This interview features Brian Volk-Weiss, CEO at The Nacelle Company. We discuss why betting big on standup specials got him Netflix's first streamer deal, how Iowa taught him about empathy in content production, bombing on stage and the genius of comedians, producing The Movies That Made Us, toy shopping as therapy, and why he'll retire when his first feature film is greenlit.

Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up link

Learn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater website

Follow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpod

Email us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com

---

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I'm shocked any of this worked. So much of what we built was theoretical for so long. And the fact that there's almost no greater feeling than watching the moment a theory becomes a fact. We were making stand-up specials at scale, 20 to 30 a year for years spending millions and millions of dollars. We didn't know if it would work or not, probably until year seven. We started this plan in '08, and I didn't know it would work for sure until 2014.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Brian Volk-Weiss, the founder and CEO of The Nacelle Company. Brian grew up in Queens with an early love for the Star Wars in 1989 Batman films. But upon realizing these worlds weren't based on reality, but instead imagined through the magic of Hollywood, Brian fell in love with filmmaking. So after college in Iowa, he moved to LA to become a production assistant. He then took an early career bet on producing a catalog of stand-up comedy specials, which almost bankrupted him, but the bet paid off big and enabled Brian to found his own production company, which is behind hit titles like The Movies That Made Us on Netflix.

So Brian exudes an incredible love for his work, as well as constant amazement he's got to where he is today, which makes telling his story really fun. Some highlights of our chat include why comedians are geniuses, empathy and content production, doing Netflix first streamer deal, toy shopping as therapy, and why he'll retire when his first feature film is green-lit. All right, let's get to it. Brian, thanks for being on The Come Up Podcast.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Thank you for having me. Very honored.

Chris Erwin:

Awesome. Let's rewind a bit. And why don't you start with telling us where you grew up and what your household was like?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I grew up in Queens, New York. Was born in the late '70s. It was my mom, my dad and me and that's it.

Chris Erwin:

And early on, when did this love for toys, entertainment, storytelling, when did that really come to be? Was there a glimpse in your pre-teen years or as you were growing up in your house, any inspirations from your parents?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

I obviously, I got to get my mom credit because at three years old I could not have bought my own ticket to Star Wars. So I guess I can give her credit for my whole career in that regard. But I'm very lucky. It's the luckiest thing in the world. I saw Star Wars when I was three and I was so young, and by the way, everything I'm about to tell you, I have no memory of whatsoever, but my mom told the story her entire life. So I have it memorized. But basically at three years old, I did not know the word documentary, but basically the way my mom described my reaction to seeing Star Wars, it was as though I thought it was a documentary.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

And you have to understand, my mom was one of the first women to get a PhD from St. John. My dad was a lawyer. It was very concerning to them that their son for months, when he was asked, "Hey, what do you want to do when you grow up?" My answer was, "I want to fly an X-wing fighter. I want to join the Rebellion." And I mean, this really freaked my parents out. So my mom bought me this book that I still have, that was about the making of Star Wars, but it's written for five-year-olds. And I opened the book, the Death Star that was supposed to be the size of the moon was only six feet across C-3PO. There was a picture of his helmet off and it's Anthony Daniels.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

From that moment, and by the way, before that I wanted to be a limousine driver, just to show you how young I was. When people would say, "What do you want to do?" "I want to be a limousine driver." And then they'd say, "What do you want to do?" I'd say, "Oh, I want to join the Rebellion." After I saw the book, when they said, "What do you want to do?" I would say, "I want to make movies." And I mean, I've never wanted to do anything else ever. Obviously, now that includes television, but that's what led to it.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. And were you involved, in your pre-teen years or in high school involved in the theater in any capacity where you're writing stories, any of that?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I wasn't involved with the theater. I did one theater thing in college and that was what it was, but I did make little movies all the time. I made five-minute short film. By the way, I do have to say, when it was really hard to do, I mean, forget about shooting on 16 or even 8mm film, the camera I had literally shot on VHS tapes. It must've been three or four feet long. And by the way, that was the easy part. Editing in those days, I mean, you had to buy a machine for 250 bucks when my allowance was $5 a week. I mean, it was not easy to make these films, which by the way, were all garbage. I mean, they were terrible films, but yes, I did a lot of that. I did crappy little films in high school, a lot of them.

Chris Erwin:

I imagine you're casting your neighborhood friends and your peers. And were you getting some feedback of like, "Hey Brian, there's something special here. You're really good at this. You have some good vision. You're telling stories that need to be told, or you see things in a different way." Were you getting any early feedback like that as you're starting to put together your first contents [inaudible 00:06:03 ]?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I don't want to make you seem like my parents and friends were jerks, because they were not, but I made crappy movies and they were crappy. So nobody could look at them and truthfully say, "Oh, Brian, this is great." I mean, I'll tell you this, I was in show business for at least 10 years before my parents realized, "Oh wow, he might have turned this into a career." They were in denial my entire high school and college time that I would turn this into a career. Like I said, both of them were children of immigrants. They wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist. The whole idea of going to show business with no job, I didn't know anybody when I got here.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So again, their personalities, but I really do think being the offspring of immigrants that had to flee the Holocaust and everything, I chose a very risky career path.

Chris Erwin:

Understood. Like you noted, your parents were looking for the traditional route for you, for stability, for something was familiar for your parents who are immigrants coming to a country that was unfamiliar to them, trying to find things that were stable and known. And you're like, "No, that's not for me. I'm going to give something else a go." So you make a decision that this is the career for you, but when you go to University of Iowa, were these ambitions in your sites? Were you planning to go into the entertainment business then? What was your focus on for your study?

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Again, I never wavered for a billionth of a second from this being my career choice ever since I realized that Star Wars was fake. So it was always the plan. Like I said, not only were my parents highly educated, all of my grandparents were also, my grandfather was a doctor. My other grandfather was a dentist. And even the women, which traditionally, 100 years ago were not going to schools and becoming doctors and lawyers and stuff, they were also very ambitious, very hard working. So if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have even gone to college. I would have gone straight to LA at 18.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

Because of that, it never occurred to me until I was out of college, long out of college that I could have skipped college. But I did know when I chose where I went to school, it was irrelevant to my career. So that gave me a lot of freedom not to go to NYU, not to go to UCLA. I decided it was more important to me to have an experience that I could carry with me throughout my career, which I got to tell you, I think that was in retrospect one of the better decisions I've ever made for myself, because whenever I'm trying to look at things, should I green-light this or should I green-light that or whatever? I have a million friends in the Midwest. And a lot of people that I know, the majority of their friends are in LA or New York.

Brian Volk-Weiss:

So I get this point, I was in Minneapolis this weekend, this past weekend, was like eight or nine people that I know there. So that's who I think of when I'm making creative decisions, especially in the editing bay, by the way.

Chris Erwin:

In a way, are you saying that you can empath