Brian Lee From Startup Hunger to Entrepreneurial Patience

Ben BeeriWhat's up, everyone? Welcome to The Authentic Journey. I'm really excited to introduce our next guest, Brian Lee. Brian's a career entrepreneur and really just kicks ass in life. I know him as a businessman, a father, and a friend, and I'm really excited to welcome our guest, Brian. Thank you so much for having me, Ben. Super excited to be here. Absolutely, Brian. So I've gotten to know you over the years as somebody who's a big sports fan and a businessman and entrepreneur. Take me back to when you were younger and you kind of realized you wanted to carve out your own path.

Brian LeeYeah, it's a great question. And so basically, I was born in Korea, son of immigrant parents who moved here, brought me along with them when I was a kid, and started our life here down in Orange County, California. And I think when I look at entrepreneurs, I think most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time you're kind of born with that DNA to want to go build. Right? And that was in me early when I realized my father was an entrepreneur. And so basically I remember like my first entrepreneurial, I guess, you would call it, was Halloween.

Right? So every Halloween, this started when I was like seven years old, eight years old, I would map out my route, my Halloween route, and I would be the first kid out in the neighborhood ringing doorbells, even when it was still bright outside and people, uh, answered their door, they weren't ready, I'd say, Trick or treat. I had a pillowcase and I would fill it. And then I'd go home and I'd take another pillowcase, I'd fill that too. So I'd have so much candy at the end of the night. And then I would get home, I would put four pieces of candy into a Ziploc bag.

And then I would sell those Ziploc bags to school for $0.25 Right? So that was my first foray into, I guess, business. It was kind of funny because cost of goods was really zero. Was just my time. I stole the Ziploc bags from my mom. My dad and my sister would actually help me pack the Ziploc bags. So it was free labor. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But kind of the entrepreneurial bug caught me kind of early and I was always hustling from that point on. Like every year I would have a different idea. Like I would sell little mazes that I would make out of graph paper or I'd buy and sell lunch boxes and stuff like that. So it started early.

Was

Ben Beerithat something that allowed you to connect with other people? Like, were you like, did your peers kind of see you as that, or did your parents see you as that, or were you viewed differently? Or how, how was that when you were younger? Yeah. You know, my, I think my parents always encouraged it, especially my dad. My dad would always like see the hustle and respect the hustle and help me and guide me. And I would ask him a bunch of questions and

Brian Leeyou know, how to, how to, how to approach things, how to market myself, how to market the product. My dad was a wealth of knowledge. And so he would always encourage me. And then my mom was always like, My mom is a little different, truthfully. My mom wanted me to kind of say more on a professional route. So what happened was that I was in college. Uh, I went to UCLA, go Bruins. Um, I went to UCLA for undergrad and I didn't know what I wanted to do still. And so ended up going to law school at UCLA too.

And even in law school, didn't know what I wanted to do. I just, I was like the accidental lawyer. Right? But ended up taking a job at a law firm and working there. And I remember when I told my mom and my dad that I was going to leave to start my first company. My dad was highly encouraging, and my mom cried. My mom was crying. She said, why would you ever leave such a great job and take this risky path? Because my dad was an entrepreneur, so she saw all the ups and downs and all arounds and the stress and everything else. And so she really wanted me to just stay on a certain career path.

I just couldn't. Honestly, it's like, I actually liked the people I worked with. Didn't really enjoy the work too much. And I just kind of wanted to start something on my own. And so that's when I started my first company called legalzoom.com, uh, with a couple friends of mine, uh, Brian Lou, um, who was a friend of mine from law school, and Robert Shapiro, uh, the attorney, and Eddie Hartman, uh, who was our CTO. So the four of us started the company together out of my condo, and that's how LegalZoom started.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. And, uh, where did the idea come from or what kind of inspired you to get there, start it? Yeah, LegalZoom kind of was a, it was a journey because initially,

Brian Leeum, the idea and the concept we came up with was a bunch of stay at home attorneys that would answer questions online for 99¢ a minute. That was the initial concept. Uh, and it was called law garden at the time because sound we were all into the sound garden, the band. So we called it law garden. It didn't go anywhere. Because what we realized is, number one, at the end of the day, you were still providing legal advice. And at that time, there were very strict laws against fee splitting and and so forth and so or even raising capital from non attorneys.

So we could never take in outside capital unless you're an attorney, and then we could never, uh, you know, split those profits with others and so forth, and we could never take the company public either. So we can't raise money from venture capital, you couldn't take it public. It was kind of an issue, right? Because at the end of the day, you're still basically a law firm. So we decided to pivot that and that became LegalZoom, which was more online legal document self help, right, with a little bit of guidance from software. So the idea was kind of taking the TurboTax model for tax preparation, but doing that for very simple, straightforward legal documents.

And so we did that, launched that in 2001. It was fun. It was, uh, it was early days of the Internet.

Ben BeeriAnd what were some of the things that happened early on where you felt like, hey. I really am taking risk here. Like, you're starting to face some challenges, and you weren't really actually sure what was going to happen. Oh, that's every day.

Brian LeeThe early days of any business, that's every day. And if you're not hustling every day, then then you're gonna lose. Right? It's it's it's the path you choose, and, you just got to grind it out. And so for us, at LegalZoom, it was very, very difficult to raise capital because we're a couple of attorneys with not that much experience. And I remember we would go to all these venture capital firms and they would just flat out reject us. I'm not sure what it was. I mean, like us, I don't know, but we just could not raise capital. And then also it was a bad time too. Most importantly, it was a bad time. The timing was off because the .com bubble had just burst, you know, the first.com, uh, crash.

And so that was March 2001. I I remember the day. And then after that, it was almost impossible to ask anyone for money for any .com idea. And so we just had to go it alone. So I borrowed a tiny bit of money from my parents at that time. It was $50,000 and Brian Lou borrowed $50,000 from his parents. Luckily we were fortunate enough that our parents could support us to that amount. And that's how we started LegalZoom with a $100,000 and we never had a raise again. So LegalZoom was really bootstrapped in that sense from that point on. It's just we just kind of ran off our own profits and kept growing it.

Ben BeeriAnd when did you feel like you achieved a breakthrough and that the business was actually there to stay?

Speaker 3You know, I think it was by accident almost.

Brian LeeRight? So when we first started LegalZoom, early days of the internet, and I remember I had a friend from UCLA who took a job at Idea Labs in Pasadena. And one of the products that they were working on was the first paid search engine called goto.com. Goto eventually got acquired by Yahoo. The patents got acquired by Google and everything that became the backbone of paid search. But at the time when GoTo first started, my friend called me up and said, Brian, I heard you started this internet company. Do you need customers? I said, yeah, of course. He says, why don't you try GoTo, right? Stick $20 into this account and I'll help you set it up and let's see if you got any orders or customers.

So that's a great idea. So I stuck $20 in the account and every click on that search engine costs 1¢ per click. And I remember we burned through about 130 clicks, so a dollar 30 and we got an order. Right. And I still remember that order. His name was Sasan Distarti in Miami, Florida. So Sasan, if you're listening, thank you. But he was our very first customer because before that it was really like my sister ordered a will, Brian Lou's cousin ordered something, you know, stuff like that. But no actual real orders. But that was our first real order and that's when we realized, hey, this paid search marketing stuff actually works.

And so we started growing with paid search and it got to the point, was a crazy period, because I remember you had to bid on each term at that time. And for example, like the word incorporate, right, for an incorporation service, like if you want to form a company. I remember that we were paying something like 5¢ a click, and then it was 10¢ a click, and then it all of a sudden jumped up to a dollar a click. At one point, it was hitting like $50 a click. No joke. 1¢ to like $50 a click. We're like, Oh my God, that's insane. Right? But we were still making it work because we were at that time the largest and most scaled. So we had the actual profits to put back into marketing.

And it was difficult to compete against that. So we kind of outgrew everybody. Yeah. So it was really paid search that led the way and gave us confidence that we had a business. That's awesome. And what were you like, who were you as a person at the time? Like, what what did you say? Yeah. I was just a young kid. Um, in a lot of ways, was not that young. But I started LegalZoom when I think I was 26 years old. So after law school, after a couple years of experience, and then kind of started LegalZoom.

Still single at the time and just kind of just working around the clock. You know, I was in the, at that age where it's like, didn't have a lot of responsibilities outside of myself. And so just worked and just kept grinding. It was very, very late nights, almost every night. Because we really didn't have that many people. We had just four of us. And then it was five and six and so forth. But it was it was, uh, yeah, it's just it was just hard work. And it's like, that's the thing. It's like, uh, no one's ever just gonna show up on your doorstep and say, here's your success.

Doesn't happen that way. I mean, very few people win the lotto. You know what I'm saying? It's like, usually it's like, and most of the time, 99.9999% of the time, you're gonna have to work for it. Right? And I, I'm really, did work for it. Right? So did my partners. We were working around the clock and nonstop. And that's what it took.

Ben BeeriAnd how did you feel about going through the journey as the years went on? I'm sorry. What was it? It was Going through the journey of building LegalZoom as the years went on and watching the growth and watching your growth as a person It walking hand by hand with was very exciting.

Brian LeeUm, watching LegalZoom grow. LegalZoom was never really what I call a sexy business. It was always a business that grew 10% to 20% every year profitably. And after twenty five years, it's a nice business. It just kind of compounds on that growth. So yeah, but over the years, it's like, grow a lot from just my experience at LegalZoom, understanding how to be a leader, understanding how to manage people and work with people and be a team member, understanding everything from corporate formations to audits to lawsuits to I mean, we've experienced so much at LegalZoom, like the whole range of emotions and outcomes.

There is a point at LegalZoom where we were doing fine, then we almost went bankrupt, like overnight. And and it was really interesting. So we had a we were a B2C, company, direct to consumer, basically. So consumers would purchase legal documents from us. But we realized like there's this one client or customer who was ordering a divorce from us every other week. We're like, wow, this guy's getting married and divorced so many times. So after about 20 divorces, I called him. I said, hello, Mr. So and so, this is Brian from LegalZoom.

How are you? Like, I'm just checking in on you, making sure you're okay. Because I noticed that you've been divorced 20 times now in the last five months. And he said something so interesting. He said, Oh, actually it's not for myself. I'm a lawyer. I'm a family lawyer. And I just use LegalZoom to prepare all my documents. I said, Oh, wow. That's interesting. And it was like light bulbs, right? Like, wow, we're not just direct to consumer. Attorneys could use us too. It's a big channel. So we actually started working on something called proxy law, which was a more professional business version of LegalZoom.

LegalZoom was doing fine. We're still growing. We're profitable. But what we did was we took all those profits and we took our best people and everyone started working on proxy law. So proxy law was just going, it was very nascent. LegalZoom started stagnating and it started coming down even a little bit, but we kept telling ourselves it's okay because proxy law is going to be huge. Right? And I remember when we launched proxy law, it was about four, five, six months into it wasn't working at all. Because what we realized is even though it's a similar product, the market was completely different. There was no market fit because at that time, attorneys, especially attorneys, were slow to adopt technology.

Right? Back then, they were less like, what is that? Right? Like they didn't even use software. They were still going to the library and looking up, looking up codes. And so basically, um, we were almost out of money. And, and I, I remember like we were really scared. And then we made that decision to, to, to cut Proxyla, to kill it. So we killed it, kind of took a few more months to get back on our feet and started focusing on LegalZoom again and kept going. And it's a lesson I've always taken with me, which is, it sounds simple, but it's hard to do.

Oftentimes, most of the times your job as a leader, as a CEO is a CEO, right? You have to understand what to say no to because opportunities knock on your door every day and everything sounds great. Especially when you're an optimist, right? It's like, I think we could do this and we could do that. We could do this. We could do that. And before you blink, you're working on five or six different things with no focus. If you've got something working, focus on it. Build a very, very strong foundation and come from strength to extend.

