Chris Erwin’s Post

"Follow opportunity, not your passion" That quote reminds me of when I left Big frame / AwesomenessTV back in 2017. It was right after our parent co DreamWorks Animation was sold to NBCU. When I left... I didn’t start a digital network. Or go lead a digital team at a big-name studio or social media co. I didn't raise angel funding or venture capital for a "scalable tech co". Instead, I started a small consulting biz. Or as many at the time told me, an "unsexy services biz". Where there was "little upside", and that it wouldn't look good on my resume. But I saw a great opportunity… I knew digital-native video, and creators, were the future of storytelling and nextgen business building. But there were so many bad strategy and dealmaking decisions being made. Yet there were no advisors who were dedicated to the space, who had seasoned digital media operator and exit experience, and had Wall Street M&A training. So investors were getting burned, and founders and execs were getting disenchanted. It made me concerned the creator economy was going to grow very slowly, and not realize its massive potential. So I started RockWater Industries. Today, we're the go-to M&A and strategy advisor for the creator economy. We help founders/operators/investors earn great ROI from smart business building and dealmaking. Still no "rocket ship, tech-enabled growth", but we've carved out a great lane for ourselves. We have a steadily growing book of client business across 5 continents, and are making new investments in our team this year. We look forward to continue helping more operators and investors shepherd this industry into its incredible potential. (shoutout to Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs fame, who gave me the inspo)

Rebuilding the Just Share Media platform from scratch over the past 6 months has been an exhilarating rollercoaster ride, to say the least. Spending well into the six figures while remaining "mostly" profitable, hiring (and firing) developers, and maintaining external projects has kept me on my toes. As an entrepreneur, I thrive on embracing uncertainty and ambiguity. With no executives making decisions for me, the onus falls completely on my shoulders. It's absolutely terrifying yet thrilling. I’ve learned a few key lessons along the way: - Make decisions swiftly. Endless analysis leads to paralysis. - Being wrong is okay (and happens more times than being right). - Failure is inevitable. From design iterations to hiring missteps, expect things to go wrong and course correct. - Loneliness comes with the territory. Mentors are critical for feedback and support. (Shoutout Mark Seferian for being a great sounding board and friend) While the grind has been real, I wouldn’t trade it. Making tangible progress on a passion project, even amidst setbacks, is deeply rewarding. The light at the end of the tunnel still seems so, so far off, but the entrepreneurial journey is as worthwhile as the destination. I’m excited to continue evolving Just Share Media to its fullest potential.

Next week, I will properly launch out my side project ( _ R O _ _ G _ _ _ P ) and I'm quite excited by that personally, and I think a few people might dig that too. As the old proverb goes: 'If you have 8000+ people on an email database, you might as well do something with it...' Technology. Pop Culture. Sub Culture. Entertainment. Niche Creation. Risk-Focussed Brands. Lots of creative writing. A few events. And perhaps even some stream of consciousness writing on how I and others focus on brand-building and anti-marketing and absolutely messing with this ridiculous platform you are reading this msg on. It would be good if the 'startup' world was a bit more intertwined with other areas focussed on tech in my opinion. Bit more culture focus pls. It would be good to see academia more involved outside the confines of their own 4 walls. It would be good if agencies could get more involved with investors to understand scalable recurring revenue models and new ways of agency-ing. It would be good if we could expose more people doing more social good things that are also very commercially savvy in how they achieve optimal social impact. 4 day work weeks are a marvellous thing. Sometimes, some very left-field projects start to come to fruition on the 5th day. And I've got that itch personally. So, see you when I'm looking at you.

Friend and partner Mark S. McNally has had $5 billion in exits 🚀 Today he discusses his view on the founder journey and the future of extreme rapid company creation. Part 2 of 2. Mark is CEO of Nobody Studios…one of the largest venture studios in the world doing really amazing and modern things. I partner with him to build out a global investor, founder, marketing and tech network…among other things. The future of company creation is moving into a period where you can go from idea to substantial revenue in months/weeks or even less. All founders are encouraged to take note of this trend coming that we are also actively building. Between AI, network support, studios and Gravity Ball founders…anyone not competing with some or all of this framework will struggle to compete in the market. It becomes more effortless to go bigger and faster with the right ingredients. Also note…no a**holes. Kindness as a brand wins. It’s lower CAC, higher LTV…and it’s just the right way to do business. Check out Nobody Studios today 🚀 I hope this is helpful ✨ ———————————————————— The two most important things as a founder is to 1. Become a Gravity Ball Founder (GBF) #becomeAGravityBall 2. As a subset…be an expert in the art of selling without selling This comes from turning down your self audio to zero so you can listen to the truth, word map to the product where it’s genuine and make every single sale that you should make. The Ultimate Guide to Selling Like Your Life Didn’t Depend on it…is releasing soon 🔜 I mentor CEO’s globally daily across 300 calls a month…$500 a month for weekly 30 min sessions.

More pitch deck tips!

