$1M+/yr Local Businesses Hidden in Plain Sight

0:00:03 I have a business that no one on a podcast has ever discussed.
0:00:08 It’s literally the first time this has probably ever been talked about on YouTube or in the audio format.
0:00:10 I’m breaking grounds here.
0:00:11 Okay, Jackie Robinson.
0:00:17 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:00:19 I know I could be what I want to.
0:00:22 I put my all in it like no day’s off.
0:00:24 On the road, let’s travel, never looking back.
0:00:30 So this weekend, I went to my daughter’s spring recital.
0:00:33 And Sam, when you see this, what does this look like?
0:00:35 This just looks like, I don’t know.
0:00:37 Just like a great ballerina, typical.
0:00:38 A program.
0:00:38 Yeah.
0:00:39 Right.
0:00:40 Yeah, show program.
0:00:42 And that’s what everybody in that crowd thought.
0:00:44 But not me.
0:00:45 I saw a business plan, Sam.
0:00:46 I saw a business plan.
0:00:47 I saw information.
0:00:49 I saw a giant information leak.
0:00:50 Okay, so check this out.
0:00:57 This woman has built a million-dollar-plus kids’ dance studio just down the street from us.
0:00:59 And I think this is remarkable.
0:01:04 And I think it’s a good reminder that, like, there’s these million-dollar businesses, like, all around you.
0:01:08 You don’t have to do something really grand or innovative to do it.
0:01:11 You just got to provide a service that people love, and you got to scale it in the right way.
0:01:12 So check this out.
0:01:16 On the back is a list of all the dancers in the show.
0:01:21 Now, all the dancers at the show are all the dancers across her three locations, all the kids, basically.
0:01:22 Everyone performs.
0:01:27 Okay, so I look at this, and everyone else is looking for their kid’s name.
0:01:29 I’m looking for top-line revenue numbers, okay?
0:01:30 I’m trying to figure it out.
0:01:34 And so I see, all right, each of these columns is about 50 names.
0:01:35 There’s six columns.
0:01:38 Okay, we got 300 kids at this dance show.
0:01:39 How much does this cost?
0:01:44 Now, I know that we pay something like $250 a month to be a part of the dance studio.
0:01:46 And this is the spring recital.
0:01:49 So immediately my head says, all right, we’re doing at least spring and fall.
0:01:51 Might even be doing four recitals a year.
0:01:52 I’m not sure.
0:01:57 I had just bought the tickets to this recital, so I know that in addition to the $250 a month membership,
0:02:00 you’re going to be paying for the uniforms.
0:02:03 You’re going to be paying for tickets to watch the show.
0:02:07 Of course, every single parent is going to watch their kid at the thing.
0:02:10 In fact, we brought grandparents with us and a few extras.
0:02:15 But you look around that theater, it’s totally sold out, standing room only.
0:02:23 I know a mom who was in our class who she did not log on to buy her tickets right away and therefore only got two tickets and got them in the back.
0:02:28 And so she kicked her husband out of the two tickets and was like, hey, tell your mother.
0:02:32 She got her mother-in-law to come with a walker so that they could go sit in the ADA seat.
0:02:36 Like, that’s how vicious the competition is for these.
0:02:37 The demand is insatiable.
0:02:37 Okay.
0:02:43 So basically, if you do the math on this and you say, okay, we spent $100 on the tickets for this recital,
0:02:46 then you spent $250 a month, and then you’re in this thing year-round,
0:02:55 you end up seeing that this is a business that’s generating a little over a million dollars a year in revenue.
0:02:56 So about $1.25 million.
0:02:58 So you said 300 names, $250.
0:03:02 That’s $75,000 a month in sales.
0:03:02 A month.
0:03:03 Just off that.
0:03:04 Just off that.
0:03:07 And then you add on the plus-plus, the shows, the tickets, the photos.
0:03:09 Oh, for the photo package, you spend $100.
0:03:13 It’s one thing after another, basically, that they sell to you.
0:03:13 And it’s great.
0:03:14 We’re happy customers.
0:03:16 And so you get there.
0:03:17 She basically does no marketing.
0:03:18 The show is for marketing.
0:03:25 And what ends up happening is that you – and then at the end of the show, she brings out the teachers to take a bow.
0:03:26 These are the teachers.
0:03:27 So I’m like, oh, thank you.
0:03:29 Now I see the OPEX line.
0:03:30 How do we got seven teachers here?
0:03:31 Okay, cool.
0:03:32 Seven teachers.
0:03:33 Got it.
0:03:34 And so I’m trying to figure this out.
0:03:42 Okay, so I’m pretty sure that this dance studio is netting somewhere between $500,000 and $700,000 in EBIT every year.
0:03:43 Okay?
0:03:44 Amazing.
0:03:48 Did she also – did she, like, arrive to the class in, like, an S-class?
0:03:50 Like, what type of car was she driving?
0:03:54 Yeah, I installed a tracking device underneath just to see where she lives now.
0:03:59 Did her Birka bag give out any hints as to how well the business was doing?
0:04:00 Called a Birkin.
0:04:01 Birkin bag, whatever.
0:04:02 I don’t know what she just called it.
0:04:05 Like a Middle Eastern bag that she just referenced.
0:04:08 The other day, Sarah wanted to go to, like, some concert.
0:04:10 And I was like, yeah, like, Charlie XC90.
0:04:13 And, you know, it’s actually, like, Charlie – I forget what it is.
0:04:15 You know, like, this new, like, hot girl or whatever.
0:04:15 I also don’t know.
0:04:17 That’s one of those where I just don’t say it.
0:04:18 XC90 is a Volvo.
0:04:20 I was like, yeah, Charlie XC90.
0:04:22 So he kept saying, like, XC90.
0:04:24 It’s like XC something.
0:04:26 All right, but go ahead.
0:04:40 So I just thought this was inspiring, that, like, this local – just this local service, dance shows for little kids, or dance classes for little kids, scaled to three locations, can be, you know, such a great business for somebody.
0:04:43 And they’re basically kind of, like, found that sweet spot of doing what they love.
0:04:45 She’s been doing it for, like, 25 years now.
0:04:53 She’s an institution locally, has a great community of people around her, and, you know, is making people happy, making families happy.
0:04:54 And I’ve just been seeing this everywhere.
0:04:56 All right, let me – can I – let me show you something interesting.
0:05:02 I was just talking to this guy, but have you ever heard of Goldfish Swimming Classes?
0:05:03 No.
0:05:10 It’s a franchise that I’m pretty sure does about $600 million a year in revenue, and it’s a children’s swim class.
0:05:12 And it was one of those things where he was talking to me.
0:05:21 He was basically – I’m not going to – I can’t reveal too much, but he was like, I quit my prestigious job because I want to get into the swim class business.
0:05:26 You know, everyone’s, like, probably giving this guy the same, like, look of, like, but you’re throwing it all the way.
0:05:32 And I kind of, like, was like, all right, tell me more because I’m sure there’s, like, there’s a story here because you worked in finance.
0:05:34 Like, you’re not doing this to feel good.
0:05:34 Tell me more.
0:05:38 And he started breaking down the economics of this Goldfish chain.
0:05:45 And he was saying something like each location does, like, $2 million in revenue, and they have something like 300 locations.
0:05:50 All right, here’s the deal.
0:05:52 If HubSpot tripled their price, I’d be screwed.
0:05:56 The reason I would be screwed is because my entire company is run on HubSpot.com.
0:06:02 My website, my email marketing, my dashboards, how I track my customers, literally everything.
0:06:08 And if they tripled the price, I would pay them more money, and that’s because the product is so freaking powerful.
0:06:10 My entire company is built on it.
0:06:15 And so if you’re running a business and you want to grow faster, you want to grow better, you want to be more organized, check it out, HubSpot.com.
0:06:16 All right, back to the pod.
0:06:19 Yeah, I’m on their site.
0:06:20 They got a lot of locations.
0:06:21 I don’t know about 300, but they got a lot.
0:06:23 It was something insane like that.
0:06:27 And it was another one of those things that was just, like, hidden in plain sight.
0:06:30 But I have a hidden in plain sight business.
0:06:37 Not hidden in plain sight, but a business that, like, no one on earth has, no one on a podcast has ever discussed.
0:06:41 And this is going to be the thing I’m about to talk about.
0:06:46 It’s literally the first time this has probably ever been talked about on YouTube or in the audio format.
0:06:48 I’m breaking grounds here.
0:06:50 Okay, Jackie Robinson.
0:06:56 Is there a Hall of Fame for things like these?
0:06:58 Because I would be in it.
0:07:00 All right.
0:07:03 So I just slacked you a URL.
0:07:08 Go to dysbuilders.com.
0:07:09 So you’re on this website.
0:07:11 Let me tell you a story really quick.
0:07:16 You know how the Amish are famous for creating amazing furniture?
0:07:17 Mm-hmm.
0:07:22 I wanted to buy, like, a bed for my kid.
0:07:27 And I wanted, like, an heirloom quality bed where I was like, man, I wish I had my bed from when I was a kid.
0:07:28 My crib from when I was a kid.
0:07:33 How cool would it be to give my daughter a bed that I can, you know, reuse for all of our kids.
0:07:35 And eventually one of them can let their kids do it.
0:07:36 So my grandkids have my bed.
0:07:38 So I was looking up Amish furniture.
0:07:44 And I came across this website randomly because I got interested in the Amish, like, craftsmanship.
0:07:47 Now, this website, it’s at dysbuilders.com.
