The Jasmine Star Show

He Built a Multimillion-Dollar Business Using THIS Content Strategy ft. Richard Ryan

• Jasmine Star

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Have you ever wondered what it truly means to leave a legacy in business? Today’s guest, Richard Ryan, is a powerhouse entrepreneur whose journey spans building businesses, pioneering media strategies, and living a life anchored in intention.

Throughout our conversation, Richard and I explore the importance of curiosity, adaptability, and strategic thinking in achieving success.

We dive into everything from rally cars and starting from scratch to building a coffee empire and redefining success after an IPO.

This episode is packed with lessons about legacy, grit, and why how you show up matters more than what you achieve.

Click play to hear all of this and:

(00:05:00) How digital marketing’s evolution has changed the game for creators and businesses alike.

(00:06:19) Why being a subject matter enthusiast is the secret weapon for positioning yourself as an expert.

(00:07:19) The intersection of luck, passion, and preparation—and how it creates opportunity.

(00:08:34) Why follow-through matters more than ideas and how building the right team can make all the difference.

(00:09:01) A peek behind the curtain of Richard’s joint venture with Verizon Media and Hearst Publications.

(00:10:00) How to tailor content to a specific demographic to create a fiercely loyal audience.

(00:15:48) The exact media strategy blueprint that turned Black Rifle Coffee into a household name.

(00:20:12) Lessons from the Wild West of analytics and early YouTube—how Richard stayed ahead of the curve.

(00:24:02) How to use current events to inspire a brand’s visibility and market position.

(00:24:51) How to manage your time and focus while juggling multiple projects.

(00:25:59) The importance of building a bingeable content library to educate, entertain, and emotionally connect with your audience.

(00:30:22) How storytelling creates an emotional bond with your audience.

(00:33:23) Richard’s life post-IPO and what it means to transition to a publicly traded company.

(00:34:20) Making bold moves, from early Bitcoin investments to financial freedom.

(00:35:28) The importance of living modestly despite major success.

(00:44:50) The importance of enjoying the process, not just chasing the end result.

Listen to Related Episodes:

Connect With Richard Ryan:

For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode506

Jasmine Star 00:00:00  Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where we talk about life, business and today we are talking about life after the exit, before the exit, in the middle of the exit. We're talking a lot about building businesses, and I'm very honored to have a conversation with somebody who is to tell you this gentleman's reputation preceded him. I was in Austin, let's say, like a year, year and a half ago. That was an event. And it was a group of entrepreneurs. And we went riding in these. I don't even know the name of them. They were just fast cars. They were like race cars. I don't know, it was something that we don't do in California, and it was like some sort of I'm going to ask him right now, but he probably knows. And we were racing these fast cars and I was one of two women at the entire event. It was like 30 of us, and we were there and people had kept on whispering this name. We're trying, we're trying.

Jasmine Star 00:00:45  And I was just like, who is this guy? And then I come to find out somehow there's coffee involved. And somehow I found out he's in Austin. And I was like, I'm gonna find out who this brother is. And so I plotted a plot. I happened to connect with a former podcast guest, Sam Parr, who is also co-founder of Hampton Entrepreneur Group that I am a part of. And rumor on the street. Richard Ride was a part of that group too. So you want to know what I did? A little digging, I did a little research. I could not be more excited and impressed that he agreed to do the show, share his journey with you, inspire you to do big things, and also talk about what we do after. What is the legacy we leave on part of our business. Welcome to the show for today.

Richard Ryan 00:01:22  I appreciate it. Thanks for.

Jasmine Star 00:01:23  Having me. I didn't tell you about like how I was like, whisperings of your name.

Richard Ryan 00:01:27  Rally ready? That's what you're in.

Jasmine Star 00:01:30  Rally car? No. How did you know this?

Richard Ryan 00:01:33  Well, I mean, fast cars in Austin, that's one of the few places outside of Cota. So. Yeah. No, that's such a fantastic facility and organization we got to. It was really cars.

Jasmine Star 00:01:43  It was rally cars and it made for great social content. But listen, I told my husband after that event, I'm like, if there is one thing you do for our daughter, you're going to teach her how to drive stick. All the guys knew how to drive sake. I didn't know how to drive a stick. So I'm getting like a stick lesson at a rally car. So I'm, like, going a whopping all of like 60 miles an hour thinking I'm like, living life on the edge. So it was great to kind of be brought into your orbit organically via that way. And so I know that you've done really great, incredible, massive things in your business. And so, you know, just off camera, we were talking, you had mentioned, oh, when people ask me what it is I do, we're not going to get to that part.

Jasmine Star 00:02:17  Okay. So for those of you who are watching, I'm going to break this podcast into three sections. We're going to talk about probably what he's most known for, which a lot of times after you've done something really successful, you're like, I'm going to do something even greater, different, better on my terms. We'll talk about that, and then we're gonna talk about that. How how he was able to achieve like really some massive success. And then we're going to talk about being a subject matter not expert. We'll get to that in a second. At the end, we're going to talk about what we do with our legacy. Like what do we do when we have achieved the things that we have set out to do? And how do we continue to push ourselves in the boundaries that we are most known for? So let's start off with a little bit of what are you most known for? Because there's a lot, though.

Richard Ryan 00:02:54  Yeah, it's tough. It depends on who you're asking, because I feel like we're so many different hats that there's a lot of people who don't know the other kind of personas.

Richard Ryan 00:03:02  Early days, when I was teaching myself to program, I was building in the world of mobile and early days of social. I built a YouTube app, had it in the App Store for years before YouTube did because it was native to iOS at the time, tying that to AdSense, predating the partner program, and built a lot of relationships in the world of tech during those stages between alphabet and YouTube and their acquisition of that during the whole DMCA drama and whatnot, the mobile app stuff in the world of technology was kind of like a flag or feather in my cap, and was also doing comedy and entertainment stuff. I did stand up for probably five, seven years and got in the world of television, and the internet was casting a top 100 YouTube channel at that time. And then I carved off my own piece of the internet at that point in time.

Jasmine Star 00:03:59  Just what year is this?