Many of my close friends and industry peers don’t know what I do as the founder of RockWater. So here’s my “about me”… I also explain my origin story, has some ups and downs! —- We do financial and strategy advisory for media, commerce, tech. From M&A and fundraising to consumer research and go-to-market planning. i.e. think of us like an investment bank and management consultancy for the creator economy! 🤷♂️ WHY ROCKWATER - Blue chip, global clients. 85% rehire rate - Experience as operator / investor / advisor - 20 yr veteran of media / commerce/ creator economy 📈 WHAT WE DO - Buy / sell-side M&A, capital raising - Market research and intelligence - Go to market planning 💪 OUR CLIENTS - Startup to post IPO - 14 countries across NA, EUR, Latam, Asia, MENA - YouTube, Paramount, Team Coco, Portal A, FilmNation, XL Media, Whistle Sports, Atmosphere, Revry - 70+ lifetime projects 🤳 MY STORY I grew up 1 hr outside NYC in a Wall Street community. My career plan was always finance. So in 2005 my career started as a banker. Turns out, I focused on M&A for content distributors. Cable, telcos, and then increasingly OTT for video and music. I burned out, faced conflict with leadership, and needed a career change. So in 2010 I went to biz school. I was an avid social media user, and worked for Pritzker Group. They made early bets in digital video via the Google Original Channels Program. That connect led me to joining Big Frame as COO in 2012. A year later I hired my old banker boss to sell us to AwesomenessTV. There I learned what it took to go from scrappy content startup to a billion-dollar modern studio. But here’s what got me to launch RockWater... I heard 2 things often while at Awesomeness: (1) you’re collaborative to work with, and don’t bring sharp elbows like the rest of Hollywood (2) you focus on generating profit, and sustainable biz models. Amazingly, that was rare in the early digital days! So with those words of encouragement, I founded RockWater Industries. Goal = build a modern advisory shop to help operators and investors build better. Focus in media x creator economy. ...and nearly 70 client projects later, I'm still doing that today! 🏚 WHAT ELSE? - I invest in rental real estate properties in Omaha and Savannah - My heart lives in the ocean and mountains. Surf, snowboarding, backcountry, and hiking. —- DM me if you’re a founder or exec and this story resonates. #media #creatoreconomy | RockWater Industries

Before diving in on how #VentureStudios support founders, I must also answer the question many of you have in your minds right now... "Wtf is a venture studio?" It's a perfectly fair question...the studio trend is still relatively new, and I've come to learn that most studio leaders have to answer frequently. #VentureStudios create companies, playing the role of Co-Founder and actively participating in opportunity identification, strategy development, company formation, product building and testing, fundraising, growth... you name it. To do this, Studios typically maintain a roster of top-notch entrepreneurs, advisors, product managers, marketers, engineers, designers, analysts, lawyers, accountants, and finance experts that can be categorized into a few key buckets: ⚗ Research & Strategy 🛠 Building, Testing, & Scaling 🌎 Ecosystem Development 🤝 Corporate Development 📚 Platform Support I'll go deep on each one in my next few posts. 👀 If this content is at all interesting to you, please stay tuned or drop me a line. Talking about studios is one of my favorite things to do, so don't be shy!

Last week I announced that I was planning a course for founders explicitly dealing with VCs. While the response has been heartwarming, I intended to gather a list of items most folks dreaded around presentations to tackle head-on in my cohort content. A close friend Saurav K reached out, highlighting how this might help not just VC-backed or to-be-backed founders but tons and tons of bootstrapped folks who have made it big. I immediately jumped on a call, and we had a good chat. That chat planted the idea of launching a cohort that selects bootstrapped folks who have hit a million-dollar-plus in revenue through their business or personal gigs and struggle to bring their story forward. It seemed like a crazy idea, but I talked to more bootstrapped folks over the long weekend, and my conviction has only strengthened. So, here is an experiment. If you're a bootstrapped founder who has hit a million in revenue and feel presentations are not your thing or simply that the world has not yet heard your story, go to the link in the chat. You will see three straightforward questions, and depending on the feedback, I promise to launch a cohort focused on individual storytelling. If you know of a rockstar or an Indiehacker who is an unsung hero, tag them here and encourage them to take the 30-sec survey. It will help me, help them.  #pitching #bootstrapped #storytelling

In three years, Stan has gone from idea to 30k+ customers and $15M ARR. Their customers earn a combined ~$50M/year on the platform. 😳 Stan's business model is simple - they're an all-in-one creator store empowering anyone to make a living online. I've spent the last few weeks reverse engineering their growth - led by founders John Hu and Vitalii Dodonov (and their team full of superstars). Here are the 5 success factors that stood out most to me: 🏄 1. Leveraging Personal Brand: Founder John Hu used his background at Goldman Sachs and Stanford to grow a following on TikTok, raise VC money, and hire a superstar team. 📹 2. Building in Public: Stan builds trust with customers by opening the process of building Stan; showing us typically unavailable information such as their financials. 📢 3. Empowering the Stan Team: John and Vitalii understand that building a billion dollar business is a team sport. And that their main job is to empower and enable their team. Stan gives its employees autonomy, ownership, and trust to drive their work and build the best product possible. 🎖️ 4. Putting the Customer First: Stan is solving a problem that its founder John was facing as a content creator. This allows Stan to deeply understand their customers and serve their needs. Putting the customer in the driving seat for the product. 🏆 5. Persisting: If there’s one thing I’ve learned about John over these 25+ hours researching him and Stan, it’s that he lives by what he says, and at the core of this is his “never, ever, ever give up” approach to building Stan. Sign-up to my newsletter below and I'll send you the full deep dive - including actionable steps you can take to replicate Stan's success. 👇

Founder Institute has some good advice for #startups on how to make your #pitchdeck really comprehensive for investors: