WEBVTT

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So I started at zero when I started my first gyms.

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With new knowledge, I started my turnkey sales company

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with zero, and with new knowledge after that.

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I started the licensing business at zero once again,

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each time learning from the mistakes of my past.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff

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to more people in more ways and build businesses worth owning.

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I'm trying to build a billion dollar thing

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with acquisition.com.

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I always wished pesos, musk and buffet had documented their journey,

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so I'm doing it for the rest of us.

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Please share and enjoy.

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When I had my job, and I had a pretty decent job,

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I was making $50,000, $60,000 a year, and I was 22-ish,

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as a consultant, and it was a good stable job,

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and looked good on the resume, and, you know,

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my dad could brag about it at parties,

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and he wouldn't, like, his son would do the right thing,

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and he's gonna do this, and he's gonna go to business school,

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and blah, blah, blah.

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And leaving that took me a lot of pain mentally to get through.

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And I've talked about that before, so I won't go into it.

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But one of the things that I had to do

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was figure out what my plan B was, right?

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And Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about not having a plan B,

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because if you have a plan B,

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then it means you're not committed to plan A.

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I don't agree with that.

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I like having contingencies, and knowing what I'm actually gonna do,

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because sometimes there are unknowns

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that can mess up your plan A.

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Now, you might say, ah, you should commit even more to it.

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Teach his own.

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That being said, when I quit my job, my actual plan B,

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because I had no skills, was that I would strip at night,

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and I would drive Uber during the day,

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and I figured I could drive Uber

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and make probably 70 to 90,000 a year

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driving Uber during the day.

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And on my strip six nights a week,

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I can make another 300 to 400 thousand dollars a year.

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And that's based on the strippers that I know

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who work three days a week, five hours,

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that's 15 hours a week, they make about 120.

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So if I did that 45 hours a week,

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I would make 360 from stripping,

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and assuming that I would be at least

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as awesome as stripping as they are, minimum.

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Then I'd be looking at 400-ish, 450, between both of them,

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and I could save that in a year,

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and then start the next thing, right?

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So that was my plan B, if my fitness career,

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fitness gym didn't work.

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And going into that, knowing that,

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now obviously I had to make,

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make peace with the fact that my dad didn't approve,

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my mom didn't approve of what I was currently doing,

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and so I was like, well, if they didn't approve gym owner,

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they're definitely not gonna approve stripper, but YOLO, right?

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And so I got over it, but that was my plan B,

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and this may sound silly to many of you,

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and probably like, I don't have the morals for that.

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Then cool, I'm telling you how I thought through these things,

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because for me, showing an elbow, showing it doesn't matter.

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So, so plan B next, right?

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Was that I started learning how to sell at my gym.

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So I learned that skill, and I figured,

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if for some reason the gym doesn't work out,

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I now have this skill that's in my pocket

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for the rest of my life,

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and I learned that from selling memberships,

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which by the way, I think is one of the best ways

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to learn how to sell, because I think like,

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if you learn how to sell car dealerships,

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you learn how to sell car washes,

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you learn how to sell fitness,

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some of the best or cold calling,

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some of the best ones, because you get so many reps

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and so fast, right?

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If you want to start learning how to sell and you learn,

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and you go to like a software company,

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and you have to sell a six month sales cycle

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to close one deal, I don't think you really learn how to sell.

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Like, you have to learn how to get people to make decisions

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on the spot over and over and over,

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and have immediate reinforcement,

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which is why high rep sales give you such a fast feedback cycle,

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you get really good, really faster, you get out.

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And so for me, learning that skill,

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which I was taking 10, 15 consults a day for years,

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I learned that skill pretty quickly,

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I learned how to talk through things.

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And so I knew that I had that skill,

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and so I could either make my gym work

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as a business owner, or play and be if it didn't work,

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once I had that skill,

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was I could go start selling cars,

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start selling mortgages for me,

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cars is what I was gonna go into,

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because it just made sense to me,

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it was just like very straightforward.

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And it was one of those jobs

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that I knew I could just outwork somebody on.

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So I didn't have to be better,

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I didn't have to be more skilled.

