We invited 3 sweaty startup founders to ask us anything

0:00:01 All right, today we’re trying something new.
0:00:03 We have three high school students, ninth graders,
0:00:05 10th graders, 11th graders, that all are running
0:00:07 their own business while they’re in school.
0:00:09 And not just like, oh, here’s my idea.
0:00:10 These guys have real revenue,
0:00:12 tens of thousands of dollars in profit
0:00:15 that they’re making as, you know, 14 year olds.
0:00:16 It’s crazy.
0:00:17 And so we invited them in.
0:00:18 We’re doing office hours with them.
0:00:20 So they bring us their biggest problem
0:00:22 and we try to help them solve it in like 10 minutes.
0:00:24 And whether you’re a high school or college student
0:00:25 or you’re just running your own business,
0:00:26 I think there’s gonna be something in this for everybody
0:00:29 because there’s a beauty in these kids
0:00:31 who they’re like, ah, I just don’t know anything
0:00:32 but they’re crushing it.
0:00:32 – Yeah.
0:00:34 There’s a lot of people who listen to this podcast
0:00:37 that wanna start something and they overthink it.
0:00:39 And there’s a beauty to being ignorant
0:00:41 and these kids are ignorant.
0:00:43 And because of that, they create amazing stuff.
0:00:46 And I think that you should steal that attitude.
0:00:48 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:00:51 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:00:53 ♪ I put my all in it like no days off ♪
0:00:56 ♪ On the road, let’s travel never looking back ♪
0:00:57 – All right, we’re doing something fun today.
0:01:01 We have high school students who have existing businesses.
0:01:01 They’re running businesses.
0:01:03 They’re making a lot of revenue.
0:01:06 They’re making money and they’re here for office hours.
0:01:10 And this is all part of our buddy Anand who’s here with us.
0:01:13 He’s running this new thing called the formidable fellows.
0:01:15 And I think Anand, this is like a precursor.
0:01:16 You wanna launch a school someday,
0:01:18 a new school for entrepreneurship.
0:01:20 And this is kinda your MVP, is that right?
0:01:21 You started giving out grants
0:01:23 to middle and high school students.
0:01:25 – Yeah, so we’re building a national network
0:01:26 of schools of entrepreneurship.
0:01:28 It takes a while to build physical schools.
0:01:31 So my friend Raj and I started something
0:01:33 called the formidable fellowship.
0:01:36 And yeah, we kinda, I think like Gen Z
0:01:39 is probably gonna be the most entrepreneurial generation.
0:01:42 And we saw a lot of them out there.
0:01:46 And so we started a nonprofit with 500K.
0:01:48 We’re giving $1,000 grants
0:01:50 to middle and high school entrepreneurs.
0:01:53 And so kind of I just had our first class.
0:01:55 I had 23 grantees.
0:01:58 You’ll meet three of the great ones today.
0:02:01 And yeah, kind of along the way,
0:02:03 other awesome entrepreneurs,
0:02:05 they’re Mesh from HubSpot,
0:02:07 Sean Griffey from IndustryDive.
0:02:09 A bunch of other folks have been contributors.
0:02:12 So now we’ve got even more capital
0:02:14 to give out to these young entrepreneurs.
0:02:16 – This is like your second mountain.
0:02:18 So basically you started a company called CB Insights
0:02:21 that is in the range of $100 million in revenue
0:02:22 or something like that.
0:02:24 Now, is this like your,
0:02:26 this is what you do after you’ve made a bunch of money
0:02:28 and you wanna impact the world positively
0:02:32 besides creating, you know, business intelligence tools?
0:02:34 – Yeah, it’s the second mountain.
0:02:36 I think that’s a good way of putting it, right?
0:02:38 I think like if you could build a system
0:02:40 that increases human potential,
0:02:43 like that’s a pretty tremendous thing to do.
0:02:46 And I think we can do it in a way that will make money
0:02:48 and eventually rival the public school system.
0:02:49 That’s our goal.
0:02:52 – All right, well, 500K,
0:02:53 and how did you find these kids?
0:02:55 So they reached out, you reached out to them.
0:02:57 How’d you find all these founders?
0:03:00 – Yeah, we reached out to
0:03:03 a lot of entrepreneurship teachers at schools.
0:03:05 And that was, I think primarily the way,
0:03:07 a little bit of social media,
0:03:09 some parents who found us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
0:03:11 But yeah, I think a lot of them just, you know,
0:03:12 word of mouth.
0:03:14 And so yeah, we got a few hundred applicants
0:03:15 to first go around, you know,
0:03:18 qualifications where you had to have revenue.
0:03:20 So that was kind of a hard filter we had.
0:03:22 There’s a lot of folks who have sort of a dream
0:03:23 where they’re starting something
0:03:25 to burnish a college application.
0:03:26 And we didn’t want that.
0:03:29 We wanted people who were actually building.
0:03:32 And so, yeah, we narrowed it down pretty quickly
0:03:32 and found some-
0:03:33 – Sam, did you have any revenue
0:03:34 in middle school or high school?
0:03:37 I barely had facial hair.
0:03:38 – Yeah, it’s pretty insane.
0:03:41 Like when I was a kid in grade school,
0:03:43 it was like make a business plan
0:03:46 and like fake present it to a board of directors.
0:03:47 And you think that like, like, you know what I mean?
0:03:49 Like dear board of directors.
0:03:50 And it was nonsense.
0:03:51 And I’m seeing their bios.
0:03:55 This is so much more interesting than what we were doing.
0:03:56 What were you, I mean, at 14,
0:03:58 I don’t even think I knew
0:04:00 what that word entrepreneur meant.
0:04:01 – Yeah, definitely didn’t.
0:04:03 My business plan was like mac and cheese,
0:04:04 but with double the cheese.
0:04:06 That was the whole thing.
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0:04:42 – All right, so we’re gonna do this.
0:04:44 We’re gonna see what we got.
0:04:46 They’re calling in literally from school, by the way,
0:04:47 which is hilarious.
0:04:49 Someone came on and they’re lunch,
0:04:52 they’ll bell for like recess came on or something.
0:04:53 That was amazing.
0:04:54 All right, so let’s try this out.
0:04:56 Let’s go, Lincoln.
0:04:57 – All right, my name is Lincoln Snyder.
0:04:59 I’m a senior at Lake Dallas High School.
0:05:01 My business is Sunshine Exteriors.
0:05:04 So we clean windows, gutters, power wash,
0:05:06 fence staining and holiday lighting.
0:05:09 We’re located in Denton, Texas.
0:05:10 The main goal is to help the homeowners
0:05:11 protect their investment.
0:05:14 Obviously I have a clean home year round.
0:05:16 My business is two years old.
0:05:18 Last year we did $60,000 in revenue
0:05:21 at about just above 50% margin.
0:05:23 – Hold on, pause real quick.
0:05:24 Sam, you know why he’s good?
0:05:25 Did you hear what he did there?
0:05:27 That was some sophisticated,
0:05:30 high level stuff he just did, where he goes.
0:05:32 He’s talking about cleaning gutters.
0:05:35 And he goes, we help homeowners protect their investment.
0:05:38 He didn’t say we clean your gutters.
0:05:40 What’s the biggest investment in your life, your home?
0:05:41 Wouldn’t you want to protect it?
0:05:43 Wow, Lincoln, I’m already impressed.
0:05:44 Continue.
0:05:46 – Yeah, so last year we did $60,000
0:05:48 at just above 50% margins.
0:05:53 This year I plan to grow about 150% to $150,000.
0:05:56 – So you made $30,000 as a junior in high school.
0:05:57 Is that about right?
0:05:58 – I was a senior.
0:06:00 It was this year.
0:06:01 – This year, okay.
0:06:03 – Well, well, but yeah.
0:06:05 – School year, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
0:06:07 Wow, all right, that’s wild.
0:06:09 – Just to recap, you go to homeowners,
0:06:11 you’ll power wash, you’ll clean their gutters,
0:06:12 you’ll clean the windows,
0:06:13 you’ll put up Christmas lights,
0:06:15 whatever you got to do, home services,
0:06:18 and you did $60,000 last year as a high school senior,
0:06:20 and you think you’re going to do $150,000 this year.
0:06:21 That’s the summary. – Correct.
0:06:23 – Correct. – All right.
0:06:24 – Yes.
0:06:27 And then, so it’s me and I have two 1099 subcontractor
0:06:30 employees, so right now I’m completely off the field,
0:06:32 so that means that they’re doing all the jobs
0:06:34 and I’m the one in charge of booking, scheduling,
0:06:36 finding the clients.
0:06:37 – And how do you do that, Lincoln?
0:06:39 How do you get customers?
0:06:43 – So, primary acquisition source right now is Nextdoor.
0:06:46 It’s a neighbor platform with surrounding communities.
0:06:49 – Hey, look, we complain about stuff all the time
0:06:51 on Nextdoor, you don’t need to explain.
0:06:55 – Yeah, so yeah, I kind of go on there.
0:06:58 My angle is I’m a local high school student.
0:06:59 I own a window cleaning, brush washing.
0:07:01 We do those services.
0:07:03 If you’d like a free estimate, check out our website.
0:07:05 We’d be happy to give you a quote.
0:07:06 – And Lincoln, how do you do that?
0:07:08 ‘Cause my understanding is you can’t post on Nextdoor
0:07:10 unless you’ve been verified as having an address
0:07:13 or you got a postcard that shows you live in the neighborhood.
0:07:15 They don’t want people from outside the neighborhood
0:07:16 messaging, how do you do that?
0:07:17 Is that a new feature or am I just out of the loop?
0:07:20 – So, I post in just my neighborhood.
0:07:24 So I guess in that area, I am confined to my neighborhood
0:07:29 on that app, but it’s been enough homes to keep me busy.
0:07:32 I think we got maybe 90 customers last year
0:07:35 off of Nextdoor just between March and September.
0:07:37 – Dude, if you’re listening, how many people have we had
0:07:40 on this pod saying, I don’t have an idea.
0:07:42 I don’t have this, you know, this doesn’t scale.
0:07:44 All this bullshit.
0:07:45 He’s 18 years old.
0:07:47 He made 30 grand and it was from posting on Nextdoor
0:07:48 in his neighborhood-
0:07:50 – In his own personal neighborhood.
0:07:52 Yeah, that’s insane.
0:07:54 – That’s, by the way, how did you hear about, you know,
0:07:57 Anand is a tech guy in New York City.
0:08:00 How does someone in Texas who does power washing
0:08:02 hear about this internet shit?
0:08:04 Like what’s he doing? – I was very fortunate.
0:08:06 So there is a teacher who’s a part of a teacher blog
0:08:09 and I’m not well known, but some of the people
0:08:11 at my school know that I own my own business
0:08:13 and do a kind of power washing window cleaning
0:08:14 things like that.
0:08:15 And so she told me about it
0:08:17 and then I submitted my application and-
0:08:18 – Wow.
0:08:19 This is cool, dude.
0:08:21 Okay, so what’s your question?
0:08:23 Before I start brainstorming ’cause I’m fired up.
0:08:26 – All right, so it’s a pretty deep question.
0:08:29 I’m trying to figure out how to reliably acquire customers
0:08:30 through paid advertising.
0:08:34 My current struggle is advertising on a small budget
0:08:36 and not having the skills.
0:08:38 My question for you guys is,
0:08:40 should I pay to acquire those skills
0:08:41 through paid courses?
0:08:44 So far what I’ve been doing
0:08:46 is kind of trying to learn on YouTube.
0:08:49 I don’t think that it’s in depth enough to learn fully.
0:08:52 So I think that I might get more out of paid courses
0:08:56 and content, seminars, whatever that might be.
