🔍

Asking My Friend How He Went From $0 To +$100M Before Age 30 (#486) - YouTube

Channel: My First Million

[0]

yes in the early days I saved everything

[2]

I mean I did not buy a bed until I got

[5]

married dude just to put in perspective

[7]

even when we were dating

[9]

no there's no bed

[10]

[Music]

[11]

[Laughter]

[13]

[Music]

[21]

what up dude this is a long time in the

[24]

making episode here I think we've been

[26]

talking about you for like two years

[28]

I think you told us you're like hey hey

[30]

guys don't put me on blast like this uh

[32]

we were like you got to come on the show

[34]

you're like nah you're just gonna ask me

[35]

how much money's in my pocket right now

[37]

and I don't know if I want to do that

[39]

but somehow some way we convince you to

[43]

come on Saeed bulky you're here uh first

[45]

why did you just change your mind how

[46]

did you decide to come on you know I was

[48]

talking with Sam over Twitter DM and

[50]

that's how it happened

[52]

well what I told you a lot of people

[54]

think that Sean and I are like really

[57]

aggressive about questions but what they

[59]

don't realize is like we'll ask an

[61]

aggressive question but if you say I

[63]

don't want to talk about that we just go

[64]

all right cool we'll we'll move on like

[66]

we're not like digging that hard uh so

[69]

hopefully that changed your opinion that

[71]

did that did so side you're kind of an

[73]

amazing guy so let me just set the table

[75]

here for people let me just give you a

[77]

little let me just tease everybody with

[79]

the appetizer so

[81]

I think you are one you've done

[83]

something that I don't even know five

[85]

other people on Earth who have done what

[87]

you've done which is that you've

[88]

basically bootstrapped a unicorn you've

[91]

bootstrapped a billion dollar company

[95]

um you've done it you're only 32 years

[98]

old so you did this by 32. you also

[101]

didn't like invent the next big thing

[103]

it's not like you did this because

[105]

you're Super Genius you know you're not

[107]

you didn't you're not like a you know

[110]

vitalik you know creating ethereum on

[112]

the blockchain or something crazy like

[113]

that like you just did a very specific

[116]

set of like prudent smart actions and it

[120]

just added up in an amazing way we're

[121]

gonna talk about it

[123]

um but also I didn't know [ __ ] about you

[125]

Sam's known you for a little while he

[127]

brought you up on the Pod a while back

[129]

he goes I know this guy or I met this

[130]

guy he's really interesting he does this

[133]

WordPress stuff have you seen him and I

[135]

was like no we went to your personal

[136]

website I don't know if you ever got

[137]

this clip but like way back in the day

[138]

we went to your personal website we were

[140]

talking about you but we didn't know too

[141]

much then

[143]

we do Camp MFM which is my my basketball

[145]

fantasy camp we're invited like 25 other

[147]

Founders and we had an NBA guy come

[149]

basically treat us like we were you know

[151]

Pretend We're a pro for the weekend and

[154]

uh when we were there there's so many

[157]

people to get to know again I didn't

[158]

really get to know everybody at the same

[159]

time but then Mr Beast did something

[161]

amazing so one night we were all in the

[164]

kitchen basically we're all hungry after

[165]

basketball and Mr Beast just sets a

[168]

chair in the middle of the middle of the

[170]

room and he goes I don't know whoever

[172]

you guys are because he's like if we've

[175]

just been playing basketball all day and

[176]

now I'm curious like who the hell are

[178]

you guys you Tech nerds basically uh and

[181]

he's like sit out of this chair you sit

[183]

down and then he would just interrogate

[185]

that person be like all right what do

[186]

you do who are you all right how does

[188]

that work is that big what's your dream

[190]

okay cool and then he would like go to

[192]

the next person and I think you were

[194]

maybe the third or fourth person in the

[195]

hot seat and I was like oh this is great

[197]

I actually don't know too much of

[198]

science story

[200]

and then you just blew us away you blew

[203]

us away your story was so good Mr Beast

[205]

was while he was interrogating you I

[206]

thought um it was just like the perfect

[208]

interview if we had just recorded that

[210]

podcast I would have been happy so we're

[211]

just gonna try to recreate that moment

[212]

right now well inside you you were the

[215]

one of the quieter more humbler people

[218]

there

[219]

and probably the most impressive in

[222]

terms of like traditional business uh

[224]

accomplishments and it was very

[226]

fascinating what you've done I basically

[228]

heard about you through my friend

[229]

Neville midora and what I know about you

[232]

is that you had this blog called

[235]

wpbeginner which wrote really uh a ton

[238]

of articles some of it really simple

[240]

like how do I set up a WordPress site

[242]

and I think that ended up getting or it

[244]

still does has a ton of traffic and then

[247]

if I remember correctly and this is just

[248]

from an outside perspective you'll have

[250]

to tell me if I'm right or wrong you

[251]

basically started buying different

[253]

WordPress plugins that I imagine you saw

[257]

were popular on your blog so it was like

[259]

how do I set up

[261]

um a form to capture emails on my

[263]

WordPress blog and you it probably got

[265]

lots of traffic and you're like oh I

[266]

should just go buy one of these or here

[267]

are the best here are the five best

[269]

plugins for this thing or here's the

[272]

five best themes and if you put your

[274]

cursor over the links on wpbeginner

[276]

you'll see which of the links are

[278]

affiliate and I just I'm guessing that

[281]

like of the top five let's say forms for

[285]

WordPress based off the URL you own like

[287]

three of the top five and through that

[289]

you've like built this into a business

[291]

by the way you've never told me I'm just

[293]

guessing that makes high tens of

[296]

millions of dollars in Revenue no no Sam

[298]

not tens of not tens of Millions

[301]

nine figures of Revenue over 100 million

[304]

dollars of Revenue oh I did not know

[305]

that okay wow so just to paint the

[307]

picture here you have uh WP engine and

[310]

we'll talk about how you're sorry WP

[312]

beginner so WP beginner and we'll talk

[314]

about how you got to that but that's the

[315]

content site that's just providing free

[317]

help you know content to other people

[319]

like you who are trying to make sites in

[322]

the WordPress ecosystem that's the the

[324]

Mainstay and so I'll draw an analogy

[326]

here because uh we've had Andrew

[327]

Wilkinson on the Pod I don't know a

[328]

dozen times or something he's probably

[330]

one of the most famous guests and most

[332]

uh favorite guests of the audience of of

[335]

our community so

[337]

um you have a business that's a lot like

[339]

his he's got a portfolio of companies

[341]

you've got a portfolio of companies he

[343]

had meta lab which was kind of his like

[345]

Core Business Cash Cow thing that

[348]

allowed him to buy these others you had

[350]

your uh your WordPress site that the the

[353]

content site that was your core engine

[355]

[356]

in but I think you've actually done I

[358]

think your model actually might be a

[360]

little bit better that's no knock on

[361]

Andrew it's just to get people excited

[363]

here so basically you

[364]

I think have a more like one ecosystem

[367]

you're like okay I'm gonna like dominate

[369]

this WordPress ecosystem and the good

[370]

thing is that WordPress I think power is

[372]

like 30 or 40 of all websites so it's

[373]

you know it's huge it's basically like

[375]

you know a huge chunk of the internet

[377]

um and then all your stuff fits together

[378]

so you you know you have one customer

[380]

they're trying to you know uh make a

[383]

successful website and grow and and

[385]

solve other problems you're like great I

[386]

have

[387]

the content that will help you then I

[389]

have the tools that'll help you and you

[391]

either buy them or you build them and

[393]

you've created this portfolio that now

[394]

does you know nine figures of Revenue

[396]

probably worth a billion dollars you own

[399]

the whole thing yourself with no no

[400]

outside investors you're only 32 years

[402]

old uh you know you've built kind of an

[405]

amazing thing so that's the just to

[406]

sketch out like the blueprint here for

[408]

what what you've done

[411]

um Sam does that do you think would you

[412]

add anything to that description well

[414]

then there's all his side hobby stuff

[417]

which like I read his annual report and

[420]

he's like I bought a gas station or I

[422]

bought like eight or ten gas stations so

[424]

that's like a whole another conversation

[425]

but yeah that that's that's let's do a

[427]

quick thing on the on the origin story

[429]

so that people people have it you told

[430]

me once on the phone you said I think

[432]

you were doing consulting or something

[433]

you had like an agency you're like I was

[435]

helping people make websites and I was

[437]

building like crms or whatever for them

[439]

and then WordPress came out I was like

[440]

oh this is way better they should they

[442]

should be using Wordpress you started to

[443]

help it you just were a service agency

[445]

right and then you started then

[447]

WordPress became your your core service

[449]

and then you're like okay I'm just gonna

[450]

help people make WordPress uh sites for

[453]

their business is that right

[455]

pretty much so remember uh the very

[458]

first websites that I built were online

[459]

proxies because I wanted to play games

[462]

in school

[463]

um and I was making ad revenue on

[465]

proxies and some arcade TurnKey sites

[467]

and I was helping small other you know

[469]

local businesses set up their websites I

[471]

tried making my own CMS uh with PHP by

[475]

the way I can code I'm not the best at

[477]

it I would say now I probably suck at it

[479]

and what age what what what age was this

[482]

13 14

[484]

um so so I would I would build these

[487]

websites super cheap call it like 250

[490]

300 that would make you a website uh

[492]

back in the day and

[494]

but what happened is that these clients

[496]

would always rely on me to make changes

[498]

to it changes to the websites and as I

[501]

started doing consulting at a bigger

[503]

scale

[504]

um I didn't want to do this uh the small

[507]

and small endings so and I discovered

[510]

WordPress around this time this was

[512]

2006. uh and I said WordPress was only

[516]

an Inception for three years so

[518]

WordPress started in 2003 so I

[519]

discovered it in 2006 to to put in

[522]

perspective I've been I'm 32 now I've

[524]

been in WordPress half of my life you

[526]

know this is the result is compounding

[528]

in one thing for half of my Life by the

[530]

way you're 13 14 doing this are you like

[533]

at the dinner table at night being like

[535]

uh my clients are pain in the ass right

[538]

now mom like you know what are you

[539]

saying at home and also how are these

[541]

people finding you are they coming to

[542]

your middle school and you're handing

[543]

out flyers what's going on no no no no

[546]

so we moved from Pakistan to us when I

[549]

was 12. okay my dad had the mechanical

[552]

engineering degree but it did not

[554]

validate when he came to us so he was

[556]

working 16 hours a day as a gas station

[559]

clerk attendant you know just swiping

[562]

things 16 hours a day kid you not every

[563]

day Monday to Friday and on the weekend

[565]

he had his third job so I didn't really

[568]

see my dad uh my mom was busy because

[571]

there's three of us and the fourth one

[573]

on the way right so my youngest brother

[574]

was born in U.S so there was not many

[578]

dinner conversations happening

[581]

um I wanted to figure out a way to have

[584]

some chunk of change in my pocket so I

[586]

can buy junk food like Mountain Dew and

[588]