Right? So if you're gonna extend, make sure that you're on very, very solid footing first. And there's not a lot more growth even that you could make out off of that foundation. And then you extend.

Ben BeeriThat's saying something, because we each only have twenty four hours in a day and unlimited things we can do. Absolutely. There's only so much. Yeah. And at what point did you feel like you wanted to go into doing other things as well?

Speaker 3From LegalZoom? Yeah. You know, the thing about LegalZoom,

Brian Leeand think about myself even, I I'm really an entrepreneur. Right? And I love the startup stage. Just love it. I love the grind. I love the teamwork, the quick iterations, the quick builds, uh, getting things launched, and trying a bunch of things, and like, okay, that one's working, let's go. Right? That's the stage I love. I loved actually at LegalZoom when we had no money and we're working on my condo and we were eating ramen and peanut butter jelly sandwiches every day. I loved it. Right? And after about nine or ten years at LegalZoom, when the company was on a great path and very profitable, I yearned for it again. I was like, I kind of want to go start something new. Right? So I actually left LegalZoom to start ShoeDazzle, uh, with my wife and with Kim Kardashian.

And so left LegalZoom, uh, in great hands with Brian Liu, and then kind of started, uh, ShoeDazzle And, know, back at the grind, right? Start up, you know, very small team. My co partner there was, uh, MJ. But it's, uh, yeah, it was fun. And we grew Shu Dazzle very quickly. I mean, just shot out the gate. Ended up selling it to a company called Textile down in El Segundo. And it's in good hands there, and it's still going. Um, but that was a fun one, very different than legal documents. And the idea came to me really because my wife, um, I had just gotten married and I saw how addicted she was to shoes.

And I thought to myself, gosh, I wonder if you could make a shoe subscription company and have women buy a pair of shoes every month. And that was the concept behind ShoeDazzle. And it really resonated. For $39 a month, we had a lot of customers buying shoes on a monthly basis.

Ben BeeriAnd how did you approach this business knowing that you've already been through starting a business and propping it up before?

Brian LeeYeah, it's interesting because one main advantage of building something that's, you know, somewhat successful, it becomes easier the second time around in the sense of raising capital, building a team, because people will give you the credibility that, you know, you're searching for the first time around, right? So you come at it with a position of strength in a lot of ways. And so you're able to attract talent, able to attract more capital and so forth. So that part's easier. The interesting thing is though, you'll end up making the same mistakes.

You just, I think it's human nature. You definitely want to learn from mistakes, but inevitably you'll make some of the same ones. Right? Sometimes I'll make the same mistake like two or three times before I finally learn. Maybe it's just me, but that's just the way it is. But I remember even at ShoeDazzle, you know, I think we kind of extended too quick. We wouldn't, uh, you know, fashion and handbags and some other things. And it was just too early, you know, but, no, in hindsight, we kind of, we kind of got lucky on that one too, though. Um, because remember I told you at LegalZoom, we were the, one of the earlier customers to pay for a search engine, uh, pay for a click.

On ShoeDazzle, we were one of the first customers of Facebook when Facebook first opened their marketing channels. And so we kind of grew with Facebook marketing and so forth. So that was very early. Yeah, but ShootOwsel was an interesting company. Was fun, right? Working in fashion. Fashion's hard. It just is. Um, anyone who tells you differently is lying. Fashion is notoriously a difficult industry. Users have to stay really on top of everything from trends to, you know, to forecasts, um, making sure inventory is tight, you know, all of it. It's a, it's a lot of work. What was your favorite part about ShoeDazzle?

My favorite part was working with my wife. It was kind of fun starting something with Mira, my wife, and, um, just kind of growing it from nothing. That's the thing about building businesses, if they're successful. It's so fun seeing something from a concept, an idea. And you wake up and you've got two three hundred people working there and you're driving a lot of revenue. And you're like, wow, this was nothing two or three years ago. And so it's fun to see that growth and to witness it. And what was it like, or what was the experience like working with your wife on something like that? Yeah, it was actually pretty fine because we traveled to China together, to the factories.

She's very good at fashion and and very forward thinking when it comes to trends. And so she was kind of more on the merchandising team. I was more on the marketing and the finance side. So it was fun to fun to kind of divide and conquer, if you will. That's amazing. And, I mean, especially

Ben Beeriin a day and age where you sit there and you think about, like, I mean, like, the love story aspect of things and, like, coming together and, like, a true partnership of building. Yeah. Yeah. For real. That's awesome. Uh, how long have you guys been together? Uh, we've been married eighteen years now. Yeah. Eighteen years. Nice years. Something like that. Yeah. That's amazing. And what was the greatest thing you learned from like having that, not only like

Brian Leepartnership and family relationship with your wife, but also working with her? Yeah. You know, the thing is, it's like, um, the one thing that we were really good at was leaving work at work. So if you are gonna work with your significant other or your spouse or whatnot, it's best to keep work separate from your home life. Rest of will drive you crazy. If you're, if you're talking about work twenty four hours a day and not talking about anything else, it's kind of an issue, truthfully, I think. So we were really good at kind of leaving work at work and kind of home is home life. And we talked about us, our family, our kids, you know, stuff like that, as opposed to, gosh, you know, what's going on at the factory. Of course, every now and then, you know, if something's really coming up, then yeah, you'll discuss it. But most of the time we try to keep it separate.

Ben BeeriAnd when you guys sold ShoeDazzle,

Brian Leeuh, what was the process of the exit like? It was gnarly, actually, because it was ups and downs. ShoeDazzle was skyrocketed, and they kinda came down and so forth. We exited still at a at a pretty good clip, um, to, uh, textile, and I heard they're doing fine with it. So it was, I would not say it was a beautiful exit, but it exited, right? And landed on our feet, and that gave me the encouragement to start my third company, which was The Honest Company, uh, that I started with Jessica Alba.

Ben BeeriAnd what got you to want to start The Honest Company?

