Our guest for this episode is Stephan Hecox, father of YouTuber and actor, Ian Hecox.
Ian, along with his friend Anthony, was the co-founder of the sketch comedy YouTube channel Smosh. Smosh is among the most successful channels in the history of YouTube. It launched less than a year after the debut of YouTube itself, it grew into a brand with associated channels, including: Smosh Pit, Smosh Games and SmoshCast. Collectively, the Smosh brand has accumulated over 24 million subscribers and over 8 billion views.
In addition to his massive success with Smosh, Ian also has many acting, writing, and producing credits to his name, including: Smosh the Movie, Ghost Mates, and the blockbuster Angry Birds movie where he was the voice for Bubbles.
Ian’s father, Stephan, is a terrific guy. In this episode, Stephan and I cover a lot of ground, including: the value of reading to your kids, instilling a value of integrity, and how Stephan guided Ian during his first negotiation for a corporate sponsorship opportunity.
Enjoy the episode!
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Ian on Social Media
- Instagram: @ianhecox
- Twitter: @SmoshIan
- Facebook: @smoshIanH
Smosh Website & Select YouTube Channels
- Website: smosh.com/
- Smosh: youtube.com/user/smosh
- Smosh Games: youtube.com/user/SmoshGames
- Smosh Pit: youtube.com/user/IanH
Hecox family at the Smosh Premiere
The Hecox Family younger years
Ian and his wax likeness at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum
Smosh: Every High School in 2020 (~6 min)
Please forgive the errors in the transcript! Enjoy the episode!
Jonathan V.: Stephan, thank you so much for finding time for this conversation. I have really been looking forward to it. Your son, Ian is just remarkable. What he’s done with Smosh with his friend, Anthony, going from what I believe was making videos for My Space after high school, to having one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube. So I’m curious from your perspective, was there an inflection point along the way where it seemed like it went from this being a hobby to something that Ian could really have success at?
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. There were probably a bunch of them, but him and Anthony actually started playing in the space and the space maybe didn’t really exist when they started playing it, but while they were in high school. So they they created a website and the website was aimed at other high schoolers and it started circulating among a few schools. So they were tinkering already, but probably the time where I realized, wow, you know, they really have reached out to people was when Fortune 500 companies like LogiTech approached them and said, we want you to make some content for us. We want you to, you know, preview one of our, you know, mouses or something. We’ll give you a hundred percent editorial control and we want you to make a video of it. At that point, I realized they must have hit enough eyes, but yeah, there’s been these constant what I keep calling another 15 minutes of fame things. I don’t really think they saw where it was going to go when they had the website, they actually taught themselves how to make video games and they had some rudimentary video games and then they did some parodies and, you know, the one in particular was a Pokemon parody. That’s the one that really put them kind of on the map, so to speak.
Jonathan V.: Tens of millions of views.
Stephan Hecox: And honestly YouTube was in its infancy at that point. But I think it was the most viewed video for six months or something. And you know, I’d like to say that we knew what he was doing a hundred percent of the time, but we didn’t necessarily a lot of the stuff they did was at Anthony’s home, which was in the same neighborhood, but, you know, we had set some parameters for them and expected them to to adhere to those parameters. And if we saw her differently than we would talk to them.
Jonathan V.: So I’ll make a point to circle back to that because I have more questions on that topic. First, stepping back, could you describe what the home life was like when Ian was young?
Stephan Hecox: You know, behind every father is a really good mother. I was fortunate that Sharon, my wife and Ian’s mother and his sister’s mom decided to stay at home after his sister was born. His sister’s a couple of years older. I had a career that was starting out in public accounting. I had been in public accounting for a few years and so it was starting to get better. And so we could make it work. It was a struggle, but we could make it work. And so it was excellent because we had some idea what he was being exposed to on a daily basis. And Sharon was just the most even keeled person. I know. So it was actually a really normal, I think, normal household. Ian, very early on showed some flash, he’d started reading very early. I would come home and he would try to tell me everything he learned about dinosaurs and the National Geographic and things like that at a very young age. So at first I was a little worried, you know, that I might have a child that needs some special attention and it didn’t really turn out that way. But I think what’s true is he’s able to concentrate on things. And I think we, I or we probably saw that as a little bit of an annoyance Because it was kind of a little ADD type tendencies where he’d be so focused on something. He wouldn’t be focused on, you know, something else that maybe we wanted him to focus on. If he was trying to build something or, or trying to read something or, you know, even if it was working on homework, it’s almost like he could tune out what was going on around. And he really honestly, he was an easy kid. He really wasn’t difficult.