Kit Kat and Snickers and all the [ __ ]

[590]

that you buy it when you're in high

[591]

school dude your dad was at the gas

[594]

station man you had the hookup you just

[596]

uh you just needed to ask

[597]

[Laughter]

[601]

my dad would never do that by the way

[604]

you went to high school at age 12 also

[605]

right

[606]

yeah I started so I moved here I had

[609]

just finished seventh grade in Pakistan

[611]

and I came here in March so this this

[614]

two-month Gap the school system is like

[616]

well we can put you in eighth grade

[617]

worst case scenario you'll repeat 8th

[619]

grade because that's where you're

[620]

supposed to be in anyways but our

[622]

education system in Pakistan is far

[624]

better than the one we have here in U.S

[626]

so they're like you can go to high

[628]

school so I'm like 12 in high school the

[631]

youngest person in school I did not

[633]

speak English that well

[635]

um I would say probably very little

[636]

English I knew how to read English

[638]

because we were thought alphabets and

[640]

such but my communication skills were

[642]

not there

[644]

um so yeah that was that was a pretty

[645]

challenging time for me and I spent most

[647]

of the time in the library during lunch

[649]

time I was in the library and I wanted

[651]

to play games because I'm like I can't

[652]

talk to humans so I would just play on

[655]

the computer and those game sites were

[657]

blocked I'm like how do you unblock this

[659]

thing and that you know drove me down in

[661]

terms of how I was getting clients it

[663]

was through these forums online right so

[666]

you had forums like DN Forum digital

[669]

point name Pros a bunch of these you

[671]

know OG communities online where you can

[674]

get you know business and my cousin got

[676]

me into one of those they don't know

[678]

you're 13. you're just a guy in a forum

[679]

no yeah well like so we had like a

[682]

family friend who needed a website and

[684]

you know they had a bit local business

[685]

they knew how old I was and they're like

[687]

oh you can do it and I'll pay you 300 to

[689]

build my website I'm like okay sounds

[690]

good and then you know that's how that

[692]

that funnel started so you do insights

[695]

you're trying to make your own CMS you

[696]

discover WordPress you're like oh this

[697]

is way better here's a CMS out of the

[698]

box

[699]

uh what's what becomes the aha moment

[702]

and uh when do you create the blog so

[704]

had had discovered WordPress moved these

[708]

clients over I had affiliate sites I was

[710]

doing affiliate promos at the time I was

[712]

discovering this

[713]

um I had directories that I was telling

[715]

you about earlier that um so

[718]

I wanted to get more traffic so I had

[720]

these I created these Myspace profiles

[722]

they were fake profiles

[723]

um and got hundreds of thousands of

[725]

followers and I would send both you know

[726]

DMS equivalent which were called

[728]

bulletins on MySpace right so I just

[730]

wanted more traffic and I went down the

[732]

rabbit hole of SEO which brought me to

[735]

Wordpress and and then because WordPress

[737]

was Dynamic content so I added the blogs

[740]

to the directories started using uh

[742]

WordPress for the clients and I had the

[745]

social media profiles uh on dig and

[747]

stumble upon never superpower users and

[749]

such and essentially when I wanted to

[752]

get rid of this business the Consulting

[754]

business I wanted to figure out how how

[756]

do you do this I asked other agency

[759]

owners and they're like well you know we

[761]

just had these PDFs that we give to our

[762]

clients and I'm like but WordPress

[764]

updates all the time how do you keep

[765]

those PDFs updated and they're like oh

[768]

no we uh we updated the PDF I'm like

[770]

that's dumb you should use WordPress to

[772]

update those documentation so

[774]

essentially wpbeginner started that way

[776]

it was The Unofficial documentation for

[779]

WordPress now WordPress had

[780]

documentation but it was it was written

[781]

for developers by developers nothing was

[783]

for business owners and began what year

[785]

was this 2009 well one good point here

[789]

is that that's now six years after

[791]

WordPress started and you're making the

[793]

beginner site and there really wasn't a

[795]

great one most people I think uh there's

[798]

a lesson I've seen many many times as we

[800]

talked to different guests which is and

[802]

sometimes you feel like you're late but

[804]

you're rarely ever actually late to the

[806]

wave and uh Kevin vand Trump told us

[808]

this one time he goes for all the best

[810]

things you always get it was a second

[812]

turn to get on the train like uh you

[814]

feel like you're late you feel like you

[815]

missed it but often uh you're not you're

[818]

not that late actually don't talk

[819]

yourself out of it there's almost always

[821]

another another chance to hop on

[823]

it look according to similar web right

[826]

now you get like two or three million

[829]

visits a month the early website

[831]

shockingly doesn't look significantly

[834]

different than how it looks now you kind

[835]

of nailed it right out the gate it's

[837]

like it was a simple website

[839]

um where you just have articles about

[840]

picking the right name how to install

[842]

WordPress selecting the right theme

[844]

picking the right web hosting but were

[847]

you writing this stuff because I know

[848]

you're in English as a second language

[850]

person so were you are you actually

[852]

writing these articles because a lot of

[853]

them are long like look 55 of the Most

[856]

Wanted WordPress tips tricks and hacks

[858]

yeah like these are like pretty like

[860]

in-depth articles as well as you're

[862]

playing the game of SEO and like you

[865]

clearly understand like English yeah no

[868]

by by this time I was already in college

[870]

right so I started high school at 12

[872]

started college at 16. by that time my

[875]

English had gotten uh much much better

[877]

so I was writing uh these articles on

[879]

wpbeginner I had a team

[882]

um of two other people that were helping

[883]

me uh with with the website the website

[887]

looks similar now and what it was in

[889]

2009 there was a period when when I

[891]

changed it and there was a mistake

[894]

people you know I changed the color

[896]

scheme too much and the audience were

[897]

like they didn't resonate with it so I

[899]

changed it all back uh and haven't

[901]

changed it since then because the big

[902]

lesson was you know big companies don't

[904]

really change their stuff because they

[905]

know if it's working don't you know

[906]

break it if it's not broke don't fix it

[908]

don't interrupt compounding

[909]

unnecessarily as Charlie Munger says uh

[912]

so I made it go back to what it looks

[914]

like and it's been that way since 2012.

[917]

and what tools do you use to figure out

[919]

well because I I imagine most of these

[921]

articles are you're writing them based

[923]

off of what people are searching for is

[924]

that right yes uh it's a combination of

[927]

that and what they're asking us through

[929]

our contact form what they're asking us

[931]

in our Facebook group I think our

[933]

Facebook group has probably over 90 000

[935]

members

[936]

um and support requests are coming so

[938]

yes we have our own keyword generator if

[940]

you go on WP beginners kind of hidden on

[941]

the free tools page it's a keyword

[943]

generator and you can put in anything in

[945]

there like WordPress and we'll tell you

[946]

what people are searching for

[948]

um and do you have a lot of comments

[949]

early on June in 2010 a year or two

[952]

after starting you already had 26

[953]

responses on just I just clicked on a

[955]

random article so you're like getting

[957]

traction yeah so a couple of things

[959]

happen that that worked out for me one

[962]

do you guys remember dig.com yeah it was

[965]

it was really popular so I had a power

[967]

user profile there so what I like if one

[970]

out of two articles that I would submit

[971]

would hit the front page

[973]

so of course I use that to my benefit

[975]

and I use that Network to my benefits of

[978]

your profile because uh there was there

[980]

was legitimate ways and illegitimate

[981]

ways to do that I'm curious how did you

[982]

end up having that it's just a Social

[985]

Circle right so there's these engagement

[987]

pods that that you go on and back back

[990]

in the day was on MSN Messenger and well

[994]

um Aim so so we just had the engagement

[996]

pods so if I submit something like you

[999]

know it was a group chat and everybody

[1000]

would jump dump their items in there and

[1002]

you would upload it so say I was the

[1004]

engagement pod and and what year did

[1007]

this did WP beginner cross a million in

[1010]

Revenue in annual revenue how long did

[1012]

how long did that take maybe a year and

[1014]

a half or so

[1016]

oh damn you crushed it right away yeah

[1017]

so you know we had a good Revenue stream

[1020]

so let's let me take a step back so

[1023]

there was this business and the listicle

[1025]

business so collectively past a million

[1028]

uh in a year and a half so about

[1031]

2011 2012.

[1034]

and so your early 20s uh basically at

[1037]

that stage you're a millionaire

[1039]

um that was my first million how does

[1041]

that feel you said you grew up your

[1042]

parent you know your dad worked you told

[1044]

me you were like yeah my dad worked at a

[1045]

gas station and I thought Pakistani guy

[1048]

says gas station I know you own gas

[1049]

stations I was like oh so your family

[1050]

owned gases you go no no he sat in the

[1053]

gas station he swiped the cards in the

[1055]

gas station uh and you were like

[1057]

everybody in my family I knew you were

[1058]

either you worked at a gas station or

[1059]

you're like oh you're you're real smart

[1061]

like you get to be a bank teller and

[1063]

that's all you knew in your bubble so

[1065]

tell me two things how did you get

[1068]

because you got to kind of see the

[1070]

possibility of being a business person

[1072]

or being wealthy before you're going to

[1073]

even do it uh so how did that happen and

[1076]

how did it feel when like the name of

[1079]

the podcast my first meal I'm curious

[1080]

how did it feel when that first happened

[1081]

what was do you remember your reaction

[1083]

yeah so I'll tell you how it how I knew

[1086]

it was possible so I used to play

[1088]

cricket

[1089]

um which if you have a lot of listeners

[1090]

in Pakistan and India you know they love

[1092]

Cricket We love I love cricket so I was

[1095]

playing cricket and there are many

[1097]

leagues in U.S and South Florida there

[1098]

was one and there's many now too

[1101]

I met this Pakistani gentleman and he

[1104]

was the sponsor for her team he's a

[1106]

crazy qriket fanatic and he became my

[1108]

mentor and now he's a family friend

[1110]

um but back then I just see this

[1113]

Pakistani guy you know driving a S-Class

[1116]

and you know just super humble super

[1119]

nice and I'm like what do you do are you

[1121]

like born into money or was it what's

[1123]

your Spiel I was pretty blunt as a kid

[1126]

um so so he's like no I have real estate

[1129]

I came to the US with like 500 in my

[1132]

pocket or 100 in my pocket you know

[1133]

those typical immigrant story uh and

[1136]

then he you know after we'd win the

[1138]

games he would take us out to eat

[1139]

sometimes he'll invite us all to his

[1141]

house which is like you know big Mega

[1142]

Mansion right you know 15 18 000 square

[1145]

foot house

[1146]

um and his kids were my age so we'll

[1148]

just kind of go over to his house hang

[1149]

out sometimes he would go over to his

[1151]

house to watch cricket games because

[1153]

they're happening on the other side of

[1154]

the world so time zones are different

[1156]

and in between breaks I was the one who

[1159]

took interest in his business you know

[1161]

and his kids were all roaming around but

[1163]

