Before Blockworks became a $150 million media force, Jason Yanowitz was just a kid flipping baseball cards on eBay - discovering early what it meant to build leverage online.

Raised in a countercultural, entrepreneurial family, Jason never saw the traditional nine-to-five as the only path.

In 2017, Jason went to an event that'd change his life, as a result he quit his job, partnered with co-founder Mike Ippolito, and within 60 days, BlockWorks hosted its first event.

Every success since has been iterative: from cold-emailing thousands of people to sell tickets, to surviving an 80% revenue drop, to now to raising $12M to go all-in on building at the intersection of media and tech.

Blockworks was bootstrapped and survived and has become a $150M powerhouse. I sat down to talk to Jason about his founder journey, lessons for company builders, frameworks for hiring and scaling a company and how BlockWorks is on a clear trajectory to do over $100M a year in revenue.

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Timestamps:

(0:39 ) What its like growing up in an entrepreunerial family

(15:06 ) When to Double Down on an Opportunity

(20:22 ) The Blockworks Origin Story

(29:32 ) Why booking bigger speakers mattered 

(37:29 ) How BlockWorks survived an 80% Revenue Drop

(57:15 ) Jason’s Advice for New Entrepreneurs

(1:01:49 ) Identifying Which Data is Valuable Data

(1:07:20 ) What is the (Clear) Path to $100m/Year in Revenue?

(1:10:40 ) The Account-Based Seller Structure

(1:14:54 ) How to Hire as a fast growing startup 

(1:21:17 ) Do Things That Don’t Scale ;)