need to add a bunch of features, we need to add a bunch of this, a bunch of that, we need to go ahead and sell this, we need to... and we get so caught up in this improving.

The intentions are right - we have the right intention, and that is to over-deliver, to provide value, to do something great, to be someone great. Because obviously, you don't want to do something that's lackluster and deal with the consequences of somebody calling you a scammer, for example. That's what a lot of entrepreneurs - if you don't deliver, you're going to deal with the consequences.

So I think that's 100% consolidating things and realizing that you have to stay on track with the initial ROI of what somebody's getting when they're paying for working with you. For example, are you selling the feature, or are you selling the solution?

And that's something I had to do with the business. And this is just speaking very intensively about Mashman Ventures, but I think with anything else, if you're trying to do 25 different things, you're not going to be able to focus on them.

Andrew Carnegie, who was by all accounts the richest man in America at one point in the 1800s - in a collection of essays called The Empire of Business, he says that men have it backwards. Men want to put their eggs in multiple baskets, but what they should do is they should put their eggs in one basket and watch that basket.

And not many people know that. It seems common that there are so many clichés, but we only hear one side of the story. Thinking about that, I wanted to make sure that basket was secure before I moved into other things. You know, I suppose you can put the equivalent to building a house - you want to make sure your house is strong and structurally sound, but at the end of the day, it's still providing shelter to you, and that's the main reason you have a house.

Isaac: What role does personal branding play in your entrepreneurial journey, and how has it evolved over time?

Well, initially I knew that I wanted to just be known as Isaac Mashman. I always parse any answer that involves personal branding with a definition of what personal branding is, because there are so many misconceptions about it, and I have a quite philosophical approach to it.

Your personal brand is you. You've had your personal brand from the moment you were born. A lot of people believe that your personal brand only exists online, it exists on social media, and they are extensions of your personal brand - they are the marketing channels and vehicles to getting more people to know about you.

But your personal brand exists on and offline. It's not a matter of oh, social media disappears tomorrow, so do you. People are still going to know you. It's so much larger than what a lot of people believe when you start thinking about it in that light.

You're able to think, oh, well, everybody that I grew up with knows me. Okay, I have family, I have friends, I have coworkers. Why don't I start connecting with those people and starting to have that foundation built?

When I think back to what I wanted to initially be known as, I wanted to be known as Isaac Mashman. Now, what did that mean? Well, I was this young, ambitious kid, this entrepreneur that didn't necessarily know what that entailed, and that's okay. I had all these different ambitions, then I went into this creative mode, and then I did all these different business pivots.

At the end of the day, every time I did a pivot, I still had a strong collective group of people that supported me every step of the way, because they supported me. They weren't supporting the business, they were supporting me.

Thinking about that, once I committed to Mashman Ventures, I was able to be able to market and promote myself as, Alright, no, I'm yes, I'm Isaac Mashman. You still want to know me for the coffee addict, for the personable person, or the person who might crack jokes or might be a little aggressive at times. That's okay, those are characteristics of me.

But I also wanted to be positioned as a public relations expert, as somebody who you could view as a personal brand authority. That's when I started to take those action steps, such as getting onto podcasts like this and having a conversation, because you cannot fake what you know on a podcast. It's much more difficult to fake something if you're in person and live.

It keeps you committed to this expansion, it keeps you committed to your promises. I was also able to devote time to getting on articles, building up my website, building out my social media following, creating content - all these other steps, which we could get into the strategy as specific as you would like - to build myself up as that public figure.

I think that a lot of people today, if they want to be able to stand out, they have to be a public figure. And it's not from a narcissistic perspective, it's from a this is essential to my growth and success perspective, because you are fighting against 4 billion other people on the internet. That's a lot of attention, that's a lot of competition, that's a lot of eyeballs. If there are 4 billion people on the internet, you're talking about 8 billion eyeballs, and a lot of just other creators that are probably brilliant too.

So you don't have to be the most brilliant person, you don't have to be the person who is the most talented or has the most money or resources, but you have to put yourself out there to start making that name for yourself.

