Want to Get Your Foot in the Door?

Start gutting chickens.

I’ve given a lot of speeches over the years, and it’s generally something I enjoy. Giving advice is a big part of my work these days, and while I usually do it one-on-one or in a post (like this one), there’s something special about advising a roomful of people in real time. It’s both exciting and humbling.

But there’s one kind of talk that I’ve learned is especially tricky: The Graduation Speech.

You know what I’m talking about. The empty platitudes, the corny jokes, the vague, airy “life lessons”. I doubt anyone wearing a robe and mortarboard has learned anything new in the twenty minutes between the processional and the handing over of the diplomas.

Now I’m not one to talk; I’ve given a couple of these myself. But I’ve thought a lot about what I should have said when they asked me to dispense some advice. I’ve even picked out the new title.

It’s called Start Gutting Chickens, and it’s my non-vague, non-airy answer to the #1 question I get asked by college-aged entrepreneurs: How do I get my foot in the door?

It’s not really a speech about poultry, but it does take a cue from the apprentice system that pretty much the entire global restaurant industry relies on. And it starts with the observation that, when you work in a kitchen, you start at the bottom. 

Nobody walks into The French Laundry and applies to be the sous-chef. Hell, no one walks in and even gets to cook. Instead, they all start at the bottom doing prep: polishing silverware, peeling vegetables, dicing fruit, and in general doing things that the other cooks don’t want to do.

Like gutting chickens.

But talk to most chefs, and they’ll tell you that gutting chickens isn’t just about knives and entrails. In Japan, sushi chefs often spend years as apprentices, making rice and nothing else, before they’re ever allowed to touch a fish. In the meantime, they’re observing. They’re watching and learning how to serve guests, how to treat ingredients, how to run a kitchen efficiently and artfully.

Gutting chickens means doing whatever it takes in order to learn from a master. It isn’t, contrary to what a lot of people think, about servility. It’s about letting go of your ego. It’s about taking jobs because of the people, not because of a preconceived idea of what you should be doing.

Gutting chickens means finding the smartest person who will take you seriously, and doing whatever they ask.

Here’s an example from my own life.

When I was twenty-three, I was quite possibly the worst real estate agent in New York. I was working for my mother’s agency in Chappaqua, and no one was buying houses. In eight months, I made zero sales. I rented one apartment.

So, when a family connection got me a job as an executive assistant—a gofer, basically—to the CEO of a sheet music company called Cherry Lane, I jumped at the chance. Did I care about sheet music? Not particularly. Did I see myself as a gofer, long-term? Again, no.

If the career center at Hamilton College had heard that my B.A. in geography had gotten me a job following the CEO of Cherry Lane Music around the office, noting down meeting times and keeping track of deadlines, they would have said I was wasting my time. But I wasn’t. I was learning thousands of things every day. 

I learned what a CEO does from 9 to 5. And what they do from 5:00 until they actually go home (which, I noted with respect, was usually long after most employees were already home and on their second cocktail). I saw firsthand how a good CEO prioritizes tasks, and how they handled themself around employees. And most crucially, I got to see how a real company works at every level.

And nine months in, when an opportunity opened up in the mail order division of the company? I was already a known quantity at the company and the perfect person to take it.

Now, mail order wasn’t—isn’t—a glamorous division in any company, much less Cherry Lane. It’s kind of the nylon leisure suit of the advertising industry. Distinctly uncool, bordering on sleazy. But the more I looked at the way the company interacted with its customers via mail, and the more I experimented—with different types of paper, with photos, with promotions—the more I grew to appreciate the ways in which a company could have a direct relationship with its customers. I didn’t know it at the time, but this knowledge would be hugely important years later when I was starting Netflix.

Mail order wasn’t rocket-science. But it was a big step up from gutting chickens. I was learning direct mail marketing—what worked, what didn’t, and why—and getting a crash course in customer relations and advertising. I was learning from other people, but I also had the freedom to teach myself. I was gaining real skills.

So, when Cherry Lane put together a team to start a magazine, I was the natural choice to run (and teach myself) circulation. And a year later, when a different publisher needed a circulation director to help launch a new magazine aimed at Mac enthusiasts, I launched my second startup with MacUser. After selling MacUser, why not jump from there to startup number three, MacWarehouse, this time running the whole show?

From there, I was off to California and another startup mail-order company called Icon Review. Then to Borland Software, and then on to Visioneer and Integrity QA, Pure Atria and Netflix. It was a path that only made sense when seen in the rearview mirror.

Long story short: I didn’t start out thinking I’d be a tech entrepreneur. I started out thinking that I’d gut chickens until I stopped learning. It was a long, circuitous route from my mom’s real estate business to Netflix. It didn’t happen overnight. Or in a year. Or even in ten years.

But it happened.

And if I had to give anyone advice about how to go about things, here’s what I’d say:

Chill out. Every successful career I’ve ever known was filled with long periods of meandering, months or even years when no one knew what would happen next. Look at me: I started as a geology major turned failed realtor.

But if you apprentice yourself to the smartest people who will take you seriously, you will learn at every step. You’ll learn their special language. You’ll see what real people do. Your interests might surprise you. They will evolve. And you’ll be well-positioned to take advantage of whatever opportunity life throws your way.

So, if you want to get your foot in the door?

It’s simple. Find the smartest person who will take you seriously and do whatever they ask.

Even if it’s gutting chickens.