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I just knew that if I worked from nine to nine every day

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at the Cardiolorship six days a week,

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that I would be able to make 400,000 year plus,

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and I wouldn't have to take my clothes off,

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which didn't matter as much to me,

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but more so that like, I could get my clothes on

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and maybe look a little better for people

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who do care about it later.

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So that became my new plan B.

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Now, as I got more skills,

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because then I started learning how to market,

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I started learning how to run ads,

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I learned how to fill gyms up,

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and that became a more valuable skill than just selling.

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Now, this is important.

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So after I had my six gyms,

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I got to actually live this.

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So people asked me the question, Alex,

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if you lost it all, what would you do again?

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I've lost it all twice.

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So I will tell you exactly what I did

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when I lost it all, step by fucking step.

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So I lost it all,

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and I had $1,000 left in my bank account

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because I had done $100,000 launch of a gym,

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the payment processor wouldn't pay us the money.

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And so I had to pay $22,000 in commissions for sales

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I never got, so it took me from $23,000.

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That's how much money I had left.

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The only thing I had left was a credit card at that point.

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So I had a credit card with the limit

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that I knew that I could spend.

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And I was gonna spend it on advertising

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and sales guys going out in the field

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and using my system that I had developed

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because I had skills to start over again.

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And in the next 30 days, we made $100,000, right?

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From that, I also had $100,000 in our credit card bill.

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But I broke even.

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Now, the next month, we did like $200,000

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because we had payment plans, they started stacking,

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we started making new sales,

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it's the started going up.

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And I was like, oh, this might work.

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And then, for those of you know the story,

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gym started refunding people at the end of their programs.

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Some gyms didn't do the coolest thing

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and said, hey, hey, sign up for me, refund through them

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because I'll just do the same thing

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that you're already doing with me for half the price,

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which really screwed me.

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I didn't understand how controlling the flow of money,

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what kind of risk that was exposing me to

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because I was young, I was 26, whatever.

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And so I learned that lesson, right?

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And so I lost everything again.

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And this time, even more because I had like $150,000

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in basically debt that I had to cover in the next 30 days,

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not in revenue in profit.

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And I had never even made $150,000 in profit ever.

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The biggest launch I ever done was probably about $80,000

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to $90,000 in profit in a month.

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And that was just me.

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But I already said all this overhead.

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So I knew I needed a way more than that

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to make $150,000 with the cover overhead

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and have twice as much profit.

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And so that's where desperation,

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a lot of times leads to innovation.

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And so for me at the time, I got on the phone with guys

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that I had done these launches for with our sales team

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and sold them on me just teaching them

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how to do this whole sales system, right?

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And so the key there was that I didn't have a gym anymore

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because I sold my gyms and then I took the money

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and I'd lost the money from the sale of my gyms.

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So I basically had nothing, I'd lost everything.

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And so rather than start from scratch,

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I wasn't like, oh, I'm going to start a gym again.

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I said, let me call people who have gyms.

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I have this skill and then I'll plug into them

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and I will give them the money that I know

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that my system can make them and get a percentage of it.

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And so the average gym that used our sale system

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would make $30,000 in their first 30 days

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in new cash collected.

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And so I charged half of that.

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Now mind you, they could keep that system

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for the rest of their lives.

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But for me, I charged half.

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And when I started doing that,

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people started making $30,000 in telling their friends.

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And because we're like, how the hell are you

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making all this money?

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They're like, ah, this kid from the internet.

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And so then they would call me up and I did it again.

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And because of that, this is the second time

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I lost everything.

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I learned the point of leverage and the power of media.

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Because I was able to license the whole system

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rather than actually flying out and doing it

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and incurring the operational overhead.

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And so I have lost everything twice.

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The first time I switched to just doing marketing and sales

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and plugging in everyone else's network.

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Then I added in workers to do it.

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And the second time I lost everything,

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I switched, instead of having workers doing the sales,

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I taught someone on location to do the sale.

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So I didn't have the airfare.

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I didn't have the hotel.

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I didn't have the commissions.

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I didn't have the ads been dyed to pay for.

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I didn't have any of those costs.

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I still got to take a percentage of the upside

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to that business.

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Because if you think about the upside

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that I was able to provide in my original model,

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when I would fly out somebody to the gym,

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I took most of the economics upfront.

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And then they would get a small portion of the people

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who converted on the back end.

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Now they had no risk.

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I took on all the risk there.

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But they were also not motivated to do a good job

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because I was the one who made the money.

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I was the one who held the back.

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And so this way, it flipped the dynamic

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where I was helping them make tons of money.

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And then they loved me rather than hating me

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for being the person who ripped all this cash

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out of their business.

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And so I have lost it multiple times.

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And these were my plan visas I went.

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Now, once I got to that point,

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if I were to lose it all again,

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I would be going to businesses that were similar

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to one that I built and say,

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I can help you add X amount of money.

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And if you really want to think about it,

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even though I didn't lose everything

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when I sold Jamont and sold Prestige Labs,

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I did start at zero again.

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Now, the only way that I'm not actually starting at zero

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is that I have money.

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But I haven't used any of the money in acquisition.com.

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So every business that I have started

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has been profitable since day one.

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I have a different way to do a business.

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There are plenty of business.

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You start a software company.

257
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A lot of times you need capital investment.

258
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You want to start manufacturing business.

259
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You got to have capital investment by equipment.

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But the businesses that I have started

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have been ones that were built on skills,

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which is why I'm such a big advocate.

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In general, if I can be known as an advocate for skills,

264
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that's what I'll be known for.

265
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Because I have lost everything twice.

266
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And the biggest realization of my life

267
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was that I didn't lose everything.

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Not only did I not lose everything,

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I lost a fraction of what I thought I had lost

270
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because I still kept onto the thing

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that no one could ever take for me,

272
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which is the skills and the experiences

273
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and the lessons that I had learned

274
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through the path that I had walked.

275
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And so unless you have a mental disorder,

276
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you keep the lessons with you for life.

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And I've said, I would pay any amount of money

278
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to make an obvious truth real for me.

279
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And so the most valuable thing that I had

280
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are lessons that I had paid to learn blood sweat tears

281
00:09:16.560 --> 00:09:19.120
and money to learn so that I could apply them

282
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to a new reality.

283
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And so when I have zero, multiple times,

284
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I applied my new reality, which was not the reality

285
00:09:25.920 --> 00:09:27.040
that I had when I started my gyms.

286
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Because technically, when I started my first gym,

287
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I also had zero.

288
00:09:30.280 --> 00:09:32.480
So I started at zero when I started my first gyms

289
00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:33.840
with new knowledge.

290
00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:37.080
I started my turnkey sales company with zero.

291
00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:38.760
And with new knowledge after that,

292
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I started the licensing business at zero once again,

293
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each time learning from the mistakes of my past.

294
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And if you wanna go fourth time,

295
00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:48.480
I started at code zero, which is acquisition.com

296
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because I sold the majority interest in those companies.

297
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The only reason this wouldn't be zero

298
00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:54.800
is if I had taken a lot of money to inject into the business,

299
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which I have it, but I will say one thing

300
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is that I no longer have fear around money.

301
00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:03.720
And so it allows me to play the game differently.

302
00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:05.960
And so for example, at this point,

303
00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:10.400
if it had been 3.0 Alex, so like last cycle ago,

304
00:10:10.400 --> 00:10:13.960
I might not be as heavily investing in the people

305
00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:15.200
and the infrastructure that we're building

306
00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:17.880
with acquisition.com because I would wanna have

307
00:10:17.880 --> 00:10:21.120
a healthier margin to take out of the bank account group.

308
00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:23.240
But since I don't need the money from the business,

309
00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:25.560
and I know where I'm trying to go in 20 years,

310
00:10:25.560 --> 00:10:29.040
I'm willing to actually play a higher risk game.

311
00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:30.880
So the way I play the game is different.

312
00:10:30.880 --> 00:10:32.600
And so if we go back to the definition of learning,

313
00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:34.840
which is similar condition, different behavior, right?

314
00:10:34.840 --> 00:10:37.160
So I'm the same conditions that each of the times

315
00:10:37.160 --> 00:10:38.920
before this, except my behavior is different.

316
00:10:38.920 --> 00:10:40.360
Rather than trying to just rip as much money

317
00:10:40.360 --> 00:10:41.600
out of the business as I can,

318
00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:43.400
because this is my fourth go round.

319
00:10:43.400 --> 00:10:44.640
And I don't need the cash.

320
00:10:44.640 --> 00:10:46.520
And what I want is the equity value.

321
00:10:46.520 --> 00:10:49.200
I will reinvest into the people that will build this thing

322
00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:51.200
into the behemoth that I wanted to become.

323
00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:53.640
And so going all the way back to what do you do

324
00:10:53.640 --> 00:10:56.840
if you start with nothing, you start working,

325
00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:58.880
you start taking action, you take doing steps,

326
00:10:58.880 --> 00:11:01.360
and realizing that the thing that you were earning

327
00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:04.000
above everything else is the learning, not the income.

328
00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:06.000
Because that is the thing that you will take with you.

329
00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:07.240
That is the most valuable thing.

330
00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:09.560
It's the ignorance tax and the debt of not knowing

331
00:11:09.560 --> 00:11:12.000
that you were paying down with the actions you take.

332
00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:13.440
And so when you do that,

333
00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.240
and you do it for an unreasonable amount of time,

334
00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:16.840
you will get to where you're trying to go.

335
00:11:18.440 --> 00:11:20.760
Hey guys, love that you're listening to the podcast.

336
00:11:20.760 --> 00:11:23.160
If you ever want to have the video version

337
00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:24.840
of this, which usually has more effects,

338
00:11:24.840 --> 00:11:27.600
more visuals, more graphs, you know, drawn out stuff,

339
00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:30.080
sometimes it can help hit the brain centers

340
00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:30.920
in different ways.

341
00:11:30.920 --> 00:11:31.760
You can check on my YouTube channel.

342
00:11:31.760 --> 00:11:33.560
It's absolutely free to check that out.

343
00:11:33.560 --> 00:11:34.600
If that's what you are into.

344
00:11:34.600 --> 00:11:36.360
And if not, keep enjoying the show.

345
00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:40.520
So when I started gym launch,

346
00:11:40.520 --> 00:11:42.600
I put no money into the business

347
00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:44.400
because I had no money.

348
00:11:44.400 --> 00:11:46.480
The money that I had in my bank out was like food.

349
00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:48.760
And so that business had to make money

350
00:11:48.760 --> 00:11:51.120
in order for it to have any money to work with, right?

351
00:11:51.120 --> 00:11:52.400
People were like, what was the capital injection?

352
00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:54.200
It was like sweat.

353
00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:55.800
That was a capital injection, right?

354
00:11:55.800 --> 00:11:58.280
And so I was able to trade my time for money.

355
00:11:58.280 --> 00:11:59.880
And I did that trade as many times I could

356
00:11:59.880 --> 00:12:02.360
to get money so that later I could trade it for more money.

357
00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:04.480
Now the prestige labs business,

358
00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:06.800
which was the business that we started after gym launch,

359
00:12:06.800 --> 00:12:08.520
you know, I had to iterate gym launch twice

360
00:12:08.520 --> 00:12:09.720
before it actually really started working.

361
00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:11.600
But once gym launch started really scaling up,

362
00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:13.600
I had tons of cash from that business.

363
00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:15.640
And so either I could put it into indexes

364
00:12:15.640 --> 00:12:17.960
or I could put it into a supplement company.

365
00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:20.600
So the supplement company cost me about $4 million

366
00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:22.200
to start and you're like, well, that's crazy.

367
00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:25.440
Well, I could either have put that $4 million

368
00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:28.480
two years ago or three years ago into the S&P 500,

369
00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:29.960
which right now would be about the same,

370
00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:31.200
give me everything's that.

371
00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:33.720
Or I took that $4 million put it into prestige labs

372
00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:36.320
and later was able to sell that for probably 25 million

373
00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:37.400
three years later.

374
00:12:37.400 --> 00:12:40.320
So I put the money in the form of inventory and tack

375
00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:43.320
because I had to build a custom point of sale for gyms

376
00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:45.160
and inventory system and I get into it.

377
00:12:45.160 --> 00:12:46.560
And so that $4 million investment

378
00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:48.720
I ended up five vaccine in three years.

379
00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:49.520
Great deal.

380
00:12:49.520 --> 00:12:50.520
Gym launch cost me nothing

381
00:12:50.520 --> 00:12:52.640
and I probably sold that for another 25-ish

382
00:12:52.640 --> 00:12:55.120
because they didn't parse out which was worth why

383
00:12:55.120 --> 00:12:57.680
it was sold, those two specifically were sold as a bundle.

384
00:12:57.680 --> 00:13:00.040
And so that cost me not so much, you know,

385
00:13:00.040 --> 00:13:02.240
my return on that was basically infinite.

386
00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:05.320
The acquisition.com business, if you call it that,

387
00:13:05.320 --> 00:13:09.320
the whole co of acquisition.com didn't cost money to start

388
00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:14.120
because I had already had acquired 20 to 30%

389
00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:15.160
of three different businesses

390
00:13:15.160 --> 00:13:16.600
before I really started acquisition.com

391
00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:17.880
because I wanted to see if I liked working

392
00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:20.560
with other entrepreneurs as a minority partner

393
00:13:20.560 --> 00:13:22.760
because I've only been majority up to that point

394
00:13:22.760 --> 00:13:24.560
of my career, I've always been number one.

395
00:13:24.560 --> 00:13:26.640
And so it was a different dynamic for me

396
00:13:26.640 --> 00:13:29.480
to how can I influence somebody

397
00:13:29.480 --> 00:13:31.760
to see the world that I see the way I see it

398
00:13:31.760 --> 00:13:33.560
so they'll make the same decisions I would

399
00:13:33.560 --> 00:13:35.160
so that I can maximize their likelihood of success

400
00:13:35.160 --> 00:13:36.840
without forcing them to do it.

401
00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:38.800
And so it's a different position for me now

402
00:13:38.800 --> 00:13:41.040
but I tested that theory out for a year

403
00:13:41.040 --> 00:13:43.160
while I still had gym launch procedures labs in Allen

404
00:13:43.160 --> 00:13:45.840
before selling them, Allen, side note.

405
00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:48.680
I put I think one and a half million dollars into start

406
00:13:48.680 --> 00:13:50.280
and that was sold for an all stock deal.

407
00:13:50.280 --> 00:13:51.880
Not allowed to say what the price was

408
00:13:51.880 --> 00:13:54.120
but we were doing 12 million in top line

409
00:13:54.120 --> 00:13:56.080
trailing 12 months before we sold it.

410
00:13:56.080 --> 00:13:57.640
So that's all I can really tell you.

411
00:13:57.640 --> 00:13:59.080
So the return on that was also good

412
00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:00.160
but just in a different format

413
00:14:00.160 --> 00:14:01.160
because I didn't want the taxable event

414
00:14:01.160 --> 00:14:02.520
so we're definitely.

415
00:14:02.520 --> 00:14:06.160
The acquisition.com business, business, hold co.

416
00:14:06.160 --> 00:14:10.320
The companies in that hold co already cash flowed to me.

417
00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:12.320
And so all of the money that acquisition.com

418
00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:14.720
has been built off of has been built off cash flow

419
00:14:14.760 --> 00:14:16.160
from businesses.

420
00:14:16.160 --> 00:14:18.240
So it's been cash flow positive day one.

421
00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:20.160
And I tend to build things that way

422
00:14:20.160 --> 00:14:21.680
when I'm starting at zero.

423
00:14:21.680 --> 00:14:23.320
So if you think about it, gym launch started at zero

424
00:14:23.320 --> 00:14:25.000
I was cash flow positive basically day one.

425
00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:26.280
My gyms started at zero

426
00:14:26.280 --> 00:14:27.680
were cash flow positive day one.

427
00:14:27.680 --> 00:14:30.080
Acquisition started at zero.

428
00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:31.440
In that I didn't put money into them

429
00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:32.520
were cash flow positive day one.

430
00:14:32.520 --> 00:14:35.760
Now, prestige labs in the software,

431
00:14:35.760 --> 00:14:38.800
they were businesses that I could put capital into

432
00:14:38.800 --> 00:14:40.600
and get a return on the capital.

433
00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:43.360
And so I felt like within my bucket

434
00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:45.760
in my audience and the needs that I already had access to

435
00:14:45.760 --> 00:14:48.000
I could make a significantly higher return

436
00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:50.560
by starting those sub corpse within kind of like

437
00:14:50.560 --> 00:14:53.600
the larger bubble of gym launch, et cetera.

438
00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:55.800
And so it's the same kind of concept here

439
00:14:55.800 --> 00:14:57.840
in terms of what we're gonna do later with acquisition.com

440
00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:00.360
but for now that's always been the game for me is

441
00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:03.320
when I start fresh I don't like putting money in

442
00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:05.640
because I think it makes you lazy as an entrepreneur

443
00:15:05.640 --> 00:15:08.200
because I think that you will always solve the problems

444
00:15:08.200 --> 00:15:09.600
that you ask for yourself.

445
00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:10.960
You will answer the questions that you ask

446
00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:13.480
which is why I think you can tell so much more

447
00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:14.520
about how someone's thinking about the questions

448
00:15:14.520 --> 00:15:16.840
or asking than even the questions they answer.

449
00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:19.080
So when someone says, hey Alex, how do I make $100,000 a year?

450
00:15:19.080 --> 00:15:20.840
I can already tell that they're so far away

451
00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:22.960
from making lots of money because it's the wrong question,

452
00:15:22.960 --> 00:15:26.360
rather than like how do I get somebody

453
00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:27.680
to give me $10 million?

454
00:15:27.680 --> 00:15:29.240
Much more interesting question, right?

455
00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:30.200
And you can answer that question

456
00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:31.320
and I'll tell you a quick story on this

457
00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:32.560
because it's so important.

458
00:15:32.560 --> 00:15:36.120
Good friend of mine makes $40 to $50 million a year,

459
00:15:36.120 --> 00:15:38.440
50% now margins, single person business

460
00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:40.240
works three days a week, half days.

461
00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:41.680
That's the business that she's built.

462
00:15:41.680 --> 00:15:44.240
She, just so you go for the ladies in the audience.

463
00:15:45.160 --> 00:15:47.240
She asked me to sit down with her

464
00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:48.920
and she said, I wanna do a consulting project with you

465
00:15:48.920 --> 00:15:49.760
and I wanna answer one question.

466
00:15:49.760 --> 00:15:51.400
She said, how do I make $5 million more

467
00:15:51.400 --> 00:15:53.840
and do no more work in my business?

468
00:15:53.840 --> 00:15:57.240
I want no time for me and I wanna make $5 million profit extra.

469
00:15:57.240 --> 00:15:59.520
And so we sat down and within 90 minutes,

470
00:15:59.520 --> 00:16:01.240
I was like, I think you should do this.

471
00:16:01.240 --> 00:16:03.160
And she did that, she made $5 million extra

472
00:16:03.160 --> 00:16:04.000
in her business.

473
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.680
And so the questions you ask dictate the problems you'll solve,

474
00:16:07.680 --> 00:16:08.520
right?

475
00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:12.120
The reason I tend to have cash repositive businesses day one

476
00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:13.600
is because that's the question I choose to solve,

477
00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:14.960
is how do I build a $10 billion thing

478
00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:16.360
with no capital upfront?

479
00:16:16.360 --> 00:16:17.480
How would I do it?

480
00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:19.560
And so acquisition.com is the answer to that question,

481
00:16:19.560 --> 00:16:21.280
by the way, you're curious.

482
00:16:21.280 --> 00:16:23.160
Create tremendous goodwill in the marketplace,

483
00:16:23.160 --> 00:16:24.840
build an incredibly strong brand.

484
00:16:24.840 --> 00:16:27.480
Have a brand that's so strong that the moment you gain access

485
00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:29.680
to something, it in and of itself becomes more valuable

486
00:16:29.680 --> 00:16:31.400
through association with you.

487
00:16:31.400 --> 00:16:32.800
So then you can't lose.

488
00:16:32.800 --> 00:16:33.920
And I'm just telling you, that's the strategy.

489
00:16:33.920 --> 00:16:35.280
That's what we're trying to do.

490
00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:36.840
And so I do think that there's a little bit of

491
00:16:37.560 --> 00:16:38.080
laziness.

492
00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:40.440
I've seen software guys who raised lots of funding,

493
00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:41.720
and I asked them why are you raising funding?

494
00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:43.640
And they're like, because I think it's what I'm supposed to do.

495
00:16:43.640 --> 00:16:46.560
And they spend money because they have money to spend,

496
00:16:46.560 --> 00:16:48.480
rather than because it is solving a specific problem

497
00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:49.240
in the business.

498
00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:51.080
And so I think, and this is just like,

499
00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:52.400
Alex with a spiritual standpoint,

500
00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:54.920
like I feel like if you really were creative enough,

501
00:16:54.920 --> 00:16:57.200
you could figure out how to start anything for nothing.

502
00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:00.640
Like Nike's founder, Phil Knight, there was a moment

503
00:17:00.640 --> 00:17:03.920
where he ran out of money and he couldn't pay payroll

504
00:17:03.920 --> 00:17:05.440
and he needed to or he was gonna go out of business

505
00:17:05.560 --> 00:17:07.200
and he had maxed out all the credit lines.

506
00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:08.920
And so he went to his vendors,

507
00:17:08.920 --> 00:17:11.480
the people who actually manufactured his shoes for him,

508
00:17:11.480 --> 00:17:14.120
and said, I need you to pay my payroll this month.

509
00:17:14.120 --> 00:17:14.960
And they're like, what?

510
00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:16.880
He was like, if you don't pay my payroll,

511
00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:19.160
then I won't be able to buy from you next month.

512
00:17:19.160 --> 00:17:20.520
And he got him to do it.

513
00:17:20.520 --> 00:17:23.520
And so necessity is the mother of invention.

514
00:17:23.520 --> 00:17:25.040
Another way of saying that a desperation

515
00:17:25.040 --> 00:17:26.560
is the mother of invention.

516
00:17:26.560 --> 00:17:27.920
When you feel like there's no way out,

517
00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:29.280
you ask different questions.

518
00:17:29.280 --> 00:17:31.360
And so when I started with zero,

519
00:17:31.360 --> 00:17:34.200
and not even zero, when I started a negative $150,000

520
00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:36.800
a month in profit, the question that I was trying to answer

521
00:17:36.800 --> 00:17:40.080
is how do I make $150,000 in profit in 30 days with nothing?

522
00:17:40.080 --> 00:17:41.000
And it was a very different question

523
00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:42.560
than how do I build a big business?

524
00:17:42.560 --> 00:17:45.600
Because up to that point, the question that I was asking

525
00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:46.720
for myself and then answering was,

526
00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:48.560
how do I build a big company, right?

527
00:17:48.560 --> 00:17:49.880
Rather than how do I make a business

528
00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:51.360
that makes shit loads of money?

529
00:17:51.360 --> 00:17:52.560
And sometimes when you ask different questions,

530
00:17:52.560 --> 00:17:54.160
you get different answers and you act differently.

531
00:17:54.160 --> 00:17:56.880
And so when I'm thinking through the zero question,

532
00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:58.400
which gets asked all the time,

533
00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:00.120
I think if you improve the quality of your question

534
00:18:00.120 --> 00:18:01.640
of how you wanna do the thing,

535
00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:05.000
you will answer it much better than you probably currently are

536
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:06.920
when you set your goal for $100,000 a year

537
00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:08.760
because then you're only gonna think in vehicles

538
00:18:08.760 --> 00:18:10.280
that will get you $100,000 a year.

539
00:18:10.280 --> 00:18:11.280
And then once you do that,

540
00:18:11.280 --> 00:18:13.640
you can only maybe double or triple your effort to get to 300.

541
00:18:13.640 --> 00:18:15.160
Whereas if you say, how do I get to $100,000,000,

542
00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:16.280
you think differently.

543
00:18:16.280 --> 00:18:18.840
You