Isaac: AJ, let's delve into that strategy a bit more. Last time when Instagram and Twitter went down, I remember seeing one of your posts advocating for the power of omnipresence. It really caught my attention. Could you share more about what omnipresence means to you and how you leverage it in your business endeavors?

You're talking about my mention of omnipresence. Now, omnipresence is typically talked about or mentioned when we're having a conversation about God - God is everywhere, all the time. Now, in the least sacrilegious way possible, you need to be omnipresent with your personal brand. You need to be everywhere, all the time.

So if Instagram and Facebook went down or disappeared or got deleted, or I think now what is in the news and would be worth mentioning, Tik Tok - Tik Tok is going to probably get banned in America in the next few months if it doesn't get sold. But I have a feeling they're going to just ban Tik Tok, and all of these creators that have millions and millions of followers on Tik Tok are going to be out of luck.

Because if they're only relying on Tik Tok to build out their audience, if that gets deleted and they don't have their Instagrams, they don't have a YouTube channel, they don't have a following on Facebook or a following on other platforms, well, there goes all their hard work.

So whenever you're building out your personal brand online and social media specifically, you need to be building a diversified audience. I mean, you and I are connected not only on Instagram, but also Facebook. And after this conversation, we'll be connected on Twitter or LinkedIn or everywhere else. I think we're already on LinkedIn, but thinking about that, you're able to maintain those relationships.

Every single time somebody views you on one platform and then they go to another one and they see your face, I've had so many friends say, Isaac, how can I forget about you? It's like you're everywhere. You open up your page, and you see me here, and then you go to the different app and you see me there.

That's done purposefully, that's done intentionally to create this awareness around me, around what I'm doing. And that right there, building out that omnipresent personal brand, is something that I think a lot of people overlook, because they get told this information of oh, only build on one place, focus on one place.

But I think that there is a difference between focusing on one platform and only being on one platform. But I think that even then, you need to direct a little bit of your focus. And this is contrary to the idea of watching one basket - now I'm telling you to diversify your baskets.

But right there, I think that there needs to be a distinction between this is business and this is marketing, because this is what it is. It's an aspect of business, but social media is not business. And having multiple marketing channels means that multiple algorithms are working in your favor. It means that you're able to reach new people that might not be on one other platform.

A lot of people that I know aren't on Facebook, but they're on Instagram. And a lot of the people I have on Instagram are on Twitter. So you're connecting with these people continuously, you're letting the algorithms work for you, and you're also building out your credibility. Because if somebody finds you for the first time and they see, oh, this guy has 100,000 followers, but he has an audience on six different platforms, he must be doing something right.

And it's much more difficult to fake your following on six places versus faking your following on one, because you could buy your followers on Instagram and say, oh, I have 100,000, but they're fake. So there's so many nuances and things that we could go down and talk about, but that would be the biggest strategy of building an omnipresent personal brand, and same with your business.

Isaac: Can you elaborate on a project or investment that didn't go as planned, and what you learned from that experience?

I could talk about the investment into a person, which would be something that I think would be good, because I think a lot of the investments - I view my investing strategy with anything, with stocks or property or anything - it's long-term. You know, when I'm buying property, I'm not looking to ever sell a property. That's a very aggressive approach, but I'm thinking if I own it once, I might as well keep it.

So with Mashman Properties, as I'm building that and acquiring properties, I'm not going to be selling anything. And same with Mashman Investments, when I'm making more investments, this is going to be a main focus for later this year, moving into 2025. I'm going to be looking into the people and investing into projects that yes, I see a lot of growth potential in, but also ambitious founders that I can count on, that don't complain, that have grit, that are able to push forward.

But I'm thinking about some investments into clients, and thinking through - I'm not obviously mentioning anyone's names - but I think that there have been circumstances where my gut has told me something, and I've ignored that feeling. I'm like, for example, being told a personal story about going to a bank and complaining or making a big deal out of something that should have been nothing. And I had this gut feeling saying, Isaac, this guy's going to cause you issues in the future. This is going to be problematic.