Richard Ryan 00:04:00  This is 2009, 2010, maybe. And when I really started thinking about how do I do this in a way that doesn't take away from the team that I'm part of now? I really was like, well, I want I don't want to get burned out.

Richard Ryan 00:04:14  How do I create content on a regular basis? How do I optimize it for SEO and all these other different things? And I started a firearms kind of adventure explosive slow motion channel. And for me, it was easy because I had pre-existing relationships with studios and ad agencies. And so every time they had a new movie come out, I could consult for them on creative marketing strategies, but they would also hire me to integrate the product for the release, which was really, really cool, because now a lot of these things, attribution models are kind of standard practices, whereas 2010 studios and ad agencies were thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall.

Jasmine Star 00:04:59  Okay, give us an example. Tell us a story.

Richard Ryan 00:05:00  Let's say any movie comes out, they'll have a budget and they'll allocate X amount to traditional media and then X amount to digital. Back then the digital budget was discretionary. There was no real attribution. I mean, you still had Google and AdSense and various different methods of tracking pixels and everything, but it wasn't nearly as sophisticated as it is today, with cookies or unique identifiers within the phone and sharing information among apps.

Richard Ryan 00:05:28  And then they would just they would just take money and say, hey, look, we're gonna allocate five, $10 million to this. What could we do with that? That we could. If the movie is successful, they would go to their superiors and be like, look what we did. It was because of this, and there was no way to really authenticate their data sets. So now it's way more sophisticated. And it's kind of interesting to see that the the budgets have kind of inverted. Yeah. So you have more digital spend than you do. Probably traditional unless it's a big blockbuster film.

Jasmine Star 00:06:00  Give me pause here. Yeah. Because there was like a lot. And so this is part of the reasons I was really fascinated to have you come on the show is because you have a lot of life experience that gives like a very 360 look at business. And we're starting at the point where content, it was content forward and content backed into head into whatever the case it was, you became a subject matter enthusiast about this.

Jasmine Star 00:06:19  You were brought in because you knew a lot about this particular thing. And there's people right now, and I just feel like just like a deep impression. There's things that people are doing and I'm speaking to you who's listening or watching, and it doesn't really quite make sense. But you are a subject matter enthusiast. If you see where the puck is going, your job is to get there before anybody else. And what I have seen Richard do is really go to where the puck is going and then position himself right at the right time. And so he's looking at content. And as you are looking at content, you're looking at it. And there are things that are traditional that are done, and there are things that are not so traditional. If I hear it correctly, lean into the not traditional. Yeah.

Richard Ryan 00:06:58  I mean, kind of to sum that up too, is luck is the intersection of preparedness and opportunity. And so being passionate about what it is that you're doing gives you a little bit of a competitive advantage, because your curiosity leads you in places that might not be as boring or status quo.

Richard Ryan 00:07:19  Sometimes you can find an edge there. And for me, that's been great because a few examples, actually some bad examples was YouTube in 360 video, right? Because I am a software developer, I was able to work with the YouTube product team to inject Python script into my videos, 3D printed camera housings for GoPros and stitched them together and post-production, and had some of the first 360 videos on YouTube jumping from a hot air balloon and all these other different things. And while that didn't take off, it's just these emerging technologies that just get me or keep me excited about the content creation process or even the development process. Like, who knows? Like maybe that I could have came out a business that sold 360 hardware software solutions or something. I don't know, it's not really something that I'm passionate about, but that that little bit of a I don't know, that spark kept everything else going. So. Wow. I guess the other lesson learned in that is you have to know when to cut bait to.

Richard Ryan 00:08:19  Yeah. Yes. So like I'd say one of my biggest flaws is, follow through in a lot of ways. Okay. You know, the the a b testing because I cut bait really fast. Okay. Like, as soon as the enthusiasm is gone, it's really hard for me to follow through.

Jasmine Star 00:08:34  Oh, this is good. Okay.

Richard Ryan 00:08:35  I have to bring somebody on to do that.

Jasmine Star 00:08:36  Okay? Okay, okay. This is good because I see a linchpin between the stories. And so we talked about the three parts of the podcast and we talked about like what you're most known for. And it depends who you're asking to. It depends what probably iteration what chapter of your life. Yeah. And also when we talk about being a subject matter enthusiast and then also talking about cutting bait or bringing somebody in to run that, let's talk about a business where you got it off the ground. It was doing really well, and then you had to bring somebody in to really push through execution.

Richard Ryan 00:09:01  Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't take the credit for this really, because it's a team effort in that.

Richard Ryan 00:09:06  But Verizon Media and Hearst Publications did a joint venture where they were launching a new technology or tech stack for video, go 90, and they were trying to do it to compete with YouTube, cross-platform desktop, mobile and everything. And they were one of the largest procurers of media for probably a couple of years. I mean, they were buying up everything scripted reality, music, events, all these different things, and they specifically wanted to target the heartland millennial male. And so the executive team brought me in and they were like, hey, look, we want to do this thing on essentially a daily editorial news product, and we want you to be the kind of focal point of that.

Jasmine Star 00:09:53  And at the time, like, why? Like, how are you on this list? Like the millennial, millennial, Midwest male?

Richard Ryan 00:10:00  Yeah, the heartland millennial male. Yeah, it's a mouthful for sure. It's funny that, but they're very, very much looking for the younger. Wait a minute.

Jasmine Star 00:10:09  Were you in LA at this time?

Richard Ryan 00:10:11  I was yeah I was.

Richard Ryan 00:10:12  So you're in.

Jasmine Star 00:10:13  LA but they see heartland. They were in New York.

Richard Ryan 00:10:15  Yeah. Okay. Well, I joke that people inherently gravitate towards the things that they disagree with you on. So whenever I was in Los Angeles, I was the gun toting redneck. But when I was in Nashville, as the gay love and liberal and.

Jasmine Star 00:10:26  Yeah.

Richard Ryan 00:10:27  But I had a YouTube channel and at that time it was called rated R, I got a cease and desist from the MPAA. this was a play on my initials, Richard Ryan. But being young and everyone's YouTube channels early days didn't probably have a whole lot of thought and into the naming and nomenclature of it. But they said, hey, look, we want to call this thing rated Red. Red being a play on the conservative demographic and everything your channel rated R, it makes a good kind of segue into that. Anyways, they brought me into Studio Nashville and we came up with a media strategy.