Brian LeeReally? I wasn't really looking to start anything. It was, um, it was Jessica who came to me, uh, through her husband Cash, who I knew, and she wanted to start, uh, the Honest Company. So she thought that the baby category was ripe in terms of, um, approaching it differently with more organic, non toxic products, better for you, better for your kids, better for your home environment. And so that was the concept behind The Honest Company. Honestly, she kind of convinced me to do this. At first I wasn't sure, but then I had kids and I saw how my wife changed her buying behavior.

She started all of a sudden shopping at Whole Foods and buying organic purees for the kids, you know, and so forth and living more of a healthier lifestyle. So I knew that, you know, when it came to The Honest Company, it really comes down to mothers and that moment of awakening, right? They, they, you hold your child for the first time. And really, it's an instant moment of undeniable love. And you will do anything to protect that child, right? Including surrounding that child with the safest products that you can find.

And so that was the idea behind The Honest Company. Honest Company was fun. Jessica is a rock star. She's a genius in a lot of ways, uh, especially when it comes to brand and marketing and the product itself. And so was it a great partnership. You know, we grew it from nothing. We had other great partners and Christopher Gavigan, who headed up product and Sean Cain, who was more our operating officer. So the four of us kind of worked hand in hand and got this thing off the ground and took off like a rocket ship. And we ended up taking it public.

It's still trending in the public market today and still changing a lot or helping a lot of lives, making a lot of homes safer. That's amazing. Yeah. It's been a it was a fun one.

Ben BeeriWhat do you think was your greatest takeaway from The Honest Company?

Brian LeeUh, you know, I would say in hindsight, what I would have done differently is driven Honest Company towards profit earlier. Because there was a time, it was an interesting time period where money was basically free. And you had these venture capital firms and late stage guys just throwing money at growth. And it was grow at all costs or just grow, right? Here's more money grow. And Alex, that works great until the money dries up. Right? And when the money dries up, you're left holding the bag. You're like, okay, what do we do now?

Right? So that was the position that The Honest Company kind of found itself in eventually. Um, but we were already at such scale that we were still able to take it public. But in terms of, you know, in hindsight, what I learned from it was take in less capital, be smart, treat it like it's the last capital you're ever gonna raise and try to get to profitability, or at least have sight to profitability before getting way too far ahead of your skis.

Ben BeeriAnd at this point, once you took the company public, where do you feel that you were as a person? What do you feel that building these three different businesses, what do you feel that that built you into?

Speaker 3That's a great question. For for for me, it's like it was a lot of self reflection.

Brian LeeLike, what what is it that I really want? What is it that I that that I want my life to become? Because initially, just to let you know, LegalZoom, we started, I had to make it work. I had no choice. We had no choice. We had student loans. I had car payments. I had a mortgage payment. We were broke, like literally broke. It's like, if that didn't work, it's like, what am I going to do? Be a lawyer forever. And I didn't want to do that either. So we had to make it work. And so it's, I guess you could say we're lucky that it did work.

But it really kind of like, uh, showed me like, okay, there is a difference though of working for a financial outcome versus working something that you actually care deeply about or you're passionate about. And I finally realized that this time around, Ben, with your Arena Club. Okay. I know I've started a lot of companies, but Arena Club, I started about three, four years ago with Derek Jeter and with Jesse Glass. And this is hands down my favorite company that I've started, like hands down. And that's really because I'm extremely passionate about the category and the mission and the services that we're bringing to collectors.

It's just fun. So I remember like, even when you're younger and you ask kind of older, wiser, more successful folks for some advice. And I sort of remember that more times than not, they'll tell you stuff like, you know, do something you're really interested in. Follow your passion, follow your dreams, you know, all that kind of BS. Right? But at that time when you're young, you're like, yeah, whatever. Right? I've got, I got bills to pay. I got to make money. But it's the first time with Arena Club where I don't have to worry about money, that I can just focus on building something cool and follow my passion that I had since I was a kid, which is collecting cards, mostly baseball cards. Um, and I turned that into a business and now it just doesn't feel like work.

Really, I go to card shows, and it's like, you're calling this work? I get to meet all these people and trade cards and listen the latest trends of which players are increasing value and which players are taking. It's like, this is fun for me. It's like, love it. I love everything about it. And I love collecting into my PC, and I love holding cards. It's just like, ah, everything about it is just, it's so much fun. And when something is this much fun, it really doesn't feel like work. And that's leading to the success we're having at Arena Club, I think, is because we're we're we don't think of it as work. We think of it as building something cool and fun.

Ben BeeriThat's amazing. And then when you hit that frequency where it's just everything is fun for you and you're enjoying it, Mhmm. It just radiates to everyone around you and, like,

Brian Leeeveryone's having fun and everyone just enjoys it. I hope I hope so. Because, um, we have a whole team of people in Los Angeles and Beaverton, Oregon. And, yeah, I hope they're having fun. I mean, look, it's still work. Don't get me wrong. It's like, we still have to hustle and work hard. And sometimes we have to put in, you know, late nights. But at the end of the day, it's like, I hope that, you know, people are enjoying, you know, the challenge and and enjoying the the the the hobby and experiencing it firsthand and experiencing growth for the Arena Club firsthand is is it's kinda fun.

Ben BeeriLooking at Arena Club, and obviously, your inspiration to start that goes way back, what's a piece of memorabilia or a card or something that you remember having very early on that you look back on, you're like, this is why I'm doing it. Yeah.

Brian LeeUm, so my dad took me to my first Dodger game, LA Dodgers game, when I was about eight years old. And I fell in love with it. I just, the excitement, the fans, cheering, the watching the game. And, and, and Steve Garvey was our first baseman at that time. And I remember the following day was at home and I rode my bicycle to Fountain Valley Cards and Comics. I'm not sure. I don't think it's around anymore. Um, it was like a thirty minute bike ride. And I took off, didn't tell my parents. Drove all the way. I rode all my, all my bike all the way there. I bought a Steve Garvey rookie card, a Topps rookie card, I still have it today.

