Jake Paul Thinks We'll Live Forever

**John Coogan** (0:00)
We got Jake Paul, he's here. Come sit down, Jeff Wu too. How you doing?

**Jordi Hays** (0:03)
Let's run it.

**Jake Paul** (0:04)
What's up, what's up?

**John Coogan** (0:06)
How are you?

**Jake Paul** (0:08)
What's up, bro? How are you? Good to meet you.

**John Coogan** (0:10)
Tell us the news. You raised a bunch of money. Smack that gong.
Great to see you. It's about the fund. Who do you raise money from? Are you talking to endowments now? Are these your friends? Is it all your money? What's going on there? You're good.

**Jake Paul** (0:35)
Yeah, a lot of our own money. We have a 10%, maybe even more. It's like 10, 12, 13, 14% GP commit.
Yeah, our lead investor is Aquarian Holdings. So shout out to Rudy and Eric. They've believed in us for a long time. They doubled down into our growth fund, and it's been a great relationship with them. And yeah, just like other people that we know in our network.

**John Coogan** (1:00)
Yeah. Highlights from the fund so far.

**Jeff Wu** (1:03)
Sorry, I was going to say, I think going from more of just investing our own money, I think we are going more institutional. So Aquarian, they managed 27 billion plus as an insurance holding company. So I think we're just proving our sophistication as fiduciaries, as investors to be like, hey, endowments, institutions. We can compound money faster and better than other VCs can for you.

**Jordi Hays** (1:25)
How is the strategy changing with the new fund? Is it changing?
I think like number of checks, check size, ownership, all that good stuff.

**Jake Paul** (1:36)
Yes, time has gone on. I think the barbell approach for us has been very successful. I think going big with bigger checks into growth stages, in companies that we believe in with the best founders. You don't bet against Palmer, Lucky, Elon, Sam, the big names like that. And getting to fast DPI, going into SpaceX and XAI, working with Jared Burchill to get into some of those rounds, and then you're liquid very quickly. So I think that's very attractive and putting bigger checks into companies like that. And then on Venture One, early stage, and getting in, betting on founders from day one sometimes, and yet taking that more venture approach on that side of things. We've deployed our full Venture One. This is our Growth One.
Going into Venture Two now, raising for that, and then pretty much fully deployed on Growth One. We've been working on it for the past eight months, getting into a lot of these big companies, and actually going into Growth Two already. And so we've just had tons of great access, and I think that's obviously the key. You can just, we're hustling in all the right rooms, providing marketing support, consultant support on that side of things, which a lot of these companies need. That's what we've realized in every room that we go into, whether it's, I mean, I won't say names, but pretty much everyone needs users. And so distribution, you'd be surprised at the level of marketing knowledge that these companies have. It's like day one, very basic. These are the most technical companies in the world, right?
But they're not the best at breaking through to grow their users. And so we've just been able to really help on that side of things. And the most basic 30 minute call about marketing is extremely helpful for these companies.

**John Coogan** (3:35)
Yeah, take us through it. What are you actually talking to a tech company that might have their pitch dialed for investors or engineers?

**Jordi Hays** (3:43)
Or even customers once they get them on a call.

**John Coogan** (3:45)
Customers. But it's just that whatever story they're telling, it's not resonating with just the normal person. And I feel like you've gone so big with everything that you've done that you've touched every part of America, the world globally. And you can probably offer more feedback and advice on just like how to tell a story as a company that resonates outside of this tiny little, you know, enclave in San Francisco.

**Jake Paul** (4:13)
Yeah, no, correct. I mean, I went from Vine to, then it was YouTube, then Facebook popped off, then Snapchat was the thing. Me and my brother were the first people making Snapchat stories, like a full content. Evan Spiegel invites us out, asking us how we like the app, what could we change in Venice, and then it went to all these different platforms, TikTok, Reel. So it's been however many years, like 14, 15 years of knowing exactly how to talk to the audience and be relatable and grow brands and my own brands from Better, W, Anti Fund, MVP, becoming the biggest boxing company in the last four years. And so I could do it from a personal side, but I also understand it from a corporate side. And I think a lot of the times, you know, these companies raise all this money, they have a big balance sheet, they're printing cash and they get really corporate with their messaging and they want to create like a one, two, three, four million dollar commercial. And I think often times that doesn't reach the audience. And so it's actually just a lot of times telling them to be more relatable and to scale down and to tell their story in an easier to understand way. And obviously I'm summarizing and it depends on like what the company is, right? We've helped companies market, you know, towards engineers because that, you know, there may be just an engineering product. And so it's like, how do we appeal to that side of things? So each case is is different.