Jasmine Star 00:11:05  Hold on. You just have to pause.

Jasmine Star 00:11:07  For those of you who are watching and listening, he was brought into the room based on the content he was creating. Correct. And so I think that I just need to like, say it again and again. It's like it's a disproportionate amount to be perceived as or known as a subject matter enthusiast or even a leader in the field. And so an opportunity came to you because of the content that you were creating.

Richard Ryan 00:11:27  Correct. Okay. But also my relationships with the studios and ad agencies prior, because I had a proven track record in, in high level strategy and the execution of that because content creation is an extremely important aspect of it, but the strategy from the ground floor and a product launch is extremely important for newer people to the space. It's probably more important for you to get reps on. If you have enough money and talent, then the strategy is important because the execution is everything. At least you know from their perspective, because they're going to be burning a lot of cash to to get going.

Richard Ryan 00:12:05  And I think that they ended up not with us, but the whole initiative was over, I think $1 billion. I might be a little bit off on that, but I remember the between the mobile app and all the shows and everything that they were buying and all the the intellectual property they acquired over that period of time, it was a substantial amount of money. It was a lot.

Jasmine Star 00:12:24  So did they bring you in in the capacity of a creator or as a strategist?

Richard Ryan 00:12:27  Both.

Jasmine Star 00:12:28  So beautiful. So that's.

Richard Ryan 00:12:30  Yeah. So that's how we negotiated the contract and just justified my compensation.

Jasmine Star 00:12:35  Because.

Richard Ryan 00:12:35  Because they, they have internal SOPs and regulations around compensation and I.

Jasmine Star 00:12:42  Was they originally bring you on as a creator.

Richard Ryan 00:12:44  They were wanting to bring me on as talent and an executive producer and the creative strategist. Okay. And I was like, well, that's not enough money for me. So they literally combine the salary of all the roles to justify my comp because I was like, like, I don't want to go, sorry.

Richard Ryan 00:13:07  This could come across probably as arrogant, but not at all.

Jasmine Star 00:13:10  On the show.

Richard Ryan 00:13:11  Say it. I would much rather work a minimum wage, minimum wage job for myself than be paid above market for somebody else on a product that I don't own, or a company that I don't own or have a vested stake in.

Jasmine Star 00:13:25  Cool.

Richard Ryan 00:13:26  Just because it again, to each their own. It's just for me. I need, I need incentives, I need motivation to outwork everybody. I was there at 1:00 in the morning, with the Nashville Police Department showing up because I was cutting two by fours and building sets and stuff like, like, nobody's gonna outwork me and I'm going to be compensated for it, for sure. And so we came to an agreement on compensation and brought me in after a couple of years working there. It was great. We were kind of the conservative. It's funny I say conservative, but I joke that I'm libertarian short of anarchy. I really despise politics in so many ways because, again, the incentive misalignment.

Richard Ryan 00:14:11  but, you know, I was there. We did a fantastic job. I think within eight months we had a million followers on Facebook, and we were growing pretty quick on YouTube and across other platforms. And again, I can't take all the credit for it. We had a team of close to 50 people and yeah, it was amazing because we were the bastard child of this kind of politically liberal organization that kind of had some, I don't know, disdain for us. We didn't get any. Everything that we did was organic. There was no.

Jasmine Star 00:14:49  Paid.

Richard Ryan 00:14:50  Okay. Where the other products within that they kind of pitted us against for performance. They had paid media behind them. And okay, we.

Jasmine Star 00:14:59  Want to pause here. This is a David and Goliath story for sure. I mean, they're literally the every truest odd is stacked against y'all. Yeah yeah for.

Richard Ryan 00:15:08  Sure. But and we again we were the discretionary budget right. We're like hey like yeah we'll just we'll just do this little thing to say that we have this in our portfolio or whatever.

Richard Ryan 00:15:18  And so for me, I take that again as a challenge. And so came on. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. So like I look at the playbook and for me specifically around media, you know, I try to come at it from a very like strategic perspective. So I created a library of videos, be it cooking tutorials, all these other different things. Black Rifle Coffee is another good example. whenever we we launched the company I had.

Jasmine Star 00:15:48  Okay, wait wait wait, we just jumped. We just jumped.

Richard Ryan 00:15:50  This is the media strategy.

Jasmine Star 00:15:51  It's all the same, okay? Because we got to come back to black coffee. This is like a huge, incredible, amazing freaking. Hold your breath and just wait for it. Chapter in this man's life. But I'm looking at the story that we look now and it's essentially preparing you to.

Richard Ryan 00:16:04  It's there actually going on at the exact same.

Jasmine Star 00:16:07  Time. No. Yeah. Oh, I think I got my timeline. I thought there was like a brief overlap.

Jasmine Star 00:16:10  I didn't know if there was like a.

Richard Ryan 00:16:11  Which is really funny. Is that a negotiated my contract with Verizon to state that one. It wouldn't impact my executive role as chief marketing officer or whatever at Black Rifle Coffee.

Jasmine Star 00:16:24  Okay. Let's pause. We're making this we're making a movie because we're making some media right now. We're making some media. Like the scene is, I picture this like it's dark, and then you got like an industrial couple lights and you could actually see, like the little flickering of dust in the air. And then like, the Nashville cops pull up and they're asking what you're doing and you're like, I'm, I'm building a set. And then we, like, cut the scene. And then there's you building a coffee company. Like, what in the world set that scene for me? Yeah.

Richard Ryan 00:16:49  I mean, when you're single and don't have kids, you can really work a lot.

Jasmine Star 00:16:54  It sounds like it. So.

Richard Ryan 00:16:56  So for me, again, I as far as the coffee company is concerned and for business partners and everybody kind of had lines in the water start.

Jasmine Star 00:17:05  Yeah. Like talk to me like let's go back to literally oh my, what if I say the origin story. Do you see what I did there. Yeah. Yeah. Well I mean I feel like jokes, dude. Mom jokes. I feel like.