And I love it. But that kinda started my journey into collecting, uh, cards, and I would say my favorite card today I have so many, but I have a a pretty special, what I call a PC collection, personal collection, of Asian iconic athletes. And that's what I collect, and that's what's near and dear to me. And so I have some amazing kind of iconic Asian athlete cards, everyone from modern folks like Chloe, uh, Chloe Kim in snowboarding to, you know, Normie Kwong, who was the very first Asian professional football player playing for the Canadian Football League.

And I've got a a highly graded card of his. And so that cards like that are just near and dear to me, so that's my PC collection, our Asian Iconic Athletes.

Ben BeeriHere we go. And, uh, what are you seeking out, or what is the grail piece that you're after and wanting to add to your collection? I'm looking for yeah. That's a great question. I'm looking for some Yamamotos,

Brian Leesome very rare one o ones, some some some good auto rookie cards of of Yamamoto. So I'm always on the hunt for that right now. And Shohei Otani, of course. I'm I'm a Dodger guy. So yeah. Dodgers. Love myself some Shohei. There we go. Yeah.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. That's awesome. And what do you feel about like, you're really passionate about this. I guess what's been able to anchor you into that passion over these years?

Speaker 3You know, I think it's, uh, again, I think most of our times, this is innate.

Brian LeeThis is innate. It's already anchored in you to build and to want to create something from nothing. And it's like, I just respect entrepreneurs so much. And I like, even, you know, like even you, Ben, you know, it's like, you're an entrepreneur. It's like you built an amazing business and goal same memorabilia. I know how hard it is. It's not easy. You know, it's like, gotta, you gotta like, you know, make out your you gotta create your own market in a lot of ways and create your own demand and everything else.

And, and, and it's not easy. And any day could be a bad day and some days are great days, you know, it's this whole entire journey. And so I started a venture fund a few years back, over ten years ago called BAM Ventures. And it stands for Brian and Mira. Mira's my wife. Um, so BAM Ventures, and we invest in startups. And so we invest in the early stages of companies, sometimes entrepreneur with an idea even, right? So that stage. And we help entrepreneurs, you know? And I love it because I get to stay close to what's next, right? What the young ones are working on keeps my mind fresh.

And hopefully I can impart some of my experience and knowledge upon them and help them out where I can. So it's a great synergistic relationship.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. What do you remember about the first business that you invested in that you weren't a part of?

Brian LeeOh, wow. That's a great question. It was a yogurt shop called Cantaloupe Yogurt. And it was, uh, on Hollywood. It's a physical location on Hollywood and La Brea. And believe it or not, this is like twenty something years ago, and it's still there, still there. But, um, I invested in it. It was not a good outcome because it ended up going broke, and so we ended up selling it for nothing to this other person who bought it. And I think it's the same owner now. But yeah, that was a tough business. And what I realized is like, it doesn't matter if you're building a yogurt shop or if you're building like, you know, Nvidia, it's all hard.

Is. It's all hard. Yep. You know, so, so, I mean, so many things went wrong with that yogurt shop is unbelievable. Like the permits took forever. We could never get the exact ingredients right. Remember they would over order too many fruit and then the fruit would go bad. There's so many things would go wrong. You're like, oh wow, it's hard to make money yogurt.

Ben BeeriIt's hard to make money in any business, It's really true. It's like, where could you just yeah. It's interesting. Like, where could you create that value for somebody else and get them to, like, want to, like, transact with your business. Right. And that's the interesting part. Now with all of the entrepreneurial stuff that you've done, how do you take the approach with your kids and, like, what they want to do or their passions?

Brian LeeThat's so interesting. Asked that question because you know, my son Davis. Um, so I have one son Davis, uh, he's 17 and a daughter Madison who's 14 and they're both very passionate about what they do. And so Davis is a passionate filmmaker. So he loves making short films and movies, and he writes his own scripts and everything else. And so he just loves it. Like every free moment he has, he'll watch the latest movies. Right? So he's just kind of like in that world. And I encourage it. I encourage it. So, you know, it's like, I remember when I was younger, again, being from an immigrant family, I remember my dad asked me once, was thinking I was like nine years old. My dad's like, what do you think you want to be when you grow up?

And I remember I said, maybe I'll be an actor. And he looks at me and says, no, you're not. He's like, that's a life of pain. That's what he said. He's like, what you want to do is you want to go into business or you want to be a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant, you know, something that's going to put food on the table. I'm like, yes, sir. What else do you say when you're nine years old? So I still remember that conversation and I, but, but I remember like, um, look, I've, this, this might sound funny, but I've never considered myself even that successful.

I know I am. I know I've created some great businesses and I've done great financially, but I haven't created Facebook. I didn't create Apple. I've created some nice businesses. So I don't think it's like for me to be like, oh my god, I'm so successful, it's like, I've done fine. But I remember it was the first time I ever realized I've done okay is when my son Davis said, Maybe I'll be a director. And my answer to him was, Go for it. I gotcha. You know, it's like, I'm gonna support you all And the if you're, that is your passion is, do it.

Right? And Madison, my daughter is the same thing. She's a dancer, right? So she's a competitive dancer. She dances like, you know, five or six days a week. And, you know, she's always doing competitions and so forth, and she just loves it. Just loves it. Go for it, Madison. Right? You do you. Right? And then I gotcha. And so, you know, would I say, like, you know, filmmaking is a good path to make money? Probably not. Well, hopefully, but probably it's hard. The odds are against you. Right? And being a dancer, there's not much money, not much money in dancing, you know, more power to them. And they love what they do and they're extraordinarily talented.

Anyone who's dances professionally for a living, I mean, God bless you. You know? But it's not easy. And so but, you know, if they're passionate about it,

Ben BeeriI got them. Love that. No. It's cool. And it must mean a lot being Davis and Madison and knowing it's like, can follow the path that I want to follow, and I'm gonna be supported doing that. Yeah. And what do you say to other parents out there whose kids have entrepreneurial tendencies? Mhmm. But maybe they just don't see it. The parents don't see it. That's

Speaker 3the thing. It's like, oftentimes parents don't see it.