0:08:58 Or do you think that it would be smarter
0:09:03 to just allocate a semi-large budget to paid advertising
0:09:06 and learn the skill on my own
0:09:08 and kind of have to figure it out as I go?
0:09:10 – All right, I got a bunch of opinions.
0:09:11 Sam, you wanna go first?
0:09:12 Do you want me to go?
0:09:12 – I have a bunch of opinions.
0:09:15 I think yes to all, basically.
0:09:17 Yeah, do all.
0:09:19 I don’t know what your definition of a large budget is.
0:09:20 The best way to learn is to do it.
0:09:23 And a lot of people will shit on online courses.
0:09:24 I think that’s nonsense.
0:09:26 Most of what I’ve learned in this internet world
0:09:28 has been buying an online course.
0:09:30 I bought a copywriting course that changed my life.
0:09:32 I would suggest you do that.
0:09:34 I don’t know what the course offerings are,
0:09:39 but if there is a local services paid marketing course,
0:09:41 100% do it.
0:09:43 I don’t know what a lot of money for you is,
0:09:45 but if you have to spend up to $2,000,
0:09:48 as long as it has good reviews, do it.
0:09:49 – By the way, I think if you emailed anybody
0:09:52 who runs that course, you say, “Hey, I’m 18 years old.
0:09:53 I badly wanna learn this.
0:09:55 I don’t have the cash to be able to put that up.”
0:09:57 Or, “I’m willing to pay it kind of next year
0:09:58 using the profits of this,
0:10:01 and I’ll be your best testimonial for you.”
0:10:04 I think you can get those courses for free out of Goodwill.
0:10:06 So I wouldn’t even let cost be a barrier.
0:10:07 But like Sam said,
0:10:09 I think learning is an attack on all fronts.
0:10:10 So you’ve done the right thing.
0:10:12 You figured out what to learn.
0:10:14 And if you’re committed to being obsessed with it,
0:10:16 it’s do it yourself.
0:10:18 Then it’s watch free YouTube stuff.
0:10:22 Then it’s do a paid course of some kind, buy a book,
0:10:23 whatever.
0:10:25 And then the last one you didn’t mention that I would do
0:10:27 is what helped me when I went into e-commerce.
0:10:29 So five years ago,
0:10:32 I had never done an e-commerce physical brand before.
0:10:34 And I had never done paid ads before.
0:10:35 And fast forward to now,
0:10:39 I’ve probably run $40, $50 million of paid ads
0:10:40 and gotten pretty good at it.
0:10:42 And so what was the learning curve?
0:10:44 One thing that really helped me was
0:10:46 instead of just going straight to a course,
0:10:47 I started doing it myself.
0:10:50 So I had my bearings and I knew what I didn’t know
0:10:51 on a very low scale budget.
0:10:53 And then what I did was I found somebody
0:10:55 who already was winning with that method.
0:10:57 So I found either a friend or somebody nearby.
0:11:01 And I said, “Hey, I really think what you’re doing is great.
0:11:02 I’m young, I wanna learn.”
0:11:03 And I basically went and I said,
0:11:04 “Can I come by for the day?”
0:11:07 And I just wanna ask you a couple of questions about paid ads.
0:11:08 And they’re like, “Yeah, sure, come over.”
0:11:10 And then you come over and then you end up
0:11:12 opening up their Facebook ad account with them
0:11:13 and you start asking them questions.
0:11:14 And if you do it right
0:11:16 and if you’re an earnest, genuine person,
0:11:19 you’re likable, like it seems like you are,
0:11:20 you’ll find somebody who will also give you
0:11:24 that kind of like real-world, real-time type of mentorship.
0:11:26 And they’ll just tell you the ins and outs
0:11:27 and they’ll also tell you,
0:11:30 “Oh, your ad account got shut down.
0:11:32 Email this guy,” or, “Hey, that’s normal.
0:11:33 Here’s what happens.”
0:11:34 So they’ll tell you stuff that you can’t find
0:11:36 just generically on the internet.
0:11:37 So I would also do that.
0:11:39 But it’s a war on all fronts when it comes to learning.
0:11:40 You should be doing all of them.
0:11:42 And then the ones that are giving you
0:11:43 a more rapid rate of learning,
0:11:45 do more of those and less of the others as you go.
0:11:47 You’ll figure out what’s gonna work for you.
0:11:49 – I would also suggest, so I’m looking up Nextdoor.
0:11:51 Nextdoor is not a big company.
0:11:53 If I had to guess, they have 1,000 employees or less.
0:11:57 I would Google Nextdoor account manager
0:12:00 or I would go to the top, Google Nextdoor CMO
0:12:03 or Nextdoor Director of Marketing,
0:12:06 something VP or above.
0:12:08 And I would email them and I would explain,
0:12:09 this is what I did.
0:12:13 I just built a business that is doing six figures
0:12:15 as a senior in high school.
0:12:17 I’m gonna advertise on Nextdoor.
0:12:20 Do you have any type of first-time customer credits?
0:12:21 And I would bet a lot of money
0:12:24 that they will give you $1,000 to $2,000 in ad credits
0:12:27 on Nextdoor to learn their platform.
0:12:28 And then I would do the same thing for,
0:12:30 what’s the other one, Sean,
0:12:34 that the guy who started Athena started, Thumbtack.
0:12:35 I would do the same.
0:12:36 I would do Nextdoor, Thumbtack.
0:12:39 I would email as high a person as you can in marketing.
0:12:41 Probably start with CMO.
0:12:42 – Have you run Nextdoor ads?
0:12:46 – Yeah, so that was kind of part of my question.
0:12:48 What I did last year for Christmas light installation,
0:12:52 I ran ads. – Oh, you do that too?
0:12:53 – I do.
0:12:54 If you need Christmas lights, hey,
0:12:57 I can fly out if the price works out.
0:13:00 But yeah, so I ran the ads and they did it extremely well,
0:13:03 which kind of, it’s almost frustrating to see
0:13:06 that it worked and then now I can’t get it working again,
0:13:08 but I think that’s kind of with paid ads.
0:13:09 It doesn’t work for a while,
0:13:11 but when it does work, it explodes.
0:13:13 – Paid ads is a constant game of cat and mouse.
0:13:15 It’s constant iteration, constantly trying things,
0:13:17 constantly goes up and then goes down.
0:13:20 That is completely normal for paid ads,
0:13:22 but you just have to zoom out and say,
0:13:23 wow, this is a magic money machine.
0:13:26 I’m putting in a dollar and I’m getting three back out
0:13:27 every day, this is incredible.
0:13:28 How do I do more of that?
0:13:30 And so that’s totally normal.
0:13:32 Yeah, I think Sam’s idea of like,
0:13:34 reach out to their marketing team and find their account rep
0:13:36 and be like, hey, I’m a kid, I got this great story.
0:13:38 I want to learn this, who would I learn from?
0:13:39 Who’s the smartest at this?
0:13:40 How can you help me?
0:13:41 Do you guys have ad credits available?
0:13:43 I would love to be a testimonial for it,
0:13:44 the same sort of thing.
0:13:46 Again, use your assets to try to get it to make it happen.
0:13:47 If you need help, by the way,
0:13:48 I think I know people at Nextdoor
0:13:50 that I might be able to connect you with.
0:13:51 So, okay, so that’s-
0:13:54 By the way, hold on, before we move on from that,
0:13:56 don’t do what we’re saying first.
0:13:57 The first thing you should do
0:13:59 is you should type out a letter
0:14:03 and you print 1,000 copies on your printer at home
0:14:07 and you want to make this look not professional.
0:14:08 I don’t want this to be professional.
0:14:10 I want it to be a typed letter from you that’s signed.
0:14:13 – It should be like a paper clipped photo of you,
0:14:14 like on the thing.
0:14:15 Or like-
0:14:16 – Do not act like a big company.
0:14:18 Act like a senior in high school.
0:14:20 Act like a mature senior in high school
0:14:23 and print it out, fold it up, put it in an envelope
0:14:26 and go and put that in 1,000 homes.
0:14:30 – And I want you to Google the Gary Halpert dollar letter.
0:14:33 So it’s the, there’s a famous copywriter, Gary Halpert.
0:14:34 And he wrote this letter
0:14:37 and he stapled or paper clipped a dollar bill
0:14:38 to the top of it.
0:14:39 And that was very attention getting.
0:14:40 People had to pick, what is this?
0:14:42 Why is there a dollar on this thing?
0:14:43 One dollar, right?
0:14:44 One dollar took his like open rate
0:14:49 and his read rate from zero to 95% type of thing.
0:14:50 And then he wrote this letter.
0:14:52 You could do your version of the dollar letter.
0:14:54 I think that would be tremendously successful.
0:14:56 So I think Sam’s idea is great here.
0:14:58 But I think there’s even a thing you do before that,
0:15:00 which is you already have something working.
0:15:02 We’re giving you new ideas.
0:15:02 Why don’t you advertise?
0:15:05 Why don’t you go do Yelp ads, Craigslist, whatever.
0:15:06 You already figured out
0:15:09 that you could go into a community’s next door,
0:15:12 type something and what was this?
0:15:14 $60,000 came out the other side.
0:15:16 So how do you just do that again
0:15:17 in the neighborhood next to yours?
0:15:19 Can you find a friend or a kid in that neighborhood
0:15:22 and say, I will pay you $100
0:15:24 and you’re gonna type this message in your next door
0:15:27 on this sequence ’cause they can post
0:15:28 ’cause they live there, right?
0:15:32 And so go activate basically your brand reps,
0:15:34 your affiliates to just clone the script you did
0:15:37 in your neighborhood in the two neighborhoods next to you
0:15:40 and see if that gives you another 60K per neighborhood.
0:15:42 Yeah, so I’m doing something similar.
0:15:46 I’m not sure that I would say it exactly the way I’m doing it
0:15:48 because I’m not sure that’s really the right way to do it
0:15:49 ’cause I know that next door,
0:15:51 you’re really supposed to be a neighbor in the community,
0:15:56 but to your point, I am doing–
0:15:58 Hey, this hat is gray, my friend, this hat is gray.
0:16:00 I’m good with that.
0:16:01 I’m apt out of region.
0:16:02 I’m kind of going by radius
0:16:04 of different next door neighborhood communities
0:16:05 and going from there.
0:16:07 Yeah, you’re hacking the system, that’s good.
0:16:08 You’re hacking the system.
0:16:11 Can we just become your angel investor real quick
0:16:12 and like– Absolutely.
0:16:14 I kind of wanna see where the story goes
0:16:15 over the next two years.
0:16:16 This is gonna be kind of insane.
0:16:18 Lincoln, have you heard of,
0:16:20 do you know a guy named Brian Scudamore?
0:16:21 Have you ever heard that name?
0:16:22 Sounds familiar, but I don’t know.
0:16:24 You should Google this guy.
0:16:26 He started very similar to you.
0:16:29 It took him years and years to get traction,
0:16:31 10 years to get traction.
0:16:33 Now, his company is called 1-800-GOT-JUNK
0:16:38 and he wholly owns it and it does a billion in sales a year.
0:16:39 So he’s a billionaire.
0:16:43 You should write him, or I can introduce you.
0:16:45 He’s a friend of mine and he will absolutely talk to you,
0:16:49 but you just gotta shut up and do this for about 20 years
0:16:52 and the results are gonna be pretty great.
0:16:54 Yeah, that’s how this business works, right?
0:16:56 You just kinda put your head down and you just get after it.
0:16:58 Yeah, but the beauty is you don’t know
0:16:59 it’s 20 years at the beginning.
0:17:01 You just think it’s just right around the corner
0:17:02 and you just think it’s right around the corner
0:17:03 for the next 20 years.