I was I'm like tell me how this works

[1164]

tell me how this works right so he would

[1165]

tell me stories like oh this is how I

[1167]

took over a Burger King for free or this

[1169]

is how I did this and this is how I

[1170]

started so I I absorbed a lot of the

[1174]

earlier lessons on business finance just

[1178]

hustle from him right and he was always

[1181]

super encouraging to ask me how's this

[1183]

going how you know and I felt like I

[1185]

could talk to him about it so that's

[1188]

that was the early stage of me knowing

[1190]

oh this is possible because nobody in my

[1192]

family uh had any any wealth uh they

[1195]

were just working at gas stations all my

[1197]

uncles everybody and if you're really

[1198]

smart you're working at the teller at

[1200]

the bank

[1201]

um so so that was the motivation part in

[1204]

terms of how it felt when I hit my first

[1208]

million

[1209]

you know you would think it would be

[1210]

like the joyous moment of oh my God look

[1213]

at this

[1214]

I was more scared than than uh than

[1217]

anything because

[1218]

I was is this gonna is this Gonna Last

[1220]

that's the question that you have you

[1222]

know in your 20s you're like you come

[1224]

from nothing and you have this thing

[1225]

you're like is this going to last

[1227]

forever like what what is the what am I

[1229]

supposed to be doing I have no guidance

[1230]

so there was like this inherent fear so

[1233]

I always lived below my means like way

[1236]

way way below I mean so when I was in

[1237]

college I uh I did not buy any furniture

[1240]

I just slept on the floor on a blanket

[1242]

because I mean that's how I grew up in

[1244]

Pakistan so I'm just like I'm not gonna

[1245]

buy any furniture why why waste time and

[1248]

money with this so in my in my apartment

[1250]

I had a blanket and I got a desk from

[1254]

Goodwill so that's what I worked on

[1256]

hahaha

[1257]

and and I mean what's amazing is you

[1261]

said I would have thought the first

[1263]

million came sooner than 2012 but

[1266]

because in 10 years you've thrown that

[1268]

from one to 100 plus or whatever it is

[1271]

when were the inflection points where

[1274]

you were like all right blogging is cool

[1276]

and it's working yes uh let's get Beyond

[1280]

yeah so I launched opt-in monster in uh

[1284]

2013 list 25 in 2011.

[1288]

um these things started really cranking

[1289]

I had some really sweetheart affiliate

[1291]

deals with certain companies

[1294]

um that worked out really really well

[1295]

for me and

[1297]

so that was good

[1299]

in that time you know we were coming out

[1302]

of the economy the recession so real

[1304]

there's still like some real estate

[1305]

deals to be had so I bought my gas

[1307]

station the first one primarily because

[1310]

I wanted to offset uh offset expenses

[1313]

with an appreciating asset which was the

[1315]

lesson I learned from my mentor right

[1316]

yeah let's let's talk about that one

[1318]

real quick so just do a quick quick

[1320]

little monologue on why did you buy a

[1323]

gas station when you found out you're

[1325]

having a kid

[1328]

so one of the things I learned from my

[1330]

mentor early on I was like how do you

[1331]

how do you like justify buying a

[1334]

Mercedes because that's a depreciating

[1336]

asset and he's like yeah but you know

[1338]

when I drive in this people think of me

[1340]

better like you know there's the

[1341]

impression game Etc and how I justify it

[1343]

is I buy something that's an

[1345]

appreciating asset like real estate and

[1347]

I just use the income from that to us

[1349]

pay my lease payment so my principal

[1351]

never disappears and I was like that's a

[1353]

good idea your principal continues to

[1355]

appreciate and you're using something uh

[1358]

you know the income from it to offset

[1359]

and it also helps you stay disciplined

[1362]

because you're not gonna go you know

[1364]

overspend your money because normally

[1365]

when you get a raise or something like

[1367]

this everybody just thinks in monthly

[1369]

payments so this takes you away from the

[1371]

monthly payments mindset into thinking a

[1373]

little bit bigger so when I was about to

[1376]

have my son uh I was

[1378]

26 by this time guys like I was I was

[1383]

doing all right you know I I had all

[1385]

these VC firms reaching out me you know

[1387]

I I could I could have had a a solid

[1391]

eight-figure exit like you know two or

[1393]

high eight figure eggs that I had offers

[1395]

for that at the time and I'm just like

[1397]

high eight figures as in as in 90. I was

[1400]

in 70 at the time 70. for the for WP

[1403]

beginner no no I had opted monster at

[1405]

the time and I had uh uh the gallery

[1408]

solution at the time and I had uh I had

[1411]

WP forms I had analytics so were you

[1413]

close to taking it and how did you

[1415]

decide not to yeah I I I definitely

[1418]

thought about it but then I was like

[1420]

what would I do afterwards like my son

[1422]

is gonna you know grow up seeing me not

[1424]

work because I'm like I'll be stuck with

[1425]

that bunny right like I would not I

[1427]

would not go do anything if you I mean

[1429]

if you have 10 million dollars 20

[1431]

million dollars you put it in the bank

[1432]

and you're like hey this this is it I

[1434]

wanna but you're gonna have a lot more

[1435]

yeah I was gonna have a lot more than

[1437]

that that's that's what I'm saying even

[1439]

after paying taxes I I would have a lot

[1441]

more than I would be set so the the the

[1444]

the factor that my wife and I talked

[1446]

about was what instill my work ethic was

[1450]

watching my dad work

[1451]

and I wanted my son to at least see that

[1454]

right what was the what was the multiple

[1457]

on that for to get to 70 million is it

[1459]

as high as 10x multiple at that time

[1463]

um no it it was lower than that so so

[1466]

you turn that down and I turned that

[1469]

down you turned it down was it really

[1471]

you've turned it down because you were

[1473]

like I want my son to see me work yeah

[1475]

and also I didn't I wasn't ready to give

[1477]

up my baby okay and uh okay so fair

[1481]

enough so you you

[1482]

um basically so here's the thing so so

[1484]

at this time

[1486]

my son is about to be born and I'm like

[1489]

okay how much does a baby cost right

[1492]

like what what are the cause of this

[1494]

baby and you're like okay well you know

[1496]

you're gonna have diapers you're gonna

[1497]

have you know schooling and this and

[1499]

that and I'm like well no if I buy

[1501]

something that gives me at least five or

[1503]

six grand a month nothing that

[1505]

um and then the baby costs are covered

[1506]

first so like you know it's gonna give

[1508]

me 60 to 70 000 a year

[1512]

um and now I don't have to think about

[1513]

it and my family is taken care of no

[1515]

matter what happens to me so yeah that's

[1518]

that's what I I got for our baby shower

[1520]

most people take the money they make and

[1522]

then they're like all right that's what

[1523]

I have to spend and they spend it what

[1525]

you do from your Mentor is you take the

[1527]

money you make that has to now go to buy

[1530]

an appreciating asset that will spit off

[1532]

cash flow you and then you could spend

[1534]

whatever that one makes so it's kind of

[1537]

like a a savings program basically

[1540]

um so you you spend what the you go by

[1542]

the gas station the gas station's gonna

[1544]

pay you and you're like that will pay uh

[1546]

for this child you know like I'm gonna

[1548]

provide my I'm not going to provide my

[1549]

for my family this gas station is going

[1551]

to provide for my family I want to put

[1553]

food on the table dude it allows me to

[1556]

want sleep better at night and to be

[1558]

more bullish in the deals than I'm doing

[1559]

how many gas stations you have now ten

[1562]

and you own a bank too I I bought a bank

[1565]

yes in Wells Fargo

[1567]

Wells Fargo because you have a cool blog

[1569]

post where you're like uh I used to go

[1570]

to this Bank all the time and I decided

[1572]

to buy it this year yeah I used to ride

[1574]

my bicycle around it I couldn't even go

[1576]

to the bank I didn't have a bank out of

[1577]

time I used to ride my bicycle around

[1579]

the bank because there was a Sports

[1580]

Authority there and Office Depot there

[1582]

uh just like ride my bike into that and

[1583]

then I bought that building what amazes

[1586]

me is is how like I don't know if you're

[1589]

similar web estimates are right but can

[1592]

do you say what your monthly traffic is

[1594]

on wpbeginner no

[1596]

but you know it's it's in the millions

[1598]

okay so let's just let's just assume

[1601]

that similar web is roughly correct two

[1603]

to five million we'll give it a huge

[1604]

range a month that's a lot that's not

[1607]

that much like what's crazy to me is

[1610]

that I mean that's high intent traffic

[1611]

it's likely people who are coming for to

[1614]

buy something like they want to in the

[1616]

email software so they're coming for a

[1617]

review it's just amazing to me that that

[1620]

much traffic has created so much value I

[1623]

think when you start

[1625]

um your online business most people

[1627]

think about maybe a CPM model of

[1630]

monetization or a CPC model of

[1632]

monetization

[1633]

there is far there are other and better

[1637]

models of monetization right

[1640]

um you can have cpls you can have CPA

[1643]

you can have a combination of CPL CPA

[1645]

you can have recurring you know uh

[1647]

commission you're talking about uh CPM

[1650]

meaning just uh

[1652]

ten dollars per 1000 visitors for

[1655]

display ad versus cost per lead or cost

[1658]

per acquisition which is someone buys

[1660]

something they give you a hundred

[1661]

dollars per month if it's a MailChimp

[1663]

and it's someone's paying 500 a month

[1665]

they'll say all right you get a hundred

[1666]

dollars per month while they're a

[1667]

customer correct and there are verticals

[1669]

that are not available on wpbeginner

[1672]

because remember I was telling you I I

[1673]

did a lot of affiliate marketing as well

[1676]

um there are articles that will pay you

[1678]

on a lead basis and hundreds of dollars

[1681]

just for a lead not for not for a

[1683]

commission like as an affiliate not like

[1685]

you made a sale just to lead we'll get

[1687]

you hundreds of dollars and and so so I

[1690]

did a lot of those

[1691]

um and I still do so that's that's a

[1693]

good Cash Cow

[1695]

um so those verticals are available

[1696]

where you can go and promote something

[1699]

and get over 100 an elite has the wp

[1702]

beginner Revenue grown like the rest of

[1704]

the business or is that just like you're

[1706]

like I'm I'm perfectly fine with it just

[1708]

being a steady 10 or 15 million dollar a

[1711]

year thing and I use I bet you it's

[1713]

super profitable I'm looking at your

[1714]

team page I would bet you make 50 profit

[1716]

or something crazy and you're like I'm

[1718]

just gonna take that profit and buy more

[1719]

stuff and I'm okay with that being

[1721]

steady pretty much you know on a Content

[1724]

business you cannot compound it as much

[1727]

you know eventually what what happens is

[1729]

you will hit the traffic Mass that you

[1731]

hit

[1732]

um and you can unlock as many levers as

[1735]

you can but the compounding will stop

[1737]

because it's a reoccurring Revenue you

[1739]

know like the person that I referred

[1740]

this year weird or something it's not

[1742]

going to compound next year I'm not

[1744]

going to get that plus new customers

[1745]

which is what happened in a software

[1747]

business which is recurring Revenue so

[1749]

yes your assumption is right that while

[1752]

WP beginner has grown it hasn't grown at

[1754]

the same Pace as the software companies

[1756]

and that's like a very big you know

[1758]

mental shift in between recurring

[1760]

revenue and reoccurring revenue for all

[1762]

the creators that are listening

[1764]

um because once you understand that

[1766]

you'll start thinking about your

[1767]

business a little differently so I I

[1769]

took all of our profits and invested in

[1773]

um you know software and tools I I still

[1776]

have Niche tools that are not even

[1777]

related to Wordpress

[1779]

um that I bought off of Flippa and

[1781]

sometimes just private Outreach because

[1782]

I knew those verticals were going to be

[1784]

lucrative because I had a better offer

[1786]

than they were promoting and I paid like

[1788]

one guy I think like fifteen thousand

[1790]

dollars up front and in the very first

[1792]

month it made me 18 Grand and now every

[1795]

month it makes me over 10 grand like and

[1797]

it's pure profit nobody touches that

[1799]

tool right so I think about ad just as

[1802]

good as a gas station because like my

[1804]

hosting cost for that tool is maybe like

[1806]

eight dollars a month right maybe 10.

