JACK DETROIT

By: Leah Moss

Photography: Daniel Lippitt

“No, thanks.” It’s truly incredible to think how often we say this simple phrase and how pervasive the refusal process is in our routine. “Would you like whipped cream on your latte today?” “No, thanks.” “Need help with that box?” “No, thanks.” “For a few dollars more, you could purchase an extra product…” “No, thanks.” With a seemingly similar sense of nonchalance, 25-year-old Ben Bator describes his decision to decline a nearly full-ride scholarship to law school, in order to dive into the company he founded with Lauren Leto, Texts From Last Night. He just said, “No, thanks.”

A couple of years later, Ben sits at the kitchen table in his luxuriously immaculate apartment, reminiscing that crossroads with his roommate and co-worker, Phil: his 23-year-old brother. “At the time people thought I was crazy, people thought Lauren was crazy for dropping out (of law school). They thought that this was all going to be over.” Thankfully their father, a lawyer, aptly told Ben “that ‘law school will always be there, this will not be there if you choose to go to law school, so just see this through.’” With that advice and familial support, Ben deferred his scholarship opportunity; looking back, his and Leto’s naysayers couldn’t have been more wrong.

Texts From Last Night (TFLN) is a website featuring thirty anonymously posted text messages per day, each exposing some element – usually of various sorts of debauchery – from the previous night. The texts are posted only with the sender’s area code and the content, always devoid of any context. The result is a truly hilarious collection of one-liners, each of which is the obvious consequence of someone’s really long night, for better or for worse. It’s beautifully simple, inherently fun, ultimately brilliant entrepreneurship.

The Bator brothers grew up here (in Beverly Hills), and attended University of Detroit Jesuit High School. Ben graduated in 2004, and went to Michigan State University, and Phil followed suit in 2006. They live and work together out of their gorgeous Royal Oak high-rise apartment, after much thought about splitting up and moving to each coast. With plans in motion to relocate to New York and Los Angeles last October, the brothers realized they’d just be back in two months to see their parents for the holiday season. Figuring it would be easier to take up local residence in a short-term lease for the two months, they scouted around. Moving out of their parents’ already-sold home (where they had been living as squatters), the pair moved into the penthouse suite in their current building.

They since haven’t left the building, although they did move to a different space at the end of those two months. Adding to the sheer easiness of staying, the Bators recognized seeds of change sprouting here in Detroit. They knew they’d be a beneficial ally to other local start-ups, and wanted to take part in the social growth that was – and is occurring. They’ve marked this progress by the ever-increasing number of options for weekend activities, instead of the previously limited calendar.

A year later, their modern apartment is beautiful in its detail, masculine in its fixtures and furniture, and somehow cozy in its incompleteness – all the framed art remains on the floor, still unhung. The two men seem to float within the space, gliding between the balcony, overlooking all of the city from their 14^th floor perch, the kitchen, currently missing a new package of espresso pods (Ben’s fault, Phil gripes), and the living room, curled on the couch topping the fur rug. Of course there’s a fur rug. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

In 2009, Ben was living in Royal Oak and Lauren was living in Grosse Pointe, her hometown; the two met daily in Detroit for coffee to discuss ideas and plans for the site’s growth. They quickly realized they were in dire need of someone to take over the day-to-day, minute-to-minute updates of the site, so they could focus their attention on building the company, to take it to new heights. With this in mind, they turned to Phil, then midway through his undergraduate tenure at MSU. Phil remembers, “When the first break happened, it was finals week at Michigan State.” Of course it was. He turned down a temporary job offer (at a summer camp) prior to his senior year in order to work on his brother’s creation full-time, after a long conversation at the dinner table with their parents. They were equally supportive of Phil’s interest in joining TFLN as they had been of Ben in starting it. He stayed on through the school year up until graduation, in the spring of 2010. Juggling a full course load as an advertising major with a new position with TFLN made Phil’s life busy, but invigorating. Phil recalls that each day was different and exciting – he wanted to help and saw the possibility for growth, and a long-range opportunity for himself. As he crossed the graduation stage, life was a lot less pressured for him than for his peers, who needed to find a job “a week after graduation.” He looked a bit for other jobs – no opportunities presented themselves that would be worth leaving Texts From Last Night, so he stayed on, and increased his position once again to full-time.

Now, as 2011 draws to a close, Phil is TFLN’s editor; he examines thousands of texts that are submitted daily, and chooses thirty to post for that day’s update. Additionally, he writes many of the stories featured on the TFLN blog. To aid in the sheer volume of text messages he must sort through, Lauren’s sister Maresa – an undergraduate student at MSU – has joined the team. She chooses her top fifty texts, allowing Phil to use a matching process for the top thirty: he picks some from her “favorites” list, and others from the general pool.