But after the invoice is already paid and after you've already been working together for two months, it's like you're thinking, alright, maybe I'll just suck it up, I'll deal with it. And then sure enough, a couple months went by, and this goes back to the retainer issue with no commitment, a failure to fulfill that end of the deal, that end of the bargain. That was an issue.

So I think that whenever you're making investments into people, you have to realize that people are fickle, people are going to be emotional. I mean, 80% of sales is emotion-based. So I think that whenever you're closing a client, whenever you're working with people, you need to be closing off of that 20% of logic. You need to be able to say, Hey, this is going to make sense for you. This isn't just, I'm not trying to appeal to your ego, I'm not trying to appeal to your sense of passion or your interest, but this logically makes sense for you, makes sense for your ambition, it makes sense for your business for X, Y, and Z reasons.

And so appealing to that logical side of that sales process will eliminate a lot of those emotional purchases that will be detrimental to the long-term success that you have. I was just listening to Andrew Ferell on his podcast, and he got asked that question about how to avoid that high-pressure sales tactic which a lot of people are pushing today. And he mentions just that, he mentions that, you know, if you're making all of those emotional purchases, you have to basically be pushing them to do something that is not going to hurt them, because as a salesperson, you were able to manipulate that emotion to your benefit and to your gain. And so realizing that you shouldn't is a high level of maturity and progression that you need to be operating at.

Isaac: Let's lighten it up now for a quick lightning round of fun questions to get to know you better. What's your favorite business or non-fiction book?

It would have to be The Empire of Business by Andrew Carnegie. Absolutely love that book. It was published 100 years ago, not many people know about it, very few people know about it. And it is one of the best books of all time. I think that if I was to only be given that book, that's all I need.

Top three podcasts you listen to?

So I listen to Real AF with Andy Frisella, which was previously the MF CEO Project. He's quite aggressive, some people love him, some people hate him, but I absolutely love his show.

Ed Mylett is another one I really adore. Ed's approach is a little bit softer than a lot of the people that I typically would listen to, but I think he has a diverse array of conversations with guests that are people that I wouldn't traditionally listen to, like athletes for example, or psychologists, or he's interviewed medical doctors, etc. A big health focus.

And then the third podcast that I also have been listening to quite a bit is Jordan B. Peterson, which again is controversial in and of itself. But I think that getting multiple perspectives and seeing multiple perspectives allows you to come to your own deduction that is a little bit more logic-based rather than just operating out of pure emotion.

How do you stay motivated and continue to evolve in an ever-changing business landscape?

This is actually something that I've been thinking about over the past two days quite a bit, because there are obviously going to be moments where you feel less motivated, where you feel like everything's just going wrong. It definitely happens to every entrepreneur.

I'm thinking about the two different energies that you can operate from. You can operate from that dark energy of, man, oh, he said something, he said I couldn't do it, let me go do it, and be like, screw you, all right, all right, you know what, I'm gonna take some and proving it wrong, proving yourself wrong, even proving yourself wrong.

And I say that, and I believe that I've operated a large part from that energy over the past couple of years. And it was either for example, my stepfather in those early years - I've talked about this quite a bit on other shows - where I would be like, all right, you said I couldn't do this growing up, screw you, guess what, and then being able to validate the successes.

And I think that one of the big changes that I'm going to be doing moving forward is becoming somebody who operates from the standpoint of, let me build something great, and trying to move a little bit away from that darker energy, because you can get consumed by it. I mean, you think about Star Wars, if you've ever seen Star Wars, the Sith get consumed by that darkness.

And I think being aware of that is important. So when you want to stay motivated, I think having something that you want to build that is great is wonderful. And also having the side of you that's like, I'm gonna prove you wrong, is also good.

What legacy do you hope to leave through your work?

I'm not really looking to leave a legacy, definitely. The reason I say that is I believe that to pay attention to your legacy while you're alive is to take away from the time that you have today. I'm going to be dead, so the biggest thing I want to do is ultimately have kids that I'm able to pass the Mashman name down to and an empire that they can take over and have that succession approach.