[1809]

um and that's it so so you can have

[1813]

these cash flow income streams that come

[1815]

through and that's how I was able to buy

[1818]

the businesses that I did without any

[1819]

outside financing without any outside

[1822]

debt I was also in a market that wasn't

[1825]

fully mature so so like there was that

[1829]

advantage that you know those shrewd

[1831]

pe's and VCS are not in in the market

[1833]

they didn't understand the market

[1835]

um and I could see what the potential of

[1837]

a business so I might buy something and

[1841]

you're you're saying well this has no

[1843]

Revenue it just has user base and I can

[1845]

come in and say yeah but if I do this

[1847]

and this it can it can be a seven figure

[1850]

business so I might buy something for

[1852]

like you know six figures and then in

[1856]

two years that thing will make seven

[1857]

figures in profit you told me something

[1859]

once that sounded almost like a real

[1861]

estate

[1862]

um philosophy so like in real estate

[1864]

they always say or some people say you

[1866]

make money on the buy not on the sell

[1868]

meaning like you should buy something

[1870]

knowing

[1871]

that it has both a margin of safety and

[1873]

that you have the plan for what it's

[1875]

gonna how it's going to be different

[1876]

than what the current owner values it at

[1878]

and I think you've had a similar thing I

[1880]

forgot what the example was but it was

[1881]

sort of like uh like let's say for

[1883]

example you're like great I buy this

[1885]

company and they're paying three and a

[1887]

half percent on their payment things but

[1889]

I have a contract with that same payment

[1890]

provider because I have more scale

[1892]

that's at two percent so now I know I

[1894]

have 1.5 off just off the gross from day

[1898]

one because I I have this contract uh

[1900]

and you kind of have these principle of

[1902]

like almost like you make the money on

[1904]

the buy because you already know well I

[1906]

have I know I can throw this much

[1907]

traffic at it maybe from wpbeginner I

[1910]

know I can renegotiate these payment

[1911]

terms because I already have the

[1912]

contract with the paper provider or the

[1914]

affiliate contracts with the companies

[1916]

on the other side is that uh is that

[1918]

accurate 100 100 so this was one of the

[1921]

lessons I learned from from a mentor

[1922]

right and who had the real estate

[1924]

background so the philosophy is very

[1926]

much derivative of real estate you make

[1928]

money in the buy you have to be

[1930]

otherwise if you're paying a high

[1931]

multiple thinking based on future I mean

[1934]

yeah that might work out but it has a

[1937]

bigger risk so from my perspective you

[1940]

know I want to have heads I've been

[1941]

tails that don't lose much and I got

[1943]

that you know formula from reading

[1946]

monish babri's book I was a huge fan of

[1948]

his now her friends

[1950]

um but oh yeah so that's very much

[1952]

finding margin of safety explain that

[1954]

more heads I win Tails I don't lose much

[1958]

um what what does that mean and what's

[1959]

an example so a good example would be if

[1961]

if a business in your perspective

[1963]

intrinsic value of it is a million

[1966]

dollars and you end up paying 700 000

[1970]

today

[1972]

heads you know you're gonna win if this

[1975]

business continues growing tells you

[1977]

know you you'll still have so much of

[1979]

upside that you know because you you

[1981]

paid 300 grand less 30 less than market

[1983]

value

[1985]

um that in case something don't doesn't

[1986]

go right it has to be like 40 doesn't go

[1989]

right and you still only lose 100 Grand

[1991]

in that situation so you need to be able

[1994]

to look at the deal and say what are my

[1996]

downsides you have to invert the

[1997]

situation

[1999]

um think about like how you're gonna die

[2001]

in this and then don't go there sort of

[2003]

thing

[2006]

our software is the worst have you heard

[2009]

of HubSpot see most crms are a cobble

[2011]

together mess but HubSpot is easy to

[2013]

adopt and actually looks gorgeous I

[2016]

think I love our new CRM our software is

[2018]

the best HubSpot grow better

[2021]

you sort of have this like

[2023]

pay attention to the sense and the

[2025]

dollars will follow type of vibe where

[2027]

like you're really not

[2030]

you're not I guess I'm surprised at how

[2033]

maybe I don't know if it's still the

[2034]

same way I'm surprised at how small some

[2037]

of the things that you do and yet

[2040]

because you own 30 or 40 of them they're

[2044]

really accumulating exactly so dude when

[2047]

you come from nothing you have you have

[2048]

to have a good sense of where the money

[2050]

is going to go right and you have to be

[2052]

very conservative to not lose it all

[2054]

because I came from nothing I don't want

[2056]

to go back to that so I'm very very

[2058]

cautious

[2059]

the funny thing about compounding is

[2061]

that if you compound at a healthy rate

[2063]

and I I have a very very good

[2064]

compounding track record what what is it

[2067]

I've been compounding it in double

[2069]

digits in for for past

[2072]

70 years what's that mean 20 like what

[2075]

would be considered good like you know

[2077]

like free for you you're like all right

[2079]

30 or 40 that's like I mean that's

[2082]

amazing you can't get that in any normal

[2083]

investment right exactly so Market

[2085]

compounded well eight percent yeah

[2087]

um private Equity might give might get

[2089]

you in teens right you know I I'm way

[2092]

way I'm double private Equity more than

[2094]

double

[2094]

so so that's and that only happens when

[2098]

you can identify a mismanaged gem

[2101]

okay

[2102]

um when some somebody has a has a

[2105]

business and they might only be thinking

[2107]

about monetizing monetizing from one

[2109]

angle they're not thinking about it from

[2111]

a full perspective so I can look at it

[2113]

and say well yes this is the current

[2116]

Revenue today and I'm getting a bargain

[2118]

on today's Revenue but here are my

[2121]

contracts that I have but so many

[2122]

different partners and vendors and such

[2124]

that I'll be able to unlock Extra

[2126]

Revenue here here here here here here so

[2128]

I turned this business that has one

[2130]

Revenue stream having like multiple

[2132]

revenue streams

[2134]

um and and that's how you take something

[2135]

that was doing like no Revenue to or or

[2139]

very low Revenue to having you know five

[2143]

eight ten million dollars in Revenue

[2146]

um and you do it enough times and you

[2148]

just let it compound like these

[2149]

businesses are not rocket growth right

[2151]

so this is not a

[2153]

um business that's going to hit one

[2156]

business gonna hit a billion dollar in

[2157]

Revenue that's not what's gonna happen

[2158]

but these businesses are going to

[2160]

consistently come pound because more

[2163]

people are going to need websites the

[2165]

web presence just keeps growing you had

[2168]

a Tailwind which was WordPress was just

[2170]

going to keep getting more and more and

[2171]

more popular right that's a huge

[2172]

Tailwind that's like a generational

[2173]

Tailwind that's huge this is already

[2175]

it's going to grow faster than like an

[2178]

average growth rate because of that then

[2180]

you could do things smart operationally

[2181]

but I gotta ask you a question so our

[2184]

buddy Moyes has this phrase he goes the

[2186]

two sexiest words in the English

[2188]

language are distressed asset and you

[2191]

just said mismanaged gems as a as a

[2194]

catchphrase of something you look for

[2196]

I like that idea but also I'm kind of a

[2200]

lazy [ __ ] and when I hear

[2202]

distressed asset or mismanaged gem I

[2204]

think work oh I gotta go clean up I

[2206]

gotta manage this better

[2208]

um isn't that gonna take a bunch of work

[2210]

and a bunch of Mind share to turn things

[2211]

around versus it's kind of like the

[2213]

Buffett cigarette butt companies versus

[2215]

like just buying a beautiful business

[2217]

that's already working and letting it

[2218]

letting it grow for a long period of

[2220]

time

[2221]

um am I wrong I must be wrong about the

[2223]

the amount of effort that goes into

[2224]

fixing a mismanaged gem or a distressed

[2226]

asset what do you think about that

[2228]

so I think distress asset from a real

[2231]

estate perspective I would say slightly

[2233]

different than what a mismanaged gem is

[2236]

my real estate buys Sean that I did uh

[2240]

in in early days were distressed assets

[2242]

okay

[2244]

um but it was just the banks needed to

[2246]

get get this off their books right and I

[2248]

was a cash buyer

[2250]

um you know I'm not looking to finance

[2251]

anything I'm a cash buyer I had the

[2253]

right contacts so I was able to buy some

[2256]

of those gas station properties they

[2257]

were already leased out to uh to put at

[2260]

least out to like kushtard the Canadian

[2262]

multi-billion dollar company that owns

[2264]

Circle K all I had to do was just give

[2266]

cash to the bank and take take the you

[2268]

know deed over so those are distressed

[2270]

asset and I got lucky I mean I bought a

[2273]

gas station

[2274]

um money was all said and done I paid 90

[2276]

grand for it and you're like holy crap

[2278]

how did you do that that was a

[2280]

distressed asset because you had to do

[2281]

environmental cleanup on that thing okay

[2283]

that was work so so those are distress

[2286]

assets when you're thinking about

[2288]

mismanaged gem this is a property where

[2292]

somebody maybe do the lack of effort or

[2295]

lack of experience have not fully

[2297]

understand the potential that is there

[2299]

what are the commonalities of not

[2302]

realizing potential or common mistakes

[2303]

so you know you might you might be a

[2306]

