Max Altschuler:

Welcome to this episode of the career hacking podcast. Today I’m joined by Kim Kaupe. Co-founder of ZinePak, Forbes 30 under 30, Inc 35 under 35 and Shark Tank alone. Before we get started, just want to say a special thanks to our sponsors Ziprecruiter. I’ve been a customer of theirs even before they were a sponsor at some of my previous companies and I just love the way that their platform works. Its really hard to find great talent and really inefficient if you’re not doing it the right way. And Ziprecruiter just makes it really easy, efficient and effective at the end of the day to find the right talent, whether you’re a candidate looking for a job, it’s really easy, Google Play app or iTunes app. One click can apply to jobs and if you’re a company looking to hire, there’s no better place to list.

So, right now my listeners can try for free at Ziprecruiter.com/hack. That’s Ziprcruiter.com/Hack and it’s the smartest way to hire. So, go check them out. Incredibly pumped for today’s guest, Kim Kaupe, who I actually met in Ibiza through another one of our show guests, Jasper Wehr, a few years ago. Kim is an inspiration and has racked up quite a resume. She runs a boot-strapped, wildly profitable company in an exciting space where she gets to get creative with musicians and celebrities on a daily basis. I’ll let her tell us more about that. But she’s also a Shark Tank alum, which I’m pretty jealous about, because that’s on my entrepreneurial bucket list. She’s a Forbes 30 under 30 alum, Inc 35 under 35 alum and a pretty seasoned entrepreneur and we’re really exited to get into her story today. Welcome to the show Kim.

Kim Kaupe:

Thanks for having me.

Max Altschuler:

Yeah, so I wanna get it started and recently you picked up a really [inaudible 00:01:52] client. Why don’t you tell us a little about that?

Kim Kaupe:

It’s been exciting. We picked up an amazing client called ACE universe Comic Con. They’re a great new business and they focus on the Comic Con space, which is obviously something that has been getting a lot of attention lately post Black Panther, but obviously the Marvel films have caused a recent [inaudible 00:02:14] in getting new members of the super fandom. And it’s been an exciting departure for us, because not only a lot of our clients are in the music industry and this is our first time getting into anything in the superheroes space. So, it’s been really exciting and we’ve been working with them for about six months now.

Max Altschuler:

And so, in working with Comic Con, do you get to meet any of the superheroes?

Kim Kaupe:

Yes, I got my picture with [inaudible 00:02:38], it was super exiting, but yeah, we get to work with a lot of them which is awesome and looking for [inaudible 00:02:46] up in June in Seattle because they have the [inaudible 00:02:49] and [inaudible 00:02:50] who put his caption there and Chris Hemsworth who plays Thor, obviously two big fan favorites.

Max Altschuler:

So what do you for Comic Con? What do you do for these companies and these superheroes?

Kim Kaupe:

So we help them structure and [inaudible 00:03:06] their VIP packages. When you attend one of these events you can buy a general admission ticket so you can go in and hear some of the speakers and then their VIP upgrade that are available for you to get your picture with Wonder Woman or get your picture with Henry Cavill who plays Superman. Get an exclusive swag bag, different experiences that happened on site, autograph signings, et cetera.

We work with the team to figure out what those awesome experiences are and what the fans are going to get really excited about not only to do on site but the items that they take home at the end of the day.

Max Altschuler:

It seems like an amazing career. What is this even called? Like, if someone wanted to get into something that you do.

Kim Kaupe:

At the heart of it we’re a marketing agency so we’re coming up with these experiences and making sure that people have really fun times whether they are at a Comic Con event or a music festival or buying some of these albums for the first time. For us it’s really focusing on the fans and making sure that they are surprised and delighted at all times.

Max Altschuler:

You’re working with a lot of musicians, individual films. Who are the customers, who are the clientele? Tell us a little bit about that.

Kim Kaupe:

I would say about 65% of our clients are in the music and entertainment realm so that could be individual artists like Katy Perry, KISS or Justin Bieber or that can be entertainment entities and properties so for example we do all the ticket packages for Panorama which is a music festival here in New York or Cow Jam which is a music festival out in LA. It can be, again that’s about 65% of our client fees and the other 35% [inaudible 00:04:49] under the other categories so that can be sports teams like the New York Mets and the Boston RedSox. It can be brands, it can be entertainment properties like the Grand Ole Opry, again Comic Con is a great other category. Switching anything that’s not in music or music festival.

