WEBVTT

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That is the type of brand that we strive to build.

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And so you need somebody who really understands that.

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And most people don't.

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Because branding is a harder thing

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for most people to understand.

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But just to put it in a really succinct way,

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I think like one of the most underrated scale

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and the difference between Alex at 100 million dollar

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net worth versus a billion dollar net worth

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is going to be the brand.

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Like my understanding of brand,

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I think will be the pivotal thing that will take us

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from 100 to a billion.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers,

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how to make more customers, how to keep them longer.

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And the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way.

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I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

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Alex, thanks for having here, man.

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Thank you for having me.

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I'm excited to be here.

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Awesome.

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Great to have you.

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Let's start by hands, Nick, right?

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You're about to pop on.

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Yeah, what's going on?

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It's my highest sign of respect.

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I appreciate that.

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That means a lot, yeah.

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That's like, this is how I get engaged.

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I get ready to go.

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No, I've been chewing nicotine forever, honestly.

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When I was in high school, I did a little bit of dipping.

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When I was a wrestler and then I went to college

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and I like found chewing tobacco and dip

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and I was like, this stuff's awesome.

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And but I never like, I like addicted to it or anything like that.

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I just chewed it like at parties or around or hanging out

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but never like on a consistent basis.

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But I was like, man, I do like nicotine.

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And so I just started chewing the gum in college.

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And so I was like 19, 20 years old when I started chewing

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nicorette because I figured I could get the buzz

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without the rest of the stuff.

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And then nowadays, I think it's considered a neutral pick

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and there's all these benefits and things like that.

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But I think there's fairly convincing evidence

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and I'm not a science bro.

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But against Alzheimer's.

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Yeah.

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And I have Alzheimer's intervention on both sides of my family.

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Yes, in here.

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So my, so I, I chew nicorette and I like to get on that kick.

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You know, it's preventative, it's medicine now.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I think because the thing is,

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the carcinogens are in the delivery mechanism

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and the tobacco and the other things

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that they have in there rather than nicotine.

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It's like if we found out that coffee was bad for people,

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doesn't necessarily mean that caffeine is bad for you.

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And so it would be like just taking the pill form

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versus the drinking coffee itself.

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Same idea.

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Yeah, I did the chewing thing for a little while

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when I was super young.

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And then I just over did it at one point,

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puke did a party and I think that was about it.

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So I just got to get back into it.

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Yeah, yeah.

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I was at the time and I'm not at the time.

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Slowest smooth and smooth as fast.

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So maybe I just said, you know,

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find the right delivery mechanism.

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So you're on this journey to build a portfolio of companies

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doing over a billion and be worth over a billion.

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You're documenting that journey.

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I just want to say first off,

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I'm super thankful and grateful for all the content

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you've made, you're incredibly generous,

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sharing all the kind of inside baseball, if you will.

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Starting off like why a billion?

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Why is this matter to you?

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I don't think it actually does matter to me.

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I think it's more like it's just a,

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it's an easy target to shoot for.

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And then once we're at one, it'll be 10, you know,

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one, it'll be, you know, 10, it'll be 30 or 50

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or whatever after that.

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I think it's more that, you know,

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PBD said something that I thought was

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pretty interesting and insightful.

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After he sold his company and I don't know the exact number,

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but I'm guessing it was between 200 million.

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He sold his entry.

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PBD, sorry.

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Patrick Wright, David.

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Okay.

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And he made this statement that

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one of his mentors was like, man,

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something has changed about you.

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Like you see more confidence,

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you see more certain or whatever it was.

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And he said, yeah, it was just this feeling that

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what I was saying all this time

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that I was right all along.

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And I think that that felt kind of profound to me.

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And I think that, you know,

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we have a certain level of success

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that we've achieved up to this point.

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I'm obviously young in the entrepreneur game.

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And I know that I could say the exact same thing

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at a billion in that worth

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and probably have a significantly wider broader audience

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because I'll have proof or evidence

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that what I am saying is true.

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And so I'm trying to build this publicly

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so that I think it'll be cooler to call a shot and then hit it.

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Yeah, well, no, I think it's a cool journey.

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I mean, I really resonate with the vibe

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of kind of documented the journey

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because yeah, we definitely do guys like us

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wish that someone like a Warren Buffett

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had to kind of document it right from the early days

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beyond just the annual shareholder letters,

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which legendaries there are.

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There's a lot of like in between there.

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There's messages, there's mistakes.

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Yeah, just a lot.

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Like I'm curious on your journey, you know,

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I think on social media and these videos,

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you know, everything can seem all rosy.

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You can see him kind of easy going

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and you talk about a lot of the challenges.

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I'm curious kind of over the last six months

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of your journey, you know,

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what's been some of these messy situations that come up

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and how do you kind of diagnose them

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and get around them and keep on overcoming these?

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I mean, there's all sorts of them.

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You know what I mean?

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There's vendors for companies, you know,

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making promises that they can't deliver on

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and it costing us, you know,

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10 plus million on one deal in hard cost.

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There's deals that take, you know,

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four months to negotiate and then fall through.

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There's, you know, unfortunately,

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based on the nature of just like when sticks get really high,

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you know, you make an agreement day one

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and then the company goes from, you know,

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a few million dollars a year to, you know,

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a few million dollars a week and, you know,

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people's eyes change, you know,

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in terms of how they see the contribution and whatnot.

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And so there's just, it's just, you know,

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it's interesting because I think

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the actual messes are the same.

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It's just that the zeros are bigger.

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Like you're still playing poker

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whether you're playing with dollar chips

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or you're playing with million dollar chips.

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It's the game's more or less the same.

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It's just the stakes are higher.

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And when you think about the goal of a billion,

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like is there a date you've got in mind

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that you're like, this is when it's happening

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and do you feel like you're on track to that?

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I do think we're on track to that, which is cool.

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There's definitely like room for luck,

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which is cool and we've definitely had a few,

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I'll call them lucky breaks.

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But, you know, to what,

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I think somebody wrote a great article

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on like four levels of luck.

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I feel like you would have been exposed to something like this.

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But, you know, you can increase your luck,

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luck surface area.

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And I think a lot of what we're trying to do

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with the content and whatnot

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has been to deliberately create more luck, you know,

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for ourselves.

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And so that has worked.

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I think that if we were to just take the actual money

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and just put it in the S&P and just,

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if it compounded it at whatever 9.7% for the next 40 years

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or 30 years, we'd hit it kind of regardless.

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But I'm hoping to, hoping to beat that.

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And so, you know, if we can do it in five to seven,

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that would be pretty cool.

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And so that's kind of,

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like if my honest answer to like,

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what are you really shooting for?

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It's probably five years.

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Five years.

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And, you know, I love that Peter Teal kind of frame.

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I'm sure you've played it through your head a lot.

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You know, the idea of like, what's your five,

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10-year goal?

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How would you go and accomplish that in one year?

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You know, they're dialing up like better people,

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better systems, you know,

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better opportunities, you know, like when you think about

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ways to accelerate that vision,

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like what comes to mind?

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I think it's all about opportunities.

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It's opportunities.

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Because if you think about like,

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because I mean, I talk a lot about leverage

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so different between what you put into what you get out.

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And there are a few things that give greater leverage

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than the opportunity vehicle that you're pursuing.

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And so like, if you run a local business or a restaurant,

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for example, you may work 80 hours a week

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to make that restaurant successful.

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If you run a platform that, you know,

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it creates aggregated buying power for all restaurants

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to buy together.

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And then you make some sort of spread on that.

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Then you still probably work 80 hours a week,

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but you probably have a significantly larger opportunity.

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And so it's just like making sure that we pick,

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you know, the right boat to use Warren Buffett's

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analogies to be in the right boat.

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And I think that's where like strategy

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and having people were ahead of you.

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Because the biggest thing when I was starting out was that

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I just didn't know, I didn't understand any of the stuff.

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And just like how much leverage you can get on opportunity.

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And so it's like if you have one successful gem,

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they're like, you were never going to make $100 million

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on one gem.

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It just not gonna happen.

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And so just like just stating that fact outright

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really does shift your behavior until like what,

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what opportunity could I put the same five years into?

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And it could result in a hundred million

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or a billion dollars or 10 billion dollars.

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And then just being ruthlessly selective about those things.

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And I think that from an entrepreneurship perspective,

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what really happens like the risk at richer

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sure because they get smarter.

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But I think a lot of it is because what they choose

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to not pursue.

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And so like when I was starting out,

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I would be really excited about 10,000 more month

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opportunity.

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And then you make $100,000 a month.

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And then basically you can say no to everything

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that's below that.

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But then all of a sudden other $100,000

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with opportunities seem like a double.

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You're like, oh my God, this could be huge.

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And this is where the shiny object syndrome gets really

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dangerous.

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But I don't think the shiny object syndrome

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really disappears ever.

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I think it's just the opportunities just look better.

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And so you can easily, you've leveled up to the point

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where I can say no to a 10,000

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with opportunity now or a hundred thousand

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or even a million with opportunity.

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But like it's still hard to turn down a $10 million

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with opportunity, right?

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00:08:40.640 --> 00:08:42.880
And so that's where I think some of the discipline

265
00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:45.520
and one of the hardest parts of entrepreneurship is like

266
00:08:45.520 --> 00:08:47.560
knowing when to push and knowing when to pivot.

