The Iceberg Principle #5: Ghost work ethic with Dee Murthy

If you’ve been following along with the ZayZoon story, then you may be familiar with a particular road trip we took a few years back. 

It was September 2022 and we had just wrapped an RV in ZayZoon branding that we were preparing to drive across the country. The main goal of the trip was to meet with as many people as possible who use ZayZoon to better understand their experiences with our services.

The second goal was to spread the word of ZayZoon by appearing on podcasts, talk shows and anywhere else that would have us. 

The very first person we interviewed with was Dee Murthy. It was a very fun discussion around pop culture and Earned Wage Access.

After such a great podcast episode, Dee was an obvious choice for Iceberg Principle. 

On February 15th, 2024, Dee became the 4th guest ever to appear on the Iceberg Principle, here are some of the things we learned.

Discipline and consistency: the birth of Five four

In 2002, Dee was fresh out of USC after studying entrepreneurship and living at his parent's place in the valley. He had high aspirations to succeed in life post-school but still hadn’t quite nailed down a plan. 

Growing up, Dee would watch his father leave for work at 5 AM every morning. This instilled the importance of discipline and consistency in him at a very young age which he would always use to his advantage, even if he wasn’t sure exactly what it was he was doing. 

After a little bit of time and as a product of his love for clothing and merchandise—Five Four was born. 

Every day after graduating, Dee would wake up and head to his mom’s office at 8 AM. He didn’t have any customers and wasn’t totally sure what he was doing but he was consistent and disciplined at a time when most kids are ready to take a year off and relax. 

He believed that if he was prepared and disciplined that eventually, good things would happen—and they did. 

Eventually, Five Four, a contemporary men's clothing brand evolved into something much bigger—Five Four Group, a holding company for fashion brands and services. 

Podcast: Group chat news

During his time at Five Four, Dee was working with some close friends and constantly getting into what he considered some pretty interesting conversations. It was these conversations and curiosities that sparked the idea for his next venture–a podcast. 

This was the start of the Group Chat News, a podcast where Dee and his co-host would talk about essentially anything, as long as they were interested in the topic. The show built a solid foundation, gained followers and eventually developed quite a name for itself. It is now in the 0.5% most popular podcasts globally. 

Initially, the show was just a creative, fun outlet where Dee could spend time with people he enjoyed but he quickly saw more value in it. After some time on the show, Dee quickly realized how much it was improving his communication skills and helping his ability to tell stories. 

These storytelling skills quickly became invaluable when it came to things like pitching to investors, networking with like-minded people and even his typical day-to-day conversations.  

“The more you do something—the easier it becomes,” Dee explained. So he did three podcasts a week. 

Dee’s process for the show is relatively simple, he reads through the topics, usually right before the show, then hops on and riffs with his friends. He finds that simplicity makes for the best show.

When asked about imposter syndrome (a typical Iceberg topic), Dee hit us with a very nice quote: “No one knows what the f*** they're talking about, so why can't it be me?”. A sentiment we couldn’t really argue. 

Trusting the process: the start of Ghost 

One big piece of advice that we took away from Dee’s conversation was to “collect your chips along the way.” 

As Five Four Group continued to make big progress, Dee and his partner were ready to make an exit. They had five different offers, some with much higher evaluations than they had anticipated. Dee was about to get married and really excited about making the exit. They chose the offer that best suited them, the term sheets filled out and the diligence done but unfortunately in the 11th hour, the deal was pulled due to one member of the board not being able to get on the same page. 

This was devastating for Dee but also taught him that valuable lesson and he would be sure to be properly compensated for his work going forward. 

Dee was ready for the next steps in his career but again found himself unsure of exactly what that would look like. 

He figured out that he wanted to stay in the fashion industry and although he didn’t know much about it, was infatuated with tech. This was enough for Dee to get started. 

Before he had a name, a pitch deck or even a basic idea of what he wanted his next company to look like, Dee found himself in NYC for fashion week. While he was there, a listener of the podcast reached out to connect. Dee, who always tried to respond to DMs and had an hour to kill in the city met up with this listener. Turns out the listener was a successful entrepreneur in the tech space and wanted to help Dee in any way he could. 

Dee quickly found himself with 10 meetings in a week. After some discussions and deliberation with his partner, they settled on the perfect investor. A group that had a thesis on B2B surplus merchandising and was looking for people with experience in fashion. 

Ghost has since evolved into the world’s largest supply for surplus inventory. If you’ve never heard of this brand before, then it's working. The idea behind Ghost is to create a platform for businesses to get connected and let those relationships shine while Ghost handles everything in the background. You’d barely even know they were there. 

TL/DR 

We had a great time hearing Dee’s story and are so thankful these lessons we learned: 

Stay consistent no matter what 

Even when Dee didn’t know exactly what he was doing or what his final goal was, consistency in waking up early, staying focused and committing to always improving helped him get where he needed to be. 

Collect your chips along the way 

After a few failed exits, Dee realized the importance of “collecting his chips along the way” and if anyone was going to get him paid, he had to be him.  

“Why can’t it be me?”

One of the common questions relating to success that we ask our guests is how they deal with imposter syndrome and so far Dee’s answer to this question may be our favorite. In regards to his podcast, Dee says “No one knows that the f*** they’re talking about, so why can’t it be me?”

Consistency and confidence have pushed Dee to where he is today and are something we can all practice in our daily lives.   

Learn more about the Iceberg Principle and sign up at: https://www.zayzoon.com/the-iceberg-principle