The Familie founder Steve Astephen on why relationships are the key to success and how to stay in the fast lane
meet steve,
a mover, shaker, disrupter, and trailblazer. From the slopes to the streets and everywhere in between, Steve Astephen has completely transformed action sports over the course of his twenty-years-and-counting career. I was fortunate enough to sit down with him to learn about what it truly means to be an entrepreneur, and to continually choose to challenge yourself each step of the way.
Steve embodies passion, creativity, vision, and work ethic.. because it’s not just about what you say you’re going to do, but how you act and back it up. And as his company, The Familie V2 continues to grow and evolve, I can’t wait to see what they do next.
First things first, you grew up in Boston.
I did, yes ma’am. My parents divorced and my mom ended up in Maine after a while. I went to school up in Maine for a little bit, too - Hebron Academy. That’s where I kind of fell in love with skiing.
And then you ended up in Vail. $150 to your name.
Greyhound bus ticket, one-way, yeah. I got lucky. I needed to get out of Boston. I come from a very broken home, neighborhood, everything else. My grandmother on my mother’s side was always kind to us and basically said, “Look, if this is something you want to do and chase, you should do it.” I said, “Alright, well, I don’t know what I’m doing but I’ll figure it out.” She bought me a one-way ticket on a Greyhound bus from Boston to Vail. I had worked as a bar-back and [did] some summer local jobs in a resort town in Old Orchard Beach and met a young man who was a young skier all winter and then in the summer, would go back to the east coast and work on the beach. He’s kind of that Rastafarian-type vibe, and he said, “Yeah, you gotta come out and check out Vail. Great bump-skiing scene, great pro scene, the whole thing.” We hit it off, and he was my only contact when I landed there, and it ended up being home for seven years.
That’s where you opened The Other Side with Jimmy DeLong.
Yeah, that was the first snowboard shop in Beaver Creek. We actually worked for Vail Associates together - that’s where we met. We were working in a store called Fresh Tracks, and I was also teaching at the time. Jimmy was kind of like a long hair, blonde surfer dude from Northern California. He was a die-hard skier, too, but he was snowboarding before me. We became friends and we both worked on this thing called Fresh Tracks, which was a new ski shop they were opening that also had a snowboard section. It was a separation of, “This is where our snowboard shop is,” but also not - it’s just part of a ski shop. As we got to know each other and work there, we kind of got known in the community for running that for Vail. Snowboarders and skiers were very different people back then. Now, it’s pretty much all the same. But back then it was very different, so Jimmy and I were like, “You know, this needs its own thing, its own snowboard shop.” He and I came together actually thinking [about how] next to Fresh Tracks there was a basket rental place where, when you go to resorts back in the day – they don’t use it anymore. They used to use prime real estate for a rental basket. Basically, you’d get out of your car and go to the mountain and you’d give them the stuff you didn’t want on the mountain, your valuables. It was like a locker room, but they called it a ski basket. You would rent the basket for the day, they would give you a ticket, and you’d put all your shit in a basket – your normal street boots, whatever, and leave. It was prime real estate, and they don’t make money off of that; it’s like a service by the mountain. So we went to Vail and said, “Look, these snowboarders are different. You really should open your own snowboard shop in the ski basket. Shut the ski basket down; it’s prime real estate and the market’s growing.”
And they didn’t do it. They kind of laughed. They said, “It’s a stupid idea. We’re just going to do it the way we have.” That’s when Jimmy and I were like, “We should open our own snowboard shop.”
But neither one of us really understood how to do that. He was definitely more polished than I was. We kind of ran around Vail trying to find money from banks. They, too, laughed at us. We got really lucky. The last bank we went to was an old entrepreneur from Minturn, Colorado, which is an old mining town outside of Vail. He had gone away to school, worked in the city, burnt out, came back, and opened a small bank called, FirstBank of Vail. He loved our story. We left thinking we didn’t have a deal, and then he called us back, and this was after visiting every bank, and he said, “Look, I love your idea. I love your concept. You’ve got two issues: You don’t have a space. Find a space and I’ll give you $100,000.” We then got lucky again, and long story short, opened the first snowboard shop in Beaver Creek in the fall of 1989.
You would say you’re a fan of learning as you go, no?
