Name: 'School of Hard Knocks' founder reveals the 'biggest' lesson in business he has learned
Uploaded: 2025-07-23T03:06:46.000Z
Duration: 8 min 18 s
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What's been the biggest driving factor of your success throughout your career?

It is my desire to deliver the very best that I've always felt for myself

Even when I was a little kid before movies is when I had any job

I always wanted to understand how to do that job and then do it at the very highest level that I possibly can do not

Fear anything. No, it's not a matter. I don't mind being afraid. I want an adventurous life

I want it and don't be so afraid to be afraid or nervous

The important thing is to keep pursuing your dreams and finding accurate things that are going to add to your life and to others

That is a clip from the School of Hard Knocks the business media platform founded by 23 year old James Dumoulin

Who's been landing interviews with everyone from Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise to top business leaders and billionaires today?

James's brand is on a mission of his own he's amassed 15 million followers across social media by inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs and

Investors with real-world advice from millionaires and billionaires on how to build wealth and achieve financial freedom

Joining me now in a Fox Business exclusive live in studio is the School of Hard Knocks co-founder James Dumoulin

How did you how did you grab Tom Cruise for that Paramount reached out to us?

I'm sorry. They reached out to you. They reached out to us and ironically was Tom's idea

Actually, I guess he'd been seeing our content for a couple months and he had a movie coming out and he's like

Might as well get on all the hot channels and we're one of the biggest in the world right now

So we made it happen again, but he could have picked any of these crazy

Influencers who don't don't have a lot of substance. He picked you so you're very young 23

When did you start the School of Hard Knocks? I started this

I was a freshman in college at the University of Texas. So it was 2021. I think I was about 19 years old

I just saw an immense opportunity with the creator economy at the time

It was a 200 billion dollar industry and you know

I was blessed to be able to start this channel with my two incredible co-founders my brother Jack Dumoulin

My other childhood friend Joshua Smith and we're like there's a huge opportunity. We had a passion for business

Let's go all in and you decided to go around find wealthy people

Right off the bat you didn't get the big billionaires, right?

When I wasn't in class at the University of Texas, my brother and I would spend hours walking around downtown, Austin

Yes but I think that that's a part of the game and one of the biggest lessons that we've learned in business is that look every

I'm sure you anybody that's built and had a lot of success in their industry

But as long as you can remember that no just means not yet

You'll eventually get those yeses and get to the money you you've done celebrities

But you pick celebrities who have a track record of being good business minds Shaquille O'Neal the NBA star

He has his hands in so many businesses. He has really used his money wisely

You've talked to Will Smith the actor CEOs of Chipotle Arizona iced tea is one of your more recent ones

I'm really interested to know if there's a common thread and what is that one question you ask them all, you know?

There's a lot of common threads, you know

One that comes to mind right off the bat is that billionaires think in decades not days?

And I think that this is a big problem that my generation struggles with is there's this instant gratification

But I've learned and you know, just as an example, I recently interviewed Reed Hoffman. Who's the founder of LinkedIn?

He sold LinkedIn to Microsoft for 26 billion dollars

And I asked him I said Reed if you had to start over and make a billion dollars in one year

What would you do? He said look, I don't ever play a one-year game

I only I only play a 10-year game and I've noticed that right they think in generations

They think so much bigger and you got to get out of this short-term thinking you got to get away from people

I would say that the biggest way the fastest way to kill a big dream is to introduce it to a small mind

Oh, I I couldn't agree more and you talk to anybody

It was when somebody tried to tell somebody whom they respected in their life crazy tried to say, you know

It's not such a great idea. Go get a real job. Yeah, tune those people out is what I'm hearing you

I'll tell you what there's a saying nobody else's thoughts ever paid my bills and I and I firmly I firmly believe in that

Because like why listen to negative people?

That's why one of the best decisions that me my brother my childhood friend made was kind of getting out of our hometown

We moved to a city like Austin, Texas where entrepreneurship it was receptive people supported one another and that

Collaboration being around that environment enabled us to build a multi-million dollar business in our early 20s in the past week

He's the head of fanatics Michael Rubin and he's he's really held up as an example of somebody who just started and began

Building building building it took him years to create this big sports

Gigantic platform that does merch and all kinds of activities and experiences

Let's listen to the interview that James did with Michael Rubin

Before you built a billion-dollar company, did you have anybody that doubted you people doubt me every day?

I love that as you know doubters are great. If you look at a doubter, that's motivation

I mean think about we just got in the sports betting business two years ago. Everyone said fanatics has no chance

This is a duopoly by FanDuel by DraftKings. Michael Rubin's gonna fail miserably. He's gonna piss away billions of dollars

I said bring on that hate. Yeah, bring on that. I love that. You know what? We're now the third biggest sports book

We've been live for 20 months. We're just getting started and

We we see what he was able to create who struck you the most when it came to dovetailing a life with success of business because you know

You want to not just sit there and work business business business, right?

You want to also have an important life that gives back yeah you know, I don't know if any one specific person comes to mind, but what I will say is one of the biggest things that stands out to me above all else is

You know you you can talk all about money all you want in interviews, which is what we do

But I'll tell you one other common thread that I've really noticed

Is it just the incredible role that faith has played in a lot of these people's lives putting God first?

I've realized and I've learned early on that the money the relationships the businesses at the end of the day

It's a dying dead road. It doesn't last forever

So I think that that common thread of having that belief in God and having that belief in something bigger than you is

Something that I think really stands out whenever whenever I'm conducting these interviews and you have been very smart when it comes to

Checking all the boxes and spreading yourself out you do YouTube Twitter Instagram

TikTok let's talk about your followers. You've grown it to what total 15 million

Yeah over 15 million followers 15 million and something like 4 billion views

You've generated over four years well over who's your demographic because you're aiming to help the next generation of investors and and people out

There who are facing a very difficult time where they can't afford a house

Even if they have a full-time job, and it's very upsetting for a lot of college grads and people who didn't go to college, right?

you know when we originally started the channel the demographic that we were hoping to target was actually that next generation of high school and

College kids and the beautiful thing about having omnipresence on social media, right?

We've got millions of followers across Instagram tik-tok Facebook and YouTube is we've been able to build

Different audience across all the platforms, right? Obviously Facebook so much older demographic compared to tick-tock

But what we've learned is that you know, who's the most receptive to it is actually that like late 20s to mid 30s

Yeah, and I think the reason why is because they're at that point in their life where they're like I wasted my 20s

It's time for me to get serious about investing in myself about maybe going all in on myself building a business or just getting savvy

You know with with you know becoming financially free

And so I think that that's why that demographic has been so strong across all of our time to stop with this $17 Long Island iced teas and the $7 lattes and start focusing on the future. It is great to see you James

Will you come back? I'll be back. You let me know we'll make it happen

Yeah, James de Moulin and by the way, the way your name is spelled do Moulin. Yes French. Yes the background of French

It's it's very aristocratic, right? Well, thank you for having me

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'School of Hard Knocks' founder reveals the 'biggest' lesson in business he has learned

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