0:07:48 I think they make homes.
0:07:51 Scroll all the way to the bottom where it says contact.
0:07:54 And read to me the email address that you see.
0:07:59 dysbuilders at ibyfax.com.
0:08:00 Okay.
0:08:04 So I noticed, this is just one example because it was easy to see.
0:08:15 But I noticed on many of these Amish websites, when I was looking at how to, like, place an order, I had to email, like, you know, amisfurniture at ibyfax.com.
0:08:21 There was all these really weird URLs that I had to email to fax.
0:08:22 And I got really curious.
0:08:27 So I want you to go to ibyfax.com.
0:08:29 It says, send and receive emails with your fax machine.
0:08:32 So I was seeing this.
0:08:35 And I got a tip from one of our listeners, Andy Allen.
0:08:36 And he emailed me this.
0:08:39 And it was just all coincidence that, like, six months prior, I was, like, wondering what this was.
0:08:43 So let me tell you the background of this.
0:08:47 So if you’re Amish or you’re Mennonite, a lot of them are very entrepreneurial.
0:08:49 And they work with the outside world.
0:08:53 So they make furniture that they sell to, you know, people like me.
0:08:54 They have websites.
0:09:02 However, according to their religion, they are not allowed to use certain technology that’s considered individualistic.
0:09:14 So looking down on your iPhone or sitting down in your home and staring at a computer screen, they think that it either brings, like, things either bring them closer to God and other people or it takes them away.
0:09:18 And they feel, according to their rules, that, like, looking at your phone and using the Internet brings them away from other people.
0:09:22 However, they have all these websites and they sell furniture.
0:09:23 Well, how do they do it?
0:09:25 Well, there’s this small website.
0:09:29 I think it’s called iBuyFax, as in InternetBuyFax.com.
0:09:37 And it’s a service where you pay something like $20 a month plus, like, $0.10 or $0.50 per fax.
0:09:46 But basically, on the campus, I don’t know what they call it, the campus of a lot of Amish towns, there is literally, like, a small house, like a shanty.
0:09:49 And in that small house is a fax machine.
0:10:02 And if you’re an Amish guy running a website and you want to see how your orders are doing or somebody emails you and they’re asking a question about a bed frame and, like, can you do this or can you do that, they go to this fax machine and this phone.
0:10:07 They have in their small box, which I have a photo of, by the way, in our document.
0:10:11 But it’s, like, literally a tiny, tiny little outhouse.
0:10:18 It’s, like, a little outhouse where you make the call and you talk to your customer, but you have to use iBuyFax.
0:10:25 And so the iBuyFax service, what they’re going to do is they’re going to collect all of your emails and they’re going to fat, they’re going to.
0:10:27 This photo is outrageous.
0:10:28 It’s outrageous.
0:10:29 It’s like an outhouse.
0:10:33 It’s literally, it looks like a phone booth slash port-a-potty.
0:10:38 It’s in the middle of the road and on the wall is just a tiny phone, like a corded, a phone with a cord.
0:10:39 Yes.
0:10:40 And so that’s because.
0:10:41 There’s not even a fax machine.
0:10:42 Where’s the fax machine?
0:10:43 So some of them have fax machines.
0:10:44 Some of them have phones.
0:10:54 And so iBuyFax, they’ll either call you and be, like, the middleman and answer the questions, like, hey, Linda at gmail.com, she’s in this place.
0:10:56 She wants to know, can you make a bed like this?
0:10:59 Or Dave wants a child’s bed, but he wants it to be in this color.
0:11:00 Can you do it?
0:11:01 And they’ll reply.
0:11:11 And they’ll either handwrite the reply and fax it back, or iBuyFax has people who they say that they will actually, you talk to them, and they’ll be your middleman.
0:11:19 And another thing that they’ll do is, let’s say that you need, let’s say you want to buy something off eBay, or you’re trying to figure out what the price is of a certain farm equipment.
0:11:24 You can ask, iBuyFax, please tell me, you know, how much it would cost to buy blank on eBay.
0:11:28 And they’ll reply back by fax or telephone answering your question.
0:11:34 And so this way, the Amish can do business with the rest of the world, but aren’t breaking their rules.
0:11:40 And this website that I found, it’s used on all of the websites.
0:11:47 So if you look at Amish furniture, if they’re like really OG Amish, a huge percentage of them are using this website.
0:11:50 And the Amish community, it’s not tiny.
0:11:52 It’s about 400,000 people.
0:12:01 And they are like very entrepreneurial, like that’s like part of like the religion is to be like self-reliant or part of the community rules is to be like self-reliant.
0:12:04 And like Amish furniture is definitely like a well-known thing.
0:12:06 Amish crafts of all types are a well-known thing.
0:12:13 And this guy who emailed me, he goes, I own a business that buys and sells wooden pallets.
0:12:15 And in particular, we are based in Pennsylvania.
0:12:18 And so we work with mostly Amish people.
0:12:24 And whenever they communicate with us, which we work with a lot of them, they only communicate with us by iBuyFax.com.
0:12:26 And they’re all using this website.
0:12:29 And this website, here’s where it gets kind of funny.
0:12:31 I looked on LinkedIn.
0:12:34 I can’t find too much about any of the background on it.
0:12:36 The only, and I’m not going to blow this guy’s spot up too much.
0:12:38 So I’ll only say his first name.
0:12:41 The owner, his first name is Jamal.
0:12:47 And so in my head, I’m like, and he lives in New York.
0:12:54 I’m like, is there a brother who just came up with a brilliant idea to create an Amish faxing website?
0:12:57 And is this like how we cheer the world?
0:13:04 I swear to God, that’s his first name.
0:13:06 So is he Amish or no, when you found him?
0:13:08 No, he lives in New York.
0:13:09 No, he lives in New York.
0:13:10 And his first name is Jamal.
0:13:11 I can’t find a photo of him.
0:13:15 But like, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t think he is.
0:13:18 Because the Amish can’t work websites.
0:13:21 So like you have to be like an ally, you know what I’m saying?
0:13:22 But you can’t be part of the community.
0:13:23 This is great.
0:13:25 That is so funny.
0:13:27 Be like Jamal is like the new slogan.
0:13:29 Find the opportunity.
0:13:30 Be like Jamal.
0:13:41 By the way, why don’t people like, could you just basically go buy a bunch of, could you work with the Amish by fax and just be like, cool, I’m going to buy furniture from you.
0:13:55 But you have, you run a website, so you run a website, when somebody comes, places an order with you, and your website says, made by the Amish, Amish made furniture, handcrafted Amish furniture, finest Amish fine goods, whatever.
0:13:58 And then when somebody places an order with you, you just fax these guys and sell?
0:14:00 Like, could you just be a layer on top selling to them?
0:14:00 Yeah, so.
0:14:02 Or do they say no to that?
0:14:09 Well, first of all, I think that like there is some fraud there of like, yeah, we’re Amish, like, you know, and they’re not, you know, they’re not.
0:14:11 No, but I’m saying you really do buy it from them.
0:14:17 Yeah, I think that the way, yes, I think, and they call, so they call those people, I think the slang that they use is English.
0:14:24 So like, they have an English guy, they like an English guy, meaning that’s like their straight man, their front man who like can work with the world.
0:14:29 And he’s, he’s, we trust him, you know, he’s an outsider, but like, he’s, you know, he’s had our back for decades.
0:14:30 So we trust him.
0:14:33 I guess that’s for Jamal in this case, but you can have other.
0:14:35 Yeah, you’re like a dealer.
0:14:43 Yeah, you can have like, and they have like a name for that, which is like, they call it English, but it’s like, yeah, it’s a well-known thing that this is our person who’s got our back and we give them a cut.
0:14:47 On this doc, it says AWS for the Amish.
0:14:47 What is that?
0:14:48 Do you like that?
0:14:51 That’s just a little, I was workshopping.
0:14:51 Yeah.
0:14:58 I was workshopping.
0:14:59 What do you think about that?
0:15:00 That’s good.
0:15:01 I like that.
0:15:05 This is a pretty nifty website.
0:15:12 And if you go to a similar web and look at their, and guess their traffic, it’s not nothing.
0:15:12 Yeah.
0:15:13 400,000 Amish people.
0:15:20 Let’s just assume for a second that of the entrepreneurial Amish people, a very high percentage of them are going to need to use a service like this.
0:15:29 So if you say that even 5% of Amish people are entrepreneurial of the Amish population, but maybe it’s a little high.
0:15:31 Let’s say there’s 20,000 people.
0:15:37 I think you could pretty easily get to some version where you have 5,000 customers paying this thing, 20 bucks a month.
0:15:39 That’s a $1 million business.
0:15:40 It’s a $1.2 million.
0:15:42 Sure, that’s the exact math that I had.
0:15:45 I said $1 to $1.2 million a year.
0:15:47 And I’m pretty sure it’s just this guy.
0:15:49 Jamal is the only guy running it.
0:15:53 I think his name could have been Javal, J-A-V-A-L.
0:15:55 But like it was some name.
0:16:02 Do you think Jamal just, does he have trouble sleeping because he just laughs himself to sleep every night thinking about what his career is?
0:16:04 He’s like, I just can’t believe it.
0:16:06 I’m just tickled.
0:16:08 I just can’t believe that this is what I did.
0:16:08 And I’m a millionaire.
0:16:10 This is called providing value.
0:16:10 This is it.
0:16:11 Oh, it’s for sure.