I’m a fan of people telling me that it won’t work, because I’m going to do it. I think part of it is that you’re born as an entrepreneur and a visionary. Execution is definitely something you learn over time. If you believe in yourself and you believe in the concept, you’re going to regret it if you don’t try it.
You find ideas throughout your life. It’s different now, but back then, it was always, “You need a college degree and business plan,” this and that. And it’s like, “I don’t need that. I know this is going to work. I have a vision.”
When people tell you no, I think it’s often just laziness.
That was kind of my theory. I knew I could turn this into something. I knew I could. That’s kind of worked in life for me.
Yeah, because fast-forwarding again, you moved to San Diego. You became the marketing manager for Lamar Snowboards. Eventually, Kevin Jones was having issues with a contract, and you stepped in. Beforehand, you had expressed interest in contract law and negotiation, so you got involved in that, just out of curiosity. But after helping Kevin, you founded The Familie.
Yeah, it was just another one of those things – right place, right time. Because I had spent some time in the ski industry and I had known of IMG. Actually, IMG had an office in Vail. I grew up playing traditional sports – football, baseball, basketball. I was a jock from Boston and I knew about agents and what they do. The movie Jerry Maguire, I was a huge fan. I think part of me always wanted to be an agent when I was younger; I just thought it wasn’t feasible because I didn’t go to college, finish high school, didn’t have a law degree, all of that stuff. When I got to be on the marketing and the brand side of Lamar and I came out here, that was another timing thing. Snowboarders were starting to make more and more money, and even if they weren’t making more money, they were getting a lot of phone calls from Mountain Dew and from corporate America.
Kevin was one of my best friends. I was his team manager and marketing director for Lamar. He was really more bummed than anything, because Reebok had called him up and fired him. Reebok had started a brand called Box Footwear and it wasn’t working out. They basically said, “Well, it’s not working out. We’re going to fire everybody.” These guys had contracts, but they didn’t have representation. Most of them just took the deal and said, “Okay, yeah, I’ll move on.” Kevin was pretty smart. He and I always talked together, and he was like, “I just don’t understand how they can just do this. You should figure this out.” I was like, “Well, I can call them and be your agent, I guess. I’ll just make it up.” We literally called from the Lamar headquarters. Long story short, it worked out. I ended up getting him a good settlement compared to the ten or twelve athletes that I don’t think got one.
So then, same thing – I went to people I knew.
IMG was the biggest; Mark McCormack was my idol. I had a few relationships there from the Colorado days, and I called, and it was kind of the same thing. “You want to represent extreme sports?” That’s what they called it back then; it’s action sports now.
“You want to represent athletes in snowboarding? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.” And I was like, “Well then, this will work.” That’s what I did. It’s funny. I launched it ten years later; It was 1998. I launched The Familie out of my garage. Kevin was my first client, and then it kind of snowballed from there.
No pun intended.
Yeah. I knew the snowboarders, CAA, everyone. And then, all of a sudden, snowboarders were friends with BMXers and skateboarders, et cetera, et cetera. Again, right place, right time. It kind of took off. And as you know, now everyone – IMG, Octagon – is in action sports. But I was the first and the only one, so at that time, I had a monopoly, just like the snowboard shop. And then next thing you know, snowboard shops are everywhere – including Vail Associates. By the way, that ski basket today is a snowboard shop. Vail went into that business, too. First to market always gives you an advantage and I was lucky to do that.
I always say that there’s always going to be a lot of smart people doing things that I do. There’s going to be a lot of money, but you’re probably not going to outwork me. I try to instill that in the rest of the people that I’m surrounded by, too. That’s kept me in the fast lane in this business.
Even when I launched into golf and NBA and working in other sports, I took that same mentality. It’s worked out pretty well for us.
In the beginning especially, you edged yourself into that space. I would imagine there would be some sort of growing pain because… companies didn’t really like you.
Well, it’s not that they don’t like you; they don’t like the idea of you trying to get more of the dollars than they have to spend, right? In any case, yeah, I think it was a struggle in the beginning. I think I became more legitimate when more agents were doing it.
Competition breeds success, but also proof of concept.