Brian LeeYou got to really pay attention. You got to spend time with your kids. You got to understand what moves them, what they're interested in and hopefully be part of it, you know, be part of that journey. Um, especially when it comes to entrepreneurs, like I said, I think most entrepreneurs are born with it. You're born with that desire to break free, right? To start something and to make an impact, right? To build something substantial and to say, I made a difference. I think it's just a path that some people want to take.

You don't have, there's so many times someone will come to me, Ben, and be like, I love like your entrepreneurial journey and I'm going to be an entrepreneur someday. I just need a few more years of experience, or I just need this to happen or that to happen or whatever. Honestly, it's never a good time. It just isn't. You're just going to have to make the jump because no one's going to make that jump for you. Right? It's within you to make it happen. Right? So if you truly are an entrepreneur, there's no waiting.

You should have started yesterday, honestly, building what you want to build. And even if it's part time, get it started, you know, to start working on it whenever you can. And when it's time to make that full jump, make the full jump. But don't just sit around saying, I'm going to be an entrepreneur someday. Right. And I have this idea. I'm going to start it some other day. Start it today.

Ben BeeriWhat do you feel like your next jump is?

Brian LeeYou know, that's a great question because I love what I do. I really do. I love building. I'm not getting any younger, that's for sure. So, you know, do I have another one in me, um, after Arena Club, if Arena Club ever, you know, exits or anything along those lines? Maybe, possibly. Um, I think I could do BAM Ventures forever because I love that. Uh, and I love meeting entrepreneurs and strategizing with them and helping them, uh, grow. So I could do that forever. And will I ever start a company from scratch again?

I don't know. We'll have to see. I have to see how long I'm at Arena Club. It could be two years. It could be ten years. It could be twenty years. So who knows?

Ben BeeriWhat do you think your next jump is outside of business?

Brian LeeYou know, I wanna I wanna give back more, focus a little bit more on philanthropy and making impacts in communities and so forth. So my wife and I are, are pretty ingrained when it comes to education, uh, providing education for everyone, um, access to education. So my wife was very involved in getting kind of, uh, inner city children the best educations into the private schools or independent schools in LA and so forth. And she was always very passionate about that. Same with me. So education was always there. I was on the board of my kid's school and just wanted to provide the best kind of education you can for kids, especially kids in need.

Ben BeeriDoing that and seeing young kids and giving them different opportunities, What do you think it is about these young entrepreneurial kids who have these different dreams and want to go and achieve things? I feel like we have an entrepreneur problem, like as far as how entrepreneurs are suppressed at a very young age, and they don't really fully get to express themselves. And so many of them never really come to fruition. They never really actually end up starting anything or going for what they believe in because they're conditioned at a young age to believe that they can't or they shouldn't.

Brian LeeHow do you think we help them? You know, this is a tough question. But first you have to identify them. Um, but the second is I think you just got to provide as many resources as you can to them at an earlier age, right? So I love when high schools even have entrepreneur programs. Right? Because I know at my kid's school, they have an entrepreneur class. Right? And I love seeing the kids take it. Right? I love seeing them come up with ideas and creating business plans and strategies and creating financial models and really understanding the nuts and bolts of getting something started and going and conceptualizing it. And I think it's a great thing. So definitely identifying those kids, but then also providing resources for them to break free.

Right? So even if they're not getting that support necessarily at home from their parents, right, maybe they'll get that support from their community, or maybe they'll get that support from school. So I think it's incredibly important that every high school in America has an entrepreneur program. And that's easier said than done. But, yeah, hopefully, that'll be the case someday. Because really, when it comes to America, there's an entrepreneur that drives America, the economy. Right? It really is. Because if you look at the amount of the economy driven by small businesses even, it's a vast, vast bulk of it. Everyone loves talking about Meta. Everyone loves talking about SpaceX.

But what really drives the economy are the mom and pop entrepreneurs. That's who drives America. And so we got to encourage that. We've got to encourage people to find their niche and build.

Ben BeeriIt's true. Because so many people have the opportunity. Like, they have these niche skill sets. Mhmm. And maybe the total addressable market doesn't get them hundreds of millions or tens of millions of dollars, but they can generate a solid 6 figure income off of their niche skill set. Right. And that's gonna be a better living than going and working some job they hate. Right. I totally agree with you. Completely. Everyone's got talent. Just gotta utilize that talent. Yeah. Yeah. Just getting people to, like, believe in what they love and what they want to do and what they wanna go for. Exactly.

So that's something that that's been on my heart a lot lately. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Yeah. I'm coming up on ten years of my business. This is incredible. Congratulations. Thank you. And it's like, I just remember, kinda like you said, it's like, go and take that jump. Mhmm. It's like, what's ahead of you is unknown. Right. But if you don't take the jump, you'll never find out. Yeah. And that's kind of the really interesting thing to think about. So as you reflect on all this stuff and from the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, selling candy, and, I mean, the Ziploc bags are 25¢.

I mean, I absolutely love that. And to going into business in LegalZoom, ShoeDazzle, Honest Company, and now Arena Club, what do you feel has changed the most in you as a person over the years?

Brian LeeThat's a really good question. Um, I actually think I've become more empathetic and more patient over the years. I was a psycho. Literally, I was like, I was so hungry to make something work. I would just go nuts. If someone didn't show up on time at work, I would just go nuts. I wasn't very patient. I apologize to anyone I offended at LegalZoom. Um, but really, I've just learned to be a little bit more relaxed, truthfully speaking, and more understanding of where people are coming from. And I have to really respect that everyone's journey is different.

Makes me, what drives me might not drive you. I used to think it was all the same. Like we're all like fighting for the same common goal. Right? But then you realize as you're mature, as you've gone through it a few times, it's like, that's not the case. Right? Everyone's looking for a different most of the time they're looking for a different angle. Right? But as long as you could kind of direct people in the right way to some type of common, even if that common goal is pretty wide, that's where you want to be. And you can't expect everyone to think exactly the way you do because they're not.

Ben BeeriAnd where do you feel like you can show more empathy towards yourself nowadays?

Brian LeeYeah. That's a great question. I think I'm more empathetic towards myself for sure. Like, you know, I'm more forgiving of myself. Right. It's an age old saying, you know, it's like, no one's perfect. You're gonna make mistakes, and you just kinda have to accept it. And hopefully, don't beat yourself too hard over it. And you move on. I always like to say, you know, you're gonna make mistakes, but, you know, what you want to do is you want to forget the mistake. You want to learn the lesson. Remember the lesson, but forget the mistake. You just gotta move on.

Ben BeeriWhere do you feel like you were harder on yourself than you needed to be throughout your journey?

Speaker 3You know, I think it's most of the time it's when the results

Brian Leedon't become what you're envisioning. Right? So the results for a shootout, weren't the results that I really wanted. The results for the auto company weren't the results that I really wanted. Right? You want them to be much larger, more impactful. And even though, but you have to just step back and say, you know what? But we have impacted a lot our lives and we've done great. So you just have to be accepting of that. And I've become more accepting of that.

Ben BeeriAnd what are some of the relationships that you feel like really ground you as a person? Because you come across so many people in life and a lot of people are really seasonal. Right? It's like you don't really get to have everybody stay in your life for a lengthy period of time. What have you found that is the recipe for a good relationship?

Speaker 3Yeah. You know, I think it's just a lot of mutual respect,

Brian Leemutual understanding, commonality. I've had friends that I'm still super close to. Like, these are my best friends in life. I met one of them, Peter, um, when I was eight, and we're still best friends. Right? I met another, friend of mine, Brian Lou, in law school, and we're still the best of friends. And my friend, Ossie, who lives out in Miami, and my friend Sam Valenzuela from high school is like, I'm so close to all these guys, like super tight. Right. And it's just, uh, I don't know. It's like when you meet up with people who you have so much commonality with and you respect, it's nothing changes.

Right? It's like when I meet with my old high school friends, it's like we're still in high school. Even if we haven't seen each other in like a year or two, it's like, you just kind of revert back to how you used to be. Right? The same dorky kids that you were back in the day. This is kind of nice. So you definitely have that commonality. You definitely meet great people later on in life too. And I have a lot of great friends that I've met in the last few years that I can see myself being friends with forever.

It's just about building relationships, keeping those connections caring. Right? So if you care What I've noticed, if you care for them, they will care for you. Right? If you reach out to them, they will reach back out to you too. Right? So it's so simple in a lot of ways. Not everyone does it, but wish someone a happy birthday.

Speaker 3Reach out and say, You know what? Good luck on that surgery tomorrow. I'm thinking about you. Whatever

Brian Leeit is, it's like just be understanding and show love and you get love.

Ben BeeriWhat do you feel are some of the habits over the years that you have now, but you maybe wish you had earlier on in your journey?

Brian LeeYeah. That's a great question. I think the main one would be setting goals for yourself and rewards for yourself. So in the earlier days of my career, all I did was work. Like that's all I did. Vacations were like a dream, right? And as I kind of grew with experience and so forth, what I realized is I really need to balance my life. Work is work, yes. But family is extremely important, right? And your own time, your personal time is important. So how do you achieve both? Right? Again, at the earliest start of any startup, there's really no balance.

You're going to have to work, right? Like it's a grind and no one's going do it for you, like I said. So the first couple of years are going to be rough, any way you look at it. But let's just say you achieve some sort of normalcy, uh, and stability in your business. You should definitely set goals for yourself and reward yourself. So the thing that I do is I do take two vacations, sometimes even three vacations a year. Right? And even if it's a weekend, right, that's a vacation. What I say is, listen, if I achieve this, I'm gonna take myself and my kids to Disneyland this weekend, and we're gonna have a great time.

And I set that goal. And if I reach that goal, we do it. Right? I won't tell my kids that, but this is an internal goal, right? So long as I achieve and I reward myself, I figured that I know that keeps me going. And I wish I discovered that earlier. Right? And it doesn't have to be big goals. It doesn't have to be a week long trip to Tahiti. It could be a camping trip to Yosemite, whatever it is. Set goals for yourself and reward yourself for achieving that goal. But then as soon as you're done celebrating that goal, move on. Move on to the next because there's a lot more goals waiting.

Ben BeeriWhat do you feel like your favorite reward that you've given yourself is?

Brian LeeThis is going to sound terrible. It's going to make me sound so superficial, but I always wanted a Ferrari. And I remember at LegalZoom, I told myself, if we had this much profit this year, I'm gonna go buy myself a Ferrari. And I did. You know? And I remember going to the Ferrari dealer in Beverly Hills and ordering this car, and and and they send you little pictures as they're making the car. It's pretty it's pretty fun process. And I finally get the car. And I'm driving around, and it felt great for about two months.

And then and then you realize, like, what am I doing? Like, I'm driving a Ferrari around, and people are staring at me funny. And so you kinda get tired of it pretty At least I got tired of it pretty quick. I didn't hold I didn't keep the car very long, but it was just an internal goal of mine. And I I did it and achieved it and moved on to the next goal.

Ben BeeriWhat do you feel there is to be learned from having goals, achieving them, reaching them,

Brian Leeand then maybe just not feeling the same about them after you already have them kind of like the Ferrari? I think it's a good thing though. I think it's a good thing that, you know, you know, what really moves you and what really like resonates with you in a deeper way. The Ferrari didn't move me after I even got it. Right? What moves me though, are experiences. And so now I set my goals as, you know what, I'm going to go eat at Vespertine, a Michelin starred restaurant. You know, I'm going to go experience that concert. I'm going to go watch the Eagles at the Sphere in Vegas.

Right? Little goals like that, goals like that will resonate with me, and they're much deeper meaning and much more meaningful to me.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. Yeah.

Brian LeeThank you.

Ben BeeriWhat would you tell Brian in high school today? What would you today Wow. Tell Brian in high school today?

Brian LeeWell, there's so much I would tell. Number one, don't drink and drive.

Speaker 3Uh, but this is you know, I I I would just say, you know what? Prepare for the adventure.

Brian LeeBe ready. Right? Because change is constant, but the adventure is the same. Right? So just be ready for the ups and downs of life. Don't let anything get you too high. Don't let anything get you too down. Just know that tomorrow, even if it's the worst day ever, tomorrow's a new day. And it's just something that you learn over time, too. Right? Nothing's as really as bad as it seems and nothing's as great as it seems. You just have to be realistic about it. And then looking forward, all the way forward at

Ben Beeriyour funeral, what would you want people to say about Brian?

Brian LeeI I would want them to say that that I made a difference, right, that I've impacted lives for the better, And I built some great companies. And I had a fun life filled with love, beautiful wife, beautiful children, beautiful sister, and great friends.

Ben BeeriIt's amazing. It's so many of the things that you say really center around your family. Yeah. It's, uh, which, I mean, it just it's really, like, refreshing to hear. Yeah. It's like that's awesome. It's like to have because so many people don't get that. They don't get to have those great relationships with their family. Yeah.

Brian LeeUnfortunate. Blessed.

Ben BeeriYeah. That's awesome. Thank you. And then for you, has what has, like, faith, like, played a role in your journey and everything that's happened in your life? Yeah. So great. That's another great question. So,

Brian Leeum, look, I'm I'm Christian. I believe in God. I believe that I believe in Jesus Christ, that Jesus died for our sins. And this always played a very important part of my life. I'm very spiritual in that way also. And there's so many times where I pray. You know, I pray for, for a lot of things. I find myself praying a lot lately for America to heal. You know, I, I really do. It's like, I think things have gotten a little nutty with the left and the right. And I think it's just diverging at too fast of a clip, we've got to find common ground. You know, we just do.

There's so many more things that bond us together that separate us as people. You know, I think we're losing sight of that too too often. And so I think, um, that has to heal. I think there's so many people that need help. Um, I wish I could help all of them just as you probably want to help everyone who just can't, but we want to. So anyway, I pray a lot. Um, I started my own church, by the way. Okay. Know you have my own church, but I launched, uh, an online church because I wanted to spread the word of God.

Okay. So it's called Church Home Global. So I started the, I started the, uh, the company with Marissa Bell and with, um, uh, pastor Judah Smith, uh, up in Seattle. Uh, he's down in LA now, but we decided to start Church Home Global. It's an app. It's a church on an app and really try to reach the far points of the earth and have the word of God and reach everyone. And so we made it super easy. It's really nice. It's called Church Home Global if you ever want to download it. Yeah, it's a nice community.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. That's awesome. And where do you hope that goes one day? I

Brian Leehope it goes everywhere. Really, the mission of it is to reach as many lives as we can. And what's really fascinating is how many people downloaded this app, this church in Africa, in regions that you wouldn't expect. But all around the globe, people are, like, tuning in to these live sermons and these these messages, and they pray together. They have group studies. They have bible studies together. It's like, it's it's pretty it's pretty awesome.

Ben BeeriWhat do you think the greatest lesson is that you've taken from your faith?

Brian LeeJust that God has greater plans for all of us. It is God's way in a lot of ways. And so you just have to kind of put your life in his hands and and put your faith in him and know that at the end of the day, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine.

Ben BeeriYeah. That's so true. It's so interesting because, like, sometimes we have a certain outcome that we shoot for. Yeah. And we put our head down, and we drive towards that outcome with absolutely everything that we have. But if we just let go of the outcome and trusted God Mhmm. The outcome would be so much greater than what we originally envisioned it would be. Absolutely. And we're really just limited to the capacity of our own thoughts at times. Yeah.

Brian LeeFor sure. And that's just kind of interesting to think about. Oh, yeah. For sure. Uh, pastor Judah, if you're listening, love you.

Ben BeeriFor sure. For sure. So what's so what's up next for Brian?

Brian LeeYou know, going back to Vegas after this podcast, but, uh, what's next for me? I'm just gonna keep keep working. I'm having fun. I'm gonna keep building Arena Club. My partner Derek Jeter is having the time of his life building it with me and Jesse Glass. And so we're just going to keep building and having fun. And, you know, tomorrow's another day. But for now, this is what I plan on doing for a long time.

Ben BeeriThat's awesome. That's so much fun. And Brian, where can our audience connect with you? Where can they connect with Arena Club? Yeah. Um, obviously, I'm a big fan of Arena Club. I think that that's something where a lot of people can really enjoy themselves on that. Yeah. Well, can reach me at at at ArenaClubLee,

Brian LeeArenaClubLee on Instagram. So it's a private account, but I'll I accept everybody. So I just I just keep it private. Don't know why. But, um, yeah, follow me there. Awesome. Awesome. Anything else you'd like to share with our followers? Yeah. I just wanna say thank you to you, Ben, honestly, congrats on ten years. That's super exciting. I I wanna go to your warehouse to buy some more memorabilia. Here we go. We'll make it happen.

Ben BeeriAnytime. You're welcome.

Brian LeeIt's great to see you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, Brian. So great having you on.

Ben BeeriUh, for everyone following, Brian Lee, such a great conversation, such an inspirational person. Uh, if you still have any of those 25¢ candy bags, um, we gotta figure out something, some distribution distribution or or something something for for those. Those. I'm I'm sure there's a lot of buyer for 25¢ candy bags nowadays. I would charge a dollar today. A dollar? Wow. Inflation's really hit. It's really hit. But so great having you on, Brian. And for everyone listening, if there's anything that resonated with you guys today, we'd love for you to share this episode with your friends.

Brian's out here inspiring so many people. And I'm your host, Ben Beeri. It was so great having you listen. Please like the video. Share this with your friends. Leave us a comment. Let us know what you think. And we'll see you on the next episode of the authentic journey.