Jonathan V.: And do you have other kids?
Stephan Hecox: So one daughter two, two years older. So, you know, we tried things out on her. Like most young parents, we were making it up as we were going. So yeah, I mean, it was the, the age difference was perfect and, you know, they were very close and still are. And I think she kind of, you know, helped nurture him a little bit.
Jonathan V.: So did your daughter have a similar type of focus as Ian did?
Stephan Hecox: No. Something I learned as a parent, you know, you’d think that nature had more to do with it. You know, you raise your children the same. You, you raise them, you know, you give them the same opportunities. You give them the same rules and they’re different from almost day one. And so Megan’s personality was different much more shy. Ian’s much more outgoing, probably more thoughtful, but very different personalities, but they were close. They were very close and I think still are very close. That’s great in our household, there wasn’t a lot of screaming or yelling. Our thought was, you know, we’re going to tell you what the expectations are and we’re going to, you know, make sure they’re reasonable and then we’re going to expect you to follow them. And if you don’t follow the expectations, then there’s consequences and we’re not going to do that. I told you this three times thing.
So, there were similar in that they were pretty compliant to be quite honest. And I don’t think it was I’m not really a stern household. We just had expectations. And we kind of expected them to meet those expectations and they did. It’s easy when you’re young and even when you’re our age, it’s easy for the world to revolve around you and maybe not be as good a listener. And so we, you know, we tried to get them to, you know, listen first, then ask questions or, you know, make sure everybody gets an opportunity to speak. You know, that was kind of a time when, you know, when we were kids, you didn’t call adults by their first names. By the time they came around, it was much more common. So we might introduce them to Mr. So-And-So or Mrs. So-And-So and they’d say, Oh, well, no, call me Judy. So it was a little bit of an awkward time, but politeness, I guess, is the way I’d put it.
Jonathan V.: Yeah. Yeah. How did you approach that cultivating politeness in your kids?
Stephan Hecox: We tried to make it about kind of a team effort. So we tried to instill in them that they were competing with themselves and not against other people. So therefore when they were in group situations, it would hopefully be more of a team environment that might not actually get somebody to be the very best at something. But we tried to get them to compete with themselves and not compete against other people, so that when they were around other people, it’d be more of a team environment. And, you know, maybe a little less clicky, even though it’s pretty hard to avoid that. And then I think we saw that play out. I mean, they had groups of friends, they were involved in, mostly Ian, not as much Megan, they were involved in recreational sports, and they were, you know, good teammates. They, people liked them, they got along, they were easy to manage. So I think that’s probably where I saw it play out more or, you know, in their interpersonal relationships. And we just tried to create that environment. I’m kind of a work hard play hard type of person.
And so, I admittedly in a sense raised them that way, where, you know, I did work long hours as a CPA, but I always tried to be there for dinner. I made sure I was able to coach soccer. And I was there on weekends. But when I was there, I was a hundred percent in. The outdoors was big to me, and it’s proven, you know, they’re both, they both really enjoy the outdoors that my goal with the outdoors and Sharon was of the same mindset was for them to just understand the world’s a lot bigger than them. And, you know, it’s, you know, some of us don’t move out of our neighborhood. You know, we might, we may not travel much. And you know, the, world’s a heck of a lot bigger. And I got to admit Ian, you know, he obviously took that to heart because him and Anthony had the foresight to see, and maybe I just wasn’t with it enough, but they had the foresight to see that they could reach not only people around them, they could reach people across the world.
