Jesse Pujji, who bootstrapped the digital marketing powerhouse Ampush, shares his inspiring entrepreneurial journey. He discusses effective strategies for targeting affluent clients and the importance of understanding their unique needs. Jesse also dives into the four levers of digital marketing and how he navigated challenges in his business. Listeners will love his anecdotes about calling Mark Zuckerberg and mistaking a major opportunity with Facebook. Plus, he reveals the excitement of hiring Nelly for a birthday bash!

Join Jesse Pujji, Founder and CEO of Gateway X, as he discusses lucrative startup ideas like hedge fund data services, ethnic-specific supplements, and AI-generated kids' music for passive income. Learn about reverse auctions, niche expert networks, and potential 9-figure businesses in this engaging podcast.

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) brainstorm business ideas including a content remix agency, a direct-to-consumer SodaStream, and modernizing the storytelling club Toastmasters International.-----Links:* Jesse Pujji* SodaStream* Sam's souped up SodaStream* Keurig* bevi* Toastmasters* 2015 Toastmasters International World Champion: Mohammed Qahtani* Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.* Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter.-----Show Notes:(09:35) - Shaan hiring a content remixer(14:55) - Viral tweets as a service making $1M+ per year(21:05) - DTC Sodastream competitor(27:55) - Shaan started teaching his course this week(44:20) - Toastmasters of the future(50:54) - Episode review-----Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.-----Additional episodes you might enjoy:• #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits• #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future• #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto* #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett• ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates• Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More• How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Today Greg is joined by Jesse Pujji, the founder of Gateway X, a venture studio and holding company that builds and launches companies from scratch. In this episode, Greg asks Jesse how unfair advantages are gained and leveraged.►►Subscribe to Greg's weekly newsletter for insights on community,creators and commerce.You'll also find out when new and exclusiveepisodes come out from Where it Happens. And it's totally free.https://latecheckout.substack.comFIND ME ON SOCIAL:Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@gregisenbergLINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Production Team:https://www.bigoceanpodcasting.comJesse Pujji:https://twitter.com/jspujjihttps://www.gateway.xyz/SHOW NOTES:0:00 - Intro5:00 - The truth about agencies16:14 - Framework for a successful agency22:09 - Unfair advantages36:32 - When to quit40:16 - Advice for multipreneurs

My guest today is Jesse Pujji, the Founder & CEO of Gateway X, a holding company that builds, buys, and invests in companies that are driving the direct-to-consumer landscape. Prior to Gateway X, Jesse was the CEO and co-founder of Ampush, a performance marketing business helping power customer acquisition across some of the world's biggest brands. Jesse is my go-to person for all things performance marketing and customer acquisition, so we decided to record this episode to bring his incredible lessons to a wider audience. It also dovetails nicely into the series of episodes we are making called Primers, where we take our audience from a 0 to a 7 on just about any topic. In this Primer with Jesse, we dive into how revenue mechanics affect ad campaigns, why long sales funnels often offer the greatest opportunities for differentiation, and the various channels and strategies available for performance marketing. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Jesse Pujji.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to get and maintain your SOC 2 report at a fraction of the typical cost. Founder’s Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. ----- This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. With LinkedIn, you get access to an active community of professionals with more than 722 million members worldwide. LinkedIn is the easiest place in the world to post a job and message qualified candidates. Getting started is easier than ever, and now you can do this all from your mobile device.   When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/fieldguide to post a job for free. Terms and conditions apply. ----- Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:03:58] - [First question] - Overview of Jesse’s career and starting Ampush [00:12:11] - Red Ventures [00:13:11] - The four components of performance marketing [00:17:47] - Time and other variables in between impressions and revenue events [00:23:12] - Understanding the dimensions of a business and their offering [00:25:32] - Common misunderstandings businesses have about their marketing [00:27:17] - Major changes in the Facebook and Google digital marketing ecosystems [00:29:27] - Direct response marketing vs brand marketing[00:35:08] - The importance and impact of effective messaging [00:37:28] - The differences between good and bad conversions [00:40:56] - Does alpha still exist, is it worth looking for, and does beta have a place [00:43:25] - Fundamentals of a high performing marketing organization [00:50:04] - Attention aggregators of marketing agencies[00:50:18] - Nerdwallet - Thumbtack  [00:51:22] - Product channel fit [00:52:11] - PebblePost[00:53:58] - Lessons learned from working with Uber [00:55:42] - Retention marketing [00:57:31] - Upcoming frontiers of performance marketing [01:01:15] - Overview of Nerdwallet [01:03:36] - How Jesse’s time at Ampush has shaped his investment lens[01:07:20] - Lessons from bootstrapping a business vs venture capital funding [01:17:05] - The entrepreneurial execution loop and operating cadence  [01:29:20] - Kindest thing anyone has ever done for him