0:17:06 Well, you’re gonna get rich as you go
0:17:07 if you own the whole thing.
0:17:10 Like these companies can be great if you do it right.
0:17:11 Are you going to college?
0:17:12 Sounds like you graduated now
0:17:14 or you’re about to graduate.
0:17:15 I’m about to graduate.
0:17:20 I’m going to college, yes.
0:17:24 Is that maybe Michigan is the goal?
0:17:27 I got introduced through Formidable Fellowship
0:17:29 to someone at Michigan
0:17:31 who’s kinda gonna introduce me to people on campus.
0:17:35 And so that’ll be, they have a good business school.
0:17:37 Like chicks or what are you talking about?
0:17:38 Who are you trying to meet on campus?
0:17:39 What are you talking about?
0:17:42 Like some professors, some deans, some people,
0:17:43 ’cause I haven’t gotten accepted yet.
0:17:44 It’s still in.
0:17:45 Do they need their gutters cleaned?
0:17:46 I don’t understand.
0:17:48 Why do you care about the professors and deans?
0:17:51 (laughing)
0:17:52 I have good grades and everything
0:17:55 but the kind of what it takes to get out of state
0:17:57 and to that good of a school.
0:17:58 What do your parents do?
0:18:00 Do you have like a teal fellowship part of this
0:18:02 where you just pay people to drop out once you realize
0:18:05 that they should just keep going as an entrepreneur?
0:18:06 Yeah, I mean, I could probably pay one person
0:18:09 but bank on that.
0:18:14 My parents, my dad is a VP at Spectrum.
0:18:16 So not, no entrepreneurship
0:18:19 but he does kinda in the business realm.
0:18:20 My mom’s a nurse.
0:18:23 Do they criticize, not criticize,
0:18:24 they probably don’t criticize you.
0:18:25 Do they say, you know.
0:18:26 Do they put respect on your name?
0:18:27 Yes.
0:18:29 (laughing)
0:18:30 Yeah, like.
0:18:31 Do you get to sit at the head of the table now at dinner?
0:18:35 No, do they, are they like, like, this is a fun hobby
0:18:37 but you know, maybe you should consider
0:18:39 something more serious or do they,
0:18:41 you don’t disrespect your parents publicly
0:18:44 but or are they like, hey, you got a gift,
0:18:46 this is working, keep going?
0:18:47 They’re very traditional in the way
0:18:49 that they want me to go to college
0:18:51 and they think that it’s a fun thing to do.
0:18:53 I’m in high school, but yeah.
0:18:55 Anon, do you have a service
0:18:57 where you talk to these kids’ parents?
0:18:58 No, we don’t.
0:19:01 You know, I think, so yeah,
0:19:04 I posted about Lincoln getting into you, Michigan
0:19:07 and I guess luckily some people have reached out, right?
0:19:08 ‘Cause that’s where he wants to go.
0:19:11 I mean, any of these guys probably could skip college
0:19:13 and just go pro in business,
0:19:17 but you know, I gotta respect what they wanna do, of course.
0:19:20 But yeah, no, obviously if any of them wanted to,
0:19:21 I’m not sure they would, you know,
0:19:25 they could be formidable, you know, without college for sure.
0:19:27 Lincoln, just to put it in perspective real quick,
0:19:29 you said you did 60K last year,
0:19:32 you’ll do 150K this year of revenue.
0:19:34 You’re gonna make more money than your professors.
0:19:39 Yeah, exactly, roughly 50% profit margin, 40, 50%.
0:19:41 Yeah, so last year it was 30,000,
0:19:43 it’s a little over 30,000 profit.
0:19:45 Let’s say you can roughly hold that.
0:19:48 You’re getting close to having a million dollar business
0:19:50 already.
0:19:52 So let’s say you’re doing 100K,
0:19:53 you’re a profit right now,
0:19:55 growth and you basically 2X the business.
0:19:58 Arguably that could be, you know,
0:20:00 somewhere between a $400,000 business
0:20:01 to a million dollar business.
0:20:03 Yeah, it’s like one more year for that
0:20:04 and you’re a million there.
0:20:05 Exactly, exactly.
0:20:07 Just to put that perspective of like the opportunity
0:20:09 and I guess like want to make sure,
0:20:11 I wouldn’t have known that when I was your age.
0:20:13 Well, I wouldn’t have known how to do any of the shit you did,
0:20:15 but even if I was there,
0:20:16 I wouldn’t have really had that perspective
0:20:19 because you kind of, as a business owner,
0:20:20 as a small business owner,
0:20:21 you sort of value your business
0:20:23 just on what you eat at the end of the day.
0:20:25 So you’re like, oh, I made $30,000.
0:20:27 I did a whole bunch of work.
0:20:28 That’s great, but you know,
0:20:31 that doesn’t pay for one year of college.
0:20:33 Whereas you look at it like I’m one year away
0:20:34 from being a millionaire.
0:20:37 If I just literally get two more neighborhoods on board
0:20:40 or one more neighborhood to do the same thing
0:20:41 that I just did, right?
0:20:45 So you are very close to a very meaningful size business
0:20:48 and I hope you continue that as your new angel investor.
0:20:52 Yeah, like I don’t think people truly grasp this
0:20:54 that if you do, this is a huge generalization.
0:20:59 If you do roughly 300 grand of seller earnings,
0:21:02 or sorry, of business owner earnings,
0:21:07 ballpark in most cases, you are worth $1 million.
0:21:09 And I think that if people understood
0:21:12 that they would probably keep going a lot harder.
0:21:14 And I would bet that a lot of the people
0:21:17 teaching business at Michigan, some percentage of them,
0:21:19 you would be richer than them
0:21:21 before you graduate college.
0:21:23 Yeah, and I definitely understand what you guys are saying
0:21:25 ’cause the way I think about it as I compare,
0:21:27 okay, a $30,000 salary,
0:21:28 which is what I made last year
0:21:31 is like an entry level job anywhere,
0:21:34 but going to the point of doubling it every year.
0:21:36 Which you’re not going to do.
0:21:37 You’re not gonna double it every year,
0:21:40 but you’re gonna double it for a few more years maybe.
0:21:43 You honestly, based on what you just described to us,
0:21:46 you actually have a path where you could probably forex
0:21:47 this business in one year
0:21:51 because you’ve done all of this in a single neighborhood.
0:21:54 And guess what, a lot of businesses are like this
0:21:55 where they’re what I call pond businesses.
0:21:58 It works in one pond, it’ll work in all ponds.
0:22:01 Businesses like any app that takes over a high school
0:22:03 will actually be able to take over every high school.
0:22:06 So Snapchat, for example, when Snapchat got hot,
0:22:09 it got hot in two LA high schools.
0:22:12 And investors who are smart knew right away that,
0:22:15 sure on the surface that only looks like a few thousand users,
0:22:17 but if it works in one high school and two high schools,
0:22:19 it’s gonna work in 14,000 other high schools
0:22:21 because all high schools are the same.
0:22:24 In the same way that your neighborhood is probably similar
0:22:27 to a thousand other neighborhoods or more
0:22:28 across the country.
0:22:30 And you should be able to sell local services
0:22:33 using the same exact blueprint and model
0:22:35 that you’re doing in those neighborhoods.
0:22:38 And so I think that what you haven’t done yet
0:22:39 is just replicate it.
0:22:42 So like, you know, do it in another neighborhood yet.
0:22:45 But you said that your next door ads were working
0:22:48 and you said that you’re starting to be able to post
0:22:49 in new neighborhoods.
0:22:53 I would actually be surprised if you can’t triple this business
0:22:55 just doing that properly.
0:22:58 – Yeah, so, I mean, the next door ads from last year,
0:23:00 I’ll kind of run through the numbers.
0:23:03 There was a $9 cost per lead, $30 customer acquisition costs
0:23:07 and a $650 average transaction value.
0:23:09 So 21 to one row ads.
0:23:12 So I think that just based on 21 to one,
0:23:13 by the end of this year,
0:23:16 if I just pump as much as I can into those ads,
0:23:17 I think I’ll be.
0:23:18 – And look, it’ll go down.
0:23:20 It won’t stay 21 to one, but it doesn’t matter.
0:23:21 Three to one, you’re laughing.
0:23:24 So you make a huge margin of safety.
0:23:26 – I thought you said you didn’t know what you were doing.
0:23:27 – Yeah.
0:23:28 – Like you said.
0:23:29 – The Christmas lights, I guess,
0:23:31 but window cleaning, I don’t know, I guess.
0:23:33 – Well, the Christmas lights is because there’s a time,
0:23:34 there’s an urgency on that.
0:23:36 So that’s why it’s such an easy sale.
0:23:38 But your website’s great.
0:23:40 Have you seen his website, Sean?
0:23:40 – No.
0:23:46 – HHH, I think, HHHpressureCleanings.com.
0:23:47 You’re also funky.
0:23:48 – You need to work on the domain.
0:23:50 – Yeah, but the website’s great.
0:23:54 – Welcome to Sunshine Exteriors.
0:23:56 Okay, why not SunshineExteriors.com?
0:23:59 – I have a Sunshine Exteriors, Texas,
0:24:01 but it’s saying I need six months
0:24:02 before I can transfer the domain
0:24:05 ’cause I just bought it on a different hosting platform
0:24:08 ’cause I needed emails with a branded domain.
0:24:10 – You could definitely transfer a domain faster,
0:24:12 whatever, that part’s not right.
0:24:13 Doesn’t take six months, but okay, great.
0:24:14 Let me ask a different question.
0:24:15 Do people come back?
0:24:16 Do they do it again?
0:24:18 Have you been in business long enough
0:24:19 to know the repeat rate?
0:24:23 – Yeah, so didn’t do a great job of tracking it
0:24:25 and not quite enough to know the repeat rate.
0:24:27 I’ll start seeing the repeat rate this year
0:24:29 ’cause most of my customers were from last year.
0:24:31 But from first year to second year,
0:24:35 I would say it’s probably close, it’s low, probably 10%.
0:24:37 – Okay, wow, this is great.
0:24:42 – My friends, if you like MFM,
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0:25:26 All right, back to the episode.
0:25:31 – Okay, congratulations.
0:25:33 Anything else, Lincoln, before we let you go?
0:25:35 ‘Cause this was kind of great.
0:25:36 – One question.
0:25:39 So if you guys were in my position, right,
0:25:42 and you were going to, against your parents’ judgment,
0:25:45 not go to college, what advice do you have
0:25:46 for someone in that position?
0:25:48 – All right, so the pitch is like this.
0:25:49 You’re gonna sit them down and you’re gonna say,
0:25:53 “Mom and Dad, let me show you the potential outcome.”
0:25:57 So what’s, you’re near A&M, maybe?
0:25:58 I don’t know where you, okay.
0:26:00 – That’s another college, yeah.
0:26:02 – I would say, look, the average salary
0:26:06 that a graduate in the business administration school is this.
0:26:09 I don’t know what it’s going to be, probably 80 grand.
0:26:11 I’m already going to make that.
0:26:16 And if you go to, what’s the broker that we like, Sean?
0:26:17 Quiet Light Brokerage.
0:26:19 You go to quietlightbrokerage.com
0:26:22 and you say, here’s how much these businesses sell for.
0:26:26 In one year, I’m going to already be well above the average
0:26:31 in terms of earnings for a first, second,
0:26:34 and third year post-graduate A&M business admin,
0:26:35 graduate or whatever.
0:26:37 I’m gonna be already out earning that.
0:26:40 All I’m asking for is one year.
0:26:42 You don’t need to support me financially.
0:26:43 All I need is your blessing.
0:26:45 I just want you to say, get after it.
