Today we’d like to introduce you to Blake Pinsker.
Blake, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Valencia, CA where my childhood revolved around sports. Unfortunately, this doesn’t typically have a happy ending for a five-eight white Jewish kid. So my hopes and dreams of going to the NBA were shattered. I head off to San Diego State, where I almost party my way out of School Year 1-2, I was entirely on probation for either grades or partying and was one strike away from expulsion.
I thought that would have been the end of the world, but then something happened that changed my life forever. My best friend from high school, David Stroud dies at the age of 19. Hotchkin’s lymphoma turned into liver failure. A few months later one of my college best friends and fraternity president, Barzeen Barzanji is found dead in an apartment.
Two of my best friends, gone before the age of 21, these were two of the best people I knew. They were the type of people who always put others before themselves and inspired us all to be better people. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that they had so much life left to live, and their legacy would be relatively unknown by the outside world. When we go through tragedy, it’s dark. It’s hard to make sense of occurrences like this. But somewhere within that darkness, you can find light. It’s called perspective. Gratitude. Honor.
Within that darkness were the two greatest lessons I have ever learned:
Lesson 1: Life is short. I could walk outside right now and get hit by a bus. So what kind of legacy will we leave?
Lesson 2: Take risks while you are young. This is your time to step outside of your comfort zone. Try something and fail. You will gain much more wisdom from your losses than your success.
So here I was on the verge of getting kicked out of school. I have precious life, precious opportunity, great School, great family, great friends… And I was pissing it all away. So I got my shit together, and for the first time ever I found something I was kind of good. Marketing.
I graduated and realized I was WAY too comfortable in San Diego, I was living the dream, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever. So I moved to LA to figure out real life, I had an itch to start my own business. So like any 23-year-old kid I decided to start a website, a website for adult toys. I wanted to become the Mark Zuckerberg of the adult industry. I spent the last of my bar mitzvah money on this. I knew nothing about building a website at that point, and I learned that sometimes starting simple is ok.
You may have a vision, but it takes time to get there. If you are not passionate, you will spend all your money and time on the wrong things. Frustrated the cheap developers we had found through freelance sites I started to realize this is not what I want to do the rest of my life. I moved in with my Dad which was a huge shot to my manhood. At that point in my life, I had a lot of people in my life saying that marketing was not a good career path.
My whole life I was told there was no money in creative work. So I set my sights on real estate. I took the first job I got for a commercial real estate company. The company was a very old school and worked people into the ground. That part I didn’t mind, but they treated their people like shit. The culture sucked. I worked my ass off at stuff that didn’t come easily to me, stuff that I wasn’t naturally fired up on, and my creativity there was left to die.
Then one day on the job my whole life changed. I was sitting at my desk filling numbers into a spreadsheet like a robot and I get a Facebook message from my friend Jake Kassan, founder of MVMT. MVMT had just come off their Indiegogo campaign and Jake asked if I was interested in running MVMT’s marketing & social media. My initial thought was no, I’m committed to this real estate thing and MVMT couldn’t even pay me a salary or provide any sort of stability.
Then I thought to myself… I am miserable in this job, I miss being creative, I miss marketing, why the hell wouldn’t I give this a shot? They couldn’t pay me a salary or much more than a few hundred bucks a month at the time. So I took this on as a side hustle. When I started, I would work on MVMT the second I woke up until my 9-5. Then I’d count the seconds until I’d get off at 5 to work on MVMT until I’d pass out at 1-2am.
Getting to have my hands on the brand and social media at such an early stage sparked a fire in me that still burns to this day. After about six months of that Jake decided it was time to make me the first full-time marketing hire and I started a new chapter as Director of Marketing. My marketing partner from college, Spencer Stumbaugh started with me as well. Together we would tag team the marketing and creative. I took less money, I took less stability, no benefits, and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind it was where I wanted to be.
I had never had a job that brought me so much happiness and purpose. I had an opportunity to disrupt an entire industry with my best friends. At the time MVMT was laughed at, called a scam, I was called an idiot for leaving my other job. But we saw something that outsiders didn’t. Our motto at that stage was grow quietly. We didn’t want anyone to know our numbers, we wanted to be the underdogs, we wanted to be underestimated, that’s been our story.
When I started full time, it became real. I wasn’t just dedicating my off hours to this. I was dedicating my life to this. We were working out of our apartment at the time, and it was such an incredible dynamic. Jake CEO, myself, and my roommate Spencer ran marketing, and we got to have our hands on everything. Since the company was on the ground floor, we had to wear every hat. From social media, influencer marketing, content, customer acquisition, email marketing, product design, you name it we did it.
I credit Jake our founder who I look up to every day as a leader. From the second we started until now he had us in on every big conversation, decision, and gave us complete creative freedom to do whatever the hell we believed in. It felt like it was my baby just as much as his. It made me want to dedicate my life to the business, and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities he has given me. Together we used to sit in that kitchen with a hope and a dream to turn MVMT into a viable name in the fashion world.
We’ve now grown to over 40 employees, have a beautiful office in Playa Vista, and recently sold to the Movado Group for $100M. I recently started a podcast called “Dare To Be Legendary” to help share the best of what I’ve learned and the best of whom I’ve met with the world.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about MVMT – what should we know?
We specialize in fashion accessories: watches, sunglasses, jewelry. Our come up can be directly attributed to a harmonious balance between brand marketing and acquisition marketing.
I am most proud of the team’s dedication and hard work. There was a time when people raised their brows when we would tell them about MVMT. Now those same people are calling to learn from us.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My parents – they always held me accountable when I made mistakes as a kid, but they always supported me. Sports figures like Derek Jeter I always idolized.
Now I look up to other successful entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, Gary V.
Jake Kassan – for bringing me on board at MVMT and letting me run with the brand.
Contact Info:
- Website: mvmt.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blakeyyyp/
- Other: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dare-to-be-legendary-with-blake-pinsker/id1442175716?mt=2
Image Credit:
@sam_kolder, @rocky_barnes, @jakekassan, @spencerstumbaugh, @thatoneblondkid
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