Russell Westbrook wears many hats outside of being a former NBA MVP and future Hall of Famer. He’s a father, a businessman, and a man of fashion. Westbrook was present at the Forbes BLK Summit, where he sat with Forbes senior writer Jabari Young to talk about how to build a business and invest.
Westbrook has invested in several consumer industries, such as food, drinks, muscle recovery, social media and cars.
“I’ve been building my enterprise product for the last five years. I don’t wait for the summertime because there are opportunities that present themselves throughout the season and throughout the year,” Westbrook said. “My CEO hat is always working, my father hat is working, my husband hat is working, and my basketball hat is obviously working.”
Through his years in business, Westbrook has garnered lots of experience that can help others in their journey of investing and building. One thing he left the audience with at the summit was that everything doesn’t have to be sexy.
“In more of a baseball reference, just hit singles and not look for home runs, and not look for things that seem pretty and fun. All the things that I work on in my business is not sexy business,” Westbrook said. “For our car business, we are big on suppl[ier] diversity. In the car business people see the flashy stuff, the end results of cars, and see what they look like, but people don’t understand that 10 different companies make the dashboards, the mirrors, the middle console, and the carpet that goes in the car. Those companies are the people that we partner with.”
Westbrook says the real money is where people don’t look most of the time.
“It’s not sexy, people don’t understand the business, but that’s where the real dollars are, that’s where the real money is, and that’s where the real opportunity is because a lot of those companies have manufacturing businesses that hold and have 300 employees or so where you can help bring people to be a part of the car business and understanding what that looks like,” Westbrook said.