0:26:46 Go and achieve your dreams.
0:26:49 Because look, if you look at all of the change in the world,
0:26:52 it all, a lot of it is due to someone who just went out
0:26:53 and got after it and made a lot of money.
0:26:55 And I’m trying to do that.
0:26:57 And if it doesn’t work after one year,
0:26:59 I’ll do what you asked me to, which is go to a great school,
0:27:01 but just give me 12 months to make this happen.
0:27:02 And I don’t want anything
0:27:04 except for your emotional support.
0:27:06 How’s that, pitch, Sean?
0:27:07 Is that good enough?
0:27:08 – It’s great.
0:27:09 That’s exactly right.
0:27:12 I’m gonna ask for the gap year, not the full four.
0:27:16 So you don’t have to make this like longterm,
0:27:18 life-altering decision.
0:27:20 Just say, hey, I’d like to basically,
0:27:23 I wanna take a gap year and really give this my all.
0:27:24 I think I’m gonna learn a lot.
0:27:25 I’m already learning a lot.
0:27:28 And I think this can really grow into something.
0:27:31 And after school, school is about learning
0:27:34 so that the way, hey, school’s great,
0:27:35 but in education it’s more important.
0:27:37 Like the thing I would go to school for
0:27:37 is to learn about business.
0:27:40 I’m already learning a ton about business this way.
0:27:41 And I’m gonna learn so much more
0:27:43 if I just take this year and focus on it.
0:27:45 And hey, at the end of this year,
0:27:47 you know what, maybe I will actually, you know,
0:27:49 decide, hey, college is the right move.
0:27:51 I wanna be around friends and I wanna do all that.
0:27:54 And in which case, no harm done, one gap year.
0:27:56 And if this really takes off and we reassess at the end,
0:27:57 you know, I can go the other way
0:27:59 and actually maybe continue on this path.
0:28:00 But I wanna take a year.
0:28:02 And I think I would start with that.
0:28:05 So I think the ask is a year, not to never go to college.
0:28:08 And then you let ’em know that like the reasons why
0:28:10 and how you’re thinking this through
0:28:12 and that you want their support that they believed in you,
0:28:13 you know, up until this point,
0:28:15 you just want them to keep believing in you.
0:28:16 And you see how that lands.
0:28:18 So you got your little emotional manipulation.
0:28:19 You have your puppy dog clothes.
0:28:21 You got it all under the hood.
0:28:22 We got a lot of stuff going on there,
0:28:24 but that’s what you wanna do.
0:28:25 And then you see how that goes.
0:28:27 But at the end of the day, like, look,
0:28:29 sometimes just, you know, it might come to this.
0:28:30 I hope it doesn’t, but it might come to this
0:28:31 where they say, no, you gotta do this.
0:28:33 This is, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
0:28:34 Blah, blah, blah.
0:28:36 You may have to decide for you what’s most important, right?
0:28:38 That’s the coming of age, that’s 18-year-old thing.
0:28:40 And there are plenty of stories of people who do it.
0:28:42 And then years later, their parents are like,
0:28:44 you know, holy crap, I didn’t know,
0:28:46 I didn’t understand at the time, you know,
0:28:48 they come around to it.
0:28:49 You at the end of the day, you gotta take control
0:28:51 of kind of like what you want for your life.
0:28:53 But I think that the one you’re asked should land.
0:28:56 I think you got like a 50 to 70% success rate with that.
0:28:57 All right, all right.
0:29:02 – The median salary of an accountant student at A&M
0:29:05 is $60,000.
0:29:05 – Yeah.
0:29:07 – You’re gonna beat that this year.
0:29:11 That’s gotta be the numbers that you present to them.
0:29:12 – All right, well, they might not,
0:29:14 it might not only be about that, you know, people,
0:29:16 parents ultimately, they just want your good, right?
0:29:18 So they’re like, we want you to have this education.
0:29:19 You have your degree.
0:29:22 That’s just like safety and that idea.
0:29:24 Plus we want you to have that experience or young,
0:29:25 blah, blah, blah.
0:29:26 So there’s like other factors too.
0:29:28 So I wouldn’t, I would try to understand.
0:29:30 So like, let’s say they say, no, you gotta do this.
0:29:31 Before you start arguing with them,
0:29:33 just ask them, get curious.
0:29:35 Be like, okay, so like, you know,
0:29:37 it seems like school’s got a couple different parts, right?
0:29:38 There’s like the learning part,
0:29:39 which I think I’m getting a lot of here.
0:29:41 There’s friends and social life.
0:29:42 And then there’s like, you know,
0:29:43 the safety net of having your degree.
0:29:44 Like which one is it for you?
0:29:46 Why do you feel like it’s so important?
0:29:48 What is the part that really, you know,
0:29:50 let me help you understand.
0:29:51 And they’ll let them articulate it.
0:29:53 And then, you know, exactly what you need to smack down
0:29:55 ’cause they’ve served it up to you
0:29:56 about what the reason is that they think
0:29:58 you gotta go to college.
0:29:59 – That’ll work.
0:30:00 That’ll work.
0:30:02 We’re gonna try, Ayan, let’s give you a shot.
0:30:04 Let’s see if your audio video’s working.
0:30:05 So Anand, you wanna do an intro for him?
0:30:08 You wanna be his Bruce Buffer, his Dana White here?
0:30:13 – Yeah, so Ayan is a ninth grader.
0:30:15 Fun fact, went to the same high school as me.
0:30:17 Has built an awesome baking business,
0:30:19 but I think he’ll fill you in.
0:30:21 He’s a phenomenal entrepreneur.
0:30:22 – Yeah, all right.
0:30:25 Hi, my name is Ayan, like Alon said.
0:30:27 I’m a freshman in Hunterton Central High School
0:30:29 in Ringo’s, New Jersey.
0:30:33 So I’m the founder and CEO of Teens to Table.
0:30:36 We sell homemade baked goods to local establishments
0:30:39 across New Jersey and school suppliers as well.
0:30:42 So my business is one year old,
0:30:44 and last year I did 4K in revenue.
0:30:47 This year I expect to grow over 600%
0:30:52 and aim to do at least $25,000, which is really exciting.
0:30:54 So in addition to my business,
0:30:57 I am also a competitive chess player.
0:30:59 And so right now I’m trying to figure out
0:31:02 how to hire people to help with my production
0:31:06 while also maintaining both efficiency and quality.
0:31:08 And so currently I bake everything myself
0:31:09 from cookies to brownies.
0:31:11 And that really ensures my consistency,
0:31:14 but I’m considering bringing a small team
0:31:18 to keep with the growing demand that I’m currently gaining.
0:31:20 – So Ayan, before we go into your question,
0:31:22 let’s just get a little more context on the business.
0:31:25 So it’s baked goods, you sell it to who?
0:31:28 You said classes, a teacher, or who are you selling to?
0:31:30 – Yeah, so I sell it to local establishments.
0:31:32 So bakeries, ice cream shops,
0:31:34 and I also sell it to schools.
0:31:37 So when schools serve food and lunch,
0:31:40 there’s usually my cookie on the shelf as well.
0:31:41 – Okay, gotcha.
0:31:43 You’re making all the cookies right now.
0:31:44 You’re going and you’re selling to them.
0:31:45 How are you getting that sale?
0:31:46 You’re going and you’re knocking on doors.
0:31:47 What’s the pitch?
0:31:51 – Yeah, so the pitch right now is I usually either
0:31:54 go to the bakeries and go to the ice cream shops
0:31:56 and just go in person or on the phone.
0:31:58 And I say, “Hey, I’m 14 years old.”
0:32:00 And this is actually something that astonishes
0:32:04 a lot of people and I really find that interesting.
0:32:05 So I say, “I’m 14 years old,
0:32:07 I’m the founder of teens to table.”
0:32:09 And I pretty much tell them what I do.
0:32:12 Usually when I go in, I bring samples of my cookies
0:32:15 just to make sure they like it and everything’s good.
0:32:16 That I start with the pitch either,
0:32:19 can I sell and put a table up
0:32:20 or can I put it on your shelves?
0:32:22 – Gotcha, okay.
0:32:24 And you said you’re going to grow the business 600%.
0:32:27 So how are you going to go from 4,000 to 25,000?
0:32:29 Is it just knock on more doors
0:32:31 or is there something more to it?
0:32:34 – Yeah, so now it’s more into the school suppliers.
0:32:37 So I’m supplying currently to Machos and Pomtonian,
0:32:40 which are two school suppliers in my local area.
0:32:44 So I’m hoping to get more districts and more schools.
0:32:46 So currently I just got an order for 700 cookies
0:32:48 between the two suppliers.
0:32:51 And I’m in contact with two other suppliers,
0:32:55 Aramark and another supplier in the local area for my school.
0:32:59 So both of these plus Machos and Pomtonian
0:33:02 should hopefully get me to $25,000, yeah.
0:33:05 – And why do you have a bunch of some type of like curry
0:33:07 and other pizza and stuff on your website?
0:33:11 Is that just a stock images that are placeholders for now
0:33:13 or are you actually going to bake more stuff?
0:33:15 – Oh, so that’s actually the future goal to bake more stuff.
0:33:18 So those are the things I’ve made so far.
0:33:20 Along from baking, I love to cook.
0:33:23 So I love to cook like Mediterranean food,
0:33:25 Indian food, Mexican food.
0:33:26 So apart from the baking,
0:33:28 that’s just another one of my passions.
0:33:31 And hopefully as I go later on to my business,
0:33:33 I can incorporate those as well.
0:33:36 – Have you thought about putting cookies on your website?
0:33:39 – I believe, are there not cookies on there?
0:33:41 – There’s a lot of Italian food.
0:33:46 – Tomatoes and avocados and a cookie would definitely be cool.
0:33:51 – All right, so sounds like you are,
0:33:53 you’re going full break and bad, dude.
0:33:54 You’re going up the supply chain,
0:33:56 you’re finding the distributors.
0:33:57 How good are these cookies, by the way?
0:34:00 I need to know, what are we dealing with here?
0:34:02 – So the cookies, they’re really big.
0:34:06 Have you ever guys tried Levain cookies from New York?
0:34:08 – Yes. – That’s how they are.
0:34:10 So that was my goal to design those recipes.
0:34:12 And I think I cracked the code there.
0:34:15 So that’s how the cookies taste.
0:34:17 – How much money do you have in the bank?
0:34:18 – You did 40k last year.
0:34:20 I imagine you’re just doing checking account.
0:34:21 – Not 40k, 4k.
0:34:23 – 4k, that’s what I said, 4k.
0:34:25 And you’re doing checking account accounting,
0:34:26 which is basically just like,
0:34:28 is my bank account going up?
0:34:31 How much do you have in your bank account?
0:34:36 – So in my bank account, I have around 2.1k, I’d say.
0:34:37 – All right, cool, understood.
0:34:40 That’s pretty good.
0:34:42 – Okay, and so now your question was something around
0:34:43 scaling up or hiring, right?
0:34:44 What was the question?
0:34:47 – Right, yeah, so right, I’m trying to hire people
0:34:50 because with the new school suppliers that I’m getting
0:34:52 and then Machios and Pomtonian,
0:34:55 it’s really hard to just do this myself now,
0:34:57 especially since it’s gonna be around,
0:35:01 hopefully projected 1,000 to 2,000 cookies per week.
0:35:03 So I’m considering bringing on a small team
0:35:05 to keep up with the growing demand.
0:35:07 And so my biggest concern for this
0:35:08 is I use a commercial kitchen
0:35:11 ’cause I can’t do this really in my house.
0:35:13 So they charge by hour.
0:35:16 So if I hire people to work,
0:35:19 am I gonna lose my profits and all of my money
0:35:22 because they’re not gonna be as efficient as me
0:35:23 when I bake the cookies?
0:35:24 And then at the same time,
0:35:27 I worry that the quality of the cookies could suffer
0:35:30 because the people I hire might not follow
0:35:31 the exact same process.
0:35:33 And if they add one more teaspoon,
0:35:35 let’s say a baking powder that might skew off
0:35:36 the whole recipe.
0:35:37 – Wait, so you said that you’re doing
0:35:41 50,000 cookies a week, so 52,000 a year.
0:35:42 And how much in revenue?
0:35:46 – So revenue, it’s gonna be around 25K.
0:35:47 So projected.
0:35:51 – Okay, so cheap, right?
0:35:53 – Yes, with the cookies, since they’re bulk ordering,
0:35:56 I don’t make a lot of profit off of them right now.
0:35:57 – Let’s walk through that.
0:35:58 You get an order.
0:36:00 Typical order will be how much?
0:36:01 How many cookies?
0:36:04 – So a typical order is around 600 cookies.
0:36:05 – Great, 600 cookies.
0:36:07 On that 600 cookies, what are you charging
0:36:10 that end customer or not the,
0:36:11 let’s assume it’s not going straight to the customer,
0:36:14 but it sounds like you’re selling to the school district
0:36:17 or the bakery or the wholesale relationship.
0:36:20 So how much are you charging wholesale for that?
0:36:23 – Right, so for wholesale, it’s 80 cents per cookie.
0:36:27 So between 700 and 800,
0:36:29 I make around $400 in revenue.
0:36:31 – Okay, and then what does it cost you
0:36:33 to make those cookies?
0:36:35 – Yep, so I make two cookies.
0:36:36 I make an oatmeal chocolate chip
0:36:38 and I make a chocolate chip both.
0:36:41 The oatmeal costs 27 cents to make
0:36:43 and the chocolate chip costs 28 cents to make.
0:36:45 – Okay, gotcha.
0:36:50 So you’re basically 66% gross margins on the cookie itself
0:36:54 and that includes the kitchen cost and everything
0:36:56 or that’s literally just the ingredients?
0:36:57 – Yeah, so that includes everything
0:36:59 from packaging to the commercial kitchen
0:37:00 and to the ingredients.
0:37:02 – And do you have like your Excel file
0:37:04 that basically kind of shows your unit cost
0:37:06 and your percentages and when you do that,
0:37:10 what do you see when you add in the labor?
0:37:11 Do you see that the profits go to zero
0:37:13 or ’cause that was your question.
0:37:14 You’re like, well, my profits go away.
0:37:16 That’s kind of an Excel question,
0:37:18 not a Sean and Sam question really, right?
0:37:20 So what does the Excel tell you?
0:37:24 – So it really depends just based on minimum wage,
0:37:26 say $15 or $16 per hour.
0:37:30 It depends on how many actual people are higher.
0:37:33 So right now I’ve been trying to experiment with two or three
0:37:35 and see if that works in the spreadsheet.
0:37:39 And right now my profits are going pretty much to zero.
0:37:43 So I’m making like $20 to $30 per order.
0:37:46 So I just wanted to see if there was a better
0:37:48 or more efficient way to do this
0:37:50 without like choking all my profits.
0:37:52 – Raise your prices, that’s the easiest way.
0:37:54 – So basically I think there’s like only two or three ways
0:37:55 to grow a business, right?
0:37:58 You sell more of what you already have.
0:38:01 You sell the same stuff to the current customers,
0:38:02 but you get them to buy more,
0:38:05 whether a larger quantity or more often,
0:38:07 or you raise prices.
0:38:09 So those are like, so, you know,
0:38:10 there’s a great book called
0:38:13 Getting Everything You Have on Everything You Got.
0:38:15 And it just walks through like,
0:38:16 those are the only three options.
0:38:18 Sounds like you’re selling a lot more stuff
0:38:20 if you’re gonna grow 600%,
0:38:24 but you probably should charge more, I would think.
0:38:25 I don’t know anything about the cookie business,
0:38:29 but I think that sounds really cheap, right?
0:38:30 How hard is the sale?
0:38:31 Is the sale really easy?
0:38:33 If the sale is really easy, you should charge more.
0:38:35 How often are you turned down
0:38:38 when you’re asking these people to buy your stuff?
0:38:39 – So it’s quite a bit.
0:38:41 So right now with Machios and Pomtony,
0:38:43 I signed a contract with them.
0:38:45 So that’s pretty much going till the end of the school year
0:38:47 for me, so till June.
0:38:51 So with them, Pomtony is actually only taking 40 cents
0:38:52 per cookie.
0:38:55 So to me, that’s like, that’s a really cheap thing
0:38:58 ’cause I’m really making 12 or 13 cents of profit per cookie.
0:39:01 So with them, I’m making like a total of
0:39:02 barely anything for profit.
0:39:06 With Machios, on the other hand, I make 80 cents,
0:39:07 so they charge it for a week.
0:39:09 – I hope they’re not listening to this.
0:39:11 Uh-oh, we’re giving out all the leverage.
0:39:15 – So I make around 80 cents from them
0:39:18 as they charge me for a dollar.
0:39:20 So I feel like in my question, like a follow-up
0:39:23 is if I raise the prices, do you think there’s,
0:39:26 they would say we don’t want for you
0:39:30 to put your products anymore, or is that a possibility?
0:39:31 – Well, it’s definitely a possibility,
0:39:32 but it’s one you gotta figure out.
0:39:34 So there’s two ways to figure this out.
0:39:35 You can go to your existing customers,
0:39:37 assume you have a good relationship with them,
0:39:39 assume they’re happy, and you could tell them.
0:39:42 You could be like, hey, how’s this going for you?
0:39:44 They’re like, oh, it’s great, like awesome.
0:39:46 I really love working with you.
0:39:49 You know, I’m 14 years old, I’m figuring this out as I go.
0:39:50 And one thing I’m learning is that
0:39:52 I’m providing you guys 500,000 cookies.
0:39:54 Right now I cook all of these by myself.
0:39:55 I need to bring somebody in.
0:39:57 If I do that, I’m not gonna make any profit.
0:40:01 And so I was wondering, would it be possible,
0:40:02 like for us to raise the price here
0:40:05 and go to a dollar cookie or 95 cents a cookie,
0:40:08 whatever it is, that way I’m not losing money
0:40:09 providing you business.
0:40:10 And see what they say.
0:40:12 They might look at you and your puppy dog guys
0:40:13 and they’ll just say yes.
0:40:15 They might say no, and you’ll find out, right?
0:40:17 And then when you go to that next bakery,
0:40:19 you’re gonna go cold test them,
0:40:20 and they’re never even gonna know about the 80 cents.
0:40:22 You just go to them straight away
0:40:23 and you say it’s a dollar, 10, a cookie.
0:40:25 And then you say these cookies are amazing.
0:40:28 This is an, have you ever been to the bakery in New York?
0:40:31 This is a New York City cookie that I’m bringing to you, right?
0:40:34 So you have to up the perceived value of the cookie
0:40:35 through your packaging, through your story,
0:40:38 through the benefits that they get working with you.
0:40:41 And you could say, hey, I am gonna be able to, you know,
0:40:42 tell everybody in our local community
0:40:44 that you guys support, you know,
0:40:45 this young entrepreneurs, blah, blah, blah.
0:40:48 So you gotta find a way to be able to charge a higher price.
0:40:49 And so that, I think that’s your easiest lever
0:40:52 because you’re not gonna be able to get labor
0:40:53 for that much cheaper,
0:40:55 but you can get more margin out of every cookie
0:40:57 that you sell.
0:40:58 And you don’t wanna grow broke.
0:41:00 So if you have the wrong model, right?
0:41:02 You have the wrong cost structure today,
0:41:04 and let’s say you do go get these bigger contracts
0:41:06 and you’re cooking 10 times more cookies,
0:41:08 well, you’re just literally gonna grow broke
0:41:09 if you do that, right?
0:41:12 ‘Cause you’re gonna have to hire to fulfill those orders,
0:41:13 but if you don’t have the margin to support it,
0:41:15 you will go out of business.
0:41:17 And so, and by the way, I think you could test these things.
0:41:19 So you first you test it in Excel,
0:41:21 then you bring on one other person,
0:41:23 and you can always cut bait with that person
0:41:27 if it turns out that you’re not able to optimize them fully
0:41:30 to get the costs out, to get the benefits out of it.
0:41:32 But you just go sort of one step at a time.
0:41:33 I wouldn’t go get two or three people.
0:41:35 I’d start with one and move to two, move to three
0:41:37 as you figure out that model.
0:41:41 Right, okay, yeah, that makes perfect sense, thank you.
0:41:44 Yeah, you might also wanna try to sell to a richer customer.
0:41:47 So who is gonna be less price sensitive, right?
0:41:48 If you go to local businesses,
0:41:51 you go to real estate, the guy who’s killing it
0:41:53 in real estate down there, you go to the dentists,
0:41:57 you go to people who are themselves local entrepreneurs
0:41:59 that are making enough money where they don’t care
0:42:01 if it’s 80 cents a cookie, a dollar a cookie,
0:42:03 or two dollars a cookie really.
0:42:04 They like the story, they like you,
0:42:06 and they wanna be supportive.
0:42:07 I think that might be helpful
0:42:09 versus going to somebody like Airmark.
0:42:11 Airmark I think literally provides food
0:42:13 to like prisons and school cafeterias, right?
0:42:16 It’s gonna be harder to get wiggle room with them
0:42:19 than it is to get the local dentist to say sure thing.
0:42:22 Yeah, or local car dealerships, things like that.
0:42:24 That story is so much better
0:42:27 when you have your face on it with the story
0:42:28 and then your stuff right there.
0:42:30 You should maybe, do you have like a sign
0:42:32 so that let’s say I am the car dealership
0:42:34 and I do carry your cookies.
0:42:36 Like they could just give away a free cookie
0:42:37 to every customer who walks in.
0:42:39 By the way, they’re selling cars.
0:42:41 I think a pretty known sales tactic is you know,
0:42:42 Sam used to do this, right?
0:42:43 You go negotiate with somebody off Craigslist.
0:42:45 What’s the first thing Sam brings?
0:42:47 Oh yeah, it’s called the rule of reciprocity.
0:42:50 So basically I do something nice to someone,
0:42:52 whether it’s something really small.
0:42:55 Like I go, hey, you know, I was gonna meet you
0:42:57 to look at this car.
0:42:58 I just bought a Coke.
0:42:59 I went and bought a Coke.
0:43:01 You want a Coke, a Coca-Cola as well.
0:43:03 And then the rule of reciprocity states
0:43:04 that when you do something nice to someone,
0:43:07 they will always or almost always do something nice back.
0:43:09 And it’s oftentimes not in proportion
0:43:11 to the gift that you gave them.
0:43:13 So you do one little small things nice.
0:43:16 They’ll do something a lot bigger in return
0:43:18 because you always wanna just be even.
0:43:20 Right, okay.
0:43:24 Yeah, so I would go to like a local car dealer
0:43:26 and just say, hey, I wanna provide you guys cookies every week
0:43:28 that you guys can just give out to customers
0:43:29 and they come in.
0:43:32 Trust me, have you ever heard of the rule of reciprocity?
0:43:34 People are much more likely to wanna buy
0:43:36 when they’re eating a delicious cookie
0:43:38 and they feel taken care of.
0:43:39 And this thing’s gonna cost you a dollar.
0:43:43 But if you close even one more sale this whole year,
0:43:45 this whole year, right?
0:43:48 You know, that’s a $35,000 sale for you.
0:43:50 You know, this pays itself back in spades.
0:43:52 And so you can make a pitch like that
0:43:54 and you can go get actually like contracts
0:43:55 with people who are willing to pay more, right?
0:43:57 So simple rule of business is,
0:43:58 sell to the people who have money.
0:44:01 Dude, I wanna see you give like a speech,
0:44:03 like a waffle wall street where it just like ends
0:44:07 with like sign on the dotted line for Christ.
0:44:07 You know what I mean?
0:44:10 Like I wanna see him like pitch these hard.
0:44:13 Yeah, actually that is one piece of advice I’d give you,
0:44:15 which is that, look, this probably won’t be
0:44:17 your last business.
0:44:18 This is the first business.
0:44:19 This is your starter business
0:44:21 and you’re gonna learn a whole bunch.
0:44:24 You’re gonna get more value out of the story you’re creating
0:44:26 than the cookies that you sell.
0:44:28 My first business was a sushi business.
0:44:32 We probably made, I don’t know, $14,000 of profit
0:44:33 in the one year of operations
0:44:35 that we were working on that thing.
0:44:38 But the story that I told about how we cold called
0:44:41 a food network chef and how I went door to door
0:44:44 selling sushi, how we, you know, reverse engineer
0:44:46 the POS systems to figure out all the sales
0:44:49 of all Chipotle stores in the Colorado area.
0:44:52 Those stories got me bigger and bigger opportunities
0:44:53 as I went.
0:44:54 They got me speaking opportunities.
0:44:56 They got me into accelerators.
0:44:57 They got me other doors open.
0:45:01 And so one tip for you is while you sell the cookies,
0:45:03 you should be building the story.
0:45:05 So the story of, yeah, I went into the car dealership
0:45:07 and I gave a talk called how you can increase sales
0:45:09 by 600% like me.
0:45:11 And I talked to the car salesman about the rule
0:45:15 of reciprocity and how they became customers of my cookies.
0:45:17 Even if it’s not a lot of cookies, it’s an awesome story.
0:45:19 And putting yourself in those positions will build
0:45:20 your skill and build your story,
0:45:22 which ultimately is going to be a lot more valuable
0:45:24 than the cookies that you sell, I believe.
0:45:29 – New York City founders, if you’ve listened
0:45:30 to my first million before, you know,
0:45:31 I’ve got this company called Hampton.
0:45:34 And Hampton is a community for founders and CEOs.
0:45:36 But a lot of the stories and ideas that I get
0:45:39 for this podcast, I actually got it from people
0:45:40 who I met in Hampton.
0:45:42 We have this big community of a thousand plus people
0:45:43 and it’s amazing.
0:45:46 But the main part is this eight person core group
0:45:47 that becomes your board of advisors for your life
0:45:50 and for your business and it’s life changing.
0:45:52 Now, to the folks in New York City,
0:45:56 I’m building a in real life core group in New York City.
0:45:59 And so if you meet one of the following criteria,
0:46:01 your business either does three million in revenue
0:46:03 or you’ve raised three million in funding
0:46:04 or you’ve started and sold the company
0:46:08 for at least $10 million, then you are eligible to apply.
0:46:11 So go to joinhampton.com and apply.
0:46:13 I’m gonna be reviewing all of the applications myself.
0:46:16 So put that you heard about this on MFM.
0:46:17 So I know to give you a little extra love.
0:46:19 Now, back to the show.
0:46:23 – Okay, yeah, that sounds really great.
0:46:25 And definitely for the car dealership,
0:46:27 that’s a great thing to put in mind for me.
0:46:29 Even though I have these suppliers,
0:46:31 I think it’s good to start advancing
0:46:32 and thinking about more places to sell.
0:46:35 So I think that’s really helpful advice, yeah.
0:46:38 – All right, thank you, man.
0:46:40 You’re killing it, keep going.
0:46:43 Just, it’s amazing how far you are at 14.
0:46:47 All right, next, Abigail, where you at, Abigail?
0:46:48 – Hi.
0:46:50 – Where are you from?
0:46:52 – I’m from Odessa, Missouri.
0:46:55 – Oh, nice, I’m from Missouri too.
0:46:59 Hey, Sean, I posted Abigail’s Instagram.
0:47:00 I want you to click it.
0:47:02 And I want you to look at what her hobby is.
0:47:04 So scroll down, you’re gonna see like,
0:47:05 it looks like some prom photos,
0:47:07 but keep on scrolling down.
0:47:10 And you’re gonna see that in her free time,
0:47:11 she’s a race car driver.
0:47:13 – What?
0:47:15 – Yes.
0:47:16 – Okay, triple threat.
0:47:17 – Yeah.
0:47:20 – Student, entrepreneur, Sprint car driver.
0:47:24 How did she get into that, Abigail?
0:47:26 – So actually I’m a third generation Sprint car driver.
0:47:30 So my grandpa drove race cars,
0:47:31 and my dad has driven race cars.
0:47:34 And then I kind of just passed it on down to me.
0:47:36 – That is awesome.
0:47:38 – Amazing.
0:47:39 – Okay, so Abigail,
0:47:42 how old are you and what’s your business?
0:47:45 – I am a senior at Odessa High School.
0:47:46 I’m 17 years old,
0:47:49 and my business is growing and selling chrysanthemums.
0:47:51 So like mums, which is like something you’d put
0:47:56 on your front porch during like the fall season in Halloween.
0:47:58 So that’s what I do right now.
0:47:59 My business is two years old.
0:48:02 Last year I made 15, or this past summer,
0:48:05 I guess I made 15,000 in revenue.
0:48:07 And this year I expect to grow by 100%
0:48:10 and aim to do at least 30,000 in revenue.
0:48:13 – God damn.
0:48:14 Okay, so explain us the business.
0:48:16 So where do the flowers come from?
0:48:17 Who do you sell them to?
0:48:21 – So how my business works is I actually order the mums,
0:48:24 which we call plugs, ’cause they’re like about this big.
0:48:27 And I order them from a company in North Carolina.
0:48:31 I also have to order fertilizer
0:48:35 so we can make sure the plants get nutrients
0:48:36 that they need.
0:48:39 I have to order the soil and then the pots for it.
0:48:41 So that all goes into the price for the mums.
0:48:43 And then we have about a two week long process
0:48:45 of putting it all together
0:48:46 ’cause we have to mix the soil.
0:48:48 And then we put them into color blocks
0:48:51 and then put the mums in the color block.
0:48:54 It’s a really, really long and tedious process.
0:48:58 And then we put them on our, what we call runs.
0:49:01 And they’re like big tarps with watering lines.
0:49:04 And for the next like three to four months,
0:49:06 I spend watering.
0:49:08 And then after it’s, they’re ready to go
0:49:10 and they’re fertilized and watered.
0:49:13 And they’re grown to about as big as they can get.
0:49:17 We market them to schools and fundraisers.
0:49:20 And I also do retail at my own house.
0:49:23 So I try to post that on social media
0:49:26 and try to hand out flyers to like local towns
0:49:28 and post them at local businesses.
0:49:31 – Wow, that is a lot of work.
0:49:35 I’m looking at this picture, which is just like a field
0:49:37 or like these like long, long rows
0:49:40 of these potted plants with the watering system.
0:49:41 Is this, where do you do this?
0:49:43 Is this your backyard or what is going on?
0:49:46 – So I live on 40 acres.
0:49:51 And about 30 acres is leased out for farmland.
0:49:55 And the rest of it is for my mums pretty much.
0:49:57 So anywhere we can put them on the yard,
0:49:59 we pretty much put them there.
0:50:02 And right now we’re in the process of building a greenhouse.
0:50:04 So from my profit with my mums,
0:50:06 I’ve been able to buy a greenhouse
0:50:09 so that I can have a place to start my mums.
0:50:11 And also a greenhouse is a good place to have
0:50:14 a steady revenue for the other six months out of the year
0:50:16 where I’m not growing mums.
0:50:17 – So you, sorry.
0:50:19 So I missed the part of you you’re selling.
0:50:22 So you’re selling to, you said school fundraisers,
0:50:25 businesses, and you’re handing out flyers, you said.
0:50:27 So who’s the core customer?
0:50:29 Who’s the main customer?
0:50:32 – So right now we’re trying to do wholesale
0:50:35 as our core customer so that it’s like,
0:50:37 what we do is I’m in FFA.
0:50:39 So FFA chapters will sell it for a fundraiser.
0:50:41 – Shawn doesn’t know what the FFA is.
0:50:43 You gotta spell this out.
0:50:48 – Okay, so FFA used to stand for Future Farmers of America
0:50:50 but we’ve kind of veered away from that
0:50:53 because we don’t want it to be the stereotypical
0:50:56 about cows and like farming.
0:50:58 What we really do right now is we promote youth
0:51:01 in agriculture and leadership in agriculture.
0:51:03 And we’re pretty much growing the next generation
0:51:04 of agriculture at least.
0:51:09 – So Shawn, if you grew up in a more rural environment,
0:51:12 if you’re in high school, like you kind of by default
0:51:14 joined the FFA, there’s millions and millions
0:51:15 and millions of members.
0:51:17 And it was kind of like a thing, like instead of boy scouts
0:51:19 or girl scouts, maybe not instead of,
0:51:21 but it’s similar to that in rural areas.
0:51:24 You join the FFA and you get like your FFA jacket
0:51:26 and they’re like pretty, they’re pretty famous.
0:51:27 – What do you do once you join?
0:51:29 You go out and-
0:51:33 – So for me, I currently serve as my local chapter president
0:51:34 in area six Sentinel
0:51:38 and I’m running for a Missouri FFA state office.
0:51:43 So what I really do is I do public speaking events
0:51:44 and stuff like that.
0:51:47 So it’s really shaped me into who I am
0:51:50 because right now talking to you like I’m not nervous
0:51:52 and I know that my freshman year,
0:51:53 I would have been completely nervous
0:51:55 ’cause I never did public speaking.
0:51:58 And it kind of just shapes you to get those like life skills
0:52:00 that you need in the long run.
0:52:03 – Okay, college acceptance letter.
0:52:06 All right, that was a great, great essay.
0:52:09 So you, okay, so sorry.
0:52:11 So you said your core customers wholesale.
0:52:11 What does that mean?
0:52:13 Who’s the buyer?
0:52:15 – So right now we’re trying to do contracts
0:52:19 with like hardware stores around us.
0:52:24 So we have a couple like hometown kind of hardware stores
0:52:27 and then some bigger ones that are all across Missouri.
0:52:30 And right now we’re just kind of focused on Missouri
0:52:33 because delivering my product
0:52:34 is kind of one of the hardest parts.
0:52:37 So we actually get to use my Sprint car trailer
0:52:38 to deliver all of the mums.
0:52:43 So that’s kind of funny how it clashes.
0:52:46 – And how much profit did you do?
0:52:49 – This last year we did 15,000.
0:52:52 – And you did 15,000 in revenue, I thought you said.
0:52:53 – Yeah.
0:52:54 – How much in profit?
0:52:59 – So our profit was about, I think seven to eight.
0:53:02 – Wow, all right, that’s good.
0:53:05 – Just because of like each year it fluctuates
0:53:06 like how much the soil is gonna cost
0:53:08 or how much the pots are gonna cost.
0:53:13 And really our big cost this year was making those runs.
0:53:14 And now we already have those.
0:53:16 So it’s something that we can pack away
0:53:18 for like the fall and the winter time.
0:53:19 And then we can put them out next year
0:53:22 and that’s another cost we don’t have to pay for.
0:53:24 – So Abigail, let me ask you a question.
0:53:28 If you wanted to sell 10 times more mums,
0:53:29 how would you do that?
0:53:32 Like not, you said you’re gonna double your sales.
0:53:35 What if you wanted to go 10 times bigger, what would you do?
0:53:38 – I think that right now that’s kind of what I’m like.
0:53:42 My question to you guys was gonna be just because
0:53:44 I like to do the wholesale part of it,
0:53:46 but I also know that I can’t grow
0:53:49 how much I wanna grow just doing wholesale.
0:53:51 But I think really right now my biggest thing
0:53:55 is going to be just getting my company out there
0:53:58 and like promoting it better to other companies
0:54:01 so that they would possibly sign a contract for us
0:54:02 so we can have that fixed amount
0:54:04 that we’re gonna sell to them.
0:54:06 – Like, you know, I went to Farmcon,
0:54:09 which was this conference that Santa told me about.
0:54:12 It was actually in Kansas City.
0:54:14 And, you know, there was like 5,000 people there.
0:54:15 They’re all farmers.
0:54:18 If they had heard your story on stage,
0:54:20 I think a lot of people would have handed you a card
0:54:21 and said, hey, let me know how I can help.
0:54:23 Love what you’re doing.
0:54:28 I’m so excited that somebody in this next generation
0:54:30 is excited about agriculture.
0:54:31 It’s great to see it.
0:54:32 I wanna support that.
0:54:33 I think there’s a lot of that goodwill.
0:54:37 And I wonder if maybe the faster way to 10x your sales
0:54:42 would be like who’s the CEO of whatever Home Depot
0:54:45 or whatever the whole sale story is
0:54:46 that’s gonna carry your stuff.
0:54:47 – Or Ace Hardware or something like that.
0:54:47 – Ace Hardware.
0:54:50 Like how do you go to them and be like,
0:54:53 hey, I wanna be in your store.
0:54:54 Like that is my goal.
0:54:56 That is my dream.
0:54:58 And I wanna get my moms on your shelves.
0:54:59 How do I make that happen?
0:55:03 And you just, I think if you hustled more to the top,
0:55:06 you could actually get more growth faster
0:55:07 than going bottoms up in this case
0:55:10 because your story is your asset, right?
0:55:12 Yeah, the flowers might be great,
0:55:13 but your story is the real differentiator.
0:55:16 How many other people are there with your story?
0:55:17 This is zero.
0:55:20 And so how are you using your story
0:55:21 to unlock the growth is what I would be doing.
0:55:24 Whether it’s telling your own story on TikTok,
0:55:27 it’s getting on stage at places like FarmCon
0:55:30 or the FFA annual, whatever event.
0:55:34 Or it’s getting that sending cold emails every single day
0:55:39 to the CEOs of all of the major distributors or retailers
0:55:40 until one of them takes your meeting
0:55:42 and puts you on their shelves.
0:55:44 If you listened, we did this episode with Nick Mowbray.
0:55:46 He was this guy in New Zealand,
0:55:49 literally like on the other side of the earth
0:55:51 making toys by himself.
0:55:54 And he was like, I emailed every retailer
0:55:57 in every country, every single day.
0:55:58 And he’s like, I just kept doing that
0:55:59 until they finally cracked.
0:56:01 And they would tell me, no, I’m not interested,
0:56:02 not interested.
0:56:02 And one day they would be like,
0:56:05 can I see a sample or hey, are you gonna be at that show?
0:56:06 I’m going to the show.
0:56:08 If you’re there, I’ll take 15 minutes to meet with you.
0:56:10 And he would fly there and make it happen.
0:56:12 And I think if you 10X your approach
0:56:15 towards getting the major distributor,
0:56:18 I think you might leapfrog into a much bigger space.
0:56:19 Because otherwise, the way you describe this,
0:56:22 like I’m tired just hearing how you grow these things.
0:56:26 Like it is so much work to just get the product made
0:56:30 that I feel like you, it’s only worth doing that
0:56:32 if you’re going to be able to have like,
0:56:35 land some like major sales versus then it’s also
0:56:37 double the work to go sell to every school
0:56:39 for a fundraiser and mom and pops.
0:56:41 I think that’s just like too much work.
0:56:43 – There’s also, for all you all,
0:56:45 there’s a small window that you have
0:56:47 where you’re like this prodigy.
0:56:49 – Young and lovable.
0:56:50 – Yeah, that’s gonna go away.
0:56:55 But you’ve got this like two to maybe six year window
0:57:00 where you being pestering, that’s just cute and awesome.
0:57:02 And then in a few years, it’s gonna be annoying and weird.
0:57:07 And so while that window is open, take it, you know,
0:57:09 take that opportunity.
0:57:12 – We have a friend who was 18 and they got written up
0:57:15 in Tech Crunch as like the young hotshot prodigy.
0:57:18 He’s 23 now and he’s like, he feels washed up.
0:57:20 He’s like, I can’t use my store.
0:57:22 Like my entire stick was that I was young.
0:57:25 He’s like, nobody wants to hear about a 23 year old prodigy.
0:57:28 There’s no such thing and you’re not a phenom anymore.
0:57:30 – Yeah, it’s like a blind painter, you know?
0:57:33 Like you got to use everything you can use that story.
0:57:36 Like, you know, you can get away with a lot right now.
0:57:38 And the same stuff that you’re gonna be able
0:57:41 to get away with now, you’re not going to be in the future.
0:57:44 And so I would definitely do exactly as Sean’s saying,
0:57:47 which is go hard on going to the top.
0:57:52 And you’re not really annoying when you’re 18 doing this.
0:57:54 – Yeah, Abigail, in the next 30 days,
0:57:56 do you think you could get a meeting with the CEO
0:57:59 of either Ace Hardware or Home Depot?
0:58:01 – I think, I don’t know.
0:58:04 I think that that is something that like,
0:58:05 just sounds crazy to me.
0:58:08 Like I feel like I probably could just because
0:58:12 I’d like to say I’m a very well-spoken person
0:58:14 and very like good with my words.
0:58:18 But right now I just have like a lot of other things going on.
0:58:21 So it’s hard to like focus all of my time on my business
0:58:23 ’cause I am a senior this year.
0:58:26 So that’s just like kind of hard.
0:58:29 – That’s the only time I think that this excuse is valid.
0:58:31 I would say, okay, that is the only time
0:58:33 that I will accept that excuse.
0:58:34 I want to give everyone listening
0:58:37 and you guys a little bit of feedback that I learned
0:58:38 when I was a little bit younger,
0:58:41 which is the most powerful people on earth
0:58:43 are one cold email away.
0:58:46 And because of email and because of Instagram,
0:58:47 which you guys have grown up on
0:58:50 and everything else on social media,
0:58:53 you would be shocked at how small the world is.
0:58:56 And it sounds insane to say,
0:58:59 email the CEO of this large billion dollar plus
0:59:01 multi tens of billions of dollar company.
0:59:02 That sounds insane.
0:59:04 But I think that you are literally,
0:59:05 I wouldn’t say one email.
0:59:09 I would say your one email and 20 follow-ups away
0:59:12 from just about everyone on earth.
0:59:14 And there’s been times where we,
0:59:16 I even emailed them, jeff@amazon.com.
0:59:18 And I think I followed up like 20 times
0:59:20 and I gotta know thank you.
0:59:24 But it’s just proof that you are much closer
0:59:26 than you think to just about every single person
0:59:30 you wanna reach, particularly some type of executive.
0:59:31 – All right, I’m gonna show you something
0:59:34 real quick Abigail before fifth period starts here.
0:59:36 So just check this out.
0:59:38 All right, there’s this guy on Twitter right now.
0:59:41 His name’s Sonith, he’s Twitter handle Sonith.
0:59:42 He’s building ZFellows,
0:59:44 which is another young student program.
0:59:45 I think it’s a Stanford.
0:59:47 But just check out this.
0:59:49 There’s a cold email that my friend Niko,
0:59:51 who’s now a famous venture capitalist.
0:59:53 He invests in Snapchat really early on.
0:59:55 Again, off a cold email.
0:59:56 Okay, you might not be able to read this.
0:59:56 I’ll read it to you.
0:59:59 It’s him emailing Elon Musk.
1:00:02 Okay, so I’m giving you the CEO of Home Depot
1:00:03 and Ace Hardware.
1:00:05 This guy emailed Elon Musk and he goes,
1:00:08 “Dear Mr. Musk, Ace says I’m a graduate student
1:00:10 “at Stanford and taking this class, blah, blah, blah.
1:00:12 “I’m writing a paper about Tesla strategy
1:00:14 “because I think you’re such an innovative company
1:00:17 “and we’re gonna put together our recommendations
1:00:19 “on the future of your corporate strategy.
1:00:21 “Since you’re the chairman of Tesla,
1:00:22 “I thought it’d be great if we could do a short interview
1:00:25 “with you in person over the next few weeks
1:00:26 “to talk about your strategy.
1:00:28 “I’m aware that you receive dozens of similar requests
1:00:29 “on a daily basis.
1:00:30 “That’s why I’ll do my best to make this
1:00:32 “not only useful but an entertaining experience
1:00:34 “for you and your company’s execs.
1:00:35 “Hopefully we’re able to contribute
1:00:36 “first-class recommendations.
1:00:38 “I’m happy to sign an NDA, blah, blah, blah.
1:00:39 “I look forward to hearing from you.
1:00:40 “I would be grateful if you would participate
1:00:41 “in our research.”
1:00:43 Niko, and then Elon writes back,
1:00:44 “Okay, if you can limit the meeting to 20 minutes
1:00:46 “or schedule for late in the evening.”
1:00:48 And this was Niko as a student.
1:00:50 There’s another email of him.
1:00:51 – By the way, that’s not even a good email.
1:00:52 That’s not even a good email.
1:00:54 – That was not, and let me show you another one.
1:00:55 I just saw it literally today.
1:00:56 So the cool thing about following this guy Twitter
1:01:00 is every day he’s tweeting out us cold emails somebody sent.
1:01:02 So this is Corey Levy who runs ZFellows now.
1:01:04 He’s, so this is him emailing Andy Roddick,
1:01:05 the tennis player’s mom.
1:01:07 So he’s not Andy Roddick, his mom.
1:01:08 So he finds his mom’s email address
1:01:10 and he goes, “Dear Mrs. Roddick.”
1:01:13 Because as you already know from my previous emails,
1:01:15 my name is Corey Levy from Houston, Texas.
1:01:19 I’m 12 turning 13 and I’m a big fan of your son Andy.
1:01:20 I know Andy’s playing this tournament in Houston.
1:01:22 I was wondering if I could meet him
1:01:23 or hit with him before.
1:01:25 I’ve been dying to hit with him for the last two years.
1:01:27 Please email me back, Corey.
1:01:29 And then she says, “Corey, thanks for the note.
1:01:30 Andy’s gonna be at Houston.
1:01:32 As the tournament gets closer, reach out again.
1:01:34 I’ll definitely make arrangements for you to meet him.
1:01:36 Can’t promise you’ll hit with him, but I’ll try.
1:01:37 Please keep a touch and keep playing tennis.
1:01:39 It’s a great sport.”
1:01:41 – Turns out Corey was like 34 when he wrote that email though.
1:01:43 So it was kind of weird when he showed up.
1:01:44 (laughing)
1:01:46 – He’s still got a baby face actually.
1:01:48 So Abigail, I say all that to say this,
1:01:50 which is one, you should follow this guy.
1:01:53 Cause if you see every day a cold email that works,
1:01:57 it’ll go from that sounds crazy to this is perfectly normal.
1:01:58 And that’s one of the reasons probably people
1:01:59 should listen to this podcast.
1:02:00 It’s one of the reasons why you should follow people
1:02:01 on Twitter who are inspiring.
1:02:04 Cause they will make the crazy seem normal.
1:02:05 And that’s all you need is to delude yourself
1:02:08 into believing it’s normal to actually make it happen.
1:02:10 The second thing I’ll say is you describe the process
1:02:15 of like a multi month potting and moving and arranging
1:02:18 and watering and kissing and touching the flowers
1:02:20 to make them all work.
1:02:21 And then I was like, hey, can you send a cold email?
1:02:24 And he’s like, I don’t know, I got a lot of class coming up.
1:02:26 So I challenge you, which is I think this email
1:02:28 is going to be the least of your worries.
1:02:30 I think sending a cold email every day will take you
1:02:32 literally no, no more than 10 minutes.
1:02:33 And I think you’ve got that 10 minutes.
1:02:36 I think so because you just showed me your 10 acre farm
1:02:37 you’re doing by yourself.
1:02:42 So, so what happens is that familiar work feels comfortable
1:02:46 and feels easy, unfamiliar work feels hard.
1:02:47 And you sort of talk yourself out of it.
1:02:49 You tell yourself a story about why it’s your senior year.
1:02:50 You don’t have time.
1:02:52 In reality, the thing I’m telling you is a lot easier
1:02:53 than the stuff you already do it.
1:02:55 So that’s my challenge to you,
1:02:56 whether you choose to accept it.
1:02:59 Pick 100 people who you want to reach, okay?
1:03:03 Spend only 30 minutes a day for the next month
1:03:06 and follow up with each of them 10 times
1:03:08 until they say no thank you or yes.
1:03:11 And your reply rate, if you’re any interesting
1:03:13 or any good is going to be about 10%.
1:03:15 So most everyone’s going to say no or not going to reply,
1:03:18 but I promise you 10% out of 100 is going to be awesome.
1:03:20 It’s going to change your life.
1:03:23 – One more thing, go Google Sampar cold email.
1:03:25 Go read Sam’s cold emails he sent
1:03:28 to recruit speakers to HustleCon.
1:03:30 This like, you know, random conference that he was starting
1:03:32 and the follow-ups is where the magic is.
1:03:33 So there’s the initial email,
1:03:36 which a few brave people are willing to do.
1:03:38 Then there’s the four follow-ups that Sam was sending
1:03:39 that nobody’s willing to do.
1:03:41 I would go read those.
1:03:44 The other thing is there’s a great story of Tim Ferriss.
1:03:46 Abigail, do you know Tim Ferriss?
1:03:47 – I don’t believe so.
1:03:49 – Wow, that’s amazing.
1:03:50 She knows us, she doesn’t know Tim Ferriss.
1:03:51 Holy shit.
1:03:54 – Dude, our heroes are their grandparents.
1:03:55 You know what I mean?
1:03:58 – All right, so Tim has this great source.
1:04:00 Tim wrote this book called “The Four Hour Workweek”
1:04:01 and he’s this great guy who’s going to read podcasts.
1:04:04 So he has a story where he went
1:04:05 to a Stanford Business School course
1:04:07 and he offered a challenge.
1:04:10 He said, “I will give a round the world ticket.”
1:04:12 So an all expense paid round the world plane ticket
1:04:16 to anybody here who can get in touch with the,
1:04:18 whoever could cold email and get in touch
1:04:21 with the highest kind of most hard to reach person.
1:04:24 So the whole class reach out to whoever you want,
1:04:25 whoever gets the person highest on the food shade
1:04:27 gets around the world ticket.
1:04:31 And he, by the end of the class,
1:04:32 I’ll butcher the exact story, you can go read it,
1:04:36 but by the end of the class, he’s like, okay,
1:04:38 so who got who?
1:04:41 And I think one person got like, I don’t know,
1:04:42 Bill Clinton or something like that.
1:04:43 And he’s like, oh, amazing.
1:04:44 Who else did other people get?
1:04:47 And most people, like, I think of the class,
1:04:49 only four or five people got anybody.
1:04:51 And he asked, he’s like, what was the difference?
1:04:52 Was it your cold email script?
1:04:54 And it was basically that like 85% of the class,
1:04:56 90% of the class didn’t even try.
1:04:58 They just perceived it to be too hard.
1:05:00 Anybody that tried reached somebody.
1:05:02 And then within that group of people,
1:05:04 some people literally reached like a former sitting president.
1:05:07 And so I think that there’s a lesson in there,
1:05:09 which is that like most people just won’t even try.
1:05:11 And this is something that sounds hard,
1:05:12 but it’s actually not that hard,
1:05:15 especially when you have your type of story.
1:05:17 I think it will actually be trivially easy for you.
1:05:18 You’ll be surprised.
1:05:21 The CEO of Ace Hardware, if you emailed him,
1:05:23 you will be the most interesting email he got that day.
1:05:24 ‘Cause guess what?
1:05:27 There’s not a lot of other 18 year old Spritcar drivers,
1:05:29 young entrepreneurs who are selling,
1:05:31 or who are interested in agriculture,
1:05:32 who are actually out there doing it
1:05:34 and not even just talking about it.
1:05:36 There’s only a couple and nobody’s emailing him.
1:05:39 So I think it’s gonna be a lot easier than you think.
1:05:40 – It’s something I’ll definitely give it,
1:05:42 have to give it a try.
1:05:44 – All right.
1:05:45 I’ll take that.
1:05:46 – Hey, thank you.
1:05:47 – Thank you.
1:05:49 – You’re fantastic.
1:05:51 – I’m gonna keep cold email you every day
1:05:53 until you cold email them, all right?
1:05:54 I think that’s so far enough.
1:05:56 – That’s okay, it’d be a good reminder.
1:05:58 – And you’ll have to invite us to Odessa.
1:05:59 I wanna watch one of your races.
1:06:00 I wanna drive the damn thing.
1:06:01 – No, definitely.
1:06:02 Definitely.
1:06:04 Did you say you’re from Missouri?
1:06:05 – I’m from St. Louis.
1:06:06 Yeah, I’m from St. Louis.
1:06:07 – You’re from St. Louis.
1:06:08 Yeah, I’m from Odessa,
1:06:12 which is just a little bit east of Kansas City.
1:06:14 – Yeah, where a lot of people,
1:06:16 like if you told Sean that he wouldn’t know anything,
1:06:19 but the difference between KC and St. Louis
1:06:20 is like LA and SF, Sean.
1:06:21 So not that similar.
1:06:23 – Yeah, pretty much.
1:06:25 – But all right, who we got next?
1:06:28 – By the way, Recap, Abigail, shoot your shot,
1:06:31 cold email, use your story to go to the top
1:06:32 and think about how you could 10X your business
1:06:33 instead of twoX your business.
1:06:35 – And follow up until you die.
1:06:36 – Yeah.
1:06:38 Sam cold emailed his way out of Missouri and you can too.
1:06:39 All right.
1:06:41 (laughing)
1:06:43 – Anand, thank you for bringing these folks to us.
1:06:45 – Yeah, absolutely.
1:06:47 Let me just plug real quick.
1:06:48 March 14th is our next deadline.
1:06:51 So for mittablefellowship.org.
1:06:53 And I think for just generally,
1:06:56 this has given me like an amazing amount of hope
1:06:57 in like the next generation.
1:06:59 ‘Cause I think the stories you hear,
1:07:01 like, you know, everybody’s just scrolling away on TikTok,
1:07:03 ruining, wasting away their life.
1:07:05 And like we see honestly hundreds
1:07:06 of like amazing young people.
1:07:07 You met just three of them today.
1:07:11 So yeah, so, you know, if you’d like what these guys do,
1:07:15 please support them by cookies, by mums.
1:07:17 – Are you just doing good in the world now?
1:07:18 Is that what’s happened?
1:07:19 You’re just doing good?
1:07:22 – No, I mean, no, this is, I mean, this is fun.
1:07:23 This is a lot of fun.
1:07:26 – Well, he puts a lot of wind in my sails.
1:07:28 – He put up about 500 grand or something
1:07:29 of you and your partner’s money.
1:07:30 – That’s what I’m saying.
1:07:31 He’s just doing good.
1:07:32 This is amazing.
1:07:32 – Yeah, we did.
1:07:33 – It’s called the second mountain.
1:07:34 This is what you do.
1:07:35 When you–
1:07:38 – We got 700 grand with donations now.
1:07:39 So I mean, we got lots of money for grants.
1:07:41 So if there’s young entrepreneurs,
1:07:43 if parents are hearing this, you know,
1:07:45 we’ve had a lot of parents who’ve reached out saying,
1:07:47 this inspired their kids to start a business.
1:07:50 So hopefully we’ll see them in six or 12 months.
1:07:52 So yeah, and I mean, it’s pretty dope,
1:07:54 like what has started to happen.
1:07:55 And we’re only four and a half months in.
1:07:57 So we’re still super loving.
1:07:58 – Sean, why aren’t you doing this?
1:07:59 That’s a great question.
1:08:00 That’s what I’m asking myself.
1:08:02 This is amazing.
1:08:04 – All right, Sean, there’s a few of these.
1:08:06 – We can just join us, Sean.
1:08:06 It’s all right.
1:08:07 All the infrastructure is set up.
1:08:08 That took the longest.
1:08:09 So just–
1:08:10 – Do you need like a hype man?
1:08:11 ‘Cause that’s kind of my skill.
1:08:12 – Yeah, here we go.
1:08:13 – I don’t really have much else, but.
1:08:15 – Yeah, yeah, we need a hype man for sure.
1:08:16 (laughing)
1:08:18 So no, but these guys, you know, these guys are great.
1:08:21 You know, if you need to buy mom’s cookies,
1:08:24 you need your, you know, you want your home beautified
1:08:25 and to protect that asset.
1:08:28 As Lincoln said, you know where to go.
1:08:30 – Dude, it’s also awesome not to hear about AI.
1:08:31 Do you know what I mean?
1:08:33 Like, which is great, which is great.
1:08:36 But like, it’s like, you know,
1:08:37 these guys are actually doing the damn thing,
1:08:40 like in real life and it sounds awesome
1:08:42 to hear different stuff.
1:08:43 – Yeah, I think the other thing,
1:08:46 we have like a podcast with these guys called Future Titans
1:08:48 and like Ion goes through a story of like emailing
1:08:51 and going door to door like a hundred times
1:08:53 and getting rejected, right?
1:08:56 And so I think like the things that they learn
1:08:58 out of building their businesses are phenomenal.
1:09:02 You know, Abigail walks through this like horticulture issue
1:09:04 which is like way above my pay grade
1:09:06 where like the moms were getting over watered in one area
1:09:09 and like just the problem solving they’re doing
1:09:12 is unreal compared to like anything they might do
1:09:13 like in an academic setting.
1:09:16 So yeah, no, it’s super.
1:09:18 – I’m gonna send you guys a copy of our boy Nick,
1:09:20 the Huber’s book, the sweaty startup.
1:09:22 How to get rich doing boring things
1:09:23 ’cause you guys are all doing sweaty startups.
1:09:24 This is great.
1:09:26 I’ll send you guys, get us your addresses.
1:09:27 I’ll send you guys a copy.
1:09:30 – And thanks for coming to guys.
1:09:34 You’re way ahead of the curve and you know, we’ll joke
1:09:36 and we’ll tease you guys and give you hard time
1:09:38 but you’re doing amazing stuff
1:09:40 and I hope you’re proud of yourselves
1:09:41 and thanks for coming on the pod.
1:09:42 All right, that’s it.
1:09:44 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
1:09:47 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
1:09:49 ♪ I put my all in it like no days off ♪
1:09:52 ♪ On a road let’s travel never looking back ♪
1:10:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]