0:16:18 And I just know that these Amish guys, they’re not exactly known for, you know, being open to change.
0:16:27 So once you get a customer, like you’re with them, like they measure or they measure churn, not like in terms of like, you know, like percentages per year, but it’s like per generation.
0:16:31 Because this is absolutely something that is going to be passed on from generation to generation.
0:16:35 And the website looks like it was launched like web 1.0.
0:16:38 Yeah, there’s like seven sentences on the site.
0:16:39 All right.
0:16:40 This is amazing.
0:16:43 So this episode is basically local million dollar businesses.
0:16:45 That’s what this episode is.
0:16:46 You want me to do one more?
0:16:48 I have one more that could fit in this category.
0:16:50 This one, it’s depressing.
0:16:51 But well, okay.
0:16:53 So when you have…
0:16:54 Don’t do it if it’s depressing.
0:16:55 Well, it’s important.
0:17:00 So when you have to euthanize your pet, it’s like a horrible experience.
0:17:01 Obviously, it’s like the worst thing next to your children.
0:17:05 And so I used a service that came to my house.
0:17:10 And it like was the best of the horrible situation.
0:17:12 It couldn’t have been better for the worst thing ever.
0:17:18 And I, after, you know, I’m a nerd, like after a few months, I was like, this service, like, it was like phenomenal.
0:17:19 What was this?
0:17:20 How did I learn about this?
0:17:23 Google at home pet euthanasia.
0:17:25 It’s the first one that comes up because they crush.
0:17:27 I’m not, I’m not Googling that.
0:17:27 Okay.
0:17:28 Bad karma.
0:17:29 Not doing it.
0:17:29 Okay.
0:17:30 It’s called…
0:17:31 I don’t even want that in my search history.
0:17:33 Lap of love.
0:17:35 So lapoflove.com is the website.
0:17:38 And I was reading this press release by them.
0:17:40 And here’s how this business works.
0:17:42 So they have vets.
0:17:43 So they contract it all out.
0:17:46 So they have like best practices that they use.
0:17:47 And then they are like the call center.
0:17:51 And they dish it out to a local vet who, you know, does what they need to do.
0:17:53 And they teach them their ways, whatever.
0:18:00 This website, Lap of Love, they put out a press release that said that they are getting 10,000 customers a week.
0:18:04 And they charge, I think, $600.
0:18:12 And so if you do the math, this business is making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, of which they split with the vet.
0:18:17 But I was like, very happy with my service with these guys.
0:18:24 And it was amazing that I had never heard of it and how this company just owns the entire space.
0:18:24 Wow.
0:18:26 10,000 a week.
0:18:27 Can you believe that?
0:18:29 How did you even know that that was a thing?
0:18:30 How did you find out about it?
0:18:32 Well, it’s word of mouth.
0:18:35 You know, like your wife or me was like…
0:18:35 Telling people.
0:18:35 Yeah.
0:18:36 We were like, look, this is horrible.
0:18:38 I don’t want to do this.
0:18:39 And they’re like, well, I use this service.
0:18:45 And you hear about that one-liner and you’re like, oh, my God, that’s so much better than the alternative.
0:18:47 And that’s how we found it.
0:18:49 And I was like researching it.
0:18:51 And what they do is they…
0:18:51 Because I was like Googling.
0:18:54 They just own…
0:18:59 Like if you Google that word, you know, like related phrases, they own the Yelp pages in every city.
0:19:05 So it will be like at-home pet euthanasia in New York, in Nashville, in this.
0:19:08 And they grow entirely through local search.
0:19:09 Wow.
0:19:11 That’s a crazy business.
0:19:13 It’s a crazy business, isn’t it?
0:19:13 That’s a crazy business.
0:19:15 And so like…
0:19:17 And they said how much…
0:19:18 10,000 a week, you said?
0:19:19 Sorry, I got confused.
0:19:20 10,000 a month.
0:19:22 So they handle 10,000 a month.
0:19:26 And it costs anywhere from $500 to $1,000, depending on a variety of things.
0:19:27 But isn’t this wild?
0:19:28 And it is like…
0:19:32 This is another one of services where it sucks, but like it’s incredibly necessary.
0:19:36 And I was amazed at how large this was.
0:19:37 All right.
0:19:37 Here’s another one.
0:19:41 Under the radar business that just crushes with local businesses.
0:19:45 I saw this guy, Tane, on Twitter talk about this.
0:19:46 He said…
0:19:46 Who?
0:19:48 I don’t know how you say his name exactly.
0:19:49 Don’t make me say it again.
0:19:49 Okay.
0:19:49 Sorry.
0:19:50 All right.
0:19:51 So…
0:19:58 I just found out I’ve been calling my piano teacher, Steven, and his name is Vinny for like
0:19:59 the last two months.
0:20:02 All right.
0:20:06 I’m still reconciling that fact of what I’ve been doing.
0:20:07 Did he just take it?
0:20:11 Well, I didn’t say it often, and I say it fast, because I was like…
0:20:12 I was a little unsure.
0:20:14 But dude, I was slow…
0:20:16 Saying the word Vinny slow does not sound like you’re saying…
0:20:19 Or saying the word Vinny fast does not sound like you’re saying Steven at all.
0:20:21 I’d be like, all right, say bye to Steven.
0:20:26 So I’d tell my daughter to say bye, and then she would say bye, Steven.
0:20:27 And I’d be like, oh, my God.
0:20:29 His name’s Vinny.
0:20:33 Blame her.
0:20:38 Listen, honey, you’re going to learn an important lesson today.
0:20:39 It’s called taking one for the team.
0:20:45 I need you to tell him, to say out loud the following words today.
0:20:46 All right.
0:20:50 So there’s this business called Taro, and Taro…
0:20:56 His tweet was, today I learned about Taro, a $100 million company that routes phone orders
0:20:59 from Chinese sushi and pizza restaurants in the U.S. to call centers in the Philippines.
0:21:06 All right, folks, this is a quick plug for a podcast called I Digress.
0:21:10 If you’re trying to grow your business, but feel like you’re drowning in buzzwords and BS,
0:21:12 then check out the I Digress podcast.
0:21:15 It’s hosted by this guy named Troy Sandage.
0:21:19 He’s helped launch over 35 brands that drive $175 million in revenue.
0:21:23 So if you want to get smarter about scaling your business, listen to I Digress wherever
0:21:24 you get your podcasts.
0:21:25 All right, back to the pod.
0:21:33 And so what it does is, what these guys did was, these two brothers, back in 2015, they
0:21:36 start this business and they’re basically like, hey, we’ll help local businesses take orders
0:21:37 over the phone.
0:21:39 We will be your phone staff.
0:21:40 So your staff is busy.
0:21:43 You don’t want to have somebody on the phones or just constantly interrupting their workflow.
0:21:46 We’ll just take the call and then we’ll put the order into your system.
0:21:48 And so they started doing that.
0:21:55 They’ve, uh, they basically serve service 3000 local restaurants in the United States
0:21:56 with phone ordering.
0:22:02 And they basically are like, cool, like we’ll do this for 10% cheaper than your labor costs
0:22:03 if you do this yourself.
0:22:08 And by having phone ordering, you’re going to get an extra 10 to 20% of revenue that you
0:22:09 wouldn’t otherwise get.
0:22:10 Simple, simple proposition, right?
0:22:14 Get more revenue and I can do it for you at a lower cost than you could do this for yourself.
0:22:18 And by the way, nobody cares who picks up the phone to take this order.
0:22:22 They, um, as of this year say that they reached a hundred million dollar run rate.
0:22:24 And, um…
0:22:25 And how do you spell it?
0:22:27 T-A-R-R-O.
0:22:30 And it stands for technology all restaurants run on.
0:22:34 It’s the Adidas of online phone ordering.
0:22:40 Uh, and is this bootstrapped?
0:22:45 Uh, I don’t think it’s, I don’t know if it’s bootstrapped or not, but, uh, it could be because
0:22:47 this is the type of business you could definitely bootstrapped.
0:22:48 It’s like a heavy cash flow business.
0:22:52 Well, now it says that it’s AI powered phone ordering.
0:22:54 Does that mean that they don’t use Filipinos anymore?
0:22:55 I think both.
0:22:56 Right.
0:22:57 So I think it’s basically…
0:22:59 Is AI a name of one of their workers?
0:23:05 There’s Alfred Ignacio over there.
0:23:07 He’s powering all your orders.
0:23:09 Um, it’s both.
0:23:12 So I think there’s, there’s funny things happening with AI and call centers.
0:23:16 So there’s like AI tools that will change the accent of the person.
0:23:20 So they, you know, you call somebody there in India, but their Indian accent gets remixed
0:23:22 on the fly using AI.
0:23:24 So it sounds like he’s Steve in Wichita.
0:23:28 And so that’s like one tool that all these guys are using now is like the AI doesn’t take
0:23:32 the order, but they just changed the accent so that you have an American accent.
0:23:33 What’s that called?
0:23:35 Uh, I don’t know.
0:23:36 There’s a few, a few companies trying to do that.
0:23:38 Um, so there’s accent changers.
0:23:44 There’s AI handles just, let’s say 50 to 70% of the routine things.
0:23:49 And then it routes to the human in the sort of 50 to 30 to 50% of, of calls that couldn’t
0:23:50 be solved with AI.
0:23:56 So like basically AI is the AI makes their call center need like, you know, half as many people
0:23:56 as it did before.
0:23:59 And that’s the rest is just profit that just falls to the bottom line for them.
0:24:02 Um, so there’s, there’s some cool stuff happening with that.
0:24:07 It’s actually kind of interesting to track call center stocks to see what the market thinks
0:24:07 is going on.
0:24:08 Like, are they going to be extinct?
0:24:10 Like his call center is just going to go away.
0:24:14 Are they actually going to be, are they going to survive, but become much more profitable
0:24:17 because now they’re AI powered and they cut a lot of their human costs.
0:24:19 It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
0:24:19 Yeah.
0:24:20 What happened to that?
0:24:23 Interesting, you know, to the most boring person on earth, I guess.
0:24:27 What happened to like the NBA playoffs are on.
0:24:28 I guess that’s probably more interesting.
0:24:30 Yeah.
0:24:33 But if you’re like listening to this podcast, you definitely might be in that category of
0:24:35 people who are, but it’s boring.
0:24:39 What’s a, like, I think Coachella was last weekend and I only was watching the live stream
0:24:40 of the Berkshire Hathaway conference.
0:24:45 What’s the name of that really big company?
0:24:47 Was it called Task Us or something like that?
0:24:47 Yeah.
0:24:49 Are they publicly traded?
0:24:53 I think they are.
0:24:56 Is their market cap just getting obliterated right now because of all this?
0:24:59 It’s a $1.2 billion market cap.
0:25:01 And yeah, it’s down in five years.
0:25:04 It’s down like 5X.
0:25:09 But it’s been, yeah, it’s been, it got nuked basically from, well, it kind of was at the
0:25:10 peak of the 2021 range.
0:25:11 So like, let’s see.
0:25:17 Yeah, it basically went public right at like the peak of the market, like September 2021
0:25:19 and then has just been down since then.
0:25:22 I have gotten, oh yeah, you’re right.
0:25:23 So it could be, it’s a bunch of stuff.
0:25:23 Yeah.
0:25:25 Dude, by the way, I just invested this company.
0:25:28 I think you might actually be an investor.
0:25:29 Are you an investor in owner.com?
0:25:30 Yeah.
0:25:30 Yeah.
0:25:31 He’s cool.
0:25:33 That thing is crushing.
0:25:34 It’s crushing.
0:25:37 This business owner.com is kind of amazing.
0:25:42 So what they’re doing is they go to restaurants across America and they’re basically like,
0:25:46 Hey, you, you need software.
0:25:47 You hate your current software.
0:25:48 You’re using 15 different tools.
0:25:50 Use the owner system instead.
0:25:50 Okay.
0:25:53 It’s actually like not that new of a pitch.
0:25:57 You know, there’s other companies that have claimed to be like, oh, we’re an all-in-one
0:26:00 or we have the best point of sale checkout system.
0:26:05 And these guys have just got it like really, really right because they’re growing incredibly
0:26:05 fast.
0:26:11 And so what they do is they go to a company and they’re like, Hey, look today, if I Google,
0:26:12 there’s a great case study on their website.
0:26:15 Like if your case study is good, this is when I decided to invest.
0:26:17 I was like doing like the diligence on it.
0:26:21 And I was, I watched their case study and most case studies on business websites are awful.
0:26:21 God awful.
0:26:25 I watched it and I was so thoroughly convinced.
0:26:28 And I just thought to myself, if they do their case studies this well, imagine how they’re
0:26:30 doing like the other important parts of their business.
0:26:34 Cause this is like a, you know, the, the sort of like the thing that’s a kind of a throwaway
0:26:36 for most businesses and they’re pretty poor at execution.
0:26:42 So it was this dude who was a pizza shop owner in somewhere, maybe Pennsylvania or somewhere
0:26:42 like that.
0:26:46 And he’s basically showing, he’s like, look, if you Googled my pizza shop’s name, if you
0:26:53 Googled like whatever, like town slice pizza, Pennsylvania, the first result is slice.
0:26:55 The second result is DoorDash.
0:26:59 The third result is like all these other companies are stealing my, like people are searching for
0:26:59 me.
0:27:03 They’re not searching for DoorDash and they make these websites that rank in SEO.
0:27:05 It’s about, I was on page two.
0:27:08 And he’s like, basically I started working with owner and owner.
0:27:12 First of all, now I’m the first result because I’m the first result.
0:27:15 When people are searching for my business, those orders come through me directly.
0:27:20 I don’t have to pay DoorDash, the 15% fee, uh, my, on my website and my online ordering
0:27:21 works really well.
0:27:22 Cause that’s what owner does.
0:27:23 They provide that like out of the box.
0:27:25 I don’t have to know anything about tech to be able to do that.
0:27:29 And then, uh, you know, I get these, I get customers emails and phone numbers and I’m
0:27:33 able to text them and we have promotions and sales and deals and things like that.
0:27:36 And basically I’m making an extra like 10 grand a month.
0:27:37 And that’s huge for me.
0:27:40 Like, that’s like a, that’s like the difference between being on the brink of failure or having
0:27:41 like a margin of safety.
0:27:44 It’s the difference of like hiring an extra person or not.
0:27:50 And, um, and I just saw like that, that same like business proposition, which is like,
0:27:52 look, you’re it’s 2025.
0:27:54 You need to have a website.
0:27:58 You need to be able to take online orders yourself and you need to rank for your own name at the
0:27:58 top of Google.
0:28:03 And, um, look, you don’t want to have to deal with, you know, 15 tools to be able to do that.
0:28:06 And we should do it for you out of the box and do it really well.
0:28:08 And this business is scaling very, very fast right now.
0:28:10 Very impressive growth.
0:28:16 And, uh, this guy seems like one of those founders that’s kind of like high octane.
0:28:21 Um, I don’t know him super well yet, uh, but just seems very, very high octane.
0:28:22 I’m pretty sure.
0:28:27 The intro I got to him was someone said, this is the best company I’ve ever invested in.
0:28:28 And this is the best founder I’ve ever invested in.
0:28:33 And I was like, are you just saying words or like, do you mean these words?
0:28:34 And he’s like, I mean these words.
0:28:36 So I could be wrong, but I mean them.
0:28:38 I was like, wow, that’s a hell of an endorsement.
0:28:42 The way that I invested in him was way less fancy as yours.
0:28:46 I just, Jason Lemkin was like, he’s the best.
0:28:47 And I just said, okay.
0:28:53 And, and I remember talking to him and when I talked to him, he, this was, I think, no,
0:28:59 maybe this was four years ago, he was 21 years old and he was telling me a story.
0:29:04 And once I heard like 21 years old and Jason Lemkin saying he’s the best, I was like, well,
0:29:05 okay, cool.
0:29:06 I think, I think I’m in.
0:29:09 And the valuation I believe was really, really expensive.
0:29:13 It was like a, a nine figure something valuation.
0:29:14 Yeah.
0:29:17 And, uh, I was like, this has got to be huge to like really be worth it.
0:29:20 And I think he’s going to actually make it a massive, massive business.
0:29:21 Have you ever even talked to him?
0:29:23 Only through email.
0:29:24 We traded like five emails in one night.
0:29:27 Cause I was like, tell me the answer to these five questions.
0:29:28 And then he did.
0:29:31 He is, uh, the terminator.
0:29:34 When I had a conversation with him, I was like, oh, you’re going to destroy everything in your
0:29:34 path.
0:29:41 Like I, I could sense that, but he gave me that vibe where I was like, I don’t want to be
0:29:41 your enemy.
0:29:43 You’re on a high protein diet, huh?
0:29:50 He’s, uh, on his videos for work and stuff like his like YouTube videos or whenever they
0:29:53 got to do like interviews, he’s like a, comes off like a really sweet, nice guy.
0:29:58 When I talked to him one-on-one, uh, I was, I, he’s incredibly intense.
0:30:03 He, he will annihilate people in an ethical, good way.
0:30:07 But like, he’s the type of guy where, uh, I do not want to compete against this guy.
0:30:10 It’s so funny how you get a vibe off people and, um, very quickly.
0:30:15 So like, I remember Joe Rogan once described somebody, he was describing somebody who he
0:30:19 just thought was just like a, in his mind, I don’t know, just like a total loser, but like
0:30:20 just like a nose, like a spineless person.
0:30:24 And he, and, but the way he was describing them, he was like, he’s like, they just had
0:30:25 no energy.
0:30:28 You don’t meet somebody and like, are your veins empty?
0:30:31 Like, where’s the, is there any blood in your veins?
0:30:35 And I just remember when he said that immediately in my mind, I could think of three people who are
0:30:37 like that, just like very low energy people in my life.
0:30:42 And then you can meet these other people that literally like, they walk at a different pace.
0:30:44 They have like a different amount of energy.
0:30:48 I remember like when we were, um, hanging out in North Carolina and Mr. Beast took us to Walmart
0:30:49 to like show us the things.
0:30:53 And I remember like, I was like, why is this dude walking so fast?
0:30:56 Like this guy’s literally like, has like a little, like an extra heartbeat or something
0:30:57 in his cadence.
0:30:59 He’s just like walking faster than everybody else.
0:31:01 And literally had more energy than anybody else.
0:31:03 And he was busier than everybody else.
0:31:09 And I couldn’t tell like, is he so busy because he’s got so much energy or did he have to
0:31:11 raise his level of energy?
0:31:15 Does this guy have just more ATP in his body because his schedule demanded it?
0:31:19 And I’m not, I still don’t know like cause and effect of that, but it was very obvious
0:31:23 to me as I’ve met more and more people that literally having more energy is a common trait
0:31:25 of like the most successful people.
0:31:26 And I don’t know if it’s cause or effect.
0:31:32 I was, uh, so I, I’ve got a, uh, you know, I think we have a small team, maybe 15 people.
0:31:37 And a lot of them are these like young 25 year olds and they’re animals, like they’re rabid
0:31:40 animals and they like do crazy animal stuff.
0:31:44 And every once in a while I got to correct them and I have to remind them, stay crazy.
0:31:46 Just like, I need to direct you crazy a little bit.
0:31:50 And they were asking what I meant and I was trying to think of like, well, how can I give
0:31:51 you a good analogy?
0:31:54 And I was like, have you guys ever seen a curling?
0:31:58 I was like, you know, like when they take like that big rock that like is capable of just
0:32:01 smashing through everything if it wanted it to, and they push it.
0:32:05 And then there’s all those people in the front with like these brooms that are just like sweeping
0:32:10 the area to make sure like everything, like the path that you need to that, that, that big
0:32:13 rock that’s a, like a brute force, like blunt object.
0:32:17 So you are just guiding it to in the right lanes and it’s like clearing the path.
0:32:23 I was like, I’m the broom and you’re the rock and someone’s, we’re going to, we’re going
0:32:28 to push you down this lane and I just need to be in front of you constantly like clearing
0:32:28 the space.
0:32:33 And, uh, if, if I’m ever not clearing the space for you, uh, or I need to reprimand you, it’s
0:32:38 just me kind of saying like, Hey, I need you to go like into this direction, but you need
0:32:40 to continue being like this brute force rock.
0:32:41 Yeah.
0:32:42 That’s just going to like smash through stuff.
0:32:46 And it’s just our job to like change, uh, directions every once in a while, but I need
0:32:48 you to like stay what you are.
0:32:53 And that is when I know I’ve hired the right people is when a, I feel like that.
0:32:56 And B, sometimes I feel like I’m intimidated by them.
0:33:02 Like, have you ever hired someone and you’re like, uh, uh, I, I want to keep you happy because
0:33:06 if you go like, like if you, if you go work for someone else, it’s going to be bad news.
0:33:08 Or, uh, you like almost get intimidated.
0:33:11 Have you ever had someone who you hired, who you’re intimidated by?
0:33:14 I mean, I don’t know if intimidate is the right word, but I think I know what you mean.
0:33:18 Like Furkan was like this, like, uh, immediately I was like, Oh, Whoa.
0:33:19 Okay.
0:33:24 So it’s there’s, there’s no, yeah, but it’s like, yeah, he’s super smart, but he doesn’t
0:33:25 know anything about business.
0:33:25 Nope.
0:33:26 Actually he does.
0:33:26 Yeah.
0:33:29 But he doesn’t, you know, he doesn’t, he doesn’t work that hard.
0:33:29 Nope.
0:33:31 Actually he works way harder than everybody else.
0:33:33 So it’s like, wait, wait, wait, you’re, there’s no butts.
0:33:37 It’s just super smart and works super hard and is like well-rounded and knows, knows enough
0:33:39 about the other stuff to get it right.
0:33:40 It’s like, Holy shit.
0:33:40 Okay.
0:33:44 You know, and, and, and I would say the biggest thing is like their self-assumption.
0:33:48 So how do they carry themselves and how do they think about themselves?
0:33:52 You hire a lot of people that want to fit into your company or they want to defer to you
0:33:55 or they defer to your judgment and every once in a while you hire somebody that doesn’t want
0:33:56 to do any of those things.
0:33:58 They come in, they see broken stuff.
0:33:58 They want to fix it.
0:34:00 They don’t think what you were doing was right.
0:34:02 They just, if it’s, if it’s good, they think it’s cool.
0:34:04 If it’s broken, they think it’s broken.
0:34:04 Like that’s it.
0:34:08 They don’t think that anybody else is more qualified in the companies to do it.
0:34:10 Like they think they could do it themselves.
0:34:13 They don’t think that there will be an employee forever.
0:34:15 Like they’re like, cool, I’m here right now.
0:34:15 There’s a partnership.
0:34:18 And like, you know, eventually I’m going to be doing my own thing or I’m going to be, I’ll be,
0:34:21 you know, in the leadership of this company, I’ll have more equity in this
0:34:22 company that I have today.
0:34:26 Like there’s some people who have a confidence about that, about themselves because they have
0:34:29 a certain self-assumption and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
0:34:30 You know what I mean?
0:34:35 Furkan was a guy who worked with you at Monkey Inferno, the incubator.
0:34:39 And he previously helped start AppLovin, which is a hundred billion dollar company.
0:34:47 But between him, between AppLovin becoming a hundred billion dollar company and him starting
0:34:48 it, he worked for you.
0:34:52 And it wasn’t like a clear runaway hit for a minute, but then it like, it did.
0:34:53 And his…
0:34:53 What, AppLovin?
0:34:54 Right.
0:34:55 It wasn’t like a clear hit.
0:34:57 No, AppLovin was already a runaway hit when he left.
0:34:58 Oh, got it.
0:34:58 Got it.
0:34:59 So he knew it was a winner.
0:35:01 So then what the hell was he doing working with you?
0:35:03 Or maybe it had not paid out yet?
0:35:08 Believe it or not, he doesn’t care.
0:35:11 I don’t know if I believe…
0:35:13 I think I’m a not in that category.
0:35:16 Because I was there when the money hit.
0:35:17 Oh, got it.
0:35:18 Okay.
0:35:23 He was still working on our like beta release of our app that had 400 users and he was up
0:35:26 till 3 a.m. that night and he couldn’t have cared less.
0:35:31 And nothing changed between going from, you know, whatever, you know, normal person.
0:35:35 To being worth, you know, nine figures in an instant.
0:35:36 Nothing changed.
0:35:37 Nothing.
0:35:38 Well, I remember…
0:35:41 And I remember even telling him, I said, look, man, I was like prepping him like a psychologist.
0:35:44 I was like, look, man, it’d be crazy if nothing changed.
0:35:45 I understand.
0:35:46 We got to figure out like how we’re going to…
0:35:48 Are you just going to want to retire?
0:35:49 Are you going to like…
0:35:50 Are you going to lose that edge?
0:35:52 Is it going to be temporary?
0:35:54 You want to take some time, just go on vacation and enjoy it?
0:35:58 Like, I was like, it’s hard to walk into an opium den and not get high.
0:35:58 I was like, it’s hard.
0:36:01 It would be like, I think, kind of crazy to assume you’re going to get…
0:36:08 Massively, massively rich, generationally wealthy, like in the next few months and that nothing changes.
0:36:11 And then he was like, cool analogy.
0:36:12 Can you go out?
0:36:14 Can you get out of my way now so I can just do what I was doing?
0:36:15 And I was like, all right.
0:36:16 And then nothing changed.
0:36:16 It was amazing.
0:36:20 I think I like walked into the office one time, like after…
0:36:21 What happened?
0:36:24 I think I, at this point, I knew that he was like wildly successful.
0:36:31 And I saw him, like, I don’t remember exactly how it was, but I had this feeling like he had his hat turned around his…
0:36:32 On the backwards of his head.
0:36:34 And he had like a screwdriver in his teeth.
0:36:38 And he was like behind the TV, like installing a Raspberry.
0:36:39 What was that thing called?
0:36:40 A Raspberry Pi.
0:36:40 Yeah.
0:36:43 He was like installing this like computer chip to like the TV.
0:36:45 And I was like, Furkan, what are you doing?
0:36:50 And he was like explaining to me, like how it’d be cool because this Raspberry Pi thing is like a computer.
0:36:52 So he’s turning the TV into the computer.
0:36:57 So, and it like, and then the things that he wanted to do, like there was a handful of like amazing things.
0:37:01 And then it really kind of boiled down to like, isn’t this cool?
0:37:04 Like, and I was like, yes, it is cool.
0:37:06 And I remember I was trying to justify him.
0:37:07 Like, but why are you?
0:37:09 And then he just kept going, but it’s cool.
0:37:10 It’s cool.
0:37:11 Don’t you think it’s cool?
0:37:11 And I was like, right.
0:37:12 Yeah, you’re right.
0:37:16 That’s actually the best reason why you should be looking like a mechanic and like doing this.
0:37:18 And it was like, we were doing one of our sessions.
0:37:20 It was at like 8 p.m. at night.
0:37:21 That sounded different than how I meant for it to sound.
0:37:25 But we were like talking about business at like 8 p.m. at night at your office.
0:37:30 And he was like there, like installing this like pie into your TV.
0:37:31 Yeah, yeah.
0:37:33 And the funny thing is when Furkan joined the company, this is a good lesson, I would say,
0:37:35 because it could have gone either way.
0:37:37 So Furkan builds AppLovin.
0:37:42 I think AppLovin at the time when he left was maybe like $100 million a year business,
0:37:44 but it was clear it was scaling fast.
0:37:48 And he leaves and he leaves because he’s like, cool, the rest of the job is managing people
0:37:50 if I want to stay CTO.
0:37:53 And like, I liked the beginning when I was building stuff.
0:37:54 So I’m going to just build stuff.
0:37:59 So he leaves and he decides to go build, he decides to learn mobile development.
0:38:01 So he’s like, oh, I think mobile is going to be big now.
0:38:04 And so he’s like, I want to actually learn Android development.
0:38:07 And he starts building games for fun in his bedroom alone.