Richard Ryan 00:17:14  The origin story changes all the time depending on who you ask.

Jasmine Star 00:17:17  Or what the.

Richard Ryan 00:17:18  What the publication is. Okay. The. So Matt and JT and two of my business partners had a clothing apparel company company called article 15 clothing and they had kind of some lines in the water and other, you know, businesses. They have a whiskey company, cigar company and other business partners in those different things. And then Evan, he was doing a tactical media company, I think, called twister. And then like kind of a another media company that was kind of prepper related firearms, food and stuff like that called Ready Man. And he wanted to do coffee. So he roasted, I think it was 100 bags for article 15 clothing in 2014, and it sold out really fast.

Richard Ryan 00:18:08  And he was like, hey, look, there's something here, let's do this. Let's make it official. And we created Black Rifle Coffee. And so again, because people had so many lines in the water, I was negotiating my contract with Verizon at the time and I was like, hey, I have all these other different brands. I have full mag, which has a few million subscribers. On my YouTube channel. We're creating this black rifle coffee thing. I have all these other different things. My contract needs to stipulate that.

Jasmine Star 00:18:40  Good for you.

Richard Ryan 00:18:40  I can promote any of that wearing the merchandise and any of the content that we create.

Jasmine Star 00:18:46  Oh, that's so good. Yeah, it's so good. It hurts. It's so good.

Richard Ryan 00:18:49  So on someone else's dime. In our first year business, Black Rifle Coffee, I did 350 million views impressions on it. Yeah. And so when.

Jasmine Star 00:18:58  People when you look back at that, when you look back at it, I mean, that's like a huge number we say, but like, what do you think it was? What like, how were you how were you.

Jasmine Star 00:19:04  No no no I.

Richard Ryan 00:19:05  Mean, so rated Red did 350 million views with me promoting Black Rifle coffee in it on Verizon and Hearst dime. Yeah, yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:19:16  Oh my God. Yeah.

Richard Ryan 00:19:18  So so really that okay.

Jasmine Star 00:19:21  Hold on. I gotta time out. If there are women who are watching and listening, I'm sure you totally got just what happened here, but let's bring it a little bit more contextual. Do you remember when Bethenny Frankel was on Real Housewives of New York City and she was drinking her Skinnygirl margarita and it didn't exist. And then she gets married and creates her own company while she's doling out bottles of Skinnygirl margaritas. And essentially, the Real Housewives franchise is sponsoring her commercials for her business. That's essentially what it happened over here at Verizon and Black Rifle. Yes. And amen. Yeah, well let's go, brother.

Richard Ryan 00:19:53  That's the tip of the iceberg, though, to where it's like most people, we don't get into the nitty gritty of talking about these different things. But again, you look at my background and the things that I get curious about and having, I guess you could say, a competitive edge in the world of analytics and technology.

Richard Ryan 00:20:12  This is kind of like the Wild West, right? 2014 2015 the partner program really kicked off the YouTube mobile app was 2012. So you have to remember this is still somewhat the Wild West. So is able to tie the unique identifiers of the Verizon Channel's My Full Mag channel, Black Rifle Coffee's YouTube channel, and create and segment audiences to market black rifle ads to or whatever. And we could remarket at a fraction of a cost, people who were already down at the bottom of the funnel. And so yeah, like.

Jasmine Star 00:20:47  Me, I lose my breath. Y'all. Like, this is like buying land in Malibu in the 1940s. Yeah. And it's crazy and developed, like, literally. Oh, I did it again. Developed. Yeah. You're developing. Yeah, that's exactly it. Look at me.

Richard Ryan 00:20:58  And most people are like, well.

Richard Ryan 00:21:00  Well duh. It's like.

Jasmine Star 00:21:01  No, no, no, you don't understand. Back then. Yeah, it's like calculus in space. Yeah.

Richard Ryan 00:21:07  Well even Facebook ads and stuff like that, people don't realize Facebook was such a game changer.

Richard Ryan 00:21:14  Even one of my business partners, he was just not very tech savvy. And I think he was burning through cash. Spend a dollar, make $4. Like it was a no brainer on Facebook. Early days. Now everything's way more competitive and it's saturated and it's again, you just have to.

Jasmine Star 00:21:32  Be aware the land is cheap.

Richard Ryan 00:21:34  Curious and excited and you'll find the edge.

Jasmine Star 00:21:36  For sure. That's why you're the rich one of us. I was like, the land is cheap. You're like, go with curiosity. I was like, I don't listen to you. Yeah, okay, but hold on, hold on, hold on. I know a bit of a punchline in this story or, like, not a punchline. I know a bit of a peak. And so for people who are watching and listening and you're like, where do these two stories intersect? Hold on. Because Verizon is great and it's another feather in his hat. But Black Rifle is the thing that is really to my best understanding, this is like a leapfrog moment in life, right? It's like the culmination of skill sets and curiosity that led you here.

Jasmine Star 00:22:05  But before we get into I was wearing merch and getting free advertising on other people's channels that I was all upfront with in the beginning. Yeah, and everybody was Cosigning so you're building two major pipelines of success. Let's go back to the I'm building sets. Nashville flickers of dust in the air. Where did the stories intersect?

Richard Ryan 00:22:23  Well, I mean, they're going the exact same time. So we're I'm building the sets.

Jasmine Star 00:22:27  In March 2015, Black Friday will get so big that you step away. Okay? I mean.

Richard Ryan 00:22:31  The first year or.

Jasmine Star 00:22:31  Maybe they don't intersect. I'm sorry.

Richard Ryan 00:22:33  The first year we did, I think a million in revenue at Black Rifle.

Jasmine Star 00:22:37  Now, what were your anticipations like? You guys were like, I think there's something here. Do I set like, goals for like, hey, we have a coffee company and we think we could do a million, or we have a coffee company. We think we could do 500,000. Like, where were you guys at?

Richard Ryan 00:22:47  Yeah, I mean, I just have to lean on and give credit to Evan, the CEO, on that.