But I do not want to be focusing on, oh, what will Isaac be remembered for? I'm already, I already know that with my actions, I'll have that remembrance. But I would rather have that today when I'm alive. I mean, you think about an artist who is dead - a lot of the artists that we study about today, they were not known when they were alive, they were laughed at, they were mimicked, they were ridiculed. And then they die, and 600 years later, now we're like, oh my God, look at this artist, look at this author, look at this book. And it's like, people would call Shakespeare crazy when Shakespeare was alive.

So I think that part of that is building that recognition while I'm alive, that will naturally follow me in death. And I think that that conscious reputation management is something that you have to do - things that contribute to your reputation in a positive light. And to these conversations, I mean, this conversation, this podcast recording, can be saved and continued to be listened to 200 years from now when we're both gone. And I think that that is the longevity of the internet, you know, assuming the internet doesn't just disappear 100 years from now or some solar flare wipes out the planet.

But I'm thinking about how complicated that question is, because there's so many other aspects of it, to where I think that knowing that I did something that is worth remembering is going to be pushing me forward. And I think that goes back to the previous question, what motivates me. I'm not somebody who's motivated by legacy, but I am motivated by doing something great while I'm alive.

Isaac: How do you approach risk-taking in your business decisions, and what advice would you give to those hesitant to take risks?

Don't do anything that's stupid. I think that a lot - I think that's really the only way you can really screw up. And same with building out your reputation, the only way that you can ruin your reputation beyond repair is doing something so egregious that people just look at you with disgust.

And I mean, I think that with every risk, there's going to be a pro benefit, and there's going to be a downside to it. And I think measuring that out and thinking, all right, what can I gain from this? is an effective approach.

I mean, thinking about my own business and bringing a person on or bringing a consultant on - I realize that now I'm putting a little bit of my trust and a little bit of my business's good faith in the hands of a new consultant or a new person, a new member of my team. And depending on how they behave is going to directly reflect on the company, but that is a risk.

And so you start with those initial risks, and then you build your way up. But at the same point, I think being willing to go all in and just take that leap of faith is an effective but risky strategy that people should be adopting. I'm not saying leave your job and go live on the streets, but I've booked one-way plane tickets in the past, I've flown to Las Vegas without a round trip, I went to France without a ticket home. I've done those things because I knew that the worst that would happen is, well, this is going to suck, but I'll be all right. I'll go car hop, I'll do whatever I need to do to get back home if I want to.

And in retrospect, those risks develop my character because they develop my trust in myself. And once you trust yourself, you know that you're able to be all right no matter what happens.

If you could go back in time and give your younger self some advice before you started Mashman Ventures, what would you tell yourself?

My genuine answer is nothing. I would let myself fall and do everything else I would do. That's not the answer you're looking for, but if I had to choose something, it would be to start speaking from stage sooner and doing podcasts like this.

I did podcasting back then, but I would do it a lot more aggressively. I would try to get in front of as many people as possible while being the person who is the focus point, whether that's talking about my story and talking about - because you don't start knowing everything, you don't start out as an expert, you have to develop yourself into.

And even then, I do not consider myself an expert. I let other people say that for me. And I think that's a big thing as well. I mean, unless you're a lawyer, and you have to go through 8 years of law school, the term expert can be thrown around loosely. And I would rather somebody else validate my knowledge and serve as that edification than me trying to convince you that I'm somebody worth paying attention to.

And so I would say to younger Isaac, get on more stages sooner, sell to more people at scale, and that will ultimately allow you to be known by many and get to your goal sooner.

AJ, thank you again for your time today. I learned so much from your stories and insights, and I know listeners did too. Wishing you continued success, and looking forward to watching Mashman Ventures grow.

Thank you, AJ. AJ, it was a pleasure, my friend. Join us next week as we unbox yet another riveting founder tale. Until then, remember: stay scrappy, keep dreaming big, and let your entrepreneurial spirit shine.

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watch the full Interview: YouTube

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