Apr 18, 2023 · 57m · founders-journal
How 2 Personal Losses Led To Building The #1 Faith-Based Media Company
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The Crazy Ones, host Alex Lieberman interviews entrepreneur Steve Gatina, who shares how overcoming career-ending athletic injuries, devastating personal loss, and navigating multiple media startups led to the creation of Pray.com.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Alex holds 30.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Alex as informed peer 3.7 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 0.4 Alex pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Alex, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:21 Skeptical Interrogation of Drone Footage Feasibility
Steve aggressively counters Alex's hypothetical about flying a drone by firing rapid-fire rhetorical questions proving why amateur drone footage cannot match high-end stabilized aerial rigs.
Hardest push from Alex ▶ 32:59 Host Challenges Lack of Grief DiscussionAlex stops the conversation to point out that Steve is focusing exclusively on clinical business decisions while ignoring the immense personal grief of losing a co-founder.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 21:21 Explaining the Technical Moat of Aerial VideoSteve systematically lists the specialized gear, aircraft requirements, and regulatory permits needed for Hollywood-grade aerial footage, demonstrating why Alex's drone premise is completely unrealistic.
Alex holds their own ▶ 12:33 Alex Articulates Information Intake and Competitor PhilosophyAlex offers a deeply reasoned perspective on how depriving oneself of public feedback out of fear of competitors is a net negative tradeoff for business owners.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Alex as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Alex pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Losing 100 Pounds After USC Football | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Alex asks about Steve's 100-pound weight loss following college football at USC, comparing it to his own current nutritional tracking. Steve educates Alex on how extreme caloric intake worked when playing lineman and how learning nutrition enabled his transformation. | |
| Career Pivot from NFL Dreams to Video Agency | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Alex draws parallels between losing athletic identity after shoulder reconstruction and stepping down as CEO of Morning Brew. Steve validates the identity void before explaining how an entrepreneurship class at USC led to launching a corporate YouTube production company in 2008. | |
| Founding REP Interactive and Building in Public | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Alex and Steve engage in an expert peer exchange on the philosophy of 'building in public' and overcoming fear of competition. Alex explains his Morning Brew philosophy on filtering information and letting better builders win, which Steve echoes with Sam Walton's principle. | |
| The Jamaican Kidnapping Incident at Rick's Cafe | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Steve narrates a memorable story about his cameraman being kidnapped in Jamaica at Rick's Cafe and negotiating a $40 ransom down from local teenagers. Alex reacts with amusement and lets the guest drive the narrative. | |
| Launching Video Fort and Aerial Stock Moats | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Alex asks why anyone couldn't easily replicate aerial stock footage with consumer drones. Steve thoroughly schools Alex on the massive technical barriers, including helicopters, gyro-stabilized gimbals, Arri Alexa cameras, pilots, and FAA airspace permits. | |
| Moving from Products to Platforms at Helinet | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Alex synthesizes Steve's progression, noting that service businesses reveal adjacent problems that lead to product and platform businesses. Steve agrees and details Helinet's expansion into surveillance as a service. | |
| Helinet's Platform Model and the Fatal Plane Crash | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Steve explains Helinet's three scalable pillars (production, surveillance, air ambulance) and recounts the sudden death of his mentor and co-founder Alan in a fatal plane crash in Colombia. Alex listens intently to the sudden leadership crisis. | |
| Wartime Leadership and the 'Mission, Team, Self' Framework | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Alex pushes on the human element, asking how Steve balanced personal grief with business decisions. Steve explains adopting the Navy SEAL 'Mission, Team, Self' framework and adopting an uncompromising wartime CEO stance to maintain critical medical operations. | |
| Discovering Faith Content and Grieving Through Podcasts | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steve recounts how listening to Pastor Matt Chandler's podcast during his commute facilitated his delayed grief and exposed him to faith media. He details his shock at discovering religion and spirituality was the top podcast category in engagement. | |
| The Genesis and Pivot of Pray.com | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Steve lays out his 'Where We Were, Where We Are, Where We're Going' framework and how it guided the creation of Pray.com as a central digital destination for faith. Alex asks what initial market assumptions were disproven. | |
| Scaling Pray.com: Revenue Streams and Core Lessons | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Alex and Steve review Pray.com's three core revenue pillars: consumer subscriptions, ad-supported original audio like Bible in a Year (4 million downloads/month), and ministry SaaS for pastors. Alex contributes insights on email marketing unlocks. | |
| Startup AMA: Balancing Leadership and Friendships | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | During the startup AMA on managing employees who are close friends, Steve shares how he script-fired his co-founder before hiring him. Alex enriches the response with Kim Scott's Radical Candor framework and the bowling bumper analogy. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Gatina: Consumed 12,000 calories daily to reach 310 pounds
“And in high school, I was about 250 pounds. So I had to eat 12,000 calories a day. Just to get up to three 10.”
Gatina: Advising founders against tying identity to startups ignores reality
“You start a company, it's your obsession, it's your identity, and you'll hear people tell you, like,
Oh, like, don't make this your identity, right?
But it's like, yeah, that's nice, but that's not the reality.
Like, this is who I am.”
Gatina: Helinet provided aerial surveillance as a service to law enforcement
“We just kind of cracked the code at Helinet on being able to provide surveillance as a service. It's a different kind of SaaS business, but where you're basically doing aerial surveillance for law enforcement agencies or clients, right? So it could be DEA, FBI…”
Gatina: Scaling to $100M+ revenue requires a multi-business platform model
“What I saw there was that if you could combine the right mix of tools and technologies and talent that you could actually build this platform where you could have multiple businesses that grow at scale. Right. And like, that's how you're getting to like a hund…”
Gatina: Helinet founder died in 2015 Colombia plane crash
“Friday, September, 11th, 2015. And my business partner died in a plane crash outside Medellin, Columbia, just after we finished the job. So to give you an idea of where I was at personally, I'm 29, right? CEO of this multinational midsize helicopter company.”
Gatina: Crisis leadership prioritizes mission first, financials second, and self last
“You break down your perspective into three perspectives. The mission perspective, like what is our mission? And really that's about the customer. Like, what am I supposed to do for the customer? And that's my priority. The second is team. What's the responsibi…”
Gatina: Majority shareholder death can trigger loan covenants and trust transfers
“As soon as the principle of a company dies, the majority shareholder, it can trigger all kinds of like banking covenants and ownership gets split up into trust.”
Gatina: Religion and spirituality was the top podcast category in audience and creators
“I found out religion and spirituality was actually the number one category of all podcasts in terms of both audience size. So consumers and content creators.”
Gatina: Unlike sports with ESPN, faith lacked a centralized digital destination
“The only reason I didn't know about this before is because we don't have a digital destination for faith content. We have a digital destination for sports content, ESPN. It's got all the sports, but why is there no digital destination for faith? That doesn't m…”
Gatina: Pray.com's 'Bible in a Year' will hit 4M monthly downloads
“It's dominating. So Bible in a year is going to do four million downloads this month.”
Gatina: Kind leaders must over-index on having tough conversations in advance
“I think you have to be upfront and over index on the tough conversations with people. And especially if you're a nice person that really cares about people, like some people, they don't care too much about other people. They really are unaffected by, you know,…”
Gatina read his co-founder a hypothetical firing script before hiring him
“I walked Matt through when we first linked up, because Matt left as the CEO of his own company that was super successful. Shout out to Homestack. Matt left his company to work with me, and I walked him through not only, hey, I'm the CEO of this company, and I'…”