Creator and you have a lot of user base

[2307]

and you just haven't think about

[2309]

monetization from you know all the

[2311]

different potential monetizations that

[2314]

that can be had in that one business

[2316]

yeah we have a friend that was doing

[2317]

this they were just looking at business

[2318]

on Flippa or like you know websites you

[2321]

know products to buy companies to buy

[2322]

and they were like yeah I just want an

[2324]

owner who just cared a lot about product

[2326]

and thought 95 of their brain just had

[2329]

the word product stamped all over it and

[2331]

then you're like cool so what were you

[2333]

doing for marketing and they're like

[2334]

well it's word of mouth and they were so

[2335]

proud of the word of mouth it's like

[2337]

great as long as their answer isn't

[2339]

Facebook ads then I'm just going to

[2340]

start doing Facebook ads or even if

[2343]

their answer was Facebook ads like

[2344]

what's the budget like oh you know like

[2345]

eight grand a month it's like why eight

[2347]

grand that's like uh you don't want to

[2349]

spend too much and he's like I want to

[2351]

spend 80 grand on Facebook you know like

[2353]

and basically that was his entire like

[2356]

you think oh this person made 20 million

[2359]

dollars wow they must be a genius and

[2361]

it's like no I just found a business

[2363]

which was so common somebody makes a

[2365]

product and all they think about is

[2366]

product and they really care about

[2367]

product they don't spend much on

[2368]

marketing maybe none because they don't

[2370]

know it or a small amount because

[2371]

they're just kind of like they don't

[2373]

think what like they don't ask

[2375]

themselves the question why don't I

[2376]

spend 10 times more on Facebook ads what

[2377]

would that take and that's literally the

[2380]

only change that they did that's the

[2382]

good barometer the other thing that that

[2385]

worked in our favor was the ecosystem

[2387]

effect so if I buy an analytics software

[2391]

I can cross-sell out than monster and

[2393]

vice versa you know if I if I buy member

[2396]

press then I know that all the people

[2398]

who are creating a course will need to

[2400]

buy optinmonster to have lead generation

[2402]

or it will need analytics to track all

[2404]

the things so the Synergy effect uh

[2407]

compounds and and that that was a big uh

[2412]

big up for us and I read somewhere that

[2415]

you said something like I don't buy

[2417]

whole steaks anymore I don't buy 100 of

[2420]

the company anymore I try to buy 49

[2421]

because I can't

[2423]

I have too many things I can't run all

[2425]

of them and then in the pre-call they

[2427]

did with Sean you have this really cool

[2429]

line it's in quotes it says how I manage

[2430]

a billion dollar portfolio without

[2432]

stressing out

[2438]

when I met him he was like he said

[2441]

something like you were like I travel I

[2442]

was like what are the you know what do

[2443]

you do with your time like how are you

[2444]

spending your time and you were like oh

[2445]

I love to travel my family we go travel

[2447]

and I was like I thought you meant like

[2449]

you know like I don't know LA or you

[2451]

know like we go to see the Grand Canyon

[2453]

and you were like we're going to Egypt

[2455]

and then we're going to like the

[2456]

Serengeti and everyone like I was like

[2458]

oh okay this guy's like doing like

[2460]

Exotic Travel every month that's cool he

[2463]

you said something like I don't know

[2465]

this is exactly right but my brain heard

[2468]

you basically stack a bunch of calls

[2470]

with your kind of operators in the last

[2472]

week of the month and like that's your

[2474]

only time to like stress out or think

[2475]

about like those calls and then the rest

[2478]

of the month you're not thinking about

[2479]

those things you're reading you're

[2480]

playing basketball you're doing other

[2481]

things and um so a is that accurate and

[2484]

B like I interpreted that as wow this

[2486]

guy's managing a billion dollar

[2487]

portfolio and he's not stressed out

[2489]

that's awesome

[2490]

yes that is that is fairly accurate now

[2493]

it now it didn't start that way I wanna

[2495]

I wanna emphasize that it didn't start

[2497]

that way

[2499]

um I didn't figure this out up until

[2501]

maybe

[2502]

two years ago

[2503]

okay so just just to put in perspective

[2506]

uh in in terms of like me being as chill

[2511]

what was like what were you doing before

[2513]

that you know I would have to go in

[2514]

sometimes clean the business and you

[2516]

know like oh this this is not doing

[2518]

right I would get get involved too much

[2519]

were you a hard ass yeah depending on

[2521]

who you ask yeah sure

[2524]

according to me no according to everyone

[2526]

I ever worked with hell yeah

[2529]

like you you seem like you have a

[2531]

ruthless side to you even though you're

[2533]

polite and kind you seem like you could

[2534]

be ruthless I I was sad I could be very

[2536]

disciplined uh ruthless might not be the

[2539]

right word that sounds so ruthless the

[2541]

way you said that that was awesome yeah

[2543]

that's a ruthless thing to say the

[2545]

[ __ ] ruthless thing to say I love it

[2547]

so so the trick is you know like if

[2550]

people say higher good people get out of

[2551]

the way but that sounds easier than it

[2554]

is so we use EOS in our companies and

[2558]

some of your audience might be familiar

[2559]

with it others might not be is

[2561]

entrepreneurial operating system

[2563]

um and as transparency accountability

[2565]

oftentimes when you know I found I

[2568]

sometimes bought businesses from the

[2569]

founders who who started delegating but

[2571]

they really abdicated and then the

[2573]

business went down and then you know

[2575]

that now they're like they're really

[2577]

checked out so now they're like ah this

[2579]

this thing sucks now I'm back in the

[2580]

business and it's a mess and they will

[2582]

come and exit to us that's a mismanaged

[2584]

gem by the way because all what you got

[2586]

to do is put back those accountability

[2588]

things and maybe put a right team member

[2589]

and this will this will start uh

[2591]

kickstarting again so you have to

[2593]

delegate but not abdicate so the EOS

[2596]

scorecards and good P L's uh monitoring

[2600]

will help you with that accountability

[2602]

piece so the P L's for all of our

[2605]

companies

[2606]

um are managed by my finance team at the

[2608]

HQ level that's cool so you um I want to

[2612]

talk a little bit about ideas so uh

[2616]

you've built this amazing thing uh and

[2618]

you've been basically kind of like

[2620]

building Cool Stuff making money since

[2622]

12 to 32. so you've had this run

[2626]

um I'm curious you know one of the

[2627]

questions we always get is all right

[2630]

well you know now it's easy for you it's

[2632]

easy for you to just keep doing what

[2634]

you're doing but like I'm not you so

[2636]

that's you know it's inspiring but it's

[2638]

not entirely helpful uh what would be

[2640]

more helpful is like what ideas or

[2641]

opportunities do you see that like

[2643]

somebody else could do you're too busy

[2644]

to do them or they're too too small for

[2646]

you now

[2647]

um what ideas or opportunities do you

[2650]

see that other people can do I think

[2652]

about cash flow

[2654]

so if I had nothing you know of course

[2657]

it's a lot easier for me now I can say

[2659]

hey Andrew I want to spend I want to

[2661]

invest in tiny I want to go do this and

[2662]

I can do a lot of those with the means

[2664]

that I have now but if I was starting

[2665]

all over the first thing would be to go

[2668]

build cash flow again and the easiest

[2670]

way to build cash flow is Services

[2673]

um you know agency business right now uh

[2677]

content agency since I know content well

[2679]

using AI

[2681]

I would crush it you know because I

[2684]

already know that Brands like Shopify

[2687]

Etc are using AI agencies to create top

[2689]

of the funnel content so of course

[2691]

there's some human adoming involved but

[2693]

this changes the game because if an

[2695]

article used to take maybe four hours to

[2696]

write now you can do it in 45 minutes

[2698]

right because if if you know the game

[2701]

right so

[2703]

a hustler younger version of me that's

[2706]

what I'd be doing content agencies

[2708]

copywriting agencies all AI Power Plus

[2710]

human review I would I would use like

[2713]

tools like clay.com I'm not sure if

[2715]

you've seen clay.com but it it helps you

[2718]

automate your sales Outreach you dump a

[2722]

profile and it finds all the data on on

[2724]

that person so you can write you can use

[2726]

GPT to write emails to them and then

[2728]

just hit them up right just call

[2729]

Outreach cold Outreach call Outreach

[2731]

because

[2731]

so not everybody but a small portion

[2734]

will you know take take you up on it

[2736]

deliver a great service go above and

[2738]

beyond with them watch the word of mouth

[2740]

take you places you raise prices

[2743]

um and I think that's uh that would be

[2746]

the way to go for me if I if I wanted to

[2748]

start all over again step one build cash

[2751]

flow then figure out how I can take this

[2753]

cash flow to build some recurring

[2755]

Revenue stream because in agency you're

[2757]

you still only have reoccurring Revenue

[2759]

stream and so uh then you would uh would

[2763]

you buy versus build from there and talk

[2766]

about that distinction because you

[2767]

started off as a builder you've now

[2769]

bought like I don't know 30 companies or

[2771]

something like that along the way and I

[2773]

think you studied

[2774]

not just Charlie Munger and Warren

[2777]

Buffett but also

[2779]

um Mark Leonard at constellation and you

[2781]

had told me something like you read all

[2782]

his annual letters and there was one

[2784]

thing in there that really stood out to

[2785]

you about building for spying what was

[2786]

that

[2787]

yeah it was one of his earlier letters

[2790]

maybe maybe like a third one or fourth

[2793]

one or something something like that

[2795]

um where Mark talked about that there

[2797]

was three types of growth that

[2799]

constellation was experiencing one was

[2802]

growed through organic which is just

[2803]

your business growing organically in

[2805]

their case maybe seven eight percent

[2806]

whatever

[2808]

um the second part of Revenue growth was

[2809]

coming from Acquisitions

[2812]

um where they would just go buy revenue

[2813]

and the third one was initiatives and

[2816]

initiatives would be things like new

[2818]

bills I had this product and I'm going

[2819]

to build a second product and he was

[2822]

like these turn out to be very expensive

[2824]

because it required more resources than

[2826]

time that you plan for it takes away

[2829]

time of your senior people

[2831]

um and you're not even counting those

[2833]

things so they're distracted and he's

[2836]

like you know I'm a capital allocator

[2837]

and from a pure Capital allocation

[2839]

perspective the return on invested

[2841]

Capital isn't always great because bills

[2845]

have higher risk so if it doesn't work

[2847]

out it's crap

[2849]

um for the first year or so when you're

[2850]

building there's zero percent return on

[2852]

your investment in that time so the

[2854]

compounding return is lower

[2856]

um and this this was my take was you

[2859]

know you can have ad spend of three

[2861]

years CAC at that point might not just

[2863]

go buy a company that has guaranteed

[2865]

revenue and then you can cross promote

[2867]

so so that sort of took me away from the

[2870]

initiatives idea so most over focus and

[2873]

all of our focus is on um is on buying

[2876]

one thing that I I imagine Sean is a

[2879]

little bit like this but I'm definitely

[2881]

like this where

[2883]

creating products and uh new businesses

[2886]

is is part self-expression where like

[2888]

it's just exciting it's fun to do that

[2890]

[ __ ] and I'm not like the most

[2892]

disciplined person when like the reason

[2893]

I don't like real estate is I'm like

[2895]

dude I I'm not very great at just

[2897]

looking at this Excel sheet and

[2899]

unlocking value like that's not that's

[2900]

not what I'm skilled at and I don't know

[2902]

if I even particularly like that where

[2904]

did you learn how to like unlock like

[2906]

find Value that you could unlock and

[2908]

what are some of the like common themes

[2910]

that you see uh with that I don't know

[2913]

Sean are you like that too yeah I am uh

[2915]

but then

[2917]

I'm also a a natural shortcutter I like

[2921]

to find the simplest path to the

[2923]

solution and that so like while creating

[2926]

like you had this thing you said on the

[2927]

Pod that was hilarious you're like I'm

[2929]

an artist bro I'm just an artist I gotta

[2931]

create and I definitely feel that I have

[2933]

a creative itch to me but I also have a

[2936]

path of least resistance itch to me

[2938]

where I'm like oh there's some beauty in

[2940]

just finding a simpler a simpler way to

[2942]

win

[2943]

um you know like I agree with that I

[2945]

also think it's fearful or it's it's

[2947]

fear to out like to pay like with the

[2950]

internet you could start with nothing

[2952]

and spend time and you can get something

[2954]

yeah but I think that's or you could

[2955]

he's like you could build something new

[2957]

High chance is just not gonna work it's

[2959]

a zero it's also gonna take a long time

[2961]

if you're buying something that's

[2962]

already working yes you out like cash

[2964]

but are you actually taking more risk

[2967]

there's a difference between putting out

[2968]

cash and putting out risk and I think

[2970]

what he's saying is that but that's what

[2971]

I'm asking is the difference I'm asking

[2974]

the difference between putting out cat

[2976]

like how do you make that Gap small so

[2979]

I'll I'll say this so when I started Sam

[2982]

I was very much an artist like you I

[2985]

enjoyed my creation I enjoyed putting my

[2987]

you know fingerprint footprint whatever

[2990]

you want to call it on those so when if

[2993]

you were looking at the early days of

[2994]

atten monster or those products you

[2996]

would have my footprint on them and then

[2998]

you had like a twenty thousand dollar

[2999]

bill to the Serengeti with your family

[3001]

of five

[3004]

I was not doing Serengeti when I was

[3006]

building the business you know I'm not

[3008]

doing anything I was building the

[3009]

business I was very very much involved

[3010]

but a big mindset shift that happened in

[3013]

my career which has led to I would say

[3016]

tremendous growth for awesome mode

[3018]

is the mindset of going from a Creator

[3021]

and operator to a capital allocator

[3023]

right and this happened when I was

[3026]

studying uh Buffett Monger uh Monash Etc

[3028]

Buffett says I'm a better investor

[3031]

because I'm a businessman and I'm a

[3032]

better businessman because I'm an

[3034]

investor now you you read that and

[3036]

you're like okay sounds good shoot right

[3038]

but when you think about that from a

[3040]

first principal's point of view what's

[3042]

the commonality between the twos that

[3044]

both investors and the businessmen are

[3046]

resource allocators or Capital

[3047]

allocators so when you can when you tie

[3049]

that together that was the aha moment

[3051]

for me when I think about okay if I

[3053]

start this new thing yes I'll make X but

[3056]

if I buy something if I shortcut it and

[3058]

let's say I buy something that's doing

[3059]

two million dollars in Revenue I you

[3061]

know 20 or 30 of 2 million is always

[3064]

going to be better than you know 10 or

[3066]

30 of 100 000 or 100 100 000 for that

[3068]

matter you see what I'm saying what's

[3070]

the biggest what's the biggest deal that

[3072]

you've bought you don't have to say

[3074]

which one but like uh what checks out

[3076]

what check made you sweat well check

[3078]

made me sweat none of them because I'm

[3082]

not buying like I'm not putting 80 of my

[3085]

net worth or my cash in any any one of

[3087]

those deals but if you bought things for

[3088]

tens of millions no no and have not

[3092]

bought anything in the tens of million

[3094]

dollar range but these are so single

[3096]

digit millions

[3098]

that is [ __ ] insane that you've built

[3101]

that much value with like these little

[3102]

small like what's that whatever Sean

[3104]

said the cigarette butts like you've

[3105]

made the cigar with it but um and are

[3108]

you doing all cash up front or I there's

[3110]

no way you do that you're you're you're

[3112]

you're way too sophisticated mostly

[3114]

mostly all cash up front you do do that

[3118]

there might be some pieces of like

[3120]

seller financing but one one of the

[3122]

advantages that that we have uh compared

[3126]

to somebody offering like a higher

[3127]

valuation is that we can make the price

[3129]

process really seamless for for the

[3132]

seller that also allows us to have get a

[3135]

better and more attractive valuation

[3138]

um but you know if you try to ever sell

[3140]

to like a private Equity or a VC mostly

[3142]

private Equity you you'll be on in on

[3145]

the hook for like six months they'll be

[3146]

dragging you asking you for all sorts of

[3148]

nonsensical stuff and by the time the

[3150]

entrepreneurs is burnt out and it's just

[3151]

a shitty feeling

[3153]

um with us you know you send you send me

[3155]

a message over the website my assistant

[3157]

Source through it I'll look at it and

[3158]

say okay yeah this is good

[3160]

um we'll like look at it and ask you for

[3163]

the P L's within like a week or week or

[3165]

so time will give you an Loi and then we

[3167]

can close in 30 40 days after that holy

[3169]

[ __ ] are you the only decision maker yes

[3173]

that's insane I I like to think that I'm

[3176]

the chief risk officer of the company

[3177]

and you told me a story about risk you

[3180]

because I was like okay you buy all this

[3182]

stuff

[3183]

um like how much debt do you have you're

[3184]

like no debt and you're buying you know

[3187]

with a margin of safety and you're like

[3189]

even with his mortgages he says no

[3190]

mortgages no mortgages and and look look

[3193]

there's gonna be a lot of financially

[3195]

Savvy listeners here and I have many

[3197]

many financially Savvy friends who are

[3199]

billionaires uh and they disagree with

[3201]

me on this you know but but the way I

[3203]

was raised in in Pakistani culture that

[3207]

is considered bad it's considered taboo

[3209]

and short leverage can help you grow

[3211]

faster especially when used in a smart

[3213]

way but

[3215]

it also takes away the margin of safety

[3218]

which in troubled times can really

[3220]

destroy your autonomy if you're not

[3221]

being careful so you know I'm okay with

[3224]

getting rich slowly

[3226]

um and I think I've done all right for

[3228]

where I am I see myself with a turtle in

[3230]

a rabbit race bro you're a 32 year old

[3232]

like pretty much billionaire dude yeah

[3235]

yeah you're slow

[3239]

I'll be okay

[3241]

um it helped me sleep better at night be

[3243]

more bullish I don't know Sean is Sam do

[3245]

you know about uh Charlie and Warren's

[3247]

third business partner no no tell the

[3250]

story you see nobody knows about the

[3251]

third business partner

[3252]

um so they did have a third business

[3253]

partner uh his name was uh Rick right

[3256]

Rick Warren or something like this and

[3258]

he was just as smart as them but was in

[3261]

a hurry to get rich and monish asked

[3263]

Warren about what happened to Rick at

[3265]

one of the lunches that he had and this

[3267]

is public I'm not sharing with you

[3268]

anything Lauren's like Rick's a [ __ ] no

[3271]

no no Warren said something along the

[3274]

line with like Charlie and I always knew

[3276]

that we would become like you know

[3277]

incredibly wealthy but we were just not

[3279]

in a hurry to get wealthy we knew it

[3281]

would just happen Rick was just as smart

[3283]

as us but he was in a hurry so like in

[3286]

the 70s like 7374 downturn what ended up

[3289]

happening was that Rick had margin loans

[3292]

he was highly levered and the stock

[3294]

market went down 70 so all those margin

[3297]

calls happened and he had to sell his

[3299]

personal your shares to Warren and

[3302]

Warren bought him for like 40 bucks a

[3304]

piece right so now the same share is

[3306]

like half a half a million plus I'm

[3308]

gonna get a frame picture of this guy

[3309]

Rick on my wall and it's just gonna be a

[3312]

reminder every day don't be in a hurry

[3313]

to get rich it'll happen don't don't be

[3315]

in a hurry I that's going on my wall uh

[3318]

Sean I cut you off what were you gonna

[3319]

ask him

[3321]

um oh I wanted him to tell that story

[3322]

but also I wanted to go back to idea so

[3325]

you had given us the first move uh if I

[3328]

needed a cash flow right away I would do

[3330]

Service Agency maybe something around

[3331]

creating content for Brands using and

[3334]

use AI for leverage or generating leads

[3336]

for Brands and create a lead agency

[3337]

using AI for leverage

[3340]

um okay that's the get started plan but

[3342]

you don't want to be in the service

[3343]

business forever and you want to you

[3345]

want to get that's just to get you know

[3347]

the escape from broke jail print plan

[3349]

okay now you've done that what are

[3351]

what's kind of like level two type of

[3353]

ideas or opportunities you see I I would

[3356]

look into the Quick Cash Cow of tools

[3359]

right now there are these AI rappers

[3361]

right so you think like

[3363]

upload your PDF and we'll turn this into

[3366]

a chat GPD there's several of those out

[3368]

there right now

[3369]

but you can make it vertical focused

[3371]

that's what I would do I'd like chat GPD

[3372]

for lawyers add all of your internal

[3374]

Sops and now your team can just talk to

[3376]

[3378]

um real estate internal processes you

[3380]

can do this my team built this

[3382]

internally in about a week so it's not

[3384]

very hard to build you can pay somebody

[3385]

somebody on upwork to do it and then

[3387]

work with the different uh AI

[3390]

influencers on Tick Tock IG Etc and this

[3393]

can easily get you to 10K plus a month I

[3396]

know as a matter of fact like several

[3397]

kids that are making 10K over 10K a

[3400]

month and some even over 100k a month uh

[3403]

doing Justice Just the AI wrappers so I

[3406]

think that's uh that's that's pretty

[3408]

easy

[3410]

um I would I would look at how I can

[3412]

um Leverage The

[3414]

Freedom of Information Act to my

[3416]

advantage

[3418]

um what is trying to go into the student

[3419]

businesses are you familiar with foia no

[3421]

what is that okay so basically in the

[3424]

United States this works only if you're

[3426]

in the United States we have such thing

[3428]

called a Freedom of Information Act that

[3431]

allows you to request any kind of data

[3433]

from any government run

[3437]

Authority so usually journalists use it

[3439]

so we used to use it at the hustle all

[3441]

the time so like when big stories break

[3442]

oftentimes it's because the journalists

[3444]

did that and they like uncovered some

[3446]

you know controversial fact so now you

[3449]

can you can get creative with it right

[3450]

so you can you can go and say

[3453]

um to a government agency maybe a

[3455]

university or whatever uh Hey I want to

[3458]

see the contracts of your last three or

[3460]

five construction projects that you

[3462]

undertook

[3463]

um and that that will give you an

[3464]

advantage

[3465]

um in terms of how to approach terms and

[3468]

pricing that was approved before so when

[3470]

you're submitting your bid it's it's

[3472]

better so but you can get a really

[3473]

creative uh like that I remember I was

[3476]

talking this was a while ago

[3478]

um I was talking to a guy he was in

[3480]

Atlanta area and he would request

[3483]

student information from University so

[3485]

public universities

[3487]

um and he was targeting like nursing

[3489]

school graduates and so on if you were

[3490]

coming out of nursing school you know he

[3493]

he wanted your information and schools

[3494]

have to give it to you and you might pay

[3496]

them like a processing fee like 100 or

[3497]

something like that but you get the

[3499]

whole graduating classes name email

[3501]

address that you know their physical

[3503]

address that the University have them

[3505]

filed they give they give that to you

[3507]

um and then he would send those students

[3510]

an affiliate offer for student loan

[3512]

forgiveness program that was passed

[3514]

passenger the Obama Administration right

[3516]

and so the affiliate offer was for a

[3519]

company that would

[3520]

fill out those forms for you right and

[3523]

they would charge to charge you like I

[3525]

don't know 500 600 bucks and they would

[3527]

pay this guy and he was like I just sent

[3530]

one email I make six figures and I move

[3531]

on so I would find Arbitrage

[3534]

opportunities like these to build up

[3537]

more cash flow

[3539]

um and then I would go invest so but you

[3541]

know Sam when you when you're talking

[3542]

about in the earlier days you're very

[3545]

focused on the wp beginner but there was

[3547]

a lot of creative things that were

[3548]

happening like this that was helping my

[3550]

cash flow

[3552]

um grow uh and that allowed me to invest

[3555]

in software or some fun creative cash

[3557]

flow things you were doing at the time

[3558]

I'm not gonna die about this

[3562]

there's got to be one prolific one that

[3564]

that is I've heard a bunch through

[3566]

friends of friends I'm not going to

[3568]

mention any of them but I've heard I've

[3569]

heard some of your things I mean like

[3570]

the space that you're in everyone starts

[3573]

sometimes black hat a gray hat and then

[3576]

as you like start making real money

[3577]

you're like all right I gotta go legit

[3578]

uh but I've heard some crazy stories

[3581]

about what you used to do

[3582]

that's good yeah Justin Mary's had a

[3585]

good phrase he goes uh do whatever you

[3586]

got to do to make your nut and then go

[3588]

on your Noble Mission and um and I was

[3591]

like I don't know if I agree with that

[3592]

but I like the way you said it um let me

[3595]

put it that way and I know several

[3596]

people who have done that where it's

[3597]

like okay what were you doing before

[3599]

this oh I was running

[3600]

um you know this dating dating site

[3603]

affiliate you know affiliate ad Network

[3605]

it's like okay cool Plenty of Fish like

[3607]

you know this is not really where you

[3609]

want to hang out for too long or like

[3610]

these poker uh you know poker arbitrages

[3612]

poker Affiliates uh there was one guy

[3615]

selling ringtones with subscriptions

[3616]

there's a guy who emailed me that was

[3618]

like uh I think he said you could say

[3619]

this on the Pod he's like yeah like uh I

[3622]

go on Sportsbook every sports book has a

[3623]

welcome offer so he's like I go on

[3625]

Sportsbook a and they have a welcome

[3627]

offer of like they'll match up to 20 of

[3629]

your deposit up to whatever a thousand

[3631]

dollars on it and B has the same welcome

[3633]

offer and I go max out both welcome

[3636]

offers and I bet on the same game for

[3638]

team a team B I lose the small rake but

[3640]

I take the whole welcome offer and I

[3642]

just let's do that again and again and

[3644]

again

[3648]

it's so simple and so funny that you do

[3650]

this

[3651]

what are you have you ever had liquidity

[3654]

from selling a business or is the

[3655]

majority of your liquid wealth come

[3657]

through annual cash flows and are you

[3659]

pulling out a significant Chunk from the

[3662]

from the business yes

[3664]

um I'm pulling up massive chunks from

[3667]

the business

[3669]

um in terms of liquidity event yes I

[3672]

sold uh two two businesses relatively

[3676]

small you know seven figure exits on

[3679]

both of those one was the YouTube

[3681]

channel business and another was a was a

[3684]

software photography software business

[3687]

in terms of the cash flow you know we

[3690]

operate with a very healthy cash flow so

[3693]

I moved that out to the to the whole

[3695]

level

[3697]

um and then use that cash to invest

[3700]

um you know in a private businesses as

[3702]

well is in real estate and public

[3704]

markets

[3705]

if you had a pie a good question Sean

[3707]

always asks is what do you do with your

[3708]

money if you had a pie of your uh net

[3712]

worth what's that allocation looking

[3714]

like pie chart not just a pie a pie

[3716]

chart or a pie yeah or a pie it's still

[3720]

heavily skewed towards my business the

[3723]

online business portfolio extremely

[3725]

extremely heavily skewed

[3727]

um I would say then a good chunk is in

[3731]

the in the public stock market

[3733]

um and then I have cash do you actively

[3735]

manage your portfolio or are you uh are

[3737]

you just doing boring [ __ ] big chunk of

[3740]

it is boring and you know dollar cost

[3742]

average index

[3743]

um I have begun to play with you know a

[3747]

little bit of money to uh to see what I

[3749]

can do with it I've done all right like

[3752]

stocks or other stuff

[3754]

no no stock stocks this is only I was

[3756]

only talking about public Investments

[3757]

because real estate is separate you um

[3759]

you talked about like kind of coming

[3761]

from nothing literally sleeping on the

[3763]

floor uh because you're like why would I

[3766]

buy furniture I should not buy furniture

[3767]

even when you had money

[3769]

um yeah but I believe two things a money

[3771]

is a tool it's not the like end goal

[3774]

it's a tool to enable you to do

[3775]

something with it and B

[3778]

um there's no point to money except for

[3780]

to you know uh you know enhance your

[3783]

lifestyle other people's lifestyle you

[3784]

know and improve lives in some way right

[3786]

it would be a shame to just uh have the

[3789]

money and never use it have you and and

[3791]

spending money and spending money is as

[3792]

much of a skill as making money you just

[3794]

you know you just start it later in life

[3796]

um have you learned how to spend money

[3798]

and uh what have you learned what can

[3800]

you teach us

[3801]

yeah uh yes in the early days I saved

[3805]

everything I mean I did not buy a bed

[3807]

until I got married dude just to put in

[3810]

perspective even when we were dating

[3812]

no there's no bed

[3814]

[Music]

[3816]

ladies find you a man finds you a man

[3818]

with no pain so so you know I I met my

[3822]

wife in high school

[3824]

um so she's known me since I was broke

[3827]

and you know her her parents weren't

[3829]

that well off either so um so yeah in

[3832]

terms of learning how to spend the money

[3834]

yes now I have right for me and the

[3838]

culture and how I was raised we take

[3841]

care of family first

[3843]

um and my first thing was to ensure my

[3845]

parents are retired because my dad

[3847]

worked really really hard when I you

[3849]

know when we moved to us so my my

[3850]

parents are retired I mean they go to

[3852]

Pakistan maybe like four times a year

[3854]

they're in Pakistan you know like right

[3855]

now for example so um so yeah so that

[3859]

that was first thing first in terms of

[3861]

making that impact

[3863]

um in terms of traveling I I realized

[3866]

that I get a lot of creativity and joy

[3868]

out of just going and seeing new places

[3872]

um and

[3873]

I spend the money on those those things

[3875]

are you giving Equity to your uh people

[3878]

like is the structure where is there

[3880]

like a hold code that you fully own and

[3882]

then the whole Co owns 80 of this

[3884]

company 70 of this company yes in the

[3887]

early days that's what I did now I don't

[3889]

do that

[3890]

now you don't give Equity to the

[3892]

operator no do you regret giving Equity

[3894]

no I I enjoy working with those

[3896]

co-founders and I I don't think I would

[3898]

be able to do what I did without them

[3900]

what now you're only 32 like what are

[3903]

you gonna like how do you get up in the

[3905]

morning and feel motivated you know what

[3907]

do you what's what's driving you now I

[3909]

want to build a generational company

[3910]

sounds like you're there though no I

[3912]

think it's generational one like you

[3914]

know when my kid kids are older and

[3916]

grandkids are around I I'm I'm probably

[3918]

going to be doing this till till I'm

[3919]

dead

[3920]

um I enjoy the game I enjoy the fun of

[3922]

[3923]

um I know Sam doesn't get excited about

[3925]

uh about buying a business and fixing it

[3927]

up and growing it I I get I get a thrill

[3930]

out of it you know because for me that's

[3932]

the opportunity that's the hustle like

[3935]

finding finding the edge

[3938]

um getting that deal uh you you can say

[3942]

in in some sense

[3945]

[3946]

just just getting an unfair Advantage

[3949]

um but but knowing those tricks knowing

[3951]

those tactics giving me a head like you

[3953]

know like if you play basketball I mean

[3955]

we all play basketball and I sucked at

[3956]

it right but there were some people like

[3958]

Alex was amazing right because Alex had

[3960]

been doing this for a long time and he

[3961]

has tactics he could just cross you over

[3963]

or whatnot

[3964]

um I like having those tactics in in the

[3966]

business okay what's crazy is you might

[3968]

[3969]

like probably in the top 50 richest

[3972]

maybe maybe top 100 top 200 richest

[3975]

under 40 year olds in America

[3977]

I've kept a very very low profile and

[3979]

the only way this would be validated is

[3982]

if I ever was ever to race around or if

[3984]

I was to exit right

[3986]

um so right now what I can see in

[3988]

looking at are our numbers and what

[3991]

similar companies trade at and and you

[3994]

know exit at my assumptions are based on

[3996]

that

[3998]

um but it actually doesn't matter to me

[4000]

one way or another I'm pretty

[4002]

uncomfortable this model of buy don't

[4005]

build and

[4007]

um of becoming a hold Co and having a

[4009]

portfolio like there's a whole bunch of

[4010]

people who I know that are trying to do

[4012]

this right now I'm sure you get a bunch

[4014]

of questions I think I've called you

[4015]

asking you a bunch of questions about

[4016]

this

[4017]

um what do you think uh they get wrong

[4020]

what's the common mistake or trap you

[4022]

think smart people can fall into trying

[4025]

to do this path or what's a

[4027]

misconception that smart people have

[4029]

when they come into this one thing that

[4031]