Max Altschuler:

So this seems like a really fun career. It seems like a blast but it’s also incredibly lucrative so really want to know, how the hell did you get started?

Kim Kaupe:

I got started by a lot of happy accidents. I had never intended to be an entrepreneur. I wasn’t one of those kids that sold candy out of my backpack which is a lot of the stories you hear are. I had never planned on it. I worked at a corporate job, I worked at Conde Nast but I left Conde Nast and went to an ad agency and the minute I got there I realized very quickly that I did not like it. I was thinking it was going to be more bad men and Don Draper and instead it was definitely not, there was no Don Draper there or sadly nor was there whiskey at three o’clock in the afternoon so I realized very quickly that I wanted change but [inaudible 00:05:56] everything happens for a reason and who sat there next to me at my job but my current co-founder.

When I turned to her about thirty days into the job and said this place is terrible, I think I’m going to cry to my boss and go get my job back at Conde Nast she was like, “Before you do that, lets grab drinks and I have this idea I want to run by you and I think would be really into. We can do something really exciting.” Low and behold we went to drinks and concocted this plan and I was 25 at the time so I could either go back to Conde Nast or I can try this out for a couple months. I made the rule in my head that if weren’t having paying clients at the end on 90 days that I would go back to corporate and that was a little over seven years ago so luckily I didn’t have to go back to Conde Nast.

Max Altschuler:

You figured it out quick to, 90 days is pretty incredible to revenue. How did you get your first couple customers in such a quick amount of time?

Kim Kaupe:

It was a quick amount of time luckily but me and my co-founder had worked at a record label for a couple of years before she went to the ad agency so she still had a lot of contacts at record labels, at retail spaces. When we first concocted the idea it was lets try to make a proof of concept. Lets see if that works and if it does can we take it to other people and essentially ask them to replicate it. She had reached out to some old contacts she had at record labels and old contacts she had at retail establishments and that’s how we got our first foot in the door was using those old relationships such as by always tell people when you leave a job don’t leave the people. Especially in today’s age of Linked-in and Facebook it’s really easier than ever before to stay in touch with co-workers.

I left my job at Conde Nast almost a decade ago now but I still stay in touch with those people because you never know, in another five years they could be bringing us business. You never know where people are going to end up so I always say leave the job but don’t leave the people.

Max Altschuler:

What are some of your top tips for keeping in touch with so many people that you meet, you can do it somewhat passively if you want to keep in touch a lot of people or do you figure out a way or do you know who is going to be targeted and know who you want to keep in touch with individually?

Kim Kaupe:

I think at the time it was really also just who I was getting along with. Obviously there is always those co-workers that you shouldn’t go to drinks with [inaudible 00:08:29] a little bit more or we’ll have some fellow things in common with and we stay connect to everybody so whether that’s again Linked-in or maybe it’s collecting [inaudible 00:08:39] business card before you leave. Definitely scavenge the area but the close relationships I’ve found, it’s usually the people you also just genuinely get along with.

Max Altschuler:

Do you do anything in particular to stick out when you’re at these corporate jobs that you met more people or just the immediate people that you worked with?

Kim Kaupe:

I think for me I was always was very curious about other departments so I would always try to ask if I could sit in on their meetings or maybe just take some people to lunch who worked in a different department than me. I was always just curious about it and I think that is definitely a great asset or trait to have is to keep that curiosity no matter how long you’ve been in a job or been in a certain corporation or work place.

Max Altschuler:

Definitely and the earlier you are in your career, you may sit in on one of those meetings and realize, wow I really want to go down this path at this company and maybe cross over to a different unit of this business. It never hurts to continue to network with people, you never know when you’re going to go start a company and you might want need an engineer or a designer or something like that so it’s really good advice to stay connected until…You left corporate, you went and started this company, you had some connections and you got some business in the first 90 days and, did I read this correctly, you hit 2.6 million in revenue before you even went on Shark Tank?