Cheddars news wrap from teenage Heartthrob to R. And
B. Singer to now businessman Ray J has shown
us what it's like to continue to garner success from
your passions and he is back with his latest business
venture reckon a wireless audio brand that enables inspirational audio
experiences. Cheddar Shannon Lanier is joined by this entrepreneur
, music superstar actor, producer and tv personality himself
, Shannon that's right. Ray J does, oh
thank you for coming on news wrap, appreciate you
being here, brother man, super excited now you
gotta tell us you have decades in the entertainment industry
. So why did you decide to make the switch
and to become an entrepreneur and then why earbuds and
headphones? Well I felt like I've always ran a
business and anything I've done been independent. I've seen
her saying one wish, I mean you know I
own 100% of those masters. Um we started out
in independent um we were signed to a major and
um we just felt like with our marketing we could
do it with a small team and it went from
music to tv from tv to technology, um different
marketing templates but the marketing I felt was our strongest
key to having success in in multiple areas. So
um whether it was technology or television or entertainment,
we just tried to create these unique Marketing templates that
worked um in different places right, there's different templates
for different companies and businesses and I felt like we
found our we you know we found our sweet spot
. Yeah, but in finding that sweet spot,
you had to go through some transitions and your vision
for Reagan has kind of changed throughout the years.
So talk to us about your vision for it and
I want to test you and give you a 32nd
elevator pitch right now. What Raycon represents today.
Are you ready? Yeah, that's it. Now
that we're what go well where a five year company
um shout out to my ceo rarely. Um We
have an excellent CFO daniel song. Our mark,
our CMO roman con is one of the best.
Um We we have a unique team is very diverse
. Were over two million customers now in five years
. We're scaling rapidly and I think we're, we
separate ourselves from everybody else in the air but business
because we have the best prices, the best colors
, the best style, the best fit for half
the price, half the price, which is how
much, 79 99. So the competition is at
2 53 100. So if you lose one of
the 2 53 100 like that. Yeah, that's
got that, that's gotta hurt right? But the
79 99 joints in different colors. They fit better
. So it's even hard to lose them. And
speaking about money, I mean is it true that
you funded this by yourself? How how did you
get the money and the financing to start this company
? Well we started with with with a small amount
like you know, we had, we had an
opportunity to use a big massive amount of money,
but we started out very small. Um shout out
to Mr lee shout out to really um and you
know, giving us the opportunity to to come into
this business because you know Ray lei the li family
, they knew inventory, they knew they knew hardware
um and you take our strategy and our marketing templates
and you tie it in with a really killer CMO
out of Hong kong, give that to Daniel Song
, our CFO to make sure we're good with the
financing and as as the sales started to come in
, we just started to scale and scale and scale
and we're 100% bootstrapped. Um you know, it's
it's the team's money and we we felt like we
could just continue to to put it back in and
continue to believe in our own brand and and have
long term success and that's the most important thing is
getting into anything that you know is gonna be long
term and you're gonna have a life, a life
with this product, you know, it's good to
have a good team, especially a team with some
money in their pockets. Yeah, I mean more
so the skill so the skills, because we make
the money and then we put the money back and
you have to just know how to scale it and
that just goes with having an all star team,
I do my part, but it would not be
successful without the full squad. That's a good busy
structure to put it back and invest it back in
the company. It's dangerous, it's dangerous at times
any business, it's risky and it has its challenges
. So what was the biggest challenge, A roadblock
for you and creating this company? Well, I
think, you know, you have challenges every day
, you know, with, with just the hardware
business and I think, you know when the pandemic
hit, we got a lot of orders and a
lot of people were at home and they needed to
, they needed things for home. Um, and
then you have in inventory situations sometimes, but again
, when you have a good team, you have
a good threepio service, you have a good squad
of people who can take the challenges or the problems
and then come up with a solution very fast.
I think that's what we have and I think we
, we clean it up and we keep going.
You know, if we make some mistakes, we
look at it, we make some adjustments and then
we go right back to it. And that's why
I think you stand as a good example of a
successful entrepreneur because you're not afraid to make those mistakes
and then if you do make a mistake, you're
good about cleaning it up or trying to set the
record straight, right? Yes, it's important.
It's important that, you know when things are right
, you, you, you, you represent right
and when things are wrong, you make sure you
know that that's wrong here is the truth. And
then let's keep building on that. Let's build on
the truth. Let's build on the hard numbers the
facts. Um if there's anything that we need to
upgrade in our products, we listen to our our
customers a lot with our customer service team and you
know, we just pride ourselves in making sure that
the customers happy first. Well you're making a lot
of people happy with the music and the beats that
you're putting out there. And there's the other thing
that's making everybody happy. There's a lot of energy
and excitement around Disney's new Little mermaid reboot for live
action princess because she's a black princess. But a
lot of people don't realize the first black Disney princess
happened about 25 years ago. Would you like to
tell them who that is, Brandy? She was
Cinderella and Brandy 25 years ago. Just open doors
. So we were able to have a mermaid that's
black at this point. What does that say?
And representation? Why does it matter especially as a
father of two young kids, a boy and a
girl, it matters man, it matters that you
know, we we we get our opportunities to shine
and shine bright and you know, I think with
Brandy kind of setting the tone again to do it
again with another classic movie, you know, and
and give give you know, all of these talented
young black, you know, women and men like
that, that that opportunity and then they ace it
and then it's beautiful and it's great, it just
opens up so many more doors. So you know
, I'm happy Disney's continuing to do stuff like that
and I know they'll do a lot more in the
future. So so speaking of future, what's next
for you both personally and business wise for the future
? Going live anytime soon listen, listen, the
truth will set anybody free. So I'm on a
mission, I'm on a mission. But again,
I have a job, I work every day.
I work hard, we got the new R.
S. V. P. Album coming um right
off the versus battles right into doing a group together
and overcoming all the challenges as young men and from
all different parts of life. So yeah, R
. S. V. P. By recon dot
com, I got a new one wish anniversary album
coming. I got the old school 60 wig,
you know, going into the seventies, I got
a lot of people in the movie. So meanwhile
you're trying something new with the hair as well this
year, I'm going platinum, this is phase two
tonight, I gotta take two silver right now.
It's a little all over the place, but give
me one more day and this thing will be silver
. Hopefully. Okay, he's gonna get there,
we'll give you plenty more days to do what you
gotta do with following your journey. So thank you
. Thank you so much. Thank you being on
the show entrepreneur. Music superstar actor, producer.
He does it. I'm just a worker man.
I'm just a worker. I'm just trying to put
the, put the numbers up. That's it.
Well, he's working hard and so is Hannah.
So back over to you here. Great interview Shannon
. Great job. Thanks to Ray J.