When Samyr Lainé walked into his freshman dorm room at Harvard College in 2002, he discovered his new roommate tucked away within the nook of their room, typing away on his laptop.
A yr and a half later, that roommate despatched him a venture he was engaged on referred to as TheFacebook.
“You could tell where his skill set was as a coder and as a thinker, and he was just supremely advanced,” Lainé mentioned of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “He was taking senior-level courses as a freshman and showing up to a three-hour final exam, two hours late, and getting the highest grade in class.”
Whereas residing in that dorm room, Lainé started to hone his abilities as a triple jumper on Harvard’s monitor and area crew. After school, he competed as a graduate scholar on the College of Texas at Austin. He then went on to check regulation at Georgetown, graduating in 2010.
A decade after sharing a bunk mattress with Zuckerberg, Lainé represented Haiti within the triple bounce on the 2012 Olympic Video games in London. Ten years after that, he co-founded Freedom Path Capital, a enterprise capitalist agency that invests in superstar manufacturers like Issa Rae’s haircare line Sienna Naturals, Kaley Cuoco’s canine complement firm Oh Norman!, and Ten to One Rum, co-owned by the singer Ciara.
From his time as an Olympian, Lainé understands what it’s wish to be the expertise fronting a product. After his athletic profession ended, he went on to work with Jay-Z at Roc Nation and with Will and Jada Pinkett Smith on their media firm, Westbrook. These experiences had been pivotal in instructing Laine the way to make a celeb model profitable.
From the Olympics to Roc Nation
After inserting tenth within the triple bounce on the London Olympics, Lainé continued to work in sport, first as a lawyer at Monumental Sports activities, which owns a number of Washington, D.C. sports activities groups together with the Capitals, Wizards and Mystics, and later directing participant relations at Main League Soccer.
He joined Jay-Z’s leisure firm Roc Nation in 2018 as senior director of operations, utilizing each his authorized background and operations abilities to handle artists like Alicia Keys, Meek Mill, Lil Uzi Vert. He additionally labored on Jay-Z’s alcohol manufacturers, music streaming platform Tidal, and launched initiatives like the corporate’s e book publishing division, Roc Lit 101.
“My role at Roc Nation is really what laid the foundation for what I’m doing today,” he mentioned. “For me, [it] was just having a front row seat and understanding how Jay leverages his cultural cachet to build some really valuable, really tremendous businesses,” he mentioned.
Lainé left Roc Nation in 2019 to then be part of the Smiths at their media and manufacturing firm, Westbrook, as vp of operations. He was then promoted to senior vp, working with your complete Smith household to launch attire, private care, and low manufacturers.
“I came on as a very early employee, maybe employee number six or seven. We built that to almost 200 employees across six different verticals,” he mentioned. “A lot of [the job] was taking what I learned—a baptism by fire Roc Nation—translating that to Westbrook.”
The Friday earlier than the 2022 Oscars (the one when Smith slapped comic Chris Rock), Lainé left Westbrook to seek the advice of for manufacturers and deal with what he noticed as a spot out there between celebrity-led manufacturers and enterprise capital.
A yr later, he co-founded Freedom Path Capital together with his spouse and fellow triple bounce Olympian Ayanna Alexander-Lainé. Collectively, the 2 have amassed a portfolio of celebrity-led manufacturers trusted by customers and celebrities alike.
Investing in genuine manufacturers
What’s going to make or break a celeb model is authenticity, not only a well-known identify connected to an organization, Lainé mentioned, earlier than pointing to the numerous mediocre superstar tequila manufacturers on the market for example. Typically, Lainé warned the product doesn’t even match the identify behind it.
Take for instance Jay-Z’s profitable cognac and champagne manufacturers—most individuals don’t keep in mind his vodka enterprise Armadale.
“Vodka was probably the wrong category for the wrong demographic that Jay-Z appeals to,” Lainé defined. “What doesn’t work, and people know this, is inauthentic pairings between talent and business.”
Firms fail once they don’t have to suppose critically about their product and the way it will serve prospects, he mentioned. Freedom Path takes a unique strategy.
“We look for businesses that either have or can benefit from having a person of influence involved. Person of influence, we say deliberately, because we’re not exclusively looking for celebrities, but we’re looking for folks who have a platform and an audience where they can add their audience to authentically supercharge an already great business,” Lainé defined.
Lainé’s aim is that an organization survives with or and not using a huge identify’s backing. However when an influential particular person turns into concerned, they have a tendency to deliver their viewers with them.
He factors to his consumer and Harry Potter actress Emma Watson. Her household’s gin model, Renais, is the quintessential instance of an influential particular person backing a model. The gin comes from recycled grape skins from Watson’s household’s winery in Burgundy, France, the place her father has been rising grapes for greater than three a long time. Her brother, Alex, is the corporate’s CEO, and Watson designed the product’s bottle and packaging, Lainé mentioned. And that authenticity interprets to different well-known and beloved manufacturers.
“The reason that Nike is a talent-led brand, and Revlon and Gatorade [is that] they all leverage talent successfully, Lainé said. “The right person with the right audience and the right messaging through the right medium speaking to the direct demographic at the right time can supercharge a business. That business that it’s supercharging has to be a great product that’s innovative and a quality business and a strong brand.”
