E112: Jake Paul: How to Build a Multi-Billion Dollar Startup

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Jake Paul and Joey Levy explain the mindset, strategy, and business model behind Better, blending elite ambition, disciplined training, and psychedelic self-exploration with a thesis that sports gaming is still underserved. They argue Better can win by targeting casual fans with simple UX, leveraging Jake’s media power to lower CAC, and building toward a $10B+ outcome, potentially much larger.

Main Topics: Jake Paul’s ambition and competitive mindset (Priority: 5/5): Jake frames his goals as constant self-improvement, world championship boxing, and building a billion-dollar company; he says challenges and extreme dedication drive him. Psychedelics, self-awareness, and performance (Priority: 4/5): Jake strongly credits psychedelics with helping him understand himself, improve emotional intelligence, and generate ideas, linking inner work to business and leadership. Marketing, villain persona, and audience growth (Priority: 5/5): The conversation explores how Jake’s controversial persona is intentional and strategic, helping him break through on Vine, Instagram, TikTok, and in boxing. Why Better exists: underserved casual sports fans (Priority: 5/5): Joey argues the current sports betting market serves power users, while Better is built for casual fans through intuitive products like Better Picks and a simpler UX. Media-led customer acquisition and brand affinity (Priority: 5/5): Better’s media division is described as a strategic advantage that creates brand awareness and affinity, reducing paid acquisition costs and improving conversion efficiency. Founders’ alignment, equity, and company culture (Priority: 4/5): Jake and Joey emphasize equal ownership, shared intensity, tattoos, and a do-or-die culture as signals of deep commitment and alignment around a $10B+ target. Market size and long-term expansion potential (Priority: 4/5): They present Better as a platform that could expand beyond sports betting into multiple gaming verticals, with a path to becoming a $100B business if it keeps adding products.

Key Arguments: Jake argues his success comes from self-belief, visualization, discipline, and surrounding himself with top talent, not from conventional limits on what is possible. Jake says he embraces difficult goals—becoming boxing world champion and building a billion-dollar company—because hard challenges are motivating and fun to pursue. He credits psychedelics with helping him develop emotional intelligence, leadership, and new ideas, claiming they are part of his success. Jake says his “villain” persona was a deliberate strategy to generate attention, controversy, and momentum across social platforms and boxing. Joey argues the sports gaming industry has been built for power users, while Better targets the much larger casual-fan segment with simple, intuitive products. Better’s media engine is intended to reduce customer acquisition costs by creating trust, familiarity, and organic-like conversion in paid channels. Joey says 50/50 co-founder equity is necessary to align incentives and maximize the probability of a massive outcome. The company believes it can extend into multiple gaming verticals with strong unit economics and without needing proportionate incremental capital.

Data Points: Jake training time: 16 hours a day - Used to describe the level of dedication behind his boxing and business goals. Followers across social media: 70 million - Joey cites Jake’s combined audience as a major customer acquisition advantage. FanDuel valuation: About $20 billion - Referenced as a benchmark for the market’s scale. DraftKings valuation: About $15 billion - Referenced alongside FanDuel to illustrate category value. Monthly active users of FanDuel + DraftKings combined: About 5 million - Used to argue that a huge addressable market remains untapped. Gambling-age sports fans in current market: About 100 million - Joey’s estimate of the audience currently available to operators. Future gambling-age sports fans: Nearly 200 million - Projected as more jurisdictions open up. Better Picks launch date: September 5, 2023 - Hard launch ahead of the NFL season. Time since Better Picks launch at recording: About 2 months - The interview is filmed on November 11 after the September launch. Revenue run rate: High eight figures; possibly over $100 million annualized - Joey characterizes current company momentum and revenue growth. Active paying users: Approaching six figures - Discussed as a milestone reached shortly after launch. Marketing efficiency: About 10x better than average blended CPA - Joey says Better’s acquisition economics are an order of magnitude more efficient than peers. Return on marketing spend: $8 for every $1 spent - Presented as a hypothetical or current unit-economics example supporting scale. Responsible gaming policy: No credit cards; monthly deposit restrictions for ages 21-25 - Cited as part of Better’s compliance and consumer-protection posture. Target outcome: $10 billion public-company outcome - Both founders say anything less would feel like failure.

Pivotal Quotes: "Probably one of the hardest things to do in the world is to create a billion-dollar company. So it's one of my goals just to say that I was able to do it." — Jake Paul: Explaining why he wants to build a sports betting company even though he is already wealthy from boxing and media. "100%. No question about it." — Jake Paul: Responding to whether psychedelics have contributed to his success. "I would much rather own 50% of a 10 or 100 billion dollar company than 60% of something that's worth $100 million." — Joey Levy: Defending the decision to keep Better’s founding equity split equal.

Implications: Better is betting that mass-market UX plus media-driven distribution can reshape sports gaming economics. If it succeeds, it could prove casual users are the real untapped market and set a new blueprint for consumer-gaming startups.