267
00:08:47.560 --> 00:08:49.440
It reminds me of that Navarrava Kant quote

268
00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:53.000
around finding your kind of ideal hourly rate

269
00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.000
and making it super ambitious.

270
00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:57.000
I think there's a lot of people that undercut themselves

271
00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:59.120
really on thinking that their hourly rate is $20.

272
00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:00.960
Now $100, maybe $1,000 opportunity

273
00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:03.920
and trying to get that to like, say, naming a $5,000

274
00:09:03.920 --> 00:09:05.720
an hour or $10,000 an hour.

275
00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:07.880
Now you start to look at everything a lot different

276
00:09:07.880 --> 00:09:08.880
where you're spending your time,

277
00:09:08.880 --> 00:09:11.560
who you're hiring, the kind of tasks you delegate.

278
00:09:11.560 --> 00:09:13.960
And I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle

279
00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:15.160
with that kind of self-loving belief

280
00:09:15.160 --> 00:09:16.640
that their time's not worth that much.

281
00:09:16.640 --> 00:09:19.400
So let us do that extra thing or do that themselves

282
00:09:19.400 --> 00:09:20.560
when really, you know, it's something

283
00:09:20.560 --> 00:09:24.000
that they should either pass on, say no to or delegate.

284
00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:26.760
Yeah, it's a really interesting frame.

285
00:09:26.760 --> 00:09:28.320
And just for back of napkin for everybody here,

286
00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:30.760
like just multiply whatever your hourly rate is by $2,000

287
00:09:30.760 --> 00:09:32.280
and that's what you make per year.

288
00:09:32.280 --> 00:09:34.680
You know, there's a lot of like work smarter, not harder,

289
00:09:34.680 --> 00:09:36.040
especially in like the Twitter sphere,

290
00:09:36.040 --> 00:09:38.080
which I think is where we first, you know, connected.

291
00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:39.800
It's easy to say work smarter, not harder,

292
00:09:39.800 --> 00:09:41.120
but the problem is in order to get smarter,

293
00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:42.560
you have to work hard.

294
00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:44.640
So it's like you have to work hard to get smart

295
00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:46.400
in order to then work smarter, not harder.

296
00:09:46.400 --> 00:09:48.640
So like you really can't avoid the hard work part.

297
00:09:48.640 --> 00:09:50.120
You get there one way or another.

298
00:09:50.120 --> 00:09:51.480
Yeah, you can't just name that hourly rate

299
00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:52.880
and just sit back and just wait for a tap.

300
00:09:52.880 --> 00:09:53.720
Yeah, that is it.

301
00:09:53.720 --> 00:09:55.040
I only work for $5,000 an hour

302
00:09:55.040 --> 00:09:56.880
and then everyone's like, okay, no,

303
00:09:56.880 --> 00:09:58.040
because you don't have that skill.

304
00:09:58.040 --> 00:09:59.880
And then like, okay, now where do we go?

305
00:09:59.880 --> 00:10:01.320
So I think you kind of earn the right.

306
00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:05.160
And so there's, you know, it's just like reality's gray.

307
00:10:05.160 --> 00:10:06.160
You know, it's not black and white.

308
00:10:06.160 --> 00:10:08.160
It's like you go into it, like you level up your skill

309
00:10:08.160 --> 00:10:10.680
and then I think Peter Tiel actually,

310
00:10:10.680 --> 00:10:13.680
it was, you know, value created in the marketplace,

311
00:10:14.520 --> 00:10:16.440
multiplied by your ability to negotiate

312
00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:18.160
to capture that value.

313
00:10:19.040 --> 00:10:20.520
The third piece that I would add to that

314
00:10:20.520 --> 00:10:24.960
is the amount of supply demand around the scale.

315
00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:26.280
So it's like, there's this much skill

316
00:10:26.280 --> 00:10:28.240
that comes from a salesperson.

317
00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:29.400
This is how well, you know,

318
00:10:29.400 --> 00:10:31.040
the salesperson can negotiate their comp

319
00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:33.880
and how many other people can do the job.

320
00:10:33.880 --> 00:10:35.240
And so it's like, ideally you want to be able

321
00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:36.720
to create tremendous value,

322
00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:38.600
have very good skills at negotiating

323
00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:40.000
and have no one else who can do it.

324
00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:41.160
And then at that point,

325
00:10:41.160 --> 00:10:42.400
when you put those three things together,

326
00:10:42.400 --> 00:10:43.800
you can pretty much name your price.

327
00:10:43.800 --> 00:10:44.640
Yeah.

328
00:10:44.640 --> 00:10:46.040
And how do you think you go about like, you know,

329
00:10:46.040 --> 00:10:48.040
between, you know, over your career,

330
00:10:48.040 --> 00:10:49.680
it seems like you've had like a lot of amazing mentors

331
00:10:49.680 --> 00:10:52.440
around you, you know, I know Russell early on

332
00:10:52.440 --> 00:10:53.960
was someone that was kind of key

333
00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:56.840
in terms of a board of advisor around you.

334
00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:58.280
I'm curious over your side, like,

335
00:10:58.280 --> 00:11:01.160
we're both big on leverage, building audiences,

336
00:11:01.160 --> 00:11:02.720
building a mode around your business.

337
00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:04.600
Is there a specific point like early in your career

338
00:11:04.600 --> 00:11:06.800
that was like a pivotal moment

339
00:11:06.800 --> 00:11:08.480
that maybe changed the trajectory

340
00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:09.520
based on like building leverage

341
00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:11.920
with that was like people, capital, media?

342
00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:13.160
Early on, not really.

343
00:11:13.160 --> 00:11:14.560
I think that the, I mean,

344
00:11:14.560 --> 00:11:16.480
the most valuable thing for me was to get around people

345
00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:17.920
who were making more money than me.

346
00:11:17.920 --> 00:11:20.080
And that's just, and that hasn't really changed.

347
00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:21.080
I've always tried to get around people

348
00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:22.560
who make more money than me just to see what they're,

349
00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:23.760
what they're thinking with,

350
00:11:23.760 --> 00:11:24.960
what opportunities that they're pursuing,

351
00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.320
what things do they say no to?

352
00:11:27.720 --> 00:11:30.200
And I think that's been probably the most valuable

353
00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:32.240
thing that I've done in terms of changing my thinking

354
00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:34.240
and like what frameworks I use.

355
00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:35.120
And what were some of the patterns

356
00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:37.320
that you feel like you picked up from them?

357
00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:39.200
Just the games they were playing, you know what I mean?

358
00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:41.520
Like I learned about the private equity game

359
00:11:41.520 --> 00:11:45.200
was like, oh wow, like, the largest percentage

360
00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:47.640
of billionaires come from private equity, weird.

361
00:11:47.640 --> 00:11:50.480
Okay, noted, you know, on the flip side,

362
00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:52.600
you know, real estate has made more millionaires than anyone.

363
00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:55.560
But real estate is a far more efficient marketplace overall.

364
00:11:55.560 --> 00:11:57.560
And so you don't have like 100 X's, not really,

365
00:11:57.560 --> 00:11:58.400
you know, in real estate,

366
00:11:58.400 --> 00:12:00.120
but you can, you can do that absolutely,

367
00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:01.160
you know, in the business space

368
00:12:01.160 --> 00:12:02.240
in a much shorter period of time.

369
00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:04.000
But it's definitely a higher risk higher reward.

370
00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:05.640
Like the building still there, there's still a roof,

371
00:12:05.640 --> 00:12:06.880
people might still run it.

372
00:12:06.880 --> 00:12:08.240
But like a business can go to zero.

373
00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:10.080
Buildings don't really go to zero.

374
00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:10.920
Yeah.

375
00:12:10.920 --> 00:12:12.280
And what was it, what was that epiphany

376
00:12:12.280 --> 00:12:13.760
that you had around the private equity space?

377
00:12:13.760 --> 00:12:15.720
Like why is it that so many billionaires from that?

378
00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:17.520
I think it's just more observation.

379
00:12:17.520 --> 00:12:18.840
So it's more like, okay, is there something

380
00:12:18.840 --> 00:12:19.680
that's weird here?

381
00:12:19.800 --> 00:12:20.680
Well, let's learn about that.

382
00:12:20.680 --> 00:12:24.000
If this is the highest concentration of mega wealthy people,

383
00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:27.480
then there's probably some sort of arbitrage to this game.

384
00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:29.040
And there's multiple levels of arbitrage

385
00:12:29.040 --> 00:12:30.320
within private equity.

386
00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:31.200
And when you combine them together,

387
00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:32.800
that's when you can create these 100 X outcomes.

388
00:12:32.800 --> 00:12:34.760
It's like, well, you can buy things

389
00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:37.280
for a significantly less than or worth far more so

390
00:12:37.280 --> 00:12:40.920
at a discount than like real estate, for example.

391
00:12:40.920 --> 00:12:44.280
And then you can still lever using debt

392
00:12:44.280 --> 00:12:45.800
from, you know, third party financing.

393
00:12:45.800 --> 00:12:47.800
And then on top of that, you can have even more leverage

394
00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:49.440
by raising money to do it.

395
00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:51.680
So it's like somebody who has one million dollars

396
00:12:51.680 --> 00:12:53.800
can put a million dollars in, raise a hundred

397
00:12:53.800 --> 00:12:56.280
or raise 99 to get to a hundred million dollars.