Having others go into that space really helped me out in the beginning. It was only a couple of years before everyone was starting to represent. IMG came into the space, and Octagon, et cetera, et cetera. There were some that did it slower, or in pieces, but I was the only one that was really doing every action sport. For sure snowboarding, and skiing, but it took years for the other guys to realize there was money in skateboarding and BMX, so I was dominating that for a while - probably until about 2004, and then it became more competitive. But still to this day, Wasserman – the company I helped build, nobody touched them. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It’s worked out pretty well.
You partnered with Wasserman in 2003.
Perfect timing, once again. I was scaling but I don’t come from any money. I don’t have resources – now I can do whatever I want – but in 2003, I was still really insecure. I had children at the time. I think you always worry about paycheck to paycheck, and this sort of thing. At the time, I was being courted by everybody. 2003 was enough of a runway where I was dominating the space. I had real cash flow, real business. I built a good infrastructure. The IMGs came calling, the Octagons. Omnicom was the biggest offer, and I was pretty close to doing a deal with them. Casey [Wasserman] and I met through a mutual friend, and he started in 1998, too. He’s two years younger than me but comes from a lot of money, and he had a vision of what his grandfather did in Hollywood, he wanted to do in sports. I was already doing it, and he had started. He had about thirty employees at the time. I had about ten, maybe twelve. I was small; he was small, also. He had a goal of growing a big business. I was excited to take not only what I was doing and scale it in a much bigger way and hire more talented people and build a real, great business, but also diversify – I wanted to be in basketball and golf. I’m a big golfer, so golf first, then I wanted to be in basketball. I wanted to be in everything. He was like, “Well, so do I, so let’s do it together.”
We started talking, and another mentor of mine set me aside and said, “Look, the more you get to know him, you just gotta figure out what you really want.” The key to going with him, which I’ll never regret doing versus Omnicom, and I do believe this: If I sold to Omnicom, it was going to be 100% of the company, and I probably wouldn’t really get control. I probably would have done a five-year-and-out, and I’d be done. With Casey, in the beginning, it was very smart of him to say, “Look, don’t sell me the whole thing. Keep the name The Familie for a while, just in case.” A lot of people didn’t really know Wasserman until about 2005 or 2006 because even though we did the deal in 2003, I was still called The Familie and I still operated independently. He became my best friend and the best partner I ever had, because he allowed me to do whatever I wanted. He didn’t micromanage anything and frankly, he looked for me to grow his business, and for me to mentor the whole team to build the business we did. We had an incredible run for seventeen years. Wasserman is probably the biggest agency in the world now, definitely one of if not the biggest. Definitely bigger than I need in the sense of wanting to be an entrepreneur. It gets difficult to be an entrepreneur the more you scale. You have to think about the bank, revenue, and this and that.
I tend to work really good up until a certain level, when you can be creative and think outside the box and not be so transactional and be more of an entrepreneur. So, I think I hit a point where it was time for me to be an entrepreneur again.
I had a seventeen-year run where I could be an entrepreneur there. I literally changed responsibilities. I signed seven more contracts, probably plus. We were truly partners, and I became a partner. There were only about four of us, really, that were partners, I would say. It was good. And then it was time to be an entrepreneur again, so it worked out.
So, I want to circle back to where you talked about knowing what you’re good at, because to me, that’s a measurement of success. When people think of success, they tend to think of the deals, the money, the records. And with you, something that I’ve noticed, especially taking what people have to say into consideration, is that you’ve truly built real relationships. It’s not just transactional. What is the secret to building those relationships?
It goes back to not being outworked; relationships come from time and effort.
You don’t get to know people if you don’t spend the time and effort. I think too many people in this space, and in business in general, treat people as transactions versus humans. For me, at least specifically when you’re in this world, in regards to the relationships not only with your talent but within the industry, too… you don’t have to love them, but it’s a respect you have for one another. It’s hit me really well - in a good way - over the years.
An example is when Ken Block, who founded DC Shoes – he built it and sold it for $100 million plus – decided to become an athlete after his retirement with all that money, and he chose me. Well, for ten years prior to that, I was a pain in his ass - he was paying more money for Dave Mirra, Travis Pastrana, all these athletes, but I also feel I made sure he got better ROI. Pain in the ass of respect, though. He understood the value that I brought them, and that was key to the relationships I had. I think that was a good find for me, that I must have been doing something right, knowing that when you retire, you chose me.
Relationships are the key to anybody’s success, and if you don’t build those at the core, then you’re not going to get the referrals and the things from that, you know? Even relaunching this, it’s the most humbling experience ever, because I was like, “All right, it’s just going to be this,” and then all of a sudden, this person is calling this person, going, “He’s on it, you need to call him.” And those relationships – it’s almost like a cheat. Every brand I want to launch, every incubator, every business… It's like, people are coming to me now, and it used to be so hard. You used to have to hammer the phones. That’s pretty rewarding, and I think that’s based on the twenty years I’ve spent building some pretty tight relationships. I’m humbled for sure.
That’s a testament to your work ethic, too, not just your success. And now, what you’re building with The Familie V2, it’s no longer just sports. You’re getting into music, art, media. Why?
The model has changed a lot. Nowadays, the millennials, Gen Z, and the next one after that… They aspire to be a lot of things and look at different things in ways of life. There’s no difference between how an athlete uses his platform and a musician or an artist, or even an executive as a mentor. They, too, can be very valuable to brands - or starting their own brand or company - in the sense of what their value is to not only grow that person’s brand, but also as a consultant, as a mentor, or as an ambassador. For me, the platform changes. Travis Scott, in music, can sell a sports brand just as good as a James Harden. It’s just how you build it and market it. He’s got a deal with Nike, and so does a basketball player.
They’re just exceptional talents. People aspire to be them, and they admire them. They want to wear what they wear, talk like they talk, listen to what they listen to, et cetera, et cetera.
In order to build what I was building here, and then with our incubator, Unlisted, which is a different business of how we incubate startups and brands with Candy Harris… I couldn’t be so siloed and it wouldn’t make sense for me to be preaching that we’re about building a story without recognizing that music is a big part of that, and so is art. If you look at collaborations now, artists like Revoke, Damien Hirst, Retna, and Virgil sell product like athletes. Why wouldn’t I look at helping them grow? And even though music has been around for forever, it’s still the wild, wild west. There’s not a lot of structure there. If I can bring in my experience over the last twenty years into music, and if I can tighten that business up and make the musicians more money, bring them a better value and a better service, and then do the same thing with artists, too. Artists, to me, don’t realize how much they’re really worth and what they mean to a brand. It was just important for me to diversify.
It’s so interesting, to me, to see musicians going to those partnerships because the music model itself is so antiquated as far as owning your own art and receiving proper compensation for what you create.
It’s different. Look, we never would have thought we’d be where we are today. We’re communicating differently. I don’t have to catch up with that guy; all I have to do is follow him on Instagram and I can see where he was for Christmas and how his kids are doing, and his family and everything else. Fast forward to us walking to coffee, and we can get through all that stuff. Years ago, if you didn’t see someone for a few months, it was a long time to catch up.
Speaking of, what do you think is next for the industry?
I just think it’s not next; it’s what we’re doing and what others are going to do. I think nowadays, athletes, musicians, and artists, they’re their own business, and with the snap of a post, they can launch a company. I think what the model is now is celebrity; everyone’s like, “Oh, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen these influencers,” which is very different, but I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface on the brands that are going to be built around athletes, musicians, and artists… and I guess celebrities, too, although I stay away from that. From beauty to consumer products to clothing to brands, I just think entrepreneurs are getting more savvy. You have to get a good operator and manufacturer. And really good operators and manufacturers and CFOs, they know they should be behind the scenes now, too, and bring in people to say, “Oh, that’s Kobe Bryant’s company,” or “Oh, that’s Lebron James’ company.”
I think people aspire to believe the story.
And if authenticity is there, you get it, you know? It used to be certain brands that lasted for twenty years, thirty years – Levi’s, that sort of stuff. I love that our culture and our new generation wants to change so much. Who would have thought there would be anything that’s taking out MAC and everything else? But now there’s this Glossier - this woman comes along and creates this cult following of young girls where there’s lines out the door. MAC doesn’t have a chance; Revlon doesn’t have a chance. They’re going to have to buy her. She figured that out. She found her white space as an entrepreneur and capitalized on that. I don’t see any end to that. I think twenty years from now, we’re going to look back and there’ll be another Nike, like Under Armour did to them, but it’s going to be that it was owned by athletes, musicians, and celebrities, not necessarily someone else.