Jonathan V.: So circling back to some of the expectations that you had for your kids, it sounds like they were pretty easy to manage kids overall. I’ve not yet met a parent with perfect angels. When there were times that you needed to discipline or implement some consequences, what were some of the things that you would do?
Stephan Hecox: When they were young, they might’ve been spanked a couple of times, but not much. We weren’t really big on spanking. What we were really big on was timeout. And even as they got a little older, if there was something that, you know, it wasn’t done or they were rude or they were upset, you know, I mean, we all get upset, right. If they just, were not in the proper frame of mind, we would have them, you know, take themselves away, whether it be a different room or their own room. So we were kind of big on, you know, you need to go get some peace and quiet and when you’re ready to rejoin, then rejoin. Yeah. I mean, there was activities they may have been denied from time to time because of something that didn’t get accomplished.
Jonathan V.: Was there anything particularly important to you? A value or habit, something that if transgressed, so to speak might be more likely to result in disciplinary action?
Stephan Hecox: The big thing for me, and especially for both of us was integrity. I mean, I just drilled that into them. I still drove that into them. And so they knew that I would be most upset if they lied about something or if they weren’t truthful, you know, if they were withholding the truth. And so we tried to make it so that, you know, if they screwed up, they could talk to us about it. You know, I always thought it was kind of interesting, and I’ll use Ian cause that’s what we’re talking about. So when Ian was, you know, in our mind old enough to go sleep over somewhere, to go stay at somebody’s home. And I don’t remember exactly when that was, might’ve been eight, nine or 10, you know, he would spend the night down the street with somebody friends and then the next day they would say, Oh my gosh, he is so polite. And, you know, he wanted to keep helping out, you know, with the dishes and this and that. I’m thinking like, are you talking about my kid? So, you know, I think these lessons, you try to impart probably have more impact than you know.
Jonathan V.: Yeah. Oh, that’s good. That must be rewarding.
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. Well, it’s nice as opposed to don’t ever send them back. So thankfully we didn’t have any of those. You know, again, grew up with some was with a few families that we were close to and are still close to that we still do activities with. And, you know, sometimes those kids were out of control and you know, they just had a different way of dealing with things and a different way of compliance and, you know, so they, I think they got the see all that I think maybe they decided, you know, things weren’t so bad.
Jonathan V.: How about just other environmental things. Did you guys have TV, video games? Did you have, did they have kind of free reign to those and access? Were there limitations?
Stephan Hecox: You know, I would say all of the kids’ needs were satisfied, not all of their wants. So, you know, we didn’t, we had a basic TV, we had a basic stereo system. They never had their own cell phone until they were, you know, much older, you know, until they were really young adults and it wasn’t as common then. Now it seems like, you know, six year olds have cell phones. So with the computer, we didn’t use a lot of, and there were less of them then, but we didn’t use a lot of monitoring systems or privacy systems. We, we told them what, you know, what we thought was appropriate for them. And then we trusted them. And that doesn’t mean, you know, trust, you have to verify once in a while. But we, I think with all things, we always tried to do that. If we told them what we expected of them and we didn’t expect outrageous things, if we told them what we expected of them, then we trusted them to do them. Most of the time it happened and we knew what they were up to, you know, we didn’t just let them run a muck, but we weren’t over their shoulder all the time.
And then the whole YouTube thing and Ian’s Smosh thing is that, you know, that’s kinda how that started. We did know a lot about what was going on and then we’d ask and we’d learn a little more, then we’d go, go check it out ourselves. So I think the biggest thing was we just, I think had reasonable expectations and we told them what those expectations were and then we trusted them to do it. My kids didn’t, even though I thought, I think they had it appropriate for them. They didn’t have the kind of freedom I had. I mean, I was, you know, we were, we were a little too loose and Footloose and it turned out okay. So we just expected, we told them what we thought the right thing was. We told them we expected them to do the right thing. And then we tried to give them the space to do it quite honestly.
Jonathan V.: Yeah. And it sounds like when it came to lying in particular that if your kids disclosed something that may have been, you know, telling you about something bad they did or something bad that happened, that you might’ve been pretty forgiving of that situation if they were forthcoming. But if you had to find out without them disclosing it to you, or if they lied about it explicitly, then the consequences may have been very significant so that they would realize, Hey, I’m better off just coming clean than risking lying or him finding out.
Stephan Hecox: Absolutely. If, you know, if they were to confide in us, then, you know, but there wasn’t necessarily a punishment. There was a discussion about, you know, how it could have been done differently or whether it should have happened at all. And whether there was somebody they needed to go talk to somebody they needed to make amends to. So, yeah. And there were times obviously where we found out about things that they had not been forthright about. And yeah, the punishment was more severe.
Jonathan V.: Was reading a particularly important in your household?
Stephan Hecox: From when they were literally infants, we read to them constantly. We surrounded them with books and we weren’t necessarily, I mean, they were age appropriate books, but we weren’t trying to indoctrinate them into something. We just wanted them to be around stories, and just be around print. And Sharon, my wife, she reads incessantly. I mean, she reads far more than I’ll ever read. I read a lot for work, so I don’t do as much pleasure reading, but we always, I mean, that was a huge part of the day. You know, whether it’s, you know, there were, you know, especially the evening time, that was a big deal. So we always read stories to them and like all parents, you, you, you know, when they’re young and you get, you know, you’re reading the same stories over and over. But they were then interested in reading. Megan’s a little less interested in reading than Ian is, but I hope, I believe that, you know, constantly reading to them, reading with them, having them read, I believe it had some impact. And you know, Ian turns out to be kind of a storyteller. You know, he does a lot of writing for some of the sketch stuff they do. And so, you know, I didn’t at the time then have it in mind that that would be the purpose is just, you know, with books, you can go places. So there were some telling things about Ian, his first job, he was the rat at Chuck e Cheese.
Jonathan V.: He was, I’m sorry, he was the what?
Stephan Hecox: He was the rat. Oh, the rat. He was the kid in the rat costume.
Jonathan V.: He was Chuck e.
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. And you know, of course I didn’t have anything like that when I was young. I, you know, I did the more typical stuff, gas station, etcetera. But but yeah, that probably should been a telling thing, but we weren’t, we didn’t really see, you know, we didn’t think that had something to do with his comfort around other people or acting goofy around other people or being in front of an audience or a camera. So, you know, there’s these things you just sometimes don’t really see
Jonathan V.: What are some of the other experiences that you think may have had an impact?
Stephan Hecox: We had, you know, a large circle of friends, so, and a lot of those circles were revolved around doing something sports. Mostly it’s not one sport or another and, or hiking, has always been a big thing backpacking, etcetera. And so it’s that situation where you’re not just sitting at a TV, watching something, you’re, you have to do something, you have to plan it, you have to organize it. You have to be with people. And there’s some element of you know, something could go wrong. You know, if you hike 15 miles in, you know, you’re on your own. And so I think a lot of those things, you know, are part of that makeup. I’ve always been interested in small businesses, so, and that’s, you know, ended up being a lot of what I do. So I would try to tell them about small businesses, how a particular business works. And I never really thought of it as being something that was instructive necessarily from a future standpoint. I just thought it just helped broaden their horizon a little. And it turns out, you know, Ian has some of that entrepreneurial streak, you know, for him to, to push out on these things. And that’s not everybody, you know, other people might be more comfortable just being a support person. So I, you know, I, I think all these things had had some impact.
Jonathan V.: You mentioned that Ian had this job at Chuck e Cheese. Were there times before that, where you started to see his creativity, his humor, his writing, the precursors to his future endeavors on YouTube?