0:38:09 And he does that for a little bit.
0:38:13 I find him there and I’m like, yo, I think you’re super interesting.
0:38:13 You should come join us.
0:38:15 Don’t be in your room alone.
0:38:16 No fun building that way.
0:38:16 Come build with us.
0:38:19 So he ends up joining us and he joins us like the head of Android.
0:38:24 And within the first few weeks, it was like extremely obvious that this guy
0:38:24 does not fit in.
0:38:26 First of all, he’s smarter than everybody.
0:38:28 Second of all, he works harder than everybody.
0:38:29 He was there like everybody would leave.
0:38:32 Our company culture was everybody would leave around 5 p.m.
0:38:33 Most people had kids.
0:38:33 They would go home.
0:38:37 He would come in at 11 and he would leave something like 11 p.m.
0:38:40 And then he would still be on Slack at 2 a.m.
0:38:42 And then he would come in again the next day at 11, 1130.
0:38:45 And he would just do that every single day.
0:38:48 And when everybody else would quote me a timeline like, all right, cool.
0:38:52 I’ll show you the prototype at the same meeting next week.
0:38:55 He would show me the prototype the next morning.
0:38:59 And so I was like, okay, this guy, he’s going to break our culture one way or the other.
0:39:09 And you could tell the other engineers, they both liked him, but were also a little bit like, this guy doesn’t come in until lunch.
0:39:13 He, you know, he’s pushing updates at 2 a.m.
0:39:18 And like we weren’t working then, so we weren’t involved with it.
0:39:20 And, you know, what’s his deal?
0:39:22 This guy dropped out of college.
0:39:23 He’s not like classically trained.
0:39:24 So, like, what are we going to do with this guy?
0:39:27 And in my head, I was like, all right, one of two things is going to happen.
0:39:29 Either this guy is going to, it’s going to be like organ rejection.
0:39:32 He’s going to have to leave because he just doesn’t fit.
0:39:38 Or it needs to be that, like, the thing where the organ, like, the host takes, the guest takes over the body.
0:39:39 I was like, okay.
0:39:41 So I went out with him one night.
0:39:48 And I remember we were at a bar, and I was just like, look, I can’t, this is not official, but you’re going to be running this company.
0:39:52 And I need you to start building out the team the way you want it to be built.
0:39:54 And you should work the way you want to work.
0:39:58 Don’t try to fit in because we’re going to change this whole company with you kind of driving that engineering change.
0:40:01 I was like, this is how a startup is supposed to feel.
0:40:02 You’re doing it right.
0:40:08 And so pretty quickly, I just told him, you hire your own people, and they don’t have to interview with everybody else.
0:40:11 Or you don’t need everybody’s blessing to sign off on a hire.
0:40:11 So they would interview them.
0:40:14 But if he liked the person, he could hire them under his team.
0:40:16 And eventually, you know, he became CTO.
0:40:17 He became my co-founder.
0:40:19 And, you know, he became, like, you know, leader of the company.
0:40:24 But I had to basically, like, Amazon has this phrase, bar raisers.
0:40:29 It’s like you hire somebody, and then they raise your bar of what good looks like.
0:40:30 He was a clear bar raiser.
0:40:34 And there was a part of us that, like, didn’t know how to deal with that.
0:40:38 And the right way to deal with it was to totally lean into it and be like, oh, that’s the new normal for us.
0:40:44 You’re the new bar setter of, like, what our engineering team should look like.
0:40:45 Did the other people quit?
0:40:47 Like, who won?
0:40:49 I mean, obviously, he is still there, or he was there.
0:40:51 Well, a couple people adapted.
0:40:52 So they were like, cool.
0:40:56 My lifestyle is not that I’m going to be up until 2 a.m., but I’m going to crush in my 9 to 5.
0:40:58 And I will work at that pace.
0:40:59 And, like, cool.
0:41:00 You’re going to work a crazy schedule.
0:41:02 I’m not going to work a crazy schedule.
0:41:03 But, like, I’m here for it.
0:41:04 I want to work at that pace.
0:41:10 I want to be, like, that effective, and I want to change the expectations of what speed looks like inside the company.
0:41:11 And so a couple people became that.
0:41:15 And then a couple people, we actually had a legacy business that was making a few million dollars a year profit.
0:41:18 And so we spun out the rest of the team onto that business.
0:41:23 I was like, you guys work on that company in that schedule and that pace.
0:41:25 And this team is going to work in this pace.
0:41:28 And we basically split the company in half, like a divorce.
0:41:30 Dude, it was like Lord of the Flies.
0:41:32 Like a happy, married divorce.
0:41:33 It was like, you guys get custody of those assets.
0:41:35 We’re going to have custody of these assets.
0:41:36 That’s pretty fascinating.
0:41:40 It’s like throwing people out on the different island and just saying, like, you better figure it out.
0:41:41 Survive.
0:41:44 And you losers are going to go to this dying thing.
0:41:45 It wasn’t dying.
0:41:47 I mean, it was, like, fine.
0:41:49 It was, honestly, it was what some people wanted.
0:41:53 Some people, like, not everybody wants to, like, grind like crazy.
0:41:56 And what this was a very good way to do was be, like, there are two paths.
0:42:00 You keep your same job, your salary, all that stuff.
0:42:02 One is a certain lifestyle.
0:42:02 One is another.
0:42:04 This lifestyle is easy.
0:42:04 This lifestyle is hard.
0:42:06 Self-select.
0:42:07 And the self-selection was very helpful.
0:42:16 New York City founders, if you’ve listened to My First Million before, you know I’ve got this company called Hampton.
0:42:19 And Hampton is a community for founders and CEOs.
0:42:24 A lot of the stories and ideas that I get for this podcast, I actually got it from people who I met in Hampton.
0:42:27 We have this big community of 1,000-plus people, and it’s amazing.
0:42:34 But the main part is this eight-person core group that becomes your board of advisors for your life and for your business, and it’s life-changing.
0:42:41 Now, to the folks in New York City, I’m building an in-real-life core group in New York City.
0:42:52 And so if you meet one of the following criteria, your business either does $3 million in revenue, or you’ve raised $3 million in funding, or you’ve started and sold a company for at least $10 million, then you are eligible to apply.
0:42:55 So, go to joinhampton.com and apply.
0:42:58 I’m going to be reviewing all of the applications myself.
0:43:02 So, put that you heard about this on MFM so I know to give you a little extra love.
0:43:03 Now, back to the show.
0:43:07 Dude, he’s pretty badass.
0:43:08 We should have him on again.
0:43:13 Now he’s got, like, his space in Fort Mason, I think it’s called.
0:43:14 He’s the man.
0:43:15 We should have him on again.
0:43:16 Yeah, of course.
0:43:17 Love talking to Furkan.
0:43:18 What do you think?
0:43:19 Is that it?
0:43:21 I don’t know exactly where I want to go with this, but I just want to share this with you.
0:43:30 So, I’ve been trying to help certain people in my life, like, either start businesses or upgrade their business.
0:43:32 Like millions of people who listen to you?
0:43:33 No, no, no.
0:43:37 Like, my, like, micro, like, people who I care about, you know?
0:43:38 Like, my trainer, for example.
0:43:43 My trainer, today he’s got a training business where his calendar is full.
0:43:48 He’s got more clients on his roster than he can handle, but, you know, he’s trading time for money still.
0:43:49 So, he’s not scalable.
0:43:51 He can only train so many people per day, right?
0:43:52 So, he’s doing five, six sessions a day.
0:43:55 He’s driving to people’s locations and he’s training them.
0:43:58 But, like, you can’t do 12 people per day, for example.
0:44:00 He couldn’t double his money if he wanted to.
0:44:04 He definitely couldn’t do his goal, which is, you know, make twice as much money with half the time invested.
0:44:07 Like, half the, you know, with double the time flexibility.
0:44:12 And so, he’s been starting, he started, like, a drink, an energy drink company.
0:44:16 He started, like, apparel companies, like, trying to do these side hustles.
0:44:20 But all of them, I’m like, dude, the beverage industry is, like, brutal, right?
0:44:22 It’s, like, a brutally competitive business to be in.
0:44:25 The apparel business is just a brutal business to be in.
0:44:27 Might be better just to, like, get another trainer.
0:44:30 Yeah, so, I’m like, hey, have you thought about getting another trainer?
0:44:34 Or, like, and in this case, I was like, what would be, like, an appealing version of this?
0:44:35 Like, here’s some ways you could scale.
0:44:37 So, I was like, you could start a studio.
0:44:40 And he’s like, oh, I would love to have my own space, my own studio.
0:44:44 And I’m like, okay, that’s a way that you could get to your goal if you started a studio.
0:44:50 And it’s been very interesting to see, kind of, like, how he would approach it versus how I would approach it.
0:45:01 And so, I basically told him, I was like, look, the way I wanted to get in shape, and instead of just being like, I guess I’ll just wing it, I guess me, who’s never done this, will just figure it out.
0:45:05 I was like, no, let me get a coach, somebody who’s already done this before, and I hired you as my trainer.
0:45:08 I was like, I think you should basically have me as your trainer, your business trainer.
0:45:10 And I was like, don’t pay me anything.
0:45:13 All you got to do is book your, what do you call your first session?
0:45:13 An assessment?
0:45:14 Book an assessment.
0:45:17 And he’s like, all right, tomorrow?
0:45:18 I’m like, great, yeah, let’s meet tomorrow.