Today, we will be diving into Facebook. A business that requires little introduction, Facebook was launched in 2004 from Marc Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room. Zuckerberg has since grown Facebook into the largest social network in the world and continues to operate the business today. To break down Facebook, I am first joined by Robert Cantwell, founder and CIO of Upholdings. Rob’s unique background makes him an ideal person to speak on Facebook. Rob shared a dorm with Zuckerberg, went on to work at Elevation Partners, a large private investor in Facebook, and eventually became CFO of Everlane, where expansion was closely tied to the growth of Instagram and its advertising tools. We touch on how Facebook successfully navigated the transition from desktop to mobile, what drives the value of the network, and where Facebook may drive value in the future. I am then joined by Jesse Pujji, a familiar voice as a host of Business Breakdowns. Jesse’s time as co-founder and CEO at Ampush make him ideal to break down the advertising business of Facebook. During our conversation, Jesse outlines the basic dynamics of the Facebook ad ecosystem, the economic proposition to an advertiser, and how to assess risks to Facebook's control of the digital ad market. Facebook is such an interesting business, and we could likely speak for hours on the potential opportunities for growth. We decided to focus on the core advertising business today, given it represents 98% of revenue. In the future, we want to dedicate individual Breakdowns to WhatsApp, Oculus, and potentially other Facebook initiatives that are worthy of their own deep dives alone. I hope you enjoy this conversation on Facebook. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.-----Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss Part 1[00:03:20] - [First question] The size and scale of Facebook and how we interact with it[00:04:59] - The best way to describe what their true core business is[00:07:21] - Observing Facebook’s growth as an operator and how it impacts his view of it [00:10:46] - The ad model that they offered that wasn’t historically available before[00:12:49] - Competitive advantages they have today that makes theory moat impenetrable[00:15:44] - Potential impacts of the decentralization of the internet[00:19:20] - One of the biggest risks to Facebook over the coming years[00:23:33] - Future asset optionality that investors should be excited about[00:28:16] - Thoughts on whether or not Facebook abuses its power given its size[00:31:19] - Whether or not plans to establish themselves as a super app holds true[00:34:14] - What Facebook is today and where they’re goingPart 2[00:36:25] - Why Facebook has such an effective ad system for digital marketing[00:41:28] - Overview of how an advertiser uses their ad platform[00:45:39] - Key dynamics that impact bidding on certain keywords and customers[00:49:22] - The types of companies that are being built on top of Facebook’s ad railway[00:52:13] - What data they have and common misconceptions about it[00:56:15] - Things Facebook could learn about cross-app system tracking  [00:59:07] - The competitive landscape of digital advertising today[01:01:52] - What would have to play out in order for them to stop growing[01:04:05] - The ways in which commerce plays into Facebook’s story today[01:07:39] - How having access to a user's payment information is a value unlock[01:08:55] - The most important thing to Facebook and lessons to be learned from their story 

Episode 50: Alex Lieberman (@businessbarista) and Jesse Pujji (@jspujji) are in-studio for the first time ever! They riff on the hottest topic in business today: generative AI. They imagine how it could be integrated into different businesses and how it could be as common as electricity or the internet. Then, Jesse shares his process of how he started his latest venture of a school for growth marketing. Send us an email and let us know what you think of the idea! thecrazyones@morningbrew.comLinks:Using AI for a Keto dietTimestamps: (01:48): Intro(04:54): Thoughts on AI and is it truly novel(11:24): Potential AI solutions in business(20:23): How to monetize AI integrations(26:55): Could AI help Alex and Jesse’s existing businesses?(35:32): How Jesse validated his new venture(46:27): Startup AMA#TheCrazyOnes #Startups #EntrepreneurListen to The Crazy Ones here: https://link.chtbl.com/OV4W93_WWatch The Crazy Ones here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCrazyOnesPod Subscribe to Morning Brew!Sign up for free today: https://bit.ly/morningbrewytFollow The Brew!Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/morningbrew/Twitter - https://twitter.com/MorningBrewTik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@morningbrewFollow Our Hosts!Alex Lieberman (@businessbarista)Jesse Pujji (@jspujji)Learn more about Shopify here: shopify.com/crazyones Learn more about Validated here: http://bit.ly/ValidatedPodcast Learn more about Think! here: https://strongerthanyouthink.info/thecrazyones Learn more about Mercury here: https://mercury.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jesse Pujji, a successful entrepreneur, discusses topics like finding a coach, motivation, and operating in your Zone of Genius. He shares tips on managing fitness and inbox. Check out the episode for insights on conscious leadership and personal growth.

Jesse Pujji, an expert in business models, joins Aaron Wasserman, Managing Partner at Third Period Capital, to dissect Graco, a giant in fluid handling systems since 1926. They delve into Graco's impressive range of products, from paint sprayers to industrial lubricants, showcasing its pivotal role across various industries. The discussion also touches on Graco's strategic growth through acquisitions, exceptional financial efficiency, and the importance of cultural alignment in sustaining success. Listeners gain valuable insights into navigating business challenges and lessons for investors.

Jesse Pujji, co-founder of Ampush, shares insights on using entrepreneurship for personal growth. Topics include Zone of Genius, five levels of motivation, and context vs content. The conversation explores fear-based motivation, conscious leadership, intrinsic motivation in the workplace, finding your zone of genius, and personal growth exercises.