Stephan Hecox: Well, he was always and I probably didn’t really see it for what it was at the time. He was always comfortable. I’m going to call it being the class clown. He really wasn’t, you know, he didn’t really act in that manner. And at school, I think he was somewhat in the background, but he was always comfortable being part of the conversation. He was always comfortable speaking his mind without, you know he could talk to adults and not all children could do that. He was comfortable interacting. Whereas, you know, his sister, I love her dearly, you know, not as comfortable. And so, you know, that probably was a little foretelling. And then, and I can’t remember how many times this happened, but the entrepreneurial thing, the one I can remember somewhat specifically is and I just thought it was the funniest thing. His sister at one point was into these bracelets and stuff. And I, you know, I don’t really remember what the bracelets were, but there were bracelets that you made out of different materials. So Ian cobbled together a whole bunch of her materials, her materials, made the bracelets and then sold them to her.
She freely bought them. And I just thought that I said, wait a second, you can’t take her stuff. And then charge her for them, I just thought that was the funniest thing. So maybe that was his early entrepreneurial streak. But you know, we didn’t have like the whole call it video thing, camera thing. We didn’t, we didn’t, I, you know, I hate to say it, I don’t really have home movies from when the kids were growing up because we didn’t have that type of equipment around. So one thing I really regret is not having a video camera, even then it would have been a format that doesn’t even exist anymore. And so it’s not like Ian grew up around cameras, so to speak, he wasn’t around it. So I don’t really know, you know, I think the video thing kind of just developed along the way, you know, it’s the website and then it’s creating something and then it’s doing something goofy and then it just kept snowballing. Anthony was a big part of that. I mean, you know, it was definitely Ian and Anthony.
Jonathan V.: Ah, yeah. Right. my understanding is that friendship formed around middle school. Is that right?
Stephan Hecox: Middle school. Yeah. Well, I’ll take that back. I think they actually met in sixth grade, so right before middle school and I don’t, you know, he lived down the street. I don’t remember them chumming a lot, but they were, you know, chums in school and then started doing some things together. And and then it grew from there. But yeah, I’d say in middle school it flourished, and in high school, it really flourished.
Jonathan V.: And you’d mentioned earlier, Ian spend a decent amount of time at Anthony’s place as they were working on some of their projects. And you did have some expectations and limitations and you expected him to abide by those. Were there ways that you had to ensure that he was abiding by them?
Stephan Hecox: Well, so admittedly, we were giving a fair amount of rope there, but so when we found out they were making a website, we then asked for the website address. And, you know, we’d like to look at this. And so they somehow, you know, at that time there were tools that started becoming very prevalent on the internet. So you could get a tool to make, you know, whether it be, you know, a game or something like that. And so they found tools and they created some video games. One of the games they created we thought that maybe girls would find the game offensive. And so we sat down, you know, I called him over and we sat down and I just said, Hey, look, you’re trying to appeal to a wider audience. You might want to, you want to mix this game up a little bit. There were things they were trying. And sometimes they weren’t, you know, appropriate. So that’s kind of what we would do. We would go look at their stuff. We wouldn’t, you know, we didn’t try to have any real editorial input as they were doing something, but once they created something, we would try to look at it.
Jonathan V.: You weren’t trying to say, Oh, I think this would be better if he did it this way or that way, it was more around making sure that they were staying within, you know, reasonable lines that you were drawing for them?
Stephan Hecox: No, and I just didn’t, we didn’t think it’d be constructive to be quite honest. They were shooting for a fairly young audience and we thought they were a whole lot closer to that audience than we were. We just were more, you know, make sure it wasn’t offensive
Jonathan V.: For some parents it’s a bit more challenging to withhold their opinion. It seems like you had a very objective, almost a marketing perspective on, you know, whether or not your input would be valuable or not.