I've I've noticed uh there's several

[4034]

things but this is the primary thing is

[4036]

that the excitement takes them away so

[4039]

they they'll overpay on a deal and then

[4042]

regret it later on when they find out

[4044]

because oftentimes they're taking

[4046]

investors money

[4048]

um they are on a timeline you know most

[4050]

of them are trying to raise a fund you

[4052]

know your typical 10-year plus two years

[4054]

whatever so they have they're not

[4056]

disciplined enough uh to wait and I have

[4059]

no rush like you know if I don't buy a

[4060]

company this year

[4062]

no doesn't make a difference

[4064]

um but you know so it allows me to be

[4067]

more measured and disciplined in the

[4068]

deals that we do

[4070]

um and that's that's probably the

[4072]

biggest thing yeah and and or

[4075]

underestimating the problems that exist

[4077]

in a business

[4078]

the first interview that I saw with you

[4080]

was it looks like it was on mixergy our

[4083]

friend Andrew Warner it looks like it

[4086]

might have been 2014 but I think it was

[4089]

even before that and Andrew was like how

[4092]

much revenue do do you do and go you go

[4094]

Andrew I told you I'm not going to tell

[4095]

you this and uh it was pretty funny

[4098]

and then I asked you to come on here and

[4101]

you're like I'm not telling you these

[4102]

numbers

[4104]

you've told us a lot of [ __ ] like it

[4106]

seems like you're you're you're in a

[4108]

different uh sphere than you were before

[4110]

where you don't mind talking about some

[4112]

cool stuff and I think that that's neat

[4114]

because you're like maturing from like

[4117]

this hacker probably gray hat hacker

[4120]

from you know 20 years ago 15 years ago

[4124]

to like

[4125]

kind of a tycoon I think you know when

[4128]

when I was younger I was afraid

[4131]

um you know just from a taboo things but

[4134]

also

[4135]

I didn't I want to fly under the radar

[4137]

and I still do but I wasn't very

[4139]

vulnerable

[4141]

um I struggled with vulnerability and

[4143]

that that change as my network changed

[4146]

as as I continued leveling up

[4150]

um you know with with I mean now my form

[4153]

is amazing and with my PO but it's not

[4155]

an IPO form but everybody's in ypf

[4158]

um and those kind of you know groups

[4160]

really really help you

[4162]

mature and find your blind spots and

[4165]

things like that so

[4167]

so I'm you know definitely appreciative

[4170]

of the friends that I have who call me

[4172]

out on those things and they have helped

[4175]

me become better I'm gonna have to use

[4177]

that little clip for my new company as

[4179]

an ad thanks

[4180]

we use AI to replace what the company

[4184]

you said

[4188]

uh no man I think by the way if your

[4191]

goal is to have a low profile

[4194]

I have a feeling that's going to change

[4195]

when the headline of this of this

[4197]

podcast comes out because uh I don't

[4200]

think honestly that he's trying to keep

[4202]

a low profile I just feel like you care

[4204]

about being humble and and you came

[4206]

across a lot of humility uh you know not

[4208]

false humility you know false humility

[4210]

is basically like uh I'm gonna downplay

[4212]

everything and not tell you anything and

[4216]

um that's actually like a different form

[4218]

of sort of uh you know I don't know

[4219]

arrogance or narcissism the non-flex

[4222]

flex yeah the not Flex Flex right or the

[4224]

it's sort of this close the door uh

[4226]

behind me on the way in so you know I'm

[4228]

in but you can't get in because I'm not

[4230]

gonna really do anything like you know I

[4231]

think the best people are the ones who

[4233]

sort of become the person they needed

[4236]

when they were younger and I think that

[4237]

like you know the younger version of you

[4238]

if you heard something like this all

[4240]

right this guy came from nothing moved

[4242]

here for Pakistan didn't speak English

[4243]

was like sitting in the library because

[4245]

he didn't know how to make friends in

[4246]

the school was like all right I want to

[4247]

play video games the library had a

[4249]

firewall so his first business was

[4251]

creating a proxy to get around the

[4252]

firewall and they started giving that to

[4253]

other the kids as a both a way to like

[4255]

make friends and make a little bit of

[4257]

money and then he took money and like he

[4258]

was like okay how do we get more

[4259]

customers and it's not like he's some

[4261]

business Savant he just kept asking how

[4263]

do we get more customers oh what if a

[4265]

directory posted about me how do I get

[4267]

them to do that what's in it for them

[4268]

and like you do you just one foot after

[4270]

another so I think you uh yeah I think

[4273]

you did a good job of basically like

[4275]

without

[4276]

um putting yourself in a position where

[4278]

you said something you're uncomfortable

[4279]

with you know you you did share stuff

[4281]

that I think is you know for me at least

[4283]

pretty uh pretty inspiring you're

[4284]

somebody that uh you know I gave Ben a

[4287]

list of like five people I was like you

[4289]

know who are the five people that we've

[4290]

met because we met a lot of people last

[4291]

two years I said in the last two years

[4293]

who are the people that we've met that

[4295]

were kind of the most inspiring they

[4297]

seem to have a blueprint for life not

[4299]

just business that was working for them

[4301]

yeah their business part of their life

[4303]

was working but they were also like

[4304]

content and they weren't you know like

[4306]

in the first five minutes of meeting

[4308]

them like weirdly bragging about stuff

[4310]

or like saying something that revealed

[4312]

some like weird insecurity that's

[4314]

driving them still and they haven't

[4315]

gotten over it's like I don't know those

[4317]

people are their characters they're fun

[4318]

to be around but like I'm not trying to

[4320]

be them

[4321]

um you know like somebody who's you know

[4322]

has a family life that they actually

[4323]

care about so we put you on that list

[4326]

um and I'm glad you came on because for

[4328]

sure I don't think most people even know

[4330]

your story and that's a shame you know

[4332]

like uh I think more people are gonna

[4334]

know your story now after this where

[4336]

should people like follow you or where

[4338]

do you want to send them to uh well

[4339]

really quick Sean before we wrap up I

[4341]

want to tell you something so he has

[4343]

this website so Google syed's uh so it

[4346]

uh I want the listener to Google this so

[4347]

s-y-e-d and then his last name

[4350]

b-a-l-k-h-i and then Google that and

[4353]

then the word net worth

[4355]

he's got this hilarious blog post oh

[4357]

this is yours Sam told me about this

[4359]

yeah yes where it says what did what's

[4363]

science net worth the first line you're

[4365]

probably thinking and so his his website

[4367]

comes up first and it's a blog post

[4368]

you're probably thinking that I'm some

[4370]

sort of narcissist writing about my own

[4371]

net worth in third person it's quite the

[4373]

contrary I was looking through search

[4375]

traffic for my blog and I noticed that I

[4376]

have a lot of type in traffic for users

[4377]

simply searching my name uh and then the

[4380]

term net worth and then he goes on to

[4381]

explain that it's like it's always

[4383]

changing but it's not but knowing

[4385]

someone's net worth is not going to help

[4386]

you succeed but he's got those hilarious

[4388]

posts and

[4389]

it was really funny and uh that you also

[4392]

I want to give a shout out we talked a

[4394]

lot about money and [ __ ] you've got uh

[4396]

amazing posts where you do an annual

[4398]

wrap up I've been reading that for years

[4400]

I think you started in 2017. 15 2015

[4403]

2015. you put a big emphasis on

[4405]

philanthropy so like you have a school I

[4407]

I think you're big on schools right you

[4409]

build schools I forget where Pakistan I

[4411]

think and you like are giving away uh

[4413]

you put a lot of emphasis on uh

[4415]

philanthropy and then it's you and your

[4417]

wife and your kid and a lot of these

[4418]

stuff and you have your own Foundation

[4420]

you're giving away a lot of stuff and so

[4422]

I think it's awesome I think that to

[4424]

reiterate what Sean said about being

[4426]

like a you know he has this joke about

[4428]

being a total man about and uh in a way

[4430]

that's kind of like what you are is like

[4432]

you're like a holistic person and your

[4434]

your personal website does a really good

[4436]

job of explaining that yeah you know I I

[4439]

started doing those write-ups when my

[4441]

son when we found out we're gonna be you

[4443]

know we're gonna have our son

[4445]

um I was like okay I should start

[4446]

recapping this

[4447]

um well we start trying to have a kid

[4449]

I'm like I should start recapping

[4452]

um what's happening in my life so that

[4454]

way uh because I'm gonna forget it and

[4456]

at some point you know I may want to

[4458]

tell them oh check this out check this

[4460]

out and that's how those year-end

[4462]

reviews came about and I enjoy writing

[4464]

them and a lot of people love reading

[4467]

them including you thank you Sam for

[4469]

reading it and in terms of Education I

[4472]

do believe that levels of playing field

[4474]

and that's why we're you know we do what

[4477]

we do well I was gonna say sam gave you

[4478]

a compliment I'm gonna make fun of you

[4479]

the home page needs a revamp you go

[4482]

entrepreneur investor and marketing

[4484]

extraordinaire with extraordinary and

[4487]

then there's a photo of you with the the

[4490]

headset the bottom the Ted the Ted the

[4493]

pagada bike you got the clicker and

[4495]

you're doing the hand gesture talking

[4497]

about you know you got to start with why

[4499]

and you're above that now bro you you've

[4502]

elevated to Tycoon status now you've got

[4504]

to have the super minimalist thing where

[4506]

it's like

[4507]

yay all white and it's like um you know

[4510]

we buy we buy companies of all sizes

[4514]

um please inquire that's Bluetooth yeah

[4516]

like if you have a company for sale

[4519]

I like to buy it if you if you go to

[4522]

Automotive website I really want people

[4524]

to know about Automotive instead of me

[4526]

right

[4527]

um if you go on my website I barely

[4529]

spend any time I write once a year that

[4530]

that's the year-end review and that's

[4532]

really more for me than for anybody else

[4534]

but if you go to awesomemotive.com or

[4537]

am.co

[4538]

um that website this website uh it says

[4541]

helping small businesses grow and

[4543]

compete with the big guys now that's

[4545]

what we're talking about that's a good

[4546]

one um and it has all the companies that

[4548]

you've you've that are in Under the

[4550]

Umbrella uh dude do you want to come uh

[4553]

do you want to keep coming back

[4555]

you got to keep coming back on you're

[4557]

you're fun to talk to that's Sam's uh

[4559]

that was pretty good for me was that

[4560]

good for you question yeah no you're

[4563]

fine I enjoyed it I enjoyed it and happy

[4566]

to come back I told you we're not we're

[4568]

not we're not [ __ ] no I loved it

[4572]

more importantly are you in for Camp MFM

[4574]

part two uh that we're about to host in

[4576]

a few months I'm in all right and that's

[4579]

the pod

[4580]

[Music]

[4587]

foreign

Most Recent Videos:

WE KILLED 6 HEROIC BOSSES! - YouTube

¿Quién inventó el dinero? - YouTube

Cuándo se inventó el dinero y cómo el dólar se convirtió en la principal moneda del mundo - YouTube

This Citizenship Program is Failing - YouTube

Candida Treatment Protocol w/ Dr. DiNezza - YouTube

$500M investor reacts to Real Estate Tik Toks 2 - YouTube

You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage