EVP Speaker Series #3: Andy Nulman, Making It Up As I Go Along

On July 19, we held our third speaker come in for the EVP Speaker Series — we’re on a role! This time, we had a three-time entrepreneur from Montreal come in. Ever heard of Just for Laughs? Yep, our guest speaker, Andy Nulman, built that company from the ground up! Today he talked to us about serial entrepreneurship and making decisions.

Here’s a bit of background on Andy:

Right now, Andy is working on his third business endeavour, Play the Future, a forward-thinking digital platform/brand engagement tool that converts the big data points and events of major brand into consumer engagement and entertainment. Before Play the Future, Andy was a two-time leader of Montreal’s Just For Laughs International Comedy Festival, the world’s first and largest comedy event. During the decade in between Just For Laughs stints, Andy was President and CMO of Airborne Technology Ventures, which sold for over $100 million in 2005, and was honoured as North America’s 4th-Fastest Growing Tech Company in Deloitte’s Fast 500 ranking.

After celebrating 40 years in the business world, Andy had a lot to say in a little amount of time.

Click here for the original post hosted on the Extreme Accelerator website, which includes posted audio clips for key sections of the speech. If you’re still not satisfied we’ve posted the 1h20 minute video, with timings for certain sections in the description box (but we think our recap will do the trick). Please note: this content may not be suitable for all audiences or workplaces as it contains course language.

Andy had three main talking points:

1. Being Deaf
2. Getting Fat
3. Doing Drugs

We know, it’s not your average business chat, but Andy explained the method to his madness.

1. Being Deaf: Andy talks about his experience building his company Airborne Technology Ventures. He says that at the time, no one was convinced that people would pay for mobile data, and that watching video on your smartphone would never work (ha ha). He says that while investors and others were saying “nay” to his idea, he played “deaf” and continued pursuing his dream. “We believed that we knew better. We knew better than the analysts, we knew better than the public. We knew better than anybody. That’s what I learned about the importance of an entrepreneur…your job is to not be scared, your job is not to listen when everyone else is running scared”.

2. Getting Fat: “While I urge you to become deaf, I urge you not to become fat”. Andy says that eating better and exercising has allowed him to adapt to his fast-paced lifestyle. “The fact that I’m in half-decent shape, allows me to get through some of the toughness life throws at me…be it late nights, be it stress, be it deadlines…”

He then went on to talk about his experience exiting Airborne Technologies. He talks about how him and his partner “got fat”. Airborne was dealing with top brands in the industry when Apple approached them with their upcoming touchscreen product, the iPhone. Unfortunately, Andy and his partner passed up Apple’s offer because it was still fairly new, but saw very quickly that iPhone became “the most successful product launch of man-kind”. Bottom-line, he says to not get greedy, and to not lose your hunger, because you will miss out on great opportunities. If you are going to “exit” a company, do not stick around to see what is yet to come.

3. Doing drugs: While Andy does not use drugs himself, he says that apps and products nowadays need to have some sort of “drug” element to them. Take Pokemon GO for example. It has a drug-like element to the game that encourages people to play it any chance they get.

Q&A period (we did not include all questions and full responses — please see video for full Q&A period):

1. Where do you like to get your opinions from; do you value opinions from key players in the industry or do ask opinions from consumers, or people who may not know anything at all [about the industry/market]?

Essentially, Andy says that opinions can come from everywhere and anywhere. He said a very important quote, “You can hear everyone out, but you don’t have to listen”. He highlights that while everyone will have an opinion, you will only hear a few that will strongly influence you. You never know where you will find the best opinions, and most of the time you find the most valuable opinions in places you’d never think you would find them. The importance is to “go out”, and find them.

2. Since you’ve dealt with a lot of comedians in your time, are comedians entrepreneurs? Are there any interesting stories there?

Andy speaks about the many comedians that rose from Just for Laughs (Jim Carrey, Tim Allen, Dave Chapelle, Kevin James, etc). What happens now, he says, is that we have the “rise of the comedian entrepreneur”. He says, “It’s essential that comedians become entrepreneurs…you need proper mobile presence…you can’t depend on the old ways to provide for you.” He uses Canadian YouTubers such as Lilly Singh as key examples.

3. What is your approach for vetting good ideas?

For Andy, his three business endeavours were “gut” decisions. He says that while others may have a “diagnostic process”, he vets his ideas by instinct. He lives by the saying, “What’s the worse that could happen?” and reminds us that even when something doesn’t work out, it may lead us to something better.

4. When you are starting a company, how important is it for you to hire people for their belief in the company vision vs. for their technical skills?

Andy says that at the beginning it is hard to find people who care about the vision. “It is their day job, but when the company starts to take off, people start to come, and you create a niche..But at the beginning, it is their day job. What are you going to do?”

5. Is it better to wait to hire those who care about the company rather than hire those who are just working see the company as a day job?

He says this: “Here’s what happens to those who wait —A kick in the pants and fail. We don’t have time to wait anymore.” While you may have a plan, there may be someone else with the same idea and a quicker way of getting it out there. He continues to say that at the beginning, yes, you will have to hire people who think of the role as a day job, but as the company picks up, motivated talent will come to you.

6. What is the biggest challenge/decision you’ve faced?

Andy didn’t have a specific answer for this, but he advises that the best way to deal with challenges or decisions, whatever they may be, is to “say yes”. You never know what could happen by saying yes, and by saying no you are only closing off opportunities. He also says that you should be prepared to go all in; you have to realize that there will be times where you have to risk it all, and the work will not be easy. He mentions tough times in his life that acted as “devils” in his business life. He says “no matter how well you’re doing, there will always be a devil, and the devil takes 10%”. Whether this is devil of illness or of bad judgment, the aim is to fight back, and not let the devil take more of you or your business than it has to. Learn from your mistakes.

7. How important is design in the app/tech space?

Andy compares app design to everyday clothing. What you wear helps build your personal brand and who you are. The same goes for app or business design. No matter how great the technology you are offering may be, design shows that you’ve put care into the content. “A good interface is a reason for people to talk about it and show it around…it draws people to something”. Essentially, attention to detail is important, and psychologically, people do care about it.

There were a few more questions asked, but we figured we’d leave you here. Again, if you’d like to see the full video of Andy’s talk in video, please click here (and refer to timings in the description box for a section that interests you)!