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. It, you know, there was a little more input as things went along. So, you know, we tended to learn how things were going by, you know, what they were doing next. So, you know, in the early stages they had these parody videos. We didn’t know at first they started making merchandise. So they started having some t-shirts made with their logo and you know, coffee mugs, etcetera. And I just thought, you know, it was, you know, they did it for friends and then all of a sudden well you know, we need you to help us. We need to take, you know, all these boxes to the post office. What are all these boxes? Well, that’s the merchandise that we’re shipping out to the people that are buying it. It’s like, Oh, wait a minute. You know, now you’re talking to business, we don’t even have a business. So it tended to go in those types of leaps. I did eventually get involved because that’s what I do for a living. So I did eventually get involved, but I did help them with the business part of it when they started getting requests from people like LogiTech who had the ability to pay real money, then you know, I started providing some input.
Jonathan V.: Were you helping them to set it up as an LLC or something else?
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. Yeah. So they, you know, honestly they were quite young, you know, 18, 19, 20 at that time. And so they just didn’t have that background and and I didn’t expect them to, so the deal was, you guys handle the content, I’ll handle the business part. And then as you grow, you know, you’re going to outgrow me or I’m going to have to change what I do. And that’s kinda how it’s gone.
Jonathan V.: That’s neat. Yeah. As they were first doing this earlier on, what were your thoughts on it? Did it seem like a good thing, a bad thing where you been different about it?
Stephan Hecox: I thought it was good because you know, it was clear that people liked what they were doing and, and I, you know, I think everybody likes to be liked. Or likes their work product to be liked. So I thought, yeah, I thought it was good. And I also knew that, that the audience would be the judge and there was just a progression of more and more I’ll use the word success that might not be the right word, but there was just a progression of making the next level, the next level. And honestly, we always thought, well, it’d be over after this. So for instance, when it was going well, and it was taking a lot more of their time, they were going to junior college. So Ian didn’t really have a desire to go to a four year experience. So he didn’t really want to go away. Of course, from a financial standpoint, I was happy about that. Anthony came from a family that had less wherewithal. So community college was good for that as well, because it didn’t take a lot of financial resources and things were going well, there was a real company and they were producing revenue and it was taken more and more of their time. And they came to me and said, you know, we want to talk to you about dropping out of college.
And, you know, that’s like for some of us parents the worst nightmare. So, cause I didn’t really care if they went to college and became a doctor, or went to college and became a history teacher. I just think college is a good thing. I just think it’s a good experience. I think it’s a good way to get some eyes open. So we were very interested in finishing college and they said, you know, we really like this. It’s going well, it’s got every, it looks like it can continue to snowball. We want to run with this and I bit my lip and said, all right, you know, you can always go back. I told him it would be incredibly more difficult cause they might have families. They, you know, it would be harder. You’re young now it’s easier to stay in college, but, but I get it, you know, you know, if you have a dream and you have, you know, you have a passion, you should play it out. Then if it doesn’t play out, then go do something else. And so I begrudgingly said, okay. And they might’ve dropped out anyway, but they at least asked for my you know, my input on it.
Jonathan V.: I like the way you frame it too, you can always go back, but it will be harder. I think that’s a realistic perspective. I believe you’re right. That you can always go back, but it is harder. You know, I was an enlisted man in the military and I would say 80% of the people that I knew that signed up for the GI Bill said that I’m going to go to college when I get out. And I’d say maybe more like 10 or 20% of us did. And many of the others that didn’t decide that they, you know, they first wanted to save up and buy a car or, you know save up for a house or, you know, pursue this job opportunity. And it just gets harder to.
Stephan Hecox: Yeah, life gets in the way.
Jonathan V.: One thing that Ian and Anthony appear that they had, that seems like it was probably a factor in your decision to support, was proof of concept.
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. I mean, honestly at that point they had been at it a little while. So, you know, if you count the high school part, you know, they, it wasn’t just a fleeting idea. So it was easier to endorse it.
Jonathan V.: Yeah. And was that after the LogiTech sponsorship?
Stephan Hecox: So it was probably after, you know, things went pretty fast there. You know, maybe sometime between 19 and 20 things went pretty fast, you know, all of a sudden Time Magazine was at the house and they, they were getting a lot of exposure quick. And so it’s hard for me to remember on some of that stuff.
Jonathan V.: I’m sure. Yeah. So prior to the corporate partnerships, how were Ian and Anthony financing this?