0:45:26 So, we started talking, and we started doing this thing where basically I would, we would talk, and I would just give him, I was like, how do I keep this so simple?
0:45:31 Because at the, in prior times when I talked to him, I remember, like, I was such a terrible coach.
0:45:41 I was like a trainer who would come in and try to train all your body parts in one session, and, like, be showing you, like, the beginner thing, but then couldn’t resist showing you the advanced thing, and then you’re going to do that, you’re going to get hurt, you’re going to pull back muscle.
0:45:44 So, I’ve been trying to be a better coach, and so I was like, all right.
0:45:45 How do I keep this super simple?
0:45:49 And so, I leave him every time with one blue sticky note, with one thing.
0:45:50 It’s, all right, this is the one action.
0:45:53 Do this between now and the next session, and we’re good.
0:45:58 And it’s been very interesting to see how much progress we can make just doing this very simple method.
0:45:59 I’ll just share with you kind of, like, how this works.
0:46:05 So, the same way that at the dance studio, I was, like, picking up information on, I was learning about a business.
0:46:09 While I was there watching my daughter, I also learned a little bit about a business.
0:46:14 I basically realized, like, that’s something I’ve been doing for about 15 years now.
0:46:23 And I think most people, if you just started doing that one thing, just start, like, paying attention to the business around you and start doing a little bit of napkin math, right?
0:46:27 Try to figure out how many customers a place has times the price every customer pays.
0:46:28 Gives you a good approximation of top line.
0:46:34 You could just Google or ask AI, what’s a good profit margin for a fitness studio?
0:46:37 Typically, are they a 10%, 40%, 50%, 20%?
0:46:40 Like, what is the net profit margins for these things?
0:46:49 And so, what I realized is that most people don’t, as I’ve been helping two or three people in my life do this, most people don’t approach business this way.
0:46:53 And I think if they did, they would have a lot higher chance of success.
0:46:59 I think that hiring a fitness, like, I was reluctant to hire a fitness coach.
0:47:07 But then it made total sense because I remember I was like, well, I was the best at whatever sport I wanted to do in high school and then college where I played for a little while.
0:47:11 When you are basically, like, a professional athlete, you have someone just telling you what to do every single day.
0:47:12 You just do what they say.
0:47:15 And I remember being so reluctant to hire a fitness coach.
0:47:16 And then I did.
0:47:19 And I started seeing, like, my body change in, like, two months.
0:47:21 And then I was like, yeah, that works.
0:47:23 And then I was like, well, maybe should I get a nutritionist?
0:47:25 And I remember being, again, so reluctant to do it.
0:47:28 And then I got, I use my body tutor.
0:47:32 And I was just, like, doing exactly what they told me to do.
0:47:34 So I had accountability, but I also had education.
0:47:34 They would teach me.
0:47:37 And it just kind of hit me.
0:47:42 I’m like, why have I always been so reluctant to pay someone money to just tell me what to do?
0:47:50 And once I kind of let go of that, I think I realized, and I’ve learned this in business as well, there’s a lot of creativity that you need to have.
0:47:58 But in general, there is, like, a process that you can follow where, in a lot of cases, you will get to be fairly successful.
0:48:02 Like, you know, you still have to invent stuff and you still have to, like, stick with it for years.
0:48:10 But in general, just like with changing your body, it’s just like if you do these five things, you will get 80% to where you want to go.
0:48:14 And just only, and you don’t need to think, you just need to execute these five things.
0:48:20 And I think what people don’t understand, I think you and I understand it a bit, even though emotionally sometimes we forget it.
0:48:30 But a lot of the listeners understand this, which is business is the exact same, where there’s a series of steps where you can sort of iterate your way there, just like you can with your body, with your nutrition and things like that.
0:48:32 Yeah, totally.
0:48:37 The way I think about it is you’re going to have some rate of learning, some learning curve, right?
0:48:41 So it might take you six months, might take you a year, might take you two years.
0:48:42 You could definitely get there on your own.
0:48:46 A coach is pretty much just a guaranteed way to speed up that learning curve.
0:48:49 And that’s like the first benefit you get.
0:48:56 And then the second benefit that you get is you’re much less likely to quit during plateaus because the coach has some accountability.
0:48:58 A coach has also seen those plateaus many times before.
0:49:01 And a coach can get you out of through the plateau faster than you’re going to get through it yourself.
0:49:07 And so those two reasons, I think I have probably five active coaches right now.
0:49:09 It’s kind of insane.
0:49:11 Roughly, what category are they in?
0:49:12 So you have a fitness.
0:49:14 I think you also use my body tutor.
0:49:14 So you have nutrition.
0:49:18 So I have exercise and then I have food.
0:49:26 Food coach, which is probably the one that felt the weirdest to do and now is, in retrospect, the most obvious no-brainer of all of them.
0:49:28 It’s almost like a therapist, too.
0:49:28 Food’s a weird thing.
0:49:31 It’s more of a therapist than it is anything else.
0:49:31 Yeah.
0:49:31 Yeah.
0:49:36 It’s like, I think when people think food coach, oh, so they’re giving you a meal plan and macros.
0:49:36 It’s like, no, no, no.
0:49:42 She’s helping me figure out why I don’t stick to any food plan or macros that I’ve ever set for myself in the last 10 years.
0:49:47 And slowly uprooting those and, like, being in my corner along the way.
0:49:48 I started learning the piano this year.
0:49:54 And so I got a piano teacher that I got, I ended up getting two, like, two different ones to try to do that.
0:50:01 Because one of the other realizations I had is that there’s a massive difference between an average coach and a great coach.
0:50:08 So, like, in the same way that in tech there’s this phrase about, like, 10X engineers, there’s for sure a 10X coach or a 100X coach.
0:50:14 So you’re pitting your piano coaches, like, you know, Miss Linda and, like, these two old ladies next to each other.
0:50:17 Like, you know, Miss Linda said we should do it this way.
0:50:18 What do you think about that?
0:50:20 I don’t even say anything.
0:50:21 I just show up and I’m better.
0:50:23 And they’re like, wow, you’ve been putting in a lot of work.
0:50:26 And I’m like, well, I had a couple great sessions, you know?
0:50:30 Okay, so you got two piano coaches.
0:50:31 That’s pretty wild.
0:50:32 Yes.
0:50:39 Business coach, executive coach, like a, yeah, like, I don’t know, what do you call it?
0:50:39 Executive coach, I think.
0:50:40 Yeah, executive coach.
0:50:43 I think those are all I have right now.
0:50:46 I had a PT briefly for my knee rehab.
0:50:54 But, yeah, basically anything I do now, my first step is to, my first step is to start the same day I have the idea.
0:50:55 That’s, like, my rule.
0:50:57 Oh, you want to do X?
0:50:57 Great.
0:51:00 Like, same day you need to do something in that area.
0:51:02 You need to go have your first session in some way.
0:51:03 Drop everything and do it.
0:51:05 So I have this sort of, like, drop everything and do it rule.
0:51:10 And then the next thing that I’ll do is I’ll try to find a coach because I know a coach is going to speed me up in the process.
0:51:12 And it’s like, obviously, these things cost money.
0:51:14 So you can’t, like, always get coaches for everything.
0:51:16 But you kind of can.
0:51:20 Like, there’s a guy in our basketball league, this guy, Alex, and he’s just nasty on the court.
0:51:21 He’s so good.
0:51:23 And I’m like, wow, Alex, what did you do?
0:51:25 And he’s smaller than me.
0:51:30 He’s quicker, but he’s not, like, he’s not, it’s not his athleticism is why he’s so good.
0:51:32 This guy’s just better at basketball.
0:51:35 And growing up, I thought I was training to be good at basketball.
0:51:36 That was, like, a goal of mine.
0:51:37 It’s just I never had any coaches.
0:51:39 I never did take it seriously.
0:51:41 I didn’t know how to, I didn’t know how to train properly.
0:51:43 And he told me this story.
0:51:44 I was like, Alex, what were you doing differently?
0:51:48 And he basically was like, when I was young, he’s like, I didn’t have any money for a coach.
0:51:50 But I saw, I was at the gym training myself.
0:51:52 And I saw this trainer training this other kid.
0:51:55 So I went up to the trainer and I was like, hey, how much for a session?
0:51:56 He’s like, oh, it’s like $75.
0:52:00 He’s like, oh, my God, no way my parents are going to pay $75 for a session.
0:52:11 And so he goes, he asked a great question, which is, he was like, is there anything I could help you with that you would be willing to give me a session for if I, if I helped you with that thing?
0:52:13 Like, you know, for example, do you have another session coming in?
0:52:16 Like, could I be, could I run around and just be a rebounder?
0:52:17 Shag balls for you.
0:52:17 Could I clean up?
0:52:19 Could I show up early?
0:52:24 Could I do, could I do, you know, help you with your, your text messages to your, all the people you’re scheduling?
0:52:25 Like, what can I do?
0:52:28 And the guy was like, all right, like, that’s endearing.
0:52:29 Look, fine.
0:52:32 And so he, he lets him basically like help him during sessions.
0:52:36 And then that way he was actually like learning while teaching somebody else.
0:52:38 And then he’d have his own session at the end.
0:52:40 And he’s like, cool, give me 30 minutes, give me 40 minutes at the end.
0:52:42 And he just did that.
0:52:45 And he got so good as a young kid, just doing that.
0:52:50 And then eventually built his own business training while he was getting trained.
0:52:51 You know what I mean?
0:52:56 And ended up actually turning it into a revenue generator versus just a cost for himself.
0:52:56 Dude, okay.
0:52:59 So I am so bought into everything you’re saying.
0:52:59 I do this as well.
0:53:00 I’ve got all types of coaches.
0:53:03 To add to it.
0:53:09 The second thing that I do after getting a coach is I put a date where I’m like, I must perform on this date.
0:53:12 And one of the ways that I got that idea.
0:53:16 So like, for example, if it’s like a fitness thing, it’s like, I want to achieve this body fat by this time.
0:53:20 Or I want to run this race on this date.
0:53:22 Or, you know, I want to be able to do X, Y, and Z.
0:53:23 Lift this amount of weight.
0:53:24 It’s a goal, but it’s not just a goal.
0:53:25 It’s a performance.
0:53:26 Is that what I’m hearing?
0:53:27 I tried to make it a performance.
0:53:29 So for example, if it’s just like a 5K.
0:53:32 Just I want to run a 5K in 21 minutes.
0:53:34 That’s not particularly fast, but it was hard for me.
0:53:36 And it was just a really nice thing to work back from.
0:53:37 So there’s an end date.
0:53:39 So I find it quite motivating.
0:53:43 Or I want to bench this amount of weight on this date.
0:53:47 And do you remember that TV show on MTV called Made?
0:53:51 Where they would teach people how to learn something in approximately 30 days.
0:53:52 And so it was like…
0:53:53 I love that show.
0:53:54 I love that show.
0:53:58 And so what they would do is they would take this young woman that she was like,
0:54:01 I want to do a backflip on a BMX bike.
0:54:05 Or I want to be able to win a skateboard competition.
0:54:07 These kind of crazy ideas are like, I want to be…
0:54:08 I don’t remember.
0:54:10 The backflip one always stuck in my brain.
0:54:12 And they hired a BMX coach.
0:54:14 And this little girl, her whole shtick was like,
0:54:16 she’s like a prissy, cool, popular girl.
0:54:19 There’s no way she wants to do this nitty-gritty BMX thing
0:54:21 with the kids from the other side of the railroad tracks.
0:54:23 And she ends up doing it.
0:54:25 And in a competition, she did a backflip on a bike.
0:54:27 And I remember that show.
0:54:31 We should do an MFM version of Made.
0:54:32 Where everyone just…
0:54:33 It doesn’t matter what the challenge…
0:54:34 It doesn’t matter what the thing is.
0:54:35 You just got to pick a thing.
0:54:40 It could be like, I want to go try to meet a girl,
0:54:42 but use their language in a foreign country.
0:54:44 Or I want to go ask directions in Spanish.
0:54:46 Or whatever.
0:54:48 I want to go enter a chess competition.
0:54:50 Just something where it’s like,
0:54:52 you have a very short amount of time.
0:54:53 And you have to hire help.
0:54:57 And you have to jump off the cliff a little bit
0:54:58 to master your skill.
0:54:59 Or just even learn your skill a bit.
0:55:02 So for you, it would be a piano recital.
0:55:03 Or I want to have friends over it.
0:55:05 And I want to play a song for them.
0:55:05 Right.
0:55:06 Yeah, I think that’s great.
0:55:07 I love that idea.
0:55:09 It’s kind of like we did the My First Muscle Challenge last year.
0:55:12 I think it’s like a cousin of that.
0:55:13 I’m totally on board for this.
0:55:19 I did a thing once that was similar in Australia.
0:55:21 We were three of us.
0:55:26 And we basically each wrote down a thing that we would love to have done,
0:55:28 but are scared as shit to do.
0:55:34 So for example, one’s person’s was to perform a stand-up comedy set.
0:55:37 Like just go on in an open mic and do five minutes.
0:55:43 One of the guys, he had been in a long-term relationship with a girl from his high school girlfriend.
0:55:45 They had just broken up like five years later or something.
0:55:49 And he really, he was like, I’ve never asked anyone out.
0:55:53 And he’s like, I just want to, he’s like, I want to be out somewhere,
0:55:54 see someone who I think is cute.
0:55:55 He’s like, I want to approach her.
0:55:56 I want to ask her out.
0:56:00 And he’s like, I just want to like, like not, I just want to overcome that one thing.
0:56:02 And like, he’s like, I know that sounds stupid.
0:56:03 We’re like, no, it doesn’t sound stupid.
0:56:04 Everybody’s got these things, right?
0:56:12 Another, um, another person’s was, uh, to, um, I forgot how they phrased it,
0:56:17 but it was, I remember it was something like, you know, at parties when like the dance circle forms,
0:56:21 yeah, they want to go in one, go in one and do a thing and then get out.
0:56:22 And I was like, what?
0:56:29 And so we took a hip hop dance class together with our friend who’s a girl who she’s a great dancer.
0:56:33 She’s like a professional dancer and me, my buddy Trevor and her went to a hip hop dance
0:56:35 class, just prepping for the circle.
0:56:40 Like the whole time, by the way, when you go to that class, it’s two different classes.
0:56:44 If you just show up to a class just for whatever, or you show up thinking, I’m, this is me going
0:56:45 in the circle at some point.
0:56:46 Yeah.
0:56:47 It’s the best, right?
0:56:49 You’re like, I’m going to Julia Stiles as some bitch.
0:56:52 And like, we got kind of addicted to it.
0:56:54 We would start to make up new ones to do every few days.
0:56:58 So it’d be like, I’m going to go for a walk right now, but I’m going to have like three,
0:57:01 like, I’m going to have three like conversations, like, you know, I don’t know if this conversation
0:57:04 was like on my walk, I’m not just going to smile and nod.
0:57:07 Like I’m going to, I’m going to basically give a smooth compliment to like, you know, three
0:57:08 people along the way.
0:57:10 If I notice something I like, I’m going to say it and it’s going to go well.
0:57:12 I’m going to have that interaction.
0:57:14 Or like, I’m not going to answer the question.
0:57:15 How are you today?
0:57:15 With the word good.
0:57:16 Exactly.
0:57:17 Exactly.
0:57:19 Yeah.
0:57:23 My friend Noah Kagan used to have this thing where he was like every single day, he’s like,
0:57:26 I was, when I was trying to get my business going, I would ask for a discount on
0:57:27 every single thing that I bought.
0:57:31 He’s like, I just need to get over like the nerves and just be not afraid of confrontation
0:57:32 and asking for things.
0:57:33 Yeah.
0:57:34 That’s amazing.
0:57:34 Yeah.
0:57:37 We have a whiteboard in our living room called, it was corny name.
0:57:38 It was fear nation.
0:57:40 We just wrote everything we’d be afraid of.
0:57:41 And then you, you try to cross them out.
0:57:45 You pick one each day and you try to cross it out or pick one every couple of days and try
0:57:45 to cross it out.
0:57:48 We’re going to do MFM made instead of MTV made.
0:57:49 We’re going to have MFM made.
0:57:51 What’s yours going to be?
0:57:54 That’s an interesting question.
0:57:55 I would need to think about it.
0:57:59 I, um, I don’t think it would be a fitness related thing.
0:58:02 Cause that’s too easy, but I would have to pick like an emotional thing.
0:58:04 Like the equivalent of asking a girl out.
0:58:05 I think it’d have to be dancing.
0:58:07 Dude, that would be the worst.
0:58:12 Maybe that would be, yeah, I would rather, uh, like punch myself in the stomach 20 times
0:58:13 than go and dance in a circle.
0:58:17 You’re like, nevermind.
0:58:18 Edit this out already.
0:58:19 We’re not, we’re not doing this episode.
0:58:20 Uh, what do you think?
0:58:20 Is that it?
0:58:22 That’s it.
0:58:28 Amish dying pets for con very eclectic episode.
0:58:31 Kids playing, uh, the buffet you never knew you wanted.
0:58:34 All right.
0:58:34 That’s it.
0:58:35 That’s the pod.
0:58:38 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:58:40 I know I could be what I want to.
0:58:43 I put my all in it like no days off.
0:58:44 On the road, let’s travel.
0:58:45 Never looking back.
0:58:51 Hey everyone.
0:58:51 A quick break.
0:58:55 My favorite podcast guest on my first million is Dharmesh.
0:58:56 Dharmesh founded HubSpot.
0:58:57 He’s a billionaire.
0:58:59 He’s one of my favorite entrepreneurs on earth.
0:59:03 And on one of our podcasts recently, he said the most valuable skills.
0:59:08 That anyone could have when it comes to making money in business is copywriting.
0:59:12 And when I say copywriting, what I mean is writing words that get people to take action.
0:59:15 And I agree, by the way, I learned how to be a copywriter in my 20s.
0:59:17 It completely changed my life.
0:59:19 I ended up starting and selling a company for tens of millions of dollars.
0:59:23 And copywriting was the skill that made all of that happen.
0:59:27 And the way that I learned how to copyright is by using a technique called copywork,
0:59:30 which is basically taking the best sales letters.
0:59:32 And I would write it word for word.
0:59:35 And I would make notes as to why each phrase was impactful and effective.
0:59:38 And a lot of people have been asking me about copywork.
0:59:39 So I decided to make a whole program for it.
0:59:40 It’s called Copy That.
0:59:42 CopyThat.com.
0:59:43 It’s only like 120 bucks.
0:59:47 And it’s a simple, fast, easy way to improve your copywriting.
0:59:49 And so if you’re interested, you need to check it out.
0:59:50 It’s called Copy That.
0:59:53 You can check it out at copythat.com.