Richard Ryan 00:22:53  He was the one so focused on that, telling everybody, hey, look like I need help. We need to consolidate here and cut out as many middlemen as possible. If you look at most of the coffee companies now, especially the creator ones, they're all using the same company to white label their coffee, and it's a substantial profit margin that they're leaving on the table by doing so. And I totally understand it. But Evan was really pushing to get enough money to have our own roasting facility, do our own packaging, and not have to rely on three PLE and everything which we do now. But you know, when you're using like the same three plus is like Apple and stuff like that, it's, it's, it really helps you turn the dials in a way that the market as it adjusts, you can pivot in a way that doesn't cost you too much. Whereas in the past, yeah, that was a big problem to solve for. So I would say in in 2016, there was, you know, it was an election year coming up and there was a lot of political winds that kind of carried us in into the spotlight and controversy because.

Jasmine Star 00:24:02  Black Rifle carried black rifle into the spotlight.

Richard Ryan 00:24:04  Yeah, because Starbucks, Starbucks was very vocal in their leadership as to border policy and things of that nature. That really led the conservative talking heads to look for a conservative coffee company to endorse instead of the liberal elite coffee company. And so that really was a catalyst for us as a company. But again, intersect of opportunity and preparedness, right. You know, Evan and the team were very much dialed in in a way that they were. It was a daily challenge that they were having to figure out ways to solve for problems. Yeah. And it was.

Jasmine Star 00:24:48  How much of your time during this time are you dedicated to Black Rifle?

Richard Ryan 00:24:51  Half and.

Jasmine Star 00:24:51  Half. So.

Richard Ryan 00:24:52  And I love it like I even to this day AD is a hell of a thing and I don't know if I quite subscribe to it, but the attention component, for me at least I found, is I try to be as obsessive about one thing as much as possible. Give it 110% and then completely turn it off.

Richard Ryan 00:25:12  And I moved to the next thing. So the second I set foot on an airplane between Nashville and Salt Lake, it was like a completely, almost a different person. And it allowed it allowed that other one to rest and recover. And I think that was my strength. And being able to not get so in the trenches that it caused tunnel vision, and it allowed me to be objective at a high level so that I can make the big, meaningful changes in either content or marketing amazing.

Jasmine Star 00:25:40  So when we talk about the growth, let's stick from 2016 and your focus, your 50%, 110% focus on black rifle. What is the content look like this. And then is there a big like what is the goal? The company goal is we want to IPO or is it are you guys hitting on investors? What does this journey look like for for this part of your life?

Richard Ryan 00:25:59  Yeah, I mean again for me I wasn't my my focus wasn't really on the the financial side of it. And again it's not my strength.

Richard Ryan 00:26:10  My.

Jasmine Star 00:26:10  So you were like marketing is.

Richard Ryan 00:26:11  Your marketing and media strategy. And so as an example, both rated red and black rifle. And most of the companies that I would consult for, because it's a playbook that's worked for me historically, especially when you bring something up off the ground, you. What I did was I created a library. Some people will call it a binge library. For me, it was really about SEO. So for Black Rifle, it was all things coffee. How to make using a Chemex, how to do this, how to grow this like reviews of this coffee tutorial, how to make a latte, blah blah blah blah blah and then complete library of all things coffee related. So whenever we did do something that was sensational, that did get a lot of traffic, all those other videos would index higher in search and related because people would want to learn about that stuff. And so we would actually bring people from outside the funnel if they're looking how to make coffee from a Chemex.

Richard Ryan 00:27:06  Because our viral videos did really well, they would be served up these other things in search.

Jasmine Star 00:27:11  So so what I understand is the Chemex video wasn't a viral video, but it would search. How do I make coffee? Chemex. And then you're using black rifle coffee as like, I'm going to show you how to do this with black coffee. And then they'd be served up the viral videos that kind of came after. Correct. So the way.

Richard Ryan 00:27:23  Just to distill it down is as simple as possible. The first step in this strategy for both was education. So education and information is a library of videos that provides value whatever it is rated read. It was cooking videos to how to beat a fishing hook, whatever it is, right? Things that resonate with that audience and that demographic in a way that they find value. And then the second thing would be the entertainment vertical. So we were really good at it. You know, I could blow things up and film.

Jasmine Star 00:27:57  Stuff like when you were like, how to make coffee, using a comics, how to do a cross comparison between coffees or the most caffeinated coffee, and then you do the viral videos.

Jasmine Star 00:28:04  Were you involved? Were you the front person? No.

Richard Ryan 00:28:07  I mean, it was a combination, so. Well, a couple of my business partners, Matt and JT and Matt has his own YouTube channel and everything. And this is also part of the strategy, the entertainment component to it, which was kind of cool. I was able to get my buddies paychecks at Verizon because you bring.

Jasmine Star 00:28:24  Them in for the real one.

Richard Ryan 00:28:25  Yeah, dude, it was great.

Jasmine Star 00:28:26  Like so good. All ships.

Richard Ryan 00:28:28  Rides.

Jasmine Star 00:28:28  All ships. Right.

Richard Ryan 00:28:29  So you the way I look at it is you don't. If you navigate the world seeking to be a parasite or parasitic relationships, you'll just start burning bridges. But if every time you make a phone call to someone, they're, like, really excited to pick it up because they know that there's going to be an opportunity at the end of it. It makes your relationships everything better. It's not. It's what can I contribute to us and not what can I get from you? And so in Verizon was super stoked about it because I brought all of these content creators on board after we had stupid.

Jasmine Star 00:29:08  Yeah, good. And we we did a bunch.

Richard Ryan 00:29:10  Of a really entertaining viral videos series and everything. And then what that did, it reinforced our education library. So it indexes higher in search and related. Because for most content creators, especially as you get big, your discovery is going to be probably the biggest growth factor. Like I would say 50% plus of your your growth will come from search and discovery or search and related. And so we have that entertainment component in the middle really dialed in with the coffee company. Like I mounted a M61 Vulcan from an F-16 fighter jet to a Toyota Prius and like did a bunch of crazy stuff and we would get views and then people would be in reinforced with the education library. And then the third component to it, if you really, really want to build a a meaningful brand that can hopefully stand the test of time, you have to have an emotional or inspirational Operational component to what it is that you're doing. And so we had to make sure that we shifted focus on veterans and the veteran community in a way that showed how we were giving back, telling their stories for rated Red.

Richard Ryan 00:30:22  It was documentaries and things that we cared about and shedding light on things. So it creates an emotional connection between the viewer and the brand in a way that and again, like the thing that concerned me and the reason why I resigned from my role at Red, at Red to focus on the coffee company was because I, I own the coffee company, I didn't own the other company. And the concerning thing for me is I build this trust with an audience. That's right. But I'm also the face of it. That's right. I run the risk downstream of that being leveraged against me, or burning that trust and losing my credibility. And that's something that I refuse to. So I left the I left in 2017 there, and I think it's still around today. But it, you know, changed hands a few times. And between BuzzFeed and and everything else. And I'm very much in a different place now, so that's okay.

Jasmine Star 00:31:15  So when you leave rated red, you go all in with them.

Jasmine Star 00:31:19  And so does that change your role? Does it change the amount of content you're creating? Because if you were 50 over 50 or were you like, where are you at at this point in your journey? Yeah, I.

Richard Ryan 00:31:28  Mean, it changes a few things. Typically, I'll lean on producers and editors and predators, shooter editors and everything that I've used in the past. I have a really good network of people that I can lean on to do those things. So I'm not always in the trenches, and it allows me to be on camera talent or focus on dialing in scripts or whatever it is. But it was clear that the company was growing at a pace that was greater than a lot of our skill sets, and for me, that's not something that I was like, hey, look, you know, as far as the coffee company is.

Jasmine Star 00:32:05  Concerned, let me explain that to me. Like I'm five. Yeah. When you say the company was growing greater than our skill sets. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:32:12  I know you can't speak for anybody else in the team, but from a CMA's perspective, it's growing beyond your skill set. Can you give me, like, an example like I'm five?

Richard Ryan 00:32:19  Yeah. I mean, well, for one, I would say the CMO of a fortune 500 company is completely different from the CMO of a cash flow and mom and pop business, right?

Jasmine Star 00:32:34  Yes.

Richard Ryan 00:32:35  And I don't, I, I don't know, I put this in a way that doesn't insinuate anything. I just I think the bigger companies get, the more nuanced politics become with board structures and shareholders.

Jasmine Star 00:32:51  And okay, I got that P or.

Richard Ryan 00:32:53  VCs and everything else and that's not I'm a builder. So that's that's what I like to do.

Jasmine Star 00:32:59  Okay. So when the business got to a point to where it was like outpacing the skill sets, what happened then and what year is this?

Richard Ryan 00:33:06  Honestly, I don't even remember. Maybe the 2020 ish area like pre-COVID. Yeah. And I just focused more on the talent and media component.

Richard Ryan 00:33:16  Cool. Yeah. Okay.

Jasmine Star 00:33:18  And so then Black Rifle sells no black IPO IPOs. Excuse me IPOs.

Richard Ryan 00:33:23  Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:33:23  In 2222. Yeah okay. And then what is life look like for you.

Richard Ryan 00:33:27  Then it's different again. This is this is tough I mean I mean I guess I'm not really gonna offend or hurt anybody's feelings here, but being part of a publicly traded company doesn't fit me well. I don't like oversight. I don't like the scrutiny, like I don't like politics. And not to say that those things were a big part of my life in any way, shape or form, but you can tell some certain aspects of the company. I mean, you have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. Yes. You know, like there is a bureaucracy in that that is not Conducive for the scrappy builder. so I like I like building things, trying new things, and, moving fast and breaking things.

Jasmine Star 00:34:13  I love it, yeah. Okay, good. So 2022 you IPO. And could we say that you got life changing money.

Richard Ryan 00:34:20  Yeah I mean for sure I mean technically like probably one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life was I started again curiosity. I was in a libertarian subreddit in 2012 and started mining bitcoin in 2013, and that was CPU miner Diablo mining rigs for those who may be versus and and so it wasn't, you know, crazy amount. But like when the bull run of bitcoin and that 2017 era happened, that was the point at which I made, I think my first million dollars. Now, I did end up losing the hard.

Jasmine Star 00:34:58  Drives.

Richard Ryan 00:34:59  And had to hire a company to help me figure some things out in that period of time, but that allowed me the financial freedom I forget. What is it that Sam and Shawn say post economic? I think that's the term that they use. Like when you hit a point at which, for me, I live a fairly modest life and my accountants give me a hard time where I'll spend anywhere from like 40 to maybe $80,000 a year, depending on on things, because I think it's important to make sure that you don't.

Richard Ryan 00:35:28  Again, I'm like writing a book right now on like the dopaminergic system and everything, like expectations and perceptions and how it's important and, you know, maintaining your happiness in life and everything. But I think that gave me the freedom to really I mean, it really is like once you hit a certain number, if I know I can make 40 to $80,000 a year for the rest of my life, averaged out to 86 years old or whatever, I mean, that is the point at which I can say you to somebody that you know, is trying to control or drive me in a situation that might be against what I want. And so I've. Fortunately, every conversation I've ever been in boardrooms with 20th Century Fox, Paramount and all these other guys like, hey, here's here's my thoughts, take it or leave it. And if you don't agree with me, great. That's fine. You know, people are people. You're allowed to disagree. But I'm not going to just cry about it. And I'm not going to try to force you if you don't.

Richard Ryan 00:36:26  Hey, great. We can disagree. Awesome. I'll see you later. And so I'm moving on. And that's kind of been my perspective on things. So to say that when Black Rifle got to the point of IPO ING, it was no longer really a company that I had one shareholder control in and I was no longer part of the executive team. I mean, yeah, I'm sure people could listen to suggestions and advice here and there, but it's clear that I like building and being in a driver's seat and Being off to the side. It's just way easier for me to exit and move on to the next chapter. Great.

Jasmine Star 00:37:05  So you're, for all intents and purposes, you can live 100 lifetimes.

Richard Ryan 00:37:11  I mean, I don't know, a hundred lifetimes. We'll see what inflation is like.