Stephan Hecox: We never gave them any money for this, which, you know, Ian, and I don’t know about Anthony’s household, but Ian our children got allowance. So we didn’t really pan for chores. We just thought it was a good thing that you know, that they have some money and we start teaching them to spend that money, you know, like, okay, you want some clothes, you have some money you decide. So we encourage them to save. So the money was not just so you could go blow it. The money was to save it and then use it for things you needed. So once they started getting more money, then we started shifting some of the responsibility for the things they wanted to them. And then Ian, you know, I think when he worked at Chuck E cheese, he was 16. So he wasn’t working a lot, but he had a little bit of a job and he was saving some money from his job. And so he apparently was using the money, some of the money for him and Anthony to do what they were doing. We absolutely, I honestly can’t ever remember giving them a dime for it. And they were able to do it without a lot of money.
Jonathan V.: Huh. So as things started to accelerate, what were some of the milestones that stood out to you?
Stephan Hecox: So the first inflection point was this professor from an Ivy league school. And I don’t remember which one it was, it was back on the East coast, sent them a note, you know, a message, I guess, through email. I think they must have had, it must yeah. Their website through their website and said, Hey, what you guys are doing is really fun and interesting and you really need to get some better camera equipment. And, you know, I just thought, wow, you know, here’s an, and it was a professor, you know, and I forget he was professor of some, you know, a film department.
Jonathan V.: Ah, that’s cool. Oh, that must have been so encouraging for you to see that now they’re reaching and engaging people beyond their circle of friends.
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. So that was kinda my first like, wow. You know, they reached out, you know, this thing actually has some reach and then they so, and this was before I want to be clear about this. This was before they were getting paid to do anything. So then they came to me and they said, well, you know, we need money to buy this equipment. We’re just going to ask for money. And so we had a discussion about that, you know, what’s that, you know, is that ethical? You know, what’s the, you know, you’re going to ask people just to send you money and they weren’t, they weren’t getting paid to do anything at that point. And so I said, well, I don’t know. We’ll see if anybody sends you money and people started. And it was very small amounts. I mean, kids would send a penny, some people would send a nickel. Other people would send a little more, none of it was ever big money, but their mail increased like a hundred fold.
Jonathan V.: And even if it’s a small amount, a penny or a nickel, it shows that people are truly interested in the content and want to support it.
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. And that was kind of the second, you know, like, Oh geez, they’ve hit people from all over. I mean, that’s money. Some money came from overseas. So they were able to buy some equipment and, and then, you know, they actually got approached and I think it was probably LogiTech to make a video. And at that point I said, okay, look at, if you do this video for LogicTech, you have to stop taking money. You have to tell your fans, you have to tell, you have to make an overt statement. You have to, you cannot accept any more money from people. It’s just doesn’t seem right. And I don’t know if it was right or wrong, but it just did not seem right. And I said, you know, you can’t, it’s not right. If you ask people for money and use that money to make money for yourself. And so they did.
Jonathan V.: So how did the, how did the first partnership proceed with LogicTech? How did they know what to do? What kind of guidance did you provide to Ian and Anthony?
Stephan Hecox: That was kind of a learning experience because they honestly didn’t know what to charge LogicTech. And so I said, you know, I tried to give them the rope. And so I said, well, what do you think? And they threw out a number was, you know, for a young person probably seemed like a lot of money, but it was incredibly low. And I said, you know, I think you need to think about this a little differently. There, this is LogicTech. This is a Fortune 500 company who wants you to do it because they know you have eyes. So if they go produce a commercial on TV, that’s for a certain number of eyes and they pay based upon essentially based upon the number of bodies. So you need to set the bar higher. So the bar was set, let’s see about a hundred times higher. Well, let me see. I can probably do the math. Yeah. That’s probably right. And LogicTech didn’t even blink. So that was kind of the next, you know, that, yeah, this really is resonating that now other people want to latch on to them. So they also, for a while, then they got more jobs, honestly like that, where they were doing. And they were very nervous about doing a promotional video. They didn’t really want to sponsor a product. Their idea was we just want to do stuff about everyday life and make, try to make it goofy and funny. We don’t really want to be pardon the expression, a shell. And I said, yeah, but these people are going to give you complete editorial license.