398
00:12:56.280 --> 00:12:59.640
And then by, you know, five businesses

399
00:12:59.640 --> 00:13:01.320
that are a hundred million dollars each,

400
00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:02.800
because they put 20 million down.

401
00:13:02.800 --> 00:13:04.800
And then they, you know, okay, let's be realistic.

402
00:13:04.800 --> 00:13:06.840
Let's say they buy three just for, you know,

403
00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:09.200
arguments take, they put a third down on each of them.

404
00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:10.600
So three hundred million dollar businesses

405
00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:12.360
and they get bank debt for the other, you know,

406
00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:14.200
70 on each of those businesses.

407
00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:16.520
It's like, so one guy with one million dollars

408
00:13:16.520 --> 00:13:20.120
just bought three businesses in total for 300 million.

409
00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:22.160
And if those businesses just grow out like,

410
00:13:22.160 --> 00:13:25.680
let's say a 20, you know, 20% rate over the next,

411
00:13:25.680 --> 00:13:29.320
you know, five years, those businesses go from a hundred

412
00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:31.200
million dollar businesses to 200 million dollar businesses.

413
00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:33.360
So he goes from, you know, whatever it was,

414
00:13:34.360 --> 00:13:36.440
300 to 600, right?

415
00:13:36.440 --> 00:13:38.480
But he probably also bought those at a discount.

416
00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:40.400
So maybe they inherently were worth more than that.

417
00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:41.320
And all of a sudden it's like, wow,

418
00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:42.720
now we're at 900 million.

419
00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:45.800
And so then he just, you know, gives his,

420
00:13:45.800 --> 00:13:48.200
he has his hurdle rate too is, you know, his partners,

421
00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:49.160
he has to pay his debt back.

422
00:13:49.160 --> 00:13:51.720
And then after that, you just have this massive nut left over.

423
00:13:51.720 --> 00:13:53.360
You can take that hundred or 200 million

424
00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:54.680
left over for the managing partner

425
00:13:54.680 --> 00:13:56.200
and then just play the game again.

426
00:13:56.200 --> 00:13:58.520
And there's very few ways that you can do something like that

427
00:13:58.520 --> 00:14:00.040
within a five to seven year span

428
00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:01.960
than anything else with so little capital.

429
00:14:01.960 --> 00:14:05.000
Now people are gonna only trust, you know,

430
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:06.600
somebody who might have a level of experience

431
00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:08.160
or saying, okay, well, I worked at a private equity fund

432
00:14:08.160 --> 00:14:10.080
for 10 years, you know, I did two funds

433
00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:11.200
and I feel pretty confident I can do it.

434
00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:12.520
It's like, okay, well, then you can do it

435
00:14:12.520 --> 00:14:14.240
when you're 35 because you start when you're 20

436
00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:16.640
and you get 15 years in or whatever, you know,

437
00:14:16.640 --> 00:14:19.000
two, seven year funds and you start your own.

438
00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:23.040
And so, yeah, like I see those types of games

439
00:14:23.040 --> 00:14:24.320
and I'm like, that makes sense.

440
00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:27.440
Like where is the, where is the huge lever opportunities

441
00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:29.240
that exists like software is obviously a big one.

442
00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:31.360
Like how many things can you go from zero

443
00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:33.680
to a billion dollar valuation in three years?

444
00:14:33.680 --> 00:14:35.560
Like you can't do that with the chain of dry cleaning stores.

445
00:14:35.560 --> 00:14:36.800
This is not gonna happen.

446
00:14:36.800 --> 00:14:40.000
And so it's just like, okay, what are the nature of those things?

447
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.600
Well, most products that have zero cost of replication

448
00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:44.440
tend to have more leverage.

449
00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:47.440
So like media is an example or software stuff

450
00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:49.120
is an example, even licensing stuff.

451
00:14:50.920 --> 00:14:53.360
All of those are zero cost to replicate

452
00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:55.760
and so they're just more leverage baked into the business model.

453
00:14:55.760 --> 00:14:58.480
And you work just as hard to build the restaurant

454
00:14:58.480 --> 00:14:59.680
of the dry cleaning business as you do

455
00:14:59.680 --> 00:15:01.800
to build the software company, you just need different knowledge.

456
00:15:01.800 --> 00:15:03.520
And so I think finding people who have expertise

457
00:15:03.520 --> 00:15:05.560
in those things helps you move faster.

458
00:15:05.560 --> 00:15:06.760
It seems like another formal leverage

459
00:15:06.760 --> 00:15:08.640
that we both have in common over the last decade

460
00:15:08.640 --> 00:15:10.520
is the importance of media.

461
00:15:10.520 --> 00:15:12.080
You talk a lot in hundred million dollar leads

462
00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:15.280
and kind of doubling down on organic content

463
00:15:15.280 --> 00:15:16.120
and leveraging that.

464
00:15:16.120 --> 00:15:18.440
I know early on in the cannabis industry with Urban,

465
00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:21.560
we built that 10 years ago with the goal of kind of

466
00:15:21.560 --> 00:15:23.720
building a more tasteful authentic platform

467
00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:25.640
to help connect kind of our brands

468
00:15:25.640 --> 00:15:27.960
with the best community out there in the space

469
00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:29.560
when it was really kind of sketchy.

470
00:15:29.560 --> 00:15:30.760
Not a lot of good stuff out there.

471
00:15:30.760 --> 00:15:32.920
We talked a little bit about that a year ago.

472
00:15:32.920 --> 00:15:35.680
I'm curious on your side with, you know,

473
00:15:35.680 --> 00:15:40.040
you got quite the Mozzie media empire going on here.

474
00:15:40.040 --> 00:15:40.880
Amazing team.

475
00:15:40.880 --> 00:15:42.160
I know a number of them.

476
00:15:44.360 --> 00:15:46.240
How did it bring us back to kind of your epiphany

477
00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:47.440
when you realize like, damn,

478
00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:49.320
we got to start building more of an audience here,

479
00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:50.920
move off of sort of the paid ad side

480
00:15:50.920 --> 00:15:52.320
and build this business different.

481
00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:54.320
What was the kind of thinking pattern there?

482
00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:56.960
I mean, I just, I had reality kind of slapping the face

483
00:15:56.960 --> 00:15:58.680
a bunch of times in a row in a very short period.

484
00:15:58.680 --> 00:16:00.840
So like I was just for the audience

485
00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:03.520
to like understand the gravity of this 180 degree flip

486
00:16:03.520 --> 00:16:06.600
for me is that like I think episode seven of my podcast

487
00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:07.760
is called stop branding.

488
00:16:07.760 --> 00:16:08.920
Yes.

489
00:16:08.920 --> 00:16:10.680
And I do, I mean, I leave it up there

490
00:16:10.680 --> 00:16:11.840
because I want people to see the, you know,

491
00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:12.680
the progression over time.

492
00:16:12.680 --> 00:16:13.520
I respect that too.

493
00:16:13.520 --> 00:16:15.480
Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

494
00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:18.720
And so I was just like cold hour each run ads.

495
00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:19.560
Don't talk to me.

496
00:16:19.560 --> 00:16:21.320
You know, like that's what it is.

497
00:16:21.320 --> 00:16:23.480
Like that's you're gonna get customers.

498
00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:25.320
And obviously referrals and affiliates and things like that.

499
00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:28.360
I just the idea of just organic content

500
00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:29.920
didn't really make sense to me.

501
00:16:29.920 --> 00:16:31.720
And to be fair, I was also a local business owner

502
00:16:31.720 --> 00:16:33.440
and was speaking to local business owners.

503
00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:36.200
And I kind of, I think that there's actually

504
00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:38.240
some truth to that.

505
00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:40.040
Because the thing is is like if you actually build

506
00:16:40.040 --> 00:16:41.960
an exceptionally large, you know, personal brand,

507
00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:44.440
it doesn't make sense to monetize their local business.

508
00:16:44.440 --> 00:16:46.680
And so what does make sense for local business?

509
00:16:46.680 --> 00:16:48.320
Well, they probably should have, you know,

510
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:49.960
have stronger referrals from the existing customers,

511
00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:52.120
creative affiliate relations with other local businesses.

512
00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:52.960
They should run ads.

513
00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:53.800
They should do outreach.

514
00:16:53.800 --> 00:16:55.240
Like that is probably, yeah, yeah.

515
00:16:55.240 --> 00:16:58.600
Yeah, that is the approach they should be making.

516
00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:02.760
But I saw Kylie Jenner become a billionaire

517
00:17:02.760 --> 00:17:05.280
when she was 20 and I was 27.

518
00:17:05.280 --> 00:17:07.840
And I thought I was, you know, hot shit.

519
00:17:07.840 --> 00:17:10.200
And I was like, she is way richer than I am.

520
00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:12.280
And so it means that she's doing something different

521
00:17:12.280 --> 00:17:14.920
than I am by an order of magnitude

522
00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:16.360
that I don't understand.

523
00:17:16.360 --> 00:17:17.480
And she had a personal brand.

524
00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:18.720
But I was like, you know what?

525
00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:20.800
Kris Jenner's been building her brand since she was five.

526
00:17:20.800 --> 00:17:23.800
Like, okay, I'll write that off as a fluke.

527
00:17:23.800 --> 00:17:25.080
But then, you know, who to beauty?

528
00:17:25.080 --> 00:17:27.040
You know, sort of chunk of her thing at 600.

529
00:17:27.040 --> 00:17:28.840
Now I think it's worth over a billion.

530
00:17:28.840 --> 00:17:31.280
And, you know, Kylie McGregor had proper 12.

531
00:17:31.560 --> 00:17:34.840
George Clooney had Cosmigos, right?

532
00:17:34.840 --> 00:17:37.720
And then the rock has Termana.

533
00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:38.880
And each of those billion dollar,

534
00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:40.560
billion to multi-billion dollar things,

535
00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:41.680
like seemingly overnight.

536
00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:44.440
And now you've got Logan Paul with prime.

537
00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:46.240
And so, but in that short period,

538
00:17:46.240 --> 00:17:47.600
all of it was like 12 months,

539
00:17:47.600 --> 00:17:49.440
all of these plays started coming out.

540
00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.480
And I was like, I'm playing this wrong.

541
00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:55.120
And so I still wasn't convinced

542
00:17:55.120 --> 00:17:56.360
because I didn't want to be famous.

543
00:17:56.360 --> 00:17:57.640
And I have another clip of me being like,

544
00:17:57.640 --> 00:17:59.880
I never want anybody to know who I am

545
00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:01.000
from a few years ago.

546
00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:04.000
And I was sat across the table from a friend of mine

547
00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:05.680
who's famous, who recognized him.

548
00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:08.080
And I said, like, don't you get bothered

549
00:18:08.080 --> 00:18:09.800
by having like weirdo shop at your house,

550
00:18:09.800 --> 00:18:11.800
like three times a week and like letters to your kids

551
00:18:11.800 --> 00:18:15.160
and like, is not, like, that doesn't seem worth it to me.

552
00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:18.240
And he said, if that's the price I have to pay

553
00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:19.280
for the impact I want to have,

554
00:18:19.280 --> 00:18:22.840
I'd pay that price twice a day and seven days a week.

555
00:18:22.840 --> 00:18:25.320
And you just kind of look at me.

556
00:18:25.320 --> 00:18:27.680
And I just like, I just felt very called out

557
00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:29.040
just like for being a pansy.

558
00:18:29.520 --> 00:18:33.760
And so I was like, all right, well, that's what I'll do.

559
00:18:33.760 --> 00:18:36.800
And so that was like the last straw

560
00:18:36.800 --> 00:18:37.880
that broke the camel's back.

561
00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:39.440
And I started making content that week.

562
00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:41.000
Yeah, I see that self-limiting belief a lot

563
00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:43.360
with people where they're like, oh, personal brand.

564
00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:44.920
You know, I don't want to be famous.

565
00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:48.000
And I think we live in a totally different day and age now.

566
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:50.800
And there's a whole other kind of game being played.

567
00:18:50.800 --> 00:18:53.680
I'm curious on your side with, you know,

568
00:18:53.680 --> 00:18:54.800
your personal brand.

569
00:18:54.800 --> 00:18:55.520
There's a lot of people out there

570
00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:56.840
that just can't see they are a wide of this.

571
00:18:56.840 --> 00:18:57.840
Like, why am I doing this?

572
00:18:57.840 --> 00:18:58.680
I don't know.

573
00:18:58.800 --> 00:19:00.200
There's all this and like, what for?

574
00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:02.840
Yeah, how do you look at the ROI of what you've built?

575
00:19:02.840 --> 00:19:03.680
Yeah.

576
00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:04.960
And, you know, I think you guys are spending

577
00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:07.560
like millions of dollars now on the whole content operation.

578
00:19:07.560 --> 00:19:09.560
We'll have a little bit of the inside baseball

579
00:19:09.560 --> 00:19:12.440
and how that kind of all delivers results for you.

580
00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:17.440
So right off the bat, I don't, I will say upfront.

581
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:20.160
I don't think everyone should be famous.

582
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:21.760
I don't think everyone should build a personal brand.

583
00:19:21.760 --> 00:19:23.080
I don't think everyone should anything.

584
00:19:23.080 --> 00:19:24.760
You can do whatever you want.

585
00:19:24.760 --> 00:19:26.960
And I have billionaire friends who want to stay anonymous

586
00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:27.960
and they're pretty smart dudes.

587
00:19:28.280 --> 00:19:31.160
And so they've made that decision and I respect that.

588
00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:33.520
I do think that from a money making perspective,

589
00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:35.920
it is a time warp.

590
00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:38.200
You can just go way faster.

591
00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:42.080
And that is because you can attract talent

592
00:19:42.080 --> 00:19:45.080
at such a higher rate than you could otherwise.

593
00:19:45.080 --> 00:19:47.960
You can bring people on who already know your values,

594
00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:49.800
know what you're about, have already consumed

595
00:19:49.800 --> 00:19:52.000
more content than most people's employees currently know

596
00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:54.320
about them and their way of doing business.

597
00:19:54.320 --> 00:19:56.640
You can basically pre-train your entire team

598
00:19:56.640 --> 00:19:57.760
before they come on board

599
00:19:57.760 --> 00:19:59.880
because of the amount of stuff that you put out.

600
00:19:59.880 --> 00:20:02.280
And those are just unbelievably valuable things.

601
00:20:02.280 --> 00:20:05.400
Not to mention, you know, if you're on the deal side,

602
00:20:05.400 --> 00:20:07.040
you know, like for us, like investing in companies,

603
00:20:07.040 --> 00:20:09.600
we have so much more trust at the table.

604
00:20:09.600 --> 00:20:10.560
And I think Charlie Munger said,

605
00:20:10.560 --> 00:20:13.120
trust is the ultimate lubricant for deals.

606
00:20:13.120 --> 00:20:16.120
Is like, there's just what you're both trying to make

607
00:20:16.120 --> 00:20:17.880
the deal happen rather than being competitive.

608
00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:20.920
And I think that just, it's so much better as a process

609
00:20:20.920 --> 00:20:22.640
having been on in both types of deals,

610
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:24.680
very competitive deals, like white knuckle deals

611
00:20:24.680 --> 00:20:26.600
and really friendly deals,

612
00:20:26.600 --> 00:20:28.200
way more fun to do friendly deals.

613
00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:31.160
And so those are kind of the pluses.

614
00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:32.000
And obviously you have an audience,

615
00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:34.160
you can test things quickly, you can fight solutions,

616
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:35.640
like I remember, even this week,

617
00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:39.440
I had one of our companies does three or four million dollars

618
00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:42.600
a month in just loan volume as a percentage

619
00:20:42.600 --> 00:20:45.640
of their revenue for consumer spending.

620
00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:48.400
And we were switching processors

621
00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:51.080
and we were kind of linked to a different loan engine.

622
00:20:51.080 --> 00:20:52.800
And I wanted to make sure that we'd be able to transfer it

623
00:20:52.800 --> 00:20:54.280
to the new processor.

624
00:20:54.280 --> 00:20:56.360
And so I needed to get in contact with somebody

625
00:20:56.360 --> 00:20:59.200
high up at that loan processing company.

626
00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:01.160
And I was like, hey, if anybody knows anyone, let me know.

627
00:21:01.160 --> 00:21:03.040
And I got like seven people who messaged me

628
00:21:03.040 --> 00:21:04.680
and they were like, I know the co-founder.

629
00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:05.520
Let me introduce you.

630
00:21:05.520 --> 00:21:08.880
And like, you don't have that without the kind of brand.

631
00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:13.360
So that's the pros, the cons and there are cons

632
00:21:13.360 --> 00:21:16.840
is that privacy is the cost of fame.

633
00:21:16.840 --> 00:21:18.160
Like that's what you give up.

634
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:20.960
And for some people, that cost is always too much.

635
00:21:20.960 --> 00:21:22.600
For me, I'm not really that different

636
00:21:22.600 --> 00:21:23.800
in private than I am publicly.

637
00:21:23.800 --> 00:21:26.440
So it didn't seem like too big of a deal.

638
00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:28.560
I mean, that's the thought about it.

639
00:21:28.560 --> 00:21:31.040
Second is, it's irreversible.

640
00:21:31.040 --> 00:21:33.200
You like, once everyone knows what you look like,

641
00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:34.040
that's it.

642
00:21:34.040 --> 00:21:35.560
Like, you can't stop.

643
00:21:35.560 --> 00:21:37.520
Like, it's irreversible.

644
00:21:37.520 --> 00:21:38.360
And that's why.

645
00:21:38.360 --> 00:21:39.200
You saved the beer.

646
00:21:39.200 --> 00:21:40.520
Yeah, I think, yeah.

647
00:21:40.520 --> 00:21:42.960
I think I'd still probably get recognized.

648
00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:45.240
And there's like small social costs.

649
00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:47.200
Like, you know, if I walk outside of the house,

650
00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:49.720
I'll get recognized four or five times

651
00:21:49.720 --> 00:21:51.120
every time I walk outside.

652
00:21:51.120 --> 00:21:52.120
And that's fine.

653
00:21:52.120 --> 00:21:53.720
Or if I go to dinner with Layla,

654
00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:54.960
I'll probably have to stop three or four times

655
00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:56.640
during the dinner to take pictures.

656
00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:00.160
And that can be, you know, disrupting.

657
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.960
And the hard part is, is that you always have to be

658
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:05.280
in the best mood ever, because this is the one time

659
00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:06.920
that this person will ever see you.

660
00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:09.200
And they will make 100% of their lifelong judgment

661
00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:10.560
until every person they ever meet,

662
00:22:10.560 --> 00:22:12.360
how you are based on the 30 seconds

663
00:22:12.360 --> 00:22:13.440
of how you interact with them.

664
00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:15.880
And then 10 minutes later, you do it again.

665
00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:17.760
And so basically being able to manage that

666
00:22:17.760 --> 00:22:19.680
is a skill, I think.

667
00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:22.160
And I've worked really hard at that.

668
00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:26.480
Because it doesn't matter, like, no one will ever empathize.

669
00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:27.320
So it doesn't really matter.

670
00:22:27.320 --> 00:22:28.760
Like boohoo must, you know, must be tough.

671
00:22:28.760 --> 00:22:29.600
You did choose that.

672
00:22:29.600 --> 00:22:31.480
And that's the thing is like I did choose this.

673
00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:33.240
And so I can't lament that.

674
00:22:33.240 --> 00:22:34.960
I just see that as part of the price.

675
00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:39.960
And so giving a privacy is the TLDR big umbrella cost

676
00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:44.000
of getting the fame wheel going.

677
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:47.640
But there are, in my opinion, pros and cons,

678
00:22:47.640 --> 00:22:50.400
but there are more pros than there are cons.

679
00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:53.480
I also don't talk about super racy subjects.

680
00:22:53.480 --> 00:22:56.440
And so I don't have, at least to my knowledge,

681
00:22:56.440 --> 00:22:58.720
you know, a huge hater base.

682
00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:01.240
I'm not political for the most part.

683
00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:02.640
All my stuff that's out there is like,

684
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:04.880
to try and help people, you know, make more.

685
00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:08.480
And I also lean really far away from shoulds.

686
00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:10.880
So I just, you know, up front, like, do whatever you want.

687
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:12.240
Like, this is just the stuff that worked for me.

688
00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:14.520
And if it works for you awesome, if it doesn't work for you,

689
00:23:14.520 --> 00:23:15.440
I'm sorry, I tried someone else.

690
00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:16.280
You know what I mean?

691
00:23:16.280 --> 00:23:17.720
That's just, that's what's worked.

692
00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:21.480
Hey, most of the nation, quick break just to let you know

693
00:23:21.480 --> 00:23:23.320
that we've been starting to post on LinkedIn

694
00:23:23.320 --> 00:23:24.800
and want to connect with you.

695
00:23:24.800 --> 00:23:26.280
All right, so send me a connection request

696
00:23:26.280 --> 00:23:27.920
and note letting me know that you listen to the show

697
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:29.160
and I will accept it.

698
00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:31.120
There's anyone you think that we should be connected with,

699
00:23:31.120 --> 00:23:33.560
tag them in one of my or layless posts.

700
00:23:33.560 --> 00:23:35.640
And I will give you all the love in the world.

701
00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:37.400
All right, so let's get back to the show.

702
00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:41.000
You know, I completely agree that, you know,

703
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:43.560
the benefit stuff in the far away, the cost,

704
00:23:43.560 --> 00:23:44.920
you know, just your service area for like,

705
00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:47.040
a lot of community connections, cash flows,

706
00:23:47.040 --> 00:23:49.160
more deals, more opportunities.

707
00:23:49.160 --> 00:23:50.160
You know, I think at the end of the day too,

708
00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:51.760
like personal brands kind of just get a bad rap.

709
00:23:51.760 --> 00:23:52.520
It's one of those things too.

710
00:23:52.520 --> 00:23:54.320
It's just building your digital reputation.

711
00:23:54.320 --> 00:23:55.560
Everyone's online.

712
00:23:55.560 --> 00:23:56.680
They're going to check your LinkedIn

713
00:23:56.680 --> 00:23:59.120
before meeting with you or diligence in your company

714
00:23:59.120 --> 00:24:00.880
or doing a deal, you know, just making sure

715
00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:02.240
that you're putting your best face forward,

716
00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:04.520
your best foot forward in those deals.

717
00:24:04.520 --> 00:24:06.920
And hopefully having a reputation that presweeds you,

718
00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:09.840
you walk in the door, you know, the deals almost already closed

719
00:24:09.840 --> 00:24:12.240
or just trying to talk to you, chop it up

720
00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:13.560
and hopefully get it across the line.

721
00:24:13.560 --> 00:24:14.400
Yeah.

722
00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:16.080
The deal is really obvious to people, you know,

723
00:24:16.080 --> 00:24:18.080
whether it's, you know, the rock with Taramana

724
00:24:18.080 --> 00:24:19.480
or Logan Paul with Prime,

725
00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:21.520
that he's kind of consumer products.

726
00:24:21.520 --> 00:24:22.840
Like, of course that makes sense.

727
00:24:22.840 --> 00:24:24.480
But those products is everyone's your market.

728
00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:25.320
Yeah.

729
00:24:25.320 --> 00:24:26.680
But when you're talking about the private equity space,

730
00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:28.000
I think that's where sometimes people are like,

731
00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:29.080
no, no, no, no, no, this is different.

732
00:24:29.080 --> 00:24:30.000
This is different.

733
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:32.360
You know, how do you kind of give me some of the details

734
00:24:32.360 --> 00:24:34.560
I'm curious like how this has actually helped you,

735
00:24:34.560 --> 00:24:36.560
you know, close a deal or, you know,

736
00:24:36.560 --> 00:24:37.560
and really change the trajectory

737
00:24:37.560 --> 00:24:38.840
because you guys are doing $200 million

738
00:24:38.840 --> 00:24:39.840
or having you now.

739
00:24:39.840 --> 00:24:40.680
Yeah.

740
00:24:40.680 --> 00:24:42.960
Well, my quote fame or audience size

741
00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:45.720
in no way directly helps any of the portfolio companies

742
00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:47.120
is to say me be ancillarily.

743
00:24:47.120 --> 00:24:49.200
But like, I purposely try to not,

744
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:52.800
I'm not public about the companies that we own almost at all.

745
00:24:52.800 --> 00:24:54.320
And I do get into that because I'm curious.

746
00:24:54.320 --> 00:24:55.160
Yeah.

747
00:24:55.160 --> 00:24:56.960
No, I mean, that was by design.

748
00:24:56.960 --> 00:24:58.440
I will explain now.

749
00:24:58.440 --> 00:25:00.200
The reason I don't talk about them

750
00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:05.040
is because I don't want to be included

751
00:25:05.040 --> 00:25:06.720
in whatever the exit is.

752
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:08.440
And so if I bought it without me,

753
00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:10.000
I want to sell it without me

754
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:12.600
because I don't want to now have a five year non-compete

755
00:25:12.600 --> 00:25:14.520
on the back of another deal in three years

756
00:25:14.520 --> 00:25:16.160
because I promoted it.

757
00:25:16.160 --> 00:25:18.600
And so if I'm going to use money

758
00:25:18.600 --> 00:25:21.600
and expertise with our team to grow a business,

759
00:25:21.600 --> 00:25:23.760
then that is what the deal is about.

760
00:25:23.760 --> 00:25:25.960
If I'm trying to approach the thing as a brand deal,

761
00:25:25.960 --> 00:25:29.360
which I have done almost never,

762
00:25:29.360 --> 00:25:32.400
you can probably tell I haven't really promoted anything,

763
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:35.400
it would have to be for a really good opportunity

764
00:25:35.400 --> 00:25:37.520
that would make a lot of sense

765
00:25:37.520 --> 00:25:38.920
for everyone in my audience.

766
00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:41.560
And so yeah, for that reason,

767
00:25:41.560 --> 00:25:45.320
I have kept it private because I want also to a small degree

768
00:25:45.320 --> 00:25:49.160
because I think the founders that we work with,

769
00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:50.560
that we've invested their companies,

770
00:25:50.560 --> 00:25:53.040
all of them want the credit for the success.

771
00:25:53.040 --> 00:25:55.640
And I think that as soon as the world here is like,

772
00:25:55.640 --> 00:25:57.280
Alex was involved in the deal,

773
00:25:57.280 --> 00:26:00.120
I will probably get a disproportionate amount of the credit.

774
00:26:00.120 --> 00:26:02.520
And as an entrepreneur too,

775
00:26:02.520 --> 00:26:06.440
I don't want that because I might not have done

776
00:26:06.440 --> 00:26:08.320
a disproportionate amount of the work.

777
00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:09.160
I'm just curious on that, right?

778
00:26:09.160 --> 00:26:10.160
Just a double click into it.

779
00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:11.480
Like Warren Buffett,

780
00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:12.800
who is something that we obviously both

781
00:26:12.800 --> 00:26:13.920
follow a lot of his stuff on.

782
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:16.800
At the end of the day,

783
00:26:16.800 --> 00:26:19.160
with Berkshire Hathaway, all those companies,

784
00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:20.400
most of the portfolio are kind of,

785
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:22.240
hey, we're a Berkshire company,

786
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:24.640
that company's bought Warren Buffett doesn't necessarily

787
00:26:24.640 --> 00:26:26.040
come at the company.

788
00:26:26.040 --> 00:26:27.000
What do you think?

789
00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:28.720
Either he's missing or what's the difference

790
00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:29.560
in what am I missing, maybe?

791
00:26:29.560 --> 00:26:31.040
No, no, you're good.

792
00:26:31.040 --> 00:26:33.000
He is a decentralized management model.

793
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:37.200
And so he buys outright and he usually doesn't buy too sell.

794
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:39.480
And so selling is not usually part of his playbook

795
00:26:39.480 --> 00:26:40.800
unless absolutely necessary.

796
00:26:40.800 --> 00:26:42.400
And so at that point,

797
00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:43.960
his reputation provides a lot of value,

798
00:26:43.960 --> 00:26:46.240
but he's not necessarily trying to like,

799
00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:49.280
he's not trying to have another acquirer in the future.

800
00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:50.880
For us, we are trying to have another acquirer

801
00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:54.200
like a future for most of the companies that we buy.

802
00:26:54.200 --> 00:26:55.560
And that has shifted in the beginning,

803
00:26:55.560 --> 00:26:57.120
we were just planning on buying and holding.

804
00:26:57.120 --> 00:26:59.240
But I would say that we have now learned

805
00:26:59.240 --> 00:27:01.400
that it's very tough,

806
00:27:01.400 --> 00:27:02.760
especially if you keep the founder in place,

807
00:27:02.760 --> 00:27:05.120
which is usually how we do our deals,

808
00:27:05.120 --> 00:27:07.360
because usually the business will be limited by the founder.

809
00:27:07.360 --> 00:27:08.800
And so at that point, it's like,

810
00:27:08.800 --> 00:27:10.480
okay, it's clear that this founder is not

811
00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:11.640
competent past this level.

812
00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:13.280
And so we should sell.

813
00:27:13.280 --> 00:27:15.200
When you're going and analyzing different founders,

814
00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:17.680
companies to buy, what's like the dream founder

815
00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:19.040
kind of characteristics?

816
00:27:19.040 --> 00:27:21.200
And then what are the dreams sort of company characteristics

817
00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:22.560
that you specifically are looking after?

818
00:27:22.560 --> 00:27:24.240
You're like, okay, this is a grand slam.

819
00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:26.600
Yeah, we can start with founder.

820
00:27:26.600 --> 00:27:31.440
So founder, it all comes down to character and experience.

821
00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:34.360
So if a founder has a huge amount of experience,

822
00:27:34.360 --> 00:27:36.520
specifically with the problem that they're trying to solve,

823
00:27:36.520 --> 00:27:38.120
so we're talking five to 10 years of dealing

824
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:39.720
with whatever the issue is.

825
00:27:39.720 --> 00:27:42.000
And a lot of times, if they made the solution

826
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:43.200
to help themselves, that helps,

827
00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:46.360
because they usually tend to be a little more product focused.

828
00:27:46.360 --> 00:27:48.320
So a product driven entrepreneur

829
00:27:48.320 --> 00:27:51.880
who is lived with the issue for a long period of time

830
00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:54.160
is incredibly coachable,

831
00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:58.400
but balances that with a lot of confidence,

832
00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:01.480
willingness to take risk and ambition.

833
00:28:01.480 --> 00:28:03.320
Because one of the issues that we've actually had

834
00:28:03.320 --> 00:28:05.040
more than once is that we have a company,

835
00:28:05.040 --> 00:28:07.400
we invest in them, and then we trouble the company

836
00:28:07.480 --> 00:28:08.680
in like a year.

837
00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:11.040
And then the founder is making more money

838
00:28:11.040 --> 00:28:12.440
than they ever thought possible,

839
00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:15.400
and then they just go golfing every day.

840
00:28:15.400 --> 00:28:19.360
And that's frustrating for me.

841
00:28:19.360 --> 00:28:22.040
And so, and things is like,

842
00:28:22.040 --> 00:28:24.800
this is where, if you're at the deal table,

843
00:28:24.800 --> 00:28:26.800
everyone will make promises and be like,

844
00:28:26.800 --> 00:28:28.520
oh, I wanna go to the moon, I wanna go to a billion,

845
00:28:28.520 --> 00:28:29.840
I wanna go to 250 million,

846
00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:30.920
but all of a sudden you actually find out

847
00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:33.320
that 500 grand a month in personal income.

848
00:28:33.320 --> 00:28:35.080
That's actually their number.

849
00:28:35.080 --> 00:28:38.120
And so, and a lot of times also the flip,

850
00:28:38.120 --> 00:28:43.120
so one of the cons of the fame is that people also know

851
00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:46.720
what I say I want before they come in.

852
00:28:46.720 --> 00:28:48.240
And so they will say those things.

853
00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:50.240
Yeah, they'll say those things.

854
00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:53.520
And so unfortunately, I have to be like, cool.

855
00:28:53.520 --> 00:28:54.480
That is the right thing to say,

856
00:28:54.480 --> 00:28:56.520
and we will find out if that's true.

857
00:28:56.520 --> 00:28:58.800
You know, it's the greatest degree possible.

858
00:28:58.800 --> 00:29:00.200
And so, from a character perspective,

859
00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:01.720
those are probably the traits that I look for.

860
00:29:01.720 --> 00:29:03.880
So, an absolutely unimpeachable.

861
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:05.120
So, like our personal values relate.

862
00:29:05.120 --> 00:29:07.160
Since you're a candor, unimpeachable character,

863
00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:09.000
and competitive greatness.

864
00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:12.480
Now, within that, the micro is context around the problem,

865
00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:16.200
product driven overall, super open to feedback,

866
00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:17.960
while maintaining confidence and ambitious.

867
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:20.240
Like, for a different reason than money.

868
00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:22.960
Like, I'm all good with money being a primary motivator

869
00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:25.000
in the beginning, but at some point,

870
00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:27.680
if you satisfy all your personal needs with money,

871
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:29.520
you will stop if that is the only reason

872
00:29:29.520 --> 00:29:30.800
that you're doing it.

873
00:29:30.800 --> 00:29:33.520
For the business quote, like, missionaries over mercenaries.

874
00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:35.120
Yeah, I love that.

875
00:29:35.120 --> 00:29:36.120
Yes.

876
00:29:36.120 --> 00:29:38.800
The, from a business perspective,

877
00:29:38.800 --> 00:29:42.760
I just look at it in terms of incremental revenue

878
00:29:42.760 --> 00:29:43.600
to enterprise value.

879
00:29:43.600 --> 00:29:46.760
Like, that's really just it is, okay, so if I add,

880
00:29:46.760 --> 00:29:49.920
so like, if I add $1 million to 10 different businesses

881
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:52.240
in top line revenue, in one business,

882
00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:55.080
I might add $50 million to enterprise value.

883
00:29:55.080 --> 00:29:57.120
Let's call it on the extreme level of leverage,

884
00:29:57.120 --> 00:30:00.320
like a social platform, right, or a marketplace of some sort.

885
00:30:00.320 --> 00:30:02.600
That is gonna be the highest leverage,

886
00:30:02.600 --> 00:30:05.600
highest multiple earning business possible.

887
00:30:05.600 --> 00:30:09.920
On the other extreme, you've got like a personal brand

888
00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:14.040
that, you know, cash flows off of one time transaction courses.

889
00:30:14.040 --> 00:30:16.640
That would probably have the lowest increment

890
00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:18.160
in terms of enterprise value

891
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:19.960
that is attributed to a $1 million increase.

892
00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:22.080
It might be literally just a $1 million increase

893
00:30:22.080 --> 00:30:24.560
in enterprise value for $1 million increase in sales.

894
00:30:24.560 --> 00:30:26.040
And so, when I look at that,

895
00:30:26.040 --> 00:30:27.240
then you think about the leverage is like, okay,

896
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:28.840
well, if we think that we can triple a business,

897
00:30:28.840 --> 00:30:31.520
or we think we can triple businesses of this type,

898
00:30:31.520 --> 00:30:34.760
well, then I'd rather get $150 million if I

899
00:30:34.760 --> 00:30:36.280
add $3 million to a business

900
00:30:36.280 --> 00:30:39.520
in terms of enterprise value versus three.

901
00:30:39.520 --> 00:30:41.520
And so that's where picking the right opportunity.

902
00:30:41.520 --> 00:30:46.120
Now, usually that comes with increased risk,

903
00:30:46.120 --> 00:30:48.400
because, you know, the number of platforms

904
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:49.560
that have been successful, you can probably,

905
00:30:49.560 --> 00:30:51.120
you know, name on two hands.

906
00:30:52.760 --> 00:30:55.120
So there is a risk adjusted return kind of factor in there.

907
00:30:55.120 --> 00:30:57.400
And so, you know, one degree closer to that

908
00:30:57.400 --> 00:30:58.600
would just be like a SaaS tool.

909
00:30:58.600 --> 00:31:01.560
So just like some sort of tool or software as a service

910
00:31:01.560 --> 00:31:02.800
that you could either be enterprise level

911
00:31:02.800 --> 00:31:05.480
or consumer level, that would probably maybe trade at,

912
00:31:05.480 --> 00:31:07.000
you know, five to 10 times stop line.

913
00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:09.800
Still cool, not the same as a marketplace or platform,

914
00:31:09.800 --> 00:31:11.680
but still a really valuable company.

915
00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:12.680
You know, next to that,

916
00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:15.720
you probably have e-commerce companies, physical products.

917
00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:18.480
They might trade at, you know, one to five times stop line

918
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:19.800
depending on how strong the brand was,

919
00:31:19.800 --> 00:31:21.440
and you know, how recurring the customers were,

920
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:23.000
how sticky they were, et cetera.

921
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:25.680
Gross margins, profitability, growth.

922
00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:29.000
And then, you know, you've got probably brick and mortar chains

923
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:32.120
as a, or actually probably a services business

924
00:31:32.120 --> 00:31:34.520
would be the next one over,

925
00:31:34.520 --> 00:31:36.520
and then probably a chain of brick and mortar,

926
00:31:36.520 --> 00:31:38.480
and then probably some sort of solar operator

927
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:40.360
with non-transactional business,

928
00:31:40.360 --> 00:31:41.680
are very transactional business.

929
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:43.480
And so that's kind of like the range

930
00:31:43.480 --> 00:31:45.880
that you're looking at from most valuable to least valuable.

931
00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:48.680
And there are different competitive dynamics though,

932
00:31:48.680 --> 00:31:51.880
because like if we look at, like we have two chains right now,

933
00:31:51.880 --> 00:31:53.040
that are both relatively large,

934
00:31:53.040 --> 00:31:55.200
so 30 plus locations, that we own 100,

935
00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:57.600
like we own all of the locations, it's not franchise.

936
00:31:58.840 --> 00:32:02.080
One of them, we have four franchisees, sorry, 28, and then four.

937
00:32:03.120 --> 00:32:06.800
But those ones are, the interesting part is that

938
00:32:06.800 --> 00:32:08.000
the people you're competing against

939
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:10.640
are also not, usually not well capitalized,

940
00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:12.240
usually not very sophisticated.

941
00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:15.560
And so there is like a little bit of a landscape

942
00:32:15.560 --> 00:32:16.560
versus like a platform.

943
00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:18.240
You're gonna have super well-funded competitors

944
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:21.200
from very sharp people, lots of stakes,

945
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:22.280
I mean, it's the high stakes game.

946
00:32:22.320 --> 00:32:25.520
And so I think there is definitely like play there,

947
00:32:25.520 --> 00:32:27.480
and we kind of look at all those components

948
00:32:27.480 --> 00:32:29.080
when looking at a deal, which is like, okay,

949
00:32:29.080 --> 00:32:31.440
is this a super hot space right now,

950
00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:33.400
or is this kind of a quiet space?

951
00:32:33.400 --> 00:32:35.600
Okay, so we can just like quietly accumulate

952
00:32:35.600 --> 00:32:38.560
and keep opening one or two or three locations every month.

953
00:32:39.520 --> 00:32:41.840
And the nice thing that I like about brick and mortar

954
00:32:41.840 --> 00:32:43.800
specifically is, and this isn't the only part,

955
00:32:43.800 --> 00:32:45.200
there's just two of our company in the portfolio,

956
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:48.320
but the returns on capital are really, really predictable.

957
00:32:48.320 --> 00:32:50.080
And so it's like if it costs you 100 grand open location,

958
00:32:50.080 --> 00:32:52.880
each location makes 500,000 a year in never cash.

959
00:32:54.080 --> 00:32:55.960
I mean, really good.

960
00:32:55.960 --> 00:32:58.040
You know, and so you can actually just

961
00:32:58.040 --> 00:32:59.000
really, really print money,

962
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:01.360
and that's also one where it's very sellable.

963
00:33:01.360 --> 00:33:02.840
You know, if you go to an acquire

964
00:33:02.840 --> 00:33:05.400
and say we have 100 dry cleaning locations,

965
00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:08.280
they're not really worried about Alex being involved at all.

966
00:33:08.280 --> 00:33:11.280
Right, it's just like, I'm not cleaning the clothes

967
00:33:11.280 --> 00:33:13.600
and I'm not in the ads, so I'm just an owner here.

968
00:33:13.600 --> 00:33:16.000
And so it makes it easy to sell in the back end.

969
00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:18.080
And so anyways, all of those are different dynamics

970
00:33:18.080 --> 00:33:22.520
and kind of feed into like what opportunities is a grants line.

971
00:33:22.520 --> 00:33:24.080
And are you generally moving up the chain then?

972
00:33:24.080 --> 00:33:26.440
So to more like SaaS and platforms is down to the default

973
00:33:26.440 --> 00:33:29.400
and kind of go down from there, makes sense.

974
00:33:29.400 --> 00:33:32.880
Now, we still look at deals, you know what I mean?

975
00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:35.160
If there's a screaming deal that we really like the,

976
00:33:35.160 --> 00:33:37.880
you know, like if anyone has pseudo medical stuff,

977
00:33:37.880 --> 00:33:40.520
so if you're looking, if you have hair treatments

978
00:33:40.520 --> 00:33:43.040
or med spa or laser stuff,

979
00:33:43.040 --> 00:33:45.320
I'm really interested in that space right now,

980
00:33:45.320 --> 00:33:46.400
overall for brick and mortar,

981
00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:48.520
because some of the margins in these business

982
00:33:48.520 --> 00:33:50.840
are phenomenal, the operators are horrendous.

983
00:33:51.840 --> 00:33:53.960
And people are making money who have no idea what they're doing.

984
00:33:53.960 --> 00:33:56.440
And so, yeah, if you're in the spaces,

985
00:33:56.440 --> 00:33:57.720
let me know if you've got like five or eight pages.

986
00:33:57.720 --> 00:33:58.960
Is there a deal in spaces to compete in?

987
00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:00.360
Yeah, those are exactly, you know,

988
00:34:00.360 --> 00:34:02.600
like really good returns on capital, inept operators

989
00:34:02.600 --> 00:34:05.280
and not a lot of like super well capitalized competition.

990
00:34:05.280 --> 00:34:06.320
So speaking of platforms,

991
00:34:06.320 --> 00:34:08.920
I've been following your meteoric rise on YouTube here

992
00:34:08.920 --> 00:34:11.080
in the last, you know, a couple years.

993
00:34:12.080 --> 00:34:14.320
For my understanding, I was watching you with Eric Sue,

994
00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:18.160
shout out Eric, you're spending about $3 million a year

995
00:34:18.160 --> 00:34:19.240
on content.

996
00:34:19.240 --> 00:34:21.640
That's a lot of money for a lot of people.

997
00:34:21.640 --> 00:34:25.600
And, you know, I know that there's probably, you know,

998
00:34:25.600 --> 00:34:28.280
good, good allocation of this obviously

999
00:34:28.280 --> 00:34:30.800
based on, you know, your goals.

1000
00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:33.200
And I'm curious like when you look at that,

1001
00:34:33.200 --> 00:34:35.280
$3 million, like what is that going to?

1002
00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:38.320
You know, is that going to your editors, you know,

1003
00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:39.520
where's this money going?

1004
00:34:39.520 --> 00:34:41.960
It's all team, I mean, it's all payroll.

1005
00:34:41.960 --> 00:34:43.280
So it's all labor.

1006
00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:46.160
So it's, you know, creative director, brand director,

1007
00:34:46.160 --> 00:34:49.200
you know, manager who actually manages, like,

1008
00:34:49.200 --> 00:34:50.880
when all the posts go out across all the platforms,

1009
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:52.760
you know, when you're making, I don't know,

1010
00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:54.440
I think we do 350 posts a week.

1011
00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:56.880
So, you know, it's 50 posts a day

1012
00:34:56.880 --> 00:34:58.200
that happen across all platforms.

1013
00:34:58.200 --> 00:34:59.360
So like, somebody has to manage that.

1014
00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:00.800
It's two, two an hour.

1015
00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:01.960
Right.

1016
00:35:01.960 --> 00:35:03.680
Just like making sure that, you know,

1017
00:35:03.680 --> 00:35:04.840
the eyes are dotted, tees are crossed,

1018
00:35:04.840 --> 00:35:07.560
making sure that the captions are what I would want them to say.

1019
00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:13.000
Which can be, we've solved that pretty well.

1020
00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:14.800
So I'm really proud of how we solve that.

1021
00:35:15.800 --> 00:35:18.000
And then, and then a lot of it's just editors,

1022
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:20.000
just people who, because there's, there's,

1023
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:21.320
there's, there's, being able to,

1024
00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:23.080
so there's like, and, you know,

1025
00:35:23.080 --> 00:35:23.960
my team will correct me, you know,

1026
00:35:23.960 --> 00:35:26.360
probably, Chris, for simplifying it this way,

1027
00:35:26.360 --> 00:35:28.760
but like, one is you have to have somebody

1028
00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:31.080
who can recognize moments that are valuable.

1029
00:35:31.080 --> 00:35:31.920
Yeah.

1030
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:33.720
The next scale is kind of reordering it away

1031
00:35:33.720 --> 00:35:36.600
that would make it a more or more viral

1032
00:35:36.600 --> 00:35:40.480
or more rewarding piece of content for the audience.

1033
00:35:40.920 --> 00:35:43.880
The next piece is understanding,

1034
00:35:43.880 --> 00:35:47.760
does this build the brand or does this just give views?

1035
00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:49.600
Because like, they could probably snip some, you know,

1036
00:35:49.600 --> 00:35:52.120
all ridiculous things that I say at some point

1037
00:35:52.120 --> 00:35:54.160
and probably get a ton of views,

1038
00:35:54.160 --> 00:35:56.920
but it wouldn't build the brand the way that I would want.

1039
00:35:56.920 --> 00:35:58.240
And so you need somebody who has,

1040
00:35:58.240 --> 00:36:01.960
who has the incentive aligned to really take care of the brand,

1041
00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:03.640
understands what moments are valuable

1042
00:36:03.640 --> 00:36:05.080
and understands how to package it

1043
00:36:05.080 --> 00:36:06.880
and then probably also make a contextual

1044
00:36:06.880 --> 00:36:08.200
to the platform that's being distributed on.

1045
00:36:08.200 --> 00:36:10.400
And so that's a lot of kind of different skills

1046
00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:12.680
that pretty much all editors have to have.

1047
00:36:12.680 --> 00:36:13.520
Yeah.

1048
00:36:13.520 --> 00:36:14.640
And that's where having like a really good culture

1049
00:36:14.640 --> 00:36:17.560
within that team and, you know, Caleb does an amazing job.

1050
00:36:17.560 --> 00:36:19.040
Yeah, shut up Caleb, legend.

1051
00:36:19.040 --> 00:36:20.240
Yeah, he is, he's awesome.

1052
00:36:21.240 --> 00:36:22.760
He does an amazing job running that team

1053
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:26.560
and giving the guys creative space

1054
00:36:26.560 --> 00:36:28.800
to both experimental things,

1055
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:30.920
but also still do the 80s, 20 of like, okay,

1056
00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:32.920
this is still the blocking and tackling.

1057
00:36:32.920 --> 00:36:34.680
And so he balances a really good job of like allowing people

1058
00:36:34.680 --> 00:36:36.280
their personal freedom while also making sure

1059
00:36:36.280 --> 00:36:38.080
that we stay within, we paint within the lines.

1060
00:36:38.080 --> 00:36:38.920
Yeah.

1061
00:36:38.920 --> 00:36:39.760
And so when you kind of break down that three mil,

1062
00:36:39.800 --> 00:36:41.440
like, where do you think, like, where's it go back in Africa?

1063
00:36:41.440 --> 00:36:42.840
And then you're obviously going to supply your teams

1064
00:36:42.840 --> 00:36:43.720
in a kill you for this.

1065
00:36:43.720 --> 00:36:45.960
Oh, no, I mean, it's literally what I just outlined.

1066
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:48.160
I mean, it's, you've got, you've got the creative directors,

1067
00:36:48.160 --> 00:36:50.080
we've got managers and then we've got by platform

1068
00:36:50.080 --> 00:36:51.520
and then we've got editors in general.

1069
00:36:51.520 --> 00:36:53.760
And so by platform, you have like one person managing

1070
00:36:53.760 --> 00:36:54.600
just that well.

1071
00:36:54.600 --> 00:36:56.280
And then sometimes there's multiple editors

1072
00:36:56.280 --> 00:36:58.280
underneath depending on how much stuff we put out there.

1073
00:36:58.280 --> 00:36:59.920
Yeah. And so then rewinding to when you started,

1074
00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:01.160
because I think this is useful to people

1075
00:37:01.160 --> 00:37:03.040
that are looking to start an audience from scratch.

1076
00:37:03.040 --> 00:37:04.160
So can they get going?

1077
00:37:04.160 --> 00:37:05.880
You know, I talk a lot about, you know,

1078
00:37:05.880 --> 00:37:07.600
and found out us getting people like a core team

1079
00:37:07.600 --> 00:37:09.400
to start with, you know, you're looking to build your personal brand.

1080
00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:11.000
You maybe need to chief a staff to start getting

1081
00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:12.840
some of the operational stuff off your plate,

1082
00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:15.400
getting a social manager, you know, getting a writer

1083
00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:16.600
because a lot of this stuff, you know,

1084
00:37:16.600 --> 00:37:19.080
takes a lot of writing oftentimes.

1085
00:37:19.080 --> 00:37:20.800
How do you kind of see, you know, the core team

1086
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.240
when you started out and how's that kind of scaled up?

1087
00:37:23.240 --> 00:37:25.640
Like, was there, you know, I've seen a lot of your content

1088
00:37:25.640 --> 00:37:28.400
you've talked about, you know, going from the top down.

1089
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:30.480
So like, I know you brought on Caleb earlier,

1090
00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:32.560
you had experience with the VaynerMedia and doing that side.

1091
00:37:32.560 --> 00:37:35.520
Like, how would you advise someone to architect a squad?

1092
00:37:36.520 --> 00:37:38.520
So this is a really tough question

1093
00:37:38.520 --> 00:37:41.520
because it really depends on the means that you have.

1094
00:37:41.520 --> 00:37:45.520
So for me, I can bring on, you know, multi-six figure people

1095
00:37:45.520 --> 00:37:48.520
right off the bat, knowing I'm not going to get any ROI

1096
00:37:48.520 --> 00:37:49.520
for two years.

1097
00:37:49.520 --> 00:37:50.520
I can do that.

1098
00:37:50.520 --> 00:37:51.520
Let's say you're doing 100K profit

1099
00:37:51.520 --> 00:37:53.520
because there's a lot of guys that I know.

1100
00:37:53.520 --> 00:37:55.520
Then yeah, then I would hire somebody like that

1101
00:37:55.520 --> 00:38:00.520
who has experience building a personal brand to a large degree.

1102
00:38:00.520 --> 00:38:04.520
And what I would actually refrain away from

1103
00:38:04.520 --> 00:38:07.520
is the guys who only talk about views and algorithm stuff

1104
00:38:07.520 --> 00:38:10.520
and like, are what I call hacky.

1105
00:38:10.520 --> 00:38:14.520
Because like, it's like the people who have the biggest brands

1106
00:38:14.520 --> 00:38:16.520
on every platform do none of the things

1107
00:38:16.520 --> 00:38:18.520
that the quote growth experts talk about.

1108
00:38:18.520 --> 00:38:21.520
They just have great brands because they provide value

1109
00:38:21.520 --> 00:38:22.520
to their audience.

1110
00:38:22.520 --> 00:38:24.520
And so you need someone who sees the big picture

1111
00:38:24.520 --> 00:38:28.520
and is not like, hey, we need to do, let's do a listicle.

1112
00:38:28.520 --> 00:38:32.520
It's just like, okay, you know, sure, is that really going to,

1113
00:38:32.520 --> 00:38:34.520
is that going to like really build the brand?

1114
00:38:34.520 --> 00:38:35.520
Yeah, I don't know.

1115
00:38:35.520 --> 00:38:36.520
That got buzzer.

1116
00:38:36.520 --> 00:38:37.520
Yeah, right.

1117
00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:38.520
I mean, actually Buzzfeed is a perfect example

1118
00:38:38.520 --> 00:38:41.520
of like optimizing the crap out of all of the hack stuff

1119
00:38:41.520 --> 00:38:44.520
but like missing, in my opinion, like the main point.

1120
00:38:44.520 --> 00:38:47.520
And so I, I mean, I look at, I look at brands like the rock.

1121
00:38:47.520 --> 00:38:50.520
I look at brands like, I mean, I think the Kardashians

1122
00:38:50.520 --> 00:38:52.520
I look at a lot just from a branding perspective.

1123
00:38:52.520 --> 00:38:53.520
I look at Taylor Swift.

1124
00:38:53.520 --> 00:38:56.520
And you just look at like what the moves they made are.

1125
00:38:56.520 --> 00:38:59.520
Like Taylor Swift's not hacking anything.

1126
00:38:59.520 --> 00:39:00.520
You know what I mean?

1127
00:39:00.520 --> 00:39:05.520
And she has one of the most influential broad bases like ever.

1128
00:39:05.520 --> 00:39:09.520
And that is the type of brand that we strive to build.

1129
00:39:09.520 --> 00:39:11.520
And so you need somebody who really understands that.

1130
00:39:11.520 --> 00:39:14.520
And most people don't because branding is a harder thing

1131
00:39:14.520 --> 00:39:15.520
for most people to understand.

1132
00:39:15.520 --> 00:39:18.520
Like that'll probably be one of the next books

1133
00:39:18.520 --> 00:39:20.520
that I write will be around branding.

1134
00:39:20.520 --> 00:39:22.520
And that'll partially be for my own team

1135
00:39:22.520 --> 00:39:24.520
so that we can be really, really clear.

1136
00:39:24.520 --> 00:39:28.520
Now I, they've heard many of my brands on,

1137
00:39:28.520 --> 00:39:29.520
on branding overall.

1138
00:39:29.520 --> 00:39:32.520
But just to put it in a really succinct way for the masses.

1139
00:39:32.520 --> 00:39:34.520
Cause I think like one of the most underrated,

1140
00:39:34.520 --> 00:39:36.520
I mean, the most underrated scale.

1141
00:39:36.520 --> 00:39:39.520
And the difference between Alex at, you know,

1142
00:39:39.520 --> 00:39:42.520
$100 million dollar net worth versus a billion dollar net worth

1143
00:39:42.520 --> 00:39:43.520
is going to be the brand.

1144
00:39:43.520 --> 00:39:45.520
Like is under my understanding of brand.

1145
00:39:45.520 --> 00:39:47.520
I think will be the pivotal thing that will take us

1146
00:39:47.520 --> 00:39:48.520
from 100 to a billion.

1147
00:39:58.520 --> 00:40:00.520
you