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Before the 27-year-old became the third-richest content creator, raking in $38 million in 2023\u2014and challenging boxing legend Mike Tyson to a fight to be aired on Netflix<\/a>\u2014Paul was Disney\u2019s nightmare employee.<\/p>\n Fresh off gaining internet fame from making six-second comedy videos on Vine, Paul was fired from the children\u2019s show Bizaardvark<\/em>, where he played stunt-pulling Dirk Mann. In a twisted take on art imitating life, Paul was booted by Disney<\/a> in 2017 for causing a nuisance with his own stunts, lighting fires in empty swimming pools, brandishing a T-shirt gun at a reporter, and organizing dirt bike drag races outside his rental house.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not even that loud,\u201d Paul told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em><\/a> after the incidents. \u201cLike, yes, we had a furniture fire get out of control in our backyard one time. But that didn\u2019t harm a single person.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as he garnered a following of 47 million across YouTube<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> with his prank videos and behind-the-scenes video blogs of his budding boxing career, trouble continued to follow Paul.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n On top of allegations of sexual assault<\/a> and the use of racist slurs in YouTube videos, Paul threw raucous parties at the height of COVID and was charged with trespassing and unlawful assembly<\/a> after being filmed with a stolen bottle of vodka in a looted mall. The charges were later dismissed. But following the mall incident, the FBI also raided his home with a SWAT team in August 2020.\u00a0The U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Arizona later said he would not face federal charges.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to imagine, then, that this same guy would become the face of a venture capital fund<\/a> that invested in the success of brands like Olipop<\/a> and Fly By Jing. Or that he would become the founder of a newly birthed personal care brand of deodorant and body spray called W<\/a>\u2014a play on Gen Z streaming slang for \u201cwinning\u201d\u2014that launched this week at 3,900 Walmarts, with more products launching later this month across an additional 400 Walmart<\/a> locations.<\/p>\n But like the name of his new brand suggests, Paul has continued to find wins despite a wave of \u201c1,000 failures.\u201d After surprisingly\u2014but not inexplicably\u2014snatching victory from the jaws of defeat over and over, Paul has learned to love the controversy.<\/p>\n \u201cOther businessmen understand, and business women understand that when you\u2019re doing something amazing, everyone\u2019s going to try and stop you,\u201d Paul told Fortune<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Following the narrative of so many content creators<\/a> in the mid-2010s, Paul phased out prank videos and turned to other means of making money. He dubbed himself the \u201cThe Problem Child<\/a>\u201d and made a name for himself in boxing, where he earned a record of nine wins and one loss. In 2021, he co-founded<\/a> venture capital fund Anti Fund alongside Geoffrey Woo, an entrepreneur who rejected Paul a decade earlier, when he pitched his content house Team 10<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Woo told Fortune<\/em> it\u2019s a common strategy for influencers to try their hand at consumer brands and venture capital after squeezing the juice from YouTube.<\/p>\n \u201cContent creators, or celebrities in general, think it\u2019s a free money grab,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n According to Amanda Russell, marketing consultant and author of The Influencer Code: How to Unlock the Power of Influencer Marketing, <\/em>it really can be lucrative. Content creators like Paul already have built-in audiences, allowing their brands to scale quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s harder and harder for brands to break through,\u201d Russell told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cEverything is a commodity now unless consumers have a connection with the product. People don\u2019t really resonate with brands; they resonate with people.\u201d<\/p>\n But Paul will tell you himself that just having his name attached to a venture doesn\u2019t mean success. In 2016, his social media site Locker Room<\/a>, which divided users into groups for just boys and just girls, shut down after getting only 500 downloads. In 2018, he was accused of scamming customers of his online platform Edfluence<\/a>, which provided instructional videos on becoming an influencer, after users weren\u2019t able to unlock the videos even after paying the initial $7 fee to do so. And in March 2023, he coughed up $400,000 to the SEC for promoting an alleged crypto scam<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to go through those moments where you lose money, your idea isn\u2019t as good as you thought it was,\u201d Paul said. \u201cThose are the things that make you in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n Woodie Hillyard, W\u2019s CEO, saw more of that Paul\u2014the self-aware and humbled entrepreneur with an earnest hunger for success\u2014when he met him a year and a half ago. During one of their first meetings, a group of kids approached Paul asking him for autographs. Hillyard recalled Paul being patient, asking each kid about their interest in school and what sports they liked.<\/p>\n \u201cYou just saw him connect with people on a human level, and it just made you realize that he\u2019s a great guy,\u201d Hillyard told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cPeople have the opportunity to grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n While Hillyard sees a young business partner with smoothed-out edges and a calm demeanor, Paul, at least to the public, still leans into his trouble-making persona. In a recent promotional video<\/a> for W, Paul calls himself \u201cdumb and smelly,\u201d asking a production assistant to apply deodorant to his hairy, sweaty pits.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t personally think I\u2019m controversial. I tell the truth and people don\u2019t like the truth in today\u2019s world because the truth hurts,\u201d Paul said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t never afraid to ruffle any feathers or speak what\u2019s on my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t dismiss Paul\u2019s bravado. Paul hasn\u2019t succeeded in spite of his controversy, Russell argued. He\u2019s found his professional footing because of it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ones that try to please everyone are really for nobody,\u201d she said. \u201cThe more you stand for something, the more that you create a cult-like following.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul is hyper-aware of his past delinquency. He\u2019s used his continued relevance, even the infamy, to his advantage: \u201cContent is king,\u201d he said. \u201cThe most important thing is eyeballs and marketing and exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n This strategy isn\u2019t foolproof, as the Paul family knows. Older brother Logan Paul found meteoric success in his energy drink brand Prime, which was launched alongside boxer KSI. But after raking in over $1 billion in sales within two years of launching the company, the brand\u2019s rapid growth became unsustainable.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gen Alpha lost interest in the drink as it latched onto the next hyped-up product. And after getting hit with a lawsuit alleging it contains more caffeine than labeled and \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d Prime bottles are now sitting on discount shelves in U.K. retailers<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Jake Paul has faith in his winning mentality in the face of adversity. He\u2019s walked through the fires of serious controversies, criminal allegations, and failed businesses, and still comes out on the other side swinging.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone wants to see you go down, and you just continue to rise to the occasion and overcome and conquer and keep fighting,\u201d Paul said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s really what I\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome of my biggest losses were my biggest wins,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe \u2018problem child\u2019 grows up<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018Content is king<\/strong>\u2018<\/h2>\n