Reading thousands of grotesque, crude, hilarious, drunken, absurd texts each day, Phil and Maresa have run the gamut of “shocking.” Although the gendered dichotomy would seemingly present a problem in judgment, the Bators assert they have an email contest back and forth amongst the foursome, determining which person can shock the others the most. So far, they both agree it’s been Lauren, even though she’s a bookworm currently training to run a marathon. With four differing opinions of “is this funny or not,” the group collectively produces a widely varied list of texts that appeal to many different senses of humor. Ben credits the gender balance with their early success, because he and Lauren began choosing the texts – they balanced each other out, resulting in content that had broad-based appeal.

No different than their own personal shock value is that of their family members’ reaction to their business. The Bators (mom and dad) were enthusiastic about their children’s new endeavor, though explaining it to their grandma was a bit tricky. At this point, they explain it’s the worst when Mom starts Googling – they’d rather just tell her everything first, so she can hear it firsthand. That way it’s filtered, even though it’s awkward sometimes. Hilarity ensues when recalling their mother starting to discuss a text she had read on the site, saying “So then…” “Just STOP IT MOM.”

As it stands now, co-founders Bator and Leto are supported by the younger Bator and Leto: the four core members of the staff run the site’s daily content and the business’s overall strategy. They’re joined by a number of developers and advertising personnel, but the main team is comprised of family members. This unique notion of a family business brings on a sense of new possibility in the tech start up world. A set of siblings joins on to help another set, instead of the archaic version of the same tale, with a Mom and Pop Shop run by, well, a mom and pop, and ultimately taken over by their children when they’re ready to be done with the business. Rather than a leadership shift through lineage by force (or guilt), the TFLN leadership model is focused upon choices. Ben and Lauren chose to put the possibility of success with their start-up before their secured future through law school. Similarly, Phil and Maresa have chosen to support their siblings in this venture, giving its viability some serious validation, from the inside out.

Outwardly, Texts from Last Night has received some serious validation to boot. The site has four million unique viewers per month, with a range between three million and five million page views per day. Given its devoted following, TFLN has capitalized on this opportunity through advertising sales for promotional space on the site. However, Ben explains, “We’re the biggest pains in the ass to our ad agency,” because they are very particular about every aspect of any ad campaigns that go live, “without raping people’s eyeballs.” For example, Ben and Phil remember the first advertising campaign that was posted: Playboy had an innovative, bold campaign, which was sexy without being overt. One image simply had a leg sticking out of a shower – the Bators loved that whole series, but when Playboy renewed its contract, the images changed to a less exciting, softer spread with a cheesy 70s vibe. It was instantly pulled, and the client cancelled. With this specificity in mind with an edge, American Apparel has had huge success on the site – and has been a longtime client. TFLN is launching a series of major updates to the site, with a variety of new features, keeping it fresh and in demand for readers, and thus, for clients.

In addition to the site itself, TFLN has expanded into other realms.  The app costs 99 cents to purchase – they’ve sold 1.3 million. A book has been released and a second is in the works. Additionally, there’s a text-a-day calendar they’ve produced, featuring a countdown to the weekend on every weekday. Most recently, the TFLN crew inked a deal for a television show with storylines based upon texts. Ben and Lauren are also hired regularly for speaking engagements and book signings; he recognizes the absurdity in this, given the fact that other people have produced the content for them, and the books are simply compilations of these public submissions. Ben and Lauren were finalists in BusinessWeek’s roundup of America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs in October (winner not announced at press time); on that website’s profile of each company, the listed revenue for TFLN was $1 million in 2010, and it is projected to generate $2 million this year. All things considered, the monetization of TFLN has been enormously successful. The Bators have done well for themselves.

They’re pushing boundaries on a concept that pushes the envelope, and the biggest challenge is continuously catapulting the business forward. Ben acknowledges that most of his peers challenge him, because, “No one really lets you have an off day,” but truth be told, he relinquishes, “Yesterday Ben” presents him with his biggest challenge, given that he never wants to have the same day twice. Using that momentum, he and Phil constantly push one another forward, and in that vein, they view each other as their biggest supporters, no different now than it has always been. Long before they worked together or lived with one another as adults, they were each other’s biggest fans, and Phil said “it’s just natural” that they’ve taken this next step.

For something so simple as a great idea, the Bator/Leto team has managed to scale their business model beyond imagination. Texts From Last Night has made documentation of debauchery a significant component of the debauchery itself. This process makes for a brighter five minutes a day for millions of people, which is incredible. Ben relishes, “We had this idea and put it out there, and it worked. Then, we figured out how to keep it working on a bigger level. And that’s really fun.” It’s not rocket science, nor is it brain surgery. It’s a long-lasting manifestation of a brilliant, and fun, idea.  Does that make it sweeter? Absolutely. Phil puts it bluntly, “We’re thankful that people keep sending us their good or bad nights, so we can have some of our own.” Why wouldn’t that be sweeter? Because really, who wants to perform brain surgery, pursue rocket science, or even, go to law school? “No, thanks.”