Jonathan V.: That’s good. You helped them to stay on brand, but also figure out a way to monetize it?
Stephan Hecox: Yeah. And that’s, and they I think at that point, they, they definitely had grasped that whole thing. And maybe some of my friends and I didn’t, you know, that you could really monetize this and you know, now we have something called influencers, you know, so probably the next one was they were approached by MTV. And so this is going to be okay now actually produce, you know, produce something more than just maybe a three minute segment. Maybe it’s going to be a channel. Maybe it’s going to be a series, something. And it was still just them and me, in a sense, in other words, there were no other professionals or MTV wanted them to come down and meet with them. And, you know, they’re still young. I mean, they might’ve been 20 or 19. And I said, well, are you guys comfortable doing that? You know, Anthony honestly had not even really traveled out of town. And so they went down to LA on their own to meet with MTV. They walked into the room and there was apparently, you know, a conference table and, you know, four or five suits sitting on the other side of the table and, you know, probably a creative person, etcetera. And they looked at them and they looked around and then looked back at them and said, where’s your people.
Jonathan V.: Oh, isn’t that too funny? That’s too funny.
Stephan Hecox: I wish I could have been there. They said we don’t have any people. So when he came back and told me that, I thought, okay, yeah, you just crossed on the other point here, you now need people.
Jonathan V.: Yeah. Well, it’s nice that you were able to support them as much as you did. You, you clearly had a skillset that a lot of us dads don’t have and, and might not have been able to bring to bear and to have somebody that they could trust as well is certainly valuable. I think, how was that for you as a father seeing all of these inflection points?
Stephan Hecox: Yeah, it’s amazing. Honestly. I mean, it’s, it’s I think we all want our children to succeed, and if that, you know, they were doing something they really loved and people liked it and they were getting paid for it. And so that, you know, that was heartwarming for me and it still is.
Jonathan V.: So I have just a few closing questions. What are three words that you’d say your wife or your kids would use to describe your parenting style?
Stephan Hecox: Inclusive. It’s kind of, it might be an overused term, but it’s kind of unconditional love. Maybe it’s three, but the two biggest things, right. I always told my kids and I tell them as young adults, there’s just a couple things I truly want from you. I want integrity. I want you to have integrity. I want you to not hurt people. And I do not want to pick you up from jail. And we had expectations and we just assume, you know, we treated them like they would fulfill those expectations. So inclusive expectations, accountability, maybe is another way to put that. And the risk is honestly, you know, my, my concern all the time was the risk is, is that just sounds like a totally compliant mindset. And I didn’t want to end up with just compliant people. You know, I want, I wanted, I wanted to end up with, you know, I wanted to bring, to add to the world somebody that was compliant, but, you know, creative, somebody that could, you know, add something to the world.
Jonathan V.: Can you think of a particularly difficult time that you had as a father?
Stephan Hecox: The challenge for me was to and especially because Sharon, you know, was home with them and it wasn’t until they got well into, you know, high school anyway, was to make sure we were on the same page. I never wanted it to be a situation where they were told, wait until your father comes home or, you know, your mother, you know, you’re going to have to answer to your mother for this. I wanted it to be a joint path. And so if I had any struggles, it was when I thought we were across odds, you know, where we had given different messages, because they didn’t want them, you know, honestly, I mean, kids are clever. I didn’t want to be played off against each other. And then, you know, we all have struggles, right. So I wanted to make sure that they didn’t see us in a sense fighting. They didn’t see us battle. And we didn’t have many battles thankfully, and we still don’t have many battles.
Jonathan V.: Well, thank you very much for your time, Stephan. I really enjoyed talking with you. This has been a great conversation.
Stephan Hecox: It’s been fun talking with you.