2025-06-18: Gary Sheng & Ari Crane Airport Conversation

Date: June 18, 2025
Location: Dallas Airport (en route to gate)
Participants: Gary Sheng, Ari Crane
Context: Gary flying from Dallas to Tulsa, extended conversation while navigating airport

Overview

Extended coaching and interview session where Gary helped Ari refine his personal narrative and positioning while revealing significant details about Ari's diverse background, business ventures, and family life. The conversation demonstrated Gary's mentoring approach and Ari's need for strategic focus.

Key Themes

Personal Branding and Narrative Development

Gary's Coaching Approach:

"What my immediate reaction from, if I were an Alzhee perspective, right? is there's too much stuff. Too much? Okay, really? That's a necessary. You have your own lane."

Focus on Excellence:

"I just think about, okay, what are you the world's best at? It's pretty clear that could be vinals... Like humanity doesn't need you to be top 25% at something, right? Top 10%, even top 10%. It needs you to be top top, literally the best, or top five, not percent, like, just five in the world."

Ari's Comprehensive Background Reveal

Military and Professional Identity:

"My most former top 10% U.S. Army officer enlisted to officer. and I I'm a Christian, I'm a dad, I'm very passionate inventor. I'm an architect of different movements, like, chemified driving, and drone inspections in a confined space in the industrial sector, midstream and downstream, oil and gas, executive, and nonprofit founder."

Vinyl for Vets Mission:

"So I'm real passionate about taking things that are benign and turning them into extraordinary things, like the final for vets, taking benign final records, and turning them into healing analog sound therapies to help as many people in my community as I could, and last year, we gifted 112 turntables, and I lost money."

Financial Reality and Big Heart:

"Like, that's, and I can't afford to lose money, because I don't have money. So it would be.. I've worked for I've worked for a lot of companies, Fortune 250, and Fortune 500 companies and made them even larger companies, and I've grown small companies, and I just, I haven't been lucky, you know, I have big ideas, a big heart, and I'm very passionate about people and about what I do, and about the Lord."

Family Dynamics and Conflict Resolution

Iran-Israel Parallel with His Sons:

"This morning, I looked at my two boys as Iran and Israel. And I think the Big Brother, Jet was Iran, the eight year old and the five year old is younger brother is Israel. And, you know, these, my boys, they're fighting each other, and it really makes me sad when I see my boys fight."

Parenting Philosophy:

"And I know that they have the ability to communicate and to live together, and they're still both young enough and old enough to realize that they shouldn't be doing this. Most of the people in the house don't want them to do it. But yet they're still doing it. So I'm trying to instill the right principles of my boys to where they know that hurting each other is not the right approach."

Slab Record Market Expertise

World Record Performance:

"I started the whole slab market on the high end auction, and I hold the top three world record crisis now"

Business Growth and Investment Return:

"Like, he's I think he's kind of like lost in interest. He's He's working with Sanzzo and multi potentially billion dollar brands right now that are making him a ton of money and then his buddy Ari over here is finding rare records, you know, with $10,000, Slapping them, first year, I turned it into $1 180 grand."

Market Development Vision:

"Rogers and I have like 200 slaps under under in our holdings at air records... I need more cash flow, so I need to sell. I need buyers for my slaps. I need I need pockets to and it's a market where I told Rogers and he doesn't quite get it."

High-End Audio Equipment Knowledge

Premium Market Understanding: When Gary asked about surprising a wealthy friend with a vinyl setup:

"someone gives you a budget, right? Of like, I want you to blow this., I want I'm doing a big international business deal'all. I want to blow this person away with a $20,000 gift."

Market Scale Recognition:

"20 grand is a large. What money in Kansas sells, and he sellers that over a million dollars,ude. speakers. He sells that are like sell4 million."

Sherman Taylor's Assessment

Core Strength Identification: When Gary asked what Sherman would say Ari excels at:

"You would say solutions. What does that mean? It just gets you done, so military wise, like, I would When I was a junior enlisted, this is, like, his perspective of me is 25 years ago, and then the last year. That's his whole perspective. Big fs. looking at the big picture a thousand foot view. Oh coming up with what works, what doesn't work. working through that."

Series A Funding Challenges

Rogers Healy Distraction:

"I was like, dude, if we could we're raising, we're doing a $500,000 series A, and he's just been dragging the speed up. Like, he's I think he's kind of like lost in interest."

Opportunity Cost Analysis:

"He's working with Sanzzo and multi potentially billion dollar brands right now that are making him a ton of money and then his buddy Ari over here is finding rare records"

Scale Vision:

"So imagine I' skilling that. What if I had a, you know, 180 grand in assets, but I need to apply somebody to buy these assets that would be like, you, bulking quick."

Gary's Strategic Assessment

Missionary Without Mission Identification

Core Insight:

"I do feel like you're a missionary. And you're you're looking for the right mission."

Website Domain Suggestions

Brand Development:

"I almost been up two sides for you today at the airport. You know. Aricane.com and Crane's curations."

Focus Strategy

Vinyl Expertise as Differentiator:

"It's pretty clear that could be vinals. I think so. And I I think the world. I think like most companies and like the world."

Excellence Requirement:

"When I say the world, it's like you being an entrepreneur, right? Instead of working for someone. Like humanity doesn't need you to be top 25% at something, right? Top 10%, even top 10%. It needs you to be top top, literally the best, or top five, not percent, like, just five in the world."

Market Insights

Golden Auctions and Industry Trends

Netflix Connection:

"Let's go ahead and have good media? Yeah, they have Netflix, TV show. Oh, they do? Yeah, King of Colles. Oh, but it's not just it's not just. No, it's it's all collectibles. Yeah, King of Collectles, Ken Golden"

Historic Auction Activity:

"Golden Dock. So. Let's go ahead and have good media? Yeah, they have Netflix, TV show... they're having a big record auction, like 315 slaps, so they're having the largest slab record auction in history right now."

Asian Market Potential

International Expansion Opportunity: When discussing buyer development for slabs:

"I think it's Asia. I think it's part of him.'ll see it."

Personal Philosophy and Mission

Movement Building Passion

Leadership Vision:

"And, you know, for me, it's going to, I want to do something that can lead a movement."

Christian Foundation

Faith Integration:

"I'm a Christian, I'm a dad, I'm very passionate inventor. I'm an architect of different movements"

Benign to Extraordinary Transformation

Core Philosophy:

"So I'm real passionate about taking things that are benign and turning them into extraordinary things"

Strategic Takeaways

Narrative Refinement Need

Gary identified Ari's challenge with having "too much stuff" in his narrative, requiring focus on his world-class vinyl expertise as the primary differentiator.

Market Position Strength

Ari's top-3 world record positions in slab records combined with 200+ slab holdings positions him as a significant market maker in the emerging graded vinyl sector.

Funding and Partnership Challenges

The $500K Series A delays with Rogers Healy highlight the need for partners who can match Ari's passion and focus for the vinyl market opportunity.

Missionary Mindset Application

Gary's assessment of Ari as a "missionary looking for the right mission" suggests his diverse background could be channeled into a focused movement combining his vinyl expertise with his desire for impact.

Family-Business Integration

Ari's Iran-Israel analogy with his sons demonstrates his ability to see larger patterns and apply conflict resolution thinking across domains, from family dynamics to international relations.

Operational Context

The conversation occurred while navigating Dallas airport security and gates, with some interruptions for airport logistics, demonstrating how both participants maintained substantive dialogue despite environmental distractions.