01:01:10 · Rafael Vivas
[01:01:10] S1: So he was our CRO. And how we got ahold of Mark was he ran... He was the CEO of this company called Zedge, which did ringtones and wallpapers. And he broke off on his own and he had this blog called Applied Revenue. It was just talking about ways to make more revenue on apps and just within the mobile app ecosystem. And I told Adam, hey. Like, we wanna work with Zedge, and, like, this guy seems pretty intelligent. Like, you should reach out to him. What turned into, like, potentially was gonna be a consultant, we decided he would come in as a CRO. What was hilarious that when Mark first met Adam and they were doing, like, the sit down, Adam put an NDA in front of him. And, you know, most people just signed the NDA. And Mark says, hey. Can I get, like, fifteen minutes? Adam steps out of the room. And, like, Adam comes back from the room, and Adam calls me in with him. And, like, the whole thing is, like, marked up. And he's like, can't agree to this. I can't agree to that. I can't agree here. And immediately, I was like, you know, pull Adam to the side. Right? What's... Can't trust this guy. Like, there's no way we can work with this guy. Like, what type of fucking human being is gonna, like, redline an NDA? Like, for a company they're interviewing for, like, are they gonna do? Share trade secrets? Adam had a different perspective. He goes, this guy, if he was this diligent to take the time to redline the agreement and go over detail, this is somebody that we wanna work with. Mark came on board. We ended up hiring him. And, initially, we did not get along well at all, actually. So he was managing the the supply side. I was focused on the demand side. I brought in a ton of demand. He was working on publishers. And what ended up happening was over time, I ended up working on his team. I'd say team because there's only one person. So I ended up working under him. And initially, you know, what was in a great relationship turned into a great mentorship because what Mark saw was this raw kid who had a ton of energy, who had a ton of skill, but it wasn't honed in. He always pushed me to, like, really dig into the details. Like, when we do contracts, make sure that we're very specific about what we do. And going back to, like, I told you, like, we didn't have an in house counsel.
01:03:16 · Rafael Vivas
Like, Mark probably did over 200 agreements himself, and we only got screwed on one of them. Like, his his hit record is incredible. When we hired our first lawyer and he started redlining agreements, he would redline our lawyer's agreement. Like, also, the best Mark Rosner story... And by the he's gonna hate that I'm bringing him up. Mark doesn't hate anybody besides the one guy that he lent $20 to when he was in fifth grade. He still sees the temple today. So, like, you're talking about a guy that, like, every detail matters to him. And, actually, to kind of, like, go, like, further into the story, so at one point, my grandmother, she had breast cancer. I had to go to the hospital. And there was this deal that we were working on that took months. It was with a company actually out of... A little outside of LA. And we're so happy we got the deal done and like, you know, I was working on the agreement while in the hospital and I sent it out and they signed it and I signed it. And Mark calls me and, you know, I was I was expecting to be like, oh, how's your grandmother doing? He's like, Rafael, you screwed up big time on this deal. There's like this, you know, one one point that you're off effectively as well, for, like, 1% or 2%. And I was like, Mark, like, are you kidding me? We spent months. I can't go back to the client. I can't have this conversation with them. And he was just like, do you wanna be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods? And just hung up the phone. And we're following up with me, following up with the client, renegotiating the deal. As you can imagine, the client's very irate. And, you know, we got the deal done, and then he called me back. And he was like, good job. You know? Like, he... Like, that was the type of guy who mentored me. And so that's why I cared so much about every single detail because for him, it it wasn't good enough unless it was perfect.
01:05:00 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[01:05:00] S0: Yeah. I think we... The very common trait among people that, like, where excellence is their north star, they get to top where their profession is just like, you'll hear them say the same maxim over and over again. It's like how you do one thing is how you do everything. There are no small details. [01:05:11] S1: Yep. And The The Score Take Care of Itself is just a book about Bill Walsh and, you know, the 49ers. When he took over the team, it was a losing team, and then he'd... Won over three Super Bowls under his management was about every little detail, every little thing between now, like, how they showed up on practice on time, how they answered the phones, how the locker rooms were. Everything... It was it was focused on, like, every detail, all the actions that you do are more important than focusing on the scoreboard. Because if you do all the little things right, then the score will take care of itself. [01:05:42] S0: So that's great advice that Mark gave you. What's the best advice that you've ever received?
01:05:42 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[01:05:42] S0: So that's great advice that Mark gave you. What's the best advice that you've ever received? [01:05:46] S1: The best advice I ever received is staying in the game. When it when it hurts, when you wanna quit, that's that's when you know you're having growth in your career. And there's been many times in my career where... And this has come from my brother where I've wanted to throw the towel and it's I've already won. You know, why why am I doing this? You know, I don't need to be working this hard. And he's just like, sack up. You know, work your ass off. And, like, if you're feeling this pain, that's because you're growing. And so I think that was the best advice I ever got in my career. [01:06:17] S0: I think it's probably the best advice anybody could ever get. Stay in the game. It's awesome. Rafael, this was awesome, man. I had high expectations for this conversation. You exceeded them. I really appreciate you trusting me and actually letting me twist your arm and making you do the podcast. I hope we can run this back again in the future. Thanks. [01:06:33] S1: Thanks, Seth. [01:06:33] S0: I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.