Jasmine Star 00:37:13  Well, I mean, okay, okay, okay, 99 lifetimes. And so you get to this point where you're like, I love my life and I like being a builder, and I like doing it my own way.

Jasmine Star 00:37:23  And, you know, I need to probably spend more than $80,000 to go through the money that I have worked for and earned, and it is what it is. But if I was spending 80, that's where I'm at and happy, and I love that. And so you get to this point and you have achieved a level of success in so many different ways. I mean, I've done a lot of research and back in LA you're building an app for actors to find listings, and then you're living in East Los because you brought a, you made a reference to an Elote and I'm like, oh yeah, no.

Richard Ryan 00:37:51  So I, I lived a few places in Los Angeles. I lived downtown MacArthur Park for a period of time. that was right after I was. I was like sleeping in my truck and taking showers at 24 Hour Fitness because they had like a smoking deal. It was if you paid, if you paid for our house. Now, if you paid for a 24 hour fitness membership for two years in full, your annual renewal was $19.

Richard Ryan 00:38:18  So I paid until like a few years ago, I paid $19 a year for a 24 hour fitness membership. And that was all because it was a place for me. They were all over the place. I could go in there, I could take a shower and then I could sleep in my truck. But yeah, I lived in MacArthur Park. Loved that. It was pre LA live days. It wasn't known for being really safe for a lot of people, but I loved it. I felt like it was a really tight knit community. I honestly, I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that I really enjoyed the community that much. Which is ironic because the crime rate was probably higher than most.

Jasmine Star 00:38:52  I'm like, okay, so for people who don't really understand, like making reference to MacArthur Park. It's not at all what genuinely anybody would say. Oh, look, this is a safe place to be. Like, no, it's the Rampart Division.

Richard Ryan 00:39:01  There's literally shows made about the crime and fictional and and documentaries.

Jasmine Star 00:39:07  So I'm just kind of like picturing you. Yeah. In that area. Loved it. Yes.

Richard Ryan 00:39:11  Loved it. And so again, you talk about gangs. They don't excuse me for the reference, but they don't where they eat. And so it was extremely safe, like the elderly parents would be out on the porch and everything, and I'd be like, hey, how's it going?

Jasmine Star 00:39:28  I was like, oh.

Richard Ryan 00:39:29  And I was like, I was like, peeling up my my yard because I was renting a porch. And the guy who owned the house rented it out.

Jasmine Star 00:39:36  You were renting a porch? Yes. Yeah.

Richard Ryan 00:39:37  So USC's relatively close. Yes. And this Coldwell Banker guy, he would rent out rooms to USC students. And so he boarded up the second floor porch with, like, walls. And I put a window AC unit in it so it had like, little screens and glass and everything. And that's where I slept. It's like $400 a month. But yeah, so I would I would rotate up the front yard and I planted corn and everything.

Richard Ryan 00:40:03  And the neighbors, they'd be like, and we're having, like, we're having a quinceanera or something on Saturday. Do you want to like, you want to, like, grill a soda and bring some corn or something?

Jasmine Star 00:40:14  I was like, yeah, they're asking the gringo to jump around. They loved it, loved it. And it was such.

Richard Ryan 00:40:21  A close community and I loved it. There were fantastic people here. Here's another thing. Like, again, this has nothing to do with actually, it is business. Every morning, because I was on the porch, this lady would wake me up and she's not on us just screaming.

Jasmine Star 00:40:36  That's right.

Richard Ryan 00:40:36  Like it's 5:00 in the morning. Who's buying oranges?

Jasmine Star 00:40:39  Orange juice baby?

Richard Ryan 00:40:40  No, just oranges free.

Jasmine Star 00:40:42  Well, I know, but you get orange, you get orange juice or oranges, but still.

Richard Ryan 00:40:48  Who's buying those? And then I was like, really paying attention one day watching her. She was selling bootleg DVDs. It's hilarious.

Jasmine Star 00:40:56  So no code? That's code right there.

Jasmine Star 00:40:59  That's code.

Richard Ryan 00:41:00  So, like it was. It was great. It was great. So learned a lot of things there. But the community was it was so amazing. So amazing.

Jasmine Star 00:41:07  I say this now I'm bringing that up like, you know, taking this again. If we're playing on a movie, we flash forward to a considerable time before. And so you found gratitude, satisfaction, living in a porch, meeting a lot of success in money means something, and then it doesn't mean anything if you're not happy, if you're not building, and you get to this point where you have optionality, extreme optionality in your life, and so you focus on being a subject matter enthusiast. And we could talk about all the different things that you've done. But I think that the greatest gift that you could give a listener is your biggest takeaways that you have achieved. You are one of the most humble people, and this is one of the things that Sam had said about you, that you are wildly humble and you undersell some of the biggest things that you've done, which makes you a wonderful podcast guest, because I don't want to sit here and hear somebody, like, list their CV.

Jasmine Star 00:41:52  Right? And all the things and all the comments and all the zeros. But like, really, now that you've gone through where you are and you've seen things from so many different perspectives, what are you doing now? What are like the tool belt? You look back and somebody's listening and be like, I want what he's done. That's incredible. What do you know now? Because if we had that tool going through the journey in that ascension, we would be better because of it.

Richard Ryan 00:42:12  Yeah, I mean, it's tough because I know for a lot of people the goals and arbitrary number because there's security in that, there's a type of certainty that allows you to relax and and say, hey, like, tomorrow will be, you know, I don't have to worry about the lights going out. But it's very cliche to say, but I know a lot of very miserable millionaires and billionaires. The money, it's not the goal. It can't be the goal. Right. And again, I was trying to explain that whole Dopaminergic system and the staircase.

Richard Ryan 00:42:52  And if you're looking at a graph and you have, you know, your dopamine, you're in like the middle at like a five and you're wanting to get to ten, you know, that million dollars and you know, salary or whatever. And the bottom, the horizontal plane is time or effort or energy. If you win the lottery, you're going to hit ten immediately. But then your dopaminergic system, you're going to go below baseline because you're going to realize really fast there was not a lot of effort or anything like, we need friction, we need the things. The challenge is to overcome the adversity. Like whatever that challenge is in life, friction is good. Like you go to the gym, effort is good. And for me, I've learned that whatever the top is for a lot of people, it can be very lonely, very lonely, and relationships change with money. They change with fame, they change with a number of things. So really for me, taking time to define what my core pillars are, things that I care about and really trying to prioritize them.

Richard Ryan 00:43:54  It's very cliché. It's very cliché to say that money doesn't matter. I can almost promise anyone who's listening once you get to a certain point, millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, whatever it is, it doesn't matter anymore. The things that are going to matter to almost everybody. You look at all these rich people, what are they doing? They're trying to improve their health. They're trying to turn back the clock in longevity. They're trying to find people to hang out with or friends. It's like, and you think about, you know, I have a fantasy football League friends that were actually doing our draft this weekend, and we've been doing it for 15 years, and some of them were content creators and everything. You probably know who some of them are, but it's like you really prioritizing these things that are fun and that you care about it like it's, again, I'm sorry I hate myself for saying it because it's so cliché to say that it's the journey, not the destination.

Richard Ryan 00:44:50  But it's so true. Like, you really need to look at what.

Jasmine Star 00:44:55  You.

Richard Ryan 00:44:56  Think you care about and and try to reinforce that whatever it is. And for me, I'm finding that exercise and generally like keeping myself curious about things, especially emerging technologies, because I feel like I have a responsibility to because I've benefited from the world of web and, and everything else. And I've seen where the incentive misalignment and social has led to the attention economy and everything else, which I could totally unpack that. But for me, it's like meaningful work, meaningful relationships, making sure that the work that I'm doing is hopefully having some type of positive impact. Otherwise, you know, some people will be like, oh, I want to make $1 billion. I'm gonna go sit on a beach and drink a pina colada or whatever, like everybody who does that, Everybody who's ever done that gets bored. Like it might be 24 hours. It might be a week. It might be a month. But you're going to get bored.

Richard Ryan 00:45:50  You're going to become miserable. So like, really? Again, I hate myself for saying this, but if you can't enjoy the work, you're going to lose a competitive edge and you're going to lose the the point of the exercise because trading time for well, I mean, what is value, right. It's subjective. But I mean, I traded my 20s to be where I'm at now when I trade it back to start over and go a different path. Probably not, because I feel like I'm relatively healthy now, but if it came at a cost in, God forbid, like somebody in my family passed away and I didn't get to spend time with them, one of the biggest things that scares me more than anything in life is regret. And so I try to put my best foot forward every single day, and I try to live in a way that at least pleases myself ten years from now, because people will ask, well, you know, you know, who would you fight if you like or whatever.

Richard Ryan 00:46:43  These. These sword exercise is like the person I can't stand is me six months ago, let alone me ten years ago. So if I'm doing today something with trying to please somebody in mind, hopefully I can make myself proud ten years from now from the work that I'm doing, because I look at videos from me ten years ago and I cringe. So, so like, at least check my ego in that process and everything and enjoy the ride.

Jasmine Star 00:47:08  So Richard Ryan, I could not enjoy a conversation more. Cliched conversation. I was like, bring on the cliche like college cliche. Or just call it like your version of truth. And I too subscribe to that. I think I can get closer to the epicenter that you reside. And so having this conversation has been such a recalibration of me and like my desire and like, what is it that I want? Where do I want to spend my time? So thank you so much for that. And when I hear you talk and you talk about the regret, I'm so happy that that's the anchor of this conversation, because I think that to my best ability, I tried getting you to go in a thousand different directions to talk about the levels of success, and I think that what now, at the end of the podcast, I realized, is like every decision, be it successful or learning lesson was anchored in no regrets.

Jasmine Star 00:47:54  That's it. And I love that. And I'm like that whole exactly like if this whole podcast is no regrets and like to me that is the greatest gift specifically where I'm at on my professional journey right now. And I'm like, I needed this podcast. And I selfishly, unknowingly, genuinely made it for me. And so I want to hear you hear, hear. Three mics. I want you to hear me say thank you. Like this was so good and like whatever your purpose is, be on this room. Like, please know that my life has changed because of you. And like, my direction is just like true north. And so I want to say thank you. And now I'll turn to the camera and say, Richard Ryan, y'all. I started this episode out here talking about rally cars. Talk about how people are whispering his name. And now I know why and I'm just so thankful. I hope that if anything, what you took was a deep, profound understanding that whatever it is you choose, no regrets.

Jasmine Star 00:48:46  Richard, how can people find you if they wanted to connect or talk to me? Or actually, if you're not in a state of like personal brand and reaching out all those things, if there's organizations that you're like, if this meant anything to you, like, I know that you do a lot of philanthropic work, so let's shut that out. Yeah.

Richard Ryan 00:49:02  So I am writing a book right now. I'm probably I mean, you can follow me on various social media platforms. Again, I do I do struggle with personal branding because I wear so many different hats. And I feel like you alienate so many people when I post photos of dogs or cows and then, you know, at Google or wherever. But, you know, one of the projects I just launched. And again, if any of your entrepreneur audience are in the world of tech and you know they want to reach out and collaborate in any capacity, I just launched Warrior dog.com, where we took military working dogs used to be euthanized when they were retired because they were classified as military equipment.

Richard Ryan 00:49:39  And that changed here recently. Fortunately, because of Robby's law and this organization, the Warrior Dog Foundation, exists to see that these veterans, these canine veterans get to live out their retirement, and sometimes they're able to find homes for them and whatnot. But what I did was I created a tech stack for them that put RFID and NFC in their collars, and then I put cameras all throughout the facility so you can sponsor one dog and you get a curated media feed as they live out their life in the the organization. So it's radical transparency and supply chain. And I'm actually working with a cattle company. So you'll quite literally see calf to table that process. And just looking constantly to find ways to create more meaningful relationships.

Jasmine Star 00:50:23  Get curious. No regrets. That's it. Oh, that's so amazing. Thank you I appreciate you. You are a true gift. Ladies, gentlemen, thank you for listening and watching The Jasmine Star Show. What an honor and a privilege that I get to make this show.