I think athletes and artists are looking at the future as, “We can own and start these brands,” versus building them for other people. I’m excited to see the future of entrepreneurship from an athlete or a musician. It’s already there, but it’s going to continue to scale.
I agree. The second people started selling like, fragrance, on the internet and it started selling out – literally, people investing in that product without smelling it first… that seemed unthinkable to me. I think that’s when I realized that everything has changed.
Yeah. It is crazy. I love shopping, but it is very easy now.
We touched on it earlier, but how do you define success?
I often get asked that. The only way I can answer that is what I define success today, because I think it changes.
I think I’ve defined success probably twenty times in my career.
I’ve defined it very differently from when I was twenty, to when I was thirty, to when I was forty, to now. Today, success to me is balance – in life, personal, and give back.
Too many people, including myself – I have to keep reminding myself all the time – don’t understand the power of “no,” and how important it is to sometimes say “no,” in a good way, which will actually help the person.
For me, success now is being able to sleep a full night, live a healthy lifestyle, and do something where you wake up every morning and it doesn’t even feel like you have a job. To this day, still, ever since I started doing this and even as an entrepreneur since day one, I don’t think I’ve ever worked a real day in my life. Like, my dad was a factory worker; I know what that means when he did that for forty-seven years. That’s real work. He didn’t love that. I truly love what I do. I’m very passionate about what I do. For me, success comes from finding balance with my family, finally – which I wasn’t very good at when I was young - with my son, my kids. Health and wellness, sleep, and work that you love. That’s it now. It used to be money, right? Everybody changes.
With money, you learn that lesson.
I think it’ll change for me down the road. Success changes for everybody. My main priority right now is him [his son]. Success to me is if he’s raised and has access to things and love plus time home, that I didn’t have. You know, I grew up on food stamps, and I went to a food bank to eat. Those sorts of things, I’ve achieved success if I can give a better lifestyle to my family. That’ll be good.
You say you haven’t worked a day in your life. Talking now, it’s clear that you for sure have true intuition when it comes to making decisions. But has it ever felt risky?
Everything I do is risky. Everything. I could’ve coasted for a lot of years. But, not to be cliché, but no risk, no reward. Without taking risks every day, if you have the mindset of me and the competitiveness of me, I think you would start to question what you’re going to do the next day. It’s hard to make sense of that, but people are like, “Well, retire! When are you going to retire?” I have no clue. I just don’t know. I have to find something that defines success differently for me, because right now, this is what makes me happy. Working with athletes and musicians and changing people’s lives, being with people I love and care for, doing these things... that’s what makes me happy. So retirement sounds miserable. I don’t know when I’m going to retire. Hopefully, I’ll never retire, because I think I’ll shut down. Pull the plug.
What does a day in your life look like?
That varies, too. I’ll give you the general. I wake up as early as I possibly can. Sleep, to me, is really important. I’ve learned over the years about your adrenals and everything like that, so sleep is important to me. I wake up early, and I go to the gym during the week every day, hopefully, whether it’s some form of workout, exercise, training, just to be as healthy as I possibly can. If I go to an early class, and my son is in school, I come home, get him ready, and take him to school. Then I’m in the office by, on a normal day, 8, 8:30, 9. And then I start catching up. I’m usually behind a little bit with the east coast and Europe and everything, so I usually kind of hammer that out. If I’m in the office, my day consists of building relationships, meeting with people like yourself, meeting with more and more people every day. If I’m traveling, it’s usually focused on business development, a new brand, or working with an athlete. If I’m here, I’m not leaving the office until my son has football practice, and we’re off to football practice. Then, I usually get home, eat dinner, and then I’m kind of a homebody at that point. I email and I’m on my phone until I go to bed. That’s the great thing about technology. It used to be more; I wouldn’t say it’s less, but they’re different kinds of emails. I average probably a few hundred a day. As you found out, I at least respond in some way to everyone. I don’t go more than twenty-four hours; it’s just a rule I have. Then, I go to bed and wake up and do it all over again.
I tend to be on the road a lot. It’s living in hotels, and it’s a little bit different of a lifestyle. But when I’m home, I like to keep a pretty good schedule. My workout has to be early, and whether or not I have my son or not dictates things differently. If he’s at mom’s house, I have a little bit of a flexible schedule, so I’ll push it a little bit later. At this point in my life, and especially with two new businesses, my days consist of trying to find and meet like-minded, great people and grow them. That’s a full-time job, as well as taking care of my clients I currently have. We’re still continuing to try to recruit, so it’s kind of a crazy day. I try to get my four to five meals a day and eat well… off to the races.
College or not, what is one thing everyone should know how to do?
I think, what everyone should know, college or not, and prior to college, is that the sooner you start to put away money – any kind of money – the better. The reason I say that is because there’s a famous saying that’s generational, your parents and everybody keeps saying it: “If I knew then what I know now.” Especially when I go to speak at colleges or high schools, it’s like… if you realize what you put away, what you could have later. If you put away $100 when you’re twelve, what that would be worth now? That’s not hard to do. My son has it. I wish I had a family that said, “Hey, will you do me a favor? When you make this much, will you put $100 away? When you make this much, put $500 away,” because I think we’d have less ups and downs in the world that we live in if that was sort of protocol. College or not, I think you should learn how to save money. Learn about retirement plans and investments, that sort of stuff.
You should know as early as possible what you want to be and what you want to do. I think college tends to confuse more young athletes, entrepreneurs, business women, business men.
I think the sooner you can be working – even if you’re in college – the better. At least from what I’ve seen, the most successful college students were working when they were in college. The ones that went to college to go to college, I tend to think that it takes them a little longer to get caught up. Someone that was with me for a long time was interning with me while he was in law school -I knew he was going to be successful. Find your passion as early as you can, identify it, and if not, college, go into that space as soon as possible so that when the college student gets out, you’re that far ahead of them. And if you do go to college, don’t waste your time there. Make sure you take as much benefit as you possibly can. Then go to work as soon as possible.
Lastly… what does it mean to be self-made?
Well, I’m no longer. I just added “no longer” above self-made. There’s people in my life that have changed my mind on certain things. Everybody gets things for a different reason. Why I got “self-made” on my arm is very different than what it means to be self-made.
I think, today, the definition of self-made is anyone that reaches a goal that they aspire to, that they created on their own. And then you’re no longer self-made once you surround yourself with people, so you have to be humble enough to realize that. Because they’re the ones that are going to help you become and reach your dreams.
Dave Mirra and I both got the tattoo - his for different reasons; he had teachers and everybody else that said, “You keep riding that bike, you’re going to be a loser.” His definition was, “Oh, really? I’ll just do this on my own, then.”
My self-made tattoo was because I had a father and everybody that said, “You’re nothing but a loser, if you don’t do this, if you don’t do that.” And I get it. Back then, I was doing bad things and should’ve been in jail and everything else. I just wasn’t a good kid in a lot of ways. At the same time, in a lot of ways, I was a really good kid; it was my environment that was not good. For me, the self-made part… if I was really open about where I came from, there really wasn’t anyone that got me here. And then you look back, and it’s like, “Well, what if your grandmother didn’t buy you the ticket?” Sure, but it was a ticket. I really believe that in order to become self-made you have to come from nothing. I don’t think there’s too many people like that. I’ve seen some people claim self-made that always had a backstop.
I truly did not have a backstop.
I truly had nowhere to go back to. I was kicked out of my home when I was sixteen years old. I covered the tattoo up a year ago by adding, “no longer,” it was mainly because I never paid attention to it, but a very important person in my life said, “When you think about it, like, I get it back then, but you’ve had a really good run. I don’t think you’re self-made anymore.” That’s actually a really good point. (Thanks, Misa.)
I got myself to where I got myself, but I didn’t get to where I really became without all of the people around me.
And I definitely, a few years ago, started believing that being the dumbest one in the room is a very good way to be successful. It’s hard to define self-made. Everybody has their own vision and reasoning for that. I think I should’ve gotten the “no longer” probably back in 1998.
seven questions with steve astephen:
I can’t go a day without… working out.
Everyone should… I can’t do that one. I don’t want to tell people what to do; everybody’s different. Everyone should fall in love, somehow.
Life is better with a little… friendships.
Everyone in their 20s should… work.
One insider thing to do in San Diego… try Cardiff Crack.
What the world needs right now is… more love for all kind.
One way to spread love is… think and talk as if everyone is equal. Kindness.